Then it's not really a plot device and is more a form of thematic exposition. I think what they did for Hodor wasn't clever or anything. It makes no sense.

willhud9 wrote:Then it's not really a plot device and is more a form of thematic exposition. I think what they did for Hodor wasn't clever or anything. It makes no sense.

Ah, I gotta admit, I liked it. As soon as it became clear that Bran was able to influence the past, I started thinking about tragic "by his bootstraps/predestination" scenarios. The circularity of the situation means it's not clear who is to blame, and that makes it more tragic, with this retroactive, but unintentional cruelty inflicted on this innocent kid that would come to define him entirely, all for a wholly unnecessary sacrifice: all Bran needed to do was go back and make sure he didn't reveal his location to the White Walkers, and the shit wouldn't have hit the fan. But then, he doesn't really know what he's doing. That's what I find deliciously fucked up about it.

I can see your perspective, though. Had I been suitably primed, I can imagine watching the whole scene as being totally ridiculous. Seeing that doorstop picture before watching the episode would have done!

That's not my problem as to why it doesn't make sense. Bran being able to warg someone through a greendream is pretty cool. But why did it cause a seizure? Warging is not mind-melting psionics. It isn't even psionics in the sense of mind-control. Warging is the wargs mind and concience merges with the hosts so the warg sees and acts through the host. Nothing more has been established ever. So how did Bran's warging cause a seizure. When magical powers are poorly explained and used cheaply for something like the origin of a character's personality it just strikes me as lazy.

willhud9 wrote:That's not my problem as to why it doesn't make sense. Bean being able to warg someone through a greendream is pretty cool. But why did it cause a seizure? Warging is not mind-melting psionics. It isn't even psionics in the sense of mind-control. Warging is the wargs mind and concience merges with the hosts so the warg sees and acts through the host. Nothing more has been established ever. So how did Bran's warging cause a seizure. When magical powers are poorly explained and used cheaply for something like the origin of a character's personality it just strikes me as lazy.

I think magical powers should be poorly explained, and should have weird and unpredictable side-effects and edge-cases, just like everything in science does. I can't stand stories where magic is something fixed, solid, and thoroughly shallow and naive, rather than something forever inviting further investigation.

Primer is, IMO, the greatest time-travel story ever told, and it's mostly about shit not making sense when you do it.

Magic powers should always be explained poorly, otherwise what you get is The Flash TV series.

Explained poorly is still different than not explained at all. Otherwise any fucking thing can happen. It's just not fun then and magic can be a cop-out excuse. Like I said its lazy.

How did Renly die? Blood magic. How does that work? No idea. How does a dragon fly? Magic. How does that work? No idea.

Still explained. Kings blood has power and Melisandre has the power to summon a shadow demon. It's not like Melisandre just waved her hand and Renly died.

Same thing with Bran. Warg powers have been established in the books and the show. It makes no sense what happened in the show. You can't say it's the warg powers as there is no explanation to support that and you can't say magic as what other magic does Bran possess?

Magic = Unexplained technology

willhud9 wrote:Still explained. Kings blood has power and Melisandre has the power to summon a shadow demon. It's not like Melisandre just waved her hand and Renly died.

Same thing with Bran. Warg powers have been established in the books and the show. It makes no sense what happened in the show. You can't say it's the warg powers as there is no explanation to support that and you can't say magic as what other magic does Bran possess?

ok

willhud9 wrote:That's not my problem as to why it doesn't make sense. Bean being able to warg someone through a greendream is pretty cool. But why did it cause a seizure? Warging is not mind-melting psionics. It isn't even psionics in the sense of mind-control. Warging is the wargs mind and concience merges with the hosts so the warg sees and acts through the host. Nothing more has been established ever. So how did Bran's warging cause a seizure. When magical powers are poorly explained and used cheaply for something like the origin of a character's personality it just strikes me as lazy.

I assume the seizures are because time travel is involved; Bran is warging into both Hodors, one all the way from the future to the past.
Not that it's a good explanation, but I think we're meant to assume that's the reason.

willhud9 wrote:Warg powers have been established in the books and the show. It makes no sense what happened in the show. You can't say it's the warg powers as there is no explanation to support that and you can't say magic as what other magic does Bran possess?

It wasn't just the warging. It was that he was in the time-state thing (thanks to the Three-eyed Raven) when he attempted the warging.

The whole situation in the North is bothering me, and those problems could've been avoided. Here are my thoughts:

Ramsay forms an immediate threat, he can attack at any moment. So what do they do? They spread out to gather half a dozen houses all over the North, and Brienne will even have to teleport to Riverrun. Forming such an army would take months. Also, as much as I love to see the Blackfish again, shouldn't he be busy dealing with the Freys and the Lannisters? Does he even have an army to take on Winterfell? Sansa is taking a big risk.

And meanwhile Ramsay is just going to sit and wait in Winterfell? If he has any spies (which he should have), then he finds out about their plan, he can hunt each one of them down, attack the wildlings, and take Castle Black. But of course none of that will happen...

Here's what D&D should've done: Sansa should've been gathering the North in secret in season 5. And she could've used Brienne to travel to all the houses. It would've solved the timeline, it would've given Brienne something to do, and Sansa would've been double crossing Ramsay instead of being a passive victim. And it would've made season 5 a lot better. Dammit, I should run this show...

True Pulsar, and if Ramsay attacked the wall while she wasn't there, he would've been stuck in a war while Winterfell was left unguarded for Sansa to take.

willhud9 wrote:

[Reveal] Spoiler:

Oh Summer just dies? Fucking great. Kill another direwolf.

I know, right? Not bad symbolism, though, now that I think about it.

Bran will be looking into the past to shape the future, he will become He Who Shapes, The Dream Master.

Hmm, three eyes…


He learned a valuable lesson, do not meddle with the past even if you can, instead he will use the information he gets from his greendreams to change the future from the present.

Hodor's sacrifice is a way to make sure that Bran is wary of affecting the past, so there will be no paradoxes. He doesn't need to change the past, he can join Jon and Sansa and be very useful with gathering intelligence from the past. (and maybe the present too)

I think he's Iron Throne material because someone who knows how things came to be can understand what to do to solve problems.

All hail king Bran!

willhud9 wrote:That's not my problem as to why it doesn't make sense. Bean being able to warg someone through a greendream is pretty cool. But why did it cause a seizure? Warging is not mind-melting psionics. It isn't even psionics in the sense of mind-control. Warging is the wargs mind and concience merges with the hosts so the warg sees and acts through the host. Nothing more has been established ever. So how did Bran's warging cause a seizure. When magical powers are poorly explained and used cheaply for something like the origin of a character's personality it just strikes me as lazy.

That's why I took it to mean Wylis/Hodor died mentally because his past mind was connected to his present body. You're right warging itself, even with a traumatic experience hasn't been established to cause such harm to the host.

I do recall the books talking about the effects of warging when either the warg or the host dies but I can't recall exactly what was said. Either way I do think that Hodor dying is what caused Wylis's seizure, not the warging itself.

In the books and show if the warg dies while in its host the warg becomes trapped in the host. Orell had this happen to him with his hawk. It hasn't been made clear what happens to the warg when the host dies though. But the other thing is bran was not warging him. Bran in the greendream was not in the state of warging so its all very confusing as to what exactly happened and from what I gather the show creators just want us to go with it. And for many fans it works and they are fine with it and that's great. But for me and several other people it feels jumbled and not really clear what happened to the point that it distracted enough that the sacrifice made was distracted from because we were still trying to understand what was going on.

willhud9 wrote:In the books and show if the warg dies while in its host the warg becomes trapped in the host. Orell had this happen to him with his hawk. It hasn't been made clear what happens to the warg when the host dies though. But the other thing is bran was not warging him. Bran in the greendream was not in the state of warging so its all very confusing as to what exactly happened and from what I gather the show creators just want us to go with it. And for many fans it works and they are fine with it and that's great. But for me and several other people it feels jumbled and not really clear what happened to the point that it distracted enough that the sacrifice made was distracted from because we were still trying to understand what was going on.

What is happening here is that the show has overtaken the books. You can always explain things better and more subtly in a book.

Meaning, I assume you read the books before watching the show.