If a show is meant to be aired weekly, I feel like it should be watched weekly unless there's no possible way to do so. Watching something early "just because you can" doesn't make any sense to me; are you going to go out and smoke marijuana "just because you can" if you happen to live in a state where it's legal to do so?
^^^ Have you actually seen some of the people in Colorado? Their answer to that would be, unequivocally, "fuck yeah, dude!"
If you watch Orange is the New Black (or any Netflix show, really), do you watch one per week, or a couple at a time (or more)? It's still a TV show, it's just all available at once rather than strung along for commercials and ratings dollars for the networks. What's the difference between that and a regular show? Just that you can watch as many as you like, and people do. Hell, if you sit down to watch Star Trek, do you limit yourself to one episode per week? They were "meant" to be viewed weekly, after all, not binge watched...
Spoiler below is some general discussion and questions about the leaked episode, so don't click if you ain't seen Spoiler So what do people think about the zombie dragon, will it breathe fire or ice? I wonder if the Night King will think tactically, send it to King's Landing to attack and then all the people will assume it's Dany's doing, and her plans to get the people of Westeros behind her will go down the drain. ...or he just uses it to smash the wall down and let the dead come pouring through. Non spoiler question though- So it's "Winter" in the north, which has been coming for a long time. Yet it's always fine in Kings Landing and so on- does ever Winter ever come there? And places like Dorne and the southern part of Westeros? If it is meant to the be longest Winter ever would it eventually be snowy as hell in Kings Landing too, or does it really only affect the North?
^ I imagine it just takes longer for winter to travel further south. But on the other hand, the maesters of Hightower declared it winter in the Realm at the end of last season, so they must be feeling some effects. A.V. Club has posted their weekly dead pool odds and they agree with most of us that Thoros and Beric are most likely to die.
Just colder down there at the moment, not full winter yet. I mean, winter looks different in DC than it does in Maine, so there's that. Season 2 (?) showed up the throne room with snow, so I'd reckon that full on winter will get there eventually, just taking longer.
The main reason I wait for once a week now after binging the first six seasons is because watching it together is appointment viewing with friends. Why would I watch early when part of the fun is watching with other people? And why not be annoyed at people who think it's fun to spoil it for others?
Well, they said the filming delays were so that they could have winter in their shooting locations, but it would depend upon where they chose to film. For instance, in season six, King's Landing was largely filmed in Spain (for the outdoor scenes), and the temperature rarely goes below freezing in Spain. Though, I suppose they could use special effects, only film King's Landing with indoor scenes, or just pretend Kings Landing is in the areas they have been using to film "The North."
Time Magazine posts a lot of GoT-related stuff on a daily basis (I wonder why...). It was bound to happen.
Spoiler: Spoiler Well i guess it depends what the game plan is.. careful viewers (not me) noticed that the title sequence has a small clue when it shows the Wall.. East of it it usually has shown the sea but in recent ones it is milky white indicating it has frozen over. Depending on the thickness the White Walkers could just bypass the whole Wall and make a mockery of the entire Night's Watch, the sorcery deep within the Wall etc. Kind of like the Germans who just went around the Maginot Line at the start of WW2 where the French had spent millions to fortify it expecting a German attack. The other option now that he has a Dragon is to make a frontal assault and just blast Castle Black to smithereens.. there is nothing they have that could stand up to a Zombie Dragon AND the Night's King at the same time. The only question is how the sorcery prevents the White Walkers to cross.. is it sort of "You can't pass Longitude X!" or they just can't walk through the Wall, i don't think it's clear yet. I fully expect the Wall to either be destroyed or bypassed in the season finale and all of Westeros moving it up once Dany and Jon present hard evidence setting the stage for all out war in season 8.
Random thought... Spoiler: re: Episode 6 One thing I wondered, and I know it's likely unanswerable ... Hypothetically, if Dany knew exactly where The Night King was and hit him with all 3 Dragons the moment she turned up, I wonder what effect they'd have? The Night King dissipates fire as he approaches it. Just made me wonder if direct dragonfire would have any effect on him.
My general impression is that the writers haven't really set up rules for such things and aren't planning to. At this point we're talking divine powers at work; things will do whatever the plot needs them to do.
Spoiler I believe it would kill him. White Walkers are vulnerable to fire and Dragonfire is even hotter so Dany could have ended the entire war before it began by concentrating her Dragons on the Night King and incinerating him then and there.. by all accounts his army should then crumble and dissolve. However that would have been one hell of an anticlimatic end to the whole story so this opportunity passes and the heroes have to go the hard route and find a different way, possible by way of Azor Ahai fighting the Night King and winning though even that seems a bit too easy given it's GoT so i guess there will still be many revelations and twists coming that may take wholly unexpected turns before the story concludes.
Part of the fun of long TV shows is the discussion and speculation with lots of people who are at the same point as you, and creating excitement that runs for several weeks, so I prefer watching them when they air. For Netflix shows that air all at once I watch at "When I feel like" pace, which is not all at once. But it is less fun not being able to participate in conversations because everyone else is likely to be further along than you.
Spoiler Fire may work on the dead, but as far as I can recall we've never seen it attempted on the Whites themselves. It's probably worth keeping in mind that the reason fire works on the dead is because they're basically just puppets and fire destroys the bodies. Also recall that the Children had magical fire things that didn't seem to worry the Whites at all. So I'd say it's still an open question whether or not even dragon fire would kill the Night King himself.
If he does forge Lightbringer, he should use the Death of a white walker in some way, either actually having killed one himself, getting the blood of the walker on him or his hammer and then using that magic to forge the sword.
Maybe I'm confusing the books and the show but shouldn't Lightbringer already be a relic at this point? Didn't Stannis claim to wield it?