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

I do think it's possible that he won't finish it. I doubt he's making much progress on book 6 right now, and I don't think he'll finish it in 7 books.

Book Seven will just be a password for HBO Go

The idea of watching a couple of bloodbaths on this show tonight is making me nauseous.

Won't it be more treading water until the big battle?

my gut says the mountain v. sparrows and riverrun are tonight, winterfell next week

mountain is going to at least mess up a small group of militant sparrows tonight, yes.

It's in the episode trailer and the season trailer, so, yeah.

Man they trolled us Stoneheart truthers hard. Kinda have to admire the perverse dedication to setting up all the elements needed to introduce LSH into the story at this point and still not have her show up. Even more respect if they're

So Arya's arc proved to be...pointless? What did she learn that she didn't when she left Westeros? How is she a different person? Is she just slightly more ruthless and cunning now? Very irritating.

Did we really need another "Tyrion tries to make jokes" scene? Also lmao at the obvious budget skimping.

Ok, no more complaints. I actually enjoyed this ep mostly.

Oh sorry for the unfinished paragraph at the top there. This is what I meant to say:

Even more respect if this is a fake out and she actually does show up in episode 10

I lol'd at T-1000 waif

So much of this ep felt especially like Bad TV Writing and Bad TV Plotting. The only part i enjoyed was the band of brothers

I enjoyed the mountain ripping that guy's head off. felt let down by the arya and blackfish plot cul de sacs but I guess those could still lead somewhere interesting.

Brienne and jamie meeting eyes tenderly was *kisses fingers* so bad

The battle CGI looked so bad too

Sorry, but I was so very happy to see all those nutty convoluted Arya theories disproved anticlimactically scene by scene. People are now apparently furious that there wasn't anything more to Arya's recklessly vulnerable stroll though town when she got stabbed. But all of the bullshit that was being theorized to justify that seemingly shortsighted mistake was just so over the top stupid imo.

Totally agree. The Tyler Durden theory was particularly irritating. So were the waif and her smirk, so I'm glad we can put all of that behind us.

a plotline has no meaningful resolution

People are now apparently furious that there wasn't anything more to Arya's recklessly vulnerable stroll though town when she got stabbed. But all of the bullshit that was being theorized to justify that seemingly shortsighted mistake was just so over the top stupid imo.

― Evan, Sunday, June 12, 2016 11:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how was it a 'shortsighted mistake'—the point was she was wounded & that being attacked by ppl who can look like other ppl is crazy-making

So Arya's arc proved to be...pointless? What did she learn that she didn't when she left Westeros? How is she a different person? Is she just slightly more ruthless and cunning now? Very irritating.

she thought she wanted to escape & explore and become someone else (they kind of hammered this point home) and then discovered who she wanted to be really was herself.

i quite liked that plotline & i think the entire world of the faceless men is cool they just stretched it out too long imo

otherwise no problems with it

She learned to fight better and fight in the dark (and absurdly improbably withstand nasty injuries). Yeah this went on far too long, it would have been much better if they kept it short but as said before, they probably needed more Maisie screentime than makes storytelling sense and her plot couldn't move on yet because her leaving probably needs to align with a bunch of other stuff.

I'm kind of glad the extravagant theories weren't right but perhaps it was too plain.

I lol'd at T-1000 waif

lol this was exactly what i thought. the way she walked out of the actress's house and looked left and right was like she was t-1000's daughter. plus that way of kind of pointing her arms and hands sharply upwards as she mechanically sprinted after arya.

blackfish's brief appearance was a bit pointless wasn't it? like i was sure he had to get into the boat to make it worth his having been in the show in the first place. is he definitely dead? seemed strange to give him a bit of screentime then not even grant him a heroic death.

T-1000 was the immediate image but that segued quickly to assassin's creed.

another (fairly pointless) thing i wondered, i mean i know there's no real law and order in the got world, but wouldn't it have raised an eyebrow to have a child bleeding profusely on the streets while another person chases them with a knife. i mean is this just meant to happen so often that nobody does anything? i'm not sure that's even possible, like surely some kind of self-imposed order would have to exist for there to even be a primitive form of civilisation which has buildings and markets and people doing jobs?

might write a thinkpiece about it.

btw when the maester guy was whispering to cersei about his little birds etc, that's presumably wildfire they're talking about, right?

A tenet of medieval jurisprudence is that the person with the knife always has the right of way, until a person with a sword shows up.

People are now apparently furious that there wasn't anything more to Arya's recklessly vulnerable stroll though town when she got stabbed. But all of the bullshit that was being theorized to justify that seemingly shortsighted mistake was just so over the top stupid imo.

― Evan, Sunday, June 12, 2016 11:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how was it a 'shortsighted mistake'—the point was she was wounded & that being attacked by ppl who can look like other ppl is crazy-making

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, June 13, 2016 2:42 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The walking around town all vulnerable and carefree part was the mistake I was referring to. She was supposed to have realized already that she was likely being hunted.

Loved the waif's fists of determination when she ran.

tv logic but i felt pretty upset when she upturned all those fruit pedllers stock and there was no consequence

Scenes with Tyrion really testing the limits of what I'll put up with just to watch nathalie emmanuel.

i haven't been paying that much attention because these last two episodes have been so boring but where is varys going again?

Our narrative expectations have led people to label Tommen a villain for getting rid of trial by combat. His reasoning was pretty sound.

That wasn't really reasoning though it was a rationalization

Agreed that injured arya really pushed suspension of disbelief to its breaking point, I thought everyone's insane theories about what "actually" happened were ridiculous and prefer the straightforward way they did it--prefer this approach in general, ppl want this show to be on some "the 6th sense" ish with twists too often

The walking around town all vulnerable and carefree part was the mistake I was referring to. She was supposed to have realized already that she was likely being hunted.

― Evan, Monday, June 13, 2016 6:17 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

She does that's why she's freaking out and looking at everyone's faces!

I'm speaking of the parts prior to her being stabbed.

I don't think people are demanding twists, I think they're being pushed to accept twists as the only logical explanation for events and unexplained/confusing phenomenon in the show. When you condition viewers to expect characters to come back from the dead or reappear after a few seasons off, you can't be shocked when people expect more of that. Watching the Ask the Maester live Q&As, every week someone still asks where Gendry is ("he's rowing, my guy!") or whether Stannis is really dead ("Yes, take a lap!") or where all the giants went ("they're all dead but one!") or whether Bran caused the Mad King to go mad through time travel interference, or whether the young Bran Stark is the same Bran Stark who built the wall eons ago. And so on. It's gotten so wacky that first fans expected no Lady Stoneheart, then they found hints there would be LSH, then they were absolutely *sure* there would be LSH, then they thought the show was trolling them with all these clues there would be LHS, and still, some people still expect LSH.

it really struck me this episode how much of a difference there has been in the progression of the story since the end of the book material. in grrm's hands things were getting progressively more complicated and generally bleaker. this season has developed as if they got a no-bullshit consultant in charged with wrapping up a tidy, happy ending in a couple of seasons. everything is being simplified, loose ends are being carefully harvested, plot lines are being chopped dead with casual efficiency. every episode gets a couple of good cheer/fist pump moments. this episode we had the conclusion of the arya in braavos story and the riverlands conflict as obvious examples of where someone said fuck it, let's just stop this now. but then you look at tyrion in meereen and clearly the intention was that something would happen while he was there but instead they decided the only expedient way to move on to the next phase was to have nothing happen at all. anything else just digs the hole deeper.

it shows just how much there is to be done, and since grrm would/could never get it done like this, how unlikely he is to actually get the books to a conclusion, by book 7 or maybe ever. for the sake of the show you'd think they'd have done better to get the "consultant" in a couple seasons earlier and prevented the extraneous complications from happening, rather than resolve them in a hurried, disappointing fashion. then you realize that they did that! they trimmed a whole mess of stuff already. not enough i guess. this season has had plenty of good moments, and has been fine overall, but has felt kind of like a diet version of the real thing.

it has been nice seeing the show completely abandon dorne. if they want to just hang the paper on dragons burning it to the ground in between seasons that would be fine too

in fact, maybe that boat sam + gilly are on can sink after a ship-to-ship collision with theon's boat and we can really trim the fat plot wise for a more streamlined focus on things that are interesting

it has been nice seeing the show completely abandon dorne. if they want to just hang the paper on dragons burning it to the ground in between seasons that would be fine too

Varys will likely visit Dorne.

Was Arya's guard down cos she was happy about having decided to leave?
I take it that ship has already sailed? Not sure how long she was layed up for.

The really weird thing is that the siege of Riverrun was one of the things they trimmed! They sent Jamie to Dorne instead. And then they still went to the Riverlands, but without any of the things that seems significant in the books happening - because they are still trimmed. I don't get it?

I doubt think the Facless Men plotline is over.

And “what’s west of Westeros?”

The really weird thing is that the siege of Riverrun was one of the things they trimmed! They sent Jamie to Dorne instead. And then they still went to the Riverlands, but without any of the things that seems significant in the books happening - because they are still trimmed. I don't get it?

Jaime met with Brianne. Maybe she’ll convince him to fight the White Walkers if Cersi disappears.

i caught up with back 2 back episodes in an insomnia binge and this point bears beating: once you start bringing back the dead, all the stakes fall apart. I'm as happy to see the hound back as anyone but the reason it mattered when arya left him behind was that you developed a fondness for the big lug and his emotional weakness was a solid counterpoint to his physical heroics. Well now he can't be killed, so that makes him a cipher. And in the course of like fifteen minutes of story we're meant to understand his entire character shifting to "i'm ready to give up the life" and back to scorned killing machine? There's no patience; they keep pulling toys out of the toybox, breaking them and then getting out more toys. Is the Blackfish really dead? Does it matter? Maybe he shows up next episode and he's somehow paid off the guard that told Jaimie he was dead. Or maybe he's a werewolf. Anything can happen on the show now; the queen of dwagons is getting dropped off on the roof, the king is now completely brainwashed, giants like jon snow, shit just occurs in each episode and the deeper ramifications go unconsidered in favor of apologetics explaining well OBVIOUSLY she needed to come home as soon as possible to see how things were going and it's just a great coincidence she shows up in the hour of need and you see marjorie has a grander plan that will be enacted but if that were the case than why not NO NO it's the grand scheme you see. Somebody upthread said they liked this season because the show stopped taking itself seriously. For me, the complexity of the plots and the proper untangling of them was the largest part of what made the show worthwhile. Now I've moved into madmen hatewatching because nothing really matters in soap opera d&d land when you can reroll your characters and add more NPCs ad infinitum.

it may strain believability that he recovered from his injuries, but he dodn't return from the dead ... he wasn't dead

(didn't)

Brienne and jamie meeting eyes tenderly was *kisses fingers* so bad

― 龜, Sunday, June 12, 2016 11:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i ship

xp well then i guess stannis isn't dead either, it's not like we ever saw the body. maybe brienne had a change of heart and hit the tree instead of his head and then he crawled off and was save. that strains believability too but hey, why not? Arya took like five serious stab wounds to the belly and all it took was some soup and some nyquil to get her completely better in a day.
"straining believability" in a show that is already packed with zombies and dwagons and vagina monsters is a cardinal sin; if you're not even willing to play by your own 5th edition rules, why am i even bothering to roll the saving throws in the first place?

in grrm's hands things were getting progressively more complicated and generally bleaker. this season has developed as if they got a no-bullshit consultant in charged with wrapping up a tidy, happy ending in a couple of seasons. everything is being simplified, loose ends are being carefully harvested, plot lines are being chopped dead with casual efficiency.

Tbf, the same problem has stymied GRRM and his infamous "Meereenese Knot." The way it's summed up in Wiki sounds familiar:

The story of A Dance with Dragons catches up and goes beyond A Feast for Crows around two-thirds into the book, but nevertheless covers less story than Martin had intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers. Martin attributed the delay mainly to his untangling "the Meereenese knot", which the interviewer understood as "making the chronology and characters mesh up as various threads converged...

this season has been way better than the last one imo