Rant and Rave Without Repercussion End of The World Edition [Spoilers]

[darmody]

1 hour ago, Nami said:

I just have one question please:

 

 

 

where did Arya come from?

The sky. 

[darmody]

1 hour ago, One-Eyed Raven said:

I'm most disappointed there was no "hit the brakes, he'll fly right by" reference in the air dragon sequence.

Because that's about where we've ended up. Straight cheese. I'm dumbfounded the NK and his army are just gone, poof, like checking a box on a list.

I actually enjoyed the fact that Danny and Jon crashed into eachother. It's like a metaphor for their romance, or something. 

Wait, that happened, right? I think so, though I couldn't see much and can't remember everything. 

[Snormund]

I don’t even...

 

So much bizarreness. Look, I enjoyed the episode...it was entertaining. But there were just an insane amount of things that made little to no sense.  Before I complain, I’ll just say I was so glad to see my beloved Carice Van Houten, unfortunately for the final time as Melisandre. And I’m really glad that they finally let her show her fire powers, but I’m still miffed we didn’t see her directly fight (more on this). 

 

Problems with the episode:

 

•Why the hell is anyone outside of the castle (besides Bran and his contingent baiting the NK)? That’s just terrible strategy. What did they think would happen? Maybe they couldn’t all fit inside the walls, but I really don’t think that was the case. 

•I feel like Bran should have had significantly more men protecting him. 

•Nice to see Ghost once more, but what the hell does he think he’s going to do against the dead? Do they make valerian rims for canines in Westeros now?

•Why the fuck is Jon on Rhaegal and not with Ghost and his fellow fighters? So much for that spirit bond he has with Ghost amirite. 

•Melisandre shows up and we finally see that she is, in fact, gifted with fire powers. For some reason, Mel decides only one contingent of the vast army needs her help and goes off to play solitaire on her phone. I’m guessing Mel doesn’t have the strength to light EVERYONE’s weapons, but it’s really hard to say for sure with this show. 

•Our heroes are getting overwhelmed and have to retreat, to the surprise of absolutely no one sane, which apparently doesn’t include anyone in the show.  Somehow everyone gets back in around the trenches but none of the dead do. Whatever. Mel, frustrated with the poor WiFi in Winterfell, decides to come back out and help again. After a lot of trouble (because she’s scared? Lost faith? Who knows) Mel lights the trenches and temporarily saves the day. Unfortunately, Mel’s fires aren’t all-powerful and the Night King very slowly figures out he can just spam undead into the trench and force a path. Not sure what that was about? Really would have liked to see Mel actually fight, but it seems that she might need time to charge up her attacks?

 

•Sam’s special power is taking siestas in the middle of battles and not dying. Somehow. 

•Arya is kicking ass for a while, and then inexplicably is overcome with fear.  Arya, the stone cold assassin who doesn’t fear death, suddenly decides she does, in fact, fear undead ice zombies and transports herself into a horror movie segment. She’s met by The Hound (who also inexplicably is overcome with fear and fleeing) and Beric (accompanying the Hound for no other discernible reason than moral support), and they run into a big room where Beric dies of wounds sustained in the fight.  Mel reappears, angry that she was disturbed after finally finding a room with good WiFi, but decides to give Arya encouragement, because Arya suddenly needs to be reminded to be brave.  We are set up to believe that Arya, The Hound and Mel are going to have a stand against a bunch of the NK’s goons, but we never see this. Somehow, Arya escapes out of a super secret passageway and Mel and The Hound later emerge unscathed. Maybe Mel flashed her tits at the wights and distracted them. It’d make as much sense as anything else. Very miffed I didn’t get to see Mel incinerate some of the wights and/or white walkers in a showdown with Arya and the Hound giving her cover. 

 

•Somehow a giant throng of undead have trouble with individual fighters. Apparently when Melisandre resurrected Jon she also gave him plot armor. Unfortunately for Theon and Jorah, their plot armor eventually expired. I realize a lot of this is because D+D have decided the plot demands it. 

•Bran. What the actual fuck was he doing the whole episode? Watching sitcoms on the Three-Eyed Raven network? 

•After Drogon saves Jon from being overwhelmed by wights, he screams “Bran!” and runs back to the castle instead of to the godswood. Wat. 

•It’s established that Jorah is fighting in Winterfell but somehow he develops spidey sense and arrives in the nick of time to defend Dany. 

•Apparently the undead Dragon just waits around for Jon to show up before trying to kill him instead of doggedly pursuing him. I guess it had other things it was destroying, but it seems like it did a rather low amount of damage all things considered. 

•Arya is somehow able to just sneak past all the wights and white walkers and surprise the Night King himself.  Meanwhile when Jon snuck up on him earlier he easily noticed. Just...I can’t even. I’m glad the army of the dead is defeated but Jesus, that was hardly believable. 

•Mel feels that her purpose is fulfilled (I guess?) and decides to atone for her sins by committing suicide. She does this by removing her necklace which suddenly was actually keeping her alive even though we’ve seen her young without it in season 4 and seen her old but still able to survive without it in season 6. Apparently, Mel just decides what the necklace does, which kinda ruins the point of the necklace in the first place.  I’m assuming she knew how much time she had left without the necklace, somehow, but it wasn’t explained, so who knows?  Very sad that CVH will no longer be on the show, as she gave a brilliant portrayal of a fascinating character. 

 

There’s probably more I’m forgetting but that’s it for now. There was plenty I liked about the episode too, but there were just so many errors. 

[darmody]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Did anything ever make sense with Mel in the show? I found that not so bad. Her job is done, she is some old crone masquerading as a hot lady for no reason that was ever established and she has deserved her rest.

Have to say I very much liked the fire/ice symbolism in that episode, despite myself. And the lighting. But nothing else. And I feel, well, confident that George is also going to fuck very hard with the dragons and their riders by giving them the mother of all blizzards. That's going to be fun.

They already did. Last episode. Do you think you would ever get more explanation than that. And didn't you see how how Bran and the Lich King's face were telling the entire story? What other explanation could you want or need? JUST LOOK AT THE FACE! Where is @The Dragon Demands when you need him.

Never was the "look at the face" method of storytelling more on display. This episode was basically a silent movie. I was startled when characters spoke. 

[darmody]

1 hour ago, Nami said:

One thing that bothered the fuck outta me was the lack of a commander on the battlefield. how is this even possible?

D&D don't know how medieval battles worked? I mean, jfc, Jon should have been there. But for some reason everyone knew what to do, and in order too. First the dothraki, then trebuchet, then unsullied...

To be fair, there were only two qualified dragonriders, Jon being one of them. Gods know what his purpose was, because he didn't really do anything except grapple with the zombie dragon a bit. Danny did all the burning. For a long while he was just perched on Winterfell.

There were commanders on the field:

Brienne, who had no experience;

Greyworm, who went scaredy cat;

Jorah, who led 100,000 men to instant death; 

Tormund, who is the only Wildling with a personality; 

Ed, former Lord Commander of the defunct Night's Watch; 

Davos, who told Arya when to shoot; 

and Lady Bear, who commanded 10 Okay Men. 

I agree there should have been a Commander-in-Chief outside the walls. But who?Bronzey? 

[LucyMormont]

This episode was a total disappointment. They are not even trying, NOTHING MAKES SENSE. 70 episodes of construction, for THIS??? Jon's arc? What happened to Jon's arc? I don't know what it was and what it is now.  Bran's one? Even less. All the building up of the 3ER since the first season, all the training, just to have him sit there and be of no use. "When they come, you'll be ready" said Benjen to him. Ready for WHAT? What has he done actually? Oh, yes, I forgot, he gave Arya the dagger to kill the NK. Did he need that much training and warging and greenseeing for that? 
The battle was the worst of all battles in this show. Whose idea was that cavalry charge? They managed to make a moron even from Ghost, who was always the most intelligent of all the direwolves. And now here he was, charging to the dark like an authentic idiot.
Some things were so stupid that were actually hilarious. I get it, they tried to make us "feel" what the characters were experiencing, they couldn't see a thing, so we couldn't either. That was the idea? I feel sorry for the poor actors and crew and extras that commented on how hard were the 52 days filming at night, with all the mud and everything. So much suffering for this ... it's really sad.
I began laughing histerically with the dragon crash in the blizzard, and then again when a frustrated Jon stood tall in front of Viserion, WTH was he going to do? Yell at him "LET ME PASS!!"?  But praised be the old gods and the new, and everlasting gratitude to R'allor, because he made that the NK forgot to tell Viserion to keep an eye on Arya. Also because R'allor, in his immense wisdom, brought Berick back  countless times, because he would be needed to save Arya! Too bad that Ayra needs saving, or not, at the whim of people who have no idea what they are doing, they could have saved some cast money by simply making Arya invisible to the dead a while before, why wait until the Godswood scene?
And Sansa, WTF... at least they could have written her trying to comfort the people down there, and avoid that questioning of "your dragon queen" in that moment, when at least the dragon queen was actually fighting the dead (not very succesfully, but trying) and she was hidden down there. 

I can confidently predict a worse ending than Lost, they already managed to ruin a show that should have been great. Only 3 more ep to go, and then we can forget this forever. 
And to paraphrase a character, if I ever think of watching a show in which one of the Ds has something to do, please punch me in the face.

 

[darmody]

2 hours ago, Lord Godric said:

As someone said in another thread, yeah how many medieval battles against zombies do you know didn't have a battlefield commander?!

Do battles against zombies call for less or more leadership? 

[Snormund]

Sorry for the very large font I copied and pasted it. Anyone know how to fix?

[darmody]

1 hour ago, Ras1983 said:

It's funny you mention that. One of the things that makes LoTR (books and movies) great is the belief that the villains might actually be powerful enough to defeat the heroes.

Granted, the undead army in LoTR was deus ex machina. But Frodo's struggle to destroy the ring after the Lich King was defeated really made the audience feel how much Frodo and Sam had to sacrifice to get there in the end. The viewer actually thought that Frodo could repeat Isildur's error and walk out of Mt Doom with his ring, leading to the whole cycle beginning again.

The problem with how the Night King was handled in the TV series is, despite the long build up of his powers and how big a threat he is, his army was defeated in a single battle, in a single episode, by a seeming oversight (always have someone watching your back!) 

He had like 11 nearly-invincibile monsters watching his back. 

In Return of the King, as I recall, Frodo actually did fail. The ring only went into the fire because Gollum bit his finger off. 

[darmody]

1 hour ago, darksellsword said:

I have more than a few gripes about this episode but I will stick to the most original, did anyone else have a problem with the white walkers not fighting anyone? weren't there supposed to be at least 97 of them left? They all acted as bodyguards in the end for the Nightking? I was under the impression that the Valyrian steel swords were there specifically to fight them and their weapons that can shatter conventional swords

I did have a problem. Considering there were only three people in the castle, plus Jorah and Jon outside, with magical steel, the Night King didn't even need an army. They might have been able to take the castle themselves. 

Then I realized the Night King doesn't care about his army, and he got fresh corpses. If Bran was so dang important, why not save the White Walker Bodyguard Corps for the final push. 

But then they let Arya the Flying Squirrel past them. 

One problem I did have is why wasn't Reek given Valyrian Steel? It was the plan to have him defend Bran to the last man. Did they not figure maybe a White Walker might show up before the Night King himself? Or that Theon might could fight the Night King?

Oh, no. I guess it's better for Jorah and Jaime and Brienne and Jon to possess them completely out of position. 

[Philokles]

GRRM: These petty political machinations are a distraction from the real issue - an existential threat facing mankind.

D&D: This existential threat facing manking is a distraction from the real issue - petty political machinations.

 

Calling the whole series Game of Thrones is a bit of a giveaway that they’ve got the cart before the horse in retrospect.

[darmody]

53 minutes ago, Snormund said:

I don’t even...

 

So much bizarreness. Look, I enjoyed the episode...it was entertaining. But there were just an insane amount of things that made little to no sense.  Before I complain, I’ll just say I was so glad to see my beloved Carice Van Houten, unfortunately for the final time as Melisandre. And I’m really glad that they finally let her show her fire powers, but I’m still miffed we didn’t see her directly fight (more on this). 

 

Problems with the episode:

 

•Why the hell is anyone outside of the castle (besides Bran and his contingent baiting the NK)? That’s just terrible strategy. What did they think would happen? Maybe they couldn’t all fit inside the walls, but I really don’t think that was the case. 

•I feel like Bran should have had significantly more men protecting him. 

•Nice to see Ghost once more, but what the hell does he think he’s going to do against the dead? Do they make valerian rims for canines in Westeros now?

•Why the fuck is Jon on Rhaegal and not with Ghost and his fellow fighters? So much for that spirit bond he has with Ghost amirite. 

•Melisandre shows up and we finally see that she is, in fact, gifted with fire powers. For some reason, Mel decides only one contingent of the vast army needs her help and goes off to play solitaire on her phone. I’m guessing Mel doesn’t have the strength to light EVERYONE’s weapons, but it’s really hard to say for sure with this show. 

•Our heroes are getting overwhelmed and have to retreat, to the surprise of absolutely no one sane, which apparently doesn’t include anyone in the show.  Somehow everyone gets back in around the trenches but none of the dead do. Whatever. Mel, frustrated with the poor WiFi in Winterfell, decides to come back out and help again. After a lot of trouble (because she’s scared? Lost faith? Who knows) Mel lights the trenches and temporarily saves the day. Unfortunately, Mel’s fires aren’t all-powerful and the Night King very slowly figures out he can just spam undead into the trench and force a path. Not sure what that was about? Really would have liked to see Mel actually fight, but it seems that she might need time to charge up her attacks?

 

•Sam’s special power is taking siestas in the middle of battles and not dying. Somehow. 

•Arya is kicking ass for a while, and then inexplicably is overcome with fear.  Arya, the stone cold assassin who doesn’t fear death, suddenly decides she does, in fact, fear undead ice zombies and transports herself into a horror movie segment. She’s met by The Hound (who also inexplicably is overcome with fear and fleeing) and Beric (accompanying the Hound for no other discernible reason than moral support), and they flew into a big room where Beric dies of wounds sustained in the fight.  Mel reappears, angry that she was disturbed after finally finding a room with good WiFi, but decides to give Arya encouragement, because Arya suddenly needs to be reminded to be brave.  We are set up to believe that Arya, The Hound and Mel are going to have a stand against a bunch of the NK’s goons, but we never see this. Somehow, Arya escapes out of a super secret passageway and Mel and The Hound later emerge unscathed. Maybe Mel flashed her tits at the wights and distracted them. It’d make as much sense as anything else. Very miffed I didn’t get to see Mel incinerate some of the wights and/or white walkers in a showdown with Arya and the Hound giving her cover. 

 

•Somehow a giant throng of undead have trouble with individual fighters. Apparently when Melisandre resurrected Jon she also gave him plot armor. Unfortunately for Theon and Jorah, their plot armor eventually expired. I realize a lot of this is plot driven. 

•Bran. What the actual fuck was he doing the whole episode? Watching sitcoms on the Three-Eyed Raven network? 

•After Drogon saves Jon from being overwhelmed by wights, he screams “Bran!” and runs back to the castle instead of to the godswood. Wat. 

•It’s established that Jorah is fighting in Winterfell but somehow he develops spidey sense and arrives in the nick of time to defend Dany. 

•Apparently the undead Dragon just waits around for Jon to show up before trying to kill him instead of doggedly pursuing him. I guess it had other things it was destroying, but it seems like it did a rather low amount of damage all things considered. 

•Arya is somehow able to just sneak past all the wights and white walkers and surprise the Night King himself.  Meanwhile when Jon snuck up on him earlier he easily noticed. Just...I can’t even. I’m glad the army of the dead is defeated but Jesus, that was hardly believable. 

•Mel decides her purpose is fulfilled (I guess?) and decide to atone for her sins by committing suicide. She does this by removing her necklace which suddenly was actually keeping her alive even though we’ve seen her young without it in season 4 and seen her old but still able to survive without it in season 6. Apparently, Mel just decides what the necklace does, which kinda ruins the point of the necklace in the first place.  I’m assuming she knew how much time she had left without the necklace, somehow, but it wasn’t explained, so who knows?  Very sad that CVH will no longer be on the show, as she gave a brilliant portrayal of a fascinating character. 

 

There’s probably more I’m forgetting but that’s it for now. There was plenty I liked about the episode too, but there were just so many errors. 

Just a couple points: it's well-established the Hound fears fire, and Jorah didn't need spidey-senses to know Danny was in trouble if he saw Drogo struggling. And that dragon is rather conspicuous. 

[Butterwell]

12 minutes ago, darmody said:

... 

One problem I did have is why wasn't Reek given Valyrian Steel? It was the plan to have him defend Bran to the last man. Did they not figure maybe a White Walker might show up before the Night King himself? Or that Theon might could fight the Night King?

...

I didn’t even think of that. Theon taking out the NK and dying would’ve been more emotional, at least for me.

[Snormund]

1 minute ago, darmody said:

Just a couple points: it's well-established the Hound fears fire, and Jorah didn't need spidey-senses to know Danny was in trouble if he saw Drogo struggling. And that dragon is rather conspicuous. 

I’m very aware of his pyrophobia. I thought he had largely gotten past that though? I didn’t expect it to crop up again at least. 

 

As for Jorah, yeah he could have seen that, but that still would leave the question of how he got there unscathed and so quickly. 

[shameeka]

11 minutes ago, Philokles said:

GRRM: These petty political machinations are a distraction from the real issue - an existential threat facing mankind.

D&D: This existential threat facing manking is a distraction from the real issue - petty political machinations.

 

Calling the whole series Game of Thrones is a bit of a giveaway that they’ve got the cart before the horse in retrospect.

And they are not even doing a good job with the political stuff.

[divica]

18 minutes ago, darmody said:

Just a couple points: it's well-established the Hound fears fire, and Jorah didn't need spidey-senses to know Danny was in trouble if he saw Drogo struggling. And that dragon is rather conspicuous. 

He didn t see. He heard a dragon and within minutes arrived at the scene... 

[Trigger Warning]

23 minutes ago, Philokles said:

GRRM: These petty political machinations are a distraction from the real issue - an existential threat facing mankind.

D&D: This existential threat facing manking is a distraction from the real issue - petty political machinations.

 

Calling the whole series Game of Thrones is a bit of a giveaway that they’ve got the cart before the horse in retrospect.

 

And the funniest thing about this is that the political machinations no longer really even exist, Cersei has no right to the throne and the nobility of Westeros has basically vanished, all nuance is gone. She's the queen with a zombie bodyguard and an army of sellswords that are extra special, that's basically it. 

[The Bear Who Knocks]

Yare yare Daze, still amazed that this happened.

[divica]

1 minute ago, Trigger Warning said:

 

And the funniest thing about this is that the political machinations no longer really even exist, Cersei has no right to the throne and the nobility of Westeros has basically vanished, all nuance is gone. She's the queen with a zombie bodyguard and an army of sellswords that are extra special, that's basically it. 

More than that. Just because she sits on the IT doesn t make her queen. Some people in the other kingdoms have to recognize her and obey her rules. 

Who in the north, vale, Riverlands, reach, dorne or the stormlands thinks of Cersei as their queen? She is just an idiot that controls kl

[Neddy's Girl]

The more I read (these discussions), the more sure I am that the show is not spoiling the novels for me