[Spoilers] Criticize Without Repercussion - one last time ;o)

[LadyDoom]

3 minutes ago, Terekhov said:

It's a fun watch as long as you view it with that attitude. 

I tried, and I wish I could but it's stronger than me,  if it had been this way from the start it would be another story, but I can't take it seriously knowing what it once was and what it now is. while having read the books does help to ruin it, it's not really the reason for it, when you get high expectations is hard not to feel disappointed. 

[Apathetic Onlooker]

Heh... "White Wolf".  I guess we'll add Andrzej Sapkowski to the list of writers being ripped off in this show.

[Daenerys_Is_Coming]

5 hours ago, RetconKillah said:

You can't be an empowered woman without a modern-mature-hipster-haircut! I was thinking the exact same thing, I'm going to chalk it up to grief.

 

Cersei's hair is growing as fast as Gilly's baby. She'll have the same cut in season 8, because reasons. 

[Kingly]

I still firmly believe people are being distracted by two things:

1) The quality of season 1 in particular, and generally up until season 4 before the declining quality was noticeable.

2) The excellent work behind the scenes. Until today for the most part I believe the costumes, sets, score, (some) directing, (some) acting, (some) CGI, and generally the production value is still very good quality for a TV show, rivaling many big budget movies. 

Without these two elements GoT would undoubtedly be relegated to the long list of shlocky fantasy tv series and B-movies. that the GoT writing is currently on par with.

[KarlVyt]

21 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

Exactly, GOT is Transformers now, but its fans want to pretend they're watching something deep and meaningful. That where really a lot of salt comes from.

 

The salt also come from the fact that the show was at one point good , became very popular and is attracting a lot of new audience. Saying "Looks GoT is incredibly awesome with a intricate and deep story, but only watch the first three seasons because the rest of it is retarded and looks like it was made by Uwe Boll" isn't a great way to have them hooked in.

[Terekhov]

4 minutes ago, LadyDoom said:

I tried, and I wish I could but it's stronger than me,  if it had been this way from the start it would be another story, but I can't take it seriously knowing what it once was and what it now is. while having read the books does help to ruin it, it's not really the reason for it, when you get high expectations is hard not to feel disappointed. 

If you can focus your expectations on reliable characters (say, Tyrion + Varys...the only remnants of strategizing imo) then it's like watching a micro-series  

I understand though. For some of the same reasons I stopped reading the books and won't finish them until the show is over.

[LadyDoom]

3 minutes ago, Kingly said:

Yes you are right, don't get me wrong I also enjoy no-brainers and I do think they have their place for what they are. But what I meant to also say was exactly what you elaborated on, that movies like the transformers series or the expendables are taken at face value for what they are: big dumb action movies with explosions. They don't feature intricate plots or complex characters and aren't meant to, and as such they can be enjoyed for exactly what they are providing and it is reflected in peoples' opinions as well as reviewers.

But somehow GoT has gotten away with being just as "dumb" (recently) as these types of films and yet is lauded as some kind of artistic masterpiece. 

Yes I fully agree, sorry if I misunderstood. 

Basically GoT is a huge production of a very cheap soap right now, but because of all the money behind it, it still feels "pro" (visually) in comparison to other tv shows, people are seeing a pig dressed in fancy clothes and praising it like fools, unwilling to admit it's just a highly produced pig.

I guess it's better than being a "bitter hater" or "uncool" or a book purist  getting all those likes and shares and high fives in social media is more important. 

[SerMixalot]

The whole thing that women were with Lyanna struck me as odd.  I realize it makes sense that she had ladies in waiting or midwives to help with the baby.  But now a couple of randoms know that Lyanna Stark had a baby boy and Eddard took the boy with him.  Something is missing there.  Did Eddard kill them to silence them?

[nogginthenog]

I was hoping this episode would sooth my annoyance over Sansa and her strange withholding of information from the last episode. But it just added more question marks. 

Why didn't she tell Jon about the Vale? I assumed last episode it was just to allow more drama: the battle seems all but lost and then BOOM here comes the Vale to help. But I just found it so annoying that they would allow the character to let hundreds to die, in order to have a dramatic last-minute save from the Vale. Then it seemed, after her creepy smile when Bolton is being eaten alive, that she possibly withheld the information to gain the upperhand. But then this also seems to be a non-starter, since she was all "lol, sorry" about not telling him when they were atop the walls of Winterfell. 

R+L=J. I wanted a big confession from Lyanna, for Ned to look shocked, for Bran to look WTF?! All I got was some whispering, a "don't tell Robert", then Ned looking quite surprised, and Bran looking a bit bewildered. I guess it just didn't hit me the way i wanted it to. 

[LadyDoom]

8 minutes ago, Terekhov said:

If you can focus your expectations on reliable characters (say, Tyrion + Varys...the only remnants of strategizing imo) then it's like watching a micro-series  

I understand though. For some of the same reasons I stopped reading the books and won't finish them until the show is over.

haha well I rather not give the show any more power to disappoint me. 

That's a smart choice, wished I had more self control and hand't gone on a reading rampage after I marathoned the first 2 seasons. Though I'm curious, if I may ask, what are your reasons? 

[SerMixalot]

3 hours ago, tormund's beard said:

i said exactly the same thing on facebook, this was episode 1 material, maybe episode 2 or 3.

So true, they should have had Mel come back after Jon's killing, have Davos beg her to raise Jon (in the middle of such trauma it would make sense he wouldn't have time to ask) after Jon comes back he should confront Mel and Mel be banished, voila a storyline that makes sense and wouldn't have impacted anything else

[Tijgy]

11 minutes ago, SerMixalot said:

The whole thing that women were with Lyanna struck me as odd.  I realize it makes sense that she had ladies in waiting or midwives to help with the baby.  But now a couple of randoms know that Lyanna Stark had a baby boy and Eddard took the boy with him.  Something is missing there.  Did Eddard kill them to silence them?

Ned the Jerk? Probably. 

 

[Terekhov]

2 minutes ago, LadyDoom said:

haha well I rather not give the show any more power to disappoint me. 

That's a smart choice, wished I had more self control and hand't gone on a reading rampage after I marathoned the first 2 seasons. Though I'm curious, if I may ask, what are your reasons? 

Well, I knew if I read the books I'd be disappointed...because books always have cool things that movies/television leave out.

I think this was around season 2. At first I did the same thing as you and started a reading rampage (made it through 2 books iirc?)...but I got busy for a bit and when I came back to it, decided to restrain myself.

With regards to the bad plot stuff nowadays, didn't really see that coming...so just lucked out there!

[Daenerys_Is_Coming]

48 minutes ago, Kingly said:

The problem with this show and its success - and the reason why people 'like us' are relegated to one thread on one forum - comes down to one thing: Culture

I'm not trying to be snobbish, but I think that is the underlying factor relating to the (financial and critical) success of GoT. There is a reason why this show - along with movies such as the Transformers and most super hero movies - still has such a huge following and makes a ton of money. People aren't willing to see deep, well thought out media with strong realistic characters and a straight forward (read; non-convoluted) yet intricate plot (boring!). They would prefer to take the familiar route which is why popularity breeds popularity; it is 100% style over substance.

On one hand, audiences are simply not critical of the media they consume, whether it be film or television. They - for the most part - just like to take in the spectacle: Cool and "badass" characters, womenontop™, mind numbing action, stiff one liners meant to sound awesome, etc. For the most part, they don't think critically regarding character consistency, internal logic and dialogue, let alone technical aspects such as sound composition, shot framing, editing, etc. As long as cool stuff happens and the characters they root for do awesome stuff and the characters they hate do villainous things, they will shove popcorn into their mouths and enjoy the ride.

On the other hand, the mainstream media is a huge culprit, as they have literally become ass-kissers and just suck up to the newest fad. Everywhere you see articles written about the show, the level of (non)analysis is only worthy of cringe. TV isn't any better, as interviews on places such as talk shows all focus on how cool and awesome a certain character/scene is and are basically glorified advertisements. It has been like this forever and goes back to what the audience wants: a re-confirmation of how awesome what they just saw, was.

If this isn't the dumbing down of culture I don't know what is...

Yes and no. There are some brilliant shows with well developed characters and complicated story arcs that are quite beloved by today's culture. Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and Fargo come to mind. (the latter being far less popular, yet far more brilliant)

I think GOT has a genre problem in addition to it's culture problem. It's a realm of magic and direwoves and evil ice demons, and not everyone wants a side of political intrigue with their dragons fantasies. It's easy to believe that Varys can teleport form Dorne to Mereen in 5 minutes if a boy can warg into his direwolf.  The fantasy genre requires suspension of disbelief and D+D have used this against us to have nonsensical characters make nonsensical decisions. Plot holes are simply chalked up to "it's magic!" And once season two brought in the hordes of unsullied viewers ... any hope of political intrigue went out the door to appease the masses. 

I'll never forget when someone told me they couldn't watch the show because there "were too many characters." People wanted Braveheart meets Independence Day. Kick ass knights taking on supernatural baddies, because that's what they think "fantasy" is.  GRRM showed us it could be so much more than that. D+D failed to capture that element. 

[LadyDoom]

13 minutes ago, Terekhov said:

Well, I knew if I read the books I'd be disappointed...because books always have cool things that movies/television leave out.

I think this was around season 2. At first I did the same thing as you and started a reading rampage (made it through 2 books iirc?)...but I got busy for a bit and when I came back to it, decided to restrain myself.

With regards to the bad plot stuff nowadays, didn't really see that coming...so just lucked out there!

damn I wished I'd done the same. I just couldn't wait a year to know how the story continued and at the end I still had to wait far more than that, and maybe will never know, I lose faith of the series ever ending with each passing day.   That's my biggest issue with the show, that it might be the only resolution we will get to the story. 

[SerMixalot]

2 hours ago, The Lord of Cinder said:

1 hour ago, LadyDoom said:

Am I the only one that thinks the killing of Pycelle was to make Qyburn the Grand Maester now? I know technically it's an atrocity to think this could ever happen, but it's the show so I wouldn't put it past them. 

 

I would imagine by any logic the Citadel makes people Grand Maesters but in GoT anything is possible

[Apathetic Onlooker]

26 minutes ago, SerMixalot said:

The whole thing that women were with Lyanna struck me as odd.  I realize it makes sense that she had ladies in waiting or midwives to help with the baby.  But now a couple of randoms know that Lyanna Stark had a baby boy and Eddard took the boy with him.  Something is missing there.  Did Eddard kill them to silence them?

Sure why not.  They've already tore away all the humanity and love that made the Starks so easy to sympathize and root for.  Why not make the patriarch turn out to be a total jerk.  I'll just bet he cut them all up and served them as pie while we're at it.  

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, KarlVyt said:

Hmmm....Both Jon and Geralt have  fought otherworldly creatures with powers of ice(Others, Wild Hunt). Both were resurrected by women with magical power(Ciri and Melisandre),Both were allied with a bard(Dandilion and Mance)...I tell you the similarities are there.

They also both have that growling yet whispery speech thing going on. 

[Terekhov]

3 minutes ago, Apathetic Onlooker said:

Sure why not.  They've already tore away all the humanity and love that made the Starks so easy to sympathize and root for.  Why not make the patriarch turn out to be a total jerk.  I'll just bet he cut them all up and served them as pie while we're at it.  

TBF Bran's stupid so far, not inhumane.  And Jon may not technically be a Stark, but so far he's been a better Stark than any of them.

[Corvinus85]

27 minutes ago, SerMixalot said:

The whole thing that women were with Lyanna struck me as odd.  I realize it makes sense that she had ladies in waiting or midwives to help with the baby.  But now a couple of randoms know that Lyanna Stark had a baby boy and Eddard took the boy with him.  Something is missing there.  Did Eddard kill them to silence them?

Not sure if you read the book, but remember in season 1 when Robert asked Ned what was the name of his bastard's mother, and he replied Wylla. In the book, we later learn of a woman called Wylla from a certain young Dayne character who believed Wylla had been Jon's mother, because he was his nursemaid. Catelyn also recalls, in the book, that when she arrived at Winterfell with baby Robb, Jon was already there with his nursemaid. So I think Wylla was one of the two women we saw (the book may only have her), and she either traveled with Jon all the way to Winterfell, or went and remained at Starfall.