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

[lakin1013]

18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

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.

But honestly - what did you want? In the show there is no prophecy nonsense. 

 

After I watched the episode 3, I felt let-down and deflated.  I was a watcher who loved the prophecies that George left us in the books.  I might drive to work and wonder how the show was going to introduce LightBringer, what would LightBringer mean to the show,  or who would kill NK - Jon or Dany or who?  Azor Ahai?  PtwP?  And why did Craster give his male babies to NK?  

But as Lord Varys clearly reminds us, in the show, there is no prophecy nonsense.  The show will not be answering these questions for me.  I have to take responsibility for my own expectations, pick myself up, and watch the show differently.  I confused in-book prophecies with tv spectacle.  No longer.  

[kissdbyfire]

3 hours ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

Epic Rant

That was awesome, tks for sharing.

[OldGimletEye]

41 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The waste of the entire Dothraki army on an insane suicide charge may be the biggest crime against logic, outside of spending umpteen million dollars and 3 months shooting a battle that could not be seen on the screen.

Makes the charge of the light brigade look sane.

[MarkPierre]

2 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

The Short Night 2 - Characters

Why are Varys, Davos, Pod, Tormund, the Hound, Greyworm, Missandei, Gilly, Bronze Yohn, BRIENNE (who we said literal goodbye to last episode and she is still around) all damn alive? 

We didn't say goodbye to Brienne. Her character arc isn't finished, only the knight part. There are still themes of love, attraction, motherhood, being desired as a woman, to explore.

[RhaenysBee]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Indeed, the short night was really lacking in dialogue.  Everyone about to die and no one speaks to each other for minutes at a time.  How cutting edge, LOL, not that I really miss the mostly atrocious dialogue but people showing up, standing around with nothing but long stares and not speaking isn't in the least realistic for how humans behave.  

Dialogue? What’s a dialogue, precious?

Is that some kind of black magic that builds characters and contributes to the plot or focuses the audience’s attention? 

1 hour ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

Well said, and the whole post is well worth reading.

There was nothing, literally NOTHING said or shown about planning or leadership other than "put Bran in the weirwood and the defenseless in the crypts."

When the episode started I kept waiting for the scene where they give the 2-minute breakdown of the plan, where everybody is posted, where the undead are expected from, etc. It didn't have to be a 32-point plan with logistics, just a general stage-setting for the battle. Pretty much every war movie has one, at least if the battle isn't something that is visually coherent (i.e., you can see the whole battlefield in one shot, including the enemy).

Instead no. We see this big army standing outside. NO DISCUSSION of why they are outside the castle walls instead of inside. NO DISCUSSION of what the plan is. NO DISCUSSION of even the current situation or what was about to happen, and why people weren't still sleeping, instead we went straight from the socializing at the end of epi 2 to armies standing in line prepared for battle. NOT EVEN THE SLIGHTEST MENTION of any reports from outposts about the progress and location of the enemy. I suspect there weren't any outposts because there was NO PLANNING.

It was, just as RhaenysBee said, a series of visuals that had nothing to do with military logic and everything to do with what could be staged for the camera.

p.s. Really, people are making excuses for using massed cavalry to charge into the darkness? Cavalry is to be used like a scalpel: because of its speed, it is the unit that you can use flexibly and place right where you want it. Step 1, identify enemy weakness, step 2, apply cavalry. And by the way, it's the only group that can efficiently carry out Step 1, so when you send all your cavalry STORMING OFF TOGETHER TOWARD NOTHING IN THE PITCH DARK you are just throwing it away, 100K disciplined and experienced warriors just thrown away.

Nah, conversation is for the weak. Who the hell needs a strategy when you have visuals. Plus, everything important and sensible happens off camera. It is known. Why bother the audience with such mundane details? Nobody cares! 

And yes I feel your pain, I do. The Dothraki are probably in the top 3 most unforgivable things in this episode. They managed to ridicule the entire battle ten minutes into it. 

4 minutes ago, MarkPierre said:

We didn't say goodbye to Brienne. Her character arc isn't finished, only the knight part. There are still themes of love, attraction, motherhood, being desired as a woman, to explore.

It is so finished. Half the cast wants Brienne. Jaime has this weird attraction, Tormund is obsessed with the big woman, Bronn would fuck her. Motherhood never had anything to do with Brienne’s character. She reunited the stark daughters, she was knighted, she was reunited with Jaime. Brienne is so done. What else could possible happen to her? Do we want her to have a baby with jaime who they can name Pod? (Only Pod because Melisandre is already reserved for baby Targaryen. You know if the red woman won the Great War for them, that’s kinda the least). 

[RhaenysBee]

I thought of something. 

Top 3 most unforgivable elements 

1. Dothraki charge. 

2. Dragonfire doesn’t kill NK, but dragonglass does. Dragonglass is by definition is considered to be hardened (dragon)fire. Valyrian steel kills the walkers specifically because it was forged with dragonfire. What was even the purpose of dragons in this fight if their fire doesn’t kill white walkers? 

3. Castle defense

+1. Lyanna Mormont’s allowed to stay out in the massacre. 

[darmody]

2 hours ago, One-Eyed Raven said:

I'm coming around.

What's the beef about Arya flying in from offscreen to deliver the killing blow? We were prepared for this in 6.08, "Hardcore Parkour". (In hindsight, maybe The Waif was the better choice because she has the madder hops.)

That's about when D&D decided to BREAK THE WHEEL of several seasons' worth of buildup around Jon, Dany and dragons meaning anything in relation to defeating The Others, right?

You're confusing jumping from dangerous heights oozing from mortal knife wounds with suddenly appearing mid-air out of nowhere. It's different. 

[kissdbyfire]

5 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

I thought of something. 

Top 3 most unforgivable elements 

1. Dothraki charge. 

2. Dragonfire doesn’t kill NK, but dragonglass does. Dragonglass is by definition is considered to be hardened (dragon)fire. Valyrian steel kills the walkers specifically because it was forged with dragonfire. What was even the purpose of dragons in this fight if their fire doesn’t kill white walkers? 

3. Castle defense

+1. Lyanna Mormont’s allowed to stay out in the massacre. 

All very good picks, but I’d add Theon’s suicide as well. I mean, he’s right there w/ all-seeing all-knowing BranBot, who definitely knows Arya Ahai is coming. But he says fuck all, and let’s Theon charge the NK because... because? I guess it’s because they had to give us at least a couple of major-ish deaths, after claiming that the stakes were oh so high, and anyone can die booo. 

[Cas Stark]

Dothraki suicide charge definitely is the worst thing they did in the episode, but they did so much destruction in a single bound, it's hard to say.  Jon Snow's entire story has been eviscerated, he has been thinking, planning, and blabbing nonstop for 3 or 4 seasons about the NK, and it turns out, he was completely useless and so was his secret Targ blood and every other person in WF not named Arya Stark or one of the dudes who saved her, so that's Arya, Beric, Hound and we can add in Mel for the pep talk.  Everyone else totally useless.

Dragonfire not killing NK was stupid, because it's impossible that dragonglass and valyrian steel would harm the WW and actual dragons do not even singe his clothing.  Impossible.  

I didn't care about Lyanna  Mormont I was sick of her sass talk and am glad she's dead now.  They over did that way too much.

**Bri has to live until Jamie dies in her arms, I think.  Otherwise she is  just alive because she's popular, same reason Tormund is still alive, there may have been a wildling army there, I couldn't see it was too dark, but I'm not sure where it would have come from? So, he's just a random tall guy who tells jokes.

I think, I am not sure, but I think this episode was worse and dumber than the wight hunt. 

 

[UnViserion]

Couldn’t bear to rewatch the NK death scene until today.. And holy shit that was bad. Completely inexplicable. It will honestly make retro viewing parts of the series difficult. The whole damn thing devolved into just another fantasy show. It’s become everything it wasn’t in the beginning. The plot armor is unbelievable at this point.

I cant believe how badly D&D phoned this one in. Like others have already stated, there’s too much to even go after in this episode. Such abysmal writing. If these two hadn't had source material to go off of in the early stages, the show wouldn’t have lasted 4 seasons.

[kissdbyfire]

And I thought the Shannara Chronicles was bad. Pffft. If only GoT was half as good... 

[One-Eyed Raven]

11 minutes ago, darmody said:

You're confusing jumping from dangerous heights oozing from mortal knife wounds with suddenly appearing mid-air out of nowhere. It's different. 

That's fair.

It's just that there are three episodes remaining, and my wife is still enjoying this. The things we do for love.

[darmody]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Or, just a thought here, maybe if the goal was to lure the NK to the godswood they should have pulled out a Picard maneuver and created a hole in the defenses to let the dead pour through, while keeping some portion of the forces in reserve, to you know LURE HIM IN, instead of getting all their people killed and then actually losing and then he comes in and Arya shanks him.

To be fair, the Night King was on a dragon, and he has magic-vision. He could have swooped down on Bran any time he wanted. 

Except of course that the other two dragons were in his way, but I don't see why they were even a threat. Jon had flown only once before and they were in a freakin blizzard dogfighting an Ice Demon. Danny was the only good guy with applicable magic power, but it didn't help much. (Aside from allowing her to live.)

The Night King had a mental illness causing him to endlessly toy with people. Especially Jon, whom he should have ice-speared on Little Rock Lake. 

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, darmody said:

To be fair, the Night King was on a dragon, and he has magic-vision. He could have swooped down on Bran any time he wanted. 

Except of course that the other two dragons were in his way, but I don't see why they were even a threat. Jon had flown only once before and they were in a freakin blizzard dogfighting an Ice Demon. Danny was the only good guy with applicable magic power, but it didn't help much. (Aside from allowing her to live.)

The Night King had a mental illness causing him to endlessly toy with people. Especially Jon, whom he should have ice-speared on Little Rock Lake. 

He wandered onto the wrong set, he belonged in a Marvel or other super hero movie.  

[Hodor's Dragon]

14 minutes ago, darmody said:

You're confusing jumping from dangerous heights oozing from mortal knife wounds with suddenly appearing mid-air out of nowhere. It's different. 

Also, can't we just be allowed to forget that certain aspects of season 6, episode 8 ever happened instead of using them to justify something else later? Nothing should be based on that absolute evisceration of logic, science and reality.

[darmody]

51 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Makes the charge of the light brigade look sane.

At least they could see the artillery. What if the 600 rode into total darkness and got EATEN to death? 

[Ygrain]

Even after the show went South with the terrible Dorne plot, I still enjoyed watching it, more or less. This episode.... I was bored. The battle just dragged on and on, from one inane and illogical decision to another, with ridiculously few casualties among the main cast. The NK was totally anticlimactic and Arya ex machina was simply yet another facepalm among many. 

Plus, what are they going to do in the rest of the season? Taking down Cersei and Euron? It's not like I don't want to see her getting her comeuppance, but seriously? You defeat the greatest threat to the humanity mid-season, only to have two normal psychos as the big boss fight in the finale? All the buildup for those terrible inhuman monsters and ice zombies from season 1 episode 1 on, yet the final baddie becomes Cersei Lannister? I hope they have something more up their sleeve because this would be an epic fail.

[UnViserion]

1 minute ago, Ygrain said:

Even after the show went South with the terrible Dorne plot, I still enjoyed watching it, more or less. This episode.... I was bored. The battle just dragged on and on, from one inane and illogical decision to another, with ridiculously few casualties among the main cast. The NK was totally anticlimactic and Arya ex machina was simply yet another facepalm among many. 

Plus, what are they going to do in the rest of the season? Taking down Cersei and Euron? It's not like I don't want to see her getting her comeuppance, but seriously? You defeat the greatest threat to the humanity mid-season, only to have two normal psychos as the big boss fight in the finale? All the buildup for those terrible inhuman monsters and ice zombies from season 1 episode 1 on, yet the final baddie becomes Cersei Lannister? I hope they have something more up their sleeve because this would be an epic fail.

Who let you out of the R+L=J thread? 

[Ygrain]

14 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

And I thought the Shannara Chronicles was bad. Pffft. If only GoT was half as good... 

'Read only that LOTR ripoff, if that's what you mean, butit does suddenly seem very logical and imaginative...

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

'Read only that LOTR ripoff, if that's what you mean, butit does suddenly seem very logical and imaginative...

Well, the books are amazing. I mean, compared to the TV show they are...