Game of Thrones Season 8

[Redsfaithful]

Nerd entertainment is weird, man. Viewers all think their way is the "right" way to present a story they had no ownership of in the first place. Star Wars, Avengers, Game of Thrones—it's all series of stories told by their own creators the way they want to tell them.

Maybe Bran becoming king was their way of saying that all rulers are flawed, that you'll never have a perfect king or queen, so you might be wise to choose one who sees the bigger picture. It subverted the idea of a rightful heir, which goes against everything the main characters concerned themselves with for eight years.

Or maybe that's just my own interpretation. Maybe it was in celebration of Ned Stark, still probably the most virtuous character in the series, showing that acting rightly can actually bring about good down the road in spite of a deeply cynical world. It's justified that his surviving children are leading Westeros into a new era in the North, the West, and the six kingdoms.

Maybe it meant something else, and creators can tell their stories any damn way they please.

Presentation and story are two different subjects.

Literally any outcome could be argued for - Tyrion's speech at the council was funny because it was so choose your own adventure. It reminded me of a video game where your in game decisions get you a unique ending.

Picture him saying "And who has the best story" over and over and over as the player cycles through all the endings before explaining "Bran!" "Sansa!" "Brienne!" "Gendry!" etc.

I don't think anyone's arguing whether or not creators (are they creators though?) can tell their story however they please, it'd just be great if they weren't so bad at it.

[RedTeamGo!]

It’s good for your characters to act in surprising manners. But they must always be true to their character arch that you developed.

Imagine if at the end of Breaking Bad Walter snaps and goes to an elementary school and murders all the children there. The show has plenty of clues that he would become the villain, but there no signs that he would murder innocent children. I mean, the outrage would be overwhelming.

It’s almost as if those are not remotely comparable situations.

You should read up on the Targaryans.

People with knowledge of that particular bloodline’s history were not remotely surprised by what Dany did.

[Redsfaithful]

Again, the IMDb ratings were brigaded by online nerds before the episodes even aired. I thought the finale was pretty weak, but those ratings mean less than nothing.

Nah, I was with you before, but even with brigading there's no conclusion to draw here except people were disappointed. This is a show where season finales used to get 9.5 - 9.9s, you don't drop that into the 4s only because some idiots are mad. 6s or 7s yeah, sure, I'm with you, 4s no. My guess based on looking at IMDB ratings for movies in the past that have caught the eyes of trolls and men's rights advocates is that it costs a well known movie or show a point or two at most.

- - - Updated - - -

It’s almost as if those are not remotely comparable situations.

You should read up on the Targaryans.

People with knowledge of that particular bloodline’s history were not remotely surprised by what Dany did.

When you're arguing that you need to read outside sources for the show to have been good, well...

[RedTeamGo!]

Presentation and story are two different subjects.

Literally any outcome could be argued for - Tyrion's speech at the council was funny because it was so choose your own adventure. It reminded me of a video game where your in game decisions get you a unique ending.

Picture him saying "And who has the best story" over and over and over as the player cycles through all the endings before explaining "Bran!" "Sansa!" "Brienne!" "Gendry!" etc.

I don't think anyone's arguing whether or not creators (are they creators though?) can tell their story however they please, it'd just be great if they weren't so bad at it.

You keep banging this drum about them not doing anything because they had source material. Which is of course ludicrous.

Have you read the books?

[RedTeamGo!]

Nah, I was with you before, but even with brigading there's no conclusion to draw here except people were disappointed. This is a show where season finales used to get 9.5 - 9.9s, you don't drop that into the 4s only because some idiots are mad. 6s or 7s yeah, sure, I'm with you, 4s no. My guess based on looking at IMDB ratings for movies in the past that have caught the eyes of trolls and men's rights advocates is that it costs a well known movie or show a point or two at most.

- - - Updated - - -



When you're arguing that you need to read outside sources for the show to have been good, well...

I knew someone was going to say that. They made it very clear in the show the Targaryans had a long history of that exact thing. Her father is referenced as “the mad king” countless times in the show. Jaime stabbed him in the back because he was about to burn KL to the ground with wildfire. Her brother in the very first episode said he would let thousands of Dothrakis rape her to get what he wanted, and he clearly meant it. Then there’s the multiple examples of Dany burning people for simply not bending their knee and literally crucifying people. When I said read up on the Targaryans I meant summaries from the show, if you didn’t pick up on it over the last 10 years you either weren’t paying attention or don’t understand words.

[SteelSD]

We're all familiar with the concept of the unreliable narrator, but GRRM seized upon the concept of the unreliable reader (which the show then converted into the unreliable viewer). Dating back to Tolkien, we've had these fantasy archetypes hammered into us. They're hard-wired into us, and this story messes with almost every single one of them. The noble protagonist who does the right thing gets his head chopped off. The heroic young commander who never lost a battle loses the war at a wedding. Heroic quests constantly go wrong. The climactic battle against the ultimate evil isn't the climactic battle, and most people aren't even aware it happened. The young hero/heroine who came from nothing becomes a tyrant rather than a benevolent monarch.

In the case of Dany, I suspect if people do what BuckeyeRed27 did and rewatch some episodes from earlier seasons, they'll see where the show was hiding this in plain sight.

Well said. What folks simply don't seem to be getting is that there was no quick inexplicable "turn" to evil for Daenerys Targaryen. The show displayed her predisposition, motivations, and method for 8 seasons. All that flipped was the context. Take her out of a continent rife with "evil men" and throw her into a society lacking the persistent cause she previously championed and what does she do? She demands that she's championing the same righteous cause and burns down everything because that's who she's always been.

And still, cries of "Oh...it was too quick!", as if 8 seasons wasn't enough time. It's like the entire audience went to a magic show and now a bunch of them are now mad that the illusion didn't end the way they wanted after the magician gave hints throughout his performance about how it was likely to turn out. I have no pity for that.

[NeilHamburger]

Well said. What folks simply don't seem to be getting is that there was no quick inexplicable "turn" to evil for Daenerys Targaryen. The show displayed her predisposition, motivations, and method for 8 seasons. All that flipped was the context. Take her out of a continent rife with "evil men" and throw her into a society lacking the persistent cause she previously championed and what does she do? She demands that she's championing the same righteous cause and burns down everything because that's who she's always been.

And still, cries of "Oh...it was too quick!", as if 8 seasons wasn't enough time. It's like the entire audience went to a magic show and now a bunch of them are now mad that the illusion didn't end the way they wanted after the magician gave hints throughout his performance about how it was likely to turn out. I have no pity for that.

But I would argue that isn't who she's always been. After they rang the bells and she had the crown won I don't think it made sense for her character to murder thousands of innocent women and children. I think the leap is too great from the harsh punishment she delivered to the "evil men" in earlier seasons to her killing thousands of innocents after she already had the crown won.

If she hadn't already won the crown, the battle was going on in the streets, and she used her dragon to win the war and in the process kill innocents that would've made sense to me within her character arc. You could debate whether it was going too far, but it would make sense in the progression. I think they want from A to C and skipped B.

[RedTeamGo!]

But I would argue that isn't who she's always been. After they rang the bells and she had the crown won I don't think it made sense for her character to murder thousands of innocent women and children. I think the leap is too great from the harsh punishment she delivered to the "evil men" in earlier seasons to her killing thousands of innocents after she already had the crown won.

If she hadn't already won the crown, the battle was going on in the streets, and she used her dragon to win the war and in the process kill innocents that would've made sense to me within her character arc. You could debate whether it was going too far, but it would make sense in the progression. I think they want from A to C and skipped B.

Tell that to the Tarly’s.

[Wonderful Monds]

Granted I only speedwatched through this recently pretty casually, so here’s my take on this:

I thought the finale was pretty interesting, and the big dictator speech scene was pretty striking and made the big villain turn worth it.

But, I do agree with a lot of the people who have been pretty disappointed by it - the turn from Daenerys being a generally moral but occasionally ruthless ruler to outright genocidal Hitler analog happened waaaay too quickly to not feel like a major character whiplash moment. That was easily the most egregious thing she had ever done in the show and it wasn’t even remotely close.

For that to have worked effectively, you have to gradually build up her villainy and make it an actual consistent part of her character, like, at least for more than an episode or two. I know people have said “well, her family is known for snapping and going crazy” - I mean okay, but you have to still actually portray that in her for it be good character development and storytelling. And peppering in selected events in the past where she did some uh, bad things, doesn’t really work either. It’s the old cliche, show, don’t tell.

[NeilHamburger]

Tell that to the Tarly’s.

I would but someone burned them alive.

[RiverRat13]

Tell that to the Tarly’s.

Stannis burned Mance Rayder for not bending the knee. Was he "mad?"

Was Tywin Lanniser "mad?" After wiping out House Tarbeck for defying him, he wiped out House Reyne. In case you don't remember the song, here's the synopsis from the ASOIAF wiki about House Reyne's demise - "Tywin ignored Reynard's terms and instead ordered his men to seal the entrances of the mines. When all entrances were blocked with tons of stone, earth, and soil, leaving no way in or out, Tywin had his men dam a nearby stream and divert it to the nearest mine entrance. Water easily found its way though the tiny gaps in the rubble that blocked the mouth of the entrance. Lannister men stationed at the most distant entrances claimed they could hear faint screaming and shouting, but by daybreak, there was nothing but silence. None of the three hundred men, women, and children within ever emerged from the mines again. As commanded by Tywin, the castle on the surface was set ablaze."

Again, what did Dany do prior to roasting Kings Landing that any other (non-Stark ruler) would not have done when she was conquering cities?

[757690]

Using the fact that Dany had family members who went “mad” to defend bad writing is the weakest argument of all.

[Redsfaithful]

All of the heads of the 7 kingdoms did things as bad or worse than her in the show, and it would have been pretty out of character if any of them had turned into genocidal maniacs too, except for the Lannisters. That's the point, they had her do a few terrible things (less than people defending this want to admit, killing slavers isn't a sign of madness) but everyone with power was doing terrible things throughout the show.

They put Emilia Clarke in tired looking eye makeup and messed her hair up for a scene and were like, yep, that's it, we're good.

Literally another half season of her getting weird and this wouldn't be a conversation, but the writers were bad. It has to be hard to defend. Even the defenders seem willing to admit it should have had more time to breathe (except for Steel, but his talking down to people here is the least surprising thing ever.)

The funny thing is I don't even think she's really meant to be insane in the show. Her father was a gibbering crazy person by the time Jamie killed him, Dany had none of that.

[M2]

holy God there were "Mad Queen" theories back before there was a show even, when are you going to get that being the ending isn't the issue people have?

Probably when "people" stop defaulting to that being their exact problem. It's been there all along, thus the Mad Queen theories.

The books mess with conventions, the show really and truly did not. When you realize the Stark children are the protagonists, collectively, you start seeing it was extremely conventional, down to Ned Stark being murdered.

Whether the books end up completely mirroring that, who knows, I doubt it would be as clumsy or handled in a way that undermines everything that came before, but you never know.

It is a story about the Starks. That much is true.

But pretending the show is telling us a different story from the books is silly. It's working off GRRM's intended plan. Maybe he'll scrap that and go in another direction. More likely, he'll never get it done. Anyway, the finish built off what came before it. Nothing got undermined. It was never a gooey, romantic tale.

[RedTeamGo!]

Stannis burned Mance Rayder for not bending the knee. Was he "mad?"

Was Tywin Lanniser "mad?" After wiping out House Tarbeck for defying him, he wiped out House Reyne. In case you don't remember the song, here's the synopsis from the ASOIAF wiki about House Reyne's demise - "Tywin ignored Reynard's terms and instead ordered his men to seal the entrances of the mines. When all entrances were blocked with tons of stone, earth, and soil, leaving no way in or out, Tywin had his men dam a nearby stream and divert it to the nearest mine entrance. Water easily found its way though the tiny gaps in the rubble that blocked the mouth of the entrance. Lannister men stationed at the most distant entrances claimed they could hear faint screaming and shouting, but by daybreak, there was nothing but silence. None of the three hundred men, women, and children within ever emerged from the mines again. As commanded by Tywin, the castle on the surface was set ablaze."

Again, what did Dany do prior to roasting Kings Landing that any other (non-Stark ruler) would not have done when she was conquering cities?

Stannis killed his own brother with a shadow assassin born from having sex with a 400 year old priestess. Yes, he was mad.

Tywin was pure evil.

- - - Updated - - -

Using the fact that Dany had family members who went “mad” to defend bad writing is the weakest argument of all.

I mean, the Targaryans being crazy is central to the entire story of GoT.

I’m not sure what else to say.