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

[Graden]

They teamed up with Blizzard to co-write it.

Lmao, that would explain a lot honestly.

[Jastall]

It isn't just "not using superpowers ideally". It's "not using superpowers for anything". It's like if you wrote The Flash, and the only time Barry Allen used his speed was to get a drink from the kitchen without having to pause the movie he's watching. And you're not writing him as a layabout; he's still fighting supervillains and working to have them arrested. The idea of using his speed for anything but snack-grabbing just never occurs to him. Throughout the entire comic run.

There's even other speedsters, and none of them do anything useful with their abilities, either.

That's how asinine this is.

Hell, the warging doesn't even directly connect to the greensight stuff, and the two things Bran has done recently were both tied to greensight, not warging. And this is ignoring that greensight should mean he doesn't need to scout, because he already knows what he'd find.

"Hey, Dany, if you go to Dragonstone, Euron's got ships with scorpions and will try and kill your dragons. He'll be hiding at this precise location; why not sneak up behind him?"

The only reason NOT to say that is if he's trying to get Dany and her dragons killed. Which, if true, fair enough, but there's any number of times he could've helped out other people. Sansa, at the very least.

Indeed. I assume that someone might counter with "oh but he's not a Stark anymore, he's politically neutral now and won't interfere" which could be an excuse, except he also did sweet fuck all against the Night King himself beyond act as bait, which was a product of the NK's mark on him as least as much as of him being a Greenseer and the Three-Eyed Raven.

I get that, for the sake of dramatic tensions, "and then Bran told everyone everything and they easily solved their problem thanks to this perfect information" is bad, but that's why you, ya know, kill him. At the Battle of Winterfell. Where he would actually do shit and fulfill his purpose instead of being also useless.

It feels like the show's lost its bite and we're living in a constant state of handwaving away the shit that happens because the plot demands it. I'm fine with that in, say, Marvel movies where impressive action sequences rooted in the Rule of Cool are more or less the entire point, but I hold Game of Thrones to the higher narrative standard that it used to have, and at that this episode failed spectacularly.

[Ihavewaffles]

+ Tyrion and Varys scenes, finally back to what was good in GoT seasons ago. I also like Varys' approach. Some may say he's switching sides too often, but he's indeed doing whatever is best for the realm. If he sees a better oppurtunity arise, he takes it.

Varys chaos is a ladder moment...

He wants the throne, but since he can't get it directly, he wants people he can control, otherwise to replace. I think he is a bad guy, and the realm is just an excuse for his presence, I think he is a bitter Blackfyre who wants power. Explains why he is so fast to jump ship to Jon Snow who is far less qualified than Daenerys to rule.
John Snow is to trusting, naive, too Stark'ish to rule the realm for long..I think Sansa's motivation is similar to Varys, and jealosy towards daenerys since Sansa was meant to be queen...last episode she was very annoyed when watching Daenerys ride her dragon "Why her?!"

Tywin Lannister "Was that truly just of him? To abandon his subjects to an evil that he was too gullible to recognize?"


No, Jon Snow would be a bad king, he would screw up somehow, sooner or later...I think his role is to go out as a hero, so I think he will die this season and not contend with sneaky weasel nobels for years..

[DarkAmbient]

- Bronn scene was shit. It went in such an awkward way, dont know, just felt anticlimatic and out of place.

Virtually none of it made sense. First of all, the show didn't explain how he even made it inside Winterfell. The guy who fought Dany's army and tried to shoot down her dragon somehow manages to make it past all her troops while carrying a crossbow. Okay. And then once he was in, he just happened to discover Jaime and Tyrion together in a room, alone. How perfect! He then fires the crossbow and somehow manages to reload it at incredible speed. After Tyrion gives him Highgarden, they just... allow him to leave. Instead of notifying the guards of his presence and having him captured and killed, thus retaining Highgarden and eliminating the threat he poses... they just let him go. The writing is laughable now.

[Ihavewaffles]

Virtually none of it made sense. First of all, the show didn't explain how he even made it inside Winterfell. The guy who fought Dany's army and tried to shoot down her dragon somehow manages to make it past all her troops while carrying a crossbow. Okay. And then once he was in, he just happened to discover Jaime and Tyrion together in a room, alone. How perfect! He then fires the crossbow and somehow manages to reload it at incredible speed. After Tyrion gives him Highgarden, they just... allow him to leave. Instead of notifying the guards of his presence and having him captured and killed, thus retaining Highgarden and eliminating the threat he poses... they just let him go. The writing is laughable now.

You know he could just have asked where the Lannisters were?..

What didn't make sense for me is why he would expect them to be able to give him the Reach..as if they have so much pull on Daenerys that she would just hand it over to the same guy who shot Drogon..

[ohiostate124]

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/co...he_iron_fleet/

Random person on reddit makes the Rhaegal scene so much better.

[Varodoc]

I still can't believe that the Night King was killed in favour of Cersei and Euron. This is like Arthas dying in 3.1 and the rest of the expansion being about the tensions between Varian and Garrosh.

[Chelly]

I still can't believe that the Night King was killed in favour of Cersei and Euron. This is like Arthas dying in 3.1 and the rest of the expansion being about the tensions between Varian and Garrosh.

Or ending the Burning Legion by imprisoning their leader for all eternity and killing/freeing their power source (Argus), only to have the rest be about petty squabble between the two main factions - one being ruled by a mad queen and the other by a not-so-innocent-anymore boy.

Oh wait....


Looks like we did end up getting our Warcraft TV-series after all.

[Endus]

Indeed. I assume that someone might counter with "oh but he's not a Stark anymore, he's politically neutral now and won't interfere" which could be an excuse, except he also did sweet fuck all against the Night King himself beyond act as bait, which was a product of the NK's mark on him as least as much as of him being a Greenseer and the Three-Eyed Raven.

I get that, for the sake of dramatic tensions, "and then Bran told everyone everything and they easily solved their problem thanks to this perfect information" is bad, but that's why you, ya know, kill him. At the Battle of Winterfell. Where he would actually do shit and fulfill his purpose instead of being also useless.

They had the setup.

Daenerys has two dragons, the Unsullied are at half strength, the Dothraki are just . . . gone. The rest of the Winterfell troops are beat to shit, at least half are dead. Among the living, most are injured. They are not combat-ready, at all, and it's unlikely they can get ready to face Cersei while marching on King's Landing. They've defeated the Night King, but they have no chance of beating Cersei in the field, now.

But wait. They have Bran. They have Arya. They have Daenerys and two dragons. They have Varys and Tyrion, two of the best schemers in the show.

They can't meet Cersei in the field, but wait, Cersei's bringing civilians into King's Landing, so any siege would be a slaughterhouse anyway.

Let's get devious.

Because they do not fucking need to defeat her armies. She has Euron's navy, and Euron's only sticking around because he wants his kid on the Iron Throne. And he has the Golden Company, mercenaries.

Kill Cersei, and it's all over. Euron has no call on the throne, and even if he's bitter as fuck about it and with the strongest navy around, he's got little capability to attack a fortified castle. The Golden Company isn't getting paid, and if Euron's turned, they'll quite possibly be willing to help take him out just to get his ships so they can go home. The civilians are all safe and Daenerys/the Starks saved them without shedding innocent blood. You can just . . . walk in and take the throne.

How could they achieve this? Just off the top of my head as ONE possibility, Bran can see their defenses and where they're weak. Fly in high, at night, and drop straight down into King's Landing, to dump Arya and Tyrion off on a high tower. Between Tyrion's familiarity with the hidey holes of King's Landing and Arya's skills, they track down Cersei. Arya goes for the kill, and Gregor Clegane grabs her by the skull and slams her into a wall. They fight, Arya eventually wins. Tyrion's already killed Cersei by the time they're finished, echoing his father's death by his hand.

Given that I threw this together on a whim, I'm not expecting it to be perfect, and I'm clearly only looking at one particular storyline, but still. Smarter than whatever they're doing, I think.

[Puupi]

https://variety.com/2019/digital/new...up-1203207545/

They fixed it!

[Serpha]

Has anyone mentioned the four dragons on the astrolabe in the opening credits? I'm not sure what to think about that. Why four and not three?



He didn't look worried (or surprised) to me, either. He looked like he was trying to make out what was going on and isn't quite sure of what he's really seeing. Maybe it will turn into worry, surprise, or alarm after the few moments we're shown.



I thought at first that she hit him in the top of his stomach, but below where the dragonglass was. The writers insist that she hit him in the chest, so my attitude at this point is: ok, whatever.

That clearly is left side of the chest, nowhere near centre.

[Faltemer]

Keep discussions civil. Do not flame other users.

[Logwyn]

I think this is exactly what is going on. Combine all that with the fact that the value of the IP has skyrocketed to the point where the creators (Which at this point is the show, since they are ahead of Martin) are scared to kill off main characters to avoid that exact problem of losing reader investment.

But the first 5 seasons didn't seem to have any plot armor. Major characters died to intrigue all the time. Ned, Robert Baratheon, Rob Stark, Caitlyn, Twyin, the list goes on. But as time went on, you started to only expect major deaths in season finales. In fact, the show killed characters even more then the books did, with dozens of character deaths that weren't in the books. (For instance, Ser Barristan is still Dany's Hand in the books.)

But in season eight, plot armor seems invincible. You know that the important characters won't die until their arcs are complete.

One problem with killing off anyone and everyone is that stance also gets boring. Readers/Watchers stop investing in any of the characters and simply fade away and lose interest. Everyone just becomes meaningless fodder at this point. We like stories where someone overcomes conflict or their struggle is worth it. If all we do is kill everyone off no one ever has this success.

In GoT if we kill off all the major characters, Lords and Ladies, we get the unbelievable story that Joe the rat catcher from Flea Bottom that no one has ever heard of is now sitting on the Iron Throne simply because there is no one left to take the chair.

[Xilurm]

How could they achieve this? Just off the top of my head as ONE possibility, Bran can see their defenses and where they're weak. Fly in high, at night, and drop straight down into King's Landing, to dump Arya and Tyrion off on a high tower. Between Tyrion's familiarity with the hidey holes of King's Landing and Arya's skills, they track down Cersei. Arya goes for the kill, and Gregor Clegane grabs her by the skull and slams her into a wall. They fight, Arya eventually wins. Tyrion's already killed Cersei by the time they're finished, echoing his father's death by his hand.

Poor Arya. RIP

[Logwyn]

I mean if he is warging into rats in KL, he might as well use them to bite Cersei's throat as she sleeps. But nobody ever uses their superpowers correctly in any fiction, so GoT is unique there. Nobody has used wargs for scouting at any point in the show.

There was the wilding in the group that captured Jon that used his falcon/hawk to scout with. But I agree there has been very little use of that power. I thought Bran was going to use it to control a dragon at some point but meh.

[Wilian]

They had the setup.

Daenerys has two dragons, the Unsullied are at half strength, the Dothraki are just . . . gone. The rest of the Winterfell troops are beat to shit, at least half are dead. Among the living, most are injured. They are not combat-ready, at all, and it's unlikely they can get ready to face Cersei while marching on King's Landing. They've defeated the Night King, but they have no chance of beating Cersei in the field, now.

But they said in the episode they still have half of the Dothraki too.

[Endus]

But they said in the episode they still have half of the Dothraki too.

I know.

And that's dumb as fuck, because they all charged into the wight army and their flaming swords were snuffed out. The flames being the only things they had that could HURT the undead, since they didn't have dragonglass weapons. They should all be dead. The whole "we've taken some losses but are mostly okay" aftermath is really stupid.

Plus, sit back and think for a moment, about the stand-out plays in this show. How many of those were tactical decisions on a battlefield? How many were backstabbing and assassinations and so forth? Why should the finale, then, be a big battle, rather than the best backstab we've seen so far?

[Varodoc]

Or ending the Burning Legion by imprisoning their leader for all eternity and killing/freeing their power source (Argus), only to have the rest be about petty squabble between the two main factions - one being ruled by a mad queen and the other by a not-so-innocent-anymore boy.

Oh wait....


Looks like we did end up getting our Warcraft TV-series after all.

More like if Sargeras was imprisoned in 7.1.5 and the rest of the expansion called "Legion" was about the faction war.

[Jastall]

Or ending the Burning Legion by imprisoning their leader for all eternity and killing/freeing their power source (Argus), only to have the rest be about petty squabble between the two main factions - one being ruled by a mad queen and the other by a not-so-innocent-anymore boy.

Oh wait....


Looks like we did end up getting our Warcraft TV-series after all.

I mean at least that's a different expansion, translating to a different season in TV terms. I didn't mind that too much, perpetual escalation of threats is not a great way to go in an MMO that has no end in sight. Scaling things back down a bit is fine; I have too many issues with the HvA plotline in BfA to count, but the basic premise of having a lesser threat after we kill nascent space gods at the very cradle of creation is OK with me.

But Game of Thrones does have an end in sight. This is the final season, after that it's over and done except for prequels, spinoffs and whatnot to milk us drier. So it should be going for epic threats in order to give us a proper sendoff. But we take care of said threat anticlimatically, then focus the rest of the season on some smug bitch who is only slightly less one-dimensional than a zombie and her walking, talking plot device of a boring ass boyfriend. It just doesn't work. If season 7 was all about the Night King and 8 was finishing the Game of Thrones I'd have swallowed it better I think. But ultimately the Night King should have been the final boss in the first place, and my ideal scenario is a three-way in King's Landing.

@Endus More or less anything is better than the current shitshow for sure. But really, Arya shouldn't get any more important kills. It feels like she did too much already, between the Freys and the Night King himself. If she also kills Cercei or is instrumental in doing so, one wonders what's the point of all the other characters when Arya personally offs 3 of the four villains in the last three seasons, Ramsay being the only one she doesn't touch.

Plus, I'm 99.99% certain that the Mountain dies via Cleganebowl. There's really no other way to finish off both him and Sandor, and such a duel would be pure fanservice as well.

[Endus]

@Endus More or less anything is better than the current shitshow for sure. But really, Arya shouldn't get any more important kills. It feels like she did too much already, between the Freys and the Night King himself. If she also kills Cercei or is instrumental in doing so, one wonders what's the point of all the other characters when Arya personally offs 3 of the four villains in the last three seasons, Ramsay being the only one she doesn't touch.

Plus, I'm 99.99% certain that the Mountain dies via Cleganebowl. There's really no other way to finish off both him and Sandor, and such a duel would be pure fanservice as well.

The thing about Arya is why I wrote Tyrion into the assault with her. His inside knowledge of the keep is justification. And he'll get to be the one to finish Cersei, making up for the fuck-all he's done for like two seasons now.