Game of Thrones Thread

[Teri-Teri]

Spoiler

Is House Umber extinct?
Damn such a shame, they're one of my favorite houses in the books.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

The good:

The new intro.
Some great establishing shots of Winterfell. Best in the series.
The reunion of Jon and Bran.
"Lord Umber."
Gratuitous nudity finally makes its return.
Bran just hanging out in the middle of the stables for days(?) waiting for his buddy to show up.

The bad:

Why is Bronze Yohn serving Sansa? They are technically equals in position.
Maisie Williams is such a shit actress.
That horrible green screening in front of the waterfall.
Sam Tarly is a little bitch.

Concerning Dany:

Spoiler

Jon is still too cunt-struck to betray Dany at this point. If you're expecting some great anime betrayal you're going to be sorely disappointed.

 

[Absolutego]

I'm still mad about how the best Northern house got completely shafted in the adaptation. I want my Greatjon breaking out of his chains and going to town on the entire Bolton army, dammit!

The political tension between Sansa and Daenerys looks about as hamfisted as I expected it to be.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

Bran just hanging out in the middle of the stables for days(?) waiting for his buddy to show up.

They just couldn't be arsed to wheel his creepy ass back inside.

Thought the eps was alright. Got most of the reunions and meetups n shit out of the way.
Yara's rescue felt like such an "oh yeah, we should probably tie this one up real quick..." Literally 120 seconds of the episode sorted both Theon and Yara out.

The whole "Dragon ride n chill" scene felt like it was just fan service and really did nothing for me. I mean, I guess it just cemented Jon's whole heritage thing, but still.

Also...

 

[darkhorse816]

Spoiler: Spoilers

Jon already killed Dany. He did so on the boat. Nine months lightbringer is going to pop out and she is going to die in labor. Also I expected to see kind of a swashbuckling epic with Theon saves his sister so I was kind of disappointed. It’s a bit hard to alert people there’s an intruder when your batshit Captain is banging the batshit Queen and your batshit captain cut your tongues out because he wanted quiet.

 

[Zersetzung]

Dragons have felt underutilised so I can understand why they'd devote the time to dragonservice. Assuming they're finally going to be important this season it doesn't hurt to re-establish that they're big and impressive now that they're full-sized.
It makes sense that the whole episode took its time reminding us who people are and what's going on: I'm a fan of the series but after a shitfest season or two and a gap year I haven't cared for a while.

Concerning Dany:

Spoiler

Jon is still too cunt-struck to betray Dany at this point. If you're expecting some great anime betrayal you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Jon's thing is reluctance, of course he won't do anything he isn't forced to. But I suspect they've been frog-boiling us on Dany's crazy bitch Targ gene kicking in eventually.

 

[Exterminatus]

Spoiler

Is House Umber extinct?
Damn such a shame, they're one of my favorite houses in the books.

Spoiler

From what I can gather this is indeed the case as besides Tormund and the remnants of the Night's Watch there was nothing but cold and death there as the other family members were likely turned into Wights, the rains weep o'er their halls and not a soul to hear

 

[queue-anon]

I'm seriously sick of the ups and downs with Theon's character. Pick an arc and stick to it.

There's too much to do and too little time left and the writers have painted themselves into a corner with the strength of the white walker army. I fear it's going to take a mega deus ex machina to resolve everything, and that would be a big letdown.

I'll watch it to the end, but I'm hoping that GRRM is doing something completely different with the remaining two books.

 

[Timaeus Testified]

Spoiler: Thoughts on a certain character

Bronn's a fucking idiot; why on Earth would you take that deal from Cersei? You have enough money to get your dick sucked by three women at the same time. He even comments about how Cersei screwed him out of his castle and wife the last time he took a job from her. Bronn should know that trying to kill Jamie and Tyrion won't end well for him because he's worked for both of them. God damn, this is such a lame-ass way to build up tension for finale. Also Bronn's a thousand miles from Winterfell; it'll take him all season to get up there on horseback.

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

"She's the smartest person I know."

Nigga, what? She got the hair of the tard like her mom. Six innocent men die every time she combs her hair.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

The episode went pretty much exactly as I expected, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. Lots of setup before real shit hits the fan. Very necessary. Loved how the episode ended, too.

Spoiler

-Dany is still the worst. I hope to god they are actually going for the "villain" angle with her, because everything she's done up to this point just screams "villain origin story." I'm just afraid they won't have the balls to do it, because normie fans will REEEEEEEEEE all over the place. This episode gave me some hope with it, though, and she 100% came across as villainous to me. For once, I agree with Sansa.

-I am believing more and more that Cersei is a daughter of The Mad King. That, or they are going for a "every king becomes mad" theme for the end?

-Is The Night King a Targaryen? Because that symbol at the end of the episode sure looks like the Targaryen crest ...

 

[darkhorse816]

"She's the smartest person I know."

Nigga, what? She got the hair of the tard like her mom. Six innocent men die every time she combs her hair.

She just hasn’t gotten to know Tyrion yet. Or had the luxury of meeting Olenna Tyrell. Speaking of Tyrion, do you think he knows Cersei is bluffing and he’s bluffing himself? Maybe he has a Bronn up his sleeve.

 

[Zersetzung]

It is interesting how "the smartest" was a theme. I wonder what that means.
Hopefully it's forshadowing that they're all fucking up and everyone's gonna die.

Spoiler

-I am believing more and more that Cersei is a daughter of The Mad King. That, or they are going for a "every king becomes mad" theme for the end?

-Is The Night King a Targaryen? Because that symbol at the end of the episode sure looks like the Targaryen crest ...

Spoiler

I think the mounting parallels between Cersei and Dany have gotta be deliberate. There's definitely an element of "all these people are fucking assholes", especially in the books, but in this case I think it's specific symmetry.

Targ aryans are from Valeria while it seems like the Night King was a First Man that those elf dicks weaponised, so probably not, but you're right that there was a strong resemblance. Perhaps the Targ crest references an older symbol?

 

[Jub-Jub]

Overall decent start

The whole "Dragon ride n chill" scene felt like it was just fan service and really did nothing for me. I mean, I guess it just cemented Jon's whole heritage thing, but still.

Was it just me or did the CG in that scene look awful especially the meet the dragons scene? Dragon riding scenes have never looked great, but that looked really bad.

"She's the smartest person I know."

Unironically saying this line after the terrible sisters doing it for themselves subplot last season. They cut a scene where Bran had to straight up tell Sansa that Littlefinger was playing them, because she was too dumb to work it out.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

Was it just me or did the CG in that scene look awful especially the meet the dragons scene? Dragon riding scenes have never looked great, but that looked really bad.

It looked really bad and felt really out of place. It ate up a ton of screen time, too.

Bran told them there's no time for this shit, Jon knows there's no time for this shit, The whole reason they went to the dragons in the first place was because they weren't eating. So instead of trying to sort out some food for them, they take them on a bad throwback to "A whole new world" from fucking Disney's Aladdin? Not gonna lie, this was the first thing I thought of when the scene was happening.

Was the most "anti-Game of thrones-ish" moment in the whole story so far.

The dragon staring at them was the icing on the shit cake.

 

[Jub-Jub]

It looked really bad and felt really out of place. It ate up a ton of screen time, too.

Bran told them there's no time for this shit, Jon knows there's no time for this shit, The whole reason they went to the dragons in the first place was because they weren't eating. So instead of trying to sort out some food for them, they take them on a bad throwback to "A whole new world" from fucking Disney's Aladdin? Not gonna lie, this was the first thing I thought of when the scene was happening.

Was the most "anti-Game of thrones-ish" moment in the whole story so far.

The dragon staring at them was the icing on the shit cake.

Wow that puts the scene into a new perspective, My first thought seeing the flying part was 'WTF do you know how fucking cold that windchill on your face would be? Cover up!' Obviously they wouldn't do that because you gotta see the actors faces, but it still annoys me. I forgot about Bran saying there's no time too. Of course then Bran waits days? before getting Sam to tell John. Night king doesn't seem to be in a hurry though, he would rather be on a sight seeing tour, so they'll have plenty of time.

 

[_blank_]

Hey, want to know what else has been underutilized?

Spoiler: My Thoughts, Spoilerized For Your Protection

- Theon and Yara is now no more than plot devices. I bet you when the White Walkers overrun Winterfell, the survivors will make a break for the coastlines and team Nu-Iron Islands will be there to pick them up.

- Expect one of the main characters to perform a Hodor Maneuver next week. My guess is that it's either going to be either Sam (whose importance to the plot otherwise is pretty much gone since the Aegon thing is out of the bag), Greyworm, or Tyrion (who has been treading water plot-wise for the last couple of seasons).

- Maybe Bran will also confront the Night King. I just hope someone remembers to roll his crippled ass indoors before the siege begins.

 

[Rumpled Foreskin]

Spoiler: Holy shit, I didn’t recognize him!!!!

one of the dudes Theon murdered on the ship was Mac from IASIP!!

 

[Miang]

It was a decent start and got enough of the ball rolling for the season that there's a lot to look forward to, but...the dialogue. Oh, my God. The dialogue.

I knew they were going to be in trouble after they ran out of book material to adapt dialogue from, but to give you an idea of how bad it's gotten since Season 6: my favorite scene was the one toward the end at Last Hearth because it had the most mood and the least talking. Otherwise, you could make an unsurvivable drinking game out of how many times the dialogue in this episode boiled down to shallow callbacks to previous seasons, has a character suddenly aware of events they've never been told about onscreen, or relies on empty profundities and snarky comebacks that say nothing about anything.

"What do dragons eat?"
"Whatever they want."

"How did you sneak up on me?"
"How did you survive a knife to the heart?"
"I didn't."
"..."

"I always knew you were just another rich girl."
"You don’t know any other rich girls."

"I don't know how to ride a dragon."
"Nobody does, until they ride a dragon."

And so on. I'm not even going to touch the Tyrion/Varys exchange that starts the final season. For a show that sells itself as an adult fantasy, it's really addicted (hah) to junior high dick jokes.

I don't even think Joss Whedon, at his most burned-out on Buffy or Angel, was ever this bad about phoning it in with the scripts. I don't get it. I'm a total Final Fantasy fangirl and the localization teams for that series, especially XIV, can't stop trying to ape GRRM's style, and yet the actual show based on his books doesn't seem to have any writers capable of doing it. (Yes, I did just say Final fucking Fantasy XIV sounds more like Game of Thrones used to than Game of Thrones does now. I'm as alarmed as you are.) So now when you hear the characters talk, it feels like a "theme park" version of the earlier seasons. Or like some high-fantasy Facebook conversation. Even a couple of my friends who only watch the show casually have noticed it.

Okay, rant over. Really, I know Benioff & Weiss are better at spectacle than they are at writing, so spectacle is what I'm here to see. I'm very excited for the next big battle which I'm sure will be a bloodbath of character deaths, and especially for Episodes 3 and 5, which Miguel Sapochnik (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, and that episode where Cersei blows up the Vatican) is directing; he never disappoints, and I'm sure he'll give us something epic.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

And so on. I'm not even going to touch the Tyrion/Varys exchange that starts the final season.

I gave an audible groan at that.

It's like they ran out of the witty, intelligent interactions they could give Varys and Tyrion that made them enduring all through the Essos saga. Although considering they've both been atrophied out of any sort of power, influence or plot armor, I guess leaving them as the sophomoric dick joke humor duo is all they have left.

It's not like Dany's taking any advice or needs any guidance at this point. She's literally just playing Cersi lite and gives 0 fucks except for getting her throne.