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So about as much time was spent on last 2 episodes as on the entire second season... Crazy how fast things are going right now. I get why they're doing it, and I still love the show, but I miss the subtlety and the great dialogues of the first seasons..

Great episode, because of obvious reasons.

But I thought the wall paintings were absolutely hilarious. You have all these abstract symbols and figures, and suddenly there are these really detailed paintings of the white walkers. With the peaks on the Night King's head and all. It really looked like Jon painted those on there himself

Timotheus wrote:Great episode, because of obvious reasons.

But I thought the wall paintings were absolutely hilarious. You have all these abstract symbols and figures, and suddenly there are these really detailed paintings of the white walkers. With the peaks on the Night King's head and all. It really looked like Jon painted those on there himself

My wife and I said Dani should check his fingers for chalk! That and Jaime sinking into the depths just three feet from shore were the only hiccups in that episode for me. Otherwise it was freaking great. Easily a top 10, maybe top 5, for me.

Seems like half the GoT fans I know have already watched the next episode which was "leaked" online a couple days ago.

I could wait until Sunday, but I do have tomorrow off...

I'm not feeling the show anymore. It was the political intrigue, intelligent dialogue, and scheming that made me love the show. Most of the major characters that were involved in these plots are either dead themselves or their equal counterparts or circumstances against whom/which they had to do the intriguing are dead/over, leaving them with nothing interesting to do anymore. Tyrion, Varys, Baelish (my favourite characters), are all shadows of their former selves.


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And what they did to Lord Baelish was just unfair. He was my favorite character, but he had been relegated to irrelevance since the last 2,3 seasons. They had the most cunning man in Westeros turned into a total imbecile and get killed off after working himself from the ground up to achieve a position of power all by himself. That just uncharacteristic of a man of his intelligence. Killing a character when they are still relevant is a much more respectful way of sending them off. Reducing them to insignificance and then killing them off for it is a disgrace, and Baelish deserved anything but that. That being said, Gillan's performance in his final scene was the highlight of the season in terms of acting for me. What a brilliant actor.

To be fair they may have matched Littlefinger's demise to George RR Martin's, but I'm still on book 3 so I'm not sure how much it deviates. That being said, I completely agree. Baelish got neutered as a character after Ramsey Bolton's demise. His plan to command the north went up in flames and he didn't seem to have much ambition after that. It seemed he was trying to do to Sansa what he did with Lysa but it was a pretty big stretch and they killed him without so much as a trial because the walking (well, maybe not) deus ex machina Brandon Stark said some stuff.

I did enjoy this season - it seems like a good return to form for S1-4 even if it is rushed. Which is odd because it's 3 episodes shorter, not sure why they didn't take their time a bit more. One complaint I have though is Euron Greyjoy just seems so out of place. It's like a Walking Dead villain wandered onto the wrong set.

I find it difficult to digest that Baelish didn't even attempt to challenge Bran's "visions". He could have easily talked his way out of that.

Violent Corpse wrote:I find it difficult to digest that Baelish didn't even attempt to challenge Bran's "visions". He could have easily talked his way out of that.

Yeah, he hasn't missed many opportunities to spin others' words. But he may have been so shocked at hearing his own words verbatim that for once he was stunned into silence and confusion. I can accept that option. Plus, frankly, I'm so glad he's dead (except that Aidan Gillen was such an incredible actor!) that I would buy about any excuse.

I saw a Making Of video of the summit meeting in King's Landing with all the current principals, many of whom had never shared a scene together in 7 years, and how much they enjoyed the two weeks of filming (and particularly the partying every night, it sounds like) and I think that Gillen and a few others deserved to be at those parties, too. What an amazing cast.

It's official. Winter isn't coming back until 2019. Sadly, I'm too old to be able to afford skipping ahead a whole year, so I guess I'll just have to wait it out.

On the good side, I have heard that although there are only 6 planned episodes, each episode is going to be roughly 2 hours long, so it's like getting 6 unique GoT movies. The only break the crew is taking in filming is so Kit (Jon) and Rose (psycho hottie wildling Ygritte) can get married. I assume Kit knows that being told he knows nothing in the series is about to get amplified a thousand times in real life every day until he dies.

2019 was kinda to be expected. Not sure why everybody is raging so much over it.

Last season was visually so impressive that I can't wait to see them top that. Honestly I don't mind the wait. The wait it hard, but saying goodbye to the show will be even harder I think. At this point I'm not really expecting Martin to finish the books, or at least not until I'm 40, so it will be bittersweet.

So I've been reading the books and I'm about an hour away from completing the 5th and being completely caught up. There are some really interesting differences like Brienne doesn't fight The Hound, she fights some pillager wearing The Hound's armor after Arya leaves him for dead and he leaves his identity behind. The books make some really weird decisions with certain characters like Mance Raider and Tyrion's storyline is a lot more cluttered after he leaves King's Landing than in the show. Overall the show seems to improve on the books ranging from Cersi's cunning, to simplifying needlessly complicated storylines, etc. But they royally screwed up Peter Baelish's story at the end. It never made sense to me in the show why he would give up Sansa period after everything Cat meant to him and everything he risked to get her. Sure enough, in the books, Ramsey marries Arya, not Sansa - and it's not even Arya, it's some random girl that he uses Theon to pass off as Arya (since everyone knows they grew up together) to solidify his position in the north. Although John doesn't know it's not really her from the ravens he gets and it's one of his motivations for his eventual engagement with Ramsey, and this is the reason the Night's Watch attacks him, because he's doing it under the guise of freeing Wildlings which his brother's hate.

But yeah, for now Peter is still around and not making random decisions that didn't align with his character like in the show. Pretty disappointing end for an otherwise amazing character.

The show's just easier, and therefore sometimes more satisfying. They skip the journey and go straight to the important stuff. Or they take 7 characters and turn those into 3. Locations are smaller or closer to each other so people run into each other more easily. And so on... More action, less internal bickering.

I think in season 3 and 4 they did this really well, and they made some great writing choices. Fantastic television. Close to the original source, with some understandable deviations. Season 5 and 6 not so much. Book 5 is slow and lacks an actual conclusion at the end (seriously, so many cliffhangers...), but in no way was the show's simplification of the original source an improvement.

I finally caught up with this last weekend, went to a friend's for a 27-hour marathon watch interspersed with the superbowl and occasional bouts of sleep.

Am now at last embarking on the real stuff, have had the first couple of books for years and never got round to them. It's time!

Just got to the "words darker..." quote, chills

I saw where they recently filmed a battle scene that took 55 days. Previous record for the show was 25 days...

Are you as hyped as I am, Andy?

Timotheus wrote:Are you as hyped as I am, Andy?

Let’s just say I have a feeling this is gonna feel like the longest winter ever lol

I just finished the show last night. Can I be part of your group now?

Hey, zaz. The waiting time for your arrival would make GRRM very proud.

Never mind. No idea what that’s acronym means. I’m out.