[Spoilers] Criticize Without Repercussion

[Balerion the one eared cat]

Everyone's covered it already really, but I want to add my rant for when Dumb&Dumber one day check this forum and see what a horrible mess they made.

Umber betrayal?! Dead Shaggydog?!?!?! Why didn't they just crown him KitN and actually unite the North for the first time since the show began? I really hope it's a trick like someone said earlier. I knew it was too much to hope that after I read that Rickon was back we'd have Davos going to Skagos on some sort of brotherly mission sent by Jon. Ohh well...

ToJ was just boring, to be honest. Not looking forward to them dragging it out every single episode. Why does dual-wielding make Arthur Dayne the greatest knight in the seven kingdoms? The worst part was the choreography - it just wasn't an interesting fight scene, and "un-named kingsguard #2" got taken down far too easily by "random mob of not-Neds"

Didn't Ser Gregor die? Okay then...

Rest of it is just boring, to be honest. Awful, meaningless dialogue ("let's have five minutes of indulgent Peter Dinklage even though the stuff we're writing for him is utter shite"), no plot advancement in any of the storylines and most of it's just nonsensical. Oh yeah, "'we've completely fucked up Dorne and should probably just leave it alone but we better remind you all how badly we ruined it so you can't claim discontinuity..." Nothing exciting has happened yet. Not even supposedly the most iconic fight scene in the series at ToJ. It's just utterly uncaptivating at this point.

Although... DOLOROUS EDD FOR LORD COMMANDER?! After five years of neglect they are finally giving him the glory he deserves. This might be enough to forgive all the other pointless shit that's happened in the last two seasons... or maybe we could just have "The adventures of Ghost and Edd" as a spin-off? Because that's a show I'd watch, with the only two characters I'm remotely invested in anymore.

EDIT: on the -Edd theme I really was hoping for an "Edd, fetch me a block" because surely Jon would at LEAST execute traitors the way daddy taught him? Nope? Oh well... also someone earlier made a very good point about Olly being a child and a victim, but of course D&D aren't going to treat him that way...

[ncg87]

43 minutes ago, Grizzly Mormont said:

has anyone on the show addressed meryn trant's murder besides some fucking random extra in braavos?

Exactly what I was thinking when I saw Mace back, just another example of something we're just not gonna talk about. It did its job last season as a shocking set piece. 

Also looks like Theon and his one horse made it back to the iron islands... 

The show has become a series of scenes that barely fit together anymore as a coherent story and conveniently forget previous set ups, and worst of all the overriding feeling from these first episodes is its been boring 

 

[Sir Loin Steak]

[Posted earlier in the main R&R thread but as it's specific to this episode thought it should go here]

A few nit-picks concerning episode 3 (good lord we're only on 3). I wrote these while the board was in meltdown, so apologies if they've already been mentioned a lot.

Olly continued to be treated as the most important thing in Jon's (un)life right to the end.

Davos saying that it's mad that Jon's back from the dead – then why did you think to try!?

The wildlings upended their entire lives, went through night after night of horror, lost countless friends and companions and so on, all to flee from genocidal undead. Tormund being cool with trying some necromancy with Jon, you could maybe excuse on account of his apparently close relationship with Jon (I don't). But to have ALL the wildlings immediately (and silently) conclude he's a god is insane.

I'm not at all sold on Jon's new mindset and I've previously expressed my objections to the ill-thought out take on existentialism they seem to be pushing and the omission of warging, so I won't go into it again.

Dual-wielding Arthur Dayne was stupid. It's incredibly cheesy bullshit to put into a show that somehow continues to be lauded for being “gritty and realistic”. The choreography was almost Sandfakes-level naff at points to boot.

Varys Marx aghast at the suggestion he would hurt children was white-washing enough. To then follow it up with Kooky Qyburn establishing it as unequivocally true and giving the children sweets no less was kind of astounding. Why do only total monsters like Ramsay-sue get shades of grey?

Saint Tyrion in Meereen is almost self-parody, they've cut out all the politics, cultural clash, characters, plot – everything. They've left the black hole Sue with nothing to talk about and no one worth talking to.

Small council. Fart joke. Carol's posse of a brain dead zombie and Gregor. THIS IS BAD COMEDY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4iwY2LXhz0

[There was more subtle political manoeuvring in that clip than in this show]

Confirmation that Faularia has taken over the city of Dorne. I seem to remember there was once this plot about the anarchy that results from a disputed or unclear line of succession, some sort of war involving a few kings? Anyone remember what show that was from?

Why is the devoutly religious High (as a kite) Sparrow so against Carol being given the chance to mourn her daughter? Are funerals now not part of religious observance? Why is he praising her as the living embodiment of the Mother, and then not allowing her to attend her daughter?

The madness of Sparrow Justice and utterly ineffectual high lords continues, but we do seem to be edging towards some telegraphed resolution.

Weirnet without weirwoods continues to be staggeringly lazy, and almost comical in light of certain views expressed about flashbacks.

Young Ned was neither the book character nor even a remotely good Sean Bean. Ned boasting about killing Ser Dual-Wield countless times is incredibly out of character even by the show's standards. The idea that the events at the ToJ are widely known flies in the face of all reason. Any heart was cut out of the scene and it was reduced to a boring (and dumb) fight. The sequence only being show now continues the lazy exposition and complete lacks of imagination that dominate the show – this would've made a lot more sense to include in the first season.

Well groomed tree-guy not being Bloodraven makes sense, given that he doesn't resemble the character at all.

I don't understand why we're being repeatedly told Bran's going to leave the cave. He's had two scenes after an entire season off, and they're ostensibly giving backstory and clearing up “mysteries” (well if they had ever been established on the show in the first place). Do they think this part is unspeakably boring for the audience? The same audience that just the other week was taunted with Dany's fleet being burnt to cinders, seeming to further delay any involvement in Weisseroff.

Children of the Forest design is terrible, as was the previous version.

The show finally took the easy way out and gave Arya a training-montage. At least they might be moving her plotline forward after going around in circles for... oh who am I kidding, I await Mercy part infinitum.

The drawn out music cue when Arya drank the euthanasia water was ridiculous. Exactly 0 people watching thought that she might actually die.

Timelines continue to be some bizarre spaghetti, baby plot-device stubbornly refuses to age. The mutiny at Craster's keep happened in S4E4. Best!Walda managed to get through a 9 month pregnancy in less than a season. Tommen skipped right over his tweens. This is going to get exponentially worse as the characters start to enter others plot-lines.

Are we meant to be bored and exasperated by Deadpan? Her scenes and the outside the episode seem to indicate that's what they're going for.

Not!Karstark is apparently a paedophile because of course he's not bad enough already.

At first I did think they were pulling something like the You a Cop? trope with Not!Smalljon not swearing fealty but handing over Rickon immediately nuked that notion. The Umbers being turned into moronic traitors is insulting, even if we only considered the show canon, let alone the books.

Attacking the Watch continues to be idiotic. You could at least threaten them first given that they are SWORN TO TAKE NO PART. But I guess the extremely well-behaved wildlings settling in the Gift, who didn't even kill any of the Night's Watch after their betrayal of Jon, are just out of control. And somehow justify by-passing them to attack the Watch first?

Shaggydog's fate continues the shows utter disrespect for the Starks and their direwolves.

Ramsay-sue continues to win the lottery of life. They even threw in a bonus Osha despite her being completely without political value.

Direlogue continues. Unimaginative direction continues. Anachronisms continue. Lazy exposition continues. Idiot Plots continue. Character derailment continues. It's almost impressive they can fit all this into each episode, and now they're finding space for lame and jarring comedy too! I actually don't have a problem with darker material including comedy, people in real life use humour to get through horrible situations and sometimes life takes absurd turns – but the tone of this show has been relentlessly grim, and trying to jam in fratboy humour into that is frankly bizarre (let alone that fratboy humour is awful in and of itself).

Finally, Emo-Jon, I appreciate that you want to make a dramatic exit, but you're going to look superlame when you have turn around to get a cloak, a horse, some provisions and GHOST BECAUSE WHO EVEN REMEMBERS THEIR DIREWOLVES?

Ahem, anyway here are some words of wisdom from Kevin Feige (basically the boss of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) on how to successfully adapt things:

“We’ve always said if there’s any “secret” it’s respect the source material, understand the source material and then, any adaptation you make from the source material should be done only to enhance whatever the original pure spirit of the source material was.”http://www.comicbookmovie.com/deadpool/kevin-feige-weighs-in-on-deadpool-chances-of-an-r-rated-marvel-studios-a141380

[higgo_71912]

Why was Dorne taken off the opening credits??? Surely that's not it, that we just get a passing comment that the sand snakes have overthrown the Martells and that's how it shall be for the rest of time. Just give me Darkstar causing a ruckus or something

[Morky_Pep]

Show-apologist's are going to freak out that we are ranting about filler, when what we like about the books is all the immense detail. The thing is though, there is filler where you learn something about the world or that is interesting, and then there is boring as shit filler that amounts to absolutely nothing. 

What did we learn during the Tyrion scene ? Did we learn anything about the characters involved? We know Tyrion likes to drink and talk and  we know that Grey Worm and Missandei don't. It wasn't even funny at all. What was the point ?!?!?!

What did we learn during the the Tommen and HS scene ? I can't even remember any of the dialogue but it seemed completely pointless. I think something about mothers loving their children ? What was the point ?!?!?!?!

What happened at the small council meeting ? Maybe we learned something here, but it sure as hell wasn't interesting. They don't want Cersei and Jamie at the meeting, and Pycelle is scared of Ser Gregor. That's it. There was no content. The small council meetings are some of my favorite scenes, because they always go into detail of the goings on of the realm. We got NOTHING. Just jamie shuffling some chairs and blah. what was the point ?!?!

We got a 5 minute scene to find out Dany is supposed to be part of the Dosh Kaleen and was supposed to go right away after Drogo died. That's what we learned. If you watched season 1 you should already know. But okay the audience needs a reminder. So why wasn't this Dany's first scene of the entire season ???? What did we learn from her last scene ? Nothing. That the Dothraki likes tits and pussy and that they didn't know who Dany was and then they did know when she told them Khal Drogos name. What was the point ?!?!

Arya ? Literally nothing happened. One could say the same thing of her book chapters but learning she could Warg a cat was really cool, and lead to so many implications of Nymeria and what not. We also learned alot about Bravos during those chapters and it really fleshed out the world. It was interesting. This was not interesting. I guess getting wacked over and over is good training. What was with the powders though ? Why wasn't this scene her first scene of the season ? Why did we need two other scenes of her getting wacked. Why couldn't they have shown her doing something else during these scenes? Maybe gathering intel for a future kill. ANYTHING. Something interesting please. Why did we need 3 wacking a blind girl training scenes to understand that she was learning to get trained ? The seasons almost half over and this is how many scenes we get of the EXACT SAME THING. UGH. What was the point ?!?!?!

You can have filler, and it can be interesting. The show's attempt at filler has been boring to nonsensical at best. There are so many interesting things they can tell us about but they aren't. The writers are too lazy to come up with compelling plots. 

On a side note. The Jon stuff was mostly boring. Him coming to life was extremely bland. That should be some of the most interesting dialogue, but it wasn't. Is Jon changed ? It doesn't look like it. I did think the final scene was pretty good, and the last line had me hyped a bit. But why give the LC cloak to Ed ???? No vote ? I hope that Jon is shown to be changed by his experience, otherwise, what is the point of him dying ?

Tower Of Joy was okay, it kinda came out of nowhere. The fight was bad. 

Overall the episode didn't really offend me at any point (except Shaggy Dog) but it was just plain boring. 

[Rhaegar Targaryen's Ghost]

20 hours ago, LulaMae Barnes said:

I officially HATE D&D and their sad lot now. Why would the Umbers do that? Handing over Rickon to Ramsay??? Why kill another wolf? THis is ridiculous.

It's pretty obvious that this is all a ploy to get Ramsay to trust them and then they'll infiltrate from inside Winterfell. And during the Battle of Winterfell they'll turn and take down the Karstarks and the Boltons. 

[Ramsay B.]

Reading this thread every week is infinitely more interesting than what this trainwreck of a show has become. The only positive that has come out of the last 2 seasons is that I don't fear being spoiled anymore, so I kind of have to thank D&D for that.

[Anythingatall]

1 hour ago, Morky_Pep said:

Show-apologist's are going to freak out that we are ranting about filler, when what we like about the books is all the immense detail. 

Actually both show filler and book filler can equally go and fuck themselves for me.

BUT...

While there is inexcusable amounts of tedious filler (and yes, yes YMMV)  in the books it at least isn't fucking offensive or completely nonsensical.

[Anythingatall]

1 hour ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

Davos saying that it's mad that Jon's back from the dead – then why did you think to try!?

And also STILL not offering any fucking explanation as to why he made this happen. 

He was actually asked the question-

"Why am I back?" and the cunt took it to be philosophical. 

[Sir Loin Steak]

33 minutes ago, Balerion the one eared cat said:

Although... DOLOROUS EDD FOR LORD COMMANDER?! After five years of neglect they are finally giving him the glory he deserves. This might be enough to forgive all the other pointless shit that's happened in the last two seasons... or maybe we could just have "The adventures of Ghost and Edd" as a spin-off? Because that's a show I'd watch, with the only two characters I'm remotely invested in anymore.

Jon pretty much handed Edd a death flag.

[The Wolves]

2 minutes ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

Jon pretty much handed Edd a death flag.

Lol!! I don't know why this made me laugh. 

But at this point what can you do but laugh at all the bullshit? 

[ToTheWolves]

Hope I'm allowed to post this if not please feel free to remove but,but before the season even started fhere was a post on Reddit from someone claiming to be an extra who fights in the battle of the bastards. He had pics and what not but he claimed that...

 

 

 

Spoiler

-Ramsay brings rickon out right before the battle while facing off with Jon and the wildlings. He then tells rickon "run...or don't run...it makes no difference". Rickon takes off running towards Jon but then Ramsay looses arrows at rickon hitting him in the back. He didn't say how many, but he did say he's not sure if rickon dies or not.

 

-he gave more details about the battle too. I can't really remember word for word, but he did say the vale shows up to save the day. Ramsay ends up retreating back into winterfell. Wun-Wun breaks(or lifts) the gates of winterfell for Jon.Jon chases ramsay down and beats him with to death with his bare hands.

 

[Faint]

I have quite a few criticisms of this episode but I will just limit myself to one scene: the Tower of Joy. And as to that, I will just say:

1. They should have never changed the dialogue; the dialogue from the first book was perfect. Now, that does not mean they should have included the dialogue word for word (except maybe the last two lines, which they did in fact keep, although with the wrong tenor). For one, I doubt the real events actually perfectly mimic Ned's dream, whose dialogue has a dream quality to it. But they should have paraphrased every line of dialogue from the dream. 
2. Changing the confrontation from 7 versus 3 to 6 versus 2 was stupid, pointless and the cause of my next criticism. 
3. The dual blade wielding Ser Arthur Dayne. This was just ridiculous on so many levels that I do not even know where to start. I imagine they thought it was cooler having him wield two blades; it was not. But once they decided to make it 6 versus 2 and almost immediately following the start of the fight make it 4 versus 1, they basically had to have him wield two blades or he would have been killed instantly. How about this? Have Ser Arthur Dayne fight three opponents, and have Whent and Hightower face off against two. It really is that simple. 

[Wynafryd Manderly]

I'm most disappointed by Dawn...I really wanted to see what a blade made from a fallen star looked like...maybe a White Walker's sword? Instead, it's just a regular sword with a sun on it's pommel

Also...Ser Gregor? Really?

[messem]

16 minutes ago, Ramsay Blow said:

Reading this thread every week is infinitely more interesting than what this trainwreck of a show has become. 

They're some pearls in this thread which make me thinking and realize that I'm not that an observant viewer. But >80% of the post are basically whining and bitching without a reason.

[TheReal_Rebel]

*sigh* Thank Godness for the books.  I won't bag on D&D.  They look exhausted.

I only hope that the Dunk and Egg are done are also done as a series and not just films.

I really, really don't want them to do Robert's a Rebellion when there are so many other stories to tell from the World of Ice and Fire and GRRM's Bravos mystery story.

But from all the romantic Rhaeghar & Lyanna YouTube vids I fear HBO won't be able to resist the dollar signs.

Dunk and Egg is what I'd like to see next adapted by someone.

[Cas Stark]

59 minutes ago, Stark_Contrast said:

 

But why is he still called the SWORD, singular of the morning in the show, when he's got 2 swords?  WTF is it with the show and any number lower than 10 they can't keep track of..swords, necklaces, babies....it's fucking pathetic.

 

[Johnston]

9 minutes ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

Jon pretty much handed Edd a death flag.

Even before that happened I said to the OH he's dead this year.  Convo went a bit like this. 

 

Me: He's dead this year. 

OH: Why? 

Me:He's getting more lines

OH:So

Me:Remember Pyp and Grenn 

OH:He's dead.

Jon passes the cape.

OH:He's so dead this year

[messem]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

But why is he still called the SWORD, singular of the morning in the show, when he's got 2 swords?  WTF is it with the show and any number lower than 10 they can't keep track of..swords, necklaces, babies....it's fucking pathetic.

Because it is a title. The didn't call the whores who Robert fucked "Queens" either.

[Trinket2]

After reading this, I think I'm going to give this episode a miss. It sounds like watching it would only make me pissed off.

I wish The Winds of Winter would just come out. It would be nice to see what the story is supposed to be like instead of D&D's trainwreck.