Game of Thrones

I don't have any problems with the direction of the characters (except maybe Bronn, whose story has, at least for now, become incomprehensible), but I have a big problem with anything where the explanation is "Not enough time". They don't have time to show more of the progression? Or the character development? Or anything about the Night King?

Who made THAT decision and why were they ever allowed to make decisions on anything up to and including what kind of coffee they want from Starbucks?

I can't imagine HBO saying they want less of the show that for many, including me, is the only reason to even have HBO. I already know I'm cancelling my account next month. Once GoT is over, I no longer need it. Even if they ever do something I care about, I can wait to see it elsewhere. I only got it in the first place because this show got so popular that even waiting a single day for it to hit itunes meant risking major spoilers.

As for the cast and creative team, someone should tell them that most of them are living the first line of their obituary and that maybe it's worth a few more episodes to stick the landing.

And it's also not like the audience is going anywhere. Especially if they maintained the feel of earlier seasons.

As it is, there's been above all else, a definite change in the pacing of the show. It just feels rushed, which is sad since there's no good reason to rush it and many reasons to take their time.
 
Speaking of Bronn, I have this feeling he might show up one more time.I can totally see him showing up out of nowhere and killing Tyrion now because why the hell not.
 
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By chance do you think Cersie is still alive? Yes we know Jamie was bleeding out and is a dead body. But possibly she is still alive since you don’t see the rocks hit them. The ceiling is falling all over the place but maybe a small patch of space didn’t collapse on them. Maybe hid in the old dragon skull? I think the show is going to try to do 1 or 2 surprises. Since everything has almost been blah and not shocking at all this season...beyond how the F didn’t they die? So maybe she will be found and someone else gets to do the killing of her. Idk, i feel cheated by gravity lol
 
By chance do you think Cersie is still alive?


Yup was saying above that they died by bricks... and for some reason in GOT if you’re an internet fave, have to die by the hands of a main character... so I’m guessing neither are done.

Plus loose end with Brienne.

They’ll probably wanna close the stark loose ends. Cersei was pretty involved in their family getting screwed over....

She died in front of no one by accident?

Nope
 
Here's one take on Daenerys from last night:

How Game of Thrones did Daenerys wrong

She wasn't mad, she wasn't angry, she didn't "flip." She decided what she was going to do back in Dragonstone, before they ever left for Kings Landing. The people in Kings Landing have no particular allegiance to their ruler, they follow whoever sits on the throne and holds power, Tyrion reminds her of this multiple times by telling her how easily they would turn on Cersei. That's not a useful quality for a ruler, they'd have no more allegiance to Daenerys than Cersei, they just passively obey whoever is in charge at that moment.

She goes on to point out how the citizens in Mereen liberated their city and "saved themselves" further attempting to justify what she's already planning to do. When the bells start ringing, she's not "going crazy" she's angry because their surrender doesn't change what she's about to do, she no longer has any justifiable excuse for her actions, but believes she has to do them anyway. If not love, then fear. Her rule has to be absolute, there can't be any room for doubt.
 
If she didn't go "mad" or have an emotional outburst resulting in mass murder then she went full on stupid. She's made some poor decisions throughout the show but if this was actually her plan all along it's even worse writing than making her go crazy in the span of two episodes.
 
While I do feel Danni’s character development this season is really rushed, Ive always felt this its final destination. Shes always been a conqueror, not a just and wise ruler of the people. Always needing one of her beloved and trusted advisors talk her down. Remove those that she trusts and loves, leave her surrounded by those that feel neither for her, and what are you left with?

Really though this season should have been two separate seasons. One being the Living vs the Dead, and the last being the Battle for the Throne. Its a shame its so rushed

And for those of you that still dont think this was always Danni’s final destination, I leave you with this
View attachment 1018940

Yeah, I agree that this is pretty clearly her final destination. The issue is that we got there via a wormhole in space-time, rather than an actual journey. If we'd had an actual journey for her, one that really showed the change in her character, we'd get a lot more development, stretching all the way back to Meereen. I mean, Dany locked up her children because one of them burned a child to death, about which she felt deeply responsible and guilty. She didn't torch the citizens indiscriminately when the Sons of the Harpy were running around murdering folks. She didn't burn Vaes Dothrak to the ground and slaughter its citizens for allowing her to be treated so poorly by the Khals. There wasn't, like, one Khal or ex-Khaleesi who was nice to her that she refused to forgive and killed.

If you're going to sell Dany torching the city -- the entire city, including thousands of citizens who suffered under Cersei's rule and likely longed to be free of it themselves -- you need to do a LOT more to sell her paranoia, her frustration, her anger, and her insanity. You need to show her facade cracking, her sense of self-sacrifice in trying to do everything possible for the people she's fighting for, and them repeatedly rejecting her and -- more importantly -- plotting against her. It's not enough for them JUST to say "Nah, we prefer Jon, but hey thanks for helping kill the Night's King." You have to show them either actually plotting to overthrow her or harm her, or show her firmly believing that as part of an increasing descent into paranoia. And the weird thing is that all of that has to happen after the battle against the White Walkers/Others, as well as before to some extent. You need to demonstrate how that battle starts a more precipitous turn towards lunacy mixed with rage, and it has to be about more than just "Boo hoo I'm lonely" or "wah, Jon rejected me" or "wah, everyone rejected me."

But the real problem, as I see it, is that the show itself leaned hard into the notion of Dany as heroine. And although it visited misfortune on her, it spent so much time building her up as a liberator, a protector of the innocent, a defender of life itself that seeing her turn to the path of "It is my DESTINY, it is my RIGHT, and anyone who doesn't respect that will BURN" just comes across as narrative whiplash. She's not Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight, although the show is using the whole "Targaeryan coin-flip" thing in much the same way that Two-Face would. Dent was portrayed as a good man who went insane as a result of the physical toll visited upon him which left half his face burnt off. But Dent also didn't have countless hours of build-up about what a fantastic guy he was, to the point where "Harvey" become a popular boy's name for babies in 2008 or whatever.

The fact that Dany's strength, determination, and triumph were all played entirely straight, and the worst you could say about her is "She isn't a great ruler and needs people around her to temper her," only further highlights how slaughtering thousands of people after the city surrendered just comes out of left field and feels like railroading rather than organic character development.

You see the same thing with Jon. He's, like, forced to be "lawful stupid." There's no reason he shouldn't have learned his lesson by now or learned to be at least a little more circumspect in his decisionmaking. And likewise, there's no reason why Jon and Dany couldn't have married other than Jon's own ick factor at boning his aunt, even though the Targaeryan dynasty was fundamentally built on incest and arguably was a source of their ability to control dragons. Even a loveless political marriage between them would've been smarter than what we see on the show, and it's all down to the show literally telling you "Nope. That won't work because of reasons." Dany would run roughshod over Jon, so he wouldn't temper her. Why? Because the show said so, that's all.

It's just damn sloppy work and sheer laziness.


Yup. This. All of it. You have to work a hell of a lot harder to accomplish the end that the show has moved towards, and they just....haven't done that.

I've seen this in other long-running shows. I may have mentioned it in this thread, but How I Met Your Mother suffered similarly from craptastic handling of character arcs, and narrative whiplash, all while justifying it by saying "But this is where we were always going, and what we always intended, so too bad. This is how it ends."

Given how the show built up Dany as a hero, I actually think they should've ended the show with her being a hero. It would've been uninspired, sure, but it would've played out more effectively than the ending we're gonna get, and that's entirely because the heroic ending was actually earned.
 
Yeah, I agree that this is pretty clearly her final destination. The issue is that we got there via a wormhole in space-time, rather than an actual journey. If we'd had an actual journey for her, one that really showed the change in her character, we'd get a lot more development, stretching all the way back to Meereen. I mean, Dany locked up her children because one of them burned a child to death, about which she felt deeply responsible and guilty. She didn't torch the citizens indiscriminately when the Sons of the Harpy were running around murdering folks. She didn't burn Vaes Dothrak to the ground and slaughter its citizens for allowing her to be treated so poorly by the Khals. There wasn't, like, one Khal or ex-Khaleesi who was nice to her that she refused to forgive and killed.

If you're going to sell Dany torching the city -- the entire city, including thousands of citizens who suffered under Cersei's rule and likely longed to be free of it themselves -- you need to do a LOT more to sell her paranoia, her frustration, her anger, and her insanity. You need to show her facade cracking, her sense of self-sacrifice in trying to do everything possible for the people she's fighting for, and them repeatedly rejecting her and -- more importantly -- plotting against her. It's not enough for them JUST to say "Nah, we prefer Jon, but hey thanks for helping kill the Night's King." You have to show them either actually plotting to overthrow her or harm her, or show her firmly believing that as part of an increasing descent into paranoia. And the weird thing is that all of that has to happen after the battle against the White Walkers/Others, as well as before to some extent. You need to demonstrate how that battle starts a more precipitous turn towards lunacy mixed with rage, and it has to be about more than just "Boo hoo I'm lonely" or "wah, Jon rejected me" or "wah, everyone rejected me."

But the real problem, as I see it, is that the show itself leaned hard into the notion of Dany as heroine. And although it visited misfortune on her, it spent so much time building her up as a liberator, a protector of the innocent, a defender of life itself that seeing her turn to the path of "It is my DESTINY, it is my RIGHT, and anyone who doesn't respect that will BURN" just comes across as narrative whiplash. She's not Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight, although the show is using the whole "Targaeryan coin-flip" thing in much the same way that Two-Face would. Dent was portrayed as a good man who went insane as a result of the physical toll visited upon him which left half his face burnt off. But Dent also didn't have countless hours of build-up about what a fantastic guy he was, to the point where "Harvey" become a popular boy's name for babies in 2008 or whatever.

The fact that Dany's strength, determination, and triumph were all played entirely straight, and the worst you could say about her is "She isn't a great ruler and needs people around her to temper her," only further highlights how slaughtering thousands of people after the city surrendered just comes out of left field and feels like railroading rather than organic character development.

You see the same thing with Jon. He's, like, forced to be "lawful stupid." There's no reason he shouldn't have learned his lesson by now or learned to be at least a little more circumspect in his decisionmaking. And likewise, there's no reason why Jon and Dany couldn't have married other than Jon's own ick factor at boning his aunt, even though the Targaeryan dynasty was fundamentally built on incest and arguably was a source of their ability to control dragons. Even a loveless political marriage between them would've been smarter than what we see on the show, and it's all down to the show literally telling you "Nope. That won't work because of reasons." Dany would run roughshod over Jon, so he wouldn't temper her. Why? Because the show said so, that's all.

It's just damn sloppy work and sheer laziness.



Yup. This. All of it. You have to work a hell of a lot harder to accomplish the end that the show has moved towards, and they just....haven't done that.

I've seen this in other long-running shows. I may have mentioned it in this thread, but How I Met Your Mother suffered similarly from craptastic handling of character arcs, and narrative whiplash, all while justifying it by saying "But this is where we were always going, and what we always intended, so too bad. This is how it ends."

Given how the show built up Dany as a hero, I actually think they should've ended the show with her being a hero. It would've been uninspired, sure, but it would've played out more effectively than the ending we're gonna get, and that's entirely because the heroic ending was actually earned.

You and I are very much on the same wavelength, Solo. I don't object to WHERE the show is ending up. There was never going to be a "happy" ending. IMO, that would be worse than what we're getting because it would be such a fundamental betrayal of what the show's themes and tone were. My objections are solely down to HOW the show brought us to this ending.

Again, they had over a year and a half to give us a SATISFYING conclusion, and they've largely failed. I won't say entirely failed because there have been some really, REALLY wonderful moments in this season. Jaime knighting Brienne, the carousing after the battle, Gendry being elevated, the unexpected discovery of Pod's lovely singing voice... I cherish those moments because they are emblematic of what made me love this show so much. Unfortunately, those spots of brilliance just underscore the rest of the lazy and slap-dash writing and leave me wondering what might've been if they'd focused more on writing like they did in those moments and less on ZOMG, let's have a ZILLION DEAD GUYS )that you can't see because the lighting was crap), and ZOMG LET'S KILL ANOTHER DRAGON IN A STUPID, SENSELESS WAY (seriously, why was she out flying around if not to scout? This is not a pleasure trip, Dany, King's Landing is literally RIGHT ACROSS THE BAY from Dragonstone).
 
^This^
My wife feels the same way. Dany was built up over most the series as a flawed heroine and while foreshadowed some you do get whiplash with the way she went ******* crazy on a town which had already surrendered to her.

That and the fact Cersei needed more of an ending than just having a bunch of bricks land on her. We grew to hate her for so long and her death should have matched that level of hate, not just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
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