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


Katerine459

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19 hours ago, jcmontea said:

Most of the time when people say the character acted out of character all it means is they didn’t act like they think they should have acted. 

That's a very good point to bear in mind when it comes to Sansa's decision to marry Ramsay Bolton. Which is horribly naive and stupid on her part. Even if Ramsay had treated her just fine, it's political suicide. Think about it: she married into the family who betrayed her own family and thus legitimised their claim on the North. There's no way around it: she is a traitor.

Imo, the show didn't do enough to show the consequences of this act. It was only once pointed out to her when she went to the Northern lords with Jon. And only once did she admit herself that her position is precarious because she was married to two enemies of the North. It wasn't made clear enough that it's probably the reason Jon was acclaimed King in the North, not her, the legitimate heir. Arya's suspicions of her are completely understandable because of that marriage and her continuing reliance on the person who brokered it. That should have been the bone of contention between them, not the letter she wrote in the hope of saving their father's life.

The marriage itself makes some sense in LF's schemes. If Sansa had started rallying the Northern lord to her instead of marrying Ramsay, then allied herself with Stannis, she would have been in a much stronger position, not dependant on LF. LF weakened her claim on purpose so he could ride in as the Knight in shining armor. It didn't quite work because of Jon. Which was probably unexpected. It gave the Northern lords an alternative to Sansa - and they took it. 

That the Boltons took the chance to be alienated from the Crown is not that surprising. They needed the marriage to legitimize their claim on Winterfell in the eyes of the Northerners. Cersei is far away and was unlikely to send help in case the lords rebelled against them - which was probably just a question of time. I suppose Roose intended to hand Sansa over once she had given Ramsay enough children to continue his family's claim on the North. And I suppose it was the reason he allowed Ramsay to treat her so horribly. Cersei would have liked that and it would have gone a long way in his favor when he would have gone to ask forgiveness instead of permission.

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3 hours ago, Zapho said:

That's a very good point to bear in mind when it comes to Sansa's decision to marry Ramsay Bolton. Which is horribly naive and stupid on her part. Even if Ramsay had treated her just fine, it's political suicide. Think about it: she married into the family who betrayed her own family and thus legitimised their claim on the North. There's no way around it: she is a traitor.

Imo, the show didn't do enough to show the consequences of this act. It was only once pointed out to her when she went to the Northern lords with Jon. And only once did she admit herself that her position is precarious because she was married to two enemies of the North. It wasn't made clear enough that it's probably the reason Jon was acclaimed King in the North, not her, the legitimate heir. Arya's suspicions of her are completely understandable because of that marriage and her continuing reliance on the person who brokered it. That should have been the bone of contention between them, not the letter she wrote in the hope of saving their father's life.

That is a great point! I don’t think i can ever watch Lyana M nominate Jon as King anymore without thinking back to what she told Sansa regarding her not being a Stark. Feel dumb that I didn’t make that connection before. 

Agreed on the rest. 

 

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24 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

That is a great point! I don’t think i can ever watch Lyana M nominate Jon as King anymore without thinking back to what she told Sansa regarding her not being a Stark. Feel dumb that I didn’t make that connection before. 

Agreed on the rest. 

 

*Sandra

Lyanna Mormont insisted Lady Sandra was a Bolton :P

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23 hours ago, valgrel said:

:agree:

 

The main issue for me of the WF plot was the writers will to have a big twisty line at the beginning of LF "trial"  (how do you answer.... Lord Baelish). So they didn't show 3 important scenes which happened earlier  : Sansa/Bran where Bran told her about the previous LF betrayals, Sansa/Arya/Bran where they decided to execute him and Sansa/Royce where they planned the trial. With these scenes the plot would have been consistent for me, but then no surprise...

:agree:

for me the big mistake was how they told the story. They told it as a suspense/ horror style thriller versus as a straight up drama. 

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1 hour ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

*Sandra

Lyanna Mormont insisted Lady Sandra was a Bolton :P

Season 6 felt like a bit of a slog for Sandra and Carol, to be honest. Sure, both stories ended with epic battle and blowing up of the sept respectfully that gave us excellent visuals but we went through a lot of pain to get there. Especially with Sandra, I still don't understand why she didn't just tell Kit Harrington about the Vale Army coming when their little brother's life was at sake.

This show reduced everyone in the Great Sept and poor little Rickon to death fodder. That annoyed me.

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7 hours ago, Zapho said:

That's a very good point to bear in mind when it comes to Sansa's decision to marry Ramsay Bolton. Which is horribly naive and stupid on her part. Even if Ramsay had treated her just fine, it's political suicide. Think about it: she married into the family who betrayed her own family and thus legitimised their claim on the North. There's no way around it: she is a traitor.

Imo, the show didn't do enough to show the consequences of this act. It was only once pointed out to her when she went to the Northern lords with Jon. And only once did she admit herself that her position is precarious because she was married to two enemies of the North. It wasn't made clear enough that it's probably the reason Jon was acclaimed King in the North, not her, the legitimate heir. Arya's suspicions of her are completely understandable because of that marriage and her continuing reliance on the person who brokered it. That should have been the bone of contention between them, not the letter she wrote in the hope of saving their father's life.

It could have been explained. Sansa returned to WF, facing abuse and rape, in order to avenge her family's tragedy. That's how LF first sold the marriage to Sansa, and I bought it, as it all happened after the show started talking about the "new Sansa." 

The problem, as usual in the later seasons, was that the show didn't follow up on it. Sansa married Ramsay and did nothing against the Boltons other than escape them. This was the "new Sansa," acting exactly as the old Sansa might have done--passive, helpless victim whose only power is in getting others to take pity on her. Where was the "new Sansa" in all this? Where was her revenge? It's thanks to her helplessness and passivity that her entire experience of WF can be reduced to being raped, why the North thinks of her as a Bolton.  

Then, of course, Sansa finally did do something: hid the Vale, nearly getting her brother killed, causing massive casualties among the wildlings. Had Sansa been Olenna or Cersei or Tywin, the explanation would be obvious: she wanted Jon and the wildlings dead as she wanted the North for herself, so she acted. But no, as again the show failed to follow up. Sansa did this crazy thing, then season 7 excised the ending to season 6 from its history. Season 7 Jon trusted Sansa, for reasons I can not fathom. Arya never found out, never used Sansa's decision against her. 

It's crazy. 

 

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On 8.11.2017 at 4:20 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

*Sandra

Lyanna Mormont insisted Lady Sandra was a Bolton :P

I actually like that detail quite a bit. She had to ask the Maester for Sansa's name and still got it wrong. The kid had her priorities straight.;)

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Besides that D&D didn't have books anymore to work off of. For me things started to slip up in season 5, the writing wasn't as tight and the dialog started getting clunky (to the point now in season 7 it's just dick joke after dick joke). But the biggest thing for me was Ramsey and Sansa marrying/rape. It was idiotic at best and the whole rape scene did nothing besides create a controversial/talk-at-the-water-cooler moment. That whole thing has pretty much meant nothing from then to now. It also seemed to change how they (D&D) wrote female characters in seasons 6 and 7 to the point where things don't make as much sense anymore. Women can do what they want with little to no repercussions, such as Cersei killing hundreds of people and destroying a religion.
To me, that's where the show started really falling apart. But I have to watch the seasons again still to see if there is something else that stands out more.

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8 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

It's all about cocks in the end, though, amirite?

#cuttingedgecommentary #metajokes #gived&d9001emmys #im14andthisisdeep #trufeminism

That's probably going to be how the show ends. Just a close up of a cock, for 15 minutes. No music, no dialog. Just a cock.

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On 11/8/2017 at 2:16 PM, kimim said:

It could have been explained. Sansa returned to WF, facing abuse and rape, in order to avenge her family's tragedy. That's how LF first sold the marriage to Sansa, and I bought it, as it all happened after the show started talking about the "new Sansa." 

The problem, as usual in the later seasons, was that the show didn't follow up on it. Sansa married Ramsay and did nothing against the Boltons other than escape them. This was the "new Sansa," acting exactly as the old Sansa might have done--passive, helpless victim whose only power is in getting others to take pity on her. Where was the "new Sansa" in all this? Where was her revenge? It's thanks to her helplessness and passivity that her entire experience of WF can be reduced to being raped, why the North thinks of her as a Bolton.  

Then, of course, Sansa finally did do something: hid the Vale, nearly getting her brother killed, causing massive casualties among the wildlings. Had Sansa been Olenna or Cersei or Tywin, the explanation would be obvious: she wanted Jon and the wildlings dead as she wanted the North for herself, so she acted. But no, as again the show failed to follow up. Sansa did this crazy thing, then season 7 excised the ending to season 6 from its history. Season 7 Jon trusted Sansa, for reasons I can not fathom. Arya never found out, never used Sansa's decision against her. 

It's crazy. 

 

I just don't even get, with the benefit of hindsight as well, what Sansa could possibly have done to avenge her family by marrying Ramsay.  None of it made any sense to begin with- she's getting vengeance by voluntarily providing legitimacy to the Bolton's claim on the North?  The only possible way for the show to make this make any sense would be to have a "the North Remembers" plotline taking place in Winterfell where you'd see Sansa using her political skills to make allies like Lady Dustin, Manderley, Cerwyn, etc.  But the show never had any inclination to even include these characters, and indeed show-wide the past few seasons the tendency has been to entirely cut out most minor lords and houses.  

It's sort of the same thing that happened with the show's portrayal of Dorne where you just have to wonder whether they ever had any kind of plan in the first place because none of it really holds up to logic.  

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1 hour ago, Tagganaro said:

I just don't even get, with the benefit of hindsight as well, what Sansa could possibly have done to avenge her family by marrying Ramsay.  None of it made any sense to begin with- she's getting vengeance by voluntarily providing legitimacy to the Bolton's claim on the North?  The only possible way for the show to make this make any sense would be to have a "the North Remembers" plotline taking place in Winterfell where you'd see Sansa using her political skills to make allies like Lady Dustin, Manderley, Cerwyn, etc.  But the show never had any inclination to even include these characters, and indeed show-wide the past few seasons the tendency has been to entirely cut out most minor lords and houses.  

It's sort of the same thing that happened with the show's portrayal of Dorne where you just have to wonder whether they ever had any kind of plan in the first place because none of it really holds up to logic.  

Kill him.  That's about it.  There might have been a theoretical possibility she could somehow mesmerize him with her awesomeness until she could kill him ...but really, the only revenge would be either kill roose or kill ramsay or kill them both.  And since Sansa never even contemplated either of these actions, let alone tried to kill either of them....it's obvious the show didn't care about making any of those decisions sensible or logical.

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Let’s see:

  • Dorne. 
  • Sansa plotline, on so many levels
  • Stannis plotline with burning Shireen and Brienne killing him, which involves leaving Sansa to her fate until Myranda “got Reekt”
  • “Jon” being “Aegon”, because that makes Rhaegar look like an ever bigger jerk than he needs to be
  • The Winterfell plotline of Season 7
  • The North Forgets
  • “Robert’s Rebellion was based on a lie”. 
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To answer seriously, I'd actually say the show 'went wrong' by simply trading away its integrity.

HBO (who is now a person for the purposes of this) looked at D&D one day and said, 'Hey, that Terry guy, really short, he makes lots of funny one-liners, right? MARKETING GUYS, GET ME FIFTEEN MUGS WITH TERRY'S CATCHPHRASES ON THEM!'

And D&D said 'Uh, actually his name is Tyrion, and uh...'

'Oh, speaking of which, that villain, the Joker, right? Shit, no, it's a medievally name, coming to me, Gordon Ramsey?'

'Ramsay Bolton?'

'Yeah, people think he's badass so can you just, you know, make him the main villain who does everything right now?'

'Yeah, I mean Ramsay's kind of a badass, he... uh... fights...' (actual quote from D&D for authenticity)

'So we got it, right? Make sure Terry keeps getting out the one-liners for the mugs and the Joker stays immune for a couple more seasons. Oh, and Sissy, that character played by Lena Headey?'

'Yeah?'

'People want more of her.'

'Oh, uh, sure, but the books make it look like she's gonna bite the dust soon.'

HBO then gives D&D a condescending raise of the eyebrow. 'If I read books, I wouldn't be head of a multi-million dollar entertainment company. This is America, people, not... tea-and-biscuit land, Americans don't want to read, they want action! Tits, dragons, dwarf one-liners, cock jokes! That's what sells, D&D, and you ain't getting paid unless you do as I say, so whaddya gonna do?'

'Do as you say?'

'Great! I'll have 50,000 'I drink and I know things' mugs made by the start of March.'

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7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

To answer seriously, I'd actually say the show 'went wrong' by simply trading away its integrity.

HBO (who is now a person for the purposes of this) looked at D&D one day and said, 'Hey, that Terry guy, really short, he makes lots of funny one-liners, right? MARKETING GUYS, GET ME FIFTEEN MUGS WITH TERRY'S CATCHPHRASES ON THEM!'

And D&D said 'Uh, actually his name is Tyrion, and uh...'

'Oh, speaking of which, that villain, the Joker, right? Shit, no, it's a medievally name, coming to me, Gordon Ramsey?'

'Ramsay Bolton?'

'Yeah, people think he's badass so can you just, you know, make him the main villain who does everything right now?'

'Yeah, I mean Ramsay's kind of a badass, he... uh... fights...' (actual quote from D&D for authenticity)

'So we got it, right? Make sure Terry keeps getting out the one-liners for the mugs and the Joker stays immune for a couple more seasons. Oh, and Sissy, that character played by Lena Headey?'

'Yeah?'

'People want more of her.'

'Oh, uh, sure, but the books make it look like she's gonna bite the dust soon.'

HBO then gives D&D a condescending raise of the eyebrow. 'If I read books, I wouldn't be head of a multi-million dollar entertainment company. This is America, people, not... tea-and-biscuit land, Americans don't want to read, they want action! Tits, dragons, dwarf one-liners, cock jokes! That's what sells, D&D, and you ain't getting paid unless you do as I say, so whaddya gonna do?'

'Do as you say?'

'Great! I'll have 50,000 'I drink and I know things' mugs made by the start of March.'

It would be interesting to find out (if we ever can) that after the show started getting mainstream popular, how much HBO started to chime in on things. Like is Cersei staying alive this long a D&D thing or an HBO thing? I usually pass the blame to D&D first but in the end, maybe HBO is pulling the strings more than I think.

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