HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

Lots of rumbling on Twitter this morning that the HBO GO stream of the last night's episode looked considerably better than the cable airing.

i watched on hbo go and could barely see anything for long stretches due to darkness

video compression + lots of blacks = ????

It can be argued that it’s a failure of the show runners that the battle didn’t feel consequential and it felt anticlimactic, but it seems to me that when you put the battle in the context of the rest of the show, it feels pretty grand: it took the amassing of like four armies, two dragons, the training of a ninja who can steal people’s faces, a sudden amassing of magic stone from across the continent, days of forging weaponry, to hold off the wights long enough for a ninja to sneak along and stab the night king.

I think part of the anticlimactic feeling was that I was hoping for humans and wights to progressively and cleverly one-up each other—you want the Night King to do things you don’t expect. He didn’t, he just slammed bodies against the walls until it worked (which, at the end of the day, really is the central looming threat of the white walkers).

The episode had a ton of great moments, it thrilled me and made me feel emotional. For someone who knows nothing about battlefield tactics, the battle provided a few head scratchers, but overall, there were some incredible visuals and it inspired existential terror in me.

idk i was totally thrilled watching the episode, but it fell a bit in my estimation when i thought of it in a broader story context

Usually these sorts of spectacles inspire complaints that the CGI has superseded the writing, but this might be the first show or movie where I've heard people repeatedly defend bad writing with "well, they only had so much CGI money ..."

Also the first time I've actual seen discussion/debate about TV calibration/screen quality in reviews

we switched to the bedroom TV a 10 year old 46" Panasonic Plasma that handled the dark scenery like a champ .

Yeah I had relatively little trouble making sense of things via hbogo so I was surprised how unanimous that reaction was.

I would probably have felt better about the episode if there'd been 4 or 5 fewer instances of name characters getting saved at the last possible second by another name character

Also I found it funny that after all that talk of Sam's inability to keep up as a soldier/fighter, he was able to hack n' slash like a champ through the whole thing

My major problem with the battle was that they went to the trouble of building and ranging all those catapults and trebuchets and fired each of them exactly once. Come on, guys. I know you got dragons, but jeez

When they kept getting saved by each other among the chaos I was fine with it, but when it got to the point that Jon runs in (from outside winterfell) and sees each named character standing on top of their own personal hill of corpses swinging swords (and getting overwhelmed -> cutaway -> cut back and they're fine) it was extremely silly looking to me. My memory might be exaggerating it, though.

I would probably have felt better about the episode if there'd been 4 or 5 fewer instances of name characters getting saved at the last possible second by another name character

the showrunners are totally addicted to this--it was the worst in that beyond-the-wall sortie from last season, where everyone rescued everybody else and only thoros kicked it.

i was amazed by the dragon's precision fire breathing more accurate than modern day drones that's for sure

My only issue with this extremely cool episode of TV where a zombie army invaded a castle (that part owned) was really that they pushed a few characters to the margins and kept cutting back to them in frantic retreat with never any moments of escape. Brienne and Jaime and Podrick(?) were against a wall desperately fighting for the last thirty min before Arya saved the day. I understand the issues of time and devoting more of it to certain characters but wish there’d been some relief for them, cf. Arya hiding out in the Winterfell library.

I thought this was largely anticlimactic. I had a hard time tracking what was going on (muddled and dark picture quality for me) -- I was confused why Arya was making her way through the innards of Winterfell.

The one death that really hit me was Lyanna's, and her revenanting was a moment of real dread (that unfortunately didn't get a followup).

lol @ Bran essentially sending Theon to a ineffectually pointless death.

It certainly would have looked more plausible to have them keep retreating into safe areas that allowed them break the overwhelming attack into chunks they could deal with one at a time. Like multiple rooms they could keep backing into in order to funnel. It was a stretch to assume they could just keep coming out of stabby zombie dog piles without mortal wounds.

xp

lol @ Bran essentially sending Theon to a ineffectually pointless death.

― Perfect Leee Cromulent (Leee), Monday, April 29, 2019 12:34 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was surprised he charged like that. Didn't think he had the balls

zing

we're on season 8, and we can't keep track of which characters had which genitalia removed???

we've been over this. it's everyone

i appreciated Theon's final charge, there's was no dicking around with him there.

His death didn't leave any loose ends?

Disappointed at the broad consensus takes on this episode (it was too dark, not enough characters died, they killed the Night King too early).

Is there no wingnut waste dump where Jordan Peterson fans are hashing it out over how inconceivable it is that Arya could kill the walking embodiment of death? I’m supposed to be finishing up a research paper and I need better distractions. Get me out of the filter bubble. What are the flat earthers saying?!?

Dragon fire can't melt Sean Beans

the Night King was a blank slate villain, I have no problem getting him out of the way this early.

Cersei is coming off as the smartest person on the show again -- didn't she say something about not wanting to bother with NK and his posse because she'd wait it out til it was over and deal with who was left in the north later?

yeah she turned out to be totally right.

one of the biggest differences between the show and the books is that cersei is actually a mastermind, not just a vain person who thinks she's a mastermind.

still she has to hang with Euron

Yeah it was a totally naive plan. She got lucky, so it makes her seem smart. The likely scenario was her being consumed by zombie armies a month or so later than the northerners.

i m dumb: what was the weapon arya had gendry smith for her? Did it not play a part here?

I think she used it in battle, but she killed the NK with Littlefinger's dagger

I thought for a split second when the zombie horde started clambering up the back of Danerys’ dragon she was going to eat it, and thought “oh shit there we go”, but alas.

i m dumb: what was the weapon arya had gendry smith for her? Did it not play a part here?

she was wrecking wights with it then got a concussion and retreated to the library

Wait, it was Littlefinger's dagger? not dragon glass?

the Night King was a blank slate villain, I have no problem getting him out of the way this early.

Blank, sure, but again, if anything this demonstrates a problem with the writing/plotting, not with the villain, because tbf he was essentially introduced as an existential threat iirc in literally the first episode of the first season and now years later they dispatch him with only three episodes left in the final season of the entire show. So they didn't get rid of him "early" so much as maybe not know what to do with him (or want to do anything with him) after they put him off for so long.

The sneaking around the library scene felt extremely Resident Evil in a momentarily appealing way (it was funny in retrospect to think that there was a stealth-horror game going on for ten minutes while the warriors had their backs against the outside wall surrounded by zombie hordes)

thank you for clearing up the weapon thing. Shoulda just gotten her a bat'leth.
for those of you who are going through zombie horde withdrawal, please enjoy zombeaver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j0sRVOhoOE

Wait, it was Littlefinger's dagger? not dragon glass?

― flamboyant goon tie included, Monday, April 29, 2019 1:18 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Littlefinger came into possession of it, but it's an ancient valerian steel dagger. Valerian steel works the same as dragon glass against wights/white walkers

So what was Bran actually doing during the battle? Hanging out in some ravens? Was that it?

SOME SAY he was manipulating past and present events to get events to play out the way he intended.

whoops didn't mean to double up "events"

this was great and I'm glad everyone else had a hard time seeing things. I just watched it in the daytime and was wishing I'd watched it in the dark to help with the contrast but it sounds like that wouldn't have helped any. Not bothered at all that they didn't kill off more people. Arya was badass.

"he got an origin story and a motive of sorts."

I really need to go back and sort out what that was because I've totally forgotten it.

Bran warged so that NK would have a better idea of his location. It’s a come-and-get-me signal.

If NK was actually smart he could’ve put a balloon on Bran’s chair and just skyhooked that jazz

my theory is everyone was whining about how the recent seasons haven't been dark enough, so HBO decided to give fans the darkest episode possible

it was v corny but i liked the part where melisandre asked arya "what do we say to the god of death" and she said "not today"

it was nice that Carice van Houten had a few more notes to play than usual. now everyone go watch Black Book

Yes that was adorable xp

I rewatched the last half-hour or so and honestly it's really amazing. I take back what I said about Djawadi's score too, it's really moving in places

Jorah's death really choked me up on second-viewing

And honestly! having had no interest in Melisandre's arc? nice conclusion well done