A Song of Tits and Wine (Spoilers!)

[LexW]

No, I said also. The idea that the increase from a couple of hundred thousand to up to $2m per actor would be taken directly from the production budget is clearly nonsense - that would end up eating the entire budget for each episode. I have seen numbers for direct salary increases said to be couple of hundred thousand per actor, per episode, which certainly adds up to a major cost increase alongside the other increased production costs.

I can’t find any trustworthy sources speaking about direct salary increases - do you know where you got that information?

Speaking of visual effects, I miss Ghost. Wonder if they’ll have enough budget for him to turn up again in the last season.

I should think so. Probably promptly get killed though. God it’s going to be a shitstorm of spoilers near when the next season comes out. SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE indeed.

[Skalpadda]

I can’t find any trustworthy sources speaking about direct salary increases - do you know where you got that information?

Afraid not, this was couple of months ago around the time the big HBO leaks happened. Tried some quick googlefu, but all I find now is “Zomg highest paid evar, millions millions!”

[Matt_W]

God it’s going to be a shitstorm of spoilers near when the next season comes out. SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE indeed.

Wait, what?!?

[LexW]

Wait, what?!?

DUNDUNDUUUUUUUN.

God if you were playing any online game around when that book came out, it was just non-stop. Like, people would join the BG, and immediately say that, in WoW.

It’s got a big page on that meme site and everything: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/snape-kills-dumbledore

As a more-recent and on-topic example, when we had the S7 leaks for GoT, it was like the day before the new Path of Exile league season started, and we were what, only 2-3 episodes into the season. In Path of Exile, in a new league, the first person to reach a new area or a new level gets their name broadcast to everyone playing. So two of the more l337 players out there got together, and named their characters DanykillsArya and JonkillsDany, and thus for the first few hours of the league it was like “DanykillsArya has reached Level 43” “JonkillsDany has entered the Rotten Barricade” “DanykillsArya has reached Level 44” and so on.

Of course they weren’t real spoilers, but they put one in mortal fear that they MIGHT be, because of the leaks.

(Completely off-topic but talking of memes, can I just say I am so delighted that this is STILL a meme: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-are-already-dead-omae-wa-mou-shindeiru - this was meme, in the sense of a dumb in-joke people constantly made, when I was a goddamn teenager in the goddamn 1990s, before we even had memes!)

[Fumarole]

[quote=“Matt_W, post:1351, topic:9092”]
[…] the absolute reliability of ravens […]
[/quote]Their reliability is not absolute. The books discuss ravens being shot out of the sky outside besieged castles, and I’m pretty sure this happened at least once in the show (at Riverrun?) but I cannot find a video of it now.

[Fumarole]

[quote=“BillButNotBen, post:1349, topic:9092”]
For a show like GoT, The Night King is basically the worst possible antagonist. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t lie, he doesn’t plot. (And Jon, for all his strengths, is probably the worst possible protagonist for the same reasons).
[/quote]If he did those things he’d be just another scheming character in the show, and there are enough of those I think. I love the fact that he doesn’t speak, that makes him all the more terrifyingly inhuman, à la Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees. It may not be original, but it certainly makes him effective at his role.

“It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

[Shadoko]

IMO, if the Night’s King (and the White Walkers as a whole) were capable (or rather willing to) of scheming, bargaining, negociating…it would kill a lot of what makes the threat of the White Walkers a real threat. What’s interesting in them is the sudden arrival of this magical, inhuman threat that will not bargain nor negociate with anyone and take what it wants (i.e the whole world) by force. They are like a force of nature, in a way, and we are watching how the other characters and factions react to this force they can’t talk to, corrupt or more generally speaking integrate in the political system and intrigues of Westeros. If it wasn’t the case, the White Walkers would just be another faction that can be betrayed, corrupted, bargained with and they’d lose their purpose.

[Xercies]

Yeah ut I can see one good episode of fighting the White Walkers because if you have multiple episodes of “ahh they are being overun then it gets boring” (see Walking Dead)

[Tritagonist]

If it wasn’t the case, the White Walkers would just be another faction that can be betrayed, corrupted, bargained with and they’d lose their purpose.

But it was Martin who said that “I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black” and criticised those who followed in Tolkien’s steps by saying “the trope that he sort of established—the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions—in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well.”

The years that pass between instalments of his books might suggest that Martin is unable to conclude what he intended to be an alternative take on the genre, or that it’s so clever that it’ll surprise everyone - or something less interesting in between. Either way, I think it’d be rather disappointing if we had to conclude that the series indeed did culminate in a conflict between The Living and The Dead.

Entire kingdoms have been left in shambles in the story’s drive to this one conflict - so simply dispatching the Dead and picking up where season 5, or what have you, left off seems an odd prospect. I’m curious to see how they resolve this - or perhaps fail to do so. Both should be interesting.

[Shadoko]

Well, so far theWhite Walkers have been The Big Evil without much in the way of subtelty. Maybe we’ll have some big revelation thanks to Bran or a last-minute change of perspective that will make all of us go “Holy shit that was clever” but I’ve yet to see it. As of now, the White Walkers have been a big, monolithic force of destruction. Granted, they’re less like Sauron, as in they’re not technically evil and more like the Reapers in Mass Effect, almost a force of nature that doesn’t seem to thinks in terms of good and bad actions. But they’re not subtle, nor they are subverting any particular fantasy trope so far. And it’ll be hard to turn everything on its head in one book or one season. (Except a lame, nihilistic “But humans are so bad the force of destruction is actually good, so deep man” but I don’t see that coming).

Didn’t Martin say that he wanted a bittersweet ending ? So we’ll maybe have The Final Fight but it won’t be epic, more like a massacre of huge proportions that won’t solve the main conflict.

(Thinking about it, the White Walkers remind me a lot of the Reapers, actually).

[Rorschach]

Didn’t Martin say that he wanted a bittersweet ending ? So we’ll maybe have The Final Fight but it won’t be epic, more like a massacre of huge proportions that won’t solve the main conflict.

Him using the phrase ‘bittersweet’ suggests that it’ll be a heroic victory for the heroes, which would be the sweet part, but I imagine in the final fight, or somewhere along the way, we’ll lose some of the heroes and because of that, like you said, it won’t just be some fairytale ending that makes everyone get along and we’ll have an ending scene of Tyrion and Cersei line-dancing together as the Mountain and the Hound do shots.

It won’t be a “THE HEROES TRIUMPH AND SIT UPON THE THRONE” and moreso be a tale about victory and sacrifice I imagine. Maybe we’ll see Dany and Jon both die, the Targ line being snuffed out for good. Or maybe the Lannisters? But not the Starks. They’ve been through enough. Pls Mr Martin.

[Tritagonist]

Maybe we’ll have some big revelation thanks to Bran or a last-minute change of perspective that will make all of us go “Holy shit that was clever” but I’ve yet to see it.

There was that part about the Children creating the White Walkers, which of course ties into the Reapers comparison. Or any old ‘rogue weapon of mass destruction from an old forgotten conflict’. Call them Reapers, Berserkers, it all works. It’s an old trope. But it’s not really a big revelation, especially because - so far - there has been no follow-up to that information, and without any Children in the story, it doesn’t have a lot of impact anyway.

[BillButNotBen]

Ninja!

I watched the first 5 minutes, was impressed by the new credits (I love the credits and music in this show) and then realized that watching this show with a bad cold was a bad idea and went to bed instead.
Now I just need to avoid spoilers until I get a chance to watch the first episode.

PS/ Haven’t managed to avoid the game of thrones + notre dame meme though, which i suppose was inevitable.

[Skalpadda]

First episode was pretty much entirely what I expected, just lots of catching up with the characters. characters catching up with each other and stage-setting for future drama. I don’t have anything to say about it, because nothing much actually happened that didn’t directly follow from stuff in the last episode from last season. The Theon bit felt ridiculously hasty.

I’ve decided to just watch it for the spectacle and boobies and leave any and all expectations on character development and plot at the door. With the few episodes remaining I doubt they’ll even have the time to do much but wrapping things up anyway. It’s all established and stuff is gonna happen, and that should be fun enough.

[LexW]

I didn’t love that virtually every line Dany had was rather cheap sarcasm/sass. It felt a bit “Poochie” from the Simpsons.

But otherwise it was a solid setup episode. With only 5 episodes left to resolve the entire plot though, jesus, I guess “Everybody dies” is one of the few things that they could fit into that.

[Wheelz]

Oddly enough, I hope the ending sort of is “everyone dies and the white walkers (or cersei?) win”, But based on the last few seasons it doesn’t feel like the show runners have the stomach to do that.

[Skalpadda]

I haven’t spent a lot of time speculating about the ending, but I’m a little worried by the fact that there’s a huge time-travelling Chekhov’s Bran established, so we might get something like everyone dies but then Bran goes back and changes things in the past. Last couple of seasons they’ve very much shown a willingness to do audience fake-outs whether they make sense or not, so I hold it as a possibility.

I also suspect Cersei, Euron and Yara may be effectively out of the main story now. I don’t see anything major happening between the North/Dany and King’s Landing before a confrontation with the White Walkers, so unless the North situation is resolved very quickly mid-season I suspect something like Euron and Cersei destroy each other, or Euron leaves and Cersei just gets murdered by someone else so they can end that plot line.

There’s the Bronn thing, but (possible spoiler) Jerome Flynn has hinted he’s not going to survive and that people aren’t going to like him anymore, so whether he actually murders a Lannister brother or two, I doubt that much will come of it beyond wrapping up a couple of characters.

But, who knows, we’ve had a couple of seasons of teleporting armies, lots of fake-outs and things being lamp-shaded but not actually explained, so whatever happens will happen.

[BillButNotBen]

I thought it was an ok setup episode, although given how short the season is, I was a bit surprised how little really happened.

I agree on Dany being a bit too sarky/sassy… it came off as a bit too modern.

The reunification of almost every main character at winterfell seemed a bit full on, although I suppose it had to happen sometime.
It’s interesting that, despite the books/show’s reputation for being ‘anyone could die at any time’, it’s now increasingly blindingly obvious that actually very few major hero characters have died and it’s been mainly bad guys that have either died or become good (Bronn, Hound, Jaime) .

At one time I felt like GRRM would be the kind of guy to have Jon Snow trip over his scabbard while going to the bathroom, smack his head on the toilet bowl and go out with a wimper… which I kinda liked about it.

It briefly crossed my mind that it’d be very funny if Sam killed Dany.

I’m sure there’ll be some backstabbing or dumbass-self-centered moves that screw things up, but so far the ending is shaping up to be a pretty generic ‘good king and queen, plus the whole band of starks and other good guys’ in a big battle against the evil monsters.
I’m not sure they can have a climactic battle that lasts 5 episodes though.

so we might get something like everyone dies but then Bran goes back and changes things in the past

It’d be funny if the 2 big franchises of the last decade (GoT and Marvel) both ended up pulling the same trick within a few weeks of each other.

Oh, and it’s really weird to just now notice that the young female lord in Winterfell is The Worst Witch.

[LexW]

i think he’s already changed everything he can change, as it were. I don’t think there’s going to be any plot-changes via time-travel. But things he’s already set in motion paying out? Sure.

One possibility people have been talking about for a long time is that he’s the one who made Aerys mad, and filled the city with Wildfire because it’s going to get used in some sort of apocalyptic final battle in King’s Landing. Potentially Jon or Dany could survive being in the city when it went up too, if either is still alive at that point.

EIther way I don’t think the Chekov’s Gun of the Wildfire that is spread through King’s Landing is going to get ignored. The Night King will reach King’s Landing, and it will go up, quite likely with him in it. And indeed possibly most of the characters.

The trouble is for theories now, of course, is how short the timeframe is. Two more books could have a zillion things happen, but five episodes? I am pretty sure King’s Landing will blow in the last episode or so, but beyond that it’s going to be a theory bloodbath. Time for final predictions?

Robert Strong/The Mountain killing Cersei seems like a lock-in
Qyburn betraying Cersei also seems very likely
Bronn is unlikely to kill either Lannister brother given the vague promises made to him
Arya wouldn’t have a Valyrian steel dagger if she wasn’t going to stab some fairly major undead, though who that is I dunno
Gendry is the only character I can honestly feel is more than 50/50 likely to be alive at the end of the show
Dany I am quite certain will die. Probably heroically.
People have suggested Cersei and Dany are pregnant. I suspect neither is, but, if they are, I expect we’ll see some kind of hold-up, perhaps holding the Night King at the Twins, that allows both to give birth, and various machinations so that by the end, a blond-haired child survives but we don’t know which of them in belongs to. This is an ultra-long-shot I am admit but hey…

It briefly crossed my mind that it’d be very funny if Sam killed Dany.

If she doesn’t die heroically in dragon-back battle, I fully expect someone like Sam, quite possibly him, to kill her. He could very well do so after they defeat the NK, too, if it looks like she’s going to become ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, because he is definitely not down with her ruling style, and is all about Jon taking over.

[Rath]

I would love it if the people of Westeros simply decided they’d had enough, and in the final episode, the victor approaches the Iron Throne and the following exchange took place:

“People of King’s Landing, and of the whole world; I have defeated the threat of The Dead, defeated all my enemies and now make my claim to the throne of the Seven Kingdoms!”

“Yeah, about that. We’ve been talking amongst ourselves, and we’ve decided to do away with the concept of a monarchy in favour of a democratic republic.”

“WAIT, WHAT”