They have two dragons and zero feths to give. Now that killing people doesn't make more fodder for the undead, go give Cersei a "warm" thank you for helping out in the North.
More seriously, maybe my prediction on Tyrion helping pull something over on Cersei? Or we're just going to watch him die with a crossbow bolt in the gut.
They'll spend the next episode recovering then building up and getting ready for kings landing, then the next episode will have Cersi die at the end to drag it out, and the last episode will be finishing up all of the storylines and maybe a little cameo here and there plugging whatever spinoff they have on deck for next year.
malfred wrote: Don't they still have to settle all the kingdom stuff now? Big bad is gone
Yeah, which does, in all fairness, tie back to something GRRM had been saying since the beginning: he's more interested in the details that the overarching magical stuff, like the actual policies and such. So spending equal time on who is actually running the kingdom as who is beating the apparent big bad is true to that vision.
A fun episode. But I agree with infinite_array’s sentiments above.
A few things that bothered me:
Spoiler:
In no particular order:
We got a big ass castle, lets fight in front of it!
Also, lets put the arty up front!
Then charge off into the night!
Then retreat into castle and need to be reminded as the undead start climbing to man the walls... I’ve played too many Total War games.
Thought the “Clegane is really kind of a coward” story arc was done. Maybe I’m misremembering. Dude would have given up on that rock in the middle of the frozen lake, if that were still the case?
Still don’t know what the Night Kings deal is. Though it was pretty cool when he seemed to be smiling at Khaleesi.
No action from the actual White Walkers, just walking into the flaming castle like they’re filming a heavy metal band concert.
I expected more deaths. Bad night for the Mormonts.
Worst episode of the worst season of GoT. 8 seasons and years for... that ? Nothing made sense, no answers, nothing... Thanks D and D for ruining a song of ice and fire
Pretty terrific battle. Good tension, great sense of stakes. Definitely a little empty in terms of narrative though, but hopefully that will play into the rest of the episodes to some degree. While I'm glad there's more to focus on, I'd be disappointed if there's nothing more to it than a big scary monster.
I do have one question though....what was Bran warging for so long? Can’t be the flock of Ravens, surely? And if so, just what was he having a peep at?
Production value of the episode was immense but it fell kinda short of my expectations. Gonna have to think on it for a week or so till the next episode, see if it sours even more.
Seems Gilly did survive, according to a list I found online. But, I swear I saw her dragged off? Was watching on my ipad on a coach though, so not the clearest screen or situation! Shall rewatch tonight. And I'm pretty sure it was Winterfell's former Maester that piled out the grave next to her?
I thought it was pretty good. Jorah has a decent ending. I liked how instead of any dialogue he attempts to say something but dies in the arms of the woman he loved. Theon is finally dead and that's a good thing. As much as I wasn't a fan of Arya as some warrior badass it at least had a decent payoff. Bran gives her the knife, she beats Brienne in the same way that she beats the Night King. The Night King seemed to be enjoying what he was doing, or was certain of his victory. The final look he gives Bran is almost like the dawning realisation that something isn't quite right about this.
I thought they might have tested Jon being a Targaryen with Dragonfire. I actually thought that's what Dany had done when she saves him.
The only thing I didn't like about it was Sam. I mean, how much more incentive to not be a coward does he need?
It seems that Dany wins the favour of the remaining Northerners in this trailer.
If you actively look at spoilers, or hover over spoiler threads then you're an idiot tbh. The thread title has a warning. The episode air date is known.
I have no idea how they managed to screw up the episode so much... the dumbest way to deal with the greatest threat ever in the history of Westeros.
The living could use at least one competent tactician. It’s as if the tried to kill as much warriors as possible.
A gazillion fake outs.
Dark as gak. (Helms deep battle was during the night, maybe take a few filming clues from there, show creators, huh?)
What’s Brans purpose now? Why warg into crows?
The best javelin thrower misses.
Deus ex machina every 10 minutes.
Confusing pacing at times (where are the characters, why are the thousands of dead, then bar none at the same spots?)
Hugging dudes with plot armor against the wall for 20 minutes.
The best we got- pretty visuals every now and then.
The moment the cavalry hit the undead, I thought I saw massive ice spiders for a moment- nope.
A dozen giants turn into one from “Attack on Titan”, who likes to eat for some reason.
That was legitimately a super weird decision. A lot of work had to have gone into building those siege engines, and they fired maybe 2 shots each, tops.
He's missed before. If I recall, he's 1 for 3 on javelin tosses... and the first 2, he was on steady ground.
SnotlingPimpWagon wrote: The moment the cavalry hit the undead, I thought I saw massive ice spiders for a moment- nope.
I just realized that there really will probably never be ice spiders as big as dogs, which I have been wanting ever since season one. Now I know how Cersei felt: she really wanted those elephants.
I thought this was mostly a great episode, but it felt a little anticlimactic the way it went down. I will hold my feelings until I see how the next 3 episodes shake out, though. They've done such a tremendous job with the show so far that I'm going to trust them that it works in the end.
Lots of great moments this episode - the arakhs just plain going out and then silence was superb.
The way the dothraki just rode off into the night to feed a millionbillion undead was abit dumb.
The quiet parts with arya didnt make much sense either. There's battles all over winterfell yet its quiet with idle undead bobbing around with their frozen thumbs up their arses.
Commodus Leitdorf wrote: Seriously I don't know what episode you guys are talking about. This was so good! I mean what the heck do you guys want?
"oh the Magic and stuff with the Night King is stupid, lets get to the politics!"
*Threat of night king ends*
"oh well that was it? Now their just going to stretch the plot for 3 more episodes. Some big bad THAT was..."
GAAAH, I hate fans!
Have you ever thought, that you’re “quoting” different people? If there is a threat (and a bigger one at that) other than other politics, it should be handled accordingly. Not destroyed in an instant, while the whole conflict was anticipated for many many years. But the Night King and all the “winter is coming” vanishes in a puff of smoke. Or was it ice? No clever way of defeating, no bargaining, no heroic sacrifice to kill the main strongest villain (Theon didn’t kill him, so...)
I’m interested what did you like in this episode? Seriously? The only good conclusion to a character so far has been the one of Jorah. Theon - second place. But other than that.. What is there to like? The nonsensical battle? The bizzarly stupid characters behavior (Bran just being bait, Jon putting all the defenseless right next to the dead) the million “I nearly died, but was saved in the last moment?” Or is it The “can’t see a thing part?”
I personally liked that little leader girl (never remember her name) fight with the giant. I think she had the biggest balls in the whole castle. Bigger than clegane's at least.
I liked basically everything. There was no part of the episode that I was not entertained. The Characters not having "Good Character conclusions" is not really an argument. It's GRRM has said repeatedly "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." Having all the characters die to an undead horde doesn't really achieve that. Having the characters die to some petty political ambitions or or resolving issue of "their heart in conflict with themselves." is more enjoyable.
Just because people survived this doesn't mean all that much when you look at the setup for everyone leading up to/During this. How poetic is it that is the petty human squabbles that will end people and not the Lord of the Dead.
Worst episode of the worst season of GoT. 8 seasons and years for... that ? Nothing made sense, no answers, nothing... Thanks D and D for ruining a song of ice and fire
I don't think it 'ruined' anything, just because I don't think this is GRRM's ending to ASOIAF. Hard to imagine him laying all those bricks just to conclude the Others storyline like that. Prince that was Promised? Azor Ahai? Nah.
Spoiler:
Let's ignore it all for a kewlish knife drop move.
The showrunners did, in the end, just keep embracing spectacle, a fast pace, and conventionality over characters and conversations. We're talking about a writing team whose resolution to the Sparrows storyline was straight Michael Bay. That isn't really a bad thing, it's just different. I think I'd be okay it if the entire series had an action-spectacle take on the source material. Instead, it feels like a different show from those early seasons. iBut c'est la vie. I think GoT at this point is what HBO needs it to be...big onscreen, braincandy, crowdpleasing, and almost over.
The honest answer is that it doesn't matter because he's dead. In the books, he's probably a Stark, although he's just a character mentioned in an old story. We're told in the show that he's one of the First Men, so no, he's probably not a Targaryen...his dragon riding is likely just a result of him controlling it like any other wight. It's interesting to note that the design on his armor isn't unlike a raven's head, which points to a connection with Bran. That's been the subject of a lot of speculation.
But none of that really matters. He's dead, and there are no more answers or story to be told there about the WWs' reasons or motivations. On to King's Landing.
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Commodus Leitdorf wrote: Seriously I don't know what episode you guys are talking about. This was so good! I mean what the heck do you guys want?
Maybe a boiled-down answer is that the books and earlier seasons of the show rewarded you for paying attention. What the show has become is something that asks you to turn your brain off and watch the fireworks. That isn't bad...it's just very different.
Oh, another thing. I had a real good laugh at Jon's slow motion, "hey just in case you forgot here are the main characters that are totally at risk of being killed off for realsies this time" run through Winterfell.
I don't think it 'ruined' anything, just because I don't think this is GRRM's ending to ASOIAF. Hard to imagine him laying all those bricks just to conclude the Others storyline like that. Prince that was Promised? Azor Ahai? Nah. Let's ignore it all for a kewlish knife drop move.
The showrunners did, in the end, just keep embracing spectacle, a fast pace, and conventionality over characters and conversations. We're talking about a writing team whose resolution to the Sparrows storyline was straight Michael Bay. That isn't really a bad thing, it's just different. I think I'd be okay it if the entire series had an action-spectacle take on the source material. Instead, it feels like a different show from those early seasons. iBut c'est la vie. I think GoT at this point is what HBO needs it to be...big onscreen, braincandy, crowdpleasing, and almost over.
Basically this. You have to, and I repeat have to tell a story in the medium in which is being presented. GoT is a TV show, so it's going to do a bunch of TV show things in order to advance the plot. TV has restrictions that books do not and you have to account for that when both making a show and critiquing it.
Yeah this is a big spectacle episode, something that has never been done on television. I mean jeez how they managed all the chaos and horror is insane. I was genuinely terrified this whole episode and I'm not someone who likes horror or being scarred in general. That was an accomplishment in and of itself.
I mean I get the whole prophecy stuff too, but also remember that the vast majority of the prophecy stuff was never mentioned in the show beyond "the Prince that was promised/Azor Ahai". Nothing was mentioned about the Lightbringer prophecy specifically beyond the fact it was Azor Ahais sword, and you can interpret that a bunch of different ways too. You have to work with what was in the show and looking back on stuff, deciding to take this route to makes sense.
Commodus Leitdorf wrote: Seriously I don't know what episode you guys are talking about. This was so good! I mean what the heck do you guys want?
Maybe a boiled-down answer is that the books and earlier seasons of the show rewarded you for paying attention. What the show has become is something that asks you to turn your brain off and watch the fireworks. That isn't bad...it's just very different.
That's the thing about prophecy though. You can interpret it any number of ways and I think thats the point. Is prophecy actually a thing? Or is it all just people reading into it all after the fact.
Spoiler:
Lets say for instance Jon is Azor Ahai and Azor Ahai forged Lightbringer. Jon was the one who gave Aria her sword Needle, he's the one who starts the process of "forging his weapon". Ned sees Aria practicing with the sword, he gets her a sword master Syrio who teaches her to Water dance (First tempered in water)
Then Aria wanted to go home, but she couldn't go home. As far as she was concerned Aria Stark was dead and she could never go back. All because the Lion of Lannister executed her father and had her family slaughtered at the red wedding. Aria was tempered by the heart of a Lion.
Lastly Aria had returned home with the intention of going to King's Landing and killing Cersei, until she learns Jon is King in the North. The one person growing up who understood Aria, so she drops everything to go home and help her family and her brother hold his crown. Thus making her Lightbringer.
I mean it all can be interpreted that way too. Is it wrong? Is it right? Who knows. Many times prophecy stuff can be interpreted after the fact too, which in may ways always makes it self-fulfilling.
The medium argument doesn’t work, imho. Shows are now often better in terms of story but, than what’s on the big screen, but lack in “grand spectacle”.
Not Game of Thrones anymore.
How is this a satisfying conclusion to “THE WINTER”?
The happenings of the show in the last couple of seasons is not the fault of the medium, but of screenwriters and directors.
When it comes to money- it was spent on the spectacle, that was dumb. I don’t mean:”it’s not witty diologue, but a battle, so it’s for more stupid people”. I mean, that even in terms of the battle, it was horrendous. In terms of Nights King resolution. In terms of pacing. How can drama be felt, when characters are saved every 5 minutes, same ones? Don’t put them in those situations then. It’s not the numbers game: more dead characters = better episode. Its how it’s executed.
In terms of drama it worked only with Jorah.
How can one enjoy the show, when you keep asking yourself: “WTF?” And then “ Is that it? “ in the end?
It’s not just this episode, we could see it coming from people, who brought us such flops as “Dorn” , “Death of Littlefinger”, “Boring Tyrion” and “Euron”.
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Commodus Leitdorf wrote: I liked basically everything. There was no part of the episode that I was not entertained. The Characters not having "Good Character conclusions" is not really an argument. It's GRRM has said repeatedly "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." Having all the characters die to an undead horde doesn't really achieve that. Having the characters die to some petty political ambitions or or resolving issue of "their heart in conflict with themselves." is more enjoyable.
Just because people survived this doesn't mean all that much when you look at the setup for everyone leading up to/During this. How poetic is it that is the petty human squabbles that will end people and not the Lord of the Dead.
You’re contradicting yourself. If you pull the GRRm quote, you should also understand, that there was no “conflict of heart with itself”. It was good vs bad, killing bad with a knife. Good character conclusions is what one would expect in the final season of the beloved show, don’t you think? Those conclusions are usually done with “conflict of heart with itself”
Yeah, the problem with the medium argument is that it *was* a different show. I won't discount that they were handed a helluva knot (the situation at the end of ADoD) and given a crazy short timeframe to untangle it. Give them another season, and I suspect that things would have felt fuller and potentially more rewarding. But ultimately I also don't think they had it in them to pick up GRRM's torch and really run with it.
Alas, I suspect GRRM will never give us his ending, although I'm finally optimistic that TWoW will be here soon.
I actually think these showrunners will do some popular work on the SW franchise. They'll keep things light and action-packed, with lots of spectacle and crowdpleasing moments, and stay in their lane.
Bran's Warging. Could it be he was sending out Ravens, with pre-written 'Danaerys stood with The North, Cersei betrayed us all' messages?
I mean, he seemingly knew the outcome all along. So why not plan ahead?
Lots of things are possible.
One of them is just that he was simply warging to pass the time and there's no payoff or anything else to it. That would be completely consistent with the writing of the last couple seasons.
SnotlingPimpWagon wrote: The medium argument doesn’t work, imho. Shows are now often better in terms of story but, than what’s on the big screen, but lack in “grand spectacle”.
I respectfully disagree. The medium is fundamental in how you tell a story. You cannot see peoples inner monologues in a TV show unless it's House of Cards and you turn and talk to the camera. There is limited amount of run time, you cannot have too many characters as people will lose track and there is a budget to what can be shown. Books simply do not have that constraint. They can depict anything and all it costs is ink and paper, both of which are cheap.
It's the reason why every version of "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" is different. Whether it's the books, the movie or the Radio play. You have to alter it to fit the medium otherwise it does not work.
And as I stated earlier, and GRRM has stated repeatedly "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." So yeah, people being saved last minute might seem cheesey but whats the point of having all these characters if they are just going to be zerg rushed by the dead?
Having Sam die because he is angry Daenerys killed his brother and does something stupid is more entertaining.
Having Tyrion die because he desperately does not want to be the doom of his family so much so that he keeps a blind spot up in regards to Cersei is more interesting
Having Sansa take the north away from Jon as "He's actually a Targaryen and not family" is much more interesting
I can honestly say that I did not see that ending coming. In fact, I thought for sure that the dead were going to win, right up until Arya ambushed the Knight King.
I'm surprised more characters didn't die, but there's still plenty of time for them to meet their ends.
Also, what's the consensus on the crypts? At first I thought they were dead Starks being raised by the Night King, but then I read that they were wights that burrowed into the crypts like they did in the cave of the three-eyed raven.
gorgon wrote: Yeah, the problem with the medium argument is that it *was* a different show. I won't discount that they were handed a helluva knot (the situation at the end of ADoD) and given a crazy short timeframe to untangle it. Give them another season, and I suspect that things would have felt fuller and potentially more rewarding. But ultimately I also don't think they had it in them to pick up GRRM's torch and really run with it.
Alas, I suspect GRRM will never give us his ending, although I'm finally optimistic that TWoW will be here soon.
The only thing different about Game of Thrones is that the show hid who the main characters were, that's about it. I agree that the show needed one more season. Or at the very least these last 2 season to be a full 10 episodes but, once again, the medium it is being told in. They have a limited budget and all the major actors/actresses are now stars. This season is the last one they are contractually obligated to do. If they had to stretch it one more season all of them would want more money and then the definitely couldn't afford a full season.
as for The Winds of Winter I honestly think its done. He just does not want to publish it until the show is over so he can remove the criticism of the show not matching the books (which they won't, lets be honest there are far more things going on book wise that the show doesn't get into). Secondly it keeps the Game of Thrones franchised going between the end of the show and the next one.
SnotlingPimpWagon wrote: The medium argument doesn’t work, imho. Shows are now often better in terms of story but, than what’s on the big screen, but lack in “grand spectacle”.
I respectfully disagree. The medium is fundamental in how you tell a story. You cannot see peoples inner monologues in a TV show unless it's House of Cards and you turn and talk to the camera. There is limited amount of run time, you cannot have too many characters as people will lose track and there is a budget to what can be shown. Books simply do not have that constraint. They can depict anything and all it costs is ink and paper, both of which are cheap.
It's the reason why every version of "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" is different. Whether it's the books, the movie or the Radio play. You have to alter it to fit the medium otherwise it does not work.
And as I stated earlier, and GRRM has stated repeatedly "The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." So yeah, people being saved last minute might seem cheesey but whats the point of having all these characters if they are just going to be zerg rushed by the dead?
Having Sam die because he is angry Daenerys killed his brother and does something stupid is more entertaining.
Having Tyrion die because he desperately does not want to be the doom of his family so much so that he keeps a blind spot up in regards to Cersei is more interesting
Having Sansa take the north away from Jon as "He's actually a Targaryen and not family" is much more interesting
and the list goes on and on.
And the “medium” influences stupid decisions of DND how?
We can’t show thousands of people, because budget- nope, not that.
We can’t have a satisfying conclusion to the NK, because a whole season is not enough? Nope
We had 2 episodes of people just chinwaggling before THE battle, to set it off, now it turned out to be just useless BSing among friends. YES!
It might be more interesting, if the north falls, and the scattered remains try to survive between 2 enemies.
It might be more interesting, if we found out the motivation of the NK.
It might be more interesting, if a NK makes a deal with the living or if he is overcome in a smart way.
It also might be more interesting, if Bran doesn’t just act as bait.
The show has less restrictions, than a movie, now that the budget is out of the way. It has more time, and that is its greatest advantage, which is now lost. 2 episodes were spent on useless dull dialogues (not that diologues are dull, diologues in GoT are now very “meh”), now that everyone survives. Episode 1:”Hello”, episode 2:”goodbye”, episode 3:”fight like idiots, oh it’s okay in the end”.
Too bad Ned was beheaded, would have been fun to see a zombie Sean Bean in the crypts. He dies in everything, but would it be the first time he died twice?
gorgon wrote: Yeah, the problem with the medium argument is that it *was* a different show. I won't discount that they were handed a helluva knot (the situation at the end of ADoD) and given a crazy short timeframe to untangle it. Give them another season, and I suspect that things would have felt fuller and potentially more rewarding. But ultimately I also don't think they had it in them to pick up GRRM's torch and really run with it.
Alas, I suspect GRRM will never give us his ending, although I'm finally optimistic that TWoW will be here soon.
The only thing different about Game of Thrones is that the show hid who the main characters were, that's about it. I agree that the show needed one more season. Or at the very least these last 2 season to be a full 10 episodes but, once again, the medium it is being told in. They have a limited budget and all the major actors/actresses are now stars. This season is the last one they are contractually obligated to do. If they had to stretch it one more season all of them would want more money and then the definitely couldn't afford a full season.
Go watch an episode from season 1, and then watch one from, say, season 7. It's like a different show. The characters, conversations, pacing, etc. were much better when they had GRRM's material to work with. And when they did, these showrunners did a helluva job. Truly. I just don't think they had it in them to pick up another author's story and complete it in a satisfying, consistent way. Their deadline was a huge constraint, no doubt. All this I'm talking about is really hard...I truly do acknowledge that.
But I also don't feel like they stuck every landing within the context of their stripped-down, big spectacle version of the story. There are plenty of people saying today that the ending wasn't satisfying somehow, and that's not a comment necessarily borne of missing prophecies and such.
And the “medium” influences stupid decisions of DND how?
We can’t show thousands of people, because budget- nope, not that.
We can’t have a satisfying conclusion to the NK, because a whole season is not enough? Nope
We had 2 episodes of people just chinwaggling before THE battle, to set it off, now it turned out to be just useless BSing among friends. YES!
I really don't know what the stupid decisions were so you'll have to tell me more specifics.
You cannot show thousands of people because of budget, especially in a TV show. The one time you do see hordes of people is just before the fight and all that is is the director mapping out the field and telling the extras to go stand in formation in various places, filming it and CGIs them to look like a whole army.
The show is not the books. The Others in the books have a culture, they can be heard talking and laughing and they probably have very good reasons for everything they are doing that go back 10,000 years to a peace treaty that humans in Westeros and the North do not remember. I have no doubt that the books will get to that when they do. The show made it very clear what the night kings motivation was. He was created by the Children of the forest to help them fight back against the First Men who had come to Westeros over the Arm of Dorne. Unfortunately they lost control of him and instead of just killing the First Men he went all Ultron and decided to wipe out all life. He has a special hatred for his creators, the children, and want to Wipe not only them out but the connection between the old gods and the First Men, which would be the Three Eyed Raven. This has all been pretty straight forward since season 6 when Bran has the vision.
None of the conversation between people before the battle was wasted. It's all important and the idea that the episodes were wasted does not match what was shown on screen.
The North will not bow to a southern king or Queen
A Marriage between Jon and Dany fixes quite a few problems but will that happen now that Jon knows they are related? Remember what Varys said, "Nothing Lasts"
Tyrion keeps screwing up because he does not want to be the end of his family
and most importantly of all...Sandor survived. So Clegane Bowl is a go
To be honest for a second when the Night's King graves Arya by the neck I tought we has gonna kill her, like a "LOL you think this was the deus ex? nope!"
But of course that would be something of a GRRM move to do, not this screenrunners.
I enjoyed the episode but is a lot like Endgame. The things it does right, are more relevant for me than the things it does wrong, and for that, I enjoyed it greately. But theres a ton of stupid or outright bad moves that could have been avoided.
But kudos for having the first medieval undead battle in all of his glory. This will be tremendous for my World of Warcraft roleplaying server. "Do you want to know how it fells to be in the frontline agaisnt a undead horde? Watch this"
I think they absolutely nailed Undead fighting a siege. Whilst a good deal fast outside of Danse Macabre, it’s exactly as I’ve always envisaged such a battle in my minds eye.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I think they absolutely nailed Undead fighting a siege. Whilst a good deal fast outside of Danse Macabre, it’s exactly as I’ve always envisaged such a battle in my minds eye.
Oh yeah. Undead seiging is either a wave of fast zombies that don't give the defenders time to rest, or mindless automotons that can keep a seige going forever because they don't have to worry about disease or supplies.
Oh, also. The scenes with Arya, Clegane, Beric kind of threw me off, because they're so quiet. With what's happening outside I can't imagine there's anywhere in the castle that you can't hear the sounds of fighting.
Also, kind of a lame end for Melisandre. So R'hllor just needed her to pop up at Winterfell to remind Arya that she's really good at stabbing things? Because the whole Dothraki flame sword thing didn't pan out.
But kudos for having the first medieval undead battle in all of his glory.
But kudos for having the first medieval undead battle in all of his glory. This will be tremendous for my World of Warcraft roleplaying server. "Do you want to know how it fells to be in the frontline agaisnt a undead horde? Watch this"
The showrunners did, in the end, just keep embracing spectacle, a fast pace, and conventionality over characters and conversations. We're talking about a writing team whose resolution to the Sparrows storyline was straight Michael Bay. That isn't really a bad thing, it's just different. I think I'd be okay it if the entire series had an action-spectacle take on the source material. Instead, it feels like a different show from those early seasons. iBut c'est la vie. I think GoT at this point is what HBO needs it to be...big onscreen, braincandy, crowdpleasing, and almost over.
Nah nah nah, you're not appreciating the sheer genius of the TV show guys here, see, it's not conventional at all because the people doing the heroic winning bits have lady-parts.
What we have here is another Rose Tycho situation - uncultured plebs might see the actions of all the characters that are superficially similar and conclude that they are, in fact, similar, but proper thinking people know that ACKSHOOLEE male characters engaging in heroic tropes are badwrong and dumb and failures, but female characters doing it are goodright and pure and awesome forever and ever.
At least that's how I'm supposed to see the episode according to a couple of reviews I read. Honestly at this stage I'm hoping Dany heel turns just to enjoy the implosion of the smug Yas Khaleesi crowd.
I quite enjoyed it, but I think I'll have to reserve final judgement on it until I watch again with the brightness turned up, and in the context of the whole final season. I will say...
Spoiler:
...there were actually disappointingly few deaths of named characters, given the overall scale of the carnage. And I feel odd that's my takeaway, since I went in to the episode hoping not to see certain characters die, but at the same time we got those two episodes of really nice buildup and resolution...and then all we lose are Ser Friendzone and a couple of the B team? The only one that really had any impact for me was Lianna, and that was mostly because it was bloody difficult to watch(and hear) someone getting slowly squished by a giant's grip.
On one hand, you have *years* of buildup to this battle, during which the WW and NK seem the unstoppable force of nature everyone feared them to be. So much death and carnage. And while there was some silliness in the battle, I think it was plenty tense.
Yet weirdly
Spoiler:
(and it does genuinely feel weird to say it) the episode ending up strangely...light? The good guys certainly need a lot more redshirts, but the bridge crew is basically fine. And the big boss just needed to have someone walk up to him with a knife.
I felt a little like I was supposed to shrug and say "okay then."
Yeah I think they did it wrong when they killed off nearly all of the NPC guys and you only had the protagonists surviving in a "OMG WE ARE GONNA DIE" situation for 30 minutes, specially Brienne, Jaime, etc... I don't oppose to plot armour but that was so obvious it was painfull to watch.
I expected a much higher number of deaths. As others have said, not because more deaths=better but because the build up was of a massaccre.
And yeah the ending wasn't anything more than dissapointing. I'm not one of those " If the end is bad, everything else doesn't matter", I enjoy the ride. But still. It doesn't feel right.
I think the most frustrating thing is that we probably won't get answers for the symbols that the White Walkers/First Men created or to visit their home where they took that child.
Like nailing the Umber boy to the wall was just an edgy spooky moment. Nothing personnel kid.
Arya shanks Cersei and Euron. Dany slips on stairs and breaks her neck. Jon goes in exile. Sam never dies. Just never dies. Gendry "shanks" Arya a few more times.
They tell Cersei to step down and she throws her hands up and says 'okay fine'?
In all seriousness, you *would think* that they'll have some resolution to the valonqar prophecy (i.e. Cersei dying to whomever the 'little brother' is supposed to be). But all that prophecy stuff is probably out since the showrunners apparently think no one really pays attention to it anyway. I figure Arya has at least a coin flip's chance of being the one who gets her.
Gael Knight wrote: I think the most frustrating thing is that we probably won't get answers for the symbols that the White Walkers/First Men created or to visit their home where they took that child.
Like nailing the Umber boy to the wall was just an edgy spooky moment. Nothing personnel kid.
The symbol is the same as the one the Children of the forest have drawn all about Westeros. The Night King keeps recreating it to mock them as he has a special hatred against the children for having created him. Honestly, I don't know what else people were expecting from it. Given they keep making the symbols out of bodies I assume they just do it to intimidate people. I doubt it's any more complicated then that.
who puts all the artillery in front of the castle walls and then has the cavalry ride out unsupported? Then puts the flaming stockade BEHIND their lines? its like they built the battle lines backwards.
Should have just hired a faceless man and given him a dragon glass arrow....done and done.
Must have been the same guy that forgot about flying eagles just whisking the ring to the volcano.
I wish shanking the King didn’t make the other Walkers explode. Like have him die and most/all the undead die, but then leave some more fight left with the other Walkers. Maybe have one escape back to the north so it’s not like the threat is done and gone forever.
This episode was an improvement on the previous two but I'm bloody disappointed Rohan didn't appear on the ridge and save the day.
Episode was disappointing purely because of their choice to overlay a damn snow storm on the whole thing, night scenes are difficult enough to watch without having to squint.
If you are going to spend that much money on a "biggest fight ever" - it would be nice to be able to see what the feth was happening,
Shockingly awful battle plans throughout but then thats Jon Snow (who has never wn a battle) and Dany (who is not really a general)
Oh look I have cavalry with flaming swords - ok then just charge off on your own then and give the dead more troops Lets put the artilley outside the walls
It is truly sad they could not have gotten a bunch of warhammer player to fix their deployment
Or more likely the the Winterfell set could not fit the Trebuchets in the court yard as it's a small set and...well, they had all these trebuchets lying around and want to use them.
Some bits were strange, but were far outweighed by really enjoying it.
If you can't tell, I'm trying to pad out my post so people don't get spoiled if they hover over this thread.
Aaaaand that should do it.
SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:They Snoked the Nights KIng and Luked Melissandra.
Not unless you're looking at it superficially.
Snoke is a villain in a world which has been fleshed out in terms of it's villains. For a person to come in and suddenly have lots of power and seeming importance (ie, Snoke) is unusual. In GoT, we've never seen anything to suggest that the Night King was anything more than the locus of power for a natural force of winter.
He didn't need motivation, because we already know it. He wants to wipe out everything living.
He didn't need to speak, or be bargained with. He's a force of nature, not a character. You're better off treating him like something like Big Brother, or Moby Dick. Not a character, but an obstacle. Yes, it's strange that Arya's the one to kill him, and not someone with more personal stake in killing him (Jon, Tormund, Ed, Sam, etc etc), but hey, that's the subversion I suppose.
Plus, seeing all the small nuances of Arya's training come together in that one scene/moment/episode is a good payoff for her arc.
Gael Knight wrote: So you just made that up? Great. Sounds awful. Hope they don't revisit it if that's the true explanation.
In hindsight I thought it was a bit much when Melisandre turned and winked at the camera when she said the line about "blue eyes" tbh.
Not made up at all. The pictures and symbols are all around the show. Jon even pointed them out in the Dragonglass cave last season.
Spoiler:
You said it was the Night King mocking the symbols. I want to know what the significance of the symbols are in the first place.
And how will that affect anything?
Night King is a destructive force of nature. He has a connection to arcane symbols. Honestly, the closest you will get is "they have something to do with the magic that created him". If that is the explanation, why is that bad?
Mr Morden wrote:If you are going to spend that much money on a "biggest fight ever" - it would be nice to be able to see what the feth was happening,
I see a lot of people complaining about this - I didn't find it that hard to watch, and I'm watching on a laptop at half brightness. The only bit I struggled with was the dragon fight, which was just very fast moving, and didn't have much in the way of making the dragons distinct enough. I can barely tell them apart at the best of times, so trying to pick out who was who was difficult.
Shockingly awful battle plans throughout but then thats Jon Snow (who has never wn a battle) and Dany (who is not really a general)
There were some moments of "this is a good idea, or at the very least, basic" - the spiked ramparts and barricades, but the siege weapons, the initial charge of the Dothraki, and certain characters just simply not taking advantage of the Unsullied shieldwalls was irritating. However, minor complaint. It didn't ruin it for me.
So did Ghost die? At least
Spoiler:
both Dragons are still ok
I thought Ghost had died, but no, you can see him in the trailer for the next episode. He's in a shot of the massed army outside/nearby Winterfell.
When people are talking about problems with deployment they are assuming that this is one large fully fledged cohesive army loyal to a single general. This isn't the case. The Dothraki are stubborn, arrogant and fight on open plains... they don't do siege warfare (which this isn't anyway considering they are against zombies, giants and undead dragons)
As for speculation..... What if the Spirals (There are 7 legs) are representative of the 7 Kingdoms and the nature of time? Cersi is killed, Dany goes all mad king to claim the throne and something happens which means John becomes the Night King (Would explain the whole ICE and FIRE thing and how the NK is immune to flame) and Bran rebuilds the wall.
It's another weird self-fulling paradoxical prophecy similar to the Hodor storyline. It is told that 'Bran the builder' built the wall in the past. That past Bran is actually the Bran we have been following, we are watching the past being created, that is being told in the present. Everything is a spiral. We are doomed to repeat the past... not EXACTLY the same as before, but as we know, the past doesn't necessarily repeat but it sure does ryhme... just like a song... OF ICE AND FIRE
When people are talking about problems with deployment they are assuming that this is one large fully fledged cohesive army loyal to a single general. This isn't the case. The Dothraki are stubborn, arrogant and fight on open plains... they don't do siege warfare (which this isn't anyway considering they are against zombies, giants and undead dragons)
As for speculation..... What if the Spirals (There are 7 legs) are representative of the 7 Kingdoms and the nature of time? Cersi is killed, Dany goes all mad king to claim the throne and something happens which means John becomes the Night King (Would explain the whole ICE and FIRE thing and how the NK is immune to flame) and Bran rebuilds the wall.
It's another weird self-fulling paradoxical prophecy similar to the Hodor storyline. It is told that 'Bran the builder' built the wall in the past. That past Bran is actually the Bran we have been following, we are watching the past being created, that is being told in the present. Everything is a spiral. We are doomed to repeat the past... not EXACTLY the same as before, but as we know, the past doesn't necessarily repeat but it sure does ryhme... just like a song... OF ICE AND FIRE
The spokes of the wheel. The wheel that Dany pledged to smash.
Me, I kind of like the lack of explanation. The Night King is impossibly old. The symbol has lost all meaning in the lands of men since, but he keeps on doing it, because that's what he's always done.
The Night King might not be “immune” to dragon fire. The after episode interview seemed to imply he could only be killed next to the tree as that was where he was created.
Nobody has fought an undead army that size for thousands of years. They Dothraki and Unsullied fought like they were facing a very big army of human fighters. What they actually faced was an avalanche of rotten meat and bone and steel.
The defences could have been better planned though...
The first few Unsullied lines were hardly beaten, they were engulfed. Incredible moment.
The complaint about the end of the NK with him not being beaten in a straight duel echoes Philp Toynbee's infamous review of LotR - that Sauron should have faced Aragorn at the end. It misses the point that the big bads were both forces of nature rather than actual characters
In fairness, Sauron was personified as the Red Eye, and was defeated, according to WH Auden, by his one weakness - his failure to understand that the free peoples wanted to defeat his rule, not replace it. The NK was more blank in comparison
Thought on first viewing the episode was meh, but I loved it second time with the brightness turned up.
Was that poor Alys Karstark heading to the Godswood with Theon at the beginning? Three northern houses snuffed out in three episodes?
AduroT wrote: The Night King might not be “immune” to dragon fire. The after episode interview seemed to imply he could only be killed next to the tree as that was where he was created.
Well it ties into the theory that the Castle of Winterfell was built there specifically because that is where Winter fell after the first Long Night.
Another moment was the - we are fighting an enemy that raises the dead - lets put all the non combatants in the crypt.....
I don't mind confusing battles - thats war - although steady cam is always crap - but making the battle at night, using unsteady cam and then having whiteouts just make it looks like a cop out to avoid too much difficult cgi.
The problems were really there just to provide specatcle rather than make any sense (perhaps they had been tlaking to Rian Johnson or Christopher Nolan)
Also did the vaunted dragonglass weapons do anything?
The doomed charge of the Dothraki is just there to provide a cool bit in the opening sequence, absolutely nothing else. Well also to keep weakening Dan'y army. If you they are useless in a siege( apart from recon and harressment - neither of which they do) - the don'tt bring them north - keep them south to keep an eye of whats happening and to cover any retreat.
The Mellisande plot line was good - partly due to it making sense and also since she gave some light on the near pitch black screen.
So just watching the actual show and not after show interviews etc (*) - Whats the point of Bran? Just why is the NK so obessed with him that he and his mates are happy to stand around doing nothing until Aryra leaps (from somewhere) and knifes him.
(*) If you have to explain stuff like this you are as incompetant as Rian Johnson at telling the actual story.
I am wondering if the next episode is mainly focussed on what the South/Cersei is doing with its new army.
I thought they resolved the Night King arc too early. They should have dealt with Cersei first and then dealt with the Night King. Now they have no soldiers left to fight the Golden Company, and I don't see how they could manage without some serious bs on the writers' part. King's Landing should have been humanity's last stand, not Winterfell.
The Night King sequence was good, I like him as a villain. He doesn't say a word and there's still an air of menace about him.
The defense of winterfell was atrocious. They did everything wrong, and they are supposed to be experienced soldiers.
Spoiler:
-Why would you hide your civilians in an area where the enemy could raise the dead? Jon knows what the Night King could do, he should have said something, or pushed for them to remove the corpses.
-Why would you send out a huge chunk of your army into no-man's land at night to fight a numerically superior enemy? Especially when you can't see anything.
- Why would you not have multiple lines of defense? They only had one barricade, which was easily bypassed.
- Why would you place nearly all of your soldiers outside of the castle walls with no barrier in front of them, where they could get swamped?
- Why didn't Dany systematically burn each rank of zombies, starting at the one's closest to the burning barrier? She basically allowed them to snuff out the flame.
No wonder the Night King nearly won. Its like seeing a chess master play against a toddler. The Night King did pretty much everything right, and was stopped only by Deus Ex Arya.
Is the night king even permanently dead? If the only way to beat the army of the dead is to kill the night king, and the undead was fought before by the First Men and the Children of the Forest, which led to the creation of the Night's Watch, then wouldn't that imply that there are multiple Night Kings which somehow appear if certain conditions are met?
Spoiler:
Why did all of the White Walkers also die when the Night King got killed? Aren't they different from the undead?
I thought that the reason why the Night King could survive dragon fire was because he can generate so much cold it snuffs it out before it could reach it. He does appear to be able to control the weather.
To be fair, The North mostly doesn't have experienced soldiers. It's all green boys and old men after their real fighting age men were massacred at the red wedding.
Lance845 wrote: To be fair, The North mostly doesn't have experienced soldiers. It's all green boys and old men after their real fighting age men were massacred at the red wedding.
Danny on the other hand has real soldiers.
Yeah, but the generals should know something about defense. Jaime, Ser Jorah, Grey Worm, Tyrion and Jon all know something about tactics and have been in battle. The fact that their rank and file didn't break and run upon seeing the undead was quite impressive, but if they did it wouldn't have been that much of a battle.
Lance845 wrote: To be fair, The North mostly doesn't have experienced soldiers. It's all green boys and old men after their real fighting age men were massacred at the red wedding.
Danny on the other hand has real soldiers.
Kings Landing is also largely out of fighting men.
Between Cersei attacking/slaughtering the other noble houses, and Dany's little Barbecue last season, House Lannister is hurting for men. Hence The Golden Company.
Kind of wish they'd done more about The Golden Company, or at least explained their in-the-books rep for never breaking a contract?
I think it would have been more satisfying if S8:3 had been the traditional, "Gak just got real" episode 9 of Season 7 with the obligatory episode 10 tidy up.
That would have left an entire season for Cersei / Euron / Gold Company shenanigans. Tidying that up in 3 episodes is going to be disappointing.
Still, the show over took the source material and the writers are now relying on George's cliff notes, so we are where we are. It's not going to the satisfying ending we hoped for, but I'm sure it will be an entertaining spectacle,
Hollow wrote: Yeah.... some people would literally never be happy no matter what was done. Probably the reason why George isn't going to finish the series.
Alterntaively some people will accept anything.......the battle was a few pretty pictures amongst a mass of blurred grey shapes hitting each other then in a snowstorm.
or he has no idea how to - see the last two books of awful turgid nonsense.
I have really enjoyed the series as being superior to the books (esp the later ones) in many respects but this was a real low point.
Luckily the end of Into the Badlands sees to be doing it properly.
Now they have no soldiers left to fight the Golden Company, and I don't see how they could manage without some serious bs on the writers' part.
Two dragons (and maybe a fleeting glimpse of a dire wolf) say that Cersie needs some serious BS to win.....or suddenly vast numbers of super accurate balistae (which is possible).
AduroT wrote: The Night King might not be “immune” to dragon fire. The after episode interview seemed to imply he could only be killed next to the tree as that was where he was created.
Well it ties into the theory that the Castle of Winterfell was built there specifically because that is where Winter fell after the first Long Night.
See, now I think you're the one conflating the books and show. I don't believe there was any real thinking behind it, just like the spiral symbol wasn't leading to anything. The NK was immune because it looked cool and made him a bad-a$$. Also because they couldn't have him defeated so easily. Um.
So today's prediction for what will go down centers on Cleganebowl. Sandor defeats Gregor (or at least the body of Gregor with Joffrey's head stapled on, because I think that's just really awesome) in a staged match at King's Landing in front of a huge crowd including Cersei, Jon, Daenerys, etc. Then he turns to Cersei and says "if I can change, and you can change, then everybody can change!"
There's a moment of silence. Then Cersei begins to clap -- slowly at first, but then faster. Everyone else starts clapping too, and soon everyone is cheering and hugging, although they're not quite sure why. They decide that everyone gets to be kings and queens, and they all live happily ever after with lots of disturbing intra-family relationships.
Why did all of the White Walkers also die when the Night King got killed? Aren't they different from the undead?
Because
Spoiler:
they needed to wrap the story up, and the quickest path to doing that was the old 'kill the head X and they all expire' plot. Seriously, I think most of the 'but why' questions can be answered by some combination of 'it looked kewl' and 'needed to keep things moving'.
Galas wrote: The think I don't know is why was Brann warging so much. What did the crows accomplish?
i assume it will be explained in latter episodes.
I suspect he was piloting The Ravens to other houses, heralding their victory, and basically smearing Cersei as a black hearted coward, who refused to come to anyone else's aid.
Galas wrote: The think I don't know is why was Brann warging so much. What did the crows accomplish?
i assume it will be explained in latter episodes.
Why does he do anything - why is he even in it any more? It may not be explained or maybe its another thing thats important behind the scenes.
Honestly, I think it's a coin flip as to whether it's meaningful or not. I won't be surprised if it's explained, and won't be surprised if it never comes up again.
I'm calling it now. They will keep all the major characters alive for spinoffs and movies. I wouldn't be surprised if the show ends on a cliff hanger so they can sell people more cliches.
Red Corsair wrote: I'm calling it now. They will keep all the major characters alive for spinoffs and movies. I wouldn't be surprised if the show ends on a cliff hanger so they can sell people more cliches.
I'm not sure if they're doing that exactly, but I'm sure that franchise considerations are part of their thinking. With the ratings GoT does, it has to be. GRRM says his ending is bittersweet, but I'll call it right now that the showrunners lean their ending pretty heavily toward the 'sweet' side. They don't want people walking away from GoT feeling down when they have future series to sell.
Commodus Leitdorf wrote:It is truly sad they could not have gotten a bunch of warhammer player to fix their deployment
Or more likely the the Winterfell set could not fit the Trebuchets in the court yard as it's a small set and...well, they had all these trebuchets lying around and want to use them.
That's probably the truth, but that's not exactly an immersive reason in the context of the show: "the showrunners have these in stock, so lets throw them in there and then functionally throw them away". They way they were deployed it would have made more sense to simply not have them at all.
You don't exactly have to be an experienced, battle-hardened general to realize that the things that can fire hundreds of yards but are defenseless against melee shouldn't be right up on the front line, right? And someone else pointed out, well, they don't have any experienced commanders - they're all green boys and old men by now, which is true in terms of fighters... but they do have one of the most experienced battle commanders in the 7 kingdoms - Jaime Lannister. Jaime is no stranger to the ways of siegecraft, and while Tyrion Lannister has less experience in the real-world applications of it, he's surely going to be a better armchair commander than what we saw.
Some of the stuff that people are complaining about being "bad planning" is actually just misapplined against what they fight. The way the Dothraki charged has worked pretty well against conventional armies, and I don't think anyone has yet seen the way the wights actually attacked this time, as a literal wave of meat and bone. Even with stuff like Hardhome and the Fist and the Wight Heist, they didn't come this fast or this heavy. Stuff like the fire trench collapsing under the weight of the bodies, etc, that is another unknown unknown due to the prior thing.
But the trebuchet placement? I think this is a totally fair nitpick - the time they spent building the siege engines could have better been spent building other defenses they way they were deployed. I also think that you can think it was a great episode in one of the greatest TV shows of all time and still pick apart things that don't make sense. It's not take it or leave it.
Hollow wrote:John becomes the Night King (Would explain the whole ICE and FIRE thing and how the NK is immune to flame) and Bran rebuilds the wall.
AduroT wrote:The Night King might not be “immune” to dragon fire. The after episode interview seemed to imply he could only be killed next to the tree as that was where he was created.
That's pretty good speculation. Unfortunately I think we're never really going to find out, and that's a bit of a bummer.
Momotaro wrote:Was that poor Alys Karstark heading to the Godswood with Theon at the beginning? Three northern houses snuffed out in three episodes?
I would have hoped they could have at least spared a moment to have shown that, if that had happened. I'm going to say "no" but who knows, I saw lots of speculation she indeed was with Theon as you said.
DIdn't the Night King snuff out fire just by walking near it during that episode where they tried to capture a zombie? I'm pretty sure he can just protect himself with a wave of cold to snuff out fire before it gets to him.
The fact that the Dothraki aren't experienced at fighting undead is irrelevant; charging across a snowy wasteland in the dead of night when you can't see that far ahead of you is stupid against human enemies as well.
I think the Dothraki charge was mostly about the kewl moments it created. The rest is probably the showrunners seeing them as disposable and wanting them to be disposed of to streamline the endgame. This kind of thinking is already in their playbook.
It's pretty much insane the way that the show built up both the Dothraki AND their crossing water problem FOR YEARS to then dispose of an entire horde in a single, asinine charge.
But there's the show with GRRM material, and the show without. Acknowledging that it's a different show now and an alt-universe version of the book story is how I'm coming to terms with it.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I thought they resolved the Night King arc too early. They should have dealt with Cersei first and then dealt with the Night King. Now they have no soldiers left to fight the Golden Company, and I don't see how they could manage without some serious bs on the writers' part. King's Landing should have been humanity's last stand, not Winterfell..
Well,
1) Its clear from the preview that more people survived the battle than could be expected given what we saw in the episode. Which is ok, Winterfell is a very large castle.
2) 2 Dragons > Golden Company. Remember that Agon conquered the 7 kingdoms with only a few thousand soldiers because he also had 3 dragons. Danny will still have a lot more soldiers than Agon had even after the results of this battle. And hey, we might see the Dario bring the 2nd Sons over the Narrow Sea to reinforce them, and give us some awkward moments with him and Jon.
3) Kings Landing as the last stand doesn't make sense. Winterfell being where "Winter Fell" is poetic and fits into the supernatural forces at work. Kings Landing is just a big stinky city that the Targarian's built as a central capital. It has no ties to the ancient struggle with the forces of winter.
With the defeat of the Night King and how hated Cersei is, the remaining lords of Westeros will probably give their allegance to Danerys.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I thought they resolved the Night King arc too early. They should have dealt with Cersei first and then dealt with the Night King. Now they have no soldiers left to fight the Golden Company, and I don't see how they could manage without some serious bs on the writers' part. King's Landing should have been humanity's last stand, not Winterfell..
Well,
1) Its clear from the preview that more people survived the battle than could be expected given what we saw in the episode. Which is ok, Winterfell is a very large castle.
2) 2 Dragons > Golden Company. Remember that Agon conquered the 7 kingdoms with only a few thousand soldiers because he also had 3 dragons. Danny will still have a lot more soldiers than Agon had even after the results of this battle. And hey, we might see the Dario bring the 2nd Sons over the Narrow Sea to reinforce them, and give us some awkward moments with him and Jon.
3) Kings Landing as the last stand doesn't make sense. Winterfell being where "Winter Fell" is poetic and fits into the supernatural forces at work. Kings Landing is just a big stinky city that the Targarian's built as a central capital. It has no ties to the ancient struggle with the forces of winter.
With the defeat of the Night King and how hated Cersei is, the remaining lords of Westeros will probably give their allegance to Danerys.
Ok fair enough, that does make sense. Didn't the dragons get pretty well beat up though? Those undead did a number on Danny's dragon/.
number 1 rule that people have learned when fighting the white walkers is limit your exposure....so massing troops in a huge open plain was a pretty stupid move...more walls and defensible barricades. The pikes of the unsullied have a pretty good reach, should have put the spiked walls in front on them and use the dothraki to pull kite of the horde away while the artillery (smartly placed behind the castle, you don't need accuracy for that horde) fires from safety. This could have made the battle much more interesting....instead it was pretty boring actually.
The Dothraki lights out thing was a pretty cool play, get everyones hopes up and then dash them. I guess I get why they did that for feel, but it was a terrible plan.
So far, Sam, Jon, Tormund and Dolorous Ed are, so far as I can recall, the only characters to have seen, let alone fought and survived the Dead? And it didn’t go too well in any of those engagements
So far, Sam, Jon, Tormund and Dolorous Ed are, so far as I can recall, the only characters to have seen, let alone fought and survived the Dead? And it didn’t go too well in any of those engagements
The refugees from Hardhome also survived the Undead. There weren't many of them, but they were still more than 5 people.
Why did all of the White Walkers also die when the Night King got killed? Aren't they different from the undead?
Because
Spoiler:
they needed to wrap the story up, and the quickest path to doing that was the old 'kill the head X and they all expire' plot. Seriously, I think most of the 'but why' questions can be answered by some combination of 'it looked kewl' and 'needed to keep things moving'.
Spoiler:
To be fair, in the show version they do depict that it seems Walkers are made by the Night King doing some magic-stuff to human babies. It's not unreasonable to assume that version of him exerting control has a similar limitation to his ability to raise the dead, ie it's dependent on his continuing existence. I agree it wasn't particularly satisfying, but they do have the excuse there if they want it.
So far, Sam, Jon, Tormund and Dolorous Ed are, so far as I can recall, the only characters to have seen, let alone fought and survived the Dead? And it didn’t go too well in any of those engagements
Dany has seen them, lost a Dragon to them because of Jon.....as have wildiings, Jon is one of the commanders for feths sake. Everyone who went to the parly with Cersei has seen at least one dead guy. Lets not pretend that their way of fighting is a shock.
Lets turn that around -
1. You have of enemy unknown strength because you can;t be bothered to use your cavalry Dragons or pointless Bran mage to look. However you know that their numbers are massive.
2. Its pitch black and you and your horses can;t see.
3. Everyone who has fought the dead has lost
4. They have magic weapons that can kill Dragons.
5. If you loose to the dead you become part of their army.
Apart from making a pretty picture why exactly would you send your light fast, elite cavalry charging into the night on their own?
Who has actually fought a pitched battle against them though?
It’s basically Winterfell. That was our lot.
I accept some of Winterfell’s tactics were ropey. But that doesn’t mean the defenders had an intimate knowledge of the dead. Or just how many of them they might face.
I think the plan was also drawn up, naively, assuming they would get to fight in the daylight. And when the dead showed up at night it was too late to change plans.
I accept some of Winterfell’s tactics were ropey. But that doesn’t mean the defenders had an intimate knowledge of the dead. Or just how many of them they might face.
Were they not told the dead numbers were vast? Their batttle table showed that
If only they had some sort of mage who could use his power to scout out the dead, tell them how they operated and where they were.... oh wait no its much better that Bran just sat in chair and did feth all
If only they had elite, fast moving cavalry that could scout the enemy - oh wait no - lets have them freeze their asses off in a formation for half the night and then charge blindy into the night.
Several of those who saw the massive organised dead force at the destruction of the wall were at Winterfell and he power of the undead Dragon
As were people who had seen the dead swarm the living at the wilding port.
Again the tactics of the dead and strengths of the dead were known.
Why waste the Dothraki and reinforce the Dead - yes i know the show runners wanted a pretty image or two and they also need to weaken Dany's forces but that does not make it any less stupid in universe.
I think the plan was also drawn up, naively, assuming they would get to fight in the daylight. And when the dead showed up at night it was too late to change plans.
Nah thats letting them off way to easy - why was the artillery outside the walls. why no scouting, why - in fact just why was this battle so half assed by the writers and made so dark that many of us had trouble even seeing what was going on.
Mr Morden wrote:Another moment was the - we are fighting an enemy that raises the dead - lets put all the non combatants in the crypt.....
From what I saw, the NK can only resurrect bodies that aren't completely decayed. Most of the ones in the crypt would be. Plus, even IF people thought the KN could resurrect those bodies, who'd have expected them to be able to punch through the actual coffins?
Sure, probably should have had at least a handful of soldiers in there with dragonglass weapons, but all the same, I can understand not expecting that.
I don't mind confusing battles - thats war - although steady cam is always crap - but making the battle at night, using unsteady cam and then having whiteouts just make it looks like a cop out to avoid too much difficult cgi.
Battle at night was good. Really sets up the whole "end of the world" stuff, plus the symbolism. The only actual issue I had with the picture was the dragon fights, but I can hardly tell which dragon is which anyways.
The problems were really there just to provide specatcle rather than make any sense (perhaps they had been tlaking to Rian Johnson or Christopher Nolan)
Nah, it made sense. The battle plans were bad, but again, I feel that the things would have panned out the way they did even IF the defenders had been better strategists. It wasn't a case of 'the good guys struggle because of stupid plans', it was a case of 'the force of nature is so strong, it would have beaten them to that point in any scenario'. The showrunners went with what they thought was the best looking option (some of which did genuinely look good, even if not tactically effective - hey Dothraki).
Also did the vaunted dragonglass weapons do anything?
Yes. They put down the undead properly, instead of needing to use swords that just temporarily move the undead with kinetic energy. They don't stop them coming BACK after a second resurrection, but it does kill them.
The doomed charge of the Dothraki is just there to provide a cool bit in the opening sequence, absolutely nothing else. Well also to keep weakening Dan'y army. If you they are useless in a siege( apart from recon and harressment - neither of which they do) - the don'tt bring them north - keep them south to keep an eye of whats happening and to cover any retreat.
Agreed. They could have had those same visuals occur in other places, and it would have looked just as good. An example of this could have been a group of riders doing a scouting pass, we watch as they ride back, and then watch their torches go out as they get intercepted by undead ambushing them.
So just watching the actual show and not after show interviews etc (*) - Whats the point of Bran? Just why is the NK so obessed with him that he and his mates are happy to stand around doing nothing until Aryra leaps (from somewhere) and knifes him.
(*) If you have to explain stuff like this you are as incompetant as Rian Johnson at telling the actual story.
They did in the previous episode. Bran says the goal of the NK is to wipe out all trace of men, including the memory of man, which Bran represents. Sam elaborates that death is "forgetting, and being forgotten", which erasing the memory of mankind, as well as mankind itself, would do. Therefore, killing Bran is a priority as it represents killing every aspect of mankind.
It is explained. You don't have to like that explanation, but to say that "they don't explain it" is wrong.
They know the NK can not raise the long dead because and when? Where is the only place in castle that you know the dead can come from? Most castles have a central keep for non comabants......
The battle plans were beyond bad - they were unfeasably stupid - if Melisandre had not turned up out of the blue they were just going to send the Dothraki into battle in total darkness. Awesome move Jon.
It would have made the NK a much better villan IF the alliance had actually showed any kind of miliatary ideas beyond a new born orc. Have them make sound plans that make sense - and THEN have still win. Not him going - seriously this is the best you can do - why did I even bother to come in person - you guys are so rubbish that I coudl haev let the dead and afew Walkers do it.
The NK was going to kill everyone at Winterfell anyway especially since he sat there doing nothing.
Grey Templar wrote: I think the plan was also drawn up, naively, assuming they would get to fight in the daylight. And when the dead showed up at night it was too late to change plans.
That would explain a lot, actually. Thought that might not have been a reasonable expectation when fighting those who never sleep or rest.
Mr Morden wrote: They know the NK can not raise the long dead because and when?
They didn't know if he could or not. That's the point. *I*, as a nigh-omniscient observer of the show, wasn't sure if he could resurrect long long dead bodies. How were they meant to know?
Where is the only place in castle that you know the dead can come from? Most castles have a central keep for non comabants......
And the crypts are still safer. We saw what happened to the interior of Winterfell - it got overrun. The crypts were, in the context of the show, clearly the safest place. If it hadn't been for the dead held within reanimating, they would have been fine, or at least, survived longer than anyone inside an overground structure.
The battle plans were beyond bad - they were unfeasably stupid - if Melisandre had not turned up out of the blue they were just going to send the Dothraki into battle in total darkness. Awesome move Jon.
Not unfeasibly. There were attempts - we see clear efforts of spiking surfaces, the trench, and the collapsible bridges. Could more efforts have been made? Sure, but it's not "unfeasibly" stupid. Hyperbole is kinda offputting.
It would have made the NK a much better villan IF the alliance had actually showed any kind of miliatary ideas beyond a new born orc. Have them make sound plans that make sense - and THEN have still win. Not him going - seriously this is the best you can do - why did I even bother to come in person - you guys are so rubbish that I coudl haev let the dead and afew Walkers do it.
End of the day, most of the audience won't care about military tactics. And, at the end of the day, if it's inevitable that the defenders will be overrun anyways, why not throw in some very cool looking visuals? Yes, I think that the worst bit about the episode was the poor military tactics, but it didn't ruin it for me. Having that kind of stuff is just icing on the cake, when it's clear that no matter what defensive stratagems the defenders employ, they'll be overrun anyway because the plot demands it.
It's not like "oh the heroes clearly would have won if not for this unexplained tactical stupidity".
The NK was going to kill everyone at Winterfell anyway especially since he sat there doing nothing.
Yes, but Bran was the priority. As you've said, you wanted to know why Bran was important - the show told you.
Fact they know the Knight King can raise the dead, they don;t know his limits - therefor cramming the non combatants into a crypt full of the dead is a risk.
A plan of sending cavalry blind into the night on their own when you absolutely know they will do nothing because of the massive numbers of the enemy you now about was not "unfeasibly stupid?" Its the same as the doomed charge at the start of the battle of Minas Tirith but at night and just to add icing to the cake of sheer stupidity when you can know they can be raised to fight your former friends and allies.
Sticking artillery out in the open - unfesasibly stupid and pointless - the whole point of that sort of thing is it fires over the walls
Everyone I know said how stupid pretty much everything they did was - why spend that time and effort making a battle but make us believe that no one saw the flaws in the plans - make the apparent victory of the NK mean something rather than - "yeah Jon learnt nothing from all his pervious defeats" Why make it look stupid whenyou cna make it look better, what about sticking the trebuchets out in the open made the battle better? We both agree that you coud have made the Dothraki have the same visual effect but in a better way - the same could be said for every element of the battle.
And of course they could have made it so most of us could actually see what was going on.
No Sam told us something that makes little sense. Its not like Bran bothered to tell anyone anything of use anyway. Better off allowing him to witness the death of mankind and then wonder back up and kill him them.
At least the charge from Minas Tirith had an in-universe reason(Denathors crazy).
This one doesn’t. But I think it’s a combination of both the writers being dumb and/or it not being relevant to the story. Which is fine. It just means LOTR has a more nuanced story in this instance.
I was pretty dissapointed in this episode, not fussed about the battle tactics of the defenders though but I did find their lack of spiritual defence unforgivable.
Every fighter should have had a dragonglass implant and where were the holy icon bearers and rings of garlic.
I was more annoyed with how haphazardly the undead attacked with pockets of 5 to 10 zombies haunting a room while thousands stood outside the walls of winterfell.
Also I would have been happier if there were fewer survivers.
I am half expecting a time travel adventure to fix all the damage done by the night king.
I hope that House Glover faces justice for not answering the call next episode, if they weren't killed offscreen. Was their castle on the route of the Night King's march?
It was a pretty awesome moment when he was humbled by Lyanna Mormont, just to have him say "Yeah, there was some fine print to my mea culpa 'stand with House Stark' speech, we won't be attending your Night King party. Best of luck! Oh and uh, The North Remembers and all that!"
There was a part of me that was hoping he would charge in with his bannermen at some point, mainly during the moment when Jon Snow is about to get swamped by the Night King's newly raised goons, but that would just be another Knights of the Vale-esque to the rescue scenario.
nels1031 wrote: I hope that House Glover faces justice for not answering the call next episode, if they weren't killed offscreen. Was their castle on the route of the Night King's march?
It was a pretty awesome moment when he was humbled by Lyanna Mormont, just to have him say "Yeah, there was some fine print to my mea culpa 'stand with House Stark' speech, we won't be attending your Night King party. Best of luck! Oh and uh, The North Remembers and all that!"
There was a part of me that was hoping he would charge in with his bannermen at some point, mainly during the moment when Jon Snow is about to get swamped by the Night King's newly raised goons, but that would just be another Knights of the Vale-esque to the rescue scenario.
Dude needs to die.
Agreed, he's denied the call twice. No third chances. Chop his head and take his men for the march south, on pain of dragon.
infinite_array wrote: Victory over the millenia old evil at the cost of only five main characters, and only two of whom that really mattered!
(Plus tens of thousands of soldiers and a few hundred civilians, but who's counting?)
The episode kind of felt like fast food, the better kind? Like, it tasted alright going down but it's not filling, and left a bad aftertaste.
And yeah, it feels like any battle or conflict after this is just... wastful? They literally just beat the world ending evil. Now go take your dragons and turn Cersei into a b!tch-flambe. Show over.
Meh I still don't see the "Crappier" writing that everyone is talking about. Cliches are cliches because....well, they actually do happen in real life.
That's sort of the problem I imagine GRRM is having writing the books. He so desperately does not want cliches to be how the story is told, he wants to subvert the genre and do stuff different so much so that he has written himself into a corner. The only way out of the corner is, unfortunately for him and fans, are cliches that will no doubt be in the books and cause delicious tears to someone like me who thinks most people are being far too nitpicky.
I mean I get it, we were all traumatized by the Red Wedding. We desperately want our hearts to be torn out again just like that and nothing has come close to that since. Even though, realistically, it would have been smarter to capture Robb and hold him hostage as politcal prisoners are always worth more alive then dead.
GRRM wrote himself into a corner because he spent a couple books developing new plotlines that he now has to resolve in addition to his intended story. And I suspect he'll still manage to untangle it without relying on out-of-the-blue 'then everybody blow'd up' moments. I suspect Tyrion will be more interesting than the zero he's been in the last few seasons. I predict characters will have motivations and plans that actually show some smarts and sense. I predict that more of the prophecies and mysteries will have payoffs.
GRRM is hardly perfect, but if you can't watch an episode from the first few seasons and see noticeable differences in characters, dialogue and story from what the show has become...I don't even know what to say.
I'd say you can see that same difference between the material from the first 3 books and the material from 4 and 5 in the show. 4 and 5 material was way, way worse than current showrunner stuff. But its conveniently forgotten. When discussing writing quality.
Also the cathedral explosion is actually totally in line with GRRM and where he seemed to be going in the books. I cant imagine that wasn't a note. It seems to be missed that hes been part of all of this while they are writing and shooting.
Hulksmash wrote: I'd say you can see that same difference between the material from the first 3 books and the material from 4 and 5 in the show. 4 and 5 material was way, way worse than current showrunner stuff. But its conveniently forgotten. When discussing writing quality.
Also the cathedral explosion is actually totally in line with GRRM and where he seemed to be going in the books. I cant imagine that wasn't a note. It seems to be missed that hes been part of all of this while they are writing and shooting.
Agreed totally - Books 4 and 5 are truely awful - in fact much in line with the last episode.
I will say that was possibly one of the greatest episodes of TV that I have ever seen.
Where do I start?
The use of darkness and colour - I admit I watched on a great TV and in a dark room (I can understand a tablet in broad daylight might not have been ideal but.. well... ) - the doomed Dolthraki charge with the fading torches, the fire, the horrible tide of living dead (reminded me of the only good element of World War Z), the dragons fighting in the storm. It was breathtaking. Then the final battle within the courtyard, dead foes and allies getting to their feet again, with the hellish red light in the background.
The end of character arcs - Mormont and Theon, who almost made it to the end bar a couple of episodes, the Red Lady who had reached the end of her path and could finally die. Really powerful stuff.
There was the perfect opportunity to go all 'Hollywood' and have John Snow fight the NK one on one when they'd both been dismounted, culminating in John's heroic victory. Instead, the NK thinks "no thanks, you're not getting anywhere near me and having a chance to kill me. Have some of my followers."
Then the final attack by Ayra, with the Wight Champion's hair whisping and turning slightly to one side as she stealth attacks, and then she rolls a 'critical hit' and pulls off an awesome special move (loved the section, Metal Gear Solid-style, where she was sneaking through the keep), right on the cusp of absolute defeat.
I still think the fan theory that Bran = Night King still has merit and that maybe the Night King story line isn't over yet.
Essentially when Bran did his timey wimey time warg he somehow got a part of himself "stuck" within the Night King.
They are permanently connected through time. So current Bran is actually Bran the Builder and it was Bran whispering "burn them all" to the mad king although he was trying to warn them of the White Walkers.
Anyway my theory is that Bran actually intended to die at the end of the battle of Winterfell. That he set himself up as bait and had every intention of being killed by the Night King which would somehow stop the link between them and kill both of them.
He had foreseen it as the only way to end the cycle but for some reason he hadn't seen Arya and Bran was as surprised to see her as the Night KIng was.
At the start of the battle the NIght King is nowhere to be seen, he doesn't appear until Bran wargs and it looks as though Bran actually brings the Night King to him byt directing him with the ravens.
Bran doesn't stop warging until the NIght King is in the Godswood.
I don't think Bran was doing nothing, somehow he is the Night King and actually was involved in the battle itself.
So my theory is that Bran set everything in motion for himself to be killed by the Night King to stop the never ending cycle started by the Children of the Forest and wiping out the History of man so they could start again but Arya ctually, rather than saving the day, has messed this all up.
Anyway, that's probably a load of old nonsense but I still can't shake the fact that they even changed the look of the NIght KIng to look like Bran after he became the 3 Eyed Raven....
Why would Bran be surprised to see Arya? He gave her the knife she used to kill the King. He totally knew the future and Doctor Stranged it and set it up so the Night King would be killed the way he was.
AduroT wrote: Why would Bran be surprised to see Arya? He gave her the knife she used to kill the King. He totally knew the future and Doctor Stranged it and set it up so the Night King would be killed the way he was.
I'm thinking that maybe Arya was supposed to kill the Night King after he had killed Bran? I guess my theory isn't that well thought out but I think maybe it was all "too easy" and din't go to plan as it should have. I am probably totally wrong though, lol.
Jeez man all the points in this article can easily be explained/debunked by actually watching the show.
1. There was a 5 minute sequence of Arya Assasins Creeding her way through the Library in the very same episode.
2. Why wasn't the body count higher in any of the battles in the show? No major characters died in the Battle of the Blackwater, Only Ygritte and Pyp died in the Watchers on the Wall, and no major characters died in the Battle of the Bastards
3. The shows not over yet
4. The Night king brings the Winter with him, its in all the legends mentioned about the Night King and the Original Long Night. It's mentioned several times in the show
5. Maybe he did? Or Maybe he was a servant of the Lord of Light and he was protected by the fact he is already technically a Zombie to the lord of Fire
6. Varys entire storyline has been dropped and has never been a part of the show. The Blackfyre theory is not a part of the show so I'll admit he is kind of useless. As for Tyrion the show isn't over yet and, as I've mentioned earlier in this thread the reason for Tyrion not being as sharp as he used to be is he murder of his father really messed him up. He said it as much last season, He does not want to be the ruin of his family he does not want to be the monster everyone thinks he is because he is a Dwarf. It's why, instead of bringing Fire and Blood to Kings Landing, which was the smarter thing to do I'll agree, he went through all these other more complicated schemes that Cersei is competent enough to deal with. Now that Jamie is there and there is a chance to save his family I think he will finally get his head in the game.
7. Well, this I will agree with. It looked cool
8. She was a priest of the Lord of Light. She could see visions in the flames and knew she would die in Westeros. She said as much last season when she spoke with Varys so this was just the end of her vision
9. Man this one will take far too long for me to explain and I got to get to work, but I'll get back to it I promise
10.Because it worked? The magic kept the Walkers in the north until they were able to destroy it. Also its not entirely clear the Bran the builder built the wall. In the show he probably did but the books hint that maybe the Others built the wall and Bran just built the castles next to the wall.
Everything with Little Griff feels like a Danzo to me. A character thrown in when the author realizes his audience solved the surprise before the reveal to hopefully seed doubt but mostly just makes it more obvious and drags out the story for no reason.
Commodus Leitdorf wrote: As for Tyrion the show isn't over yet and, as I've mentioned earlier in this thread the reason for Tyrion not being as sharp as he used to be is he murder of his father really messed him up. He said it as much last season, He does not want to be the ruin of his family he does not want to be the monster everyone thinks he is because he is a Dwarf. It's why, instead of bringing Fire and Blood to Kings Landing, which was the smarter thing to do I'll agree, he went through all these other more complicated schemes that Cersei is competent enough to deal with. Now that Jamie is there and there is a chance to save his family I think he will finally get his head in the game
I feel like you have to be kidding me here. That might be your own head canon (along with other things you mention), but you can't tell me the showrunners sat in a room and discussed making Tyrion less witty, less intelligent, less important, and less interesting overall as a way to explore the character's trauma.
The real answer here is that Tyrion is GRRM's creation and a character he's highly dialed into, and the showrunners just aren't. Moreover, they're motivated to boil the story down to its most basic conflicts in order to wrap it up ASAP, and Tyrion as a plotter/schemer/maneuverer-type character who operates on the boundries of those conflicts is going to suffer in that kind of storytelling. These aren't high crimes. And it's okay to say that this character has worked poorly in the story the showrunners are telling without having to back into excuses for it.
Hulksmash wrote: I'd say you can see that same difference between the material from the first 3 books and the material from 4 and 5 in the show. 4 and 5 material was way, way worse than current showrunner stuff. But its conveniently forgotten. When discussing writing quality.
I think there are very different differences. The past few seasons of the show have been extremely reductive in nature, while the problems with books 4 and 5 involved too much expansion of the story.
While I don’t disagree, I will say that Tyrion hasn’t been nearly as on point in the books since his fathers death either. I don’t really think it’s intentional there either....
Jeez man all the points in this article can easily be explained/debunked by actually watching the show.
1. There was a 5 minute sequence of Arya Assasins Creeding her way through the Library in the very same episode.
2. Why wasn't the body count higher in any of the battles in the show? No major characters died in the Battle of the Blackwater, Only Ygritte and Pyp died in the Watchers on the Wall, and no major characters died in the Battle of the Bastards
3. The shows not over yet
4. The Night king brings the Winter with him, its in all the legends mentioned about the Night King and the Original Long Night. It's mentioned several times in the show
5. Maybe he did? Or Maybe he was a servant of the Lord of Light and he was protected by the fact he is already technically a Zombie to the lord of Fire
6. Varys entire storyline has been dropped and has never been a part of the show. The Blackfyre theory is not a part of the show so I'll admit he is kind of useless. As for Tyrion the show isn't over yet and, as I've mentioned earlier in this thread the reason for Tyrion not being as sharp as he used to be is he murder of his father really messed him up. He said it as much last season, He does not want to be the ruin of his family he does not want to be the monster everyone thinks he is because he is a Dwarf. It's why, instead of bringing Fire and Blood to Kings Landing, which was the smarter thing to do I'll agree, he went through all these other more complicated schemes that Cersei is competent enough to deal with. Now that Jamie is there and there is a chance to save his family I think he will finally get his head in the game.
7. Well, this I will agree with. It looked cool
8. She was a priest of the Lord of Light. She could see visions in the flames and knew she would die in Westeros. She said as much last season when she spoke with Varys so this was just the end of her vision
9. Man this one will take far too long for me to explain and I got to get to work, but I'll get back to it I promise
10.Because it worked? The magic kept the Walkers in the north until they were able to destroy it. Also its not entirely clear the Bran the builder built the wall. In the show he probably did but the books hint that maybe the Others built the wall and Bran just built the castles next to the wall.
I am fine by Arya's part and tbh deaths of main cast were unlikely but they could have done it much better.
I defy anyone (in or out of universe) to make sense of the pathetic attempt at the battle tactics of the alliance. Apparently it looking cool is all people wanted.....well thats all they got - a few sequences that had great visual appeal and made zero sense whilst the rest was just blurry people fighiting each other in darkness and then in a snowstorm - doubtless saving a fortune on CGI.
Bran - I neither care about or think will matter any further - he is porbbaly going to be a link to the prequal.
I did quite like the AVP films but again diskliked the fight scenes when you could not see who was who, its weak.
Varys and Tyrion may have something to do but in a war against the dead they have little to do - what they should have been shown doing was building alliacnes with others and likely with the Dothraki (who the defenders of the stupiduty of the Alliance battle tactics say were useuless anyway so lets kill them off )- keeping an eye on Cersei.
The showrunners did, in the end, just keep embracing spectacle, a fast pace, and conventionality over characters and conversations. We're talking about a writing team whose resolution to the Sparrows storyline was straight Michael Bay. That isn't really a bad thing, it's just different. I think I'd be okay it if the entire series had an action-spectacle take on the source material. Instead, it feels like a different show from those early seasons. iBut c'est la vie. I think GoT at this point is what HBO needs it to be...big onscreen, braincandy, crowdpleasing, and almost over.
Nah nah nah, you're not appreciating the sheer genius of the TV show guys here, see, it's not conventional at all because the people doing the heroic winning bits have lady-parts.
What we have here is another Rose Tycho situation - uncultured plebs might see the actions of all the characters that are superficially similar and conclude that they are, in fact, similar, but proper thinking people know that ACKSHOOLEE male characters engaging in heroic tropes are badwrong and dumb and failures, but female characters doing it are goodright and pure and awesome forever and ever.
At least that's how I'm supposed to see the episode according to a couple of reviews I read. Honestly at this stage I'm hoping Dany heel turns just to enjoy the implosion of the smug Yas Khaleesi crowd.
I don't claim to know if it was show-writers or GRRM doing it, but this battle ripped off Tolkien a lot. It was very much like battle of Pelennor Field. There we have the unbeatable Witch King, and Tolkien teases us with a fight between him and Gandalf, the most powerful of the heroes. But no, they end up not fighting. What is this bait-and-switch! Alternatively, maybe Aragorn could face him? No, he is also busy elsewhere. Gimli? Legolas? Anyone? No, instead WK is stabbed from behind by a comic relief hobbit and killed by a girl.
So basically here writers decided to save in casting costs and combine characters of hobbit and the girl.
Of course, Tolkien later does same thing with main villain itself. All the big heroes just stand there being a distraction while somebody who nobody counted on, finishes the job.
As GRRM said himself. The worst insult to any form of art or artist is to be ignored. Like, love or loathe it. GoT is a massive success. The fact that nobody actually knows how it will end, that there are so many strong feelings and theories coming out of the wazoo... shows that it is still fantastic entertainment.
Hollow wrote: As GRRM said himself. The worst insult to any form of art or artist is to be ignored. Like, love or loathe it. GoT is a massive success. The fact that nobody actually knows how it will end, that there are so many strong feelings and theories coming out of the wazoo... shows that it is still fantastic entertainment.
Well actually the ending has been leaked and based on the general track record for the particular poster and GoT leaks in general looks to be true. At a minimum e4 has already been leaked.
Leak isn't in first spoiler just my reaction.
Spoiler:
If what I read is true I actually like it to a degree, but all 3 sub Reddits are busy having meltdowns over it.
Actual leaks in this spoiler.
Spoiler:
Verified with footage:
Euron snipes Rhaegal with ship mounted Ballista and kills him.
Missandei is captured somehow and beheaded by the Mountain in front of Dany and Greyworm as well as some others.
Brianne and Jaime do the deed.
Not verified:
Dany and Greyworm lose their collective gak and go HAM on King's Landing. Jon kills them both and goes back to the wall.
Bran reveals that the WW threat isn't 100% over. No further details in the leaks.
The Wildlings get lands/castles in the Gift/Wall.
Jaime sets a trap for killing Cersei.
Yara offs Euron.
Either Bran or Sansa (conflicting leaks) becomes king/queen with Bran/Sansa/Tyrion/Bronn/Varys on the council.
My take is that a lot of people are saying this is just tragic and not bittersweet, but consider the following:
Dragons might be cool, but they really need to be off in the wilderness away from people or dead. They're too much of a threat to the general population even if under control.
Dany has never been the ideal leader of a free people. She's been a conqueror since early on and that may be fun to root for her, but her love and respect for the 'little people' is grossly exaggerated.
Jon has no interest in ruling. He'd honestly be better off dying. After what he's been through even before s8 he needs rest and therapy.
Any ruler is better than Cersei and someone like Sansa (hopefully not Bran) would be ideal. She's actually suffered under the hands of people in power and seems less than keen on causing more suffering.
Don't know how I feel about this one. Felt like it was better than the last few, but maybe that's because my expectations are lower?
Spoiler:
I did have one major issue. How the feth do you ambush a dragon on the open ocean in broad daylight? Also, was Hawkeye the one operating those siege weapons? They hit with every single shot on that first dragon. Yet, somehow, cannot hit Drogon even once when Dany flies directly at them. I really liked the scene with Sansa and the Hound, I thought that was very well done. The opening scene with Gendry was pretty awkward. I get what Dany was trying to do, but the scene felt very forced. Shook my head at Jon asking the Stark sisters to swear not to tell anyone his secret, but all in all enjoyed the episode.
Good episode, and a few shocking deaths and alot of goodbyes.
Spoiler:
the bulk of the goodbyes felt forced to me. Bronn just rolling out instead of seeing Tyrions promises through? Jon leaving Ghost hit me in the feels, would’ve preferred he died in the field and was on the pyres with the others. Made me hug my pooch and the puppy I’m fostering.
Only issue I had was what creeping-deth87 already covered.
At least Tormund can get sloppy seconds if he positions himself for the rebound!
While I enjoyed the generally grim and depressing nature of most of the episode, with regards to the dragons & bolts...
Spoiler:
Am I the only one wondering why Daenerys didn't just wheel around on her last dragon and burn the Ironborn fleet from the flanks and rear? The bolt throwers look to have relatively limited angles of fire (even if mounted on 360* traverse mounts) due to sails/masts/terrain/other ships as they traveled in tight formation through that narrow route between the islands, and largely stuck firing forward. The way that was presented really bothered me.
More to the point, WW2 crew served anti-aircraft autocannons throwing out hundreds of rounds a minute with centralized fire control couldn't land hits on moving targets in 3 dimensions with that level of accuracy (or power in some cases, the damage those bolts inflicted on ships would make a 40mm Bofors blush), how on earth are these bolts so accurate?
EDIT: also, the end scene in front of the walls. Daenerys' entire party and last Dragon is within range of hundreds of archers and tons of bolt throwers...why didn't Cersei make use of them and end things there if Daenerys was going to put herself in that situation?
Hollow wrote: As GRRM said himself. The worst insult to any form of art or artist is to be ignored. Like, love or loathe it. GoT is a massive success. The fact that nobody actually knows how it will end, that there are so many strong feelings and theories coming out of the wazoo... shows that it is still fantastic entertainment.
By this metric everything is good and successful entertainment. That said something can be extremely popular and have a massive fanbase while also being incredible garbage. In fact most things are.
Anyway, every character in this episode acted in a way that was ridiculous and stupid. Ummmm highlights of the episode. Ummmm, I didn't mind Gendry getting promoted. He shows zero promise as a lord but I like the fan service.
Vaktathi wrote: While I enjoyed the generally grim and depressing nature of most of the episode, with regards to the dragons & bolts...
Spoiler:
Am I the only one wondering why Daenerys didn't just wheel around on her last dragon and burn the Ironborn fleet from the flanks and rear? The bolt throwers look to have relatively limited angles of fire (even if mounted on 360* traverse mounts) due to sails/masts/terrain/other ships as they traveled in tight formation through that narrow route between the islands, and largely stuck firing forward. The way that was presented really bothered me.
More to the point, WW2 crew served anti-aircraft autocannons throwing out hundreds of rounds a minute with centralized fire control couldn't land hits on moving targets in 3 dimensions with that level of accuracy (or power in some cases, the damage those bolts inflicted on ships would make a 40mm Bofors blush), how on earth are these bolts so accurate?
EDIT: also, the end scene in front of the walls. Daenerys' entire party and last Dragon is within range of hundreds of archers and tons of bolt throwers...why didn't Cersei make use of them and end things there if Daenerys was going to put herself in that situation?
Regarding your edit:
Spoiler:
I thought the same. Maybe flags of truce/parlay are sacred? Like “guest rights” are sacred, that only the degenerate Freys/Boltons would actively participate in a violation of them. Cersei could have just been repaying the favor for Daenerys not just torching her and her crew at their previous parlay.
So yeah. they handwaived the casualties saying only around half of the defenders at Winterfell died from all involved.
The whole Ballista thingy has gotten wayyy dumb. No way is a bunch of big spears gonna take out Rhaegol that fast. The show writers clearly have no idea how ballista actually work, how long they actually take to reload, or what their realistic range is.
Also the ones mounted all over Kings Landing are completely unusable BTW. They're too big for a human to actually manipulate, nor is there enough space on the platform to actually move and aim it even if someone was able to do so.
So yeah. they handwaived the casualties saying only around half of the defenders at Winterfell died from all involved.
The whole Ballista thingy has gotten wayyy dumb. No way is a bunch of big spears gonna take out Rhaegol that fast. The show writers clearly have no idea how ballista actually work, how long they actually take to reload, or what their realistic range is.
Also the ones mounted all over Kings Landing are completely unusable BTW. They're too big for a human to actually manipulate, nor is there enough space on the platform to actually move and aim it even if someone was able to do so.
Also I didn’t see any spare ammo nearby to reload with unless they were down several of those ladders. Also just come in from above, no way they can aim up.
Well that was a significant improvement over last weeks dark debacle.
The sad part is now we have to endure another round of screeching about how Missandei's death is "fringing" and "problematic" and "racist" and whatever.
Grey Templar wrote: Also the ones mounted all over Kings Landing are completely unusable BTW. They're too big for a human to actually manipulate, nor is there enough space on the platform to actually move and aim it even if someone was able to do so.[/spoiler]
Who says you need to aim? Build enough of them and then it just becomes a matter of time until one of them hits.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Well that was a significant improvement over last weeks dark debacle.
The sad part is now we have to endure another round of screeching about how Missandei's death is "fringing" and "problematic" and "racist" and whatever.
On the plus side, we may also get to enjoy the sight of the same group imploding like a black hole if the show actually goes through with the setup this episode seems to have given us.
Spoiler:
Not that I expect they will. I mean, can you imagine the uproar if Khaleesi does turn out to be a mass-murdering nutter afterall, gets shanked by Regret Tyrion or something, and evil man with manparts who is male Jon Snow ends up king?
If nothing else, I have to give the showrunners credit for this episode keeping me guessing, because I have no idea how they'll let it play out now. They did some obvious stuff(Jaimie was never going to Happily Ever After with Brienne, and Missandei was a dead woman the moment her and Grey Worm started making post-war holiday plans), but the actual core game of thrones could go any way; Mad Daenerys on the throne and most of her circle of advisors and former allies dead? A previously longshot Cercei victory(under which circumstance, Euron has a life expectancy of about thirty seconds, and good riddance)? Jon Snow on the throne? feth it, at this point why not have Sandor win Cleganebowl and take the throne - a monarch who drinks, swears at courtiers, and eats chicken all day is probably the best the smallfolk can hope for in a world like GoT
I really dunno why she didn't just roast the whole fleet after missing that volley of bolts. They're not machine guns, by the time they were halfway reloaded, they'd be charred husks
- Magic ballistas! Seriously though, the showrunners had to introduce something to level the playing field against the dragons. Otherwise there's no real conflict. I get it. It's the execution that's lacking. I think you can have the same basic events happen but told differently so that that story has an ounce or two of verisimilitude and doesn't feel like a couple of little kids playing with toys. "An' then they bring out their ballistas! Pew! Pew! An' then there's a whole bunch of them on the ships and all along the walls! Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!"
- I think it's reasonable for Daenerys to retreat there, BTW. She considers the dragons her children, and she'd be motivated to protect Drogon at that point. Sure, logic suggests she could just dive on the Red Keep and stay pretty safe. But those are magic repeater ballistas that can be swiveled and aimed in every direction by a single operator. So again, I can see her turning back against a deus ex machina of that magnitude.
- Is Rhaegal dead for certain? When a character asks the question in a TV show and the body wasn't found...the being in question is usually alive. Rhaegal was the one that people expected would be tied to Jon (based on its name), and this episode also reminded us that Jon died and returned. Then again, maybe it's foreshadowing Jon's death at the hands of a crossbow. Or perhaps it doesn't represent anything other than the showrunners somewhat clumsily taking another piece off the board to advance the endgame. Yeah, it's probably that.
- I don't buy Daenerys' heel turn. They've spent too much time building her up in the show into a symbol of feminine power. Now the books...there I'd believe that she'd go mad, forcing Jon to kill her and sorta fulfilling the Azor Ahai/Nissa Nissa prophecy. Daenerys just isn't as likeable of a character in the books. Still, maybe that's where GRRM wants it to go and the showrunners feel obligated to take it there. But then you'd think they would have laid more groundwork for the heel turn before now. And they've thrown out the Azor Ahai/Prince who was Promised thing anyway. *shrug*
- Do these writers really think we gotta have more Euron? I think they do, which is a horrifying thought.
- My bet is still that Jon ends up in the black again, as foreshadowed by Maester Aemon. Assuming Daenerys finds her marbles, that solves the Jon problem. Don't need the NW anymore? Well, they do if the queen says they do. And given these writers, I won't be shocked if the last scene is a pale hand picking up the NK's ice spear, with the words "The End?" appearing.
- The little summit meeting at the end was a stupid moment in an episode that I thought started fairly strongly. Why would they have *ever* exposed themselves like that? But once again...it's all about the spectacle and 'big moments' to win on social media...sense be damned.
Quite liked how the big death tied back to two of the bigger moments from early in the story. I’d not at this point be too surprised if Arya ends up killing Dany.
What possible justification did Cersei have to NOT slaughter everyone at her gate? Just friggin' rain down ballistae fire until there's nothing but red mist. And it's not like she fears the dragon anymore.
I mean, it's clear that she had the overwhelming advantage. She's not stupid, and certainly not stupid enough to let her mortal enemy just walk away, especially for the sake of 'honor'. She doesn't give a gak what anyone thinks about her methods.
Between the artillery, archers, and maybe a cavalry charge to mop up the survivors, she could have basically won in a matter of minutes.
At the absolute MINIMUM, she should have killed Tyrion. He basically, indirectly, threatened her unborn child, and she utterly loathes him. Why NOT turn him into a pincushion for his insolence? His plot armor is getting a bit ridiculous, especially by GoT standards.
But I'm the psychopath who enjoys watching popular GoT characters die just so I can hear people bitch about it, so maybe that's just my perspective.
Other notes:
How did they have half their forces leftover from the battle of winterfell? It seemed like a complete rout, with basically only main characters left alive. I assumed there were some other survivors, but half seems massively huge. One of my nitpicks about that episode was that there seemed to be no pockets of resistance, it seemed to be just a complete massacre. And half the dothraki still alive? I wouldn't have expected 10% to still be alive.
After getting ambushed and their fleet sunk by the Greyjoys, how did the unsullied get any of their weapons/armor back to be in formation at the red keep? For that matter, how were they not all captured by a pursuing landing party from the Greyjoy fleet?
I think theoretically they’re supposed to be out of range, which is why it matters when Tyrion steps forward. Unfortunately being actually out of range would remove the character interaction so they move everything closer than it should be.
"Are you making some, like, big, evil-guy speech right now or somethin'? You're like a mile away from me, and there's traffic and cars and stuff! All I see is mouth-movin'!"
LunarSol wrote: I think theoretically they’re supposed to be out of range, which is why it matters when Tyrion steps forward. Unfortunately being actually out of range would remove the character interaction so they move everything closer than it should be.
I guess they were probably out of archer range (except tyrion, who still should have died), but those ballistas were placing INCREDIBLY accurate fire on a flying target (from a moving boat, to boot) from like a quarter-mile away not 10 minutes earlier. Shooting a quarter that distance from a stationary platform at a stationary target should have been child's play.
And then I'm sure they had cavalry, which wouldn't have been ideal v. unsullied pikemen, but there were like 50 of them.
Anyways. I get it's just a show, and I should really just relax, but the whole thing seemed incredibly out of character. I thought that when tyrion suggested demanding surrender, he meant via a messenger or something. Not sauntering up to their front door and slapping her in the face, like Baldur did to Kratos at the beginning of God of War.
The showrunners' M.O. seems to focus on the big moment they want to create. Then they adjust everything else -- characters, consistency, sense, etc. -- for fit.
They wanted a certain something to die, so the ballistas were unearthly in that scene. Next, they wanted the the face-to-face confrontation and an echo of Ned's execution, so the ballistas were more grounded in that scene.
Similarly, we have Cersei obeying some kind of rules of parley even though she's unstable and untrustworthy, and Daenerys' advisors thinking the meeting is a good idea when they should know better. Because the writers WANT. THAT. MOMENT.
So why didn't anyone ask Bran what Cersei had been up to while they were offing the Night King? Why didn't Bran himself think to look?
He somehow saw what Leanna said to Eddard on her death bed without any ravens in the room as soon as Sam said "hey look".
Wow we survived the Night King. Hey Bran, what has Cersei been up to?
Better than recon by dragon I would think. Oh, woohoo another episode of do nothing for 80% and some scooby doo gotcha stuff in the last few chapters. Seems a lot like Book 5.
It's still entertaining, just disappointing that they rushed what could have been an interesting season with Dany's slow descent into paranoia / madness.
I would have stuck the Battle of Winterfell (and token mop up episode) at the end of Season 7 and given the Dany vs Cersei storyline an entire season to breathe (as opposed to 3 episodes).
EDIT - I'm guessing the writers just wanted to get on and do other stuff
Well my take is:
1) I love Euron, Super pirate that he is.
2) only 50% casualties for the defenders of Winterfell to me means they came out great for what happened, I was expecting closer to 80%
3) I concur with those thinking the modern sensibilty/social justice/political folks should just watch it for what it is, a show in a setting that is closer to Europe. There is no "message" for modern folks here, just a fantasy story.
There *used* to be a message. GRRM has explicitly stated that the white walkers are a metaphor for climate change, as an example. In general there is a lot of commentary on gender relations, systems of governance, religion etc.
But yeah its fair to say that the show is nothing but dumb entertainment at this point.
It's kind of a shame that I see that and think "And there's some product placement. Sure, why not at this point?"
After thinking about it, it seems fairly obvious that episode 5 will bring both a big battle (featuring one set of characters with the army) and a move directly at Cersei (featuring the three individuals who set out alone).
The likely scenario is that Arya probably goes after Cersei using Faceless Men ninjitsu, but the unkillable Ser Stone intervenes. Then the Hound steps in and we get Cleganebowl. Jaime will be there, but does he become the Queenslayer? I'm not sure, especially if Cersei is genuinely pregnant.
Does this leave a final episode for Jon vs. Daenerys, then? This pace is nuts, and the show would have benefited from full seasons devoted to Winterfell and King's Landing even with the slipshod writing. But one ep to solve the Cersei issue and one ep to resolve the Iron Throne issue feels like the pace they're going for.
One detail I quite enjoyed was after the kings landing parley, Circe gave a brief smile that said she enjoyed the grief she just caused. Then in the next shot Dany went through a series of emotions, first the grief which slowly morphed into the exact same smirk Circe just gave but instead its she will enjoy the grief she will cause.
I actually don't mind the dragon getting intercepted.
It was clearly by surprise and the dragon wasn't going that fast or engaging in evasive maneuvers, so its plausible that the ballistae operators had enough time to lead the shot and take aim.
Danny not going in and torching them is also plausible, as they had a lot of ballistae, which means that there's a chance that one of them could hit. It was a fair calculation.
What is odd though is how none of her ships had ballistae. I'm not talking about the fancy dragon killing ones that were invented by Qyburn, I'm talking bog standard variants, and I'm pretty sure those exist.
I’m not sure they do. Are the trebuchet the only other artillery we’ve seen? Until the recent resurgence of dragons they apparently didn’t feel the need for larger weapons.
AduroT wrote: I’m not sure they do. Are the trebuchet the only other artillery we’ve seen? Until the recent resurgence of dragons they apparently didn’t feel the need for larger weapons.
They have castles it would be odd not to have artillery. Essos ships had them.
Thoughts:
It was a million times better than last weeks gak fest.
Ballista are plot accurate same as Night Kings spear and apparently not only do they have near infiniate range but the Kraken has blessed the Iron born with stealth ships.
Really annoyed killed another Dragon. I liked the whole starting to fall apart of the alliance was portrayed - well done Bran and Sam - hope you are happy. Hopefully Bran will now Feth off completly.
Sansa acting as a potential queen and planning for it - seriously the only reason Jon would rule well is if he was the puppet of his advisors.
Yeah her solomn oath to her brother lasted what - an hour.
Varys is pragmatic - fair enough - why the feth is he not bothering to spy on anyone anymore. Its sad that he will now suddenly become super effective if he acts against Dany - he was very accurate on once a few people know - everyone knows
Apparently people (in universe and out) think Dany is unstable now - for no obvious reason, guess its the whole women rulers must be unstable especially if shock horror they might use violence - whereas of coruse a male rukler would be "strong". Expected a bit more of modern viewers than the medieval style people of Westros
She has been remarkably restrained about not burning Kings Landing before - if she had done it when she first arrrived - all would now be well. As usual being humanitarian backfires on her - as it usually did in the books, like saving the witch from beign raped etc.
AduroT wrote: I’m not sure they do. Are the trebuchet the only other artillery we’ve seen? Until the recent resurgence of dragons they apparently didn’t feel the need for larger weapons.
Except ballistae are always useful. They used quite a bit of artillery on the field irl, and not always in sieges iirc. Warfare in Westeros is supposed to be based on medieval warfare, so its odd they wouldn't use field artillery pieces like that.
AduroT wrote: I’m not sure they do. Are the trebuchet the only other artillery we’ve seen? Until the recent resurgence of dragons they apparently didn’t feel the need for larger weapons.
Except ballistae are always useful. They used quite a bit of artillery on the field irl, and not always in sieges.
Indeed they did - they are (like early cannon) a bit of mixed blessing being hard work to transport but they can be very effective. If the Gold Company (and presumably others) is famed for their elephants then thats another reason to have them. The Romans had reasonable mobile light balistae and repeating versions as did (IIRC) the Chinese.
The range, accuracy and speed of re-loading does make the large ones on the show look like super magical versions however.
Not sure how often they used them in the field in Medeival period however - armies did tend to meet and fight in quite proscribed ways.
Apparently they weren't as common as during the Roman era as the medieval kingdoms didn't quite have the resources or tech to build them like the romans did, but when they were deployed they were quite dangerous.
But yeah, the reload times for those anti-air ballistae are way too short. Even the crossbow had an absurdly short reload time; Jaime should have been able to deck Bron during his reload.
The GoT directors obviously are not putting much thought into siege equipment in the setting.
Logically, ballista would have existed in the setting for a long time. But clearly they don’t, otherwise the Targarian dragons wouldn’t have been so devastating since we are being shown that ballista are super effective against dragons.
Grey Templar wrote: The GoT directors obviously are not putting much thought into siege equipment in the setting.
Logically, ballista would have existed in the setting for a long time. But clearly they don’t, otherwise the Targarian dragons wouldn’t have been so devastating since we are being shown that ballista are super effective against dragons.
It’s a logical self contradiction.
Spoiler from the Fire and Blood Prequel Book:
Spoiler:
One of Aegons dragons, Meraxes, and his sister/favored wife, Rhaenys, were killed by a Scorpion (Ballista) bolt. That was noted to be a really lucky hit, as it went straight through the eye. Subsequent attempts were less successful. So it's known to be possible in-universe, but is considered pretty unlikely.
Other than the Bull Bofors Ballistae, my main gripe is that this is the third time that they've used "Surprise Iron Fleet" as a plot device to deliver Danaerys a setback. It shows a severe lack oof imagination, especially given that they could easlily have
Spoiler:
killed Rhaegon
last episode, which would have alleviated my major gripe with that one.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I actually don't mind the dragon getting intercepted.
It was clearly by surprise and the dragon wasn't going that fast or engaging in evasive maneuvers, so its plausible that the ballistae operators had enough time to lead the shot and take aim.
Danny not going in and torching them is also plausible, as they had a lot of ballistae, which means that there's a chance that one of them could hit. It was a fair calculation.
What is odd though is how none of her ships had ballistae. I'm not talking about the fancy dragon killing ones that were invented by Qyburn, I'm talking bog standard variants, and I'm pretty sure those exist.
They seemed to be at anchor at that point, and the Ironfleet we're reloading their ballistae as fast as a bolt action so I'm not sure if would have mattered what the Dany ships had.
Hot garbage of an episode IMO. I appreciated the atmosphere and character moments of episode 3 even if it had some holes.
Episode 4 was just daft.
Bronn's appearance and disappearance felt like a complete afterthought. I literally won't be surprised if he suddenly reappears and shoots one of them out of nowhere as they seem to be grasping at shocking straws now.
They've swung the power balance way back in the other direction, with three bolts taking down a dragon and every flat surface in King's Landing having a ballista.
They fished the only relevant character out of the water? Have we even seen her interact with Dany in the last two episodes? Missandei and Greyworm have felt like they were in a different show since season started anyway, with virtually no interaction with other characters at all.
They could have used that sequence to show that Dany cares about ALL her subjects, not just her closest advisors. I expected the northern characters to go "Who?" when they were told that Missandei had been captured.
Eamon is just the worst character. He's what I imagine would happen if a bored billionaire paid to have a part in a TV show.
Ugh.
Anyway. They are visibly straining against the number of episodes they have remaining. It's a shame but at the same time, oh god I need this show to end.
You don't really need it to unless you have some sort of weird compulsion to do things you don't like to do. Quit watching. You aren't going to ruin the water cooler moment (those aren't even a thing anymore) or let yourself down. It's fine if you don't comment on the newest thing, that's okay. Other people will, so they got you covered. They will be just as,salty as you could be. Unless of course, your salt is the most important salt, then that salt needs to be aired.
Real men see garbage to the end. This show has been awful since at least season 5 but I will watch it to the end and point out the absurdities in its writing all along the way. In Stannis' memory.
I've enjoyed 90% of it. In different ways, of course.
I think the gaps between seasons is what has me looking forward to _some_ kind of resolution. Even if it's a freeze frame of Varys and Tyrion about to throw haymakers at each other in a ring.
Grey Templar wrote: The GoT directors obviously are not putting much thought into siege equipment in the setting.
Logically, ballista would have existed in the setting for a long time. But clearly they don’t, otherwise the Targarian dragons wouldn’t have been so devastating since we are being shown that ballista are super effective against dragons.
It’s a logical self contradiction.
To be fair, it might not be a question of penetration, but a question of accuracy. The ballistae back then might not have been capable of quick rotation and vertical aim, making hitting a dragon very unlikely. With the newer types you can aim much more easily.
BlaxicanX wrote: Real men see garbage to the end. This show has been awful since at least season 5 but I will watch it to the end and point out the absurdities in its writing all along the way. In Stannis' memory.
"Real men" (and women) do what they what when they want. If you want to watch a show that's makes you angry and then report your anger to the internet, good on you., you real man you. It just seems a bit ...why?
Spoiler:
stannis was, is, and will always be a footnote. Second brothers always are.
please, tell me what in the show said anything more about stannis than "I'm a second son and I follow goofy crap because the goofy crap worked for me once". I really don't get the stannis love, is it like an internet meme or 4chan thing?
Yeah, and marrying your aunt wasn't frowned upon in the middle ages. Marrying your mother, father, brother or sister was a no-no, but uncles, aunts and cousins was fair game, iirc. That's how politics worked back then. They're making a big deal over nothing. To quote a certain abriged series - "just feth already"
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yeah, and marrying your aunt wasn't frowned upon in the middle ages. Marrying your mother, father, brother or sister was a no-no, but uncles, aunts and cousins was fair game, iirc. That's how politics worked back then.
They're making a big deal over nothing.
To quote a certain abriged series - "just feth already"
Actually no - thats not right - there were complicated rules about even which cousins you could marry - and marrying your brothers wife was incest if the marriage had been consumated.
You could get dispensation from the Pope but you had to ask - its not clear how this works in Westros given that the ruling family has marreid within their own family for milienia and the equivalent of the Vatican and the Pope was blown up by the Queen.
Obviously if it had been Jon there and someone he deeply cared for he would have charged the walls then and there - see his stupdiity in losing the Battle of the Bastards.
So all the Alliance needs to do now is bring the siege engines down, smash the wall mounted Battlistae from range and watch the city burn - Cersei has decalred absolute war and any medievil style population will now expect the Queen (or king) to act in that way.
You offer the city a chance to surrender (done) and then all bets are off, controlling the soldiers once they enter the city would in any case be impossible.
In reality
Sadly they will have some more crappy moralising about can they burn the city and likely get most of the army killed (likely Dany and her dragon killed so they cab join Drogo as in her vision)
Aryra will kill Cersei
Then Jon the Stupid, first of his name can rule the ruins manipulated by Varys and Sansa until he stomps off North in a sulk and the civil war begins again.
Mr Morden wrote: and marrying your brothers wife was incest if the marriage had been consumated.
Huh, interesting. That was brought up in Hamlet, I believe. It seems they still followed the same sort of rules in the Tudor period then.
Famously Henry VIII married his brothers wife and decades later claimed that he had to divorce her as her first marriage had been consumated and hence was incest - she denyed it. One of the charges against her successor Anne Boylen was that she had comitted incest with her brother.
Incest has always been a cultural taboo due to the problems its causes - inbreeding is not good for the gene pool.
If Bran and Sam had kept their stupid fat mouths shut it would not be an issue as no one whould have known, the alliance would still be strong but the show seems to want that "bittersweet" ending - oh except fro Sam the authors avatar of course.
So Bran seemed to know the future and set up the Night King’s death by giving the dagger Arya used to kill him to her and such. Is it feasible he’s got some sort of three dimension chess match going with the iron throne now? Making sure Jon knows his parentage because he knows how that information will effect the future?
AduroT wrote: So Bran seemed to know the future and set up the Night King’s death by giving the dagger Arya used to kill him to her and such. Is it feasible he’s got some sort of three dimension chess match going with the iron throne now? Making sure Jon knows his parentage because he knows how that information will effect the future?
He claimed he could not see the future only the past......
AduroT wrote: So Bran seemed to know the future and set up the Night King’s death by giving the dagger Arya used to kill him to her and such. Is it feasible he’s got some sort of three dimension chess match going with the iron throne now? Making sure Jon knows his parentage because he knows how that information will effect the future?
He claimed he could not see the future only the past......
It's just wish listing to say Bran can see the future. Hey, Lord Commander Mormont of the Nights Watch could see the future. He gave Jon Long Claw and it's only because of Long Claw that they found out that White Walkers could die.
We have express information that Bran can only see the past and the present. We have never seen a single vision of him looking at the future. Nobody has speculated or claimed that he could see the future in the show. He can't see the future.
Marrying your aunt is no problem for medieval society, I do it in CK2 all the time.
Also, the worst part about this episode was Jon not even saying one or two words to Ghost. Like. I know you don't want the warg anymore but at least give it some emotional impact.
You fething stump incapable of showing any human emotion.
Really, that has to be one of the most infuriating things I have seen this series do in this last two seasons.
Crazy_Carnifex wrote: Other than the Bull Bofors Ballistae, my main gripe is that this is the third time that they've used "Surprise Iron Fleet" as a plot device to deliver Danaerys a setback. It shows a severe lack oof imagination, especially given that they could easlily have
Spoiler:
killed Rhaegon
last episode, which would have alleviated my major gripe with that one.
Agreed that it's pointless to have that character live, only to bump it off in a 'gotcha' moment the next episode. But like I said, it's painfully obvious that the showrunners are focused like a laser on creating big Moments. In between, they just handwave their way through. Moving that death gave them another Moment for that ep, whereas it would have been lost in the shuffle in the previous one. The silly parley and execution in front of the walls is another Moment example.
Maybe it's not completely the writers' fault. Maybe HBO pounded their fists on the table and demanded a Red Wedding in every episode. Seems like there are a lot of casual fans who think the show is 'about' OMG deaths and Moments. HBO probably had nothing to do with it, but they probably like 'winning' nights on social media.
I just wish I knew what happened to the good storytelling from the early seasons. They had GRRM's source material, but having a good book doesn't mean you get a great screenplay. Those guys did a pretty *awesome* job bringing ASOIAF to TV. So WTF happened? I recently pondered if GRRM was ghostwriting the scripts for those two. Which is a silly thought, but the dropoff is extreme enough to make it barely plausible.
plastictrees wrote: Hot garbage of an episode IMO. I appreciated the atmosphere and character moments of episode 3 even if it had some holes.
Episode 4 was just daft.
Bronn's appearance and disappearance felt like a complete afterthought. I literally won't be surprised if he suddenly reappears and shoots one of them out of nowhere as they seem to be grasping at shocking straws now.
They've swung the power balance way back in the other direction, with three bolts taking down a dragon and every flat surface in King's Landing having a ballista.
They fished the only relevant character out of the water? Have we even seen her interact with Dany in the last two episodes? Missandei and Greyworm have felt like they were in a different show since season started anyway, with virtually no interaction with other characters at all.
They could have used that sequence to show that Dany cares about ALL her subjects, not just her closest advisors. I expected the northern characters to go "Who?" when they were told that Missandei had been captured.
Either Bronn will never been seen again, or he'll popup, kill someone important, give a Muttley laugh and disappear. It's a coin flip.
Eamon is just the worst character. He's what I imagine would happen if a bored billionaire paid to have a part in a TV show.
I LOLed at this. Change Euron's name to 'Pirate Man', and he'd fit right into a Joel Schumacher Batman film. Forget about him being the hand of the writers whenever they need something to happen out of the blue -- the tone and characterization are enough to make him completely baffling. And the writers apparently think he should be a major player down the stretch of this show. Wow.
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Galas wrote: Also, the worst part about this episode was Jon not even saying one or two words to Ghost. Like. I know you don't want the warg anymore but at least give it some emotional impact.
You fething stump incapable of showing any human emotion.
Really, that has to be one of the most infuriating things I have seen this series do in this last two seasons.
I don't think this is a big deal, but it is a great example of how the writers don't seem to understand the characters that they've supposedly been writing for the past 9years.
Alpharius wrote: Really, this is all GRRM's fault, for not being able to finish a book in 8+ years.
Kind of? I think HBO and the showrunners had every reason to believe (were given every reason to believe?) that TWoW would be released in time for them to adapt it. That's on GRRM. They had to know that they'd be on the hook for the conclusion, though. And wrapping the thing up -- even with a general outline from GRRM -- was always going to be a big challenge. I genuinely believe that. But what baffles me is how many of my objections to the writing have nothing to do with those constraints and challenges.
Alpharius wrote: Really, this is all GRRM's fault, for not being able to finish a book in 8+ years.
Kind of? I think HBO and the showrunners had every reason to believe (were given every reason to believe?) that TWoW would be released in time for them to adapt it. That's on GRRM. They had to know that they'd be on the hook for the conclusion, though. And wrapping the thing up -- even with a general outline from GRRM -- was always going to be a big challenge. I genuinely believe that. But what baffles me is how many of my objections to the writing have nothing to do with those constraints and challenges.
Its just as likely the terrible bits are in fact the GRM bits - given how bad books 4 and 5 are.
It was quite ironic how Sansa, Varys etc were talking about Jon maipulating Dany given (as she herself said) she came North to help him, because she loved him.
She has lost 2 dragons, her fleet, half her army, a beloved friend and likely her throne.
Alpharius wrote: Really, this is all GRRM's fault, for not being able to finish a book in 8+ years.
Kind of? I think HBO and the showrunners had every reason to believe (were given every reason to believe?) that TWoW would be released in time for them to adapt it. That's on GRRM. They had to know that they'd be on the hook for the conclusion, though. And wrapping the thing up -- even with a general outline from GRRM -- was always going to be a big challenge. I genuinely believe that. But what baffles me is how many of my objections to the writing have nothing to do with those constraints and challenges.
Its just as likely the terrible bits are in fact the GRM bits - given how bad books 4 and 5 are.
It was quite ironic how Sansa, Varys etc were talking about Jon maipulating Dany given (as she herself said) she came North to help him, because she loved him.
She has lost 2 dragons, her fleet, half her army, a beloved friend and likely her throne.
What have Jon and co lost?
Most of their family and half the citizens of the North?
I think you need to be prepared for the possibility that Daenerys doesn't end up on the throne. In fact, there has always been a good chance she ends up as Nissa Nissa, with a sword stuck in her.
Not to mention their freedom. The North was an independent rebel state, but they work for Danny now. Which means that instead of fortifying Winterfell and preparing for the coming winter, they have to use the precious last bits of manpower they have to march on King's Landing as that's what Danny wants.
Alpharius wrote: Really, this is all GRRM's fault, for not being able to finish a book in 8+ years.
Kind of? I think HBO and the showrunners had every reason to believe (were given every reason to believe?) that TWoW would be released in time for them to adapt it. That's on GRRM. They had to know that they'd be on the hook for the conclusion, though. And wrapping the thing up -- even with a general outline from GRRM -- was always going to be a big challenge. I genuinely believe that. But what baffles me is how many of my objections to the writing have nothing to do with those constraints and challenges.
Its just as likely the terrible bits are in fact the GRM bits - given how bad books 4 and 5 are.
It was quite ironic how Sansa, Varys etc were talking about Jon maipulating Dany given (as she herself said) she came North to help him, because she loved him.
She has lost 2 dragons, her fleet, half her army, a beloved friend and likely her throne.
What have Jon and co lost?
Most of their family and half the citizens of the North?
I think you need to be prepared for the possibility that Daenerys doesn't end up on the throne. In fact, there has always been a good chance she ends up as Nissa Nissa, with a sword stuck in her.
Yeah I already said I thought she would die cos Jon Snow
The North (ie Sansa) are already plotting to break free - even if she wins (less and less likely) they would rebel - we have seen how little Sansa's oaths to her brother are worth.
They work for Dany because she was the only option, the only one who would bother heading up to help. If not for her they would all be dead, but that will be quickly forgotten - in fact it already has. If she had not come north - Kings Landing would already be hers.
I think Danny wins, and then the North (Sansa and Arya) do away with her, despite Jon's wishes, and then they 'force' Jon to take the throne, helping the North and "The Realm", ala the Spider...
Alpharius wrote: I think Danny wins, and then the North (Sansa and Arya) do away with her, despite Jon's wishes, and then they 'force' Jon to take the throne, helping the North and "The Realm", ala the Spider...
Quite possible - Dany may well loose her dragon in the siege first to come given that that the Alliance does not have the barest grasp of military tactics - I doubt they will sit back and bombard the gun emplacements.....
Or she gives up and goes back to Esos and tells the ungrateful gits in Westros to stick it - she can rule one side of the world and they can keep that bit. After all her people did come from Valaria not Westros.
Mr Morden wrote: They work for Dany because she was the only option, the only one who would bother heading up to help. If not for her they would all be dead, but that will be quickly forgotten - in fact it already has. If she had not come north - Kings Landing would already be hers.
For a little while, until the WWs consumed everything...which they certainly would have had they hit an unreinforced North. Would have allowed the WWs to take them apart piecemeal, AND expanded the wight army by a significant amount. Her decision to defend the North wasn't made only out of generosity. They had to make their stand in the North, or else she wouldn't *keep* the throne.
Alpharius wrote: I think Danny wins, and then the North (Sansa and Arya) do away with her, despite Jon's wishes, and then they 'force' Jon to take the throne, helping the North and "The Realm", ala the Spider...
Quite possible - Dany may well loose her dragon in the siege first to come given that that the Alliance does not have the barest grasp of military tactics - I doubt they will sit back and bombard the gun emplacements.....
Or she gives up and goes back to Esos and tells the ungrateful gits in Westros to stick it - she can rule one side of the world and they can keep that bit. After all her people did come from Valaria not Westros.
I'm sure this battle will be very well shot, with impressive production values, and very little sense on either side.
Mr Morden wrote: They work for Dany because she was the only option, the only one who would bother heading up to help. If not for her they would all be dead, but that will be quickly forgotten - in fact it already has. If she had not come north - Kings Landing would already be hers.
For a little while, until the WWs consumed everything...which they certainly would have had they hit an unreinforced North. Would have allowed the WWs to take them apart piecemeal, AND expanded the wight army by a significant amount. Her decision to defend the North wasn't made only out of generosity. They had to make their stand in the North, or else she wouldn't *keep* the throne.
Alpharius wrote: I think Danny wins, and then the North (Sansa and Arya) do away with her, despite Jon's wishes, and then they 'force' Jon to take the throne, helping the North and "The Realm", ala the Spider...
Quite possible - Dany may well loose her dragon in the siege first to come given that that the Alliance does not have the barest grasp of military tactics - I doubt they will sit back and bombard the gun emplacements.....
Or she gives up and goes back to Esos and tells the ungrateful gits in Westros to stick it - she can rule one side of the world and they can keep that bit. After all her people did come from Valaria not Westros.
I'm sure this battle will be very well shot, with impressive production values, and very little sense on either side.
The wierd thing is that apparently according to the show, none of her sacrifce was actually needed - Apparently Aryra was all that was needed? If she had conquered the South, the Night King would have slaughtered everone without mile thick plot shields and then wondered into Winterfell gardens, said hi to Bran and then got stabbed. All is good - they didn;t know that but it seems to be the message?
None of the battle of Winterfell or its defenders, or dragonglass or dragons made any difference to the outcome of that battle.
Now because she and her armies were there - many survived but as usual when she tries to do the "right thing" it always backfires - probably the gods want her to let loose and burn everything, whatever happened to all the other priestesses of the Lord of Light?
Gordon Shumway wrote: please, tell me what in the show said anything more about stannis than "I'm a second son and I follow goofy crap because the goofy crap worked for me once". I really don't get the stannis love, is it like an internet meme or 4chan thing?
The love for him stems from him being an amazing character in the book and DnD having to basically rewrite him from the ground up to make him less compelling and more villainous because they, to quote what they actually said, "didn't really understand the character".
People like him because he's basically Frolo from the Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame in that god itself (the writers) had to cripple the character in order to give the rest of the Westeros players a chance.
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Mr Morden wrote: They work for Dany because she was the only option, the only one who would bother heading up to help. If not for her they would all be dead, but that will be quickly forgotten - in fact it already has. If she had not come north - Kings Landing would already be hers.
If she hadn't come North they'd be stuck on the other side of the wall with no dragon to siege with.
You mean when another one of Jon's plans backfired and she had to go rescue him and he got a dragon killed looking for those last few exps to level up
Stannis is quite interesting in the books but oveshadowed by others and of course swamped by all the nobody characters that GRm keeps adding and wasting time on.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I call bs that they only lost 50% of their men. It looked more like 80%, considering how few defenders were left.
At this point none of it makes that much sense - There are enough left to make a decent fight at Kings Landing, thats all they want.
Betting none of the the artillery makes it down south as they would wipe out the gatling balistae in a few shots as they are compeltely exposed. Of they fly the dragon up above them and drop rocks on them
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I call bs that they only lost 50% of their men. It looked more like 80%, considering how few defenders were left.
At this point none of it makes that much sense - There are enough left to make a decent fight at Kings Landing, thats all they want.
Betting none of the the artillery makes it down south as they would wipe out the gatling balistae in a few shots as they are compeltely exposed. Of they fly the dragon up above them and drop rocks on them
or they could charge at the castle walls
that last part is likely jon's plan. i could see them having more forces from dragonstone, but yeah that looked like a major TPK at winterfell.
Tyranid Horde wrote: What are the chances Euron's fleet gets annihilated in the next episode? Just basing it off the trailer for the next episode.
#
Almost certain I think - if only to balance the sides and so people can moan about Dany burning people (in the middle of a war - shock horror)
Well, yes, people generally do moan about tyrants murdering normal civilians or captured, unarmed, helpless enemies during a war. They have done since pretty much the beginning of warfare. Because it's wrong. It's also rampant hypocrisy and a complete betrayal of your own supposed morality when you have styled yourself as a new kind of leader dedicated to "breaking the wheel" rather than merely trying to ride it to the top - there was a tissue thin argument that Dany wasn't going Full Daddy when she burned the Tarlys, but there's none if she does it to a whole city full of smallfolk. Burning the city down with everyone inside is burning the city down with everyone inside, it doesn't matter if you do it from inside the keep with wildfire as the besieged or from above it on dragonback as the besieger, if it was wrong for the Mad King to do it - and it unequivocally, incontestably was - then it's also wrong for Dany to do it.
Very few people will moan about Dany burning the Ironborn fleet because A; it's a fleet of warships, ie a combatant not the civilian populace of a city, and B; it's led by Euron, who everybody sane fething hates and wants to see die.
Tyranid Horde wrote: What are the chances Euron's fleet gets annihilated in the next episode? Just basing it off the trailer for the next episode.
#
Almost certain I think - if only to balance the sides and so people can moan about Dany burning people (in the middle of a war - shock horror)
Well, yes, people generally do moan about tyrants murdering normal civilians or captured, unarmed, helpless enemies during a war. They have done since pretty much the beginning of warfare. Because it's wrong. It's also rampant hypocrisy and a complete betrayal of your own supposed morality when you have styled yourself as a new kind of leader dedicated to "breaking the wheel" rather than merely trying to ride it to the top - there was a tissue thin argument that Dany wasn't going Full Daddy when she burned the Tarlys, but there's none if she does it to a whole city full of smallfolk. Burning the city down with everyone inside is burning the city down with everyone inside, it doesn't matter if you do it from inside the keep with wildfire as the besieged or from above it on dragonback as the besieger, if it was wrong for the Mad King to do it - and it unequivocally, incontestably was - then it's also wrong for Dany to do it.
Very few people will moan about Dany burning the Ironborn fleet because A; it's a fleet of warships, ie a combatant not the civilian populace of a city, and B; it's led by Euron, who everybody sane fething hates and wants to see die.
Oh right - this nonsense again. She has beant over backwards to appease those who want to minimise cassulaties - and where has it got her? friiends executed, half her army gone, 2 dragons dead and her throne slipping away. She should have burnt the Red Keep on day one in Westros (not the city) until somone surrendered. But we have to have Jon Snow on the throne. Like Sansa - she is beginning to realise that her dream is just that - a dream - if she really wants a revolution it will need to be sown in fields of fire and blood - just as her anscestors and every other conqueror have and will do.
Seriously - you do know what happened when a city fell to seige warfare right? It was not a nice pleasent thing where they only killed those defenders who refused to surrender. Nope. Normally the warriors/soldiers are given free rein to do whatever they want and thats some really horrible stuff - mass rape, torture, executions for fun - thats what happened throughout history upto and including the modern day. Trying to restrain your soldiers is dangerous - even hard line people like Wellington had to step back from trying to stop the sack of a city on occassion, becuase his men would have killed him.
Thats what will happen when / if they take the city - certainly by the Dothraki and likely by everyone else - the Unsullied may not rape but they sure as hell will take it out on those in the city that Cersei held - not nice, probably not right but thats what happens. If they don;t allude to that (as they did with Meeren)- then its pandering to people like you. Remember thier beloved commander just saw his the love of his life executed in front of him and what pray tell where her last words? They will go through the city like butchers.
There are very few rules to war in a period like this - those that do exisit are purely to protect the rich and powerful - hence ransom. Anyone else gets out of the way or suffers. Thats medievil life.
Whats the other options - a long siege - well then guess who suffers and starves in that scenario - its not Cersei and the army - its the civilians - many will die - mostly the old and the very young, the survivors will have to face the invaders. Of course this is what Cersei wants - you either win or you die - she is more than happy to watch the city die after what they did to her on the walk of shame.
but whats your option?
Dany is perfectly in her rights to burn the Tarlys's - they did not bend the knee - they die - all other rulers - inlcuding everyones' beloved Jon Snow would have executed them, he said so himself. But only Dany is mad - cos reasons....
Tyranid Horde wrote: What are the chances Euron's fleet gets annihilated in the next episode? Just basing it off the trailer for the next episode.
#
Almost certain I think - if only to balance the sides and so people can moan about Dany burning people (in the middle of a war - shock horror)
Well, yes, people generally do moan about tyrants murdering normal civilians or captured, unarmed, helpless enemies during a war. They have done since pretty much the beginning of warfare. Because it's wrong. It's also rampant hypocrisy and a complete betrayal of your own supposed morality when you have styled yourself as a new kind of leader dedicated to "breaking the wheel" rather than merely trying to ride it to the top - there was a tissue thin argument that Dany wasn't going Full Daddy when she burned the Tarlys, but there's none if she does it to a whole city full of smallfolk. Burning the city down with everyone inside is burning the city down with everyone inside, it doesn't matter if you do it from inside the keep with wildfire as the besieged or from above it on dragonback as the besieger, if it was wrong for the Mad King to do it - and it unequivocally, incontestably was - then it's also wrong for Dany to do it.
Very few people will moan about Dany burning the Ironborn fleet because A; it's a fleet of warships, ie a combatant not the civilian populace of a city, and B; it's led by Euron, who everybody sane fething hates and wants to see die.
rabble rabble rabble
"Other people do it" is not an excuse when your whole shtick is supposedly that you aren't like everyone else and want to do things better. People who adopt a system's norms in order to gain the power to change it rarely end up changing anything.
And Dany is mad - probably - because she has not "bent over backwards" to do anything; she has repeatedly been barely restrained from going dark side by her advisors, not always successfully, and they are evidently no longer having much impact on her. Further "she was well within her rights to execute the Tarlys" is a pretty far cry from "she was entirely justified in burning unarmed prisoners of war alive", even if it were true.
I think that's a definite maybe. Other than his dalliance with Arya, there isn't a clear reason why they brought the character back to the show. He fits Varys' qualifications of a guy who doesn't want to be king, and he could represent a compromise choice (and easy puppet) of the kingmakers if/when Jon backs out (him returning to the North in some capacity still seems like his path). And these are showrunners who have been ruthlessly (often hamfistedly) chopping characters and groups they don't absolutely need for the conclusion.
On the other hand...hamfists! It'd be better if good writing was keeping us guessing moreso than who-knows-what-nonsense-these-writers-will-dream-up-edness. But at least we're still guessing, I suppose.
Tyranid Horde wrote: What are the chances Euron's fleet gets annihilated in the next episode? Just basing it off the trailer for the next episode.
#
Almost certain I think - if only to balance the sides and so people can moan about Dany burning people (in the middle of a war - shock horror)
Well, yes, people generally do moan about tyrants murdering normal civilians or captured, unarmed, helpless enemies during a war. They have done since pretty much the beginning of warfare. Because it's wrong. It's also rampant hypocrisy and a complete betrayal of your own supposed morality when you have styled yourself as a new kind of leader dedicated to "breaking the wheel" rather than merely trying to ride it to the top - there was a tissue thin argument that Dany wasn't going Full Daddy when she burned the Tarlys, but there's none if she does it to a whole city full of smallfolk. Burning the city down with everyone inside is burning the city down with everyone inside, it doesn't matter if you do it from inside the keep with wildfire as the besieged or from above it on dragonback as the besieger, if it was wrong for the Mad King to do it - and it unequivocally, incontestably was - then it's also wrong for Dany to do it.
Very few people will moan about Dany burning the Ironborn fleet because A; it's a fleet of warships, ie a combatant not the civilian populace of a city, and B; it's led by Euron, who everybody sane fething hates and wants to see die.
rabble rabble rabble
Splutter -Whine - Splutter
.
Dark Side - Really do you even watch the show? Euron, Cersei, Joffrey and Ramsey are the dark side. I don't see her burning children either like some peoples favourite brother of the durken abusive king or the priestess of the Lord of Light? Or dropping children out of towers with a quip or raping your sister - oh but Jamies a good guy now right?
Of course you have to compare her everyone else - Duh!
Ah so ignore every point I made about thats how the world works and she has to come to terms with the reality? Just muster the same "Dany is mad " arguments - sad really.
AGAIN what is you solution to the siege problem - I am sure that you have one that somehow means no civilian deaths? Right? Or is it just Ohss Nooo Don't burn the pretty city, much better to let people starve and be slaughtered in the sack of it.
FFS - they were given a choice - bend the knee or die - what more did they want - SHE WAS ENTIRELY Justified by the laws of the realm not the petty morality that someone sitting in armchair in the 21st century .
She executed them by fire rather than axe - took about the same time - espeically if you get an incompetant executioner - what exactly is your problem? Death is death.
Gael Knight wrote: Gendry is the bookies favourite for the throne. Followed by Jon then Bran.
I think it could be Gendry marrying Sansa. After Sansa betrays Tyrion in some way.She's being a bit of a budget Littlefinger.
Dany goes insane, Jon kills her. Goes off to live in the true north.
Thats bad enough to be the plan for the next few episodes. Now that they have suddenly decided Dany is insane
Sansa I can see ruling the North and a puppet on the thrine down south makes sense for her.
Do we think there will be any more Bran nonsense? Or leaving that for the prequals....
Hmm...Bran. As of now, a bunch of people sacrificed their lives so that Bran...could accomplish what, exactly? Serve as bait for the NK? Tell people that Jon is a secret Targaryen but not actually prove it? And if Jon ends up turning down the throne, what was even the point of that?
I think Bran is another character that they inherited from GRRM and then didn't know how to use. That's not all their fault, as I think GRRM overcomplicated his story with books 4 and 5. But it's really been their story for the last 3 seasons or whatever, and too many of their own story threads seem to have gone nowhere...not in a red herring way, but in a just plain pointless way.
But sure...if Bran has nothing much to do with this story, but is the bridge to the new GoT franchise on HBO, I guess I get it.
It's been a week, and I still am highly annoyed with last week's episode. I love the show but man they are making some really questionable choices with the storytelling. I hope they can pull it out in the end but I am starting to doubt they can.
So far as Rhaegal getting killed so abruptly, that is what bothers me the most. How could Dany, 500 feet up, not have seen the Iron Fleet? My drone can see for literally miles in every direction at 400 feet. And lets not retread the ground about how every guy on a scorpion was Robin Hood, and how they fired like machine guns, and so on.
I think they could have ended in the same place and it still have been satisfying: They see a single Greyjoy ship, and engage it. Turns out to be a trap, and other Greyjoy ships appear from behind terrain (or are camoflaged on the shore!) They release a torrent of scorpion bolts, and they all either miss, or bounce off. The dragons are now torching stuff left and right, screaming burning men, and so on. Suddenly, a shot hits Rhaegal in the eye, mirroring what happened to Meraxes!
You still wind up with the same conclusion but it feels way less cheap. But of course, I suppose they blew all the CGI on whatever happened in the dark in a snowstorm, earlier.
Ugh. I try to tune out the people who clearly hate the show but still watch for reasons I cannot fathom, but either they're rubbing off on me, or I have to concede some points to them.
I assume they really ARE going to turn Dany into the mad queen, and presumably Arya or Jon kills her, and that feels very abrupt after 8 years of building her up to pull a heel turn in literally the last 2 episodes.
I dunno, maybe I've been watching a different series with different eyes, but to me, yeah Dany is going to go the mad queen way. She has had literally every single one of the advisors who have been cautioning her against her worst instincts for the last four seasons killed. Now she is doing what she always wanted to do. She isn't a heroic character. She is just her character.
Gordon Shumway wrote: I dunno, maybe I've been watching a different series with different eyes, but to me, yeah Dany is going to go the mad queen way. She has had literally every single one of the advisors who have been cautioning her against her worst instincts for the last four seasons killed. Now she is doing what she always wanted to do. She isn't a heroic character. She is just her character.
Really please list those advisors she had killed - Varys is still there, Tyrion is still there, she has lost some to enemy action.
The only madness has been crowbarred into this season, she has been far less ruthless than any other potential ruler in the race to the Iron Throne.
Maybe now people are looking to betray her left and right, she has lost two (proxy) children and a close friend she might be entitled to be a bit touchy - she is not paranoid if people are actually out to get her.
She asked her lover to do one thing for her (after risking everything for him several times) and he refused.
Of course if she had burned the Red keep in episode 1 of Season 7 she would have none of these problems. She would have a huge army, 3 dragons and likely an accepting people - as has been confirmed a number of times - most people don't care who sits on the Iron Throne. The dead would have been sorted out by Aryra's dagger.
Seriously, you want to play a semantics game? we can, I guess, it is the Internet, after all. You knew exactly what I meant so your epeen points didn't go up, sorry to say.
Far less ruthless except for a few people (Jon, Sansa, Tyron, Yarys, etc.) you know, all the people telling her not to do it on a moral basis. Yup, never occurred to them.
If you missed the madness throughout, sorry for you, you must go back and watch every episode again. Or not. You will just be more upset over the ending, I guess.
You didn't see her face after she asked her lover to do the one thing he cannot do, and she knew he couldn't do it? Guess not. Not surprised. You seem to not be able to read beyond a literal interpretation.
After 3 pretty dire episodes ep4 definitely got back on track - its almost like the writers remembered they could write good stuff from back in season 2-4 (although the opening 25 minute love in was tedious).
Great scenes with Tyrion/Varys (totally under used thus far) as were the scenes with Jamie/Brianne, a nice cameo with Bronn returning and a good old dark GoT ending.
More of that please.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Seriously, you want to play a semantics game? we can, I guess, it is the Internet, after all. You knew exactly what I meant so your epeen points didn't go up, sorry to say.
Far less ruthless except for a few people (Jon, Sansa, Tyron, Yarys, etc.) you know, all the people telling her not to do it on a moral basis. Yup, never occurred to them.
If you missed the madness throughout, sorry for you, you must go back and watch every episode again. Or not. You will just be more upset over the ending, I guess.
You didn't see her face after she asked her lover to do the one thing he cannot do, and she knew he couldn't do it? Guess not. Not surprised. You seem to not be able to read beyond a literal interpretation.
No Mate YOU made a very specific statement about HER killing people - and have now backtracked to say nope not what I said - read it again:
She has had literally every single one of the advisors who have been cautioning her against her worst instincts for the last four seasons killed
so wtf did you mean by this statement becuase I cant read your mind over the internet! Be easier if you said what you mean.
Varys not ruthless? Hilarious - of course he is thats his job - in the last episode he was discussing having her killed (as he did back when he worked for Robert and co.
Sansa - she had a man devoured in front of her by dogs and watched and smiled. Which apparently is fine and killing peope by dragon is the mark of an insane person ??
Jon - as he himself said he killed men for disobeying orders, he is the weakest and most malliable - as Varys sai but will kill those who do not obey.
As I said Which of them were after the throne? - probably just Sansa now.
And that "great advice" from Varys and Tyrion - what element or advice has worked out for her snce she arrived in Westros? When has it not resulted in disaster?
If she had burnt the Red Keep on DAY ONE- tens of thousands would still be alive and well. Their deaths are on them but are always forgotten.
On both sides
Those who died in the assault on Castley Rock
Those who died in the Iron born fleet destroyed by Euron
Those who died in the attack on the Lanister supply convoy
All those who died at Highgarden
All those would still be alive if she had burned the heart of out Cersei's rule and anyone who now dies is also there fault, not Dany's.
Tell me why Jon couldn't do (or at least wait) - WHY does he need to tell Sansa and Aryria (apart from the ongoing narrative to break up the two of them) - Dany told him what would happen - and it has - its therefore his fault (after Bran and Sam). If he does not care and wants her to be queen - keep your fat mouth shut.
I said that Dany has now increasing cause to be loosing it - can you disagree?
Along with Sansa she has the most difficult journey of any remaining character. Sold as a child bride, lost her husband and children, now lost 2 out of 3 proxy children, friends dying, lover betraying her. Seriously she should leave them to it - they don't want her let them sort Cersei out.
Its her fault that she has not been any where near ruthless enough.
Yes the showrunners have now decided she is the mad one in this season.
Ratius wrote: After 3 pretty dire episodes ep4 definitely got back on track - its almost like the writers remembered they could write good stuff from back in season 2-4 (although the opening 25 minute love in was tedious).
Great scenes with Tyrion/Varys (totally under used thus far) as were the scenes with Jamie/Brianne, a nice cameo with Bronn returning and a good old dark GoT ending.
More of that please.
It's hilarious how much of a minority of an opinion this is...not saying it's wrong, but the overwhelming majority of fan posts I've seen hated e4 as much or more than e3.
Ratius wrote: After 3 pretty dire episodes ep4 definitely got back on track - its almost like the writers remembered they could write good stuff from back in season 2-4 (although the opening 25 minute love in was tedious).
Great scenes with Tyrion/Varys (totally under used thus far) as were the scenes with Jamie/Brianne, a nice cameo with Bronn returning and a good old dark GoT ending.
More of that please.
It's hilarious how much of a minority of an opinion this is...not saying it's wrong, but the overwhelming majority of fan posts I've seen hated e4 as much or more than e3.
It has better elements than ep 3 - the fact you can see what was happening was a bonus. The interplay between characters is mostly good but the action scenes are pretty awful in concept - done well but make no sense sum up alot of scenes.
Crowbarring in Dany going mad to this season is a major negative for many.
The alt scene suggested previous for the death of a dragon (if it had to happen) was much better than waht they filmed.
They see a single Greyjoy ship, and engage it. Turns out to be a trap, and other Greyjoy ships appear from behind terrain (or are camoflaged on the shore!) They release a torrent of scorpion bolts, and they all either miss, or bounce off. The dragons are now torching stuff left and right, screaming burning men, and so on. Suddenly, a shot hits Rhaegal in the eye, mirroring what happened to Meraxes!
It's hilarious how much of a minority of an opinion this is...not saying it's wrong, but the overwhelming majority of fan posts I've seen hated e4 as much or more than e3.
Hmmm, I dunno. I thought it was a decent return to some of the older seasons, shorter snappier scenes, some politicking, a good dark ending, a ok short battle scene and some decent character interplay.
Dont get me wrong the opening 25 mins I was nearly asleep, Danny/Johns scenes were tedious and there was definitely some wand waving with the fleet battle/dragons.
But better than I've seen imho.
I definitely thought they needed the immediate destruction of the dragon by the ballistas to show how they have evened the playing field so Dany is now overly cautious. If it was just a lucky strike or one dragon died at Winterfell, it would not have the same effect. Sure, I think they could have played the shoot massive amounts of missiles and we will hit something angle instead of being an amazingly accurate one-hit-wonder.
Ouze wrote: Ugh. I try to tune out the people who clearly hate the show but still watch for reasons I cannot fathom, but either they're rubbing off on me, or I have to concede some points to them.
I'm sure I come across as far too negative. I don't hatewatch the show. I keep wanting it to improve...but it just keeps disappointing me. I recognize these writers had a tough task in front of them, and part of me wants to defend them on that point. But the writing is...just not good. And it's one of those things where the more you think about it and the more threads you pull, the worse it gets. And if you actually go back and watch an episode from the early seasons...IMO it becomes really hard to say that the show hasn't gone downhill. In fact, it seems to be picking up downhill speed heading into the long-awaited conclusion. It's so disappointing.
Mr Morden wrote: Crowbarring in Dany going mad to this season is a major negative for many.
Her seemingly imminent heel turn will certainly ruffle some feathers. Especially given that the showrunners are male, and we're coming off an ep that had some really cringy lines from Sansa about how all the abuse made her stronger. I'm not a SJW, but my eyebrows went up on that one. We're headed for some controversy.
But really, I think most of the audience are people who tune in watch the 'splosions.
Oh...the actor who plays Bran solved the great mystery of what he was doing during the battle. Apparently he was just in the ravens, keeping tabs on things. Alrighty then. That character's arc sure paid off, huh?
Eh, Sansa's lines weren't unique. What she said was just some variation of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Its been done before.
Bran is pointless. I mean, he's basically a god now, right? Or some sort of mystical avatar druid thing? Do something.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Eh, Sansa's lines weren't unique. What she said was just some variation of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Its been done before.
Bran is pointless. I mean, he's basically a god now, right? Or some sort of mystical avatar druid thing? Do something.
Bran's basically an invalid with unlimited access to streaming everything that happens in human history, which probably means he was watching Endgame while the Battle of Winterfell was going on and now he's watching the nature channel. I dunno, I was hoping he would at least give them insight to the wildfire caches still leftover in King's Landing and how Cersei could use it as a deadman's switch. Maybe even give them intel regarding their defenses or Euron's fleet location? A lot of characters are muddling about doing nothing right now.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Eh, Sansa's lines weren't unique. What she said was just some variation of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Its been done before.
Bran is pointless. I mean, he's basically a god now, right? Or some sort of mystical avatar druid thing? Do something.
Bran's basically an invalid with unlimited access to streaming everything that happens in human history, which probably means he was watching Endgame while the Battle of Winterfell was going on and now he's watching the nature channel. I dunno, I was hoping he would at least give them insight to the wildfire caches still leftover in King's Landing and how Cersei could use it as a deadman's switch. Maybe even give them intel regarding their defenses or Euron's fleet location? A lot of characters are muddling about doing nothing right now.
Could be Bran is outside the cares of this world at this point. There is no motivation for him to do anything any more. Same with Tom Bombandil in LotR. He could ignore the power of the ring, he could possibly bitchslap Sauron for funsies, but the random threat of a looming evil all over the world was irrelevant for him. He was happy in his forest with his lady and singing to the trees and the waters and that was about it.
Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Beats meeting someone on Monday, someone you always thought was actually a boy all these long years, screwing on Tuesday, then proposing to them on Wednesday.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Beats meeting someone on Monday, someone you always thought was actually a boy all these long years, screwing on Tuesday, then proposing to them on Wednesday.
Gendry knew Arya was a girl, and a highborn girl at that, since before they even reached Harrenhal.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Beats meeting someone on Monday, someone you always thought was actually a boy all these long years, screwing on Tuesday, then proposing to them on Wednesday.
Gendry knew Arya was a girl, and a highborn girl at that, since before they even reached Harrenhal.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Not that I agree with it, but I actually got the impression they were going to go that route in the show for awhile now. Would have been more surprised if they did not push that arc in all honesty.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Not that I agree with it, but I actually got the impression they were going to go that route in the show for awhile now. Would have been more surprised if they did not push that arc in all honesty.
I agree with this arc, as there was the tension during her escorting him a few seasons back. It actually broke my heart to see Brienne hurt and crying... But, Jamie is a turd for all he has done and I would not believe this as his redemptive act to stay HEA with her - he has to face Cersei if he to be truly redeemed. However, what about the storm brewing within Tormund? I guess it's good Jamie left town in a hurry.
The alt scene suggested previous for the death of a dragon (if it had to happen) was much better than waht they filmed.
They see a single Greyjoy ship, and engage it. Turns out to be a trap, and other Greyjoy ships appear from behind terrain (or are camoflaged on the shore!) They release a torrent of scorpion bolts, and they all either miss, or bounce off. The dragons are now torching stuff left and right, screaming burning men, and so on. Suddenly, a shot hits Rhaegal in the eye, mirroring what happened to Meraxes!
Heck, you could have it be a one-shot. Spot Greyjoy fleet, swoop in and burn. Euron Greyjoy is a crazy who mans a ballista and waits until a dragon points its mouth at him, at close range, smiles, and shoots the dragon in the mouth.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Eh, Sansa's lines weren't unique. What she said was just some variation of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Its been done before.
Bran is pointless. I mean, he's basically a god now, right? Or some sort of mystical avatar druid thing? Do something.
Bran's basically an invalid with unlimited access to streaming everything that happens in human history, which probably means he was watching Endgame while the Battle of Winterfell was going on and now he's watching the nature channel. I dunno, I was hoping he would at least give them insight to the wildfire caches still leftover in King's Landing and how Cersei could use it as a deadman's switch. Maybe even give them intel regarding their defenses or Euron's fleet location? A lot of characters are muddling about doing nothing right now.
Could be Bran is outside the cares of this world at this point. There is no motivation for him to do anything any more. Same with Tom Bombandil in LotR. He could ignore the power of the ring, he could possibly bitchslap Sauron for funsies, but the random threat of a looming evil all over the world was irrelevant for him. He was happy in his forest with his lady and singing to the trees and the waters and that was about it.
I see Bran in a similar way.
But that's contradicted by how strongly he pushed for Jon to know his real parentage. What purpose does this give besides dividing the alliance with the North and Daenerys' forces? It would have made more sense for him to convince Sam to tell him after the war in the south has been finished.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Eh, Sansa's lines weren't unique. What she said was just some variation of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger". Its been done before.
Bran is pointless. I mean, he's basically a god now, right? Or some sort of mystical avatar druid thing? Do something.
Bran's basically an invalid with unlimited access to streaming everything that happens in human history, which probably means he was watching Endgame while the Battle of Winterfell was going on and now he's watching the nature channel. I dunno, I was hoping he would at least give them insight to the wildfire caches still leftover in King's Landing and how Cersei could use it as a deadman's switch. Maybe even give them intel regarding their defenses or Euron's fleet location? A lot of characters are muddling about doing nothing right now.
Could be Bran is outside the cares of this world at this point. There is no motivation for him to do anything any more. Same with Tom Bombandil in LotR. He could ignore the power of the ring, he could possibly bitchslap Sauron for funsies, but the random threat of a looming evil all over the world was irrelevant for him. He was happy in his forest with his lady and singing to the trees and the waters and that was about it.
I see Bran in a similar way.
But that's contradicted by how strongly he pushed for Jon to know his real parentage. What purpose does this give besides dividing the alliance with the North and Daenerys' forces? It would have made more sense for him to convince Sam to tell him after the war in the south has been finished.
Bran seems to be aplot device that they don't have a use for.
Apparently he can;t see the future but is happy to meddle in life or death situtaions - is that cos he is bored, does not really care or a bad guy.
Telling Jon helps no one but Cersei at the point it was done - so why did he do it / push Sam to do it?
I almost have to assume there is still a bit more Bran stuff to come, otherwise, yeah, completely wasted character/plot line. He seems to be a bit of a Dr. Manhattan character, but at least Manhattan's motives were somewhat clear.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Nah. That felt like the culmination of a fairly well built line to me.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
Nah. That felt like the culmination of a fairly well built line to me.
I thought it peaked in the Knighting scene tbh. Would have been good to have one of them die after that, but here we are.
I thought it peaked in the Knighting scene tbh. Would have been good to have one of them die after that, but here we are.
Yeah, I half expected Brienne to bite it at Winterfell after the knighting scene, because it really would have been a great peak to have that character and that relationship end on. Honestly feel like that ending would have done more justice to the actual character as well, but I also had a feeling that the showrunners were going to push it into the direction that they did due to viewer expectations for a more physical relationship.
MDSW wrote: I definitely thought they needed the immediate destruction of the dragon by the ballistas to show how they have evened the playing field so Dany is now overly cautious. If it was just a lucky strike or one dragon died at Winterfell, it would not have the same effect. Sure, I think they could have played the shoot massive amounts of missiles and we will hit something angle instead of being an amazingly accurate one-hit-wonder.
They could have accomplished that without it feeling so hamfisted though.
They could have simply wounded Rheagol with several glancing blows, after a lot of shots. Or killed him after a relatively even struggle.
The scene we got was hilariously one sided, and that was a very poor choice. We needed to see several ships go down in exchange for killing Rhaegol. Killing him, and most of Dany's ships, with no losses is just dumb and uninteresting.
Euron Ex Machina needs to go away, RIGHT NOW!!! Its bad for the series. I really hope he dies in the next episode because the show really needs it for its own good, hopefully in a suitably terrible manner.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Does anyone else think that the whole Jaime/Brienne love plot arc seemed incredibly forced and random? I definitely never got that feeling between them, and then in one episode *bam* they slept together.
I think groundwork had been laid (pun intended), but the consummation was fan-servicey. It’d be better writing and more true to those characters if they didn’t IMO. And it’s not like that relationship is leading anywhere important with 2 eps left in the whole series. It was all about the “omg you go girl”.
See, I'm on the fence on weather he is actually running back to Cersei, and I really hope he isn't.
The last several seasons have kinda been a... atonement arc for him. He's been working towards leaving Cersei and repenting for all the bad things him and his family have done, which culminated in him defying his sister and joining the "good guys" at Winterfell.
If he just goes back to being on her side thats going to just ruin all of that character development he's been having, and be contrary to what he has become. Hopefully, he's going back to try to convince her/do what he can to make her surrender and give up.
To be honest, I think whether Jaime goes back to help or or kill her, it's sort of in-character.
He has this whole redemption line, and killing her would fit into that nicely. He finally broke free of Cersei's influence! (also, it fulfills the Valonquar prophecy).
On the other hand, if he joins her, then it's true to the arguments he gave - that his infatuation with Cersei is essentially a sickness, it's a cycle that he cannot break. it also subverts the expectations of the redemption arc.
So, they can't lose, really!
Azreal13 wrote: Nobody else considering that the sex was to set up the 'betrayal' where he runs back to Cersei and may then set up further repurcussions?
If he does indeed kill Cersei, I assume the speech was to prevent Brienne from following him.
gorgon wrote: I think groundwork had been laid (pun intended), but the consummation was fan-servicey. It’d be better writing and more true to those characters if they didn’t IMO.
I see where you are coming from, but I disagree. Brienne is a true knight, but weak for Jaime, as well as the fact pretty much no one really accepted her as a woman or anything other than a giant monster, with some exceptions like Renly. Jaime however is definitely not a true knight. Pining away for Ashara Dayne is in character for Barristan Selmy, for example, but not for Jaime.
In a season marred by some questionable choices, I think this is the one I was the most OK with.
I thought the Jamie - Brienne sub plot is one of the better elements - esp with him going back to his obession with Cersei. He also does think he is having a child with her -and given their last child died in his arms may be a motivator.
Its another reason why the whole Dany/Jon incest problem seems less insurmountable than many believe - no one is ostracising Jamie for that element.....
I mean, it is possible that the guy realized he wasn't getting better sex here, even though he wanted it to be here. Love has a little and a lot to do about sex.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But, when you want to kill the best sex you have had... fantasy story.
Starting off all fair game, then I could understand maybe destroying the Red Keep but strafing the people seems out of character even for based Mad Dan.
Yeah, I've had episodes I've been unhappy with, but this made me actively happy the show's ending.
First, gotta say: CLEGANEBOWL WAS EVERYTHING I WANTED. Although those Queensguard guys went down like a bunch of chumps.
That said, oof. What the frak was I supposed to feel during those Cersei scenes? We've got zero reasons to be empathetic towards her. Feth her and the whole "I don't want to die" scene and your said, remorseful music. You can't fool me, Ramin Djawadi.
And what was Arya's purpose supposed to be? She doesn't kill Cersei, but she does get a bunch of innocent people killed, and then wastes five minutes of my life staring at a horse before frakking off into the sunset.
I feel like you can definitely tell it's not Martin's series anymore with Euron. The subversion would have Euron being the only person to get out of there, happy to be a pirate over in Essos.
And what was Arya's purpose supposed to be? She doesn't kill Cersei, but she does get a bunch of innocent people killed, and then wastes five minutes of my life staring at a horse before frakking off into the sunset.
I for sure thought that when they did the prolonged side profile of her, after her 12th near death experience, it would pan to see her face half burnt, Clegane-style, which would have been a cruel twist given the final dialogue between those two.
Also, all the hype about the Golden Company and they get rolled...
Gael Knight wrote: I honestly don't understand why he's holding back (in the setting).
Like Varys and Tyrion talked about, the whole inter-family relationship was really only a Targaryeon thing. Fire & Blood goes into the whole thing where the Targaryeons had to deal with a rebellion from the Faith of the Seven and eventually had to be pronounced as having "special blood" to get around the squicky bits. Westerosi, and especially Northerners, wouldn't go in for that sort of stuff.
Oh, and I also like how Euron's fleet could triple-shot a flying dragon while on the move in an ambush, but suddenly bumble-fethed their way around the ballistas when SITTING PERFECTLY STILL IN FINE WEATHER.
They really should have kept Rhaegal alive for this episode, then killed him off in the fleet attack. Prompting crazy Dany.
I guess the books have the explanation but honestly nobody seems to really reject Jaime for his Sister fething so within the context of the show an Aunt you didn't know about seems fine.
infinite_array wrote: Oh, and I also like how Euron's fleet could triple-shot a flying dragon while on the move in an ambush, but suddenly bumble-fethed their way around the ballistas when SITTING PERFECTLY STILL IN FINE WEATHER.
Horrible. Them killing the other dragon was such a cheap move after seeing things. Is clear D&D don't know anything anymore and are just for the shock value.
And if Arya ends up killing Daenerys... pfff.
Really. As others have said the only decent thing was the Cleganebowl.
Varys, oh poor varys, at least you won't have to live to see how this ends.
I guess the books have the explanation but honestly nobody seems to really reject Jaime for his Sister fething so within the context of the show an Aunt you didn't know about seems fine.
From the books (Clash of Kings), here's Catelyn Stark's thoughts:
"Bastards were common enough, but incest was a monstrous sin to both old gods and the new, and the children of such wickedness were named abominations in sept and godswood alike. The dragonkings had wed brother to sister, but they were the blood of old Valyria where such practices had been common, and like their dragons the Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men."
Is it just me or does it seem like the "good guys" ( I say that because the white walkers were the real good guys) had considerably more troops than it appeared after the heroic Night King attacked winterhell?
My nitpicking and problems with the writing aside, this was a tense episode at times and it kept me guessing.
“Wow, do they really have the balls?” moments for me:
Are they really going to kill Varis just like that?
Is the Golden Company about to switch sides?
Are they going to let Arya die unceremoniously? trampled or crushed or burnt?
Was Grey Worm about to square up on Jon Snow?
Is Euron really going to beat Jamie?
Is The Mountain really going to win?
Will they really escape?
Episode definitely could have been 30-45 minutes total runtime though.
I didn't hate what I saw, but I didn't love it, either.
I was worried that the switch to the Mad Queen would have been too abrupt, and it was a little.. but not as bad as it was last episode, with Vary suddenly deciding she was a giant threat.
Gael Knight wrote:They really should have kept Rhaegal alive for this episode, then killed him off in the fleet attack. Prompting crazy Dany.
That would have definitely felt more organic.
infinite_array wrote:Oh, and I also like how Euron's fleet could triple-shot a flying dragon while on the move in an ambush, but suddenly bumble-fethed their way around the ballistas when SITTING PERFECTLY STILL IN FINE WEATHER.
A mystery for the ages. The scorpions went from something that could potentially kill a dragon but virtually never actually did, to surface-to-air rapid fire homing flak guns, back to unwieldy, slow tacking, inaccurate dragon-killing lotto tickets, once again, all within the span of like 2 episodes. Terrific. They clearly shoot at the speed of plot.
nels1031 wrote:Also, all the hype about the Golden Company and they get rolled...
Another giant, extended setup to a quick wet fart.
Still, it was full of moments, as Gorgon says. Seeing Grey Worm turn into The Terminator was legit pretty cool.
I don't know how I thought Jaime and Cersei were going to die, but the actual events of it felt a little underwhelming. Like, together was OK, but by rocks? Yeesh,
Cleganebowl was about as good as I expected, though. Maybe a little grosser. That's OK though.
Ouze wrote: I didn't hate what I saw, but I didn't love it, either.
I was worried that the switch to the Mad Queen would have been too abrupt, and it was a little.. but not as bad as it was last episode, with Vary suddenly deciding she was a giant threat.
Gael Knight wrote:They really should have kept Rhaegal alive for this episode, then killed him off in the fleet attack. Prompting crazy Dany.
That would have definitely felt more organic.
infinite_array wrote:Oh, and I also like how Euron's fleet could triple-shot a flying dragon while on the move in an ambush, but suddenly bumble-fethed their way around the ballistas when SITTING PERFECTLY STILL IN FINE WEATHER.
A mystery for the ages. The scorpions went from something that could potentially kill a dragon but virtually never actually did, to surface-to-air rapid fire homing flak guns, back to unwieldy, slow tacking, inaccurate dragon-killing lotto tickets, once again, all within the span of like 2 episodes. Terrific. They clearly shoot at the speed of plot.
nels1031 wrote:Also, all the hype about the Golden Company and they get rolled...
Another giant, extended setup to a quick wet fart.
Still, it was full of moments, as Gorgon says. Seeing Grey Worm turn into The Terminator was legit pretty cool.
I don't know how I thought Jaime and Cersei were going to die, but the actual events of it felt a little underwhelming. Like, together was OK, but by rocks? Yeesh,
Cleganebowl was about as good as I expected, though. Maybe a little grosser. That's OK though.
oddly enough you can say the "little brother killed her" since he led her to a deathtrap
So I think most of the issues from s7/s8 stem from D&D wanting to rush through content and making the mistake of cutting some major characters from the book as well as D&D being fearful of more fantastical elements from the books.
Book related spoilers
Spoiler:
Catelyn Stark as Lady Stoneheart would've filled the role of Arya killing the Freys which would've removed that god awful cold opening from s7.
fAegon would've been the enemy in the south, not Cersei, which would've worked better as an opposing enemy and Targaryen. It would also make Dany's descent into madness seem more organic if he was the conqueror loved by the people as well as Jon Targaryen Snow being loved by the North.
Euron was very much a pseudo sorceror lord in the books but was reduced to being a pirate in the show. His feats would've been more believable if they were backed by magic not plot necessity. i.e. Dragonhorn or Call Storm to bring down a dragon not heat seeking scorpions.
The Others were always more than White Walkers and not simply undead monstrosities but this was downplayed as well they were reduced from being an unknowable enemy to Lich King 2.0.
As far as the episode goes I think this is likely where GRRM planned to head, but with better pacing and a deeper background. I for one and am glad it's gone full dark because that circles back to where GoT started.
I don't believe there was any real thinking behind it, just like the spiral symbol wasn't leading to anything. The NK was immune because it looked cool and made him a bad-a$$. Also because they couldn't have him defeated so easily. Um. 
Bofors Ballistae, my main gripe is that this is the third time that they've used "Surprise Iron Fleet" as a plot device to deliver Danaerys a setback. It shows a severe lack oof imagination, especially given that they could easlily have 
(although the opening 25 minute love in was tedious).
