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All book discussion in this thread is now allowed. |
On April 25 2019 23:32 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 14:49 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:On April 25 2019 06:48 -Archangel- wrote:Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei  I was hoping that was the case since we haven't seen the Night King since the wall came down, but... + Show Spoiler +
I believe that was him in the ep 3 preview ontop the dragon in the North
also they seem to be setting him up for a collision course with Bran
That would be dumb. But the NK and his army of the dead crushing winterfell, but losing something (the ability to raise more dead? the frost wyrm?) that gives the living a chance as long as they find a place to make a renewed stand would be fairly interesting. Then the survivors flee south and there is a confrontation with cersei that is completed before the final confrontation between ice and fire is resolved. That seems about the only way the two completely separate enmities can be resolved without either a "meanwhile in the shire" feeling, or silly antics with the NK flying south without his army.
How do the living survive to flee south? They cannot really outrun them now that they are so close. Only maybe a few characters could if they got access to new horses on the way when current one tires. The rest move slower in cold and need to rest. Jon and Dany can escape on Dragons but the rest are dead.
Only way to continue this story is for humans to win at Winterfell without that meaning NK is truly defeated and another battle can happen.
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On April 25 2019 23:44 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2019 23:32 Acrofales wrote:On April 25 2019 14:49 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:On April 25 2019 06:48 -Archangel- wrote:Best twist they could do now is have NK fly to King's Landing, murder everyone there and raise them as undead led by Undead Cersei I was hoping that was the case since we haven't seen the Night King since the wall came down, but... + Show Spoiler +
I believe that was him in the ep 3 preview ontop the dragon in the North
also they seem to be setting him up for a collision course with Bran
That would be dumb. But the NK and his army of the dead crushing winterfell, but losing something (the ability to raise more dead? the frost wyrm?) that gives the living a chance as long as they find a place to make a renewed stand would be fairly interesting. Then the survivors flee south and there is a confrontation with cersei that is completed before the final confrontation between ice and fire is resolved. That seems about the only way the two completely separate enmities can be resolved without either a "meanwhile in the shire" feeling, or silly antics with the NK flying south without his army. How do the living survive to flee south? They cannot really outrun them now that they are so close. Only maybe a few characters could if they got access to new horses on the way when current one tires. The rest move slower in cold and need to rest. Jon and Dany can escape on Dragons but the rest are dead. Only way to continue this story is for humans to win at Winterfell without that meaning NK is truly defeated and another battle can happen.
Escape through the Crypts, flee to Deepwood Motte, sail to Pyke. Magic sail around the continent in 5 days for the 100th time in the show.
Except for someone, Bran's company maybe? Who will stop by Greywater watch to pick up Meera and the only living person who witnessed Jon's birth.
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Seems plausible that Deepwood Motte shows up somehow, especially with it being mentioned this season already.
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My impression from episode 2 was definitely that there was no escape from Winterfell except on the backs of the two dragons, but that was based on how they went on and on about the crypts and never mentioned a retreat/evacuation of the women and children. Even if they did evacuate, Cersei would just kill them with her forces that even our heroes state will stomp them (no way she'd even let them surrender), and while Cersei and Qyburn as humanity's last heroes vs. the Night King would be hilarious, it seems about as likely as Arya stealing the Night King's face.
It's also weird because if they hadn't leaned so much on "we have to kill the Night King" I could see them beating back enough of his forces so that he says "fuck it let's kill some people that aren't armed with the only weapons on the continent that can kill my lieutenants and come back later when all these people are dying of hunger." After all, right now he ?might? have no idea that they have a large supply of weapons that can kill walkers, unless I forgot something/he has Brann-level knowledge.
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On April 26 2019 00:12 TheTenthDoc wrote:
My impression from episode 2 was definitely that there was no escape from Winterfell except on the backs of the two dragons, but that was based on how they went on and on about the crypts and never mentioned a retreat/evacuation of the women and children. Even if they did evacuate, Cersei would just kill them with her forces that even our heroes state will stomp them (no way she'd even let them surrender), and while Cersei and Qyburn as humanity's last heroes vs. the Night King would be hilarious, it seems about as likely as Arya stealing the Night King's face.
It's also weird because if they hadn't leaned so much on "we have to kill the Night King" I could see them beating back enough of his forces so that he says "fuck it let's kill some people that aren't armed with the only weapons on the continent that can kill my lieutenants and come back later when all these people are dying of hunger." After all, right now he ?might? have no idea that they have a large supply of weapons that can kill walkers, unless I forgot something/he has Brann-level knowledge.
Season 2 establishes an escape through the crypt that is used by the Stark boys to flee from Theon.
I really doubt it will happen, but having the army of the dead come up and just... stop and wait would be amazing. Like the entire Winterfel plan is predicated on the army mindlessly attacking into Winterfel with no apparent plan for how to survive a long siege.
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
I’m not an expert on warfare by any means, if I had a giant horde of wights who don’t seem to need sustenance, vs an entrenched army of humans and two dragons who definitely do need fed, I’m pretty sure I’d just siege them out.
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Yeah, but that is terrible TV. Also, I don't think the dead have any of these human limitations like caring if they are crushed as they mob a wall trying to climb it. People should rewatch Hardhome and remind themselves how few fucks the undead gave when they ran over that cliff.
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Realistically they have to win the battle at winterfell, we heard about them doing one big shooting for this battle, it has to be the important one no? Sadly that would be a little anticlimactic, they would have defeated the big enemy halfway through the season with still 3 episodes to come (and all of them being longer than the 1st and 2nd episode on top of that).
There needs to be some rather big surprise if it doesn't go that way, something about the motivation of the nightking or white walkers in general.
Something obvious as well and probably no coincidence, winterfell, where winter fell.
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That's why the episode spend 5 seconds explaining that the Night King really likes Brann and so won't just wait for his unstoppable army to kill everything living.
No sense trying to apply normal logic because they already said normal logic doesn't apply.
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On April 26 2019 01:54 Plansix wrote:
Yeah, but that is terrible TV. Also, I don't think the dead have any of these human limitations like caring if they are crushed as they mob a wall trying to climb it. People should rewatch Hardhome and remind themselves how few fucks the undead gave when they ran over that cliff.
I disagree in some sense. The entrenched army at Winterfell would have to attack into the army of the dead, there'd basically be no other way so the battle would still happen but it'd be framed much differently. So we'd still get our epic battle, just on different terms and with a lot of drama over whether or not to attack into them.
The main reason it wouldn't work is we just had 2 episodes of "nothing" so you couldn't really take on the dead time for a 3rd episode (or 1/2 an episode) of it without a lot of grumbling.
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I generally don't apply logic to motivations of magical creatures anyways. Sort of defeats the purpose of them being magical creatures.
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Norway28670 Posts
Stuff doesn't have to be logical from a human perspective, but it has to be portrayed as consistent in some way.
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
As of yet we don’t know enough of the NK and whatnot for anything to feel too stupid or out of his own internal logic, as of yet anyway.
Even if wants Bran I mean, come on he’s waited a fair while a siege still is the good option here, and would make for riveting television.
If the Night King didn’t have an actual tracking device in Bran, who could then potentially slip from his grasp, I could see him being rather eager. Alternatively Bran growing into his new form could give him some NK killing power, so perhaps that puts the NK on a timer so to speak.
I’m still salty at Stannis getting BTFOed though, mostly because he was continually referred to as Westeros’ premier military mind and, sigh.
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On April 26 2019 02:02 Gorsameth wrote:
That's why the episode spend 5 seconds explaining that the Night King really likes Brann and so won't just wait for his unstoppable army to kill everything living.
No sense trying to apply normal logic because they already said normal logic doesn't apply.
I thought about that as well, but the white walkers attacked other human villages before at hardhome, it would feel really weird if they just kill bran and then peace out.
On April 26 2019 02:04 Plansix wrote:
I generally don't apply logic to motivations of magical creatures anyways. Sort of defeats the purpose of them being magical creatures.
It really doesn't though. Most magical creatures or aliens or whatever are basically humans or at least aspects of humanity in another skin (at least when they show signs of a society). That makes a story interesting, even if it is about something fantastical.
On April 26 2019 02:12 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Stuff doesn't have to be logical from a human perspective, but it has to be portrayed as consistent in some way.
This is probably the more important aspect and also a big reason why the usual "hey this is fantasy, it doesn't have to make sense, we have dragons in it why do you complain about x" doesn't work.
It can be a valid argument only if the work itself is clearly surreal in nature.
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On April 26 2019 02:12 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Stuff doesn't have to be logical from a human perspective, but it has to be portrayed as consistent in some way.
I don’t have enough information on how the Night King operates to make any determination on what is consistent or not. So far they can raise the dead, want babies to make more white walkers, want to kill some people but not others and have a weird indifference to all they do. Their plan of totally wanting to murder Bran seems logical to me, since it seems to have been his goal for a really long time.
I've posted this before, but I don't think the Night King is scared of the dragons. He gave zero shits when they showed up the first time. I don't think they can kill him by just breathing fire on him one time.
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Norway28670 Posts
I'm not saying that game of thrones has failed in maintaining consistency regarding the night king's actions. His motivation has hardly been fleshed out (which I think is fair, we don't need to know everything), and we can't really claim to find inconsistency if we don't know.
Anyway I don't want to make predictions, but I can't see next episode end with a thorough defeat of the night king. That would be incredibly anticlimatic. But something like half the heroes die winterfell falls half the heroes escape but Bran does something to the night king that makes him like.. not able to keep resurrecting more dead so the more southern humans have a fighting chance. At the same time this episode is supposed to be THE grand battle of the season. But maybe that's just good suspense-making.
Alternatively I could enjoy having the night king be narrowly defeated, and then to have Cersei completely conquer the entire seven kingdoms in the next episodes, as the ultimate anti-fan service. but alas. 
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
We’ll see, as of yet it doesn’t make sense but we have an incomplete picture.
The Night King not just throwing his ice javelin of death at Jon Snow and his merry band of ice island dwellers only really makes any kind of sense if he was baiting himself a dragon.
To have that plan make any kind of sense the Night King has to have some legit 4D chess powers of some kind. If not premonition, then some kind of magical information gathering power.
If he has such powers then how is he going to fall for a bait trap? Unless Bran has developed some kind of ability to disrupt those powers. Which seems unlikely as he can’t even prevent himself being a tracking device.
Now all of these may be rendered completely moot points going forwards, we’ll have to see. I just have zero ideas what the rules are around powers and magic, I can’t be the only one confused here.
With the Red Woman yes there’s mystery there, but at least we know roughly what she can and can’t do, also that she’s fallible in interfacing with such things.
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It is 4D chess or does he have foresight like Bran and can just see across the world and knew dragons were back and in the hands of the people who ride them around? Or knew they were going to come back some day. The Night King is immortal and has waited a really long time to go over that wall. And he could wait a bunch more lifetimes to go over the wall if necessary. I don’t think he is play 4D chess as much as just waiting to build up enough power to knock down the wall. And the dragon was just one of the ways he could do it.
To put it in the more metaphorical framing, the Night King is death. The long night is death. There is no stopping it from coming. You can delay it. You can build walls against it and try to prevent it won’t knock them down. But its coming. It never mattered if it was on the back of a dragon or on a horse.
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Speaking of the Night King, the motivation I actually think is really weak is the NK going for Bran as stated. I think there's room for 'more', but the reasoning stated in the show is sort of quietly one of the biggest disappointments the show has had. It just feels like it's something where GRRM didn't flesh things out and they had to make something up.
Like as an omnipresent death all the marching, waiting, battle tactics, etc. is fine, but as the audience we should care that the NK is gunning for Bran specifically and I just... don't... it's just feels highly irrelevant, I don't at all feel like Bran is some sort of historical guardian worth saving.
It was an almost 8 season build up and this is what we got?
There's still time to revision what we were told but right now it just felt so flat.
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Well the problem there is that we don't have a lot of buildup, we don't really know the significance of the three eyed raven, we don't really have a big picture of the others other than it seems like if they win our heroes will all die and the world will end.
If bran himself would be a likeable character at least that part would still work, but that clearly isn't the design of the 3ER either, so the mythology around it has to be where the big payoff is coming from, which simply isn't really established.
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