The Last of the Starks

"The Last of the Starks" is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Game of Thrones. It is the seventy-first episode of the series overall. It premiered on May 5, 2019. It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by David Nutter.

Plot
The survivors plan their next steps; Cersei makes a power move.

Appearances

 * Main: The Last of the Starks/Appearances

First

 * Willa
 * Sarra
 * Winterfell girl
 * Wildling 1
 * Wildling 2

Deaths

 * Rhaegal
 * Missandei

Cast
Starring
 * Peter Dinklage as Lord Tyrion Lannister
 * Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ser Jaime Lannister
 * Lena Headey as Queen Cersei Lannister
 * Emilia Clarke as Queen Daenerys Targaryen
 * Kit Harington as Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen
 * Sophie Turner as Lady Sansa Stark
 * Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
 * Liam Cunningham as Ser Davos Seaworth
 * Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
 * Alfie Allen as Prince Theon Greyjoy
 * Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran Stark
 * Gwendoline Christie as Ser Brienne of Tarth
 * Conleth Hill as Lord Varys
 * John Bradley as Samwell Tarly
 * Hannah Murray as Gilly
 * Rory McCann as Sandor Clegane
 * Jerome Flynn as Ser Bronn
 * Kristofer Hivju as Tormund
 * Joe Dempsie as Lord Gendry Baratheon
 * Jacob Anderson as Commander Grey Worm
 * Iain Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont

Guest Starring
 * Pilou Asbæk as King Euron Greyjoy
 * Anton Lesser as Qyburn
 * Richard Dormer as Lord Beric Dondarrion
 * Ben Crompton as Lord Commander Eddison Tollett
 * Daniel Portman as Podrick Payne
 * Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Ser Gregor Clegane
 * Bella Ramsey as Lady Lyanna Mormont
 * Rupert Vansittart as Lord Yohn Royce
 * Richard Rycroft as Maester Wolkan
 * Staz Nair as Qhono
 * Alice Nokes as Willa
 * Danielle Galligan as Sarra
 * Emer McDaid as Winterfell girl

Uncredited
 * D.B. Weiss as Wildling 1
 * David Benioff as Wildling 2

Cast notes

 * 21 of 21 starring cast members appear in this episode.
 * This episode is the final appearance of starring cast members Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), and Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont) due to the death of their characters.
 * Andrew Burford, Yusuf Chaudhri, Nick Chopping, Rob Hayns, Rowley Irlam, Theo Morton, Jason Oettle, Sam Stefan, Andy Wareham, and Ben Wright were stunt performers in this episode.

General

 * The episode title refers to Arya's statement "We're family. The four of us. The last of the Starks".
 * Similar things have been said about other houses. In "Winterfell," Euron says that he and Yara are the only remaining members of House Greyjoy, while Cersei had previously said that she and Jaime were the last Lannisters in "The Red Woman."
 * This provides an interesting insight into the differences in family dynamics among these three great houses: the Starks make sure to include Jon as one of their number even though he is an alleged bastard who doesn't share their name, while Euron discounted Theon as a Greyjoy and Cersei excludes Tyrion as a Lannister.
 * Within the episode, Gendry is legitimized as the (nominal) new lord of a revived House Baratheon - making him quite literally "the last Baratheon".
 * All the cast members whose characters died in the preceding episode return to "play" their corpses during the funeral scene at the beginning of this episode: Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont), Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont), Richard Dormer (Beric Dondarrion), and Ben Crompton (Eddison Tollett).
 * The fates of a few missing characters from the Battle of Ice and Fire is revealed. Ghost and Rhaegal did in fact survive though injured (Ghost bloodied and missing an ear and Rhaegal with holes in his wing). Yohn Royce also survived. Less clear is the fate of Alys Karstark, who is neither seen amongst the dead nor the living. Her actress has hinted on Instagram that the character did in fact die.
 * Despite the Night King's defeat in the previous episode, the title sequence still starts at the hole in the Wall where Eastwatch used to be and still shows his army's approach to Winterfell - the visual idea is that the ground is still covered in ice from their advance. Winterfell has been updated to show damage from the battle, and the funeral pyres from the beginning of the episode. Dragonstone does not appear in the title sequence despite being a major setting for the episode. Conversely, Last Hearth still appears in the sequence despite not appearing in the episode.
 * Cersei returns in this episode, after being absent for two episodes, as she was last seen in "Winterfell". This is the first and only time her character has been absent for two consecutive episodes.

Callbacks

 * Tyrion convinces Jaime and Brienne to play the "I Have Never"-style drinking game he originated in Season 1's "Baelor", in which you have to take a drink if someone can accurately guess something about you. Brienne refers to Tyrion's first marriage, which he mentioned in the aforementioned.
 * During his encounter with Bronn, Tyrion begins to say "Power resides where men believe it resides" - before getting cut off with a punch in the nose. This echoes what Varys told him in Season 2's "What Is Dead May Never Die": "Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick, a shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
 * Jaime mentions the horrible things he has done for Cersei, including pushing a boy out of a window and crippling him for life ("Winter Is Coming") and strangling his own cousin ("A Man Without Honor").
 * Daenerys asks Gendry whether he is aware that his father tried to have her murdered, presumably referring to the first attempt to poison her ("You Win or You Die").
 * Davos says that the last time he saw Melisandre, he warned her he'd kill her if he ever saw her again ("The Winds of Winter").
 * Tyrion says that Bran's wheelchair is better than the saddle he designed for Bran ("Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things").
 * Jaime states that Renly once danced with Brienne, what she told Podrick in "High Sparrow".
 * Sansa says "The men in my family don't do well in the capital" - referring to the unjust executions of her father ("Baelor"), grandfather and uncle.
 * Tormund says that Jon is "strong enough to befriend an enemy and get murdered for it", referring to the mutiny at Castle Black ("Mother's Mercy").
 * Tormund says "Most people get bloody murdered, they stay that way - not this one", referring to Jon's resurrection ("Home").
 * The Hound tells Sansa "Heard you were broken in rough", referring to her rape by Ramsay ("Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken").
 * Sansa says "he [Ramsay] got what he deserved. I gave it to him", referring to Ramsay's death ("Battle of the Bastards").
 * The Hound tells Sansa "Used to be you couldn't look at me", referring to their first meeting, when she was frightened by his burnt face ("The Kingsroad").
 * The Hound reminds Sansa that he offered her to escape from King's Landing with him ("Blackwater").
 * Sansa says "The men in my family don't do well in the capital" - referring to the unjust executions of her father, uncle and grandfather, which took place in King's Landing.
 * Tyrion says "I watched the people of King's Landing rebel against their king when they were hungry", referring to the Riot of King's Landing ("The Old Gods and the New").
 * Gendry tells Arya "Be my wife. Be the Lady of Storm's End", a reference to his words "You'd be my lady" in "Kissed by Fire"; Arya declines Gendry's proposal, saying "I'm not a Lady" - a reference to the words she told her father in "Lord Snow" - "I don't want to be a lady"; she also says "That's not me" - a reference to the words she told her direwolf in "Stormborn" - "That's not you".
 * The Hound reminds Arya that she left him to die ("The Children").
 * Bronn reminds Tyrion for the second time (following "Mockingbird") what he said in "The Pointy End" - that if anyone offered Bronn money to kill Tyrion, he'd pay Bronn double (actually, Tyrion promised "whatever their price, I'll beat it" - not "double it").
 * Tyrion says that Daenerys is "a girl who walked into a fire with three stones and walked out with three dragons" ("Fire and Blood").
 * Jaime says he would have murdered every man, woman and child in Riverrun for Cersei, referring to what he told Edmure Tully in "No One": "The people in the castle don't matter to me. Only Cersei. And if I have to slaughter every Tully who ever lived to get back to her, that's what I'll do".
 * Jaime tells Brienne "She's [Cersei] hateful". In "Breaker of Chains" he told Cersei "You're a hateful woman".
 * Tyrion tells Varys "Please, don't" - the same words and in the same tone he told Shae in "The Laws of Gods and Men".

Errors

 * 804 Starbucks Coffee.jpgg the feast scene at Winterfell, what appeared to be a modern Starbucks paper coffee cup was clearly and prominently visible in front of Daenerys when the episode premiered. It happened when Tormund is boasting about Jon and how "who most people get bloody murdered, they stay that way". On the HBO Now streaming service, it was visible in the episode from 17:38 to 17:41. Though originally thought to be from Starbucks, art director Hauke Richter confirmed the coffee cup was from a local shop in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, where the scene was filmed. The cup has since been digitally removed from HBO Now - but has yet to be removed from several international streaming services.
 * Bastard names by region.PNG surnames of the nobility by region.]]Following his legitimization, Gendry says that he is no longer "Gendry Rivers" - which is wrong on two points. First, he was never an acknowledged bastard, and only acknowledged bastards can even use the special surnames used for bastards of the nobility. Within the TV show, no one ever referred to him as anything other than "Gendry" before. He even points out in dialogue that he didn't even know Robert Baratheon was his father until after Robert died, so Robert could never have legally acknowledged him. Second, "Gendry Rivers" is simply the wrong bastard surname. Bastards from the Riverlands use the surname "Rivers", just as bastards from the North use "Snow". Gendry is from King's Landing, however, and bastards from the Crownlands use the surname "Waters". A simple google search could have revealed this, and the line is apparently in error.
 * It would even been loosely accurate if Gendry had assumed his bastard surname was "Gendry Storm", given that Robert was lord of the Stormlands (in the books, Robert's one recognized bastard is named "Edric Storm"), but bastard names usually follow where someone was born, rather than where their parents come from (i.e. in the TV series, Bran at first assumed Jon's name would be "Jon Sand" as he was born in Dorne).
 * The line was so clearly in error that several major foreign language dubs simply refused to accept it. The official German language dub, for example, outright changed the line to "Gendry Waters".
 * The error was particularly obvious on Game of Thrones Wiki itself, where for the past eight TV seasons the administrative staff have habitually had to stop editors from retitling the "Gendry" article to "Gendry Waters" - not "Gendry Rivers". It's a moot point now given that Gendry has officially been renamed "Gendry Baratheon".
 * A possible in-universe explanation is that as a commoner, Gendry himself isn't very familiar with the rules of bastard surnames, and Gendry himself mistakenly told Arya the wrong surname.
 * Jaime states that he strangled Alton Lannister to death with his own hands. This is false; he beat Alton to death, and strangled Torrhen Karstark. Neither kills were strictly speaking "with his own hands", but with his chains.
 * Gendry proposes to Arya on one knee, the same way one would in real-life modern times. In actuality, there is no such thing as "marriage proposals" in Westerosi society. For Gendry to marry Arya, he would need to consult with the head of the Stark household (either Jon or Sansa). At the least, getting down on one knee to propose is a somewhat modern custom for the setting.
 * Bronn claims that Cersei offered him Riverrun if he killed Tyrion and Jaime. In "Winterfell", Qyburn never mentioned Riverrun as a part of Cersei's offer to Bronn; he said that several chests of gold were waiting for Bronn, and only vaguely said that a "castle" and new marriage would follow (he may have offered Riverrun off-screen).
 * Using the crossbow, Bronn shoots an arrow, then quickly reloads, as Tyrion did in "The Children". It is impossible to reload a medieval crossbow so quickly and easily; the books make a point of that, when Tyrion arms himself with a crossbow before confronting his father.
 * Bronn tells Jaime and Tyrion "I knew your sister was dead the second I saw those dragons", referring to the Battle of the Goldroad ("The Spoils of War"). Yet, he continued serving the Lannisters, and has even gone out of his way to save Jaime from death. If he really thought Cersei was doomed, why didn't he switch sides back then?
 * Oddly, every character in the funeral pyre scene is buried in their full armor - even those parts of their armor that are undamaged. Given that there is still a war to fight in the south, and armor is very expensive, it is bizarre that no one would recover their useful equipment.
 * Allegedly it is still winter in Westeros, and it was even snowing in King's Landing at the end of Season 7. Throughout Season 8, no snow has been visible around King's Landing or Dragonstone - nor have the movements of Daenerys's large army been badly hindered, even though they were a significant obstacle in Season 5 when Stannis Baratheon's army was snowbound. Season 5 wasn't even "winter" yet, as the announcement that the season changed happened prominently at the end of Season 6.
 * Tyrion/Peter Dinklage's final plea to Cersei imploring her to surrender is framed so emotively that he resorts to a furtive near-whisper to her - even though she is on top of the city walls and there is no possible way she could hear him without shouting.

Winterfell

 * This is the second time that Daenerys lights a pyre of a significant man in her life. The first was Drogo ("Fire and Blood"); in this episode, it is Jorah Mormont.
 * Jon states that the deceased "were the shields that guarded the realms of men"; clearly this is a reference to a line from the oath of the Night's Watch "I am the shield that guards the realms of men". Although that most of the deceased were never members of the Watch, they were killed for the purpose that the Watch was founded from the beginning - to guard the Seven Kingdoms from the army of the dead.
 * Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss made cameos in this episode, as the pair of unidentified wildlings who stand behind Tormund during the feast at Winterfell.
 * The first time in the show that Lannisters, Targaryens, Starks, and Baratheons share a scene. For that matter it's the first time that Starks, Lannisters, and a Baratheon have all been in the same scene since Season 1.
 * Queen Daenerys Targaryen officially legitimized King Robert Baratheon's bastard son Gendry as "Gendry Baratheon" in this episode, making him the new Lord of Storm's End, and thus the new head of a revived House Baratheon.
 * It is fitting that Davos Seaworth and Brienne of Tarth are the first to toast him as "Gendry Baratheon" and Lord of Storm's End, as both of them are nobles from the Stormlands and started out directly serving Gendry's own uncles in earlier TV seasons (Davos under Stannis, Brienne under Renly).
 * It goes unsaid in the episode that as Robert's son, Gendry actually has some Targaryen blood in him. In the books, Robert's grandmother was a younger Targaryen princess, making him the second cousin of Rhaegar and Daenerys - thus Gendry is Daenerys's second cousin once removed, and Jon Snow's third cousin. The TV continuity might have moved this around a little to make it Robert's mother instead of his grandmother (statements on this have been vague).
 * According to how royal inheritance law works in the books, legitimizing Gendry would - at least in theory - put him ahead of Daenerys in the line of succession to the Iron Throne. After the Dance of the Dragons, royal inheritance law was altered to put female candidates behind all possible male ones. For a regular lordship, the lord's daughter would inherit ahead of his own younger brother - but the opposite is true for royal inheritance. Even in Season 1, characters listed off that Renly was "fourth in line" to the throne, behind his older brother Stannis and Robert's two sons, but not including Robert's (alleged) daughter. Thus any male carrying Targaryen blood, such as Gendry, would rank ahead of Daenerys - though Gendry would still rank behind Jon Snow, who is the lawful son of the main branch of the family. It's possible that in-universe, Daenerys hopes that legitimizing Gendry will at the same time make him grateful to her, or that she doesn't consider a legitimized bastard to be a serious candidate for the throne (many lords would still feel uneasy about backing him for the throne itself). Yet even within this same episode, Varys later points out that many lords of Westeros will consider Jon Snow a better candidate simply because he is a male, regardless of his technical rank compared to Daenerys. Of course, an officially weaker claim to the Iron Throne didn't stop Robert from taking it in the first place.
 * In the books, Robert has at least three surviving bastard children: Gendry, Mya Stone (a mountain guide at the Eyrie), and Edric Storm (and maybe a prostitute named Bella, who claims she is Robert's daughter), neither of which exist in the TV series. Gendry's storyline was somewhat condensed with Edric in Season 3 - meeting Stannis for the blood ritual, then being sent away by Davos. In the books, Edric is sent away to safety in the Free Cities. It is unknown if Gendry will be legitimized as Robert's heir at some point in future books, or if perhaps this might be condensed from what might happen to Edric.
 * Daenerys asks Gendry accusingly "You are aware he took my family's throne and tried to have me murdered?". She has the right to resent Robert regarding the attempt on her life; regarding the first part of her qusestion/accusation, however, she herself admitted in Season 7's "The Queen's Justice" that her father was a literally insane tyrant, and she commented to Jon two episodes ago at Lyanna's tomb that she thought Rhaegar raped Lyanna (until Jon revealed the truth). Apparently in-universe she'd already decided to legitimize him, and just threw out the accusation to judge how he would react to it.
 * Arya Stark's polite declining of Gendry Baratheon's offer of marriage in some ways parallels how Arya's aunt Lyanna Stark didn't really want to marry Gendry's father, Robert Baratheon.
 * During their drinking game, Brienne gets Tyrion Lannister to admit that he had another wife, before Sansa, referring to his first wife Tysha. This is bizarre, given that Tysha is a major plot element that was suddenly cut from the TV series in Season 4:
 * In Season 1 ("Baelor"), Tyrion explained as he did in the novels that Tysha was a commoner girl he and Jaime saved from some rapers on the road, who afterwards fell in love with him and married him without his father's knowledge. When Tywin did find out, he forced Jaime to tell the truth: he staged the whole attack, and Tysha was just some whore who didn't really love him, and but Jaime paid her to pretend she did because he wanted his little brother to think his first time with a woman was real. Tywin then proceeded to have his guards gang-rape Tysha while forcing Tyrion to watch.
 * Tyrion's first marriage was still referred to in Season 2 and in Season 3.
 * At the end of the third novel, corresponding to the end of Season 4, when Jaime frees Tyrion from the dungeon he is overcome with guilt and tells him the real truth about Tysha: she was not a whore, the whole incident wasn't staged, Tywin just forced Jaime to say that - out of petty cruelty, to deny Tyrion even the memory of Tysha's real love. This is what directly motivated Tyrion to return to the Tower of the Hand, confronting Tywin with a crossbow and demanding to know what he did with Tysha. Tywin said he let her go, then tried to assert his dominance over the situation by calling Tyrion's bluff and calling Tysha a "whore" again - at which Tyrion promptly shot him in the belly, killing him.
 * The TV show cut all of this out, so that Tywin's death at the end of Season 4 simply falls into place in almost dream-like fashion. Tyrion returns to the Tower of the Hand to confront Tywin for no stated reason, and it is unclear why he would be so motivated to outright kill Tywin and be called a kin-slayer. This was a massive departure from the novels, as it is the climax of the Tyrion-Tywin storyarc, and indeed the climactic ending of the third novel. The TV showrunners have never attempted to provide an explanation for why they changed this - raising the baffling question of why they would attempt to remind the audience of it after three intervening seasons have passed, and there are only two more episodes left after this in the entire TV series.
 * As Tyrion points out, according to succession law Bran Stark should by rights be the lord of Winterfell and the North, due to being Eddard Stark's last surviving trueborn son - and as it turns, out, actually his only surviving son, as Jon Snow is really the son of Ned's younger sister Lyanna. Bran is younger than either Sansa or Arya, but they follow male-preference primogeniture. Complicating matters is that as the new three-eyed raven, Bran doesn't feel he can be lord, and has essentially abdicated (as he said when he returned last season, but repeated here). With Bran abdicating, rule of House Stark would lawfully fall to Sansa, as the elder sister.
 * Bran Stark says that his wheelchair is the same design as one used by "Prince Daeron's nephew, 120 years ago". This was apparently referring to King Daeron II Targaryen, Daeron the Good, who would have been a prince around that time. It is an invention of the TV series, however, that Daeron ever had a nephew who needed a wheelchair. All Targaryen family members are accounted for and none needed a wheelchair - but Daeron II married outside of the family, to Myriah Martell, so it isn't impossible that he could have had a nephew-by-marriage we don't know about.
 * Notice that in the background of the feast, when Podrick Payne departs he leaves with two Northern girls enamored of him, to have a threesome - a callback to how he had sex with three prostitutes back in Season 3's "Walk of Punishment", and was apparently quite good at it.
 * Brienne of Tarth says during the drinking game that she is an only child. This is technically incorrect, as she had two older brothers who died in childhood. She has acknowledged this in the TV continuity before, by phrasing that she is Lord Tarth's only "surviving" child. Due to the high infant mortality rate in Westeros, however, it is not uncommon even in the books for characters to only count surviving children.
 * Jaime and Brienne have sex in this episode: when the scene begins, just before Jaime arrives at the door, note that it starts with the camera pointed at Brienne's sheathed sword - a frequent visual metaphor for sex.
 * Gilly is revealed to be pregnant with Sam's child, confirming rumors that she was pregnant after fans noted that Gilly appeared to be visibly chubbier in the season premiere compared to the previous season. There are actually unconfirmed rumors that actress Hannah Murray is pregnant in real life, but she hasn't wanted to talk about her private life in recent interviews.
 * Neither Jon Snow nor Daenerys actually bring up verbally in any of their scenes that he doesn't feel he can marry her because she is his aunt. In cast interviews, separate from the TV show, it has been made clear that she doesn't have a problem with that, while their Incest horrifies Jon. In their private scene at Winterfell in this episode, Jon only insists that he doesn't want to claim the throne, but even Daenerys doesn't bring up what would be the obvious solution for her: a marriage-alliance. Tyrion and Varys do explicitly bring this up later on, when Tyrion points out that an incest marriage never stopped the Targaryens from ruling. The only counterpoint Varys offers is that Jon wouldn't accept it because it isn't the custom in the North - though probably true, Jon himself never directly expresses this onscreen.
 * In the books, avuncular marriages (uncle-niece, aunt-nephew) marriages are usually considered incest, but clearly not to the extent of brother-sister marriages. There has actually been some variation in time and place regarding it. Right after the Targaryen Conquest, the High Septon vocally opposed any betrothal of Maegor Targaryen to his half-niece Rhaena. In the North, however, there were two major examples in the past 300 years in which a lord of Winterfell married his niece - though both of these cases were half-nieces, and a distinction might be drawn between that and a full-blooded aunt or uncle. There was also a point where, leading up to the Kingsmoot, Yara Greyjoy's uncle Victarion (omitted from the TV show) misconstrued that she was offering to marry him as a political alliance, which he considered shocking but not impossible. The Targaryens of course, could marry their aunts, and the scenario being presented is that Jon would rather risk a succession war than simply use a legal loophole to marry a woman he already loves to preserve peace in the realm.
 * Tyrion says that eight people know the secret about Jon: Bran, Samwell, Jon, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion, and Varys.
 * As stated in the war map scene, apart from most of the Dothraki dying in the battle against the White Walkers, about "half" of the Unsullied] are dead - which would put their current numbers at roughly 4,000. Jon said that half of the North (and Vale) army was killed as well.
 * Bronn gives a short speech remarking on how he may be a cutthroat, but all of the Great Houses started out as cutthroats, who gained lands and titles, then their sons and grandsons declared themselves kings. Given that he is saying this to Tyrion and Jaime, this may be specifically a reference to the legendary founder of House Lannister, Lann the Clever - who allegedly swindled House Casterly out of Casterly Rock using only his wits.
 * It is possible that Bronn bringing up the humble (brutal) origins of the Great Houses might loosely be an attempt by the TV writers to hint at the potential prequel TV series about the Long Night, whose pilot was set to begin filming about a month after this episode aired. Then again the line was so vague that it might have just been a nod to the books (if they really wanted to "set up" a prequel, they would probably have mentioned Lann the Clever by name).
 * When Bronn hits Tyrion, the latter complains "You broke my nose!"; Bronn responds he didn't. This is perhaps a reference to the difference between the books and the show about Tyrion's nose: in the books, it was cut off by Ser Mandon Moore during the Battle of the Blackwater; in the TV show, he was just badly slashed but kept his nose. The decision to keep his nose was due to a combination of CGI budget, pragmatism, and affecting the actor's performance.
 * The Hound and Arya head for King's Landing. They do not reveal their plans to each other; the Hound only says "I have some unfinished business", and Arya curtly responds "Me too". It can be assumed the Hound wishes to settle the score with his brother, what he has always wanted, while Arya intends to assassinate Cersei, as she declared (maybe not seriously) in "Dragonstone". Cersei and Gregor Clegane are the only people who are still in Arya's hit list.

Political control in the Seven Kingdoms
The war planning scene at Winterfell, plus a few other scenes, bring up the issue of the current political geography in the Seven Kingdoms:

Therefore, political control and claimants in the Seven Kingdoms on the eve of the final confrontation in the TV series should be something like this:
 * Daenerys raises the question of the current lordship of Storm's End - touching upon a meta-narrative issue, given that the TV show itself hasn't specified who has been holding Storm's End since the end of Season 2. In the novels, the lordship of Storm's End is a lot more clear: After Stannis seizes the castle, he leaves two hundred men to hold it under the command of Ser Gilbert Farring. After Stannis's defeat at the Battle of Blackwater, the garrison continues to hold Storm's End in Stannis's name. In the fourth novel, Storm's End is besieged by a Tyrell force led by Mace and Lord Mathis Rowan. However, Mace soon abandons the siege to return to King's Landing after the arrest of Margaery by the Faith, leaving a token force with Lord Rowan to continue the siege, but the castle continues to support Stannis's claim to the throne. In "Arianne II" sample chapter from the sixth novel, it is reported (but not confirmed) that the Golden Company, hired by a new contender (who has been omitted from the show) has taken Storm's End, and Mace Tyrell's army is currently descending on the castle from King's Landing.
 * In the TV show, Storm's End was never depicted on-screen for budgetary reasons in Season 2. It was tacitly assumed that Stannis's forces were holding it "off-screen" since Season 3, and after Stannis died in Season 5, that Tommen was at least the nominal lord of Storm's End through his death at the end of Season 6. After Tommen died, however, it wasn't clear what happened to the title - i.e. if Cersei just claimed it with no right to do so (as she did the Iron Throne) or gave the title to some subordinate.
 * The question of who physically controls Storm's End at this point is of course still unanswered. The TV writers haven't made much attempt to keep track of such things: consider that in Season 7, it was stated that Dragonstone was simply left abandoned after Stannis withdrew to the Wall in Season 5 - when it would be ridiculous for Stannis to not at least leave a skeleton defense force in such a strong fortification (as he did in the novels). Thus, like Dragonstone, the TV writers might just have not thought out who has been holding Storm's End since Season 5 (or even Season 3).
 * While planning the siege of King's Landing, the Riverlands, the Reach, and the Stormlands aren't mentioned at all. It is especially strange that the Stormlands aren't mentioned, especially since Daenerys had just legitimized Gendry and restored House Baratheon.
 * During the war map scene, it is mentioned in passing that the new Prince of Dorne has declared for Daenerys, without explanation. The TV show utterly changed the Dorne storyline from the books, without clear explanation:  in the books, Doran Martell is a Targaryen loyalist who wants to side with Daenerys when she invades Westeros, while Ellaria Sand doesn't want to perpetuate the cycle of revenge.  Doran's daughter and heir Arianne Martell joins with the Sand Snakes to attack the Lannisters immediately, but fails - only for Doran to reveal to her in captivity that he only opposed her immediate strike, as he also wanted to fight the Lannisters but was biding his time.  The TV show changed this to have Ellaria kill Doran and his son Trystane, who apparently just wanted peace with the Lannisters - and in order to somehow avenge the death of Doran's brother and sister by killing Doran himself.  Arianne Martell was simply omitted.  The Dorne storyline was quickly abandoned in Season 6 and only given minimal attention afterwards.
 * Showrunners Benioff and Weiss bluntly admitted in the DVD commentary for the Season 5 finale that they rewrote the entire Dorne subplot to revolve around Ellaria Sand purely because they really liked actress Indira Varma and wanted to show her off more, or as they put it: "We reconceived the role to make it worthy of her talents".
 * We have no idea who the new "Prince of Dorne" is and it would be a mistake to assume the TV writers even have a coherent, in-universe intention for it. Plausibly, it might be some member of a younger branch of House Martell - or even, perhaps, a different Dornish family such as House Yronwood that seized control.
 * The TV show never bothered to address that while Ellaria was captured at sea with three of the Sand Snakes, Oberyn already mentioned in dialogue that he had eight bastard daughters in total, by various women, and the other five simply haven't been mentioned.
 * The TV show has never addressed that while Ellaria and the on-screen Sand Snakes were taken out in a sneak attack on Yara Greyjoy's fleet, that fleet was heading too Dorne to pick up their armies, and that logically, Dorne's armies should still be unbloodied and at full strength, because they never took part in any of the other wars in the TV series up to this point. The TV writers, however, seemed to have just wanted to abandon all mention of Dorne as quickly as possible, without explantion.
 * The TV show could have used this as an opportunity to establish on-screen for the first time that Dorne follows gender-blind inheritance, by making a new "Princess" of Dorne, but chose not to. At prior points in Season 4, the TV writers without explanation gender-swapped several major female Dornish rulers into male characters - such as for House Blackmont, and Oberyn talking about his father instead of his mother visiting Casterly Rock.  In the books, Dorne is the region with the most female rulers as a result, but in the TV show, not a single female has ever been shown to lawfully inherit rule (disregarding whatever Ellaria's junta was, given that as Oberyn's unwed paramour she had no legitimate claim to the title of "Princess", and indeed was never shown to use it).
 * Actor Toby Osmond was cast in a new role for Season 8, and while the details are unclear he said that it was a "royal" part. Given this combined with his physical similarity to the other Martells, he might appear as the new Prince of Dorne in the last two episodes.  It would be a fanon assumption, however, to label him as Doran's other son from the novels, Quentyn:  the TV writers are being intentionally vague and avoiding even thinking out what the Martell/Dornish succession is at this point.
 * It is mentioned that Yara Greyjoy succeeded in retaking the Iron Islands. She explained in the Season 8 premiere that while she didn't have many forces left, the bulk of Euron's fleet was off in the east at King's Landing, so she could probably retake the isles from the skeleton defense force he left behind.
 * In the books, under different circumstances, Asha (Yara's name in the books) also maintains some hope of retaking the Iron Islands by allying with the Drowned Men, as the priests of the ironborn have come to loathe Euron as an "ungodly" and honorless man (even by ironborn standards), and thus they might be able to rally a general insurrection against him. However, her hopes are shattered after being defeated by Stannis. Asha knows well that the ironborn are not a forgiving people, and she has been defeated twice: once at the kingsmoot, and again at by Stannis - more than enough to stamp her as unfit to rule in the eyes of the ironborn. Moreover, Stannis intends to wed her to one of his subordinates, Ser Justin Massey; being married to a "green land lord" will make her a laughingstock among the ironborn, and totally destroy her political ambitions. Whatever happened in the TV continuity happened off-screen however, without specific details.
 * Varys and Tyrion remark that if it came to conflict between Jon and Daenerys, the North would instantly side with Jon, and the Vale would also side with him as well, because "Sansa would see to that". There is no logical, in-universe reason why the Vale lords should feel particularly beholden to Sansa in the TV continuity. In the books, Littlefinger plans to marry Sansa to Sweetrobin Arryn's cousin and heir Harry Hardyng, thus making her the new Lady of the Vale through marriage-alliance, after which she can manipulate the loyalty of the Vale lords to attack the Boltons in the North. The TV show omitted all of this, instead marrying off Sansa to Ramsay Bolton, a well-known sadist and rapist, who rapes her on their wedding night. Nor did the TV show coherently explain what Sansa was supposed to politically gain from marrying Ramsay other than Littlefinger's vague direction to "make him yours" - i.e. undermine the Boltons from within somehow...even though the Lannisters weren't worried about that when they forced her to marry Tyrion. As the TV show presented it, it was Littlefinger who manipulated the Vale lords into sending their armies against the Boltons, by urging Sweetrobin that he had to defend his captive cousin. Now that the Boltons are defeated and Sansa freed, she doesn't have a special connection with the Vale lords in the TV show, as her entire storyline of building alliances with the Vale was cut.
 * The episode leaves it unclear if the Lannisters even control all or most of the Westerlands at this point, as Casterly Rock was sacked by the Unsullied in Season 7.
 * The episode leaves unclear who, if anyone, controls the Riverlands at this point, or if Cersei pulled back all of her forces to King's Landing. After Arya assassinated the remaining male members of House Frey at the beginning of Season 7, the devastated Riverlands seem to simply be in disarray.  Similarly, it is not at all addressed who controls the Reach at this point, given that the Tyrells at least sided with the Targaryens, and while the Tarlys sided with the Lannisters their army was defeated and their lord executed.
 * Brief mention is made that Cersei promised Bronn the rule of Riverrun, and Tyrion made the counter-offer of Highgarden, but it is unknown how realistic these promises were (i.e. if it was comparable to promising him Winterfell).


 * Formally sided against Cersei:


 * The North
 * The Vale
 * Dorne
 * The Iron Islands - home islands under Yara


 * Held by Cersei as far as her armies can march:
 * The Westerlands - nominally challenged by her own brother, Tyrion Lannister
 * The Stormlands - nominally challenged by Gendry Baratheon
 * The Reach - ?
 * The Riverlands - (nominally challenged by Edmure Tully?)
 * The Crownlands / King's Landing - held by Cersei's concentration of what's left of the Lannister armies, plus Euron Greyjoy's fleet, and the Golden Company.

Dragonstone and King's Landing

 * Given that the TV show has surpassed the current novels, we don't know if the deaths of Rhaegal and Missandei will happen in future books, or are purely an invention of the TV series. Another scenario is that they will die, but in different circumstances. The answer will, of course, await the next book.
 * There is no Grey Worm and Missandei romance in the books, because she is only ten years old in the novels. The TV show cast an older actress due to the larger dramatic weight needed for a screen role, then decided to turn her relationship with Grey Worm into a romance.
 * Missandei's death means that there is no longer a single non-white female member of the TV show's recurring cast. After Ellaria Sand was sentenced to death in Season 7, Missandei was also the only non-white member of the Starring cast. Grey Worm, however, was promoted to Starring cast for Season 8 - meaning he is now the only non-white recurring cast member out of the entire large cast of the TV series. The entire Dorne subplot from the novels has been abandoned, and only a single vague line was given about the current status of Dorne (see above). Multiple major review sites reacted to this negatively.
 * During the war map scene, the markers used for the Golden Company use a new heraldry design, a cluster of gold skulls hanging from a red spear on a black field. Preview images from next episode confirm that this same design is prominently displayed on their soldier's shields. It is apparently a reference to how the Golden Company has the skulls of its former captain-generals dipped in gold, and carried before them as their battle standard. In the books, however, their actual "banners" are said to be a solid gold field, with no devices on it.
 * 803 War Map Greyjoy Fleet.png the Inside the Episode featurette, David Benioff says that Daenerys simply "forgot" about Euron and his fleet, due to dealing with the threat of the White Walkers. He doesn't attempt to explain it by arguing that they knew Euron was on the prowl but didn't know exactly where, or by arguing that she simply didn't know that Euron's ships now had improved anti-dragon ballistae mounted on them.
 * This would mean she simply forgot that Euron at a single stroke knocked out her allies from Dorne and the Iron Islands last season.
 * Moreover, it wouldn't be just Daenerys, as a personal failure, forgetting about Euron, but all of her advisors, including Tyrion and Varys. For that matter, the Starks were present in the war council as well, but none of them brought it up either.
 * Most relevant is that this isn't even consistent within the episode itself: in the preceding scene at Winterfell, Daenerys and all her advisors go over a map of Westeros, and Varys points out in dialogue that the Golden Company have just arrived at King's Landing "courtesy of the Greyjoy fleet". This not only means she was reminded of Euron's existence, but that they were all specifically aware that Euron's fleet was within Blackwater Bay itself, which separates King's Landing from Dragonstone.
 * Varys also points out in the same scene that they have received news that Yara Greyjoy has retaken the Iron Islands - clearly bringing up the issue of who she had to retake them from.
 * This is indeed the second surprise attack on Daenerys's forces in the vicinity of Dragonstone island. Early in Season 7, he wiped out Yara's original fleet as they were leaving Dragonstone, and how he attacked her fleet as it was arriving.
 * Euron's fleet manages to accurately hit Rhaegal three times, despite being a moving target. Then when Daenerys tries to fly Drogon in a bombing run headed directly at them, which should make her easier to hit, the entire fleet nonetheless somehow misses her.
 * The first time in the show that a dragon is killed by a living person (Viserion was killed by a White Walker).
 * Euron is the second character who killed a dragon in the show (the first was the Night King), and the first living person who did that.
 * Dragon-scales are as tough as iron, and it shouldn't be possible to penetrate them with scorpions and ballistae. Historically, this has only worked when shooting a dragon through the eye, piercing its brain. On the other hand, in the Inside the Episode video, Benioff stresses that Qyburn has drastically improved his anti-dragon weapons in size and strength since last season.
 * In the books, Euron wants to bind Daenerys's dragons to his will, not kill them, so he can conquer all of Westeros, as he states in the kingmoot. After his crowning, he sends his brother Victarion to Meereen, to bring him Daenerys and the dragons; he gives Victarion "Dragonbinder", a horn that can allegedly control dragons. So far, it is unknown if the horn has such properties.
 * With the death of Rhaegal, it is unclear if this means that the race of dragons is doomed for extinction once again, as Drogon no longer has any potential mates with which to breed with. The process of reproduction for dragons is shrouded with mystery in the novels: Although it is established that dragons are born from eggs, the process itself by which dragons breed is unknown. Some, like Maester Aemon, believe that dragons have no fixed gender, but simply fluctuate between male and female. It is unknown if this means that dragons require pairs to breed, or are asexual and can breed individually. There is some slim chance that off-screen, Drogon turned into a female and mated with Rhaegal, to lay eggs later - but increasingly it appears that Drogon may be the last of its kind.
 * It is impossible that Cersei isn't visibly pregnant by this point, thus insinuating either that Cersei lied to Jamie about being pregnant with his child in order to manipulate him, or lost the child to a miscarriage. The timeline of events the show runners have presented is that Jaime impregnated Cersei before he left King's Landing to attack Highgarden. A generous estimate of travel times from book-Westeros would mean that Cersei has to be at least three or four months pregnant during the Season 8 premiere episode. Furthermore, when factoring in the additional time that Daenerys spent traveling down from Winterfell to Dragonstone, several weeks to a month, Cersei would have to be at least five to six months pregnant by this point, making it physically impossible for her not to be showing by this point. An example of this can be seen with Gilly, who, according to Sam, was impregnated while they were in Oldtown. This occurs relatively around the same time during which Cersei was supposedly impregnated as well. However, while Cersei has not visibly changed physically at all, Gilly was noted by fans to be visibly pregnant in the premiere episode.
 * When the Targaryen ships are destroyed, the survivors swim their way to the nearby shore of Dragonstone, including Grey Worm, Tyrion, and Varys. Back in Season 2's "The Night Lands", Varys gave his famous remark from the books that in the ruthless intrigues of the royal court, "Storms come and go, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling". In this episode, therefore, Varys literally kept "paddling" and survived.
 * Cersei mockingly refers to one of Daenerys's titles "Breaker of Chains", which she assumed after the sack of Astapor; Cersei thinks that if Daenerys conquers the city by force, thousands of innocent people will die, and this will cost her that title.
 * Tyrion saying the last 20 years of warfare, murder and misery were all because Robert loved a woman that didn't love him back is a vast oversimplification. While Rhaegar's "abduction" of Lyanna might have been a major factor in the outbreak of Robert's Rebellion it was really Aerys's brutal and unjust executions of Rickard and Brandon Stark, along with calling for the heads of Eddard and Robert that started the war.
 * Tyrion has been acting in a surprising foolish manner in respect of Cersei, ever since the finale of the previous season: as both Daenerys and Sansa noted, he actually believed her false promise to send armies to fight the army of the dead; in this episode, he attempts to reason with her - even after she already betrayed them. Moreover, appealing to her unborn child's safety is specifically what Tyrion thought won her over to join them in the fight against the White Walkers, so this clearly didn't work before.  Of all people, Tyrion should known better. He knows well how treacherous, untrustworthy and selfish Cersei is, how she acts and thinks, and that she lacks any common sense. What reason did he have to believe she has suddenly changed, pregnant or not?
 * It is very unlikely that Tyrion's book counterpart would act so foolishly. In the fifth novel, he declares that "Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love" - an extremely accurate description of Cersei.
 * A point Tyrion prominently brings up again is that "Cersei's only redeeming value is that she loves her children": this is an invention of the TV series and in total contrast to the books.  Book-Cersei is a malignant narcissist, and it only appears that she loves her children in the first novel, but as the story progresses it becomes clear that she only obsesses over them as essentially possessions, extensions of herself.  She did spoil Joffrey rotten, but falling in love with the idea of him as the perfect son, while enabling his psychopathy.  Meanwhile, she basically ignored her younger two children - ironically, playing favorites with her children just as her father Tywin did by ignoring her for Jaime.
 * Showrunners Benioff and Weiss have admitted in the DVD commentaries and interviews that they simply like that actress Lena Headey can perform "motherly", or that Peter Dinklage can perform "sympathy". There is no in-universe reason for their behavior, they just wanted to push the actors into big scenes to show off their range - as they openly admit.  This is not simply a difference between books and TV series:  even within the TV show, "Cersei" will randomly switch from psychotically violent to motherly concern, depending on how the writers want to show her off in a given episode ("We reconceived the role to show off the actor's talents").
 * Cersei's decision to kill Missandei actually does have some logic to it: most of Westeros outside of the capital has turned against her, and Daenerys's advisors are discussing plans to starve her out with an encirclement.  It is in Cersei's favor to goad Daenerys into an immediate attack, as time is not on Cersei's side.  Incidentally, this was what happened at both the Battle of the Bastards and the battle at Winterfell against the White Walkers:  the enemy killed friendly forces to goad the heroes into abandoning their strong position and rushing in to attack.
 * If Cersei really wanted to goad Daenerys into attacking, she could also have ordered her archers to kill her hated brother Tyrion while he was in range. Killing Daenerys's Hand of the Queen would knock out a major enemy advisor and do even more to goad her into attacking.  Cersei considers it, but stops apparently just at whim - and because the plot requires Tyrion to survive.

In the books
[This section will be updated with comparisons when the sixth and seventh novels are released.]

Memorable quotes
Daenerys Targaryen: "We have won the Great War. Now we will win the last war."

Daenerys: "We'll rip her out root and stem."

Bronn: "Kill a few hundred people, they make you a lord. Kill a few thousand, they make you king."

Missandei: "Dracarys."