And mtron is right, if they would have just attacked Cersei instead of going north of the wall to bring her a wight, then she would have been easily defeated in S7 AND they would have still had all 3 dragons [...]
If they attacked Cersei, there's no guarantee any of the dragons or any of the dragon riders would have survived.
Why? There is no evidence that they had fortified KL with ballistas at all at that point. The Targaryen army alone dwarfed what little army Cersei had left.
It would have been such an easy win for team Targaryen. Even now with ballistas likely built and playing a hand in the upcoming conflict, those things are purely lucky shots to hit a dragon flying around at full speed before it destroys the ballista. In the 300+ years of dragons battling and attacking kingdoms who DID have ballista weapons, only 1 has ever been killed by one and only 1 has been slightly injured by one.
Cersei would not have met them on open ground. They would have to lay siege to Kings Landing, which takes time because the food (and the gold) from the reach made it to the city. Or they have to burn the city with all the citizens inside, which poisons the rest of Westeros. Tyrion mentioned all this last season.
I think my favorite is still Blackwater for the character focus like you said. It was sort of like the past two episodes put together in a single episode. We had characters on both sides contemplating death for themselves and those around them. But we also had people actually overseeing the battle updating what was going on. People expressing the need for leadership and Joffrey freaking out and Tyrion stepping up and giving a speech and charging in to battle. We had the Hound question his role with the Lannisters while facing people on fire. The smart tactical trap with the wildfire at first built as a mystery and then big explosion. Cersei instructing Sansa on the nature of battle, their role, and what to expect if they lose. A clear progression from water, to landing, to ladders. Other great moments that I can't remember off the top of my head.
In this latest episode we did have a similar Hound parallel, and we actually had a lot of tension and some sense of the battle tactics for maybe the first twenty to thirty minutes. But after that, there isn't a single person in the show that knows what's going on. Not a single person leading or coordinating anything. Not a single person even expressing wants or needs either personal or with battle sense, with the exception of Beric giving the Hound the pep talk, one of the highlights of the episode. The Sansa and Tyrion parts were good as well, the problem is they had no ability to give the audience any insight into the battle. Maybe have Grey Worm still have one secure corner with some Unsullied and other showing us that at least someone still is trying to make decisions instead of him by himself on a growing pile of corpses. They purposefully sidelined Tyrion, but they needed a Tyrion-like character doing any kind of coordination.
Instead, it was all close up of character in danger, then switch to next close up of character in danger, switch to Sam flailing on the ground not being attacked for some reason, and show him later on even closer just crying not being attacked for some reason. The characters never ran into each other and were siloed and the threat level confusing.
For me, if they had Jon run into Sam and save him, and ask if he saw where the Night King went. And then showed Jon run into somewhere else an ask Ed if he saw the Night King pass by, and then ran into Grey Worm and said he needs to get to Bran the plan is in shambles but I can still stop the Night King, and then runs into the dragon and can't get past? That connects everything in a larger sense. Or only just the one interaction to balance chaos and coincidence, but give him one person to be able to express he wants to find the Night King or asking if they know a clear path to Bran. Instead we just get Jon running through random halls. Cool ass hallways with crazy effects with wights falling all around him, but with no connection to anyone.
Or even just see people off in the distance that you can't help and have to go another way. But instead, it was always just Jamie and Brienne and they never see anyone else. Grey Worm off on his own never interacting with anyone else (After the chaos starts. He had the good moment getting the Unsullied to guard Mellisandre.) Maybe Jon evades some wights and loses them, and that's the group of wights that burst through the door that Arya wasn't watching. So they don't actually interact but you see their actions affecting each other. I need more from the character moments than "I want to live" and I need more from the battle than everything is in chaos and isolated from everything else and not a single person knows anything. Have some and POVs in complete chaos, but the advantage of having so many POVs is that you can show them having different experiences and not just different types of chaos.
Edit: I think some of it is just that each plot in Blackwater felt like it had a purpose. Each character the battle focused on had an arc in Blackwater. In this battle, more than half the cast had their only purpose as to be one of many known faces to keep cutting back to, just to see which would live or die. Because there was no clear flow to the battle, there was no purpose in most people's scenes. Beric and the Hound had a purpose so it worked more so than other parts of the episode.
Holy shit. I feel real dumb for not realizing that Viserion was blocking the way. I thought he was just hunting down Jon. Obviously I knew Jon was going for Bran, but damn...if Jon does say Go Go Goooo then that is cool as hell!
As I understood it, he was say “No! no! No!” because Viserion was blocking him. I took his look to be one of frustration.
It seems abundantly clear to me that John had to be in winterfell in order for Arya to be there. That was his purpose for the lord of light. Arya only went north because of John. There was only a defense at Winterfell because of John.
Of course, given what happened to Beric and Melisandre, does this mean we see the end of John before the season's over?
Well, Beric's fate was not being resurrected again. I don't know why Mellisandre had to die. Maybe because she was already stealing time re: her age? Jon can die now. That's his fate. I don't think it needs to be a show death.
And mtron is right, if they would have just attacked Cersei instead of going north of the wall to bring her a wight, then she would have been easily defeated in S7 AND they would have still had all 3 dragons [...]
If they attacked Cersei, there's no guarantee any of the dragons or any of the dragon riders would have survived.
Why? There is no evidence that they had fortified KL with ballistas at all at that point. The Targaryen army alone dwarfed what little army Cersei had left.
It would have been such an easy win for team Targaryen. Even now with ballistas likely built and playing a hand in the upcoming conflict, those things are purely lucky shots to hit a dragon flying around at full speed before it destroys the ballista. In the 300+ years of dragons battling and attacking kingdoms who DID have ballista weapons, only 1 has ever been killed by one and only 1 has been slightly injured by one.
Cersei would not have met them on open ground. They would have to lay siege to Kings Landing, which takes time because the food (and the gold) from the reach made it to the city. Or they have to burn the city with all the citizens inside, which poisons the rest of Westeros. Tyrion mentioned all this last season.
She had 3 dragons and KL had no defense for them. They did not have to lay siege to KL. They mentioned this multiple times.
Tyrion basically said that they didn't want to burn KL down so he wanted to use tactics around that, but I would argue that they wouldnt have even had to do that. Just take out the Red Keep. Land your dragons on it and there you go. None of the Lannister troops left would have stayed loyal for more than 5 minutes to put up any kind of fight. No one was loyal to Cersei outside of fear, but they would have feared 3 giant dragons that they had no defense for at that time much more.
It seems abundantly clear to me that John had to be in winterfell in order for Arya to be there. That was his purpose for the lord of light. Arya only went north because of John. There was only a defense at Winterfell because of John.
Of course, given what happened to Beric and Melisandre, does this mean we see the end of John before the season's over?
Well, Beric's fate was not being resurrected again. I don't know why Mellisandre had to die. Maybe because she was already stealing time re: her age? Jon can die now. That's his fate. I don't think it needs to be a show death.
It seems abundantly clear to me that John had to be in winterfell in order for Arya to be there. That was his purpose for the lord of light. Arya only went north because of John. There was only a defense at Winterfell because of John.
Of course, given what happened to Beric and Melisandre, does this mean we see the end of John before the season's over?
Well, Beric's fate was not being resurrected again. I don't know why Mellisandre had to die. Maybe because she was already stealing time re: her age? Jon can die now. That's his fate. I don't think it needs to be a show death.
This what should happen. Like Starbuck.
Wow, BSG is actually a really good corollary for how this show has changed over the seasons.
But I don't want him to go off to die... I just mean no more resurrections.
It seems abundantly clear to me that John had to be in winterfell in order for Arya to be there. That was his purpose for the lord of light. Arya only went north because of John. There was only a defense at Winterfell because of John.
Of course, given what happened to Beric and Melisandre, does this mean we see the end of John before the season's over?
Well, Beric's fate was not being resurrected again. I don't know why Mellisandre had to die. Maybe because she was already stealing time re: her age? Jon can die now. That's his fate. I don't think it needs to be a show death.
This what should happen. Like Starbuck.
Wow, BSG is actually a really good corollary for how this show has changed over the seasons.
But I don't want him to go off to die... I just mean no more resurrections.
BSG is how I interpreted Melisandre’s death. Her magic wore off because the LOL was done with her. I am not sure what to think about Jon’s fate. I can’t see him wanting to be king. He’d do it, but I think he’d hate it.
Also, if Dany wanted to use her ground troops in Kings Landing, again, she has dragons to blow up the gates. It would take 2 minutes.
They never would have needed to lay siege to KL under any circumstance, whether they wanted to attack by land or air, or both.
Well, your alternate tactics are better than Tyrion’s. He’s not been at his best. But I was going with what the show provided as a reason for not taking Kings Landing first. I still think the Dothraki rape, kill, pillage, and burn KL once those gates are down.
Re: Why they charged/ why didn’t they play defense/ why they didn’t wait for the dead to attack. They’re weren’t on the defense, they were on the offense. The dead could literally have stood there for a week, month, year if they wanted to. And what food would the living have to wait them out? They needed to be the instigators.
If that is the case, why not pick a more advantageous time/place? Why spend all that effort building defensive structures instead of weapons/traps? They had endless scouting possibilities (warging, dragons), greater mobility, and a more disciplined army than a bunch of zombies.
Real reason is that it was about the cool visual not the logic.
People can have their opinions. I’m fine if some didn’t like it. I liked it.
I also think it’s unfair that D&D are being blamed for not following GRRM’s vision or whatever. They went into it thinking they were doing a complete adaptation and then that goober dropped the ball to go off hanging out at cons and faffing about with random histories of his fantasy world. They had to pick it up and run with it not much more than halfway through and I think they have done pretty well with what they had. And let’s face it, the book series is never getting finished.
They have had to finish this story in tenth of the time he spent writing the first books, and people are shocked it does not meet to the books standards lol. Face it they got screwed and were forced to do this themselves. Yea they have made mistakes, but they also have made brilliant TV.
Why is it that people can't sincerely be disappointed with parts or entire episodes of shows? Why is it that there needs to be a nefarious psychological explanation?
In my case, the reason I was left sort of "meh" about this episode is because it dropped the really smart plotting of season 1 for the sort of marvel-esque special powers that were never mentioned and lots of close up of grunting faces of season 8.
Think back to the battle of the blackwater: a carefully foreshadowed and perfectly orchestrated trap that felt both earned, logical, and surprising. Or about Robb's use of direwolves against the Lannisters? Or how Edmure fucked up by beating Tywin instead of drawing him in? This is a book series and a show that took it's military tactics very seriously. And then this episode goes for the visually stunning but intellectually empty. If it had been that way from the start, sure, whatever. But it wasn't, and I think that explains why people who have invested 2 decades of their lives into this story may be disappointed with what is likely the only ending we're going to get, without having to go into any psychoanalysis.
And how many years did it take George to write that stuff? Years, these guys have deadlines of months not years, and you wonder why the writing is not as good.
So after 3rd watch. I’m a bigger fan of the episode. I’m still not cool with the fact that a bunch of characters definitely should have died as they were overwhelmed by wights. But I’ve come around on the Arya killing. She definitely sneaks past the white walkers and simply jump attacks the night king. Which I can see as plausible given her abilities. Also they made some hints in the episode that she was always the one meant to kill him. I just noticed on 3rd watch that Melisandre tells her the same thing as Syrio. “What do we tell the God of Death?” Which was Super cool.
Also watching again the stream was waaay better. And having a pretty new smart TV made things really easy. All I had to do was changing the settings to Vivid or Sports and it was a huge difference to what I watched the first time. The picture below is the contrast. It looks so much better on rewatch with the proper settings.
So imma back some folks on some of the “how did Arya do this” sexist talk, not that they need my backing. There’s definitely a correlation between the “I didn’t see Arya as a sexual being” and “I didn’t see Arya as a credible hero” crowd. Who else besides Jon, Arya, or maybe Dany would kill the Night King? Sam???
So after 3rd watch. I’m a bigger fan of the episode. I’m still not cool with the fact that a bunch of characters definitely should have died as they were overwhelmed by wights. But I’ve come around on the Arya killing. She definitely sneaks past the white walkers and simply jump attacks the night king. Which I can see as plausible given her abilities. Also they made some hints in the episode that she was always the one meant to kill him. I just noticed on 3rd watch that Melisandre tells her the same thing as Syrio. “What do we tell the God of Death?” Which was Super cool.
Also watching again the stream was waaay better. And having a pretty new smart TV made things really easy. All I had to do was changing the settings to Vivid or Sports and it was a huge difference to what I watched the first time. The picture below is the contrast. It looks so much better on rewatch with the proper settings.
Now that I’ve paused and adjusted my settings, the third watch is so much better. It was actually more mysterious though when I couldn’t see. But I’m at the trench lighting scene, and nothing before was unclear.
I think the least problematic thing to me about this episode is having Arya be the one to kill the Night King. The way it happened? Kinda cheesy. The episode? Pretty cheesy.
So imma back some folks on some of the “how did Arya do this” sexist talk, not that they need my backing. There’s definitely a correlation between the “I didn’t see Arya as a sexual being” and “I didn’t see Arya as a credible hero” crowd. Who else besides Jon, Arya, or maybe Dany would kill the Night King? Sam???
No one is saying Arya the character could possibly kill the Night King. People are saying the way they show her do it is poorly edited and the director did not do a good job showing the audience what he intended to show. No one is saying Arya cannot be a hero. If there is any post that says that, it's within the first eight pages because I didn't read those. Nothing from page eight on up says anything like you're saying.
I also have you assume you must be talking about me? Because I'm one of the people talking about it from page eight on up, but at the same time that is impossible since I never posted in the other thread. Either that or the guy who said he'd said his last word on the matter and stopped, and nothing that I saw from his posts said what you're saying.
The feedback I’m getting is on second (or third) viewing people like it less. Maybe I’m better off with a one time “WTF was that? A dragon? Two dragons? The wicked witch of the West?” experience.
I respectfully disagree. I know about shot composition, framing, and editing; I also know how a director can manipulate the fuck out of these to create some straight-bullshit false tension. This were the latter, and Sapochnik is fully aware (and proud?) of it. Call it personal preference, but I like a shocking twist to be well-established, not some bullshit editing trick.
ETA: Also, nobody forgot about Arya at any point in the last 8 seasons, Miguel. Shut up.
Perhaps you can just shoot your own ending. Just because the camera didn’t show you something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. If you don’t like it and are done with the show, fantastic - less negative reviews to read for episodes 4-6.
Perhaps, PERHAPS, you didn't have to read my "negative reviews" in the first place. Just a thought.
Perhaps it never mattered to me if you did or not.
The feedback I’m getting is on second (or third) viewing people like it less. Maybe I’m better off with a one time “WTF was that? A dragon? Two dragons? The wicked witch of the West?” experience.
I watched the slowed down adjusted dragon battle posted in the thread and it was very cool and worth it.
I rewatched the entire episode and not as mad as the first viewing but still not loving the script.
If after this the North doesn’t pretty much worship Dany then I may break my TV. Do whatever it is Dany wants and don’t give any Sansa sass either! I’m so sad the unsullied are gone. Really liked those guys and would have loved more time watching them in the battle. And Jon better not hurt her after everything she did for him.
So imma back some folks on some of the “how did Arya do this” sexist talk, not that they need my backing. There’s definitely a correlation between the “I didn’t see Arya as a sexual being” and “I didn’t see Arya as a credible hero” crowd. Who else besides Jon, Arya, or maybe Dany would kill the Night King? Sam???
Just to be clear. My initial problem with Arya saving the day was never about her sex. My issue was simply it was too convenient. Could have been a boy/girl/man/woman/transgender. That didn’t matter to me.
So imma back some folks on some of the “how did Arya do this” sexist talk, not that they need my backing. There’s definitely a correlation between the “I didn’t see Arya as a sexual being” and “I didn’t see Arya as a credible hero” crowd. Who else besides Jon, Arya, or maybe Dany would kill the Night King? Sam???
On first watching I loved how hopeless the situation felt when the Dothraki were crushed. Shortly after when Brienne was unceremoniously swarmed by wights, I was doubly shocked how grim and brutal this was shaping up to be. I thought: "Wow the good guys have really no chance here, everyone is going to fucking die!".
But then Brienne just stood up without hardy a scratch from a situation that 100% should have killed her. Many similar "miracles" occurred before the end. It was disappointing that the episode did not follow through on the hopeless set up. I mean at least let the wights kill Sam, he isn't even good at fighting!
Now it doesn't feel like the stakes are real anymore. I still love the show for it's other qualities but it's sad to see the "realness" finally fade away.
Comments
In this latest episode we did have a similar Hound parallel, and we actually had a lot of tension and some sense of the battle tactics for maybe the first twenty to thirty minutes. But after that, there isn't a single person in the show that knows what's going on. Not a single person leading or coordinating anything. Not a single person even expressing wants or needs either personal or with battle sense, with the exception of Beric giving the Hound the pep talk, one of the highlights of the episode. The Sansa and Tyrion parts were good as well, the problem is they had no ability to give the audience any insight into the battle. Maybe have Grey Worm still have one secure corner with some Unsullied and other showing us that at least someone still is trying to make decisions instead of him by himself on a growing pile of corpses. They purposefully sidelined Tyrion, but they needed a Tyrion-like character doing any kind of coordination.
Instead, it was all close up of character in danger, then switch to next close up of character in danger, switch to Sam flailing on the ground not being attacked for some reason, and show him later on even closer just crying not being attacked for some reason. The characters never ran into each other and were siloed and the threat level confusing.
For me, if they had Jon run into Sam and save him, and ask if he saw where the Night King went. And then showed Jon run into somewhere else an ask Ed if he saw the Night King pass by, and then ran into Grey Worm and said he needs to get to Bran the plan is in shambles but I can still stop the Night King, and then runs into the dragon and can't get past? That connects everything in a larger sense. Or only just the one interaction to balance chaos and coincidence, but give him one person to be able to express he wants to find the Night King or asking if they know a clear path to Bran. Instead we just get Jon running through random halls. Cool ass hallways with crazy effects with wights falling all around him, but with no connection to anyone.
Or even just see people off in the distance that you can't help and have to go another way. But instead, it was always just Jamie and Brienne and they never see anyone else. Grey Worm off on his own never interacting with anyone else (After the chaos starts. He had the good moment getting the Unsullied to guard Mellisandre.) Maybe Jon evades some wights and loses them, and that's the group of wights that burst through the door that Arya wasn't watching. So they don't actually interact but you see their actions affecting each other. I need more from the character moments than "I want to live" and I need more from the battle than everything is in chaos and isolated from everything else and not a single person knows anything. Have some and POVs in complete chaos, but the advantage of having so many POVs is that you can show them having different experiences and not just different types of chaos.
Edit: I think some of it is just that each plot in Blackwater felt like it had a purpose. Each character the battle focused on had an arc in Blackwater. In this battle, more than half the cast had their only purpose as to be one of many known faces to keep cutting back to, just to see which would live or die. Because there was no clear flow to the battle, there was no purpose in most people's scenes. Beric and the Hound had a purpose so it worked more so than other parts of the episode.
Edit: maybe not “no” but screams of frustration
Well, Beric's fate was not being resurrected again. I don't know why Mellisandre had to die. Maybe because she was already stealing time re: her age? Jon can die now. That's his fate. I don't think it needs to be a show death.
Tyrion basically said that they didn't want to burn KL down so he wanted to use tactics around that, but I would argue that they wouldnt have even had to do that. Just take out the Red Keep. Land your dragons on it and there you go. None of the Lannister troops left would have stayed loyal for more than 5 minutes to put up any kind of fight. No one was loyal to Cersei outside of fear, but they would have feared 3 giant dragons that they had no defense for at that time much more.
They never would have needed to lay siege to KL under any circumstance, whether they wanted to attack by land or air, or both.
Wow, BSG is actually a really good corollary for how this show has changed over the seasons.
But I don't want him to go off to die... I just mean no more resurrections.
(Stolen from the internet)
GRRM shall hereby be known in the Bald Move forums as "That Goober"
Also watching again the stream was waaay better. And having a pretty new smart TV made things really easy. All I had to do was changing the settings to Vivid or Sports and it was a huge difference to what I watched the first time. The picture below is the contrast. It looks so much better on rewatch with the proper settings.
Now that I’ve paused and adjusted my settings, the third watch is so much better. It was actually more mysterious though when I couldn’t see. But I’m at the trench lighting scene, and nothing before was unclear.
I also have you assume you must be talking about me? Because I'm one of the people talking about it from page eight on up, but at the same time that is impossible since I never posted in the other thread. Either that or the guy who said he'd said his last word on the matter and stopped, and nothing that I saw from his posts said what you're saying.
I rewatched the entire episode and not as mad as the first viewing but still not loving the script.
If after this the North doesn’t pretty much worship Dany then I may break my TV. Do whatever it is Dany wants and don’t give any Sansa sass either! I’m so sad the unsullied are gone. Really liked those guys and would have loved more time watching them in the battle. And Jon better not hurt her after everything she did for him.