Were you expecting something different?

[roastnbake]

I see justification for the fates of all the major characters. 

I see no justification for Bronn becoming Master of Coin and sitting on the Small Council. 

Bronn is uneducated; Bronn is a mercenary; BRONN IS TOTALLY UNQUALIFIED.

With Bran as King, I felt a sense of relief and optimism for the future of the realm. 

That was whisked away for the cheap laughs of Bronn on the Small Council. 

[Kajjo]

6 minutes ago, roastnbake said:

I see justification for the fates of all the major characters. 

Agreed.

6 minutes ago, roastnbake said:

 I see no justification for Bronn becoming Master of Coin and sitting on the Small Council. 

Yes, the Bronn issue is the one that nags me most. This just does not make any sense.

[Runaway Penguin]

I was expecting something different - for one did not expect Jon to be able to go to place where he liked it the most and nobody annoys him with Game of Thrones

I also hoped that as a part of tropebreaking the Kingslayer would be allowed to survive his redemption. him or Sandor.

I think Bran's kingship was not built up properly, he does not interact much and when he does, it is in privacy and way too cryptic. Some clear concise involvements say in preparation for the battle of WF (apart from "Let's use me as bait") would go far in establishing this. Telling "ugly truth" advices that would be ignored as heartless ets., perhaps, kinda in Spock fashion. "Dear Dragon Queen, your riders will be totally useless, why did you bring them?" "Ser Jorah, if you charge with them, you will die" and stuff.

Dany's turn to the dark was built up (IMO) well enough - including it not being too obvious. I mean just imagine how boring it would be if the turn was 100% clear conclusion since few seasons back - instead the Targ coin was spinning in the air all this time and there was always chance it will land either way. I like that the last episode shown it was not an emotional decision, that it was not "Mad Queen" per se as in mental disorder, but rather "Mad Queen" same way as "Mad Titan" - chillingly logical "Hero of her own story" approach. 

 

 

Overall while the season suffered from rushing too much (more shorter episodes would be better) and from too much focus on visuals, it did kinda work for me. As ending it was not bad. Heck, it was for sure far better for me than the Battlestar Galactica ("God did it and now your task is only to die and let this cute little kid enhance the genome of neolithic brutes"), it was kinda similar structure to Babylon 5 (with more bitter in the bittersweet ending, but still - remember, in Bab 5 the main hero also did not get validation from his "home court" and was de facto exiled). Ending such a story is always a problem, especially in the era of social media and I think even on this forum you can see a lot of people / factions "self-hyping" themselves with "desired endings" and often being rather salty against anyone who proposed another ending.

 

I also did not mind the show dropped many book plot threads. There is just so much you could cram inside to keep the show understandable. Do not forget that show cannot very well just have half main characters disappear for two seasons or introduce a ton of new characters. This is not really "dumbing down" the story, but "keeping it manageable in a medium"Like it or not, myriad of characters does not really work that well.

In a similar fashion, a lot of omitted stuff (esp. with regards to prophecies) is internal in the books - thoughts, dreams, visions... Those also translate pretty badly and inner monologues would have to be shoehorned into dialogues and look pretty weird.

 

 

And as for battles... Yeah, show uses stupid tactics. So do the books. Rule of cool trumps everything. And stabbing through a solid breastplate... Nah. Not again!

[darmody]

On 5/21/2019 at 1:04 AM, Heartofice said:

I’ve seen a lot of negative reactions to the finale, not just here but around social media. Lots of people seem to feel let down, and disappointed by the way events played out.

I didn’t feel that way. I guess I’ve now come to accept the way the show does things, it is not the same show from seasons 1-4. 

Which is why I’m surprised anyone is surprised! There is no way season 8 is as bad as season 7 in my opinion as that was terrible on every level. So if the finale had cheesy dialogue and felt rushed.. then that can’t come as a shock to anyone?

So was anyone genuinely surprised by the way the finale was done?

Frankly, I was surprised. Because however dumb season Seven was, I don't remember being so bored during Game of Thrones. There were more unecessary and uninteresingly framed shots of long walks and people's faces than before. Tyrion rearranged chairs for a full minute. Dialogue, when it comes at all, is not just hackneyed and stupid. It's inappropriate. Just wrong. They're saying wrong things the whole time. I wanted them to shut up. 

[Tyrion1991]

Oh my, I feel like such a fool. You see the problem is that I saw the series through the prism of Danys story and assumed GRRM wasn’t going to have a perfect Stark ending.

So basically I thought that Jon was going to get get Dany pregnant. But, we learn that the North won’t support Dany without her marrying a Northerner as a guarantee. We also learn that they hate the Targaryen incest so big no no. Then Jon falls defeating the NK and saving Winterfell.

Dany decides to gamble and tells Jorah that she needs him to pretend to be the father. She marries Jorah and he becomes Ned 2.0 raising Jon Snows son who doesn’t grow up a bastard and Jorah is able to pass on Longclaw to Jon’s kid like he said he would. Sansa and the north is happy that the future King will have northern blood.

Like really, I know in hindsight it sounds crazy. But I just loved the image of Lyanna Mormonts face if Dany announced she was gonna marry her cousin.

I mean in a sense Dany is destroyed because she loved a man who didn’t love her back. So it stands to reason that spurning a man who did absolutely love her ultimately doomed her. I don’t think Jorah would have stabbed her even if she’s had went fully crazy; which she wouldn’t have because she would have known she was loved. Like really, marrying Jorah solves all of Danys problems. 

 

[SansaJonRule]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Littlefinger and Cersei were evil.

LF and Cersei were always evil. Nothing new there. I think as the story line was narrowed down to fewer characters, it was bound to happen that we'd be left with more black and white characters and fewer gray. There were still gray characters, and the Starks were not all good. We may applaud Arya for being a badass and sympathize with her desire for revenge, but her character was very gray. She was mostly killing machine in danger of losing her humanity.

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

- Sansa and Aryas supposed tension made zero sense and still doesn’t

A lot of people say that, but I have no difficulty making sense of it given 1) their past 2) their different personalities and goals and 3) how long it had been since they had seen each other (about 6 years?)

[Apoplexy]

14 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Oh no offence taken.

For me 7 was the point where the writers simply lost control of what they were doing and the show was at its blandest, it’s most blockbustery.

So many elements of the season I hated.

- My largest gripe is the black and whiteness of its characters. You were shown who was good and bad in such clear terms the whole time. The Starks and Dany were good, Littlefinger and Cersei were evil. There was no complexity there at all. It was constantly signposted to me who I should be cheering or booing. The show always dealt in shades of grey and complex characters and a lot of times in 7 that went out the window for easy storytelling tropes. Most of my gripes tend to come from that dynamic.

season 8 also seemed to fix a lot of that which is why I probably prefer it.

- Aryas pie moments were cheap and easy and again were written in such a manipulative manner that asked me to cheer.

- Sansa and Aryas supposed tension made zero sense and still doesn’t 

- Littlefingers death again was silly because of the previous point. Again it was another shock moment I was meant to cheer but actually was disappointed.

- Ed freaking Sheeran 

- it was the season where logic and geography went out of the window. Time jumps and teleporting were out of control and it just felt like everything  was being rushed

- on that, the ice lake episode for me is my least favourite episode ever. The magnificent 7 gathering of ‘heroes’ combined with some of the most egregious drops in logic the show has ever contrived almost stopped me watching the show altogether.

- That episode also highlights another major flaw in the season. The dialogue. That episode is a good example. Instead of  witty conversation the show is known for we get each character performing their duty by getting across all plot points in two sentences with each other. Every word was contrived and it made everyone come across like plot regurgitating machines rather than people.

which is why I like Ep2 of S8 so much. It took its time, and let characters be themselves. It’s been a long time since that happened.

 

There are loads of other issues but I felt like S8 went some way to fixing them 

I didn't mind season 8 up to episode 3. Everything after that was so bad, it overshadowed whatever complaints i had with season 7.

I can see that characters were more grey in 8, but it was executed terribly for me. Fillers, bad dialog and done for shock value moments were bad, but not gratuitously so. The story was headed in the right direction for me. It was the terrible conclusion that was the worst transgression for me.

Plus, I like Ed Sheeran

[Heartofice]

9 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

I didn't mind season 8 up to episode 3. Everything after that was so bad, it overshadowed whatever complaints i had with season 7.

I can see that characters were more grey in 8, but it was executed terribly for me. Fillers, bad dialog and done for shock value moments were bad, but not gratuitously so. The story was headed in the right direction for me. It was the terrible conclusion that was the worst transgression for me.

Plus, I like Ed Sheeran

I think the ending was basically how it will play out in the books, so I am not angry at that. Sure it was really rushed but the whole show has been rushed for so long I don't know why there are any specific complaints at the ending.

Plus Ed Sheeran.. good singer.. terrible actor! 

[Heartofice]

10 hours ago, SansaJonRule said:

LF and Cersei were always evil. Nothing new there. 

But that isn't true. 

LF and Cersei are not evil. LF is conniving and out for himself, not totally evil. Cersei does bad things, but she tends to do them to protect herself and her children. Once the show started to portray both as just objects of pure evil they became far less interesting.

Cersei's death caused a lot of wailing from the fans because she didn't get what was coming to her. But her death was more fitting of the slightly more sympathetic view of her that was shown in earlier seasons. If the show hadn't deviated into turning her into the wicked witch of the west the ending would be totally ok.

[Cas Stark]

Season 7 was quite bad, the plot had become incredibly stupid, and the dialogue was very stilted.

I had thought that maybe, maybe the combination of TWO years prep time, fewer episodes and GRRM's ending, as well as the knowledge the showrunners had of how much the show's legacy would depend on the final season, that Season 8 would be better than season 7.  That they would have spent more time on the writing, and that w/GRRM's ending, at least a few things would have fallen into place to give the end some resonance.

But, instead, it was even more rushed, they stopped even bothering to write dialogue for the most part and people simply stared and tramped around, and arguably the biggest twist in the show, they did in a matter of 2 episodes.  The 'great council' meeting made a mockery of the show's early work in setting up power struggles and power plays with finesse and subtlety. 

[Apoplexy]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think the ending was basically how it will play out in the books, so I am not angry at that. Sure it was really rushed but the whole show has been rushed for so long I don't know why there are any specific complaints at the ending.

Plus Ed Sheeran.. good singer.. terrible actor! 

If it does indeed play out the same way in the books, I'll have the same criticisms about the book as well. Rushing it makes things worse, I agree. But I'm not sure I will like such a dark story irrespective of how it's told.

As for ed sheeran, he was there for decoration. I didn't think they cared about his acting skills. He was like a vase in a ballroom

[Apoplexy]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

But that isn't true. 

LF and Cersei are not evil. LF is conniving and out for himself, not totally evil. Cersei does bad things, but she tends to do them to protect herself and her children. Once the show started to portray both as just objects of pure evil they became far less interesting.

Cersei's death caused a lot of wailing from the fans because she didn't get what was coming to her. But her death was more fitting of the slightly more sympathetic view of her that was shown in earlier seasons. If the show hadn't deviated into turning her into the wicked witch of the west the ending would be totally ok.

LF has done enough terrible deeds with no remorse for me to call him evil.

And cersei was portrayed to warrant sympathy because of the showrunners' weird fixation with the character. Analyzing her actions overlooking the writers need to apologize for her, I feel nothing but contempt for her.

[Heartofice]

25 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

But, instead, it was even more rushed, they stopped even bothering to write dialogue for the most part and people simply stared and tramped around, and arguably the biggest twist in the show, they did in a matter of 2 episodes.  The 'great council' meeting made a mockery of the show's early work in setting up power struggles and power plays with finesse and subtlety. 

I didn't find that to be the case. Yes there were a few scenes where seemingly nothing happened, but I found that a relief from S7 where everything happened all the time. Sometimes you need a break in noise in order to make a point and change the tone. 

I found the dialogue in S8 to be on the whole better, not great, but better. Ep2 was a marked improvement, where characters interacted with each other and talked like humans. Compare and contrast to S7 where every conversation was there merely to make sure plot points were ticked off and nobody said anything that wasn't something that could be cut into a trailer due to its 'wittyness' 

 

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

I didn't find that to be the case. Yes there were a few scenes where seemingly nothing happened, but I found that a relief from S7 where everything happened all the time. Sometimes you need a break in noise in order to make a point and change the tone. 

I found the dialogue in S8 to be on the whole better, not great, but better. Ep2 was a marked improvement, where characters interacted with each other and talked like humans. Compare and contrast to S7 where every conversation was there merely to make sure plot points were ticked off and nobody said anything that wasn't something that could be cut into a trailer due to its 'wittyness' 

 

Ep 2 was the only time we got realistic dialogue to me.  Tons of incredibly stupid no dialogue moments throughout the season.  Arya and Davos standing on the battlements watching the dead approach, they got nothing to say to each other?  The Lannister soldiers meet the Unsullied and Northerners and there is a silent stand off?  No one speaks?  Even after the surrender?  Even Jamie and Cersei, all their history, anger, betrayal, and its just, oh your're bleeding, I don't want to die?  The fuck.  Ugh.   The great council 'dialogue' was embarrassingly bad.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

Ep 2 was the only time we got realistic dialogue to me.  Tons of incredibly stupid no dialogue moments throughout the season.  Arya and Davos standing on the battlements watching the dead approach, they got nothing to say to each other?  The Lannister soldiers meet the Unsullied and Northerners and there is a silent stand off?  No one speaks?  Even after the surrender?  Even Jamie and Cersei, all their history, anger, betrayal, and its just, oh your're bleeding, I don't want to die?  The fuck.  Ugh.   The great council 'dialogue' was embarrassingly bad.

I have zero problem with those non dialogue scenes TBH, I think they only added to the tension of the moment. People don't tend to have witty interesting things to say in those situations and sometimes NOT talking communicates the state of mind of people who are scared and confused and don't know what to do. Seemed pretty fitting.

I do agree with those two examples of bad dialogue though, but only because they could have been such better scenes rather than them being outright bad. 

The show has at the very least moved away from doing cock jokes 3 times an episode (although there was some terrible examples of that in Ep1 actually). Having Bronn on the council meant you were going to get silly dialogue. Really it was the choice of council members that made that scene so poor. I really like the chair organisation bit.