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This is the worst season so far, by far. It's still entertaining and has some nice visuals and effects, and the episode 4 battle was great to watch, but the the once savvy and compelling characters have all become idiots for no reason. The wight chase mission is incredibly, I mean incredibly stupid and ill-conceived. And not one person on Dany's council of imbeciles objected to it. 

There is still a chance the show will finish well in season 8. At least it will give us an ending to the story. 

Edited by A Bong of Ice and Fire
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2 hours ago, Kingslayer96 said:

I don't understand. What's wrong with not having a source material? Don't they get a general idea for how things are from GRRM? 

GRRM can give them the destination, even landmarks along the way but they still have to improvise the journey in between.

It's like if I invite you to my house for a party and give you the address but not the directions.  Sure, you might get here.  Eventually.  You might even get here in time.  But you're going to at least miss a turn.  You might even have to double back half way through because you started down the wrong route.  And if someone's riding with you they're going to start asking "are you lost" in increasingly irritated tones as you continue to meander. :)

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22 hours ago, tmug said:

My thoughts on this horrible Sansa/Arya plotline is that...

 

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it is an obvious slow play and they are both plotting this drama to catch LF. The rumors on plot leaks all point to this play for the writers. They pretend to in-fight in order to get LF to expose what his real plan is with Westeros and expose any other secrets he has before Arya goes Walder Frey on LF with that dagger.

I think that this is something that probably isn't even in the books when they come out. I cannot imagine George writing something out of DeGrassi High drama. If I were Sansa, I'd be freaked the f%ck  out if all of my brothers and sisters came back and one was dead and resurrected, one is crippled and is a mind zombie, and my little sister is the most sinister spy-master/assassin/murderer there is. Sansa has to be going nuts at this point. 

The only redemption for Sansa now is that she is actually slow playing her hand and being one step ahead of LF. I highly doubt spymaster Arya hasn't already figured out LF by this point, Arya is well-trained and he spying has been done off screen. I saw a face that looked like the new maester, so it is a safe bet that he has been her this whole season. Think about it, that was the Bolton's maester - he should be dead in Arya's mind. But she can also wear faces of people who are alive so Arya probably spied on LF wearing the face of that girl she saw spying for LF. The girls conspire this whole plan to wrestle the Vale army away from LF and Robin. 

That's a good catch. I thought i noticed the maester's face too. Only time will tell if we were right!

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I think Dany will die after giving birth to Jon's child.  According to Mirri Maz Durr, that is when she will see Khal Drogo again, so I have always interpreted that as her dying in childbirth.  It is possible, of course, that Jon will die as well, but I think Dany for sure dies before the end.

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4 hours ago, petertel123 said:

Remember the times when Arya spent an entire season travelling from Harrenhal to the Twins, and another season travelling from the Twins to the Vale?

This season people travel 10 times those distances in 10 minutes of screen time

That was before they installed the EZ Pass lanes.

2 hours ago, Dickon Khaleesi said:

Westeros has become a giant cesspool so I'm glad the night king has a dragon now. Time to clean the land up.

Drain the swamp!

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Here's my take on why Thorps died (bear with me here, still trying to iron out kinks):

Dany is Azor Ahai.

Jon is both Nissa Nissa, and The Prince That Was Promised

Dany kills Jon in the hopes of bringing her Dragon (not sure if it wpuld be Visceron or maybe Rhaegal dies) back. (The dragons being Lightbringer)

Beric brings him back with the Las Kiss so Jon can fulfill his destiny of The Prince That Was Promised/ kill the Night's King.

Dany and Jon (and someone else because the Dragon must have three heads) go one to fight the White Walkers and end the War for the Dawn.

 

In the books, it will probably be Lady Stoneheart who gives Jon the Last Kiss.  Thus her inner redemption (how she treated Jon) will be complete.

 

Please let me know what you think, one way or the other.

 

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1 hour ago, Starkistbeforethedawn said:

this show that has established laws just like our real life, it's too easy a defense and too easy a let off for poor writing. It's utterly ridiculous but I'm not even bothered about Hypothermia, you could tell me it's due to his Resurrection or some other retcon and i'd be fine with it, what i do have a problem with is an army of the dead controlled by White Walkers tackling Jon through the Ice and then walking the hell away?! For no reason other than for Jon to resurface and proceed to spoonfeed us the shite-icing on the cake of Benjen's pointless deus ex machina save and tepid sacrifice. When your faced with these contrived moment one after the other after the other it's hard not to notice and lament it. I still enjoy the show, on an entertainment level it's top notch, but the show used to be better than the huge faults it's plagued with now, and there's absolutely no shame in bitching about it. 

The funny part is that I agree with you.  The constant stream of plot devices and deus ex machinas is annoying (though, again, I really can't stress how awesome the dragons are now that they're actually being used).  The show was most certainly better written back when they had the books to guide them.  It should surprise no one that GRRM is a better writer than D&D.

If anyone was complaining about the deus ex machinas, I'd probably just silently agree since I don't like to turn these threads into a complaintfest.  However, the comment I was responding to was very specifically complaining about why the characters weren't showing signs of hypothermia.  I mean, you never see people making a big deal about tiny details like that on any other show.  It's just fashionable to bag on GoT now, so they're getting that level of ridiculous scrutiny (again, stuff like hypothermia, NOT the questioning of major, illogical, recurring plot devices).  

It's the same way people whine about teleporters now.  Nevermind that we'd be into season 170 before the Red Wedding ever took place if they didn't hit fast forward between scenes.  That's without even getting into my opinion that if you want to watch hours of people pointlessly travelling somewhere, you can just pop LoTR into the Blu-ray player again.  With that said, it really did stretch credulity this week with Gendry getting to the Wall, the raven getting to Dragonstone, and the dragons making it north of the wall in what seemed like about a day (tops).  For once, it's a legitimate complaint.

What I'm saying is this: the show has declined in quality, but that doesn't make every complaint valid.

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On 8/20/2017 at 10:15 PM, Raksha 2014 said:

 

Sansa is showing huge restraint in not having Arya imprisoned and/or beheaded for threatening to kill the Lady of Winterfell.  Arya apparently thinks it's okay to psychologically and physically threaten your sister.  Ned would be so proud of her - not!

Maybe Arya is more "No One" than even she thought...

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My thoughts

 

Arya,

She is playing into little fingers game creating the fighting with Sansa.  She called out Sansa during Neds death even though she saw Sansa's reaction. I think Sansa will eventually kill Littlefinger with the dagger to save Ayra.

 

The night king doesn't want Jon dead yet.  I think he has abilities such as Bran and knew they were coming and wanted  to get a dragon for his army.  In the previous episode when Bran seas the nightking as the raven the nightking is standing at the rock in the lake where they fought in this episode.   

 

https://youtu.be/g9EOCXjLqH0

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17 hours ago, Coeur said:

Does anyone noticed that the only reason it was Thoros that died, instead of any other person, was that if someone else died, he could revive him? They just wanted him out of the picture, so they figured out some lame ass zombie bear. I cannot believe how this series became a completely unwatchable crap. It is written by idiots, about idiots, for idiots. I am out.

That's the way to show everyone!

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18 hours ago, Iona said:

Not going into the muddy area of predicting-and-stuff, but could someone confirm if we had one single scene in this episode with Arya and Littlefinger both in it? :blink:

Littlefinger says his goal is to sit on the Iron Throne with Sansa at his side.

So I think we can be sure 1) that happens and 2) LF is not going to like it.

I did think it was Sansa going to give him the stabby stabby while he sits on the throne. But maybe it is Arya-as-Sansa

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On 8/20/2017 at 7:23 PM, Christi84 said:

Definitely think Sansa and Arya are just playing it up for Littlefinger

I hope it's true, but my heart sank with this fight. I suspect it isn't so because if they were playing it up, why would Sansa go searching in Arya's room? I really don't want to see Little Finger pull one over on the Starks again. But Sansa would be out of character to not catch it and take advantage because she has been on the lookout for L.F. B.S. for a while now. If they are acting for L.F. then they are just that much more awesome. Which brings me to my desire to see them both killing him.

Edited by Stark_in_Winterfell
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Quote

It's the same way people whine about teleporters now.  Nevermind that we'd be into season 170 before the Red Wedding ever took place if they didn't hit fast forward between scenes.  That's without even getting into my opinion that if you want to watch hours of people pointlessly travelling somewhere, you can just pop LoTR into the Blu-ray player again.  With that said, it really did stretch credulity this week with Gendry getting to the Wall, the raven getting to Dragonstone, and the dragons making it north of the wall in what seemed like about a day (tops).  For once, it's a legitimate complaint.

Skipping long travels where nothing important happens is totally fine with me. But I hate it, if this leads to an inconsistent and unbelievable plot. For example when you have a few people meeting each other after a very long time (or who didn't know each other at all), you get a few minutes of small talk and then the plot has to go on. This becomes really ridiculous when Tyrion proposes his idiotic plan to go for a wight hand. The plan is like a suicide mission for madmen and who wants to take it? Our hero Jon, our smith Gendry and captain friendzone Jorah. Did they know each other? No, but who cares, lets do this. And we have the same ridiculous talk when the chosen 7 leave Eastwatch (with little modifications):

Gendry: Hey I hate you guy's (to Thoros and Beric)! Why do I go on a suicide mission with people I hate or don't know (Jon, Jorah, the Hound, wildlings)?

Hound: Don't bitch around and go on!

They could have sort those things out before they went on there mission, but then you need extra time for an extra scene...

And timeskipping kills an entire plot, when it leads to unrealistic events. Like when the chosen 7 sleep a night in the middle of a lake surrounded by an army of wights while Gendry runs back to Eastwatch, sends a letter to Dany on Dragonstone und Dany flies back on dragonback. By the way, I call the wight army army of snails, because it took them an entire session to travel from the cave with the three eyed raven to somewhere near the wall. Meera (and Benjen) with crippled Bran traveled way faster and everyone else literally had time to travel around Westeros three times.

Edited by Haskelltier
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On 8/22/2017 at 3:41 AM, plectrum said:

The funny part is that I agree with you.  The constant stream of plot devices and deus ex machinas is annoying (though, again, I really can't stress how awesome the dragons are now that they're actually being used).  The show was most certainly better written back when they had the books to guide them.  It should surprise no one that GRRM is a better writer than D&D.

If anyone was complaining about the deus ex machinas, I'd probably just silently agree since I don't like to turn these threads into a complaintfest.  However, the comment I was responding to was very specifically complaining about why the characters weren't showing signs of hypothermia.  I mean, you never see people making a big deal about tiny details like that on any other show.  It's just fashionable to bag on GoT now, so they're getting that level of ridiculous scrutiny (again, stuff like hypothermia, NOT the questioning of major, illogical, recurring plot devices).  

It's the same way people whine about teleporters now.  Nevermind that we'd be into season 170 before the Red Wedding ever took place if they didn't hit fast forward between scenes.  That's without even getting into my opinion that if you want to watch hours of people pointlessly travelling somewhere, you can just pop LoTR into the Blu-ray player again.  With that said, it really did stretch credulity this week with Gendry getting to the Wall, the raven getting to Dragonstone, and the dragons making it north of the wall in what seemed like about a day (tops).  For once, it's a legitimate complaint.

What I'm saying is this: the show has declined in quality, but that doesn't make every complaint valid.

Yeah i fully agree with your point, and in fact being a massive complaintfest lover i get a little miffed when someone focuses on something like the hypothermia issue as it's not a stretch of the imagination to suspend disbelief for it, it belittles all the valid complaints like constant deus ex machina or in-your-face plot holes that you point out, and putting them together detracts from the important points, like the WW army not waiting for Jon to resurface and end what seems to be the NK's established biggest enemy (using Hardhome as evidence for that). For me the worst case of this has been how the White Walkers have chains in tow, people seem to off the map angry about it whereas I only really thought about it once it had been pointed out. That particular issue can be answered by many explanations and i'm not even that bothered if it isn't, it doesn't harm the story in any way. The battles are cool and everything, the dragon death and plummet below the ice was fucking jaw-droppingly brilliant, but as i'm watching i'm still laughing to myself at how ludicrous the whole thing is, which is a shame.

The Teleportation issues this season have ruined it for me the most but I can see how the casual viewer can turn off to them and enjoy the show. One of the best moments of the entire series for me is Stannis appearing at the last minute to crush the wildlings north of the wall, in both books and show it was entirely plausible and entirely out of the blue. To be able to pull off that kind of surprise and make it fit with the timeframe of the story is brilliant story telling. However now you just get the out of the blue, you don't get the plausibility that lends itself so well to the surprise, Euron turning up at 3 different places within a day of each other to crush entire armies completely negates the surprising moment it is, it's surprising because he was 3,000 miles away 10 minutes ago, and that's when, as a viewer, i'm thinking more of timelines when i should be watching and enjoying Euron kill off terribly written show characters, it takes me out of the moment, and it's too ridiculous to accept. It also makes the show so boring to know that they can just cut logic out at any moment for a cool set piece they have in mind.

It's largely down to the fact that the show was so well written for the first 3-4 seasons, they established laws within their own story that they can no longer follow on their own, and it's really distracting.

Edited by Starkistbeforethedawn
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6 hours ago, Starkistbeforethedawn said:

Yeah i fully agree with your point, and in fact being a massive complaintfest lover i get a little miffed when someone focuses on something like the hypothermia issue as it's not a stretch of the imagination to suspend disbelief for it, it belittles all the valid complaints like constant deus ex machina or in-your-face plot holes that you point out, and putting them together detracts from the important points, like the WW army not waiting for Jon to resurface and end what seems to be the NK's established biggest enemy (using Hardhome as evidence for that). For me the worst case of this has been how the White Walkers have chains in tow, people seem to off the map angry about it whereas I only really thought about it once it had been pointed out. That particular issue can be answered by many explanations and i'm not even that bothered if it isn't, it doesn't harm the story in any way. The battles are cool and everything, the dragon death and plummet below the ice was fucking jaw-droppingly brilliant, but as i'm watching i'm still laughing to myself at how ludicrous the whole thing is, which is a shame.

The Teleportation issues this season have ruined it for me the most but I can see how the casual viewer can turn off to them and enjoy the show. One of the best moments of the entire series for me is Stannis appearing at the last minute to crush the wildlings north of the wall, in both books and show it was entirely plausible and entirely out of the blue. To be able to pull off that kind of surprise and make it fit with the timeframe of the story is brilliant story telling. However now you just get the out of the blue, you don't get the plausibility that lends itself so well to the surprise, Euron turning up at 3 different places within a day of each other to crush entire armies completely negates the surprising moment it is, it's surprising because he was 3,000 miles away 10 minutes ago, and that's when, as a viewer, i'm thinking more of timelines when i should be watching and enjoying Euron kill off terribly written show characters, it takes me out of the moment, and it's too ridiculous to accept. It also makes the show so boring to know that they can just cut logic out at any moment for a cool set piece they have in mind.

It's largely down to the fact that the show was so well written for the first 3-4 seasons, they established laws within their own story that they can no longer follow on their own, and it's really distracting.

Actually it wasn't plausible at all but we all glossed over it because it wasn't obvious.  The fact he is meant to have landed at Eastwatch and no one at Eastwatch decided to alert Castle Black via a Raven or a messenger?  The fact that he must gone beyond the Wall at Eastwatch and marched an entire army North of the Wall to Castle Black (which would have taken days) and that canny leader Mance didn't know they were coming?

GRRM himself has admitted some of the travel times in the books don't make logical sense (and also said he didn't care as nitpicking over realistic journey times doesn't impact the story).

As with most things in life, people are usually willing to make allowances when it suits them rather than be consistent across the board and condemn friend and foe alike for the same actions.  We are full of double standards.....

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On 22/08/2017 at 3:41 AM, plectrum said:

The funny part is that I agree with you.  The constant stream of plot devices and deus ex machinas is annoying (though, again, I really can't stress how awesome the dragons are now that they're actually being used).  The show was most certainly better written back when they had the books to guide them.  It should surprise no one that GRRM is a better writer than D&D.

If anyone was complaining about the deus ex machinas, I'd probably just silently agree since I don't like to turn these threads into a complaintfest.  However, the comment I was responding to was very specifically complaining about why the characters weren't showing signs of hypothermia.  I mean, you never see people making a big deal about tiny details like that on any other show.  It's just fashionable to bag on GoT now, so they're getting that level of ridiculous scrutiny (again, stuff like hypothermia, NOT the questioning of major, illogical, recurring plot devices).  

It's the same way people whine about teleporters now.  Nevermind that we'd be into season 170 before the Red Wedding ever took place if they didn't hit fast forward between scenes.  That's without even getting into my opinion that if you want to watch hours of people pointlessly travelling somewhere, you can just pop LoTR into the Blu-ray player again.  With that said, it really did stretch credulity this week with Gendry getting to the Wall, the raven getting to Dragonstone, and the dragons making it north of the wall in what seemed like about a day (tops).  For once, it's a legitimate complaint.

What I'm saying is this: the show has declined in quality, but that doesn't make every complaint valid.

The issue with teleportation is not with the characters actually 'teleporting' though - it's with everybody else.  No one indeed wants to see people endlessly travelling places, so people leaving Dragonstone and showing up some time later at Eastwatch is perfectly fine. The problem is that it raises the question of what the other characters have been doing in the meanwhile, which is when it starts to break apart because the answer is invariably nothing because the time has seemingly stood still for them.

For instance, w hen planning the wight mission it would have been obvious that this would take several weeks or even months. But if I assume that they've been gone for weeks, why is it necessary for Dany and her war!y to chill out at Dragonstone, seemingly spending time discussing romance with Tyrion ? Why bother with the truce? She could have taken KL several times over in the meanwhile! And apparently nothing of note happened anywhere else, either! 

It's en worse when the writers give themselves an actual deadline though, as happened in this episode. I don't need to see Gendry running or Dany/ravens flying for hours at the time. I'm quite happy for her to just show up. But that doesn't work with the characters waiting on her in seemingly mortal peril while all this is going on. It's completely unrealistic for them to last more than a couple of hours, but there they still are when she shows up looking much the same as the last time we saw them when Gendry left. 

And of course, now they're all off to KL again, despite *knowing* that the NK is within walking/running distance of the Wall and poised for attack. But of course, he'll conveniently chill out for a little while more so that when the other characters eventually make it back North again they won't find him sieging Winterfell.

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The show is going a bit True Blood in that when it doesn't have source material (or in TB's case ignores it) the writing goes a bot wonky and all over the place.  As far as pacing and storytelling, season 1 is still tops IMO. It's also the most faithful adaptation of the books. With no source material, the show is still entertaining but the plot's getting a bit Swiss-cheesy. Some of it is getting hard to ignore. I'm also finding myself more detached to the show and it isn't because I've gotten used to it, the storytelling just isn't pulling me in the same way. 

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