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Well. I still kinda enjoy watching this, despite its deficiencies. Every episode still has at least a few good moments, and the artificially plot-convenient writing isn't new this season. But there's more and more that just makes you wonder why the writers just don't seem to care anymore, and I can't say any of it really excites me by now.

 

We've now clearly seen that a fleet of scorpions is absolutely no threat for a dragon, unless they sneak up on it on the wide open sea and fire at it before it has time to react. In fact, Dany still had enough time to vaporise the entire fleet in the previous episode, but apparently she was just too confused and just began flying around until they managed to hit one dragon. (Also, am I the only one who can't quite believe they could fire those things with so much power from ships without capsizing? Plus the scorpions look way too slick and high tech for my taste, more scifi/steam punk/video game than hard medieval fantasy).

 

Dany's tipping point was in character and not a problem in itself, in my opinion. But they certainly could have done more with it. Not so much in the way it comes about, but it's a bit anticlimactic to have her go full Targaryen and take off on her dragon only to completely disappear from screen, save the obligatory dragon torching city in background shot every couple of minutes. Also, *how* she goes mad doesn't seem to make sense. She's been obsessed with the iron throne for all her life. Yet she just flies across the city for hours, torching everything (interesting how the main gate just explodes the moment it's exposed to dragon fire), and everyone except her own soldiers - so she's not so aimless to have gone fully berserk.

 

Tyrion and Varys were fine, I thought. Tyrion not exactly apologising to him, but regretting the outcome, and Varys quitely accepting it seems in character for both and a fitting conclusion to their scene from the previous episode. Interesting parallel there btw compared to the very first episode of the series, when Ned Stark sentences the deserter to death and executes him himself, because the law demands it and it is considered just, but deliberately regretting it

 

Cersei has been mostly uninteresting since after her walk of shame, and Lena Headey, once one of the strongest actresses on the show, hasn't had anything to act on for a long time. Jaime, whose character arc was maintained for much longer, is ultimately wasted. What's the point of Euron, other than wounding Jaime, possibly mortally? And what's the significance of that even, if he'd gone back to Cersei to die with her either way? And are they in fact dead? I mean, it certainly seems like they have to be, but as of late the series has had far too many moments of characters just "disappearing", and given it's track record (e.g. Arya ex machina), you never know if something is supposed to be a resolution or just there to make you forget about somebody until they bring them back "surprisingly".

 

Arya and the Hound I thought had a good moment of closure. Clegane is well established to be beyond redemption, so him going after his brother is a fitting end. That he convinces Arya to not follow his own path is a nice resolution for both of them (how it comes about is a different story, perhaps). That it enables them to use Arya as our POV of the madness of the battle is also appropriately convenient (and gives us some cool Arya shots), but it just goes on for too long and is intercut with too much other awkward stuff to be really successful.

 

It's astounding how much they've *not* done during these past few episodes, despite their length (if you add them up, you get a least two full movies). There's endless battles, but nearly all the character resolutions seem rushed, handled quickly just to get them out of the way and get on with the plot, but even the plot is streamlined to the bare minimum (including surprise attacks from behind the camera at sea so you don't have to spend more than 10 seconds on battle preparations). The season would be more than long enough bring lots of stuff to satisfying conclusions, but instead we get drawn out spectacles that are technically well made but make little impact.

 

Basically, the writing has reached the quality level of the score now: Simple, shallow, obvious, cliched, with little apparent craftsmanship and neither the necessary complexity nor inventiveness for the task at hand.

 

21 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Oh I can enjoy it. But its not gripping anymore, like it once was.

 

Not that long ago i was on the edge of my seat when The Hound and Brienne tore into each other.

 

Two weeks ago I was on the edge of my seat when I feared Arya might die during the battle of Winterfell. But since then, the writing has become so arbitrary that I can't even worry much about my favourite characters.

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2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

(Also, am I the only one who can't quite believe they could fire those things with so much power from ships without capsizing? Plus the scorpions look way too slick and high tech for my taste, more scifi/steam punk/video game than hard medieval fantasy).

 

I agree with this

 

 

2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Two weeks ago I was on the edge of my seat when I feared Arya might die during the battle of Winterfell. But since then, the writing has become so arbitrary that I can't even worry much about my favourite characters.

 

Yep.

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21 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Sansa was right about Dany all this time, yes.

 

Was she though? She mostly seems to loathe her for claiming the rule of (also) the North. Sansa may not be as mad and blindly power hungry, but in her own way she's certainly cold and does not accept any opposition. She would be a horrible ruler of the seven kingdoms (if she had a claim to it), and even possibly a dangerous influence on Jon Snow, should he end up claiming his birthright.

20 hours ago, KK said:

Also, why were Winterfell soldiers slaughtering and raping innocent civilians again? Is that normal?

 

Yes. Ever heard of the crusades? (Just to give one of many possibly examples)

6 hours ago, Jay said:

So.  What's up with Bronn?

 

Will we even see Bronn in the final episode?  Or was that scene last week supposed to be his send-off?  A kind of "in it for the money until the end" type thing?

 

One of so many cases of a character arc being dug up for ultimately no apparent reason. I thought Bronn had played his part until he reappeared earlier this season, but so far that seems to have been pure (and poor) fan service. Also one of those instances I mentioned where you just don't know if something was supposed to be the end of an arc or just a setup for some "surprising" conclusion (and therefore more fodder for backlash by those expecting the latter if it turns out to be the former).

3 hours ago, Jay said:

With every scorpion destroyed in the siege, the show has run out of weapons that have been setup to be able to take down a dragon.  So either the dragon lives through the end credits, like it just flies off into the distance after Dany dies or something.... or they invent a new weapon out of nowhere that takes him down shortly after it's introduced.

 

I still believe it's basically quite easy to kill a dragon, *if* you know what to do/where to hit it and manage to surprise it.

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Quote

Was she though? She mostly seems to loathe her for claiming the rule of (also) the North. Sansa may not be as mad and blindly power hungry, but in her own way she's certainly cold and does not accept any opposition.

 

But again, she was absolutely right in not trusting Dany, as it turns out.

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3 hours ago, Jay said:

Why did Bran have the foresight to setup the Battle of Winterfell such that he could get the Night King close to him in the right spot where Arya could stab him, but told no one and did nothing to prevent Dany's attack on King's Landing?

 

Ignoring the "lazy writing" option for a moment, he just might not care. Bran has become decidedly impartial and esoteric since his transformation. He might have cared about the North (for whatever, possibly selfish reasons), but I wouldn't expect any altruistic motives of him, or even any kind of regard for the people of King's Landing.

2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

But again, she was absolutely right in not trusting Dany, as it turns out.

 

Yes, I'm just saying her reasons might not have been what ours now are.

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I was asking for reasons YOU considered the episode fan service, Stefancos...but did you even read that little article, or just the clickbait headline? After calling the episode fan service (apparently defined as "pandering to fans" and "indulging every whim of a fandom"), all of the writer's reasoning afterwards explains why the episode actually WASN'T fan service:

 

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Shows that become beholden to their most rabid watchers rarely figure out a way to make its storytelling feel organic and earned. But in its eighth and final season, Game of Thrones showed that it’s possible to do just that, by staying true to who the characters really are.


*If the storytelling is "organic and earned", it's not "fan service"! It's good writing!*
 

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That’s usually a recipe for disaster. But last night, each of these moments felt true because they exemplified what’s most fascinating about these fictional men and women. Jamie Lannister has grown more than anyone on Game of Thrones—his apology to Bran encapsulated an eight-season arc in which he went from an entitled asshat to a penitent, self-aware ally. Theon, meanwhile, deserved a happy homecoming more than anyone. After his own descent into asshattery, he was punished with unspeakable brutality, reduced to the status of a groveling slave, and only then found his own agency and sense of honor. His reunion with Sansa could be a fresh start for them both, after their shared trauma.

And Brienne’s belated honor—well, that was simply one of the show’s greatest moments ever. Did the scene of her knighting drive the plot forward? Not remotely. But was it honest and heartfelt and utterly earned? Absolutely

 

"Fan service" is not synonymous with "enjoyable moments" or things that might make many fans temporarily happy. If it were, then anything not an outright tragedy would be considered fan service. Effective comedies would be nonstop fan service. Hell, even entertaining moments within Shakespeare tragedies would be "fan service". Such an attitude is ridiculous there and equally ridiculous when applied to Episode 2 this season, IMO.

 

Quote

These scenes worked on two different levels. First, they seemed like actual things people might do if they thought the world were about to end. Second, they were probably the last times that many of these actors got to perform together. They gave these relationships genuine endings. That sense of finality made each interaction truthful, even if they were initially dreamt up by—or concocted to please—the fans.

With just four more episodes left (and a huge, record-breaking battleto come), the remainder of the final season of Game of Thrones will surely gallop past these quieter, tender character moments, into big-budget action and plot twists. But for 60 minutes, at least, the biggest show in the world got really small, put all our favorite characters into rooms together, and reminded us why we liked this story in the first place.

 

So yeah...it's really sad that you saw this episode as weaker than the first episode. For me it was flawlessly executed, and not fan service in the slightest. This writers' observations about the episode are accurate, and the only justification for their calling these scenes "fan service" is their *wholly unfounded* claims that "they were initially dreamt up by—or concocted to please—the fans." The entirety of this show (and practically any other TV show) is "concocted to please" so that's a stupid distinction anyway. This is entertainment. But "fan service" is when things are artificially constructed simply to please fans rather than because they are right/natural/organic for the story and characters.

 

Yavar

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3 hours ago, Jay said:

If they were gonna do absolutely nothing with Bran in episodes 4 and 5 this season, why not just kill him off during the Battle of Winterfell.  I can't see him being actively involved with much that's gonna happen in the final episode, so I guess his only role post-Night-King-death is just to be the "preserver of human history".... sigh.

 

While the show's sudden out of character reluctance to kill off well established characters has become quite excessive, I don't see the necessity to simply kill of all characters once they've served their purpose. In a way, that would be just as cliched as implausible plot armour.

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So Lena Heady as Cersei shot for only 15 days total for the entire season 8 (as opposed to the 55 days it took just shoot Ep 3). She had only 25 mins of screentime total and spent 90% of that drinking wine and smirking from her balcony. And she got paid 1.2 million dollars per episode so that she earned $48,000 per minute of screentime.

 

Huh?

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Good for her.

 

She was great in the role from episode 1 to the end, and any issues I had with her character this season was 100% the writing and not her performance.

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13 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

So Lena Heady as Cersei shot for only 15 days total for the entire season 8 (as opposed to the 55 days it took just shoot Ep 3). She had only 25 mins of screentime total and spent 90% of that drinking wine and smirking from her balcony. And she got paid 1.2 million dollars per episode so that she earned $48,000 per minute of screentime.

 

Huh?

 

Actually, they got it wrong. 

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/lena-headley-pay-game-of-thrones-final-season-per-minute

 

 

If she's making 1.2 million per episode and I believe as a series regular, you have to be paid even if you don't appear in the episode, then she's making 7.2 million for the season which would put her at $288,000 per minute of screentime. I don't make that even in a year!

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A friend of mine firmly believes that Bran will end up on the throne. I've had to point out how ridiculous and absurd that theory is, but he won't budge. I wonder why...

 

I also wonder if we'll actually see Bran again next season. Or if episode 4 was the last we saw of everyone back in Winterfell.

 

7 hours ago, Glóin the Dark said:
 
 
1
7 hours ago, Glóin the Dark said:

 

Nice though it would be to suppose that all of the goody soldiers would behave with honour and decorum during the sack of a city, I don't think that Game of Thrones has ever been guilty of operating on that assumption. If you'd like a specific example illustrating that soldiers working for the Starks behave like any others in warfare, recall Brienne and Jaime's journey through the countryside when they found the bodies of three women who had been hanged by Stark soldiers (and at least one of them raped or otherwise tortured beforehand) on account of an allegation that they had "lain with lions".

 

Yes, yes, you're right of course. I guess in a show that's just tried very hard to paint morality as a black and white picture quite recently, I didn't think they would retain that kind of nuance in battle.

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2 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Two weeks ago I was on the edge of my seat when I feared Arya might die during the battle of Winterfell. But since then, the writing has become so arbitrary that I can't even worry much about my favourite characters.

 

The loss of this level of investment is one of the things I'm most sad about now. I stumbled upon spoilers before the Winterfell battle revealing that most characters make it out alive (thanks, Twitter), yet at the end of the episode, right up to the NK reaching for his sword, the show had me convinced everybody there was going to die. That, in my book, is effective filmmaking.

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2 hours ago, KK said:

Dammit Holko, that better not mean what I think it means!! :stick:

 

Brace yourself mate, this tailspin isn't going to get any better.

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Dumb&Dumber say the first sign of Dany's madness was her not reacting to the murder of her brother. Take Snape - Rickman was told of the character-defining twist by Rowling before the first film do he could build it into the performance.

 

1d2b011.jpg

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

Dumb&Dumber say the first sign of Dany's madness was her not reacting to the murder of her brother. 

 

So was Sansa smiling when Ramsey gets eaten by his own dogs a sign of her madness?

 

Maybe Sansa will go on a killing spree next?

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

Dumb&Dumber say the first sign of Dany's madness was her not reacting to the murder of her brother. Take Snape - Rickman was told of the character-defining twist by Rowling before the first film do he could build it into the performance.

 

1d2b011.jpg

 

I don't for a moment buy that this is a well thought out arc from the writers. They of course just made it up. They did not even lay the groundwork for it in Season 7.

 

She literally went Hitler in the space of like 2 episodes. There was no foreshodowing or building up this arc at all. They just vomited it out in an infernal hurry to end the series.

 

It's kinda like - the big bad villain is Night King. Oops killed him in Ep 3. The big bad villain is Cersei! Oops, fooled you again, she dies in Ep 5. The big bad villain is actually Danerys who is a murderous genocidal psychopath. Twist! Didn't expect that didn't you? So we come to the final episode with Danerys as the last standing villain that the supposed hero - Jon Snow - will have to slay to finally end the story.

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There were plenty of signs that she was supposed to be a mad queen

(burning the Tarlys in season 7, feeding people to he dragons in season 5, what she did to the masters in season 4)

But I agree that they botched the execution. I would have understood it better if her massacre began with the red keep and only then spread out.

 

I fully believe her going mad is the endgame for the books as well.

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What’s happening in these last few episodes is the endgame for the books. Martin has said so.

 

Mad Queen Dany would be the final villain if the books were finished.

 

I assume it’s one of the many knots Martin has spent the last decade trying to unravel. 

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Lord knows it doesnt seem like he knows how to handle a lot of knots. Like how the hell are the dragons gonna become her allies again.

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The complaints of 'Mad Queen' Daenerys character change plopping up out of nowhere are quite foolish, however I think part of this backlash is a direct result of the way in which her turn was framed. We needed more scenes before the burning of King's Landing for this character change to be fully accepted. Or maybe it was meant to be shocking? You were never quite sure if she was going to go overboard? 

 

Most of my disappointment and probably the root of others' anger too is that the setup was not fleshed-out to the point it needed to be for it to be shocking or satisfying.

 

We need the fabled unseen 'Peter Jackson 20 hour cut' which gives us scenes and sequences to fill out the episodes and season with a more meaningful denouement. 

 

They fucked over Varys, Jaime, Cersei and Daenerys' character development in one episode! 

 

If I have another praise aside from the visuals and Arya, and that's Emilia Clarke's performance does display the anguish and doubt on her face quite well during the attack.) 

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The madness of Daenerys seems like the 'rightful' (read: poetic) conclusion of the character's arc to me, and it's about the only morsel of satisfaction I've been able to extract from this story (on a visual level) as it comes to a close. As I've read elsewhere online though and in numerous different places: her descent into evil was far too rushed and nowhere near deftly handled enough by the writers or the actor. Not only is it awful characterisation, but it feels even more amateur due to the fact that we've been spoiled by Breaking Bad, and Walter White's long and supremely well written/played slide into evil. By comparison, this Game of Thrones characterisation feels like it was written by a couple of children.

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The previous viewings record for Game of Thrones was 12.07 million people during the first US airing. 

 

The latest episode “The Bells” broke that record with 12.48 million people tuning in. 

 

So far this season has seen a 1.409 million increase in viewers watching the first broadcast (every season has gone seen more people watching the first broadcast).

 

whatever about legitimate internet storytelling complaints the show is still as popular as ever.

 

I’d be surprised if the finale didn’t break this record again. 

 

The Bells was watched by 18.4 million over HBO, HBO Go, and HBO Now in the first 24 hours. Breaking The Long Night’s Record of 17.8 million. 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Tragic Hero narratives are much harder to get right than your run-by-the-mill Hero's Journey.

Especially if you're not even trying.

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1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

Do you really think the filmmakers aren't trying to give it everything they've got?

 

Filmmaking is hard!

 

No if we don’t like something it means someone just didn’t care and gave up on it and risked their reputation by doing something subpar. Filmmakers make perfect things. If it isn’t perfect it just means they were arsed.

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11 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Do you really think the filmmakers aren't trying to give it everything they've got?

 

Oh boo-ho, it's hard. What a fantastic excuse for garbage writing.

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Did Dany know the Iron Fleet were in Westeros? 

 

In Season 7 Euron proclaimed very loudly to all present that he was taking his fleet and sailing away to escape the White Walkers.

 

Did they know the Iron fleet brought the Golden company? If not it’d be understandable if she forgot about the fleet.

Edit: because of Jaime and Theon they definitely would have known they were back.

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26 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

 

No if we don’t like something it means someone just didn’t care and gave up on it and risked their reputation by doing something subpar. Filmmakers make perfect things. If it isn’t perfect it just means they were arsed.

 

Oh do shut up. I've seen you here, doggedly keeping up the sole voice of pragmatism schtick you've got going. Acting like people have no right to be disappointed or bemused by it all, like they're nothing more than a bunch of moaners. What are you anyway, the fucking Game of Thrones defence squad or something?

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Pretty sure she knew.

 

Where was the other Iron Fleet though?

1 minute ago, Quintus said:

 

Oh do shut up. I've seen you here, doggedly keeping up the sole voice of pragmatism schtick you've got going. Acting like people have no right to be disappointed or bemused by it all, like they're nothing more than a bunch of moaners. What are you anyway, the fucking Game of Thrones defence squad or something?

 

That's more Chen than Bilbo, I feel.

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Just now, Stefancos said:

Pretty sure she knew.

 

Where was the other Iron Fleet though?

 

Yara’s? She went back to the Iron Islands. That’s probably the end of her part which is weak. They should have been helping her assault Kings Landing.

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1 minute ago, Stefancos said:

That's more Chen than Bilbo, I feel.

 

Hey, I share the disappointment. I don't think its a very good season, and I wasn't too fond of the previous one, either.

 

But its hardly what its made out to be.

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34 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Do you really think the filmmakers aren't trying to give it everything they've got?

 

Filmmaking is hard!

 

16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Writing movies/TV is excruciatingly difficult.

 

Sometimes you excel, other times, you fall. Doesn't make you a bad writer.

 

All that reads for me is: "Look, they're trying! Don't be so damn critical!"

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8 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

That's more Chen than Bilbo, I feel.

 

I don’t have a problem with criticism of the writing itself. 

 

It’s the idea that anyone involved in a big budget show like this just phones it in or doesn’t care. 

 

It’s obvious these guys weren’t up to the task of the final two seasons and seriously misjudged a lot of things but I’m sure they gave it their best and simply came up short. 

 

The biggest issues these last two season is the fact that it totaled 13 episodes rather than the 20 it needed.

 

But the spectacle has been great and I still find it largely entertaining. 

 

None of the “twists” have put me off the show but they could have been better handled. 

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3 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

It’s obvious these guys weren’t up to the task of the final two seasons and seriously misjudged a lot of things but I’m sure they gave it their best and simply came up short

They specifically asked for all of this to be rushed to get it behind them. If they're not up to the task or not feeling engaged enough with it, get other people to write it all and stay at producing instead of this botched egotrip.

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5 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

It’s obvious these guys weren’t up to the task of the final two seasons and seriously misjudged a lot of things but I’m sure they gave it their best and simply came up short. 

 

Its very obvious that once they started running out of stuff to adapt from Martin, that their own ideas didn't have the same depth and texture.

 

I can't blame them for not being perhaps as talented as I thought they were. But I can certainly criticize their work 

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9 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Its very obvious that once they started running out of stuff to adapt from Martin, that their own ideas didn't have the same depth and texture.

 

I don't know that it's to do with not having books. They did have the plot points from Martin, didn't they? The problem to me is more the brevity of the season. There's something to be said for patiently taking one's time in storytelling. The end result of not doing so, in this case, comes across as choppy and haphazard.

 

Doesn't mean the blokes are bad writers, though.

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