Game of Thrones - Our Watch has Ended

[LeeEvans]

6 minutes ago, JonStark said:

What would be the point of him going with Jon? He can't cross the wall.

The only thing him going with Jon would do would be slow down the horse. Him staying back and fighting delayed the wights that much more which could've made the difference in Jon getting away.

Like when he outran a horde of wights with both Bran and Meera on the back of his horse? 

[LeeEvans]

9 hours ago, drd23 said:

I've seen this theory and it makes absolutely no sense to me.

AFAIK there has been no evidence of anyone being able to warg into inanimate objects, and unless the pommel of Longclaw was made of a weirwood tree (which would make no sense considering that the First Men worship at them) just seeing out of its eye make no sense either.  And that is before you get to the fact that creatures/people that have been warged into in the show have their eyes turn white - which is the opposite of what appears to happen to Longclaw's pommel

Plus how does him warging into a sword tell Benjen anything? Bran would just be sitting in a sword chillin.

[ramssuperbowl99]

15 hours ago, McNabbs Beef said:

Overall just a pretty Hollywood style episode to me. Really losing what made Game Of Thrones so great, which was believable outcomes and ideas in a fantasy world. No cheating. If a character is in a situation where they're supposed to die, they die.

Hoping this last episode really delivers.

It's a fair criticism, but plot armor exists because at some point people want to see characters who both put themselves in crazy scenarios and live to tell about it. If everyone died who "should", we'd end up with Hot Pie on the Iron Throne.

GRRM deserves credit for trying to get rid of plot armor, but at the end of the day his story needs a hero or two.

[LeeEvans]

17 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

It's a fair criticism, but plot armor exists because at some point people want to see characters who both put themselves in crazy scenarios and live to tell about it. If everyone died who "should", we'd end up with Hot Pie on the Iron Throne.

GRRM deserves credit for trying to get rid of plot armor, but at the end of the day his story needs a hero or two.

I'd argue there is a huge difference between Jon's plot armor in Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome compared to it in the last episode. One was done believably and the other had so many flaws in it's logic. Even when he was brought back to life Melisandre was there and it made sense how she could bring him back after the previous occurrences in the show. That's what he is talking about, it's okay that the good guys win even when they shouldn't but it should at least be remotely explainable.

[ramssuperbowl99]

Just now, LeeEvans said:

I'd argue there is a huge difference between Jon's plot armor in Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome compared to it in the last episode. One was done believably and the other had so many flaws in it's logic. Even when he was brought back to life Melisandre was there and it made sense how she could bring him back after the previous occurrences in the show. That's what he is talking about, it's okay that the good guys win even when they shouldn't but it should at least be remotely explainable.

Hardhome, I agree and thought that was masterfully done. Battle of the Bastards, not so much. The episode itself was amazing, but Jon stared down all of Ramsay's horses in the middle of nowhere by himself and dodged roughly 18 billion arrows without a scratch.

Was him surviving this episode silly? Yeah. So was Jamie and Bron being teleported across a lake with a dragon who wants to kill them in full armor without breathing. It's getting more blatant, so I'm not disagreeing that plot armor needs to be managed and could have been done better. All I'm saying is that if you liked GoT because it killed plot armor entirely, your expectations weren't fair.

[JonStark]

35 minutes ago, LeeEvans said:

Like when he outran a horde of wights with both Bran and Meera on the back of his horse? 

You still didn't answer the first question. What would be the point of him leaving if he can't cross the wall? At that point in time, his decision of making 100% sure that Jon makes it out of there alive is a much better choice than risking it and leaving with him, when he can't do anything after that anyway.

[seminoles1]

49 minutes ago, JonStark said:

What would be the point of him going with Jon? He can't cross the wall.

The only thing him going with Jon would do would be slow down the horse. Him staying back and fighting delayed the wights that much more which could've made the difference in Jon getting away.

The wight got across the wall just fine. Any reason Benjen couldn't have also just gone around on a dragon?

[JonStark]

1 minute ago, seminoles1 said:

The wight got across the wall just fine. Any reason Benjen couldn't have also just gone around on a dragon?

That I don't know, just going by what Benjen said to Bran.

[LeeEvans]

6 minutes ago, JonStark said:

You still didn't answer the first question. What would be the point of him leaving if he can't cross the wall? At that point in time, his decision of making 100% sure that Jon makes it out of there alive is a much better choice than risking it and leaving with him, when he can't do anything after that anyway.

He could still contribute when the battle against the Night King actually happens and if/when they break down the wall. So far Benjen has been used twice to rescue main characters and then seemingly was just killed off to tie up a lose end and nothing more. If a character was added into the show specifically to save two characters and do nothing else that is extremely poor writing. 

[JonStark]

Just now, LeeEvans said:

He could still contribute when the battle against the Night King actually happens and if/when they break down the wall. So far Benjen has been used twice to rescue main characters and then seemingly was just killed off to tie up a lose end and nothing more. If a character was added into the show specifically to save two characters and do nothing else that is extremely poor writing. 

So if he rides off with Jon, and then comes back one more time in the battle and dies there, that's really that much better than how it happened?

And how do you know where the battle will be? If it ends up being closer to King's Landing and somehow Benjen shows up there, everyone would say "OMG, he shows up out of no where right on time. How'd he know they were there? Etc.". Sometimes there's just no winning with this show.

[LeeEvans]

10 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Hardhome, I agree and thought that was masterfully done. Battle of the Bastards, not so much. The episode itself was amazing, but Jon stared down all of Ramsay's horses in the middle of nowhere by himself and dodged roughly 18 billion arrows without a scratch.

Was him surviving this episode silly? Yeah. So was Jamie and Bron being teleported across a lake with a dragon who wants to kill them in full armor without breathing. It's getting more blatant, so I'm not disagreeing that plot armor needs to be managed and could have been done better. All I'm saying is that if you liked GoT because it killed plot armor entirely, your expectations weren't fair.

I totally agree, it's going be extremely difficult to make a story without heroes getting out of difficult situations. I'm saying they are doing a much worse job of it than before in the show and it's really taking away from what made it great. I agree that the horse stare down thing at the Battle of the Bastards was dumb but he was about to die in that weird pit thing until the Knights of the Vale arrived. That wasn't just an army showing up out of the blue but a plot that had been advanced and actually talked about instead of just dragons and ravens flying faster than jet planes, Benjen Stark popping up at just the right time, Jon surviving hypothermia and being under water long enough for the whole horde of wights to disappear. 

[LeeEvans]

8 minutes ago, JonStark said:

So if he rides off with Jon, and then comes back one more time in the battle and dies there, that's really that much better than how it happened?

And how do you know where the battle will be? If it ends up being closer to King's Landing and somehow Benjen shows up there, everyone would say "OMG, he shows up out of no where right on time. How'd he know they were there? Etc.". Sometimes there's just no winning with this show.

Yeah because it is used as more of a plot device than just to save Jon, that is such lazy writing. Like I said, if the only purpose a character serves is to dig yourself out of a plot hole it's an awful character. 

Benjen seems to be tracking the wights and white walkers so him following their march would make perfect sense to me, at least a lot more than needless dying to tie off a crappy lose end. What would have been better story telling would be him meeting the group before they get cornered and then dying to save them instead of just miraculously turning up and saving Jon and dying for no reason. Even just a throw away line like "I'll help fight them when the time comes" or something would be an improvement on what is currently being offered. 

It might not be important to you but it's noticeable for a lot of people and it impacts my enjoyment of the show, especially compared to how carefully written it was before this season (and a bit of last). If that doesn't affect you that is totally fine but it does to others.

 

[JonStark]

Just now, LeeEvans said:

Yeah because it is used as more of a plot device than just to save Jon, that is such lazy writing. Like I said, if the only purpose a character serves is to dig yourself out of a plot hole it's an awful character. 

Benjen seems to be tracking the wights and white walkers so him following their march would make perfect sense to me, at least a lot more than needless dying to tie off a crappy lose end. Even just a throw away line like "I'll help fight them when the time comes" or something would be an improvement on what is currently being offered. 

It might not be important to you but it's noticeable for a lot of people and it impacts my enjoyment of the show, especially compared to how carefully written it was before this season (and a bit of last). If that doesn't affect you that is totally fine but it does to others.

 

So if Benjen seems to be tracking the wights and white walkers, why is it just "popping up at the right time" as you said in your post above?

I completely understand that you and others want more out of most of the characters, but their storyline's need to be resolved as we only have 7 episodes left. It was more carefully written in previous seasons because they had more time to do so. Because of the show now needing a lot more CGI with the dragons and white walkers, it's reasonable that they had to sacrifice some episodes to meet the budget. Now, why the budget isn't significantly higher than previous seasons to cover it all, I'll never know.

He didn't needlessly die is what I'm trying to get at. He sacrificed himself to slow down the wights and assure Jon got out of there alive.

[LeeEvans]

1 minute ago, JonStark said:

So if Benjen seems to be tracking the wights and white walkers, why is it just "popping up at the right time" as you said in your post above?

I completely understand that you and others want more out of most of the characters, but their storyline's need to be resolved as we only have 7 episodes left. It was more carefully written in previous seasons because they had more time to do so. Because of the show now needing a lot more CGI with the dragons and white walkers, it's reasonable that they had to sacrifice some episodes to meet the budget. Now, why the budget isn't significantly higher than previous seasons to cover it all, I'll never know.

He didn't needlessly die is what I'm trying to get at. He sacrificed himself to slow down the wights and assure Jon got out of there alive.

You keep saying that. I just said he did the same thing with TWO other people on his horse last season with Bran and Meera. It clearly isn't an issue based on previous episodes so why does he now have to slow down the wights? 

If he was there the whole time why wouldn't he have intervened before or jumped in to save Jon from drowning? It's not that I want more out of the characters but I want characters to exist more than just a way to stop main characters from dying. Benjen literally served absolutely zero purpose outside of rescuing two main characters, that isn't a lack of time issue, it is a crappy writing issue. He didn't even really have any screen time besides those two scenes and we're just supposed to be okay with a minor character showing up to save two characters and then die? That is such a cop out. If you don't have a problem with it being used as a mechanism to cover up holes in the story that's fine but acting like it doesn't exist is kind of silly. 

[JonStark]

20 minutes ago, LeeEvans said:

You keep saying that. I just said he did the same thing with TWO other people on his horse last season with Bran and Meera. It clearly isn't an issue based on previous episodes so why does he now have to slow down the wights? 

If he was there the whole time why wouldn't he have intervened before or jumped in to save Jon from drowning? It's not that I want more out of the characters but I want characters to exist more than just a way to stop main characters from dying. Benjen literally served absolutely zero purpose outside of rescuing two main characters, that isn't a lack of time issue, it is a crappy writing issue. He didn't even really have any screen time besides those two scenes and we're just supposed to be okay with a minor character showing up to save two characters and then die? That is such a cop out. If you don't have a problem with it being used as a mechanism to cover up holes in the story that's fine but acting like it doesn't exist is kind of silly. 

I think there were significantly more wights in this week's episode, but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm honestly not sure how Benjen would be tracking the wights (which is why I said him showing up closer to KL would cause even more complaining). Does he have a sense of where they are? Is he staying just close enough to them at all times as to where he has never been seen? If he was tracking them, he been around during the 4-5 days the crew was just standing there in the middle of the ice, even if he just stayed on the outskirts because he knew he wouldn't stand a chance alone. If he was there, he would've rode in as soon as the first wight started walking or at the very least, Dany showed up. IMO, he was drawn to that area because he saw the three huge dragons flying around and I think that's pretty reasonable.

For the record, I do wish we did have more scenes with him and a bunch of other characters. I just don't think it's as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be, much like which dragon the NK chose to throw at.