Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!

[SeanF]

On 1/10/2020 at 6:25 PM, Le Cygne said:

As far as the Golden Globes are concerned, winter continues for “Game of Thrones.”

The HBO behemoth walked away empty-handed from Sunday night’s telecast after a final season that was not well received by either critics or viewers...

Season 8 of “Game of Thrones” drew such a substantial backlash that hundreds of thousands of fans started a petition demanding that HBO remake the final collection of episodes. Cast members were constantly peppered with questions asking for their reaction to the backlash, and during the show’s final Comic-Con appearance in July, one of its stars, Conleth Hill (who played Lord Varys), labeled the backlash a “media-led hate campaign.”

https://variety.com/2020/tv/awards/game-of-thrones-final-season-2020-golden-globes-no-wins-1203456642

So let's see the excuses:

• viewers are too dumb to know that it's not that they didn't like it, it's that they didn't want it to end
• viewers are too dumb to know what they think period (thankfully someone else is thinking for them!)

Everyone was really clear, the show ended badly. (As if that wasn't completely obvious.)

It's pointless to blame the customers, if they think that the product is shoddy.

[Prince of the North]

17 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

I'm a bit disappointed with Conleth.

Then again, 'the media' had crawled into D&D's... I mean, praised the emperors' clothes as if they were god's gift to humanity for 7 seasons, so the contrast to when they finally changed their tune must have been disconcerting.

I was disappointed with that as well.  I agree that the rapid turnaround in sentiment would have been disconcerting.  Also, I think from an actor's viewpoint it would be hard to hear criticism of a project they poured themselves into, did the best they could with, and not see it as at least somewhat of an attack on them and their fellow cast members.  It would probably make anyone a little defensive.

I mean, I think by and large, people around here always did a pretty good job of being sure to separate criticism of the showrunners from criticism of the cast...but that's from my perspective, not theirs.     

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

Had there been more criticism earlier, we might have got a better series.

I'd love to believe this but...I just can't.  I don't think these showrunners ever met any stupid arrogance or arrogant stupidity (take your pick) they wouldn't double-down on

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

We need to make clear lists of those major media reporters who blindly praised Benioff and Weiss for years, and those who actually criticized them in seasons 5 to 7.  I.e. James Hibberd of EW is a quisling.

 

A lot of us only became very critical, late in the day, because of what LeCygne called the sunk cost fallacy.  The weaknesses were increasingly clear, but we still thought they'd want to go out on a high, and would return to form at the end.  

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

 

[SeanF]

40 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

It's with a mix of shame that I admit that I only fully turned on the show in late 2016, AFTER Season 6, when I realized just how crazy Benioff & Weiss actually are...due to lack of information.  

And the real fault there, is that people in "the media" were lying to us and "putting a positive spin" on Benioff and Weiss.

Specifically, that no one really reviewed the Blu-ray commentaries.  We just trusted people like Hibberd who got advanced copies and said "they only say positive things in the commentaries".  --- It was THE instant I sat down, after season 6, to watch the season 5 Blu-ray commentaries....not just that it was Cogman and D&D admitting "we only made these changes to show off the actors, up to and including the Sansa rape and Dorne"....it wasn't just that I was seeing this...but the horror at JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE had to lie to us to cover this up for a full year.  I mean, the specific realization that Hibberd ACTIVELY REDACTED OUT key sentences from the paragraphs of statements by Cogman that he quoted in his report on the Season 5 Blu-rays.  

I mean....at what point did all of you guys realize Benioff doesn't have a screenwriting degree? I *assumed* he did, until the point in Season 4 when he started bragging that he didn't (that "the Long story short" video where they spelled out just how inexperienced they actually were when they got hired).  

So interviews of them revealing that they basically lied to get the show....only gradually came out as they got overconfident in later seasons. 

My point is, I'm disgusted at myself, because EVEN I was making excuses for them throughout seasons 5 and 6 (well, dropping Dorne the way they did, led me starting to question things).  

But the whole "chuckling frat boy" routine Benioff has....they hid that pretty well until around 2016.

But what baffles me, is the people who didn't at least realize this after Season 6 (as I did) or even Season 7.  When all available evidence was already in place:  he's just some frat boy trust fund baby who got the job basically out of nepotism.

Particularly, because the break between seasons 7 and 8 was so long:   no one thought to "research" this guy? even after the questions raised by seasons 5 to 7?

Was it truly that so many people were like I was in season 5? Fans who didn't WANT them to be bad, and kept desperately trying to rationalize it instead of realizing like I did belatedly in 2015 "we actually don't know these guys very well"

 

This show was doomed since the failed pilot.  They just put a really good spin on it and hid from us how much of a disaster it was.  I bought their story laughing it off that "these things just happen" - no, the way that pilot failed doesn't "just happen" - when it turned out how little they knew about production or even basic screenwriting.

But I barely went online back in those days; didn't people....notice, in 2009, "wow, the pilot failed, maybe they're idiots"?  Or did they manage to cover it up well enough that fans didn't realize it was due to their own incompetence?

Point is, I can understand people being in denial like I was through season 5 into season 6, that "maybe they're going somewhere with this" (maybe Stannis is alive, maybe Doran Martell was just a fakeout, maybe Sansa will actually DO something to "defeat Ramsay"....only for her to do nothing)….so Season 6 was the real point when I thought something was truly wrong.  MORE people did by season 7.

So many people truly were sunk cost fallacy?

 

Well, at least they do now....if Benioff thinks he can just laugh off cheating the world for a full decade and that we won't hound him for the rest of his life, think again.

The thing  about Season 7 was some parts were very good;. the field of fire, Ellaria v Cersei, Olenna v Jaime.

Even as everything else made less sense.  The stupid military strategies that Tyrion and Varys insisted on, the idiotic Wight hunt, teleporting armies, Cersei facing no consequences for massacring the High Sparrow and nobles.

[Lord Varys]

I was done with the thing after the 'the Lannisters are broke' episode. I think that was in season 4, I think, no?

That one triggered a genuine 'mad laugh' and left me emotionally distanced from the entire thing.

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

A lot of us only became very critical, late in the day, because of what LeCygne called the sunk cost fallacy.  The weaknesses were increasingly clear, but we still thought they'd want to go out on a high, and would return to form at the end.  

Why was that?

Did really so many people trick themselves into believing that a story cutting and changing things would eventually get back to the gist/substance and quality of the planned/intended book ending with having pretty much none of the buildup, characters, setup, and plot points for that?

That kind of thing is just wishful-thinking.

I just watched the two seasons of 'Mr. Mercedes' - and while the first season is relatively close to the King novel it adapts, it also changes some things considerable, introduces other characters and does things differently. Considering that this kind of thing creates a need to continue to use those new characters, plot lines, and stories it doesn't come as a surprise that the second season has even less to do with the book than the first (although one have to say that they also definitely wanted to change the plot in the second season).

No writer/show runner would divert from the source material while telling the story, only to go back to the original and sort of faithfully adapt the as of yet unwritten ending of a novel series. Not just because that this would be a huge creative effort, but also because it would really make no sense for them. They already make a lot of changes, meaning they would be quite confortable giving the thing their ending, even more if the author of the source material didn't even produce a proper ending yet.

 

[Cas Stark]

I thought that season 8 might at least recapture it's season 5, or with some luck, season 4 form because 1) they had twice as long do to the season which was almost 50% shorter, 2) there was a hope that perhaps as it was the last season and there is very little chance GRRM will finish the final book, that he and they might have collaborated again in a bit more detail so the end would be as strong and as logical as possible, 3) most obviously because hacks or not, they would not want HBO's biggest show ever, the biggest show of the decade, to go out on a mediocre, let alone a bad note.

[Lord Varys]

17 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

2) there was a hope that perhaps as it was the last season and there is very little chance GRRM will finish the final book, that he and they might have collaborated again in a bit more detail so the end would be as strong and as logical as possible

I'd say that there was never any real reason to expect or believe unless I missed something. Was there any indication that George would actually work together with them/write something after he stopped writing scripts after season 4 (which likely had less to do with his working schedule and everything with the shit he would have to fit his scenes in then)?

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd say that there was never any real reason to expect or believe unless I missed something. Was there any indication that George would actually work together with them/write something after he stopped writing scripts after season 4 (which likely had less to do with his working schedule and everything with the shit he would have to fit his scenes in then)?

The reason would be so the only end that the saga is likely to get, would happen with his input and guidance.

[SeanF]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I was done with the thing after the 'the Lannisters are broke' episode. I think that was in season 4, I think, no?

That one triggered a genuine 'mad laugh' and left me emotionally distanced from the entire thing.

Why was that?

Did really so many people trick themselves into believing that a story cutting and changing things would eventually get back to the gist/substance and quality of the planned/intended book ending with having pretty much none of the buildup, characters, setup, and plot points for that?

That kind of thing is just wishful-thinking

Yes, it was wishful thinking on my part.  I'd got invested in the story.

[Cas Stark]

I started criticizing the bad plotting in season 3, and basically gave up on the plot and the characterizations somewhere in seasons 5/6, but I didn't expect such a total clusterfuck of idiocy as was seen in season 8.

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I started criticizing the bad plotting in season 3, and basically gave up on the plot and the characterizations somewhere in seasons 5/6, but I didn't expect such a total clusterfuck of idiocy as was seen in season 8.

As you said, they doubled down on everything that was going wrong.

It was all about shocks, subverting expectations, retconning, appealing to casual viewers over long term viewers and readers, making characters act illogically to service the plot, fanservice which didn't even please fans, dick jokes, conversations being cut off in mid-flow, leading viewers to try and infer what had been said.

[Cas Stark]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As you said, they doubled down on everything that was going wrong.

It was all about shocks, subverting expectations, retconning, appealing to casual viewers over long term viewers and readers, making characters act illogically to service the plot, fanservice which didn't even please fans, dick jokes, conversations being cut off in mid-flow, leading viewers to try and infer what had been said.

Haha, I had forgotten, or blocked out, how they started simply ending the scenes with whomever, staring blankly into the camera for several seconds instead of, ya know, finishing the conversation. Totally artificial and yet no one outside of ranters on here ever criticized the show for it.  

I'm cutting the cable cord soon so I've been rewatching some of my favorite episodes and it really is a tragedy how far the quality fell from 1-4 to 5-7 and then another big drop in 8.  

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[BlackLightning]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:56 PM, Lord Varys said:

I think if we imagine there being some tweaking/cutting then the part of the Dornish story that could go are Oberyn's daughters and the entire internal Dornish plotting with Myrcella. We need Doran and Arianne and Quentyn (for the setting up of the Dany-Arianne/Aegon conflict) - but that's it.

And Aegon would need Connington and the Golden Company, basically. 

Yeah you're right.

But the problem here is that Myrcella is just as important as Tommen is. Not only to the pre-Targaryen geopolitical structure of the Seven Kingdoms (if Daenerys needs something to fight, so does Aegon and Stannis) but also to the stories of Cersei and, to a lesser extent, Jaime.

So even if you were to cut the Sand Snakes, I think some degree of internal Dornish plotting involving Myrcella is necessary. Why? Because Cersei needs to be pushed over the edge.

Which brings me into the second half of your post.

On 1/9/2020 at 11:56 PM, Lord Varys said:

That is definitely one of the major issues. There is basically no character development and there are no twists or important characters dying.
This is also one of the main reasons why we should not really expect Cersei to stick out in KL for long. She is either going to die soon (unlikely, with her just having become a POV) or she will leave and, perhaps, retake the city later during the Second Dance of the Dragons. I've said since, well, forever that Euron and Cersei will hook up and marry in the books, and at Euron's side Cersei technically does have a shot of taking KL from either Aegon or even Daenerys (especially at a time when they are at some other place, fighting their civil war or even the Others).

Exactly.

I think she will barely escape the city, establish herself in Casterly Rock with the Westerlands seceding from the Seven Kingdoms, striking an alliance with Euron (he chose to attack the Reach instead of the Westerlands which are next door to the Iron Islands...interesting) and retake the city with Euron.

I think a lot of people forget that in A Song of Ice and Fire, the Lannisters are still very, very rich. Cersei can declare a trade war on Aegon or hit him with the medieval version of economic sanctions. Aegon doesn't have the food to feed King's Landing - much less the rest of Westeros - and he doesn't have the money to buy food or the credit to take out a loan to buy the food. The Iron Throne is bankrupt.

Cersei and Euron definitely have a chance to retake the city. And I think once they do, Cersei's wrath will be terrible to behold. She would blame everyone in that city for her defeat. I would hate to live in King's Landing with the two of them calling the shots.

I think Jaime (if he survives the Lady Stoneheart episode, which I think he will) will go back to Cersei for a little while only to leave her conclusively when it's clear that she is beyond his help and undeserving of his love. Those who deserve his help and love will be fighting the Others. But more on that later...

I also think that Cersei will either be deluding herself into thinking she is pregnant or faking a pregnancy.

On 1/9/2020 at 11:56 PM, Lord Varys said:

In such a scenario she could be some sort of big bad wildfire boss at the very end.

The fact that KL still hates the Lannisters due to Tywin's sack the chances of Cersei - even with Euron's help - holding the city against anyone with a better claim (i.e. a Targaryen pretender with or without dragons) is very low. Regardless what Daenerys or Aegon do, the Kingslanders won't abandon them - at least not a far some Lannister claimant/pretender.

All that, I think, is that we should actually expect a KL wildfire burning scenario (or an attempt to do that) to be a final plan in camp Aegon, not so much in camp Cersei or camp Dany. And to suspect Connington and/or Varys there would make quite a lot of sense - they served under the Mad King and they do actually have a connection to him and his policies. Dany has no clue about such a plan, and while Cersei started to use the pyromancers she is neither obsessed with fire/burning as such, nor does she has any clue about the wildfire plan - and wouldn't consider such a mad thing while her children were still alive. Once they are dead her priorities will change, of course, but then she will no longer be in power - because the show scenario of Cersei becoming queen regnant in her own right is not going to happen. I think book Cersei could have tried to pull something like that as Robert's widow after the death of all their children and in absence of another worthy heir ... but only before her walk of shame. Afterwards she is done as a political power in her own right on royal level. She could try to return to that level as Euron's wife and queen and, of course, as a warlord commanding a large army of Westerlanders and sellswords, but that is then not likely going to be a bid for power but rather an all-out rampage with the goal to destroy everybody she considers her enemy, no matter the cost and no matter how many of her own people die in the process of it.

I don't think Cersei will be that big bad wildfire boss. Well, not in the sense many people think.

I think that Cersei will end up becoming like Robert: fat, debauched, willfully blind and empty inside due to grief and PTSD. Euron will do to her what she did to Robert: Cersei never loved Robert and used him up until the day came when she had no more use for him. I think the Valonqar is actually Euron and that Euron will be the one to kill her.

I like to think the whole thing might turn out like the grand finale to Sleeping Beauty. You know? With Jaime (or Arya) being a Prince Phillip stand-in trying to get to a trapped/doomed Cersei aka Sleeping Beauty (not necessarily saying that Cersei is worth saving, Arya and/or Jaime may be trying to kill her). Euron will play the role of Maleficient as an evil sorcerer, Bran being the three fairies who are trying to help Prince Phillip and Daenerys and Jon both being the wildly destructive dragon that is wreaking havoc on a Greyjoy-controlled King's Landing. Maybe throw in a bit of greyscale-infected denizens and wham! You have another post-Others big battle. A Scouring of the Shire. 

If Jaime survives The Winds of Winter (honestly, it can go either way), I think Jaime will either die in the war against the Others, be executed by Daenerys for being a kingslayer at some point or be killed by Euron at some point because Jaime might either be the only thing standing in between Cersei and Euron (aka Her Certain Death)

Speaking of Euron and Cersei holding the city against anyone with a better claim.....….I don't see that being too much of a problem because the people of King's Landing will likely be powerless to stop them and mad with starvation at that point. Winter will be in full swing, the Second Dance is going to weaken the city and maybe King's Landing had a zombie problem. I also don't see it being a problem because I think Euron is a powerful skinchanger who will eventually be able to take control of hundreds of people. Thus, Bran can basically step in and have his Big Hero moment that makes people want him as their king.

[The Dragon Demands]

18 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I thought that season 8 might at least recapture it's season 5, or with some luck, season 4 form because 1) they had twice as long do to the season which was almost 50% shorter, 2) there was a hope that perhaps as it was the last season and there is very little chance GRRM will finish the final book, that he and they might have collaborated again in a bit more detail so the end would be as strong and as logical as possible, 3) most obviously because hacks or not, they would not want HBO's biggest show ever, the biggest show of the decade, to go out on a mediocre, let alone a bad note.

Despite GRRM repeatedly stating he want working with them anymore?

and I NEVER lost faith that Martin would finish the books.  I think the tv audience just collectively hyped up that mentality so they wouldn’t have to question the tv version as “the only version”.

When Winds of Winter comes out it’s going to prove how wrong that was.

 

[BlackLightning]

Believe it or not, I started having problems with the show in season 2. Talisa was problematic and they dropped the ball in regards to Arya's plot. But my chief problem was with the way they handled Bran and Daenerys. Particularly Daenerys.

They completely messed up the House of the Undying scenes. On purpose for no real reason. And they failed to really do anything notable with Bran's dreams. Why didn't they emphasize the fact that Bran was ruling Winterfell? Why keep it in if you're going to half-ass your way through it?

I kept hope alive until season 7. Season 6 had some very rough patches but it ended great and was thus therefore better than season 5.

Season 7 was absolutely horrible even with all the good scenes that it had and promising. But season 8 makes season 7 look and feel as if it was a gift from God.

I mean, come on.

Was anyone expecting the Golden Company to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! after all the buildup that it had in the previous finale? Why include them at all if you were going to do nothing with them?

They wasted money on all those actors and costumes only for them to die in their first five minutes on screen.

On 1/10/2020 at 12:25 PM, Le Cygne said:

As far as the Golden Globes are concerned, winter continues for “Game of Thrones.”

The HBO behemoth walked away empty-handed from Sunday night’s telecast after a final season that was not well received by either critics or viewers...

Season 8 of “Game of Thrones” drew such a substantial backlash that hundreds of thousands of fans started a petition demanding that HBO remake the final collection of episodes. Cast members were constantly peppered with questions asking for their reaction to the backlash, and during the show’s final Comic-Con appearance in July, one of its stars, Conleth Hill (who played Lord Varys), labeled the backlash a “media-led hate campaign.”

https://variety.com/2020/tv/awards/game-of-thrones-final-season-2020-golden-globes-no-wins-1203456642

Good.

Conleth Hill is lying. Acting. We saw how he really felt in the script readings and we heard him express (or fail to express) his feelings on the red carpet with the guys who play Bran and Davos.

I can't blame him though...it's generally unwise and unprofessional to speak ill of your bosses. Even if it's truthful.

On 1/12/2020 at 4:35 AM, SeanF said:

Had there been more criticism earlier, we might have got a better series.

That's the problem. 

There was PLENTY of criticism earlier. Remember the whole PR nightmare that was season 5? Need I remind you of the Not-Rape-But-Still-Uncomfortably-And-Unnecessarily-Rapey scene in season 4 with Jaime and Cersei?

It didn't help. Because they actually still had that very problematic cringefest that was the last conversation between Sansa and the Hound.

[Cas Stark]

I  just saw a list of ranking of GOT seasons and they had 6 as #1?  I can't even remember anything that happened in season 6, but I am sure it cannot possibly have been better than season 4, 3, 2 or even 1, which always gets the short end of the stick because it wasn't massively budgeted.  I still rank it as the best season, best writing, most cohesive plot, laying down the foundation for the entire rest of the series.  

Until the final book comes out, if it ever does, and if I am still alive at the time,  I will continue to believe that GRRM missed a huge opportunity in failing to collaborate on the final season, maybe even the final two seasons, where more detailed input might have avoided the final train wreck.