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Game of Thrones [thronies rejoice! XD]
- Thread starter WayOfRhetoric
- Start date
Eddard Stark.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
they showed an executioner swinging a big ass broadsword down at his head, they cut away when it was inches from his neck, they panned to a shocked/elated crowd and desolate arya and grinning joffrey. then they showed his headless corpse in the next episode. what more do u want
man idk what the rest of you think but i thought that episode was fucking awful
I enjoyed the episode but the pacing for the whole season was all wrong. The finale didn't work as well due to the amount of plotlines it had to get through, where each plotline could have been resolved earlier in the season. Arya's whole subplot was incredibly slow and the mystery evoked quickly turned to tedium. The Dorne subplot was dreadful, and really unnecessary; it just seemed like a way to include Coster-Waldau in Season 5's cast. But yeah, the fact that the last episode had to get through Stannis' demise (which was really rushed), Dany's encounter with the Dothraki, Sansa and Reek/Theon's escape(?), Arya's brutal revenge and subsequent blinding, Sam's farewell, the sending off of Jaime et all, Cersei's humiliation and Snow's death meant that there was very little emotional impact overall, as it was just one twist after another without having time to process what's happening on screen.
Highlights of the Season:
- Sons of Harpy vs Dani's gang in the battle arena, followed by Drogon appearing. I know everybody liked Hardhome, and I do too, but this was the best moment of the season. The OST created for the Sons of Harpy is very impressive and rivals The Lord of Light theme for my favourite of the series.
- As aforementioned, Hardhome. Great battle with real consequences, and served as a reminder that the White Walkers do exist, after being absent from the show for so long. The choreography itself was a little meh (relying on shakycam too much) but the battle in context really hit home the power that all GoT characters are up against.
- Cersei's capture was fantastically done and the whole religious subplot has been well-executed this season.
- Burning of Shireen was horrifying and credit where it's due, Kerry Ingram did a fantastic job selling her agony. Probably the scene with the biggest emotional impact on me.
- Tyrion and Jorah's roadtrip was a little slow but great fun.
Highlights of the Season:
- Sons of Harpy vs Dani's gang in the battle arena, followed by Drogon appearing. I know everybody liked Hardhome, and I do too, but this was the best moment of the season. The OST created for the Sons of Harpy is very impressive and rivals The Lord of Light theme for my favourite of the series.
- As aforementioned, Hardhome. Great battle with real consequences, and served as a reminder that the White Walkers do exist, after being absent from the show for so long. The choreography itself was a little meh (relying on shakycam too much) but the battle in context really hit home the power that all GoT characters are up against.
- Cersei's capture was fantastically done and the whole religious subplot has been well-executed this season.
- Burning of Shireen was horrifying and credit where it's due, Kerry Ingram did a fantastic job selling her agony. Probably the scene with the biggest emotional impact on me.
- Tyrion and Jorah's roadtrip was a little slow but great fun.
Hardhome is by far the best (and most important) arc in the season and I can't wait for season 6 when the White Walkers hit home. I think for Jon Snow people are relying too much on him been resurrected by Melisandre while I suspect he will first warg into Ghost and then join the White Walkers who might as well be headed by another Stark.
Dany did see a Frozen King sitting on the Iron Throne, what makes a better show then Ice vs. Fire?
Dany did see a Frozen King sitting on the Iron Throne, what makes a better show then Ice vs. Fire?
real talk: Danaerys vs White Walkers is going to be the most one-sided battle in the entire show
I mean dragon glass kills them, Valyrian steel (made by dragon fire) kills them, so presumably actual dragons utterly destroy them...
Well that is true and the Nights King should by now know the trouble Dragons and anything related to them can cause, but he has been planning this for ages and has the numbers to power through (finally?). It now stands three dragons and a handfull of Valyrian Steel (I don't think anyone outside of the Wall or Wildlings care about Dragon Glass atm) vs. Tens of Thousands of Wights (and spiders?) and the White Walkers. Each time they successfully slaughter a place, boom more troops.
Also there are rumors of Stone/Ice dragons so I don't know how they fit in this equation...
The whole show is gearing towards this whole savior prophecy thingy going on (Azor Ahai, Ice & Fire). Danny when she does come around strong enough to make the cross, she would have to go through Mereen successfully, Mereens enemies (freeing slaves is not welcome in that continent especially to the ruling rich), Dothraki and then actually control her Dragons. When she does come around to that the White Walkers should easily have swept through Westros which is war torn and full of conspiracies to overthrow one another.
I'm very interested in seeing how Baelish plays in all of this seeing how Varys is placing all his cards on Dany...
Am I the only person who is seriously wondering wtf happened to Bran? They literally left him out of the entire season. That tells me the author is trying to get us to forget about him so he can suddenly reappear and figure prominently near the end and shock everyone.
Also Jon Snow falling for the oldest trick in the book smh
"Hey, what's that over there?! *stab*"
Also Jon Snow falling for the oldest trick in the book smh
"Hey, what's that over there?! *stab*"
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This is what happens when the show gets right to the end of the book plot for all intents and purposes when involving a single character. Bran's plot has no legs to stand on. Next season will likely not have this issue because Winds will be out and/or the show runners are going to go even further into unpublished stuff.
Neither does Bran
Most of the season was fucking awful
They "fixed" AFFC slow pace by trying to cram two books into 10 episodes, which ended up with an extremely rushed season, poorly developed plotlines, and plain stupid shit.
Brienne has found Arya in the middle of a mountain, Sansa in a random ass tavern, and Stannis alone in the middle of a battlefield, because is not like the Boltons cared about taking out / capturing their biggest threat. Her whole plotline is dumb as fuck and seemingly pointless, because she has achieved literally nothing despite the fact she seems to be the luckiest person alive.
Dorne was a joke. Shit wasn't particularly good in the books, except the end, but in the show they somehow managed to make it significantly worse. Everything that happened in Dorne could be resumed in 5 minutes worth of an episode and we would had gotten the same amount of character development (literally 0) and the same endresult (Myrcella dead, Lannisters mad)
Hardhome was a cool episode with stuff that hasn't happened in the books and Jon looked like a badass. My problem with it isn't directly involved with that episode. The "for the watch" stabbing was justified in the books, because Jones risked the whole night watch, broke his vows and did lots of dumb shit (and no one but Sam had seen a White Walker, and not everyone believes him). In the show he saved thousands of wildlings from a massive army of zombies, that was led by multiple White Walker who give no fucks about regular weapons, and he and other crows saw him literally raising the death and directly challenging them with his open arms. Jon proved he was right, the wildling weren't the real enemy and they needed to work together. But lol fuck him, let's stab him for being right despite having literally thousands of witnesses who could tell us about the real threat, including other members of the night watch. In the show he got killed because of shock value, there was no justification to do so, which made it looks stupid as fuck.
Those are my main issues. There are other shit that annoy me like the unsullied, the most feared army in the GOT universe, getting wrecked consistently by rich dudes with knifes and masks, Sansa being a victim for 5 seasons in a row, Arya being the worst possible undercover secret assassin in episode 9, Ramsay being the second coming of Jesus and everything going his way, Stannis fall from grace happens in about 2 episodes, etc
EDIT: I'm slightly upset
Don't forget the Sparrows, who while dressed like video game clerics, are somehow completely impervious to the well armed Kingsguard/Gold Cloaks
Or the gladiator combat whose incredibly unrealistic violence was a major drama point for Dany
Or Thorne participated in stabbing Jon even after being the only person who could let him and the wildlings into Castle Black
Or how all the scenes where people are trying to talk wisdom into Olly now mean absolutely nothing
Still a better season than 2 or 4 though.
Or the gladiator combat whose incredibly unrealistic violence was a major drama point for Dany
Or Thorne participated in stabbing Jon even after being the only person who could let him and the wildlings into Castle Black
Or how all the scenes where people are trying to talk wisdom into Olly now mean absolutely nothing
Still a better season than 2 or 4 though.
Let's rank the major plotlines:
1. John Snow
2. Tyrion
3. Dorne
4. Cersei
5. Daenerys
6. Arya
7. Stannis
8. Sansa
I'm sure people might feel I'm ranking Dorne too highly but honestly at least I cared what happened and they didn't irreversibly destroy any pre-existing characters. Dorne might've been home to the silliest scene of the season but there was never a scene where I felt like ragequitting the show in it, which automatically ranks it higher than Stannis or Sansa. Arya spent the entire season scrubbing floors when she was previously the best character on television (yes I said it), and both Cersei and Daenerys suffered from the problem of new faceless enemies completely unbelievably becoming unstoppable (Daenery's being lower because The Unsullied continue to get shit on and are now completely invalidated as a fighting force).
1. John Snow
2. Tyrion
3. Dorne
4. Cersei
5. Daenerys
6. Arya
7. Stannis
8. Sansa
I'm sure people might feel I'm ranking Dorne too highly but honestly at least I cared what happened and they didn't irreversibly destroy any pre-existing characters. Dorne might've been home to the silliest scene of the season but there was never a scene where I felt like ragequitting the show in it, which automatically ranks it higher than Stannis or Sansa. Arya spent the entire season scrubbing floors when she was previously the best character on television (yes I said it), and both Cersei and Daenerys suffered from the problem of new faceless enemies completely unbelievably becoming unstoppable (Daenery's being lower because The Unsullied continue to get shit on and are now completely invalidated as a fighting force).
I'm not buying this Unsullied criticism one bit. The Unsullied are a professional army designed to fight in formation on a battlefield, and I'm sure they're amazing at that. That doesn't mean they're good for policing the streets of a city, where large numbers of knife-wielders can pop out of the shadows and attack them by surprise. For all that some people in this thread have tried to dismiss the Harpies' skill, they're very smart about what they do: using surprise and numbers to their advantage, isolating individual Unsullied, etc. If the Unsullied have a flaw, it's that they're one-dimensional fighters. Their spears are shitty weapons in these situations, but no doubt great in the situations for which they were intended. Notice also that whenever an Unsullied can get a clean hit, it goes exactly as you'd expect.
The Harpies also chucked javelins at the Games, which was effective because Dany seems not to have even one archer. There are a few things to criticize about these fights, including that, but the Unsullied are not at all "invalidated as a fighting force". She's using them in a role for which they're ill-suited.
The Harpies also chucked javelins at the Games, which was effective because Dany seems not to have even one archer. There are a few things to criticize about these fights, including that, but the Unsullied are not at all "invalidated as a fighting force". She's using them in a role for which they're ill-suited.
If only these elite soldiers had the common sense of carrying a secondary weapon just like every single ancient army in human history with speared soldiers
They do!
And just for good measure, here is a screenshot of my ASOS ebook
The numbers thing could be a good point, but we are talking about the soldiers who were outnumbered 4 to 1 by 12000+ dothraki and still defeated them. I'm certain the dothraki are significantly bigger threats than rich dudes with knives. In the books they rely on surprise to do their thing, in the show they went head to head against the unsullied in daylight in two different occasions, and in the first one they managed to easily defeat a group of unsullied led by Greyworm, who in the series was shown as a god-like warrior capable of taking over a city with two other dudes, without having a significant number advantage or surprise factor. And they also killed Barristan, who is one of the most famous swordsman in westeros, because fuck you we need SHOCK VALUE.
Now about the fight pit. How the fuck did the harpies manage to smuggle such a massive amount of weapons and masks without getting caught? "There is a group of people who want to kill us and our queen, but we are too lazy to check if anyone is carrying weapons". Now ignoring the fact they didn't even bother with basic preventive measures, why did they not even bother to actually watch over their queen during the event? If Jorah hadn't magically thrown the spear flawlessly, despite being injuried and tired and sick, the harpies would had killed Dany without any issue. How does a dude with a mask carrying a knife gets so close to the Queen surrounded by guards??? And after that the unsullied get butchered easily in open space until it wass necessary for the plot to slow things down for deus ex dragon to save the day.
The manufactured incompetence of the unsullied was beyond ridiculous. They are only one dimensional and dumb because the show needed them to. The unsullied are trained for years to become warriors, the kind of training only the best of the best survive. Untrained people with knives are no nothing to them in real combat, but showrunners wanted to make the sons of the harpy look like an epic threat.
PS: Son of the harpy having javelins but not once throwing them at Dany or even the unsullied (as far as I remember) was plain stupid. Guess they were exclusively for the dragon that hadn't arrived.
They do!
And just for good measure, here is a screenshot of my ASOS ebook
The numbers thing could be a good point, but we are talking about the soldiers who were outnumbered 4 to 1 by 12000+ dothraki and still defeated them. I'm certain the dothraki are significantly bigger threats than rich dudes with knives. In the books they rely on surprise to do their thing, in the show they went head to head against the unsullied in daylight in two different occasions, and in the first one they managed to easily defeat a group of unsullied led by Greyworm, who in the series was shown as a god-like warrior capable of taking over a city with two other dudes, without having a significant number advantage or surprise factor. And they also killed Barristan, who is one of the most famous swordsman in westeros, because fuck you we need SHOCK VALUE.
Now about the fight pit. How the fuck did the harpies manage to smuggle such a massive amount of weapons and masks without getting caught? "There is a group of people who want to kill us and our queen, but we are too lazy to check if anyone is carrying weapons". Now ignoring the fact they didn't even bother with basic preventive measures, why did they not even bother to actually watch over their queen during the event? If Jorah hadn't magically thrown the spear flawlessly, despite being injuried and tired and sick, the harpies would had killed Dany without any issue. How does a dude with a mask carrying a knife gets so close to the Queen surrounded by guards??? And after that the unsullied get butchered easily in open space until it wass necessary for the plot to slow things down for deus ex dragon to save the day.
The manufactured incompetence of the unsullied was beyond ridiculous. They are only one dimensional and dumb because the show needed them to. The unsullied are trained for years to become warriors, the kind of training only the best of the best survive. Untrained people with knives are no nothing to them in real combat, but showrunners wanted to make the sons of the harpy look like an epic threat.
PS: Son of the harpy having javelins but not once throwing them at Dany or even the unsullied (as far as I remember) was plain stupid. Guess they were exclusively for the dragon that hadn't arrived.
I love how they are also trying so hard with "these characters are dead guys", when many of them are going to be not dead.
The Sansa and Theon fall was confusing more than anything, still should have at least shown them safely in the snow. I won't miss Stannis since they already killed the greatest strategical mind of Westeros. How does a guy who would rather starve and eat smuggled onions or rats suddenly lose all power to some untrodden bastard named Ramsay. I'm not even mad at the outcome since it's clear in the books Stannis has a plan in the battle and the Mandarly's and Frey's are at each others throats and the Bolton's clearly have a food crisis. If show Stannis stays for a while longer I won't mind. The whole "GRRM told us to kill Shireen" bit seems to be based on the fact the show writers wanted to end Stannis' battle arc and GRRM probably went and said "well then burn Shireen for all I care make it as different as you want".
As for Jon they are trying way too hard, and should not have gone so far on the record as saying "he's dead guys really he is". Going the book route of "well we didn't say he's dead" would have been smarter. Because after all the boy has been killed, now the man has to be reborn.
also smh guys my legs comment was completely intentional.
The Sansa and Theon fall was confusing more than anything, still should have at least shown them safely in the snow. I won't miss Stannis since they already killed the greatest strategical mind of Westeros. How does a guy who would rather starve and eat smuggled onions or rats suddenly lose all power to some untrodden bastard named Ramsay. I'm not even mad at the outcome since it's clear in the books Stannis has a plan in the battle and the Mandarly's and Frey's are at each others throats and the Bolton's clearly have a food crisis. If show Stannis stays for a while longer I won't mind. The whole "GRRM told us to kill Shireen" bit seems to be based on the fact the show writers wanted to end Stannis' battle arc and GRRM probably went and said "well then burn Shireen for all I care make it as different as you want".
As for Jon they are trying way too hard, and should not have gone so far on the record as saying "he's dead guys really he is". Going the book route of "well we didn't say he's dead" would have been smarter. Because after all the boy has been killed, now the man has to be reborn.
also smh guys my legs comment was completely intentional.
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It wasn't just Ramsay, he had twenty good men!
My biggest gripe with the Unsullied wasn't necessarily that they performed laughably bad in combat, but rather that they did not even try to coordinate. They're trained to be a phalanx, locking shields and bracing for charge, fighting in formation on the battlefield (and also popularly used as household guards, though that practise seems to have been abandoned shortly before the start of the book series). Anyway, the point is, they should be able to fight together.
But no, in the show it's all "Leeeeeroy Jenkins!". The Unsullied don't say a word to another, band together or for that matter even look at another when they fall under attack. They fight every man for himself, and are killed because nobody cover their backs. Forming a formation would realistically be the first thing they would do when attacked, but no, they go all individual for no reason whatsoever, and are subsequently promptly killed. By people with no military experience whatsoever, mind you.
*sigh*
The dumbing down is almost painful...
But no, in the show it's all "Leeeeeroy Jenkins!". The Unsullied don't say a word to another, band together or for that matter even look at another when they fall under attack. They fight every man for himself, and are killed because nobody cover their backs. Forming a formation would realistically be the first thing they would do when attacked, but no, they go all individual for no reason whatsoever, and are subsequently promptly killed. By people with no military experience whatsoever, mind you.
*sigh*
The dumbing down is almost painful...
Clearly after Daenerys freed them they lost all discipline.