On May 14 2019 06:50 Yhamm wrote: so, what happened to the Valonqar prophecy?
Technically Jaime did kill her, by leading her into the basement (if he hadn't she might've made it another 2 minutes or so). Also he did have his hands on her throat... so... prophecy fulfillled?
On May 14 2019 08:07 Velr wrote: Ok.. 39 minutes in now... just fuck this shit. Gonna rewatch Terminator 2, this is just horrible and uninteresting,
I'm half serious, gonna go to bed now, probably will watch the rest tomorrow.
This is so bad.
edit: This is basically everything that went wrong with action cinema in the last ~15 years. Seriously, fuck this shit. If you like this, you like "the fast and the furious" and no, there is no excuse known to man for this.
Tell us how you really feel man.
I’m increasingly utterly baffled. How does this even happen? My routine is to watch, perhaps rewatch and read this thread and discuss with my friends after, I avoid social media entirely so I can see episodes blind.
Despite the odd charge that it’s ‘cool to hate on GoT now’, no absolutely not. My friends, who have different tastes to me, the thread here are all having largely similar criticisms, reached largely independently, and we’ve flipped from ‘man that episode was awesome’ to the exact opposite when discussing things.
It’s preposterous, hell I didn’t even get into the property for years after it was out on TV because I (wrongly) dismissed it as some fad show that was probably bad, why would I not want it to actually be good now? Read the books, consumed tons of fan theory content and indulged myself.
I’m genuinely baffled, even with them passing the books as to how much it’s declined, as to what DnD are doing exactly? I actually think a lot of the changes that were made, merging of characters or tweaks they made to fit the televisual medium for example were consistently the right calls, expanded Bronn or Arya/Hound so previously they absolutely weren’t incapable from diverging from Martin’s texts in ways that IMP were actually good, so how do they deliver this current season?
Honestly it’s the opposite of ego entirely, it’s not ‘I can do better than Hollywood creatives’, more ‘how the fuck can they not do better than me, I’m an idiot?’ Or most of the posters in this thread, genuinely I’ve agreed with every ‘I think this would have worked better than this’ post here as improvements on what we got.
My only working explanation is that somehow its gone into Lucas prequels zone, and actually prior to the tail end DnD had people around them that could constructively filter their bad ideas from their good, and those shackles have been removed.
One of my favourite shows ever, and very few shows I’ve ever watched have ended at the same level of quality that their peak had, so I wasn’t expecting anything triumphant but I was expecting something competent.
Not sure if it was Dany or Jaime that fully broke me, probably the latter. Dany felt there was at least a hint of mad queen, but she went there prematurely without enough groundwork, Jaime was a complete reversal of his arc for basically no actual triggering reason, and the guy who was ostracised as a Kingslayer for effectively breaking an oath to serve the greater good said he didn’t care about anyone?
Come the fuck on? I could absolutely buy Jaime being in some scenario where he’s there, someone is going to kill Cersei and he turns ‘heel’ because he can’t ultimately let go of her entirely, but to have him have an arc, leave her, genuinely seem to have changed (and not in a ‘he’s a snake really’ way), leave a Brienne he’s been actively deliberately getting closer to and just fucking off back to Cersei because her forces killed a dragon?
On May 14 2019 02:42 fishjie wrote: One thing missing from patch notes - arya's teleport ability cooldown increased by 500%. this was too OP, as she was able to easily get past zombies and destroy the NK final boss too easily. to compensate, new ability given to her - summon shadowfax. can be used once per day.
Also The Mountain's facecrushing ability got nerfed alot
roflcopter i was just thinking about that. he got eye gouged but not skull crushed. guess the Hound gets a +5 saving throw bonus on his fortitude saving throw that comes in handy in situations like this. oberyn min maxed and put all his build points into AGI and not CON or STR and his face, teeth, and eyes paid the price.
Btw even if you didnt like the episode i recommend watching the making of. It's 35 minutes but so worth it. The production team is absolutely amazing and it's fun to see how some of the shots were done technically, especially the pyrotechnics.They had a freaking camera on a zipline with a built in flamethrower!! And so much work goes into building the sets. I bet none of them will have trouble finding new work after this is all over.
On May 14 2019 08:55 Warri wrote: Btw even if you didnt like the episode i recommend watching the making of. It's 35 minutes but so worth it. The production team is absolutely amazing and it's fun to see how some of the shots were done technically, especially the pyrotechnics.They had a freaking camera on a zipline with a built in flamethrower!! And so much work goes into building the sets. I bet none of them will have trouble finding new work after this is all over.
Visually I really thought it was amazing at times, I really liked so, so much of that episode. Not just CGI or pyrotechnics, but plenty of the shot choices they used, framing and lighting etc, which in my view is more impressive than ‘stuff’ anyway.
I borderline can’t fault much of it in that, at all, why I’m so frustrated. That spectacle + stuff that actually makes sense plot wise is some of the best stuff you could deliver me, as it was it was just impressive with occasional moments of emotive impact.
Outside of a few uncanny valley moments the spectacle was great I just don’t get how they botched the really basic narrative stuff so hard
And I’m really not a parochial nationalistic type but it’s alwyas been cool to me to recognise locations in Northern Ireland, many of which are up the coast where I spent my summers.
They use augmented locations really well where it’s mostly real stuff with a bit of adornment (sometimes surprisingly little), it really does work incredibly well. Even with locations I don’t know first-hand I can subconsciously pick up on a full CGI landscape vs something that is mostly real and they’ve generally done a really good job in keeping it from having an artificial feel.
yeah definitely. the costume, cgi, set, and all that good stuff is incredible. i just watch the show to enjoy the visual spectacle and turn off my brain for the plot. these guys worked hard, and its not their fault. the actors too could only work with what was given to them.
Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
On May 14 2019 09:15 fishjie wrote: yeah definitely. the costume, cgi, set, and all that good stuff is incredible. i just watch the show to enjoy the visual spectacle and turn off my brain for the plot. these guys worked hard, and its not their fault. the actors too could only work with what was given to them.
oh I think you dont give actors enough credit. In tv shows actors have more power the longer a show goes on and considering how big GoT is I am sure they have a lot of "creative input"
It's the Michel bay issue. Bayhem is a legitimate genre in it's own right and Michael bay is an artist at linking dynamic shots in with special effects and CGI.
And beacuse of Micheal bay we get the avengers movies and the fast and the furious.
But GOT IS NOT BAYHEM. Its suppose to be logical and political chess played by nobles and the consequences for this game. Danny can want to burn kings landing up a bit beacuse she's emotional and wants to show Westeros she's the dragon queen. But she has no reason to allow the city to be sacked en mass and to destroy the entire city and castle. She lost the game of thrones alongside everyone else beacuse now there is no throne to win.
Just think on just how bad this ending is. The entire story means nothing now. There will be no one king of seven kingdoms in Westeros. Danny has one dragon and no heir. She will likely kill or take off the board John who is the only one that she needed to hold onto power. She destroyed the thing everyone she loved died for beacuse everyone died.
Gendry is Henry Tudor come to end the war of the Rose's
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
I don't even get the Varys sub plot. They use some of episode 4 to set it up and then boom, 15 minutes into episode 5 its done. It never went anywhere, it accomplished nothing and just left a giant void of potential for actual intrigue.
"so eh, which of Dany's advisors isn't dead yet?Varys? ehm lets have him turn on Dany and then she finds out and kills him" "ok, thats a good start, lets flesh that out more" "Nah don't bother, that's good enough to shoot and fills 20 minutes over 2 episodes".
On May 14 2019 09:15 fishjie wrote: yeah definitely. the costume, cgi, set, and all that good stuff is incredible. i just watch the show to enjoy the visual spectacle and turn off my brain for the plot. these guys worked hard, and its not their fault. the actors too could only work with what was given to them.
oh I think you dont give actors enough credit. In tv shows actors have more power the longer a show goes on and considering how big GoT is I am sure they have a lot of "creative input"
I doubt Jon getting a season long cuckold treatment is Kit Harington's input. or Emilia Clarke going 'lets have her kill a million innocent people cause they surrendered'
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
i still stand by my statement that episode 5 was close to as good as it was going to be given all the constraints.
what i mean is - it was obvious to me (and ya'll can search my predictions) that in this episode, cersei was going to lose, hound was going to fight mountain, arya or jaime was going to kill cersei (i was wrong on this prediction) and that dany was going to go mad. they had to do it in one episode, so that the final episode could be about dany the final boss villain. as a quick aside, my predictions are dany will execute tyrion for freeing jaime, will kill *try* to kill jon snow, arya will assassinate dany, and then everyone decides fuck monarchy we want democracy.
so if cersei needs to lose and dany needs to go mad in just one episode, what episode 5 delivered was as good as it was going to get. i knew they were going to pull some bs where the previously OP euron ships with cloaking and photon torpedos would get nerfed and destroyed by drogon. so i let it slide. it had already been foreshadowed varys was going to die in westeros by red woman, and the poorly written treason scheming dialogue of previous episode made it very obvious. so i knew they were going to make varys incompetent schemer and kill him off just like they nerfed littlefinger, so i let it slide. qyburn at this point was already a 1D character who is dedicated solely to serving cersei instead of being intelligent and self preserving and having some self agency, so again, let it slide. and dany had to become the final villain this episode, so i knew it was going to be pretty contrived, but i got an entertaining spectacle as she rode around and roasted everyone to death. and the show had been hinting since the previous season that she was gonna turn mad.
really the only thing i would've changed this episode is i honestly thought jaime was coming to KILL cersei, not save cersei. wtf. they shit all over his arc. also instead of wasting all the time showing arya running around the city (we got the point), maybe spend that time on more arya + hound goodness. i liked the scene where hound talks sense into arya. i liked the cleganebowl.
so yeah with expectations lowered by the hole the writers dug themselves into, i had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen in this episode, and they did a good rendition of what i was expecting, minus shitting over jaime.
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
i still stand by my statement that episode 5 was close to as good as it was going to be given all the constraints.
what i mean is - it was obvious to me (and ya'll can search my predictions) that in this episode, cersei was going to lose, hound was going to fight mountain, arya or jaime was going to kill cersei (i was wrong on this prediction) and that dany was going to go mad. they had to do it in one episode, so that the final episode could be about dany the final boss villain. as a quick aside, my predictions are dany will execute tyrion for freeing jaime, will kill *try* to kill jon snow, arya will assassinate dany, and then everyone decides fuck monarchy we want democracy.
so if cersei needs to lose and dany needs to go mad in just one episode, what episode 5 delivered was as good as it was going to get. i knew they were going to pull some bs where the previously OP euron ships with cloaking and photon torpedos would get nerfed and destroyed by drogon. so i let it slide. it had already been foreshadowed varys was going to die in westeros by red woman, and the poorly written treason scheming dialogue of previous episode made it very obvious. so i knew they were going to make varys incompetent schemer and kill him off just like they nerfed littlefinger, so i let it slide. qyburn at this point was already a 1D character who is dedicated solely to serving cersei instead of being intelligent and self preserving and having some self agency, so again, let it slide. and dany had to become the final villain this episode, so i knew it was going to be pretty contrived, but i got an entertaining spectacle as she rode around and roasted everyone to death. and the show had been hinting since the previous season that she was gonna turn mad.
really the only thing i would've changed this episode is i honestly thought jaime was coming to KILL cersei, not save cersei. wtf. they shit all over his arc. also instead of wasting all the time showing arya running around the city (we got the point), maybe spend that time on more arya + hound goodness. i liked the scene where hound talks sense into arya. i liked the cleganebowl.
so yeah with expectations lowered by the hole the writers dug themselves into, i had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen in this episode, and they did a good rendition of what i was expecting, minus shitting over jaime.
No I do tend to agree, it felt like hitting an all-in but you got supply blocked doing it. It did about as well as you’d expected, you couldn’t transition out after committing but it still ultimately failed vs the potential
Speaking of Cleganebowl, I guess we're just taking it on faith that if stabbing the Mountain multiple times through the torso and through his eye socket into his brain doesn't kill him, a long fall into some burning rubble definitely will.
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
I don't even get the Varys sub plot. They use some of episode 4 to set it up and then boom, 15 minutes into episode 5 its done. It never went anywhere, it accomplished nothing and just left a giant void of potential for actual intrigue.
"so eh, which of Dany's advisors isn't dead yet?Varys? ehm lets have him turn on Dany and then she finds out and kills him" "ok, thats a good start, lets flesh that out more" "Nah don't bother, that's good enough to shoot and fills 20 minutes over 2 episodes".
Well it needed more actual intrigue for sure, 100%. The basic skeleton of Varys backing the wrong horse as per his established motivations, dying for it and Tyrion and Jon ultimately being wrong + Dany descending into tyrannical behaviour had all the ingredients but they were stuck in s blender and microwaved rather than being baked with some care
Varys actually putting himself at real, risk of death that he can’t flee around for the realm, Tyrion torn, Jon somewhat blinded and Dany becoming what she swore not to be, absolutely could be a good plot/subplot
As it happened Varys decided to forget all his historical intrigue skills and exposed scrutiny to a murder plot that seemed exceptional rash vs his past actions, to put Jon on the throne vs a Dany who hadn’t done anything that egregious yet, but who also went beyond Cersei in wanton carnage right after Varys was dispatched
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
i still stand by my statement that episode 5 was close to as good as it was going to be given all the constraints.
what i mean is - it was obvious to me (and ya'll can search my predictions) that in this episode, cersei was going to lose, hound was going to fight mountain, arya or jaime was going to kill cersei (i was wrong on this prediction) and that dany was going to go mad. they had to do it in one episode, so that the final episode could be about dany the final boss villain. as a quick aside, my predictions are dany will execute tyrion for freeing jaime, will kill *try* to kill jon snow, arya will assassinate dany, and then everyone decides fuck monarchy we want democracy.
so if cersei needs to lose and dany needs to go mad in just one episode, what episode 5 delivered was as good as it was going to get. i knew they were going to pull some bs where the previously OP euron ships with cloaking and photon torpedos would get nerfed and destroyed by drogon. so i let it slide. it had already been foreshadowed varys was going to die in westeros by red woman, and the poorly written treason scheming dialogue of previous episode made it very obvious. so i knew they were going to make varys incompetent schemer and kill him off just like they nerfed littlefinger, so i let it slide. qyburn at this point was already a 1D character who is dedicated solely to serving cersei instead of being intelligent and self preserving and having some self agency, so again, let it slide. and dany had to become the final villain this episode, so i knew it was going to be pretty contrived, but i got an entertaining spectacle as she rode around and roasted everyone to death. and the show had been hinting since the previous season that she was gonna turn mad.
really the only thing i would've changed this episode is i honestly thought jaime was coming to KILL cersei, not save cersei. wtf. they shit all over his arc. also instead of wasting all the time showing arya running around the city (we got the point), maybe spend that time on more arya + hound goodness. i liked the scene where hound talks sense into arya. i liked the cleganebowl.
so yeah with expectations lowered by the hole the writers dug themselves into, i had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen in this episode, and they did a good rendition of what i was expecting, minus shitting over jaime.
No I do tend to agree, it felt like hitting an all-in but you got supply blocked doing it. It did about as well as you’d expected, you couldn’t transition out after committing but it still ultimately failed vs the potential
lol, it was like when duckduck was cheesing his way and defeating people like innovation on that one wcs run, but then he supply blocked himself vs maru and his fairy tale ended. it is so much better discussing this show on a gaming forum or with gamer friends because of the wonderful analogies. the silver lining to me is all the memes and hate and salt and tears about the final season, makes it 100x more entertaining for me.
i already made peace with the show being bad with the last season. the episode when euron first teleported in and destroyed an entire fleet that he managed to find in the dark, and who managed to avoid detection by scouts or lookouts, i thought oh man... this is bad.... iirc that episode was still somewhat good, because at the end queen of thorns still went out like a G. although the reason she died due to piss poor military planning seemed very contrived.
the moment the show truly jumped the shark beyond the point of no return was jon snow's dumbass expedition beyond the wall to capture a wight. immediately he gets surrounded and his only plan was to send gendry to run back, to send a raven, which would then teleport back to dragonstone, where dany would then take her dragon and teleport north back in time to save them, except jon snow doesn't make it, except OH WAIT HE DOES!!!! and then his undead uncle magically saves him and gives him his horse and ugh
but i turned my brain off and watched it a second time with a different buddy and was like, oh hey good graphics!!!! cool. and that's the mindset i have now
On May 13 2019 22:25 Plansix wrote: She ruthlessly murdered all the slavers to get the unsullied, she watched her brother get killed with cool satisfaction, publicly tortures the slavers after taking Meereen, burned that witch to death on a funeral pyre, torched Tarly for nothing bending the knee. The entire last two seasons have been characters trying to talk her down from just destroying Kings Landing and the people in it. In contrast, Jon Snow felt bad about every single person he executed, even if they were terrible. He didn’t like to kill and didn’t try to punish others for the sins of their lords. He wanted to make peace with the wildlings. The least shocking thing about this season is that it is going to end where no one is really that happy with who ends up ruling.
Those types of decisions have been made by other non-mad characters. Tywin brutally wipes out a whole family with no remorse to secure their place in westros after his father practically gave it all away. The tyrells plot to kill joffery with the strangler (the worst type of posion) and Olena has no indifference about it. Why because they view their reasons as justified, you write danny killing the slavers of Mareen as a foreshadowing/hint of her going mad? No the slavers never treated her with any respect infact they treat her like shit and Danny plays it cool despite knowing how they speak to her, and punishes them in the end the same as Olena or Tywin or any other compent ruler would. Hell even Lord Frey when conducting the red wedding isnt seen as as a mad man doing it for no reason other than being insane no he does it for political and selfish reasons hes also a huge dick but not mad. ( her brother was moments from stabbing her and killing her unborn child, he has never treated her like a sister from the start of the show only an object to get his own, the torting and displaying of her enemies is a sigal of one of the houses of westros...all this has nothing to do with maddness or going insane this is just their civilisation) Jon snow is the outlier, we learn from the start thats hes a kind hearted boy bound by honour like his father. The spectrum of madness isnt a coin with Jon on one side and Danny on rhe other thats ridiculous. The witch literally comatosed her husband and deformed her baby...like wtf, she killed the tarlys for not bending the knee like every other ruler in westros. These arent signs of madness. You know what is mad? Burning the wardens of the north after they come to seek justice from you and an explaination and then command the vale to deliver their heirs so u can burn them too.
Youre selectively finding moments in the past without context to support what has happened in the end.
Edit: I dont doubt that this is the ending Grrm wants for danny, but the buildup to her going mad is so poorly done. She hasnt acted like a madman in until this season where its like 10% before the bells ring and then after the bells ring shes at 90% crazy save from burning her own soliders directly or flying straight to jon to kill him.
On May 14 2019 09:24 Wombat_NI wrote: Absolutely, Varys’ demise I can’t fault the acting at all it almost made it make sense, but the lead up wasn’t really there, or Jon and Tyrion’s responses to Dany going mad queen
As I said earlier it’s frustrating because I don’t feel those needed massive amounts of extra scenes to pay off but they definitely needed some.
Even a few lines of dialogue, if Varys said something akin to ‘Ive been scheming around 5-6 monarchs and the world isn’t any better, it’s time for drastic action’ augmented with Dany gradually building a bit to more mad queens stuff it would suit both arcs
I don't even get the Varys sub plot. They use some of episode 4 to set it up and then boom, 15 minutes into episode 5 its done. It never went anywhere, it accomplished nothing and just left a giant void of potential for actual intrigue.
"so eh, which of Dany's advisors isn't dead yet?Varys? ehm lets have him turn on Dany and then she finds out and kills him" "ok, thats a good start, lets flesh that out more" "Nah don't bother, that's good enough to shoot and fills 20 minutes over 2 episodes".
I mean it was pretty straight foward, Varis start to doubt Dany and think John would be a better king->warn Tyrion in hope he can turn him to his side->write to the others lord of Westeros to tell that John is the true hair->Dany was thinking he might betray him (rightly) and have him guarded->Tyrion decide to stay true to Dany and rat Varis.
It didn't go nowhere it showed one of Dany trusted advisor didn't trust him, altought I didn't quite catch if some of Varis message were actually send.
But it's both a way to show that Dany is losing support fast since she came to Westeros and that she has good reason to become more and more suspicious of her last ally.
I don't really get what more you wanted, it's not like Littlefinger plan were that much more raffined, the guy pretty much said "I'm a traitor" as he shook your hand.