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Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,388
Yeah, and she got her three men (the torturer, the guy that was going to rat her out, and the guards at the end). But I don't recall her telling him her life story. So why would he be interested from that moment to train her for a mission in which she learns everything from him, not join his guild, and to go back home to get revenge?
I mean if the theory that he's Syrio is true is real that's one explanation. We don't know what his overall goal is, the only true thing we know about him is that he serves his god. He also mentioned the lord of light to Arya.
 

Kaz Mk II

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,635
Holy fuck I forgot all about this "fight".

Man that was bad. Like they're implying that Arya and her Needle are deflecting/blocking any of Brienne's swings. Then it gets even more laughable when the Needle so much as taps Brienne's fingers and she legs one hand off the sword.

This is a far cry from Bri vs the Hound. Not that it was supposed to be, but it was a cheap way to make Arya look strong against a much psychically superior opponent.
 

Lunar Wolf

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
16,237
Los Angeles
What's with this only a year or two stuff? Arya grew up watching Ned, Rob and Jon train. Jon gave her notes , Ned got her a teacher in Kings Landing and she studied the Hound as well. Also lets not pretend that the fight didn't end with Arya swordless about to use a dagger. She's an amalgamation of all her past teachers/experiences.

"Ties". Lol .Arya gained Brienne's respect but they didn't tie. This is like saying that two runners tied only the first runner gave the 2nd a 5 minute head start. Arya nearly got the better of Brienne because she wasn't taking the fight seriously until the end. Arya being a prodigy doesn't undermine Briennes skill.

Seasons 5 and 6 are at most 2 years probably less once you use Gilly's baby as a scale.

Arya didn't learn shit from watching Jon and Robb train. Art literally had to be told to stick them with the point end when she leaves Winterfell.

Then in season 3, we see Arya get easily disarmed by the BWB.

The Hound didn't teach Arya how to fight. All he did was make fun of her fighting style.

Also Syrio Forel taught her for a year and she still didn't get become legendary-tier.

There are literally no hints that Arya is some sword product until she fights with Brienne.

Like I said I'm a different post, I despise how the show needed to make Arya good at everything when it comes to combat rather than her becoming an assassin to make up for her shortcomings in size and strength.
 

Lunar Wolf

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
16,237
Los Angeles
I mean if the theory that he's Syrio is true is real that's one explanation. We don't know what his overall goal is, the only true thing we know about him is that he serves his god. He also mentioned the lord of light to Arya.

Syrio is dead.

GRRM gave him an offscreen death to subvert the cliche of "people being secretly alive when they get offscreen deaths."
 

More_Badass

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,623
Yeah, and she got her three men (the torturer, the guy that was going to rat her out, and the guards at the end). But I don't recall her telling him her life story. So why would he be interested from that moment to train her for a mission in which she learns everything from him, not join his guild, and to go back home to get revenge?
He's known since S2. In fact, it's why he gives her the coin and extends the offer to find him in Braavos. He offered to train her so she could kill the names on her list, but she wasn't ready to leave yet. So he gives her the coin and tells her how to find him when she's ready

Time-stamped it here
 
Oct 27, 2017
15,053
Can I count the entirety of the adventure beyond the wall to capture a wight as one scene?

Yeah, I think this wins for me. The whole thing was so dumb, from the weak reason they went there, taking their king along with them, apparently they were safe from the Night King's entire army while on the rock in the middle of the lake, and they get a message to Dany who arrives in hours when it should have taken her like 10 days+. And then Jon goes back to fight instead of getting the fuck outta there when he has the chance. And his magic undead uncle saves him. The whole thing was horrible.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,248
Scena was great, and there is nothing strange that really fast character can defeat bigger and slower enemy. Also, Arya is trained assassin and she could easily kill everyone in that yard, castle and land, let alone Brienna.
 

large_gourd

Alt-Account
Banned
Jun 29, 2018
984
The scene is corny fan service but there's nothing wrong with Arya being a better fighter than Brienne. Arya has an air of mystic magic spooky powers about her now and while the show totally bungled her years of training, in storyline she is still supposed to be a highly trained assassin so that part is fine.

There was much worse stuff in S7 than this.

Funny comic though.
 

MrConbon210

Member
Oct 31, 2017
7,649
Seasons 5 and 6 are at most 2 years probably less once you use Gilly's baby as a scale.

Arya didn't learn shit from watching Jon and Robb train. Art literally had to be told to stick them with the point end when she leaves Winterfell.

Then in season 3, we see Arya get easily disarmed by the BWB.

The Hound didn't teach Arya how to fight. All he did was make fun of her fighting style.

Also Syrio Forel taught her for a year and she still didn't get become legendary-tier.

There are literally no hints that Arya is some sword product until she fights with Brienne.

Like I said I'm a different post, I despise how the show needed to make Arya good at everything when it comes to combat rather than her becoming an assassin to make up for her shortcomings in size and strength.

Are you really using Jon's "stick em with the pointy end" as a source for saying Arya doesn't know how to fight? It was seen as an obvious joke as anyone would know how to attack someone with a sword.
 

Disco

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,453
it was stupid as shit. just pure fanservice, a lot of recent Game of Thrones has been written like this tbh

but I'm still entertained, especially being given an end game now. but the quality of writing for this tv series fell off a cliff a while ago. better to just continue putting their effort into the production design and battles because the writers sure can't pick the slack up.
 

SmokingBun

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,091
So, has no one here heard of David & Goliath? That might have been the intention.
But then her character is supposed to be a subversion of the very video gamey trope of home gets destroyed ---> hero goes on journey ---> gets trained by masters ---> returns a badass
The reconstructive aspect would be her focussing on what she CAN do and how to use her size and gender to her advantage but the writers were like, "Nah, lets just make her Laura from LOGAN"

That said I would love for their to be a parody montage of Arya training set to "You're the best, around!"
 

Lunar Wolf

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
16,237
Los Angeles
Scena was great, and there is nothing strange that really fast character can defeat bigger and slower enemy. Also, Arya is trained assassin and she could easily kill everyone in that yard, castle and land, let alone Brienna.

If this weren't a duel and Arya poisoned Brienne, sure. But assassins aren't supposed to be a bunch of Barristan Selmys.

They're meant to kill when you're not looking, they're not super soldiers.

None of the other assassins are hinted to be God-level swordsman.
 

MrConbon210

Member
Oct 31, 2017
7,649
I know but it's the only advice that Arya ever received about swords from her family. The point is she doesn't know how to swordfight at all.

One of the first scenes in the show was Arya being better at shooting an arrow than Bran. We never got to see what life was like before the show started but she clearly has had some sort of training. Getting Needle wasn't her first time holding a sword.
 

Cheerilee

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,969
I stopped watching Game of Thrones ages ago, but I just watched the clip in the OP and it made perfect sense to me.

Arya likes her little Needle sword, and knows a thing or two about sword fighting. She asks Brienne (who is clearly a badass) to teach her more about sword fighting. Brienne is like "LOL no, go away little girl." So Arya hits her with some loyalty pledge thing. Brienne is like "Damn, you got me. Okay, I guess I have to teach you." Then Arya pulls out Needle, and Brienne tells her to get a real sword, but no, Arya wants to do it this way, so... fine. Let's get this over with.

Brienne does one simple chop, and Arya uses a combination of her quickness and some deflections with Needle to dodge the chop and get into a striking position. Arya acts smug about it, so Brienne ups the difficulty and throws a combination of attacks at Arya, which Arya successfully dodges, and responds with a combination of her own, light and quick enough to score a point on Brienne's hand.

Now Brienne's taking the "fight" a lot more seriously, puts forward a better series of attacks which Arya responds to as if she was an actual fighter, scores another small point against Brienne's leg, and Brienne gives Arya a kick to increase the distance and remove Arya's closeness advantage. Brienne immediately has a reaction of "Oh shit, did I go too far against this little girl?" But then Arya gets up with a cool flip and she wants to continue. Brienne almost seems to be smiling, because she's impressed that Arya seems to be an actual fighter, worth teaching.

Brienne unleashes a dominant series of attacks that result in Needle being knocked out of Arya's hand, and rather than yielding, Arya draws her knife. But Brienne saw that coming and grabs Arya's wrist, but Arya flipped the knife to her other hand, and now both of them are in striking positions (basically, it's a tie). Both of them are smiling. Brienne is impressed, and Arya is pleased that she managed to impress Brienne.


I don't think there's anything in there that says that Arya "defeated" Brienne, or anything that suggests Brienne was going all-out. Brienne basically won the fight when she kicked Arya, and clearly didn't want to do that, and I think the main takeaway was that Brienne was impressed by Arya's general competence as well as her guts and trickery.
 

Lunar Wolf

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
16,237
Los Angeles
One of the first scenes in the show was Arya being better at shooting an arrow than Bran. We never got to see what life was like before the show started but she clearly has had some sort of training. Getting Needle wasn't her first time holding a sword.

Bran is a loser with a bow. Not a very high standard.

Anyways, Arya has never trained with a sword before. I'm taking the books as canon here especially since the show is never going to map that part of Arya's life out.

One of my biggest complaints against Show Arya is that they make Arya a master archer/swordsman for little reason.

Part of the reason that Arya becomes an assassin is because she can't kill her enemies in the traditional way so by making her this master swordsman and master archer, it belittles her character. Sometimes you can't be good at everything so you have to work with what you have.
 

MrConbon210

Member
Oct 31, 2017
7,649
Bran is a loser with a bow. Not a very high standard.

Anyways, Arya has never trained with a sword before. I'm taking the books as canon here especially since the show is never going to map that part of Arya's life out.

One of my biggest complaints against Show Arya is that they make Arya a master archer/swordsman for little reason.

Part of the reason that Arya becomes an assassin is because she can't kill her enemies in the traditional way so by making her this master swordsman and master archer, it belittles her character. Sometimes you can't be good at everything so you have to work with what you have.

She was trained in nearly every season in sword fighting. And she still didn't even completely obliterate Brienne like some are assuming, Brienne got some good hits in as well. Arya still isn't perfect and has a lot to learn. But she is incredibly overlooked by most charecters due to her age and typical ability of a princess.
 

More_Badass

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,623
I stopped watching Game of Thrones ages ago, but I just watched the clip in the OP and it made perfect sense to me.

Arya likes her little Needle sword, and knows a thing or two about sword fighting. She asks Brienne (who is clearly a badass) to teach her more about sword fighting. Brienne is like "LOL no, go away little girl." So Arya hits her with some loyalty pledge thing. Brienne is like "Damn, you got me. Okay, I guess I have to teach you." Then Arya pulls out Needle, and Brienne tells her to get a real sword, but no, Arya wants to do it this way, so... fine. Let's get this over with.

Brienne does one simple chop, and Arya uses a combination of her quickness and some deflections with Needle to dodge the chop and get into a striking position. Arya acts smug about it, so Brienne ups the difficulty and throws a combination of attacks at Arya, which Arya successfully dodges, and responds with a combination of her own, light and quick enough to score a point on Brienne's hand.

Now Brienne's taking the "fight" a lot more seriously, puts forward a better series of attacks which Arya responds to as if she was an actual fighter, scores another small point against Brienne's leg, and Brienne gives Arya a kick to increase the distance and remove Arya's closeness advantage. Brienne immediately has a reaction of "Oh shit, did I go too far against this little girl?" But then Arya gets up with a cool flip and she wants to continue. Brienne almost seems to be smiling, because she's impressed that Arya seems to be an actual fighter, worth teaching.

Brienne unleashes a dominant series of attacks that result in Needle being knocked out of Arya's hand, and rather than yielding, Arya draws her knife. But Brienne saw that coming and grabs Arya's wrist, but Arya flipped the knife to her other hand, and now both of them are in striking positions (basically, it's a tie). Both of them are smiling. Brienne is impressed, and Arya is pleased that she managed to impress Brienne.


I don't think there's anything in there that says that Arya "defeated" Brienne, or anything that suggests Brienne was going all-out. Brienne basically won the fight when she kicked Arya, and clearly didn't want to do that, and I think the main takeaway was that Brienne was impressed by Arya's general competence as well as her guts and trickery.
I mean, the facial expressions tell you everything to know. It was sparring, not a real fight where they were trying to kill each other, and it begins with both being kind of standoffish with each other and ends with them sharing mutual respect in eachother's skills.

I have no idea how that scene has people going on about how X could possibly win, it doesn't make sense, etc as if it was a real fight
 

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,388
If this weren't a duel and Arya poisoned Brienne, sure. But assassins aren't supposed to be a bunch of Barristan Selmys.

They're meant to kill when you're not looking, they're not super soldiers.

None of the other assassins are hinted to be God-level swordsman.
Seems you're relying on the general idea of assassins rather than what GoT shows us. Which includes multiple scenes where they're training for combat. If anything, it'd be hella pointless to show us these things and not have them result in character growth.
UrtQ377.gif

o1v73W2.gif




Like if you're telling me that thee people wouldn't or SHOULDN'T be effective fighters on top of their miraculous ability to magically sneak around and silently kill their targets then I have a bridge to sell you.
 

AzorAhai

Member
Oct 29, 2017
6,614
Brienne is not defeated, she is just caught off guard by Arya's skill...

Even though I don't like Brienne, this is hardly bad writing.


People really like to shit on this show for nothing. Hell, most of the time THEY are in the wrong.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,645
Seems you're relying on the general idea of assassins rather than what GoT shows us. Which includes multiple scenes where they're training for combat. If anything, it'd be hella pointless to show us these things and not have them result in character growth.
UrtQ377.gif

o1v73W2.gif




Like if you're telling me that thee people wouldn't or SHOULDN'T be effective fighters on top of their miraculous ability to magically sneak around and silently kill their targets then I have a bridge to sell you.

Everything about the Faceless Men in the show is a pointless dumbing down from the books. Right down to Jaqen H'ghar being at the House of Black and White for absolutely no reason because Jaqen is dead. He's not a real person, or a live one anyway. He's a face and identity being worn by a faceless man.

The Faceless Men are an assassination death cult. Not Shaolin monks.
 

Lunar Wolf

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
16,237
Los Angeles
Seems you're relying on the general idea of assassins rather than what GoT shows us. Which includes multiple scenes where they're training for combat. If anything, it'd be hella pointless to show us these things and not have them result in character growth.
UrtQ377.gif

o1v73W2.gif




Like if you're telling me that thee people wouldn't or SHOULDN'T be effective fighters on top of their miraculous ability to magically sneak around and silently kill their targets then I have a bridge to sell you.


All I see are two little girls fighting with sticks.
 

Deathman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
599
Not tremendously silly, the dagger play is very similar to Fiore dagger fighting. As for the actual swordplay, arya is wearing little to no armour, wielding a rapier. Brienne is in full armor and wielding a longsword. Not to mention the two characters weight difference. Arya is merely faster, she's been trained as an assassin and as much as it annoys me she only had like a couple months training, the faceless men use magic and we didn't see everything she did with them. The whole purpose of this scene is to show Arya is considerably more dangerous than previously thought.

The whole point is to show she is able to hold her own against a bigger stronger opponent, especially one who has beaten the hound. It's symbolic
 

Sasliquid

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,296
Like other modern shows with big vocal fan bases and showrunners with little self awareness, the creators have fallen in love with their own characters which is why so many people are ridiculous badasses even when it doesn't fit the tone of the world.
 
Nov 9, 2017
482
Seems you're relying on the general idea of assassins rather than what GoT shows us. Which includes multiple scenes where they're training for combat. If anything, it'd be hella pointless to show us these things and not have them result in character growth.

Like if you're telling me that thee people wouldn't or SHOULDN'T be effective fighters on top of their miraculous ability to magically sneak around and silently kill their targets then I have a bridge to sell you.

Yup, they spent a great deal of time showing the training which includes combat training. The show is different from the books, would've thought book readers would have realized that by now.
 

Budi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,883
Finland
No, not at all. There's some stupid stuff in GOT, this ain't it. One of my picks would be this, NSFW

I wonder if there's an overlap between people who loved this scene and those who hated all the politics that "slowed down the show" and wanted to see more dragons in every episode?
I'm in the first camp but not the second.
Because your explanation of how amazing she is involves her being able to "swordfight while completely blind". Not sure that just your ears are enough to detect a sword coming for you.
Haven't you heard about Spidey sense? I used to think it's dumb shit too, but this scene sold me on the concept.
 
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Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,388
Everything about the Faceless Men in the show is a pointless dumbing down from the books. Right down to Jaqen H'ghar being at the House of Black and White for absolutely no reason because Jaqen is dead. He's not a real person, or a live one anyway. He's a face and identity being worn by a faceless man.

The Faceless Men are an assassination death cult. Not Shaolin monks.
The show literally acknowledges the part about Jaqen not being a real person when Arya is punished for killing someone. And yes, they're a death cult, but the idea that they shouldn't be able to fight when in a direct confrontation makes little sense considering what else they've been shown to be capable of.

All I see are two little girls fighting with sticks.
You should probably listen to the sound design then. So far you've not refuted anything the show SHOWS us based on an arbitrary rule. "Assassins shouldn't also be able to fight." Says who?
 

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
56,969
Um, Oberyn used poison and the Mountain won it anyway due to his stamina. You yourself pointed that out in your first post. You know it's not the same thing, at all.

And in a world full of magic and other fantastic things YOU know the content in the OP isn't ridiculous too, but you wanted to make a thread so here we are.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,645
The show literally acknowledges the part about Jaqen not being a real person when Arya is punished for killing someone. And yes, they're a death cult, but the idea that they shouldn't be able to fight when in a direct confrontation makes little sense considering what else they've been shown to be capable of.


You should probably listen to the sound design then. So far you've not refuted anything the show SHOWS us based on an arbitrary rule. "Assassins shouldn't also be able to fight." Says who?
The point of the faceless men is to kill without a trace. They really just don't have a lot of use for extended duelist training. Let alone it being the single biggest training regiment in becoming a faceless man as portrayed in the show.
 
Oct 25, 2017
7,510
What? That's just dumb fun. There're way worse out there.
For instance the terminator chase in S6 is my contender for the dumbest shit in GoT.
 

Visanideth

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
4,771
It's a trope. The agile skilled fighter vs the burly, slow, powerful one. It's probably silly, but we're talking about a girl who took levels in a class that lets her change her face on a whim. She's basically a fantasy jedi.
 

Fridge Freezer

Alt Account
Banned
Jul 21, 2018
260
All the Winterfell stuff is terrible in season 7 which is so fucking disappointing considering its been a long time coming. I dont really care what the North does at this point.

Making Jon Snow King in the North was just a maguffin to bring a lot of those storylines together.
 

Artdayne

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,015
Sword fighting has always been mostly about closing the distance, the whole point of armor is that you can get close enough to avoid getting slashed and then grapple your opponent. Knights had a very stright training in grappling, wrestling and locks because a lot of fights were decided by who took their opponent to the floor first, and then used their sword or knife to cut through the plate.

Here there are knights engaging in grappling after they dropped their sword.

main-qimg-7b66d98c2813beb07350320b0d5a6819


2 Knights using their swords as a means to close the distance.

1372809646575.jpg


A Knight using a wrist lock to disarm and drop his opponent.

mardagger5.jpg

I don't really get what you're saying about swordfighting always being about closing the distance, that doesn't make much sense. Generally you want to keep distance between you and your opponent, unless your opponent has a superior distance weapon than you do. Distance is generally a HUGE advantage. Of course plate armor changed the game in some ways but swords are used much less when everyone is in full plate because they are very ineffective against it.

You are correct that when you had two guys in full plate, wrestling often became important because plate armor is incredibly resilient. When you said that they use their swords or daggers to cut through plate, that is wrong. You cannot cut through plate. You might bash it with a murder stroke (Mordhau) or use a hammer style weapon to bash through it as well.

The second picture is one where one person is using a half swording technique and the other is using Mordhau. Half swording is where you have more control of the tip of the blade and thrust it into the gaps in armor like the armpit, maybe around the neck or slit of the visor. The Mordhau is as I said a way of using the pommel of the sword to smack them in the head as a blunt force weapon.

One of the big things with wrestling in full plate was that you would get your opponent to the ground, open their visor and stab them in the face with your dagger, something like that.

--------

As for the scene, only thing that bothered me about it is Arya was trying to cut with a poking weapon. It was mostly a playful sparring match. It's also implied by the show that Arya received considerable martial training from the best assassins in the world.
 

Deleted member 21

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 24, 2017
1,559
Everything dorn related in the show is some of the most unwatchable stuff I've ever seen. And that sucks because Dorn is awesome in the books.

I've never read the books so the show was my first and only exposure to Dorn, and I was excited for it because book readers kept hyping it up.

When I saw the scenes in Dorn.. to put it politely: I was completely baffled. It felt like I was watching a different show which is a damn shame because Dorn could have been a great change from the rest of Westeros