Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones – Arya Stark (McFarlane)

After enjoying Jon Snow and The Night King, I decided to keep up on the Game of Thrones line with Arya Stark. For what it’s worth, I probably won’t pick up Daenerys, the likeness is just too off in the face and she is overall too large. Maybe if I found her for cheap but at the moment, I don’t plan on it. I am looking forward to potential future waves of these figures, despite the disappointing series finale.

There isn’t really anything to add about the line in regards to Arya that hasn’t been said already about the previous two figures I’ve talked about. She shares most of the same high and low points. The detailing is really nice on her sculp and accessories, though, her likeness is a bit off on the head sculpt. Jon, Arya, and Dany all have this weird slightly squished look going on and the noses all seem a little too large. John fares the best, Arya is ok, but it really shows on Dany, which is why I am skipping her.

Arya does have a few issues not as present with Jon though. Her skirt isn’t as forgiving as Jon’s long coat, so her hip articulation is pretty useless. This also means all of her leg articulation is pretty useless. I may run some slits up the sides or something on mine just to let her legs have some freedom. Jon Snow’s outfit has opening and some layering going on so it allowed motion. The Night King also had slits up the sides of his skirt piece by design.

Arya also has nowhere to store her weapons. None of the figures do, actually. Some scabbards would have been nice on Arya and Jon. Jon sort of got away with this because his dagger could be slipped under his belt. the Night King barely uses his weapons in the show and seems to just pass them off to lackeys when he isn’t using them so he didn’t really need anything. Arya doesn’t get the luxury of a belt or any sort of scabbard or a zombie follower to carry her sword, so she has no way to just stand in a neutral pose while still armed.

If you are a fan of this show but not really super into the figures, Arya isn’t awful but she would be an easy pass in favor of Jon or the excellent Night King. Like I said, I am still looking forward to more from this line, but I worry the much hated finale will kill any chance of more being made.

Game of Thrones – The Night King (McFarlane)

May 14th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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After being satisfied with Jon Snow, I decided I’d add another figure to my little Game of Thrones collection with the Night King. Mostly because Dany and Arya weren’t available, but having a villain, however lame his ending ended up being, is always fun.

The Night King continues the bar set by Jon Snow, he has a lot of nice detailing going on across his armor and in this case his face. Being a White Walker, which is essentially zombie, his skin is a bit decayed and creepy looking. This is also where his blue coloring comes from. He is a lot more clean looking than your average zombie however, but I guess that’s part of what makes him the leader of the undead army.

The articulation is pretty nice as well, the long coat is designed in a way that it doesn’t really hinder his leg movement much, which is a nice plus. Rubber skirts on figures tends to completely kill any hip articulation, which makes everything else below that useless as well.

He also includes two weapons. One is a sort of Ice Sword, though it has a long handle and is curved making it more of a sharpened Ice club really. He also has his “iconic” Ice Spear, that he used to down Viserion. He can mostly make the throwing pose but he only has “grippy hands” so he can’t pose with a fingers out “javelin pose” like he does in the show. Not a huge loss, but kind of annoying. The weapons look nice, though they also feel a little fragile.

The Night King is pretty nice on display. He can pose pretty well, though the character in the show never really did a lot of cool poses aside from stand around looking menacing before dying.

Game of Thrones – Jon Snow (McFarlane)

May 7th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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So, now that Game of Thrones is almost over, McFarlane Toys has decided to make some action figures for it. I imagine that part of the last minute feel is that Funko previously held the license, preventing anyone else from making figures. I mean there are a lot of properties that get toys after the fact, but this feels like odd timing.

This is also the first McFarlane toy I have bought in a long time. I’m talking possibly close to like 15 years or more long time. Last time I even thought about McFarlane, they made a lot of Spawn figures, and they made a lot of oddball stuff like, KISS or random Anime figures. Also, “figures” was a very operative term, since most of their stuff were basically “statues with joints”. They tended to be a kind of brittle on the plastic quality.

They apparently caught up over the years though at some point. The plastic on Jon Snow here is comparable to any other mainline US toy line, maybe a little stiffer than your average Marvel Legends, but it doesn’t feel like I’m going to snap apart the joints just by looking at it, the way a lot of older McFarlane toys (and modern NECA) toys feel.

The articulation is also pretty good. He doesn’t have any double joints on elbows or knees but otherwise everything is nice universal joints all around. This is definitely a nice pleasant surprise since it means he can actually make more than 1 pose and one sort of pose.

The sculpt and paint are also pretty good. The head looks like Kit Harrington, albeit a squinty brooding Kit Harrington, but it does look like him. The quilted armor overcoat he is wearing has all sorts of little nicks and dings detailing to it and there are all sorts of nice little silver buckles details on his belt and other parts. He also is a few different shades of black and dark brown in his armor, and not all just one color. The beard also looks pretty good, a point that is often easily screwed up on some figures where it looks too painted on.

This figure, and the other figures in the wave seem to more closely follow the Season 7 look vs the current Season 8 look, though most of the character don’t really change their look a while lot throughout the show. Jon has two accessories, one is Longclaw, his sword, with a little wolf head sculpted on the hilt, and the other is a dragonglass dagger, useful for stabbing white walkers.

One last thing to mention, this figure is definitely better than the previous Funko figures. I only have a few of the older line but I can say these are definitely a better likeness on the heads. That said, the two lines go together pretty well. The style is very similar and mixing them together shouldn’t be a problem, especially if McFarlane doesn’t release more, since the Funko line could help fill in some of the gaps in characters.