Game of Thrones Season 6 general discussion.

[tippy2k2]

Maybe it's the small sample size (we have three comments on here about the new episode and I took a quick look at Facebook) but am I the only one that thought that last episode (9; "Battle of the Bastards") was a complete and utter fucking cop-out?

Are we supposed to use spoilers here? This is the first time I've wandered in here and when it said Season 6 General Discussion, I assumed spoilers would be assumed but the people above me are all using spoiler tags...

Spoiler

It's one big thing I've been kind of afraid of and I suppose they still have time to prove me wrong but now that we're past the books, the "big names" get some shiny plot armor. Thrones will knock off the less important names but the likes of Snow can make the dumbest decisions possible and their plot armor will render those decisions moot.

Abandoned your battle plan and charged at the bad guys? Whatevs, everyone will be behind you to save you with some plot armor.
Stand in the middle of the battlefield with arrows murdering every single thing around you (sometimes literally as actual ring of arrows end up around you)? Those arrows are unable to pierce your mighty plot armor!
Oh shit, your horribly botched abandonment of the plan failed miserably and now a literal circle of spears are about to kill every one of you? Don't worry, another army carrying fresh sheets of plot armor will save you!

Good God I hope that HBO hasn't lost their balls now that they've overtaken RR Martins work. While sometimes that felt like killing for killing sake, it at least made you worry for each and every character...

Spoiler

Well how much plot armor do you want reduced in this show? Like do you want at the very least Jon Snow scarred or lost a hand or something? And besides Ramsey was criticized for having the biggest plot armor and he finally dies

No one else is using spoilers so I'm going back to the "You're in this thread so you're going to get spoilered" mode because the spoiler tag bugs me...

Some are inevitably going to survive longer because you won't have much of a show if everyone has been murdered but can he not survive in such a ridiculously stupid way?

As for Ramsay having plot armor, I don't think he ever had plot armor since he never put himself in danger. There's nothing for the plot to armor him from as he was never in any danger. Snow on the other hand was revived from the dead, ran at an army all by himself, had literal circles of arrows put around him (seriously, I'm almost positive that literal circles of arrows fell around him), got trampled in a mob before pulling himself out, then a super secret army showed up to save him once the shield guys had them completely and utterly fucked.

Was that the writers plans all along even if Snow had been hated by the fans? I don't know but you're going to have to forgive me if I'm worried that the writers have lost the guts to kill the big names (the big "Holy shit, what a show!" factor for me at least) when they give Jon Snow a Mario star of invincibility in the middle of a giant battle.

 

[balladbird]

Seems the show runners did some research on the battle of Cannae before writing this episode. It made the battle more fun to see actual tactics at play, I admit. Most fantasy/medieval movie and show writers seem convinced that all middle age battles were just two groups of guys charging into each other and yelling.

That said, it also means we have to add "tactical genius on par with Hannibal Barca" to the ever-growing list of things Ramsay Bolton was inexplicably amazing at. Such a tiresomely perfect villain, can't say I'll miss him.

Enjoying the season more than the last, if not as much as the first few.

 

[Frankster]

Just watched recent episode, my crappy impressions completely free of anyone else's opinion since I've literally just watched it...

Spoiler

I know other things happened but right now all I can comment on is the Battle of the Bastardz.
Now I enjoyed it as a spectacle and the whole bit where Jon randomly stumbles around the battlefield is deliciously chaotic, but there was so many little silly things it took me out of the scene at times.. Where do I begin..

Allright so Jon abandoning their plan of letting the Boltons do the charging, that was a delicious moment of character fucking up due to their own flaws, and it almost very much cost the battle here and there before it even started.
I hated the cheap camera trick they do where they make it seem like the Bolton cavalry was a heartbeat away from killing Jon but yet somehow, they get counter charged just in time. BS. Fake outs like that are so cheap, Jon should have died here and there. Actually I was surprised that Ramsay Bolton didn't do the whole Rickon game as a trick to shoot some free arrows into Jon. Overall I feel like Jon got saved by mega plot armor here, and it annoys me because I like the illusion of GoT characters being as mortal as any random extra.

Anyways battle is drawn, and as I said I loved Jon randomly stumbling around even if part of me instinctively feels that it looked more like a mosh pit at Glastonbury then it did an actual battle with organized lines and formations and what not.

Ser Davos deciding to stop firing with his archers and lead them into melee combat made me lol. The hilarious part is it actually ends up working too, them rear charge bonuses are kinda broken in Total War: Westeros imo.

Say what you will about Jon Umber, but the man's a tactical genius. The way he got to perfectly surround the enemy army with heavy infantry completely unnoticed and unopposed required the kind of military nous that would make Sun Tzu take notes. Honestly just for that I felt the Bolton army "deserved" to win, up to this point Jon's army has pretty much done every single thing wrong.

And indeed, when they were perfectly surrounded, both by the Umber heavy infantry and the piles of their own dead (how the heck is that possible? Jon im sorry but you are a horribad military commander on par with Aragorn from LOTR, I'm seriously tempted to start a thread "worst military commanders in fiction" just because of this), it felt so friggin cheap to have horns blow and oh wow, here comes the Vale knights arriving at just the exact time they are most needed to win the day.. Even though we knew this would happen, it still felt like a cheap way to resolve the battle.

I'd somewhat expect Jon to be having words with Samsa next episode though. After all whilst he was there being bitched at and desperately asking where he could find more men, she knew where those extra men were the entire time and didn't share the information.

..Then again considering my assessment of Jon's tactical acumen, maybe it's for the best and Samsa not saying they had a ton of reinforcements is what won the battle. But still, Jon's got a right to be a little pissed about it.

Anyways RIP wun wun, was fun to see him do his stuff and end up opening Winterfell for the rest of the wildlings to come pouring through.

Ramsay Bolton got a gruesome end that will hopefully please people that were clamoring for it for over 2 seasons now.
Personally I interpret Samsa actually chosing to stay and watch as Ramsay to be a sign he wasn't entirely wrong when saying he was now a part of her. Like she absorbed a bit of Littlefinger and became more manipulative, seems she absorbed a bit of Ramsay's cruelty, could not imagine the Samsa of earlier seasons looking on as someone was dieing horribly like that, even if that person was Joffrey.

Oh and one final thing about Ramsay..I feel he got taken out way too easily in the duel.
We've seen Ramsay being super quick and sharp with weapons and to be very comfortable with close quarters combat, such as versus the ironborn. Whilst being half naked at that.
Heck even in the Telltales GoT game, you got an option to try to kill Ramsay, but it always fails because he is just too quick.

So we know this guy can fight damn well and super dirty, he even outfoxed Osha.
And Jon just walks up to him and slams him with a shield? I half expected Ramsay to have produced a hidden knife and stab him as he tried doing that.
I kept expecting him to have some hidden trick or dirty deed, but..no. Jon just walks up to him, bashes him and then he lies there and does nothing. Is this really the same Ramsay we've seen before?
When I think back to those whom people consider "villains" such as Tywin or even Stannis, all meeting their ends as a result of their own flaws.. Ramsay's death feels too easy and clean, he didn't lose because of anything he did nor did his flaws come back to doom him, he just lost cos Jon is now the chosen one and apparently can't die no matter how stupid his actions and Samsa had an army of knights around the corner waiting to be called in. Eugh this is not why I watch GoT for...

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Maybe it's the small sample size (we have three comments on here about the new episode and I took a quick look at Facebook) but am I the only one that thought that last episode (9; "Battle of the Bastards") was a complete and utter fucking cop-out?

Are we supposed to use spoilers here? This is the first time I've wandered in here and when it said Season 6 General Discussion, I assumed spoilers would be assumed but the people above me are all using spoiler tags...

Spoiler

It's one big thing I've been kind of afraid of and I suppose they still have time to prove me wrong but now that we're past the books, the "big names" get some shiny plot armor. Thrones will knock off the less important names but the likes of Snow can make the dumbest decisions possible and their plot armor will render those decisions moot.

Abandoned your battle plan and charged at the bad guys? Whatevs, everyone will be behind you to save you with some plot armor.
Stand in the middle of the battlefield with arrows murdering every single thing around you (sometimes literally as actual ring of arrows end up around you)? Those arrows are unable to pierce your mighty plot armor!
Oh shit, your horribly botched abandonment of the plan failed miserably and now a literal circle of spears are about to kill every one of you? Don't worry, another army carrying fresh sheets of plot armor will save you!

Good God I hope that HBO hasn't lost their balls now that they've overtaken RR Martins work. While sometimes that felt like killing for killing sake, it at least made you worry for each and every character...

Spoiler

Well how much plot armor do you want reduced in this show? Like do you want at the very least Jon Snow scarred or lost a hand or something? And besides Ramsey was criticized for having the biggest plot armor and he finally dies

As for Ramsay having plot armor, I don't think he ever had plot armor since he never put himself in danger. There's nothing for the plot to armor him from as he was never in any danger. Snow on the other hand was revived from the dead, ran at an army all by himself, had literal circles of arrows put around him (seriously, I'm almost positive that literal circles of arrows fell around him), got trampled in a mob before pulling himself out, then a super secret army showed up to save him once the shield guys had them completely and utterly fucked.

About Ramsay not having plot armor...I think you are forgetting about the time when he fought off a group of about a dozen armed and armored men with a pair of daggers, some dogs, and absolutely nothing else, and came out the other side unscathed. I'm not arguing that Jon didn't have a massive set of plot armor this last episode, but it's a bit disingenuous to say that Ramsay never had any plot armor.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Hahaha logistics. Logistics has become a punch line on the show. Need a character in place X by Y time? Poof! They're there!

The same is true in the books though, given the actual distances involved. True, Littlefinger's jetpack is particularly egregious, but in general people have always been able to travel way, way faster and easier than medieval logistics would suggest. That journey Dany made to Qarth across bare desert with a bunch of sick and dying Dothraki.. over a thousand miles. The equivallent would be crossing the sahara desert (which medieval people did, but with well prepared caravans with camels and along tried and trusted routes, not just wandering across, even today it is not possible to just wander across). Euron Greyjoy's invasion of the reach.. like launching an invasion across the Atlantic ocean.

In essence, GRRM made the setting too big for what he actually wanted characters to be able to do in it. Westeros could have been the size of the British isles or even Western Europe and it would have worked fine. As it is, it's the size of the entire Americas, with Essos being closer to the size of the entire Eurasian continent. The show took these discrepancies and ran with them, but they were already there.

Ser Davos deciding to stop firing with his archers and lead them into melee combat made me lol. The hilarious part is it actually ends up working too, them rear charge bonuses are kinda broken in Total War: Westeros imo.

Well, in real life archers aren't some special breed of humans with terrible muscle atrophy whose brittle bones shatter when someone bumps into them, like in Total War. I wouldn't take Total War as a particularly realistic or credible standard here.

 

[tippy2k2]

About Ramsay not having plot armor...I think you are forgetting about the time when he fought off a group of about a dozen armed and armored men with a pair of daggers, some dogs, and absolutely nothing else, and came out the other side unscathed. I'm not arguing that Jon didn't have a massive set of plot armor this last episode, but it's a bit disingenuous to say that Ramsay never had any plot armor.

You're probably right since I'm just going off of memory. Maybe Ramsay has had super plot armor and I never noticed but it seemed like even when Ramsay was in danger, he usually sat back Shredder style; letting the foot clan get their asses handed to them before finally stepping in. It's a long series though so I may be misremembering stuff...

 

[Frankster]

Well, in real life archers aren't some special breed of humans with terrible muscle atrophy whose brittle bones shatter when someone bumps into them, like in Total War. I wouldn't take Total War as a particularly realistic or credible standard here.

Wasn't really what I meant and the Total War:Westeros with archers being OP in it was meant as topical humor, which very clearly fell flat on its face.

About Ramsay not having plot armor...I think you are forgetting about the time when he fought off a group of about a dozen armed and armored men with a pair of daggers, some dogs, and absolutely nothing else, and came out the other side unscathed. I'm not arguing that Jon didn't have a massive set of plot armor this last episode, but it's a bit disingenuous to say that Ramsay never had any plot armor.

You're probably right since I'm just going off of memory. Maybe Ramsay has had super plot armor and I never noticed but it seemed like even when Ramsay was in danger, he usually sat back Shredder style; letting the foot clan get their asses handed to them before finally stepping in. It's a long series though so I may be misremembering stuff...

Regarding this since I previously somewhat commented on it... Whether you call it Plot armor or not is probably a question of semantics, but Ramsay was previously shown to be a very capable and deadly fighter and always portrayed as very quick...

Thus it felt weird when he stopped displaying any of those characteristics during his final episode and it made Jon beating him slightly surreal, almost like Ramsay wasn't even trying.