I'm not pissed off, I just want to see if they put as much thought into it as Martin is likely to do. If they have a good explanation for how the prophecy links into this it's fine, I haven't had any exact scenario that I want to happen. The only thing I don't want is them just not bothering with something that's been built up. If you spend plenty time building up a prophecy it should have a dramatic outcome, which can come both from it being true and it being false. What shouldn't happen is a non-dramatic outcome.
The Sansa story in season 5 on the other hand, that did piss me off. That was an incredibly poor choice for that character at that point in the story in my view.
Sadly, the show runners seem to have a thing with rape. They use it alot in the show where it wasn't the case at all in the books. For starters, Dany and Drogo's first night as husband and wife. And then let's not forget about the completely out of character rape of Cersei by Jaime. Seriously, what is the deal with these guys?
The Cersei Jamie rape scene is still outrageous to me. It totally messes up Jamie’s character development, plus it literally is never mentioned again. I remember the backlash and D&D trying to backpedal saying it was consensual when clearly they had displayed it as not.
Why would it be mentioned again? Cersei doesnt stop ****ing Jaime after that scene. She still wants Jaime. And this is a medieval culture, and on top of that Cersei's a twisted morally bankrupt *****. Cersei shrugged that **** off.
Why would it be mentioned again? Cersei doesnt stop ****ing Jaime after that scene. She still wants Jaime. And this is a medieval culture, and on top of that Cersei's a twisted morally bankrupt *****. Cersei shrugged that **** off.
Cersei and Jamie's relationship is ****ed up. They're brother and sister ****ing next to their son's corpse and all people could think about is if it was consensual or not LOL.
They had a showdown, in the sky. We all clearly didn't just want that. It's a dispute because not everyone figured Jon would kill the night king or even cares about Jon as a character. The prophecies still were vague I'm sorry. All those situations had worthy conclusions yes but that's also our opinions. This one was worthy. I'm telling you if it wasn't Jon or Arya doing it then I'd agree it was lame. I'm really surprised in this instance I'm giving it a pass I really am but hey not the first time I've surprised myself lol. Will I come around eventually and say "yeah that sucked this series is ruined for me now." It's possible. Arya killing the night king or Jon or Dany are the only worthy conclusions since there is no other character they could use to connect to the night king in any way and they knew that.
Let's focus on the most important question to determine whether or not the White Walkers were an effective storytelling device: What did the characters and world of Game of Throneslearn by defeating them?
The toll of sacrifice? Nope. At most, only the massacred Dothraki and other nameless armies suffered much loss in the battle. That humanity's survival depends on banding together to overcome tribalism? Nope. Turns out that Cersei's plan to let the do-gooders deal with a world-ending catastrophe while she drank wine was the best plan all along! Perhaps the White Walkers added to the "**** fate" philosophy heard on the show before? Nope. The Princ(ess) We Thought Was Promised Jon Snow and/or Daenerys might've failed to realize their prophesied victory as Azor Ahai — but Arya fulfilled her lesser-known fated destiny delivered by Melisandre.
From where we're standing now, the defeat of the White Walkers only redefined the expectation that taking this story seriously was a worthwhile endeavor.
Seemingly nothing about the Game of Thrones world has changed after it was faced with the millennia-spanning existential threat of death itself. Only the North and Daenerys' armies reckoned with facing that reality, while everyone else slept soundly in their beds believing the so-called White Walkers are still one of Old Nan's wacky stories.
It wasn't the showdown I and many of us wanted but yes it was a showdown. It's understandable why you're disappointed. Jon's showdown with Ramsey wasn't a sword fight but man I so wanted that. Granted yes the night king Jon knew about longer.
Did it promise the threat would create world peace and no more petty politics ever again?
Or we just simply wanted the last plot wrapped up in the show to be the white walker final battle and then epilogue with a coronation and what not? No more politics at the end at all? The South will always think the white walker threat was BS, that's tragic and expected for Game of Thrones.
Did it promise the threat would create world peace and no more petty politics ever again?
Or we just simply wanted the last plot wrapped up in the show to be the white walker final battle and then epilogue with a coronation and what not? No more politics at the end at all?
Did you even read the article, or the excerpt I posted?
The point was that in the end the White Walkers were just another bad guy to defeat. There was nothing special about them, nothing that separated them from Stannis at Blackwater, the Wildlings at the Wall or Ramsay at BoB. Aside from nameless extras and a couple of lower tier stars that were narratively finished there was no cost to the battle.
At the very least there should've been tension between the different factions (the North, the Vale, Wildlings, Unsullied, Dothraki) about the best way to fight, and that could've led to growing divisions leading forward. Maybe Jon made a call that got some of Dany's people killed. Maybe Dany was forced to sacrifice Bran to insure the Night King was defeated.
That still doesn't excuse the complete absence of the White Walkers from the battle. Even the Night King wasn't involved in any combat himself, aside from a quick dragon tussle. And even though season 7 had already established the fact that they were going with the Keystone Army trope (just like The Phantom Menace and Avengers), I still think it undermined the WW as villains. That should've been the subversion, that the AotD didn't just disintegrate when Arya took out the Night King, that the Magnificent Seven guessed wrong.
The plot armor was also far too obvious. The whole point of GoT was that it was not just another typical fantasy story, but that actions had consequences and main characters could die if they screwed up.
Did you even read the article, or the excerpt I posted?
The point was that in the end the White Walkers were just another bad guy to defeat. There was nothing special about them, nothing that separated them from Stannis at Blackwater, the Wildlings at the Wall or Ramsay at BoB. Aside from nameless extras and a couple of lower tier stars that were narratively finished there was no cost to the battle.
At the very least there should've been tension between the different factions (the North, the Vale, Wildlings, Unsullied, Dothraki) about the best way to fight, and that could've led to growing divisions leading forward. Maybe Jon made a call that got some of Dany's people killed. Maybe Dany was forced to sacrifice Bran to insure the Night King was defeated.
That still doesn't excuse the complete absence of the White Walkers from the battle. Even the Night King wasn't involved in any combat himself, aside from a quick dragon tussle. And even though season 7 had already established the fact that they were going with the Keystone Army trope (just like The Phantom Menace and Avengers), I still think it undermined the WW as villains. That should've been the subversion, that the AotD didn't just disintegrate when Arya took out the Night King, that the Magnificent Seven guessed wrong.
The plot armor was also far too obvious. The whole point of GoT was that it was not just another typical fantasy story, but that actions had consequences and main characters could die if they screwed up.
Yes I read it, just don't agree. We'll see what the outcome is of this battle in the last three episodes.
The white walkers letting the dead do the work made sense if they didn't want to risk being killed. We just really wanted to see them fight which yeah of course we did. The white walkers were never villains. They were a force of nature, nothing more or less. That was clear. Season 7 obviously set up the "kill him, he turned them all" from Beric about the night king. If the mere purpose of them was just to give Cersei an advantage and that's it then sure that's weak in the grand scheme of things. However if they didn't put a stop to them at Winterfell, WINTER FELL, then all of Westeros would have been ****ed. They clearly had no plans for the characters that lived in that episode to die. They appear to have plans for them in episode 4, 5, and 6. Let's see what they do with them first. GRRM could very well have planned for characters like Jon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion, Sam, Dany, and Jamie for example to live and told D&D. If so then yeah they were never going to die or die when they wanted them to die or how they were told they'd die. Because some of these important characters were surrounded by zombies then they had to die? Plenty of important characters in this story and other stories as well survive many big events that in real life they'd die. That happens a lot in story telling. We'll see you could be right.
I'm also pissed that all the time we invested in watching Bran become the 3ER, his story went absolutely nowhere. He didn't do anything of importance regarding the White Walker threat, other than being god damn bait.
I'm also pissed that all the time we invested in watching Bran become the 3ER, his story went absolutely nowhere. He didn't do anything of importance regarding the White Walker threat, other than being god damn bait.
I just took it as the white walkers letting their guard down and not expecting Arya's magic assassin stealth moves. Plus I guess the twist was Melisandre's prediction from back in season 3 was specifically predicting her killing the night king so the night king couldn't fight destiny I suppose.
I don't think that was their original intention though. That fact that the order of the eye colors was different (the first time Melisandre says it, I think she says "blue eyes" second, not third) is telling. So it just seems like D&D just said, hey, it's close enough, we can pretend that was the plan all along.
A big part of the issue for me here is their reasoning, that Jon was too predictable. That's not a story reason, it's not a thematic, narrative, or character reason. Most of their choices throughout the history of the show, even if it went against expectations, had a narrative, thematic, or character reason, not a 90's action movie gotcha reason. Story and character-wise, this was Jon's story. Cersei is more Arya's realm.
If D&D were worried that Jon would be too obvious, then the issue lies in coming up with the execution, not the executioner. Imagine Tolkien/PJ thought that Frodo, Sam, and Gollum were too obvious and had Legolas coming in on a eagle and shot Gollum once he takes the ring from Frodo, causing Gollum to fall into the lava. Or someone other than Luke or Vader killed the Emperor: "Han's popular, let's give it to him." Or Ron took out Voldemort because Harry was too obvious a choice. Or
The Wasp sneaks up on Thanos and takes him out rather than it going to Cap or Tony.
All I know is that I held off rewatching the series before this season started because I thought I'd watch it after the show ends and I can watch it all at once, assuming the conclusion warranted a rewatch. But how this storyline concluded (unless more is done with it), it will feel like a lot of time spent with Jon and his journey with the Wall and the Wildlings and the White Walkers will have been wasted time because it doesn't wind up with a satisfying conclusion, imso. It's a real shame.
It wasn't the showdown I and many of us wanted but yes it was a showdown. It's understandable why you're disappointed. Jon's showdown with Ramsey wasn't a sword fight but man I so wanted that. Granted yes the night king Jon knew about longer.
I don't think they ever established that Ramsey was a particularly good swordsman. He is more of a coward. He was also more involved in Sansa's storyline than Jon's. So, what did we get? Jon challenging him to a dual that the cowardly, yet tactically sound, Ramsey declined. Ramsey then did Ramsey things: using people's emotions against them, and he would have won had Sansa not done a Sansa thing, which is use her political connections to bring in the cavalry. Jon still got a great moment when he used the shield to knock Ramsey out, showing the disparity in their physical capabilities, but then left it to Sansa because that was her story to close out.
The NK was Jon's storyline. And Cersei is more Arya and Sansa's storyline until it comes time to decide the crown itself which then brings it back to Jon and Dany.
Thereby having one of the dragons attack/distract the zombie dragon, giving Jon the opportunity to move past it. Then, you could have Jon about to fight the white walkers, obvious outmatched, so the NK, so close to victory, yet so arrogant, has the white walkers move to the side and allow Jon into the circle, and Jon actually does reasonably well against the NK, but not well enough, but it's enough that the focus is not on Arya who comes in and gets a final blow. At least this way, you have Jon be relevant. The way they did it was just "gotcha."
Are we done with the White Walkers? We're not gonna answer that.
Did Bran know Arya was going to kill the NK? Possibly
Will someone take the Iron Throne? Possibly
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