Game of Thrones Thread

The show became world famous because of the red wedding. Not because of the plot threads that led to it.

One thing Preston Jacob’s was right about it-was comparing GOT to Titus Andronicus, a Shakespearean play with lots of violence and sex.

People it turns out like both of these things. And so I do think a lot of the show’s success was due to sex scenes and gory violence alike.
 
People it turns out like both of these things. And so I do think a lot of the show’s success was due to sex scenes and gory violence alike.
GoT ain't the first show showing sex and violence, not even in HBO. It was that, plus being fantasy showcasing those things what made it different from, say, LotR.
 
So…okay what is my main problem with ASOIAF just in terms of criticism?

Is it Martin’s hubris with the Aragorn tax comment? No.

Is it his overly descriptive paragraphs of food and dysentery? No.

Is it the utter glacial pace of the plot? Well somewhat but not really.

My main criticism is the work is misleadingly advertised. At the end of the day-it’s about wolf tribe being good guys, all going on their own coming of age hero arcs, and the lion tribe is bad. Dragon tribe seems to be leaning towards bad too.

Martin disguises this pretty well with Tyrion in the early books and Jaimie later, as well as showing how Ned especially was a fairly complex character in his own right-not just a benevolent and naive patriarch.

But as Martin has stated-Tyrion is a villain, Jaimie’s “redemption” is less a redemption per se and more Martin exploring the notion of redemption itself, and cersei and Tywin are both morally rotten and the narrative wants us to believe are far less competent than they are appear.*

*one common refrain is people are loyal to house stark, after all the mountain clans want to save “Ned’s girl” and Tywin’s legacy is collapsing.

This being a major thematic contrast between the two men. Okay first off-it’s two entirely different situations. Secondly-Tywin never had a subordinate house betray him, even the Westerlings defection was mostly insincere. Tyrion is probably going to wreck the Westerlands(or he would if Dream ever came out) and sure that’s a massive failing on Tywin’s part. He never had his ancestral holdings overturned though, and while House Baratheon of King’s Landing may be headed for the Grave(to be fair- a de facto branch of house Lannister what with the incest and all) the Lannister lion is still flying proud in the westerlands. Literally no one, including the Vale is interested in actually seizing casterly rock. And the martells are banking on dragons. Winterfell has already been sacked, the stark family scattered.

It’s just such a ridiculous “point” the narrative wants us to accept.

Backing away from that related tangential a bit-at the end of the day the starks are the protagonists with the Lannisters as antagonists, and the targaryens likely to be antagonists of the starks if the show remotely followed the outline in anyway-especially if Bran becomes king and Sansa ruler of something or another(but not Queen in the Norf because that was dumb).

TLDR: Some of the “themes” don’t really work on closer examination, the Tywin-Ned contrast, the immorality of vengeance(who will be condemning LSH when she guts Daven’s wedding?), and there aren’t “heroes and villains on both sides”-that is simply false.

Basically the narrative is far more conventional and less “subversive” than people say it is, Martin included. He just does a good job of obscuring this fact.
 
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So…okay what is my main problem with ASOIAF just in terms of criticism?

Is it Martin’s hubris with the Aragorn tax comment? No.

Is it his overly descriptive paragraphs of food and dysentery? No.

Is it the utter glacial pace of the plot? Well somewhat but not really.
The plotting seems even more glacially paced due to Martin's almost deliberate refusal to finish the series. As the pace of the plot has become slower so has his output in actually writing the series. The fact is that even with the tedious and dull tempo of the ASOIAF books during books four and five, the fans are still clamoring for more content. Prequel books and shows, lore books and encyclopedias, video games, and as much content as they can get. The hardcore fans of ASOIAF seem to not care how slow the story is as long as it is finished in the books (and not on HBO as it stands currently).

With ASOIAF it seems like GRRM likes to start out plots and then just dump them. He is in track to not only not finish the main series but he would also not resolve Dunk and Egg and other promised stories as well from within the ASOIAF universe. And it really does seem like he does not care anymore. But unlike George Lucas who dumped Star Wars for a few billion GRRM is content with leasing his world out in an unfinished state.

GRRM's standstill in writing the last two books has colored the perception that the readers have on the pace of his first five books. If the last two books were out you would probably rare see the topic of tempo anymore. People would be debating the plot and the characters once again. This happened with the fandom when ADOD was released. First months of topics were all plot and character related. As the years went on with no TWOW you started to see people talking not only about the snail's pace of the books but open attacks on if GRRM was even interested in finishing the story. And this was before the HBO fanbase was in open rebellion like Robert.

My main criticism is the work is misleadingly advertised. At the end of the day-it’s about wolf tribe being good guys, all going on their own coming of age hero arcs, and the lion tribe is bad. Dragon tribe seems to be leaning towards bad too.

Martin disguises this pretty well with Tyrion in the early books and Jaimie later, as well as showing how Ned especially was a fairly complex character in his own right-not just a benevolent and naive patriarch.

But as Martin has stated-Tyrion is a villain, Jaimie’s “redemption” is less a redemption per se and more Martin exploring the notion of redemption itself, and cersei and Tywin are both morally rotten and the narrative wants us to believe are far less competent than they are appear.*

*one common refrain is people are loyal to house stark, after all the mountain clans want to save “Ned’s girl” and Tywin’s legacy is collapsing.

This being a major thematic contrast between the two men. Okay first off-it’s two entirely different situations. Secondly-Tywin never had a subordinate house betray him, even the Westerlings defection was mostly insincere. Tyrion is probably going to wreck the Westerlands(or he would if Dream ever came out) and sure that’s a massive failing on Tywin’s part. He never had his ancestral holdings overturned though, and while House Baratheon of King’s Landing may be headed for the Grave(to be fair- a de facto branch of house Lannister what with the incest and all) the Lannister lion is still flying proud in the westerlands. Literally no one, including the Vale is interested in actually seizing casterly rock. And the martells are banking on dragons. Winterfell has already been sacked, the stark family scattered.

It’s just such a ridiculous “point” the narrative wants us to accept.
The point of having POVs of both good and bad characters was allegedly to show how distracted people are from the real threat of the Others. That the 'game of thrones' is going to cost humanity when the Others arrive. When I re-read the ASOIAF novels I always remind myself before starting each chapter with 'how does this fit in with the Others coming with winter?'. What does this chapter have to do with the Others and the Long Night? That the first chapter of the books was about the battle of life against death. Ice monsters and ancient ice demons against humanity. And that everything is (allegedly) leading towards that. The Maesters at the Citadel, dragonglass, Valyrian steel, wildfire, dragons, giant spiders, Long Night, Azor Ahai, the wall, the Night's Watch, and so on. These things probably all have some payoff related to the Long Night and fighting the Others. Winter is coming. This is a story not about the Iron Throne but about the Long Night.

I think of ASOIAF like a zombie movie or story. One minute you have good and bad people in a normal society. Firefighters, doctors, teachers. And then thieves, serial killers, rapists. But in a zombie apocalypse you might see everyone work together to survive. A thief might be valuable as they can hotwire cars or steal food from a locked grocery store. Part of society breaks down, but those remaining have to work together, because if they do not they get eaten or turned into a zombie. The apocalypse creates a new society based on survival against a mass extinction threat.

This is supposed to happen in ASOIAF. The Others are supposedly the main bad guys. But if things happen like they did on HBO then this series will be mocked forever (even more than it is now). But with two books left I find it impossible to live up to the promise of the Long Night. Old Nan said that the Long Night was like a generation of winter. Feet of snow every night. Decades of winter and snow and ice demons and giant spiders on top of that. Anything less than a decade of winter would be disappointing writing for me. I want to see a once in a world event level fantasy apocalypse being told in a once in a world book. Azor Ahai and the Age of Heroes. Not some little girl screaming as she leaps off of a trampoline and ends the 'greatest threat to humanity' in under one day. This series was advertised as apocalyptic fantasy and some great magical war with dragons and ice monsters. Instead we have midgets, whores, endless descriptions of food, and no end in sight.

But maybe GRRM is going to 'subvert expectations' one last time and make it so that the Others did not matter at all. Just another crazy plot twist for ASOIAF diehard fans to masturbate over. That the Others were never a threat and that they were going to be defeated very easily and it was all misdirection on purpose to surprise the readers. Technically HBO did subvert expectations. When you watch the opening scene of the HBO show do you really care to finish the series at all? Knowing how it ends? Imagine if the books end the same way....

Backing away from that related tangential a bit-at the end of the day the starks are the protagonists with the Lannisters as antagonists, and the targaryens likely to be antagonists of the starks if the show remotely followed the outline in anyway-especially if Bran becomes king and Sansa ruler of something or another(but not Queen in the Norf because that was dumb).

TLDR: Some of the “themes” don’t really work on closer examination, the Tywin-Ned contrast, the immorality of vengeance(who will be condemning LSH when she guts Daven’s wedding?), and there aren’t “heroes and villains on both sides”-that is simply false.

Basically the narrative is far more conventional and less “subversive” than people say it is, Martin included. He just does a good job of obscuring this fact.
Bran being king is directly from old Irish and Welsh stories. There are even kings like Bran the Blessed. Bran in Welsh means crow or raven. GRRM also told D&D and the actor who played Bran that he would be king in the novels. So the fans have been bracing for this ending since the first book. Bran is also the first character in the ASOIAF world that GRRM wrote. So some of the earliest fan theories are people imagining how Bran sits on the Iron Throne who were familiar with Welsh and Saxon mythology. Some of us were always bracing for Bran to be king. As the show went on I actually believed that GRRM had changed his mind and it was going to be a council rule or maybe Jon or Sansa. Because Bran was not even part of the story anymore.

But when Bran said "why do you think I came all this way?" it was probably the hardest laugh I have gotten from this series.

GRRM basically criticized a bunch of writers for being inferior to him or having ideas that he disagreed with. Talking about how Gandalf's resurrection was cheap only to do an even worse one with Jon Snow. Mocking Aragorn for not being accomplished enough to be king yet a crippled child will likely end up being king in Westeros. Mocking the show Lost for having too many plots and horribly tying up the ending only to have his story have an even worse ending in its television adaptation. GRRM's prose is also awful in many spots like describing the cocks of characters, pink mast, or his graphic sex scenes with juvenile language like "her cunt became his cock" or whatever that line was. Stuff like "you want the bad pussy" in the show is really not as bad as the worst lines in the books. Honestly D&D are probably just as good of writers as GRRM is which is why he chose them to adapt his work.

GRRM fans act like he is this once in a generation genius and D&D ruined his perfect work. Yet sloppy overly sexual writing is an ASOIAF staple and not something that HBO just added out of nowhere. And D&D said that they got basically all of the main plot points from GRRM. Did D&D make Dany go crazy? GRRM wrote that. Did D&D make Bran king? GRRM did. Did D&D have Jon kill Dany? GRRM did. Did D&D make Jaime so back to Cersei? Nope that was GRRM yet again. Cleganebowl? GRRM yet again.

I think GRRM has even more reason not to finish his story now. He can just let HBO and D&D take the heat for his intended ending and pretend like they screwed everything up. When in reality they followed his blueprint pretty closely.
 
The worst thing about Game of Thrones was it inspiring a bunch of series to subvert things for the sake of subverting things. Really brought out the biggest hack writers like Rian Johnson.
At this point we should collect the 7 deadly sins of modern writing.

JJ Abrams - mystery boxes: setup without ever having a pay-off. You don't need to come up with a full plot if you just make shit up along the way.
Joss Whedon - quipping: LOLSOFUNNEH 4th WALL BREAKING and snark. Thank fuck that doesn't become annoying quickly.
Dumb & Dumber - subverting expectations: If no one sees it coming that makes it good story-telling by default, no matter how dumb the twist is.
Paul Feig - Using Sexism as a scapegoat for criticism: f your product gets criticised for being poorly made, just accuse every critic of whatever 'ism you can come up with.

Not so sure about the last one, but Ghostbitches 2016 for sure escalated that trend, if it didn't invent it.
What else do we got? 3 more to go.
 
At this point we should collect the 7 deadly sins of modern writing.

JJ Abrams - mystery boxes: setup without ever having a pay-off. You don't need to come up with a full plot if you just make shit up along the way.
Joss Whedon - quipping: LOLSOFUNNEH 4th WALL BREAKING and snark. Thank fuck that doesn't become annoying quickly.
Dumb & Dumber - subverting expectations: If no one sees it coming that makes it good story-telling by default, no matter how dumb the twist is.
Paul Feig - Using Sexism as a scapegoat for criticism: f your product gets criticised for being poorly made, just accuse every critic of whatever 'ism you can come up with.

Not so sure about the last one, but Ghostbitches 2016 for sure escalated that trend, if it didn't invent it.
What else do we got? 3 more to go.

Taking successful foreign shows and gutting them of what made them popular and/or charming in the first place for modern American audiences? (Inbetweeners, Shameless, Taskmaster, The Office to a lesser extent)

The dark sexy gritty reboot? (Riverdale)

Just replace 'em with -x-? (Any woke reboot)
 
Early GoT seasons: Battlefield romance, hasty promises made to honorless nobles, and the simple maintaining of principles all lead to House Stark nearly being eradicated.

Late GoT seasons: Cersei can blow up the fantasy Vatican and lol with no consequences.

To be fair, Cersei was using the Mountain and a more aggressive secret police version of the "Little Birds" spy network to kill anyone who badmouthed her, especially in regards to her walk of shame.

Also in show, Cersei blamed the destruction of the Sept on Dorne (who had already murdered her daughter). Yes the nobility knew she did it, but the commoners believe it was those ambiguously brown guys led by a bastard bitch who killed a king and hijacked control over Dorne with help from her bastard daughters, who blew up the GOT version of the Vatican, especially since they had also already killed the beloved and innocent princess too.

That said, I still think Cersei's arc at the end of the series was a result of the writers on the show realizing that fans WANTED Cersei to get her comeuppance as opposed to seeing her as a sympathetic villain (as they had written her), hence making her the "final" boss on the show and ending the White Walker threat earlier than expected.
 
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So…okay what is my main problem with ASOIAF just in terms of criticism?

Is it Martin’s hubris with the Aragorn tax comment? No.

Is it his overly descriptive paragraphs of food and dysentery? No.

Is it the utter glacial pace of the plot? Well somewhat but not really.

My main criticism is the work is misleadingly advertised. At the end of the day-it’s about wolf tribe being good guys, all going on their own coming of age hero arcs, and the lion tribe is bad. Dragon tribe seems to be leaning towards bad too.

Martin disguises this pretty well with Tyrion in the early books and Jaimie later, as well as showing how Ned especially was a fairly complex character in his own right-not just a benevolent and naive patriarch.

But as Martin has stated-Tyrion is a villain, Jaimie’s “redemption” is less a redemption per se and more Martin exploring the notion of redemption itself, and cersei and Tywin are both morally rotten and the narrative wants us to believe are far less competent than they are appear.*

*one common refrain is people are loyal to house stark, after all the mountain clans want to save “Ned’s girl” and Tywin’s legacy is collapsing.

This being a major thematic contrast between the two men. Okay first off-it’s two entirely different situations. Secondly-Tywin never had a subordinate house betray him, even the Westerlings defection was mostly insincere. Tyrion is probably going to wreck the Westerlands(or he would if Dream ever came out) and sure that’s a massive failing on Tywin’s part. He never had his ancestral holdings overturned though, and while House Baratheon of King’s Landing may be headed for the Grave(to be fair- a de facto branch of house Lannister what with the incest and all) the Lannister lion is still flying proud in the westerlands. Literally no one, including the Vale is interested in actually seizing casterly rock. And the martells are banking on dragons. Winterfell has already been sacked, the stark family scattered.

It’s just such a ridiculous “point” the narrative wants us to accept.

Backing away from that related tangential a bit-at the end of the day the starks are the protagonists with the Lannisters as antagonists, and the targaryens likely to be antagonists of the starks if the show remotely followed the outline in anyway-especially if Bran becomes king and Sansa ruler of something or another(but not Queen in the Norf because that was dumb).

TLDR: Some of the “themes” don’t really work on closer examination, the Tywin-Ned contrast, the immorality of vengeance(who will be condemning LSH when she guts Daven’s wedding?), and there aren’t “heroes and villains on both sides”-that is simply false.

Basically the narrative is far more conventional and less “subversive” than people say it is, Martin included. He just does a good job of obscuring this fact.
As much as I've grown to dislike the books I have to disagree. The Starks are only good due to being the first side you see and having very easy to sympathize with cast of children. At the end of the day they start a massive brutal war for honor, a war that kills a huge chunk of the population and ends up with them losing. The Lannisters really only have the shithead prince as a villain, the rest of its characters are different shades of "doing the dishonorable right thing for my goals" which, in cases like the Red Wedding or the kingslaying, as saved countless people from an unnecessary war.
Though it's really only the fourth book where the plot actually relaxes to point out how badly the war wrecked the country.
 
To be fair, Cersei was using the Mountain and a more aggressive secret police version of the "Little Birds" spy network to kill anyone who badmouthed her, especially in regards to her walk of shame.

Also in show, Cersei blamed the destruction of the Sept on Dorne (who had already murdered her daughter). Yes the nobility knew she did it, but the commoners believe it was those ambiguously brown guys who killed the beloved and innocent princess.

That said, I still think Cersei's arc at the end of the series was a result of the writers on the show realizing that fans WANTED Cersei to get her comeuppance as opposed to seeing her as a sympathetic villain (as they had written her), hence making her the "final" boss on the show and ending the White Walker threat earlier than expected.
The thing is, none of this happens in a vacuum, servants aren't braindead automatons without free will or agency. The show even points out that servants are used by the nobility to gather intel... so that means they have insight into what's going on in the castle. The common people would know, this kind of information would filter down. And even if it doesn't, Sept blows up using a metric fuckton of wildfyre (conveniently something the Lannisters used mere months before to blow up a fleet of ships), King falls from window, woman suspected of sleeping with her own brother crowns herself queen. Yeah, nothing suspicious going on here.

I stand by my point, Cersei would have been found strangled in her bed one morning and a chamber maid would be suspiciously absent from her day shift the next day. Or someone would shank that bitch while the Mountain was busy getting maggots pulled from his ear by that Not-Maester or something. People would throw a parade in the streets and rejoice about the death of the Lannister Witch.

After such an act of destruction against her own city, her own nobility and her own faith, there would be no holding back from anyone within those city walls. She would not even be able to rely on the Lannister guards, cause we can suspect that a lot of them would mourn the loss of their rather charismatic king Tommen and his even more charismatic queen. Also, how many Lannister guards died in that explosion? You'd think some of them would have friends amongst their fellow soldiers who might take this shit a tiny bit personal.
Doesn't matter how imposing the Mountain might be as a Zombie, someone would get the idea to just throw a bucket of pitch at that huge motherfucker and torch him. Or go full Red Wedding on Cersei and her cronies.

As for anyone outside King's Landing:
If the nobility knows (or even just suspects) that Cersei was involved in the explosion of the Sept (and it is very reasonable to assume so), they'd abandon her cause. Cersei wouldn't even have hostages to prevent it, cause she literally burned them already in a giant green flame. King's Landing would be cut off from any kind of supply, be it food or firewood. The city would collapse within weeks due to that simple fact alone. They already went through a major famine that could only be overcome by the help of the Tyrells, their granaries are empty.

And then the combined forces of any house, great and small, would come down towards King's Landing and demand Cersei's head on a silver plate. It worked with the mad King and that guy was in a much stronger position of power. FFS, the number of people Cersei could trust would be in the low single-digits... assuming her Not-Maester wouldn't just bail out on her after that as well. Who else is there, now that I think about it? The Mountain and that's pretty much it, right?

The strength of ASOIAF was that it kept in mind that there's powerful kings, high lords, great houses, small houses and the common people and that everyone plays their part in society.
In GoT, that got pushed aside until only a handful of people from a few of the great houses actually mattered and acted like people. Everyone else was a literal NPC, ramshackled to their base function. The Guard merely follows orders. The baker merely makes bread.
None of them get any funny ideas about recent evens that bother them and might inspire some unruly behaviour.

At best, the situation Cersei created by blowing up a large chunk of her nation's nobility might be infighting in branch families trying to rise to the top. There might be no longer the main line of Tyrells, but they sure as fuck have some couple of side lines that might try to secure power for themselves. But that didn't happen either. Some Tyrells gots blowed up, so that's the end of that. Case closed. Cersei is now GIRL BOSS or something and everyone just does what she says, cause they are NPCs without free will or agency.
So even the best case scenario is rather grim, cause it means every house is now busy with their own little power vacuum and not supplying any help against the attacks coming from Danearys and her gaggle of morons.
 
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As much as I've grown to dislike the books I have to disagree. The Starks are only good due to being the first side you see and having very easy to sympathize with cast of children. At the end of the day they start a massive brutal war for honor, a war that kills a huge chunk of the population and ends up with them losing.
The Starks actually begin two wars. The first is when they are conspiring against Aerys to dethrone him or split the North from the Iron Throne which is heavily hinted at in ADWD. This drives Aerys further into paranoia. The idiot Stark daughter Lyanna allows herself to be kidnapped essentially. This alienates Dorne because Prince Rhaegar has basically abandoned Elia Martell to take a new wife and have new heirs. And it enrages the entire North and the Baratheons because they think Lyanna has been kidnapped and raped against her will.

So the Starks send people to King's Landing to threaten Aerys in person, when Aerys was correct that Rhaegar did not kidnap Lyanna. And they are hanged and burned for threatening the King and the Prince and calling them liars. Then the Starks decide to rally basically the entirety of Westeros to fight in a massive war rather than simply track down Rhaegar or Lyanna and find out the truth. This war causes a permanent instability and uncertainty of leadership and governance that leads to even more wars that the Starks are a major part of. Including causing the Greyjoys to rebel because they see an opening for themselves.

Ned Stark also executes an innocent Watchman at the start of the series and thinks that a bunch of direwolves fleeing south of the Wall is a sign of nothing. Ned announces his entire intentions to Cersei to arrest her, and allows her to plan her own counter strategy, endangering Ned's entire family and household staff and even the commoners. When Renly repeatedly warned Ned he was being an idiot and he needed to act immediately Ned did nothing like a buffoon. Robb Stark betrays the Freys through marriage and lies and rather than basically dishonor one woman he instead endangers his entire army and family like a retard. When simply taking her as a mistress or sending her away would have saved his entire alliance and many lives. Fans excuse this stuff but Ned and Robb are incompetent and almost comically inept and stupid. They always give some lame line like "Starks are about honor". Yet Ned lied to Jon all his life and sent the rightful heir to The Wall.
 
But as Martin has stated-Tyrion is a villain, Jaimie’s “redemption” is less a redemption per se and more Martin exploring the notion of redemption itself, and cersei and Tywin are both morally rotten and the narrative wants us to believe are far less competent than they are appear.*
The subverted expectation is the expectation of a subversion.

People expect ASOIAF to be something that it was never meant to be. The tropes Martin wanted to break weren't the fantasy tropes themselves, but rather that certain elements of reality were never a factor in most fantasy stories. Silly, but it's a different approach to fantasy.

*one common refrain is people are loyal to house stark, after all the mountain clans want to save “Ned’s girl” and Tywin’s legacy is collapsing.
Never underestimate the impact of an asshole ruler. Even today, people have good memories of former leaders like Pinochet or Fujimori because, despite all the bad things they did, they brought good times for the common people unlike what we are having today. And that's something Jorah perfectly explained: the commoners don't give a damn about the game of thrones, they only want safety, food, peace, and being left alone.

Aerys was mad, sure. But the realm was doing well when he was King. Robert Baratheon was an asshole, of course. But Westeros had peace. What King's Landing remembers of Tywin Lannister? First, he sacked the city during the Rebellion. Then, after Robert dies and Joffrey took over, it's been war after war for them and now winter is coming and nobody from House Lanniter seems to care enough (something Jaime notices when he sees snow falling). Tywin's legacy only served his own ego. Yes, he was a competent hand, but that's when he was already given power through Aerys. He didn't mind ravaging Westeros in order to get that power back.

There must be other reasons beyond loyalty for people to revolt the Lannisters and trying to get rid of them or their influence. Self-preservation. Everybody up in the North knows well that having Ramsay and House Bolton as their leader isn't gonna end up well for them.

At this point we should collect the 7 deadly sins of modern writing.

JJ Abrams - mystery boxes: setup without ever having a pay-off. You don't need to come up with a full plot if you just make shit up along the way.
Joss Whedon - quipping: LOLSOFUNNEH 4th WALL BREAKING and snark. Thank fuck that doesn't become annoying quickly.
Dumb & Dumber - subverting expectations: If no one sees it coming that makes it good story-telling by default, no matter how dumb the twist is.
Paul Feig - Using Sexism as a scapegoat for criticism: f your product gets criticised for being poorly made, just accuse every critic of whatever 'ism you can come up with.

Not so sure about the last one, but Ghostbitches 2016 for sure escalated that trend, if it didn't invent it.
What else do we got? 3 more to go.
Ryan Murphy probably has a few. Everything can be solved with homosexuality and a musical number.
 
As much as I've grown to dislike the books I have to disagree. The Starks are only good due to being the first side you see and having very easy to sympathize with cast of children. At the end of the day they start a massive brutal war for honor, a war that kills a huge chunk of the population and ends up with them losing. The Lannisters really only have the shithead prince as a villain, the rest of its characters are different shades of "doing the dishonorable right thing for my goals" which, in cases like the Red Wedding or the kingslaying, as saved countless people from an unnecessary war.
Though it's really only the fourth book where the plot actually relaxes to point out how badly the war wrecked the country.
Disagree. The Starks are offed for discovering the Lannister degeneracy/adultery and exposing it. Also, Rob explicitly wants two things: his sisters back and the North to be an independent nation-state, with the later being partially forced upon him by the noble lords who long wanted the North to be independent of the South as condition for their continued support and because Robb knows war is going to get lots of people killed and destroy the peace Robert brought to the realm and that he'd rather simply seceded from the kingdom than stage what amounts to regime change.

In the books, Lannisters are cunts but you can make the case that they are the fall guy for Littlefinger and his schemes to burn everything to the ground out of spite for being friendzoned by Cat.
 
Also Varys-who actively sabotages things for his own Targaryen restoration project. Such as killing Kevan Lannister(who had cleaned up Cersei’s mess and was trying to patch things up with the Tyrells).

There are a lot of parties who have vested interests in the destruction of the country. Varys, LF, both Baratheon brothers(the legitimacy of Stannis’ claim aside), as well as supernatural parties such as Bloodraven, Euron and so on.

The only people who have vested interests in peace are the Lannisters ironically. The Tyrell’s stand to gain from a shake up of the Royal family, the martells want the destruction of house Lannister, and so on.

This creates a confluence of factors that make war after Robert dies inevitable.
 
Disagree. The Starks are offed for discovering the Lannister degeneracy/adultery and exposing it. Also, Rob explicitly wants two things: his sisters back and the North to be an independent nation-state, with the later being partially forced upon him by the noble lords who long wanted the North to be independent of the South as condition for their continued support and because Robb knows war is going to get lots of people killed and destroy the peace Robert brought to the realm and that he'd rather simply seceded from the kingdom than stage what amounts to regime change.
The Starks are offed because Littlefinger sets them up to be killed so he can isolate Cat or Sansa. He writes the letter to Cat from Lysa warning her of vague threats. Littlefinger pushed for Ned to be made Hand because it would bring Cat with him or maybe Sansa or Arya to marry. He basically pits the Lannisters and Starks against each other knowing that they will further exhaust their resources fighting each other. Long before Ned even realizes that the royal children are from incest he is being set up to be killed alongside his entire house by Littlefinger and likely even Varys and others.

As long as Littlefinger can protect Cat, Sansa, or maybe Arya, he can marry into a noble house the way that he wanted. Through Cat, or at least her children. He has the opportunity to marry into a few houses or even marry Lysa. But we see that he waits for Sansa. Either to marry her off to someone young as one last gift to Cat. Or to marry her himself when he can work out some scheme.

The North was always independent before the dragons. It made sense for the Targs to rule the entire Seven Kingdoms together, especially to feed their monstrous dragons which required tons of animals. Once the dragons die they have no more power to force their rule and so a rebellion was always around the corner. It is inferred that literally everyone hated the Targs at least when the dragons were alive. That the Maesters even slowly poisoned the dragons rather than remain neutral. We know from the HBO show that Dany will go insane and kill half of King's Landing using her dragons.
In the books, Lannisters are cunts but you can make the case that they are the fall guy for Littlefinger and his schemes to burn everything to the ground out of spite for being friendzoned by Cat.
Jaime killed the last King, watched as the royal family was raped and murdered by the Mountain, kept secret the giant caches of wildfire in the city (which is heavily implied by the HBO show to be deliberate as Jaime hates the commoners and only lives for Cersei), and conspires behind the back of next king to have incestuous affairs with the queen his sister, to put his own children on the throne. The knowledge of his incest children being the real heirs would cause a massive war but Jaime does not care. And if the book follows the HBO show it will confirm that Jaime all along really did not care about anyone but himself and Cersei.

If Littlefinger did not exist there still would have been a war. Pycelle and Varys knew. Renly and Stannis would figure it out. Jon Arryn figured it out despite everyone trying to misdirect him. Ned figured it out with a random comment from Sansa 'Joffrey is nothing like his father Robert'.

Littlefinger is scheming for sure. But in reality he is a minor player compared to someone like Jaime or Ned. Jaime is the one who puts his heirs on the throne in secret. Ned sends the true heir to the throne to the Wall.
 
If Littlefinger did not exist there still would have been a war. Pycelle and Varys knew. Renly and Stannis would figure it out. Jon Arryn figured it out despite everyone trying to misdirect him. Ned figured it out with a random comment from Sansa 'Joffrey is nothing like his father Robert'.
Renly already knew. The plan to wed Margaery doesn’t make sense unless he had a pretext to have Robert set cersei aside and disinherit her children.

Pycelle is a Lannister bag man and toadie. He knew and thus would keep it secret to save his own head much less the house he served.Varys has his own plans. Notably he knew LF was lying about the bet and didn’t say anything, and later on kills Kevan thus destabilizing King’s Landing as Aegon lands and the Martells set off to claim lion skins.

All LF did is accelerate the time table and ensure Ned died. Without LF Stannis still sends his letter; Renly and Varys still seek conflict.

Obviously if cersei had given Robert a single child, (just one would have destroyed any suspicions) the war at least as depicted would not have occurred. No rebellion from Stannis and unlikely that Renly would. The starks and Tullies remain loyal to the crown.

The fact is a lot of people are plotting in AGOT-pretty much all of their plots involve war at some date erupting. Even the Lannisters know war will erupt after Robert’s death, else Tywin would not have been mobilizing before hand, cersei just wants to ensure Ned stark and by extension the Tullies and Arryns don’t side against her son.

Alll that said; the Lannisters are the clear trigger point, but they are antagonists because one they are portrayed as degenerate cunts in the narrative; and too because they committed high treason with the adulterous incest. The starks have a wholesome family dynamic for the most part and the audience is clearly supposed to empathize with them.
 
The North wanted independence because King's Landing chopped their Lord's head off*. Of course they had all reasons to be mad, as was Brandon Stark when Lyanna was allegedly kidnapped, except Brandon Stark was an absolute fucking moron while Robb Stark had the good advice to not go straight to Joffrey to yell at him.

(*they also murdered members of their household and other noble houses, which got a lot of families pissed at them, so it makes sense they were mad at the Lannisters. Remember the Starks were guests there. The Red Wedding was the tipping point.)
 
Also Varys-who actively sabotages things for his own Targaryen restoration project. Such as killing Kevan Lannister(who had cleaned up Cersei’s mess and was trying to patch things up with the Tyrells).
I don't understand this. Destabilizing the situation in King's Landing and causing the guy that cleans up Cersei's constant fuck-ups helps the restoration as far as I can see.
And if the book follows the HBO show it will confirm that Jaime all along really did not care about anyone but himself and Cersei.
I genuinely hope that the show just went HURR DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING DURR! in that scene. Dumb and Dumber were already out of book material and they thought the were better than GRRM, so any notes he gave them were out the picture, too.

Watch this scene and tell me this character only gave a shit about himself and his sister (who was nowhere near King's Landing).

Jaime is one of my favorite characters of all time for that bathtub scene alone... the little boy that dreamt to be a valiant knight, who was invited into the King's Guard after being successful in tournaments and battle, but later found out that the mad king only did it to piss off his father and depriving him of a heir. Who then was shamed by his king on multiple occassions before being ordered to kill his own father as the city is prepared to be burned with everyone inside, which makes him break his oath to protect the city, its people and his own family.

To think that the very reason why I love him so much is undone cause DURR HE NEVER GAVE A SHIT ABOUT COMMONERS HURR is just so insanely idiotic to me, I refuse to even humor the thought that GRRM was going for that unless I see that exact plotpoint in the last books (as if they'd ever come out).

I can't imagine that GRRM would write such a powerful scene with such great dialogue to pull the rug away from under my feet just for a really shitty twist. I see that more as Dumb and Dumber subverting expectations like they did many times before. We know for a fact that they had no clue what to do with Tyrion, Varys, Littlefinger and Jon. I think they just wanted some twist to Jaime and accidentally undid everything that made his character the smallest bit interesting.
 
I genuinely hope that the show just went HURR DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING DURR! in that scene. Dumb and Dumber were already out of book material and they thought the were better than GRRM, so any notes he gave them were out the picture, too.

Watch this scene and tell me this character only gave a shit about himself and his sister (who was nowhere near King's Landing).

Jaime is one of my favorite characters of all time for that bathtub scene alone... the little boy that dreamt to be a valiant knight, who was invited into the King's Guard after being successful in tournaments and battle, but later found out that the mad king only did it to piss off his father and depriving him of a heir. Who then was shamed by his king on multiple occassions before being ordered to kill his own father as the city is prepared to be burned with everyone inside, which makes him break his oath to protect the city, its people and his own family.
But the "you never saw this coming" is peak GRRM writing. He tried the normal style of writing for the first few books but the fans figured everything out on their own. Fans were guessing at hidden lineages and major plot points multiple books in advance. If you read the books on your own you might not figure out Jon's parentage unless you re-read them quite a bit (or have HBO spoil it for you). But with the fans obsessing over every detail and crowdsourcing all of the mysteries GRRM's biggest twists have the potential to be spoiled before being officially revealed. Because the fans can figure out the endings and plot twists faster than GRRM can churn out books. And now with HBO revealing a lot of the endings people can really put together some strong predictions.

We are at the point where we can probably guess the book ending down to the individual characters. The anticipation of the books has dwindled to nothing. GRRM can only blame himself though he blames everyone else. Some of the biggest fan sites did not even finish their reviews or chapter summaries for ADWD. GRRM will have to rewrite the HBO endings or his own outline if he wants to surprise the fans anymore.

Now all that GRRM can do is make incredibly retarded plot twists or absurd character moments that are so illogical that no one can possibly predict them if he wants to fool the audience. Just so that GRRM can say to the fans "I am better than you.....you never thought of that twist did you?". Or his typical "Tolkien was not good enough to do what I did" style of praising his own twists.

There will probably be a dozen or more highly moronic plot twists in the books if GRRM or a ghostwriter every finishes them. Stuff like building up a huge battle of Azor Ahai and the Age of Heroes and Jon with his magic sword and the Long Night and the Others. Only for it to end in one day with Jon doing nothing but screaming into the air. Jon plunging his sword into his lover like the Azor Ahai myth is a false prophecy and is just him killing Dany which is something that GRRM loves as well. Just like the HBO show, GRRM will then gloat over how you thought it was a big battle scene coming up against the Others, but it was just one night of fighting and no major characters die.
To think that the very reason why I love him so much is undone cause DURR HE NEVER GAVE A SHIT ABOUT COMMONERS HURR is just so insanely idiotic to me, I refuse to even humor the thought that GRRM was going for that unless I see that exact plotpoint in the last books (as if they'd ever come out).

I can't imagine that GRRM would write such a powerful scene with such great dialogue to pull the rug away from under my feet just for a really shitty twist. I see that more as Dumb and Dumber subverting expectations like they did many times before. We know for a fact that they had no clue what to do with Tyrion, Varys, Littlefinger and Jon. I think they just wanted some twist to Jaime and accidentally undid everything that made his character the smallest bit interesting.
D&D said that Jaime's ending is basically right from the books. He seeks out Cersei and is still in love with her and basically pledges his undying loyalty to her. He is addicted to her. And Cersei's dies in the arms of her brother like the prophecy but not in a murderous way. They just die in King's Landing during the bells or whatever. Maybe he strangles her to death to prevent Dany from burning her alive or something like a mercy killing or like some Romeo and Juliet suicide pact. But the general idea is likely there in the HBO adaptation.

Keep in mind that GRRM wrote the mystery of Jon's lineage only for it to mean almost nothing ultimately. Jon killing Dany is right from GRRM. Jon going across the Wall to live his days out is also from GRRM. He loves doing this stuff just to laugh at readers for investing into these complicated theories. Readers literally work themselves into a rabid state over typos like Jeyne Westerling having the wrong hips only for GRRM to shoot them down. So imagine the fans reading into these obviously telegraphed theories and waiting for the payoff only for nothing to happen. Expectations truly subverted.
 
@TheHarbinger can't quote you, sp I just tag you.

But the "you never saw this coming" is peak GRRM writing. He tried the normal style of writing for the first few books but the fans figured everything out on their own.

Bold statement, which I don't remember any foundation tbh. Any examples to job my memory?

And now with HBO revealing a lot of the endings people can really put together some strong predictions.
and
GRRM will have to rewrite the HBO endings or his own outline if he wants to surprise the fans anymore.
Dumb and Dumber allegedly had a falling out with GRRM cause they thought their own ideas were much better and more successful, so they deviated from the outline in many way. I expect a lot of the things that made the later seasons of GoT such a shitfest originates from that.

I will believe that GRRM actually outlined all this shit when either the outline is published by GRRM or he finishes his books (himself, I might add) and that shit is actually in there.

There will probably be a dozen or more highly moronic plot twists in the books if GRRM or a ghostwriter every finishes them. Stuff like building up a huge battle of Azor Ahai and the Age of Heroes and Jon with his magic sword and the Long Night and the Others. Only for it to end in one day with Jon doing nothing but screaming into the air. Jon plunging his sword into his lover like the Azor Ahai myth is a false prophecy and is just him killing Dany which is something that GRRM loves as well. Just like the HBO show, GRRM will then gloat over how you thought it was a big battle scene coming up against the Others, but it was just one night of fighting and no major characters die.
Just conjecture on your part. I doubt it. That's that.

D&D said that Jaime's ending is basically right from the books. He seeks out Cersei and is still in love with her and basically pledges his undying loyalty to her. He is addicted to her. And Cersei's dies in the arms of her brother like the prophecy but not in a murderous way. They just die in King's Landing during the bells or whatever. Maybe he strangles her to death to prevent Dany from burning her alive or something like a mercy killing or like some Romeo and Juliet suicide pact. But the general idea is likely there in the HBO adaptation.
Jaime killing Cersei isn't the problem. That Dumb&Dumber undid his character arc in such a way that it completely invalidates it and turns his character from an interesting and tragic person to a mere shitstain is what's pissing me off. If he's still in love with Cersei and kills her and himself to atone for his sins it could work. Him going "lol fuck commoners, I never gave a shit about them as long as I could lick my sisters cunt lol" is a travesty and I simply refuse to believe that any writer worth a shit would come up with that kind of nonsense.

Dumb & Dumber were obsessed with shitty plot twists way more than GRRM. For fuck's sake, I don't even think that GRRM is obsessed with plot-twists that come out of left field, given that the books contain a shitton of indications of what is going to happen. Sure, cryptic enough that you might not at first glance realize what happens until the swarm intelligence of the net lays it bare, but I still don't see it.

Joffrey's death and the Red Wedding were announced in a vision to Dany, if anything, that's the exact opposite of the Dumb&Dumber style of "DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING EH" garbage.

Jon going across the Wall to live his days out is also from GRRM.
Again, not much of an issue for me, if it's written well. But the show gave him nothing to do and tied in Arya as Azor Ahai with maybe one line of dialogue (that might as well just refer to White Walkers in general and not the night king) and precisely zero seconds of preparation. She just comes flying out of the shadows wailing like a banshee and stabs the BBEG.
Frankly, if Jon isn't tied somehow into killing the Night King, either as Azor Ahai directly or as part of the much rumored 3-person group of Azor Ahai, I call shenanigans.
This, once more, is something that I need to read in a book written by GRRM himself before I will even humor the thought of this "Arya is totally Azor Ahai guise, Jon was just a red herring" crap.

Both Jaime and Jon's story in GoT's ending were that bad. And even if GRRM might be high on his own farts about avoiding certain conventions, the thing he always masterfully did, was setting up reasons and foreshadowing for things to come. Jaime being a shitstain and Jon being a worthless piece of shit is the exact opposite of that.
 
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