Game of Thrones Season 7: It's A Bit Nippy Out (SPOILERS)

[JOE SOAP]

Can you believe HBO managed to air/leak the next episode themselves.

?  It was the Spanish TV station, not HBO?

They were 2 European HBO channels.

[Leigh S]

While all the incident was very exciting, and [spoiler] showing us that the Dragons are not the answer to the Night King  and indeed a liability[/spoiler], the idea that [spoiler]Gendry could run back (just how far out where they supposed to be?) and get a raven all the way to Dragonstone in how long, for Dany to ride to the rescue?[/spoiler] I'm assuming this would take days if not weeks? Westeros seems to shrink with every season.

More distractingly, I'm not getting the transformation of [spoiler]Arya into pyscho nutjob [/spoiler] much - Firstly, it makes no sense characterwise,  and it is also the most stupid plot of Littlefingers - all it takes is for Arya to tell Sansa where the note came from and thats before either of them twig he is the culprit in the first place! I'm assuming this is all some misdirection - as my wife said, it paints women as really stupid if they are just carrying old sisterly feuds.  The bag of plastic faces was about as convincing as Delgado's old stock...

While it is all pelting the story to interesting places, I can't help but think with 10 episodes and some more logical and organic plotting, I might be a bit more onboard than I am at the moment.  Possibly the lack of Cersei has affected my judgement!

[JOE SOAP]

A very predictable final scene- but in the most satisfying way.

I hope when Viserion [spoiler]ejects its cold breath upon the land it comes out as ice-cubes[/spoiler].

[JOE SOAP]

...the idea that [spoiler]Gendry could run back (just how far out where they supposed to be?) and get a raven all the way to Dragonstone in how long, for Dany to ride to the rescue?[/spoiler] I'm assuming this would take days if not weeks? Westeros seems to shrink with every season.

Alan Taylor does a Rumsfeld –

[spoiler]"We were aware that timing was getting a little hazy," Taylor told Variety. "We've got Gendry running back, ravens flying a certain distance, dragons having to fly back a certain distance...In terms of the emotional experience, [Jon and company] sort of spent one dark night on the island in terms of storytelling moments. We tried to hedge it a little bit with the eternal twilight up there north of The Wall. I think there was some effort to fudge the timeline a little bit by not declaring exactly how long we were there. I think that worked for some people, for other people it didn't. They seemed to be very concerned about how fast a raven can fly but there's a thing called plausible impossibilities, which is what you try to achieve, rather than impossible plausibilities. So I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story's momentum carries over some of that stuff."[/spoiler]

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-7-episode-6-beyond-the-wall-timeline-director-1202534403/

[lincnash]

A very predictable final scene- but in the most satisfying way.

I hope when Viserion [spoiler]ejects its cold breath upon the land it comes out as ice-cubes[/spoiler].

DRACOLICH = More than a powerful form of undead, a dracolich was a dragon who had voluntarily tied its soul to a phylactery, freeing itself from death. A type of lich, the creature's spirit could possess any dead reptilian body, usually their original form, and retained all the powers and abilities of the former body. That meant a dracolich had the supernatural fear aura, spells, and breath weapon it had in life, plus the terrible might of the undead.


Can't Drokkin' wait for next week.

[IndigoPrime]

Actually, Taylor's response does make sense in terms of light the further you go north, as anyone who's been towards the Arctic Circle would know. That all said, the timing of events per se didn't really bother me –[spoiler]they weren't that far away from the wall, and so it's conceivable the entire thing happened in two or three days, with the gang somehow not freezing to death on the rock[/spoiler], but it was [spoiler]dues ex machina a go go – not sure we really needed the second one[/spoiler].

[Theblazeuk]

While all the incident was very exciting, and [spoiler] showing us that the Dragons are not the answer to the Night King  and indeed a liability[/spoiler]

A) Kind of but B) Could have started the strafing run just slightly up the hill and GAME OVER.

[Bolt-01]

Actually- did Dani actually get one of the Dragons to flame at a Wight Walker? We saw the Night King walk through flames, but presumably they were the remnants of the burning horde, not actual Dragon fire...

[spoiler]Shame Dennis Pennis died- I liked his character...[/spoiler]

[pauljholden]

Spoiler free, but here's how I think it works:  http://pjholden.tumblr.com/post/164478217683/how-do-the-ravens-do-it

-pj

[Leigh S]

Spoiler free, but here's how I think it works:  http://pjholden.tumblr.com/post/164478217683/how-do-the-ravens-do-it

-pj

Ha! Excellent stuff PJ.

The timing stuff undermined that for me, but the thrust of it was all well and good.  More troblesome is the Arya/Sansa/Littlefinger stuff, which is infuriating for all the wrong reasons - more proof that Cersei deserves the win!

[Link Prime]

A very predictable final scene- but in the most satisfying way.

I hope when Viserion [spoiler]ejects its cold breath upon the land it comes out as ice-cubes[/spoiler].

DRACOLICH = More than a powerful form of undead, a dracolich was a dragon who had voluntarily tied its soul to a phylactery, freeing itself from death. A type of lich, the creature's spirit could possess any dead reptilian body, usually their original form, and retained all the powers and abilities of the former body. That meant a dracolich had the supernatural fear aura, spells, and breath weapon it had in life, plus the terrible might of the undead.


Can't Drokkin' wait for next week.

Skyrim had mentally prepared me for the magnificent concept of unread dragons.

Speaking of which- anyone else reminded of the frozen lake scene with Naaslaarum & Voslaarum when watching this episode?

[IndigoPrime]

More troblesome is the Arya/Sansa/Littlefinger stuff, which is infuriating for all the wrong reasons

The Arya/Sansa narrative makes no sense whatsoever right now, unless the writers have now decided that [spoiler]both of them are idiots, or they're playing him[/spoiler]. The former would be deeply unfortunate; the latter doesn't seem terribly likely, though, given the lack of nuance in GoT narrative pathways right now. (They're arranging pieces on the board for the final season. No big surprises likely coming in terms of casting at this point.)

[JamesC]

The timing didn't seem like too much of a fudge to me.
I assumed they were about half a day's trek from the wall. Bearing in mind they were carrying heavy weapons and were moving slow and cautiously because of poor visibility I'd say they were no more than 10-12 miles from the wall. I don't think they were planning to be out overnight as they had no camping provisions.
I reckon the run back to the wall could be made in about 3 hours considering conditions.
Say 10 hours to get a Raven to Danearys (I think a raven can sustain an average speed of about 30mph, so that's 300 miles. Not sure how far it's supposed to be?) and another 8 hours to get a Dragon up north (I'm guessing Dragons fly faster than ravens).
That's 21 hours - so say they got attacked early afternoon and got rescued the next morning.


This is all fairly conservative. I'm willing to believe the super-courier-ravens and dragons can fly at twice that speed and that a few more hours passed. It keeps things well within the realms of believable implausibility for me.

[Leigh S]

Yeah, in terms of pure A to B we might be talking a day or so, but logistically, for Gendry to be able to describe what and where things were happening to a degree that Danyreas would know jsut where to fly to.. if it was that easy to see the Army of the Dead, Snow should have just convinced her to go for a day out with her!

Also, the Night King seems very well informed of things - where Snow is, that Dragons will be on their way to arm against them (and if not, why not just kill Jon Snow and his band with the ice spear superweapon?  I woul presume they didnt just swim over as they wanted the dragons to turn up as part of a plan to kill them.  I think it is the pile on of either unlikely coincidences or unlikely planning that feels a bit off, and when added to the timings, everything seems just  bit too convenient.  They have giant chains for dragging out the body, so we can assume they planned for this, but there was no reason not to kill Snow there and then with the weight of dead they had. The spectacle was great, but to be honest I'd have preferred less dead - maybe 100 or so, and a single walker with his spear thing - at least initially - arguably, with them stranded there for a day, the night King could have shown up when he heard - does he have his own three eye raven - possible I suppose!

[IndigoPrime]

Isn't the suggestion the Night King himself has similar powers to the Three Eyed Raven, in that he can foretell possible futures, and scoot about the place virtually, checking out what's going on? And he doesn't give a fig about Snow – I imagine he wanted [spoiler]a dragon to burn down the wall[/spoiler].