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!

[A Bong of Ice and Fire]

I saw this interesting theory today on why Season 8 was so bad:

 
According to this theory, which is pretty well-reasoned in the video, D&D tanked the show on purpose as a blow to GRRM, who had thrown them under the bus.  Maybe it's true, maybe not. I found it interesting, in any case.  (FYI Dave L in the comments section is me.)

[Ser Drewy]

Apparently Benioff & Weiss wanted to cut Rickon from S1, but GRRM told them to keep him as he had 'important plans' for the youngest Stark.

Which turned out to be pointless anyway since they sacrificed him to the insufferable Ramsay Sue anyway...

[kissdbyfire]

17 minutes ago, Ser Drewy said:

Apparently Benioff & Weiss wanted to cut Rickon from S1, but GRRM told them to keep him as he had 'important plans' for the youngest Stark.

Which turned out to be pointless anyway since they sacrificed him to the insufferable Ramsay Sue anyway...

And a scene that is so highly praised, right? The great Battle of the Bastards! What a load of bollocks... I hated everything about it, from the set up to the conclusion, total 100% David and Dan special brand of poor, dumb, and nonsensical “story telling”. 

[kissdbyfire]

6 hours ago, A Bong of Ice and Fire said:

I saw this interesting theory today on why Season 8 was so bad:

According to this theory, which is pretty well-reasoned in the video, D&D tanked the show on purpose as a blow to GRRM, who had thrown them under the bus.  Maybe it's true, maybe not. I found it interesting, in any case.  (FYI Dave L in the comments section is me.)

I felt kind of sorry for the guy... he was trying so hard to find something that made sense, but in the end he couldn’t. Not his fault, obviously; he can’t find what isn’t there/doesn’t exist. I highly doubt the Ds would crash and burn on purpose. Even that requires some skill, and they’re not good enough writers even for that. 
I also disagree w/ the guy when he says the Ds were awesome and brilliant early on. They weren’t, and their inventions were always awful. It’s just that early on their crap didn’t stand out like a sore and pox infested thumb the way it did after s4. Just my 2p worth, of course.

[Count Balerion]

Battle of the Bastards. I'm no m,ilitary tactician, but even I saw it was pretty dismal.

[CamiloRP]

16 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

And a scene that is so highly praised, right? The great Battle of the Bastards! What a load of bollocks... I hated everything about it, from the set up to the conclusion, total 100% David and Dan special brand of poor, dumb, and nonsensical “story telling”. 

Well, I think it was so highly praised because as a stand alone scene and from a storytelling point of view it was fantastically done. The problem is that it made little sense when you looked at the complete picture.

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

Well, I think it was so highly praised because as a stand alone scene and from a storytelling point of view it was fantastically done. The problem is that it made little sense when you looked at the complete picture.

Hmmm. I wholeheartedly disagree. From a storytelling point of view if was so dumb it made my brain hurt. Seriously, even leaving the set up aside... Rickon running across that huge ass field in a straight line, and Jon, like the dumbass the show turned him into, running towards Rickon to save him?

As to the actual battle, meh. At least it wasn’t in pitch-black darkness so dark you can’t see a damn thing. I stand by my opinion, total and utter bollocks.

 

[CamiloRP]

13 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Hmmm. I wholeheartedly disagree. From a storytelling point of view if was so dumb it made my brain hurt. Seriously, even leaving the set up aside... Rickon running across that huge ass field in a straight line, and Jon, like the dumbass the show turned him into, running towards Rickon to save him?

As to the actual battle, meh. At least it wasn’t in pitch-black darkness so dark you can’t see a damn thing. I stand by my opinion, total and utter bollocks.

 

What I mean is, they quite well used both suspense and shock, it's a really well paced scene with ever increasing tension that plays masterfully with the basic rules of cinema, but when you look at the plot it makes little sense and is filled with plot holes. That's likely because GOT had really talented people behind it (in this episode's case, the director) but the showrunners where so lacking of skill that when it all came together it was bullshit.

My favorite example is Tormund; almost nothing he says past season three makes sense, but Kristofer Hivju is so fucking charismatic that you enjoy it any way, at lest that was my case, I would watch at Tormund scenes and both cringe at the dialogue but smile because of the delivery.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

What I mean is, they quite well used both suspense and shock, it's a really well paced scene with ever increasing tension that plays masterfully with the basic rules of cinema, but when you look at the plot it makes little sense and is filled with plot holes. That's likely because GOT had really talented people behind it (in this episode's case, the director) but the showrunners where so lacking of skill that when it all came together it was bullshit.

My favorite example is Tormund; almost nothing he says past season three makes sense, but Kristofer Hivju is so fucking charismatic that you enjoy it any way, at lest that was my case, I would watch at Tormund scenes and both cringe at the dialogue but smile because of the delivery.

On the face of it, it seemed that Sansa deliberately withheld information from Jon that the Vale Knights were in the neighbourhood.  The explanation for that would be that she wanted the credit for the victory.

What I think it was was a typical desire by D & D to generate a shock.  In fact, plenty of tension could have been generated had we known the Vale Knights were on their way, but we couldn't know whether Jon would hold out in time for them to arrive.

[CamiloRP]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

On the face of it, it seemed that Sansa deliberately withheld information from Jon that the Vale Knights were in the neighbourhood.  The explanation for that would be that she wanted the credit for the victory.

What I think it was was a typical desire by D & D to generate a shock.  In fact, plenty of tension could have been generated had we known the Vale Knights were on their way, but we couldn't know whether Jon would hold out in time for them to arrive.

yes, absolutely, that what just bad, but I'm just talking about that Rickon scene, people liked it, because it was well made, even if it made no sense.

[kissdbyfire]

More from the excerpt quoted up thread by @Ser Drewy:

Martin: Then came the filming of the wedding night. In the Emilia Clarke version, it’s rape. It’s not rape in my book, and it’s not rape in the scene as we filmed it with Tamzin Merchant. It’s a seduction. Dany and Drogo don’t have the same language. Dany is a little scared but also a little excited, and Drogo is being more considerate. The only words he knows are “yes” or “no.” Originally it was a fairly faithful version. 

[Le Cygne]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:12 PM, Ser Drewy said:

Apparently Benioff & Weiss wanted to cut Rickon from S1, but GRRM told them to keep him as he had 'important plans' for the youngest Stark.

Which turned out to be pointless anyway since they sacrificed him to the insufferable Ramsay Sue anyway...

Yet another example of how much they strayed from the books.

This is linked to from that article, the Hibberd book excerpts (and no doubt he heard a lot of bad things he won't include):

When we first shot the scene where the Starks find the direwolves — this was the version you never saw — the wonder of what a direwolf was wasn’t coming across. It didn’t seem important enough to the characters.

And it never did. They were nothing but fluffy pets from day one to the very end. One of them went feral, but it was just a neglected pet.

GRRM shows once again how much they got Dany's story wrong:

There are a couple of stories. As a wedding gift, Khal Drogo gives Daenerys a silver horse and she rides away. For a moment you think she’s fleeing. Then she turns the horse around and leaps the horse over a big campfire. Drogo is very impressed, and it starts the relationship on a good note... So they had to scrap that sequence, which was unfortunate, as it was a bonding moment between Dany and Khal Drogo. 

Then came the filming of the wedding night. In the Emilia Clarke version, it’s rape. It’s not rape in my book, and it’s not rape in the scene as we filmed it with Tamzin Merchant. It’s a seduction. Dany and Drogo don’t have the same language. Dany is a little scared but also a little excited, and Drogo is being more considerate. The only words he knows are “yes” or “no.” Originally it was a fairly faithful version. 

One, they easily could have gotten around the horse jumping over the pit issue with an equivalent moment of bonding. Two, what a HUGE departure from the books, they replaced a story about two people influencing each other positively with yet another woman's body being assaulted.

GRRM: "She was a little scared but also a little excited." She. He's talking about who Dany is as a person here. His story is a story about DANY.

Fear and excitement. That's how he shows sexual awakening, he does this with Sansa and the Hound (which they also messed up), too. Benioff and Weiss don't give a rat's ass how the woman is feeling, that she's actually admiring certain things about a man, and what this says about her as a person.

They erase women from their own stories.

The other thing that stands out in that article is that Benioff/Weiss messed up so badly, yet were given lots more money. Good ole boys who fail upward.

[Le Cygne]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

On the face of it, it seemed that Sansa deliberately withheld information from Jon that the Vale Knights were in the neighbourhood.  The explanation for that would be that she wanted the credit for the victory.

What I think it was was a typical desire by D & D to generate a shock.  In fact, plenty of tension could have been generated had we known the Vale Knights were on their way, but we couldn't know whether Jon would hold out in time for them to arrive.

Benioff/Weiss said Sandra withheld the information from Jon deliberately. I've quoted it on these threads before, and can look for it, but I think it was a video and I just can't watch those anymore.

They said she wanted to keep some power to herself, so she didn't tell him about the Vale knights, and that she had learned to do this from Littlefinger (they kept saying that like it's a good thing).

And I agree, it was cheap shock. All they care about is THE SHOT. That doesn't get them credit for a good scene in my book. That's cheating. And it's not storytelling, it's just a very expensive skit.

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Benioff/Weiss said Sandra withheld the information from Jon deliberately. I've quoted it on these threads before, and can look for it, but I think it was a video and I just can't watch those anymore.

They said she wanted to keep some power to herself, so she didn't tell him about the Vale knights, and that she had learned to do this from Littlefinger (they kept saying that like it's a good thing).

And I agree, it was cheap shock. All they care about is THE SHOT. That doesn't get them credit for a good scene in my book. That's cheating. And it's not storytelling, it's just a very expensive skit.

Sophie Turner said she withheld the information to get the credit at San Diego Comiccon 2016.  

[Le Cygne]

The upside down world of this show... where everything human beings always believed is good, is really bad, and everything that's bad, is really good!

It's good to be like Littlefinger. It's bad to be like Ned Stark. Honor is stupid and gets you killed. Psychos are awesome! Who knew? Benioff and Weiss, that's who.

Yay, Benioff and Weiss, you are geniuses.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

The upside down world of this show... where everything human beings always believed is good, is really bad, and everything that's bad, is really good!

It's good to be like Littlefinger. It's bad to be like Ned Stark. Honor is stupid and gets you killed. Psychos are awesome! Who knew? Benioff and Weiss, that's who.

Yay, Benioff and Weiss, you are geniuses.

Cersei was a tragic heroine.  Rape makes you stronger.  Freeing slaves is immoral.  Tyrion was a genius.  Xenophobia is good.

[Angel Eyes]

5 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

 

It's good to be like Littlefinger. It's bad to be like Ned Stark. Honor is stupid and gets you killed. Who knew? Benioff and Weiss, that's who.

 

Didn't GRRM already tell us that with Ned telling Cersei he knew of her children's parentage?

[kissdbyfire]

9 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Didn't GRRM already tell us that with Ned telling Cersei he knew of her children's parentage?

No, he didn't. Even w/ Cersei imprisoning Ned, that's not how he lost his head. Cersei didn't expect that, b/c that was little psycho shithead Joffrey. So Martin wasn't saying that honour is dumb and gets you killed, but rather that trying to do the right thing in a ruthless world can have dire consequences.

And on a side note, what the fuck is the deal w/ Dany fans that think Jorah is oh-so-great for her? What the fuck, Jorah is a creepy stalker in the books, and the show, again, changed that, too.  

[divica]

37 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

No, he didn't. Even w/ Cersei imprisoning Ned, that's not how he lost his head. Cersei didn't expect that, b/c that was little psycho shithead Joffrey. So Martin wasn't saying that honour is dumb and gets you killed, but rather that trying to do the right thing in a ruthless world can have dire consequences.

And on a side note, what the fuck is the deal w/ Dany fans that think Jorah is oh-so-great for her? What the fuck, Jorah is a creepy stalker in the books, and the show, again, changed that, too.  

I don't know if I agree with your arguments about Ned. Technically he lost his head because he was the only one behaving with honor no matter the consequences. Don t forget why Cersei is able to arrest him in the first place. His allies betrayed him not because he was being good but because Ned's course of action wasn t beneficial to them. 

 

I also have no idea how Jorah went from a psycho stalker to a father figure in the show... 

[Angel Eyes]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

 

And on a side note, what the fuck is the deal w/ Dany fans that think Jorah is oh-so-great for her? What the fuck, Jorah is a creepy stalker in the books, and the show, again, changed that, too.  

That's the same reason why I don't support Sansa/Sandor. Plus the fact that most of his dialogue with her is mocking her. And he apparently tried to rape her.