[TV/Books] Game of Thrones ***SPOILER Discussion***

[Mavick]

Countless people have provided, in this thread, including me, why this series has continually dropped the ball from a writing perspective. In terms of narrative, in terms of theme, in terms of character arc, in terms of character motivation, the last few seasons have been an utter mess.

And I'm still watching for a few reasons: 1) This is a book series I've been reading since the 90s, 2) the first four seasons of this show were great television, so obviously many people are invested in the show because of that (something you might not get having only watched the show recently, as you admitted), and 3) the production value of the show continues to be excellent, including the music.

You've done nothing but mis-reference thing after thing in this thread. In some alternative world where the obvious is right in front of you but you'd rather say "we never saw Arya, a trained assassin, stealthily advance on a target so it shouldn't be possible", you might be right. This isn't the world I come from, however, so just saying something like "I've posted misinterpretations that seem easy for other people to grasp but I posted anyway, so I have a point" doesn't really do anything for me.

[Graden]

This is another thing that people tend to overlook. They had source material for the first several seasons due to Martin's books, who spent a couple decades just getting those out. Now the lazy fucker gets to sit back and finish at his own pace, seemingly, and is free to re-write it however he wants, and nobody would be the wiser. People give Martin all the credit for the early seasons, but the truth is it was Dave and DB who adapted them to TV, and they didn't follow exactly in Martin's narrative anyway. Point I'm making is they should get credit for the good just as much as your perceived "bad". I don't think they just suddenly "forgot" how to write TV episodes simply because they ran out of books, that's just absurd.

I get what you're saying and yeah I'll give them credit that they brought this universe to life.
But I, personally, will honestly never forgive them for what they did to Stannis, especailly during S5, and the reason behind their decision. ''we don't like him lolz''

[Tabrotar]

But Bran never explains any history to anyone except the one fact of Jon's birthright. I don't think he even told Sansa/Arya/Jon about why Hodor was Hodor. He certainly didn't tell anyone the ACTUAL history of the Night's King.

And if I was as unsuccessful as D&D were before this show, I woulda changed professions. They were so unsuccessful that they thought, "Hey, let's just adapt a series which is already written for us. The last few books aren't out yet, but that won't bite us in the ass, I'm sure."

I would have loved to been a creative of some sort in my life, but, yanno, bills.

Sadly they have been announced to do a new trillogy for SW so...

[Mavick]

They didn't forget anything, they simply are not competent enough to write at the same level without a book telling them how. It's what it's, they don't have book material anymore, but that will not serve as an excuse to ruin something to this degree. They decided they wanted all the current bad decisions, ignored everything previously mentioned by their own series, forgot what consistency is, it's all on them.

The expectation for the last season is obvious. We have been following this for years, so yea we are going to watch another shit season just to put an end to this.

So tell me, did everything, and I mean everything, that occurred during the seasons covered by Martin's work occur on the show just as he'd written them? If not, which is the correct answer, who gets the credit for the success then? The people who wrote the differences, or Martin, or a mixture of both? And let's not be ignorant of the fact that I don't think there's ever been a book-to-movie/show adaptation that has 100% satisfied everyone or hasn't generated the lazy response to anything different you don't like being "well they just can't write for shit".

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I get what you're saying and yeah I'll give them credit that they brought this universe to life.
But I, personally, will honestly never forgive them for what they did to Stannis, especailly during S5, and the reason behind their decision. ''we don't like him lolz''

That's really odd. Before Stannis ever appeared on screen he was introduced as someone nobody likes. So despite the face that I loved the performance I never really allowed myself to like the guy more than I could help. And I think the evolution of him, becoming increasingly more desperate to achieve his goal and where that eventually led him was one of the better character arcs of the show. Not better in a "good guy" sense obviously, but an interesting sense.

[MakeMeLaugh]

So tell me, did everything, and I mean everything, that occurred during the seasons covered by Martin's work occur on the show just as he'd written them? If not, which is the correct answer, who gets the credit for the success then? The people who wrote the differences, or Martin, or a mixture of both? And let's not be ignorant of the fact that I don't think there's ever been a book-to-movie/show adaptation that has 100% satisfied everyone or hasn't generated the lazy response to anything different you don't like being "well they just can't write for shit".

The shit Stannis ending, the creation of the NK is all on them, all that while they had book material. Nobody is asking for 100% approval, we just want consistency to the work done before, which is something they can't deliver anymore, always going for the lazy easy route of plot armor and fan service, that is easy to write and goes very well with the masses that don't pay attention to anything and are just here for "yay dragonzzzzzz".

[Independent voter]

Tormund, Bron and Davos are fan favorites. Can't kill them or you'll make the fans mad.

[Gorsameth]

So tell me, did everything, and I mean everything, that occurred during the seasons covered by Martin's work occur on the show just as he'd written them? If not, which is the correct answer, who gets the credit for the success then? The people who wrote the differences, or Martin, or a mixture of both? And let's not be ignorant of the fact that I don't think there's ever been a book-to-movie/show adaptation that has 100% satisfied everyone or hasn't generated the lazy response to anything different you don't like being "well they just can't write for shit".

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That's really odd. Before Stannis ever appeared on screen he was introduced as someone nobody likes. So despite the face that I loved the performance I never really allowed myself to like the guy more than I could help. And I think the evolution of him, becoming increasingly more desperate to achieve his goal and where that eventually led him was one of the better character arcs of the show.

Its one thing to be given a deeply detailed story stretching hundreds of pages and extract from that an 8 hour tv series and another to be given a mostly blank canvas, a starting point and having to figure everything out yourself.

No one here that I see is denying that they did a great job working with the base material and turning a book into a tv series, which is no easy feat.
But when left without that story to draw from they have floundered.

[Mavick]

The shit Stannis ending, the creation of the NK is all on them, all that while they had book material. Nobody is asking for 100% approval, we just want consistency to the work done before, which is something they can't deliver anymore, always going for the lazy easy route of plot armor and fan service, that is easy to write and goes very well with the masses that don't pay attention to anything and are just here for "yay dragonzzzzzz".

But how does that even work? Martin hadn't covered Stannis ending nor the creation of the NK as far as I know, and as far as we all know the way they portrayed it is literally off what Martin told them, since they apparently know what he plans to write all the way up to the ending anyhow. Who knows, really. But either way, how do you even know this isn't consistent? So far all you know is they covered several of the major events of the book, like certain people dying, and now major people aren't dying as the story is reaching it's conclusion so it seems like you're just using that as an excuse to say it's "not being consistent". Well yeah, at some point good people are probably going to recognize the mistakes of the dead people (like Sansa literally alludes to a couple of times) and stop dying.

[MakeMeLaugh]

But how does that even work? Martin hadn't covered Stannis ending nor the creation of the NK as far as I know, and as far as we all know the way they portrayed it is literally off what Martin told them, since they apparently know what he plans to write all the way up to the ending anyhow. Who knows, really. But either way, how do you even know this isn't consistent? So far all you know is they covered several of the major events of the book, like certain people dying, and now major people aren't dying as the story is reaching it's conclusion so it seems like you're just using that as an excuse to say it's "not being consistent". Well yeah, at some point good people are probably going to recognize the mistakes of the dead people (like Sansa literally alludes to a couple of times) and stop dying.

Don't worry, it's just a 1 minute video.

[Mavick]

Its one thing to be given a deeply detailed story stretching hundreds of pages and extract from that an 8 hour tv series and another to be given a mostly blank canvas, a starting point and having to figure everything out yourself.

No one here that I see is denying that they did a great job working with the base material and turning a book into a tv series, which is no easy feat.
But when left without that story to draw from they have floundered.

But I still yet have someone be able to convince me how they have "floundered" in recent seasons. It's like literally anything major that has happened since the end of the books has been criticized by someone or another, and it seems like the only underlying reason to that is "the writing is shit" when in reality it is "I had different expectations which were not met, so I'm just going to bitch at the writers".

[Graden]

That's really odd. Before Stannis ever appeared on screen he was introduced as someone nobody likes. So despite the face that I loved the performance I never really allowed myself to like the guy more than I could help. And I think the evolution of him, becoming increasingly more desperate to achieve his goal and where that eventually led him was one of the better character arcs of the show.

Someone that nobody likes? Book Stannis always was (and still is) a cult favorite among book readers before the show. If anything the show did more harm than good to him, they butchered his character.
Stephen Dillane played show-Stannis as best as he could, but that was due to his great acting prowess. Neither, he, nor the writers understood Stannis. The writers messed up Stannis and did not stay true to his character who was driven by duty and justice. The writers portrayed Stannis as an ever-changing character who alternated between dutiful, to religious fanatic, to manipulated by Melisandre. Stephen is on record admitting he never understood the show, or the character of Stannis, and he only partook for the monetary returns.

Just go and read his interviews and see how disappointed and completely indifferent he was about the show. How he never had any idea what he was doing until they had finished filming and it was too late for him to act better, just because D&D hated book Stannis and wanted to portray him in the worst way possible and in the end killed him.

[Mavick]

Don't worry, it's just a 1 minute video.

And this is the perfect example of people imposing the books on the show. You see right there in the Melissandre scene that it's pretty vague what she says "a warrior will pull a sword from the fire and it will be Lightbringer"........and that's it. Doesn't say it would be to defeat the NK, or anything like that. Plus she thought it was Stannis, and she turned out to be wrong, or she wasn't depending on how you look at it, and the prophecy just didn't add up to much. The show, as I've said before, HAS NEVER went very deep on the Azor Ahai prophecy, and frankly I'm not surprised. Plus I think it's a dumb prophecy anyway. If the books play out that way, fine. But hanging this on the show because you read it in the books and you expect a show which has already diverged from the books in many ways to do it also is just simply silly.

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Someone that nobody likes? Book Stannis always was (and still is) a cult favorite among book readers before the show. If anything the show did more harm than good to him, they butchered his character.
Stephen Dillane played show-Stannis as best as he could, but that was due to his great acting prowess. Neither, he, nor the writers understood Stannis. The writers messed up Stannis and did not stay true to his character who was driven by duty and justice. The writers portrayed Stannis as an ever-changing character who alternated between dutiful, to religious fanatic, to manipulated by Melisandre. Stephen is on record admitting he never understood the show, or the character of Stannis, and he only partook for the monetary returns.

Just go and read his interviews and see how disappointed and completely indifferent he was about the show. How he never had any idea what he was doing until they had finished filming and it was too late for him to act better, just because D&D hated book Stannis and wanted to portray him in the worst way possible and in the end killed him.

I'm not sure how the books introduced Stannis but the very first mention you get of Stannis on the show is from his brother Renley who quite clearly remarks about how un-likeable Stannis is and that nobody would want him for King. Yes I enjoyed the actor's performance as much as anyone else but it's plainly obvious that he's not a "people person", that he's so gripped with his mission to become king and that it leads him to folly.

[MakeMeLaugh]

And this is the perfect example of people imposing the books on the show. You see right there in the Melissandre scene that it's pretty vague what she says "a warrior will pull a sword from the fire and it will be Lightbringer"........and that's it. Doesn't say it would be to defeat the NK, or anything like that. Plus she thought it was Stannis, and she turned out to be wrong, or she wasn't depending on how you look at it, and the prophecy just didn't add up to much. The show, as I've said before, HAS NEVER went very deep on the Azor Ahai prophecy, and frankly I'm not surprised. Plus I think it's a dumb prophecy anyway. If the books play out that way, fine. But hanging this on the show because you read it in the books and you expect a show which has already diverged from the books in many ways to do it also is just simply silly.

Really dude? Basically "I'm fine with throwing everything from previous seasons in the garbage because I don't like it". You are hopeless.

[Ihavewaffles]

You don't tease things that won't happen. One reason why people did not enjoy TLJ. Abrams gave us so many questions, questions that was also asked in the movie. Then TLJ comes around and throws it out the window. In the end I would say that people are overreacting, but yeah The song of ice and fire, Azor Ahai, prince(ss) that was promised means nothing in the end. IMO the series have been on a downhill since they S7 when they couldn't follow any books. Only reason I will continue watching is... well I've been following these characters since 2011.

I agree that the story has gone downhill since the first seasons, that blame is on fatso martin who has writer's block n spends all day stuffing his face with donuts..the TV folks do the best they can with the little they got to work with...

As for azor ahai, like I said, that's boring, since it would just re-create the same thing that has already happened in the history of westeros..
And Jon Snow would just have been killed like Theon...

To me the prophecy doesn't mean something that is meant to happen, but assumption due to not knowing how to deal with a big bad magical creature... "lets do what we did last time, if it's not broke, don't fix it"
NK could just have stood there n let john snow swing at him or raise his hands n move on..
...also, if john snow is meant to kill the nk, what is the point of watching if it's predetermined?

As for Melisandre, her arch seems to be the failure of religion when put into practice, chance and real world doesn't care about following prophecies, her arch is that zealots will ultimately fail..

No one/Arya was unorthodox, NK saw a little girl, not some God of Death ninja assassin, he probably would not have been killed had he even known about those things..hmmm...there's lots of things he probably doesn't know, last time he was alive there was no wall, no andals, no king's landing, and I doubt he knows much of anything about essos.

[Mavick]

Really dude? Basically "I'm fine with throwing everything from previous seasons in the garbage because I don't like it". You are hopeless.

Not even sure how that equates to "throwing everything from previous seasons in the garbage" tbh.

[Gorsameth]

But I still yet have someone be able to convince me how they have "floundered" in recent seasons. It's like literally anything major that has happened since the end of the books has been criticized by someone or another, and it seems like the only underlying reason to that is "the writing is shit" when in reality it is "I had different expectations which were not met, so I'm just going to bitch at the writers".

See my previous post when you asked this earlier on this page.

Dothraki charge, yes its cheap on $$ but there are other ways to deal with it then just having them suicide into an army capable of raising the dead. Have em do a flank charge when the undead get to the castle and leave it out of shot aside from a limited number of shots.

Jorah teleporting from the Dothraki back to the siege lines while everyone else dies.
Siege engines infront of the siege line
Major characters being buried under a literal avalanche of undead that kills everyone but being perfectly ok 5 seconds later.
Not bothering to man the walls when you retreat inside the castle.
Not shooting arrows at the undead just outside the castle until they storm it.
Hide in seek in an empty castle Winterfell while 10's of thousands of people are being besieged by 100's of thousands of undead.
Hiding inside a crypt against an army that raises the dead
A black dragon vs black dragon fighting against a black backdrop
80% of the episode being to dark in general so you can't see wtf is happening.
Landing a dragon in a zombie horde and not bothering to lift off.
Said dragon not bothering to react when he gets swamped by zombies from behind (hint, he has a tail!)
Jorah teleporting a second time from inside the castle to outside the castle through god knows how many undead.
Whatever the fuck Bran was warging.
lolz sneak attack critical after teleporting through a dozen white walkers and fuck knows how many undead.

And that's just this episode.

I thought the last ~2 seasons were ok but less good compared to earlier, still enjoyed watching it.
The first 2 episodes this season left me unimpressed. Especially episode 2 which I felt was way to full of fan service moments for everyone and dumb shit like Brann's "the NK needs to kill me because reasons" and Danny being constantly interrupted when she was dealing with a situation as to build artificial tension that didn't need help. The complete glossing over of Jon riding a dragon. We went from 'the dragons don't like anyone' to 'hey Jon can touch one' (which was a cool forshadowing) to "hop on and ride with me' with absolutely nothing in between.
Jon rides a fucking dragon. Hello people! how does no one in the show even fucking comment on this!

I was hoping for redemption for the writing team in episode 3. They fell flat on their face and at this point I'm going to watch the last 3 episodes purely because I can spare the few hours to do so and I will probably enjoy talking about the stupid shit these writers do next.
I have no hope for it turning better at this point.

[Ihavewaffles]

Don't worry, it's just a 1 minute video.

Born of salt and smoke, is he a ham?

[Chelly]

That obviously wasn't all I mentioned in the post, now was it? People selectively ignoring things to push their own narratives has been the worst thing about this thread, by far. A close second is people beating the silly drum about "but more people didn't die" like that's the only thing that ever made this show excellent, while ignoring the fact that EVERY SINGLE LIVING PERSON in that fight was seconds away from being completely fucked in terms of drawing breath had NK's death not happened when it did.

The issue isn't really the lack of important character deaths. The issue is that they kept teasing us with shots of said major characters being surrounded and overwhelmed by the undeads, only for the scene to end right before they are supposed to fight their way through or die. After a couple of minutes it's their turn in the spotlight again and surprise surprise, said major character is unharmed.

This constant teasing and blueballing just makes you realize the character WON'T die, and the teasing thus becomes annoying as fuck.
Sam should've been dead several times over in this episode, but he survived out of sheer plot armor. Same with Brianne, Jaimie and Tormund.

Tormund Giantsbane could've been the one killing the undead giant, and die doing so. It would be a great death for a character like him, as his story is pretty much over now. He has no reason to fight Cersei.
The Mormont kid killing the giant was a cool moment - and that's about it. The giant slowly picking her up and bringing her closer to his face was idiotic. Why would he do that?

[Graden]

The issue isn't really the lack of important character deaths. The issue is that they kept teasing us with shots of said major characters being surrounded and overwhelmed by the undeads, only for the scene to end right before they are supposed to fight their way through or die. After a couple of minutes it's their turn in the spotlight again and surprise surprise, said major character is unharmed.

This constant teasing and blueballing just makes you realize the character WON'T die, and the teasing thus becomes annoying as fuck.
Sam should've been dead several times over in this episode, but he survived out of sheer plot armor. Same with Brianne, Jaimie and Tormund

Completely agree with you, this is the most embarrassing example in my opinion : Before and after. The difference between these two scenes is literally three minutes.
There's no escape from that, no matter how good you are with the sword.

[RobertoCarlos]

Jon Snow is the only one I can see where that is annoying. Because yea he does run at the NK and doesnt make it in time and is surrounded by walkers then next shot of him hes half a field away from them