Poll: Winter Is Coming - HBO's A Game of Thrones [READ WARNING]

[Yaayuh!]

3. Bronn becoming a parody of himself. Again one of the best characters ruined. Yes I know he's a sword for hire blah blah, but just don't buy this decision at all, especially after everything he has been through with both Tyrion and Jamie.

I agree entirely, I even muttered "Really?!" when he showed up, ignoring the fact that he got through the guards with a crossbow etc, I was more annoyed at how he was portrayed in that scene.

Episode 4 gets a 3/10 for me. It was pretty bad.

Season so far gets a 5/10.

 

[Richdog]

This article really explains the general reactions very well...

People Are Calling "Game Of Thrones" Season 8, Episode 4 The Worst Episode Ever

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jennaguillaume/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-4

 

[Mr Jack]

Bran is absolutely super-crap. He is so annoying.

I'm not sure what they're doing with Bran. I suppose the old Three Eyed Raven spent lifetimes hanging out beneath a tree at the end of a world doing nothing obvious so there's a logic to Bran doing nothing too. He's too detached to act. But if that is the concept then it's one far easier to tell in book form.

It was a little silly having swarms of the dead and so many of them survive. Brien and Sam were dodos on the screen and pulled through.

One thing I noticed rewatching is that a lot of the dead are unarmed, especially in the later waves. Surviving being swarmed by unarmed dead is a lot easier to explain. Especially for Brien since she has proper armour.

 

[Steedie]

The writing really has gone to **** since they've had to make it up themselves. I still enjoy the show as a switch off and enjoy kind of show, but I used to enjoy it for the clever twists, character development etc. Now it's just full of inconsistencies and such poor writing that it takes away from everything

 

[Bassmansam]

Although as previously mentioned i am still enjoying this mostly. However i am confused as to why they stifled themselves by shortening the season and rushing things. The show is hige so HBO must be making bucketloads of money so why don’t they want to see it completed in the best way possible?

Someone mentioned star wars earlier? If the writers wanted to wrap this up quickly to move on to something like Star Wars then i am truly lost for words.

 

[Steedie]

Are we ever going to get told what Bran was doing in the battle of Winterfell? It feels like the writers see Bran's arc complete and that's it, and we didn't really get an explanation other than he might have used the ravens to lure the night king. What an absolute waste.

Meanwhile Euron got no character development, appeared out of nowhere and is suddenly the MVP of the show. Urgh

 

[dowie]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the theory's about other factions joining Dani for the battle. Who was the guy that killed his two 'Partners' to follow Dani with his army? I think Dani left him looking after one of the slave cities? Also, it was mentioned the sand/Dorne people have pledged allegiance to Dani too? Maybe they turn up with a big army?

That is Daario Naharis and his mercenary company "the second sons" (in the books he's not in the second sons but in a another company called the stormcrows - they seem to have merged them with the second sons in the show), beyond him (and the two other leaders of it that he killed) they never really featured the second sons in the series, they seem to have been neglected/not bothered with them, he was often pictured with a few unsullied or Dothraki. (incidentally there still seemed to be at least one Dothraki still kicking about in the last episode).

For example, he goes to search a house - he takes some unsullied:

He leads a charge of Dothraki to rescue Danny:

He might well turn up to help out but given the show hasn't really featured his mercenary company he could well just be arriving with more Dothraki/unsullied or even just alone... Though I guess as the "golden company" is on the side of Cersei then perhaps the second sons could feature on Danny's side.

 

[Washout]

Been watching old clips on YouTube, Charles Dance is almost pitch perfect, love the scenes with Tywin & Ayra .

Just reading through this thread after the w/e - yep those scenes were golden. Also ones I like to point out to people who think the writers don't have a clue when not following the books cos none of that stuff happened in those!

 

[CaptainRAVE]

It is fairly clear now anyhow that writing has gone down the pan in a big way.

We have still yet to see Yara returning with reinforcements for Dany so she'll either arrive with a huge load of wargh elephants somehow or a fleet of ships that Euron will magically destroy.

Bran has a huge part in all of this and I can't wait for the reveal. The reactions of Sansa and Arya I think...were hidden from us for a reason imo - to what end I don't know just yet.

Hopefully there is some kind of big reveal or surprise coming up. Dany will be saved, right at the last minute by some kind of additional reinforcement from somewhere.

 

[ChrisD.]

I the shows writers' defence, Dany has being going a bit mad for a while now. All of her bend the knee crap etc. She's been doing my head in more than say Cersei (who is brutal and calculating). I hope she dies.

 

[robfosters]

When Jamie says “She is hateful, and so am I” and rides off, did you take that as him realising he still loves Cersei and wants to go back to help her, or that he hates her for the things she’s made him do and is off to do something about it.

 

[krooton]

When Jamie says “She is hateful, and so am I” and rides off, did you take that as him realising he still loves Cersei and wants to go back to help her, or that he hates her for the things she’s made him do and is off to do something about it.

Maybe he wants to add 'Queenslayer' to his CV

 

[SPG]

Caught up with them all now,

Its still enjoyable but its as if everyone has had a drink from the cup of stupid apart from a select few. As many have said so far it`s dropped form 9.8 TV show to 6.5 its still good but shoddy. Its as all the past years characters experience never happened.

The biggest thing that annoyed me was they really cleaned up Winterfell after the battle scene in a day as if it never happend That was a lot of stinking corpses to move and around.

Shoddy.

 

[Washout]

I really don't think Jaime has any intention of doing anything but getting rid of Cersei.

Eurons ships were hidden between two outcroppings of land which was how they were missed. Although the vfx folks probably should have shown the dragons flying lower, maybe due to Rhaegals injuries.

Not much Ghost love which is disappointing.

Aside from those two things I really think it was a very good episode, some folk need to down some valium - they're raging at everything!

Not sure Cersei was likely to risk attacking Dany with Drogon in the background out of range, they might get him before he gets to them but I wouldn't like those odds.

 

[robfosters]

I really don't think Jaime has any intention of doing anything but getting rid of Cersei.

Eurons ships were hidden between two outcroppings of land which was how they were missed. Although the vfx folks probably should have shown the dragons flying lower, maybe due to Rhaegals injuries.

Not much Ghost love which is disappointing.

Aside from those two things I really think it was a very good episode, some folk need to down some valium - they're raging at everything!

Not sure Cersei was likely to risk attacking Dany with Drogon in the background out of range, they might get him before he gets to them but I wouldn't like those odds.

Sadly, I think the Drogon is pretty useless now. They’ll have him down in minutes with those scorpion crossbows. Killing the dragons off has annoyed me. They were the best part of the show, and now Jon has lost his, which is silly. Huge anticlimax.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Who dis?

Also lol @ CGI.

 

[McPhee]

* why did Danerys need to to goto to Dragonstone and split her forces other than so the script writers could set up the ridiculous scene where she looses another dragon?

This was explained.

Dragonstone controls access to Blackwater Bay. If your intention is to besiege King's Landing, then you need Dragonstone to stop naval resupply. The plan was to control Blackwater Bay from above, with the two dragons. In truth, I don't think they even believed they'd have much of a fight; the dragons might burn a couple of ships and that would be it. Cersei would have to accept that Blackwater Bay was lost.

This is why Rhaegal got killed so easily and so suddenly. Nobody was really watching for ships, because nobody was worried about ships. Fire & Blood contains a few not dissimilar moments where dragon riders have been blindsided by their own arrogance. If ships appeared, great. The dragons would burn them, and their chances of victory would improve...

 

[CHokKA]

All the people saying folks should calm down and are wrong for feeling annoyed at how things are playing out should stop. We've a right to feel annoyed about things. In the grand scheme of things the episodes this season are nowhere near on a par with any of the previous seasons of the show. Even saying they're subpar isn't describing things accurately. We've had top quality for almost every episode, with a few drawn out here and there. But this season there have been gaps, plotholes, time-shifting, story arcs ignored, characters that were seemingly intelligent shown to be really stupid (Tyrion not even considering a dead-raising enemy wouldn't raise the dead in the crypt ffs) and so many other flaws that it's just too hard to forgive the writers. You can't use the argument of them being great as standalone episodes because they're not standalone episodes. They're supposed to be an end to 8 years worth of quality TV, and they're falling far short of that mark. We've invested time and effort into the show and now we're just being spoon-fed rubbish. Every main character seems to now be a parody of their former selves, somehow losing all their previous abilities and common sense. Things seem to be happening just for the sake of it.

Episode 4 opening scene, loads of dead on funeral pyres. Ok, so they have tonnes of wood available. Why in episode 3 did they have a single row of spiked defences to protect against the wights then? They could have built loads more. Jon knows what the mindless wights are like, as well as what the Night King is capable of. But we're just expected to accept this. And if we question it, using mostly common sense and not intelligence, it's made out that only Sun Tzu would use tactics like this, not other commanders of armies of people.

I turned episode 4 off whilst they were still all at the pub because it's just rubbish now. I've read the rest online and it sounds like it's just going downhill. I ended up watching Deadwood instead. Far better TV than what GoT has become.

 

[VincentHanna]

Sadly, I think the Drogon is pretty useless now. They’ll have him down in minutes with those scorpion crossbows. Killing the dragons off has annoyed me. They were the best part of the show, and now Jon has lost his, which is silly. Huge anticlimax.

It was never his dragon, he rode it twice.

 

[CHokKA]

This was explained.

Dragonstone controls access to Blackwater Bay. If your intention is to besiege King's Landing, then you need Dragonstone to stop naval resupply. The plan was to control Blackwater Bay from above, with the two dragons. In truth, I don't think they even believed they'd have much of a fight; the dragons might burn a couple of ships and that would be it. Cersei would have to accept that Blackwater Bay was lost.

This is why Rhaegal got killed so easily and so suddenly. Nobody was really watching for ships, because nobody was worried about ships. Fire & Blood contains a few not dissimilar moments where dragon riders have been blindsided by their own arrogance. If ships appeared, great. The dragons would burn them, and their chances of victory would improve...

Why was nobody watching for ships? They can see the smaller fleet outside Kings Landing, and they will have heard from Theon that Euron had a huge fleet, so how do they not put two and two together? It's stuff like this that makes absolutely no sense, and is just explained away with the usual "well, plot" and people lap it up. No, sorry, but it's rubbish.