Tattersail_, on 22 June 2016 - 08:23 AM, said:
Each episode i've watched, i've liked. I understand it needs episodes to explain things like with Sam the other week, but we had 2 or 3 of those episodes in a row and then this awesome episode. I don't even think of the bad things that people think of like for example;
the whole debate about why Sansa did not tell Jon about the Vale.
the Arya resolution
Jon's decision making
Personally i'd like to see more fun things about the show, like that "happy shitting" scene up thread, or funny images, future speculation.
So, thoughts on why Sansa didn't tell Jon? For me she may not have trusted Littlefinger to come through, she needed Jon to hatch out his own plan without giving him false hope, her asking Jon to wait might have been her waiting for a reply from Brienne as she didn't think LF would help out. LF showing up when he did might not have been in Sansa's plan, LF knows things and might have acted on his own accord.
Arya's plot has not been finished, we don't know what her eventual goal is, she could be the key to the whole series or her overall arc will be satisfying to say the least, we know she is pretty bad ass compared to when she was near the beginning of the story, in the past you wouldn't think she could kill anyone or make a big difference but now you do, in theory you could see her kill Dany. Not saying she will but with her new abilities and training she could take out anybody.
Jon has a lot of passion. To see his own brother running towards him (this is that false hope again, reason why Sansa didn't say about the Vale? (if she even knew about the Vale)), he obviously didn't think clearly. In fact the whole reason he was attacking Winterfell was because Ramsey had his brother. That was all that mattered to Jon at that moment, and to see him running towards him he didn't think. He just wanted to try and get him before he died. Then as he gets near and Rickon dies, grief/rage blind hatred overtakes him. What is he going to do, run back? (when the cavalry is already charging towards him?) That's not going to happen, so him being there in the middle of the killing field throws his plan out of the window. From here all he could do was survive and he did.
You then get him pummeling Ramsey's face to dust, which let's be honest, we all fucking loved! Pow, Pow, Pow, I was like don't stop, even when he looked at Sansa I wanted him to go back to it. Pow, Pow, but what we got was poetic justice, fed to his own starving hounds, brilliant. Loved it!
It is possible to enjoy moments of the show, and still feel the story could be told better.
Just about everything Arya does is awesome. This little strong willed girl who has killed so many. And her story is now exactly where people thought it would get to (retrieving Needle, headed back to Westeros, and rejecting the idea of becoming No One). There is no doubt more awesome ahead. But the showdown with the Waif could have been so much more and felt more authentic to those characters, and so the way they did it instead feels like a shortcut to get Arya moving, which takes you out of the story.
Your thoughts on Sansa's reasons are possible, but I doubt it.
Yes, Jon has 'passion'. They have shown it before and shown it leading to mistakes before. And it is fine in story as long as it has consequences in story (namely, that there ought to be major questioning of his leadership if he is so easily manipulated).
But his mistake and reaction is actually even worse than you are suggesting. Sansa even tells him, Rickon is dead. Even someone who does not know Ramsey could have told him that. Rickon is both a political threat in and of himself, and is leverage to try and force Jon's surrender. If you respond to that with an army drawing up to attack, Rickon's death is guaranteed. Jon already made that choice. If he couldn't deal, he should have planned some form of covert rescue attempt. If he has accepted that, a big part of his battle planning should be anticipating that Ramsey will use Rickon's death to provoke a reaction. He should be expecting something (not necessarily that), and less prone to a complete emotional reaction. That is the issue here. He had a heat of the moment reaction to something he should have already steeled himself for.
Anyway, his mistake is still in character. Its just that it further reinforces his character as emotionally sympathetic, but not a great or inspirational leader. Which could be fine, but conflicts with a lot of assumptions about where his character is headed.
And yes, seeing Ramsey get his was awesome. It is not that this season did not have awesome moments. In fact, it has had many. It just sometimes feels (TO ME) like in trying to jump to the fan service moments, they have undermined the authenticity of the characters. Basically, that they are saying "don't think about it too hard, here's some action for you".
polishgenius, on 22 June 2016 - 04:34 AM, said:
Nevyn, on 21 June 2016 - 09:23 PM, said:
They have just made a complete hash of explaining it, especially if she is not questioned by Jon and providing an explanation next episode (and I bet she won't ... as they have a lot of action to cover).
It's a bit weird that you're immediately accusing them of bad writing based on something not happening in the future that they've already begun setting up happening. It
might not happen next episode, though I suspect it'll at least be talked about, but her not confiding in Jon has been specifically set up as a plot point by her conversation with Brienne and you insisting that they'll never go back to the issue again seems to be only because you
want to be able to accuse them of cocking it up.
Did you miss the word "especially"?. Even if they DO explain it, I don't think it is particularly well written. But if they don't explain it, it will be even worse.
Let me put it this way. You are free to disagree and quite clearly do, but just so you understand what I am trying to convey:
For purposes of making the battle and its lead up suspenseful, and feel like overwhelming odds, they need the help of the Vale to not be known by the characters (and not even explicitly by the audience). And so it feels like they took that goal, and then wrote Sansa's decisions around it, rather than around what makes sense for her character.
We'll see how much justification they do write in, but she has also always been to date a straight ahead character with clear motivations. So having her be proceeding with motives unknown to the audience is in itself an odd choice, unless they are going to have her suddenly have a larger scheme of her own with a future dramatic aha moment where her plan comes to fruition (for example, a double cross of Littlefinger).
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Arya's ark has been unsatisfying, true, though the seeds for that were again sown in last season's issues (though this time it is all on them, and their deviation from the reasons for Arya's blindness and how she got out of it (since no warging). Once they'd done that there was really no graceful way to get her out of becoming a full-on faceless man without devoting an entire spinoff show to it or something).
This is exactly the type of thing I am talking about.
As an audience, if they get us thinking about why the showrunners made the choices they did rather than why the characters did, something went a little wrong.
Doesn't mean the show can't have enjoyable moments. But does take away from the experience.
This post has been edited by Nevyn: 22 June 2016 - 03:53 PM
Nevyn 
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