The Sansa/ Arya subplot still seems a bit peculiar to me. They had that confrontation scene in which Arya implies she might kill Sansa for betraying her family, but it wasn't in front of Littlefinger. Could he hear them through the stone walls? It seemed like it was to mislead viewers but didn't make as much sense as a trap for Littlefinger given he wasn't present in most of the scenes that supposedly trapped him. It seems like they should have feigned an argument in front of him or something. They had a weird faux one-on-one Arya/ Sansa confrontation and then Sansa told him about it later. The finale at least sets up some character oriented subplots to think about. The battles are typically pretty decently executed, but this series became so popular for the "game" of doublecrosses and secret alliances in the quest for power, not epic battles and explosions. Even the character oriented Littlefinger business seemed pretty sloppy to me. Hopefully they get it together again for the final season.
Maybe they just assumed he was always listening? It was unclear. An example of the writing not being up to par this season.
Very much agree with this, the jump cuts, and fast pace was just too much like a hollywood film. The last scene with the FrostWyrm blowing the walls was cool though.
I gave up half way through this series, the lack of source material is showing now and everything is rushed or stupid just to get a reaction from the viewers.
The fat man will probably keel over and die before he finishes writing this story. And it seems like HBO wants to wrap things up. It's really showing in the writing. This season everything felt rushed. I think the most glaring example was the battle where the dudes were stranded on the ice. The timeline made no sense. It seems like Dany became aware of the danger to the group and flew all the way across the continent in minutes. Also the whole plot of capturing a white walker and bringing it back was kind of dumb. It's kind of turning into a medieval fantasy Walking Dead: a zombie show where subplots and character motivations often make little sense due to poor writing. That's a show that's also mainly about spectacle. They will usually have some big, expensive set piece battle or walker attack in the premiere and the finale, and then the rest of the season will just be soap opera-ish filler with bad writing. People complain all the time about the bad writing, but keep watching because there's usually something cool to see in the premiere or finale.
The whole season seems so rushed and full of plot holes. I didn't find Littlefingers demise very satisfying, but at least the Starks haven't gone full-retard. Except Jon Stark Targaryen, he's still an idealistic idiot... a honorable, bad-ass, idealistic fucking idiot. Basically the Mary Sue trope of GoT. Like I've been saying, Cercei is by far the only one qualified to 'win'.
I think Cersei has her own set of problems. She's so obsessed with revenge that she's alienated everyone around her, including her brother/lover. There's such a thing as being too ruthless. I think Dany is supposed to be the balance between ruthlessness and idealism. My favorite character was Ramsay. Dude was a hilarious sociopath. Basically the joker of the GoT universe. The show feels like it's missing something without him. Kind of like how Reek always feels like he's missing something. Speaking of Reek, that scene with him fighting back and the guys following him was pretty unbelievable and badly written. It's been shown time and time again that his men don't respect him, and that the men of the iron islands are practically mercenaries who will turn on their leaders in a second when they do something dumb/idealistic. Also Reek is the show's punching bag/comic relief. Why are they trying to make him into a hero? That's just not his character.
True, they are showing how isolated Cercei is now. Even that was done extremely poorly though. Jaime is suddenly afraid of the walking dead? Cercei's body guard is a zombie for 4 seasons now and she has a necromancer as a close adviser. If anything Tyrion/Dany/Jon should expect her to try and weaponize the army of the dead. LOL @ Reek winning a fight, I figured it was light comedic relief. That subplot especially highlighted the utter disregard for travel time the writers have now. Sails to King's Landing, sails back to Dragonstone, grew a backbone and is now sailing back to King's Landing. His sister will give birth to her own daughter/aunt by the time she's rescued.
Apparently all the characters can teleport now. @bfun mentioned how fast they traveled Westeros and Bravos last season. But now, they can teleport across a battlefield of zombie combatants that can literally hear a pin drop. Sneak level 1000. Fucking winter finally came after 8 years and it was just flurries. SHAME!
That was pretty heavy "borrowing" from Gunnm/ Alita: Battle Angel with the demise of Lyanna Mormont scene, almost a carbon copy.
Right. We start with a 10k World War Z zombie wave and end with maybe a 100 zombies in the keep. I guess even an HBO show has a budget.
Game of Thrones has basically turned into an R-rated, big-budget made for TV Lord of the Rings the last two seasons. I'm still enjoying it, but it's definitely not the same show that it was in earlier seasons.
The quality of the storytelling has dropped sharply. I still like the characters and world of GoT, but a lot of what originally drew me in with the storytelling is gone now.
They seemed to have dropped their own rules with Arya killing the Knight King. I thought it had to be someone resurrected, unless she qualified as "no-one". If the KK's death was going to be so anti-climactic they should've had Theon kill him with his retarded head on charge. LOL nobody would've saw that coming.
I actually wouldn't have minded Arya dealing the death blow to the NK, but the execution of it just teleporting and falling out of the sky to one-shot him was terrible. If the NK had been battling Jon and/ or Jamie but was getting the better of them and Arya used her stealthy abilities to catch him off guard while distracted, that would have probably been acceptable. The way they executed this was more abrupt than the shadow creature appearing and murdering Renly Baratheon.
Yeah it made no sense. I mean Arya being the one to kill him is fine I guess since she's a trained assassin. But she just sort of teleported out of nowhere and came flying through the air to stab the Night King despite him being surrounded by hundreds of his dudes.
@AKS I like your version better. Arya is actually the only person I buy being able to kill the Night King, but it doesn't fit the prophesy. But they way they delivered it was just bad. The last time we saw Arya she and the Hound barely escaped into a closed off room to avoid the white walkers. How she got to Bran and the weird flying attack make no sense.
If you're referring to "the prince that was promised," Missandei clarified last season that the term was gender-neutral and could mean prince or princess. Given Jon is actually the true king and they Jon and Arya both have Stark blood and have always viewed each other as siblings, Arya could be viewed as a princess to some extent.