I should also point out that this is just my humble (and obviously correct) opinion and that too be honest it is not that big of a deal. I just personally feel this episode was very weak from a screenplay perspective.

As for Sansa: She is still stupid. Clever people will manipulate and use those who manipulate them. It is the game of who can out manipulate the other. Sansa letting her emotions get the better of her is just folly on her part and sets the stage for her inevitable death at the end of this season. She should have the confidence and willpower to use Petyr's love for her mother as his weakness and manipulate him. Her reaction just shows her naivete in the game of thrones.

Coastal wrote:

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.

Yeah. On the one hand, I want to read the new books now just to see where the show went off track. On the other, I will read where the show went off track. Irritation guaranteed.

Then again, I will read the books and watch the show anyway, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Coastal wrote:

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.

Of course, but the problem with this excuse is that I shouldn't have to read the book. In books to movies if you have a power in the book that cannot be clearly explained or demonstrated in the movie you need to either change it or omit it. Otherwise an unfamiliar audience will become confused.

Example: Scarlet Witch in the Avengers. Her powers in the comics is probability manipulation. Now you cannot succinctly demonstrate that in a live-action movie without it being complicated and strange. So they gave her telekinesis and telepathy because it was easier to relate to and understand.

They could have had the three-eyed raven explain to Bran that in the greendream he had to take precautions due to his warg powers, etc. But we don't get that, ever. We get a slight hint that Bran can affect his greendreams when Ned turns around at the Tower of Joy. But that still doesn't explain the ability to cause a seizure or destroy someone's mind.

Mazille wrote:

Coastal wrote:

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.

Yeah. On the one hand, I want to read the new books now just to see where the show went off track. On the other, I will read where the show went off track. Irritation guaranteed.

Then again, I will read the books and watch the show anyway, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, of course we will, we have to see it through to the end now.

willhud9 wrote:

Coastal wrote:

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.

Of course, but the problem with this excuse is that I shouldn't have to read the book. In books to movies if you have a power in the book that cannot be clearly explained or demonstrated in the movie you need to either change it or omit it. Otherwise an unfamiliar audience will become confused.

Example: Scarlet Witch in the Avengers. Her powers in the comics is probability manipulation. Now you cannot succinctly demonstrate that in a live-action movie without it being complicated and strange. So they gave her telekinesis and telepathy because it was easier to relate to and understand.

They could have had the three-eyed raven explain to Bran that in the greendream he had to take precautions due to his warg powers, etc. But we don't get that, ever. We get a slight hint that Bran can affect his greendreams when Ned turns around at the Tower of Joy. But that still doesn't explain the ability to cause a seizure or destroy someone's mind.

That is not GRRM's style. He introduced magic very gradually into the story and it has been building. He has never been into describing a thing in its totality right away, it is a journey, so laying down rules for magic would be very clunky.

Game of Thrones is a TV show, not a book. The author's style has to be compromised in order to make the show accessible to all viewers. But even still even if it is his style its a poor style to have. It is one thing to have magic gradually enter the world again. It is another to have magic with no explanation cause something to happen and leave it at that. That is the definition of lazy writing.

I thought it was simply that Bran, by warging into present Hodor, while creating a link to the past with Wylls through his other, time-seeing ability created a sort of feedback loop, where young Hodor experienced his own death.

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.

My interpretation is that Bran is warging into Hodor but because he's also in the greendream with Wylis that creates a psychic bond between Hodor and Wylis, maybe almost like Wylis too has warged into his future self.

I agree that I'm a little bit conflicted with it myself. I really loved the first book in large part because it stayed away from magic and fantasy. Then as it was introduced I became more accustomed to it but this is a really big jump. I'm not sure if I'd prefer that they leave it as a one off device to explain/give purpose to Hodor - which I agree comes off as really lazy - or that they jump right into this new quasi-time travel stuff.

A big problem I have with the latter is that if it turns out that Bran had all these roles in major events throughout the history of Westeros and thus the future of Westeros, then it all comes off as being cyclical and predetermined which kind of makes everything else irrelevant. Everything else just becomes "Brandunit" which would be a huge disappointment.

Animavore wrote:I thought it was simply that Bran, by warging into present Hodor, while creating a link to the past with Wylls through his other, time-seeing ability created a link between them, sort of feedback loop, where young Hodor experienced his own death.

That was basically how I understood it. But the problem is that Hodor was already Hodor before we even knew Bran could warg. So if he was that way before and we're led to believe he was made that way because of what Bran did then the conclusion would be and endless loop of Brans creating an endless loop of Hodors throughout time.

I don't think the time travelling Bran needed to look like he was warging because real Bran already was. He clearly wargs Hodor to save himself, so Bran was in Hodor's mind while Wylls was in his, in his dream.

Which is why I despise paradoxes in things Time Travel and affecting the past is something which inevitable causes predetermined outcomes which is boring or contradictory logical sequences of events or just complicated logical understanding of events.

purplerat wrote:

Animavore wrote:I thought it was simply that Bran, by warging into present Hodor, while creating a link to the past with Wylls through his other, time-seeing ability created a link between them, sort of feedback loop, where young Hodor experienced his own death.

That was basically how I understood it. But the problem is that Hodor was already Hodor before we even knew Bran could warg. So if he was that way before and we're led to believe he was made that way because of what Bran did then the conclusion would be and endless loop of Brans creating an endless loop of Hodors throughout time.

Sure. That's no different to the Reece and John Connor scenario.

Animavore wrote:

purplerat wrote:

Animavore wrote:I thought it was simply that Bran, by warging into present Hodor, while creating a link to the past with Wylls through his other, time-seeing ability created a link between them, sort of feedback loop, where young Hodor experienced his own death.

That was basically how I understood it. But the problem is that Hodor was already Hodor before we even knew Bran could warg. So if he was that way before and we're led to believe he was made that way because of what Bran did then the conclusion would be and endless loop of Brans creating an endless loop of Hodors throughout time.

Sure. That's no different to the Reece and John Connor scenario.

Right! I couldn't think of another example of it in my posts. I cannot stand the Terminator films because of this.

willhud9 wrote:Game of Thrones is a TV show, not a book. The author's style has to be compromised in order to make the show accessible to all viewers. But even still even if it is his style its a poor style to have. It is one thing to have magic gradually enter the world again. It is another to have magic with no explanation cause something to happen and leave it at that. That is the definition of lazy writing.

It is only lazy writing if you doubt that he had the whole story already planned out for the most part, before he started writing it. I am paraphrasing but I read something to that effect.

If that is true, these slow reveals might be planned.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

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.

There was also the extremes the present group was in, and wasn't he trying to warg the present Holdor to fight and help them get away? Maybe it was an overload due to panic plus the time-state thing. For some reason, I got the idea part of it was to have Bran realize the horror of his ruining Holdor's life.

What really pissed me off was that he didn't know to not let a WW touch him, and that afterwards, when they knew the WWs were coming, that they fucking went back to watch the past again, the only reason to do so was to holdor Holdor. Add to that, the utter unpreparedness for such an event, to throw away Summer like that. And the absurdity that it wouldn't matter how long Holdor held out, it's now just Bran and the girl, period, they can't make it, not without some outside help, wouldn't be consistent with how they got there, and the dead will catch up in no time.

Adrinius wrote: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!

I usually have a hard time with anything where they go back in time and try not to change shit, and of course they do, it's pretty much impossible to go back and not have serious consequences, the butterfly effect would near wipe the future and replace with another, very very different one. So many shows have some big change, like nazis won, but with all the same people living in that future, fucking absurd.

crank wrote:

Adrinius wrote: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!

I usually have a hard time with anything where they go back in time and try not to change shit, and of course they do, it's pretty much impossible to go back and not have serious consequences, the butterfly effect would near wipe the future and replace with another, very very different one. So many shows have some big change, like nazis won, but with all the same people living in that future, fucking absurd.

I'm pretty sure Bran will not try to change the past with the whole Hodor fuckup. However, the ability to look into the past and use the info to your advantage is like finding a secret library with the history of the world. The butterfly effect will not matter, he will only change the present.

He knows the Children started the Night's King and the White Walkers, he might find a way to stop them, after all, this will not be the first Long Night, the NK and his WW were defeated before.

Some people complain about Westeros apparently becoming darker, especially in the North. Anyone concerned?

Adrinius wrote:
I'm pretty sure Bran will not try to change the past with the whole Hodor fuckup. However, the ability to look into the past and use the info to your advantage is like finding a secret library with the history of the world. The butterfly effect will not matter, he will only change the present.

He knows the Children started the Night's King and the White Walkers, he might find a way to stop them, after all, this will not be the first Long Night, the NK and his WW were defeated before.

I was talking about the genre in general, or anything where the idea plays a part. like Dr. Who. Dr. Who suffers from another very common silliness with time travel stories in how they get in situations where they have to be in a hurry. In a hurry, when you time jump? Here, if this had been a world where Bran had grown up with a non-Hodor Hodor, Willis wasn't it?, and then mucked with his head from the future because he needed that somehow, that would be absurd, Willis would not be with them, or enter his life in the same way at all.

The WW bit, sounds plausible, and it reminds me, I've either forgotten or it hasn't been explained, but why is this winter so special? I know they've had an unusually long summer, but this coming winter is treated by many as if it is to be freakish.

Every episode, I find another character I want to die, horribly! I thought that WW King died. Didn't she stab him with obsidian? I need to watch it again.