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So, Game of Thrones is back for one last hurrah, so I figured we might as well get the spoiler discussion thread out of the way.
Let's try to keep things under spoiler tags so as to protect the unfortunate soul that might inadvertently glimpse at the thread.
My own thoughts so far :
- New intro is cool.
- I thought the episode was pretty good at getting us back up to speed after the long break.
- I feel like they've upped the production value significantly for the final season.
- Not much else to comment on, it's essentially a massive "previously on", with a few somewhat significant points being advanced.
- The ending was fun :)
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Not seen it yet but guessing tits and murder happened?
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after series 5 onwards there's nothing left but moderate chuckle material
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I just came here after Ep5 to facepalm.
*facepalm*
That is all.
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Like I said in the other thread, D&D have taken 7.5 seasons of goodwill and character development and completely destroyed all of it in the last two episodes. I went into 8x05 with very low expectations but holy ****.
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Well at least we got
CLEGANEBOWL AWW YISS
But on a more serious note, making Dany the new Big Bad was a hard sell and I didn't buy it. Dare I say it - I think it amounts to character assassination as it is such a reversal as to make her whole arc meaningless.
As a *clang clang boom* spectacle it was fun to watch at times, but the level of destruction and violence was somewhat excessive, to the point where I was getting Hiroshima vibes from the whole ordeal. I haven't quite gathered my thoughts after seeing it, but it felt like watching a mindless summer blockbuster. Cersei was grossly underused, as were a good chunk of the cast seeing as there was very little in the way of character moments.
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I'm not a fan of Dany going nuts either, but there is a basis for it from the source material. She's impulsive, prone to using violence as a solution to her problems, is definitely entitled, and there's a point in ADWD where she basically decides that ruling Meereen in peace is not for her, and that she'd rather be a conqueror. It's definitely possible that she could turn into something very ugly by the finale in Westeros, but it has to be done a little piece at a time, to make the slide believable. Benioff and Weiss instead opted to not do that. In the show, she's still impulsive and has a ruthless streak, but her actions, even when irrational, are understandable, right up until she starts torching King's Landing and everyone in it for ****s and giggles. So instead of watching a character's slow descent into villainy (e.g. Walter White in Breaking Bad), we get "lol she mad queen now." That's been the season's problem in a nutshell: decent ideas that not everyone is going to be a fan of conceptually, that could work with a lot of careful setup and rock-solid execution, except without the setup and execution.
Also, I'm kind of upset that the writing is so bad, because everything else (lighting in 8x03 aside) has been really well-done. The acting is superb, the music is excellent, the cinematography, costumes, all of it. The only real weakpoint is the writing, but because that's so bad, everything else isn't all that enjoyable. It's a shame.
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Okay, well, that was something... just finished episode 5.
In general, I think the show has gone a little downhill after losing the source material. Say what you will about GRRM - and I can say A LOT - but his work has some actual nuance to it, whereas the show is basically smashing us over the head at every turn.
Dany losing her **** shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read the books. It has been well-telegraphed for some time that Daenerys is not a good-hearted benevolent saviour - she is above all a bit of a spoiled child who makes rash decisions, and she's unhinged right from the second book onward. That said, the show has handled this clumsily. Most of the nuance and telegraphing has been brushed aside and Daenerys has largely been set up as a saviour figure, so the rapid reversal in this last season has been especially jarring.
On top of that, the loss or Rhaegal was stupidly and poorly done, and the destruction of the Iron Fleet and King's Landing aerial defenses is made even more idiotic for it. The Iron Fleet's scorpions should never have posed a realistic threat to the dragons, and while it would have been possible to kill off Rhaegal with one using surprise - an ambush from concealment on Dragonstone, perhaps - the notion that an entire fleet could hide from the dragons and knock a maneuvering dragon straight out of the air with consecutive shots is just goddamned ludicrous.
I'm curious to watch the last episode if only to see how things end but yes, I agree with Rhymes - the writing this season has taken a serious nosedive. I guess it was foreshadowed by the nosedive of Viserion last season. Which reminds me - the destruction of The Wall was just as badly done last season too.
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I agree with everything MP-Ryan said, with one difference:
Personally, I never really read Dany as being a spoiled child/unhinged, but that's just me. There's plenty of evidence to support that interpretation, I just didn't agree with it--like Ryan said, there's nuance in the books, and I think that nuance allows for reasonable minds to disagree on what Daenerys is at that point in time.
Not so much with the show.
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I'm a bit behind. Just finished 8.2... Geeze those first two episodes are slooooooooooooooooooooow. They should have been mashed together or something. I was legit bored.
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You should stop watching.
Seriously. Just, stop at S8E2. Come up with your own ending and let it be.
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8x03 isn't bad. It's dumb, but not any dumber than Season 7 was, and the big emotional beats work. After that, though, it's a trainwreck.
e: fixed a space that was annoying me
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I'm sitting here watching 8.3 and well... I'm posting here so that says something about how bored I am by all this mindlessness...
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Just caught up to date.
The acting is superb, the music is excellent, the cinematography, costumes, all of it. The only real weakpoint is the writing, but because that's so bad, everything else isn't all that enjoyable. It's a shame.
This sums up my thoughts nicely : everything is so well crafted that the weak writing sticks out like a sore thumb.
More detailed thoughts on the past 3 episodes:
- 8x03 : I thought the episode was mostly alright, with some really good moments, right up until its final 15 minutes or so, which feature the most blatant cases of plot armor I've seen in a long time.
Arya doing a flash step to backstab the Night King was kinda goofy, though I though the sleigh of hand frontstab was nice. As for it being Arya that gets the killing blow on the Big Bad, why not :rolleyes: - although I really wish they had been more subtle with their foreshadowing it...
My biggest beef with it has to be the plot armor, I thought this was a great opportunity to clean up the board, kill characters that we care about or have some importance so that it actually feels like a heavy price was paid for this foregone victory. Hell, I would have been impressed if they had actually made it a defeat, or if killing the NK didn't actually solve the entirety of their undead problem.
- 8x04 : lol @ anti-air balista. I think this is one of the biggest misstep this season. For one, it really stretches believability, its one thing to have magic-guy Night King one-shotting a flying dragon, but a regular old balista doing the same thing... *facepalm* I understand the need to have Cersei & her forces repeatedly hurt Danny personally due to the events of episode 5, but that was *seriously* clumsy...
Overall I think the Iron Fleet has been a bit too much of an "I win" button for Cersei to compensate for her strategic blunders.
-8x05 : I'd like to state for the record that this one was a barrel of fun to watch. Stupid, sure but hellafun :D
What I was expecting : Danny going on rampage with her dragon and burning chunks of the city, inflicting a lot of collateral damage and forcing Cersei's forces to surrender. Continuing this cold, ruthless streak she would then be merciless towards her enemies, possibly wiping out the surrendering Lanister/Golden Company forces and completing her journey to the dark side.
What I didn't expect : going on a stupid/pointless evil rampage after the city surrendered. This ain't a Blizzard game, you can't just have your characters go "Lol, I'm evil now", especially when you have sooo much to work with here...
Aside from that:
* the Clegane duel was fun
* I would have prefered if Jamie bled to death long before meeting Cersei
* dragon fire is apparently more explody than melty when it comes to stones
* **** the Iron Throne, build a new throne out of skulls, that way you can have your followers go all "Blood for the blood queen ! Skulls for the Skull Throne ! Let the World BURN !!!"
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I'm a bit behind. Just finished 8.2... Geeze those first two episodes are slooooooooooooooooooooow. They should have been mashed together or something. I was legit bored.
This season needed more episodes like them. A lot more. Time was, when this show was ‘good’ (or at least interesting), you got seven episodes of talking per season, two episodes of **** happening, and an episode of wrap up.
But the problem now is the dialogue writing is terrible and there’s nothing for them to do but repeat quips and deliver fan service, so they could never support that. Brienne getting knighted was good though.
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This season needed more episodes like them. A lot more. Time was, when this show was ‘good’ (or at least interesting), you got seven episodes of talking per season, two episodes of **** happening, and an episode of wrap up.
But the problem now is the dialogue writing is terrible and there’s nothing for them to do but repeat quips and deliver fan service, so they could never support that. Brienne getting knighted was good though.
AGREE. Particularly more setup with Bran and why ye olde Night King really wants to prioritize him. The show has done far too much hand-waving for expedience since losing the source material to work from, and been poorer for it. The way the Wall was handled really pissed me off, and I had hopes for season 8 after episodes 1/2, but 3 was poorly executed, 4 contained some outright stupidity, and 5 just goes further into the "**** nuanced characters, we just want to wrap this **** up."
Ugh. It's not so much the overarching plot that makes me mad, it's the way it has been handled. Hopefully, if GRRM ever gets off his ass and finishes the books, his execution is better. Then again, we're at two books left and he's still adding *IMPORTANT* characters, so that might be a lost hope too.
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I haven't read the books yet, but I intend to. However, I'd say the worst thing that happened to the show was that it got famous for the things it got famous for. I'd venture the worst thing for the books was that the show got famous. GRRM can't just write his fantasy epic off in book land anymore... he's got to please an unusually massive audience.
Episode 4 finished... It was nice to get back to the political stuff, but ugh. I'm not sure who's more done with the show; myself or the writers?
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The writers clearly shifted from GRRM’s paradigm of “noodle along with feasts and conversations and see what kind of oh **** moments come up” to a model of “invent some oh **** moments and get the characters to them as fast as possible.” GRRM can’t do that because he has only the vaguest idea what will happen; his twists are always built up (sometimes excruciatingly so) because he has to discover them by writing all the setup.
And when all his noodling gets confused and tangled, and it’s no fun to write any more, he just stops.
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It's just the same thing that happend with Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan had the last chapters of the last book already written by the time he published the third book but getting there naturally proved to be more complex than he thought and ended up writing 10+ books before dying and even Brandon Sanderson had to split the last book in three because there was just no chance everything necessary would have fit in it. Martin himself has been forced to split and add books before, the same thing is happening again and I wonder why people are surprised.
Now with GoT people are seeing what hack writers that just churn out stuff end up with when they decide to finish an epic fantasy with loads and loads of characters as fast as possible because "themes are for school essays" (yes, they said that).
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I don't understand why HBO insisted on just 6 episodes for season 8. This show makes them all the money... They could have spread it out more if they wanted. That might have helped some... maybe not if the writing was going to be awful either way.
Though it has been funny to see the kind of HBO ads that run before the show (at least on HBO Now) during S8. "look at all our other shows.. we have so many shows! And the actors, oh the big name actors! Please, please consider not ending your subscription this week. Pleeeaase. Look at all the shows we have!"
(Most HBO shows on HBO Now run a short trailer for a specific show. The GOT S8 ads have been about HBOs entire catalog.)
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HBO didn't insist on it. HBO offered them more episodes and the showrunners refused, insisting that 7 and 6 episodes would be enough.
TBH, I don't understand why people are surprised at how bad S8 is, when it's just more of what S7 was: fanservice, ****ty dialogue, and no pacing.
It's been bad fanfiction of itself since S6 ended.
It's just the same thing that happend with Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan had the last chapters of the last book already written by the time he published the third book but getting there naturally proved to be more complex than he thought and ended up writing 10+ books before dying and even Brandon Sanderson had to split the last book in three because there was just no chance everything necessary would have fit in it. Martin himself has been forced to split and add books before, the same thing is happening again and I wonder why people are surprised.
The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.
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I don't understand why HBO insisted on just 6 episodes for season 8. This show makes them all the money... They could have spread it out more if they wanted. That might have helped some... maybe not if the writing was going to be awful either way.
HBO wanted 10 full 10-episode seasons but a) the creators were clearly too burned out to sustain that and b) the younger cast members would've aged hilariously.
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HBO didn't insist on it. HBO offered them more episodes and the showrunners refused, insisting that 7 and 6 episodes would be enough.
TBH, I don't understand why people are surprised at how bad S8 is, when it's just more of what S7 was: fanservice, ****ty dialogue, and no pacing.
It's been bad fanfiction of itself since S6 ended.
It's just the same thing that happend with Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan had the last chapters of the last book already written by the time he published the third book but getting there naturally proved to be more complex than he thought and ended up writing 10+ books before dying and even Brandon Sanderson had to split the last book in three because there was just no chance everything necessary would have fit in it. Martin himself has been forced to split and add books before, the same thing is happening again and I wonder why people are surprised.
The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.
Sanderson didn't insist in finishing the saga in a single book like he was originally set to, even Jordan joked about "special bindings" being necessary for the last book back when he was still alive and in the end Sanderson had to write three books and a short story to wrap it all up.
I don't understand why HBO insisted on just 6 episodes for season 8. This show makes them all the money... They could have spread it out more if they wanted. That might have helped some... maybe not if the writing was going to be awful either way.
HBO wanted 10 full 10-episode seasons but a) the creators were clearly too burned out to sustain that and b) the younger cast members would've aged hilariously.
How many child actors are still there that are still children or teenagers? IIRC a lot of them were in their twenties already and it's not Harry Potter where they are supposed to be still in school.
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Ep5 haha ok.
Well it's just spectacle now. While I did enjoy the spectacle of it.. the character turns were jarring. Could have worked if they took their time a little more.
I did enjoy Cersei having a mental break down at the end. She was a ***** for 8 seasons and deserved every second of what happened to her. The only thing more satisfying would have been if someone literally carved that damn smirk off her face first. (though it did melt pretty quickly when she saw what was happening. God I hated her. That actress deserves some real awards for her work.
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The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.
Fixed that for you. I hate to say it, but Jordan's failure to finish WoT himself was probably the best thing that happened to that series. Books 4 through 8 were an immense slog of expansive "WHY?" Things started getting better by Crossroads of Twilight and A Knife of Dreams, but even by the end of Knife it was very much in doubt that Jordan would be able to satisfyingly conclude the series in any reasonable amount of time. Sanderson did a masterful job, likely better than Jordan would have pulled off himself. As an aside, it was the conclusion of WoT that got me hooked on Sanderson's work, and he's now one of my favourite authors.
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I haven't consumed either form of the series other than reading review pieces over what is coming across as an increasing trainwreck of a final season, but the best observation by far I've seen is that mainstream audiences are finally discovering what anime/manga fans have been dealing with for decades: what happens when the adaptation catches up with the original work and has to come up with some sort of original ending, often to disastrous effect. It's a fascinating thing to watch from the outside. Bullock's point about Martin taking years to get to the ending he already has planned rings pretty true for for One Piece fans too, as the series is now at least four times longer than Eiichiro Oda probably originally expected, and we're "very close" to an endgame that is still years off. Fandom suffering is truly universal.
Fixed that for you. I hate to say it, but Jordan's failure to finish WoT himself was probably the best thing that happened to that series. Books 4 through 8 were an immense slog of expansive "WHY?" Things started getting better by Crossroads of Twilight and A Knife of Dreams, but even by the end of Knife it was very much in doubt that Jordan would be able to satisfyingly conclude the series in any reasonable amount of time. Sanderson did a masterful job, likely better than Jordan would have pulled off himself. As an aside, it was the conclusion of WoT that got me hooked on Sanderson's work, and he's now one of my favourite authors.
I've gotten a few books into WoT on multiple occasions, but the problem has been that I've taken so long between each reading that I always had to reread the previous books before moving on. It was enjoyable, but even early on it seemed like it was doing a lot of meandering for meandering's sake, like when the original novel split the party up for about a third of the story I guess because That's What Tolkien Did Too. (There was even a Paths of the Dead!) I really should read more of Sanderson; I greatly enjoyed his debut Elantris.
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Listening to the audiobook for book 1 now, and the amount of dialogue and scene placement that is word-for-word the first season of the HBO series is extremely revealing. It demonstrates why the show has been so engrossing and highly regarded, and it shows why, not long after the show outpaced the books, the quality declined. The first season is barely an adaptation, it's more like transcription. It's clear that the show runners were entirely dependent on the books, not just for character and plot, but for every bit of metaphor, dialogue, pacing, and dramatic thrust. Like leaving training wheels on too long, by the time the show needed to be written around plot outlines instead of scene-for-scene, the writers weren't up to it.
I don't know for how many books this remains true. I know there is show material that is different, or more visual, than the books, and that editing decisions were made re: characters and plot, but it's clear that most of the magic of the show is from Martin. The show's final seasons deserved better than to be slapped together with explosions and callbacks.
It's not a disaster; I don't think it diminishes the impressive accomplishment of the show up through season 4 (or maybe 5?), nor should we discount the amazing casting, set design, costume, etc - all the elements of a quality *production* are there... It's just a shame to get a cliffs notes version for the end of these story threads. Absent Martin's writing, the show just has no verve.
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All I have to say:
(https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tywin-lannister-gif-3.gif)
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Just finished episode 6.
What a disappointment. Like, the acting, the costume design, the CGI (with a few exceptions), and the set design were all excellent. To see all of this work just not really matter because the writing is so bad is just :banghead:
So there it is. Jon kills Dany. Bran's the king. End of story. Except not because I'm sure there's a slew of sequels lined up, one for each plot line left dangling in the wind following that conclusion.
Also, what was that whole deal with Jon being a prisoner of the unsullied? They just agreed to let him serve his punishment on the night's watch, then the unsullied all just leave king's landing? What's to stop Jon from just going back to Winterfell? Did I miss something here? And what does the night's watch even do now?
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Just finished episode 6.
Yeah.. the path of the last few episodes to get to the end were meh. I'm OK with the details of what happened, though. What plot lines are left dangling? Maybe I never got deep enough into the lore, but there isn't anything else related to A Song of Ice and Fire that I'm left wondering about. I've no idea what the Night's Watch does now.. but whatever. Jon gets to go be with the freefolk, arguably is favorite thing. Sansa gets to be stoic queen. Arya gets to go be a badass. (I'd watch that show, actually; following Arya's adventures west.)
I assume if Jon were released from his "punishment", word would get to the unsullied and it'd start a war... or at least that I what seemed to be implied.
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I thought the finale was reasonably solid on its own, but so much of the setup was so badly mishandled earlier in the season that it really didn't resonate much with me at all. Decent way to end the show, and the performances were as good as they've ever been, so if I had to use a metaphor, I'd say the show, with both engines on fire, managed a belly-landing that kept most of the passengers alive, but still put a whole lot of them in the hospital for a while.
Various assorted thoughts:
Tyrion got to actually be intelligent and thoughtful for the first time in forever, which was very gratifying to see.
Sure, Jon could potentially have come back to Winterfell after the Unsullied left, maybe, but there's some subtext that the real reason is that he just doesn't want to: Jon found more happiness and fulfillment in the NW and the True North than he ever did south of the Wall.
Arya's plot and ending were weak, and her wanting to go west of Westeros was not set up at all, basically.
Drogon melting the iron throne, carrying Dany off, and then just disappearing was pretty nonsensical, and created more questions than it answered.
I saw the leaks that said Bran was going to be king, and I thought it was a stupid idea. I still don't think it's a good idea, but there was enough in the performances (and in the dialogue, for once!) that I could accept it.
EDIT: The North remaining independent is something that could have worked in the context of the books, but Sansa being the only one really championing it in the show made that plot point kind of weak as well, although I'm open to arguments otherwise.
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I just finished episode 1.
Of season 8. :nervous:
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Watching episode 2, and-
Did living with Sam Tully make his girlfriend porky too?
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Samwell Tarly, not Tully. Tarly is a minor house sworn to Highgarden in the Reach. Tully is a major house that rules the Riverlands from Riverrun.
This is the kind of detail that used to matter, but it doesn't any more. For example, they talk about Sam's OLDER brother, but the entire reason Sam took the black in the first place was because HE was the older brother and Lord Tarly didn't want Sam as head of the house. I won't bother griping about my other problems with Episodes 3-6, there's too many to count. I'll just say that in earlier seasons, you were rewarded for paying attention; and in this season, you were punished for paying attention.
I agree that where the show ended up is acceptable, but how it got there was unnecessarily rushed. HBO was willing to throw loads of time and money at the show to keep it running but the writers decided they had had enough and wrapped up what should have been another 40 episodes in only 15. When they didn't feel up to the task, they ought to have passed it on to another crew who was. I'll quote Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
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The problem with saying it was rushed are twofold.
1) People were already complaining that episodes 1 & 2 were dull because they had no action. If you add more episodes which are just talking, you're going to get many more complaints that the show has gone off the boil.
2) If you add action, you're either going to have to kill characters you wanted to survive the last episode or you're just going to have action with no consequences.
I won't disagree that things did feel rushed, but what the hell were you going to put into those extra 25 episodes?
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Episodes 1 and 2 were dull, not because they had no action (most of thrones has no action), but because nothing happened. They were used as a "where are they now" kind of catch up instead of pushing the plot forward.
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I'm not going to say you're wrong, but there are a lot of people who get upset at the show if there aren't titties and death in it. But for the rest of us, it's the two problems taken together that is the issue. What plot can be pushed forwards for 25 episodes and still get us to the same place?
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I've only got episode 6 to go (will watch it after work) and u think it's gone all bleeeeeeeeeh. It peaked just before Arya did her
hand switch-jitsu on the night king.
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I'm not going to say you're wrong, but there are a lot of people who get upset at the show if there aren't titties and death in it. But for the rest of us, it's the two problems taken together that is the issue. What plot can be pushed forwards for 25 episodes and still get us to the same place?
The first season was mostly people talking since the book was like that too, but I guess when you don't have a book from which to copy/adapt most dialogues from it becomes much more difficult to make compelling dialogues for a lot of writers.
Yes, i've just found out that one of the D&D duo has also Troy and X-men Origins: Wolverine among his writing credits.
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It's not that I'm saying you can't have more episodes that are mostly talking. But what the **** are they going to talk about! People are acting like there was another season that could have been squeezed out of that plot, there really wasn't. The dialogue in S1 pushed the plot forward. But what was it going to do here beyond pad out the length of each episode? Mjn literally pointed out that dialogue that didn't drive the plot forward was the problem with eps 1 & 2. And I don't disagree with him even though I actually liked those episodes.
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It's not that I'm saying you can't have more episodes that are mostly talking. But what the **** are they going to talk about! People are acting like there was another season that could have been squeezed out of that plot, there really wasn't.
The plot we got on screen perhaps, I wouldn't be suprised if they just had a vague checklist of fixed plot points (read: stuff that had to happen) and instead of connecting them with more plot they just put them one after the other to get it done as quickly as possible.
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So you want the plot we saw but with more plot. What ****ing plot! My entire point was that people keep saying that the ending was fine but they needed more plot to get there and yet keep complaining at the writers while ignoring the fact that they haven't got a ****ing clue how to do it either.
Bear in mind that I originally entered this conversation to dispute that you could simply add another 25 episodes without disrupting the ending. If you honestly can't see why that's not possible, I don't think there is much point in continuing this conversation.
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I think what people are longing for is subplot that develops the character arcs so that their choices in the final episode make sense. Dany is an obvious one. Throw in a few events where she starts making increasingly questionable decisions instead of just flipping the light switch.
The first two episodes could have covered more prep for the battle outside of "everyone's building #stuff". Flesh out the plans so we can see how they succeed or fail in the actual battle. This is good opportunity for characters to oppose or agree with one another and to plant seeds about the ways their relationships will break down in later episodes. Instead these episodes were spent on the characters catching up with people they cared about. Yeah.. ok we get it. They haven't seen each other since season 2. Now move on!
You ask "what plot" and that's precisely the point. Season 8 as it exists merely moves from major plot event to the next with little rising or falling action.. which is where GOT used to really thrive.
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Just shows the writers weakness regarding character breadth over glorious cgi set-pieces.
Also not enough boobs.
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I think what people are longing for is subplot that develops the character arcs so that their choices in the final episode make sense. Dany is an obvious one. Throw in a few events where she starts making increasingly questionable decisions instead of just flipping the light switch.
The first two episodes could have covered more prep for the battle outside of "everyone's building #stuff". Flesh out the plans so we can see how they succeed or fail in the actual battle. This is good opportunity for characters to oppose or agree with one another and to plant seeds about the ways their relationships will break down in later episodes. Instead these episodes were spent on the characters catching up with people they cared about. Yeah.. ok we get it. They haven't seen each other since season 2. Now move on!
You ask "what plot" and that's precisely the point. Season 8 as it exists merely moves from major plot event to the next with little rising or falling action.. which is where GOT used to really thrive.
And once again, I'm not saying you're wrong about the problems with the show. But do you think it should take an entire season to do what you suggested? Do you think that it could be stretched over an entire extra season without losing quality (let alone the two and a half seasons I'm arguing can't be done)?
Let me ask you something, give me a summary of seasons 7 - 10 episode by episode which would end up with us in the same place. When you realise that by season 9 you're writing boring filler perhaps you'll understand why I'm saying that an episode or two in season 7 & 8 might have helped but 25 extra ****ing episodes would have been an even bigger disaster than what happened.
I think what people are longing for is subplot that develops the character arcs so that their choices in the final episode make sense. Dany is an obvious one. Throw in a few events where she starts making increasingly questionable decisions instead of just flipping the light switch.
To be fair, they did do that. The decision to kill Sam's father and brother, the execution of Varys, the point where she tells John she'll have to rule by fear instead of love, her argument that Cercei is using human shields and any of them she has to kill are dying for the glorious future she foresees. Now I fully agree they could have been done better and they could have been spread out more, but it's not like they didn't exist. Dany's sudden face-heel turn is actually explained in the episode itself. She hadn't been eating, she's grieving over the death of both of her best friends in a very short period of time, and she was left without her advisors (despite them actually pointing out they shouldn't leave her alone!). Yeah, I agree that it was poorly written but let's not act like it wasn't explained at all.
Had all that stuff been written in the same style as Season One, I doubt anyone would be complaining.
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Regardless of all the what-could-have-beens, I feel that the final episode was about the best they could do, given the situation. Thanks to some great performances, I felt it was an OK sendoff for a couple of overall disappointing pair of final seasons.
They obviously couldn't end the series with Dany still alive, so it was either Jon Snow or Arya that did her in. Since Arya already fragged the Night King, and Jon had an emotionnal connection to Dany anyway, he was the only candidate for that job.
Having Big Dragon & Dany's loyalist forces simply **** off of Westeros after the Starks get pretty much everything they could want is a bit convenient... (although I guess you could do a spinoff were they come back for #revenge)
I will admit I was amused by the new Small Council & King "Not-Giving-A-****" Bran at the end, though I do question whether it's a good idea to maintain your government in a ruined castle in dead city that's probably still smoldering and full of dead bodies - but then I guess it could have been all cleaned up offscreen, we all know it only take one Peon to build a castle after all.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I couldn't give two ****s about Arya possibly getting a spinoff at some point. While I do like her character, A) I think a series focused on her would get old really fast if they lean too much on the Arya-is-awesome fanservice, and B) she's both finished her character arc is already a max-level ninja assassin, I'm not sure were you could take her from there, and given how the last 2 seasons turned out, I'm not convinced TV writers can produce satisfying original content for the GoT-verse.
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One thing I really would like to know is when Martin passed on the details of where the series was meant to go. Cause if it was only after S5 ended, that does explain a lot.
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Meh.. i'm far too lazy to actually come up with summaries of episodes that could have been. Those episodes could have literally anything in them... it doesn't matter as long as it's fun to watch.
I'd suggest to say that it's impossible to write interesting subplots within the larger story that already did unfold would be to have a very closed mind creatively. A lot of the events in the early seasons of GOT are filler.. but it's interesting filler that gives opportunities for character progression or reinforcement. They could have done the same with season 8 but chose not to.
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Let me ask you something, give me a summary of seasons 7 - 10 episode by episode which would end up with us in the same place.
Don't tempt me.
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So you want the plot we saw but with more plot. What ****ing plot! My entire point was that people keep saying that the ending was fine but they needed more plot to get there and yet keep complaining at the writers while ignoring the fact that they haven't got a ****ing clue how to do it either.
Bear in mind that I originally entered this conversation to dispute that you could simply add another 25 episodes without disrupting the ending. If you honestly can't see why that's not possible, I don't think there is much point in continuing this conversation.
I agree that we didn’t need 25 extra episodes. But HBO offered to let the show run as long as it needed to – imagine if they moved the battle of Winterfell to be the final episode of season 7, and then you had 10 episodes in season 8 - seven more than they actually had.
This gives you all the room you need for the key events to breathe.
Imagine Varys’ arc if he’d had time to scheme against Dany and been discovered, rather than just being unceremoniously killed an episode after he just flat out tells Tyrion “Let’s do treason”. Imagine Brienne and Jamie’s arc if it had lasted more than 15 minutes of screen time after they hooked up (or better yet if they’d not hooked up at all, the knighting was enough).
First episode could be more or less the same as what we got, celebrating etc., then Dany marches south rather than sailing south (because the iron fleet is still out there). Bran insists on coming with them so that he actually has a role in the story rather than just popping up at the end. The army has to pass close by the lands of both the Reeds and the Freys (or whoever is ruling there). We could have seen Meera again, who would have been an interesting character to have contextualise Bran’s eventual elevation, possibly through conversations with Tyrion and/or Bran himself. Nice chance to explain a bit about warging, three eyed raven etc. Dany could decide to punish whatever obscure branch of the Frey family currently holds the twins to try to get the Starks on side, or just because he as refusing to let them cross. Maybe she uses her dragons in a more justifiable, but still violent assault that presages Kings Landing.
While this is all happening, Yara can come back into the picture, using her fleet to raid Lannister lands, trying to goad Cersei and Euron into sending out the Iron fleet, which they eventually do. Varys finds out the fleet has left, Dany then leaves the army to go and help Yara’s smaller fleet defeat Euron’s much bigger one with her dragons. Yara gets to be the one who kills Euron (far more satisfying than Jamie) but Dany sinks every single one of his ships even after he dies and the rest run up surrender flags - again, she’s turning gradually, probably as a result of losing Rhaegal. While she’s away, Cersei sends a Golden Company Spec Ops team to infiltrate the southern marching army to kidnap people who she can use as bargaining chips, making her an active participant rather than someone who just stands at a window all season. They get Missandei and get away. Also while Dany is away Varys gets up to his treasoning, and we could see more evidence of the Westerosi racism towards the unsullied and the Dothraki. Arya and the Hound could split off at this point, jumping on a boat to get ahead of the army, taking one of the golden company’s faces with them to help them slip into Kings Landing (with the Hound as Arya’s prisoner). Arya’s plan is to kill Cersei before Dany gets to Kings Landing because she sees what’s coming - this would make her giving up at the last minute a bit more believable as she will have failed to prevent Dany from burning everyone anyway.
After that it can play out more or less as before, just a little changed around. Varys’ treason is discovered on the way to KL rather than on Dragonstone. The army is present when Cersei kills Missandei, triggering the attack on the city and bringing the trigger for Dany and Grey Worm’s anger closer to the consequences (plus a few scenes of Cersei and Missandei talking before she’s killed would serve to add context to Cersei’s position at this point in time and make her cold bloodedness more obvious). We still get Cleganebowl, Jamie and Cersei still die together, everything plays out more or less the same, just with some colour and texture, and characters who haven’t developed apparent sudden onset brain damage. And you get a sense of the people and the world they inhabit, and the consequences of the books events which they feel and react to. That’s what Martin’s books were so good at, and what early GoT had over later GoT.
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I agree that we didn’t need 25 extra episodes.
I'm glad someone finally agrees with literally the only point I was trying to make.
As for the rest, yeah I fully agree that it would be better.
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(good stuff)
I dig it. Even that summary sounds miles better than what wound up happening.
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Someone somewhere pointed out that Dany’s second dragon should’ve died during the attack on King’s Landing, maybe to concealed scorpions, thus triggering her trogdor mode and large dragon atrocity.
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Obviously spoilers but yeah..
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So you want the plot we saw but with more plot. What ****ing plot! My entire point was that people keep saying that the ending was fine but they needed more plot to get there and yet keep complaining at the writers while ignoring the fact that they haven't got a ****ing clue how to do it either.
Bear in mind that I originally entered this conversation to dispute that you could simply add another 25 episodes without disrupting the ending. If you honestly can't see why that's not possible, I don't think there is much point in continuing this conversation.
Charlie from the Emergency Awesome YouTube channel covered this today (jump to 10:33 for his envisioned fan-fiction changes to seasons 6-8, and the extra seasons 9 & 10).
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Finally got around to watching the last season...I couldn't help but think they kinda cribbed the ending from the hunger games series. The person leading the "revolution" turns out to be not so good, the series' hero decides, pretty much unilaterally, to kill her, and everyone else is left kinda... well now wtf do we do? Series ends.