Yes!
And the short preview for next week, looks like there are even more of at least the Unsullied, lined up in the courtyard. Did Dany, leave a reserve legion in Essos that she arranged to show up in King's Landing for the battle?
General thoughts. I'm surprised at the "how could Dany do this?" outrage. They did a pretty good job of hiding the likelihood of Dany going mad until this season, but in retrospect they had planted all the appropriate seeds. Take any of the cliches "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions," "the Villain is the Hero in their own story," "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." All of Dany's victories have come with large death tolls. She has always been ruthless to people she believes were against her. And her allies, who had talked her out of some of her other blood-thirsty decisions, had been stripped away one by one.
Arya, while I correctly thought she would abandon her quest for vengeance against Cersei, I guessed wrongly that it would be to help Sandor and not because he simply asked her to. Today, I am seeing her character as a bit of a mirror to Dany. Arya has been walking the path of vengeance since she started her list. She had convinced herself that her destiny lead to death. But as destruction rains down around her, she is reminded that you always have a choice, and she decides that she still is telling the God of Death, "Not Today." So as Dany turns down the path of vengeance, Arya steps off it. Now, she still is a capable killer, so does she have a role to play when it comes to Dany, maybe? But it will not be driven by vengeance, but necessity and in defense of Westeros.
Secondly in regards to Arya, there was a lot of talk after the previous episode about how pointless the Night King and White Walkers turned out to be, and how the TV writers seemed to abandon the what was more important that war, or the Iron Throne. I think the writer's took all of the "there are bigger battles than who sits on the throne" and put it into this battle and not the one with the White Walkers. Which I can see in today's climate being a legitimate choice. It's too easy to look at a mystical, army of the dead and thinking, there are no lessons to be learned. While humans conducting a reign of terror against perceived enemies...yeah, there are many parallels that can be made. Arya's run through the city shows the brutality of war. There are no winners, only losers. Tyrion and Jon having to realize that they hitched themselves behind the wrong horse, no matter how bad Cersei was. There is not the right side and the wrong side, there can be two wrong sides. Quote War Games: "Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Both Tyrion and Jon failed to recognize that and it cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives (how big is King's Landing anyway? I think of it similar to London).
Jaime and Cersei. I found the whole thing unsatisfying. I blame the needs of a TV show. I'm hoping the books do a better job of showing that Jaime wasn't really winning his path of redemption, but instead a person who weaves back and forth between doing the right thing and wrong thing based on his personal whims and needs. Yes, he's good when it comes to Tyrion and Brienne (I'm not including the TV romance part, just the knight part). Bad when it comes to Cersei. Jaime, the TV character needed to be popular, so he got more redemption arc that perhaps was wise, so it seems like he just threw it all away. Instead of being portrayed as a character that struggled up to the end, and had never broken his co-dependent chains. Cersei, I don't think got a just comeuppance. Hoping for more internal dialog in a book format. Dieing in Jaime's arms, still seems like a victory for her. Like if you're going to die, rather it be in the arms of the one you love. Although I do like the idea that she died anonymously. I can imagine the ruins of the Red Keep being too great to dig down to the bowels, and so her body is never found. And although the audience knows her final fate, as far as the people of Westeros are concerned, "Whatever happened to Cersei Lannister? Nobody knows."
Yes! My post on the prior page was getting way too long, but I also saw Arya's abandonment of her quest to off Cersei as a juxtaposition against Dany.
"Not today."
In the end, Arya realized her quest for life (she ended up trying to help people on the streets) was worthier than her quest for revenge - totally unlike Dany, who in her quest for revenge, ended up killing all the innocents in the street.
And, yes, Dany has always been ruthless! When she was married to Khal Drago, you could even see a little how some of the violence of the Dothraki ways turned her on a bit. And, when someone's not loyal to her, she's never been afraid of executing her revenge. Mormont sometimes had a hard time reigning her in (convincing her of other, better ways), & now the only person left to her is Tyrion really. And she's done listening to him.
She liked being the Breaker of Chains & having the Unsullied & Dothraki & former slaves love her & that helped to steady her. But, once she got across the sea, she no longer had that... you could see in her face when she realizes how alone she is the night of the Winterfell celebration when everyone is rallying around Jon. She tries to bring them around to her by toasting Arya & naming Gendry heir, but it doesn't work. She's alone & can no longer rule w/ love.
And, again, YES to the idea that it's not so much our mythical battles w/ unknown forces like the Night King but our battles w/ ourselves & what we do to each other that can end up being the most destructive & significant - "the things we do for love."
Like you said, sometimes there's no "right" side or "wrong side," & there can be 2 wrong sides. And, like Jon Snow & Ser Davos, you can start out thinking you're doing right & trying to do right - but end up in the middle of a mess & calling for retreat.
As Cersei said, "When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or die."
The only way to survive is not play.
But, in the end, I did find Jamie & Cersie & their end satisfying. When the 2 queens were facing each other - Dany & Cersei - across King's Landing, I realized that maybe Dany shouldn't have the satisfaction of taking her down outright. I think, in the end, her dying in Jamie's arms was a bit of victory over Dany, & I'm okay w/ that.
And, I also think that *maybe* Arya's revenge quest against Cersei was a bit unjustified. Cersei did NOT want Ned to die - she protested Joffrey's edict at the time & realized the implications of his death. And, everything that Cersei did to bring about Ned's eventual downfall was to preserve her own life & that of her children's. In season one, she asked Ned, "Do you love your children." When he said something like, "Of course," she replied, "So do I." So, I'm also okay w/ Arya letting Sandor convince her that she has more important things to do in life besides kill Cersei.
And Cersei still got her comeuppance. She died, not as a major player, but as a random unknown.
