[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 25 April 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 April 2016 - 05:12 PM, said:

What was hurried?

Everything pretty much flowed directly from where each story was left last season, non?

Daario and Jorah have the luckiest/shortest search ever as they find the exact field where Drogon dropped off Dany and Jorah just happens to step right up to the spot where her ring was in that huge field.

Not really hurried, so much as we didn't see the rest of their search. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, since the rest of their search would be Boooooring.

amphibian, on 25 April 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

Same for The on and Sansa. All that running, a crossing of a river in the bitter cold and the dogs/henchmen still find them in about three minutes. Then Brienne+Pod randomly happen across them.

They weren't far from the keep on foot though, the odds they'd get away with trained hounds on their tails in winter? Slim to none. They would literally be one of the only strong smells on the wind. And Brienne and Pod were literally in the same exact forest the last time we saw them. They likely heard the hounds and horses and went to investigate. I'm not sure we need more connective tissue than that to buy it.

amphibian, on 25 April 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

Same for the sudden complete betrayal of Doran by a sandsnake and Ellaria + the killing of Dumbo McSwordsman on the boat. They even bought off/convinced the royal guards beyond Hotah.

By hurried, do you mean unexpected? Just because it was abrupt doesn't make it hurried.

amphibian, on 25 April 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

These are ludicrous coincidences and complicated things smashed together to hurry things up.

If they were done as a service to moving plot forward, why does that mean hurry? The pacing seems fine to me for these events, they were just done in neater ways. Like we don't need to see a long drawn out chase of Sansa and Theon, or a bunch of pre-murder-politicking games in Dorne, or how Brienne happened to stumble upon the Bolton hounds and men to know that something obviously happened to get them there. Why jump to the idea that the writers are rushing instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt?

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 25 April 2016 - 06:53 PM

[Nevyn]

QuickTidal, on 25 April 2016 - 06:26 PM, said:

Not sure if hurry is the right term... If they were done as a service to moving plot forward, why does that mean hurry? The pacing seems fine to me for these events, they were just done in neater ways. Like we don't need to see a long drawn out chase of Sansa and Theon, or a bunch of pre-murder-politicking games in Dorne, or how Brienne happened to stumble upon the Bolton hounds and men to know that something obviously happened to get them there. Why jump to the idea that the writers are rushing instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt?

I'm sorry, but hurried is the impression I had, too.

In each case, they skipped levels of detail they would normally show or go into. Yes, they did it with clear purpose, to 'get the story moving' and not get bogged down in more set up, and thus I think it was the right choice.

But it did feel rushed. As others said, they gave significance to Brienne missing the candle, and then made the candle not matter. You can try to argue that Brienne was just coincidentally in the same woods, but Ramsey has had time to return from the battle, find out what happened, and send out his hounds. And even if you accept the timing, they could have had a scene of Brienne hearing/reacting to something. I think they made the right choice, but it was a choice to skip information and drop prior story threads to get the story where they wanted it.

Same with Dorne. They clearly just wanted to get to 'the good part' of conflict with Dorne and not get bogged down in Doran diplomacy, so you have a coup in the episode immediately following the poisoning. But if Areo was literally the only guard who would stand with Doran, why not just kill Doran, Areo, Tristane, Myrcella, AND Jamie before they sail back? They skipped some plotting here, and it is fine to have the plotting offscreen (heck the red wedding was plotted offscreen) but with little to no time lapse it does feel like they are rushing through those plot threads.

[QuickTidal]

I disagree.

[Abyss]

I can't see how multiple episodes of Jorah and Dario riding around Ireland pining for Dany and looking at crisped goats, or watching the Sandsnakes setup their entire plot (they already made it clear last season they were unhappy and doing something about it), would have enhanced anything.

Nevyn, on 25 April 2016 - 07:04 PM, said:

...Same with Dorne. They clearly just wanted to get to 'the good part' of conflict with Dorne and not get bogged down in Doran diplomacy, so you have a coup in the episode immediately following the poisoning. But if Areo was literally the only guard who would stand with Doran, why not just kill Doran, Areo, Tristane, Myrcella, AND Jamie before they sail back? ...

They WANT war with the Lannisters. Sending Myrcella back dead will trigger that. Sure there are six other ways they could do it, but so what, they liked the drama of this.

[amphibian]

Abyss, on 25 April 2016 - 08:24 PM, said:

I can't see how multiple episodes of Jorah and Dario riding around Ireland pining for Dany and looking at crisped goats, or watching the Sandsnakes setup their entire plot (they already made it clear last season they were unhappy and doing something about it), would have enhanced anything.

There are these multiple ways directors and writers have come up with to express passage of time without taking up tons of time. Why not use them?

[Nevyn]

Not sure I even get what is being debated any more. Every time an example is given where the story was hurried the answer is "yeah but not hurrying would be boring".


Just because you liked it doesn't mean it wasn't a wrapping up of a particular story thread in a lot less screen time than one would reasonably expect.

[Coltaine -]

Briar King, on 25 April 2016 - 08:39 PM, said:

I'm really hoping that Mel bit is a show only Alt Uni thing and never happens in bk!

I guess we now know what will be going down with Arianna, Doran, Aero in bk 6.

I don't think so. For the show they changed the characters of Elliara and the Sand Snakes completely. And in the books they know that he is not a peaceloving/cowardly old man. He has a plan to take the Lannisters down. He just does not start a game he cannot win.

I think the reason why they added the coup de état was more like:

Benioff: Shit, we butchered the Dorne storyline and everybody hated it. What should we do?
Weiss: We already casted them for the next season. But hey, its Game of Thrones. Just kill the cast.
Benioff: Okay, but only the male cast. Let the Sand Snakes stay. We may need some boobs again.

And can anybody explain me how the sand snakes came on Trystan's ship? Wasn't he on the same ship as Myrcella and Jamie? A ship that left Dorne while the sand snakes were standing at the docks with their mother and now is in Kings Landing?
And how can Hotah be killed with a knife? Doesn't he have some kind of armor? What a bad bodyguard.

I would also go with hurried. But the problem may be that they wanted to connect all storylines from the last season with the new one before they introduce Brans snowy wonderland and the iron island presidental monarch election 2016. Oh, and Sam is also somewhere. On a boat.

The only part that was really stupid was Dorne, again. I should have known. The rest felt hurried to me, but I hope they will get back to normal speed in the next episodes. And wasn't this episode really short? Maybe some extra minutes for everyone would have helped.

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 25 April 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

As far as Jorah the landscape was obv a bullseye zone, walk to center of unmessed up grass and look for clues. Easy plus it's a big ring.

You ever been up in the mountains and valleys? You can't see the next couple valleys from where you are when hiking or riding. It's not quite needle in haystack level, but to find a particular place like that a dragon flight away (not bound by usual pathways and appearing to avoid cities) is real unlikely.

Plus Jorah was in the trampled part of the ring, not the center. You could see the center off a distance from the establishing shot.

It's not a nitpick, but it shows how compressed the editing/choices are.

Areo going down with a knife to the back is also dumb, as above pointed out. At least make it to the back of the neck above the armor.

[worry]

I'm not convinced Areo is dead (yet -- but maybe -- I guess it's wishful thinking). I didn't feel the episode was rushed while I was watching, but I guess in retrospect it was compressed. But not really to anything's deficit imo. I did feel a few of the coincidences were Dickensianly convenient, but then again, all storytelling is approximation anyway.

Re: stray issues above --
I think the Sand Snakes get on the ship on its return voyage (which is, I suppose, another compression).

Up North, I didn't really take it as the men guarding Jon's body. They are already shown to be Jon loyalists though, and Edd has disappeared from among them, so anyone will know what's up. Plus they consider themselves dead men already. If they're protecting anything though, I suppose it's Ghost, who will 100% not survive them opening the door.

Are all hounds Ramsay's? I'm not sure the most vicious ones that belong to him would go out without him.

Snakes want the adult Lannisters to suffer, not to die.

[Traveller]

I wasn't expecting much, I've kind of lost interest in the whole thing.

But I liked that episode - the pacing was fine, this show NEEDS less wandering-about-while-waiting for-something-to-happen in the penultimate episode.

When will people just accept that This Is Not The Book.. it's an adaptation for TV. As a tv episode, it was pretty good. I'll keep watching next week, anyway. If it had been 30 minutes of Jorah tracking, Dorne politics, or sandsnakes.. anything, I wouldnt have bothered.

This just looked like they're done waiting for another book, and they're getting on with it.

[Terez]

Briar King, on 25 April 2016 - 08:39 PM, said:

I'm really hoping that Mel bit is a show only Alt Uni thing and never happens in bk!

You're out of luck. I watched it at JordanCon, and on Sunday evenings only the hardcore remain because the con is officially over. There were about 30 of us watching it (informal, unscheduled gathering; all of us had HBO in our rooms but of course we wanted to watch it en masse), and we had one dude in there who was happy about the Melisandre scene because he's known about it for 5 years and had to keep it secret. I have no idea who he was (he was one of the few people in the room I couldn't even recall seeing before) but lots of other people seemed to know him and everyone took it in stride so I'm guessing he's legit. (Most of us in that room have had to keep similar secrets at some point, if not for so long. But Maria Simons was in there; she has had to keep secrets longer than that, and I'm sure she will take many to her grave.)

I'm guessing the necklace is a charm that wears off pretty quickly when she takes it off. That's easier than making it immediate. Con reaction when she initially went to take off her clothes: "Almost a full hour." I like how they set up the timeline at the Wall; Jon gets stabbed in the early morning hours, and he's dead probably until sunset when Throne is supposed to be breaking down the door. Next week should be good.

The Brienne rescue got cheers in the con room; it was def the most exciting moment in the episode judging by crowd reactions. And there was lots of sniffling during the oath exchange.

I have PCD so I can't reply like I want to so apologies if this seems oversimplified, but the 'hurrying' argument itself seems kind of oversimplified to me. Some things were rushed, but most of the things mentioned here were something else. Like Jorah just happening to look down and find that ring. That made me roll my eyes when I saw it. I wouldn't call it 'hurrying'; it's just lazy screenwriting/directing/whatever. They could have taken 15 seconds to show them combing the area properly, first over here, then over there, but they didn't, so it was dumb. But the plotline itself doesn't seem rushed. Guess they had to squeeze in that dialogue about Dany.

They went off the rails in Dorne and the whole thing has been dumb from the beginning so this episode didn't strike me as rushed so much as more of the dumb. It's all very farcical compared to what's happening in the books.

[Gorefest]

Really gutted about Dorne. Even after all the cock-ups I still had the hope that, now that we had gotten to this stage, we would finally see the scheming book Doran rise to his full genius. It looked promising for a moment when he did his 'Oberyn is great at fighting, I am great at ruling' bit, but then he just got killed off. A terrible finale to a terrible plot line. And i guess we can finally put the whole young Aegon hook to bed as well for the tv show. Not gonna happen.

Other than that, pretty decent start. I don't mind the sped up storylines, 'convenient' encounters are not necessarily lazy writing in my opinion. It's a story, not a travel diary. The characters and items are deliberately put in place for them to meet (or dramatically not meet) at the author's discretion.

Don't get the Melissandre glamour significance at the moment. So she's much older than we assumed. Not sure what storyline implications that can possibly have (she was around when the original Azor Ahai was active or something?) but I'm happy to go with it for now. What does boggle me is why they introduce this glamour ability now but completely neglected it in the show as a plot element for a Mance/rattleshirt switch (unless that is the significance of it, of course. If so, it seems the wrong way around. Unless they wanted to wrong-foot the book readers).

[Abyss]

Nevyn, on 25 April 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

....
Just because you liked it doesn't mean it wasn't a wrapping up of a particular story thread in a lot less screen time than one would reasonably expect.

The inverse holds just as true tho.

Terez, on 25 April 2016 - 10:47 PM, said:

They went off the rails in Dorne ... It's all very farcical compared to what's happening in the books.

Umm...

[Terez]

What?

[Nevyn]

Abyss, on 26 April 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

Nevyn, on 25 April 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

....
Just because you liked it doesn't mean it wasn't a wrapping up of a particular story thread in a lot less screen time than one would reasonably expect.

The inverse holds just as true tho.

But if you check, I didn't say I didn't like it.

[Andorion]

As expected, Dorne was a mess. Literally everyone of the SS are bastards. Who rules Dorne? How did the two SS get into the ship with Trystane? Why the hell was he still in the ship? None of this made any sense.

I am really happy they got Brienne to meet Sansa and Jorah to find the ring first off. Saved some boring travel scenes. BTW Pod can fight!

Tyrion-Varys was good, not great, needed more detail.

Arya was ok. I am just wondering about the random Bravosi people who see this blind girl getting beaten up. What are they thinking?

KL was really good. Lena Headley pulled off some excellent acting, the scene between Cersei and Jaime was pretty great, am wondering about Jaime's character arc though. Since he has become all combative and since he found out about what the faith did to his sister, does he now rouse the Tyrell forces and take on the Sparrows?

BTW where is Bronne?

Wall was excellent. Loved the lines Davos got. Looking forward to the showdown.

Mel was a bit of a shocker, but then again we knew she wasn't just a normal woman.

[Abyss]

Terez, on 26 April 2016 - 01:21 AM, said:

What?

Book Dorne hasn't exactly been tearing up its enemies. Their last big plan got BBQ'd.

Nevyn, on 26 April 2016 - 03:24 AM, said:

Abyss, on 26 April 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

Nevyn, on 25 April 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

....
Just because you liked it doesn't mean it wasn't a wrapping up of a particular story thread in a lot less screen time than one would reasonably expect.

The inverse holds just as true tho.

But if you check, I didn't say I didn't like it.

Doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Andorion, on 26 April 2016 - 04:40 AM, said:

As expected, Dorne was a mess. Literally everyone of the SS are bastards. Who rules Dorne? How did the two SS get into the ship with Trystane? Why the hell was he still in the ship? None of this made any sense.

Doran gasped out Trystane 's name when he died. Best guess he had come back already. But yeah, that was wildly vague.

[Andorion]

Abyss, on 26 April 2016 - 04:55 AM, said:

Terez, on 26 April 2016 - 01:21 AM, said:

What?

Book Dorne hasn't exactly been tearing up its enemies. Their last big plan got BBQ'd.

Nevyn, on 26 April 2016 - 03:24 AM, said:

Abyss, on 26 April 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

Nevyn, on 25 April 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

....
Just because you liked it doesn't mean it wasn't a wrapping up of a particular story thread in a lot less screen time than one would reasonably expect.

The inverse holds just as true tho.

But if you check, I didn't say I didn't like it.

Doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Andorion, on 26 April 2016 - 04:40 AM, said:

As expected, Dorne was a mess. Literally everyone of the SS are bastards. Who rules Dorne? How did the two SS get into the ship with Trystane? Why the hell was he still in the ship? None of this made any sense.

Doran gasped out Trystane 's name when he died. Best guess he had come back already. But yeah, that was wildly vague.

But why would Trystane come back? That whole story makes zero sense. In Season 5 Myrcell dies in In Jaime's arms. J isn't an idiot, he knew the Dornish had something to do with it. At this point T is on the same damn ship. So J has two courses of action - take T to KL and use him a hostage against Doran or kill him. Why would he send him back? If he did take T to KL why was T still in the ship?

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I enjoyed it. The Mel scene puts a lovely new spin on her bath scene with Selyse in an earlier series - they are talking about the necessity of lies and Mel says she doesn't need them with Selyse, but Selyse spends most of the scene unable to look at her properly - and iirc she isn't wearing the necklace. Could be a stretch, could be a nice twist.

Dorne has been silly from the off, so that was all pretty par the course. Though if Trystane is dumb enough to turn his back on one of the Sand Snakes after they've just declared their murderous intent then frankly I can't say he deserves much better than what he got. Kind of a shame we won't see the SS politicking but hey, it's not the book.

The Wall was excellent. Davos is one of my favourite show characters (largely because Liam Cunningham is superb - I am going to miss he and Stephen Dilaine's scenes together).

Also, guilt obviously triples the strength of your accent in Westeros. Alliser Thorne became very very Yorkshire all of a sudden!

[Battalion]

Team Thorne - Jon Snow should have never betrayed him. For the Watch!