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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 7 - Sundays on HBO

Thaedolus

Member
So a lot of the complaining could've been assuaged if they had a line like "it's been three days..." on the island, but I'm sure that would be too on the nose for other complainers.

I'm content to enjoy the main plot points and reveals from the show and assume GRRM will earn them in the novels should he actually release them ever.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
So a lot of the complaining could've been assuaged if they had a line like "it's been three days..." on the island, but I'm sure that would be too on the nose for other complainers.

I'm content to enjoy the main plot points and reveals from the show and assume GRRM will earn them in the novels should he actually release them ever.

Yep, in three days its perfectly reasonable to assume the Night's King would not have gotten a bow and arrow, or you know, one of his massive dragon murdering spears to kill the people on the island.

Nor is it reasonable to assume they could have just hurled undead over the gap until they finally got through. It's not like he doesn't have tens of thousands of tries on that one.

They just all were chilling for four days on that island, freezing like hell, without food.

Come on, it's obvious this wasn't a concern to the writers of the show. They just want action beats.
 

Thaedolus

Member
Yep, in three days its perfectly reasonable to assume the Night's King would not have gotten a bow and arrow, or you know, one of his massive dragon murdering spears to kill the people on the island.

Nor is it reasonable to assume they could have just hurled undead over the gap until they finally got through. It's not like he doesn't have tens of thousands of tries on that one.

They just all were chilling for four days on that island, freezing like hell, without food.

Come on, it's obvious this wasn't a concern to the writers of the show. They just want action beats.

He had them surrounded, what's the rush? Let the ice freeze over and overwhelm them.

I mean yeah the show doesn't earn the big plot points it bounces between. It hasn't for a while now. Given the limitations of the medium (time and budget), I'm content to suspend disbelief and assume we'll get the full story whenever Martin gets his ass writing
 

beril

Member
Yep, in three days its perfectly reasonable to assume the Night's King would not have gotten a bow and arrow, or you know, one of his massive dragon murdering spears to kill the people on the island.

Nor is it reasonable to assume they could have just hurled undead over the gap until they finally got through. It's not like he doesn't have tens of thousands of tries on that one.

They just all were chilling for four days on that island, freezing like hell, without food.

Come on, it's obvious this wasn't a concern to the writers of the show. They just want action beats.

That part was silly even if it was just one day.
The fast travel was really the least of the issues with that battle
 

danm999

Member
He had them surrounded, what's the rush? Let the ice freeze over and overwhelm them.

The rush is something might come along to change the odds in your enemies favour, which is what happened.

There's really no reason to do this if you have ranged weaponry and an almost limitless amount of disposable foot soldiers except the script says you aren't supposed to do that yet. You are supposed to wait for the Hound to start hurling stones (what was the plan if the Hound didn't do that?)
 

jett

D-Member
I honestly am a bit surprised at the apparently negative reception the episode is getting by the nonbook readers. Dumb stuff aside it was pretty entertaining. Not any different than the rest of this season haha.

imo S7 isn't anything like S5. S5 was boring as fuck.

Read the books and I really feel its going to happen. I'm not saying it's going to be a 1 for 1 but the stories that are different he will look at bringing to a close and getting the characters in line as much as possible with the show. It's not like he wouldn't just leave stories hang out there with no explanation.

I just can't understand this notion at all. The books are in a completely different place, what with the Dorne shit, fAegon and the Greyjoys. In my mind the books will not resemble the show at all.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
He had them surrounded, what's the rush?

Honestly? Just like it was weird that the good guys were face to face with the leader of the enemies and didn't even contemplate taking a shot at him. The bad guys were facing the leader of the good guys and would have pretty much won the war if they had killed him, too.

You'd expect them to chomp at the bits to get to Jon fucking Snow right there and not risk him waiting for back-up.

And mind you, you can't say he didn't know about Jon Snow, after they had a battle before -in which Jon clearly showed himself to be the leader- and had a lengthy stare-off afterwards.
 

Faddy

Banned
Martin has said Westeros is the size of South America IIRC.

D&D changed it. In the show Westeros is around a quarter of the reported size in the books.

E.g. when Arya is at the Inn at the Crossroads the two travellers say it is 200 miles to Kingslanding when according to this map it is closer to 400 miles
Map_of_westeros.jpg

And we know the maps between books and show are the same because of the painted table and Cersei's map. But also George's maps are outlandishly big. Go look at that map set to the same scale as earth and you can't see shit. Also every major river on that map is 10 miles wide. All of that scale is basically extrapolated from George describing the Wall as 700 ft high and 300 miles long while also having people shoot arrows to the top of it.
 
When they went out of the gate they showed several people carrying stuff

I noticed that, and it was the last episode. Even then in this episode, they did not do a decent job showing how many were with the group. Maybe I missed some hints in the background in between the important dialogue between characters while hiking, but its distracting seeing multiple deaths when its been ham and fisted that this is a small group.
 
I liked the idea of NK surrounding the squad for days. The realization they might die on that island. Not in battle, but from freezing or starvation. That they'd immediately be resurrected to join the army of dead surrounding them. The feeling of hopelessness.

I think what could've helped is saving some of their conversations for when they're stranded.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
I liked the idea of NK surrounding the squad for days. The realization they might die on that island. Not in battle, but from freezing or starvation. That they'd immediately be resurrected to join the army of dead surrounding them. The feeling of hopelessness.

I think what could've helped is saving some of their conversations for when they're stranded.

The thing is, this stuff is fine, but it's all imagination. And the problem is that when you're watching a show like this, you shouldn't be wondering "huh, why is this character doing this" as you're watching a scene (unless purposely keeping things vague to not ruin a surprise further on, or obscuring a character's allegiances). We should not need to be guessing about reasons and motivations, the story should make this clear. The writing, the direction, the editing, one of these should catch things like this and go "huh, wait, how do we make this make sense in our story?"

However, at no point did anyone go "wait, how long have they been on this island exactly?"
 

MisterR

Member
Read the books and I really feel its going to happen. I'm not saying it's going to be a 1 for 1 but the stories that are different he will look at bringing to a close and getting the characters in line as much as possible with the show. It's not like he wouldn't just leave stories hang out there with no explanation.

I don't think GRRM gives two shits what happens on the show at this point. He's going to do the books the way he wants to do them and I doubt he'll have any feeling that he needs to align his books in any way to the show.
 

Aurongel

Member
I like how they pulled that at least twice.

And yes the NK not throwing his spears until the end was ?????

Yeah, they could have at least had the balls to off Thoros suddenly with the Bear rather than dragging his death out and relying on the cliche redshirt thing.

This episode is enraging because there are a thousand poor script details that they easily could have solved with the tiniest bit of extra thought.

Lol the director for next week is the same dude who did one of the prominent sand snakes eps from season 5

We're fucked

He's done other work that's been fine and I think it was demonstrated by someone involved with the production that the Sand Snakes fight was shot by a second unit.
 

Choabac

Member
I think someone here suggested that having Danny waiting at Eastwatch could have helped with the disbelief we're all having right now about raven warp speed and dragon flight time. If Gendry just had to make it back to Eastwatch to tell Danny what had happened, she could have been there in 15 minutes or so.

I also didn't like the contrived way they setup the death of Viserion either. Rather than showing Jon going off to fight more wights, they could have shown Jon and co getting immediately on Drogon when he landed, and they all trying to hightail it out of there. The Night King then would throw a spear at the fleeing Drogon, but Viserion —having seen that his mum and brother were in danger— swoops in the way to take the hit. This would have shown the bond between the dragons, and between Danny and the other two dragons. It would have made the corruption of Viserion to the Night King's will even more tragic.
 
Where does last night's events leave the "Three Heads of the Dragon" theory?

No more Tyrion riding a dragon, I imagine. :(

Was that ever a thing in the show? At this point I really wouldn't take anything that happens in the show as an indication of where things are going in the books, we are far, far off in fanfic land
 

jett

D-Member
I like how they pulled that at least twice.

And yes the NK not throwing his spears until the end was ?????

The unsullied thread posited that the Night King knew the dragons were coming, somehow. So he was waiting for them. Yeah it doesn't make much sense.

If there's an ice dragon in the books, I imagine it will be the result of a failed incursion to kill the white walkers, not this dumbness the show is doing.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
This episode is enraging because there are a thousand poor script details that they easily could have solved with the tiniest bit of extra thought.

Not so much enraging, just completely disappointing.

I mean, it all began with the entire premise of "we have to go beyond the wall so Cersei knows undead exist" which, for one, complete ignores the fact her personal bodyguard is an undead. And two, Cersei has no power to begin with between The King in the North and the Dragon Queen, it would have been easier and quicker to roast her out of the red keep.

It is obvious they had one goal in mind: "we need a big cool undead battle this season, lets find a way to make that happen." Maybe at some point during their meeting a few years ago, GRRM told them one of the dragons would become an Ice Dragon, and they wanted to get that in this season. I don't know, but it is clear they needed a hook for this season and without the source material, this is what they decided on. And then it didn't really matter what beats happened along the way, as long as we got the dragon versus undead fight done. Lets just worry about the details later... And then they never did.

Honestly, it was the better part of this episode. Anything they wrote for Sansa and Arya was way worse in that it wasn't even entertaining, just frustrating to see either of these characters have no real character development. Sansa learned nothing over the years and is still a puppet and Arya is just a whiny brat instead of a ruthless methodical assassin. All that stuff was just really bad.

I don't even remember any fight scenes in the first episode?

That was from the previous Dorne episodes.
 
Honestly i think GRRM fucked up all of his estimates on distances in the book.

it has to be less then 1000 (closer to 900) miles from east watch to Dragonstone base on in show references.

Dragons have to fly faster then ravens. I think its closer to 36-40 hours on the rock.

This is all giving Robert Baratheons royal train a 25 miles per day speed which is fast as fuck.

3 hours for Gendry to run. 15 hours for the raven. 11 hours for the dragon flight.
 

barit

Member
You know that there is a big gap in writing between books and the TV show when you recognize that the showrunner haven't introduce any new characters or arcs on their own. No secret hidden families with power, no Gandalf wizard type that comes from the mountains and tell everyone he has important shit to do, no extra force outside of Westeros that waits to get unleashed and so on. I think the last two books will have way more twists and surprises and new characters than the budget-constrained predictable fanservice TV show we are seeing now. Given that George will ever bring himself to finish these damn books tho.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
The unsullied thread posited that the Night King knew the dragons were coming, somehow. So he was waiting for them. Yeah it doesn't make much sense.

If there's an ice dragon in the books, I imagine it will be the result of a failed incursion to kill the white walkers, not this dumbness the show is doing.

if the night king is some sort of super warg, then it's not that crazy he would have some intel on what's going on in the south. of course there's the issue of not being able to raise the dead beyond the wall, but maybe he can still look through the eyes of ravens or whatever.

that would also explain why it took them forever to get to the wall: they're waiting for dany to bring the dragons to them first.
 
Yeah, they could have at least had the balls to off Thoros suddenly with the Bear rather than dragging his death out and relying on the cliche redshirt thing.

I like that Thoros just died of his wounds during the night, but I wish they hadn't burned the body and then later we see the NK try to raise him and not be able to.
 

duckroll

Member
You know that there is a big gap in writing between books and the TV show when you recognize that the showrunner haven't introduce any new characters or arcs on their own.

Talisha and Karl Tanner say hi. Two of the most memorable characters ever. Is Tristan of Dorne original too? Another memorable lad. How about Dickon and Lyanna Morment? People just don't give D&D enough credit.
 
Dany will pose Jon a test, "Answer me these questions three or bend the knee":

What is your name?
What is your quest?
What is the airspeed velocity of a message-laden raven?

He doesn't know the first, the second sounds like something a drunk dwarf would make up and the least said about the third the better. Truly, you know nothing Jon Snow.
 

Joni

Member
Talisha and Karl Tanner say hi. Two of the most memorable characters ever. Is Tristan of Dorne original too? Another memorable lad. How about Dickon and Lyanna Morment? People just don't give D&D enough credit.

And Ros. You forgot Ros. The first character to really elevate this show about those pesky books.
 
D

Deleted member 12837

Unconfirmed Member
The unsullied thread posited that the Night King knew the dragons were coming, somehow. So he was waiting for them. Yeah it doesn't make much sense.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume he's a Greenseer. He was originally a First Man, he's already shown warg-like abilities, and he's been established as a foil to Bran in terms of magical ability.
 

danm999

Member
Looking back, the Qarth adaptation in S2 was an early warning of what would happen when the show significantly began to deviate from the books.
 
You know that there is a big gap in writing between books and the TV show when you recognize that the showrunner haven't introduce any new characters or arcs on their own. No secret hidden families with power, no Gandalf wizard type that comes from the mountains and tell everyone he has important shit to do, no extra force outside of Westeros that waits to get unleashed and so on. I think the last two books will have way more twists and surprises and new characters than the budget-constrained predictable fanservice TV show we are seeing now. Given that George will ever bring himself to finish these damn books tho.

maybe thats a good thing. For all we know if we ever see Winds of Winter it might add more plotlines than it closes and all of a sudden George says theres gonna be at least 3 more books to wrap things up.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
Dickon Tarly is an original character as far as I'm concerned. They did a decent job with him.

Granted he only had a couple of scenes, but still.
 

Faddy

Banned
Looking back, the Qarth adaptation in S2 was an early warning of what would happen when the show significantly began to deviate from the books.

Hot Take. Qarth from the books is shit and the show made some fine changes and introduced some memorable characters.

MKRIPHF.jpg
 

barit

Member
Talisha and Karl Tanner say hi. Two of the most memorable characters ever. Is Tristan of Dorne original too? Another memorable lad. How about Dickon and Lyanna Morment? People just don't give D&D enough credit.

Welp, so I was wrong (as usual). Still doesn't explain why it drop off this bad. I mean it's still great and fun to watch but like many pointed out the flaws in the writing become more frequent and bigger.
 

Mendrox

Member
Honestly? Just like it was weird that the good guys were face to face with the leader of the enemies and didn't even contemplate taking a shot at him. The bad guys were facing the leader of the good guys and would have pretty much won the war if they had killed him, too.

You'd expect them to chomp at the bits to get to Jon fucking Snow right there and not risk him waiting for back-up.

And mind you, you can't say he didn't know about Jon Snow, after they had a battle before -in which Jon clearly showed himself to be the leader- and had a lengthy stare-off afterwards.

I will laugh my ass of when it's revealed that the Nightking waited because he knew that Dany with her dragons would appear so that he could take Viserion. Nobody knows what his game is and people think that this was a stupid move on his part, but do we know what plan he follows? What if he has visions himself? He can take Bran out of his ravens and all.

People should chill out. The book also has enough flaws which people easily overlook.
 
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