[Poll] How would you rate episode 505

[Ran]

501 votes, 7.20 average, 8 median, 7.38 with top/bottom 5% removed.

[Metopheles]

There isn't really a divided poll, is there? Where we can see book readers votes vs show only viewers votes?

Because it is obvious that someone who hasn't read the original will be in awe of the show and basically always give them above 7.

[Hiram McDrogon]

There isn't really a divided poll, is there? Where we can see book readers votes vs show only viewers votes?

Because it is obvious that someone who hasn't read the original will be in awe of the show and basically always give them above 7.

No divided poll here, no, but I think most of the people posting here have also read the books, including most of those people who are giving scores of 8, 9, and 10 (myself included). If you're suggesting that only people who haven't read the books could possibly enjoy the show, then I don't think you're correct. If you're looking for a divide amongst voters, I suspect it's a divide between those who simply hate the show, and those who think the show is generally pretty good. Whether they've read the books or not has little to do with that divide.

Look at the sub-forum for E05: the Spoilers discussion went 44 pages before being locked; the No Spoilers has exactly one reply, and that consists in its entirety of "Wrong place." The unsullied certainly aren't a noisy presence in this forum, although I'm sure there are some around.

I don't think it's at all obvious that anyone who hasn't read the books would be in awe of the show. Tastes differ. I've got friends who love the books and love the show, others who don't particularly like the books and like the show, others who haven't read the books and love the show, and others who haven't read the books and don't like the show at all. (I don't personally know anyone "in real life" who loves the books and dislikes the show, although of course there are plenty of those people out there!)

[ummester]

I think Hiram is correct.

Further, you can be engrossed in the universe, as I am, and consider the books and show and equal part of it - each telling the same story in slightly different ways. It doesn't have to be one or the other, you don't have to pick a side.

I always relate this to Jurassic Park, I thought the book and show were great but it did take me a while to realize that I could think there were as great as each other, in their own ways.

[Extremely Extreme]

7/10. About as high of a rating I'm willing to give an episode where so little actually takes place.

[Dolorous Gabe]

I think Hiram is correct.

Further, you can be engrossed in the universe, as I am, and consider the books and show and equal part of it - each telling the same story in slightly different ways. It doesn't have to be one or the other, you don't have to pick a side.

I always relate this to Jurassic Park, I thought the book and show were great but it did take me a while to realize that I could think there were as great as each other, in their own ways.

I agree with the comment on Jurassic Park, but that film has stood strongly against the test of time. GoT has yet to take that test. Retrospect will be the best point at which to judge the show absolutely.

Let me counter it little with Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep though. I actually ever-so-slightly prefer the film to the book but I like them both a lot. Blade Runner was a different vision of the book's ideas and changed things in order to facilitate the themes it wanted to bring to its vision. The book actually had slightly different themes at its core.

I would argue that one failure of the show is to replace the themes of the books with something equally interesting. It's a great story, thanks to the groundwork of GRRM, but the show has reduced many of the thematic complexities to soap opera level dynamics.

I like the show but I think some people are willing to defend it against almost insurmountable issues. At the same time, a lot of people have become so disillusioned that nothing it will ever do will redeem it. the truth is somewhere in the middle I think. I don't think there are any episodes that deserve 1/10 and I'm not sure there are any more than a couple of episodes that deserve full marks.

When I first watched the show, I enjoyed it thoroughly but I never considered it as good as the very best TV shows. I have the show to thank for bringing me to the books as I had a feeling I would like them based on watching the show, but it was never as great as the likes of The Wire, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under or Breaking Bad.

[PatrickStormborn]

You mean they should have added yet another character they should have sent to Dorne so essentially EVERYBODY there is totally new and needing to be introduced before we could start to get to the, well, plot?

D&D could have introduced Arianne as Oberyn's companion in season 4. They had years and years to prepare for the Dornish AFfC storyline after all, so why didn't they think of something like that?

There isn't really a divided poll, is there? Where we can see book readers votes vs show only viewers votes?

Because it is obvious that someone who hasn't read the original will be in awe of the show and basically always give them above 7.

Actually I think casual show-only viewers would be more likely to give realistic ratings. They're not afraid to say when they've found an episode boring.

[The Boastful Knight]

6/10 . Nothing really happened. And sadly it is actually one of the better episodes in season 5 so far. Most of the actors are still good, the production values are high, but I think the writing is competent at best and terrible at worst this year. And this is coming from someone who has a very high tolerance for D&D's creative choices overall (I'm a book reader, btw) . I mean I liked the first 4 seasons, but this season just seems off, and for the first time, some things actually made me angry. Suffice to say, I don't have high hopes for the rest of the season.

[Metopheles]

Actually I think casual show-only viewers would be more likely to give realistic ratings. They're not afraid to say when they've found an episode boring.

That's what I meant.

It is unfair to have a mixed rating of extreme critics that judge it in terms of adaptation of the original source and people who judge it as standalone thing who never read the books. So it is a unreliable statistic in some ways.

[Facebookless Man]

None of the people who come here are representative of the general public.

In truth, the average unsullied who doesn't know anything about the story outside the show has no idea what the fuck is happening and who are those people and why they should care.

Unless you want to include those who watch for boobs and gore and those who watch because they're gonna be zoning out in front of their TV anyway and nothing else is on, your objection to these polls is rather moot.

[PatrickStormborn]

That's what I meant.

It is unfair to have a mixed rating of extreme critics that judge it in terms of adaptation of the original source and people who judge it as standalone thing who never read the books. So it is a unreliable statistic in some ways.

It's reliable as a representative of this forum, which is all that matters.

[Modesty Lannister]

I agree with the comment on Jurassic Park, but that film has stood strongly against the test of time. GoT has yet to take that test. Retrospect will be the best point at which to judge the show absolutely.

Let me counter it little with Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep though. I actually ever-so-slightly prefer the film to the book but I like them both a lot. Blade Runner was a different vision of the book's ideas and changed things in order to facilitate the themes it wanted to bring to its vision. The book actually had slightly different themes at its core.

I would argue that one failure of the show is to replace the themes of the books with something equally interesting. It's a great story, thanks to the groundwork of GRRM, but the show has reduced many of the thematic complexities to soap opera level dynamics.

I like the show but I think some people are willing to defend it against almost insurmountable issues. At the same time, a lot of people have become so disillusioned that nothing it will ever do will redeem it. the truth is somewhere in the middle I think. I don't think there are any episodes that deserve 1/10 and I'm not sure there are any more than a couple of episodes that deserve full marks.

When I first watched the show, I enjoyed it thoroughly but I never considered it as good as the very best TV shows. I have the show to thank for bringing me to the books as I had a feeling I would like them based on watching the show, but it was never as great as the likes of The Wire, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under or Breaking Bad.

That is exactly what bothers me the most. This reduction of important themes to Dynasty level. I honestly do not think D&D read books 4 and 5. And I am not quite sure they understood what they read. From their interviews, I gathered they became interested in the show when they read the RW. That is pretty shallow. But, that is also where a good part of the show ends more or less. They gave no background for 4 seasons and now they are rushing to give some, but it is too late. Unsullied must be puzzled as to why do they mention these unknown people who have been dead for decades. It's too late for them to care. Also, Daenerys in Meereen trying to decide which path to take resembles strongly the so called Achilles doubt. Like Daenerys, he had a weapon of mass destruction - himself. He was half god, indestructible safe for his heel. He had doubts about joining the Greek cause against the Trojans. And this doubt is one of the best works ever written when it comes to contemplating war and its usefulness. One would think that Benioff who adapted The Iliad into Troy (poorly), understood this. But, no. And, as Metopheles said, we all love the books and want to love the show, but it so bad at times one cannot bare to watch.

[bobbybuilderton]

snip

I would argue that one failure of the show is to replace the themes of the books with something equally interesting. It's a great story, thanks to the groundwork of GRRM, but the show has reduced many of the thematic complexities to soap opera level dynamics.

snip

That would be because they think themes are for 8th grade book reports. I do not understand people who think they are talented writers, but whatever.

[Metopheles]

That is exactly what bothers me the most. This reduction of important themes to Dynasty level. I honestly do not think D&D read books 4 and 5. And I am not quite sure they understood what they read. From their interviews, I gathered they became interested in the show when they read the RW. That is pretty shallow. But, that is also where a good part of the show ends more or less. They gave no background for 4 seasons and now they are rushing to give some, but it is too late. Unsullied must be puzzled as to why do they mention these unknown people who have been dead for decades. It's too late for them to care. Also, Daenerys in Meereen trying to decide which path to take resembles strongly the so called Achilles doubt. Like Daenerys, he had a weapon of mass destruction - himself. He was half god, indestructible safe for his heel. He had doubts about joining the Greek cause against the Trojans. And this doubt is one of the best works ever written when it comes to contemplating war and its usefulness. One would think that Benioff who adapted The Iliad into Troy (poorly), understood this. But, no. And, as Metopheles said, we all love the books and want to love the show, but it so bad at times one cannot bare to watch.

Exactly. To be fair, Dance came out when the show started, but I think a big problem of their writing, which is at some points pretty good, is the lack thought of the future. They don't think their scenarios through.

The invented penis scene in 310 was pretty well done. Very epic how Asha planned her rescue mission, nicely played. Really showed the feelings they had for Theon, but then, even after a wonderful build up, they kinda forgot about it and never acted it out. They just smashed the Domino rows they set up instead of letting each piece fall after another. Just a mess then.

Also Stannis. 310 makes big build up, then in s4 he forgets about it initially and only in the middle they find the post it note on the fridge "Ah, right, 'Wall', that's what we wanted to do"

Same with other stuff. Wonderful build up for horrible ends.

When they can, they can write really really good scenes and catch the atmosphere, the vibe. But then they bring in ten times more bad scenes that don't make sense.

And their neverending character development respawn. Jon Snow. Every season ends with him liking the wildlings and understanding them and in the next season he hates them again and has to learn to love them again.

[jacksonbrowne]

D&D could have introduced Arianne as Oberyn's companion in season 4. They had years and years to prepare for the Dornish AFfC storyline after all, so why didn't they think of something like that?

Hmm and have another incestuous storyline go forward? Yeah I don't think it would have played that well in making everybody instantly like Oberyn. Also it would have made another composite character, this time instead Arianne would merge into Ellaria. All other things being equal leaving out another sexual relationship between close relatives plays better.

Regarding years and years of setting up things, the show is a clusterfuck of characters and storylines already as it is. Introducing a facet of the world a few seasons early would mean that there would have to be something to DO in that facet of the world. If I remember correctly, there wasn't a beep that was going on IN Dorne and by Dornish people also in the first three books. Then there's the pesky little "real world" thing. It isn't like there actually IS Dorne, so they can't simply fly a crew out to Dorne to film, they would have to CREATE Dorne first. They'd have to worldbuild two seasons early without having any reason whatsoever story wise. My own opinion is that every new location and every new bunch of people introduced in book 4 and book 5 resonated less to me, Dorne was OK, but kinda meh, Cersei's machinations with the whole Kettleback debacle were drawn out, reading the adventures of all the 400 different brothers and relatives of the great late Balon Greyjoy felt like Ramsay was doing Reek on me and only Wall, Arya and to some extent Mereen kept me interested. Though the drawn out midget puppet show... No thanks.

Edited May 17, 2015 by jacksonbrowne

[PatrickStormborn]

Hmm and have another incestuous storyline go forward? Yeah I don't think it would have played that well in making everybody instantly like Oberyn. Also it would have made another composite character, this time instead Arianne would merge into Ellaria. All other things being equal leaving out another sexual relationship between close relatives plays better.

Regarding years and years of setting up things, the show is a clusterfuck of characters and storylines already as it is. Introducing a facet of the world a few seasons early would mean that there would have to be something to DO in that facet of the world. If I remember correctly, there wasn't a beep that was going on IN Dorne and by Dornish people also in the first three books. Then there's the pesky little "real world" thing. It isn't like there actually IS Dorne, so they can't simply fly a crew out to Dorne to film, they would have to CREATE Dorne first. They'd have to worldbuild two seasons early without having any reason whatsoever story wise. My own opinion is that every new location and every new bunch of people introduced in book 4 and book 5 resonated less to me, Dorne was OK, but kinda meh, Cersei's machinations with the whole Kettleback debacle were drawn out, reading the adventures of all the 400 different brothers and relatives of the great late Balon Greyjoy felt like Ramsay was doing Reek on me and only Wall, Arya and to some extent Mereen kept me interested. Though the drawn out midget puppet show... No thanks.

LOL, where the fuck did you pull "put Oberyn and Arianne into a sexual relationship" from? Jesus. I suggested she travel to King's Landing as his COMPANION, not his partner. That way upon his death she could return to Sunspear and we'd be invested in her journey.

... Not that I think it's a particularly great idea by any means. But if the problem with Arianne is that we have no reason to be invested in her, it would have been a good enough solution.

[jacksonbrowne]

LOL, where the fuck did you pull "put Oberyn and Arianne into a sexual relationship" from? Jesus. I suggested she travel to King's Landing as his COMPANION, not his partner. That way upon his death she could return to Sunspear and we'd be invested in her journey.

... Not that I think it's a particularly great idea by any means. But if the problem with Arianne is that we have no reason to be invested in her, it would have been a good enough solution.

Well the problem then would be to show her closeness to her uncle, make herself an interesting character enough so that WE would care if she cares for her uncle and it would again rob us scenes that move the story forward. It would all essentially be padding having absolutely no reason to exist in the show in 4th season except for being character building towards season 5. The problem with a TV show as such is that pretty much every scene has to do at least three things - move the plot forward, say something about the characters or the location and be also interesting. These guys usually have about two sentences and a reaction shot that they have to convey three pages worth of description in the books with.

I don't think they have an easy solution here. Introducing Arianne would need to introduce yet another character to the show, explain her backstory give compelling reasons for her subsequent actions and so on, plus at the same time introduce, again, a totally new location and again grinding the forward moving momentum to a halt. The sandsnakes introduction was awful but at least they got done with that "hey, let's introduce 9 new characters that all are important, really!" bullshit in one really bad scene. With Ellaria they found a character to work as a bridge from Season 4 to the whole Dorne debacle in season 5 with at least somewhat plausible reason to turn into a murderous lunatic.

On a slight tangent, it abhors me to think how awful the show would be with a cheesy Announcer Voice Over saying: "Meanwhile! In Dorne!" or show someone getting on the horse saying "okay, I'm riding to Winterfell", do a cut, then black screen "17 days later" and see him jump off it in another location saying "phew, that was a long ride, man". The show has done away with those lazy/bad writing tropes quite successfully I think.

Edited May 17, 2015 by jacksonbrowne

[bobbybuilderton]

Introducing Arianne as Oberyn's companion would have allowed them to explore some of the Tyrell/Martell animosity through her interactions with Margaery. Also, Sansa's sudden evolution into whatever it is they're doing with her could have been less weird if they showed her bonding with Sansa and maybe having some of Oberyn rub off on her. There could have been some very interesting scenes between Arianne, Cersei, and Margaery imo. Personally, I thought they should have had a scene last season showing Oberyn leaving Dorne and introduced Doran and Arianne that way, but that possibly stretched the budget too much.

It really isn't as difficult to introduce characters and make them interesting/get us caring about them as some people make it seem. It was harder in the books because we wanted to see characters we already cared about. In real life, you have an actual person to look at and that alone helps the audience build a connection to them since most people have some amount of empathy for other living things. Plus they have the choice of not ditching most of the characters we do care about already. With good acting and halfway competent writing, it's a simple thing to get people to care. I say this as someone who started with the show and had no idea who anyone was in the first episode. Still cared about them.

[The Eunuch]

Even if Arianne was introduced back in season 1, the result would be the same : she's useless to the series. In a TV show you can't have 500 characters as in a 1000 pages-book. Guys, get over it. And this show is already the series with the biggest cast...

[jacksonbrowne]

Even if Arianne was introduced back in season 1, the result would be the same : she's useless to the series. In a TV show you can't have 500 characters as in a 1000 pages-book. Guys, get over it. And this show is already the series with the biggest cast...

I agree. And however Arianne were to have introduced in TV, if it were to be even an iota different than in the books (and that means her travelling to King's Landing with Oberyn and having scenes with Sansa and Cersei), there would have been a very vocal group of people screaming murder and character assassination and "it's clear David and Dan haven't read the books".

I mean all of this COULD have theoretically been done. The question is - would it have made the show better or would it merely have succeed to only make it 'different'? My best bet is on the latter.