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I think I might be the only person in the world with no problems with the disparity between how easy it was to hit the two dragons. It struck me that they killed the first dragon in the only way they ever could with the ballista's - by ambushing it. If you recall, the first volley of shots (from about two dozen boats) caught them by surprise. The dragons were just cursing along gently, the ships were in place and weapons loaded and pointing at about where they knew their target was going to be. They fired and a few of them hit the closest dragon - as I recall, Drogo was sheltered by his unfortunate brother.
Then the other one increased speed and started banking, turning and generally doing what would be called evasive manoeuvres in a thousand years time. How the hell are you going to hit that with a medieval siege weapon? Could you imagine how difficult it would be to reload and then get that heavy bit of kit pointing in the right direct, at the right tension, to fit a fast moving target? Their subsequent ineffectiveness was no great surprise to me.
I wonder if the Dawnish will turn up in the final? They were supposed to be the only part of the seven kingdoms to resist the dragons the first time. Presumably there ancestors must have known some counter to them. Perhaps they know some poison that is effective? The Dawnish love poison.
Let me know next time you are flying a dragon up in the sky and an armada of ships "sneaks up on you" in a war time scenario.
I doubt the Dorne will get much exposure in the finale, unless it's as yet another crazy deux ex machina move. After all, they couldn't even spend five seconds to give the new Dornish prince an actual name in Episode 4. How hard is it to just make up a name and say "the new Prince [BlahBlah] of Dorne," versus "The new prince ruling in Dorne"? Not very. Obviously Dorne is irrelevant.
I think I might be the only person in the world with no problems with the disparity between how easy it was to hit the two dragons. It struck me that they killed the first dragon in the only way they ever could with the ballista's - by ambushing it. If you recall, the first volley of shots (from about two dozen boats) caught them by surprise. The dragons were just cursing along gently, the ships were in place and weapons loaded and pointing at about where they knew their target was going to be. They fired and a few of them hit the closest dragon - as I recall, Drogo was sheltered by his unfortunate brother.
Then the other one increased speed and started banking, turning and generally doing what would be called evasive manoeuvres in a thousand years time. How the hell are you going to hit that with a medieval siege weapon? Could you imagine how difficult it would be to reload and then get that heavy bit of kit pointing in the right direct, at the right tension, to fit a fast moving target? Their subsequent ineffectiveness was no great surprise to me.
I wonder if the Dawnish will turn up in the final? They were supposed to be the only part of the seven kingdoms to resist the dragons the first time. Presumably there ancestors must have known some counter to them. Perhaps they know some poison that is effective? The Dawnish love poison.
I agree with that, those weapons were way more devastating to the actual boats, with good reason as those boats at their maximum steer are not going to be able to move as well as the dragons.
When I first saw that episode I thought wow, those ballista are way more accurate and worthy than the one they had to fight Smaug with in LOTR despite looking the exact same.
Maybe I'm just being cynical but now I'm wondering when Disney was talking to them about doing Star Wars and whether they just didn't want to be locked in longer than necessary so they could move on. It's plausible that lit a fire under them, they've been doing this show what, ten years in terms of when production actually started? It's a long time.
Still... it's like running a hell of a marathon that few can run, then just coasting through the last 20% of the race and merely finishing rather than setting a record. This will now be part of posterity, it is always on HBO's viewing list. How many new viewers want to slog through 4-5 great seasons for an "eh" ending?
But then again, there's a number of things that don't finish well or peter out after a few seasons. My list of series that pushed through to the end isn't super-huge. So it's probably just time to shrug.
Posted this on FaceBook on Friday, someone here might find it amusing...
.... Top Ten Other Endings for GoT better than the one we'll probably get, based on other TV shows.... (so, potential spoilers for other shows -- just a heads up)
10. Zoom out to show Westeros inside a snow globe in a boy's hands. He shakes it. Winter is coming.
9. Jon, Tormund, Orell, and Ygritte are arrested for not helping an old man they accosted, then have to go to trial while everyone recounts how petty and awful they are.
8. Jaime and Tyrion are drinking themselves under the table at a local tavern, and then (we think) Bronn approaches them from behind... fade to black.
7. After Hot Pie cleans up the empty tavern at night, he tells someone knocking that they're closed, and pats the bar contently.
6. After Dany buys the land for King's Landing out from under the townfolks, they blow up the city so that she'll never get her hands on any of it.
5. The entire cast finds themselves in the destroyed Temple of Baelor and are engulfed in beautiful white light; Jaime bleeds out in the forest while watching Drogon fly his friends to safety.
4. The last survivors mount Drogon and fly back across the sea, while Tyrion waves from the ground and spells out "GOODBYE" with the rubble of King's Landing.
3. A wounded Qyburn pats The Mountain's shoulder, then slowly slumps to the floor with a smile on his face.
2. Jaime concludes a talk with Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella with, "... and that's how I met your mother."
1. Ned Stark sits up wide-eyed in bed next to his wife Catelyn. "Honey, wake up -- you won't believe the dream I had!"
Ok, I know a lot of people are going to hate that, and the reasons aren't entirely invalid, but personally, I liked it. I still think this season was better than the past 2.5 seasons combined.
I just appreciate that it wasn't entirely predictable, and I was quite surprised from it. I suppose from a writing standpoint, none of the surprises in this episode were really set up very well beforehand (like the twist in the 6th sense), but that's just kind of the way things have gone since they moved past the books. Assuming that the books have better connective tissue, I think it wraps up the arcs quite nicely. It certainly does more to justify the amount of investment in a certain character than it would have been if they went the predictable route.
I guess the common thread I'm finding is the I really like being surprised. It's nice to know that you haven't seen everything all before, even as I grow into an old fart.
I also of course have a few questions... what does the Night's Watch even do now with no more Night King? Is Sweet Robin really that old? Who was the guy next to Edmure Tully ( I was wondering what happened to him just a few days ago, incidentally)? And I'm assuming that's the new Prince of Dorne, but who is he, exactly, since dumbass Ellaria killed off all of her house to exact vengeanace for the wrongs done to... her house.
The one point that I suppose really bugs me is the Reach. Tyrion doesn't say Highgarden when he mentions the Unsullied living there. He says the Reach. Are we supposed to believe that the Reach was just House Tyrell? But we know that's not true, because we've even seen other parts of the Reach. Oldtown, where the citadel is at, is in the Reach.
Really, if you think about it, Jon Snow wouldn't have been that great of a king. He's too impulsive and rash. He's like that even in the books, it's what gets him killed. And I'm also happy that they showed all the Lords laughing at Sam's suggestiong of universal democracy. That would have been too pat; an elective monarchy type situation is more believable. That actually did exist in the age of monarchies; only the nobles or a select class of them, got to vote. Poland had this, and the Holy Roman Empire had this (although it usually went to the same family).
Also, not to get too political, but I did appreciate some of the subtext in this episode . I know Benioff wrote Troy, which I need to rewatch, but I remember liking it quite a bit; it dealt with similar themes. And, I'm gonna stop there.
Also, I was hoping that preview would turn out to be Westworld, and I was so happy when ti did. It just looked like all the things we've seen of the non-Western, non-Saumrai part of the world.
I don't have any issue with the finale. I don't even have an issue with the final season, overall. Much of it was incredible and I'm happy with the way they reached acceptable paths for each surviving character. I'm ready to watch whatever prequel Children of the Forest/First Men/Andals thing they come up with. lol at the people that are going - I can get rid of HBO now.
Also, I was hoping that preview would turn out to be Westworld, and I was so happy when ti did. It just looked like all the things we've seen of the non-Western, non-Saumrai part of the world.