Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 10775 Location: Hoosier Nation
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 10:52 am Post subject:
ocho wrote:
ElginBaylor wrote:
On Cersei's death that a lot of people seem to be disappointed with, anything else wouldn't have been as big a surprise. Should Arya have killed her? Dany? Jon Snow? Jamie? Any of those would have been predictable.
She got the death she deserved. Completely broken and taken out by the rocks she was convinced would keep her safe.
I totally thought when Cersei and Jamie first saw each other after the Euron fight that Arya had stumbled upon Jamie's dead body and was wearing his face.
I thought that was a possibility before the episode even aired, which means that would have been too predictable. _________________ Not a legend
i didn't realize the keep was coming crashing down so i bizarrely thought for a second jamie was going to kill cersei with his sword maybe as a mercy kill.
On Cersei's death that a lot of people seem to be disappointed with, anything else wouldn't have been as big a surprise. Should Arya have killed her? Dany? Jon Snow? Jamie? Any of those would have been predictable.
She got the death she deserved. Completely broken and taken out by the rocks she was convinced would keep her safe.
This is bad logic for writing a story. GRRM even mentions this trope specifically. You don't change the story because the fans may have guessed it already. Doing (bleep) just to "subvert expectations" for the sake of it is asinine and has led to the ruining of the series.
Quote:
“I’ve been planting all these clues that the butler did it, then you’re halfway through a series and suddenly thousands of people have figured out that the butler did it, and then you say the chambermaid did it? No, you can’t do that,” Martin reportedly said while addressing whether fan theories and online speculation influence his writing process for the “Song of Ice and Fire” series of novels on which HBO’s adaptation is based.
Well the show runners wanted to adapt the show because of the shock of the Red Wedding. That's all they cared about - shocking viewers. That's why the show has gone downhill since they passed the books, they are trying to give shocking payoffs without laying the groundwork for it to make sense.
As someone on reddit said (paraphrasing), "surprises are good when something comes comes out of somewhere, not when something comes out of nowhere."
Joined: 15 Sep 2012 Posts: 29353 Location: La La Land
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 12:20 pm Post subject:
ElginBaylor wrote:
On Cersei's death that a lot of people seem to be disappointed with, anything else wouldn't have been as big a surprise. Should Arya have killed her? Dany? Jon Snow? Jamie? Any of those would have been predictable.
She got the death she deserved. Completely broken and taken out by the rocks she was convinced would keep her safe.
She's destroyed so many lives in 8 seasons. Westeros was filled to the brim with people who wanted her dead. And the only person who saw her die was the 1 person who loved her.
For being such a toxic character, she was given a private, humane death. But considering she loved all the attention and power of ruling and being a royal family. Letting her die like the commoners being sacked in the city could be interpreted as a karmic death. _________________ "Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better”
On Cersei's death that a lot of people seem to be disappointed with, anything else wouldn't have been as big a surprise. Should Arya have killed her? Dany? Jon Snow? Jamie? Any of those would have been predictable.
She got the death she deserved. Completely broken and taken out by the rocks she was convinced would keep her safe.
She's destroyed so many lives in 8 seasons. Westeros was filled to the brim with people who wanted her dead. And the only person who saw her die was the 1 person who loved her.
For being such a toxic character, she was given a private, humane death. But considering she loved all the attention and power of ruling and being a royal family. Letting her die like the commoners being sacked in the city could be interpreted as a karmic death.
Well said. I see it this way as well: a private, unceremonious death, lost in rubble, one of thousands, no more, no less. _________________ "A metronome keeps time by using a Ringo"
Joined: 15 Sep 2012 Posts: 29353 Location: La La Land
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 1:11 pm Post subject:
HBO offered D&D more episodes or doing another season. But the showrunners said no. They do have that juicy Star Wars money coming their way. D&D were probably anxious to get started on that.
But the way time has been compressed really hurt the final 2 seasons.
The plot points make sense. But the events are coming too fast so they have no weight. _________________ "Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better”
The reaction to Sunday night’s episode of “Game of Thrones” was over the top even by reaction-to-“Game of Thrones” standards. When Daenerys decided to raze King’s Landing after the city’s surrender and in spite of her counselor’s advice, many people decided to raze “Game of Thrones.”
In an avalanche of outraged tweets, creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were accused of misogyny, laziness, character abandonment, nihilism, preoccupation with their next project and a disregard for their audience or the show’s legacy.
It was glorious, a symphony of angry superfans.
Didn’t the writers know we all wanted Dany to be the good queen to Cersei’s bad one? That Dany had previously been a woman of peace (despite owing her success almost entirely to dragons)? That we had completely different deaths in mind for Cersei and Jaime, that we are not rooting for Jon because he is a dishrag, that we wanted the evil Qyburn to suffer more?
Didn’t Weiss and Benioff remember how “The Lord of the Rings,” which they have referenced several times, ended with a bunch of cool marriages, general happiness and a brand new Party Tree in the Shire? (Never mind Frodo, Gandalf and a bunch of the Elves going to the Grey Havens, which is Tolkien-speak for dying.) Who’s going to get married and plant the new Party Tree at the end of “Game of Thrones”? No one, it seems. How can happiness prevail in any way with just one episode left? Was all this war for nothing? _________________ "A metronome keeps time by using a Ringo"
Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 18222 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 2:01 pm Post subject:
ribeye wrote:
Didn’t the writers know we all wanted Dany to be the good queen to Cersei’s bad one? That Dany had previously been a woman of peace (despite owing her success almost entirely to dragons)? That we had completely different deaths in mind for Cersei and Jaime, that we are not rooting for Jon because he is a dishrag, that we wanted the evil Qyburn to suffer more?
Count me among them. At least that's how I surmised how the series would end based on the past 7 seasons.
I have to admit though. This new twist has me really excited for the finale now that my preconceptions are out the window. _________________ "Suck it up. Don't be a baby. Do your job." - Kobe Bryant
Didn’t the writers know we all wanted Dany to be the good queen to Cersei’s bad one? That Dany had previously been a woman of peace (despite owing her success almost entirely to dragons)? That we had completely different deaths in mind for Cersei and Jaime, that we are not rooting for Jon because he is a dishrag, that we wanted the evil Qyburn to suffer more?
Count me among them. At least that's how I surmised how the series would end based on the past 7 seasons.
I have to admit though. This new twist has me really excited for the finale now that my preconceptions are out the window.
I should have put the text in quotes, as it is not mine.
Also, would the world have survived if Ned Stark lasted until this season, became even more beloved, only to be beheaded by someone, say Cersei? _________________ "A metronome keeps time by using a Ringo"
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 6350 Location: The Titanic that is the USA
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 4:05 pm Post subject:
ribeye wrote:
Bol wrote:
BigGameHames wrote:
DaMuleRules wrote:
ribeye wrote:
Had the dragon turned a person into a unicorn, I probably would not be watching, so that is just a poor example. But, back to the point, you think it is fine for a saga to have a dragon and for a dragon to breathe fire, but you don't think a dragon can breathe fire with significant force. Why? The capabilities of a dragon, what a dragon can do and can't, is beyond my expertise and reasoning ability.
The problem with the dragon blowing down 1,000 foot stone fortifications and whether the force involved was "possible" or not. The problem is the capriciousness with that ability throughout the series. If the dragons had always been able to do that kind of destruction, every previous battle they were in would have a had different outcome. It's not about what fantasy gets away with, it's about the consistency in regards to the conventions a particular fantasy setup.
Look at this way . . . what if during the battle with the Whites all of a sudden dragon glass could not only kill a White, but it would also send off off a shockwavethat would kill all Whites within a 100 feet when that was not something that ever happened before or was explained?
I think it’s kinda ridiculous to have such a major problem with the capabilities of a dragon in a fictional world. But if we’re gonna go down that path, I don’t even think it’s out of character for Drogon to be able to do what he did. Dragons never stop growing when they are unchained and free. Drogon was never held in captivity like his sibling dragons. Also, he is supposed to be the reincarnation of the greatest dragon to ever appear in Westeros. He is already bigger and more powerful than the other dragons both naturally and due to never being in captivity, he’s the strongest he has ever been at any point in the show, and he and his mother are really (bleep) pissed off and motivated to devastate the city. I think it’s fairly reasonable and realistic within the scope of the show. One dragon was killed by a zombie king, the other was severely injured and struggling to fly when it was shot and those dragons were weaker and not strategically flying as Drogon was when attacking the iron fleet and scorpion weapons. We had never had a reason to test Drogons ability to destroy a wall but we did see the other smaller dragons do it and break out of captivity. I don’t see anything that points towards Drogon not being able to do what he did.
You're right. I didn't remember it, but just watched the scene. Season 6, episode 9, the dragons that had been held in the prison in Meereen break through the wall with fire. So much for it being unprecedented. I'm sure no one will admit that they were wrong though.
I was talking with my daughter last night about this absurd conversation, about what a dragon can and can't do. She couldn't believe it. She has not watched GOT but commented that she's heard the worst part about the show is the fans. I'll leave it at that.
I got into this series late so I don't have the 10 year time investment. I had some time off lately and I watched a ton to catch up.
Honestly, after watching ep 805, the biggest disappointment was reading the reviews. The reviews ruined it more for me than the plot points that I thought could have been done better.
Some people will never be satisfied. Look at Star Wars. Even when you have a really great installation in the franchise, you have so-called purists who crap all over it.
Critics suck. These writers put their hearts and souls into this for a long time and now they're being accused of being lazy and in a hurry to finish it up. Their own art be damned. I don't buy it. No one who spends that much of their lives trying to get something so perfect gives up at the end. I call BS. But I guess the critics know better.
HBO offered D&D more episodes or doing another season. But the showrunners said no. They do have that juicy Star Wars money coming their way. D&D were probably anxious to get started on that.
But the way time has been compressed really hurt the final 2 seasons.
The plot points make sense. But the events are coming too fast so they have no weight.
That's a cynical way of looking at it. More like, they're probably tired of working on the same show for a decade and want something fresh. This is not their vision in the first place, and they didn't sign up to write the story but rather to adapt it.
This isn't to excuse the writing of the last 4 seasons or so, I think it's clear they are extremely flawed storywriters. HBO should have let them go and hired new talent after they made it clear they didn't want additional seasons, but I suspect D&D are falling on the sword a bit and that the main actors are also tired of GOT and want to move onto something new.
Joined: 15 Sep 2012 Posts: 29353 Location: La La Land
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 10:59 pm Post subject:
tox wrote:
kikanga wrote:
HBO offered D&D more episodes or doing another season. But the showrunners said no. They do have that juicy Star Wars money coming their way. D&D were probably anxious to get started on that.
But the way time has been compressed really hurt the final 2 seasons.
The plot points make sense. But the events are coming too fast so they have no weight.
That's a cynical way of looking at it. More like, they're probably tired of working on the same show for a decade and want something fresh. This is not their vision in the first place, and they didn't sign up to write the story but rather to adapt it.
This isn't to excuse the writing of the last 4 seasons or so, I think it's clear they are extremely flawed storywriters. HBO should have let them go and hired new talent after they made it clear they didn't want additional seasons, but I suspect D&D are falling on the sword a bit and that the main actors are also tired of GOT and want to move onto something new.
The bolded is so true. GRRM didn't fulfill his end of the deal.
And you might be right about the main actors. To me as an outsider. Seeing how much they're making. And how none of them were stars before this. I'd think they'd want to keep doing the show especially if it helps the story. For most (in not all) of the cast, this will be the biggest job of their career.
But I'm not an actor. I don't think like one. Actors choose to leave really successful shows all the time. Sometimes to their benefit. Most of the time not. _________________ "Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better”
Well the show runners wanted to adapt the show because of the shock of the Red Wedding. That's all they cared about - shocking viewers. That's why the show has gone downhill since they passed the books, they are trying to give shocking payoffs without laying the groundwork for it to make sense.
As someone on reddit said (paraphrasing), "surprises are good when something comes comes out of somewhere, not when something comes out of nowhere."
Joined: 15 Jul 2009 Posts: 18492 Location: The Garden Island
Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 3:59 am Post subject:
Omar Little wrote:
babyskyhook wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
It’s always been what she was.
Not sure what series you've been watching if you think she's always been a genocidal mass murderer.
Entitled ? Ambitious ? Power hungry ? No doubt.
Slayer of a massive number of innocent people ? That's never been established in any way. In fact, they've shown her as the exact opposite since Season 1- the champion of the innocent. No amount of badly-written scenes this season to show her "descent into madness" will make tonight's nonsense feel believable.
If she had gone to the Red Keep and attacked Cersei immediately after destroying all the scorpions, and Drogon's flames had caused a chain reaction with the Wildfire stored under the Red Keep that resulted in mass incineration, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
But what we saw tonight was laughable.
In fairness, you weren't sure what i was watching with Magic and Jeanie either...
Well played my friend.
You saw the Magic debacle coming from miles away. I commended you in another thread a while back, but let me do so here in case you didn't see the other post. I wanted to give Magic and Rob their chance, which I did, but the results were incredibly disappointing, and you spelled it all out ahead of time.
Let me officially eat some crow and toast your foresight.
As far as Dany goes-
her mad Queen turn seems to be quite the Rorschach test. There are a good number of people like you and DMR, who are fine with it, and an equally large (or larger) group of people like my wife and I who find it unbelievable. There's a reason this episode is the lowest scoring episode in GOT history on RT. To say it hasn't been well-received by critics and on the podcasts is an understatement.
In more talented hands, her turn could have been properly executed, with a story told over a longer time span in a way that was completely believable. I would have been fine with that. Instead, D+D spend years emphasizing her soft spot for the innocent and the downtrodden, only to have her "go crazy" and burn everyone after a few episodes of amateur hour setup.
I'll just never be able to buy the idea that after destroying all the scorpions, roasting the Golden Company, blowing a hole through the city walls and seeing her forces mopping up the Lannister army, she decides to roast a bunch of innocent civilians instead of going directly to the Red Keep and attacking Cersei. It's just unbelievable for me, like so much of the last two seasons.
Did that feel like a believable escalation to you ? I respect your and DMR's takes on this, so I'm curious where you felt D+D laid the foundation that made her jump to genocide believable for you. There are obviously events that made this all work for you guys, so I'm wondering what those are, as that foundation was never laid for me and many others.
Last edited by babyskyhook on Wed May 15, 2019 4:43 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 15 Jul 2009 Posts: 18492 Location: The Garden Island
Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 4:38 am Post subject:
DaMuleRules wrote:
Palin wrote:
Btw "Dany was always evil" is such a cop out.
How is it a "cop out" when people have been saying that very thing since like season 2?
DMR- I respect your takes, so I'm curious how you square the idea that she's always been evil with what we've seen from season 1 up to now in regards to innocent people. Saving the lamb women from the Dothraki, freeing the Unsullied and the slaves of Mereen, and even chaining up two of her "children" in a dungeon because one of them had eaten a little girl.
I just don't believe that she now prefers killing innocents over killing her enemies.
She has an opportunity to kill Cersei by melting the Red Keep, but instead decides to roast an entire city of innocent people ? It's just too much of a leap for me, but I'm curious what the events are from the previous seven seasons that make it believable for you.
I know we're not changing each other's minds on this and that's fine. I'm genuinely curious about what it is that you felt set the genocide up as being in Dany's character.
Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 40345 Location: Dirty South
Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 4:42 am Post subject:
babyskyhook wrote:
You saw the Magic debacle coming from miles away. I commended you in another thread a while back, but let me do so here in case you didn't see the other post. I wanted to give Magic and Rob their chance, which I did, but the results were incredibly disappointing, and you spelled it all out ahead of time.
Let me officially eat some crow and toast your foresight.
Just going to do some self back patting....I was right there with Omar on this one. Although we never synced up on the topic and compared notes, we always seemed to be on the same side of this debate, and because that is rare, I definitely noticed.
How is it a "cop out" when people have been saying that very thing since like season 2?
DMR- I respect your takes, so I'm curious how you square the idea that she's always been evil with what we've seen from season 1 up to now in regards to innocent people. Saving the lamb women from the Dothraki, freeing the Unsullied and the slaves of Mereen, and even chaining up two of her "children" in a dungeon because one of them had eaten a little girl.
I just don't believe that she now prefers killing innocents over killing her enemies.
She has an opportunity to kill Cersei by melting the Red Keep, but instead decides to roast an entire city of innocent people ? It's just too much of a leap for me, but I'm curious what the events are from the previous seven seasons that make it believable for you.
I know we're not changing each other's minds on this and that's fine. I'm genuinely curious about what it is that you felt set the genocide up as being in Dany's character.
I'm somewhere in between on this. Though I definitely think she turned, I don't think she was Mother Teresa prior.
What does seem to be a consistent reaction all throughout the blogosphere and the internet -- and even CNN when discussing all the babies named Khaleesi or Daenerys/Dany who might not grow up not liking their names -- is the bitter disappointment the masses had with this turn. _________________ "A metronome keeps time by using a Ringo"
Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 90307 Location: Formerly Known As 24
Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 7:28 am Post subject:
babyskyhook wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
babyskyhook wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
It’s always been what she was.
Not sure what series you've been watching if you think she's always been a genocidal mass murderer.
Entitled ? Ambitious ? Power hungry ? No doubt.
Slayer of a massive number of innocent people ? That's never been established in any way. In fact, they've shown her as the exact opposite since Season 1- the champion of the innocent. No amount of badly-written scenes this season to show her "descent into madness" will make tonight's nonsense feel believable.
If she had gone to the Red Keep and attacked Cersei immediately after destroying all the scorpions, and Drogon's flames had caused a chain reaction with the Wildfire stored under the Red Keep that resulted in mass incineration, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
But what we saw tonight was laughable.
In fairness, you weren't sure what i was watching with Magic and Jeanie either...
Well played my friend.
You saw the Magic debacle coming from miles away. I commended you in another thread a while back, but let me do so here in case you didn't see the other post. I wanted to give Magic and Rob their chance, which I did, but the results were incredibly disappointing, and you spelled it all out ahead of time.
Let me officially eat some crow and toast your foresight.
As far as Dany goes-
her mad Queen turn seems to be quite the Rorschach test. There are a good number of people like you and DMR, who are fine with it, and an equally large (or larger) group of people like my wife and I who find it unbelievable. There's a reason this episode is the lowest scoring episode in GOT history on RT. To say it hasn't been well-received by critics and on the podcasts is an understatement.
In more talented hands, her turn could have been properly executed, with a story told over a longer time span in a way that was completely believable. I would have been fine with that. Instead, D+D spend years emphasizing her soft spot for the innocent and the downtrodden, only to have her "go crazy" and burn everyone after a few episodes of amateur hour setup.
I'll just never be able to buy the idea that after destroying all the scorpions, roasting the Golden Company, blowing a hole through the city walls and seeing her forces mopping up the Lannister army, she decides to roast a bunch of innocent civilians instead of going directly to the Red Keep and attacking Cersei. It's just unbelievable for me, like so much of the last two seasons.
Did that feel like a believable escalation to you ? I respect your and DMR's takes on this, so I'm curious where you felt D+D laid the foundation that made her jump to genocide believable for you. There are obviously events that made this all work for you guys, so I'm wondering what those are, as that foundation was never laid for me and many others.
I hope you know I was just having some fun with the Magic stuff. No crow eating necessary.
As for Dany, that’s a complex question, and actually two; did I see Dany becoming a genicidal maniac, and did they handle the final transition too abruptly and ham handedly? The simple answer is yes and yes.
There’s been a schism between what Dany is and what the fans (and maybe the show runners) see her as for a long time. The small kindnesses are IMO GRRM’s way of humanizing some duality in her. And waypoints toward the inevitable mad queen. They’ve been forshadowing this for a long time, but fans see her naked power grabs and warmongering as a righteous cause rather than just another person drunk on their own desire for power. She frees people but only to worship and serve and die for her. Her claim is to a throne her forebears stole long ago, exactly as she is trying to, by controlling dragons. There is no rightful heir to the iron throne. That’s a central concept of the story.
But just as with Ned, people have fallen for her being the protagonist. She’s always been one of the major villains. From the moment she realized her power. She and Cersei have been driving the world toward their flash for the throne. And both will do or kill whatever it takes. And both have virtually no one left to love or trust. And both are willing to burn it all because that’s all that’s left. The scene is hammy and doesn’t tell the story well, but Dany is basically burning everything Cersei has before her eyes before she takes her, and along with that she’s giving in to both her genes and her acknowledgement that she is a lone, vengeful queen, and she’s going to burn the city so all know her terrible might and willingness to use it.
Oh, and notice the transformation over time of how she treats her dragons eating things. So many tells. This would have been better over a longer period with stronger writers, for sure, but this is her path. _________________ “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ― Elie Wiesel
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