dbunting

23 minutes ago, watcher of the night said:

Let's be honest most people are rather simple minded when it comes to high ratings: they want ice zombies, dragons, giants and some badass action scenes and D&D serves them well. This episode is the prime example: many people vote 10 because of the "badass" fights and action scenes and dragons, etc. If heaven forbid someone dares to criticise the writing they come back with the excuse that "OMG a show with ice zombies, dragons, giants and swordfight you worry about X or Y!!! OMG!" So this tells more about the taste of the average viewer and the fact that D&D knows how to cater to this need, rather about the "quality" of the show. 

And again here goes the easy argument, people are dumb who flock to this show, slow witted, simple minded. I mean, if they don't agree with me they must be dumb....  great argument.

The last two books dragged ass and quite frankly. Dance was a little better but over all they were jumbled up and had tons of filler chapters. But since GRRM wrote it, and people read it versus seeing it on t.v. that makes it better.

The show can never and should never go into the great details that the books did, it would be boring as piss if they did.

BTW, same statement can be said of the books, OMG a book about dragons, dead walking things and Direwolves oh my!..Doesn't mean the quality of the books haven't dropped off since book 3.

44 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

I wonder if that article is just HBO hyperbole - I'd need to see the statistics to back that up considering all the really popular shows over the years, not to mention that some older shows (like Cheers & M*A*S*H) pulled in far greater viewing figures than GoT has done.

There is no doubt that GoT is popular - no-one is disputing that - but popularity does not necessarily equate with quality.  It is the decline in quality for the sake of spectacle and cock jokes that so many of us find objectionable.

You can't compare any show that was on that long ago to any current show. Back when MASH was on you had like 3 channels to choose from, that's it. Current shows should only be compared to other shows in the last decade or so, no other comparison ratings wise is remotely fair.

And again, something that continually gets more popular must mean something. And lets be honest, the books had just as much sex and violence, no one can contest that.

2 minutes ago, Eddy1 said:

That's one of the reasons why the show is still popular, despite it's decline in quality. People like to watch what their friends are watching, so they have something to talk about. 

But, when people are just band wagon jumping, they are not passionate. This is passion for something. I was at a bon fire last Saturday with another group of people and as soon as someone brought it up their eyes lit up and they got into the conversation. There is a big difference in liking something and being passionate about it.

And BTW, coming to something late and joining in doesn't just mean watching because others are. I came to Breaking Bad just before the final season, and I was hooked.

Article out today or yesterday about Game of Thrones. HBO has stated this is it's only series ever that has gone this long and increased in ratings every year. There is something to be said about that. How can you have such prolonged success, getting more and more popular every season if you suck? Your writing sucks, your every decision sucks.

Despite what some people think, people are still tuning in, enjoying, and recommending this show to others, who in turn do the same. Last night I went to a concert and on the drive the one thing that perked up people the most was when we talked about the show. And these friends haven't read the books. I still maintain that the majority of people on here who complain about the show wouldn't be doing so if they hadn't read the books over the course of 20 years and have this built up expectations and such that the show, no matter who was doing it couldn't meet. Especially since the show has passed the books.

Everyone has an opinion and can use any logic they choose to justify their opinion, as I did just now regarding the ratings.

So, let me see if I get this right. The episodes that have no tits or gore and focus on people are lambasted for poor writing and being slow. The episodes with tits and dicks and dick jokes are bitched about being exploitive and low brow. The episodes with action and gore and criticized for being violent and OMG the hero didn't die in the battle and not focused on people or politics.

So basically, the show should just consist of the opening credits and then pages from the books shown on screen?

To be fair, every episode is called poor writing, lazy writing, not true to the books, cheap, no budget, no wolves, no dragons, oh wait dragons but I wanted wolves this time, flashy lights, people who like it have no taste, just watch for the tits and dragons, wouldn't understand good writing if they saw it...

2 hours ago, Eddy1 said:

I'm looking for a show that's both gripping and makes sense, like GoT in the early series. If GoT had started like it is now, it would have been cancelled long ago.

And yet it's ratings are at an all time high? Don't know if I agree with this or not. I have about 10 people I know who are just show watchers and they are absolutely loving this season. Don't get me wrong, the two episodes before this were clunky, but as a whole they are pumped. 

10 minutes ago, Daske said:

Probably the most enjoyable hour of television I've experienced in 40 years!

 

Have to agree, best scripted hour I have seen in a long time. I have watched it twice and probably will watch it once more this week leading into the finale. I have talked to a lot of people who watched it and not a single person was anything but amazed with the episode.

One thing I liked a lot surprised me, it was the horses and them charging and the way they were shown in the battle. And the shot of the headless horseman riding by, then getting hit by Wun Wun.

23 minutes ago, Darkstream said:

when did I ever criticize anyone at all? Maybe you should actually read my posts before you start making false accusations towards me.

You might also want to follow your own advise that you give to other people, and ignore the posts that upset you to the point that you are rude to other people for the simple fact that they have a differing opinion then you.

Yep, I think I was referring to the wrong person, was getting a lot of quotes at the same time, I honestly apologize.

I am referring to people who week in and week out criticize and question me and others for liking the show and try to show us how bad it is and why we are sheep or something similar for liking it. My bad habit is I get sucked in to debates on Monday and Tuesday before I remember it doesn't really matter.

The worst thing for me is that I only have one more episode this year to enjoy. 

12 minutes ago, King Louis II (KLII) said:

Everybody is entitled to their opinion and we should respect it.  However I think that a good sense is to look at the average of the votes. I think it was not by chance that "No One" received the worst scores of the season (I made the averages for all episodes) with an average of 5.4 (total votes 443 when I calculated). "Battle of the Bastards will be higher than 8, and will be easily the one that received the best scores. Again, not chance.

 

By the way those were the averages from episode 1 to 8:

5.6

7.4

6.2

7.3

7.8

6.6

6.7

5.4

Well I guess that I am the average viewer because those votes line up very close to mine. I think if you round up half and round down half of those it matches me week for week.

I am beige

3 minutes ago, Darkstream said:

Well the problem with this argument is that Got is an adaption of my favorite story of all time. If I didn't have a strong emotional connection to the source material, I wouldn't still watch it. In your analogy, broccoli would be my favorite food, it's just that d$d are terrible chefs, and keep ruining something that I do love.

So stop eating their food and stop criticizing people who like their food.

4 minutes ago, David Selig said:

This one didn't deserve 10 either. The WF battle was really well shot and edited, but everything else was terrible.

In your opinion. Not the other 100 plus people who said it does deserve a 10.

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I find a weird level of dissonance in what the show puts on the screen, the actions characters take and the things that are said and what they mean...Northern lords telling the Starks to fuck off, Sansa basically betraying her brothers and supporters...and what the show seems to think it's doing....not gutting the entire history of Stark rule, just keeping it real, showing Sansa as a badass hero who now knows how to play the game.

So, next week, despite that the show has shown Jon is a suicidal and terrible commander, Sansa got a lot of Northerners killed by lying, and is an untrustworthy ally, that it will still somehow work out to be a rah rah Stark moment for everyone.  I can't really process that much white noise to make it work out for me.

But that's what I think is better about the show. When they were asking the northern houses for help, the houses weren't all rah rah Starks. They told them like it was, we followed you and we died. Robb betrayed us, Boltons helped us get our house back etc..

I will have to reserve judgement on how the Sansa Jon thing plays out, not happy with how the show is doing this so far.

1 minute ago, Darkstream said:

I find this line of advise very useful for posters such as yourself as well.

Yes it is, I had given the previous two episodes 6's if I am not mistaken. I have never given a 10 before. Highest previously was a 9 for Hardhome and a 9 for Watchers on the Wall. I am very much a Jon Snow fan so my rankings are influenced by that. He was my favorite from Episode 1 and even more so in the books.

2 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Giving it a 1 is no worse than all the 10 for an episode which seems as if it was written by a bunch of drunk 12 year olds and which half the actors were virtually sleepwalking through their lines.

Now, the people who are giving every episode a 10, then yes it's exactly the same. There were a few clunkers this season for sure and no way they should be 10's.

I guess my mind if just wired differently. I don't like broccoli. I don't like it raw, steamed, with macaroni and cheese, battered and fried or in a salad. So when I eat, I don't eat it. I don't go to every new restaurant to try their broccoli, I know I will not like it. That's how I equate watching a series that I would give consistent 1's to on a rating system. If I know I won't like it, I won't try it.

3 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Yes, because it defies logic. Sansa refused to talk about the Vale troops and got Rickon, almost Jon, and a whole bunch of others killed, needlessly. Yet, she is treated as a hero. Anytime things defy logic, it doesn't deserve better.

People need to look past the actual fight and death and when you do, the logic breaks down quickly.

So one decision means an entire episode sucks? When was she treated like a hero? I saw her ride into Winterfell courtyard. I saw her ask where Ramsey was, and I saw her watch him die. If you mean by fans of her, well of course that's how they see her. Just like her detractors will see it the other way.

As I stated in the post, you will see it your way and I will see it my way, neither of us is wrong, we just don't agree and that is ok. Nothing that is said will change the others view on this subject.

28 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I am & will read it as soon as I get the chance. 

But why watch it if it's so horrible? That's my question. 

Save yourself the trouble, you can never see their point of view, I gave up trying. Some people will rant and rave no matter what, and to them it is valid. 

I mean, can anyone who watched that episode truly give it a 1, 2, 3? Yet there are still the same 20 some odd 1 votes every week. If you let it go and ignore those it makes your experience here much better.

10 minutes ago, Gloer said:

This also stopped my thoughts. Is it yet again sloppy writing by D&D or have I missed something?

LF gave his remains to Catelyn in season 3, there is no reason to believe that she didn't have them shipped north and put in the crypts.

16 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

Can someone explain what was the "alternate approach" that Tyrion suggested? Because Dany talked about killing the maesters, burning their ships, killing their soldiers. Tyrion says "no, no, I have a better plan." So they make a meeting with the three men, despite it's 100% clear from the start that no party would surrender. Then Dany rides Drogon. Grey Worm kills two of the men ("kill the measters"), Dany burns the ships ("burning the ships") and Daario leads the Dothraki at sons of the Harpy ("killing their soldiers"). What exactly about this is the "alternate approach"???

She said she would return the cities to the ashes, meaning total destruction of them(hence Tyrion bringing up the Mad King and wildfire). That would have caused thousands of innocent people to die. This only caused those who were killing to die, the soldiers, ships, and masters. So this is a very different plan.

I gave it a 10, only episode I ever gave a 10 to. I kept trying to think of reasons to give it a 9 and realized that if I had to think that much then it must be a 10. There were a couple minor things I didn't like but that's all. For me, the best episode of the series.

Mereen - loved the action there. Got a huge reminder of the wildfire in KL for Ep10. Dany got more than one reminder of why her father was called the mad king. I liked the fact that there was actual combat and such from Dany's side. Normally it's all just threats and a few deaths, this time it was like, yeah you f'ked up and now you are going to pay for it. Dragon scenes were pretty damn good and Drogon is about twice the size of the others, nice to see them out and in the action.

Sansa - she reminded me of Catelyn at first in the tent scene with Jon. About how she should have been consulted. Things calm down a little and then they talk and she made valid points, don't do what he wants you to do, he is better at this game than you are. She was right, Ramsey sucked Jon right out of his plan and likely caused more of his men to die than would have had he stuck to his plan. I liked the last scene where when Ramsey is getting nibbled on how Sansa starts to leave, then stops and turns back to watch him get ripped apart, then leaves. Like she needed to see it to believe it or because she is supposed to, kind of a nod to Ned.

Tormund - Nice to see he didn't die in battle like I thought he would. I like his character and it wouldn't be the same without him.

WunWun - Well, pretty much as expected, he breaks the Winterfell walls but dies in the process. RIP

Davos - Nice little rallying cry to go get them into the fight. Sad to see him find the stag he gave Shireen in the pyre.

Jon - really disappointed that he fell right into Ramseys trap but you know he had to. There is no way he wouldn't go out there to at least try to save Rickon. The thing he should have done differently would have been to turn back after Rickon died instead of going berserker Jon and rushing an entire army alone. I really liked his battle scenes and I hated the crushing part of it. I have a touch of claustrophobia so when Jon was struggling to breathe I was dying! So glad to see that he didn't die that way. Nice little feeling when he was beating Ramsey to death.

The Battle - I thought it was shot amazingly well. The look was great, the way it showed how horrible combat truly is, blood shit and tears. I don't know how they did those scenes with the horses crashing together, it looked so real I would swear it was. Glad to see Winterfell survived with minimal damage.

Dislikes - No Ghost at all? The expected Knights of the Vale running in at the last minute to save the day, again fully expected.

I am sure there are things that others don't like, but for me and what I like to see, this was a great episode. 

1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Does the same apply to the books?

Thank you. We had hundreds and hundreds of pages of filler material in some of the books. Its just the mature of entertainment in general. I mean, books 4 and 5 had so much filler they were created out of what was supposed to be just book 4.

15 minutes ago, Gargarax said:

However, I don't consider your examples good plot points. I agree Dany winning the Dothraki was a major one, but 1. I saw it coming and 2. I found it poorly motivated. The Dothraki were made to appear as savage rapists with no dignity or decency to make Dany's rather brutal coup seem justified.

This is one of the things that I find so poorly done: introducing bad guys being really, really evil to increase the payoff of their death. It started with the "Fuck'em till they're dead"-Karl at Craster's, continues witn the Mountain butchering prisoners (probably THE most nonsensical scene of the series

 

As to the Dothraki, in the books all anyone knows about them is that if you don't pay them off they kill pillage rape and take slaves. If you do pay off and it's not enough, repeat scenario 1. I see their portrayal in the show to be pretty faithful to the books. And yes, since her last chapter in the book has her being surrounded by them, we all knew she was going to make them a part of her army(other wise why do they exist in the first place), the only question was the how.

As to the bad guys, yeah, they do make the bad guys really really bad. I guess that's so we can see how much worse they are when compared to the other bad guys in the show. That scene with the Mountain was just stupid and needless. Kind of reminds me of The Walking Dead tv series, they have to keep topping the last bad guy with a worse one. At some point it gets comical.

Funny part is that the show seems to magnify all the book issues. Dorne sucks (in my opinion) in the books and really really sucks on the show. Mereen-Mereenese knot sucked and dragged on in the books and still does on the show. Arya and her FM training seemed pointless in the books as no one believed she would ever not be Arya Stark, and we got the poor payoff this week.

I am glad that I wasn't coming off as insulting to you, other people were chiming in as if we weren't being civil and that's annoying.

BTW, I still say best part of this episode was the preview for next week!

45 minutes ago, Gargarax said:

On the contrary, the show does exactly what I expect to happen, which is one thing that makes it such poor storytelling. Everything is predictable. 

So I assume you predicted that Dany would get herself out of the issue with the Dothraki? Not that she would be saved by Jorah and Daario or by Drogon, but that she already had her plan and was ready to do it?

I assume you predicted that Dondarion was still alive and that the BWB were still "somewhat" good guys and that LSH wasn't behind it?

There are times where they get heavy handed with for shadowing, Jaime to Edmure would be one of them, but other times they aren't and that's ok.

This episode probably got my 2nd or 3rd lowest vote of all the ones I have ever given, but there was still plenty about it I found entertaining.

1 hour ago, Modesty Lannister said:

Can you stop ranting and raving about the people who rant and rave. I read the whole thread and there was no one but you.

Who is ranting? I am not YELLING, or insulting people. I actually thought Gargarax and I were having a civilized discussion, with both making valid sane points.

BTW - misinterpretation of emotions is easy when reading something someone else has written in forums like this.

10 minutes ago, Gargarax said:

You can enjoy the show, you can like it, you can love it. That's fair - I like other shows despite (or because) they are silly, but they work for me, although I'd never call them good shows, realising they aren't. But there are pretty clear criteria for good storytelling, and this show simply meets very, very few of them. Compared to most shows I've seen, this one tells its story with incredible incompetence. And being told that this is just because I'm comparing it to the books is pretty annoying and lazy.

See, again I am not saying that. I have been stating over and over that a lot of people who dislike the show do so because the show doesn't fit what they want to happen based on their expectations and find any details they can to rant and rave.

If you can suspend belief for one show, or one trope, then why not another? The show is hugely popular and has a loyal following, so it may not be the story telling you and others are looking for, but apparently others are.

Plenty of mis steps in the show no doubt, anything Dorne related, too many brothel scenes, Arya stabbing and quick recovery, too many times where Dany makes a grandeur stance in front of or surfing on a crowd, etc..  But, in my mind, the great things out weigh the others and I am ok with that.

3 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

So much here. So much to be ashamed of. It is really summed up well in Sansa shaming Jon and telling him that he doesn't understand just how bad Ramsey is. Yes, by all means, tell your brother who has just returned from the dead after being killed by his own men after coming home from being north of the wall where he fought an army of undead and the king of the snow zombies that he has no idea how bad a guy like Ramsey is because he dicked you doggy style on your wedding night......NIghts King? fuck that. This guy liked rough sex.

Referencing what Sansa suffered as rough sex is stupid and short sighted. I am going to choose to think that you are just hoping for some attention. Will not reply to any answer or reply you have to this so don't waste your time trying to explain your comment.

Just now, kd18 said:

A lot of people seem to justify bad writing in the same way you do which is basically "It's a fantasy show so it doesn't have to make sense." Any good story, be it fantasy or not, has to be self-consistent. This doesn't mean that all the laws of our universe have to apply. This means that the fictional universe you create must have some laws of its own which are established relatively early in the story. If they are broken, then it's just bad storytelling. I have no problem with dragons, tree people, wargs and people who can change their faces because the existence of magic and magical creatures was established in the very beginning of the story. Even the revivals are self-consistent in the World of Ice and Fire. 

But when it comes to Arya, she's just a normal human being. She has no magical self-healing skills, therefore her jumping and running when she should be dead without any consistent explanation is simply bad writing and the fact that GoT is a fantasy show is completely irrelevant.  

I think the biggest difference is that I,and others, can just get past it and move on, and others look for items to cling to and hate on.

When you watch a new Superman movie do you find it perfectly credible that no one recognizes Clark Kent as Superman because of his glasses?

Do you think it was perfectly acceptable that Andy DuFrane carried out a short tunnels worth of material from his cell to the yard and no one ever noticed the different colored material on the ground?

Do we all accept it when the hero in a spy movie gets shot and lives but random bad guy gets shot and dies instantly?

Do we accept it when there are a thousand bullets flying at the hero and he is missed and yet he does a jump roll, comes up firing with a pistol and hits his target?

Some things you take note of while watching and shake your head, but then you make your choice. Is this that big of a deal or do I ignore it and watch the rest of what I consider to be a really good show?