Game of Thrones - TV Series (NO BOOK SPOILERS)

[KMFJD]

 

[Fire&Blood]

I'm not saying some of that didn't feel contrived, but you can't really claim what there is and isn't "needed" for without seeing how the stories play out. There may very well be a need for some or all of these.

I think they had the Jon separation to really solidify what we've all been thinking - that the dragon queen wants Jon's dick. They are showing them getting closer which is going to make it even weirder when they find out that he really should be king by blood.

I also think that Arya has a plan up her sleeve, possibly with Sansa knowing, to take out Littlefinger. But she could also be keeping Sansa in the dark so she doesn't screw it up.

Just a lot of different ways things can play out before claiming what is "needed" and what isn't.

I'm not a pro writer, never even tried it yet I could come up with more organic (and cheaper) ways to achieve what the scenes for this episode were to do.

I think it's a combo of bad pacing, lack of trust in the audience that created the need to keep them at the edge of the seat, even at the expense of the story itself and whatever factors that the show writers have to consider behind the scenes.

To make a gaming analogy, if I'm an inch away from a monitor with a magnifying glass and scream "aliasing!!!", that's on me, but it's not if it's the first thing I see at first glance from 10 ft away.

I'm not arguing the points you are making, I'm arguing that the show could have made these points much more natural to the story it's telling, closer to the standards it set in it's early seasons while still meeting it's budget and deadline goals.

 

[KMFJD]

Hmmm...

 

[blankslate]

A main problem is that the writers are acting like the land of Westeros isn't as large as it once was.....

_______________

 

[Paratus]

A main problem is that the writers are acting like the land of Westeros isn't as large as it once was.....

_______________

Counter point

Battles in season 1

Battles in Season 7

I think the need for money to do the big scenes necessitated the shortened season and the shortened seasons necessitates fast travel.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm not a pro writer, never even tried it yet I could come up with more organic (and cheaper) ways to achieve what the scenes for this episode were to do.

I think it's a combo of bad pacing, lack of trust in the audience that created the need to keep them at the edge of the seat, even at the expense of the story itself and whatever factors that the show writers have to consider behind the scenes.

To make a gaming analogy, if I'm an inch away from a monitor with a magnifying glass and scream "aliasing!!!", that's on me, but it's not if it's the first thing I see at first glance from 10 ft away.

I'm not arguing the points you are making, I'm arguing that the show could have made these points much more natural to the story it's telling, closer to the standards it set in it's early seasons while still meeting it's budget and deadline goals.

These issues are more constrained by budget and the total remaining episode order that HBO allowed more than fans and book nerds are willing to give the writers and producers credit. With a visual production like this, you are always going to be limited by time when your source is based on a novel that has no such constraints. For this show, up until the actual book content ended, I'd guess that the pacing was as good as a fan could hope, to do the stories justice. Now, the producers have an outline on how to finish things, but without the detailed sourcing of books that don't exist, and a very real limit of # of episodes in which to finish this elaborate story that simply was far too open and loose at the point where a mere 13 episodes over 2 final seasons would be able to finish things adequately and maintain that same sauntering pace of the previous seasons. (well, 23 and more, I guess, if you go back to the previous 1.5 seasons or so?)

The travel distances and timing is very jarring--up until the Gendry run, send raven, Dany flies back beyond the wall bit last night, I was just chalking it up in my head to assuming that they are still taking 3 months to do this....just compressing that all into one episode. But at the very least, I have to give credit to the showrunners for cramming as much as they can into a very limited order. The only thing I can see at this point, missing out on, is a solid explanation of the white walkers, first men, children of the forest, etc etc. Then, maybe we can get a single solid episode or two where much of this is laid out...or I dunno, some kinda prequel?

 

[Fire&Blood]

la herpes heureuse

The lingering shot of Jaime sinking, blacking out to credits, that's how early seasons killed characters. I'm not saying Jaime has to be dead, I'm saying either kill him or cut the scene out. If you keep him alive, add a 10 sec scene that makes his escape more plausible. Minimal impact on budgets and deadlines...

Arya & Sansa happen to have a brother whose abilities could help them resolve their disputes but let's force some "day of our lives" BS in instead...

 

[purbeast0]

For those of you who have HBO Go, I strongly recommend checking out the extras for last nights episode that shows how they did the scenes outside the wall. It's incredible the amount of work that goes into this stuff. To create that frozen lake they basically redid the entire ground of a real quarry that was the size of the lake in the show.

 

[zinfamous]

The lingering shot of Jaime sinking, blacking out to credits, that's how early seasons killed characters. I'm not saying Jaime has to be dead, I'm saying either kill him or cut the scene out. If you keep him alive, add a 10 sec scene that makes his escape more plausible. Minimal impact on budgets and deadlines...

Arya & Sansa happen to have a brother whose abilities could help them resolve their disputes but let's force some "day of our lives" BS in instead...

I was thinking out loud last night why Jon didn't drop by Winterfell to check on things during his recent back and forth trips to the South and again beyond the wall. I mean, dude's on a jetpack now so I'm not really believing his urgency.

 

[Malogeek]

I'd have to say the time/distance issue jumped off a huge cliff last night, that was just ridiculous. In the space of less than 1 day a stupid amount of action was taken. It was have taken 3-4 days for a crow to fly from the wall to Daenerys let alone the time required for Gendry to run back to the wall.

The maps you find on google for episode travel distances are really funny.

 

[Aikouka]

Even if I let the expedition as is slide, as a reasonable thing to do, there was no need to sink the dragon to have him pulled out with chains.

How about how odd it was to see the Night King pull the dragon out at the end? After Jon fell in the water, we saw the undead leave. Jon pulled himself out as there were still some zombies left, and Benjen helped him out. (That alone felt so weird... especially that now Benjen is likely dead.) Then the Night King says, "Ugh, I left something behind! Turn around!"

The travel distances and timing is very jarring--up until the Gendry run, send raven, Dany flies back beyond the wall bit last night, I was just chalking it up in my head to assuming that they are still taking 3 months to do this....just compressing that all into one episode.

I don't think they would've survived for 3 months in the cold weather with very little food and water. They seemed pretty dire about it right at the onset.

 

[purbeast0]

The only truly dumb point for me last night was when Jon was like 'Get on the horse Benjin' and he was like 'THERE IS NO TIME! GO NOW!' and then proceeded to just go get killed for no reason. He didn't fend off enemies who were on the cusp of getting Jon on the horse, he walked over to them as Jon had already ridden off. There was plenty of time for him to take the 3 seconds to jump up on the horse with Jon.

 

[brainhulk]

The only truly dumb point for me last night was when Jon was like 'Get on the horse Benjin' and he was like 'THERE IS NO TIME! GO NOW!' and then proceeded to just go get killed for no reason. He didn't fend off enemies who were on the cusp of getting Jon on the horse, he walked over to them as Jon had already ridden off. There was plenty of time for him to take the 3 seconds to jump up on the horse with Jon.

Benjin must have thought the horse could get away faster with one person because we all know how fast white walkers travel.

 

[zinfamous]

I don't think they would've survived for 3 months in the cold weather with very little food and water. They seemed pretty dire about it right at the onset.

I know. my point was that up until that moment last night, I was comfortable just assuming they were going on these travels for 3 months and simply compressing it with the editing. But that would be impossible to assume that 3 months or even a week, let alone ~3 days would have passed from Gendry running back to the wall, crows flying to Dragonstand, and Danny flying back. Granted, Danny should be able to fly dragons within a day's time, right? But everything else seems inconceivable!

 

[Drako]

Was I the only one yelling at the Hound to use Gendry's hammer to break the ice?

 

[Malogeek]

They had no provisions other than what they were carrying on them. It's also freezing temperatures. They wouldn't last more than a day in reality.

The only truly dumb point for me last night was when Jon was like 'Get on the horse Benjin' and he was like 'THERE IS NO TIME! GO NOW!' and then proceeded to just go get killed for no reason. He didn't fend off enemies who were on the cusp of getting Jon on the horse, he walked over to them as Jon had already ridden off. There was plenty of time for him to take the 3 seconds to jump up on the horse with Jon.

Yeah I didn't like that either. Sure it's another 250lbs but they only had to get away for a short distance before Benjin could have got off and let him take the horse. He's apparently survived out there for years alone so he'd be fine. I get that it's all about characters fulfilling their role and surviving solely to be there for specific acts (hold the door), but at least ones in the past have been rooted more in reality.

 

[soulcougher73]

The pace of this season is ruining an otherwise great show. Its just not in pace with what we are used to, but after last night its jumped the shark on even suspending belief of travel time. They are going to rush so much into these last 2 seasons i think it will ruin the overall show. Kind of like how The Matrix is awesome, but then they made 2 & 3 and ruined the franchise kind of way. I mean its nice to see some action, but its illogical and not in the spirit of what has already been established with the show.

 

[zinfamous]

Was I the only one yelling at the Hound to use Gendry's hammer to break the ice?

I wasn't yelling at him. It was more of a baffled suggestion.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Counter point

Battles in season 1

Battles in Season 7

I think the need for money to do the big scenes necessitated the shortened season and the shortened seasons necessitates fast travel.

Travel makes sense. Look at the map - According to Wikipedia a raven can fly about 50 miles an hour that means it would have taken the raven-network 30 hours to get from Eastwatch to Dragonstone. Then dragons can fly god knows what speed, but a 10 hour flight back seems more than reasonable.

All in all a longish stakeout on the island while the ice froze again. But not world breaking.

 

[lxskllr]

Travel makes sense. Look at the map - According to Wikipedia a raven can fly about 50 miles an hour that means it would have taken the raven-network 30 hours to get from Eastwatch to Dragonstone.

Sustained Flight? That's a special raven indeed.

 

[dr150]

The pace of this season is ruining an otherwise great show. Its just not in pace with what we are used to, but after last night its jumped the shark on even suspending belief of travel time.

1.) Ya, The story of sending a Raven to Dany, then Dany having to ride the Dragons back -- thousands of miles of travel time....BEFORE they froze to death or fighting off the horde.

2.) Benjen could have easily got on the horse. The editing of the need for Benjen's microsecond urgency/hurriedness was a fail. Killing off characters like that is kinda lame.

3.) Where did they get those fancy chains? The horde has been moving away from their main camp for a long time. So WHERE did they store those chains?.........AND......that ice was razor thin to carry any weight, much less a freakin' dragon. Sure you can say the NK froze it out, bu then at least show that!

I'm also taking issue at the unbelievability of the Arya/Sansa threat/tension story. Having seen these characters drawn out, it just doesn't line up with what the viewer knows of them. Too rushed, of course, and not believable. I suspect they could make a story how both Arya/Sansa were "acting it up" for LittleFinger's sake to manipulate him to follow their purpose, since LF has the ear of that kid with his army.

.....Regardless, the Cliff Notes reduced episode count is really spilling the story outside of the envelope and ruining the "richness" of previous seasons. I'm sure they'll discuss these writing errors in film classes.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Dr 150

1) Two days and they had fire.

2) Took it to be that he was fighting the hoard order to slow them down so that John had a better chance of getting away.

3) Aria may be shrewd and trained as a faceless man but she hasn't been at all involved in the game so her solutions to everything are either build trust or try and destroy whatever is attacking her.

I don't see anything that is actually physics breaking or that it's so completely against anyone's character that it's unbelievable.

Sustained Flight? That's a special raven indeed.

Raven network - going maybe an hour each trading the message off between beaks.

I think we saw a scene of this back in season 1.

 

[brainhulk]

My guess is budget is too tight to pay actors asking for too much money.

They could have easily drawn this out to make more episodes/seasons, but the numbers weren't adding up because of the actor pay.

I bet they start over with a prequel using new actors they don't have to pay as much.

 

[Aikouka]

3.) Where did they get those fancy chains? The horde has been moving away from their main camp for a long time. So WHERE did they store those chains?.........AND......that ice was razor thin to carry any weight, much less a freakin' dragon. Sure you can say the NK froze it out, bu then at least show that!

To me, it looked like the chains were crafted out of ice... or at least they had a blue-ish tone to them that resembled icy chains. Although, that's why I said the Lich King did it better. Just stabbed a sword, and boom.. insta-Queen of the Frostbrood! (Was originally the mate of the leader of the Blue Dragonflight.)

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Was I the only one yelling at the Hound to use Gendry's hammer to break the ice?

No, because then the wights could have just climbed out of the lake onto their island (blocked by a celing of ice presumably). I was more concerned with why the NK didn't just refreeze the lake, nevermind the fact that thing should have been a solid brick of ice at that point.

If he was trying to wait them out or whatever, could have just charged over when they were sleeping. Maybe he wanted them intact and in good shape to raise.

My theory for next episode, Cerci wants to kill Brienne, Jamie's last straw, tries to take her out, gets Clegane'd, Brienne gets away.

NK takes out the wall at Eastwatch.

And, given the pace of this season, Winterfell develops interstellar travel.