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Post by o on May 21, 2019 13:01:49 GMT 1
I'm sure George will get there but based on his previous bloated books, you'll have to trawl through 1000 pages of pointless nonsense to get there, if that's what you prefer, so be it. The guy needs a harsh editor, but no one dare tell Mr Martin that! No wonder Bran looked so bored all along, he know what was coming, but had to wait a blooming long time for it!
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Post by greendemon on May 21, 2019 17:27:52 GMT 1
As promised, more thoughts... Drogon melting down the Iron Throne: YES. I loved this so much. It was something I'd wanted, but hadn't actually expected. Dragons are supposed to be very intelligent so it made perfect sense to me that he understood that Dany's obsession with the Iron Throne cost her her life. That final scene with him nudging her lifeless body made me tear up a bit. Even more emotional than that, and possibly the standout scene of the season for me, was Tyrion discovering the bodies of his brother and sister. Wonderfully acted. That shot of the twins dead in each other's arms was beautiful. The other scene I absolutely loved was Brienne filling in Jaime's entry in the White Book of the Kingsguard. She could (as some people wanted!) written something awful about him in there, or torn out his pages altogether, but honestly that wouldn't have been true to her character. She always saw the best in him, even when he didn't deserve it. The endings mostly made sense to me: - No Iron Throne - it's caused enough problems, and if we're getting rid of the Targaryens it makes sense to get rid of the monarchy that they brought with them. - King Bran... huh. I didn't see that coming, but I can get on board with it. Mostly I was just relieved they didn't pick Gendry! I love the idea of them doing away with hereditary monarchy - though it does beg the question as to whether Sansa will follow the same system, or if there will always be a Stark in Winterfell? I've seen some disappointment that we didn't end up with "true" democracy in Westeros. That wouldn't have been remotely believable, IMO. - Queen Sansa gets her independent North - completely fine with this; I saw it coming but I also thought all the kingdoms would go their separate ways. I'm not entirely convinced that the Iron Islands (never big on kneeling) and Dorne (who liked being a sub-kingdom so little that they alone get to call themselves Princes) wouldn't also declare independence at the same time. I think it wasn't "breaking the wheel" fully, so much as battering it a bit. - Jon going back to "the real North" and being reunited with Tormund and Ghost: that was certainly fitting and ultimately all he really wanted. But his fate is problematic to me. I don't buy that the Unsullied and Dothraki wouldn't have Jon killed on the spot after what he did to their queen. And I also don't really know what the point of the Night's Watch is now that there is peace with the wildlings (are they going to rebuild the broken bit of the Wall? They never said...) and the White Walkers are no more (or so we think). - Arya didn't kill Dany and goes exploring instead, just as I thought/hoped. As for her never "closing green eyes", I'm glad we never got an explicit pay-off for that. I think when Melisandre first said it in Season 3, her intended meaning was just that Arya would kill a lot of people - which she has. - Tyrion: he was my favourite character for the first four seasons but let's be honest, he probably shouldn't still be alive. Dany put him in a cell and yet she executed Varys apparently immediately. The proposed ending - that Dany would ask Drogon to kill him but Bronn appears and shoots Drogon in the eye to ensure he gets his castle - would have made more sense. - There was something quite satisfying about seeing the band of misfits united in the Small Council at the end, even though that scene was incredibly cheesy. I'm not sure I understand why Sam is a maester now, when they're not supposed to marry and he has two kids with Gilly? Also, I thought they made it clear he was done with the whole thing after Season 6. And I don't know why anyone, much less Bran, would trust someone like Bronn with the keys to the realm's coffers! TL;DR: Overall, it was a satisfying ending for me in terms of the endings themselves. It's more or less the "best" ending we could have got. Sure, it felt a little fan-servicy, but it's not leaving a bad taste in my mouth. That said, I still wish they had taken the time to flesh out these storylines more fully, to make Dany's undoing more believable, and to lay the groundwork for King Bran. I wanted more of the journey, rather than just the destination. Most of all, I wish we'd got more from the Night King and the White Walkers - the winter that was supposed to last a generation. I think I might have been less disappointed than most because I lowered my expectations after "The Long Night". This show has been one hell of a ride. I've probably liked it less as it's gone on but I'm still massively invested in the fandom and can't wait to read the books (if and when they are ever written, hurry up George!) and see whether the GoT prequels and spin-offs can live up to this show's monumental standing.
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Post by S1m on May 21, 2019 17:53:07 GMT 1
I wish the "winter" had been the literal awful seasons as suggested in the books and not just a vague metaphor for the dead coming south. In the books they're preparing to survive years of cold and famine and suffering and the dead arriving is just the cherry on that particular cake. It makes sense to me that the process is helped/exacerbated/heralded by the dead, but not that they're defeated and it goes back to being well, what exactly again? Autumn? I love the crazy seasons in the books, particularly in the prequel novellas where it's Spring and it's STILL awful as everyone has the plague!
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Post by greendemon on May 21, 2019 18:33:34 GMT 1
Yes. I wanted to see more of winter proper, like what Ser Alliser was talking about in Season 1. I did like that it was snowing in KL in the finale. But yes.
It's a bit of a cop-out that they never addressed the wonky seasons or what was causing it. I think it'll go differently in the books.
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Post by o on May 21, 2019 21:04:40 GMT 1
Snow, I thought it was ash?
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Post by greendemon on May 21, 2019 23:28:16 GMT 1
To be honest it's probably deliberately left vague, but by the end I was pretty convinced it was snow. It was too white to be ash, and it also looked like it was falling like snow.
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LT
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Posts: 15,782
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Post by LT on May 22, 2019 8:46:05 GMT 1
I think the biggest disappointment for me was that build up of the white walkers and it was over in the blink of an eye. I waited all those seasons for that??
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Post by Jordan on May 22, 2019 9:43:17 GMT 1
More to the point, after seeing the destruction Drogon was able to do to Kings Landing, how the hell couldn't the Night King obliterate Winterfell in mere seconds? Even with two other dragons on his tail he should have been able to level the place. It's a fraction of the size of Kings Landing.
That being said, I am more at peace with how things have gone now. The first time I watched the episode was live on Sky Atlantic so I had to watch the ad breaks. Watching it again straight through and I found it a far more enjoyable episode as the pace (there was one, you know?) wasn't interrupted.
A more climatic final shot would have been great though. I get that they ended where they started, in the forest beyond the wall. But how epic would it have been if they'd stumbled across another of those weird spirals made of fresh body parts??
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LT
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Post by LT on May 22, 2019 10:50:18 GMT 1
Im at least happy the ending was quite vague I actually didnt mind that and the dragon carrying its mother away was genuinely a really touching scene. Its a shame the dragon didnt give john snow a good barbecuing! that would have been a great end to him!
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Post by o on May 22, 2019 12:34:46 GMT 1
So all those wanting more from the Night King, did you want him on the throne, or how did you want him killed, and what length episode should it have been, or how many minutes/hours to kill him? Of course the dragon could have levelled Winterfell, and I thought in a few scenes he did seem to be carving holes in it, but then there wouldn't have been a battle, just more dragons burning stuff, haven't we had enough of that elsewhere?
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 14:21:08 GMT 1
I didn't want a longer or "more epic" battle episode. I wanted more episodes, or at least a longer gap between the Wall coming down and the end of the Night King than 3 episodes! It felt very anticlimactic to me to have him be defeated in basically the first big battle since they broke through the Wall.
He had a dragon, for Pete's sake. He could easily have flown where he wanted to raise some more men before attacking Winterfell.
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 14:25:35 GMT 1
So yeah - I said I loved the ending, and I do, but I really wish they had taken more time to get there. The epic battle episodes were spectacular but they were a poor replacement for more gradual storytelling with some depth to it.
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Post by S1m on May 22, 2019 16:56:53 GMT 1
I think all those wanting zombie dragon action are forgetting it was a zombie. Dead, decaying, insane most likely too. Not sentient and intuitive like the living ones. The Night King did well to do anything at all with it, I thought! By the end, it was haywire. Go back and watch it. Cold fire is coming out erratically at strange angles like it's not in control any more.
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 18:23:37 GMT 1
I thought the way it was behaving at the end was due to it being injured in the battle with the living dragon? Rhaegal visibly bites/scratches Un-Viserion's neck at one point and I think that's why the flame was going all over the place.
That said, I'm not terribly bothered by the NK's failure to obliterate Winterfell's walls with the dragon - I just wanted him and his dudes to actually do more in Westeros.
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Post by S1m on May 22, 2019 18:41:07 GMT 1
I thought the way it was behaving at the end was due to it being injured in the battle with the living dragon? Rhaegal visibly bites/scratches Un-Viserion's neck at one point and I think that's why the flame was going all over the place. That said, I'm not terribly bothered by the NK's failure to obliterate Winterfell's walls with the dragon - I just wanted him and his dudes to actually do more in Westeros. Oh yes, I'm not doubting the injuries, just how everyone expects a living dead dragon to be any less unreliable than a living dead human! Also, Dany properly tamed and learned to ride her dragons, whereas the Night King sort of just went for it. I was more shocked at him being even remotely good at flying and controlling Rhaegal! Also, Sansa said "tens of thousands" of Northmen were killed during the battle against the dead. I'm assuming not just at Winterfell as remember other places fell on the way down there. I might have secretly felt a bit exhilarated at the idea of wights in the south, but how many more tens of thousands of people would have died for them to go there? And then the dead would have risen and that would be game over for our heroes! As soon as it became about the Night King going for Bran, it was less likely he'd go any further I thought.
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 18:45:05 GMT 1
I've always assumed the Night King's power of control is similar to Bran's warging - it's just that instead of taking over someone's/something's mind, you're occupying an empty shell, so I think it's a lot easier.
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 19:04:48 GMT 1
Also, Sansa said "tens of thousands" of Northmen were killed during the battle against the dead. I'm assuming not just at Winterfell as remember other places fell on the way down there. This is all very well and good but could we not have seen that? I'm not saying I wanted another big battle or the one we got wasn't epic enough but it was super anticlimactic to just make it all about the battle for WF. Even one or two more episodes to allow that to play out a bit more would have helped. Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and admit I wanted more people to die This was supposed to be the second coming of the Long Night, the winter that lasted a generation. Remember Old Nan's story from Season 1? I wanted that, basically. I feel like that was what was teased and it just didn't materialise. You are right that as soon as it was clear he was coming for Bran, and Bran was in Winterfell, that it would all end there and then. But I would have loved it if Bran had been wrong about that and they'd set up this whole trap for him with Bran as bait, only to find that the Night King had gone somewhere else first. I'm just spitballing. I'm not a scriptwriter. I don't necessarily know what I wanted between the Wall coming down and the attack on Winterfell - but I wanted *something*.
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Post by o on May 22, 2019 19:10:00 GMT 1
Hardholme showed us what he coul do...
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Post by greendemon on May 22, 2019 19:23:00 GMT 1
Hardholme showed us what he coul do... Yes, and it is my favourite episode of the whole series. Hardhome was exactly why I wanted more in season 8.
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Post by Jordan on May 23, 2019 9:29:17 GMT 1
So all those wanting more from the Night King, did you want him on the throne, or how did you want him killed, and what length episode should it have been, or how many minutes/hours to kill him? Of course the dragon could have levelled Winterfell, and I thought in a few scenes he did seem to be carving holes in it, but then there wouldn't have been a battle, just more dragons burning stuff, haven't we had enough of that elsewhere?This is a storytellers problem, not a story problem.
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