Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Hoax]

It is frustrating as a thinking fan that the writers forgot Bran existed or Ghost existed or the red religion and their fire seeing existed. Use any method other than Gendry running and getting the watch to fly a raven to dragonstone pls guys pls.  

Also the whole every zombie but one thing was awful. Like cmon. Don't show writers feel shame when they take such a stupid shortcut to get what they want?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Imagine taking a feature length movie and cutting it to a 20min student film.  I don't doubt everything we've seen was meant to be in this season but without any context it just seems rushed and out of place. 

The whole zombie lake scene was likely to be in the books almost exactly as it was except probably involving the cast setting up some kind of camp on the island, dragging it out for a week while the lake ice froze and they all began to starve.   Arya and Sansa could be playing a deeper game against Littlefinger and maybe a scene or two with Bran, Brienne or even the maester at winterfell would make it more clear or let us know that there is some shit going on beyond face value of the two sisters scenes but we don't see that either.

There's a lot of stuff happening that COULD make sense but there's just zero context for it.  So I don't really think the scenes in particular are dumb or could never make any sense but the overall package is.

"Game of Cliff Notes."

[Khaldun]

From the alternative plot outline I worked up with a friend, here's a way to get the Magnificent Seven to the Wall for a big set piece.

Dany receives an envoy from Jon Snow--not Jon Snow, but Davos. He tries to convince her to come see the zombies. Tyrion tells Dany it might be real--there are dragons, after all, and Jon Snow seems like a decent chap. Dany thinks it's either a trick or a delusion, but then suddenly ta-da! Jorah Mormont shows up. She welcomes him and he mentions that he was cured by the nicest young maester who was really urgently worried about zombies north of the Wall. Varys mentions that he'd heard rumors from the Wall about dead men coming to life just before he took off for Essos with Tyrion.

Dany has an idea--she'll send Jorah Mormont to see about the zombie thing. If they're real, she says, send me a raven from Castle Black and I'll head north that instant with my dragons.

Davos and Jorah head north--but Davos makes a smuggler's pit stop in KL to pick up Gendry--and to leave a letter for Jamie from Tyrion begging Jamie to talk Cersei into surrender. Jamie reads it, then it goes missing--Qyburn snatches it and gives it to Cersei. Cue conversation about baby and betrayal.

Davos, Jorah and Gendry arrive at Winterfell. Guess who's there? The Hound, Thoros and Beric, in the prison, because Jon Snow, Sansa and Brienne totally do not trust them. Arya feels a bit different but doesn't know what to say. They tell a story about having to go to the Wall to see zombies. Jon Snow decides impulsively that he'll let them go and join Jorah, Gendry, Tormund *and himself* on a trip to Castle Black to see if they can see a zombie. (We'll just flat out undo Tormund having been sent to Eastwatch, which was stupid anyway). Davos stays because Winterfell needs his steadying influence.

[I have better ideas about Sansa and Arya, too, but leave that aside for the moment.]

The Magnificent Seven arrive at Castle Black. Dolorous Edd says, "Hai guys, you are in luck, a brother of the Night's Watch just died of a venereal disease and we were gonna burn him, I'll put him in the zombie lockup instead and you can see it's real." They wait a day and holy fuck, zombies are real. Jorah says, "I'll send the message to Daenerys." Suddenly the horn blows: there's a million zombies and wights approaching the Wall. Jorah says, "I'll amend the message to Daenerys and tell her HOLY FUCK COME QUICK IT'S A MILLION ZOMBIES".

The zombies just wait a short distance from the Wall, creeping everyone out. DT and the Dragon Squad arrive, she begins flaming the hell out of zombies, and the Night King does his javelin throw. Viserion is seriously wounded and crashes to the ground. Daenerys freaks out and flies back over the wall with Rhaegon and Drogon. Jon Snow decides to take the Magnificent Seven out the gate to try and keep the zombies off Viserion while the Night's Watch tries to find enough chains (remember the anti-climber defenses?) to drag his body back to the gate, hoping they can maybe tend to his wounds. Thoros dies; the redshirts die. Daenerys watching from the top of the Wall realizes they're all going to die and that Viserion is toast. So she hops on Drogon to be the choppa. She lands, they all climb on (including Jon Snow). Night King lines up his javelin, and suddenly there's Benjen, doing a suicide run at the Night King! He distracts the Night King long enough that DT succeeds in getting them out. She decides to fly everyone back to Winterfell so they can confer and tells Dolorous Edd to hold the Wall as long as possible.

Danerys is kind of smitten with that nice Jon Snow--he valiantly tried to save her baby! In the meantime, the Night King waits for Viserion to croak and then resurrects him. Cue the next episode!

----------------


See? Nobody did anything dumb. It's roughly the same set piece. It sets up the same emotional beats, more or less. It doesn't cost any more to stage, really. The only thing you lose is the dumb, unnecessary meeting between Tyrion and Jamie in KL--just find a better time for that later. (or earlier, maybe in the aftermath of the Loot Train Battle)

[Shannow]

But we don't get 'This is Jon Snow - A right proper lad' meeting in Dragonstone :D

[Khaldun]

So maybe you bring Davos to Castle Black, and DT and Jon have their first meeting there in the courtyard, same scene as at Dragonstone, more or less, only without Tyrion present. If the zombies are just quietly doing nothing out there, DT has time to stop and confer with Jorah, Davos and the rest. Maybe here you get a really interesting hint from Dolorous Edd that Jon is kind of a zombie himself, only to have Jon shush him.

[HaemishM]

My only concern with the rush here is what that means for next season. I mean, we've seen the dragons BBQ Lannisters, we've seen them cook up some zombies, and other than an ice dragon vs. fire dragon fight, how are you going to top the set pieces from this season without repeating some of the same beats? I don't think they've got enough budget to do 8 episodes of battle but I'm not sure they have enough story left to tell outside of that. I guess we'll see after this next week - I predict it will be a more low key episode without as much action and lots of talky.

[Abagadro]

Next season is only 6 episodes.

[Khaldun]

My guess is four episodes of spectacle next season followed by two quieter episodes of falling action.

[HaemishM]

With basically 7 episodes left then, that explains the rush.

[IainC]

I really don't understand why they imposed this arbitrary limit of 7 and 6 episodes for the final 2 seasons. I can agree that there was a shit ton of filler in previous seasons that didn't need to take up so much screen time (most of the Dorne plot, Daenerys failing to impose her values on Slavers' Bay) but now they are trying to cram way too much into each episode because there isn't enough screentime to finish the story in a cohesive manner. It can't be budget, I don't imagine that HBO is worried about making enough money from the series to justify spending money. If it's a tradeoff for more CGI budget then scale back (heh) the Dragon closeups except for a few set pieces. Unless someone critical to the show has said they'll only do half seasons, I really don't get it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

General fatigue from the cast+crew I'd imagine.  Probably a lot of people saying "I've got one more in me then I'm done"

[Brolan]

It costs more and more money to keep the cast together as they get more famous and in demand. Generally actors are signed to seven year contracts and after that the salary demands explode.  It's probably all they can afford.

[jgsugden]

They're extending the life of the product by splitting the last "season" in two.  HBO makes money by people subscribing.  Once GoT ends, if they do not have a hit show to replace it, they lose subscribers.

[IainC]

It costs more and more money to keep the cast together as they get more famous and in demand. Generally actors are signed to seven year contracts and after that the salary demands explode.  It's probably all they can afford.

Certainly would be a shame if we never got a Pixels 2 because Peter Dinklage was busy being Tyrion Lannister.

[Rendakor]

I really don't understand why they imposed this arbitrary limit of 7 and 6 episodes for the final 2 seasons. I can agree that there was a shit ton of filler in previous seasons that didn't need to take up so much screen time (most of the Dorne plot, Daenerys failing to impose her values on Slavers' Bay) but now they are trying to cram way too much into each episode because there isn't enough screentime to finish the story in a cohesive manner. It can't be budget, I don't imagine that HBO is worried about making enough money from the series to justify spending money. If it's a tradeoff for more CGI budget then scale back (heh) the Dragon closeups except for a few set pieces. Unless someone critical to the show has said they'll only do half seasons, I really don't get it.

They also have less source material to draw from; with the books they had pages of filler to use for various scenes but now they've got outline notes, at best.

[Khaldun]

I think it's pretty clear the showrunners have no idea how to imagine the smaller turns of plot and characterization without Martin's work to draw upon. Now I have to admit that I do sort of hope he manages two more books because this is not going to be a satisfying conclusion *at all*.

[eldaec]

On raven speeds - the Internet says 500 miles per day. If we allow for  these being badass westerosi ravens that can push 750 miles that gives a travel time of two days.

But speeds aren't the main issue, I coukd tell myself perhaos they were trapped on the rock for a few days - the bit I couldn't get my head around is Dany flying 1500 miles through a blizzard without adequate protection.

Jorah was worried about freezing ffs.

[MrHat]

I think it's pretty clear the showrunners have no idea how to imagine the smaller turns of plot and characterization without Martin's work to draw upon. Now I have to admit that I do sort of hope he manages two more books because this is not going to be a satisfying conclusion *at all*.

That's exactly how I feel too. I didn't care before, but now I'm more and more curious how GRRM will write these plots.

[MrHat]

On raven speeds - the Internet says 500 miles per day. If we allow for  these being badass westerosi ravens that can push 750 miles that gives a travel time of two days.

But speeds aren't the main issue, I coukd tell myself perhaos they were trapped on the rock for a few days - the bit I couldn't get my head around is Dany flying 1500 miles through a blizzard without adequate protection.

Jorah was worried about freezing ffs.

Maybe first-class dragon seats are heated?

[Samwise]

Maybe first-class dragon seats are heated?

This.

The thing has a metabolism that generates fire on demand, there's gotta be a fair amount of waste heat coming off it.  I'm actually a little surprised that non-Targaryens can ride on dragonback without getting singed.

[Rendakor]

They didn't show any ice melting when Drogon was waiting for Jon and Company to climb aboard. Maybe Dany is immune to both Ice and Fire.

[IainC]

That 'waste heat' is how they fly so fast. Ramjet assist!

[Shannow]

Considering how Jon lived is he immune to cold, aka his Stark heritage? Just wondering.

I also think that HBO has to end this as the talent is basically saying 'immm doooooonnneeee'

[Slayerik]

The thing is, with the talent, they should know better than to fuck with HBO. HBO is loyal to their favorites. You will see actors pop up in new series a decade later. Why would you want out of the biggest show on TV? You're gonna get your money after this show. Soak up all the fame you can, while you can. Parlay it into the next HBO series, movies, TV, whatever....but unless you are a total idiot: don't you dare fuck with HBO.

[Ginaz]

I wonder how Euron Greyjoy is going to react to the news that Cersei is pregnant with Jamie's child, now that she doesn't plan on hiding her "relationship" with her brother?

[eldaec]

I don't buy the idea that the cast and crew is phoning it in. It's a shit script being delivered as well as it reasonably can be.

The producers otoh strike me as being at the limits of their capabilities.

Noone is fucking with anybody.

[Ginaz]

The thing is, with the talent, they should know better than to fuck with HBO. HBO is loyal to their favorites. You will see actors pop up in new series a decade later. Why would you want out of the biggest show on TV? You're gonna get your money after this show. Soak up all the fame you can, while you can. Parlay it into the next HBO series, movies, TV, whatever....but unless you are a total idiot: don't you dare fuck with HBO.

You think people would have learned by now what happens when you get into a dispute with the producers of the successful TV show you're on.  Ask Suzanne Somers and Wayne Rogers how well it worked out for them.

[Abagadro]

Dany had that bad-ass coat tho.

[schild]

Dany had that bad-ass coat tho.

ikea rug

[Riggswolfe]

I really don't understand why they imposed this arbitrary limit of 7 and 6 episodes for the final 2 seasons. I can agree that there was a shit ton of filler in previous seasons that didn't need to take up so much screen time (most of the Dorne plot, Daenerys failing to impose her values on Slavers' Bay) but now they are trying to cram way too much into each episode because there isn't enough screentime to finish the story in a cohesive manner. It can't be budget, I don't imagine that HBO is worried about making enough money from the series to justify spending money. If it's a tradeoff for more CGI budget then scale back (heh) the Dragon closeups except for a few set pieces. Unless someone critical to the show has said they'll only do half seasons, I really don't get it.

They said it was because these last two seasons have bigger battles and such and so they had to save money by cutting down on the number of episodes.

[taolurker]

[Sir T]

They said it was because these last two seasons have bigger battles and such and so they had to save money by cutting down on the number of episodes.

So they took a show that was famously based on character drama and Tits, and decided to run a Michael Bay Transformers movie for the final 2 seasons.

*slow clap*

[Threash]

Stop expecting actors to cover their faces, it just doesn't work. Some times realism has to take a back seat.

[Riggswolfe]

They said it was because these last two seasons have bigger battles and such and so they had to save money by cutting down on the number of episodes.

So they took a show that was famously based on character drama and Tits, and decided to run a Michael Bay Transformers movie for the final 2 seasons.

*slow clap*

If you think this is a Michael Bay Transformers movie, you've never seen one of those movies. (Consider yourself lucky). Did you think the show (or the books) would end with them all sitting around the table with Cesei and Dany flashing their breasts and Jon and the others deciding who'd rule based on the results of this flash?

[Khaldun]

On Cersei's baby, I'm thinking:

a) It's totally fake, doesn't exist
b) It's Euron's baby--she already humped him

B) is pretty consistent with Cersei's behavior to date: she does whatever she wants, when she wants. Her feelings about Jamie are not really love per se.