AJ Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 Spoiler Benjen ex machina was not unexpected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 24 minutes ago, AJ said: Hide contents Benjen ex machina was not unexpected. Gendry could have ran to Dorne in the time Benjen had to get on the horse with Jon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brumerican Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 Jon "Come with me" Benjen "Can't mate , the CGI for season 8 is going to be off the charts so they're trimming on actor wages." 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted August 21, 2017 Moderator Share Posted August 21, 2017 3 hours ago, villa4europe said: Why would you not spend the night taking it in turns to smash the ice with the war hammer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 The bringing the dragon out of the lake was a moment that nearly lost me to be honest. These skeletons seem to crumple into nothing on first contact with the lake, and then they're, what, donning scuba diving suits with headlamps to tie chains around the limbs of a many-ton dragon at the bottom of a freezing lake with chains from the local blacksmith's foundry? Jog on. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 Kind of expecting the following exchange in a future episode. Spoiler Jon: "Uncle Benjen! You're alive!" Benjen: " Yeah, Jon. I didn't have time to jump on the horse to ride to safety with you. I needed more time to make a set of ice wings out of snowflakes, and then use a jet propelled fart to fly me to safety. When you eat nothing but undead polar bears for 6 or so years, the methane tends to build up in the guts a bit. Now I can fill in all the gaps of your lineage which that useless tuu@t Brann has neglected to tell you. Its like this, Jon...oh no. I think I am having a brain aneurysm. Cark! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 Utterly ridiculous. Yeah it's fantasy but you can't break your own rules. They may as well have had Spiderman come and help 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 22, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted August 22, 2017 Dragons, resurrections, magic, zombies, giants, gods, telepathy, telekinesis, spontaneous combustion. Yeah that's all fine. "OH MY GOD HOW DID THEY ATTACH SOME CHAINS TO A DEAD DRAGON?!?!?!?!?!?!" 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HanoiVillan Posted August 22, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted August 22, 2017 Almost all of those things were established within the universe early on. They are part of the world the characters live in. So are chains - they're made by blacksmith's, none of whom live anywhere close to the action. Last night, I felt the attitude of the makers could basically be summarised as: 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 24 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: Dragons, resurrections, magic, zombies, giants, gods, telepathy, telekinesis, spontaneous combustion. Yeah that's all fine. "OH MY GOD HOW DID THEY ATTACH SOME CHAINS TO A DEAD DRAGON?!?!?!?!?!?!" Well...yes. We're watching a world which has all the things you list in it. So it's fine that they are there. We're also watching a world which has gone to great lengths to point out that these things can't go into water. So when it breaks that rule then it's more of a problem. Particularly as it was utterly unnecessary. Would anything have been lost narratively if it had just crashed into a big pile of snowy rocks? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 (edited) That's the problem I had. It's a fantasy series, but there needs to be internal consistency. Can't say that I had any problem with the whole chains thing though. The night King doesn't seem like the sort of chap to concern himself with his minions being stuck at the bottom of the sea. I'm assuming that we'll find out that he was planning it all along and that's why the undead didn't bother attacking; they knew a dragon was on its way. It was still a huge nonsense, a thinly veiled plot device to even up the teams. Also, HBO win the elusive wooden bellend award for ruining the big moment by putting it on a poster months ago. Thanks guys. Edited August 22, 2017 by Davkaus 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Chindie Posted August 22, 2017 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted August 22, 2017 22 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: Dragons, resurrections, magic, zombies, giants, gods, telepathy, telekinesis, spontaneous combustion. Yeah that's all fine. "OH MY GOD HOW DID THEY ATTACH SOME CHAINS TO A DEAD DRAGON?!?!?!?!?!?!" Nah. 'It's fantasy' isn't a get it of jail free card for breaking your own rules or doing stuff that is completely incongruous. Unless the fantasy is shit, and Game of Thrones has set a high bar as a show that has strong fantasy elements but grounds them. This hasn't been established as a show where the writers can put themselves in a corner and get out of it 'because magic'. The chains are stupid. Why is an army of zombies carting round enormous chains? Etc. I'm not asking for chains backstory, I'm asking for the writers to have a better solution. Or write the scene ahead of this better to not have the problem. It's not even the wights in water thing - Tormund nearly dying shows they can survive in water the water was just an obstacle. This episode was riddled with these issues. The absurd timescale fast travel stuff, Jon's bizarre pointless last stand in there only so they could have a dragon die, Jon's fake out drowning, Benjen ex machina with associated pointless death (which stinks of the writers just trying to half arse close a loose end), the wights bothering to wait for the ice when they could literally pile up below the water and climb back up, the ridiculous stuff with Arya suddenly going full psycho (which can only be redeemed by being a ploy but I've no faith in the show being that clever anymore)... It's really bad writing. Entertaining sure, no complaints there, but the writing is going down the pan. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 22, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted August 22, 2017 3 minutes ago, Davkaus said: That's the problem I had. It's a fantasy series, but there needs to be internal consistency. Can't say that I had any problem with the whole chains thing though. The night King doesn't seem like the sort of chap to concern himself with his minions being stuck at the bottom of the sea. Exactly. And I don't think it's unfeasible that they've had those chains for ages. It doesn't have to be that they saw the dragon and thought "ah we could do with some chains". They're a vast army of thousands and thousands. They've probably got shit loads of stuff. Ultimately I think it's pretty weird to be upset about the origin of some chains. I honestly couldn't care less People take this so seriously! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Mark Albrighton Posted August 22, 2017 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted August 22, 2017 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 11 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 There's so, so much wrong with that episode that I hadn't even thought about the chains to be honest. Now it's been pointed out, yes it's ridiculous but it's the least of the episode's issues for me. Having watched it again it was even worse than I first thought. At a push the chains could be explained. Could've been plundered from giants. Could've been made from ice by the white walkers themselves. I'm happy enough to have that left up to me as a viewer to figure out, unlike some of the other bullshit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HanoiVillan Posted August 22, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted August 22, 2017 To be fair, I'm somebody who gets annoyed by Jurassic Park sequels on the basis that no such venture would ever be given affordable corporate liability insurance, so maybe I'm not the best critic 8 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 43 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said: Exactly what I was going to post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 14 minutes ago, JB said: There's so, so much wrong with that episode that I hadn't even thought about the chains to be honest. Now it's been pointed out, yes it's ridiculous but it's the least of the episode's issues for me. Having watched it again it was even worse than I first thought. At a push the chains could be explained. Could've been plundered from giants. Could've been made from ice by the white walkers themselves. I'm happy enough to have that left up to me as a viewer to figure out, unlike some of the other bullshit. My biggest problem was the physics of how the chains run against the edge of ice sheet to pull a dragon out of the water just doesn't work. The physics are established in the show as being pretty close to ours. People don't just float around so there's gravity, dragons soar and flap wings so air is consistent, fire burns, light is light, dark is dark, so the world is created like ours with added fantasy magic and your disbelief is suspended. So they can't just go and say 'actually that's all bullshit. The physics are the physics until they're not.' Very poor writing. If GRRM was still writing it, it wouldn't happen like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 22, 2017 Share Posted August 22, 2017 1 hour ago, Chindie said: Arya suddenly going full psycho (which can only be redeemed by being a ploy but I've no faith in the show being that clever anymore I think there's no question that they aren't clever enough for that. I'm absolutely sure they're just turning Arya psycho because that's where they want the story to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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