Game of Thrones - hide spoilers please.

[Finnegan]

If I was Dornish, my words would be Summer Is Coming. You can't really have winter without summer, if one is inevitable, they both are.

 

Those Starks are so miserable, no wonder people keep murdering the sulking bastards. 

 

My sigil would be a pair of barbecue tongs crossed over a beer bottle over a field of bikinis. 

[The Bear]

It was also thought that Bran unintentionally lifted the magic on the wall in the same way he did with the three eyed raven's cave.

[shen]

39 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Except for the old magic in the walls keeping them out.

We have no idea how magic works. We have no idea how powerful the NK is. It was hinted that the NK's branding of Bran (heh) would dispel the magic of the wall in the same way it did in the cave of the Three Eyed Raven. Magic doesn't make you immune really.

 

3 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

If I was Dornish, my words would be Summer Is Coming. You can't really have winter without summer, if one is inevitable, they both are.

 

Those Starks are so miserable, no wonder people keep murdering the sulking bastards. 

 

My sigil would be a pair of barbecue tongs crossed over a beer bottle over a field of bikinis. 

The odd thing in this world seems to be that seasons aren't consistent like IRL. Anyway, where do I sign up for House Finnegell?

[goose2010]

it wouldnt surprise me if they do an epsiode from the prespective of the Night King almost a bit of a back story probably through the eyes of Bran

 

Going to be a long wait until 2019 if the reports are true!

[Finnegan]

31 minutes ago, shen said:

We have no idea how magic works. We have no idea how powerful the NK is. It was hinted that the NK's branding of Bran (heh) would dispel the magic of the wall in the same way it did in the cave of the Three Eyed Raven. Magic doesn't make you immune really.

 

The odd thing in this world seems to be that seasons aren't consistent like IRL. Anyway, where do I sign up for House Finnegell?

 

I love how Martin based his world in grounded, sensible history (with a few magical twists chucked in) but then went with this ludicrously inexplicable seasons cycle. 

 

I mean the planet could have an enormous orbit of its star, fair play, it'd explain the long summers and winters. 

 

But the random lengths of seasons? 

[Captain...]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

So he shoots some spell at it and the magic breaks? 

 

It's fantasy, you can make up any old bollocks and call it canon. 

 

Especially given we have absolutely no idea what the Night King is capable of, he's just a rumoured boogie man. He could do anything, we've got no idea. 

The wall was created to keep the undead and the night king out of the realm of man. If the Nights King could just magic it down then it would be a shitty wall.

 

The books talk of a magic horn that can bring the wall down, I don't know if GRRM always had the idea of an undead dragon, but it is certainly cooler than a big old horn.

[Finnegan]

Given that dragons were more common place in the olden days, if all it takes is one average sized undead dragon to take the wall down then we've already established its a pretty shitty wall.

 

[Captain...]

3 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

  Hide contents

Given that dragons were more common place in the olden days, if all it takes is one average sized undead dragon to take the wall down then we've already established its a pretty shitty wall.

 

The wall was built 8000 years before the Targaryen conquest and Dragons aren't native to Westeros, they are native to Valyria and came to Westeros with the Targaryens  300 years before the war of the 5 kings.

 

[Babylon]

29 minutes ago, Captain... said:

The wall was built 8000 years before the Targaryen conquest and Dragons aren't native to Westeros, they are native to Valyria and came to Westeros with the Targaryens  300 years before the war of the 5 kings.

 

[shen]

51 minutes ago, goose2010 said:

it wouldnt surprise me if they do an epsiode from the prespective of the Night King almost a bit of a back story probably through the eyes of Bran

 

Going to be a long wait until 2019 if the reports are true!

That would surprise me. Beric basically told the audience in episode 6 that "maybe we don’t need to understand any more than [fighting for Life, against Death]. Maybe that’s enough."

Also, weren't those 'reports' quashed? Filming is for season 8 is planned to take place in autumn as per usual.

 

40 minutes ago, Captain... said:

The wall was created to keep the undead and the night king out of the realm of man. If the Nights King could just magic it down then it would be a shitty wall.

 

The books talk of a magic horn that can bring the wall down, I don't know if GRRM always had the idea of an undead dragon, but it is certainly cooler than a big old horn.

Are you certain of this? Basically, all that happened that long ago is part of myth and legend as it's not recorded history/canon. The maesters of Oldtown are very suspicious of it all. For all we know, it could well have been a wall protecting the white walkers and/or children of the forest from men. After all, it's the white walkers and CotF that have magical powers and man would've been unable to raise that wall by themselves.

[shen]

51 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I love how Martin based his world in grounded, sensible history (with a few magical twists chucked in) but then went with this ludicrously inexplicable seasons cycle. 

 

I mean the planet could have an enormous orbit of its star, fair play, it'd explain the long summers and winters. 

 

But the random lengths of seasons? 

Yeah, never understood that either, but logical fallacies are part and parcel of Sci-Fi/Fantasy so I just hop on the ride and go into super-naïve pretend mode.

[Finnegan]

18 minutes ago, shen said:

Yeah, never understood that either, but logical fallacies are part and parcel of Sci-Fi/Fantasy so I just hop on the ride and go into super-naïve pretend mode.

 

Which is exactly why complaining about the Night King's strategies, the strength of the wall or its magic forcefield are ultimately pointless. 

 

Like I said, it's fantasy, you get to make your own canon. 

 

I'd say suspension of my disbelief has been challenging in this series more than any other but still. 

 

Edited 29 August 2017 by Finnegan

[Nick]

Whilst I've watched this program and thought it was a bit naff and slow in points of earlier seasons - this one has been genuinely good - some crap acting at times but the CG's been stunning.

 

What I will not and I mean WILL NOT reduce myself to is discussing the way magic might work and how some King of undead might tactically approach a battle with humans. 

 

You are all daft twats.

[Finnegan]

Pot kettle black eh Nick mboy. 

[Nick]

Just now, Finnegan said:

Pot kettle black eh Nick mboy. 

 

 

Quiet you.

 

You're the daft twat ringleader in all this.

 

I'll use my magic imaginary walker sword with special holy hilt to defeat you and I'll do this in a Ruined Roman amphitheater for added bizarity. After we'll be related and become lovers - a boy with his eyes pecked out has forseen it.

 

 

[Captain...]

58 minutes ago, shen said:

Are you certain of this? Basically, all that happened that long ago is part of myth and legend as it's not recorded history/canon. The maesters of Oldtown are very suspicious of it all. For all we know, it could well have been a wall protecting the white walkers and/or children of the forest from men. After all, it's the white walkers and CotF that have magical powers and man would've been unable to raise that wall by themselves.

 

in:

Wars, History, White Walkers

Long Night

"Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation. Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts; and women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks... In that darkness the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds."

―Old Nan to Bran Stark^[src]

Eight thousand years before the Targaryen Conquest, a winter known as the Long Night descended upon the world, which lasted an entire generation. Thousands starved as the crops and fields lay buried under dozens of feet of snow. In the darkness and cold of the Long Night, the White Walkers descended upon Westeros from the farthest north, the polar regions of the Lands of Always Winter. The conflict that arose from the Long Night is known as the War for the Dawn as the White Walkers sought to bring an end to all life and to cover the world in an endless winter.

Prelude

The invasion of Westeros by the First Men and their encroachment into the lands of the Children of the Forest led to a long period of warfare between the two factions for control of the continent in the period before the Pact. During this period, a group of Children captured several humans and experimented on them, creating the first White Walkers whose purpose was to protect them from men. However, the White Walkers broke free of the Children's control and became a threat to anyone living, becoming the most feared creatures in the known world.

The War for the Dawn

None knew why the White Walkers came when they did, but they killed all in their path 2,000 years after the Pact and 8,000 years before the events of Robert's Rebellion. The White Walkers reanimated the dead as Wights to kill the living at their command, and soon the White Walkers led their hordes of undead to sweep across the continent.^[1][2][3]

The dead raised as Wights.

The First Men drove back the White Walkers to the furthest north

Eventually the First Men and the Children of the Forest rallied to defend themselves and in a conflict known as the War for the Dawn, the White Walkers were defeated and driven back into the uttermost north.^[3]

The Wall was constructed along the northernmost isthmus of northern Westeros to bar their return, a massive fortification standing seven hundred feet high and stretching from one side of the continent to the other. Legend says that the Wall was infused with powerful magic spells by the Children of the Forest that prevent the White Walkers from crossing it. The ancient order of the Night's Watch was founded to defend the Wall should the White Walkers return to invade the realms of men once more.^[3][4]

Edited 29 August 2017 by Captain...

[Nick]

*holds head in hands*

[shen]

39 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

Whilst I've watched this program and thought it was a bit naff and slow in points of earlier seasons - this one has been genuinely good - some crap acting at times but the CG's been stunning.

 

What I will not and I mean WILL NOT reduce myself to is discussing the way magic might work and how some King of undead might tactically approach a battle with humans. 

 

You are all daft twats.

Surely the daft ones are those swayed by spectacular CGI and superficial conversations as opposed to conflicted relationships, political intrigue and character development

 

10 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Wikipage

My point still stands. None of this is recorded, they are old stories which are not exactly reliable. This show gives tons of examples of how the victor dictates the historical narrative, which is always heavily biased, misinformed or downright propaganda. Surely, if anything is to be gained from watching a fantasy show like this, it's to understand the caricature it paints of our world.

Edited 29 August 2017 by shen

[lgfualol]

Westeros is ****ed

[Captain...]

1 minute ago, shen said:

My point still stands. None of this is recorded, they are old stories which are not exactly reliable. This show gives tons of examples of how the victor dictates the historical narrative, which is always heavily biased, misinformed or downright propaganda. Surely, if anything is to be gained from watching a fantasy show like this, it's to understand the caricature it paints of our world.

I'm not really sure of your point, you seem to be disputing the fiction about a magic wall. The references from the book and show state that it was built to keep the white walkers and the undead out, it was infused with magic, magic which means the dead can't pass through it, but seemingly an undead dragon can melt the bastard down with ice fire. We have seen the Children of the forest, and the cave paintings of the first men and the children of the forest, we also have greenseers that can see the past. It may be in part myth and legend and folklore, but it is also a great big fvck off wall of ice that could not have been built by men without some sort of magical help.

 

Of course this is a work of fiction, and for all we know it could just be 2 metres tall and everyone shrinks as they get closer to it, or it is just a figment of Ned Stark's imagination and really he is a northern footballer dreaming of a fantasy world while playing for Sheffield United, but unless there is any reason or indication that this is not a big **** off wall built out of ice and magic to protect the realm of man from the armies of the undead, then when they say it is I don't see any reason to question it.

[shen]

37 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I'm not really sure of your point, you seem to be disputing the fiction about a magic wall. The references from the book and show state that it was built to keep the white walkers and the undead out, it was infused with magic, magic which means the dead can't pass through it, but seemingly an undead dragon can melt the bastard down with ice fire. We have seen the Children of the forest, and the cave paintings of the first men and the children of the forest, we also have greenseers that can see the past. It may be in part myth and legend and folklore, but it is also a great big fvck off wall of ice that could not have been built by men without some sort of magical help.

 

Of course this is a work of fiction, and for all we know it could just be 2 metres tall and everyone shrinks as they get closer to it, or it is just a figment of Ned Stark's imagination and really he is a northern footballer dreaming of a fantasy world while playing for Sheffield United, but unless there is any reason or indication that this is not a big **** off wall built out of ice and magic to protect the realm of man from the armies of the undead, then when they say it is I don't see any reason to question it.

 

So you had no objections to the wights rising at Castle Black and attacking Mormont and Jon Snow, nor how the wight they just captured made it to King's Landing seemingly unaffected?

 

For all we know, there was no magic in that big **** off wall of ice. It's not like undead corpses banging on the wall is a daily occurrence, no-one has proof of the infused magic. It's all legend and what people believe to be true. Not even Bran the Oracle knows. I'm sure I could think of a plethora of 'plausible' explanations as to why the wall isn't magic.

 

The narrator/story/legend is unreliable, and the misleading Winterfell plot line in the show illustrates once more how you cannot always trust that what is shown/told is true just because they choose to show it to you.

 

[Carl the Llama]

4 minutes ago, shen said:

 

So you had no objections to the wights rising at Castle Black and attacking Mormont and Jon Snow, nor how the wight they just captured made it to King's Landing seemingly unaffected?

 

For all we know, there was no magic in that big **** off wall of ice. It's not like undead corpses banging on the wall is a daily occurrence, no-one has proof of the infused magic. It's all legend and what people believe to be true. Not even Bran the Oracle knows. I'm sure I could think of a plethora of 'plausible' explanations as to why the wall isn't magic.

 

The narrator/story/legend is unreliable, and the misleading Winterfell plot line in the show illustrates once more how you cannot always trust that what is shown/told is true just because they choose to show it to you.

 

Misleading Winterfell plot?  How so?

Sure, they didn't explicitly show us the sisters & Bran conspiring against Littlefinger but they did show us Arya handing her dagger over when she could have killed Sansa without consequence.  So Sansa already knew that Arya had no intention of actually killing her when Littlefinger gave her the 'look for the worst' spiel and seeing the dagger back at Arya's waist when she entered the hall should have tipped you off that they'd had another tete-a-tete between scenes.

[Captain...]

3 minutes ago, shen said:

 

So you had no objections to the wights rising at Castle Black and attacking Mormont and Jon Snow, nor how the wight they just captured made it to King's Landing seemingly unaffected?

 

For all we know, there was no magic in that big **** off wall of ice. It's not like undead corpses banging on the wall is a daily occurrence, no-one has proof of the infused magic. It's all legend and what people believe to be true. Not even Bran the Oracle knows. I'm sure I could think of a plethora of 'plausible' explanations as to why the wall isn't magic.

 

The narrator/story/legend is unreliable, and the misleading Winterfell plot line in the show illustrates once more how you cannot always trust that what is shown/told is true just because they choose to show it to you.

 

The wight rising at Castle Black, was carried through the wall and then became a wight. So didn't cross the wall as an undead creature.

 

I have plenty of issues with the stupid catch a wight plot line, I assumed that the wight was carried over on a dragon so it didn't pass through the wall, but it still made bugger all sense. Although I did enjoy the scene of it charging down Cersei.

 

It would have made a lot more sense if the magnificent seven carried back one of the dead/injured who became a wight, in keeping with what happened before, which made Jon think we could use this to get Cersei  on side.

 

To be honest, I still don't understand what point you are trying to make, the legend is the wall is infused with magic to keep the armies of the undead out. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant as they have burnt down the wall of ice and marched through. Magic making it impossible to cross the wall is in keeping with the fact the Night King remained dormant until such a time that a means to destroy the wall presented itself (assuming he had the foresight to know he would come by a dragon). Obviously there is no way to prove this, but there is no need to, whatever the "reality" of this fiction is, the wall was a barrier, the dragon destroyed it, winter has come. The possibility that it wasn't a magic barrier became moot when a zombie dragon burnt it to the ground.

[Finnegan]

To be honest, I don't remember it ever being referenced in the tv series that the wall was magic. Just ****ing big. Like really ****ing big. 

 

I don't doubt it may be in the books but it's clearly not something they've bothered to enforce much in the show. 

[Captain...]

Just now, Carl the Llama said:

Misleading Winterfell plot?  How so?

 

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Sure, they didn't explicitly show us the sisters & Bran conspiring against Littlefinger but they did show us Arya handing her dagger over when she could have killed Sansa without consequence.  So Sansa already knew that Arya had no intention of actually killing her when Littlefinger gave her the 'look for the worst' spiel and seeing the dagger back at Arya's waist when she entered the hall should have tipped you off that they'd had another tete-a-tete between scenes.

 

I've not had my tuppence worth on winterfell, and to be honest I was disappointed.

 

It felt rushed (unsurprisingly) Little Finger's come uppance, should have been at the end, he started all this, he should have been that at the end either discussing how it all panned out with Varys or killed in some dramatic double cross, trying to marry Sansa whilst betraying the rest of the Stark's to Cersei.

 

His meddling has been marginalised and served no purpose this season, the reveal that he was to be on trial not Arya was kinda obvious, but the reasoning why wasn't. I assume Bran looked back through time and saw what he did, but it would have made more sense if the Sansa Arya double cross was actually to get him to tell Sansa what he did to the Arryn's and Ned, not just sell us down the wrong path.