Got: The Bells Thoughts

Published May 17, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey y’all!

First off, love the pod and what y’all have been doing and talk about. Really enjoy being able to digest each episode with you. Just so you know, I am not referring to the pod or y’all’s comments directly in this email. I agree with a whole lot of what you say. It’s just that a lot of “fans” have really been pissing me off and wanted to offer my thoughts.

So, I spent half of the episode with my jaw on the floor. I thought a few seasons ago that Dany was heading down a dark path, but did not imagine she would go full tyrant up in King’s Landing. When she was sitting on the ledge, I thought she would go straight to Cersei’s window and roast her and her wine glass. To actually see her destroy a city and the innocent people within it, just amazed me. I thought the episode as a whole felt like an abbreviated version of a few episodes kinda stitched together, but I thought it worked. We got a few big surprises in classic GoT fashion, and we got some poetic justice for many of the characters (The Hound and his brother dying by fire, Cersei and Jamie dying in each others’ arms as the place they fought and killed to survive in caved in around them, etc.). It very much resembled the orderly chaos that is GoT.

This whole season, I have heard so many people (not y’all in particular) just rip the show a new one. “It doesn’t make sense,” “It’s not within this character,” etc. etc. I think so many people forget what this show, in particular, this story, is actually about. It’s not about what we want. The show has never been about what we want. Everyone wanted Ned to live. Guess what. The story said, “Up yours, we’re gonna kill him.” We forget that we are watching this story unfold, and just like life, it doesn’t always turn out to be what we wanted. I hate that people bash the show just because it didn’t fit into the narrative they wrote for themselves. It’s all about subverting expectations, and frankly, that’s what happened. So now, people are upset that it’s exactly what they signed up for since the beginning?

I think we also have to remember that the writers and showrunners signed on to make an adaptation for this story. I appreciate and respect that they don’t do things just because the message boards want them to. They even said in the Making Of video that the Clegane Bowl was something they knew fans wanted, and this was one of the FEW times they wanted the same thing. For them, it’s not about making sure audiences go home completely satisfied. The story isn’t about that either. I think they knew going in that no matter how it ended or whatever decisions they made, people were going to be upset. So like y’all have been saying, enjoy it for what it is. Yes, it’s rushed but they all probably want to get on with their lives. I’m sure if there were more seasons to develop some of these choices, it would have made a lot more sense. But have we forgotten willing suspension of disbelief?? I think we would have different feelings if we didn’t wait two years. That was two years of coming up with theories and looking for clues, and we did it to ourselves. This is unprecedented territory, and I love what they have done with it all.

And let’s be completely honest, if George had published the final books with this same exact ending, no one would be complaining. I just feel bad for the people who truly love this show and worked on it and poured their lives into it, from the 50+ night shoots to the special effects team who worked tirelessly to build the sets and destroy them and all of those people. They now have to watch half the viewers completely shit on them and their work just because they didn’t want things to go the direction they did. That’s actually fucked up.

I also want to comment on how many people are discussing the show in general. It used to be bad and nerdy to love these things and now it’s common, normal, and cool. I just think that is something really special about this story.

Lastly, final predictions: Jon kills Greyworm, Arya kills Dany. Jon destroys the throne and goes back north.
OR
The wheel keeps turning. Dany sits on the throne and gets killed by someone she trusts in order to save the world and we launch right back into the beginning of the story.

Thanks for y’all’s continued hard work. I apologize for the long email. Looking forward to the last few pods next week!

Ross A. from Louisiana

P.S. I don’t know how y’all choose emails for the Small Council, but by all means, if you do choose mine, do not feel like you have to read the whole thing. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, just want to be courteous and considerate of all the emails y’all get in. Thanks again y’all!

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