Game of Thrones - mostly

[StCapps]

This hilarious pet peeve has really brought a lot of levity to this thread though, so on second though, keep bitching about it, don't let it go.

[BjornP]

We've already seen forged dragon glass work on the white walkers.

How did you know it was forged not knapped like every obsidian dagger ever known on Earth? I do not recall any mention of this, and as you have observed, this is in my wheelhouse. I have actually taken stone knapping lessons, was one of the coolest things I ever did with my son when he was little.

By now you should have realized you're completely wasting your time. It's like explaining to children why you can't just fly to the moon with feathers borrowed from a swan. They're just want to listen to the story and they are quite right that people don't care. If the final episode comes along, and all the main characters spontaneously, and without explanation, gain the ability to turn into dragons and defeat all the white walkers in two seconds and the show ends on that note, you'd probably not see alot of people go... "oh, yeah... but it's a magic world , either". Deus Ex Magica fantasy is lazy fantasy and that's really not what GRRM's world is like.

The "melting obsidian like it was a metal" scene did make me groan from a "why is this stupid scene even neccesary" kind of way, but I am betting that when (if?) GGRM ever finishes the series and gets to that point of the story, the process will be described more realistic. He usually does his historical research. Compare to the cringy Dany "Mhysa" slave-saving scene. GRRM didn't write all the slaves in the books as brown people, but because the team needed to save money, they hired local extras for the slave roles. Locals, on that location was in North Africa or the Middle East. Despite that common sense explanation, or rather because they didn't know that explanation or cared about it, some people got angry at how "racist" it looked.

However, in the large scheme of things, I doubt GRRM ever wrote or planned on writing the melting and reforging obsidian scene into the books. The whole series tries to be a more realistic fantasy setting, in that there physics still exist and that social status and behaviors dictated by them are realistic. Also, the scene looked mostly like an afterthought by some writers after discovering what obsidian weapons would really be like. They probably needed to give Gendry a bigger part and to the writers and producers, they expect the audience to be as ignorant and dumb as themselves, so if they didn't know that you don't melt obsidian to make weapons out of it, they won't either. Plus, had to use Gendry's role for something. He's a smith and smiths melt stuff to build other stuff, so that's what will be shown.

There are loads and loads of historically, technically/practically, and militarily dumb things that almost all of both "historical", fantasy and all other TV shows do. Especially how they imagine medieval style battles. It compares to the popular action movie trope of "riding the shockwave" of a bomb blast, essentially that a shockwave just pushes you away. Which is...not a thing. And that's not fantasy. Or.. it is in a way, but not the genre. Someone with military experience might still enjoy an action movie with a scene where the main character uses a bomb blast to ride a shockwave, but he'll still know that that precise scene is unrealistic. He, too, will probably know that that scene wasn't meant for people with the expertise, but for people who want stories that cater to their expectations of how explosions happen and effect the human body, or how a medieval battle looks, or how you'd make the best obsidian weapons.

[Hastur]

[Kath]

The "melting obsidian like it was a metal" scene did make me groan from a "why is this stupid scene even neccesary" kind of way,

You answered your own question by acknowledging they needed to give Gendry something to do. It's one of the very few ways they showed that preparations for the battle were underway while all the other characters did their various reunions and/or bitching about Jon & Dany.

I'm no blacksmith, so I didn't notice the problem until it was pointed out, here. It still doesn't bother me. Of all the impossible things that happen in this show, numerous times per episode, this one is a gnat on a gnat.

[Kath]

Eh, I have a 20 year old son who runs up mountains for fun when he's not going up a frozen waterfall with ice axes like some wilding raider. Some young men are made of fucking iron, ask Smitty or any of the other soldiers here.

Did he manage to climb up a frozen waterfall during the first couple of days in his life that he experienced bitter cold weather? Warm weather lungs need time to adapt to bitter cold. Lungs don't like cold weather; lungs that have never felt cold will have a harder time adapting. Lungs are pretty important in, "running at record pace," type tasks.

[DrYouth]

Should the waterfalls have been more frozen?

They seemed pretty unhampered by ice.

And was the dragon jealous... or hungry... are we anthropomorphizing about reptiles?

So many things to ponder.

[brewster]

Eh, I have a 20 year old son who runs up mountains for fun when he's not going up a frozen waterfall with ice axes like some wilding raider. Some young men are made of fucking iron, ask Smitty or any of the other soldiers here.

Did he manage to climb up a frozen waterfall during the first couple of days in his life that he experienced bitter cold weather? Warm weather lungs need time to adapt to bitter cold. Lungs don't like cold weather; lungs that have never felt cold will have a harder time adapting. Lungs are pretty important in, "running at record pace," type tasks.

Now look who's getting nitpicky??? Cold adapted lungs??? When Jon took his dragon joyride were you thinking "wind chill" like I was? Jeez, some goggles at least! You can seriously freeze your eyeballs.

[DrYouth]

Now look who's getting nitpicky??? Cold adapted lungs??? When Jon took his dragon joyride were you thinking "wind chill" like I was? Jeez, some goggles at least! You can seriously freeze your eyeballs.

Wouldn't it have been cool if he had fallen off...

Sadistic plot twist FTW

Everyone blames Daenerys, the North rises up against her, the zombies exploit the rift and take the Iron Throne.

New Era... cue the Empire music.

[Kath]

Now look who's getting nitpicky??? Cold adapted lungs??? When Jon took his dragon joyride were you thinking "wind chill" like I was? Jeez, some goggles at least! You can seriously freeze your eyeballs.

Yes. Cold lungs. People who lived in the south all their lives and then go to Canada in January will suffer quite a lot more than a Canadian whose lived in Canada his entire life. How do you not know this?

When I moved to FL from IL, it took me a good five years to adapt to the heat/humidity. The first time I saw a guy wearing a parka in 65 degree weather, I knew things were different, here.

I did note the windchill factor for the dragon ride, but more for Dany than Jon. Dany grew up in warm, so she had no knowledge of the impact that bitter cold wind has on a person. Jon has only ever lived in cold weather.

I think you are starting to understand my point, here. Numerous times an episode, things happen that make no sense in the real world. It's not as bad as Star Trek, where every moment of every day is asking us to deal with fantasy, through endless energy, made up sciency-sounding words to explain away the impossible, physical impossibilities, time travel, travel to alternate universes, etc.

[brewster]

I think you are starting to understand my point, here. Numerous times an episode, things happen that make no sense in the real world. It's not as bad as Star Trek, where every moment of every day is asking us to deal with fantasy, through endless energy, made up sciency-sounding words to explain away the impossible, physical impossibilities, time travel, travel to alternate universes, etc.

This is exactly my point about what makes good SF & Fantasy vs bad. You can't throw out all of reality, or nothing makes sense, when absolutely anything can happen, there's no plots possible. This was always the problem with comics like Superman. He's basically God, can do anything and can't get hurt. Without Kryptonite there's no plot.

The best SF has the least "suspend your disbelief for this" asks. Trek over the years simply could not resist ladling it on. Instead of just FTL and Transporters to keep the plot moving, they have to have Time Travel, Evil Twins, Amnesia, Alternate Earths, The fucking Holodeck, and an endless amount of technobabble. Some of the best SF ever is far more minimalist. Look at Niven's Known Spaceuniverse. FTL is really the only big ask. There's some PSI powers here and there, but for the most part it's real science and character conflicts. A lot of Heinlein and Clarke is the same.

Back to Westeros: there's gotta be rules. You can't handwave whenever you fuck up the plot. This is why Arya recovering from her gutting by the Waif was such stupid writing. Don't make something happen which then requires suspension of disbelief for an inexplicable outcome. Contrast that with The Hound's compound femur fracture. He and all of us knew he was going to die. That's the usual outcome of that wound in that situation. That the terribly wasted Ian McShane saved him was explained plausibly. He did almost die even with knowledgeable care. No plot hole.

PS: Hey Cappy, no love for Deadwood in your Pantheon of PeakTV? Fucking McShane was awesome in that, as was Timothy Olyphant and the entire cast.