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SPOILERS: Rant and Rave


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1 hour ago, Ser Drewy said:

Also who the hell told Dany Rhaegar was a monster? And she believes it? What? Why? Huh? :mellow:

If I'm remembering correctly in the books Dany never talks about Rhaegar as someone who is a monster, even though she knows about the Lyanna situation. She even romanticizes what he did wishing Daario would snatch her away on her way to her marriage "like Rhaegar did with his northern girl".

 

But you know, D&D think they can write the characters better than GRRM.

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7 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Not sure if it's been brought up, but did anyone else crack up at Davos being reduced to running a soup kitchen?

He was once the Hand of the King, but now he serves soup. That's when you know they have no idea what to do for a character. Surprised Varys wasn't sitting in the crypts telling stories to the children to keep them calm.

I used the exact same phrasing, Davos soup kitchen! :lol:

 

5 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Trailer spoiler

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The main trailer did show Varys sitting in the crypts. So there's a chance he'll be telling stories to the children.

I’m sure the kids will love to hear all about Varys’ cock and balls being chopped off! 

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I was sick and tired of last season every character telling me how great Dany is, how she is different, better, blah blah blah. It was like the show was telling me to think that way so they can "shock me" when she turns out to not be so great. The same feeling happened last night with Tyrion. That he is the smartest man ever yet has made some of the dumbest decisions in recent seasons. I really hope he betrays everyone, it is the only thing that would make sense to me.

Arya scenes are weird to me right now. The show runners want me to obviously care for her, but they treat her like she is a completely different person than the character we all fell in love with in the beginning. One thing I did like was her very human/normal reaction after having sex with gendry. Just obviously thinking about what's to come instead of acting like a psycho assassin.

I really hope they are still setting Dany up to be the bad guy, I don't know if it makes sense any other way. One scene,  she tells Sansa she stopped fighting for the iron throne because she "loves" Jon and now is fighting his war. Then with Jon later on, when finding out the truth, instead of being happy for her "love" she only cares about the throne. To me, it seems obvious that she cares the most about the throne and will do anything for it. For her character it makes a lot of sense but I don't see how you are the good guy in the end of that. That throne definitely seems to corrupt.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of tension for the biggest fight ever. It just felt like people sitting around being bored. Before other battles on the show, you would as a viewer get anxious about the battles, this just feels flat.

But my biggest issue is this episode and the last one were giant catch up/set up episodes and in a 10 episode season, these would be OK episodes. When there is only 6 left? You just spent a third of the season playing catch up. That's a lot. If you're going to do it, then there needs to be more tension or you need to show me how high the stakes are. They kept telling me they were, but couldn't show me.

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9 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I used the exact same phrasing, Davos soup kitchen! :lol:

 

I’m sure the kids will love to hear all about Varys’ cock and balls being chopped off! 

HAHA. Or how he had other children's tongues ripped out.

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7 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Jaime knighting Brienne was lovely, but instead of doing it on a lark, couldn't he have said 'The rules are bullshit. You embody the ideals of a knight more than anyone I know."

 

I totally agree. I am actually surprised with how many liked her being knighted.  Brienne being made a knight seems to totally undermine the whole theme of titles/families don't matter. Jon keeps saying it is all about the living and the dead, Tyrion points out they all were enemies with the Starks and now they're defending Winterfell. Heck, Tormund even said "F tradition", so why not just ignore the pointless ceremony and make the point that she embodies what a knight should be. The whole point of her character is that she is a better knight than any actual knight.

The writers seems to forget constant themes in the story when it comes to Brienne and I had this issue with her when she killed Stannis. Pretty much everyone in the story who has tried to get revenge has suffered serious consequences, but when Brienne abandons her post to kill Stannis instead of trying to save Sansa there were no repurcussions.

 

I want to keep this point strictly focused on the series, but I do feel somewhat annoyed by the racial and gender comments that seem to have creeped in. Now when you have characters like Brienne it is fair to say that GRRM wants to make comments on gender roles and all that, but this season feels a bit too *wink wink* and *nod nod*. If you know what I mean.

When Daenarys comments on how her and Sansa can relate to each other due to them being women who rule and they have people who don't like that fact... I mean... has their gender ever been a massive issue when they've been in a position of power? Sure, there might be some throw away line by someone in Meereen, but the North were happy to have Sansa and the issues in Meereen were mainly focused on Daenarys freeing the slaves... heck the slaves of Meereen dubbed her "Mother".

Then there's the whole race issue with Missandei and Greyworm. In another season with more time, something like this could make for an interesting subplot. In the last season? It feels totally shoehorned and far less story and far more *wink wink*. In fact it makes perfect sense that people look at them weird, cause the people of the North have never seen a brown person, but rather than intrigue in people from a different land. It is being played as them not accepting them and being racist. Do we really need such a plot?

The awful scene with the scared man and brave girl. How did someone get paid to write that?

These first two episodes should've been one 80 minute Ep. We didn't need every single character to have a conversation with someone they met before. Who cares if Jorah never talks to Lady Mormont. Who the heck cares about Arya losing her virginity?! Their relationship has been butchered and it is mainly due to the writers turning Arya in to a class A weirdo.

 

I must say though the Jon, Ed and Sam scene was great. To me that felt like the only reunion that felt truly natural and heartwarming. They felt like three friends who had been through a lot. Practically every other reunion has felt hollow in comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, A Dance with Davos said:

The awful scene with the scared man and brave girl. How did someone get paid to write that?

The Sandor Arya scene? That was horrible.

It’s very weird what they’ve done w/ Arya... I don’t think it’s intentional, but more to do w/ bad writing/plotting and how inconsistent the show is. But one could argue that Arya has been less butchered than many other characters. Say, Jaime, Brienne, Stannis, Sansa. It’s a long list. But at the same time, she is completely unrecognisable. 

And as others have said, I really didn’t like her sexy times w/ Gendry either. I agree w/ a lot of what this reviewer from The Atlantic said:

“Arya and Gendry’s shack-up is sure to spark a ton of conversation, but that development too came off like a sop to fans’ bingo cards and betting pools. In our own world, Arya’s age being un-specified makes this a queasy coupling; given the circumstances in Westeros, you can understand it as not all that weird. The problem is that the show hasn’t done anything to reconcile the former fact with the latter, which is to say, it hasn’t gotten the viewer near being able to interpret what’s happening. Gendry, from everything he’s said, basically perceives her as a little girl. Arya has given almost no indication of sexual curiosity over these past eight years. The show seems caught between playing this pairing as cute and gross. It’s hard to trust that it knows what it’s doing.”

 

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9 hours ago, Nami said:

Jon: My name is Aegon Targaryen
Dany: are you insane? my brother already had a son named Aegon! He was a babe and was smashed against the wall.

IKR, I'd really like someone to say that,  Aegon, let me tell you about your brother Aegon, LOL  I wonder if we are supposed to 'forget' about that baby, or his actual name, if we were ever told the names.  I'm not sure and I am not going to look it up.  I don't care that much.  I will gladly watch a clip if anyone finds one of confirmation, though. 

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42 minutes ago, btfu806 said:

There doesn't seem to be a lot of tension for the biggest fight ever. It just felt like people sitting around being bored. Before other battles on the show, you would as a viewer get anxious about the battles, this just feels flat.

:agree:

Two episodes of setting the stage for a battle could have been tolerated, if that is indeed what they had done. But no, all we got was a series of cartoonish, two dimensional characters delivering stilted throw away lines with no conviction whatsoever that mostly left you cringing.

For sure, as other posters eloquently pointed out, we're all invested and we're 'hate watching' it at this point, but did it really have to be this bad? :crying:

If you care for any of the characters in the story any more it's because of who they used to be in seasons long ago, or in the books (sure, a few book characters went through lean spells in AFFC as well) - the past two episodes have really tried extremely hard to make you not care about them anymore.

Part of the problem might be because decisions about characters who have been retained and given importance vs characters who have been killed off or allowed to drift away offscreen have not been taken based on importance to the plot, but the producers' misguided understanding of what fandom wants. Even so, surely, some more interesting, poignant conversations must have been possible between Jon and Arya, Brienne and Jaimie (have you come to insult me? Do you want me to? No. Jeez, that's not how they parted the last time, even apart from the absolute rubbish lines), Sansa and Arya, Tormund and Jon. Jorah and Dany talking about Tyrion? Really?

I think I'll just stop here, before I drive myself completely crazy.

 

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18 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

The Sandor Arya scene? That was horrible.

It’s very weird what they’ve done w/ Arya... I don’t think it’s intentional, but more to do w/ bad writing/plotting and how inconsistent the show is. But one could argue that Arya has been less butchered than many other characters. Say, Jaime, Brienne, Stannis, Sansa. It’s a long list. But at the same time, she is completely unrecognisable. 

And as others have said, I really didn’t like her sexy times w/ Gendry either. I agree w/ a lot of what this reviewer from The Atlantic said:

“Arya and Gendry’s shack-up is sure to spark a ton of conversation, but that development too came off like a sop to fans’ bingo cards and betting pools. In our own world, Arya’s age being un-specified makes this a queasy coupling; given the circumstances in Westeros, you can understand it as not all that weird. The problem is that the show hasn’t done anything to reconcile the former fact with the latter, which is to say, it hasn’t gotten the viewer near being able to interpret what’s happening. Gendry, from everything he’s said, basically perceives her as a little girl. Arya has given almost no indication of sexual curiosity over these past eight years. The show seems caught between playing this pairing as cute and gross. It’s hard to trust that it knows what it’s doing.”

 

I agree with what you are saying, but I should've been more specific. I meant the abysmal Davos soup scene. The "genius" writing of having a man being scared, but then the following person was a girl who was brave. It was so cringey.

 

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15 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

IKR, I'd really like someone to say that,  Aegon, let me tell you about your brother Aegon, LOL  I wonder if we are supposed to 'forget' about that baby, or his actual name, if we were ever told the names.  I'm not sure and I am not going to look it up.  I don't care that much.  I will gladly watch a clip if anyone finds one of confirmation, though. 

I can’t be asked to look for it either. But assuming they did name Rhaegar’s other Aegon, that was sooooooo series 2 (or something)! I mean, they don’t keep track of what happened one or two episodes back, how do you want them to remember what happened years ago? Pffff.

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1 minute ago, A Dance with Davos said:

I agree with what you are saying, but I should've been more specific. I meant the abysmal Davos soup scene. The "genius" writing of having a man being scared, but then the following person was a girl who was brave. It was so cringey.

 

Ah that. Yes, it was ridiculous and cringeworthy. And the brave little girl has greyscale! Ffs.  I recently rewatched Shireen’s burning and the lead up to it, and Davos, a character I love (in the books), died to me then. I don’t know if they directed and edited it like that intentionally or not. But you watch that scene and you know Davos knows what’s about to happen. And does nothing. Sort of like the exact opposite of what he’s done in the books w/ Edric Storm. :ack:

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My biggest gripe is with the plan to take out the Night King. Not the lure him into a trap part, makes sense in a fantasy kill the leader kill the army plot. But that they want to keep the Dragons close to Bran in the Godswood to protect him. The Godswood a closed in area with trees and the one form of offense the dragons have is reigning down fire upon their foes. How could this go wrong?

They have been hyping up the dragons vs. undead for awhile now and we won't see it? This is a wait and see thing to me on how they pull it off, but I hope the dragons aren't MIA during the outside battle. 

 

These two episodes could have been combined together to make one. We got partial reunions last week and the same reunions this week plus a couple more.

Speaking of reunions, there still has not been a reunion between all the remaining Starks together. It seems against their characters and a real missed opportunity that these four wouldn't be in the same room together. At the same time, I don't think they would be able to write a scene like that to save their lives so bullet dodged? 

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1 minute ago, LokisRaider said:

At the same time, I don't think they would be able to write a scene like that to save their lives so bullet dodged? 

Yes. Blessings in disguise and all that. 

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Just now, Lady Fevre Dream said:

IKR, I'd really like someone to say that,  Aegon, let me tell you about your brother Aegon, LOL  I wonder if we are supposed to 'forget' about that baby, or his actual name, if we were ever told the names.  I'm not sure and I am not going to look it up.  I don't care that much.  I will gladly watch a clip if anyone finds one of confirmation, though. 

We were told. Back during Sandor's trial in the cave, I think.

5 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

The Sandor Arya scene? That was horrible.

It’s very weird what they’ve done w/ Arya... I don’t think it’s intentional, but more to do w/ bad writing/plotting and how inconsistent the show is. But one could argue that Arya has been less butchered than many other characters. Say, Jaime, Brienne, Stannis, Sansa. It’s a long list. But at the same time, she is completely unrecognisable. 

And as others have said, I really didn’t like her sexy times w/ Gendry either. I agree w/ a lot of what this reviewer from The Atlantic said:

“Arya and Gendry’s shack-up is sure to spark a ton of conversation, but that development too came off like a sop to fans’ bingo cards and betting pools. In our own world, Arya’s age being un-specified makes this a queasy coupling; given the circumstances in Westeros, you can understand it as not all that weird. The problem is that the show hasn’t done anything to reconcile the former fact with the latter, which is to say, it hasn’t gotten the viewer near being able to interpret what’s happening. Gendry, from everything he’s said, basically perceives her as a little girl. Arya has given almost no indication of sexual curiosity over these past eight years. The show seems caught between playing this pairing as cute and gross. It’s hard to trust that it knows what it’s doing.”

Arya is just butchered as a character as the rest. We have no idea what she is about, and that's due to the fact that there is no characterization going on, no dialogue or input from George. 

We don't even understand why she goes back to Westeros and eventually Winterfell, do we? What is her stake there? What's Sansa to her, what Jon - not all that much on the basis of their 'reunion scene'? She is just a distant, unemotional robot. And in their sex scene we actually got Gendry being somewhat disgusted by her scars, reinforcing the fact that girls better be beautiful and all - nothing about him tenderly asking what has happened to her, what she went through, etc. No, nobody cares about those vapid creatures behaving like real people.

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Ah that. Yes, it was ridiculous and cringeworthy. And the brave little girl has greyscale! Ffs.  I recently rewatched Shireen’s burning and the lead up to it, and Davos, a character I love (in the books), died to me then. I don’t know if they directed and edited it like that intentionally or not. But you watch that scene and you know Davos knows what’s about to happen. And does nothing. Sort of like the exact opposite of what he’s done in the books w/ Edric Storm. :ack:

Davos is one of the best cases to exemplify the fact that they just like to show off actors they like (as @The Dragon Demands really lays out in long and quite mad rants on his youtube channel). There is a very clear point in the show where you can see when the character from George the role the actor played disappeared and what's left is basically the actor himself, a guy the writers like to show off. Granted, the show Davos was always different from the real Davos due to him being much older and all, but the basic story and his relationship to Stannis were done in a similar and fitting manner. He also had pretty much the same story as book Davos up until they went north. But afterwards there is pretty much nothing of the character left. And in his case it is so obvious because Davos Seaworth has literally nothing to do with any of the characters he later interacts with. If Stannis were to die he would likely either die with him, fall into a deep depression, or perhaps decide to go try to get back home. He would not continue as if nothing had happened, becoming basically everybody's friend. That's just completely silly and shows that the writer don't care about either the characters or the story they are telling.

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18 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I can’t be asked to look for it either. But assuming they did name Rhaegar’s other Aegon, that was sooooooo series 2 (or something)! I mean, they don’t keep track of what happened one or two episodes back, how do you want them to remember what happened years ago? Pffff.

I don't know, maybe it's the show's bad lighting, but I thought the little girl had burn scars, not greyscale.  I mean greyscale would, IMO, be absolutely ridiculous.  It's supposed to oh so rare, right, and DAVOS is the one that stumbles upon her, or is stumbled upon by her.  Although, I suppose the marks could pass for those Jorah scraping scars from his being flayed alive for the cure?  I'd wonder more about it, but my money is on that little girl dying, and us never getting an answer or info on her again.  Is she a Mini She-Hound, the only OTHER person cured of greyscale by being flayed alive, or is she still suffering greyscale?  It just didn't look GREY to me?  These questions will never be answered, LOL

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2 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

I don't know, maybe it's the show's bad lighting, but I thought the little girl had burn scars, not greyscale.  I mean greyscale would, IMO, be absolutely ridiculous.  It's supposed to oh so rare, right, and DAVOS is the one that stumbles upon her, or is stumbled upon by her.  Although, I suppose the marks could pass for those Jorah scraping scars from his being flayed alive for the cure?  I'd wonder more about it, but my money is on that little girl dying, and us never getting an answer or info on her again.  Is she a Mini She-Hound, the only OTHER person cured of greyscale by being flayed alive, or is she still suffering greyscale?  It just didn't look GREY to me?  These questions will never be answered, LOL

I didn't think it looked like grayscale either.  I did think the little girl was meant to recall Shireen to Davos, though. 

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5 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

I don't know, maybe it's the show's bad lighting, but I thought the little girl had burn scars, not greyscale.  I mean greyscale would, IMO, be absolutely ridiculous.  It's supposed to oh so rare, right, and DAVOS is the one that stumbles upon her, or is stumbled upon by her.  Although, I suppose the marks could pass for those Jorah scraping scars from his being flayed alive for the cure?  I'd wonder more about it, but my money is on that little girl dying, and us never getting an answer or info on her again.  Is she a Mini She-Hound, the only OTHER person cured of greyscale by being flayed alive, or is she still suffering greyscale?  It just didn't look GREY to me?  These questions will never be answered, LOL

Good points. In all honesty, it never even crossed my mind that maybe it wasn’t greyscale. I went there immediately, “oh greyscale cute girl, tug at the ol heartstrings bs”. :lol:

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44 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

“Arya and Gendry’s shack-up is sure to spark a ton of conversation, but that development too came off like a sop to fans’ bingo cards and betting pools. In our own world, Arya’s age being un-specified makes this a queasy coupling; given the circumstances in Westeros, you can understand it as not all that weird. The problem is that the show hasn’t done anything to reconcile the former fact with the latter, which is to say, it hasn’t gotten the viewer near being able to interpret what’s happening. Gendry, from everything he’s said, basically perceives her as a little girl. Arya has given almost no indication of sexual curiosity over these past eight years. The show seems caught between playing this pairing as cute and gross. It’s hard to trust that it knows what it’s doing.”

First of all, you do an excellent job of describing both how the show has failed and why the show has failed.  I think you describe the discomfort of the show as it relates to these scenes very well.

Secondly, however, I think some thought has to be given to Arya as a person under these circumstances.  She does have true feelings for Gendry; she is comfortable at home again; she is also maybe about to die.  All these things together do make her decision to engage in the comfort of sex at the very least plausible if not understandable.  

And while I completely agree that the show has no idea what motivates the characters, but with Arya, we have a character that is always trying to be more human.  Case-in-point is the last scene she had with Hot Pie when he bakes her the direwolf-loaf and as she is eating it she turns and tells him that its "really good."  As insignificant as this seems, it does show that Arya wants to be kind, and that she wants to be kind to Hot Pie.  She is making a human connection even if her appearance and her affect seem to be "Fuck everyone else."  No.  No, Arya wants to be good to people who are good to her.

In Gendry, Arya sees somebody who has not only always been good to her, always looked out for her; she sees another abused soul.  Gendry has been chased, captured, sold, tortured, "mutilated" and even sexually assaulted.  She sees another damaged person who has been through the wringer just like her.  And she wants to have a moment with that person.  

Look, this is a rant-and-rave thread and if you have a problem with that scene, I completely get it.  But in this instance, while I think the scene was tacked on and ham-fisted, I thought it was an earned moment of genuine tenderness, even if it came from Arya who is a borderline sociopath.  

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18 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We were told. Back during Sandor's trial in the cave, I think.

Arya is just butchered as a character as the rest. We have no idea what she is about, and that's due to the fact that there is no characterization going on, no dialogue or input from George. 

We don't even understand why she goes back to Westeros and eventually Winterfell, do we? What is her stake there? What's Sansa to her, what Jon - not all that much on the basis of their 'reunion scene'? She is just a distant, unemotional robot. And in their sex scene we actually got Gendry being somewhat disgusted by her scars, reinforcing the fact that girls better be beautiful and all - nothing about him tenderly asking what has happened to her, what she went through, etc. No, nobody cares about those vapid creatures behaving like real people.

Davos is one of the best cases to exemplify the fact that they just like to show off actors they like (as @The Dragon Demands really lays out in long and quite mad rants on his youtube channel). There is a very clear point in the show where you can see when the character from George the role the actor played disappeared and what's left is basically the actor himself, a guy the writers like to show off. Granted, the show Davos was always different from the real Davos due to him being much older and all, but the basic story and his relationship to Stannis were done in a similar and fitting manner. He also had pretty much the same story as book Davos up until they went north. But afterwards there is pretty much nothing of the character left. And in his case it is so obvious because Davos Seaworth has literally nothing to do with any of the characters he later interacts with. If Stannis were to die he would likely either die with him, fall into a deep depression, or perhaps decide to go try to get back home. He would not continue as if nothing had happened, becoming basically everybody's friend. That's just completely silly and shows that the writer don't care about either the characters or the story they are telling.

Ah yes, thank you.  I remember Thoros talking about seeing the bodies laid at the Iron Throne.  That's a scene I would recheck and should be easy to find.  I do think Thoros may have used the names as well.  I think I'll take a peek at Sandor's Trial by Combat w The Brotherhood a little later. 

The Arya/Gendry scene was really rushed, but I don't think he was disgusted by her scars.  He noticed them, yes, but I didn't think he looked disgusted, I do think he was noticing other things about her.  What we did see of her scars was nothing compared to the mess they made of Kit's Jon.  Then again, they are petty guys, but I'll leave it at that.  Dialogue is not the Ds strong suit.  It's probably for the best that they were short on dialogue for the scene. 

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