Season 7 Episode 5 "Eastwatch" - "Book readers"

Savage Tyrant

ardinn wrote: »

I genuinely thought Gendry was brought back to forge weapons with mined Dragonglass!! Would make sense to have tipped swords etc

Not just tipped swords, but maybe the dragonglass is the missing ingredient from making more Valeryian steel weapons. .. And Gendry apprenticed in the early seasons to the same smith that Tywin used to reforge the Valeryian sword Ice.

mewso

The magnificent seven up north just need one of them to die, wait a while and hey presto they have a captured wight.

Gbear

One thing that I didn't register because it was too stupid was that they just rocked up to a beach in sight of the Red Keep in the middle of the ****ing day in the middle of a war and their justification was that there was no guards because there was too many steps.

Why didn't they just say "lets sneak 400 Dothraki in there in row boats and seize the Red Keep?"

But the dragons sure look swell this season. So there's that.

If you showed this to people 10 years ago and said this was what tv CGI was going to look like they'd either call bull**** or their heads would've exploded.

It's a pity all the technical aspects of this show have been let down by the criminally inept writers.

Dave_The_Sheep

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

You just took the last line of my post and responded to that. I actually engaged with what you thought they could have done and you ignored it.

And as I said, the 'teleportation' was there from the very beginning. Not just since the source material was left behind. Even GRRM did it. And wrote about why it was necessary.

That's why I'm tired of hearing complaints about it.

I saw that. I decided to ignore it, much when you said
"if you don't know what else they could have possibly done. Or do you just say they're crap without giving a reason?" and ignored the fact I'd done both. Fair's fair.

But if you want to engage, the point I've been making is that the teleportation that went on (and I even admitted there were times it happened) earlier in the series hasn't been anywhere near as blatantly lazy as it has been this time. I even said that I get why they're doing it in that it's the second last season, coming to the end etc. They also had travel segments alongisde that gave Westeros a sense of being a massive and dangerous place, particularly during the War of the Five Kings. I get that we don't need more of this, but I don't recall times where lazy teleportation in earlier seasons caused huge continuity issues that it should at times this season.

Example, Cersei is now allegedly pregnant and her and Dany are waiting on the captured wight proof. It should take months for the lads to get the boat up to Eastwatch, then go North of the Wall, find the dead, capture one, then come back, presumably by sea as well. Particularly the coming back part is going to cause problems - because the Night King isn't going to be sitting on his arse wating for them. The North should be in ruins by the time they get back to Cersei/Dany and then get the armies together. And will Cersei be half way along pregnant at this point? Do you not see the way lazy teleportation here causes serious problems?

EagererBeaver

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Arya teleported around Essos as did Tyrion. And those were massive distances. Littlefiinger was the first known teleporter and that was long before last season. He was popping up in KL, Harrenhal, The Vale and Winterfell at will.

Surely Arya's whole time in Essos was in Braavos?

CMOTDibbler

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I saw that. I decided to ignore it, much when you said
"if you don't know what else they could have possibly done. Or do you just say they're crap without giving a reason?" and ignored the fact I'd done both. Fair's fair.

That particular quote was in reference to a particular statement you made. The fact I responded to the rest of your post seperately should have been a clue.

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Example, Cersei is now allegedly pregnant and her and Dany are waiting on the captured wight proof. It should take months for the lads to get the boat up to Eastwatch, then go North of the Wall, find the dead, capture one, then come back, presumably by sea as well. Particularly the coming back part is going to cause problems - because the Night King isn't going to be sitting on his arse wating for them. The North should be in ruins by the time they get back to Cersei/Dany and then get the armies together. And will Cersei be half way along pregnant at this point? Do you not see the way lazy teleportation here causes serious problems?

Well why don't you actually try and work out how long such a journey should take? Dragonstone to Eastwatch is actually a relatively short sea journey. About 1000 miles I think. On a ship like the one they were using, that would take about eight or nine days.

So no teleportation required and no late babies (if there even is one).

Gbear

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I saw that. I decided to ignore it, much when you said
"if you don't know what else they could have possibly done. Or do you just say they're crap without giving a reason?" and ignored the fact I'd done both. Fair's fair.

But if you want to engage, the point I've been making is that the teleportation that went on (and I even admitted there were times it happened) earlier in the series hasn't been anywhere near as blatantly lazy as it has been this time. I even said that I get why they're doing it in that it's the second last season, coming to the end etc. They also had travel segments alongisde that gave Westeros a sense of being a massive and dangerous place, particularly during the War of the Five Kings. I get that we don't need more of this, but I don't recall times where lazy teleportation in earlier seasons caused huge continuity issues that it should at times this season.

Example, Cersei is now allegedly pregnant and her and Dany are waiting on the captured wight proof. It should take months for the lads to get the boat up to Eastwatch, then go North of the Wall, find the dead, capture one, then come back, presumably by sea as well. Particularly the coming back part is going to cause problems - because the Night King isn't going to be sitting on his arse wating for them. The North should be in ruins by the time they get back to Cersei/Dany and then get the armies together. And will Cersei be half way along pregnant at this point? Do you not see the way lazy teleportation here causes serious problems?

Not to mention the giant undead army apparently headed for Eastwatch and in about 5 years they've travelled the distance it takes Jon to travel in 5 in-episode minutes.

Presumably once they've worked their way through the insanely convoluted bull**** plan, Cersei tries to murder everyone, some folks die down south and then everything is sorted out, they'll be able to mosey back up North where the Nights King has been patiently waiting for the mortals to sort out the errands they needed to run and they can get to the fighting.

Gbear

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Well why don't you actually try and work out how long such a journey should take? Dragonstone to Eastwatch is actually a relatively short sea journey. About 1000 miles I think. On a ship like the one they were using, that would take about eight or nine days.

It's more like 2-3000.

CMOTDibbler

Gbear wrote: »

Not to mention the giant undead army apparently headed for Eastwatch and in about 5 years they've travelled the distance it takes Jon to travel in 5 in-episode minutes.

Presumably once they've worked their way through the insanely convoluted bull**** plan, Cersei tries to murder everyone, some folks die down south and then everything is sorted out, they'll be able to mosey back up North where the Nights King has been patiently waiting for the mortals to sort out the errands they needed to run and they can get to the fighting.

Why is everyone assuming the night king can get through the wall? That's a big question that's been asked ever since the first sighting of the wights and the night king. They have never crossed since the wall was built.

Clearly nobody feels that the wall is secure, since magic is believed to be the only thing stopping them. But that hasn't been tested yet, so I don't think we can just assume that they will get through unaided.

CMOTDibbler

Gbear wrote: »

It's more like 2-3000.

No. Maybe 1500 at the most. I use the length of the wall (300 miles) as a scale. Eight or nine days is very conservative, based on a speed of about 4 knots. Six to eight knots can be acheived in favourable winds. We're definitely not talking about months. A couple of weeks at most. But also quite possibly done in ten or eleven days. People forget that ships sail 24 hours a day.

Dave_The_Sheep

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Well why don't you actually try and work out how long such a journey should take? Dragonstone to Eastwatch is actually a relatively short sea journey. About 1000 miles I think. On a ship like the one they were using, that would take about eight or nine days.

So no teleportation required and no late babies (if there even is one).

Let's assume it is a thousand miles, which sounds about right. 8/9 days is optimistic depending on the ship type, but it seems about 14 days is about right for a thousand mile journey (from what I've looked up about medeival ships and winter weather etc). Then they'd spend a day or two at Eastwatch preparing. So there's a month right there (including the return journey).

Factoring in journey time on land North of the Wall, probably two weeks to a month, given previous expeditions though it'll depend on the position of the WW army. Obviously ranger expeditions would be going much further but take longer, this one should be shorter. I don't think two months would be unreasonable.

I didn't say the baby would be due, but that it'd be noticable. And the war has just been sitting here with nothing happening the whole time. Seems off to me.

Gbear

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Why is everyone assuming the night king can get through the wall? That's a big question that's been asked ever since the first sighting of the wights and the night king. They have never crossed since the wall was built.

Clearly nobody feels that the wall is secure, since magic is believed to be the only thing stopping them. But that hasn't been tested yet, so I don't think we can just assume that they will get through unaided.

Why is everyone assuming he can get through the wall, including Jon Snow?

He knows the Night's King could be a stone's throw away so his plan is to spend 3-6 months bouncing up and down the kingdoms despite the fact that he doesn't believe the wall is going to keep him out.

Why does he believe that to be the case? It's hard to tell. Maybe he's judging the ruthlessness of the Others as evidence they'll make a good fist of it rather than just giving up when they come across their first obstacle.

There's meta-narrative reasons why it has to happen - to facilitate the conflict in the story - that Jon shouldn't know about, but that kind of thing doesn't bother the writers of this show.

If he just legged down to Dany and pleaded with her, and that didn't work so he went back home, then maybe that makes sense. She would've had dragons that maybe could've checked the advance of the army by themselves, and they can travel the distance in maybe 3 or 4 days.
Worst case scenario, he has to go back home without any help to die with his family.

From his perspective it would've been like legging it from Gondor to Rohan to hand deliever a message to Theoden and then hopefully accompany them back to Gondor just in time to lift the siege. That's how close he's intimated the danger is.

Dial Hard

Lads, seriously, way to suck all the joy out of what is quite literally the greatest example of TV programming since the medium's inception.

Yis are actually like the Comic Book Store guy from the Simpsons arguing with his nerd friends.

Tigger

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Why is everyone assuming the night king can get through the wall? That's a big question that's been asked ever since the first sighting of the wights and the night king. They have never crossed since the wall was built.

Clearly nobody feels that the wall is secure, since magic is believed to be the only thing stopping them. But that hasn't been tested yet, so I don't think we can just assume that they will get through unaided.

if the sea is frozen cant they just walk round on the ice?
if its not cant the just walk round on the sea bed?

CMOTDibbler

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Let's assume it is a thousand miles, which sounds about right. 8/9 days is optimistic depending on the ship type, but it seems about 14 days is about right for a thousand mile journey (from what I've looked up about medeival ships and winter weather etc). Then they'd spend a day or two at Eastwatch preparing. So there's a month right there (including the return journey).

Factoring in journey time on land North of the Wall, probably two weeks to a month, given previous expeditions though it'll depend on the position of the WW army. Obviously ranger expeditions would be going much further but take longer, this one should be shorter. I don't think two months would be unreasonable.

I didn't say the baby would be due, but that it'd be noticable. And the war has just been sitting here with nothing happening the whole time. Seems off to me.

But it's also conceivable that the journeys could take half that time as well. What I'm saying is that there's no need to impute teleportation or some other nonsensical transport device when the technology of the day can achieve 1000 mile trips in a week. (that's at 6 knots btw).

So yes it could take a month or two, but it could also take less than a month and still be believable. Where's the stretch?

Gbear

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

No. Maybe 1500 at the most. I use the length of the wall (300 miles) as a scale. Eight or nine days is very conservative, based on a speed of about 4 knots. Six to eight knots can be acheived in favourable winds. We're definitely not talking about months. A couple of weeks at most. But also quite possibly done in ten or eleven days. People forget that ships sail 24 hours a day.

GRRM has stated it's about the length of South America.

It's usually given as around 3000 miles.

That is the length of it. That's it. That's what it is. I can't be more explicit.

CMOTDibbler

Tigger wrote: »

if the sea is frozen cant they just walk round on the ice?
if its not cant the just walk round on the sea bed?

They don't appear to walk on or in water. Hardhome showed us that.

Sea freezing hasn't happened yet, else Jon and company couldn't have sailed to Eastwatch.

CMOTDibbler

Gbear wrote: »

GRRM has stated it's about the length of South America.

It's usually given as around 3000 miles.

That is the length of it. That's it. That's what it is. I can't be more explicit.

Westeros would be that length. Yes. There's no contradiction here. Couldn't be clearer.,

Gbear

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Westeros would be that length. Yes. There's no contradiction here. Couldn't be clearer.,

I was looking at Tarth

Apologies.

DM_7

Arya v Littlefinger is interesting. Littlefinger led Arya to certain conclusions but Arya let him. It should be good to see how it plays out.

Paddy Cow

DM_7 wrote: »

Arya v Littlefinger is interesting. Littlefinger led Arya to certain conclusions but Arya let him. It should be good to see how it plays out.

When I was watching the episode I had a feeling that Little Finger knew Arya was watching him and he was leading her. I was p!ssed off that she seemed to be taking the bait but I don't think she's that stupid. One of her first lessons with the waif was the waif telling her that she was a Lord's daughter, just like Arya blah blah. Arya felt sorry for her until she got a smack of the waif's stick and was told the waif was lying.

Sansa knows that Arya is a dangerous killer but doesn't believe that Arya knows how to play the game. This is how LF also sees her and it will be his downfall. He thinks Arya is still the same brat who has issues with Sansa and he is playing on this.

LF has no idea of what Arya is truly capable of. Bran pretty much put out a hit on him when he gave Arya the dagger after telling her he was aware of her list.

Arya is playing the long game. She was Tywin Lannister's cup girl in Harrenhal and The North Remembers.

At approx 3.40 LF tells Twyin that his enemies can be punished after Robb Stark has been defeated. I don't think Arya will let that go.

Mr.Prodston

Something in relation to timelines:

Sam said that Bran was North of the Wall for years. Years. That's multiple years for what's realistically been a few episodes.

So if the show is suggesting that then it's a subtle indication of how time is passing quicker than one might think?

Paddy Cow

Another flashback from Arya Season 1

It would be really disappointing if Arya is as stupid as LF thinks she is.

SK1979

Can't believe no one has mentioned the best bit in that episode.

Thormund asking Jon if he's brought "the big woman"... :-)

OneOfThem Stumbled

• So then I s-said 'You send me to the capital, I tell the mercenary to get my brother, I'll convince him to convince the queen... I mean usurper... to stop the war which she's lost, and help us. She'll do this when we steal a f**king zombie. Steal a f**king zombie and just drop it in the middle of the capital.' I mean those bastar*ds in fleabottom thought they'd seen all when a bell took a trip up the road last season, but they've have not seen a zombie yet. We'll get er... the brotherhood without banners and the... king in the north to steal this zombie. Get Stannis to help too. Sh*t, forgot he's dead. Sure, of course he is, we are sitting in his house aren't we?
• The Brotherhood without Banners are in the Riverlands, Tyrion.
• They've got a wizard, I do believe they can be wever they want to be. The only real fly in this ointment is the rivalry between the two Tully sisters... I mean sisters Stark... over Lord Baelish's smirk
• I think you need to stop drinking as much.

maudgonner

Dothraki Dude: "This man says he is your friend, Khaleesi"
Dany: "He is my friend."
Jorah: "Your Grace."
Dany: "Jon Snow this is Ser Jorah Mormont, an old friend."

Aw, poor Ser Friendzone

Riddle101

SK1979 wrote: »

Can't believe no one has mentioned the best bit in that episode.

Thormund asking Jon if he's brought "the big woman"... :-)

I think the whole sequence at Eastwatch by the Sea was the best part. Jon's meeting with Tormund, the prison cell scene, and then when the gate opens and Jon's crew look behind to one another before heading beyond the wall.

ardinn

blackwhite wrote: »

Syndication isn't something that happens automatically when a series passes a number of episodes - it's where the producers decide to (and are able to find buyers) licence the progam to multiple channels/networks to broadcast re-runs etc. (i.e. like Friends being syndicated on Comedy Central)

It's nothing to do with the volume of episodes produced - it's down to the popularity/marketability of the show, and the expected demand for repeat viewing.

The 100 episode "threshold" is simply a rule of thumb for how likely a show is, or isn't, to be successfully syndicated (and is usually intended for 30-min shows that will be shown in blocks of 2 or 4 episodes at a time).
Something that's been as culturally significant as GOT would not have any problem being syndicated regardless of the number of episodes they ultimately finish on.
TBH - the irregular episode run-times are more likely to cause issues for syndication buyers when it comes to GOT.

A show with a large volume of episodes is more attractive for syndication because it's obviously popular enough to justify a lengthy production run, and the more episodes then the longer the interval between repeats will be - but there's no minimum number of episodes required for syndication if a show is popular enough to justify it.

That said - HBO have mostly avoided traditional syndication for their shows (with a few exceptions like Entourage and Sex and the City) - instead licencing their major hits to subscription-based streaming services like Amazon.

It does actually - Its based on a 20 week run of 1 eisode per day, 5 days a week which apparently is the going golden rule - 20 weeks is a significant number in relation to broadcasting for some reason.

The White Wolf

DM_7 wrote: »

Arya v Littlefinger is interesting. Littlefinger led Arya to certain conclusions but Arya let him. It should be good to see how it plays out.

I'd like to see it play out as a who's playing who type deal. Arya obliterated the Freys in one night and masterfully out maneuvoured the Waif, so I'd be disappointed to have to take this episode literally.

LF is the master puppeteer of course, but the shadows should really belong to Arya at this stage.

CMOTDibbler

The White Wolf wrote: »

I'd like to see it play out as a who's playing who type deal. Arya obliterated the Freys in one night and masterfully out maneuvoured the Waif, so I'd be disappointed to have to take this episode literally.

LF is the master puppeteer of course, but the shadows should really belong to Arya at this stage.

Yeah. At the very least Arya will take it up with Sansa directly. It shouldn't take them long to figure out what Littlefinger is up to.