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

I think the house of widows thing seems interesting. She'll probably meet new recruits there.

The house of widows is one of those things that could be great in theory but probably won't be in practice. The Dorne stuff at least got rid of a load of deadwood characters and might actually lead to a war.

If John Snow is really did then Davos is effectively our eyes and ears around the Wall now, if anything he's likely to be more prominent this year. John Snow probably isn't dead though.

I can't remember how Arya went blind but marooning her hundreds of miles away from everyone else was a terrible narrative decision.

'You'll just have to sit here and wait' seems to be the M.O. for so many character arcs right now. WTF is going on in this show? Those white walkers had better pull their fingers out.

it's one thing isolating main characters, but they give them this one basic simple goal and then have them frustrated in every attempt to achieve it, it's like they've found that having one character trying to bounce the same ball off the wall for three seasons is the easiest way to deal with so many storylines at once, cos you just see them and instantly know nothing in their plotline has changed.

they've had a whole season of dorne being annoyed, arya getting beaten up and failing tests, a few seasons of daenerys going from triumph to setback. are there no ideas in the writers room or something?

I didn't see a "next week on" but given how this show cycles character scenes I expect next week to be catching up with Littlefinger, Bran and Sam.

This has basically become a series of unconnected vignettes of varying quality and tone

in other words, a faithful interpretation of the books

I liked this episode. Kind of disappointed that they killed off the one potentially interesting character in the Dorne storyline, but maybe that just means that they are going to speed through the end of that story (sand snakes arrive in king's landing, get killed by Zombie Mountain or something, the end).

The complaining about stalling is pretty funny, when in a way the show has speeded up immensely how fast it takes for characters to go somewhere. Arya spent 3 seasons (?) wandering around Westeros before she got on the ship, it took Jamie a season to get with Brienne to Kings Landing. But it only took Tyrion half a season to get to Meereen, and in this premiere Jamie goes Dorne-Kings Landing between episodes, and Daenerys gets to the dothraki camps as well. And I complained about Melisandre getting to Castle Black from Winterfell in the last thread.

So they're getting rid of the sense of scale of the place. But they're not really replacing it with any propulsion or action.

yeah but once you discover locations you can fast travel between them

i know the state of affairs is a little dismal because i caught myself thinking "i wonder what bran is up to?"

It's not so much about how long it takes to get to places, but what happens on that journey and when they get there. Arya and the Hound was great. Arya having to complete endless gnomic tasks week in week out, with no clear end point or reason in mind is just boring. I'm sure something'll happen to her next week. I don't remember how she got blinded either though.

i liked the arya storyline, and the performance of her sadistic mentor, but they are dragging it out for sure.

i know the state of affairs is a little dismal because i caught myself thinking "i wonder what bran is up to?"

have even wondered about rickon.

It was a magical punishment for using the face swapping to get personal revenge on the evil kingsguard guy that was visiting. And yeah I REALLY hope she isn't just going to slowly learn how to deal with being a blind face swapper in training for the course of the entire season...

xp

current game of throne storylines, ranked (i'm limiting myself to ~2 seconds of brain activity for each decision so this is from the heart)

sansa & theon & brienne & podrick
cersei and jaime destroy everyone else
jon snow for the love of the old gods and the new wake up and make this show more interesting
davos and a team of extras wait for someone to save the day
ramsay
sam working on getting tenure
bronn? i'm assuming he's doing something. whatever it is it's better than most of the rest of the show
margaery tries to ignore constant pleas to purchase a Lexus
bran and the 3 eyed raven
tyrion and varys have some decent conversations while stalling for another season
melisandre finally does something cool (?) and revives jon snow?
jorah and daario on the trail
arya's neverending bad day
daenerys kills some more time
direct to video dorne

i forgot some stuff (like baelish) but whatever. i guess i'd put ">>" after cersei/jaime and another ">>>>>>>" after ramsay

oh god baelish. i never liked him or his scenes for some reason. lots of people seem to enjoy him though.

you'd think he'd be more in the mix since he literally kicked off the events that got ned killed

The showrunners really hate Dorne, is my feeling.

wasn't one of the problems w/ the Dorne production that they only had permission to shoot on that location for a few days?

the location is a vacation house in palm springs iirc

ha ha it's in Andalusia

Oh, it's not the lobby of a Hyatt?

seville isn't it? the executive hilton seville.

I usually go with the garden view room so I can get the breakfast package. Just my luck that I witness some murders as a result.

current game of throne storylines, ranked (i'm limiting myself to ~2 seconds of brain activity for each decision so this is from the heart)

sansa & theon & brienne & podrick
cersei and jaime destroy everyone else
jon snow for the love of the old gods and the new wake up and make this show more interesting
davos and a team of extras wait for someone to save the day
ramsay
sam working on getting tenure
bronn? i'm assuming he's doing something. whatever it is it's better than most of the rest of the show
margaery tries to ignore constant pleas to purchase a Lexus
bran and the 3 eyed raven
tyrion and varys have some decent conversations while stalling for another season
melisandre finally does something cool (?) and revives jon snow?
jorah and daario on the trail
arya's neverending bad day
daenerys kills some more time
direct to video dorne

Imagine Zombie Mountain will feature soon.

Is Littlefinger still in the Vale? I really can't remember

last we saw littlefinger he was leaving sansa with the boltons, right?

i'm expecting some big crazy metal underdog army of wildlings and vengeful greyjoys and undead jon snow coming together before the end of the season.

littlefinger was summoned by Cersei right?

It's not the Hilton fwiw

http://scribblerinseville.com/game-of-thrones-season-5-the-water-gardens-of-dorne-aka-the-alcazar-of-seville/

I don't think wondering what Bran is up to is odd, it seems like whatever mystery he's involved in is crucial.

Bran crew was one my favorite storyline because it was respite from politics and went on his very own trope. Not to say that I dislike the politics intensive narrative arcs (on the contrary!) but that was quite different.

At this point we know that the existential threat is even more looming than ever, and somebody is going to have to bring dragons to that party. Those are the two key ingredients of the finale. We have two more years to get there after this season (hopefully we won't get treated to more than 1 episode worth of post-white-walker epilogue).

The only person that really has any "plot armor" in the endgame scenario are Daenaerys, because dragons, and probably Bran, because warging into a dragon seems like a thing that needs to happen.
Everybody else is completely expendable really and I think that's what makes all the other disparate storylines seem a little dull. Like, we really cared about the consequences of stuff like the Red Wedding way back when, but that taught us not to get heavily invested in the characters, and then Hardhome taught us that there are not many problems in this made-up world, there is exactly one problem, and it is going to kill everyone.

We'll see how much the showrunners acknowledge this problem and try to give us something worth chewing on in the meantime. At the same time I totally see why GRRM can't finish writing any of it. He needs to tie up about 200 dumb side quests he made up for fun, get to the dragons vs. zombies fight and end it. I'd hate to sit down every day to that.

assuming the show sticks to its stated timeline, i'm hopeful that this season will take us to the end of Act II with all the pieces finally shuffled into their places and some downhill momentum at last

I didn't realise they had changed their minds about stubbornly sticking to 7 seasons. I'm a little disappointed that they couldn't just make season 7 a bit longer. Is 13 episodes really too much to ask of one season?

Speaking of Branquest, what's the last we knew of the Reeds? Jojen was killed by a skeleton, but Meera is still alive?

And yeah I REALLY hope she isn't just going to slowly learn how to deal with being a blind face swapper in training for the course of the entire season...
wasn't this addressed in one of the trailers with jaqar or wtf his name is saying she was getting one
more chance to prove herself? I didn't dream that did I.

Meera's still alive

I'm terrible with faces in a lot of these complex plot shows. With S5 having been so long ago, I was confusing all the middle aged men with grey beards. I keep mixing up Stannis, Davos, Jorah (to a lesser ext), and Alliser.

i wasn't sure if the ppl in jon snow's rooms were wildlings or nightwatch

watch men

i've read all the books and watched all the eps but honestly idk if i care how the story concludes anymore

Yeah I'm starting to find the whole thing a bit of a mess to follow. Someone upthread mentioned burning ships... hein!? Wasnt that burning buildings?

Nah it was the harbor

Dead @ Karl Malone ranking post

maybe I need 2 b less drunk when watching this show lol

No I think you're on the right track.

Finally caught up with this (the episode, not the thread). I'm glad to see that it's gotten back to being a bit self consciously campy again - the Dothraki Spanish Inquisition skit throwback was cute, and so was the negotiating through the door scene - but as I was reminding my wife who everyone was and why we (in theory) care, it was pretty rough going. "Oh, she is sworn to her because her master was killed by a mysterious vagina ghost assassin." "That guy, he used magic to ..." etc.

One thing I couldn't answer/remember is what happened to the dragons. The best I could come up with is that she flew one of them to Scotland with a broken engine and then crash-landed it in a field before she was captured by Dothraki?

BTW, if this ends with dragons vs. zombies - or zombies riding dragons? or zombie dragons? - I will be highly entertained and also drunk.

the others she locked in a cave because the one who is actually loose was behaving badly..

I think tyrion is gonna go check on them in the next ep due to the preview.

Are we mayb all struggling cos its been too long since the last season? I should have rewatched at least S5 again.

those sandworm girls are so annoying, dorne is stupid & looks like a myst add-on

i am nostalgc for the days of a mere 3 storylines

also did everyone always swear so modernly and casually in this

Yeah, there was a flurry of "fucks" in one bit that really stood out for me!