Game of Thrones, continued

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
The only weird thing to me was the percentage of main characters who survived versus the percentage of everyone else who died. When Arya ended everything, it appeared that the survivors were 25 name characters and zero of the 30,000 others who died. Certainly you'd expect more name characters to survive; many of them are name characters because they're great warriors. But the balance was a little off.

I read and acknowledge and even understand the arguments in favor of the White Walker plotline, but at the end of the day, I simply don't agree. At the end of the day, while there is something to be said for existential threats overwhelming what should otherwise be an existence about something else, that is not what this show is. If they were truly committed to that, then the Night King should have just killed everyone.

I don't know anything about the books; I do know about the show. And in the show, the political battles and family battles are what's interesting. The white walkers served a lot of narrative purpose; their existence gave stakes to Jon's storyline and explained a great deal about the divide between Westeros and the Wildlings. But as actual villains? I can't give a shit. I'm glad they're dealt with and that the clash will end with the characters that have been developed.
 
I think this discussion illustrates why GRRM has not finished writing the books. I don't think the conclusion provided in the show is satisfactory, but at the same time I am not sure I can think of a satisfactory alternative. It is really hard to bring these two different storylines - the internal politics and the external threat. Ideally they would have been approached together, but it's not easy to do that in the show.

My main qualm about the lack of deaths is that so much of the story of good vs evil in the show was about personal sacrifices. The show had admittedly stayed away from some of the prophecies, but it feels cheap that they were able to defeat this generational evil without making any such sacrifice.
 
Last edited:
dude, this is the show that did the Red Wedding.

you really can't argue that its ruthless edge has disappeared.

and until Arya stabbed night man (also, how did she get passed the hundreds and hundreds of white walkers that were all around him?!?!!) it looked like everyone was going to die. so the fact that so many people survived, and nearly all those who did are major characters, sucks.
I hate you so much.
 
dude, this is the show that did the Red Wedding.

you really can't argue that its ruthless edge has disappeared.

and until Arya stabbed night man (also, how did she get passed the hundreds and hundreds of white walkers that were all around him?!?!!) it looked like everyone was going to die. so the fact that so many people survived, and nearly all those who did are major characters, sucks.

1. There were apparently only about 100 white walkers. Sure, they're very large and have great powers, but they're not exactly mobile.

2. They clearly had let their guard down. Hubris isn't just a human trait!

3. Arya is a trained assassin. This is sort of her area of expertise.
 
D3eZ2hlWAAAzue0.jpg:large


I would also be remiss if I did not bring this up again.
 
dude, this is the show that did the Red Wedding.

you really can't argue that its ruthless edge has disappeared.

and until Arya stabbed night man (also, how did she get passed the hundreds and hundreds of white walkers that were all around him?!?!!) it looked like everyone was going to die. so the fact that so many people survived, and nearly all those who did are major characters, sucks.



I think the point of Arya’s assassin skills are beyond being sneaky. The premise is just she takes the form of who she kills, or whatever. Magic - she isn’t a costume designer.

Admittedly I do not like the whole “pull the face mask off” thing as it does make her seem like a costume designer.
 
So I’ve started the series from the beginning this week and I’d forgotten how much I liked Tywin Lannister in the days where Arya was his cupbearer.
 
I think the point of Arya’s assassin skills are beyond being sneaky. The premise is just she takes the form of who she kills, or whatever. Magic - she isn’t a costume designer.

Admittedly I do not like the whole “pull the face mask off” thing as it does make her seem like a costume designer.
They should have spent more time showing us Arya sneaking her way to the Night King and less time on dark, blurry shots of extras fighting CGI monsters. The ending would have been a lot more suspenseful.
 
Last edited:
They should have spent more time showing us Arya sneaking her way to the Night King and less time on dark, blurry shots of extras fighting CGI monsters. The ending would have been a lot more suspenseful.



They haven’t ever showed Arya sneaking away though. The mystic/hidden nature of her assassin character is that you never see it coming. I don’t think we are supposed to see her plotting as the faceless man. I don’t think we are supposed to see her transform, to see her think, or to see her AS the faceless man. Only as Arya, or as someone she is impersonating.


Tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if Sansa has something significant happen to her in the final episodes. It would complete the trifecta of super-Starks. Either that or she is also a bastard or some shit. She sure as hell doesn’t look like the other two.
 
They haven’t ever showed Arya sneaking away though. The mystic/hidden nature of her assassin character is that you never see it coming. I don’t think we are supposed to see her plotting as the faceless man. I don’t think we are supposed to see her transform, to see her think, or to see her AS the faceless man. Only as Arya, or as someone she is impersonating.


Tbh I wouldn’t be surprised if Sansa has something significant happen to her in the final episodes. It would complete the trifecta of super-Starks. Either that or she is also a bastard or some shit. She sure as hell doesn’t look like the other two.



I completely agree. And the same is true for Jaqen H’ghar’s killings in S2 (or 3?). I have no complaints about Arya being the one to kill the NK or how she did it.
 
You don't care that the Night King was killed in seconds with hardly any suspense, foreshadowing or struggle? Arya killing him isn't an issue at all, it's obviously badass as fuck, but definitely anticlimactic in the way the sequence was shot.

Like 7 seasons of build up and we couldn't even savor the moment from Arya's perspective? She just appears out of nowhere and it's all over? There are so many ways they could have improved that conclusion.
 
Last edited:
I completely agree. And the same is true for Jaqen H’ghar’s killings in S2 (or 3?). I have no complaints about Arya being the one to kill the NK or how she did it.



Season 2. I just watched those. The one at Tywin Lannister’s door was incredible.
 
You don't care that the Night King was killed in seconds with hardly any suspense, foreshadowing or struggle? Arya killing him isn't an issue at all, it's obviously badass as fuck, but definitely anticlimactic in the way the sequence was shot.

Like 7 seasons of build up and we couldn't even savor the moment from Arya's perspective? She just appears out of nowhere and it's all over? There are so many ways they could have improved that conclusion.
You didn't enjoy the scene where Arya kills the Night King?
 
You don't care that the Night King was killed in seconds with hardly any suspense, foreshadowing or struggle? Arya killing him isn't an issue at all, it's obviously badass as fuck, but definitely anticlimactic in the way the sequence was shot.

Like 7 seasons of build up and we couldn't even savor the moment from Arya's perspective? She just appears out of nowhere and it's all over? There are so many ways they could have improved that conclusion.



Hardly any suspense? It was at a point in the episode where everyone was near death. All defenses were down and everyone was fighting for their life. I’m not sure how it was anticlimactic... it was tense, and Bran was about to be killed.

Let’s not forget, game of thrones. Emphasis on the thrones. If they didn’t wrap up the night king sooner it would’ve probably not saved enough time for Cersei, the real biggest villain.
 
dude, this is the show that did the Red Wedding.

you really can't argue that its ruthless edge has disappeared.

and until Arya stabbed night man (also, how did she get passed the hundreds and hundreds of white walkers that were all around him?!?!!) it looked like everyone was going to die. so the fact that so many people survived, and nearly all those who did are major characters, sucks.
For whatever it's worth, GRRM wrote the Red Wedding. Since D+D took over, there have been very little main character (Starks, Lannisters and Targaryans) death... If any? Rickon and Cersei's children I guess.
 
Hardly any suspense? It was at a point in the episode where everyone was near death. All defenses were down and everyone was fighting for their life. I’m not sure how it was anticlimactic... it was tense, and Bran was about to be killed.

Let’s not forget, game of thrones. Emphasis on the thrones. If they didn’t wrap up the night king sooner it would’ve probably not saved enough time for Cersei, the real biggest villain.
If main characters being in "danger" is all it takes to make something suspenseful, then yeah I guess it was suspenseful. I was just waiting on a deus ex machina to bail them all out like the white walker battle in Beyond the Wall. This time, it was Arya instead of Dany. Technically, Arya is not a deus ex machina because an attempt was made to foreshadow her attack, but she felt that way because of how the rest was handled.

It didn't have to feel rushed or contrived. Her conversation with Melisandre could have been written a little differently, a few seconds could have been spliced in to establish that we should be in suspense waiting for her to show up, there could have been a POV shot of her stalking the Night King that pointed to someone waiting for their moment to strike, etc.

One little change that I would have liked is for her lunge to be shot with the camera facing the other way, heading towards the Night King, so that we can feel the motion of it. The straight-on, over-the-shoulder lunge that we got looks like a cheap special effect. That doesn't change anything about the idea of the scene (which by itself is really good), but it would make it feel better.

Anyway, I'm tired of complaining. I look forward to Sunday's episode being much better.
 
For whatever it's worth, GRRM wrote the Red Wedding. Since D+D took over, there have been very little main character (Starks, Lannisters and Targaryans) death... If any? Rickon and Cersei's children I guess.

Measuring main character deaths, in part, by how many Targaryens have died is awfully silly because there's literally been only one living Targaryen on the show since early in S1. (Yeah Jon is a Targaryen but you know what I mean. Oh and I guess there was the old blind maester but he was killed off before the show strayed from the books).

Tell your husband to relax and enjoy it when awesome shit happens on TV instead of nitpicking the hell out of everything.
 
Last edited:
And why are people earnestly responding to cobbler GOT posts? This fucker just started watching the show and is actually trolling us.
 
For whatever it's worth, GRRM wrote the Red Wedding. Since D+D took over, there have been very little main character (Starks, Lannisters and Targaryans) death... If any? Rickon and Cersei's children I guess.



They sure aren’t afraid to kill every single child in this show. ??*♂️
 
If main characters being in "danger" is all it takes to make something suspenseful, then yeah I guess it was suspenseful. I was just waiting on a deus ex machina to bail them all out like the white walker battle in Beyond the Wall. This time, it was Arya instead of Dany. Technically, Arya is not a deus ex machina because an attempt was made to foreshadow her attack, but she felt that way because of how the rest was handled.

It didn't have to feel rushed or contrived. Her conversation with Melisandre could have been written a little differently, a few seconds could have been spliced in to establish that we should be in suspense waiting for her to show up, there could have been a POV shot of her stalking the Night King that pointed to someone waiting for their moment to strike, etc.

One little change that I would have liked is for her lunge to be shot with the camera facing the other way, heading towards the Night King, so that we can feel the motion of it. The straight-on, over-the-shoulder lunge that we got looks like a cheap special effect. That doesn't change anything about the idea of the scene (which by itself is really good), but it would make it feel better.

Anyway, I'm tired of complaining. I look forward to Sunday's episode being much better.



Go watch the scene over. I think you missed the white walker that cocks his head towards the camera.

Presumably that could be Arya.
 
Haha you son of a bitch. How's life? Let's hijack the Game of Thrones thread and turn it into a chat thread. It'll be the new Superthread. You, me, LeMel, Ashley. We can get Axver and Bonnie and all those people over here too.
 
Go watch the scene over. I think you missed the white walker that cocks his head towards the camera.

Presumably that could be Arya.
Could be. And I've seen fan theories that claim Arya was foreshadowed to be the Night King's killer going way back. It still doesn't make that sequence feel any better to me as I watch it.

Maybe the scene will age well for me, technical complaints aside. I am, no matter what it sounds like, very happy that Arya will be around for the last few episodes. So that's something good to come of all this.
 
Back
Top Bottom