Game of Thrones

[charliehustle415]

And I think the reasons why a lot of people didn’t buy that was because Arya, Jon, Sandor, and Sansa also go through that level of trauma and frequently also display severe ruthlessness towards people who usually deserve it… but don't always. Arya commits a familicide that’s somewhere in the dozens, at minimum, for instance, and some of those Freys had to be uninvolved in the Red Wedding. And a big part of the problem is that it’s pretty much impossible to sell brutality towards a massive, exaggerated slave state as madness to most modern audience - with good reason. Most people are going to take that as not just totally justified, but laudable; and adding to the issue, the show, like the books, makes a strong argument the area will still be better off without the slave masters (which might be something that also ties into trying to keep things secret.)

I also think Emilia Clarke was very much playing Dany with the same “heroic” fervor that the other hero actors had, likely because (again) her character’s fate was as hidden from her as anyone else.

I do think the concept works for most people, but I think the details and execution again killed the impact with the wider audience - a lot of people I listened to in podcasts and elsewhere were *in* on Dany going nuts, but still found the actual portrayal pretty bad because of how little dramatic resonance it had and how heavy handed and inelegant it was while the show was still blatantly playing favorites elsewhere.

never thought of it that way, but people are different and people take trauma in different ways - no?

[Adam Allen]

None of the particulars of where the characters ended up are hard to buy, it was just really rushed and poor execution.

You know, consider the whole thing with Jamie being the Kingslayer, and how he'd betrayed his oath and all that -- that really did happen, it just was not the seemingly simple version everyone believed. Dani's going mad and being killed should have been about the same -- something that looked simple from the outside, but was a much more complicated story, if you really understood.

She didn't get that level of detail in this telling, unfortunately. Nope, just suddenly the Mad Queen, because she's a Targarayen.

It's disappointing because from the start of the novels/show (with Jon Arryn's death, and even with Robert's becoming King) there is this theme where there is the official story that everybody knows, then there is the truth, that only those who were there know. But again, Dany was kind of cheated here, in that there was no bigger reason for her heel turn, besides "You know those Targarayans be crazy!"

[ZeroBG82]

None of the particulars of where the characters ended up are hard to buy, it was just really rushed and poor execution.

You know, consider the whole thing with Jamie being the Kingslayer, and how he'd betrayed his oath and all that -- that really did happen, it just was not the seemingly simple version everyone believed. Dani's going mad and being killed should have been about the same -- something that looked simple from the outside, but was a much more complicated story, if you really understood.

She didn't get that level of detail in this telling, unfortunately. Nope, just suddenly the Mad Queen, because she's a Targarayen.

It's disappointing because from the start of the novels/show (with Jon Arryn's death, and even with Robert's becoming King) there is this theme where there is the official story that everybody knows, then there is the truth, that only those who were there know. But again, Dany was kind of cheated here, in that there was no bigger reason for her heel turn, besides "You know those Targarayans be crazy!"

On your final point, that's actually kind of the point. She's ALWAYS been a heel, there's no real turn. The people she was mistreating and being brutal too were the kinds of people where her actions felt justified or understandable. Her true nature has been kind of obvious going all the way back to at least season 2 or so. Hell, the visions she has basically reveal it wholesale. It's just very well disguised through context. It's only when she reaches Westeros, where we have a much better feel for the naunces of the situation, that her eager brutality and manic hunger to rule at any cost begin to come into focus.

But, the real key is your first point. The climax of the story needed more development. We don't get to spend enough time with Dany processing Jon's truth, which is one of the key elements of competition that drives her towards her end. We also don't get to dwell nearly enough on the way she treats Westerosi enemies. It's brought up, referenced, and then just kind of falls by the side. And, most tellingly, the biggest relationship that reveals just how far gone she is, that with Tyrion, doesn't have time to breath and really convey his growing dismay and horror. So it all feels rushed. We needed like two more episodes of slower, more relationship focused stuff to build it, and even that would have felt rushed.

[JBatmanFan05]

None of the particulars of where the characters ended up are hard to buy, it was just really rushed and poor execution.

Right, yes. The way I'd say it is that the rushed poor execution didn't sell enough where many characters ended up. So they weren't earned, weren't bought for many. I was totally fine (in isolation) with Dany becoming the (perhaps mad) villain, but in no way was it earned. Same with the most of the rest of the main characters.


I still feel the pain and sting of Season 8 some, I must admit. The poor quality was/is devastingly crushing. But looking back, I realized that, for me, the end of season 6 (which I thought was overly fan-servicey and lacking a clever edge) was the start of the GoT's descent into crap (like everything you hate or grow tired of about mainstream comic book films, see MCU and DCEU, and blockbuster films).
Season 7 was pretty damn terrible too. I think at the time, I kept thinking (or lying) to myself that I would (begrudgingly) accept the crap that was Season 7 because Season 8 would redeem it, bring it all together (and thus in my mind render Season 7 as like "Season 8A"). And boy it didn't.


I love & respect George RR Martin enough, but I firmly believe he's massively deluding himself if he truly thinks "social media" was the only portion of the globe that didn't care for GoT Season 8. I know so many people (younger and older) who hardly or barely do much on social media and they all (every one) expressed deep disappointment in the end, and none of those people even want to talk about the show now (despite having been big fans). In GoT's case, "social media" only reflected what a much larger group of less/non-social media Americans and others all over were feeling.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

The show **** the bed years before season 8, people just didn't notice, or care because of the spectacle. It's telling that GRRM is changing the path and ending to the books tho. He basically said as much recently. Can't help but find that amusing.

[godisawesome]

never thought of it that way, but people are different and people take trauma in different ways - no?

Yes - but that doesn’t change the demands of drama when it comes to storytelling. The other characters all had their eventual reactions to the trauma fleshed out and defined in an empathetic way for the audience - even, arguably, the psychopaths and sociopaths like Joffrey and Ramsay, since while they were clearly deranged and evil, we got context explaining why and their actions made sense as madmen.

It’s sort of like how unacceptable Luke Skywalker becoming a self-centered coward is in TLJ without an actually good story to get there - yes, people change as time passes, but context and character matter more than simple authorial fiat.

And it really does come down to whether the story was *told* well, as stated here:

None of the particulars of where the characters ended up are hard to buy, it was just really rushed and poor execution.

You know, consider the whole thing with Jamie being the Kingslayer, and how he'd betrayed his oath and all that -- that really did happen, it just was not the seemingly simple version everyone believed. Dani's going mad and being killed should have been about the same -- something that looked simple from the outside, but was a much more complicated story, if you really understood.

She didn't get that level of detail in this telling, unfortunately. Nope, just suddenly the Mad Queen, because she's a Targarayen.

It's disappointing because from the start of the novels/show (with Jon Arryn's death, and even with Robert's becoming King) there is this theme where there is the official story that everybody knows, then there is the truth, that only those who were there know. But again, Dany was kind of cheated here, in that there was no bigger reason for her heel turn, besides "You know those Targarayans be crazy!"

…Though I would add that the real kicker for Dany may have been trying to portray it as her snapping into madness, rather than simply giving her a “reason” to raze the city, and then facing the rest of the heroes with how “rule by dragon fire” is unacceptable simply as a thesis statement, even if “war by dragon fire” might be acceptable in certain circumstances (slave cities, pseudo-Mongol hordes, armies of zombies, etc.). Having the audience find themselves simply having to apply empathy towards Kingslanding and other cities in peacetime to find the fault with Dany, even if her reaction makes sense to them, would twist the knife better than what we got; it’s why I’m a fan of the “have Rhaegel be killed after the bells ring” what-if to explain her fall, as some of the audience’s brains would agree with Dany’s actions before exposing them again to how brutal it is.

Anyhow, on to that new show Blood of the Dragon - I can’t be alone in thinking Daemon Targaryen’s dragon-and-red-horsehair-crested helmet is awesome, right?

Now I’m just trying to see if that guy with the eyepatch is supposed to be Aemond or not…

[charliehustle415]

maybe I'm an uncultured swine, but as a total newbie to Game of Thrones, I enjoyed the final two seasons the most because it started to quicken the pace and things started to move.

my biggest qualm with the fantasy genre is the languid nature of story telling, where some things take ten pages when it can be said in two.

I think Peter Jackson was able to thread the needle because it was just enough fantasy faff with a great amount of spectacle and that's why it hit the four quadrants so well.

But I respect and understand all the complaints because I would have the same if someone messed with my favorite genre.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

The show **** the bed years before season 8, people just didn't notice, or care because of the spectacle. It's telling that GRRM is changing the path and ending to the books tho. He basically said as much recently. Can't help but find that amusing.

I predicted he would, but people said i was fuckin crazy lol

[Starter Set]

TIt's telling that GRRM is changing the path and ending to the books tho. He basically said as much recently. Can't help but find that amusing.

At this point i don't even think anymore that he's ever going to release those last two books.

[batnbreakfast]

At this point i don't even think anymore that he's ever going to release those last two books.

Hopefully I get to read Winds of Winter in the next couple of years. Some more Dunk and Egg would also be sweet. Beyond those....

[JBatmanFan05]

The show **** the bed years before season 8, people just didn't notice, or care because of the spectacle. It's telling that GRRM is changing the path and ending to the books tho. He basically said as much recently. Can't help but find that amusing.

I had to look this up to see if you were correct (and how correct you were), and indeed you are most correct I'd say:

“What I have noticed more and more of late, however, is my gardening is taking me further and further away from the television series,” Martin writes. “Yes, some of the things you saw on HBO in Game of Thrones you will also see in The Winds of Winter (though maybe not in quite the same ways)… but much of the rest will be quite different.”

"One thing I can say, in general enough terms that I will not be spoiling anything: not all of the characters who survived until the end of Game of Thrones will survive until the end of A Song of Ice and Fire, and not all of the characters who died on Game of Thrones will die in A Song of Ice and Fire. (Some will, sure. Of course. Maybe most. But definitely not all) ((Of course, I could change my mind again next week, with the next chapter I write. That’s gardening))."

https://www.polygon.com/23200605/gam...-song-ice-fire

[AndrewCrossett]

I would say it's 50/50 whether he ever releases the next book, and more like 50-1 he makes it to the end of the series. Unless he's actually been working on the entire remainder of the story all this time and will release the last books in quick succession.

[JBatmanFan05]

I would say it's 50/50 whether he ever releases the next book, and more like 50-1 he makes it to the end of the series. Unless he's actually been working on the entire remainder of the story all this time and will release the last books in quick succession.

I think GRRM manages to release Winds of Winter (though it's far from certain at his age), but I have serious doubts he'll finish the last book.

My only hope is that his inner circle is urging him to develop a contingency plan where he perhaps leaves something in a bank/house safe in the event of his death, so that a trusted friend(s) (Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson?) can attempt to finish his series (with the stated proviso that readers can "take it or leave it" as far as canon/headcanon).


(Fire & Blood Vol 2 is another where you're like, will he ever be able to finish it? But I especially think Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson could pen that if need be)