[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Incidentally, dragonglass apparently doesn't work against wights in the books: 'In the books, this is specifically shown not to work. Take the scene in the third book (A Storm of Swords, ASOS, chapter Samwell III) when Sam tries to stab the wight of Small Paul with the dragonglass dagger.'

https://www.quora.co...ass-kill-wights

Seems convincing.

Why change it for the show? Maybe it would have been too expensive to CGI in all those independently squirming wight body parts (especially after they're set on fire)... obviously it wouldn't cost as many hundreds of millions of dollars as it would to give Daenerys purple eyes or silver hair, or matching hair and eyebrows, but still....

Maybe after the show's over they'll try to milk it a little more by fixing the eye colors and hair colors (though I'd suppose CGI'ing in bells for Drogo's hair, or removing Tyrion's nose, or adding warg scenes for Jon and Arya, might be too difficult...)... and dubbing in something closer to GRRM's text over the crap dialogue.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 25 April 2019 - 10:16 PM

[nacht]

White Walkers, is there any backstory on how they are created.
Any relation to "Crasters children"

If they are limited, it seems that the goal should be to focus on them and eliminate them.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Azath Vitr (D, on 25 April 2019 - 10:07 PM, said:

Incidentally, dragonglass apparently doesn't work against wights in the books: 'In the books, this is specifically shown not to work. Take the scene in the third book (A Storm of Swords, ASOS, chapter Samwell III) when Sam tries to stab the wight of Small Paul with the dragonglass dagger.'

https://www.quora.co...ass-kill-wights

Seems convincing.

Why change it for the show? Maybe it would have been too expensive to CGI in all those independently squirming wight body parts (especially after they're set on fire)... obviously it wouldn't cost as many hundreds of millions of dollars as it would to give Daenerys purple eyes or silver hair, or matching hair and eyebrows, but still....

Maybe after the show's over they'll try to milk it a little more by fixing the eye colors and hair colors (though I'd suppose CGI'ing in bells for Drogo's hair, or removing Tyrion's nose, or adding warg scenes for Jon and Arya, might be too difficult...)... and dubbing in something closer to GRRM's text over the crap dialogue.

Redditors point out that in the books Sam's dragonglass dagger shattered on the wight's armor, and may have never touched the flesh:

'"You're dead!" Sam screamed as he stabbed. "You're dead, you're dead." He stabbed and screamed, again and again, tearing huge rents in Paul's heavy black cloak. Shards of dragonglass flew everywhere as the blade shattered on the iron mail beneath the wool. - Samwell III, ASoS'

So it's probably still an open question... perhaps it's notable that that scene's missing from the show. Most likely show-only....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 April 2019 - 12:47 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Azath Vitr (D, on 26 April 2019 - 12:45 AM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 25 April 2019 - 10:07 PM, said:

Incidentally, dragonglass apparently doesn't work against wights in the books: 'In the books, this is specifically shown not to work. Take the scene in the third book (A Storm of Swords, ASOS, chapter Samwell III) when Sam tries to stab the wight of Small Paul with the dragonglass dagger.'

https://www.quora.co...ass-kill-wights

Seems convincing.

Why change it for the show? Maybe it would have been too expensive to CGI in all those independently squirming wight body parts (especially after they're set on fire)... obviously it wouldn't cost as many hundreds of millions of dollars as it would to give Daenerys purple eyes or silver hair, or matching hair and eyebrows, but still....

Maybe after the show's over they'll try to milk it a little more by fixing the eye colors and hair colors (though I'd suppose CGI'ing in bells for Drogo's hair, or removing Tyrion's nose, or adding warg scenes for Jon and Arya, might be too difficult...)... and dubbing in something closer to GRRM's text over the crap dialogue.

Redditors point out that in the books Sam's dragonglass dagger shattered on the wight's armor, and may have never touched the flesh:

'"You're dead!" Sam screamed as he stabbed. "You're dead, you're dead." He stabbed and screamed, again and again, tearing huge rents in Paul's heavy black cloak. Shards of dragonglass flew everywhere as the blade shattered on the iron mail beneath the wool. - Samwell III, ASoS'

So it's probably still an open question... perhaps it's notable that that scene's missing from the show. Most likely show-only....

Show writer admits that this is a change from the books:

'Dave Hill (writer) in a recent interview


"We've all read the books countless times so we all have a pretty thorough working knowledge of them. That said, we sometimes have to alter book lore a bit to fit the demands of the show. For example, changing Asha Greyjoy's name to Yara and that dragonglass also kills wights, as we saw in 605."'

https://www.buzzfeed...2jX#.tsMGG4V0K3

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 April 2019 - 12:58 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Azath Vitr (D, on 24 April 2019 - 03:19 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 April 2019 - 12:46 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 24 April 2019 - 06:25 AM, said:

Either that, or the Night King simply flies past Winterfell and straight on to King's Landing.

^^This.

This is the Night King's plan.

Send his forces to Winterfell, while he flies his dragon to King's Landing where he can slaughter/recruit the entire Golden Company (20,000 men, horses and war elephants)...turn around and head back to pincer whosever's left....

If he can animate/control the dead wherever he goes... what happens to FrankenGregor?....

Here's an amusing theory from Reddit: 'On the theory that the Night King [...] is headed to King's Landing and won't show up in Ep3:

An argument against this theory is that his only weapon is Viserion, and if he blows up the city with the wildfire caches, he won't have the dead of the city to add to his army, they'll be incinerated.

But that's not his only potential weapon. There's already a zombie in King's Landing, Gregor Clegane. He just needs to take control of him from Cersei and Qyburn, which seems 100% possible since he's basically just an automaton.'

Though that would be a lot of slaughtering for one man, even a very large one... then again, if he locks the door and murders a bunch of people, and each of them murders a bunch of people---before they can evacuate... the question is how to murder a large number of people without crushing / rending their bodies to the point of being nonfunctional, or setting off the wildfire. Poison maybe?...

https://www.reddit.c...that_the_night/

[Edit: This response seems convincing: 'The regions around Kings landing are fertile with the corpses of recently deceased. There is an army on the bottom of blackwater bay, another one that got partly incinerated not so far from the capital when returning from the reach. There are a bunch of armies to raise by that same token in the riverlands. Atleast the northerners burned all the death from previous battles afaik. Given all the armies that could be raised from the death around kings landing i presume it would be easy to overwhelm it comming from all sides too. GG kings landing.

However, even worse imho is the dragonpit and the volume of dragon skeletons under the red keep. I found it conspicious that they included the 3 skulls of the dragons just below the throneroom in this seasons intro.'

Army of skeletal gigantic dragon wights?...]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 28 April 2019 - 09:50 PM

[D'rek]

Not gonna lie, I'm a little sad they took such a direct route and finished off the wight plot in its entirety to now shift south rather than meld the two together somehow, but it was still a heck of an action-packed episode. Had to laugh at the dumb tactics getting easily overrun in the first half - Coltaine would be disappointed

[QuickTidal]

Arya disguising herself as a White Walker to get into the NK’s group heading to Bran...sonofabitch that was hype!

She stuck him with the muthafuzuckin pointy end!

[Andorion]

That was the single dumbest battle strategy in the history of all battle strategies
Winterfell should have had multiple concentric deep fire trenches.
Who the hell puts cavalry in front of the phalanx?
Who the hell sends said cavalry out on a blind charge?
Who takes the worlds best phalanx and arranges it in battalion squares?
There should have been trebuchet platforms inside Winterfell.

I would have been littering the ground around the castle with dragonglass caltrops. Lets see Whitewalkers ride through that.

Why didn't the army have a designated field commander?
Why did Jon think that tackling the undead ice dragon instead of trying to incinerate it is a good strategy?

......
Anyway, I thought when the Night King was raising his hand, he was going to Hail Caesar Bran. Arya twist was good. Good culmination to her arc. She should literally just sit back and demand to be served for the rest of her life.

Lyanna had a cool death. So surprised that Davos and Brienne survived.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

The last few seasons of this show and the second season of American Gods have really helped me appreciate the value of good writing.

Now I'm routing for 'Return of the Night King' (or Bran the New Night King, or CotF / Other thing the NK was staving off is worse)....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 29 April 2019 - 03:02 AM

[Malankazooie]

I mean that convo between Arya and Melisandre telegraphed what was going to happen though.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

One of the Benioffs in the post-episode commentary: 'We know it had to be Valyrian steel in the exact spot where the children of the forest thrust the obsidian dagger' wtf no we didn't.

Tbh I missed 'Arya disguised herself as a WW'---sure about that? I thought the face needed to be of a dead person?... seemed like she just jumped out of the woods.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Imagine GRRM watching some of this and thinking 'fuck that was dumb glad I didn't publish that crap'....

[amphibian]

The execution of this entire episode was pretty shoddy. "Let's do all of these great practical effects and make them indistinguishable from blurry shots of people struggling."

What the heck did Bran do the entire episode besides waiting for the Night King? The warg into the ravens suggested something that was never picked up.

This episode feels like a whole bunch of great set pieces let down by terrible editing, abysmal war tactics, and subsuming everything else to the gotcha moment at the end - which ended without a word.

[Nicodimas]

This episode was terrible.

I want to complain and share all my opinions.. but I’m just going to sleep

/grumpynico

[HoosierDaddy]

None of us are Alexander, but everyone seems to have a common thought: Who in the hell set up that tactical formation and strategy? Pormqual-esque.

[Abyss]

I enjoyed it. Giving Arya the glorious coup-de-grace while Jon failed yet again was a nice touch.

So...

Edd
Berric
Jorah
Lyanna (DAMMIT)
Theon
Melisandre


...fairly low character body count considering.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Abyss, on 29 April 2019 - 03:55 AM, said:

I enjoyed it. Giving Arya the glorious coup-de-grace while Jon failed yet again was a nice touch.

So...

Edd
Berric
Jorah
Lyanna (DAMMIT)
Theon
Melisandre


...fairly low character body count considering.

Melisandre showing up and lighting the swords on fire was one of the better parts of the episode... but her death could have been so much better. Let her talk about the prophecies some more and make us wonder whether Rh'lorr might be another big bad. Play up the possibility of sacrificing Gendry (or Sansa). At least keep her alive until next episode so we can wonder about the supernatural endgame some more. And if she had to die that way... show her as elderly woman / corpse disintegrating after she takes off her ruby glamor.

[worry]

First impressions without reading other posts: I feel simultaneously overwhelmed (in a good way) and underwhelmed (by B&W's over-reliance on close calls and lazy surprises).

Spoiler

A whole lot of that was awesome. Many shots were astoundingly beautiful. The tension built in that first ten minutes was incredible. A lot of the fight lived up to it.
On the other hand, there was a weird and disappointingly low big name body count (like, you gotta laugh at just Brienne, Jaime, and Pod all leaning against the wall at the end). There were way too many implausible last-stands-that-weren't. And the finale -- both in the crypt and at the weirwood -- were a little disappointing. Not as concepts, but in execution.
Clearly the crypt thing shoulda been cooler, with more powerful deaths. Theon's defense of Bran was cool, but his death scene was wasted -- and cutting away from it only to return to him still alive inspires a tension that never plays out, because then he just peters out for good. The Arya thing makes perfect sense as something that should happen somehow -- but having her pop out like a cat in a horror movie was just nuts. If she had snuck up as a faceless man-in-wight-disguise and done it, that woulda been sweet though. Love him or hate him -- and I tend towards love -- GRRM is an exceedingly clever writer, and B&W are...spotty.

Anyway, extraordinarily awesome battle outside the walls, some great stuff inside (esp. the giant), everyone who DID die (aside from Theon) died well, and I guess Cersei is a bigger baddie than NK after all!

This post has been edited by worry: 29 April 2019 - 04:27 AM

[nacht]

Azath Vitr (D, on 29 April 2019 - 03:09 AM, said:

Imagine GRRM watching some of this and thinking 'fuck that was dumb glad I didn't publish that crap'....

Suits him right for handing off the reins to the screen writers.
They went ahead and made a dumb movie out of it.

From Epic to B-movie in one episode.

This post has been edited by nacht: 29 April 2019 - 04:55 AM

[amphibian]

HoosierDaddy, on 29 April 2019 - 03:50 AM, said:

None of us are Alexander, but everyone seems to have a common thought: Who in the hell set up that tactical formation and strategy? Pormqual-esque.

Let's take the biggest group of calvary that exists in the world and smash it directly into a horde ten times its number, while conveniently forgetting that every dead person adds to their number.

Let's take the finest infantry on the planet and make them fight singly instead of in a phalanx with cavalry shearing off the edges.

Let's make the all important trench three feet deep.

Let's put the trebuchets ahead of the infantry and have them all lost as soon as the battle begins.

Let's not man the walls while the trench works.

Let's split up the dragons when they're hunting a man who killed a dragon with an icicle and now rides it.

The directors and writers broke all kinds of battle rules to force together moments that ended up falling flat anyways. That's the big problem.