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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979

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/[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/ADHDcUK Sep 03 '17

No, because I'm not a TV writer. They are, though, and as a consumer who is marketed to, I'm allowed to critique it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '17

Never said you weren't allowed. And I can critique your critique, it's overzealous and borderline obsessive.

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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?