And then there will be maybe four people wandering aimlessly around the last three episodes, lol. Maybe a dragon flying around.
Seriously, I’ve wondered about that battle in episode three - there are still three long episodes after that! So what happens during all that time? Unless the Night King is not defeated at Winterfell and then there is another, less lengthy battle at Kings Landing.
Yara said people might need the Iron Islands since the White Walkers can’t cross water. But, I think that’s unlikely unless there were reports of filming where they filmed Pyke before.
Where were the White Walkers and the Night King during this episode?
They are heading south and stopped at Last Hearth to kill everyone and nail up the young Lord Ned Umber after turning him undead. We didn’t see the White Walkers but they left that as a message (second to last scene) and they are coming fast.
OK, thanks.
I liked the look Drogon gave John Snow when he was with Dany. And I liked that Arya smiled a few times. Did anyone else watch the “behind the scenes” thing that HBO put out? It was fun watching them on the “dragons” and seeing how they filmed the Ned Umber scene.
Sadly, I think Arya’s experiences over the last few seasons will preclude a relationship with Gendry. He’s still mostly normal. She isn’t. Of course, either or both could end up dead so quickly that this doesn’t become a factor. But that’s not going to happen until he finishes making that weapon and she gets a chance to use it.
The dragon flying scene missed an opportunity to make it more relevant, and not just a joyride. Just before they flew off, one of Dany’s soldiers reported how little the dragons had eaten, and she responded that they didn’t like the north. But I interpreted it to mean that they hadn’t been provided enough food. Sansa had earlier exclaimed that such a large army would drain the food stores. So, I expected when they flew off that Jon was going to direct them to someplace where the dragons could feast. The dragon flight would have had a clear purpose then.
Since the North doesn’t know how long a winter would last, it seems like the amount of stores put by for a normal population for a normal winter should be fine to feed a large army and dragons for a few weeks or whatever.
@Ynotgo, I agree with you, but the situation was already abnormal before Dany and her armies arrived.
All the banners had been called to Winterfell, and I believe the noncombatants were expected to come too because an armed Winterfell would be safer than the small settlements, which would be unarmed after all the soldiers leave. So Sansa was already dealing with the need to feed an abnormally large number of people. And now the numbers have greatly increased again.
Perhaps the dragons will need to be asked to hunt for the benefit of the human population. It could work if somebody says “please” and if Jon takes his hands off Dany.
I rewatched the previous season and also season one, episode one.
Yes, the white walker in episode one arranges body parts for the Night’s Watch to find, but they are in a circle bisected by one line, not a spiral, so I guess they have more than one symbol.
When the Hound and Brienne meet near King’s Landing. She apologizes a bit for nearly killing him, saying, “I was just trying to protect her (Arya)”, and he answers, “I was too”. So I guess his mean words to Arya in the latest episodes do cover some affection.
In the books, someone has a vision early on that involves a blue eyed man leading a ship of the dead. So the undead can’t swim, but they sure can get on a boat! Maybe they will get to King’s Landing somehow. A certain someone deserves that.
In a different vision - maybe this was all Dany in the House of the Undying? - there is a ruined throne room at King’s Landing with snow coming in the roof.
Yes, there are two symbols that the White Walkers inherited from the Children of the Forest. But we’ve mostly seen the dotted spiral. If you search winteriscoming.net for flaming spiral, there is an interesting article about the symbols. The cave paintings on Dragonstone showed the two symbols next to each other at one point.
And, if you haven’t seen the “Sesame Street: Respect is Coming” video with Elmo, it’s great. You can search for it on YouTube.
Have any of you read the books, and how do they compare or add to the story?
I know the series has gone past the books at this point, but I’m curious about the book v. series experience.
@bearcatfan I tried reading the books, but the age of the characters (much younger than the TV version) was a turn off. I do like the fact that Dany was never raped by Drogo. They changed the nature of their first time together for who knows what reason for the TV version.
Yes, I had read the series before the show started and was so excited when I heard they were making a TV show based on them. I had loved the books, but this is weird: in almost every other instance I can think of, I think books are far superior to the shows or movies based on them; with GOT, I actually think that the TV series is more satisfying.
The main reason is that Martin gets lost in too many side characters, creating some “voice characters” who are very minor and sometimes short-lived characters who are not even featured in the show or are relatively minor (like Davos). When I say voice character, I mean that Martin organizes his book with a chapter from one character’s perspective, then the next chapter from another character’s perspective, etc. Two of the books do not even feature some of the major characters. And he could use an editor to chop out extraneous scenes. The show makers agreed with me on which scenes to keep and cut. And the way that scenes cut into other scenes featuring different characters on the TV show is a really natural fit for the way he wrote his voice characters, and we did not have to go a season without learning what was happened with, say, Daenerys, unlike how I had to read a super long book that did not mention some characters I cared about!
Also, he seems to have become terrified with writer’s block since the show became a hit. He still has two books to write and there has been no publication in all these years! (He did publish a separate “history” of his world— kind of getting side-tracked). I can’t imagine being an author and letting the show makers be the first to reveal the end of my story, losing control of my narrative.
But I also think that the dialogue and overall show have weakened in the last couple of seasons since they left the books. The show writers are a bit more into spectacle and are not quite the masters of character and dialogue that Martin is, although I still am loving the show and look forward greatly to seeing what happens. And some of the parts that were new to the show, like Cersei’s revenge on the High Sparrow and company (she had just finished her walk of shame in the books) were pretty well done, so credit goes to the show makers!
It was gratifying to see that some of my hopes and predictions from the book were realized by the show; in the books, Jon Snow appeared to be dead, and I was hoping he would turn out to be alive and would be the son of Lyanna and Rhaegar… so that was fun when those things actually happened.
Oh- there is no Night King (yet?) in the books. The White Walkers do not seem to be as “coordinated” in their actions in the books- at least not yet.
And Sansa has never had a heroic moment in the books, and it was Jeyne Poole (a childhood friend of Sansa’s), not Sansa, who was married to Ramsey Bolton and whom Theon helped to escape.
One thing from the books that did not make it into the show that I think should have: Tywin and Jaime had lied to Tyrion about his wife, who really had been an innocent farm girl who loved Tyrion, not the gold-hungry prostitute they told Tyrion she was. When Jaime frees Tyrion, he admits this in a fit of guilt, and Tyrion is angry at Jaime and then this is the main reason he murders his father.
I would recommend at least the first book to anyone. It is very well-written and the show was pretty true to it. But I think many readers plowing through all five books (so far) may become frustrated in some parts. On my rereads, I skipped some voice characters’ parts altogether and just reread those of the characters I find most compelling.
That was a terrific explanation of the books vs. show situation @TheGreyKing.
Like @TheGreyKing, I recommend the first book. It’s excellent, and it adds more depth to some of the characters and events. One thing that comes up over and over again in that book is Ned Stark thinking back to Lyanna’s death (and the circumstances around it, which are deliberately kept vague). His feelings are complicated, but they include a lot of guilt. We now know what he felt guilty about – passing off Lyanna’s child as his illegitimate son. He violated his own code of ethics to do this because of the promise he made to his sister.
You don’t see this aspect of the R + L = J situation in the show because we never get inside Ned Stark’s head during the short time that it stays attached to his body. But I thought it was interesting that in the show, Jon’s first, instinctive reaction to learning about his true parentage is to say that it can’t be possible because Ned was too honorable to have done such a thing. He’s more concerned about this than about his claim to the Iron Throne, the fact that he’s having sex with his aunt, or the fact that he’s just heard evidence from Sam that his aunt/girlfriend/presumptive queen may be something of a monster. And that makes sense because he knew how important honor was to Ned. Jon’s priorities may seem bizarre to viewers who haven’t read the books, but they are appropriate for a man who was raised as Ned’s son.
It was fairly easy after reading the first book to figure out that Jon was Lyanna’s child and not Ned Stark’s. Ned is haunted by his last encounter with her - “promise me Ned”, he remembers her saying from her “bed of blood.” Why would a young woman have a bed of blood? Only one reason really.
Another diversion is the whole issue of Dorne. There are 7 “sand snakes”, and one appears to be at the Citadel in the guise of a man. Her name is Sarella and his name is Arellas, hmmmmm. S/he becomes a friend of Sam’s and is the first person to listen to his story and s/he brings him to a sympathetic maester. That maester takes off for the other side of the world to meet Danaerys. There is also a trueborn daughter of the Dorne leader who plots to do some harm to Myrcella. Her plot fails, and Myrcella is merely wounded.
In general, the books are more complex and full of more storylines. They do spin out and get so big that they seem hard to contain, but I would look forward to the stories and characters starting to come back together again in the last books. The TV series, on the other hand, tends to compress events and characters and speed things up. The TV series wipes out the houses of Dorne and Tyrell and I doubt very much that the books will be that simple. I want to meet some of the people in the book that the TV series glosses over completely, like Howland Reed. He was with Ned Stark when they took away Lyanna’s baby, and he’s the father of Meera and Jojen Reed.
George RR Martin is still trying to finish the books. He stopped working on the TV series after season 4, so he could concentrate. I hope he manages to finish!
I read the books several years ago and don’t remember the details other than far too many characters, and entire books leaving out characters. What I do remember is that by the third book, it mainly seemed that what most people did was wander and die, wander and die.
I haven’t yet read the books (I ordered them off of amazon the other day - they’re sitting in my dining room). I just got hooked on this series a few weeks ago and am on my second time through the tv shows, catching all of the side stories I didn’t pay closer attention to the first time through.
Interesting about how the books have a lot more about house Tyrell and Dorne, @greenwitch. I was just thinking about those last night… was trying to think through some sort of strategic end to the current situation that would involve a coming -together from each house and realized that there’s no way that could happen. So I guess it makes sense that these two houses did have more of a role in the books but since maybe their players don’t make it to the end game they took a back seat in the tv version.
I loved the Sesame Street little video and then if you guys haven’t seen the photo with Elmo, Tyrion, Cersei, and the muppets made to look like them, it’s adorable. What’s funny is that Lena Headey dressed as Cersei is actually smiling a real smile in the picture.