Doctor_Nick

“Conleth Hill, who played the much-missed-this-week Lord Varys, said in a post-show interview that one of the things he regretted not having a chance to do was play a scene where his character reacts to the news of Littlefinger’s execution by the Stark children.

It got us thinking about how much Varys and Littlefinger’s machinations drove the story in the early seasons of the show and how much their influence had sadly diminished by the end of their time in the story. We don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first meeting of the Small council was marked with light comedy and a distinct sense that things had returned to “normal.” In other words, no wheels were broken. The wheel, damaged and scorched a little, remains firmly in place.”

https://tomandlorenzo.com/2019/05/game-of-thrones-ends-with-the-wheel-firmly-in-place/

hat tip @JaimieT

I wonder how popular this show would be if it started off with the quality of these last 2 or 3 seasons....

I think Highgarden is the money machine now that the Lannisters are tapped out, so Bronn would be de facto Master of Coin anyway.  

Murderbear said:

Also, Bronn is the Master of Coin, why exactly? He's cunning as hell for sure but I don't know if he's Master of Coin level smart. Making him Master of Secrets would probably make more sense than of the Coin. I feel like making him Lord of the Reach should have been plenty.

They said the council will pick the successor, at the same place where they were meeting.

LordBy said:

Bran as King? Unearned entirely. WTF has Bran been doing since the holding of the door? Was he manipulating everything for his ascension? That’s dark. Was he manipulating everything for the good of the realm? He did a piss poor job then. And who is his successor? That’s always the biggest issue with a consensus ruler, how do you handle the succession? Not even mentioned in passing.

It's a lot more than that - a ton of time was spent on Jon Snow at the wall and beyond it, unifying the Wildlings and the civilized folk.  Given the fact it turned into a pretty big nothingburger for the realm, retrospectively cutting the zombie plot probably would have been helpful.

James said:

Whatever GRRM is planning to do with the WW in the books, in the show that plot essentially added up to shoe-horning in a half-dozen episodes of Walking Dead into the House of Cards plot line.

Of course the D's started this whole project not knowing they would end up here, but if there were any inkling of this could losing the WW plot have tightened up the rest of the show? Thoughts?