Game of Thrones

[ice grillin you]

honestly I thought it was still great tv before this year

obviously not my cup of great tv but great for the fans which is why I'm surprised to hear you say it's been weak for years

I've only noticed the fan hate this year

[Eagles_Legendz]

honestly I thought it was still great tv before this year

obviously not my cup of great tv but great for the fans which is why I'm surprised to hear you say it's been weak for years

I've only noticed the fan hate this year

Seasons 5/7/8 weren't great.  Season 6 was good.  As QB has said, the first four seasons were based on the books and were excellent if this is what you like.  After season 6 it seemed like 5 was a weird roadbump because 6 had things back on track.   This season and last (for the most part) have devolved into the blockbuster shlock that people who don't watch the show accused it of being.  Great visuals, usually very good acting, but the show runners have proven to be less than adept at writing plot since the book material ended. 

[Munson]

I thought the episode was great. The only arc I'm disappointed in is Jaime's.

But again most of the problems here could have been solved by 2-3 seasons of actually fleshed our story. I buy Dany's descent into madness but it would have been better to watch Varys' betrayal play out over a few episodes instead of like 7 minutes.

[Eagles_Legendz]

To your point QB - the idea of this episode was interesting and could have been excellent if developed correctly in preceding episodes (again, other than the abomination of what they did to Jaime who they wrecked).  It just didn't land for me because I thought they farged up the storytelling tracks pretty badly.

Even after the second episode this season they could've landed the plane I thought (though in retrospect 6 episodes would've always been too little). 

I don't mean to be some weird fanboy about this but I read the books before the show came on.  I had a really strong attachment to the story and these characters, and it sucks to have it end this way.  <<< not me wanting a happy Disney/LOTR ending, just one with internal consistency, cognizable character motivations/consistency, and a similar level of thought as what went into the first few seasons.

My last post about this - I've probably said it here but Jaime (bookJaime and at times showJaime because of NCW's strong portrayal) has been one of my favorite fictional characters.  Not because he was a "good guy" but because he was so complex, and layered and I just found him utterly fascinating reading from his POV in ASOS.  I shouldn't take it personally but I feel like they betrayed a decade of emotional investment the last two weeks.  He was always dying this season and probably in relation to Cersei, but you can't just light his core character on fire along the way.  The line of not caring is contrary to his entire character history and literally the basis for his derogatory nickname.

And they've done it repeatedly the last 2 seasons to other characters - Jaime just bothers me the most.

[Eagaholic]

He was always dying this season and probably in relation to Cersei, but you can't just light his core character on fire along the way.  The line of not caring is contrary to his entire character history and literally the basis for his derogatory nickname.

Agree, I think the writers (D&D) tried to make Jamie into a classic antihero through developing the GOT theme of 'you don't get to choose who you love.' But they botched it by taking a really great redemption arc in the first few seasons and turned it into a redemption roller coaster to show the complexity of his dark side. Maybe they were taking a cue from how GRRM would relate the quote "the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." But they just ended up throwing the character into a blender.

By contrast, I like what they did with the moral ambiguity of Varys. He really wanted what was best for the realm. But like in the first scene tonight where he tried to use a child to poison Dany, I think they did a good job developing these nuances. 

[SD]

They broke down every story they built

Jaime's a selfish sister farging icehole. He redeems himself and honor, ditches the women he loves and his unborn baby to uphold an oath to march north to fight the dead alongside people who want to kill him only to go running back to Cersei. Why'd he bother leaving in the first place?

Thought dany's descent into the mad queen was dumb. She spends 7 seasons freeing and liberating slaves and the commoners only to kill those same people. When drogon killed the child she couldnt bare to look at the corpse. She locks the other dragons in a dungeon. On the road to Meereen she refuses having every dead hung slave child taken down so she can see them all...then replaces them with the masters. But now she's upset, so she becomes worse than Cersei and torches thousands of children. She had the city and the Throne, nobody was going to resist her at that point, what was the point of burning the city

[QB Eagles]

House Targaryen's motto is "Fire and Blood". What happened last night was certainly a top 5 war crime by the family but not unusual for them. It's tough to judge them by conventional morality. They have always been an incestuous family that rules by fear and extreme violence, even when the rulers are otherwise fairly decent. The Red Keep which was seemingly destroyed by Dany was built during the reign of one of her ancestors, who murdered everyone involved in the construction.

There's also a history of getting more paranoid and violent as they follow their obsessions, including obviously Dany's own father.

The showrunners did a piss poor job of conveying this and preparing the show audience for an episode like last night's. Part of the problem was that they went out of their way to make characters like Dany, Tyrion, Arya, and Varys "good", when they should have been a lot more gray. The books succeed in part because jumping from POV to POV makes all the characters relatable to some extent, including their moral failings. Dany is someone who frequently makes poor decisions and is constantly telling herself excuses to justify some highly questionable acts. This is a person who launched a war of choice to conquer a continent she knows barely anything about.

Hope you enjoy what these guys do to Star Wars.

[hunt]

got is still a very good show.  nerds are the absolute worst when it comes to discussing tv & movies because they over-analyze every last detail because they've read the books/comics 7 times & every little detail in the books doesn't make it to the screen. 
it's a tv show.  enjoy it for what it is.  or don't.
nerds!

[Zanshin]

I'm coming at it from a different place...I watched over the course of the years just because it was better than a lot of other nonsense on TV-- but I never really connected to it in real time. It was definitely good enough to watch and had great production value, but I never really understood the over-the-top buzz. Before this season, I started it up again and found that it was much more enjoyable as a binge watch, where there weren't years between seasons. Unfortunately, doing that really set this season up for failure; because the writing and tone have been so drastically different from what made the show special. This season hasn't been "bad" in and of itself, but it certainly hasn't been clever or nuanced...it's just wrapping things up in the fastest and easiest ways possible, which feels a little like a rip off. If I was a major fan, I'd be really disappointed because it's gone from being smart, character-driven to simple, plot-driven in some nonsensical ways just to get from point A to point B. As it is, it just feels lazy. Visuals were great, though. Story? Meh.

[Munson]

I still think it's a top tier show but like I said before this season especially feels like summer popcorn blockbuster flick and not TV drama. It's still really good! Entertaining as hell! But the deeper story is lacking a bit.

It's clear this show could have used a few more full seasons to fully flesh some things out. I personally think Dany's ability to be an entitled murderous brat have been shown to us throughout the show, but she was just doing it to people we thought deserved it. How much better would her trip into madness been if we had more episodes of her getting jealous of the love Jon was getting from the people. If Varys' true betrayal played out over 3-4 episodes where we think it's cersei's Doing trying to poison her but then we find out it's Varys? Etc.

Seasons 1-6 of this show, minus thre writers inability to do Dorne any justice, are top tier GOAT quality. Season 7 is good but the sudden shift in story movement is noticeable, and then obviously this season it's even more noticeable. It's a shame that the legacy of the show will be brought down by pacing issues because the show runners didn't want to commit to more episodes/seasons.

[Zanshin]

Ha. The fact that there's not a blip on here about the finale says just about everything anyone would need to know about it. Very Meh. Felt really ham-fisted and forced. The show certainly deserved better.

[Rome]

I liked it.  Not enough to waste my time posting a thousand word recap, though.

Jon should have drilled Dany one last time. 

[Eagaholic]

If Jon was really a hero he would have drilled Drogon as well  (with teh oral, too).

like the last two seasons, the finale was meh but it makes it easier to say goodbye to. Still all around a great series. apparently winter has come and brought with it a million snowflakes.

[Eagles_Legendz]

I thought the council scene appointing Bran was dumb because they've never had an idea what to do with his character.  Simply claiming he had the best story doesn't make it so.

Otherwise, I was fine with the finale. I strongly disagree with the choices which led to the finale but given the narrative mess episodes 3-5 put them in, I thought they executed it as well as was feasible.  That being said, they were in that position as a result of their own decisions so...

[SD]

Finale was awful