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Fantastic analysis, well done. The show has a way of magnifying poor decisions made by characters and making them blatantly obvious if you know where to look when it comes back to bite them later on. Jon's never been a big favorite for plenty of people and is considered the least interesting lead character by most critics, sullied or unsullied. Jon's options for living, other than the fact that the knives were never in overly vulnerable locations were never great. I wouldn't buy the warg-into-Ghost plot for a second; that would just be a major cop-out on GRRM's part.

All I'm saying is that D&D are doing a great job of making Jon as forgettable as possible; it's been that way from the get go, it was that way through this season, which was supposed to be his season, so if when the time comes and Jon is stabbed as it's likely we'll see it on the show and learn his fate before we learn it from the books I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out he really is dead.

Im pretty sure thats still just your opinion, mate. Unsullied viewers dont see Jon as forgettable, just a little dull in some areas. This episode was definitely one of those that has Jon in the forefront reminding us what hes capable of doing. People are gonna wanna see more Jon now. Especially since things are going to get interesting for him. If you think people wont be upset when his stabbing occurs, you are in for a rude awakening. The unsullied are going to flip the fuck out over that.

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Me too dude. I was just a little put off by Ser Gregor not saving Alliser and putting Tormund in the brig like he does towards the end of SoS. I am hoping we might get some mention of Gregor healing Alliser from his wounds in episode 10 though, before he treats with Mance.

Those Final Cut fucks! They royally massacred the part where Ser Gregor sits Tormund down for a serious discussion about safe sex and responsibility. Moon Tea isn't cheap!

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I was really digging Alliser this episode. It was a nice callback to his "do you fucking know what it's like to get stuck North of the wall and do some Hannibal shit just to survive?" speech in season 1. A good leader out in the field, not a good ruler. Then Slynt's flaccid "meep!" had me rolling. No giants, NOPE. We got a Mountain and he's just a shade shorter! But yeah, Alliser marching down like a boss because shit was about to get real was A+ in my book.

Agreed. When I found myself actually cheering for Alliser Thorne (which I'd never expected to do) I knew it was a great episode. The Night's Watch was finally shown with all the epicness it deserves. The way the NW's vows bound all the men together during the battle was able to give characters who are not particularly favourites to the audience (which is Ser Alliser's case) a quality that is, in my opinion, in the center of what makes the whole series awesome: the fact all the characters have multiple facets and aren't totally bad or good.

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I wouldn't buy the warg-into-Ghost plot for a second; that would just be a major cop-out on GRRM's part.

And yet the prologue for ADWD has a warg doing exactly that. So it wouldn't be like GRRM pulled it out of nowhere. He devoted an entire prologue to someone doing that sort of thing.
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I didn't feel like the battle at the wall earned a full episode the way Blackwater did, and I certainly don't think it needed to stretch out into the finale as well. I wish we had seen the Night's Watch making actual preparations in previous episodes instead of just telling us how many wildlings there are without ever showing us more than Ygritte's band of murderers.



I don't have strong feelings about Stannis, but his arrival would have made for a much stronger episode in my opinion. Not to mention that despite the previously reminding me that Mance exists, I almost ended up believing that Tormund would just replace him since there was no sign of anyone caring about him until the last few minutes.


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Quotapalooza:

"What our vows say about other activities is open to interpretation" Sam

"I'm not a bleeding poet" Jon ("no, you're not" Sam)

"I know you never fucked a bear" Ygritte

"Old age is a wonderful source of irony, if nothing else" Maester Aemon

"Nothing makes the past a sweeter place to visit than the prospect of imminent death" Maester Aemon

"What are you fucking waiting for? LOOSE!" Aliser Thorne

"Sam, I think we're gonna die" Pyp, "if you keep missing we will" Sam

"Do you want to fill the belly of a Thenn tonight?" Alliser Thorne

"When the sun rises I promise you, Castle Black will stand! The Night's Watch will stand!" AlliserThorne

"Those are giants riding mammoths down there!" Jon

"No such thing as giants... a a a story for the children" Janos Slynt

"Hold the gate" Jon "Hold the fucking gate!" AlliserThorne

"Might as well enjoy our last night, right boys? Light the fuckers up!" Dolorous Edd

"We hold the gate!" Grenn (and then the Night's Watch Oath)

"We need you boy" Sam

"Do you remember that cave? We shoulda stayed in that cave." Ygritte

"Drop the scythe boys!" Dolorous Edd

"Don't cheer too loud, they still outnumber us a thousand to one" Dolorous Edd

"I promised you, didn't i?" Sam

"You're right, it's a bad plan. What's your plan?" Jon

"Jon, come back." Sam

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Agreed. When I found myself actually cheering for Alliser Thorne (which I'd never expected to do) I knew it was a great episode. The Night's Watch was finally shown with all the epicness it deserves. The way the NW's vows bound all the men together during the battle was able to give characters who are not particularly favourites to the audience (which is Ser Alliser's case) a quality that is, in my opinion, in the center of what makes the whole series awesome: the fact all the characters have multiple facets and aren't totally bad or good.

He's basically Zaeed from Mass Effect 2.

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Fantastic analysis, well done. The show has a way of magnifying poor decisions made by characters and making them blatantly obvious if you know where to look when it comes back to bite them later on. Jon's never been a big favorite for plenty of people and is considered the least interesting lead character by most critics, sullied or unsullied. Jon's options for living, other than the fact that the knives were never in overly vulnerable locations were never great. I wouldn't buy the warg-into-Ghost plot for a second; that would just be a major cop-out on GRRM's part.

All I'm saying is that D&D are doing a great job of making Jon as forgettable as possible; it's been that way from the get go, it was that way through this season, which was supposed to be his season, so if when the time comes and Jon is stabbed as it's likely we'll see it on the show and learn his fate before we learn it from the books I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out he really is dead.

In defense of D&D (shit, I can't believe I'm saying that), Jon Snow the character suffers on GOT and also in the books, because his story arc ,at least to date, is a fantasy trope writ large. He is Luke Skywalker and every other fantasy / Joseph Campbell type hero character every written. Its is easier to empathize with him with the books -- partly due to the POV structure of books, but a trope is a trope. And that does him no favors...

That being said, Season 2 really undermined the character in a significant way, and I don't think the character every truly recovered - at least on the tv show.

Edited by pleonasm
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You call Stannis' arrival the most epic moment yet it doesn't even happen at the end of aSoS. See, things that don't occur right at the end of something can still be epic. I was really looking forward to the Stannis scene but now I'm just looking forward to it next week. Having it not be the final scene of the episode doesn't make me like it any less, just like how it wasn't the final chapter in aSoS doesn't make me like it less.

It does make it less though. If the last shot of this episode was triumphant music playing while Stannis proudly charges through his line of knights having just saved the Wall, it'd be stuck in viewers minds all week and would be a massive talking point and memorable moment. Now, it will more than likely be lost in the fray of one of the most noteworthy-moment packed episodes in TV history. Having it next week doesn't make the actual action of Stannis arriving there less cool, it will just affect the way it sticks in viewers' consciousness.

Edited by clawson24
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Those Final Cut fucks! They royally massacred the part where Ser Gregor sits Tormund down for a serious discussion about safe sex and responsibility. Moon Tea isn't cheap!

I'm hoping it's confirmed for a deleted scene on the bluray boxset. Gregor has a deep impact on Tormund's later character development and I'd be pretty upset if they didn't have their bromance before Gregor heads off towards Wintefell to defeat the Boltons.

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Im pretty sure thats still just your opinion, mate. Unsullied viewers dont see Jon as forgettable, just a little dull in some areas. This episode was definitely one of those that has Jon in the forefront reminding us what hes capable of doing. People are gonna wanna see more Jon now. Especially since things are going to get interesting for him. If you think people wont be upset when his stabbing occurs, you are in for a rude awakening. The unsullied are going to flip the fuck out over that.

My point is that it's exceptionally clear already that Jon makes poor decisions a little too often. HBO is going to blow that up like crazy and now that the unsullied have seen that happen to chars they care about many times, they're not going to be anywhere near as surprised when Jon gets it. You're in for a rude awakening yourself if you don't give the unsullied enough credit to be able to figure out that once Jon starts fucking up all the time he's going to get beetle-smashed. And that's the point; D&D are already hammering home that Jon can be gone that quickly, whereas with Rob or Cat or Oberyn or Ned or anyone else the Unsullied cared about it was so much less blatantly obvious. I just don't think that the fact that D&D are shipping it so hard this early is a good sign. I'll respectfully agree to disagree with you moving forward.

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And yet the prologue for ADWD has a warg doing exactly that. So it wouldn't be like GRRM pulled it out of nowhere. He devoted an entire prologue to someone doing that sort of thing.

Are we supposed to care about prologue chars, especially knowing that hmm...all of them die? Please don't try to tell me they are one and the same.

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In defense of D&D (shit, I can't believe I'm saying that), Jon Snow the character suffers on GOT and also in the books, because his story arc ,at least to date, is a fantasy trope writ large. He is Luke Skywalker and every other fantasy / Joseph Campbell type hero character every written. Its is easier to empathize with him with the books -- partly due to the POV structure of books, but a trope is a trope. And that does him no favors...

I was bored senseless by Jon until ADWD. Subsequent rereads I like him more because I can see the buildup better, but he's a character I've found more entertaining in forbidden and notably fecking immoral castaway...stuff.

I'm hoping it's confirmed for a deleted scene on the bluray boxset. Gregor has a deep impact on Tormund's later character development and I'd be pretty upset if they didn't have their bromance before Gregor heads off towards Wintefell to defeat the Boltons.

I sure hope so! If it's a toss-up between Foucault introspection and Angela Carter joie de vivre, I'll go with the latter every time! It's going to be a million kinds of epic when Gregor comes across Ramsay in a snowy evil place, the Bastard having cornered Jeyne, and yanks him off with a velvety baritone "Why is it I'm always rescuing Starks?" Of course he understood the true deception, but in a zenith of lemming-incomprehensible moral complexity he saw the need to keep Jeyne's secret safe.

Edited by PhoenixFlame
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I didn't feel like the battle at the wall earned a full episode the way Blackwater did, and I certainly don't think it needed to stretch out into the finale as well. I wish we had seen the Night's Watch making actual preparations in previous episodes instead of just telling us how many wildlings there are without ever showing us more than Ygritte's band of murderers.

I don't have strong feelings about Stannis, but his arrival would have made for a much stronger episode in my opinion. Not to mention that despite the previously reminding me that Mance exists, I almost ended up believing that Tormund would just replace him since there was no sign of anyone caring about him until the last few minutes.

Why not? If you have read the books you should know what the events at the wall are ultimately more important than whoever's ass is on the iron throne.

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I want to see who's going to say with a straight face there's nothing wrong with Stannis' treatment on the show. They spend nearly 10 minutes on Sam and Gilly, yet the episode ends in an anti-climax because they can't have his big moment in an episode that is not already completely crowed.

*Straight face*

There's nothing wrong with Stannis' treatment on the show.

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Fantastic analysis, well done. The show has a way of magnifying poor decisions made by characters and making them blatantly obvious if you know where to look when it comes back to bite them later on. Jon's never been a big favorite for plenty of people and is considered the least interesting lead character by most critics, sullied or unsullied. Jon's options for living, other than the fact that the knives were never in overly vulnerable locations were never great. I wouldn't buy the warg-into-Ghost plot for a second; that would just be a major cop-out on GRRM's part.

All I'm saying is that D&D are doing a great job of making Jon as forgettable as possible; it's been that way from the get go, it was that way through this season, which was supposed to be his season, so if when the time comes and Jon is stabbed as it's likely we'll see it on the show and learn his fate before we learn it from the books I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out he really is dead.

Up until this episode, perhaps, D&D handled Jon Snow's character badly. Although it wasn't too bad in season 1. But why do you think Jon Snow seemed liked an idiot in this episode? If it for his decision to go out and meet with Mance, I think it was explained well. He tells Sam they are fighting a losing battle and there's no other option. They even imply that he doesn't know what he hopes to achieve but he sees no other alternative. He's met Mance and explains to Sam that it's Mance that holds the Wildlings together. Granted they didn't flesh out Jon's and Mance's relationship well in the prior season but I don't see how Jon going to meet with Mance makes him an idiot.

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What Ser Gregor you're talking about???

I don't normally spoil stuff for Unsullied viewers, since you're clearly behind on the books, but after Ser Gregor gouges out Ser Oberyn's eyes and crushes his skull he seeks redemption for his life of savagery by saving the Night's Watch at Castle Black. After nearly single handedly defeating all of Mance's wildingling troops, (minus the Weeper's faction) he seeks to rescue Arya from Ramsay and defeat the Bolton army at Winterfell. Him and Jon Snow develop a tense, but heartfelt bromance, that leads to Gregor gaining the respect and loyalty of the Northern Mountain clans, (fitting no?) before marching against Roose and Ramsay. I haven't seen how it plays out in Winds of Winter, but I just haven't really figured out how the Mountain is going to become "The Mountain who Cared", due to his abscence this episode.

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Well, I'm getting a vibe that D&D are going seriously off the rails here. Ygritte took this long to die, Pyp and Grenn dead, and NO STANNIS? WTF? :bang:



This battle was supposed to have started two episodes ago and been part of a running background to events elsewhere. Not agreeing with the management at all.


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