In reply to: 602 days...and nothing GoT. Booooo. * posted by Inigomontoya
We've spent seven seasons seeing the various ways that each character developed their mandate for power. And the episode started strong with Dany questioning Tyrion's fitness for hand of the king. She needed a hand that is both instinctual, intelligent, and ruthless when needed.
Jon was anointed king of the north through his battlefield victories over both the wildlings and Ramsey Bolton. Dany came into power through freeing the slaves and having dragons. Tormund's mandate is presumably through being the strongest warrior of all the wildlings. Sansa's and Tyrion's mandate are derived from their political cunning.
In this episode? Multiple men were asked to hide in the crypt instead of fighting. Sansa and Dany, the two most powerful women in the show, passive aggressively argue about a boy. Theon Greyjoy offered to defend Bran and everybody seemed ok with it. Jamie, who can't fight, offers to fight.
How does this army have any credible chance to defeat white walkers? They don't have any plan for the dragon (I'm assuming the dragonglass machete's aren't enough). Their leaders are defeated.
Their best chance has something to do with Bran's mystic energy, which we still know very little. And, he is being defended by Theon Greyjoy who's greatest military victory is conquering a defenseless castle. I don't think he's ever seen a whitewalker.
I'll go top 5.
1) Arya
2) Sansa
3) Jaime
4) Tormund
5) Brienne
Jon and Dany are somewhere near the bottom. Their story has honestly become the least compelling. The show started out strong for Dany, but since season 3 its just been a stunted slog for her character to get to this point.
Dany had about 8 minutes.
I am guessing a lot of the other characters die next week, so they gave those characters time to say good bye to each other and to the audience too.
Episode 1 was schmaltzy welcome back fan service and I thoroughly hated it.
Episode 2 was, dark fan service and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Every single fuck you to the audience was referenced and relished and put in its place...remember when we cared about all that?
Two table setting episodes for 80 minutes of gore. It was absolutely fantastic. Not every conversation landed but all of them were valid.
Arya wins the episode for putting every man she’s ever dealt with in their proper place, beneath her, figuratively and literally. Anyone ok with Arya killing a couple dozen people and using seduction to get close sometimes but NOT ok with a teenager fucking her crush has a weird set of priorities.
And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Capturing the eve of battle - with all of its emotion - is hard to do well.
Some great scenes have warriors spending the last few precious moments in a lover’s embrace (Charlton Heston’s character in “The Warlord”), others have group prayer and reflection (The fireside scene in “Glory”). It’s where characters bare their souls.
Last night had a little of everything, and the dialogue was very well written. The tension was great. So was Giant’s milk.
There was just too much bad and lazy writing for me to call it brilliant.
Sansa and Daenerys have a conversation.
Sansa: What are you going to do about the North?
(convenient interruption so the writers don't have to flush out their disagreement further)
Jon for some reason decides to tell Daenerys about his true identity literally 45 seconds before the battle is going to begin.
(convenient interruption so we don't see the fallout of this)
What was so great about the first few books (and the first few seasons of the show) was that the motivations of the characters made sense and there was a certain unpredictability of who would die and what would happen next.
Now, Theon and Grey Worm (and a few others) might as well be wearing a neon sign stating "DEAD MEN WALKING." It's boring and predictable and just feels false to me.
Many of the scenes just came across as bad fan fiction.
The episode had its moments, but I wouldn't consider it brilliant at all.
story has unfolded, it is to resolved in a battle against a more powerful force.
My issue with the battle plan is that the battle will be about the dragons. Daney's 2 dragons will have to do more damage to the army of the dead than the Night King's dragon does to the living and hopefully there won't be another dead dragon resurrected.
They need to pay off the Lord of Light prophesies.
Who is the Price who was promised.
Why did Beric and Jon Snow get raised from the dead?
Anyone else have a “uh...is this ok moment”?
are almost a direct analog to Arya/Maisie Williams this season as far as character and actor ages. So to say that this scene is the one that turned people off really calls into question the use of nudity in the series as a whole. This is a reasonable point of discussion, and one that's certainly been discussed before.
A 24 year old you've never seen before vs a 21 year old you've been watching since she was 13 is very different.
up definitely made this episode creepier. OTOH the scene itself was pretty normal and natural, and Dany's was decidedly not.
I'm surprised that Dany was 18, though - I assume they upped her age for the show, probably for that reason? I thought she was 14 or so in the books. The fact that Arya was younger in the books as well didn't affect me as much as it did other posters. I haven't read them in years, they were ponderous and it was difficult to keep track of how much time had elapsed, and they never reached this point.
***edit*** Mitigating is obviously not the correct word. Not having any luck finding the word I was actually looking for. Getting old is hell.
Because book Arya is even younger, and she was just a kid when the show started. I couldn't handle it.
she wanted to know the feeling, too. It affected my gag reflex.
Wants to have sex the night before she will probably die and that’s gross? On a show that has incest multiple times, rape, burning children at the stake, and eating a sausage in front of a guy who’s dick was just cut off? But an 18 year old girl who wants to get it on is going too far?
trolling him for some up on the ramparts but then one-eyed guy comes along and cockblocks her.
But then she goes on to the blacksmith. She first quizzes him on his prowess with how many partners he has had, and then demands his body—after earlier in the day threatening him with a display of dagger throwing.
Not My Arya!!!!
I did predict that Arya would end up with Gendry, but I thought it would be a PG ending. While Maisie is 18, her character Arya can't be more than 15. I have to think that she wanted to do the scene and HBO allowed it. Still trying to process it - a huge leap forward in her story line that caught me by surprise.
chuck knives with aplomb but you're offended by her getting busy with a bastard? Interesting.
Oddly, I swore in the book that she posed as an actress and killed a guy mid coitus. I can't find that online.
Found the scene unsettling.
I don't know about "mid-coitus" but I think she lures him with the promise of premarital relations and then knifes him.
but knew I read it years ago.
Not that that makes a huge difference.
And let her choose how much to show. She obviously opted for a middle ground. I think it’s probably something that makes sense for her career — process thinking of her as a young woman rather than a little girl now, because she is 22 and does not want to be super-limited forever — but still, she’s like family and young family at that to the audience.
It seemed like a bigger leap to sexuality given the way Arya has acted and dressed over the years, and the fact that she looks younger than her age. Although Maisie is 22, I have a hard enough time getting to her screen age of 17 given those factors. Still, 17 is not young by Westeros standards.
I also agree with you from a career perspective. She has to move on with her acting life now. It will be hard enough as it is for her to get past this role.
She is the one who initiated it. It was her "choice." Perhaps a statement about women being sexual beings who can choose what to do with their bodies just as the men on the show can.
"She's not a kid anymore" idea. From a character arc perspective, it certainly makes sense.
It was also why I liked this episode as well. Seeing all the people in one place was actually fairly compelling, as it really drove home the scope of character development that's happened over 8 seasons.
I had to look it up as I assumed she was younger. I thought the scene was going to stop with the kissing and let the audience imply what happened.
I may have said the words “they had better not show her boobs.”
She looks 12, Gendry looks like a grown ass man.
(Ok me) that celebrates the entire catalog of female nudity in that show, that could have been a bridge too far.
Was it wrong I said “A girl has no virginity.”?
Personally and possibly all of mankind. Pretty big metaphysical moment. Thought it was done well.
And at the end it explains the stupid dragon joy ride last week. Jon and Dany are going to lead the battle aboard the dragons. They are both Targaryons, after all. The ultimate battle to decide the fate of mankind wouldn’t be the best time to go for your first dragon ride.
I got a kick out of them using the Jenny of Oldstones song, but it may have been a bit of foreshadowing.
when Jaime knighted Brienne.
Dunk was never knighted.
I was laughing my ass off.
Arya getting it on? cringeworthy.
Snow telling Dany that he’s her nephew before massive battle? Nice timing.
Right up there with Hoffman revealing he was banging Mrs. Robinson.
Bring on next week.
Night King not shown in preview, but I assume he’s rolling on the dragon.
If the NK doesn't even show up in Winterfell. He can make a new army wherever he goes.