He was hanging upside down on one of the burning crossesAccording to IMDB Daniel Craig was in the episode.
Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended
- Thread starter ha_rooney
- Start date
Fair point. That was a great episode.
Nice episode. Below hodor ep for me this season but still one of the better got eps. Just all a bit slightly too predictable.
Yep. Jon Snow probably has three of the top five eps of GOT.
Of course it was, that army could have turned up prior to the battle, they could have arrived just after the battle when Jon had been squashed like a ping pong ball between a Thai hookers legs. Of course as it turns out they arrived just on time to save the main protagonists and thus making it a dues ex - the fact that we knew the vale were going to join the battle for the freedom of middle-earth has nothing to do with anything, it was the way and timing in which they joined the battle in typical Hollywood style.
Now peaches, don't get your knickers in a twist, if Hollywood story telling is your type of thing then I've no doubt you'll love the rest of Game of Thrones.
Feck, I was in a Wall of Death once (Wacken I think) and I fell down with a bunch of others in the first row. That feeling of being trampled and stuck beneath a pile of people came back during that battle. Amazing episode. everyone who is complaining about shit, feck off.
Evil Sansa is very interesting, Dany was finally doing shit, Dragons spreading Havoc, great battle at Winterfell. Up there in the top three for me, together with Hardhome and Blackwater.
Evil Sansa is very interesting, Dany was finally doing shit, Dragons spreading Havoc, great battle at Winterfell. Up there in the top three for me, together with Hardhome and Blackwater.
Sansa rules Winterfell now owing Littlefinger a great price for his aid in the battle.
Where does this leave Jon?
What of the Hound and the BWB?
As for Littlefinger's army showing up just in time, Jon's army were supposed to wait to be attacked. Ramsey drew him out with one of his tricks, a trick that Sansa warned him about. The Knights of the Vale arrived on time, it was Jon who went attacked too early. The problem for the Stark men since day one has been following their hearts and honour rather than their heads.
Where does this leave Jon?
What of the Hound and the BWB?
As for Littlefinger's army showing up just in time, Jon's army were supposed to wait to be attacked. Ramsey drew him out with one of his tricks, a trick that Sansa warned him about. The Knights of the Vale arrived on time, it was Jon who went attacked too early. The problem for the Stark men since day one has been following their hearts and honour rather than their heads.
Actually the fact that they laid out a quite obvious chain of events does mean it wasn't. It wasn't a sudden or unreasonable intervention out of the blue that couldn't be reasonably explained. Typical Hollywood maybe but it was so well done that you'd have to be particularly stuck up to disregard it for that reason alone.
Are you implying then that Sansa knew what was coming and that she allowed Jon to be in a position where he was fighting for his life getting crushed whilst his kinsmen were being slaughtered right, left and center? Or that she knew Little Finger would be turning up at some point but didn't herself know when that would be? It's quite unfeasible for an army to be ready to fight after a journey to the location of the battle and pretty unexpected to do so right at the pivotal moment of the battle regardless of the chain of events which led to them being there.
Anyway, we could argue forever over the meaning of a deus ex and significance of having one, it's not like GOT's is a stranger to them, I just think that this series has certainly taken a Hollywood twist in order to appease many fans who complain when good* (main) characters get killed off.
*I also think they should have gone down the route of who was good and who wasn't being open to interpretation rather than the usual good vs Evil route. Two sides and all that.
And it does seem that in this thread there is a greater than average fan of the show who aren't open to discussion or debate on episodes and would rather stifle any opinions to the contrary of their love of the show and have a thread which just gushes over everything.
Last edited:
I don't think it's unfeesable to suggest that Littlefingers army was there, but his condition was that they come in at the end - as he doesn't trust Snow's battle strategy (and he wouldn't with what Sansa tells him) or now that he realises Sansa is desperate, he holds all the cards, so can dictate how his army is uesd - and so he had scouts watching the battle so they'd come in at the right time.
Also, Jon battles his way out of the crush, he would have survived for longer... there was still time and opportunity for them to retreat/surrender in fact.
That was a proper GoT episode we haven't had one like that for a while. Some of the scenes/camera work was simply brilliant.
To be fair if Jon had actually followed the plan rather that doing the exact opposite of what him and Sansa LITERALLY SPOKE ABOUT THE NIGHT BEFORE. And allowed the Bolton's to advance to them in a relatively protected defensive formation Littlefinger would probably have showed up roughly when the two armies had finished skirmishing and the proper battle was about to start.
I think if we're looking for logic in the chaos, it's more likely that Littlefingers army would have had a scout surveying the situation and relaying back to the troops. They would have waited for the moment when Bolton's troops were fully committed and most vulnerable before taking advantage.
I don't think that's how it was written though, I think it was intended to be a late arrival that saves the day and why the hell not?
Aye probably not... As it's Littlefinger though I wouldn't be that surprised though.
Given their whole plan the night before was to be patient and force Ramsay to attack them (as Davos suggested he would have to do) then there was no reason for Sansa or Littlefinger to know things would get that bad that fast. If Jon hadn't acted a clown then they would have won comfortably regardless of her telling him or not.
Littlefinger would have arrived last minute no matter what. He wanted both armies to wipe each other out before arriving. He could easily take Winterfell and the North right now if he wanted. He has the army to do so.
I have to admit this would be a good twist, although if this was his plan surely he'd have left it a few more minutes - In a dodgy accent "Sorry Sansa, we tried to get here on time, why not let me console you over the loss of your brothers Rickon and Jon".
What the flying feck is a deus ex machina? People hurling that world around for the sake of it it seems.
That isn't what deus ex machina is. Littlefinger's army had already been established as a possible solution to the problem and his arrival was brought about by the direct actions of one of the principle characters involved. At that point it isn't DEM, unless you have a very loose (i.e. wrong) definition of what that expression means.
Pinky
What men? His whole army was butchered (hence Ramsey saying that Jon doesn't have an army anymore when he returned to Winterfell)
It's actually a big problem, the Knights of the Vale are the only military power left on the North and Littlefinger can do whatever he wants, despite Starks being Wardens again
It's a an event that saves the day which is impossible to predict via previous events. Imagine in coronation street Vera falls from a bridge and suddenly a griffin swoops down and saves her. You'd think "eh, since when have griffin existed in the coronation street world?" If Jack had a baby griffin nesting with his pigeon a few years before it wouldn't be a Deus ex Machina.
Hth.
It's when something randomly turns up to solve a problem that seems unsolvable. So, say if people were surrounded and about to get killed and one of the characters suddenly said "Wait, I know a secret passage out of here", then that would be DEM. However, it wouldn't be DEM if, say, someone had mentioned the secret passage way in advance and the characters had asked for it to be prepared, just in case. Which is the equivalent of what happened with Littlefinger's army.
You lost me
Really enjoyed it. Sure some parts were a little silly like Jon charging head first into a stream of arrows, but you've always got to take a bit of that and shrug it off.
Plenty of action though, stories moved on well and a fitting end for Ramsey.
Don't know what Daenary's had done differently in this episode, but she looked absolutely smoking
Can't wait to see what happens now with Bran and the kings landing story.
Plenty of action though, stories moved on well and a fitting end for Ramsey.
Don't know what Daenary's had done differently in this episode, but she looked absolutely smoking
Can't wait to see what happens now with Bran and the kings landing story.
Awesome episode, those battle scenes were really well done, very claustrophobic feel to them. I think I'll be re-watching tonight after the football. A lot of folk also seem to be misunderstanding what a deus ex machina actually is, the vale army coming in to save the day was already established as a possibility to turn the tides.
I loved that brilliant shot of ser Davos standing over the remains of the pyre with the sunrise looming in the background, excellent stuff.
edit, Here it is:
Though do you think they have established enough that there is a shitload of wildfire under all the important buildings in Kings Landing? I wonder how many times it'll be mentioned again....and yet there will probably still be people taken by surprise by it.
I loved that brilliant shot of ser Davos standing over the remains of the pyre with the sunrise looming in the background, excellent stuff.
edit, Here it is:
So how is Littlefinger arriving 'deus ex machina' when it was quite clearly obvious that Sansa wrote that letter to him? That seemed very predictable.
Exactly, it wasn't Deus ex machina at all. Almost the exact opposite really. It was an obvious solution that had been flagged as on obvious solution beforehand and one that we actually saw one of the characters bring into play. People are just using the term wrong.
People are just trying to sound clever and using it in the completely wrong context.
So Benjen saving Bran and Meera was more DEM right?
I think Sansa demonstrated that if she has to sacrifice family members to achieve an objective.. she is detached enough to do that. If anything she has been prepared to do that since day one when she done over Ned in favour of the Lannisters. This is a different context but she has a ruthless streak to her and it'll be interesting what her next goals are. I think she may make Jon an outcast and not take the threat of the white walkers seriously and he will team up with brotherhood without banners etc..either that or a love triangle between them two and LF.
Danaerys was great in last episode.. all of it worked and was flawless. Glad they sped up the Greyjoy journey.
Not a fan of how Rickon was killed.. not gruesome enough and by Ramsey standards mere child's play.
Battle itself was epic and the Vale knights arriving was predictable but well executed.
It's funny Jon Snow after that victory.. he came out of it a loser and his stock is low once again. Will be interesting to see how the parentage storyline fits in with him developing as a character because at the moment he comes across as a muscleman with nothing else to offer but a good heart.
Danaerys was great in last episode.. all of it worked and was flawless. Glad they sped up the Greyjoy journey.
Not a fan of how Rickon was killed.. not gruesome enough and by Ramsey standards mere child's play.
Battle itself was epic and the Vale knights arriving was predictable but well executed.
It's funny Jon Snow after that victory.. he came out of it a loser and his stock is low once again. Will be interesting to see how the parentage storyline fits in with him developing as a character because at the moment he comes across as a muscleman with nothing else to offer but a good heart.
I agree. Historically Sansa hated Jon and now feels she was marginalised by him in the preparations for the battle.
Winterfell is Sansa's now so Jon's future us uncertain.
Disagree with you on Rickon's death though. It showed that Jon didn't listen to Sansa and got sucked into Ramsey's trap. A Stark following his heart and not his brain nearly costing them everything..........again.
He did leave Ramsey to Sansa though, so she owes him that, at least.
It's called a Eucatastrophe which is (arguably) a type of deus ex mechina, nobody is trying to sound clever, the fact that the Vale were on the way has nothing to do with anything, it's the timing of which they arrived as explained in a previous post:
You're implying then that Sansa knew what was coming and that she allowed Jon to be in a position where he was fighting for his life getting crushed whilst his kinsmen were being slaughtered right, left and center? This is folly since the army was destroyed! So if it wasn't that then she knew Little Finger would be turning up at some point but didn't herself know when that would be... It's quite unfeasible for an army to be ready to fight after a journey to the location of the battle and pretty unexpected to do so right at the pivotal moment of the battle regardless of the chain of events which led to them being there.
Anyway, it's open to interpretation and happens an awful lot in story telling, especially sci-fi/fantasy. At the start of GOT's however GRR went out of his way to ensure this wasn't the case - if he'd created a scenario whereby a character (or protagonist) was almost certainly doomed he'd kill them off which is what I initially loved about the series, as its gone on however and as viewership showed their disdain at this approach the series has gone all Hollywood.
Last edited:
Well it can be used anytime an unexpected event salvages an hopeless situation. Not wrong to use it. Although, having something like that doesn't necessarily make it bad.
Aye, much more so. Minor character we hadn't seen in several seasons, who we didn't know was alive or in any way connected with the Raven guy and Bran's storyline, suddenly appears to save our heroes from a seemingly hopeless situation. That ticks a lot of boxes that the arrival of Littlefinger's army doesn't.
To be fair when people speculated about the possibility of Bran's escape, Benjen was one of the first names that came to mind - because there was literally no one else that far North who could've been alive and interested in saving them (apart from the actual deus ex machina, obviously, it could've been some ancient God who decided to stop the White Walkers for example). Although, like we discovered later with Arya, they could've just continue their line with the assumption that the weak girl carrying a criple would outrun the army of zombies in winter's forest and survive there later.
But yeah, much closer to DEM than the Littlefinger's appearance
Very arguably. In fact if we accept eucatastrophe as being a type of DEM then the term becomes so broad as to be almost meaningless. In reality I don't think it has to be DEM at all, it just can be sometimes. Plus there's a big difference in context between events in Tolkien's world and events here. I really can't see any way you can twist this into being an example of Deus Ex Machina, it falls short on too many grounds.
Aye, people did speculate about Benjen maybe turning up but I didn't want to mention it in case they were drawing that idea from the burny, papery things we're not allowed to mention in this thread. Figured I better play it safe.