Rant and Rave Without Repercussion: Season 5 Continued (Book Spoilers)

[King Onion Knight]

Them having Stannis burn his daughter, 20 good men, Dorne itself, and the winterfell massacre with brienne calling renly the rightful king = my breaking points

[RGBeyondAsshai]

 Season 5.

[Cashless Society]

"Winter is Coming" - I could already see what they were going to do to Cat.
"Lord Snow" - why did Varys tell LF that Cat was in town and not Ned?
And they basically removed Jeyne Poole from the Canon, which left me wondering how they would do the subsequent Winterfell arc.

[A Ghost of Someone]

I think shocking sexposition scenes are only going to keep coming. I fear for Sophie, Maise and Emilia in season 6. They, the showrunners are not going to stop when they think they are on a role.

[Toth]

I must admit Littlefinger telling his backstory with Cat to two random prostitutes fingering each other back in season 1 was a pretty big indicator for me where their priorities lay. But I endured the awful sexposition scenes because while I indeed thought they were doing it only for their quotas, I hoped they would leave the rest of the story mostly intact. Well, so much for that. I read the books after season 1 and then wondered why Dany was busy screaming a whole season "Where are my DRAAAGONS!" only to get the most anticlimactic House of Undying ever (Drogo was nice, the rest however...). I already began to get bored by the series because I began to see missed opportunities everywhere, but there was still hope. Then came season 3 with Talisa and the incredibly badly directed Red Wedding which was a major let-down to me. They could have made it the most memorable scene ever if they had bothered to show the Northmen fight back, struggling to survive. But it was cheap, they all were just slaughtered like sheep, not like human who, you know, want to stay alive or something. It was cheap shock, it was badly acted. I admit I haven't seen much season 4 then, only to just switch in during the last four episodes. Therefore I found season 4 actually pretty good. Oberyn was awesome, despite living in a brothel. But then came the last episode and I witnessed the butchery of Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion and Tysha in full force. That was my breaking point. I knew season 5 would become bullshit and avoided to see it... at least until I witnessed the outcry in another forum I am a member of. Every single person there ranted about the Shireen-burning. And I thought since D&D actually managed to make even the most fervant show-defenders I knew there hate the show, it could be entertaining to watch it for an entirely different reason than entertainment...

 

And now I'm here, wishing for a new adaption, fighting off hordes of show-defenders and rape-apologists.

[AlpenglowMemories]

I didn't have an individual breaking point, but I was disappointed and underwhelmed by the second season, and the show has never fully recovered from there. But I think my worst moments would be: Joffrey torturing the prostitutes, the handling of the Fist of the First Men, the changes made in "The Children", and Stannis' ending this season. Then again, there was so many "er..." moments for me recently that it would probably be easier just listing the things that I did like. 

 

I feel like this quote from Akira Kurosawa has relevance: 
 

 

 

“In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the world. You must consider why they are great. Where does the emotion come from that you feel as you read them? What degree of passion did the author have to have, what level of meticulousness did he have to command, in order to portray the characters and events as he did? You must read thoroughly, to the point where you can grasp all these things..."

[Le Cygne]

Lots of breaking points...

[PatrickStormborn]

Oh I've had too many breaking points:

1. Finding out that Natalie Tena (Osha) suggested she wear a pubic wig for her nude scene, and D&D refused.
2. Cat's monologue about Jon Snow.
3. The whole episode "The Climb".
4. The Red Wedding.
5. Dany's conquest of Meereen.
6. And then the whole of season 5 basically, but the complete butchery of Dany's final chapter really finished me off.

[protar]

 

Oh I've had too many breaking points:

1. Finding out that Natalie Tena (Osha) suggested she wear a pubic wig for her nude scene, and D&D refused.

 

I didn't know about that. Dat historical accuracy. 

[Ramsay's 20 Good Men]

 

I didn't know about that. Dat historical accuracy. 

Yup, funny how people will defend the rapes because they're "historically accurate" yet won't mention how every woman has a Brazilian. 

[protar]

Yup, funny how people will defend the rapes because they're "historically accurate" yet won't mention how every woman has a Brazilian. 

 

Dornish, they're Dornish waxes. 

[Ramsay's 20 Good Men]

 

Dornish, they're Dornish waxes. 

Is that what makes the woman fight and fuck? Or is it the peppers?

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

There were always things that bothered me here and there in season 1 abut I think my first major annoyance was season two, The whole Quorin halfhand story which in my opinion was that one of the best sequences of entire series was completely butchered. That and I hated the Talisa character, just such lazy cliched writing.

So I started having big warning bells in season two but I think my last straw was season five. The whole Stannis burning Shireen and how they handled Stannis in episode 10. That's the first time I ever considered quitting the show.

[kissdbyfire]

Yeah, the gratuitous sexposition in s 1 made me roll my eyes a lot. But back then, the rest of what I was seeing was still good, with good dialogue, and it was still faithful enough for me to kind of roll with it; it's premium cable and, like it or not, they *do have* the boob quota to fill. But Joff's torture porn in s 2 was, for me, the moment I felt afraid of where it was all going to go. That said, I didn't stop watching. I still hoped the story and the characters would be the main focus. I was wrong, of course. S 3 and 4 are very blurry in my mind, but there were so many things I really hated... Talisa, RW, Arya and Tywin bonding (even though I understand why they did it) - these are from s 3 iirc. Catelyn talking about Jon - and I'm not even a huge Catelyn fan, even though I love her chapters. There are many more things I'm not remembering now. S 4 is even blurrier. As someone else said upthread, watching s 4 was a chore. I still watched it, though. And that's when we got Craster's Rape Shack, Meera and Osha's cat fight, Jon learning about Bran, Ghost - or was it Summer? - in the stupid cage, and the icing on the shit cake for me was Bloodraven and the stupider than stupid CotF being depicted as fucking children. And again, s 4 has a ton more stuff I hated that I can't remember now... Wait... The Hound and Arya, all stupid, especially the OOC Sandor, arriving at the Eyrie - 'Hey, this is Arya Stark', then leaving and bumping into Brienne, and that ridiculous fight.
Gods, I hate the show now. I hate it because at this point, I truly don't think it's salvageable anymore. It's gone off the deep end, the next couple of seasons are going to be the same shite or worse.
In which series was that stupid battle at CB? Was it last year? Because that was beyond stupid as well. Cannibal Thenns, Pyp and Grenn - must kill characters we like so that we'll care bs; guess what? Didn't work for me, it only annoyed me. The wildlings camp was like 50ft from CB. Mance's attack on the Wall, where we saw 16 wildlings - yeah, I rewinded, paused, and counted - running towards the Wall...
I'm starting to remember more things as I type. Sigh.

Just realised all these are just to do with the North and Riverlands, so there's still all the stupid stuff from KL, Meereen, etc

[protar]

I've had complaints from S2 (and looking back the signs were there even during S1). But the build up to S5 and the news that Arianne and Aegon were cut was really the breaking point for me. That was the point were I realised that the plot was barely going to be the same at all. Now if they had managed to deliver a good season 5, I would have just thrown up my hands and been able to appreciate it on its own merits, despite it being a terrible adaptation. But...well that didn't happen.

[Bobby b's bobby]

Does anyone remember the invented scenes that we could enjoy back in s1 with Robert and cersei talking about their marriage or robert barristan and jaime swapping stories. Now the invented scenes are cock merchants and 20 good men. I miss being able to enjoy the adaptation of probably my favourite series and I miss mark addy I don't care if he was miscast bow you shits.

[Annara Snow]

"Winter is Coming" - I could already see what they were going to do to Cat.
"Lord Snow" - why did Varys tell LF that Cat was in town and not Ned?
And they basically removed Jeyne Poole from the Canon, which left me wondering how they would do the subsequent Winterfell arc.

No, Sansa actually mentions Jeyne Poole by name in season 1. She is/was a part of the show canon.

And anyway, there were a bunch of ways to do the Winterfell arc without already having introduced Jeyne. The simplest one would be to show the Boltons forcing some poor northern girl captured in Winterfell to pose as Arya. Or they could have even cut the entire storyline - since they cut everything else from the North arc, including all the reasons why the fArya story mattered to the plot and other characters. Any other way to do the North arc, including scrapping it altogether, would have been better than what they did.

[LongRider]

There were always things that bothered me here and there in season 1 abut I think my first major annoyance was season two, The whole Quorin halfhand story which in my opinion was that one of the best sequences of entire series was completely butchered. That and I hated the Talisa character, just such lazy cliched writing.

So I started having big warning bells in season two but I think my last straw was season five. The whole Stannis burning Shireen and how they handled Stannis in episode 10. That's the first time I ever considered quitting the show.

 

Ugh!  The Half-Hand sequence was so incomprehensible!  Especially to this book reader, it was awful.  Then Jon's meeting with Ygritte and how that played out, another weird incoherently played vignette.  

[Shuvuuia]

 

Dornish, they're Dornish waxes. 

Did they introduce it to the North? because the Wildling women are the ones who truely need it.

 

my mom was caught watching GoT today, but after hearing my complains about it, she doesn't want to watch it anymore. Unfortunately, she doesn't want to read the books either.

and, interestingly, she thought that show!Marg is 16, idk for me she looks older, maybe it's because dub gives her a younger voice.

[Primalsplit]

Yep, the more I think back to previous season the more I wonder; why didn't I go off it sooner? And why didn't this stuff bother me then?

 

I guess the good thing about this season being so bad is that after reading these rant and rave threads and participating as well as reading Cheb's Tumblr and a few others I can now spot these things a lot better than I could before and can evaluate shows like this way better than I could before I watched this season. Like how I didn't spot so many of these things, I mean, I didn't even get that pissed off with Talisa's character because I couldn't tell how bad it actually was, and I didn't see how bad things like what happened with Ros actually are. So, I guess it isn't all bad.

Same here. The thing with TV and movies are, you keep seeing them from a very young age and you somehow accept them the way they are. Back in earlier seasons I had no idea of those sexism, titillation, narrative, progressivism etc. I watched seasons 1&2 as an unsullied. It was just an entertaining TV show and a little more for me back then. That is before my dad could not wait for the next season and bought the books to learn what happens sooner. We both saw something interesting in the story so we both jumped into the books.

Seasons 3&4 were really not that much of a letdown for me. At the point I was watching them, I have already forgot the details in books anyway. Then after season 4, I was a little sour of the end of season and somehow became more interested in the story. I joined the forums and spent a good amount of time in the book forum and with reading theory/analysis. At that point, I was not really that bothered with the TV show as it appeared mostly accurate. I convinved my that titillation was also a some kind of beneficial evil, and even progressive for breaking the nudity taboo.  I was even convinced LSH would appear next season. Only Bran's story left a distaste in my mouth, and Tyrion's end scene left me confused a bit. I couldn't understand why they changed those. Ah. Craster's Keep subplot also reeked of TV cliche.

 

Then season 5 started. I followed the TV show with this forum. I was happy at the beginning of the season. It didn't really start badly. I was even ready for Sansa to play a different role. I was ready for a change if it made sense (something non-rapey). I was even entertained to a degree of not really knowing what would happen. As the season progressed further, my hype slowly faded away. Thanks to reading this forum, I have became more and more aware of the show's issues. The moment Barristan was killed, my reaction turned into:  :ack:

Then I have seen gotgifsandmusings and culturalvacuum tumblr and began reading them. All of this dissatisfaction have turned into a systematic gaze for me.

 

Chebbyshov and Martell, you have created a monster! I can't enjoy 90% of TV without turning my brain off anymore. Thank you. Also special credits to D&D  :P