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]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Her quote is interesting:

Sounds like it confirms what a lot of us already suspected, that they used some elements of GRRM's plan but largely did their own thing.

I'm so eager to see how it pans out in the books. My guess is Bran will end up on the throne (D+D would have probably killed him off early in the series if GRRM hadn't told them that), and Jon ends up going back north of the Wall. Those are the only two things I believe will be the same. 

Everything else is up in the air. Dany and Tyrion's arcs are probably going to be completely different. The White Walkers will be completely different. Jamie and Cersei may die much earlier (I suspected they were kept around till the end because of how good the actors were). Sansa won't end up Queen of the North, that was clearly fan service.

 

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

To be honest I think she was written clumsily rather than unsympathetically. I think they didn't INTEND the audience to dislike Sansa, it just ended up happening 'cause they weren't putting enough thought into how certain actions would make her look.

 

[SeanF]

Just now, Darryk said:

To be honest I think she was written clumsily rather than unsympathetically. I think they didn't INTEND the audience to dislike Sansa, it just ended up happening 'cause they weren't putting enough thought into how certain actions would make her look.

 

Oh I quite agree - what we were shown never matched what they were trying to tell us.  I think too, the two Ds' have a very different moral outlook to George Martin.  They saw Tywin Lannister as "lawful neutral", and Cersei and Littlefinger as people to emulate.  Statesmanship was stabbing an ally or liege lord in the back - which for some reason, nobody took exception to.

They were a (very) poor man's Macchiavelli, not understanding that what he advocated was not immorality in political life, but pragmatism.  In most case, pragmatism leads one to honour obligations to allies, overlords, and vassals, because you want them to honour their obligations to you in turn. 

[Le Cygne]

On 11/24/2021 at 9:15 AM, SeanF said:

Even as fan service, it failed to work, because Sansa (like other characters) had been written unsympathetically.

Well, Benioff/Weiss/Cogman stripped Sansa of everything that made her a person, then made her thank them for what they did to her. You could tell by what GRRM said in various interviews, this was quite a diversion.

[SeanF]

12 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Well, Benioff/Weiss/Cogman stripped Sansa of everything that made her a person, then made her thank them for what they did to her. You could tell by what GRRM said in various interviews, this was quite a diversion.

On another thread @TheDragonDemands said there was a deleted scene in Season 6 where two women are complaining about the rape of Sansa, depicted in the play, and Arya breaks the fourth wall to shout at them, "If you don't like it, don't watch it!"

[HoodedCrow]

It may turn out that “ Hodor “ is the best thing that they kept…

[Le Cygne]

On 11/23/2021 at 5:35 PM, Ser Drewy said:

Interestingly two people close to GRRM have interviews released today where they describe the second half of the show as a distortion, going against the books plans: 

His agent: https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/New_Book_Gives_Insights_on_HBOs_Game_of_Thrones

Outlander author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/23/outlander-tv-series-author-diana-gabaldon

Thanks for sharing this!

“Poor George, I feel very sorry for him,” she says. “What happened is that his show caught up with him, and he then met with the showrunners and he told them what he was planning to do in that book, so that they could then write accordingly. Only they didn’t write accordingly, they took his stuff, and distorted it and wrote their own ending, which wasn’t at all what he had in mind but used all the elements that he told them.”

GRRM and Gabaldon have both mentioned several times that they meet regularly. Gabaldon said in 2014: "I know George Martin, I have breakfast in Santa Fe with him once a month because at this point in time, he and I are the only ones in this particular situation."

So after meeting with the showrunners in 2013 at Santa Fe, "they took his stuff, and distorted it." They admitted they didn't know what they were doing, yet they wouldn't learn from an experienced screenwriter who carefully plotted out the story they were supposed to be telling.

[The Bard of Banefort]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

On another thread @TheDragonDemands said there was a deleted scene in Season 6 where two women are complaining about the rape of Sansa, depicted in the play, and Arya breaks the fourth wall to shout at them, "If you don't like it, don't watch it!"

And to think, that was season 6, just a year before the Weinstein scandal broke and this sort of thing started receiving mainstream criticism. (The women in that scene are also portrayed as old, uptight, wrinkled prudes too. It should still be on YouTube). These fckers got SO lucky. I really don’t think GOT would be half as successful if it premiered today.

[Le Cygne]

GoT didn't have to be the way it was. Hey, let's cut a woman's story and use her body to prop up a psychopath instead. Hey, let's make a woman go bonkers over a man then have him put her down like a mad dog...

It isn't rocket science to not go there. Even if you made excuses for them, you'd still be left with this: they are crappy plots nobody wanted to see. Anyone could have told them this. Plenty of critics did tell them this.

Not only did they not read the room, when it was read for them, they just thumbed their noses at everyone.

[Le Cygne]

dup

[WhatAnArtist!]

5 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

GoT didn't have to be the way it was. Hey, let's cut a woman's story and use her body to prop up a psychopath instead. Hey, let's make a woman go bonkers over a man then have him put her down like a mad dog...

It isn't rocket science to not go there. Even if you made excuses for them, you'd still be left with this: they are crappy plots nobody wanted to see. Anyone could have told them this. Plenty of critics did tell them this.

Not only did they not read the room, when it was read for them, they just thumbed their noses at everyone.

I agree that they were poorly written plotlines - D&D were bad writers in general - but I don't agree with your sentiment that writers should write only what fans want to see. That's just fan-service, it's not real storytelling. As soon as a writer refuses to write something because he's scared of how people will respond, he loses integrity and credibility. 

[Le Cygne]

Here's an interesting article that takes on the false arguments that pop up every time someone objects to crappy writing:

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2015/06/mad-max-fury-road-makes-rape-arguments-invalid/

[Le Cygne]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:37 AM, SeanF said:

I think Benioff is a psychopath.  His behaviour is just so bizarrely unpleasant;  the stupid practical jokes that made Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams cry;  the horribly fetishised death scene of Ros (the actress was grossly abused in real life);  the ten hour water boarding of the actress who played Unella etc.

Yeah, it was just nastiness for the sake of nastiness. He thumbed his nose at everyone who called him on it, as many did, and kept it up, right to the end. And it all caught up to him in the end, because it couldn't be swept under the rug anymore.

[EggBlue]

On 11/9/2021 at 5:07 PM, SeanF said:

I think Benioff is a psychopath.  His behaviour is just so bizarrely unpleasant;  the stupid practical jokes that made Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams cry;

????

On 11/9/2021 at 5:07 PM, SeanF said:

 the horribly fetishised death scene of Ros (the actress was grossly abused in real life);

??????

On 11/9/2021 at 5:07 PM, SeanF said:

 the ten hour water boarding of the actress who played Unella etc.

 was it the rape scene they had shot? ?? 

[SeanF]

16 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

????

??????

 was it the rape scene they had shot? ?? 

Game of Thrones Actress Details Being Waterboarded for 10 Hours on Set | IndieWire

Having her raped was in addition to the waterboarding. 

Game of Thrones bosses reveal prank that left two stars "crying" (digitalspy.com)

I don't see what's remotely humorous about that.

Actress Esmé Bianco: Marilyn Manson “Almost Destroyed Me” (thecut.com)

She's one of several women currently suing Marilyn Manson.  The show gave a loving depiction of her being shot through the vagina with a crossbow bolt.

[Mystical]

On 11/25/2021 at 5:37 PM, SeanF said:

On another thread @TheDragonDemands said there was a deleted scene in Season 6 where two women are complaining about the rape of Sansa, depicted in the play, and Arya breaks the fourth wall to shout at them, "If you don't like it, don't watch it!"

They would have Arya, of all people, be the one to support this disgusting storyline in universe? Sansa's own sister? Wasn't it bad enough when they used Maisie Williams in S5 interviews to support this storyline?

Quote

She's one of several women currently suing Marilyn Manson.  The show gave a loving depiction of her being shot through the vagina with a crossbow bolt.

Lets not forget that the only reason she got fired was because she started demanding to get the same things all the other actors got who had equal screentime.

[Le Cygne]

This video aged well:

In the cult of the badass, the highest achievement to which a character can aspire is the ability to kill with a completely blank look on their face.

There's no room for Septon Meribald in a show like this. If there was, he'd probably have been tortured to death by Ramsay Snow or something by now.

All those moments in the Riverlands, at the Quiet Island, on the Wall, and Meereen, the moments you could, for lack of a better word, call goodass?

They're gone, unnecessary, extraneous to the proceedings...

And that's my beef with the show... I care that the spirit of ASOIAF hasn't made it from the page to the screen, the way it did with LOTR...

It's nasty and vicious and glib, in a way the books never were.

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

This video aged well:

In the cult of the badass, the highest achievement to which a character can aspire is the ability to kill with a completely blank look on their face.

There's no room for Septon Meribald in a show like this. If there was, he'd probably have been tortured to death by Ramsay Snow or something by now.

All those moments in the Riverlands, at the Quiet Island, on the Wall, and Meereen, the moments you could, for lack of a better word, call goodass?

They're gone, unnecessary, extraneous to the proceedings...

And that's my beef with the show... I care that the spirit of ASOIAF hasn't made it from the page to the screen, the way it did with LOTR...

It's nasty and vicious and glib, in a way the books never were.

For six and a bit seasons the show glorified cruelty (and indeed, Ramsay was a “badass”, according to the two D’s).

Which makes all the more jarring, Tyrion’s transformation into near-pacifist, and all the more daft that Daenerys should be expected to bring a vast army and navy to Westeros, before using Gandhian tactics of non-violent resistance against Cersei, of all people!

And what I take from the books is not that this is a sports contest, in which you cheer or boo the characters vying for the Iron Throne, or Northern independence, but that these things are simply not important, compared to the existential threat from the Others. That was a point the show missed completely, once it turned the Others into Monster of the Week.

 

 

[Le Cygne]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

For six and a bit seasons the show glorified cruelty (and indeed, Ramsay was a “badass”, according to the two D’s).

Which makes all the more jarring, Tyrion’s transformation into near-pacifist, and all the more daft that Daenerys should be expected to bring a vast army and navy to Westeros, before using Gandhian tactics of non-violent resistance against Cersei, of all people!

And what I take from the books is not that this is a sports contest, in which you cheer or boo the characters vying for the Iron Throne, or Northern independence, but that these things are simply not important, compared to the existential threat from the Others. That was a point the show missed completely, once it turned the Others into Monster of the Week.

Indeed, and most important of all, I think, is the journey of the characters. It has to seem true and be meaningful, especially in quiet, personal ways. A person's life matters to themselves.

There was no self for the characters on the show, they were all just pieces of cardboard moved about according to the whims of some very questionable and frankly unpleasant men posing as writers.

The show had them do things they never would have done (and things no human being ever would have done). The characters were the actors in disconnected skits that none of them understood.

It was a mishmatch of characters and plots that, even if they had elements taken from the books, missed the point entirely (like Gabaldon put it). It was a mockery of a story, and really, of humanity.

[Cas Stark]

I watched a few episodes of the first season over the weekend.  What I was most struck by, other than sadness at what a mess they made of everything, was how many entire scenes consisted of people who didn't live to the end.  I'd have to wonder, if even with more popular ending, would rewatching be enjoyable with such a high body count.