Talk:The Dragon and the Wolf

Semi-protected edit request on 28 August 2017

Change: HSGryffindor (talk) 07:55, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

• Not done. @HSGryffindor: Could you give a detailed explanation of the edit you want me to make? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

What does "Guest appearance" in the infobox mean?

Pretty much everyone in the list who is bluelinked has appeared in multiple episodes, and would be classified by almost any sane analyst as a member of the regular cast. This is the exact opposite of how the term is defined in our guest appearance article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:45, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Your own personal definition is irrelevant. They are classified as such by casting and in the episode credits. Calibrador (talk) 03:58, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@Calibrador: Kindly get over yourself and read WP:CIVIL before accusing me of making up "my own personal definitions" of words. This article links (or rather should link) our article Guest appearance, where it is defined in a specific, and accurate, manner. I'll have to go back and check the episode credits (or rather those for an earlier episode I own on Blu-Ray), but if the GOT end credits use a term in an unusual manner that differs from what most of our readers would understand it to mean, then we are not supposed to follow them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:13, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

The actors listed in the infobox of this articles are not starring cast member/regular cast members, and are members of the guest cast. Regular actors are listed in the opening credits to the show. This is the same for the pretty much every television series. Don't even think about changing it just because you want to put your own imprint on these articles. Somethingwickedly (talk) 12:10, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Somethingwickedly, you are extremely lucky you avoided a block for that nonsense string of off-topic personal remarks you made about me on Talk:The Queen's Justice a few weeks back, so why you would risk coming here and writing something like Don't even think about changing it just because you want to put your own imprint on these articles is beyond me. I never said I intended to do anything of the sort.

You have not cited a single reliable source that referred to, for example, Asbaek or Portman as "guest appearances", and saying that "They are not listed in the opening credits" is not adequate. We have an article on Guest appearance, and these actors don't fit the definition there.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:31, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

OK then, if you find me a source that says they're part of the regular cast I will be more happy to remove any regular member from the infobox of every GOT episode article. At the moment though, the consensus is for actors, such as those you have listed, to be in the infobox. If the consensus changes then naturally they will be removed, but just because you personally don't like something (is there anything you do like?) doesn't mean we will change it to make you happy, so don't try to bully others into getting your way. Somethingwickedly (talk) 12:43, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Asbaek was in more than half the episodes this season, and Portman has been in the show pretty regularly since season 2. Find me a source that defines "Guest appearance" the way you are defining it, and update the relevant article, please. And if you make one more comment trying to make this about me and my supposed personal preferences (which you could not accurately elaborate if asked -- I guarantee it), I will stop trying to communicate with you, as it is extremely unpleasant doing so, and per WP:CIVIL I am under no obligation to. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Normally, a show's actors are delineated as defined in the show's credits; the "regular" or "starring" cast are those credited in the main opening, and actors listed as "guest stars" are accepted as being guest stars. We make exceptions when a show engages in clear shenanigans; for example, the article on Melrose Place lists Heather Locklear as a "star," even though she was credited as a "special guest star" in every appearance. And there has always been some ambiguity in determining what is a "recurring" character, as opposed to a regular or guest. It seems to me that the main intent of the "guest appearances" section in GoT episode infoboxes is to list all actors with appreciable roles in the episode but who are not series regulars, as credited in the title sequence. Because there is no intent to differentiate recurring characters from guest roles, it might be best to retitle this section "guest and recurring appearance(s)." I see no need for this or any television article to comport itself to the guest appearance article, which is almost entirely about music and live performances, with only three sentences about television--two of which are actually two completely different definitions of what a television guest star is. --DavidK93 (talk) 16:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Misquoting sources in "Critical reception" section

@Calibrador: The section as you wrote it is an unverified (and ungrammatical) mess. I hadn't actually read the IGN source when I made this edit, but when I did I found that the source actually said the opposite of what you claimed: Back at the top of the season, I wondered if the "Horn of Winter" might finally get introduced (a book element that never made it to the screen), but Weiss and Benioff found their own way around it with the debut of a death-breathing wight dragon.

I am not a fan of how most of these "critical reception" sections are quote farms, but if Wikipedia editors are unable to paraphrase them accurately, then direct quotations are better. But generally speaking, Wikipedia editors should be able to paraphrase accurately. Otherwise they run the risk of COPYVIO everytime they don't use quotation marks around literally everything.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:05, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

We must keep in mind WP:INTEGRITY. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@Emir of Wikipedia: Yeah, but I've seen plenty (read: dozens, over the course of about five years) of editors who are simply incapable of preserving INTEGRITY. At least, that's the AGF explanation: it's possible that they knew what they were doing but were being deliberately evasive and feigning incompetence. They were all eventually blocked or otherwise restricted, but still. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:56, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@Calibrador: I have seen editors get blocked for less than this. You didn't address the extremely cluttered, overly long paragraph problem before removing the maintenance template (please note that another user who was recently blocked for sockpuppetry would have almost certainly been blocked for repeated premature removal of maintenance templates otherwise...), and actually reverted one of my NPOV balancing edits in the process of your "cleanup". The IGN review is not a glowing, 100% positive review, even if you want to quote it as though it were. Please explain yourself. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:24, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

(At least what I can remember of the IGN review, anyway. Do I need to use one of those dodgy browser add-ons to trick IGN into thinking I am not in Japan, cause at the moment I can only see the Japanese translation of Fowler's article, and the link to the original English version at the bottom doesn't work, since the URL automatically redirects back to Japanese. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:55, 29 August 2017 (UTC) )

Commas in summaries

stop using commas so much in the summaries — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.212.64.162 (talk) 21:13, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Somethingwickedly's unexplained revert

@Somethingwickedly: Could you explain this? I gave a detailed rationale for my edit six minutes earlier, and you just reverted it without an edit summary. Was it just revenge for you not liking what I wrote about "guest appearances" a few sections up from here? I'm grasping at straws here -- the other explanations are worse. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:53, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I partially reverted you, because you were wrong as the Night King was not riding a dragon - it was a wight dragon. I think that's a pretty big difference myself, but if others disagree I'm more than happy for it to be reversed. I should have made that clear in the edit summary, so apologies for that, but it wasn't motivated by revenge, rather by accuracy. Somethingwickedly (talk) 14:09, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

No, I have seen a few sources speculating that it was an Other dragon, not a wight dragon. The Night King in the show can create either. At least with humans. Although the humans he made into White Walkers were generally still alive whereas the ones he made wights were dead. But then maybe his spear had obsidian in it and he converted the dragon in a similar manner to how the Children converted him. There has been no official confirmation one way or the other. And "wight" is in-universe terminology that is not intuitive to the majority of our readers, let alone the fan term "wight dragon". "undead dragon" would be better anyway, but it's still a dragon one way or the other, but "dragon" is better still. If readers really want to know what kind ofmdragon it is, they can go read our article on the last episode, or (better yet) the GOT wiki. Anyway, I can't revert yet per 1RR, so we'll see what others think in the mean time. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:17, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

To be honest with you, I'm not that bothered. I will revert my own edit, and users can discuss what they prefer if they want, but spending time on a relatively trivial decision is a waste of my time, and is exactly why I try to stay away from most Talk page discussions. I only have so much free time; I would prefer my change, but I'm not going to spend any more time arguing about it, but others are more than welcome to. Somethingwickedly (talk) 14:28, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

C'mon Hijiri88, this is Wikipedia. One cannot state "I have seen a few sources speculating that..." as an argument, without linking them. Feel free to check out the Wight article too. It ain't purely in-universe. Needless to say, I disagree with removing Wight. — IVORK _Discuss 14:31, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@IVORK: The word "wight" in standard English usage is different from how GRRM uses it in his books and how it is therefore used in the show. I have not read our wight article, and I don't intend to -- if it is focused on ASOIAF/GOT wights, that is a serious WP:WEIGHT problem. And yes, it's perfectly acceptable not to cite a specific source that contradicts an unsourced claim that one removes from the article. That's how WP:BURDEN works; we don't need sources to remove content, only to add it. But for what it's worth this was the original source I got the idea from, and Googling brought up quite a few more: this one firmly falls on the "it's a wight" side of the debate, but clearly establishes that the debate exists (meaning that stating in a matter-of-fact way in an unreferenced plot summary that it is a wight and not a White Walker is wrong); this one simply says (correctly) that Viserion is not an "ice dragon" while specifically leaving open (and acknowledging) the "White Walker or wight" question. The latter notably includes the statement So it's important to note that turning Viserion into a White Walker or wight dragon did not, in fact, change the type of dragon he is, despite the icy color of his flames. which would seem to go against SW's "pretty big difference" idea -- a dragon is a dragon is a dragon, and this one isn't even a different "kind" of dragon to what it was previously. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:01, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

By the way -- the word "wight" as it is used in the show is essentially a synonym for the much more common word "zombie", and in this particular context the adjective "undead" would work just as well. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:04, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, the first video I linked above (about two seconds before the time I linked, mind) makes another problem with the phrase "wight dragon" clear: it reads like a really cheesy pun on "white dragon", which, in combination with his blue eyes, sounds like an even cheesier reference to Yu-Gi-Oh!. AWOIAF contains an unsourced claim that Although [Viserion's] true color is cream he is often referred to as the white dragon., but in the show the dragon really doesn't look all that white anyway. Writing something that in speech would sound identical to something else that would be much more intuitive and wrong is arguably worse than simply writing something that is wrong. Half our readers who only scan the page would misread it. (Actually, I don't think anyone could possibly be bothered reading these plot summaries except us editors anyway, which is one of the reasons I honestly think all the GOT FAs/GAs should probably be reassessed, but that's a matter for another day...) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:14, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm about to commence editing the Plot section; I may just say "Viserion." If folks aren't happy with how it ends up, we can continue to discuss. --DavidK93 (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

just call it an ice dragon and be done with it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.203.231 (talk • contribs) 19:10, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

It's probably not a good idea for Wikipedia to try to coin a term for the dragon. We should use the terminology of the show, which would be "dead" or "undead." Even "wight" is contentious, due to debate over whether Viserion is now a wight or a White Walker. And GRRM established in his writings that "ice dragons" are an entirely different species that legendarily exists in this world. --DavidK93 (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Reading like a cheesy pun would come under WP:IDONTLIKEIT and not really qualify it to be omitted, and additionally I'd say that's more a case for you, not the majority of users due to your apparent Japanease background. The Wight article was mentioned because there are in fact multiple other texts that have used it in a zombie sense dating back to 1869, hence my stating, it's not purely in-universe. Whilst sure you've proved there is some contension from sources, I feel listing as just dragon has a meaning further from getting Other or Wight mixed up for the inexperienced reader. But yes, I guess unless I have magically convinced you, stating the name (not ice dragon either) would be best. — IVORK _Discuss 01:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@IVORK: Why do people keep assuming I'm Japanese? My user page clearly says I'm Irish, and English is my first language. Yes, my tastes are a little nerdier than the average GOT viewer, in that I had heard the phrase "white dragon" from elsewhere before A Storm of Swords had been released, but that's hardly relevant since Yu-Gi-Oh! is fairly mainstream (again -- see the video I linked above on a channel that has nothing to do with Yu-Gi-Oh! and yet figured the majority of his viewers would get the joke). Anyway, "reading like a cheesy pun" is in line with WP:TONE and has nothing to do with IDONTLIKEIT; I do like cheesy puns, but I don't think they are likely to help our readers. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Likely due to your signature and the fact the Google search you linked above was on the Google.co.jp domain. But WP:TONE only details writing with me/I/our company etc and in a professional/buisness-like tone. Just because something can have a double meaning in a completely different context shouldn't really be that big of a problem. — IVORK _Discuss 03:02, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Again, that's explained on my user page -- I live in Japan, which is why I am generally auto-redirected to the Japanese versions of various websites (see also my complaints about IGN further up this page), but my sig is a pseudonym I use on Wikipedia, no relation to my real name or ethnic background.

Anyway, WP:TONE is about writing in the appropriate register for an encyclopedia. Wikipedia articles should not include cheesy puns, even inadvertently. That, plus the fact that, as I said up above, "wight" (in the GOT sense) is in-universe WP:JARGON that is not properly defined anywhere in this article, Game of Thrones (season 7), or Game of Thrones, and so should be avoided even in cases where it isn't a recently-coined fan term and an awkward pun.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm confused, did you miss the part about it being used as the term for zombie in various forms since 1869 per the Wight article you intend not to read? The primary purpose of using wight dragon was not for a pun, just an adjective. — IVORK _Discuss 05:46, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, and I would contend that you only know that because you looked it up on Wikipedia having first either heard the term in a different sense (practically the opposite sense, if we're being honest -- an incorporeal spirit is the opposite of a reanimated corpse with no sentience or "soul" to speak of) or come across it in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. And by the way -- "zombie" was essentially completely redefined by Night of the Living Dead a century after the date you give for "wight" having been used to mean "zombie"; did it mean "voodoo zombie"? Because if so, that does not help your case that a lay reader would easily be able to intuit what we mean when say "wight" in this article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:09, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

When "wight" popped up on GoT as the name for the animate corpses, it struck me as unremarkable because I already knew the word from LotR. I didn't necessarily remember that those wights were incorporeal; I just knew that it was something that goes bump in the night. I think "wight" has enough background of similar usage that we shouldn't consider this a specialized jargon; wights are unnatural monsters, and these specific unnatural monsters are called wights. Word usage is a spectrum, and "wights" in GoT falls somewhere between "dragon" (a genre staple well understood by speakers of English) and "White Walker" (two generic English-language terms used in a unique manner that could not be understood without being explained). If there's really that much concern that the usage of the word would be misunderstood, let's link the first occurrence in each article to Wight#In_popular_culture. And while I agree that articles should not contain humor or wordplay, I don't see that WP:TONE addresses that. In any event, I don't believe this imposes any restriction on the use of homophones should they arise naturally, as has happened here. The only reason I see to avoid calling the white dragon Viserion a "wight dragon" is that there is debate as to whether Viserion is now a "wight dragon" or a "White Walker dragon," which ironically incurs the same "problem." If this information is definitively established, the appropriate word or phrase should be used, and we shouldn't worry about the fact that someone could construe the occurrence of a homophone or homonym as a pun, due to the fact that it is not a pun. --DavidK93 (talk) 14:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri88, you seem to be strongly against the use of the word "wight" in the article, not only in conjunction with "dragon" as has been discussed. You changed "wight" to "member of the White Walker army." This strikes me as undesirable for several reasons. First, it changes one word to six; in the past, you have expressed that you feel more strongly than I do about holding plot summaries to the word count limits, and I feel pretty strongly about it myself. Second, I think it makes the sentence more difficult to read by inserting a clause between the noun (was "wight," now "member") and the propositional phrase ("from a crate"). And third, it makes it even more difficult to understand what the captured and revealed creature is without a comprehensive knowledge of the show. With "wight," you just need to know that the animate corpses in the show are called "wights." With "member of the White Walker army," you not only have to know that the White Walker army's footsoldiers are animate corpses, but you also have to know that Jon's party captured one of them, specifically, and not an actual White Walker, since for a person without outside knowledge there is no way to know that a "member of the White Walker army" is anything other than a White Walker. I think it's okay for a television episode plot summary to be written with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the show in general, or at least is familiar with the Wikipedia plot summaries of previous episodes, and only provide extra clarification when new concepts are introduced in the episode being summarized. In this case, I think it should be changed back to "wight," but as I said before, if there's a possibility for confusion as to what a "wight" is, wikilink it to Wight#In_popular_culture. --DavidK93 (talk) 04:29, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not really about how I feel, it's about what MOS says. You and I may have no problem understanding what "wight" means in this context because we have seen GOT, but it's still WP:JARGON. I am of course open to discussion about awkward is the wording I may have inadvertently reintroduced when I reverted a problematic edit that had been made after another problematic that I hadn't noticed. But the best solution to a syntactically awkward is never to introduce in-house jargon. Linking to the "In popular culture" section of our wight article doesn't solve the problem, anymore than linking to Wiktionary inline would -- here or in any other article where someone might want to use in-house lingo that essentially just means the same thing as a common noun ("zombie", in this case). I still cannot understand what the problem with "zombie" is. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:45, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri88, I see two main reasons to avoid "zombie" in the article. First, that word is conspicuously unused in GoT, so using it to describe the wight in the episode could be seen as surprising to the reader. Secondly, the shows contains two different, unrelated entities that are similar to zombies: wights and the Mountain. So "zombie" could leave the reader unsure of what type of undead creature is being described. I changed it to "wight, an animated corpse," [including the second comma] with the wikilink I suggested. Linking to Wiktionary indeed would not address the problem as the Wikipedia link does, any more than linking "White Walker" to the Wiktionary articles on "white" and "walker" would be helpful. --DavidK93 (talk) 20:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

The Beyond the Wall (Game of Thrones) article also refers to the death specifically as Viserion being reanimated into a wight. I do think this is the best wording and if for some reason we are wrong and the dragon was still partially alive while submerged and made into an "Other", I'm sure we can rectify that when it comes to light officially. Although there are articles discussing this point, the overwhelming majority refer to Viserion as a Wight Dragon. Per above, I still feel it'd be better to stick to the referenced name. Zombies traditionally aren't controlled by an entity other than rage/hunger and I feel this is enough of a difference to differentiate the two. — IVORK _Discuss 02:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@DavidK93: Technically, Beric and others like him (including Jon in the show and Catelyn in the books) are "fire wights" (GRRM's term), while Robert Strong and Coldhands are probably two more separate things, but is Coldhands a wight of some kind? We don't know yet, and for the show probably never will, and we aren't allowed guess. There are plenty of secondary sources that use "wights", and plenty of secondary sources that use "zombies", so it's merely down to a choice of which word is better for our readers. "zombie" might be ambiguous (although, unlike the White Walker army, the Mountain does not fit the modern popular culture image of a "zombie" except insofar as he is undead), but so is "wight", at least as it is used in reliable secondary sources (the ones we are supposed to prefer).

@IVORK: Wait, are we still talking about that? I think a fair argument could be made that "ice dragon" is a more common description in "reliable sources", even if those reliable sources are wrong. (I'd be willing to bet that a lot of them are the same sources that were talking about "ice dragons" based on the rumoured leaked season synopsis from a few months back, and were suffering from confirmation bias, but that's neither here nor there.) "wight dragon" is a term used in some unofficial fan reliable sources, "Other dragon"/"White Walker dragon" is another, and "zombie dragon" is yet another. The one thing all sources agree on, and the one thing we can be certain of, is that it is a dragon: and in this instance, that's really the one thing that's relevant. "wight" may only be one word, but these words we use to describe little peripheral details in these plot summaries add up, and we are currently well over the standard recommended length for such plot summaries. I'm not sure what you, David and so on studied in high school, college, etc. but I was required to take a class on academic writing and we spent basically two hours just learning how to summarize and keep ourselves within a certain word limit. Unnecessary details like the question of whether it's an ice dragon, a wight dragon, an Other dragon, or none of the above, belong in a separate "Analysis" section, if there and not, say, the article on the previous episode.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:32, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Plot summary including irrelevant details that are immediately undone?

"Jon Sand" is not an important detail, as we are immediately told that Jon "wasn't actually a bastard" because Sam read a random book by someone claiming to be "High Septon Maynard" (a book, mind you, whose pages were rotting after 20 or maybe 30 years...), and it actually doesn't make sense since bastards can take the names of the regions they were raised in. Obara Sand was born in the Reach and spent her first decade or so there, but she isn't called Obara Flowers. So Bran is wrong to assert that his name would be Jon Sand, and we don't even need to note that here since it's not an important plot detail, and the plot summary is already too long. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:23, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

To clarify, we're currently at 861 words. WP:TVPLOT says Episode articles should have a prose plot summary of no more than 400 words.. Since this was essentially a feature-length episode (although one that was criticized for its slow pace...), one might want to cite WP:FILMPLOT instead, which says Plot summaries for feature films should be between 400 and 700 words. Even if we took this 75-minute-or-so season finale as an IAR situation and decided to double the 400 words allowed for a normal TV episode, we'd still be 61 words above the quota. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:38, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

We (well, me and one other person) discussed it here and agreed to not strictly enforce the word count limit for GoT episode plots, but to just use common sense to reduce excessively detailed prose while not torturing the English language for the sake of brevity, either. My last edit got us down to 543 words. --DavidK93 (talk) 17:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer if we just left out the excessive detail ("Jon Sand") and just summarized the plot in as basic a manner as possible. Otherwise, we get into cherry-picking details based on our original interpretations of what is important, which goes against the spirit of our waving the requirement for reliable secondary sources for plot summaries. If we did this with most GOT episodes, this one included, the summaries would fall well below 500 words. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:17, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

My edit makes no mention of "Jon Sand," but still states that Bran believes Jon is a bastard until Sam corrects him. Are you happy with the level of detail currently in the article?--DavidK93 (talk) 14:57, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's a start. Honestly I'd still prefer if we didn't mention the minor detail that Bran believes, for about one minute, that Jon is the bastard son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, since it doesn't look like it's ever going to be important and only serves to make the episode summary longer. But not mentioning the continuity error of "Jon Sand" is better than mentioning it. (The continuity error that Rhaegar got an "annulment", on the other hand, will almost certainly be mentioned several times in season eight and will be treated as though it weren't a continuity error, so our mentioning that is less of a problem.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:44, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I felt there was merit in mentioning bastardy, because it's what prompts Sam to reveal what he knows, and because Jon's legitimacy is a major plot point. Looking at it, I decided it could be stated more simply without mentioning bastardy, with the last sentence sufficiently emphasizing Jon's legitimacy. I'm not sure what you're getting at regarding the continuity of the annulment. Is it that an annulment should be impossible because the marriage was consummated as evidenced by their children? If so, I'm not concerned; this is a fictional world, and we have no idea what the civil or religious matrimonial laws are in that setting. It only merits consideration if it's ever discussed on the show. In-universe, a High Septon's journal would surely be considered a reliable primary source on the topic; while, for Wikipedia, the characters' statements about the status of Rhaegar's marriage constitute an equally reliable primary source. --DavidK93 (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Critical reception of Rhaegar's appearance/similarity to Viserys?

I feel like this deserves mention. I haven't seen a single review/recap that wasn't critical of this. I think we can go without the speculation that they reused the wig for budget reasons, but still, like the Winterfell plot throughout the season, since the reception is almost universally negative it probably merits being pointed out. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:19, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

If the speculation is from someone who is a costume or wig designer or some other job related to production then it would be appropriate to include, but if it is in a sole review by a mere critic then I agree it should not be mentioned. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Not a sole review. It's three or four separate critics, including the writers of the AV Club and Forbes reviews we cite. Has anyone seen a review by a critic that liked it? Is there some reason we don't cite (unanimous?) critical opinions of various facets of the episode unless they are written by people with experience in a particular field of film-making? Or are you just referring to my obviously facetious reference to speculation that they reused the wig for budget reasons? Because I don't think that belongs; I was only talking about saying something like The appearance of Rhaegar Targaryen was poorly received by critics, who pointed to his awkward resemblance to Harry Lloyd's Viserys Targaryen from the first season. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:12, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

My comment was just regarding the bit about speculation. In WP:SPECULATION it says speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included which is why I was saying the should have some experience in the field. I support you idea about mentioing the similarity but the word awkward might not be the best to use unless it is the exact word used by the sources. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:59, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

• I'm just leaving a comment here noting that I've reverted the removal of this mention from the article and asked the editor concerned to comment here. I support the inclusion on the basis that all the comments in reviews are negative, and in particular our cited reviews. So, per Hijiri, really. -- Begoon 06:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Kain article is "fringe", at least according to Wikipedia's other articles

The most important line of Kain's episode recap in Forbes is probably I maintain that the events leading up to this very cool finale were all preposterous and poorly executed. So why does Wikipedia claim that several of the episodes received widespread acclaim? We need to stop using the Tomatometer for TV episodes. None of these "reviews" are "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" affairs, because that would be ridiculous and stupid. They are all written by long-time fans of the show, who are not going to stop watching, or encourage their readers to stop watching, after investing 60+ hours just because this or that episode was sub-par. RT is therefore not a reliable source for the critical consensus, and we should not be using it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:34, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Production

There's nothing about the production in the article, unlike previous episodes. Is someone going to write about it?2600:1700:CE00:F060:CC8A:6250:EA4E:207D (talk) 02:02, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

The other season seven articles' "Production" sections were, by and large, not written by Wikipedians.

• They consisted (and still consist) almost exclusively of quotations taken from primary sources, which is why most of them are currently tagged as such. Honestly, it borders on (and that's me being polite) WP:COPYVIO when less than half of an article's text is Wikipedia-original prose.
• They are all poorly-thought-out messes that aren't actually "about the production" of the episodes so much as general information about what various actors in the production thought about the final product.
• Most of all (this is almost certainly the reason no such section exists in this article at present), they were sourced almost exclusively to interviews with the cast and crew, and such sources are unacceptable to build large chunks of an article out of. This was discussed in some detail at Talk:Eastwatch#Recent tagging of articles, where User:Curly Turkey pointed out that Given how popular the series is, is very likely there will be appropriate sources someday—books will be published on it, no doubt. The episode just came out, and at Wikipedia there is WP:NODEADLINE.

If you want to try your hand at writing a "Production" section that doesn't have these problems, fire ahead: the page is not semi-protected. But I will caution you that I think it's very likely that no such secondary or tertiary sources exist at this point, so if another large list of first-party opinions on the episode is created and put in this article as "Production", and is sourced entirely to primary sources, I or some other user will almost certainly tag it like the others.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:48, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

"Production" sections should be primarily about the work involved in producing the episode, including who wrote the script and how (which was more interesting when we could cite what book chapters were used), how cast changes were determined and implemented, and how sets were constructed, locations scouted, props and costumes built, etc. On the other hand, interviews with cast and crew that are primarily about the finished product, the impact of scenes, character arcs, etc, should not be considered "production," and would be more appropriate in an "Analysis" section, such as was created for The Queen's Justice. Note that the first two paragraphs of The_Queen's_Justice#Analysis still consist primarily of direct quotations from primary sources and should probably be rewritten; I more or less authored the current version of the third and fourth paragraphs, in which I wrote original prose to summarize the sources and to connect a few distinctive turns of phrase that I kept as quotations. --DavidK93 (talk) 16:28, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

"which was really unexpected"

The director was wrong to say "which was really unexpected. It's not the perceived history." The "Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love" is the first version of events we are told about in the books; "Rhaegar kidnapped and raped Lyanna" is a secondary version. I don't think we should quote a demonstrably incorrect assessment from a primary source involved in the production unless we can nuance it with reliable secondary sources that contradict him on this point. We do have (supposedly) reliable sources that point out that his deliberate decision to make Rhaegar look Viserys was a poor decision cited further down the article, but has anyone seen any reviews by people other than Preston Jacobs that pointed out how framing it as a "surprise" was nonsense? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:03, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

What happened in the books can be different to the TV show. We can't engage in WP:OR. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:06, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not OR. I cited a secondary source. Plus, I posted it on the talk page -- WP:NOR explicitly states that it applies to the article space, not the talk page.

And it doesn't matter which version is "true" in either the books or the show anyway: the show did not distinctly present the "kidnapped and raped" version either way (in the first episode Robert said she was "taken away", but didn't name Rhaegar, and every time the show did mention Rhaegar it was nothing but praise, so it's only book-readers who would have thought it "unexpected", but even then it's only those book-readers who "bought into" Robert's version over Daenerys's.

(It's not really relevant, but for both book and show, Bran would be wrong to say that Robert's Rebellion was based on a lie or a misunderstanding: the scenario Bran's vision and Sam's diary reveals would still have had the Baratheons and Arryns rebelling over the broken marriage pact and probably also the Dornish rebelling over their broken marriage pact. Secondary sources that carefully analyze the content of the episode and the claims of the cast and crew would point all these problems out, which is why it's so incredibly problematic to base entire articles on primary sources. Preston Jacobs's review is such a secondary source, but it's self-published, <satire> and Wikipedia policy explicitly bans the use of self-published sources for BLPs and Game of Thrones articles </satire>.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:25, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Plot Summary Length

I see that Calibrador removed Hijiri88's "long plot" tag without editing the plot summary for length. Despite the fact that I agree with Calibrador that the current length of the plot section is appropriate, I don't think his method of removing the maintenance tag was proper. He should have sought consensus on the talk page, and I think we still need to do that--i.e., treat the issue as if the tag were still in place. The current length is 554 words. WP:TVPLOT limits episode summaries to 400 words, but Hijiri88 previously acknowledged that the film plot limit of up to 700 words might be more appropriate for this "essentially feature-length episode," and I agree. I believe that the current plot summary is reasonable in its level of detail and its length, considering the scope and variety of events in the episode, and the episode's running time. If Hijiri88 is dissatisfied with the current length, I think this is more of a WP:SOFIXIT situation; he should edit the section to reduce length and detail, while retaining the summary's relevance to plot, character, and theme. But that Hijiri88 sees room for improvement is not sufficient for the article to bear a maintenance tag that suggests an inherent problem with the content as it stands. --DavidK93 (talk) 19:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm used to it at this point. I'll never understand why editors of American pop culture articles specifically feel they can get away with blanking maintenance tags with nonsense rationales like stop adding templates to the page for the sake of adding templates, but I've learned to anticipate and work with it.

Anyway, the actual length of the plot summary in words, and the non-guidelines for word-length that MOS currently provides, are actually irrelevant. The maximum word limits in those guidelines are not a target that must be hit as close as possible (even though this article currently runs well over them). The amount of irrelevant detail we include is far more of a marker of a too-long plot summary. Sentences like Euron admits he is "terrified" and leaves to take refuge in the Iron Islands., She details his crimes, including murdering Lysa and Jon Arryn and betraying Ned; Bran corroborates the latter. and Beric and Tormund patrol the Wall. serve no purpose to summarizing the plot of the episode (at least as written), and are apparently only there to name-drop various (minor) characters who have fans who would want their favourite character to be namedropped. The first is actually wrong as the episode itself presents it, and if I didn't think the sentence should be cut altogether I would change "admits" to "says" or "claims", and the second, while important enough in its main point, is overwritten and draws attention to several plot holes with its unnecessary detail (Bran shouldn't need to corroborate the latter, as here were dozens of witnesses including Cersei, who all but admits to Jon in this episode that the whole "Ned was a lying power-grabber plotting to usurp the throne" thing was a lie, and Royce's being okay with Sansa having previously lied to him to cover up Lysa's murder is almost laughable).

Even the first three sentences, which do name-drop characters who probably are important enough to the plot to be specifically named somewhere, would much better be summarized to Various characters arrive in King's Landing to discuss an armistice in light of the zombie threat in the North. Yes, it's obvious from how the episode was written that the producers wanted viewers to care about TEH TARGERYN DRAGAONGPIT OMGOGMOMG (which is what the Dragonpit, an amphitheatre built to house the Targaryen dragons amounts to in our plot summary), because they had Missandei being impressed by it (despite the serious plot hole that introduced that she oversaw Daenerys's dragons being put in a Dragonpit for a reason that she seems to have forgotten) and all, but all that is just WP:OR and if it can be attributed to a reliable source it belongs in a sourced analysis section, not the plot summary.

And I don't want to hear about how other plot summaries Calibrador has read or written had the same problems and that I should tag those ones as well. That argument is WP:OSE and if I had the time or inclination I would tag them as well.

I also don't want to hear about how if I have positive ideas for how the plot summary could be shortened and improved I should try implementing them rather than "tagging and running". Every time I make a change to a plot summary that the stewards of these articles don't like, my edit gets reverted and I get dragged into a several-thousand word "discussion" on the talk page. There is literally no more policy-compliant way for me to address the problem than tagging the section.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:50, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I happen to have been the original author of all four passages you cited. I can assure you that my reason for including character names was not to name-drop them for the sake of fans who favor them. I included character names when I felt they were integral to descriptions, when I felt it helped to provide context for why events were important, or when describing a character's actions seemed useful in helping another passage in the summary make more sense. I specifically included mention of Beric and Tormund because their possible deaths at Eastwatch appears to be a cliffhanger. I included mention of Bran's corroboration for two reasons: first, Bran's knowledge of Littlefinger's actions was foreshadowed and Littlefinger specifically claimed that Sansa had no proof; and secondly, Bran's failure to inform Sansa and Arya of Littlefinger's machinations had been called out in reviews and other articles about the show, so that the show's specific addressing of that issue was more notable than it might otherwise have been. That you believe Bran's testimony was not important in-universe is, in my opinion, irrelevant to the importance of the character's actions in the episode. That said, I evaluated your specific suggestions and I did make some edits to reduce total length.

I'm sorry you feel that your constructive edits to GoT episode articles are unwelcome. My heavy involvement in editing these articles began only recently, with the airing Season 7, and I believe that I have given fair consideration to your many edits and discussion points, and I also believe that I have been proactive in starting discussions on the Talk pages when edits seemed contentious. With that in mind, I would encourage you to have faith in the WP:BRD cycle, and when you initiate the "Discuss" part of the cycle, tag me for input. You were willing to engage in lengthy discussion here just now, and I would think that defending a specific contribution as better than the previous revision would actually be easier than trying to prove the inadequacy of stable content that doesn't clearly violate guidelines or policy. --DavidK93 (talk) 19:48, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

They are integral to a long elaboration on everything that happened in the episode, not to a plot summary that fits within standard Wikipedia parameters. And regardless of your personal motivations, this is a long-standing problem on these articles, with multiple editors involved since before you registered your account, and they mostly seem to be motivated by a desire to include fan-cruft. Winter Is Coming had its plot summary section radically cut down to pass a GA review, and then once it was listed the plot summary quickly grew back to roughly its pre-GA length. Some variation on this story could be told of virtually every article on a GOT episode.

Your recent trim is an improvement, but I don't understand some of your rationales given above.

• Beric and Tormund's possible deaths at Eastwatch appearing to be a cliffhanger is WP:SPECULATION, and included in the unsourced plot summary as it is makes it speculation on the part of a Wikipedian, which is even worse than sourced speculation. Wait till season eight comes out and their fates are confirmed.
• You say that Littlefinger specifically claimed that Sansa had no proof, but that is actually in agreement with my statement above that including these details draws attention to the massive plot holes, as Littlefinger claiming that is one such plot hole. Bran's failure to inform Sansa and Arya of Littlefinger's machinations had been called out in reviews and other articles about the show, so that the show's specific addressing of that issue was more notable than it might otherwise have been is even worse -- you can't write you PRIMARY-sourced plot summary on Wikipedia to address concerns raised by third-party critics about the show, or directly interpret the plot of the show as being a response by the writers to said critics. If you can find a secondary source that makes this claim, include it in a sourced "analysis" section, not the plot summary. The only two critics I followed consistently (Preston Jacobs and RedTeamReview) both thought that what happened in this episode was an even bigger copout than not having Bran explain to his sisters about Littlefinger earlier, and, heck, Sansa bringing up all that stuff she already knew about made Bran's testimony irrelevant.
• You don't seem to address my "TEH TARGERYN DRAGAONGPIT OMGOGMOMG" concern, but you left that part in the article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted the sentence about Beric and Tormund patrolling, and the clause about the Dragonpit. My reason for including a description of the Dragonpit was not an all-caps fanboy spasm, but simply a desire to state the setting of the scene. To be honest, I sometimes find it difficult to respond to your arguments because you posit very specific reasons that you believe editors had for adding certain content, and in every case I can recall where it involved content I created, your claims didn't resemble thoughts I had at any point while authoring the text. Presuming to identify others' motives is rarely constructive. Further, you are often flippantly dismissive of the motives you identify, which could antagonize someone who actually had those motives. Thus, your arguments end up being irrelevant (if nobody was using the rationale you attack) or insulting (if someone was).

As for your other concerns: ultimately, my decisions about exactly what to include in the summary were based on my viewing, my knowledge of media coverage, and my speculation about what would be important later. However, I did not add anything speculative to the article. The summary I wrote was unsourced, and by implication is primary-sourced to the episode itself, as is the case for any plot summary. You yourself are fond of pointing out that Wikipedia policies and guidelines about article content don't apply to comments made on Talk pages, and they certainly don't apply to an editor's thought processes. To say that "you can't write you PRIMARY-sourced plot summary on Wikipedia to address concerns raised by third-party critics about the show" is wrong, because a source for content (covered by policies) is completely different from a rationale for inclusion of that content (covered, essentially, by essays about Talk page arguments). And to say that I can't "directly interpret the plot of the show as being a response by the writers to said critics" is also wrong because, again, I did that only in a Talk page comment, not in article content. --DavidK93 (talk) 06:46, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I sometimes find it difficult to respond to your arguments because you posit very specific reasons that you believe editors had for adding certain content, and in every case I can recall where it involved content I created, your claims didn't resemble thoughts I had at any point while authoring the text. I'm sorry you feel that way, but frankly the actual motivations behind your edits are irrelevant, and what actually matters is how it looks to readers, and that's all I've been saying thoughout. An "all-caps fanboy spasm" is how it looks when a Wikipedia plot summary of a single installment of an episodic television series (which was actually fairly light on plot, IWBH) runs between two and three times the standard length of such summaries with all sorts of excessive detail on points only die-hard fans care about, oftentimes points that aren't elaborated in the works themselves. We are supposed to give a bare-bones summary of the plot, not a comprehensive listing of everything that happens in the work. The allowance that plot summaries not cite secondary sources assumes this, but even with secondary sources this level of detail would be unacceptable for where it is in the article. Honestly, I wish we weren't allowed write our own summaries of the works in question, as you'd be hard pressed to find a secondary source that advertaises itself as providing a "plot summary" and gave this level of detail. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:01, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree that an editor's motivation is usually irrelevant (unless it reflects a WP:COI); that's why I believe it is not constructive when you include conjectural motives for editors in discussing their contributions, which you do frequently. I also don't think it matters how content looks to readers; this is not a perspective I've seen taken by Talk page contributors other than you, and I don't believe I've read any guidelines that address it. What matters is what content is.

Regarding your ongoing concerns about Plot section length, perhaps the specific comments you made here were about a different episode's article. You mention summaries that are "between two and three times the standard length of such summaries," but the longest this summary has been during this conversation is 554 words, which is just 1.39 times the guideline length of 400 words. (And it's well within the guideline length of up to 700 words for a feature film; with this episode running 80 minutes, it's hard to say what "such summaries" are that this one can most fairly be compared to.) But I know that other episodes have summaries that are significantly longer. As for your position that "we are supposed to give a bare-bones summary of the plot," is that based on your reading of a Wikipedia guideline or essay? MOS:TVPLOT says "Plot summaries provide context, allowing a reader who has not seen the work to understand the other sections of the article that comment on the plot (such as "Production" or "Reception")," which to me indicates that, while analysis of a scene belongs in an "Analysis" section, the fact that the scene is discussed in the Analysis section should be counted as weighing in favor of inclusion of the scene's events in the plot summary. The same guideline says that "Plot sections should summarize the core storyline(s), but not offer a scene-by-scene sequence of everything that happens, or attempt to evaluate, interpret or analyze it." To me, your description of a "bare-bones summary" sounds stricter than what the guideline describes, and is more in keeping with the short summaries included on episode tables. Ultimately, while you can and should continue to advocate your interpretations of policy and guidelines on Talk pages, I don't believe it's appropriate for you to use maintenance tags to try to enforce those interpretations, which stand among competing interpretations and are not universally (and perhaps not even widely) accepted. --DavidK93 (talk) 05:11, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Could you stop accusing me of speculating on other editors' motives? I've made it clear multiple times that what concerns me is how the article looks, which is like fancruft when it should look like an encyclopedia article. Extraneous details like the Targeryn dragon pit should only be mentioned if their real-world context is going to be addressed somewhere in the article, and honestly even if that were the case the concepts could be introduced in one of the real-world, cited sections, as it's not that difficult to explain even without a context-setting name-drop in the plot summary. My "interpretation" of policy in this case is the one shared by the vast, vast majority of the Wikipedia community and has been for years, and if I opened an RFC you can be guaranteed that my view would win out. If you want to test that, please fire ahead, but do not misrepresent my view: said view is that "the plot summary as written is too long and contains extraneous details", NOT that "the article should contain a maintenance tag" -- I am getting quite tired of having to correct people on this point when they ask me for silly things like talk page consensus to include a maintenance tag. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:07, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri88, you frequently speculate on editors' motives, and it serves mainly to degrade the quality of arguments you make about content. If you don't want that behavior to be called out, don't engage in it. This article has been and continues to be edited in accordance with debate and consensus; there have been disagreements over plot section length, inclusion of specific scene descriptions, and inclusion of specific character names in scenes. We've discussed those things, you and I have both participated in those conversations, your specific concerns were frequently addressed and your proposed solutions implemented, and edits were made that everyone in the conversation seemed to agree had improved the article. This does not appear to be a scenario that calls for a RfC, but feel free to initiate one; I believe an RfC would be your responsibility, because you are the person who is dissatisfied with the article content and some aspects of the conversation happening around it, and you appear to be alone in your concerns among current participants in the conversation. I reject your claim that, as the person who added a maintenance tag, you do not hold the view that "the article should contain a maintenance tag." You do not need talk page consensus to include a maintenance tag, but in this case I believe that it was inappropriate for you to add a maintenance tag that contradicted an existing consensus. --DavidK93 (talk) 16:47, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

"Making Love"

Twice today, ISP users (two different ones, each with this as their only edit ever) have changed the description of Jon and Daenerys from "have sex" to "make love," which WP:EUPHEMISM explicitly cites as a construction to avoid. I've already reverted this change twice today; I'm not sure if these changes rise to the level of vandalism that exempt it from WP:3RR, so I wanted to mention it here so we can have more eyes on that passage. (I was very tempted to title this section, "Jon and Daenerys sittin' in a tree.") --DavidK93 (talk) 19:34, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I honestly think at is point that indefinite semi-protection for all Game of Thrones Season 7 articles would be a good idea. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:00, 21 November 2017 (UTC)