Game of Thrones Thread

[GrungyLawnChlorinate]

Train wreck as the writing and plot has become, this has been a less talked about "WTF?"

Kings Landing - Seasons 1 -7

Kings Landing Season 8

Intro Map comparison. Seasons 1-7 left, Season 8 right

So the battle of Blackwater BAY never happened because Kings Landing now resides in an arid, landlocked geographical spot and didn't have a massive seaport and overhang built out into the BAY where the battle happened and was a major tactical point for one of the first major battles in the series on film?

Are we supposed to believe the two views overlooking Cersei's shoulder are supposed to be the same location? The fact you can make out the hole where the septum used to be kinda says you're supposed to believe it.

How the fuck you mess up the continuity of the geographical location of a major metropolis with hours of footage and major geographical plot history? That would be like half way through Fargo, it's suddenly 70 degrees with palm trees and no one notices.

Compare to the novels' official map of King's Landing:

In no scenario is it possible for the city to not sit upon the bay. King's Landing name is literally named: that is where the Targaryen King landed when first coming to Westeros. They didn't land their ships in the middle of a fucking field 2 miles inland. They arrived via the Blackwater Bay and landed on the north side of the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. That is where the Red Keep was erected, and the rest of the city grew organically from that. There is nothing approaching barren deserted fields in the proximity of the city, let alone right outside its gates. It would have taken little effort on their part to be consistent with previous seasons. Obviously no one even tried, not a shit was given.

It is obvious that little thought went into this final season, despite it being such a massive television spectacle. HBO should be ashamed. George R. Martin (he can have his second R back when he publishes WOW) should be embarrassed over his recent proclamation on how this show should be held up as the most faithful adaptation of novels ever.

Not a Star Wars fan, but I say it again: those fans are so fucked for at least the next 5 years. I so feel for them. With the cast and platform that HBO offered D&D could have produced a most spectacular adaptation, instead they've proved themselves incompetent at even basic tasks. I have to wonder who is really responsible for some of the great work that was done in early seasons, because I do not believe it was their doing.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Its really fucking sad to me. I think you're right, George didn't sabatoge it, D&D did, because once they did 4 seasons, it seemed like they were done with the show. Because they could have easily split up the next book into 2 or 3 seasons and had a slow burn and introduce more characters and complexities. But they went against Martin, which lead to a falling out. Honestly, HBO should have taken the hit and just fired the both of them and put the show on hiatus and found people who actually respected the material. But all they saw were dollar signs.

The poor actors. I've never seen them shit-talk a show so much before it ended. Basically these poor guys are trying to prepare the audience for disappointment 'jokingly'. I don't think they particularly like D&D at this point, but between them seems a pretty strong bond, which is sad. You've got this awesome cast, with great chemistry and you squander it because your fucking ego grows too big. I would have just shit-canned them. 'We want ten seasons.' 'No.' 'Are you under contract?' 'No.' 'Pack your fucking shit, you're done, go do something else, we'll get passionate people to do this shit instead of you.'

 

[cecograph]

I bellieve we are in for one hell of a night

Shit. I am more psyched for this episode than I was for the very first. I probably won't even watch it. I just want to bathe in the aftermath.

 

[Mola Ram]

Honestly it's easy to laugh at the idiots who name their baby Khaleesi, but let's be honest, HBO is the one that enabled that shit. For years they propped up Dany as being this empowered badass who could do anything and all that, but just now they're going all "well she was secretly evil the whole time!" Like if they wanted that plot twist to work they should've hinted at it way earlier, or at least stop lionizing every brutal act she did. And of course drop that whole "doomed lovers" bullshit that was Jon and Dany's romance as well.

But like, it's obvious Dany was one of D&D's fave, so of course like Jon, Bronn, Tyrion, Arya, she was gonna be portrayed more nicely since they're biased and always romanticize their faves. And just now they know the final ending and it's super half-assed.

I have little sympathy or use for people who insist fictional characters be "inspirations" for good or ill, but I do think a lot of the anger right now comes from an instinctual understanding that Daenerys's storyline was an utter fuckup from the beginning of Season 7.

For six seasons we watched this character learn, grow, make mistakes, sometimes win, sometimes lose, suffer triumph and heartbreak alike. There was darkness lurking in her past, but she came to accept it and try to grow beyond it. Obviously she might not get a happy ending -- the threat of the Dead and an alternate heir to the throne were both outside her knowledge for years, and the anticipation of how she would react to learning about them was a big draw even if you weren't hugely invested in her storyline -- but you would think they would cook up a satisfying ending. But pretty much from the moment she started ruling from Dragonstone, it just never happened. All we saw was disaster upon disaster; her advisors giving horrid advice; her enemies outwitting her at every turn. The one victory she had -- the dragon / Dothraki attack on the Lannister army -- was, it turns out, immediately mitigated by the arrival of the Golden Company.

And it's not because Cersei is so much more brilliant, or the Lannister forces are that much larger or more loyal. It's because the plot demanded that Cersei be an equal threat, which she never should have been. She was ruthless but inspired no love or loyalty. She escaped debt from the Iron Bank (by wiping out one of the Seven Kingdoms' foremost houses) only to immediately buy out a massive mercenary force. Her strongest ally is a meathead pirate whose biggest goal is to knock her up. Her biggest accomplishment up to this point was inadvertently turning over control of the capital to a wacko religious cult, which she resolved by (as has been pointed out before) blowing up this world's equivalent of the Vatican. And through it all she paid no price whatsoever -- because, again, the plot needed a villain.

This is not satisfying. This is garbage-tier writing. This is the result of a couple of Hollywood screenwriters who quite obviously no longer give a wet shit about how the story comes out and want it to be over with. Practically every character the audience has come to care about is being torched along the way.

 

[Judge Holden]

Her biggest accomplishment up to this point was inadvertently turning over control of the capital to a wacko religious cult, which she resolved by (as has been pointed out before) blowing up this world's equivalent of the Vatican. And through it all she paid no price whatsoever

Bit of a running theme of the show once DnD controlled the narrative.

There is never a price to be paid for power, as the fucking fedora ninja Arya demonstrates with her ultra powerful apocalypse preventing magic assassin skills being something she immediately and easily gained from the Faceless Men after a month or two sweeping the floor despite failing her every test just because she is so goshdarn awsum.

There is never a price to be paid for mistakes, as Jon "lol I died once" Snow demonstrates with his brutal murder and demonic resurrection causing no greater damage than mildly hurt feelings and just about every fucking battle scene in the show has demonstrated with the spongebob level tactics at play.

There is never a price to be paid for victories, as the plot will warp all previous in-universe logic out the fucking window in order to get the designated winner an arbetrary victory even if it makes zero sense and actively contradicts everything before/afterwards, and this victory is immediately accepted without question by everyone.

There is no price to be paid because the writers dont give a fuck about any story, they just want to film the barest minimum story beats and force in as much "witty" banter and normie pandering "YAS KWEEN SLAAAAAAAY" moments as they can think of

 

[Feline Supremacist]

When you set out to "subvert expectations" but can't grasp how to do it so you use sex, violence and horror to distract, this is what you get. It's just being taken to the logical extreme. Martin himself is a screenwriter so he deserves a hefty portion of blame as well as HBO for not maintaining control. Not only is GOT dead as an IP it is going to stay dead if this is indeed the clusterfuck everyone is predicting will be.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Its insane. They're just burning it to the ground and HBO let them. How do you look over these scripts and this ending and go, 'alright'. I mean, you want to do prequels and sequels, who is going to watch that? HBO let D&D do whatever they wanted because they obviously cared more about the water-cooler talk than the quality of television, which is why after season 4 it became shock value after shock value and constant 'subverting expecations'.

The most idiotic thing about episode 4 was Cersi not just fucking laying waste to Tyrion and Daenry's INSTANTLY. You have the usurper and her main tactician right there. Tyrion also fucking hates Cersei, but D&D seeming forgot about that for some reason. Oh yeah, because they have to end this shit show and don't give a fuck. Jamie instantly believes his sister is pregnant after knowing how much she lies so he goes back to old Jamie. Literally 8 years of development undone instantly. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[Mola Ram]

HBO let D&D do whatever they wanted because they obviously cared more about the water-cooler talk than the quality of television,

I have to wonder if some of it was just they trusted these guys too much. They had created the biggest success HBO had ever had (and let's not forget, some of their previous successes were pretty big deals themselves) -- the way I hear it is there are two buildings dedicated to HBO television: one for Game of Thrones and one for everything else. At this point were they even bothering with script approval? They saw them filming this massive 55-day battle (they couldn't shut up about it) so they might have thought the money wasn't being wasted. Maybe the suits just figured they knew what they were doing.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

I have to wonder if some of it was just they trusted these guys too much. They had created the biggest success HBO had ever had (and let's not forget, some of their previous successes were pretty big deals themselves) -- the way I hear it is there are two buildings dedicated to HBO television: one for Game of Thrones and one for everything else. At this point were they even bothering with script approval? They saw them filming this massive 55-day battle (they couldn't shut up about it) so they might have thought the money wasn't being wasted. Maybe the suits just figured they knew what they were doing.

I don't know, unless everyone at HBO has a serous cocaine and/or heroin addiction I can't see them giving up so much control to two guys who don't have a tangible track record-these two weren't the TV equivalent of Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, you know. Something else is going on (not a conspiracy theory either, something mundane like bad business practices , for example).

 

[A Useless Fish]

Its insane. They're just burning it to the ground and HBO let them. How do you look over these scripts and this ending and go, 'alright'. I mean, you want to do prequels and sequels, who is going to watch that? HBO let D&D do whatever they wanted because they obviously cared more about the water-cooler talk than the quality of television, which is why after season 4 it became shock value after shock value and constant 'subverting expecations'.

The most idiotic thing about episode 4 was Cersi not just fucking laying waste to Tyrion and Daenry's INSTANTLY. You have the usurper and her main tactician right there. Tyrion also fucking hates Cersei, but D&D seeming forgot about that for some reason. Oh yeah, because they have to end this shit show and don't give a fuck. Jamie instantly believes his sister is pregnant after knowing how much she lies so he goes back to old Jamie. Literally 8 years of development undone instantly. I've never seen anything like it.

My biggest dream, for as long as I could dream, was to be a writer, and create something that people love, and look back on with fondness.

I cannot understand the attitude of people like D&D, or Chuck Wendig, or any of that crowd. Regardless of how you may feel towards the project that you are currently working on, you have been entrusted with something people consider to be important. I am not saying that you have an obligation to work your ass off: I just don't understand the attitude of people like this, who have been trusted with something so massive and influential, and have just treated it with the utmost disrespect, not only of the material, but of the fandom that it has created.

Even if you don't care for the material or the fans, you owe it to yourself as a creator to do your best, because your name is on this. Your name will always be on the stuff you leave behind. Subverting expectations, and pissing all over the fans would seem like a lark at the time, I suppose, but the feeling is evanescent at best. At the end of the day, you will have created garbage, and if anyone remembers it at all a decade from now, it won't be with fondness, but with contempt that was justly earned. Shit like this, with Thrones, and with Star Wars just baffles me, and breaks my heart when I think about it too much. I'd give anything to be in the position of these people, and it makes me sick at how ungrateful they are at the opportunity that's just fallen onto their laps.

TL;DR: Drinking a lot of Baileys straight out of the bottle as you wait for the oncoming trainwreck to begin is not a good idea.

 

[Lioness]

There is never a price to be paid for power, as the fucking fedora ninja Arya demonstrates

It's such a nitpick at this point, but I'm bothered Arya wasn't at the least hypothermic or near suffocating after being directly grabbed around the throat by THE EMBODIMENT OF DEATH AND WINTER. Pretty sure even the show established that the air grows colder around the White Walkers/Others and NK should have been heart-stoppingly cold to the touch. I understand they wouldn't have her drop dead but at least see her suffer a little for her efforts - bundled in furs too cold and fucked up to enjoy the feast instead of doing target practice like it was all nbd. Could have been a nice dramatic moment at the end of The Long Night wondering if she even survives.

Edit: Ahahaha pardon me this was before episode 5 aired. Arya was just saving all her injuries and death fakeouts for a battle in Kings Landing she had no business being in because viewers need a POV and fuck Jon amirite? /fast travels away on spawned inflammable unspookable horse

 

[Mola Ram]

I don't know, unless everyone at HBO has a serous cocaine and/or heroin addiction I can't see them giving up so much control to two guys who don't have a tangible track record-these two weren't the TV equivalent of Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, you know. Something else is going on (not a conspiracy theory either, something mundane like bad business practices , for example).

That's sort of my point: they did have a proven track record, that being Game of Thrones itself. I'm not saying they had that sort of discretion when they started; probably not even for the first 3 to 5 seasons (hell, I'm open to the theory that Lady Stoneheart was cut because HBO didn't want to pony up Michelle Fairley's fee for a zombie whose role in the books is so far limited to a few cameos). But by the time Season 8 rolled around the show had become an absolute juggernaut: outpacing Martin's books didn't stop its popularity in the slightest. They could justifiably point to what they had managed and say they were best left to their own devices. Didn't they spend something like $15 million an episode for this season?

 

[Muttnik]

They should have ended it right on the Season 6 finale episode. Think about it--Jon's revealed to be a Targaryen and the new King of the North, Cersei has wormed her way into being queen, and Dany is sailing towards Dragonston close to finally getting where she needs to be. Ends on a cliffhanger? Yeah, definitely. But it would leave enough to the viewer's imagination to have whatever ending they please. It would have been the best course of action.

ANYTHING but what we're getting now.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

And the salt mine resets again in a few hours.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

That's sort of my point: they did have a proven track record, that being Game of Thrones itself. I'm not saying they had that sort of discretion when they started; probably not even for the first 3 to 5 seasons (hell, I'm open to the theory that Lady Stoneheart was cut because HBO didn't want to pony up Michelle Fairley's fee for a zombie whose role in the books is so far limited to a few cameos). But by the time Season 8 rolled around the show had become an absolute juggernaut: outpacing Martin's books didn't stop its popularity in the slightest. They could justifiably point to what they had managed and say they were best left to their own devices. Didn't they spend something like $15 million an episode for this season?

Bad business practices my instincts tell me. Regardless of success someone has to be in control and this person/persons didn't have the balls or authority to tell them to fuck off when they doubled down on the idea of subverting expectations. I did hear HBO wanted 10 seasons and a less convoluted ending but D&D and Martin were strongly opposed. The film/television industry is full of grifters and nepotism as well so all of that doesn't auger well for an unfinished plotline with a rabid fanbase and a massive cast with varied locations and sets and throw in CGI dragons and ice zombies and it might be too much for someone's nephew/niece straight out of UCLA business school.

I think is is also the end of for this type of television, it'll be more like Netflix/Prime. I already hear my younger cousins whine GOT should have released all the episodes at once like Netflix.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I have to wonder if some of it was just they trusted these guys too much. They had created the biggest success HBO had ever had (and let's not forget, some of their previous successes were pretty big deals themselves) -- the way I hear it is there are two buildings dedicated to HBO television: one for Game of Thrones and one for everything else. At this point were they even bothering with script approval? They saw them filming this massive 55-day battle (they couldn't shut up about it) so they might have thought the money wasn't being wasted. Maybe the suits just figured they knew what they were doing.

Executives are the most useless fucks imaginable. They meddle when they shouldn't and don't reign in when they should. Jesus fuck they're incompetent and useless.

My biggest dream, for as long as I could dream, was to be a writer, and create something that people love, and look back on with fondness.

I cannot understand the attitude of people like D&D, or Chuck Wendig, or any of that crowd. Regardless of how you may feel towards the project that you are currently working on, you have been entrusted with something people consider to be important. I am not saying that you have an obligation to work your ass off: I just don't understand the attitude of people like this, who have been trusted with something so massive and influential, and have just treated it with the utmost disrespect, not only of the material, but of the fandom that it has created.

Even if you don't care for the material or the fans, you owe it to yourself as a creator to do your best, because your name is on this. Your name will always be on the stuff you leave behind. Subverting expectations, and pissing all over the fans would seem like a lark at the time, I suppose, but the feeling is evanescent at best. At the end of the day, you will have created garbage, and if anyone remembers it at all a decade from now, it won't be with fondness, but with contempt that was justly earned. Shit like this, with Thrones, and with Star Wars just baffles me, and breaks my heart when I think about it too much. I'd give anything to be in the position of these people, and it makes me sick at how ungrateful they are at the opportunity that's just fallen onto their laps.

TL;DR: Drinking a lot of Baileys straight out of the bottle as you wait for the oncoming trainwreck to begin is not a good idea.

I admit I have always wanted to be a writer. I just get so tired and self obsessed with the quality. That being said, after consuming a lot and reading a lot, I know narrative and story structure, character development.

(Also if you want to be a writer write every day. I forgot what author it was but every day at work he'd write up these detailed characters with backstories. A coworker notices he kept throwing pieces of paper away. He opened them up and was astonished. He said he did it just to keep him sharp).

You have a lot of creators like this. I put them in two categories 'workers' and 'auteurs'. Workers are guys who will take any pulp job and put their fucking soul into it. They gotta write porno to pay the bills? They'll fucking do it as best as they can. Then when they hit it big they are humble and love their audience. Then you have the 'auerteurs' who only want high level shit and believe themselves to be above the material. See D&D and Rain Johnson. They don't believe in the readers or the fans that make them famous. Sometimes they actively ridicule them. You never hear about the workers because well, they're too busy doing the best they can. D&D believe they're above the material and thing that making the show big is enough to carry them forever.

They're arrogant and don't care about the quality. Of course if it was someone with passion they'd kill it. Imagine Vince Gilligan adapting GoT. He's a staff, listens to multiple opinions and would listen to input and do the story right.

D&D are pure fucking scum, incompetent at anything but adapting someone else's work for a long period of time. Season 5 is shit because he didn't split it up. He condensed too much when HBO would have let them do whatever they wanted.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

It's such a nitpick at this point, but I'm bothered Arya wasn't at the least hypothermic or near suffocating after being directly grabbed around the throat by THE EMBODIMENT OF DEATH AND WINTER. Pretty sure even the show established that the air grows colder around the White Walkers/Others and NK should have been heart-stoppingly cold to the touch. I understand they wouldn't have her drop dead but at least see her suffer a little for her efforts - bundled in furs too cold and fucked up to enjoy the feast instead of doing target practice like it was all nbd. Could have been a nice dramatic moment at the end of The Long Night wondering if she even survives.

It gets worse when you remember just how strong the Night King is. To one-shot a dragon in the air with a javelin, you need to generate a hell of a lot of force- and since force=mass*velocity, either the haft was made of depleted uranium or the NK has one hell of an arm on him (or both.) In either case, a guy that strong should shade into "man of steel, woman of Kleenex" territory: he catches you by the throat, then he pops your head off like a champagne cork without even straining.

Even if we assume he doesn't do that, I agree: his touch should fuck you up. Remember how Merry and Eowyn got fucked up by striking the Witch-King? It was a lot worse in the books, where they got nuked by the black breath and would have died if not for Aragorn's intervention. The Night King should have a similar effect, especially since Arya didn't have the assist.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

INDABOOX the Others' swords are so cold that prolonged contact with steel makes it brittle enough to crack.

 

[friedshrimp]

This video is old, but I really liked this theory ever since I first saw it. And, like I said before, in the books it works, even in the show it could've worked, but they threw it all in the trash the moment they decided to pander to the fans.

 

[Absolutego]

I have little sympathy or use for people who insist fictional characters be "inspirations" for good or ill, but I do think a lot of the anger right now comes from an instinctual understanding that Daenerys's storyline was an utter fuckup from the beginning of Season 7.

For six seasons we watched this character learn, grow, make mistakes, sometimes win, sometimes lose, suffer triumph and heartbreak alike. There was darkness lurking in her past, but she came to accept it and try to grow beyond it. Obviously she might not get a happy ending -- the threat of the Dead and an alternate heir to the throne were both outside her knowledge for years, and the anticipation of how she would react to learning about them was a big draw even if you weren't hugely invested in her storyline -- but you would think they would cook up a satisfying ending. But pretty much from the moment she started ruling from Dragonstone, it just never happened. All we saw was disaster upon disaster; her advisors giving horrid advice; her enemies outwitting her at every turn. The one victory she had -- the dragon / Dothraki attack on the Lannister army -- was, it turns out, immediately mitigated by the arrival of the Golden Company.

And it's not because Cersei is so much more brilliant, or the Lannister forces are that much larger or more loyal. It's because the plot demanded that Cersei be an equal threat, which she never should have been. She was ruthless but inspired no love or loyalty. She escaped debt from the Iron Bank (by wiping out one of the Seven Kingdoms' foremost houses) only to immediately buy out a massive mercenary force. Her strongest ally is a meathead pirate whose biggest goal is to knock her up. Her biggest accomplishment up to this point was inadvertently turning over control of the capital to a wacko religious cult, which she resolved by (as has been pointed out before) blowing up this world's equivalent of the Vatican. And through it all she paid no price whatsoever -- because, again, the plot needed a villain.

This is not satisfying. This is garbage-tier writing. This is the result of a couple of Hollywood screenwriters who quite obviously no longer give a wet shit about how the story comes out and want it to be over with. Practically every character the audience has come to care about is being torched along the way.

What gets me about their whole approach to the Dany storyline is a lot of the dumb authoritarian shit she does in the books that is foreshadowing her eventual heel turn still happens in the show, but they frame it in a way that, at the time, presents it positively. We're supposed to cheer when Dany threatens to burn all those Mereenese nobles and forces Hizdar to marry her. Same with her burning the temple in Vaes Dothrak to the ground. They change paths a little bit and the Tarlys getting flambe'd is presented mixed-ly (Tyrion gets a side eye in at least), but pretty much every time Dany starts killing people it's framed as a good thing. This is why I call the Dany fans the "Yaas kween slay" types, they're casual watchers who just want to watch their favorite character win at things, which is why I'm utterly baffled D&D decided it was a good idea to spend seven and a half seasons courting those types, only to then pivot to a theory the book crowd's been discussing for 15+ years that almost all of them would both not see coming and despise.