OT: 2019 OT Non-Ski Resort Thread

[WTG]

Spoiler: got

The dothraki fighting that way does make sense though. They are not warriors. They are not trained soldiers. They are raiders and pillagers. They don't fight armies they just raid villages and kill the unarmed.

Honestly that part is true to the books in terms of how they were always characterized. They are undisciplined and impossible to control.

The unsullied on the other hand are highly trained soldiers who would fight in formation. [/spoilers]

Spoiler: got

They are horse nomads, they spend their entire life around horses, they out of all people should know that Horses don't just charge into a wall.

Think about it, endless horde of undead. Why would you EVER charge head first into that. What you think would happen? You break their lines? Not f***ing happening. Do what Calvary is supposed to do which is side swipe their line, or flank them and distract them by pulling them away.

 

[Hit the post]

Spoiler: got

They are horse nomads, they spend their entire life around horses, they out of all people should know that Horses don't just charge into a wall.

Or other animals For example, how Scipio fought Hannibal’s elephants in the Battle of Zama. Scipio opened up a number of lines in his front lines which the charging elephants naturally were drawn to. After being funneled into these pathways, they were easily dispatched by missile type weapons (eg., slingers)

 

[Melvin]

Spoiler: got

They are horse nomads, they spend their entire life around horses, they out of all people should know that Horses don't just charge into a wall.

Think about it, endless horde of undead. Why would you EVER charge head first into that. What you think would happen? You break their lines? Not ****ing happening. Do what Calvary is supposed to do which is side swipe their line, or flank them and distract them by pulling them away.

Spoiler: got

I mean, again, why would they need to know that? Yes they know horses but they don't go around fighting massive armies. They go around raiding unarmed villages and maybe fighting other dothraki clans. I dunno, of all my problems with this episode I don't think This is in my top ten. I think it's way stupider for the reason that played out, which was that once they all inevitably died, they were all going to join the night Kings army, so you're just adding numbers to your opponent. And horses. And arakhs. It's like they didn't even consider that.

[/QUOTE]

 

[WTG]

Or other animals For example, how Scipio fought Hannibal’s elephants in the Battle of Zama. Scipio opened up a number of lines in his front lines which the charging elephants naturally were drawn to. After being funneled into these pathways, they were easily dispatched by missile type weapons (eg., slingers)

Spoiler

Speaking of Zama, Hannibal used his Cavalry as a distraction because he had the weaker Calvary (Rome had Numidian Calvary).
Using Cavalry as a distraction is super common in the Antiqued Era.

Battle of Carrhae saw Crassus fighting the Parthians, Parthians used horse archers to basically always out manouvering the Romans so it turned into a slaughter. By the way, it is reported because Crassus was the richest person to ever exist at that time, that they beheaded him and dumped liquid gold over his head. Which is probably where GRRM got the Dothraki doing that to Viserys from.

 

[WTG]

Spoiler: got

I mean, again, why would they need to know that? Yes they know horses but they don't go around fighting massive armies. They go around raiding unarmed villages and maybe fighting other dothraki clans. I dunno, of all my problems with this episode I don't think This is in my top ten. I think it's way stupider for the reason that played out, which was that once they all inevitably died, they were all going to join the night Kings army, so you're just adding numbers to your opponent. And horses. And arakhs. It's like they didn't even consider that.

Spoiler

Let's be honest, the reason they had the charge in the show because it was a cool way to add suspense, the tactics behind it are absolutely ridiculous and they didn't even begin to explain it. They just went with it like it was the plan, and if that was the plan it was really dumb.

The whole reason it was in the show because they probably sat at the desk and said "We don't know what to do with the Dothraki", "oh! let's just use them to add suspense to the battle by making them do charge but it gets repelled and all their light swords go out! That would make for a great shot!"

 

[Hit the post]

Spoiler

Speaking of Zama, Hannibal used his Cavalry as a distraction because he had the weaker Calvary (Rome had Numidian Calvary).
Using Cavalry as a distraction is super common in the Antiqued Era.

Battle of Carrhae saw Crassus fighting the Parthians, Parthians used horse archers to basically always out manouvering the Romans so it turned into a slaughter. By the way, it is reported because Crassus was the richest person to ever exist at that time, that they beheaded him and dumped liquid gold over his head. Which is probably where GRRM got the Dothraki doing that to Viserys from.

Reminds me of the solid HBO series “Rome” that they had to cut short ( ended up finishing storylines too quickly) because I think the production cost was too high.

 

[Melvin]

That's basically right. The season has essentially been a loose collections of scenes where the writers said "wouldn't it be cool if..." much of which seems directly pulled from fan fic. The overall narrative? Meh. Let's just add a scene where x happens. The fans will love that.

 

[WTG]

Reminds me of the solid HBO series “Rome” that they had to cut short ( ended up finishing storylines too quickly) because I think the production cost was too high.

Show was good, but didn't have any good battle scenes.

Honestly, most shows do a piss poor job of showing what battles would of looked like. After they charge into each other they don't just start having a free for all type of fight.

Imagine a timeline where we get a show accurately portraying the Triplex Acies or a Macedonian Phalanx. Or even Cannea with the "Hammer and Anvil" tactic.

Spoiler: GOT

They did that Hammer and Anvil tactic at the battle of the bastards only they basically did a trash job of actually making it realistic.

 

[WTG]

That's basically right. The season has essentially been a loose collections of scenes where the writers said "wouldn't it be cool if..." much of which seems directly pulled from fan fic. The overall narrative? Meh. Let's just add a scene where x happens. The fans will love that.

Spoiler: got

In last season the show runners basically said "we had this idea of a zombie bear and we REALLY want to add a zombie bear for seasons and we finally got a zombie bear". They designed an entire scene with actual budget to do a stupid undead polar bear scene for the sole purpose of "it would look cool".

@3:45 in the video

This is where the show is at right now.

 

[me2]

Show was good, but didn't have any good battle scenes.

Honestly, most shows do a piss poor job of showing what battles would of looked like. After they charge into each other they don't just start having a free for all type of fight.

Imagine a timeline where we get a show accurately portraying the Triplex Acies or a Macedonian Phalanx. Or even Cannea with the "Hammer and Anvil" tactic.

Spoiler: GOT

They did that Hammer and Anvil tactic at the battle of the bastards only they basically did a trash job of actually making it realistic.

because battles go for hours, sometimes longer.

 

[WTG]

because battles go for hours, sometimes longer.

Enough to fill 1 hour and 30 minutes of screen time?

 

[Mr Plow]

Spoiler: GOT

I agree with y'all, pretty disappointing. It seems like they killed off all of the interesting fantasy elements because it was easier than explaining them. It's now apparent that we'll never understand the Night King, White Walkers, Children of the Forest, Three Eyed Raven, Azor Ahai, R'hllor, etc. What a waste of all the years building it up.

Arya killing the Night King and no one important dying was also kind of a buzzkill. I like shows that subvert expectations, but having Arya finish a storyline she was never even involved in is just lame. Only killing the characters that wrapped up a neat narrative arc was pretty gutless too IMO.

Overall I can't be mad that they didn't give me the ending I wanted, because I hate all the nerds who do that with Star Wars and the like. I am however disappointed they seemingly abandoned all the fantasy elements they built up for years without even trying to explain them, and I think that's fair

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

GOT Episode thoughts...

Spoiler

That was a spectacular episode of television that was insanely well produced, acted and directed. Miguel Sapochnik, the actors, the FX guys, the writers of the score, all of those folks should feel very proud. I’ve never seen something like that in television history.

All of that isn’t to say it was the best written thing I’ve seen in television history, though. My critique of the writing is largely based around strategic decisions - the charge of the Dothraki, etc. - that made absolutely no narrative sense. And while I kind of felt this sort of narrative misdirect was coming, with respect to defeating the Night King here and having Cersei be the season’s real “big bad”, it is still a let down. It feels like a JJ Abrams sort of thing where they had all of these mystery boxes opened - who is the Night King? What is his ultimate goal? Why does he want Bran so badly? Why was Jon revived from the dead? Is he Azor Ahai? - and then they didn’t know what to do with them, or they didn’t like GRRM’s answers on what to do with them, so they just decided the heck with it and went in a different direction.

But they’ve made their bed now, and finishing off the series in a more intimate fashion - Cersei vs. Her two brothers, for example - might have been their plan all along.

Those points aside (they aren’t small) , this was an insanely enjoyable episode. Of course the episode where we expect a bunch of main characters to die, few actually do. GRRM’s thing was usually to kill them when you didn’t expect it, so I guess it holds that they don’t die when you do. I think the biggest gut punch death of the episode for me was little Lyanna Mormont, who certainly went out like a boss. House Mormont is extinct now, though, sadly. Jorah and Theon went out in exactly the ways they could have hoped to as well.

The MVP of the episode, even before going Air Jordan on the Night King, was Arya. Her sequence in the library was the standout of the episode for me. Superb tension. And if indeed her conversation with Melisandre all the way back in Season 2 was prophesying her killing the Night King, then that’s a long game plan right up there with “hold the door, Hodor”. It raises the interesting question now of whether Arya is indeed Azor Ahai/The Prince that was Promised, as Melisandre implied that Beric’s purpose was to protect Azor Ahai and he had fulfilled it.

Anyway - long ramble short, an extremely impressive, and entertaining but imperfect episode. Will be interesting to see where they go from here. Three episodes to go.

 

[Intangibos]

The tactics used, in a show involving a lot of military strategy, were horrid to the point of immersion breaking. I don't even care about "immersion" in TV shows that much, I watch a lot of really bad sci-fi, but yikes. The episode was too dark. Camera occasionally showing various groups of characters just standing there fighting while we wait for certain characters to do their thing.

Spoiler

Why did the cavalry just charge into the horde? Why was the artillery outside the wall and used once? Why didn't the night king just march right past Winterfell? Why did they just have a staring competition when they lit the trench? Why was the entire episode so dark? Why does the night king need to go for Bran personally? Where the hell is Ghost?

I understand the need to use Arya for something, and I assume the plan is for Jamie to kill Cersei which goes along with the whole Jamie killing monarchs that he doesn't want to have to kill, but I would rather have had Jamie defending Bran and killing the night king and having Arya kill Cersei instead. Then Jamie could wear the title "Kingslayer" with honour until a meaningful death in the finale.

Maybe I'm kind of biased because Jamie is my favorite or second favorite character, but I think his story is very important. Out of all the characters he's the one left who will have to choose between what he feels is right and his love/sister/child, and an ending to the show where he doesn't either fully commit to fighting for good or flipping the script and killing another Targaryen would be a travesty.

Edit: I mentioned this to a friend and he sent me this

Anyway, I think they wrote the episode poorly, I think it hurts the story, and I didn't even like how the episode was shot. It felt like they just threw money to make everything look cool rather than actually making it good.

 

[GetFocht]

sigh, so it begins, HFBoards aggressively trying to tell me to disable my adblocker.

 

[pahlsson]

when you have to adblock the request to disable adblocker

 

[GetFocht]

when you have to adblock the request to disable adblocker

is that possible?

 

[PM]

End Game > GOT episode 3.

It’s quite amazing what they did with the entire MCU project leading up to End Game. I think I still like Infinity War more but End Game is the better movie of the two, if that makes sense. And then Ragnarok, Winter Soldier and Civil War round out the top-5 in that order, for me anyways.

 

[Josepho]

sigh, so it begins, HFBoards aggressively trying to tell me to disable my adblocker.

the day they actually force it is the day i leave.

the ads are too f***ing obnoxious for me to have an enjoyable experience here.

 

[Intangibos]

when you have to adblock the request to disable adblocker

I use uBlock Origin and uMatrix and I'm not getting those. I really recommend switching to uBlock Origin if you use Firefox, not sure if it's available for Chrome. uMatrix is general for general security while browsing, even though it's unlikely even reputable sites can be compromised and run malicious code.

 

[EpochLink]

Yesterday,

My mental health got the best of me and I relapsed into a panic attack. Doing blood tests and dialysis at the hospital realized that even when it’s gone, it haunts us again.

I’m on a week off leave of work to get myself checked, I’m not going to let this get me.
Wish me luck guys.

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

Yesterday,

My mental health got the best of me and I relapsed into a panic attack. Doing blood tests and dialysis at the hospital realized that even when it’s gone, it haunts us again.

I’m on a week off leave of work to get myself checked, I’m not going to let this get me.
Wish me luck guys.

Right there with you, mate. Although we don't know each other, if you ever need to just chat let me know.

 

[Hyzer]

Hahaha, HFBoards asking me to disable an adblocker.

This site has the most obnoxious ads of any major website ever. The day that I'm forced to disable adblock for this site means it is the day I will never come here again.

Maybe you should get ads that don't fill your entire f***ing screen and maybe you should have less annoying mobile ads that use my bandwith.

 

[Hit the post]

Yesterday,

My mental health got the best of me and I relapsed into a panic attack. Doing blood tests and dialysis at the hospital realized that even when it’s gone, it haunts us again.

I’m on a week off leave of work to get myself checked, I’m not going to let this get me.
Wish me luck guys.

If possible, I’d actually take a longer leave of absence from work (granted this might not be possible or feasible). My boss had to take six months off due to stress (was put on short term disability). Ended up having the leave his job but is much better today health wise. Hope the best for you.

 

[EpochLink]

If possible, I’d actually take a longer leave of absence from work (granted this might not be possible or feasible). My boss had to take six months off due to stress (was put on short term disability). Ended up having the leave his job but is much better today health wise. Hope the best for you.

Turns out I’m on 2 week leave, so I got time.