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 gorgon wrote:

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.


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 gorgon wrote:

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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.

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.



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”

Another thinks....

Ready?

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.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Another thinks....

Ready?

Spoiler:

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

and the list goes on and on.

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.

No. They were the dead starks.

 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.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

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?

Well, he technically dies twice in Goldeneye? Kind of?

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 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.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:

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

GET HYPE

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.

 Galas wrote:

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"

Sudden urge to do a Baron side Strat run...

Infinity_Array I love that movie but I wouldn't call that a proper undead army in how it works

 gorgon wrote:

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...

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

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 suspect they’re holding out for main cast deaths to be more futile and ignoble?

Here they are, fighting the right war. For the right reasons.

Next three episodes? Death because ‘but it’s my crown’ nonsense.

They Snoked the Nights KIng and Luked Melissandra.

That was a terrible battle plan. Whoever came up with that really need to be executed.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
That was a terrible battle plan. Whoever came up with that really need to be executed.

So, speculation for the second half of the season?

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.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So, speculation for the second half of the season?

Theon rises from the dead for one more redemption arc. Its what we all want.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So, speculation for the second half of the season?

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.

Podrick goes to Dorn for bad pussies.

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.


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 nels1031 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So, speculation for the second half of the season?

Theon rises from the dead for one more redemption arc. Its what we all want.

But first he acts the coward again. So he can be redeemed again. This time *with feeling*.