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

okay, so assuming you live in Medieval Westeros, what weapon would you invent to take out an airborne dragon?

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/Putin-axe-600740.jpg

i'm not a GoT trivia buff, but hasn't the show has established numerous different new, previously unknown (and often ridiculous) mechanisms and technologies to deal with plot issues?

for example, letting people have magical powers to slip through tiny holes, arya being a shapeshifter, daenerys is invulnerable to fire, cersei's maester knows about a bunch of green shit underneath kings landing that's capable of blowing up half the city, jon snow is brought back from the dead, bran can teleport through time and space and is also a three eyed raven, etc etc etc etc

given all that, it doesn't seem like it makes sense to look at the westeros military technology and assume those are the only options to deal with a (totally real) dragon. for example, would it have been that weird for the maester to be like "oh, i found something interesting down here in the cellar...it's ANTI-dragonglass. yes, the ancient ones knew of it bla bla bla but now it has been forgotten, etc etc". that example sucks but i'm just saying it's a fantasy universe that has already had numerous stupid events take place and with numerous characters gifted with fantasy powers. they're not limited to a giant crossbow

anyway as others have said it's not so much the crossbow as the hilarious build-up to to it

But the party line in Kings Landing is that magic stuff doesn't exist. On the other hand, Maester Quyburn did figure out how to do organ transplants and bring a dead person back to life, and maybe his medical engineering skills would extend into military engineering, but then Ben Carson was a gifted neurosurgeon with limited talents in other areas. Like maybe Cersei's maester is the Ben Carson of the Maester Class.

ok, i just thought about ben carson stabbing someone in the belt for the first time in forever. lol

Also the decimation of Danerys' navy is quite convenient, as Jon will soon appear with Davros, who knows shit about ships.

the appearance of Davros would certainly be a turn-up for the books

It's more the "We are working on a...solution" then returning later to the crossbow, rather than just saying "dragons? Got a big crossbow".

ideally he'd have written down 12' on a napkin to indicate the size of the crossbow, leading to later confusion.

that would be about right though? certainly a Stonehenge scenario would enliven things a bit!

would make more sense if he was utilizing wildfire again, like rigging it up to the crossbow to explode inside the dragon or something.

Is the arrow made of any special material like Dragonstone or anything or is it just a really big and sharp arrow?

the mundanity of dragons being killed w ballistae fits the end of magic theme, i like it

I'm going assume that most of King's Landing's scientists and engineers were executed for heresy by the Sparrows and this big crossbow was the work of the sub-par minds who were left alive.

Isn't the crossbow guy the same guy who resurrected the Mountain? I know when I do something really good at work I just phone it in for a bit and coast through on the goodwill and that's exactly what's happening here.

Was it the Dragonlance books where their solution was to get the dragon to chase you down a specially constructed, ever narrowing corridor until the dragon gets stuck and can then be stabbed with aforementioned lances through holes in the wall?

A giant crossbow certainly seems a lot easier.

xpost he jotted "Make it Bigger" on a ravenst-it note and sent it down to R&D.

They'd have to make loads of the big crossbows and fire enough of them at once as the Harpy Ultras did. No doubt we'll see a thousand of the things have been made by either next episode or the one after.

Was it the Dragonlance books where their solution was to get the dragon to chase you down a specially constructed, ever narrowing corridor until the dragon gets stuck and can then be stabbed with aforementioned lances through holes in the wall?

A giant crossbow certainly seems a lot easier.

― groovypanda, 27. juli 2017 15:50 (twenty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, that, but also some special kind of lance iirc

Like a normal lance. Only bigger.

xpost he jotted "Make it Bigger" on a ravenst-it note and sent it down to R&D.

important to get the right message across to the staff too.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iuFeDAzAyLY/UuFuzC4MuSI/AAAAAAAAP6o/bATkVKu5aow/s1600/paul-ince.gif

the other stupid thing about the crossbow is that surely the issue is whether it'll pierce the dragon's leathery skin - not "as proven here, this bolt will smash the dragon's exposed cheekbone once we peel the skin off"

dragon hide is strong enough to block most arrows when the dragons are fully grown, but i think drogon and co. have some growing still to do.

and the arrows and spears in the fighting pit in meeren did seem to harm him and slow him down a bit

i need a supercut of all the appearances of direwolves this season. the SFX behind them is really bad

sorry since the inception of GOT

i guess if it pierces his skin tho it's not like "we need to test if this will smash bone"

xpost

The last 50 posts make GoT seem like what people who have never watched GoT probably think the show is like

they are finally right

the show may be inexorably building to a boring finish, but who does ilx think should finish sitting on the throne? seeing cersei hang on would be fun but i'd really like to see the show see through its hero-punishing tendencies, have all the rival leaders whittle each other down, dragons get bolted, armies depleted, last hopes fail & have them go for a full on horror white walker permanent winter victory w viewers left with the looks of abject crushing despair on jon & dany's faces as everything comes unstuck

Maoist uprising or gtfo

my ideal would be dany/jon/tyrion "winning" midway through the final season, followed by a series of unspeakable, unforeseen horrors

hmm. I'm guessing after everyone else dies/gets magicked away Tyrion is left as ruler, muttering to Varys stuff about creating a democracy

I haven't read much fantasy since I was a kid so maybe it's change, but endings have always been a problem in the genre because it's often, like, a bunch of pre-ordained prophecies coming true. somehow that's not dramatically interesting. I actually think Tolkien did pretty well with LOTR, the melancholy passing of an age. If GOT has balls it'll do something similar: an incipient modernity, or some whole new order--and not just a return to a peaceful monarchical rule.

Fred otm

Clearly the correct answer is Magic Talking Dragon.

http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/petes-dragon-slice.jpg

oooh, the final surviving dragon bellowing "no!" Ceasar-style then eating Dany in the series finale would rule

closest we were going to get to a maoist uprising was the sparrows

Daenerys won't end up on the throne, my guess is she realizes she's needed back on the other side of the sea, to rule there in a new peaceful kingdom w/o slavery.

jon doesn't want the crown in the north, doubt he wants the seven kingdoms.

Sansa and Arya, nah.

my money is on a dark horse candidate, someone who is completely decent and everyone likes and respects but no one has thought of as a leader despite their leadership qualities. I'm gonna bet it on 100-1 longshot Davos.

x-posts: I think GRRM might be planning to do something like that in the books, but I don't think Benioff and Weiss understands what he's getting at. I read someone who said it felt as if the show was making Westeros 'safe for aristocracy', which seems correct.

laugh at me when the red woman immolates him in episode 6.

Melisandre will take the throne. as her first act she will call everyone in kings landing to the throne room and then disrobe

given that there are only about half a dozen significant characters who aren't noble-born things don't seem well set up for sudden turn to democracy

In episode 1 of this season Jon Snow said: "I will not punish a son for his father's sins, and I will not take a family home away from a family it has belonged to for centuries" That made me think the show runners don't really get what GRRM is trying to say about feudal society.

my money is on a dark horse candidate, someone who is completely decent and everyone likes and respects but no one has thought of as a leader despite their leadership qualities. I'm gonna bet it on 100-1 longshot Davos.

― nomar, Thursday, July 27, 2017 3:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mothafuckin gendry

fuck i forgot about gendry

he satisfies none of those criteria except dark horse, but he is a legit baratheon.

(poor word choice there)

the show runners don't really get what GRRM is trying to say about feudfood.

Thought he was an illegit baratheon