[Book Spoilers] GoT or The Walking Dead?

[Jedi Master Hot Pie]

It was pretty bad. Letting Sam go is a head slapping moment. I wonder how they'll justify letting him live.

The wights were fine, as they looked like skilled undead warriors. The walkers were bad. They were shambling and slow, so that crows who still had feet could outrun them on foot. Lame. The books showed very capable fast zombies who overran a superior uphill position with stakes, trenches, fire arrows and knowledge of dragonglass. I guess when shit hits the fan, these slow zombie ripoffs become fast and agile? What?

How is a Wight meant to sprint with half it's leg missing or if they're broken? The ones shambling are the ones that have taken leg injuries before dying.

Remember, when someone is resurrected as a Wight, their previous injuries aren't magically healed. If the Others cut off some guys arms and legs before killing him, he comes back with no arms and legs. Whilst this means he is effectively useless, he has blue eyes therefore he is scary and should be feared.

[7V3N]

It was pretty bad. Letting Sam go is a head slapping moment. I wonder how they'll justify letting him live.

The wights were fine, as they looked like skilled undead warriors. The walkers were bad. They were shambling and slow, so that crows who still had feet could outrun them on foot. Lame. The books showed very capable fast zombies who overran a superior uphill position with stakes, trenches, fire arrows and knowledge of dragonglass. I guess when shit hits the fan, these slow zombie ripoffs become fast and agile? What?

I think you have wights mixed up with White Walkers. The White Walkers are the Others, the ice sentients. The wights are the reanimated minions.

Do you expect an army walking across an empty field of ice and snow to be sprinting and doing ninja flips?

Do you expect them to walk at a snail's pace? They would walk at a normal pace at least.

[Lady Olenna]

Kinda the opposite of most here.

I didn't mind the wights at all, but hated look of the Others. Wish they were the gleaming, graceful ice warriors of the books.

I'm with you here. I always pictured the WW as graceful and they read (to me) as intelligent, quick and sharp. Not the large primate looking thing on the show. Don't get me wrong, I like what they did, it was just far different from what I imagined.

The wights are supposed to lumber along - essentially zombie like- and IMO are controlled or led by the WW.

I also tend to believe that the WW are basically their own form of rangers in the north. I don't think they kill at random but are deliberate. Perhaps this is why the show allows Sam to be passed by.

[danm_999]

Even though the wights are dead it doesn't mean they have to be portrayed like that.

That's exactly how they're described in the books. They act, exactly how they act in the books. What do you want?

"But they ARE zombies!" So what? That only means they're dead/brought back to life. How about a little imagination ... Maimed, scarred, disfigured -- sure.

What on earth do you call this?

But walking around like the extras in a zombie comedy? Come on ... Shaun of the Dead doesn't define how animated corpses should behave.

It didn't. Shaun of the Dead portrayed zombie movement like it was in Romero's zombie classics, Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead, or the Resident Evil series, for some reason you're thinking Shaun of the Dead invented the trope, it was parodying it.

Shaun of the Dead was only released in 2004; even GRRM had written how wights moved by then.

All the non-readers in my viewing party said the same. It looked lame. It doesn't fit into a show of this calibre.

What a shame.

Great, non readers I watched with thought it looked better than the majority of Walking Dead zombies in season 2. Anecdotes don't really get us far.

Think about Catelyn after she's brought back to life. Will you be happy if she goes around with her hands in front of her, eyes rolling, tongue hanging out, moaning, wobbling from side to side? Isn't that how zombies behave, though? My picture of Cat was terrifying and heart-breaking, but she didn't look like your classical zombie at all.

That's a completely different case from the wights though, so it's not going to look like your traditional zombie like the wights are supposed to.

[So1ar]

They weren't shuffling..just walking slowly. Also, our zombies were carrying spears, swords, axes, bows, and any other weapon you could think of. They weren't as mindless as some of you seem to think. Just watch it here before it's taken down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6yoS3LFIFM

[Tenlaar]

I do not see a single wight walking with his arms out in front of him. The mangled wight has his arms cocked at an angle, that's as close as it gets. They aren't shuffling, they aren't stumbling. They're just...walking. You have to remember that this is book 2, and how far south have the Others made it even three books later? They aren't in a hurry. They have no reason to hurry. Winter is coming, it isn't quite here yet.

[BlackTalon]

I still think the wights will start really moving fast once they start fighting. Remember Othor in S1 he was pretty fast for a zombie.

I hope they don´t. The books state clearly that the wights are "slow and awkward things". The wights moving up the the fist were depicted exactly right, if anything it was Othor who was messed up by the director for the sake of more drama.

What is terrifying about the wights is their terrible strength (they can claw open a horses´belly with their bare hands) and the fact that they are absolutely unstoppable, unless you set them on fire.

I have to say though that the books never once mentioned one of the wights using or even carrying a weapon as far as I can remember, I am pretty sure that is a change from the books.

BY HONEYBADGER.

The books showed very capable fast zombies who overran a superior uphill position with stakes, trenches, fire arrows and knowledge of dragonglass. I guess when shit hits the fan, these slow zombie ripoffs become fast and agile? What?

The book zombies were definitley NOT fast and capable, were did you get that idea?

Also, the Night´s Watch had no idea what the dragonglass could do until Sam killed an Other with it long after the first attack, on the trek halfway to Craster´s Keep.

[DemonKing]

I liked the scene a lot - the only thing that looked a bit silly was that the same CGI models appeared on a regular basis when the zombies all went shuffling by (albeit sometimes with minor variations).

Not sure how Sam is meant to get away but it didn't make sense in the first episode of Season 1 either when one of the NW escaped.

The WW looked awesome - I didn't miss the armour too much but I loved the way ethereal mist was steaming off his weapon.

[CuddleMeLoki]

I also tend to believe that the WW are basically their own form of rangers in the north. I don't think they kill at random but are deliberate. Perhaps this is why the show allows Sam to be passed by.

He was to fat to be a wight :(

[Bloodraven's Lost Eye]

Both looked underwhelming...

Wights: Like many said before, the walking dead. In the books their appearence may be zombie-esque, but they move fast and with a purpose, not this slow shuffling they do. Even if we forget it's different from the books, it's just bad television.

WW: I understand in terms of cost, they couldn't do them better, but I imagined (like many others IMO) the Others armored in ice, statuesque, lean, tall and gracefull. these guys just looked like barbarians covered in ice, the wild hair and piece of cloth infront of their loins just doesn't work at all. Basically they left them too human... they oughta be humanoids, not icy wildlings.

In general, I don't see why they had to do this zooming out over the mass of zombies (yes, I said zombies not Wights) It had to feel overwhelming, but it felt the opposite, there are alot more tricks available to convey the sense of dread, but they just went for the obvious.

What I can't understand aswell, is why doing it by day? Talking about using tricks, doing it at night time would allow you to convey more fear with alot fewer numbers, hell, they wouldn't even have had to show any wights, let alone WW...

[StarkWard]

It would have helped, I think, if they walked a bit more solemnly. Like being attracted to a fly or something. Too bad Walking Dead is at its popularity peak that people readily associated our wights to them. Still, I'm confident that the opinion will soon change after we see them fight.

[Black Crow]

The Others certainly didn't quite look like the way they were described by GRRM when talking to to the comic book artist:'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.'

However... the face of the guy who looked straight at Sam looked suspiciously like those carved in the trunks of weirwood trees

[Nathaniel Hawke]

It does make sense that they are zombie-like. In the books, some crows manage to escape all the way back to craster. That means that wights can keep a really fast pace anyway.

[The Meeraculous Third Reed]

I'm not saying the scene was bad (though why ignore Sam?), however, I would have much preferred the scene to have been acted out as in the prologue of ASOS, and for the show to have ended within five seconds or so of the third horn blast and its explanation.

[Greywolf2375]

I thought the wights were fine, some had more decay than others, some had more damage than others. Just because they are north of the Wall doensn't mean they will all be crystalline ice creatures. The WW...I don't know. Based on what we saw the first time, what we saw when Jon spied Craster I thought they would be more angular. Not a big thing, just not what I was expecting.

The only real question I have is why isn't Sam being torn to pieces....maybe that one we saw is Coldhands. Other than that, got nuthin'.

[Greenseer Stark]

Does anybody else think that the WW that looked at Sam and went on could sense that he had Dragon Glass on his person? I'm trying to come up with an explanation as to why this happened. Though someone noted earlier that perhaps it was because Sam submitted to them, like Will in the pilot.

[White Raven]

Though someone noted earlier that perhaps it was because Sam submitted to them, like Will in the pilot.

I like this idea because it would show that the white walkers are not mindlessly killing anyone they happen to come across. As to why the wights didn't attack Sam: Maybe it was because they were lead to battle by the white walkers and were not allowed to stop or act on their own during this time. It would slow them down quite a bit if the wights would hunt and kill everything they meet on their way.

[The Meeraculous Third Reed]

The Others certainly didn't quite look like the way they were described by GRRM when talking to to the comic book artist:'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.'

However... the face of the guy who looked straight at Sam looked suspiciously like those carved in the trunks of weirwood trees

Barrel scraping.

[Maester Murks]

TBH, i pictured the wights pretty much exactly like zombies, because that's how they are described in the books. One thing bothered me, though: Almost all the wights in the show are carrying weapons. I could be wrong, but i can't remember them being armed in the books. Aren't they fighting with their hands only, like strangling people, or ripping them apart? :box:

[Lady Olenna]

He was to fat to be a wight :(

It's a sad day when you can't make the cut to be a wight because your too fat.