4355 replies to this topic

[BSLChrisStoner]

IMO, the best reviews I've seen today are all along the ideas of...  war wages, people rise to power, others struggle day to day... and life just continues on. Whatever you are dealing with, whatever the noise of the day is... it's just noise. 

[Dupin]

IMO, the best reviews I've seen today are all along the ideas of...  war wages, people rise to power, others struggle day to day... and life just continues on. Whatever you are dealing with, whatever the noise of the day is... it's just noise. 

 

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their Game of Thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are.”

[JeremyStrain]

No, I mean she didn't have Jon and the Northmen in on the order to execute prisoners. Considering that he was in "She is OUR queen" mode basically up until he gave Dany the Lord Commander treatment, that should have been a major red flag that she doesn't REALLY trust him.

 

To me it was the opposite, that she KNEW it upset him, and she didn't want to push it more by twisting the knife. She's had to up to a point about some things, but even with his sisters, he'd always had her back, even in the moment of stabbing her, still had her back so she knew not to push TOO hard. Hence the whole arguing with her when they were alone. Had she answered one thing differently I don't think he kills her. He was looking for ANY kind of redemption, or regret for what she did, and instead she does all in with I'm the one that decides what is good and what isn't. That's straight tyrant 101. Had she hung her head and said you're right, I never should have done that, I was grieving for my friend and did something horrible, I bet he doesn't do it.

 

Clarke even said in an interview yesterday she felt like Dany was doing awful stuff, and knew Jon hated it, but was hoping that them loving each other was enough to push through it. I guess that was ok when it came to his sisters not liking her, although we'll never get to see how that would have played out (and is a lot of people's complaint of this season), had they ended S8 with the NK death, and then a 6 episode season 9 has her and Sansa at each other's throats, and the junk with KL, and then either Dany kills Sansa for not bending the knee or about to do it because they want to remain independent, and THAT'S the last straw for Jon makes a lot of sense. Sure he likes Tyrion a lot and considers him a friend, but it's no where near the relationship he has with his sisters.

[NewMarketSean]

The lack of dialog for long periods this season was strange too.

[Chris B]

The lack of dialog for long periods this season was strange too.

 

Good catch. I was just going to bring that up... much of Episode 5 and 6 had little to no dialogue. Same with the first half of the finale.

[NewMarketSean]

So, what was the point of Jon's heritage?

[JeremyStrain]

So, what was the point of Jon's heritage?

 

If things were at normal spacing it would have created a divide of people. Those that want to follow Dany cause she's Dany, and those that want to follow whoever the correct heir should have been. It would have created more tension with Dany and Jon, will she have him killed or won't she? But when crammed into ONE episode it doesn't really have the effect it should have.

[NewMarketSean]

If things were at normal spacing it would have created a divide of people. Those that want to follow Dany cause she's Dany, and those that want to follow whoever the correct heir should have been. It would have created more tension with Dany and Jon, will she have him killed or won't she? But when crammed into ONE episode it doesn't really have the effect it should have.

There was no effect.

 

It was basically Varys sending out some ravens, then he's killed and it's the last we hear of it.

[Mackus]

So, what was the point of Jon's heritage?

 

It was part of what drove Dany to madness.  Went from thinking she'd have a partner to fearing Jon would eventually usurp her, whether he advocated for it or not.  Also gave her reason to feel Jon was yet another person close to her that had betrayed her by telling his sisters.  The anger wasn't necessarily directed at him, but it drove her further and further into isolation from everyone who had been close to her.  By the end, she was down to just Grey Worm.

 

It was completely dropped from having any larger scale importance.

[NewMarketSean]

It was part of what drove Dany to madness.  Went from thinking she'd have a partner to fearing Jon would eventually usurp her, whether he advocated for it or not.  Also gave her reason to feel Jon was yet another person close to her that had betrayed her by telling his sisters.  The anger wasn't necessarily directed at him, but it drove her further and further into isolation from everyone who had been close to her.  By the end, she was down to just Grey Worm.

 

Eh...I guess. All that speculation for it to become a soap opera trope for a single episode.

 

Even before Sansa found out Jon was the heir, she didn't trust Dany so there was already plenty of tension there and reason for Dany to doubt his loyalty. And Sansa already had plans for the North to become independent so to her it wouldn't matter if Jon was the heir or not.

[SportsGuy]

Why didn’t the stuff with Arya turning into other people become more important? She did it one time.

They spent so much time with that and there was little pay off with it.

[NewMarketSean]

Why didn’t the stuff with Arya turning into other people become more important? She did it one time.

They spent so much time with that and there was little pay off with it.

 

She did it a few times, twice to kill all the Frey's, but I agree.

 

Could have happened like this:

 

Euron finishes off Jaime, as it happened, Arya finds him, takes his face, and kills Cersei. She still leaves Westeros at the end, like she did.

 

Or, if they wanted her to abandon her revenge, have her do all of that and have Cersei pull Jaime's face off of Arya, and have Arya change her mind at the last minute for Cersei to die like she did, perhaps thinking that Arya was the one who killed Jaime.

 

It would have been so much cooler and been such better fan service for it to happen like that vs. the way it actually did. Plus it adds some question marks to Jaime's motivation to return to KL. Was it to be with Cersei? Or to kill her? Would have been better open ended.

 

But I think the point of the faceless man stuff was that she wanted to become "no one" and couldn't. She was always going to be Arya Stark.

[mweb08]

The argument that Dany would kill Jon because of his claim to the throne doesn't hold much water imo right after she saved his life.

[JeremyStrain]

Eh...I guess. All that speculation for it to become a soap opera trope for a single episode.

 

Even before Sansa found out Jon was the heir, she didn't trust Dany so there was already plenty of tension there and reason for Dany to doubt his loyalty. And Sansa already had plans for the North to become independent so to her it wouldn't matter if Jon was the heir or not.

 

True. Like you said, the single episode thing. If it were allowed to fester for a while, like Mackus said, the effects would have been more obvious, and it would have sold her paranoia and decent into madness. It was just all kind of undersold cause they tried to sell months of paranoia in one episode.

[JeremyStrain]

The argument that Dany would kill Jon because of his claim to the throne doesn't hold much water imo right after she saved his life.

 

Exactly. It just looks stupid the way it ended up. But had she saved him at the end of the previous season, and then you do the reveal at the end of the episode as a cliffhanger...you do a little timejump to start the next season and show it wearing on her, then over the course of the final season have it constantly a thing and her being all paranoid about him taking the throne from her and MAYBE it makes more sense at the end. Just not enough build up for it to really make sense the way it played out.

 

The end result of everything, ok totally fine if that's how they wanted to go with things, no complaints. BUT you have to build it, not just go 0-60 cause you left yourself 6 episodes to squeeze in all that material.

[Chris B]

So, what was the point of Jon's heritage?

 

Merely a plot device to convince us that Dany went crazy. 

[Mackus]

I think nearly all of the criticisms of the show boil down to the decision to end the series over 13 episodes for whatever reasons.  I suppose it's possible they could have done a better job with some different choices made and still fit into that time range, but that really tied them up.  There was a ton of plot left to get through at that point and most of it incompressible (i.e. thing A had to happen before thing B can happen before thing C can happen...no longer multiple simultaneous storylines).

 

Season 7 was still good because at first it was just the jetpacking that they chose to move things along quicker, which is forgivable.  Most of the writing and character decisions still made sense and were well-founded, with some exceptions cropping up later in the season.  Season 8 the jetpacking wasn't enough and they had to fully embrace the plot holes, logical inconsistencies, and story gaps that were necessary in order to squeeze all the remaining plot that was left into the limited runtime.

 

I'd be more forgiving if it were a decision made by the network suits to end the show.  But this wasn't.  It was the showrunners according to everything we've heard.  That's frustrating.

[NewMarketSean]

https://www.theringe...rienne-hardhome

 

The Seven Iconic ‘Game of Thrones’ Scenes That Season 8 Makes Worse

 

I agree and disagree with some of the issues they discuss.

 

For starters, I can believe Jaime did change and become a more decent person along the way but in the end, it was still Cersei. That doesn't cheapen any of his other decisions or his relationship with Brienne. I do think the dialog with Tyrion in the tent about not caring about "the people" troubling 2 episodes after he just fought for the living at Winterfell, but I can chalk that up to Jaime being a complex person with multiple emotions and you never know which one will bubble to the surface.

 

Also, re: White Walkers -- previously the humans had always fought them on the WW terms. They'd pretty much always been surprised by them, or ambushed, or just fighting them on the WW turf. So that they defeated them in Winterfell, knowing that they were coming, in a single episode, doesn't bother me as much. Had we gotten 7 more episodes across the last two seasons perhaps this could have been remedied and made to feel more organic.

[NewMarketSean]

Perhaps the biggest thing that pisses me off is the lack of fan service. Outside of Cleganebowl we got little of anything hinted from the books, or even things hinted at in the beginning of the show. Bran never warged into a dragon, Arya didn't use a face to kill Cersei, no definitive answers are given for any prophecies (and they're not even brought up again to leave the unanswered questions lingering out there). They didn't even have a dead Rickon or Hodor come back at the BoW.

 

GoT is all about fan service, especially the book readers, and the show pretty much thumbed their noses at that this season.

[Mackus]

No argument against any points made in that article.  Good read, even if it's about a disappointing topic.