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

Trystane/Sand Snake dialogue was abrupt to me because even if I had ruthless murderer cousins, if they came in and I said "I told you I'm not hungry" and they joked "We're not here to feed you, we're here to kill you" I'd instinctively say "lol oh hey cousins, I'm glad you're here cause I'm really upset my girlfriend suddenly died. Did you hear about that?"

Him immediately taking them seriously implies he already knew they were involved in her death. So if that's to be implied then I would have had him at least say "How did you get here? Are you serious? So it WAS you, then!"

Just more picky daily grievances about Dorne related scenes from Evan

i thought the night watch head's motivations were the most obvious -- he's the old guard who resented jon snow and resents his decisions and he wants to be in charge and rid the guard of its progressive elements.

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 4:11 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear you on this but the knights watch status quo was pretty fucking dire before jon showed up.

What does the Red Witch want and why?

She's a religious zealot on a mission of evangelism and prophecy fulfillment, and her religion has a good deal of in-world evidence to support its authenticity.

But I thought the whole point of the Night's Watch was to protect everyone south of the wall from bad things. So this dude Jon Snow comes to lead the Night Watch with a special vantage into what exactly they need protecting from - the White Walkers and not the Wildlings - aaaand they kill him.

The whole point of it is that very few people are taking the White Walker threat seriously. The majority of those South of the wall see Wildings as the main danger beyond it. To give a real world analogy, to the Westerosi hoi polloi the White Walkers are climate change and the Wildlings are ISIS.

so like they married her off to a chieftain of one particular clan w/ the idea that would somehow gain the targaryans an army of dothrakis? feel like maybe they didn't think this one through.

Well yes, as there are many armies of Dothraki controlled by many warlords.

What does the Red Witch want and why?

She's a religious zealot on a mission of evangelism and prophecy fulfillment, and her religion has a good deal of in-world evidence to support its authenticity.

I also think the last scene and her dazed ass 'wtf' look on her face when she got to castle black was to illustrate that her stannis prophecy was so so wrong and she has to figure out what to do now..

Well yes, as there are many armies of Dothraki controlled by many warlords.

right so presumably marrying only one of those warlords would not recruit all those armies

I think the choice is not Isis vs climate change but Isis vs more powerful and unkillable zombie Isis.

At a certain point they have to move beyond this fiddling while rome burns mode right? because for a bunch of Master strategist and self-preservationists, everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly.

xp - he was the most powerful warlord with the largest army at the time.

everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly

The whole point of this show seems to be about pointing out that people in charge always do this.

I think it's going to take something like the white walkers taking Winterfell before the people in King's Landing start to actually think about what they can do about them.

I think the choice is not Isis vs climate change but Isis vs more powerful and unkillable zombie Isis.

Nah it's climate change.

everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly

The whole point of this show seems to be about pointing out that people in charge always do this.

who, martin?

xpost yeah, the thing is Jon and his buddies are the ones who have seen the White Walkers in action, while most of the Night's Watchmen have only battled Wildlings. So they choose to believe Jon was making shit up.

yeah the fact that most people believe the white walkers and all non-wildling awful monsters from the land beyond the wall are just stories told to scare children is restated over and over and over again

While most of the Night's Watchmen have only battled Wildlings

They had some interesting adventures at Castle Black too! Giants, mammoths, wights...

weren't the giants fighting for the Wildlings?

Yes, but early in the show people talked about giants as if they weren't real, only from the tales.

I might conclude then, if legendary beasts appeared fighting alongside the Wildlings, that the guy who wants to let the Wildlings through the wall was a bit of a problem.

a giant white walker seems like a huge problem to deal with, also. unless they are immune?

Getting back to this Climate Change analogy. CC is something that many/most predict will do bad things, but those bad things are as yet subtle, or abstract. But an unstoppable army of the undead? Dragons, which may be scarce but certainly existed and wreaked havoc within a generation or so? You'd think they'd be good rallying points.

Also, per predictions: with all these prophecies and religious nuts and people with magic, you'd think at least someone would be touting the/a looming apocalypse, which is what charismatic religious leaders basically live for. Even the people with magic powers seem weirdly blind and short-sighted.

"With my witchcraft and spells, I will seat you on the iron throne!"

"Yes, but what about the dragons and ice zombies?"

"What? That's stupid, they don't exist. What are you, a child? Now, back to the matter at hand! The throne! The throne that seemingly does nobody any good, let alone those closest to it! That should be your goal, not defending the realm from a looming magic apocalypse."

I'm pretty sure that Melisandre takes the white walkers seriously, or at least knows they exist. She's the one who said something like "the real war has not even started" when they got that crow message from the night watch a bunch of seasons ago.

She does not appear to have any kind of plan though.

the nitpicking is intense

seems like getting a guy onto the Iron Throne who was in debt to her gods was pretty much the plan. Then her gods would have a lot of soldiers.

it seems rather obvious to me that not many people know about the white walkers, which was the big 'oh no' of Jon Snow dying (for me at least), who is going to relay that information now? xpost also yeah Melisandre seems to see a solution in Jon Snow which is why the resurrection idea makes sense to many.

to be honest one of my favorite parts of the show is how people are failing to take the white walker threat seriously, it's almost an in-joke from the very first scene of the series, with this stammering night's watch dude muttering about having fled white walkers and ned going on about duty or whatever right before he cuts his head off.

yeah, it makes all the king's landing stuff, especially now with the dude from Brazil/Martin Luther, so efficiently frustrating!

How many years have passed in the story? Several, right? Get with it, TV dummies! These people are so conniving, and so Machiavellian, and so stupid. Want this to end all the ice zombies, and dragons, and witches and armies amassed, ready to decimate one another, and then ... some other army from a different part of the (I assume) globe rolls up and just conquers them all.

ends with Tommy Westphall shaking up a snowglobe and yelling "it's winter!"

How many years have passed in the story? Several, right? Get with it, TV dummies! These people are so conniving, and so Machiavellian, and so stupid. Want this to end all the ice zombies, and dragons, and witches and armies amassed, ready to decimate one another, and then ... some other army from a different part of the (I assume) globe rolls up and just conquers them all.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 9:40 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was trying to think about time passed when the daughter was poisoned. That's the same girl who was conceived at the begining of the first season wasn't it? The reason the kid got knocked out of a window and wound up apparently paralysed from the waist down.
Or am I remembering that wrong? Would help if I remembered taht character's name
Would mean that there was a good 16 years between the beginning and the current season, unless there was a flashback to that at the beginning, which would mean less time passed.
Maybe I just need to rewatch the early series again.

That's not true: "Myrcella is eating breakfast with Cersei, Jaime and Tommen when her uncle Tyrion joins them. Myrcella asks whether Bran will die and Tyrion replies that he is expected to live, delighting Myrcella and horrifying Cersei."

yeah myrcella is like 10 in the first season, she just doesn't do much. Cersei has neither conceived nor been pregnant nor given birth since the narrative began.

Here's a question for those who take said questions seriously: the White Walkers, what's up with them? They have seemingly unlimited powers of regeneration, cannot be easily killed and can apparently multiply at will. So what's the hold-up? What are they up to? Where are they hanging? Do they think? Are they basically people, but ice zombies, or are they driven by something other than revenge/quest for the throne? Clearly they have a king, so they must be into that sort of thing, too.

The answer to all those questions is bad plotting.

the final season can have every individual story strand wind up by having grr martin appear and go '¯\_(ツ)_/¯'

The walkers are waiting for winter, I'd wager

Ah, good answer!

But what are they doing now? Playing cards? Catching up on summer reading?

I've wondered whether they think

they're watching a boring protracted drama about a mythical land called "medievel Europe"

"Why does everyone in this stupid show think the world is flat?!"

They bring winter with them! It is known!

"When is this Jesus guy gonna finally show up and murder everybody?"

I believe perhaps they can only travel with the weather? For instance, "winter is coming" and once it finally does they will be able to reach as far as it does. That was how I interpreted it.

However it all made more sense when they were like this elemental humanoid force of evil that was on its way to sweep in and overtake everything just like an actual blizzard, but in that episode last season where they were suddenly wearing clothes and showing facial expressions and emotions... that just kind of turned them into merely another competing clan looking to overthrow everything.

I said this last thread in case of deja vu.

The internet says there are wards in/near the wall (craster's keep, for example) that help keep the walkers away.

There are plenty of actual flaws in the show and then there are flaws in this thread

Like who tf wants the magic explained? That's dumb as hell. It's part of the chaotic unknowable atmosphere that makes this show compelling at all & lets you forgive contrivance

Smh feel like you guys have never read fantasy before 🤓

what do the zombies in walking dead do when they aren't attacking ppl? white walkers are just like medieval versions of them. they probably meander aimlessly in the snow and stare at bright shiny things and think, "ugghrhrhg?"

they do charity work to give something back

can we get back to being excited about Rickon reappearing?

are there any good recaps of this show anymore? ask the maester is on hiatus i guess, and max doesn't do em anymore

"josh in chicago" is a good DN for these posts, as in "now we've got Josh in Chicago with a question about this week's Game of Thrones, Josh you're on the line."

i think the established character i'd be happiest to never see again is ramsay bolton, dude is like the r-rated version of a saturday morning tv cartoon villain, coasting along for seasons on end without establishing any character traits beyond 'is evil'