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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!


The Fattest Leech

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22 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

A short preview of Part 2:

I'm "thinking out loud" with this post to revise my draft:  the numbering of the "3 remaining questions" I had is a bit off (I'm folding the original second question into the 3rd, and promoting "Question Zero" up to 1 )

  • Whose idea was it for Emilia Clarke not to look at the storyboards, hers or the showrunners?

Without doubt, their idea.  There are behind the scenes videos of them repeating these talking points at her ("Dany is above everything and doesn't see the destruction!"). They also have a well-established pattern of micro-managing all the cast members - things like overruling Lena Headey when she felt Cersei should cry when Tommen dies.  So what, suddenly this was THE one time they let a cast member overrule them? And refused to see the notes they had for what the character was thinking and doing?

For that matter....Clarke horrifically explains in the Blu-ray commentary how she found out what it really looks like:  at the LIVE PREMIERE event, in May 2019.  With a large crowd of fans.  She was in a stunned silence the whole night after that.  So, even if this was some sort of idea to get an "authentic performance"....why the hell wouldn't Clarke have ASKED at any point in the TEN MONTHS after filming wrapped but before the premiere?  No, it was the showrunners' idea.

  • Did the showrunners self-consciously make the change after the table read, or was the table read a fake script?

Now we come to a branching point:  was the filming script in October 2017 itself a lie?  A fake?  Did Benioff and Weiss "always know" this was the ending? and just did a huge fake-out on the cast, because they were determined to get this amazing performance out of Clarke? (telling Clarke that Daenerys's actions aren't so bad, so she gives an authentic "delusional" performance).

Well if they made a change after the table read, that's bad for them, that's defeat - admitting it wasn't "planned for years".  So let's consider the other branch of possibilities to the point of exhaustion.

And let me turn back to point 1 again:  On top of all that....the script clearly has parts that aren't in the final episode, like the wildfire chain reaction.  So either those are a later change (bad), or, that was a fake-out to manipulate Clarke with limited information.  And....what, you're saying that Clarke...BY PURE COINCIDENCE, that she SIMULTANEOUSLY came up with the idea, independently from them, that "I really shouldn't see the storyboards of what the destruction of the city is actually going to look like"?   That they had a script with fake parts to "coach" her performance...and she just so happened to independently come up with the idea not to check their storyboards?  That's silly.  With no doubt, this was their idea.  

  • If the ending we saw was indeed "always planned" and the table read script was an intentional fake, was it to get an accurate performance out of Clarke, or to hide from her that it isn't the book ending?

 

I think they didn't tell her...because it doesn't happen in the books, and they didn't want her to ask questions.  What if she went to GRRM?

The hypothetical defense is "we wanted her to give an accurate performance as a deluded person who honestly believes in what she's doing"...

….which doesn't really make much sense under scrutiny.  

For starters, why didn't they bother to tell Clarke AFTER her performance was over?  For TEN FULL MONTHS?!  This is deeply suspicious.  If it was to get a good performance out of her, shouldn't they have told her right afterwards?

Clarke even directly confronts them at the end of the commentary, fake-innocently asking them, "when did you first know this was the ending?" and they said "we came up with it in on set in Season 3".

She saw the original filming script, she knows that's not the same.  

Now their laughing response was "well, we didn't want you to know!"....which...MIGHT include the broader idea of "we even gave you a fake script at the table read and actively hid this from you to get a great performance" ---- a defense Benioff and Weiss themselves have NEVER admitted to.  

Remember back in Season 2 when we were all making up elaborate theories and explanations of how Benioff and Weiss did bizarre things? ("Don't worry, this is all for a fake-out later!")  yeah....that never materialized...

So even confronting them on the Blu-ray, they don't fully admit in words something like "we gave you fake scripts and told you not to look at the storyboards"....instead, they try to convince her it was HER idea not to read them, never admit that the original scripts don't loo like this.  

Nor does this match up with OTHER inter-related evidence.  "it was all to get a great performance out of Clarke" - what, even the relic dialogue in episode 4 about human shields?  Which has no impact on the final battle?  or the CONFIRMED Cersei miscarriage storyline in Season 7 which Lena Headey admitted was filmed but cut?

So it's...theoretically possible, that this was all a misguided, elaborate attempt to push Clarke into a great deluded performance by hiding information from her.  The second possibility is that they hid it from her all along, even in the table read script, because it doesn't happen in the books (and the third branching possibility is that it's even a change they made AFTER the table read, the version I personally believe).  

But best case scenario....they went through all this trouble to hide it from her....then horrifically "kinda forgot" to tell her?  That's...that's the best defense?  And even this doesn't account for all the other corroborating evidence that it was a coverup.  

I’m not really surprised at them hiding it from Emilia. The production of Season 8 was famously cagey, with the actors being fed their lines via earpieces and having the actors for Jaqen H’Ghar, The Waif, and The Night King walk around set. Is it that much of a stretch that they’d hide what was going on for the sake of minimizing leaks?

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Then what were they reading at the table read? Jon killing Dany was in the scripts when they did the read through as we have the video evidence for that. If at that point it was hidden from Emilia what Dany would do, then what was the reason given in the script for Jon killing Dany? No reason at all? Wouldn't both Emilia and Kit be asking questions then?

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7 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

In the original script it appears they're upset about how many people she accidentally killed in the crossfiire

I saw your youtube videos and they are impressive. DnD for sure changed lots of stuff in the last possible moment. However the main stroke i.e that Jon will eventually murder Daenerys does seem to be a solid idea, just the path there was wrong.

What i mean is - this probably comes out of GRRM  himself, those 2 dickheads cannot possibly destroy their money maker for no reason. They were just incompetent and could not build the story in a believable manner so we can actually accept this scene.

And with the Winds of Winter getting less likely to come out(not to mention the almost impossible ADOS) im sad again :(

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21 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

"the main stroke" is so broad as to be meaningless.  

"Jon kills Daenerys at some point" - so said thousands of readers since 2000 who put two and two together about the Azor Ahai prophecy.  Who knows if this is even remotely like the context.

Agree. "Broad stroke" is meaningless. It's never been defined, and it's been contradicted even in it's "broadest" meaning by both author and showrunners many times.

I can't see GRRM, who loves surprises, telegraphing that this legend of old times is going to be played out in the current story in the end. YAWN.

It's backwards, it's sexist, and it's so cynical, it wipes out Jon's entire story, which began from his birth as a story of hope, however mistaken everyone may have been.

I doubt Jon kills Dany, but if he does, it's curtains for Jon.

The Jon of the books is not going to be able to live with himself as a kinslayer (show either but by the end he was a piece of cardboard, like the rest of them).

Nor will GRRM paint this as a good thing, as the show did: Look what you made me do. Now I'll go frolic with my dog in the wilderness, where I've always been happiest anyway.

So if this one thing, what happens to person B, is the same (person A kills her), then this other equally significant thing, what happens to person A after he does this thing, is different.

Add it all up and it's so different, it's not even worth pulling out the "maybe this will sort of be the same but in an entirely different way" instances. It's just a big mess to even go there.

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Agree. "Broad stroke" is meaningless. It's never been defined, and it's been contradicted even in it's "broadest" meaning by both author and showrunners many times.

I can't see GRRM, who loves surprises, telegraphing that this legend of old times is going to be played out in the current story in the end. YAWN.

It's backwards, it's sexist, and it's so cynical, it wipes out Jon's entire story, which began from his birth as a story of hope, however mistaken everyone may have been.

I doubt Jon kills Dany, but if he does, it's curtains for Jon.

The Jon of the books is not going to be able to live with himself as a kinslayer (show either but by the end he was a piece of cardboard, like the rest of them).

Nor will GRRM paint this as a good thing, as the show did: Look what you made me do. Now I'll go frolic with my dog in the wilderness, where I've always been happiest anyway.

So if this one thing, what happens to person B, is the same (person A kills her), then this other equally significant thing, what happens to person A after he does this thing, is different.

Add it all up and it's so different, it's not even worth pulling out the "maybe this will sort of be the same but in an entirely different way" instances. It's just a big mess to even go there.

The show didn't mention this prophecy, and that makes me think they avoided it because it was a dead give away. 

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3 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Agree. "Broad stroke" is meaningless. It's never been defined, and it's been contradicted even in it's "broadest" meaning by both author and showrunners many times.

I can't see GRRM, who loves surprises, telegraphing that this legend of old times is going to be played out in the current story in the end. YAWN.

It's backwards, it's sexist, and it's so cynical, it wipes out Jon's entire story, which began from his birth as a story of hope, however mistaken everyone may have been.

I doubt Jon kills Dany, but if he does, it's curtains for Jon.

The Jon of the books is not going to be able to live with himself as a kinslayer (show either but by the end he was a piece of cardboard, like the rest of them).

Nor will GRRM paint this as a good thing, as the show did: Look what you made me do. Now I'll go frolic with my dog in the wilderness, where I've always been happiest anyway.

So if this one thing, what happens to person B, is the same (person A kills her), then this other equally significant thing, what happens to person A after he does this thing, is different.

Add it all up and it's so different, it's not even worth pulling out the "maybe this will sort of be the same but in an entirely different way" instances. It's just a big mess to even go there.

Let's not beat around the bush with GRRM, ASOIAF is very, very cynical.

 

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Vagueness of scripts seems kind of thin as an argument. If you read most of D&D's scripts, even the big scenes, are written with little detail and clock in quite short. I think Emilia could tell what she was reading and that her character's actions were very bad. If Dany was only targeting soldiers, Emilia wouldn't have described herself wondering around London for hours in a daze. Also - 

Quote

“I called my mom and—“ Clarke shifts into a tearful voice to perform the conversation as she reenacts the call: “I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? It really messed me up.’ And then I asked my mom and brother really weird questions. They were like: ‘What are you asking us this for? What do you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you okay?’”

“And I’m all: ‘I’m fine! … But is there anything Daenerys could do that would make you hate her?’”

I dont think she would have had this reaction with her mom, or said it was a struggle to read the scripts, or gone off to study dictator speeches, if Dany was just killing the bad doods again like she had before and the mass murder stuff was added in post. I dont really see the evidence for her being lied to in the script read (they definitely withheld info from her before this though). Dany goes down for the "final consummation" of "soldiers and civilians alike" "Drogon reigns fire and blood on the people of King's landing" sounds exactly like what she was reacting to, intentional mass murder.

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31 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

And....you discuss her reaction to her mother....oh, wait until you hear her describing in her own words how she only found out what really happens on screen by watching at a public premiere event!

Well of course she would find out "what happens," in terms of the CGI at the premier. She doesn't know that she's flying up and down the streets of King's Landing, exterminating people like bugs, but she still knows she "goes bad:"

Quote

Interviewer: And, for eighteen months, you had to keep the secret.

Emilia: That was the worst thing ever. I couldn’t tell anyone. I mean, I’d be sitting around the table with my family being, like, “Guys, out of curiosity, what do you think of Daenerys? Do you like her? Do you think she’s nice? Do you like her?”

My best girlfriend, Lola, doesn’t watch the show. It’s not her cup of tea. But she’s been around me enough listening to snippets of conversations with everyone, from the driver to a friend at work. And she came up to me about two and a half months ago and said, “She goes bad, doesn’t she?” And it all came pouring out of me: “Oh, my God! I’ve been wanting to tell someone for so long!” And she was, like, “I knew it! I knew it!”

Maybe I dont get what you're trying to prove here?

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37 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

She thought Daenerys would "go bad"...by shooting retreating Lannister soldiers, and accidentally hitting civilians in the crossfire.

I dont really see the evidence that this is "accidental." She knows Daenerys went bad.

Bad doesnt mean "unintentionally killing civilians" or "ooopsie daisey." 

Or "bad enough to kill soldiers but not bad enough to want to intentionally kill civilians." 

37 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

So this happened to Emilia TWICE.  Dear god, they did this to her TWICE;  FIRST the points with her mother you cite....thinking it was "Daenerys going bad" in the sense of "she's shooting surrendering Lannister soldiers".  The SECOND point happened a year and a half later, on premiere night, when she found out that Daenerys is outright "needlessly massacring civilians".  She was again so stunned that she didn't eat or talk - it was this big charity event, "40 people get to see the premiere live with Clarke, then go to a dinner party with her afterwards".  Instead she was too stunned to interact with anyone.  
They didn't tell her, the bastards.

Maybe I'm not getting it. "Lying" is kind of a stretch when she could have just been stunned at the visuals of people being burned alive. Scenes on a page, then filmed, tend to be like that. I still see Daenerys "needlessly massacring civilians" even in the original scripts you've posted, its just not as "gruesome" as the CGI made it because again. It's a script.

 

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1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

in the script version, she went “bad” in killing a mix of soldiers and civilians 

That's what was on screen.

"Soldiers and civilians alike" get carpet bombed, on screen.

"Drogon strafes them all:" so we see scenes of soldiers getting burned and civilians getting burned. We don't exactly know her motives but...she didnt seem to care in the scenes before or after this.

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

in the aired version, she goes “cartoonishly insane”, by carpet bombing purely civilian crowds for no apparent reason.

And soldiers too, on screen as per the script.

And destroying a city just to kill Lannister soldiers is just as "insane" - they already surrendered. What did the script say about that?

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

“stunningly evil”

The scripts seem to explain Emilia's shock and her concern for how Dany is seen, but I dont really care so I'll leave you to it.

Personally I find it more interesting why they withheld Dany's arc from her for a long time, and why Emilia didn't pick up on it, when other actors did (Nikolaj and Finn Jones worked it out).

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