[paran falcon]

Azath Vitr (D, on 29 April 2019 - 04:35 PM, said:

paran falcon, on 29 April 2019 - 04:29 PM, said:

My daughter is telling me that elsewhere people are nitpicking that Arya stabbed the NK with her off (right) hand. I don't think I had remembered in that moment that she was left handed. Either way, I think her move shows that she might be the ONLY one left with any real brains. Either she dove at the NK with the dagger in her dominant hand and was lightning quick under pressure to make the switch with the drop to the right hand OR she dove that way anticipating being stopped on initial attack and had a plan to go offhand to finish the job. LOVE HER.

It was subtle, but previous episodes did set it up:


https://www.buzzfeed...81O76jv6MMZ5bc4

'We even see Arya's hand-switching trick when she fights Brienne in Season 7.'

'And in the Season 8 premiere, Arya sneaks up on Jon in the very spot she later sneaks up on the Night King.'

Could have been so much better if they just cut a few of the cheesier or more boring parts for some more Many-Faced God / Faceless and Rh'lorr....

I can't believe I forgot the hand switch against Brienne, I just re-watched the whole series in the last 2 months. She went right hand to left there...

I SO want Arya to be the one to get Cersei too. With Euron's face, preferably in bed. Other face possibilities: Qyburn, the Mountain (not likely, I admit) or Bronn.

[worry]

So what do you guys thiink: does this mean Arya is Azor Ahai or not?

[Khellendros]

RE the too dark complaints: In our house, during episode 1, we couldn’t see anything in the scenes where Tormund and co were traipsing through a castle, so we turned our brightness up tons and then it was much clearer. We’ve left it like that for GoT since and viewing this episode was absolutely fine.

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 29 April 2019 - 05:43 PM

[D'rek]

I'm not overly fussed about the characters' strategies/tactics being stupid... because the characters are all stupid. If Jaime can sit there getting told he should be executed immediately because of killing Daenarys' dad and he can't even think to say something like "My Lady, if you ordered your soldiers to kill every man, woman, and child in Winterfell, right here and right now, do you really believe your lieutenants should follow those orders?" then I surely don't expect him to come up with any intelligent field tactics, either.

But characters being stupid has had consequences before in this show. The whole "kill the leader and the swarm stops" battle plot has been done really well in plenty of other books/TV/movies, but in this one the characters do nothing but be dumb and all they do is lose, lose, lose, so it doesn't feel very fulfilling when they end up winning with seeming very little consequences. The zombie army suddenly became far less effective once it was at the walls of Winterfell or whenever it was fighting a main character.

Compare this to, say, Codex Alera where the big "unrelenting swarm but we just have to kill the queen" battle is also a enormous, desperate defensive fight where the good guys are getting trounced, but there's tons of surprising clever tactics deployed which win small bits of the fight, self-sacrificing moments of heroism where the characters actually die in a blaze of glory, the good guys basically come off as the smarter, braver group that deserve to win but they're losing simply due to numbers.

Can't say the same about these Winterfell folks - they don't feel like they deserve to have won that, especially not as intact as they did, and that's why it's unsatisfying.

[amphibian]

It's entirely possible to have competent tactics be overwhelmed by the horde. It's entirely possible to depict the competent tactics being overwhelmed on TV with a lesser budget than they used for this. It's also possible to show this in a way that isn't ruined by video compression and thus indecipherable for much of the action.

Let me give you a possible set up to this episode that doesn't lead to so many "clunky" moments.

Have multiple flame trenches be dug, have the artillery be behind the infantry below the wall, and have the outriders peeling off whatever they can at the outskirts of the battle bc a frontal charge with unarmored light cavalry is a DB military tactic that so many people on this show have been built up to not be making (learning the arts of war through years and decades). The flame sword thing can still happen - but this time it shows the perimeter of the dead horde's charge.

The charge breaks at the first flame trench, which is lit by the dragons, then the dead pile themselves into fire breaks, and we go to the second trench, the same happens. The third and final - the Night King shows up to break a wall and the living dragons go after him. The lighting of the third trench can still happen via Melisandre and the Unsullied protection. The last flame trench allows the packing of the walls in the break and dramatic tension.

The dragons fail, crash near the walls, everything onward happens as it did - except for Arya's arc.

Have her be chased by a pack of zombies into the warren of tunnels, then rescued by Beric and the Hound, talk to Melisandre etc. And then have her do a truncated version of the library sneak as she leaves Melisandre post blue eyes talk. We are then left with the question of "where is she going?" before she pops up at the end.

All this is achievable, skips the dumb shittery, showcases the characters they want to show, and in a couple places, would just require different editing/sequencing.

The awful tactics take lots of people out of the dramatic suspense of skepticism because so much of this show has built up how these characters know how to make war. They have fought huge battles, personally killed, led armies to rousing successes, and so on. They can still get run over by the sheer numbers and lethality - but this way, it shows just how good the defenses were before the good guys lost the battle. Instead, they're shown as incompetent, which is really bad.

[Khellendros]

Yeah, we didn’t mind the dumb tactics. In our house we even made up a ditty all about Jon Snow’s super smart strategies which we sing every time he’s involved in a battle. We were pleased to break it out again

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 29 April 2019 - 05:49 PM, said:

It's entirely possible to have competent tactics be overwhelmed by the horde. It's entirely possible to depict the competent tactics being overwhelmed on TV with a lesser budget than they used for this. It's also possible to show this in a way that isn't ruined by video compression and thus indecipherable for much of the action.

Let me give you a possible set up to this episode that doesn't lead to so many "clunky" moments.

Have multiple flame trenches be dug, have the artillery be behind the infantry below the wall, and have the outriders peeling off whatever they can at the outskirts of the battle bc a frontal charge with unarmored light cavalry is a DB military tactic that so many people on this show have been built up to not be making (learning the arts of war through years and decades). The flame sword thing can still happen - but this time it shows the perimeter of the dead horde's charge.

The charge breaks at the first flame trench, which is lit by the dragons, then the dead pile themselves into fire breaks, and we go to the second trench, the same happens. The third and final - the Night King shows up to break a wall and the living dragons go after him. The lighting of the third trench can still happen via Melisandre and the Unsullied protection. The last flame trench allows the packing of the walls in the break and dramatic tension.

The dragons fail, crash near the walls, everything onward happens as it did - except for Arya's arc.

Have her be chased by a pack of zombies into the warren of tunnels, then rescued by Beric and the Hound, talk to Melisandre etc. And then have her do a truncated version of the library sneak as she leaves Melisandre post blue eyes talk. We are then left with the question of "where is she going?" before she pops up at the end.

All this is achievable, skips the dumb shittery, showcases the characters they want to show, and in a couple places, would just require different editing/sequencing.

The awful tactics take lots of people out of the dramatic suspense of skepticism because so much of this show has built up how these characters know how to make war. They have fought huge battles, personally killed, led armies to rousing successes, and so on. They can still get run over by the sheer numbers and lethality - but this way, it shows just how good the defenses were before the good guys lost the battle. Instead, they're shown as incompetent, which is really bad.

You put WAY too much thought into your own hoop jumping to make it work the way you wanted it to work man.

This was great TV. No one will convince me otherwise.

[worry]

What if I were to tell you that it was good TV with a few flaws!

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 29 April 2019 - 06:58 PM, said:

What if I were to tell you that it was good TV with a few flaws!

Cheerfully accepted!

I just didn't get taken out by the 'tactics' thing. Like not even a little bit. The tension of the war/battle was enough to make me not really analyze it I guess.

Also, can I say that removing the Night King and White Walkers from the equation with 3 eps to go was smart. They were never anything but a means to an end. Getting the Westerosi united again in groups that never would have done so before this. Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be. The White Walkers plotline was never going to be overly interesting to sew up....they are ice zombies...they want to kill all humans. I see people complaining about the fact that they are already taken out and that deflates the rest of the season as if they are/were the Big Bad....they were not ever the Big Bad.

[polishgenius]

Maaaaaan I didn't like that much at all. So much stupid, and also the realisation early on that most of the main characters had heavy plot armour on leeched most of the tension. There were some nice moments of spectacle but they were almost all undermined by the feeling that they shouldn't be happening coz they required so much stupidity to get there.


The actual Arya moment was nice, though.

[D'rek]

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:04 PM, said:

Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be.

Game of Thrones should never have ended up as any form of "everyone vs ______".

[nacht]

worry, on 29 April 2019 - 05:38 PM, said:

So what do you guys thiink: does this mean Arya is Azor Ahai or not?

But where is the sword, supposedly made by sacrificing his wife

[amphibian]

They were presented as an existential threat to all of humanity and the union of Snow and Dany happened because of them. There were meetings all over throughout the show because of them - including the super tense one in Cersei's home court last season.

I understand that you like the show and so on, but saying that the Night King and the dead horde were not the Big Bad is ludicrous. They were a big enough enemy that everyone made temporary truce with Cersei to deal with. They dominated the Wall arcs, the beyond the Wall arcs, Bran's arc, Sam's arc up until the parentage thing, and took huge chunks of Stannis and Melisandre's arcs.

[QuickTidal]

D, on 29 April 2019 - 07:10 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:04 PM, said:

Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be.

Game of Thrones should never have ended up as any form of "everyone vs ______".

Care to explain or.....?

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 29 April 2019 - 07:12 PM, said:

They were presented as an existential threat to all of humanity and the union of Snow and Dany happened because of them. There were meetings all over throughout the show because of them - including the super tense one in Cersei's home court last season.

I understand that you like the show and so on, but saying that the Night King and the dead horde were not the Big Bad is ludicrous. They were a big enough enemy that everyone made temporary truce with Cersei to deal with. They dominated the Wall arcs, the beyond the Wall arcs, Bran's arc, Sam's arc up until the parentage thing, and took huge chunks of Stannis and Melisandre's arcs.

It's called Game of Thrones, not Game of Ice Zombies. Sorry.

(sidebar: If we go by the books, it's called 'A Song of Ice and Fire'...not 'A Song of the Night King and his Zombie Dragon')

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

D, on 29 April 2019 - 07:10 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:04 PM, said:

Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be.

Game of Thrones should never have ended up as any form of "everyone vs ______".

Don't forget Euron.

And Qyburn.

And FrankenGregor---no doubt he'll be able to take on two dragons....

And the Golden Company! What could be more terrifying?...

Seriously though, the show has done an absolute shit job at making these seem like credible threats.

[polishgenius]

I've got to say I disagree with you on this QT (that never happens!). The first thing we ever see in the book is the ice zombies attacking, and yeah, the series is called Ice and Fire and the Night King (+mysterious force of Others in the book) is pretty clearly the Ice part of that equation. Hell, even if you take just the political side, in the books Cersei was never the main evil motivational force coz that was Littlefinger, and even in the show she only took over in that role relatively late.

[D'rek]

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:15 PM, said:

D, on 29 April 2019 - 07:10 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:04 PM, said:

Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be.

Game of Thrones should never have ended up as any form of "everyone vs ______".

Care to explain or.....?

Let's take the shifting politics and complex factionalism that everyone fell in love with at the start of the series and boil it into a straight all the good guys aligned vs the one big bad guy narrative... since when is that what this series is about?

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 29 April 2019 - 07:23 PM, said:

I've got to say I disagree with you on this QT (that never happens!).

We wouldn't be US if we didn't occasionally disagree!

polishgenius, on 29 April 2019 - 07:23 PM, said:

The first thing we ever see in the book is the ice zombies attacking,

The first thing we see being a catalyst for the "thrones" portion of the story doesn't mean that it has to be a big bad though.

polishgenius, on 29 April 2019 - 07:23 PM, said:

and yeah, the series is called Ice and Fire and the Night King (+mysterious force of Others in the book) is pretty clearly the Ice part of that equation.

I'm fairly sure that people are set on the 'Ice' being Jon and the 'Fire' being Dany....OR the Ice AND Fire both being Jon (because he's Stark AND Targaryen). I've never heard someone claim that the Ice is a reference to the Night King or the White Walkers.

polishgenius, on 29 April 2019 - 07:23 PM, said:

Hell, even if you take just the political side, in the books Cersei was never the main evil motivational force coz that was Littlefinger, and even in the show she only took over in that role relatively late.

Eh...disagree. It's Cersei that literally NAMES the series aloud in S1 (book 1), and it's her actions that kick off the whole thing with Bran.

D, on 29 April 2019 - 07:27 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:15 PM, said:

D, on 29 April 2019 - 07:10 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 April 2019 - 07:04 PM, said:

Now it's everyone VS Cersei, just as Game pf Thrones was always meant to be.

Game of Thrones should never have ended up as any form of "everyone vs ______".

Care to explain or.....?

Let's take the shifting politics and complex factionalism that everyone fell in love with at the start of the series and boil it into a straight all the good guys aligned vs the one big bad guy narrative... since when is that what this series is about?

I mean it's obviously Cersei and Co. VS everyone else and not just one person. But the whole problem is that the entire continent has been riven by division since before book 1 starts. This was always headed towards a unity of who's left to take back the throne from the one person who doesn't want unity and return the continent back to the state it has been in before the Mad King went nutters and Robert's Rebellion...peaceful.

If you don't think that's the point of the whole throne/house/continent narrative, I'm not sure what to say.

Unseating Cersei (who puppeted her own husband and sons) and placing someone wanting to rule in a peaceful and just way on the Throne is what this has always been about.

This makes Cersei the thing that is standing in the way of the endgame, not the White Walkers.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 29 April 2019 - 07:32 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

It would be hilarious if Cersei gave birth... to a baby Night King.