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

Also at some stage I thought, wow I hope the Hound is dead cos that’s a shitload of fire - cut to him panicking by a wall. Glad he didn’t die though (kill your zombie brother first!)

that video is a barstoolsports fake

Nice wholesome thread here:

ARYA YOU LIL PIECE OF SHIT I LOVE YOU. SOMEBODY GET THIS WOMAN SOME PREMIUM DICK ASAP!!!!!!!! @HBO @GameOfThrones #GoT #Season8 #DemThrones #Episode3 #BattleOfWinterfell

— T-Pain (@TPAIN) April 29, 2019

damn. should have known it was fake since it was light out

They really do need to give us something more re Bran's raven sortie & what he was about there.

I was unclear earlier, but I thought it was obvious Bran warged in order to signal his specific location to NK.

Disagree with the disappointment that we are now left with three episodes of mere humanity. Think of the times this show was indisputably awesome - the first three seasons or so - there was only a garnish of the supernatural, all of the best bits were people doing things to people. Definitely support the show closing out in that mode and perhaps making it just as wrenching and awful as the wight invasion.

i would LOVE to see the show close out in that mode, but i don't have high hopes. in the beginning, when the show was amazing and everyone got hooked, the Talking was dominant and very good, the Action was rare and good. but over time, the Talking became not so good. By late S6 and S7, it became straight up bad. GoT is no longer good at Talking, at least not consistently, but i'm really hoping they capture some of that early-season Talking magic for the final few sodes

They really do need to give us something more re Bran's raven sortie & what he was about there.

I was unclear earlier, but I thought it was obvious Bran warged in order to signal his specific location to NK.

i'm really hoping they capture some of that early-season Talking magic for the final few sodes

the talking was pretty good in episode 2! but then again, there aren't anymore cogman-penned episodes, so it may not be indicative of what's to come

the season 1 war of the roses late medieval europe stuff was my favorite bit, and i dreaded the wizard and dragon bullshit while it was getting going in the early seasons. but i also don't think they can just return to that now.

i liked last night's episode btw! i thought it was really exciting!

yep! yeah, the action has remained good even as the talking has faded away (though on occasion it's still good!), so I was pretty fucking stoked about last night's episode. but yeah...this is a good action show now.

The cheering crowd video is a fake often used for memes. In the real original they're cheering because a pirate ps1 game they've just bought has successfully booted up

but why was there a crowd of people in a movie theater watching a pirated ps1 game boot up?

(the question all of the game of thrones posts have been leading up to)

there are a lot of genuine reaction videos out there, the Arya moment was a ridic crowd pleaser.

i still really like the show, the scope and many of the characters overcome lots of the other bullshit. but it's such a different show that the Red Wedding is something that feels tonally out of place when thinking about it in the context of the last several seasons. The brutality was so palpable and grim and it was logical, and obviously exceptionally plotted. This is a hard-R action show now, but no matter what happens to any characters there won't be anything as direct and personal and bleak as what happened to Catelyn or Robb or Talisa.

They immediately charged their cavalry with 99.9% of the flaming weapons they had, otherwise accompanied only by a stealthy wolf, into the front of a teeming mass of enemies

Then they got their dragon tarpitted in a unit of zombies that chipped away at its health

Top level "me playing Total War" tactics imo

For a moment I thought too that it was strange with how much devastation occurred, the armies destroyed and so forth, that so many main characters survived, it seemed unbalanced and unfair, but then I remembered that it's.. fiction! and the POV is going to follow people-of-importance (i.e. survivors, or people who will die notably) and not trace the glorious childhood and subsequent achievements of, say, a Dothraki who got sent to the front line. Fiction is cruel to those who die meaninglessly

This would be true for most shows, but not one that billed itself as subversive fantasy that undercut genre conventions and whose calling card was killing important characters. It’s become so conventional as to be predictable in the extreme. Not for one second did I believe Arya would die or Jorah would live.

ghost somehow found his way into the crypts too, which adds credence to the theory that the production team hastily and haphazardly added him in post to make fans happy.

wow this was fun. nicely done with all the suspense.
although at the start of the action when the wights were just pouring in I was convinced nearly EVERYONE would be straight-up just immediately dead. Brienne, Jorah, all the fighting ones (not Jaime though). Quite enjoyed thinking that was happening.

the World War Z zombie-piling tactics (including to get over the spiky fiery trenches) was a bit obvious, no? Wouldn't the gang have considered this?

i still really like the show, the scope and many of the characters overcome lots of the other bullshit. but it's such a different show that the Red Wedding is something that feels tonally out of place when thinking about it in the context of the last several seasons. The brutality was so palpable and grim and it was logical, and obviously exceptionally plotted. This is a hard-R action show now, but no matter what happens to any characters there won't be anything as direct and personal and bleak as what happened to Catelyn or Robb or Talisa.

― omar little, Monday, April 29, 2019 5:09 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is a plausible theory for why that change has happened:

I think some of the reason the Game of Thrones writers have screwed things up in the last couple seasons is that, if you're on set with cast members for years, the "most important" characters are the people who have the most screen time and have been on the show the longest

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) April 29, 2019

You don't want to fire a beloved coworker who's invested years of their life into your project without giving them a dignified and fitting send-off. One of the reasons the earlier seasons of the show worked so well is that the showrunners, hewing to the books, had no choice.

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) April 29, 2019

but the thing is, in the GoT universe, killing someone off in a dramatic and unexpected way IS a dignified and fitting send-off

whereas letting them almost die a dozen times only to be saved at the last moment is like letting grandma win at gin rummy when she's still capable of beating you without any help, thank you very much

Right, finally watched it and can go back on the internet.

The only opinions I have about it: that was a really fucking stressful 82 minutes, I didn't enjoy watching it *at all*, and I have no fucking idea whether I liked it or not.

i have another important thought:

brienne has the best agonized scream on television

oh shit, and more!

- have we ever seen daenerys wield a sword before last night's episode? she seemed to be really good for someone who rarely fights (physically)

^^^YES
that first one in the battle, bone chilling

Xpost re brienne scream

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/birtb4/everyone_saying_bran_didnt_help_smh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

speaking of screams, is it just me or are they using a wilhelm scream at least once a major battle? I've been mainlining all be big battle episodes and I swear I've heard it a lot

Most important question: So is Arya Azor Ahai? And the dagger was Lightbringer? I would like that, it really does make sense in it's own off-kilter way, in the way a lot of GRRM revelations has done. But... Does this mean the whole Targaryan bloodline was a misdirection? And if so, then who ends up on the Throne? In all honesty, I'm thinking it might be Sansa, with Tyrion as hand. The three big heroes of the story ends up being Sansa, Arya and Bran, and the Starks are the new Targaryans. Except for the incest, hopefully.

the "no one gets the throne / seven kingdoms become independent" or whatever ending seeming increasingly likely to me. too many soft-hearted potential rulers kicking around.

are there any main characters apart from baby sam who still have at least one parent alive?

Sam's own mother is also still alive.

ah yes of course. I'd forgotten she wasn't killed with his father

Jon dead, Dany on the throne, pregnant with twins, this seems way too obvious and cheesy but hmmm...

^^ that was my original thought whenever she says something about breaking the cycle. Coupled with a family member, pregnant with the true heir, just as ruthless as the Lannisters

we’d go from Cersei to Cersei II, basically

idg why people keep saying "oh this sucked, they all just won easily". They didnt fucking win! Their entire armies were turned to a pulp! They probably lost the bulk of the winterfell smallfolk there! I doubt many people have come out of this alive!

I kinda want Cersei to beat everyone left now, with a smug hateful grin, just to annoy everyone lol.

I hated that smug Night King face when he raised a second army from the bodies of the dead. I mean, I kind of wished I could do that too, but my version would be animating the corpses of my old and jaded coworkers to vanquish my work rivals

I was trying to think of which episodes featured the most deaths of named characters. I think this was probably second to S6E10 (Sept of Baelor)?

It was good that he got that "lol u guys r pwned" smirk and then BAM, flying ninja arya attack (ok yes where the f did she actually come from but ok)

Was the Septsplosion worse than Red Wedding on that front? I cant even recall anymore. Who died in the sept? Margaery, Diana Rigg, her weird old husband, Tommen.. who else?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfkru6vtKsw

probably would have been fun to watch it in a bar

Diana Rigg poisoned herself elsewhere, in the same episode I believe.

the High Sparrow bought it in the Sept tho xp

(wait no dur Oleanna left and got killed later ha yes xpost)

Sept: Margaery, her dad, Tommen (sort of), priest Jonathan Pryce, Loras, Kevan Lannister, Lancel Lannister

Pycelle, not in the explosion but right before it.

Arya killed the Freys in that same episode too.

TBH a part of me will be glad if we go back to scheming and politics, that felt like the basis of the show to begin with and now its been waylaid by high fantasy battles which is like, fine of course, but life goes on, someone gotta sit on dat throne.

rip Margaery you did only scheming wrongs and we’re too hot to die

i thought melissandra was going to start singing New Order's "Temptation" with the eyes bit

As far as “where did Arya come from?!?” at the end, on rewatch, I have determined she must have gotten to the godswood before Theon’s demise, and hid herself amongst the corpses. Sneaky!