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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

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I even have trouble listening to the soundtrack nowadays. There are a few songs I greatly enjoy, but I no longer listen to the whole thing. The main theme, always playing resoundingly over the map of the world, now reminds me how often that map was ignored by the writers.

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It was very interesting skimming through this (enormous) thread, as someone that stopped watching the series at the end of season 5 and have had no interest in watching any more of the show since then. I knew it ended badly, but I didn't realise just how atrociously bad it really was. But people that think the show only became bad in the last two seasons are wrong - the problems started long before then, arguably in season 4, and became deeply ingrained by season 5. The disasters of the last few seasons didn't happen in a vacuum, they were the inevitable result of D&D's many writing faults that stretch back for years. A character killed off too early here, a character excessively whitewashed there. It all added up. I mean, being frank, as a "book purist", the only seasons I can still fully enjoy are 1 and 2, and even 2 has some silliness in it (Arya and Tywin scenes, Talisa scenes, Jon and Ygritte cringe). 

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6 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

It was very interesting skimming through this (enormous) thread, as someone that stopped watching the series at the end of season 5 and have had no interest in watching any more of the show since then. I knew it ended badly, but I didn't realise just how atrociously bad it really was. But people that think the show only became bad in the last two seasons are wrong - the problems started long before then, arguably in season 4, and became deeply ingrained by season 5. The disasters of the last few seasons didn't happen in a vacuum, they were the inevitable result of D&D's many writing faults that stretch back for years. A character killed off too early here, a character excessively whitewashed there. It all added up. I mean, being frank, as a "book purist", the only seasons I can still fully enjoy are 1 and 2, and even 2 has some silliness in it (Arya and Tywin scenes, Talisa scenes, Jon and Ygritte cringe). 

I've no real quibbles with Season 1.

Seasons 2 to 4.  There were things that jarred and irritated, but by and large, what I liked far outweighed what I disliked.  So, I tended to defend the two D's against criticism, even though I can see, with hindsight, that the criticism was justified, and that it revealed flaws that would overwhelm the show in time.

To my mind, where it began to go off the rails was with Dany's plot in Qarth.  This was virtually all original material, it looked flashy, and it was poor.  But worse than that, it showed in microcosm just how bad things would get once the two D's departed from the source material.  What we got were:-

1. Plot holes.  The Spice King & co. invite Dany to the gates of Qarth, but then tell them to drop dead in the desert. Dany's Dothraki are killed off in one episode, but regenerate in the next.  Xaro, the King of Qarth, has no guards on his palace and no money in his safe.

2. Abrupt, unexplained, shifts in character.  The relationship between Dany and Doreah is almost romantic.  Yet, quite abruptly, Doreah turns traitor for .....reasons.

3.  Negotiation being replaced by two people shouting at each other (in the books, Dany tries to win over the rulers of Qarth;  here, she and the Spice Kings shout at each other).

4. Nods to the books that end up going nowhere - in this case, Qaithe.

5. Ditching really interesting stuff in favour of the mundane - The House of the Undying.

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4 hours ago, SeanF said:

I've no real quibbles with Season 1.

Seasons 2 to 4.  There were things that jarred and irritated, but by and large, what I liked far outweighed what I disliked.  So, I tended to defend the two D's against criticism, even though I can see, with hindsight, that the criticism was justified, and that it revealed flaws that would overwhelm the show in time.

To my mind, where it began to go off the rails was with Dany's plot in Qarth.  This was virtually all original material, it looked flashy, and it was poor.  But worse than that, it showed in microcosm just how bad things would get once the two D's departed from the source material.  What we got were:-

1. Plot holes.  The Spice King & co. invite Dany to the gates of Qarth, but then tell them to drop dead in the desert. Dany's Dothraki are killed off in one episode, but regenerate in the next.  Xaro, the King of Qarth, has no guards on his palace and no money in his safe.

2. Abrupt, unexplained, shifts in character.  The relationship between Dany and Doreah is almost romantic.  Yet, quite abruptly, Doreah turns traitor for .....reasons.

3.  Negotiation being replaced by two people shouting at each other (in the books, Dany tries to win over the rulers of Qarth;  here, she and the Spice Kings shout at each other).

4. Nods to the books that end up going nowhere - in this case, Qaithe.

5. Ditching really interesting stuff in favour of the mundane - The House of the Undying.

I agree that Dany's season 2 storyline is pretty abysmally bad, and sticks out like a sore thumb on rewatches, although I'm willing to give D&D a little bit of slack here. Her storyline was fairly uninteresting in the book, and it was also very short - only five chapters, compared to her ten in AGoT, and the conventions of TV usually necessitate giving main characters a consistent amount of screen-time between seasons. The stolen dragons subplot, while terribly executed and pointless from a narrative perspective, at least added some small semblance of "drama" to her storyline. At least the type of conventional drama that TV viewers expected. Her book storyline - such as it is - consists of a measly two chapters in Qarth before the House of the Undying, and they're pretty redundant - just her endlessly complaining to Jorah and Xaro about how no one is helping her.

I would honestly have had no problem with her having far less screentime compared to other seasons, but D&D have shown that they're not the type of writers to want to do that with characters (except Bran). They'd rather invent dumb and redundant storylines than have a character just not show up much in a season (also see: Theon in season 3). And as well all know, D&D are abysmally awful writers when they have to create something from scratch.

The same thing also happened with Tywin and Arya that season - rather than properly introducing a character that would go on to be extremely important quite soon - Roose Bolton - the writers instead decided to have completely made-up conversations between two characters we already know well, and in the process completely neuter one of the most cold and ruthless characters in the series because they thought it would be cute and funny if he acted like a cool grandpa for some reason. Reducing Roose's relevance to a short and disposable scene where he tells Robb about Ramsay offhand was ridiculous, and showed that even as early as season 2, D&D were prioritising nonsense fanservice over establishing important new characters and storylines.

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1 hour ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

I agree that Dany's season 2 storyline is pretty abysmally bad, and sticks out like a sore thumb on rewatches, although I'm willing to give D&D a little bit of slack here. Her storyline was fairly uninteresting in the book, and it was also very short - only five chapters, compared to her ten in AGoT, and the conventions of TV usually necessitate giving main characters a consistent amount of screen-time between seasons. The stolen dragons subplot, while terribly executed and pointless from a narrative perspective, at least added some small semblance of "drama" to her storyline. At least the type of conventional drama that TV viewers expected. Her book storyline - such as it is - consists of a measly two chapters in Qarth before the House of the Undying, and they're pretty redundant - just her endlessly complaining to Jorah and Xaro about how no one is helping her.

I would honestly have had no problem with her having far less screentime compared to other seasons, but D&D have shown that they're not the type of writers to want to do that with characters (except Bran). They'd rather invent dumb and redundant storylines than have a character just not show up much in a season (also see: Theon in season 3). And as well all know, D&D are abysmally awful writers when they have to create something from scratch.

The same thing also happened with Tywin and Arya that season - rather than properly introducing a character that would go on to be extremely important quite soon - Roose Bolton - the writers instead decided to have completely made-up conversations between two characters we already know well, and in the process completely neuter one of the most cold and ruthless characters in the series because they thought it would be cute and funny if he acted like a cool grandpa for some reason. Reducing Roose's relevance to a short and disposable scene where he tells Robb about Ramsay offhand was ridiculous, and showed that even as early as season 2, D&D were prioritising nonsense fanservice over establishing important new characters and storylines.

I’d have dealt with Qarth in perhaps three episodes, following the books, and then gone straight into Astapor, finishing with her turning the Unsullied.  There’s enough left in the Eastern storyline to carry the next two seasons.

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3 hours ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

So, with the release of a House of The Dragon teaser, it made me wonder if we have any other type of GRRM news.  I went to the Not A Blog and found this latest post, only photographic.  

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/

Any ideas what it could be.  
 

@zionius suggested something I had started to think of but didn't have the time to look into -- that it's a count of how many projects George is connected with are in some stage of development at HBO right now. By his count, we know of seven currently in some stage of development, so an eighth would be news. It need not be GoT related, could be something he's attached to through Startling Inc. which will have very little involvement from him beyond having gotten it setup at HBO and earning a producer credit thereby.

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30 minutes ago, Ran said:

@zionius suggested something I had started to think of but didn't have the time to look into -- that it's a count of how many projects George is connected with are in some stage of development at HBO right now. By his count, we know of seven currently in some stage of development, so an eighth would be news. It need not be GoT related, could be something he's attached to through Startling Inc. which will have very little involvement from him beyond having gotten it setup at HBO and earning a producer credit thereby.

Thanks for the answer.  I was wondering on the finger count, should I include the thumb? and, of course, wondering what it could be about.  I had noticed some of the Wild Card posts that GRRM had made, but there are many more of those books, so.......I kind of ruled that out.  

I hadn't thought of adding up all current projects, there could be something to that.  Whatever it is, hopefully he feels good about it, and we'll find out eventually.  

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He had 8 projects with HBO: Who Fears Death, Roadmarks, HOTD, 9 voyages, 10k ships, D&E, ASOIAF Anime, Flea Bottom. (He had more with Peacock, Netflex, AMC, etc. So it's only a HBO project count, as the tag suggests. It follows the same way of him counting HBO spinoff shows in that famous blog)

But recently "Flea Bottom" is dead, so the 8th one is a little tricky. It could still be Flea Bottom, it could be Warner's Ice Dragon since Warner owns HBO, it could also be Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human, which is listed here: https://www.startlinginc.com/ (You'll note all other Startling's HBO projects are GRRM-related projects).

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On 10/4/2021 at 12:27 PM, WhatAnArtist! said:

The same thing also happened with Tywin and Arya that season - rather than properly introducing a character that would go on to be extremely important quite soon - Roose Bolton - the writers instead decided to have completely made-up conversations between two characters we already know well, and in the process completely neuter one of the most cold and ruthless characters in the series because they thought it would be cute and funny if he acted like a cool grandpa for some reason. Reducing Roose's relevance to a short and disposable scene where he tells Robb about Ramsay offhand was ridiculous, and showed that even as early as season 2, D&D were prioritising nonsense fanservice over establishing important new characters and storylines.

And then the Tywin and Arya scenes were promptly forgotten in Season 7 when Arya said she'd never serve the Lannisters.

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On 10/4/2021 at 11:27 AM, WhatAnArtist! said:

I agree that Dany's season 2 storyline is pretty abysmally bad, and sticks out like a sore thumb on rewatches, although I'm willing to give D&D a little bit of slack here. Her storyline was fairly uninteresting in the book, and it was also very short - only five chapters, compared to her ten in AGoT, and the conventions of TV usually necessitate giving main characters a consistent amount of screen-time between seasons. The stolen dragons subplot, while terribly executed and pointless from a narrative perspective, at least added some small semblance of "drama" to her storyline. At least the type of conventional drama that TV viewers expected. Her book storyline - such as it is - consists of a measly two chapters in Qarth before the House of the Undying, and they're pretty redundant - just her endlessly complaining to Jorah and Xaro about how no one is helping her.

I would honestly have had no problem with her having far less screentime compared to other seasons, but D&D have shown that they're not the type of writers to want to do that with characters (except Bran). They'd rather invent dumb and redundant storylines than have a character just not show up much in a season (also see: Theon in season 3). And as well all know, D&D are abysmally awful writers when they have to create something from scratch.

I hear you on that.

But they dropped the ball on the most interesting parts of Dany's season 2 storyline: which is the House of the Undying and Dany being the Beggar Queen.

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5 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

I hear you on that.

But they dropped the ball on the most interesting parts of Dany's season 2 storyline: which is the House of the Undying and Dany being the Beggar Queen.

Well she didn't last very long as the Beggar Queen didn't she? Only 5 chapters in ACOK.

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On 10/4/2021 at 12:35 PM, SeanF said:

I’d have dealt with Qarth in perhaps three episodes, following the books, and then gone straight into Astapor, finishing with her turning the Unsullied.  There’s enough left in the Eastern storyline to carry the next two seasons.

Not a terrible idea but I would've preferred to allow the Qarth story stretch across the whole season.

Like I would've had Dany and her khalasar wander in the desert for longer...to make the situation more dire. I also would've introduced the audiences to Euron Greyjoy in Qarth--so as to explain how he got his hands on warlocks and the shade of the evening.

If I had to create original material (or move some of Dany's more obscure material from Dance and Storm into the second season), I would. I would just make sure it was good.

The dragon stealing plot and the traitor plot aren't bad ideas. They were just executed poorly. I would've used a different Dothraki girl (or man) for that. And I also would've have used Daxos very differently. 

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17 hours ago, zionius said:

He had 8 projects with HBO: Who Fears Death, Roadmarks, HOTD, 9 voyages, 10k ships, D&E, ASOIAF Anime, Flea Bottom. (He had more with Peacock, Netflex, AMC, etc. So it's only a HBO project count, as the tag suggests. It follows the same way of him counting HBO spinoff shows in that famous blog)

But recently "Flea Bottom" is dead, so the 8th one is a little tricky. It could still be Flea Bottom, it could be Warner's Ice Dragon since Warner owns HBO, it could also be Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human, which is listed here: https://www.startlinginc.com/ (You'll note all other Startling's HBO projects are GRRM-related projects).

There is no specific information about that "ASOIAF anime," I think. It could really be anything.

Wasn't there a Yi-Ti series planned at HBO? That's what I remember.

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8 hours ago, $erPounce said:

There is no specific information about that "ASOIAF anime," I think. It could really be anything.

Wasn't there a Yi-Ti series planned at HBO? That's what I remember.

Oops, I forgot the YiTi one, and there are 2 other animes in develop. So it seems the 8 count doesn't include animes.

Or maybe, the 8 count only include GOT spinoffs: HOTD, 9 voyagers, 10k ships, D&E, 3 animes, one unknown newly added.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 11/3/2021 at 8:56 AM, Crixus said:

Yet another GoT actor talking about how badly sex scenes were handled: https://www.avclub.com/gemma-whelan-says-game-of-thrones-didnt-have-an-intimac-1847983399

Did HBO deliberately choose not to hire an intimacy coordinator, or is it a position that didn't really exist at the time? If the former, then it's yet another sign of potential toxic behavior by HBO that may have been going on for awhile without being exposed.

Quote

 

Momoa recalled a time while shooting a Season 1 sex scene when he placed the intimacy pouch (which covers an actor's genitals in nude scenes) in Benioff's hand: "That was because David had been like, 'Momoa, just take it off!' You know, giving me s***. 'Sacrifice! Do it for your art!' I'm just like, 'F*** you, bro. My wife would be pissed. That's for one lady only, man.'"

Momoa added: "So afterward I ripped the thing off and kept it in my hand and gave him a big hug and a handshake and was like, 'Hey, now you have a little bit of me on you, buddy.'"

 

How old was Benioff at this point? This is like frat boy behavior.

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13 hours ago, Darryk said:

How old was Benioff at this point? This is like frat boy behavior.

He was born in 1970 and this would be a decade before now.......41 years old. Give or take a year or so.

On 10/6/2021 at 7:35 AM, BlackLightning said:

Like I would've had Dany and her khalasar wander in the desert for longer...to make the situation more dire. I also would've introduced the audiences to Euron Greyjoy in Qarth--so as to explain how he got his hands on warlocks and the shade of the evening.

 

You could've introduced him as Urrathon Night Walker, and have Dany do the audiences she does in the books with merchants and the like. Maybe even introduce the dragonhorn. It would give her a bit more to do. 

It blows my mind that this thread has 328 pages....

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Just now, Jaenara Belarys said:

He was born in 1970 and this would be a decade before now.......41 years old. Give or take a year or so.

You could've introduced him as Urrathon Night Walker, and have Dany do the audiences she does in the books with merchants and the like. Maybe even introduce the dragonhorn. 

Right.

Then the season 2's infamous dragon-napping plot will make a lot more sense.

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