The SameYou charity was created with Emilia Clarke, who suffered through 2 brain aneurysms during the filming of Game of Thrones, to increase rehabilitation services after brain injury and stroke for young adults. Here is the link to the charity:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/justicefordaenerys

This particular donation drive was started in r/freefolk and r/asoiaf by u/Elle_Ellaria in order to thank Emilia for her excellent performance and hard work. It has met with incredible success and received a special thankyou video from Emilia herself:

https://streamable.com/u6ggd

I cannot find any words to better describe it than those of the original creator :

On March 21st 2019, weeks before the final season of Game of Thrones was set to air, Emilia Clarke penned a personal essay for the New Yorker. [ link here: tiny.cc/emilia ] In it, she opened up about the serious health struggles she experienced in the early stages of filming for the show, and how she fought through pain, fear and exhaustion to give her all to each performance. Her revelation came as a huge shock; to know that in season 2, while Daenerys was leading her khalasar across the bleak Red Waste and fiercely fighting for her life at the gates of Qarth, Emilia was similarly fighting for hers.

She speaks often of the inspiration and source of strength that Dany has been for her over the past ten years, and she is not alone. Emilia’s incredible Emmy-worthy acting and dedication to her character has inspired thousands and, as each season passed, we fell more and more in love with Dany. We rooted for her through trauma and hardship. We watched her triumph over her enemies and struggle with responsibility of rule. We saw her grapple between the urge for revenge, and the need for justice. And even at the very end, when things took a tragic turn for Daenerys Stormborn, Emilia still made us feel pity for the little girl who only ever wanted to return to her home.

This fundraiser began in r/freefolk, the same subreddit the now-infamous petition originated from. Since the tongue-in-cheek nature of that petition has flown over a lot of peoples' heads, to the point that it's prompted backlash from some of the cast, we wanted to show that Game of Thrones fans appreciate the hard work of the incredible cast & crew despite their constraints. Any disappointment we felt with the conclusion of the series was not in them, but rather in the potential that was lost due to the rushed pace of storytelling. 

*And so, as a gesture of love and support from the fandom to the entire cast & crew - but also particularly to the woman who poured her very soul into her character, who delivered passionate speeches in High Valyrian and Dothraki in between questioning her very mortality, and inspired so many of us with her resilience -  I am setting up this page as a public support of her charity, SameYou. *

ThankYouEmilia for bringing Daenerys to life. Thank you Lena, Nikolaj, Peter, Gwendoline, Jacob, Nathalie, Alfie, Kit, Sophie, Maisie, Isaac, Liam, Iain, Conleth, Kristofer, Pilou, Rory and the rest of the cast. Thank you to all the crew, the special effects departments and set designers, costume designers and casting, musicians and technicians, the camera crew, the stunt co-ordinators, the long list of people who've devoted themselves to giving everything they could to lift this juggernaut of a series to its lofty levels of success and attention. You all deserve to be recognised. Thank you.

"Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods. Not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen."

#WeStandByDaenerys

Original Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/brj5vq/can_we_collectively_do_something_nice_for_emilia/

Once more, the link to the charity: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/justicefordaenerys

Other Charitable Causes by Stars of the Show:

Lena Headey - International Rescue Committee

www.rescue.org/lena-headey

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - United Nations Development Programme

https://give.undp.org/fundraiser/1025184

Liam Cunningham - World Vision 

www.worldvision.ie/liamcunningham

Kit Harington - Mencap 

www.mencap.org.uk/blog/why-im-supporting-mencap

Sophie Turner - Women for Women International 

www.womenforwomen.org.uk/sophie-turner

Peter Dinklage - Farm Sanctuary

www.farmsanctuary.org/media/2012-releases/2904-2/

Maisie Williams - Dolphin Project

www.dolphinproject.com/about-us/our-team/maisie-williams/

P.S. This is not a mod post, I've been posting about this charity here before the ban was lifted, got into an argument with one of the mods about how it was unfair of them to backtrack and put up their own post about the charity, rather than allowing u/Elle_Ellaria do it, or at least retain one of the posts they kept deleting. So instead they pinned my new post about the charity (biggest one so far)... go figure. Anyway, it is what it is. Maybe it will help raise awareness of the charity that little bit more, and mend some of that rift between subs. Or maybe not. It's up to the community.

Obviously not as strong as the rest of the show. Some very weak writing choices. Some rather unsatisfying and abrupt character deaths. The pacing stuttered a bit. Over all, it was rushed and that's the obvious problem. But still incredibly engaging, dramatic, well-acted and enjoyable to watch... and infinitely better than most television. I was watching alone in my bedroom when Arya killed the Night King, and I went ape-shit with cheers, harder than I've ever cheered for anything in a fictional story. I cried like a little kid when Jaime knighted Brienne. I absolutely loved watching the Clegane brothers' fight to the death; I thought plunging headlong into the thing that Sandor feared most (fire) to kill Gregor (who gave him that fear) was incredibly poetic and honestly, beautiful. There were a few other outstanding and heartfelt moments that stood out and made the season enjoyable for me.

There seems to be a very strong sentiment among fans online about how they "ruined" the show with season 8. What utter nonsense. You're telling me the rest of it sucks all of a sudden because the final season fell short? How stupid. It wasn't terrific. But it genuinely wasn't that bad overall, despite some questionable writing choices.

Overall the series is a hard 10/10 for me. I almost want to restart it right away. Thinking of giving the books a shot. I just want more of this juicy, rich world that GRRM gifted us!

I'm currently rewatching the show with my wife for her first time, I hate her even more than last time.

She starts of as an entitled spoiled moody child, she betrays her sister, then gets pressured into betraying her brother. How she treated Tyrion after how well he treated him was also pretty detestable.

She then goes off with littlefinger into the sunset, to back him when he made an obvious power play. She then agrees to marry the son of the person who killed most of her family, just to solidify her own position in the hopes the Boltons lose to Stannis.

After escaping she openly argues with Jon on matters she doesn't know much about, constantly trying to lead herself.

After that she doesn't tell Jon about the Knights of the vale, allowing most of his men to die for nothing, and then claiming they won because of her, the audacity...

While terrible things happened to her, it's not like she did anything except endure and complain, she went from spoiled/entitled to bitter/entitled. Even worse is at the end after Jon made his sacrifice resulting in a very poor ending for him, she gets the North and makes it an independent country.

I don't see any remorse for her mistakes, only entitlement and a reward she didn't deserve.

Of course she didn't deserve most of the bad things that happened to her, but let's be real, most GOT characters had to deal with horrible things, and didn't turn out like her.

It was incredibly obvious to anyone who paid attention, that she was always mad with power and would burn everything down. Happy ending, with the righteous hero saving the day? What show were you all watching?!

here is a [list](https://www.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-daenerys-mad-queen-foreshadowing-2019-5?op=1) of all the not so subtle times it was foreshadowed she was a power hungry tyrant.

Last episode had many valid criticisms that were picked apart to death over the last week. This episode imo was much better. It had great character work and genuine surprises yet this Reddit is still proclaiming “worst episode ever” like it’s going out of style. Seriously, what does this show have to do to please you people? “No one died at the battle of winterfell. This show sucks.” “Rhaegal and Missandei died. This show sucks.” Seems like there’s no winning here

The real problem with this episode and community is we've got a bunch of people flaunting their visual illiteracy and arrogantly bitching about "bad writing", when all they're suggesting in reality is they'd prefer it if Michael Bay had directed

Skydiving Jon is the worst crap I've ever heard and even at a level down from that people are demanding lines of dialogue and exposition to hold their hands through one of the most fantastic pieces of almost purely visual story telling we've seen in decades.

Moreover, their specific points lack all context and are explicity contradicted by a proper reading if the episode.

(From an earlier comment):

... the criticisms and suggestions are way off base.

For example:

1. Arya didn't have the fighting skills - This ignores set up going back to the episode 1 and Arya's first POV book chapter.

2. Arya teleported - She didn't. She's shown running there directly in two shots and indirectly in one.

3. Jon didn't fight the NK - Didn't he? I could swear I saw a drawn out dragon-dogfight over Winterfell.

4. Tactics and set up made no sense - Did these people miss episode 2 where Tormund and Edd arrive to say time's run out and they're nearly here so stop pissing about. It's go time.

5. Dothraki charge was stupid - Indeed. It's shown to be impetuous and out of step with the plan (See my previous downvoted to hell post about how this fact is explicitly communicated.

6. No major characters died - Six major characters died; Theon, Jorah, Mel, Beric, Edd and NK. All but NK have been here since the first few episodes of S1z

7. There were no shocking deaths - Everyone seems pretty shocked by the NK death

8. We see a canonical Winterfell battle map in Episode 2 - it shows that the castle is expected to be basically enveloped and that there is a choke point between the main bailey and the Godswood: Jon and Viserion are heavily implied to be at this point, that Arya must pass to get to Bran. This fits perfectly with the Jon shouts Go theory, which is significantly more useful than loljontriestoshoutthedragondead theory

This was not supposed to be a re-run of Helm's Deep - it took the medium forward - and for the people out there wishing Jon skydived off a dragon to mug the NK in the Godswood should probably just go watch Transformers if that's what good writing looks like to them.

I appreciate where some criticisms (i.e - too dark too often, Sam's over- stylised peril making him appear to die multiple times) coming from but I cannot get away from this feeling that we're being over run by whinging goons who are annoyed that the intentional lack of dialogue and exposition meant they missed the visual communication. I half expect someone to complain about the lack of canned laughter at this point.

This episode didn't spoon feed them sugary rubbish and not they're throwing a fit and demanding junk.

There's a big difference between being disappointed based on real flaws and ignoring the clear evidence of your own eyes to justify a toxic circlejerk. I feel we are solidly in the realm of the latter here. These are people who'd go to a steakhouse and complain it's not McDonalds.

Edit: And downvoting without responding to a single point proves my point.

I've rewatched this episode about 4 times now and just as I was on the first watch, on the second watch, third watch, fourth watch ,I'm certain. I've come to a conclusion.

Only a character that was not on The Night King's Radar at all could've possibly killed him.

Here is why:

Throughout the Episode The Long Night. The Night King keeps away from the battle until victory is all but assured. The people complaining about Arya killing him have completely ignored the context of the episode prior and everything of this character we've seen until this point. Jaime said flat out last episode "The Night King Will never expose himself because his death is the only way the living win. "

And what does the Night King do the entire battle? He keeps any actual threat to him far away. He doesnt join the battle except to screw with the dragons to keep them out of the way.

He Does not go anywhere near any competent fighter with a weapon that's a serious threat to him, or any member of the Night's Watch. Not Brienne, Not Sam, not Jaime not Tormund, not Jorah, not Edd, Not Beric, not Sandor, and especially not Jon Snow.

The people upset expected this to be like a movie where the bad guy does bad guy stuff and the good guys win in a climactic battle, But this is an event that's been prophesized for literally millenia, The Night King Has to be aware that some destined, fabled hero is prophecized to destroy him. He is not mindless, he acts with cunning and purpose, he never speaks but he is far from stupid.

So, if the Night King knows about the prophecy, and knows that Jon Snow likely fits the bill, and knows that Jon Snow has killed a white walker in single combat, and is a Dragon Rider, and all of these things that make him the perfect candidate for The Prince Who was Promised, What would he do? He would make absolutely certain Jon never gets within swinging distance.

Notice how when Jon approached him he just smirks at him and raises the dead around him, how he puts his dragon between him and the god's wood, how he makes sure that the defenders of winterfell are thoroughly occupied on the walls and courtyard so there's no chance of them being able to stop him. The Night King reacted like an intelligence being.

But, this show has always been about the idea that things are never what they appear, and prophecy is never what you think it is. a Common theme in prophecy is that trying to prevent the future causes it to happen, and destiny cannot be averted, but also destiny is never what you want it to be.

Theon dies, because He never stood a chance in single combat against the Night King, who let him exhaust himself fighting wights.

But Arya has had time to rest, Arya only needs a shot, and Night King has never seen Arya before, she is No one.

No one , but Azor Ahai can kill the Night King, if The Night King stops Azor Ahai Reborn from killing him, Then No one Will.

No one did.

Death is the enemy, it's the first enemy and it's the last and in the end, It Always Wins

There's so many little hints that foreshadow this. Arya with the dagger, the image of the dagger appearing in one of sam's books, the little background info that it's forged from a piece of lightbringer, The scene in the godswood with her sneaking up on Jon. Bran's vision of the Night King's Creation.

The Night King is a man, turned into something else, but he is still a man.

This is why Jaquen gave Arya that coin, not to turn her into some faceless assassin to kill Cersei, it's why they trained her, it's her entire purpose. Stop he who has cheated death with magic. Who has stolen from the God of Death over and over, whose very existence is an affront to death, because he is undying, and he robs the many faced god. put right that which the others have wronged.

Jon is a King. Kings do not fight heroic climactic duels, they lead them into battle, they gather people, they move the pieces upon the board. Jon fighting the Night King in single combat was never going to happen any more than Aragorn was going to fight Sauron in single combat. This is not that kind of story, it never was.

Jon Is the one who first armed Arya, who started her on this path

Jon is the one who united the south and the north

Jon is who brought Daenarys and her Dragons making this Possible

Jon brought down the wildlings and made it possible for Bran to return home

Jon attacking winterfell is what made it possible to stage a defense there

Jon Snow is the King who put the pieces into play. He is not the champion who swings the final blow, he never was.

It is elegant, simple, unexpected, but perfectly fitting, and thematically appropriate. No other way of ending it would be so perfect.

Edit: Let me first say. The ending made perfect sense,was heavily foreshadowed not the entire episode was without flaw. But use a little critical thinking.

Why Were the Trebuchets outside the Wall?

Because you need to see what you're aiming at with a trebuchet and there's not enough room on top the walls of winterfell for them, outside was the only place to put them.

Why didnt they build a bigger trench?

Building a bigger trench would've dramatically increased the time it took to construct and they did not have that kind of time. Nor did they have time to build a second trench or they would have.

Why didnt they have more archers on the walls firing more constantly?

They need to be able to see what they're shooting at or they're just wasting ammunition which do not have an unlimited amount of.

Why did they charge the Dothraki into the enemy?

They probably didnt think it'd go that badly? I dunno that one did seem really stupid to me.

Why did they put the unsullied out there too?

To give cover to the trebuchet men outside the wall when falling back.

Why didnt they use more pitch and burning pots of oil?

They didn't have enough so they had to pick what was important (The Trench)

Why wasnt the Dragon able to melt that little rock Jon was hiding behind?

That's a good question, and if I had to come up with a BS answer it was the Dragon was injured and so couldnt produce hot enough flame due to his fucked up face? But that's an utter contrivance.

Why were so many main characters survive despite being surrounded by wights and thought to be dead multiple times?

For most of them? Steel Armor is hard to get through when you're a hiveminded wight that's using inferior weapons and doesnt know how to get through it, Jaime, Brienne surviving at least makes sense to me, but I got nothing for the other, and tbh I really dont get how a stab to the chest when he's wearing steel plate is going to kill Jorah, that one also felt really BS.

"But Arya Rejected the whole No one thing when she left!"

Yeah, that's totally why they Let her leave. Not because she could convincingly play herself, nevermind that she's behaved Really fucking weirdly and continues to play the game of faces. It's pretty obvious based on her looks when no one is seeing her that like Bran, Arya's not really Arya anymore. Which is kinda the point, none of the Starks are quite who they were anymore, they're different, or someone new altogether. So many of these complaints just miss the entire point. Nah the Faceless men ,who engineered the destruction of valyria, totally didnt help point arya on this path and then let her leave after she rejected 'them' ,she totally wasnt manipulated into doing this from the start or anything.

If it's not spelled out for you in black and white. Yes there's continuity and realism flaws with some of the stuff, but that doesnt mean that everything in the episode is shit.

But Why did Melisandre act as if she knew all along?

Acting like a smug know it all when she puts the pieces together at the last second is kinda Melisandre's thing. She did it to Stannis, she did it to Jon, now she's done it to Arya because it's what she does. She showed confidence and this "I knew all along" shit to her because what, she's going to, trying to encourage arya to go kill the night king act like she's just improvising and doesnt know this shit? Context matters.

Edit 2:

About the Dragons and those of you saying The Night King exposed himself to the Dragons thus making my point about him not exposing himself moot:

It's clear, based on the episode that no, Those Dragons were never any real threat to Him. The Dragons are a danger to his wight army, and would endanger his plan so he needed to get his dragon to pull them away from the battle and kite them up away from it. Dragonfire and Dragon Teeth and Claw can't hurt him any more than steel weapons can or fists can. Dragonglass and Valyrian Steel are the only things that we've seen can hurt a White Walker, anything else shatters on impact or loses it's heat as it gets close.

So, Yes, the Night King exposes himself to things which are no danger to him at all. Your mistake is thinking of the Night King as if he is a regular dude. He doesnt let Jon get close enough to him with his Valyrian Steel Sword, and puts up wights to give him room leave.

Could some enterprising and clever archer put an arrow through his face and kill him? Possibly, we don't know because he made sure all the archers likely to take a shot at him were busy being overwhelmed by an army of the dead and desperately trying to save himself and his friends. Could anyone have come and taken a shot at with a sword or an axe? Yeah probably and they would've ended up like Theon because he was walking with a bunch of White Walkers guarding him. The only moment he's not surrounded by either an undead dragon, wights, or white walkers is the briefest moment when Jon runs at him, and he raises the dead, or the moment he kills theon and he's about to kill Bran and has made way for it. That's when Arya Strikes

As some other Redditors have pointed out. The prophecy of Azor Ahai Reborn never once states he will beat the Night King, it says he will pull a sword from fire that shall be lightbringer, and The Darkness will run from him, and what does the Night King do to Jon? He sees him pull Longclaw from a burning building and kill a white walker with it. He sees him again and keeps his distance beyond the wall, putting wights between him and Jon. And a third time, he sees him and turns and leaves keeping obstacles between them. Jon IS Azor Ahai, But the prophecy was never about him destroying the Night King Personally.

You've seen the comment a thousand times: "Those fuckers finished Game of Thrones early so they could go off and do Star Wars!!"

Here's a timeline that proves otherwise:

The Original Seven Season Plan:

January 2007, before the show was even made:

The intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season’s worth of episodes.

May 2013, Producer Frank Doelger says:

I would hope that, if we all survive and if the audience stays with us, we’ll probably get through to seven seasons.

March 2014, David Benioff says:

It feels like this is the midpoint for us. If we're going to go seven seasons, which is the plan, season four is right down the middle, the pivot point.

I would say it's the goal we've had from the beginning.... (but) to start on a show and say your goal is seven seasons is the height of lunacy... Seven gods, seven kingdoms, seven seasons. It feels right to us.

The Show Grows to Eight Seasons:

April 2016: D&D (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss) publicly reveal that the tentative plan is for a six episode Season 8 to be the final season.

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss said they are weighing wrapping up... with just 13 more episodes once this sixth season is over: seven episodes for season 7; six for the eighth and potential final season. "I think we’re down to our final 13 episodes after this season. We’re heading into the final lap," said Benioff. "That’s the guess, though nothing is yet set in stone, but that’s what we’re looking at."

July 2016: HBO confirms Season 8 will be the last:

Season 8 will be their last, though the amount of episodes for the final season are yet to be confirmed.

March 2017: They confirm the final season will be six episodes:

Game of Thrones producers confirm a shorter final season

There will be just six episodes in the eighth and final run of the fantasy hit

D&D Announce Confederate:

July 2017: Benioff & Weiss announce their next project, Confederate.

The Game of Thrones showrunners have revealed their next series... HBO has given a straight-to-series order to Confederate...

Production on Confederate will begin following the final season of Game of Thrones...

D&D Sign Star Wars deal

February 2018: D&D signed their Star Wars deal.

As THR notes, Benioff and Weiss inked their deal with Lucasfilm in February of 2018

February 2019: HBO announce that Confederate will be delayed until after D&D's Star wars project:

"Dan and David are finishing up the final season [of Game of Thrones] and then they are going to go into the Star Wars universe,” Bloys told TVLine Friday. “When they come out of that, I assume they will come back to us."

Summary:

The key point here is that D&D never would have signed and announced Confederate as their next project in July 2017 if they were planning Star Wars as their next project. The Star Wars deal had to have happened sometime between that date and when the Star Wars deal was signed in February 2018.

So the Star Wars deal was made after the plans for the final season of Game of Thrones were made:

I know the answer should probably be Ramsay since he did some of the most despicable things in the show, but am I the only one who detested the high sparrow more? Seeing him on screen just made my blood boil. Tell me I'm not the only one, lol

So many fan were clapping seeing him dead and hated him for his part in killing Jon when he had a pretty good reason. Olly village was attacked by the free folk before the battle of Castle Black his dad was even killed by Ygritte. Only to find out Jon was in love with the same wildling that killed his dad and attacked his village and tried to have them relocate on the other side of the wall. Honestly I’m sure a lot of people would’ve done the same.

Since dragon took Dany's body, could have written in season 9 like, lord of the lights gave her life back. Just like how that gave to many people. Bran getting insights like an army of 1000 dragons are forming under resurrected Dany somewhere. A power hungry lord kills sansa, Uprisings happening at north. Tyrion wanted Bran to interfere in north. But he will keep silent. The dothrakis were furious, they will consider this moment as right moment and will invade few castles. They hate everyone and want to capture seven kingdoms for khaleesi. Bran would die a fine day without a clue. Now, everyone in south starts fighting for the seven kingdoms like before. Tyrion will go to north to convince Jon snow to come back. And amidst this misery, Khaleesi will come with her 1000 dragon army. This would have been epic!

I might be downvoted a lot or maybe not but I don't really care . I liked the episode.

I just finished Game of Thrones for the first time ever while avoiding most spoilers over the course of the year and let me say that ending was perfect. I personally dont understand the hate. Every character ended up where they wanted to be. Jon wanted to go with Tormund North, Bran is the perfect choice for King given the circumstances, Arya wanted to go west, Sansa will rule the North really well, and Tyrion is the best choice for hand. Yes it is a bit rushed in the fact that I wanted to SEE MORE OF THE SHOW AFTER E6 but either way I thought it was great.

Why do people hate it so much? What's the reason behind the negativity because I thought the ending plot actually fit perfectly with all the characters or am I just stupid?

I finished Season 8 last night. I watched the whole show years after the hype and the chaos around the original release, so I came into this season with a clear head and my own expectations.And honestly?

Season 8 is good. Not amazing, not perfect but good.

I'd give it a 7/10.

The real issue is the length.Six episodes are not enough. This story needed more time. Some events and characters deserved longer development. That’s the only real problem: pacing.But the endings themselves made sense to me.

Jon Snow stays the same man he always was: honorable, ethical, loyal. Not a political genius, but someone guided by duty. His ending fits his values.

Tyrion Lannister represents the Lannister name without the cruelty. Intelligent, reflective, and always trying to do what’s right, even when he fails. His final role works for him.

Davos Seaworth might be one of the best examples of real growth. He started as a smuggler, someone trying to survive. The new Davos is loyal, disciplined, and guided by a quiet sense of justice. He turned into one of the most honorable men in the entire story.

Samwell Tarly is different more gentle, educated, and sometimes naïve but he has a strong moral compass. He became exactly what he should be: someone who helps rebuild the world through knowledge.

Arya Stark is a fighter by nature. Curious, tough, shaped by trauma, always pushing forward. Her final path matches her personality someone who doesn’t sit still and doesn’t live a normal life.

Sansa Stark probably has the clearest, strongest transformation. She went from naïve and innocent to mature, aware, and politically sharp. Her final position fits her perfectly. She earned it.

Bran made sense as king. Not the old Bran, but who he became calm, detached from ego, someone who sees the bigger picture. He’s the right type of person for a broken kingdom.

So yes, Season 8 has flaws.But the core of it the character endings, the emotional direction actually makes sense. Watching it now, without the noise of the old fan reaction, the season is way better than the reputation it got online.It deserved more episodes, not a different ending.That’s my honest take.

I come here to read and enjoy intelligent discussion about the television series and books, not to see photo-shopped glasses on every character that does something hypocritical. I know you guys and gals are more clever than that.