Lurker > SeabassDebeste

y'all reminded me of another book quote that's ending shivers down my spine - the final words of ACOK

At the edge of the wolfswood, Bran turned in his basket for one last glimpse of the castle that had been his life. Wisps of smoke still rose into the grey sky, but no more than might have risen from Winterfell's chimneys on a cold autumn afternoon. Soot stains marked some of the arrow loops, and here and there a crack or a missing merlon could be seen in the curtain wall, but it seemed little enough from this distance. Beyond, the tops of the keeps and towers still stood as they had for hundreds of years, and it was hard to tell that the castle had been sacked and burned at all.

The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Prediction: Chekov's Mountain That Bides will have one glorious, final kill - one of Dany's remaining dragons.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Plot discussion!

Do we think the White Walkers overrun Winterfell? Do they make it down to King's Landing, and if so, does that imply that they've taken Winterfell? I can envision no scenario where Sansa and Arya die in like Episode 3 out of 6 next season, and Winterfell seems like a fitting setting for the final battle. But it would also be a big disappointment if the Army of the Dead really never punished Cersei for disregarding it.

The most common and pretty much already accepted-as-canon theory for Cersei's death is Jaime killing her when she tries to blow up King's Landing with Wildfire. Previously it seemed like that might happen when Dany was going to take over the city, but maybe she'll be doing it against the Army of the Dead?
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Yeah, I'm with everyone that BB's final villains didn't feel any more impressive than Euron to me - I actually really like Euron.

And in fairness, BB is a tighter show with far less sprawling a scope and far fewer "set pieces" of the story that need to be hit, by hook or by crook. As a result, almost any given element in BB will be of higher quality than GoT.

Back to GoT, I love Euron. But he's also a relative small fry. The only reason he and Cersei are ruling the roost is because Dany's focused on the Great War instead of the game of thrones. Could incinerate Euron's fleet and take King's Landing by storm if she needed to.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Solely based on answers in this topic, I'd like another SNES-style FF or Chrono Trigger type game - and SMB4, though I do like Yoshi too.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Johnbobb posted...

I will admit, this was probably the thing that frustrated me most this season

I think you would have enjoyed this topic much more - I know I did - before 7x05. The battle in 7x04 had (some) people thinking this season could be among the top. The one-two punch of 7x05 and 7x06 really let a *lot* of the wind out of those sails, I think.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

SeabassDebeste posted...

i'm not sure there's as much to discuss though, now that the show is so straightforward

to elaborate on this

usually when people discuss the plot, they like to talk about logistics and what characters are likely to do, based on the pieces we're given and the rules they follow

a good example of discussion gone right is cersei blowing up the sept. all the pieces are there.

however, when the show seems to sacrifice the illusions of internal logic and breaks preestablished logistical rules, the main way of guessing at future events goes from "what is likely to happen based on circumstances?" to "what is likely to happen based on what b&e need to hit endgame?"

something like jaime/bronn's great amphibious escape, or the wight "plan," puts you into that mindset
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Anagram posted...

MariaTaylor posted...

especially because the larger themes of the main story in the book are almost the complete opposite of the themes and values that the showrunners have propped up.

What would say these are and how they've been reversed?

violence reaps its own reward in the books. the show basically says that the answer is to be better at violence. arguably nowhere is this better encapsulated than in the status of the boltons in winterfell. but literally anything to do with brienne also qualifies.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Johnbobb posted...

Ugh are these topics always completely filled with people whining about everything? I don't suppose there could be a separate Game of Thrones topic that's actually for discussing the plot and not just complaining about how the CGI isn't photorealisitic enough

that can happen here too

i'm not sure there's as much to discuss though, now that the show is so straightforward
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Dany riding Drogon looks terrible, yeah, but when the dragons are flying free they look great IMO. And no, the cast doesn't make up for the awful writing - that's kind of the point!
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

What's depressing the most is how much objectively good work does go into the show. The people in charge of makeup, CGI, set design, casting, music, etc. are almost universally doing incredible jobs. The issues with the show are almost 100% traceable to writing, and sometimes directing and acting. Those should be the least difficult/expensive parts to get right compared to the massive technical work that 90% of the crew work on.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

That would never have happened. Aside from the additional stress it puts on the filming and the CGI team, HBO always wanted to stretch the IP over as long a timeframe as possible.

I do wonder whether the fact that critics are finally trending down on GOT, plus the long night, will result in S8 having significantly lower viewership than S7.

I personally doubt it, and that's probably only possible due to the abbreviation of S7 and S8.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

GenesisSaga posted...

His claim to master strategist died when he gave Sansa to the Boltons and still thought he could control her afterwards. Get got, bro.

That reminds me... I'm still not over Roose dying the way he did.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

(spoilers topic)
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i was really excited for the bran-brings-down-the-wall theories last year after he was marked by the NK. that hope essentially died in the first 5 min of S7. :/
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

velocycloraptor posted...

like 90% of the show is now shit we overlook because we don't want time wasted

EndOfDiscOne posted...

At least we don't get any more SHMATH THE BEETLETH scenes

and yet we get tyrion sneaking in broad daylight to meet with jaime underground instead of just letting tyrion capture jaime and discuss as a condition of letting him go

oh, and why not have cersei know about the meeting, too? seems fair

oh, and the meeting is to propose a preposterous plan that - get this, guys - doesn't work and fails exactly how you would have expected, despite nearly every step going off without a hitch
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

EndOfDiscOne posted...

I still have problems with this. Why did it work when Melisandre didn't think it would? Why did Davos even think to ask? And was there no price to pay for resurrection, other than an inch or so of hair? Someone elsewhere said Jon is darker now, but he's softer than both of his sisters.

RE: price - Thoros didn't think it would work when he brought Beric back, and it's unclear what price is paid there. Beric says he's less, but that's certainly not obvious.

Davos asking Mel to bring Jon back - and Davos turning into a major Jon supporter, in general - is completely out of thin air. We kind of overlook it because everyone just wanted Jon back and didn't want time wasted; and Liam Cunningham has been so great as Davos that he can kind of sell the bad writing.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

My Immortal posted...

I loved this so much but yeah. When she gave Olenna the rose I was so pumped.

And then nothing came of it and that just sucked.

Exactly. Better not to include it. King's Landing S5-S6 was a huge fucking waste of time. Cersei starts out pretty much in power, does a whole bunch of really, really stupid stuff that would result in utter disempowerment for anyone else, and ends up on the Iron Throne. It's actually even more insulting than Dorne to me personally, because KL used to be the greatest setting of the show.

Not that the Wildfire Assault on the Sept of Baelor wasn't exciting as fuck and super-well-directed, but yeah.

RyoCaliente posted...

I think the impact of Riverrun and Daario in the show is obviously less in the show, but I wouldn't call them completely irrelevant. Riverrun needed to be taken, otherwise it would be a lingering plot point where everyone could've been like "so what happened to Riverrun"

Daario's purpose essentially is just to make Dany not want to fully "commit" to Hizdahr, which is less relevant in the TV show but if you see how pointless Hizdahr was in the show, I guess you're right, it could've been cut.

In the books, the Blackfish holds Riverrun. In the show, they explicitly state that he managed to take it back from the Freys, who had held it since the time of the Red Wedding. Plus, it had been three years since the Red Wedding in the show. This subplot belonged in S4 or S5 if it were really going to be relevant.

And yeah, Hizdahr's death made all the inner conflict leading up to it kind of 'lol.'

neonreaper posted...

I haven't had large problems with the show until this season. Arya in Bravos was kinda boring. I don't know that I've ever really had a grasp on Essos. Jon Snow being brought back wasn't done very well. But I never felt like the show had major problems until now. Jamie and Bronn emerging from the water in 7-5 was just so damn jarring.

I'm sad on your behalf. I was actually probably able to enjoy the season more because the show 'broke' for me much earlier, so I sadly came to expect garbage like that.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

No, it wasn't.

Off the top of my head, I think the following could have been cut from the show very easily without hurting it much, based on what their 'payoff' was:

* EITHER Margaery's 'scheming' OR the Faith Militant
* Every scene in Dorne - just send Myrcella back to King's Landing and have her killed there by Ellaria (who was in KL anyway)
* Jaime retaking Riverrun
* Rickon and Osha coming back
* Barristan Selmy's reappearance in Essos
* Daario Naharis, entirely
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

though full disclosure - despite clearing being past GOT's prime and having some really badly written arcs, S6 is one of the better seasons, and 6x10 is possibly my favorite episode of the show's run.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

4x10. there was a lot of isolated badness early on, but broad arcs were always mindblowingly interesting and well thought out.

4x10 effectively ended tyrion's tenure as best/most interesting character - and arya's at the same time. it had the fucking terrible brienne/hound showdown. it had bran versus skeletons with fire-tossing fairies, and then he has to contend with a storyline even GRRM can't figure out how to write. it shits on tywin (who i think is *unequivocally* better in the show) and randomly had cersei overpower him; and the more human tywin dying to whitewashed tyrion was extremely dissonant. (lolshae too.) i believe 4x10 had the sansa-coming-downstairs-in-black scene as well.

the one thing 4x10 got right (and which carries S5) was jon/stannis
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

costuming probably thought that

1. white armor looked lame

2. it was better to have people armored based on their actual allegiance - arthur dayne wears targ, which gets more to the point that 'this is a targaryen loyalist' than a kingsguard uniform, which would probably confuse casuals
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

just watched the clip. interesting. i saw the show first, too.

maybe quaithe is the one who tells dany that she's barren in the show?
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

xp1337 posted...

I forget, did we mention the continuity error where Daenerys actually never was told she was made barren in Season 1? >_>

mirri uses the 'sun rises in the west and sets in the east' line, iirc
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

EndOfDiscOne posted...

Jon was mentally naming all the Great Houses in that scene. That's what I do.

The houses before the War of the Five Kings, right? Would be a pretty damn short list now.

"Stark... Lannister... Targaryen... ah, I think it's been long enough"
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

the mountain was definitely taller, but agreed that they should have done more to enhance that impression.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

EndOfDiscOne posted...

I thought that was for doing the suggestions based on the whole table, when splitting the bill.

oh my god this is brilliant
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah, it's supposed to be before tax is applied. that said, the difference should be small, as 15-20% of 10% is only 1.5-2% of the original total..
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

it was embarrassing when everyone in the dragon pit started freaking out at the wight

after not flinching at the 747-sized dragon lmao
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

oh my god now i need to see that whole scene set to the AA soundtrack
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

MZero11 posted...

At first I thought "good for him" but my God that twitter letter makes it look like he cares more about improving his image than the casting the character accurately

he obviously does care more about his career than people's feelings. people are selfish. so it's a move good for both the movie and for him. nothing wrong with that!
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

holy shit HE WAS ORIGINAL DAARIO
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

good on ed skrein. makes me more likely to check out his work.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

mnkbear907 posted...

You know, maybe Bran was watching all the Arya and Sansa scenes the past few episodes, and when he'd had enough of that shit, he just knew he had to intervene.

underrated bit of acting, but bran has become noticeably more human since hitting it off so brilliantly with sansa earlier. he seems to take pleasure in putting down LF and shows genuine enthusiasm with sam.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Yeah, Jon and Theon for Book 5 for sure. I think Jon is the MVP of the book because there's so much more of them than there is of Theon (something like 13 to 7 chapters). The final Jon chapter in ADWD is one of my favorite of the books.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

htaeD posted...

Sansa wasnt around when Lysa Tully started expositing everything

i thought she was, in 4x05.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

SeabassDebeste posted...

qhono is a named dothraki. also, no one gives a fuck about the dothraki.

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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

jon has always been something of a golden child for the show, and i didn't feel he'd done anything to earn it in the first two or three seasons. but by season 5, all the better characters were sidelined (tyrion, arya) or dead (robb, tywin) and jon suddenly became by far the most interesting character on the show. it was impossible to look away when jon was on screen in S5.

seasons 6 and 7 have been mostly bland for jon with isolated moments of real greatness, but he's bought himself a lot of leeway from me for his performance in S5.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

XIII_rocks posted...

"When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies."

Felt like such a relevant line. Unexpectedly so for this show, in this season.

Great line. I think the only way to pay off that asinine wight plot is if the nobles of Westeros overthrow Cersei, realizing that she's full of shit, and seek someone who can tell the truth.

That is not going to be what happens, considering that all the lords Jaime was talking to were obvious redshirts, and only characters with names can do anything in this show.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

qhono is a named dothraki. also, no one gives a fuck about the dothraki.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

The whole plan was flawed because it relied on the ridiculous assumption that Sansa actually trusts Littlefinger and doesn't just keep him around because he's been pretty useful. But that's fine, it's a good character flaw for LF since he's so thirsty for Stark girls.

But it also relied on Sansa/Arya having preposterously bad communication.

I listed a bunch of cases where preposterously bad communication was the only way out for LF, though! Lying about the dagger, killing Jon Arryn, and killing Lysa right in front of Sansa - those were ALL actions where a simple conversation could have ended LF. He rose to his political heights by taking massive gambles, but he's survived by getting lucky/predicting which people would not blabber at the right time.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

I don't see what's so incomprehensible about LF trying to play Sansa and Arya against each other. He was counting (correctly) on the Starks' animosity toward each other being difficult to overcome. Bran was an issue, but in person, LF only heard the 'chaos is a ladder' line. And it wasn't clear how strong Sansa/Bran were connected. He gambled on bad communication/being able to steer Sansa, and finally his hand was overplayed.

And don't forget that gambling on his opponents' bad decisions (or decisions that will benefit LF) has been part of LF's MO from the very beginning.

The very first thing he does is lie about the dagger, which anyone could have unearthed if they hadn't immediately trusted him.

He conspires with Lysa to murder Jon Arryn, but Lysa is left alive. And she's fucking batshit. He gambles that Lysa's love for him will keep her quiet.

He then murders Lysa outright, with Sansa as an obvious witness. He gambles that Sansa will feel helpless enough not to rat him out.

As for the payoff to manipulating Arya/Sansa against him - it's pretty clear that Arya will never be an ally to LF. And an Arya/Sansa union is the biggest threat to LF - not just because he could be executed (as we see in the season finale), but because the closer Sansa grows to Arya, the less she'll trust LF. Sansa, though she seems to have shrugged off LF's influence, was the only real political lever LF had to pull in the North. So he gambled, and it didn't work out.

I don't think it was spectacularly written or executed, but it made sense.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Mac Arrowny posted...

Walkers can't go under the Wall, thanks to its enchantments. I don't think Wights are supposed to be able to either, so I guess they flew the one they captured around the Wall or something?

They probably can't go through the Wall of their own volition. Given that wights did rise in Castle Black, we can assume that they can cross if carried by the living.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

foolm0r0n posted...

What I do like is that they shat out episode 6 to keep the bar super low for this finale. It worked pretty well because can you imagine going from an episode like 4 into this finale?

For me, the worst episode of the season was 7x05 (and right after the best!). That was the episode that enabled me to defend 7x06 whole-heartedly and to enjoy 7x07 without compunction, as well.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

brienne is the worst adapted character in the show. she's a showrunners' mouthpiece; the show has never taken a remotely critical look at her.

she's actually GRRM's mouthpiece in the books, too, in a way, but she's so much better of a character for it that i can't criticize that
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

JetJaguar posted...

LOL this actually means you were an underage user at one point

i think that you could've stopped at

JetJaguar posted...

Dragon66116 posted...

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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i don't think so, it turned into a dropped plot point iirc

though in fairness it also was something of a dropped plot point in the books. if the only proof in the show we ever got that joffrey sent the assassin was also tyrion/jaime's inner, unconfirmed monologue, we would have rioted

i do like that it doesn't matter we sent the assassin at this point though - littlefinger decided to use that to stir the shit either way

(another extremely incautious moment of him that came from the books, btw - dude has a history of making massive gambles - they've just been paying off until now)
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

RyoCaliente posted...

- I thought the conclusion was that the dagger was Joffrey's. Are they really gonna pin this on Littlefinger?

book-only
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

MariaTaylor posted...

brace yourselves, salt incoming

tbh, far less salty than i imagined. i literally disagree with almost nothing

small thing - the fake trial for arya was really silly, BUT i think the idea was to catch LF off guard, not just the viewer. give LF an inklimg of what's coming and the MF counterschemes.

in honesty, book-LF has a gigantic weakness in the form of sansa, too - if she had come out with the tears of lys/killed lysa story there, she could have fucked over LF real bad then, too. though we conveniently glazed over sansa being an accessory to murder by lying on LF's behalf to the lords of the vale in both cases but whatever.

the only thing about your rant i would "disagree" with is that i'd have a better overall rating, and more enthusiasm for the ending - the snow, the ice dragon (it breathes fire because of magic, obviously), the R+L=J (tyrion is a proxy for the viewer's unease with incest), and the sansa/arya scene at the end

i also feel like it needs to be said that no one flinching at a dragon with a 300 foot wingspan they're seeing for the first time, then getting shaken up by a single wight, is pretty ridiculous
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

the lannisters ransacked and abandoned CR, leaving it without provisions or food. the unsullied would have been unable to hold it without food. the idea of jaime's power move in 7x03 was to render CR worthless from a military strategy standpoint.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness