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Ironically, After Falling In Love With GoT For Being Anti-Trope, Many Fans Now Seem To Want...The Tropes???


Cron

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I think any fans expecting Disney endings or delivery of Fantasy Tropes left the show a long time ago - 8 seasons in I don't think anyone's dissatisfaction with the some of the main character arcs has to do with being upset that we haven't arrived at some neat ending. 

I can't really say it better than it was said here:

But I will only add to this in getting to the Mad Queen they have torched so many other Characters in the process as well as having utterly ridiculous contrivances like Euron's Iron Fleet being invincible and then suddnely nothing more than kindling.

  • Tyrion has been made into a Fool.
  • Jon is by now just a dunce.
  • Varys is completely inconsistent - he joined Dany when she was wiping out Slavers yet thinks killing Tarly is incredibly worrisome, but rather than bring his concerns to the Queen, he plots behind her back, literally doing the very thing he promised not to.
  • The whole plotline where in the aftermath of Dany sacrificing huge parts of her force to aid the north, and then wanting to finish off someone who is a mortal enemy to the Starks, and not having any designs on the north beyond a status quo ante that existed for centuries, where this immediately results in the Starks plotting against Dany makes them look small minded. 
  • Jamie suddenly reversing an arc of 7 seasons to die by Cerseis side even after her execution of Missandei is a case of the writers having a poignant final scene for Cersei but no idea of how to get there.
  • Aryas transformation into invincible Ninja mas made her less a character than a plot device.
  • The only tension for the final episode is who gets to kill Dany, though if they really wanted to shock they would leave her in charge and have some epilogue about the long rule of the Iron Queen who saw Westeros through it's longest winter.
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On 5/14/2019 at 1:55 AM, Cron said:

Many fans seem stunned by the fact that so many unexpected (and anti-trope) things have been happening in Season 8, but IS this really surprising?

A huge part of what made GRRM's work so incredibly popular in the first place was the trope busting, yet now, it seems, many people WANT...the trope endings that we (including me) hoped for, dreamed of, and theorized about for years (and for some of us, like me, that's MANY years since we first read the books).

And so now, the show goes on a major trope-busting spree in Season 8, and people are ...shocked and appalled???

Consider Jaime's death. Now, I think LOTS of fans reacted very poorly to that, basically saying it was mundane and anti-climactic (which it was), but IS it surprising that a major character on GoT got crossed off in a mundane and anti-climactic way?  No, not at all.  Remember how Khal Drogo went out?  D&D had nothing to do with that, far as I know.

Many other tropes have been desperately wished for (including by me, I admit) over the years as well, and many (not all, though) are being brutally crushed by Season 8.   I could make a long list, and maybe you could too.  (Here's another doozy:  Many people, I think, were apoplectic that neither Jon nor Dany crossed off the Night King, despite the fact that it would have been a major literary trope for Jon or Dany to do it.  And I could go on and on with other examples.  Here's another: Jaime's redemption arc?  Trope.  So it turned out in the end that he was actually helplessly addicted to Cersei, even if it resulted in his own senseless destruction, which it did.)

So, how much of a role does all of this play in the EXTREMELY negative reviews and comments out there regarding Season 8?  I think it's a LOT, and if we one day find out that a large percentage of Season 8 actually WILL be canon in the books, then I think that will be pretty amusing.

P.S.  My grade for 805 is a "10."  Will I enjoy the ending in the books even more?  I fully expect to, since books are almost always better than the adaptation, right?

It was never anti troupe, people were fooled by George's writing. Don't get me wrong i love aosiaf but i can still see all the troupes it contains, but some people hyped it up to the point that everyone believed it's something new. The whole series is full of troupe, the story is basically a coming of age story like 80% other fantasy, the stark children and dany growing up and getting revenge and taking back what was theirs. We have a wall protecting human kingdoms, ancient evil and dead coming back to life, exiled princess with dragons, hidden princes, child assassins, smart dwarf, so much for subverting troupes! George is a hypocrite who talks shit about how other authors are making it easy for their characters while he himself keeps giving his main characters 20 inch thick plot armor the whole time, the amount of time he bailed out Dany, Tyrion, Jon Arya and others it's just unbelievable. What is worse is George shit talking Tolkien about how Aragorn becomes king and how he doesn't have a hard time afterwards which bullshit by the way, because LOTR is not about Aragorn it's about the fucking Rings, it's in the title you know "LORD OF THE RINGS". I don't care what happens to Aragorn after the war, Aragorn can chop off his dick and become a cuck just like Jon in GOT for all i care.

Sometimes i cannot hold back guys, forgive me.

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11 hours ago, Johan Wehtje said:

I think any fans expecting Disney endings or delivery of Fantasy Tropes left the show a long time ago - 8 seasons in I don't think anyone's dissatisfaction with the some of the main character arcs has to do with being upset that we haven't arrived at some neat ending. 

I can't really say it better than it was said here:

But I will only add to this in getting to the Mad Queen they have torched so many other Characters in the process as well as having utterly ridiculous contrivances like Euron's Iron Fleet being invincible and then suddnely nothing more than kindling.

  • Tyrion has been made into a Fool.
  • Jon is by now just a dunce.
  • Varys is completely inconsistent - he joined Dany when she was wiping out Slavers yet thinks killing Tarly is incredibly worrisome, but rather than bring his concerns to the Queen, he plots behind her back, literally doing the very thing he promised not to.
  • The whole plotline where in the aftermath of Dany sacrificing huge parts of her force to aid the north, and then wanting to finish off someone who is a mortal enemy to the Starks, and not having any designs on the north beyond a status quo ante that existed for centuries, where this immediately results in the Starks plotting against Dany makes them look small minded. 
  • Jamie suddenly reversing an arc of 7 seasons to die by Cerseis side even after her execution of Missandei is a case of the writers having a poignant final scene for Cersei but no idea of how to get there.
  • Aryas transformation into invincible Ninja mas made her less a character than a plot device.
  • The only tension for the final episode is who gets to kill Dany, though if they really wanted to shock they would leave her in charge and have some epilogue about the long rule of the Iron Queen who saw Westeros through it's longest winter.

This is a first-rate post. It, along with the attached video, is about as good an analysis as one could ever expect. I will add some points related to a matter I mentioned in my last post--world building. 

I've been a fan of fantasy and science fiction for a long time. One of the best practitioners in these genres was Ursula K. Le Guin. Ms. Le Guin produced fine works which obeyed her basic canon of fantasy: 

You get to make the rules, but then you have to play by them. 

By this standard, HBO's Game of Thrones started out meriting an A, or at least a good strong B. The later seasons deserve an F. So many of the characters, and I supposed the majority of the population of Westeros, act as if they have no knowledge of the institutions and traditions of their society. They also have become ignorant of their history. The Queen of Thorns, previously a savy and tough leader, somehow fails to realize that in war a high lord or lady is supposed to call the banners of the lessers lords. She is defeated by a completely bogus "surprise" attack, which involves armies marching across a continent, a trip that would have taken at least weeks, if not a month or so. The former vassals who come against her are ignoramuses who have either forgotten about or never learned about The Field of Fire. They decide it is a great idea to go marching out in the open against an enemy that has flying, fire-breathing monsters. 

Things get worse as the story goes on. Dany's advisers tell her that the lords of Westeros will be for her and against Cersei. Unfortunately, these advisers can't bother themselves to make adequate contact with the lords of Westeros. It takes a visit from a witch priestess of the east to even give these guys the idea of sending a raven to Winterfell. Who cares who is in charge there? It could be Donald Duck (or, more appropriate for this story, his friend Daffy). Any competent group of councilors would have done what Stannis did earlier, send out messages to all the lords, great and small. This is particularly galling when one considers all the the psychological analysis that goes into evaluating Dany's character. Don't her main supporters have any idea of this business? Don't they see her needs? She wants love and support. This would be available if her lieutenants knew what the hell they were doing. 

Robert Baratheon, drunken lecher though he was, still recognized the nature of his realm. He knew that it was called the Seven Kingdoms because there were seven kingdoms. In many, if not all of these kingdoms, there are still Targaryen supporters. It is not believable that Dany's formerly intelligent advisers aren't as smart as King Drunk. If their queen needs a victory parade, then they should arrange a victory parade. 

The bolded part of the above post is great. I hadn't considered that possibility. Hey, you want shock, that would be shock. Such an ending might even work; it might turn this sad story around. 

 

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14 hours ago, Parwan Nays said:

How much of a role does the "I don't want my favorite trope busted" complaint play in the negative reviews? I'd say not that much. At least, the comments in this thread show many posters who have very solid reasons for complaints that have little or nothing to do with tropes. Of course, "a lot" and "not that much" are not precise quantitative terms. We are not talking about gathering data by doing well constructed surveys of GoT viewers. What you consider a lot of people (probably from reading many posts) and what I consider not that many (also from reading many posts) might actually turn out to be about the same percentage of people who have commented either positively or negatively about the episodes. 

It's been a while since I've given a GoT episode anything above a 6. Episode 805 is about a 1 or a 2.  

It is not surprising to me that almost nobody is going to openly admit the reason they are upset is because their favorite trope has been busted.

Rathere, instead, I think many people who are upset that their favorites tropes did not come true  will criticize the heck out of other parts of the show in ways that many people were not doing before.

Here's an example (and this is just ONE possible example, out of many complaints that have been made about the last several episodes of Season 8):  It seems to me that many people suddenly have a huge problem with plot armor and poor military strategy and tactics on the show.

Why??  This is nothing new on the show.

Consider the IMDB scores for The Battle of the Bastards (9.9) and The Long Night (8.0).  That is a huge drop-off, so what accounts for that?

Two of the most common complaints about The Long Night (Episode 803) are (1) Plot armor, and (2) poor military strategy and tactics but in my opinion Battle of the Bastards is at least as bad as The Long Night in both areas.  In BotB, Jon Snow's plot armor is off the chart (at least as bad as anything we saw in 803), and the military strategy and tactics in BotB were poor and have been heavily criticized by fans, yet the IMDB score for BotB is a stunning 9.9 despite these facts. 

How is this possible?  In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the fact that for a lot of people, many things in 803 did not work out the way they had hoped, dreamed and theorized about for years, and in my opinion stuff like this has heavily affected ratings and scores for the last few episodes we have seen.

 

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The funny thing is the defenders of S8 also forget that the Face-Heel-Turn is also a trope, in fact one of the most prevailing ones in the fantasy  tv-series and comic books.   https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FaceHeelTurn.

In fact it became so common and banal in comic books that nowadays it is hard to find a series that won't use it one way or another. The problem is not the trope, per se, it is the way the plot is executed. What is so upsetting to most in S8 is the fact that the D&D went for the dumbest way of using the Drunk with Power https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DrunkWithPower 

without a build up.

 

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1 hour ago, Cron said:

It is not surprising to me that almost nobody is going to openly admit the reason they are upset is because their favorite trope has been busted.

Rathere, instead, I think many people who are upset that their favorites tropes did not come true  will criticize the heck out of other parts of the show in ways that many people were not doing before.

Here's an example (and this is just ONE possible example, out of many complaints that have been made about the last several episodes of Season 8):  It seems to me that many people suddenly have a huge problem with plot armor and poor military strategy and tactics on the show.

Why??  This is nothing new on the show.

Consider the IMDB scores for The Battle of the Bastards (9.9) and The Long Night (8.0).  That is a huge drop-off, so what accounts for that?

Two of the most common complaints about The Long Night (Episode 803) are (1) Plot armor, and (2) poor military strategy and tactics but in my opinion Battle of the Bastards is at least as bad as The Long Night in both areas.  In BotB, Jon Snow's plot armor is off the chart (at least as bad as anything we saw in 803), and the military strategy and tactics in BotB were poor and have been heavily criticized by fans, yet the IMDB score for BotB is a stunning 9.9 despite these facts. 

How is this possible?  In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the fact that for a lot of people, many things in 803 did not work out the way they had hoped, dreamed and theorized about for years, and in my opinion stuff like this has heavily affected ratings and scores for the last few episodes we have seen.

 

We may be going around in circles, but I'll do that a time or two. Terms like "many people" and "many complaints" are not precise quantitative terms. One can say that almost no one who is upset concerning trope matters will admit this. However that is just a statement, an opinion. No matter what IMDB scores are, I don't think that they establish the fact that the set of "many people" who recently started criticizing defects in the show overlaps very much with the set of "many people" who are unhappy about developments with their favorite characters. 

You, of course, are welcome to your opinion about matters. However, I don't think you've produced strong evidence, certainly not proof. A lot of the problems could be do to other factors. Here is just one: cumulative irritation on the part of the viewers. This is true for me. I can give the writers a pass a few times concerning things like plot armor and poor military tactics. After several episodes, however, I say, "That's it, enough. I just won't take any more." This is particularly true for people like me who really enjoyed the first few seasons of GoT. A certain amount of good will continues for a while. After a while, however, things reach a breaking point. 

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On 5/13/2019 at 3:13 PM, The One Who Kneels said:

Yes that is what makes the Red Wedding so good. It's certainly shocking but it's heavily foreshadowed and makes perfect sense within the context of the story. 

Now compare that with Jaime's breaking with Cersei at the end of last season and finding happiness with Brienne only to suddenly head back to die in Cersei's arms. How did that make any sense? 

Does it make any sense for Dany to suddenly start slaughtering the people of King's Landing by the thousands after she had already won? Mad Queen Dany simply wasn't anywhere close to properly developed. She just did an inexplicable about face.

You have to develop these things. Characters doing things and and events happening in defiance of all logic and previous character development is certainly shocking but not in a way that is a credit to the writer. 

When someone’s goes mad it’s sometimes said that they’ve “snapped”. It’s referred to that way because it can happen relatively quickly and doesn’t need to take weeks or months. It can take a few days days or even only moments. 

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1 hour ago, Theon’sdick said:

When someone’s goes mad it’s sometimes said that they’ve “snapped”. It’s referred to that way because it can happen relatively quickly and doesn’t need to take weeks or months. It can take a few days days or even only moments. 

Sure. Daenerys could also slip while getting off Drogon in Episode 6 smash her head open and die. It happens. Probably wouldn't be a very satisfying or interesting outcome for the character or the story would it? 

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5 hours ago, Cron said:

Consider the IMDB scores for The Battle of the Bastards (9.9) and The Long Night (8.0).  That is a huge drop-off, so what accounts for that?

You could actually see what is happening in The Battle of the Bastards. 

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15 hours ago, Vastrok said:

It was never anti troupe, people were fooled by George's writing. Don't get me wrong i love aosiaf but i can still see all the troupes it contains, but some people hyped it up to the point that everyone believed it's something new. The whole series is full of troupe, the story is basically a coming of age story like 80% other fantasy, the stark children and dany growing up and getting revenge and taking back what was theirs. We have a wall protecting human kingdoms, ancient evil and dead coming back to life, exiled princess with dragons, hidden princes, child assassins, smart dwarf, so much for subverting troupes! George is a hypocrite who talks shit about how other authors are making it easy for their characters while he himself keeps giving his main characters 20 inch thick plot armor the whole time, the amount of time he bailed out Dany, Tyrion, Jon Arya and others it's just unbelievable. What is worse is George shit talking Tolkien about how Aragorn becomes king and how he doesn't have a hard time afterwards which bullshit by the way, because LOTR is not about Aragorn it's about the fucking Rings, it's in the title you know "LORD OF THE RINGS". I don't care what happens to Aragorn after the war, Aragorn can chop off his dick and become a cuck just like Jon in GOT for all i care.

Sometimes i cannot hold back guys, forgive me.

You can’t imagine how strongly I agree with you. 

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16 hours ago, Dorotea said:

The funny thing is the defenders of S8 also forget that the Face-Heel-Turn is also a trope, in fact one of the most prevailing ones in the fantasy  tv-series and comic books.   https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FaceHeelTurn.

In fact it became so common and banal in comic books that nowadays it is hard to find a series that won't use it one way or another. The problem is not the trope, per se, it is the way the plot is executed. What is so upsetting to most in S8 is the fact that the D&D went for the dumbest way of using the Drunk with Power https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DrunkWithPower 

without a build up.

 

And it looks very possible that Jon is the figure in whom the dangerous extremes of ice (the Others) and fire (Dany, dragons) are transcended/resolved, which is not just trope-y but downright cliched 

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16 hours ago, Cron said:

It is not surprising to me that almost nobody is going to openly admit the reason they are upset is because their favorite trope has been busted.


Can you please explain which trope has been busted? Which trope in particular do you think we all fell in love with? In which stories did we get an ending that fulfilled that trope in such a way that we now fell into the trap of thinking that we would get the same ending here?

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