Game of Thrones on HBO

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by sabotai

And I was in this camp for most of the episode. Despite how harsh I sounded earlier, I was close to still liking the episode overall. It's just that around maybe 3/4ths of the way through, one too many "saved in the nick of time" shots happened and it became abundantly clear that no character that was shown to be in danger was in any actual danger. After that, the episode held no tension or suspense for me.

That's a fair encapsulation of my view as well. I could have been just ok with all the issues if they stuck the landing. They didn't. The whole oh man, they are totally going to die now... wait, they got saved in the literal nick of time made it a farce.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by nilodor

I liked the episode, but it was a bit anticlimactic because it felt like the big characters were untouchable. Part of what made GoT interesting was you felt like a big character could get whacked at any moment. It made the show really tense and there was a feeling that at any moment someone could be done for. The last couple of seasons there hasn't been this feeling and I never really felt as on edge watching the last episode as I have in seasons prior.

You can do the red wedding, Ned Stark beheading and Oberyn Martell surprise when you have numerous books explaining how you will be OK with the loss of the these characters. Once Benioff and Weiss lost the books, I think it is much harder to just have a character die randomly. That was George's "genius" and very few people running a show/story have his vision and ability to pivot. Blame George for not finishing the books if you don't like seasons 6-8 - but I can't really blame the HBO show for not killing off Jaime, Davos or Tyrion in season 6-7. That's just too risky for them.

Originally Posted by Radii

To me, this season so far is proving to be far better than the last, despite the issues. This show has long ago become one that doesn't hold up to any sort of close scrutiny regarding plot armor, characters behaving in ways that make sense based on what we know about them, or completely airtight and coherent storytelling. I'm ok with that, I've adjusted my expectations and can still thoroughly enjoy it.

Agree 100%, although I also enjoyed last season.

Basically, this show can't live up to the Sopranos, The Wire, that family of Dramas with near perfect storytelling and writing. Not many shows can.

I would put this up there. I only watched the first two seasons of The Wire (ducks, I know - I need to watch), but I watched the entire Sopranos, Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy. I would put GoT up there with all those other shows in terms of pure enjoyment. I can't remember ever watching a show where nearly every episode flew by like GoT. I do remember slugging through some tough seasons in the Sopranos, Mad Men, SoA and even the Walking Dead.

[Izulde]

Sons of Anarchy ended up being so bad after a few seasons I couldn't finish and ended up nicknaming it Talking Bikers.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Arles

You can do the red wedding, Ned Stark beheading and Oberyn Martell surprise when you have numerous books explaining how you will be OK with the loss of the these characters. Once Benioff and Weiss lost the books, I think it is much harder to just have a character die randomly. That was George's "genius" and very few people running a show/story have his vision and ability to pivot. Blame George for not finishing the books if you don't like seasons 6-8

Yup, I blame GRRM all the fracking time.

[MizzouRah]

I did enjoy the Sopranos and other shows, but nothing flew by like GoT except for maybe Oz.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I did enjoy the Sopranos and other shows, but nothing flew by like GoT except for maybe Oz.

Dexter for me, until around season 5, then it became rough.

I think these shows are all victims of their own success. They become so popular the writers have to keep coming up with story lines and content because they generate so much money for their networks.

Breaking Bad was great because they wrapped it up when they should have, but even that got tedious at times, especially his wife and the plane crash parts.

[PilotMan]

Still not as good a BB.

and....

I've never watched The Wire.

[RainMaker]

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Could only stand the first 3 minutes but he's got good points for sure.

Can't believe they wasted all those Dothrakis.

[RainMaker]

The Dothraki were great. Love Jamie's quote.

"Killing our men wasn't war for them, it was sport"

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I made it through the whole thing, and his best points were in the last few minutes. He's pretty spot on, and it's fine. Lol.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Yup, I blame GRRM all the fracking time.

I wish he'd finished the books earlier, but I can't blame him for this. Benioff & Weiss didn't give us bad or shallow answers to any of the huge series defining questions, they avoided the question. They spent years in interviews bragging about how they asked Martin if R+L=J to prove they were real fans and get him to accept their direction, then they decide to completely abdicate on the question of who the Night King was, or if Jon/Daenerys are Azor Ahai reborn, or what Bran can do. Let alone going completely against the spirit of what he's done by giving plot armor to almost all the big characters?

I haven't finished watching the 37 minute opus RM posted, but we all agree with the main tenets. Doesn't mean we hate the show, and I've acknowledged that it was unlikely it'd match the best theories, but how do you just go with no theories? Even if you have flashbacks this week or a better explanation of what he was doing, how do you have Bran warging into ravens and literally doing nothing productive all battle, or Jon yelling at a dragon who'd already destroyed an entire tower with fire then ducking behind rubble? (I've seen the theory he was yelling "Go" during that, as if the dragon was guarding the Godswood & Jon helped Arya sneak by him, but not a chance I believe that at this point, and even if it's the case why not give a hint of that during the episode?)

[thesloppy]

Yeah, I feel like if I can sit through an entire half-hour argument (and be entertained) it must be pretty strong.

To expand on a common complaint, watching the writers/show-runners lean SO HARD into the most well worn tropes as soon as they got away from the book material makes you wonder how/why these particular folks were drawn to a property whose appeal was built primarily around it's tendency to swerve away from obvious plots & devices?

Are they just so far up their own/industrial Hollywood asses that they thought they were doing something new? Did they not even realize what the appeal of the property was, and just thought it was 'some cool fantasy shit with dragons and zombies'? As Bishop notes, they certainly talked as if they understood exactly what the appeal was for years, so how did they manage to fuck up the delivery so poorly?

[spleen1015]

Its entirely possible that HBO made them take this direction. If by some metric they believed that these major characters were essential to the show's success, HBO could have told them they weren't allowed to kill certain people. I don't believe that but you never know. Crazier shit has happened.

[bob]

Random question for the readers of the books - let's say no more books are completed before GRRM passes away. Would you want someone else to take his notes and unfinished works and complete the series, or would you just consider it unfinished? I don't know enough about how much the book differs from the series to tell if you could just consider the series conclusion to be more or less the book conclusion as well.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by bob

Random question for the readers of the books - let's say no more books are completed before GRRM passes away. Would you want someone else to take his notes and unfinished works and complete the series, or would you just consider it unfinished? I don't know enough about how much the book differs from the series to tell if you could just consider the series conclusion to be more or less the book conclusion as well.

Kind of moot, because GRRM has been on record many times saying he absolutely does not want someone else finishing his books.

BUT...there's a certain Brandon Sanderson who I'm sure is ready and waiting. And I'd be perfectly okay with that.

[bob]

Fair enough, but I'm just curious what the readers would want, regardless of the likelihood of it.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by bob

Random question for the readers of the books - let's say no more books are completed before GRRM passes away. Would you want someone else to take his notes and unfinished works and complete the series, or would you just consider it unfinished? I don't know enough about how much the book differs from the series to tell if you could just consider the series conclusion to be more or less the book conclusion as well.

I'd want someone to finish it. Or at the very least publish all his notes and unfinished works.

I consider the show to be more of a 'fanfic' than a real conclusion to the book series. I mean they'll get to the same ending, but in a pretty different way (considering two/three major plot lines in the books they didn't include in the show).

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I mean they'll get to the same ending

I'm not very confident in this.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I'm not very confident in this.

Well I doubt the showrunners are going to change who's sitting on The Iron Throne at the end (the deaths may be different in getting there).

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Kind of moot, because GRRM has been on record many times saying he absolutely does not want someone else finishing his books.

BUT...there's a certain Brandon Sanderson who I'm sure is ready and waiting. And I'd be perfectly okay with that.

I like Sanderson and if he's willing, I'm all for it (regardless of what that ass GRRM thinks ... yes I'm bitter). There are probably others that can do the job but Sanderson has the creds with The Wheel of Time.

[bronconick]

I can't imagine Sanderson being willing. His writing is completely different from Martin and I suspect he took WOT because he was already interested and if he pulled it off, he'd be more likely to get support for Stormlight. I'd expect someone would have to be writing darker and grittier then I've seen him do (unless the Stormlight Archive is now. I haven't started since GRRM burned me on starting new 7-10 book series until they're close to completion)

[sabotai]

He already said a few years ago that he wouldn't. ("mistborn" is Brandon Sanderson's reddit user name.)

(Spoilers Everything) TWOW isn't coming this year, is it? : asoiaf

Calling me in to work on this piece would be like calling in Spielberg to finish a Tarantino film.

Pretty much sums it up quite accurately.

[RainMaker]

That video is too long. Just watch the last 5-10 minutes. It sums up how they kind of fucked up the show.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by bronconick

I can't imagine Sanderson being willing. His writing is completely different from Martin and I suspect he took WOT because he was already interested and if he pulled it off, he'd be more likely to get support for Stormlight. I'd expect someone would have to be writing darker and grittier then I've seen him do (unless the Stormlight Archive is now. I haven't started since GRRM burned me on starting new 7-10 book series until they're close to completion)

Stormlight Archive is definitely a little darker and grittier than Mistborn, but still nowhere near ASoIaF. And there's plenty of other fantasy series out there, but no one I'd trust to complete one more than Sanderson, so if that's all that's putting you off from starting the series I don't think it applies in this case.

[ISiddiqui]

Sanderson wouldn't work, but James S.A. Corey, the two authors who collaborate to write The Expanse probably would: Ty Franck was GRRM's assistant and Daniel Abraham has worked with GRRM on other things (such as Hunter's Run and Wild Cards).

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

That video is too long. Just watch the last 5-10 minutes. It sums up how they kind of fucked up the show.

Right before the last 10 minutes though there is a fantastic part about how plate armor doesn't do anything in this show anymore - especially humorous considering it happens to Jorah who shows in Season 1 that plate armor stops random swords.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I consider the show to be more of a 'fanfic' than a real conclusion to the book series. I mean they'll get to the same ending, but in a pretty different way (considering two/three major plot lines in the books they didn't include in the show).

I think this is the right attitude. Off the bat, it's hard to have the movie/TV medium match the books. In a book, you can do a deep dive until a backstory or the mind of a character to understand things better. That just doesn't work well on TV. So, I think the prophecy/Azor Ahai or history of the Night's King just isn't well suited for the TV series. Doesn't mean it isn't important when reading the books or even important to the story. It just means that it wasn't a good fit for TV.

You also have to consider the odds of something tipping off something in the future in TV. Take the House of the Undying - if Dany walks into a room with a feast of corpses with a dead man sitting on the throne with the head of a wolf is pretty big tell for the red wedding. I can understand the show not wanting to tip that off.

This is one reason I'm glad I never read all the books before seeing the show. I think it becomes very hard to focus on the great experience of the show if you are constantly comparing it to what you expected when reading the books.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Arles

This is one reason I'm glad I never read all the books before seeing the show. I think it becomes very hard to focus on the great experience of the show if you are constantly comparing it to what you expected when reading the books.

Albeit in the first 4 seasons this comparison leading to disappointment was pretty rare. The show wasn't as good as the books, but did a good job for the most part. They dove a decent amount into the backstory. Not too much for the show to be labored, but also adhered to the plot well.

Season 5 is when it all started to go off the rails for me, a book reader first and foremost (and the show's Dorne plotline was straight ass - which is a shame because I quite liked the Dornish plotline in the books).

[thesloppy]

I haven't read any of the books, but still feel that the show is pretty disappointing. As noted before, at one point the show was remarkably different than any other fantasy fare, and it just slowly morphed into rote fantasy bullshit that everyone has seen a million times before.

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I haven't read any of the books, but still feel that the show is pretty disappointing. As noted before, at one point the show was remarkably different than any other fantasy fare, and it just slowly morphed into rote fantasy bullshit that everyone has seen a million times before.

Books peaked with the third one and the show peaked at the same point.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Arles

I think this is the right attitude. Off the bat, it's hard to have the movie/TV medium match the books. In a book, you can do a deep dive until a backstory or the mind of a character to understand things better. That just doesn't work well on TV. So, I think the prophecy/Azor Ahai or history of the Night's King just isn't well suited for the TV series. Doesn't mean it isn't important when reading the books or even important to the story. It just means that it wasn't a good fit for TV.

You also have to consider the odds of something tipping off something in the future in TV. Take the House of the Undying - if Dany walks into a room with a feast of corpses with a dead man sitting on the throne with the head of a wolf is pretty big tell for the red wedding. I can understand the show not wanting to tip that off.

This is one reason I'm glad I never read all the books before seeing the show. I think it becomes very hard to focus on the great experience of the show if you are constantly comparing it to what you expected when reading the books.

I agree that the House of the Undying prophecy's and the psychological chapters would be impossible to show on TV, but idk why that means the Azor Ahai or Night King's history couldn't be. The books didn't even have an official Night King, let alone the parts that implied the Night King was more than just an avatar of evil (him turning one of Craster's sons, raising the dead at Hardhome, the scene where the Children created him). That was entirely the show building mythology, and then when it came to the climax they just treated him like a faceless big bad?

I thought the directors did a pretty good job condensing material the first few seasons. I didn't understand why they messed up the Dornish or Qhorin Halfhand plotlines, but they did add some awesome Tywin/Arya scenes at Harrenhal and I'm ecstatic they eliminated the Lady Stoneheart plotline, so I considered it a wash. But the other parts boggle my mind. Take Melisandre's arc for example - they took the shocking decision to have Stannis sacrifice Shireen on Melisandre's recommendation, have our heroes (Jon/Stannis) figure it out, a scene where Jon & Stannis come to a head & Jon decides to only banish her... then she shows up during the Battle of Winterfell (okay), and everyone is pretty excited she's there (wait, what?), before finishing the episode with Stannis just watching her walk to her death of her own volition?

[thesloppy]

Yeah, Melisandre's character arc sucked. Even her arc within that episode was nose-scrunching. She prophesies her own death like some epic shit is going to happen and then she just walks off after everything is over, takes off a necklace and willingly turns to dust? BOOOooOOOooOO! How the hell is that consistent with her character in any way? You know what would've made a ton more sense and been way more satisfying, with exactly the same result? Letting Davos fucking execute her. Instead Melisandre and the Onion Knight perform an intricate dance around that possibility for fucking YEARS of both literary and actual time, and then she walks off and turns into a fart. Yay?

[BishopMVP]

I thought for sure she was a goner during the scene she was forced to (slowly) walk to the trench to light it (despite Jon clearly also being there on his dragon), but at least that would've given her death purpose. They clearly thought her death was supposed to be impactful because they ended the episode with it, but just like Theon I strongly disagree that they actually redeemed the character before focusing on their death.

[bhlloy]

Yup, the one character arc worse than any other. Her flame pit failed miserably, her Dothraki party trick got them all killed so her entire purpose was to be there to give Arya a "go get em kid" speech. Awesome.

[Lathum]

Rewatched last night with lights off and on a better TV, was much easier to see. My wife amazingly avoided spoilers all week to watch for the first time. She called Arya doing the deed as soon as she ran from the library.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Rewatched last night with lights off and on a better TV, was much easier to see. My wife amazingly avoided spoilers all week to watch for the first time. She called Arya doing the deed as soon as she ran from the library.

My friend I was watching it with mentioned it before the episode started, it makes so much sense to pay off all of Arya's training and skillset. It doesn't make sense in that this is Jon Snow's war so the best payoff to a character arc probably would have been to have Jon do it. But, Jon is my least favorite character on the show and Arya is possibly my favorite, so it worked for me!

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I haven't read any of the books, but still feel that the show is pretty disappointing. As noted before, at one point the show was remarkably different than any other fantasy fare, and it just slowly morphed into rote fantasy bullshit that everyone has seen a million times before.

The last 10 minutes or so of the video Rainmaker posted above summed it up fairly well. It's like 75% of stuff we were led to believe was important was shown to not matter at all and the entire underlying theme of the show is now different than the books.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Right before the last 10 minutes though there is a fantastic part about how plate armor doesn't do anything in this show anymore - especially humorous considering it happens to Jorah who shows in Season 1 that plate armor stops random swords.

At some point they had to switch to plate armor that was light enough to swim in.

[bob]

Any predictions for tonight? Deaths or otherwise

[Mota]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

To expand on a common complaint, watching the writers/show-runners lean SO HARD into the most well worn tropes as soon as they got away from the book material makes you wonder how/why these particular folks were drawn to a property whose appeal was built primarily around it's tendency to swerve away from obvious plots & devices?

Just because you're a fan of this complicated material, doesn't put you in a position to create equally compelling and complex material. They've proven that they've done a great job of taken previously written material and turning it into the best show on TV, but when it comes to writing the conclusion themselves, it's obviously over their heads.

I still love the season so far, but this is definitely the Hollywood version of Game of Thrones, not the GRRM version. Not that there is a GRRM version anymore.

[NobodyHere]

I think hearing reactions from Game Thrones is more entertaining at this point than actually watching Game of Thrones.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Mota

Just because you're a fan of this complicated material, doesn't put you in a position to create equally compelling and complex material.

You just described my issue with the current state of TWD.

The farther from the source things get, the weaker things become.

[JPhillips]

Is there any good reason for Cersei not to kill Dany after beheading Missandei? With the archers and ballistas the odds seem high that Dany would fall.

And what happened to the tens of thousands of dead at Winterfell?

[ISiddiqui]

Well that was quite good. The scheming by Tyrion and Varys reminded me of past seasons. I get Dany not wanting to share the throne with Jon, but why not see if they could float the idea to her (after letting Jon know that they know, of course)?

Those trebuchets were badass against Rheagal. Wow.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Edward64]

Poor dragon.

Don't think 2 more episodes is enough for a satisfying ending. Need more time to play it out, it seems rushed.

[ISiddiqui]

Although someone online pointed out, during the sea battle scene, why didn't Dany just circle around behind Euron's ships and light them up? Yeah... that does seem quite a bit too obvious, doesn't it?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Is there any good reason for Cersei not to kill Dany after beheading Missandei? With the archers and ballistas the odds seem high that Dany would fall.

I think everyone still honors the parley rights. She's not willing to go against that tradition, unlike how Tywin was fine with the Freys violating guest right (then again, it wasn't Tywin who transgressed the right there).

[TexasT]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Although someone online pointed out, during the sea battle scene, why didn't Dany just circle around behind Euron's ships and light them up? Yeah... that does seem quite a bit too obvious, doesn't it?

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Although someone online pointed out, during the sea battle scene, why didn't Dany just circle around behind Euron's ships and light them up? Yeah... that does seem quite a bit too obvious, doesn't it?

I said that to my wife. Same thing at Kings Landing