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!

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Did Kit say that? Oh my beloved Old Gods, I love that!

I'm only surprised D & D didn't have Sansa ending up with Tyrion.

[Mystical]

9 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Did Kit say that? Oh my beloved Old Gods, I love that!

Heck Sophie said during the 2016 Comic Con (I think it was 2016 anyway) that she would kill D&D if they made anything happen with Sansa and Jon after a person from the audience asked if it was possible because Jon likes redheads.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Mystical

[kissdbyfire]

29 minutes ago, Mystical said:

Heck Sophie said during the 2016 Comic Con (I think it was 2016 anyway) that she would kill D&D if they made anything happen with Sansa and Jon after a person from the audience asked if it was possible because Jon likes redheads.

Yeah, I remember watching that! Tks for reminding me of that, I remember having had a good laugh when I saw it. 

[Angel Eyes]

The support for a relationship between Jon and Sansa increased exponentially from Season 6 onward, particularly after the season finale when it was revealed that they were cousins. And I’ll admit to having a foot in that camp (the other one was in the Sansa and Podrick camp).

[Le Cygne]

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

I'm only surprised D & D didn't have Sansa ending up with Tyrion.

She wasn't good enough for their self-insert. They preferred to have her grovelling to him and alone. She rejected him, so they took her story away, and punished her. They are so petty.

 

[Le Cygne]

On 6/20/2020 at 7:23 PM, kissdbyfire said:

Did Kit say that? Oh my beloved Old Gods, I love that!

Oh yeah, he always said they didn't even like each other. Both actors said no way, in various ways, over and over again. Benioff/Weiss said no way, too.

They wanted Jon with Sansa? What? That is weird!

ps. He's consistent, here's another one!

Edited June 22, 2020 by Le Cygne

[Mystical]

2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

The support for a relationship between Jon and Sansa increased exponentially from Season 6 onward, particularly after the season finale when it was revealed that they were cousins. And I’ll admit to having a foot in that camp (the other one was in the Sansa and Podrick camp).

Strangely I wasn't surprised when people jumped on that. Because I actually thought they were going that way. Kit and Sophie had chemistry, what kind I don't know but they did. But the major reason why I thought the show would go there was the way they directed the actors. The directorial choices, and some dialogue, is what you use for romantic couples and not for siblings. And that includes the Ned/Cat parallels on the WF balcony with the synchronized turning and the scene when Jon leaves WF. Why make that 'callback' to a romantic couple? The camera zoom on hand holding. The lingering shots of each of them breathing heavily after a passionate argument. The whole 'new dress?' 'do you like it?' 'I like the wolf bit' part. Now I might be wrong (because I don't have a brother) but that's not how brother and sister talk.

I was royally confused during S6 and beginning of 7 because of these choices. I didn't want Stark incest but I wondered if that was being set up.

[Le Cygne]

They said it was about this, brother and sister, stepping up to the plate to carry on for the family. It's a common thing in stories, although as usual, they bungled it:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/1c/67/891c67920f943b7da81b2fbbbb9fbbbe.jpg

The sisters (Sansa, Margaery, Asha) manipulate the brothers (Jon, Loras, Theon) into doing what they want. Arya escaped this negative portrayal because she is "not like other girls"!

Arya is the sister Jon loves, and they played up that relationship as the special one, hence he caresses her face and cries when they part, and asks her to come see him.

In terms of romance, they largely ignored that, either leaving out the book love interest, or dropping the ball after starting the story on the show. It's above their grade level.

They wanted everyone to end up alone, which is pretty much how a little kid would write it.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Le Cygne

[Angel Eyes]

1 hour ago, Mystical said:

Strangely I wasn't surprised when people jumped on that. Because I actually thought they were going that way. Kit and Sophie had chemistry, what kind I don't know but they did. But the major reason why I thought the show would go there was the way they directed the actors. The directorial choices, and some dialogue, is what you use for romantic couples and not for siblings. And that includes the Ned/Cat parallels on the WF balcony with the synchronized turning and the scene when Jon leaves WF. Why make that 'callback' to a romantic couple? The camera zoom on hand holding. The lingering shots of each of them breathing heavily after a passionate argument. The whole 'new dress?' 'do you like it?' 'I like the wolf bit' part. Now I might be wrong (because I don't have a brother) but that's not how brother and sister talk.

I was royally confused during S6 and beginning of 7 because of these choices. I didn't want Stark incest but I wondered if that was being set up.

Better chemistry than Jon and Daenerys? 

For me, one of the reasons why I shipped them is that for that time, she was simultaneously his lady and the Beatrice to his Dante; he took back Winterfell for her and on her end, she was Jon’s purpose. If Sansa hadn’t shown up Jon would have gone off somewhere to die alone. I’ve already waxed lyrical about purpose and drive in this thread.

[SeanF]

Jon/Sansa makes people retch (although there is massive fan fiction about it).

The odd thing is I could see that if Daenerys won the crown, but thought herself unable to bear children, she might go for it.  She would not want to be the last Targaryen, and Jon could bear children by Sansa.  And, that would bind the North in behind the Targaryen dynasty.

[Angel Eyes]

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

They said it was about this, brother and sister, stepping up to the plate to carry on for the family. It's a common thing in stories, although as usual, they bungled it:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/1c/67/891c67920f943b7da81b2fbbbb9fbbbe.jpg

The sisters (Sansa, Margaery, Asha) manipulate the brothers (Jon, Loras, Theon) into doing what they want. Arya escaped this negative portrayal because she is "not like other girls"!

Arya is the sister Jon loves, and they played up that relationship as the special one, hence he caresses her face and cries when they part, and asks her to come see him.

In terms of romance, they largely ignored that, either leaving out the book love interest, or dropping the ball after starting the story on the show. It's above their grade level.

They wanted everyone to end up alone, which is pretty much how a little kid would write it.

Wait a minute, I thought Loras was doing the manipulating for the Tyrells on some level. In the show it’s his idea for Renly to try and take the throne, meaning that the Tyrells throw their lot with Renly. Because of that, Renly is shadow-babied by Melisandre, the Tyrells throw their lot with the Lannisters, Olenna kills Joffrey to protect Margaery, causing Cersei to go nuts in the latter half of the show’s run, which culminates in Loras, his sister, and his father going up in flames and his family extinguished when Jaime kills Loras’ grandmother.

[Le Cygne]

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

Jon/Sansa makes people retch (although there is massive fan fiction about it).

Indeed.

Ewww, no. He is to all intents and purposes her brother. Who she doesn't even like, and he doesn't like her, either. Why on earth would Sansa go for that. She'd jump off a cliff first.

She almost jumped off a cliff to escape the mockery of a marriage to Tyrion in the books, it was to her, her only choice, and she said her torments would soon be over, one way or another.

Jon is a Targ and a Stark, so having kids with anyone would do the trick.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Le Cygne

[Mystical]

10 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Better chemistry than Jon and Daenerys?

Yep. I saw no chemistry between Kit and Emilia. Which was really strange to me because I saw them in one interview together and they had some nice friendship chemistry going on. But nothing of that translated to screen for me. There certainly was no romantic or sexual chemistry that I could see. It would have been fine if at least their off-screen friendship chemistry came through but there was nothing. Now I know that chemistry is something that is very subjective and there are certainly plenty people who see it differently.

[SeanF]

21 minutes ago, Mystical said:

Yep. I saw no chemistry between Kit and Emilia. Which was really strange to me because I saw them in one interview together and they had some nice friendship chemistry going on. But nothing of that translated to screen for me. There certainly was no romantic or sexual chemistry that I could see. It would have been fine if at least their off-screen friendship chemistry came through but there was nothing. Now I know that chemistry is something that is very subjective and there are certainly plenty people who see it differently.

There was more chemistry between Dany and Yara than between Dany and Jon.

Edited June 21, 2020 by SeanF

[Angel Eyes]

44 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Ewww, no. He is to all intents and purposes her brother. Who she doesn't even like, and he doesn't like her, either. Why on earth would Sansa go for that. She'd jump off a cliff first.

She almost jumped off a cliff to escape the mockery of a marriage to Tyrion in the books, it was to her, her only choice, and she said her torments would soon be over, one way or another.

Jon is a Targ and a Stark, so having kids with anyone would do the trick.

I dunno, maybe because he’s the only nice guy in her age group who isn’t her sibling (Podrick isn’t much of a character and Gendry is considered off-limits because he has feelings for Arya)? The Hound is both too old and never shown much interest in her apart from demeaning her, she’s shown disgust at being part of the family that killed her parents and brother so Tyrion’s out (he’s also twice her age; to be fair she was at least able to be friendly with him until the Red Wedding), and Littlefinger sold her out to the Boltons and has been creeping on her for a few seasons. That leaves only Jon.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Angel Eyes

[Le Cygne]

I see another show is advertised as something GoT fans would like. (Might want to come up with a better angle than that, just saying.)

Edited June 22, 2020 by Le Cygne

[SeanF]

I don't hate the idea of Jon/Sansa.

But, in universe, I'm sure the pair of them would hate it.  They are not close, but view each other as siblings, and would both be disgusted at the thought of being wed to each other.

[Ghostlydragon]

I was always in favour of Edd and Sansa getting together. It was just one scene but there seemed to be a spark.

Then if Edd survived the battles against the white walkers, he could marry Sansa and unite the vale and north.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Ghostlydragon

[Bear Claw]

7 hours ago, Mystical said:

Strangely I wasn't surprised when people jumped on that. Because I actually thought they were going that way. Kit and Sophie had chemistry, what kind I don't know but they did. But the major reason why I thought the show would go there was the way they directed the actors. The directorial choices, and some dialogue, is what you use for romantic couples and not for siblings. And that includes the Ned/Cat parallels on the WF balcony with the synchronized turning and the scene when Jon leaves WF. Why make that 'callback' to a romantic couple? The camera zoom on hand holding. The lingering shots of each of them breathing heavily after a passionate argument. The whole 'new dress?' 'do you like it?' 'I like the wolf bit' part. Now I might be wrong (because I don't have a brother) but that's not how brother and sister talk.

I was royally confused during S6 and beginning of 7 because of these choices. I didn't want Stark incest but I wondered if that was being set up.

I totally agree with you. They did have some unusual sibling scenes. The mimicked  close up of Jon/Sansa holding hands with Jon/Dany the following season was especially telling to me. The conflict among those three just didn't make sense as they presented it on the show. Many people were wondering why Sansa didn't like Dany. It makes much better sense in terms of a romantic rivalry. However, the show did a lot of things that didn't make sense, and so who knows?

Edited June 21, 2020 by Bear Claw

[divica]

On 6/20/2020 at 10:29 PM, The Dragon Demands said:

A thought occurred to me that hadn't before.

As I've said, up through season 6 we assumed they did thing for "shock value"...not realizing it's "shocking" because it's "incoherent".  Unintentionally incoherent....because they're just pandering the actors.  

Now let me be clear:  it's not JUST "awards baiting".  Benioff doesn't know how "screenwriting" works, and genuinely believes this is "improving" the story.  But he also does this with third to fourth tier characters - so many minor one-shot characters became recurring because "we liked the actor"...people who would never plausibly be up for awards.  

But what hadn't occurred to me before was the goal of the awards pandering, what was driving it;  that HBO and Benioff wanted to pander the actors for awards, but for different reasons.  

HBO under Richard Plepler had a stated business model of "we win awards, and people watch because we win awards; we're elite, "boutique culture", this isn't just TV it's HBO, we're special without even trying, because we have all the A-list talent".  Martin himself has remarked on HBO pressuring him about a "Q Rating" - polling data about which characters are most popular.  Show them off more.

But that's straightforward enough:  HBO wants to boost the prestige of its own channel, by actively playing in to celebrity culture.  This wouldn't change even with the final season, because it's not about promoting "Game of Thrones" but HBO as a whole.  In their minds; they seriously think people will buy HBO because Game of Thrones in its FINAL SEASON won awards...rigged awards...and then left TV forever.  (heh, maybe they think people will rewatch it like Breaking Bad).  

Benioff and Weiss, on the other hand...were leaving HBO.  And I increasingly think this played a separate role in the frantic awards-baiting that made Season 8 incoherent *relative to the preceding 3 off-book seasons*.

Since Season 1, HBO wanted to pander the lead actors to play in to celebrity culture and polling data, boost their popularity, ride the coat tails of the actors as it were.  Benioff....somewhat similarly, knows he isn't a real screenwriter, and has made a career onto latching on to the popularity of other people (starting with 25th Hour, which he admits was written with the pitch that it could be adapted into an awards-baiting movie). So in say Season 2, Benioff wanted to play up the popular actors....to make up for his own writing shortfalls.  For a time, this even worked, with the casual TV-only viewers who even liked...Season SEVEN.  

But even RELATIVE to Seasons 5, 6, and 7.....Season 8 turned up the awards-baiting to levels even the TV-only fanatics thought were absurd.  So much of the season was focused on that scene of Jon killing Daenerys....going through their commentaries....it's like the rest of the season was an afterthought.  Or a big Long Night battle.  Big showcase things.

….Why would Benioff and Weiss be frantically pandering Emilia Clarke for awards...to the point that we seriously think they drastically rewrote her storyline between Seasons 7 and 8....when they were leaving the channel for Star Wars?  

….Well, refocusing....yeah, it's boosting THEIR prestige.   I've been giving this rant about "they're just pandering the actors" since before Season 7, so I failed to update that theory to take into account the new factors happening in the final season.

---- A big question is....did Benioff & Weiss ALWAYS want to jump ship for Star Wars?  Or would they honestly have settled in to make "Confederate" for five or so years, at HBO?  Was Confederate a REAL pitch?  Or a Bialystock and Bloom situation, trying to get out of their contract?  Given the blowback and how much it damaged their reputations, I think it was a real pitch.  Let's assume that until proven otherwise.  

You have to look at the Timeline of events:  WHY did Benioff & Weiss drastically rewrite Season 8?  WHEN, exactly, did they rewrite it?  

After Season 7 was written, even late into filming on it (the deleted Cersei miscarriage scene that was filmed).

So...early to mid 2017?  And the table read showing the actors the filming scripts for Season 8 was in October 2017.  Storyboarding a few months before that.

….what changed, in the Benioff and Weiss relationship with HBO, in 2017?  Confederate got a massive negative backlash, and their position at the network was no longer secure.  

Confederate was announced on July 19, 2017.  SOME basic storyboarding was going on before that (for things like the Long Night battle).  Still plenty of time to frantically make some changes in the intervening 3 months like "Arya kills the Night King" or the Jon/Daenerys ending changes.

...sorry for the long buildup, but I realized....around the time we think Benioff & Weiss were panicking and drastically making last-minute changes to Season 8....they weren't just panicking that "we have to establish our legacy!" in a general sense, but specifically to PAD THEIR GOD DAMNED RESUMES because by that point their position at HBO was no longer secure.  And their Star Wars deal was announced by February 2018.

Awards wins by their actors are how they increase their own prestige and dupe companies like Star Wars or Netflix into hiring them.  You think it's an accident that Star Wars dropped them AFTER the Emmy awards?  Where their performance was "mixed at best", not the clean sweep they had promised? (only a win for best drama and for perennial awards favorite Peter Dinklage, more about him than them; in terms of "we're finally going to get Kit and Emilia lead actor Emmys!" they NEVER did!).  Kit and Emilia not winning Emmys in September was seen as THEIR failure.  Probably the last straw for Star Wars.  A month later, Austin Film Fest happened, and they seized on that as a golden opportunity to dump D&D without being criticized for it.  But why wait that long?  The Emmys were 3 months after a terrible finale.

Long rant, sorry; the point is, it never quite occurred to me in as many words, "Benioff and Weiss don't just want to boost their egos, but in Season 8, may have made so many drastic changes because they were desperate, desperately trying to get Emmy wins to cement a Star Wars deal after their Confederate pitch met with society-wide backlash".  

Keep in mind they were ALWAYS pandering the actors, even before Season 8, and not always for awards (third tier characters).  Benioff is a fraud who rode up on the popularity of his actors; HBO actively panders celebrity actors to build their brand name.  These are slightly different motives...but they overlapped.  HBO might not be the dilettante millionaire's son that David Friedman is, but they provided the corrupt old-boys-network environment that allowed a con man like him to thrive.

"Why were they pandering the actors so heavily in Season 8, even relative to Seasons 5, 6, and 7?"
"I think they were panicking after Confederate got rejected, and by mid-2017 were hoping to get Emmy wins so they could jump ship to Star Wars".  

I think you are completly off the mark. 

The big event you are forgetting completly is Disney's approach to The last jedi. They tried to do the same thing to GOT and it completly backfired.

The unexpected twists that Don t make sense,  the super female heroine (Arya), the visuals over story...

And they were fired from SW because both got and TLJ failed for the same reasons. So Disney had no interest in hiring people that represent what they needed to change in SW. 

I have very few doubts that if GOT was shot 1 year earlier or later then the result would have been very diferent