Game Of Thrones: Season 8

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Amazing suspense at the start, some nice visuals (the swords lighting up on fire was cool)... Too dark overall.... Too many scenes where it looked like main characters were being surrounded and had no chance, then it cuts away, goes back a minute later and the character isn't in half the trouble and easily survives... How the fk did Sam and Davos survive?!..... How did anyone in the front lines survive?....
 
orly said:
Holy moly, people genuinely thought that was bad????

No wonder the Silva thread has gone the way it has tonight lollol
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I really enjoyed it for what it was as an incredible episode of TV. And I liked how it was filmed as well - GoT does that manic fighting when you don't know what's happening so well.

But... I think in the overall arc of the series, considering what the writers had done to build up the walkers and also manage to get all of these characters in such a mess, I think they could have maybe been a bit braver with how it went. That has been my problem with the show since it overtook the books. It lost its balls. The reason for that is probably because the writers never actually had any in the first place, but had very ballsy source material (which I haven't read) to go off.

So it's only when in comparison to what has come before that I kind of miss the old GoT. It's probably just a victim of its own success.

But in terms of the actual episode itself, it's as near to perfect an episode (of that type of episode, at least) as you'd get. And when it was shocking/scary, I really was shocked and scared (which again is why I'm kind of disappointed that it seemed to then get watered down).
 
DanEFC92 said:
Mad how Arya got the jump on the crowd of whitewalkers like. Struggled to get past a few in the library moments before but managed to sneak past a troop of them in an open field. Mad ting.
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Yeh... this.

I mean, they do hint at it just before (I skipped back to rewatch). The walkers start turning their heads and that's why the king knows to turn, but still...
 
As for the walkers, i'm glad they're gone, but not for the reason I thought I would be when I initially got into the series (which is weird to think is 7 years ago now).

They never quite got the actual walkers right, imo. I know from what I've seen they've gone off the book's description (or as close to, anyway), but to me they'd have been better sticking with what we saw right in the very first scene of the show. That... that was scary.
 
BlueToff said:
I really enjoyed it for what it was as an incredible episode of TV. And I liked how it was filmed as well - GoT does that manic fighting when you don't know what's happening so well.

But... I think in the overall arc of the series, considering what the writers had done to build up the walkers and also manage to get all of these characters in such a mess, I think they could have maybe been a bit braver with how it went. That has been my problem with the show since it overtook the books. It lost its balls. The reason for that is probably because the writers never actually had any in the first place, but had very ballsy source material (which I haven't read) to go off.

So it's only when in comparison to what has come before that I kind of miss the old GoT. It's probably just a victim of its own success.

But in terms of the actual episode itself, it's as near to perfect an episode (of that type of episode, at least) as you'd get. And when it was shocking/scary, I really was shocked and scared (which again is why I'm kind of disappointed that it seemed to then get watered down).
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I'm wondering about actually. There was a "leak" last year that basically had today's episode massacre the entire Stark family, including Bran. The first two episodes followed the leak entirely - but then the third here has departed from it hugely. Clearly it's not been refilmed, but I wonder if am early draft was canned and this is the less ambitious alternative.
 
orly said:
I'm wondering about actually. There was a "leak" last year that basically had today's episode massacre the entire Stark family, including Bran. The first two episodes followed the leak entirely - but then the third here has departed from it hugely. Clearly it's not been refilmed, but I wonder if am early draft was canned and this is the less ambitious alternative.
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Could well be. I certainly feel like ever since they overtook the books they've had a TV exec or two making crucial decisions with the show. It wouldn't surprise me if in a few years you get the writers suggesting that they weren't entirely happy with how certain parts played out. I didn't actually know that this ep was gonna be the big battle because I basically lost interest in the last season and haven't really paid any attention to the build up to this one. Watched the first two episodes last week and that was it, and did then really enjoy this one.

And I totally get that there's some characters who have to be there come the last episode (whether they live or die in that), and it was probably always going to be the case (though the show made it's reputation off going against that theory, like).

Interesting that you say the leak said pretty much the entire family got killed off, it would have been interesting to find out what happened there. Tbh, I'm glad they lived and also am not surprised that they did either. But, there was one point in the episode where there's the scene with Tyrian (who I didn't think would go, but at this point I was changing my mind) and Sansa where I thought they were done for. And the scene was played so well that had they gone in that moment then it would have probably turned this episode from an epic to a classic, which is what GoT in its first few seasons did so well.

I just felt this episode lacked one of those 'umph' moments that make your stomach drop out. That's what GoT grabbed me with initially. I'd never known a TV show do that and it was so original to me having not read the books. I'll never forget how I felt when Jon was killed in season 5 - it's genuinely the best ever moment of TV for me, because I just didn't think it could ever happen. The way he was brought back - more than the actual fact he was brought back - kind of put me off tbh, because since they were able to do that they've kind of managed to give themselves a get out of jail free card for most scenarios.
 
tsubaki said:
TBF that is the most subversive thing about GoT (and Martin's works) - the white walker threat should really be the threat that stops the idiocy of man, given its implications and scale. 99% of other fantasy writers would have had some glorious stand against overwhelming odds, saved by whatever that generation of readers liked to think of as heroes - and indeed where GoT has been at its worst has been when the writers turn away from the books and resort to how we as a society expect things to happen (the Dorne nonsense being the best example, but also this).

Martin instead suggests in his books that there is nothing so threatening, no disaster so ruinous that it will ever stop humans acting in their own narrow interests - people will always try and take advantage, use it to get rid of the people they don't like or avoid it entirely and leave others (usually those less able to face it) to face it. Some of them might act nobly, but sooner or later they will be back in the dirt.

It is the best portrayal of who we actually are I can think of, and at a time when the world is awash with idiots and when we are emphatically not facing up to the damage we are doing to the planet it is a point which needs to be made.
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What you’ve just articulated is exactly what they’ve done with Cersei’s character, and that’s absolutely perfect. It fits in with exactly who she is and the character we’ve watched for nearly a decade.

At what point however is being subversive just a get out for poor storytelling? Taking the build up of the white walkers from episode 1 (I’m going solely with the tv show here) to season 8 episode 3, has that culmination of that narrative been a success? For me, not at all.

Now I know that I’m very close to the dangerous territory of “things didn’t go the way I wanted/expected them to so I’m not happy”. But genuinely, hand on heart, it’s not about that for me. I really just don’t think it was a good episode or a satisfying conclusion (if it is indeed the conclusion) to the white walker part of the narrative.

What it really boils down to for me is putting aside a lot of extraneous thematic stuff and simply asking the question “is the narrative working”. I would ask anyone to forget any overarching themes for a second and simply question whether from the opening of season 1 episode 1 to season 8 episode 3 the white walker narrative has reached a satisfying conclusion? The answer for me is no. Where my expectations subverted? Not really, I was just underwhelmed. It’s the Last Jedi all over again to be honest. Only instead of Luke sucking cow’s milk from an alien teet, I have Arya leaping out of the darkness (literally) and ending the built up threat in a matter of seconds.

There’s a time and a place for subversion. Personally I don’t think it’s in your third episode of the remaining final six. At this point I would argue that the pieces should very much be on the board. I know it can be argued that there is no correct way to unfold a narrative but this is a tv show after all. Even the greats knew that these things need some structure. You need resolutions. You need pay-off. And these things don’t have to be positive or negative as a rule. They just need to work. And the battle of winterfell didn’t.
 
DanEFC92 said:
Mad how Arya got the jump on the crowd of whitewalkers like. Struggled to get past a few in the library moments before but managed to sneak past a troop of them in an open field. Mad ting.
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its crazy, you sensed something was happening as one of his minions got a whiff of something just before it happened yet he did nothing at all

who did the night king employ as his bodyguards? max and paddy?

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