Rant and Rave without Repercussions [S7 Leaks Edition]

[Faint]

I guess I should be thankful I thought the show was mediocre from the beginning and never had any great expectations whatsoever.

[Rhodan]

6 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

You’re not alone in thinking that Game of Thrones — with its accelerated timeline, undead TED talk, and Cersei’s curious lack of hair growth — is simply not as good as it once was. Yes, there’s an ice dragon, but whatever happened to a season where the Stark sisters had discernible character motivations? The creators of Rick and Morty know your gripes, and appropriately eulogized them after this week’s episode. In a post-post-credits sequence, the show ran a title card mourning “The writing on Game of Thrones: 2011–2016.” Logan Lucky already gave us one exceedingly clever Game of Thrones jokes, and now Rick and Morty has delivered the cynic’s take.

THIS FADED IN AT THE END OF RICK AND MORTY AND I AM LOSING MY GD MIND. BEYOND SAVAGE. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/DQ4SyvH3MD

— Nik (@nhimak) August 28, 2017

http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/rick-and-morty-game-of-thrones-post-credits-scene.html

Well, I know you haven´t wrote it, but Logan Lucky was more about Martin´s writing pace.

[Dolorous Gabe]

9 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

@Dolorous Gabe posted this on another thread... The Titanic!

I liked the Scooby Doo comparison to LF's downfall 

[Ser Quork]

8 minutes ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

I liked the Scooby Doo comparison to LF's downfall 

It's perfect.

Although possibly not as well crafted as your average Scooby Doo. 

[The Fattest Leech]

11 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

You’re not alone in thinking that Game of Thrones — with its accelerated timeline, undead TED talk, and Cersei’s curious lack of hair growth — is simply not as good as it once was. Yes, there’s an ice dragon, but whatever happened to a season where the Stark sisters had discernible character motivations? The creators of Rick and Morty know your gripes, and appropriately eulogized them after this week’s episode. In a post-post-credits sequence, the show ran a title card mourning “The writing on Game of Thrones: 2011–2016.” Logan Lucky already gave us one exceedingly clever Game of Thrones jokes, and now Rick and Morty has delivered the cynic’s take.

THIS FADED IN AT THE END OF RICK AND MORTY AND I AM LOSING MY GD MIND. BEYOND SAVAGE. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/DQ4SyvH3MD

— Nik (@nhimak) August 28, 2017

http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/rick-and-morty-game-of-thrones-post-credits-scene.html

Hahahaaaa! Just wow. 

I'm not on social media stuff much, but I just shared this wherever and however I could. 

[Dolorous Gabe]

5 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

It's perfect.

Although possibly not as well crafted as your average Scooby Doo. 

Hahaha that's very likely true.

[Liver and Onions]

On 9/6/2017 at 8:17 PM, Le Cygne said:

You’re not alone in thinking that Game of Thrones — with its accelerated timeline, undead TED talk, and Cersei’s curious lack of hair growth — is simply not as good as it once was. Yes, there’s an ice dragon, but whatever happened to a season where the Stark sisters had discernible character motivations? The creators of Rick and Morty know your gripes, and appropriately eulogized them after this week’s episode. In a post-post-credits sequence, the show ran a title card mourning “The writing on Game of Thrones: 2011–2016.” Logan Lucky already gave us one exceedingly clever Game of Thrones jokes, and now Rick and Morty has delivered the cynic’s take.

THIS FADED IN AT THE END OF RICK AND MORTY AND I AM LOSING MY GD MIND. BEYOND SAVAGE. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/DQ4SyvH3MD

— Nik (@nhimak) August 28, 2017

http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/rick-and-morty-game-of-thrones-post-credits-scene.html

Good to know we're not alone anymore.   Although me thinks Rick and Morty are off on those dates by two years. 

[Le Cygne]

18 hours ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

I liked the Scooby Doo comparison to LF's downfall 

That was good! And "characters are forced to act in ways that contradict who they are in order to manufacture temporary conflict" (oh, hello Sansa and Jaime) - that's the worst, the betrayal of the characters. He picked some really good moments to illustrate his points. And I like when he brought up Breaking Bad, a really good show, and it was like, let's get real, Game of Thrones isn't even in the same league.

[Le Cygne]

Another video by the same guy, it says it's about Game of Thrones, but he's talking exclusively about GRRM, and using examples from the books. It's about empathy, and the example of Jaime is particularly sad, because we had that empathy for him that GRRM talks about in the video, and then the show turned him into Larry, who is driven by absurd plots. Like he said in the later video, that's a problem with the show now, without that, the viewer stops caring about the characters.

 

[TheCasualObserver]

On 9/7/2017 at 1:17 AM, Le Cygne said:

You’re not alone in thinking that Game of Thrones — with its accelerated timeline, undead TED talk, and Cersei’s curious lack of hair growth — is simply not as good as it once was. Yes, there’s an ice dragon, but whatever happened to a season where the Stark sisters had discernible character motivations? The creators of Rick and Morty know your gripes, and appropriately eulogized them after this week’s episode. In a post-post-credits sequence, the show ran a title card mourning “The writing on Game of Thrones: 2011–2016.” Logan Lucky already gave us one exceedingly clever Game of Thrones jokes, and now Rick and Morty has delivered the cynic’s take.

THIS FADED IN AT THE END OF RICK AND MORTY AND I AM LOSING MY GD MIND. BEYOND SAVAGE. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/DQ4SyvH3MD

— Nik (@nhimak) August 28, 2017

http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/rick-and-morty-game-of-thrones-post-credits-scene.html

Comments like this just vindicate the writing in season 5 and 6. To be honest season 7 didn't leave much of an impression on me because everything was downright... silly. 

I wouldn't say that about 5 and 6, which both really pissed me off. 

[Le Cygne]

The criticism (and there's a tidal wave now, but it's been building all along) addresses the decline over several seasons. (For example, these criticisms were widespread.)

[Dolorous Gabe]

6 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Another video by the same guy, it says it's about Game of Thrones, but he's talking exclusively about GRRM, and using examples from the books. It's about empathy, and the example of Jaime is particularly sad, because we had that empathy for him that GRRM talks about in the video, and then the show turned him into Larry, who is driven by absurd plots. Like he said in the later video, that's a problem with the show now, without that, the viewer stops caring about the characters.

 

That's another really good one.

I like that he draws attention to how carefully GRRM uses violence.

I think for a lot of the people the consequences element in the show is what has been the straw that broke the camel's back, because you can argue the show was keeping mostly to that up until this season. But IMO they picked and chose badly where the consequences should be and come from in S5 onwards, as they didn't tell the story well enough to make those consequences logical or give them meaning.

[Le Cygne]

Good article. Once again, Game of Thrones is the bad example.

I also gathered objections to the Sansa season 5 storyline here: "gratuitous sexual violence in a ridiculous storyline" (major media outlet reviews at the link).

Adds another veteran female writer, “For male showrunners, sexual assault is always the go-to when looking for ‘traumatic backstory’ for a female character. You can be sure it will be brought up immediately, like it’s the obvious place to go when fleshing out a female character.”

Underlying the idea of rape as a go-to concept is the idea that the fallout from the incident will inform the character “forever,” this writer adds.

“You can use it as a reason for anything she might do,” the writer notes. “She’s ‘damaged goods,’ physically, emotionally and mentally, and I think that is a bad, bad message to send to women who have been sexually assaulted.” ...

“For a long time, incest and rape were go-to story points, and I don’t think they’re edgy, they’re just gross,” says Michael Green, executive producer and co-showrunner of “American Gods.” “The disposability of it as a plot point is not anything I can engage in. For me, there’s no quicker way to get me to turn off a story. I’m just done.” 

Bryan Fuller is done, too. Fuller, executive producer and co-showrunner of “American Gods,” went so far as to issue an edict to the writers of his previous show, NBC’s “Hannibal”: No sexual violence.

“I personally think that it stains a story, in a way, in that it prevents you from being able to celebrate different aspects of sexuality,” Fuller says. “America as a country has a very fucked-up attitude regarding sex and sexuality, so there is something [troubling] about the punishing of characters for their sex and sexuality.”

https://variety.com/2016/tv/features/rape-tv-television-sweet-vicious-jessica-jones-game-of-thrones-1201934910/

[Rhodan]

10 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

The criticism (and there's a tidal wave now, but it's been building all along) addresses the decline over several seasons. (For example, these criticisms were widespread.)

After the season 6 I was sure the bubble will eventually burst. We might be not there yet totally, but it´s closer than ever....

[Dragons Are Real]

Long time lurker here, first time posting.  (Please forgive the run-on sentences.  My rage is not allowing my inner editor to escape his cage.)

I just find the current discussion really insightful and wanted to share a perspective.  I've done a lot of fiction writing myself over the years and from what I can tell, George writes in a style similar to my own.  I know my characters, sometimes way too well in that they haunt me relentlessly in my non-writing time if I don't finish their story.  I know where they start, and I know where they end.  And I know what reactions they will have to various situations.  Beyond that, when I sit down to write, it's literally up to them to tell me what the story is.

Now, if I handed my character sheets (many of which are highly detailed as the characters are people first for me, even in the case of a character that isn't really a person, like a dog (or wolf) or large industrial robot (or dragon)), my plot synopsis (begins here, ends here, interacts with these other characters along the way), and a vague idea of the feel of the story to another semi-competent writer, they would be able to construct a believable, enjoyable draft of a story from it, but it would likely resemble the story I would tell only superficially.  However, I could never fault them so long as the story they told remained internally consistent, showed real depth of character, and held the fans interest even when scratching a bit beneath the surface.

I wish this is what had happened to ASoIaF when it was handed off to the GoT writers.

Instead we have a similar information hand-off (begins and ends here and here, character sheets or similar character bible type scenario, interacts with these other characters along the way), but we have hack/junk writers.  And not only that, they are hack/junk writers that feel they have a superior grasp on story-telling to the guy that invented the story and so they will disregard the character sheets AND the necessary points of interaction with other characters, instead inserting what they feel are "much cooler" interactions between characters that will never have a real reason to meet in story.  Oh, and they fail to address the changes to the story via the plot itself, instead just shrugging and assuming it doesn't matter because. . .?  Well?  Who the heck knows why they feel plot, character and internal consistency don't matter.  Seriously, when I had heard they publicly stated that themes are for eighth grade book reports I about blew a cog.  I write as a hobby and still seem to take it twenty times more seriously than these dorks.

I started noticing the gaps stretching in season five.  Not that they weren't present before, but they were starting to become glaring to me.  In season six, the plot strings that completely destroyed my suspension of disbelief were the Sansa and Arya plots.  The rest was . . . not great, but I could at least let my mind try to connect the pieces.  Arya's plot once we hit the point of the waif cutting her gut and tossing her into what was likely shit and piss filled water and then Arya literally supermanning out of it in a matter of hours just broke my brain.  I couldn't justify it in any way, shape, or form.  Especially not with the terminator vs. supergirl scenario that went down in the final battle.

And while I'm at it, after all that training, she was just casually running around the city tossing coin at strangers and being totally casual and cheery plotting her escape from what seemed to be a total disaster of a story to begin with.

And I haven't even gotten to how ridiculous season seven has been.  At this point I'm watching in abject horror as these creators take turns raping, pillaging, burning, re-raping and desecrating the corpse of what was once a story of great potential and incredible character studies by a cast of sometimes good, sometimes great actors.  

Zero plot points connect to each other in any real and meaningful way.  Not even plot points that are supposed to be directly following each other.  The Arya/Sansa drama/not drama/everything important happens off-screen garbage is possibly the WORST major drama plot ever played out on television.  The Wight Hunt for Zero Reason to prove to she who should be dead or at least wandering the street homeless and hopeless but is instead queen of all the land and in charge of an endless surplus of everything needed to keep her (decimated until it's needed again) army supplied despite having no supply chain because zero houses support her except when they do made my stomach churn.  And seriously, read through that sentence and tell me any of it isn't on full display on the show.  And then they wonder why some people are bothered by the turns the show has taken?  It's a convoluted mess of nonsense at this point.

Creepyfinger's death was perhaps the most glaringly stupid thing they did this season.  And considering some of the other things they did, that's saying something.  I'd take fifty minutes straight of Redbeard's Eyebrow of Appreciation on Brienne over that thirty second mockery of what should have been a well played out trial, filled with treachery from all sides and not just a little political maneuvering.  And the only thing making it even worse is knowing that next season, rather than being held in contempt for destroying a political ally out of nowhere with zero proof, the Stark girls and Branbot will be held up as shining beacons of decency and honor because the North Remembers Shit-all about Anything Ever.

And that was NOT a shocking moment.  It's been laying on the table for two and a half seasons.  The writers believing that it was a shock for the viewers is the only real shock of the whole thing.  Lern ta lern newbs.  You suck at shocking twists when you don't have a writer twenty times more capable than both of you writing your plot for you.

Gah.  I could go on and on about the stupidities we've had to witness this season, but I won't.  Suffice it to say from the perspective of someone that has always appreciated good storytelling, the show has lost the thread.  I can only hope George gave them a detailed breakdown of the end-point so we at least get, maybe, a couple minutes of decency next season.  Unless they decide they're smarter than him even for the end of the end.  In which case, I'll just stock up on whiskey and await the inevitable train-wreck.

That's going to take them two years to finish because they're so busy working on their next show filled with horrible concepts rehashed from better writers.

I'll likely be around here next season.  I doubt I'll be able to contain my dismay and rage for very long once the show comes back to destroy what's left of the intrigue of Westeros.

NIGHT KING FOR LIFE!  May he destroy what's left of this travesty of a realm.

[Ashes Of Westeros]

The LF's plot line was one of the most poorly written and executed.

Back in 1928 critic Van Dine wrote "20 Rules For Writing Detective Stories". Many of them could be applied to other genres of fiction to some extension. The first of them states: "The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery." 

Another one is: "The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession."

Exposing LF is almost a classic crime story. In order to find out the truth one (in this case Arya and Sansa) has to put together all the information they know and gather evidence. The main difference is that audience knows who is the murderer but the characters have to put it all together. Solving this mystery with the help of some magical power and off-screen random revelations is just a lazy writing, breaking all laws of fiction.

[Le Cygne]

Yes, that broke every rule of good storytelling. And that bad storytelling started long before that, season 7 had no lock on absurd plots, and the LF absurdity started back in season 5. They've been doing don't take out Cersei go on a wight hunt instead level absurdity for a while now.

LF should have been dead at the beginning of season 6. Bronze Yohn knows LF said he was taking Sandra to the Fingers, so LF lied to the Lord of the Vale twice, and Brienne knows what LF did, he tried to kill her along the way to Winterfell, and she watched it all take place, as did the Vale troops.

So Jon would have had LF executed for selling his sister to the Boltons, which she told the King of the North he did in those exact words, and no one would think Sandra chose to marry a Bolton, since only a moron would have done that. LF should have been dead long ago.

They also completely dropped LF's involvement in Joffrey's death, and that he framed Sandra:

LF: You don't want the queen to hear, do you? The gold cloaks are searching for you. And if they found you, how do you think they would punish the girl who murdered the king?

Sansa: I didn't murder anyone.

LF: I know. I know. But you must admit it looks suspicious. The king who executed your father, who tormented you for years, and you fled the scene of his murder...

Sansa: Did you kill Joffrey?

LF: Did I kill Joffrey? I've been in the Vale for weeks.

Sansa: I know it was you.

LF: And who helped me with this conspiracy?

Sansa: Well, there was Ser Dontos. You used him to get me out of King's Landing, but you would never trust him to kill the king.

LF: He wasn't involved in Joffrey's death. But you were. Do you remember that lovely necklace Dontos gave you? I don't suppose you noticed that a stone was missing after the feast.

Sansa: I don't believe you. If they catch you, they'll put your head on a spike just like my father's.

Also that brings us to... where's the visual bookend of seeing LF's head on a spike. Surely that's not too gory for Sandra, who smirks as men are fed to dogs, or Arya, who bakes men in a pie. They don't even follow up on their own story.

[Liver and Onions]

On 9/8/2017 at 2:31 AM, TheCasualObserver said:

Comments like this just vindicate the writing in season 5 and 6. To be honest season 7 didn't leave much of an impression on me because everything was downright... silly. 

I wouldn't say that about 5 and 6, which both really pissed me off. 

I agree with this. At this point, season 7 just makes me laugh. Seasons 5 and 6 pretty much ran the show off the rails, (and there were problems before then, to be sure). It's not like the show was running strong with competent plots and realistic characters, and then season 7 drops the ball. The decline has been building, and now it seems it's getting harder for it to hide. 

[Liver and Onions]

17 hours ago, Dragons Are Real said:

Long time lurker here, first time posting.  (Please forgive the run-on sentences.  My rage is not allowing my inner editor to escape his cage.)

I just find the current discussion really insightful and wanted to share a perspective.  I've done a lot of fiction writing myself over the years and from what I can tell, George writes in a style similar to my own.  I know my characters, sometimes way too well in that they haunt me relentlessly in my non-writing time if I don't finish their story.  I know where they start, and I know where they end.  And I know what reactions they will have to various situations.  Beyond that, when I sit down to write, it's literally up to them to tell me what the story is.

Now, if I handed my character sheets (many of which are highly detailed as the characters are people first for me, even in the case of a character that isn't really a person, like a dog (or wolf) or large industrial robot (or dragon)), my plot synopsis (begins here, ends here, interacts with these other characters along the way), and a vague idea of the feel of the story to another semi-competent writer, they would be able to construct a believable, enjoyable draft of a story from it, but it would likely resemble the story I would tell only superficially.  However, I could never fault them so long as the story they told remained internally consistent, showed real depth of character, and held the fans interest even when scratching a bit beneath the surface.

I wish this is what had happened to ASoIaF when it was handed off to the GoT writers.

Instead we have a similar information hand-off (begins and ends here and here, character sheets or similar character bible type scenario, interacts with these other characters along the way), but we have hack/junk writers.  And not only that, they are hack/junk writers that feel they have a superior grasp on story-telling to the guy that invented the story and so they will disregard the character sheets AND the necessary points of interaction with other characters, instead inserting what they feel are "much cooler" interactions between characters that will never have a real reason to meet in story.  Oh, and they fail to address the changes to the story via the plot itself, instead just shrugging and assuming it doesn't matter because. . .?  Well?  Who the heck knows why they feel plot, character and internal consistency don't matter.  Seriously, when I had heard they publicly stated that themes are for eighth grade book reports I about blew a cog.  I write as a hobby and still seem to take it twenty times more seriously than these dorks.

I started noticing the gaps stretching in season five.  Not that they weren't present before, but they were starting to become glaring to me.  In season six, the plot strings that completely destroyed my suspension of disbelief were the Sansa and Arya plots.  The rest was . . . not great, but I could at least let my mind try to connect the pieces.  Arya's plot once we hit the point of the waif cutting her gut and tossing her into what was likely shit and piss filled water and then Arya literally supermanning out of it in a matter of hours just broke my brain.  I couldn't justify it in any way, shape, or form.  Especially not with the terminator vs. supergirl scenario that went down in the final battle.

And while I'm at it, after all that training, she was just casually running around the city tossing coin at strangers and being totally casual and cheery plotting her escape from what seemed to be a total disaster of a story to begin with.

And I haven't even gotten to how ridiculous season seven has been.  At this point I'm watching in abject horror as these creators take turns raping, pillaging, burning, re-raping and desecrating the corpse of what was once a story of great potential and incredible character studies by a cast of sometimes good, sometimes great actors.  

Zero plot points connect to each other in any real and meaningful way.  Not even plot points that are supposed to be directly following each other.  The Arya/Sansa drama/not drama/everything important happens off-screen garbage is possibly the WORST major drama plot ever played out on television.  The Wight Hunt for Zero Reason to prove to she who should be dead or at least wandering the street homeless and hopeless but is instead queen of all the land and in charge of an endless surplus of everything needed to keep her (decimated until it's needed again) army supplied despite having no supply chain because zero houses support her except when they do made my stomach churn.  And seriously, read through that sentence and tell me any of it isn't on full display on the show.  And then they wonder why some people are bothered by the turns the show has taken?  It's a convoluted mess of nonsense at this point.

Creepyfinger's death was perhaps the most glaringly stupid thing they did this season.  And considering some of the other things they did, that's saying something.  I'd take fifty minutes straight of Redbeard's Eyebrow of Appreciation on Brienne over that thirty second mockery of what should have been a well played out trial, filled with treachery from all sides and not just a little political maneuvering.  And the only thing making it even worse is knowing that next season, rather than being held in contempt for destroying a political ally out of nowhere with zero proof, the Stark girls and Branbot will be held up as shining beacons of decency and honor because the North Remembers Shit-all about Anything Ever.

And that was NOT a shocking moment.  It's been laying on the table for two and a half seasons.  The writers believing that it was a shock for the viewers is the only real shock of the whole thing.  Lern ta lern newbs.  You suck at shocking twists when you don't have a writer twenty times more capable than both of you writing your plot for you.

Gah.  I could go on and on about the stupidities we've had to witness this season, but I won't.  Suffice it to say from the perspective of someone that has always appreciated good storytelling, the show has lost the thread.  I can only hope George gave them a detailed breakdown of the end-point so we at least get, maybe, a couple minutes of decency next season.  Unless they decide they're smarter than him even for the end of the end.  In which case, I'll just stock up on whiskey and await the inevitable train-wreck.

That's going to take them two years to finish because they're so busy working on their next show filled with horrible concepts rehashed from better writers.

I'll likely be around here next season.  I doubt I'll be able to contain my dismay and rage for very long once the show comes back to destroy what's left of the intrigue of Westeros.

NIGHT KING FOR LIFE!  May he destroy what's left of this travesty of a realm.

Welcome to the forum! (as a poster, anyway. I lurked for while myself.  ) I agree that the best writing treats the characters as real people making their own decisions. And, as we've seen in ASOIAF, those decisions have consequences, good and bad. As you've probably recognized, even the most fantastical story needs characters who feel real- that's what connects us to the story. 

And, yes- the characters in this show are now directed entirely by plot points- go here, go there, we need you to stay there until this happens. It no longer feels like a real world with people and consequences. 

[TheCasualObserver]

51 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

So Jon would have had LF executed for selling his sister to the Boltons, which she told the King of the North he did in those exact words, and no one would think Sandra chose to marry a Bolton, since only a moron would have done that. LF should have been dead long ago.

It amuses me how they pinned everything on LF in season 6 after the backlash over the rape, even though they wrote season 5 as if Sansa was doing all this tactically. Brian Cogman even called Sansa "a hardened woman making a choice", even though she never had a plan and did jack shit all season long. 

 Placing Sansa in winterfell really ruined a huge chunk of the show.