Game of Thrones Thread

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

So... I guess Jon Snow drew up the battle plans then...

First, we'll have our cavalry charge directly at the horde, all by themselves. Why? Obviously they didn't expect the dothraki to actually kill all the wights, so what was the fucking plan there? Even ignoring the fact that they're feeding the undead army more corpses to use, that was nonsense strategy. Sorry Dothraki, Jon only understands one front at a time.

Why wasn't Tyrion tapped to come up with battle plans? He's got some history of good plans.

Then, the unsullied line up in a giant formation... behind a bunch of barricades, with spears. OK, this is a good start! Then they proceed to run through the barricades, 2 by 2, to be slaughtered. What?! I think the unsullied's combat abilities were seriously oversold, aside from grey worm they all go down like punks.

Then they remember, oh yeah, we made a giant trench and filled it with wood and (I'm assuming) the same magic accelerant dany used to burn down the dothraki capital. Hey let's use that! Hmm, maybe they should have started with this, and not thrown a bunch of bodies at them first. Were they worried the night king wouldn't commit his forces if they didn't send some dudes to get slaughtered?

So Jon and Dany fly around on their dragons, burning wights. Fun times. But what's the point? They have stated multiple times that they have no hope at all of killing the whole army. So they're risking themselves for no real gain, while they could be much more useful holding the goddamn line.

The night king being unceremoniously killed by teleporting Arya was lame. Also, why did she have to drop the dagger to her other hand, wasn't the night king just holding her throat?

Jamming everyone in the crypt was just so fucking stupid...


Moving on from show logic to show presentation...

It looked like all the main characters were overrun and killed by wights multiple times. I know they try to capture a back and forth, but it really didn't work.

What the fuck was the point of Bran? Both in this battle, and overall?

Also, how did the giant who was killed inside winterfell in the battle of the bastards end up back outside? The night's watch knew to burn corpses, why wouldn't they have been like "Oh shit we should burn all the bodies from those other battles"

And now we have 4 episodes to deal with Cercei? What's the point? Her position currently makes no sense, by show logic she shouldn't be in charge on anything. What, her, one big zombie, and her mad scientist are able to prevent the starving populace from rebelling? You'd think they must be pretty pissed about her first arming the church, having all their fun pasttimes destroyed, then her blowing the fucking church up, killing the actual queen, who was loved by the people.

So... the resolution will probably be equally nonsensical. They'll fight euron's army and navy of one hundred trillion sailors and elephants, with both sides being repeatedly killed over the course of the episode(s), abruptly something that doesn't make sense will happen to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, and whoever does the last thing that makes no sense will win.

Or, Qyburn will put some magic chemical in the water in king's landing, turning the entire population into zombies, and they'll have a second battle of the dead.

Or Dany will give a rousing speech and move her eyebrows around a lot and her and cercei will get married and live happily ever after.

 

[Dropped Burner]

HBO should have seized the rights to Dragon Riders of Pern, real lost opportunity.

It'd be an easy sell to the GoT crowd. Lessa is a secret princess hunted by her enemies. Jaxom is reluctant royalty with unique magical powers. It's Dany/Jon! Play up the "Lord Holders want to get rid of dragonriders" angle to give the viewers some action/murder. It could be very political, McCaffrey just handwaved most of that in the books. The franchise already has woman dragonriders, queer dragonriders, and a backstory as a mixed-race colony so they don't have to add the pozzed stuff from scratch. It seems ready-made for modern audiences who want more of this stuff.

 

[TheWatcherofWatchers]

Speaking of the Dothraki, was everyone really ok with sending them to the front lines with steel weapons? It doesn't look like Melisandre's arrival was expected

 

[Judge Holden]

Oh and another thing.

Why the fuck did they even bother with the undead dragon if they did fucking nothing of worth with him and just had him die when the night king got shanked?

I mean for christ sakes they already introduced the concept of the whole "dragon killing scorpion crossbow" thing in the previous season, and given how team dany knew about the undead dragon in advance it stands to reason they might have built a few in case the dragons were unable to take it out, and maybe to try and headshot some of the zombie giants.

The reason I point this out is because this seems like the cheapiest and easiest way to give any character you wanted their ultimate moment of glory since just about every single character in the story could load, aim, and fire the thing even if they are effectively useless in combat. You could let Sam do it in order to truly earn his title of "slayer", Dany could get knocked off her dragon for whatever reason and wind up near one the scorpion and be forced to kill her own "child" in order to save Jon. Jesus you could even have had fucking bran fire it from the fucking godswood instead of doing literally nothing.

 

[Marissa Moira]

It'd be an easy sell to the GoT crowd. Lessa is a secret princess hunted by her enemies. Jaxom is reluctant royalty with unique magical powers. It's Dany/Jon! Play up the "Lord Holders want to get rid of dragonriders" angle to give the viewers some action/murder. It could be very political, McCaffrey just handwaved most of that in the books. The franchise already has woman dragonriders, queer dragonriders, and a backstory as a mixed-race colony so they don't have to add the pozzed stuff from scratch. It seems ready-made for modern audiences who want more of this stuff.

Yeah DROP could pretty much work as is without any major changes.

I would mostly want to watch it for the late 1970's/ Early 1980's scifi fantasy style sets, creatures, and green screen environments tho.

That and I'm convinced that Dophins of Pern sold entirely due to the cover, unless they can perfectly match the scene on the cover for a whole episode or two it will finally be brought to light how bad it really is.

 

[Dropped Burner]

Or Dany will give a rousing speech and move her eyebrows around a lot and her and cercei will get married and live happily ever after.

They hold hands and step together into the spirit world onto the back of Drogon, to see what lies west of Westeros!

seriously it wouldn't surprise me at all if one character fucks off to the West at the end and literally says "we call this continent westeros, but there's more west to discover - I'll discover it" and it'll probably be Arya because why not
oh and she does it by stealing Euron's face and his fleet
(this is such a stupidly GoT idea that I'll now be disappointed when it doesn't happen)

 

[TheWatcherofWatchers]

Another thing to note:

Why the hell was Ghost charging with Jorah and the Dothraki? I don't recall direwolves having teeth made of valyrian steel. You could have had him inside the walls or in the crypts.

And how did Arya sneak up on the Night King and Bran when they were watched by half a dozen whitewalkers and hundreds of wights?

 

[UngaWunga]

Another thing to note:

Why the hell was Ghost charging with Jorah and the Dothraki? I don't recall direwolves having teeth made of valyrian steel. You could have had him inside the walls or in the crypts.

And how did Arya sneak up on the Night King and Bran when they were watched by half a dozen whitewalkers and hundreds of wights?

1. It looked cool
2. She’s a highly trained magical assassin with sneaking skills.

 

[Judge Holden]

One more "if I was in the writer room..." thought, but this time its tied to last seasons inexplicably badly written showcase episode

Why the didnt they hype up the Night King when Dany mounted her rescue north of the wall by having her attempt to burn him on her dragon, incinterating the wights and white walkers around him but leaving him unharmed, causing her to land and try to have her dragon rip him apart/crush him only for him to effortlessly avoid it jaws and use the opening to straight up murderstab drogon through the spine with ease Eowyn style, forcing her to dismount and flee on one of the surviving dragons with the other characters.

Boom. Night king immediately established to be far nastier and more powerful than the other white walkers, Dany actually gets some characterisation by showing her hot headed attempt to end the war before it begins backfiring and costing her favourite child as well as massively empowering the white walkers, and the plot no longer relies on him throwing fucking icicles into the air.

 

[Mola Ram]

One more "if I was in the writer room..." thought, but this time its tied to last seasons inexplicably badly written showcase episode

Why the didnt they hype up the Night King when Dany mounted her rescue north of the wall by having her attempt to burn him on her dragon, incinterating the wights and white walkers around him but leaving him unharmed, causing her to land and try to have her dragon rip him apart/crush him only for him to effortlessly avoid it jaws and use the opening to straight up murderstab drogon through the spine with ease Eowyn style, forcing her to dismount and flee on one of the surviving dragons with the other characters.

Boom. Night king immediately established to be far nastier and more powerful than the other white walkers, Dany actually gets some characterisation by showing her hot headed attempt to end the war before it begins backfiring and costing her favourite child as well as massively empowering the white walkers, and the plot no longer relies on him throwing fucking icicles into the air.

The whole mythology of the Night King was completely goofed. One flashback scene, then cast aside in favor of romantic dragonriding, Cersei being a smug cunt, and Arya becoming a literally unbelievable badass. The probability of a scene in the next three episodes where somebody observes that Cersei is a far more evil being than the Night King and the script reacting as if this is the profoundest wisdom ever delivered is approaching 1.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

lol this surpassed my expectations for stupid. A shame, book Arya is my favorite character but since the fat man won't write this is how must people will remember her. An insufferable plot armored Mary Sue that's responsible for HBO's biggest anticlimax. The salt is great though.

My expectations were low but damn. So much time was put into these characters only to be squandered in a cringey fan service send off. Looks like we're probably getting a happy ending that was never meant to be. It's a shame Martin is still kicking, because now he has to watch this shit.

It's his own fault. He deserves this.

 

[Muttnik]

While part of me is glad the WW plot won't resolve the battle for the throne with a nice little bow by killing everyone off, damn that was disappointing.

Especially after seeing how Endgame dealt with a massive villain threat.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Meanwhile in the books we don't even really know what the Others are or what they want but the question has actually been raised and they're probably not just mwahaha evil kill everything but part of some deeper ancient conflict.

 

[Judge Holden]

lol this surpassed my expectations for stupid. A shame, book Arya is my favorite character but since the fat man won't write this is how must people will remember her. An insufferable plot armored Mary Sue that's responsible for HBO's biggest anticlimax. The salt is great though.


It's his own fault. He deserves this.

Frankly Arya's whole mary sue mall ninja powers could be forgiven if the show writers remembered the most basic ass theme of the series.

Power demands sacrifice.

Just about all the protagonists and indeed antagonists had to sacrifice their morality, their dreams, their honour, and everything else in order to stand a chance in the wider game. Dany literally had to sacrifice her unborn child to save her husband, and then sacrificed both him and herself to awaken the dragons. The whole Azor Ahai spiel is based around sacrificing ones loved one to fight evil.

If Arya was to gain the insane fighting power enough to kill the nights king from the Faceless Men then she should have done what the books hinted at and the series loudly beat us over the head with. She should have sacrificed her individuality and memories to get this power, and only wind up retaining the faintest echo of them back thanks to Bran's magic schtick. She forgets her father, forgets jon, eventually even forgets her kill list, and literally becomes "no one", with the few memories she retains thanks to bran vanishing just after she kills the Nights King.

Thus instead of "lol epin badass nothing personell kid" we see a character who desperately clung to her memories and identity despite going through hell forced to sacrifice it all in order to protect those she loved and the wider world. Her victory thus feels earned since she pays a massive personal price for it in a way that affects characters around her.

 

[Frazzle]

I hope they wheel Bran off of the fucking wall.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Yeah Arya's arc in the books is clearly about lost humanity where even if she succeeds in what she wants the reader is probably going to regret her getting it. But that's not woke enough I guess.

 

[ulsterscotsman]

Spoiler

I wish Jorah Mormont survived and became lord of Bear Island again.

 

[The Penultimate Warrior]

This was definitely my favourite shot of the episode

Going to have to watch it a second time tonight, as even with the curtains closed this morning I was struggling to make out what was going on half the time.


Although they won, aren't they now completely screwed? They lost almost their entire army whilst Cersi has just sat at home with her feet up.

 

[Judge Holden]

Spoiler

I wish Jorah Mormont survived and became lord of Bear Island again.

Speaking of that family, Lyanna Mormont's death was a cheap as hell cop out attempt to press the "CHARACTER I LIKE DIEDED!" button while keeping the entire main cast intact. I mean for fuck sake you have a character called giantsbane and he doesnt wind up killing a goddamn giant as he dies, and instead you get a hilariously stupid contrivance where an 11 year old child is a front line soldier and winds up suicide killing a giant.

Say what you like about Ollie but atleast they had him up on the lift shooting arrows at people and not trying to 1v1 knifefight hordes of zombies.

Honestly its just symptomatic of how the writers operate. A character gets unexpected ammounts of hype and they respond by mutilating the storyline in order to give them more "badass/hilarious/whatever" moments at the expense of everyone else and turning the characters involved into 1 note cliches. This is pretty much the exact thing that happened to Arya and Tyrion who had their interesting story elements cut so they could get more "hype" moments.

 

[Teri-Teri]

This was definitely my favourite shot of the episode

Going to have to watch it a second time tonight, as even with the curtains closed this morning I was struggling to make out what was going on half the time.


Although they won, aren't they now completely screwed? They lost almost their entire army whilst Cersi has just sat at home with her feet up.

Whoa nice!