Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended

Woodzy said:
So were they Children if the Forest on Bran’s side? They were there with the Wights when the Night King was defeated right? Or was that just a load of dead people?
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Children of Forest lived in Westeros alongside man until man started a war. Children of the Forest were losing so they created the White Walkers. We then see them again at the three eyed raven and they all died (all 4/5 of them) when Bran got 'marked' by the Night King. We basically have very, very small snippets of information about the White Walkers and Children of the Forest at this point.

Hard to tell if they were part of the Army of the Dead, they all looked human to me.
 
KirkDuyt said:
The Joker in Dark Knight is a good example. I'm sure he has plenty of backstory in comic books, but from the movie itself, he just tells a few different versions of his dad being a bit of a cnut and that's it. He's just there, wanting to see the world burn.

Feck backstory. The Night King is just an evil monster who wants to destroy mankind. Who needs more backstory than that. I actually would've preferred game of thrones without dragons and the undead. The actual game of thrones is by far the most interesting thing to me. I don't care for the high fantasy black vs white good vs evil stuff.

That's just personal taste though.
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that's a poor comparison. The Joker in the Dark Night gave reasons for why he was doing things at almost every step. Poor excuses or made up, it didn't matter.

They said nothing about the Night King other than he was created to help the Children and then became too powerful. But not powerful enough as he had to sit on his arse for 10k years.... I've also said previously, I'd have taken almost any bullshit reason as to why, just anything.

The books/show at the start was all about ambiguity. Every character was good in some ways and bad in some ways. Tywin seemed like an absolute knob but when he spoke to Jamie etc. and explained his thinking it all made sense, same with literally everyone. The Knight King didn't even get the luck of having anything from his side told in the show. So to make him 'just bad cos he is' feels completely out of touch with what made the show great.

I have said, and others, the moment the show past the books, the writers didn't know how to write characters. They made them caricatures
 
Adebesi said:
Has the ban on book talk been officially lifted, or is this more like a pitch invasion, where so many people are breaking the rules that individuals feel they can get away with it?
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Well, the book content ended back in Season 4/5. There were a few storylines missing from the show from the books but obviously they won't be added at this point.
 
Shinjch said:
It does sort of make sense as well, considering that the children of the forest or whatever they are called created him to be a weapon more than anything else. I doubt they made him to have an interesting personality.
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Yes exactly, he is a zombie, he kills things.
 
africanspur said:
I do agree with you that people take this stuff WAY too seriously. One of my brothers was showing me people posting all this abuse of the writers, saying how they'd betrayed the fans, betrayed the cast and staff, betrayed GRRM, how they'd wasted hours and hours on something so crap. It all seems very entitled to me.

I'm very much like 2cents though. I'd have liked a bit more of a backstory and it hasn't quite gone as I thought. I enjoy the books far more than the TV show but also enjoy the TV show. I've also noticed a significant drop off in the quality of writing since they've no longer had the books as source material but I've lowered my expectations and enjoy it accordingly as a spectacle.

I find it very strange how heated people get about this or about their favourite comic book films or whatever.
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I'm sure it's a completely different experience for people who read/loved the books vs those who haven't.

There's been a definite, noticeable change since the writers had to start going off piste but I'm not sure it's necessarily a drop off in quality. For me anyway. It's clearly gone more "Hollywood" with all the main characters getting a bit less nuanced (and a lot more immune to being killed) but the set pieces have been flipping excellent, which helps to compensate. Likewise, as a non-book reader I'm more than happy to leave behind all the random, multiple plot-lines, relentless procession of new characters and scene after scene of boooooring exposition to try and fill us viewers in on the incredibly complex history of the world in which it is set.

Basically, far too many fecking names to remember! The current, streamlined version is still great fun and much more easily digestible. Which works for me.
 
If the others in the books are CoF creations as well they will literally have no real back story or purpose other than make stuff dead imho. I can live with that tbh.

Oldyella said:
Also had the best music. Soon as he sacrificed his daughter he was ruined though. What a waste.
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Yup, what was hilarious was that Ramsey killed all the horses but Mel rode off on a horse after burning his child for zero reason.
 
I hope this guy gets some kind of eulogy in the next episode.

 
LARulz said:
that's a poor comparison. The Joker in the Dark Night gave reasons for why he was doing things at almost every step. Poor excuses or made up, it didn't matter.

They said nothing about the Night King other than he was created to help the Children and then became too powerful. But not powerful enough as he had to sit on his arse for 10k years.... I've also said previously, I'd have taken almost any bullshit reason as to why, just anything.

The books/show at the start was all about ambiguity. Every character was good in some ways and bad in some ways. Tywin seemed like an absolute knob but when he spoke to Jamie etc. and explained his thinking it all made sense, same with literally everyone. The Knight King didn't even get the luck of having anything from his side told in the show. So to make him 'just bad cos he is' feels completely out of touch with what made the show great.

I have said, and others, the moment the show past the books, the writers didn't know how to write characters. They made them caricatures
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He did? I have to admit that it's been too long since I've watched the movie to remember. Fair enough then. Wasn't he jsut being a cnut for the sake of being one without much backstory?

I agree that this ending of the white walkers was disappointing, but that was mostly down to them being this evil silent horde of death. I like a bit of ambiguity in my villains. However, maybe there will be some explanation about them in the last three episodes?

Also, yes the show has dropped of from a narrative standpoint since it passed the books, but maybe someone should tell that cnut Martin to hurry up and finish it before he dies of diabetes.
 
Did some of the dullards only survive so they can have sex scenes in the next episode? Grey worm, Samwell, Brienne to name a few?

Brienne threesome with Jaime and Tormund incoming?
 
My general feeling about that episode and where the show is.
  • That was definitely a very gripping episode which never allowed for any boredom or sluggishness to creep in. The cinematography and sound was absolutely top notch, which GoT definitely excels at these days. At the same time, it felt like a bit of a mess at times, to be honest, and some of the writing quality and events in this episode harm the overall quality of some key aspects of the show. It was both beautiful and bewildering all at once.
  • For all the supposed tactical battle intelligence the North seemingly possessed, their first move being to charge head first aimlessly into the thick myst seemed rather pointless. I mean, isn't the point of being alive and not undead that you're the smarter ones?
  • The whole battle was absurdly dark. And they seemingly switched between interactions too quickly. All of which made it a very hard battle to figure out and keep up with.
  • I didn't understand Arya being frightened and hiding scared silly in the crypt. She was just slaying whites for fun when she appeared on the battlefield and now here she is hiding from the undead like a kitten. It didn't actually make any sense.
  • When Bran wargs (?), we see the crows/birds fly through the sky and it cuts to the Knight. What was the point of that scene? Or him warging (?) throughout the episode.
  • Jon and Dany are ambushed by the Night King and his ice breathing dragon, only for him to disappear within a few seconds. Again, it just seemed random and was another thing that happened that didn't seem to really matter.
  • Okay now getting to the important ones. What the feck was up with the much talked about 'plot armor'? So many close shaved and saves. So much ridiculousness. You're up against the biggest threat we've possibly ever known and.... Everybody (important) survives. Everyone who dies is irrelevant really. Come one now.
  • And then the big one - the Night King and the WWs. After all this time of building them up for 7 seasons, theu were defeated in a single episode by Arya Stark. I mean, they have to be one of the most anticlimactic and disappointing villains in any storey. It was that easy.
  • Having said that, the music and the way that final kill was shot was absolutely fantastic.
Btw, this video for me summed up the disappointing parts.

 
Samid said:
Did some of the dullards only survive so they can have sex scenes in the next episode? Grey worm, Samwell, Brienne to name a few?

Brienne threesome with Jaime and Tormund incoming?
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I do think that we might get one in particular
Brienne and Jaime :boring:
 
Irwin99 said:
I do think that we might get one in particular
Brienne and Jaime :boring:
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Sansa & Tyrion, completing her turnaround from wanting a perfect pretty prince in the first episodes. At some point before the end anyway
 
amolbhatia50k said:
My general feeling about that episode and where the show is.
  • That was definitely a very gripping episode which never allowed for any boredom or sluggishness to creep in. The cinematography and sound was absolutely top notch, which GoT definitely excels at these days. At the same time, it felt like a bit of a mess at times, to be honest, and some of the writing quality and events in this episode harm the overall quality of some key aspects of the show. It was both beautiful and bewildering all at once.
  • For all the supposed tactical battle intelligence the North seemingly possessed, their first move being to charge head first aimlessly into the thick myst seemed rather pointless. I mean, isn't the point of being alive and not undead that you're the smarter ones?
  • The whole battle was absurdly dark. And they seemingly switched between interactions too quickly. All of which made it a very hard battle to figure out and keep up with.
  • I didn't understand Arya being frightened and hiding scared silly in the crypt. She was just slaying whites for fun when she appeared on the battlefield and now here she is hiding from the undead like a kitten. It didn't actually make any sense.
  • When Bran wargs (?), we see the crows/birds fly through the sky and it cuts to the Knight. What was the point of that scene? Or him warging (?) throughout the episode.
  • Jon and Dany are ambushed by the Night King and his ice breathing dragon, only for him to disappear within a few seconds. Again, it just seemed random and was another thing that happened that didn't seem to really matter.
  • Okay now getting to the important ones. What the feck was up with the much talked about 'plot armor'? So many close shaved and saves. So much ridiculousness. You're up against the biggest threat we've possibly ever known and.... Everybody (important) survives. Everyone who dies is irrelevant really. Come one now.
  • And then the big one - the Night King and the WWs. After all this time of building them up for 7 seasons, theu were defeated in a single episode by Arya Stark. I mean, they have to be one of the most anticlimactic and disappointing villains in any storey. It was that easy.
  • Having said that, the music and the way that final kill was shot was absolutely fantastic.
Btw, this video for me summed up the disappointing parts.

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if you'd just added in something about whether Arya is a Mary Sue or not, this basically summaries all the discussion in this thread for the last 20 pages
 
KirkDuyt said:
He did? I have to admit that it's been too long since I've watched the movie to remember. Fair enough then. Wasn't he jsut being a cnut for the sake of being one without much backstory?

I agree that this ending of the white walkers was disappointing, but that was mostly down to them being this evil silent horde of death. I like a bit of ambiguity in my villains. However, maybe there will be some explanation about them in the last three episodes?

Also, yes the show has dropped of from a narrative standpoint since it passed the books, but maybe someone should tell that cnut Martin to hurry up and finish it before he dies of diabetes.
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At least I think he did :nervous: was along the lines of proving everyone is the same when put in situations (nobody is all good etc.) or something. It's was always method in his madness.

I agree that normally I like the villains to be slightly ambiguous but not to this level. It just felt so out of touch with what I liked about the show, having no development/reason for things is odd.

I am certain that if the show was like this from the start - one dimensial characters it would have got nowhere near as popular. The character development, political battles, actual battles and fantasy stuff all complemented each other really well. Now they don't
 
@amolbhatia50k Genuine question, because you echo a point I have seen so many people make. But how can the cinematography be "top notch" if the battle was too dark and the interactions switched too quickly making it hard to figure out and keep up with? Isnt the lighting and speed of the scene switches a big part of the cinematography?
 
Well, you're also comparing movie villains and tv villains.

We've had 8 seasons of GoT with what will be roughly around 4,000minutes of footage. Comparing that to a movie like Dark Knight which had what 120/150minutes?
 
Adebesi said:
@amolbhatia50k Genuine question, because you echo a point I have seen so many people make. But how can the cinematography be "top notch" if the battle was too dark and the interactions switched too quickly making it hard to figure out and keep up with? Isnt the lighting and speed of the scene switches a big part of the cinematography?
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I suppose, I mean in parts. The beginning of the battle, the last sequence, the dragons in the sky and the show in general (outside of this episode). But yeah the actually battle was somewhat oddly handled with the darkness and fidgetyness of the shifts.
 
LARulz said:
At least I think he did :nervous: was along the lines of proving everyone is the same when put in situations (nobody is all good etc.) or something. It's was always method in his madness.

I agree that normally I like the villains to be slightly ambiguous but not to this level. It just felt so out of touch with what I liked about the show, having no development/reason for things is odd.

I am certain that if the show was like this from the start - one dimensial characters it would have got nowhere near as popular. The character development, political battles, actual battles and fantasy stuff all complemented each other really well. Now they don't
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Wait does ambiguous not mean that they're not pure good or pure evil? That's why I don't like the night king, since he's completely unambiguous. Even if you give him a backstory he's still there to kill everyone.

Ah well, he's dead, so who cares.
 




They couldn't even afford stunt performers on their ridiculous budget?
 
GhastlyHun said:
So much for the "sHe'S hIdiNg In A tReE" and totally not just jumping in from nowhere :smirk:
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She obviously ran past the whitewalkers as we got that 'gust of wind' shot. I've watched that last bit again and there is a plausible argument that Jon was distracting the dragon and shouting "Go" too.
 
Maybe Bran warged into the crows so he could fly Arya close to the NK and nobody would see that coming.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
She obviously ran past the whitewalkers as we got that 'gust of wind' shot. I've watched that last bit again and there is a plausible argument that Jon was distracting the dragon and shouting "Go" too.
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So Jon perfectly knew where Arya was so he could time his shout, but none of the Walkers or hordes of Wights could see her?
 
I don't really get why some of you think that for a fantasy show it's okay to have stupid shite in it. No. Just no. Good show needs good writing and reasoning behind what happens. Not a 3 episode backstory but something the viewers can draw the line from.

Two things that still annoy me:
- Why not use the dragons to wipe off the undeads? It's like Rashford was in front of empty net and stopped and sat down on the ball
- Samwell got caught by a horde of undeads but still end up lounging lazy on the pile of bodies
 
GhastlyHun said:
So Jon perfectly knew where Arya was so he could time his shout, but none of the Walkers or hordes of Wights could see her?
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Well he was trying to get past the dragon himself wasn't he to get to Bran and if you watch it back it does sound like he says "Go! Go!" Just repeating what I've read. She certainly wasn't hiding in a tree. What was the point of him standing up in front of the dragon if not to distract it then?
 
LARulz said:
How is wanting a proper backstory on the Night King fan theory? Fan theory would be of I thought he had a wife and kids. I have said all along I wanted a backstory and was waiting years for it The- I don't care what it was. The show built the Walkers up to be the ultimate enemy, literally from the first season. Each season basically ended with them inching closer to show they are coming. Then they do the entire plot away like this. Yes fan theory.

And by backstory I don't mean how they were created but why after thousands of years they decided to march and what happened between creation, the first loss (how?) and now. "He wants to destroy mankind and kill Bran cos he sees stuff" is not a backstory
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Apparently rumours are the prequel will cover all of the history of the white walkers, which is why they didn’t want to cover it in this series, enabling them to spend more time and budget on the rest of the story with so few episodes left.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
Well he was trying to get past the dragon himself wasn't he to get to Bran and if you watch it back it does sound like he says "Go! Go!" Just repeating what I've read. She certainly wasn't hiding in a tree. What was the point of him standing up in front of the dragon if not to distract it then?
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Added drama. He feels the end is imminent and turns towards death in defiance. So many scenes here were designed with nothing but visuals in mind, just like the Dothraki riding to their pointless end with flaming swords, or Brienne and Jaime almost getting swamped countless times, the dragons crashing into each other midair (:lol:), Lyanna Mormont charging an undead giant (:wenger:) who is kind enough to lift her where she can stab him...
 
Roosney said:
I don't really get why some of you think that for a fantasy show it's okay to have stupid shite in it. No. Just no. Good show needs good writing and reasoning behind what happens. Not a 3 episode backstory but something the viewers can draw the line from.

Two things that still annoy me:
- Why not use the dragons to wipe off the undeads? It's like Rashford was in front of empty net and stopped and sat down on the ball
- Samwell got caught by a horde of undeads but still end up lounging lazy on the pile of bodies
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I don't believe anybody thinks that because it's a fantasy show stupid shite is ok.

People are objecting to a variety of elements, but rarely because there is a belief that the show has become internally inconsistent (leaving aside those who believe that Arya killing the Night King is implausible rather than just annoying, but they're on shaky ground).

Undoubtedly the battle tactics were dreadful and the wall defenses ill conceived (although Snow has form here). Characters survived for story reasons and they went for spectacle over realism at points. I'm pretty much ok with all of that and the NK death worked for me too as the particular route the long established and un-threatening looking supernatural magic assassin took to get to the NK seems unimportant to me, but if people feel that's poor writing then fair enough. Personally my biggest gripe with the writing is the reduction in dialogue quality and the weakening of certain characters as a consequence, but I don't find that to be a fatal flaw even though I'd concede that seasons 1 to 3 are significantly better in quality.

They did use the dragons to kill vast amounts of the undead as an aside, although keeping them safe for NK engagement was their top priority and rightly so given that was the only possible way to win.
 
I came across a brilliant podcast called “A History of Westeros”. There is hundreds of episodes covering subjects from the books and tv series. They title everything with book spoilers for those who don’t want to have stuff ruined, but they also do a episode review a day or two after it airs lasting nearly two hours. It’s great as it covers things you may have missed, or justifies parts of the show you didn’t like.
 
GhastlyHun said:
Added drama. He feels the end is imminent and turns towards death in defiance. So many scenes here were designed with nothing but visuals in mind, just like the Dothraki riding to their pointless end with flaming swords, or Brienne and Jaime almost getting swamped countless times, the dragons crashing into each other midair (:lol:)...
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...and the same reason that Theon slowly ran at the NK to die. And the same reason Arya appeared to drop out of the sky.
 
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