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

C

carlsojo

Member
TBH Team Living needs Cersei and Qyburn because I think they're the only ones smart and ruthless enough to defeat the Night's King.
 
M

MarauderShields

Member
hoos30 said:
Well, LF got fooled. Fooling the audience was entirely intentional. Sansa's "power" is political manipulation, which she learned from Cersei and LF himself. Not easy to show on screen.

D&D chose to allow the audience to experience this from LF's POV. His scheming and spying has been well established through seven seasons.
Click to expand...

But what's the point of fooling him? Once Bran tells what he knows they have him nailed. It isn't like they caught him in the act of doing something.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
re: Bran not knowing everything everything -- my hand wave for this oversight is that he is not in fact omniscient despite being omnipresent. He's a 3rd-party bystander throughout history, but does he actually know what people are thinking? Does he have to witness it (a monk writing something down) to know it happened?

I'm ok with it it and a teeny squint to keep faith with the show is fine with me.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Will say that I thought Jamie was really going to die at the end there. I was about to be really angry that he didn't kill Cersei.

Next Season Arya heads down there to kill her, assume her face, and order the troops.

I also think Jamie and Bran will get a reunion scene before Jon and Arya.
 
D

demosthenes

Member
DrForester said:
Will say that I thought Jamie was really going to die at the end there. I was about to be really angry that he didn't kill Cersei.

Next Season Arya heads down there to kill her, assume her face, and order the troops.

I also think Jamie and Bran will get a reunion scene before Jon and Arya.
Click to expand...

I'm excited for Jamie and bran. Jamie will apologize and bran will be really weird and tell him it was necessary for becoming who he is today.

I thought he was going to die for sure.
 
DeviantBoi

DeviantBoi

Member
Has the show alluded to the reason why the dead have come back?

If I'm not mistaken, the books say it was Mance that brought them back while looking for the horn to bring down the wall.
 
R

rocketskates

Member
TheGreatPotato said:
You sweet summer child. All the characters will have redeeming deaths on the show. Theon will kill Euron, Jaime will kill Cersei, and the Hound will kill the Mountain.
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I see all that happening in the books already, but Theon? Ugh.

PantherLotus said:
re: Bran not knowing everything everything -- my hand wave for this oversight is that he is not in fact omniscient despite being omnipresent. He's a 3rd-party bystander throughout history, but does he actually know what people are thinking? Does he have to witness it (a monk writing something down) to know it happened?

I'm ok with it it and a teeny squint to keep faith with the show is fine with me.
Click to expand...
I agree. I think his ability to be in the past and observe doesn't necessarily mean he has insight to the situation. Didn't the old 3ER have to explain some situations when they were traveling into the past?
 
D

demosthenes

Member
PantherLotus said:
re: Bran not knowing everything everything -- my hand wave for this oversight is that he is not in fact omniscient despite being omnipresent. He's a 3rd-party bystander throughout history, but does he actually know what people are thinking? Does he have to witness it (a monk writing something down) to know it happened?

I'm ok with it it and a teeny squint to keep faith with the show is fine with me.
Click to expand...

Imo, he can witness everything. I thought it had to be with a heart tree but they seem to be bending the rules. Bran knowing what if said to Ned and I'm fine with that.

Bran can see everything but that doesn't mean he knows the context. When Sam told him about the anullment, the way I imagine it is he picked up a book on rhegars life and flipped through it and found what Sam was talking about and watched it. He CAN know everything, that doesn't mean he's seen everything.
 
B

Branduil

Member
hoos30 said:
Well, LF got fooled. Fooling the audience was entirely intentional. Sansa's "power" is political manipulation, which she learned from Cersei and LF himself. Not easy to show on screen.

D&D chose to allow the audience to experience this from LF's POV. His scheming and spying has been well established through seven seasons.
Click to expand...

Was Littlefinger secretly watching the scene between Arya and Sansa in the bedroom? Because if not that is some Heavy Rain-tier bullshit writing.
 
G

Gamer @ Heart

Member
DeviantBoi said:
Has the show alluded to the reason why the dead have come back?

If I'm not mistaken, the books say it was Mance that brought them back while looking for the horn to bring down the wall.
Click to expand...

I could have sworn the WW are the main reason why Mance ordered everyone he could spare to look for that horn. To escape them, not that he somehow triggered them
 
Cpt.Underpants

Cpt.Underpants

Member
Zwf8YxA.jpg
Click to expand...

Bran being a funny dude
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Reviews:
- Onion A|V Club (bookreaders)
- Onion A|V Club (newbies)
- Sepinwall
- Rolling Stone Part 1
- Rolling Stone Part 2
- NY Times
- Washington Post
- Vox
- NY Mag
- Variety

Interviews:
- EW interview: Clarke & Harington
- EW interview: Aiden Gillen
- EW interview: D&D
- THR interview: D&D
- Making Game of Thrones: Maisie Williams
- Making Game of Thrones: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau


Videos:
- Inside the Episode
- Season 7 Episode 7 Clip: Army of the Dead
- Cast Commentary on A Union of Fire and Ice
- Worlds Collide (Go behind the scenes to see the conference at the dragonpit from all sides.)
- Game Revealed: Season 7 Episode 1 (cast and crew debrief on the making of the Season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones)
- The Ringer's Talk the Thrones: Season Finale
 
Z

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
DrForester said:
I liked the Winterfell stuff because of the payoff.

Yes, they went overboard with the misdirection to the audience, but I had no problem with the way Arya behaved. The only thing they really left out for the sake of audience misdirection was Sansa immediately knowing Littlefinger was the one who found the letter.
Click to expand...

In hindsight it's kind of cool actually. As it would seem Sansa and Arya were acting out all the mistrust with the assumption that Littlefinger was watching somehow. So it really was rather well played by both sisters to take him down. Arya probably immediately had a conversation with Sansa that yo LF is sneaking around with this note and he planted it for me to find it as he knew I was tailing him, and knows that I found it. Let's see how this plays out... I think it would have been cooler if this was presented on the show vs the misdirection, but either way I'm much happier it turned out this way vs the continued nonsense with LF and possibly even Sansa turning against Jon blah blah blah.
 
Z

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
Branduil said:
Was Littlefinger secretly watching the scene between Arya and Sansa in the bedroom? Because if not that is some Heavy Rain-tier bullshit writing.
Click to expand...

Yeah they would have to assume LF is potentially always watching and so they put on a bit of a show. Although this line of thinking sort of breaks down as then you could never really have a private conversation to develop an actual plan, although I suppose if Arya was smart she would just write everything down and talk a different game with the assumption that LF is listening outside the door.
 
M

Mr_Antimatter

Member
So, finally got to watch this episode.

Few thoughts:

Euron is so going to fark over Cersei here. She thinks he's gone off to get the golden company with his ships. I wager hes just going to take the gold and run with it. When all is said and done, and the walkers have slaughtered the land, he'll be all that's left.

Jamie: at last done with cersei i think. About time I think.

Cersei: yeah she's lost it at this point. I figure she thinks she can hold her forces back, let her enemies annihilate each other, and then somehow hold the south against whomever is left. Alternatively, she'll use all this as cover and then run somewhere with her child when the crap hits the fan.

Jon/Dany: Man, finally gets the girl and shes confirmed to be his aunt. Puts then in an awkward spot when they find out his parentage and status. Granted, she a Targ, so incest is best I suppose. Also works politically, Jon is still of northern blood, so his bending the knee may be accepted. After all, ether him, his queen, or their potential child will rule. Provided they all live.

The dead: Well now, a problem yes? If only they had some dragon glass bolts for those big ass crossbow things.
 
MudoSkills

MudoSkills

Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
The more I think about it the more Theon getting kneed in the non-bollocks repeatedly might be the worst thing to happen in the final episode.
 
Vic_Viper

Vic_Viper

Member
Haven't read the books yet but I plan too when I can. Already ordered the set on Amazon.

When does the most recent book end compared to the show?
 
B

Burt

Member
Mr_Antimatter said:
The dead: Well now, a problem yes? If only they had some dragon glass bolts for those big ass crossbow things.
Click to expand...
Yeah, except that for all that "fighter jet in a medieval battle" talk that DnD did after Loot Train, Viserion actually seems like the one that's an actual fighter jet now. Thing has it's hacks turned on. Good luck clipping that with a ballista as it passes by at 800 mph.
 
C

chicken_pasta

Banned
Also, how did Wiserion managed to become so fucking fast? The rest of the dead aren't considerably faster than a living human, but this dragon went super saiyan.
 
M

Macka

Member
Thoughts:

  • I don't necessarily have an issue with the Night King using the dragon to take down the wall, but it begs the question...how were they getting through without it? I've seen people suggest that the Night King can see glimpses of the future and was basically waiting until Dany would bring the dragons, but in that case it means that arguably the most important moment in the entire story comes as a result of the most idiotic plan ever devised. That really lessens its impact imo.

  • The idiotic plan in question reached its logical conclusion in this episode. So, Jon and his group went on a near guaranteed suicide mission to capture a wight for the sole purpose of using it to forge a truce with Cersei. Tyrion was the one who devised this plan. The same Tyrion who knows Cersei better than anyone. How could he possibly believe she would genuinely be willing to stand down? Well, low and behold the entire plan was a waste of time because Cersei doesn't give a shit. They lost a dragon for what? (because the writers needed a way for the Night King to bring down the Wall, that's what).

  • Even if you work backwards from the position that Sansa and Arya were playing Littlefinger, it still doesn't really make much sense. Were they pretending when they were having conversations in empty rooms with nobody there to overhear? If yes...why even bother? Why not just kill Littlefinger and be done with it? And if they weren't pretending, then it's still stupid as fuck that they could have ever been at odds with each other, because that requires Arya to genuinely have believed what she was saying about the letter Sansa was coerced to write, etc. Put simply, the entire Winterfell story was forced and uninteresting drama created just to give them something to do this season. It was bad from start to finish.

  • Littlefinger was made into a joke. I mean, I guess that started in S5 when he gave Sansa to the Boltons, but I digress. This is meant to be the most cunning man in the entire story. When Sansa blindsides him this episode and puts him on trial instead of Arya, he doesn't really do a great job of defending himself. Most of what Sansa says is completely unprovable unless everyone believes in a self-professed magic boy. It's just a really lackluster way for him to go imo. I wanted him to genuinely lose, but it doesn't feel that way at all. None of his treasons came to light in an interesting way. Hell, most of it happened off-screen.

  • The final reveal that Jon is actually Aegon Targaryen VII felt very clunky to me. It could have been an epic moment, and instead it's flashbacks and a monotone voice narrating over a sex scene. Blergh.

  • We had several character reunions, but were any of them actually good? Tyrion says hello to Pod, and acts like he's reuniting with Bronn for the first time despite them having met already a few episodes ago off-screen when he had him fetch Jaime. Bronn and Pod head off to a tavern, so we don't see anything of note there. Brienne and Jaime share all of like two words. The Hound promises to end The Mountain, but I've never understood why anyone would care for Cleganebowl when one of the brothers is essentially dead already. Theon and Jon's talk didn't do much for me. Tyrion and Cersei's scene was well acted, but it's still rooted in this foundation that Tyrion would believe she'd lay down her arms, so eh.

  • I like Jaime finally leaving Cersei, but it's a case of too little too late at this point tbh. Still a nice scene of him leaving King's Landing as it starts to snow, though. That was the high point of the episode for me.
So much of this season felt really forced. The writers clearly have an ending provided by GRRM, and are working towards that outcome at the expense of logic for the most part. So much of that is born of trying to justify Cersei's continued existence tbh.

For example - Daenerys not sacking King's Landing straight away. She had a greater army. She had three dragons. I know the show tried to justify it as being 'better for the people' if she doesn't attack directly, but the suggested alternative - an extended siege - would be even worse for them. I mean hell, she didn't even need to really use the dragons to attack the city. Just have them burn through one of the gates so that the Unsullied can get in, and you're done. They could have been well on their way to unifying the realm in preparation for the walkers already, but Cersei must live, and so the writers have the characters make ridiculous decisions.

The same could be said for Arya. I don't really believe that she would return to Winterfell in the books. Or at the very least that she would have hung around for so long after finding out Jon wasn't there. She spent years becoming a faceless man, and takes a break right after killing the Freys? Nah. Cersei is on her list. She'd absolutely be heading to kill her next in the books. But again, the writers can't allow Cersei to be killed, so they had to come up with something else for her to do instead.

Then there's the whole capture the wight fiasco. I imagine the writers decided early on that the Wall would be coming down this season, and decided that the Night King could use a Dragon to do it. So that meant they had to come up with way to get the dragons north of the wall, and it all came together in a really clumsy way imo.

I can see why people still enjoy the show - I don't even think it's necessarily bad these days myself, it's just really not what I signed up for in the beginning. I mean...when I think of the best moments of the show, I think of Littlefinger's amazing speech telling Varys about how chaos is a ladder. I think of Jaime in the bath with Brienne, telling her how he came to be known as the Kingslayer. I think of when Arya was Tywin's cupbearer. I think of Tyrion's trial, Arya's travels with The Hound, Robert and Cersei's conversation about their marriage. Character moments.

Even most of the action scenes in the earlier seasons were still primarily about shaping the characters - such as Oberyn's fight with The Mountain being more about getting a confession from him than the fight itself. The wildfire explosion wasn't the climax of the Battle of Blackwater episode - it was done in the first fifteen minutes and the rest of the drama came from Tyrion's rousing speech and Cersei being on the verge of poisoning Tommen to spare him being murdered when Stannis sacked the city. The action was just a vehicle to provide more character moments.

For the last few seasons though, the big moments have come from the action setpieces themselves. The Battle of the Bastards. Cersei blowing up the Sept. Euron attacking Yara's fleet, and then later attacking Casterly Rock and the Unsullied. Many of those scenes haven't even really mattered in the long run. Grey Worm and the Unsullied apparently got out of Casterly Rock with zero consequences. When Daenerys attacked Jaime's army with the dragons and Dothraki...what even came from that? No major characters died. It didn't win Daenerys the war - she literally abandoned the fight with the Lannisters immediately afterwards. You could skip that scene entirely and not be missing any real details from the story other than redshirts Randyll and Dickon's died. It's the most egregious example of an action scene existing purely for fanservice imo.

The best scene of the season for me was when the Hound returned to the cottage in episode 1, and ended up burying the father and daughter he'd left for dead years before. Great character moment. Don't have much more to praise tbh.

S1 > S4 > S3 > S2 >>> S6 >> S5 > S7
 
Z

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
chicken_pasta said:
Also, how did Wiserion managed to become so fucking fast? The rest of the dead aren't considerably faster than a living human, but this dragon went super saiyan.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was weird, I actually kind of thought my HBO now connection was glitch into out or something but apparently not. It looked like maybe something was actually wrong with the cgi, like vyserion was extremely fastt for a second, like clipping in a videogame or something.
 
C

chicken_pasta

Banned
ZOONAMI said:
Yeah that was weird, I actually kind of thought my HBO now connection was glitch into out or something but apparently not. It looked like maybe something was actually wrong with the cgi, like vyserion was extremely fastt for a second, like clipping in a videogame or something.
Click to expand...

Yup, right when he approaches the wall for the first time. I saw that scene on a GIF for the first time, and thought it had been sped up for comedic purposes, but then I watched the episode and nope, that's how they decided to do it.
 
G

Goldfishking

Member
Macka said:
I don't necessarily have an issue with the Night King using the dragon to take down the wall, but it begs the question...how were they getting through without it?
Click to expand...

They could have just walked round it right? It's on a coast so they were probably waiting for the water to freeze (or planing to freeze it) and walk around. Or they could have bust through a gate with giants like in season 4.

They had a few options but now they have a dragon they could attack.
 
J

jfkgoblue

Member
With how fanfic this season was, they should just embrace the full fan service ending:

King Aegon VI Targaryan and his wife Queen Daenaerys Targaryan as rulers of the seven kingdoms.

Lady Sansa Stark as Lady of Winterfell and Wardeness of the North.

Lord Tyrion Lannister as Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West.

Lord Samwell Tarly as Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South.

Lord Robbyn Arryn as Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the East.

Lord Edmure Tully as Lord of Riverrun and the Riverlands.

Lord Gendry Baratheon as Lord of Storms End and the Stormlands.

Prince Bronn of the Blackwater as Lord of Sandspear and Dorne. There is literally no one else in the show to put here.
 
C

chicken_pasta

Banned
Goldfishking said:
They could have just walked round it right? It's on a coast so they were probably waiting for the water to freeze (or planing to freeze it) and walk around. Or they could have bust through a gate with giants like in season 4.

They had a few options but now they have a dragon they could attack.
Click to expand...

The spells that protected the Wall would have stopped the White Walkers from going through. Wights are a different story, but I'm guessing they're useless without their commander.
 
H

Human Trashcan

Banned
hoos30 said:
Well, LF got fooled. Fooling the audience was entirely intentional. Sansa's "power" is political manipulation, which she learned from Cersei and LF himself. Not easy to show on screen.

D&D chose to allow the audience to experience this from LF's POV. His scheming and spying has been well established through seven seasons.
Click to expand...

They didn't though because LF wasn't in the room or spying on them as far as we know when Sansa found Arya's faces. The effect was the same, yes - like LF, we were meant to think they were turning on each other. But it simply did not make any sense to get from that scene to the "trial" scene. They took some shortcuts just to get to the "shocking" twist that they were playing Littlefinger.
 
P

Pkaz01

Member
I'm surprised this season is being ranked worse than 5, i thought it was great up to episode 4 and then went off the rails for the last three. I dont remember anything in season 5 other than hardhome.

Edit - edit oh wait 5 had dorne! Yea worst season by far.
 
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