Game of Thrones season seven trailer.

[Titan Uranus]

The wights always light up like they're soaked in gasoline, which is why I almost yelled at the screen "TORCHES YOU DUMBFUCKS!" during the Hardhome Massacre.

The wights might burn well it might not matter as IIRC the White Walkers themselves seem to have an ability to kill any (non-magical) fire near them.

That ability must have some major limits, since we saw the wildlings caught outside the walls of Hardhome with lit torches seconds before contact with the AotD.


Edit: Though it occurs to me that mass use of torches and not some sort of ranged fire weapon might end in your men burning alive en masse, though whatever burns (maybe the weak magic that allows them to function is flammable?) doesn't appear to affect it's surroundings like you would expect. The season 1 wight didn't leave burning piles of magic gasoline on the floor, if I recall correctly.

[Lord Revan]

The wights always light up like they're soaked in gasoline, which is why I almost yelled at the screen "TORCHES YOU DUMBFUCKS!" during the Hardhome Massacre.

The wights might burn well it might not matter as IIRC the White Walkers themselves seem to have an ability to kill any (non-magical) fire near them.

That ability must have some major limits, since we saw the wildlings caught outside the walls of Hardhome with lit torches seconds before contact with the AotD.


Edit: Though it occurs to me that mass use of torches and not some sort of ranged fire weapon might end in your men burning alive en masse, though whatever burns (maybe the weak magic that allows them to function is flammable?) doesn't appear to affect it's surroundings like you would expect. The season 1 wight didn't leave burning piles of magic gasoline on the floor, if I recall correctly.

depending on how old the corpses are it could be simply that they're dried up to a point that they burn easily.

As for the White Walker ability to kill fires it does seem to have a relatively short range and might be related to their ability to freeze and shatter any weapon that isn't made obsidian or Valerian steel, we haven't seen to often enough to really judge.

[Knife]

Does anyone else wonder if the bolts for Qyburn's scorpion were poisoned?

We know he's dealt with poison before and if it is possible to keep poison on those bolts without it killing the people shooting them it seems like it would be a good idea. You have to be pretty fortunate to get a good killing shot at one of the dragons why not have a backup plan for any hit taking the dragon out of play eventually, at least for a time, if not permanently?

How in gods name would they know what is poisonous to a dragon?

[Titan Uranus]

Does anyone else wonder if the bolts for Qyburn's scorpion were poisoned?

We know he's dealt with poison before and if it is possible to keep poison on those bolts without it killing the people shooting them it seems like it would be a good idea. You have to be pretty fortunate to get a good killing shot at one of the dragons why not have a backup plan for any hit taking the dragon out of play eventually, at least for a time, if not permanently?

How in gods name would they know what is poisonous to a dragon?

There are lots of poisons that affect most sorts of life. Arsenic comes to mind. Or Cadmium.

[Elfdart]

Does anyone else wonder if the bolts for Qyburn's scorpion were poisoned?

We know he's dealt with poison before and if it is possible to keep poison on those bolts without it killing the people shooting them it seems like it would be a good idea. You have to be pretty fortunate to get a good killing shot at one of the dragons why not have a backup plan for any hit taking the dragon out of play eventually, at least for a time, if not permanently?

If that one wasn't, I'll bet the next one is.

[Guardsman Bass]

There are lots of poisons that affect most sorts of life. Arsenic comes to mind. Or Cadmium.

Dragons are magical fire creatures. Poisons might not work on them as compared to regular animals.

[GuppyShark]

Trial and error is probably worthwhile. What have you got to lose, really?

[FireNexus]

Does anyone else wonder if the bolts for Qyburn's scorpion were poisoned?

We know he's dealt with poison before and if it is possible to keep poison on those bolts without it killing the people shooting them it seems like it would be a good idea. You have to be pretty fortunate to get a good killing shot at one of the dragons why not have a backup plan for any hit taking the dragon out of play eventually, at least for a time, if not permanently?

How in gods name would they know what is poisonous to a dragon?

It's not as if Dragons are totally unprecedented in the history of this world. Up until just a few hundred years prior, they were more or less common domesticated animals in the world's biggest empire. It's not crazy that there would be some lord you could dig up in the citadel that would know how to domesticate them.

[Vendetta]

On the other hand, dragons were also the preserve of a mad family of inbred tyrants. That's pretty bad for retention of institutional knowledge.

[streetad]

I definitely wouldn't be up for crewing a weapon that might kill a dragon, maybe, a few hours or days after being hit....

[JLTucker]

Um... next episode is easily the best of the past few seasons. Don't worry, I didn't pirate it: I watched it at a friend's place.

[TheFeniX]

I think the anathema idea is supported by the fact that when Sam stabbed a walker in the back of the calf he exploded rather than rolling on the ground, writhing in pain.

He stabbed it in the shoulder-blade, but point taken as I had completely forgotten about that scene: non-fatal wounds against a white walker done with dragonglass are fatal and have some kind of (must be) magical reaction like Silver vs Werewolves. I assume because Dragonglass seems otherwise inert.

Don't worry, I didn't pirate it: I watched it at a friend's place.

This is... ok, I personally don't give a shit because of arguments WRT piracy that belong elsewhere, but your reasoning in this post is hysterical in a literal "I laughed out loud when I read this" way.

[Titan Uranus]

I think the anathema idea is supported by the fact that when Sam stabbed a walker in the back of the calf he exploded rather than rolling on the ground, writhing in pain.

He stabbed it in the shoulder-blade, but point taken as I had completely forgotten about that scene: non-fatal wounds against a white walker done with dragonglass are fatal and have some kind of (must be) magical reaction like Silver vs Werewolves. I assume because Dragonglass seems otherwise inert.

You're right, it was the shoulder, though it does occur to me that while Sam's kill fell to his knees and then crumbled to ice shivers, Jon's exploded. Whether that's because of the properties of Valyrian Steel over dragonglass (VS being explicitly magical and all), because Jon gave a more fatal wound, or because he simply applied more force to the already disintegrating walker, I do not know.

Um... next episode is easily the best of the past few seasons. Don't worry, I didn't pirate it: I watched it at a friend's place.

Don't worry guys, I'm only a accessory!

[TheFeniX]

You're right, it was the shoulder, though it does occur to me that while Sam's kill fell to his knees and then crumbled to ice shivers, Jon's exploded. Whether that's because of the properties of Valyrian Steel over dragonglass (VS being explicitly magical and all), because Jon gave a more fatal wound, or because he simply applied more force to the already disintegrating walker, I do not know.

It was likely done just because "it looked cool." But there could also be multiple factors at play. Walkers could be immune to most forms of damage such as hits to the heart, brain, etc. Or they combine that with Wolverine style regeneration, which dragonglass negates. But I don't know if decapitation is instantly fatal.

It could be they are vulnerable to decapitation, but nothing aside from dragonglass and its derivatives are capable of actually damaging them at all. So, Jon's blow was fatal by nature of effectively removing the top of the walkers body because his weapon is capable of doing so, leading to instant (re)death. Sam's blade needed time to do whatever "magical death poison/rotting" effect it had to because the original wound wasn't fatal.

This assumes nothing is lost in the transition from Dragonglass > Valarian Steel.

There's also argument of "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit."

[JLTucker]

Now we know how to kill a dragon. Good episode. Shame Jon didn't die.

[Knife]

Now we know how to kill a dragon. Good episode. Shame Jon didn't die.

wow, did you weep for the stormtroopers on the deathstar too?

[JLTucker]

Now we know how to kill a dragon. Good episode. Shame Jon didn't die.

wow, did you weep for the stormtroopers on the deathstar too?

Nah. I just didn't like the deus ex machina save with Jon. If the writers weren't tired of the show they probably would have come up with a better explanation for him somehow surviving that ordeal. It was bullshit.

[Knife]

that which is dead cannot die. That theme is rampant across the show.

[Elfdart]

This episode reminded me of Aliens, because the suspense is a direct result of the "heroes" being unbelievably fucking stupid. Jon and Tormund experienced a wight attack first hand at Hardhome, so they know full well that not only can they run as fast as living men (faster, since they don't need bulky clothes to keep warm), but that some of them are mounted. Naturally, Jon being a dumbass and all, he and his party decide to WALK north of the Wall. A dozen horses or mules and this expedition is a success with few or no casualties.

Ramsay Bolton might have been killed but apparently when his blood seeped into the ground at Winterfell, it spread his permanent Full Retard spell to everyone setting foot in the castle. Arya knows Littlefinger can't be trusted, so naturally she follows the breadcrumbs he laid out like Hansel & Gretel. Uh, WHAT? If Arya had half a brain, she would have told Sansa "I saw the Pimp paying one of the servant girls, talking to Glover and the leader of the Knights, then getting the maester to bring him this letter from the archives".

Speaking of raven mail, if the records are that thorough, wouldn't the archive have messages between Littlefinger and Roose Bolton?

[Elfdart]

Now we know how to kill a dragon. Good episode. Shame Jon didn't die.

wow, did you weep for the stormtroopers on the deathstar too?

Jon is such a dumbfuck that it might be better if he fought for Darth Blue Maul. Then he'll be killing off wights when his fumbledick plans go awry, and Stannis or the Knights of the Vale won't be there to bail him out.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm going to agree with Elfdart here a bit. Arya outright says in this episode she can read faces and see through lies, so why is she falling so readily into Littlefinger's plotting? I was hoping there would be a twist where we'd find out that she was working for Sansa the whole time to spy on Littlefinger, herding him right into a trap, but that's hard to believe with some of the scenes this episode (I still think Arya will kill him, though).

It was funny for Sansa to point out that Jon actually fucked up and lost the Battle of the Bastards, only to be saved by the Knights of the Vale (of course, if she had told him they were coming . . . but I don't remember him getting pissed in the next episode that she didn't). I guess it's also been . . . weeks, since Jon departed for Eastwatch to get his wight, since that's when he stopped corresponding with ravens with Sansa?

. . . . But on the other hand, I enjoyed this episode a great deal. Most of the scenes were good, it was kind of funny for the show to try out just about every possible 1-on-1 conversation in Jon's band not including the redshirt wildlings, and the battles beyond the Wall were great. They missed a big opportunity there, though, to have Jon mount the other dragon to save himself and set himself up as a future dragon-rider (which they are totally going to do next season).

[TheFeniX]

I would pay money if it turned out Arya already killed Littlefinger shortly after he saw her leave his room and has been playing multiple angles since then to determine Sansa's true motivations. Because I'm just tired of him being totally out of his element and still moving about like it's King's Landing. It would just be so fitting for someone like him to have died without any big scene an entire season ago and Arya being able to completely "Mystique" his ass with zero difficulty.

Jon's a moron. A moron who is looking down the barrel of Wincest. I can ACTUALLY buy him not dieing to frostbite. He's already died once, so maybe his body can just take that type of abuse. But everything about his plan was awful and he had to get Dragon-ex-machinaed. Lucky for him, said Dragon death allowed him to score multitudes of points with Danny. It's like, the man is one foot in the grave and says all the rights things so that Emilia Clarke gives him a straight up "I am going to break this guy's dick off with my vagina at some point in the near future." There really is no other explanation I or my wife can come up with for THAT look.

I was like "TORMUND! NO! You have to live! LIVE MAN! You have to go and melt Tarth's icy heart! Don't leave me Tormund!"

So. Many. Redshirts. So little time. Thank the God of Light for his blessing of redshirts. We get to show how dangerous even the wights are without losing anyone with a name. I get why most of The Expendables went North, but why would anyone else go with them? Because redshirts go where redshirts are needed, that's why.

That said, I wouldn't send a dragon North of the wall. Use them from a fortified position if the walkers come South. Because I have seen zombie horses in the show, so we don't know the extent of what can be raised, but we can make assumptions. The extent of the power of the Night Knight also isn't known. Losing a dragon due some shenanigans, then having to fight a zombie dragon?

This shit is getting so cliche, I'm not even sure I should take any credit for this. But whatever: pick up that phone, because I fucking CALLED IT!

Also, Night King brings home the Gold for the True North in javelin throw.

[Meest]

It would be a big no no writing wise if Arya is Littlefinger, because of the scene of her following him. They are rushing things but don't think they are that desperate.

[Vympel]

This episode reminded me of Aliens, because the suspense is a direct result of the "heroes" being unbelievably fucking stupid. Jon and Tormund experienced a wight attack first hand at Hardhome, so they know full well that not only can they run as fast as living men (faster, since they don't need bulky clothes to keep warm), but that some of them are mounted. Naturally, Jon being a dumbass and all, he and his party decide to WALK north of the Wall. A dozen horses or mules and this expedition is a success with few or no casualties.

Haven't seen the episode yet, but it's sad that the terrible plan which is terrible ended up exactly as terrible as it sounded.

Ramsay Bolton might have been killed but apparently when his blood seeped into the ground at Winterfell, it spread his permanent Full Retard spell to everyone setting foot in the castle. Arya knows Littlefinger can't be trusted, so naturally she follows the breadcrumbs he laid out like Hansel & Gretel. Uh, WHAT? If Arya had half a brain, she would have told Sansa "I saw the Pimp paying one of the servant girls, talking to Glover and the leader of the Knights, then getting the maester to bring him this letter from the archives".

Speaking of raven mail, if the records are that thorough, wouldn't the archive have messages between Littlefinger and Roose Bolton?

The archives were Maester Luwin's (according to Maester Wolkan), who is long dead by the time the Boltons take up residence.

EDIT:

Ok -

Given the negative reactions from reviewers who I like (Erik Kain on Forbes in particular) I expected to strongly dislike this episode.

But leaving aside the totally idiotic premise and the unbelievable stupidity of the plan to effect it - capturing a wight - which carries over from last episode - I didn't find anything particularly bad about it. I mean sure, it's got some pretty major 'fast travel' problems (though not as egregious as commonly believed because there's no reason to believe Show!Westeros is as large as it is in the books and a lot of reason to think it's smaller) in terms of not fully conveying the time that's passing:

- There was a lot of good dialog in this episode. Both north of the Wall, in Winterfell, and on Dragonstone. Tyrion and Daenerys' scene was especially memorable for me, but Tormund and the Hound is an obvious comedic pairing.
- Of all the north of the Wall dialog, Jon and Jorah and Longclaw was easily the best though. All the feels.
- Did Dany mean Jon was too short?
- The horror beats with the wight-bear attack were off the fucking hook. My fiance leapt out of her skin and shouted when it came out of nowhere and killed the redshirt wildling.
- I'll never get tired of looking at flaming swords.
- RIP, Thoros.
- The dragons blasting the wights was amazing - I just wish we saw more of it.
- Arya and Sansa fighting this season has come in for a lot of criticism but it's not borne out of anything that's actually wrong with the writing, IMO. It's just dislike that the Stark sisters are not a team and what not (and doing what while fart-assing about Winterfell?), as if their lives over the past few years have not made them vastly different people to accentuate the serious problems they had when they last saw each other way back in Season 1.
- That said, it's pretty clear that Arya and Sansa are plotting against Littlefinger. Arya just giving Sansa the dagger whilst making threats, Sansa deliberately sending Brienne away when Littlefinger suggested she'd keep them apart - there's just something off about it and it's not simply that "I don't like that they're at odds".
- One thing that the episode didn't make very clear is just what the fuck Jon was doing after Drogon landed. It became apparent far too late that he was probably making for the Night King to kill him. Before that it just looked like he was being a vainglorious tit.
- Passage of time: Sansa tells Littlefinger she hasn't heard from Jon in "weeks". The last she heard from him was last episode, when he indicated he was going North of the Wall (wasn't it?).
- Military strength in the North: Sansa tells Littlefinger: "we're asking 20,000 men to fight with us in the worst winter any of them have ever seen." This is a substantial change from the less than 10,000 Jon mentioned previously this season.
- I like how Sansa referred to the northern lords as 'bloody windvanes'.

Out of everything, I think the worst part was Benjen saving Jon. Seriously, you're allowed one last minute save in an episode. Not fucking two. It was perfunctory and unearned.

[TheFeniX]

It would be a big no no writing wise if Arya is Littlefinger, because of the scene of her following him. They are rushing things but don't think they are that desperate.

I could be mistaken, but I don't recall any scenes combining Arya and Littlefinger since he was watching her leave his room with the note he planted. As noted as well, with her saying one thing to Sansa and doing another (giving her the dagger), I have to assume he's still alive and Arya is on to him.

I still would laugh, provided my memory isn't off and it fits, if he was already dead and Arya was just fucking with Sansa for the Hell of it. Because there's now no active threat at the moment, or at least nothing she can't handle, and she's bored. So this is her current way of "pulling on her sister's hair" because she's so fucked up.

Out of everything, I think the worst part was Benjen saving Jon. Seriously, you're allowed one last minute save in an episode. Not fucking two. It was perfunctory and unearned.

That was pretty bad, but I still have to go with Jon and Co sitting on a rock while Gendry runs for Eastwatch, sends a Raven, Danny gets Raven, Dragonrides her way to the North, and manages to FIND Jon and Co in a sea of snow and ice, and shows up just in time to FLAME ON!

It's like those arugments that Hyperspace travel takes days to weeks in Star Wars: we're to believe Anakin spent a week laying next to lava, slowly smoldering? (EDIT: Since Palpatine reacts to Anakin being defeated, it wasn't a preemptive moment). Jon and Co would have been lucky to survive a night in their predicament, much less the weeks it would take that situation to present itself.

I would take.... I don't know, The Red Woman (is she still there? I think she said she was heading home to Essos) or something saying "WooooOOOOooOOoOO! I sense GRAVE DANGER for the King in the North! WoooOOOooOO!" and Danny preemptively heads North suicidally because Jon gets her lady parts all tingly. That would make 1000% more sense than what happened in the episode.