Game of Thrones - Spoilers

[Jinsai]

I mean... can I just say that I thought Arya smiling while slitting Frey's throat was really disturbing? I thought the scene where she horribly murdered Merrin Trant was disturbing. Don't mistake me for having a double standard there... The actress is an adult, she can make the decisions she wants, and she's free to of course. I just personally felt uncomfortable, but more in a way like if I were watching a video of my own adult child or something... you don't necessarily disapprove, but you sure as shit would feel strange watching.

It feels weird that I have to spell it out to be honest. I can't remember when I last had to argue against the assertion that I'm a prude or something... it was an awkward scene, and it didn't help that I felt that it was bookended by an episode that was weirdly forced and disingenuous.

[Wretchedest]

I'm not suggesting you're a prude. It's definitely a first that it's happened in the same series where they were a child. It's definitely itely weird. I'm just saying it's not *fucked up* or whatever else that might imply

[ltrandazzo]

And that's the tea.

*dying*

[bobbie solo]

Things to keep in mind as things start to go down over the next few weeks: How accurate will Dany's visions in the House of the Undying be, how accurate will Cersei's prophecy from the fortune teller be (and will they stick to just what we got on TV, or add that last element from the books), and the wild card: what will the Red Woman do, if anything? She's been purposefully kept off the board thus far, but I don't think that will last.

[theimage13]

Fan theory: the Night King is heading towards King's Landing while all of Winterfell is distracted by the approaching army.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comm...is_not_stupid/

[sweeterthan]

Things to keep in mind as things start to go down over the next few weeks: How accurate will Dany's visions in the House of the Undying be, how accurate will Cersei's prophecy from the fortune teller be (and will they stick to just what we got on TV, or add that last element from the books), and the wild card: what will the Red Woman do, if anything? She's been purposefully kept off the board thus far, but I don't think that will last.

I can’t remember if posted here or not but two years ago I watched the whole series again. In the house of the undying, dany has a vision of the iron throne in winter with snow falling all around the throne room.

Bran also has the same vision of the throne. I can’t remember when tho. Maybe right before he becomes the three eyed raven.

[M1ke]

Fan theory: the Night King is heading towards King's Landing while all of Winterfell is distracted by the approaching army.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comm...is_not_stupid/

Shit......that seems 100% likely. It makes so much sense, I'd be kind of surprised if it wasn't true now.

There's so much pointing towards it being true. Let the foot soldiers try to take over winterfell. Even if they lose, after taking down Kings Landing on his fucking dragon, his new army is bigger anyways.

[marodi]

I was wondering why we have the Battle of Winterfell on the third episode. It seemed too early. Of course, it makes perfect sense for the Night King to go for King's Landing first.

Very useful you are, Bran the Creeper.

[ryanmcfly]

Fan theory: the Night King is heading towards King's Landing while all of Winterfell is distracted by the approaching army.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comm...is_not_stupid/

Holy shit. I dig this theory more than the Night King is going to raise the dead in the crypt.

[bobbie solo]

I can’t remember if posted here or not but two years ago I watched the whole series again. In the house of the undying, dany has a vision of the iron throne in winter with snow falling all around the throne room.

Bran also has the same vision of the throne. I can’t remember when tho. Maybe right before he becomes the three eyed raven.

Yes that was what I meant more specifically. I can't imagine they would show us that vision twice from two different characters and then just let it mean nothing. Although, perhaps us taking it literally is the red herring, whereas it's symbolic meaning is what ends up being the vision's lasting importance. Guess we'll see!

[marodi]

I'm very worried about Ser Brienne, in Sunday's upcoming episode, since she'll be positioned outside Winterfell's walls. But then I remembered: isn't her sword made of Valyrian steel that came from Ned Stark's own sword? How fitting that it's going to be used to defend his beloved home.

But still, I fear for Ser Brienne...

[marodi]

Double post, sorry.

We haven't discuss the new opening credits and its new animations. What do we see in Winterfell? Why, that bloody crypt. Where everyone is going to be sooooo safe. I think not. The Night King may not be there to raise the dead Starks but I'm telling you that little Sam ( and everyone else) are not safe. I'll guess we'll see .

Second thing that I find intriguing: is this the Red Keep's cellars we see in King's Landing? If it is, why is it important? From the very little I remember about them, it contains secret passages, very old dragon skulls and wildfire. What else could be there?

I can't wait for tonight's episode but I'm also dreading it so much. I have a bad feeling about this.

edit: @bobbie solo : THERE YOU GO!!!

[Mantra]

Holy fucking shit

Spoiler: aaaaarrrryyyyyyyyaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

[Wretchedest]

The battle plan was so egregiously terrible, the dragons mostly inactive, the info ent hiding from a necromancer I the crypts.... Use bran as bait but leave him alone with only Theon and ten dudes....

I was actually convinced until the last second that bran deliberately set them up to fail, and that the night king was just coming to bow to him, the plan was just so bad


But the ending made it worth it I flipped out

[Kodiak33]

That may have been the single most impressive episode of tv I've ever seen.

[Piko]

I'm so worn out after all that. Amazing. Just amazing. Holy shit.

[Wretchedest]

Rogue goes for sneak attack, critical fail, you drop your knife and aare grappled by your enemy.

Rogue goes to catch the knife *rolls 20*

[marodi]

I'm not crying, you're crying!

This episode is going to be talked about for years. This was some big screen stuff we just saw.

The end was fantastic. I did not see that coming at all.

Also: dear lady Mormont: you were fabulous.

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

The cinematography was amazing here, everything leading to the ending of this episode was top notch. But the ending? Come...on...

[richardp]

That episode set a new bar for television, and fucking movies for that matter. That felt like Dunkirk with Dragons.

[Jinsai]

that was exhausting... nail-biting awesome holy shit

Also: dear lady Mormont: you were fabulous.

My favorite part of the episode. Goddamn she kicked ass.

And yeah, that was really something... I don't even think "big screen" covers it. This is wrapping up in a "beyond epic" way. And I'm not even mad that it pulled the Smaug/Death-star-flaw trope.

Also, did anyone else feel like they were reminded of playing a stealth video game (like Metal Gear) during the tense sequence with Arya in the library w/ the zombies? The framing of that scene at least felt informed by it, if not directly inspired by. And that's kinda cool to see media go full circle there with its influences.

[bobbie solo]

- the episode looked like complete dogshit for me. I have Verizon Fios. Yes I understand that we were supposed to be "in the dark", "fog of war", confused, etc by the first 20-30 minutes or so until they light up the trenches. But the amount of articles on the screen during the snowstorm, battle closeups, etc were inexcusable through my Fios feed. I couldn't follow anything and it just looked like a big ole mess. Articles are articles...they were clearly there and it sucked. I just brought the episode back up via On Demand and it already looks much more clear.

- Highly recommend the "Inside the Episode" featurette that HBO offers for each episode if you can view it. More insight into this epic. This was the coolest line in it to me: "For three years, we’ve known it was going to be Arya to deliver that fatal blow,” creator David Benioff said in the post-episode commentary. “We hope to avoid the expected. Jon Snow is a savior ... but it just didn’t feel right for us in this moment. We knew it had to be Valyrian steel to the exact spot where the Child of the Forest put the dragonglass blade to create the Night King. And he’s uncreated by the Valyrian steel.

- In hindsight, Arya killing the Night King has been foreshadowed for a while now. Bran gives her that dagger first of all. Then early in this episode the Red Woman stares at Arya for a while, realizing she will be the one to do it. And in their first meeting a few season ago, she says to Arya some of the same lines she repeated tonight: "I see darkness in you. And in that darkness, eyes staring back at me. Brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes. Eyes you will shut forever." Hence the pep talk & then Arya going all:



Syrio says a similar thing to her in season one: "There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death..."not today." Once they conspicuously keep Arya's whereabouts away from us for a prolonged period of time, we should have all seen that ending coming. I didn't though...I was too caught up in everything!

- Would have liked Theon to go out just a tad differently. Instead of running at the Night King like a moron with his spear, a smarter approach from what we know as a seasoned and skilled fighter in Theon should have happened. Sure, have the Night King dispatch him easily anyway. But Theon is too skilled a fighter to simply run at him yelling. That's so typically Hollywood and doesn't match the character.

- on a similar beat, we really should have seen the White Walkers do a little bit more before just 'sploding. These are his big, bad lieutenants. Can we see them in action a bit? Same goes for the Night King, but at least I get that Arya needed the element of last second surprise there to best him, b/c he had too many walkers around him for her to win in an actual fight.

- this probably means we will never get any more backstory on the Night King. Was really hoping we would.

- is Jon's dragon dead? I assume not since we didn't see an actual death. Dany's dragon seems ok too based on how the scene went with her and Jorah.

- Considering the situations the creators decided to put Brienne, Jamie, Grey Worm and Sam in, they should have realistically died in that battle. If the writers weren't going to kill them off, then don't put them in such bad scenarios on the front lines for extended periods of time surrounded by wights over and over again and then expect me to believe they would survive that. Film those scenes differently if they're going to survive.

It might sound like I didn't like the episode but I did! I'm still digesting the epicness of it all. Incredible that this is a TV show.

[Wretchedest]

Brienne died like 4 times in that episode but she seems fine

[kdrcraig]

The episode was great, especially the ending. But good god I could not tell what the hell was going on for most of it. It was cutting to different shots every 2 seconds.

Sending the Dothraki charging out into the darkness was so stupid. Agree with whoever said earlier that the battle plan was incredibly dumb.

I gotta hand it to my wife for calling last week that the white walker story would end this week, I did not expect that to happen.

[Wretchedest]

My wife and I were pretty bored/frustrating with the episode to the end actually. Very dark especially on OLED and our stream was lower quality for some reason, but almost all pertinent relevant stuff happened in like the last 10 minutes. Maybe that's how these things go, gotta enjoy the journey.

We kept getting mad at Dany, we always are, but particularly today as she didn't seem to be especially proactive with her two dragons

[Kodiak33]

I watched the live stream on Prime (they have live HBO channels), then switched over to the archived episode also on Prime when the show started. The archived had much better quality. If you have the opportunity, use that.


I also have OLED, and thought it was beautiful.

[wizfan]

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. I saw Avengers: Endgame, Elseworlds AND this in the same week. I'm officially a giddy spoilt kid again.

[wizfan]

Also, did anyone else feel like they were reminded of playing a stealth video game (like Metal Gear) during the tense sequence with Arya in the library w/ the zombies? The framing of that scene at least felt informed by it, if not directly inspired by. And that's kinda cool to see media go full circle there with its influences.

I THOUGHT THE EXACT SAME THING. Gimme a stealth game starring Arya now.

[ltrandazzo]

Catspaw has had quite the journey.

[Alexandros]

OK, sure, amazing episode and all that, but the trope boss kill reeeeally stretched my good will. I mean, it's fine, it's a conclusion and I guess it would always be something like that since it was apparent that the Night King was the source of all power. I don't know, I guess I was hoping for something more even slightly more unconventional. Anyway, in all other aspects it was a very atmospheric episode. Lots of cool/terrifying moments. That complete Dothraki wipeout (yeah pretty silly tactical move but they paid for it) was awesomely presented from afar and was a nice "oh shit" moment for what was about to follow.

Shit, so that was a big chunk of story apparently concluded. Looking forward to see how it will all play out now.