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

cringing during the dragon waterfall sequence - omg that dialogue was sooo bad and Jon and Dany have no chemistry whatsoever.

― Roz, Monday, April 15, 2019 10:29 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Reminded me of https://thumbs.gfycat.com/HatefulCharmingAmericankestrel-poster.jpg

I'm surprised, though I prob shouldn't be, at how they still manage to waste time and tread water, even so late in the day. It's not so much that every scene must be zombie v dragon, just that they're so bad at blending action with the character stuff and have been for so long. I mean fuck it, at this stage I expect little more, but for whatever reason the sort of impasse that the conflicts between the family members or dynasties creates never feels interwoven with the bigger plot of impending doom. It always just feels like a way to pad out the show because otherwise it would just be battles.

Even stuff like Theon and Jara felt a waste of space at this point, and Euron will only ever be a peripheral character no matter how hard they try.

The Sam/Jorah/Dany scene was a bit strange, like wouldn't they even find out his surname before wandering in to tell him how great he is. Jorah is fairly smart, would he not now? The fact it ended as 'oh shit actually I killed your whole family" was fairly amusing.

Weird Arctic Monkey Bran was prob the best fun in this.

Also the dragon ride just felt irresponsible and dangerous. I mean I will suspend my disbelief I suppose but it did seem like there was a decent chance Jon Snow would fall to his death.

that would have been ideal tbh

i kinda like that they took a little time to breathe in this episode, cause i imagine the last few will be breakneck, with characters dying left and right. This way, everyone at least gets a few final moments, and there's some full-circle stuff with characters who haven't seen each other in years.

i guess it just felt fairly slight - i dunno, it never feels like they manage to advance character and events at the same time with any deftness but everything is so huge and bombastic it prob is quite hard.

there are people all over the internet who have been talking for years about how happy they're going to be when character x sees character y again, or when character q meets character f for the first time. this was an episode for those souls.

i thought all the b-listers being relegated to the dark hallway sequence was humorous. they cut the main plot point about robin hood/beric out of the show, so that character ain't doing nothin' for the rest of the show. (see also brienne never having her loyalty to the starks challenged.)

i feel like such a grouch, but i did not like the opening sequence AT ALL.

my thoughts

- why change it now, during the last half-season of the entire series?
- it's at thematic odds with the rest of the intros - it zooms into buildings and goes to the microscale, rather than zooming out and providing the macro
- it goes micro, but for no discernible point - sometimes the camera just turns down a seemingly random passageway which leads to...nowhere?
- it might have made sense during previous seasons, when the momentous decisions were being made in private rooms (like the high council room or whatever at king's landing). but why shift to this intro now, when the show itself is "zooming out" to focus on the macro-level conflicts, ice v fire, continental armies finally coming together in battle, etc - why choose to highlight the interior buildings at this point in the show?

hm. I really liked it!

Maybe they’ll have a different intro for each of the last six episodes.

I liked it too and thought it made sense considering the scope of Westeros is basically being pulled back to just Winterfell and King's Landing for the big battle and machinations.

So I guess Cersei's post-coital scene confirmed the theory that she was lying to be pregnant to make Tyrion believe she'd had a genuine change of heart, and to try to make Jaime stay by her side? Given that she was drinking wine with Euron? Then again, would a medieval society like Westeros even know booze during pregnancy is bad?

I got the impression she acquiesced to Euron's advances because, what the hell, she's not far along enough for him to figure it out and if he somehow survives the upcoming battles then she can claim the kid was his all along.

Yeah, I guess that's one explanation, but since the previous episode made a big deal of her not drinking wine while with Tyrion, I found it curious she was now drinking it quite casually with Euron.

tbf I'd have to drink to deal with Euron, too

Did she actually take a sip though? I was trying to figure out if it was a prop specifically to fool Euron, but I don't generally give the show that much credit at this stage.

fairly sure in season 1 there was a big scroll with a pun on it advising against drinking while pregnant in maester qyburn's waiting room.

The dragon flying sequence should've cut from Jon and Dany's to an equivalent one of the Night King doing the same. There's only 5 episodes left and they forgot to include him again!

Yeah ideally with another coquettish night king holding his waist on the night dragon, in a similar wooing scene.

Did the Winterfell set always look so much like the puzzle box CGI model? That was bumping me last night, but maybe it's always been that way.

XP’s I am assuming every ep from here on in will have a totally different opening theme sequence which, IMO, they should’ve been doing for years

I’m assuming that’s what they’re going to be doing. They also showed the land tiles flipping from the gap in the wall down to Last Hearth, so I’m guessing that will change depending on the progress of the dead army.

Remember that in the opening title before this, the "chandelier" above the world maps was depicting events that happened before the series, i.e. Robert's rebellion... And when Sam goes to study in the Citadel, we see the actual chandelier there, which could mean that the world map exists as a physical object too, and it's something the Maesters built to illustrate Westeros geography and history. Now, in this season the chandelier is depicting more recent events, such as the birth of Daenerys's dragons and the Night King breaking through the Wall. So maybe someone has updated the chandelier (and map) in the Citadel? That would tie up with the theory that events of the entire series have have been recorded by Sam, like Bilbo's book in LotR. So maybe the final scene of the final episode will be older Sam standing by the map and chandelier, and recounting the whole story to apprentice Maesters?

Was the Winterfell Tree always walled in or have they very swiftly added fortifications around it now the dead army is approaching?

Was it walled in in the actual episode, or only in the credits map?

What was the relevance of those face trees, anyway? I know they're sacred sites for the old religion of the North, but were they also somehow related to the dryads who created the Night King, I can't remember?

Also, I wonder if we're gonna find out this season who the heck the Lord of Light is, and why he seems to be the only god of this world who actually exists, or at least interacts with the world? Melissandre is destined to return to Westeros and die there, so I guess there's still a chance they might explain it in a satisfactory manner... But so far the whole LoL feels like the most disjointed part of the story's mythology, considering that all other forms of "magic" we've seen are related to nature spirits and/or ESP abilities such as warging.

Though I guess Dany's incombustibility could be relates to the Lord of Light?

It was in the actual episode - there was an aerial view of Winterfell.

Even stuff like Theon and Jara felt a waste of space at this point, and Euron will only ever be a peripheral character no matter how hard they try.

Euron will be dead in about five minutes time, I wouldn't worry. Pretty sure the only reason he's still around is that everyone else is at Winterfell and they need to give Cersei someone to interact with. TBH we've been watching Borgen lately and I totally failed to connect the guy who's really good at playing an emotionally-cripped Danish spin doctor with the guy who is absolutely terrible as Euron. Then again he's just an awful character.

Actually it's kind of amazing the margin by which Lena Headley is the best actor in the whole thing at this stage. Obviously Peter Dinklage is great and some of the second-tier characters have their moments but you could replace any of the other leads (except perhaps Maisie Williams) with other actors and lose nothing of the character. But you'd lose a lot of Cersei without Headley playing her, she's the only one who really conveys some kind of internal conflict or self-delusion that isn't right there in the text.

Literally no moment in TV history as been ever as predictable as the moment when they did the 'AWWWWW YOU GUYS' cut away to the dragons. I did enjoy the episode though but I'm just accepting it for what it is at this point.

Tuomas you may be the only viewer out of literally millions who is interested in the Lord of Light at this stage. I'm sure the whole religious aspect is handled OK in the books but it's so clunky on TV and probably the main reason why the last season or so has dispensed with it.

Agree about Lena Headey. They've really managed to winnow it down to focus on all the worst actors in the show

There's just something very Monkey Island about all those scenes where you see a load of disparate characters standing together and only a couple of them have any dramatic function in the scene.

Literally no moment in TV history as been ever as predictable as the moment when they did the 'AWWWWW YOU GUYS' cut away to the dragons.

Tuomas you may be the only viewer out of literally millions who is interested in the Lord of Light at this stage. I'm sure the whole religious aspect is handled OK in the books but it's so clunky on TV and probably the main reason why the last season or so has dispensed with it.

pretty sure Martin intended the story to end with the Lord of Light as the dominant religious power in Westeros - in the same way the Abrahamic religions supplanted older polytheistic faiths

but I doubt they're going to address that in the show at this point, possibly not even in the books

I've a feeling the Lord of Light stuff will have *some* relevance to the endgame but I've no idea what - they could have quietly dropped that theme altogether but a couple of bits from s7 (Melisandre's conversation with Varys about dying in Westeros; the Hound's vision of the arrowhead mountain in the fire) make me think there's a reason they haven't. I don't particularly want them to explain everything though.

given what has happened it wld be a surprise if it turns out jon snow is not azor ahai and the lord of light prophecies are irrelevant

pretty sure Martin intended the story to end with the Lord of Light as the dominant religious power in Westeros - in the same way the Abrahamic religions supplanted older polytheistic faiths

but I doubt they're going to address that in the show at this point, possibly not even in the books

XP’s I am assuming every ep from here on in will have a totally different opening theme sequence which, IMO, they should’ve been doing for years

Someone correct me if I am wrong but haven’t they continually changed the intro sequences when new places have been introduced, or something happens to places. e.g. I can remember Winterfell smoking when it was sacked.

that's correct

any other shadow of the colossus players get nervous about Jon's stamina running out?

Someone correct me if I am wrong but haven’t they continually changed the intro sequences when new places have been introduced, or something happens to places. e.g. I can remember Winterfell smoking when it was sacked.

They also changed the banners in various places according to who ruled them, so Winterfell's banners were changed to Bolton, and then back to Stark after the Battle of the Bastards.

given what has happened it wld be a surprise if it turns out jon snow is not azor ahai and the lord of light prophecies are irrelevant

Has the Azor Ahai prophecy even been mentioned in the series, or only in the books? I haven't read them, so I'm only familiar with the prophecy through some Youtube videos.

Anyway, even without the prophecies etc., it would seem pretty obvious that the god of fertility and fire, whose followers can set swords ablaze, is likely to play some role in defeating an supernatural entity associated with death and ice, whose minions can be killed with fire. Especially since said god resurrected the guy who's most likely to fight against said ice entity.

yeah I think the only allusion to the prophecy in the show was in all those cave scrawlings under dragonstone but as you say, the pieces are all set up whether they make explicit reference to it or not

Big time Curb moment for Jaime Lannister pic.twitter.com/7zSxp5dV9C

— Tommy Smokes (@TomScibelli) April 15, 2019

Someone correct me if I am wrong but haven’t they continually changed the intro sequences when new places have been introduced, or something happens to places. e.g. I can remember Winterfell smoking when it was sacked.

Sure, but not as complete or complex as what they’re doing now

I’m pretty happy with this series as a whole and happy with where it’s going and have few complaints

Bran’s story was a tedious slog and now he’s fascinating

Some of Samwell’s scenes (esp with Gilly) were some of the worst TV I’ve seen but now he’s also fascinating and I found his scene with Dany very moving

But if they do not do something effective with Melisandre to justify her vulturous and useless presence for season after season, as well as the Lord Of Light, I’m going to be disappointed enough to write a user review somewhere

I want a spinoff with Bran and Bronn as the leads in an offbeat odd couple scenario

I love Carice van Houten but I agree w/ fgti, Melisandre has been largely a waste so far

one of those cases where the writers forgot that "nudity" is not a character personality trait or plot point

I hope that they rectify the gender imbalance when it comes to nudity and give us a fully nude zombified Mountain. Or the Clegane vs Clegane battle that's inevitably coming is fully nude.