But I can't understand why. It's too complicated. I just want to know why people are dissatisfied. After all these years of feeling vaguely prodded into experiencing the satisfaction of watching this purportedly great TV show, now, I find that I am spared a dissatisfaction.
Generally, I believe I should be compassionate when I see that there is something causing pain to my fellow human beings, and, of course, there's an exception for pain that is unserious and essentially meaningless, and there are cases when you can gawk at and even enjoy the suffering of others.
For example, a TV show I do watch is "Survivor," and I must say that every time someone on that show cries, I laugh. They're crying about their fate on a reality show. Am I too cruel, I wonder, laughing at the pain of others?
So I thought I might enjoy knowing why "Game of Throne" fans are so unhappy, but it's just way too complicated. I tried reading "'Game of Thrones' series finale recap: A disaster ending that fans didn't deserve" in USA Today. But I was only there to siphon off a little amusement for myself, and it just wasn't fun. What I think I could see is that the show entertained its fans by having a lot of characters and then killing them off — perhaps in sudden and unjustified ways — and in the finale, there wasn't enough random, bloody murder, and some characters were left to live out their life in a way that was a too-normal tying up of loose ends. Too much order, not enough chaos. Something like that.
Anyway, I decided that wasn't the path to pleasure for me and tossed USA Today aside.
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I was not unhappy with the ending. I was kind of surprised that more characters didn't die, but I wasn't disappointed by it.
There was one thing in particular that kind of surprised me about how it all played out, but I don't want to post any spoilers.
Sorry, Not. Tears over a fictional TV show not ending the way ze want, then stomping ze's foot about the unfairness, is not deserving of empathetic response. Pathetic, yes.
Because this is the era of "that's not funny", where everyone continues to interject their own personal aspirations for how things ought've turned out on everything. We live in a kabuki universe now. People are going through the motions so intently, they forgot to pick up the Starbucks coffee cup in the scene along the way.
I enjoyed the ending. The lead up to the ending was so strange as to preclude a “happy ending”. I predicted that neither Dany or John would gain the iron throne, but rather that Tyrion would ascend the throne (with the help os a step stool). I wasn’t too far off. I have a prediction for the next season:
Dragon runs off with Dany’s corpse and lays two eggs. Dragon burns eggs and corpse on funeral pyre and Dany is resurrected as grandmother of two dragons.
Armstrong and Getty report no starbucks cup but there was a water bottle in last night's episode.
It can't be as bad as the final episodes of Seinfeld or The Sopranos, or as good as the final episode of Newhart.
Been surrounded by this show for eight years. First by friends and family and then seemingly the whole world. Have yet to see an episode. The last hyped series I can remember being a regular viewer of was Six Feet Under, and that was 15 years ago.
I think that the final season redeemed the whole damn show.
The faux Medieval junk was ridiculous. You don't get Medieval society with a pagan religion. Martin supposedly based it on the War of the roses. With dragons? Right. It looked slapdash.
The redemption came in because the miserable lesson it taught its viewers for years was that if you do anything kind and decent, your enemies will count it a weakness, exploit that weakness, and murder you gruesomely.
Then in this last season, the writers actually made an interesting point: the Ice King was death, and death obliterates all. Even their nasty, cruel world was better than non-existence. Even choosing to be bad was better than no one choosing anything, ever.
And then one of the more decent characters came out a winner. Yay!
The show sucked. Its boosters did the world a disservice urging people to forego something good to watch it. I enjoy their tears.and frankly the ending sounds like the best thing about the series,the only time viewers are actually challenged.
Thank you, Ann, for not making us consider and discuss the latest Saturday Night Live cold open.
I thought cutting to black while Journey played on the jukebox was lame. And the whole story about how the jukebox got there seemed forced.
I can't comment on GOT, having never watched it, but I still enjoy remembering the end of Breaking Bad. It is the gold standard of multi-season story arcs.
Meh, the problem with Byzantine subplots and clever twists is that, too often, the writer can’t figure out how to end the bloody thing. It’s why I abandon a lot of quality TV shows in their third or fourth season as the writers flail their way into absurdity because they’re out of ideas. Look at Billions.
Game of Thrones...That's the series with the incest and flying around setting people on fire, and weddings full of murder, right?
And people are disappointed in how it ended? What did they expect? What sort of perverted freak watches that kind of show anyway?
How DID it end? Given the typical standards of TV writing, I imagine it was with two relatives boinking on top of a couple of dragons, who were boinking each other in mid-air, and also related, simultaneously setting a bunch of people on fire. Maybe they threw in a wedding as well.
How far off am I?
No opinion on American Idol?
What makes Breaking Bad so great is that avoided that kind of creative collapse. One masterful Shakespearean arc.
If you want a really horrible ending to a long story, read the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Every person I know who has read these novels to the last page throws the final book across the room in disgust immediately upon completion. I did, too.
GoT demonstrated that with present technology, home entertainment could present an epic story with great visuals via CGI (was that a real Starbucks cup, or product placement?). And for a few seasons GoT demonstrated that good writing is good entertainment.
More should not be asked of television programs.
Jon petted Ghost, so that was good. I was disappointed that Tormund didn't greet Jon with a question about the "big woman". The rest I was indifferent to, but my expectations were low.
I did laugh when Samwell made his suggestion to the council because it was so out of place, and yet, so Samwell.
I just want to know why people are dissatisfied. After all these years of feeling vaguely prodded into experiencing the satisfaction of watching this purportedly great TV show, now, I find that I am spared a dissatisfaction.
It's very simple, and I say this as someone who was annoyed with all the GOT fanboys, saw a scene on youtube, bought the DVD collections of Seasons 1-6 and fell in love with the show.
All these incredible character arcs and great plotlines were eventually betrayed by poor writing and poor execution by the directors. They really dropped the ball, tried to cram too much into the last episode and betrayed the audience.
You will hear complaints that it was Dany this or Tyrion that. That's all back-chatter.
GOT turned into Who Shot JR? Pam wakes up and it was all just a dream.
Here is a very good (and humorous) critique to help you understand just how stupid and lazy the directors became.
I thought the ending was smart and sassy.
CrackerEMC: "...avoided that kind of creative collapse."
Spot on. "Creative Collapse" defines precisely what happened to GOT.
"The last hyped series I can remember being a regular viewer of was Six Feet Under, and that was 15 years ago."
Which had a great finale episode.
Breaking Bad started out with a terminal cancer diagnosis, so it could never have too much of a happy ending. Game of Thrones showed good character development for dragons and giant wolves (the ones that lived).
In 1976 they knew the proper way to end a series.
We have to find someone else we trust to watch TV shows so we don't have to.
It is entirely possible to process a difficult ending with generosity and grace. In The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, endings have become a hyper-efficient and deregulated marketplace, and, like any hyper-efficient and deregulated marketplace, it often makes people feel very bad.
“If you want a really horrible ending to a long story, read the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake.”
Word. I’ve read the first two books a few times. I’ve read the first two chapters of the third book a few times.
"No opinion on American Idol?"
Ha ha. After writing this post, I realized I forgot to watch the Idol finale. Took a break from blogging to scroll through the 3-hours that were recorded on the DVR. We were watching the Bucks (losing to a Canadian team) and never thought to check out the Idol action. The contestants I'd sort of liked were all gone. The whispery, gentle Alejandro was liked here at Meadhouse, but it was better for Laine to win. He's younger and he gets more out of winning. Alejandro won some fans. He'll be okay. Never liked Madison at all. Enjoyed seeing Demetrius come back and sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with Adam Lambert. That was the most entertaining part of the 3-hours. Also enjoyed Katy Perry's wigs.
"It can't be as bad as the final episodes of Seinfeld or The Sopranos, or as good as the final episode of Newhart."
I think moments get confused with whole episodes. I think even most Newhart viewers would have a tough time saying what happens in the finale before the very ending. I think Seinfeld's finale had a pretty lame plot, but the goal was to reassemble as much of the extended cast as they could, and the trial worked for that.
I only watched the first 1-2 years of the Sooranos, and returned for the last 2-3 episodes. I liked the final episode quite a bit, but was confused as anyone by the very end. As soon as someone who watched the show closely explained things the next day, it fit very well with the rest of the episode.
The show's story arcs were fairly predictable, telegraphed actually. Having watched from the beginning I don't get what the beef is about either and wouldn't mind someone articulating it. Most of what I'm seeing devolves into beefing about Martin or the show runners blah blah blah.
Surprising antihero rises to hero, then to champion, then 'breaks bad' and dies. Not bad. Seemed to work for other shows...
I actually enjoyed the GOT finale. My worst complaint about the season is that Cersei earned a much worse comeuppance than she got, but aside from that, everyone's story arcs were resolved and the ending avoided nihilism.
It certainly wasn't anywhere near as bad as the Lost finale. Now that was a show where I don't blame anyone for feeling totally betrayed by the writers. They created a slew of questions and then only ever bothered to answer one (polar bears). Ugh.
A long running complaint about modern SF and fantasy is nobody knows how to write endings anymore. So this is no surprise.
Some people take this too seriously. That part is not new, the supposedly straight-laced audiences of the 19th-early 20th century theater often rioted when upset by the production.
One just has a much larger theater these days, and almost certainly a dumber audience.
The thing does seem perfect for opera though, that one scene. The setting of bleak destruction in the throne room, all gold-tinged hope and glory reduced to misty ashes, the dragon, the beautiful blonde villainess, genocidal love vs murderous duty, etc., and bittersweet catharsis. Like something out of Wagner. Whatever else went on, that scene should have ended it.
I thought it was a good ending. Sheldon finally told his friends he loved him and they all went home and ate take out together. Perfect.
My greatest disappointment is not the outcome of GOT. My disappointment is that Fox News on line has become nothing but a tabloid, with GOT as the main headline this morning and not the real issues that should occupy people in the U.S. today.
The other articles are nearly as vapid. And it is pretty consistently eaten up with click bait on matters of minor interest even on a local basis, much less matters of great importance on a national or international scale.
I think some people are just sad because the series is over. Kind of like losing a good friend. GOT posed the extra challenge of having so many different characters and sub plots. Hard to wrap up something so complex without disappointing some fans.
Overall, I thought it was a great series and I enjoyed the show for what it was. The finale was kind of meh but life is too short to take a tv show seriously.
Btw, my wife enjoyed the GOT finale too. Not sure where all the rage is coming from. I acknowledge some quibbles but overall it wasn't predictable and it was as close to a happy ending as anyone could expect from GOT. So what was the actual problem?
Armstrong and Getty report that the critics' reaction is that the finale ought to have been more woke. It missed an opportunity to send a positive message.
Dragon power.
It was a satisfactory ending--meh in some ways, very good in others. GOT had less money for production. They filmed 6 seasons instead of 8. Plot and character development was truncated. The plot would have worked better with more time to show, not tell, these story developments.
The producers followed the books religiously. But RR Martin has not finished writing the series. He gave them an outline. The last two seasons have felt like that: an outline, rather then a fully fleshed out plot and character developments. This hurt some episodes more then others.
GOT is a historical analogy and discourse about power set in a fantasy world. Likewise the Sopranos is a story about power and family. But, a lot of people will not get past the GOT alternate-world scenario. Know what appeals to you and respect your preferences. The series began in 2011. There's been a lot under the bridge and it's not worth one's time to read a short plot synopsis. It will not convey the GOT experience.
"It certainly wasn't anywhere near as bad as the Lost finale"
So true. Lost set the standard for bad finale.
I meant to write: They filmed 6 episodes instead of 8 episodes.
"The last hyped series I can remember being a regular viewer of was Six Feet Under, and that was 15 years ago."
Which had a great finale episode.
Indeed. GoT also finished with a montage of the major characters, but it seemed more like a setup for potential spinoff series than showing the character's arc as they did almost magically SFU.
Never watched it, not enough time in life for that. For me PBS Les Miserables was worth the hours time on a Sunday night.
If it doesn't have car chases and explosions I don't see the point of watching.
Just a short list of issues that should be front and center on a serious news forum:
The tariff war with China
The invasion by Central America of our southern border
Deep corruption across multiple areas of our government
The uncovering of the first coup attempt in the U.S.
The possibility of war with Iran
The wide scale economic boom
I think some people are just sad because the series is over. Kind of like losing a good friend. GOT posed the extra challenge of having so many different characters and sub plots. Hard to wrap up something so complex without disappointing some fans.
I think it's more than that. It's destroying the credibility that storytellers have with their audience. Why should I care about a plot hook if it's just going to turn out that Nick Fury lost that eye to a cat scratch?
We've been getting alot of that lately
Like Hamilton, it ends with a emphasis on the value of story and history. Not surprising in that it's RR Martin's outline & as a story-teller, he places great importance on the value of stories.
People used to be dissatisfied with the ending to King Lear. For over a century the play was presented with a happy ending......I'm of two minds about this. If we can redo Shakespeare, why not GoT? On the other hand, the ending Lear sucks because that's the way life ends, so why not GoT. .....I'll give it time to settle but it appears that in this final season character developed in order to fulfill plot points rather than the other way around.
Great redsteeze twitter take on Dany and GOT politics:
She was basically Hillary Clinton who was stopped and then Jon Snow deported immigrants and Westeros was great again.
I was recently watching chacoTaco stream on Twitch.tv, he's a 30 year old who makes six figures playing video games. His chat asked him what he thought about the current GoT season. He said some people just like to be upset about things, they've had too much time to think about how they feel GoT should end and it wasn't matching their expectations. I agree.
Breaking Bad was one episode too long. It would have been better IMHO if the series had ended with Walt dying alone in a cabin surrounded by his worthless money and pathetically paying some stranger to sit with him for a few hours in a futile attempt to overcome his well-earned loneliness and desolation.
Instead they went with the MacGyver ending. Blah.
My only problem with the GoT finale was that Davos got no lands as a reward.
Glad it's over. There's not a single episode that I'd rewatch, much less the whole thing.
I give it a B+ for spectacle, and as far as I'm a judge the acting was good.
I haven't seen any of the other series mentioned, but my wife watched some of them and I could see at a distance that the plots made no sense after a few episodes or seasons at the most.
But people like virtue vs villainy and big assplosions.
Narr
Plenty of other stuff to watch
This Scientific American article does a good job of explaining
[url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/] The Real Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones [/url]
In 3 episodes the main villain changed 3 times! Danny went from mostly good to Mad Queen Evil
Most GOT seasons were 10 episodes, not 8. That said, they were also usually 60 minutes, whereas this season they were at least 80. 6 x an extra 20 minutes per episode amounts to around 8 episodes under the standard of previous seasons.
I can respect complaints that Dany's and Cersei's arcs were too rushed at the end, but aside from that, I thought it was fine.
Game of Thrones at its best was a meditation on history. There was ample historical or literary precedence for its characters and best scenes. I recognized Shakespeare, Seneca, Sophocles, and even Harriet Beecher Stowe in some scenes. The Mongol horde, the Highlanders of 45, the Mamelukes, the Franciscans are part of our history,but they're in the buried past. The fire bombing of cities and the incineration of children are also part of our history, but it's not part of the buried, mythic past. Daenyrs sudden turn for the worst was jarring, but the murderous use of air power on civilians is the way we wage war.
The ending wasn't terrible, but it was dissatisfying in that there were a lot of plot developments over the final season that weren't really set up well -- moments that should have been affecting or moving, but simply weren't because the emotional foundation hadn't been set up properly. It's like with a joke: the punchline won't land if you don't do the set up right. You can definitely see where they were trying to set certain things up, but they did it all in a sort of perfunctory way, so it all kind of fell flat.
It's hard to explain without getting into too many plot specifics that would be meaningless to someone who didn't watch the show, but it sort of reminds me of the Star Wars prequels, where the director went through the motions of setting up the emotional connection between Darth Vader and his wife, but didn't do it in a way such that viewers would actually care when he turns evil. Also, his turning evil in the first place wasn't well set up either. And it's kind of the same way in Game of Thrones. You can talk through how it was all supposed to work together. It just didn't.
"I still enjoy remembering the end of Breaking Bad. It is the gold standard of multi-season story arcs."
Do you mean the actual ending, or the Malcolm in the Middle ending? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM7MoNDroo
"Instead they went with the MacGyver ending. Blah."
Disagree. Walt was going to die from day 1. Having him die at the end was not dramatic. He had to go out with a bang. Which he did. Actually, given the nature of he show it was a "happy ending".
It's not to soon to use the Gunpowder Plot as a mythic element, but Dresden is way too soon.
The problem with so many of these series, with the possible exception of B&B and Sopranos, is they start off strong and end weak. The producers do a cash grab and string out the story past its natural ending. "Mad Men" was the best example. And GoT is another. Even Martin's books got weak at the end. If I remember the last novel, he was writing about Tyrian's penis and how good it felt to take a piss.
"Game of Thrones at its best was a meditation on history."
Yeah, right. I must have missed all those Dragons and zombies in Roman and medieval history. He said sarcastically.
"Just a short list of issues that should be front and center on a serious news forum:"
Hello, I was expecting you "Ebass". There's always at least ONE DULLARD who pops up on every TV/Sports/Book thread to tell us that there are important news stories out there.
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
Didn’t watch GOT but watched entirety of “Lost.” Talk about a well-chosen title. The series lost its was after season three. The ending was pathetic.
My view is you should write the meta-story first, then the episodes to build it. Two seasons of “Extras” did exactly that which is in part why I rate it the best TV series ever. (It was also very funny.)
The Romans thought the Huns were so alien and frightening as to be non-human.
And the various Germans weren't much better, but they wete forced into invading the empire by the threat of the Huns. Part of that story comes across like the events of the fourth century AD.
The wall is much like the Imperial Roman limes, the frontier fortifications.
And the late Romans carried dragon-banners.
The historical analogies are all over that thing, every detail really. Martin is a great miner of history.
Date Night
Season 1: she goes to the market to pick out fresh vegetables for his favorite dish
Season 2: shopping for the piece of lingerie that's just right
Season 3: to the spa for a manicure pedicure and ouch brazilian wax
Season 4: hairdressers for a sassy new cut and coloring
Season 5: careful selection and placement of candles incense and music
Season 6: an hour of soaking in the tub, shaving and moisturizing
Season 7: another hour of selecting perfect sexy dress and makeup
Season 8: Finale! He arrives drunk, can't get it up, finally does only to last 45 seconds and then vomits across her perfumed breasts before passing out.
...GOT Recap
The compassion I feel for those disappointed lies somewhere between what I feel for Rachel Maddow losing 500K viewers and someone being misgendered.
I always find it annoying when writers betray expectations. In the last two episodes, people who were brilliant throughout the series were just so incredibly stupid. [spoilers] The good guys sail off and their fleet is destroyed by the enemy fleet. They have flying dragons, but didn't bother to scout for the enemy fleet. Because they forgot it was there. One of their dragons gets ambushed and killed too, because a flying dragon didn't notice when a fleet of ships sneaked up on it. It's just so dumb.
Then the main character, having singlehandedly defeated all the enemies, who have now surrendered, decides to torch the entire city that she had hoped to rule. How was she planning to rule afterwards? No army left, no ships left, no friends left, just one dragon. Was she going to employ the dragon as a permanent bodyguard, sitting next to her at all times because otherwise whoever talks to her alone will kill her?
Well, that's a (stupid) plan, but she didn't do it. Sure enough, the next person to talk to her alone killed her.
I really think that anyone could have formed a better battle plan. I would have suggested that as soon as the battle against the Night King was over, before Cersei ever heard about it, the queen and the assassin fly off together on the dragon. She drops off the assassin near the city just in case, then goes off with her dragon to see what damage she can do with surprise. Destroy the Red Keep, destroy the fleet in harbor before they ever see her coming. Or if it's at sea, search for it on the way back and again catch it by surprise.
If Cersei is still alive, the assassin will probably take care of her long before their army arrives.
This queen was a brilliant tactician through the series. Except at the end when the writers needed her to become evil. Stupid evil.
Then they picked this mystic fellow for king. No idea why anyone thinks he can be a king at all.
None of it made any sense.
gahrie: My only problem with the GoT finale was that Davos got no lands as a reward.
They referred to him as "Lord Davos" at the end, rather than "Ser Davos," but I don't remember any specifics being given.
BarrySanders20 said... "Sorry, Not. Tears over a fictional TV show not ending the way ze want, then stomping ze's foot about the unfairness, is not deserving of empathetic response. Pathetic, yes."
Sigh. Forgive them for they know not-
You follow the Lions from draft day, through training camp, through pre-season, through every bitterly fought 16 game season, through two last second hail mary playoff victories.
Only to watch as they take a dive in the Superbowl to cover their gambling debts.
It's just a silly game, right? Right?
We hated Season 8 Episode 3 because we couldn't see what was happening. We hated Episodes 4 through 6 because we could see what as happening.
gahrie and SeanF:
Davos didn't get lands - he got the seas. He was made Master of Ships, hence his being on the council. I thought that was a fitting and appropriate end for him.
Here's a fun twist.
Dani finally gave in to her genetic predisposition to be a stark raving Mad Queen, torches thousands of innocents, and is betrayed and murdered because of it.
Bran, who is quite sane (so no excuse), knew all of these innocents were going to die, said and did nothing to prevent it, and is handed the throne.
Does that seem to right to you? :)
A wise person once said "History is Science Fiction's Big Secret," OWTTE.
That's why I prefer my history straight.
Narr
Yes, it's MY history
I think Balfegor has it about right. The final working out of the plot for the last two seasons was way too rushed to carry the emotional weight. For about 4-5 seasons, while it was still adapting the first 4 books, the show was something special, almost Shakespearean in its depth and richness. After that it fell off rapidly as it succumbed to rote Network TV levels of dialog, plotting, and leave-no-viewer-behind, ham-fisted exposition. At Season 8 levels of diminished expectation, I liked the ending a lot.
I think anyone who found Daenerys' actions surprising either hadn't been paying attention or was blinded by their own political delusions: from Robespierre to Mao, her attitude is depressingly common in the real world. At the end, we see Westeros undergo a transition something like Magna Carta (and not a ridiculous leap directly from absolute hereditary monarchy to representative democracy).
And the: "why didn't they kill all the good guys?" attitude of that silly USA today article is just dumb, adolescent nihilism. The story has, it turns out, been about the children of Ned Stark, whose naivete seemed criminally stupid in season one, but whose lessons of goodness and honor have carried them, and the world they live in, to a better place.
Fen: my impression was that Bran could see the present and past, not the future. Having a complete picture of history makes predicting the future much easier, which IMO explains the handful of times he seems to predict the future, but I don't think he ever actually *sees* the future.
"Breaking Bad was one episode too long. It would have been better IMHO if the series had ended with Walt dying alone in a cabin surrounded by his worthless money and pathetically paying some stranger to sit with him for a few hours in a futile attempt to overcome his well-earned loneliness and desolation.
Instead they went with the MacGyver ending. Blah."
I liked the fan theory that Walt actually froze to death in the car with the tape of "El Paso" playing and everything after that was an "Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge"-style fantasy prompted by the music. Vince Gilligan has explicitly denied that that's what happened, but I thought it made more sense that way. I mean, come on, Walt gets a mildly redemptive ending because his opponents turn out to be literal Nazis?
After what they have just been through why would the “adults in the room” pick a king who can’t possibly have any heirs? Did they miss the day in monarchy class when the importance of stable succession was discussed?
SPOILERS!
Nearly twenty years ago I read the first book and I'm still mourning the death of Ned Stark.
Sansa had the greatest character arc through the series. She began as a silly girl happy to be betrothed to a handsome prince and mean to her little sister who couldn't make nice embroidery stitches. She suffers years of abuse at the hands of several men, and learns better than all else how to play the game of thrones.
Yeah, once the story got beyond the source material the TV show lost power. The conclusion wasn't properly supported by the stories. We lost a lot of emotional payoff.
my impression was that Bran could see the present and past, not the future.
Fair enough. But the directors seem to play fast and loose with that too, like with the invulnerible/paperthin dragons, the precise/clumsy ballista.
Remember last scene last night, Tyrion asks Bran if he will accept the crown, Bran responds "why do you think I came all this way to King's Landing?"... as if he knew the outcome when he was sitting back in WinterHell (I still love that line lol)
Arya of Winterfell: It's WinterFELL not WinterHell
Are ya sure?
Arya of Winterfell: .....
M Jordan said, "Didn’t watch GOT but watched entirety of “Lost.” Talk about a well-chosen title. The series lost its was after season three. The ending was pathetic."
Three season? I bailed on the show after the first season finale, when they finally got the hatch open and found...another hatch. I knew then that the writers had no idea what they were doing, or where they were going, and that satisfying answers would never be delivered.
I think anyone who found Daenerys' actions surprising either hadn't been paying attention or was blinded by their own political delusions
Yah, there are a bunch of people whining about that (and the feminists of course, gag) and I ignore their complaints. I actually identified with Dany, knew exactly where she was headed, and thought she had the best story arc, despite being bittersweet.
My problem is that it was rush and executed so poorly. The characters in Season 8 were not true to themselves.
I actually like the Seinfeld finale. The writers make the viewer confront the fact they've fallen in love with terrible people. Some people don't want to face that reality. I didn't when I watched it the first time. (Had to record it on the VCR because my SIL graduated from college that night.) After letting it simmer, I think it was great.
"Did they miss the day in monarchy class when the importance of stable succession was discussed?" The 7 (er 6) kingdoms are now a position something like the Holy Roman Empire. The show wasn't explicit about who exactly the electors would be, but I think it was strongly implied that the nobility was still hereditary.
my impression was that Bran could see the present and past, not the future. Having a complete picture of history makes predicting the future much easier, which IMO explains the handful of times he seems to predict the future, but I don't think he ever actually *sees* the future.
Actually in Bran's famous dream sequence there are at least two images that are still in the future at that time....he sees the wildfire exploding under the Sept of Baelor and he sees a dragon flying over King's End (from S8 E5).
In the end, even the fans were killed :)
The show wasn't explicit about who exactly the electors would be, but I think it was strongly implied that the nobility was still hereditary.
The assembled lords were remarkably insulting and dismissive of the Deplorables.
The assembled lords were remarkably insulting and dismissive of the Deplorables.
Absolutely. Just like their historical counterparts.
I am a George RR Martin fan, but he annoys me by constantly expanding his cast of characters through his series of books. He really annoyed me by not writing the sixth (and hopefully final) book. Those are serious flaws in this ability as a writer.
I will not watch GOT until the final book comes out, if it ever comes out.
In my analysis of the Breaking Bad ending, Walter White succeeds in all his plans, taking care of his family after his death, but pays an enormous and unexpected price, losing the love and respect of his family and destroying or ending the lives of those he cared about.
Martin will never finish writing the books. The storylines got away from him. The TV show had to end somehow
rcocean, I have no problem with a discussion on this thread of any TV show including GOT. My only comment which admittedly is off the point of the worth of GOT, was its being the main headline of mainstream media.
And no thanks for the insult; it is always to me a signature of a person who substitutes that for a civil reply.
Re: Lucien:
After what they have just been through why would the “adults in the room” pick a king who can’t possibly have any heirs? Did they miss the day in monarchy class when the importance of stable succession was discussed?
Elective monarchy isn't particularly unusual, but the deck was over-weighted with Starks, their relatives, and their allies. You had what, three Starks, Jon's best friend (Tarly), and chancellor (Davos), the Starks' uncle (Tully), one sister's close allies (Arryn and Royce), the other sister's sometime lover (Baratheon), and then, I guess, three other people. Does that really reflect the power balance at the end of the show? You'd think Grey Worm would also get a vote.
Marxist idealism dies in the end, that's why some people are dissatisfied with the ending.
"Elective monarchy isn't particularly unusual, but the deck was over-weighted"
Historically elective monarchies were not necessarily evenly weighted.
The Holy Roman Emperor was a case like this, where the Electorate, probably, was never representative of the actual powers in the land.
I think anyone who found Daenerys' actions surprising either hadn't been paying attention or was blinded by their own political delusions: from Robespierre to Mao, her attitude is depressingly common in the real world.
Bullshit.
Whenever anyone brought up Dany being mad it was predicated on the fact that her father went mad--and the old propaganda that "When a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin." Most had no idea of what she did or didn't do--or it was based on something they heard like she had freed the slaves after her victory. Obviously something NOT proving "madness." Khal Drogo would have beheaded the slavers and elite the moment he arrived, rather than giving them a chance to accept the new world order like Dany did. Later, any of the other house lords would have executed losers who wouldn't bend the knee--it's just common sense.
"I actually like the Seinfeld finale. The writers make the viewer confront the fact they've fallen in love with terrible people. Some people don't want to face that reality."
Not giving a huggy, teary ending isn't making the viewer confront (or learn) anything. It's just another story, true to the series.
I think the real problem is that for Seasons 1-5, the writers and producers were working at writing screenplay adaptations. After Season 5, they were forced into writing nearly original screenplays. Given a good novel written by a good, imaginative writer, a very modestly talented writer can produce truly great screen adaptations.
To give you an example, there are several adaptations of Wuthering Heights- some quite different from the novel itself, but the source material still forms the backbone of all of them, and none of the adaptations are awful- I have seen them all, I think, and all are pretty successful. If any of those screenwriters had to work with just the outline of Brontë's novel, I think they would have produced dreck like most screenwriters do in trying to produce original work themselves. I think GoT's writers are probably mostly hacks, but Martin's novels were good enough that the hacks turn the novels into great screenplays. Once they had to rely almost entirely on their own creative talents, their lack of talent couldn't be hidden any longer.
Re: Ficta:
I think anyone who found Daenerys' actions surprising either hadn't been paying attention or was blinded by their own political delusions: from Robespierre to Mao, her attitude is depressingly common in the real world.
I think it's comparatively rare to have political leader go burninating all the peasants in their thatched roof villages after they've surrendered.
You could well imagine it as a kind of anti-guerrilla thing, though: Lannister troops strip off their armour and try and hide among the civilians, like Chinese troops in Shanghai and Nanking. Have the peace break down almost immediately as Daenerys's soldiery hunt down and Lannister soldiers. She thinks there's going to be a guerrilla insurrection like what she experienced back in Slaver's Bay, and she decides she's not going to put up with that again. And razes a couple districts of the city to make an example of them, or perhaps turns their inhabitants over to the Dothraki to do the kinds of Dothraki things she used to get pissed off about. Those are still atrocities, but they're the kinds of atrocities historical figures actually engage in.
Other than, I suppose, Genghis Khan in the destruction of Merv:
According to the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, who based his account on the reports of refugees from Merv: “Genghis Khan sat on a golden throne and ordered the troops who had been seized should be brought before him. When they were in front of him, they were executed and the people looked on and wept. When it came to the common people, they separated men, women, children and possessions. It was a memorable day for shrieking and weeping and wailing. They took the wealthy people and beat them and tortured them with all sorts of cruelties in the search for wealth … Then they set fire to the city and burned the tomb of Sultan Sanjar and dug up his grave looking for money. They said, ‘These people have resisted us’ so they killed them all.
Fen Said My problem is that it was rush and executed so poorly. The characters in Season 8 were not true to themselves.
Exactly, but then with so much material with which to craft a coherent TV series story line, whatever the GOT writers chose, someone would be unhappy.
Martin himself is infamous for unexpectedly killing characters and changing story arcs. It's almost a truism that any Fire & Ice character the reader grows fond of will die in a dire way.
Hopefully Martin will wrap the story, I'll wait for his finale to make a judgement.
GOT was a fun ride that gave us a whole host of actors new to American audiences....but I'm still miffed with HBO over The Sopranos...and damned if HBO/Weiner didn't do it to us twice with Mad Men.
The GOT writers this season will forever be known as "The Sullied".
Worst...finale....evah.
Worst thing about the ending of GoT is that we never got to hear what happened when Tyrion brought the jackass and honeycomb into the brothel...
I was surprised to see this review of GoT Season 8. I have viewed dozens of Stuckmann's movie reviews, and respect them quite a bit (he does classic movie reviews, too, almost all of which I have seen before watching his reviews).
He only binged the series recently, in a two week period, so was less emotionally invested than a lot of viewers were. His critiques of Season 8 pretty much mirror my own (though I take them back to Season 7, and even parts of Season 6)- that the events and choices have no foundation in the plot development, unlike the things that happen in, let's say, the first 5 seasons. And I think the reason is obvious- the first 5 seasons had the novels to work with, where Martin shows you how things came about- even in those cases where the television show deviates from the novels, the writers are still using the plot devices in the novel to back it up so that it makes logical sense. Once the writers had only, possibly, an outline of the big events, they were forced to fall back on their own devices for getting there, and they failed because they aren't really talented story creators.
"I think moments get confused with whole episodes. I think even most Newhart viewers would have a tough time saying what happens in the finale before the very ending. "
I watched it the night it originally aired, haven't seen it since. If memory serves: The whole place goes to pot, people quit, move away, things just aren't going Bob's way and he gets hit by a golf ball right in the temple - potentially fatal. At that moment he wakes next to Suzanne Pleshette.
It was a shaggy dog joke, it worked like a charm.
Okay, not bad. I forgot the Japanese tycoon had bought the town.
Tyrion walks into a brothel with a honeycomb and a jackass.
Madame:
What can we do for you?
Tyrion:
I need a woman to lay with, for mine has left me.
Madame:
Whatever for? And what's with the honeycomb and the mule?
Tyrion:
My woman found a genie in a bottle, and he granted her three wishes.
The first was for a house fit for a queen, so he gave her this damn honeycomb.
The second wish was that she have the nicest ass in all the land, so he gave her this damn donkey...
Madame:
And what about the third wish?
Tyrion:
Well... she asked the genie to make my cock hang down past my knee.
Madame:
Well that one's not so bad eh?
Tyrion:
Not so bad!? I used to be six foot three!
The very first scene in GOT involved the first human contact with a White Walker--and animated dead person. We later learned about the Night King and saw him raising the fallen and incorporating them into his army of the dead. We heard about the god of light and fire, and saw evidence of his presence and his power. Book readers learned about the eternal war between the god of life and the god of darkness and ice, and the fact that there was a physical embodiment of those deities during past struggles, and it wasn't hard to picture the Night King as that current embodiment given what we saw him do. If you are looking for a "big bad" and an existential threat to humanity it was him, not some jokers vying for the Westeros throne. If you are going to wrap up the show in six episodes, you would expect the focus to concentrate on the Night King and his army of millions--and ever expanding with the fallen. When viewers saw that they were going to deal with the Night King first--and in a single episode--they were justifiably pissed. And regular TV viewers know that dark TV screens are no accident--that is the old-TV trick to save money on sets and CGI. Here, the dead warriors didn't have to be rendered and animated individually in all cases. If you aren't spending your money when you are dealing with your greatest existential threat, you are cheating viewers who have invested ten years and considerable money in your story (HBO, books, DVDs.) Viewers/Fans are your customers and deserve a good product. We didn't get it. Hooking up characters for fan service is not going to get us to go away happy. Fans know what you did and why you did it. You have cut your future revenue streams by half or more. No fan is going to rewatch this or check out future prequels and sequels.
As a person of a certain age, all I could think was "Drogon take me away!"
Too soon?
Metalman, Tyrion used to be six-feet and seven inches. But he still has the seven inches, if you catch my drift.
"I actually like the Seinfeld finale. The writers make the viewer confront the fact they've fallen in love with terrible people. Some people don't want to face that reality."
Its made clear throughout the show that George is a complete, awful, mess. He's only sympathetic when compared to his parents.
Wasn't this the show that put Obama's head on a pike?
Oh, wait. Wrong President.
This all fueled by Twitter bullshit and other social media that other media picks up and amplifies. Even a large number of whiners and complainer and "activists" is a small percentage of the population. A million jerk offs can splooge out a river of tweets, but they are still less than half a percent of the US population and 5% of the 20 million viewers who watched the episode last night. The noisier they are, the more attention they get with their discontent.
In the Marine Corps, there is a guiding rubric that "there is always 10% that don't get the word". For planning purposes, it never disappoints.
Speaking as someone whose entire professional career has been in television and film, given the vast scope of the series and the complex character arcs over the course of 8 seasons, the show ended as satisfactorily as one could hope. If some percentage of the viewers think they have better ideas than those in charge, I say to them to get on a Greyhound bus and head to Los Angeles to try their hand at it as have so many before....and good luck with that.
- Krumhorn
The series that made me throw the final book across the room was the Alan Gregory series by Stephen White. Very well-written suspense, twenty books in all, about a psychotherapist living in Boulder CO who keeps getting pulled into scenarios involving murder and assorted skulduggery. The characters were genuine, interesting, and well-developed. Then it all went to crap as far as I was concerned; after diligently reading for 20+ years I felt "owed" a lot more.
" final episodes of Seinfeld"
Seinfeld's ending was low-key brilliant and probably will be revisited in years to come by its harshest critics.
I thought it was a very satisfying ending and brought the series to a logical conclusion, although I was nowhere near predicting King Bran.
Ficta, I agree with The Occurance at Owl Bridge interpretation of the Breaking Bad finale. Nothing was going well for Walter until the keys fell from the visor. Then absolutely everything went perfectly because it was a vision he had as he died in the car. Nothing else explains the doofus guys with the lasers!
the show ended as satisfactorily as one could hope
Bullshit. A statement that can't be supported by the product shown.
I'm pretty sure the finale included all the bullet points included in G. R. R. Martin's notes--but the destination wasn't supported by the journey shown in the preceding decade. The guys in charge got a three-movie Disney deal and checked out and phoned in the final season, ignoring HBO's plea for more episodes and seasons. HBO was at fault for not shitcanning their asses and bringing in new showrunners to wrap it up. Many of the episodes shown would be good as standalone TV. But as part of a ten-year package, they stunk up the place.
Will Disney can D&D as Star War fans object to their presence? Maybe.
Are only 10% of the fans objecting? No. More like two thirds.
Will there be repercussions for HBO? Most certainly.
Just watch.
And the media won't hide it as they do with Disney products, especially when they abandoned the "woke" women power elements to give viewers a "Bitches B Crazy" conclusion.
Well, I've never watched My Dinner With Andre the Giant, nor read War and Peas but - judging by the comments above - I will now feel perfectly at ease critiquing either, when next they appear in these pages.
I'm not a fan of magic-&-dragons entertainment, so the show was never a pull for me.
I simply saw my friends get drawn in on a dopamine level, and knew it would end in tears.
Because the fans make an emotional attachment to the characters, while -- behind the scenes -- the actors and writers are making a product.
I'm not saying the actors and writers don't care, just that -- along with the story -- they have memories of arguments-on-set, days that went on far too long, tedium, exhaustion, personal lives, worries for what job may come next, etc: a show of this magnitude becomes more emotionally important to the consumers than the makers as it nears the finish line.
And -- by the end -- most of the makers just want to get it done and over with.
So: at that Hot New Restaurant you got great appetizers, a good meal, and a disappointing dessert.
Time to start looking for the Next Hot New Restaurant.
I am Laslo.
"If some percentage of the viewers think they have better ideas than those in charge, I say to them to get on a Greyhound bus and head to Los Angeles to try their hand at it as have so many before....and good luck with that."
That is a very weak argument ... in fact no argument at all.
Don't take it from me, ask Samuel Johnson:
"You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables."
What TV viewers are experts at are how stories affect them. If it doesn't work -- for the people who are fans of the series all along -- then it failed.
I'm looking forward to seeing Ozzyman's take on it on YouTube. He's been doing summaries of the shows and dropping vids about this last season's episodes. He liked the Long Night episode, so we'll see what he says about the finale.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ozzymanreviews/videos
Spoiler alert: In no particular order: Jon Snow returns to being the bastard he is, joining the wild side and truly becoming free. The Queen of the North gets her crown, the bad guys died together in each other's incestuous arms, they didn't kill the hero dwarf, they did kill the other mad queen, the man confined to a wheel char get's to sit on the throne and Tray sails West into the unknown (spin-off?). The Starks get to rule the entire lands in one way or another.
It was as good an outcome as any.
Now, contrast this with Big Bang: All get their dues in that one, even Raj, sort of. But if BBT had a game of throne ending...Amy would slay Sheldon for the full credit of the Nobel prize and run off with Leonard, Penny would lose her baby, Howard and Bernadette would get on a plane and never be seen again, and Raj would have a wooden stake driven thru his heart.
Stupid auto correct. 'chair' and 'Arya' sails
Me, on Facebook:
I think I liked the books' ending better.
("But Martin hasn't finished the books!")
Exactly!
Me, on Facebook:
I think I liked the books' ending better.
("But Martin hasn't finished the books!")
Exactly!
Assuming he ever finishes them, I wonder if he will now feel obligated to do it differently (even though his notes were apparently used).
Blogger Balfegor said...
Re: Lucien:
"
After what they have just been through why would the “adults in the room” pick a king who can’t possibly have any heirs? Did they miss the day in monarchy class when the importance of stable succession was discussed?
Elective monarchy isn't particularly unusual, but the deck was over-weighted with Starks, their relatives, and their allies. You had what, three Starks, Jon's best friend (Tarly), and chancellor (Davos), the Starks' uncle (Tully), one sister's close allies (Arryn and Royce), the other sister's sometime lover (Baratheon), and then, I guess, three other people. Does that really reflect the power balance at the end of the show? You'd think Grey Worm would also get a vote."
I dontknow which bothers me more. That you know this shit orthat you bothered to memorize this shit.
That you know this shit orthat you bothered to memorize this shit.
I doubt he "memorized" it. I too was interested in identifying those who sat on the council. Because it appeared we were left with some very 2nd String leadership, which I found to be realistic after the battles at Winterfell and then King's Landing.
Took me a moment to recognize dumbass Edmund Tully and the Vale moron. Once I did I went around the circle to see who else was left.
If some percentage of the viewers think they have better ideas than those in charge, I say to them to get on a Greyhound bus and head to Los Angeles to try their hand at it as have so many before....and good luck with that.
As someone mentioned upthread, that's a really obnoxious and stupid statement to make. Do you need to become a carpenter for your complaints about a wobbly table to be valid? Can you return your steak to the kitchen if you don't work as a cook in the restaurant? Problems with Senate Bill 108? Stop whining, quit your job and run for the Senate... right?
I get that some of you are too cool to care about the show. Like you, I was annoyed with all the fanboys who wouldn't shut up about the damn thing, before I got hooked by the show's writing and drawn into GOT around Season 5. But alot of you are coming off just as annoying as the fanboys, virtue signaling how you don't give a damn in a thread you aren't supposed to give a damn about.
"But alot of you are coming off just as annoying as the fanboys, virtue signaling how you don't give a damn in a thread you aren't supposed to give a damn about."
well put. It's easy to ignore a TV show. If you don't want to watch it, don't watch it. Problem solved.
Unless you have an annoying friend or relative who won't stop bothering you about it. In that case you do not have a GOT problem. You have an annoying friend or relative problem.
Lots of opportunity for spinoffs with that ending. The survivors all got what they wanted whether it was what they wanted or not.
Season 5 is the last I watched. It was very boring, with characters doing pointless things. It struck me that they had absolutely no idea where to take this thing and so were just filming "cool" scenes and adding filler in between.
Another problem is that I hated most of the characters and the one sympathetic one, Jon Snow, didn't actually do anything.
I haven’t read the thread, so forgive me if somebody said this, but Shakespeare had it right, just kill everybody at the end.
Another problem is that I hated most of the characters and the one sympathetic one, Jon Snow, didn't actually do anything.
So he was an “Indiana Jones” type, whose only role in the plot was showing the Nazis where the Ark was? He was sort of a Nick Carroway to the Ark’s Gatsby. Carroway’s only active role was to introduce Gatsby to Daisy.
Re: Rusty:
I dontknow which bothers me more. That you know this shit orthat you bothered to memorize this shit.
I am absolutely a nerd and unashamed! But I did have to google a bit (haha)
Tried to watch GOT twice just couldn’t get thru Season 2.
I'll watch the DVD's when they come to my local library. I stopped watching the shows Real time when John Snow got killed and then "Came back from the dead". It killed the drama for me, because Dead - didn't mean dead - just restin'.
Of course, if your corpse gotten eaten by dogs, or burned to a crisp, I guess some witch couldn't bring you back. but it just seemed silly. Plus, I'm not into zombies.
But I'll watch the final season on DVD just out of curiosity.
It funny how no one compliments GoT for being so PC. We got dwarfs, women, and one white guy in the final Game of Thrones.
For the record - in my opinion, as someone who never watches any of these long format shows from beginning to end, but who has watched a few of them at a 60 or 70 percent rate - the ending of "Lost" was much much better than I thought it would be. Sopranos ended way better than I though the clowns who ran the show were capable of. "The Shield" had a great ending. Most of my favorite shows - Hogans Heroes, Gilligans Island, the Addams Family - never had a real ending, but I always assumed that Hogan was eventually freed and lived a nice life in California in the 40s and 50s and onwards, and his pals had similarly rewarding post-war lives, and I always assumed that the cast of Gilligans Island remained friends, whether they remained stranded or were saved, and I always assumed that, eventually, one day, Morticia and Gomez and Lurch and Grammama joined the Mormon church, or repented of their relatively innocent worldly attachments, having joined a reading group that focused on Dante's Paradiso.
..... having joined a reading group that focused on Dante's Paradiso, or something like that.
There is a lot to be said for Dante.
if some percentage of the viewers think they have better ideas than those in charge, I say to them to get on a Greyhound bus and head to Los Angeles to try their hand at it as have so many before....and good luck with that.
The lame fan-boy excuse. So, if you can't do better, you can't criticize. So, all the film critics, sportswriters and art critics should all just shut up and go away. Professors of literature should all go unemployment unless they offer 100% praise of writers because hey "can they do better"? No one should boo a ball player, NBA star, or football QB, because hey "Can they do better?". In fact, all coaches who "Can't do better" then their players should all quit. What the hell is Steve Kerr doing criticizing Steph Curry? Can he "Do better"?
And if I don't like the way the mechanic fixed my car, I should just say nothing because hey "could i do better?"
"Most of my favorite shows - Hogans Heroes, Gilligans Island, the Addams Family - never had a real ending, but I always assumed that Hogan was eventually freed and lived a nice life in California in the 40s and 50s and onwards, and his pals had similarly rewarding post-war lives,"
All those shows weren't meant to recorded, or Tivo'd or seen on DVD. You saw them once a week, assuming you were watching TV, and then you never saw the episode again until the summer, or when it went into syndication. Even if you were a little kid, and saw them in reruns like I did, you'd only see the same episode may twice a year.
MASH was unusual in that it had an ending that large numbers of people watched. Newhart, MTM, and Seinfeld also had "endings" that i remember. But most shows just got cancelled. That was their "ending". Or they changed so much during their "Run" that the ending was meaningless - Cf: All in the family or Cheers.
rcocean at 7:24:brilliant, I agree completely.
rcocean at 7:33: that is one way of looking at it.
"Never watched it, not enough time in life for that. For me PBS Les Miserables was worth the hours time on a Sunday night."
LOL. Then why write anything at all here? Your snobbish pretensions noted. As if that was a surprise from you.
"The producers followed the books religiously."
No they didn't. The story diverged and characters became composites rather quickly after season one.
"But RR Martin has not finished writing the series."
Dream on. He'll never finish it.
"The series began in 2011."
Same year Martin published the last of the books. He's promised a sixth book every year since. What a coincidence.
Footnotes: if you want to illustrate Oedipal conflict, there's no better way than by having the dwarf son shoot the imperious father with a crossbow while said father is seated on a stone latrine. That was beyond Freud and into Dali territory.......Sansa was raped and abused in demonic ways by Joffrey and Bolton. It is the conceit of the show that this mistreatment helps Sansa become wise in the ways of men and a more sagacious queen.. Feminists claim that this premise is a crock. Well, yes. It's also a crock to say that castration, amputation, and mutilation help men become wiser and more tolerant. Maybe in Westeros......Daenyrus went full Nazi at the end. She even wore a black leather oufit. The transition was too abrupt. I would have preferred she wear something white and clingy. Tone down the darkness a bit.
If you want to know how the Game of Thrones finished, read the series by Druon.
"The historical analogies are all over that thing, every detail really. Martin is a great miner of history."
If you say so. Others might say he couldn't find an original angle with both hands. I know. I'll title knights Ser instead of Sir. We'll have Maesters instead of Masters. Brilliant. And I write this as someone who enjoyed the books.
"The guys in charge got a three-movie Disney deal and checked out and phoned in the final season, ignoring HBO's plea for more episodes and seasons. HBO was at fault for not shitcanning their asses and bringing in new showrunners to wrap it up."
I suspect truer words were never said.
Same year Martin published the last of the books. He's promised a sixth book every year since. What a coincidence.
Rape-Rape Martin is now 71. He's richer than God. His last GoT novel was a weak effort that was just strung out the story. He has no kids (surprised?). Chances of him finishing a new GOT novel? About the same as him losing 100 lbs.
rcocean said...
It funny how no one compliments GoT for being so PC. We got dwarfs, women, and one white guy in the final Game of Thrones.
But of course, for the PC types, it wasn't PC and inclusive enough. There was all kind of wailing about the killing off of Missandei a couple of episodes earlier and how she and Grey Worm were the only "characters of color." Never mind that almost all of the characters that Martin wrote in the story were portrayed as white. No, we must have inclusiveness über alles.
My biggest disappointment was Jon Snow's murder of Dany. Nephew kills his Aunt without familial qualms because the patricidal dwarf tells him to do so. Jon Snow became a complete tool at the end. And is sent away (runs away) to (re)join the circus.
I suspect the writers thought themselves clever to find a way to end the series north of the wall were it began. Me. I thought it cliche.
I just blogged my opinion that this episode revealed GoT to be a conservative manifesto. Did anybody else get this out of it? The emotion-ruled SJW gets lost in the virtue of her intentions, grossly misuses her power, and is brought low by a guy who basically upholds the status quo (or tries to) for most of the series arc. And then they reestablish almost exactly the same kind of government they had before (a bunch of lords sitting under a canopy and choosing a ruler is different from a bunch of lords throwing their super behind a ruler in body count but not essentials). Conservative.
Throwing their SUPPORT, not super. Almost made it through a whole phone post without a typo...
If you say so. Others might say he couldn't find an original angle with both hands.
I though too big a deal was made about R. R. R. R. Martin.
The we got to witness two genius directors step out of their expertise and write script without original material to pull from. How hard could it be?
Very hard, apparently.
I've been catching a few clips from the earlier seasons and comparing it to Season 8. The difference is..er.. stark.
Balfegor said...
"Re: Rusty:
I dontknow which bothers me more. That you know this shit orthat you bothered to memorize this shit.
I am absolutely a nerd and unashamed! But I did have to google a bit (haha) "
fair enough. I'm a nerd too. Just not a GOT nerd.
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