Jump to content

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

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

I know very little about warfare, but it reminded me of the first day of the battle of the Somme. They just kept going out and getting slaughtered. But there was no underlying reason on the show for this.

WWI will always tell the psychology of WHY they kept sending people to die. The show didn't bother. The Westeros fighters were not portrayed as stiff upper lip, or fool headed prior to this. Or even after.

They never actually bothered to explain (a la the story structure Vince Gilligan was talking about above) why this was happening.

They just threw stuff at the screen to fill time, but since no one could actually see the keys rattling, the audience was only distracted by how stupid it was. It was filler until Arya Ninja Turtle did her thing.

The only relevant action in the entire episode was the end of the Night King, and that was over in a moment, and stupid, too.

WWI made far more sense than anything that happened at Winterfell.

During the council of war, they're actually discussing how dangerous it would be to try to fight the Dead out in the open.  So what do they then go and do?  Charge the Dead out in the open, sending men who are armed with arakhs, not dragonglass. or Valyrian steel.  It's been established that such weapons are almost useless against the Dead, already.  Fire will kill wights, Valyrian steel or dragonglass the White Walkers. A cynic might think the Northmen were just trying to get Daenerys' soldiers killed, but that's probably overthinking things. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Carice on the nudity (there are a bunch more looking back articles we already posted). Mel, along with Dany and Missandei, were their go to naked women in the later seasons.

"When the Me Too movement started, that's when it started sinking in for me," van Houten told Insider. "And it did sort of change my perspective on my whole career, not just 'Game of Thrones.'"

"In retrospect, I thought, 'Why did that scene have to be nude? Why was that normal?' I did question things and it was not so much that I was blaming anyone, but that's just how we evolved, and just how the movement affected me.

"I became very aware of the male gaze..."

Van Houten says this change of thought process is "me confronting my own feeling of 'that's what the audience wants' and not feeling confident to say, 'Wait a minute, why would I have to do that?' It's just our conditioned behaviour as females, and not thinking about what that means."

https://www.insider.com/carice-van-houten-me-too-nude-scenes-game-of-thrones-2020-5

She's completely right. Why does the audience need to see get her tits out for Stannis or Jon. Have the camera be behind her back so the audience can't see anything but the characters do.  Really the only scene that made sense to show her naked was before she gave birth to the shadow baby.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

WWI made far more sense than anything that happened at Winterfell.

During the council of war, they're actually discussing how dangerous it would be to try to fight the Dead out in the open.  So what do they then go and do?  Charge the Dead out in the open, sending men who are armed with arakhs, not dragonglass. or Valyrian steel.  It's been established that such weapons are almost useless against the Dead, already.  Fire will kill wights, Valyrian steel or dragonglass the White Walkers. A cynic might think the Northmen were just trying to get Daenerys' soldiers killed, but that's probably overthinking things. 

I don't know, at Hardhome Tormund and other wildlings were killing wights with any weapons. It seemed to me that from that point on, they cared far less about what kills a wight. Killing wights actually became easy. See the Fellowship of the Wight. So the wights became like any other zombie horde we see in movies and TV - their numbers kill you, not their individuals that should be extremely hard to kill.

Another hilarious moment in the Long Night episode is when Jorah is fatally struck, it looks like the wight is wielding a drangonglass sword, and it goes through his armor.

And I loved how Winterfell's walls were decorated with dragonglass shards imbedded in frozen snow. Like if a wight put their hand there, it would automatically kill it or something. But not one wight was shown to die in that manner, so some poor fools from the production crew had to place those there for nothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Listening to some more Vince Gilligan, and this is what Benioff/Weiss did NOT do and should have done. (Then again, since they didn't bother telling a story, there was nothing to make clear.)

Other showrunners and directors very much don't want the writer to say the stuff in between the dialogue. To me, the stuff in between the dialogue is what it's all about...

You've got to keep in mind, what do people do in real life. Very often in real life, people say the opposite of what they mean, so you have to work that into your dialogue.

To me, that's the key to it, too, having the characters saying the opposite of what they really mean and yet allowing the audience to understand it.

And if the audience is going to understand those kind of moments, the crew and the cast need to understand it first.

And so you have to put all that in between stuff in between those chunks of dialogue, you've got to explain things... You have to keep it short and sweet but you have to make it clear. Clarity above all.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, CHAPTER 30. A LOT OF SOPHISTRY TRYING TO "DEFEND" EVIL DANY AND JUST SHUT THE BLAZES UP ALREADY, PART 1

this is the chapter that tries to argue EVIL DANY made sense b/c not "predictable" althogh although it's also "foreshadowed and just zark off.

it's worth remembering that GRRM has said that the thing that logically would happen based on what you have set up is what ought to happen. if you set up X, don't change to Y just to avoid being predictable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw9eGOjYxE&t=30s

and speaking of DRAGON DEMANDS, he proved fairly conclusively that EVIL DANY is a last-minute change. the playlist is at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxojMpX5XGoUFMyga3IHXjORsJhoxhb8B. see especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uleMYE0eWg0&list=PLxojMpX5XGoUFMyga3IHXjORsJhoxhb8B&index=6

bear all that in mind.

and God help us, this chapter is brutal. it destroyed our souls.

the title is "the things we love destroy us". [how deep.]

[the chapter opens with a lengthy scenario intended to mock fans' objections to Evil Dany. the whole thing is a screaming strawman.] drogon blasts the battlements and terrified the city watch and golden company. the city surrenders and dany sits the iron throne. cersei is executed for treason. jaime takes the black. dany legitimses jon as a stark and they get married. they rule westeros peacefully. [this story makes a heck of a lot more sense than what we got.] "if only."

this scenario is too predictable. martin would veer off in unexpected riections [which *made sense*] which were "more aligned w/ the complexities of human nature". [SHUT UP. EVIL DANY IS NOT COMPLEX!!!!!!!!]

EC: "i cried when i read the scripts." [it's worht noting that evil dany carpet-bombing KL and massacring civilians is NOT IN THE SCRIPT. this is EC's reaction to dany *accidentally* killing some civilians on the way to the red keep, and *accidentally* setting off wildfire.] "i went for a walk and didn't come back for hours b/c i'm like 'how am i going to do this?'"

weis: "dany's trajectory was implicit in the first season." [no it isn't. it was a last-minute decision.] viewed brother's death "w/ a stone-cold killer-like lack of affect."

there follows a list of things that prove dany was going to be evil. [they're taken out of context and the emphasis is off b/c there are far more that are the other way.] at qarth she says she'll burn cities to the ground, she crucifies 163 masters, she promises to the dothraki they'll kill their enemies" [that's really a stretch! all conquerors do that!], and [horror scream] she burnt the tarlys. [only one of these is close to burning KL, and is only words. oh just shut up.] the tarly scene was meant to show dany's not OK. [why? jon hanged SEVERAL people including a CHILD. is HE not OK?] "but fans had spent so many years on team dragon queen that they had grown accustomed to daenerys executing her perceived eneies. [JUST SHUT THE BLUE BLEEDING BLAZES UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

KH: "you're culpable you cheered her on." [SHUT UP.]

bryan cogman: "there's a dangerous tendency right now to make art and popular culture feel safe for everybody." the story is meant to make you "think and question". [oh, i question, all right. i question how the bleep this makes burning KL any less utterly nonsensical, as well as offensive. YOU NEVER SET THAAT UP, STOPPRETENDING YOU DID, AND STOP PRETENDING IT'S DEEP. IT ISN'T. COMIC BOOKS ARE DEEPER THAN THIS RUBBOSH.]

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, CHAPTER 30. A LOT OF SOPHISTRY TRYING TO "DEFEND" EVIL DANY AND JUST SHUT THE BLAZES UP ALREADY, PART 1

this is the chapter that tries to argue EVIL DANY made sense b/c not "predictable" althogh although it's also "foreshadowed and just zark off.

it's worth remembering that GRRM has said that the thing that logically would happen based on what you have set up is what ought to happen. if you set up X, don't change to Y just to avoid being predictable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw9eGOjYxE&t=30s

and speaking of DRAGON DEMANDS, he proved fairly conclusively that EVIL DANY is a last-minute change. the playlist is at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxojMpX5XGoUFMyga3IHXjORsJhoxhb8B. see especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uleMYE0eWg0&list=PLxojMpX5XGoUFMyga3IHXjORsJhoxhb8B&index=6

bear all that in mind.

and God help us, this chapter is brutal. it destroyed our souls.

the title is "the things we love destroy us". [how deep.]

[the chapter opens with a lengthy scenario intended to mock fans' objections to Evil Dany. the whole thing is a screaming strawman.] drogon blasts the battlements and terrified the city watch and golden company. the city surrenders and dany sits the iron throne. cersei is executed for treason. jaime takes the black. dany legitimses jon as a stark and they get married. they rule westeros peacefully. [this story makes a heck of a lot more sense than what we got.] "if only."

this scenario is too predictable. martin would veer off in unexpected riections [which *made sense*] which were "more aligned w/ the complexities of human nature". [SHUT UP. EVIL DANY IS NOT COMPLEX!!!!!!!!]

EC: "i cried when i read the scripts." [it's worht noting that evil dany carpet-bombing KL and massacring civilians is NOT IN THE SCRIPT. this is EC's reaction to dany *accidentally* killing some civilians on the way to the red keep, and *accidentally* setting off wildfire.] "i went for a walk and didn't come back for hours b/c i'm like 'how am i going to do this?'"

weis: "dany's trajectory was implicit in the first season." [no it isn't. it was a last-minute decision.] viewed brother's death "w/ a stone-cold killer-like lack of affect."

there follows a list of things that prove dany was going to be evil. [they're taken out of context and the emphasis is off b/c there are far more that are the other way.] at qarth she says she'll burn cities to the ground, she crucifies 163 masters, she promises to the dothraki they'll kill their enemies" [that's really a stretch! all conquerors do that!], and [horror scream] she burnt the tarlys. [only one of these is close to burning KL, and is only words. oh just shut up.] the tarly scene was meant to show dany's not OK. [why? jon hanged SEVERAL people including a CHILD. is HE not OK?] "but fans had spent so many years on team dragon queen that they had grown accustomed to daenerys executing her perceived eneies. [JUST SHUT THE BLUE BLEEDING BLAZES UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

KH: "you're culpable you cheered her on." [SHUT UP.]

bryan cogman: "there's a dangerous tendency right now to make art and popular culture feel safe for everybody." the story is meant to make you "think and question". [oh, i question, all right. i question how the bleep this makes burning KL any less utterly nonsensical, as well as offensive. YOU NEVER SET THAAT UP, STOPPRETENDING YOU DID, AND STOP PRETENDING IT'S DEEP. IT ISN'T. COMIC BOOKS ARE DEEPER THAN THIS RUBBOSH.]

 

The show runners are at liberty to make the argument the argument that "thou shalt not kill."

They aren't entitled to make the argument that "thou shalt not kill, unless you're one of our faves, in which case, killing is totally f*cking awesome and badass."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

mad jon confirmed. mad arya confirmed. mad NED confirmed. etc.!

The mass slaughter of the smallfolk at Kings Landing, during Robert's rebellion, the rape of Elia, her murder and those of her children, the massacres in the Riverlands, were simply the acts of a man who was "lawful neutral."

Tyrion armed the hill clans of the Vale in order to murder innocent peasants;  he destroyed men with wildfire in order to keep a man he knew to be psychopathic usurper in power, he strangled his girlfriend and murdered his father, but what a hero?

Cersei murdered people with wildfire, and got off on torture, and was just "a girl in need of a man."

Hanging Olly, gouging out Trant's eyes and subjecting him to slow slicing, feeding a man his sons in a pie before opening his throat and receiving orgasm as you watch him die, poisoning an entire family, feeding Ramsay to dogs and slitting a man's throat after a farcical trial are all badass.

But, killing slave drivers, a pair of traitorous lords, and reacting"coldly" to the death of a man who just threatened to cut out your unborn child?  That's just beyond redemption.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can't have it both ways, show someone has brutalized his sister her entire life, then pretend it was a bad thing that he died right after threatening to kill her. Not a single tear was shed by the audience when Drogo killed Viserys. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

These are the same ones who said Sansa should give herself to the Boltons because she'd been traumatized before. Why wasn't she stronger, they chided. Nothing like more trauma! Then they cheered her on when she smirked while feeding someone to dogs.

I guess Dany's mistake was not thanking the writers for putting her through hell. She wasn't grateful enough. In truth, they just didn't gut her story enough. They could gut Sansa and use her as their puppet, but they couldn't do it to Dany because too many people liked her.

If they had to make their living as salesmen, they'd be broke. Nobody is buying their lies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

The mass slaughter of the smallfolk at Kings Landing, during Robert's rebellion, the rape of Elia, her murder and those of her children, the massacres in the Riverlands, were simply the acts of a man who was "lawful neutral."

Tyrion armed the hill clans of the Vale in order to murder innocent peasants;  he destroyed men with wildfire in order to keep a man he knew to be psychopathic usurper in power, he strangled his girlfriend and murdered his father, but what a hero?

Cersei murdered people with wildfire, and got off on torture, and was just "a girl in need of a man."

Hanging Olly, gouging out Trant's eyes and subjecting him to slow slicing, feeding a man his sons in a pie before opening his throat and receiving orgasm as you watch him die, poisoning an entire family, feeding Ramsay to dogs and slitting a man's throat after a farcical trial are all badass.

But, killing slave drivers, a pair of traitorous lords, and reacting"coldly" to the death of a man who just threatened to cut out your unborn child?  That's just beyond redemption.

All of this. And then that asinine comment that her trajectory was implicit from the start. You could play that game with all of them.

Let's do Tyrion.

He armed the mountain clans out of spite, knowing it would lead to even more atrocities. He led the mass killing at Blackwater to keep the wrongful king Joffrey in power, knowing that would lead to even more attrocities, too. He kidnapped Shae for his own personal pleasure, then moved her to the keep for his own convenience, even though his father warned him she would be in danger. He forcibly married Sansa after Shae begged him to go across the sea with the gold he had in hand instead (he said no, I'm a Lannister). He murdered Shae, then murdered his father, not for all his atrocities, but for not loving him and for having sex with the woman he murdered for not loving him. Not loving Tyrion is dangerous. Dany didn't love him, and he talked Jon into murdering her, too.

Tyrion at Blackwater: "Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let’s go kill them!" With weapons of mass destruction! Kill them all, to keep Joffrey - the illegitimate psycho monster - king!

You see, his trajectory was implicit from the start. He was destined to be rewarded in the end with the job he always wanted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

The mass slaughter of the smallfolk at Kings Landing, during Robert's rebellion, the rape of Elia, her murder and those of her children, the massacres in the Riverlands, were simply the acts of a man who was "lawful neutral."

Tyrion armed the hill clans of the Vale in order to murder innocent peasants;  he destroyed men with wildfire in order to keep a man he knew to be psychopathic usurper in power, he strangled his girlfriend and murdered his father, but what a hero?

Cersei murdered people with wildfire, and got off on torture, and was just "a girl in need of a man."

Hanging Olly, gouging out Trant's eyes and subjecting him to slow slicing, feeding a man his sons in a pie before opening his throat and receiving orgasm as you watch him die, poisoning an entire family, feeding Ramsay to dogs and slitting a man's throat after a farcical trial are all badass.

But, killing slave drivers, a pair of traitorous lords, and reacting"coldly" to the death of a man who just threatened to cut out your unborn child?  That's just beyond redemption.

yes clearly an abomination. #JusticeForSlavers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

You can't have it both ways, show someone has brutalized his sister her entire life, then pretend it was a bad thing that he died right after threatening to kill her. Not a single tear was shed by the audience when Drogo killed Viserys. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

These are the same ones who said Sansa should give herself to the Boltons because she'd been traumatized before. Why wasn't she stronger, they chided. Nothing like more trauma! Then they cheered her on when she smirked while feeding someone to dogs.

I guess Dany's mistake was not thanking the writers for putting her through hell. She wasn't grateful enough. In truth, they just didn't gut her story enough. They could gut Sansa and use her as their puppet, but they couldn't do it to Dany because too many people liked her.

If they had to make their living as salesmen, they'd be broke. Nobody is buying their lies.

I wonder that D&D think that they're echoing the fans' feelings about characters; in the case of Sansa, plenty of fans have been harping on her actions in the first book, like supporting Joffrey, being a bully towards Arya, and being blamed for her father's downfall. Yes she's supposedly smarter now than she was then, but how do you show it? This is one of the big problems with translating book to screen; internal growth cannot be seen onscreen, so how do you convey it? Put them in a situation where they have to show they've grown. Unfortunately D&D wanted to both subject Sansa to more suffering and so they put her in an unwinnable situation where she'd suffer grievously and couldn't think her way out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I guess they really, really had expected that people would be wowed by their brave subversion of the hero trope.  

That's already been done with plenty of characters in the main books. Three of the more notable examples:

  • Ned Stark is a deconstruction of The Hero as he is completely out of his depth in the capital and his actions to prevent a war and his sense of fair play by telling Cersei to leave King's Landing to prevent the deaths of her children only lead to a continent-wide civil war, his own death (on the orders of one of the children he wanted to save), and the destruction of his house.
    • Really, House Stark is a walking deconstruction of heroes; known for their integrity, honor, sense of duty, high personal moral standards that they refuse to compromise and genuinely loving each other instead of seeing their relatives as pawns. However, these traits, good things to have in most fantasy settings, get them killed.
      • Catelyn’s mama bear tendencies lead to her imprisoning an innocent half-man and freeing a hostage, ensuring that House Stark has no way to retaliate for the Red Wedding.
      • Robb is one of the Young Conqueror; while a great general he is a bad king as he leaves his homeland defenseless against the Ironborn, pulls out the only cork keeping them at bay by sending Theon as an envoy, and his marrying a woman to preserve her honor (contrast with John Willoughby of Sense and Sensibility) pisses off one of his bannermen, who has Robb and his supporters massacred.
  • Robert Baratheon had all the qualities of an archetypal hero (strength at arms, good looks, charm, generosity to a fault), but he's utterly wasted in peacetime. Only in times of great crisis (Robert's Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion) does he prove his worth.
  • Stannis Baratheon: mostly uncompromising in his sense of justice and duty, willing to work with smallfolk, concerned with the needs of the many and with his eye on a threat towards the entire world. To many readers he would be the best choice for King, but to most of the populace he looks like a madman.
  • Quentyn Martell is a deconstruction of The Hero's Journey.
    • Prince Quentyn Martell sets off with his loyal band of friends to find and woo the World's Most Beautiful Woman. Half of them get killed in a minor skirmish before we even get to their story. By the time Quentyn reaches his beautiful princess, Daenerys is already set up for an Arranged Marriage, while sleeping with a lowborn sellsword who's much more handsome and dangerously exciting than Quentyn. Believing that The Hero can't be killed, Quentyn then tries to steal a dragon to prove himself worthy of her, only to be roasted alive for his trouble.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

You can't have it both ways, show someone has brutalized his sister her entire life, then pretend it was a bad thing that he died right after threatening to kill her. Not a single tear was shed by the audience when Drogo killed Viserys. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

These are the same ones who said Sansa should give herself to the Boltons because she'd been traumatized before. Why wasn't she stronger, they chided. Nothing like more trauma! Then they cheered her on when she smirked while feeding someone to dogs.

I guess Dany's mistake was not thanking the writers for putting her through hell. She wasn't grateful enough. In truth, they just didn't gut her story enough. They could gut Sansa and use her as their puppet, but they couldn't do it to Dany because too many people liked her.

If they had to make their living as salesmen, they'd be broke. Nobody is buying their lies.

Maybe tears of joy for that first one.

You know, that was a missed opportunity for that scene. If the gold was hot enough to melt as it would have been in real life, it should have been glowing. Imagine that visual, with the gold glowing as it’s poured on Viserys. Given that D&D like things as real as possible, why not throw that in, make that scene look cooler?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also another thought, GRRM called Tyrion the grayest of the grays (I have quoted the source before, he definitely said this) and he also said murdering Shae was his darkest deed.

And yet... Tyrion is a saint on the show, and Dany is Satan. And as we pointed out above, they included a lot of his dark deeds on the show, but they just blew his off, and blew up Dany's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Also another thought, GRRM called Tyrion the grayest of the grays (I have quoted the source before, he definitely said this) and he also said murdering Shae was his darkest deed.

And yet... Tyrion is a saint on the show, and Dany is Satan. And as we pointed out above, they included a lot of his dark deeds on the show, but they just blew his off, and blew up Dany's.

They portrayed actions as being good or bad, simply on the basis of who was doing them.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

They portrayed actions as being good or bad, simply on the basis of who was doing them.   

Yeah, it just doesn't sound like the books at all. They made up whatever show Dany did that wasn't in the books through season 5, and the only thing they could hold up after that was the Tarlys.

Other than that, what, people threaten to kill her dragons and she is like, nope. Then she rescues Jon Duh and total strangers after the bizarrely stupid A Wight for Cersei nonsense, and loses a dragon, yet still helps them.

Suddenly Dickon, a boy who knows damn well his father treated his kind, beloved brother abominably is going to go along with him and refuse to kneel when everyone else does. And his father is evil but also not stupid.

Just not buying it, and then they just had to go there with their typical nastiness toward women and make Dany go mad over Jon Snow not wanting to commit incest, when she wouldn't want to be with him anyway.

Not to mention he's undead, which made no difference to him or to anyone. As if.

He's totally not her type. It would be the most abrupt personality change for her to want him in the first place. I think there was a lot of Arianne and fAegon substituting going on, and they fumbled the ball badly.

And regardless, it was their show, to do whatever they like, as they demonstrated many times before. They miscalculated, badly. How they could not see the backlash coming is astonishing, yet predictable.

They went too far and ran out of time to play their silly post-debacle damage control games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...