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

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!

Is Jon not able to make the dragon breathe fire? I notice he didn't do this and kinda seemed pointless him riding around on it as a result.

I also wondered why there was only Theon and a few other lads guarding Bran, but also why they only had to fight off a trickle of dead.

The godswood only has one entrance in I think

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!

You see her pass a wight, if you watch; a wight's hair gets swept up in a light wind and he turns to look over his shoulder, then cut to the shot on NK and Arya comes flying in from behind.

O sorry yes I figured she was good at hiding in plain sight, no quibbles there. I just meant how she kinda came at him from behind and sort of airborne?

I phrased it today as “flying out of nowhere” and that’s about right imo

What sort of absolute fucking animal watches TV in a bar.

My wife watched Joffrey die in bar in NY with a big screen and apparently it was amazing, everyone cheered.

I’m disappointed we won’t get to see flying dragon skulls breathing fire on Cersei. But I loved the contrast between ‘not today’ for Aria and Melisandre signing off with her final ‘OK, today’. I’m going to give that episode a second viewing, I think.

just been watching a squirrel try to sneak up on the bird feeder, where we've put defences in place. it realised and deftly climbed up the tree above it to jump down and attack the bird food that way. Maybe arya could've just hidden in the tree.

Also the Night King is literally a dumb CGI avatar and would have made an incredibly underwhelming Big Bad, the problem with zombies is that they're scary but also kind of one-note and boring after a while, best to get them out of the way early. It's already been established that at some point in Westeros history they managed to defeat the army of the dead and humans still managed to fuck everything else up for themselves.

More to the point the Night King is a bad manager, what's the point of expending literally everything trying to take a well-defended fortress like Winterfell when you can just roll across country and take everything in your path?

Generally I thought this episode was great, I'm not especially nostalgic for the show as it used to be and big dumb fight scenes rule. Good move to have spent seven seasons building Arya up as this bitter avenging character and have that all be in the service of something higher. It does seem ridiculous that not a single White Walker managed to rinse through
Sam given he spent the entire episode with at least of of them pinning him down.

There's been a surprising amount of screen time given to one little girl who was being served by Davos and later in the crypt, I couldn't quite work out what they're building towards with that.

it's either a red herring or chekov's gun. what if she's had greyscale and is still contagious? she's been at close quarters with a lot of the principals so it would be a real threat

Probably do need to rewatch at least some of this. THink I missed a couple of the rapid points. Somebody being dragged over teh battlements etc.

Did see the bit with the dragon and Jon Snow and thought it was a bit close to a computer game or an arcade one.

& Arya may have been a bit close to a deus ex machina but on the other hand had probnnably been built up to that purpose all the way through.
Wondered what the next stage if she hadn't done that would have been. I guess the Night king would have still been trying to expand his kingdom and gone up against Cersei and whoever. Who would have been ill-prepared. Was there anybody who could work with dragon glass even if she had recognised taht as a possible tool. THough that's a moot point now.

It was very well executed, and extremely tense. Lazily concieved though, and padded out plotwise. Arya killing the NK was cool and a bit surprising and made sense (a GRRM plot point?), but other than that you could describe the plot as "they had a big fight and the goodies won". Very linear and unimaginative, particularly compared to the books and the early seasons, and continuing to squander any thematic complexity.

On that note I can completely imagine the rest of the series being two episodes of build up and bro downs, followed by a battle with Cersei in which a few B grade characters die (Brienne and Davos most likely), and the day is saved at the last minute by a third party. Then Jon and Dany will get married and share the throne with Tryion as chief advisor, Arya head of security and Sansa Warden of the North, and everyone in the Seven Kingdoms lives happily ever after.

There's been a surprising amount of screen time given to one little girl who was being served by Davos and later in the crypt, I couldn't quite work out what they're building towards with that.