Craster's: The Definition of Filler

[NaarioDaharis]

So, we get the epic conclusion to the mysterious Locke storyline. "Who is he? What will he do?"

1. What is going to happen with Bran & co.?

2. Will Jon and Bran see each other?

3. What will happen to Jon at Craster's Keep?

Let's answer these quesions

1. Oh, nothing of any consequence. Bran wargs into Hodor and kills the bad guy and goes back to where he would have been if he had not been captured in the first place with no consequences.

2. Nope. A forced Choose Your Own Adventure decision via Jojen causes Bran to nonsensically choose to run away, again back to where they would have been if none of this had happened with no consequences.

3. Nothing. He kills all the bad guys, has a boss fight with Karl (Dirk), and none of the Wildling women want to go back to Castle Black with him. So, he's back to where he would have been if none of this had happened with no consequences.

This is filler.

I know, some of you thought it was entertaining because there was a fight scene with swords and fire and such.

What is your opinion on this sort of pointless plot taking up 20 minutes of an episode, material which makes no difference at all in the story line? Does it bother you? Do you just enjoy it?

Discuss

[Fat Trell]

I agree. Worse than being filler, it was futile filler. It took a grand total of 2 episodes(about 40 minutes) to solve.

Locke was decent enough for a show only character. He also provided a tie to the south for the Wall. Something this plot sorely lacks pre-Stannis. Karl was similarly somewhat entertaining.

Why not keep them around, see where their characters can effect the story? Why not have the mutineers join Mance at a pivotal time to help turn the battle? Why not have them simply sit tight in Craster's and fight the Others or interact with Stannis' army in some way? Why not keep Locke around to turn on Jon at some dramatic moment?

It seems like the show can't decide if it wants to veer away from the books or maintain the plot. They add things only to drop them for a contrived or blatantly obvious reason later on to tie things back to the books.

Also: WTF are Craster's wives going to do? They have no arms, just burned their only shelter, and have likely never left the keep before. Where are they going to go? Why would they not simply stay at the only place they've ever known? Or at least take the nice guy who just saved your lives up on his offer to take you to a warmer place with no ice zombies? How will they survive in the permanently frozen wasteland that is the show's Beyond the Wall? Is there any explanation even possible for what their next move is? They don't seem to want to go to Mance(who they have no way of finding besides) given they want to "make their own way."

This is such a blatant "we don't want to solve this problem we wrote ourselves into" move.

[JonDunn]

Most show only viewers now think Jon is a badass and actually.....LIKE him?

Job well done.

[Justin Danford]

My thoughts exactly. I'm not a book purist, I do however weigh the value of changes by their ability to advance or enrich the plot. The only thing solved in the crasters arc were the problems created by... The crasters plot.

Why waste 30 precious minutes (maybe more) in a time-crunched series on inventing a plot line that deviated from the source book, jeopardized the integrity of a characters decision in a future book, and spoiled a yet unreleased book? Did they really hate CH that much. Here's an idea, gang, save valuable valuable minutes of screen time by introducing a wildly interesting and mysterious character who just so happens to close the men at crasters problem during his evening stroll. That should give some more time for KoTLT backstory, rhaeghar backstory, or just...more story

It's as if the showrunners heard someone mention Cold Hands and said "Cold hands? Uh what Hands? Wait what's that ver there... Look! Swords! A giant! Firrrrre!!!"

Great. Cold Hands cut and the entirety of Jon's raiding party/crasters wives all proven to be idiots in one fell swoop. Who satnds around watching the biggest fire the North has ever seen, when there are literally two arimies roaming around those woods?

Can't light a fire in the daytime to burn a corpse in S2 cause Mance's scouts might see....Burns entire homestead at night and stands there watching in S4.

[Fat Trell]

Most show only viewers now think Jon is a badass and actually.....LIKE him?

Job well done.

Why does Jon need heroic moments? He is about to fight off a Wildling attack from the South, and then hold the Wall in badass fashion while leading his decimated brothers against impossible odds.

[Volverin]

You're asking why? The answer is simple. If they wouldn't have done it then Jon, Bran and the rest would have absolutely no screen time for almost the entire season, they didn't want to rush the story too much so they invented those scenes, simple.

And they weren't bad scenes.

[Red Tiger]

Why does Jon need heroic moments? He is about to fight off a Wildling attack from the South, and then hold the Wall in badass fashion while leading his decimated brothers against impossible odds.

Because, GHOST man, GHOST!

Seriously, I think that is all we're getting out of this.

[Envie]

You're asking why? The answer is simple. If they wouldn't have done it then Jon, Bran and the rest would have absolutely no screen time for almost the entire season, they didn't want to rush the story too much so they invented those scenes, simple.

And they weren't bad scenes.

This. Filler is filler - so they made it the best possible filler they could without ruining the integrity of the overall story for Jon or Bran either one.

Yes it's true the show is on a time crunch to get everything in with just 10 hours of footage - but what else would they have shown for Bran - a whole lot of shivering in the cold and starving along the way? Some would argue that Coldhands could have been the true filler and probably should have been. For whatever reason they decided to drop coldhands in favor of good action packed drama with a big heart wrenching decision on Bran's part NOT to go to Jon Snow ... that's good television drama.

But I enjoyed the OP's summary. Spot on assessment and yes, it was total eye candy filler. It was good filler though. :)

[Red Tiger]

They could have used the time to show what the hell is going on with the Ironborn and what Roose is doing.

[Metopheles]

yap. horrible plot. And all these damn holes in it. Jon finds Bran isn't there..oh well, I don't care. Let's head home.

Why did Locke join the NW in the first place? He could never have returned from it.

How did he plan to get Bran to the Boltons, as he obviously did not intend to kill him, cause he could have done it without freeing him.

That was just bad. And as stated perfectly in the OP : A filler. an hour of an filler. And did not do anything to the plot.

Yeehaw, for extending a third of the book into 10 hours.

[Justin Danford]

Seems to me like the perfect season to start sewing some R+L backstory. Oberyn is in town and has already mentioned the Rhaegars infidelity. Working that angle (having him keep finding ways to mention it when various characters offer to strike a deal, ex: "Elia had a promise from Rhaegar and look how turned out...") would allow for some really interesting fleshing out of something that tv show really hasn't done: historic scaffolding of Martins world.

Disrguntled Oberyn: Bran hears Knight of the laughing tree (while walking through some white walker wilding-body spin art), dany name dropping her brother his mistakes or legacy, etc....

There are many ways to make "boring" live action not boring by imbuing it with dramatic significance. And then if you really felt some spice was needed....BOOM Coldhands lays out the mutineers right as bran is captured, seems like a nice compromise

[hollowcrown]

This is filler.

I know, some of you thought it was entertaining because there was a fight scene with swords and fire and such.

What is your opinion on this sort of pointless plot taking up 20 minutes of an episode, material which makes no difference at all in the story line? Does it bother you? Do you just enjoy it?

Discuss

There's bad filler and then there's good filler. Bad filler = WHERE ARE MY DRAAAAAAAAAGONS!!! Good fillder = this.

Most viewers think Bran's story is boring - we can't have him literally keep walking to the tree for three seasons. This gives Bran and the gang something to do. Stannis basically sat on his arse last season and it sucked, they're going to learn from that and give Bran something to do.

Also the show due to budget constraints, is probably only going to merge the two battles for The Wall and Castle Black into one and keep it as the big battle moment of this season, That's fair enough, but they have to give Jon something to do otherwise he'll just be sitting around waiting for Stannis to show up and have the battle.

It was a good story, we got some real tension, good character moments, great action sequences, and some cool characters like Karl and Locke. Also it cleans up the question of "what happened to the Mutineers?".

[Adhara]

To a show only viewer, it's just, compelling.

Small-Pholk don't notice filler in their meat loaf

we just enjoy the yummy goodness.

Filler, is the ten months of life I live while waiting for the next friggin' season!

[Hippocras]

I think the critics pile on without trying to understand why certain moves are made.

Contrary to what was said in the OP, this served several purposes.

1. It established Jon's growing role as a leader and a fighter. This is an important thread to develop because of the vote that will happen this season, and they don't intend to show TWO battles at the Wall as happened it the books: that would not work for the show. There will be a single battle for the Wall, so Jon's leadership role needed to be established another way.

2. It reaffirmed that Jon has a certain level of respect for the opinions of both women and wildlings. He asked the women what they wanted and let them do what they would.

3. Craster's Keep is slowly setting up the role of the woman who is clearly the leader of Craster's wives. I suspect she will end up being the Woods Witch who leads the Wildlings to Hardhome. This is likely an important factor in Winds of Winter and needs to be established somehow. Watch the scenes involving that woman, and then remember Hardhome.

4. It showed for the first time what Hodor is capable of when Bran wargs him, and also how confusing and upsetting it is for Hodor when he is warged. This will also be important.

5. It allowed Bran to stay part of the story without simply showing him in endless boring scenes traveling North.

6. It gave Jon a means to reunite with Ghost.

[roxWolfox]

I didn't find anything about Craster's Keep 'entertaining', ever. Not in the books, and especially not when watching the show. And now that the whole Craster/Black Brother rogues abuse storyline is done, I feel satisfied in how it was handled. One time where there is a rather 'happy' ending.

The women at the end of the show became more heroic to me than anyone else in the series up to this point. They had been beaten and raped for most of their lives, 'walking on eggshells' so to speak, without having choice or input in any part of their existence. For the first time in their lives they are given a chance to decide their own fate. It spoke volumes to me. They'd rather face the White Walkers and whatever other monsters there were out there having made the choice to do so, than allowing another man (boy or no) decide what was going to keep them 'safe'.

Bran taking over Hodor, then Hodor seeing blood on his hands was another powerful moment. There are some lines that you don't cross, yet Bran did. It saved his life, but now Hodor is aware of a violation. Another profound moment.

I found this episode to be very subtle in its suggestions, but powerful nonetheless.

[Justin Danford]

When there are literally thousands of pages of source material to draw from (and now presumably the thousand or so WOW pages that could fall into the show at any moment) to even be discussing a plot line that spans over multiple episodes as filler, is a failure on the writers part, in my opinion.

They can add filler and do it well (which they have as far as entertainment value goes) but that is entirely separate from whether or not it was good for the overall story. All signs point to no on that front.

[hollowcrown]

3. Craster's Keep is slowly setting up the role of the woman who is clearly the leader of Craster's wives. I suspect she will end up being the Woods Witch who leads the Wildlings to Hardhome. This is likely an important factor in Winds of Winter and needs to be established somehow. Watch the scenes involving that woman, and then remember Hardhome.

Yeah I thought she would be developed into the Hardhome character - independent wildling woman wanting to chose her own fate etc.

[Envie]

I didn't find anything about Craster's Keep 'entertaining', ever. Not in the books, and especially not when watching the show. And now that the whole Craster/Black Brother rogues abuse storyline is done, I feel satisfied in how it was handled. One time where there is a rather 'happy' ending.

The women at the end of the show became more heroic to me than anyone else in the series up to this point. They had been beaten and raped for most of their lives, 'walking on eggshells' so to speak, without having choice or input in any part of their existence. For the first time in their lives they are given a chance to decide their own fate. It spoke volumes to me. They'd rather face the White Walkers and whatever other monsters there were out there having made the choice to do so, than allowing another man (boy or no) decide what was going to keep them 'safe'.

Bran taking over Hodor, then Hodor seeing blood on his hands was another powerful moment. There are some lines that you don't cross, yet Bran did. It saved his life, but now Hodor is aware of a violation. Another profound moment.

I found this episode to be very subtle in its suggestions, but powerful nonetheless.

I will agree I did like the way it ended for the women of Craster's keep. They're finally 'free' of the oppression and isolation and abuse they suffered there.

I don't think they have a whole lot to worry about heading off on their own other than surviving the cold and possible starvation. I don't think the White Walkers are going to mess with them considering these are their Mothers / Sisters - right?

[Justin Danford]

Though I guess we should all be glad Jojens vision didn't include Jon Snow Weilding Lightbringer against the darkness.

Keeping the plot line grounded to material only suggested in released books is a market upgrade from last week

[roxWolfox]

I will agree I did like the way it ended for the women of Craster's keep. They're finally 'free' of the oppression and isolation and abuse they suffered there.

I don't think they have a whole lot to worry about heading off on their own other than surviving the cold and possible starvation. I don't think the White Walkers are going to mess with them considering these are their Mothers / Sisters - right?

That was my thought when the woman said they'd go their own way. The White Walkers may know their kin (mothers, sisters), or the women may still be protected because of Craster's sacrificing his sons. Either way, it was great seeing them unafraid for the first time since they were introduced to the series.