I think the poster who said last week that the show appeals to a large number of sub-audiences, each wanting its fix of the characters it cares about while just tolerating the other storylines was probably on something. Many said they had no interest in the characters at the wall, but personnaly, I’m interested in a lot of them. I like Sam a lot, and am interested in his romantic arc. I’m interested in the fate of the widlings and in Mance Ryder. I’m interested in the old Targaryen maester. I’m interested in the Allister/Jon Snow conflict (especially since for once Allister didn’t turn out to be an ass). I didn’t care anymore about Ygritte, after her murderous rampages during the last episodes, so she as well could die.
Anyway, I had my fix. While like you, for all I care, “Dragongirl” could fall in the stairs and die next episode, it wouldn’t bother me at all.
Yeah, and then the formerly quivering terrified boy gave this sort of battle-hardenend small nod to Jon Snow after what was, presumably, the first time he killed another human being. But anyway.
I’m agreeing with those whoe felt that the battle went on for too long, and may ultimately turn out not to accomplish much. I’m also wondering if John Snow’s suicide mission isn’t on some level a real suicide mission—I could see hoping for a quick death at the hands of some wildling patrol as being preferrable to how many nights of gruelling fight with much the same likely end result. Also, Ygritte’s just died in his arms. And even if I can see keeping the family sword safe, to then not take any other at all—he went out completely unarmed, didn’t he?—doesn’t seem like a great tactic, even if you know nothing.
(And who’re Potato Dad/Son? Who got revenge for what? I think I missed this in the discussions…)
The first time Thormund, Ygritte, the Thenns, etc., came down on a village, there was a father and don chatting. The father was the first to be killed and the Thenn leader told the boy that his dad and mum were going to be eaten and ordered the boy to go to Castle Black and tell the Night’s Watch all about it. That kid.
As already mentioned, he had stated he was an excellent archer (only to be ignored). And his family was massacred by the wildlings, who even made a point of telling him that her mother would be eaten. And Ygritte featured conspicuously amongst the murderous horde. I can see him not being much bothered by having killed her.
Precisely, Potato dad was horrifically killed by the wildlings. Potato dad’s son killed Ygritte.
Was anyone else expecting the Maester to die? I was sure his little speech to Sam was going to be his farewell speech.
Also, I know I’ve asked this before, but how does hit fit in the Targaryen line? I always thought he was a brother or something, but it seemed like he said in this episode that he was basically next in line to be king. Why is he at the wall anyway?
Maester Aemon would have been the heir to the throne when his elder brother died, but he refused to accept it and let his younger brother, Aegon, become King. That’s what he was talking about when he said he could have said the word and had it all or whatever. His younger brother Aegon V was the grandfather of the Mad King who was overthrown by Robert and Ned Stark.
Sam waited for the guy to get close and shot him with the bolt that he had already loaded. It didn’t take a lucky shot, just the presence of mind to wait until they guy came close enough.
I’m forget what’s been clarified precisely in the show so I’ll spoiler this. Heck, I’ll make it a double click, just because. The only thing included in here is family history, nothing actually spoilerish, but it probably includes information that’s solely book knowledge.
You’re almost there! Click again! Maester Aemon is over 100 years old and thought to be one of the oldest people in the 7 Kingdoms. He was born Aemon Targaryen, the second of 3, maybe 4 boys. As the second son, he was sent away at age 9 for formal training to become a Maester, which he did by around age 19. His oldest brother died of the pox and so he was next in line. But he decided being a Maester was more important to him, so he abdicated the throne, instead choosing to take to the Wall so that he could get as far away from political influence as possible. So the throne went to the 3rd in line, Aeres. He had a son, Aeres II AKA the Mad King. The Mad King was killed in what could be called Robert’s Rebellion. So Maester Aemon is Dany’s great uncle.
Kind of. Ultimately, a shotgun blast doesn’t send the victim flying backwards because the pellets (or slug, I suppose) don’t have the necessary momentum to do so, mostly because they don’t have very much mass as compared to the target. The way guns work makes it useful to point out that the shooter doesn’t go backwards, either, but the mechanics of a bow are a bit different, so I’m not sure the analogy works. (Possibly a shot of such force would rip the bow out of the archer’s hands? Never mind that he couldn’t pull the damn thing back… anyway.)
I suppose it depends on just how heavy the arrows were. If we’re talking about ballista-type projectiles, maybe upwards of 50lb, then I can see a shot knocking a man off his feet. (If we’re talking about a REALLY BIG ballista, with a 150+lb projectile, ok, that can send a guy flying.) I don’t know–someone geekier than I could probably take a good look at the giants, work out how big the bows/arrows were, and make a more educated guess about the mass of the arrows. Me, I’d guess at 5 or 10lb tops. Enough to knock you on your ass and kill you real good, but not enough to lift you bodily and send you flying dozens of feet through the air.
(I fear I may have started this episode’s potato/half-dragon discussion.)
And yes, I find physics problems (or potential physics problems) a bit harder to swallow than the existence of giants. Rules of Westeros allow for giants, obviously; nobody’s shown me anything to make me think that physics are different.
Wrong? Well, no, I’d not say wrong; what speaks to you isn’t really a right or wrong issue. I’m impressed that you could even remember that he was Jon’s friend. For all intents and purposes, the only people I felt like I “knew” up on the wall were Jon, Sam, Gilly, Aemon, Captain Jerkface of the Guard, and kinda sorta a little bit Captain Coward of the Guard. (On the other side, I knew Ygritte, Bald Scarface Cannibal Man, and Big Redhaired Warrior Man.) None of these people, honestly, did I care all that terribly much about.
Incidentally, another thing: I really didn’t get any sense of how this battle was going, nor did I understand the geography very well. How does the tunnel relate to Castle Black, for example? Were the people who dropped the rather ineffective Barrels of Heaviness that Don’t Do Much Unless They Hit You On the Head the same people who dropped the Barrels of Oil that Go Boom? And then at the end of the battle, I know that the Night’s Watch won because… well, because the show told me so. I never got the impression that they were winning during the course of the show; if you’d asked me, I probably would’ve said the wildlings. After all, I figured that once they were actually IN Castle Black, the battle was pretty much over.
I guess if you dig big battles this was an excellent episode; I need to have a little more investment in the people fighting the battle for it to work for me.
My biggest gripe is that it sort of takes the “desperate last stand” feel out of a battle when your enemy has to scale a wall the height of the Chrysler Building to get at you.
Anyway, that father-son pair had the original potato conversation that inspired the nerdpicking satire in that episode thread. “Potatoes?! Not unless they sailed to the New World to find them!!!”
For future reference when we get questions like this, people should be aware that there are TWO wikis. One is the A Song of Ice and Fire wiki, which is basically for the books. Then there’s the Game of Thrones wiki, which contains all the info given in the show and, AFAICT, only info given in the show.
So, in this case, instead of possibly crossing the book/show barrier, one could have used Maester Aemon’s GoT wiki page, which contains all the relevant info (as well as a family tree) and absolutely no book spoilers.
Right, I was just about to come back and amend my statement. There is an “In the Books” section for many characters, but I should point out that it doesn’t give any future spoilers, just additional information or backstory that’s not in the show, and pointing out some things from the show that happened differently in the books. So, for the Hound, for instance, the section points out things like his burns being much worse than shown on screen, and that the fight at the Inn with Arya happened a little differently. The whole thing still seems extremely spoiler-averse, and if you don’t want to know even things like that the section is all the way at the bottom and easily avoided.