Enlarge Image HBO It goes without saying, but massive Game of Thrones spoilers below. Sunday night's episode of Game of Thrones gave us the Battle of King's Landing, the second huge-scale battle in the final season after the Battle of Winterfell. We've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is the battle took place during the day, meaning no lighting issues this time. The bad news is that lots of people died. We got our first major character kill before Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow left Dragonstone, which in more ways than one was an omen of things to come. In this Song of Fire and Ice, it turns out we should have been more worried about the fire than the ice. Varys In episode 4, The Last of the Starks, Varys confided in Tyrion Lannister his concerns about Daenerys' temperament. Jon is a more able ruler, he said, and Daenerys is proving herself less stable. They should replace her, he argued. Episode 5 opens with a followup to this thread. The gang is all back at Dragonstone following last week's unproductive King's Landing confrontation with Cersei, which ended zero wars and left one Missandei dead, and Varys tries to tell Jon that he, not Daenerys, should sit on the Iron Throne. Tyrion tells Daenerys about Varys' betrayal. We see Daenerys is in a bad state; bags under her eyes, frazzled hair, looking sickly. Times are bad. Daenerys says Jon and Tyrion are both also at fault. Jon, against Daenerys' orders, told Sansa about his true identity, and Tyrion, once hearing it from Sansa, told Varys. Thankfully for Tyrion, the punishment wasn't doled out evenly. He got a stern talking to ("the next time you fail me will be the last time you fail me") while Varys got execution by fire. He was led from his quarters by the Unsullied to Dragonstone's shores, where he was sentenced to die. Varys tells Tyrion he hopes he's wrong about Daenerys, then Drogon gets his dracarys on. The realm will miss you, Varys. Varys’s reaction when he was sentenced to death after years of being a snake #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/EfDqsoZvU4 — Sandra jones (@thebigwhopper2) May 13, 2019 RIP Varys. The Master of Whispers. The Spider. The man of great facial expressions. #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/RmORQVl7xO — Cress (@capricress) May 13, 2019 Euron Greyjoy We went quite a while between character deaths. Between Varys and Euron Greyjoy, though, there was a whole lot of miscellaneous soldier deaths. The point of last episode was to make you ask, "Will Daenerys be the Mad Queen or will she turn out OK?" She did not turn out OK. Drogon destroyed the Iron Fleet and overpowered the Lannister Army. Bells were ringing the sweet sound of surrender. Daenerys had previously told Tyrion she wouldn't raze the city if the city surrendered early enough. The surrender came early enough, but wow did Daenerys burn everything down anyway. As the city was falling, Jaime Lannister was racing to find Cersei. On his way he's confronted by Euron, whose fleet had just been Drogon'd. He asks Jaime if he wants to try and kill another king before they all die, but Jaime isn't interested. Then Euron mentioned that he slept with Cersei and it was immediately on. The two scuffled, and Euron stabbed Jaime twice in the ribs. It looked like ye' ol' Kingslayer was a goner, but he got his second wind and impaled Euron against a rock. Me replaying Euron’s death on repeat for the next week #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/CkSZUfgY3r — space cowboy (@ItsAllens) May 13, 2019 in what world does it make sense that jaime gets to kill euron when YARA STILL EXISTS — osha (@oshawildling) May 13, 2019 Qyburn Qyburn, the disgraced ex-maester and (now former) Hand of the Queen to Cersei was killed by his own creation. As defeat became obvious, Qyburn tried to rush Cersei to safety. The Red Keep was crumbling. Their party, containing Cersei, Qyburn, Ser Gregor Clegane and a bunch of guards, was running down a staircase as the walls and ceilings were falling. It's around this time that they're confronted by Sandor Clegane. It. Is. Clegane. Bowl. Time. Sandor wants Gregor. Gregor wants Sandor. Gregor advances. Qyburn tries to restrain him, telling him to stay by the Queen. Gregor grabs him and, with little more than a flick of the wrist, flings him several feet. Qyburns head smashes against a wall and then smashes open against some jagged stairs. Cersei promptly exited as inconspicuously as possible. The mountain when qyburn tried to stop him #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/q74rw581IV — ㅤㅤㅤ (@strainful) May 13, 2019 The mountain after Qyburn said “obey your queen” #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/S3fQZOlGQy — Here comes the son (@asianscump) May 13, 2019 Sandor Clegane, Gregor Clegane Cleganebowl finally happened, and it was glorious. With The Red Keep crumbling in flames, and with Gregor removing his helmet and armor to reveal what can only be described as a Vader-esque look, this battle was reminiscent of Obi-Wan versus Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode 3. Gregor started with the high ground, but it was an even match. The two clung swords together. Gregor was stronger but Sandor faster. Our sweet Hound looked to have won when he stabbed The Mountain clean in the gut, but Gregor was unperturbed. Did we mention that Gregor is literally invincible? HBO Gregor beats down Sandor with his massive, genetically-enhanced fists. He strangles his little brother against the wall. Sandor pulls out a dagger and pokes holes into Gregor to no avail. Nothing hurts The Big Guy. Gregor lifts Sandor and tries to split his skull Oberyn Martell-style. Before he can manage it, though, Sandor puts his dagger through Gregor's right eye. Gregor stumbles back and seems to be injured. But he then stabilizes himself and starts pulling the dagger out like it's nothing. The Hound isn't having it, and tackles his older brother through the wall. The two fall several hundred feet into a pit of Drogon fire. Rest in power, Hound. Rest in power.<doc-sep>Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 Highlights: The Last War was upon us as Daenerys Targaryen and her army went up against Cersei Lannister and her army. Read below to relive the highlights from GOT S8E5. Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 is here and so is the Last War, as Daenerys Targaryen claimed in the previous episode. Dany didn't just lose a close confidant in Missandei, as she was brutally beheaded, on the orders of Cersei Lannister, she also had to see her second dragon, Rhaegal getting murdered at the hands of Euron Greyjoy. We knew the Mad Queen would rise but never did we see it would amount to her becoming an even bigger villain than Cersei. We had to say goodbye to many big characters such as Cersei and Jaime Lannister, who died together. You almost wanted to root for them to escape but such was not the case. On the other hand, we also see Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow and Arya Stark looking at the wreckage caused by the Queen who we thought they deserved. It will be interesting to note what the last episode of Game of Thrones has in store for us. Will Jon bend the knee yet again or will the Stark seek the throne for themselves? Here are 5 highlights from Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5: Cersei and Jaime's Deaths Source: HBO We have been waiting to see Cersei Lannister's death scene for a long time. However, this was not how we thought it would end, for the cleverest Lannisters of them all. Jaime and Cersei had always said that they would leave the world the same way they came, and in a bittersweet end for them, their words turned out to be true. The Hound vs. The Mountain Source: HBO The actual fight sequence GOT fans have been waiting for! The Hound vs. The Mountain. After convincing Arya to escape, The Hound exacts his revenge on his elder brother. However, it came at the cost of his own life. But, what a way to go! And that Oberyn death throwback sent shivers down our spine. The Mad Queen and Drogon Rises Source: HBO When the bells are rung, you see a glimmer of hope in Tyrion's eyes. But, then you see Dany and you know vengeance is coming. We finally see the Mad Queen in all her glory as she uses Drogon to do what Missandei said as her last words - "Dracarys." It just so happens that the common folk had to be the victims of the Targaryen rage, yet again. Tyrion and Jaime's Emotional Goodbye Source:HBO Source: HBO A moment that made us weep as much as Tyrion is his emotional farewell to the only Lannister who never thought of him as a monster. Their hug felt final and the after-effects just make that sequence, all the more heartbreaking. Varys' Death Source: HBO Varys foreshadowed what would happen if Queen Daenerys let her inner Mad Queen out. He died at the hands of the same queen for being a traitor and believing that Jon Snow was the rightful king. His death was significant in the sense that he still had hope that he was to be proved wrong. Alas, he was right all along! ALSO READ: Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 Written Update: Queen Daenerys Rises Which was your favourite moment from Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5? Let us know your views in the comments section below. Read More<doc-sep>The Battle of King’s Landing, or “The Last War” as Daenerys called it, promised a grand conclusion to at least a few of Game of Thrones’ grandest arcs. Many predicted Cersei’s fortified kingdom would provoke Dany into the most fiery of rages. Somehow it was so much worse, and took two beloved characters down with it all. [Ed. note: this post contains major spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 5, “The Bells.”] “Remember where we met, where they keep the dragon skulls, beneath the Red Keep?” Tyrion tells Jaime early on in episode 5, hoping to save his brother and sister’s lives, knowing full well Dany intends to scorch them to hell. “Keep following the stairways down, down as far as they’ll go. You’ll come out onto a beach at the foot of the keep. A dinghy will be waiting for you. If the winds are kind, you’ll make it to Pentos. Start a new life. Sail right past the iron Fleet and into a new life.” Maybe in another life, under the eye of more merciful writers than George R.R. Martin and his showrunner guards David Benioff and D.B. Weiss the plan could have worked out. But this is Game of Thrones. The Jaime-Cersei relationship blossomed before the events of Game of Thrones. The crippling of Bran Stark defined it. And for so many seasons, as Cersei radicalized into a queen willing to wipe anyone out to maintain the throne, and Jaime faltered from Kingslayer to Lannister turncoat (even if it was for the right reasons), the relationship came under question: would Jaime be the one to finally do his forbidden love in? A prophecy imagined the possibility. For many seasons, fans speculated that an ominous decree by Maggy the Frog, shown in a flashback at the beginning of season 5, foresaw Cersei’s demise at the hand of her brother. While the emphasis of Maggy’s prophecy was on children, suggesting Cersei would only have and bury three (“Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds.”), a bit of the prophecy from Martin’s A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the series, drove the real speculation. : “The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale throat and choke the life from you,” Maggy said. Valonqar being the High Valyrian word for “little brother.” The relationship’s real ending was less dramatic — at least as far as brother-sister murders are concerned. Jaime’s line from the top episode lingers through the chaos: “All the worst things she’s ever done, she’s done for her children.” He sees room for redemption, even after turning his back on his sister during her most sociopathic streak. Even after she sent Bronn to shoot him in the face with a crossbow. With King’s Landing ablaze after Drogon’s fire-breathing attack, Jaime finds Cersei amidst the rubble, and shuttles the queen down to the cellars of the Red Keep. “I want our baby to live.” So it was true: Cersei was pregnant. And Maggy was right: Cersei will only have three children in the end. “Please don’t let me die,” she begs Jaime. There’s no twist here. The road to freedom laid out by Tyrion is blocked by massive amounts of stone. Jaime can’t save Cersei in the end. But in a twist for fans, who’ve lived and breathed prophecy theories for years, he doesn’t kill her either. “Look me in the eye,” he asks her. In a way, his dream will come true. When Bronn asked him back in season 5 how he hoped to die, Jaime replied, “In the arms of the woman I love.” Jaime’s season 8 path was a whiplash-inducing tailspin for dedicated viewers of the series. Episode 4 saw the knight finally consummate a flirtatious relationship with Brienne of Tarth only to walk out on her, drawn back to King’s Landing by Cersei’s gravitational pull. It’s emotional logic that’ll be litigated by fans as being “true” or not for years after Game of Thrones ends its run, but episode 5 makes the case for why Jaime may have felt stuck, absorbed: Jaime and Cersei are a violation of the rights and wrongs of the universe. There is a version of the story where they lived happily ever after away from “the game.” But vengeance played a role in their romance, and fueled Cersei’s life when her love for Jaime unraveled. With the apocalypse basically setting in, there was no where else for Jaime to turn. There were loose ends. There was an unborn child. There were too many possibilities. There was a whiff of redemption. And if he was going to die — and he was going to die — no prophecy or throne-securing conspiracy or epic battle plan would keep him from understanding a little more about this unexplainable romance he’s found himself in. Jaime and Cersei are human, vicious in moments, intoxicated throughout, shattered in the end, but human. As Jaime once told Brienne, “We don’t get to choose who we love.” In the end, Cersei’s valonqar wrapped his hands around her pale throat ... and holds her as death collapses around them. “Nothing else matters. Only us.”<doc-sep>The penultimate Game of Thrones episode, “The Bells,” was the exact opposite of The Lego Movie: everything is not awesome, and everyone is not okay. It wasn’t a war that descended on King’s Landing. It was pure devastation. This was a massacre, just wholesale violence for the sake of violence. If viewers thought that things could end peacefully between the Red Keep, the Mother of Dragons, and anyone unlucky enough to be caught between them, this episode proved that’s never going to happen. “The Bells” also reminded us that sometimes Game of Thrones doesn’t make sense. If you, like me, watch Game of Thrones with Twitter running in the background, there’s a good chance you noticed that almost everyone responding to the show was angry. Daenerys Targaryen’s decision to burn thousands of innocent people just to show Cersei Lannister she could didn’t exactly make sense. Neither did Jaime’s race to reconnect with Cersei after such a long slow-burn relationship with Brienne. “The Bells” fell into the category of “dumb entertainment,” and that’s not a bad thing — but it’s a lot to unpack. Let’s jump into it. There’s something poetic about this episode beginning with the death of its most prolific prophet. Courage is deciding to do the right thing, even if that means certain death. Varys doesn’t try to hide his concern about Daenerys taking the throne, and he goes to Jon (aka Aegon Targaryen) in the hopes that he may be able to convince Jon that he should reign. (+15 to Varys for betraying his queen) While this is happening, Tyrion goes to see his queen and turns into Randall from Disney’s Recess. He’s snitching all over the place about Varys’ betrayal, and the Maddest Queen will not stand for it. Hasn’t Tyrion ever heard the phrase “snitches get stitches”? Varys is dragged out of his room (where he was very peacefully writing some kind of fan fiction, I’m sure) by Daenerys’ guards, and he’s sentenced to death. There’s a quaint moment between once-good friends Tyrion and Varys when the former confesses “It was me [who ratted you out, which left you standing here in front of a dragon].” (+10 for a brutal one-liner, even if most of it’s just implied) Then Drogon unleashes a fierce, fiery attack (Drogon gets this +25 for killing a named character) burning Varys alive. (+25 for a memorable death) This is Daenerys embracing her Mad Queen side, which some, including Varys, worried was lurking in the wings. It’s troubling to watch her vengeful side play out against her former closest advisers — especially for Jon Snow, who’s realizing he shouldn’t be in a relationship with his aunt and is trying to handle that breakup as delicately as possible. Jon goes to check in on Dany, as a good ex does, but Daenerys doesn’t have time for him. She’s concerned about Jon taking her place, and she doesn’t let him forget that she warned him what would happen if he spilled the tea about his parentage. “Far more people here love you than me,” Dany declares. “I don’t have love here. I only have fear.” (+10) When Jon proclaims that he loves her — but only as a queen — Dany gives him one of her best disappointed looks and says, “Let it be fear.” (+10) Look, breakups are hard. It only gets more complicated when you’re breaking up with a family member you didn’t even know was a family member! Add in that you’re about to go to war together, and almost anyone would have trouble navigating these waters. It’s the first time I’ve felt bad for Jon all season. Dude is trying his best to move on, but he can only do so much without being turned into ashes on the spot if he says the wrong thing. Dany is now basically the queen, and that means she gets to spend half her day riding around on Drogon’s back, taking in the scenery, and the other half dealing with bureaucratic meetings. After finally ending things with Jon (praise be), she meets with Tyrion and Grey Worm. Daenerys and Grey Worm want blood; Tyrion wants peace. Only one person in this meeting has a dragon, and dragons rarely want to solve problems with words instead of fire. Tyrion argues with Daenerys for the thousandth time, but she’s not hearing it anymore, not after he recklessly passed on the Jon-tea to Varys, enabling his betrayal and getting him killed. “The next time you fail me will be the last time you fail me,” Daenerys threatens. (+10) Ruh-roh, Scooby. Time to skedaddle! With the exception of Jon and Tyrion, everyone in this episode is looking to kill. Bloodlust is in the air. Even Arya Stark, who arrives at King’s Landing on horseback with her good pal the Hound, is volunteering her violent dreams to anyone who asks. “I’m Arya Stark, and I’m going to kill Queen Cersei,” she nonchalantly informs a guard. (+10) The brevity! The strength! I’m going to use this tactic the next time my boss asks me where I’m going. “I’m Julia Alexander, and I’m going to take a nap.” Arya is open about her plans to slice Cersei’s throat, but other people are forced to act more deviously. Tyrion betrays his queen (+15) by helping his older brother Jaime escape from the tent where he’s being held after he was caught trying to get to Cersei. How is it possible that Jaime keeps getting captured? This is the Kingslayer, a man so skilled that he took down a murderous mad king. And yet, every other season, he winds up captured in some part of Westeros. It’s truly incredible just how imbecilic my beautiful Jaime can be some days! At least it enables a gut-wrenching Tyrion and Jaime heart-to-heart, a conversation between brothers who love each other and know they’ll never be in the same place again. Tyrion begs Jaime to find Cersei, take her away from King’s Landing, and disappear forever.<doc-sep>
The fifth episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth and final season, “The Bells,” promised to be a bloody one, with betrayal, madness, and vengeance abounding — and it delivered. Once Daenerys Targaryen began to set King’s Landing aflame, the episode quickly became one of the series’ most graphic and horrifying yet. Of course, not everyone made it out alive. Here’s the list of everyone who died and everyone who didn’t — starting with the fallen. Major spoilers follow. Who’s dead: not as many as you might have feared — but not for lack of trying on Daenerys’s part In a horrifying episode that saw Daenerys apparently snap and abandon all the principles she’s supposedly been fighting for this whole time, King’s Landing became an atrocity-filled war zone, with thousands of innocent civilians wiped out, the city destroyed, and some of Game of Thrones’ most prominent characters falling in the fray. King’s Landing King’s Landing as we know it is completely destroyed due to Dany going full-on Mad Queen and laying waste to everything and everyone in sight. In a spectacular and chilling sequence, she reduced the once-stunning city to a smoking heap of rubble and ash, leveling it within hours while tens of thousands of Westerosi citizens fought to flee her dragonfire. In the end, the death toll appeared to be catastrophic, and the city completely demolished. Harry Strickland — the commander of the Golden Company — and most of his forces So much for the Golden Company being a formidable force in the battle for the Iron Throne. When confronted with Drogon’s firepower, these mercenaries fled and were quickly dispatched, led by their commander, the out-of-his-depth Harry Strickland. Varys Varys died horribly — he was burned to death by Dany’s last remaining dragon, Drogon — after he betrayed Daenerys and was betrayed to her, in turn, by his dear friend Tyrion Lannister, who for his part at least looked really upset about it. “I hope I’m wrong,” Varys said to Tyrion before he was executed, about his fear that Dany had reached a breaking point. But we all know Varys is never wrong about these things. Euron Greyjoy Euron sealed his own fate by taunting Jaime Lannister into a brutal swordfight. Even though he badly wounded Jaime, Jaime ultimately rallied and delivered a fatal sword wound to Euron’s chest. At least Euron — who died believing that Jaime would still succumb to his wounds — seemed pretty gleeful about how things went down. Qyburn The Mountain swatted Qyburn like a bug, instantly breaking his neck, because he was standing in the way of Cleganebowl. Bye, Felicia! Sandor and Gregor Clegane, a.k.a. the Hound and the Mountain The Hound and Arya traveled to King’s Landing together to seek their respective revenges — she on Cersei, he on his brother the Mountain. But they arrived at the Red Keep only to find it in mid-collapse due to Dany and Drogon, and Cersei and the Mountain attempting to escape. After saving Arya’s life by demanding she get the hell out of Dodge, the Hound handily killed a handful of Kingsguard members and confronted his brother — and legions of Game of Thrones fans finally got their long-held wish for the Cleganebowl. In a beautifully filmed sequence, the two brothers fought amid collapsing towers and turrets, until finally Sandor realized that his brother, whom Qyburn had effectively turned into a zombie after he was wounded by Oberyn Martell’s poison-tipped spear in season four, was unkillable by any means other than fire — the thing Sandor fears most. So the Hound hurled himself and the Mountain off the castle edge into the flames far below — netting himself arguably the best death of Game of Thrones so far. RIP, Sandor Clegane; may many chickens await you in the afterlife. Jaime and Cersei Lannister Whatever Jaime’s intentions may have been in returning to Cersei, by the time he finally made his way to her — after escaping capture by Dany’s forces with Tyrion’s aid, battling his way through the panicked crowds in King’s Landing amid the dragon onslaught, and killing Euron Greyjoy — the castle was collapsing and everything was on fire. Though Jaime and Cersei were almost able to escape through the crypt tunnels beneath the Red Keep, they realized too late that the exits were blocked by fallen rubble, leaving them with nothing to do but cling to each other as the walls collapsed around them.