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


Lady Fevre Dream

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50 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Who cares about prophecy? This show never did. In fact, all they like to do is unexpected twists and turns there was no buildup for until 1-2 episodes before it did happen. Even early on, a thing like the Red Wedding did come as a pretty big surprise rather than being something that hangs ominously in the air.

The Red Wedding I will credit them for. I am not a book-reader, but I understood from moment one that Robb's decision to break his vow and marry a non-Frey would have dark consequences. 

It hung over his head, especially because he was happy in his marriage despite being unhappy in war. Happy people die. Unless they're Hot Pie. 

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9 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That idea would be a lot worse, actually, because there is no reason whatsoever that two people killing each other/either of them is going to kill a third person.

It would be interesting if Daenerys tried to kill Jon with dragonfire, only for him to come out unscathed with lightbringer in his hand. It would be a good ending for their relationship with major consequences all around. Especially if that attempt killed Jaime and another major character like Sam in the same action.

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6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That idea would be a lot worse, actually, because there is no reason whatsoever that two people killing each other/either of them is going to kill a third person.

That's what screenwriters are for. Coming up with reasons for stuff. For instance, Thanos had to kill his adopted daughter to get a stone because some dude told him to. Then he used the stone to kill half the universe. Boom. 

I could cook you up a better reason than Arya kills him because, "Look, it happened somehow. Shut up."

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The battle was horrible as usual. I wish they had used experts to guide them into filming a plausible battle. None of it made sense or was logical.

The episode really dragged toward the end with the piano music. That was at least 10 wasted minutes.  It's like if they were trying to created memorable, heroic death scenes like Boromir in LOTR, but none of it felt earned.

 

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4 minutes ago, longest night said:

It would be interesting if Daenerys tried to kill Jon with dragonfire, only for him to come out unscathed with lightbringer in his hand. It would be a good ending for their relationship with major consequences all around. Especially if that attempt killed Jaime and another major character like Sam in the same action.

Well, this kind of thing indicates what you would like to happen but it has nothing to do with either books or show or how (trying to) kill people helps to get other people killed.

See, a lot of people are obsessed at interpreting those unclear and incomplete prophecies George gave us to determine who is meant by those prophecies when in fact nobody ever told us what the promised prince was actually supposed to do.

There is really no reason to pretend we do know what his or her destiny is. And even if we had an inclination then this would most definitely the part where the prophecy is going to fuck with you. If, for instance, we ever heard a character in the books prophesy that the promised prince will defeat the Others, etc. then chances are pretty high that this is not going to be the thing he or she is destined for.

6 minutes ago, darmody said:

That's what screenwriters are for. Coming up with reasons for stuff. For instance, Thanos had to kill his adopted daughter to get a stone because some dude told him to. Then he used the stone to kill half the universe. Boom. 

I could cook you up a better reason than Arya kills him because, "Look, it happened somehow. Shut up."

But honestly - what did you want? In the show there is no prophecy nonsense. And the Lich King creature was a Terminator-like guy you had to outmaneuver or surprise to defeat.

13 minutes ago, darmody said:

The Red Wedding I will credit them for. I am not a book-reader, but I understood from moment one that Robb's decision to break his vow and marry a non-Frey would have dark consequences. 

It hung over his head, especially because he was happy in his marriage despite being unhappy in war. Happy people die. Unless they're Hot Pie. 

Oh, yes, throughout the season one could guess that this would come back to haunt him, but the actual buildup of the Red Wedding, the sense of hopelessness and defeat that settles on both Robb and Catelyn, the entire situation and feeling at the Twins, the various strong clues that Robb would die, etc. this was all gone. They play it overall pretty cheery until the sudden twist whereas a more accurate depiction would have been to have this sense of foreboding the entire time, the viewer realizing that this is a trap, shouting 'GET OUT OF THERE!'.

But the show strictly follows the routine of giving us cheap twists that come either completely unexpected or are only introduced 1-2 episodes before.

Sure, outside the twist departments there are also the fake tension scenarios in later seasons which were used after they no longer had material to adapt (like, for instance Sansa/Arya last season). We all could predict that these two would not kill each other.

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1 hour ago, longest night said:

This episode has nothing to do with GRRM. The director says he was inspired by Helm's Deep. He should have taken more lessons from it since it was done so poorly.

Agreed, which is why I wish GRRM had been the one to tell his story, and not D&D.  

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I want to erase this episode from my mind... I'd rather read some fanfictions out there and replace that as the show's ending. I'm sure there are some out there that is good and respects the character arc and many of them will be better than Dumb & Dumber 

Any recommendations?

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Just now, The Dragon Demands said:
  • Avengers Endgame

Watched that this evening. That was a pretty good evening, actually. Really great CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT using FUCKING DIALOGUE and actual ACTING SKILLS.

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What was their actual plan though? Waste their trebuchets, kill their entire Dothraki horde immediately in a suicide pact, lose 80% of their unsullied trying to retreat, and count on a few pointed sticks and two feet of fire as their last defense? Oh wait, I forgot Bran was supposed to be bait, but apparently that doesn't warrant more protection than Theon and 7 other dudes with like 20 arrows. And good thing Melisandre came by, because even though they were the first line of defense apparently no one told the Dothraki that their weapons couldn't actually hurt the bad guys.

Quick, hide the women and children and like one knife in the crypt while we fight off this dude who can literally raise the dead

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I think the 

10 hours ago, Dex drako said:

it comes for juvenile sexist view of what feminism is and a fundamental misunderstanding of how women think. what they're really confusing is hack writers pandering for market shares of a growing empowered female population with real feminist view. but that would take understanding and not blind anger .

this story line is trash because its badly writer and there is no other way to look at it.

I think the issue with mainstream media and femi-nazis is that they think empowering women means getting women to be exactly like men. Make them do everything a man does even if it is stupid. In main stream media an empowered woman must swear a lot, treat others like trash and belittle her subordianates and be snarky.  I believe Empowerment is about being strong - not bold. Bold will only get you into trouble - man or woman.

In ASOIAF books and in some earlier episodes of GOT there are really strong female characters. Catelyn Stark for example. Ofcourse she made some serious mistakes, but when adversity struck, she rose to the occasion and was there for her children. She was not snarky about it. And she saw the reality and knew a woman(or a man) travelling alone is dangerous and took Cassel with her. If it were totally upto D&D, taking a man with her would be seen as a weakness and would have made her to make the journey alone and kill a few bandits along the way.

In my opinion, in the TV series, the the moment Sansa was at her best or strongest point was during the Battle of Blackwater. She was scared, but she hid it and comforted others raised their spirit. She wasn't snarky or bossy, but compassionate and caring.

These writers/directors should understand that being compassionate is NOT a weakness. And being snarky and cruel is not empowerment - its just being an a$$hole.

 

 

 

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The Dothraki visual was great, but having your calvary do a charge of the light brigade as the first option was just stupid.  And where are the Dothraki women and children?  Where are the dosh khaleen?

Where in this ep is the fucking dialogue? Mel shows up, says nothing to the Dothraki dude, Mel and Grey worm exchange a look, no words, then she lights the trench on fire, Arya and Davos are on the wall watching things fall apart, not one fucking word to each other, Arya and the Hound, same no dialogue. This isn't' how people act, not even in the movies.  

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But honestly - what did you want? In the show there is no prophecy nonsense. And the Lich King creature was a Terminator-like guy you had to outmaneuver or surprise to defeat

I wanted his defeat to be plausible, rather than having Arya pop out of nowhere with no explanation, showing off yet more abilities we never saw her develop. 

There were at least six magical characters: Danny (mother of dragons, unburnt), Jon (rose from the dead), Bran (wizard or something), the Red Witch (self-explanatory), Ghost (if you want to count him, and I do), and Beric (rose from the dead like 50 times, flaming sword). Couldn't any one of them had anything to do with it? The only thing magical about Arya was that she had a special dagger. 

(I've always wondered, is Brienne magical? How else to explain her upper-body strength given the complete absence of musculature on her upper body?)

There is prophecy in the show, by the way Melisandre mentions it. 

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5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Mel can't have known that Arya was going to kill the NK at that time, why would she have left her to her own devices instead of trying to protect her?  Mel never even mentioned Arya to Jon, did she?

If the show wasn't going to make the prophecy intelligible, then why include it at all?  Why have all the mumbo jumbo by Mel if it's all BS in the end?  It is one thing to have prophesy wrongly interpreted so there is a 'surprise' in how it plays out, it's another to destroy all of it's meaning.

 

Couldnt have said it better. This prophecy has been playing out since season2. Why all that for nothing? Why was Jon able to be brought back from the dead? 

I still maintain GRRMs version (whether we get one or not) will play out differently. D&D wanted to make it unpredicable - and as always ended up badly written

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Anybody else decide to rewatch the episode today and just say, "fuck it, I'm just gonna enjoy the spectacle and forget all of hints and clues that lead to nothing, and I'm sure as hell gonna pretend I never read the books!"

Cuz from this new perspective, that Arya kill was pretty satisfying lol

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4 minutes ago, Remember said:

Anybody else decide to rewatch the episode today and just say, "fuck it, I'm just gonna enjoy the spectacle and forget all of hints and clues that lead to nothing, and I'm sure as hell gonna pretend I never read the books!"

Cuz from this new perspective, that Arya kill was pretty satisfying lol

Yeah I enjoyed the episode despite all my gripes. Like it's a fun and entertaining episode.

 

2 hours ago, darmody said:

I wanted his defeat to be plausible, rather than having Arya pop out of nowhere with no explanation, showing off yet more abilities we never saw her develop.

I disagree, she had a teacher teach her sword fighting in season one. Then she traveled with the Hound, one of the best fighters in Westeros. After that she trained in Braavos with the Faceless Men. Something people on this forum haven't seem to noticed is I think like 3 or 4 years have elapsed in Westeros. Their seasons last multiple years, this didn't all happen in one year.

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I'd already given up on this show being any good and I continue to watch it only to be in on the continuing conversation about it, so at this point the only thing I have to look forward to is its cinematography. That's why I was actually looking forward to this episode, but man, they even managed to screw that up this time.

1. It was so dark you couldn't see clearly most of the time and there were constant snow-flurries obscuring your view to boot. I'd buy into the notion that this was intentional to convey what an actual battle during a night-time blizzard would be like if it weren't for the fact that Game of Thrones isn't an art-school film but a hit commercial TV show. At least convey how disorienting that would be from the characters' perspectives, rather than the viewers'. What a mess. Like somebody else said, I feel bad for all the effort put in by the cast and crew (50+ nights of filming in sub-zero temperatures, allegedly) - for this!?

2. There were too many moments to count where characters were literally saved by cutscenes. Someone is being overrun by undead, then the show cuts to another scene, and the next time we see the same character they're not only alive but holding their own - before again being overrun and saved by another cut. If this was intended to make us fear for these characters and wonder whether they'd be alive the next time we saw them it didn't work, at least not after third, fourth, fifth, sixth, ..., eighty-seventh, etc. life-saving cutscene. And if this wasn't intentional then it goes without saying that this episode needed to be edited better because it took you completely out of your suspension of disbelief every time it happened.

3. Why in the hell did the episode's genre become suspense when Arya found her way inside? This scene felt like a blatant attempt to appeal to the show's younger gamer audience. What happened to the sound of the battle outside? You couldn't even hear the wind howling from the blizzard. Based on the post-episode behind-the-scene segment with D&D, it was probably to keep the viewers from becoming bored/exhausted from the solid hour of action prior to it. Fair enough, I guess, but maybe the necessity of that is a reason why you shouldn't have rushed yourselves into this everyone-must-band-together-to-defeat-the-Night-King-in-one-epic-final-confrontation corner in the first place.

4. When the cinematography was good, it was ruined by nonsense. The Dothraki just charge blindly into the darkness and, to the surprise of not a single viewer, are utterly defeated by an unseen enemy. Why did this happen? D&D literally tell us after the episode that it was meant to steal away the hope we were given just moments prior when their Arakh's all burst into flame. This might have worked if it weren't completely stupid. The visual of all their flames being extinguished in the distant darkness was plenty ominous, but were we really supposed to believe, even for a second, that their literal blind charge against literal darkness, accompanied by blindly volleyed flaming projectiles into said darkness, would accomplish anything? Were we meant to believe that THEY would believe it would do anything? You can't just inject pretty cinematography into an episode and expect it to mean something to the viewers, D&D. You can't just have things happen in a story because you think they would be neat, they need to make sense, too. But now I'm getting off the topic of cinematography.

5. Please tell me that Beric's crucifix stance while saving Arya and the Hound was just a coincidence.

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24 minutes ago, neutralbhad said:

I disagree, she had a teacher teach her sword fighting in season one. Then she traveled with the Hound, one of the best fighters in Westeros. After that she trained in Braavos with the Faceless Men. Something people on this forum haven't seem to noticed is I think like 3 or 4 years have elapsed in Westeros. Their seasons last multiple years, this didn't all happen in one year.

Nothing she learned from her dancing master, the Hound, or in Baavos had anything to do with getting past thousands of zombies, a bunch of White Walkers, and materializing mid-air directly behind the Night King somehow. You'd think Faceless Men would be good at sneaking up on people, but Arya sucked at creeping last season. Little Finger was better.

 

We saw Arya learn almost none of what she's done since returning to Westeros. What we did see was water dancing, the pointy end, observing the Hound doing stuff, strategy from Tywin maybe, the bo-staff, and blind bo-staffery.

 

What we've seen her do without seeing her learn:

Wearing faces and assuming the forms and idenities of others

Baking

Butchering human meat

Running a castle

Real swordfighting

Knife-throwing

Sneaking past zombies

Sneaking past White Walkers

Superspeed

Invisibility

Levitation

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Just now, neutralbhad said:

Baking, butchering meat...you mean something everyone had to know how to do to survive in the middle ages?

Run a castle? Yeah. She's nobility. That's their job. Even though women's role was usually to be married off in Ice and Fire, the northern lords tended to teach their women stuff if they were capable.

Real sword fighting? What is real sword fighting to you? Are you aware there's many different forms of sword fighting? Also there are multiple episodes where it shows her practicing fighting.

She learned how to wear faces and be stealthy while training with the Faceless Men. I'd also say she learned stealth as the result of being on the run after Ned died. That was the entire point of that plot. They took her eyesight to heighten her senses.

I don't see any reason Little Lady Arya would need to prepare food or learn feudal administration. (Nor archery, for that matter, but that was her interest). 

By real swordfighting I mean not the ballet she learned in King's Landing but what she did with Brienne. Which was ridiculous. 

You assume she learned facelessness and stealth in Braavos, but we never saw it. And when we did see her try to be stealthy last season, she sucked at it. Somehow she impersonated Walder Frey perfectly in front of his family, however. 

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42 minutes ago, Remember said:

Anybody else decide to rewatch the episode today and just say, "fuck it, I'm just gonna enjoy the spectacle and forget all of hints and clues that lead to nothing, and I'm sure as hell gonna pretend I never read the books!"

Cuz from this new perspective, that Arya kill was pretty satisfying lol

I've been doing that for a while and the shows are pretty enjoyable through that lens. The problem is I have to keep lowering my bar and I can't get rid of the shit that bothers me on reflection.

I  like the Arya kill in the moment. Right now it feels anti-climactic, cheap-thrill and easy. I try to shut off my brain, but I can't quite do it.

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