Game of Thrones

[Innermind]

White walkers are created when an existing white walker touches a finger to a newborn baby humans head. I guess it has to be male.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe only the Night King can create White Walkers. A White Walker however, can create wight minions.

I also have to question if you can organize wights like that to pull a chain. I kind of imagine they can walk and fight...that's about it.

A wight is very different from a mindless zombie. In fantasy tradition, wights are under the command of the lich-necromancer who resurrected them, and act according to their masters bidding...also, in many fantasy traditions, wights even retain some skills from their previous life.

 

[Innermind]

you might be right. I don't remember who got on the ship though.

I imagine it is Jon, Dany, Cersei, and Brienne in this meeting.

I don't like Sansa sending Brienne like that. Not that it is bad writing, I don't like it from Sansa's character standpoint.

Remember, The Hound got on the ship too.... as they were saying their goodbyes on shore, The Hound says to Beric something along the lines of "I hope I never see you again."

So....The Hound as his brother Franken-mountain will probably meet in King's Landing during the season finale.

 

[chf]

This is what's confusing me about the whole situation. You would think they were saving the spears for the dragons because otherwise why not just start tossing them at Jon and the boys? The Night's King bullseyed a moving target in snowy, windy conditions from several hundred yards away. Hitting a bunch of people trapped on a rock isn't unreasonable for that guy.

It did seem like they were trying to keep the humans alive though. The lake froze over again (for whatever reason, the theory that the White Walkers made it colder and therefore the ice strong makes sense) so the wights were just standing there not attacking. They only attack once the Hound hits one in the face, they could have attacked much earlier than they did.

That said, I don't buy the "keep Jon alive so Dany comes" theory. That theory first assumes the White Walkers knew:

1. That Gendry got away
2. That he would make it back
3. That Dany exists in the first place
4. That Dany would come

Sure, fine. Assume they know all that because the Night's King is telepathic. Why at that point do you NEED to keep Jon alive? Dany is already coming. You have these guys all surrounded in the middle of a lake that is now frozen over. Why stand there and wait for one of those guys to chuck a rock before attacking?

I guess we all know the answer to pretty much all of this is "They needed drama and the Night's King to kill a dragon". But I just feel a lot of the issues/plot holes in this episode could have been avoided with small tweaks to the story.

Pfft. You just need a cameo by this guy.

 

[juliansteed]

100%, said to the wife last night (just watched it last night), "i cant believe they never re-visited the Dorne chick and her daughter" leaving us to just assume they are dead.....Very sloppy IMO to let that just go away......

I'm really not sure what story there is left to tell there. Cersei made it pretty clear what their fates would be. There's not really much reason to doubt that she will be able to follow through.

Do we need a scene of her crying as she's chained to the wall across from the remains of her dead daughter? Perhaps we need to check in on Sepa Unella too or maybe Dorhea and Xaro Xhoan Daxos after they were locked in the vault in Qarth several seasons ago.

 

[Innermind]

But I just feel a lot of the issues/plot holes in this episode could have been avoided with small tweaks to the story.

Exactly.

So many little annoying things could have easily been altered via competent writing in order to reduce the number of facepalm moments the audience endured. I won't list them all, that would take too much time....but here are two examples:

1 - No raven to Dragonstone to get Dany at super travel speeds..... Instead..... we could have had a quick scene of Dany at Dragonstone admittimg to Tyrion that she feels remorse/guilt at watching these brave guys depart on such a dangerous mission north of the wall.....so Dany decides (at the objection of Tyrion) to be proactive and flys with all three dragons to Eastwatch....perhaps she could even have arrived at Eastwatch prior to the ship.

At Eastwatch, she tells the adventure party that she and her dragons will wait/remain at Eastwatch as back-up assistance if needed.....she will keep the dragons hidden behind the wall in order to avoid alerting the Night King's army to Jon's stealth mission. And.....the party takes a few fast horses with them on their quest beyond the wall, with the stipulation that if they get into trouble, a rider (not a runner) will hurry back to the Wall to get help from Dany.



2 - No stupid anchor chain scene...... Instead..... we have a scene similar to Hardhome (remember when the camera is close-up on the Night Kings legs as he slowly walks onto the dock)..... Well, in this episode we have a similar scene, first we start with a wide shot of the Night King slowly walking across the frozen lake..... next we cut to a close-up shot on the Nigh Kings chest and head as he continues to slowly walk across the frozen lake ......suddenly, during this close-up, he falls off the bottom of the screen and we hear a splash....... the camera then briefly cuts to a wider shot of the undead army remaining stationary at the sight of their King falling through the ice.......

.....the camera then cuts to a very wide shot of the hole in the ice that the Night King just fell into..... after a brief pause, the surface of the hole and the surrounding ice suddenly erupts as the dragons head pops out of the water, accompanied by the beast letting loose a hideous screetch, as we see the dragons blue eyes!.......the dragon then bursts forth and fully emerges from the water with wings flapping as the undead beast takes off into the air with the Night King mounted on the beasts back! Now that's an epic ending scene!




Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

 

[Guy Incognito]

So, who had the vision of a dragon flying over King's Landing with the Iron Throne covered in snow and the windows all busted out? Was that Bran or Dany?

Didn't think that it was going to be that the White Walkers were going to be the ones to have a dragon. Thought it might have been a sign of the "after", once Dany sent the dragons in.

Guess those scorpions that Qyburn was building are gonna need some dragonglass bolts to be worth a damn.

 

[DetroitDevil]

Which came first the natural end to a story or the decision to end it before writing it?

 

[juliansteed]

Because it is not a movie is why they had an opportunity to do it right. The issue is not adding content that you feel is missing. It's shit like Arya decides to go home from the crossroads inn, and then she is there. No anything, she jsut traveled half the continent in 1/8th the time she did it earlier.

That's actually a terrible example. Watch the 2nd episode of the entire series to see why.

 

[juliansteed]

So, who had the vision of a dragon flying over King's Landing with the Iron Throne covered in snow and the windows all busted out? Was that Bran or Dany?

Both. Those were 2 different visions. Bran had the vision of the dragons flying over King's Landing. Daenerys had the vision of the throne room in ruins.

 

[juliansteed]

Not exactly sure what the Night King's plan was but I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to lure the dragons to kill them so that they can be their ticket past The Wall.

Remember earlier this season when Brienne was training Pod and she told him not to go where the enemy leads you. I feel like that was foreshadowing for several event this season including this one.

 

[Edonidd]

That's actually a terrible example. Watch the 2nd episode of the entire series to see why.

You keep bringing up this example, like you thinnk it is honestly relevant. In the second episode nothing is happening in Dorne,so it doesn't matter if time passes there. Nothing is happening on Dragonstone. Nothing plot wise is happening anywhere else, so when the show skips travel time it's not a big deal. You just assume nothing happened while theyre travelling.

Now there is literally plots that cover the entire continent. When you skip a week or even a month of travel time for obbe army, what that would literally signify is that nothing at all happened in that time. It doesnt even make sense for Dany to not do anytjing else at all while her army (armies) are traveling. But to time skip like that means the Lannisters arent doing anything either, because we have a POV there. It means the North isnt doing anything at all.

Dorne is one of the seven kingdom's. Or one of the main territory's or however you want to thimk of it. It's also one that has most of its troops relatively intact as they haven't been too involved yet. They were kind of taken out of tge war because their leaders have been removed. There might even be a civil war up there for succession, we havent really seen. But as they keep skipping firward in time, you can't just ignore Dorne.

What about Riverrun. The Frey's held it with Edmure as prisoner under the Lannisters. But the Frey's were all just killed (which nobody else has even mentioned in passing, you would think the Lannisters and all the Starks would care) and The Lannisters were killed/abandoned Casterly Rock. So who's in charge there?

That's why the time skips annoy me. There is clearly stuff happening, or should be stuff happening. But they keep skipping it all. They keep skipping what should be the Tyrion parts. The Varys parts. The Littlefinger parts. The Game of Thrones parts. Instead they're giving us dragons and explosions. If I wanted Uwe Boll movies with sword fighting but shitty stupid plots, I would be watching Bloodrayne or something equally stupid. If I wanted Micheal Bay explosions and cool shots, with a pretty girl ever now and then, and no dialogue at all I would have watched Transformers or something.

I'm watching GoT, so give me GoT.

 

[wildturkey]

You keep bringing up this example, like you thinnk it is honestly relevant. In the second episode nothing is happening in Dorne,so it doesn't matter if time passes there. Nothing is happening on Dragonstone. Nothing plot wise is happening anywhere else, so when the show skips travel time it's not a big deal. You just assume nothing happened while theyre travelling.

Now there is literally plots that cover the entire continent. When you skip a week or even a month of travel time for obbe army, what that would literally signify is that nothing at all happened in that time. It doesnt even make sense for Dany to not do anytjing else at all while her army (armies) are traveling. But to time skip like that means the Lannisters arent doing anything either, because we have a POV there. It means the North isnt doing anything at all.

Dorne is one of the seven kingdom's. Or one of the main territory's or however you want to thimk of it. It's also one that has most of its troops relatively intact as they haven't been too involved yet. They were kind of taken out of tge war because their leaders have been removed. There might even be a civil war up there for succession, we havent really seen. But as they keep skipping firward in time, you can't just ignore Dorne.

What about Riverrun. The Frey's held it with Edmure as prisoner under the Lannisters. But the Frey's were all just killed (which nobody else has even mentioned in passing, you would think the Lannisters and all the Starks would care) and The Lannisters were killed/abandoned Casterly Rock. So who's in charge there?

That's why the time skips annoy me. There is clearly stuff happening, or should be stuff happening. But they keep skipping it all. They keep skipping what should be the Tyrion parts. The Varys parts. The Littlefinger parts. The Game of Thrones parts. Instead they're giving us dragons and explosions. If I wanted Uwe Boll movies with sword fighting but shitty stupid plots, I would be watching Bloodrayne or something equally stupid. If I wanted Micheal Bay explosions and cool shots, with a pretty girl ever now and then, and no dialogue at all I would have watched Transformers or something.

I'm watching GoT, so give me GoT.

I think he means the episodes from season 1. Like they travel from Winterfell to King's Landing in a flash and no one ever bitched about it

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

It was a decent episode, saw it early due to the spoilers but kept my mouth shut until after Sunday.

Still didn't get my Natalie Dormer walk of shame so it's an auto 5/10 for me.

 

[Edonidd]

I think he means the episodes from season 1. Like they travel from Winterfell to King's Landing in a flash and no one ever bitched about it

That's what I mean too. In season 1 nothing was happening, so fast forward isn't missing anything. Now you can't skip forward on one timeline and not others. So skipping forwards means you're skipping forwards on every plot.

 

[wildturkey]

That's what I mean too. In season 1 nothing was happening, so fast forward isn't missing anything. Now you can't skip forward on one timeline and not others. So skipping forwards means you're skipping forwards on every plot.

Eh...not really. There's never anything that says each plot point is happening concurrently, in fact, a little logic dictates it isn't. People just assume it does because of the literal nature of the TV format and that shows like this don't use time stamps (ie "Meanwhile...2 weeks later...etc...etc).

The issue this season is the dialogue could be a bit better to give some subtle verbal cues in regards to time passage and framing. It's been too vague in places and people are having to figure it out on their own

 

[RegentDenali]

It was a decent episode, saw it early due to the spoilers but kept my mouth shut until after Sunday.

Still didn't get my Natalie Dormer walk of shame so it's an auto 5/10 for me.

The only walk of shame Dormer is doing is out of my tower of joy after a weekend of conquering her kingdoms.

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

The only walk of shame Dormer is doing is out of my tower of joy after a weekend of conquering her kingdoms.

Well tell Dormer to walk of shame into my bedroom because until then fuck you and HBO.

 

[juliansteed]

You keep bringing up this example, like you thinnk it is honestly relevant. In the second episode nothing is happening in Dorne,so it doesn't matter if time passes there. Nothing is happening on Dragonstone. Nothing plot wise is happening anywhere else, so when the show skips travel time it's not a big deal. You just assume nothing happened while theyre travelling.

Now there is literally plots that cover the entire continent. When you skip a week or even a month of travel time for obbe army, what that would literally signify is that nothing at all happened in that time. It doesnt even make sense for Dany to not do anytjing else at all while her army (armies) are traveling. But to time skip like that means the Lannisters arent doing anything either, because we have a POV there. It means the North isnt doing anything at all.

Dorne is one of the seven kingdom's. Or one of the main territory's or however you want to thimk of it. It's also one that has most of its troops relatively intact as they haven't been too involved yet. They were kind of taken out of tge war because their leaders have been removed. There might even be a civil war up there for succession, we havent really seen. But as they keep skipping firward in time, you can't just ignore Dorne.

What about Riverrun. The Frey's held it with Edmure as prisoner under the Lannisters. But the Frey's were all just killed (which nobody else has even mentioned in passing, you would think the Lannisters and all the Starks would care) and The Lannisters were killed/abandoned Casterly Rock. So who's in charge there?

That's why the time skips annoy me. There is clearly stuff happening, or should be stuff happening. But they keep skipping it all. They keep skipping what should be the Tyrion parts. The Varys parts. The Littlefinger parts. The Game of Thrones parts. Instead they're giving us dragons and explosions. If I wanted Uwe Boll movies with sword fighting but shitty stupid plots, I would be watching Bloodrayne or something equally stupid. If I wanted Micheal Bay explosions and cool shots, with a pretty girl ever now and then, and no dialogue at all I would have watched Transformers or something.

I'm watching GoT, so give me GoT.

What I said absolutely is relevant to the comment I was responding to because he said Arya is travelling 8X faster than she was before or something like that. I'm showing that this is simply not true. What you said is probably 100% relevant to some other discussion but has zero relevance here.

The fact that you think time jumps were justified then but not now is another debate entirely that I don't care to engage in because it is too subjective and there is way too much confirmation bias happening in this thread for me to even bother with something like that, especially since I don't really have an opinion either way. But when someone suggests that time jumps are something new or never happened before, and I point out that this is absolutely, undisputably incorrect, the fact that some might think previous time jumps were justified is in absolutely no way a counter to the point I'm making.

 

[juliansteed]

I think he means the episodes from season 1. Like they travel from Winterfell to King's Landing in a flash and no one ever bitched about it

Correct. But more specifically with this example I'm talking about the same character making the same trip only in reverse. She (along with the slow moving royal convoy) travelled from Winterfell to the Inn at the Crossroads in about half an episode (maybe 2/3 tops) in the 2nd episode of the series.

 

[chf]

That's why the time skips annoy me. There is clearly stuff happening, or should be stuff happening. But they keep skipping it all. They keep skipping what should be the Tyrion parts. The Varys parts. The Littlefinger parts. The Game of Thrones parts. Instead they're giving us dragons and explosions. If I wanted Uwe Boll movies with sword fighting but shitty stupid plots, I would be watching Bloodrayne or something equally stupid. If I wanted Micheal Bay explosions and cool shots, with a pretty girl ever now and then, and no dialogue at all I would have watched Transformers or something.

I'm watching GoT, so give me GoT.

Uwe Boll movies?

Heh. Holy fucking hell Ed.

I rest.my.fucking.case

Just stop watching. Please. Or PLEASE cut out the absurd Uwe Boll references.

The writing in this thread is approaching Uwe Boll territory.

Are you high?