HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

Jorggahlos

Khal Faygo missed the boat to Westeros and now rules the Great Grass Sea

obligatory "Nedden Stark" joke goes here

fukkin maesters how do they work

legit lol at Khal Faygo

same

Sorry gotta link this one here

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bjkyln/so_we_go_into_hbo_and_tell_them_bran_has_an_idea/

I still don't get why people are so upset about Bran not using some super magical powers, because...

A) Bran's powers have been shown to be fairly limited. He can see the past, and he can warg into animals, maybe humans too, though Hodor may have been a special case. It's never been implied he could warg into wights (who have no mind to take control of), including the wight dragon, or into the White Walkers. (If he had that ability, surely he would've used it when the wights were about to kill him and his friends when they were beyond the Wall.) So, what were people expecting, that Bran would pull some never-before-seen offensive magic out of his ass to kill the Night King. Wouldn't that have been a total deus ex machina ending, much more so than the current one is?

B) The good guys' plan was clearly laid out in the previous episode: use Bran as a bait so the Night King will personally come into the Kingswood, then kill him. Okay, dragonfire didn't work like they thought it wood, but they know Valyrian steel can kill the White Walkers. And Bran could probably sense Arya running into the Godswood, armed with a Valyrian steel dagger Bran had given to her. So in the end everything more or less went according to the plan, one that was suggested by Bran himself. What else should Bran have done, since his plan worked?

Somehow I feel people have gotten so used to "clever" plot twists, where some mastermind is revealed to have had a secret plan all along, that they project those expectations even into stories where there is no reason to expect such a twist. GoT's plot twists have mostly been about someone unexpectedly using brutal violence to kill their opponents, not about some intricate master plans.

He was helped warging into Hodor as well right, by the 3ER?

Otherwise I agree T, I've been reading the butthurt book fans on /r/asoiaf and theyre all acting like this

http://i.imgur.com/0nHkcg4.png

I'm assuming there are a bunch of 'I'm going to go now' memes out there?

...my planet needs me

(yes)

He was helped warging into Hodor as well right, by the 3ER?

But yeah, we clearly saw that the previous One-Eyed Raven was mostly helpless against the wight/White Walker attack, there was nothing he could do against them, and they killed him. And that dude had been the OER for ages, so why would Bran fare any better in a straight fight with them?

The problem with Bran is that he's a perfect storm of bad/uncharismatic actor, creepy/boring character and clunky expository/plot device. Even though he's been there from day one the warg incarnation has turned him into the GoT equivalent of Jacob from lost, basically.

Nobody actually wants all this to be the result of a magic mastermind who has been pulling strings from decades before he was born. The Hodor 'reveal' was probably the lowest moment in the entire series and that's really saying something.

Bran replying "chaos is a ladder" to Littlefinger justifies his entire arc

I like bran since he became the three-eyed raven, he has a good vibe now

He's certainly nailed sitting down and staring intensely

Since the kid from Love Actually died, Bran has the most "Brit drama school kid actor" vibe of all the child performers on GOT, but I think he's carved out a solid, weird niche since then

In general this has always been a solid B+ show for me, and being overly critical (or critical at all) gets in the way of it being FUN and annoys me. The nerd entitlement now (not here, but elsewhere) is v. tiring

Important to separate nerd entitlement from valid criticism, though.

xp agreed, view this purely as an entertainment show at this point and don't think it can bear or merits examination in depth, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (in moderation, which is why it's a good thing it's ending now)

Isn't the entire point that the previous raven embodied Bran and therefore wasn't killed?

Bran has been good as Three Eyed Raven, one of the few characters with some mystery rather than playing a gif of themselves.

any time in the recent episode when someone had to push a door closed to keep the wights out, I would think "You know, there was a guy who was good at that" and then I'd get sad

beric-ade however

good point

I couldn’t tell if they meant Beric to be resembling Jesus on the cross during his demise.

I couldn’t tell because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Did the weapon maker get dragged off the battlements. I saw the second part of a process and didn't see who it happened to.

probably hard to resist pulling Christ poses when you've been resurrected a bunch

idk maybe after the second or third resurrection your posing evolves, and you become like, the Neil Young or Billy Joel of resurrected dudes

I couldn’t tell if they meant Beric to be resembling Jesus on the cross during his demise.

i noticed that as well, and my first thought was that it was an homage to the Paladin character class

i don't actually believe that's true, of course (i'm pretty sure Beric doesn't worship jesus) but it was a funny coincidence

billy joel can be lethal when things aren't going his way

brienne is the only paladin eligible fighter in this show

I think most of the frustration with the episode stems from how useless Jon and Dany were and I also felt let-down, but to be honest avoiding that kind of fan service is the most old-school game of thrones thing they've done in a few seasons so in hindsight I'm grateful.

xp

i dunno, brienne is officially a knight now, and that seems more fitting - her loyalty is to people, not to gods

i just mean she's the only one who doesn't do the things you mustn't do if you want to be a paladin

oh, i gotcha. yeah, that seems to be true (although "can paladins drink?" is a fun google search)

Would be pretty interesting if Bran refused to use his powers to aid Dany in the battle against Cersei—refusing to aid anyone in their attempt to ascend to the throne.

Could have the potential of extending the Dany/Stark conflict to all the Stark kids.

Does Dany try to burn Bran for not bending the (proverbial) knee? If so, what does Jon do?

"You're tearing me apart, Kha-lisa!"

“When I watched it I was struck by how almost religious it was,” Richard Dormer told HuffPost of his character’s final moment.

He said it was visually influenced by Christ’s death on the cross. Beric is stabbed multiple times before making his way to safety, only to die, for the seventh time, in Arya’s arms ― “a spiritual number,” Dormer noted.

Hey, I'm a little behind on this. I started watching s8e1 last night and turned it off about halfway through because it seemed like the same clunky dialogue and lack of character as plagued s7. Should I just could cut my losses and cancel my HBO subscription now?

Sure why not

Skip to the big fight scene. Less talk, more action

Rewatched last week’s episode again last night, and it still rules despite all the little problems

I’m kind of enjoying the nerd meltdown over the destruction of their pet theories. I think people have no idea how storytelling works other than there are supposed to be a bunch of unlikely reveals

links please? I too would like to make some popcorn and fill a chalice with nerd tears.

There are all sorts of unlikely reveals in the source material, but that’s the type of thing that can work in books but doesn’t translate well to TV

it translated fine to tv until they ran out of books!