Thyroid

Game of Thrones (TV show)

Recommended Posts

Is this show just straight up bad now? :frown:

 

Spoiler

It feels like everything is just on fast forward based on how the writers would like the plot to go, with no concern about internal consistency or logical character action. There are massive logic gaps present in basic plot mechanics. They have utterly dispensed with geography/travel time/timelines being a realistic concern in any way. Characters are making terribly stupid decisions and other characters/the show are just going along like they are fine ideas, and none of the character beats/interactions have enough time to breathe and develop like they might have in the previous slow-paced seasons. 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Spoiler

The pacing is definitely throwing it all off, feels like it suddenly switched to action flick mode.  Some cool visuals but the speed is really off putting. On the more egregious end, characters are lacking development while also making some seriously questionable decisions without the build up that may justify the choices made.  On the more weird / goofy end: time flow and  distances suddenly mean little.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have not really liked this season much at all. You can so clearly see that they are way past the books and just making up stuff on their own.

 

There are some separate good scenes though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Remember when Theron Greyjoy had his willy chopped off?

 

well that's now his super power 👍🏻

 

Game of thrones is bad television

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I feel like the 7th season is not worth waiting at all. What a waste. This was such a bad season, the signs were in the air during previous season already.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's certainly ending as a much different show than what it started as. At least they have seemed to abandon all the rapey stuff.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The final episode was 1 hour and 20 minutes and filled with drawn-out scenes that edged on being boring.

 

 

I couldn't believe how stupidly everything is working out. The Sansa-condemns-Littlefinger reveal was cathartic for viewers, but made so little sense for the characters. They could've done away with Littlefinger at any earlier point without the chicanery, and Littlefinger spent the entire season moping around Winterfell doing his thing for no apparent other reason than that he seemed to distrust Arya? The logical thing for him to think was: 'Hey, one of the Starks is now a magical seer who can see everything I've ever said. TIME TO SKEDADDLE, BACK TO THE VALE BOYS.'


Two people went to talk to Cersei and taunted her to kill them. Both walked away. Nothing much was accomplished. I honestly can't remember what else happened in the episode.

Oh yeah, the Night King stiffly and non-emotively riding a dragon. It looked really silly.

 

At least Jon Snow's butt looked nice, I guess!

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Roderick said:

The final episode was 1 hour and 20 minutes and filled with drawn-out scenes that edged on being boring.

 

  Hide contents

I couldn't believe how stupidly everything is working out. The Sansa-condemns-Littlefinger reveal was cathartic for viewers, but made so little sense for the characters. They could've done away with Littlefinger at any earlier point without the chicanery, and Littlefinger spent the entire season moping around Winterfell doing his thing for no apparent other reason than that he seemed to distrust Arya? The logical thing for him to think was: 'Hey, one of the Starks is now a magical seer who can see everything I've ever said. TIME TO SKEDADDLE, BACK TO THE VALE BOYS.'


Two people went to talk to Cersei and taunted her to kill them. Both walked away. Nothing much was accomplished. I honestly can't remember what else happened in the episode.

Oh yeah, the Night King stiffly and non-emotively riding a dragon. It looked really silly.

 

At least Jon Snow's butt looked nice, I guess!

 

I have heard that that Littlefinger scene was written first and then they wrote backwards from there, it seems likely this is the method for the show. Write an epic scene and then figure out how to justify it

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's going to be unbelievable to return to the first season after six-odd years and get smacked in the face with what we've lost over the course of the show. And I don't mean all the dead characters.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

On 8/30/2017 at 3:35 PM, Roderick said:

It's going to be unbelievable to return to the first season after six-odd years and get smacked in the face with what we've lost over the course of the show. And I don't mean all the dead characters.

 

This article made some  interesting points on the show and books in terms of 3 kinds/tales of fantasy it combined and why that works against an ending that hits all 3.

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/1/16225980/game-of-thrones-finale-ending-impossible

 

Does anyone here remember the article the write wrote years ago about the show being a 90's anti high fantasy adapted by people who were trying to make it like the Soporanos 'Prestige' tv  but in the 2010s when both those genres had moved beyond those starting points which made the show kinda double dated as a work of tv and fantasy or that was my take away from it.

 

I think the  Steven Eriksons 'Malazan books of the fallen' series  does combine those three strands in their endings but it also focus on different parts of history than kinda medieval English civil war(s) and have a lot more fantasy in terms of magic and gods etc playing a role - more heroic and subversive than history that way

 

Kate Elliots 'Crown of Stars'might also fit although more the history and subversive, less heroic and less magic than Malazan.

Maybe R Scott Bakkers prince of nothing which is the most anti-fantasy in terms of how vile the world/ plot but it hasn't fininshed yet no idea if will combine all three in the end

 

The one thing all three have is a strong religious component that ASOIAF lacks.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, seamus2389 said:

This article made some  interesting points on the show and books in terms of 3 kinds/tales of fantasy it combined and why that works against an ending that hits all 3.

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/1/16225980/game-of-thrones-finale-ending-impossible

 

Does any remeber the article the write wrote years ago about the show being a 90's anti high fantasy adapted by people who were trying to make it like the Soporanos 'Prestiege' tv  but in the 2010s when both those genres had moved beyond those starting points which made the show kinda double dated as a work of tv and fantasy or that was my take away from it.

 

Oh cool, written by 3MA's own Rowan Kaiser!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I vote for subversive ending.

 

My dream ending:

 

Spoiler

All of Daenerys dragons get killed and turned to zombies. Daenerys eventually gets killed and turned to zombie. Jon Snow-Sand takes this as the final reason for him to give up on life and turns himself over to try to die again and become of zombie. Now they are zombies, they see the world differently, getting a download of the world from zombie perspective,  and completely align with white walker priorities. They succeed in smiting Westeros in ice. Then go to the Stark family crypt and resurrect some ancestors and have a merry zombie family reunion. Our new zombie protagonists dread the eventual return of summer as pockets of humanity linger in isolation.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, plasticflesh said:

I vote for subversive ending.

 

My dream ending:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

All of Daenerys dragons get killed and turned to zombies. Daenerys eventually gets killed and turned to zombie. Jon Snow-Sand takes this as the final reason for him to give up on life and turns himself over to try to die again and become of zombie. Now they are zombies, they see the world differently, getting a download of the world from zombie perspective,  and completely align with white walker priorities. They succeed in smiting Westeros in ice. Then go to the Stark family crypt and resurrect some ancestors and have a merry zombie family reunion. Our new zombie protagonists dread the eventual return of summer as pockets of humanity linger in isolation.

 

Wow, that would be amazing. At this point, I don't care much about the series. For me it's still fun to watch for the production values, but yes the writing has been a bit off in the last season especially. But I didn't notice it during watching, I was entertained and immersed. It's only in hindsight that I notice the problems. And yeah at this point the fact that all the "good" characters just keep on surviving all hardships is becoming off-putting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished the latest run last night. I think on balance I liked it a little more than s6, and though I don't disagree with a lot of the criticisms I've read about it, the show as a whole still holds some appeal for me. After all, the ways in which it is bad have been true for some time now. I think perhaps my expectations are just lower than ever before. Nothing about it was especially shocking, but it's gripping enough while I'm watching it, and as very expensive low art it continues to have its moments.

 

There's a welcome edge of finality to this season but the whole thing still feels vaguely interminable. I know they've said the next season will be the last, at least before the spinoffs begin, but I can't quite believe they'll stop making it as long as the ratings are on a steadily upward trend. It's amazing to me that this show is continuing to attract new viewers in such numbers, even at this late stage. Where are all these people coming from? And what do they want to see? I think those questions might perhaps provide some answers to the recent change in vibe/direction over the past few seasons.

 

Spoiler

The show has made a kind of deal with the devil: it knows we love to see these characters together, but the cast is getting crowded, and it can't quite bear to do away with any of the major players because nobody really wants to see them buy the farm yet. Littlefinger's death felt cursory, and faintly inevitable, like he'd just been voted out of the Big Brother house. But they're not going to do away with the big stars while the numbers keep going up. For all that the satirical anti-heroic slant of the earlier seasons made for compelling narrative, at the end of the day perhaps what most viewers really want is for good to knock evil on the head.

 

All of this is part of the problem with the critics, of course; like that Vox article pointed out, some of the cast have simply become Too Big to Fail. The show's faith in Jon Snow as a leading man is especially baffling. Amongst the main cast, he stands out for his lack of flaws and absence of perverse motivations; a lot of the time he's just boring to watch now. His empty-eyed heroic pride ought to have been the end of him a long time ago, but he keeps getting pulled out of the fire.

 

So much depends, I guess, on how many more episodes they're really going to make. If the final six (?) really are the end, surely we can expect a brutal trudge through unalloyed misery – because what else have they to lose? But if HBO want more, all bets are off. They could prolong this stuff for years, because why wouldn't they?

 

Given that so much of the narrative is now a busted flush, the parts I enjoy most are still the incidental scenes where the show feels like it can be a little more playful. The sparring scene between Brienne and Arya. All the little 'remember me?' moments between characters who hadn't seen each other in many moons – only fanservice, I suppose, but some of them were nice. Diana Rigg dropping the C-bomb. The long and uncharacteristically detailed montage of Sam cleaning out the bedpans and latrines. The totally gratuitous smash cut from Sam peeling off those oozing scabs to the spoon breaking the crust of one of Hot Pie's hot pies. Good pie, Hot Pie.

 

Here's what I think'll happen next season:

 

The show keeps casting Kevin Eldon in minor cameos for characters who get brutally owned moments later. 

 

Littlefinger was basically correct about Arya and Sansa turning on each other. Arya won't tolerate any kind of truce with the Lannisters and is probably the #1 risk to any alliance against the Night King.

 

Sam didn't properly cure Jorah's scaly grossness: he gave him a new lease of life, but only postponed the inevitable. As a result, Jorah has accidentally infected all kinds of inconvenient people. Including Danny, perhaps.

 

Cersei has a new baby. It turns out to be a dwarf. The Mountain, being basically a reanimated corpse, is vulnerable to being possessed by the army of the dead. He turns on Cersei: she is royally hoisted. Sandor Clegane tries to take him down but he can't quite manage it; he's badly wounded but Arya saves him at the last moment, and kills the Mountain. 

 

For the last scene in the series, everyone of any importance is either dead, insane or wandering the wasted Westeros. Sandor and Brienne are much older and have somehow survived; they have created a little self-sufficient community, modelled loosely on the one in season 6. This is the only sweetness in what is otherwise a very bitter ending. The last thing we see is a band of riders in the distance, slowly drawing nearer. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

 

  Hide contents

Cersei has a new baby. It turns out to be a dwarf. The Mountain, being basically a reanimated corpse, is vulnerable to being possessed by the army of the dead. He turns on Cersei: she is royally hoisted. Sandor Clegane tries to take him down but he can't quite manage it; he's badly wounded but Arya saves him at the last moment, and kills the Mountain. 

 

I actually quite like this idea. I'm going to be disappointed if it doesn't go down like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Turns out Rowan also wrote that article I was looking for.

 

https://medium.com/@RowanKaiser/in-conclusion-game-of-thrones-is-a-franchise-of-contrasts-3bc9bd8f4f40

 

This old one by Sonia Saraiya is also interesting to re-read.

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/24/game_of_thrones_goes_to_war_the_once_radical_fantasy_is_now_the_establishment_for_better_and_for_worse/

 

 

On 9/3/2017 at 5:03 PM, marginalgloss said:

 It's amazing to me that this show is continuing to attract new viewers in such numbers, even at this late stage. Where are all these people coming from? And what do they want to see? I think those questions might perhaps provide some answers to the recent change in vibe/direction over the past few seasons.

 

 

Something similar happened with Breaking Bad in its last season where the last stretch of episodes had the highest ratings. Both are plot heavy shows that involve people trying to figure out how to come out on top and also are talked about alot on the internet. 

 

Between legal and illegal means it is/was easy to catch up before the end and the number of episodes for both shows are (BB 62 over 5 seasons, GOT- 67 over 7 so far) low compared to network tv like Lost which had 100+ episodes over 6 season with no Netflix and fewer people having access to torrents to catch up for its final season.

 

Like Lost and the Soporanos, both BB and GoT occupy a certain space where it was covered alot by websites that write about Tv/pop culture and is a 'water cooler/ cultural touchstone' show that people can talk about in a time when tv viewing is increasingly  fragmented in terms of the amount to watch and alot of people not watching shows at the same time. If you are someone who likes talking about tv/pop culture its your best bet these days to have a conversation.

 

This article goes further into that aspect of it.

 

https://www.theringer.com/2017/7/12/16078066/game-of-thrones-hbo-tv-monoculture-535f73ad5014

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ok as I read the start of this page by Cbirdsong, I think the exact saame can be said by this season, but now it’s worse because the production value is also somehow used in the wrong places, at least in the finale.

 

Just nothing makes sense - where are the crowds of people who ran off but survived - even as Tyrion and Jon talk seriously about “liberation” in quotes I don’t think they meant that ALL died and the ruins were liberated?



 

I think all the changes to Daenerys make sense - she lost her cool when she found out she was not the rightful heir actually. She had this image of herself as the white savior and this extended to believing that the people need to be on her side so much that when they are not, they can be killed. What about the people who didn’t make it to the keep, though? Unless I missed something we are just left wandering - did she really also kill everyone who didn’t run to the keep to defend Cersei or are they just not show.

 

And there was almost nothing at all recently to develop the story towards this point, so it just feels like “here’s the ending, you connect the dots later”. And so many writing mistakes IMHO in total that I can’t be even arsed to start on them all besides the main one that Daenerys’ breaking was a sudden twist that should have actually had some better justification throughout the previous seasons.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, Erkki said:

Ok as I read the start of this page by Cbirdsong, I think the exact saame can be said by this season, but now it’s worse because the production value is also somehow used in the wrong places, at least in the finale.

 

 

  Hide contents

Just nothing makes sense - where are the crowds of people who ran off but survived - even as Tyrion and Jon talk seriously about “liberation” in quotes I don’t think they meant that ALL died and the ruins were liberated?

 


 

I think all the changes to Daenerys make sense - she lost her cool when she found out she was not the rightful heir actually. She had this image of herself as the white savior and this extended to believing that the people need to be on her side so much that when they are not, they can be killed. What about the people who didn’t make it to the keep, though? Unless I missed something we are just left wandering - did she really also kill everyone who didn’t run to the keep to defend Cersei or are they just not show.

 

And there was almost nothing at all recently to develop the story towards this point, so it just feels like “here’s the ending, you connect the dots later”. And so many writing mistakes IMHO in total that I can’t be even arsed to start on them all besides the main one that Daenerys’ breaking was a sudden twist that should have actually had some better justification throughout the previous seasons.

 

 

 

Re: Dany

 

Spoiler

They successfully wrote an arc for her to destroy the red keep no matter what collateral damage, maybe.  But then of course she destroyed the city with some collateral to the red keep which made no god damn sense.  In addition to, well, a lot of stuff, they did not build up most story beats properly, it really need more time and in some cases...better thought out arcs.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, this final season especially really suffered from the sudden rush the series found itself in. This is a popular image that's been going around, and I agree except for the fact that it's too generous to season 5:

D6-j4CRWkAE_YAo.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now