Season 7 Episode 3 "The Queen's Justice" - "Book readers"

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

I'm kind of just looking at it like things aren't even necessarily happening in the order they appear on screen. The fast travelling is particularly egregious this season but fcuk it. They were waiting around for Martin for years before it became obvious they'd be finished before him and they have a lot of stuff to burn through later than they presumably would have liked.

I'm finding the script and characterisation this season and last far superior than the previous two seasons and I'm looking forward to the final season's big showdown. If Euron has to teleport around the place killing off what are essentially now spare characters in order for there to be enough time to do the final act justice then I'm grand with that tbh. I'd expect things to slow down to a slightly less hectic pace now though or it'll get annoying.

Icemancometh

I wonder could Euron have split the Iron Fleet, half to Blackwater Bay and kept half in the Iron Islands. Iron Islands aren't too far from the Westerlands (didn't think Casterly Rock was by the sea at any rate).

Dyr

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Ehh, he got there first. Matey. :pac:

Beginning of episode one. Euron arrives. Cersei speaks of Targaryen armada on its way to Dragonstone. End of episode, said armada arrives at Dragonstone.

And for the rest, sailing at night ftw.

It's. A. ****ing. Armada. Not a set of car keys.

Apparently Westeros can develop mulit-gimbled anti-aircraft balistas and homing crows but the concepts of scouts, advance parties, vanguards and rearguards never took off.

SexBobomb

What exactly are BWB and the hounds motivation for going North?
Is it just following an vague order from the Lord of Light or do they have a specific mission, I can't remember them explaining it to the Hound. Apologies if I missed it.

Pity we never got a Lady Stoneheart either but maybe thats too much resurrection, wouldn't be cool if everyone can do it.

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Kunkka

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Littlefinger's awful accent?

Gbear

It kinda doesn't even matter if it's possible to do what Euron is doing.

The issue is less about the validity of it for me, than it is about how satisfying it is.

If you go back to Blackwater, we have several episodes of buildup setting the stage for how the battle is going to go.
Then, when things are a bit grim the winch is raised (maybe not in the show) and the big wildfire bomb is detonated and it takes out Stannis' fleet, rapidly turning the battle on its head, you've experienced the ups and downs, you're worried for Tyrion, he's got shenanigans planned but you're not sure what they entail, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With the pace of these episodes and both sea battles, Casterly Rock and Highgarden all reduced to little more than a 5 minute montage split over the end of two episodes the problem is that you feel like you're getting a bulleted list of events. There's no tension, there's no satisfaction. It's just a list of arbitary, seemingly unrelated events.

They had a little bit of it in how they infiltrated Casterly Rock because they had set that up with him being in charge of the sewers being referred to back in season 1 (IIRC when he first meets Shae) but they skimmed over that piece of quality content to just handwave a crushing defeat into effect for Dany.

You can say these were blunders that were punished, but they've been at pains to point out how cautious she is being. They've several seasons worth of successful conquest behind her. There's no evidence she actually has made any blunders other than a tautalogical one in that she lost 2 battles.

If they set the scene and showed her being unusually lax in her efforts at scouting, at finding out the position and strength of her enemies forces, of the alliances Cersei was putting together, or, coming from the other direction, made the case for Euron actually being competent enough to outfox her this way, rather than everyone just saying how crafty he is, it'd feel a lot less forced.

dr.kenneth noisewater

Can someone explain the below to me?
Did the Tyrells sailed back to Highgarden? Would they not be going alongside the Dornish as they would be going the same route?

Did we have 3 separate fleets going the same direction? The Unsullied to Casterly Rock, Tyrells to Highgarden and the Dornish to Dorne? Yet only 1 was attacked?

Why would the unsullied sail to the rock? Seems the longest way to get there?

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Gbear wrote: »

It kinda doesn't even matter if it's possible to do what Euron is doing.

The issue is less about the validity of it for me, than it is about how satisfying it is.

If you go back to Blackwater, we have several episodes of buildup setting the stage for how the battle is going to go.
Then, when things are a bit grim the winch is raised (maybe not in the show) and the big wildfire bomb is detonated and it takes out Stannis' fleet, rapidly turning the battle on its head, you've experienced the ups and downs, you're worried for Tyrion, he's got shenanigans planned but you're not sure what they entail, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With the pace of these episodes and both sea battles, Casterly Rock and Highgarden all reduced to little more than a 5 minute montage split over the end of two episodes the problem is that you feel like you're getting a bulleted list of events. There's no tension, there's no satisfaction. It's just a list of arbitary, seemingly unrelated events.

They had a little bit of it in how they infiltrated Casterly Rock because they had set that up with him being in charge of the sewers being referred to back in season 1 (IIRC when he first meets Shae) but they skimmed over that piece of quality content to just handwave a crushing defeat into effect for Dany.

You can say these were blunders that were punished, but they've been at pains to point out how cautious she is being. They've several seasons worth of successful conquest behind her. There's no evidence she actually has made any blunders other than a tautalogical one in that she lost 2 battles.

If they set the scene and showed her being unusually lax in her efforts at scouting, at finding out the position and strength of her enemies forces, of the alliances Cersei was putting together, or, coming from the other direction, made the case for Euron actually being competent enough to outfox her this way, rather than everyone just saying how crafty he is, it'd feel a lot less forced.

It's definitely isn't as satisfying as the stuff from the first seasons. It's not as satisfying as the battle of the bastards either. But those battles were the story whereas these battles are in service of the story. They've thrown the odd bone to longform story telling, like the sewer thing or Jaime using Robb's tactics but it's a different kettle of fish. Casterly Rock was the longest instance of voice over in the show so far as far as I remember, it's stuff they're moving through. If there were three more seasons instead of two or seven episodes left rather than four this week would have seemed lazy and rushed, in context it seems reasonable and rushed.

On Dany, I guess she's mostly made the advanced she's made on a 'hearts and minds' basis, by making alliances or threats on the basis of her dragons, or by the odd sneak/surprise attack. A sustained traditional military campaign is relatively new ground for her. She certainly made a mistake in underestimating Euron's potential to further disrupt her plans after he'd already captured two crucial allies. And she's making a mistake in how she's reacting to Jon imo, it took tyrion to talk her round into even letting him take the dragonglass .

Gbear

Rudy Mysterious Swordsman wrote: »

A sustained traditional military campaign is relatively new ground for her. She certainly made a mistake in underestimating Euron's potential to further disrupt her plans after he'd already captured two crucial allies.

Previously, she'd participated in the battles her armies have won.
Now she's sent the bulk of her forces away.
We don't know if she has commicated with her armies since they left at all or if she's even able to.

It's like she made no efffort to understand anything about what's going on in Westeros. She seemingly thought she could just swan around mopping up whoever was left and not really pay much attention to anything.

It doesn't seem like a credible plan for anyone, nevermind someone who's actually won a decent number of battles and captured a few cities already.

I don't really get what she's doing on Dragonstone. She's seemingly been twiddling her thumbs.

It all seems utterly contrived.
She had a massively bigger army, dragons, ships and was in a position to get most people to fall into line so they had to create some artificial tension for the presumed ultimate victory she's going to experience this season to reclaim the Iron Throne before they sink their teeth into the war between the living and the dead next season.

It really falls flat for me.

Rudy Mysterious Swordsman wrote: »

And she's making a mistake in how she's reacting to Jon imo, it took tyrion to talk her round into even letting him take the dragonglass .

She's not really making a mistake there.
She doesn't know him, she's trying to win a war, he's the son of a man she doesn't think much of and he comes spouting a lot of mental **** about zombies.
I think both their reactions are fair and her decision to take Tyrion's advice on board is very much on the magnanimous end of the scale.

wp_rathead

My prediction for Yara:

To be tied to the prow of The Silence with her tongue cut out like the Falia Flowers character

Gbear wrote: »

It doesn't seem like a credible plan for anyone, nevermind someone who's actually won a decent number of battles and captured a few cities already.

I don't really get what she's doing on Dragonstone. She's seemingly been twiddling her thumbs.

It all seems utterly contrived.
She had a massively bigger army, dragons, ships and was in a position to get most people to fall into line so they had to create some artificial tension for the presumed ultimate victory she's going to experience this season to reclaim the Iron Throne before they sink their teeth into the war between the living and the dead next season.

Well she knows unleashing Dragons and Dothraki on the people of Westeros is going to result in alot of death and destruction
It is within her character to care about "the common people" so don't think it's artificial
I do think she'll take Olennas advice though and ignore Tyrion and "Be A Dragon"

Loafing Oaf

wp_rathead wrote: »

I do think she'll take Olennas advice though and ignore Tyrion and "Be A Dragon"

Yeah the "I'm sick of clever plans" line in the trailer seems to suggest this

Gbear

wp_rathead wrote: »

My prediction for Yara:

Well she knows unleashing Dragons and Dothraki on the people of Westeros is going to result in alot of death and destruction
It is within her character to care about "the common people" so don't think it's artificial
I do think she'll take Olennas advice though and ignore Tyrion and "Be A Dragon"

That's more poor writing.

The issue with the dragons is if she just unleashes them on cities, town or burns all their crops or something.

They're perfectly capable of flying to King's Landing from Dragonstone in a few hours so if they were going to go murdering cities full of people, it doesn't matter if they're with her there, or with her accompanying one of her armies.

This story seems like it's going to make more sense in the books, where Aegon is probably going to have Dorne and the Stormlands, as well as possibly the best fighting force on the planet in the Golden Company, so Dany will turn up with only foreigners and Dragons on her side, where she'll presumably be truly isolated.

They've had to get her to that spot in the first few episodes and it's felt rushed and just undermines her character and whole story, as well as making big chunks of previous seasons feel irrelevant.

What is the point of Dorne in this show?
They may as well have never bothered mentioning it, and just merged it into Highgarden.

J. Marston

wp_rathead wrote: »

My prediction for Yara:

To be tied to the prow of The Silence with her tongue cut out like the Falia Flowers character

Dunno. Having a woman crucified (kinda) and mutilated might be a bit taboo for the show after the reaction to Sansa's rape in season 5. People would label it cheap shock value.

It would show just sadistic Euron really is though.

CMOTDibbler

Bambi wrote: »

It's. A. ****ing. Armada. Not a set of car keys.

The distance from Dragonstone to Kings Landing is greater than the distance from Dragonstone to Essos. So relatively speaking a set of car keys indeed.

Bambi wrote: »

Apparently Westeros can develop mulit-gimbled anti-aircraft balistas and homing crows but the concepts of scouts, advance parties, vanguards and rearguards never took off.

A day between the two fleets could be as much as a hundred miles. Possibly even more. How far ahead do you send your vanguard before it becomes a pointless exercise?

Dyr

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

The distance from Dragonstone to Kings Landing is greater than the distance from Dragonstone to Essos. So relatively speaking a set of car keys indeed.


A day between the two fleets could be as much as a hundred miles. Possibly even more. How far ahead do you send your vanguard before it becomes a pointless exercise?

You send it far enough ahead that the enemy doesn't waltz right up on you unawares. This is fairly basic stuff to have to explain


Who gives a **** about the distance between Dragonstone and Kings Landing

Dragonstone is at the center of the bottleneck across Blackwater Bay, you have to sail past it to get out of the bay and into the Narrow Sea. It also has a big **** off watch tower that can see right across the bay. Ser Pugwash the pervy has been sailing a fleet in and out without anyone noticing apparently. Including those big boat burny dragons flying around

Now you can keep arguing like a spare or just accept that DRAMA dictates we'll have gaps in the plot that you could literally sail a fleet through

CMOTDibbler

Bambi wrote: »

You send it far enough ahead that the enemy doesn't waltz right up on you unawares. This is fairly basic stuff to have to explain


Who gives a **** about the distance between Dragonstone and Kings Landing

Dragonstone is at the center of the bottleneck across Blackwater Bay, you have to sail past it to get out of the bay and into the Narrow Sea. It also has a big **** off watch tower that can see right across the bay. Ser Pugwash the pervy has been sailing a fleet in and out without anyone noticing apparently. Including those big boat burny dragons flying around

Now you can keep arguing like a spare or just accept that DRAMA dictates we'll have gaps in the plot that you could literally sail a fleet through

Enough with the personal insults.

You can have a decent discussion without them. Whatever high horse you think you ride is in your own mind.

So rather than continue this so-called discussion which seems to somehow have you frothing at the mouth, I'm out.

Baggly

I liked the bit with the boats.

eeguy

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What are you talking about?? Crossing the T is a modern naval formation for ships loaded with cannons. Not medieval ships like the ones used here.

And even though these ships have catapults, they're forward facing, like the ones the Masters used to beseige Mereen at the end of the last season, so "crossing the T" as you put it, would put your catapults facing the wrong way and your opponents facing the right way. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Baggly

Boom son you just got eeguy'ed

leggo

I'd like to see Dany's fleet use the old 'Dragon W' trick at a later date. It's when you're a dragon and you fly in the shape of a W, burning anything in sight. You can actually do it with any letter, or any shape in fact, because you're a dragon and formations don't mean **** to you.

Baggly

leggo wrote:

I'd like to see Dany's fleet use the old 'Dragon W' trick at a later date. It's when you're a dragon and you fly in the shape of a W, burning anything in sight. You can actually do it with any letter, or any shape in fact, because you're a dragon and formations don't mean **** to you.

Oh yeah. Like in the mighty ducks. But with dragons instead of the mighty ducks.

xper

Thought it was odd that Pyke appeared in the opening credits despite no scene taking place there but the opportunity to introduce Casterly Rock and Highgarden was spurned.

And while the depiction of Casterly Rock was fine, the brief glimpse of Highgarden was way off - we got a generic castle amid a wind swept grassland. Its supposed to be a large multi-ring castle with Disney-style round towers, a botanical paradise on a ill beside a river set amidst the richest farmland in Westeros. Horn Hill, seen last season, was much more like it.

Harambe

xper wrote: »

Thought it was odd that Pyke appeared in the opening credits despite no scene taking place there but the opportunity to introduce Casterly Rock and Highgarden was spurned.

And while the depiction of Casterly Rock was fine, the brief glimpse of Highgarden was way off - we got a generic castle amid a wind swept grassland. Its supposed to be a large multi-ring castle with Disney-style round towers, a botanical paradise on a ill beside a river set amidst the richest farmland in Westeros. Horn Hill, seen last season, was much more like it.

Agreed I was let down by Highgarden and was thinking Horn Hill looked much better last season. Thought Casterly Rock was OK.

rawn

xper wrote:

Thought it was odd that Pyke appeared in the opening credits despite no scene taking place there but the opportunity to introduce Casterly Rock and Highgarden was spurned.

I thought the same, i was thinking maybe Theon was fished out of the water near Pyke? Is that geographically possible?

xper

rawn wrote: »

I thought the same, i was thinking maybe Theon was fished out of the water near Pyke? Is that geographically possible?

No. That attack took place somewhere between Dragonstone and the Dornish coast, a looooong way from the Iron Islands.

No, Pyke was undoubtedly included as a nod to Euron's prominent role in the episode but that is a break from convention. Aside from the ever present King's Landing, Winterfell and The Wall, the locations shown in the opening title's have always reflected where rather than who is in the episode. Why do it when you featuring not one but two major houses' seats that everyone has been mentioning for years but we have never previously visited? Can't be the surprise factor - its never stopped them before and we knew Greyworm and the lads were on their way west. Just weird.

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podgemonster

xper wrote: »

No. That attack took place somewhere between Dragonstone and the Dornish coast, a looooong way from the Iron Islands.

No, Pyke was undoubtedly included as a nod to Euron's prominent role in the episode but that is a break from convention. Aside from the ever present King's Landing, Winterfell and The Wall, the locations shown in the opening title's have always reflected where rather than who is in the episode. Why do it when you featuring not one but two major houses' seats that everyone has been mentioning for years but we have never previously visited? Can't be the surprise factor - its never stopped them before and we knew Greyworm and the lads were on their way west. Just weird.

Cost, time and resources is probably the (boring) reason. More than likely we wont see The Rock or Highgarden again soon so they didn't warrant there own opening sequence piece.


The show can only fit a max of 6 locations in the opening sequence. So Winterfell, The Wall, KL, Dragonstone, Pyke and Oldtown took precedence. Pyke also featured throughout Season 2 while Theon was at siege in Winterfell so it does seem to be very flexible on the locations of the Greyjoys.

CMOTDibbler

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We didn't actually see him arrive, so we really can't tell how they are mounted. Certainly the flagship with the big mainsail would find it difficult to mount a catapult in the bows as it would probably snag the sail. But the lateen rigged ships would probably have to mount in the bows, or only on one side. I'm not sure they'd be wide enough in the beam to accommodate such a device and the action would be liable to capsize them.

If it's a catapult of course. Not sure what else it could be though. They look too firebally to be flaming arrows.

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