Dolorous Gabe

Well hello there I hope Castellan is okay. I will make an attempt at playing whilst I act like a hermit in preparation for my hernia operation in December.

If Pep had gone to United or Chelsea instead of City he'd had have won just as many trophies for those clubs. Football hasn't been played on anything resembling a fair playing field in multiple decades.

Only Pep is responsible for this and that ends as soon as he leaves in 2025. It'll be wide open after that.

Absolute tripe!

Thank you, this was wonderful A comment on the video made me laugh out loud: "the night is dark and full of terr... ible writing" "the episode is dark and full or errors" is also hilarious

"it was hopeless" is not an excuse for the moronic suicide charge. If there were no flanks, please do let me know where Jon and Dany were watching from! For there to be no flanks the undead would have to be charging from every direction, not just the north. Coming into the wight army from the east and the west would be coming into the battle from the flanks. Then at least you've got the Unsullied and the Dothraki fighting them together and they can retreat into WF if/when necessary.

Well obviously. But the timing of the charge and the choice of what they charge at is what's important. Why sacrifice the entire horde on a kamikaze charge when you could have the Dothraki charge into the flanks of the undead as they attack the Unsullied? At least they're in the vicinity of the castle so can more easily retreat when that becomes the sensible move. I don't think anyone with any sense sends off a cavalry charge without a plan to support the attack, undead or otherwise. At the very least it has to be a decoy for something.

We can agree there on the bolded. That's why I think it would have made sense for Jon to suggest such a tactic (since he has already seen it work in battle) in that scene had they properly written it. A failed plan that was at least a decent idea would not have been seen as moronic. The Dothraki charge was never close to a decent idea.

We've already seen the value of trapping the opposition forces in the BotB, so it would have made complete sense for Jon to suggest letting the Unsullied do their thing first to halt the Undead charge and then having the Dothraki attack from each side of the undead forces. Would that have succeeded? Probably not. Would it have been smarter than what they did? Without a shadow of a doubt. The charge idea they went with was moronic however many bad alternatives you offer.

Someone remembered how to write half decent dialogue! Probably because it wasn't being used to tell the story due to the fact that there was none being told. The show has used dialogue too often to cheaply tell the story and for exposition when these should mostly be told visually. The dialogue in this episode felt much more organic, less forced. Still a myriad issues but the dialogue was such a pleasant surprise that I feel quite positive about it. 7/10 My best rating in a very long time

Exactly my thoughts, right down to the 4/10 mark.

Not to Ned Stark it wouldn't. He would have a big problem with telling such a bald-faced lie. It's nothing like anything Ned lied about. "Promise me, Ned" If he gives his word on something, he keeps to it even if it haunts him.

You're not wrong about Ned's willingness to tell an honourable lie or keep an important secret if needed but Ned would undoubtedly have agreed with Jon's decision not to lie to Cersei in that moment. That would not have been an honourable lie. The parallel between Jon and Ned in this situation is perfectly reasonable.

I don't think anybody is saying people always act rationally. I think most criticism of character actions is one of character motivation and character arc. Some characters will naturally act more rationally than others but character actions on GoT seem to me to be driven more by what the show runners want to happen than by the motivations of the characters in question. Characters are shifted about and bent this way and that for the sake of nonsensical plot lines. I agree with your comments about Rickon and Jon, although I would add this: I cannot understand why the Umbers delivered Rickon and Shaggydog to the Boltons in the first place (other than that the show runners needed that to happen) and the problem with Jon charging stupidly (you're right to suggest that was a plausible action for the character and situation) is that he not only survived the barrage of arrows raining down on him alone in the middle but came out of that without even a single scratch. Too often have they irreparably broken the suspension of my disbelief. I strongly disagree that the dialogue in GoT is above average. At best, it is average (only because the worst examples of TV dialogue are so bad it hurts). It was occasionally very good in earlier seasons using GRRM's dialogue as a guide. I would say it is too often below average since S5. The weakest part is the storytelling, which is often abysmal. Character development and character arcs are hardly much better.

Totally agree with all of this.