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Yeah... he was making sure that Valyrian steel was as far away as possible from his royal icicles.


Oh, and on the post show discussion it was confirmed that Melisandre brought him back.

So...

Snowbowl tonight?

So far the season is playing out just as the books hinted...

We know Melisandre would bring Jon Snow back...
Having Jon Snow die would also free him from his night watch duties...
Was also expecting to see if they reveal Lyanna Stark is Jons mother from the flashback...but i guess we have to wait.

only surprise this season so far...did not expect Roose Bolton to let his guard down so easily with Ramsey. Then also the Rickon part

And Shaggydog's demise. Only Ghost and Summer are alive and accounted for. Nymeria is MIA in the Riverlands.

Also, although not so ambiguous for show watchers, Robert Strong confirmed is Gregor Clegane.

And subtle hint again that The Hound could be alive.

Can you imagine -

Cersei requests trial by combat against The Faith....and guess who is High Sparrow's champion?


Cleganebowl!

Oh...and even if it looked so badass...


Double longswords in full armor?

Only in a fantasy show....

I thought the whole fight looked and played out rather ridiculous(ly). Faker than a 70's Hong Kong Kung Fu movie.

Only works with those lightweight alloy Hollywood props.

Remember that seasons last years and there are dragons and magic. Believing in strong, lightweight metal is hardly a stretch by comparison.



The Jedi Master

Swords made out of lightweight metal would be next to useless. Armor, sure, but not for swords used on a battlefield.

No amount of pointing out that it's fantasy can reconcile my disappointment in having to watch yet another potentially good fighting scene ruined by yet another Escrima choreography.

Sorry, don't buy it. No creature like a dragon can possibly exist. Too heavy to possibly fly, fire in its belly not possible, etc, etc, etc.
In other words, it's ridiculous to allow dragons but argue metallurgy. It's like saying you have no trouble with embezzlement but expired vehicle registrations are deserving of a stiff sentence. You're applying your knowledge of why Earth swords were built as they were, against Earth-made armor, and saying it all has to be the same on an alien planet. But it doesn't. Fantasy means fantasy, and that can apply to anything, like blindness that comes and goes based on how you feel when you take a sip of water or building a massive statue of stone and bronze that should collapse under its own weight.
If this was about the actual War of the Roses, yes, absolutely, but not in this fantasy retelling of that conflict.




The Jedi Master

While I understand where you are coming from, and to a certain extent can see the value of the point (regarding nitpicking every. minor. detail.), I generally don't subscribe to that point when used as that thought-terminating clich� that the audience has to swallow anything because "it's all just fantasy, anyway". In a way, you are a proponent of narrative anarchy.

So I disagree with you on this. Stories, including those in science fiction and fantasy genres, need to be consistent. Otherwise, by authors making stuff up as they go along because it would "look cool", those stories are in danger of becoming their own caricatures. You'll have to draw a line somewhere.

I'm actually not arguing metallurgy, I was merely pointing out that metallurgy is beside the point, because it would not provide an advantage, unless no known laws of physics apply, which has so far not been stated.

I don't really care about what the stuff is made of, as long as it is explained to the audience what to expect regarding their attributes.

My gripe is with IMO bad production decisions, something from this world, not the narrative meta-level. It's about clich�d, tired, silly choreography that taxes my suspension of disbelief. I could have lived entirely without seeing Ser Arthur Dayne channeling his inner Darth Maul.

I expect something like that when watching Deadpool or Kick-Ass (where it is appropriate), not Game of Thrones. The scene was "out of character" for that show.

And even if it is explained retroactively by the creator (kinda like in Lucas' case with the prequel Jedi, because he switched his aesthetic influence from Seven Samurai to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), I still don't have to like it. For me, it kills immersion.

In order to maintain immersion, certain rules have to apply within the body of the created universe. Just because certain things like the existence of Dragons or some kinds of magic occur, does not mean that no rules apply whatsoever.

The reason why I am relying on my knowledge of "Earth swords" is that the premise has been that the world of Song of Ice and Fire is based on Earth, with a couple of additions like Dragons and magic (which even the majority of inhabitants of that world itself don't believe in, because they lived in a post-magical world up until the begin of the story). Martin described the armor as regular medieval armor (for example boiled leather), and the steel used as regular steel. There is Valyrian Steel, but from what we have seen so far (or what has been described in the books) it is just steel of superior quality (like Toledo steel or Tamahagane) that apparently also can kill a White Walker. There is no mention that it has the weight of a LARP plastic swords that cuts like a lightsaber.

If anything does not work as we expect it to work, it is the job of the author(s) to inform the audience about it. No one has so far bothered to mention that swords and armor - and the laws of physics in general- are supposed to be different. Martin has described his world to be an "alternative Earth". Which implies that Earth's basic rules apply.

Up until last Monday, we have seen all the characters handle their weapons more or less like regular Earth people have used theirs (like they have a certain, necessary, weight to them). This is why that particular scene sticks out so much. Why does Jamie have so much trouble fighting left-handed, if the swords are so super-light? Jamie is supposed to be one of the very best fighters in Westeros. Yet he was shown having huge trouble adjusting, and not making all that much progress. But we see Ser Dayne twirl two similar swords around like batons. It's not consistent within the story.

To sum up: the choreo of that fight - in my opinion (and apparently that of many others, as a quick Google search confirmed) - is extremely silly (to the point of being unintentionally comedic), which killed immersion for me, especially in the light of the normally great production values of the show. That's why it stood out so much.


Addendum, or, in light of the length of my post, epilogue:
The scene we are arguing about is certainly not a "dealbreaker" for me regarding the show, and even if the length of my response might suggest otherwise, the whole thing really doesn't bother me that much.

I just don't much like the killer argument of "it's fantasy, you have to live with it".

Dragons don't have fire in their belly. They have a highly volatile fluid in a special pouch in their throat that is then ignited by passing over their teeth, either by the eddies created by the teeth's serration or by gases released from bacteria growing on the dragon's teeth. The only scientists that found out were immediately after eaten by said dragons and were therefore not able to share this information.

Well that makes much more sense. Glad it's been cleared up.

Well, the question is then--what were the swords the actor was wielding made of? They weren't CG'd in later, just a pair of hilts, they were there. So possibly aluminum or something? Hard to say because they appeared to have more mass than that. So, that actor/stunt man was doing it. Now were they still too light to cut through stuff? Hard to say without seeing him to try to actually cut through something that wasn't a prop as well.

Or does it boil down to strength? Can you say with certainty that no man should be able to have that kind of strength and skill to do that? We're not talking about the average soldier here, this guy was the elite of the elite and took on half a dozen men by himself and almost prevailed if he hadn't misjudged the injury he'd inflicted.
So while he may not have been able to fight for an hour that way, can you honestly say that possibly the most skilled veteran sword fighter on an entire planet couldn't dual wield swords instead of daggers or a single sword for all of 5 minutes?

I'll just say the scene made absolutely zero impression on me until you brought it up, other than his ability to take them all on and nearly win. I never once noticed anything untoward about it. Total non-issue.

The only thing that kills it for me in a fantasy is when a character behaves...er, uncharacteristically. So if Tyrion suddenly orders all the former Masters in Mereeen executed, I would likely say "WHAT???" out loud because it would be wrong.
I mean, we've seen dead people brought back to life by someone reciting words they don't really believe or turned into zombies just because of the geographic location they're in when they die, so the suspension of disbelief has to be quite high or you'll just spend an hour a week scoffing at almost every thing that happens. Being preternaturally good with swords frankly ranks really low for me (to the point as I said of not even noticing it), so I'm just having a hard time grasping why it stood out for you more than anything else.




The Jedi Master

When I was quite young, and thus interested in such things,
around 10 or 11, I read a book about pirates, and it was
presented quite authoritatively, as recounting facts, and
I accepted it, but much later read a conflicting account
which said we really don't know anything about this, and
the author of the other book was speaking with unwarranted
confidence about things by no means certain. With that caveat,
I recount the story presented in the first book, about the
end of the career of a pirate, whom my distant memory recalls
was Blackbeard, though it may have been one of the short
list of two or three other most famous such characters.

At any rate, as the story goes, the pirates were fond of cutlasses,
and were of the habit of grappling and boarding and subduing
their victims with a short fierce sword battle. The Crown had
assigned a Royal Navy captain to take a force and capture
this pirate and put him out of business. The first thing the
captain did was to thoroughly train his men in fencing with
rapiers (this was late 1600s?). He then set about to chase
down said pirate, though I vaguely remember trolling with
merchantmen richly laden was involved as well. His plans were
successful, and he overtook and engaged the pirate vessel.
The brigands boarded and went at them with vigorous but
not terribly skilled swordsmanship, which the soldiers aboard
were able to largely fend off due to their training, despite
their much lighter weapons, though not without some casualties.

However, after a full hour of swordplay, already much longer
than the pirates had expected, their heavy weapons were leading
to their exhaustion, whereupon the well trained (not sure what
branch they would have been - were there british marines back
that far?) troops began to decidedly take the upper hand, and
had the pirates defeated in the second hour.

The moral being that the heavier weapon is not always best.
Of course, the pirates were not wearing armour, but that may
not be a big issue, as some amount of armour was definitely
still in use when rapiers first appeared.

My point is that the character was supposed to be good with swords, yet the chosen choreography managed to depict the opposite. Basically, the Kali Escrima choreography did not fit the scene at all. Like using Judo moves to depict long-range artillery.

Everyone has different "trigger points" regarding immersion. All the things that you have described above have been part and parcel of Song of Ice and Fire from day one, and are to be expected. But in his writing, GRRM has actually recreated a very good description of Earth's middle ages, with the addition of myths and legends becoming reality in his worlds [There were tons of "Dragonslayer" stories floating around in the middle ages, as well as stories and even accusations of magic, witches, and sorcery. People were highly superstitious back then. Martin just wrote it as if some of that had become real].

So just because there are Dragons, does not mean the rest of his world needs to be "unrealistic" as well.

Judging scenes is not a zero-sum game for me, nor is it hierarchical. That's the fallacy in the point you seem to be trying to "pin" on me. You seem to think because I deem A to be unrealistic, the same has to be true for B and C and D, especially if B,C or D are even more unrealistic vis � vis our world. This is not the case. I can and do differentiate.

So while I can perfectly live with dragons and resurrection, I can not easily accept silly, ridiculous, over-the-top, irrelevant Escrima choreography. Because, as I wrote in my previous post, it goes against the grain of the series: apart from the Sandviper scenes, all previous depictions of fight scenes were choreographed a lot better.

Movie stunt swords are usually made from aluminium. I would not be surprised if they had also used "LARP" swords made out of foam/fiberglass for the actual fight scenes, for safety reasons. With a little airbrushing they can be made to look very real.

Those props don't cut anything at all, because they are not only lightweight, but dull.

I have cut my share of tatami, bamboo, even sides of pork (which later ended as barbecue) with various blades during the last 25 years, so I have a pretty good idea what can cut and what can't. Also how to cut.




I can say with certainty that the way it is depicted is highly unrealistic. You can not handle real swords just like that actor did, with the same speed and "grace". It would look slower and more awkward. Also not advisable if they carry an edge.

And you just touched upon the heart of the matter: if he truly were the "elite of the elite", he would not even try to do that crap. It's useless. It does not help you in any way in a battle (unless you are facing a bunch of scared, rookie dimwits). It will drain your strength, and the chance that you fumble and lose one or both swords is high. A "master swordsman" would conserve his strength, keep his composure, and would rather make sure that he's not being encircled by his opponents. Because that is the dumbest move possible.

He would position himself in a way that he has no opponents in his rear, but to the front of him, trying to get them to block and hinder each other.

He may have used a short sword in one hand and a "basterd" [language filter] sword in the other. That would have been more realistic (still wrong if they had kept the same choreography); because you can fight with two blades: just not in the way they did it in the show.

He wouldn't have to fight for 5 minutes anyway, because in a real fight he would have lost after about 10 seconds.

The actors in that scene are merely slapping on each others swords, to create lots of movement and clanking sounds and action. That's only possible because their stunt swords are too light. With real swords, you can't swing that fast, especially when you would try to have some effect on target. Not only do you have to create momentum for the swing, you also have to stop the blade after the slash, in order not to swing too wide and create an opening the size of California.

Of course, movie fights are never "real". They can't be, because it would be extremely dull to watch for the audience. But there are varying degrees of "unrealistic". The one we are arguing about is way down on the scale.

And honestly, I wouldn't even complain about that scene, had the rest of the show been like that as well. But previously, they did rather well in the battle department, that's why this scene sticks out to me like a sore thumb. It's out of "character" with the show. I had to laugh, at a point where the creators probably did not intend for me to do so.

So I hope I have sufficiently explained my reasons for me not liking that particular scene. Your mileage may vary of course, and why shouldn't it? Everyone should enjoy the shows they like as they see fit.

Hold the Door.

Nice job, Brandy McFly! Mucking about with "time travel"

Now, maybe Coldhands does make an appearance after all. Miss Reed might need some help dragging Bran back to the Wall, being pursued by the Goblin Walking Dead Army [TM] (they could crawl along walls and ceilings!).

(ok...maybe this was supposed to be a George A. Romero tribute episode )

Also, D&D are clearly cat persons.