[TV/Books] Game of Thrones ***SPOILER Discussion***

[Zero3]

1) Plot armor on every major character, aside of a few disposable guys. Nothing more to do in the show? See you, Edd, nice knowing you, Jorah. Being a prominent member of the cast? Sure Jon, survive being alone and surrounded by zombies. While your sister kills her fair share with Ray Park spear dancing, and continued to kick ass even after getting her head smashed into the wall. Same story in which two of the greatest warriors die because of a minor wound getting infected.

Yes they could have hidden that better , not seeing them jumped 3 times by hordes of whites and just come out alive but come on, everyone knew sandor wouldn't die because we still have to see him fight his brother , jamie and tyrion wouldn't die because we have to see the 4 way between him,his bro, cercei and bronn or else that whole scene with the crossbow was for nothing. Jon no comment . I give you that sam should have died but then he's not so important anyway , i think less so than jorah , so alive or dead he's meh.

[HavokHeart]

I'm still baffled by the tactical choices made there. Why on Earth would you deploy an heavily outnumbered army outside the castle walls ?

Would an army that size fit inside the walls?

[crusadernero]

Would an army that size fit inside the walls?

Doubt it. They probably should have build alot more trenches etc and put them on fire, more than they did. Also, drop oil from the wall and put it on fire it sort of standard when someone is breaching a wall.

Fire was obviously the most effective way against them, so im surprised they didnt use it more.

But, this is fantasy and not reality so something gotta go I guess :P

[Teph]

Yay, flaming swords. Lets just go die now, ke.

I enjoyed the two talking episodes way more than this, whatever this was supposed to be.

It just left me unsatisfied in the end. Was there another writers strike i did miss?

[HavokHeart]

Yeah I wish we got told more about the relation between NK and Bran. We are told Bran is his most dangerous enemy, but why? Bran does literally nothing else than warg into his crows now and can see what has happend and will happen. It does not appear Bran cna do anything else beyond that.

Being all-seeing is an immeasurable power. The knight king wanting to end life and thus targeting the most knowledgeable life makes sense to me. There may be some deeper connection but at surface value it makes complete sense.

Many suggest his raven form shenanigans is wasting time. It seemed obvious to me that he was using his powers to act as a homing beacon. Effective bait.

He knew what Arya would do. That's why he gave her the dagger. He knew this was the only way for the NK to die. He probably also knows what the golden army is going to do with the remaining northern forces. Perhaps this is why he is so sullen about it. Save the living. sure, but at what cost? The show isn't over and death will have it's due.

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Doubt it. They probably should have build alot more trenches etc and put them on fire, more than they did. Also, drop oil from the wall and put it on fire it sort of standard when someone is breaching a wall.

Fire was obviously the most effective way against them, so im surprised they didnt use it more.

But, this is fantasy and not reality so something gotta go I guess :P

They also didn't have a super long time to prepare. Also, the episode showed at one point the fire just refused to light. There was some kind of magic preventing it. It was only Melisandre that was able to light the trench with her desperate prayers.

[crusadernero]

Being all-seeing is an immeasurable power. The knight king wanting to end life and thus targeting the most knowledgeable life makes sense to me. There may be some deeper connection but at surface value it makes complete sense.

Many suggest his raven form shenanigans is wasting time. It seemed obvious to me that he was using his powers to act as a homing beacon. Effective bait.

He knew what Arya would do. That's why he gave her the dagger. He knew this was the only way for the NK to die. He probably also knows what the golden army is going to do with the remaining northern forces. Perhaps this is why he is so sullen about it. Save the living. sure, but at what cost? The show isn't over and death will have it's due.

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They also didn't have a super long time to prepare. Also, the episode showed at one point the fire just refused to light. There was some kind of magic preventing it. It was only Melisandre that was able to light the trench with her desperate prayers.

Yeah, you are probably correct on that. We just gotta wait and see. Afterall, theres 3 episodes left and each of them lasts over 1 hour.

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They also didn't have a super long time to prepare. Also, the episode showed at one point the fire just refused to light. There was some kind of magic preventing it. It was only Melisandre that was able to light the trench with her desperate prayers.

Yeah the firearrows probably didnt take because of the NK and his cold weather. It got so cold with wind that a arrow were not enough.

[Monster Hunter]

I'm still baffled by the tactical choices made there. Why on Earth would you deploy an heavily outnumbered army outside the castle walls ?

Did you watch the battle of the bastereds?

Johns not great with tactics......

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Doubt it. They probably should have build alot more trenches etc and put them on fire, more than they did. Also, drop oil from the wall and put it on fire it sort of standard when someone is breaching a wall.

Fire was obviously the most effective way against them, so im surprised they didnt use it more.

But, this is fantasy and not reality so something gotta go I guess :P

The catapults and tribuches were waste as well.

[jcachia]

Worst episode ever.

The writing has really gone to hell from the last season.

- Absurd levels of plot Armour.
- Stupid tactical decisions just to give out a show.
- 8 Years of build-up with lore, Azor-Ahai Prophecies to vanish after a 18 yr goes teleport super god ninja
- A bitchy queen no one really cares about being the final enemy
- Bran, Danny, John... being so fucking useless that if you delete them from the entire episode, no one would even notice.

This show has become a fan service horseshit. How is it going on to end now? Danny and Jon having naked angry sex on the Iron throne and living happily ever after????

Completely lost interest in the show after that. Hope Martin releases the last 2 books so we can really know how this story ends !!

[Sorshen]

The show has become bad fan fiction of the source material, if that wasn't clear enough in season 7. Obscene amounts of plot armor, fan service and bad decision-making. Squandering the most interesting plot lines.
Ironic, as GRRM hates fan fiction. Probably loves his paycheck more, can't blame him.

[Okacz]

Yes they could have hidden that better , not seeing them jumped 3 times by hordes of whites and just come out alive but come on, everyone knew sandor wouldn't die because we still have to see him fight his brother , jamie and tyrion wouldn't die because we have to see the 4 way between him,his bro, cercei and bronn or else that whole scene with the crossbow was for nothing. Jon no comment . I give you that sam should have died but then he's not so important anyway , i think less so than jorah , so alive or dead he's meh.

Well, I do miss the times when it wasn't obvious that a character will survive anything only because he is important to the story. Ned, Robb, Tywin and Jon for a bit do not tho.

[Sezh]

Yes they could have hidden that better , not seeing them jumped 3 times by hordes of whites and just come out alive but come on, everyone knew sandor wouldn't die because we still have to see him fight his brother , jamie and tyrion wouldn't die because we have to see the 4 way between him,his bro, cercei and bronn or else that whole scene with the crossbow was for nothing. Jon no comment . I give you that sam should have died but then he's not so important anyway , i think less so than jorah , so alive or dead he's meh.

But see that's the whole point. This show didn't care about "X cannot die because we have to see X fight Y" etc. Ned died, Robb died. So many characters died unfulfilling deaths, and that was part of the thing that made it so good.

[uopayroll]

They also didn't have a super long time to prepare. Also, the episode showed at one point the fire just refused to light. There was some kind of magic preventing it. It was only Melisandre that was able to light the trench with her desperate prayers.

It was originally supposed to be Danny with a dragon lighting it, that is what Davos was signalling and then realizing "she" cannot see due to the Night King's storm. Then it was too cold and windy for little arrows to light, since the flame on those were too far from the tip to last long enough to ignite what the arrow hit which is why they showed so many arrows not working. Then men with torches tried running out to light them but were run down by undead.

I did find they waited too long on the red witch lighting the fire, simply for dramatic effect. I actually thought that was a point where her god forsake her and when she died.

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Worst episode ever.

The writing has really gone to hell from the last season.

- Absurd levels of plot Armour.
- Stupid tactical decisions just to give out a show.
- 8 Years of build-up with lore, Azor-Ahai Prophecies to vanish after a 18 yr goes teleport super god ninja
- A bitchy queen no one really cares about being the final enemy
- Bran, Danny, John... being so fucking useless that if you delete them from the entire episode, no one would even notice.

- Agree on the first point, I expected more deaths, especially with the love, and knighting, and future plan making from the previous episode. A few "twists" for the sake of having them?

- Bad choice, true. But everybody went in thinking their best move or their strength they thought they had would work. Dothraki the unbeatable horse riders, Unsullied the unbeatable spear formation army , the endless undead army (but order them to stand there doing nothing while you confidently kill the one you are after), a fire trench with obsidian spikes and walls with same spikes but an army that can sacrifice one "body" to let the rest walk over it. Everybody was overconfident on what they thought would work and in the end none of it did. Luckily for the living, the undead had the bigger achilles heel.

- Azor-Ahai is from the books. The red witch spoke about the king that was promised and was wrong every time (Stannis, Mance, Jon). She thought she knew how to read flames but only figured out the real answer at the end.

- The final enemy is the Iron Throne, Cersei just happens to be on it at the moment. The book is A song of Fire and Ice (or Ice and Fire, I never get the order right), but the show is Game of Thrones.

[Tikishock]

Anyone who has played Shaman in WoW knew the very first second what would happen to the Dothraki.

Flametongue weapon has always been absolutely shit.

LOL! You win the internet!

[NihilSustinet]

It was originally supposed to be Danny with a dragon lighting it, that is what Davos was signalling and then realizing "she" cannot see due to the Night King's storm. Then it was too cold and windy for little arrows to light, since the flame on those were too far from the tip to last long enough to ignite what the arrow hit which is why they showed so many arrows not working. Then men with torches tried running out to light them but were run down by undead.

I did find they waited too long on the red witch lighting the fire, simply for dramatic effect. I actually thought that was a point where her god forsake her and when she died.

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- Agree on the first point, I expected more deaths, especially with the love, and knighting, and future plan making from the previous episode. A few "twists" for the sake of having them?

- Bad choice, true. But everybody went in thinking their best move or their strength they thought they had would work. Dothraki the unbeatable horse riders, Unsullied the unbeatable spear formation army , the endless undead army (but order them to stand there doing nothing while you confidently kill the one you are after), a fire trench with obsidian spikes and walls with same spikes but an army that can sacrifice one "body" to let the rest walk over it. Everybody was overconfident on what they thought would work and in the end none of it did. Luckily for the living, the undead had the bigger achilles heel.

- Azor-Ahai is from the books. The red witch spoke about the king that was promised and was wrong every time (Stannis, Mance, Jon). She thought she knew how to read flames but only figured out the real answer at the end.

- The final enemy is the Iron Throne, Cersei just happens to be on it at the moment. The book is A song of Fire and Ice (or Ice and Fire, I never get the order right), but the show is Game of Thrones.

sorry but this "overconfident" defense is bullshit. they just spend 2 episodes talking about how they are all going to die. no one thought it was going to be easy, and they didnt defend like people trying to survive a deadly enemy. your excuses dont match the narrative.

[Najnaj]

Reading some of the responses here makes me wonder if you guys are ever happy with anything. This episode was a freaking masterpiece, I don't remember watching anything remotely close to this (in TV series at least), and Arya's kill was very satisfying, I love that it wasn't some cliche "Jon vs Night King 1v1 showdown", the show was never about cliches anyway and that's what makes it so good - and after years of developement of Arya's character, this was the right way to handle the Night King.

And if you are having troubles with the scenes shot at night being too dark then maybe you should have a check up on your eyes, because me and people I watched it with had literally 0 problems with it.

First of all it was anything but a master piece. It was technically piss poor given that you could not see what the hell was going on for half of it. I am going to guess that the producers and technical staff watched the finished product on a large screen in total darkness and it looked great....however, most of us did not. I was turning off lights, rolling down blinds and I still could not see what was happening for half the episode.

Then for me at least you have 2 major points of complaint story wise. Both of them are touching on buildup vs end.

1. The death of the NK. The talk about this has been going on for seasons with lords of light and dragons, enter stage left, teen girl with dagger!!?? It was shit!

2. My personal main point of complaint is the red lady. What the hell was her point? Again the build up of gods and shadow children assassins only to become a suicidal cigarette lighter when it really counted. She entered the battle dramatically and then proceeded to do nothing but light a fire that in the end didn't matter before topping herself. I seriously hope that this "Lord of Light" story line still has some mileage left and that she is somehow in it but judging from the NK's ending I doubt it.

For the record, I would also have been disappointed in a Jon Stark vs NK stereotypical showdown but out of all the Stark kids that could have made it a spectacular ending...Bran!

[TJ]

Not sure if someone else already brought this up but...

Arya pretty much defeated Brienne in single combat last season, and Brienne beat the Hound in single combat. I'm sure her duel with Brienne taught her a few tricks, as well. She learns from every opponent, every traveling companion, every experience. She files it away for later and remembers it, just like her list.

Moreover, she tells Gendry in S8E2, "I've seen death. He has many faces. I look forward to seeing this one." The NK is literal death, and she saw him face to face. That line, plus the Red Woman's lines, foreshadowed her being the one to kill the NK. It made total sense to me and I didn't balk at the idea of her having the skill to pull it off.

Yeah but the Hound was at a big disadvantage with his infection or whatever he had, he was nowhere near 100% or he would've smashed Brienne.

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I pity you. It seems you can't even sit back and enjoy a fantastic show without nitpicking. I would have go into more details as some of your points aren't even valid, but on the second thought, I don't want to waste that much time. Sad to be you.

It's almost like we want to see a show we've watched for years carry on being superb and not descend into a joke with piss poor writing, madness right?

[uopayroll]

sorry but this "overconfident" defense is bullshit. they just spend 2 episodes talking about how they are all going to die. no one thought it was going to be easy, and they didnt defend like people trying to survive a deadly enemy. your excuses dont match the narrative.

Since you brought up the previous two episodes, I believe when they talked about not being able to win, they agreed and what they were doing was buying more time to kill the Night King and cause his army to collapse. Jon brings up killing the "boss" undead kills all his underlings, Bran brings up he is the best bait for the top dog that created them all.

I am not making up excuses, I have nothing invested in GoT. The episode did not go exactly as I expected, but it does match the narrative I got out of watching all the episodes so far, and all the ones I have re watched the past few weeks.

[TJ]

From this post onwards, if you say the words “Plot Armor”, you’re a fucking clown.

So much irony xD

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Since you brought up the previous two episodes, I believe when they talked about not being able to win, they agreed and what they were doing was buying more time to kill the Night King and cause his army to collapse. Jon brings up killing the "boss" undead kills all his underlings, Bran brings up he is the best bait for the top dog that created them all.

I think they thought that was their best plan even though it had a very slim chance of happening, not that it would necessarily work tbh.

[NihilSustinet]

Since you brought up the previous two episodes, I believe when they talked about not being able to win, they agreed and what they were doing was buying more time to kill the Night King and cause his army to collapse. Jon brings up killing the "boss" undead kills all his underlings, Bran brings up he is the best bait for the top dog that created them all.

I am not making up excuses, I have nothing invested in GoT. The episode did not go exactly as I expected, but it does match the narrative I got out of watching all the episodes so far, and all the ones I have re watched the past few weeks.

you dont buy more time by immediately sending an army to die, then setting up the worst defense strategy possible. thats the opposite of buying time.

[sarahtasher]

A masterpiece? Jesus christ. All right, let me try to explain why I have problems with it.

- Ever since the dothraki were introduced, people in the show and us, the viewers, have asked themselves "What will they do if they win the war? They can't rape and pillage in Dany's new utopia. To solve this issue, the writers decided to solve this issue by having the cavalry charge headfirst into the enemy and just be killed off. Despite it goes against any sane military strategy, and we know that the character Tyrion and several others in the gang are supposed to be intelligent strategists. This character trait was abandonded so the writers could solve a story problem.

- The thing that made GoT special when it was based on GRRMs work was that no character was safe. Not because he liked to kill off characters for shock value, but because he wrote the world as unforgiving. If you found yourself in a situation where you are likely to die - you die. The show didn't care about which characters the audience liked or didn't like. People died as natural consequences of their actions and the actions of others. In this episode, some "beloved B characters" die, sure. But the majority live. Jaime lives, even though he's not a great fighter anymore, whilst tens of thousands are slaughtered next to him on the front lines. Would he have survived if this was real? No. Why did he? Cause the writers wanted him to. Why did Beric die? Cause the writers know "someone's got to die" so they decided he was no longer impactful. No one lived or died because of what they did, they lived or died because the writers pulled the strings behind the scenes. GRRM never did that.

- Remember the abyssmal storyline where the Avengers of Ice and Fire ventured beyond the wall? They held their own against the entire undead army for a pretty long while. They were ~10 people. Now an army of tens of thousands is obliterated within minutes. The power of the undead army is not consistent, it is used as a plot device.

- How did Arya kill the NK? We saw her power against he zombies earlier in the episode, sure she fought well against them but she has no magic tricks to use against them. And then when the NK is surrounded by hundreds of zombies and his generals, she somehow manages to sneak past them (with powers she demonstrably did not have mere 20 minutes earlier) and Mortal Kombat jump the NK and kill him? It's cheap. It's a cop out. They didn't know how to setup the kill, so they didn't even try to make it realistic.

- The whole plan. Aren't some of the worlds greatest minds gathered in this group of fighters against the dead? Was really the plan all along just to make a final stand and all die? And then whops someone luckily got the kill. They could have done so much more with it. Of course the NK would walk up to Bran when he felt he had won, but the heroes could have been aware of this. They could have constructed a plan that required enormous sacrifice to draw him out and kill him, but that didn't happen. They had no plan, they just died and died and died and then they won through luck (read; through the power or script writing).

- Why is the NK after Bran? Why does he want to kill him personally? What is his grudge against him? They tell us that NK wants him to die cause the memory of humans die with him. But why does he have to do it personally? I tell you why; because the writers don't know how else to present a scene in which he dies. And it's poor and lazy writing. I'm not saying I have the answer to what they could have done, but it feels like they just gave up even trying.

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Some of us complain because it has now become a generic fantasy movie. It didn't used to be, now it is.

Technically, sending first the expendable troops is a perfectly sensible strategy, especially troops that would be embarassing. It's stupid when the enemy can raise them and it's even more stupid when they are your household soldiers.