The response to the last episode of Game of Thrones has seemed to split the fan base. While I thought it was a wild ride, I did still have some issues with the way the characters did things.

Here are my 5 big questions after watching The Bells.

What was the point of the Iron Fleet?

After seasons of build up, the Iron Fleet was destroyed without much action. Of course, Theon and Yara had pretty major roles in the story and had to come from somewhere, but when it came down to it, what did the Iron Fleet actually do?

In The Bells, the Iron Fleet protects Kingslanding from a water-based attack. Last time I checked Jon and Dani’s army didn’t really have the firepower to battle at sea. It seemed like those men could have been used elsewhere – like on the front line. At least move some the giant dragon-killing crossbows to the castle.

All I’m saying is that the Iron Fleet felt like such a big thing for so long but they pretty much did nothing. Drogon took them all out in like five minutes.

Why did the Crossbolt Soldiers turn into stormtroopers?

Just last episode, one of the mighty dragons was plucked out of the sky by not one, but three bolts from a new and improved scorpion crossbow. It wasn’t the finest moment of the show for sure, but it was a surprise. They took out a dragon that we thought near invincible out as if it was nothing.

Three bolts hit the dragon from miles away, none of them missing. All seemed to be coming from similar but different locations.

This episode though, the crossbows have the accuracy of a stormtrooper. Dani on her dragon dives straight for the boats of the Iron Fleet and they don’t even come close to hitting her. Did something happen? Was the dragon training to avoid them or what?

I know I’m nitpicking here, but I would just like some consistency.

What was the point of Jaime’s character arc?

Okay this one is one that I’ll probably answer myself, but let me get there.

Jaime was a character that showed some strong growth throughout the years. He had gone from a guy that would push a child out a window to someone that many actually liked. His time with Brienne in the early seasons had shown that he had a heart, and he continued to develop through the seasons. When he left Kingslanding to go fight the White Walkers, despite his sister telling him not to, Showed how much he had changed. It was a strong moment for the character.

Things got even better as he arrived in Winterfell and won over the people there. It forced him to put all his problems out to the public and face them. He had overcame them and it seemed like he was a changed man. He was even rewarded with a love that was not tainted like the love he shared with his sister.

But then he turns his back on all the growth.

Maybe it was just the rushed pace of the season that made this very jarring to me. Jaime even admits to Brienne that he’s not a good person and heads off for his sister. But at that point, it felt like he was betraying the character he had become as well as the audience.

That would all make sense maybe, if we had seen more evidence of the temptation for him to return to her throughout a longer season. Maybe throughout the years it could have been done better as well. The sudden about-face after making a decision to stay with Brienne in Winterfell just doesn’t sit well with me.

Things get more complicated when Tyrion frees him from his captivity and the two share a moment. Jaime and Tyrion show us that Jaime is still a good guy. He’s the only one that really treated Tyrion like a person.

But here he is running away from all his growth.

If he was just going to do this, this fast, why do it at all? Why didn’t the writers just keep him in Kingslanding and have him stay with Cersei? I don’t understand?

Why did the view of the Red Keep set Dani off?

The Mother of Dragons was pissed off. I know that she had lost everyone that she trusted or cared for in the last few episodes. I know that she was struggling with getting close to claiming what she felt was her birthright. Her love interest wasn’t returning her love.

She was definitely the Mad Queen that the writers had been turning her towards for the entire half an episode before this one.

Tyrion had pleaded with her to stop the attack if the bells rang and she agreed. The attack started and there wasn’t even any rebuttal. She had won the war pretty much by herself.

Still, I don’t know why she went all “scorched earth” though. What set her off at that moment? She had already won. She knew she had won, then she looked at the castle in front of her.

So why did looking at the castle make her turn and decide to kill everyone?

For seasons she had been freeing people. She had been set up as a thoughtful queen, a queen that cared about the people actually loving her as ruler. But in this episode, at this moment, all that character development went to hell.

After the episode, the writers say that seeing the castle made her think of all the things that had been taken away from her but this was only the second time that she had seen the castle.

I’m not excited about her turn to evil, but I will admit that the writers were right. There have been moment throughout the show where she would show how calloused she was to certain things. They used the death of her brother in front of her eyes and her not looking away as proof.

I’m all for that, but I wish they had been sowing the seeds of her being an evil ruler before the last episode. I also wish that they would have used a better visual to set her off. Maybe they had placed Messandei’s head on a stick and she saw it and couldn’t control her rage.

As it is, I don’t feel like it worked.

What’s up with the horse at the end?

When Arya comes to after the battle and she sees the family that she had tried to save burned, she also sees a white horse waiting there.

What the hell is that?

There are no living people in the area besides Arya, who I’m assuming used her training to avoid death and when she wakes up a horse is just standing there.

I’m (not so) sure we’ll see something come of the horse next week, but right now I’m feeling like this is just a convenient horse placement so that Arya could escape faster now that the city has fallen. Plot armor? Dues Ex Machina? We will see, but it felt too easy for me.

Wrap Up

As I mentioned in my review, this was still an intense and enjoyable episode of television.

Let me know in the comments what questions you still have after watching The Bells