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


Katerine459

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7 hours ago, dbunting said:

The show didn't go wrong. People and their expectations of how the show should be, how the writing should be, how their favorite character should be, is what went wrong. The show is what it is going to be. 90% of the people here have unrealistic expectations and want everything to fall in line with what they want to see, not what the show is going to be, if that makes sense. People have had decades to read and reread and disect and analyze this material to the point that everyone is an expert and everyone knows how each character should act, who they should like etc etc. Yes there are stupid parts, I mean pretty much anything Dorne related was bad.

When you talk to most show only fans they like where it has gone and can't wait to see S8. It's people like us who read the books, read the theories, made up our own theories, we are whats wrong. The last episode had ratings 36% higher than S6 finale, which I believe was the previous record. So again, the show isn't whats wrong.

Lol... 

dude. Why are you bringing logic into this conversation? 

Clearly what really matters is what a handful of people on the internet think about something. 

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12 hours ago, StepStark said:

No, what you're saying doesn't make any sense. People didn't have "unrealistic expectations", they had ASOIAF books, which are the source material for the show. People didn't have "what they want to see", but they had what is written in ASOIAF books. For example, people didn't expect truth about Tysha to be revealed to Tyrion by Jaime because that's "what they want to see", but because it's written like that in ASOIAF. It didn't happen on screen, but that is only half of the problem. The other half is that it wasn't replaced by something that compensates for that omission. It wasn't replaced with anything actually and because of that the scene doesn't make sense if you stop and think about it even if you're a show only watcher.

Yes, that is the nature of popular and complex literature, it is debated over and over again and people get attached personally to it. But that is precisely why adaptations exist: because adaptation don't start from zero, but they start with the audience someone else (the original author) built for them. And in all those debates people in many cases come to some sort of consensus. And those consensuses are especially strong if they were debated over and over again over a long period of time, as it happens to be the case with most topics about ASOIAF. And any adaptation that not only ignores those consensuses but even goes against them more often than not, is certainly going to be controversial. And if adapters respond to those controversies by saying "Well to us that makes sense because we wanted it to happen and if you have a problem with that you just had unrealistic expectations and you don't know the pressure we had to deal with and you should be grateful to us for the fact that the show even exists", well no shit that people are going to be disappointed by both adaptation and adapters.

If numbers are the only important thing, as you obviously think, then honestly why do you even bother posting here and arguing with our "unrealistic expectations"? It's an honest question. Nothing we post here will change the fact that S7 finale had 36% higher ratings than S6 finale, which is what you only care about. So really, what is your motivation to even engage in this debate? This isn't debate about numbers. Nobody here is saying that something's wrong with the show because of numbers, but despite the numbers. But if you post here because you don't think that only numbers matter and that the show deserves to be analyzed and debated, then stop with the numbers game please.

First off if you don't think book readers went into this with high expectations and had visions in their heads of what Jon should act and look like, and how Jaime should act then you are not being realistic. In the book forums you can see volumes of discussions about Sansa, from the same source material, and get 50 different views on how she should be or act in the next book.That is what I am referring to when I say people had this built up in their heads of what they want to see.

In order for there to be a debate as you put it, then someone has to be on each side. Otherwise it's just people spouting off in agreement correct? So as a fan of the show, in a show thread, you would think I could come here and express a view, same as you.

As to your comment that all I care about are numbers, I showed one single number as evidence to support my comments that the show hasn't "gone wrong" or jumped the shark so to speak. The fact that viewership is still climbing supports an arguement that the show is on the right path, for what it is. It isn't the books, never was supposed to be and never will be. They are simply source material for an adaptation.

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8 hours ago, jcmontea said:

Lol... 

dude. Why are you bringing logic into this conversation? 

Clearly what really matters is what a handful of people on the internet think about something. 

Yep, 100%. I mean, people read the books and yet have very different views on the events and people in them, so of course a show based on them will be about the writers view of the material and how to present it, not mine or anyone on here or any of the other sites. In this way it is very much like painting. Put a group of painters in a room with one vase of flowers and you will not get two paintings that are the same because everyones view of it are a little different, and yet none are wrong. Some will paint it like it is, picture perfect. Some will focus on a particular flower or color, some will express it differently all together, cubism, or expressionist. It's art just the same.

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16 hours ago, dbunting said:

First off if you don't think book readers went into this with high expectations and had visions in their heads of what Jon should act and look like, and how Jaime should act then you are not being realistic.

What an absurd reply. I never said anything like that. Where did you get that idea?

16 hours ago, dbunting said:

In the book forums you can see volumes of discussions about Sansa, from the same source material, and get 50 different views on how she should be or act in the next book.That is what I am referring to when I say people had this built up in their heads of what they want to see.

If that is what you were referring to, then your post was actually pointless because that goes for every single adaptation ever. When the latest Macbeth movie appeared few years ago, nobody was defending it by saying "Hey but people have been building up that story in their heads for a long time". And anyway, since you mentioned Sansa, the way Sansa is "adapted" in the show is one of the worst adaptations ever, in all genres and all forms.

17 hours ago, dbunting said:

In order for there to be a debate as you put it, then someone has to be on each side. Otherwise it's just people spouting off in agreement correct? So as a fan of the show, in a show thread, you would think I could come here and express a view, same as you.

As to your comment that all I care about are numbers, I showed one single number as evidence to support my comments that the show hasn't "gone wrong" or jumped the shark so to speak. The fact that viewership is still climbing supports an arguement that the show is on the right path, for what it is. It isn't the books, never was supposed to be and never will be. They are simply source material for an adaptation.

Do whatever you want, I didn't say that you don't have the right to post here whatever you like. But as far as how purposeful something is, I really don't see the point of showing one specific number that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of discussion. Unless you think that ratings actually prove that the show is good, which would be completely ridiculous.

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What happens to Westros after the zombies eat all the living things?  That is the real fundamental logic problem with the series and always has been because that's the fundamental logical problem in writing the books.  The Zombies as the Big Bad don't make any sense because they have no agenda of their own.  Really, after having eaten all the living things and Westros only heaves and roils with the dead -- what in 'ell do the zombies do?  Being dead they don't even care about making more cute lil zombies or anything.  So there are no satisfying climaxes in terms of losing to the endless night.  Even with Ragnarok and the end of all things including the gods, there is the promise that the world will again be reborn.

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6 hours ago, Zorral said:

What happens to Westros after the zombies eat all the living things?  That is the real fundamental logic problem with the series and always has been because that's the fundamental logical problem in writing the books.  The Zombies as the Big Bad don't make any sense because they have no agenda of their own.  Really, after having eaten all the living things and Westros only heaves and roils with the dead -- what in 'ell do the zombies do?  Being dead they don't even care about making more cute lil zombies or anything.  So there are no satisfying climaxes in terms of losing to the endless night.  Even with Ragnarok and the end of all things including the gods, there is the promise that the world will again be reborn.

The White Walkers are certainly no Cylons

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7 hours ago, Zorral said:

What happens to Westros after the zombies eat all the living things?  That is the real fundamental logic problem with the series and always has been because that's the fundamental logical problem in writing the books.  The Zombies as the Big Bad don't make any sense because they have no agenda of their own.  Really, after having eaten all the living things and Westros only heaves and roils with the dead -- what in 'ell do the zombies do?  Being dead they don't even care about making more cute lil zombies or anything.  So there are no satisfying climaxes in terms of losing to the endless night.  Even with Ragnarok and the end of all things including the gods, there is the promise that the world will again be reborn.

First off they are not mindless zombies who eat people, wrong show. There is a thought process, communication, and strategy from the Knights King. He wants to kill all mankind, that is his goal. Now, what would happen if they won? I'd think he and his army would go back to "sleep" of course since all the noisy neighbors are gone.

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Having watched S7 again, I things really started to "go wrong" when they bashed out S5 in a hurry rather than taking a hiatus to really focus on negotiating the actors' contracts and really think about how they were going to use the time left. I get they were in crunch mode but it resulted in quite a few half-baked plotlines they never saw through to the end.

S7 to me was the end result of three years with the accelerator left on out of fear they'd lose their "top tier actors" when, in reality, they could have simply reduced their screen times or even killed them off if they really couldn't make them stay.

Oh, and maybe get in a few more writers to keep in fresh. Writing the same stuff non-stop for years probably would leave anyone wanting to smash their heads against a wall. Plus, canon consistency would have been better... like remembering dragon glass doesn't work on wights. <_<

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1 hour ago, Faera said:

Having watched S7 again, I things really started to "go wrong" when they bashed out S5 in a hurry rather than taking a hiatus to really focus on negotiating the actors' contracts and really think about how they were going to use the time left. I get they were in crunch mode but it resulted in quite a few half-baked plotlines they never saw through to the end.

S7 to me was the end result of three years with the accelerator left on out of fear they'd lose their "top tier actors" when, in reality, they could have simply reduced their screen times or even killed them off if they really couldn't make them stay.

Oh, and maybe get in a few more writers to keep in fresh. Writing the same stuff non-stop for years probably would leave anyone wanting to smash their heads against a wall. Plus, canon consistency would have been better... like remembering dragon glass doesn't work on wights. <_<

And that fire works on wights. Everybody forgot about that from Hardhome onward, except for the Children of the Forest (and they’re dead). Even D&D forgot about that; when the polar bear wight got set on fire, it should have dropped dead. 

I had a hard time with Season 5, particularly with the Sansa and Stannis plotlines. Though the producers have said they don’t like Stannis...

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1 hour ago, Angel Eyes said:

And that fire works on wights. Everybody forgot about that from Hardhome onward, except for the Children of the Forest (and they’re dead). Even D&D forgot about that; when the polar bear wight got set on fire, it should have dropped dead. 

I had a hard time with Season 5, particularly with the Sansa and Stannis plotlines. Though the producers have said they don’t like Stannis...

It is crazy they forgot that fire works on wights 

well, except for davos in 7x02 when he told Jon dragons would be useful. 

And except for the wights in 7x06 that died when they got smashed with dragon fire 

and then Jon remembered in 7x07 when he spoke to Cersei

but other than that they totally forgot

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10 hours ago, dbunting said:

First off they are not mindless zombies who eat people, wrong show. There is a thought process, communication, and strategy from the Knights King. He wants to kill all mankind, that is his goal. Now, what would happen if they won? I'd think he and his army would go back to "sleep" of course since all the noisy neighbors are gone.

Still makes no sense since there weren't any noisy neighbors north of the wall in the first place.  But zombies don't make sense, which is sort of the point maybe?  But I have always found zombies utterly pointless.  And BORING.

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5 hours ago, jcmontea said:

It is crazy they forgot that fire works on wights 

well, except for davos in 7x02 when he told Jon dragons would be useful. 

And except for the wights in 7x06 that died when they got smashed with dragon fire 

and then Jon remembered in 7x07 when he spoke to Cersei

but other than that they totally forgot

Well, everybody, except maybe Wun-Wun, forgot that at Hardhome, since no one had flame available. And Jon should have made a deal for wildfire or something like that. But since wildfire is very difficult to transport...

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7 hours ago, Samsaptakas said:

After the show passed the books, I think they stopped caring; now it is simply a formality for them, something to be done with, while making tons of money. As for when did the show went wrong, I couldn't even finish the frouth season.

If you couldn't even finish S4 then why are you posting in a show only topic after S7 has aired? Personally I couldn't tolerate Fish Mahoney/Malone or whatever her name was on Gotham, said if she didn't die I'd quit the show, spoiler alert, she came back and I left. I don't go into Gotham show thread and bash it, because I have moved on.

There are definitely parts of the show that have been bad, anything to do with Dorne, the Jaime - Tyrion beatle conversation, mostly anything in KL after Tywin was killed, etc. But for me, and just my opinion, the good and great far out weigh the bad.

And again, just my opinion, Dorne wasn't all that good in the books either. Seemed like a lot of filler. Maybe thats why I dislike it in the show so much.

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 10:44 AM, jcmontea said:

It is crazy they forgot that fire works on wights 

well, except for davos in 7x02 when he told Jon dragons would be useful. 

And except for the wights in 7x06 that died when they got smashed with dragon fire 

and then Jon remembered in 7x07 when he spoke to Cersei

but other than that they totally forgot

Thank you for this! Saved me the trouble of replying! I mean people forget that the original wight in the show didn't just drop dead instantly, it took a little time to die when Jon burned it.

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On 19.2.2018. at 1:47 AM, Zorral said:

What happens to Westros after the zombies eat all the living things?  That is the real fundamental logic problem with the series and always has been because that's the fundamental logical problem in writing the books.  The Zombies as the Big Bad don't make any sense because they have no agenda of their own.  Really, after having eaten all the living things and Westros only heaves and roils with the dead -- what in 'ell do the zombies do?  Being dead they don't even care about making more cute lil zombies or anything.  So there are no satisfying climaxes in terms of losing to the endless night.  Even with Ragnarok and the end of all things including the gods, there is the promise that the world will again be reborn.

Did you get GoT mixed up with TWD?

The Big Bad are the White Walkers. They are not zombies and don't eat people. They are another species that is sentient and sapient. I don't even know if they eat anything. But they certainly want to kill humans and make dead humans their slaves (ditto for bears, horses etc.).

The "zombies" are the wights - dead humans or animals reanimated by the magic of the White Walkers, who are using them as their slave meatbag army. In that sense, they are a mix of classic Haiti zombie and Hollywood zombie. They don't have any goals and don't operate on their own - they are mindless meatbags remote controlled by the White Walkers.

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I don't think book readers who watch the show are disappointed because they have expectations that are too high to ever be met. Most of the comments on this thread have acknowledged that the first four seasons were masterfully adapted, and have merely commented on what has changed in quality. No one is saying the show needs to be exactly like the books or their vision of the books. I think it's okay for fans to expect the story they invest in to maintain a certain quality and make sense. Unfortunately so many things in the last season did not. At the end of the day, I feel like this is due to the show outpacing the books, as many have said. D&D's job went from adapting an incredible story to having to complete it themselves. They are sprinting to the finish, and though I think the product would be better if they slowed down a little, I understand why certain choices are being made. However, as others have said, so much of what happened last season was just bad writing. The fact that the main characters were sailing/flying/riding all over the continent of Westeros before the WW could make it a few miles from Hardhome to the Wall is ridiculous. I remember reading the plot leak that came out a year before the season aired and I honestly laughed because I thought it had to be fake, there was no way, it just made no sense. And yet it was true. The more I think about this season the more disappointed I get. I can't help but regard pretty much everything after season 4 as beautifully rendered fan fiction. I honestly don't know if I'll even really care about the final season, but we'll see. To repeat, it isn't that they've strayed in content that bothers me, but that they have severely degraded in quality. If the show had continued to do its own thing and do it well, I wouldn't be disappointed. Different media calls for different choices. Not everything that works in a book will work in a show. But whatever version of the story they choose to present, it has to at least be logical. And the last season was not.

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I don't think the show went wrong anywhere. It's been established that, at this point, the novels are one thing and the show is another, especially since two volumes are still unpublished. The most common complaint I've heard about season 7 is pacing. The journey in previous seasons was great. It was elaborate and paid great attention to detailing every step of the way. But, fact is, we're approaching the end, have been since the past two seasons. Obviously, they'll have to speed things up and cut out travels and stuff, especially considering that the final seasons are shorter than 1-6. There isn't a lot of time left to wrap things up so at some point the show has to head down that road. Of course you notice a difference, but it didn't bother me personally. I understood some of the criticism "Beyond the Wall" got, but after closer examination I think a lot of it can be explained (like them not being killed because the army of the dead wanted a dragon to come close enough to them, or them probably waiting on that lake for at least a day or them not freezing to death because they had the flaming sword, etc). Yes, I think we can all agree that it was stupid of them to go there in the first place but, you know, life is full of errors, and the wall would have come down one way or another. What I don't understand are the "fan service" complaints. First people go, ugh the good guys never win and can never catch a break and then they get a few moments of victory and it's "fan service". I mean, how can you complain about the Lannister/Drogon battle? Jaime seeing the dragon for the first time was one of the coolest things on the show. I personally like the show more and more every time I see it, and definitely not any less after season 7 than back then after season 1 or 2 or 3. 

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