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

it was noteworthy that Jon was the only one who actually fought, whereas Ramsay and Littlefinger just sat back on their horses.

Ramsay didn't care about the arrows hitting his own men, no. They even had Davos telling his archers to stand down for that reason and then immediately cutting to Ramsay yelling "loose!" to emphasize this.

D-40's distinction upthread between luck and fate is baffling to me. Isn't the latter just a handy way of explaining the former in the fantasy milieu.

― Οὖτις, Monday, June 20, 2016 1:43 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

should i have said chance instead of luck? things happen against the odds all the time, life is random, and this show to me seems to emphasize—especially so in the earlier good seasons—that myth & fate are written after the fact about a very brutal and often random reality.

Well Littlefinger isn't a fighter at all.

that battle scene was really incredibly shot. In the "behind the scenes" after they explained the pile of bodies stuff was based in accounts of the american civil war actually

Yeah it's pretty heavy to think about.

this show to me seems to emphasize—especially so in the earlier good seasons—that myth & fate are written after the fact about a very brutal and often random reality.

this is well put and that's a good theme but the show is getting very "print the legend" about it lately.

As it drives towards a climax it's bound to get more predictable and cliche "epic" as things narrow in and importance is placed on key characters.

this is well put and that's a good theme but the show is getting very "print the legend" about it lately.

― ryan, Monday, June 20, 2016 2:24 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont disagree, i find myself wishing they would emphasize this more than they are...like there were some real opportunities (someone talked about this upthread) when Jon Snow was brought back to life to make this aspect explicit but they kind of skimped on it

i read all of this as benioff and weiss pivoting away from GRRM's "hang on, i almost have this figured out" endgame into a (likely much more sustainable) storyline with the playing pieces where they want them for the next few years and the seams are showing much more than I'd like

Boyd was the best.

no you wouldn't, no one ever would. we would all run fastest to a to b.

https://youtu.be/A2_w-QCWpS0?t=33s

lol, i was also thinking "SERPENTINE! SERPENTINE!" in that scene

haha yeah this has already been covered in an earlier HBO show

the pile of bodies stuff was based in accounts of the american civil war actually

does this show have gatlings now

they're called wildlings

This was the stupidest episode they've ever done. Plothole on top of plothole, until the whole thing was an incomprehensible anticlimax. And oh, I see people have defended almost every awful stupid thing the characters did upthread. Lol. At this point I'm hoping GRRM goes in a bunch of different directions, because this show is headed towards the most boring, obvious resolution possible. Without being able to properly build to it, it seems.

But! But! The bad guy got his!

While it is true that lots of stupid things happened in this episode, if they address it in the future episodes, I'm ok with it. Both Jon and Sansa have proven to not be smart enough to look at the bigger picture and have caused the death of hundreds or thousands of people, but this is hardly unheard of in human history. I assume there are going to be consequences.

By this point I don't care about the plot holes. It's all about the spectacle now. Bring on the dragons vs white walkers battle and the big happy wedding.

Arya and Jon?

Not a very satisfying victory for team Jon/Sansa imo, only upper hand they had was moral, Ramsey deserved to win this since he did cool deceptive stuff, came up w a crazy plan, stuck to it and it would have worked if not for those damn ex machina knights. I mean I think it's great that Jon and Sansa are fallible but all their choices this ep were so poor it was neither dramatic nor fun.

I'm mystified by this interpretation of this episode but I guess we've gone back n forth enough about it at this point

yeah a bit late to the nitpicking party, maybe that post wasn't entirely necessary

it's not like this show suddenly became a bit stupid - it's been stupid for like at least two seasons now.

either you ride the dragon of stupidity or self-immolate in the flames of pedantry.

Can't i do both? I watch lots of stuff nobody else is watching - the fun of 'event' TV (or as it was called in my 3-4 channeled isle - TV) is the discussion and the debate. I enjoy the show by railing against it, by scone guessing it, by nitpicking it. I enjoy the show very much, though, and that is part of it. I can talk to people and they'll say 'can you believe he...?' Or 'does that mean she wants...'. Pedantic pleasures are all I have at the moment.

I surrender to it's nitpicking glory, in the long tradition of soap operas and, especially, whodunnits.

Nitpicking is great to a point because it means you're concerned about the story and the character motivations and consistency.

However, it's those stupid theories that the internet at large comes up with that really bother me.

If this show actually ends up just being dragons vs. White Walkers and good guys win the GoT and aren't we all happy that there is a nice guy on the throne now - that would be profoundly disappointing. Pretty sure GRRM is going for something better than that.

If Martin wanted to make a morally realistic fantasy he could just have the white walkers win. But that isn't drama - why would I watch that?

the game of thrones is about what the wrong way to watch game of thrones is

a good end game would be to have whatever new "peace" that is established be built upon the same poor foundations and conspiracies that led to the collapse of the last order (Robert's).

i'm gonna stand by my gendry prediction for the very end of the show

However, it's those stupid theories that the internet at large comes up with that really bother me.

― Evan, Tuesday, June 21, 2016 12:45 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Resolved: Nothing good has ever been preceded by the words "This fan theory."

i'm gonna stand by my gendry prediction for the very end of the show

― nomar, Tuesday, June 21, 2016 1:04 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://i.imgur.com/SfqZAsm.jpg

#ideas4GoT: suspicious cloaked and mauled figure called "Dogbit" starts lurking around winterfell for all of the next season, is in the background of every shot with Sansa, disappears suddenly and is never heard from again

back when i was into the books i seem to recall reading a quote from grrm that the ending was going to be bittersweet and not a typical happy fantasy ending. this was like 14 years ago so i could be misremembering

arya finds the statue of liberty half-buried in snow

https://theringer.com/ask-the-maester-battle-of-the-bastards-game-of-thrones-890f9b23894a#.21gmppj9s

Hey, at least he doesn't dismiss it as being obvious what sansa's motivations are.

Totally called it on Ramsay's death

― Matt DC

think you'll find it was conrad that called it ;)

calm down guys everyone called it

For a show that has always revelled in its shock twists and subverting expectations and so on, this episode really went down some conventional, cliched routes: the cavalry charging in at the nick of time to save the day - twice! The conversation between Dany, Tyrion and the old Meereen officials ("we've come to discuss terms of surrender", "Very sensible, we have defeated you-", "No, YOUR surrender!") And the good guys even won at the end of both story threads.
I wasn't happy that Ramsey was killed via methods he himself would have used. It didn't make the Starks look any more noble than Westeros' psychopath-led houses. A Sean Bean-style public execution, or, better, Sansa sliding a knife in would have been more satisfying, imo.

ask the maester is so otm about stupid rickon. like how fucking easy must it be to dodge a tiny arrow while running?

What could be more satisfying than a dog ripping off a guy's face?

one thing i do like is that the hoary old theme of becoming what it is you're fighting seems to be coming into prominence. jon and tyrion are interesting precisely because they are the ones who most explicitly resist this dynamic.

Would be ideal if grrm' first question to the show runners was "who is Jon snows parents" and the second was "how does this bullshit end?"

"No, seriously, how should I end it? Because I have no idea. Hmm, maybe they've been dead the whole time? No? Dammit. It's all a dream? It just goes black? Jon and Dany are alone in the snow, the last survivors, and one of them is a secret snow demon, but neither one knows if the other is the snow demon, so they just decide wait it out until the fire goes dark and they both freeze to death? Hmm, I better get writing, don't want to let you overtake the books, ha ha!"

It's all inside a snow globe? No that was done wasn't it?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5c/af/fb/5caffb1deddb4e04b26b9a9d99ca59ac.jpg