Curmudgeon comments

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evenwind
Posts: 88
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Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:25 am

I think I’m getting old and cranky. Check that. I know I’m getting old and I’ve been assured that I’m getting cranky. Anyhow, as much as I like GoT, I’m starting to get annoyed with it. The reality checks just keep adding up. Some of my quibbles come directly from GRRM but this season in particular seems to be suffering from putting drama before logic.

Just some examples:

GRRM stuff that I’ve just got to accept (in no particular order):

How does a raven find a commander that’s hundreds of miles from his home castle?

What’s with the significant/not-really significant numbers? Little Sam is Craster’s 100th son. Dolorous Edd is the 1000th Commander of the Night’s Watch. I hope they wind up meaning something.

Dorthakis burn their honorable dead on huge funeral pyres. They live on an endless sea of grass. Where do they get the wood from? And why would they develop a custom like that to start with?

Bran the Builder did his thing 9000 years ago. This civilization has been around for 9000 years and they’ve made it all the way to the Middle Ages? Are these people really stupid?

And the Wall: What’s the purpose of Wildling raids? They climb a 700 foot ice wall, climb down the other side and do what? Steal food? Women? Livestock? How do you climb a 700 foot ice wall for the return trip with a screaming woman on your back? Or a cow? Or a bushel of turnips? And why don’t they just sail around the end? They’ve got ships and Stannis showed that it could be done.

How does anything survive a decade or two of Winter? If there’s magic involved, somebody should say something. Even renaming the northern animals to things like “Snow Elk” or “Frost Pig” would help.

Drama before logic:

Slicing a candle in half doesn’t put it out.

You can’t run around after you’ve been stabbed in the guts unless somebody heals you with magic.

Jon was right behind Wun Wun when he broke the door at Winterfell. When he attacked Ramsey, Jon picked up a discarded shield with a Mormont sigil on it. How did a Mormont shield get in the middle of Winterfell? And how did Sansa get there in time to give him that look?

How does Euron’s fleet completely surprise Yara’s? Ships under sail just don’t go that fast. And if they can see you, you can see them – at least with enough time to give some sort of warning. That’s why ships have lookouts!

Speaking of Euron: How did his fleet get half a continent away that fast? (All they really had to do was leave Euron’s flagship out of the battle scene and they could have called it a “division of the fleet detailed to guard Casterly Rock.”)

How did Dany get her Dorthaki that far that quickly? They can’t all fit on Littlefinger’s Hyperloop! And how did she know about the loot train anyhow? Much less where to find it? Has she been in Westeros long enough to set up a spy system?

When you kill a country’s leader the whole country disappears? Wasn’t too thrilled the Sand Snakes story line but isn’t Dorne still allied to Dany? With a big army and other noble houses to lead it?

That’s enough, I’m getting sleepy.

Let me reiterate that in I generally enjoy the show and the books. (I was an early reader and have been waiting for the Wall to come down for 20 years!) I just think with a word here and a tweak there the narrative would flow without so many WTF moments!

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Dgskdive
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Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:32 pm

I am with you on 99% of this. But a few things you listed make a little senses. Dragonstone is not that far from KL. In fact Dragonstone sits at the mouth of Blackwater Bay. I bet it would take less then a day to travel by boat from DS to KL.

What makes less sense is that Euron got his fleet past Dragonstone the first time into KL without Dany knowing, then back past it out into open sea to attack Danys fleet. You would think they would have a defense set up between Dragonstone and KL. In Fact Dany should own any and everything trying to leave or enter Blackwater Bay.

She also could have gotten her troops to the Lannisters as she had a shorter trip East from Dragonstone then the Lannister Army did heading North East from High Garden. She still would have had to have had the ships to get them off Dragonstone onto the main land though.

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Grandmaester Flash
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Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:53 pm

I'll take a few.
evenwind wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:25 am
Slicing a candle in half doesn’t put it out.
Not sure what you mean here, but if it's Arya's final scene with the Waif - knocking a candle to the ground usually extinguishes it.
Jon was right behind Wun Wun when he broke the door at Winterfell. When he attacked Ramsey, Jon picked up a discarded shield with a Mormont sigil on it. How did a Mormont shield get in the middle of Winterfell?
There were Mormont soldiers in the battle (62!), so it's quite feasible that the shield was picked up on the battlefield by a retreating Bolton ally.
When you kill a country’s leader the whole country disappears? Wasn’t too thrilled the Sand Snakes story line but isn’t Dorne still allied to Dany? With a big army and other noble houses to lead it?
Right now there is a power vacuum in Dorne, so it's more likely the concerns of the Dornish noble houses would be focused closer to home.

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evenwind
Posts: 88
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Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:55 pm

Grandmaester Flash wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:53 pm
Not sure what you mean here, but if it's Arya's final scene with the Waif - knocking a candle to the ground usually extinguishes it.
Not necessarily but that's not the way I remember it, anyway. I believe they showed Needle cutting the candle in half and immediately everthing went black. Very dramatic but not the way things happen. I would have been much happier if Arya had blown it out with a determined look on her face.
Grandmaester Flash wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:53 pm
There were Mormont soldiers in the battle (62!), so it's quite feasible that the shield was picked up on the battlefield by a retreating Bolton ally.
Possible, but not what they showed. Ramsey was watching the battle and when his side started to lose, he and a few other horsemen fled the field, well ahead of any of his troops. He then immediately locked the gates of Winterfell. None of Ramsey's group had any opportunity nor reason to pick up a Mormont shield and then dump it in the middle of Winterfell's courtyard. It's also a bit hard to believe that Ramsey would have let any of his troops retreat before the battle was over. He ordered his archers fire on his own troops when they were in the cavalry melee. A leader like that is unlikely to let anybody survive an unauthorized retreat. Not that they showed any of it, anyhow.


I realize these are quibbles, but as I said up top, they're beginning add up for me.

When I watch any TV show that has plot holes/inconsistancies/illogic in it, I tend to put them into two catagories - those that I notice during the show and those that occur to me later. When a plot hole announces itself later, I usually let it go - it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the show. (eg. Dany having her Dorthaki in exactly the right place at the right time.)

But, when the plot hole is obvious when it's happening, I get really bothered. (eg. Euron's ships getting close enough to ram with nobody noticing.)

It just seems sloppy, especially since everything else is so polished. And a lot of what bothers me would have been very easy to fix.

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Not Littlefinger
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Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:42 am

evenwind wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:25 am
How does a raven find a commander that’s hundreds of miles from his home castle?
To be honest, I've got no clue. But I do know that messenger pigeons were a real thing in real history, and somehow they made those work. You also mentioned that they've been stuck in the same technological age for 9000 years. Granted, it is a fictitious world. But if they haven't improved technology in 9000 years, maybe they've managed to do other things like train ravens. Just a thought.

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Joel Needs a Car
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Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:07 am

Not Littlefinger wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:42 am
evenwind wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:25 am
How does a raven find a commander that’s hundreds of miles from his home castle?
To be honest, I've got no clue. But I do know that messenger pigeons were a real thing in real history, and somehow they made those work. You also mentioned that they've been stuck in the same technological age for 9000 years. Granted, it is a fictitious world. But if they haven't improved technology in 9000 years, maybe they've managed to do other things like train ravens. Just a thought.
I guess we have to accept it's magic!

It's true though, there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that the ravens are simply flying "home" in the same way as we used homing pigeons (i.e the birds can only ever go to one destination that is their home "nest" and not a variety of locations across the realm as required - meaning that e.g. Winterfell would have one or more ravens from Castle Black, Riverrun, Kings Landing, The Vale, etc and then that raven returned manually whence it came or somewhere else), they seem to go wherever is needed to get a message delivered and return on their own initiative again?

I think GRRM is just using some artistic license to speed up the story (ironically!) where needed rather than all communication being dependent on riders taking much longer to get the news around Westeros.

Had this been an invention of the show only, I'm sure it would generate much more discord ;)
AKA: Ser Not Appearing in this Series

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evenwind
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Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:44 am

Joel Needs a Car wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:07 am
I guess we have to accept it's magic!
Y'know, I'm good with that. It's what I signed on for. I'm not going to try to figure out how something as massive as a dragon can fly, either - that's what dragons do, it's magic, I'm good. And if somebody mentioned that Littlefinger used a magic spell to get around so quickly, I'd be okay with that, too. Of course, they don't. Either they figure we won't notice or that we can invent our own story to keep ourselves happy.

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Not Littlefinger
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Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:50 am

evenwind wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:44 am
Joel Needs a Car wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:07 am
I guess we have to accept it's magic!
Y'know, I'm good with that. It's what I signed on for. I'm not going to try to figure out how something as massive as a dragon can fly, either - that's what dragons do, it's magic, I'm good. And if somebody mentioned that Littlefinger used a magic spell to get around so quickly, I'd be okay with that, too. Of course, they don't. Either they figure we won't notice or that we can invent our own story to keep ourselves happy.
The "fast travel" stuff doesn't bother me. We can't expect all timelines of every storyline to line up exactly, otherwise we'd be forced to watch a bunch of boring, unnecessary filler in one storyline while another catches up. Take LF travelling from The Vale to Mole's Town so quickly for example. If nothing important happens at either Castle Black or The Vale between the time that LF sends the raven and arrives at Mole's town, why show either? We could just assume that LF's journey went as planned and nothing notable happened to Sansa in the time it took LF to get there.

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evenwind
Posts: 88
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Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:12 am

Not Littlefinger wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:50 am

The "fast travel" stuff doesn't bother me. We can't expect all timelines of every storyline to line up exactly, otherwise we'd be forced to watch a bunch of boring, unnecessary filler in one storyline while another catches up. Take LF travelling from The Vale to Mole's Town so quickly for example. If nothing important happens at either Castle Black or The Vale between the time that LF sends the raven and arrives at Mole's town, why show either? We could just assume that LF's journey went as planned and nothing notable happened to Sansa in the time it took LF to get there.
To be honest it usually doesn't bother me either. It's just the inconsistancy. Sometimes you're expected to not care or notice and sometimes the delay becomes a Big Deal/Plot Point - like the Unsullied getting "stuck" at Casterly Rock. The inconsistancies take me out of the story and I really want to stay fully immersed.

onefromaway
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:25 pm

Sun Aug 13, 2017 1:15 pm

If this were anything but a fantasy epic, these inconsistencies would drive me bonkers. But it is a fantasy so I just go along for the ride! I will admit that when the door was left open during Grey Worm and Misandea's (sp?) love scene I was thinking "could someone close that door, please..." Those little things sometimes get me but time travel and silent ships, I'm OK!

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