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Talkin' bout Stannis there.
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May 4, 2015 21:52
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Woah, sorry. Reminds me of the old Van Halen song, "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Ned." Dr. Faustus fucked around with this message at 21:57 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 21:54
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Stannis is Mitt Romney if Mitt Romney was ok with executing people by burning them alive. In other words he's very good at management.
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May 4, 2015 21:57
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Elephanthead posted:I think we have decided the harpy dudes were the unemployed pit fighters not the lazy slave owners. I guess this makes a bit more sense, but only a bit
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May 4, 2015 21:57
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:I guess this makes a bit more sense, but only a bit Yeah it still doesn't really. Apparently the locked out pitfighters of Mereen are the true deadliest warriors in all of Essos, and Dany was just getting taken for a ride by all this Unsullied hype? We saw Grey Worm, Jorah, and Daario fight off a battalion of actual soldiers in an enclosed space with little trouble, and to this point the Unsullied army has been these unstoppable super soldiers who've made Dany's conquering of cities basically a formality. Not just that, but if the explanation for why these faceless extras in dumb 300 masks are actually competent fighters is "they're pitfighters, and Essos pitfighters are some of the best warriors in the world" then how many loving pitfighters are there? They're pouring out of video game monster closets like it's Gauntlet: Legends and not stopping until they're stacked three feet high, and presumably there's plenty more where that came from. They appear to be equivalent to a loving army in number, organization, and skill. So where were they when Dany and her jobber Unsullied took the city from the Masters in the first place? And why was that one Daario punked through the wall such an idiot weaselly pushover who absolutely seemed like a spoiled disgruntled rich loyalist? It feels like a Dragon Ball Z plot, where the bigger, stronger enemy whose existence everyone was apparently aware of just shows up out of nowhere to make the established strong characters look helpless, despite there being no good explanation for why nobody mentioned them earlier, or why they didn't take action despite having good reason to.
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May 4, 2015 22:13
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It's been pointed out already, but the performance of the Unsullied in mass formations in the field compared with what happens when small groups of them are mobbed at knifepoint in alleyways isn't really a huge inconsistency. Selmy did as well as could be expected without armor.
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May 4, 2015 22:27
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I'm really surprised that Jaime doesn't have a false hand he can strap on that has like a spike, shield, or even a sword in it's grip. I suggested maybe a lion's paw with sharpened claws, but then he'd be more like a Bond villain.
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May 4, 2015 22:38
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e: ^^^^^ I think Jaime just needs to learn to start punching people with it at least. That whole fight this episode I was waiting for him to block a sword slash and then [RIGHT HOOK] the dude. I mean, a metal hand would hurt like balls If Stannis being Dad of the Year to his daughter that everyone else in the entire world would see as an abomination of Satan doesn't convince you that he actually does have human emotions I don't know what the gently caress show you're watching. I wasn't fully on board with him before, but after that scene, gently caress yeah.
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May 4, 2015 22:38
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Mandrel posted:Yeah it still doesn't really. Apparently the locked out pitfighters of Mereen are the true deadliest warriors in all of Essos, and Dany was just getting taken for a ride by all this Unsullied hype? We saw Grey Worm, Jorah, and Daario fight off a battalion of actual soldiers in an enclosed space with little trouble, and to this point the Unsullied army has been these unstoppable super soldiers who've made Dany's conquering of cities basically a formality. I think you guys are over thinking this. Being bad rear end fighters doesn't make you invincible. They walked into an ambush were surrounded and killed. It's that simple. Being able to beat any of the Harpys one on one doesn't help you when your out numbered and surrounded.
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May 4, 2015 22:38
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Man I can't believe King Robert, the man who rebelled against the Mad King and won and spent the entire war smashing skulls with battleaxes died on a hunting trip years later when he was old and out of shape. Can't believe the elite Kingsguard were defeated by a boar. This show is bullshit, so many inconsistencies.
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May 4, 2015 22:38
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Brony Hunter posted:Man I can't believe King Robert, the man who rebelled against the Mad King and won and spent the entire war smashing skulls with battleaxes died on a hunting trip years later when he was old and out of shape. Can't believe the elite Kingsguard were defeated by a boar. This show is bullshit, so many inconsistencies. I'm pretty sure the Lannister kid who turned sparrow spoke to Cersi about poisoning Robert on that hunting trip. Or spiking the wine so he'd be more clumsy. I could be imagining that..
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May 4, 2015 22:44
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Can't tell if I like Stannis now because I actually like him or because everyone else is dead.
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May 4, 2015 22:57
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Stannis rules, both figuratively and literally as the One True King.
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May 4, 2015 23:00
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utvolsbaby posted:I'm pretty sure the Lannister kid who turned sparrow spoke to Cersi about poisoning Robert on that hunting trip. Or spiking the wine so he'd be more clumsy. I could be imagining that.. We also had prior scenes explicitly point out that Robert was past his prime and too fat to fight ("fetch the breastplate stretcher!"), plus he also straight up said he had too much wine. Also, Barristan killing several gown-wearing goofballs isn't really impressive when we had that scene in season 3 of Grey Worm/Jorah/Daario effortlessly murdering an entire city guard.
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May 4, 2015 23:03
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Cersei loves her kids in addition to all her horrible personality flaws and evil acts, so she is logically equivalent to Stannis. The Three Musketeers taking over the city was goofy as gently caress and only kind of got away with it because they did the whole "We don't have the budget to show you anything so imagine it happened offscreen" thing. I think their fight choreographers can set up duels all right (in the same ep you had Bronn/Jaime fighting and it basically worked all right because it was a series of one-on-ones) but when it gets into larger scrums it looks a lot more unconvincing.
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May 4, 2015 23:12
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Cersei loves her kids in addition to all her horrible personality flaws and evil acts, so she is logically equivalent to Stannis. I should hope you can see the difference in how Stannis treated his daughter and how Cersei treated Tommen in this episode alone.
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May 4, 2015 23:20
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I think all the people going "woo Stannis father of the year!" are missing the obvious foreshadowing.
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May 4, 2015 23:21
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I mean, I actually think that Cersei is mostly a piece of poo poo. But I also think that however heartwarming a moment he had with his daughter, Stannis is also still mostly a piece of poo poo. Loving your kid is not some outsized sacrifice of goodness, it's probably the baseline marker of humanity and Stannis clearing it should not be occasion for a gold star. Now if Stannis has to make a decision between sacrificing Shireen and giving up the Iron Throne and he goes with the first, that would be something
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May 4, 2015 23:25
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Like others I was disappointed in the final fight scene - the Sons of the Harpy should have just swarmed all over the Unsullied/Grey Worm/Selmy without regard for their own safety, just been a wave of flesh that was easily hacked down by the more efficient fighters but by sheer weight of numbers was able to take them down. You still could have ended with Grey Worm and Selmy down for the count after killing all of them, but it wouldn't have felt as contrived as it did to me by having the Sons show up and then pose-off before fighting in relatively open space against a highly trained fighting unit.
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May 4, 2015 23:28
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Firstborn posted:I'm really surprised that Jaime doesn't have a false hand he can strap on that has like a spike, shield, or even a sword in it's grip. I suggested maybe a lion's paw with sharpened claws, but then he'd be more like a Bond villain. You can't just weld a sword into a metal hand and fight with it like normal - you need wrist movement, the ability to release your grip etc. It's dumb that he hasn't tried to hit anyone with it, but I guess it's not really attached securely enough to be reliable in a fight?
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May 4, 2015 23:38
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The show has always sucked at big fights. A few unsullied were ambushed, managed to kill a bunch of people but were eventually overwhelmed. That's what we're supposed to take from the fight. The specifics of how it went down on-screen are subject to budget and bad fight choreography.
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May 4, 2015 23:40
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Mr Beens posted:You can't just weld a sword into a metal hand and fight with it like normal - you need wrist movement, the ability to release your grip etc. It's dumb that he hasn't tried to hit anyone with it, but I guess it's not really attached securely enough to be reliable in a fight? I get that, but would it really be weird to him if the fingers were points or if it was closed into a fist with a big loving spike coming out of the knuckle or something? He was perfectly handy (  ) with a little ambi-dex fighting when he drew a dagger and stabbed Jory through the eye in S1. I fully understand wanting a hand to blend in while in court and stuff, but he should have a badass war hand that's like a hook or something. The muscle memory is there, I think, if he were to put a dagger-sized blade in that hand. RE: Unsullied dying like bitches - One reading I've come across is how they aren't good at thinking on their feet, just following orders, and they were out of their element. I guess that works for me. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 23:43 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 23:40
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Yeah, the skills needed for military action are different from what you need to police a community, and when you conflate the two bad things can happen (It Is a Political Allegory)
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May 4, 2015 23:46
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The show has never been that good at fights. The Oberyn/Mountain fight was relatively well done, I guess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3tu5Wfp34 I don't watch shows for the fights, though. I find most long, highly-choreographed fights to be boring.
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May 4, 2015 23:47
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I find the choreography very competent, and sometimes really awesome. Brienne vs. the Hound, the one you mentioned, Bronn in the trial..
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May 4, 2015 23:51
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Toxxupation posted:if you think that's bad and stereotypical "arabian princess" aladdin bullshit you should read how dany's original sex scenes with khal drogo went I can show you a world, raped by a stalllllionnnn In all seriousness the Dalthraki were shown to be huge assholes in the show, too. The woman that killed Kal Drogo was kind of a hero. RBA Starblade posted:I'm still enjoying how hard Jon Snow is trying to escape the rest of the plot. I'm starting to think it'll wake a full on white walker assault and the wall being burnt to the ground to get him to step out of there, now. Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 00:04 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:00
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I loved when Dany was like, "I saved you!" and she is all, "From what? I was raped three times before you came over." Maybe love isn't the right word, but yeah, powerful stuff and she was a hero. gently caress the Dothraki.
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May 5, 2015 00:03
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Holy poo poo Melissandre actress has amazing tits. Oh yeah the rest of the episode was ok too. Knew Selmy was a goner as soon as they showed him having 30+ seconds of happy dialogue. RIP. The whole Jon Lyanna/Robert/Rhaegar thing was telegraphed so hard though.
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May 5, 2015 00:04
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oswald ownenstein posted:I love this show but it's full of crap like that. Loras is one of the top fighters in the whole show, and as mentioned, was surrounded by armored sparring buddies. I'm surprised he was taken so easily too. Ramsay on the other hand, he's kind of awesome in his insanity. I still want a cut with the Monty Python "Run away, run away!!" sounds dubbed over their grand rescue plan. Also I've determined that the Iron Born absolutely blow and that the Grayjoys are on borrowed time.
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May 5, 2015 00:09
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:The Three Musketeers taking over the city was goofy as gently caress and only kind of got away with it because they did the whole "We don't have the budget to show you anything so imagine it happened offscreen" thing. Someone here described that scene as a level from Double Dragon. A few guys jump into frame, get knocked out, then blink into nothing as a floating arrow unlocks the next screen. Now that's just exactly what happened in my mind. The city guard organized into groups of only a handful at a time. Then the heroes fought some miniboss and the city was theirs. Also, I can't stop imagining Jorah punching a guy a few times, before winding up a haymaker with a pumpkin-sized fist that sends the goon flying offscreen like a rocket. Battletoads style.
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May 5, 2015 00:10
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Selmy killing 12 dudes at age 70 in a leather shirt with a longsword in a cramped dark hallway by himself (pretty much) is 100% living up to the legend regardless of what shirtless Ramsay or Black Ops Daario did. Also Selmy hosed your grandma when she still looked alright. GW saved him from getting his throat cut, but then the poor dude just drowned in all the blood he spilled. RIP. It sucks that he is gone, but that just means more screen time for Iain Glen (hopefully). Firstborn fucked around with this message at 00:20 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:11
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Xealot posted:Someone here described that scene as a level from Double Dragon. A few guys jump into frame, get knocked out, then blink into nothing as a floating arrow unlocks the next screen. You don't understand the horrors, man. After that, Daario came out like a different person entirely. ParliamentOfDogs posted:Anyone else think Pycelle is done with Cersei? I can't remember who said it, but that "small council is getting smaller" line seemed like a callback to season 2 when Tyrion took control of the small council and hosed Pycelle over and Cersei's response of "not small enough" sounded like a threat to do the same. There have been too many scenes of her antagonizing him without it leading to something. If Pycelle of all people fucks over Cersei that will be the most hilarious episode in the run of the show. She's enough of an idiot and underestimates him enough I could totally buy it, too. k-spar posted:It's really kind of a bummer. I just rewatched the first episode of Rome and it really made me sad that we're not seeing badass unsullied phalanx tactics. It does seem like they're out their element in these alleys though, so i guess that makes sense? There are a minimum number of people required to maintain a proper Phalanx. They would have had to have enough to lock shields end-to-end in the alleyway; it all falls apart if they lack the numbers to contain their flanks, since then people with daggers and no armor can potentially hit their sides. Phalanxes are very, very good if maintained. In the real battle 300 was based on, they drat near never broke out of it, and killed far, far, far more people than they did in the movie ironically. The thing that always got me about that film was it actually made things less badass. There are accounts the real Xerxes leapt up in rage multiple times throughout the fight, like when his brothers were killed crawling over mountains of dead bodies surrounding the phalanx. Yet the second they got flanked, the whole thing crumbled. Phalanx is one of the most interesting tactics from that era but yeah, in this case, there just weren't enough unsullied to maintain it against both the front AND back. Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 00:25 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:12
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Blazing Ownager posted:I can show you a world, raped by a stalllllionnnn it still makes me wonder why gurm spent so much time in the books building up the dothraki and how amazing and incredible they were when not one of them, not a single loving one, is even one of dany's advisors i get that part of it was the idea that khal drogo was holding them all together and his death meant they all split off into their own tribes but even allowing them it was a whole bunch of buildup for NOTHING, it's just weird
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May 5, 2015 00:22
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Toxxupation posted:it still makes me wonder why gurm spent so much time in the books building up the dothraki and how amazing and incredible they were when not one of them, not a single loving one, is even one of dany's advisors game of thrones season 5: a whole bunch of buildup for nothing
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May 5, 2015 00:23
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The rightful king? Sitting on the throne does not make you the rightful king. It kinda does though. The incest trio were accepted by the king as his children, neither Stannis or Ned had or have the authority to undo that. Stannis is very much rebelling exclusively on the word of an executed traitor, who, it is of note, publicly recanted his accusations. Now, we happen to know Ned was right, but Stannis doesn't and can't. No one short of Cersei can be certain they are not Baratheons. Lots of people can guess, but if Robert didn't reject them, it's no one else's place to do so ( and doing so is treason) Which is ultimately why I don't like Stannis (though his storyline is fun) : he is supposed to be this black and white, right and wrong dude, but he isn't. He is fundamentally rebelling because he wants to be king, not because he is supposed to be. He betrayed his subjects in a really hosed up way: the 7 kingdoms let people worship as they pleased. Even the psycho Targaryens allowed it. But not Stannis. He started executing them for not converting. There is nothing 'right' about that. Remember who liked to set people on fire when they didn't do what he wanted? Jaime Lannister remembers. He's a bad politician, an awful king and kinda of a huge rear end in a top hat of a man. Great taste in advisors though
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May 5, 2015 00:23
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Firstborn posted:I find the choreography very competent, and sometimes really awesome. Brienne vs. the Hound, the one you mentioned, Bronn in the trial.. There's some things you can't not see if you've any interest in HEMA at all though. They tend to swing their swords like baseball bats (contrary to what Syrio Forrel says, the knight's dance isn't hacking and hammering!), lead with the hands instead of the blade (this'll get your hands chopped off), piss about in the bind far too much, and occasionally they adopt guards that are a really bad idea without massively more developed hilts (again, hands chopped off). Getting your hands chopped off in particular really fucks up your fight game. But that's just  really. It's not the worst, and it's entertaining at least.
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May 5, 2015 00:24
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Blazing Ownager posted:If Pycelle of all people fucks over Cersei that will be the most hilarious episode in the run of the show. She's enough of an idiot and underestimates him enough I could totally buy it, too. I forget, is Cersei aware of the degree to which his absentminded old coot act is actually an act? I mean, clearly she gets that it isn't totally on the level, but I'm not clear on how oblivious she thinks he is. Tywin was totally aware that Pycelle was a calculating bastard, based on that fishing scene from back when. But Cersei seems to underestimate him, hence why she constantly dogs him to his face while elevating Qyburn. This season is going to ruin Cersei, hard.
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May 5, 2015 00:27
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Rewatching the Viper/Mountain fight, the most gruesome thing to me is still the spray of teeth and that howl.
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May 5, 2015 00:28
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tooterfish posted:There's some things you can't not see if you've any interest in HEMA at all though. They tend to swing their swords like baseball bats (contrary to what Syrio Forrel says, the knight's dance isn't hacking and hammering!), lead with the hands instead of the blade (this'll get your hands chopped off), piss about in the bind far too much, and occasionally they adopt guards that are a really bad idea without massively more developed hilts (again, hands chopped off). Getting your hands chopped off in particular really fucks up your fight game.  Firstborn posted:Selmy killing 12 dudes at age 70 in a leather shirt with a longsword in a cramped dark hallway by himself (pretty much) is 100% living up to the legend regardless of what shirtless Ramsay or Black Ops Daario did. Also Selmy hosed your grandma when she still looked alright. GW saved him from getting his throat cut, but then the poor dude just drowned in all the blood he spilled. RIP. If he's positively dead, he went out like you said - better than 99% of the other amazing fighters that have died on the show. Man went out in straight up combat against a superior enemy, and none of them survived it either. Blazing Ownager fucked around with this message at 00:33 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:28
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Firstborn posted:I find the choreography very competent, and sometimes really awesome. Brienne vs. the Hound, the one you mentioned, Bronn in the trial.. Choreography seems to be good but you'd be forgiven for not realizing it because poor editing often interferes with flow of the sequence. One of the most notable examples of poor editing is the Oberyn vs. the Mountain fight in Season 4. Once you notice how many goddamn, arbitrary cuts there are in that scene you'll realize how badly the editing is. To illustrate how bad editing screw up fights scenes, compare and contrast the Oberyn vs. the Mountain scene with the final duel from Rob Roy. Broadly, both fight scenes follow the same general outline: a smaller, quicker fighter defeats a larger, stronger opponent by wounding him repeatedly until he collapses. Nevertheless, the stronger opponent takes advantage of the quicker fighter's momentary distraction and showboating to unleash his strength and brutally kill the quicker fighter. The duel in Rob Roy has its fair share of cuts but you'll notice that they are primarily reserved for the moments when the opponents eye each other up. When the blades are swinging, cuts are infrequent and the actors' body language is enough to convey what is happening and that Liam Neeson's character is struggling to keep moving as he bleeds dry. The viewer can appreciate the choreography that emphasizes the two fighters' distinct styles of combat and the increasing inevitability of Rob Roy's ostensible defeat. I did a rough count of the number of camera cuts in the sequence, starting from the beginning of the duel (signaled by the clap) to the moment when Tim Roth's characters collapses to the ground. My total was 97 (give or take) and, as I mentioned before, most of that is the characters' looking at each other. The actual fighting is primarily one-to-three cuts per clash and it works really well. I tried to do the same count with the Oberyn vs. the Mountain fight scene and literally could not keep up without slowing down the video. I estimate the total to be somewhere in the three hundreds. Every single action in fight is accompanied by several transitions and the audience has no way to really appreciate the choreography because the editing is disorientating the audience's sense of space and momentum. The camera is constantly shifting to a different angle or completely character and it destroys the flow of the fight scene. There's also little sense that the Mountain is slowing down and that Oberyn is just chipping away at him. The same issue with the editing is apparent in Barristan's fight with the Harpies. When Barristan gets stabbed in the chest and he drops his sword, the camera does something weird and I still can't work out exactly what happens. Does he get stabbed twice or is the stab repeated from a different angle? Good editing would have made it completely unambiguous. In It For The Tank fucked around with this message at 00:38 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:36
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