loooool

Dude its literally impossibly hard for you if you think that motif was about the actual weather.

Guys when they say winter is coming they like are actually talking about snow.

man, laughing out loud is a cheap common meme, doing it right now though.

fwiw i thought the latest "Talk the Thrones" ep was pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su7NPc9VJ8Y


think they addressed most of the criticisms that have been mentioned itt
made a few good points

i found it entertaining anyway

Its weird basically probably actual mental problems see a specialist for the person who typed all the below to have a such a massive will die on this hill problem with the Arya angle:

I dont want aids so no.

This is the same as saying given all we know about Rob, no way frey kills him at the red wedding.

Cmon, between all of you who still really like the show, and 72 off who hates it but must die on Arya hill, someone must be able to come up with an argument that is not a dumper truck of garbage hot takes.

Cmon, its like pushing over a child on stilts in here.

Try attacking Russia in winter. Bonaparte and Hitler both lost armies and wars on that hill

jjshabado is right dude, it's about the seasons, also a metaphor for hardship and preparedness in general. It's also the Stark house words. In the books it has absolutely nothing to do with the Walkers. They've been saying it for thousands of years while the Walkers have faded into legend.

Yes, the show has used it as a tagline up next to the Walkers, because the Walkers are a FEATURE of winter coming. Old Nan, in the very first episode:

That all sounds pretty ****ing bad before the Walkers show up. And IN THAT DARKNESS, the White Walkers came. They're not the darkness themselves. They're an epiphenomenon of the broader threat of a long winter.

I'm a broken record on this, but the problem here is that the show morphed the Walkers from what they're supposed to be, which is an impersonal apocalyptic threat, a force of nature, winter made flesh if you like, into a personified antagonist. This then convinced show-only people that the Walkers were not merely an antagonist but the CHIEF antagonist. It's not supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be how most zombie movies work, which is that the zombies are a threat, yes, but the focus tends to be on how that affects the characters and the stresses it creates between them.

Another aspect of the Starks' motto, it serves as a warning to others. Come winter, you'll freeze and starve, but we'll be prepared. Winter is Starks time.

Like people don't get to the end of Dawn of the Dead and say "but wait why haven't they defeated the zombies, they're the main threat!". The only real answer to that is that you were mistaken about what you were watching. It wasn't a humans v monsters movie where the humans triumph over the monsters. It was a character drama where a cast of people try to cope under apocalyptic conditions.

Imagine how it would affect a zombie movie if you introduced a King Zombie that all the other zombies were created by and said if you kill him, the zombie apocalypse is over. That's not a zombie movie anymore, it's functionally a Dracula movie. And Dracula is supposed to be an antagonist character. You can do a vampire story, where the focus is squarely on the antagonist and killing him ends the threat. Or you can do a zombie story, where the monsters are an unstoppable force of nature and the focus is on the characters trying to survive that. What you can't do is mix and match them like the show tried to do, with an unstoppable force of nature headed up by a Dracula-like main antagonist. Because ending an unstoppable force of nature by killing one guy is an inherently anticlimactic plot device.

I've also seen a suggestion that it doubles as a threat. The Starks are known as the "Kings of Winter", so "Winter is coming" can also mean "we're going to come and **** you up".

In the books there are vague suggestions that Stark history is airbrushed and that there's some dark stuff in their past. That would make sense because GRRM doesn't tend to write Gryffindor and Slytherin stuff, it's very unlikely the Starks will just be unambiguously the good guys.

Interesting, I never read it like that. The books focus quite a bit on logistics, and I don't think that it'd be plausible for the Starks to invade or anything during winter. I see several other problems with that interpretation as well.

I always read it purely as "be prepared for a worse tomorrow than you can possibly imagine"

Yeah, if I had to bet I'd say that meaning was not intended, but it's interesting to think about. I think the main function is to illustrate the character traits of House Stark, i.e. they are tough, sober, serious.

Same reason their sigil is grey and understated, contrasting with the Lannisters' prancing gold lion, crimson color and words of "Hear Me Roar!". They are showy and ostentatious, the Starks are the opposite.

Edit: In fact most house words are a threat or a boast of some kind, or even where that's not true, they're a representation of values (like the Tully "Family, Duty, Honor"). The way the Stark words are externally focused is unusual.

No it doesn't. People aren't coming up with real criticisms...they are complaining that the story they were most invested in didn't end in a manner they envisioned in their head. Because of that the episode/season sucks.

Complaining that the ****ing Night King didn't get burnt by dragon fire or that he died from simply being stabbed with a knife, or that it was Arya not Jon/Danny is stupid.

The show established virtually everything that happened in the episode and with the characters prior whether one likes it or not.

-Jon is a great fighter but a terrible tacitican when it comes to battles.
-Dany is hotheaded and goes with her emotions over common sense or a pre-set plan/agreement
-The Night King/WW can be killed by valyrian steel.
-Davos is useless in a fight.
-The Hound is self-centered, terrified of fire, and prone to quitting and cutting bait in a losing situation, but has an emotional connection to protecting Arya.
-Arya is a fearless badass at fighting/killing even more so than Jon, Brienne, Tormund, Jamie.
-Jorah is loyal to his queen over anything else.
-Jon is inexperienced and somewhat uncomfortable with riding a dragon
-Jon always charges head first at a problem even when it might be tactically dumb
-The NK has never seemed to view much of anyone as a real threat besides possibly Bran.
-Melisandre has zero idea what her premonitions and visions in the fire actually mean. She's bats like .185 when it comes to correct predictions. The Hound is better at interpreting what's in the flames than she is.
-The NK wants to kill the 3ER more than anything and he was focused on that.
-The whole Arya sneaking past and killing NK with the Jordan going to the other hand trick.
Bran is pretty useless.
-Tyrion has a bond with Sansa.
-Tormund is really hard to kill.

If your argument is that this episode was bad because the NK/WW storyline should be the main storyline and should end the show then you are arguing about how you view the story in your head. It is not the main storyline, it never has been. Its is part of the Night Watch's story and thus Jon's story.

If it is that it was to easy to kill the NK well the NK died in literally the manner they planned for in the prior episode as it was the only real chance they had not to be completely wiped out, it just wasn't Theon/Jon or Danny doing the killing because they all failed. It has been quite clear that simply stabbing a WW with a blade kills them.

If it is that not enough important characters died in this episode, because well in early seasons they killed of major characters unexpectedly...well that was the early season and the writers likely have a reason for not killing off Jon or Jamie or Brienne etc and it is probably not accidental they had Tyrion say "I think we might all live" in episode 2. A **** ton of people died in the episode, many who have been in every season since the start.

If in 3 episodes everyone survives then yes...that's a valid criticism. There are 240 minutes of story left...seems like a **** ton of more characters are going to die in that time.

The Red Wedding made total sense storytelling wise given the dynamics leading up to it and the character's involved.

Arya has been set up since season 4 to kill the Night King - what exactly is so shocking about her killing the NK given all the foreshadowing they did in prior episodes and seasons and also in the episode itself?

Looking forwards for a moment.

Why is everyone "good guys have two dragons RIP Cersei Jon and Dany happily ever after".

There are plenty of potential internal struggles among the remaining good guys that survived Winterfell in a civil war esque plot with one dragon each (assuming Rhaegal views Jon as a Targ). And with time to fester as they head to KL surely their is some split in their ranks.

for this battle with Cersei, what's the best defensive position they could take up, closer to King's Landing? the Twins? Harrenhal? or is there a good one in the North?


ya on that ringer review linked above they made a good point that this was a pretty predictable enemy
should have given them a pretty big advantage, but

at least Bran was right about using himself as bait

I think it all depends on whether the writers decide to play out a Dany vs Jon power struggle or not. It doesn't really fit Jon's MO tho. Sansa/Dany issues make more sense but Tyrion n Sansa becoming closer post crypts and Dany's army, Jorah getting crushed saving Winterfell would have to count in the North's eyes.

Also they have already laid the foundation that Dany won't lay waste to innocent people so firebombing KL is out, and it's likely they have been making way more dragon harpoon thingies so its not certain that the dragons won't be in danger in battle.

Seems like Team Dany is at clear disadvantage with majority of her cavalry dead and what seemed like around half the unsullied wiped out.

I'm still not certain what to make of the remaining Lannister Army's allegiance given Jamie has always been their leader in battle and him appearing to possibly be leaning towards Team Dany/Tyrion/Jon post battle.

Given there are 3 80m episodes left it seems like multiple battles would occur in that time. One would figure the Iron Bank becomes involved too at some point.

Saw a video on YouTube about the Iron Bank.

Cersei made a mistake by paying back her debt in full. That means the Iron Bank doesn't need her to stay alive and doesn't need a Lannister on the throne anymore.

Therefore the Iron Bank is free to change sides and support the side with dragons.

Hes not but it does not matter,the point is that from season 1 pretty much from the start they have been drip feeding in the WW as a plot line. Several things happen over the seasons, Sam kills a WW, John fights a zombie, we see the NK transform a baby etc, things get ramped up with Manse who is desperate to get south of the wall, because as he says on more than one occasion "winter is coming" e.g. zombies, there is obviously a ton of exposition on Manse's mission to get south.

No one can deny the obvious reality that yes in the show, the WW have been built up as major plot line from show 1.

So there is this totally nitpicky attempt at derail and diversion by arguing over what winter is coming means. It does not matter, that whole diversion is routed back to a discussion about how many seasons the WW plot line has been building, answer = from show 1.

To repeat myself again, it does matter if the NK is the chief protagonist at all, its not binary, its not good script writing to be lazy with the important sub boss and then only put detailed exposition into the main boss.

There has been a ton of content in the show resolving around the NK, more than plenty to make discerning viewers invested in the NK plot line, its not just some minor sub plot.

Its been a massive element of the show and the defence so what if they were a bit lazy with him, still got Cersie is beyond awful.

No way. The next ep will be recovery from the battle, planning, discussion, getting in a position to ride south. Ep 5 will be the battle for King's Landing, ep 6 will be devoted to wrapup and endings. Look how long it took to set up and execute the first battle.

They're going to be the aggressors. Bran had a vision of a dragon flying over King's Landing.

Again with this total strawman, no one or at least not me is arguing the above.

Let me repeat the central problem.

1. The way Arya got to the NK was lazy Dues Ex Machina (no problems at all, zero, silch, that Arya killed the NK by stabbing him GOT IT?.) Now you will be but she got these abilities, she did this she did that etc.

The show actually shows the undead having to part like a sea for the NK to walk through to get to Bran, the courtyard is absolutely rammed with zombies, also behind the NK two whole ranks deap are the captain zombies that he creates by finger nail on baby, not by raising the undead whom can be put in control of undead in their own right (their is scene in the expenda bros episode where jon kills one of the captains and all the zombies around him go down.)

Whatever, the point is the courtyard is shown to be so absolutely ram packed with baddies, that the explanation that she just snuck in is absolutely unsatisfying. It does not matter how much forshadowing there is, that does not stop it being lazy DEM.

If they had actually shown Arya sneaking in, it would have strained credulity way beyond breaking point. So they did show a bit of wind (lol) and a captain briefly going eh? That people are fine with that blows my mind.

2: Just as important as the above is there being no development of the NK, after so much build up over the whole show all we get is an absolutely paper thin caricature of a baddy.

A total and absolute vacuum of any interesting content and ideas and development. When Arya kills the NK this is brought home very powerfully, he explodes and any hope that he would be fleshed out in even the most cursory way dies with him. This is a massive part of the disappointment with that scene. Farewell NK, we never knew you.

Again it does not matter if NK is the main baddy or what evs, it just matters that a ton of exposition and time has gone into that plot line and having him just die with no unpacking at all of who or what he is is terrible imo.

ITT people are actually defending 2 by arguing so what, he was not that important, you only think he is important (lol), still got cersie.

So would have been fine with Arya killing NK using stealth if for example there had been more exposition on the NK, which maybe exposed a weakness, which someone leveraged somehow creating an opportunity for Arya to use her powers to a believable extent to stab the NK, or something like that. Something along those lines does not obviously have to be exactly that.

Not just having her teleport through a crowd more packed than an inner city subway station in japan at rush hour, killing the vacuum of ideas that was the NK.

Imagine if...

...During the scene where Jon is grounded and runs toward the NK, NK pulls his sword and they have a 5 min fight that results in a stalemate before NK then raises the dead around them as he did in the episode...

...and when he confronts Bran, NK triggers a 5 min greensight vision together with Bran (like 3ER did) that explains some, not wholly evil, motivation and backstory right before Arya goes stabby stabby...

...those 10 additional minutes would eliminate so much of the controversy, and I think this episode would then be in the running for one of the best of the entire series.

You seem unable to imagine a scenario in which there is no NK and the Walkers aren't a character at all, simply an impersonal threat. You're not wrong that the entire plotline is a dumpster fire. What you're wrong about is that the genesis of the problem dates to last episode.