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[Spoilers] Episode 803 Discussion


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9 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

The Stallion that Mounts the World is going to conquer Westeros any day now... After all, it was prophecied.

profecies made by people that actually have the gift of profecy. They all come true...

9 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

The prince who was promised prophecy has always been much vaguer in the show than the books. Even so, I doubt we'll ever be getting an answer in either medium about who exactly it is and their intended role.  If their intended role is made clear, maybe it's to unify most of  humanity against the White Walkers. And many characters in the books fit the description of a potential prince... on purpose, I argue, because the point is going to be that there's nobody who exactly fits this prophecy. And nobody, at the least, is actually going to be revealed to be Azor Azai and get a magical sword after killing their lover.

In both mediums it has been pretty clear that AA will defeat the darkness. Basically stopping the long night is the objective of AA… And I think you are completly wrong. At least we will have several people that will be crucial to defeat the others and therefore AA should be a group of people.

Writing a profecy, focusing on the profecy for years and then ignore the profecy completly in order to surprise the audience is one of the worst ideas I can imagine. It is reaaly bad writting. There is no other way to describe it

9 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I agree that I wish Jon, Dany, and especially Bran had done more in the battle. Bran especially; his role in the plot needs to be justified more than Dany and Jon, who have already done important things, like gathered allies for the battle, discovered how to kill white walkers, secured obsidian for their army, used dragons, etc... They will also have important things to do in the political endgame of the show, with Jon being the heir to the throne, Dany wanting to take it, etc...

Where I really disagree with you is that a character's arc has no point if they don't have some climactic battle with their enemy. Sure, this is a way of resolving a character's arc; deaths in fiction can be satisfying and cathartic when they are killed by someone who they've wronged or had many interactions with before. In ASoIaF, the Tickler and Arya comes to mind, as does Tywin and Tyrion. But, fiction is a varied thing, and GRRM for one has recognized quite correctly that it quickly gets boring if all deaths can be seen from twenty miles away, like a checklist. And so, Drogo is killed by a wound he gets anonymously in the battle and turned into a lifeless zombie by a witch we met a chapter earlier; Joffrey is killed by Olenna Tyrell, not Tyrion or Sansa, whom he spent two books tormenting. You might as well ask what was the point of all the scenes of Joffrey torturing Sansa if she doesn't get to kill him or have a sword fight with him. 

The problem is that you can t build suspense and tension for years and then don t deliver a fitting conclusion. It just serves to frustate people. Even if I ignore the ptwp profecy danny, jon and bran have been build for years to have important roles in this battle. So even if arya gave the last hit each of them should have had their moment when they damage the NK and it is their combined efforts that puts him in a position to be killed by arya. I could support this.

However neither of these characters did anything noteworthy in this battle. And mainly for jon and bran it ruined their story. They have been preparing for this for years and they do noting! It is all resolved by a character that was arrogantly wanting to meet the ww last ep and then kills the baddest ww… It is awful writting and build up!

And even if you say jon has ties to the IT. The thing is that the r+l=j was so poorly handled that jon has no motivations or objectives for this next conflict besides helping danny get her throne. He has no invested interest in KL… All his focus has been with the others.

9 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Similarly, there's no reason why Arya's arc needs to be exclusively about king's landing assassinations; it in fact became clearly not completely about that last season, when she chose to abandon her quest for vengeance to return home and be with her family. And from a narrative standpoint, it makes complete sense that the Night King would avoid fighting Jon, whom he's seen kill a  white walker, but not be on the lookout for a sneaky assassin. But again, the execution left something to be desired.  

The problem is that there is no build up between arya and the ww besides her arrogance that she can t wait to meet them. Even if she killed the NK she shouldn t be one of the major characters in this battle. They should have given their moments to bran, jon, danny, the dragons… Even Jamie deserved his  moment more than arya given that he left his sister for this fight. 

The episde doesn t come off as subverting expectations. The most I take from the episode is that it fails to deliver to all the tensions and stories that the series has created for years. I mean, nobody fought against the ww, the NK never did anything else besides raising the dead, all the characters did all ep was kill nameless wights… the surviving characters didn t have epic fights, nobody killed viserion… Besides it didn t answer any of the questions about the ww (why are they attacking now? what have they been doing? How did the NK turn against the cotf? why is he attacking humanity? etc...)

Edited by divica
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29 minutes ago, divica said:

profecies made by people that actually have the gift of profecy. They all come true...

 

No, I think you miss the whole point.

GRRM has made it quite clear all along that ASOIAF is not a generic fantasy about a prophecy and a hero who saves the day.  

However, one of the main themes throughout (and back to events prior to the start of the first book) is how various people, who (mistakenly) do believe in prophecies, act, and the consequences of those actions.  

It would have been a complete cop out and gone against everything GRRM has written if it all came down to Jon and/or Dany being the magical PTWP/Azor Ahai, exactly as per the prophecies, and saved the day.   Instead, they proved no different to anyone else and, in fact, never even had the chance.  

Prophecies never come true*.....


* although some may convince themselves they have, or manipulate events to give the appearance they have.



 

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On 4/30/2019 at 1:12 AM, Tygett Lannister said:

Apparently fighting with a staff while blind of a few months makes you most trained fighters in the show. Unlike half the characters that trained fighting for their entire life. 

Nothing awesome about Arya, unless you think murdering people and baking them into pies is awesome. 

Exactly.... Arya is more magical then all the dragons and ice necromants together.  I have seen Disney movies with more sense in it than this shit.  Anyway I would say this EPISODE 3 is the same disaster what was The last Jedi for SW.

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4 minutes ago, Essan said:

No, I think you miss the whole point.

GRRM has made it quite clear all along that ASOIAF is not a generic fantasy about a prophecy and a hero who saves the day.  

However, one of the main themes throughout (and back to events prior to the start of the first book) is how various people, who (mistakenly) do believe in prophecies, act, and the consequences of those actions.  

It would have been a complete cop out and gone against everything GRRM has written if it all came down to Jon and/or Dany being the magical PTWP/Azor Ahai, exactly as per the prophecies, and saved the day.   Instead, they proved no different to anyone else and, in fact, never even had the chance.  

Prophecies never come true*.....


* although some may convince themselves they have, or manipulate events to give the appearance they have.



 

Come on… Don t you know why the targs leaft valyria? the duncan and egg profecies that have come true? The valoncar profecy? The house of the undying profecies that some of the events have already come true?

It is a theme in asoiaf that true profecies always come true. The problem is that they dont  come true in ways that people expect.

Writing a story full of prophecies and they always being false would be an awfull story...

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1 minute ago, divica said:

Come on… Don t you know why the targs leaft valyria? the duncan and egg profecies that have come true? The valoncar profecy? The house of the undying profecies that some of the events have already come true?

It is a theme in asoiaf that true profecies always come true. The problem is that they dont  come true in ways that people expect.

Writing a story full of prophecies and they always being false would be an awfull story...

All subject to interpretation - as is the case in the real world. 

As I said, people may convince themselves that a prophecy has come true.   But doesn't mean it has.   

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2 minutes ago, Essan said:

All subject to interpretation - as is the case in the real world. 

As I said, people may convince themselves that a prophecy has come true.   But doesn't mean it has.   

If the events in the profecy happened then the profecy has come true… 

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2 minutes ago, divica said:

If the events in the profecy happened then the profecy has come true… 

Then some of Nostradamus's prophecies have come true numerous times ;)  

But that's the thing with prophecies - they don;t say person A will do this exact thing and the consequence will be B; they are nebulous, open to interpretation.   And when an event happens some argue that it's a fulfillment of the prophecy.  Until another event occurs that also seems to fit it.   Hence all the discussion/argument here on what those in the books actually mean.  

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1 minute ago, Essan said:

Then some of Nostradamus's prophecies have come true numerous times ;)  

But that's the thing with prophecies - they don;t say person A will do this exact thing and the consequence will be B; they are nebulous, open to interpretation.   And when an event happens some argue that it's a fulfillment of the prophecy.  Until another event occurs that also seems to fit it.   Hence all the discussion/argument here on what those in the books actually mean.  

ok.

If you prefer then. There must be events that can be interpreted as fulfiling the profecies. Therefore when you look back you must be able to say these characters did this so they may be AA/ptwp...

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3 minutes ago, divica said:

ok.

If you prefer then. There must be events that can be interpreted as fulfiling the profecies. Therefore when you look back you must be able to say these characters did this so they may be AA/ptwp...

In the books I am expecting several characters to do things that suggest they may have been AA/PTWP - and maybe at least one to be declared as such.   Not including Stannis.    But there won't be one single person who alone, and very obviously,  saves the world/ends the night as the prophecies suggest.    What is more important is how those who believe in the prophecies act beforehand, to (perhaps inadvertently) get all the right people into the right places so that they can play their individual small roles.  

 

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On 4/29/2019 at 8:15 PM, Nihiloth90 said:

Besides that the episode was so dark and difficult to see things, the divergence from the battles into that long Arya side plot, dodging zombies and meeting up with the Hound and Beric, was probably one of the dumbest things I've seen in this show. How she defeated the Night King was just hilariously bad. Arya jumps out of nowhere, Night King is easily defeated by dragon glass. You'd think he might have some kind of immunity to it, at least. Whole thing was a letdown.


Many of the final scenes also made no sense to me. I don't know if I can explain why, but the dragons ruined this whole episode for me; Jon and Daenerys riding the dragons and doing aerial battles--I don't know why, but it was just stupid. Then, Jon and Daenerys get knocked from their dragons; Daenerys is alone and so they are able to shoehorn that Jorah moment in. Why would Drogon take so long to get back to Daenerys? It would take too long to write a list about all the things wrong with this episode, but everything felt rushed and shoehorned in.
 

Yes, I agree it was way too dark.  Also they should have shown what Arya was up to before her ninja kill shot, how she got into position.  And sending 20,000 (?) Dothraki on a solo suicide charge was beyond stupid.  (Why didn't Dany & Jon go burn some undead first?)  So on the surface the episode basically sucked.

Also about Jorah, didn't he ride out with the Dothraki?  They all died, but he came back to save his Khaleesi?

However I still refuse to believe that D&D are that incompetent to so badly blow the ending of the Great War, or that GRRM wrote such a lame ending.  There MUST be a big twist coming.  It couldn't have ended like that.  Bran and the Night King are somehow colluding and planning something.  

Edited by A Bong of Ice and Fire
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13 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

The prince who was promised prophecy has always been much vaguer in the show than the books. Even so, I doubt we'll ever be getting an answer in either medium about who exactly it is and their intended role.  If their intended role is made clear, maybe it's to unify most of  humanity against the White Walkers. And many characters in the books fit the description of a potential prince... on purpose, I argue, because the point is going to be that there's nobody who exactly fits this prophecy. And nobody, at the least, is actually going to be revealed to be Azor Azai and get a magical sword after killing their lover.

 

I posted something to this in the thread History was made.  

To the best of my knowledge this was the first time someone from all corners of Planetos were in one spot and united to face a common enemy.  You had someone from 6 out of the 7 Kingdoms (really Riverlands), North of the Wall, Essos, Sothryos, and beyond.  They were all brought together by Dany and Jon.

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A few questions and a thought. Not sure if this was discussed before, but because most of the houses in Westeros follow patriarchal succession, how many male heirs are left in the major houses? It seemed to be an underlying theme in the books that when this was all over, the political landscape was going to be drastically different.

  • Jaime Lannister (but who knows what his standing is in his family at this point)
  • Edmure Tully (as soon as someone lets him out of his prison cell)
  • Robin Arryn (not sure we'll see him again in the show)
  • Bran Stark (he's not going to lead House Stark going forward, assuming he survives until the end of the show)

Anyone else?

Also, where is Bronn? I get that story-wise it made no sense for him to show up during the big battle, but when do we see him again?

And the thought: Does Jaime add Queenslayer to his list of names?

 

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12 hours ago, A_S said:

Didn't find a discussion about this, but I didn't get what the zombies were doing in the library with Arya? Were they some dead librarians come to life or what the hell? Every other zombie was going around killing people and they were just there walking around and putting books on shelves?

To me it almost seemed like they were searching for something.  Maybe the books/scrolls that Sam tool from the Citadel.  That’s how I saw it, I could be wrong.

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2 minutes ago, TheValonqarThatWasAzorAhai said:

To me it almost seemed like they were searching for something.  Maybe the books/scrolls that Sam tool from the Citadel.  That’s how I saw it, I could be wrong.

I didn't really get the impression the zombies were book-larnin' sorts.

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8 minutes ago, TheValonqarThatWasAzorAhai said:

To me it almost seemed like they were searching for something.  Maybe the books/scrolls that Sam tool from the Citadel.  That’s how I saw it, I could be wrong.

Desperately searching for Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, alas doomed never to find them. 

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33 minutes ago, Ser Sinister said:

A few questions and a thought. Not sure if this was discussed before, but because most of the houses in Westeros follow patriarchal succession, how many male heirs are left in the major houses? It seemed to be an underlying theme in the books that when this was all over, the political landscape was going to be drastically different.

  • Jaime Lannister (but who knows what his standing is in his family at this point)
  • Edmure Tully (as soon as someone lets him out of his prison cell)
  • Robin Arryn (not sure we'll see him again in the show)
  • Bran Stark (he's not going to lead House Stark going forward, assuming he survives until the end of the show)

Anyone else?

Also, where is Bronn? I get that story-wise it made no sense for him to show up during the big battle, but when do we see him again?

And the thought: Does Jaime add Queenslayer to his list of names?

 

Tyrion will get Casterly Rock as a gratifying final Fuck You to Tywin.

Gendry is highly likely to get legitimized as a Baratheon

eliminating The Wall, the Night's Watch, House Tyrell, and Randyll & Dickon Tarly clears Sam's path to be Lord Tarly of Horn Hill and Warden Of The South

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24 minutes ago, Frances Bean Corbray said:

Tyrion will get Casterly Rock as a gratifying final Fuck You to Tywin.

Gendry is highly likely to get legitimized as a Baratheon

eliminating The Wall, the Night's Watch, House Tyrell, and Randyll & Dickon Tarly clears Sam's path to be Lord Tarly of Horn Hill and Warden Of The South

Yes, Gendry will get Storm's End, the Baratheon seat, and Samwell Horn Hill. I don't think Sam will want to be a Warden, preferring to secrete himself away in the Citadel. Jamie could be Warden of the South if he survives; otherwise, Brienne. It would be 'poetic' if Tormund were given Bear Island. Bronn can have his choice of two castles going spare (of which there will be many - The Twins, for example).

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I've seen it suggested elsewhere online that Jon was aware of Arya trying to also get past the zombie dragon and he was trying to distract it. He is shouting " Go!" When he confronts it and the next shot is the draft of Arya sprinting past the White Walker.

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1 hour ago, King Roberts beard said:

I've seen it suggested elsewhere online that Jon was aware of Arya trying to also get past the zombie dragon and he was trying to distract it. He is shouting " Go!" When he confronts it and the next shot is the draft of Arya sprinting past the White Walker.

I have seen people suggest that but all I saw on screen was Jon practicing his thu'um.

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