Game of Thrones (HBO) TV Show • Page 603

It was very weird that they gave her such a long sendoff with the horse and leaving all the destruction behind but the next episode she’s just back in the city wandering around on foot. It had such a finality to it but then it wasn’t an ending at all.

 

My personal favorite interpretation is the one that said the horse was Nymeria but D&D forgot that she was supposed to be a wolf.

 

I love Arya as a character but I thought a lot of what she has done since her big moment has been completely random.

 

Mmmmmm we should add Badlands to the cult movie thread watch list.

 

Semiotics are as vital to visual storytelling as plot. The way the horse and Arya were shot there's a clear emphasis on what it means to her in the moment, and while I'd never call this a subtle show, in this instance it doesn't quite hold your hand and, since it's not tied to plot, asks more of the viewer internally. It's one of the few times the show has landed that, usually it skips over slowed down, semiotic moments for pure "the plot needs to get from point a to point b" storytelling.

 

"I'd hate to watch movies with someone who thinks critically about them" lol

 

that's exactly what i said!

 

i mean you said that in response to the guy who has posted by far the most well thought out and informed criticism of the show so yeah thats definitely what i got out of it lol

 

i really enjoyed the episode but the sansa stuff was weird to me. like the whole “the north promised to never bend to a ruler in the south” thing. like, well yeah. when the ruler is cersei or dany, that makes sense. i’m pretty sure the north would have no problem bending the knee to a stark king haha. the whole “the north MUST be independent!!!” thing didn’t make sense to me. or, like, if sansa was the one named queen of the seven kingdoms, would the north still have been independent? i’m guessing not lol

 

critical and condescending are two different things

"I didn't like this because it lacked _______" is critical

"if you thought ________ you have a misunderstanding/misreading of ________" is condescending

 

I think the horse could be taken literally or metaphorically, to be honest. I don't think it's 100% either way and it's just up to the viewer.

I'm not always on board with stuff like that but in this case, I think it worked well.

 

They had a Stark that was king in the run of the series. Twice. Didn't work out too good.

 

it sort of half makes sense, like she blames on it the lords/bannermen at large not wanting to bend the knee because they just fought for themselves and have been independent for a year now or whatever. plus if its not gonna be dynastic anymore it won't be a stark king forever. but you can't do that AND have all the other kingdoms be totally fine with staying lol

 

I can see how my word choice came off condescending. I wasn't sure how else to word it, especially when it seemed like some would have preferred the horse to have been a warging Bran or something, which goes pretty far to miss what's happening in that scene IMO

 

no its not

 

ok!

 

The real truth is probably that D&D thought putting a really long scene with a horse out of nowhere would cause people to argue and make crazy theories for years despite it just being a horse that gives her some hope in a dark moment and they laughed for four hours and then put it in the script.

 

Thread has already moved on (lol), but my personal thoughts are that her big moment should have been the show's big moment, and the big ending of the series. The battle with the Night King should have taken precedent over the battle for the Throne because the threat of the white walkers is a mythical, once in a thousand years type deal that is bigger than everyone and everything going on in Westeros. I understand it would make less sense in the grand scheme of things though, but it would have been cool to have the battle at Kings Landing happen before fighting the Night King, with Cersei and Daenerys' lust for power blinding them to the bigger threat and decimating their armies, then The Night King comes in to take advantage of their weakness.

Then it plays out the way it did, with Arya saving the day when everything seems lost etc etc, then everyone decides how to rebuild Westeros from there. They could still work the "power corrupts" angle because the distraction of the throne and the lure of power would almost lead to the demise of everybody in the whole land (rather than just the unlucky people of kings landing!). But I guess then it becomes to OTT/"Hollywood", and is less character-focused than the story we got!

 

I mean, TECHNICALLY it took precedent over the throne.

 

funny tweet but also, the books are going to end more or less the same way and all the r/freefolk and r/asoiaf ppl are going to be so mad. like i'm sure it'll more fleshed out and somewhat more satisfying but whew are those folks setting themselves up for disappointment

 

Technically, but not structurally.

 

i think the books could vary pretty wildly. im not banking on it by any means but what the fuck do any of us know?

 

also im pretty entrenched in the guess that we get book 6 and never get book 7

 

I honestly think it could have been great, but it would have needed to play out 100% differently. I thought they were going with that thread since they focused sooooo much of the ep before on her seeing the carnage and all the children getting killed. I figured she rode back to Winterfell to inform Sansa what had happened and there would be another battle and she'd get in and kill her during all the chaos.

But I agree, since Arya stayed with Bran Horse in Kings Landing, it would have not been good to have her do it.

 

What drives me a little crazy is that the final war with the white walkers didn't fundamentally change the dynamic of the final battle for the throne. Cersei never had to deal with the fallout of it, she was never going to cede power anyway and Dany was always going to be dead set on killing her. Dany's army still overtook King's Landing without any trouble. What experiences from the war with the Night King shaped the war for the Throne? It's like how if you took Civil War out of the MCU, Infinity War/Endgame wouldn't change much at all (that's a spicy take that I'm too cowardly to present to MCU fans)