Game of Thrones Final Season Discussion Thread. (SPOILERS ABOUND, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

[SupahEwok]

There is no way a ballista with that kind of range can be mounted on a vessel without being within line of sight of that which it is attacking - and especially could not be that accurate.

There's no truly realistic way for a ballista to take down a flying dragon, even without it being on a ship on water.

Seriously, they get like one shot a minute, and historically, needed trained engineers to aim and fire them at standing, static targets, and even then they weren't precise enough that you could snipe somebody in particularly. You wanna take that, and aim it up into the air, and hit a moving target? Yeah fucking right. Back in the world wars, it was tough to hit a fighter from the ground even with automatic guns, which are a hell of a lot easier to train for, aim, fire, and put out far more shots. Even from the start of ground to air warfare, it was obvious that armies needed explosive shells to have decent odds of hitting aircraft, and it still took a couple of decades to work out the kinks.

The bottomline is, in a pre-gunpowder age, there is no technological solution to marauding dragons (its what makes them such forces of nature). Any such solution forced for dramatic purposes is gonna be contrived to one extent or another. And honestly, its not the worst contrivance the show's ever had. It's not nearly as cool as if Euron had his horn from the books, used it to enslave one of the dragons, and set them to fight each other, and Dany had to kill the mind controlled one, but hey, ballista is cheaper on the CGI budget.

 

[Asita]

There is no way a ballista with that kind of range can be mounted on a vessel without being within line of sight of that which it is attacking - and especially could not be that accurate.

There's no truly realistic way for a ballista to take down a flying dragon, even without it being on a ship on water.

Seriously, they get like one shot a minute, and historically, needed trained engineers to aim and fire them at standing, static targets, and even then they weren't precise enough that you could snipe somebody in particularly. You wanna take that, and aim it up into the air, and hit a moving target? Yeah fucking right. Back in the world wars, it was tough to hit a fighter from the ground even with automatic guns, which are a hell of a lot easier to train for, aim, fire, and put out far more shots. Even from the start of ground to air warfare, it was obvious that armies needed explosive shells to have decent odds of hitting aircraft, and it still took a couple of decades to work out the kinks.

The bottomline is, in a pre-gunpowder age, there is no technological solution to marauding dragons (its what makes them such forces of nature). Any such solution forced for dramatic purposes is gonna be contrived to one extent or another. And honestly, its not the worst contrivance the show's ever had. It's not nearly as cool as if Euron had his horn from the books, used it to enslave one of the dragons, and set them to fight each other, and Dany had to kill the mind controlled one, but hey, ballista is cheaper on the CGI budget.

Really, the more you think on it the stupider it gets. As you note, Ballista required special trained engineers to fire them at standing targets. That's when they're mounted on land. And this happened on a moving boat, and in three shots managed three hits against a strafing target that (judging on Drogan's size during the 'down the barrel' viewpoint we saw after a few seconds of charging) seems to have been several hundred meters away. In the case of the Scorpio, the range (against ground targets) is about 100 meters for precision shooting and 400 for parabolic shooting...and could be fired about 3-4 times a minute. Contrast this (and Bron taking about 40 seconds to reload a scorpion last season) with the aforementioned range and seemingly instant reload time.

I repeat all of this due to one thing that compounds the issue: experience. They managed three right shots on aerial targets that move faster than horses and were moving perpendicular, approaching the maximum range for ground targets (while nobody apparently had line of sight, to boot). This is something that there would never have been any cause to prepare or practice for. How the hell did they pull off three shots with sniper accuracy against something that they would never have had any experience tracking with those ballistae? How did they figure out the lead time to get the shots so tight? By rights they should not have had any frame of reference to judge that by.

 

[Abomination]

Really, the more you think on it the stupider it gets. As you note, Ballista required special trained engineers to fire them at standing targets. That's when they're mounted on land. And this happened on a moving boat, and in three shots managed three hits against a strafing target that (judging on Drogan's size during the 'down the barrel' viewpoint we saw after a few seconds of charging) seems to have been several hundred meters away. In the case of the Scorpio, the range (against ground targets) is about 100 meters for precision shooting and 400 for parabolic shooting...and could be fired about 3-4 times a minute. Contrast this (and Bron taking about 40 seconds to reload a scorpion last season) with the aforementioned range and seemingly instant reload time.

I repeat all of this due to one thing that compounds the issue: experience. They just pulled sniper shots on aerial targets that move faster than horses and were moving perpendicular, approaching the maximum range for ground targets (while nobody apparently had line of sight, to boot). This is something that there would never have been any cause to prepare or practice for. How the hell did they pull off three shots with sniper accuracy against something that they would never have had any experience tracking with those ballistae? How did they figure out the lead time to get the shots so tight? By rights they should not have had any frame of reference to judge that by.

The plot COULD have revolved around Dany being torn between employing the dragons against the city, possibly murdering most of the inhabitants, or engaging in "traditional" siege warfare despite having a clear way of ending it then and there. But the dragons were "too powerful" and D&D decided to take one of the player characters magic items away in a way that implies they can not use them in that way or they'll lose the other.

Contrived and stupid, I thought the dragon getting hit by ballista was a dream sequence due to how utterly impossible it was for her to NOT know where the bolts were coming from.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Anyone else want a coffee?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Ok, not too bad. Seems I was right that a dragon would get shot down by one of those ballistae. Expected it to be Bronn, but I suppose D&D had to give their cartoon villain something to do. Not that that whole scene wasn't some heinous bullshit. GRRM gave Danaerys 3 flying flame tanks that fully grown should be near invincible to a medieval tech military, so the writers had no choice but to ass pull. Other than that the episode actually had a little something to it. There's once again some actual scheming going on. Not the most subtle scheming, but hey, that ship had long since sailed to 360 noscope a bolt through a dragon's neck.

Anyone else want a coffee?

Will there be biscuits? If not, I have some, I can bring em if need be.

 

[Agema]

Adding in here to the existing comments my utter disbelief at that moment. That anyone would realistically hit a dragon at that range with a ballista on a boat. Unstable platform, moving target, wind shear, parabolic arc of shot, no experience, first attempt... apparently no problem: thunk-thunk-thunk dead dragon!

Contrived and stupid, I thought the dragon getting hit by ballista was a dream sequence due to how utterly impossible it was for her to NOT know where the bolts were coming from.

Agreed. It smacks of another stupid contrivance to stop Dany just burning Cersei out of Kings Landing.

Although honestly, Cersei's continued rule is pretty much a contrivance. Who's backing her? I can't imagine the Riverlands are still with her with the Freys dead (Isn't Edmure Tully therefore now in control of the Riverlands? Where is he?) or the Reach or the Stormlands, given their history (and if there's any of them left anyway). Dorne, The Vale and the North are against her. Frankly, just about the only thing Cersei could expect at this point is one of her underlings to betray her, truss her up like a pig and hand her over in return for Dany's favour.

 

[Asita]

Anyone else want a coffee?

I'm guessing you're referencing this?

Spoiler

I admit that I didn't notice until it was pointed out. But wow, what a goof.

 

[Hawki]

Why's the coffee cup a big deal? Starbucks already covers Earth. It's only a matter of time before it goes inter-dimensional and sets up shop in Westeros. Besides, winter has come, and the smallfolk need to warm up somehow.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Why's the coffee cup a big deal? Starbucks already covers Earth. It's only a matter of time before it goes inter-dimensional and sets up shop in Westeros. Besides, winter has come, and the smallfolk need to warm up somehow.

I think it's because the creators said they needed 2 years and like $3million per episode, making sure to pay attention to detail and character arcs and yadda yadda. And boom, huge IRL gaff. To fans it's the equivalent of an Elf during helms deep on his cellphone in the background.
It makes you lose confidence in them, because what else did they miss or get wrong?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Why's the coffee cup a big deal? Starbucks already covers Earth. It's only a matter of time before it goes inter-dimensional and sets up shop in Westeros. Besides, winter has come, and the smallfolk need to warm up somehow.

I think it's because the creators said they needed 2 years and like $3million per episode, making sure to pay attention to detail and character arcs and yadda yadda. And boom, huge IRL gaff. To fans it's the equivalent of an Elf during helms deep on his cellphone in the background.
It makes you lose confidence in them, because what else did they miss or get wrong?

This goof is even being shown on CNN News!!!!

The logical thing to do is for when the Home Media version gets released, they just CGI the Coffee Cup away.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Why's the coffee cup a big deal? Starbucks already covers Earth. It's only a matter of time before it goes inter-dimensional and sets up shop in Westeros. Besides, winter has come, and the smallfolk need to warm up somehow.

I think it's because the creators said they needed 2 years and like $3million per episode, making sure to pay attention to detail and character arcs and yadda yadda. And boom, huge IRL gaff. To fans it's the equivalent of an Elf during helms deep on his cellphone in the background.
It makes you lose confidence in them, because what else did they miss or get wrong?

This goof is even being shown on CNN News!!!!

The logical thing to do is for when the Home Media version gets released, they just CGI the Coffee Cup away.

nah man. Keep it. Make it even MOAR obvious. Highlight that shit. Neon it. Have a flashing sign.
Then sell the merch. Everyone and their dog wants a Westeros Starbucks coffee.
And if Starbucks has ANY PR managers, they'll have a Queen of Dragons Frape by Friday

Edit: I'm being overly harsh. They've had goofs before. During the battle of the bastards and Jon's journey beyond the wall they have extras fighting without animating opponents. And there was some error with a dothraki charge and like a harness still in shot or something. Hardly a perfect record.

 

[Saelune]

The coffee cup thing is funny. People like stuff like that really, its a neat bit of trivia. 'Hey, remember when that coffee cup was in Game of Thrones?'.

But I think a lot of people are looking for any excuse to be mad at the show. I think there are good reasons to be upset, but not all the reasons. I still think Arya killing the Night King was fine and not absurd at all. The Dothraki charge seems more reasonably stupid though.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

You know, I feel a lot of the problem we're seeing would be a lot less egregious if they just went full out with Euron and made him magic like he probably is in the books. Like, we've got fire and ice so maybe he's air or something. How can he teleport around like he does? He can use magic. How can he have such impossible aiming skills? Did it with magic. Why does Cersei actually need this chump instead of replacing him with pretty much anyone else? Because he's magic, unlike anyone else

 

[ZCAB]

The coffee cup thing is funny. People like stuff like that really, its a neat bit of trivia. 'Hey, remember when that coffee cup was in Game of Thrones?'.

But I think a lot of people are looking for any excuse to be mad at the show. I think there are good reasons to be upset, but not all the reasons. I still think Arya killing the Night King was fine and not absurd at all. The Dothraki charge seems more reasonably stupid though.

A large portion of online discussions I've seen about the last two episodes went roughly this way:

- Person 1 inflates a relatively petty complaint (Starbucks cup, Ghost not getting a proper goodbye from Jon, Gendry having the wrong bastard surname) into some sort of grand symbol of the overall decline of the show
- Person 2 says person 1 is being nitpicky
- Person 1 misrepresents person 2's words like they consider ALL criticism about the show to be nitpicking, and starts to bring up much bigger problems they were never even discussing in the first place

 

[JamesStone]

There is no way a ballista with that kind of range can be mounted on a vessel without being within line of sight of that which it is attacking - and especially could not be that accurate.

There's no truly realistic way for a ballista to take down a flying dragon, even without it being on a ship on water.

Seriously, they get like one shot a minute, and historically, needed trained engineers to aim and fire them at standing, static targets, and even then they weren't precise enough that you could snipe somebody in particularly. You wanna take that, and aim it up into the air, and hit a moving target? Yeah fucking right. Back in the world wars, it was tough to hit a fighter from the ground even with automatic guns, which are a hell of a lot easier to train for, aim, fire, and put out far more shots. Even from the start of ground to air warfare, it was obvious that armies needed explosive shells to have decent odds of hitting aircraft, and it still took a couple of decades to work out the kinks.

The bottomline is, in a pre-gunpowder age, there is no technological solution to marauding dragons (its what makes them such forces of nature). Any such solution forced for dramatic purposes is gonna be contrived to one extent or another. And honestly, its not the worst contrivance the show's ever had. It's not nearly as cool as if Euron had his horn from the books, used it to enslave one of the dragons, and set them to fight each other, and Dany had to kill the mind controlled one, but hey, ballista is cheaper on the CGI budget.

Really, the more you think on it the stupider it gets. As you note, Ballista required special trained engineers to fire them at standing targets. That's when they're mounted on land. And this happened on a moving boat, and in three shots managed three hits against a strafing target that (judging on Drogan's size during the 'down the barrel' viewpoint we saw after a few seconds of charging) seems to have been several hundred meters away. In the case of the Scorpio, the range (against ground targets) is about 100 meters for precision shooting and 400 for parabolic shooting...and could be fired about 3-4 times a minute. Contrast this (and Bron taking about 40 seconds to reload a scorpion last season) with the aforementioned range and seemingly instant reload time.

I repeat all of this due to one thing that compounds the issue: experience. They managed three right shots on aerial targets that move faster than horses and were moving perpendicular, approaching the maximum range for ground targets (while nobody apparently had line of sight, to boot). This is something that there would never have been any cause to prepare or practice for. How the hell did they pull off three shots with sniper accuracy against something that they would never have had any experience tracking with those ballistae? How did they figure out the lead time to get the shots so tight? By rights they should not have had any frame of reference to judge that by.

If it was Book Euron, blood magic and the usage of the enslaver horn to at least hold the dragons in place.

Since this is show Euron, sex with Cersei gives magic plot powers that radiate in an aura, which is how Jaime and Brienne survived the NK battle.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

IT WAS SO FUCKING BAD OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dunno 'bout y'all, but to me this episode crossed the line from laughably stupid to cringeworthy stupid to just plain painfully and unforgivably awful. Not even 5 minutes in I was already cringing from the idiocy of the script. Yeah, of course you should waste literal tons of firewood for a funeral pyre in winter which are known to last years. That was red light no. 1. Then Bronn walks into a completely unguarded tavern, where literally the queen's highest advisor is in, and walks out again no problem. That was red light no. 2. And then there was the "Surprise, muthafucka!" moment which has already been well covered. And then there was the fact that Euron was in fact, not garrisoning Dragonstone, despite it being demonstrably empty and literally within eyeshot. That should have ended the series then and there. Pick off the survivors who make it to shore, and just leave the rest to drown. Jesus fucking christ.

I mean, it's not like we weren't expecting this. Season 5 was mostly boring and had retarded parts, season 6 was dumb as hell but at least entertaining, and the season 7 beyond the wall episode was the canary in the coalmine indicating that things were headed into an abyss. But my fucking god, not even after all this time and stupidity could I have even begun to comprehend the unfathomable depths of retardation this show has sunken into. Maybe next episode I'll just bust out the vodka and hope for the best.

Fuck Benioff and Weiss. I hope they never get to write anything ever again.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I think I have pinpointed the main issue that's driven down the quality of GoT since S6 when it began surpassing the books. There are two issues. The first is that there is a lack of "details" in the story, by which I mean D&D know the major headlines of the show, since GRRM has told them, but since he hasn't written books 6 or 7, they don't have the details. All the character development that happens in between the large events is gone, and all that's left is major events.

Combined with issue two, namely the rush to conclude the show in 7 episodes (S7) and 6 episodes (S8) means there's simply no screentime left for drama. Consider a connect-the-dots image vs a solid line. They used to have story and drama, now it's just the dots left. That is why people are teleporting all over the shop. Dany began the episode in Winterfell, 40 minutes later she was in King's Landing. Where did she get the ships? The Greyjoy fleet just teleported to her? I thought Euron had the fleet. How did she not see his fleet? Dragons, armies and naval fleets just teleporting all over the place.

It wasn't as bad as episode 3, but there were still issues. Issues with Episode 4:

- Now that the NK is gone, do they need to burn the bodies anymore?
- Why doesn't Dany even consider marriage to Jon?
- Why won't she let the wounded rest, apart from the lack of episodes?
- Now that Sam is the last Night's Watchman alive, and since the threat of the Long Winter is ended, is he released from his vows? Will he return home to become the Lord Tarly? We never learned anything.
- While Bronn has had two episodes to travel north, how did he teleport into Winterfell with a crossbow? Why did he resort to blackmail!? Is he a faceless man now? What are the chances both Lannisters were in the room together? It couldn't be any more contrived.
- Why did Sansa break her promise to Jon at the first opportunity?
- How did Dany get an army to KL in minutes? How did she miss another entire fleet? Surely dragons would give an unprecedented advantage in scouting enemy locations. The sheer incompetence on display is inexplicable.
- How did Missandei get from a skiff into captivity? If she has a teleporting ability, why didn't she teleport away from enemies?
- How does Missandei have the ability to add reverb and bass to her voice, and speak loud enough to be heard across a vast plains?
- Why didn't Dany wait for Jon and a complete army to arrive? Did they get ahead of the Hound and Arya?
- Did Tyrion really believe his sister would step down? I mean c'mon!? If he did, he's a naive fool. If he didn't, he's an idiot and a timewaster.

I can accept the Scorpions existing, although Euron's aim begs some questions. How was he able to hit a moving target three times without missing from a mile off, but 100s of bolts missed a much larger target at closer range?

The teleporting is probably the biggest issue. Since there are no details any more, the showrunners are just skipping from event to event, moving fleets and armies around Westeros to be where they need to be. They know who defeats whom, where and who wins what, but the rest they have to make up and they suck at it. And since they opted to do it in so few episodes, everything is rushed and nothing gets explained. Continuity has gone out the window. At this point an army of dire wolves led by Ghost and Nymeria could deus ex machina the f**k out of episodes five and six and I wouldn't bat an eye.

 

[Agema]

- Why doesn't Dany even consider marriage to Jon?

Possibly because - if I remember rightly - she's infertile following her dodgy deal with the witch to save Drogo: marrying Jon would therefore end the Targaryen line (unless he has bastards).

- Why won't she let the wounded rest, apart from the lack of episodes?
...
- How did Dany get an army to KL in minutes? How did she miss another entire fleet? Surely dragons would give an unprecedented advantage in scouting enemy locations. The sheer incompetence on display is inexplicable.

Expedience and bad writing. Everyone's been teleporting around for about two series. You're damn right it's a massive problem.

- Why didn't Dany wait for Jon and a complete army to arrive?

Because after selling her as the Messiah of Westeros for 6 seasons, they want to suddenly portray her as potentially unfit to rule, so that they can keep tension and scheming going instead of a straight Dany v. Cersei winner-takes-all. Irrespective of how stupid it is. Should drop the scheming: there are hardly any episodes or characters left to do any of it justice.

 

[Nickolai77]

You can really tell they're running out of episodes here. Things are being skimmed over, like Bronn waltzing into the tavern to confront Jamie and Tyrion without any build-up or explanation as to how some bloke armed with a crossbow could simply walk right up to the Queen's senior advisor and threaten to kill him. Dani managed to launch a fleet of ships and sail down to King's Landing within the space of half an episode which also felt really rushed. Really, the events detailed in episode 4 really required at least two episodes.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Was Season 2 of HBO's Rome better then this?