Game of Thrones - Season 5

[Excalibur]

It's gratuitous in its placement. It was a weak build and was thrown on Ep 9 just to shock the out of you. It certainly defines his (lack of ) character but like many other things in this VERY uneven season (Dorne, Faith militant etc...) it was plotted out poorly.

They hinted at it earlier in the season, then hinted much more strongly at it later, then went through with it. In a 10-episode season, how did you want them to build it?

 

[Deepelm]

I may be forgetting my reading, but weren't Stannis's wife, daughter, and the Red woman cooling at Castle Black at the end of ADWD while Stannis was getting ready to attack Winterfell?

Correct.

 

[August_West]

They hinted at it earlier in the season, then hinted much more strongly at it later, then went through with it. In a 10-episode season, how did you want them to build it?

Here is how it went. Stannis wife on the show was always portrayed as the imbalanced one in favor of torching Shireen.
Here is the build up we had over this season:
-A scene where Stannis tenderly told Shireen how she is his daughter and all the lengths he went through for the Grayscale treatment
- Stannis pretty much telling Melisandre to "get out of here" at the slightest mention of touching Shireen.

So lets Fast forward to Ep 9. All of a sudden Stannis is in favor and his wife is not? At what prompting? Some barely shown tough times getting to Winterfell? They showed NO internal struggle to getting to that extreme point of desperation. What Ramsay burned some stuff, so now all of a sudden it goes from "Melisandre you will never touch Shireen" to "OK we have to make a sacrifice of my daughter" . How did he get there? That is a MAJOR swing. It was even more hastily thrown together than the Faith Militant. It was opportunistic TV writing at its finest.

In pro wrestling vernacular that is what is known as a "cheap pop"

 

[August_West]

I may be forgetting my reading, but weren't Stannis's wife, daughter, and the Red woman cooling at Castle Black at the end of ADWD while Stannis was getting ready to attack Winterfell?

yup,
and I can say this because its not a spoiler.
Shireen is still alive and in fact in the preview chapters of Winds of Winter already published Stannis tells one of his guys that if he dies in battle that they are to make sure that his daughter is put on the Iron Throne.

In an interview with an HBO show runner today, he says that they got the Shireen dying thing from GRRM although they don't say that GRRM told them HOW she died. I feel like that part of the story could have been explored more and waited on. They have plenty to draw from to finish this season. (as you show only watchers will see next week) Like I said Shireen in flames at this point was a "cheap pop"

 

[Rocktheworld]

All of a sudden Stannis is in favor and his wife is not? At what prompting? Some barely shown tough times getting to Winterfell? They showed NO internal struggle to getting to that extreme point of desperation. What Ramsay burned some stuff, so now all of a sudden it goes from "Melisandre you will never touch Shireen" to "OK we have to make a sacrifice of my daughter" . How did he get there? That is a MAJOR swing. It was even more hastily thrown together than the Faith Militant. It was opportunistic TV writing at its finest.

Well I imagine the viewers are supposed to infer his internal struggle over time. This wasn't an overnight decision; that first scene about him saving her set that premise that it would be a monumental decision for him to make, not that he wouldn't go there. I personally don't need scenes of him in his chambers alone debating the pros and cons. The idea of sacrificing his daughter was actually a kind of Chekhov's gun. We already knew Stannis was far from perfect, so while I appreciated his anecdote about saving her, it didn't convince me he wouldn't sacrifice her if it meant he would get the Iron Throne. We saw the option made available, him initially reject it, and then see setback after setback and the desperation grow greater. You know it was in the back of his mind the entire time. Ramsay didn't just burn "some stuff." It didn't shock me for one second that Stannis went where he went when pushed to the desperation he is evidently being pushed to.

 

[UConn990411]

Sorry, non book reader so forgive me. Through my eyes it makes perfect sense for his story arch in the timing it takes place. He is unilaterally moving towards what he thinks is his birth right giving away more and more of himself in the process and becoming increasingly pigeonholed into a death march. He's clearly a desperate man who just sold what's left of his soul. The act like many in the series is upsetting, but it didn't seem forced to me or violence for violence's sake. What alternative means is there to underscore what happens when a man chases power he believes is his divine right in a world where power is fickle and granted by the masses?

Don't bother. These discussions are rarely worth having with the book readers.

 

[Scalito]

Agreed. Seemed way gratuitous, and just for extra shock value.By far the weakest penultimate episode in the series so far. "well we cut off Neds head, We had the red wedding, and we had the epic mountain/viper battle. How can we top that? " Tough bar to live up to though because the other 4 have been stupendous. They would have been better off flip flopping Hardhome episode with the Dances with Dragons episode if they were going to do it at all. While this hasn't happened in the books, and maybe it will, maybe it wont, I don't like the way it was done on the show. Although maybe it is just the father of a daughter in me talking. It takes a lot to disgust me. That disgusted me.

I am very sympathetic to this. Okay, I pretty much agree with it. I didn't say anything---deleted what I wrote on this score before posting---because I feel like HBO Stannis took an alternate path from Book Stannis the minute he slept with the Red Witch and I therefore didn't know HBO Stannis well enough to complain.

 

[Penfield]

@Penfield I'm with you on Martin finishing that darn book. If it's not done, there's a good shot I don't watch next season until tWoW is published, not to mention the 7th (and presumed last) season versus A Dream of Spring (could the delay be that he's writing them concurrently? Ain't that wishful thinking!), which would in theory spoil the ending of the series.

He pretty much made a promise last week that he would have the next book released before the show starts again. I believe him but who knows, he has made a lot of promises on release dates.

I have no expectation of getting book 7 before season 7.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

 

[Scalito]

I have no expectation of getting book 7 before season 7.

I have no expectation that we'll get Book 7 before he dies. Hope, yes. Expectations, no.

 

[Penfield]

I have no expectation that we'll get Book 7 before he dies. Hope, yes. Expectations, no.

Unfortunately it wouldn't surprise me

 

[Fishy]

If any of you ever become queen, here's a tip - if you go to something called "the fighting pits", bring more than ten of your 20,000 soldiers as bodyguards.

Also, don't sell all the seats behind you to people who have been trying to kill you. Make them sit on the other side of the stadium or, better, maybe keep them out.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

If any of you ever become queen, here's a tip - if you go to something called "the fighting pits", bring more than ten of your 20,000 soldiers as bodyguards.

Also, don't sell all the seats behind you to people who have been trying to kill you. Make them sit on the other side of the stadium or, better, maybe keep them out.

You would have thought that gate security would have noticed that everyone in the stadium was bringing in the Harpy masks when they were checking for flasks and recording equipment.

 

[coachcap]

You would have thought that gate security would have noticed that everyone in the stadium was bringing in the Harpy masks when they were checking for flasks and recording equipment.

That only happens at the RENT with the overzealous tennis ball Nazis.

 

[August_West]

If any of you ever become queen, here's a tip - if you go to something called "the fighting pits", bring more than ten of your 20,000 soldiers as bodyguards.

Also, don't sell all the seats behind you to people who have been trying to kill you. Make them sit on the other side of the stadium or, better, maybe keep them out.

not only that, but for the umpteenth time this season the unsullied were made to look like the biggest bunch of pu$$ies in the history of of westeros/essos. Spend the season when Dany obtains them of making a point of them being the most well trained disciplined army imaginable and then never have them win a single battle this season. Good stuff.

 

[Deepster]

not only that, but for the umpteenth time this season the unsullied were made to look like the biggest bunch of pu$$ies in the history of of westeros/essos. Spend the season when Dany obtains them of making a point of them being the most well trained disciplined army imaginable and then never have them win a single battle this season. Good stuff.

Yeah and it's not like they're up against hordes of Dothraki warriors, they went up against relatively untrained civilians wearing big flowing robes and clunky masks that you definitely can't see through all that well.....and they took the worse end of it.

Some of the message board chatter I've read is that they're trained to fight in units, like when they formed that human "shield" over Khaleesi and that in these alleys or closer quarters, the long spears aren't that effective....I still don't buy it. And if that is the case, Khaleesi needs to rethink her personal bodyguard unit.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Yeah and it's not like they're up against hordes of Dothraki warriors, they went up against relatively untrained civilians wearing big flowing robes and clunky masks that you definitely can't see through all that well.....and they took the worse end of it.

Some of the message board chatter I've read is that they're trained to fight in units, like when they formed that human "shield" over Khaleesi and that in these alleys or closer quarters, the long spears aren't that effective....I still don't buy it. And if that is the case, Khaleesi needs to rethink her personal bodyguard unit.

Meereen had a military before Dany got there, and that military never really got a chance to fight. Dany took over through a slave rebellion that was over as soon as it started. The Meereenese military never took the field, and with the rapid defeat and occupation of their city, it simply went into hiding. Any insurgency is formed with ex-military at its core, and I am sure Sons of the Harpy are no different.

Fighting an insurgency is a lot harder than winning a battle in the open field for a force like the Unsullied. While they have lost some fights, they have also acquitted themselves well in each defeat, taking many more lives than they lost themselves despite being surprised each time.

 

[Horatio]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

 

[OkaForPrez]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

Do you want to meet up at comicon? What are you going to dress up as?

 

[Brochacho]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

Dragons will be twice as big next season, according to some guy who works on something for GOT.
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/game-of-thrones-dragons-white-walkers-vfx-121365015845.html

 

[OneTrickPony]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

From the descriptions of the Dragon skulls in the labyrinth under King's Landing, they can become much, much bigger. But, the Dragon's were getting smaller as they went into extinction, so we really need to know whether these are throwbacks to the huge ones of yore or the smaller, more "evolved" version...I'm pulling for the big'uns...

 

[August_West]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

It takes a decade to reach fully grown for dragons.

Also as otp mentioned. The last targaryen dragons were much smaller.
I do believe these 3 end up rather large. As large as Balerion? That has yet to be seen. Remember we say balerions skull in season one when arya was in the bowels of the red keep.

 

[billythekid]

Any thoughts as to what happens in this week's season finale? Not sure where they go with the Tyrion arc now that Dany has flown the coop (literally). Based on the title of the episode, "Mother's Mercy", I'm guessing we see the denouement of Cerci's fall from grace. The Stanis storyline should be interesting as he marches towards Winterfell. Do the Bolton's finally get their comeuppance? They've barely touched on Brienne in a few episodes, so you figure she'll play some role in the finale. I'm guessing Arya will prove her worth to the Many Faced God and might cross another one off her hit list in the doing. I think the final scene will deal with what happens to Jon Snow. Et tu Olly?? Should be a fun hour.

 

[SubbaBub]

We try to keep the spoilers to a minimum here.

 

[SubbaBub]

Can someone that reads the books explain this to me. From the looks of it , those Dragons are not fully grown and about pre- teen / teenage size dragons. There's no way that dragons fully grown because if that's the full size it just doesn't seem that impressive against an organizined army. Also, have I finally become a "geek"/ "nerd" for seriously thinking about Dragon size? Smh

For reference, here’s a picture from the World of Ice and Fire book of history showing Aegon the Conqueror riding Balerion the Black Dread.

The World of Ice and Fire

And here’s Dany on Drogon: