HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

jon snow is a highly contagious disease

Only a very small portion attacked that night. Looked like 150 at most.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, June 10, 2014 11:19 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that was just the small band of wildlings that were already on the other side of the wall

early in the episode, right after the little fireside exchange between ygritte and lolhueg cannibal, who do we see sneaking along the ridge above them? Gilly?

i liked that Tormund's go-to story is about fucking a bear.

ha yeah and everyone thinks its super cool

And how does that elevator work? Does the kid have to turn a crank to raise it?

yeah this bugged me too

magic

Yeah that was Gilly. What's her face saved her from the nearby town raid and set her on her way to Castle Black I'm guessing.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2014/04/game_of_thrones_deaths_mourn_dead_characters_at_their_virtual_graveyard.html

ugh can't believe people's love for this episode. so many minutes of all the reasons i don't give a shit about this show. less fights more ingenious plots please.

i mean it doesn't surprise me: people love action sequences, and this is what keeps superhero franchises afloat. but i find it so dull.

esp as so little even changed at the end of all that hack 'n slash. ygritte dead, some recurring characters exed, but basically still: big army vs tiny army, TUNE IN NEXT WEEK.

Eh. Show's not really hurting for more of people scheming and threatening one another, it's OK to pay off all the set-up of moving armies and impending doom with a big battle set piece episode like once every other season.

This was well done and kind of impressive spectacle for TV. Dug it.

especially since this show's been pretty light on massive battles and the wildling army is as big as they come. I think what was lacking was the buildup to it. It was more like, now here's an episode about the Wall. But I've found this season pretty choppy overall in terms of narrative flow.

Glad to see I’m not alone Sean, most boring episode by far of the season.

And how does that elevator work? Does the kid have to turn a crank to raise it?

someone in this max-led recap/discussion says you can see the boy getting a horse to pull it at some point in the episode.

Yeah, this has been a very 'talky' season and the penultimate episode is always the big gory bouquet anyway. I agree that long action-based episodes can get a bit boring, but this had some great bits. I especially liked the doomy, arch hypothesising from all parties as they await the attack and their certain deaths.

I'm sure I saw the kid push the crank to raise the elevator? What are you all on about?

yeah I saw him push something too but maybe it was the handbrake or something. idk. We need to see the blueprints.

(I'm not quite interested enough in the question to rewatch in order to spot whether there's a crank-horse. (almost though))

Enjoyed the episode more than I thought I would. I've been regularly slightly bored this season, especially with anything Northern - the wall, those kids tramping around with the dream trees etc. Joyless, sluggish. But this was fun.

I thought last seasons was the slow burning, slightly boring one (until the wedding episode anyway) and this season's been more fun, mostly.

It was like a big wheel with a rudder that he pushed round.

Something really has to happen with those dreamtree kids. I don't even remember how Bran met them or who they are - they just seemed to show up and have all this mystic knowledge and I think that's a big reason I don't give a hoot about them.

They are the kids of the lord of Moat Calin, the grotty castle we saw Theon retake from the Iron Islanders recently. They know the Starks from way back.

that is not entirely correct. in the books the reeds are of greywater watch, sw of moat cailin.

Oops my mistake. Been a while since I read the books.

especially since this show's been pretty light on massive battles and the wildling army is as big as they come.

― lauded at conferences of deluded psychopaths (Sparkle Motion), Wednesday, June 11, 2014 1:03 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf this episode was pretty light on massive battles too, how many people were actually involved in it 60?

My main problem with this episode was the ending. So the entire episode was devoted to a test of the defences? And now Mance Rayder is just going to take a break and allow the crows to set up all the defensive stuff again, get some sleep, etc? The lack of resolution and any kind of consequence was awful, and it seems as if they just structured the story like this to try and get another Blackwater.

http://giant.gfycat.com/IdleDamagedKiskadee.gif

haha that kid was so proud of himself after he shot Ygritte, best scene of the evening after the Scythe

xpost - I don't know why all the thousands of wildlings have decided to take a break?

On the elevator- the kid pushes a crank that sets things in motion and it goes by itself at that point. Just... don't think about it too hard ok? Gears and stuff.

Maybe the wildlings are reassembling due to some key giants taken down + wild gigantic mammoth running away (key for gate removal) + scythe induced PTSD. I still agree that the TV rewrite having the wildlings attacking via wall is entirely for the theatrics and nobody would actually try that for any reason.

But either the wildlings only had two giants and a mammoth, in which case it makes no sense to throw all of that at the wall and only a fraction of the wildlings, or they have many more giants and mammoths, in which case they should use them now before the crows get more barrels of oil up to the top. It's all just weird.

They sacrificed logic for theatrics, and thereby created an episode that becomes less and less satisfying.

Wildlings are totally useless if they don't get to bed before 10:30 sharp.

seriously, you have no idea.

I just like to imagine that there was some reason only a handful got to the wall at the point that they did and were hoping it would be an easier siege than it was.

maybe they just did it for a laugh

In the books the southern wildling attack was a separate event, so in this case you could imagine the handful that attacked the wall via the north were trying to distract forces from focusing on the battle in the castle. Maybe? eh? eh?

http://global3.memecdn.com/khuu-khuu_c_3329267.webp

The episode was surely surely about establishing John Snow as the de facto commander of the Night's Watch? I mean who else is there?

They might kill him next week, I suppose, but they only seem to kill Starks in odd numbered seasons.

GoT plots this season in ascending order of lameness:

Joffrey getting murdered/Tyrion imprisonment -> Littlefinger kidnapping Sansa -> Arya and The Hound -> shit kicking off at the Wall -> Brienne and Podrick sort of wandering around getting on each other's nerves -> Daenerys just sort of hanging around not doing much -> Stannis kru just standing around grumpily -> anything involving Theon and the Boltons -> Samwell and Gilly and their pointless irrelevant baby -> fucking magical animal kids wandering around in the snow.

i mean it doesn't surprise me: people love action sequences, and this is what keeps superhero franchises afloat. but i find it so dull.

tell me about it. I feel like all present-day genre entertainment would just be 100% this all the time if it could. Guh.

(but the scythe was k-awes)

Forks otm

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/omc/kidsphil/questions/Wherewild/wild.jpg

OG Wildling, sent to bed without dinner

I just wish they would've cut to king's landing, or, anything else really. Just once

― Dreamland, Monday, June 9, 2014 1:24 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahah what

when this episode started i was like "how great would it be if they never leave the wall this ep and do it kinda in real time"

and they did!

i was kind of hoping gilly would have fallen in love with bald nights watch guy by the end of the ep tho, that would have been a good twist

yeah agree the mountain didn't seem as menacing as Head Thenn. tho I supposed part of the point was for Oberyn to own him a bit before it got to his head.

― ryan, Monday, June 9, 2014 1:12 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9627011/photos/golfclap.gif

i wouldve been cool if they cut to kings landing and everyone was bored and nothing was happeing

i liked this action movie. sometimes shows just need a break from all the menacing looks and talky-talk.

and eyeball-gouging.

Somebody def got a dirk in the eye for like half a sec