Season 8: News, Spoilers And Leaks

[a black swan]

9 hours ago, Error-504 said:

Yawn

Yup. The biggest yawn. You can hear the bitterness jump off every word from Mysty.

[Mystical]

2 hours ago, a black swan said:

Yup. The biggest yawn. You can hear the bitterness jump off every word from Mysty.

Because I spoke the truth about your beloved Arya by using the logic you would for Sansa? Nothing to do with bitterness, just facts.

[Nowy Tends]

Count me as another "yawner"…

[Suzanna Stormborn]

1 hour ago, Mystical said:

Because I spoke the truth about your beloved Arya by using the logic you would for Sansa? Nothing to do with bitterness, just facts.

I'm looking through your posts and dont see any evidence of 'truth' or 'facts'

[btfu806]

16 hours ago, Mystical said:

But NK already knows Bran is the new trainee. He grabbed Bran in a vision before 3ER died. And he marked him to get through the Childrens magic. The NK would know that Bran is with 3ER (hence touching Bran) and the only reason Bran is with him is to become the 3ER. Bran should not have survived 6x05 if he was the NK target. NK and his army was right there and no amount of Benjen fighting and Hodor-ing would have saved him considering the numbers, including the freaking NK himself and several WW.

However I can totally see D&D making it Bran because these men don't ever have a plan. They don't care how it makes characters look. Seriously, Bran knows he is the target in your scenario (as the new 3ER) because the NK came specifically to kill the previous one. In which case not only is Bran a grade a moron but a mass murdering douchebag to boot. He came south of the wall knowing the NK wants him, instead of staying north of the wall. Thousands will die then because of him and he knew the whole time that the NK is after him so all that death is on him.

I guess I just assumed NK was focused on 3ER first before moving onto Bran. But you're right in the sense that he should not have survived 6x05. That whole episode is beyond stupid but...whatever.

 

your second paragraph is what partly bothers me about Bran's character and D&D. They seem to have no plan for him except for exposition. So I assume Bran has some Deus Ex Machina way of killing the NK, because if not, he is kinda pointless in this story...

[Cas Stark]

51 minutes ago, btfu806 said:

I guess I just assumed NK was focused on 3ER first before moving onto Bran. But you're right in the sense that he should not have survived 6x05. That whole episode is beyond stupid but...whatever.

 

your second paragraph is what partly bothers me about Bran's character and D&D. They seem to have no plan for him except for exposition. So I assume Bran has some Deus Ex Machina way of killing the NK, because if not, he is kinda pointless in this story...

I agree, that Bran must have some big moment in the end game, otherwise the show would have killed him off, as they have not done a very good job with his story since he left WF at the end of season 2.

[btfu806]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree, that Bran must have some big moment in the end game, otherwise the show would have killed him off, as they have not done a very good job with his story since he left WF at the end of season 2.

On a gut feeling level as well, I think GRRM is going to have the last character chapter in the entire series be Bran's as well. He seems to like things kinda coming full-circle and the books started with a Bran chapter, I think it will end with one. 

Assuming that GRRM told D&D the ending of the characters, it will be interesting to see how abrupt Bran's feels since it feels like his progress has been almost nothing story wise.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree, that Bran must have some big moment in the end game, otherwise the show would have killed him off, as they have not done a very good job with his story since he left WF at the end of season 2.

I could see the Ds keeping Bran around just for the Rhaegar/Lyanna reveal, quite frankly.  I'm not saying that is it for sure, but I do think it's a possibility.  Every time I try to figure out endgame, be it for general story or individual characters, I also find myself remembering the Ds sometime attitude on magic and supernatural elements.  Their removal of Lady Stoneheart leaves me to wonder what other magical/supernatural elements they may want to get rid of all on their own.  Yes, Bran could have been intended for more in the story, but I could see the Ds cutting him down to a bit of R+L=J, clarifying a few story points in a quick fashion, and then dropping any other things that George may have intended and/or already told them. 

 

[Kajjo]

20 hours ago, Mystical said:

I mean we are all in agreement that Arya is responsible for Cat, Robb, Talisa (+unborn baby), hundreds of Northmen and all the people in the Sept of Baelor being dead.

Gosh.

Arya is responsible for all that?! No, we do not "all agree" on this. What weird logic leads you to the conclusion that little Arya is responsible?

What kind of definition you have for "responsibility"? The Red Wedding was a trick of the Lannisters. How do you link that to Arya?!

It is an absurd logic to use hindsight knowledge to make "could have avoided" into "responsible". My goodness.

20 hours ago, Mystical said:

uses 'Sansa hater logic'

No "hater logic" is good. Not for Sansa, not for Bran, not for Arya. 

20 hours ago, Mystical said:

The 'was just a child', 'didn't know', 'didn't have a choice', 'was raised that way' etc. excuses never work Sansa. 

It does. 

[Kajjo]

18 hours ago, Error-504 said:

same poorly thought out Troll drivel

Unfortunately, you are right. Extremely poorly thought, simple trolling with hate-responsibility nonsense far from any logic and ratio. 

Probably some pissed her off by "hating" Sansa, i.e. pointing out Sansa's flaw, and this is her kind of "getting revenge" by providing all kinda of nonsense theories.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

1 minute ago, Kajjo said:

Gosh.

Arya is responsible for all that?! No, we do not "all agree" on this. What weird logic leads you to the conclusion that little Arya is responsible?

What kind of definition you have for "responsibility"? The Red Wedding was a trick of the Lannisters. How do you link that to Arya?!

It is an absurd logic to use hindsight knowledge to make "could have avoided" into "responsible". My goodness.

No "hater logic" is good. Not for Sansa, not for Bran, not for Arya. 

It does. 

I would have to agree with all this.

[Jô Maltese]

This is not the right place to discuss theories or opinions on the show extensively... @Mystical; @Kajjo, @btfu806 please start a new thread as my interest in following this one is just about, well, Season 8 news, spoilers, and leaks...

[Kajjo]

3 hours ago, btfu806 said:

Bran's feels since it feels like his progress has been almost nothing story wise.

Well, Bran's arc is quite huge. From a young boy climbing for fun to becoming the 3ER, to escape to Winterfell. 

Bran's storyline wasn't my favorite. I liked other much more like Arya or Daenerys, but the arc is quite important, too. Bran's story just has particularly many untied ends. Let's hope it will all make sense after all.

3 hours ago, btfu806 said:

On a gut feeling level as well, I think GRRM is going to have the last character chapter in the entire series be Bran's as well. He seems to like things kinda coming full-circle and the books started with a Bran chapter, I think it will end with one. 

Might be, interesting thought. But I don't reckon that circle is necessary. 

[Mystical]

13 hours ago, Kajjo said:

Arya is responsible for all that?! No, we do not "all agree" on this. What weird logic leads you to the conclusion that little Arya is responsible?

Not killing Tywin. DUH. Tywin was the mastermind behind the Red Wedding (whom she also served daily), so killing him would have prevented it. Arya not only didn't kill him but she didn't name him when she was offered 3 free kills by a Faceless Man. It only occurred to her at the last minute when it was way too late.  And that's not trolling or weird logic, that's a fact. Because it happened right there on screen, unless you deny canon because you love a certain character.

13 hours ago, Kajjo said:

Probably some pissed her off by "hating" Sansa, i.e. pointing out Sansa's flaw, and this is her kind of "getting revenge" by providing all kinda of nonsense theories.

LMAO. How many times have I said I don't care enough about the show characters (because they are plot puppies and not characters), which would include Sansa, to love or hate any of them? I was using fandom logic with characters like Bran and Arya and the stans and haters came out in full force (with the standard rebuttals such as 'trolling') because I hit a nerve lol. You guys are easy.

16 hours ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

I could see the Ds keeping Bran around just for the Rhaegar/Lyanna reveal, quite frankly.

Well what else have D&D done with Bran? Nothing. D&D act like Jon's parentage is 100 times more important than finding a way to beat the NK and his army. I mean the only time Bran's power was related to the NK was when he was shown how he was made. And all the other times it was just Bran watching the army march. He couldn't even be bothered to nip the Sansa/Arya nonsense in the butt despite knowing everything LF had done (Chaos is a ladder). And the Season ended not with him working at finding a way to help against the threat but it's all about Jon's parentage, again. Bran's powers have been so freaking pointless for seasons since I'm sure even Jon's parentage is something that Sam can read up in a book. Sam found out R+L=married just by reading a book, something not even all seeing Bran knew, making it clear again how pointless Bran is.

[Error-504]

10 hours ago, Mystical said:

Not killing Tywin. DUH. Tywin was the mastermind behind the Red Wedding (whom she also served daily), so killing him would have prevented it. Arya not only didn't kill him but she didn't name him when she was offered 3 free kills by a Faceless Man. It only occurred to her at the last minute when it was way too late.  And that's not trolling or weird logic, that's a fact. Because it happened right there on screen, unless you deny canon because you love a certain character.

 

What reason did she have at that time to kill Tywin? simply because he was a Lannister? It was Joffrey that ordered Ned's beheading, later Tywin said killing Ned was madness. So, once again, more poorly thought out troll drivel.

 

Yawn

[Lollygag]

Arya should have chosen Tywin (actively trying to kill Robb and Cat and others from her home in the battles which started in AGOT), Cersei and Joff as her three. Except she was a little kid and it would have demonstrated terrible understanding of how children work and be awful character writing if he had her make this choice instead of her other choices which were more immediate and serious threats. 

Little kids have limited perspective and being painfully aware of their dependence and poor odds of survival alone, they prioritize their immediate environment. It's how they're wired. The rest of the kids in the series are written with this slowly and increasingly broadening view of the world as they grow and we see them make mistakes because it's not fully formed yet. As people will never be omniscient, no one in the series is free of perspective limitations. It's one of my favorite parts of the character writing. 

With the limited perspective issues still in mind, it's my idea that Arya's so afraid of wights in the trailer because she's being chased by at least LF. Killing LF was the solution to the problem at Winterfell, and the resolution to everything that's happened with the Starks. Except she now lives in a world where execution doesn't solve this. LF has come back. They can all come back. She now lives in a world where death which she now follows (that one dragonglass scene) is now irrelevant. Her go-to solution goes nowhere, those she's killed will now come back for her, and she's thrown back to pre-FM Arya and her ways of coping with the world are now destroyed. Nothing else explains that fear for me. 

I highly doubt this will happen because that would actually be interesting. If she's afraid of a wight, it'll be because it seems cool to now have the Terminator kid at a disadvantage probably for some big set up later which is typical action-movie hero fodder. And it would be done while overlooking no one else such a bad fear of wights, and even Sam of all people managed to take out an Other. But whatever. 

There are rumors that Aiden Gillen got a script for season 8, so if true, it might be this, or maybe Arya wears his face later in KL or something. 

[T and A]

On 3/15/2019 at 11:04 AM, Mystical said:

Not killing Tywin. DUH. Tywin was the mastermind behind the Red Wedding (whom she also served daily), so killing him would have prevented it. Arya not only didn't kill him but she didn't name him when she was offered 3 free kills by a Faceless Man. It only occurred to her at the last minute when it was way too late.  And that's not trolling or weird logic, that's a fact. Because it happened right there on screen, unless you deny canon because you love a certain character.

LMAO. How many times have I said I don't care enough about the show characters (because they are plot puppies and not characters), which would include Sansa, to love or hate any of them? I was using fandom logic with characters like Bran and Arya and the stans and haters came out in full force (with the standard rebuttals such as 'trolling') because I hit a nerve lol. You guys are easy.

Well what else have D&D done with Bran? Nothing. D&D act like Jon's parentage is 100 times more important than finding a way to beat the NK and his army. I mean the only time Bran's power was related to the NK was when he was shown how he was made. And all the other times it was just Bran watching the army march. He couldn't even be bothered to nip the Sansa/Arya nonsense in the butt despite knowing everything LF had done (Chaos is a ladder). And the Season ended not with him working at finding a way to help against the threat but it's all about Jon's parentage, again. Bran's powers have been so freaking pointless for seasons since I'm sure even Jon's parentage is something that Sam can read up in a book. Sam found out R+L=married just by reading a book, something not even all seeing Bran knew, making it clear again how pointless Bran is.

What a lot of people seem to forget is, that it is a TV Show after all. And the success of television or cinema is crucialy dependend on the actors perfomances. There have been huge complaints about Isaac Hempsteads performance from both the critics and the fans since season 3. He is not exactly a good actor. Also the usual show watcher who is not a fan of the books does not really care for Bran, but he is more interested on Jon and what is going on on Kings Landing and who gets the throne at the end. They don't usually care for magic and it's fantasy backgound. That is rather the aspect of the show, that they loathe the most. Those are the reasons why the showrunners decided to cut Brans story to a minumum. Obviously they could not kill him, because a) he has still a rule to play in the war against the WW and b) they didn't thought at the beginning that the actor will suck balls that much. But this is the risk that you have, when you cast children. You never know how well they will develope.

[Mystical]

1 hour ago, T and A said:

There have been huge complaints about Isaac Hempsteads performance from both the critics and the fans since season 3. He is not exactly a good actor.

I don't know if he was good or bad as far as child actors go. I'm loath to be too hard on children especially when there are quite a few bad adult actors on this show (see Kit and Emilia for example). So I give him a lot of leeway there. Even harder to say how he is now as an actors as Bran wasn't in S5, barely in S6 and anyone can play a robot like in S7. And I haven't seen him in anything but GoT.

1 hour ago, T and A said:

Also the usual show watcher who is not a fan of the books does not really care for Bran, but he is more interested on Jon and what is going on on Kings Landing and who gets the throne at the end. They don't usually care for magic and it's fantasy backgound. That is rather the aspect of the show, that they loathe the most.

Considering that this show is often titled 'Dragons & Tits' I find it hard to believe that show watchers aren't into the fantastical elements. After all the dragons are overused on this show precisely because the viewers love themselves some dragons. I care about the human aspect myself hence the earlier Seasons were more for me, when it was about intrigue, betrayals, politics and so forth. Before the show went all CGI fantasy and didn't know what to do with it's human characters. But that didn't mean I didn't appreciate the fantastical elements, it's just that they were wasted. If D&D had used them like the books, to foreshadow events for example, instead of wanting their shocking scenes, the fantastical would be much more related to the main story (or the characters) and the viewer might appreciate them more.

1 hour ago, T and A said:

Obviously they could not kill him, because a) he has still a rule to play in the war against the WW

But I'm not interested in an 11th hour save. They have had the latter half of S6 and all of S7 to seed that Bran might be crucial in defeating the NK and his army. And they did nothing. What's the point of Bran's useless warging and visions that only show him watching the army march across the land but not doing anything else? And then get bested by the NK in vision land every single time like when he was marked or when the NK severed his connection with the ravens. Bran is an exposition tool, nothing more. And so far only an exposition tool for Jon's parentage and legitimacy and the latter doesn't even matter because in D&D land succession, inheritance, kinslaying etc. doesn't matter. Jon being legitimate (though by all laws no one should believe it anyway, R+L got married without witnesses by a clearly drunk or senile Septon) should be irrelevant because it has been irrelevant for Seasons for every other person in Westeros, including Jon (see him becoming KitN). Shouldn't finding a way to beat the NK and his undead army be 1000x more important to the story at this point than Jon's legitimacy?

[Cas Stark]

I don't know if Issac is a bad actor, or not, I do know, that sadly, he went from being a truly beautiful child to a very awkward looking and sounding teenager, so much so, that given their proclivity for random recastings, I'm surprised they didn't recast him when he came back after being off the show for a year.

On the show, the NK and the WW are just not that interesting, there is no opportunity as there would be in the books to delve into their mythology or their back story.  Everyone knows that the NK will be defeated one way or the other, it doesn't even really matter at this point how, since the show has been pretty poorly plotted for several seasons, the NK and WW are there for shock value and a big CGI battle.  Bran may turn out to be the deus ex machina reason why they are defeated, in which case, would be why I guess they kept him around, to stay true to the largest elements of the end that GRRM gave them.

[Rose of Red Lake]

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

On the show, the NK and the WW are just not that interesting, there is no opportunity as there would be in the books to delve into their mythology or their back story.  Everyone knows that the NK will be defeated one way or the other, it doesn't even really matter at this point how, since the show has been pretty poorly plotted for several seasons, the NK and WW are there for shock value and a big CGI battle.  Bran may turn out to be the deus ex machina reason why they are defeated, in which case, would be why I guess they kept him around, to stay true to the largest elements of the end that GRRM gave them.

Agree, they are so BORING!

I think the books could fall into this trap too because it "big bad" magical evil force to be defeated is pretty stock fantasy tropes, IMO. 

The series blends fantasy and historical fiction so I can't wait for the season to turn back to human drama which makes it worth watching IMO.