Aaron Donald 2015 Season Highlights

https://www.facebook.com/NFL/videos/10154024363131263/

Police in Cleveland, Dallas, and Milwaukee push back against ‘open-carry’ gun laws

http://www.businessinsider.com/police-push-back-against-open-carry-gun-laws-2016-7

ASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tents, ladders, coolers, canned goods, tennis balls and bicycle locks are banned in the area surrounding the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

But guns are fine.

When Ohio Governor John Kasich on Sunday rejected the Cleveland police union’s request to ban the open carrying of firearms near the Quicken Loans Arena, he weighed into a national debate pitting city authorities who contend with gun violence against state lawmakers who answer to gun-loving voters.

Law enforcement leaders in several major cities say municipalities should have to the power to suspend open-carry laws when needed to protect public safety. Currently, 15 of the 45 states that allow openly carried handguns give cities power to restrict those laws, according to a Reuters review of state statutes.

In Cleveland, police union head Steve Loomis said he made the request to protect officers following recent fatal shooting of three police officers in Louisiana on Sunday and the killing of five officers in Dallas on July 7. Kasich said he did not have the power to circumvent the state’s open-carry law.

A decade ago, all Ohio municipalities had the power to regulate how guns could be carried. Now, only the state legislature can do it.

In 2006, the state legislature passed a law denying cities the ability to restrict openly carried weapons, overriding the veto of then-Governor Bob Taft. Cleveland sued the state to try to win back that power, but lost in 2010.

Across the country, similar battles are playing out in states where municipal authorities, often backed by police departments, are clashing with state lawmakers over how to regulate the open carrying of firearms.

Dallas’s police chief drew criticism from gun rights advocates for saying open carriers made it more “challenging” for his officers to respond to a shooter who killed five policemen at a demonstration this month.

The debate occasionally transcends political ideology. Some opposition to open-carry gun laws comes from Republican politicians such as former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who said last year that he was not “fond of this open-carry concept.”

Police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have been trying and failing to restrict the open carrying of guns for years. The state attorney general argues that citizens have a constitutional right to publicly display weapons, which cannot be overruled by city authorities.

“I wish more of our legislators could see past the ideology,” said Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn. “They have no concern about the impact in urban environments that are already plagued by too many guns and too much violence.”

Flynn attracted gun owners’ ire when he told his officers in 2009 to detain open carriers despite the attorney general’s ruling. Flynn said his department has since “adapted” to the state law.

Open-carry advocates say that criminals almost never openly carry firearms. And if law-abiding citizens fail to demonstrate their right to carry guns, they risk losing it, they add.

“We’re sympathetic to law enforcement being concerned about their safety, but that doesn’t mean we give up citizens’ rights just to make it easier to police large events,” said John Pierce, co-founder of national advocacy group OpenCarry.org.

Wisconsin state representative Bob Gannon said he personally is “not a fan” of the practice because it makes people uncomfortable. Still, he said, the right to carry guns in public spaces should be upheld because it is protected by the state constitution.

“The police chief is not an emperor for the state, and he should defer to the state statutes,” he said.

A demonstrator protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling is detained by law enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. July 9, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
A demonstrator protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling is detained by law enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Thomson Reuters

In states where cities can restrict open carry laws, they often have had to defend that right in court.

Colorado passed legislation in 2003 aimed at ensuring a state law on firearms supersedes local ordinances. Denver, the state capital, sued the state to make sure the laws would not affect the city’s longstanding ban on openly carrying firearms.

The city won in 2006 after a 3-3 ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Denver.

“In some parts of rural Colorado, where there’s a lot of critters, some people really like the idea of open carry,” said Dan Montgomery, chief of police of the Denver suburb of Westminster for 25 years before leaving the force in 2010. “Certainly, even in the law enforcement community we have our arch conservatives who strongly believe in it, but for the vast majority of us, it’s problematic.”

Not all cities agree. After a man carrying a rifle opened fire in a Colorado Springs neighborhood last autumn, killing three bystanders, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said he had “no appetite” for tightening the city’s open-carry laws because he did not think such restrictions would improve public safety. Suthers declined to comment for this article.

UNPOPULAR WITH COPS

Little research has been done on the views of open-carry policies among police officers nationwide or even within states, which each regulate guns differently. But studies by two top police organizations in the past year provide some insight.

In Florida and Texas, where open-carry laws were recently debated in the state legislatures, surveys found that a majority of law enforcement leaders opposed them. Open-carry legislation was defeated in Florida but passed in Texas.

In Florida, open-carry advocates will almost certainly try to legalize it again next session, said Bob Gualtieri, chair of the legislative committee of the Florida Sheriffs’ Association, which represents the state’s 67 sheriffs.

The association took a vote on the issue this year and found three quarters of the 62 responding sheriffs opposed open carry.

A 2015 survey of about one-fifth of the police chiefs in Texas also found that three quarters of respondents opposed open carry, according to the state police chiefs’ association, which ran the survey.

The same year, the state legislature passed a law permitting firearm owners with a concealed-carry license to openly carry handguns.

Gualtieri said the Dallas shooting illustrated the way people who openly carry guns can hinder law enforcement responses to active shooter scenarios. Dallas police said up to 30 people were carrying rifles during a protest on the night that a man opened fire on police officers, complicating law enforcement’s attempts to identify the gunman.

“Not a single one of these people carrying firearms out there in Texas caught this guy in what he was doing,” Gualtieri said. “It drained law enforcement resources and subjected citizens to being unnecessarily taken into custody, and I think we should all be very grateful that nobody else got hurt.”

Lots of powerful stuff in this thread.

wv wrote:

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Lucky for Marc he had such a great OLine
those last two years

w
v

I keep being surprised at how that issue gets overlooked.

The Rams had a string of OL injuries from 2007-9 that was like nothing any of us have seen. (The injury epidemic stopped in 2010 and then got going again in 2011, with a vengeance.)

And it’s obvious that the ineffective OLs took Bulger down with him. Not just in terms of injuries, but also in terms of his overall play.

And…no complaints from him.

.

=========================

I’ve decided this will be on your tombstone:

==========================
The Rams had a string of OL injuries from 2007-9 that was like nothing any of us have seen. (The injury epidemic stopped in 2010 and then got going again in 2011, with a vengeance.)
And it’s obvious that the ineffective OLs took Bulger down with him. Not just in terms of injuries, but also in terms of his overall play.
=========================+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

w
v

But answer me this.

Why is it so many people don’t “get” the broken OL issue.

I mean, you need a special qb with specific skills to play with a broken OL (Brady’ quick reads and quick passes, Wilson’s ability to run yet focus downfield).

But them guys is rare.

Most of the good to very good to elite qbs can’t play under those conditions. That includes Kurt, as he proved in NY in 2004. It even got to Luck in 2015 (and their OL was just mediocre, not broken and dreadful).

So.

Speculate.

Why don’t people get that.

.

Key stat: Tavon Austin has graded higher as a runner than as a receiver every single season since entering the league.

Key response: well then that’s one more reason to remember that he’s not a receiver. (!!!)

He’s something else. I like “multiple weapon.” The derisive version is “gadget player,” but to me that’s too dismissive.

InvaderRam wrote:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristeeAtwood/status/754786544305643520

Christee Atwood ‏@ChristeeAtwood
The words of BR Police officer killed today. Please listen to him.

========

Invader…thanks for posting that.

It’s a sad, terrible, yet also tragically heartening testimony to what these times are.

I expanded this fwiw

What we know about the Baton Rouge shooting
A man carrying a rifle outside a Baton Rouge convenience store shot six police officers on July 17, killing three. Here’s what we know so far.

Amy Ellis Nutt, Matt Zapotosky and Mark Berman/The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/3-police-officers-killed-3-wounded-in-baton-rouge/2016/07/17/3734a3a6-4c2f-11e6-aa14-e0c1087f7583_story.html

A lone gunman killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge on Sunday morning, less than two weeks after the death of an African American man at the hands of Baton Rouge police.

The shootings occurred when police responded to a 911 call that a man dressed in black and armed with what appeared to be an ­assault-style rifle was walking near a shopping plaza about a mile from police headquarters. The deaths shocked a nation already on edge over recent killings by police and the slayings of five police officers in Dallas by a lone gunman. The run of violence that began July 5 in Baton Rouge has now left 10 dead, including eight law enforcement officers, as well as two residents killed by police.

Two city police officers and one sheriff’s deputy were fatally wounded, and another sheriff’s deputy was critically injured, Col. Michael Edmonson, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said at a news conference.

The gunman, who was shot and killed during the exchange of gunfire, was later identified as Gavin Long, an African American resident of Kansas City, Mo., who turned 29 on Sunday and was in Baton Rouge celebrating his birthday, according to relatives. In the spring of 2012, Long was named to the dean’s list at the University of Alabama, which he attended for one semester, university officials said.

Long was identified in media reports confirmed by his military record as a Marine who achieved the rank of sergeant and had been deployed to Iraq before leaving service in August, 2010. Under a pseudonym, Long also made videos posted on YouTube, the most recent of which derided demonstrations like those after the shooting by Baton Rouge police of Alton Sterling two weeks ago, and advocated violence instead.

With the circumstances of the shootings unexplained Sunday night, a community already numbed found itself searching for new words to describe its horror and despair.

“Stop this killing. Stop this killing. Stop this killing,” said Veda Washington-Abusaleh, the aunt of Alton Sterling, the 37-year-old man killed by Baton Rouge police on July 5.

“That’s how this all started, with bloodshed. We don’t want no more bloodshed. . . . Because at the end of the day, when these people call these families and they tell them that their daddies and their mommies not coming home no more, I know how they feel, because I got the same phone call,” she said, breaking down in tears during an interview Sunday by a Baton Rouge TV station.

Within minutes of the 911 call, a barrage of gunfire was heard from the vicinity of Airline and Old Hammond highways in East Baton Rouge, a commercial area dottedwith convenience stores, gas stations and discount clothing shops.

Louisiana is an open-carry state, where no permits are required to buy or carry firearms.

Baton Rouge has been besieged in recent years by racial tension between its predominantly black residents and predominately white police officers. Over the past two weeks, protesters marched almost daily over the same streets that police quickly barricaded Sunday morning.

One of the dead officers was Montrell Jackson, 32, an African American, married and with a baby. Although his name had not yet been released by authorities Sunday evening, multiple people, including relatives, confirmed he was among those killed.

The father of Matthew Gerald, a white officer, also confirmed Sunday that his 41-year-old married son, the father of two daughters, was another police officer killed.

Before joining the Baton Rouge Police Department last year, Gerald served in both the Marines and the Army, according to Ryan D. Cabral, a friend who served with him in Iraq.

“Matt was the kind of guy that you knew immediately when he entered the room,” Cabral said. “Whether it was the energy he carried with him or that Cajun accent he had . . . maybe it was the Marine in him.”

The third fatality was identified by the local newspaper, the Advocate, as Brad Garafola, 45, who served with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. He was working extra duty at the B-Quik convenience store on Airline Highway early Sunday morning, according to his wife, Tonja, and was headed home to begin vacation when he was gunned down.

“Everybody on this street depended on him,” Tonja Garafola said.

Jackson’s sister, Jocelyn, was attending Sunday church when she learned that her little brother was among the three officers killed. Her pastor had just asked the congregation to send prayers to her family.

“I didn’t want to break down in church, but it was just something I couldn’t hold,” said Jackson, 49, who felt the weight of the news rush over her. “He was a wonderful person. A wonderful person.”

A cousin of Long’s, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his job, said Long was quiet, smart and had recently written a book about his travels around the world. The man said that Long, as far as he knew, had not expressed any particular outrage over the shootings of young black men by police.

“I can’t see my cousin doing nothing like that,” he said. “Right now, I’m at a loss for words.”

Long served five years in the Marine Corps as a data network specialist, from August 2005 to August 2010. He left active duty as a sergeant. Records released by the Marine Corps on Sunday showed that he deployed once to Iraq from June 2008 to January 2009. He did not experience direct ground combat. He was assigned to units in Miramar, Calif., and Okinawa, Japan, during his military career.

In the hours after the shooting, police warned people living in the area of the gun battle to stay inside as they sought two other potential suspects. By the afternoon, dozens of law enforcement and emergency vehicles were on the scene, and police helicopters hovered overhead. Agents for the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also called to the scene, according to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who said in a statement that “there is no place in the United States for such appalling violence.” President Obama as well as other government and law enforcement officials strongly condemned the shooting.

“It’s just very senseless and tragic,” said Chris Nassif, president of the Louisiana Union of Police, a statewide association of municipal police departments. “You’re seeing law enforcement targeted for doing their jobs.”

Nassif and colleagues from around the state had traveled to Baton Rouge during the protests that roiled the city last week.

“They seemed to have everything under control, and then this happens,” he said. “It just takes the breath out of you.”

Sunday’s gun battle occurred in a subdivision of Baton Rouge known as Tara, about five miles from where Sterling was killed. Protesters have gathered there nightly.

Just 24 hours after Sterling was shot, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American, was shot to death during a traffic stop in St. Paul, Minn.

Then, on July 7, during a peaceful protest of those deaths, four policemen and a transit officer were killed by a lone gunman in Dallas.

Across the country, police have been on heightened alert, with many towns and cities mandating that officers not work their beats alone, and residents in places such as East Baton Rouge afraid to spend time outside their homes.

It was a sunny, breezy morning in Baton Rouge when shots were heard around 8:40 a.m. Police reported “officers down” at 8:44, according to Edmonson, the Louisiana State Police superintendent. Minutes later, the alleged gunman was also dead.

One Tara neighborhood woman, who asked that her name not be used, was playing tennis with her husband and two children when she first heard the gunfire.

“We have been in the house so much because of all of this going on, so we wanted to be outside,” she said. “I feel trapped in our own home. . . . I thought we would be safe here because we are close to a police station.”

The three deaths Sunday brought the total number of officers killed in the line of duty to 30 this year — up from about 16 at this point last year. The average mid-year total, according to FBI data, is about 25.

At an annual gathering of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in Washington, an educational conference attended by police chiefs around the country, the mood was heavy with the Baton Rouge news. This weekend was the organization’s 40th anniversary celebration.

“It felt like a punch in the gut,” said Vera Bumpers, chief of police for the Houston Metro Police Department. “It resonated with everybody. The room was just like a hush and a rasp, like ‘not again.’ ”

It was a sentiment shared by Wanda Y. Dunham, the chief of police for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.

“Here we go again,” she recalled thinking. “Some people are still thinking about what happened in Dallas.” She added: “I don’t want this to be the new normal. So we have to start talking to the community before these things happen.”

President Obama asked the nation to refrain from “overheated” political discourse on the eve of the Republican and Democratic conventions.

“Regardless of race, political party or profession . . . everyone right now, focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further,” he said. “We need to temper our words and open our hearts — all of us.”

Black activists also expressed outrage at the Baton Rouge police deaths.

“We’re all grieving. We’re still grieving the loss of Alton Sterling. We don’t value any life more than any other life,” said Ada Goodly, an attorney and activist with the National Lawyers Guild in Baton Rouge who had been involved in the recent protests.

Jocelyn Jackson said she understands the anger behind the Black Lives Matter movement but added that “God gives nobody the right to kill and take another person’s life. . . . It’s coming to the point where no lives matter,” she said, “whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or whatever.”

InvaderRam wrote:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristeeAtwood/status/754786544305643520

Christee Atwood ‏@ChristeeAtwood
The words of BR Police officer killed today. Please listen to him.

note: this article is partly critical, which is okay with me, even if I don’t always agree

==

How Season 6 made ‘Game of Thrones’ dumber, but more gorgeous than ever

By Will Nicol —

link: http://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/game-of-thrones-season-6-review/#ixzz4Ehnfho3R
Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on Facebook

Note: this article discusses plot details from the show Game of Thrones as well as the Song of Ice and Fire novels.

There is a certain cruelty, intentional or not, in titling the season finale of Game of Thrones’ sixth season The Winds of Winter. It is, after all, the working title for the next entry in George RR Martin’s series of novels. Readers have waited five years since the release of the last novel, and for those who started with the first book, A Game of Thrones, way back in 1996, watching as the television adaptation reveals scenes and details 20 years in the making can be bittersweet. In using The Winds of Winter as title for their season finale, showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss have planted their flag in Martin’s story.

In the end, how would the show perform, no longer guided by the books? At times, season 6 is a narrative that embraces the worst of television, relying on twists and drawn out mysteries to keep audiences watching and talking. However, season 6 also reaches new cinematic heights, putting together some of the most well-composed scenes in television history. Below is how, unguided, Game of Thrones is worse, and better than it has ever been.

Season 6 lacks suspense, preferring shock and awe

Martin’s novels have often been praised for subverting traditional fantasy narratives, and this praise translated to the early seasons of Game of Thrones. Many fantasy series follow a traditional hero’s journey, emphasizing physical deeds and a black and white morality, but this show was about politics, not heroism. Rather than large battles and flashy set pieces, early GoT examined the political and social structures of its fantasy world, and the people trying to navigate those structures. Few characters in GoT fit squarely into the role of hero or villain, and the morally gray, complicated narrative produced tension: viewers would wonder whose plans will work, whose will fail?

Unexpected eruptions of violence may surprise the audience, but they lack the brutal catharsis of earlier seasons.
Ned Stark’s role in the first season exemplifies the series’ ideals. A stoic man of honor, Ned tries to reform the corrupt politics of King’s Landing. In any other fantasy novel or series, he would probably discover villains and bring them to justice. But in Game of Thrones, the audience is made aware very early of what is going on in King’s Landing. We are shown that Queen Cersei and her brother are lovers, and thus, while Ned investigates the truth about Prince Joffrey’s parentage, the revelation is not a surprise. Rather than a shocking reveal that Joffrey is the product of incest, Ned’s story creates tension, as the audience can see that he is swimming with sharks even when he does not.

Contrast season 1’s slowly drawn noose with the guillotine that is season 6. Game of Thrones has always had its share of “shocking” moments (Ned’s execution, the Red Wedding), but those moments were typically the result of long build-ups, as characters make mistake after mistake until death seems the only natural consequence. In season 6, however, death comes at a moment’s notice, and while unexpected eruptions of violence may surprise the audience, they lack the brutal catharsis of earlier seasons.

The first episode of season 6 offers clear example of the show’s new priorities: the coup in Dorne. In the novels, Dorne is a hotbed of rebellion, as Prince Doran secretly works to arrange an alliance with the Targaryens (both Daenarys and Aegon, who is so far absent from the show) with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Lannisters. Doran is playing a long game, and although his nieces, the Sand Snakes, criticize what they perceive as inaction, he explains that the grass that hides the viper is as important as the viper itself.

game of thrones season review
game of thrones season review

In the show, Doran seems not to have any plans; if he does, the audience will never know. The Red Woman features a brief check-in with Dorne, in which the Sand Snakes, led by Oberyn’s lover Ellaria, assassinate Doran and his son and assume control of Dorne. It’s a shocking moment for a few reasons. First, the Sand Snakes are upset that Doran has not avenged their father, so it seems odd that they would choose to wipe out the rest of Oberyn’s family. Second, there is no blowback for the coup; Doran’s guards, apparently disgusted by his weakness, simply watch as he is murdered. Dorne remains out of sight for most of the season, and when the show finally returns to it in the finale, Ellaria seems to be sitting comfortably, despite being a usurper with no legal or genealogical claim to the throne. The only-slightly-bloody revolution in Dorne is shocking not only as an event, but for what it says about the show’s sensibilities: the machinations of earlier seasons have given way to sudden, violent clearings of the deck.
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The northern storyline is typically heroic, and boring

Perhaps nowhere is the show’s watered-down approach to narrative more apparent than in the North. While the novels are not as far along in this story, they have set up groundwork for the eventual clash between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton. In A Dance with Dragons, Martin sets up a conspiracy in the North, with Lord Wyman Manderly plotting against the Boltons. Manderly even kills a couple of Freys and, while visiting the Boltons and the Freys in Winterfell, serves his hosts a pie made from the Frey meat, a plot given to Arya out-of-nowhere in the show.

The novels left off with Jon lying dead, and season 6 picks up immediately afterward, resurrecting Jon, reuniting him with Sansa, and setting them off on the path to fight Ramsay, who possesses both their home and their younger brother, Rickon, who came to Ramsay courtesy of Smalljon Umber, one of the northern lords. Given Umber’s disrespect of Ramsay throughout the scene — he refuses to swear an oath of fealty, and even accuses Ramsay (correctly) of murdering his own father — viewers familiar with the show might be tempted to believe this is the show’s version of the northern conspiracy, with Umber using Rickon to bait Ramsay into trusting him. It would be a rather shortsighted way to rebel, handing over the legitimate heir to Winterfell to the murderous usurper, but perhaps fitting for the hotheaded Umber.

Ultimately though, there is no rebellion in the North. Jon and Sansa roam the lands, recruiting a few reluctant lords, while the rest of the North either sides with Ramsay or refuses to join the conflict. The Starks and Boltons ultimate face off in the climactic Battle of the Bastards, and while it is a wonderfully shot episode of television — more on that later — it is a generic, good-versus-evil narrative.

Early in season 6, Roose Bolton warns his son Ramsay to curb his violent tendencies, saying “If you acquire a reputation as a mad dog, you’ll be treated as a mad dog.” It’s the savvy advice that no viewer would ever expect Ramsay to follow, but the odd thing is how inconsequential it proves to be for his character. Despite murdering his father, mother-in-law, and baby brother, Ramsay’s supporters aren’t particularly bothered.

game of thrones season review
game of thrones season review

game of thrones season review
game of thrones season review

He is finally brought low not through his own misrule, but through a conventional underdog battle. After Ramsay’s forces back Jon’s into a corner, Littlefinger and his Vale cavalry show up in the eleventh hour to break the Bolton formation. Jon and his Wildling troops break through the gates of Winterfell, Jon pummels Ramsay, and then Sansa feeds him to his own dogs.

Ramsay’s death is poetic — he liked feeding other people to his dogs — and it is viscerally satisfying to see him beaten and killed in such an ironic manner, but it’s a strangely conventional way for the villain to end. Although it would have made thematic sense for Ramsay’s brutal rule to breed rebellion in his ranks, his men never rise up against him; he simply loses to the cavalry arriving. The Starks rule Winterfell once more, and Jon is proclaimed King of the North, but the way in which their story unfolds feels at odds with the larger themes of Game of Thrones.

Visually, season 6 was a masterpiece

Although season 6 streamlines and in some ways dulls the narrative, the show has also elevated its visual aspects. Although the golden age of television has largely been considered a writer’s medium, shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad have also shown the value a director can bring, incorporating cinematography and staging worthy of arthouse films. Game of Thrones’ direction has been competent if unremarkable in the past, but several moments in season 6 show off a fantastic visual flair, with the Battle of the Bastards in particular pushing television into the realm of the blockbuster film.

The Red Woman’s mirror scene plays with audience perceptions

The first episode of season 6, The Red Woman, finishes on a striking image. As Melisandre, a priestess of R’hllor, struggles with her faith after her visions fail to come true, she undresses. This is not a new thing for the show or for her character; Game of Thrones is notorious for putting female nudity on full display, and Melisandre has been one of the show’s most forward exhibitionists. This scene ends up far from titillating, however. Melisandre removes her ever-present choker, the camera focuses on a blurry mirror, and when it cuts back to Melisandre, she is an old woman, the camera pulling back to reveal her naked form.

The wordless scene takes a character who had long been an object of desire and makes her gnarled, unattractive. For a show so often accused of servicing fans, it is a bold move. In a season where the show very pointedly tried to change its image vis-a-vis women through plotting, putting characters like Sansa, Cersei, and Ellaria in positions of power, Melisandre’s transformation was the show embracing the visual nature of the medium, playing with the audience’s perceptions in a way the written word could not do.
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The most amazing battle in TV history?

One of the things that set A Song of Ice and Fire apart from traditional fantasy novels is that Martin generally does not depict battles. As in Shakespeare, the armed conflicts happen “off-stage,” and the reader learns of them through characters’ reactions. The physical act of a battle is less important than its impact on people. In its early seasons, Game of Thrones hewed close to the novels, only depicting the major battles, such as the Battle of Blackwater Bay. These events are typically spectacular, often taking up the bulk of the episodes they appear in. These earlier battles, while well-staged, were also shot conventionally. Season 6’s climactic bloodbath, The Battle of the Bastards, reaches a level of style that previous fight scenes in the show did not, and in doing so, helps drive home the story’s grim view of war.

Game of Thrones has shown that a television series can compare with the most finely crafted epics.
The battle begins in earnest after Ramsay shoots Rickon, prompting Jon to furiously charge Ramsay’s front line, his own cavalry following behind him. Jon’s horse goes down as Ramsay’s horsemen charge at him, and he draws his sword, one man against an entire wave. This prelude is scored with thudding drums, and Jon’s lone stand gets a heroic swelling of strings, all of which is typical of fantasy battle scenes, in Game of Thrones or otherwise.

But the cavalry crash into each other like tides pouring over Jon, killing the music as well as each other. Suddenly the only sounds are diegetic, steel singing as weapons connect with armor. The camera clings to Jon as he fights stumbles through the fight, dodging a horseman’s charge, swinging at a footman to his left.

The tight framing creates a sense of claustrophobia, and emphasizes Jon’s smallness on the battlefield, as violence churns in the background.

The remainder of the battle maintains this brutally intimate look, as men bleed and Jon is briefly buried under a pile of corpses, the camera offering his dazed, first-person perspective as soldiers trample over him.

game of thrones season reviewgame of thrones season reviewgame of thrones season review
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The washed-out colors and shaky-cam direction drew comparisons to the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, and it served as a startling reminder of how far television has come. Shows like Mad Men proved that television could achieve the elegant composition and staging of classic cinema; with Battle of the Bastards, Game of Thrones has shown that a television series can compare with the most finely crafted epics.

Love it or hate it, Game of Thrones remains a juggernaut

Even if the rest of Game of Thrones’ narrative continues to drift toward straightforward fantasy conventions, rather than the politics and character-driven drama that characterized the novels and the earlier seasons, the series still shows remarkable signs of life. The show still draws in huge numbers of viewers, with The Winds of Winter setting a new record for the show. From an artistic standpoint, the show is more and more taking advantage of its medium, enlisting talented directors who bring an auteur’s touch to the production.

Fantasy could very soon be the dominant genre in television, and Game of Thrones is the template. Hopefully future projects, whether original works or adaptations, will draw on the show’s better decisions while avoiding its mistakes.