Game of Thrones on HBO

[SteveM58]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I truly have no idea how long they spent on that little island. Hours? Days? Weeks?

Yeah I had a hard time suspending disbelief while they waited for Gendry to run back, Ravens to fly to Dragonstone, and then Dany to fly to the actual north...the deep north, not just Winterfell. That all should have been a minimum of days. More on the days in a moment.

Why not have Bran watching over Jon and team, and sending the raven himself? Saves the plot hole of Gendry at least. And you know....legitimizes the capabilities of the people we've spent 6+ years watching grow up and become badass. And yeah.....agree that Jon's incompetence is getting old at this point. He really is an imbecile.

Meanwhile the Night King, who is controlling many or most of the wights, doesn't realize the water is frozen again. Or that a few at a time won't break it. Until....a rock lands on it. Really....for days? He didn't think of that? Lucky for Jon, his foe is dumber than he is. It's his best hope.

Still my favorite show ever....but it's pretty lame

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

I'm glad I'm not some of you where I can't just enjoy an episode. Thought it was great, don't need to sweat the small details, doesn't take away from the series in the slightest

Yep. There were a few "well wasn't that convenient" moments, but overall, I was well entertained. Sad there is only one episode left for this season.

[bronconick]

I'm a little disappointed that all the subtlety from the early seasons are gone for warp drive and fan service, but D&D didn't originally sign up to do fanfiction and since Martin couldn't be arsed to write anything in 6 years they're writing the ending with notes on a napkin from him and slipping back toward dumb loud entertainment to complete it. It's still fun, if not what it was.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Amazing episode. Beautifully shot. Great acting. Great dialogue. Great action. Fantastic!

It really didn't feel like they were out there that long. Days, at most, not weeks.

Don't sweat the small stuff and you're missing an beautiful, once in a life time type forest, through the trees here.

The Hound going back to save Tormund was the best.

[molson]

Originally Posted by bronconick

I'm a little disappointed that all the subtlety from the early seasons are gone for warp drive and fan service, but D&D didn't originally sign up to do fanfiction and since Martin couldn't be arsed to write anything in 6 years they're writing the ending with notes on a napkin from him and slipping back toward dumb loud entertainment to complete it. It's still fun, if not what it was.

I think it's important to keep that in mind - it is harder to churn out episodes every year on a deadline than it is to do whatever GRRM has done since the show started. I'm sure there would be more subtlety if they somehow had 8 years to put together each season. But they've still managed to put together something that for me, flies by more than any other show I can remember. I'm always shocked when the final credits roll that it's over already, and I've looked forward to the last 6 Sunday nights and haven't been disappointed once.

[Coffee Warlord]

Ya know, like a good 75% of this season's issues could have been solved by actually having a 10 episode season, instead of this 7 episode nonsense. You'd have that much more time for shit to make a lot more sense, and actually have more than 10 seconds of dialogue in various points before running off to the next Big Scene.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

But an even more well-travelled trope reared its head--the invincible good guys.

Remember when this show was known for "you can't be sure who'll live because they can kill people at any time"? Ah, those were the days.

To think HBO offered the showrunners a full 10 episodes for this season. Definitely could have explained things better, had much better pacing, etc. with a few more episodes this season. I fear that the 6 ep 'final season' will be even worse with this.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Ya know, like a good 75% of this season's issues could have been solved by actually having a 10 episode season, instead of this 7 episode nonsense. You'd have that much more time for shit to make a lot more sense, and actually have more than 10 seconds of dialogue in various points before running off to the next Big Scene.

Beat me to it. But yes, 1000x this. Why D&D didn't take this 10 ep deal seems incredibly silly at this point.

[SteveM58]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Ya know, like a good 75% of this season's issues could have been solved by actually having a 10 episode season, instead of this 7 episode nonsense. You'd have that much more time for shit to make a lot more sense, and actually have more than 10 seconds of dialogue in various points before running off to the next Big Scene.

Yep. Agree as well. Thats why I was so shocked when I heard there were only 13 episodes left.

I mean, it is still awesome to see this great story come to fruition. And at this point in the story, it is rightfully faster paced than in the beginning as we now know the characters, their backstories, their motivations, etc. Its just that some of these situations seem forced and unnecessary given what we know about the characters at this point.

Unless of course....some characters we think we know aren't what we think.

[ISiddiqui]

So I'm actually slightly interested in the season finale, because it seems like a good ole political scheming ep that this show used to have.

[Vince, Pt. II]

I think the Winterfell scenes were the best (and most subtle) parts of the episode, sans the dragon death. They seemed out of order, though - Sansa sending Brienne away right after Littlefinger recommended that Brienne would be forced to intervene if one sister were to attempt to harm another was a nice hint that Sansa has ill intentions. But Arya presenting Sansa with a dagger and then her own unprotected back immediately after happened before all of that. I'm not sure whether they are trying to imply that Arya already knows Sansa's mind better than Sansa does, or that it was just a blatant eff-you from Arya to Sansa, showing that she is completely unafraid of her older sister.

In any case, it's fun to see Littlefinger pulling strings again and to know that the writers haven't completely given up on intrigue even if I can't see an elegant solution to the situation.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by molson

I think it's important to keep that in mind - it is harder to churn out episodes every year on a deadline than it is to do whatever GRRM has done since the show started. I'm sure there would be more subtlety if they somehow had 8 years to put together each season.

It's ok to be a bit disappointed with GRRM a little right? The further the show gets away from the source material the more like a normal action show it becomes.

That being said last season was the top for me (I guess they were working off an unfinished book?). I'm also glad we are hopefully past the whole rapey bits that were too often in the early seasons.

[JPhillips]

Good to know the army of the dead carries giants chain with them, just in case.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Good to know the army of the dead carries giants chain with them, just in case.

I kinda thought they were going to use them to tear down the wall or tear down a gate or something. Now where they found them, dunno. They kinda look like anchor chains so maybe some boats have run aground in the north over the years?

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Good to know the army of the dead carries giants chain with them, just in case.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty convenient.

[Atocep]

It's difficult to call that episode the worst in the series because there were a couple impressive scenes, but overall the episode was garbage and so far removed from what makes the books incredible. The show has decided to go down the path of your typical light storytelling action show. We're closer to big budget Hercules or Zena right now than the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones.

What's become clear in Westeros is the Lanisters are in the position they're in because no one else has even an average IQ.

[Arles]

I enjoyed the episode and am pretty excited for the finale. Once again, I'm glad I am not a book reader. I can understand how all the investment people have put into this story hinges on Jon's ability to pull himself out of freezing cold water and some other low probability (and highly idiotic) decisions. But, given I haven't made that investment, I really don't sweat the small stuff and enjoy the journey.

The two minor confusions/issues I did have both revolved around the Arya/Sansa storyline:

1. I thought that Arya was disguised as Sansa when she sent away Brianne. That would have atleast made some sense given she was the one pawn left to be played by Sansa/Littlefinger to get in her way of confronting Sansa. I'm not sure why Sansa sent her to King's Landing - unless she knew what Littlefinger was up to and didn't want to end up with an Arya-Brianne fight.

2. I'm willing to give the show some leeway as we don't know how it will turn out (or their true motivations), but I am a little surprised at how Arya fell hook, line and sinker for Littlefinger's ploy with the letter. She's seen him conspire with Tywin and Cersei, but doesn't figure out that he wanted her to find that letter? I also think it's a little sketchy that all this lords of the north would have never heard about the letter the prisoner Sansa wrote to Rob and how it was under duress. I mean, if the Starks and Winterfell knew of the letter, how did it not reach the other northern areas. I'm thinking the "hey, did you hear what the Lannisters did by forcing the child Sansa to write this BS letter?" had to be dealt with at some point by the other Lords. The Starks saw through this pretty quickly and there have been many leaders blackmailed into bad decisions given the kidnapping of kids/heirs in this story. Maybe this is all setting up an Arya-Littlefinger showdown and Sansa learning of the littlefinger betrayal helps make it cleaner? Although, after watching him sell her to the Bolton's and do 100 other shady things, she should probably have been like "Hey, who was in possession of this letter before you go it? Oh, Littlefinger, well he's playing us then."

As to the Uncle Bejen thing, didn't he say to Bran that he couldn't pass the wall given he was half turned dead? If so, it does make a little sense that he would just follow the dead around (not much else really to do at that point). Plus, it wouldn't make sense for him to join Jon on the ride only to be left outside wall when they made it because he couldn't pass.

[Vince, Pt. II]

There seem to be plenty of legitimate reasons why the Starks wouldn't make Sansa's letter public knowledge when it was originally sent - one need look no further than our own political climate currently to see how certain groups of people will read any number of things into any message/action no matter how ridiculous it sounds. There was no reason for them to share the message, especially considering the fact that Robb was trying to rally his bannermen at the time. There was already plenty of outrage over Ned's beheading, so there was no need to drum up additional support, and therefore no need to risk any potential seeds of sedition by making the note public.

[JPhillips]

So the army of the dead may destroy humanity because Sansa didn't properly secure her communications.

That hits a little close to home.

[RainMaker]

Some cool things happened in the episode but it was close to the worst of the series (the original Dorne episode might have been worse). Things that bothered me:

1) The Army of the Dead has been built up as some unstoppable force for the whole series. They absolutely ran over the humans a few seasons back. But like 10 guys were able to hold of hundreds, if not thousands of these wights. Wouldn't a halfway decent army with advanced weaponry be able to handle the dead fairly easy considering how poorly they fight?

2) For a show that required 6 seasons for Dany to get from one continent to the other, it took a single episode for someone to run from beyond the wall back to castle black, signal a raven, have that raven find Dany, have her decide to take her dragons to beyond the wall, and battle them. Unless Westeros is much smaller than I imagined, this seems impossible to have happened in the day that they were stuck on the ice berg.

3) The Arya/Sansa stuff makes no sense. Littlefinger manages to outsmart everyone in moronic ways.

4) Why didn't the Night King just throw his cool ice spear and kill the guys on the iceberg? He could hit a moving dragon with one, I'm sure he could find a way to hit someone out there and end this much earlier.

I guess my gripe remains the same. They are rushing the ending. The events that have taken place over the past 6 episodes should have taken place over 9 or 10. This whole thing would have played out better if the group beyond the wall had been barricaded for a couple episodes in a cave or something against the wights while there was ample time to get help.

The show seems to have gone from a carefully crafted political drama with action mixed in to a corny sci-fi show with a big budget. There is little nuance in the characters. They're strictly good or bad now.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Radii

This is the second time that stupid Jon Snow goes maximum stupid and has to be bailed out by plot armor and questionable intervention after ridiculously bad storytelling. What was actually his plan... at any point... to capture a walker alive? If this is the hero of the story, they're doing a really shit job of making me want to see him succeed. Honestly, the dude needs to die before something worse happens to Dany or any of the other potentially competant leaders at his ridiculous expense.

In defense, that's Jon's character. He's an incredibly naive hero who doesn't think before he does something. He just happens to be protected by the fact that for some reason "the Gods" want him to stay alive.

The dumb part is Dany not being furious that his incredibly stupid plan caused her to lose one of her dragons. She had just given a speech earlier in the episode about idiot heroes who die.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

4) Why didn't the Night King just throw his cool ice spear and kill the guys on the iceberg? He could hit a moving dragon with one, I'm sure he could find a way to hit someone out there and end this much earlier.

Or why didn't Dany blast the Night King with dragon fire when she had 3 of them flying around?

Or didn't Captain Picard jump out of the time anomaly to when he already had Soran in custody, rather than jump out later when Soran was more of a threat? Picard got Captain Kirk killed!

[Edward64]

No doubt in my mind the TV script based on GRRM writing would be better but the visuals were great and am happy that I'll get closure next season. I really doubt GRRM will finished the series.

[stevew]

Bronn is the only one with enough sense to kill the night's king. Did he keep the valaryian blade?

[Vince, Pt. II]

Not sure why there are so many gripes about Gendry running back to Eastwatch. There was no sense of time at all with regard to how long they were hiking away from the castle; they never showed an overnight or a camp. For all we know, they went on a two hour hike and found the army. That's extremely believably run in a short period of time.

If you want to take offense at the Ravens flying and Dany getting up there on dragon back within a day...that seems like a much more legitimate gripe.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Not sure why there are so many gripes about Gendry running back to Eastwatch. There was no sense of time at all with regard to how long they were hiking away from the castle; they never showed an overnight or a camp. For all we know, they went on a two hour hike and found the army. That's extremely believably run in a short period of time.

If you want to take offense at the Ravens flying and Dany getting up there on dragon back within a day...that seems like a much more legitimate gripe.

I thought it was a week long journey until they told him to start running back. That made it clear we were talking hours, at most.

It just didn't come across as anything approaching something that short when they started out, or kept on encountering new things/spaces.

[stevew]

Would have been much better if Gendry had to hop in a boat and row back furiously.

[Arles]

If the quick traveling bothers you, just go with the analogy I'm using to get past it:

Imagine that the Showrunners are Cinderella and they turn into a pumpkin after 14 shows. If that were true, is it better to have 2-3 "traveling shows" this season and rush the final battle? Or to use warp speed on travel and allow all the plot points to breathe a bit in the final season?

It's a little silly as they could have done both with two 9-10 episode seasons - but if you go under the pretense that they have only 14 shows possible, it makes some sense.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by stevew

Would have been much better if Gendry had to hop in a boat and row back furiously.

:threadwinner

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by stevew

Would have been much better if Gendry had to hop in a boat and row back furiously.

Or if they'd played the Benny Hill theme music.

[Icy]

Disappointed at this chapter and how the show is becoming the typical action/heroes/love film where you know the main characters won't die and that when they are about to, something glorious happens to stop it at the last second, it's too cliche. Totally the opposite of the books where anybody can dye at anytime including the best characters.

Liked some scenes of course, like the dragon death, Arya, some of the action etc but this is not what I liked the most from the books and past TV seasons, we have plenty of good movies like those.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

3) The Arya/Sansa stuff makes no sense. Littlefinger manages to outsmart everyone in moronic ways.

Not really a spoiler, but my opinion of why the writers are doing the weird Arya/Sansa stuff now.

Spoiler

I think the Arya and Sansa conflict is to set up them coming together to kill Littlefinger in the next episode. The weirdness between the two came out of nowhere and just feels like cliche misdirection.

[stevew]

The Arya stuff has to be a misdirection. Either Arya is going to kill Littlefinger and assume his identity -or- Sansa is going to kill him with that dagger.

[whomario]

Jon Snow is a fucking moron ... Did i miss the (likely "heroic") reasoning behind not jumping on that Dragon-cab when everybody else did ? I get that he'd go last, him being a Hero and very moral and all, but why didn't he do even that ?

Impressive episode visually, but the "convenience-factor" was off the charts all around. It was more Parable than Story and this might become the new normal. I can totally see why this pisses some people off, especially considering how it is such a rapid shift/change after 6 seasons more or less making a point of trying to avoid these shortcuts.

Have no problem with the show deciding that water should be an obstacle to the wights, but it felt weird how it was handled: No dialogue about it, no attempts to use that (like keeping the water open with their weapons).

I really, really liked the opening parts with the dialogue between the group ...

Originally Posted by Arles

The two minor confusions/issues I did have both revolved around the Arya/Sansa storyline:

1. I thought that Arya was disguised as Sansa when she sent away Brianne. That would have atleast made some sense given she was the one pawn left to be played by Sansa/Littlefinger to get in her way of confronting Sansa. I'm not sure why Sansa sent her to King's Landing - unless she knew what Littlefinger was up to and didn't want to end up with an Arya-Brianne fight.

.

I think that it is just building on the theme the show has been setting: Sansa is getting complacent and (too) comfortable with simply being at Winterfell. She did always like comfort and luxury and while Winterfell isn't much (compared to other places), it is hers. With regards to Littlefinger and the Lords she is just miscalculating and, again, has grown complacent. She's a big girl now who does not feel like being coddled or told what to do, not even by a loyal bodyguard.

IMO the whole season has been exactly about this theme, she cares more about Sansa than she does the big picture. And King's Landing to her is like fire to the hound.

I am not saying that Arya isn't also acting idiotic, just thinking that Sansa's development seems pretty straight-forward to me.


Question: That whole "wearing the face" thing: Has the show ever explained how that makes up for a person being a foot shorter than the original owner of said face ? Arya is not especially in line with the average face-wearer in that regard. I wondered with Walder Frey already.

[whomario]

I also feel like the show is dangerously close to caricature when quite obviously catering/reacting to fan's talk about the show and dropping gratuitous easter eggs (Gendry stuff and "Rhaggar" getting an anulment last week, Thormund talking about Brienne this week. Heck, "Dany" ? Sure, totally makes sense to call here that ... )

[Mota]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

I think the Winterfell scenes were the best (and most subtle) parts of the episode, sans the dragon death. They seemed out of order, though - Sansa sending Brienne away right after Littlefinger recommended that Brienne would be forced to intervene if one sister were to attempt to harm another was a nice hint that Sansa has ill intentions. But Arya presenting Sansa with a dagger and then her own unprotected back immediately after happened before all of that. I'm not sure whether they are trying to imply that Arya already knows Sansa's mind better than Sansa does, or that it was just a blatant eff-you from Arya to Sansa, showing that she is completely unafraid of her older sister.

In any case, it's fun to see Littlefinger pulling strings again and to know that the writers haven't completely given up on intrigue even if I can't see an elegant solution to the situation.

Let's go back to last season, when Arya was showing weakness. She was running away, injured and on the brink of being killed. Then she entered her room, blew out the candle and we found out that she had played up to this moment all along.

Could it be that we're seeing the same thing here? Littlefinger thinks that he is fooling her, but maybe she is showing him what he wants to see in order to get him to play his cards.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by Mota

Let's go back to last season, when Arya was showing weakness. She was running away, injured and on the brink of being killed. Then she entered her room, blew out the candle and we found out that she had played up to this moment all along.

Could it be that we're seeing the same thing here? Littlefinger thinks that he is fooling her, but maybe she is showing him what he wants to see in order to get him to play his cards.

I've been thinking about the Winterfell plot a ton since last night. At first I thought it might be a reminder that regardless of what they've been through, they're still young girls. I almost immediately dismissed that notion, and moved on to general sibling rivalry/latent anger about what happened to their father. I ended up thinking that there is some kind of game being played, but I am fairly certain it isn't as it seems. The suggestion here (and further upthread) that the two of them are playing Littlefinger is a nice one that I had not considered.

[stevew]

Is it possible that the wight behavior waa intentionally stupid so that the Dragon would get brought into the battle? I mean they conveniently had a bunch of spears prepped for some reason. And if so, thinking about it that way, doesn't it excuse a lot of the stuff that looks stupid.

[law90026]

Not a great episode in my opinion.

Jon Snow is a complete idiot, which is something I've been feeling/complaining about for a long time now. His plan made very little sense, he's incredibly entitled in the sense that he thinks everyone should just listen to him and his tale and he gets people around him killed. Case in point is the last bit where he insists on walking away from the dragon to "hold off" the undead even though their dragon can probably take care of itself, what with the fire breathing and all that. Cue angry look at the Night King, thereby wasting more time, forgetting that the dude had just killed a dragon with a freaking spear throw. Cue panic when Night King takes out another spear. Seriously, what kind of moron does that?

Time jumps have been mentioned already but it's reached ludicrous proportions. The people I was watching with were all facepalming.

Arya is just being a creepy little shit at this time. Maybe the payoff will be worth it but, if Bran needs to explain stuff to her so she does a face turn, then she's just a self-righteous psychopath.

Really don't see the chemistry between Jon Snow and Dany. She can act it but he definitely can't. Bad enough to the extent that the show has to hit us over the head that he likes her when Dany was talking to tyrion about him early on in the episode.

Tyrion had also gone full moron. Seriously, you're asking Dany to pick a successor at this time? Did it cross his mind that it can be horribly misconstrued? Or put it another way, if she dies, the war is lost coz the dragons are not going to play ball anymore. He's gone from one of the most interesting characters to an actual hindrance and plot tool to represent Dany's humanity.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a watchable show but it's standards have really slipped. My cynical view is that GRRM is just biding his time until next season ends then he releases his book which will be significantly better at tying up all the loose ends.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by law90026

Tyrion had also gone full moron. Seriously, you're asking Dany to pick a successor at this time? Did it cross his mind that it can be horribly misconstrued? Or put it another way, if she dies, the war is lost coz the dragons are not going to play ball anymore. He's gone from one of the most interesting characters to an actual hindrance and plot tool to represent Dany's humanity.

Tyrion used to be a character, now he pretty much just pops up to narrate exposition for five minutes and then disappears. Dinklage's readings sound like a grumpy actor going through the motions.

[JPhillips]

Bran could solve so many of these problems, but apparently he and everyone else has forgotten he can see everything.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Bran could solve so many of these problems, but apparently he and everyone else has forgotten he can see everything.

Bran is just awkward for the show since the writers have a "get out of plot problems free" card with him any time they want to use it. Due to the way he's been developed, they *must* use it some but not overdo it. Because of how the character was written in the books, I expect to be very forgiving of any Bran shenanigans that may be coming.

[SteveM58]

The only conclusion I've come to explain the lack of Bran involvement is that, as he said(to Meera I think), he's no longer Bran. Not to get too tinfoil about it but I think that was a clue.

Of course that will probably be contradicted in the next episode we see him.

[nilodor]

I kinda hope that Bronn pulls some next level Marlo move and winds up on the Iron Throne.

[ISiddiqui]

Listen, I know people want Arya and Sansa to be playing Littlefinger, but the show hasn't shown anything close to that sort of subtly lately. In addition, scenes where Arya and Sansa are confronting each other without Littlefinger in the room don't point to some sort of 'game'. Especially not when Arya can read on Sansa's face that she really wants Jon's job. I think this is just a clunky way of showing that Littlefinger is good at politicking and creating confusion.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Listen, I know people want Arya and Sansa to be playing Littlefinger, but the show hasn't shown anything close to that sort of subtly lately. In addition, scenes where Arya and Sansa are confronting each other without Littlefinger in the room don't point to some sort of 'game'. Especially not when Arya can read on Sansa's face that she really wants Jon's job. I think this is just a clunky way of showing that Littlefinger is good at politicking and creating confusion.

What I was getting at is more in line with this. I think the writers are creating tension between the two to show the impact littlefinger is having on their relationship and they'll quickly refocus on a common enemy to bring them back together. This is something that would have played out over the course of a full season previously, but will be rushed and have nowhere near the impact it potentially could have had.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by nilodor

I kinda hope that Bronn pulls some next level Marlo move and winds up on the Iron Throne.

My name is my name!

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by stevew

My name is my name!

Exactly the line I was thinking of.

[Arles]

For the faceless man transformations for Arya, we've already been shown people being brought back from the dead, a smoke baby that killed someone and guys lighting their swords by touching it. I just chalked up the Arya transformations to a similar level of "learned" magic.

I think the only real logical conclusion for this Arya/Sansa/Littlefinger plot spaghetti is for it to end with Arya and/or Sansa killing him. Maybe Sansa figures out he setup Arya to find the letter, maybe Arya was planning on killing Littlefinger the whole time and was just tweaking/testing Sansa or maybe Littlefinger gets overconfident by how he has apparently played both sisters like a fiddle and steps on his own dick. All that said, I think there are many better methods to handle this conflict.

[Edward64]

TBH, I'm not really liking the Arya/Sansa arc right now.

Arya should just kill him and take is "face" so they can control the Vale troops (which is really the only value he has right now to the Starks)