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I'm sorry, but they really blew the Drogon scene (book spoilers)


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You know, I've said this a couple of times already, so probably I should just shut up, but I really have to say it one more time. And pardon my shouting, but a man who wants to kill you standing next to you with a sword HAS YOUR FULL ATTENTION! It really doesn't matter what else comes along, unless it is actively trying to kill you, too, and right now.

If you turn your head away from that guy with the sword, you will be dead before the word "Wow" in "Wow, a dragon" escapes your lips. Instant death right now for turning your head. I can believe that 1 or 2 idiots might do that under the circumstance, but the whole fight stopped. That is complete and utter bull. As I said before, survival instinct takes over and you can't take your eyes off the guy who has a sword in your face. The only reason people would turn their head would be to haul ass, not to stand slack-jawed and look at the pretty dragon.

Not only is it utter hogwash, but it destroyed the scene, because everything that followed only made sense if there was a fight going on. Which there wasn't, because everybody was stoned and staring at Drogon.

As usual on these forums, this is getting blown way out of proportion. Was the scene perfect? No, and most scenes rarely are. But to say that "they blew the scene" and it was "destroyed"? THAT is the real "utter hogwash".

For starters, yes, we are all annoyed that these untrained Harpy have been able to kill so many Unsullied "so easily". Let's not forget that the Unsullied are great in battle and open field combat with their shields and long spears, but not necessarily so effective in closer quarters combat, as they were in the stands against shorter range weapons and daggers (this logic also applies to the scene in an earlier episode with Unsullied, Grey Worm, and Barriston). But notice that once the fight moved into the center of the pit, that the Unsullied were able to better keep the Harpy at bay and kill more of them. Why wouldn't the Harpy just charge all at once? Possibly because as you've all said, they have no training or military plan and they were waiting for some kind of opening (and no, Drogon landing was not an opening and we'll get to that) because it's very possible that these members of the Harpy are not on a suicide mission and do want to try to live more than make a mad dash suicide run and hope they may succeed.

if you rewatch the scene carefully, you will see that once Drogon appeared, many of the Harpy ran off, many were killed, many were burned, some were eaten. To imply that seeing a gigantic, fire-breathing, human-eating DRAGON (which by the way, hasn't actually been SEEN by any of the Harpy unless they saw it randomly flying around, or seen by ANYONE in years upon years)--wouldn't be enough reason to completely stop them all in their tracks and focus on the dragon instead of their "target" is completely and utterly ludicrous. The Queen was their target, sure, but as soon as that dragon landed on the ground, you'd better believe that the ones foolish enough to stick around had a new target.

Let's focus again on the specifics since we apparently have to break it down to this level: Harpy burned, eaten, and many running away. In the midst of danger, how many of them that stayed would feel confident enough to take their eyes off of the giant dragon to try and "easily kill the Queen" when the moment they look away could very well be the instant the dragon focuses its attention their way and kills them? That's not plausible to you? How about the fact that there were still plenty of Unsullied circled around Daenerys keeping the few remaining Harpy IN THAT CLOSE PROXIMITY (there were plenty more that WERE NOT that close to her but were back towards the pit walls due to Drogon) from advancing on her? How about the fact that the ones that close had daggers and not spears to throw and the ones who were further back could only throw a few spears into Drogon because yeah, you should probably try and take out the giant dragon in your path before trying to get closer to "your real target". AND if any of them tried to throw a spear at Dany during that time, the Unsullied would block it (let's not forget that Unsullied remain to their duty and are not as easily distracted too, even potentially by a dragon).

Could Dany have easily been hit by a spear while walking to Drogon? Sure!--IF one of the remaining Harpy had managed to notice her doing so and still had a spear, had REALLY GOOD AIM as an "untrained" regular person and had one that hadn't already been thrown into the giant menacing dragon that they very clearly could not take their eyes off of! Why didn't they hit her while she was standing there having her "moment" with Drogon before someone chucks another spear into him? Well, how do you know they weren't trying to hit her and just had bad aim? How do you know they weren't mystified by what was happening? How do you know that they weren't waiting to see if the dragon that just chowed down on some Harpy might chow down on Dany too? YOU JUST DON'T! Could she have been hit while she climbed on but before they had taken off? Again, sure!--BUT again, you'd need some damn good aim, still need a spear, and be one of the few willing to try and attack the dragon and all of that's just as likely as Drogon deciding to chomp her head off himself instead.

Clearly due to the editing, we didn't see ALL of the Harpy run off or get killed, nor did we get the full closure, but you know what, too bad. It's honestly a nitpicking detail. Have to give all the naysayers and D&D haters SOMETHING to complain about, right? I also would have loved to have seen a little less slow down of action, more urgency for Dany to get on Drogon, and more closure on what happened to all of the Harpy and why they weren't able to "easily" still kill Dany despite a giant dragon distracting them, but it just wasn't that important to do so and they did a DAMN good job with this scene and it was most certainly not any kind of failure.

In addition and to whoever said it, please stop saying that Jorah touching Dany has transferred grey scale to her and that it's a "plot hole". It's not a plot hole. We don't know enough about greyscale to answer that but there's some pretty likely evidence against it, such as the fact that you probably have to come in contact with the actual greyscale (ex. that one part of Jorah's right forearm) in order to contract it, whereas his hand that he touched Dany with is fine. Stonemen are completely covered in greyscale, hence touching any part of them causes the infection. In addition, as in the books with the Pale Mare plague not affecting Dany, it is entirely possible that she has some kind of resistance, but I like my first reason better.

And are there really people saying Hardhome didn't have anything to do with advancing the plot and that it was a waste? Wow, what a load of crap. I don't have the energy right now to argue against that one.

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One of my main problems with the Dany and Drogon scene was....having just watched Shireen, a young, innocent girl burned at the stake by her father......kind of ruined any enjoyment for me of watching Drogon dust a bunch of dimwits that were kind enough to stand still for him, with dragonFIRE.

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"For the Watch!"

Why?

"Because wildling lover!"

Umm, White walkers are coming with a zombie army. Who cares about wildlings anymore?

"For the watch!"

Someone kill this idiot.

Seems like you've forgotten what thread you're in. I understand. You've been complaining in all of them so it must be hard to keep track.

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snip

Mcbrigno, you addressed your reply to me, but in fact you were responding to points made by other people. You didn't even mention my point, which was that people wouldn't turn away from a swordsman standing right next to them and about to kill them for any reason that wasn't also immediately life-threatening. I wasn't the one talking about "why didn't they go for Dany?" That was other people.

Right after Drogon appeared, they showed a row of 3 harpies standing right next to Jorah and Daario - and the SOTH actually turned their backs on the hardened killers with swords standing right next to them! NO WAY. I'm sorry. Type a million words, that just would not happen. 1 stoned idiot might do it, but not 3 in a row, never.

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Some of the posts in this thread absolutely convince me that nothing could satisfy some folks.



I have watched that epic sequence twice, and I have no idea in the world how anyone who read that scene in the books and saw that scene replicated on a TV show...a TV show...can say it was "ruined".



That was feature-film quality work. I am extremely sensitive to poor CGI, and there were maybe two shots that were iffy at most - no more than I find in most feature film sequences.



It was so incredibly faithful to the books with very minor exceptions, and IMO, both improved how it played (Tyrion being with Dany's party instead of being a bystander, and Dany not needing to physically abuse Drogon to ride him - that didn't make any sense to me in the books to begin with and without all the back stories about Dragon's from the books would have confused people more than anything).



Half the harpies ran, half of them were stunned - anyone every hear of "Deer in headlights?"



Drogon was raised around the Unsullied, Mis. had fed them from her hands, Drogon's not an idiot he knew who he was going after (plus they helped him out by wearing those golden masks).



As the only one in my social group who has read the books, my phone was lighting up the second those credits were rolling - with "OMG!! DRAGONS!!!" and "NOW THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!" and all the variations in between. And the ones that got deep enough to mention Shireen said "Thank goodness they didn't end there, because that would have been terrible to end with." When I've talked with a few since, BTW, not a single one was surprised by what happened to Shireen - it was traumatic, they hated watching it (some had to leave the room) but no one didn't see this coming for the past several seasons. I mean, they outright told you back in Season 3 if you paid attention.



The Unsullied not only understood the whole thing, it seems that they have somehow understood it even more than book readers did.


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http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/09/game-thrones-tv-book-club-dance-dragons-and-burning-girl



Scroll down to "Darren" in the middle. The paragraph that starts:



DARREN: If I tried to come up with my ten favorite chapters in A Song of Ice and Fire, then the ninth Daenerys chapter of of A Dance With Dragons would definitely be on the list.




Darren, you're my bro. :cheers:


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CerseiStark,

I loved the scene, but it was not incredibly faithful to the book. Really the only similarities were Dany pulling the spear out, and flying away with Drogon. I thought the scene was great, but it was much better in the book.

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Some of the posts in this thread absolutely convince me that nothing could satisfy some folks.

I have watched that epic sequence twice, and I have no idea in the world how anyone who read that scene in the books and saw that scene replicated on a TV show...a TV show...can say it was "ruined".

That was feature-film quality work. I am extremely sensitive to poor CGI, and there were maybe two shots that were iffy at most - no more than I find in most feature film sequences.

It was so incredibly faithful to the books with very minor exceptions, and IMO, both improved how it played (Tyrion being with Dany's party instead of being a bystander, and Dany not needing to physically abuse Drogon to ride him - that didn't make any sense to me in the books to begin with and without all the back stories about Dragon's from the books would have confused people more than anything).

Half the harpies ran, half of them were stunned - anyone every hear of "Deer in headlights?"

Drogon was raised around the Unsullied, Mis. had fed them from her hands, Drogon's not an idiot he knew who he was going after (plus they helped him out by wearing those golden masks).

As the only one in my social group who has read the books, my phone was lighting up the second those credits were rolling - with "OMG!! DRAGONS!!!" and "NOW THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!" and all the variations in between. And the ones that got deep enough to mention Shireen said "Thank goodness they didn't end there, because that would have been terrible to end with." When I've talked with a few since, BTW, not a single one was surprised by what happened to Shireen - it was traumatic, they hated watching it (some had to leave the room) but no one didn't see this coming for the past several seasons. I mean, they outright told you back in Season 3 if you paid attention.

The Unsullied not only understood the whole thing, it seems that they have somehow understood it even more than book readers did.

It's feature film quality if that film happens to be The Never Ending story. The CGI was ridiculously bad.

I'm not even going to go into my issues with the other ways the scene failed because I'll just be accused of being a delusional book snob

ETA: you can't understand the use of a whip to tame a dangerous creature? Lol, sure you can't :rolleyes:

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As the only one in my social group who has read the books, my phone was lighting up the second those credits were rolling - with "OMG!! DRAGONS!!!" and "NOW THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!" and all the variations in between. And the ones that got deep enough to mention Shireen said "Thank goodness they didn't end there, because that would have been terrible to end with." When I've talked with a few since, BTW, not a single one was surprised by what happened to Shireen - it was traumatic, they hated watching it (some had to leave the room) but no one didn't see this coming for the past several seasons. I mean, they outright told you back in Season 3 if you paid attention.

The Unsullied not only understood the whole thing, it seems that they have somehow understood it even more than book readers did.

The mere fact that it has been strongly suggested that Shireen will be burned doesn't make it okay that it happened FOR NO REASON and as viewers we were emotionally manipulated thanks to the scene earlier this season when Stannis gave her a big emotional speech about his devotion to her!

There were other options for Stannis. It wasn't a last resort. It was stupid and manipulative to have him go against his own words when there were other options.

And then having decided to kill her off in such ridiculous circumstances, they didn't even have the decency and respect to let the audience properly mourn for her, cutting instead to a cheering crowd. Horrible!

The big finale in Meereen suffered as a consequence.

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CerseiStark,

I loved the scene, but it was not incredibly faithful to the book. Really the only similarities were Dany pulling the spear out, and flying away with Drogon. I thought the scene was great, but it was much better in the book.

I guess I could have been more specific - an incredibly faithful adaptation of the scene.

When you strip away the sub-plots of characters that aren't in the show (the poisoning attempts, etc.), and focus on the story-moving events, it was exactly how I would have pictured it. Even visually, I thought they did a tremendous job of bringing what was in my head to life.

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For my tastes, it felt a little slow. I liked the standoff. That felt like watching a train heading for the broken tracks. And the illusion of the fighting pit was indeed perfect.



But as Drogon showed, I did feel like it slowed down just a bit too much. Get to know your wayward dragon later, Dany. Don't crawl gingerly onto his back. Get up there and get the hades out of Dodge!



But for me, that's a minor complaint. The other part that robbed the scene of its power, I felt, was the burning of Shireen right before it. That's something that hasn't happened in the books. Now it's possible that because I knew what was going to happen, I had far too long to think about it. But as the flames began to build in the North, I started thinking, "Drogon, you are saving the wrong young lady tonight." That's not an issue in the books because it hasn't happened yet. And, yes, why would Drogon be in the North at all? He wouldn't.



But D&D meant for these two stories to parallel, for us to think about them together. And to my mind, it robbed the escape of the power I remember it having in the books.



Still a gorgeous piece of work, though. Outstanding set piece. I just had a bad taste in my mouth going in.


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That is what I believed she [Dany] was doing. Others have posted she was trying to get a moment of peace before being offed. Feeling him and/or summoning him, even if unconsciously makes more sense to me.

Others are posting this [ie, not summoning] because that is what D+D specifically said she was doing on after episode summary. They do suggest that Targs do have some telepathic link with their dragons so Drogan may have known to come back.

I mean if the Dragon waited to be summoned ....well it would have been too late

For the rest, I mights want to watch both the guy in front of me with spear and the dragon that might swoop down at me at any second. They both seem equally perilous. SOTH can be frozen in tracks for a bit since they obviously did not expect the dragon to appear. Can make you stop and rethink odds of success. Flee is best option IMHO

OK it seems a little silly when the SOTH are kind enough to take turns attacking like a bad kung foo movie. They should do a 1..2...3 everybody stabbby stabby. Others saying that the SOTH not that disiplined. If standoff occurs we know that the first guy to draw in a western is the first guy to die. Each could be hoping the on other guy

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It's feature film quality if that film happens to be The Never Ending story. The CGI was ridiculously bad.

I'm not even going to go into my issues with the other ways the scene failed because I'll just be accused of being a delusional book snob

ETA: you can't understand the use of a whip to tame a dangerous creature? Lol, sure you can't :rolleyes:

Not one that she had cradled in her arms and that knew her as the mother. "Why is my mother whipping me?? I'm here to save her." is what I would have thought. In the books at least there was some backstory to the taming of the dragons, but without all that it wouldn't have made sense to viewers. The Dragons are portrayed as more intelligent on the show, IMO.

As to the CGI, I'm surprised to hear that - I'm extremely sensitive to bad CGI and I thought out of the dozens of shots there were maybe one or two that were iffy. I have never seen a mounted flesh and blood filmed character that well integrated with a beast before. If you want to see something really laughable, watch Star Wars Episode II.

Can you name one television show that has had dozens of CGI shots in one scene like that who has done it better? 'Cause I'd like to see that show.

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It's feature film quality if that film happens to be The Never Ending story. The CGI was ridiculously bad.

I'm not even going to go into my issues with the other ways the scene failed because I'll just be accused of being a delusional book snob

ETA: you can't understand the use of a whip to tame a dangerous creature? Lol, sure you can't :rolleyes:

I think ridiculously bad is pretty harsh. There was 1 or 2 shots that looked a bit off, but that was inevitable. We're talking about a woman riding a dragon afterall. I thought there were scenes in Hardhome that looked weak as well (Jon running in front of Wun Wun). Having actors blend in with dragons, giants, etc is probably quite a challenge for cgi people I'd imagine. Considering it's just a tv show, I was pretty happy with it for the most part.
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I think ridiculously bad is pretty harsh. There was 1 or 2 shots that looked a bit off, but that was inevitable. We're talking about a woman riding a dragon afterall. I thought there were scenes in Hardhome that looked weak as well (Jon running in front of Wun Wun). Having actors blend in with dragons, giants, etc is probably quite a challenge for cgi people I'd imagine. Considering it's just a tv show, I was pretty happy with it for the most part.

I thought the CGI was decent. Not as good as when Drogon snatched the goat, but that was easier. It was the fight choreography that really threw me.

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For the record, I don't have an issue with the CGI. It wasn't great but it was acceptable, especially for a TV production as others have mentioned.



I agree with Hodor's Dragon though that the choreography wasn't very well handled.


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The mere fact that it has been strongly suggested that Shireen will be burned doesn't make it okay that it happened FOR NO REASON and as viewers we were emotionally manipulated thanks to the scene earlier this season when Stannis gave her a big emotional speech about his devotion to her!

People are soooooooooooooo stuck on that.

But first, the reasons were clearly laid out - the desperation of the camp that book readers don't see wasn't confusing to anyone but them. There is dialogue and imagery that completely supports that. Men falling over starving. Men clinging to a bowl of gruel barely able to eat it. Davos telling Stannis before they even left how dire it would be, and reminding him all along the way.

I agree - doing it for a stupid Red god because of what the Red witch said is stupid - but that's been Stannis' decent as he's sacrificed more and more to this Red God - he's become a religious zealot. It made perfect sense, it's just that it seems people have conveniently missed that Stannis' journey hasn't been toward the iron throne, it's been his decent into religious insanity.

Back to the thing that people seem sooooooo stuck on - his conversation with Shireen. I honestly don't know how people are watching the show progress and don't understand that these characters have emotional inner-lives. As he knew his situation was growing increasingly desperate, he was internally fighting against doing what the Red witch had already told him he needed to do. He kept believing that it wouldn't come to that, that he'd never have to make that decision. And he wanted to remind himself of why. Hence that scene. When Stannis has snapped about this in the past, that's EXACTLY the reaction of someone who knows something but doesn't want to be told it because they are fighting internally against it. He was battling over this decision, trying to convince HIMSELF that he would never do it, and banking on that he never would "have" to.

He didn't intend on it coming that far, his blind hope was that the Red witch was wrong way back in Season 3 when she said he would have to sacrifice his family. He has been fighting against it this whole time - it wasn't until he was walking through the ruins of the camp, being told all food was gone, 100's of horses, how they couldn't go back and they couldn't go forward - the actor did such a good job you can see his moment of realization when he looked over at the Red witch and Selyse - this was their most desperate hour.

All of this made crystal clear sense. I think people need to go back and watch this season again with Stannis without "he's a hero!" blinders on, because while he kept believing that it would never come to that - the season is about him slowly realizing that if he is going to believe that this Red God is going to make his bid for the throne happen, he had to really believe it all the way - this was his final step succumbing. The whole thing with the Red God to begin with was the easy way out, but he realized that he can't take the easy way out of the easy way - if he truly believed, he needed to believe all the way - enough to sacrifice his daughter, as the prophecy according to the Red Witch had already foretold.

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People are soooooooooooooo stuck on that.

But first, the reasons were clearly laid out - the desperation of the camp that book readers don't see wasn't confusing to anyone but them. There is dialogue and imagery that completely supports that. Men falling over starving. Men clinging to a bowl of gruel barely able to eat it. Davos telling Stannis before they even left how dire it would be, and reminding him all along the way.

I agree - doing it for a stupid Red god because of what the Red witch said is stupid - but that's been Stannis' decent as he's sacrificed more and more to this Red God - he's become a religious zealot. It made perfect sense, it's just that it seems people have conveniently missed that Stannis' journey hasn't been toward the iron throne, it's been his decent into religious insanity.

Back to the thing that people seem sooooooo stuck on - his conversation with Shireen. I honestly don't know how people are watching the show progress and don't understand that these characters have emotional inner-lives. As he knew his situation was growing increasingly desperate, he was internally fighting against doing what the Red witch had already told him he needed to do. He kept believing that it wouldn't come to that, that he'd never have to make that decision. And he wanted to remind himself of why. Hence that scene. When Stannis has snapped about this in the past, that's EXACTLY the reaction of someone who knows something but doesn't want to be told it because they are fighting internally against it.

He didn't intend on it coming that far, his blind hope was that the Red witch was wrong way back in Season 3 when she said he would have to sacrifice his family. He has been fighting against it this whole time - it wasn't until he was walking through the ruins of the camp, being told all food was gone, 100's of horses, how they couldn't go back and they couldn't go forward - the actor did such a good job you can see his moment of realization when he looked over at the Red witch and Selyse - this was their most desperate hour.

All of this made crystal clear sense. I think people need to go back and watch this season again with Stannis without "he's a hero!" blinders on, because while he kept believing that it would never come to that - the season is about him slowly realizing that if he is going to believe that this Red God is going to make his bid for the throne happen, he had to really believe it all the way - this was his final step succumbing. The whole thing with the Red God to begin with was the easy way out, but he realized that he can't take the easy way out of the easy way - if he truly believed, he needed to believe all the way - enough to sacrifice his daughter, as the prophecy according to the Red Witch had already foretold.

How in the fuck are men falling over starving when they said on camera that Ramsay's attack killed hundreds of horses that they were then going to butcher for food?

Why is he eating gruel when they have tons of fresh frozen horsemeat to eat?

Oh right. Because the show cannot even keep track of its own basic plot points in the same scene, and apparently, many viewers can't either.

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