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OT - Game of Thrones S8

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TheOriginalCane said:
Oh, lord, now we have "expert plot analysis" from the poster who consistently posts the dumbest arguments on the board.

How deep was the lake? YOU DON'T KNOW. The Night King has giants. YOU IGNORE THAT. The Night King routinely commands his forces to wait. YOU FORGET THAT.

The purpose of the scene was not to give a technical description of how a dead dragon would be pulled from a lake, it was to flip everyone from "oh no, he killed a dragon" to "oh no, he can resurrect anything, even a dragon".

What's next? Are you going to come up with some criticism of how 3 fossilized dragon eggs can produce full-grown dragons after hundreds of years when the plot has clearly and repeatedly specified that dragons were getting smaller and weaker over time (before they became extinct), with the last dragons being quite tiny? Or how about why Valyrian steel (which comes from the continent of Essos) is able to kill white walkers (which were created on the continent of Westeros)?

Are you going to do a doctoral thesis on the magical quality of midichlorians in the Star Wars movies?

Is there some sort of critique coming as to why all of the English wizards use Latin words for spells in Harry Potter?

Plot holes. A bunch of stupid people complaining about things because their feeble minds need some sort of scientific explanation in FANTASY stories.
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Not sure why all the "internet critics" somehow think they are battlefield experts. And why the have already forgotten comments from earlier episodes.

Everyone in Winterfell knew that they were overmatched, numerically (not even counting the ability to reanimate the dead and get them to fight for the Night King). The entire plan was to goad the Night King into going after Bran, and then killing the Night King (and, as a result, all of his reanimated followers).

Short of that plan succeeding, they had no "winning strategy", as they knew they didn't have the numbers.

Every strategy involved delay and misdirection until the Night King felt that he had to get involved (as he usually sat on the sidelines of all the other battles, with the exception of coming out to raise his arms to reanimate the dead, or to throw a Hail Mary ice spear at a dragon).

The more "dead" that they could kill, burn, split up, and tie up in worthless battles away from Bran, the greater the chance that the Night King would jump into the battle personally. And Bran was SUPPOSED to be bait, he wasn't supposed to do anything but sit there until the Night King showed up.

I understand that a lot of the internet critics do not have a good grasp of history, but the whole "first charge" stuff has been a part of historical warfare for centuries. Even during D-Day (or most WWII battles in the Pacific), the first wave casualties were MASSIVE.

And, in the end, the Winterfell defense strategy SUCCEEDED. The plan came together, and only a couple of important people died.

But people are complaining that a bunch of Dothraki died. They were out of the show for, like, 5 or 6 seasons, and now people are mad and criticizing successful underdog battle plans? If anyone wants to get mad about the plans, go after the person who didn't empty the crypt of all the dead bodies when you're fighting a dude WHO CAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE.

Enjoy the show. 20 days left.
 
Question for those who read the 5 books A Song of Ice and Fire, how does it compare to the TV show? They're quite voluminous and before I embark on thousands of pages of reading I'm curious what you guys think.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
Not sure why all the "internet critics" somehow think they are battlefield experts. And why the have already forgotten comments from earlier episodes.

Everyone in Winterfell knew that they were overmatched, numerically (not even counting the ability to reanimate the dead and get them to fight for the Night King). The entire plan was to goad the Night King into going after Bran, and then killing the Night King (and, as a result, all of his reanimated followers).

Short of that plan succeeding, they had no "winning strategy", as they knew they didn't have the numbers.

Every strategy involved delay and misdirection until the Night King felt that he had to get involved (as he usually sat on the sidelines of all the other battles, with the exception of coming out to raise his arms to reanimate the dead, or to throw a Hail Mary ice spear at a dragon).

The more "dead" that they could kill, burn, split up, and tie up in worthless battles away from Bran, the greater the chance that the Night King would jump into the battle personally. And Bran was SUPPOSED to be bait, he wasn't supposed to do anything but sit there until the Night King showed up.

I understand that a lot of the internet critics do not have a good grasp of history, but the whole "first charge" stuff has been a part of historical warfare for centuries. Even during D-Day (or most WWII battles in the Pacific), the first wave casualties were MASSIVE.

And, in the end, the Winterfell defense strategy SUCCEEDED. The plan came together, and only a couple of important people died.

But people are complaining that a bunch of Dothraki died. They were out of the show for, like, 5 or 6 seasons, and now people are mad and criticizing successful underdog battle plans? If anyone wants to get mad about the plans, go after the person who didn't empty the crypt of all the dead bodies when you're fighting a dude WHO CAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE.

Enjoy the show. 20 days left.
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To all the people complaining about the battle, looks like they never played Total War.

The episode actually exceeded my expectations. I thought only a handful of the important characters would die. But we still have most of the band together.

Now, on to Kings Landing.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Not sure why all the "internet critics" somehow think they are battlefield experts. And why the have already forgotten comments from earlier episodes.

Everyone in Winterfell knew that they were overmatched, numerically (not even counting the ability to reanimate the dead and get them to fight for the Night King). The entire plan was to goad the Night King into going after Bran, and then killing the Night King (and, as a result, all of his reanimated followers).

Short of that plan succeeding, they had no "winning strategy", as they knew they didn't have the numbers.

Every strategy involved delay and misdirection until the Night King felt that he had to get involved (as he usually sat on the sidelines of all the other battles, with the exception of coming out to raise his arms to reanimate the dead, or to throw a Hail Mary ice spear at a dragon).

The more "dead" that they could kill, burn, split up, and tie up in worthless battles away from Bran, the greater the chance that the Night King would jump into the battle personally. And Bran was SUPPOSED to be bait, he wasn't supposed to do anything but sit there until the Night King showed up.

I understand that a lot of the internet critics do not have a good grasp of history, but the whole "first charge" stuff has been a part of historical warfare for centuries. Even during D-Day (or most WWII battles in the Pacific), the first wave casualties were MASSIVE.

And, in the end, the Winterfell defense strategy SUCCEEDED. The plan came together, and only a couple of important people died.

But people are complaining that a bunch of Dothraki died. They were out of the show for, like, 5 or 6 seasons, and now people are mad and criticizing successful underdog battle plans? If anyone wants to get mad about the plans, go after the person who didn't empty the crypt of all the dead bodies when you're fighting a dude WHO CAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE.

Enjoy the show. 20 days left.
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Lol at you saying it succeeded. That success wasn’t realistic at all. So many times where main characters were outnumbered by dozens and dozens of walkers, the scene would cut away, then when it go back to the character and they would somehow be unscathed. Fat dude somehow fought while sitting down the whole time and didn’t die. So give me a break saying they were successful. Not to mention that Arya has trouble dealing with 5 white walkers in a room but she somehow snuck up on the night king and past all those white walkers protecting him. It was entertaining but the worst written episode ever in GOT. Episode 2 was much better. Like I said before people just want to see dragons burning stuff and people fighting even if the plot makes no god **** sense. In this episode They gave the people the Hollywood ending they wanted and the people ate it up.
 
DerekDohrman said:
here's a somewhat rambling, yet fascinating take on recent events in GOT(and maybe life in general) that i just came across on Reddit:

I think what show audience and book fans miss right now out of pure emotion is what was said on the great war council. Bran and Sam literally explained that the fight is over MEMORY, not being forgotten. Cersei is the typical dictator from world history: believes her rise to power was morally just (defending the family equals dictators saying they defend their nation), burning religious symbols, total moral corruption and last panicked destruction. Have you seen what regimes like this do: kill pretenders for the power, start a reform through fear and genocide, burn books and temples, to the point where people not only loose their lives but also their pride and memory that something different ever existed so that they're broken and bent in body and mind. The Winter in GOT is just an allegory of the periods of world history when humanity suffered almost full destruction: famine, pandemics, wars - Dark Ages when only survival is important. But in order to fight you need to remember that it could be different, the North Remembers - it remembers what independence smells like, what is like to resist. In ep 3 they've just won the war for the memory, the spiritual death was defied. Now they need to get to the fight with the outside forces. Every war is first won inside you head (Little Finger said to fight every war first in the mind), just remember what amazing role he and his dagger played), This Battle was actually a battle in their minds, to overcome the sense of failure and destruction, to get a taste of what winning is like, what they are capable of. The Night King was exactly the ultimate type of Death - the death of the heart (the Dragon Glass in his chest), when we loose our spirit everything is lost. The army of the Dead rose as the dead outnumbered the living - in times of war and famine the Dead become more than the living, even in the Bible there is a verse that says the dead will rise and free their graves for the living. Arya is the right character to kill the NK. I've previously said under another post that she's Justice. Death is faceless, no social standing, no morals, no deeds and beliefs could save you from it, each of us is destined to die, so it doesn't discriminate, but giving Justice (Arya) to the Truth (Bran) we could survive for the generations to come, some page in history, some account, a tale or a song could give us the Justice we deserve or the winning side thinks we deserve. Most main characters survived because this is what usually happens in history - the commoners dying in wars are just statistics, but the names of selected few are remembered so they survive the Battle over the Memory. Just think of the Dark Ages, George RR Martin has replaced it with Long Winter, it's the same. About the message the Night king brought: he used two major symbols - the spiral and something like the greek letter Phi. The spiral was used from the dawn of our civilisation to symbolise the Sun, the pass of time, the cycle of life - creation and destruction in constant turn over. There are two traditional representations of time - lineal and circular. The West believes time is a line - we constantly progress and move forward, the east and pagan traditions believe time is a cycle - coming back to the same point over and over again non stop. People like Marx believed time is a Spiral - time has circular motion but while it repeats itself it does it on another level - each revolution brings something new while it repeats the same old patterns. This might mean that the battles for the throne are just part of a cycle, but still will bring something new. (I think Kings landing will be destroyed and the capital will be moved - I believe in the North, there'll be also administrative and religious reforms). The Phi symbol is mostly associated with the Golden Ratio - it's the God's (or whatever Creator you believe in) master plan, the matrix by which everything is encoded. And interestingly the Phi letter is the 21st both in the Greek and in the Cyrillic (Bulgarian) Alphabets. Which century we are in? All prophecies about wars and Apocalypses , all religious texts prepare us to face destruction, to view it as a renewal, as something useful, and after all of that we are usually given hope about a better start - The Messiah. It doesn't matter if it will be true, it doesn't matter whether the good times really follow the bad ones, it just keeps us going. We live our lives as a specie that is fully aware of the fact of Death, we have 100% certainty that we'll die, but it's One Day, Not Today we believe. So all our struggles for power, money, for mere survival, for love, for glory stem from this NOT TODAY. We keep evolving and making history with our own bodies for Hope, for Love, for Justice, For Peace. Jon is Hope (he knows Nothing, hope lacks any common sense, it dies last and can always be resurrected like Jon was), Dany is Will Power (she accomplished everything and sacrificed her Private Self (family and love) for her Ambitions). Bran (Truth) has conversations only with three characters Sam (Honesty), Jamie (Consciousness) and Tyrion (Curiosity&Doubt) as only this three traits make us face the truth. So in the end after the fight for regaining Memory and Pride (Theon - as we give our Pride last in protecting the Truth/Bran, we regain the true pride of our beings by risking the false one. Theon believed that in order to gain Pride he needs to take with force, but this way he lost his Dignity - you know which part represents it, and at last he gained true Pride by being honorable). As a conclusion don't be upset about ep.3, just look beyond the figures as Plato said, go out of the cave of artificial lights (CGI) and see the true light. And if the Night King was the last master villain like some 90s console game, it would've been the 'End they lived happily ever after'stupidity George RR Martin hates so much. Because what is actually after, just more struggle, more fights, more deaths and births, life goes on.
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TLDR
 
Poptimus said:
Question for those who read the 5 books A Song of Ice and Fire, how does it compare to the TV show? They're quite voluminous and before I embark on thousands of pages of reading I'm curious what you guys think.
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I've heard they are very indepth and verbose. To the point that some people have quit reading the books.

GOT is a book series I want to read. But GRRM hasn't released the last two books. And I don't want to get into a book series only to find out the story isn't finished.
 
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MiamiHotline said:
To all the people complaining about the battle, looks like they never played Total War.

The episode actually exceeded my expectations. I thought only a handful of the important characters would die. But we still have most of the band together.

Now, on to Kings Landing.
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Agreed.

Very MINOR critiques had to do with the overall visibility of the battle and some of the timing of certain hand-to-hand combat bits.

Since a ton of people went to see Avengers this weekend, they probably saw the trailer for the new Godzilla movie. The visuals were VERY similar to a big chunk of the "Night King brings zero visibility to the battle" portion of the episode. I was watching in 4K on a huge TV and still had some difficulty making out certain details. And while I was fully expecting the Night King death to bring a rapid conclusion to the battle, it still felt like several key characters were able to hold on for looong periods of time against (seemingly) insurmountable numbers.

Minor concerns for what was a fantastic episode. As they "lengthened" this episode (since the episode lengths were first announced), I wonder what was originally on the cutting room floor. Probably Arya's adventures in the library and some of the stuff in the crypt. Everything else seemed pretty vital to the overall storytelling, even The Hound's ongoing fear of fire.

Great, great episode. Nearly every major battle has featured someone pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat, from Tyrion's use of wildfire, to The Vale showing up to save Jon in The Battle of the ********, to Dany riding in on a dragon to save the Fellowship of the Wight from the Night King. Glad to see a similar (but different) curveball end this episode as well, with Arya using the Valyrian dagger, and a nice 2-hand redirection. Now THAT was some planning.
 
Poptimus said:
Question for those who read the 5 books A Song of Ice and Fire, how does it compare to the TV show? They're quite voluminous and before I embark on thousands of pages of reading I'm curious what you guys think.
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I'm going to be honest. If you are up-to-date on the TV show, you might want to delay on the books until George RR Martin puts out Book 6 (at least). The "voluminous" part isn't the real problem. The real issue is that the books focus on the viewpoints of different characters for LOOOONG stretches, thus there is heavy focus on certain characters, while others are ignored for entire book-lengths. The TV show is MUCH more like what we are accustomed to in narrative structure, as it moves the story around to all of the characters in a much quicker fashion.

I would say that the TV credits are a good example to use. You see the various locales each season, and some credit sequences introduce new locales while dropping other locales.

Now imagine if an entire 1,000 page book focuses on only a few characters and locales.

It's still a great book series, but you might be put off by the structure, or at least take a stab at it when more of the story has been finalized.

I would have hated to read Fellowship of the Rings and Two Towers, and then have to wait for a decade to read Return of the King.
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
Not sure why all the "internet critics" somehow think they are battlefield experts. And why the have already forgotten comments from earlier episodes.

Everyone in Winterfell knew that they were overmatched, numerically (not even counting the ability to reanimate the dead and get them to fight for the Night King). The entire plan was to goad the Night King into going after Bran, and then killing the Night King (and, as a result, all of his reanimated followers).

Short of that plan succeeding, they had no "winning strategy", as they knew they didn't have the numbers.

Every strategy involved delay and misdirection until the Night King felt that he had to get involved (as he usually sat on the sidelines of all the other battles, with the exception of coming out to raise his arms to reanimate the dead, or to throw a Hail Mary ice spear at a dragon).

The more "dead" that they could kill, burn, split up, and tie up in worthless battles away from Bran, the greater the chance that the Night King would jump into the battle personally. And Bran was SUPPOSED to be bait, he wasn't supposed to do anything but sit there until the Night King showed up.

I understand that a lot of the internet critics do not have a good grasp of history, but the whole "first charge" stuff has been a part of historical warfare for centuries. Even during D-Day (or most WWII battles in the Pacific), the first wave casualties were MASSIVE.

And, in the end, the Winterfell defense strategy SUCCEEDED. The plan came together, and only a couple of important people died.

But people are complaining that a bunch of Dothraki died. They were out of the show for, like, 5 or 6 seasons, and now people are mad and criticizing successful underdog battle plans? If anyone wants to get mad about the plans, go after the person who didn't empty the crypt of all the dead bodies when you're fighting a dude WHO CAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE.

Enjoy the show. 20 days left.
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Really good post. I really had no problems with the battle scene at all other than they really needed you to suspend disbelief at a few points, i.e. Jaime, Brienne, Pod, and Sam surviving the sea of walkers.

The plan was to lure him in as you said and very successful but the group at the helm has been terrible at planning battles. That includes Jon, Daeny, and Tyrion.

For me, for the show to really be the show I love, there needs to be no plot armor. As they've strayed from the books, there seems to be less sense of real threat in fights like these. Jon surviving the BotB is another good example, but again, it's a show and it is supposed to be epic fanfare.

I just like pointing out that the show used to be so much more ruthless than it is now.
 
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Kendall Boy Cane said:
Really good post. I really had no problems with the battle scene at all other than they really needed you to suspend disbelief at a few points, i.e. Jaime, Brienne, Pod, and Sam surviving the sea of walkers.

The plan was to lure him in as you said and very successful but the group at the helm has been terrible at planning battles. That includes Jon, Daeny, and Tyrion.

For me, for the show to really be the show I love, there needs to be no plot armor. As they've strayed from the books, there seems to be less sense of real threat in fights like these. Jon surviving the BotB is another good example, but again, it's a show and it is supposed to be epic fanfare.

I just like pointing out that the show used to be so much more ruthless than it is now.
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I hear you but I think the show became the show it is because it didn’t follow epic fanfare. We were tuning in every week because week in and week out we didn’t know who might die. The show we have now is not the same show that gave us the red wedding.

Don’t get me wrong. I was entertained but in the same way the fast and the furious entertains me.
 
JG13 said:
Wights can punch through a stone crypt wall but not break out of a wooden box?
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I think the Knight King raised all the dead, including the dead that were buried in the crypts.... so the army of the Knight King never really broke into the crypts. Instead, he recruited the Stark ancestors to his side... Again, poor planning by Tyrion and company.
 
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