Game of Thrones (TV, fantasy) Thread

[Stadler]

So, I'm halfway through Season 8 now.  I watched through "The Long Night" last night.  Uh...  I'm of two minds here. I'm not going to comment too too much until I watch all six, but I have this sinking suspicion I've watched the best that Season 8 has to offer, and it goes down hill from here.

I watch the "Inside The Episode" shorts at the end of each episode, and the two D-Bags must've referenced "the characters we love" like 160 times.   Plus, D-Bag (Weiss) keeps talking of "Daeny" and, later, "Mel" (Melisandre) as if they are long lost friends, and I cringe every single time.  Brah, when you fall in love with your characters, that's the end of the road.  We - at least I - count on them to serve the STORY, not my comic book impressions of what SHOULD happen (or what I want to happen) to any given character.   

Did I mention, I do not like faux redemption.  Theon didn't deserve to have his "moment" (as D-Bag called it).  He's been a flawed, failing character all series long, I didn't want nor need a sea change redemption at the end.  He could have served Bran and still been true to character, but he wasn't.   I'm still processing Jorah, but I think I might feel the same way there.  I did like The Hound cowering in the corner, though; that was a nice touch (and I really like The Hound as a character). 

I have really come to like Sansa, though.  Very much.  When she basically called Tyrion a fool for believing his sister, that was priceless. 

[gmillerdrake]

Bill.....I think you nailed it with the diagnosis that those guys fell in love with their characters. It’s evident in the writing....especially the last season. Even in ‘The Long Night’ there was zero reason for Jamie, Brienne, Padrick and Sam to have survived the situations they were in. Or for Jorah to have survived the initial charge into the White Walker hoard.

[Chino]

For some reason, reading Bill's thoughts on this is filling me with joy.

[MirrorMask]

To be fair, Dany has long been a nickname for her in the entire fandom, so it's not out of this world to see the authors adopt the name as well, but yes, I get your point and I agree that they started to like too much their favorite characters.

Now that you've seen it with a fresh mind and not with the hype of people living it in real time... what do you think of the resolution? I think it's beyond cheap and logistically out of nowhere (not the person, the final act itself), but maybe you liked it and to you it made sense.

[Stadler]

So I watched the last three episodes yesterday, and frankly, I'm speechless.   I really don't know what I think at this point.  It wasn't my choice, but the occupant of the Iron Throne isn't the worst choice of all time (though I think it is a leap).   All my points above still hold, but one, the characterizations, is even more strongly felt.

I'm disappointed in several of the outcomes.   Varys; he didn't "serve more kings and queens than any man alive" by being careless or sloppy.  And yet... his plotting against Danaerys was "Batchelor" level intrigue (which is to say, zero intrigue at all).  Bronn; only cares about himself, sells out Tyrion, Jaime, then Cersei to cover/save his own ass. And yet... becomes Master Of Coin to the new regime that is supposedly "breaking the wheel".  In fact, that whole King's Council scene made me want to throw my remote at the TV.  Even Jon Snow; he's had this dilemma before; the personal honor versus the honor of Man, and he had no problems betraying personal confidences for the betterment of the greater cause, but it seemed as if he went the opposite here.   He's naive in some ways, but he can't be that naive after all he has seen.  He HAD to know it would turn out as it did (or at least close). I'm not talking about the King's landing outcome, I mean all the intrigue that surrounded it.  The way the Unsullied reacted, etc.   he's no stranger to intrigue; he lied to the Wildings about the killing of Halfhand (or whatever his name was) so it shouldn't have been a challenge to him. 

I did like the Cersei plot line, in the sense that I'm glad there wasn't some huge redemptive play for Arya, or Jaime... though they did forget about the two prophesies (that Cersei would die with hands around her neck, and that Arya would kill brown eyes, blue eyes and green eyes). 

I liked Sansa's outcome; she did remain true to her character.  But I didn't like the final outcome for Jon or Arya; I thought both were underwhelming and didn't do justice to the characters.  I would have thought at least as the last living Targaryan that Jon would have a seat at the council to decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms.  Yes, I know the Unsullied had him, but that was just too simple.  It's Game of Fucking Thrones; capture Grey Worm and arrange a trade.   

Overall, though, I don't know.  I feel...  sort of empty.  I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, and that's kind of the problem; Game Of Thrones wasn't about neutral.   

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Overall, though, I don't know.  I feel...  sort of empty.  I didn't hate it, I didn't love it, and that's kind of the problem; Game Of Thrones wasn't about neutral.

Pretty much my feelings too after the show. I didn't feel like talking about the outcome at all and I just wanted to forget it all together which is so sad since it's been my favourite show for so many years.

[Chino]

The unsullied left. Jon could have turned around after hiding out for a day or two and come back. It was so stupid.

[Stadler]

The unsullied left. Jon could have turned around after hiding out for a day or two and come back. It was so stupid.

And where the f*** was Ser Davos?  He was the epitome of a pragmatic diplomat, but he had every reason - based on the history of the character (partly, but not limited to the Battle of Blackwater Bay) - to side with Aegon Targaryan and demand he be heard.  He was with Daenarys because of JON, not her. 

[The Walrus]

Yep.

Never mind the Dothraki, who, upon realizing that their Khaleesi is dead - the same Khaleesi they've served faithfully for many years at this point, crossed an ocean which let's not forget is no small deal for the Dothraki, fought the mythical undead army of the Night King - just decide to pack up and leave. GTFO.

[MirrorMask]

There was also the technicality that, in Dothraki culture, a Khal would choose three bloodriders who would be bound to the Khal for life, and killing themselves upon the Khal's death. Dany chose EVERYONE as her bloodriders, so they should have avenged her death and then commit mass suicide.

Also, speaking of avenging... random Lannister soldiers who were just doing their job, possibly fighting for their own life and home, and that already surrended? slaughter them all to the very last man. Jon Snow kills Daenerys? eh, lock him in a cell and wait for people to decide what to do with him, if the dwarf who turned on Dany says to exile him at worst and make a random cripple a king, that'll do.

[MoraWintersoul]

I think D&D kinda forgot about all those details you are all mentioning

[Stadler]

And that goes back to my first couple posts; that's because Douche and Douche fell in love with themselves and the characters.  They talked about all this in the "Inside the Episodes".  I forget the exact episode, but in one of the late season seven discussions D(ouche) B(ag) kept saying "we love these characters".  No we don't.  I mean, we do, but we fell in love with the way they were in seasons one through six.   Don't go changing them up because you want to get cheers and applause at some Game Of Thrones watching party, which is what I felt was more important in late season seven and most of season eight. 

My opinion only; I know my daughter is already getting tired of me saying that.  "Dad, you got to get over that Marvel Comics thing, for real."   

[Stadler]

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but I was in the shower today thinking of Varys...  wait, let me rephrase that.   

I think as time goes on I'm most bothered by the resolution to the Varys story line.  That just seemed to false to me. Varys was the guy that was willing to let Ned Stark die for the good of the kingdom, and he can't figure a way to get Jon Snow to see it his way?  Tyrion did, albeit too late, but Varys is in that way more crafty than Tyrion.   He's the Spider for f***'s sake. 

[The Walrus]

Stadler, if you have time, I really think you'd love Lindsay Ellis's witty, sometimes dry, but thoroughly academic breakdown of what exactly went wrong with the end of Game of Thrones. I think you'd agree with a lot of her sayings, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8 for part 1, if you're curious and have the time. Just sharing because there's a lot of points you're touching on that she hits on, particularly Varys and how stupid he gets at the end due to the writing. After watching her videos I can't get enough of the little "ho-hum" move Varys does where he drums his knuckles on the table. Kind of sums up how much D&D knew what to do with Varys after Martin's material ran dry. Lol.

[Adami]

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but I was in the shower today thinking of Varys...  wait, let me rephrase that.   

I think as time goes on I'm most bothered by the resolution to the Varys story line.  That just seemed to false to me. Varys was the guy that was willing to let Ned Stark die for the good of the kingdom, and he can't figure a way to get Jon Snow to see it his way?  Tyrion did, albeit too late, but Varys is in that way more crafty than Tyrion.   He's the Spider for f***'s sake.

I think you're COMPLETELY missing the point there bro. I mean....remember when the dragon came out of the darkness and burned him alive?

WASN'T THAT SO COOL!?!?!?

[hefdaddy42]

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but I was in the shower today thinking of Varys...   

As one will.

[MirrorMask]

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but I was in the shower today thinking of Varys...  wait, let me rephrase that.   

I think as time goes on I'm most bothered by the resolution to the Varys story line.  That just seemed to false to me. Varys was the guy that was willing to let Ned Stark die for the good of the kingdom, and he can't figure a way to get Jon Snow to see it his way?  Tyrion did, albeit too late, but Varys is in that way more crafty than Tyrion.   He's the Spider for f***'s sake.

Well, I lknow this takes out all the fun, but.... try to apply Occam's Razor, or if you prefer, Littlefinger's speech about "I think the worst in a man's behavior and then I see how much that justifies their actions".

Take Star Wars for example - we could debate hours about some stuff in the original trilogy, especially the first movie... why Obi-Wan called Darth Vader "Darth"? why he told Luke he killed Anakin? why Leila kissed Luke out of spite?

Try to answer all those questions with "George Lucas didn't have the whole trilogy planned and he made it up as he went along". See how that explains all those head-scratching moments from Star Wars.

Now, onto any plot decision that puzzles you for the last two season of Game of Thrones. Try to answer any question with "D&D's main dream was to reach the Red Wedding, from then on they gradually lost interest with the show and decided eventually to wrap it up as quick as possible, using the bullet points GRRM gave them to reach the ending". See how well that explains what happened in the final two seasons. It explains it pretty well if you ask me.

[MoraWintersoul]

Varys is an incredibly opaque character. Even in scenes where he's all alone with characters who are about to die, you have no idea if he is telling the truth. Right now we have about half a clue as to why he is doing what he is doing right now (in the books), but no idea about his long game. So that whole plotline is deleted and we get Varys as a sort of a protector of the realm, the one that the audience can look to to see what the good of the realm actually is. Pretty good, if you ask me, the series lacks characters to look at, in that sense. And he wants to crown Dany at first, for obvious reasons.

The whole point of Targaryens ruling is that, while they effectively colonized the continent with their dragons (which is, well, bad), at least the dragons can quickly extinguish rebellions and maintain peace between the different kingdoms. So far so good. Then you have the wars between different dragon riders, and then the dragons slowly die out, and what you're left with is a bunch of foreign-looking weirdos who squabble between each other, "answer to neither gods nor men", aren't too reproductively successful due to all the incest, have a proclivity towards doing dumb shit to hatch another dragon, and so on and so forth. So when Dany comes with three dragons and armies after a series of successful conquests, it's logical that Varys backs her, because that's good for the realm. You won't have bitter families fighting to see who gets the throne anymore, and we're back to "normalcy". Good for the whole "game of thrones" bit of the show.

But Varys loses his freaking mind over Jon because he dunnwannit, even though he has no armies, no dragons and a very suspicious claim to the throne. It's because he is there to show the audience where we should look, so his sudden loss of intelligence and cunning is supposed to say "hey look, I'm against her now and you should quit rooting for her and start rooting for Jon, because that's the story beat we're trying to hit now, and now she's torching me, gbye, remember what I told you". It makes zero sense because they're bad at writing characters.

[Stadler]

Mora, I appreciate your insight, and I think I agree, at least insofar as the two D-Bags go.

One thing the last three episodes did, though, is spur me on to read the books.  Now my dilemma is, do I start now, or wait until Martin gets another volume out (I understand there are two more in the series). 

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

In all honesty, the chance of GGRM putting out one more book in the series is fairly low, let alone two. I'd consider it a series unlikely to actually be finished, and proceed based on your level of comfort with that designation.

[faizoff]

On another note, the season 8 boxset comes out tomorrow and I was originally planning to grab the collector's edition box but it's $250 which is way too steep for me. I think I'll stick to the regular season 8 set.

[MoraWintersoul]

Now my dilemma is, do I start now, or wait until Martin gets another volume out (I understand there are two more in the series).

Don't know what to tell you. I'm very glad I read them, the books are so insanely rich in symbolism, the reread value is immense, but there's a 90% chance the last book is never coming out, and that's optimistic of me. Three years ago we were waiting for the sixth book announcement/release date, and instead we got "yeah, it's not happening, sorry about that", and insider reports have come out saying he was very close to finishing but scrapped hundreds of pages. Some optimists say there's a chance the sixth book is coming out next year, so if you still wanna read them next year even if it doesn't come out, go for it. There's also two "history"/"world" books and three lovely novellas in the world so there's a lot of content.

[KevShmev]

Given how mixed the reaction was to the final season and how vocal the dissenters have been, I'll be curious to see how well the box set of the entire series sells, especially given that high cost.

[cramx3]

Mora, I appreciate your insight, and I think I agree, at least insofar as the two D-Bags go.

One thing the last three episodes did, though, is spur me on to read the books.  Now my dilemma is, do I start now, or wait until Martin gets another volume out (I understand there are two more in the series).

The books are great, a much more in depth world GRRM built there.  However, I wouldn't recommend anyone read them at this point.  You'll end up just like the rest of us, angry.  I think reading the books before watching has benefits, but reading after watching and knowing there is likely no end in the books feels like kind of a huge disappointment and waste of time.  Those books are very long.  But if you want more from the GOT universe, that's where you can get it.

[Stadler]

Hey, quick informal poll:  what say us about Jaime Lannister.  Did he know he was going to his death?  Did he PLAN on going to his death (that is, he realized, seeing Danaerys and being with Brienne that he had to end her downward spiral)?   Had Cersei and/or he lived, he would have been a "Lannister" and would not have been able to distance himself from the house like Tyrion did; I'm starting to think that he led Cersei downstairs knowing they would never come back out, and knowing she would die there but at least calm in the knowledge she wasn't going to burn at the mouth of a dragon, or die by the bite of a wolf. 

[KevShmev]

Hey, quick informal poll:  what say us about Jaime Lannister.  Did he know he was going to his death?  Did he PLAN on going to his death (that is, he realized, seeing Danaerys and being with Brienne that he had to end her downward spiral)?   Had Cersei and/or he lived, he would have been a "Lannister" and would not have been able to distance himself from the house like Tyrion did; I'm starting to think that he led Cersei downstairs knowing they would never come back out, and knowing she would die there but at least calm in the knowledge she wasn't going to burn at the mouth of a dragon, or die by the bite of a wolf.

I think Jaime had every intention of getting Cersei and himself out there using the escape boat and route Tyrion had set up, but once he got down there and saw that all paths out were blocked due to fallen rocks, he knew their fate was sealed.

[Chino]

I'm with Kev. He had every intention of coming out of that castle.

[gmillerdrake]

Hey, quick informal poll:  what say us about Jaime Lannister.  Did he know he was going to his death?  Did he PLAN on going to his death (that is, he realized, seeing Danaerys and being with Brienne that he had to end her downward spiral)?   Had Cersei and/or he lived, he would have been a "Lannister" and would not have been able to distance himself from the house like Tyrion did; I'm starting to think that he led Cersei downstairs knowing they would never come back out, and knowing she would die there but at least calm in the knowledge she wasn't going to burn at the mouth of a dragon, or die by the bite of a wolf.

I think Jaime had every intention of getting Cersei and himself out there using the escape boat and route Tyrion had set up, but once he got down there and saw that all paths out were blocked due to fallen rocks, he knew their fate was sealed.

I'm with Kev. He had every intention of coming out of that castle.

Yeah. He was a cunning warrior and there was no way he was just trying to get them both a comfortable death. He went back for her to rescue her and to escape.

[hefdaddy42]

I would vote to read the books.  However, I rage daily that the next book isn't yet out, and I wouldn't be surprised if the final volume never gets written, let alone published.

[The Walrus]

Read the books, Stadler, if only to get through the first one. I tried reading them multiple times throughout the years all the way back to high school, but after the show wrapped I got through the first book, and just... wow. It finally clicked, and it's an incredible read. Definitely one of the best written fantasy novels you'll find.

[Stadler]

Interesting.  For what it's worth, Jaime was one of my favorite characters in that show.  ("Favorite" as in "interesting", not necessarily "likeable", though I really like Nickolai Coster-Waldau).

[kaos2900]

At some point over the next couple of years I want to rewatch the whole series. I really don't mind the final season other than the fact that so many people survived the Battle of Winterfell. I don't even really mind Bran "winning" the throne.

[Chino]

Stads, don't click this.   


 

https://gfycat.com/measlyillustriousafricanrockpython-plan-about-nothing-game-of-thrones-bran-stark

Stads - You can watch this now.

[KevShmev]

Interesting.  For what it's worth, Jaime was one of my favorite characters in that show.  ("Favorite" as in "interesting", not necessarily "likeable", though I really like Nickolai Coster-Waldau).

I can't say Jaime became one of my favorites, but I hated him early on and couldn't wait for his eventual death, and then really came around to liking him quite a bit.

If you like Coster-Waldau, check out some of the interviews he has done with Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth); they are all over YouTube.  Those two together are hysterical.

[MirrorMask]

Interesting.  For what it's worth, Jaime was one of my favorite characters in that show.  ("Favorite" as in "interesting", not necessarily "likeable", though I really like Nickolai Coster-Waldau).

Yeah, same here, he was very fun to watch. Also, his scene in the bathroom with Brienne when he explains what really happened to the Mad King is one of the very best of the entire show. That's probably when basically everyone changed their opinion of Jaimie.