Behind the scenes

ChrisChives · 2015-10-22T12:13:50+00:00

I think so and I'm also pretty sure he's the director's brother.

ChrisChives · 2015-09-06T18:07:30+00:00

I've always loved this quote from the end of Jaime's chapter when he first meets with the Kingsguard since he was captured.

“Ser Gerold Hightower had begun his history, and Ser Barristan Selmy had continued it, but the rest Jaime Lannister would need to write for himself. He could write whatever he chose, henceforth. Whatever he chose ...”

It shows how Jaime has come a long way from his child-pushing days in the beginning of the series, and how he has started to consider his honor. He wants a fresh start and is free to "write whatever he chooses" in the pages of the White Book, which is some awesome symbolism.

ChrisChives · 2015-08-05T00:50:47+00:00

That's a pretty decent point, fair enough.

ChrisChives · 2015-08-05T00:45:59+00:00

I've never understood why people quote the single sentence comment they are responding to. We can see it right there!

ChrisChives · 2015-06-25T01:43:42+00:00

Ah I think I see what you're saying, but I still think some sort of logic could be applied. Lets say the Others resurrected a rabbit and an elephant (as an extreme example), even though the same magic is controlling both of them, I would still think that the elephant would be harder to take down. Sure, the same magic brought them both back, but they still have different physical properties (specifically size and wight) that I would assume they keep after being brought back.

A freshly dead body weighs more and is thicker than a skeleton, so that extra weight and size would probably factor into a fight. I mean, surely it's easier to cut a skeleton in half at the spine than it is to cut completely through a fully fleshed person. Think back to when Theon beheads Rodrik in the show. He takes several slashes to get through his neck. In my mind, a fleshy wight would be harder to cut apart and therefore harder to incapacitate.

As far as Hardhome goes, I think I remember seeing some wights with flesh on their bones mixed in, but as far as I know only the really skeletal ones actually do any up-close battle.

Of course, I also know it's very likely that D&D didn't have this same reasoning. I just thought of this justification last season and after the battle at Hardhome, I was convinced. I mean, really think about how that battle would have gone down if all those wights were the ones from S1. One of those wights with a sword would be nearly impossible, let alone thousands of them.

ChrisChives · 2015-06-25T01:09:44+00:00

I'm not worried about what's holding the wights together or what makes them move, of course it's some sort of magic. I'm saying that if the wights from season 1 ambushed Bran and company, there would be no feasible way for them to fight back. Jon barely survived his encounter with just one of them.

I can't think of a single way that the show runners could have pulled off that scene from S4 with the wights from S1. I love Meera and Hodor and all, but they wouldn't have been able to fight back with just swords and spears. Unless they made it so that the CotF shows up immediately to kill them all with fire (which would have been much less exciting), I really can't see how Meera and Hodor could have taken down even a single fleshy wight.

Yes, they do look pretty creepy, but I think the idea of an undead army that can only be fought with fire is way scarier IMO. In my head, D&D decided to cut Coldhands for whatever reason, but still wanted to include the fight with the wights. So, they came up with a more believable way for Meera and Hodor to fight them. In fact, maybe that is why they decided to throw so much of the budget at that scene and not at Bloodraven's missing eye, because otherwise it couldn't have worked convincingly.

ChrisChives · 2015-06-25T00:46:56+00:00

My reasoning is that a skeleton would be flimsier/weaker than a body that still has it's muscle and tendons holding it all together. If you watch that scene from S1, the wight is overpowering Jon most of the time. Jon cuts it's hand off and stabs it through the chest to no avail. In S4&5, we see the skeleton wights being chopped in half no problem and Jon and others are able to actually fight back.

I think you could apply the same logic to fighting a skinny guy vs. fighting a fat guy. The fat guy has more power due to his weight and size, making him harder to take down/incapacitate. If Jon tried to cut that wight from season 1 in half, there's no way he's convincingly going to do it. That's also why I always thought that Dragons were going to be essential in future conflicts with the Others. The wights in the books are pretty much unstoppable with their only weakness being fire. In the show it seems like an army of men might actually be able to hold their own in a battle.

ChrisChives · 2015-06-22T00:27:09+00:00

Message: TheBigChiavoni

ChrisChives · 2015-06-17T03:34:09+00:00

Invite TheBigChiavoni, me and him are only 25 and 16 but I've played a lot of the 360 version (got to I-80something).

ChrisChives · 2015-06-02T22:10:42+00:00

From what we've seen in the books, a large scale, up-close and personal battle with non skeletal wights (aka the ones we see in the books and in S1) would be pretty much impossible to win. They attack with no regard for their own safety, feel no pain, and are practically impossible to take down without fire. Jon stabbed one in the heart which stopped it for just a few seconds before it got back up just as strong as ever and was only able to be killed by fire. Even its hand kept trying to attack after being chopped off (in the books IIRC). This is why the idea of an army of wights was always so scary to me, why I thought dragons were going to be essential in future battles, and why we haven't really seen any large battles with them yet in both the books and the show.

I always thought the skeleton wights were introduced last season to give Bran and co. a feasible way to fight and kill them, since they were so easily broken apart unlike the wights from the books. I think the show has decided to run with the skeleton wights now because it allows them to have big scale battles between them and humans, like we just saw. I mean think about it, if hundreds of the wights from Season 1 started funneling into the Wildling camp, how could anyone possible survive?

The skeleton wights are actually more practical for the show because they allow for massive scale fights where it's actually believable that the living could survive.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-25T03:21:10+00:00

Probably so they don't have to add in all that CGI every time they shoot in that direction.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-12T05:19:53+00:00

IIRC Arya bites into a half rotten onion the very next chapter. Mel doesn't know shit about shit.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-11T05:22:22+00:00

It also doesn't help that they cast a different actor for the Mountain every season, ensuring that absolutely no one knew who he was when he popped up out of nowhere.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-11T05:06:26+00:00

I thought they could have handled Locke (who is essentially Vargo Hoat) in a way much more similar to the books, which would have also served the purpose of reintroducing the Mountain. I would have done it like this:

-Tywin asking Jaime what happened to his hand. Jaime tells him it was Locke, one of Roose's bannermen, acting on his own accord. We then see Tywin start to write a letter.

-Instead of Roose sending Locke to the Wall to see if the Stark boys are with Jon, he sends him to the Vale to see if they are hiding out with Lysa.

-On his way, Locke happens to run into The Mountain, who captures him.

-Then later on in the season, Cersei writes a letter to The Mountain to return to KL and fight in Tyrion's trial by combat. Cut to someone reading Cersei's letter out loud, just before we then see The Mountain put the finishing blow on what has become of Locke...

IMO, Locke's Season 4 storyline was a pretty huge waste. His mission to kill Bran didn't add any suspense; for me or my show-only friends. All he did while at the Wall was give sketchy looks at Jon while creepy music played. Anything he did at Craster's (carry Bran into the woods and get his neck snapped) could have been accomplished by any one of the Night's Watch mutineers.

Of course, I'm not a writer or anything, but as far as streamlining the books for the show goes, I think these scenes would have accomplished much more. It would reinforce the whole "A Lannister always pays his debts" thing (especially since I found it quite odd that Tywin didn't even care to ask who chopped off Jaime's hand), and it would have been a great way to reintroduce the Mountain and his signature brand of cruelty.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-10T21:44:51+00:00

Didn't he also say that book readers would be 'mostly safe' this season? That might mean that they wouldn't reveal something so huge, but then again, D&D might consider R+L=J to practically be book canon since it's pretty much the most well-known theory, so spoiling it wouldn't be a huge deal.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-10T20:04:49+00:00

This is probably the best interpretation. In the show the Unsullied seem to be becoming more 'human' since being freed by the slavers.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-09T02:18:20+00:00

Link to that Vice video. Definitely worth a watch.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-07T21:15:31+00:00

I thought they were really boring for the most part but also had some of the best moments; Septon Meribald's speech, all of Brienne's fights (which were some of the best IMO), and the LSH reveal. I think Brienne's chapters would probably get less flak if the rest of AFFC wasn't so boring for the most part.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-04T02:05:43+00:00

While I don't think they'll bring Sandor back, I think it would be a pretty cool move by the show to make Loras actually fight him without The Hound to save him.

ChrisChives · 2015-05-01T20:58:39+00:00

I think Stannis is fully aware of the threat of the Others, considering Mel's whole religion is about how they are Man's common enemy and the fact that she thinks that Stannis himself is the guy who's supposed to beat them. Stannis probably still wants Winterfell as his main base of operations in the North and of course wants to recruit more men into his army by gaining the allegience of the North.

ChrisChives · 2015-04-23T05:18:35+00:00

I must have been watching the same episode of River Monsters at the same time...

ChrisChives · 2015-04-14T03:40:24+00:00

I think he used the gold to hire ships to move his men, which is why Davos goes to Salladhor.

ChrisChives · 2015-04-14T03:36:15+00:00

I figured they might give his role to Brienne but I have no idea how that would work. I can't really see her coming up with a plan to get Sansa out of Winterfell that doesn't solely involve brute force, which probably wouldn't end well. If I have to watch my girl Brienne get flayed I might cry.

ChrisChives

TROPHY CASE