Game of Thrones S7 thread

[teh b0lly!!1]

ok seeing as nobody else is doing this i'm just gonna talk cause i need to rant.

i watched the episode yesterday and i'm still so psyched up. what a juggernaut of an episode. absolutely masterful. the story was so well told and structured. even the 'little' moments in it felt like nice payoffs:

bran staring blankly at littlefinger after he gave him the dagger, and coldly quoting "chaos is a ladder", making littlefinger realize he knows all about him and sees right through his ruses - priceless.

arya coming to winterfell, and the practice/match with brienne. so, so strong.
at this point the show has been going on for so long, and i feel so strongly for these characters. they're like people i've known for years. arya in particular was always one of my fav characters on the show. i knew from episode 1 that kid was going to be badass. but how she endured so many crazy hardships, that totally insane rollercoaster she has been on ever since she was exiled from winterfell - it all just made her coming home so fucking powerful for me. i don't even remember when i was this moved by a fictional work, because my connection to these characters just runs so deep. Macy Williams is an incredible actress. something about her just hits me so deeply. i look at her standing there looking at what became of winterfell, and i FEEL how crazy it is for her to come back to that place after all the crazy stuff she'd been through. which is also, to me, an allegory for depression and where life takes you. i just believe her in a way that i think is very rare to be achieved in a fictional work.

and that battle scene. my god.
i was literally sitting a few inches away from the screen with my mouth open and my heart racing. nobody - repeat, NOBODY depicts war better than GoT. and the whole battle was so incredibly effective, because the show made such a smart choice of having the audience experience that experience through the lannisters' perspective, of being completely blindsided and unprepared for such a monumental attack.

and of course, because of that emotional connection to all these characters, you CANNOT root for any side - you will be heartbroken no matter who wins and who loses. this is where the long, long buildup the show had been known for finally pays off in such a glorious way.

when it really comes down to the bottom line, this was all a particularly fancy cliffhanger, because we don't know shit. is the dragon gonna make it, is jamie gonna make it, can he still take another shot at dany, etc. but it was still one of the most exhilarating experiences i ever had watching a tv show. and what makes this more incredible is that i knew in advance this episode was "the one" because i heard people's reactions about the leak. for an episode to still be able to deliver on all that hype and still affect me so deeply... that's special. i'm grateful to have the chance of experiencing this in real time. and am going to be so, so sad when this show ends.

nothing can ever take its place.