Rank the seasons!

[Ser Hedge]

S1

S2

S3

S4

The rest is a different show, any resemblance to characters from S1-S4 living, dead, resurrected or wightified is either coincidental or a malicious attempt to ruin the original character.

[Caligula_K3]

On 5/27/2019 at 3:51 PM, lancerman said:

Season 5: For all the flaws of the last two seasons, this was the worst season. There was no excuse here. They had the book material. They had narrative. Dorne is and will forever be the absolute dirt worst thing this show ever did. The most pointless sequence of events ever. This was when fast travel became a thing. Sansa's storyline, I can accept if you do it well. I get the fact that Ramsay was going to be the big bad of the next two seasons and you needed to build him up and have a logical viewpoint and it was probably better to have a character like Sansa that the audience cared about, than Jeyne Poole popping up out of nowhere, but it wasn't even handled well. It was all shock value of Sansa's character going through the ringer, and the pointlessness of Brienne being sidelined all season EXCEPT for the moment she shouldn't have been. Hardhome was a good episode, but aside from that Jon had nothing to do. King's Landing was okay, but it was ultimately not concluded and the arc ended with the walk. It was just a mess of a season because you could tell they really didn't want to adapt the books at this point and tried to keep it stupid simple so they could move on. I'll probably binge watch Season 7 and 8 one day and be able to dumb myself down to enjoy it. Season 5 is just infuriating on so many levels beyond that. Just terrible. No plot resolutions, very little progression, outright stupidity for every spot the characters were in. 

 I would say the opposite - the problem with season 5 (aside from the fact that Dorne sucked and a couple other plotlines didn't work well) is that they tried to follow the book structure too closely and didn't want to move past the books (with the exception of Stannis and Tyrion actually meeting Dany). Why does Jon do nothing, aside from getting elected and the change at Hardhome? Because he does next to nothing in the books, without even the moving forward of the Others plot that the show gives you. Why does Cersei's arc end with the walk? Because that's as far as she got in the books. Season 5 is in an awkward position, because the showrunners are streamlining a lot of the fluff out of books 4-5 so they can actually start wrapping up the plot; but they also clearly hoped that The Winds of Winter would be out very soon and didn't want to move beyond adapting the books. It's definitely a season with flaws, and oh my god is Dorne bad, but it didn't help that the books it was adapting were structured terribly and have next to no climaxes.

[BlackLightning]

On 5/27/2019 at 3:51 PM, lancerman said:

Season 5: For all the flaws of the last two seasons, this was the worst season. There was no excuse here. They had the book material. They had narrative. Dorne is and will forever be the absolute dirt worst thing this show ever did. The most pointless sequence of events ever. This was when fast travel became a thing. Sansa's storyline, I can accept if you do it well. I get the fact that Ramsay was going to be the big bad of the next two seasons and you needed to build him up and have a logical viewpoint and it was probably better to have a character like Sansa that the audience cared about, than Jeyne Poole popping up out of nowhere, but it wasn't even handled well. It was all shock value of Sansa's character going through the ringer, and the pointlessness of Brienne being sidelined all season EXCEPT for the moment she shouldn't have been. Hardhome was a good episode, but aside from that Jon had nothing to do. King's Landing was okay, but it was ultimately not concluded and the arc ended with the walk. It was just a mess of a season because you could tell they really didn't want to adapt the books at this point and tried to keep it stupid simple so they could move on. I'll probably binge watch Season 7 and 8 one day and be able to dumb myself down to enjoy it. Season 5 is just infuriating on so many levels beyond that. Just terrible. No plot resolutions, very little progression, outright stupidity for every spot the characters were in. 

Totally agreed.

If they wanted to put Sansa in Winterfell so bad, they should have had her be more like Barbrey Dustin and engineer the Great Northern Conspiracy right under the Bolton's noses. In the books, someone is murdering Freys and Bolton allies in Winterfell and no one knows who it is. Let it be Sansa I don't care. Making Sansa Jeyne Poole was a huge mistake.

The only character who didn't suffer from that massive clusterf*** that was the Winterfell story in season 5 was Ramsay Bolton. 

[BlackLightning]

1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 I would say the opposite - the problem with season 5 (aside from the fact that Dorne sucked and a couple other plotlines didn't work well) is that they tried to follow the book structure too closely and didn't want to move past the books (with the exception of Stannis and Tyrion actually meeting Dany). Why does Jon do nothing, aside from getting elected and the change at Hardhome? Because he does next to nothing in the books, without even the moving forward of the Others plot that the show gives you. Why does Cersei's arc end with the walk? Because that's as far as she got in the books. Season 5 is in an awkward position, because the showrunners are streamlining a lot of the fluff out of books 4-5 so they can actually start wrapping up the plot; but they also clearly hoped that The Winds of Winter would be out very soon and didn't want to move beyond adapting the books. It's definitely a season with flaws, and oh my god is Dorne bad, but it didn't help that the books it was adapting were structured terribly and have next to no climaxes.

No excuse.

If they can take their time and split A Storm of Swords into two seasons, they could have done the same thing for A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. They take place at the same time anyways.

[Caligula_K3]

2 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

No excuse.

If they can take their time and split A Storm of Swords into two seasons, they could have done the same thing for A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. They take place at the same time anyways.

Many excuses. A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons (which, to be fair, were adapted partially in seasons 4 and 6 as well) would be impossible to adapt for TV as they are. The novels are huge, add four plotlines for every one they aim at resolving, and put in a ton of ancillary characters who GRRM has all but admitted he doesn't know where they're going, and who often don't affect the main plots and characters. And they get so bloated that he didn't have room to write climaxes in them; in two books, they accomplish less than A Clash of Kings, let alone A Storm of Swords. There's a lot of great stuff in these two books (and, imo, a bunch of mediocre and bad stuff)   and I know there are some who absolutely love both, but they would work even less well on TV than they do as novels. One common complaint about season 5 is that its pace was too slow; having Tyrion travel to Meereen and Cersei lead up to the walk of shame in two seasons, or adding 15 new characters, would not have helped at all (and there's also the fact that every new character in a TV show requires a new actor to be paid). And then the showrunners would have still had to figure out where all these new characters and plotlines should lead in less than an eighth of the time it takes GRRM to write a new novel, which he seemingly has trouble doing because he's thrown so many balls into the air in the last two books.

[btfu806]

1: Season 2

2: Season 1

3: Season 3

4: Season 4

5: Season 5

 

 

6: season 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7: Season 7

 

And way lower but my computer won't let me hit enter enough times

8: Season 8.

 

 

[btfu806]

56 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Many excuses. A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons (which, to be fair, were adapted partially in seasons 4 and 6 as well) would be impossible to adapt for TV as they are. The novels are huge, add four plotlines for every one they aim at resolving, and put in a ton of ancillary characters who GRRM has all but admitted he doesn't know where they're going, and who often don't affect the main plots and characters. And they get so bloated that he didn't have room to write climaxes in them; in two books, they accomplish less than A Clash of Kings, let alone A Storm of Swords. There's a lot of great stuff in these two books (and, imo, a bunch of mediocre and bad stuff)   and I know there are some who absolutely love both, but they would work even less well on TV than they do as novels. One common complaint about season 5 is that its pace was too slow; having Tyrion travel to Meereen and Cersei lead up to the walk of shame in two seasons, or adding 15 new characters, would not have helped at all (and there's also the fact that every new character in a TV show requires a new actor to be paid). And then the showrunners would have still had to figure out where all these new characters and plotlines should lead in less than an eighth of the time it takes GRRM to write a new novel, which he seemingly has trouble doing because he's thrown so many balls into the air in the last two books.

Ya know, that's what they said about ASOIAF in general. Could never be adapted.  yet...

The problem was D&D had no idea what to do when they caught up to the books. I don't know why you don't sit down with GRRM and plan this out years in advance, but whatever.

AFFC and ADWD will most likely set up a lot of important events for TWOW. I know we sit here now and say oh the books were boring, it just meanders it has no point. It has no point because the payoff hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's a lot of building, I get the frustration with it, I am right there with you but GRRM put a lot of those characters in there for a reason. f/Aegon will be important. D&D just didn't know what to do with him. The argument of adding in ancillary characters just bogs down the story doesn't make a ton of sense either. What was the point of Hot Pie. In all honesty. What about the sandsnakes. What did they honestly do for the plot as a whole? Gilly for that matter, really didn't do much for the overall plot. But they make the story feel whole, they make the world feel whole.
 

Also stating there there are anything with money issues, they had a figurative blank check. That's not an issue.

The plot/depth of characters was too confusing for D&D and they simplified it and it simply didn't work.

[Caligula_K3]

19 hours ago, btfu806 said:

Ya know, that's what they said about ASOIAF in general. Could never be adapted.  yet...

The problem was D&D had no idea what to do when they caught up to the books. I don't know why you don't sit down with GRRM and plan this out years in advance, but whatever.

AFFC and ADWD will most likely set up a lot of important events for TWOW. I know we sit here now and say oh the books were boring, it just meanders it has no point. It has no point because the payoff hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's a lot of building, I get the frustration with it, I am right there with you but GRRM put a lot of those characters in there for a reason. f/Aegon will be important. D&D just didn't know what to do with him. The argument of adding in ancillary characters just bogs down the story doesn't make a ton of sense either. What was the point of Hot Pie. In all honesty. What about the sandsnakes. What did they honestly do for the plot as a whole? Gilly for that matter, really didn't do much for the overall plot. But they make the story feel whole, they make the world feel whole.
 

Also stating there there are anything with money issues, they had a figurative blank check. That's not an issue.

The plot/depth of characters was too confusing for D&D and they simplified it and it simply didn't work.

It's a miracle that the first four seasons adapted the first three books as well as they did; even if you don't like the last four seasons, D and D deserve a ton of credit for that. But it's not a coincidence that as the first four seasons went on and the books got more complicated, they had to change and streamline more things, even with basically two seasons for ASoS. The story has become more and more unadaptable as it's gone on. It already has the largest cast in television history. There's a breaking point in terms of what a television production and its budget can handle- because despite what the internet believes, every season of Thrones has had a prescribed budget, and they have to stay relatively within that.  And actors, especially actors for major characters, are expensive.

There's also a difference between adding ancillary characters and ancillary characters who push the story in their own little direction that has to then be pursued. Gilly and Hot Pie are important in relation to two major characters in the series; but we don't need to follow the adventures of Hot Pie except for when they intersect with a more major character. The problem with AFFC/ADWD is that the ancillary characters push further and further apart from the central narrative and characters; you're following twenty different POVs that rarely interact with each other and whose side characters cause more complications in the plot.  There's only so much "making the world feel whole" an author can do before  it overloads the focus of the series.

You're right that D&D did have no idea what to do when they caught up to the books. So they did meet with GRRM to try to chart out the rest of the series, I believe around season 4. The problem is that GRRM has no idea how to chart the rest of the series (minus a few big moments and the endpoints). You can understand why, then, D&D would choose not to throw all the additional balls in the air that AFFC/ADWD does. Maybe Aegon will be important; maybe he won't be. This is the problem: GRRM has vague plans for many of the characters and plotlines he introduces, but he doesn't know where they're going, as per his gardener methods. He agonized for ADWD over something like the Meereneese knot and never solved it for most characters; how and when and why do all these characters get to Meereen? What happens when they're there? He's been trying to figure this out now for almost twenty years, since he dumped the five year gap. And then you have to do a dozen more Meereneese knots as you try to get all these sideplots and characters together for the main plots and characters. D&D already had to figure out how to get to the ending of this series in a third of the time it takes Martin to write a new book... this is not an easy task, and maybe you think they didn't do a good job, but it would have been even more impossible if they'd done a strict adaptation of these two books.

Edited to add: I'm just imagining what an episode structure would look like for two seasons of AFFC/ADWD: either every episode would be stuffed with 12-13 different subplots that only get a few minutes each, or you'd have to compromise and cover 6-7 plotlines an episode, but only see individual characters every 2-3 episodes. And then you'd end two seasons worth of that without any climaxes. This is how TV series outstay their welcomes.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 5/29/2019 at 11:55 AM, Jabar of House Titan said:

No excuse.

If they can take their time and split A Storm of Swords into two seasons, they could have done the same thing for A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. They take place at the same time anyways.

Care to sketch out an outline of how your preferred versions of those seasons would go, as Bryan Caplan did? What would form the midpoint of Feast/Dance?

On 5/29/2019 at 2:58 PM, btfu806 said:

AFFC and ADWD will most likely set up a lot of important events for TWOW. I know we sit here now and say oh the books were boring, it just meanders it has no point. It has no point because the payoff hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's a lot of building, I get the frustration with it, I am right there with you but GRRM put a lot of those characters in there for a reason. f/Aegon will be important.

A season of television, like a book or a movie, must be able to work on its own even without a follow-up. You can't have all setup and no payoff. Would you tell someone the setup of a joke, and not give the punchline until more than a year later?

Quote

What about the sandsnakes. What did they honestly do for the plot as a whole?

I'll grant that bit was handled horribly. Even the fight scene was terribly executed.

Quote

But they make the story feel whole, they make the world feel whole.

The world already felt overstuffed for most viewers. There are basically no other serialized shows which have had as many named characters per episode.

Quote

Also stating there there are anything with money issues, they had a figurative blank check. That's not an issue.

Not a literal blank check. Even Game of Thrones has budgetary limitations, although as time went on more and more of the budget went to the larger scale things had taken on (along with higher pay for actors whose contracts got renewed).

Quote

The plot/depth of characters was too confusing for D&D and they simplified it and it simply didn't work.

GRRM has written adaptations for screen, and he'll tell you that you nearly always simplify because writing doesn't face the same constraints.

On 5/30/2019 at 10:16 AM, Caligula_K3 said:

I'm just imagining what an episode structure would look like for two seasons of AFFC/ADWD: either every episode would be stuffed with 12-13 different subplots that only get a few minutes each, or you'd have to compromise and cover 6-7 plotlines an episode, but only see individual characters every 2-3 episodes. And then you'd end two seasons worth of that without any climaxes. This is how TV series outstay their welcomes.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'd like people to try to grapple with.

[Nictarion]

1>3>6>4>2>5>7>8

[of man and wolf]

On 5/24/2019 at 1:44 PM, Caligula_K3 said:

I don't see any massive plot holes or dropped plots, to be honest. Sure, some plots aren't handled as well as they could have been (white walkers), but nothing in Season 8 was as bad as Dany in Qarth or Dorne in Season 5 or Theon's never ending torture scenes in Season 3. Nothing in Season 8 also reaches the quality of something like Hardhome. Therefore something like Season 5 is more inconsistent to me, with higher highs and lower lows.

I'm fine with the tourture scenes because that's what he was going through in the books. You have to adapt it this way because you cant convey the true depth of it and his arc without showing it to the viewers.

 

Plus Ramsay was awesome.

[Caligula_K3]

15 hours ago, of man and wolf said:

I'm fine with the tourture scenes because that's what he was going through in the books. You have to adapt it this way because you cant convey the true depth of it and his arc without showing it to the viewers.

 

Plus Ramsay was awesome.

Eh... all credit to both the Ramsey and Theon actors, but I got the point after two episodes. Sometimes in showing cruelty and evil on screen, less is more; the more you do, the more over the top, cartoonish, one note, and boring it can get. This is a problem I had with the Ramsey character in general in the TV series, especially once Roose was taken out of the picture.

[nyser1]

1. Season Three
2. Season One
3. Season Two
4. Season Four
5. Season Six
6. Season Seven
7. Season Five
8. Season Eight

[Count Balerion]

I'd say something like ...

3

4

1

2

6

7

5

8

I'm not 100% sure of the first four; but 5 and 8 definitely the worst. 6 and 7 had their share of inconsequential stuff (Arya's indestructibility, the wight hunt ...); but those two were the nadir. 8 in particular kind of ruined the whole series.

[BlackLightning]

19 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

I'd say something like ...

3

4

1

2

6

7

5

8

I'm not 100% sure of the first four; but 5 and 8 definitely the worst. 6 and 7 had their share of inconsequential stuff (Arya's indestructibility, the wight hunt ...); but those two were the nadir. 8 in particular kind of ruined the whole series. 

Kind of?

On 6/1/2019 at 6:11 PM, FictionIsntReal said:

Care to sketch out an outline of how your preferred versions of those seasons would go, as Bryan Caplan did? What would form the midpoint of Feast/Dance?

A season of television, like a book or a movie, must be able to work on its own even without a follow-up. You can't have all setup and no payoff. Would you tell someone the setup of a joke, and not give the punchline until more than a year later?

I'll grant that bit was handled horribly. Even the fight scene was terribly executed.

The world already felt overstuffed for most viewers. There are basically no other serialized shows which have had as many named characters per episode.

Not a literal blank check. Even Game of Thrones has budgetary limitations, although as time went on more and more of the budget went to the larger scale things had taken on (along with higher pay for actors whose contracts got renewed).

GRRM has written adaptations for screen, and he'll tell you that you nearly always simplify because writing doesn't face the same constraints.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I'd like people to try to grapple with.

Yes I can do that for you.

You want me to make another thread or do you want me to do it here?

I totally agree with the blue part. But probably not in the way you meant...

[Count Balerion]

5 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Kind of?

[Kaguya]

1) 6

2) 2

3) 1

4) 3

5) 5

6) 4

7) 7

8) 8

[YoungGriff89]

On 5/28/2019 at 4:16 PM, Ser Hedge said:

S1

S2

S3

S4

The rest is a different show, any resemblance to characters from S1-S4 living, dead, resurrected or wightified is either coincidental or a malicious attempt to ruin the original character.

This, this, and a whole lot of this.  Couldn't agree more, I literally recommend to everyone who asks me about starting this to just watch seasons 1-4 and pretend the rest never happened because the second half of the show can't possibly satisfy you as much as you want it to.  Many a debate on facebook has spurned from me sharing my ranking of seasons from best to worst.  This site is probably a better place for it.  

1.  BEST - Season Three. 
2.  Season Two. 
3.  Season One.
4.  Season Four.
5.  Season Five.
6.  Season Eight.
7.  Season Seven.
8.  WORST - Season Six.  Ugh.  Season Six.   

More thoughts in the spoiler.  Not that this isn't a spoilery thread but you should really only read it if you're interested.  

Spoiler

Season One –

Best Episode of the season: Baelor (Episode Nine) with Fire and Blood (Episode Ten) as a very close second.  Worst Episode:  The Kingsroad (Episode Two).  

Season Two – 

Best Episode of the season: Blackwater (Episode Nine).  Worst Episode:  The North Remembers (Episode One). 

Season Three – 

Best episode of the season: Kissed by Fire (Episode Five). Worst Episode:  Mhysa (Episode Ten).  

Season Four - 

Best Episode of the season: The Lion and The Rose (Episode Two). Worst Episode:  The Children (Episode Ten).  

Season Five – 

Best Episode of the season: The Dance of Dragons (Episode Nine). Worst Episode:  Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.  

Seasons Six -

Best Episode of the season: The Winds of Winter (Episode Ten). Worst Episode:  No One (Episode eight). 

Season Seven – 

Best Episode of the season: The Dragon and the Wolf (Episode Seven). Worst Episode:  Beyond the Wall (Episode Six).  

Season Eight – 

Best Episode of the season: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Episode Two).  Worst Episode:  Winterfell (Episode One).  

I try my best not to be a total book snob, but when we’re talking about seasons 4-6 the book snob in me wins.  “Hey, YoungGriff89, why is season six included in that, they were out of book material?”  *Batman slap!*  There’s like two thousand pages of the published books D&D never even touched or attempted to adapt.  They went well beyond the published book material before they really needed to.  I refuse to grade Season six on the “no book material to adapt” curve.  Even if I did, I’d probably still rank it the lowest.  Season six has the highest concentration of pointless scenes (Margaery and the High Sparrow discussing absolutely nothing that furthers the plot, Osha coming back just to die on screen, Tyrion's joke, etc.), unnecessary fanservice, and completely thrown away character development (Arya I'm looking at you).  Season six is where the show transitions dramatically from “Game of Thrones” to “Game of Getting This The Fuck Over With So We Can Start On Star Wars.”  

Not to say there aren't parts of season six that I enjoy.  Hold the Door was a good scene, the sept blowing up was cool, the Tower of Joy fight is probably the best fight in the show's run, the Battle of the Bastards was a pretty okay battle (I would have liked some better camera work), Dany destroying the Sons of the Harpy was pretty good, etc.  In season six, if they were going to push material like the death of Balon Greyjoy and the Kingsmoot back so far, they could have at least waited to introduce the Dornish storyline in season six as well.  Especially if all it amounted to was Ellaria and the Sand Snakes betraying Doran to take over and ally with Daenerys, they could have probably made that story even more believable by making Varys a part of it.  It’s not like they didn’t have Jaime’s Riverlands material available for season five.  It’s not like they didn’t have two more Bran chapters from A Dance With Dragons to draw on for season five, Hell, Hold the Door probably would have been a better season five finale moment if they absolutely had to.

 

[FictionIsntReal]

On 6/11/2019 at 1:10 PM, Jabar of House Titan said:

Kind of?

Yes I can do that for you.

You want me to make another thread or do you want me to do it here?

I totally agree with the blue part. But probably not in the way you meant...

How about a new thread.

[Meera of Tarth]

S3

S1

S2

S4

S6

S8

S7

S5