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!

[Lady Fevre Dream]

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

I didn’t think the fighting per se was done badly, in B O B.  My objection was to the sheer stupidity displayed by Jon and Sansa.

Jon is meant to be an experienced commander, who then loses the plot over Rickon’s death, and attempts to charge the enemy single-handed. On foot.  Against armoured horsemen.  

Sansa never bothers to tell Jon there are two thousand friendly cavalry in the vicinity, certainly getting hundreds of their men killed, as a result.  Granted, Sophie Turner said she did it because she wanted the credit for victory, which is worse than stupidity.  Most commanders would have hanged Sansa for her behaviour.

It seems the Ds became trapped in the idea of 'gee, I bet this would LOOK cool' as opposed to wondering whether or not something would make sense.  Sadly, that always seemed to come at the expense of character and story, double or more so when it came to Jon and Sansa as the years went on. 

[Le Cygne]

19 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

sapochnik needed 3 extra days to film a key sequence and didn't have 3 days. he dashed off an e-mail to the D-chaps, expecting to get yelled at. "D&D liked scripts executed the way they wrote them, and w/ good reason." [waht good reasons!]

Benioff and Weiss keep saying they don't know what they are doing, and yet they keep telling professionals who do know what they are doing to do exactly what they say.

Born on third base and thought they hit a triple.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

The battle tactics that everyone was using seemed pretty dumb to  me, and I am not one who picks up on that type of stuff unless it is really, really  obvious.  Of course, everything about Sansa's behavior was insane and traitorous.  I also remember thinking that the pile of bodies was too 'theatrical' looking for a show allegedly steeped in realism. 

So many military fuck ups happen, due to a lack of necessary information on the part of a commander.  Deliberately withholding key information from your commander would be a very grave offence in any era, and a capital crime in a medieval setting.

[Count Balerion]

the battle looked a mess to me. not that i'm an expert. i guess sansa withholding the info was to make it more dramatic? but yes, you can't do that in a battle. how can the commander make informed decisions if he isn't ... informed?

[Corvinus85]

Crap stuff from the BOB:

- I don't care how psychotic Ramsay is, you start ordering arrow volleys on your men, expect a sword in the back from one of your lords

- We all know that Jon behaved stupidly, but he also seems to have forgotten to implement the plan he was discussing earlier (so clearly forgetting stuff was infectious) - the one where they were going to fortify their flanks, and he had to explain to Tormund what a pincer movement was; I suppose that was the entire purpose of that scene, have another silly Tormund moment. Later in the battle the Smalljon manages to outflank them on foot, and comes over the mound of corpses.

- Shields are cheap, even the poor wildlings should have them - there is one guy in the entirety of the Stark army who has a shield, it's a Mormont dude; that shield then conveniently is teleported in Winterfell's yard for Jon, the first man through the gates, to pick up.

- Give the giant a tree to use as a club. It would have helped immensely against those spearmen.

By the way, more recent stuff, like The Mandalorian and The Expanse, that prove that actors can act with helmets on,. Too late for GoT, but I hope House of the Dragon gives it a try.

 

[Le Cygne]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

So many military fuck ups happen, due to a lack of necessary information on the part of a commander.  Deliberately withholding key information from your commander would be a very grave offence in any era, and a capital crime in a medieval setting.

And when it's your brother, who is trying to save your other brother, it's even worse. They said she wanted power, and the actor said she wanted credit. In human circles, that's known as evil.

Yet another example of the basic lack of morality on the part of showrunners. Time and time again, they failed to address moral transgressions, while they portrayed the villains as heroes.

They called Ramsay a badass and gave him super powers. They gave one of the worst villains in the series the hero treatment right until the end, then once again, they made his victim be like him.

Also speaking of bad writing, even Wun Wun was robbed. He was just there to be killed, like Rickon. They would constantly telegraph, season after season, this character is just here to die.

The poor actors, they never knew what was going on (neither did the showrunners). "How should we play it?" "Just say the lines!" Even though the money was good, it must have been a relief.

[Le Cygne]

9 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

the battle looked a mess to me. not that i'm an expert. i guess sansa withholding the info was to make it more dramatic? but yes, you can't do that in a battle. how can the commander make informed decisions if he isn't ... informed?

That was them glamorizing Littlefinger, another one of their heroes. Sansa was his Mini Me. I forget if it was an outside the episode or Hibberd PR piece, but Benioff/Weiss said she learned from Littlefinger and wanted power for herself.

They turned season 6 into "I Spit On Ramsay's Grave" to compound the mistakes of season 5.

[Le Cygne]

7 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

- Give the giant a tree to use as a club. It would have helped immensely against those spearmen.

Only Benioff/Weiss would waste a magical giant just to give Ramsay Bolton one more kill.

[Le Cygne]

Thinking about how they threw away the magic of giants for yet more glorification of Ramsay, they threw away the magic of animal imagery in the books, too. Which would be very easy to add to the show.

I remember the scene with Jon learning about Orell, how he's a skinchanger, and if they had the time to do that for a minor character, why not Jon? The excuses of working with animals is just an excuse.

Ser Pounce just needed to act like a cat, and they said oh, that's too hard for us. Yet they spent all of that money on special effects for underwhelming battles that made no sense at all.

Imagine a battle with Jon warging Ghost. We don't have to imagine, we have all the scenes from the books with Arya warging Nymeria. Something else they left out, to make the direwolves fluffy pets instead.

GRRM wrote this scene for Sansa with Sandor, a la Beauty and the Beast. But then they took her own story away. In season 8, they had her tell the Hound that she killed Ramsay via hounds. Swing and a miss.

All the animal imagery in the books is about personal identity. The stories in the books with women and beastly men was about discovering the beast within themselves, via positive expressions of sexuality.

Sansa was inspired by her beast, the Hound, to find herself. Dany was inspired by her beast, Drogo, to find herself, too. These men were in tune with the women's own power, via sexual awakening. What a better story.

GRRM spent so much time developing the Beauty and the Beast story for Sansa and the Hound, there's so much there. He has Sansa enjoying the hell out of her own story, which she totally gets. It's classic gothic romance. Fly, little bird!

Ditto for Dany and Drogo. GRRM describes the scene with the horse that was his gift to her. The horse's hair is even like hers. Riding the horse sets her free! As does riding Drogo, and ultimately Drogon, named after him.

When people say the show was good at first, it really never was. It was better, but that's not good. They got it wrong from the get go. They didn't understand the material, and didn't respect it enough to listen.

(Just thought some more about Ser Pounce, how fitting to give a kitten to Tommen. Tommen is a little lion, but a gentle one. They could have used it to show his character, and to foreshadow his death. It was all there for them.)

[SeanF]

25 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Thinking about how they threw away the magic of giants for yet more glorification of Ramsay, they threw away the magic of animal imagery in the books, too. Which would be very easy to add to the show.

I remember the scene with Jon learning about Orell, how he's a skinchanger, and if they had the time to do that for a minor character, why not Jon? The excuses of working with animals is just an excuse.

Ser Pounce just needed to act like a cat, and they said oh, that's too hard for us. Yet they spent all of that money on special effects for underwhelming battles that made no sense at all.

Imagine a battle with Jon warging Ghost. We don't have to imagine, we have all the scenes from the books with Arya warging Nymeria. Something else they left out, to make the direwolves fluffy pets instead.

GRRM wrote this scene for Sansa with Sandor, a la Beauty and the Beast. But then they took her own story away. In season 8, they had her tell the Hound that she killed Ramsay via hounds. Swing and a miss.

All the animal imagery in the books is about personal identity. The stories in the books with women and beastly men was about discovering the beast within themselves, via positive expressions of sexuality.

Sansa was inspired by her beast, the Hound, to find herself. Dany was inspired by her beast, Drogo, to find herself, too. These men were in tune with the women's own power, via sexual awakening. What a better story.

GRRM spent so much time developing the Beauty and the Beast story for Sansa and the Hound, there's so much there. He has Sansa enjoying the hell out of her own story, which she totally gets. It's classic gothic romance.

Ditto for Dany and Drogo. GRRM describes the scene with the horse that was his gift to her. The horse's hair is even like hers. Riding the horse sets her free! As does riding Drogo, and ultimately Drogon, named after him.

When people say the show was good at first, it really never was. It was better, but that's not good. They got it wrong from the get go. They didn't understand the material, and didn't respect it enough to listen.

I think they saw it purely in terms of protagonist-centred morality.  If they liked a protagonist, what that protagonist does is right, and the more that protagonist acts like a shit, the better.

Someone recently gave me a small example of this - the forgettable character of Olly.  He's presented as a spiteful little shit, who can't get over what was done to his parents, despite the need to unite in the face of the common enemy.  Sansa on the other hand, despite the enemy being  at the gates, is presented as entirely justified in hating Daenerys for what her father did to her grandfather.

[Le Cygne]

34 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think they saw it purely in terms of protagonist-centred morality.  If they liked a protagonist, what that protagonist does is right, and the more that protagonist acts like a shit, the better.

Someone recently gave me a small example of this - the forgettable character of Olly.  He's presented as a spiteful little shit, who can't get over what was done to his parents, despite the need to unite in the face of the common enemy.  Sansa on the other hand, despite the enemy being  at the gates, is presented as entirely justified in hating Daenerys for what her father did to her grandfather.

I would also say that it's situational, as in, whatever way the wind blows at present. They didn't actually develop the characters as people.

The show isn't a real story. It's just a series of disconnected skits.

In other words, they didn't write a story about the things they made them do, they just momentarily made use of them to justify their plot whims.

Benioff: "Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen."

[Le Cygne]

Also thinking some more about how they blew the animal imagery that runs throughout the entire series... they like to use excuses that the magic and symbolism of the books is too hard for audiences to get.

But there's the classic example of sports teams. Many of them have animals as their mascot. That's something kids grow up with, and have fun with. It would have added something special to the show.

I remember that one scene that GRRM wrote for Arya, and he slipped in Sandor calling her "wolf girl" and I thought, YES! He got one in! But it stood out because it was so rarely done in the show.

Instantly, you get a picture of the character, it's shorthand for who they are. To not use it is bizarre.

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Also thinking some more about how they blew the animal imagery that runs throughout the entire series... they like to use excuses that the magic and symbolism of the books is too hard for audiences to get.

But there's the classic example of sports teams. Many of them have animals as their mascot. That's something kids grow up with, and have fun with. It would have added something special to the show.

I remember that one scene that GRRM wrote for Arya, and he slipped in Sandor calling her "wolf girl" and I thought, YES! He got one in! But it stood out because it was so rarely done in the show.

Instantly, you get a picture of the character, it's shorthand for who they are. To not use it is bizarre.

Yes, humans identify with animals.  Bears, wolves, dragons, boar, lions, tigers, horses, or birds like eagles, hawks, symbolise strength and power.  So, we adopt them in symbols.

[Le Cygne]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Yes, humans identify with animals.  Bears, wolves, dragons, boar, lions, tigers, horses, or birds like eagles, hawks, symbolise strength and power.  So, we adopt them in symbols.

Yep, and they didn't even need to use live animals, or special effects, although they could have done it simply by focusing on the characters, and they had a huge special effects budget they wasted it on bad plots and in darkness.

There aren't actually animals at baseball and football games. It's something even children understand and is very easy to show. Case in point, GRRM having Sandor call Arya "wolf girl" in the script he wrote. He knows it's effective.

Cost: 2 words. Instant and colorful characterization and world building. Every movie about American Indians gets into this, their names are often descriptive animal names. GRRM knows screenwriting; they don't.

Also they showed skinchanging with Bran lots of times, they certainly could have used it with Jon and Arya. They did scenes on it with ORELL. The characters talked about it, and then they showed footage of an eagle. So hard!

Jon: What's wrong with him?

Mance: He's a warg. He can enter the mind of animals, see through their eyes. He's scouting for us.

Ygritte: You've never met a warg?

Mance: Orell, where were you this time?

Orell: The Fist of the First Men.

Mance: What did you see?

Orell: Dead crows.

[Angel Eyes]

Season 8 question: why did the living put all their civilians, with no soldiers or even trained civilians around to defend them, in the crypts where the dead could be raised? Jon would have known about that due to the undead kids at Hardome, meaning that the Night King can raise any dead body in the vicinity. And, if there’s anything Tolkien taught us, it’s never, ever, ever put your entire fighting force onto a battlefield. The House of Hador did that, they were slaughtered except for one man who was subsequently tortured for 28 years by watching his children destroy themselves (by causing the downfall of a kingdom and unknowingly committing incest). As a result, the House of Hador’s lands were left wide open to be taken by the Easterlings.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Season 8 question: why did the living put all their civilians, with no soldiers or even trained civilians around to defend them, in the crypts where the dead could be raised? Jon would have known about that due to the undead kids at Hardome, meaning that the Night King can raise any dead body in the vicinity. And, if there’s anything Tolkien taught us, it’s never, ever, ever put your entire fighting force onto a battlefield. The House of Hador did that, they were slaughtered except for one man who was subsequently tortured for 28 years by watching his children destroy themselves (by causing the downfall of a kingdom and commit incest). As a result, the House of Hador’s lands were left wide open to be taken by the Easterlings.

Creatively, it made sense to them.

[Angel Eyes]

6 hours ago, SeanF said:

Creatively, it made sense to them.

Nah, doesn’t even make sense for them. If Tyrion’s their favorite character, why not have him do badass stuff like killing wights? It isn’t like he can’t, just watch the early seasons or even the battle at the fighting pits in Season 5 where he takes out a Son of the Harpy.

[Count Balerion]

dinklage commented on this. "he put them in the CRYPT, where the DEAD people are! so BLEAH!"

[Count Balerion]

tomorrow instead of doing hibberd tomorrow, we're doing commentary on a debate between shadiversity and remarkable republican on whether season 8, ep. 3 is rubbish or not. that should be entertaining.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

 

So, I had this strange desire to see some of the dragons, minus some D&D dialogue, found myself on youtube, AND......found some dragon action with it's own new dialogue.  This vid is only about a week old, so I thought I'd share it.  It made me.........glad that at least Drogon lived, mad at what was done to both Jon and Dany, but sorta satisfied my need to see the dragons.  It is also a reminder that it really is such a shame that the Ds littered up such beautiful potential with such.......dreck.