Warning: there will be spoilers if you dare click ahead. DON’T CLICK AHEAD IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. ARGH!
I found yesterday’s Season 4 finale to be a little bit weird. Was it just me? It seemed as though people did strange things that didn’t quite makes sense.
Like Stannis just sort of decided to conquer the army behind the wall. And what happened to Mance Raider’s 100,000 men anyway?
Tyrion got set free and decided to kill the shit out of two people before leaving. Didn’t see that one coming.
Cersei stopped giving a shit about what other people thought, despite it being her major concern for 3+ seasons.
Maybe I’m being a little critical, but at points during yesterday’s finale it almost felt like I was watching a different show. Weird. Apparently the episode deviated quite a bit from the book, but to be perfectly honest I stopped reading the books after the first one, so I’m not too sure what that means, if the book did a better job of explaining motives and whatnot. Maybe folks in the comments can explain that one.
Anyway — what were your thoughts on the show? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
83 responses to “Off Topic: The Game Of Thrones Finale”
Television CGI has come a long, looong way.
That was such a Ray Harryhausen homage
I thought that as I was watching. 😀
It’s funny. I thought the dragons looked terribly fake and was painfully aware that they were CGI. Probably due to really high contrast in a dark room. And then I didn’t even think about the fact that the skeletons were CGI. Really well done and total suspension of disbelief until I thought about it right now!
the CGI if Arya on the boat in the last scene against the island/hillside backdrop looked god awful, like she just walked onto a news set greenscreen.
This was a rough season- we’re getting to the point in the books where it’ll always be tough to adapt- but I thought the Tywin and Arya plots were well handled. Brienne vs the Mountain was great- a proper brawl.
Bran… I feel it’s too soon.
That fight was amazing (Brienne vs the Hound you mean) – really brutal and tense! His plea to Arya was really well done too, great acting, I actually felt really bad for the guy and a bit angry at her for not putting him out of his misery. Poor chap had a hard road. 🙁
That was the high point of the episode.
He was definately allot more likeable in the series, he quickly became one of my favourite characters, love his way with words.
I thought it was a great scene…almost like she was about to, then, when trying to convince her to do it, he actually reminded her why she shouldn’t. Cold as ice!
THE HOUND!!! How can you forget the name, he hates the king and takes all your chicken.
I’m going to miss the Hound so much… no more witty way with words
I think you screwed up. The headline/frontpage picture should have been a picture of
TyrionTywin with arrows sticking out of his chest. Just so people knew exactly which episode you were talking about.EDIT: Those characters have stupid names.
Tywin?
Yeah that guy. I looked up to make sure first and everything and still typed it wrong.
Still should put a picture of Tyrion up like that and troll the hell out of everybody.
Yeah, the psycho skeletons were a bit much. They were good to show what the Westeros will have to go up against come winter, but in the books, they were still just wights. Half frozen with their guts hanging out. That actually would have been scarier.
Jojen had no need to die so I wonder what that was all about? And that entire bit doesn’t happen until Dance with Dragons…
Whoops! I meant to reply to your previous reply…
Stannis being at the wall will no doubt be explained in the next season, but it’s basically just because the “Lord of Light” said so. The wildlings were always going to be easily dispersed and broken if the King of the North was taken.
Tyrion finding Shae and revealing Tywins blatant hypocrisy was probably the final straw for him.
I think Cersei telling Tywin about her and Jaime was purely out of spite. It was a sort of “revenge” for being sent to Highgarden. She was never a mature character.
As far as differences with the books – I’m not surprised at all. Next season will be pretty boring if they didn’t delay at least one of the big moments.
I’m pretty sure I’m remembering this correctly from the books but I believe Stannis actually comes to the north with the urging of the Onion Knight who reminds him that before proclaiming himself King he needs to act the part and protect his kingdoms.
Just googled, you’re correct. This is what I get for trying to recall from a book I read 13 years ago.
=] Easy to forget all the little plotlines isn’t it xD I’m going to re-read Dance of Dragons again once George releases the next one, if he ever does >.<
I think when the next book eventually comes out I’ll just have my phone open on the asoiaf wiki page the whole time.
That actually makes sense. I the episode I was a bit confused as to why Stannis decided to rock up, somewhat conveniently, when he did.
If you watch season 3, they get a letter from Master Aemon asking for help to fight the white walkers and wildlings. Davos tells Stannis he should go North and Melisandre agrees. It just took a while to get there via Bravos.
Maester Aemon sent ravens to all 5 of the self-proclaimed Kings requesting assistance. Stannis is the only one to show up, and mostly at the urging of Melisandre and Davos.
This.
The Hound and Brienne never fought in the book, The Hound’s bite wound got infected and as he lay dying Arya left him in a similar fashion.
Bran got to the three-eyed crow in book 5 I think it was, we are only now finishing book 3 in the series so that storyline has definately jumped the gun, we may see some unreleased/unwritten material for season 5??
I was waiting for Twyins bowels to loosen as he died, weather that was out of the wound or what as it seemed to get brought up in the book allot.
Didn’t the Knights Watch send letters out to all of Westeros and Davos convinced Stannis to aid them in the attack on the wall.
I don’t remember Cercei admitting to incest to her father, and Jamie never confessed to Tyrion in the series about how his first wife Tysha not being a whore afterall, perhaps they wanted to leave those 2 on good terms?
Ohh of course, Jaime telling Tyrion about Tysha! Totally forgot about that. That’s interesting… thats such a big beat in the moment too, and plagues Tyrion. Dang, thats… unfortunate, I guess.
It’s a huge plot point for both of their characters – “where do whores go”, “… and moon boy for all I know”.
Pretty massive omission, and a real shame to remove that scene.
Oh yeah I forgot that line too! Geeeez. Super shame.
possible spoilers for future shows;
I thought it was good, i haven’t read the books and this is totally speculation.. but i think Cersei is gonna become some crazy witch bitch, the lanister house has pretty much fallen and i think that would be an amazing thing to happen especially if she’s raising the dead now using dark magic n shit. she’s lost her sons now and it would be insane if she came out about her sibling love deal. creating a twisted minded hate filled woman, who’s perfect for a dark witch style role
I agree, so many things made no sense. Tyrion suddenly wants to kill his gf? Alright then…..
Truthfully I don’t think it’s a very good show, it kinda baffles me as to why a) I keep watching it and b) why it seems to get such unanimous critical praise….94 on metacritic?
It’s all pretty ridiculous, silly plot, too many characters. Hurry up True Detective.
She did just lie about him in his murder trial and he found her sleeping in his father’s bed.
I thought it was pretty obvious too, but thanks for spelling it out for him 🙂
…and she did try to kill him first in last nights episode
ROME did it for me on HBO
but the damned set burnt down
:'(
This episode’ story was extremely rushed even for its extra run time, they definitely should of added an extra whole episode to cover it.
Yeah the Stannis thing was just as ‘wut, but… why?’ when it happens in the book. It’s kinda the conversations that occur afterwards that shed light on it and flesh it out. Which is all pretty interestingggg
Also if I recall correctly the book touches on the idea that there’s passages to everywhere in King;s Landing, and of course to Tywin’s chambers, which Tyrion reflected on a fair bit. And I think there’s a moment where Tyrion asks Varys where a certain ladder goes, and Varys is like ahhhhh… Tywin but dude lets just go. Some such. And Tyrion’s like, nah man just a sec, wait here
I’m, pretty sure In season 3 the Night’s Watch send out ravens to every town/city/keep asking for help against the Wildlings and the Walkers. I remember Davos reading it in his broken English to Stannis, and they heeded the call.
I think that’s how it went down in the book too. If I’m remembering correctly.
Yeah true, true. Fair point. But there is more clarity following, what with (slight spoiler so rot13)
Wba punggvat gb Zryvfnaqer nobhg fghss
Aye, Aye 😉
Stannis is also told about the “army of death in the north ” that marches to the wall
Right, I don’t remeber that at all. And I guess a “previously on GoT” is 1. not in the show’s style and b. would have kinda ruined the moment.
There is before the episode starts on foxtel
ROT13’d coz of book spoilers :
ab Fgbarurneg.
V jbhyq’ir ybirq sbe gur frnfba gb raq ba gung pyvssnatre.
I KNOWWWW. Was totally hanging out for that. They have talked about how season 5 will be tricky to end, so makes sense it might be saved for an ending there? If it can be held off for that long? Man it will be great though
like I said in TAY, I’d be really interested to know why they decided against that inclusion. IMO, it was too perfect to pass up, but I’m sure they had their reasons.
(bad reasons. they were wrong.)
Nah I reckon its as above, they had enough content already. Saving it for next season.
There is an article on io9.com about it if you are interested… I won’t link it cause the title is a bit of a spoiler!
whats Rot13?
EDIT: nevermind
best thing to use while the spoiler tags are down.
yes definately, specially after Jagers header image on a post a few weeks back…
“ab vgf whfg n jenvgu, qbag znxr vg vagb n ovt qrny!”
Yeah, that was all pretty silly.
You should read the books, it explains ALOT of what happens.
This is explained better in the books. Stannis’ right hand man Davos convinces him that to win the realm, he first has to save it, starting with the North. It’s basically a PR exercise.
As to the rout of the wildling army — foot soldiers always balk when faced with heavily armed cavalry. Also, Mance said several times that his people were done bleeding and commanded them not to fight. (I agree they could have done a better job representing the size of the army though.)
This section is missing a HUGE plot point from the books that causes Tyrion to go on a homicidal rampage. He also wants to kill Jaime but doesn’t get the chance. Big deviation here.
This also doesn’t happen in the books. But I think they did a pretty good job explaining her motives: Tywin was planning to cart her off to another arranged marriage and cut off access to her son. She was a mother having a maternal freak out.
Hodor
HODOR!!!
Hodor?
Anti climax….I was sitting quite nervously through the whole episode but at the end I thought ” It was ok but…wheres the big end to the season?” Almost like I needed something a little more.
I think I’m going to have to start reading the books
The really annoying this is, the ending we got was pretty much the ending of the book – minus the epilogue, which would’ve been that huge cliffhanger ending this season needed. Hopefully it’s just being held off until next season and not cut out entirely.
Considering it ‘introduces’ a fairly significant character, it would be pretty weird to leave it out entirely. Personally, I think it would have made for an awesome ending to the season, but starting that plotline would have added at least 10 minutes to the episode.
What about Brandon Stark? He will learn to fly! At first I thought he’d get his ability to walk again but I guess he’s going to fly…
And I wasn’t expecting The Hound and Brienne to fight, though I’m glad brienne won. They are both good characters but The Hound had nothing going for him during the end of the season.
That was pretty funny how he was shot down straight away – “yay I’m going to walk again!”, “nup, you’ll never do that again. But you’ll fly!” WTF…
A lot of that episode to me felt like the show writers went “oh fuck, we forgot about this that was suppose to be happening!” And put it all in that episode.
The Stannis stuff could have been attached to last weeks and then they could have used the time in this episode to flesh out the reasons.
Tyrions rampage needed more dialoge to make more sense in my opinion.
From what I have read around the net the last few hours, the Brienne vs Hound fight will be a key indicator and probably feature in a “previously on…” down the track when Oevraar vf pncgherq ol Ynql Fgbarurneg, naq znxrf n qrny gb tb naq xvyy gur crefba jub tnir ure bnguxrrcre, fur gura gryyf gung crefba fur fnj gur Ubhaq jvgu Fnafn Fgnex, ohg jr xabj fur yrsg uvz gb qvr nsgre svtugvat uvz.
This rot13 thing is handy.
But why not just spoiler tags?
My bad, didn’t realise they were on the fritz.
How do you use spoiler tags when they are working
You click the little eyeball thing about the text box and then s and /s pops up in pointy brackets. Or you can just type the HTML tags yourself if you’re that way inclined…
thank you kind sir
I haven’t read the books at all so this is my opinions based on watching the series:
I recall an episode where Stannis and Melisandre were concerned about the threat north of the wall, also what better way for him to gain a bigger following then to defend the north from the wildling invasion.
I feel like Tyrion has been pushed over the edge a bit this season, his whole family (minus Jamie) wants him dead, they have manipulated the entire trial to have him executed. Then he is offered a chance for freedom where he would have to give up his home and his money, essentially his life is over so he decided to “confront” his father. Along the way he finds the woman he loved who betrayed him lying in his fathers bed, if that’s not enough to make him snap I dont know what else you need.
She isn’t the most mature character in the show, she will do anything to get what she wants. She doesnt want to marry Lorris and wants to be around Tommin to protect him. So what better way then to tell her father her ‘secret’ and essentially cause Jamie to have to side with her (as he is implicated in it)
Too be honest, I’m sure last night’s episode seems tame considering the season we have had so far, but I don’t know what else that had to do to make people happy, they essentially did to the Lannisters what they did to the Starks last season. Their family is basically shattered now.
I thought most of it made perfect sense to the show, Im sure some things will get explained better next season but I seriously can’t wait, 251 days to go 😀
Brandon Stark will never walk again “but you will fly”.
He will get to control the dragon with his mind vision/hijack thing.
No, I havent read the books. Im just speculating.
Love the books!!! Serrels finish them lol for the record jojen never died! The Hound fight was cool but I am a book purist and really think that should not have happened. One can only assume now brienne will never meet dick crabb. I am glad mag the mighty got an honorable mention but no donal noye and instead grenn battled mag grrrrrrrrrr!
jojen dying threw me as well. He has key things to add on Bran’s journey.
I thought Jojen would’ve made some sort of indication that he knew his time was up, a few solemn words or something. Having seen his death and all.
So it took stannis and his army a hundred days (and an entire season of ten episodes assuming ten days per episode) to travel the thousand miles from the south to mance rader’s camp beyond the wall but mance rader was incapable of simply getting his people south of the wall with white walkers on them like hungry wolves all the way? Frankly Sam is more leadership material than mance. He alone seems to understand the knights watch is to guard the Realms of men – even the ones north of the wall. Frankly the red witch should watch herself least the fat man stick her with a dragon glass spear.
I never got a proper sense of the full scale of Mance’s army. The book tells of over a hundred thousand men, yet the battle at the wall was (while visually entertaining) surprisingly small-scale, afterwards we see a pretty meagre number of wildlings in the forest – hell, when Stannis rocks up with his army that felt much more overwhelming than anything I’ve seen from Mance’s side. In a few minutes Mance’s men are defeated, we see maybe 30 killed on screen and are told afterwards that “thousands” of his men are now captives.
I mean, I don’t mind a smaller number representing a large number via strong implications that there are many more, but for all the talk up in both the books and the show, at no point did I really ‘feel’ that he had such a large force, and it was all over too quickly.
TLDR: I think they used the thick woods to “hide” showing Mance’s full force
But where do Whores go?
Yes!!! Exactly this
Also, Tywin had a better death in the books. Tyrion actually shot him in the guts and then witnessed that Tywin Lannister does NOT indeed shit gold…
And this haha!
Idk how they could have shown Tywin shitting himself on screen without it coming across as silly. Tyrion shoots him after they have this big moment then you hear a fart noise and he shits himself? I think most viewers would either of laughed or thought the shitting thing was over the top.
Damn… If he shit over the top then that would have been a thing to behold!…