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Post by TheMadQueen on Apr 29, 2019 19:22:01 GMT
I kind of wanted Cersei to SEE the NK though. shes got better things to do
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Post by Singer of Death on Apr 29, 2019 20:12:08 GMT
I'm one of the people who's not a fan of the episode. Sorry. Pretty same the same complaints. The battle is underwhelming, from spectacle to storytelling. This is Miguel Sapochnik's weakest work in the series. The cinematography is beautiful, but the lighting is awful. I understand it from a logical viewpoint, but at least with other battles that took place in the dark we can able to see what's going on. The whole WW storyline resolved so quickly with almost no major deaths besides Theon. I don't mind Arya killing the NK, but they build this up for the past seasons to make it look like it's the biggest war. There's like nothing suspenseful for the battle because of the lack of death. It made season 7 worse in hindsight. After this, I have no idea what's going to happen. Asides the complaints, RIP Theon and Jorah.
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Post by Zadeth on Apr 29, 2019 21:08:20 GMT
This video really sums up my thoughts well:
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Post by TheMadQueen on Apr 29, 2019 21:29:44 GMT
I think it is super unrealistic for people to believe the night king was gonna slaughter 60% of the continent of Westeros. That would mean Jon and Dany failed to protect millions of people. They were a big zombie army, we had a big awesome battle, the good guys won in the end. Wtf else was supposed to happen??
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Post by Father of Dragons on Apr 29, 2019 22:11:02 GMT
I don't disagree that the Night King was a cartoon villain with paper-thin motivations, but honestly that's something I made my peace with a few seasons ago. Back when it was established that he was just an out-of-control weapon, I suspected that we wouldn't be getting any more backstory or personality out of him. Even just last season I was irritated by the prospect that the Night King would get one-shot and then the army would follow; it's just something I made peace with. Also sidenote: I find it so refreshing to watch a video in which the person clearly dislikes the material, but it isn't some overly long unhinged rant and they genuinely praise the parts of the episode they found enjoyable. This is such a new phenomenon to me given the type of shite Youtube usually recommends to me.
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Post by Zadeth on Apr 29, 2019 22:21:46 GMT
I don't disagree that the Night King was a cartoon villain with paper-thin motivations, but honestly that's something I made my peace with a few seasons ago. Back when it was established that he was just an out-of-control weapon, I suspected that we wouldn't be getting any more backstory or personality out of him. Even just last season I was irritated by the prospect that the Night King would get one-shot and then the army would follow; it's just something I made peace with. Also sidenote: I find it so refreshing to watch a video in which the person clearly dislikes the material, but it isn't some overly long unhinged rant and they genuinely praise the parts of the episode they found enjoyable. This is such a new phenomenon to me given the type of shite Youtube usually recommends to me. Ideas of Ice and Fire has some great videos! I found him the other week and binged a lot of his videos. He loves the books and world so much, he just gets sad when he thinks it gets butchered. He also dislikes killing machine Arya, so I'm sure he really enjoyed last night. I enjoy that he does pros/cons/final thoughts, and that his criticisms are well thought out and well phrased.
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Post by kingeomer on Apr 30, 2019 11:06:57 GMT
I'm one of the people who's not a fan of the episode. Sorry. Pretty same the same complaints. The battle is underwhelming, from spectacle to storytelling. This is Miguel Sapochnik's weakest work in the series. The cinematography is beautiful, but the lighting is awful. I understand it from a logical viewpoint, but at least with other battles that took place in the dark we can able to see what's going on. The whole WW storyline resolved so quickly with almost no major deaths besides Theon. I don't mind Arya killing the NK, but they build this up for the past seasons to make it look like it's the biggest war. There's like nothing suspenseful for the battle because of the lack of death. It made season 7 worse in hindsight. After this, I have no idea what's going to happen. Asides the complaints, RIP Theon and Jorah. There is nothing wrong with feeling that way. No apologies needed. I can understand the people who have their complaints about the episode. I did not expect the WW threat to resolve so soon (who knows maybe there is more further north and the last shot will be someone in a frozen waste of the North whose eyes turn bright blue). I would have liked to have known what made them attack at this point in time---other than going after The Three Eyed Raven.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 12:35:16 GMT
I saw this on a facebook comment and its better reasoning then what the show gave. - Bran has the key to the past so he would know how to kill the Night King. This makes sense besides the fact that Bran had no idea lol. Even Arya stabbing the Night King with a valyrian steel dagger, there was no way she could know that could actually work since dragonfire had just failed. Its a bit funny that the night king was as easy to kill as the wights and white walkers. He was created by a dragonglass dagger in his heart, and the children of the forest didnsomething unnatural with it. Valyrian steel is powerful because the blade it forged with magic but not really explained in book or show. kingeomer i was also hoping there would be magic attached to the starks in the tomb so they wouldn't be under the control of the night king. I understand the complaints about the long night ending too soon. I think it was also resolved too quickly and brans role really annoyed me.
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Post by Zadeth on Apr 30, 2019 12:39:48 GMT
After I've had some time to mull it over, I'm not as angry with Arya killing the NK per say, but rather in the manner in which she killed him. It was like something out of an anime. I do hope we get some more from Bran next episode. It just makes the whole 3EC/WW storyline feel so pointless to me. The immense plot armour of all the central characters (or most, depending on if you count Jorah as central) is also something that irked me a lot.
Benioff said in the Inside the Episode something along the lines of "we knew it had to be Valaryian Steel [that killed the NK] and in the place where the CotF stabbed him and made the Night King", and I'm curious as to if they mean that is the only place being stabbed would have killed him, or if it is a stylistic thing that he was both created and killed by getting stabbed in the same place. If the former, how very convenient.
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Post by stoneheartsrevenge on Apr 30, 2019 12:46:41 GMT
Having had time to mull it over, i think the briefest way to sum up my thoughts is that i liked the episode as a stand alone feature length episode, but narratively it was not great for the series as a whole. I would still give it a 10 because of how well itnworked on me, visually, emotionally, with the score etc. But if i was making my score based on the episode as part of the series as a whole, it would be a lot lower. This could probably work as a short film that someone who doesnt watch GoT would enjoy
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 12:53:35 GMT
After I've had some time to mull it over, I'm not as angry with Arya killing the NK per say, but rather in the manner in which she killed him. It was like something out of an anime. I do hope we get some more from Bran next episode. It just makes the whole 3EC/WW storyline feel so pointless to me. The immense plot armour of all the central characters (or most, depending on if you count Jorah as central) is also something that irked me a lot.
Benioff said in the Inside the Episode something along the lines of "we knew it had to be Valaryian Steel [that killed the NK] and in the place where the CotF stabbed him and made the Night King", and I'm curious as to if they mean that is the only place being stabbed would have killed him, or if it is a stylistic thing that he was both created and killed by getting stabbed in the same place. If the former, how very convenient. I heard about this as well. If that was their intention it definitely wasnt clear. In fact i thought he was created beyond the wall it was never clarified. And bran never revealed this fact to anyone.
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Post by Father of Dragons on Apr 30, 2019 16:32:15 GMT
I saw this on a facebook comment and its better reasoning then what the show gave. - Bran has the key to the past so he would know how to kill the Night King. This makes sense besides the fact that Bran had no idea lol. Even Arya stabbing the Night King with a valyrian steel dagger, there was no way she could know that could actually work since dragonfire had just failed. Its a bit funny that the night king was as easy to kill as the wights and white walkers. He was created by a dragonglass dagger in his heart, and the children of the forest didnsomething unnatural with it. Valyrian steel is powerful because the blade it forged with magic but not really explained in book or show. kingeomer i was also hoping there would be magic attached to the starks in the tomb so they wouldn't be under the control of the night king. I understand the complaints about the long night ending too soon. I think it was also resolved too quickly and brans role really annoyed me. Well to be fair, nobody knew whether or not fire could kill a white walker, but they definitely knew dragonglass/valyrian steel could. So there's no reason to think valyrian steel wouldn't work just because fire didn't. They're not really related.
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Post by Singer of Death on Apr 30, 2019 17:56:24 GMT
A lot of people in the crew warned that that this season is gonna be divisive. If the episode is already divisive, I'm preparing myself for more for the upcoming episodes.
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Post by Mecha-StannisForever on Apr 30, 2019 21:06:53 GMT
This is a really, really difficult one for me. I love the episode, but at the same time, I hate it. In order to be fair, I'm gonna rate the episode from both a technical, then narrative standpoint. I'm going to ramble for fucking forever because there's just so much to say about this.
On the technical side, 10/10. There's no way around it. That was the single greatest battle put to film, perhaps ever. The cgi, the action, it was intense, and brutal as it was often confusing. It was chaos which is exactly what they were trying to convey, so kudos to the directors for making something that felt and looked authentic. As someone who's been on film sets before in the cold weather, I can only imagine what the actors and the crew had to endure over the gruelling weeks spent making this thing. Kudos to them, no sarcasm. That was literally a piece of cinematic history right there. The dragon fight between Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon was beautiful. There have never been Dragons in any piece of media that have ever looked this good. It was stunning. That scene of Dany and Jon chasing the NK up above the clouds was one of the greatest shots in the series. Melisandre emerging alone from the darkness, lighting the Dothraki swords, and the subsequent cavalry charge was also an incredibly intense visual sequence. Arya evading the dead in the library once again, was a great sequence. The short of it is that the visuals are great.
On the narrative side of things, I wanna say 8, but it feels more like a 7. I love this episode, but the issue is that for a series that has thrived for so long by subverting tropes of the fantasy genre, much like Beyond the Wall in season 7, it seems to have completely surrendered to these tropes. First of all, the battle plan makes no sense... at all. WHY ARE THEY IN FRONT OF THE TRENCHES??? That's not how trenches work! Why are they sending lightly armed, unarmoured cavalry to battle a foe that they know 1) Will not flinch in the face of a cavalry charge 2) Is 100,000+ strong so it's not like you're going to break through their lines anyway and 3) You can't even see them to begin with, so you're going in blind. The spectacle of the scene was amazing, but it was purely that. There was no reason for it other than that. Why are there no actual defences on the walls, like dragonglass spikes or something? Now, I know the reason is very obvious, it's TV, but still... Now there's the gripe people have that the death count is low, which isn't an issue for me, since they still have 3 episodes left to fill. What is an issue is the amount of times they show characters almost die, just to be saved at the last minute by someone else. It happens to Sam like four fucking times. There are frequently scenes where characters are surrounded by Wights, like when NK does his whole waking the dead act, and Jon is surrounded by, let me remind you, very, VERY slow moving Wights that appear to be putting in the minimum amount of effort. Cut away as they close in, and next time we see Jon he's handily hacking his way through the dead. But it isn't just him. Inside the walls, we see the same happen with Tormund, Brienne, Jaime, Podrick, et al. All the main characters survive, while the nameless Vale knights, Northmen and Unsullied are hacked apart by the merciless and uncompromising hordes of the undead. At least, uncompromising when it comes to extras. It just feels very predictable. I think my biggest issue, personally, is that the whole thing felt like such a let down. The Night King was never that interesting to me. He's a character that was created solely for the purposes of the show. A physical foe for them to defeat, as opposed to the abstract concept of the Great Other that's associated with the White Walkers in the books. He was an easy out for a show that is very low-fantasy, to escape the army of the dead without going to far into the realm of magic that it has pretty much avoided establishing in the show, and I get that. Not everyone gives a shit about the magic. I do. Bit of a twist since most people would imagine Stannis is my favourite character. He isn't, he's one of my favourite, but not my favourite. My favourite character is Bran. In the books, and somewhat in the show as well. I love all the magical elements of the series, from Melisandre, to Bloodraven, the Children of the Forest and in a strange way, even Euron. Bran's arc has always felt like this descent into a world of fantasy, that masks beneath it, bleak and unfathomable horror. Magic was Bran's escape from life as a crippled boy, dismissed at first by people like Maester Luwin as the workings of a child's imagination that is later revealed to be quite possibly the last hope for humanity, but to embrace that magic, Bran must abandon his innocence, his family, and quite possibly himself, and in the end, is Three Eyed Raven truly the saviour? Plenty of stuff seemed to be pointing at the idea that the Three Eyed Raven, the Children weren't as noble as they appeared. Namely all those skeletons on the floor in the caves, and the suspiciously Jojen flavoured paste. Point is, magic is presented as a double edged sword. The Night King, and the White Walkers themselves are the result of magic gone awry. The warlocks of Qarth (at least in the books) are pathetic beings that linger in this world by feeding off of others with greater magic than themselves, Stannis is an uncompromising man who is becoming increasingly affable to blood magic to fuel his desperate and doomed campaign, Euron is a monster who is willing to do utterly anything in pursuit of power. Magic in ASOIAF is power. Power corrupts. Those who surround themselves with magic, are ultimately doomed, hence the dwindling of the Children. It is a dying art, and Bran, Bloodraven claimed, may be, or at least possess the potential to be the most powerful magical being that has ever lived. I saw infinite possibilities for Bran in this episode because he is the Three Eyed Raven. He has that kind of power, and he's shown it before. I mean, he warged through time itself! But here he's ultimately useless. Unless you believe he was somehow manipulating the battle, and the events of the series to a greater extent, and hey, if it turns out later on that he was, I rescind this entire rant. But until that point, the lack of all of the above is, for me, just completely a let down.
I loved a lot of things about the episode though. The major character deaths that did occur, Jorah and Theon were incredible, and very beautiful. Ramin Djawadi, as always, went above and beyond with the music, especially during that sequence of the Night King strolling on into Winterfell. Theon's last moments, with Bran telling him that he's a good man before he charges to his death genuinely made me tear up. It felt like such a perfect ending to one of the series best told character arcs. Theon has always wanted to, and finally did prove that he was a good man. While he's not always been one of my favourite characters, there's no denying that he was one of the MVPs of this episode. Jorah dying in Dany's arms was also beautiful for a character who has devoted himself utterly to serving her, to the one person who has really been there for her entire journey, it felt like such a great moment. Him popping up in the right spot, outside the walls, at the perfect time, might seem convenient, and me giving it a pass might seem hypocritical, but fuck it, it was a great scene, and it made so, so much sense from a narrative perspective. He was the first of her queensguard after all. Melisandre was incredible this episode from her first scene, emerging from the dark alone, to her last scene, wandering out into the rising sun and dying at last. I loved that little shot of Davos following her, ready to kill her, only to see the true ancient form of Mel collapse into the snow. It felt so final, like this is what she'd been preparing and waiting for all those years, and now at long last she can finally rest. The rendition of the Lord of Light theme that played when she lit the trench was amazing. I also loved the Unsullied's last stand. I'll admit, I'm a real sucker for these heroic last stand moments, and that was up there with the best of them. From all the stories we've heard, we've never really seen this from them before. If there was gonna be a group to stand against the Wights, it would be the Unsullied. The idea of them holding the line to the end was pretty emotional, even if they are just nameless characters. The vale knights and Northerners running away from the battle, while they were the only ones to hold the line says so much about what these characters are. Grey Worm's last look at his men as he leaves them says so much about him as well. He's no longer a slave who is trained to view himself and him comrades as weapons, but he sees them as his men, and that hesitation to abandon them, and that concern showed it. I mentioned the Dragon fight earlier, but honestly, I really, really hope we get some sort of Dance of the Dragons mini-series at some point, because that Dragon fight is something that this episode did right.
I'll say 9 all in all because again, I want to love it. It deserves to be loved. I just can't help but feel so let down that all that magic and mystery that's been building up for years was all for nothing, and in the end, one deus-ex-machina leap from out of nowhere (like seriously, where did she come from), a little prick with a dagger and it's all over. Then again, Bran did give her the dagger to start with... and the White Walker was created with his magic... Shit, Bran is the Great Other confirmed... Now I've gone and gotten my hopes up.
But seriously, if this next 3 episodes is just regular old GoT hijinks with Cersei, Euron "Big Cock" Greyjon and Harry Strickland's Generic Company, I'm gonna be severely disappointed.
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Post by DaveyJoe on Apr 30, 2019 23:23:46 GMT
.......
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So why the fuck was Jon resurrected??
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Post by Basil on May 1, 2019 6:35:36 GMT
....... ... ...... So why the fuck was Jon resurrected?? So he could exploit that loophole in the vows and leave the Night's Watch without feeling bad ... duh But yeah, it does seem pretty lame and pointless in retrospect. Being dead didn't really affect Jon as a character (if anything, I feel like it made him even more one-dimensionally heroic). The whole "born again amidst smoke and salt" thing now seems like the biggest red herring in the history of the universe, so overall, it really feels like the only reason narratively for Jon to die and come back to life was simply that they needed an excuse for him to be able to leave the Night's Watch without becoming a deserter ... there really doesn't seem to be any deeper meaning or thematic significance behind it. This is one of those things that I'm like one hundred percent sure the books will handle a million times better (if they are ever finished, that is).
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Post by DaveyJoe on May 1, 2019 7:04:02 GMT
I still hope there is some of time paradox St play, and Bran becomes the new Night King. Then Jon plays the Nissa Nissa role in the prophecy. I don't even like the supernatural elements of the story as much as the politics, but I feel for the fans who found the resolution so underwhelming. I'll be shocked it the books have Arya kill the Night King. Jon's ressurectuon is just a plot device if he doesn't have a personal and significant role in the endgame. I mean, to get him out of the Night's Watch he simply could have deserted, who would stop him? He all ready tried once and you can you argue this time it was about the realm, instead of his personal desire for revenge. However, they have time to do some Bran flashbacks or twists in regards to the White Walkers and Children of the Forest. There could easily be more Revelations. So my overall opinion of this episode will hinge on what happens in the remaining episodes. But man, it certainly feels like the writing is a mess without the books. What a complicated franchise.
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Post by DaveyJoe on May 1, 2019 7:27:28 GMT
Shit's crazy. CLEGANEBOWL gonna happen after the White Walker invasions. D&D must've seen my video.
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Post by Father of Dragons on May 1, 2019 9:03:35 GMT
....... ... ...... So why the fuck was Jon resurrected?? Well without Jon, Winterfell would probably still be under control of the Boltons, Dany would've continued her war against Cersei and lost much more of her army before realising the threat from the North, Arya probably would've killed Cersei and had no reason to go to Winterfell, Melisandre would've resigned herself to death by either Davos' hands or the Night's Watch, and I have no idea what Sansa would've done. So there's a lot to be thankful for. Just because Jon's not the hero doesn't mean he's useless.
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Post by kingeomer on May 1, 2019 11:18:10 GMT
About Jon's resurrection: while he seemed to be come back unchanged and more one dimensional than ever... Father of Dragons does make good points about what would not have happened had Jon not been resurrected. Melisandre says about Beric before he dies, that he fulfilled what the Lord of Light kept bringing him back for. I wonder if once Jon does that, will he die? It seems like that is why Melisandre died too? I admit to being more into the magic over the politics but it's clear the D&D aren't. Someone posted this on FB: that when Jon is trying to evade or engage Undead!Viserion, he yells GO! at Viserion but some take it to be at Arya and as Arya is getting closer to the NK (you can tell when one of the NK's buddies hair blows in a breeze) that Bran seems to close his eyes (I could not tell that, it was just too dark for me to see that)...indicating that somehow Bran had something to do with enabling Arya to get her kill and also Jon distracting Viserion so Arya could get there. I don't know if anyone here noticed that or not.
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