Beardy the Wildling

And as I said, if he comes back from the dead and the universe winds up bending 9001 different ways to serve Jon in the books, I'll happily put the books down, say it's jumped the shark, and give up on aSoIaF.

Wun Wun himself requires cg already, that's why I was asking about the budgetary difference between Wun Wun alone and Wun Wun with a log.

Now I'm curious; how much more does it cost to have a giant wielding a log compared to having the giant alone? Did the wight polar bear really break the bank that much?

Except he used a log in Hardhome, Angel Eyes literally mentioned a time Wun Wun used a weapon.

Jon was so preoccupied with fighting with the army he had that he forgot to provision his army. This disdain for provisions is why Lyanna Mormont suggested crowning him King of the North afterwards; she hates knitting and socks too. As far as she sees it, if you can't fight without provisions, you're not a real person.

Aside from his warging, no, I'd say the show's been more favourable. Because implausible writing to favour the survival of a character isn't a DBZ/RPG-like list of powers, but instead how the universe reacts to a character's actions. Jon gets stabbed to death by randomly xenophobic assholes? Melisandre brings him back from the grave, and unlike Beric, this has zero effect on his personality other than a few other characters saying 'he's kind of broody' (protip: If you're using random characters as mouthpieces to desperately indicate a character has trait X, you're doing a bad job of showing trait X). Jon uses his authority as Lord Commander to execute his killers in blatant personal revenge, then conveniently remembers the Night's Watch loophole and claims his watch has ended, then has the gall to claim he's just going to 'get warm' to Edd? No-one bats an eye at this, nor at the fact there's a literal zombie walking around unchecked during a zombie apocalypse (the only one to note this is Edd, once, and it's dropped immediately). Jon makes the moronic decision not to wait for the Cerwyns or accept Sansa's vale help? He 'fights with the army he has', but thankfully, Sansa helped him out anyway, making sure he never suffers consequences. Jon Snow charges into Ramsay Bolton's immaculate trap? He survives due to fate favouring him as being one of the ones that held out until the Vale knights came, despite all the ways he could have got himself killed. Not only that, but despite being the one that nearly got them all killed, and Sansa being the one to save them all, the Northern Lords reward Jon's stupidity by crowning him King in the North. Jon Snow leads an idiotic quest beyond the wall? A dragon dies, but not Jonny Boy (it should also be noted that all but Thoros in the wight hunt had egregious plot armour, given how wights were once hard to kill). Daenerys tries to pick him up, and Jonny makes the idiotic decision to keep fighting, and thus ends up falling into freezing water? Jonny Boy is immune to hypothermia (despite there being no foreshadowing for this mysterious power, unlike, say, his warging in the books) A cold, somehow not hypothermic Jon is surrounded by previously-established-to-be-hard-to-kill zombies? The universe itself bends to his will and it just so happens Benjen-ex-Machina is there. Jon fucks up diplomatic negotiations with a woman not above blowing up her political and religious enemies in a fire and having her undead slave rape a septa? He's somehow not killed on the spot by this ruthless villain (at least this is justified by Drogon being around). So while Book!Jon may have more magical powers, there are plenty of characters in aSoIaF that have magical powers, good and evil (magic is just more common in the bookverse). Euron, an absolute monster, has magic in the books. Victarion, neutral at best, has been bestowed magic. Pyat Pree and his warlocks show that mages in aSoIaF aren't nearly as powerful as one would think, as they were both defeated by Daenerys and enslaved by Euron. What makes the show 'cheat for Jon' isn't what the scouter says about his power level. It's about how many times the universe bails him out of his bad decisions; while Jon has been lucky from time to time in the books, he's never been this consistently rewarded for being a blithering idiot (which, incidentally, he isn't in the books).

These are all fortuitous, admittedly, but semi-plausible within the rules of the universe established. Valyrian super steel is used by all factions, regardless of morality (one of its first uses in-story was by a catspaw trying to kill Bran), and Arya helped out a faceless man before and demonstrated quick wit and a tendency to disguise herself while in front of said faceless man. It makes sense she'd be considered as a candidate. I always got the feeling the Faceless Men started their initiations young, what with needing to brainwash the fuck out of them. As for Bran and his warg powers... yes, I'll admit, this does smack of supar-dupar-chosen-one BS. And if Jon's resurrection in the books is as no-strings-attached as it was in the show, I'll put Winds of Winter the fuck down and admit it's jumped the shark. However, at least with the former, I think we're heading into deconstruction territory; Bran is so important, so magical, yet is also a young child who may as well just be a hyper-powerful pawn in some endgame the mysterious three-eyed-crow isn't saying. Certainly feels like Bran's purpose is headed towards a dark twist rather than the magical heroics route. So while there are facets of tired tropes in the books, for the most part they work to subvert, deconstruct, or twist them in some fashion. But as I said, if Jon comes back and becomes a supar-dupar-undead hero, then fuck it. GRRM's just as terrible at writing as D&D, just a better worldbuilder.

I know he obviously never intended for boatsex, but if he wanted to mine Dragonglass, he could have brought... well, way more than five people. While he's survived ranging past the wall, so has: Dolorous Edd, Sam Tarly, Pipp, Grenn (the list goes on). While it's dangerous, it's not suicidal. Including S6's Battle of the Bastards, almost everything Jon Snow has done has been either physical or political suicide. Why not send an envoy? Literally everyone, even in-universe, was screaming at him. I think the showrunners are going for 'dumb is good' with Jon Snow, ignoring the fact that one of the things Jon Snow was learning before contracting a deadly case of knife-in-gut was shrewd political negotiations... and chiefly, it was when Jon decided 'fuck it, I'm going to prioritise my emotions over my duty' that Bowen Marsh and the likes turned on him (instead of Alliser 'I really hate wildlings so I'll let them through the wall then stab Jon Snow' Thorne stabbing Jon because... Olly's village got sacked, or something). Of course, Jon Snow has got a few free passes in the books, and at times they were... suspiciously fortuitous. However, it's never reached the levels of 'rewarding a character for abysmal stupidity' as Jon's been receiving as of late. There's irritating, but tolerable, and outright egregious. As I put it in another thread: In the books, the writer doesn't cheat to make the good guys win. In the show, the writers cheat to make the bad guys win, unless it's Jon Snow, in which case they cheat to make Jon win. I think this is a major gripe I have with the show. Okay, poor decisions in earlier seasons (like never establishing Jon Snow is improving at politics) will force the writers into a hole and thus they have to make him a blithering idiot, but there are some cases, like the big gay wight polar bear or Jon choosing to not climb on Drogon so deus-ex-Benjen can come in and save him, that I have to wonder. Are D&D deliberately going with the worst possible option to troll viewers? To see how much stupid shit they can get away with before people cotton on? I mean, most people have only just started to cotton on after the wight hunt that maybe the writing in the show has slipped, despite people like me seeing a decline as early as Season 5.

True. I honestly think one of the biggest reasons D&D have just plain stopped giving a fuck is the pressure of churning out the writing in way less than a year without book material.

Can't really argue with that. As I said, I do think a running theme of the books is hope acting as a star among the dark bleakness of a world like Westeros, but I can understand why you'd take that from it.

But that would require D&D to graduate seventh grade and work on those dreaded eighth-grade book reports.

Because, being unintelligent, D&D are lost when attempting to write intelligent characters.

This I agree with. He's set up a world which, just like the real world, proves difficult to do the right thing in. I don't think, however, 'it's hard to do the right thing, but it's worth doing anyway' is a nihilistic viewpoint, and that's the viewpoint embodied in Book!Sansa's arc (and something the showrunners have completely missed). I highly doubt many of these are going to be in the books, or if they are, will be executed as the show did it. For example, the showrunners explicitly said the Septsplosion was their idea in the Inside the Episode, patting themselves on the back for their transparent 'rocks fall, everyone dies' to get rid of intelligent schemers because they have no idea how to write them (hence Littlefinger's idiocy in Season 7). But I agree, the senseless shit like the Umbers suddenly handing Rickon over to Ramsay because they... admire his kinslaying, the Ironborn suddenly being savages who also... really like kinslaying, the Dornish being bloodthirsty, sex-obsessed madwomen who kill anyone who wants peace, etc... yeah, the show is nihilistic as fuck.

Not really. The world was bleak, but there was an undertone of hope and goodness despite it, not to mention, bad guys got fucked over by the bleak, dark world just as often as the heroes. A good way of putting it is the books didn't cheat to make the heroes win. The show cheats to make the bad guys win, except when Jon Snow's involved, in which case it cheats to make Jon Snow win.

He tripped on a bad pussy and broke his neck.