Poll: Winter Is Coming - HBO's A Game of Thrones [READ WARNING]
- Thread starter Hostile_18
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Well the books go into the order of battle a bit better and there were losses, particularly at the Pelennor Fields (King Théoden, for one). Fiction has a habit of granting semi invincibility to the main protagonists, ignoring the true nature of war particularly on a medieval battlefield where one random arrow could kill you and average life expectancy for a foot soldier was probably less than five minutes!
Meh, OK - drop a bomb full of Valyrian daggers on him. You take my point. Building up 8 series to have him die of a wound which he could have received in multiple other ways, regardless of how rare the material which killed him was, is disappointing. She legged it up to him and stabbed him. Sure, the hand-changing thing was cool but not "world's greatest assassin" cool.
Forget about the night King now he's done we have a lot more juicy stuff to come The Hound vs the Mountain the Lannisters getting their arse kicked and Cersai getting her comeuppance.
I found the NK kill a bit cheap tbh. I guess it's always going to seem anticlimactic given the build up and how long the books/shows have been around.
It's a shame that it he (seemingly) was turned over in one episode after 8 seasons of 'winter is coming' etc. but he had to go down somehow and Ayra has been effectively trained her whole life to be the one to do it.
How is dealing with a load of mortal people who will be dead soon more juicy than dealing with the motives behind a great, previously immortal, evil? Even if Cersei wins she'll (a) be no worse than any other bad king/queen so why make a whole series about her, and (b) be dead in the next 50 years regardless.
Building the NK up to be nothing more than a footnote just seems absurd. Why is he in the series at all? I would have been very happy if this was a whole series without him and purely about the squabble over the throne. By adding him and then removing him in such a disappointing way the creators have detracted massively from an otherwise excellent plot.
Soldato
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The issue with this is actually down to the fact that an 'invisible' watermark is applied to the picture before it gets sent to Sky, Sky then compress the **** out of it and you end up being able to see parts of the watermark notably in black areas, which this episode if full of further making it look artefacty. It would have looked artefacty anyway once compressed by Sky but the watermark makes it worse!
Sam also saw that blade in a book when he was researching.
Bran gave her that very blade.
There's a possibility the blade she used is significant.
I thought it was great myself, but she has long been my favourite character.
Yeah it seems the only reason for the NK storyline is so Bran could figure out Jon's lineage.
Yeah it's the dagger that has been in it from the start. Initially to kill Bran.
I think it was Tyrion's?
In fact, the series would have been far better if not for the NK. That would have left Cersei with an ever depleting group of allies - she's lost Jaime, Tyrion, the Hound, Varys (or at least he no longer serves the throne), the Tyrrells, the Baratheons, and all the others who have died. She has turned huge amounts of people against her, and they would have left her to join the North / Jon / Dany / whoever to her absolute fury. You'd then have her having to fight against the people who should have been her allies, all because she's such a nasty piece of work.
Instead, all of those people have effectively had the "excuse" of having to go North to fight the undead. It's detracted massively from how personal those relationships with Cersei were. Yes, they've still betrayed her, but at least in part because they've gone to fight the NK.
Do you think that would be a suitable use of one of the three final episodes? A flash back to a character who has never uttered a word in the series.
I thought his death was fitting. Given the might of the undead army he had at his fingertips, he was never going to be defeated mid-battle seeing as he has an immediately replenish-able army. It was only going to take a deft and surprise attack to defeat him... and Arya has had her character arc building towards that scene for many seasons.
Nah, she stabbed him in the heart, the same place the Children put the dragonglass into him to turn him in the first place.
Do I think that it would be worth finding out why the biggest evil man has faced and who has been built up for 8 series decided to rear his head at this time? What his motives are? Why he's so interested in killing the 3 Eyed Raven? Why he turned on the Children, his creators, in the first place (and indeed more detail as to why they created him)?
Yes, I think that would be worthwhile. I'd much rather that than have 3 episodes of Daenerys (and/or Jon) rushing down to Kings Landing to take the throne. Given that Cersei is getting older, has few allies save the Golden Company who are mercenaries, and may well be the last in her line anyway, Dany/Jon would be much better off forging more of her own alliances while Cersei weakens still further and then taking the throne from a position of even greater strength. Three episodes of a pointless war between a morally questionable queen (Dany) and a horrible queen (Cersei) seems like a far bigger waste of time.
There is now absolutely no urgency at all and frankly even if Cersei wins a big war, my main thoughts will be "well, at least humanity is saved and she'll only be queen for a while".
But he's barely a character, just a figurehead. How much screen time has he personally had?
It was painfully obvious that the culmination to the series would be Cersei versus everyone else. Not sure how you've missed that... it would seem you've become fixated on the wrong things. Why would the writers spend valuable time focused on a backstory to explain the Children (who've appeared in one or two scenes) rather than tier one characters??
I had no problem with Arya. After last week's episode, I though that you'd send the magic ninja assassin to do a decapitation strike against the NK. Dany had a chance and couldn't burn NK to a crisp, and while a Jon Snow confrontation might have been more classical, he isn't going to beat the NK hand to hand, and he was roundly dismissed by the NK. I was hoping Jon Snow would fluke kill the ice dragon instead, his genetic dragon control able to stall out the ice dragon while he stabbed it though the eye.
What was annoying was the constant poor planning of the battle. Trebuchets that they barely use, having a castle but not using it to support the troops, sending flaming swords into the dark just so that we can watch them go out, only one flaming trench, no bonfire, dragons being drawn away instead of acting as massive battlefield flying tanks etc. They so desperately wanted to be the Battle at Helm's Deep, but without the budget.
It wasn't terrible, just I expected something that resonated more with an amazing final battle against the NK. They'd pumped up the NK so much, he was only ever going to get killed by a sneaky, surprise attack that's over in a second, and I think this left people somewhat non-plussed. Most were expecting an epic confrontation between the main characters and the NK, but that was never going to work given how hugely powerful the NK had become.
What was annoying was the constant poor planning of the battle. Trebuchets that they barely use, having a castle but not using it to support the troops, sending flaming swords into the dark just so that we can watch them go out, only one flaming trench, no bonfire, dragons being drawn away instead of acting as massive battlefield flying tanks etc. They so desperately wanted to be the Battle at Helm's Deep, but without the budget.
It wasn't terrible, just I expected something that resonated more with an amazing final battle against the NK. They'd pumped up the NK so much, he was only ever going to get killed by a sneaky, surprise attack that's over in a second, and I think this left people somewhat non-plussed. Most were expecting an epic confrontation between the main characters and the NK, but that was never going to work given how hugely powerful the NK had become.
I agree - my point is why have him at all? The series would have been best if it had only been about the fight for the throne.
But now that they have interjected with this massive existential threat, the battle for a throne seems pretty inconsequential.
That's more the broadcast issue rather than the original content to be honest.