Main Menu

Game of Thrones: the last series [SPOILERS]

Started by sheridan, 15 April, 2019, 11:09:22 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Rusty

The Arya Stark Show and Stuff - A song of Contrived Subversion

That should be the new name after series 8. What an absolute trainwreck. How they've managed to fuck this up so bad is beyond comprehension.

IndigoPrime

I guess the Scorpions are like Stormtroopers – they only hit things when the plot demands it. As for  Rhaegal, he lacked a rider, was smaller and weaker, and was injured and so less manoeuvrable.

That said, Mrs IP's comment just now: "That's really pisses me off. I'll watch the last one but... that episode really annoyed me." I by contrast felt it had a kind of crushing inevitability. GoT has turned into a box-ticking exercise and that episode was disaster porn. I didn't enjoy it. It was like watching a car wreck.

Funt Solo

I can't figure out what people would have preferred, to be honest.

That was Saving Private Arya levels of visceral war reality: like they managed to convey what it would be like to be in a city being ruthlessly devastated by a dragon and an invading army let off the leash.  Why should that be a nice experience?

Also: would it be better if Dany's dragon was downed and her army lost?  Or, at the crucial bell-ringing decision point, if the rest of the episode was Cersei on trial and Dany being magnanimous?

The books and the show start with the concept that the north is uncomfortably ruled by the south - a problem that has persisted for generations.  What I hope is that the show resolves that problem. 
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

IndigoPrime

There's a line between horror and porn. This crossed that line by many minutes.

radiator

#214
QuoteFor me it's the best of the season, yeah still rushed but the Mad Queen has been teased for so long.

Now she's lost her claim to the throne, two dragons and all her close advisers who in previous episodes have held back her more murderous instincts. This carnage was the logical conclusion.

The setup for Dany's heel turn was woefully inadequate as far as I'm concerned. The way the show set it up I could totally see her burning down a path to the Red Keep with no regard for bystanders, but there is a monumental difference between that and actively deciding to genocide an entire city of innocent men, women and children just because. I will never, ever buy it as a logical storytelling choice.

I don't doubt that 'Dany burns down King's Landing' is a plot point that came from Martin. Dany going full-on conqueror is her pretty much signposted by her last chapter in the last published book. However, it is also widely speculated that following the disaster at KL (which will most likely largely be due to Dany inadvertently igniting the wildfire caches buried under the city) she will be wracked with guilt and abandon her hopes of claiming the throne, eventually finding redemption by heading north to fight the army of the dead alongside Jon Snow and (probably) Stannis, a battle in which she will one way or another end up giving her life and the lives of the dragons.

To me, that's an immensely more satisfying and logical conclusion to her arc, and the saga as a whole, and really fits the 'bittersweet' theme that Martin describes. You get the pathos, the moral ambiguity, and you still get a dragon raining firey death over King's Landing, but you get it without throwing Dany's entire arc under the bus. The way it played out in the show is a miserable nightmare with no hope of resolution or redemption. Yeah - Arya's gonna kill her next episode. Honestly, who gives a shit? How depressing. Are we supposed to glean some kind of satisfaction from that? If you'd have told me five years ago that this is how the story would end, I'd have laughed out loud. It's like they let a teenage edgelord write it; 'And then this happens, and then this happens, and then this guy kills this and this guy and then this guys blows this thing up, and then...'.

I also cannot fathom the degree to which Jon Snow has been sidelined this final season. He is arguably the central protagonist of the entire saga - the literal embodiment of the 'Ice and Fire' in the title of the series, and he's been given almost nothing to do.

All I can is that I hope this travesty reignites Martin's interest in wrapping up the book series, because he surely can't be happy with this being the official ending of the saga.

Funt Solo

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 13 May, 2019, 10:38:52 PM
There's a line between horror and porn. This crossed that line by many minutes.

Hyperbole much?  I'm fairly secure in assuming that the dictionary definition of porn doesn't come into play here. 

How does one get across the feeling of relentless bombardment without it being ... relentless?  See also: "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" in Lord of the Rings.  We feel a strong empathy with the long trail of trials that Frodo, Sam and Gollum face partly because we spend a long time on the trail with them.  Or is that just quest porn?
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Rusty

Quote from: radiator on 13 May, 2019, 10:41:49 PM
QuoteFor me it's the best of the season, yeah still rushed but the Mad Queen has been teased for so long.

Now she's lost her claim to the throne, two dragons and all her close advisers who in previous episodes have held back her more murderous instincts. This carnage was the logical conclusion.

The setup for Dany's heel turn was woefully inadequate as far as I'm concerned. The way the show set it up I could totally see her burning down a path to the Red Keep with no regard for bystanders, but there is a monumental difference between that and actively deciding to genocide an entire city of innocent men, women and children just because. I will never, ever buy it as a logical storytelling choice.

I don't doubt that 'Dany burns down King's Landing' is a plot point that came from Martin. Dany going full-on conqueror is her pretty much signposted by her last chapter in the last published book. However, it is also widely speculated that following the disaster at KL (which will most likely largely be due to Dany inadvertently igniting the wildfire caches buried under the city) she will be wracked with guilt and abandon her hopes of claiming the throne, eventually finding redemption by heading north to fight the army of the dead alongside Jon Snow and (probably) Stannis, a battle in which she will one way or another end up giving her life and the lives of the dragons.

To me, that's an immensely more satisfying and logical conclusion to her arc, and the saga as a whole, and really fits the 'bittersweet' theme that Martin describes. You get the pathos, the moral ambiguity, and you still get a dragon raining firey death over King's Landing, but you get it without throwing Dany's entire arc under the bus. The way it played out in the show is a miserable nightmare with no hope of resolution or redemption. Yeah - Arya's gonna kill her next episode. Honestly, who gives a shit? How depressing. Are we supposed to glean some kind of satisfaction from that? If you'd have told me five years ago that this is how the story would end, I'd have laughed out loud. It's like they let a teenage edgelord write it; 'And then this happens, and then this happens, and then this guy kills this and this guy and then this guys blows this thing up, and then...'.

I also cannot fathom the degree to which Jon Snow has been sidelined this final season. He is arguably the central protagonist of the entire saga - the literal embodiment of the 'Ice and Fire' in the title of the series, and he's been given almost nothing to do.

All I can is that I hope this travesty reignites Martin's interest in wrapping up the book series, because he surely can't be happy with this being the official ending of the saga.
That would have made so much more sense. Unfortunately we've got two hack frauds in charge of the writing on this. Basically, this is equivalent of the scene in Trainspotting when Spud shit the bed, and then carried it into the dining area where it then subsequently got jettisoned all over the place.

radiator

#217
Quote from: Funt Solo on 13 May, 2019, 10:43:34 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 13 May, 2019, 10:38:52 PM
There's a line between horror and porn. This crossed that line by many minutes.

Hyperbole much?  I'm fairly secure in assuming that the dictionary definition of porn doesn't come into play here. 

How does one get across the feeling of relentless bombardment without it being ... relentless?  See also: "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" in Lord of the Rings.  We feel a strong empathy with the long trail of trials that Frodo, Sam and Gollum face partly because we spend a long time on the trail with them.  Or is that just quest porn?

For me, with Hardhome, the Battle of the Bastards, then the loot train battle, then The Long Night, and now this latest episode I just feel deadened by all the senseless slaughter. It's all just so one-note. Is that really all this was leading to? Just watching thousands of extras get mowed down week in, week out?

And that's not to say that all of those battles weren't incredibly well-exectued on a technical level. I just wasn't anywhere near as invested or on edge as I was say during the fight between the Mountain and the Viper back in season 4 where the emotional stakes felt so much higher.

Professor Bear

If King's Landing hadn't been hoarding Wildfire in those children's hospitals, the collateral damage would have been much lower, but you fire tactical long range arrows into sovereign territory like Cersi did and you will be met with a proportionate response - unless you dragon-hating leftists are going to seriously argue that Daenerys isn't entitled to defend herself.  It's hardly Daenerys' fault that so many people in King's Landing were brainwashed by Cersi into getting in the way of that dragon, but then they don't value life like we do and they see dying as an acceptable cost to making the only legitimate democracy in Westeros look bad.

Richard

I don't know what to say; if you don't like violence then maybe Game of Thrones isn't for you?  ::)

radiator

I like fictional violence just fine. Doesn't mean I want to watch a solid hour of it. The latest episode felt wildly excessive to me, and in service of what, exactly? What is the point or message of this story? All that brilliant worldbuilding and character work early on, and this is all it comes down to? Violence begetting more violence and so on and so on.... It all just made me feel exhausted, a bit sad and a little bored, tbh. I expected a lot more from the ending to this story.

Tiplodocus

A lot of empty, apocolyptic spectacle in that with strange story telling and character decisions left me feeling a bit "So what?".

"Hey, Mr. Director. Should we maybe have just a single reaction shot of what Daenerys was feeling from atop the dragon?"

"No, we haven't time. There's still ten more minutes of women and children being immolated to fit in"

"Are you sure the A-bomb point hasn't been driven home yet?"

Which is a shame because I really like Game Of Thrones.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!


Dudley

Couple of notes from history occurred while watching this:

1) Dany has always been most closely allied with the GoT equivalent of the Mongols. What she did to King's Landing was gentle compared to what the Mongols did to cities that defied them in any way.  I thought this was absolutely true to her individual character and her upbringing.

2) Probably just me, but it's in slightly poor taste to use the streets of Dubrovnik as a way of giving us all our vicarious war jollies. Less than 30 years ago those streets were actually bombed to hell - just weird thinking about how a survivor might view this glossy American programme essentially staging a fantasy re-enactment.

Dudley

Quote from: Professor Bear on 13 May, 2019, 11:44:20 PM
If King's Landing hadn't been hoarding Wildfire in those children's hospitals, the collateral damage would have been much lower, but you fire tactical long range arrows into sovereign territory like Cersi did and you will be met with a proportionate response - unless you dragon-hating leftists are going to seriously argue that Daenerys isn't entitled to defend herself.  It's hardly Daenerys' fault that so many people in King's Landing were brainwashed by Cersi into getting in the way of that dragon, but then they don't value life like we do and they see dying as an acceptable cost to making the only legitimate democracy in Westeros look bad.

Hahhahahahahahahahahhahaohgodsob