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 Dragon Demands]

 

yeah

[Le Cygne]

Just remembered they said this about Dany in an outside the episode in 2016, more for the they didn't plan the ending pile. Also there's a Stark ruthlessness...

"She's not her father and she's not insane and she's not a sadist, but there's a Targaryen ruthlessness that comes with even the good Targaryens."

[The Dragon Demands]

Yeah I used it in this montage:

 

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

I’ve compared hype for a tv show - any hit show that turns bad - to a cult.  Like how Battlestar Galactica fanatics refused to admit how bad the later seasons were - the tv hype fans for Game of Thrones who defended the later seasons are nothing special. 
 

and I found this interesting quote about the appeal of cults:
 

What hit me are two things:  the Last Watch documentary showing the crew working on season eight with blind enthusiasm, each saying “we’re going to be part of tv history!”...

....and then Benioff, at the Austin Film Fest panel, in the recording of that...he admits he told them that.  I mean he SPELLS OUT: “we got the crew really enthusiastic to work on this, because this is the biggest show in the world and it’s going to be tv history!”

 

Well, they were part of TV history.

Just not the sort of TV history you would want to be part of.

[Angel Eyes]

Now that I come to think about it, the Night King didn't have to attack at all; he could have just laid siege to Winterfell and wait for the forces of the living to wither away with no help. Compare with surrounding Jon and whoever went on the wight hunt in Season 7; since he's been around for 8,000 years+, they could have been there for days and that would be like a couple hours of a breather to him.

[Le Cygne]

Another oft used talking point, when asked about the ending, the actors deflected answers about ending, instead saying that it was "bittersweet" for the show to end because they wouldn't be working with each other again.

The "reporters" (who were for the most part serving as paid fans to keep the hype train rolling with their fan pages) would in turn deliver the talking point as "the ending is bittersweet" even though that's not what they said.

Just did a quick search, first one that came up:

Headline:

'Game of Thrones': Peter Dinklage Teases "Beautifully Bittersweet" Ending

Actual comment:

"But as anticlimactic as it was, my last day was also beautifully bittersweet. A lot of people whom I love were on set that day. Even if they weren’t working, they came to set, which was beautiful. I tried to do the same thing when other actors were wrapping out. If it was their day, you would go to set to say good-bye. It was really hard."

Also just have to add, not only is this not the book character, this should be no character. He was always awesome, he just had to find out what to do with his awesomeness:

"The beauty of Tyrion is that he grew out of that mode in a couple of seasons and developed a strong sense of responsibility. Not morality, because he always had that, but what to do with his intelligence."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-peter-dinklage-teases-beautifully-bittersweet-ending-1152511

[Le Cygne]

There really was nothing groundbreaking about Game of Thrones. That was another talking point, but Lord of the Rings had already broken the ground, and you could actually SEE it.

Another talking point, strong women (as if this needs to be remarked upon, like women aren't naturally strong). The way GoT used women as plot devices was certainly nothing new.

Even the spirited Antigone, the brave Joan of Arc and the unfettered Thelma and Louise meet tragic ends in large part because they are spirited, brave and unfettered. They can defy kings, refuse beauty and defend themselves against violence. But it’s challenging for a writer to imagine a world in which such free women can exist without brutal consequences...

When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked...

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/sunday/brit-marling-women-movies.html

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

There really was nothing groundbreaking about Game of Thrones. That was another talking point, but Lord of the Rings had already broken the ground, and you could actually SEE it.

Another talking point, strong women (as if this needs to be remarked upon, like women aren't naturally strong). The way GoT used women as plot devices was certainly nothing new.

Even the spirited Antigone, the brave Joan of Arc and the unfettered Thelma and Louise meet tragic ends in large part because they are spirited, brave and unfettered. They can defy kings, refuse beauty and defend themselves against violence. But it’s challenging for a writer to imagine a world in which such free women can exist without brutal consequences...

When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked...

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/sunday/brit-marling-women-movies.html

Almost scene for scene, the ending of AGOT ripped off the final scenes of the Hunger Games Trilogy.  I'll post a link later.

https://www.tvguide.com/news/that-game-of-thrones-ending-was-basically-the-same-as-the-hunger-games-mockingjay/

I'd qualify that article slightly in that heroic women (like Joan of Arc or Edith Cavell) do sometimes meet bad ends.  Sometimes virtue does have to be its own reward.

I think too that if anyone (man or woman) wants to be a leader, than a certain level of ruthlessness is required  (although complete amorality is usually counterproductive).  In the books, I think that both Daenerys and Arianne struggle with that fact.  Daenerys' problems in Slavers Bay stem from being insufficiently ruthless towards the masters;  Arianne doesn't want to acknowledge that people have to die, in order for her to claim her inheritance.

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Another oft used talking point, when asked about the ending, the actors deflected answers about ending, instead saying that it was "bittersweet" for the show to end because they wouldn't be working with each other again.

The "reporters" (who were for the most part serving as paid fans to keep the hype train rolling with their fan pages) would in turn deliver the talking point as "the ending is bittersweet" even though that's not what they said.

Just did a quick search, first one that came up:

Headline:

'Game of Thrones': Peter Dinklage Teases "Beautifully Bittersweet" Ending

Actual comment:

"But as anticlimactic as it was, my last day was also beautifully bittersweet. A lot of people whom I love were on set that day. Even if they weren’t working, they came to set, which was beautiful. I tried to do the same thing when other actors were wrapping out. If it was their day, you would go to set to say good-bye. It was really hard."

Also just have to add, not only is this not the book character, this should be no character. He was always awesome, he just had to find out what to do with his awesomeness:

"The beauty of Tyrion is that he grew out of that mode in a couple of seasons and developed a strong sense of responsibility. Not morality, because he always had that, but what to do with his intelligence."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-peter-dinklage-teases-beautifully-bittersweet-ending-1152511

The ending was mostly nihilistic, not bittersweet.  D & D thought that giving fan service endings to some long-standing characters would work, and it didn't.

Having the character who has been built up as the hero of the tale stab the character who has been built up as the heroine of the tale through  the heart (after the latter has abruptly become Satan/Hitler) would take superlative writing to be anything other than nihilistic;  having the family who suffered as a result of their determination to do the right thing become faithless allies/faithless vassals is nihilistic;   having the country ruled by a Small Council that is variously corrupt or incompetent, under an apathetic king, and by lords who regard the Smallfolk as livestock, is nihilistic.  

[Le Cygne]

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

Almost scene for scene, the ending of AGOT ripped off the final scenes of the Hunger Games Trilogy.  I'll post a link later.

https://www.tvguide.com/news/that-game-of-thrones-ending-was-basically-the-same-as-the-hunger-games-mockingjay/

I'd qualify that article slightly in that heroic women (like Joan of Arc or Edith Cavell) do sometimes meet bad ends.  Sometimes virtue does have to be its own reward.

I think too that if anyone (man or woman) wants to be a leader, than a certain level of ruthlessness is required  (although complete amorality is usually counterproductive).  In the books, I think that both Daenerys and Arianne struggle with that fact.  Daenerys' problems in Slavers Bay stem from being insufficiently ruthless towards the masters;  Arianne doesn't want to acknowledge that people have to die, in order for her to claim her inheritance.

That wasn't the point of her article. You are justifying Dany in the framework of the show. She's saying think beyond the framework of a world where women are not valued.

She's saying take women like Dany and Sansa and write very different stories about them, that celebrate who they are, and that will be a very different kind of story.

When I read the books vs. watch the show, I see a difference, even though he's not grasped telling such stories, either. At least he's trying to be true to the women.

At this point, even an effort is appreciated. This show not only didn't try, it made things worse, they never bother to think beyond their own viewpoint because they don't have to.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

That wasn't the point of her article. You are justifying Dany in the framework of the show. She's saying think beyond the framework of a world where women are not valued.

She's saying take women like Dany and Sansa and write very different stories about them, that celebrate who they are, and that will be a very different kind of story.

When I read the books vs. watch the show, I see a difference, even though he's not grasped telling such stories, either. At least he's trying to be true to the women.

At this point, even an effort is appreciated. This show not only didn't try, it made things worse, they never bother to think beyond their own viewpoint because they don't have to.

I accept fully that the only purpose of women on the show was to be brutalised, or to be badass, or both. 

My comments about Dany and Arianne were book-based, not show-based.

I get what the writer of the article is saying, but there is a massive appetite for stories about war and killing.

[Le Cygne]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I accept fully that the only purpose of women on the show was to be brutalised, or to be badass, or both. 

My comments about Dany and Arianne were book-based, not show-based.

I get what the writer of the article is saying, but there is a massive appetite for stories about war and killing.

Well, there's a massive appetite for other stories, but it is unmet.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Well, there's a massive appetite for other stories, but it is unmet.

I think there's a widespread assumption that any fantasy series worth its name has to feature varying degrees of brutality, in large part because they so often feature crapsack worlds.

But, there ought to be no reason why you can't have romances, or crime stories, or other genres set within fantasy worlds. 

[Le Cygne]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think there's a widespread assumption that any fantasy series worth its name has to feature varying degrees of brutality, in large part because they so often feature crapsack worlds.

But, there ought to be no reason why you can't have romances, or crime stories, or other genres set within fantasy worlds. 

Good point, and as a fantasy, there is a lot of opportunity to break free of confining constructs that go down well worn paths that deny characters opportunities to explore who they really are.

I often hear the argument, well, they had to do this. No, they didn't, they only "had to" because it was written that way. That's the beauty of telling stories, they can be told any way you like.

[SeanF]

13 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Good point, and as a fantasy, there is a lot of opportunity to break free of confining constructs that go down well worn paths that deny characters opportunities to explore who they really are.

I often hear the argument, well, they had to do this. No, they didn't, they only "had to" because it was written that way. That's the beauty of telling stories, they can be told any way you like.

Even if you are writing about war, or horror, you can choose the way you want to write about it.  You can write a gripping story which is not filled with wall to wall rape and brutality.  Some of the best horror stories feature very little in the way of explicit violence. I agree with Martin's view that bad horror writing is about  "giving a graphic account of how the rats devoured Billy's genitalia." 

[Angel Eyes]

5 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

 

 That's the beauty of telling stories, they can be told any way you like.

Maybe D&D took that way too far...

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah