Anyone else having trouble with the whights?

[Shinjuku Thief]

I agree that the chittering skeletons and the fireball breaks the tone they've set with the rest of the series. This is a gritty, dirty world with low-key (but powerful) magic.

Not that I'm a fan of CotF throwing fireballs, but it's not like the book has a consistent tone when it comes to magic - part of the point is that things supernatural are ramping up as the series goes on. The contrast between the players of the 'game of thrones' scoffing at the outlandish suggestion of dragons, walking dead, and magic while we steadily see more of these very things in other places. The tv show just does it more dramatically, mostly due to the medium itself which doesn't cater for subtlety.

[ummester]

Not that I'm a fan of CotF throwing fireballs, but it's not like the book has a consistent tone when it comes to magic - part of the point is that things supernatural are ramping up as the series goes on. The contrast between the players of the 'game of thrones' scoffing at the outlandish suggestion of dragons, walking dead, and magic while we steadily see more of these very things in other places. The tv show just does it more dramatically, mostly due to the medium itself which doesn't cater for subtlety.

Although magic in the book is rising, it does always have a gritty, realistic weight, as Gertrude described.

I'm sure GRRM would never write and drogon looked at Dany like a puppy dog. What he would write is that, as dangerous and animal as drogon was, Dany still thought of him as her child, or something. The scene, in show, should have been carried entirely on the actresses face and not with a CG dragon face.

Also, I think GRRM would write that some undead were badly decomposed, with rotten sinews preserved by the cold. He may have the undead shambling hurriedly towards the wildlings, with bright blue eyes ablaze in every skull. I don't think he would ever make them eyeless skeletons that chitter and shriek from non existent lungs.

It's not a matter of subtlety - it's a matter of consistency. You show the undead as shambling bodies, with flesh, in various states of disrepair and the end of S2E10 - you keep them that way.

There was nothing subtle about the shadow baby, it was an obvious demonic type of birth conducted in a dark cave, with the witchy mother somehow trying to excuse it as being on the side of light. But, if the next time Mel has a shadow baby, it comes out in a clown suit, you see that the tone would be different?

[Gertrude]

To add to that, I meant low-key as in not flashy, as well as it's relative scarcity. The way George writes it it sometimes doesn't even seem magical, it's just a thing that is. Absolutely magic is on the rise and I expect more to come. What I don't expect is that the dragons grow glittery scales and shoot rainbow fire. An exaggeration, obviously, but I hope that helps clarify what I meant. Blazing fireballs conjured from mid-air are flashy - a pouch thrown by Leaf that bursts into flames on contact is not (as an example).

As an anecdote, I have some friends who watch the show and love it, but who were leary of the fantasy label before they checked it out. They didn't love the Bran scene because it pulled them out of their suspension of disbelief and reminded them this was a fantasy story. They cocked their eyes at the shadow baby, but no more than that. Well, other than WTF did I just see there?!

[Shinjuku Thief]

I'm sure GRRM would never write and drogon looked at Dany like a puppy dog. What he would write is that, as dangerous and animal as drogon was, Dany still thought of him as her child, or something. The scene, in show, should have been carried entirely on the actresses face and not with a CG dragon face.

Perhaps dragons do have more expressive range beyond 'dangerous' and 'menacing'? So the show-runners tried to express some kind of emotion through Drogon's expression and failed (in some people's opinion) to animate it well? It didn't destroy the illusion of them being real dragons 'in show', I think, nor did other scenes that were obviously CG/greenscreened etc.

Also, I think GRRM would write that some undead were badly decomposed, with rotten sinews preserved by the cold. He may have the undead shambling hurriedly towards the wildlings, with bright blue eyes ablaze in every skull. I don't think he would ever make them eyeless skeletons that chitter and shriek from non existent lungs.

It's not a matter of subtlety - it's a matter of consistency. You show the undead as shambling bodies, with flesh, in various states of disrepair and the end of S2E10 - you keep them that way.

I don't see the need to keep them any particular way. There could be any number of 'in world' explanations for the difference. Perhaps this group of undead were, for some reason, more thoroughly stripped of flesh? Perhaps in the presence of the Night's King, the dead are more vigorous and energetic? If the dead are able to be animated by some kind of magic, it's not even an extra step of logic to consider that they might - through the same supernatural means - be able to make some kind of sound or noise.

I think we haven't really seen enough of the supernatural on screen to develop hard and fast rules about all of this. Different people will have different thresholds - mine is fireballing CotF (until I read it in WoW!), besides which I don't feel there's been a break with the 'established tone' of things magical in the tv show. I'm more pissed about the changes to Jon's characterisation and motivations in S2 than any of this kind of thing.

[Hol Horse]

To add to that, I meant low-key as in not flashy, as well as it's relative scarcity. The way George writes it it sometimes doesn't even seem magical, it's just a thing that is. Absolutely magic is on the rise and I expect more to come. What I don't expect is that the dragons grow glittery scales and shoot rainbow fire. An exaggeration, obviously, but I hope that helps clarify what I meant. Blazing fireballs conjured from mid-air are flashy - a pouch thrown by Leaf that bursts into flames on contact is not (as an example).

As an anecdote, I have some friends who watch the show and love it, but who were leary of the fantasy label before they checked it out. They didn't love the Bran scene because it pulled them out of their suspension of disbelief and reminded them this was a fantasy story. They cocked their eyes at the shadow baby, but no more than that. Well, other than WTF did I just see there?!

Ahem. While he did not in fact shoot rainbow fire, Sunfyre was said to have glowing golden glittery scales and pink wing membranes. Ahem.

But I do agree that the fireball was a bit much.

[Gertrude]

Oh, got me! I think my point was clear, though :p

[Shadow Queen Medea]

There is a huge difference between the White Walkers and the common zombies they lead, just as there is a huge difference between Jon Snow and the grunts under his command.

As far as magic goes, the problem I see is that it seemed far too easy for the White Walker to raise the dead with necromancy at the end of the show....

So I'm not too sure why people wouldn't see that as a huge issue for Westeros. The zombies under the White Walkers might not seem to be much of a challenge, but how do you stop an army that never gets tired, never needs food or water, AND constantly gets bigger from the fallen foes they defeat? Well, you have to kill all the White Walkers, of course.... but they don't seem to be willing to charge up to the front lines and sacrifice themselves very much.

I think it was well done.

[GeorgeIAF]

I don't, i understand why they made them look this way. To clearly differentiate them from the White Walkers, to be sure that the viewers wouldn't think in any way they are the same.

[Hol Horse]

Oh, got me! I think my point was clear, though :P

Most definitely.

[ummester]

Perhaps dragons do have more expressive range beyond 'dangerous' and 'menacing'? So the show-runners tried to express some kind of emotion through Drogon's expression and failed (in some people's opinion) to animate it well? It didn't destroy the illusion of them being real dragons 'in show', I think, nor did other scenes that were obviously CG/greenscreened etc.

I don't see the need to keep them any particular way. There could be any number of 'in world' explanations for the difference. Perhaps this group of undead were, for some reason, more thoroughly stripped of flesh? Perhaps in the presence of the Night's King, the dead are more vigorous and energetic? If the dead are able to be animated by some kind of magic, it's not even an extra step of logic to consider that they might - through the same supernatural means - be able to make some kind of sound or noise.

I think we haven't really seen enough of the supernatural on screen to develop hard and fast rules about all of this. Different people will have different thresholds - mine is fireballing CotF (until I read it in WoW!), besides which I don't feel there's been a break with the 'established tone' of things magical in the tv show. I'm more pissed about the changes to Jon's characterisation and motivations in S2 than any of this kind of thing.

I don't think they failed to animate drogon well - that is not the point. I think he was animated quite well, just that the expressions they animated were entirely out of tone for a GoTs dragon.

Also, your explanations for the skeletons are fine and possible - that is also not the point. The point is, that in the GoTs universe, there has always been something gritty and realistic and grounded about the magical occurrences - fast moving skeletons are a departure from this kind of feeling.

My thresholds are entirely dependant on the tone set, as they should be - that is the purpose of setting a tone in the first act of a narrative, to give the reader/viewer a suspension of disbelief basis. You go to see a silly comedy, like Mr Bean, or Monty Python - and they set the tone to let you know any amount of stupidity can follow in a n effort to make you laugh. You see a superhero film and they set the tone to let you know that some pretty far fetched things are going to happen in the interests of presenting cool heroes. You see a political thriller and it sets a tone to let you know its going to be dialogue intensive and you have to listen.

The first season and book of GoTs set it's tone quite clearly. It was a gritty medieval world, with complicated characters and dark fantasy elements growing in the periphery. I'm sorry, but there is nothing dark or gritty about the hyper skeletons in GoTs - there is a lot that is a little bit silly and adventurous about them. They would do well in a Mummy film, with Brendan Fraser - actually, I think I saw some of them there :)

[Coby's Watch]

I admit I didn't like the wights at all. Those walking skeletons were ridiculous compared to the wights we saw in season 1. I moreover don’t like that they are inconsistent with their depiction of the wights and in contrast to others I don’t think that magic can always serve as an excuse, because also magical elements have to follow certain rules or laws.

To quote Tolkien:

“Inside it, what [the story-maker] relates is ‘true’: It accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary world again, looking at the little abortive Secondary world from outside.”

[Daske]

The comparisons to Jason and the Argonauts are just crazy. Haryhausen's stop-motion skeletons are nothing like the CGI or zombie actors that the show used. Completely different technique. Re-watch Jason or Sinbad, they aren't even similar. In their day Harryhausen's skeletons were brilliant and even now retain a certain style and charm, I know I still love them - but they lack realism. They cannot hold a candle to either good zombie make-up or CGI today including that used in GoT.

[Mark Antony]

Shouting, screaming, climbing 20 foot walls and being able to fight made them so cheesy. It was like the Evil Dead.

In season 1 they are freaky as hell. Chopping of limbs does nothing, stabbing does nothing, only burning them will kill them.

Agreed an army of wights like the one Jon saved commander Mormont from would have been fine imo, I'm not a fan of the how the wights have evolved over the seasons lol

[Faolchú]

Those kid WWs were about the best thing I've seen on this show. They were so well done!

[Spidey]

Anyway... is anyone else bothered or puzzled by why suddenly wights turned into rambling skeletons that love zerg rushing? I mean, a skeleton can move by itself, it needs muscles to do the job, otherwise burning the bodies would have no point as a skeleton can still turn into a wight, as we've seen that wights don't wither until being truly dead.

Yes, but they decay from the moment of death up to the moment they are reanimated. The skellingtons obviously had been dead long enough to become skeletons before they got reanimated.

And why would they not move fast? They're animated by magic. Why shouldn't that magic enable them to break Westerosi speed records?

That's what i never get about slow magical undead. There's no reason for them to be slow.

I liked the wights and I liked how you sometimes couldn't even tell if a wilding was alive or undead. That just adds a whole new level of terror on top of the speed, ferocity and immunity to head trauma.

[Veltigar]

The wights were awesome. It reminded me of 28 Days Later and what World War Z should have been like. I didn't feel like it broke the tone at all, unlike those stupid fireballs used by the CotF (God, I hated all things Bran in that final episode). In fact I think it considerably upped the stakes and showed just exactly what the White Walkers are able to do.

If there is any inconsistency between this and the fist of the first men (in hindsight perhaps clever not to show that), it can be easily explained. At the Fist there seems to have been only one White Walker, with a contingent of wights, while the White Walkers seem to have brought their full force to bear on Hardhome. The NK and his council are more powerful than one single wight alone so the wights they raise are more deadly and dangerous.

[H.P.]

What's so wrong with a break of tone? I think breaking of tone adds realism. Life, after all, has different tones.

Take my everyday life, for example. 99 % of the time, I am at my hell-like job or alone in my tiny apartment, and feel like shit. However, the other day I hung out with my cousin and his lovely little daughter, and for a few hours, everything was sunshine and rainbows.

Now, imagine if someone were to make a documentary show of my life. My viewers would come to expect a very sullen and depressing tone in my show, and might complain about "a complete change of tone" during the episode of my cousin's visit. But that's reality. The tone changes.

[sj4iy]

The comparisons to Jason and the Argonauts are just crazy. Haryhausen's stop-motion skeletons are nothing like the CGI or zombie actors that the show used. Completely different technique. Re-watch Jason or Sinbad, they aren't even similar. In their day Harryhausen's skeletons were brilliant and even now retain a certain style and charm, I know I still love them - but they lack realism. They cannot hold a candle to either good zombie make-up or CGI today including that used in GoT.

This. I love those movies, but really, these look very, very good and pretty damn scary at times. I mean, the skeletal kid was nightmare inducing.

[SevasTra82]

I liked how they made some of the Wights skeletons. It just adds a little bit of flavor, instead of having normal-eyed men fighting blue-eyed men.

Besides, in a giant battle scene with hundreds of combatants, it's probably cheaper on the budget. Instead of paying 300 "extras" during the filming, they can replaced 1/3 of those extras with CG Skeletons. I don't know what the going-rate is for CG work, but I would like to think it's cheaper then paying a bunch of random actors to run around the screen.

[DarkAndFullOfTurnips]

Agreed an army of wights like the one Jon saved commander Mormont from would have been fine imo, I'm not a fan of the how the wights have evolved over the seasons lol

They haven't evolved. Othor was dead for a few days before he got resurrected. In Hardhome we have many wights that look like humans with blue eyes. We had the same looking wight-girl we did in Episode 1. We had a wight dressed in Stark soldier's uniform. The skeletons are long-dead creatures resurrected. Similar to a skeletal horse. I don't understand why this is hard for people to grasp. There are different looking wights, because a wight is just a reanimated corpse that keeps its appearance from the moment it was reanimated.