[Spoilers] Rant & Rave without Repercussions - First We Take King's Landing Edition

[lostcause]

3 hours ago, The Wull said:

Linda's review is up if you guys haven't seen it yet.  It's great

"Big, deep, stabby wounds full of salt"   

Where are those reviews? Haven't been able to see a link on the site (I'm getting old and blind so may have missed it)

[Sir Loin Steak]

Here are my main nitpicks for this episode (so many nitpicks). Still catching up on the thread so no doubt many have touched and elaborated on many of these already.

• Giving Varys' murder moppets to Qyburn, continues Varys Marx friend of the poor, giver of candy to children.
• Lancel chasing after a lone street urchin, suspicious though he may be, was extremely contrived and required Cersei to predict him to an unrealistic degree.
• WTF was Marg's plan? I know it's a moot point going forward, but why didn't she just let the Tyrell forces liberate her & Loras?
• Carol's heel-turn. This show doesn't do character arcs, it does 180s and right-angle turns instead.
• Carol's sudden transformation into a villain was accompanied with a comically OTT change of wardrobe a la Darth Sansa.
• Cersei managed to get in on the kinslaying craze by bumping off Kevan (who was such a non-entity on the show he might as well have not existed).
• Murdering Pycelle, a Lannister loyalist through & through doesn't make sense.
• Cersei's Godfather-aping taking care of all enemies (and allies) at once sequence in isolation kind of works. However, in order to set this up we've had an entire season of nonsensical padding in King's Landing. It's not “dramatically satisfying” to do nothing of worth with KL for 9 episodes then suddenly concluding those plot threads by lazily killing every secondary character. Even less so when this was foreshadowed with the subtlety of a boot to the head, over and over again.
• Varys being given Doran dialogue, combined with the context was insulting.
• Varys teleporting back to Meereen was egregious, even by show standards.
• Having the R+L=J reveal, presented in such a way that it should make no sense to TV viewers who haven't heard information from the books. They have done almost nothing to establish Rhaegar or to contextualise this. It feels completely dislocated from anything going on or any meaning.
• The entire presentation and acting of the Lyanna death scene.
• Cersei's seeming utter indifference to Tommen's suicide. I also can't imagine the 9 year old book character dies this way, so I suspect more white-washing is at play.
• I do think it's a possibility that Cersei might very briefly occupy the throne (IRRC GRRM has said there would be a rapid succession of people doing so towards the end). However, we've seen the city in more or less open defiance of the Crown all season. After blowing up the Sept (+surrounding area and civies), the leadership of the faith, killing the Small Council, some assorted highborn, the Queen, and looking like she murdered her own son to usurp him (she didn't but what other conclusion would the timing of his death lead to?) - I see no prospect of business as usual in the capital and can't believe the attendance at her coronation.
• Larry, world's greatest diplomat /s. I don't get what they are trying to do with his character, I don't think the writers do either frankly.
• Did Arya murder everyone at the Twins? She somehow had enough time to bake undisturbed (did Hot Pie teach her the recipe off-screen). Walder didn't seem to notice that he was alone in his normally crowded hall.
• Completely misses the point of Frey pies on every conceivable level. Also doesn't make any sense for Arya to employ them.
• How many magic masks did Arya nick? Are the FM just going to give her a pass? It seems that way.
• Jon easily forgiving Sansa's baffling decision to withhold information that cost the lives of most of the people loyal to them. She should be the one trying to convince him to trust her at this point.
• Babs still falling for Middlefinger's bullshit! There is no reason to continue tolerating him. He no longer has any leverage over her and she knows probably better than anyone what he is and what his crimes are. She doesn't need him and there is no good reason for her not to see justice done.
• The complete farce that are the Northern Lords and their loyalties. Re-enacting the King in the North scene is not going to make me forget the complete shitshow that the Northern lords & politics has been over the past two seasons. Manderly's presence was particularly galling to me.
• The Stark children ignoring that last they heard Bran is alive, and by rights the actual heir to Winterfell.
• Lady Mormont being far more commanding and charismatic than any other lord in the history of the show. I don't begrudge her, it's the fact that everyone else is worthless that I have a problem with.
• Jon & Sansa being utterly passive about everything, and mostly uncommunicative (Jon that got you stabbed to death last time around!). They are both leaders on the show. They should demonstrate some actual leadership and assertiveness.
• Wildlings chanting King in the North? Really?
• Dorne is back bitches! They haven't done anything since their rip-roaring rampage of revenge against Oberyn's family, but I'm sure now they will, and it'll be as embarrassingly stupid and painful to watch as last time.
• Olenna was her regular catty self. This is not plausible human behaviour given what has happened. Her family has been destroyed (adding to the extensive list of major Houses wiped out at this point on the show).
• Barbara. Classic ASOIAF name that, just like Ray. 
• Bejenhands Ex Machina has completed his assigned plot task, time to disappear off-screen forever. I'm sure there's nothing important he could've told Bran first.
• Why does Bran decide to start tripping out on the Weirnet immediately, rather than getting to the safety of the other side of the Wall? Has he learnt absolutely nothing? He just got 3ER, seemingly all the remaining Children of the Forest, and Hodor killed by doing this exact same thing? He broke Hodor's mind across time to serve as a glorified door stop to boot. Is he not even remotely bothered about what's happened? Aren't the zombies still in pursuit, or was Benjenhand's riding Shadowfax? Bran's not even seeing anything immediately useful to combating the ice zombies. He seems more like a junkie looking for another fix of those sweet, sweet exposition scenes.
• The jump cut to Jon's face was hilariously unsubtle, even by the standards of this show. They might as well have spliced in a clip of Benioff saying, “Jon is the baby. The baby is Jon.” while they were at it.
• The utterly boring scene where St. Tyrion tells Deadpan she's great. I guess he's paying some of Varys' ass-kissing forwards.
• Yara & Theon stole soooooo many ships during that 15 minute period where Euron Two-eye wasn't watching them. 
• It's Winter now? When was Autumn? Sam said it'd be autumn soon four episodes ago! Summer lasts for years, but Autumn is blink and you'll miss it apparently.
• Sam instantly abandoning Gilly was sadly kind of a given, the man's always trying to weasel out of his commitments. He even knew Gilly wouldn't be accepted at the Citadel but evidently couldn't be bothered to even try finding her accommodation or work. The thieving deadbeat.
• How come the Citadel didn't check the Weisseroff twitter to see that Jeor Mormont was dead? St. Tyrion knew about it somehow. Aemon was actually alive for a considerable amount of time after that event, and even after Jon's election, did he just stop bothering to do his job?
• Deadpan fobbing off Daario. Firstly, Daario has been completely pointless on the show. Second, he's not been hot-headed or caused her any problems whatsoever. Thirdly, why is the girl-power dragon queen conqueror suddenly concerned about offending the Westeros patriarchy? She didn't give a damn about openly flirting with people in Meereen and forced a political prisoner to marry her. Oh and just as the cherry on top St. Tyrion the Wise told her to do it.
• The deck is stacked overwhelmingly in Deadpan's favour: 3 telepathically controlled dragons, the combined Dothraki horde, every existent ship in the Iron Islands+crew, an army of Unsullied, Dorne's completely fresh forces, the forces of the Reach, the wisdom of St. Tyrion and Varys Marx's magical spy network. Against the Lannister army and maybe some goldcloaks, that's it. If anything this just proved to me how much more interesting and dynamic having (f)Aegon's faction in the mix makes things.

[The Wull]

Just now, lostcause said:

Where are those reviews? Haven't been able to see a link on the site (I'm getting old and blind so may have missed it)

Sorry, here's the one for Ep 10.

 

[Joan Jett]

The one thing I CANNOT stand is that weird scene with the BWB in the eighth episode. These four guys talking about kissing for NO REASON AT ALL then practice kissing and sticking their fingers up each other's butts. Honestly what was the point?? Why not put in some dialogue about the giant wolf pack roaming the lands!!! I would have been SO easy. 

[sweetsunray]

2 minutes ago, CrastorsLivingSon said:

I hope it spurs him to do the opposite (as much as it pains me) finish the thing and hold onto it so that d&d can dig themselves a plot hole so big they can't get out.  As soon as he releases more it gives them source material which they can use (even butchered source material was astronomically better then the shit we got this season). 

Finish it.  Start the next/plow into it.  Shows end.  Release as a big middle finger of how it should have gone.  

They already wrote themselves in a corner. They are already writing for S7 I expect, since filming starts when? August-November? Even if tWoW is published by say the end of 2016, S7  mystery trailers are out already.

[Sir Loin Steak]

Oh and Brienne hasn't made it back to Winterfell yet, proving her mission to recruit the Tully army was pointless in the first place (well if time & space were in any way coherent on the show that is).

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

I do think it's a possibility that Cersei might very briefly occupy the throne (IRRC GRRM has said there would be a rapid succession of people doing so towards the end). However, we've seen the city in more or less open defiance of the Crown all season. After blowing up the Sept (+surrounding area and civies), the leadership of the faith, killing the Small Council, some assorted highborn, the Queen, and looking like she murdered her own son to usurp him (she didn't but what other conclusion would the timing of his death lead to?) - I see no prospect of business as usual in the capital and can't believe the attendance at her coronation.

This. Unless she has the city gates locked and the gates of the red keep, both should be empty by now with people running for their lives from this mad queen... especially the nobles. Certainly when Dorne and Tyrells broke off and the Vale is with the North. Why even stay at KL at all?

[SuperMario]

3 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

They already wrote themselves in a corner. They are already writing for S7 I expect, since filming starts when? August-November? Even if tWoW is published by say the end of 2016, S7  mystery trailers are out already.

Well, as others have said, they just remedy any of their plot holes through mass destruction. Dany is literally riding a meteor over to Westeros, so any plot lines they don't like will likely be destroyed by Dothraki or Dragons.

[kissdbyfire]

13 minutes ago, CrastorsLivingSon said:

I hope it spurs him to do the opposite (as much as it pains me) finish the thing and hold onto it so that d&d can dig themselves a plot hole so big they can't get out.  As soon as he releases more it gives them source material which they can use (even butchered source material was astronomically better then the shit we got this season). 

Finish it.  Start the next/plow into it.  Shows end.  Release as a big middle finger of how it should have gone.  

Same here. I now want the next book only after the show runners have finished writing the last episode of the last season, while the last season is being filmed. 

[Apathetic Onlooker]

Keep rowing Gendry.   You may just get to King's Landing in time to see it a pile of ash being attacked by the Greyjoy fleet, a horde of Dothraki, and three dragons to light up the rest of it.  But I bet you can still have that bowl of brown on Davos if you hurry to flea bottom fast enough.  Then, we permit you to die off-screen as per tradition for characters of your limited importance.

[CrastorsLivingSon]

11 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

They already wrote themselves in a corner. They are already writing for S7 I expect, since filming starts when? August-November? Even if tWoW is published by say the end of 2016, S7  mystery trailers are out already.

I worry about advance copies, manuscripts, etc getting in their hands soon enough to do re-writes.  Though that may be even better.  They can't fit a logical story into anything when they have months to write.  The cluster-eff would be glorious if they try to shoe-horn in rewrites.  

[kissdbyfire]

14 minutes ago, Joan Jett said:

The one thing I CANNOT stand is that weird scene with the BWB in the eighth episode. These four guys talking about kissing for NO REASON AT ALL then practice kissing and sticking their fingers up each other's butts. Honestly what was the point?? Why not put in some dialogue about the giant wolf pack roaming the lands!!! I would have been SO easy. 

Because they are terrible writers, and terribly unimaginative to boot. Not to mention they are puerile and arrogant as well, and think they can do no wrong. 

[a black swan]

24 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I agree with you, more or less. Were I a show runner, in broad strokes here's how I'd compress the remaining time:

 

Season 7.

The North: Jon fortifies Moat Cailin significantly and brings the crannogmen men into its defense as a bastion against the South, which also allows Howland Reed to be brought into the fold. Jon, being a former LC of the NW now KitN will focus on the logistics of a long winter [which is like a siege] by consolidating resources and focusing on the Wall, i.e. repairing and manning its forts and castles. Littlefinger will be a nuisance during this time, but I'd make that problem Sansa's to deal with and resolve. 

Kings Landing: Cersei and the Lannisters, I honestly don't know what to do with them given where they're at. She's completely on her own and doesn't have much ability to project power beyond KLs walls. They really wrote her into a corner. A siege is in her future I imagine, but it couldn't last long.

Riverun: The Brotherhood without Banners and Arya deal with Frey hold outs. Sandor and Arya need to get together again, and as an inverted parallel, a somewhat redeemed Sandor is now working on liberating Arya from her psychotic tendencies. 

The South: Dany lands in Dorne. Consolidates the South, as well as incorporating old Targaryen loyalists like the Hightowers of Oldtown [Sam will join her storyline here] and I'd have her sweep one arm slowly toward KL but the other upward in a fast conquest of the west to completely eradicate any support Cersei might get from the lands and Lannister bannermen. Converge on KL, and Dany or Jaime ultimately deals with Cersei-- with Jaime being spared by his little brother. 

Last few episodes of S7: The war of the Long Night starts in earnest, culminating with the fall of the Wall-- and the North, making their way south, are fighting a rearguard action against the Night's King et al under the command of Jon. Dany and the South start making their way north.

 

Season 8: All out war.      

Aren't BwB and Arya both heading North? Why would they hang around in the Riverlands? There aren't enough episodes to be wasting time anymore. 

[Apathetic Onlooker]

2 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Because they are terrible writers, and terribly unimaginative to boot. Not to mention they are puerile and arrogant as well, and think they can do no wrong. 

Pretty much.  Oh and assholes.  Let's not forget that.  They suck to work with apparently from the... how many actors now that have either complained or made veiled comments?

[Karmarni]

21 minutes ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

Oh and Brienne hasn't made it back to Winterfell yet, proving her mission to recruit the Tully army was pointless in the first place (well if time & space were in any way coherent on the show that is).

Yeah, I noticed. Is it because their 'plot', what poses as one, needs her in the Riverlands? That's my guess.

[The Prince of Porne]

38 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

The North: Jon fortifies Moat Cailin significantly and brings the crannogmen men into its defense as a bastion against the South,

I hope so...that place really needs work. It is bypassed with ease now it seems, then got captured by the Vale without the Warden of the North realizing it... biggest failure to live up to reputation since young Ned Stark turned out to be a douchy liar and braggart.

[SuperMario]

Just now, Karmarni said:

Yeah, I noticed. Is it because their 'plot', what poses as one, needs her in the Riverlands? That's my guess.

I suppose so, though, I have no idea what purpose she serves in the Riverlands anymore. She basically had her final goodbye with Jaime and he is back in King's Landing. She might as well head north and fight the White Walkers like every other pointless character seems to be doing at this point.

[JGP]

9 minutes ago, DutchArya said:

Aren't BwB and Arya both heading North? Why would they hang around in the Riverlands? There aren't enough episodes to be wasting time anymore. 

Well, first I think it would diminish the dramatic impact of converging all the storylines too quickly. Second, the Riverlands are in absolute chaos with roaming bands of Lannisters and sellswords. The Twins will be a legitimate issue in regard to the up and downward movement of armies [until the Trident freezes] and by scripting it so the Riverlands are more or less the BwB, Sandor and Arya's issue to deal with gives them some oomf when either the Northern or Southern branch of the narrative finally gets there. 

[Karmarni]

27 minutes ago, Sir Loin Steak said:

Here are my main nitpicks for this episode (so many nitpicks). Still catching up on the thread so no doubt many have touched and elaborated on many of these already.

• Giving Varys' murder moppets to Qyburn, continues Varys Marx friend of the poor, giver of candy to children.
• Lancel chasing after a lone street urchin, suspicious though he may be, was extremely contrived and required Cersei to predict him to an unrealistic degree.
• WTF was Marg's plan? I know it's a moot point going forward, but why didn't she just let the Tyrell forces liberate her & Loras?
• Carol's heel-turn. This show doesn't do character arcs, it does 180s and right-angle turns instead.
• Carol's sudden transformation into a villain was accompanied with a comically OTT change of wardrobe a la Darth Sansa.
• Cersei managed to get in on the kinslaying craze by bumping off Kevan (who was such a non-entity on the show he might as well have not existed).
• Murdering Pycelle, a Lannister loyalist through & through doesn't make sense.
• Cersei's Godfather-aping taking care of all enemies (and allies) at once sequence in isolation kind of works. However, in order to set this up we've had an entire season of nonsensical padding in King's Landing. It's not “dramatically satisfying” to do nothing of worth with KL for 9 episodes then suddenly concluding those plot threads by lazily killing every secondary character. Even less so when this was foreshadowed with the subtlety of a boot to the head, over and over again.
• Varys being given Doran dialogue, combined with the context was insulting.
• Varys teleporting back to Meereen was egregious, even by show standards.
• Having the R+L=J reveal, presented in such a way that it should make no sense to TV viewers who haven't heard information from the books. They have done almost nothing to establish Rhaegar or to contextualise this. It feels completely dislocated from anything going on or any meaning.
• The entire presentation and acting of the Lyanna death scene.
• Cersei's seeming utter indifference to Tommen's suicide. I also can't imagine the 9 year old book character dies this way, so I suspect more white-washing is at play.
• I do think it's a possibility that Cersei might very briefly occupy the throne (IRRC GRRM has said there would be a rapid succession of people doing so towards the end). However, we've seen the city in more or less open defiance of the Crown all season. After blowing up the Sept (+surrounding area and civies), the leadership of the faith, killing the Small Council, some assorted highborn, the Queen, and looking like she murdered her own son to usurp him (she didn't but what other conclusion would the timing of his death lead to?) - I see no prospect of business as usual in the capital and can't believe the attendance at her coronation.
• Larry, world's greatest diplomat /s. I don't get what they are trying to do with his character, I don't think the writers do either frankly.
• Did Arya murder everyone at the Twins? She somehow had enough time to bake undisturbed (did Hot Pie teach her the recipe off-screen). Walder didn't seem to notice that he was alone in his normally crowded hall.
• Completely misses the point of Frey pies on every conceivable level. Also doesn't make any sense for Arya to employ them.
• How many magic masks did Arya nick? Are the FM just going to give her a pass? It seems that way.
• Jon easily forgiving Sansa's baffling decision to withhold information that cost the lives of most of the people loyal to them. She should be the one trying to convince him to trust her at this point.
• Babs still falling for Middlefinger's bullshit! There is no reason to continue tolerating him. He no longer has any leverage over her and she knows probably better than anyone what he is and what his crimes are. She doesn't need him and there is no good reason for her not to see justice done.
• The complete farce that are the Northern Lords and their loyalties. Re-enacting the King in the North scene is not going to make me forget the complete shitshow that the Northern lords & politics has been over the past two seasons. Manderly's presence was particularly galling to me.
• The Stark children ignoring that last they heard Bran is alive, and by rights the actual heir to Winterfell.
• Lady Mormont being far more commanding and charismatic than any other lord in the history of the show. I don't begrudge her, it's the fact that everyone else is worthless that I have a problem with.
• Jon & Sansa being utterly passive about everything, and mostly uncommunicative (Jon that got you stabbed to death last time around!). They are both leaders on the show. They should demonstrate some actual leadership and assertiveness.
• Wildlings chanting King in the North? Really?
• Dorne is back bitches! They haven't done anything since their rip-roaring rampage of revenge against Oberyn's family, but I'm sure now they will, and it'll be as embarrassingly stupid and painful to watch as last time.
• Olenna was her regular catty self. This is not plausible human behaviour given what has happened. Her family has been destroyed (adding to the extensive list of major Houses wiped out at this point on the show).
• Barbara. Classic ASOIAF name that, just like Ray. 
• Bejenhands Ex Machina has completed his assigned plot task, time to disappear off-screen forever. I'm sure there's nothing important he could've told Bran first.
• Why does Bran decide to start tripping out on the Weirnet immediately, rather than getting to the safety of the other side of the Wall? Has he learnt absolutely nothing? He just got 3ER, seemingly all the remaining Children of the Forest, and Hodor killed by doing this exact same thing? He broke Hodor's mind across time to serve as a glorified door stop to boot. Is he not even remotely bothered about what's happened? Aren't the zombies still in pursuit, or was Benjenhand's riding Shadowfax? Bran's not even seeing anything immediately useful to combating the ice zombies. He seems more like a junkie looking for another fix of those sweet, sweet exposition scenes.
• The jump cut to Jon's face was hilariously unsubtle, even by the standards of this show. They might as well have spliced in a clip of Benioff saying, “Jon is the baby. The baby is Jon.” while they were at it.
• The utterly boring scene where St. Tyrion tells Deadpan she's great. I guess he's paying some of Varys' ass-kissing forwards.
• Yara & Theon stole soooooo many ships during that 15 minute period where Euron Two-eye wasn't watching them. 
• It's Winter now? When was Autumn? Sam said it'd be autumn soon four episodes ago! Summer lasts for years, but Autumn is blink and you'll miss it apparently.
• Sam instantly abandoning Gilly was sadly kind of a given, the man's always trying to weasel out of his commitments. He even knew Gilly wouldn't be accepted at the Citadel but evidently couldn't be bothered to even try finding her accommodation or work. The thieving deadbeat.
• How come the Citadel didn't check the Weisseroff twitter to see that Jeor Mormont was dead? St. Tyrion knew about it somehow. Aemon was actually alive for a considerable amount of time after that event, and even after Jon's election, did he just stop bothering to do his job?
• Deadpan fobbing off Daario. Firstly, Daario has been completely pointless on the show. Second, he's not been hot-headed or caused her any problems whatsoever. Thirdly, why is the girl-power dragon queen conqueror suddenly concerned about offending the Westeros patriarchy? She didn't give a damn about openly flirting with people in Meereen and forced a political prisoner to marry her. Oh and just as the cherry on top St. Tyrion the Wise told her to do it.
• The deck is stacked overwhelmingly in Deadpan's favour: 3 telepathically controlled dragons, the combined Dothraki horde, every existent ship in the Iron Islands+crew, an army of Unsullied, Dorne's completely fresh forces, the forces of the Reach, the wisdom of St. Tyrion and Varys Marx's magical spy network. Against the Lannister army and maybe some goldcloaks, that's it. If anything this just proved to me how much more interesting and dynamic having (f)Aegon's faction in the mix makes things.

^^ This, well said. Very well said. It all is a bunch of hogwash at this point. Their lazy writing and loose ends are absolutely horrific. They just don't care, imo. They'll move forward, no matter the inconsistencies.

I utterly and completely hated the long, paused held moments by some of the actors, like someone said, "Wait, hold it right there. Count, one, two, three, four, five" bang, whether something happens (High Sparrow) or not (Arya).

And the music for KL was terrible. Cheesy horror movie, what could be up, viewer? Anything bad? No, never. Nothing bad, relax. Right.

[CrastorsLivingSon]

From io9 review: Bold is mine.

Here’s what I think is most astonishing about “The Winds of Winter”—the fact that so much happened, that so many characters died, that so many stories got resolved, that everyone and everything pivoted to look forward to the series’ final act—and yet it never felt rushed or unsatisfying.

What the actual eff.  Not reading the rest.  Feel free if ya like.  http://io9.gizmodo.com/winter-has-finally-come-on-game-of-thrones-and-now-the-1782654557