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

it never had any chance of being true, especially since nothing seems to make the showrunners happier than pooping all over show-only theories

remember that time the night king was going to turn the population of king's landing into an army?

I suppose (re: NK). I am pro-fantasy though and the whole appeal of fantasy is the lore and the show routinely skimps on that stuff. I still think the best thing associated with the show is the little historical featurettes narrated by the actors that give a lot of the background stuff!

just watched the episode, and lol Jon Snow still knows nothing.

I loved everything about Arya, but come on, they telegraphed her role so heavily with the "blue eyes" bit with Melisandre. and she can sneak around white walkers easily cause she's small and a freaking FACELESS ASSASSIN. (I actually thought for a moment that there was going to be a fake-out and it was actually her and not Bran in the wheelchair).

remember that time the night king was going to turn the population of king's landing into an army

I still think this would have been fucking dope tbh

the little featurettes with the interviews with Benioff and Dan Weiss are the worst things on film - wish they'd just do the interviews with the actors

That's too smart a plan for this crown (re: Arya as Bran).

The trenches were a good idea. Was idly thinking how you'd defend against an enemy like that and a series of concentric barriers that funnel them into kill zones is clearly the way to go.

Benioff and Weiss literally seem embarrassed by the show in those interviews.

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)

― flamboyant goon tie included

i was reminded of the ur-text of modern drama, jurassic park

https://i.imgur.com/8nYzs7C.jpg

The trenches were a good idea. Was idly thinking how you'd defend against an enemy like that and a series of concentric barriers that funnel them into kill zones is clearly the way to go.

one of the many "but why did THAT happen?" moments of the episode was wondering how they intended to set the trenches aflame. were they just counting on melisandre to cast Wall of Fire and roll a 20?

the dragons. but they couldn't see the signal.

the little featurettes with the interviews with Benioff and Dan Weiss are the worst things on film - wish they'd just do the interviews with the actors

― these are not all of the possible side effects (Karl Malone), Monday, April 29, 2019 1:30 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

very very otm

Sansa didn't get to use her dragonglass dagger, right? So unless the writers are admiringly inept (always a possibility), that's a Chekhov's dagger waiting to be used.

but agreed with whoever said upthread (maybe fgti) that the moments when she was unsuccessfully trying to cast the spell were some of the most captivating of the series.

I liked that they killed the Night King in this one, and it was what I was hoping for. IMO the whole point of the Night King and the White Walkers was not some LotR kind of battle against good and evil, so he didn't need a personality or a motivation any more complex than simply wiping out humankind. He was mostly just a force of nature (literally created by accident by nature spirits), and the main point of this plot was not the fight against White Walkers, but how the various characters would react to their threat.

And IMO that worked fine, a lot of character development came to a nice climax: Beric's resurrections, Melisandre's prophesies, Theon atoning for his sins, Arya's entire character arc and training leading to the moment of killing the Night King. It's true that you had too many scenes of named characters surviving impossible odds, but again, this isn't a series about good vs. evil, this all about the character relations and power plays, so killing most of them in a final battle wouldn't have been in the spirit of the series. I'm most definitely interested in what the various folks we've followed for so many seasons will do in the aftermath.

For example, Jon's entire arc has been about taking the threat of the White Walkers seriously when almost no one else did, so now that the threat is over, will he happily step aside, or will he try to pursue his newly discovered family legacy after all?

And yeah, thematically it makes more sense if the final conflict will be with Cersei. The power struggle for the throne have the main driving force in the series after all, not the zombie fight. And Cersei has proven to be the best at playing it, by being both pragmatic and incredibly ruthless. If a whole bunch of her enemies are gathered in one place waiting for her, why not burn them all with fire, regardless of collateral damage? And if the rest of her enemies wanna fight zombies, why not let them, and then deal with the survivors? Sure, she was lucky the living won, but with the Dany's army in shambles and her dragons wounded, Cersei seems to have the upper hand again. So that, to me, makes a more interesting conflict than if the Night King had been spared until the very end.

The power struggle for the throne have the main driving force in the series after all, not the zombie fight.

totally agree with this and i've argued it in the past, but it's often seem like the show has been torn between these two impulses. season 6 was all about the political machinations, and season 7 was all supernatural preparing for war against the night king--so now i guess this season is literally divided in two between machinations and apocalypse. and since the apocalypse is inherently more dramatic and spectacular, i'm worried these next three eps will feel like the last 45 minutes of return of the king (the movie)

Lyanna Mormont's death was the only big moment that got to me. Badass to the end.

I'm annoyed we never got to find out what the hell Bran and Tyrion talked about in the last episode.

also fuck you Jon, watching Sam getting mauled by wights and just strolling by (kinda just want Jon to die now lol).

one of the many "but why did THAT happen?" moments of the episode was wondering how they intended to set the trenches aflame. were they just counting on melisandre to cast Wall of Fire and roll a 20?

oh, that's right, thanks!

and not only that, but a bunch of foot-soldiers also attempted to reach the trench to set it on fire, but were taken down by zombies.

Their original plan as stated above was to have the dragons light the trenches on fire, but the snowstorm killed the visibility. And unless the trenches were drenched in pitch, arrows were very unlikely to start them burning.

xposts lol: No it was the dragons! The arrows were the back up plan.

i thought dragonfire was supposed to be stone-meltingly hot, wouldn't it just reduce the wooden trench to cinders?

kinda just want Jon to die now lol

he does too, clearly. yet another instance in this ep of him trying to die...presenting himself in front of the dragon-wight.

i thought dragonfire was supposed to be stone-meltingly hot, wouldn't it just reduce the wooden trench to cinders?

(I actually thought for a moment that there was going to be a fake-out and it was actually her and not Bran in the wheelchair).

me too!!!

and she can sneak around white walkers easily cause she's small and a freaking FACELESS ASSASSIN.

the zombie team-building, i mean, bridge-building might have been the best thing about the battle

yeah, not gonna lie i jumped up and did a little whooping sound when arya came out of nowhere

i kinda figured she would be the one who did it because of her custom weapon (even though that's not what she ultimately used) ... also she trained for this shit

twitter points out that Jon was standing at the exact spot as the NK in the season premiere when Arya shows up: "how did you sneak up on me?" so... nicely done.

the zombie team-building, i mean, bridge-building might have been the best thing about the battle

I bet some techbros are mulling this over right now.

i wonder how many aircraft controllers liked this episode

crap i mean air traffic controllers --

Yeah it was obvious someone was going to kill him and Arya was the meme-friendly choice

xp - i mean, if bran could like, warg into a bird, maybe he could have done so to uh, guide the dragons and direct them when they were caught in the fog?

the more I think about it, Bran is kinda a selfish dick

like, i'm just gonna chill here by this tree while a lot of PoC die and I coulda done something to prevent it but naahhh

Some stray observations:

* Beric got his own "hold the door" moment, didn't he?

* Bran was saved with the same weapon the assassin tried to kill him with in season 1.

* We never saw the other dragon that was wounded by the zombie dragon actually die, so it's probably still alive? So I guess ballista attack in King's Landing that's been foreshadowed in the opening credits is gonna happen.

* In the end, the protagonists' plan worked, didn't it? Using Bran to lure out the Night King so he wouldn't just ride the entire battle on his dragon, then killing him while his attention is on Bran.

yeah rhaegal is still alive, slight spoilers from the 30-second preview of next week's ep.

they really should've made it clearer that he survived, but whatever.

they really should have made everything clearer tbh

where is littlefinger? is that fucker going to show up again?

Every time I see a medieval-style battle on film I start thinking what they must have really looked like and I get a little more perturbed each time I see the "lone fighter cutting down all comers" cliche but for the most part I thought this was effective (caveat about it being darkly lit to cover for special effects aside), especially early on when the dead seemed like a wave of mass death rather than individual zombies.

uh Arya slit his throat? xpost

some of you clearly don't pay close attention to this ridiculous show!

ha, i forgot Littlefinger was dead too. an no, i really don't anymore.

is Theon's dick gonna come back again? Haven't seen it around for a while

i really do think the dothraki mass coming upon a vague mass of death in the darkness and then cutting to their torches being extinguished was a pretty ill visual, and Arya's moment of triumph owned.

really though, what was Bran doing. Was there any point to it, is it something for a future episode? I'm usually pretty good about following things, I guess it could be he was keeping on eye on the NK but why?

the NK noticed Bran before when he was warging a bird. I imagine he was trying to get his attention to set up the murking

There's a ridiculous fan theory going on (based on one ambiguous scene, I think) that Littlefinger hired one of the Faceless Men to die in his stead and is gonna show up again this season. But as theories go, that one seems even more pointless than the "Bran is the Night King" one that was proven false by this episode.