This was the first fight, and it was amazing
Love this show but if it ever wants to shock and surprise me, it could have a character drown.
It don’t deviate from the serie because the serie is about politics versus the awakening of magic. Imho.
Serie. Is this a word? Because I keep seeing you write it it. Not being snarky, just a question.
Spanish for series.
The series of novels is called A Song of Ice and Fire, not A Song of the Wolf and the Lion, or A Song of Wits and Tits. I think many people have a misconception regarding the theme, even among those who have read the novels. But everything is laid out already in the prologue. These books (and this show) are about that. Martin didn’t show us much of the magic, especially in the early parts, but that’s only because he didn’t want magic to be some sort of deus ex machina, which could easily solve anything.
As much as Littlefinger, Cercei and some other characters are good in the Game of Thrones (or think they are good), that’s ultimately worthless, because they are totally unprepared for the Larger ‘Game’ That Is Coming. Just as much as Ned Stark was unprepared for the court politics and intrigues.
Tom, I was thinking the same, notably because of too many MUD and MMO dragon encounters that blurred the lines on what was a natural ability for a dragon, being an … um, unnatural creature.
But then I thought, from fantasy lore, is that actually correct that they had a breath as an ability? And strange but true, D&D was the first setting and story to bring dracoliches to life, per se, and give them more than a passing mention. And I found a mention quoting the original story of Dragotha. The truth lies below, both a fire breath and a death wind. Get this, the death wind creates skeletons from anything killed, who then followed the dracolich. I thought this was a fun read, so I’m sharing the clip here:
Dragotha (Dungeon Magazine #134: “Into the Wormcrawl Fissure”)
Dragotha was originally just a little drawing by the great Erol Otus on the map of the classic d&d adventure “White Plume Mountain”. Back when Paizo was completely on fire pumping out awesome issues of Dungeon magazine, they created an adventure path that featured all sorts of D&D stuff that had been mentioned in passing in old products but never given the spotlight. These things included the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, Kyuss the worm god, and Dragotha the undead dragon!
Dragotha’s Many, Many Powers: Dragotha is ridiculously powerful. He has an AC of 58! He can cast spells of up to 8th level, including dominate person and forcecage.
He has two breath weapons. One does fire, and the other is a “death wind”. He has a paralyzing gaze, paralyzing all within 40 feet, and all of his physical attacks paralyze as well.
Dragotha’s Breath Weapon: Once per hour, Dragotha can breathe a dark cloud of negative energy in a cone 60 feet long that does 10d6+6 damage. “Those killed through loss of hit points are completely melted, save for clothing, possessions, heart and exposed bones.” The bones then rise up as skeletons who obey Dragotha.
<i_got_that_reference.gif>
No need for show apologists in here. I still enjoy the show, and I’m far too invested as an original reader of the books as they were released (show people crack me up when they complain about 18 months between seasons!) to give up on the show because the trope level increased fivefold as soon as the original material ran out. It is what it is, and it’s still very entertaining television. It just bugs me when totally obvious shit like the rocket ravens and an undead army with giant chains in the middle of nowhere gets a free hand-wave.
It would have been more cool if it was a chain of wights that was used to pull the dragon up.
Well, assuming there’s any consistency left in the show (hah) we can assume the Zombification process has range: Touch.
I can handwave all the stupid battle tactics (they haven’t had any good ones for a few years, why change now), but the Arya/Sansa fighting is dumb.
Maybe for Dragons, but not for people.
Oh so range is like Magnets, square inverse whatever. Since dragon so big, needs touch? Magic is complicated.
That has bothered me whenever a named character is nirth of the wall. Just plan stupid and major loss of plausibility. You can show their face and still wear fuzzy hats…
…and dont get me started on barely anyone wearing helms in battle or sparring with real weapons and no armor/shields. Just lazy writing/directing and dummm.
This episod was the epidome of laugable plausibility. Travel times, Benjin, whatever was going on with the undead vs the defenders. Bleeah
But I am not a show apologist. I was talking about some particular points which are so easily explainable that whinging about them doesn’t make sense. For example, people could talk about how the scene between Jon and Jorah shouldn’t have happened at that point but on the travel to Eastwatch. Or how finding one wight that wasn’t created by the killed white walker was too convenient. But, no, they are talking about the fucking chains and how you can find them (or not) in the thousands of years of history of the huge magical world beyond the Wall, with giants and probably many contacts with all other civilizations. (I’m not talking about you, the Internet is full of these questions.) Totally ridiculous.
I have the same set of chains at my house, but you don’t see me dragging them with me to work every day just in case I need 'em. Those things are heavy, and when was the last time I actually needed a set of giant boat anchor chains?
This one is easy. Everyone that watches movies or TV is aware that conversations are always unrealistically held for filmed scenes. Things people would say right away or during the start of a journey are necessarily delayed until convenient for the filming schedule. It’s like when someone says, “Hurry! There’s no time to explain!” then the next scene is a car screeching to a stop and the detectives jumping out of the barely stopped vehicle. We know realistically that there was plenty of “time to explain” during the car ride but we make allowances for dramatic editing.
This kind of thing falls apart when the missing off-camera conversations are crucial to the plot. For example, apparently Jon wasn’t sending any progress messages to Winterfell when he was on Dragonstone. You’d think he’d at least send a raven to announce that he’d successfully negotiated for the dragonglass. Arya and Sansa are apparently not having any conversations that we haven’t seen on the show. Why not? Are they just walking around Winterfell not speaking to each other? At this point in their relationship, sure, they seem to hate each other. But early on when they first reunited? They didn’t talk? Commiserate? Catch up on events? It’s kind of ridiculous.
But how do you know how much time has passed between Vyserion’s death and his reanimation? Those who keep complaining about the origin of the chains pretend they know. But you’ll notice that the lake is frozen again in the last scene, and that scene comes after Jon lying in bed (not a proof per se, but a good indication nonetheless). Who knows how many days passed?
The show is guilty of timeline issues, but that is a problem of another kind.
You are right in a general sense, but I wasn’t talking about conversation that didn’t take place on-camera, but about one that did. And in that moment, it was like the show was checking some boxes of what needed to be said. Actually, in some previous version of the script, that scene between Jon and Jorah was supposed to happen on the ship or even in Dragonstone before the journey, I can’t recall exactly where. That was a much better context, in my opinion.
But it is so small a “problem” that is not worthy of much discussion (still, worthier than the chains ;) )
