[SPOILERS thru S7] Where did the show go wrong?

[StepStark]

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

It wasn't about whether it can be fixed back, but about what percentage of the plot was broken (i.e. logically) - and you said that if some percentage was broken then it was all broken and sucked and fuck nuance it's useless;
obviously I had to object. 

Again, you're speaking of percentages. But saying that I'm the one with "mathematical approach"? LOL!

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

It happens MOST OF THE TIME in fact - because good dialogue, interesting characters, emotion and aesthetics/structure are values that most storytellers strive for with most of their works;
whereas logic/plausibility is mostly an additional value that a portion of those works take on - just like scientific accuracy only matters in "hard SF", while "soft SF" plays loose with it. 

You obviously don't know what logic means in storytelling. FYI, it's there since Ancient Greeks. To create a dramatic work of art, you must have a plot. If the plot isn't logical then you have a very big problem.

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

!) "Layered" and "deep" aren't a requirement for "good" characters or dialogue - just to make that one clear.

Maybe not for minor characters, but for main ones? I don't see how a protagonist can be even remotely interesting if he's not layered and deep. Maybe not in a short story or novella, but in a book or a TV show I really don't see it. Care to give some examples of good characters that aren't deep and layered? 

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

2) That's hardly true, because stories often follow rules that almost require the disregard of logic - magical thinking, imagination/dream patterns, aesthetic structure; symbolism, characters and the conflicts they engage in "representing" different ideologies in conflict with each other, and all kinds of fancy psycho stuff like that.

Sometimes we, irl, believe that rl also works according to such rules; but obviously there's no place for them in a materialistic universe - and stories that claim to "follow logic", "lack plot holes" etc., are striving for realism in a materialistic universe.

So that's why your point is fundamentally misguided.

Look like you don't even know what internal logic actually means. I even mentioned it specifically, but you obviously missed it. Maybe you were too busy replying to my comments to actually read them.

Okay, once again: a story must have it's own logic, which can be unique (different from our reality), or borrowed (from our reality). Either way, it mustn't be broken, or if it is, then the break has to be addressed and treated with seriousness (because maybe the break in logic was the main point of the story). But to quote Aristotle: if the author wants it that way, horses in his story can have eight legs, but then they all must have eight legs. After all, that's why dragons in GOT have only two legs and not four. GRRM fought for that, because biologically you can't have four legs AND wings.

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

He still had a motivation i.e. anger at Tywin.

He was angry at Tywin for wanting to kill him, but then when he's unexpectedly set free - he's abandoning his escape to confront that same Tywin who (in Tyrion's mind) is orchestrating his execution? That sounds logical to you? "Now that I'm finally on my way to escape the death sentence Tywin was setting for me, I'm gonna go to his chamber to have a few words with him and then... then... then I'm gonna..." WHAT EXACTLY? Was he expecting that Tywin is just gonna let him go? LOL! Or are you going to say that he didn't think it through and just reacted emotionally? Because that's the most convenient excuse for literally anything, but this is Tyrion, probably the most reasonable person in the entire story (until D&D overtook the story in later seasons) and someone who wouldn't risk his life, especially now that he's miraculously escaping death once again, to pursue... what exactly? An apology from Tywin? LOL!

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Yes, that was lame we've already established that

The idea of presenting a wight to the Crown/South, makes complete sense - at the very least it has the full backing of S1 and its more complete book equivalent.

With a "small" difference that in S1 those who were asking the Crown for help weren't engaged in an all-out war with the Crown. And the Crown wasn't a well-known psychopath known as Cersei,

7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

The idea of getting that wight by capturing one, has one fundamental flaw - it's already been established that corpses come to life spontaneously beyond the wall, so all you'd need to do was to plant fresh corpses there and wait.

Factors that weaken this... factor, and hence make it less of a problem for the story:
1) They don't have any corpses lying around since they always burn them; and producing new ones has logistical problems
1a) Digging up graves from south of the wall could be an idea - however it's a rather new idea you'd have to think of first, it's not an established idea that's floating around on the surface of most viewers' mind.
2) Spontaneous reanimation has in fact never been shown on screen - it's unknown how reliable it is, or how long it takes.
I'm pretty sure not even any testimonies have been heard of it happening.
It exists in viewers' heads as a general rule everyone's aware of, but not as a vivid fact that's been directly confirmed to happen.
2a) It hasn't really been a thing in the show since S2, and certaily not S4 - and since has been "overwritten" in the viewers' heads by the much more vivid and real image of the WWs actively resurrecting the dead somewhere very far from the Wall.

The less present, vivid, and real an ignored alternative solution is in the viewer's mind, the less severe of a plot hole it is - and in this case, not very present or vivid, hence not as severe.

However, dialogue still could've and should've been included to cover those bases as well - preferably not just dialogue but also attempts at doing something else first, but, you know.
Things that could've happened:
a1) characters starting to question whether spontaneous reanimation is even real - the wildlings gradually coming to the realization that no, they've never actually seen it happening; it's always been evil dead returning from some creepy place, like Bruni
a2) Tormund etc. confirming that yes, happened all the time - some little man tried to put a sword through his heart; dropped dead, then just rose up again and tried again. Now buried in the woods in several places.
They just so happen to have fresh corpses - or they dig up some from the south. Put them on the other side - not working.
They start wondering if maybe the NK changed the rules that day and now it doesn't work anymore.
Decide they can't all just sit around and wait - leave one group behind just in case, the main one embarks on the journey.

So then you'd have a virtually identical adventure, except that:
-the ignored issues would now be covered, which makes it better
-if they were covered in ways that don't have their own plot holes, even better!


Same episode; same stakes; same everything - only difference is, an easier alternative route they could've taken has been addressed; an alternative route that WASN'T at the mental forefront at the time, hence its negative impact on the premise was limited.

Maybe you're not aware of how many stupidities there are in the entire plot. I'll try to cover just the big ones. First, in previous season Jon was desperate to remove Ramsay because you can't fight WW with Ramsay behind your back, but now all of a sudden he wants to reason with Cersei, who, as Sansa keeps reminding him (although nobody should remind him because he'd have to know it), is as psychotic as Ramsay. His reason is that "we have no time", but no timeline of the WW invasion was ever established, not even remotely, by anyone in the show. Second, for some reason Dany wants to win the throne without killing anyone. Actually, it's even worse: she doesn't mind killing a bunch of people (as you do in a war), but Tyrion and Varys are somehow able to persuade her to fight a bloodless war, even though all of their bloodless (the term is not to be taken literally) plans eventually fail, both in Meereen and in Westeros. Third, after Dany destroyed large part of their army Lannisters are in a desperate position to the point that Jaime wants to sue for peace and Cersei has no sane alternative (even though she doesn't want to sue for peace) - but Dany, Tyrion, Varys, Jon and Davos don't realize any of that and still think that they need to somehow convince Cersei to stop fighting?

That was all before the plan itself. And about the plan, it's been debated to death and even you admit that it's full of plotholes so no need to go there, I hope.

So how are those percentages of yours holding up? Is it still in the 80s?

Listen, what you're doing this entire discussion is just trying to prove that there's no reason to dismiss everything about the show. But nobody said there is. I certainly didn't say it, you just misinterpreted what I said, and that is that the logic mustn't be broken. It's just common sense. If I wrote pure nonsense in the first sentence of my post, you probably wouldn't even read the rest. Same thing with storytelling: if a show makes a logical failure in the first episode, it's hard to take it seriously later on, even if you enjoy the spectacle.

I'm not even sure what's there to enjoy in GOT even if one doesn't mind logical failures. You say individual scenes in WF were good, but I don't know what's so good about them, unless "not being awful and ridiculous and unwatchable" somehow qualifies for "good" now. In one of those scenes Sansa finds Arya's bag full of faces, but the bag remains unexplained to both Sansa and viewers. That's sloppy at best. None of the scenes is remarkably good, even if they're not atrocious.

This story is (supposed to be) both plot-driven and character-driven. And yet D&D make constant leaps in logic which damage the plot, and constant inconsistencies with characters' psychology which ruin the characters. I really am struggling to see what is so good about this show.

[StepStark]

@Pink Fat Rast

I just want to add something important: sorry if some of my comments seem rude. It's not my intention, but because of my English. I just went through my posts and some comments really can look like ad hominem attacks. Instead of editing them, here I am saying that I apologize for anything that might've looked like ad hominem attack on you, and that it wasn't intentionally written like that.

Yes, we disagree over everything, and our disagreement is fundamental, and neither of us probably won't change the other one's opinion, but that's not a reason to start insulting each other. I appreciate your tone and I hope that you didn't have problems with mine.

[Pink Fat Rast]

54 minutes ago, StepStark said:

@Pink Fat Rast

I just want to add something important: sorry if some of my comments seem rude. It's not my intention, but because of my English. I just went through my posts and some comments really can look like ad hominem attacks. Instead of editing them, here I am saying that I apologize for anything that might've looked like ad hominem attack on you, and that it wasn't intentionally written like that.

Yes, we disagree over everything, and our disagreement is fundamental, and neither of us probably won't change the other one's opinion, but that's not a reason to start insulting each other. I appreciate your tone and I hope that you didn't have problems with mine.

Lol I didn't notice anything, but I don't have any problems with being insulted - thing is, on this board, I'd have to wear it like a badge of honour either way or else

[Pink Fat Rast]

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

Again, you're speaking of percentages. But saying that I'm the one with "mathematical approach"? LOL!

Ebert rated movies like 2/4 stars or 3/4 stars, as do most critics - are you sayiing they treated movies like math too?

It's not about "precise" numbers and percentages - it's about the fact that in math and science etc., the "if there's an error throw the whole thing in the garbage" approach makes sense in some situations, while in film criticism it doesn't really make sense.
 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

You obviously don't know what logic means in storytelling. FYI, it's there since Ancient Greeks. To create a dramatic work of art, you must have a plot. If the plot isn't logical then you have a very big problem.

_______

Look like you don't even know what internal logic actually means. I even mentioned it specifically, but you obviously missed it. Maybe you were too busy replying to my comments to actually read them.

Okay, once again: a story must have it's own logic, which can be unique (different from our reality), or borrowed (from our reality). Either way, it mustn't be broken, or if it is, then the break has to be addressed and treated with seriousness (because maybe the break in logic was the main point of the story). But to quote Aristotle: if the author wants it that way, horses in his story can have eight legs, but then they all must have eight legs. After all, that's why dragons in GOT have only two legs and not four. GRRM fought for that, because biologically you can't have four legs AND wings.

I wasn't talking about "internal logic" - read again.






 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

He was angry at Tywin for wanting to kill him, but then when he's unexpectedly set free - he's abandoning his escape to confront that same Tywin who (in Tyrion's mind) is orchestrating his execution? That sounds logical to you? "Now that I'm finally on my way to escape the death sentence Tywin was setting for me, I'm gonna go to his chamber to have a few words with him and then... then... then I'm gonna..." WHAT EXACTLY? Was he expecting that Tywin is just gonna let him go? LOL!

Oh, I guess I was just talking under the assumption that he always was gonna kill him.

Wasn't that how it was in the book version? Was Tywin gonna let him go - and was Tyrion gonna not shoot him if he hadn't said wherever whores go?

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

Or are you going to say that he didn't think it through and just reacted emotionally? Because that's the most convenient excuse for literally anything,

Not if human irrationality is an important element of your story - and especially not if the particular kind of irrationality is established and makes sense as a character trait.

However in this case, if he was always gonna kill him it's not even that irrational.

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

but this is Tyrion, probably the most reasonable person in the entire story (until D&D overtook the story in later seasons) and someone who wouldn't risk his life, especially now that he's miraculously escaping death once again, to pursue... what exactly? An apology from Tywin? LOL!

He acted emotionally and irrationally when he "threw his life away he threw it away" at the trial - as pointed out by Jaime, and admitted by Tyrion.
Jaime specifically even said "thought you were a pragmatist(?) - thought you wouldn't lose your life for pride" and all Tyrion has to say in response is "at least it felt really good didn't it".

Making himself look suspicious with the cup there, also wasn't very smart but that's obviously much more excusable.

 

 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

With a "small" difference that in S1 those who were asking the Crown for help weren't engaged in an all-out war with the Crown. And the Crown wasn't a well-known psychopath known as Cersei,

That was in 1.10, Joffrey had just needlessly beheaded Eddard and the North was declaring war on him.

Jon and Jeor both knew Joffrey was a cunt by that point.

Cersei's never been a psychopath on the level of Joffrey, or been considered to be that by anyone - or well, at least Carol hasn't but that's who we're talking about here anyway.

I'm pretty sure Jon wasn't at war with the South at that point - Daenerys was, and Jon hadn't bent his knee yet.
(Although the plot did have some confusion with KL sending a Lannister army after the Boltons - however, Roose's warnings didn't really come true and I don't think they ever said what KL was gonna do once the Boltons were defeated by the Starks/NW; or maybe I forgot something?)

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

Maybe you're not aware of how many stupidities there are in the entire plot. I'll try to cover just the big ones. First, in previous season Jon was desperate to remove Ramsay because you can't fight WW with Ramsay behind your back, but now all of a sudden he wants to reason with Cersei, who, as Sansa keeps reminding him (although nobody should remind him because he'd have to know it), is as psychotic as Ramsay.

Wait, did Sansa remind him that Cersei was psychotic? She was warning him against leaving the North for Dragonstone, and earlier she had warned him about how clever Ramsay was - I don't remember any opportunity for her to warn Jon about Cersei?

At any rate, no; Cersei is nowhere as psychotic and evil as Ramsay or Joffrey - maybe "crazier" in some sense, but nowhere as malevolent; mainly motivated to maintain her power and avenge slights on her own turf.
(UNLESS she's still crazy about killing Sansa for poisoning Joffrey - not sure if she still is or whether that's been brought up at any point, I think that's another thing that's been forgotten about.)

And she hasn't wronged Jon or the Starks to any degree comparable to what those 2 did, so overall much more acceptable as an uneasy ally.

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

His reason is that "we have no time", but no timeline of the WW invasion was ever established, not even remotely, by anyone in the show.

I think it's just generally assumed that they'll "come with Winter" - also they've just witnessed them roll over Hardhome and gaining momentum with ever more corpse soldiers, + as Stannis kept pointing out (and then demonstrated in action), winter itself makes everything more difficult as well.

However I don't know anything about "no time" being a deciding factor in going with the wight hunt plan - it COULD'VE been a factor if they were juggling around the idea of putting some corpses north of the Wall, but obviously that hasn't been addressed

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

Second, for some reason Dany wants to win the throne without killing anyone. Actually, it's even worse: she doesn't mind killing a bunch of people (as you do in a war), but Tyrion and Varys are somehow able to persuade her to fight a bloodless war, even though all of their bloodless (the term is not to be taken literally) plans eventually fail, both in Meereen and in Westeros. 

Not "bloodless", but keeping bloodshed at a necessary minimum / not hurting anyone other than soldiers which might be difficult in an all-out city sack with WMDs and warrior rapists.

Not sure what the problem with that is - there wasn't any reason to expect Westeros to be as stubborn as the Slavers; those were defending their centuries long traditions, which clearly wasn't the case here.
Trying a less aggressive approach made sense?

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

Third, after Dany destroyed large part of their army Lannisters are in a desperate position to the point that Jaime wants to sue for peace and Cersei has no sane alternative (even though she doesn't want to sue for peace) - but Dany, Tyrion, Varys, Jon and Davos don't realize any of that and still think that they need to somehow convince Cersei to stop fighting?

That's definitely the single most relevant plot hole on your list: Daenerys being that much more powerful than Cersei on the one hand, and being concerned over her interfering or taking back won territories on the other.

That's a murky contradiction that should've been resolved in some piece of dialogue - but, the basic premise of wanting her on board rather than trying to fight them all the time, still makes sense; which makes it easy to imagine said contradiction being easily resolved with some kind of "if she keeps resisting, esp. if somehow strategically adapts to the dragons, it'll cost us 20% of strength - we can't afford to be concerned about that all the time" or whatever.

Then: Cersei wasn't the only one they were trying to convince, there were others present in the room - incl. of course Jaime. If she crazily decides to ignore the zombie army, chances are others won't (and, surprise, Jaime doesn't).

 

 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

That was all before the plan itself. And about the plan, it's been debated to death and even you admit that it's full of plotholes so no need to go there, I hope.

Yes, but plot holes can be compensated (to an extent) by other justifications:

1) The questionable political reasons (as you just summed up) all still happen in a context in which there's been a long expectations of the South finally facing the WW threat in some dramatic fashion - most probably by being warned about it beforehand, ignoring and then getting rolled over, or being warned, convinced and then adapting their behavior; 
probably at some point in the story where the invasion/Winter is about to become real.

So now comes the dramatically satisfying pay-off to that - with roughly half the logic in tact, and the other half leaving things to be desired.

2) The questionabl tactic (of not letting corpses come to life spontaneously right outside the door) is in line with the mental image that's been drawn by confirmed, shown fact vs. an it-is-known assumption.

3) The local plot holes in the actual quest - same story.
 

This story is (supposed to be) both plot-driven and character-driven. And yet D&D make constant leaps in logic which damage the plot, and constant inconsistencies with characters' psychology which ruin the characters. I really am struggling to see what is so good about this show.

Yes, "this" story; a lot of other stories aren't exclusively driven by consistent in-universe rules - often structure is the main determining factor of what's going to happen.
Those can still be done well or done badly, depending on other criteria.


The thing is, if GoT starts turning into that kind of storytelling, or starts showing elements of it here and there, I've no problem with switching gears - and most movie/TV critics out there who don't only review "this is our grounded realistic response to all your trope fantasy fare" films, are doing just that when they give high ratings to all these R&R-condemned episodes.

And then all the angry "well you're just fanboys / bribed / hypnotized by pretty colors like 5 year olds" justifications they come up with, well, they don't raelly capture the reality there do they.

 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

So how are those percentages of yours holding up? Is it still in the 80s?

Listen, what you're doing this entire discussion is just trying to prove that there's no reason to dismiss everything about the show. But nobody said there is. I certainly didn't say it, you just misinterpreted what I said, and that is that the logic mustn't be broken. It's just common sense.

Well, you said that "logic was the main factor", and that "if the logic has chinks in it you can throw the whole thing in the garbage" - and then you wondered whether a more nuanced, accurate approach was "even useful".

Maybe you've got some cognitive dissonance going there and only half your brain disagrees with me, I'm not really sure at this point

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

If I wrote pure nonsense in the first sentence of my post, you probably wouldn't even read the rest. Same thing with storytelling: if a show makes a logical failure in the first episode, it's hard to take it seriously later on, even if you enjoy the spectacle.

That depends on lots of factors - however the main one is that if I wanted to actually assess the quality of your post, give it a rating of sorts, then no I couldn't pull that kind of move.

And when it comes to "discarding a show right off the bat", well there can be all sorts of reasons for that, not just plot holes - someone could entirely go "fuck HoC because of Kevin Spacey", and then go watch Voyager and have no problem with the entire premise being based off a plot hole; at least not too much of a problem - reasonable reaction

 

 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

I'm not even sure what's there to enjoy in GOT even if one doesn't mind logical failures.

Well the "spectacle" that you mentioned would be one aspect ouf ot several - however you're already aware of one, so this new sentence makes no sense

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

You say individual scenes in WF were good, but I don't know what's so good about them, unless "not being awful and ridiculous and unwatchable" somehow qualifies for "good" now.

I didn't say "they were good because they weren't atrocious" - I said "they were good while I was expecting atrocious"; 
in an alternate universe where the execution had been worse, I could've entirely said "they were quite atrocious, but I was expecting even more atrocious".

 

 

 

3 hours ago, StepStark said:

In one of those scenes Sansa finds Arya's bag full of faces, but the bag remains unexplained to both Sansa and viewers. That's sloppy at best. None of the scenes is remarkably good, even if they're not atrocious.

She does explain it to Sansa, and the viewers already know - no clue what you're talking about here;
but case in point, it's a very well done creepy threat -> fake-out scene, even though it makes no sense - or, rather, it's confusing what's going on Arya's head there, and never cleared up.


This is btw a good point to bring up what essentially amounts to a good piece of advice to aspiring hack writers: if you add:
1) mystery, ambiguity and/or twists to your storyline, and_
2) make it all convincing and believable with the acting and dialogue quality etc.,
you can get away with a lot more poorly thought-out nonsense and still keep your viewers or readers on board.

Just how it is; idealists might not like it, but oh well. 

[StepStark]

2 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Ebert rated movies like 2/4 stars or 3/4 stars, as do most critics - are you sayiing they treated movies like math too?

It's not about "precise" numbers and percentages - it's about the fact that in math and science etc., the "if there's an error throw the whole thing in the garbage" approach makes sense in some situations, while in film criticism it doesn't really make sense.

Again, you're putting word in my mouth. I wasn't talking about what film critics, but about storytelling logic. More than once I said that "one chink in the armor" (as you phrased it) applies only to storytelling logic, but not to dialogue or characterization for example. You're also implying that I said that there are no nuances in bad, which is again not true. I never said anything to that effect. I did say "Story that doesn't have or doesn't follow its own logic cannot be approached in reasonable manner", where by reasonable I meant rational, or better yet intellectually measurable. I think it's pretty obvious from the rest of that post that I wasn't saying that illogical stories can't be analyzed intellectually or artistically, although I did say that, in my opinion, a story can't be really good if the author disregarded the logic of it. For me, that's what separates storytelling from poetry. While aesthetics can be analyzed, they cannot be evaluated as accurately as logic. If you prefer Benioff to Shakespeare (and at this point I'm not sure you don't), I can't "prove" it's wrong. After all, there are people who actually liked "bad pussy" line, and who's to say that they're wrong. It sounds absurd, but it actually isn't. But logic can be "measured" (for lack of better word), because something is or isn't logical.

What I said, and stand by it still, is that if the logic is broken on one place, it doesn't really matter if it wasn't broken on ten other places. That is "less true" (see, nuance) for stories that aren't plot driven, but on the other hand, stories that aren't plot driven are usually bad, even if they become overrated because of some other possible quality they possess. Again, if you want to wrote plot-less art, write poetry, especially since it doesn't have to rhyme any more. For something to be storytelling, actual story has to be told, and story must have a plot. So basically that's why I'm putting such an emphasis on logic. That is the one defining thing in storytelling and that is also maybe the only thing in storytelling that can be evaluated strictly objectively.

Did I need to explain myself with so many words? Probably yes, because my lame English combined with your anti-holistic approach to replying could've created some confusion.

About your approach to the show I can't say that it's wrong, because it's obviously based on your personal joy in watching it. And you're defending it much better than many others. But what is absolutely true is that your approach isn't objective at all. It is "objective" for everyone who shares your general taste and love for GOT, but while there are millions of you it still isn't an objective argument for the quality of the show because of course popularity isn't always the same as quality. Popularity of the books is much more objective if we compare those two, because it wasn't associated with any kind of hype and media buzz as the show's popularity undoubtedly is, but that too doesn't mean the popularity of the books is an objective proof of their quality (because, for example, ASOIAF could've been riding on the wave of LOTR sensation, as some fantasy books definitely did).

I'm not saying that you hid behind popularity of the show. In fact you didn't and that's one of the reasons I said that you defend the show much better than many others. But arguments that you are offering usually come down to your personal enjoyment. For example, you say that many scenes in WF could've been written worse. Well, it's true, anything can be even worse, but it doesn't make them good, right? And if your best explanation to some characters actions is that "he acted irrationally because sometimes people are irrational", well, that doesn't sound so good for the storytelling quality of GOT, believe me.

[Pink Fat Rast]

Too much philosophayy for mayyyy lmao

I don't think getting lost in all this abstract principle talk is really productive, especially now that it's starting to go in circles;
concrete discussion of the show material is ultimately where it's at, and your reply has left out all those bits so far.

If the topic gets back to specifics, I'll probably respond to this post in that context.

[StepStark]

1 hour ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Too much philosophayy for mayyyy lmao

I don't think getting lost in all this abstract principle talk is really productive, especially now that it's starting to go in circles;
concrete discussion of the show material is ultimately where it's at, and your reply has left out all those bits so far.

If the topic gets back to specifics, I'll probably respond to this post in that context.

How can we discuss specifics, if you have problem with some basic facts? For example, you say that Tyrion went in Tywin's chamber with intention to kill him, but it wasn't filmed like that. It wasn't like that even in the book, there Tyrion just lost it after he was told about Tysha and couldn't leave KL without having a word with Tywin about that. Once he found Shae there his anger only grew and he eventually shot Tywin. So yes, characters can act irrationally, but there has to be some cause, some catalyst for them to snap. That's what happened on trial: Shae testified and Tyrion snapped. That's different from the books but it's not bad writing, because his snapping is given reason for. But he has no reason to snap after Jaime releases him, and he actually doesn't. He loses it only after he kills Shae. That's how the scene was written, staged and acted. So why did he abandon the escape and went into Tywin's chamber? It's anyone's guess, as it's often the case with bad writing.

And take a look at your reply to my comments about wight hunt. Because yes, Jon doesn't have reason to think that Cersei is as insane as Ramsay (though she's not really far from him to be honest), but he is in open rebellion against KL. He is the King in the North, and his predecessor was brutally betrayed and killed precisely for holding that title and effectively rebelling against KL. But he just doesn't think about it, because D&D's plot requires from him not to think about Cerei until episode 5.

And please, how can Dany+Tyrion+Varys's strange idea to win the war with minimal casualties be anything other than pure plot convenience? Instead of attacking KL, they're attacking Casterly Rock? Where is the sense in that? And then, on top of everything, Lannisters just abandon CR, as if it was just a burden anyway! So which one is it? Is Casterly Rock the seat of Lannister power as Tyrion thinks, or is it just a relatively unimportant piece of real estate? How come that no army in real history ever did anything like that? And before you say it, no, Russians abandoning Moscow to Napoleon is not even similar.

What is the deal with Tyrion's sudden pacifism anyway? It's bizarre, to say the least. They don't have to sack King's Landing, they just have to take it from Lannisters. Stannis wasn't intending to sack King's Landing either, he was trying to capture is. What's wrong with that? How is that not an option in medieval warfare?

[Meera of Tarth]

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Wait, did Sansa remind him that Cersei was psychotic? She was warning him against leaving the North for Dragonstone, and earlier she had warned him about how clever Ramsay was - I don't remember any opportunity for her to warn Jon about Cersei?

At any rate, no; Cersei is nowhere as psychotic and evil as Ramsay or Joffrey - maybe "crazier" in some sense, but nowhere as malevolent; mainly motivated to maintain her power and avenge slights on her own turf.
(UNLESS she's still crazy about killing Sansa for poisoning Joffrey - not sure if she still is or whether that's been brought up at any point, I think that's another thing that's been forgotten about.)

With the wight hunt the main problem I see is that they completey underestimate Cersei. It's not about how malevolent she is, or psychothic, it's about the fact that even Hot Pie knows that she blew up the Sept of Baelor, burning the Queen, Hand of the King (and uncle) and the nobility there, but we have to believe that Jon, Dany and Tyrion just think that a person who did that will just want to cooperate with them and the wight hunt (with all the risks, etc) is worth it? Not to mention that Cersei hates Tyrion.....

[Tagganaro]

On 2/10/2018 at 6:41 PM, Pink Fat Rast said:

Can I just ask what you mean by it being "rushed"? I've seen various people say that, but imo the show's always been "rushed" and had problems with pacing - too few scenes per storyline, always jumping around back&forth between different locations, often without much grace or regard for structure/rhythm/etc., like spearing a pig; not always, but a lot of the times.

So you can only really compare it to the other 1 location episodes, and (to its detriment) 7.6 wasn't really purely that - kept cutting to WF which sucked.


So the question is, in what way does that episode stand out in the series as "rushed"?

I mean, I think Season 7 in general was far more "rushed" than other AGOT seasons, but I felt like 7.6 was particularly rushed.  By that I primarily mean timeline -wise.  I think the director pretty much admitted afterwards that the timeline was a bit of a mess- you got all these things happening in a very short period of time and it doesn't really hold up to the slightest bit of logic.  I'm usually not one to complain about characters transporting across Westeros in Season 7, but this episode took that to a new level.  Gendry's run through sending out the raven from Castle Black to Dany receiving that raven to Dany getting dressed in her winter ensemble to Dany's dragon ride...it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense as a timeline.  You'd think at a minimum that entire process would take several days (I'd say 4 or 5 is the absolute minimum).  However the episode undermines that by basically telling us Jon and co. spent a night on that frozen lake (IIRC even the director said afterwards that Jon and co. were supposed to have spent one night on the frozen lake).  I've said this before as well, but it really bothers me even more that the show unnecessarily created this issue in the first place for no apparent reason...I mean maybe they wanted to spotlight that Gendry was a really fast runner for some reason , but if you just cut out Gendry's run, cut out the raven thing, and have Dany decide after Jon leaves to go after him then it makes much more sense.

Even outside of the ridiculous timeline issues with the battle, I'd argue that the entire episode was also rushed.  My favorite scenes of the episode were the great dialogue between "the Magnificent 7", wish we saw a lot more of it.

But yeah, I do agree that of all the problems with episode 7.6, it being "rushed" is the least of the issues as far as nonsensical writing go.  

[the Greenleif Stark]

I think it's obvious....the show went wrong the moment they hired Dumb & Dumber

We'll be having this same convo in a few years about their crappy Star Wars movies they're gonna do

[Tagganaro]

19 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

With the wight hunt the main problem I see is that they completey underestimate Cersei. It's not about how malevolent she is, or psychothic, it's about the fact that even Hot Pie knows that she blew up the Sept of Baelor, burning the Queen, Hand of the King (and uncle) and the nobility there, but we have to believe that Jon, Dany and Tyrion just think that a person who did that will just want to cooperate with them and the wight hunt (with all the risks, etc) is worth it? Not to mention that Cersei hates Tyrion.....

The whole idea behind the wight hunt is nonsensical to begin with.  Let alone that it involves completely underestimating Cersei which is so out of character for Tyrion that it almost makes you question his motives and whether he's sabotaging Jon and Dany (which btw if the show pulls that off it would be pretty cool, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it based on that weird look Tyrion gave in the final episode as boat sex was happening).

But yeah, let's put aside that it goes completely against Tyrion and Cersei's established relationship to have Tyrion actually think that showing Cersei a wight would change anything.  Let's go to the plan itself- I mean it's so ridiculous it only makes sense again if the NK is a greenseer and set up this dragon trap itself, maybe controlled Jon's mind and planted the idea to begin with .  Jon of all people, who witnessed Hardhome and knows how dangerous the NK and the Others are, his plan is to take 7 people and a few redshirts north of the Wall...and then what?  There is no plan whatsoever, it's just blunder blindly into a force that for all Jon knows numbers in the tens of thousands and hope for a lone wight to venture off on its own.  Then you have no plan similarly to transport the wight back south of the Wall- if it wasn't for Dany saving the day on dragon-back you would have had the Magnificent 7 slowly wandering back south towards the Wall trying to carry a captured wight while presumably being chased by a bunch of pissed off wights and whitewalkers who would know/see that these guys just captured a wight.

And again, like I said before with the timeline issues, this is such a self-inflicted wound.  Why even have this wight hunt?  It's a stupid idea and a stupid plan.  As supposed fans of the books, I thought maybe D & D would go for a "Last Hero" kind of reboot with Jon and the magnificent 7.  They're not venturing north of the Wall to capture a wight, they could be venturing there on some kind of Bran-inspired journey to make contact with a remaining child of the forest...you could make some kind of even mystical macguffin sword that could defeat the Others...or heck, you could have Bran tell Jon about Benjen being there and Jon wants to go save him.  There were so many possible ways to approach getting Jon and co. (and Viserion) north of the Wall that may have been dumb, but not mind-numbingly stupid and lacking any bit of established character logic.

[Angel Eyes]

3 hours ago, Tagganaro said:

The whole idea behind the wight hunt is nonsensical to begin with.  Let alone that it involves completely underestimating Cersei which is so out of character for Tyrion that it almost makes you question his motives and whether he's sabotaging Jon and Dany (which btw if the show pulls that off it would be pretty cool, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it based on that weird look Tyrion gave in the final episode as boat sex was happening).

But yeah, let's put aside that it goes completely against Tyrion and Cersei's established relationship to have Tyrion actually think that showing Cersei a wight would change anything.  Let's go to the plan itself- I mean it's so ridiculous it only makes sense again if the NK is a greenseer and set up this dragon trap itself, maybe controlled Jon's mind and planted the idea to begin with .  Jon of all people, who witnessed Hardhome and knows how dangerous the NK and the Others are, his plan is to take 7 people and a few redshirts north of the Wall...and then what?  There is no plan whatsoever, it's just blunder blindly into a force that for all Jon knows numbers in the tens of thousands and hope for a lone wight to venture off on its own.  Then you have no plan similarly to transport the wight back south of the Wall- if it wasn't for Dany saving the day on dragon-back you would have had the Magnificent 7 slowly wandering back south towards the Wall trying to carry a captured wight while presumably being chased by a bunch of pissed off wights and whitewalkers who would know/see that these guys just captured a wight.

And again, like I said before with the timeline issues, this is such a self-inflicted wound.  Why even have this wight hunt?  It's a stupid idea and a stupid plan.  As supposed fans of the books, I thought maybe D & D would go for a "Last Hero" kind of reboot with Jon and the magnificent 7.  They're not venturing north of the Wall to capture a wight, they could be venturing there on some kind of Bran-inspired journey to make contact with a remaining child of the forest...you could make some kind of even mystical macguffin sword that could defeat the Others...or heck, you could have Bran tell Jon about Benjen being there and Jon wants to go save him.  There were so many possible ways to approach getting Jon and co. (and Viserion) north of the Wall that may have been dumb, but not mind-numbingly stupid and lacking any bit of established character logic.

Mainly, they wanted to give the Night King a blue-eyes wight dragon.

[Meera of Tarth]

3 hours ago, Tagganaro said:

The whole idea behind the wight hunt is nonsensical to begin with.  Let alone that it involves completely underestimating Cersei which is so out of character for Tyrion that it almost makes you question his motives and whether he's sabotaging Jon and Dany (which btw if the show pulls that off it would be pretty cool, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it based on that weird look Tyrion gave in the final episode as boat sex was happening).

But yeah, let's put aside that it goes completely against Tyrion and Cersei's established relationship to have Tyrion actually think that showing Cersei a wight would change anything.  Let's go to the plan itself- I mean it's so ridiculous it only makes sense again if the NK is a greenseer and set up this dragon trap itself, maybe controlled Jon's mind and planted the idea to begin with .  Jon of all people, who witnessed Hardhome and knows how dangerous the NK and the Others are, his plan is to take 7 people and a few redshirts north of the Wall...and then what?  There is no plan whatsoever, it's just blunder blindly into a force that for all Jon knows numbers in the tens of thousands and hope for a lone wight to venture off on its own.  Then you have no plan similarly to transport the wight back south of the Wall- if it wasn't for Dany saving the day on dragon-back you would have had the Magnificent 7 slowly wandering back south towards the Wall trying to carry a captured wight while presumably being chased by a bunch of pissed off wights and whitewalkers who would know/see that these guys just captured a wight.

And again, like I said before with the timeline issues, this is such a self-inflicted wound.  Why even have this wight hunt?  It's a stupid idea and a stupid plan.  As supposed fans of the books, I thought maybe D & D would go for a "Last Hero" kind of reboot with Jon and the magnificent 7.  They're not venturing north of the Wall to capture a wight, they could be venturing there on some kind of Bran-inspired journey to make contact with a remaining child of the forest...you could make some kind of even mystical macguffin sword that could defeat the Others...or heck, you could have Bran tell Jon about Benjen being there and Jon wants to go save him.  There were so many possible ways to approach getting Jon and co. (and Viserion) north of the Wall that may have been dumb, but not mind-numbingly stupid and lacking any bit of established character logic.

exactly. Nothing from that plot makes sense at all that we even come up with better kdeas with no effort.

let's not forget that Jon destroys the ultimate purpose of his plan in the dragonpit when Cersei asks for some concessions but he says that he is in love with Dany....

[Angel Eyes]

Don't know how he went from being at cross-purposes with Daenerys, to bending the knee after her loss, to incest.

[jcmontea]

3 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Don't know how he went from being at cross-purposes with Daenerys, to bending the knee after her loss, to incest.

How he ended up at the incest was really mind boggling. 

Crazy that someone would fall for a super attractive super accomplished woman. 

[Angel Eyes]

4 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

How he ended up at the incest was really mind boggling. 

Crazy that someone would fall for a super attractive super accomplished woman. 

Well, for me it’s the timing. But hey, that’s with everything in this season, is it not?

[dbunting]

The show didn't go wrong. People and their expectations of how the show should be, how the writing should be, how their favorite character should be, is what went wrong. The show is what it is going to be. 90% of the people here have unrealistic expectations and want everything to fall in line with what they want to see, not what the show is going to be, if that makes sense. People have had decades to read and reread and disect and analyze this material to the point that everyone is an expert and everyone knows how each character should act, who they should like etc etc. Yes there are stupid parts, I mean pretty much anything Dorne related was bad.

When you talk to most show only fans they like where it has gone and can't wait to see S8. It's people like us who read the books, read the theories, made up our own theories, we are whats wrong. The last episode had ratings 36% higher than S6 finale, which I believe was the previous record. So again, the show isn't whats wrong.

[StepStark]

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

People and their expectations of how the show should be, how the writing should be, how their favorite character should be, is what went wrong. The show is what it is going to be. 90% of the people here have unrealistic expectations and want everything to fall in line with what they want to see, not what the show is going to be, if that makes sense.

No, what you're saying doesn't make any sense. People didn't have "unrealistic expectations", they had ASOIAF books, which are the source material for the show. People didn't have "what they want to see", but they had what is written in ASOIAF books. For example, people didn't expect truth about Tysha to be revealed to Tyrion by Jaime because that's "what they want to see", but because it's written like that in ASOIAF. It didn't happen on screen, but that is only half of the problem. The other half is that it wasn't replaced by something that compensates for that omission. It wasn't replaced with anything actually and because of that the scene doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it even if you're a show only watcher.

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

People have had decades to read and reread and disect and analyze this material to the point that everyone is an expert and everyone knows how each character should act, who they should like etc etc.

Yes, that is the nature of popular and complex literature, it is debated over and over again and people get attached personally to it. But that is precisely why adaptations exist: because adaptation don't start from zero, but they start with the audience someone else (the original author) built for them. And in all those debates people in many cases come to some sort of consensus. And those consensuses are especially strong if they were debated over and over again over a long period of time, as it happens to be the case with most topics about ASOIAF. And any adaptation that not only ignores those consensuses but even goes against them more often than not, is certainly going to be controversial. And if adapters respond to those controversies by saying "Well to us that makes sense because we wanted it to happen and if you have a problem with that you just had unrealistic expectations and you don't know the pressure we had to deal with and you should be grateful to us for the fact that the show even exists", well no shit that people are going to be disappointed by both adaptation and adapters.

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

When you talk to most show only fans they like where it has gone and can't wait to see S8. It's people like us who read the books, read the theories, made up our own theories, we are whats wrong. The last episode had ratings 36% higher than S6 finale, which I believe was the previous record. So again, the show isn't whats wrong.

If numbers are the only important thing, as you obviously think, then honestly why do you even bother posting here and arguing with our "unrealistic expectations"? It's an honest question. Nothing we post here will change the fact that S7 finale had 36% higher ratings than S6 finale, which is what you only care about. So really, what is your motivation to even engage in this debate? This isn't debate about numbers. Nobody here is saying that something's wrong with the show because of numbers, but despite the numbers. But if you post here because you don't think that only numbers matter and that the show deserves to be analyzed and debated, then stop with the numbers game please.

[Cas Stark]

4 hours ago, dbunting said:

The show didn't go wrong. People and their expectations of how the show should be, how the writing should be, how their favorite character should be, is what went wrong. The show is what it is going to be. 90% of the people here have unrealistic expectations and want everything to fall in line with what they want to see, not what the show is going to be, if that makes sense. People have had decades to read and reread and disect and analyze this material to the point that everyone is an expert and everyone knows how each character should act, who they should like etc etc. Yes there are stupid parts, I mean pretty much anything Dorne related was bad.

When you talk to most show only fans they like where it has gone and can't wait to see S8. It's people like us who read the books, read the theories, made up our own theories, we are whats wrong. The last episode had ratings 36% higher than S6 finale, which I believe was the previous record. So again, the show isn't whats wrong.

We already know that the majority of show only fans are casual viewers who rarely pay attention to plot logic.  The fact that your audience doesn't care about plot logic does not make the plot logical, though.  

[Tagganaro]

5 hours ago, dbunting said:

The show didn't go wrong. People and their expectations of how the show should be, how the writing should be, how their favorite character should be, is what went wrong. The show is what it is going to be. 90% of the people here have unrealistic expectations and want everything to fall in line with what they want to see, not what the show is going to be, if that makes sense. People have had decades to read and reread and disect and analyze this material to the point that everyone is an expert and everyone knows how each character should act, who they should like etc etc. Yes there are stupid parts, I mean pretty much anything Dorne related was bad.

When you talk to most show only fans they like where it has gone and can't wait to see S8. It's people like us who read the books, read the theories, made up our own theories, we are whats wrong. The last episode had ratings 36% higher than S6 finale, which I believe was the previous record. So again, the show isn't whats wrong.

I can respect this.  For the record, I don't think Season 7 was bad overall, there were a lot of great episodes that I really enjoyed.  Having said that, I still stand by my criticisms of 7.6, which I think is quite possibly the worst episode of the show all time.  Nothing about it makes any sense or stands up to any kind of logical scrutiny.