Overview of Forum Ratings

[Veltigar]

I'm sorry breaker of chains wasn't the worst episode of GoT, for me that will always be The Climb

:bowdown: The Climb episode made me foam at the mouth. I absolutely hated it. Season 3 was horseshit, it's the only season where I haven't watched all episodes twice. I think season 4 is way better, eventhough they occasionally fuck up.

[AlienTwo]

:bowdown: The Climb episode made me foam at the mouth. I absolutely hated it. Season 3 was horseshit, it's the only season where I haven't watched all episodes twice. I think season 4 is way better, eventhough they occasionally fuck up.

I'm still on the fence with that they are doing with Bran, the Reeds and Hodor. No, scratch that, I don't like what they are doing with Hodor... poor guy, doesn't need to be tortured or forced to kill a man with his bare hands...

[Veltigar]

I'm still on the fence with that they are doing with Bran, the Reeds and Hodor. No, scratch that, I don't like what they are doing with Hodor... poor guy, doesn't need to be tortured or forced to kill a man with his bare hands...

About that scene, I think this poster has nailed some of what was wrong with that sequence:

Am sorry but the whole "Assault on Craster's Keep" was just poorly written. Look at the whole exchange between Jon and Locke with the "hounds"

Locke "There's a hut on the westside of the keep and we should stay clear of it"

Jon "Why?" (very good question John, why indeed should you stay clear of it)

Locke "They have some hounds chained up inside, the closer we can get without the hounds sniffing us out, the better" (ok fair enough point Locke, being the competent leader Jon is, he would want to minimise the risk to his men, so a nice sneaky approch will be used for the assault"

Assault scene

*The nightwatch charge in like a pack of viking raiders, alerting ever one in Craster's Keep and loses half their men in the process*

*Am face palming the whole time and thinking "why would any one at the nightwatch want Jon as the lord commander, I would rather have Sam's socks in charge than tvs "no nothing Jon Snow"*

*Not to mention after the fighting is done, no one seems to care there is no hounds, no one asks "where are these hounds Locke was talking about?", no one asks crasters wives "where are the hounds in the hut?", craster wives don't say "there no hounds in the hut, just some prisoners, a giant of a man, and three highborn kids one of them being a cripple" Nope, all we get is, "We are going to make our own way Lord Crow, now burn done the keep and let ever whitewalker and wildling in the north see a nice burning fire*

The only thougths I got out of Craster's Keep arc was, "Hmmmm, D&D claim they got to cut characters out the story because of show time restriction, but they are more than happy to dish out 40 minutes or poorly written filler tripe"

[ground_control]

Someone with more mathematical accumen than I is welcome to take the raw data and provide some other ways of normalizing it. I suppose one approach might be to normalize using standard deviation -- people voting 10 are closer to the means of 7-8 we see compared to people voting 1-2, and so perhaps a flat 5% +/- isn't reasonable. But... yeah, more maths required than what I am willing or able to do.

I don't think you could do anything better than you already do -- you show us the raw data and raw average as well as giving us your "normalized" average. The only "problem" is that some people seem to think the numbers mean more than they do. I think that discussions the poll generates are what's really interesting.

[Dirk blitzen]

.

I think anyone who came out of "First of His Name" thinking that any genuine purpose was served by the Craster's storyline beyond marking time is fooling themselves. It's a genuine closed circle. Nothing has changed.

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet, but those who say the craster storyline in ep4 and ep5 had no purpose... You can't actually know that yet. Books do not equal show. Unless you've seen the whole season... You don't know if the storyline will pay off. Just saying

[Daske]

Daske,

Another example would be me, watching the show with a friend and both rate it say a 7 up until Craster's. I hate the added story so pump it down to an 6 (-1). However, my friend loves 'D&D innovation' so he rises it to a 10 (+3) as he is just fed up with it all.

We all can say that most people that disagrees with us overstate their ratings, and therefore the average should be closer to what we believe. However, if we are not able to back it with something it's a moot point.

But I could vote a max of +3 from our average 7, but drop a max of -6. They don't necessarily balance out.

Surely there is a good chance that many people aren't judging the added scenes on an equally fair basis with scenes from the book, whether conciously or subconciously? I know some people will say that the added scenes are worse period, but there's no way to objectively prove that either. But if we are looking for reasons why this season's votes are slightly lower then it must at least be considered as a contributing factor.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Daske

[The hairy bear]

But I could vote a max of +3 from our average 7, but drop a max of -6. They don't necessarily balance out.

That's exactly why Ran gives the normalized average, and that's why this is the figure we should take into account. If you take away the extreme 5% in both sides, at the end it doesn't matter if I drop a -3 or a -6.

As an example, if we take away the 5% of the votes in last episode, we take away 26 votes on each side. That means that we do not consider anyone who voted 1 (3 votes), 2 (6 votes), 3 (6 votes), 4 (8 votes), and part of the 5 voters (3 out of 36). Meanwhile, we also do not consider part of the ones who voted 10 (26 out of 36). At the end, the average is only affected by people who voted between 5 and 10.

Makes perfect sense.

Surely there is a good chance that many people aren't judging the added scenes on an equally fair basis with scenes from the book, whether conciously or subconciously?

Surely. And also, surely, there's people who love the series and (conciously or subconciously) give the highest ratings to every episode ignoring its flaws.

At the end, the average is what it is: a measure of how much an episode satisfies the posters. If there are fans who get pissed because they'd like the story to stick with the books, it should reflect that. If there are fans who are already salivating when they hear the GoT tune, or give extra points for every naked chick onscreen, the rating should reflect that too.

Edited May 9, 2014 by The hairy bear

[Daske]

Sorry, double post.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Daske

[Daske]

That's exactly why Ran gives the normalized average, and that's why this is the figure we should take into account. If you take away the extreme 5% in both sides, at the end it doesn't matter if I drop a -3 or a -6.

As an example, if we take away the 5% of the votes in last episode, we take away 26 votes on each side. That means that we do not consider anyone who voted 1 (3 votes), 2 (6 votes), 3 (6 votes), 4 (8 votes), and part of the 5 voters (3 out of 36). Meanwhile, we also do not consider part of the ones who voted 10 (26 out of 36). At the end, the average is only affected by people who voted between 5 and 10.

Makes perfect sense.

Surely. And also, surely, there's people who love the series and (conciously or subconciously) give the highest ratings to every episode ignoring its flaws.

At the end, the average is what it is: a measure of how much an episode satisfies the posters. If there are fans who get pissed because they'd like the story to stick with the books, it should reflect that. If there are fans who are already salivating when they hear the GoT tune, or give extra points for every naked chick onscreen, the rating should reflect that too.

Yes, I realise cutting off the extremes will help mitigate any such effect. But it could still move the average. We disagree obviously on the degree of how much people may vote each way if extra happy or extra pissed off. And regardless, the things you mention people might vote positively on have been constantly there all through every season. However, the changes have been heaviest this season.

It seems like the votes quantitatively don't quite how match how a lot of people qualitatively have been commenting they favourably compare this season to others (even in this thread). And yes, the plural of anecdote is not data, but it seems likely that there may be other factors at play rather than everyone judging on quality alone equally across all seasons. I suspect that it is indeed down to some fans who don't like any changes voting extra low, but that's just my guess as a possible explanation of why people seem to be liking the season but the votes are averaging lower.

Maybe as you say it should be thought of as voting a level of satisfaction rather than quality as such. Anyway, whatever, it's just numbers.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Daske

[protar]

Season 1 is the highest rated?

I am definitely way out of step with the majority on this site. I understand that it was most faithful adaption, but in nearly every other sense it is significantly weaker than everything that came after it. Less crisp writing, too many actors not fully settled into their roles yet, less impressive set designs and visual effects, etc.

The only other thing it really had in its favor was a more focused narrative, as so many characters were either in the same places or not introduced yet.

Personally I think the only way in the which the show has improved since season 1 has been in the budget, and the resulting improvement in CGI and sets. Writing, dialogue, pacing, acting (probably tied to the writing) has all gotten worse imo. Maybe the amount of gratuitous nudity has also gotten better (which is to say less) since then. I'd say the show peaked at S1, dropped to an appalling (for the show's calibre) level in S2, and since then it's climbed back up to a good level in S3, so far holding that steady for S4.