[Spoilers] Rant and Rave Without Repercussion

[darmody]

2 hours ago, The Knight in Motley said:

The way the NK lined up that shot, why didn't they have him aim at Drogon and then Vis swoops in and takes the hit to save his mother.  His thrashing and dying gives them the cover to leave and it's a more emotional moment.

 

Congratulations, you can write a more plausible climax than millionaire tv showrunners. 

[Visenya Stark]

The travel logistics in this episode are really distracting. Many show fans say that people are too nitpicky about travel in the show, but I don't get how anyone can excuse the messy timeline in this episode. Gendry runs from beyond the Wall to Eastwatch, a raven gets sent to Daenerys at Dragonstone, and then she flies her dragons to beyond the Wall. Surely it should take 1-2 days (at the minimum) for all of that to happen. The show makes it look like only some hours passed. 

EDIT: Why didn't anyone try to keep the ice from reforming by breaking it with the hammer or the fire sword? This could help buy them time as they waited for Dany & her dragons. 

[Iotun]

Disclaimer: I did see the leaked version. I've been waiting to rant since then.

Also a warning, this will be a long post, as I get my frustrations out of my system, and complain about a lot more than just what has happened in this episode.

I thought last week's wight plot was stupid. Oh boy, I had no idea how bad it would get… I dare anybody to defend this episode. I know the show has surpassed the books since at least Season 5, but this season seems to be the first time where all plot threads from the books have concluded completely and the showrunners are completely on their own, and boy have things gone donwhill.

There are no redeeming qualities for this mess.

What truly defines a bad movie or TV show, is you watching and constantly asking yourself 'But why? Why is this happening? How is it happening?'. Bad production values can be made not to matter if the story and plot are well crafted, but good production values for the sake of a stupid plot just make you start hitting your face against the wall. This episode manages however to combine both bad plot, and bad production. To sum up we have:

• Horrible, cliched, TV dialogue
• Horrible characterization
• BAD action scenes
• A plot that is insulting to the intelligence of the viewers

I'll leave the biggest, most obvious problems for the end.

1. Horrible, cliched TV dialogue:

I'm not a native English speaker, so don't know how to describe the 'travelling' scenes north of the wall. Horrible fanboyish dialogue that reminds me more of an anime show for 13 year olds than a serious drama.

Each scene is a conversation between one 1-dimensional character that is defined by a single character trait, with another 1-dimensional character that is defined by a single character trait. The Hound is angry (he's also afraid of fire, did you know!). Thoros of Myr likes to drink. Tormund is free spirited and wild, and makes others uncomfortable. Gendry is naïve.

These are no real, 3 dimensional longer characters, they're paper cut-outs exchanging cliches, stupid jokes, and fake, over-dramatic lines, which is why they remind me more of a cartoon for kids than a serious drama. Have you ever seen cartoons where each characters represents the extreme of one attribute (the ultra serious characters, the angry character, the religious zealot, the great fighter, the wild one), and 'cool' moments are generated when one extreme meets another? That is exactly how  this felt, and it felt like the showrunners indulging a fanboy mentality rather than taking the show seriously.

The same extends to the interactions in Winterfell. Arya, Sansa, Brienne, and Littlefinger are nothing more than 1-dimensional extremes, with horrible dialogue, and interactions that make no sense. Arya's monologue about her archery in Winterfell was so fake, both in its contents, as well as its delivery. I don't blame poor Maisie… she can only work with what she is given.

2. Horrible characterization:

Remember when the Hound was a serious, dramatic character? Why is he reduced to comic relief? It feels the showrunners just wanted to get to spend more time with Rory, so they brought him back for the sole reason of being the 'angry' comic character.

Why is Arya a complete bitch to Sansa? Why is Sansa still so stupid? Why does she not guess immediately that Littlefinger had something to do with Arya getting the note? Why is she sending Brienne away Why have the sisters not spoken at all about their experiences until now? Why is it so controversial for Sansa to admit to Arya that 'Yes, I was stupid, and afraid, and was told the letter was the only way to keep dad alive'. Arya was able to make moral judgements in Bravos I don't buy that she is unable to understand Sansa's point of view. Are we to believe that after all both have been through, they've not matured at all beyond being two quarrelling sisters? Yes, I get that the show is trying to create some tensions about what will happen between them, but it doesn't make sense to me, and the characters have no consistency with how they were portrayed in past seasons.

Meanwhile Tyrion and Dany's relationship makes no sense. This started since the previous season. In Season 5, Tyrion meets Dany, tells her he's unsure of what to make of her and that he must judge her, and very soon she flies away on a dragon. She returns with a Dothraki army talking of burning cities, is convinced to just defeat the besieging slavers, and Tyrion, who hardly knows here, pledges his undying devotion, and declares to her that she is the one to cure him of his cynicism. Meanwhile Dany who hardly knows him, and has only seen him horribly managing Meereen, emotionally names him hand of the Queen, with him having proved nothing. Then this season, Tyrion goes from stupid advice to stupid advice, Dany declares that she trusts him because he is not 'heroic' and yet gets angry when he starts to advise her on relatively straight-forward matters. The showrunners want Tyrion to be Dany's hand, and they want drama between them, yet are unable to write a plot to justify either development.

Finally, this episode single handedly ruined whatever drama and fear surrounded the White Walkers and Wights. Remember in Season 1 the atmosphere and ambence when the Wight came alive on the Wall? Or the creepy imagery of Craster's baby being turned into a White Walker? Now we get a silly scene with a White Walker looking like a moron while he's ambushed by the Wight hunters and quickly defeated by Jon, that just makes the White Walkers seem like little more than normal humans in bad makeup.

3. BAD action scenes:

If there's anything that at least GoT has been consistently good at, it's the fight scenes. In this episode, not even the action looked good. The best way I can describe how it felt, is like an old Power Ranger's episode, or maybe something from the old Hercules and Zena show.

The wights as the clownish, foolish looking and moving cannon fodder mowed down by our heroes.

Action that consists of close ups of our heroes swinging wildly, while grimacing, and where we can't see any actual fighting.

The hero is ganged up by bad guys, but doesn't die or manages to escape (the scene with Tormund).

The nameless, characterless, and literally faceless (the only ones actually wearing hoods in the cold) cannon -fodder on the heroes side, whose only purpose is to die so that we can have some fake drama

Our heroes surrounded by the bad guys, but an artificial barrier prevents the bad guys from attacking. Dramatic battle when the bad guys finally attack, and saved by a Deus Ex machina on their darkest hour.

The Wights looked 'stupid' and have lost any sense of their ravenous, dangerous quality from previous seasons. When the White Walker was defeated in the ambush, and one Wight remained, the thing looked so comic and stupid, and so obviously a guy in a suit, it was ridiculous. The way it jerked about while on the 'little island' was ridicoulous. The way the Wights run seemed stupid. The whole fight scene was probably the worst in the entire show. And the use of the dramatic music over what was predictable, cliched action made the whole thing even worse.

4. The plot:

Oh boy. Here we go. A series of 'What? Why?' momenets, and TV cliches, over and over and over again. Where to start with the stupidity?

• The fact that apparently Jon has gone off to an apparent mission where he might die, and he's not informed or sent a message to Sansa about this, who's not heard anything from him for weeks apparently (the only point I will concede, if on next episode, Littlefinger is shown to be concealing these messages).
• 10 men walking on their own with no horses or supplies and pushing  a sledge while walking into nowhere in the North?
• The overly predictable result of the Wights dying off once you kill a White Walker? (I'm sure we've never seen this before)
• The apparent lack of surprise by the team members to seeing a White Walker leading a group of undead?
• The stupid ambush of the White Walker?
• The fact that an undead Wight seems to show surprise and fear?

But then we get into even worse points:

• Our heroes capture a Wight. They hear the undead massing to attack them. What do they do? They tell Gendry to run back to the wall, while all the rest, together with the Wight that they supposedly were here to capture, RUN TO THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION TOWARDS THE DANGER for no apparent reason (other than the fact that an action scene needs to happen)!
• The fact that the Night's King seems to be HALF A DAY'S SPRINT away from the Wall?
• The fact that Gendry RUNS to the Wall, all the way from the point of their ambush?
• The incredible, ridiculous, insulting story of Gendry running to the wall, delivering a message, having a raven fly from the wall to Dragonstone, being picked up and assessed by Dany, who flies all the way from Dragonstone to the wall, in less time than it takes for water to freeze!!!
• The fact that the White Walkers are unable to figure out that water has frozen until the Hound has thrown a stone onto the lake?
• The fact that Jon acts like a moron, continuing to attack the Wights who, if this was a realistic world, he should be scared out of his pants off, and not immediately running to Drogo to fly off.
• The stupidity of Drogo as 'airbus' complete with his scales serving as Wight luggage carrier?
• The fact that the Night's King is an apparent moron? Here's the biggest of the three dragons, sitting down, and our heroes ready to fly off with him… let me not attack this stationary obvious target, let me instead target this other dragon flying off?
• The stupid Deus Ex Machina of uncle Benjen coming in to save Jon?
• The miraculous escape of Jon horse?

Here's the bottom line. The showrunners wanted to have a dragon dies and be resurrected as an ice dragon (a plot point which may, or may not come from the books, and I hope they do not confirm if so or not). And yet they have no idea how to make it so, and they feed as the most ridiculous, stupid plot imaginable. I don't have a problem with the concept of an undead ice dragon per se!!! But everything that led to this outcome makes absolutely no sense.

[Tyrek Lannister]

Ah, this episode. Also known as a 'Deus Ex Machinas' or 'Plot Holes' episode.

[hallapino]

The entire premise of the episode was ridiculous. Risking all to hopefully get Cersei onboard? They deserved to lose more than one dragon for shear stupidity.  .

After the Arya scene of E1 I thought this season could be cool. Since then all I can do is envision a group of unenthusiastic writers sitting around a table going "whatabout this". The main plot has become a prepubescent love story and my favorite characters have been abandoned. Bringing back Bran to Winterfell killed the entire quest for knowledge plot line for Sam since Bran knows everything anyways...so they made Sam a janitor.  Otherwise Bran has become useless, Arya is just a mean girl, and Tyrion was a way better character before he met Dany. After I found out last week that Jon could be legitimate as part of this happy ever after version I stopped caring. I prefer bastards, whorehouses and chaos over this silly scripted dribble.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bonnot OG]

This episode proved time machines are real.

[Cptrex2002]

alright here we go.

1. what the hell was the point of thoros surviving the bear attack if he just died of cold. in universe this is not only stupid but storytelling wise it would have been much more impact full if he died at the hands of the bear. 

2. if thoros passed away in the night in front of the night kings army why didn't he just resurrect him and have him strangle jon snow in his sleep

3. if the night king can spear throw a dragon out of the air why didn't he just throw some spears at Jon snow and his buddies

4. where did the white walkers get enormous chains. I mean it wasn't the wildlings because why would they have huge chains just laying around if they didn't have any ships. (also i don't know this for sure but isn't there a thing about wights not being able to swim.)

5. you can kill a white walker with a few simple moves. in hardhome and when Sam kills them they are surprised so thats why even someone as incompetent a fighter as sam could kill them but by then the night king must have been like 'hey guys the humans appear to have found weapons capable of harming us better start training'

6. Apparently you can run to the wall send a Raven to Dragonstone, have someone inform dany, have her fly back with three dragons and make her save the day in the course of one day and night. Even if gendry could run to the wall in a few hours it would take a Raven (Using carrier pigeons as a real world comparison) a day and a half to reach dragonstond (Carrier pigeons fly at about 80 to 120 km/h and its about 2500 km to dragon stone) add another day for flying there on the back of a dragon and you've already got about three days on your hands.

7. the wights just stood there doing nothing. I mean even if they couldn't swim or jump the crack wasn't very big they could have just fell down and have other wights walk over them as a bridge. I mean the night king doesn't really seem to care about the undead lives of his men. Also white walkers are beings of ice your telling me that even though whenever they show up it gets colder they can't even freeze some already very cold water. 

sorry for the long post I hope you enjoyed.

[Nerevanin]

If I ignore Arya being an annoying brat having rubber faces in her bag, Bran pullling Ghost and Tyrion standing ridiculously close to the cliff's edge while the huge dragons take off, I have to say that the adventure beyond the Wall is so messed up on so many levels that I just can't believe D&D let it happen:

 

• idiotic conversations such as Tormund describing his lust for Brienne to Sandor

• Jon is willing to give up his only weapon miles from the Wall while heading to beat some wights.

• in some scenes (prior to the bear) there are 13 guys, in other scenes there are 10 of them.

• didn't the bear come from a different direction than where they saw it?

• So Jorah is the only one who has a dragonglass weapons? Seems like Jon did a good job mining in those caves.

• So Thoros has quite large wounds on his chest, Beric cures him with a burning sword pressed again his chest and Thoros not only walks without problems, but even manages to outrun wights.

• So killing a WW kills a bunch of wights? And how come that that one stay alive?

• And how come that this wight acts so un-wighty, like not attacking because he's outnumbered? I thought that wights are supposed to be mindless zombies whose job is to kill living creatures?

• Jon knows Gendry for a few days, he's never seen him run and yet he is completely sure that Gendry is the fastest runner out of them all?

• Makes sense to have your only messenger and your only hope to survive completely unprotected. Not even a tiny dagger. It's safe beyond the Wall, right?

• Gendry makes it to the Wall, guys (who?) guarding the Wall recognize him without a doubt from the height of few kilometres although it's getting considerably ark, open the gate and Davos sprints out of the gate, fortunately he was standing there in the tunnel the whole time since Jon left.

• So the raven from Eastwatch made all the way to Dragonstone overnight?

• Thoros, the Red priest, freezes to death? Really? So much for Mel saying that she's never cold...

• Since when do wights mind water?

• They are in a freezing area where is snow even when there is summer elsewhere. Yet the ice is so thin that it cracks when they step on it. And it takes the water two freaking days to freeze again?

• Aren't the White Walkers supposed to be bringing cold with them? Could some of them get off that horse and go down there to freeze the water a bit sooner? No? OK.

• Why tf was The Hound throwing stones at wights?

• How long would the wights stand there if the Hound didn't throw that stone?

• Why is Jon so concerned about his wight? Aren't there many more potential gifts for Cersei around? Isn't saving your life a bit more important in that moment?

• Why are the other wights trying to save the captured wight?

• How did the NK and other WW get down on the battlefield from that cliff?

• Which dragon died? Aren't they supposed to be of different colours?

• After the dragon died and Dany flies off on Drogon, where is the third dragon?

• Where is the third dragon when Dany is on the Wall waiting for Jon?

• So Jon didn't have a sword yet he managed to fight off two wights in freezing water? Makes sense.

• Benjen coming out of blue and fighting off wights with a ball on a chain. Enough said.

• Benjen can't climb on the horse (?) behind Jon because there is no time for it, yet there is enough time for Benjen to make this conversation.

• Jon bending the knee because Daenerys is sad because she lost a dragon. Awesome.

• Where tf did the NK get the huge chains?

• Wights don't want to go into freezing water while chasing Jon and co. but suddenly they have no problem with diving and tying those chains to the dragon corpse. Of course I'm risking there and assuming that the NK didn't dive in there himself.

   

[OldManDennis]

• Jon falls into FREEZING COLD WATER and doesn't basically instantly die. Jesus Christ.

To be totally fair, the debilitating effects of zero degree water are a bit oversold.  I've been in it, and while it's bracing, it's not instant death.  On the other hand, the odds of going into ice water, murdering two ice zombies with your bare hands, and then being able to pull yourself out are less probable then warp dragons saving your butt a few minutes later.

[AlpenglowMemories]

Maisie Williams acting in that speech about Ned was really bad. The whole conflict between her and Sansa is absurd, the show is just dragging its heels to dispose of Littlefinger in the finale episode. The wight hunt is beyond stupid. The dialogue between Tormund and the Hound was horrendous. I don't know why they're even doing this. Gendry runs to Eastwatch....ugh...sends a raven...Dany gets it and flies there... all in one night. Just... ugh. 

I can't buy a lake stopping the wights. They can't drown. And the Others can't just re-freeze it? None of those people should be alive after a night in that environment; at the very least, they shouldn't have the energy to fight. And why couldn't they raise Thoros when he died during the night? He could have freed the other wight, and attacked them. 

[Ser Quork]

I have no doubt that all my rants have already been covered here.  It was sheer stupidity from start to finish.  

.

I will say, if we had to have a wight hunt and if we had to Surprise Rescue Dragons  (and we really shouldn't), when Dany arrived, WHY OH WHY didn't she dracarys the Night King, the white walkers and wights there and then?  It's just beyond stupid.

[Armand Gargalen]

5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Whose character haven't they destroyed at this point?

Hot Pie? I love him and want him to be voted King by the people of Westeros when Dany, Jon and the lot die a horrible death

5 hours ago, Rubicante said:

I am actually in a complete state of shock as to how bad this episode was.  This wasn't just a bad episode, it was one of the worst episodes I have ever seen from any television series.

All I can say is this.  I envision this situation where D & D were sitting in a rooming saying "wouldn't it be cool to have a dragon reanimated by the Night's King?", and then they create this completely stupid wight hunt in order to make this happen. 

I don't know what to say.  Sooo bad.

Exactly how I picture it in my mind. And the worst thing, there were even better ways to achieve the desired outcome.

4 hours ago, TywinBestCharacter said:

Jon Snow is apparently immortal. Not only does he not get pulled down by the weight of his sword, armor, and fur, but he emerges, conveniently in a nice, thin patch of zombies so uncle benjen can show up to save him, then he somehow doesn't drop dead of exposure, the undead horse somehow knows to take him to Eastmarch. I thought the point of this show was no one is safe. No one, except Jon, who is becoming the Mary Sue to end all Mary Sue's.

The teleportation? Its just insulting. GoT was supposed to be an intelligent show. Its not. Like, you can enjoy it as a CGI slaughter-fest, but that's what it has degenerated to. 

Winterfell... is just awful. Just so, so painfully awful. I don't know why Arya and Dany starting acting like nut cases this season. Did the same people who made up the Dorne plot do this one? 

The zombie dragon... that was some BS. So what, wights can only swim when the blessed Jon Snow wouldn't be endangered by their presence? 

This show cares more about cool battles and epic events than, you know, a well written story, the well developed cast of characters-- pretty much everything that made the books and early seasons brilliant.

 

That had been great storytelling and trope subversion. Can we please ask HBO to sack D&D and hire you for next season? 

4 hours ago, Hound's She-Wolf 2 said:

 

Jon managing to resuface after two wights dragged him under freezing water? He must have gone to the same swimming coach as Bronn.

They were both schooled by Sariio Gorrell, the First Swimmer of the Sealord of Braavos. Later on, they went to the House of Blue and Green and became Lungless Men by being beaten with a seaweed rope by the Merwaif.

3 hours ago, Hound's She-Wolf 2 said:

And the Fellowship has all this time to talk-why has there been no mention of Arya between Gendry, Jon and Clegane? Jon knows she's alive, but Clegane was the last to see her? Or about Sansa between Jon and the Hound?

Because Arya is no one?

3 hours ago, darmody said:

Congratulations, you can write a more plausible climax than millionaire tv showrunners. 

Many people can. So many that the only reason D&D are still running the show must be HBO does not give a damn about quality anymore.

2 hours ago, Visenya Stark said:

The travel logistics in this episode are really distracting. Many show fans say that people are too nitpicky about travel in the show, but I don't get how anyone can excuse the messy timeline in this episode. Gendry runs from beyond the Wall to Eastwatch, a raven gets sent to Daenerys at Dragonstone, and then she flies her dragons to beyond the Wall. Surely it should take 1-2 days (at the minimum) for all of that to happen. The show makes it look like only a few hours passed. 

At some point they will reveal that they all actually died, but Bran went back in and oddly bent time to save them. That is the only plausible explanation for this mess.

[desire]

We bear bears gotta laid off the roids my goodness

[Anarres]

5 hours ago, The Knight in Motley said:

The way the NK lined up that shot, why didn't they have him aim at Drogon and then Vis swoops in and takes the hit to save his mother.  His thrashing and dying gives them the cover to leave and it's a more emotional moment.

That's the thing, a lot of these contrivances can be quite easily avoided with just a slight tweaking of the script.

It's very odd indeed.

[desire]

But on a more serious note only fire kills the walkers
So what happened at hardhome why didn't wights drop
Sam killed a other what happened to his little marry band of i dunno things you put up at Halloween
Confused how the night king can raise his arms and the dead live but gotta give well a thai massage to a dragon to come back
Man ravens aye
Anyone else notice the symbol after the battle looked like a McDonald sign 
I wonder if King Robbo could run that fast in the cold
Good on you Ayra hobbies are a good way to pass the time some people collect stamps others collect faces oh hello there jeff dahmer
Dragons be quick aye
The night king could kick a field goal
Bears Bears Bears! No spiders though 
And for my next trick ill wave my sword around see if it catches on fire wink wink
WHERE DID THEY FIND CHAINS I'm looking at you iron belly you sneaky devil 
 

[Tyrek Lannister]

"Dany" could be one of the cringest moments I've ever witnessed on screen.

[wolfsbae]

Question: why have they sent the Hound to Kings Landing with the wight? It seems to set up a nice reunion with Brienne and his brother but wouldn't it have made better sense to send someone a bit more neutral (or at the very least a better diplomat) like Davos? The Hound is an inflammatory presence in KL. I'd also have preferred him to make his way back to WF to see Ayra and Sansa and stick it to LF. 

[RhaenysBee]

What. 

The. 

Fuck. 

Was. 

This?

It was painful to watch. 

 

[wolfsbae]

41 minutes ago, desire said:

But on a more serious note only fire kills the walkers
So what happened at hardhome why didn't wights drop
Sam killed a other what happened to his little marry band of i dunno things you put up at Halloween
Confused how the night king can raise his arms and the dead live but gotta give well a thai massage to a dragon to come back
Man ravens aye
Anyone else notice the symbol after the battle looked like a McDonald sign 
I wonder if King Robbo could run that fast in the cold
Good on you Ayra hobbies are a good way to pass the time some people collect stamps others collect faces oh hello there jeff dahmer
Dragons be quick aye
The night king could kick a field goal
Bears Bears Bears! No spiders though 
And for my next trick ill wave my sword around see if it catches on fire wink wink
WHERE DID THEY FIND CHAINS I'm looking at you iron belly you sneaky devil 
 

Congrats, you just won this thread. Laughing so hard! 

[Ambria]

I was complaining about plot inconsistency's and stuff and my mum told me to stop whinging

I said I'm not whinging

She said your mouth is moving and you're complaining about stuff, you're whinging

THANKS CLEGANE