Hey youtubers it's Charlie, I hope you've all had a chance to re-watch the finale a
couple times. Since we're heading into the hiatus I wanted to start off my with my favorite
Season 4 moments. Since a lot of you have asked for full on spoilery bonus videos I'm
going to make an announcement about that after my list, so be sure to stick around.
Since this video is all season 4 stuff, hopefully you've seen the episodes, but if you haven't
consider this a spoiler warning. Here we go, Number 10 - The Reforging of Ice
I was so happy they decided to use this to open the season. It's so haunting and hypnotic.
They even played Rains of Castamere softly in the background while it was all happening.
I know a lot of you guys flipped when they buried Widow's Wail with Joffrey but at least
we still have Oathkeeper roaming around the Vale with Brienne.
I remember when people started to talk more and more about resurrection after Beric and
Thoros were introduced, well both resurrection and re-animation by the White Walkers.
Like secretly everyone was trying to do the mental math on Ned Stark being able to return
somehow. Either as a wight or with some crazy Red God magic.
But when you see Ice get melted down it's like all your hopes get melted with it. The
only way anyone would be able to restore Ice now would be to dig up Joffrey's corpse and
hunt down Brienne.
Not that reforging Ice would restore House Stark or Winterfell, but it's one of those
secret wishes I had the first time I read about this scene and then again when I saw
it.
My sympathies to book readers. Let me know if you have that thing where you read about
this a long long time ago and forgot about it until you saw it on screen. Like you were
learning about it for the first time again as if it were completely new.
I know a lot of you guys have been reading the books since the show started, but Book
3 was published in 2000, that's like 14 years, so a lot of times we have to re-read stuff.
Number 9 - Shiny New Dragons
The dragons in general this year were amazing as expected. That was one of the biggest effects
they were talking about during season 3, so of course they had to top themselves for season
4. If you wondered why we didn't see a lot of them in episodes. It's just because the
effects are super expensive to do.
I'm looking forward to the day when a fully digital creature can be nominated for a best
performance. The best dragon actor is of course Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug, Peter Jackson
full on mo capped his performance so that dragon was much closer to being a real life
actor.
I don't think the dragons on Game of Thrones are motion captured, mostly because they don't
speak words, but Drogon's acting was great. He felt a lot more like a really big wild
dog or a domesticated tiger.
Like something you could pet, but dangerous enough that he could shred you by accident
if he wanted to play.
The two biggest fandom questions I see everywhere are whether or not Bran could ever warg a
dragon and how the psychic link between Targaryen's and their Dragons works.
George RR Martin has never given a definitive answer about warging. He's only said there's
no precedent, no one in history has ever tried it, or been recorded trying it. And he hasn't
gotten far enough into the books to explain the minutiae of Targaryen Dragon Bonding.
Far and away the best book about Targaryen's relationships with their dragons is the short
story the Princess and the Queen. It's part of that Dangerous Women Anthology. It covers
the Dance of the Dragons, one of the many Targaryen Civil Wars that happened in history.
So if you want to read more about Dragons on Game of Thrones, that would be a good place
to start.
Number 8 - The Purple Wedding and Joffrey's Death
As amazing as this was, it was no Red Wedding. And Joffrey's death wasn't even the biggest
thing I saw you guys talking about. It was actually the dwarf jousting. That was the
biggest question I got, that and Penny just because she had some emotional scenes with
Tyrion.
I re-watched it a couple of times and I didn't see any references to Penny but the dwarf
jousting completely lived up to expectations. I think if you felt excited, and then immediately
shameful for being excited about watching dwarves degrade themselves, you were right
where George RR Martin wanted you to be.
There were a lot of moments where I found myself cheering at really awful stuff on screen.
Mostly because it's so fun to see stuff from the books. And then immediately you process
the moment and think, oh this really bad, I'm a terrible person for cheering right now.
And then Joffrey dies and suddenly you don't have to feel ashamed about cheering.
It's not something I've mentioned a lot but one of the things I love most about the show
is the way it makes your really excited for terrible terrible things. Like dwarf jousting.
Number 7 - Jaime and Cersei in Baelor's Sept Over your own dead son's body, how could you?
This was an infamous book moment that became much more controversial on the show. At the
end of the day I think what they intended to do and what the audience saw were two different
things. I was a little disturbed, but I knew it was going to happen, so I don't think I
was as outraged as people who only watch the show.
The thing that always stands out to me, aside from the actual act of the sex, is the way
Jaime reacts to people calling him out as the father of Cersei's children. They only
time I've seen him acknowledge it in an obvious way is when Tyrion called him out right after
he was thrown in prison after Joffrey died.
When Cersei talked about 'their baby boy' being dead in the Sept it almost looked like
he was mentally blocking the thought. As he was later in the finale when Cersei said she
told Tywin what they had been doing.
I think Jaime just doesn't want to think about Joffrey or Cersei's children as being his,
he doesn't want to deny it or acknowledge it. He just wants to change the subject.
I'll be interested to see if the show decides to give more fatherly scenes to him with Tommen's
character.
Number 6 - Daario Takes Down The Champion of Meereen
Pissing in the dust notwithstanding this was a pretty meta scene. The really obvious homage
I saw was the Raiders of the Ark takedown. But the biggest easter egg was something that
I didn't learn about till much later. The Champion is shouting insults from Monty Python
translated into Low Valyrian.
It was this really elaborate joke that D.B. Weiss thought of. He's a huge Monty Python
fan, so he had the champion shout the Frenchman's Insults from Holy Grail. But because they're
really strict about diagetic speech, the person who created the Valyrian Language translated
the insults into low valyrian so it would be authentic to george rr martin's world.
Missandei translates the words as something different, so there's no way you'd understand
the Monty Python reference unless you could speak Low Valyrian yourself.
And if you can do that you deserve a giant high five. Because you are awesome.
Number 5 - Ser Pounce Makes a Rare Appearance
As much as the show changes things from the books, I always get excited when they include
things like Ser Pounce. He's a big part of Tommen's character and as much as I disagree
with them aging him up so much, adding Ser Pounce back in was icing on the cake. This
was also in the same episode we got to see the Lands of Always winter. So just in general
there were a lot of hat tips to book readers.
From what Michelle McLaren, the director of that episode, said. We're not going to see
Ser Pounce again. But that doesn't mean he won't be referenced.
Ser Pounce is a good indication that we might get some Patchface references next season
too. I've got my fingers crossed. Dan and Dave have a pretty decent track record for
squeezing in easter eggs when they're really important for informing characters backstories.
Number 4 - The Lands of Always Winter
This was another one of those minor controversies just because some book readers felt like it
was spoilers for Winds of Winter and there was the whole thing about the HBO website
spoiling the Night's King.
Regardless of how you felt about it, I thought it was amazing that they even thought to do
it. Based on what Dan and Dave said about it after the fact, they just wanted to show
something that was going on in the book story at that moment but wasn't something George
RR Martin chose to include. Another example would be if they showed Stannis gathering
supplies and setting sail with his Army to the Wall.
Stannis was doing that, but you just don't read about it in excruciating detail. Tycho
Nestoris is kind of like, here's a giant bag of money. Grab everyone and get your ass to
the wall. You'd better pay this back.
Because they said they'd be doing even more things like this in Season 5 I feel like I
need to dedicate a bonus video to all the things they could include that weren't happening
in book 4 or 5.
With regards to the White Walkers, I feel like they're just massing their forces and
slowly moving towards the Wall. So hopefully in Season 5 we'll see another epic shot of
their army.
Number 3 - The Battle of Craster's Keep
Another big change from the books, but something that was necessary to tie up old plot lines.
I loved the death they gave Burn Gorman. I was such a fan of his on Torchwood that seeing
him play a crazy villain was so much fun.
There were a few big questions about how it all played out and why Bran lets things go
so far without warging Hodor and making him Hulk out on everyone. I wasn't a huge fan
of the Locke character either, but they had to resolve his story somehow and Craster's
seemed like as good a time as any.
Too bad they couldn't have postponed his death till the Wildling Attack. It would have been
fun to see him get killed by the huge Arrow the Giant fired or accidentally kill him with
that big Scythe.
Or maybe they could have sent him into the tunnel with Grenn the Giantslayer, may he
rest in peace.
Number 2 - Oberyn Martell vs The Mountain
This was one of the big book scenes that they remained faithful too. They did alter the
death a little, and Oberyn in the book was a little happier when he was dying, but the
important parts were taken right off the page like his speech trying to goad the confession
out of the Mountain and the poisoned spear.
I saw a behind the scenes video with Pedro Pascal learning a lot of the fight choreography,
so it seems like he did a lot of that fight himself. I studied Taekwondo when I was little,
but I never got far enough along to learn how to use weapons.
Fight scenes are hard to do period, but fighting with weapons like that is almost impossible
for someone if they're not an expert. It was definitely the best fight scene of the season
and the way the filmed it was the best too.
I loved the Brienne vs the Hound Fight scene too, but the cinematography on it was a little
too much shaky cam.
and my Number 1 Moment from Season 4 is actually a tie so I'll just do them both - It's Arya
Heading to Braavos and Tyrion killing Shae and Tywin.
Arya heading to Braavos is such a huge turning point for her character and it's the start
of her story in Book 4, a whole new book's worth of content for her. I think that's part
of the reason they chose that to be the final scene. I maintain the fire and ice ending
moment for each season just on the basis she's a Stark of Winterfell. But it was a huge point
of departure for her story and it's a huge transition for the show.
Stannis is at the Wall and taking the White Walkers seriously, Tyrion gives the middle
finger to everyone in King's Landing and takes off. It's like transitioning from High School
to College or University if you're international.
Tyrion's moment felt like it should have been more cathartic, but I don't think he's going
to feel less burdened with Tywin and Shae dead. The relief of revenge kills is always
short lived. It's never a 100 percent solution to all of your problems.
I was never a huge fan of Shae's character, I didn't even pay that much attention to her
in the books so when the show started using her a lot more I was a little confused. I
kind of mentally wiped my hands of her when Tyrion choked her with Tywin's chain of office.
Tywin's final moments were interesting for a number of reasons. There's a big debate
about whether or not he was being truthful when he said he never intended to let Tyrion
die. I chose to believe him the first time I watched the episode, he definitely holds
back a lot of information, but I don't remember him outright lying.
He did admit that he quietly took every opportunity to let Tyrion die over the years though, so
he contradicts himself. I think it just means that you can take him either way. You would
be equally right in saying Tywin was going to execute Tyrion or Save him.
It's like Schrodinger's Toilet.
Since there are like a billion other huge moments let me know what your favorites were.
And if you want to talk about spoilery things that you want to books to include next season,
please just use spoiler tags in the comments.
So here's my answer to everyone asking for full on Spoiler Videos. I want to make content
that you guys ask for, so if the majority of you ask for something specific I try to
do everything I can to make it happen. The reason I don't do spoiler videos all the time
is because making two videos for one thing is just way too much. I already feel like
I'm not able to do all the videos I want to do for other things like Walking Dead and
Doctor Who.
Because we're into Season 5 stuff now what I'm going to try is just designating a portion
of my videos for spoilery stuff. In addition, I will be doing Book videos, videos for specific
book content. Like when we're talking about prophecies and theories like Patchface, Varys
and Blackfyre and the Three Heads of The Dragon.
Because you guys have been so great this season, my next video is going to be about Aegon The
Conqueror. That will post this Sunday. Be sure to subscribe to get it.
Whenever I do stuff like that it will be about the books, not the show. Whenever I post one
I'll be really clear that this is a book video not a show video. So hopefully all the book
readers and the show watchers will be able to enjoy things without stepping on toes.
I'm really proud of the way you guys all embraced the use of spoiler tags in comments, because
you guys have largely been pretty good about the way you comment it hasn't been a problem
here. Thank you so much for listening to that.
I'll say you can make any comment you want about anything on any of my videos as long
as you're not committing a hate crime or trolling. The only reason I make videos is to communicate
with people, so the more you comment on videos, the happier I am.
I'm going to be doing a special Personal Q&A video during VidCon, so if you want to start
asking me personal questions for that feel free. I'll try to answer way more than the
usual 10 or 20. And a lot of them I'll just answer in the comments section, as long as
they're not gross.
Right now click here for my season 5 predictions and click here for my finale Q&A.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight high fives!