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]

4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Haha, a long chain of stupid...they lost a dragon in the insane quest to prove to the least trustworthy person in Westeros that she needed to play nice, which not even Hot Pie would believe is possible.  

ETA...its also another vein of stupid that not a single person ever said, hey Arya, since you are a FM and can slice off and wear the faces of your enemies...maybe you should be integral to our plan here.  Nah. We'll send the Dothraki vanguard out to die, that'll work. 

 

Yes, Hot Pie turned out to be one of the more astute political observers in Westeros.  He had worked out that Cersei blew up the Great Sept, something the inhabitants of Kings Landing were unaware of.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Count Balerion]

It seems ... odd, to say the least, that they didn't inform the female lead of what her character was doing.

And, going back to the "prostitution is good" and what not above:

"Liberation theology" is bad. I didn't make that up. It's in the 8.6 script: "If that's liberation, Tyrion doesn't believe in liberation theology." Qutoing from memory.

[Le Cygne]

When so many people say Benioff/Weiss did things for shock, they aren't complimenting them. It's an insult.

They blast them for that in this compilation of reviews of Bowed, Bent, and Broken:

Anyone can do something shocking to try to get a reaction. Anyone.

And the audience saw through it, too. They telegraphed the damn thing. The only thing shocking was that they'd actually go there, because it was so STUPID.

The better actors knew they did them no favors. Listen to Stephen Dillane. He's a great actor and he knew it was TRASH. Anyone can emote. You need a good story.

All they cared about was the shot, they said so themselves in their remarks here, they said they didn't know what they were doing, then the good ole boys rewarded them again.

[kissdbyfire]

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

but the driving factor here, the PRIMARY factor, isn't "the measured, intelligently thought out desire to be unpredictable"....

But that’s not what anyone is saying here. They obviously never gave much thought to any of it... Never gave much thought and never considered how these god-awful ideas would impact the story. They seemingly never cared what would happen to the characters either. The show they had no idea how to develop was praised b/c “no one is safe” after Ned’s execution, then the Red Wedding turned all that up to 11, and they thought they had a foolproof formula for success: SHOCK! Do what no one is expecting, no matter how stupid. What they didn’t take into consideration is that Ned’s death and the Red Wedding are Martin’s accomplishments, not theirs. And once they were on their own, the house of cards came crumbling down, b/c there was no substance, no truth, no story. 

Impulsive decisions are not always going to fail. Not if they’re not utterly stupid. But decisions based on “I want to shock everyone and fuck everything else subvert expectations at any cost” will inevitably blow up in your face.

[Count Balerion]

If I understand the Dragon chap, properly he's saying that even that is giving them more credit than they deserve, that's there's no guiding principle that they apply, not even that of being shocking. It's apparently mostly whims and caprices that hop into Boonioff's head at random times, often in the middle of the night. And insofar as there is a guiding principle, it seems to be that of having the actors make faces in order to win awards. Which clearly didn't quite go according to plan. This is just a very crude summary of what I've picked up from watching Dragon videos.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Morte]

10 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

But that’s not what anyone is saying here. They obviously never gave much thought to any of it... Never gave much thought and never considered how these god-awful ideas would impact the story. They seemingly never cared what would happen to the characters either. The show they had no idea how to develop was praised b/c “no one is safe” after Ned’s execution, then the Red Wedding turned all that up to 11, and they thought they had a foolproof formula for success: SHOCK! Do what no one is expecting, no matter how stupid. What they didn’t take into consideration is that Ned’s death and the Red Wedding are Martin’s accomplishments, not theirs. And once they were on their own, the house of cards came crumbling down, b/c there was no substance, no truth, no story. 

They also didn't understand - and it shows a lot how incompetent readers and writers they are - that neither Ned's death nor the Red Wedding came out of thin air. Both are build up from the start: Ned's failures in playing the game are cumulating till there is no way for him left to realistically come out of this unscathed. Robb wins every battle, but his political mistakes are cumulating; that something is coming is looming over the chapters leading to the Red Wedding, in no way one gets the feeling that Edmure's wedding will make everything okay again in the books.

There is no "no one is safe" or "subverting expectations" or "shock" in the books, Martin just builds up very carefully, but every "shock" is just the logical consequence of what happened before it. The reader feels that there is no easy way out, we just did not know how the shit will hit the fan, but everybody reading the books knew it would.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Morte said:

They also didn't understand - and it shows a lot how incompetent readers and writers they are - that neither Ned's death nor the Red Wedding came out of thin air. Both are build up from the start: Ned's failures in playing the game are cumulating till there is no way for him left to realistically come out of this unscathed. Robb wins every battle, but his political mistakes are cumulating; that something is coming is looming over the chapters leading to the Red Wedding, in no way one gets the feeling that Edmure's wedding will make everything okay again in the books.

There is no "no one is safe" or "subverting expectations" or "shock" in the books, Martin just builds up very carefully, but every "shock" is just the logical consequence of what happened before it. The reader feels that there is no easy way out, we just did not know how the shit will hit the fan, but everybody reading the books knew it would.

Likewise, Jon's stabbing.  There's plenty of build-up to that, across an entire book.  It's not just about letting the wildlings through the Wall, it's about aiding Stannis, alienating the Boltons and Kings Landing, and we see Jon making cumulative political errors, as well.  And then, the final straw is Jon's response to the Pink Letter (a moment that was completely underwhelming in the show).  So, it's a shock for Jon to be stabbed, but it doesn't come out of the blue, either.

Once they decided to vilify Stannis, for .......reasons, it detracted heavily from the entire Northern plot line.  The fact that Jon (in ADWD) drives a coach and horses through the tradition of Night's Watch neutrality, in order to aid Stannis and rescue "Arya", is a huge factor in causing Bowen Marsh et al to turn against him.

 

[Le Cygne]

GRRM puts in the characterization work over time that pays off. So when something surprising happens, it feels natural. Characters are the foundation of a good story.

Jon had been thinking of Arya, and Arya had been thinking of Jon, he established a bond between them, so you knew if something happened to one or the other, they'd be there. He put in a lot of work with Sansa and Sandor, and Jaime and Brienne, as well (Beauty and the Beast stories where meeting each other changes their lives). It's incredible, the amount of detail he packed into these relationships. The gradual development was earned, and filled with meaning, as seen in how they interacted with the world around them, and thus the larger story.

If you track how often they think of each other, it's like he's got a checklist, time to add another piece to the structure I'm building! And he faithfully does so from book to book.

Yet the show blew all GRRM's hard work off for nothing - rape, memes, incest, lust... and Ollie. My god, they had Jon die for OLLIE instead of Arya. What clown would do this?

The Steely Dan lyric comes to mind - they wouldn't even know a diamond if they held it in their hands. They consistently tossed aside great gifts from the source material.

[SeanF]

30 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

GRRM puts in the characterization work over time that pays off. So when something surprising happens, it feels natural. Characters are the foundation of a good story.

Jon had been thinking of Arya, and Arya had been thinking of Jon, he established a bond between them, so you knew something if something happened to one or the other, they'd be there. He put in a lot of work with Sansa and Sandor, and Jaime and Brienne, as well (Beauty and the Beast stories where meeting each other changes their lives). It's incredible, the amount of detail he packed into these relationships. The gradual development was earned, and filled with meaning, as seen in how they interacted with the world around them, and thus the larger story.

If you track how often they think of each other, it's like he's got a checklist, time to add another piece to the structure I'm building! And he faithfully does so from book to book.

Yet the show blew all GRRM's hard work off for nothing - rape, memes, incest, lust... and Ollie. My god, they had Jon die for OLLIE instead of Arya. What clown would do this?

The Steely Dan lyric comes to mind - they wouldn't even know a diamond if they held it in their hands. They consistently tossed aside great gifts from the source material.

"Ed, fetch me a block", one of the most satisfying lines Jon utters, becomes "Ollie, get my sword".

[Le Cygne]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

"Ed, fetch me a block", one of the most satisfying lines Jon utters, becomes "Ollie, get my sword".

They did this so often. People have said they dumbed the show down for the audience, but audiences would have understood, had they led them there. But they lacked the skills.

They dumbed it down for themselves.

If you don't know what you are doing, and you are humble, you don't go it alone, or with yes men. So there was a combination of cluelessness and arrogance that caught up with them.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

They did this so often. People have said they dumbed the show down for the audience, but audiences would have understood, had they led them there. But they lacked the skills.

They dumbed it down for themselves.

If you don't know what you are doing, and you are humble, you don't go it alone, or with yes men. So there was a combination of cluelessness and arrogance that caught up with them.

It's foolish to underestimate the intelligence of the audience.  There are plenty of intelligent, gripping TV series, where you really have to pay attention to what is going in - and which are very popular. Lots of people came to the series, having read the books, or being familiar with medieval and Tudor history.

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

"Ed, fetch me a block", one of the most satisfying lines Jon utters, becomes "Ollie, get my sword".

 

4 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

They did this so often. People have said they dumbed the show down for the audience, but audiences would have understood, had they led them there. But they lacked the skills.

They dumbed it down for themselves.

If you don't know what you are doing, and you are humble, you don't go it alone, or with yes men. So there was a combination of cluelessness and arrogance that caught up with them.

Lets not forget "Only Cat" becoming "Only your sister". That there is exact proof of them dumbing down the show.

[Cas Stark]

5 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

 

Lets not forget "Only Cat" becoming "Only your sister". That there is exact proof of them dumbing down the show.

Ha, I had forgotten that one of many pointless changes to the text.  Dan and Dave are like those crackpot 'restorers' who destroy priceless paintings and murals with their ministrations. 

[Ghostlydragon]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Ha, I had forgotten that one of many pointless changes to the text.  Dan and Dave are like those crackpot 'restorers' who destroy priceless paintings and murals with their ministrations. 

It reminds me of how the simpsons movie was butchered by pandering to test audiences who didn't get the references to what came before so.everything changed as much as possible at the expense of the real fans. 

[Count Balerion]

Oh yes, the pointless changes. On the one hand, having LF say "Your sister" instead of "Only Cat" isn't the biggest deal in the world. On the other, why? What's the point? What's wrong with the original text that it needed to be changed? (Not that I'm a complete purist. But if you change, have a REASON for changing.)

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Count Balerion said:

Oh yes, the pointless changes. On the one hand, having LF say "Your sister" instead of "Only Cat" isn't the biggest deal in the world. On the other, why? What's the point? What's wrong with the original text that it needed to be changed? (Not that I'm a complete purist. But if you change, have a REASON for changing.)

There have to be changes, and I don't envy any producer that has to adapt good books to TV or film.  Almost always, those of us who have read the books will prefer them, even if we think the producer has made a good effort. Our headcanon will never match the producers'.

But, when the author gives you gold, why exchange it for dross?  Building up the tension between Jon and his lieutenants over his decisions, during the course of Season 5, would have worked just fine.  And, it wouldn't have precluded the excitement of Hardhome.

It could have been such a wonderful piece of TV drama to have Jon say "unless there is any man who wants to come with me!" to a hall of cheering men, straight after receiving the Pink Letter, which finally prompts his opponents to act.

[Count Balerion]

There have to be changes; but these small textual changes didn't seem necessary. "Only Cat" being a case in point. The sort of change I could defend would be, for example, cutting Quentyn (though I like him). Even though that's a bigger change. They can't really include all the side plots.