[Spoilers] Criticize without repercussion

[SevasTra82]

I don't think it is any coincidence that the story lines starting to go to crap the moment they had to go off-script.  Without GRRM's influence, they have NO idea how to write a show that makes any sort of sense.  I think that's been pretty clear so far.  I can understand that they have to consolidate plot lines due to the sheer size of the books, but it almost seems as if they had no *real* plan after they got to season 5...it's almost as if D&D expected TWOW to be completed by now.  No GRRM scrip to follow = a Cluster of plot holes and question marks.

Unfortunately though, the majority of the GOT audience doesn't care so much about what the books have to say (namely because the majority haven't even read the books), so they can get away with all these little nuances that the "book purists" are annoyed with.  It truly says something about the American culture when all you need to keep a show successful is show a pair of tits, make a cock joke, and violently splatter a mans brains out on a wall.  As long as they keep doing these things, AGOT's will continue to be massively popular and most people will ignore the obvious plot holes.  (it also doesn't help that over half of the audience never read the books anyways).

 

[Tianzi]

15 minutes ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

you burned my best friend Shireen at the stake

...and that did not contribute to my king's victory as you promised, instead he was doomed and died before one Balon Greyjoy who was supposed to be killed several seasons ago with your blood magic...

And yes, why was Davos insisting on reviving Snow? I get that he was a goos commander, but not any super savior of the world and there was a risk they would end up with some badly functioning zombie...

+ 'Everyone's given up and left and BAM! then he wakes up!' cliché.
 

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

6 minutes ago, lakin1013 said:

She hung herself last season. 

 

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that.

[Tyrosh]

The outcomes are fine, obviously they are struggling with the "meat", on how to get to particular point.

Jon's revival was not very creative, couldn't help but think of alternative chain of events:

 

- Right after Thorne's "loyalists" stab Jon, Thorne takes 2 or 3 of his men and orders "Burn the body!". Then they move on to discuss indoors.

 

- Ghost is very upset and wakes up Davos, Jon's friends and Melisandre.

 

- Davos barely knows Jon (so he can not be overly sentimental) - BUT he is excellent strategist and KNOWS about the plan and the alliance with wildling/freemen. In fact that was Stannis's plan (that is - his plan) all along. He understands the magnitude of it.

 

- Davos is completely on the page with few of Jon's friends, and one of them sneaks out to warn and bring the wildlings (as shown in the show). [Jon's friends - these are the same men who fought side by side with wildlings against WW.]

 

That escape can be tense little episode - the grand plan depends on it, but also Jon's life (which they don't know but we do), and their lives as well. So stakes are high. His friend would also have to convince and/or kill current NW guards who are on duty that night (and most likely not aware what's going on).

 

Davos and friends are united behind Jon's idea, but they are not in any way attached to Jon's corps (for them he is dead and that's it), nor are in direct danger (they are not guarding the body, loudly protesting or anything). They are however secretly conspiring against Thorne. Their plan is to overthrow Thorne with the help of wildlings, establish one of Jon's friends as new lord-commander and carry on with Jon's (and Davos's) policy.

 

- Melisandre however thinks she can revive Jon, because she BELIEVES in him. There is no much time and she performs her magic while they are preparing for the fire.

[Melisandre's and Davo's actions and not directly coordinated, or even agreed upon.]

Now if you remember Danny's and birth of the dragons - That was a strange uncoordinated combination of events that took place at the same time.

Like that, Melisandre's magic in combination with fire brings Jon back. Wildlings overpower the rangers, Jon is alive and his connection with freemen and few loyal friends is stronger then ever before. He also has one new friend - Sir Davos.

By witnessing Jon's spectacular revival in fire, wildling think of him as messiah in their great migration (and war against WW), and that mirrors Dothraki people and Daennerys relationship. He is the man they are ready to follow in the war against WW.

 

Event though fire didn't catch the body, it was extremely close, Jon will later remember it didn't hurt him one bit...

[TepidHands]

16 minutes ago, lakin1013 said:

She hung herself last season. 

I think the point was, Davos shouldn't know she's dead. 

[Chebyshov]

The Nonfrontation at the Wall has to go down as one of the clumsiest set-ups in GoT history (which is saying something). Why was anyone motivated to do any of the things that they were doing? This was all over who gets to light Jonny's pyre? 

Then "fuck the gods, perform this religious miracle" in the same dang breath?

I'm just so confused.

[Davros Seaworth]

1 hour ago, The Northern Scholar said:

A lot of points have already been touched on so I just want to highlight three that have really annoyed me today.

1: Davos has no consistent characterization. He hasn't even asked Mel about Stannis or Shireen once, yet he's going to comfort her because reasons?

2: Can they actually name Bloodraven? That's annoying.

3: There is nothing compelling about Tyrion whatsoever. Where is the dramatic tension in his arc? At this point, he is such a Mary Sue I am 100% confident things will work to his favor for every scene.

Tyrion is so boring now

[queenmarg]

This episode wasn't as offensive as the first episode... It was more anti-climatic than anything else. Arya's "test" was so blatant, and Jon's resurrection was boring and predictable. 

Also, it seems like the boob quota has been replaced by kinslaying quota. 

[Drogo_1]

During Ramsey's scene with fat walda and the baby... Am I the only one who kept hearing that old song.... "who let the dogs out"?

[Davros Seaworth]

You'd think that if Davos magically trusted Melisandre and magically knew she could revive people from the dead, you think he'd ask her to bring back Stannis and/or Shireen? Why does nothing make any sense?

[RattleSnake]

Saint Tyrion needs better lines. While I was never a fan of Tyrion, I admired his wits and knowledge. Doing repetitive dick jokes does not picture him as smart, just cringeworthy. Part of me hoped he gets roasted like Quentyn, though the other part of me was sure his plot armor is thick and durable.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, the tower of albion said:

So Jon is back .................... and that was that, no coma dreams - no insight no reason for him to be dead and back again, apparently nothing learned nothing gained, so what's the next stop for the hype train. Winds of Winter please. This isn't cutting it for me. It's very watery gravy I want something thick and meaty not this diluted oxo cube.

I think the problem with Winds will be is a lot of these broad strokes are being ruined by poor storytelling. We know Jon comes back, Stannis is dead, etc., and while Martin will take his time getting there, the outcomes are no cheaply to be achieved. We'll have six chapters  on the wall of screwing around before Jon comes back. Dany will have six chapters of traveling as a slave with a new Dothraki horde. Stannis will have a couple more chapters before losing the fight. 

I'm realizing that watching the show will ruin the books. I may have to stop right now.

[Red Tiger]

I dont understand anything anymore.

Are there no penalties for killing a king or kinslaying?

Can a couple of bastards rule Dorne?

Does Jaime have Alzheimers, asking Tommen "what has Cersei done to you?"?

Are they serious with this unintimidating Euron actor who acts like he's on a stage?

Does Yara not actually know the laws of her own people? She seemed to know them just fine in season 2.

Whats to stop the Maester from sending out letters telling the lords that Ramsay whacked his own dad?

Can they make Tyrion more of a Marty Stue?

 

 

[TheLastLibrarian]

Saint Tyrion freeing the dragons is the biggest 'deus ex-machina' moment in the history of the show

[Nerevanin]

What I wasn't a big fan of:

- the scene with Ramsay having Walda and the baby killed by the hounds. That really didn't feel necessary. Like, ok, kill them but not like that.

- the resurrection scene was a bit cliché in my opinion. I could predict right from the start that it wouldn't work immediately and it was so painfully obvious after they started to left the room.

- they didn't kill Olly although they had a perfect chance.

- Tyrion and the dragons scene didn't feel very realistic to me. Even if he had some kind of Targaeryen blood, I really don't think that the dragons would be "tamed" so easily. A "Tyrion=hors d'œuvre" scenario would be much more realistic. It way too obvious what the writers are aiming for and that Tyrion is among their favorite characters.

[Tadco26]

The writers certainly set themselves in a difficult position to bring the Ironborn back as credible threats.  The only reason they lost the North in the books is because Balon died well before Robb in book 2.  Most of the captains returned to Pyke for the King's Moot rather than defending or expanding their conquests.  In the show they lost everything they ever took with Balon alive the entire time.  All they accomplished during that entire time was sailing to the Dreadfort, which makes some sense considering it's like 4,000 miles away on the opposite coast of Westeros from Pyke, only to get chased away when Ramsay let some dogs out of their cages.  Of course that was a critical mission for Yara, despite the fact that she was the one who didn't give a crap about Theon and abandoned him at Winterfell when he captured it in the first place.

[SevasTra82]

25 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I think the problem with Winds will be is a lot of these broad strokes are being ruined by poor storytelling. We know Jon comes back, Stannis is dead, etc., and while Martin will take his time getting there, the outcomes are no cheaply to be achieved. We'll have six chapters  on the wall of screwing around before Jon comes back. Dany will have six chapters of traveling as a slave with a new Dothraki horde. Stannis will have a couple more chapters before losing the fight. 

I'm realizing that watching the show will ruin the books. I may have to stop right now.

I'm still holding out hope on GRRMs line..."some people are dead in the books that remain alive in the end".  That gives me a glimmer of hope that there is a chance some people like Stannis, Selmy or Shireen etc may end up alive at the end of it all. 

But lets be realistic though about whats been spoiled.  R+L=J and Jon being resurrected are two of the worst-kept secrets about TWOW.  Everyone has known now for years that these two things are going to happen, so I don't count them really as "spoiler" per-say.  *How* they will happen though, is any ones guess.  I still believe Jon will warg into Ghost for a little while, and R+L=J will probably be revealed through Howland Reed.  But we'll see.

Also, no Arianne Martell, Victarian Greyjoy, (f)Aegon, Strong Belwas, Jon Connington, Stoneheart, Coldhands, Horn of Winter, Dragonbinder, etc etc.  I just find it extremely difficult to believe that the show is going along the same plot when so many characters and story arcs are missing (regardless of if they are just minor characters or not).

Other then that, the show really hasn't spoiled much, since it's obviously doing whatever it wants at this point.  I'm finding it harder and harder to believe anything in the show will have any further impact in the books.

[Toth]

Just watched the episode... it's as offensively bad as the first one, but people talking circles around the herd of elephants stampeding the living room annoys me to no end.

Well, here it goes, my "Notes of Thrones" like I did for the first one:

Episode 2

- my god, the “previously on” frames Ramsay hurt by the baby message. The hell! He’s a fucking villain! Or at least he’s supposed to be one

- they are not showing the two-eyed raven from last season, likely because they think people would be confused by the actor change. Ha! As if they think people remember stuff that happened one scene ago

- And yet again, this strange artificial darkness that makes you not seeing a thing. Come to think of it, I have forgotten to dial up the screen light *does so now*

- aren’t we supposed to watch from a fucking tree’s perspective? This is not the Godswood!

- they don’t look very happy

- Bran, we really don’t need your commentary for everything!

- yeah, changing names for the sake of changing it... something we always loved the dudebro’s for... -.-

- I am really relieved they did not hit Hodor on the head or something offensively stupid like this... still, it seems like they’ve cut something, the whole scene seems disjointed and serve no purpose at all. I still have no fucking idea what the character of Lyanna is supposed to be like. And why the hell does she look older than Ned and Brandon?

- good job, Sydow, now you’re stealing lines from Patchface, eh?

- a cave with doors?

- you really need to ask her that? Oh well, at least she remembers something from two seasons ago, so I am glad for at least that much.

- I am not sure I like the way Meera is shamed to Bran’s side here. It probably wasn’t D&Ds intention to make it sound like that, but they have lost my trust ages ago

- since when do they have a gate south of the Wall? Come to think of it, why the hell did nobody see that coming? I asked myself that already last season, but has nobody ever heard of sentries?

- that was resolved... surprisingly logically. No, no, only shame is that Ghost didn’t eat Olly. And I’m still wondering why even after Beardy pointed the need to burn the bodies right out, nobody seems to think that is a necessity for Jon’s foul corpse. If you are so intend on reviving him (and everyone knows that through telepathy), then fucking do it or at least put him into a fucking ice-cell, you idiots!

- how many minutes have we now wasted on random cock guy from last season? And apparently FrankenGregor has borrowed Brienne’s Stark-GPS to track that guy. Doesn’t even surprise me that the two are besties...

- now I’m confused, since when does brainless Tommen gives orders?

- yes, we all asked ourselves this! What the fuck did you do? And... barring her the way to the Great Sept doesn’t make an inch of sense.

- Larry admitting kinslaying makes me want to claw my fingers into something in frustration. Don’t you dare mentioning made up scenes that served no purpose whatsoever except painting our monster devoid of character development in a bad light, that causes surprisingly less horrified reactions because what the fuck is a setting anyway

- they can’t even allow Jaime to just decide not to murder an unarmed man on his own!

- yeah, that stupid ‘Empire’ line... I don’t even need to criticize that, others have already done so

- Cersei would have strangled him by now. Not even because he put her under house arrest, but because he gave an order she didn’t know of. But of course Carol ‘understands’

- am I really supposed to root for Cersei here? Really? And where the fuck is Kevan?

- first line, cock joke. *sigh*

- as much as it is In-character for Tyrion to boast with his knowledge on dragonlore, I can’t help but think this could have been a good time for him to drop a few hints about how he acquired that and where his interest comes from.

- no, eat him! Eat him fast!

- oh come on, they really go for the dragon whisperer bullshit? and even mirroring Quent’s death, only for the second dragon to present his neck?

- so he freed them for no reason and nothing happens? After a long time of doubts and denial, I belong to those who see the narrative purpose of Tyrion being a Targ, but even under this assumption nothing of this is in any way believable. Maybe he should have instead offered them a sheep instead of weird stories in which Tywin doesn’t lash out as drastically at Tyrion’s antics as you might expect him to do...

- oh not again... at least I can appreciate that they backtracked and now retconned the blindness to be Arya’s decision. But considering how shitty everyone and their mother is to Arya, I really have no idea why exactly she wants to have to do anything with them at all.

- I take it back, they make it look like he wouldn’t have given her the eyes back if he didn’t

- Manderly support the Boltons, ugh...

- yeah, pretend as if anything in this show would have any repercussions at all.

- come on, I’m getting sick of this family drama and Ramsay being all worried about his claim

- and the Lords keep on falling like leaves... Karstark not betting an eye upon this, even though he just made a point of how kinslaying made them turn their back on the Starks. Really, nothing in this show has any repercussions at all.

- come on, more silly emotional manipulation even though every idiot knows how it’ll end

- another scene where you can’t see anything. And did Walda just said “Wamsay” or am I imagining things?

- yay, Ramsay having cool oneliners... and Walda being killed surprisingly fast - but oh well, Ramsay’s teleporting dogs are of course extremely fast killing machines

- nice. This way we don’t know whether she mentioned Sandor or not. Who the hell even is that guy anyway? And of course everyone is totes okay with Brienne’s sense of judgement

- them getting emotional about Theon chickening out leaves me deeply confused. Especially him calling the Iron Isles ‘home’ after should have fucking realized that Winterfell was his home after all

- Schroedinger’s Balon! And Yara being for a moment Asha when she has a fucking point... even though it is kind of unlikely Asha would deconstruct his invasion plans this openly to his face

- and now they ruined it by Balon describing a foolish action that should have been Theon’s and make it about an invented scene from Yara and shirtless Ramsay *rolleyes*

- can I shortly ask what the fuck Yara is wearing there? Is she pregnant? Dafuq is that dress supposed to be?

- why the fuck is Balon so polite when some stranger is standing in his way?

- and why the fuck doesn’t he just turn around and call his guards? The guy is fucking exiled, I thought returning like this is supposed to be a grave offense?

- so that’s it? Euron is a faceless man? How the fuck can he just kill Balon and nobody notices? Now we need a bingo card saying “a lord of the seven Kingdoms gets murdered”, because we fucking lost three in two episodes!

- DAVOS BEING SORRY TOWARDS MELI-SANS-BRA? Sorry, I need to pose a little, there is tea coming out of my nose, I am laughing so hard right now! Who the fuck are Stannis and Shireen anyway?

- SO DAVOS DIDN’T KNOW OF THE KISS OF LIFE? What the fuck? Why did they do all if this without knowing of resurrection magic? Oh come on, up until now the episode was boring, but at least not offensively stupid, only for this storyline to wallow in stupid.

- at least she isn’t the one to loose her shirt this time...

- you see, Thoros of Myr and Alester Sarwyck are now standing here in my room, staring at the screen in disbelieve. Why the haircut? Why is she talking in sheep-people-speak? That’s utterly not necessary for the ritual. Especially since it has devolved into a short funeral rite. And one involving a kiss...

- if he had just opened his eyes with blue eyes instead, that would have been awesome!

- but really, the ritual is called ‘kiss of life’! You have Meli-sans-bra popping her boobs at the slightest provocation, but a simple kiss is out of bounds?

Okay, final verdict: Half of the episode was kinda boring with characters talking circles around the countless elephants grazing in the living room. Some scenes were surprisingly logical, especially in contrast with the offensively illogical last few episodes. But the whole Jon-thing and the dropping lords and the repeated shrugging off of kinslaying, gosh...

 

[Le Cygne]

They had Larry say he killed his cousin just to rub it in that they did that.

[Toth]

For anyone interested, this is the same ritual as depicted by an adaptation that had intense cooperation with GRRM:

https://youtu.be/m7kbaQ3YShI?t=7m21s

https://youtu.be/FdBrpW4aX3w?t=19m49s