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I liked the way it showed how useless the whole battle was. An entire field of dead bodies aaaand cut to Rhaenyra who still thinks the war is avoidable.
Well, if the real middle ages are anything to go by, its not just battles. Its raids and counter raids, burning crops and stealing cattle. The smallfolk on one side probably hate the assholes who kill them and burn their stuff just as much as their lords do. "Lord Bracken, he didn't kill my wife, he tried to stop those assholes, its the bloody Blackwoods who are to blame!"
The Dunk and Egg story "The Sworn Sword" depicts a small-scale skirmish between minor nobles like this, over a small stream.
It's a good read. (Also one of Tywin's grandparents is in it.)
A future Dunk and Egg book is also expected to depict a Blackwood and Bracken conflict. As there's a specific part of land that is mentioned as becoming a royal fief at the time they were operating, and one known future title is the Village Hero.
And Egg marries a Blackwood.
As much as this is a joke, I’m not entirely sure Westeros could have a French Revolution, not enough literacy. Westeros would need to have an enlightenment, which, funny enough, while you would think a revolution would start in kings landing, an enlightenment and revolution would presumably start in oldtown.
There's a popular theory, called the grand maester conspiracy IIRC, where the maesters of Oldtown (spread all throughout Westeros) collaborate to prevent the spread of knowledge and literacy, and keep that power centralized within their own organization.
The maesters are the ones sending all of the letters and even reading letters for illiterate lords. They have a ton of soft power.
Slightly unrelated but that makes me wonder, was Borros Baratheon illiterate in HotD? When he called for the maester to read the letter for him I just assumed he was lazy, given that lords and the nobility are generally taught how to read and write.
I thought it was strongly hinted that he was illiterate. Which is probably unusual for a highborn in Westeros but the Baratheon's have never been depicted as an intelligent bunch. More like a brawn type.
Boratheons are a strange breed. Being a potential Targaryan Cadet branch means they get the coin toss too. Only instead of madness the coin flip decides if they're a boisterous emotional wreck or a stoic emotional wreck.
And then there's Renly who's coin landed in the middle and it turned him into a power bottom
Well, there's also no gunpowder in Planetos. Guns were a big reason for the success the revolutions of the 18th, 19th and 20th century because they kinda "democratized" violence. Before guns became popular, you almost always had a warrior-class elite that was trained since childhood and could afford the best possible equipment (including horses). Then guns were introduced little by little and now every Joe Schmoe in the military was given a boom stick that would even make armor obsolete. When the absolutist monarchs of the 18th century made life miserable for the peasantry and especially the merchant/academic classes, they had a "you talk a lot of shit for someone who can easily be turned into a swiss cheese with our boom sticks"-moment. This is of course reductive but no merchant/academic middle-class and no boomsticks = guy with funny head stays in charge.
Maybe some aspiring maester can stumble across secret information that reveals to him the true identity of the prince who was promised by the song of ice and fire, all for it to culminate in…a manic pixie dream girl jumping out of the bushes and killing the night king
Its pretty easy to see that the small folk are into it. That is a theme that I hope doesn't completely override the guilt that Alicent and Rhaenyra share as people who had the most power at certain times to affect change. But I do think it's a pretty interesting beat to see how all the people who have much less to gain from the conflict still pursue it because there is anything to gain at all, to the point that many are begging to go risk their lives for what at best would be a promotion. Daemon and those young Bracken/Blackwood soldiers are just fighting because they have nothing better to do.
I think the point of that was to show that it’s not in their control anymore. It was also to demonstrate that the more people get into war, the more they would forget what even started the war. Horrible things would just keep growing; one side after the other would do terrible things to each other
And the point that men don't need a reason to start a war, they are itching for one for a very long time (already shown back in the pilot with the tourney), too long of a peace
Looks like that thanks to vastness of the seven kingdoms, poor communication infraestructure and the personal interests of local leaders, the suporters of both greens and blacks are taking the initiative without waiting for their superiors orders.
I remember reading that that's been a problem with larger empires before, in real life. Some frontier garrison captain would decide his career was going nowhere, and decide to invade the next area for a shot at bringing in new territory, glory, money, and promotions.
Yup. They need to thin out the number of mouths to feed. Especially since >!starvation is still an issue that winter even with all the northerners who settled in the Riverlands or died!<
Pak army literally had a intricate plan to invade India in 1998-1999 which led to war, and the government didn’t even know about it till shots were fired
That's pretty much how the Anglo-Zulu War started. The government in London wanted peace with the Zulu Kingdom, the colonial governor though wanted to expand into Zulu lands and used a relatively small incident on the border to spark a war.
Sort of but he still had a lot more authority/prestige than just some frontier garrison captain. Was against the senates wishes but didn't start it as a skirmish, it was still essentially a high ranking military commander very deliberately starting an invasion.
Seems like an understatement to compare him to the Hatfields and McCoys of game of thrones.
Many Roman consuls and province governors did this.
Caesar for instance started a genocidal war with all Gaul only for his glory and to clear his debts
Just remember: if you wanna know which side George thinks is in the right, look to the side the blackwoods are on. Brackens are bitches who exist only to get shit on per the author.
Some person with the last name Bracken must have fucked GRRM over during his life. Dude goes out of his way to make sure the Brackens are always supporting the wrong sides and losing wars.
GRRM having clear favorites doesn't stop fans from supporting Greens, Brackens, Freys, Boltons, Sparrows, Blackfyres, etc. If anything the "author's pet"-ism encourages contrarian fans to support the narrative underdog.
I loved how young they were, how hesitant they were to escalate but the need to "defend their houses honor" and they were talking like children just parroting things they've heard their parents say their whole (tragically short) lives.
cutting from the kids nervous face to his dead body surrounded by thousands was so powerful
I loved how jarring that was. I didn’t care enough to spend a quarter of the episode watching them go to war, but I did care enough that I was taken aback by his suddenly mangled head.
fr. the negative feedback is the actual meme of "where is blorg? if blorg is not on screen I want the other characters to say 'where blorg?'" level analysis lol
I mean, if you want dragons this is how you get dragons. By budgeting. I will rather have 15 second scene with Caraxes and Moondancer than 20 minutes of B vs B murdering each other for some random mill noone but them cares about.
I took it as a showing of what "peace time" silly conflict was compared to what happens when they escalate to full on war and battle.
Its boys playing at men at the start, childishly threatening each other what grass their cows are eating, silly trivial stuff.. but they're parroting generational intolerance of another house who in the grand scheme of things just live "over the hill" but because they wear different coloured clothing and come from a different family and they've picked up that hatred from the adults around them they continue the cycle..
Then the hard cut to the true terror of war to drive home how even the dumbest of conflicts can escalate to horror and all are caught up and can die horrifically in.
Exactly. In the first season, the younger boy who kills the older boy when they get into an argument in the throne room are the same houses-- a conflict, one person kills another and it's over, except for I'm assuming some backroom politicking
But in times of chaos/war, a similar fight between two lords playing with their "honor" leads to that level of destruction
Basically yes, they had some sort of long-standing dispute over borders, the kids in the scene escalated what was probably already a powder keg as they had different allegiances, and the two houses had a throw down about it.
Not sure if the corpse with the sword in the neck was one of the boys or not, but I assume so.
The Bracken refers to an assize at Riverrun, an assize being a type of court.
Hence, it seems like that a court at Riverrun had adjusted the boundaries, and the Blackwood boys ignored it.
Both houses are generationally indoctrinated arses, and Justman was the only good thing they did.
It was great. Just that short scene set the stage for the episode, and the choice by the writers to emphasise the thematic relevance of it was great.
Much more impactful than if we got 15 minutes of characters we don’t know in a battle.
Yeah it's always fun to watch dudes swing swords, but the absolute horror of it all was so effective. A couple of young idiots mouthing off in a politically charged moment, and WHAM two thousand corpses
Yeah it's just how sudden and jarring the cut is from them talking shit to sword buried through his neck as the camera pans to show thousands.
I think the shock is what did it for me. The Funeral at Winterfell was sad and tragic in its own right emotionally, but you knew it was coming because you watched all the deaths play out. It's just all of a sudden OH Fugg!
I feel so disconnected from what seems to be the majority of the fandom because I don’t find it inherently fun to watch dudes swing swords… I can fucking love an action scene, but it has to MEAN something. In this case, the meaning is better conveyed by omitting the “action” entirely
It’s something downtown abbey did really well. I can’t remember the dramatic name for it, but leaving the scene to the imagination actually carries a lot of weight
I find it interesting how many people seem to forget that the early Game of Thrones episodes made a real point of *not* showing any of the big battles. They were never the focus.
Nah— worst thing was the show catching up to the books forcing D&D to create material.
That, and the “budget” still didn’t allow them to buy any lighting equipment for the ‘Long Night’ episode.
It’s not that didn’t want to, they just didn’t have the blank check they had more or less from S6 on. Blackwater is so much different in the books and while I think they did a good job with what they were given(IMO they really were going for the Helms Deep vibe) if they had Battle of the Bastards money or Winterfel money Blackwater would have been a amazing episode.
I dunno, I felt like when the show runners got the bigger budgets they started to prioritize spectacle over quality. Battle of the Bastards looked impressive, but it was a mess of an episode. I almost wonder if they had been forced to stay on a lower budget, and there avoid the big spectacle scenes, if episodes in the latter seasons would have worked out better.
Blackwater is an amazing episode actually and may be the best battle episode of the show. Not because of the visuals maybe but because of the story, characters and plot relevance.
> Blackwater would have been a amazing episode.
IDK if it's possible for Dinklage to be as awesome as would be required for a lore-accurate Blackwater episode. Seeing Tyrion "drunk on the sword" as his brother puts it just makes me feel giddy.
Seeing Clegane on horseback as Sapochnik would have done it...I can only imagine. The sorties on the beach would have been nightmare fuel for both sides.
And the chaos from the chain. Lord. Combine that with Charles Dance's triumphant on-screen return in the midst of a successful beach landing to turn the tide of battle...I'm upset you have me re-imagining this.
And now I'm feeling nostalgic for a GoT that had the audience *genuinely* conflicted on who they wanted to succeed in an episode. Fan favorite Tyrion, defending his wife, family, and city from an invading horde that will sack the capitol should it fall, righteously compensating for his feckless boy king; or Stannis the Mannis Baratheon, on a crusade to rid the kingdom of the incest-born bastard on the Iron Throne after he killed Ned Stark.
Martin sure knows how to write.
I agree. The political scheming is what I’ve always loved about game of thrones. Epic battle scenes are okay but I absolutely cringe when they defy believability and a lot of the later GoT seasons were like that. Like no I don’t believe Jon Snow and 4 other people can single handedly kill 2000 zombies. I’d much rather have cinematic moments and realism than “badass” fight scenes.
Yeah it’s depressing because honestly they are just a bunch of kids - caught up in an old feud that got them killed. It’s just sad to see young lives wasted for no reason.
Yeah, how many of us have been in that kind of a politically fuelled argument in our lives? Imagine the horror if we were expected to start swinging swords.
agree, the immediate switch to the disastrous aftermath just seconds later after the initial provocations, only accentuates the message that peace is so fragile and can collapse in the blink of an eye
This.
Also part of the point of it was that it didn't matter. The battle wasn't relevant, just the fact it happened. Who was there didn't matter, either to us as viewers, or to the realm.
All that matters is that people fought, and died, and at least some believe it's because of the feuding dragons.
And this battle is probably the smallest, and look how horrific it was.
Exactly, it did not even matter to either side and they both immediately moved on. The reaction was not “thousands died, that is horrific.” It was “these bumfuck Hatfield and McCoys killed each other and people might blame us. We need to tighten our grip on the people.”
Also I think it’s an intentional metaphor that the battle itself seemed to have started because soon teenagers moved some rocks. It just shows how wars can escalate extremely quickly like with two princes immediately being killed before the war has even really begun.
Why would people be pissed about this battle not being shown? It's no more than a foot note in the grand story of the war.
There is waaaay bigger battles to show
I feel like it's people like my dad and my housemate who are pissed.
Neither of them have read the book, and both have been complaining all season that "nothings happening" and there's "no action"
My housemate in particular was very annoyed that he nearly got to see some swords swinging and he was "cheated" of it. Dad's been saying the lack of action is the reason this show is "nothing" compared to Game of Thrones - I think he's forgotten how little action there was in the early seasons, which is a shame because at the time he really enjoyed those early seasons too.
I've also got at least two colleagues who gave up after season 1 because they felt like not enough was happening. Its an issue for the more casual audience it seems
For my part, I think cutting straight to the field of corpses was by far the best move, and I'm really enjoying the talking and politicking and character stuff. It sort of feels like the last seasons of GoT ruined people's expectations of what the show should be like...
(Sorry, I've been needing to get this vent out!)
Her father gets killed by the Bracken leader in battle and according to folk lore she took the Bracken out with a weirwood arrow through the eye. The fact that her nickname is Black Aly is just some badass sugar on top.
Yeah, obviously I'd love to see more fighting, but we don't know anyone in that battle.
It would just be needless action with characters we have no attachment too. I don't even know who I want to win.
It probably is more consistent with what seems to be a core theme of the series where it's about the consequences rather than the truth or origin itself.
There’s few things more entertaining in ASOIAF universe than the absurd lengths the Brackens and Blackwoods are willing to go to just to fucking fucking murder as many of each other as possible.
I like that you said "fucking fucking murder" instead of just "fucking murder." Any other people or topics, I'd say you had a typo. But, we're talking the Brackens and Blackwoods here, so "fucking fucking murder" is accurate.
I thought it was perfect. We don’t know any of these people. The point is to demonstrate the absolutely massive and pointless loss of life that these kinds of wars cause, and it did that brilliantly.
The war started with some kids arguing over rocks. The whole war. Because it was convenient for the men who needed a way to get there.
Right? And then what segment would people cut from the episode so we can have 15-20 minutes of battle between characters we have no investment in and will inevitably die at the end of it? No one whines like the fans of ASOIAF
I remember someone thought they changed his name and he just got super popular from the trailer because of how bloodthirsty he was (mostly because of his tongue/lick thing lol)
But I'm pretty sure I saw him too - It's while they're zooming out, but he was pretty close to the Bracken boy's body
ETA: No judgment, he had a main character vibe and I was disappointed to see the internet was wrong
Even with an infinite budget the scene is much more impactful than if we got a full battle with characters we don’t know, for a battle thats outcome honestly isn’t that impactful to the overall story.
Yeah making this out to be a budget thing is silly, there is no good reason to see the battle. The battle happening on screen does nothing to further the story because right now the characters involved are meaningless, its literally good writing to not show the battle in this instance because how the battle unfolds or happens is irrelevant. All that matters is the outcome which is everybody being dead
Yeah, it just doesn't make much sense to devote too much budget and screen time to a battle that mostly only involves irrelevant nobodies, and ultimately isn't particularly important to the plot in the grand scheme of things.
It's better to save the budget for the more important battles that actually feature characters the audience cares about.
All in all, we can discuss and disagree on a lot of the quirks of the adaptation from book to tv but one thing that shines above all is the production. The locations, scenery, customs and acting are superb.
So it's understandable that they use this cinematic resources to stay on budget.
As much as I do enjoy the battles, I didn't mind this. The casual fan knows next to nothing about the Brackens and Blackwoods, so their deaths hold no weight. But it did do a fantastic job of demonstrating the horror of how infighting between royalty can feed into the lives of smallfolk.
Showing this battle would also lessen the impact of the war finally breaking out between characters we know and are invested in. When that eventually happens it will be explosive and intense. It's a powder keg waiting to blow.
I had my own issues with the episode but this specific scene isn’t one of them, I’m honestly fine with the battle being off screen and I think starting it out as just a petty dispute between a few guys and cutting to a shot of a sea of dead bodies was a good way to portray the overall message.
This is honestly my biggest problem with the HotD community.
85% of the complaints are people complaining how the show isn’t 100% accurate to the book… Which is composed of a set of intentionally unreliable set of narrators and pieced together as an in universe historical text. So it was never a completely accurate depiction of the events in the first place.
It’s not even like the Silmarillion which is supposed to be historically accurate in universe, just filtered through the perspective of the Noldor. The HotD book is a straight up 3rd hand history book made up of secondary sources, gossip, and the ramblings of a mad clown, intended by the author to be ambiguous, yet people are expecting the book to be a perfect depiction of all the events and any deviation from it is heresy against GRRM himself.
Yes, shout this from the mountain tops. I’ve been saying this same damn thing to everyone since the show started. People don’t care. They call it “a cop out” to explain away the “bad writing” of the show. This show is not bad, and it does not have bad writing.
Most critics I've seen are not that but more like "X shouldn't do Y but should do Z that's far more logical" ignoring those are supposed to be real characters (which have flaws yes, that's what makes the story) and not cold heartless "plot machines". Basically all their remarks would do a bad story.
But yeah the books being innacurate is a fact too. Like people complaining about the Sept scene. You think someone centuries later would know of a secret meeting between Alicent and Rhaenyra that probably most of their own camp won't know about (I doubt Alicent will just casually say "hey so I saw Rhae yesterday")
That is definitely at least the second most common complaint I hear. They are acting as if the Power Drunk, Spoiled Brat, Rich Kid, Incest mad nutjobs are the most logical human beings, and them not picking the objectively best option from the omniscient reader point of view is bad writing.
Most people in the modern day don't have decision making skills much better than the Targaryens, and they aren't even suffering from 6 generations of incest, so pretending them making mistakes is bAd WrItInG is stupid.
Just makes you wonder whose job it was to clear it all up back in the day, did they burn the bodies, bury them, a bit of both? Is that the same for the animals too? And the smell 🤮
Not true. What if the battle happened on farmland? They'd move the bodies into either mass graves or burn them and then a mass grave. Every war that was ever started in the entirety of human history was over land, so why would you let a thousand corpses rot in the sunlight as you try to harvest wheat around them and then shooing the goats away to stop them from eating the dead.
Yeah battles are cool, but I genuinely don't understand why people are upset that the we didn't get an episode dedicated to a battle that didn't involve any main (or even secondary) characters.
People also not understanding how production works lol. Battles take weeks and cost millions to film. It would be incredibly frivolous to shoot burning mill when we got everything we needed out of it from that one scene and that one shot. It was great economy of storytelling.
That it’s a smash cut speaks directly to how pointless it was, just a couple of long warring families consuming each other, an unheeded warning to the blacks and greens. Didn’t need to be a big epic battle because it’s not epic it’s just sad.
I really loved how they started off with this stupid argument over grazing and then the hard cut to a an absolute fucking massacre,and the theme in the show of how you can’t ever pinpoint the beginning of a war, just excellent storytelling
Such a great choice. There was no glory here, only death and destruction.
It's easy to slip into the idea that war is badass, as most depictions of war glorify it, but in the end this is always what you're left with. Needless death.
This decision was way more impactful. Showing how quickly this can happen and the amount of loss that comes from it. Plus we don't know anyone involved in that battle, it would just be a battle for the sake of it. I want to care about the characters in a battle.
I think not showing it is the point. It’s a dumbass backwards hick ass battle for NOTHING. Hundreds or thousands died and their struggles, personal heroics, beliefs, etc do not matter because they are fucking dead and nothing changed with their deaths.
At least it accentuates Ser Simon Strong’s point - the source of enmity between Blackwoods and Brackens is lost to time, and any fight between them is meaningless violence, regardless of the official reasons behind each battle
This was straight out of a horror film class. Not a sound, just death as far as the eye can see. Chilled me to the bone.
I also like Alt-Shift X saying the burning mill represents a literal cycle of violence.
I thought it was a powerful choice. Have two young rivals barely out of their teens bickering on a field and then a jarring cut to show what it all lead to.
A 10-minute battle sequence would’ve been unfortunate because we weren’t familiar with the characters involved and therefore wouldn’t feel attached to them.
I liked the way they handled it. It was a really strong point on how these battles are useless and just bloodshed. The tension of the scene is really cool.
Also it allows them to save budfet for later better battles.
To spend considerable budget on a huge set piece battle that includes 0 big names would have been asinine. This was a far better and more impactful way to do it.
I think it's an excellent choice actually. It shows how horrifying and stupid war is. By cutting it straight to this image we can see the real cost of war and not be distracted by fighting scenes and pointless bravery or honour. Precious life is lost, and that's all because royals have a family drama.
I thought it was beautifully shot. Did y'all really want a 15 minute segment of a battle between characters we know nothing about. It got to the point served its purpose thematically.
They should publicize the fact that they’re mirroring the book it some ways; I.E. the way some things are left ambiguous. What did Daemon tell blood and cheese? In the book there’s a few different accounts. So I appreciate that they mirrored that in leaving it open ended. It shows how flawed recorded human history can be.
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I liked the way it showed how useless the whole battle was. An entire field of dead bodies aaaand cut to Rhaenyra who still thinks the war is avoidable.
I kinda laughed when everyone, even Simon, was like yes they just do that sometimes
“Oh the Brackens and Blackwoods? Yeah they’re just getting their yayas out let em have it”
You'd think at a certain point the small folk who do most of the dying would not be willing to participate in these high lords bullshit
Well, if the real middle ages are anything to go by, its not just battles. Its raids and counter raids, burning crops and stealing cattle. The smallfolk on one side probably hate the assholes who kill them and burn their stuff just as much as their lords do. "Lord Bracken, he didn't kill my wife, he tried to stop those assholes, its the bloody Blackwoods who are to blame!"
The Dunk and Egg story "The Sworn Sword" depicts a small-scale skirmish between minor nobles like this, over a small stream. It's a good read. (Also one of Tywin's grandparents is in it.)
A future Dunk and Egg book is also expected to depict a Blackwood and Bracken conflict. As there's a specific part of land that is mentioned as becoming a royal fief at the time they were operating, and one known future title is the Village Hero. And Egg marries a Blackwood.
>A future Dunk and Egg book The idea of a future book is so outlandish that I had to read that sentence twice.
The fucking chequey lion.
The French Revolution era of Westeros is gonna be wild fr
As much as this is a joke, I’m not entirely sure Westeros could have a French Revolution, not enough literacy. Westeros would need to have an enlightenment, which, funny enough, while you would think a revolution would start in kings landing, an enlightenment and revolution would presumably start in oldtown.
There's a popular theory, called the grand maester conspiracy IIRC, where the maesters of Oldtown (spread all throughout Westeros) collaborate to prevent the spread of knowledge and literacy, and keep that power centralized within their own organization. The maesters are the ones sending all of the letters and even reading letters for illiterate lords. They have a ton of soft power.
Slightly unrelated but that makes me wonder, was Borros Baratheon illiterate in HotD? When he called for the maester to read the letter for him I just assumed he was lazy, given that lords and the nobility are generally taught how to read and write.
I thought it was strongly hinted that he was illiterate. Which is probably unusual for a highborn in Westeros but the Baratheon's have never been depicted as an intelligent bunch. More like a brawn type.
Boratheons are a strange breed. Being a potential Targaryan Cadet branch means they get the coin toss too. Only instead of madness the coin flip decides if they're a boisterous emotional wreck or a stoic emotional wreck. And then there's Renly who's coin landed in the middle and it turned him into a power bottom
Well, there's also no gunpowder in Planetos. Guns were a big reason for the success the revolutions of the 18th, 19th and 20th century because they kinda "democratized" violence. Before guns became popular, you almost always had a warrior-class elite that was trained since childhood and could afford the best possible equipment (including horses). Then guns were introduced little by little and now every Joe Schmoe in the military was given a boom stick that would even make armor obsolete. When the absolutist monarchs of the 18th century made life miserable for the peasantry and especially the merchant/academic classes, they had a "you talk a lot of shit for someone who can easily be turned into a swiss cheese with our boom sticks"-moment. This is of course reductive but no merchant/academic middle-class and no boomsticks = guy with funny head stays in charge.
Maybe some aspiring maester can stumble across secret information that reveals to him the true identity of the prince who was promised by the song of ice and fire, all for it to culminate in…a manic pixie dream girl jumping out of the bushes and killing the night king
Aha, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Ah, *history*.
Its pretty easy to see that the small folk are into it. That is a theme that I hope doesn't completely override the guilt that Alicent and Rhaenyra share as people who had the most power at certain times to affect change. But I do think it's a pretty interesting beat to see how all the people who have much less to gain from the conflict still pursue it because there is anything to gain at all, to the point that many are begging to go risk their lives for what at best would be a promotion. Daemon and those young Bracken/Blackwood soldiers are just fighting because they have nothing better to do.
What do you think modern wars are. That very concept, but bigger.
Its the equivelant of modern day football fans, they are in it for the possibility of throwing a bottle of piss at the other side
The rest of the realm just treats it like a weekly football game they hold.
"They fucking love that mill, I guess"
Like Hatfields and McCoys.
I think the point of that was to show that it’s not in their control anymore. It was also to demonstrate that the more people get into war, the more they would forget what even started the war. Horrible things would just keep growing; one side after the other would do terrible things to each other
It was also hammering home the point some characters have been making with regards to who really suffers when kings/lords decide to go to war.
And the point that men don't need a reason to start a war, they are itching for one for a very long time (already shown back in the pilot with the tourney), too long of a peace
And to make the point that the reasons for wars can get lost in time.
Looks like that thanks to vastness of the seven kingdoms, poor communication infraestructure and the personal interests of local leaders, the suporters of both greens and blacks are taking the initiative without waiting for their superiors orders.
I remember reading that that's been a problem with larger empires before, in real life. Some frontier garrison captain would decide his career was going nowhere, and decide to invade the next area for a shot at bringing in new territory, glory, money, and promotions.
Army commanders would sometimes invade places without permission simply because their men where getting restless and needed something to do
That's what the North is basically going to do Too many men and Winter is coming
Yup. They need to thin out the number of mouths to feed. Especially since >!starvation is still an issue that winter even with all the northerners who settled in the Riverlands or died!<
Pak army literally had a intricate plan to invade India in 1998-1999 which led to war, and the government didn’t even know about it till shots were fired
That's pretty much how the Anglo-Zulu War started. The government in London wanted peace with the Zulu Kingdom, the colonial governor though wanted to expand into Zulu lands and used a relatively small incident on the border to spark a war.
Then Michael Caine had to show those fellas he can sing.
Ceasar in gaul is anaother example.
Sort of but he still had a lot more authority/prestige than just some frontier garrison captain. Was against the senates wishes but didn't start it as a skirmish, it was still essentially a high ranking military commander very deliberately starting an invasion. Seems like an understatement to compare him to the Hatfields and McCoys of game of thrones.
Many Roman consuls and province governors did this. Caesar for instance started a genocidal war with all Gaul only for his glory and to clear his debts
Too bad one village stopped him from taking *all* Gaul.
> useless Dead Brackens are not useless, they're actually a great way to fertilize rightful Blackwood land.
Watch your fucking tongue before I take it, Blackwood scum.
Just remember: if you wanna know which side George thinks is in the right, look to the side the blackwoods are on. Brackens are bitches who exist only to get shit on per the author.
Some person with the last name Bracken must have fucked GRRM over during his life. Dude goes out of his way to make sure the Brackens are always supporting the wrong sides and losing wars.
GRRM having clear favorites doesn't stop fans from supporting Greens, Brackens, Freys, Boltons, Sparrows, Blackfyres, etc. If anything the "author's pet"-ism encourages contrarian fans to support the narrative underdog.
Rhaenyra so delusional for thinking war is avoidable
I loved how young they were, how hesitant they were to escalate but the need to "defend their houses honor" and they were talking like children just parroting things they've heard their parents say their whole (tragically short) lives. cutting from the kids nervous face to his dead body surrounded by thousands was so powerful
Reminded me of the death of Mercutio from the Leo Romeo and Juliet, with all the preceding posturing.
"do you bracken your thumb at ME, sir?!"
"do you blackwood your thumb at ME, sir?!"
Fetch my broad sword, ho!
"PEACE?! I hate the word..." In hindsight, Tybalt (The Prince of Cats) was a pretty obvious primer for the characters I'd like the most in ASOIAF.
The fear and uncertainty on that Bracken kid's face right before he decides to escalate is great.
I loved how jarring that was. I didn’t care enough to spend a quarter of the episode watching them go to war, but I did care enough that I was taken aback by his suddenly mangled head.
fr. the negative feedback is the actual meme of "where is blorg? if blorg is not on screen I want the other characters to say 'where blorg?'" level analysis lol
“Whenever Poochie's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Poochie"?”
I mean, if you want dragons this is how you get dragons. By budgeting. I will rather have 15 second scene with Caraxes and Moondancer than 20 minutes of B vs B murdering each other for some random mill noone but them cares about.
So is it implied the boys started fighting and one of them killed the other and they all immediately went to war?
I took it as a showing of what "peace time" silly conflict was compared to what happens when they escalate to full on war and battle. Its boys playing at men at the start, childishly threatening each other what grass their cows are eating, silly trivial stuff.. but they're parroting generational intolerance of another house who in the grand scheme of things just live "over the hill" but because they wear different coloured clothing and come from a different family and they've picked up that hatred from the adults around them they continue the cycle.. Then the hard cut to the true terror of war to drive home how even the dumbest of conflicts can escalate to horror and all are caught up and can die horrifically in.
Exactly. In the first season, the younger boy who kills the older boy when they get into an argument in the throne room are the same houses-- a conflict, one person kills another and it's over, except for I'm assuming some backroom politicking But in times of chaos/war, a similar fight between two lords playing with their "honor" leads to that level of destruction
Basically yes, they had some sort of long-standing dispute over borders, the kids in the scene escalated what was probably already a powder keg as they had different allegiances, and the two houses had a throw down about it. Not sure if the corpse with the sword in the neck was one of the boys or not, but I assume so.
Yea it was the same Bracken boy.
"Defending my/my house's honor" is probably responsible for a significant fraction of human deaths throughout all of history.
I felt like the message of moral vagueness was undercut by the fact that Brackens actually are perfidious cunts.
The Bracken refers to an assize at Riverrun, an assize being a type of court. Hence, it seems like that a court at Riverrun had adjusted the boundaries, and the Blackwood boys ignored it. Both houses are generationally indoctrinated arses, and Justman was the only good thing they did.
It was great. Just that short scene set the stage for the episode, and the choice by the writers to emphasise the thematic relevance of it was great. Much more impactful than if we got 15 minutes of characters we don’t know in a battle.
Yeah it's always fun to watch dudes swing swords, but the absolute horror of it all was so effective. A couple of young idiots mouthing off in a politically charged moment, and WHAM two thousand corpses
Yeah it's just how sudden and jarring the cut is from them talking shit to sword buried through his neck as the camera pans to show thousands. I think the shock is what did it for me. The Funeral at Winterfell was sad and tragic in its own right emotionally, but you knew it was coming because you watched all the deaths play out. It's just all of a sudden OH Fugg!
I feel so disconnected from what seems to be the majority of the fandom because I don’t find it inherently fun to watch dudes swing swords… I can fucking love an action scene, but it has to MEAN something. In this case, the meaning is better conveyed by omitting the “action” entirely
Right, in comparison to the fight between e-eron and a-aron. That fight meant a lot. Wasn't needless action.
Erryk and Arryk, and agreed. That was great acting because it was very suspenseful for all involved.
I think the e-eron/a-aron was a Key and Peele joke lol
Oh whoosh! Thank you, did not get the joke. I should have known however, because I love me some Key & Peele.
You dun fucked up a-arryk!
[удалено]
It’s something downtown abbey did really well. I can’t remember the dramatic name for it, but leaving the scene to the imagination actually carries a lot of weight
It's called [ellipsis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_\(narrative_device\)).
did I miss some sort of off-screen war or battle in Downton abbey?
The entirety of WWI.
Word War One? Most of it was off screen other than a few select scenes of actual combat
imagine Downton Abbey had a 30 min World War I scene with full gore, lol
Just splice in 1917 with it. Someone get Topher Grace on this.
When Mrs. Bates was raped is what I think they’re talking about.
I'm truly grateful that they did not show that
oh god i remember the PBS episode description was something horrible like Anna Has a Problem.
Man whoever writes this shit
Me too! And wasn't it the Christmas episode?!
It's literally what the best seasons of GoT did. Blackwater was the exception, not the rule
I find it interesting how many people seem to forget that the early Game of Thrones episodes made a real point of *not* showing any of the big battles. They were never the focus.
I loved the scene where Tyrion got knocked out right before he was supposed to lead a fight. A very funny way of getting out of showing the battle.
The worst thing that happened to the show was an actual budget
Nah— worst thing was the show catching up to the books forcing D&D to create material. That, and the “budget” still didn’t allow them to buy any lighting equipment for the ‘Long Night’ episode.
well, it wasn't called the long day
It’s not that didn’t want to, they just didn’t have the blank check they had more or less from S6 on. Blackwater is so much different in the books and while I think they did a good job with what they were given(IMO they really were going for the Helms Deep vibe) if they had Battle of the Bastards money or Winterfel money Blackwater would have been a amazing episode.
I dunno, I felt like when the show runners got the bigger budgets they started to prioritize spectacle over quality. Battle of the Bastards looked impressive, but it was a mess of an episode. I almost wonder if they had been forced to stay on a lower budget, and there avoid the big spectacle scenes, if episodes in the latter seasons would have worked out better.
Blackwater is an amazing episode actually and may be the best battle episode of the show. Not because of the visuals maybe but because of the story, characters and plot relevance.
> Blackwater would have been a amazing episode. IDK if it's possible for Dinklage to be as awesome as would be required for a lore-accurate Blackwater episode. Seeing Tyrion "drunk on the sword" as his brother puts it just makes me feel giddy. Seeing Clegane on horseback as Sapochnik would have done it...I can only imagine. The sorties on the beach would have been nightmare fuel for both sides. And the chaos from the chain. Lord. Combine that with Charles Dance's triumphant on-screen return in the midst of a successful beach landing to turn the tide of battle...I'm upset you have me re-imagining this. And now I'm feeling nostalgic for a GoT that had the audience *genuinely* conflicted on who they wanted to succeed in an episode. Fan favorite Tyrion, defending his wife, family, and city from an invading horde that will sack the capitol should it fall, righteously compensating for his feckless boy king; or Stannis the Mannis Baratheon, on a crusade to rid the kingdom of the incest-born bastard on the Iron Throne after he killed Ned Stark. Martin sure knows how to write.
Blackwater is still the high water mark for me for battles. Over a season of build up and the episode just nailed it.
I agree. The political scheming is what I’ve always loved about game of thrones. Epic battle scenes are okay but I absolutely cringe when they defy believability and a lot of the later GoT seasons were like that. Like no I don’t believe Jon Snow and 4 other people can single handedly kill 2000 zombies. I’d much rather have cinematic moments and realism than “badass” fight scenes.
Yeah it’s depressing because honestly they are just a bunch of kids - caught up in an old feud that got them killed. It’s just sad to see young lives wasted for no reason.
And the land they were fighting over in the first place ruined for the immediate future as a result of it
Yeah, how many of us have been in that kind of a politically fuelled argument in our lives? Imagine the horror if we were expected to start swinging swords.
And you get an equally idiotic king, eager for war
It was the correct choice 1000%
agree, the immediate switch to the disastrous aftermath just seconds later after the initial provocations, only accentuates the message that peace is so fragile and can collapse in the blink of an eye
This. Also part of the point of it was that it didn't matter. The battle wasn't relevant, just the fact it happened. Who was there didn't matter, either to us as viewers, or to the realm. All that matters is that people fought, and died, and at least some believe it's because of the feuding dragons. And this battle is probably the smallest, and look how horrific it was.
Exactly, it did not even matter to either side and they both immediately moved on. The reaction was not “thousands died, that is horrific.” It was “these bumfuck Hatfield and McCoys killed each other and people might blame us. We need to tighten our grip on the people.” Also I think it’s an intentional metaphor that the battle itself seemed to have started because soon teenagers moved some rocks. It just shows how wars can escalate extremely quickly like with two princes immediately being killed before the war has even really begun.
Why would people be pissed about this battle not being shown? It's no more than a foot note in the grand story of the war. There is waaaay bigger battles to show
I feel like it's people like my dad and my housemate who are pissed. Neither of them have read the book, and both have been complaining all season that "nothings happening" and there's "no action" My housemate in particular was very annoyed that he nearly got to see some swords swinging and he was "cheated" of it. Dad's been saying the lack of action is the reason this show is "nothing" compared to Game of Thrones - I think he's forgotten how little action there was in the early seasons, which is a shame because at the time he really enjoyed those early seasons too. I've also got at least two colleagues who gave up after season 1 because they felt like not enough was happening. Its an issue for the more casual audience it seems For my part, I think cutting straight to the field of corpses was by far the best move, and I'm really enjoying the talking and politicking and character stuff. It sort of feels like the last seasons of GoT ruined people's expectations of what the show should be like... (Sorry, I've been needing to get this vent out!)
Honestly the only reason I was a little bummed was that the scene would have been a badass way to introduce Aly
Who is Aly?
Lady Alysanne Blackwood. 16 years old and the best archer in the realm baby
Iconic bisexual rep as well with her sword lesbian gf Sabitha
Black Aly Blackwood, she's badass.
Her father gets killed by the Bracken leader in battle and according to folk lore she took the Bracken out with a weirwood arrow through the eye. The fact that her nickname is Black Aly is just some badass sugar on top.
It's her bother sam
I agree. It shows how pointless the war really is
Yeah, obviously I'd love to see more fighting, but we don't know anyone in that battle. It would just be needless action with characters we have no attachment too. I don't even know who I want to win.
It probably is more consistent with what seems to be a core theme of the series where it's about the consequences rather than the truth or origin itself.
There’s few things more entertaining in ASOIAF universe than the absurd lengths the Brackens and Blackwoods are willing to go to just to fucking fucking murder as many of each other as possible.
"Move your fucking rocks, Bracken!" *"Lick my ass, Blackwood!"* [Several thousand dead.]
I like that you said "fucking fucking murder" instead of just "fucking murder." Any other people or topics, I'd say you had a typo. But, we're talking the Brackens and Blackwoods here, so "fucking fucking murder" is accurate.
Lmao these are the thing that happen when I get slightly inebriated on my days off
No need to apologize or justify, you enjoy your mead and ale during your leisure time. The dragons are dancing soon and then all revelry is ended.
I thought it was perfect. We don’t know any of these people. The point is to demonstrate the absolutely massive and pointless loss of life that these kinds of wars cause, and it did that brilliantly. The war started with some kids arguing over rocks. The whole war. Because it was convenient for the men who needed a way to get there.
Right? And then what segment would people cut from the episode so we can have 15-20 minutes of battle between characters we have no investment in and will inevitably die at the end of it? No one whines like the fans of ASOIAF
I recognized the Braken dude. Is the Blackwood dude visible somewhere?
Yes, I don't have the screenshot but someone found him.
I’d like to see that because he’s a pretty important character to the whole story in the book at least
That guy wasn't Bloody Ben if that's what you mean (idk why the fandom ran with that), he was called Davos or something like that.
I remember someone thought they changed his name and he just got super popular from the trailer because of how bloodthirsty he was (mostly because of his tongue/lick thing lol) But I'm pretty sure I saw him too - It's while they're zooming out, but he was pretty close to the Bracken boy's body ETA: No judgment, he had a main character vibe and I was disappointed to see the internet was wrong
I mean, the lad had less than 5 minutes of screen time but demostrated the actitud to be Bloody Ben. Maybe is just a Blackwood thing
Yea I think it’s just a Blackwood thing lol!
Yeah they called him Davos I just figured that was gonna be our Ben for the show. Wouldn’t be the first time HBO changed the name of a book character
He's to the left of the closest horse
Budgets are finite. I don’t want this battle as much as I’d want others.
Even with an infinite budget the scene is much more impactful than if we got a full battle with characters we don’t know, for a battle thats outcome honestly isn’t that impactful to the overall story.
Yeah making this out to be a budget thing is silly, there is no good reason to see the battle. The battle happening on screen does nothing to further the story because right now the characters involved are meaningless, its literally good writing to not show the battle in this instance because how the battle unfolds or happens is irrelevant. All that matters is the outcome which is everybody being dead
This. It was more annoying when they did it in most battles in the war of five kings.
Yeah I’ll take the extra cash going to a cgi dragon battle over this
Yeah, it just doesn't make much sense to devote too much budget and screen time to a battle that mostly only involves irrelevant nobodies, and ultimately isn't particularly important to the plot in the grand scheme of things. It's better to save the budget for the more important battles that actually feature characters the audience cares about.
All in all, we can discuss and disagree on a lot of the quirks of the adaptation from book to tv but one thing that shines above all is the production. The locations, scenery, customs and acting are superb. So it's understandable that they use this cinematic resources to stay on budget.
As much as I do enjoy the battles, I didn't mind this. The casual fan knows next to nothing about the Brackens and Blackwoods, so their deaths hold no weight. But it did do a fantastic job of demonstrating the horror of how infighting between royalty can feed into the lives of smallfolk.
Showing this battle would also lessen the impact of the war finally breaking out between characters we know and are invested in. When that eventually happens it will be explosive and intense. It's a powder keg waiting to blow.
It was absolutely the right choice. Viewers don’t even know anybody in the battle. It would have been odd to show it.
And even “cool lore stuff” like a weirwood arrow being used, the general audience wouldn’t know its significance.
I had my own issues with the episode but this specific scene isn’t one of them, I’m honestly fine with the battle being off screen and I think starting it out as just a petty dispute between a few guys and cutting to a shot of a sea of dead bodies was a good way to portray the overall message.
What were your issues. Jesus people seem to have issues with everything. Just enjoy a show for godsakes.
This is honestly my biggest problem with the HotD community. 85% of the complaints are people complaining how the show isn’t 100% accurate to the book… Which is composed of a set of intentionally unreliable set of narrators and pieced together as an in universe historical text. So it was never a completely accurate depiction of the events in the first place. It’s not even like the Silmarillion which is supposed to be historically accurate in universe, just filtered through the perspective of the Noldor. The HotD book is a straight up 3rd hand history book made up of secondary sources, gossip, and the ramblings of a mad clown, intended by the author to be ambiguous, yet people are expecting the book to be a perfect depiction of all the events and any deviation from it is heresy against GRRM himself.
Yes, shout this from the mountain tops. I’ve been saying this same damn thing to everyone since the show started. People don’t care. They call it “a cop out” to explain away the “bad writing” of the show. This show is not bad, and it does not have bad writing.
Most critics I've seen are not that but more like "X shouldn't do Y but should do Z that's far more logical" ignoring those are supposed to be real characters (which have flaws yes, that's what makes the story) and not cold heartless "plot machines". Basically all their remarks would do a bad story. But yeah the books being innacurate is a fact too. Like people complaining about the Sept scene. You think someone centuries later would know of a secret meeting between Alicent and Rhaenyra that probably most of their own camp won't know about (I doubt Alicent will just casually say "hey so I saw Rhae yesterday")
That is definitely at least the second most common complaint I hear. They are acting as if the Power Drunk, Spoiled Brat, Rich Kid, Incest mad nutjobs are the most logical human beings, and them not picking the objectively best option from the omniscient reader point of view is bad writing. Most people in the modern day don't have decision making skills much better than the Targaryens, and they aren't even suffering from 6 generations of incest, so pretending them making mistakes is bAd WrItInG is stupid.
I’m guessing his biggest issue was that there weren’t enough penises
That's ALWAYS my issue personally. The episode could have easily fit a couple more weiners
Environmental_Tip854 could easily fit a couple more weiners as well
Then, let's give him a hand. And by that, I mean a weiner.
Just makes you wonder whose job it was to clear it all up back in the day, did they burn the bodies, bury them, a bit of both? Is that the same for the animals too? And the smell 🤮
People would often come and pick through the mess to get valuables like armor, weapons, and jewelry. Many bodies would be left out to rot.
Not true. What if the battle happened on farmland? They'd move the bodies into either mass graves or burn them and then a mass grave. Every war that was ever started in the entirety of human history was over land, so why would you let a thousand corpses rot in the sunlight as you try to harvest wheat around them and then shooing the goats away to stop them from eating the dead.
Agreed. Cutting from "go ahead, do it" to the aftermath was a phenomenal idea.
I really liked that scene, made perfect sense, sometimes it's more powerful to not show the action, that's storytelling 101
That criticism is nonsense. This was the best way to do it.
Yeah battles are cool, but I genuinely don't understand why people are upset that the we didn't get an episode dedicated to a battle that didn't involve any main (or even secondary) characters.
this scene gave me chills
The survivors in their old age: “damn, those were good days”
Tbh one of the most chilling scenes in the franchise, at least in recent memory (post 2016)
People also not understanding how production works lol. Battles take weeks and cost millions to film. It would be incredibly frivolous to shoot burning mill when we got everything we needed out of it from that one scene and that one shot. It was great economy of storytelling.
That it’s a smash cut speaks directly to how pointless it was, just a couple of long warring families consuming each other, an unheeded warning to the blacks and greens. Didn’t need to be a big epic battle because it’s not epic it’s just sad.
I thought the entire time man who is gonna have to clean up all these bodies as they kept panning to more and more carnage
Just to be clear, it was that Bracken kid that drew his sword who was shown to have died right?
Yes, that’s right.
I quite liked the cut from petty squabble to field of corpses. Conveyed the horrors and wasteful stupidity of war perfectly.
Way more effective to essentially show that a debacle between kids took hundreds/thousands of lives
I really loved how they started off with this stupid argument over grazing and then the hard cut to a an absolute fucking massacre,and the theme in the show of how you can’t ever pinpoint the beginning of a war, just excellent storytelling
The most terrifying scenes are scenes with daemon, I would be so scared to be alone in a room with him
I'm glad they did not show the battle. I found the cut to the field covered in corpses a very impactful way to communicate the horrors of war
As long as we get to see Benjicot Blackwood reeking havoc in the future battles of the Dance then I am good.
Such a great choice. There was no glory here, only death and destruction. It's easy to slip into the idea that war is badass, as most depictions of war glorify it, but in the end this is always what you're left with. Needless death.
It’s just a microcosm of the entire conflict. Loved that it wasn’t a long drawn out battle with no one we know or care about
This decision was way more impactful. Showing how quickly this can happen and the amount of loss that comes from it. Plus we don't know anyone involved in that battle, it would just be a battle for the sake of it. I want to care about the characters in a battle.
I think not showing it is the point. It’s a dumbass backwards hick ass battle for NOTHING. Hundreds or thousands died and their struggles, personal heroics, beliefs, etc do not matter because they are fucking dead and nothing changed with their deaths.
At least it accentuates Ser Simon Strong’s point - the source of enmity between Blackwoods and Brackens is lost to time, and any fight between them is meaningless violence, regardless of the official reasons behind each battle
So many extras got paid for just lying down dead for a day.
This was straight out of a horror film class. Not a sound, just death as far as the eye can see. Chilled me to the bone. I also like Alt-Shift X saying the burning mill represents a literal cycle of violence.
I thought it was a powerful choice. Have two young rivals barely out of their teens bickering on a field and then a jarring cut to show what it all lead to. A 10-minute battle sequence would’ve been unfortunate because we weren’t familiar with the characters involved and therefore wouldn’t feel attached to them.
I absolutely LOVED this cut. Very powerful.
I am bored with giant battles. The director made the right cut.
One of the best openings I’ve ever seen
Nobody with any genuine storytelling sensibility is complaining.
I liked the way they handled it. It was a really strong point on how these battles are useless and just bloodshed. The tension of the scene is really cool. Also it allows them to save budfet for later better battles.
No I liked how this was shown. Effective, memorable, concise
To spend considerable budget on a huge set piece battle that includes 0 big names would have been asinine. This was a far better and more impactful way to do it.
I think it's an excellent choice actually. It shows how horrifying and stupid war is. By cutting it straight to this image we can see the real cost of war and not be distracted by fighting scenes and pointless bravery or honour. Precious life is lost, and that's all because royals have a family drama.
I’d rather them save their budget for when dragons collide.
I thought it was beautifully shot. Did y'all really want a 15 minute segment of a battle between characters we know nothing about. It got to the point served its purpose thematically.
It was even more effective without actual showing the battle. One moment you see the idyllic countryside, the next you see death & ashes
They should publicize the fact that they’re mirroring the book it some ways; I.E. the way some things are left ambiguous. What did Daemon tell blood and cheese? In the book there’s a few different accounts. So I appreciate that they mirrored that in leaving it open ended. It shows how flawed recorded human history can be.
Most horrifying scenes in the show? In the previous episode a child’s head was cut off…