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]

3 hours ago, ThotKiller said:

Honestly, i feel kinda impressed how D&D managed to totaly fuck up, what they did is a achievement in failure, they ruined everything, they killed the rewatchablity, and made HBO lost half of his audience LMAO 

It's like Nick Leeson blowing up Baring's Bank.

[Prince of the North]

10 hours ago, ThotKiller said:

Honestly, i feel kinda impressed how D&D managed to totaly fuck up, what they did is a achievement in failure, they ruined everything, they killed the rewatchablity, and made HBO lost half of his audience LMAO 

Agreed.  I've been saying for quite some time now that GoT will probably be studied in film/theater classes for years to come as an example of what not to do.  At least, I sincerely hope so.

[Le Cygne]

19 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

Agreed.  I've been saying for quite some time now that GoT will probably be studied in film/theater classes for years to come as an example of what not to do.  At least, I sincerely hope so.

Even HBO knows nobody wants to rewatch. I saw an ad about rewatching series on HBO Max, and GoT wasn't listed.

[Cas Stark]

This piece pretty much sums up everything that the ranters have been saying for years.

 

https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-season-8-hurt-rewatch-value-reason/

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Ran]

She doesn't actually say she quit. It's the impression she perhaps tries to leave you with, just as she suggests she's happy to not be famous and fabulously wealthy, but it's contradicted by accounts from others at HBO who had no problem saying that, for example, Jennifer Ehle did choose to leave the show. If Merchant had really conveyed she wanted out, why would anyone have found it hard to tell her she was being recast? Why would Michael Lombardo say that she didn't work out rather than just say she wanted out anyways and they had to look for someone else?

What actually seems to have happened is that (she says) she was not enthusiastic about the project, that it ended up showing in her performance, and that it's just as well HBO recast her because (she says) she didn't think she'd have been happy in the role. But she did not quit.

[Cas Stark]

Hmmm.  Not sure what I think.  I only remember Tamzin in the Tudors, I don't recall thinking she was a bad actress?  Emilia is certainly no Bette Davis, or even a Julia Roberts, but its hard for me to picture Tamzin w/her pixie type looks being a better fit for Dany than Emilia.  Presumably, one day this allegedly horrific pilot will be leaked by someone and we can all see what the deal was. 

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Ran]

Again, just look at the interview. She never states she quit. You’re not only speculating on her statement by filling in things she did not say, but speculating on counter-evidence being untruthful.

You need to have some sense of reasonable judgment and discernment. Believing everyone is constantly lying but this, THIS, whatever this is, is the truth is what led us to things like Q Anon and the insurrection on Januray 6th.

Again, nowhere in the interview does she say she quit. Her narrative fits perfectly well with everything everyone else has said, namely that HBO didn’t like her, the producers didn’t want to tell her she was being recast, and some cast and crew thought she did fine.

In any case, not really a rant and rave thing, so off-topic.

[Le Cygne]

The show failed the characters all along and their story never went anywhere, season by season:

• Dany: pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, SATAN
• Jon: banished, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, banished
• Tyrion: awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome
• Cersei: badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, just a girl who needs the comfort of a man
• Jaime: bad, bad, not bad at all!, bad, bad, bad, bad, maybe not bad but nope he's still bad
• Brienne: not in season 1, wrongly avenges dead crush, develops new crush, story gone, avenges dead crush, story gone, story gone, honors dead crush
• Sandor: protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, gone, better, better, throws it all away on a meme
• Sansa: misery, misery, misery, misery, rape, rape revenge, almost kills her sister, gets a tiara for season 5
• Arya: spunky, spunky, funny sidekick, funny sidekick, punching bag, invincible, almost kills her sister, Dora the Explorer
• Bran: visions, visions, visions, visions, gone, creep, creep, creepy king

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Ran]

Just now, The Dragon Demands said:

Well "quit" isn't precise. But she said she no longer wanted to be there. 

Well, then what's to argue about? Easier to suppose that both parties are telling their truth: HBO recast her because they didn't think she worked, and she was relieved to be recast because she had doubts about her involvement.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[SeanF]

5 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

The show failed the characters all along and their story never went anywhere, season by season:

• Dany: pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, pretty good queen, SATAN
• Jon: banished, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, night king foe, banished
• Tyrion: awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome
• Cersei: badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, badass, just a girl who needs the comfort of a man
• Jaime: bad, bad, not bad at all!, bad, bad, bad, bad, maybe not bad but nope he's still bad
• Brienne: wrongly avenges dead crush, develops new crush, story gone, avenges dead crush, story gone, story gone, honors dead crush
• Sandor: protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, protects Stark girl, gone, better, better, throws it all away on a meme
• Sansa: misery, misery, misery, misery, rape, rape revenge, almost kills her sister, gets a tiara for season 5
• Arya: spunky, spunky, funny sidekick, funny sidekick, punching bag, invincible, almost kills her sister, Dora the Explorer
• Bran: visions, visions, visions, visions, gone, creep, creep, creepy king

They portrayed Arya as a sadist, and thought it a positive thing.  In the scene where she showed Walder Frey his sons baked in a pie, she looked as if she was having an orgasm as she watched him die.

They tried to whitewash Tyrion, and actually failed.  Objectively speaking, he was a piece of shit.  He served, at the highest level, a regime which brought fire and sword to the peasants of the Riverlands and Vale;  worked to keep a psychopathic usurper in power;  was a common murderer and parricide;  gave advice to Daenerys that was so bad, that the only way to rationalise it is that he didn’t want his family to lose;  proposed starving the people of Kings Landing to death;  and finally manipulated Jon into doing his dirty work.

Jon became a doormat, apparently losing his brain, after being restored to life, and his spine, at some point in Season 7.

[Le Cygne]

16 minutes ago, SeanF said:

They portrayed Arya as a sadist, and thought it a positive thing.

They tried to whitewash Tyrion, and actually failed.  Objectively speaking, he was a piece of shit.  He served, at the highest level, a regime which brought fire and sword to the peasants of the Riverlands and Vale;  worked to keep a psychopathic usurper in power;  was a common murderer and parricide;  gave advice to Daenerys that was so bad, that the only way to rationalise it is that he didn’t want his family to lose;  proposed starving the people of Kings Landing to death;  and finally manipulated Jon into doing his dirty work.

Jon became a doormat, apparently losing his brain, after being restored to life, and his spine, at some point in Season 7.

True. In the gaping chasm between what they tried to show and what they actually showed, was their twisted viewpoint. And the closer you look, the scarier that viewpoint gets.

It wasn't Westeros that was scary, it was the writers. Basic morality seems to be not only beyond their grasp, but something they actively scorn and seek to destroy wherever they find it.

The source material was of course not like this at all. That was the thing that made you fear for the characters, that sense of what was right and wrong. That was the stakes.

There were no stakes in this show. It was like a parent jingling keys to distract a child, just a bunch of mugging the camera and special effects and shocks to get cheap reactions.

THERE IS NO STORY. That's what it always comes back to. There are no characters. There is no story.

[Nowy Tends]

6 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

There are no characters. There is no story.

And who has a better no story than Bran the non existent?

[$erPounce]

Comparing the book material with the TV series, it strikes me time and again how superficial the TV series comes across.

I know that the TV series is a vastly oversimplified version of the books. The first season only adapts about 25-35% of the books' original dialogue. Many meaningful interactions and dialogues from the books go to waste as a result.  Note that some episodes of season 1 consist of about 40% non-book material. Some non-canon scenes were certainly good. Most I consider unnecessary. I would have preferred them to be closer the the books, even for the first season.

I consider the adaptation of Catelyn II (S1E1) to be astonishingly bad.  The book succeeds much better in depicting the relationships between Catelyn and Eddard. The tensions come across much better. Compare for yourself:

Dialogues from A Song of Ice and Fire

Spoiler

EDDARD STARK: I will refuse him.

CATELYN TULLY: You cannot. You must not.

EDDARD STARK: My duties are here in the north. I have no wish to be Robert’s Hand.

CATELYN TULLY: He will not understand that. He is a king now, and kings are not like other men. If you refuse to serve him, he will wonder why, and sooner or later he will begin to suspect that you oppose him. Can’t you see the danger that would put us in?

EDDARD STARK: Robert would never harm me or any of mine. We were closer than brothers. He loves me. If I refuse him, he will roar and curse and bluster, and in a week we will laugh about it together. I know the man!

CATELYN TULLY: You knew the man. The king is a stranger to you. Pride is everything to a king, my lord. Robert came all this way to see you, to bring you these great honors, you cannot throw them back in his face.

EDDARD STARK: Honors?

CATELYN TULLY: In his eyes, yes.

EDDARD STARK: And in yours?

CATELYN TULLY: And in mine. He offers his own son in marriage to our daughter, what else would you call that? Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule from the Wall to the mountains of Dorne. What is so wrong with that?

EDDARD STARK: Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven. And Joffrey … Joffrey is …

CATELYN TULLY: … crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.

EDDARD STARK: Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’s Hand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass to me.

CATELYN TULLY: Perhaps not, but Brandon is dead, and the cup has passed, and you must drink from it, like it or not.

EDDARD STARK: What is it?

DESMOND: My lord, Maester Luwin is without and begs urgent audience.

EDDARD STARK: You told him I had left orders not to be disturbed?

DESMOND: Yes, my lord. He insists.

EDDARD STARK: Very well. Send him in.

CATELYN TULLY: Perhaps we should close the windows.

MAESTER LUWIN: My lord, pardon for disturbing your rest. I have been left a message.

EDDARD STARK: Been left? By whom? Has there been a rider? I was not told.

MAESTER LUWIN: There was no rider, my lord. Only a carved wooden box, left on a table in my observatory while I napped. My servants saw no one, but it must have been brought by someone in the king’s party. We have had no other visitors from the south.

CATELYN TULLY: A wooden box, you say?

MAESTER LUWIN: Inside was a fine new lens for the observatory, from Myr by the look of it. The lenscrafters of Myr are without equal.

EDDARD STARK: A lens, what has that to do with me?

MAESTER LUWIN: I asked the same question. Clearly there was more to this than the seeming.

CATELYN TULLY: A lens is an instrument to help us see.

MAESTER LUWIN: Indeed it is.

CATELYN TULLY: What is it that they would have us see more clearly?

MAESTER LUWIN: The very thing I asked myself. I found the true message concealed within a false bottom when I dismantled the box the lens had come in, but it is not for my eyes.

EDDARD STARK: Let me have it, then.

MAESTER LUWIN: Pardons, my lord. The message is not for you either. It is marked for the eyes of the Lady Catelyn, and her alone. May I approach?

EDDARD STARK: Stay. What is it? My lady, you’re shaking.

CATELYN TULLY: I’m afraid. It’s from Lysa. It will not make us glad.There is grief in this message, Ned. I can feel it.

EDDARD STARK: Open it.

CATELYN TULLY: Lysa took no chances. When we were girls together, we had a private language, she and I.”

EDDARD STARK: Can you read it?

CATELYN TULLY: Yes.

EDDARD STARK: Then tell us.

MAESTER LUWIN: Perhaps I should withdraw.

CATELYN TULLY: No. We will need your counsel.

EDDARD STARK: What are you doing?

CATELYN TULLY: Lighting a fire

EDDARD STARK: Maester Luwin—

CATELYN TULLY: Maester Luwin has delivered all my children. This is no time for false modesty.

EDDARD STARK: My lady, tell me! What was this message?

CATELYN TULLY: A warning. If we have the wits to hear.

EDDARD STARK: Go on.

CATELYN TULLY: Lysa says Jon Arryn was murdered.

EDDARD STARK: By whom?

CATELYN TULLY: The Lannisters. The queen.

EDDARD STARK: Gods. Your sister is sick with grief. She cannot know what she is saying.

CATELYN TULLY: She knows. Lysa is impulsive, yes, but this message was carefully planned, cleverly hidden. She knew it meant death if her letter fell into the wrong hands. To risk so much, she must have had more than mere suspicion. Now we truly have no choice. You must be Robert’s Hand. You must go south with him and learn the truth.

EDDARD STARK: The only truths I know are here. The south is a nest of adders I would do better to avoid.

MAESTER LUWIN: The Hand of the King has great power, my lord. Power to find the truth of Lord Arryn’s death, to bring his killers to the king’s justice. Power to protect Lady Arryn and her son, if the worst be true.

CATELYN TULLY: You say you love Robert like a brother. Would you leave your brother surrounded by Lannisters?

EDDARD STARK: The Others take both of you. My father went south once, to answer the summons of a king. He never came home again.

MAESTER LUWIN: A different time, a different king.

EDDARD STARK: Yes. Catelyn, you shall stay here in Winterfell.

CATELYN TULLY: No.

EDDARD STARK: Yes, you must govern the north in my stead, while I run Robert’s errands. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Robb is fourteen. Soon enough, he will be a man grown. He must learn to rule, and I will not be here for him. Make him part of your councils. He must be ready when his time comes.

MAESTER LUWIN: Gods will, not for many years.

EDDARD STARK: Maester Luwin, I trust you as I would my own blood. Give my wife your voice in all things great and small. Teach my son the things he needs to know. Winter is coming.

CATELYN TULLY: What of the other children?

EDDARD STARK: Rickon is very young. He should stay here with you and Robb. The others I would take with me.

CATELYN TULLY: I could not bear it.

EDDARD STARK: You must. Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too.

CATELYN TULLY: Yes, but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven.

EDDARD STARK: I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie. Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it.

CATELYN TULLY: Keep him off the walls, then. You know how Bran loves to climb.

EDDARD STARK: Thank you, my lady. This is hard, I know.

MAESTER LUWIN: What of Jon Snow, my lord?

CATELYN TULLY: Jon must go.

EDDARD STARK: He and Robb are close. I had hoped …

CATELYN TULLY: He cannot stay here. He is your son, not mine. I will not have him.

EDDARD STARK: You know I cannot take him south. There will be no place for him at court. A boy with a bastard’s name … you know what they will say of him. He will be shunned.

CATELYN TULLY: They say your friend Robert has fathered a dozen bastards himself.

EDDARD STARK: And none of them has ever been seen at court! The Lannister woman has seen to that. How can you be so damnably cruel, Catelyn? He is only a boy. He—

MAESTER LUWIN: Another solution presents itself. Your brother Benjen came to me about Jon a few days ago. It seems the boy aspires to take the black.

EDDARD STARK: He asked to join the Night’s Watch?

MAESTER LUWIN: There is great honor in service on the Wall, my lord.

EDDARD STARK: And even a bastard may rise high in the Night’s Watch. Jon is so young. If he asked this when he was a man grown, that would be one thing, but a boy of fourteen …”

MAESTER LUWIN: A hard sacrifice. Yet these are hard times, my lord. His road is no crueler than yours or your lady’s.

EDDARD STARK: Very well, I suppose it is for the best. I will speak to Ben.

MAESTER LUWIN: When shall we tell Jon?

EDDARD STARK: When I must. Preparations must be made. It will be a fortnight before we are ready to depart. I would sooner let Jon enjoy these last few days. Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well. When the time comes, I will tell him myself.

Dialogues from Game of Thrones

Spoiler

 

EDDARD STARK: I’m a Northman. I belong here with you, not down south in that rat’s nest they call a capital.

CATELYN TULLY: I won’t let him take you.

EDDARD STARK: The king takes what he wants. That’s why he’s king.

CATELYN TLLY: I’ll say, ‘Listen, fat man, you are not taking my husband anywhere. He belongs to me now.’

EDDARD STARK: How did he get so fat?

CATELYN TULLY: He only stops eating when it’s time for a drink.

DESMOND: It’s Maester Luwin, my lord.

EDDARD STARK: Send him in.

MAESTER LUWIN: Pardon, my lord, my lady. A rider in the night from your sister.

EDDARD STARK: Stay.

CATELYN TULLY: This was sent from the Eyrie. What’s she doing at the Eyrie? She hasn’t been back there since her wedding.

EDDARD STARK: What news?

CATELYN TULLY: She’s fled the capital. She says Jon Arryn was murdered. By the Lannisters. She says the king is in danger.

EDDARD STARK: She’s fresh widowed, Cat. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.

CATELYN TULLY: Lysa’s head would be on a spike right now if the wrong people had found that letter. Do you think she would risk her life, her son’s life, if she wasn’t certain her husband was murdered?

MAESTER LUWIN: If this news is true, and the Lannisters conspire against the throne, who but you can protect the king?

CATELYN TULLY: They murdered the last Hand. Now you want Ned to take the job.

MAESTER LUWIN: The king rode for a month to ask Lord Stark’s help. He’s the only one he trusts. You swore the king an oath, my lord.

CATELYN TULLY (to LUWIN): He spent half his life fighting Robert’s wars. He owes him nothing.

CATELYN TULLY (To EDDARD): Your father and brother rode south once on a king’s demand.

MAESTER LUWIN: A different time. Different king.

 

 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

And who has a better no story than Bran the non existent?

The Bran 9000, as Preston Jacobs called him.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah