TamTam Rapley

To be fair, I doubt the Volantene fleet is right behind them. At least several days out. The Ironborn passed Volantis, and at the time the Volantene people were still partying and hadn't shipped off to Slaver's Bay yet. Furthermore, with such a large force of ships (300), holding the fleet together would take a lot longer, whereas Victarion had a much smaller fleet. After that storm, the Volantene's would have taken much longer to link up. Moreover, the Volantene's have all the time in the world to arrive at Slaver's Bay, unlike the Ironborn who have to race to get there and out before the Volantene's arrive. Chances are, after the battle, the Ironborn leave immediately to slip past the Volantene's or they stay and join a plan to raze and capture the oncoming vessels when they arrive.

Becoming greedy? He served his brother (Balon) his entire lifeas a dutiful admiral. His other brother (Euron) raped his wife, and you're calling Victarion greedy for planning to screw over Euron? I'm sure Euron expects Vic to follow his orders to the letter because Victarion has always acted as the follower, past behaviour does tend to be the best predictator of future behaviour so it isn't out the realm of reason for Euron to believe this. Why did Victarion choose now to disobey? Look at the chapter names, he's the "reaver," "captain," "suitor," and finally Victarion. I believe that indicates that he is now his own person, rather than a role decided by that of his brothers. He's come to the realization that his wants and needs are important as well as possible thanks to Morquorro. To be socially awkward is to be dumb now?

To be fair, he's leading his ships in a highly unusual environment. He shouldn't be expected to know every little detail of the land, especially the plains, since he is a sailor going to a port city afterall. He's going to Mereen to save his Queen and then straight back to Westeros. Why should he worry about what's on the map after Slaver's Bay?

Agreed. I think GRRM certainly does Victarion a disservice when he called him "dumb as a stump." His writing indicated in no way to me that this was the case. You don't put someone incompetent of a top tier fleet; its been noted by every Ironborn that only Victarion has what it takes to command it properly. His tactical skills can be easily shown is his voyage east and through the capture of enemy ships. Hell, his handling of religious issues is even genius. Setting a situation where the sacrifices both burn and drown? Look at the results, it certainly worked because it cannot be no coincidence that a wind instantly picked up, while also moving in the most favourable direction. Personally, I hope Victarion survives the battle and becomes a dragon rider for either Rhaegal or Viserion (however briefly), but the long game doesn't look for him since the POV characters are due to be shortened down.

Camelot is just atrocious, but the Borgias is quite good and managed a decent battle battle scene in spite of the budget. And Rome and Boardwalk Empire both have larger budgets then GoT. The pilot for BE was 18 million alone.

I've rated the show, if you cared enough to read the earlier pages you would see that. And yeah, the show is lacking without battles. We have 8 episodes of build up for a battle between Starks and Lannisters. Then it happens off-camera. Is that not a legitimate enough gripe?

The show is a visual medium whereas the books are a collection of third person povs. Robb wasn't a pov in the books but in the show he happens to be far more important because we're actually seeing his actions compared to hearing about from Bran's or Catelyn's pov. Point is, it's redundant for the show to be follow a pov arc during battle scenes because the drama of the show isn't pov centric but rather shows us everything in an ominiscient manner. For example, the show isn't pov centric like the books because we get additional scenes of other characters i.e Littlefinger, Joffrey, Cersei, Varys, Loras, Renly etc.

They didn't do a battle period. And condemning the condemners, way to take the high road. As a paying customer, I can complain all I want. If this was free, then yes I would have no grounds but it's not. So just live with it.

Ah yes, comparing a play written hundreds of years ago, while being performed in a theatre is an entirely valid comparison to a live action television series. That type of reasoning is a great contribution to the level of quality and analysis on these boards. Bravo sir! As a viewer, I have to wonder. If they can't even show small scale engagements, like The Whispering Woods, which could of been done relatively cheap with it being dark and all. How will they show Blackwater, the Wall, the fist, Mereen, Yunkai, and Astapor? I would even settle for low budget, close up, and thick in the fighting battle scenes instead of the gorgeous sweeping shots of massive armies we deserve. Instead, we recieve non-existent battle scenes.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I joined specifically to post my displeasure with this episode. 1/10. I'm never watching this show again. They butcher two important and relatively small scale battles compared to the future battles in the series. If they're gonna do this to small scale battles then I might as well quit watching right now because I don't want to watch a terrible Blackwater episode. I might as well not set myself up for disapointment. I didn't even get to enjoy Ned's death because I was fuming about that the fact that I got screwed out of two major battles. I can't believe they pulled a Rome on me. This is even worse then when they had a seven episode build-up of a fight between Pompey and Caesar and then just show the aftermath. You just lost yourself a viewer HBO. EDIT: Thanks for the useless time wasting Tyrion "guess what" scene.