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Post by breakfest on Aug 21, 2017 3:12:08 GMT -5
Didn't even get to Winterfell. I still find the conflict between the sisters entirely reasonable. People severely underestimate how messed up Arya is at every turn. Because we've seen what happened to Sansa we want Arya to get on our page, but she's not going to be. If she suspects Sansa might have betrayed the family in the past, with her opinion of her already low from their childhood, she's going to root it out the only way she knows how - with creepy death cult tricks. You could see at the end of that last scene she's starting to see the truth.
I wonder if any regular show watchers really thought she might actually kill Sansa. They were definitely pushing that, even if it was pretty obvious to us lot that was never going to happen.
Hey, it made more sense than a wight hunt.
Edit: Or just read Envie's post; she said it better.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2017 5:35:12 GMT -5
I'm surprised at the criticism. Let me address a couple of things: Why did the NK choose to kill Viserion first instead of Drogon who was right in front of him? Because in that moment, Viserion was actively decimating his entire army and was a much more pressing threat. So if the Night King wanted to keep his army, then that big fire-breathing dragon needed to go fast. Drogon was not doing anything at that moment, so the NK prioritised the bigger threat and tried to kill Viserion first and Drogon second. NK choosing to kill Viserion first was NOT random and definitely not convenient. It was what made the most sense in that moment. Why did Sansa send Brienne away?
LF was applying reversed psychology when he said that Brienne was sworn to protect both sisters and thus would help Sansa with Arya. Because all Sansa heard was "if Brienne is sworn to protect both of us, then she might very well side with her over me" and thus she decided to send her away. The letter-drama doesn't make sense, why would Arya not believe Sansa?
Arya was snarky towards Sansa from the very first moment they saw each other again: "do I have to call you 'my lady' now?" She obviously never got over their rivalry and the things that happened in S1. So the letter really only triggered something to come out that Arya was feeling anyway. She says it herself: in her eyes, it would have been better and more honourable for Sansa to get beaten up and die and thus refuse to write the letter than to do what the Lannisters said. It's not that Arya doesn't believe Sansa's reasoning. She does! But to her it's still complete bullshit, because she would never have reacted that way. She would have refused to write the letter no matter what. The fact that Sansa didn't do this is the "betrayal" that Arya is referring to. So it's not about Arya thinking that Sansa actually meant those things that are written in the letter. Arya is not dumb, after her first rush of anger, she realises that that's not the case. No, it's that Sansa let herself be coerced into writing it in the first place that infuriates Arya. Of course Arya is not being empathetic here at all and not putting herself in Sansa's shoes. But that is completely in-character for Arya. It's a continuation of their S1 dynamics with the exception that both of them have experienced a lot of shit in the meantime that the other doesn't even know about. It's this contrastive juxtaposition between their childish/petty conflict and the fact that they are not children anymore due to their very negative experiences in life that makes this conflict so painful and intriguing. We know from psychology that adults who have been severely traumatised in their childhood tend to apply their old children's logic on the problem even though they should know better as adults. Sansa and Arya in particular should absolutely know better by now, but their problem is rooted in their childhood, so logic and reason will only play a secondary role to them. Arya's negative feelings towards Sansa were their from the beginning. The letter did not cause them. The letter only triggered Arya to show them openly. Of course I'm sure she and Sansa will overcome all of this, but it's a process. Why didn't Dany react to Viserion's death?
Dany was on the verge of tears throughout the entire scene with Jon and the sole reason for that was Viserion's death. Jon said "I'm so sorry" and what he meant was: "I shouldn't have asked you to come. You sacrificed one of your dragons to save me." Dany then shakes her head and says that she needed to see the army of the dead in order to believe Jon, while her eyes are still filled with tears. A lot of the conversation is non-verbal, because sometimes when something bad happens, there are no adequate words for it. Also, Dany is feeling all sorts of confusing shit in that moment: her dragon died, the man she is falling in love with almost died but then didn't, she saw the army of the dead... I would be speechless too after that and not really be able to talk about it, because it would be too painful. I won't really address some of the other criticisms, because a lot of them just come down to personal taste. For example how they made use of some fantasy tropes. I didn't mind that, because their goal was to achieve and create pathos, which I personally always like in fantasy shows. Furthermore, I'm ok with the occasional usage of tropes and "convenient" storytelling in a show full of atypical and inconvenient plottwists. Viserion dying and being turned is such a punch in the gut, that I don't mind the rest being a bit more typical. And another thing: this episode is full to the brim with really beautiful and thought-out dialogue. They spent a considerable amount of time talking about the core meaning of the series: life and death, and what it means to be a hero in a world where death always wins. I wish people would spend more time analysing that instead of being annoyed by minor inconsistencies such as jarring editing that doesn't really show the passage of time, even though time has always been non-linear in this show and even though it's never specified how fast dragons can fly. I think that's not doing justice by what D&D tried to create with this episode. But that's just me.
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Post by konradsmith on Aug 21, 2017 5:52:36 GMT -5
I'm surprised at the criticism. Let me address a couple of things: Why did the NK choose to kill Viserion first instead of Drogon who was right in front of him? Because in that moment, Viserion was actively decimating his entire army and was a much more pressing threat. So if the Night King wanted to keep his army, then that big fire-breathing dragon - which was in the process of destroying his army - needed to go fast. Drogon was not doing anything at that moment, so the NK prioritised the bigger threat and tried to kill Viserion first and Drogon second. NK choosing to kill Viserion first was NOT random and definitely not convenient. It was what made the most sense in that moment. Why did Sansa send Brienne away?
LF was applying reversed psychology when he said that Brienne was sworn to protect both sisters and thus would help Sansa with Arya. But all Sansa heard was "if Brienne is sworn to protect both of us, then she might very well side with her over me" and thus she decided to send her away. The letter-drama doesn't make sense, why would Arya not believe Sansa?
Arya was snarky towards Sansa from the very first moment they saw each other again: "do I have to call you 'my lady' now?" She obviously never got over their rivalry and the things that happened in S1. So the letter really only triggered something to come out that Arya was feeling anyway. She says it herself: in her eyes, it would have been better and more honourable for Sansa to get beaten up and die and thus refuse to write the letter than to do what the Lannisters said. It's not that Arya doesn't believe Sansa's reasoning. She does! But to her it's still utter bullshit, because she would never have reacted that way. She would have refused to write the letter no matter what. The fact that Sansa didn't do this is the "betrayal" that Arya is referring to. So it's not about Arya thinking that Sansa actually meant those things that are written in the letter. Arya is not dumb, after her first rush of anger, she realises that that's not the case. No, it's that Sansa let herself be coerced into writing it in the first place that infuriates Arya. Of course Arya is not being empathetic here at all and not putting herself in Sansa's shoes. But that is completely in-character for Arya. It's a continuation of their S1 dynamics with the exception that both of them have experienced a lot of shit in the meantime that the other doesn't even know about. It's this contrastive juxtaposition between their childish/petty conflict and the fact that they are not children anymore due to their very negative experiences in life that makes this conflict so painful and intriguing. We know from psychology that adults who have been severely traumatised in their childhood tend to apply their old children's logic on the problem even though they should know better as adults. Sansa and Arya in particular should absolutely know better by now, but their problem is rooted in their childhood, so logic and reason will only play a secondary role to them. Arya's negative feelings towards Sansa were their from the beginning. The letter did not cause them. The letter only triggered Arya to show them openly. Of course I'm sure she and Sansa will overcome all of this, but it's a process. Why didn't Dany react to Viserion's death?
Dany was on the verge of tears throughout the entire scene with Jon and the sole reason for that was Viserion's death. Jon said "I'm so sorry" and what he meant was: "I shouldn't have asked you to come. You sacrificed one of your dragons to save me." Dany then shakes her head and says that she needed to see the army of the dead in order to believe Jon, while her eyes are still filled with tears. A lot of the conversation is non-verbal, because sometimes when something bad happens, there are no adequate words for it. Also, Dany is feeling all sorts of confusing shit in that moment: her dragon died, the man she is falling in love with almost died but then didn't, she saw the army of the dead... I would be speechless too after that and not really be able to talk about it, because it would be too painful. I won't really address some of the other criticisms, because a lot of them just come down to personal taste. For example how they made use of some fantasy tropes. I didn't mind that, because their goal was to achieve and create pathos, which I personally always like in fantasy shows. Furthermore, I'm ok with the occasional usage of tropes and "convenient" storytelling in a show full of atypical and inconvenient plottwists. Viserion dying and being turned alone is such a punch in the gut, that I don't mind the rest being a bit more typical.
Also people being surprised that the NK, a more than a thousand year old demigod able to create both WWs and wights and capable of killing a dragon and out-maneuvering Bran and Thoros's prophetic abilities, would...gasp...be able to, at some point in his tenure ruling the Army of the Dead, acquire some fucking chains... That's really the thing people are having a shit-fit over? As for travel-times, raven travel-times are one thing. Though they've not been used as messenger birds as far as I know in real life, that's something that is actually tangible and thus if one wants to be picky, something they can use to nitpick the episode. But dragons? I'd say there's a lot of room for interpretative leeway in guessing how fast they'd fly. But since, as I've lamented, shooting holes in art/entertainment based on little details instead of trying to apply a coherent analytic method to one's reviews, has become the prevalent method of criticism in this ludicrous meme-ified online age...I doubt trying to counter-argue substantively will do too much good. To paraphrase Mark Twain, memes and intellectually dishonest simplistic critiques can travel halfway around the world before sanity can get its pants on. But it is what it is. Trying to combat the fandom intelligentsia on any of the bigger sites gets one nowhere. Best to just enjoy this small but sane forum and enjoy the fact that the nastiest voices in the fandom are becoming more and more marginalized as the show grows closer and closer to its close. The malice we hear now from them now is, very fortunately, really just a death rattle.
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Post by Lordimp on Aug 21, 2017 6:13:27 GMT -5
9. Not perfect , but still one of the best.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2017 6:43:36 GMT -5
Changed my vote to 9. Right now I'd rank the eps of this season this way: 7x04>7x06>7x03>7x02>7x01>7x05
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breakfest
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Post by breakfest on Aug 21, 2017 6:53:01 GMT -5
I think the poor way the wight hunt was set up has affected my opinion of the actual episode itself. If I could fully comprehend the motivation behind them needing to carry out this mission, I would have been swept along for the ride a bit better. This has been such a huge shift for the season - and has so much narrative weight behind it - that I think I'm finding it hard to process.
The whole series turned towards the White Walker conflict the moment they agreed to do the wight hunt; I just wish they'd put more thought into how important it was for this decision to be desperate, believable and truly necessary in the context of the overall story. And they definitely could have done it.
I'll rewatch the episode to get a better gauge on how I feel about it in and of itself.
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Post by sand0r on Aug 21, 2017 6:54:48 GMT -5
Disjointed, too rushed for me. D&D really did a disservice by shortening the number of episodes this season and presumably that feeling will continue next season. But I could look at Dany and Jon looking at each other and holding each other's hands all day. And thinking of penultimate episodes, this just wasn't up there with the rest of them.
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Post by sand0r on Aug 21, 2017 7:07:22 GMT -5
Why didn't Dany react to Viserion's death?
Dany was on the verge of tears throughout the entire scene with Jon and the sole reason for that was Viserion's death. Jon said "I'm so sorry" and what he meant was: "I shouldn't have asked you to come. You sacrificed one of your dragons to save me." Dany then shakes her head and says that she needed to see the army of the dead in order to believe Jon, while her eyes are still filled with tears. A lot of the conversation is non-verbal, because sometimes when something bad happens, there are no adequate words for it. Also, Dany is feeling all sorts of confusing shit in that moment: her dragon died, the man she is falling in love with almost died but then didn't, she saw the army of the dead... I would be speechless too after that and not really be able to talk about it, because it would be too painful. Yes, this right here! I've thought this season of how expressive Emilia Clarke's face is; she doesn't need to say a word, her face especially the eyes give everything away. My dog died earlier this summer; I didn't view him like my child as Dany does Viserion, but I couldn't bring myself to speak in the first few days after he died. So I got her emotions straight away. That she could hold it together long enough to keep her focus on Jon's possible return was great and the look on her face when he finally opened his eyes was perfect. As much as Viserion's death pained me (couldn't tell which dragon even on rewatch so I depended on the Internet for that news), it also hearkened back to my thoughts about Viserys and his early death. If he had lived and been a normal, decent human, the three heads could have been him, Dany and Jon. It's fitting that as he died early, so did the dragon named for him. Even more, the dragon circling the forest above Eastwatch looking for Jon is the one named for his father. I thought there was perfect symmetry around that.
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Post by breakfest on Aug 21, 2017 7:20:48 GMT -5
Why am I seeing this chain shit everywhere? It's hilarious.
How could anybody get a chain of all things! Shark officially jumped.
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Post by konradsmith on Aug 21, 2017 7:21:58 GMT -5
Why am I seeing this chain shit everywhere? It's hilarious. How could anybody get a chain of all things! Shark officially jumped. I mean, who does he think he is? A Maester or sumthin?
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Post by Lady Sansa's Direwolf on Aug 21, 2017 12:03:50 GMT -5
I'm surprised at the criticism. Let me address a couple of things: Why did the NK choose to kill Viserion first instead of Drogon who was right in front of him? Because in that moment, Viserion was actively decimating his entire army and was a much more pressing threat. So if the Night King wanted to keep his army, then that big fire-breathing dragon needed to go fast. Drogon was not doing anything at that moment, so the NK prioritised the bigger threat and tried to kill Viserion first and Drogon second. NK choosing to kill Viserion first was NOT random and definitely not convenient. It was what made the most sense in that moment. Why did Sansa send Brienne away?
LF was applying reversed psychology when he said that Brienne was sworn to protect both sisters and thus would help Sansa with Arya. Because all Sansa heard was "if Brienne is sworn to protect both of us, then she might very well side with her over me" and thus she decided to send her away. The letter-drama doesn't make sense, why would Arya not believe Sansa?
Arya was snarky towards Sansa from the very first moment they saw each other again: "do I have to call you 'my lady' now?" She obviously never got over their rivalry and the things that happened in S1. So the letter really only triggered something to come out that Arya was feeling anyway. She says it herself: in her eyes, it would have been better and more honourable for Sansa to get beaten up and die and thus refuse to write the letter than to do what the Lannisters said. It's not that Arya doesn't believe Sansa's reasoning. She does! But to her it's still complete bullshit, because she would never have reacted that way. She would have refused to write the letter no matter what. The fact that Sansa didn't do this is the "betrayal" that Arya is referring to. So it's not about Arya thinking that Sansa actually meant those things that are written in the letter. Arya is not dumb, after her first rush of anger, she realises that that's not the case. No, it's that Sansa let herself be coerced into writing it in the first place that infuriates Arya. Of course Arya is not being empathetic here at all and not putting herself in Sansa's shoes. But that is completely in-character for Arya. It's a continuation of their S1 dynamics with the exception that both of them have experienced a lot of shit in the meantime that the other doesn't even know about. It's this contrastive juxtaposition between their childish/petty conflict and the fact that they are not children anymore due to their very negative experiences in life that makes this conflict so painful and intriguing. We know from psychology that adults who have been severely traumatised in their childhood tend to apply their old children's logic on the problem even though they should know better as adults. Sansa and Arya in particular should absolutely know better by now, but their problem is rooted in their childhood, so logic and reason will only play a secondary role to them. Arya's negative feelings towards Sansa were their from the beginning. The letter did not cause them. The letter only triggered Arya to show them openly. Of course I'm sure she and Sansa will overcome all of this, but it's a process. Why didn't Dany react to Viserion's death?
Dany was on the verge of tears throughout the entire scene with Jon and the sole reason for that was Viserion's death. Jon said "I'm so sorry" and what he meant was: "I shouldn't have asked you to come. You sacrificed one of your dragons to save me." Dany then shakes her head and says that she needed to see the army of the dead in order to believe Jon, while her eyes are still filled with tears. A lot of the conversation is non-verbal, because sometimes when something bad happens, there are no adequate words for it. Also, Dany is feeling all sorts of confusing shit in that moment: her dragon died, the man she is falling in love with almost died but then didn't, she saw the army of the dead... I would be speechless too after that and not really be able to talk about it, because it would be too painful. I won't really address some of the other criticisms, because a lot of them just come down to personal taste. For example how they made use of some fantasy tropes. I didn't mind that, because their goal was to achieve and create pathos, which I personally always like in fantasy shows. Furthermore, I'm ok with the occasional usage of tropes and "convenient" storytelling in a show full of atypical and inconvenient plottwists. Viserion dying and being turned is such a punch in the gut, that I don't mind the rest being a bit more typical. And another thing: this episode is full to the brim with really beautiful and thought-out dialogue. They spent a considerable amount of time talking about the core meaning of the series: life and death, and what it means to be a hero in a world where death always wins. I wish people would spend more time analysing that instead of being annoyed by minor inconsistencies such as jarring editing that doesn't really show the passage of time, even though time has always been non-linear in this show and even though it's never specified how fast dragons can fly. I think that's not doing justice by what D&D tried to create with this episode. But that's just me.
I agree with so much of this! There are no words which can put the loss of a child into perspective, and for all Dany's regal behavior, she is still at times a lost girl, trying to fulfill some very big shoes. One look and Jon knew she was devastated, as is he himself. In his desire to prove to everyone in Westeros the depth of this danger, he has lost one of the most precious resources they had - Viserion. There are some saying it appeared to be a trap, that the NK knew they would be coming. I don't think so. Viserion's death was a moment of opportunity the NK seized and made the most of.
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Post by alcasinoroyale on Aug 21, 2017 19:18:47 GMT -5
And thinking of penultimate episodes, this just wasn't up there with the rest of them. I expect to get shit for this, but I think it only ranks above 509.
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Post by MarcusAntonius on Aug 21, 2017 19:32:28 GMT -5
And thinking of penultimate episodes, this just wasn't up there with the rest of them. I expect to get shit for this, but I think it only ranks above 509. I don't think that's a statement worth getting shit over. Baelor, Blackwater, Rains of Castamere, Watchers on the Wall, and Battle of the Bastards are all among the best the show has done.
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Post by konradsmith on Aug 21, 2017 19:34:51 GMT -5
I think it's far better than 409 and 509. The rest I'm uncertain about. Not better than 609 though.
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Nezzer
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Post by Nezzer on Aug 21, 2017 22:02:54 GMT -5
I think it's far better than 409 No way, Jose
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