Game of Gnomes Series 8

[Corpsey]

Not all bad, though! I did find some of the pre-battle character moments touching. I actually had a moment of real old-skool GOT excitement when I thought that Tyrion and Sansa were going to stab themselves rather than being turned into zombies. But then they didn't, they just uhhh dunno?

Returning to the point re: visuals, the most visually striking moment in the battle was probably when the Dothraki disappeared in the darkness. BUT - WHY did they all run off into the darkness anyway?! How did Jorah survive? Why didn't anybody ask Jorah what had happened? Why didn't they fire fireballs constantly from behind a moat? How in the FUCK did Arya get that close to the Night King?!

 

[Corpsey]

I actually had a moment of real old-skool GOT excitement when I thought that Tyrion and Sansa were going to stab themselves rather than being turned into zombies.

Obviously this was the return of the feeling that was once integral to watching GoT in the earlier seasons - the anxiety and excitement of knowing anybody could die.

I wonder how much of the stuff that's happened was what George R R Martin had planned.

 

[Corpsey]

It's really the writing that's letting it down at this point, there are just so many inconsistencies, ridiculous leaps and plain stupid decisions being made in the writer's room.

- Bran wargs into a handful of ravens for seemingly no reason.
- Jon ends up surrounded by hundreds of undead yet somehow fights his way through.
- Their plan to light the trench is to hope that Dany can see Davos waving a couple of torches on the wall from miles up in the middle of the night and during a snowstorm.
- They place the bulk of their army ahead of their trenches and defenses.
- They use their catapults once.
- They send the Dothraki charging into a death trap for no apparent reason.
- Jorah appears out of nowhere to defend Dany.
- Dany's in trouble in the first place because she just sits in the middle of the battlefield and lets a bunch of wights climb onto her dragon.
- The Night King decides to go after Bran when he could have just repeatedly reanimated the dead until there was nobody left.
- Arya manages to sneak past the entire battle and every white walker undetected, despite barely making it out of the library.
- Sam spends most of the episode covered in wights then proceeds to lie on a pile of corpses, crying, and somehow survives.
- Jaime and Brienne are pinned to a wall by hundreds of them for at least 1/3 of the episode and somehow survive.
- Nobody thought that perhaps the bodies in the crypt could be reanimated too.

On top of that, the decision to end the Night King's arc the way they did and when they did was really disappointing. We've had years of build-up and that's it? He just walks around smirking for a bit then dies? I thought we'd at least get some more depth once he met with Bran, that they'd discuss something or have some weird showdown or that Jon would have to fight him one on one. Now we're going from an undead king riding a dragon and hordes of unstoppable zombies to a manipulative monarch with a bunch of mercenaries? It's such a step down.

ALL OF THIS

 

[Corpsey]

Some good moaning here

- Plot Armour - In the first attack they show Brienne being swarmed by armed wights.. they cut away then cut back & she's fine? One handed Jaime who could barely fight survived? Brave warriors that have been trained for years died instantly but Chubby Sam who can barely run and has been knocked down dozen times and was swarmed by armed wights survived? In the laughable courtyard scene where they show all of interior army dead, all except our main characters..? Sansa, Tyrion and Varys survived the attack in the crypts somehow. Theon and his men were surrounded by armed wights, they cut away then cut back and most of the wights vanished..? Jon was surrounded by wights they cut away and cut back and most the wights vanished? It gets to the point where you aren't afraid of them dying anymore.

Arya: Her Character story-wise probably is the most ridiculous in the episode! She Trained for years to be an assassin, She was fighting fine in battle but Spontaneously get spooked in the middle and forgets how to fight but then she gets saved by a man who keeps getting resurrected and then a weird women who is obsessed with prophecy quotes her fencing instructor from like eight years ago giving her the motivation to sneak past hundreds of zombies to stab his all-controlling leader who recklessly wanted to kill his nemesis himself..... WHAT? Logistically it might even be more ridiculous! What has she been doing since she left Melisandre? How did she get from the Library to the God's wood through that huge battle going on? Wights can hear her blood drops so how did she get past hundreds of wights and dozen white walkers to get close to the NK? Why is she flying in from above? Don't tell me she was hiding in a tree because a WW sees her zip by. This is just absurd on so many levels, I feel like they did that just for the sake of subverting our expectations and nothing more. Since D&D wanted to “subvert our expectations” they should have went all the way and had Ironman kill the NK. He is a stark after all.

 

[IdleRich]

Uninteresting and seemingly invincible

Yeah that's it. Turns out to be a particularly irritating combination - who knew?

 

[Corpsey]

I've got this theory in my head now that with GRRM no longer writing stuff, it's all fallen into the hands of screenwriters who have been irredeemably corrupted by ... TV.

The battle episode reminded me of a MCU movie more than anything - albeit a particularly boring and incoherent and nonsensical one.

 

[Corpsey]

from reddit
"Can’t believe the Winterfell Crypts were made out of drywall."

 

[Corpsey]

So after moaning and sulking all day about the stupid battle episode - episode four was brilliant. Reminded me of why the show was so good in the first place. Tension, complexity, moral depth, almost all conversations. Perhaps others will now say I'm mad itt was shit but I really loved it. Made me glad they got rid of the boring zombies, actually. No more magic, just mayhem.

Also can't believe it didn't occur to me that Qyburns dragon killing gun wouldn't be a one off :crylarf: it's a bit like they've discovered guns.

 

[Corpsey]

Urine greyjoy.

I was gutted when he turned up but he wasn't really in it much thankfully. I don't really find Cersei interesting anymore, the interesting conflict (which I wouldn't have thought would be) is the Jon Vs Danny thing. They laid out good arguments for both sides, I can imagine Tyrion and Varys feeling conflicted over that choice.

The ambush was silly in retrospect, perhaps I just forgive these things more easily now, especially after the last episode. I was also a bit unconvinced by the blossoming of romance between Jamie and Brynne, but I liked him admitting (or telling himself) he is a bad man. It's easy to forget that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Unless Qyburn invents a fighter jet for Cersei, dragons should be the fastest and most maneuverable weapon or war vehicle available to any side in this conflict, right? Using dragons to ambush a war fleet makes sense. Using a war fleet to ambush dragons is just fucking stupid.

 

[Corpsey]

I mean arguably if the dragons had ambushed them they might have had a chance of killing them. I don't find the idea completely ridiculous, but it was done badly - I don't like letting the writers off but I grant them limited time.

I suppose this is an important consideration for clemency for the makers of the show - unlike George R R Martin, they have had to come up with stuff quite fast, and are restricted by budget and running time at the minimum. I don't think they're anything like as good writers as GRRM (at least in the first few books I've read) but perhaps they've done better than we can know.

It seems to me that they're clever enough to see what everyone else has seen with the plot holes, shit strategy, etc. But they're bound by considerations of spectacle, limitations of time and budget, and technology, and I wonder how much this drives them to write ridiculous things. To reiterate, I'm not forgiving them exactly for the bad bits in the show but to think back to how little fanfare the first series seemed to be released to (perhaps I'm misremembering), it's really a MIRACLE this show is going to finish as it is now.

 

[Corpsey]

Incidentally, speaking of Qyburn - was glad to see Anton Lesser get to do just a touch more than usual.

I'm actually sad that we seem to have reached an interesting scenario, more interesting than the white walker stuff, and we've only two episodes left.

 

[muser]

My bar is comfortably low now and I enjoyed the episode to be honest. When the ambush came first thing that came to mind, before how it didn't really make sense, was that the pacing felt off , just seemed kind of random. I guess that's a theme of the last couple of seasons, they just don't have time to get in all the things they feel they need to without it being rushed and often shoehorned into the story with lots of inaccuracies.

Haven't read or heard the reasoning behind the shorter seasons and time frame. I'm guessing they had to fix down a number of seasons to the finale with HBO and then they decided they needed to be much higher budget for the big battles etc so opted to have less episodes.

 

[Corpsey]

Bronn showing up (somehow evading guards and not being under threat of death if he does kill the Lannisters) was ridiculous, really - but I liked the scene, especially him pointing out that Jamie and Tyrion's distant ancestors weren't genteel paragons but cut-throats. So there's an example of an improbability I'm willing to let slide because I like what happens.

 

[Corpsey]

Haven't read or heard the reasoning behind the shorter seasons and time frame. I'm guessing they had to fix down a number of seasons to the finale with HBO and then they decided they needed to be much higher budget for the big battles etc so opted to have less episodes.

I think the showrunners didn't really want to make more GoT. They have been tapped to do some Star Wars stuff, so they're ready to move on. I actually don't think they expected to get this far. They wanted to adapt the books and since they ran out of books I suppose they must feel they a) have to make up a lot of stuff and b) will bear all the blame if it's shit because GRRM hasn't showed his hand, so to speak.

 

[Corpsey]

Laughed last night remembering series 1 cos I think of it now as this very grounded and realistic show even though it had a 1000 foot high ice wall, a sky-castle which people were dropped through the floor of and oh yeah dragon eggs.

 

[IdleRich]

I guess you could have a sky high castle with a hole in the floor like that... maybe not that high. I dunno.
But yeah, the ambush felt random, and it's the second time it's happened. And once they sank the ships why didn't they mop up the survivors? Had he already teleported back home?
What about when Tyrion talked about Cersei being pregnant presumably revealing to Euron that he can't be the father, is that a) an oversight from the showrunners b) gonna be a significant thing when he realises or c) he will realise but he won't care?

 

[IdleRich]

SPOILERS OF COURSE
Too much stupid stuff again. I was happy enough with Dany cracking but not in the way she did. Going to town on the town before Cersei was captured?
Also, I hate the phrase/word "Cleganebowl" and anyone who says it...

 

[version]

I actually really enjoyed it, although Drogon singlehandedly wrecking the entire city and Dany suddenly making sensible decisions re: attacking the fleet made the previous episode look even worse and the fight between Jaime and Euron was stupid and unnecessary.

 

[version]

I thought the street level stuff was handled really well; I was all geared up to see Dany torch the place until it actually happened and I was quickly made to regret ever being excited at the prospect. It felt like one of the few instances where you got to see the full extent of what happens to the ordinary people caught up in the "game of thrones", you could clearly see 9/11 hanging over the whole thing too and a few nods to Pompeii.