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!

[Angel Eyes]

On 6/26/2021 at 12:14 AM, sifth said:

See, I'm sort of hoping for the opposite. I want to see Sansa manipulate Harry. We were able to see her do it with Joffrey from time to time, by playing to his ego and with Littlefinger's help, I want her do it with Harry as well. Sure it wont be easy, since nothing in this series ever is, but I want her to come out of this on top for a change. Sansa is one of my favorite characters and mostly it's because she's an underdog. These are always the characters I enjoy supporting the most.

I guess my tendency is to believe in the worst-case scenario (moreso since the show ended) as far as characters can go, given GRRM's penchant for showing logical progression (at this point most characters are trending down survival and morality-wise until he pulls something out of a hat). For example I'm the bastard who thinks Brienne is leading Jaime into a trap where Lady Stoneheart will hang him.

[BlackLightning]

On 6/26/2021 at 8:17 AM, Angel Eyes said:

For example I'm the bastard who thinks Brienne is leading Jaime into a trap where Lady Stoneheart will hang him.

Well then that makes the two of us bastards because I'm with you on that.

Do I think Lady Stoneheart will hang him? No. But I do think that Brienne is leading Jaime into a trap/ambush.

On 6/25/2021 at 11:14 PM, sifth said:

See, I'm sort of hoping for the opposite. I want to see Sansa manipulate Harry. We were able to see her do it with Joffrey from time to time, by playing to his ego and with Littlefinger's help, I want her do it with Harry as well. Sure it wont be easy, since nothing in this series ever is, but I want her to come out of this on top for a change. Sansa is one of my favorite characters and mostly it's because she's an underdog. These are always the characters I enjoy supporting the most.

I agree.

But to add to the drama, I do agree with @SeanF -- Sansa can be willing to go along with Littlefinger's schemes pertaining to Harry but she can be unwilling to go along with Littlefinger's scheme to kill Sweetrobin (or more simply, let him die)

Maybe Harry is an ass that Sansa finds that she can manipulate but chooses not to because she'd rather not deal with men like that in any intimate capacity anymore.

There's so many different directions that Sansa's story can go. Because @Angel Eyes is right to say that almost all of the characters are skewing towards darkness and dubiousness (if not evil). The Winds of Winter is going to be a dark chapter in many a character's lives. I suspect Bran, Arya and Sansa will both be sorely tempted to not only do evil but to develop a love for doing evil.

[Angel Eyes]

My prediction for Jaime is right here.

[Count Balerion]

chapter 31 of FCKWAD isn't as horrible; mostly boring. but FWIW:

FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, CHAPTER 31. MANY PARTINGS AND SURE, WE'LL COMPARE OURSELVES TO TOLKIEN B/C CLEARLY WE'RE ON HIS LEVEL -- BEING MODEST THAT IS, PART 1

jaime and brienne. [the morality of their one-night stand is so hollywood. and the virign-shaming, bleeah.]

gwendoline christie: "though personally? i always wanted her to get together w/ dany." [NO COMMENT!]

[and 40 mins. later he's back to cersei] NCW: "he's so bound by this code of honour of family first, and he and cersei have a close bond on every level. ... it makes sense even though you don't want it to."

GC: "i believe the reason jaime left is that he wasn't very good. (laughs)"

jaime's cruel off-script line is "i don't love you. no one loves you."

pilou asbek on being told he's going to die: "no i'm not. i'm not gonna act it."

jaime and cersei were crushed by the red keep, where they were later found by tyrion. [doesn't mention the contradiction: it was only a small pile of rocks when tyrion found them.]

"we will die together as we were born together."

it was very sentimental and touching and sweet and "i love you".

[SeanF]

13 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

chapter 31 of FCKWAD isn't as horrible; mostly boring. but FWIW:

FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, CHAPTER 31. MANY PARTINGS AND SURE, WE'LL COMPARE OURSELVES TO TOLKIEN B/C CLEARLY WE'RE ON HIS LEVEL -- BEING MODEST THAT IS, PART 1

jaime and brienne. [the morality of their one-night stand is so hollywood. and the virign-shaming, bleeah.]

gwendoline christie: "though personally? i always wanted her to get together w/ dany." [NO COMMENT!]

[and 40 mins. later he's back to cersei] NCW: "he's so bound by this code of honour of family first, and he and cersei have a close bond on every level. ... it makes sense even though you don't want it to."

GC: "i believe the reason jaime left is that he wasn't very good. (laughs)"

jaime's cruel off-script line is "i don't love you. no one loves you."

pilou asbek on being told he's going to die: "no i'm not. i'm not gonna act it."

jaime and cersei were crushed by the red keep, where they were later found by tyrion. [doesn't mention the contradiction: it was only a small pile of rocks when tyrion found them.]

"we will die together as we were born together."

it was very sentimental and touching and sweet and "i love you".

Jaime was done as dirty as any other character.

[Cas Stark]

22 hours ago, SeanF said:

Jaime was done as dirty as any other character.

Almost worse, because they had done a good job with revealing him to be more than a villain over the course of 1-4, and then, when they ran out of book and/or GRRM details, they flailed around with his story, where his actions made little sense from scene to scene, episode to episode, and like others, he became reeaaallly dumb.  Also, I always felt like they unconsciously punished the traditionally handsome actors.  

[Ghostlydragon]

6 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Almost worse, because they had done a good job with revealing him to be more than a villain over the course of 1-4, and then, when they ran out of book and/or GRRM details, they flailed around with his story, where his actions made little sense from scene to scene, episode to episode, and like others, he became reeaaallly dumb.  Also, I always felt like they unconsciously punished the traditionally handsome actors.  

Yes, they were definitely jealous of their male actors' looks. NCW and Kit are seen by most people as the best looking guys and look at what happened to their characters.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

6 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Almost worse, because they had done a good job with revealing him to be more than a villain over the course of 1-4, and then, when they ran out of book and/or GRRM details, they flailed around with his story, where his actions made little sense from scene to scene, episode to episode, and like others, he became reeaaallly dumb.  Also, I always felt like they unconsciously punished the traditionally handsome actors.  

I agree on both points, on doing Jaime all kinds of dirty and on the seeming juvenile receptions that they had to handsome actors and charactors described as such.  They really did their best to dumb him down, too.  It was all so obvious.  They never were slick, but lawd, their pettiness had all the sutlety of a sledgehammer as the years went on. 

In spite of them showing a lot of Jaime's real character in the first few seasons........they retconned his first big act (and finest, according to Jaime) from killing Aerys straight up face to face, er face to neck, to actually having him stab Aerys in the back?  Why??   It was a stupid little slight on the character and his actions, petulant even, but hey, that's the Ds.  

[Angel Eyes]

13 hours ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

 

In spite of them showing a lot of Jaime's real character in the first few seasons........they retconned his first big act (and finest, according to Jaime) from killing Aerys straight up face to face, er face to neck, to actually having him stab Aerys in the back?  Why??   It was a stupid little slight on the character and his actions, petulant even, but hey, that's the Ds.  

I think that one was planned, what with Jaime asking in Season 1 or 2 if his action would be viewed as more honorable if he'd stabbed the Mad King in the front (chest, belly, take your pick) than in the back.

[Le Cygne]

On 6/28/2021 at 10:36 PM, Count Balerion said:

[and 40 mins. later he's back to cersei] NCW: "he's so bound by this code of honour of family first, and he and cersei have a close bond on every level. ... it makes sense even though you don't want it to."
...

jaime and cersei were crushed by the red keep, where they were later found by tyrion. [doesn't mention the contradiction: it was only a small pile of rocks when tyrion found them.]

"we will die together as we were born together."

it was very sentimental and touching and sweet and "i love you".

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... {Breathe...} Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

So now I am laughing at "it makes sense even though you don't want it to"! That's because NCW said it makes no sense for years.

Surely he should be done with her, he'd say. His interviews were always fun, because he made no secret of the fact that it was nonsense.

[Le Cygne]

"That made it a little strange because now the show was ahead of me, and the show was going in somewhat different directions. So I'm still working on the book, so you'll see my ending when that comes out."

(added full interview link)

[sifth]

You know, I come back to this time and time again, but I think Arya surviving getting stabbed 3 times and being thrown into a river, might be the dumbest thing I've seen the show do. The fact that she's patched up and jumping off buildings only two episodes after the fact, only adds salt to the wound. I don't think I've ever seen a show give a character that level of plot armor before.

[Ghostlydragon]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

You know, I come back to this time and time again, but I think Arya surviving getting stabbed 3 times and being thrown into a river, might be the dumbest thing I've seen the show do. The fact that she's patched up and jumping off buildings only two episodes after the fact, only adds salt to the wound. I don't think I've ever seen a show give a character that level of plot armor before.

Agreed. And if they really wanted Arya to be hurt and still escape it could have been done so believably. She could have pulled back at the last minute like Tyrion in s2 causing a minor injury and fought the waif off and then ran. Anything would have worked apart from what we got.

[Angel Eyes]

6 hours ago, sifth said:

You know, I come back to this time and time again, but I think Arya surviving getting stabbed 3 times and being thrown into a river, might be the dumbest thing I've seen the show do. The fact that she's patched up and jumping off buildings only two episodes after the fact, only adds salt to the wound. I don't think I've ever seen a show give a character that level of plot armor before.

One episode later.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Angel Eyes said:

One episode later.

Wait, it was the next episode...............that's even more insane, lol

[$erPounce]

I've seen a few old interviews from the show and I notice that every time there's a controversial scene (involving rape, for example) that D&D have invented themselves... They then lie to the media and to the actors that this scene is an idea of George R. R. Martin and that it is based on the books. That's not true.

Below is an excerpt from an interview about that one scene in season 4 or season 5 where Margaery seduces Tommen with sex (I can't think of it as consentual because Tommen in the show was clearly underage):

Quote

Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer told the Daily Beast about one scene in particular that she just couldn't go through with. She also talked about male nudity and the alleged "boob mandate."

In one particular scene, Dormer's character Margaery Tyrell is forced to seduce the boy-king Tommen Baratheon. The boy-king is supposed to be approximately 13-years-old at the time of that scene, making for an uncomfortable situation for anyone. Natalie Dormer explained how she handled it to the Daily Beast.

Natalie Dormer: "That scene was altered because I phoned Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] and said, 'I'm not comfortable doing this.' It's the nature of the beast that I'm four years into playing Margaery Tyrell and the big plot points of the book are in stone."

Still, it's what George R.R. Martin wrote. Luckily, Dormer explained that there was still something they could do for the show.

Natalie Dormer: "George R.R. Martin wrote a particular plot line, so on the specifics of Margaery and Tommen getting married, there's nothing I can do. On the show, we had to find a way to navigate that in a sensitive way. There's more of it next season too, and we're trying to handle it with intelligence, and integrity."

But I've seen elsewhere that D&D very often use a false excuse of "these scenes are based on the books, written by GRRM. We don't want to take responsibility for that".

[Angel Eyes]

On 7/3/2021 at 5:21 PM, $erPounce said:

I've seen a few old interviews from the show and I notice that every time there's a controversial scene (involving rape, for example) that D&D have invented themselves... They then lie to the media and to the actors that this scene is an idea of George R. R. Martin and that it is based on the books. That's not true.

Below is an excerpt from an interview about that one scene in season 4 or season 5 where Margaery seduces Tommen with sex (I can't think of it as consensual because Tommen in the show was clearly underage):

But I've seen elsewhere that D&D very often use a false excuse of "these scenes are based on the books, written by GRRM. We don't want to take responsibility for that".

I think the scene you're talking about is in Season 4, episode 4, "Oathkeeper".

Unfortunately, it appears that GRRM has unwittingly created a pattern/reputation of unexpected and shocking events due to the deconstructive nature of the books, and Benioff and Weiss took things a step further. Because of the books and show's reputation of bucking genre trends and making things harder on the good guys to make it more realistic, Benioff and Weiss contrive ways to shock the audience because it appears to follow in line with what GRRM has seemingly established. He's already shown that trying to do the right thing is bad through Ned choosing to warn Cersei which seals his fate, showing that the good guys lose because they're unwilling to take the next step to accomplish their goals, be it survival or peace because that's what would happen in real life.

Plus, throughout the books love (romantic and familial in particular) is mostly shown to be a destructive force, be it through:

• the downfall of the Targaryens through Rhaegar and Lyanna's mutual infatuation,
• Tyrion being unsuccessful in finding anyone who cares for or respects him, which causes further destabilization of Westeros when Tyrion murders his father
• Catelyn's love for her children only leads to a continent-wide civil war and later releases the only leverage the North has against the Lannisters
• Jon's relationship with Ygritte was never going to go anywhere
• Arys' relationship with Arianne Martell leads to him participating in a coup, his charge losing an ear, and he loses his head
• Jaime's love for Cersei leads to him committing treason by siring three bastards that compromise the line of succession; the eldest of these is a psychopath who further destabilizes things
• Jon's choice to try and save "Arya" results in a mutiny where he is stabbed
• Sansa: 
  • Her affection for Joffrey leads to her siding with him and causing a rift to widen, eventually finding herself trapped and abused
  • By the present part of the books, she's reached the end of her rope with finding anyone who cares about her just for her "No one will marry me for love" and is making up memories just to find a scrap of romantic affection (UnKiss, people)

Thus, things are taken up a notch:

• Nobody winds up happy in Game of Thrones in the romantic department for various reasons:
  • Unrequited (most)
  • One partner dying and the other going on a rampage (Grey Worm and Missandei)
  • One partner has to kill the other (Jon kills Daenerys)
  • Special mention goes to Robb's love for Talisa directly causing his death
• Jon suffered his first death because he tried to save everyone, again showing that doing the right thing is worthless
• the Starks are scattered once more and are unlikely to see each other again,
• Tyrion is the last of the Lannisters as far as we know,
• Daenerys lost everyone she cared about

[Ghostlydragon]

6 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

I think the scene you're talking about is in Season 4, episode 4, "Oathkeeper".

 

I wonder how she felt about her wedding night scene. It never should have been shown at all but I'm glad they didn't feel the need to show her naked. I mean obviously Natalie Dormer is a beautiful woman and we've seen her topless in s2, but i personally found her sexier when it was only a shot of her back as she put her clothes on.

But there's still no getting around the fact that Tommen is underage for our time. The kid is clearly around ten in s1. Even if they try saying 1 season = 1 year like in sitcoms (it is not like that in GoT), he is not an adult. The actor may be older than the original one but the character is still a kid. Same as Sansa in s5, which was also something people ignored.

[Angel Eyes]

9 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

I wonder how she felt about her wedding night scene. It never should have been shown at all but I'm glad they didn't feel the need to show her naked. I mean obviously Natalie Dormer is a beautiful woman and we've seen her topless in s2, but i personally found her sexier when it was only a shot of her back as she put her clothes on.

But there's still no getting around the fact that Tommen is underage for our time. The kid is clearly around ten in s1. Even if they try saying 1 season = 1 year like in sitcoms (it is not like that in GoT), he is not an adult. The actor may be older than the original one but the character is still a kid. Same as Sansa in s5, which was also something people ignored.

They'd probably say that people had sex that young so it was realistic; remember that Daenerys was 13 in the books when she married Khal Drogo, while Robb and Jon were 17-18 in the show when they had their first times. As for real-life applications, Edward I (one of the inspirations for Tywin Lannister) was 15 when he married Eleanor Castile, who was 13; the two had a stillborn daughter born the next year.

[Maia]

On 6/5/2021 at 2:31 AM, The Dragon Demands said:

But thinking of House of the Dragon, that's the question I get barraged with over and over again in comments sections; "Why should we care about a Targaryen prequel when we know that they end with Daenerys going insane and evil?"

 

I want to thank you for your perseverance and for all the interesting tidbits that you researched and shared in this thread! Good work. I was going through it these last couple of weeks, since I pretty much dropped out of all things GoT and ASoIaF related for the last 2 years. 

As to HoTD, frankly, I can't fathom what GRRM was thinking when he was writing the material for it. I felt that his depiction of women in it and and in FaB was quite problematic and disappointing back when I believed that a great queen was the endgame. Who, by all means could have been Sansa marrying Aegon and doing Catherine the Great, as long as it was well done. But with Bran as endgame, wow! It seems like Martin was going to prove all the naysayers of female succession right?! I honestly don't see how this can be salvaged. I expect it to crash and burn - deservedly so. They should have done the pre-Fall Valyria as Rome with dragons, founding of Braavos and the Faceless Men, Aenar, Daenys the Dreamer - that could have worked. YMMV.

 

On 6/5/2021 at 5:06 AM, SeanF said:

In terms of how it ended, only fans of the Stark siblings, or Tyrion, or people who passionately loathe Daenerys had reason to be happy (and many of them disliked the show for other reasons) .  That's a limited segment of the fandom.

I like the Stark siblings - and IMHO a happy ending would have been for at least some of them to come and stay together helping and supporting each other, not to separate forever after a brief and fraught interaction. I hated where the show had left them.

I am also a fan of Tyrion, but of the book version, and I am in no way inclined to white-wash him. His character was destroyed in the show. 

 

On 6/16/2021 at 9:46 PM, Count Balerion said:

 the north will never submit to the lannisters, freys, or boltons willingly now, and it's too large to be held by fear and force.

I disagree with the notion that the North is this super-special country where nobody looks to their own self-interest and everybody is suicidally loyal to their dead overlords. In books it is fairly clear that Bolton _could_ have been successful if he had a reasonable heir instead of Ramsey. Even Jon thought so.  Tywin's idea was to wait out  what looked to become a very fierce and long winter, have Sansa produce a healthy Lannister-Stark heir and then maybe try to claim the North in his name, buying off the starving opposition. It wasn't a bad plan, if several things fell out his way, but it wasn't the only one. He could also have lived with Bolton in charge.  And IMHO it was mostly intended to fend off Tyrion's ambitions for Casterly Rock.   

Oh, and I wanted to thank you too for all the fascinating excerpts from Hibberd's book and the analysis thereof. You have suffered so that we won't have to!

 

On 6/24/2021 at 3:54 PM, Angel Eyes said:

In Sansa’s case, I’m generally apprehensive about her betrothal to Harry Hardyng because of what happened in the show (Ramsay was composited with Harry).

Well, thanks to this thread we know that GRRM is on-record with Sansa's plot-line being very different in the books, so there is that. I think that both @The Dragon Demands and @Count Balerion posted the relevant quote some pages back.