Game of Thrones season seven trailer.

[JLTucker]

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.

She said in the season premiere that she can't leave because her business isn't done in Westeros.

[Elfdart]

- 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.

She might be including men and women, as they discussed in the season opener. Or others have joined as news of the return of the Starks has spread.

The Benjen part is not just stupid in and of itself, but it rubs your nose in the dumbth (a term Steve Allen coined) of the writers' other butt-fumbles. I know I'm beating this like a drum, but time and time again, you have characters who could/should have mounts yet they don't use them when they need them most. As much as I despise screenwriting by committee (where several writers chew a cud -one right after the other), here's one case where something like the Writer's Table at MGM might have done some good*. While we were watching last week, I mentioned the absence of horses for the Wild Bunch of the Wall. I got into arguments with several friends, who kept saying that maybe horses can't hack it north of the Wall. I pointed out that Stannis used hundreds when he wiped out Mance Raider (I had forgotten about Benjen). I decided not to belabor the point Sunday night, even though this is even dumber than the Battle of the Bastards, where the Wildlings didn't use any shields and the giant didn't have any kind of armor, shield or weapon. Anyway, after making my peace with the notion that maybe the weather is much worse now so horses can't... whatever, then here comes Benjen astride his black Irish sport horse shitting all over everyone's effort to make sense of the nonsense.


The writers have to make characters incredibly stupid in order to move the story along.

* They could have had Benjen show up before the troop was surrounded, give Gendry the horse to ride back to the Wall, and let Benjen sacrifice himself fending off the wights as the Wild Bunch flies away. If they really needed to have the Bunch on foot, they could have had the polar bear thing kill the horses rather than the redshirts. Maybe they like having a mess on their hands.

[Vympel]

- 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.

She might be including men and women, as they discussed in the season opener. Or others have joined as news of the return of the Starks has spread.

The Benjen part is not just stupid in and of itself, but it rubs your nose in the dumbth (a term Steve Allen coined) of the writers' other butt-fumbles. I know I'm beating this like a drum, but time and time again, you have characters who could/should have mounts yet they don't use them when they need them most. As much as I despise screenwriting by committee (where several writers chew a cud -one right after the other), here's one case where something like the Writer's Table at MGM might have done some good*. While we were watching last week, I mentioned the absence of horses for the Wild Bunch of the Wall. I got into arguments with several friends, who kept saying that maybe horses can't hack it north of the Wall. I pointed out that Stannis used hundreds when he wiped out Mance Raider (I had forgotten about Benjen). I decided not to belabor the point Sunday night, even though this is even dumber than the Battle of the Bastards, where the Wildlings didn't use any shields and the giant didn't have any kind of armor, shield or weapon. Anyway, after making my peace with the notion that maybe the weather is much worse now so horses can't... whatever, then here comes Benjen astride his black Irish sport horse shitting all over everyone's effort to make sense of the nonsense.


The writers have to make characters incredibly stupid in order to move the story along.

* They could have had Benjen show up before the troop was surrounded, give Gendry the horse to ride back to the Wall, and let Benjen sacrifice himself fending off the wights as the Wild Bunch flies away. If they really needed to have the Bunch on foot, they could have had the polar bear thing kill the horses rather than the redshirts. Maybe they like having a mess on their hands.

Indeed - if I had to guess, I'd say that they didn't have horses because a: shooting horse riding is more expensive and they didn't want to deal with the logisitcal and expense issues horses create and b: it would interfere with their various dialog scenes-while walking they wanted to do (which I enjoyed).

And all of this could've been fixed in a writers room, because its like nobody brainstormed and poked holes in the abject stupidity of this plan prior to finalising the general plot outline or the script.

Like - have some dialog about "no horses?" and say something like:

1. We'll be too noticeable mounted high up on horses;
2. There's a shortage of horses at Eastwatch so we're only bringing one in case we have to ride back and send for help;

or whatever.

Heck, a competent plan would've set up camps behind them as they went, with messengers on horseback waiting, so they could quickly get messages to Eastwatch.

But none of that is done, and it makes the entire premise of the episode and its finale catastrophically stupid.

[SCRawl]

I wonder what the timeline is like for the "radio/raven for help". Let's see.

Assume that Gendry can make the sprint back to the Wall in, what, four hours? He could possibly cover 20 miles in that time if he's really hoofing it, considering the terrain. We don't know how far Jon and his merry men had travelled, but it probably wasn't much more than that. He then has to send a raven, and maybe that process takes 30 minutes (since he has to get through the Wall, tell his story to the maester, etc.) The raven *might* be able to manage 40mph, and it sure looks like a few hundred miles, at least, from Eastwatch to Dragonstone. Say 300 miles, which would mean 7.5 hours So we're at 12 hours already. Daenerys has to receive the message, put on some warm clothes, touch up her make-up, and mount her dragon, maybe she does this in no time at all, or not enough to matter. Maybe a dragon can travel double the speed of a raven -- I base this on nothing -- so it's another four hours or so. So a 16-hour process, assuming some pretty fast and short trips.

Sound good? For TV logic, at least?

[Guardsman Bass]

I agree with TheFenix there - they could just have Melisandre reappear on an ill omen, tell Daenerys that she saw in the fires that the expedition is going into catastrophe, and that ends up being the tipping point for Daenerys to leave. It would be extraordinarily good timing for her to reach Jon's band just in time to save them, but given supernatural premonitions maybe not so weird. They have established literally this season that fire priests like Melisandre can see premonitions and visions in the fires (and even folks like the Hound when guided).

Oh well. It all happened so fast that I mostly just skipped over whether it made any sense for Daenerys to get a warning that fast. I can believe that they somehow survived on that island for 24 hours at least in the middle of the frozen lake, although I wonder why they weren't huddling around the magical fire sword to keep warm (maybe it doesn't have any heat, like Stannis' failed fire sword?).

They should have had Benjen show up earlier in the episode as a "hope spot", either after they fight the wight bear or when they ambush the group of wights with the White Walker (say that Bran sent him there, since we know Bran can control the ravens, warg into stuff, and see through the trees). Then have Jon escape the battle after being left behind by climbing on to the back of the other surviving dragon (Rhaegal?), setting up that he's going to be a dragon-rider next season (which he will be, mark my words).

[wautd]

I found this episode mediocre at best. So much sloppy writing and overall predictable events (Arya being ein dummkopf, having not one but two saves by deus ex machina).

By the way, dragon fire that instantly melts that mass of ice? That's a LOT of energy
Anyone good at physics to calculate how much energy dragons generate to be able to easily melt rocks/ice?

[Vympel]

I found this episode mediocre at best. So much sloppy writing and overall predictable events (Arya being ein dummkopf, having not one but two saves by deus ex machina).

By the way, dragon fire that instantly melts that mass of ice? That's a LOT of energy
Anyone good at physics to calculate how much energy dragons generate to be able to easily melt rocks/ice?

They turned the Tarlys into ash pretty well, too.

[Ralin]

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.

I suspect they're leading up to him falling flat on his face for just that reason. Probably the most effective way to end show Littlefinger's story at this point is to have the Stark sisters see through a fairly transparent attempt to manipulate them once they compare notes and then just have Arya kill him. No drama, no chance to talk his way out of it, just stab him without any further discussion and call for someone to come get the body.

[NecronLord]

I'm expecting Arya or Sansa to ask Bran what Littlefinger's up to. And for his schemes to be utterly laid bare by the seer.

Possibly Bran will be able to tell them of some evidence implicating Littlefinger in Lysa and Jon Arryn's murder, and we'll get to watch Royce behead him.

[TheFeniX]

Say 300 miles, which would mean 7.5 hours So we're at 12 hours already. Daenerys has to receive the message, put on some warm clothes, touch up her make-up, and mount her dragon, maybe she does this in no time at all, or not enough to matter. Maybe a dragon can travel double the speed of a raven -- I base this on nothing -- so it's another four hours or so. So a 16-hour process, assuming some pretty fast and short trips.

Sound good? For TV logic, at least?

The interactive map isn't working for me in either Chrome or Firefox, but googling around puts Dragonstone about 1500 miles from Eastwatch. And I did find another map with a scale, but it could be off. But it also looks about 1500 miles. So, we're talking at least a day and a half. That's if these ravens bee-line and can maintain 40MPH. I don't know how birds "work" in this regard, either their cruising speed or how long they can be motivated to keep flying. Hell, I get the concept of "carrier birds" but I also know dick about them.

I suspect they're leading up to him falling flat on his face for just that reason. Probably the most effective way to end show Littlefinger's story at this point is to have the Stark sisters see through a fairly transparent attempt to manipulate them once they compare notes and then just have Arya kill him. No drama, no chance to talk his way out of it, just stab him without any further discussion and call for someone to come get the body.

For me, even that's to good for him. Like, I would laugh hard if Sansa digs up the "case winning evidence" and Littlefinger walks up behind her with a dagger and says something like "I taught you TOO well." He flips the dagger around and hands it to Sansa. Then he pulls his face of and Arya's all, "Ha! You should have seen the look on your face."

[Imperial Overlord]

A few points:

1) This stretching things out to eek out an extra half season isn't doing the quality of the show any favors.

2) +1 to "they should have really brought horses."

3) Polar bear wight was cool.

4) You can tell what I've been reading has an impact because I couldn't help thinking "man, these wights aren't that scary", "Fools! You should have brought a School," and "situations like this is why you put up with Erratics in the party."

[Vympel]

A few points:

1) This stretching things out to eek out an extra half season isn't doing the quality of the show any favors.

I'd argue its the opposite. Shortening the season from the usual 10 episodes and instead doing this 7+6 combination is what has had an effect.

http://theweek.com/articles/719732/game ... rible-show

I don't agree with the article's basic claim (that the show has "become terrible") but it's hard even for someone like me who hated the Benjen shit way more than the compressed timeline to not get mad at this:

The explanation for these holes is that there is no explanation; the people making this show literally just don't care about those details anymore. "I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story's momentum carries over some of that stuff," said director Alan Taylor of his episode's impossible timeline.

Imagine getting hired to direct an episode of Game of Thrones. Imagine that it's now your awesome responsibility to direct a piece of television that's beloved and famously analyzed and dissected by millions of people.

Now imagine not caring enough to nail down a remotely plausible timeline because you can't be bothered. You'll just hope the spectacle is big enough to make everyone forget the gaps in the plot — it worked so well for the Waif's final fight with Arya, after all! "It's cool that the show is so important to so many people that it's being scrutinized so thoroughly," Taylor added. "If the show was struggling, I'd be worried about those concerns, but the show seems to be doing pretty well so it's okay to have people with those concerns."

This is the level of sophistication at which the series is operating now: The show isn't struggling, so it no longer has to make sense.

I really loathe that quote from Alan Taylor. It's a terrible attitude.

EDIT: to be fair though, he does say he would've liked to spend more time - but couldn't. Its the writing that's more of a problem than the directing.

[NecronLord]

I think the horses idea is somewhat a product of the time compression. If they were up there for days or weeks, ultimately they can hunt what wildlife is around beyond the wall and survive on meat, where's the forage for horses going to come from when everything's in six inches of snow? They'd have to carry fodder as well as their own supplies, changes of clothes and more, shelter for horses as well as men during a snowstorm, it all adds up I think.

They would also be much more obvious as travelers on horseback. They leave more obvious tracks, leave more spoor (which they'd have to bury to obscure) and are plain more visible, if they want to go unseen.

[Coop D'etat]

A few points:

1) This stretching things out to eek out an extra half season isn't doing the quality of the show any favors.

2) +1 to "they should have really brought horses."

3) Polar bear wight was cool.

4) You can tell what I've been reading has an impact because I couldn't help thinking "man, these wights aren't that scary", "Fools! You should have brought a School," and "situations like this is why you put up with Erratics in the party."

Wrights are a lot like Sranc in how they go from cannon fodder to terrifyingly effective when they have an intelligence directing them and some elites to make holes for them. Unfortunately for Jon's team, their cleric wasn't nearly as powerful as the Skin Eater's. (are you on book 4 of Aspect-Emperor?)

[Imperial Overlord]

Supplies for horses can be carried by horses and they weren't carrying that much in terms of supplies. The whole idea is dumb, a product of "we need to eek out another half season so Cersei has to stick around and we'll have the leads do something heroic to convince a notoriously treacherous character to join the coalition rather than smash her flat and then turn their full might northwards."

Descending as hunger, rather than falling as fodder, I have devoured The Unholy Consult.

[TheFeniX]

I really loathe that quote from Alan Taylor. It's a terrible attitude.

EDIT: to be fair though, he does say he would've liked to spend more time - but couldn't. Its the writing that's more of a problem than the directing.

I've been watching through some of the earilier seasons and this really does feel like a completely different show. Or it was on hiatus for 5 years and they just brought it back. I'm not saying the show is bad (I still really enjoy it in sprints), but damn man, it used to be a whooooole lot more engaging. As I've said, it just feels like your run-of-the-mill Fantasy romp for the past few seasons.

This rapid-fire "we need to drag this shit out and make it look like a fight, have X do something really bone-headed and throw in a last second save for any actors we have on contract if they get themselves into a corner" is not helping in that regard. That would have been an instant death for that character in earlier seasons, which is one thing I really liked about the show.

[NecronLord]

Supplies for horses can be carried by horses and they weren't carrying that much in terms of supplies.

Supplies for horses can indeed be carried by horses, which is bulky and means you need to bring more horses, that means you need to leave more tracks, have more animals to tend, and so on.

They were indeed carrying too little in the way of supplies. I have no idea how they planned to survive the nights on the snow, as they had no signs of tents or bedding that I recall. But I'm not convinced of the idea of horses being as good as it initially seems.

[Imperial Overlord]

Supplies for horses can be carried by horses and they weren't carrying that much in terms of supplies.

Supplies for horses can indeed be carried by horses, which is bulky and means you need to bring more horses, that means you need to leave more tracks, have more animals to tend, and so on.

They were indeed carrying too little in the way of supplies. I have no idea how they planned to survive the nights on the snow, as they had no signs of tents or bedding that I recall. But I'm not convinced of the idea of horses being as good as it initially seems.

You have to catch a wight and then escape with it while likely being pursued by an army of tireless undead. You're not going to outrun them on foot so you need horses.

[NecronLord]

You have to catch a wight and then escape with it while likely being pursued by an army of tireless undead. You're not going to outrun them on foot so you need horses.

The White Walkers have horses too, though, and their horses are untiring dead things also. I'd rather take my chances with the prospects of evading rather than leaving a clear trail.

Though I'm not sure the dead are actually untiring in this show, the wight seemed to have the fight go out of it after a bit until it was re-energised.

[WATCH-MAN]

Winter came.

The temperature dropped.

Maybe they considered it too cold for horses further north - beyond the wall - during night.

Maybe they wanted to prevent that the horses suffer the same fate as a Tauntaun on Hooth when it gets really cold there.

[Imperial Overlord]

The White Walkers are a tiny fraction of the Army of the Dead. The wights are the bulk and the plan is to actually encounter them. Having a means to escape them once you've encountered them is only reasonable.

[Solauren]

Arya is totally playing Littlefinger.

She can read people, so she knows that Sansa missed her, and would never betray her. Same with Sansa towards Bran, and Jon.
However, one good look between her and Littlefinger, and she'll know, that Littlefinger needs to go.

So, let him play his games, while at the same time doing her thing, and then when she's ready, pull off a false-face, expose Littlefinger, and then kill him.

Heck, it's entirely possible Bran knows Littlefinger betrayed Ned (the lack of a Weirwood tree near the Tower of Joy is kind of a clue they are not needed for him to see things), and they are working together to gather what they need to convince everyone that Littlefinger needs to go.

[WATCH-MAN]

The White Walkers are a tiny fraction of the Army of the Dead. The wights are the bulk and the plan is to actually encounter them. Having a means to escape them once you've encountered them is only reasonable.

broken record

[FireNexus]

Arya is totally playing Littlefinger.

She can read people, so she knows that Sansa missed her, and would never betray her. Same with Sansa towards Bran, and Jon.
However, one good look between her and Littlefinger, and she'll know, that Littlefinger needs to go.

So, let him play his games, while at the same time doing her thing, and then when she's ready, pull off a false-face, expose Littlefinger, and then kill him.

Heck, it's entirely possible Bran knows Littlefinger betrayed Ned (the lack of a Weirwood tree near the Tower of Joy is kind of a clue they are not needed for him to see things), and they are working together to gather what they need to convince everyone that Littlefinger needs to go.

Bran more or less told Littlefinger he knew. ("Chaos is a ladder.")

[Iroscato]

Arya is totally playing Littlefinger.

She can read people, so she knows that Sansa missed her, and would never betray her. Same with Sansa towards Bran, and Jon.
However, one good look between her and Littlefinger, and she'll know, that Littlefinger needs to go.

So, let him play his games, while at the same time doing her thing, and then when she's ready, pull off a false-face, expose Littlefinger, and then kill him.

Heck, it's entirely possible Bran knows Littlefinger betrayed Ned (the lack of a Weirwood tree near the Tower of Joy is kind of a clue they are not needed for him to see things), and they are working together to gather what they need to convince everyone that Littlefinger needs to go.

Bran more or less told Littlefinger he knew. ("Chaos is a ladder.")

I waited years to see Littlefinger internally shit his britches after meeting his match, and my god it was worth it.