What could you really have done with them?

Pretty much this. It's unbelievably dumb the decision they've taken. Instead of the boring episode 4 we got, they could have done pretty much the same thing (have the good guys travel south and run into trouble with cercei) except say that the army of the dead is chasing them. You wouldn't even have to show the dead or have a big battle, the episode would have the same budget. Just the feeling of them being chased and putting a time limit on these boring kings landing politics would have made everything so much more interesting and high stakes.

>that huge ass ugly Essos
Only Westeros should exist in asoiaf change my mind

Exactly. As often happens IRL when a natural or other kind of catastrophe such as this occurs. Think of WW as a plague, famine. All that shit becomes utterly irrelevant when 2/3 of Europe's population gets wiped out by a plague from the Eurasian Steppe.

Infighting, squabbling. Men dying over minor insults and honor. All irrelevant when mechanized death comes knocking at the door.

why didn't the medieval kings just have their elite assassin little sister kill the plague lol

>ice litches and their apocalyptic army of the dead are a 1 episode sidequest before the main event against a wine aunt and some mercenaries in high rise sweatpants she took out a loan to hire
ANYTHING ELSE

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>Actually have the Battle of Winterfell be very similar but the White Walker generals fight the Valyrian sword characters so that the swords actually have a purpose
>Generals die, wight army stopped at Winterfell, at grievous cost
>The theory about the Night King attacking King's Landing is true and he takes a million wights in one swoop
That way people south of the Neck actually experience the threat. It can't be handwaved away as just a Northern fantasy. You can have him send other Generals to other locations too - Oldtown, the Citadel, Riverrun, places people have seen before on the show as a nice callback to the earlier seasons. It also gives the characters incentive to attack King's Landing immediately - so they can stop the Night King before there's entirely too many wights to do anything, rather than 'just because the show's ending'. It ties together the political and supernatural elements together much better. The White Walkers aren't just a single episode threat, and the political squabbling was irrelevant all along while still having some thematic meaning. In fact have the Throne be altogether destroyed by the Night King touching it and shattering it like a sword, a fairly cool visual, because he wants to wipe away all of mankind and the Throne is a symbol of man and all its works.

Essos is really fun as a 'here there be dragons' land of wonder and mystery, it's just that when george spent way too long there (resulting in the mereenese knot) you get huzad do zodak marrying zokar do hizdak and other boring bullshit

>winterfell is lost.
>Jon and the gang escape with a limited force
>with the white walkers behind them and kings landing in front, they launch a desperate assault on Kings landing
>they win and cersei/euron are executed. Jon kills Jaime in a duel after he tries to get revenge.
>Taking over kings landing, Jon prepares for a desperate final showdown
>With cersei removed, the whole kingdom rallies behind jon and the free cities send an army each.
>final boss fight with jon and the nights king.
>jon wins but is mortally wounded. Dany takes over as the new queen of westeros.

There, no sad sack limp dick ending or grimdark edgy bullshit about how shit human beings are. Instead, a triumphant badass saga of humanity uniting and overcoming impossible odds. That's the kind of story people like listening to.

Lol ikr? If Medieval Europe had not been so misogynistic and patriarchal... perhaps the Black Death would have transpired very differently. :)

I've never felt so insulted by a tv show before. Anything, literally anything, would've been better than having the WW reduced to a single-episode joke where only 2 minor characters died after finishing up their plot arcs. I would have preferred NK dying on the toilet to a dragonglass crossbow to what we got.

s08x01 = reunion, battle preparations

s08x02 = start of battle vs. wights and walkers, but nights king isn't at winterfell, main characters with valyrian steel swords fight and defeat most of the walker general, but end s08x02 with survivors evacuating to dragonstone. the cliffhanger shows nights king flying the ice dragon just outside of kingslanding

s08x03 = continue the scenery of snowfall on KL just like when jaime was riding away from it in s7. immediately show nights king attacking kings landing but he pulls back when the scorpions hit the ice dragon multiple times. show the relief/recovery effort at dragonstone with survivors regrouping. nights king and remaining walkers attack but are weakened due to the entire island being made of dragonglass. this connects with the earlier setup in s7 when jon/durrrnarys find the cave paintings. jon flies rhaegal into battle and the dragons fight while NK and jon swordfight. arya helps by shooting arrow at NK in the leg, wounding him. jon deals the final hit, cutting off NK's head.

It would be something like, the Walker threat was known and the wall was torn down by a human faction, knowing full well the aftermath to King's Landing that would happen.

You just don't understand the genius of deconstruction

>But it's a nihilistic point in the narrative. All the setup and double crossing for a throne becomes moot when that's the end.

That is kind of the point. It's a story about petty squabbles among people who can't see the big picture. Ever heard of crabs in a bucket? They could just work together and easily get out, but instead they fight and all end up never getting out. That sort of thing. It's a big parable. The stupidity and short sighted nature of humanity.

>I've never felt so insulted by a tv show before
It genuinely makes the show feel so...pointless. Why were we even following this period of time? It turns out to not have been anything really special. The Dance of the Dragons would have been a more interesting and satisfying time period to follow.

i meant to end s08x04 with NK vs jon. so the battle against wights, walkers, and NK would last for 3 episodes after the first comfy ep. of reuninons and preparations. then the final 2 eps would show remaining small army of jon/daneries vs. euron/cersei and show the dragons actually struggling to win against the scorpions, golden company spears, etc.

end the finale with danaries marrying jon and announcing her pregnancy. jaime joins the golden company. arya/sansa/bran rule the north. jon's first order of business as king is to repair KL and the wall. i mean, who cares. its a fantasy story, it should end on a good and idealistic note.i don't see why they can't just give the normalfags a happy ending. oh wait i know why...because the end goal is to demoralize the goyim.

Seasons 5 and 6 just felt like shit writing because they didn't have the books to go off of, but Seasons 7 and 8 are literally 'we are contractually obligated to finish this shit'-tier writing. the teleporting, the terrible sets and costumes, low-effort shocks, battles that make no sense, everything is just them phoning it in as hard as possible so they can end this show. This season had an extra YEAR of production and these six episodes are what we got? I'm glad I stopped giving a shit about this after Jaime and Bronn went on their wacky dornish adventure. Also that fat fuck is never going to finish his books.

No way, the walkers should be there by season 4, and 5 and 6 are the aftermath and dealing with it. That way you can integrate it into everything as opposed to it feeling tacked on at the end, with or without a twist.

this would've been the most kino way to tie up the entire story. instead they made 3 FILLER EPISODES...

George actually does both deconstruction and reconstruction of tropes. Deconstructing the fantasy knight in Jaime for one, but also reconstructing it in his arc with Brienne. Deconstructing the beautiful, good queen in Cersei and reconstructing it in Margaery. They should not have just stuck to "it's unpredictable so it's deconstructive". Play around with the tropes. Have Tyrion blow up King's Landing with wildfire to kill wights, and also innocent survivors because of his vendetta against the city - call back to his intense speech in the throne room back in season 4. He's then remembered by the smallfolk and characters as a hateful, spiteful monster, as he would actually be in most fantasy tropes, while the audience sees him as more gray. Daenerys and Jon end up on the throne but the Queen is the ruler instead of the handsome, lost prince. And people mistrust her as a mad queen because the capital was burned to ash and she came charging in with dragons. She is forever going to be a foreign queen to these people and never find her place of belonging besides a new family. Her rule will not be happy and fantastical.

>implying deconstruction is always a good thing.

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>Exactly. As often happens IRL when a natural or other kind of catastrophe such as this occurs. Think of WW as a plague, famine. All that shit becomes utterly irrelevant when 2/3 of Europe's population gets wiped out by a plague from the Eurasian Steppe.

Or think of it even like World War I or something. All that plotting and scheming, and it just results in mass death. For what? No one gained anything from it.

Well the idea that the throne ultimately doesn't matter is sort of the point, user. Who cares who sits on the iron chair when he'll be dead in 20 years anyway, whoever he is, while the WW are an extinction event coming for the whole planet that everybody's ignoring.

The White Walkers are a stand-in for Global Warming. Wake up Sheeple!

Shoulda made them refugees escaping some diminishing presence of magic (a stand in for global warming) in the North. The presence of life somehow decreases the potency of magic so they want to kill everyone.

agreed. best way as mentioned earlier in this thread is showing jon & team being squeezed between winterfell and kings landing. i still stand by my idea that they have to eventually fight the NK at dragonstone, because NK would otherwise be too invincible everywhere else. dragonstone should be the final fortress that protects the heroes so they don't get utterly wiped out. the whole place is built like a fortress made of dragonglass. have them fight on the beach. the idea to fight and confine the entire NK battle at winterfell is retarded.

even having jon die at the end would give it that "bittersweet" ending they want, and if they want to end on a feminist note then have Gaynaries become kween, thus achieving her ultimate dream.

>dany wins
Gay and cringe

Most importantly, show them having debates on future tax policy

Eh, it would be more akin to like just after WW1 or WW2 ending, a meteor striking Earth or a mass extinction event of some other kind occurring.

And then suddenly it's like oh yeah we really fucking stomped that rival power which was threatening our hegemony but now almost everyone is going to die anyway.

This, anything that doesn't result in Daeny and her dragons dying is bluepilled and antikino.

She was OP from the start and should had been nerfed ages ago, but clearly wasn't because she's the only thing that gives them a modicum of a chance against the Death Incarnate beyond the Wall, however that should come at a cost. Namely that of the dragons and potentially even her life.

If she does survive she loses all her dragons and Dothraki and Unsullied in a pyrrhic victory but she's now weak and broken woman with no muscle to retake her throne.

The real truth is that the story is too big and complex to make into an 8 season show.

Directors with balls would have had the White Walkers win.
Old Game of Thrones had soul, things didn't go as planned, beloved characters died in an instant, plot armor was kept at an absolute minimum, enough so that you could get to know characters and some of the great feats they could perform but not enough that it becomes stupid and outright unbelievable. Tyrion escaped death numerous times but it was done well. Jaime had a long ass ark of him being captured and trying to escape and in the end he did make it back to safety but at the cost of his hand which is a much bigger deal than it first seems, that hand was everything to him.
The only way the White Walkers could have been ''''''''''''''''''''defeated'''''''''''''''''''''' (and I use that word very loosely) is if something happened where Bran did some trickery but doing so meant he becomes the next Night King or some shit, I don't know the fucking specifics but something along those lines in which it gives humanity another long ass time to prepare for the White Walkers coming again.
Definitely no Arya killing the Night King though, her story has fuck all to do with him, she has fuck all to do with the White Walkers, she's a fucking mary sue killing machine in the show and it's just embarrassing.

The show is irredeemable shit now though anyway, why are we even discussing this? It's ruined. It's too hollywood, characters have absurd unbeleivable plot armor, not even just main characters too. Sam, Grey Worm, Jaime, Brienne and a shit ton of others should have died. One or more of the Starks too perhaps.
That war should have been the final part of the story, not some fucking sidequest with Cersei being the main boss, that's fucking trash, what the FUCK were they thinking?

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wipe everything
have something more to the whites and not just edgy boogiemen

I mean, GRRM did say there's like 5 seasons worth of content of the stuff he's yet to release.

Why even waste plot armor on characters like Sam and Grey Worm though? They're fucking grbage and nobody even likes them.

Sam is just a GRRM self insert.

They should have tied everything together where Littlefinger was still alive and the final scheming human villain like he should be in the books, Euron as the supernatural human villain, Cersei as the small fish that's still got to fry by Jaime or Arya's hand. Qyburn is intrigued by the magic of the Other's necromancy and there is a large clash of many different prophecies, magics, creatures, and people trying to not only survive but claim victory over the realm while doing it

Like the Winter never left the actual north. Down south it's probably as warm as ever and they'll have never known about anything up north, and it'll all be dismissed as rebellious lunacy to besmirch Cersei. The Long Night and Winter should have affected everyone and made people in Essos care as well. Why even live in Westeros where it's shitfest constantly when you can live in the free cities?

The only satisfying outcome is for them to literally win the major battle, effectively pushing the survivors into hiding thereby leading to a season of spoopy darkness and dark things abound, ice spiders, dead things, sounds in the night. Arya of course has the talent to function in darkness thanks to her training, so she turns out to be very useful. Bran as well, with his ability to command animals.

The dead march all the way down the map, and there are only tales of what occurred. Eventually they rise up somehow and fight the night king, Jon and co., after having gathered critical information. It's really not a meme that D&D are retarded, they really fucking are. Their excuse for Rhaegar dying was "Dany forgot about the fleet", never mind being up in the sky on a fucking dragon able to see leagues away. It's literally being written into a gutter by complete retards

a little bit of a backstory, for starters.

Winterfell is well defended and the battle lasts days, but they're still getting hammered. The White Walkers actively participate in the battle, leading separate groups of wights against different parts of the fortification. As they're being overrun Cerceis army shows up and everyone thinks all is saved. But instead they start attacking everyone indiscriminately, thinking they're taking advantage of the situation and vastly underestimating their ability to avoid the wights. So now it's a free for all, all participants are being decimated. NK finally reaches Bran and picks him up by the throat trying to choke him out, but Bran grabs his arm (callback to their first encounter) and tries to warg into his mind or does some three-eyes raven voodoo and winds up visiting his past before the children of the forest turned him into the NK. We get a montage showing the First Men cutting down weirwoods, slaughtering the children, flashes of a magical battle from thousands of years ago. Then the flashback shatters into ice as Arya stabs him with the dagger. Bran was just trying to keep him distracted long enough and it worked, but he dies with the NK. All the wights drop and everyone pauses in astonishment, then the Lannisters resume attacking. But there are too few to win, and the survivors are now pissed about that betrayal and a united but exhausted North marches down to Kings Landing.

Would’ve been more true to the books for a start. The Night King wasn’t even a WW, and they’re portrayed as more of a mythical fear that nobody can be truly sure they saw them or what they look like but the fear and dread they bring is real

Ibben/Sothoryos spinoffs WHEN

In the books and even in the show (especially when the NK gets introduced) it's quite obvious that the wights have an actual culture. We can be sure that the NK/wights have emotions, desires, and a culture, and that the zombies are basically canonfodder/ mindless soldiers.

The show needed scenes from the perspective of a wight or the NK to show us how they live and what they like/dislike. Or D&D should've left them out entirely and just make them a zombie horde without any concious leaders that act as an apocalyptic disaster like a giant meteor or supervolcano.

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Do you guys think the NK will exist in the books? I do think there's an upper class society among the walkers with leaders that have a personality but I doubt there's a singular king that's all powerful amongst them.

Go to bed Jeremy.

Bran and Gendry and Rickon and Joffrey and Tommen and Jojen and Dickon and Lancel and Loras are so handsome.

Would add in a few shots of refugees streaming down south with Northmen/Valemen/BwB fighting desperate rearguard action for some kino shots

Well the whole point of it is to be kike propaganda about how we all need to band together under one world government to stop global warming and pay our carbon taxes.

It's called a comma user, it looks something like this ,

youtu.be/cGh3s0lPxCQ

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free cities are a bit of a shitfest too m8

I want to know more about Sothoryos though. If we ever got later stories in this universe, I'd be interested in seeing an age of exploration that plunges us into some of these unknown, dark places.

Humans should have lost in Winterfell and Dany/Jon and co should have retreated to Iron Islands. The WW should have reached King's Landing. All of Westeros should have been covered in snow and days long darkness, as it was hyped up since season 1. They should have made Cersei and co to retreat from KL and establish an exiled Kingdom somewhere (probably South), really forcing her to work with the survivors from Winterfell to destroy the WW, but still plotting her bounce back. Bran should have had an INSTRUMENTAL role in defeating him, as it had been hyped up since the beginning. It should have been Arya who killed them.

You loved Star Wars 8, didn't you ?

You don't do anything with them. You introduce them as an implication that there's "fantasy" elements still existing in the ASOIAF/GOT universe, and leave the options open (Are they really marching south? Is Mance Rayder just using them as a justification to unite the Wildlings against the south? Are they sending the Wildlings south to weaken the north for an invasion in the near future?).

That's the problem with nerds like Gurm, they can't just have open questions, they have to explain everything - or have explanations for everything

>free cities are a bit of a shitfest
The Free Cities are clearly centuries ahead of Westeros. Westeros is a huge backwater. No idea why people are so obsessed with dominating it

>It should have NOT been Arya who killed them
fixed

Aka a reddit worthy cliche ending.

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>white walkers are pushed back at the cost of the near collapse of civilization across the GOT world
>it's revealed that this is why everyone is still stuck in medieval times, the white walkers invade to stop humanity from ever reaching a technological point where they can pose a real threat
Quinoa.

Yeah but they have their own problems, such as constantly being at war with each other and the Dothraki coming around every few years or so to be either paid off or pillage to their hearts content
Plus controlling an entire continent > controlling a city

Yes I agree with this. They're supposed to represent the inevitability of Death. Or be like a epidemic or natural disaster. Victory should have been harder won, longer, with lots of Westeros destroyed or feeling the impact.

>For what? No one gained anything from it.
The jews + USA gained a lot from both world wars

>Battle of Winterfell happens
>Instead of holding the hero's are forced to flee
>Pleas to Cersai, plebs are hearing rumors of zombies/the dead walking, winter is getting more intense further south
>skirmish of The Twins happens
>Few of the hero's die
>Flee to Kings Landing
>hoards of refugees banding with Dany
>Everyone finally realizes that this shit needs a combined solution.
>Seige of Kings Landing Happens
>Tyrion manning the walls again with The Hound
Jon, Jamie, Brianne and Dany's and Golden cloaks everyone fighting the dead
>over two episodes
>Jon, Jamie AND Ayra fight the white walkers/NK
Give me a fucking job HBO

In my opinion, they're part of the reason why George himself is struggling with writing the rest of the books.

George hasn't been focusing on them all that much in the remaining books. They get passing mentions such as the takeover of Hardhome, but you can tell that he just REALLY wants to put them on the backburner because the truth is, he doesn't really know how to handle them.

They are a group of monsters, looking to assumedly destroy all life itself. They are the big nasty threat that makes everything else(barring the Night's Watch story) meaningless. All these quarrels about the throne don't mean a damn thing. George is right to be scared with writing them now looking at the reactions of episode 3. Let's say Jon himself beat them, okay, the reaction would still be, "but the throne still matters, what?" or, "Wasn't the white walkers supposed to be the big threat, not the human antagonists?". This is the problem he faces. He has to choose which will be the final antagonists. The ones he hyped up at the very beginning or another antagonist which came late in the story, because we all know that Cersei isn't being final antagonist when there's still Faegon and Euron around.

Truth of the matter is that he honestly probably should've stuck with Dany being the main antagonist. That's actually one of the outlines he had, that the war in Westeros would be waging on for a long time all the while Dany grows more powerful with her 3 dragons, heading into Westeros eventually. No White Walkers, just Dany who makes the throne worthless instead. And I think that'd work well.

>made people in Essos care as well
other than losing a huge trade partner and receiving a shitload refugees, I think Essos shouldn't have cared that much.
The children of the forest were trying to save their realm in Westeros when they created the NK. The NK should have been programmed to wipe humans from Westeros and that's it. He should have been satisfied with Westeros. All the people from Essos fighting in Westeros' war are dumb.

Use wagons and shit to retreat down south, leading the NK on with Three eyed raven as bait.

Use the army of the dead as a means to turn Cersi's forces against her, showing how negligent she has been as queen.

Kill NK, the way doesn't matter, because after he dies, Bran reveals that He's a lich and will resurrect in the farthest, coldest reach; The Heart of the North.

Then Jon and Crew lead a 'twenty good men' style hike north for the final confrontation with the NK, to destroy his phylactery.

Grueling trek north, The Snow Squad resolve all their lingering character arc's. Their numbers are whittled away from cold, attacks from newly created white walkers and zombies.

Plot armor MC's make it to the final stage, and have to have a world of warcraft style raid encounter, fending off ice magic and all sorts of expensive CGI.

Also, the dragon would be there, and the season would be all like 'Where's the fucking ice dragon, OH SHIT IT WAS GUARDING THE Phylactery!"

Arya kills the dragon, Dany kills the NK, Jon stands around yelling at shit and having a totally gormless expression on his face the entire time.

Cut, send off to the editors, ship it.

It's FUCKING EASY YOU HACKS. YOU HAD EVERYTHING YOU NEEDED.

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I would have made it a tragedy disguised as a main villain. Making him dangerous without ever actually trying to kill any of the Starks would be difficult to hide though.

Also I'd have Sandor fulfill the valonqar via little brotha smotha. Inadvertently bringing down the house on Cersei during his heavyweight bought.

That's such a depressing way to look at it.

It's also completely true.

>psuedo-intellectual: the post
the show being about politiking is not justification for mass extinction and nihilism, that is just you projecting your shitty life onto other stories. A story involving humans and human drama is more compelling, unless you are a sub human such as yourself.

Walkers were never prioritized enough as the main boss to be one. Yes they're the longest running story arc, but not the one given the most attention through writing.

They should have been a significant, long-term, high deadly presence that lasted south of the wall for at least a full season, or close to it.

An entire season should be dedicated to their invasion. They should also push further than kingslanding.

>this is now my head canon
youtube.com/watch?v=k7m6HP95EDM

kino

>they win at winterfell
>survivers flee south
>meet a prepared royal army
>fight them briefly
>dead arrive
>forced into a reluctant alliance
>defeat NK together
>royal army weakened too now
>agree to fight the next day
>final battle

first they=white walkers