A) Completely agree. Debating with a 'realistic lens' when you're dealing with dragons and zombies is folly and not something I'd have done but/for the efforts at defending the realism of what happened. It wasn't realistic. It doesn't necessarily need to be, but let's not act as though it was.

B) Absolutely. There is still 4 hours or so of screen time and you can do a LOT with that to blunt some of the criticisms we've seen to this point. There are still ways that they could finish this thing and all will be forgiven.

But as of this very second, I'm pretty disappointed. This was a really weak facsimile of the Battle of the Bastards and some of the other high points of the series thus far. When compared to season 6, almost all of what we've seen since has been pretty flat.
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Totally fair. I think D&D really surprised everyone after a "flat" season 5 by delivering on what's considered to be the best season by many fans (and the one with biggest payoffs). They even hinted at feeling a ton of pressure after Season 5 to "deliver after a down year" and have said Season 6 has been the season they're most proud of as filmmakers.

Looking back on Season 6 is interesting.

While the season was heavily advertised as being the first to "go beyond the books", it was actually quite reliant on a lot of source material. They brought the ironborn back from the source material (Even though we got a Captain Euron Sparrow, we did get the "I am the storm" line). They used a lot of the set-up for the Battle for Ice in books for the Battle of the Bastards (will that be just one long siege/battle in the books instead of two? Let's be real, for a seasoned military commander, Stannis having his entire force just sort of "standing around" to be slaughtered by the Boltons is a bigger crime than any committed by The Long Night).

They also surprised everyone by bringing in Jaime's Riverrun storyline. It did not come close to the book story, but it was still excellent - and as always D&D proved that their flourishes (such as bringing Brienne, Pod, Bronn & Jaime together in that storyline) work best when they have source material to work with. This allowed them to revisit Walder Frey in a sensible way as well. Coincidentally, that military conflict has been the most sensible military engagement they've had since Season 4, which again supports just how vital GRRM is when constructing/writing military conflict.

Bran's story, while not having source material, was directly inspired by Book 1 text (the Tower of Joy) and from GRRM's outline he gave them concerning Hodor.

Blowing up the sept also was a marvelous deviation from the source material. They were able to use pre-established text in the source material (the wildfire) built up that plot through Tyrion and Cersei knowing about the rumors, and when the moment happened, it was incredibly impactful due to its meaning and finality from many characters in the source material.

Battle of the Bastards was incredible. There were leaps in logic as pronounced as The Long Night but I think that was more forgivable to the fandom when the outcome was earned and consistent for all characters. Contrast that to "The Long Night" where many argue that killing the WW with one fell swoop wasn't an "earned" victory.

Now that I think about it, D&D do always try to honor the source material since passing the novels. The "Wight Hunt" was inspired directly from text in Book 1, and Arya killing the NK started with text in the books (i.e her connection with the God of Death, and a line in the show from S3 and the build up with the dagger since the start of the series). As they've gotten further away from the source material, I think these connections become more and more of a stretch as the series approaches the endgame.
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Jorah certainly seemed surprised by it, you would think he would lead the charge, but instead, he waits and seems to reluctantly go along after the charge has already started. I think we may find out the Dothraki weren't supposed to do what they did.
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Dany also seemed, if not surprised, at least unnerved by it.

I don't think the Dragons were supposed to be in play that early (Jon suggested as much as she took off) but when the Dothraki were being wiped out, she seemed compelled to try to salvage some of the mess that had been made.

Seemed like an 'everyone has a plan until they get hit' sort of moment. Dany was calm and collected on top of that hill and when her blood riders got massacred (perhaps recklessly and perhaps as a direct result of her absence), she made a rash decision.

I wouldn't say they're just savages though - they'll follow their leader. It's fair to ask if Dany leaving the field and putting them under Jorah was what set the whole snowball rolling...
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All im going to say is, i would hate to be you guys that over think a tv show. I have criticism about the show too but man i just watch and enjoy it because nothing i can do will change what that show was/is. I was entertained as hell by it. Its the same people who think transformers sucks. Maybe as a story line it does but watching it just for the action aspect its fucking cool as hell.
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Star wars is the only thing ive watched and been legitimately pissed off about
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I mentioned this earlier. The Dothraki got a bit too amped up and went off on their own. Jorah's horse kinda freaked out as he was trying to NOT go, and got pushed into the flow.
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I get the confusion from the TV show only folks - why get that mad about a TV show?

But for the book folks, man - we have literally hundreds of hours into this silly ass series. I mean the damn books are over 1,000 pages each and there are 5 of them. Depending on the publisher you're talking 5,200+ pages or more.

And it's not light reading with lots of pictures either. I can't really maintain a page/minute clip on them without missing detail that I feel like I need to go re-read later. I'd say you'd be doing well to knock out the series in 120 hours or so and you'd still be well served to do a re-read at some point.

So if I have 200 hours of reading time in this series not to mention, what, another 80 or so in TV time? Well that's a lot of friggen time, man. And I don't even go to the chatboards and stuff (after I accidentally read "melted down after Ned Stark's execution" when I was like 5 chapters into Book 1 and just wanted to learn more about this badass sword called Ice - no more interweb meanderings for me at that point). A lot of the folks that get upset DO go to the chatboards and Reddits, etc...

I'd like to not see it all run off the rails at the end.

I mean c'mon - can ANYBODY on this board really get too indignant about people being mad at entertainment? What the hell is the NFL if not a mindless source of entertainment? And why are we upset when stuff goes sideways? Because we're pot committed. How many times have you had someone say something like "Man, why are you so irritated over a football game" and you just wanted to kick them in the throat? Bitch - don't you worry about where I direct my angst....

The occasional backlash over GoT is no different...
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I would just like it if the characters didn't have to hold the idiot ball for there to be a threat.
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Some of you just need to step back and relish in happiness of the fact that you were lucky enough to be alive during the time that the greatest television show in the history of mankind was on the air.
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Did the crows sent by Bran go to Jon Snow and Arya and others to direct traffic once the NK got to the tree area where Bran was?
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i sort of understand im halfway through the third book.
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TV show message board posters make sport message board posters look sane.
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It kind of reminded me of the killer rabbit scene from Holy Grail. Just on a grand scale. :-)
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I think that's why I've been (mostly) able to take everything in stride (I still hate everything about the execution and result of the Wight Hunt). It's pretty clear that George has not the slightest clue about how he wants to finish most of these plots - it's also clear from recent interviews that Dany's storyline was more or less of a stall so that other characters could complete their arcs in Westeros.

Idk. I have no faith in him to finish this anymore. If anything, I'm worried his finish will be a lot like LOST. D&D are at least trying to do the Breaking Bad route... if only they could have gotten Vince Gilligan as a consultant at the beginning of S7.
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