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SPOILERS: Rant and Rave


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I believe these two episodes are all about fan service and ticking checkboxes. The majority of viewers want these reunions. I've listened to a few podcasts and there are people weeping loads of tears, so I guess it seems to work out quite alright. The Jorah and Lyanna moment was something many wanted, the knighting of Brienne was also in the realm of expectation.

I like reunions but I found them mostly hamfisted and more like "speed dating on reality tv" with forced talking points. It's like D&D were saying "come on guys we gotta wrap this up who's the next duo?" Nobody's asking why they have to talk, it's just they were scheduled to do so.

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33 minutes 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.

 

My interpretation: the man knew enough to be afraid, the girl was naively thinking that she could fight. IIRC, it’s mentioned many times in the books that people write songs about glory in battle, but real battle is horrific and people shit themselves from the fear.

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11 minutes ago, Red Dragon10 said:

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

 

7 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

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:

Oh yes, ITA with everyone, the little girl was meant to recall Shireen for Davos.  I didn't even notice the scars on my first watch, which was on my small laptop screen, and a wee bit earlier than broadcast time.  Wink wink, nudge nudge. 

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8 minutes ago, Squall said:

I believe these two episodes are all about fan service and ticking checkboxes. The majority of viewers want these reunions. I've listened to a few podcasts and there are people weeping loads of tears, so I guess it seems to work out quite alright. The Jorah and Lyanna moment was something many wanted, the knighting of Brienne was also in the realm of expectation.

I like reunions but I found them mostly hamfisted and more like "speed dating on reality tv" with forced talking points. It's like D&D were saying "come on guys we gotta wrap this up who's the next duo?" Nobody's asking why they have to talk, it's just they were scheduled to do so.

That's a terrific way to describe the rushed feeling of the reunions the past two episodes.  I especially enjoyed those last couple of sentences.  It does feel like a list, with actors called up to check off this bit of dialogue, LOL  I can almost hear some yelling:  NEXT!!  as they wait in line for their turns. 

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4 minutes ago, Rockroi said:

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.  

In a nutshell, I agree w/ what you said. I think maybe I didn’t make myself clear in my previous post, so let me try again.

Arya’s story was sort of kept closer to her book story than that of most other characters. That said, it’s also been butchered horribly, in part for the reasons you brought up. Arya is not a cold unfeeling psychopath. She’s deeply empathetic and feels thins deeply. In the books. Show wise, they try to portray her as a super badass, but due to bad writing she comes across as a mental murderous arsehole. The show tries hard to portray her as justified. Like when they turned Trant into a disgusting sadistic paedo - then Arya killing him the way she did can be justified and even seen as a good act. Totally badass. But it’s not. It’s ridiculously over the top, typical GoT tone deafness. :ack:

Regarding the sex scene, I wouldn’t have a problem w/ it if it had been handled differently. But the way it was done was bad IMO. There’s nothing but a couple of scenes where she taunts him or... not “taunt”, but sort of acts condescending towards him, then the sex scene. And even w/ nothing preceding it, it could have worked... But there was no tenderness, no vulnerability - strong badass women can’t be tender or vulnerable EVER! And yes, I do take issue w/ that depiction. 

 

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4 minutes ago, nara said:

My interpretation: the man knew enough to be afraid, the girl was naively thinking that she could fight. IIRC, it’s mentioned many times in the books that people write songs about glory in battle, but real battle is horrific and people shit themselves from the fear.

Yeah, they do make that point a few times, but I don't think this has anything to do with being naive.

The man said he wasn't a soldier, sure he might be older, but he's never been to war. On top of that the girl said her two brothers died in battle, so whilst young they make the point her family has died in battle.

 

It was far less about being naive and ignorant and just some lousy "Hey look! Little girls can be brave as well! See how scared that man was?"

 

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6 minutes ago, Orphalesion said:

Also....are they pairing of Sansa and Theon? Because that'd be weird...

It would indeed. But I don’t think there’s anything to it. It’s just throwing stuff at the audience to make everyone wonder. Just so whatever is the actual endgame/relationship comes as a total surprise. 

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27 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

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. 

They are not just not very strong with dialogue, they actually try to write as little dialogue as possibly only working with 'the faces'. Which is actually absolute nonsense when you adapt a story that's as complex and subtle as this. You don't do that with minimal dialogue. The characters here are not archetypes or only knee-deep. They have complex biographies and stories, things that are worth and have to be told in dialogue so the audience really understands what's going on.

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Aegon and his brother Aegon has to be from the book, considering that the show has changed multiple names for less, there must be a book prophecy reason why Rhaegar would name both sons Aegon, though presumably? maybe? he would have known by Jon's birth that his other children were dead?  It is in fact so weird, it has to be from the books, IMO.

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8 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Aegon and his brother Aegon has to be from the book, considering that the show has changed multiple names for less, there must be a book prophecy reason why Rhaegar would name both sons Aegon, though presumably? maybe? he would have known by Jon's birth that his other children were dead?  It is in fact so weird, it has to be from the books, IMO.

It is and is all because of the prophecy that Rhaegar was trying to fulfill.

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13 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Aegon and his brother Aegon has to be from the book, considering that the show has changed multiple names for less, there must be a book prophecy reason why Rhaegar would name both sons Aegon, though presumably? maybe? he would have known by Jon's birth that his other children were dead?  It is in fact so weird, it has to be from the books, IMO.

No, they just originally had the idea of using Aegon in the books (Aegon was mentioned, Elia was mentioned, the Golden Company was even mentioned in season 4) but then dropped that, combining the Aegon plot with the Jon story. This is also very evident in Sam calling Jon 'Aegon, the Sixth of His Name' - which is precisely the name Prince Aegon is going to use when he finally mounts the Iron Throne in TWoW.

After all, nothing in the show indicates Rhaegar was trying to fulfill a prophecy in the show. He just sang songs, throw coins to the smallfolk, and loved and/or raped Lyanna. There is nothing about prophecy in the show and nothing there has to have special meaning because it might have such meaning in the books.

And Rhaegar most definitely wouldn't have named Jon Aegon. He couldn't have. He was already dead and already had a son named Aegon. If Jon's name was Aegon then Lyanna would have named him Aegon, not Rhaegar. And she would have in any context would have no reason to choose that particular name.

If Jon has a Targaryen name it likely goes back to Rhaegar but he would have not chosen the name Aegon. Why should he?

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19 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Aegon and his brother Aegon has to be from the book, considering that the show has changed multiple names for less, there must be a book prophecy reason why Rhaegar would name both sons Aegon, though presumably? maybe? he would have known by Jon's birth that his other children were dead?  It is in fact so weird, it has to be from the books, IMO.

Rhaegar died before his first two kids, though.  The only one who could have known that was Lyanna, possibly, and she MAY have thought the name was important and gave to Jon?  I have to say, I really, really doubt this comes to pass, or would have come to pass LOL, in the books. 

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11 hours ago, Nami said:

I don't care how much someone give a pass to this show. THIS episode was a freaking mess when it comes to script and dialogue. And that whole "speech" Jon was making with his voice over, I swear I've heard something similar in a movie, with the same voice over scenes. It's a really cringey cliche before every major event in movies. This entire episode felt like a third tier medieval movie. 

Speaking of Jon's battle speech reminding one of a different movie or show or something, the idea of Bran as the bait reminds me of something, too, and I can't put my finger on it.  Is it movie, book, tv show, I don't know, but it's driving me crazy, LOL 

(yes, I'm still a few pages back catching up on some of the posts from last night and this morning, as well as at the tail end of the thread.  I'm all over the place, in different time periods, I might be the new Three Eyed Raven.) 

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13 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

Rhaegar died before his first two kids, though.  The only one who could have known that was Lyanna, possibly, and she MAY have thought the name was important and gave to Jon?  I have to say, I really, really doubt this comes to pass, or would have come to pass LOL, in the books. 

I still think it's too open to ridicule not to have come from the books, though the show of course doesn't explain, only checks the box:  Jon is really Aegon Targaryen. 

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I feel like they wasted a lot of time in these first two episodes.

And you can clearly tell that they made pretty HUGE adaptational mistakes judging by how empty the show has become now.

Like instead of spending all of this episode watching people sit around, drink, have sex and wait for the White Walkers to arrive, we could've spent part of the episode seeing a greyscale epidemic caused by JonCon take over King's Landing, Arianne in Sunspear trying to rally the Dornishmen, Melisandre in Volantis learning more about the Ahor Azai story, Cersei and Euron overthrowing fAegon, Euron secretly honing his powers of sorcery, etc.

And you can't even say that they didn't have enough time to adapt other things.

Because Brienne's story was great this episode but it fell flat because her journey in the show has been negligible. In the books, Brienne went through twice as much bull---t as Show Brienne in her quest to keep her vows has and Brienne only has been a POV character for one book and been featured in two others. Show Brienne has been in seven seasons at this point....yet? It's not earned.

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2 hours ago, btfu806 said:

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.

 

The show has had a problem with the telling and not letting the story show you why/how for awhile now. The characters do not really do anything anymore, they just sit around telling each other what a different persons traits/feelings/thoughts are supposed to be instead of letting the story speak for itself.

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5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I still think it's too open to ridicule not to have come from the books, though the show of course doesn't explain, only checks the box:  Jon is really Aegon Targaryen. 

I think that Show Jon is a composite character of Book Jon and fAegon.

It doesn't mean that fAegon is real or fake. It just means that instead of having another (supposedly) Targaryen male running around to threaten Daenerys' claim in these final seasons, they thought that having just one Targaryen male to threaten her claim was better.

I don't think Jon's name will be Aegon in the books. Rhaegar has always struck me as a very considerate, very intentional person and Lyanna is not a birdbrain. If anything, they will think that they had a girl and will try to name Jon Visenya only....SURPRISE!!! You're having a boy!

On top of that, I'm not quite sure that Lyanna will know what we know about what's happened on King's Landing and Dragonstone by the time she gives birth. News does travel very slowly back then and the Tower of Joy was purposely built in a very secluded area to begin with.

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