Board 8 > Game of Thrones Season 7 - The enemy always wins. (SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Speaking of redshirts they really threw me off the last ep. They were never on camera except when they died, and I'm like "where the hell did this guy come from." When the last one died before the dragons came, I thought it was an actual character because they acted like it was a big deal.
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Yeah. I was doing scoring for violence points, and prior to watching the episode, I was worried about whether to attribute the redshirts' violence on wights to the Brotherhood Without Banners or to the Wildlings. Turns out no redshirt/extra even made it on screen to kill a wight. Awful directing, the type of thing that takes you out of the universe we love to discuss and sends you into TV/Hollywood land.
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The walkers are all jobbers outside the Night King. They're the zerg and win on numbers, not fighting skill.

Anyone else buy into the fan theory that the Night King is Bran? I kind of do given the clues all over the show and books about it.

They have given us the impression the entire series that while sheer numbers is the reason to fear the wights, the WWs themselves are super capable fighters, at least IMO. The one at Hardhome merked the head Thenn, and the one in episode 1 pretty easily dispatched Waymar Royce, who was castle trained by one of the most capable fighters in the world.
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Well I don't think beating Waymar or the Thenn should really count much for the WW's - their swords are capable of shattering non-magical swords.

Agreed that it's disappointing if they actually lose in single combat easily in the future.
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I don't think much should be drawn about their combat prowess from there. They needed that fight to be quick so it was. Just like they needed people to die so they invented redshirts that were never seen in any shot until their death scene.

When Jon unlocked fast travel he also unlocked holo-decoys.

Classing RPG upgrading.
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I honestly had my concerns with the notion of Alan Taylor directing a battle episode of any sort, as it seemed likely he would be doing, especially once the preview landed. He's never proven himself to me in this regard -- I know it had corporate red tape all over itself, but Thor: The Dark World is a decent example of my trepidation. He's great at up-close introspective shots. He's great at memorable small-scale moments. He's kind of a mess at this.

Compounding matters is the fact that when 7x05 aired and there were a couple of brief shots of the redshirts -- some random number of them, I don't remember -- I turned to my friend and said, "that's not a good establishing shot. The internet is going to be confused next week when those poor blokes start dying." Most people I've spoken with seemed completely oblivious to their existence until they started dropping. Even plenty of fodder in the Star Trek shows establishes itself on some level before croaking, even on TOS itself.

The battle in "Beyond the Wall" gets a lot better once Daenerys arrives, because the pure CG spectacle of her dragons and the Night King obliterating one of them is superior to much of the more human efforts on land beforehand. There are a few nice shots in the leadup, like some of the angles used when Tormund gets knocked down, and a couple of Jon's strikes. (Probably courtesy of Kit being fairly well-trained at this point.) But all told, it's messy and loses its characters and confounds people with its redshirts. When the audience expects big death and gets peons, my point about GoT willingly subverting "deathxpectation" in favor of surprise life is continually proven, and not necessarily for the best. Critics this week are literally calling for important character blood to start shedding again, haha.

I still rather like this episode despite its issues, but yeah, that was one of the weaker duke-outs. Beats job fare like the Battle for Yunkai in "The Rains of Castamere" (which holds that episode back more than folks will ever notice; it's so poorly-directed and lacks any punch whatsoever) and earns plenty of points for pure spectacle toward the end. But it can't be discussed in the same vein as Blackwater, Castle Black, Hardhome, Winterfell.
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Doesn't the Yunkai takeover happen mainly off screen? It's more comparable to Casterly Rock/Highgarden than to this episode.

There's a scene this episode when everyone backs up in a circle. I believe I counted twelve at the time. All five redshirts obviously died.
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For the people complaining about them doing videos spelling things out for the casuals, I was talking to my boss about the show last night and he thought Jon was Stannis' son.

So yeah.
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JetJaguar posted...

For the people complaining about them doing videos spelling things out for the casuals, I was talking to my boss about the show last night and he thought Jon was Stannis' son.

So yeah.

That reminds me of this

http://thefw.com/dad-names-game-of-thrones-characters/
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My dad jumped in after season 4 and watched all 40 eps in like two weeks. I asked him who his favorite character was and it took like 10 minutes of Guess Who? style questions to figure out he meant Oberyn. His first answer was "The gay dude."

He couldn't name Tyrion.
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JetJaguar posted...

It should have been Viserion AND Rhaegal OR Drogon himself.

Rhaegal is obv for Jon. I think Dany will die (in the finale or next season) and Drogon will just go AWOL while Jon will ride Rhaegal to destroy the Others.

If it was Drogon, it would have confirmed GoT to have a bad end. Nothing can stop that fucker.
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RyoCaliente posted...

If it was Drogon, it would have confirmed GoT to have a bad end. Nothing can stop that fucker.

Twenty good men.
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TWO ballistas
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Doesn't the Yunkai takeover happen mainly off screen? It's more comparable to Casterly Rock/Highgarden than to this episode.

There's a scene this episode when everyone backs up in a circle. I believe I counted twelve at the time. All five redshirts obviously died.

The difference (IMO) is that Yunkai spends several minutes on Jorah/Daario/Grey Worm traipsing through doing battle, establishes Daario as at least partially trustworthy, tries for an "epic" three-against-twenty action sequence. None of it really hits the right notes for me.
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I love how we didn't see Grey Worm since episode 3 and nobody cares
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I like how at Dragonstone they were like "been a while since we saw Grey Worm huh? yup...." and then Dany went on TWO entire dragon missions without even thinking about checking on him
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foolm0r0n posted...

TWO ballistas

One ballista, but it shoots Night Kings that throw javelins.
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Jeff Zero posted...

The difference (IMO) is that Yunkai spends several minutes on Jorah/Daario/Grey Worm traipsing through doing battle, establishes Daario as at least partially trustworthy, tries for an "epic" three-against-twenty action sequence. None of it really hits the right notes for me.

fair enough. it didn't strike a big note for me. IIRC, yunkai is taken entirely off screen in the books.

also: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6vfvqs/spoilers_extended_well_we_know_now_why_spoilers/dm0nh6u/

L. M. F. A. O.
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what is dead may die several times more

JetJaguar posted...

Upon rewatching the episode, for all the complaints people have with it, one I'm not seeing is Jon so easily dispatching the White Walker. I'm not nearly as critical of this episode as most, but that really kind of bothered me. The Army of the Dead felt unstoppable prior to this episode and now they don't. Give The Hound or Brienne or any of the fighters superior to Jon a Valyrian steel sword and the Walkers are no problem, and the wights don't feel nearly as dangerous as they did at Hardhome. Viserion feels more like a way for them to take The Wall down than anything else, in theory Drogon can pretty easily annhilate him. Look up Quicksilver from the books, who was easily dispatched by Balerion. It should have been Viserion AND Rhaegal OR Drogon himself. I guess they want to keep Rhaegal around forJon to ride because he's named after his Dad?

It bugged me too.
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It's weird that one episode has soured people on this season so much. I agree it was a terrible episode, but this season has been very high quality over all. Spoils Of War is still a top ten episode for the entire series.
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I think it's a combination of the last episode being weak, too. E5 wasn't bad but it was clearly a setup for 6 and 7, and it has to follow an amazing episode. So you have a whole episode devoted to setting up and half of the payoff is lackluster.
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I thought ep 5 was much worse than ep 6. I thoroughly was able to enjoy ep 6 in spite of the awful writing - ep 5 initiates the awful writing, but has nothing great to compensate for it. But this has the feeling of the 'Arya gets stabbed'/'Arya immediately has a huge chase scene' vibe in terms of back-to-back suck.

I think the finale will be stellar.
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I've been shitting on the show since S2 so that's my explanation
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foolmo the only opinions of yours that I've ever agreed with are FFX and MGS3 being great.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

foolmo the only opinions of yours that I've ever agreed with are FFX and MGS3 being great.

i take it you haven't watched avatar: TLA? i think you'd love it
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Post credits of the series finale. Sam in bad old person makeup is writing in a book. He closes it, the cover reads "A Song of Ice and Fire." He looks directly at the camera and says "actually all of the plot holes were just my bad memory and this was all good writing."
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foolm0r0n posted...

Seginustemple posted...

but they couldn't have emphasized that line more

Obviously they could've

Not effectively...shit if you forgot that line the way it was then you'd have forgotten it if they put it in neon flashing text with a bouncing ball, made it the season tagline, and included a ladder in every frame LF appears in from then on

Episode 3 still redeeming this season far above 5.

Above 6 is the current mark, and you just have to beat 6's finale to do that.
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I had been saying this season was better than 5 and 6, but I now take that back.
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The show is still fine, though. It's not as good as season 1 and 2 where they put effort into making things make more sense, but it's still the best thing on TV that I watch.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Above 6 is the current mark, and you just have to beat 6's finale to do that.

6x10 might literally be the GOAT episode though
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ok but high quality leak when
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i watched it

i didn't expect cleganebowl to be literally the hound and the mountain being mixed in a bowl and eaten by drogon tho
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i watched it

i didn't expect cleganebowl to be literally the hound and the mountain being mixed in a bowl and eaten by drogon tho

wait what
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obviously he's kidding

right

right?!
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Seginustemple posted...

Not effectively...shit if you forgot that line the way it was then you'd have forgotten it if they put it in neon flashing text with a bouncing ball, made it the season tagline, and included a ladder in every frame LF appears in from then on

I mean I don't get why this is so hard to comprehend when I already gave the example of Breaking Bad which has lots of highly emphasized and memorable lines and metaphors with callbacks.

Like if you think that scene was the peak of memorable scenes in TV then.... you're super wrong?
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GANON1025 posted...

Post credits of the series finale. Sam in bad old person makeup is writing in a book. He closes it, the cover reads "A Song of Ice and Fire." He looks directly at the camera and says "actually all of the plot holes were just my bad memory and this was all good writing."

I like this idea, but instead have it be GRR Martin in bad Sam makeup.
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Wait we got a leak finally?
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https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6vnncz/kenny_smith_i_hate_how_a_guy_who_played_for_the/dm21fue/?context=1&st=j6qhge59&sh=c190a959

@neonreaper @CherryCokes
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Yeah it's a bummer we traded a hero for a flat earther
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Where did the Night King get so many dead people? How many people exactly have traveled north of the wall? Are these all dead wildlings?
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Obellisk posted...

Where did the Night King get so many dead people? How many people exactly have traveled north of the wall? Are these all dead wildlings?

He's presumably been raising everyone who died for centuries. Wildlings and Rangers.
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I think this season has been alright but lacking in any proper "all-timer" episodes. Spoils of War was great but I don't know if it's top ten. The season currently feels like a mix between a rushed season and half a season. The standings in my opinion are currently something like this:

4>3>1>2>6>7>5

Let's see if the finale will change that
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ExThaNemesis posted...

It's weird that one episode has soured people on this season so much. I agree it was a terrible episode, but this season has been very high quality over all. Spoils Of War is still a top ten episode for the entire series.

The mission to get a white walker is a big deal. That normally would be a season long plot, as Jon Snow fails to recruit people to accompany him and then says F it and takes the north's finest. They capture a wight and send two guys south with it while they distract the White Walker army and lead them away. They then have a standoff while Dany is notified and comes north to save this guy she's got a thing for. A nice contract between Dany and Stannis.

Instead the whole thing is rushed within an episode, and any "how are they going to get out of this?" questions are answered with teleporting and arbitrary character decision making. The past two episodes have not made me feel like I'm in good hands, and I'm very forgiving of this stuff.
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Regarding teleportation, I think there's something to be said for the idea that you don't need characters to move a ton physically to tell an action-packed story. Season 4 is among the best for sure - Arya and the Hound never left the Riverlands, and all of the Lannisters partied in King's Landing the whole season.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Regarding teleportation, I think there's something to be said for the idea that you don't need characters to move a ton physically to tell an action-packed story. Season 4 is among the best for sure - Arya and the Hound never left the Riverlands, and all of the Lannisters partied in King's Landing the whole season.

I bet the Hound is kicking himself that he didn't learn how to teleport back in season 4 yet.
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The Hound has actually never demonstrated that skill! He spent all of the first six seasons in a very reasonable amount of space, and he disappeared for five episodes in Season 7 before making it to E-Watch.
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