So how could S7 have been improved?

WotW Spoiler Town, with extensive House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones Spoilers including major leaks, filming spoilers, photos and all. Consider yourself warned!
Violator
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2017 5:14 pm

Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:50 pm

Now, I'm not starting this thread because I'm heavily critical of this season. In fact, I have mixed feelings about it, but I do think it had weaknesses that could be discussed and seeing as we have nothing better to do, how would/ could the following have been improved?

(1) The Winterfell Plot

(2) 'Robo-Bran'

(3) Fast travelling

(4) The Wight Hunt

(5) Jon and Dany's romance

Just to clarify, I'm not saying these are or aren't areas of weakness but they have been widely identified here and elsewhere as being so.

Pigeon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:44 am

Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:59 pm

I just say add Jaqen in somewhere (because Tom Wlaschiha), and the badly drawn cardboard cutout of Ghost in the background of every Winterfell scene.

User avatar
Flayed Potatoes
Posts: 207
Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2017 1:31 pm

Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:20 pm

Where do I even start?

- Have the Winterfell plot be about Sansa, Arya, and Bran dealing with their traumas and honing their skills and using them to prepare for the long night. Give Bran more visions (maybe have him struggle to get out of a vision), have Arya train some of the young kids at Winterfell, have Sansa deal with provisioning or whatever. Meanwhile, have Littlefinger subtly try and sabotage the Stark kids' preparation (messing with the food supply, causing dissent among the lords in a believable way and not just a camera panning over him as he walks through Winterfell...give him actual conversations with those people etc.). You can cast Corbray or some other Vale lord who isn't Royce to conspire with LF.

- Give Bran some of his personality back instead of making him Sansa's CCTV. Have a scene where he's struggling with his powers or where he properly explains how difficult this is for him. Give him and Meera a better goodbye scene (not that hard to write one where Bran tells her that he saw her father in his visions and that Howland misses her, so Bran can't hold on to her any longer because it would make him seem selfish or some crap like that). Flip that scene around so Bran doesn't want Meera to leave, but he knows he has to give her up. Give the actor better direction.

- kill Bronn (Spoils of War was a visually stunning battle, but there were no consequences or serious losses); the whole thing could have happened off screen and we wouldn't have missed anything.

- kill Grey Worm while he's taking Casterly Rock (see above); but you can kill him in season 8 too, so no biggie.

- capture Jaime after the battle in episode 4 (see above; it gives him and Tyrion some much needed depth and it would basically be a reverse of their situation in season 4; Tyrion would have his loyalties tested between Dany and his brother in a much more meaningful way). You'd also get Dany and Jaime scenes where they discuss her father and Jaime's kingslaying.

- Give us a line or two during the first scene in Stormborn where Varys mentions he lost his network of little birds to Quyburn for now, to account for the show not being able to do anything with him.

- Either scrap the wight hunt entirely in favor of an attack on Eastwatch from the Night King, which would require the dragons fly there to prevent the NK from advancing into Westeros and would still lead to the death of Viserion. Or have the wight hunt be strictly about convincing Dany and not Cersei and have the dragons fly North due to their bond with Jon and not some super speed raven (once Viserion is dead the characters will realize the seriousness of the situation - they will mention that the NK will likely revive him - and then opt for an armistice with Cersei where you tell her the NK is coming with his army and an undead dragon). Two easy scenarios that don't have anyone behaving out of character for the sake of special effects and for D&D to prop up their faves. Heck, if you go for a scenario where Dany has Jaime prisoner, you can still make the dragonpit meeting happen and bring together 90% of the cast, which was obviously the intent behind it.

- Develop the Jon/Dany relationship by focusing equally on both sides. Most of the relationship/conversations have revolved around Dany/her life/ her fertility/ her dragons/ her dragonglass etc. :roll: . I honestly don't know if she even knows much about Jon's life compared to how much he knows about her. Have some new conversations focused on Jon as well (last time I checked he was a main character) and have some of the conversations revolve on something other than dragons/dragonglass/bending the knee. This is supposed to be the epic endgame romance of the series and it was sadly too rushed. Jon talked more about himself with Jorah, Gendry, and Beric than he did with Dany (just to put it into perspective). Give the characters a first kiss scene and a proper love scene (even Grey Worm/Missandei and Sam/Gilly got these moments and enough time to develop them).

Mau mau
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:18 am

Wed Sep 06, 2017 7:32 pm

I mean it is easier when everything is plotted to change details to make the story better, but still it's a fun thing to do.

I would change set-up for the white hunt.

Dany should have asked Jon why she wouldn't just take KL now and Westeros would be united. And the answer could have been that the army of the dead is only 2-3 weeks from Eastwatch, they don’t have time for the siege. And Dany should have said then we should just burn the Red Keep, and Tyrion would say there could be scorpions on the walls now, the Lannisters saw it can hurt a dragon, and that they’re hidden tunnels beneath the city, so when the attack starts Cersei could just hide and they would be forced to burn the whole city in order to find her. (his hidden motive: protect Jaime)

And the biggest point Tyrion could make is that they are struggling to make Dany popular in Westeros, but if they call every lord in Westeros at that meeting and they show them what is coming, Dany could be seen as the savior of the world, because she would promise them that will save them from the WW. So it could help her in her ambition to take the Iron Throne.

They just needed characters to discuss every option.

Mau mau
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:18 am

Wed Sep 06, 2017 7:39 pm

When it comes to Tyrion I would write a scene with Varys where it would be completely clear that the motive behind his plans is to find a way in which he would be able to keep his family alive and also to have Dany win the war. Varys would tell him that no one in history ever won a war, without defeating the other side and that he will soon have to choose between Dany and his family.
Last edited by Mau mau on Wed Sep 06, 2017 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mau mau
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:18 am

Wed Sep 06, 2017 7:50 pm

And when it comes to WF I would have a longer scene at the end of E7 where Sansa would admit that she does want to be Queen in the North and that she thinks she would be good at that job, but that she would never do anything against Jon and that she respects his position.

I would tone-down their second scene in E6 and I would make clear that Arya wants to scare Sansa so she can more easily read her motivations and that the fact that she gave her a dagger means that she trusts in Sansa's loaylty to Jon now. I would give them some ambiguous lines at the end of that scene where it would seem that they are still in conflict, but when you rewatch E6 after watching E7 it would be clear that that was the moment when they started to trust each other. Sansa and Arya would explain that to LF and the audience in E7 in that big scene.

Sansa would also say that she and Arya came to Bran for proof that LF killed Jon Arryn to turn the Vale against him(Sansa thinks he had something to do with it because Lysa said "I killed for you" in her last scene and only important person that had strange death around her was her husband) and then Bran saw that LF did even worse things to their family than Sansa thought.

I would keep that line from the outline of E7 where Sansa said to LF that she knew what he was doing the moment he tried to manipulate her to send Brienne away and she did that to make him believe that he succeded.

User avatar
anna1226
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:45 pm

Thu Sep 07, 2017 11:10 am

I did like this season, but yes they could have improved some things. They could have given us 8-10 episodes. Last episode could have been split into 2 with cut scenes.

1. Winterfell story should have focused on the 'strength of the pack'. Jon & Sansa debates should have been in private. Sansa vs. Arya was silly. Plotting could have been cocky Littlefinger doing his thing, only to find out in the end the Stark kids were manipulating him. Add scene with Bran visions/explaining LF past to Arya/Sansa. Including season one family flashback visions would have added history to 'family pack' theme, plus...aw, look how little.

2. I didn't care for 'Robo-Bran'. Plus, no Ghost: they cut 1 filmed scene with him. He should have been sitting with Bran by the tree, Bran could have warged into him to watch Arya arrive. Ghost could have smelled Nymeria on Arya's things & run off to find her... pack could return in S8.

3. Travel time: Dany flying from Dragonstone to the wall... ridiculous. Could have had Dany/dragons/guards sail north with them to assess the threat & check out territories, then wait at wall during hunt. Unsullied travel time to the Rock was stupid too.

4. Wight hunt: should have brought a few horses, Gendry/Thros could have rode back for help, if Dany was at the wall waiting it would have been more believable.

5. Jon & Dany, boat scene seemed rushed. The 'brooding' references are getting old.

Other notes:
1. Dany burning loot train was such poor strategy. Should have burnt army-kept supplies. What a great victory scene... Dothraki hauling all that loot back to Dragonstone; Cersei seething. Like the idea of Jamie being captured after the battle... maybe released later to propose a truce/convince Cersei the war is against the NK.

2. Poop scenes with poor Sam-yuck.

User avatar
anna1226
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:45 pm

Thu Sep 07, 2017 11:18 am

Flayed Potatoes wrote:
Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:20 pm
Where do I even start?

- Have the Winterfell plot be about Sansa, Arya, and Bran dealing with their traumas and honing their skills and using them to prepare for the long night. Give Bran more visions (maybe have him struggle to get out of a vision), have Arya train some of the young kids at Winterfell, have Sansa deal with provisioning or whatever. Meanwhile, have Littlefinger subtly try and sabotage the Stark kids' preparation (messing with the food supply, causing dissent among the lords in a believable way and not just a camera panning over him as he walks through Winterfell...give him actual conversations with those people etc.). You can cast Corbray or some other Vale lord who isn't Royce to conspire with LF.

- Give Bran some of his personality back instead of making him Sansa's CCTV. Have a scene where he's struggling with his powers or where he properly explains how difficult this is for him. Give him and Meera a better goodbye scene (not that hard to write one where Bran tells her that he saw her father in his visions and that Howland misses her, so Bran can't hold on to her any longer because it would make him seem selfish or some crap like that). Flip that scene around so Bran doesn't want Meera to leave, but he knows he has to give her up. Give the actor better direction.

- kill Bronn (Spoils of War was a visually stunning battle, but there were no consequences or serious losses); the whole thing could have happened off screen and we wouldn't have missed anything.

- kill Grey Worm while he's taking Casterly Rock (see above); but you can kill him in season 8 too, so no biggie.

- capture Jaime after the battle in episode 4 (see above; it gives him and Tyrion some much needed depth and it would basically be a reverse of their situation in season 4; Tyrion would have his loyalties tested between Dany and his brother in a much more meaningful way). You'd also get Dany and Jaime scenes where they discuss her father and Jaime's kingslaying.

- Give us a line or two during the first scene in Stormborn where Varys mentions he lost his network of little birds to Quyburn for now, to account for the show not being able to do anything with him.

- Either scrap the wight hunt entirely in favor of an attack on Eastwatch from the Night King, which would require the dragons fly there to prevent the NK from advancing into Westeros and would still lead to the death of Viserion. Or have the wight hunt be strictly about convincing Dany and not Cersei and have the dragons fly North due to their bond with Jon and not some super speed raven (once Viserion is dead the characters will realize the seriousness of the situation - they will mention that the NK will likely revive him - and then opt for an armistice with Cersei where you tell her the NK is coming with his army and an undead dragon). Two easy scenarios that don't have anyone behaving out of character for the sake of special effects and for D&D to prop up their faves. Heck, if you go for a scenario where Dany has Jaime prisoner, you can still make the dragonpit meeting happen and bring together 90% of the cast, which was obviously the intent behind it.

- Develop the Jon/Dany relationship by focusing equally on both sides. Most of the relationship/conversations have revolved around Dany/her life/ her fertility/ her dragons/ her dragonglass etc. :roll: . I honestly don't know if she even knows much about Jon's life compared to how much he knows about her. Have some new conversations focused on Jon as well (last time I checked he was a main character) and have some of the conversations revolve on something other than dragons/dragonglass/bending the knee. This is supposed to be the epic endgame romance of the series and it was sadly too rushed. Jon talked more about himself with Jorah, Gendry, and Beric than he did with Dany (just to put it into perspective). Give the characters a first kiss scene and a proper love scene (even Grey Worm/Missandei and Sam/Gilly got these moments and enough time to develop them).
Excellent points; Love your ideas about Jamie's capture. SO many good scenes could come of this: Telling Dany about "burn them all" & how that affects here. Tyrion/Jamie conversations... later Jamie's release to convince Cersei the war is with the NK.

ghost of winterfell
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:33 am

Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:59 am

1. Winterfell plot:

I get that the writers wanted to highlight the existing issues between the Stark sisters and see if they can work their way out of it. But literally anything could have been used to bring this out instead of a letter that Sansa was so obviously forced to write as a captive. This was a huge disservice to Arya's character by making her out to be dumb and worse, a hypocrite. Robb and Catelyn immediately realized that Sansa had been forced to write this letter, but Arya the fool goes into psycho mode over this, especially given that she herself had served Tywin when she was a captive? The writers really screwed up poor Arya this season.
Instead it should have been made clear that she was right in thinking that Sansa wanted to be the queen in the north, even though in the end she sees that Sansa wouldn't betray her brother over this, that her loyalty to her family comes before her personal ambitions . But Sansa's temptations should have been more plain to see. Instead what we actually saw was Sansa doing everything she could to ensure that Jon still has his army intact. So again it looked like Arya's accusations came out of her own preconceived notions, with absolutely no basis. Basically, the conflict should have been more balanced between the sisters, to make it seem like both of them had a valid point of view.
And we should have seen them actually work their way out of their conflicts, instead of it all happening off screen, for the sake of the cheap twist, where we were supposed to think that the 2 sisters would actually kill each other.

Treat Bran like he is an actual character, rather than a CCTV camera. Show how he is struggling with his visions, how seeing so many horrors inflicted on his family in the past is causing him trauma. Unlike other characters, Bran has had to experience everyone's worst moments, not just his own, show how fucked up this was for Bran.

2. Scrap the wight hunt altogether. I liked Flayed Potatoes' idea of having the Night King attack Eastwatch, which would lead to Dany and the dragons going north. Or if they had to go with the wight hunt, have it be not for Cersei, but rather to inform the people of Westeros what is coming for them and how to defeat it. The wight hunt should have been for the people of Westeros, not just for Cersei. Also come up with a rational explanation for Jon going on this mission. The king in the north volunteering to go on a suicide mission with little to no chance of success, thereby abandoning all of his responsibility to his people, against the better judgement of everyone around him, was painful to see. It almost seemed to me like the writers were trying to make Jon's decision making as questionable as possible.

3. One way of making the loot train attack have some impact would be to show that there were consequences to Dany's decision to burn all the food down, especially given the talk about how it was difficult to feed her army.

The first 4 episodes were quite good. It's the last 3 that made the season go off rails in terms of writing, particularly the wight hunt and the stupid Stark sister cat fight.
Last edited by ghost of winterfell on Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

ghost of winterfell
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:33 am

Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:06 am

Flayed Potatoes wrote:
Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:20 pm
Where do I even start?

- Have the Winterfell plot be about Sansa, Arya, and Bran dealing with their traumas and honing their skills and using them to prepare for the long night. Give Bran more visions (maybe have him struggle to get out of a vision), have Arya train some of the young kids at Winterfell, have Sansa deal with provisioning or whatever. Meanwhile, have Littlefinger subtly try and sabotage the Stark kids' preparation (messing with the food supply, causing dissent among the lords in a believable way and not just a camera panning over him as he walks through Winterfell...give him actual conversations with those people etc.). You can cast Corbray or some other Vale lord who isn't Royce to conspire with LF.

- Give Bran some of his personality back instead of making him Sansa's CCTV. Have a scene where he's struggling with his powers or where he properly explains how difficult this is for him. Give him and Meera a better goodbye scene (not that hard to write one where Bran tells her that he saw her father in his visions and that Howland misses her, so Bran can't hold on to her any longer because it would make him seem selfish or some crap like that). Flip that scene around so Bran doesn't want Meera to leave, but he knows he has to give her up. Give the actor better direction.

- kill Bronn (Spoils of War was a visually stunning battle, but there were no consequences or serious losses); the whole thing could have happened off screen and we wouldn't have missed anything.

- kill Grey Worm while he's taking Casterly Rock (see above); but you can kill him in season 8 too, so no biggie.

- capture Jaime after the battle in episode 4 (see above; it gives him and Tyrion some much needed depth and it would basically be a reverse of their situation in season 4; Tyrion would have his loyalties tested between Dany and his brother in a much more meaningful way). You'd also get Dany and Jaime scenes where they discuss her father and Jaime's kingslaying.

- Give us a line or two during the first scene in Stormborn where Varys mentions he lost his network of little birds to Quyburn for now, to account for the show not being able to do anything with him.

- Either scrap the wight hunt entirely in favor of an attack on Eastwatch from the Night King, which would require the dragons fly there to prevent the NK from advancing into Westeros and would still lead to the death of Viserion. Or have the wight hunt be strictly about convincing Dany and not Cersei and have the dragons fly North due to their bond with Jon and not some super speed raven (once Viserion is dead the characters will realize the seriousness of the situation - they will mention that the NK will likely revive him - and then opt for an armistice with Cersei where you tell her the NK is coming with his army and an undead dragon). Two easy scenarios that don't have anyone behaving out of character for the sake of special effects and for D&D to prop up their faves. Heck, if you go for a scenario where Dany has Jaime prisoner, you can still make the dragonpit meeting happen and bring together 90% of the cast, which was obviously the intent behind it.

- Develop the Jon/Dany relationship by focusing equally on both sides. Most of the relationship/conversations have revolved around Dany/her life/ her fertility/ her dragons/ her dragonglass etc. :roll: . I honestly don't know if she even knows much about Jon's life compared to how much he knows about her. Have some new conversations focused on Jon as well (last time I checked he was a main character) and have some of the conversations revolve on something other than dragons/dragonglass/bending the knee. This is supposed to be the epic endgame romance of the series and it was sadly too rushed. Jon talked more about himself with Jorah, Gendry, and Beric than he did with Dany (just to put it into perspective). Give the characters a first kiss scene and a proper love scene (even Grey Worm/Missandei and Sam/Gilly got these moments and enough time to develop them).
Excellent points all round, especially about the Jon Dany romance. All the talk was about her, about how good she is. What exactly did Dany know about Jon to make her fall in love with him? His earnestness in his belief of a threat that she herself did not take seriously? Or was it the brooding? Lol.

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 29 guests