Deadline brings fans an exclusive report today- we can look forward to one last big splash at San Diego Comic Con with the cast of Game of Thrones. The outlet reports that GoT “looks certain to be returning to Comic-Con’s Hall H next month,” and that “talks between HBO and confab organizers are in the final stages.” It’s not clear exactly which cast members will be taking to the massive stage at the San Diego Convention Center. They hint that the line-up is still to be determined.
Deadline confirms that HBO didn’t respond to a request for comment on their report. GoT skipped Hall H last year, reasonably since there was no new season. This year Comic-Con runs from July 18-21 (preview night July 17). With the Thrones appearance not technically official, there is no date or time set, but it would be a great year for one. The cast can finally discuss the show without fear of getting a slap on the wrist about spoilers. Would Benioff and Weiss show up? That seems unlikely as the showrunners have not done a single interview about the finale, and said that was their intention in advance. Could they face the rowdy audiences of Comic-Con? I very much doubt it. It would still be a very entertaining panel, even with just the cast, and who knows- maybe we’ll get some kind of hint about the prequel pilot?
#ForTheThrone
If David Benioff and Dan Weiss are there I will be Cow Kicked!
The line-up will be set designers, stunt coordinators, that Northern extra & the Youtuber.
Can’t wait to hear the cast discuss the final season. I hope they ALL attend NYCC in October, since I (like GRRM & Dinklage) am a native Garden Stater…:3
No wonder D&D have been in hiding. xD
Could they face the rowdy audiences of Comic-Con?
This is what I would fear. While I hope there are none of the crazier “remake season 8 with competent writers” petitioners, I would expect whoever attends would have to field questions about season 8 plots and writing.
Rygritte,
Andyyyy! That would be great.
This is interesting that the staff are still doing PR given the show has finished, they are bound to be asked about the final season and comparisons with the books too. Could be very interesting.
I don’t think D&D will attend this, but if they do they need to prepare a lot for it, I think they get a lot of backlash.
I don’t think Kit will attend either. I think Maisie, Sophie and Emilia are a good chance of being there.
I’m wondering if Emilia is there if somebody will question her about Dany’s fall, that’s it not consistent who Dany is and that Emilia will defend that decision.
Still I hope Emilia is there, she is a delight to behold. And I would like to see her in that line-up.
The vitriol needs to die down. Its been like a month, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed season 8.
David and Dan saw this coming. It is obvious now. This for me is a good thing. It means they were conscious of what was to come.
D&D: “Was it right? What we did… It doesn’t feel right.”
Fans: “Ask us again in 10 years”.
But it’s also valid the other way around:
Fans: “Was it right? What you did…It doesn’t feel right.”
D&D: “Ask us again in 10 years”.
Actually, all the questions regarding GoT can be answered with: “Ask again in 10 years”. That’s nice. I like that.
kevin1989,
I don’t know what’s the criteria to choose the cast members that attend San Diego Comic-Con, but it wouldn’t be surprised if HBO tried to minimize eventual controversies around season 8. I don’t think Emilia will be there, nor will Lena and Peter. Nikolaj will attend Con of Thrones. I don’t know if he goes to San Diego. I don’t know about Kit either.
If I had to bet, I would say Maisie, Sophie, Isaac, Liam, John Bradley and Gwendoline will be there.
You guys are way overblowing the amount of vitriol they would get, most of the people are good at talking shit behind their computers but in the real world they are mostly silent and if it happens to get ugly with some folks they would get escorted out anyway, i remember at one Comic Con some people tried to start some shit about the Sansa rape but they got cast down by the cast themselves and they didn’t bother anymore after that.
Dark Sister,
As long as they are respectful and thoughtful questions, i don’t see why they would be afraid of it, in fact this would be a chance for them to make their reasoning more clear and address some wrong interpretations that they couldn’t address in the Inside videos for time reasons . Obviously some people aren’t going to change their minds about the ending no matter what, specially the most ardent haters, but at least for the people who are willing to be more open minded, it would clarify some things .
To me, the fact that they announced they were going to drop off the planet before the finale aired proves they knew there would be backlash and why. Whatever. Stand by your work if you believe in it so much.
I doubt highly they have the balls or desire to show up.
trarecar,
The fact that they knew there would be backlash, but didn’t change the course of their story means that they stand behind it. That doesn’t mean that they have to subject themselves to verbal abuse and disrespect by immature ranters and ravers who are only upset because D&D took their story in a direction they don’t agree with.
Agree with you. They knew that they would get backlash by the Dany turning into the last villain trope. They knew they would get verbally attacked for it. And it’s not only them that get hurt by it, also their wives and children, so I think they made the right choice. Let the haters go to another franchise and come back with the cooled downed fans.
If you are in fact painting all the critics with this brush, that’s such a shame. I’ve read a multitude of well thought out, intelligent criticisms of the season. I certainly wouldn’t call them immature ranters and ravers stomping their feet because Dany died. Frankly, that’s just ridiculous, and it’s so tiresome to see juvenile name calling continue here by a certain few posters.
trarecar,
And it’s totally ok for you to basically be calling them cowards with no evidence to support it, isn’t that right you hypocrite, i don’t know about other people but i do know that nothing you said in your posts of this site showed anything resembling thoughtful or intelligent except lame ad hominem attacks on the writers at any chance you get ! Someone who says i doubt they got the balls to show up(very intelligent remark by the way) isn’t someone that’s worth taking serious when it comes to constructive criticism .
Young Dragon,
Don’t bother with the likes of him, he knows very damn well what he’s doing and what bullshit he’s trying to justify with, at this point it would be more useful talking to a wall .
trarecar,
I never said that every critic thinks like this. I’m sure you’re right and there are intelligent critics out there, but unfortunately they are drowned out by the ranting of the haters. I mean, it’s not that hard to find them. YouTube, Reddit, IGN, IMDB, etc. are filled with such ranters and ravers whose only criticism is that things didn’t turn out the way they wanted. Things like:
1. The White Walkers were defeated too soon. They don’t seem to know that GOT was split into two storylines: The war against the dead and the war for the Iron Throne. They spent half a season dealing with one, half a season dealing with the other.
2. Jon Snow didn’t kill the Night King in a one-on-one duel. As Jaime said in the war council, the Night King knew he was vulnerable and would never risk himself fighting Jon, so he avoided him as best he could. Arya was the perfect choice because death was a major part of her storyline and the Night King was the personification of death.
3. There was no all out brawl with the White Walkers. Same with the Night King, the White Walkers would never expose themselves in such a manner. Such a scene would have been fan service.
4. Jaime ruined his redemption arc. Here, people seem confused as to what Jaime needed redemption for. Loving Cersei wasn’t the problem. It was the things he did in the name of that love that he needed redeeming. And he did that, by going North, defending the Stark family home from the dead, and by earning Bran’s forgiveness.
5. Danerys burning down King’s Landing came out of nowhere. This has been set up over the course of several seasons. People simply saw her dark actions as fist pump moments rather than disturbing. I mean, nobody seemed to bat an eye when she threatened to burn down Yunkai or Astapor in a similar fashion.
6. Bran being named king wasn’t built up. Robb wasn’t built up as King in the North either. In fact, Lord Umber’s proclamation came out of nowhere, yet nobody had a problem with that. Regardless, Bran was the best choice out of everyone else gathered and the bar for being king has been set very low by Bran’s predecessors. He’s sure to do a lot better than Robert, Joffrey, Tommen, or Cersei, especially considering the Small Council he’s gathered.
There are more, but you get the point. That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate criticisms, but these are most of the criticisms I’ve seen, and I don’t see them as valid. It’s ok to want a story to go in a certain direction, but if it doesn’t, a true critic would judge the show for what they did give us, not for what they didn’t. People are ranting and raving all over the internet, using hateful speech, calling D&D hacks, saying they butchered the story, that they betrayed the fans simply because they didn’t give them what they wanted. And don’t get me started on that stupid petition. It’s a slap in the face to everyone who worked so hard on the show. The showrunners shouldn’t have to subject themselves to this kind of abuse, and they certainly shouldn’t be called cowards for refusing to do so. Whether you like it or not, GOT remained true to the spirit of the story and was given a fitting conclusion.
None of that is true.
1. After 7 seasons of building up the final confrontation completely climaxing it in 1 episode (1. and 2. Ep was only about more build up, no resolution). None of the the questions about their motivation and mysteries etc. was answered.
2 and 3. If the NK and WW didn’t want to expose themselves, why did they ever show up at all? Let the zombies do the fighting and they would have won easily.
The way Arya killed NK was utter garbage. NK could have killed Jon easily if he wanted to (he was surrounded by hundreds all alone) but due to magic editing he (and everyone else) was saved again and again.
4. This is pretty ok, but he didn’t do much to earn Bran’s forgiveness. At that point he had only turned up in WF and Bran wasn’t Bran anymore.
5. Huge difference burning down cruel mass slaving mass murdering masters and burning civilians for fun. Dany’s arc was all about learning from mistakes, learning how to rule and deal with power. When she threatened burn the other cities she was younger, less wise and most likely didn’t mean to burn all slaves and other civilians too.
6. Rob was chosen by his own bannermen in times of war. That war raised memories of the North’s independence. Nobody knows Bran except by name. Starks have never ruled the 7 kingdoms. Dorne doesn’t like to be ruled by anyone. Robyn wants his toys. Yara wanted independence too. Everyone wants power and now they just hand it out to this crippled boy? The Game of thrones suddenly turned into carebears.
Young Dragon,
Thank you, you worded what I was thinking, too many complains about people about WHAT happened instead of HOW, and too many people complaining who didn’t fully understand what the story told them.
And also people name calling D&D to dumb and dumber, it’s just disrespectful and just name-calling without any basic arguments.
And don’t forget the posts on those sites where people admitted to make 10+ accounts for giving the episodes a 1 on imdb (still imdb didn’t do anything about it), same with the petition. It wasn’t signed by 1,5 milion. Many people voted 10+ times, maybe some even 30 or 40 times.
I can except criticism, I have a lot of good discussions here with people not liking the last season, for instance Adam, always fun and thoughtful conversations, and he is never disrespectful to anyone working on the show.
100%.
All those points are super-valid.
I didn’t care for the season’s sharp division. The first seven felt very natural and everything was interwoven so beautifully; this time around there was so much frenzied box-ticking. “Do this! Do that! Now this! Hit that note! Get that done! Bing, bang, boom, no time no time, on to the next thing!” Often it felt like a checklist. Taking humanity’s would-be doom and relegating it to the north and the first half of the season (one episode really) felt so wrong. That’s acceptable for battling humans, but not death incarnate. My viewing party couldn’t understand what happened all of a sudden. It never seriously occurred to me that such an ingeniously crafted show could choke and stumble near the finish line. SOME kind of NK showdown should’ve been there. I didn’t expect Jon to kill him as that would’ve been too obvious and predictable, but at the same time Arya was a “meh” choice who’d gotten enough awesome kills already…death was part of everyone’s storyline and if she was fated to do that, fine, Mel must’ve seen it while in Volantis…but it just happened too danged early. I’d have preferred someone less “expectable.”
Dany spiraled into madness quickly. Of course, almost everything was quick. But the person we saw in the last episode-and-a-half or so wasn’t the woman we’d loved since the beginning. All of her past “dark actions” were relatively normal. We didn’t see her do things without good reason. At no point prior would she have deemed it “the right thing” to slaughter a population of innocents and destroy HER CITY to no end, throwing away the hard-won victory for which she’d struggled so long.
The circumstances that drove her there…well, we’d seen her endure such losses before. She should’ve been able to handle it; she had that tremendous inner strength, but Targaryenitis tragically set in. Suddenly she wanted to somehow construct a new world from ashes, precisely the opposite of her goal all along. Some bizarre delusions had taken hold out of nowhere. It would’ve made more sense for Bran to have warged Drogon and framed her. -_-
Bran being selected as king makes sense on a certain level. It was framed awkwardly (“wHo HaS A bEtTeR StOrY ThAn bRaN?” Oh, brother. *tons of people raise their hands* xD) It happened more swiftly and straightforwardly than one would’ve realistically anticipated. There’s little reason to think that Bran has much, if any, moral sense left. You’d THINK he’d at least be an amazing adviser, but then again you’d THINK he’d be an invaluable resource! Yet somehow he wasn’t even called upon…he really did nothing of significance during the two biggest wars of their lifetimes…just sat back and accepted the crown despite being a bird-tree-man. Which suggests they’ve decided that the less human you are, the better a ruler you’ll be. (I mean, I’d vote for an android like Data, but…)
Of course I hated that Jaime couldn’t stop loving Cersei, but it wouldn’t have been too realistic to expect him to fully be able to do that. The tail end of his story was tragic. I’d have been so proud of him if he had killed Cersei and possibly returned to Brienne (was hoping he’d die in HER arms), but I’ll admit that his final choice wasn’t one of the more unbelievable occurrences.
I don’t believe I could give the finale more than a 4-5/10, which deeply saddens me. I liked the first episode all right and loved the second (and the SONG…!!) The third I’d have loved if it were only the start of the Long Night/winter. Can’t imagine why they chose to restrict themselves to six episodes…or can I? Still praying that they’re hiding some incredible deleted scenes that I can edit in.
Northerner,
All of that is true:
1. The White Walkers weren’t defeated in a single episode. There have been multiple clashes between the living and the dead. This just happened to be the final one. And we did learn about their motivation in season 6. They were weapons of mass destruction created to destroy man. That may not be the motivation you wanted, but it is motivation nonetheless.
2/3. They explained this one too. The Night King has a grudge against the Three Eyed Raven and came for Bran personally. The White Walkers only appeared when Winterfell was swarming with wights and the living were too busy to go after them.
4. Riding North to fight for the living was Jaime earning Bran’s forgiveness.
5. No, there is absolutely no difference between burning down Yunkai and Astapor, which are filled with innocent people, not just slavers, and burning down King’s Landing filled with innocent people, not just enemy soldiers. No difference whatsoever. And she was young? This happened at the end of season 6, so she isn’t much older in season 8. And some people can’t learn from their mistakes.
6. There was no indication Robb would be King in the North until Umber said it. There was no indication that Bran would become king of Westeros until Tyrion said it. Two very similar circumstances, two very different viewer reactions. Someone had to become king, assumeably someone from one of the great families. Bran was the best choice out of everyone gathered. Dorne never once expressed their wish to be independent, Robyn has obviously matured, and the Iron Islands aren’t sustainable on their own without raiding the main land, so Yara was wise to fall in line.
What they did give us made no sense in terms of how it was written, hence the problem many people had.
There are dozens of counter arguments to every point you made, but I’ll just stick to the big one : Bran.
How you can compare this to Robb becoming King in the North is beyond me.
Robb being named king by the Northern lords right after Ned’s execution made all the sense in the world. The North supporting independence and Robb as king is a logical outcome of what had been happening.
Bran being named king is not necessarily insane to me, unlike what some others think, but Sansa claiming independence ruins it. Because if the North is now independent, then A) how are the Six Kingdoms accepting to be ruled by Bran, who is now a foreigner (this would be like the president of the European Council being from the UK after Brexit), and B) how are Dorne and the Iron Islands okay with it ?
You say someone from the great families had to become king, and yeah, sure, but the Starks are now a foreign family ! The remaining kingdoms would never accept being ruled by someone from another kingdom. Especially since he’s the Queen in the North’s brother. It’s like the North conquered the entire continent over the course of a 10 minute meeting.
It’s absurd. A member of the royal family of a foreign kingdom (the North) is now ruling the Six Kingdoms. Seems pretty odd that Bran would even be eligible in light of Sansa’s secession.
As for your claim that the Iron Islands aren’t sustainable on their own without raiding the mainland, you might have had a point, if not for the scene between Dany and Yara in Season 6 Episode 9, where Yara was granted independence from the Iron Throne on the condition that they respect the integrity of the mainland and give up raiding, reaving, and raping.
And Yara agreed to that deal. So the show already established in Season 6 that Yara wanted independence more than anything, that she was willing to sacrifice the Ironborn way of life in order to get it, and that she had pledged to give up raiding the mainland.
I don’t see any reason why Yara wouldn’t try to make the same deal now. Until Dany died, Yara was under the impression that she was going to have independence and that she was going to have to give up raiding.
The fact that she doesn’t even once mention the idea of giving the Iron Islands independence during the Council is ridiculous and completely unbelievable.
Nick20,
Season 8 makes complete sense. I know some people have well thought out criticisms, but the main complaints I’ve seen were about how the season didn’t go the way they wanted.
The North has never once expressed any desire to be independent until Umber proclaimed Robb his king. It hadn’t even been mentioned in the show that the North used to be an independent kingdom. There was no set up to Robb becoming king, no hints, no foreshadowing, nothing. Robb being proclaimed king came completely out of nowhere, which has been the many complaints about Bran. The difference is those very same critics had no problem with Robb being named king in a similar fashion.
The other lords already gave their approval for Bran as king when he granted the North their independence. Besides, it’s been said that a union between the North and the rest of the kingdoms is the key to peace. Having brother and sister on the two thrones will lead to a long friendship between the North and Westeros.
Yes, Yara and Danerys made that agreement in season 6, but Yara had plenty of time to come to the conclusion that the Iron Islands are not sustainable on their own. After all, she said she would take back the Iron Islands in Dany’s name, not her own. It seems to me she subjected herself to Dany’s rule.
I see some of YD’s points a bit, but overall am with Nick.