YMMV / Game of Thrones S8E4: "The Last of the Starks"

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • When Daenerys cries and begs Jon not to tell his sisters about his true parentage and says she wants things to go back to how they were before, does she mean when there were no political or familiar barriers between them...or did she mean that she wants to be back in a relationship where she holds the power again?
  • Does Varys think Jon will be a better ruler than Daenerys, or just easier for him to control? His stated reasoning for why a marriage between the two wouldn't work is that he thinks Jon is too weak and would end up dominated by his aunt - hardly a sign of a good ruler.
  • Was Jaime breaking Brienne's heart motivated by the fact that he still loves Cersei, or because he hates himself and believes he doesn't deserve to be with Brienne? While the next episode confirms the former, to the disappointment and outrage of viewers who wanted Jaime to kill Cersei as it has been foreshadowed he will in the books, it's still possible that Jaime's self-loathing influenced his decision.
• Angst? What Angst?: Despite Varys’s assertion, Jon never says anything out loud about having a problem with Daenerys being his aunt; it's only indicated via his behavior per interviews with the showrunners and writers. Even when they discuss the revelation in tears, while he’s slightly drunk, they only talk about sharing this secret with his family and a potential succession crisis rather than blood ties.
• Ass Pull:
  • Rhaegal being killed by a scorpion bolt that, according to the laws of physics, should not have been able to reach him up there if the fleet it was fired from was too far away for Daenerys to see them (or stated another way, if Daenerys and Rhaegal were close enough for the bolt to reach him, it's physically impossible that Dany couldn't see the fleet). Especially as the source material states that dragons are very hard to kill even with a scorpion ballista; Queen Rhaenys's dragon Meraxes only fell to one during an assault against Dorne because they were lucky enough to pierce one of her eyes and thus her brain. It's specifically noted that the throat area is not a vulnerable spot on a dragon and missiles headed that way will be incinerated.
  • As contested as the Iron Fleet ambush was, what stood out most with the viewers as Willing Suspension of Disbelief getting pushed a step too far was Missandei and only Missandei somehow getting taken prisoner by Euron in the middle of all the chaos. Many found Missandei being captured, taken hostage, and later killed off to be a case of Contrived Coincidence all for the sake of Rule of Drama, and begs the question just how either Cersei or Euron could possibly know that Missandei was Dany's best friend and her death would be that significant?
  • Just how many of Jon and Dany's forces (roughly half) survived the Army of the Dead. At the end of the previous episode barely anyone without Plot Armor is left standing, and the number of dead raised by the Night King completely overwhelms the remaining living defenders. The castle itself is overrun, with wights freely lumbering through the library. The Dothraki are annihilated in less than a minute, and almost all the Unsullied are sacrificed to safeguard the retreat. At the end of the battle, there is almost no one left to defend Winterfell, but half the combined army is still alive and well? Even worse is that the behind the scenes from the previous episode confirmed that the Dothraki were wiped out, only for them to magically respawn out of thin air.
  • There is absolutely no reason why Tyrion should even be alive after a giant mast falls right on his face, let alone perfectly fine and unharmed save for a quick fainting spell.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Many have praised Emilia Clarke's acting this episode, particularly her showing Daenerys's isolation and overall struggle.
  • Lena Headey’s body language during the final scene is exceptionally powerful as a character with emotions and humanity but still with nothing left to lose.
• Informed Wrongness: Like Bran in the last season, Tyrion blames everything about Robert's Rebellion on Robert for 'loving someone who didn't love him back', ignoring Aerys, Rhaegar, and Lyanna's actual culpability in the situation. Nobody, including Robert, knew what happened with Lyanna's sudden disappearance, and even if she did run away willingly it didn't matter. Rhaegar broke the feudal contract in absconding with the betrothed daughter of a Great Lord, and the Mad King did it even more so in murdering Brandon and Rickard Stark and calling for Ned and Robert's heads. A generation or so earlier, a rebellion started over much less, in the form of betrothed Prince Duncan marrying Jenny of Oldstones instead of the daughter of Lyonel Baratheon. And this was under a sane, stable, much more liberal King like Aegon V. Rhaegar knew better, knew what his father was, and did it anyways, consequences to the realm, his wife, children and family and his duties as Crown Prince be damned. Lyanna herself also apparently never bothered to tell Robert she didn't love him, nor did she see fit to explain anything to her father or brothers, which directly led to their deaths when they marched South to "save" her from what they thought was her abductor.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Someone left a Starbucks cup clearly in shot in front of Dany during the party scene, resulting in tons of jokes about what her going there would be like.
  • Gifs and captions of "What do we say to marriage proposals?" "Not today." after Gendry's flop of a marriage proposal to Arya.
  • "On a scale of Ned Stark to Sansa, how well can you keep a secret?" Referencing how Sansa told the secret of Jon's parentage as soon as she learned of it, but Ned kept it for seventeen years and took it to his grave.
  • Edited video of Rhaegal getting shot with archers firing arrows, including Ramsay, Edmure, Bran, and Robin Arryn. Ghost is also a popular insert, particularly those who are not fond of Jon essentially ditching Ghost this season as his Non-Human Sidekick in favor of Rhaegal.
  • Posts yelling at Jon to "pet the damn dog," referring to his lackluster farewell to Ghost. Some people have even Photoshopped Jon petting Ghost and giving him a proper goodbye.
  • "Dany kinda forgot about the Iron Fleet".^explanation According to David Benioff, Daenerys somehow forgetting all about Euron and the Iron Fleet. Even after she was briefed on Euron's fleet the scene before the ambush, as well as directly saw and battled with him in Season 7. This has led to online mockery from the audience. "X kinda forgot about Y" has since become a popular joke to address plot holes, inconsistencies, and other questionable writing decisions made by D&D. For example, "the Dothraki kinda forgot they were completely wiped out by zombies last night" explains how they magically respawned this episode.
  • Memes joking about how Grey Worm is a Hypocrite for not wanting to date Missandei anymore now she's had something chopped off is making the rounds.
  • Euron Greyjoy, the Bowmaster of King's Landing.
  • My Sundae! ^explanation A bit of Black Humor regarding Missandei's death, fans decided to turn it into a Pun of Greyworm mourning dropping his ice cream cone.
• Special Effects Failure: The editing team infamously forgot to edit out the paper coffee cup left in front of Daenerys at the victory feast (which they wouldn't have had to be doing if the set dressers had taken care of it in the first place).
• Squick: When Dany and Jon start to kiss and make out, it looks like they're on their way to having sex again. Then they stop, remembering that Jon is actually her nephew. Showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff confirm Surprise Incest is the reason:
  Dan Weiss: After the feast, she comes to talk to him and with the intention of making this all work out, of bringing things back to the way they were before.
  Davis Benioff: There's a moment where they're kissing and it seems like things are kind of getting to where they were but it's almost as if he remembers all the sudden what she really is. It's tense for him. For her, she grew up hearing all these stories about how their ancestors who were related to each other were also lovers and it doesn't seem that strange to her. For him, it is a strange thing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A scene builds up to the Internal Reveal of Jon’s true parentage to Sansa and Arya, but cuts away before the actual reveal. We never actually see their reaction to the fact that the man they have known as their brother all their life is actually their cousin, the efforts their father went to to protect him, and that Ned never cheated on Catelyn but he was saving the son of his only sister. This same scene has Arya declaring her Undying Loyalty to Jon because she sees him as a brother, rather than a half or bastard brother, and Sansa telling Jon he's just as much Ned's child as any of them — but the impact of this news on both of them and how they take it is kept entirely off-screen.
  • Part of the reason Varys supports Jon Snow taking the throne is because he believes Jon's reluctance of being in charge is a sign he might be a good king. This was criticized by fans since apathy towards ruling was why Robert Baratheon was such a lackluster monarch. The scene might have been more effective if Varys had used part of the speech his book counterpart had given at the end of A Dance with Dragons when he was extolling the virtues of the book's version of Aegon VI. Varys could have stated that Jon could make a good king since he was raised under the humble pretense of being a bastard and was taught to see ruling as his duty, not a birthright or prize of conquest as Daenerys sees it.
  • Jon's personal reaction to Rhaegal's death is not shown despite having bonded with him as his rider earlier this season (an intimate bond which can't be replaced while both dragon and rider are still alive).
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • The episode wants to portray Daenerys as slowly slipping into madness just like her father. But instead, the opposite occurs, particularly when people around her are plotting against her, in addition to Missandei's death. Also, while everyone is worried about her causing civilian casualties when taking the capital by storm, Cersei has to be dealt with somehow, and none of Dany's advisors seem to be in any hurry to suggest any alternate strategies, other than the one already decided (besieging the city and turning the people against her through starvation, which wouldn't be casualty-free either), which has become less viable now that the dragons can't keep the Iron Fleet from resupplying the city by sea.
  • Bronn has likewise shed his usual jovial personality and thrown any camaraderie he may have had with Tyrion and Jaime to the wind, supposedly portraying him for the heartless mercenary he really is. But it is actually kind of hard to blame him for being upset with the Lannisters considering they have repeatedly put his life in danger whilst cheating him out of rewards he was promised, and long after he's stopped being interested in humoring them. Cersei implicitly threatening him back in King's Landing to get him to kill her brothers is even the reason he's in the North to begin with. It's also clear that Jaime really doesn't appreciate anything he's done for him, despite Bronn having saved his life before. Tyrion doesn't really deserve it, but Bronn's right that Jaime and Cersei keep fucking him over.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • We're supposed to believe that Jaime is returning to Cersei as a Tragic Hero moment, but considering that he immediately returns to her the moment he hears about her gaining the upper hand^note Sansa's remark about not getting to watch Cersei's execution can be interpreted as her predicting that Daenerys will lose, or that she believes Daenerys will kill Cersei rather than allow her to surrender peacefully, it's very easy to see him as simply saving his own skin. Or, (perhaps) more humorously, the fact that he does it soon after sleeping with Brienne adds the unintentional implication that he does it because he thinks Cersei is the better lover.
  • Sansa's continual dislike of Dany, even after Dany sacrificed her two armies, risked her life to save the North from the White Walkers and is opposing Cersei (the source of much of the Starks' suffering over the series, whom Sansa has a lot more reason to hate) makes her seem strangely short-sighted and spiteful, and raises questions whether she's just jealous another woman is more powerful than she is.
  • Sansa breaks her vow to Jon not to tell anyone about his true parentage and reveals the truth to Tyrion in a mere few hours. She does this because she wants to convince Tyrion that Jon would be a better ruler than Dany and everyone will benefit from this, but all it does is sow distrust in Dany's already weakened and weary forces in her war against Cersei. Now, Tyrion and Varys, the two trusted advisors of Dany, are in conflict with each other about whether to support Dany or Jon, and it's heavily implied that if the two know the truth, then sooner or later everyone will know about it, leading to conflicting loyalties en masse at the worst possible time, and Sansa is responsible for it all. Not to mention her trying to instate Jon behind his own back, even when he made it clear to her many times over that he didn't want to rule, makes it questionable whether she really respects him as a leader or just thinks he'll be easier to manage than Dany.
    • More charitably, Sansa is scared for Jon (as she's repeatedly mentioned she's worried about Jon's loyalty to Daenerys, who has already established she's threatened by him even before he told his family the truth, and has said "Stark men don't fare well in the South") and is legitimately concerned that history will repeat itself like it did for her grandfather, uncle and father. Some argue Sansa is trying to bolster Jon's value to Tyrion and Varys in order to protect him. However, if Sansa really believes Stark men don't survive in the South, then it's dubious that she's manipulating things so that Jon ends up on the Iron Throne — a risky venture that has a bloody trail of history in its wake, for both the monarchs and candidates. Even if Sansa's efforts result in Jon becoming King, this will force him to stay in King's Landing permanently. To some, this makes it appear as if Sansa is aware of the danger but is willing to gamble Jon's life for the possibility he becomes King, as this would put somebody she trusts on the Iron Throne, who was raised in the Stark way, and who will be most likely to give Sansa what she wants in regard to Northern independence, which Daenerys keeps refusing to do.
  • Varys is pretty much the walking definition of a Fair-Weather Friend. When he sees that Dany is growing angry because of her losses, he decides that she is not the ruler he wanted (even though many of those losses were due to lack of proper intelligence, which is his direct job), and now that he knows the truth about Jon, there is a better alternative. Varys keeps saying that he is loyal to the realm, but what Dany said last season was true: if Varys dislikes one monarch he conspires to crown the next. Also, his statement that Jon would be the best ruler because he doesn’t want to rule is hypocritical considering that he said Robert was a bad king because he had no interest in ruling. So, Varys is just coming off as a backstabbing jerk rather than as someone who is trying to do what’s best for the Realm. Especially since we know from Season 3, from Jaime Lannister himself, that Varys was truly loyal to Aerys II the Mad King, counselling against Aerys opening the gates to Tywin and seeing it for the False Flag Operation it was. Daenerys hasn't remotely been as bad as Aerys II was, and yet Varys is quick to throw her under the bus for his favored male heir.
  • Similarly, Varys and Tyrion's objection to Dany conquering King's Landing using her dragons because 'innocents will die' is intended to make them seem reasonable and caring in the face of Dany's madness. This falls flat because their alternative to dragons is to starve out the city, hoping the people will toss Cersei out themselves if motivated by hunger. Tyrion should be well aware of how little Cersei cares for the plight of the citizens, as she has not only demonstrated as much to him several times over the course of the series, he acknowledges that she doesn't give a damn in this very episode. He should also know that such food riots are easy to contain and put down, having dealt with them himself back in season 2. And the only reason there are a lot of innocents essentially held hostage in the Red Keep is because Tyrion and Jon's previous counsel to Dany not to fly to King's Landing and melt down the Keep back when only Cersei and her household were there gave Cersei time to come up with that strategy.
  • Jon sends Ghost with Tormund with the intention of keeping the direwolf safe. However, sending his longtime direwolf away without any fanfare has made Jon the poster boy for poor pet ownership in the eyes of the fandom.
  • Missandei's last words being "Dracarys" really don't do her any favours. It was supposed to be intended as Defiant to the End, but it makes Missandei look like she's pretty much telling Daenerys to burn King's Landing to the ground, despite being well aware that there are innocent people in the Red Keep who have nothing to do with this war between Queens, making her look vindictive, spiteful and a massive Hypocrite, given how she reamed Tyrion out in Season Six because Tyrion tried to negotiate with the slavers when she knows what it feels like to be a slave, but apparently now she doesn't care about innocent people and is actively encouraging Daenerys to become as insane and cruel as the woman that she's trying to dethrone. Not to mention, she apparently has nothing to say to Grey Worm who is supposedly the love of her life - her entire death scene is just to piss off Daenerys.