For the life of me, I can't figure out why they went with a shortened season having actually watched the episodes now.
Prior to the season starting I figured the rumors that they just didn't have enough material to flesh out two more 10 episode seasons, but too much for just one season. But now? I just don't get it. All the issues with this season could be fixed with a bit more time to let all this shit breath.
Think about it, the whole North of the Wall expedition and then penultimate battle would have been 100 times better if they gave it more time.
- Jon and crew finds zombie patrol
- Combat happens, they steal the wight
- Shit goes pear shaped and they have to retreat to the island
- Crew is stuck on the island for several days while Gendry/Ravens get the message to Dany, who then has to fly hundreds of miles north to save their asses
- During the days that pass while waiting for possible rescue these characters, some of whom are great, get to interact with each other!
- We get more scenes with The Hound and Tormund talkin shit about the finer points of sucking dicks and getting busy with large women and other fun shit
- While the Norther Exposure group is slowly starving to death and hoping for rescue the show gets to spend more time dealing with whatever the fuck is going on with Pyscho Arya, Deus Machina Bran and poor Sansa, because the Winterfell arc feels beyond Special person right now
It wouldn't solve the problem with Jon being an absolute moron and fighting the undead for no reason while everyone else was waiting in the Car, er dragon, to leave. It doesn't solve the super sloppy, and awful writing that was that whole final battle, but it at least takes care of the weird time traveling plot holes they've opened.
I mean from the beginning of the expedition when the show runners decided to include red shirt wilding fodder you knew none of the main characters would be in the slightest amount of danger. Yeah, Thoros died, but that dude had about 10 minutes of screen time. One of the most important things that makes GoT's what it is, is that Martin hated plot armor in traditional fantasy. He's quoted saying something a long the lines of "The problem with fantasy stories is that when the hero is surrounded by certain death that he's really in no danger at all, there's no suspense because no one will kill the main character". I can't remember GoT ever bothering with Red Shirts before, actually, I take that back. Season one where Jamie confronts Ned in King's Landing a couple of minor characters and random red shirt guys die. I think that was done on purpose though, to sort of lull the audience into taking the show as the sort of standard story where they hero wins in the end, and then bam Ned gets the chop at the end of the season.
I guess what I'm saying is, a giant battle with 3 huge dragons and an army of the undead and a magic zombie ice spear throwing demon harbinger of the apocalypse was 100 times less interesting or suspenseful than Brienne and the Hound and their insane fight, or when The Mountain and Oberyn squared off to determine Tyrion's fate. Or christ, the Battle of the Blackwater, I bet the Blackwater had half the budget of Sunday's episode but it was a million times more epic.
