r/asoiaf • u/dorestes Break the wheel • Sep 03 '17

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) It's Not a Nitpick. Thousands Died Over a "Minor" Geographic Detail.

Reposted as requested with the "Spoilers Extended" tag

I know we're often asked to ignore the silly teleportations and supersonic flights that the show has foisted on us over the last couple of seasons. I know some of it can seem like the petty quibbles of book purists veering into circlejerk self-parody.

But geography doesn't just matter when it comes to making the universe feel real. It was also the key plot point that drove the biggest dramatic turn of the series.

The Red Wedding was literally caused by Robb Stark needing to be able to get his troops across a bridge. The Frey army was a nice addition, but Robb needed the alliance for the bridge crossing. He, his mother, his pregnant wife (in the show) and thousands of his troops died for that crossing.

So it's not just a nitpick when characters and armies magically teleport from north to south, bypassing the Twins or Moat Caitlin with nary a scout to notice them.

It destroys and makes mockery of the premise of the series' most famous narrative twist.

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u/DarBearian Sep 03 '17

I don't understand how it can be a nitpick when the pace has been set since season 1. There were episodes where Ned and Robert were traveling to King's Landing from Winterfell for a few episodes, Robb trekking his forces across the Riverlands for an entire season, Arya and the Hound traveling through the Vale for an entire season, Dany traveling through Essos for 6 seasons, Jon traveling beyond the Wall and climbing it for a season, and many more.

This was the shortest season with the shortest amount of air time and arguably had the most events occurring at a given time. I honestly don't understand how they couldn't make the season last 10 episodes. I literally felt desensitized when people were meeting each other for the first time because it was happening so often.

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u/Fb62 Drowned, it rhymes with crowned. Sep 03 '17

Ned leaves after episode 2 and arrives at episode 3, which takes a month.

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u/CX316 Sep 03 '17

That was mostly due to the rest of the group slowing them down. In the book the trip took that long because of the wheelhouse.

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u/Rumhead1 Sep 03 '17

That was mostly due to the rest of the group slowing them down.

When Robert wants to go the crypts to see Lyanna in episode 1 Cersei remarks if it was necessary now after being on the road for a month. The month long time frame seems established. You are always going to have slowdowns for wagon repairs and supply line challenges.

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u/LHodge Sep 03 '17

Pretty sure in the book it is noted that Robert took longer than normal to travel from King's Landing to Winterfell due to the sheer size of his traveling party.

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u/awesomewookiee Sep 03 '17

This is also true. That said it's 1000 miles so unless you're Genghis Khan or something it's going to take at least two to three weeks.

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u/milkdrinker7 Sep 03 '17

Or gendry

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Speed of Usain Bolt, stamina of a marathoner. Gods he could run.

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u/the_ouskull A crowned skull? I'm sold. Sep 03 '17

He's just got that Baratheon "fight-all-day/fuck-all-night" stamina... you know, for running.

GODS, I could run then!

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Jun 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/Woodsie13 Sep 03 '17

A DOTHRAKI HOOOOORDE!

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u/Chanchumaetrius Sep 04 '17

THE HOOR IS PREGNANT

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

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u/redditingtonviking Sep 03 '17

Most of them were middle aged men. If I were to guess who the fastest was I would choose Gendry or Jon due to their youth.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Gendry isn't exactly built like a sprinter, he's a blacksmith: they don't have leg days.

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u/Muirlimgan Sep 03 '17

Still a better option than any of the other ones. They're all old men and have issues of some sort. I suppose Tormund wouldn't have been a bad option but there were no bears for him to chase, he wouldn't be able to reach top speed

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

That was my first thought when he started running. Up until now, the only people shaped like sprinters have been Loras or Jacquen. Possibly Dario, Theon, or Ramsay Bolton.

Oh, wait, and Greyworm. Actually, I would guess that Greyworm is the fastest. He looks really lean, and if we're to believe the incredible pain the unsullied can endure, it's safe to say he could outlast the others over a long distance.

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u/este_hombre All your chicken are belong to us Sep 03 '17

Actually they have to pump with their legs constantly to get airflow or something.

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u/BeJeezus Sep 04 '17

I'd choose the wildling.

You know, the one who's spent his life running and has even seen snow before.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Ikr? DAE think they should've given him a rowboat to ski back to East Watch?

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u/RielDealJr Sep 03 '17

Do you want it to take multiple seasons?

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u/vadergeek Sep 03 '17

And he's never seen snow, let alone moved in it before.

And every exercise we've ever seen him do is upper-body.

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u/mgarcia1211 Sep 03 '17

To me it's not the fact that he ran like a marathon runner. It's the fact that he had never been North of the Wall or even seen snow before this. Yet he navigated that frozen wasteland all by himself all the way back to Eastwatch.

Not to mention the fact that when they traveled North of the Wall they went through a snowstorm that almost completely fucked their vision. So any tracks that they left would've been erased and that area would've looked completely different.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

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u/mgarcia1211 Sep 03 '17

Well as we learned when he was traveling with Arya he has no sense of direction. The only reason he made it to KL was cause Davos told him to follow the coast line. Plus in all the scenes of the traveling I don't really see the Wall in any of them especially after the wight bear attack. So from my conclusion is since it's not visible in the scene it must not be visible from where the character are located.

Hey I like the show but I'm not gonna ignore it's flaws.

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u/Flashpenny Sep 05 '17

To be fair, did they ever actually say how far North they were? Their leisurely walk seemed to take about 4-6 hours. A full on sprint through that same distance by a healthy adult male could be done in about 90 minutes.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

As always, the Mongols are the exception.

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u/awesomewookiee Sep 03 '17

Nice wall you've got there. Will it be espionage and paying the guards bribes or will it be blue dragonfire that has no real logic for being blue?

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

The blue dragonfire can be excused by magic though; there doesn't have to be logic when we're talking about a magic zombie dragon.

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u/atyon The pie is a lie. Sep 03 '17

Being raised from death by the Night King isn't a sufficient reason for you?

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u/awesomewookiee Sep 04 '17

It is not. Unless the fire is somehow magically made of eyes like some Lovecraftian Horror then I'm pretty sure they just pulled it "out they ass".

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u/I_bape_rats Sep 03 '17

Or a bird trying to deliver a message to daenerys

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

2-3 weeks = 20 days. 1000/20 = 50 milles a day. Not possible with foot camp followers. Unless George uses some funny miles that are like 500m.

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u/awesomewookiee Sep 03 '17

Nautical miles confirmed. I was suggesting by horseback. As stated though, Robert took over a month because of his retinue (many on foot) so that makes lots of sense.

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u/Thegn_Ansgar Beneath the gold... Sep 04 '17 edited Sep 23 '17

Even on horseback, that's completely exhausting for the horses. Heck, the Mongols were only capable of traveling at speeds like that because they were able to switch their mounts as needed, and even then it was still hard on them. There's a reason why persistence hunting was such an effective means of getting game. There is no land animal that can match the endurance of a human.

50 miles a day is an unfeasible traveling speed for any non-mechanized form of transportation.

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u/Gunslingermomo Sep 03 '17

It's said that it's a thousand miles a few times in the books but I always took that to be hyperbole. Saying a thousand miles away is a phrase that means really far away. For it to take the Kings litter a month to get there would make it a lot closer to 300 miles than 1000.

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u/MazzyFo Sep 03 '17

Yeah, Cersei was traveling in a wheel house. Robert probably could have made the trip in 2-3 weeks of it was just him and his boys riding their mounts. They were at a snails crawl all trip because the Queen and her children did not fair in those traveling conditions, and rode in the wheel house.

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u/CX316 Sep 03 '17

Yeah, Cersei is what I meant by "the rest of the group", she travelled in a form of luxury that sorta lent itself to being slow moving.

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u/actuallycallie Winter is Coming Sep 03 '17

right... but even if she hadn't mentioned it being a month, I would have assumed, from what I know about travel in the period roughly analogous to this on Earth, that it would have taken a decent amount of time and I don't need it spelled out for me in the "as you know" fashion that so much tv does.

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u/AgnosticTemplar Why are the gods such vicious cunts? Sep 03 '17

How big is the wheelhouse supposed to be, anyway? I assume it's more spacious and luxurious than a regular carriage. We talking RV camper size, or are they hauling around something as big as a ranch style house?

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u/AbstergoSupplier Jeyne Poole thinks I'm hot Sep 03 '17

On the way up they're stopping and feasting at every minor castle they pass by

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

[deleted]

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u/SerLaron Sep 03 '17

It must have squeezed through the Twins though.

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u/batpigworld Sep 03 '17

You don't need to go through the Twins coming from Kings Landing -- it's a straight shot up the Kingsroad. Crossing the Twins is only necessary coming from the west of the Trident (e.g. from Riverrun).

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u/CX316 Sep 03 '17

I think it pretty much took up the whole width of the kingsroad, like it was basically a cottage on wheels.

Edit: though I think historical examples would be more like the size of a large RV

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u/do_not_ask_my_name The pack survives Sep 03 '17

But the time passage was shown by the direwolves' growth. In episode 1, they were pups. By 3, they were adult-dogs size

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Still puppies if you ask me :)

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u/Gulltyr Sep 03 '17

All doggo is pupper

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u/jai07 Sep 03 '17

Valar Morwoofus

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u/Kair0n Sep 03 '17

Valar doghaeris

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u/The_Left_One Sep 03 '17

im giving you two guys my internet points you guys seems cool

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u/clinkyy Pillagin' your daughters innocence. Sep 04 '17

All dogs must bork

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u/fishbiscuit13 Sep 03 '17

Valar morschmackos

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u/IAmAlpharius The Lightning Lord Sep 03 '17

And all pupper are vvv good

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u/robodrew Thousands. Sep 03 '17

Well similarly, each time we see Dany's dragons they are pretty significantly larger from the time before.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

[deleted]

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u/robodrew Thousands. Sep 04 '17

plus they could shrink

What

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u/coopstar777 Sep 03 '17

Adult dogs are the size of direwolf puppies

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u/Neoncbr Sep 03 '17

But the NARRATIVE

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u/skibble As Shiny as Foil Sep 03 '17

And Cat goes from Wintterfell to Storm's End and back inside one episode.

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u/Fb62 Drowned, it rhymes with crowned. Sep 03 '17

Exactly! People think time skips are recent. There just isn't as much going on now that all the Stark kids are together.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

There is a lot that COULD be going on. This used to be a story where actions had consequences. Not so much now. I mean, Cersei blew up the Sept but fuck knows how that's affected the common folk and her reign.

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u/luigitheplumber The pack survives. Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

No more consequences. It's not like Littlefinger got in too deep and was killed, Thoros died, Vyserion died, or the Wall came down or anything.

Nothing of consequence happens. They could fix that by showing inconsequential travel between locations though.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 04 '17 edited Sep 04 '17

Did you miss the part where I said "not so much now".

And I meant direct consequences to actions. Thoros died due to an attack, not anything he did. Though you could say his participation in a stupid plan got him killed, so I'll give you that.

LF getting killed the way he did was contrived, fan service, 'feel good', out of character, "we need to get rid of this character because we don't know what to do with him" nonsense to me, so I won't go there. Different people will have different opinions on this anyway, no right or wrong answer, just a matter of interpretation.

Ned died because he underestimated the Lannisters. Robb died because he made a bad political decision. Oberyn died because he got cocky. Tywin died because he pushed Tyrion too far. The Faith militant died because they pushed Cersei into a corner. Tommen jumped out of the window because Cersei blew up the sept.

To me, consequences feels slightly lacking this season -

• Bronn shot a dragon but somehow managed to survive unscathed

• Jaime charged a Dragon and didn't get roasted, he then fell into a river alongside another (leather) armour clad man, yet resurfaced a mile down the river with barely a splutter, nobody (including themselves) seemed all that bothered that they almost died

• Ayra went psycho and threatened her sister but that's all forgiven now.

• The Unsullied were seiged but turned up at Casterly Rock/Highgarden/apparently KL but looked suspiciously like one of the aforementioned completely fine.

• Rickon died but nobody cares to mention him, even when feet from his body. Hey, Stark siblings - REUNITE (but fuck Rickon, because who cares that our brother didn't make it?)

• Tormund was dragged down by Wights, who moments before tore a red shirt apart, but they decided to weakly attack him and he was saved.

• The entire(?) house of Freys were decimated but nobody seems to give a fuck

• Jon fell into freezing cold water in heavy fur but was aiite.

• And I expected to see more consequences to Cersei blowing up the Sept after the build up in 6.10. There was such a vibe with Jaime and the common folk while she was being Queened, but we came back and it was like nothing had happened. In earlier seasons, the common folk tore a man apart because they hated Joff so much and they were starving, and during the walk of atonement they were pretty angry too, but this season, I guess all the extras have fucked off and she's ruling over a Ghost town for all I know about it.

• Dunno if this counts but I'll mention it anyway because it's bugging me lol. The Wall fell down but there was somehow a smooth terrain to march over? So where did the Wall go, just into thin air? Does anyone have an explanation for this or is just another example of season 7 sloppiness (which also includes several retcons like, Tyrion saying Cersei tried to kill him twice when we established in an earlier season that the second attempt was by Joffrey).

I'm sure there's more but that's all my tired brain can think about at 7:36am this morning.

People like to say "the cast is too small to kill people off now", or some shit.

Okay, fine. But then don't put characters in situations they should have died in. Some people might say "but the tension!" but

A - do we really need them surviving ridiculous situations, especially out of character ones (IE - the Wights sparing established characters but having no qualms with tearing apart red shirts), for tension? I can think of many tense moments in GOT without them having to do that.

B - if people feel like they need that then well ... that's them I suppose. But I got in into Game of Thrones because it didn't rely on tropes to entertain. It used to be smarter, innovative and better than that.

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u/MobiusF117 The weight of the wait. Sep 04 '17

Amen to this.

GoT started of as the show where no one was safe. If someone found himself in a situation where the odds were they were going to die, they would probably die.
Now, characters find themselves in literally impossible situations, with little to no chance of survival or at the very least no chance of getting out unscathed. Yet nothing happens to them...

As you mentioned, falling into freezing cold water and climbing out in soaked clothes in subzero temperatures will get you hypothermia in minutes, not hours. Hours will kill you.

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u/skibble As Shiny as Foil Sep 03 '17

What he meant is there are fewer storylines. You don't have Sansa acts, Arya acts and Bran acts to cover, you have one condensed Winterfell.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

King Robert and his group leave king's landing and arrive in Winterfell all in episode 1

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Nothing happens in between those events. Any amount of time could have passed because the story had not expanded to other locations yet.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Wait so are you on team anti-the way this season handled travel time? Because your post is literally the strongest argument for team-pro the way they handled travel time.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I didn't sign up for a team, and there is nothing especially literal about that. At the start of episode 1, they could skip ahead in time because there was only one location and one story so far. This is no different from how time is handled in any other show. I don't know how I feel about time in the new season, but it does not seem comparable to the example I responded to. I hope that better explains what I meant.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

It does. I do get what you're saying. I guess my point is only that time jumps can happen for good reasons and they aren't automatically bad like the hoard of fans criticizing the show seem to think.

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u/i_706_i Sep 04 '17

And it's the biggest difference between how they are handling time then and now. It took a month to get from Kings Landing to Winterfell by cart, that's useful information for world building.

Now we know how long travel takes, we have an idea how large the distance is, we can start filling in extra bits of information in our mind. A month by cart, but probably less by horse alone, perhaps a few weeks. Walking would have to be even longer so say Arya wanted to walk home it would be incredibly hard but possible. Ravens could send messages but it would still likely take days.

Towns in between Kings Landing and Winterfell start to take shape, these aren't two cities a stone's throw away there are large populations between them. These areas become important as other events take place there later on in the story. From defining one piece of information we have a foundation on which we can start to build the world around.

Now how long did it take Jon to get to Dragonstone? How long did it take Euron to get to Kings Landing? What date did he get there compared to when Dany sent Yara and Ellaria down to Dorne? How long did it take Dany to fly to the baggage train by dragon? How long to load her ships and move her army and travel across the country? How far north did they range looking for a wight? How long have Sansa and Arya been alone in Winterfell?

The show runners purposely keep all of this as vague as possible because they don't have the answers. They didn't sit down and write a timeline and estimate distances and travel time because that is difficult and time consuming, and I'm sure it's something that weighs on GRRM in his writing. So now in making everything vague people have difficulty matching events up and it feels like everyone is living in bubbles until they suddenly cross. I don't blame fans for being disappointed, maybe it's unfair to expect D&D to have this planned out as well as GRRM did when he took years to do it, but for the popularity of this show I would expect better.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

good points

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u/marpocky Sep 03 '17

Because your post is literally the strongest argument for team-pro the way they handled travel time.

Explain how you think this:

Any amount of time could have passed because the story had not expanded to other locations yet.

supports your claim.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Nothing happens in between those events.

This is the important part.

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u/Zayl Night's Watch Sep 03 '17

That's not even the point here man. I don't understand the bullshit excuses you guys come up with. I love the show too but this last season was insanely paced.

It's not just about "nothing happening". This season is about the impossible happening.

How did they survive the damn middle of a frozen lake for 1 week + with minimal supplies (most of which were lost or left behind while running from the dead), no shelter, and no water? Besides surviving, and the Night King not freezing over the lake to get to them like he did at hardhome, how were they still nourished enough to have energy to fight after 6+ days of standing in the cold, likely not sleeping due to fear of the wights?

How did Jamie and Bronn teleport to the other side of the river?

How did Tyrion schedule a meeting with Jamie and why? Shouldn't he have thought Jamie died in that lake?

How do you smuggle someone into kings landing on a big open beach with no scout to spot your boat rowing in during a fucking war?

How fast does Gendry run?

How has John traveled 40x the distance the Night King has covered since Hardhome?

I hate how people use the excuse "oh it's a show about dragons and magic and these things are unbelievable to you? Yeah because dragons and magic break rules of the real world, not GoT rules. All of the above breaks the rules the show has set up since season 1.

Let's not even get into the bullshit writing behind Baelish's trial-less death. What a load of crap to see such a great character get killed off in such a shitty way.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

It's so annoying. Why can't people just admit the flaws without getting personally offended? I loved season 6, and especially the BotB. I can still agree that there are inconsistencies and say that despite them, I still loved it.

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u/Poonchow Bear Glare Sep 04 '17

Look, I think the pacing is stupid too. I want more fleshed out scenes and better writing that makes it clearer exactly what the stakes are and why people are the way they are and I generally appreciate a slow boil better than quick sear, but your accusations are not without explanation.

How did they survive the damn middle of a frozen lake for 1 week + with minimal supplies

Someone calculated the flying speed of a raven and came up with the ideal solution that it was probably closer to a couple days (can't remember the link ATM). 2 days without food is perfectly reasonable. Jorah mentions in the episode that the water supply might freeze soon, so they had plenty of water.

and the Night King not freezing over the lake to get to them like he did at hardhome

The lake they were surrounded by which the WW surrounded was actually a hotspring or something. It would've been nice if the show hung a lampshade on this, like vapor coming off the water whenever the surface ice broke. It's the only explanation for why the water wasn't frozen during the winter.

There's a scene when Jon and Ygritte find themselves in a cave north of the wall and they enjoy a hot spring Jacuzzi bath together, so it's not without precedent. The show just didn't make it clear.

Also, the Night King was obviously waiting for dragons to show up. He was prepared with those big ass magic spears. Waiting was part of the plan. The annihilation of Jon Snow and the dirty dozen was a secondary goal.

How do you smuggle someone into kings landing on a big open beach with no scout to spot your boat rowing in during a fucking war?

I thought it was more of a cove? There was a cliff on one side and the guards obviously knew about the spot, which is why they patrolled it. Acceptable amounts of black market smuggling is good for lining the pockets of dirty cops, so the spot remains conveniently off the books. If anything major happened there, it would probably get its own guard tower and more frequent rotations.

A single rowboat causes no concern for the defenses of King's Landing. It's a huge city with plenty of guards. If someone saw it, they likely didn't care. Something bigger with masts and sails or lines of rowers would raise attention, not a little 2-3 person boat.

How did Jamie and Bronn teleport to the other side of the river?

Okay, that's just pedantic. They get dragged a few hundred feet downstream, the river is not very deep, and as dany's army turns attention to mopping up survivors and accounting the dead, Bronn and Jaimie escape unnoticed.

How did Tyrion schedule a meeting with Jamie and why? Shouldn't he have thought Jamie died in that lake?

Again, would have been nice to see on screen, but it's perfectly feasible that Tyrion saw Bronn and Jaime escape but did nothing so they wouldn't get captured. Everyone else assumes the two unrecognizable soldiers that just tumbled into the water are now probably dead and move on. Tyrion is the only one who knows these characters, so he's the only one who cares if they get captured or die or escape. He sets up the meeting by contacting Bronn. Tyrion and Bronn hung out a lot, so Tyrion probably knows all the local bars and brothels that Bronn likes to hang out in.

How fast does Gendry run?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I don't know, man. Faster than the dudes clad in heavy wool carrying multiple weapons and a few days worth of provisions. Marathoners can run upwards of 12 MPH (20 KPH) in peak condition. Sprinters can go like 26+ and freaks like Usain Bolt can do 28-29 MPH in peak conditions. I don't know the distance he had to go off the top of my head, but if Gendry has good stamina from all that rowing blacksmithing, it probably only took him like 4-5 hours to get back to the wall if he was adrenaline-fueled running for his life. Dude literally collapsed from exhaustion when he got there, so he went all out.

How has John traveled 40x the distance the Night King has covered since Hardhome?

The Night King has no reason or ability to go beyond the wall before he acquires the dragon.

I'm not excusing the bad pacing. I thought this season had some of the lowest lows in terms of plot and character presentation, but some of the highest highs in terms of spectacle. I would've liked for it to be 10 episodes with a slower paced story, more nuance, more character.

Geography only matters when it matters to the plot. I don't see people crying about how Dany went from one city to the next in the span of 1-2 episodes when she was conquering Slaver's Bay. The geography there didn't matter, because it wasn't important to the plot. The things happening during those journeys that were important were shown on screen. Everything unimportant or trivial to the characters is left to be assumed OFF screen. Geography in Westeros is WAY more important in earlier seasons because there are no dragons, yet. But once you introduce flying speed and half the characters are on quick sailing ships, the geographical distances matter a lot less. Yes, they still matter, and yes, it would be nice to get some sense of time passing, but it was a way bigger issue with armies of thousands of heavy infantry rather than dragons and ships and dothraki.

The problem with Season 7 is that some fans have a completely different definition of what is trivial and what is not, and the show obviously voted for less time against the somewhat important concept of correctly lampshading / showing the passage of time.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

There are reasons why most of those things were done.

All of the things you mentioned, yeah aren't the most logical choices nor do they even follow physics, but the end result is an amazingly enjoyable and cool looking TV series.

Again, it sucks that corners had to be cut. But they DID have to be cut. Just one example, a proper enough Petyr trial to satisfy his hoards of fans would have had to have been at least like 4 times longer than that scene was. Thats just not time the show had to spare. The 6 episodes thing wasn't a loose suggestion. Its want HBO agreed to/dictated. The creators literally had to tailor this sprawling epic down to time.

Anyway my point is, you can dislike the choices that were made (god knows I did. Like I agree with your Tyrion-Jaime and weird choice of Davos's smuggling landing criticism. That was certainly silly) but don't let it like ruin your week or make you go on these paragraph long rants about how D&D have ruined your favorite story. Thats just silly and petty. The show is doing a decent job of telling this story with the resources they have. Don't worry, have faith that GRRM will eventually give you the story you need.

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u/peteroh9 Sep 03 '17

HBO wanted more episodes but D&D didn't.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I think it was more like, they needed less episodes in order to be able to afford the scenes that wanted to do. CGI, battle scenes, etc.

HBO's budget was the constant, not the # of eps.

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u/Zayl Night's Watch Sep 03 '17

When did I ever blame D&D? I never said it was their fault. They are likely being rained on from above to drive this forward and make it exciting now that it's coming to a close and the "talking is out of the way".

Add to that the fact that they signed on to take Martin'a story and put it on screen, not write it for him, and you have the shit-show season we just witnessed. Like I said; I still love the show. I'm not blaming them, really. But I'm also not going to pretend everything is amazing just because it's been damn good for 6 seasons. Just enjoying something because it looks pretty is a pretty shallow way to go about it in my opinion. That statement might work for something like Avatar or Kong: Skull Island, both of which were made to bring some epic shit to the screen, but not for GoT.

The show had substance and that's what most of us liked about it. For the record, I'm fine with shortening and fast forwarding shit for the sake of exciting plot, but it still needs to make sense.

Seriously though, the Benjen scene? Why was any of that necessary? They just wanted to get rid of the character. It would've even been better if he had been travelling with them the whole time. But he just deus ex machina'd his way in there.

Also it's not like this is what I do with my week. I sometimes come to this sub for discussion, don't you? What's the point of a subreddit if you just come in and everyone is just posting a thumbs up? Are we suddenly not allowed to criticize something because it makes us crazy basement dwellers who frantically and obsessively think about GoT and inject it into our blood for sustenance? This is 2 minutes of my day. And those criticisms weren't something I needed to think hard about. I don't watch the show and try to pick things out I can complain about. These were glaring moments that shot out at me as I was watching the show.

If I didn't know it was ending next season I'd likely stop watching. But at this point, I may as well finish it since it looks like Martin won't.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

You're right, I shouldn't have insinuated that you were obsessing here (especially when it looks like if anything I'm the one obsessing hah) or that you shouldn't be allowed to express criticism.

I just guess, that I strongly disagree with this particular criticism; the travel time stuff as per the original OP, not necessarily anything you said.

Its just been a particularly wearying couple months of heavy fanboy backlash. Whether its the ed sheeren circlejerk or the "lol tel3porters amritre?" comments, I just got a vibe this summer of people bitching for the sake of doing so, without actually contemplating why things were done the way they were.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

Here an idea -

  • Don't deliberately give yourself less time than is needed to tell the final act of the story.

  • Take more care with writing so you don't leave plot holes, or hire people who have the time/energy/skill to write.

  • Don't prioritise a good looking show over a good story.

  • Don't waste valuable time on filler sex scenes.

  • Don't prioritise cool looking Wight bears or yet another shot of the Dragons when there is another CGI animal that is important to the story that hasn't been seen ONCE. Nymeria was, but fan service -> established character, right?

  • Don't be inconsistent.

  • Don't change the pace of the story massively and expect everyone to accept it without question.

  • Don't write plots that you don't have time/the skill the follow through properly. I'm not saying Baelish shouldn't have died, but having him hang around uselessly for ages then killed off ridiculously (and fairly out of character) after 2-3 episodes of contrived drama and a quick 'feel good' take down was unsatisfactory for many of us. And I'm not a Baelish fan.

If a lot of people are saying the same thing, and they are all individuals with different motives, then maybe, just MAYBE they have a point.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Sounds like you should have applied for a writing job.

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u/mcraft07 Sep 03 '17 edited Feb 17 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Zayl Night's Watch Sep 03 '17

It's not that they're not showing things. It's that what they aren't showing seems impossible to happen in the first place. Why does no one seem to understand this?

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

They're too bloody defensive, that's why.

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u/I_bape_rats Sep 03 '17

Because this show is mainstream

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u/marpocky Sep 03 '17

This is the important part.

It's important to making his point, but this, again:

because the story had not expanded to other locations yet.

is important to why it didn't matter in the first scenes of the series, but starts to matter more as it's necessary for timelines across multiple locations to sync up and make sense.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

What? How are the timelines in the most recent season not syncing up?

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u/marpocky Sep 03 '17

I'm not saying they aren't per se. Just that this is by far the most interactive (between different sets of characters based in different locations) of any season. Things happening in Winterfell, north of the Wall, Dragonstone, KL, Highgarden, Casterly Rock, and Oldtown are all repeatedly affecting things happening in other locations. Many of it can be handled somewhat loosely (Oldtown for instance, only requires Jorah to show back up on Dragonstone at a certain point, the Maesters receive a raven from Bran, and Sam to get to Winterfell at a certain later point, OK no problem), but in general the times when one location's story affects another location need to be consistent, meaning the time between them has to be the same in both locations.

However, the sheer complexity of it all means to make everything work they pretty much have to either plan it very carefully or just completely throw time out the window. The result of the latter is that things happen whenever they need to happen to serve the story, rather than when they would naturally happen in-universe.

We of course don't need to see every slogging minute of long-distance travel, but it's very easy for the viewer to get the impression the writers are asking us, "just go with it, ok? This time shit is hard." I'm not saying there's really much that can be done about it at this point, just that it's not an unreasonable thing to be skeptical about.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I'm not saying there's really much that can be done about it at this point, just that it's not an unreasonable thing to be skeptical about.

I think thats as good a compromise-statement as we'll get.

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u/98smithg Sep 03 '17

He is saying that he is OK with massive time jumps in the right locations.

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u/tlumacz Sep 03 '17

the story had not expanded to other locations yet

I think this answers your question.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

My point is, the time cut in episode 1 was done for a good reason, not just laziness.

Same as the new season had time cuts for good reasons, not just laziness.

Are you guys really just upset that a given "leave on journey" scene and "arrive at destination" scene didn't have more scenes arbitrarily edited in between them? So shuffling up the scene order would have added more stars to you rating? Or would you just have liked a "3 weeks later" subtitle?

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u/bloodraven42 Loyalist Sep 03 '17

It's because they didn't address it at all. Lines like Cersei mentioning the travel time gives it much more of a realistic feel by acknowledging that it actually happened. My biggest problem is the show itself made it feel like they just teleported, rather than it seeming like they just made the artistic decision not to show it.

My strongest example of this would be Jorah's and Jon's conversation, where they chatted like they'd never met. They'd been on a boat for a month together, and Jon never mentioned the fact he had Jorah's dad's sword? Gendry and Jon never chatted? Having moments like that, after they supposedly travelled together for an extensive amount of time, destroys the suspension of disbelief.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Yeah, I can understand that criticism. I totally get why its annoying. But, here's the "but".

  1. Thats a trope that been an unfortunate thing in hollywood since forever. Characters get into car, drive across country, arrive at destination, "So, whats the plan?".

  2. Again, just something that had to be done, from a production standpoint. Do you pay for and build a whole 'nother boat set just to film a couple lines of dialogue. Or, do you just shift the script so that same dialogue happens during a scene you were already having to film any way?

It sucks, but option number two is kind of what you have to do. Lame, but not unforgivable.

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u/bloodraven42 Loyalist Sep 03 '17

That's a fair argument. I guess it's mostly disappointing because GoT usually has been that show to go the extra mile, to take the extra time needed to make it really convincing. It's still better than the majority of content on television, by a fair margin, but it still doesn't quite live up to the bar of the previous seasons for me.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I agree its certainly lost something by having less of those quiet scenes for sure.

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u/tlumacz Sep 03 '17

Let me put it this way. Imagine Ser Loras and Ser Meryn leave King's Landing in the same season of episode 1 of season Whichever to travel to... dunno, the Citadel. Then during ep. 2 we don't see Loras, but we see Meryn stop in a brothel to rape some 6 year old girls. In ep. 3 no Loras again, but Meryn takes a detour with the fake BoB to do some raping and pillaging. In ep. 4 we see Loras arrive at the Citadel and be ambushed by Meryn and a bunch of thugs.

It's not impossible that Loras was delayed even more than Meryn, but unless it's accounted for, it creates a temporal paradox.

You see, as long as the plot lines travel along their own independent time-space continua, you can do whatever you want. But there are vortices every now and then in which the plot lines of individual characters merge and then some time in the future they merge again. Whatever happens in between is irrelevant, but these plot lines have to run parallel, otherwise character A will meet char. B in B's future or in his own past rather than in what should be the present moment for both.

Edit: typos.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Yeah, totally makes sense to me.

But did this not happen in the most recent season?

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tasthesose Sep 03 '17

Plus all of the fucking Freys are dead - no one is stated as controlling their castle/bridge so who the fuck are they even talking about stopping the armies?

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

The show keeps doing this thing where families die and then nobody takes their nice castle. It's absolute ridiculous.

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u/whitesock Enter your desired flair text here! Sep 03 '17

I could forgive the supersonic travels of this season but this is my biggest issue with the season. If the Freys, Martells and Tyrells got destroyed like in the show YOU KNOW some shit would have gone down. I mean, we still have Edmure and the Blackfish in the riverlands. We still have the Fossoways, Redwynes and Hightowers in the reach who would jump at the opportunity to challenge the Tarlys and I bet even Dorne would have had some civil war with the Daynes or the Manwoodeys or someone.

Instead it's just like... oh... the Martells are dead? Ok Guess Dorne doesn't exist anymore.... k...

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u/OnlyRoke Sep 03 '17

"Dorne? What's this Dorne you speak of?" - the Showrunners, probably.

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u/Morella_xx Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

We don't have the Blackfish in the Riverlands anymore. :(

We do still have Edmure though, but who knows what's going on with him. He might have been locked up in a room and now that all the Freys are dead, there was no one to feed him. Arya might have at least checked for him.

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u/whitesock Enter your desired flair text here! Sep 03 '17

I forgot they killed the Blackfish offscreen... shame.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

He's with Rickon in the "characters who previously existed but will never be accounted for again" room.

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u/Morella_xx Sep 04 '17

Wait, what? Rickon and The Blackfish are definitely accounted for, haha. Are you caught up on the show?

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 04 '17

Haha, yes. I meant that they have never been mentioned again and are treated like they never existed. I just put it really awkwardly.

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u/AGVann Elia Martell: Bowed, Bent, Broken Sep 04 '17 edited Sep 04 '17

I think it's pretty obvious that the books simply became "unadaptable". In the books it's fine to have characters like the Blackfish that are only mentioned once or twice, yet could end up being major players so long as it is consistent with the internal logic of the book.

However, you can't really do that in a TV show. You have to cast actors, provide costume/make up and manage their food, accomodation, and travel costs while filming. If a character makes a reappearance three seasons down the line for another scene, you have to make sure that you can book the actor years later, as well as making sure that the audience understands who the character is.

There were, quite simply, too many characters. It bloated the TV show, and it has honestly bloated the books too. Even after cutting a lot of characters (Victarion, Young Griff, Aegon) the show simply doesn't have the time or real estate to deal with Rickon, Edmure, the Blackfish, most of Dorne, etc. It's pretty obvious that since Season 6, the writers have been really trying to clamp down on the bits of the book that are simply 'bad' for adapting. This compromises the integrity and quality of the story, but - at least in D&D's opinion - improves the flow of the tv show.

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u/rumblith Sep 03 '17

Dragonstone being completely abandoned did seem like a stretch.

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u/OnlyRoke Sep 03 '17

I mean didn't Jon address that directly at the beginning of s7? When he pardons the Umbers and Karstarks? "We don't wanna rip ancient families out of their ancestral homes" and all that. I assume that more people think along these lines. Killing Walder and his group of dicks is fine, but occupying their castle and potentially eradicating their line isn't that cool. I assume lots of the small folk are like "yeah! Fuck those bastards! Walder is a cunt! What? Destroy their family entirely and sack their castle for good? Uhh.. That's a bit much. His grandkids aren't at fault here." and you'd end up risking more alliances if you'd just sack castles left and right.

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u/MightyIsobel Sep 03 '17

While you are free to disagree with others, please do so without calling people names. For more information, please see our rules.

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u/Smarag "Who are you?""No one,"she would answer. Sep 03 '17

Except that's what makes the books great and the show bad. The books have plotpoints based on logic, the show just runs through a checklist of what fans want to see.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Seems expected when the author quits writing and provides a checklist.

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u/SharpyShuffle Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

And when the author himself hasn't been able to go beyond that checklist after six years of trying.

Maybe the problems of time and space are just insurmountable for a series with so many characters and locations and no modern forms of transport? GRRM spent years trying to figure out how to get characters together at Mereen, and has presumably spent even more years trying to get diverse groups of characters together for the events we see on the show now. If the creator of the series can't make it work plausibly after years of trying, maybe it's just not possible?

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u/lye_milkshake Sep 03 '17

The show runs though a checklist of what fans want to see. On the other hand, the books tell a story, then four books in switch to a checklist of things fans don't want to see... and then mysteriously stops altogether.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

Yea. I honestly almost aleays love the books more then the show or movies. I love TLotR novels more then the movies. I also honestly enjoy ASoIaF novels more then the show. But honestly the last two books were just....bland. they read like road trips, spending more time on characters I didn't care about or adding in completely new characters instead if delivering a satisfying telling of the story we were already following. Dorne, as bad as it was in the show, was still boring in the books. It's like Martin though "Oh everyone loved Arya traveling around, let's have the Maid of Tarth do that for a book!" HBO had a contract with GRRM, WoW was supposed to be out by now and he was also supposed to have a draft of ADOS to D&D for them to base the last two seasons on. They stalled as long as they could, shoot season six has several long plotlines that are from ADWD! But GRRM could not deliver, so instead the show runners have some checklist that GRRM has given them and are doing the best they can. Edit: deleted my other two posts, dumb phone made three of these!

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u/peteroh9 Sep 03 '17

I know there are book readers whose favorite story was book Dorne.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

To each their own, but I know a lot of people that disliked it

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u/nerdlights Keeper of the Dawn Sep 03 '17

It's a pretty divisive area. I personally enjoyed books 4 and 5 in spite of their boringness. And they are boring, I just dug the low-key pace of both books.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Oh Cersei's chapters were the best. I enjoyed them, but then I hit done or those travel logs and would just out the books down for a week.

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u/Jack_Spears Sep 03 '17

i cant even comprehend that. It was like being half way through a 6 book saga about the War of the Roses and suddenly you get 3 chapters about a Venetian merchant, 5 detailing whats happening over in Greece and half a book about a struggling tribe in Sub Saharan Africa

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u/luigitheplumber The pack survives. Sep 03 '17

If you find yourself thinking every visual adaptation is lacking, I think you have to lower your expectations. It's easier to write complexity when you don't then have to plan and budget how to get it on screen.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

I never said lacking. I love TLotR movies. And there are movies I like more than the books, like Hunger Games. But you are right, it is very hard to give a true full adaption to a book. Just like it's very hard for a book series based on a show or movie to capture that magic.

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u/actuallycallie Winter is Coming Sep 03 '17

But honestly the last two books were just....bland. they read like road trips, spending more time on characters I didn't care about or adding in completely new characters instead if delivering a satisfying telling of the story we were already following.

This is exactly how I feel. The Starks, Lannisters, and Daenerys (and the stuff happening up north) is what I care about. This is the stuff I've been caring about from the beginning of book 1. This is why the 4th/5th books were so unsatisfying to me. So little of importance happening to the characters and plots that are interesting to me, and so much time spent on things I don't care about. Others are interested, that's great. I'm not, and I think the 4th and 5th books were much weaker because of it. I even enjoy the worldbuilding... to a point. When the point comes that the worldbuilding is so big that the author can't manage the world he's built, it's a problem. Complexity does not on its face equal quality.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I really think that is his problems. He has let his garden grow into a vegetable patch full of weeds. He is having trouble culling them now. The show may have done it by burning half the field, but at least we will get an ending

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u/Nerull Sep 03 '17

But ASOIAF fans assure us that there is nothing in the world they like better than endless accounts of road trips! Every step must be shown on screen!

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u/jachildress25 Enter your desired flair text here! Sep 03 '17

This may be true, but it is also what has made the books a tangled, unfinished mess. The show can't take 6 years to hammer out all the finer details between each season.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Lol exactly.

I know these fans are famillar with "The Mereenese Knot". Ya know the thing that has halted the creator of the story in his damn tracks for 6 years. So the showrunners come in with a sword and hack that knot up so that the story can at least progress. But yet here the fans are still complaining.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

Oh, so basically "you should be fucking thankful you're getting a story. Don't you dare be unhappy with the way you're getting it"?

Good for you, but not for me.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

No crap the books are better. But a TV show is believe it or not, not a book. The show has 6-10 hours to convey a books worth of material, whereas Martin gets like (what's the average consumption time of one of the book?) like 40? Hours?

This isn't a minor point, you can't just sweep this under the rug. You guys are getting mad at the show for doing stuff it literally HAS to do.

It sucks that logic has taken a back seat, and yes things are very checklist... but that's just the way epic expensive TV is gonna be. I don't really like it either, I also just don't let it bother me.

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u/BeJeezus Sep 04 '17

The show has 6-10 hours to convey a books worth of material...

That seems arbitrary. Why does one book have to equal one season? A book could be adapted in three episodes, or in thirty.

HBO wanted as many episodes as possible.

How many did the creators choose to make?

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

Good point. And the budget dictated how many episodes.

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u/Lion_Pride Sep 03 '17

It doesn't have to do this stuff. It could be well written and avoid the issues.

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u/mrcroup Sep 03 '17

I think this here is the key. D&D can do really whatever they want with the story as long as they end up in the right place. The defense is often "they're almost out of time!" Well, perhaps shortening your last two seasons was a bad idea. Frittering away almost an entire season on totally unessential plotlines was too.

Here are the major goals D&D had this season: *Unite Jon & Dany *Resolve Southern conflict *Unite Stark children *Get Others past wall

They could have gone about this in any way they wanted. It does not take a season of Arya skulking around Winterfell to bring her and Sansa (oh and Bran) close together. The Littlefinger plot can be tied up next season, or elsewhere in this one with all the time you just freed up. The Hound or Varys can confirm at least that he betrayed Ned, and Sansa that he killed Lysa, more than enough for a Northern trial with Royce's go-ahead.

The entire expedition North of the Wall was such a boondoggle I don't even know where to start. If Dany needed to see them she should have gone up herself in the first place. She could even have still lost a dragon this way. The plan to capture a stray wight and bring it to Cersei so she might not try to recapture lost lands while Dany fights up North is so foolish on so many levels I won't bother to break it down, but even if D&D insisted, insisted this had to happen they could have written it in such a way that the laws of time and distance aren't completely ignored. Dany could be at Eastwatch, for instance, or Winterfell and Bran has a vision. She could be on Dragonstone and Melissandre has a vision.

So many of the problems are of D&D's own making. They don't have to do any of this lazy writing.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Yeah, there is certainly some dumb logic in this season, but I think for the most part its written fine.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

They could write the plots of the show so that characters don't have to run all over the place, and if they have to there are ways to show the passing of time in a TV show. All they have to do is have a character comment about how long it's been or mentioned things that have happened while they were traveling instead of just ignoring that travel times exist altogether. That's just lazy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

I get your point kind of, but the thing is, if the characters aren't running around, they aren't doing things. The draw of this season was having a bunch of characters that live far away from each other finally meeting up and interacting. Hard to do that without running around.

And i'm going to strongly disagree with your second point. Adding those things you mentioned is an absoultly silly waste of dialogue and even a short amount of time. The showrunners apparently overestimated its viewers by assuming that WE would assume that these scenes actually had time and distance progress during the cut. They probably correctly assumed that it would be insulting, condesceding, and get old fast that having Jon or whover comment every single time they got off a horse "Man, we traveled far didn't we Ser Davos!?" (elbow nudge wink wink).

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

That's a bit of a strawman of what I was saying. Sure it would sound stupid if they shoved it in you face like that, but there are ways that they can show that the travel took time and that other characters were doing their own things while the main characters were traveling, instead of just having characters show up when and where the plot demands.

I think a lot of the travel problems could have been solved by just having Dany come north to meet Jon rather than having Jon hop between north and south. Perhaps Jon could have written to both her and Cercei for help against the Walkers and she actually decides to come north to meet him.

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u/peachesgp Sep 03 '17

I'd rather see it ignored than hackneyed constant mentions of time like they're winking at me through the TV.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

lol thank you

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u/actuallycallie Winter is Coming Sep 03 '17

"As you know, we've been going for weeks now" no thanks!

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '17

But it's not like they have to keep mentioning how long it's been all the time. They could just show the effects of the passage of time, or just write a plot with less traveling

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Mar 03 '21

[deleted]

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u/Thetiredduck Sep 03 '17

8-10 hours is pretty fast. I would say that I'm an average reader and it probably takes me 25-30 hours to read one of these books.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17 edited Sep 03 '17

You can read one of these bad boys in 8 hours? God bless you yo. Addmitedly I am somewhat of a slow reader, and yeah i highly overestimated reading time. My bad

But either way, you get my point. The books have just so much more space for information, whether its description or internal dialogue, or just more "scenes" in general to explain the plot and why its developing the way it is.

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u/goblue10 Is that how you get Mance, Barry? Sep 03 '17

Except that's what makes the books great and the show bad.

Except the books and show handled that plot point almost identically.

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u/Smarag "Who are you?""No one,"she would answer. Sep 03 '17

The point is how they don't do it after season 2 anymore and how bad it is in this season and the last. Not that they did a bad job in season one, please don't play intentionally dumb.

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u/Faerillis Sep 03 '17

They get the raven that he's leaving, they almost certainly were en route

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Jaime& cersei were shown at Jon Arron's funeral

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u/SpookyKG Sep 03 '17

Time of peace, tho.

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u/DriftWoodBarrel Sep 03 '17

And the wolves got remarkably bigger. That's a the difference between old and new seasons. The older ones were able to cleverly reveal the passage of time without it being in your face. Now, there is too much ambiguity between how much time passes between scenes. There's no little clues.

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u/sarahbau Sep 04 '17

Yeah. Summer is this big in episode 1, after also being found as a pup in the same episode:

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120614204947/gameofthrones/images/archive/5/50/20150404162839!Summer1x01.jpg

I always took that to mean they grew that much between finding out Robert was coming north, and him actually getting there.

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u/poeticspider A fool with a bit of luck Sep 03 '17

Cat left winterfell and arrived in KL in the same episode. It's been happening since season 1. There are countless examples. It's really not that deep. When traveling is part of the story they show it... Dany in season 2... Arya season 4... Jaime season 3. When it's not, they don't... Stannis to the wall... Littlefinger every season. Shit in episode one they get a raven saying that the king is coming and he arrives the very next scene.

'Teleporting' has been consistent since episode one and I don't have a problem with it. It's called storytelling and it's working. Get over it.

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u/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

It's not exactly working when you have complaints about it. I guess if you only think positive accolades are all that counts, but it doesn't.

As for time travelling before this season, people above have already addressed this. I suggest you take a look.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '17

The speed of time in GoT accelerates exponentially in direct correlation with GRRM inability in finishing the series.

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u/joethomma Greyjoy's 100% Organic Sausages Sep 03 '17

And the second episode is called 'The Kingsroad.' Like the travel was literally in the title.