Game of Thrones....

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Tue May 14, 2019 4:24 pm

rass wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 2:20 pm I think you guys in here (and various other articles) suggesting that the Mad Queen seeds have been out there to see for years are being way too accepting of the lurching inconsistency of the plot and character choices this season. The jump from anything she had done in the past (execute a couple of traitors, kill dozens of murderous slave holders, whatever) to straight up massacring tens of thousands of innocents is a fucking chasm. Then to do that when she had already won! Like I said on Sunday, I thought that full heel turn was completely unearned. She's Targayren and they can be nutty! Jon's friends think he's awesome! Jon won't bone her! C'mon...

Ignoring the bells and destroying the Keep I could have bought (and I loved a suggestion I read elsewhere that could have had the city rigged with wild fire set to go up if the Keep was compromised, which would have pretty much brought us to where we are now without completely botching Dany). I get just wanting to sit back and enjoy the tits and dragons show (and I agree the episode looked fucking awesome) but I can only hand wave away so much.

This article does a good job of laying out ways in which the books (I guess) and the showrunners have been signaling this turn as a possibility.

But I'll say this, it's almost universal that what you say is true: They didn't do a good job this season of setting this up. She's had a LOT of stuff break the wrong way for her, but straight up genocide just doesn't seem where she'd go at this point. I think they did enough to set up last night in seasons 1-5, but they botched this season.

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/10/18563566/ ... rk-villain

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Tue May 14, 2019 4:59 pm

Daeny turning heel is actually a pretty awesome plot development. Her flattening King's Landing and scorching everyone is the height of "Holy Shit" moments in a series packed with "Holy Shit" moments.

But when GRRM said that 10 seasons of 10 episodes each would be necessary to tell the entire story with full nuance and context, that means 40 episodes were squished into 13. And not because HBO said no, but because the showrunners did.

So now you get back to back to back episodes going "The White Walkers are the existential threat! ... Wait, no, it's Cersei who's the existential threat! ... Wait, nope, it was Daenerys all along despite the fact that she helped get rid of the other two." It's lazy and intellectually frustrating. But unfortunately necessary.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue May 14, 2019 6:28 pm

It’s ok. Benioff and Weiss have to get to ruining Star Wars. Can’t keep making this show.

Jerloma · Post by **Jerloma** » Wed May 15, 2019 9:48 am

tennbengal wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 3:30 pm
Jerloma wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2019 2:23 pm I think Arya made it pretty clear to him that she wanted Cersei although I don't understand why they split up because obviously the Mountain and Cersei were going to be together.
Because the Hound convinced her that to go forward to find Cersei meant she would for sure die given what was happening with the attack on the city and told her that maybe she could reconsider if living her entire life bent to revenge like he had was really worth it. And that's when she thanked him and started looking for a way out of the city.

Oh, thanks. I missed that. I thought she went to find Cersei and then just got diverted by the rock storm.

Post by **brian** » Wed May 15, 2019 9:55 am

I could only watch yesterday since the condo we were at in Hawaii didn't have HBO, so I had mostly avoided spoilers though I saw a couple of characters died (not specifically, but assume they were alluding to Jamie and Cersei*) thanks to some shitty headlines in my news app and general grousing on social media, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared (though still wasn't really a great episode in general).

I didn't have an issue with the sacking of King's Landing in general as an extension of Dany's progression as a character who been bitten by half measures before and she even telegraphed it to Jon by telling her she was going to choose fear as a method to rule the kingdom. Hell, the entire episode was intended to make it obvious that Varys was going to be martyred for (correctly) choosing Jon over Dany.

I have quibbles, but what's the point now? Just hope the final episode can provide a conclusion that is definitive and not some winking nod to some future movie. But that will really fucking piss me off.

* Are we supposed to be certain they're dead? Because I'm not certain. Nor am I certain about Euron being dead for that matter.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:10 am

I actually was going to mention that. I feel like they were setting us up for the whole "if you don't see a character die on screen, they are likely alive" reverse psychology with the second dragon dying off camera.

I don't know if that sentence makes sense, but I'm too lazy to fix it. Bottom line is that I don't believe they showed the Red Keep completely toppling*, and they absolutely didn't show a definitive death scene for those two.

* - Confirmed by a preview of Ep 6, where it is royally fucked up, but still standing.

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:15 am

brian wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 9:55 am I could only watch yesterday since the condo we were at in Hawaii didn't have HBO, so I had mostly avoided spoilers though I saw a couple of characters died (not specifically, but assume they were alluding to Jamie and Cersei*) thanks to some shitty headlines in my news app and general grousing on social media, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared (though still wasn't really a great episode in general).

I didn't have an issue with the sacking of King's Landing in general as an extension of Dany's progression as a character who been bitten by half measures before and she even telegraphed it to Jon by telling her she was going to choose fear as a method to rule the kingdom. Hell, the entire episode was intended to make it obvious that Varys was going to be martyred for (correctly) choosing Jon over Dany.

I have quibbles, but what's the point now? Just hope the final episode can provide a conclusion that is definitive and not some winking nod to some future movie. But that will really fucking piss me off.

* Are we supposed to be certain they're dead? Because I'm not certain. Nor am I certain about Euron being dead for that matter.

I just finally saw it last night too, and I also don't have a big problem with how it went. Dany made it clear she blamed the people of King's Landing for not rebelling against Cersei, and she punished them for it.

The execution on Varys for "treason" was more troubling to me. Jon is the fucking true heir to the throne. If he wants to yield or abdicate in Danaerys's favor, fine, but how could it be treason for Varys to support him?

This might be setting up Dany to try to kill Jon - like she when she supported her husband in killing the prior "true heir to the throne", Viserys.

Post by **brian** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:33 am

I think they beat us over the head quite clearly to setup Jon vs. Dany for the throne in the final episode, which is fine. I'll grant that it'll probably be a more interesting conclusion than Dany vs. Cersei would have been, but it would have been even more interesting if Dany didn't have to holocaust King's Landing to make sure we were clear who the "good guy" is.

Just mean it would have been more interesting if she hadn't been turned from Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader to make it clear that we have a white hat and a black hat. Real life usually doesn't work that way. Evil usually isn't Hitler or Pol Pot, it's more like Mitch McConnell shaking hands, kissing babies and condemning thousands of people to die by taking away access to health care and WIC benefits

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Wed May 15, 2019 12:09 pm

brian wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2019 11:33 amJust mean it would have been more interesting if she hadn't been turned from Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader to make it clear that we have a white hat and a black hat.

Yeah, but Dany was pretty Darth Vader-ish all along. It's just that we projected Anakin Skywalker on her because she freed slaves.

Rams Fanny · Post by **Rams Fanny** » Fri May 17, 2019 12:22 pm

At this point I hope the final scene is Bob Newhart waking up in bed.

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Fri May 17, 2019 1:08 pm

Rams Fanny wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 12:22 pm At this point I hope the final scene is Bob Newhart waking up in bed.

Snowglobe makes more sense.

EdRomero · Post by **EdRomero** » Sun May 19, 2019 9:22 pm

Boring

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Sun May 19, 2019 9:28 pm

I liked it.

EdRomero · Post by **EdRomero** » Sun May 19, 2019 9:33 pm

I have the same feeling I did at the end of Lost. Both shows were so good early and we trusted they were building up to something good. And then there is no surprise or anything really interesting. Instead, Snow's real father doesn't matter for the iron throne and Arya becomes Christopher Columbus.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Sun May 19, 2019 9:50 pm

tennbengal wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 9:28 pmI liked it.

I thought, for all the bad storytelling over past two seasons, it was as good a finale as they could have done. Show needed 3-4 more episodes at some point. And this one could have been two.

Mostly I’m just glad it’s over.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Sun May 19, 2019 10:19 pm

The ending was never going to be as satisfying as it needed to be, but that ending worked for me.

[+] spoiler: And Bran doesn't need a throne when he's already rolling on one!

Edit..(and decent counterpoint):

From what I can tell, the internet isn't liking it.

Edit:

"So the main difference between ASOIAF and GOT is that in GOT, ASOIAF is finished."

Hahahahahahaha.

rass · Post by **rass** » Mon May 20, 2019 5:49 am

A_B wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 9:50 pmI thought, for all the bad storytelling over past two seasons, it was as good a finale as they could have done. Show needed 3-4 more episodes at some point. And this one could have been two.

I agree with you on the portion leading up to and including

[+] spoiler: Jon killing Dany

and on the endings for the Stark kids.

As for the scenes in between, Tyrion's speech at the meeting, everyone and everything else at the meeting, even Brienne's scene and the small council, I'm with Romero.

One small gripe, and one general gripe:

[+] spoiler: Because Jon is an honorable dummy and because Grey Worm knew exactly how Dany died, Jon must have turned himself in, right? If so, how the fuck did he not get ripped apart by the Unsullied and/or the Dothraki, if not Grey Worm personally?

Number 2, I think the cute Jon/Ghost reunion at the Wall is indicative of the issues they've had with the story these past two seasons. Way too many things have happened only because they knew the storytellers wanted to do something later on, and for absolutely no other reason that makes any sense whatsoever. They knew the end was coming, and they had all of these points and scenes they wanted to hit along the way and a (self) limited amount of time to do it, so they bent and twisted characters and time and space itself as needed to get there.

phxgators · Post by **phxgators** » Mon May 20, 2019 10:03 am

I had incredibly low expectations last night, thought there so many loose ends there was no way they could wrap things up. I thought the finale was... fine. A little too neat. I think I'm just more frustrated with how rushed things were and how they wasted the potential of the show just for everything to fall flat.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Mon May 20, 2019 11:38 am

phxgators wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 10:03 am I had incredibly low expectations last night, thought there so many loose ends there was no way they could wrap things up. I thought the finale was... fine. A little too neat. I think I'm just more frustrated with how rushed things were and how they wasted the potential of the show just for everything to fall flat.

Pretty much where I'm at. Thought they did a good job, but within the confines of their self-inflicted rushed timeline.

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Mon May 20, 2019 11:58 am

phxgators wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 10:03 amI thought the finale was... fine.

I'm with you.

How long do we think it will be before the Iron Islands and Dorne have their own rebellions against the Iron Throne?

bfj · Post by **bfj** » Mon May 20, 2019 1:31 pm

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 11:58 am
phxgators wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 10:03 amI thought the finale was... fine.
I'm with you.

How long do we think it will be before the Iron Islands and Dorne have their own rebellions against the Iron Throne?

I expected the Dornish and Yara to pipe up “wait, that’s an option”?

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Mon May 20, 2019 1:35 pm

The Greyjoys always did whatever they wanted anyway.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Mon May 20, 2019 1:56 pm

bfj · Post by **bfj** » Mon May 20, 2019 5:05 pm

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Mon May 20, 2019 7:00 pm

Yeah man, the memes are fucking spicy today!

Edit:

Post by **brian** » Tue May 21, 2019 9:46 am

Finally got a chance to watch last night and the finale was pretty good. Not sure what all the complaining was about. Under the circumstances was about as good as could be expected.

Post by **Shirley** » Tue May 21, 2019 9:58 am

Yeah, I thought it was good as well. There's almost no way to end a story that epic and have it please everyone. Was it perfect? No. But it made sense (for the most part), which is not a trivial thing when you're talking about a story with that many characters and storylines.

That said, a few gripes:

1. Where the hell did all those Unsullied and Dothraki come from? In particular, Dany was talking to what looked like thousands of Unsullied. Was there a backup army somewhere?

2. How/why was Dany in the throne "room" alone with Jon? I can't believe her guards would ever have allowed that. Kings and queens are hardly ever alone, particularly during a war (or in the brief aftermath) and also not with someone who clearly wasn't trusted by everyone. They should have at least thrown in a two-second shot of Dany asking the guards to leave them for a minute.

3. Related to #2, I agree that it's hard to see how Jon could have gotten out of there alive. I mean even if folks were just outside - or anywhere within miles really - wouldn't they have rushed in when the fucking dragon showed up and started frying things? And then Jon would have been caught red-handed and likely immediately killed.

Now I'm off to read more articles about it and see if there were things I missed.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Tue May 21, 2019 10:35 am

brian wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 9:46 am Finally got a chance to watch last night and the finale was pretty good. Not sure what all the complaining was about. Under the circumstances was about as good as could be expected.

1) For a certain group of people, there were only two good Star Wars movies, and they spend their spare time sharing this FACT with everyone in an obnoxious and contemptuous way. That strain of human shares a big ass chunk of a Venn diagram with people that decided GoT "was gonna suck" when they heard it was going to end after this season. I see it in a lot of reviewers.

2) Another group of people wanted a certain ending, or specific endings of certain characters, and if that didn't happen "the finale sucked." I have a co-worker, who is honestly one of the sweetest people I know, and she wasn't going to be happy unless Jon Snow became ruler of the Iron Throne. Bran becoming ruler of the 6 kingdoms is bullshit to her and she's having none of any of the rest of the explanations.

3) Every reviewer I read (about a dozen), whether they liked the finale or didn't like it, leaned heavily on the fact that even if things were wrapped up nicely, it was rushed at the end. It's just hard to take things like Dany going Mad Queen at such a break neck pace. Even those that pointed out the signs were there from the beginning say the show typically would've taken almost a full season setting up her turn of character. A few others made the case that taking down Cersei could've been it's own season, or at least extending this season by at least 3 or so episodes is a compromise to what we got... extreme compression and mental whiplash.

I enjoyed it and will probably go back and watch it again to pick up on some of the nuance I missed on first go. But I can line up behind point #3 in saying I would've really been more satisfied with a minimum of 3 more episodes, but really a full season would've been good. Could've taken more set-up to get to the death of the NK and then season 7 would've been all this stuff with Jon and Dany and the tension with Sansa and then even some set-up with West of Westeros for Arya. Lots of other places this could've played out, obviously.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Tue May 21, 2019 11:05 am

Did not think it was terrible....did not think it was amazing

[+] spoiler: 1.) Sam going all democratic....JV writing there....Wonder if that was done to piss of the Chinese (who delayed the finale..they claim technology, hbo claims tied to trade disagreements, and the show is heavily censured anyway).
2.) Jon could have lied..."where did she go?" Dragon flew off with her...no proof....he would have had to admit to it. Which would have been very Jon Snow
3.) They have talked about more expanded universe type stuff. The show set that up. What is west of Westeros? Jon going North, Unsullied going to an island, rebuilding, etc. Look forward to the animated expanded universe, books, etc (i.e. Star Wars)...and movies (I may be the only person who was excited to hear about a Deadwood film..well maybe Mr. Wu).
4.) The speech at the end when trying to pick a new king....ugh...disney special on that one
5.) Dinklage is a very skilled actor (despite Knights of Badassdom) and tried for his award moments in the jail and king selection (but the writing hurt him) and the finding his brother scene was made for TV quality writing

But not sad I watched it.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Tue May 21, 2019 2:36 pm

DaveInSeattle · Post by **DaveInSeattle** » Tue May 21, 2019 2:42 pm

The more I see/hear people complaining about the GOT finale (I thought it was fine...how are you going to end a show that's been on for 8 seasons and has a gazillion different characters and please even a majority of people?) the more I think that David Chase got it right with the ending for The Sopranos. Just end it...fade to black...and walk away.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Tue May 21, 2019 3:05 pm

Well, I think the space a lot of folks have staked out is pretty reasonable (fine with the ending, but they rushed this season which caused a lot of unnecessarily jarring and abrupt episodes.

I think the people signing petitions are being assholes and I'm glad Sophie called them out on that. Get the fuck over yourselves. You claim to love the show and its characters and then basically throw a hissy fit and shit all over their work.

Change.org is secretly one of the shittiest platforms on the internet.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Tue May 21, 2019 3:08 pm

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Tue May 21, 2019 3:29 pm

And I just want to say, if they'd pulled a Sopranos ending I honestly think someone would've "done something stupid."

It's one thing to fuck with mobster wannabes, fucking with turbo D&D nerds is asking to get skewered by a broadsword.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Tue May 21, 2019 6:47 pm

A-A-ron is big mad.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed May 22, 2019 7:05 am

I mean...he's not wrong?

Longer view - Bran slaughtered (allowed to be slaughtered) most everyone in King's Landing as part of his endgame to take the throne. Bran is savage.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed May 22, 2019 7:07 am

Even longer view --- that little talk that Tyrion has with Bran and then the scene cut away in Winterfell before the dark battle that no one could see? Bran tells Tyrion there how it is going to go down and feeds Tyrion the speech to say when the time is right - promising to make him Hand (and letting Tyrion pretend he really didn't want to be Hand)...

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Wed May 22, 2019 9:39 am

This would've been good. But so would like a bunch of other things.

tennbengal wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2019 7:07 am Even longer view --- that little talk that Tyrion has with Bran and then the scene cut away in Winterfell before the dark battle that no one could see? Bran tells Tyrion there how it is going to go down and feeds Tyrion the speech to say when the time is right - promising to make him Hand (and letting Tyrion pretend he really didn't want to be Hand)...

Spicy. Would've been nice to have that scene in the "previously on" portion. Because it seriously looks like D&D dumb lucked their way into that scenario.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Wed May 22, 2019 10:06 am

Bigger picture review.

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/21/crippl ... x-CNyPJ3c4

Getting pretty fatigued by all the negativity. This was an amazing show and I think this is gonna be where I let it sit.

Post by **brian** » Wed May 22, 2019 10:08 am

I think the thing people should be confident in is that was GRRM's ending and will be how the novels end, assuming he is able to finish them. Some of the stuff that leads up to the ending will probably be different and certainly fleshed out a lot better, but if your beef with the ending is "Bran ends up ruler of Westeros", then you're probably barking up the wrong tree with the complaints.