Game of Thrones Season 7 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]

[Homeless Nutter]

Arya... She had some "dancing" lessons from the finest swordsman in Braavos... Right there in season 1.

Yes, I am aware of that. Funnily enough, though - she never showed any real skill at sword-fighting until season 7. So if you want to say she's been secretly a Bravossi sword-master for the past 6 seasons, after having taken lessons for the - presumably - relatively short time she was staying in King's Landing, during Ned's brief tenure as the Hand - that's not all that convincing. 

Of course - while it's not great story-telling - all sorts of things could have happened off-screen, but the show made quite a point of the fact, that Arya couldn't practice with the Needle, while training with the Faceless Men, which makes her sudden mastery, when sparring against Brienne - one of the most accomplished swordsmen in Westeros - somewhat surprising. If they were fighting with staves - that'd make way more sense.

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I think most of your criticism is justified but I don't agree with what I've bolded.  It was different when they had the books to build from.  Now they have to do the foundational writing themselves, not just translate a book to movie form.  The writing is bad but I don't think it is lazy.  It is a tough job being cranked out in record time in order to satisfy our yearly expectations.  I'm too grateful to the writers for making the effort to think the faults are all on them.

Fine - maybe "lazy writing" is not the most appropriate expression, considering the circumstances, but without knowing about GRRM's failure to release the last two books on time - the on-screen effect is the same. And let's face it - writing for TV requires adapting one's sophistication to the level of your average audience member, which - in the case of a massively popular show - is often way lower than that of your average book-reader. The good thing about books is - they don't have to appeal to the illiterate...