Game Of Thrones Television series *may contain spoilers*

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Perfect episode. 5/7

Seriously though, it was a good episode. Easily the best of the season, despite its predictability and absurdity of events. The comment above about Martin being unpredictable is bang on. The current writers/producers are products of Hollywood and it is showing. Despite being the second worst season (think last season was worse) it is still the best show on TV currently, and like a fanboy I am eagerly awaiting each episode.
 
It was disappointing episode because it was just soo predictable. I think @DanEFC92 told us last week what might happen, and he was 100% spot on. Yeah they had some nice shots and some good effects during the battle, but I didn't like the conversation they wrote, whether it was Tyrion or Jon/Ramsey. And the knights of the Vale appear out of nowhere, just in the right moment, who would have thought? It all felt like a Lord of the Rings copy somehow. It was still enjoyable, but as you stated the element of surprise was just missing, sadly.
 
Wrong
Unknown
Correct

Sansa secretly promises to marry Littlefinger in exchange for military support. John secretly secures the support of the Greywaters (Reeds). John and Sansa take Winterfell without a fight after the Umbers (and Manderlys) betray the Boltons with the three armies gathered outside of Winterfell (Ramsay is fed to the dogs as his father warned him would happen because of his cruelty). We discover Littlefinger had the Umbers in his pocket and Rickon was another pawn for his schemes. The Arryns return to the Eyrie. Sansa unites the north. John, the Reeds, and the Stark army ride south to the Neck.

The tension between the Faith, the Lannisters, and the Tyrells continues. Arya shows up in Kings Landing and assassinates Cersei and The Mountain. Jamie thinks the Faith were behind it. The Tyrells abandon Kings Landing and return home. Jamie abandons the north to march on Kings Landing.

Edmure Tully reveals the Blackfish was not killed and retakes Riverrun. The northern army and the Tully army take The Twins. Also possible that Arya continues her murder spree and takes out Walder Frey (and maybe Littlefinger?).

Daenerys destroys the Masters' fleet and the bulk of their military power with the help of her dragons (and maybe the Ironborn, can't figure out Euron's part as he's so vastly different than in the books). As a result, Daenerys unites the Free Cities and secures their future. She also has the loyalty of the Dothraki and likely at least one faction of the Ironborn. In the books, Daenerys is supposed to go East into Asshai and I think the introduction of the red priestesses means she probably will before eventually heading to Dragonstone.

Daenerys offers the Houses of Westeros the right to retain titles and lands if they swear fealty (like her ancestors did). The Tyrells offer allegiance. Daenerys claims Dorne through Rhaegar's marriage to Elia. Dorne is effectively leaderless, Varys lays the groundwork for alliance, and the Sand Snakes refuse to honor the claim of "any man" which is a convenient foreshadowing for Daenerys.

This leaves Westeros divided as follows: Northern Alliance under Sansa and John; Daenerys poised for conquest in the South; the Lannisters battling the Faith in the middle.

Samwell discovers the Maesters are trying to suppress/eliminate magic from the world. They had almost done so by killing all the dragons last time around. He runs from Oldtown (what he does best) and tells John what the maesters have done/are planning. This reveals the Seven to be a vast conspiracy and maybe reveals the Faith's part in destroying House Targaryen (as revenge for taking away the Faith's powers). .

I think Jamie dies at some point during this or is forced to take the Black and Tyrion inherits the Lannister lands, uniting the South under Daenerys. "The dragon has three riders" means John unites the North, Daenerys unites the South, and Tyrion brings in the rest. Conquest by diplomacy this time (mostly).

John Snow is revealed to be Rhaegar and Lyanna's child: John Targaryen. The great houses of Stark and Targaryen are joined in alliance. Daenarys learns about the Maester conspiracy and takes Kings Landing and Oldtown and destroys/subverts the Faith. The "conquest" of Westeros is completed in time for a final showdown between The Lord of Light and The Others.

Bran Stark is revealed to have been popping in and out of history for a thousand years as "Bran the Builder" and has influenced just enough to delay the Others for long enough for everybody else to unite against them.

Big battle for humanity. Scenes.
 
Hickson9 said:
The battle as a whole I thought was decent as it depicted a horrible, desperate scene - as it should be. The pike men were very cool as was the realistic placement of men. The cavalry maelstrom was also full on.

I did have a few issues with it but on the whole I can let them slide:

Literally concentrated mounds of dead? A bit ridiculous.

Ramsay not just having Jon shot full of arrows. Either when he was trying to save Rickon or when he was in Winterfell.

Ramsay throwing away his cavalry in a frontal charge.

Sansa not telling anyone about the Vale Knights. They might have formulated a rather different battle plan of they had known. It's quite the disincentive to charging straight at a superior enemy if you know reinforcements are 20 minutes away.

The lack of variety in Boltons army. Where are the Manderleys? Where are the Umbers? (SmallJon aside).

Ramsay shooting arrows in to his own men when he has to retain the fragile allegiance of the northern houses.
Click to expand...

All of these points. A few too many to let slide, IMHO.
I mean, isn't Jon likely to absolutely go berserk at Sansa for failing to mention that the Vale Knights were just minutes away? He just lost well over half his troops, butchered by Ramsay's forces, because he was unaware that Sansa had a few thousand cavalry up her sleeve!

Add to this:
We heard beforehand, and in some previous episodes, that Ramsay had 6000 troops and Jon had maybe 3000. If only 1 in every six of Ramsay's men was an archer, that's 1000 arrows per minute they could fire into the mass of cavalry fighting each other. And that's a conservative estimate, considering medieval archers could fire three arrows a minute in battle conditions. Bear with me here.

Jon's cavalry was the substantially smaller portion of his army. The wildlings had no cavalry at all, so he's looking at the remnants of the Starks, the 62 Mormonts and whatever other small Northern houses rallied to him. Let's be REALLY generous and call it 1000 of his 3000 men. Bear with me.

Ramsay's cavalry was pretty numerous, as shown when he massacred Stannis' infantry earlier in the year. Shall we say 2000 men?

My point is, Jon and his cavalry don't even last five minutes in a frontal charge against cavalry outnumbering him two to one and a thousand arrows a minute being shot into them. I have no problem suspending disbelief to watch a show that involves magic, dragons and so forth, but if there are going to be set-piece battles between men, involving cavalry, infantry and archers, then there is no point just ignoring the basics of that type of warfare.
For me, it was the poorest-written scene in the poorest-written episode of the season so far. Contrast it with the emotional impact of
Hodor's death and Bran's part in it
in "The Door" - the difference in the quality of writing is astonishing.
 
Tree13 said:
I mean, isn't Jon likely to absolutely go berserk at Sansa for failing to mention that the Vale Knights were just minutes away? He just lost well over half his troops, butchered by Ramsay's forces, because he was unaware that Sansa had a few thousand cavalry up her sleeve!
Click to expand...

You're right, she should have texted him and told him she was coming
 
Tree13 said:
Disagree. It's just bad writing. The Waif has consistently displayed contempt and disdain for Arya, but not hatred. She has no reason to hate Arya. As Kiwi has pointed out, it's a jarring inconsistency that the Waif would make such a basic mistake. Equally, as BDF has already detailed, Arya was doing EVERYTHING wrong in terms of how to behave when on the run from an order of assassins who can change their facial appearance - more bad writing. It's a false peril situation in that they want us to fear for Arya, but we all know Arya won't die because the show writers have decided she's a key character.

Having said all that, it was a GREAT episode. The acting from some of the more minor characters was excellent - Lady Mormont, Lord Glover and the Blackfish all stood out for me. I also found myself thinking "I wonder if Ian McShane's character will be revealed to be Howland Reed?"

Unfortunately some of the plot is far too easily signposted: Brienne is going to rock up at Riverrun in time to save the Blackfish from Jamie, and Jamie from himself; The knights of the Vale will appear at the battle of Winterfell, just after Wun-wun and Tormund are killed and when Jon faces certain death, to save the day a la Gandalf at Helm's Deep. The writers would do well, IMHO, to shake up the formula that each season now seems to follow in terms of pacing - we all expect episode 9 to be the "big" episode because it's been that way since forever.
Click to expand...
From two weeks ago on page 237 of this thread. I wasn't far off with either the Riverrun plotline or the battle of Winterfell.
 
Steverton said:
If you didn't like this episode I think it is time to stop watching
Click to expand...
I enjoyed it for what it was: mindless violence filmed in a truly artistic and savagely beautiful style.

The plot is utter balls though. At one point
in the command tent the night before the battle Sansa berates Jon for marching on Winterfell with too small an army.

Jon actually says directly to her "When will we have a larger force? We've pleaded with every House that will have us, the Blackfish can't help us, we're lucky to have this many men!"

Sansa replies "It's not enough!"

Jon: "No, it's not enough! It's what we have! Battles have been won against greater odds."

Sansa: "If Ramsay wins, I'm not going back there alive. Do you understand me?"

Jon swears to protect Sansa, and she replies that no-one can protect anyone. She then walks out.

DOESN'T MENTION THE THOUSANDS OF VALE KNIGHTS GALLOPING TO WINTERFELL AT HER REQUEST.

I do have a theory though.... Sansa's going to kill Jon. Or at least try to. Brienne and Littlefinger have both, in separate scenes in earlier episodes, obliquely suggested to Sansa that she should not trust Jon because they aren't true blood siblings. Maybe her time with Ramsay has taught her to make the first move rather than wait passively for trouble?
 
Hickson9 said:
The battle as a whole I thought was decent as it depicted a horrible, desperate scene - as it should be. The pike men were very cool as was the realistic placement of men. The cavalry maelstrom was also full on.

I did have a few issues with it but on the whole I can let them slide:

Literally concentrated mounds of dead? A bit ridiculous.

Ramsay not just having Jon shot full of arrows. Either when he was trying to save Rickon or when he was in Winterfell.

Ramsay throwing away his cavalry in a frontal charge.

Sansa not telling anyone about the Vale Knights. They might have formulated a rather different battle plan of they had known. It's quite the disincentive to charging straight at a superior enemy if you know reinforcements are 20 minutes away.

The lack of variety in Boltons army. Where are the Manderleys? Where are the Umbers? (SmallJon aside).

Ramsay shooting arrows in to his own men when he has to retain the fragile allegiance of the northern houses.
Click to expand...

The Ramsey issues I can understand - as Sansa said, Ramsey was a sick individual who was all about causing pain (which is why he took potshots at Rickon instead of just cutting his throat, and why he shot Wun-Wun in the eye rather than shoot Jon). His archers did fire at Jon at the start though, that is how he lost his horse.

The "throwing away" of his cavalry may be explainable too - it didn't look like they were "his" men and the more of his dependent lords men he could get rid of the less of a threat they would be to him. This also explains why he was quite happy to order his archers to fire into the cavalry melee, and why his pikemen appeared to be (until the knights of the Vale showed up) in a much safer position behind their shield-wall than the non-Bolton men (who were led by Umber) were, having to clamber over the mound of the dead and deal with desperate men trying to break out of encirclement.

Sansa's actions I think were explainable by the row between her and Jon before the battle, he didn't ask her opinions or for her proposals and so she didn't tell him.
 
Tree13 said:
I do have a theory though.... Sansa's going to kill Jon. Or at least try to. Brienne and Littlefinger have both, in separate scenes in earlier episodes, obliquely suggested to Sansa that she should not trust Jon because they aren't true blood siblings. Maybe her time with Ramsay has taught her to make the first move rather than wait passively for trouble?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say she wants him killed. But it looks like she doesn't really care. If the Vale Knights are on time - fine. If not, he'll die - she will still be able to retake Winterfell. Not sure what will happen with Littlefinger involved now.....but I can't see him dying...again.
 
I'll start with what was good. The cinematography and the director deserve awards for depicting so successfully what it would have felt like to have been caught up in a melee of that size. The whole first 10 minutes of the battle plays out as purely powerful chaos and it was beautiful. It felt like you were in the battle with them when the horses go by and the two forces meet. Then you get the POV shots which did a great job of explaining how it really is luck more than anything that is the biggest factor in an individual in either of those armies surviving the conflict. The violence was brutal and unforgiving and you saw multiple close calls and it all felt real. GRRM will be happy with that.

I did like a couple of Tyrion's lines at the beginning of the show "Thank you for bringing your ships, our Queen likes ships" and I also liked seeing how Tyrion persuaded Danaerys that sometimes it is in her favour to be diplomatic with her enemies. The whole Yara/Asha and Dany back and forth was good too.


OK commentary and criticism of the battle time.

Rickon, you could have tried a bit of a zig zag mate, you knew he was going to be shooting at you. He even could have ran and used the flayed/burning men as cover from the arrows.

John, why did it have to be YOU who goes to rescue Rickon?!? You're the leader of that army and you can't lead anything if you go running off into the front lines to be killed first. Sansa even warned him that Rickon should be considered dead already and that he should not fall into doing what Ramsay wants him to do.

Why were there no flanking maneuvers?!? The Boltons had a proper shieldwall and long spears and made Phalanx. Why not throw those spearmen up against the Wildling/Mormont/Other North houses cavalry charge, horses don't like running into spears much. Then Ramsay could have had is cavalry split and "double envelope" the wildling army and cut through them. Job done for the Boltons then. No instead, and probably more in line with Ramsay's cruel personality, Ramsay kills enough of his own men and the Wildlings to create a large wall of bodies and he then closes in with a semi-circular phalanx. It is not the most tactically astute or efficient ways to win that battle but it is one of the cruelest. He essentially uses similar tactics that his hounds use on the hunt, encircle the prey until they know there is no escape and they are resigned to their death. This all kind of fits with Ramsay as a character, he's not really a proper battle commander. Jon is though and Jon should know better but Ramsay played him like a fiddle. All in all Ramsay would have won that battle his way if the Vale had not shown up.

As for why didn't Sansa tell Jon about the Vale knights? Either she didn't know for sure they were coming because Littlefinger could not get a response back to her. Or she has learned from Littlefinger and through her experiences that she cannot trust anybody. She knows how talk can travel and she's also becoming fairly cunning. If she had told Jon that the Vale knights were coming then Jon, as commander, will respond to that by including them in his preparations for the attack. If Jon has organized his army in a way that makes it look like he is awaiting reinforcements then Ramsay and the Bolton army can retreat inside Winterfell and hold it from both armies for who knows how long. In order to successfully take Winterfell quickly they needed to have a decisive and open battle outside of the walls of Winterfell and telling Jon about the Vale knights might have risked that happening and led to a long siege. Either way Rickon would be dead.
 
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