Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #520 on: April 23, 2019, 03:24:00 AM »
yesterday's episode was my favorite of the series so far.  loved every bit of it.
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Offline Cain

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #521 on: April 23, 2019, 12:16:45 PM »
Eh. S1E9 was better.
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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #522 on: April 29, 2019, 04:21:37 AM »
snape kills dumbledore
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Offline crutonius

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #523 on: April 29, 2019, 06:00:19 AM »
My word.  That last episode was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. 

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #524 on: April 29, 2019, 08:02:02 PM »
I liked it a lot. The darkness made it a little difficult to follow some sequences, but overall tone was great. I wasn’t expecting that specific ending and it felt very satisfying. I was a little sad the Dothraki were sacrificed for dramatic effect but it’s tough to say they were much more than a device for a while. 

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Offline crutonius

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #525 on: April 29, 2019, 08:41:37 PM »
There were some parts that were very cool. The dothraki riding out with fire swords and then watching them slowly go dark, wow!

My problem is with the Night King in general.  One of my favorite things about this show is the extremely well defined villains. The Night King seems almost insultingly thin compared to for example Tywin Lannister.

What does Tywin want? You could fill a book with that.

What does the Night King want? To kill all humans... For reasons I guess?

Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #526 on: April 29, 2019, 09:02:17 PM »
i also didn't care much for this episode.  it was visually cool, and i'm glad i finally got to see a dragon fight, but i'm kinda tired of watching epic battles between two totally incompetent forces.  one side winning because the other side was too stupid to win is not a satisfying story.

the supposed lord commander of the night's watch: "hey i've got an idea let's just throw our mounted units headlong into a static formation.  that will definitely make good use of the strengths/weaknesses of mounted units.  oh shit nm they all died very predictably."

the night king: "naw fam don't worry about it because i'm gonna walk around literally the only place in westeros you can find dragon glass weapons, my sole vulnerability.  i mean i guess i could just hang back and auto-win, but it's important to me to personally slay bran for reasons that you can't understand because i've never, ever spoken so much as a single word during this show."
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Offline Rushy

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #527 on: April 29, 2019, 10:49:59 PM »
I'm still interested in the show but it's going downhill fast.

The show's plot has clearly gotten an enormous case of dumb after moving on from the books. The story feels rushed and no longer coherent. Actors are doing things that are convenient for the story to move on. Practically everyone died at Winterfell except the "hero" characters. Where did Jorah even come from? How did he magically teleport to Dany, how did he survive an endless onslaught of zombies? How did Brienne get repeatedly drug down under a pile of zombies and yet survive over and over and over again? WHY is Sam still alive other than pure plot armor fuckery? I'm surprised they killed the little girl Mormont considering she, up to this point, has had the personality of a 40 year old career politician. It did not feel like an amazing feat to have the Night King die, it was not a glorious battle, it was a stupid game where every nameless person at Winterfell dies but gg because harry potter caught the fucking snitch so you lose now.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2019, 10:51:44 PM by Rushy »

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #528 on: April 30, 2019, 12:36:40 AM »

the supposed lord commander of the night's watch: "hey i've got an idea let's just throw our mounted units headlong into a static formation.  that will definitely make good use of the strengths/weaknesses of mounted units.  oh shit nm they all died very predictably."

I don’t remember an order to charge, did I miss it? I took it as the flaming weapons getting them so worked up that they took off. I might be wrong.

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the night king: "naw fam don't worry about it because i'm gonna walk around literally the only place in westeros you can find dragon glass weapons, my sole vulnerability.  i mean i guess i could just hang back and auto-win, but it's important to me to personally slay bran for reasons that you can't understand because i've never, ever spoken so much as a single word during this show."

They provided a reason. Whether or not it is plausible to you is something else. It seems plausible to me that the utmost embodiment of death would seek to destroy its antithesis. In an elemental way, not from an x’s and o’s on the battlefield way.

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #529 on: April 30, 2019, 01:11:09 AM »
I'm still interested in the show but it's going downhill fast.

The show's plot has clearly gotten an enormous case of dumb after moving on from the books. The story feels rushed and no longer coherent. Actors are doing things that are convenient for the story to move on. Practically everyone died at Winterfell except the "hero" characters. Where did Jorah even come from? How did he magically teleport to Dany, how did he survive an endless onslaught of zombies? How did Brienne get repeatedly drug down under a pile of zombies and yet survive over and over and over again? WHY is Sam still alive other than pure plot armor fuckery? I'm surprised they killed the little girl Mormont considering she, up to this point, has had the personality of a 40 year old career politician. It did not feel like an amazing feat to have the Night King die, it was not a glorious battle, it was a stupid game where every nameless person at Winterfell dies but gg because harry potter caught the fucking snitch so you lose now.

This is why I hate fandom. You are letting perfect be the enemy of good. There are a couple dozen characters and it would be unwieldy to show every movement or action each of them takes through the episode. Indulge these people who work their ass off for your enjoyment a little and imagine for yourself what Jorah and Brienne did off screen. If you want a complete history, you would have a boring 12 hour episode.

Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #530 on: April 30, 2019, 02:19:48 AM »
I don’t remember an order to charge, did I miss it? I took it as the flaming weapons getting them so worked up that they took off. I might be wrong.

i mean jaime and a bunch of other mains were in that unit.  i'm pretty sure it was intentional.

They provided a reason. Whether or not it is plausible to you is something else. It seems plausible to me that the utmost embodiment of death would seek to destroy its antithesis. In an elemental way, not from an x’s and o’s on the battlefield way.

sure, bran gave some exposition in the previous episode about how the night king wants him dead, but without any insight into the character, i don't have any context for why he is willing to risk everything just to personally kill bran instead of simply letting him get killed by the wights.  it would be like if peter quill never, ever spoke.  you'd be super puzzled about why he ruins everything right when victory is at hand.

also to rushy's point, i was super annoyed at how often the last part of one scene would be a main literally surrounded by wights like five deep, then later they're magically in another part of winterfell and totally fine.  it's not that rushy and i want to see every single thing that happens to every character.
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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #531 on: April 30, 2019, 05:04:12 AM »
I'm not a GoT fan (saw maybe 4 episodes total.  Half being the last two) but that battle, while epic and exciting, was full of BS on both sides.

Riders rushing forward like dumbasses.
Siege weapons stopping their firing.
Riders running into where the seige weapons were hitting.
No one bothering to out up scouts or torches on the ground to show when the enemy was near.
Sir Brienne not dying when the literal wave of dead engulfed her and her company
The night king being immune to fire for reasons.
No one bothering to try and kill the dead blocked by the trenches.  They were just standing there.... Conserve arrows maybe?
A small group of archers holding off a bunch of dead in a courtyard for anymore than 10 seconds.
The dead having less ferocity the less troops winterfell had.  Like the intro was a swarm of frenzied dead.  By the time they got through the walls, they were not swarming nearly as much in the courtyard, giving people ample time to fight them off.
Except Arya being chased by a bunch.  That shit should have been everywhere.  Not one "hero" holding off a hord by swinging their weapon to kil one at a time.
Oh and Stone is stronger than bone.  Fuck that "skeletons bust through stone coffins" BS. i'd accept them pushing the lid off slowly but breaking through the side?  No.
Sam not being dead. 


Many of these points were raised already but felt like just listing them.
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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #532 on: April 30, 2019, 10:31:38 AM »

i mean jaime and a bunch of other mains were in that unit.  i'm pretty sure it was intentional.

Fair enough. I guess I am willing to trade the drama of the moment for the logic of it.

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sure, bran gave some exposition in the previous episode about how the night king wants him dead, but without any insight into the character, i don't have any context for why he is willing to risk everything just to personally kill bran instead of simply letting him get killed by the wights.  it would be like if peter quill never, ever spoke.  you'd be super puzzled about why he ruins everything right when victory is at hand.

That sort of depth has never been in the Night King. Any reason why it matters now?

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also to rushy's point, i was super annoyed at how often the last part of one scene would be a main literally surrounded by wights like five deep, then later they're magically in another part of winterfell and totally fine.  it's not that rushy and i want to see every single thing that happens to every character.

But why are you fixated on that? And I actually noticed that they accumulated damage via make up on most of the characters through the episode too. Were you as annoyed in the Battle of the Bastards when there was suddenly a mountain of bodies? I’m just not really getting what the problem is other than you might want something different, which says nothing about the show and something about your own expectations. This is what I was saying to Rushy’s comment: just because a couple of moments didn’t work for you doesn’t mean they didn’t do a good job. It’s worth considering how strongly your own expectations of what you want from the show’s completion and how they might make you more or less critical of its presentation or content.

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Offline crutonius

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #533 on: April 30, 2019, 02:02:19 PM »

Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #534 on: April 30, 2019, 03:06:25 PM »
Fair enough. I guess I am willing to trade the drama of the moment for the logic of it.

they aren't mutually exclusive though.  it could've been logical and dramatic.  that's basically my whole point.

That sort of depth has never been in the Night King. Any reason why it matters now?

yes.  now literally the only reason the living prevail is pure luck: the night king happened to have a hidden character flaw.  that's it.  that's why they win.  i think it's an incredibly uninspired deus ex machina.

the fact that his character has never been developed is precisely the thing that matters.  it would be like if oberyn never spoke.  his decision to suddenly expose himself to a defeated enemy and then lose because of it would be extremely poor storytelling without ever contextualizing why he's willing to do that.  it's not interesting writing.


But why are you fixated on that? And I actually noticed that they accumulated damage via make up on most of the characters through the episode too. Were you as annoyed in the Battle of the Bastards when there was suddenly a mountain of bodies? I’m just not really getting what the problem is other than you might want something different, which says nothing about the show and something about your own expectations.

lol i feel like you're not really reading what i'm writing.  what expectations?  i'm just asking for believable outcomes and behaviors.  and we're talking about a show with dragons and zombies, so i feel like my bar for believability here is pretty low.
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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #535 on: April 30, 2019, 03:43:33 PM »
I think we can relax with the spoiler text now, at least until the next episode. And I agree that it's dissonant and unsatisfying to cut to a character doing fine when we last saw them screaming as zombies dragged them away, or being buried under a pile of five zombies. We don't need to see every single step any given character takes, but when they're placed in imminent danger like that, the scene should be resolved before checking out on that character and letting them show up somewhere else apparently okay. It would be like in a modern setting seeing one character getting held at gunpoint, and then the next time we see them they're fine. No resolution, no explanation, just them no longer being held at gunpoint. It's sloppy editing.
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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #536 on: April 30, 2019, 05:55:08 PM »
Fair enough. I guess I am willing to trade the drama of the moment for the logic of it.

they aren't mutually exclusive though.  it could've been logical and dramatic.  that's basically my whole point.

Based on what they had established up to that point, I think the route they chose was effective.  It didn't require nearly as much explanation as introducing an entirely new piece of information.  We at least have a confrontation between the night king and the three-eyed raven in the past. 

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That sort of depth has never been in the Night King. Any reason why it matters now?

yes.  now literally the only reason the living prevail is pure luck: the night king happened to have a hidden character flaw.  that's it.  that's why they win.  i think it's an incredibly uninspired deus ex machina.

the fact that his character has never been developed is precisely the thing that matters.  it would be like if oberyn never spoke.  his decision to suddenly expose himself to a defeated enemy and then lose because of it would be extremely poor storytelling without ever contextualizing why he's willing to do that.  it's not interesting writing.

Fair enough.  I think I am just startled because I have never seen much complaint about the NK until now.  maybe I just missed it.

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But why are you fixated on that? And I actually noticed that they accumulated damage via make up on most of the characters through the episode too. Were you as annoyed in the Battle of the Bastards when there was suddenly a mountain of bodies? I’m just not really getting what the problem is other than you might want something different, which says nothing about the show and something about your own expectations.

lol i feel like you're not really reading what i'm writing.  what expectations?  i'm just asking for believable outcomes and behaviors.

What you qualify as believable outomes and behaviors are part of what you expect from the show.

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  and we're talking about a show with dragons and zombies, so i feel like my bar for believability here is pretty low.

So an undead king who can raise the dead with a wave of his hand is believable, but him not being concerned with a threat from the living is not believable?  Is it something like that?

I think we can relax with the spoiler text now, at least until the next episode. And I agree that it's dissonant and unsatisfying to cut to a character doing fine when we last saw them screaming as zombies dragged them away, or being buried under a pile of five zombies. We don't need to see every single step any given character takes, but when they're placed in imminent danger like that, the scene should be resolved before checking out on that character and letting them show up somewhere else apparently okay. It would be like in a modern setting seeing one character getting held at gunpoint, and then the next time we see them they're fine. No resolution, no explanation, just them no longer being held at gunpoint. It's sloppy editing.

I am not sure it's sloppy editing because we don't really know what footage they had to cut from, but I get what you are saying.  For me all I see is a juggler with 20 balls in the air, and a couple of them fell out of the air but he kept about 17 of them going.  It was very impressive to me, and there was far more good than bad.

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Offline honk

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #537 on: May 03, 2019, 02:49:28 AM »
To share my thoughts on this season more generally, it's not good, and this last episode was particularly weak. The show at this point is little more than spectacle. It's no longer about the sharp writing, interesting characters, and powerful themes, but about splurging on their excessive budgets and showing off what they think looks cool and impressive. There's no reason why an episode centered around a battle can't be every bit as smartly and tightly written as an episode centered around political intrigue, and I'm not going to cut a show that I know is capable of so much more any slack for this kind of moronic writing. What the fuck was up with the Dothraki charging ahead of everyone and completely wiping themselves out like that? It's a rhetorical question, as I know perfectly well the answer is nothing more than the people behind this episode really wanting to have a scene where the lights all ominously flicker out and impress upon both the heroes and the audience how fucked the situation is, but that dramatic moment comes at the expense of common fucking sense. That's not how battles are fought. You don't "use up" the divisions of your army one at a time like that, because then they aren't there at a later point when you really need them. The people behind the show know this, because battles in the past were shown far more realistically than that. And like gary said, it was definitely intentional. Jorah led the charge, and there's no sign of any dismay from any of the mains until the lights start flickering.

The article crutonius linked explains most of my other issues with the stupid writing better than I could, but you don't need to be a military expert to be exasperated by the nonsense we saw. Why did they march out in front of the castle, negating its defensive advantages? Why did they dig a trench behind them? Why did Jon and Dany spend more time on dragonback bumbling about lost in the fog than actually attacking the enemy? Why did Bran decide to zone out for the bulk of the battle? Also, and this is more of a narrative issue, I found Arya stealth-killing the Night King to be kind of anticlimactic. There's no real connection between the two characters, beyond one being good and the other bad. He wasn't her villain, put simply. It's like if, say, Sam ended up killing Cersei. It wouldn't make any sense from a dramatic standpoint. On a more positive note, though, Arya's stealth section in the library was genuinely great, and the subplot with her and the Hound was arguably the highlight of the episode.

Also, I'm glad the Mormont girl is dead. She was a joke (haha look it's a young girl talking like she's an experienced, no-nonsense military commander) that was fairly amusing at first, so the writers felt they had to repeat the same joke fifteen more times.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2019, 05:40:58 AM by honk »
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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #538 on: May 04, 2019, 02:59:51 PM »

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Offline Rushy

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Re: Game of Thrones
« Reply #539 on: May 04, 2019, 04:16:51 PM »
[image that ironically sums up exactly what was wrong with episode 3]

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