They survived. They managed to get to that part of the wall that wasn't destroyed. Rewatch the scene.

 

Aye, that's what I got from that scene too, which means they're effectively behind enemy lines.

 

By the by, Petyr's groveling at the end looked entirely fake, but not by a mistake of the actor. Masterfully fake, because Littlefinger was just attempting a different avenue after denial failed, and appealing to his advisory role to Sansa failed, and turning to his Vale 'subjects' failed. He's not above groveling if it might save his life. This isn't Petyr losing control of himself, it's him trying something else and hoping pity might do the trick.

Always scheming. Always trying to stay alive and get ahead, no matter what it takes. Scheming and lying to the end.

A fitting end.

 

Aiden Gillen will be sorely missed... would be, if D&D were actually willing to play with the world GRRM gave them. Dialogue has turned into plot exposition. Scenes are feeling like bullet points checked off a list. The exchange between Tyrion and Cersei was the best character piece we've had in a long time.

I've to properly rewatch seasons five and six (don't remember if I even finished six), but I've been feeling increasingly full of dread, especially so this season. And I haven't even read the books. The dip in the quality of storytelling is that noticeable.

D&D could've spun the series to another 3, 4 full seasons, easily, but didn't. It seems they, or the actors, want to move on.

 

Lot's of dragon this season. Literally no appearances by Ghost. Ghost gets less screen time than Nymeria. They could've at least brought him out to kill Littlefinger.

 

Trying to extend it another 3 or 4 seasons would have been dangerous. The actors would probably 'not' be under contract, and trying to get such a large group of people to agree to an extension would be very hard without having to give them the moon in payment. Many long term shows get canceled because actors just don't want to do it anymore. No matter the offer.

Also, every year you risk an actor dying or having a freak accident. Imagine the legacy of Game of Thrones if they had to replace Tyrion for two seasons because something happened to Peter Dinklage.

Knocks on wood.

 

Can Game of Thrones Still Surprise Us? (SPOILERS) – Wisecrack Quick Take.

This video sums up most of arguments why GoT become kind of disappointing lately. It transformed from being a fantasy deconstruction to being a classical fantasy. Which wouldn't be as problematic if its was done as a reconstruction based on its arguments about the genre which I suspect is what GRRM may be aiming at. Instead it ignores the rules it established making many of the earlier events pointless.

 

So I really liked this season but after watching it again, I've found my biggest gripe with it so far: lack of rewatchability. The previous seasons had their issues with this at times as well, but most of that stemmed from Danny and her bullshit. The rest of the show was enjoyable and it was a blast watching the characters bounce off of each other. Tyrion/Bronn, Tyrion/Varys, Varys/Littlefinger, Jaime/Bronn, Arya/Hound just to name a few. Hell, I've rewatched season 4 at least 6 times now. This season had it's moments, but they were mostly badass Dragon/White Walker stuff rather than anything character driven. Either way, the series is coming to a close and I've enjoyed the ride so far so now I'm just looking forward to an ending that hopefully won't be too happy or depressing.

Anyway, here's another funny Game of Thrones pic.



Edit: Here's another one

 

Yeah, I may just be a lowest common denominator fan but I enjoyed this season. I liked the set pieces, the trimmed down storylines, the romance buildup between Jon and Dany, and even the fan servicey character interactions. And quiet as it's kept, I think Season 6, another maligned season, may be my favorite to rewatch. It seems to me that a lot of the common complaints for the recent episodes had its roots in earlier seasons, but those same concerns just wasn't as constantly remarked on:

Jon has always had thick plot armor and he should have died ten times before the mutiny, all the way back to when he was able to ride from the NightFort to Castle Black bleeding from an arrow wound... after Summer dues ex machina'd his ass for the first of many times;

Tyrion has always outsmarted himself with hit or miss, high risk high reward plans; his blind focus on seizing Casterly Rock to his coalition's detriment is truer to his book characterization than anything he's done in the last three seasons.

Jon traveled to Hardhome and back within one and a half episodes, complete with women and children in an unspecified amount of time;

Ramsay apparently either doesn't have scouts in his army or the ones he had didn't notice a whole company of Vale Knights flanking his army.

Even the book's infamy for subverting tropes that has apparently been 'lost' seems misleading to me; Jon has always been on the typical Hero's Journey and this is his story. He's gotten the call to action, a mystical side kick, and all the accompanying jazz that comes along with the archetype. Considering Robb was always meant to be a secondary character, besides Ned (the father figure who had to die to strip protection from the central cast, his children) and Quentyn (who may have only existed as a plot device for Dany), I can't remember an important POV character that was killed off unceremoniously and suddenly. Especially after Catelyn was revived.

It tickled me when I read think pieces about how someone's suspension of disbelief regarding a show about a guy with a magic sword and a girl with dragons fighting ice zombies was threatened due to questions regarding the velocity of messenger birds and traveling logistics. Especially when Robb was able to call the banners in Season 1 immediately within one episode (and they in turn were able to gather their own men. Have you ever considered how long this process must take? It took a while for each house to trickle in in the books) using these same Super Ravens, with zero complaints from the audience except a ruined pair of pants from his KitN crowning scene.

 

That's not the same and this argument simply doesn't work. Yes, this is the show with the magic swords and dragons, but these are clearly established elements that the viewers are aware they're expected to suspend their disbelief. Then you have travel logistics and a speed of ravens that for most part are presented to be closer to what would you expect them to be in the real world. Even if it takes more than few assumptions how many days or weeks are between certain scenes, especially in the last season.

Then you have the sixth episode which simply doesn't work unless you assume the Fellowship of the Badass stayed more than one night on that island.

 

I felt that they clearly showed a fair amount of time passing while on that rock. It felt like it was over 24 hours, about 36 I thought. More than enough to justify it with the established raven and assumed dragon speeds. Otherwise they would have just cut in another night passing and had the battle early morning.

 

I agree that the series played fast and loose with travel times this season, including Gendry's run back to Eastwatch, the ravens, and Dany's rescue mission. When I watched the episode, it was immediately noticeable if not as jarring as everyone is making it out to be.

What I'm trying to say is it's absolutely ridiculous for THAT complaint to be the deal breaker for disbelief in a high fantasy show. Especially a show in which we've seen Ramsay's 'ten good men', no discernible explanation for how Roose 'smuggled himself into his own lands', and the aforementioned journey from Hardhome (which you would expect to hit land at Eastwatch but apparently curved inward and left Jon and co on the wrong side of the Wall near Castle Black).

These glaring logistic issues are not new, but it's been accepted because, in the end...this is a show, albeit a high quality one, about knights and dragons. It's not above criticism by any means, but we are drifting into hyperbole.

 

All mentioned examples got their share of complains. The premise of the show is that it's a fantasy as it would happen in the real world. If you break that premise and have Littlefinger teleport around Westeros, people are going to complain about it because it's not what they were promised. Difference between then and now is that then it was more of an exception.

Saying that show's faults should be accepted just because it's just a show of any kind is never a good excuse.

 

Excellent points. I meant that HBO would've been happy to keep the moneymaker going.

The freefolk thread on reddit does a good job accounting for most travel speeds, but this is one that doesn't fit. Dragonstone to Winterfell is 1580 miles as the raven flies. Assuming a raven flies at the speed of normal pigeons (or twice its real-world speed), a strong raven covers 500-600 miles a day in optimal conditions. So 3 days, but more likely 4-5. We can hand wave the rest by assuming Danaerys flies at the speed of a supersonic jet and Gendry takes a few hours to run to the Wall, well within a 36 hr timeline, but the raven doesn't cut it.

Yeah, it's ridiculous for travel times to be the single deal breaker for disbelief, and this is why you're missing the point. As I noted above, the guys at reddit have done a fair [amateur's] job accounting for most travel times, which happen off-screen. What is really being complained about here is the sparse, shallow storytelling and the inability of D&D's directing to compensate for any real sense of weight or significance, leading to a sense of poor pacing alongside the stupid scenarios.

This was never just a show about knights and dragons. It was a show about the real consequences and believable relationships between people and families amidst a harsh world, albeit set in the backdrop of knights and dragons. It was, as Celestin's youtuber points out, about all the dirty details between the lazy fantasy tropes, and the deliberate deconstruction and irony as the two intersected.

Michelle Fairley (Caitlin Stark) said it herself: what grounded the show and made it such a privilege to participate in was that this was a show ultimately about family, about mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers.

When you spend four or five seasons establishing internal rules and then break them egregiously in favor of plot armor (can you stick to GRRM's outline without writing up stupid scenarios requiring asspulls? I want to believe you can), you've turned your back on that key part of the audience for whom these rules made the world come alive.

If I wanted to watch a show about unicorns and fairies, I'd watch Marvel/Harry Potter. Or imagine an Eragon movie, with all its piss-poor adolescent writing. Will I watch GoT to the end? Most assuredly, I've only to turn my brain off and pretend I'm watching a Hollywood blockbuster.

Here's looking forward to a NK!Bran/NQ!Cersei in a White Walker world.

 

Honestly I don't see how anyone could be surprised that the story is taking more traditional, good vs. evil route. For fuck's sake, it's been more than obvious ever since the prologue that the end game is going to be a war between living vs. dead. How can anyone be surprised when that inevitable end game finally is here? Were people expecting the Others to walk to the wall, and then just shrug and turn back, unable to go through? I don't see how more seasons of intrigue and backstabbery would have made the overall story any better, as we have already seen more than enough of that for one story.

Yeah, the plot advancement was more than a bit heavy handed at some points in this season, but the plot needed to be advanced in that particular direction; there never was any alternative.

I can see how it's disappointing that a great story comes to an end, but a somewhat disappointing end was always inevitable. And I think that inevitable disappointment is what's stalling Martin's progress on the books, too.

 

Well, as embedded right in the middle of your Celestin quote, "[it] wouldn't be as problematic if it was done as a reconstruction based on its arguments about the genre."

This includes, by the way, stupidly heroic details like Bronn's WTF saving of Jaime thanks to good-guy battle omniscience/teleportation, and the 2 million people of King's Landing being a pacified, nonexistent entity despite Queen Margaery's popularity.

This didn't have to become a story about Heroes and their Disposable Redshirts.

And a more traditional good/evil route? There is no kumbayah for a Unified Humanity. Doesn't work with climate change, doesn't work anywhere. Politics is intrinsic to the problem of external coordination... or would you embrace Putin as an all-round philanthropist when he promises to follow your Just Cause?

 

Huh. The episode gave me the impression that they stayed there for days.

 

That works if the NK has anti-Bran visions and deliberately laid out bait for dragon. Otherwise we can't reasonably infer why they'd all just sit around for days.

The episode gave me the impression of an overnighter.

 

I've never watched any of the after episode behind-the-scenes stuff, but it was my understanding that the writers have said they were there overnight/into the next day, and definitely not any longer than that.

 

At temps survivable for humans in a few layers of furs, and at temps for the lake to not be fully frozen through (probably around -20 or -40 F), it would have taken quite a while for the broken surface to refreeze to a point that an army could cross. 2 or 3 days probably, which is about how much time I thought would have passed before Thoros got dead. So ignore D&D and just assume multiple days.

At this point, if it's not specified otherwise, just insert a multiple day/week timeskip between every scene swap. It will make suspension of disbelief much easier.