"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 4 "The Last of the S" - Spoilers post 2 fo

Paddy Cow

Tell me how wrote: »

Bran is strange in that you can't say that his 3 eyed raven ability made any great impact on the show, rather than allowing the NK to find him at Winterfell.

They needed him for the L+R=J reveal.

turbbo

Paddy Cow wrote: »

They needed him for the L+R=J reveal.

He also found out how the NK was created - by the children of the forest.

turbbo

Hitchens wrote: »

They fúcked it up when the books ran out

Massively improved when the books ran out.

awec

In fairness to the writers (I know this is the non-reader thread) Bran's story was just as boring in the books, so far.

He's just a dull character in general, but he has one or two important moments, and he'd be hard to write out of the story.

Loafing Oaf

Tell me how wrote: »

Bran is strange in that you can't say that his 3 eyed raven ability made any great impact on the show, rather than allowing the NK to find him at Winterfell.
Kinda feel like an awful lot more could have been done with his character, they didn't try to leverage his ability to get any insight in to anything really.

Don't worry Sam, it means feck all...

NuMarvel

gargargar wrote: »

I might have missed it, but is Aragorn still alive?

Nope.

Thanos

killed him.

OneOfThem Stumbled

turbbo wrote: »

How would it be the same story? If you take half the story away it's a different story. Your point is nonsense.

It's had no bearing on the major trajectory of virtually any of the major characters.

Jon's plot has revolved around the Night's watch, and the interaction with wildlings. More recently he fought a war with the Boltons (using Wildlings he brought to the south). He got stabbed to death for abandoning the Night Watches' role in guarding the south from Wildlings.

Daenerys' plot has been about freeing the slaves of Essos, before more recently coming west to conquer Westeros and "break the wheel". Her interactions with Jon revolved around a mutual antipathy for Cersei, and her insistence that he bend the knee to her, which he eventually did (because the north needed her help to defend against the white walkers, and because he apparently loves her).

All of Daenerys' other allies joined her due to either dissatisfaction with the incumbent ruler of Westeros, because Daenerys freed them in Essos, or because they believed that she would be a good ruler.

Most of the named characters in the show have never clapped eyes on a white walker. The only one who did, for whom the event was important to their character, was Sam, who became brave ... who became less cowardly after killing a white walker.

Jorah does die from being stabbed by wights, but he leaves Daenerys because he had a terminal disease in Season 6. You could cut him out of the show after that point and not much would change.

I have highlighted, in bold, the part of the overarching story that the white walkers have contributed to.

lawred2

OneOfThem Stumbled wrote: »

It's had no bearing on the major trajectory of virtually any of the major characters.

Jon's plot has revolved around the Night's watch, and the interaction with wildlings. More recently he fought a war with the Boltons (using Wildlings he brought to the south). He got stabbed to death for abandoning the Night Watches' role in guarding the south from Wildlings.

Daenerys' plot has been about freeing the slaves of Essos, before more recently coming west to conquer Westeros and "break the wheel". Her interactions with Jon revolved around a mutual antipathy for Cersei, and her insistence that he bend the knee to her, which he eventually did (because the north needed her help to defend against the white walkers, and because he apparently loves her).

All of Daenerys' other allies joined her due to either dissatisfaction with the incumbent ruler of Westeros, because Daenerys freed them in Essos, or because they believed that she would be a good ruler.

Most of the named characters in the show have never clapped eyes on a white walker. The only one who did, for whom the event was important to their character, was Sam, who became brave ... who became less cowardly after killing a white walker.

Jorah does die from being stabbed by wights, but he leaves Daenerys because he had a terminal disease in Season 6. You could cut him out of the show after that point and not much would change.

I have highlighted, in bold, the part of the overarching story that the white walkers have contributed to.

?

Jon would not have gone to Dragonstone to seek help from Dany and Dany would never have taken all her armies north to fight the army of the dead.

How is that 'the same story'?

Had the WWs called off the attack, it would effectively be the same story. Winning just cut some of Dany's numbers.

OneOfThem Stumbled

lawred2 wrote: »

?

Jon would not have gone to Dragonstone to seek help from Dany
How is that 'the same story'?

Exactly. Jon bending the knee is the sum and total of their importance to the plot in general, and even then, his motivation for doing so were largely based on his personal feelings for her.

The fact that there is in all likelihood not going to be a mention of them in the final two episodes will underscore the point that they aren't important to the story. Even in the last episode, after the battle, they hardly get a mention. The only person to bring them up was Jon, I think, who said that Daenerys help defeat them by using her armies, to which he gets the curt reply that it was Arya who defeated them.

Deleted User wrote: »

Had the WWs called off the attack, it would effectively be the same story. Winning just cut some of Dany's numbers.

But not in a way that is particularly meaningful or in any way consistent. It is never possible to get any feel for how many soldiers she actually possesses, so having less or more of an arbitrary number is a bit meaningless. Also Euron has consistently proven far more costly to her in material strength.

namloc1980

lawred2 wrote: »

?

Jon would not have gone to Dragonstone to seek help from Dany and Dany would never have taken all her armies north to fight the army of the dead.

How is that 'the same story'?

Could easily engineer the plot that Jon still bends the knee to get Dany on board in the fight against Cersei. The white walkers were ultimately a massive pointless subplot.

Nobody south of Winterfell has ever even seen or been in any way impacted by a white walker. For most of the people in westeros they are a myth and remain so.

Twenty Grand

namloc1980 wrote: »

Could easily engineer the plot that Jon still bends the knee to get Dany on board in the fight against Cersei. The white walkers were ultimately a massive pointless subplot.

Nobody south of Winterfell has ever even seen or been in any way impacted by a white walker. For most of the people in westeros they are a myth and remain so.

How so?
The WW were massively important for many of the main characters.

It's like saying the iron throne plot is massively pointless for people north of the wall and in Essos.

WW2 was massively pointless for anyone not involved in it.

nix

Twenty Grand wrote: »

How so?
The WW were massively important for many of the main characters.

It's like saying the iron throne plot is massively pointless for people north of the wall and in Essos.

WW2 was massively pointless for anyone not involved in it.

He means in how it was handled, as in how anti-climactic their whole purpose was basically.

turbbo

namloc1980 wrote: »

Could easily engineer the plot that Jon still bends the knee to get Dany on board in the fight against Cersei. The white walkers were ultimately a massive pointless subplot.

Nobody south of Winterfell has ever even seen or been in any way impacted by a white walker. For most of the people in westeros they are a myth and remain so.

:eek: Still don't see how that equates to the same story????
You are the viewer not the people in Westeros!!
Glad the people on here don't write for HBO and GOT. We'd end up with a episode of Emmerdale.

namloc1980

turbbo wrote: »

:eek: Still don't see how that equates to the same story????
You are the viewer not the people in Westeros!!

Yes and for the viewer they turned out to be very anti climactic after being built up for 7 seasons.

OneOfThem Stumbled

Twenty Grand wrote: »

It's like saying the iron throne plot is massively pointless for people north of the wall and in Essos.

It is, and that's why we only see humans north of the wall through Jon's eyes, or people in Essos through Daenerys' eyes, because those locations aren't in themselves important to the plot, but rather Jon and Daenerys are important to the plot.

Why don't we ever revisit Qarth? Why would we, its only importance was the bearing it had on Daenerys. Why don't we see Daario? Because the only importance he had was in relation to Daenerys.

All stories involve a choice about what you do and do not show. It is expected that what is is shown has a function in the plot as a whole. The white walkers have had a minimal impact on the plot, and while that's not a big issue in itself, it is a bit jarring that there was so much talk about them only for it to have little narrative consequence.

If you were making a documentary about WW2 and spent 20% of the time focusing on Madagascar from 1939-1945 people would ask why you made a choice to devote so much time to such an inconsequential area of the war.

turbbo

namloc1980 wrote: »

Yes and for the viewer they turned out to be very anti climactic after being built up for 7 seasons.

It was always only a subplot from the start(army of the dead etc.) - don't forget that the reason the Night King was created was because of the threat of men.

turbbo

OneOfThem Stumbled wrote: »

If you were making a documentary about WW2 and spent 20% of the time focusing on Madagascar from 1939-1945 people would ask why you made a choice to devote so much time to such an inconsequential area of the war.

Last time I checked it wasn't a documentary
This is character driven fiction - the fact they go north of westeros is because the characters go there, i.e. the story goes there. If the story and characters didn't lead to winterfell then winterfell wouldn't be mentioned. All your points remain nonsense.

vetinari

It's funny, a general consensus online is that this season feels rushed.
The irony is that they could have cut out a bunch of scenes this season and the show would have arguably been better!

They could have shortened the battle of Winterfell and in doing so made the battle more impactful.
They could have removed a bunch of the "hero nearly dies" scenes from the battle of Winterfell and the episode would have been better.
Jaime's hookup with Brienne could have been completely eliminated and noone would be complaining.
Bronn's entire storyline could have been dropped.
Missandei's capture and the negotiation scene could have been entirely dropped.
Killing the dragon was surely enough to enrage Daenerys.

Someone could literally edit shorter better versions of the last 2 episodes.

KerryGoat

this episode had few highs really - it seems that the quality of this season has fallen off a cliff. this episode felt rushed as indeed has the whole season.

turbbo

vetinari wrote: »

It's funny, a general consensus online is that this season feels rushed.
The irony is that they could have cut out a bunch of scenes this season and the show would have arguably been better!

They could have shortened the battle of Winterfell and in doing so made the battle more impactful.
They could have removed a bunch of the "hero nearly dies" scenes from the battle of Winterfell and the episode would have been better.
Jaime's hookup with Brienne could have been completely eliminated and noone would be complaining.
Bronn's entire storyline could have been dropped.
Missandei's capture and the negotiation scene could have been entirely dropped.
Killing the dragon was surely enough to enrage Daenerys.

Someone could literally edit shorter better versions of the last 2 episodes.

100% agree
first 2 episodes - zero happened - very tense brilliant acting blah blah
last 2 episodes - stuff happened - it's rushed it's dumb blah blah

turbbo

turbbo wrote: »

first 2 episodes - zero happened - very tense brilliant acting blah blah

Who said the acting was brilliant?..It hasn't been for a long time..

Twenty Grand

namloc1980 wrote: »

Yes and for the viewer they turned out to be very anti climactic after being built up for 7 seasons.

I don't think it was built up

EDIT: meant to say I don't think it was ant climactic. After the fist of the first men the white walkers were a very real and constant threat, that culminated in Hard home, the death of Viserion, the attack on the wall and finally the battle of Winterfell.

There's a good pattern of lose, lose, kinda win, lose, definitely win.

nix

Twenty Grand wrote: »

I don't think it was built up.

Joshua J

So the NK lands at Winterfell for battle. The battle begins and the front lines retreat almost immediately in side the castle and the defences are over-run. Dani and Jon together manage to take out the NK dragon but suffer injuries and have to retreat. The night king makes it to the garden only for Bran to have scarpered along with the remamining forces south i.e they faked the battle. Why?. Because Cersei wasnt going to send forces to help defeat this threat, this existential threat that has been built up since season 1, so Jon decides to bring the fight to her doorstep as it's the only way they stand a chance, he believes, of deafeating the NK.

NK crushes his way south and breaches Kings landing and has a face to face meeting with Cersei and has epic battle with zombie mountain. Turns her into Night Queen and she sits on the iron throne. Gives birth to Baby soon after and WW baby grows fast is adolesant in short space of time. The remaining forces hatch a last gasp plan. Somehow Jamie kills the young WW prince (his son) Arya can kill Cersei cause she ninja, had her on list, and Jon defeats NK in epic final battle. The throne goes to whomever because its pointless anyway. We all live happily ever after.

Ok its a bit crap but would still be better than what they gave us imo.

jammiedodgers

RickDeckard

Load of balls. I have that horrible Start Wars feeling again. Years and years waiting - for this tripe. So let down by the NK, him and his army were a total joke in the end, what was the point ?God sake.
People in work think its great...
Why does everything turn to ****e these days?

threeball

Has anyone put it to the writers yet that most viewers think this season has been utter sh1t or are they too busy fawning over them.
I'd love to hear the reaction.

RickBlaine

Interesting chart that graphs the imdb user ratings for each episode. The Last of the Starks is the worst rated by a considerable margin

https://www.ratingraph.com/serie/game_of_thrones-1/

biggebruv

Joshua J wrote: »

So the NK lands at Winterfell for battle. The battle begins and the front lines retreat almost immediately in side the castle and the defences are over-run. Dani and Jon together manage to take out the NK dragon but suffer injuries and have to retreat. The night king makes it to the garden only for Bran to have scarpered along with the remamining forces south i.e they faked the battle. Why?. Because Cersei wasnt going to send forces to help defeat this threat, this existential threat that has been built up since season 1, so Jon decides to bring the fight to her doorstep as it's the only way they stand a chance, he believes, of deafeating the NK.

NK crushes his way south and breaches Kings landing and has a face to face meeting with Cersei and has epic battle with zombie mountain. Turns her into Night Queen and she sits on the iron throne. Gives birth to Baby soon after and WW baby grows fast is adolesant in short space of time. The remaining forces hatch a last gasp plan. Somehow Jamie kills the young WW prince (his son) Arya can kill Cersei cause she ninja, had her on list, and Jon defeats NK in epic final battle. The throne goes to whomever because its pointless anyway. We all live happily ever after.

Ok its a bit crap but would still be better than what they gave us imo.

How is Jon supposed to send all of the locals from winterfell to Kings landing and bran too Cersei is hardly gonna be cooperative and let them into the city
Seems a bit much to fake a battle also then have to actually fight aswell for the real thing

Winter fell was closest to the wall it was always gonna come down to that in the end I suppose

I bet if the night king went to kings landing first people would bitch and moan about why did he not do winterfell first