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Anyone else think that the problem was the execution, not the story?


Journey95

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I think Jon & Dany's arcs especially ending this way makes sense and is very GRRM. It seems many fans of these characters just wanted fanservice type of endings but that's not how this series is. It's not about what you deserve or typical fantasy tropes

The real problem was how badly executed their arcs were imho. Jon was basically an extra with the same 3 lines and no meaningful character focus. Dany's development was rushed and contrived, we needed a whole season of gradual development into her becoming the "Mad" Queen.

I trust GRRM that he will handle it better and flesh things out more.

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I agree with you 100%. I feel like Jon will be much darker by this point in the books, and Daenerys wont be painted as a one-dimensional villain. It will also probably be Jon and Daenerys VS Aegon instead of Cersei, and unlike Cersei, Aegon will probably be well loved at that point, making Daenerys seem even worse in the eyes of the people of Westeros. 

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2 minutes ago, Panos Targaryen said:

Partially yeah, but regardless there's no scenario in which I can accept Bran becoming king in the end, GRRM or not.

What about the scenario in which he manipulated events to put himself there?

Because he said basically nothing all season it made his character so ambiguous he could have been up to anything hanging out in his chair.

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I've just finished a lengthy musing on the series as a whole. In summary, the problems with the Season:

  • Misunderstanding of themes
  • Inconsistent characterisation
  • Action with no build-up
  • Build-up with no pay-off
  • Inconsistent setting

So yeah... I think you could put the problems down to the Execution, rather than the Story. Problem is, the Story by the finale became so incoherent, it was unclear which was which.

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11 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I've just finished a lengthy musing on the series as a whole. In summary, the problems with the Season:

  • Misunderstanding of themes
  • Inconsistent characterisation
  • Action with no build-up
  • Build-up with no pay-off
  • Inconsistent setting

So yeah... I think you could put the problems down to the Execution, rather than the Story. Problem is, the Story by the finale became so incoherent, it was unclear which was which.

Amen to all that.  

Even with the truncated final two seasons, they had plenty of time to develop Dany as a Genghis Khan figure in the East, over six seasons, making good on her promises to return cities to the dust, and leaving pyramids of skulls behind her (which, incidentally, is what I'd expect to see if TWOW gets published) - while still persuading herself she's doing it for the greater good.

Or as you say, there could have been a more credible reason for Kings Landing to go up in flames, but that would have made it impossible for Jon to excuse murdering her in the next episode.  They had to transform her from her almost overnight from a flawed hero in the mould of King David to Adolf Hitler in a blonde wig, so that everyone could hate her.   No wonder Emilia Clarke said "It came out of f**king nowhere."

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30 minutes ago, Panos Targaryen said:

Partially yeah, but regardless there's no scenario in which I can accept Bran becoming king in the end, GRRM or not.

I’m 100% with you on Bran being the king. It feels completely wrong. He’s supposed to be some kind of magical inhuman creature. Definitely not the King of the SIX Kingdoms. What happened to the part about the Night King and 3eyed raven being in a multi century long feud? Everything about Bran is wrong. It’s stupid. 

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I skimmed through some posts from years back, from the episode when Ned was beheaded.
It was fun. Most people seemed to love the episode, but some were so pissed that there had been no battles the whole season that they seemed ready to quit the show.
I didn't spend much time reading the posts, but I didn't see any complaints about the writing.
It was very refreshing.

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This is what I told a friend who was upset about the end! I said that it was the most Martinesque episode of the season. The end was very much where the books seem to be headed, the execution of the show was the problem. Things like:

-Tyrion not being in the history books and the theme of histories being inaccurate 

-where the Stark kids end up and the significance of their direwolves names--Sansa/Lady/Queen of the North, Arya/Nymeria/sailed away on a ship, Jon/Ghost/disappeared with the wildlings, Bran/Summer/ushering in an era of peace (although his becoming king was a surprise... but then again, he does work really hard at being a good little Lord of Winterfell)

-Prophecy being too vague to know how it will unfold... turns out the PTWP and Azor Ahai weren't the same person. The 3 dragon riders were Dany, Jon, and the Night King (not sure how that will play out in the books)

Yeah, this was an issue of execution. The books will almost certainly do a much better job than the show.

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1 hour ago, Panos Targaryen said:

Partially yeah, but regardless there's no scenario in which I can accept Bran becoming king in the end, GRRM or not.

If it's made more clear that the body if Bran is being inhabited by a hostile alien intelligence and that the "winner" is a gestalt entity created of the Children of the Forest and the "losers" are all of humanity who are now unwittingly enslaved by the Children, then it's an ending I can get behind.

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Just now, Damon_Tor said:

If it's made more clear that the body if Bran is being inhabited by a hostile alien intelligence and that the "winner" is a gestalt entity created of the Children of the Forest and the "losers" are all of humanity who are now unwittingly enslaved by the Children, then it's an ending I can get behind.

Yeah, that sounds damn cool actually. I guess I should have clarified by saying "a scenario in which Bran Stark as himself becomes king".

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More or less yes. I don't think anyone has a problem with the bottomline of each character, it really comes down to execution. If there are elements in the story that I would change they would be:

1- Dany isn't mad, she's a conqueror. Her "evil" comes from a calculated deliberate place rather than insanity.

2- Jamie actually attempts to strangle Cersei moments before they both die from the collapse.

3- Cersei has a bloody miscarriage in her final hours before she dies.

4- Tyrion, Sansa and Bran are darker characters with their motivations instead of the goody two-shoes we were presented with. They are not heroes for what they did and thus should not be presented as such.

5- Arya actually tries to kill Cersei and fails because of the Red Keep collapsing. The Mountain is actually trying to defend Cersei, and Sandor is actually trying to distract the Mountain to create an opportunity for Arya.

6- Bran is actually possessed by Bloodraven.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Taking time to reflect on the story after the great storm has passed, I think it’s a bad story in overall, not just the execution, perhaps DD could have worked it better from the narrative point of view but since all the major plots are the same, for me at least it was a bad story with a very anticlimatic ending, wasted characters, meaningless dramatization. It left a very unpleasant and bitter taste, and it’s not even believable since the end comes from another dimension. 

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On 5/21/2019 at 2:12 AM, Journey95 said:

I think Jon & Dany's arcs especially ending this way makes sense and is very GRRM. It seems many fans of these characters just wanted fanservice type of endings but that's not how this series is. It's not about what you deserve or typical fantasy tropes

The real problem was how badly executed their arcs were imho. Jon was basically an extra with the same 3 lines and no meaningful character focus. Dany's development was rushed and contrived, we needed a whole season of gradual development into her becoming the "Mad" Queen.

I trust GRRM that he will handle it better and flesh things out more.

Completely agree with your main point, Journey. I'm down for Mad Queen Dany and Perma Exile Jon if it's done with any kind of narrative grace. As for 'the fans just want fanservice', nah, I think most fans wanted a decently-executed story. Besides, so much of the ending we got was fanservice, and it was a load of shite.

Grand Maester Sam, the oathbreaking dropout?

Master of Coin/Warden of the South Bronn, who has no experience in taking loans and isn't from the Reach?

An independent north while Yara and the Prince of Dorne don't go for independence? (Yara especially joined Dany for independence, yet this got kinda forgot).

Tyrion constantly fucking up yet still being Hand of the King in the end?

It's not a presence/lack of presence of fanservice that's the issue, nor is it the end destination. It's shit writing and an inability to write good dialogue, good plots, good worldbuilding or good theming that's the problem.

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On 5/21/2019 at 5:47 AM, MommytoA said:

This is what I told a friend who was upset about the end! I said that it was the most Martinesque episode of the season. The end was very much where the books seem to be headed, the execution of the show was the problem. Things like:

-Tyrion not being in the history books and the theme of histories being inaccurate 

-where the Stark kids end up and the significance of their direwolves names--Sansa/Lady/Queen of the North, Arya/Nymeria/sailed away on a ship, Jon/Ghost/disappeared with the wildlings, Bran/Summer/ushering in an era of peace (although his becoming king was a surprise... but then again, he does work really hard at being a good little Lord of Winterfell)

 Just as by their wolves’ names we always knew that Sansa would become a lady and Jon a ghost and that Rickon was just a shaggy dog story that took a long time to come to nothing, by the same token we always knew that Bran was destined for glory as the sun king of summer:

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York Stark”

 

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1 hour ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Master of Coin/Warden of the South Bronn, who has no experience in taking loans and isn't from the Reach?

It's not a presence/lack of presence of fanservice that's the issue, nor is it the end destination. It's shit writing and an inability to write good dialogue, good plots, good worldbuilding or good theming that's the problem.

Somebody who probably knows more than we do said:

As long as I am shooting down loony stories on the internet… there was also one that claimed I hate the character Bronn and/or the actor who portrays him, Jerome Flynn.

Total bullshit. Not a shred of truth.

I created Bronn, so it would be immodest of me to say he’s a terrific character… but what the hell, he’s a terrific character, and my readers will definitely be seeing more of him in the books to come.

And Jerome Flynn has been just WONDERFUL. It’s been a honor to work with him. He’s done a marvelous job of bringing Bronn to life.

Again: don’t believe anything you read on the internet.

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On 5/21/2019 at 8:07 AM, Daemos said:

6- Bran is actually possessed by Bloodraven.

Notice how there was no camera on Bran while Jon’s honor was proving itself the death of Jon’s love. That was deliberate so we couldn’t see his whited-out eyes showing that he was wearing another’s skin. But not Jon’s this time.

Just as Drogon was all fired up and about to blast Jon to ash, Bloodbranven wrested control of the flameflower pointed at our hero and safely discharged it somewhere that left Jon unburnt. Bloodrogon then plucked up her broken body and set off for the heavens like some Valkyrie of R’hllor carrying one of the red god’s fallen to a fiery Valhalla.

That little ”I’ll look for Drogon” quip at the end was just a trick to get the King out of the boring Small Council meeting. His Grace certainly doesn’t actually need to look. The last greenseer knows exactly where his prized soul-steed had gone off to. He’s exactly where he landed him in the first place, that’s where. Some private hangar you can be sure.

No, my dear young Drogonknight, you will not walk but you will fly — and what a flyer you will be!

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