Jump to content

The Missing Scenes/Episodes


Hippocras

Recommended Posts

Whether you liked the end of Game of Thrones or not, and many of us DID like it, there is general consensus I think that the last 2 seasons could really have used more time. But what would you have PUT in that extra time? Let's discuss the scenes people feel were missing.

My List:

1. More depth for Bran. I think it would very much have helped to have some access to more visions: When he DID have visions, especially the rushing overwhelming and ambiguous ones, they were extremely powerful and could have helped justify his mysterious personality. Instead of blank looks, blank looks coupled with rushes of confusing information would have helped establish WHY he was giving blank looks.

He should have been shown designing that chair. Instead it just appeared in season 7 and we found out only near the very end that he actually designed it himself based on a historical reference. Conversations between him and Sansa related to the history of the North and rule by dragons and Targs would have very much helped flesh out the drive for Northern independence and his willingness to go along with it. Similarly conversations with Sansa about the defence of Winterfell would have gone a long way towards establishing him as a believable King. We DID in fact see him as a competent leader a VERY long time ago, before Theon attacked Winterfell. But no one remembers that and it was not referenced in Tyrion's arguments in his favour either to help people remember.

2. Scenes between Dany and Missandei, alone. This was a key relationship and it barely got any time. We needed to see the depth of their trust and intimacy. They could have discussed the reception by the Northerners, and how to deal with Sansa. Missandei was not a sidekick. She was an advisor, but barely ever got a chance to advise in the script and that meant her VALUE to Dany was not clear enough. Private scenes with Missandei would have been the best way to show Dany starting to resent the fact that Westeros did not want her, and flesh out her drive for power in spite of learning she had the inferior claim to the throne.

3. Scenes showing Grey Worm's difficulty defying any kind of order. His behaviour at the end is impossible to understand if you don't understand that this is a man who had any instinct to defy orders and think for himself completely tortured out of him from childhood. He was incapable of NOT following orders from Dany.

4. A scene, before Jon rode Rhaegal the first time, showing the Dothraki trying to feed the dragons and it being a very scary thing to approach them. We had a scene where they came and told Dany what the dragons ate, but it would have been better to SHOW them barely eating and scaring off the people feeding them to help establish that it was actually a pretty big deal to ride a dragon for Jon.

5. Several more tertiary characters that were somewhat known to us. Some of them to die in the Long Night and increase the sense of loss. Some of them to give Cersei more to DO in KL instead of staring out a window, and then later to die there. etc.

6. Scenes showing Tyrion doing one or two things that were actually clever the last couple season, to balance out his mistakes.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I pretty much agree with you on all accounts.

7 - More development for Sansa. We need to actually see her become smarter instead of being informed of it by Tyrion. Specifically, this should have been shown by her outwitting Littlefinger which didn't happened (those scenes were super confused).

8 - More development for Bran. We need to understand him, his powers, what he is and how he "ticks" now.

9 - More development for Sam. How is he Grand Maester now?  Is he the heir to Horn Hill now since Maesters can't inherit?

10 - More development for Jaime. I think they meant that he went back to Cersei because of taking his duty seriously, since he is a kingsguard and she is his Queen. But the show doesn't make it clear at all.

11 - The final "Great Council" scene should actually have more people representing that most houses left went for it.

Also and more importantly to the ending we got:

12 - Daenerys' relationship with the people of Westeros and its consequences for both the people and herself. We must see how common people and lesser lords see her and her strange foreign army as invaders more than saviors, despite the fact that Cersei is clearly an usurper. We must see she responding to it by believing most people from Westeros to have betrayed her. And slowly becoming more and more violent and paranoid.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/23/2019 at 6:41 AM, Hippocras said:

 

3. Scenes showing Grey Worm's difficulty defying any kind of order. His behaviour at the end is impossible to understand if you don't understand that this is a man who had any instinct to defy orders and think for himself completely tortured out of him from childhood. He was incapable of NOT following orders from Dany..

 

Sad thing is, when I saw Grey Worm kill the soldier who surrendered and later executing prisoners I immediately drew the parallel that he wasn't much different from the person who killed Missandei, that he obeyed orders without question no matter how horrible. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Jon Mark Selmy said:

Also and more importantly to the ending we got:

12 - Daenerys' relationship with the people of Westeros and its consequences for both the people and herself. We must see how common people and lesser lords see her and her strange foreign army as invaders more than saviors, despite the fact that Cersei is clearly an usurper. We must see she responding to it by believing most people from Westeros to have betrayed her. And slowly becoming more and more violent and paranoid.

 

Yes. Scenes between Missandei and Dany would have really helped with this, because Missandei is the character most shown being made to feel foreign and unaccepted.

This is also one reason why a deeper lever of teritiary characters was needed. For example a minor lord or lady or merchant or whatever in King’s Landing talking with fear about dragons and Dothraki and better the evil queen you know. Maybe the best way to do it would have been to show Bronn on the way North stopping at the Crossroads, overhearing some gossip and chatter there with some character heading to KL for safety - who we later see die. Bronn could have had a funny chat with Hot Pie also revealing of common attitudes to Dany.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It needed to be far better established that Daenerys was becoming increasingly cruel and unstable, and that her behaviour towards her advisors was unreasonable.  As it was, the terrible advice she was getting from Varys and Tyrion would make any ruler suspect their motives.  Conleth Hill's final scene was moving, but bluntly, Daenerys was fully justified in executing him - which I don't think is the reaction the show runners were aiming for.

Why not just have her burning the Tarlys and their soldiers, as an act of terror, without giving them the chance to switch sides?  And/or mounting a massive raid into territory held by Cersei, and showing villagers being butchered, and their houses burned?  That gives Sansa and the Northern Lords far better reason to fear Daenerys coming North, and to be plotting to destroy her.  

Then actually have Jon press his claim to the IT, so that he and Daenerys (whatever their personal feelings for each other) have no choice but take each other down.

Instead, they made people turn against Daenerys for no real reason, before the big reveal that she's the  mad woman in the attic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, SeanF said:

It needed to be far better established that Daenerys was becoming increasingly cruel and unstable, and that her behaviour towards her advisors was unreasonable.  As it was, the terrible advice she was getting from Varys and Tyrion would make any ruler suspect their motives.  Conleth Hill's final scene was moving, but bluntly, Daenerys was fully justified in executing him - which I don't think is the reaction the show runners were aiming for.

Why not just have her burning the Tarlys and their soldiers, as an act of terror, without giving them the chance to switch sides?  And/or mounting a massive raid into territory held by Cersei, and showing villagers being butchered, and their houses burned?  That gives Sansa and the Northern Lords far better reason to fear Daenerys coming North, and to be plotting to destroy her.  

Then actually have Jon press his claim to the IT, so that he and Daenerys (whatever their personal feelings for each other) have no choice but take each other down.

Instead, they made people turn against Daenerys for no real reason, before the big reveal that she's the  mad woman in the attic.

The problem here is that I don't think she was unstable. She didn't become unreasonable really if you look at everything that happened, she just chose ruthlessness because the path to ruling over followers who loved her was closed. If she was going to rule by fear she needed to make sure they were all absolutely afraid.

To me it is not a descent to madness that was missing, but a more subtly morally ambiguous portrayal throughout. It was jarring because she had behaved so emotionally in the past in a loving way. If THOSE scenes had been hinted at being not just empathetic but also clearly strategic choices, then her strategic choice of going nuclear would not seem as much out of character to those who missed all the clear hints along the way. I mean come on, that speech to the Dothraki after hopping back on Drogon made it absolutely clear what she intended.

Also her sense of entitlement. She felt ENTITLED to rule Westeros, even when she found out that she actually had no birthright. If she did NOT feel entitled, she would have stepped aside for the one who did have the birthright. That ideological feeling of destiny on her part needed some ground work in previous seasons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They should have just included the whole Young Griff storyline. Then Dany going ballistic could have been done a lot better. Also, Dany's portrayal could have been done better, though I absolutely agree that she felt entitled.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

The problem here is that I don't think she was unstable. She didn't become unreasonable really if you look at everything that happened, she just chose ruthlessness because the path to ruling over followers who loved her was closed. If she was going to rule by fear she needed to make sure they were all absolutely afraid.

To me it is not a descent to madness that was missing, but a more subtly morally ambiguous portrayal throughout. It was jarring because she had behaved so emotionally in the past in a loving way. If THOSE scenes had been hinted at being not just empathetic but also clearly strategic choices, then her strategic choice of going nuclear would not seem as much out of character to those who missed all the clear hints along the way. I mean come on, that speech to the Dothraki after hopping back on Drogon made it absolutely clear what she intended.

Also her sense of entitlement. She felt ENTITLED to rule Westeros, even when she found out that she actually had no birthright. If she did NOT feel entitled, she would have stepped aside for the one who did have the birthright. That ideological feeling of destiny on her part needed some ground work in previous seasons.

The other thing is that burning Kings Landing is stupid.  It's a massively valuable piece of real estate that she's always desired, and she burns it to the ground, as soon as she has it.  Sure, show her conducting mass executions, after the city falls, but people don"t destroy their ancestors' city without some good reason.

if they wanted to show her obliterating a city, it ought to have been Lannisport.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

The other thing is that burning Kings Landing is stupid.  It's a massively valuable piece of real estate that she's always desired, and she burns it to the ground, as soon as she has it.  Sure, show her conducting mass executions, after the city falls, but people don"t destroy their ancestors' city without some good reason.

if they wanted to show her obliterating a city, it ought to have been Lannisport.

Nah, as much as the idea intrigues me, it doesn’t really work. Cersei was not in Lannisport and had not been there once for decades. Dany wanted to prove a point that everyone needed to submit to her or burn, and so in her mind everyone flooding in to KL to support Cersei and hide from her was guilty. Dany never showed any sign of understanding economics....

To me KL does make sense, it just needed a few more scenes and a slightly different tone to some past existing ones. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hippocras said:

Nah, as much as the idea intrigues me, it doesn’t really work. Cersei was not in Lannisport and had not been there once for decades. Dany wanted to prove a point that everyone needed to submit to her or burn, and so in her mind everyone flooding in to KL to support Cersei and hide from her was guilty. Dany never showed any sign of understanding economics....

To me KL does make sense, it just needed a few more scenes and a slightly different tone to some past existing ones. 

She quoted Macchiavelli, more or less, about how it's better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved, but Old Nick would have jumped out of his grave and slapped her for destroying her own capital.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/26/2019 at 4:46 AM, Hippocras said:

The problem here is that I don't think she was unstable. She didn't become unreasonable really if you look at everything that happened, she just chose ruthlessness because the path to ruling over followers who loved her was closed. If she was going to rule by fear she needed to make sure they were all absolutely afraid.

To me it is not a descent to madness that was missing, but a more subtly morally ambiguous portrayal throughout. It was jarring because she had behaved so emotionally in the past in a loving way. If THOSE scenes had been hinted at being not just empathetic but also clearly strategic choices, then her strategic choice of going nuclear would not seem as much out of character to those who missed all the clear hints along the way. I mean come on, that speech to the Dothraki after hopping back on Drogon made it absolutely clear what she intended.

Also her sense of entitlement. She felt ENTITLED to rule Westeros, even when she found out that she actually had no birthright. If she did NOT feel entitled, she would have stepped aside for the one who did have the birthright. That ideological feeling of destiny on her part needed some ground work in previous seasons.

At this point I am not sure how GRRM going to lead to Jon killing Dany to "save" the realm. I have been re-reading Fire and Ice and frankly, Aegon I, Maegar, Jaeharys I, the whole Dance of the Dragons was far more ruthless than ANYTHING that Dany has done that would shock Tyrion and Jon so (at least them in the books).  And those guys were called - great leaders, ruthless conquerors, conciliators but not mad (other than Maegar due to his 6 wives). So Dany burning down King's landing after Cersei's defiance? Not out of character of ANY of these leaders, and not just Targyriens but same Tywin who has done the same. The only thing I see is that Westeros so sensitive after her father Aerys and his "burn them all", that ANY overreach by her will be considered "mad queen" act.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...