GAME OF THRONES

[Bilbo 3,709]

Fans are the worst 

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

We really are. I get that when we’re so invested in something we expect a level of quality, timeliness and cheapness, but unfortunately we can’t always have all three all the time.

 

The latest seasons of the show would undoubtedly be much much better if the books had come out before the show. The showrunners are exceptional at editing and adaptation but their own creative writing is not up to par. Peter Jackson and The Hobbit all over again.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

2 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

Peter Jackson and The Hobbit all over again.

 

An unfair comparison, since PJ nailed his adaptation of LOTR! And made it his own, something D&D seem unable to do.

 

Unless the last 2 knock it out of the park.

[Chen G. 3,944]

People just like to throw around offbase, superficial comparisons.

 

Its an online sport.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

29 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

An unfair comparison, since PJ nailed his adaptation of LOTR! And made it his own, something D&D seem unable to do.

 

Unless the last 2 knock it out of the park.

 

I get what he's saying.  LOTR was much more faithful to the books, much as the earlier seasons of Thrones, and people loved it.

 

Jackson/Boyens/Walsh put a lot more stuff of their own invention into The Hobbit and it was pretty badly received by a lot of people.

 

That's not just a superficial comparison to the Thrones situation.  The main difference being of course, Jackson had a complete work to adapt but just decided to make it wider/longer while D&D ran out of books.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Like the PJ is just like Lucas now stuff. It's all-sweeping and shortsighted.

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

 

That's not just a superficial comparison to the Thrones situation.  The main difference being of course, Jackson had a complete work to adapt but just decided to make it wider/longer while D&D ran out of books.

 

But they diverged from the books long before they ran out of GRRM material in certain cases. It isnt a case they suddenly ran out of stuff to adapt.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

But they divulged from the books long before they ran out of GRRM material in certain cases.

 

Yeah?  I can't speak to that, I haven't read them.

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens with these prequel series!

[Chen G. 3,944]

The concluding season of a TV series, not unlike the concluding chapter of a film series, is a tough nut to crack. 99% of the time, they're lesser products to prior seasons.

 

Setting up disparate storylines, characters and ideas is one thing. Bringing them to the point of collision and resolution - now that's just difficult.

 

Its that simple. Has nothing to do with "running out of source material" or whatever.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

11 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

It'll be interesting to see what happens with these prequel series!

 

D&D arent involved with that one, and I guess it's based on a work that Martin actually completed. 

 

11 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Yeah?  I can't speak to that, I haven't read them.

 

Not have I, but I'm told they made significant changes to both plot threads and certain characters before running out of material to adapt.

[Holko 9,499]

Remember when their changes were like Arya&Tywin, one of the best things in the show that added a lot to both of them and is not in the books at all?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I miss Tywin! Charles Dance was a fucking presence!

[Holko 9,499]

It all went downhill after he croaked!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Kinda...yeah.

Tyrion was never the same character after, which is kinda logical I guess, but he's dull.

 

 

[Holko 9,499]

Remember how they brushed off the whore he married and was forced to watch being gangbanged in front of him, a character-defining trauma, as a funny ex this episode?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Yeah.  Dinklage has pretty much two faces these days: either forlorn or concerned.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I believe that after he leaves Westeros Tyrion turns into a pretty nasty piece of work.

 

HBO probably didn't want to take a fan favourite character there. Pity.

[Holko 9,499]

https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bmyovr/signs_we_ignored/?

 

[Jay 37,300]

Wow, that's a pretty interesting video to watch actually.  Also: Kit Harrington's mustache is terrible

[Holko 9,499]

His "disappointing" was actually followed by laughing and "nah, just a joke, it's... big" or something similar.

[Jay 37,300]

[Holko 9,499]

How come Davos, the experienced seamen who attacked KL from the Sea once and boated Tyrion in last season, travels with the footgroup instead of the fleet?

[Jay 37,300]

[Yavar Moradi 2,590]

4 hours ago, Holko said:

Remember how they brushed off the whore he married and was forced to watch being gangbanged in front of him, a character-defining trauma, as a funny ex this episode?

 

It's worse than that. In the books, Jaime reveals before freeing Tyrion that Tysha wasn't a whore. She actually was just a peasant girl and she actually did love Tyrion. And it wasn't a gangbang. It was a gang rape.

 

Yavar

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Leaks are flying around for Ep 5.

 

Wow. Like wow.

 

This is probably going to be the most catastrophic ending to a beloved franchise ever.

[Wojo 2,453]

Yeah, if those spoilers are true, this is like a child who just wants to break all his favorite toys for the sake of it. 

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

31 minutes ago, xWxzek said:

Yeah, if those spoilers are true, this is like a child who just wants to break all his favorite toys for the sake of it. 

 

GRRM is Orson Lannister confirmed 100%

[leeallen01 2,133]

I'm purely watching GOT for the laughs at this point.

[Holko 9,499]

 

Excuse me while I go write my book. I don't know what it's about yet but I've known for half my life that it'll be around 423 pages long.

 

My bullshitmeter started smoking... I'm gonna have to turn it off before tomorrow morning or it'll explode!

[bollemanneke 3,338]

Ah, it's great not to know about these leaks... (quickly leaves thread)

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Getting flashbacks of the end of Battlestar

[Jay 37,300]

I didn't find that ending to be unsatisfying. Not what I expected, but I left the show liking the entire run. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

It was so long ago I barely remember, but I feel like there were some very sharp character turns/reveals near the end that I greatly disliked. 

[Glóin the Dark 1,219]

I've been hoping for tonight's episode to be titled "Beloved Aunt".

[mstrox 6,647]

I thought this was fine. Anyone who follows leaks - was this in line with what you read?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Pretty good spectacle doesn’t make up for a stupid show 

[mstrox 6,647]

I resigned myself to that a season or two ago.  For what Game of Thrones is now - pretty good!

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

I'll point out the major problem with this show - it is at this point completely transparent. Stories are constructions created by the author. The interest in stories is almost like those in magic tricks, you go through the story and then you admire the construction and the design and how it was put together. You also appreciate the internal logic - the glue that holds it all together. With this season, we can see the machinery inside, the wheels turning, the entire artifice is laid bare. This show has ceased to be about the choices that the characters will make. It is now all about the choices that the writers will make.

 

And this lends a degree of arbitrariness to the story that makes it completely meaningless. There are no stakes, no meaning, no nothing here because basically anything can happen. History does not matter, precedent doesn't matter, character logic, logic itself. The only thing that matters is whatever the hell the writers want to do.

 

The episode was fine for what it was - a big-budget spectacle. Almost like a disaster movie. But felt completely empty. There is no order here, no grand design. Only chaos. If that was the ultimate goal of the writers - to tell the audience that there is only ever chaos in life, it could have been done in a much more powerful and existential way rather than the pointless bloodletting of this final season.

[Arpy 4,145]

@Holko That is truly bullshit. They couldn't admit that they wanted to go on longer and the happenstance of no source material to follow made them anxious? Jeez.  

 

How can we trust these people to make Star Wars films?

[Wojo 2,453]

So the leaks I read for this week were true. 

[KK 3,307]

Fuck Game of Thrones.

 

That was utter shit.

[Arpy 4,145]

33 minutes ago, xWxzek said:

So the leaks I read for this week were true. 

I have a feeling the leaks for the final episode will be true too, in which case it's just a matter of watching it all burn to the ground.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Wow.  Guess this isn't a beautiful, if very mature, story to introduce my girls to eventually?  I honestly could cry for that loss.  Damn it. 

 

 

[Holko 9,499]

The leaks were absolutely true. All shall despair.

I'll give it this: this episode looked and was staged damn well for the most part. It went back to at least showing the "what?" well while completely skimping on the "why?".

 

Notes I took:

Varys was clunky as hell.
Some very cool shots like the crowd from above, Arya in the streets.
Tyrion and Jaime was great.
Why are they only bringing citizens in on the morning of the siege?
Golden company outside walls - Why the hell aren't they utilising their single greatest advantage? Oh well, all goners.
How come now the Iron Fleet only has one single scorpion? Last episode they were shooting like 20 arrows at the dragons at once before having to reload, now only Euron has one? ANd why is Dany only torching them now instead of last episode?
Haven't pretty much all the motherfucking Dothraki died when they charged the Dead like a bunch of morons? Still enough left for a giant cavalry charge? At a blown up gate?
Dany fire WHAT THE FUCK WHY? If she would've went for just the Red Keep and wildfyre went off all over and she didn't care - fine. If she saw for example a crownd only looking angrily up at her, completely seeing she will never be loved or feared enough - eh, whatever, it's something. WHAT THE FUCK made her flip off out of the blue to just kill everyone? How dumb is she?
Euron vs Jaime almost looked like the two didn't want to be on set together - at least the fucker's dead at last.
Sandor and Arya was touching, at least the Hound gets fine closure.
Quiburn's death was great and satisfying!
Cleganebowl: meh.
What was the point of Arya becoming a Faceless Man again beside growing her plot armor?
My headcanon is Jaime was intending to kill Cersei until Tyrion told him the other way. Otherwise he's just thrown in the trash dragged from scene to scene like a puppet to do what the writers think will make for the coolest scene.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

28 minutes ago, Holko said:

Dany fire WHAT THE FUCK WHY? If she would've went for just the Red Keep and wildfyre went off all over and she didn't care - fine. If she saw for example a crownd only looking angrily up at her, completely seeing she will never be loved or feared enough - eh, whatever, it's something. WHAT THE FUCK made her flip off out of the blue to just kill everyone? How dumb is she?

 

She's a Targaryen, I guess.

 

Interesting how much utter and complete ruin can apparently be wrought with a single dragon. Pity they didn't make use of that lets say...two episodes ago, or one....

[Arpy 4,145]

Very clumsy Dany stuff, and as Holko mentions - clumsy, clunky Varys. 

 

The sequences in the siege of the city looked spectacular, really evocative of the death and destruction in The Siege of Gondor as the orcs make their way through the levels of the city.

 

But, the leaks have revealed one devastating consequence of a certain characters actions this episode that really have put me off the show altogether

 

Spoiler

Read at own risk:

Spoiler

The execution of Tyrion for setting Jaime free. WTF?

 

 

[Holko 9,499]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

Interesting how much utter and complete ruin can apparently be wrought with a single dragon.

It was very cool to see one in full destructive mode! Less cool to see how the complex strategy against a flying firebreathing monster was to put some powerful wooden stickshooters on the very front of the walls where even the enemy army can take them down in a potential wall scaling, and one on a wooden ship.

 

Anyone see how wide a gap the main bloody gate left when closed? You stick a lance or even a longsword through that hole on the bottom and move it up, bam, crossbeam lifted off, door wide open. No portcullis, no moat, no regression to force enemies together and shoot them from 3 sides from above. Thankfully the whole thing was promptly blown up.

 

 

[leeallen01 2,133]

Things I found hilarious:

 

- Tyrion having a heartfelt goodbye with Varys after L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y betraying him to Dany about 20 seconds before...

 

- Jamie, The Hound and Arya magically appearing in Kings Landing 5 seconds after being quote "2 days away on foot..."

 

- The entire Iron Fleet AND hundreds of positions on the walls of Kings Landing failing to hit the dragon with thousands of giant arrows, yet only one managed to hit another dragon in 1 shot in the last episode...

 

- Jamie and Euron fighting for no reason...

 

- Arya forcing a woman and child against their will to leave the safety of a building that they, and tens of people seem to be surviving fine in, and then 10 seconds later they die...

 

- Dany being so vengeful against Cersei that she burns the entire civilian population of Kings Landing, yet she forgets about Cersei entirely...

 

- Jon taking 3 hours to retreating after witnessing brutal murder of civilians...

 

- A random 'good' soldier deciding to rape a woman in the middle of the battle, and then trying to kill his commander (Jon) because he tried to stop him...

 

- Jamie and Cersei dying because of some bricks...

 

- Arya choosing to give up the 'revenge life' after the Hound said don't do it cause it's not good...

 

- The Hound jumping to his death...

 

- Arya finding a perfectly calm and untouched horse to escape on...

 

 

[Alex 2,833]

“Okay Lena, we know you play one of the most important and most developed characters on show, but this season you’ll just be smirking, drinking wine and looking out over Kings Landing”

[Disco Stu 15,495]

10 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

 

 

- Arya forcing a woman and child against their will to leave the safety of a building that they, and tens of people seem to be surviving fine in, and then 10 seconds later they die...

 

- Arya choosing to give up the 'revenge life' after the Hound said don't do it cause it's not good...

 

- Arya finding a perfectly calm and untouched horse to escape on...

 

 

 

I found a lot of things risible about this episode.  But actually pretty much everything about Arya in this episode was fantastic.  Basically the only aspect of the episode that worked for me was her.