GOT Musings

[The Bard of Banefort]

Love the show or hate it, GOT had a big impact on all of us. The HOTD Musings thread has become a good place to have conversations about House of the Dragon, so I thought I’d start a sister thread for GOT. What are your thoughts about the show?

I’ll start with something positive: even if Cersei went out with a whimper, watching HOTD has convinced me that she is an iconic character. Very few female characters have been able to reach her level of villainy while also remaining sympathetic. She’s the type of character HBO was able to create back in the late-90s/early-2000s and that TV is missing now.

[StarkTullies]

I'm not sure if these are musings or just a dump of random miscellaneous opinions.  Sorry if it's the latter.  I'll break it up into character thoughts versus plot thoughts:

Characters

Before reading the books, my 3 favorite characters were Ned, then Catelyn, then Robb.  After watching the show, my favorite characters remained Ned and Catelyn, but I liked Robb much less.  He seems so arrogant and entitled compared to his book counterpart.

The “best” character who appeared in all 8 seasons is Theon.  Not necessarily most likable, but best.  He had the strongest character arc and was one of the few characters they didn’t ruin at the end.

Similar to Robb, Sam was one of my favorite characters until reading his superior book version.  Now Show Sam annoys the crap out of me.

I can’t stand Bronn of the Blackwater, and I hate even more that we’re apparently supposed to like him and find his scenes funny.  Bronn becoming Lord of Highgarden and Master of Coin was the most annoying part of the terrible finale.

Second most annoying character: Daario Naharis.  If they were going to water down his psychopathy and eliminate his metaphorical role as Dany’s “devil on the shoulder”, they should have just removed him from the show altogether.  The idea that we’re supposed to think Dany left Meereen in good hands by putting him in charge is ludicrous.

Show Jon is a huge meh character.  I don’t like or dislike him, just completely ambivalent.  It took me a long time to figure out that Jon is my favorite character in the books because his show character is so bland.  I can say similar things about Brienne: love her in the books, meh on the show.

I sympathized with Dany at the very beginning of the show: how could I not?  But the moment she started beaming with uncontrollable joy when Drogo promised to murder, rape, and enslave all of Westeros, it was over.  For several seasons, the show made it clear that the only thing stopping Dany from burning cities down was her advisors talking her out of it.  She lost her advisors, she burned down a city.  How it happened was idiotic, but the show set it up for a long time.

People complained that Jaime’s redemption arc was ruined, and I wondered: what redemption arc?  He became more outwardly friendly after he cut his hair, but as late as Season 6 he was still telling Cersei that he would murder everyone until they were the only two people left in the world.  That’s not a redemption arc.  His character was never ruined, but rather his character was pointless because he had no arc.

Tywin is likable in his scenes with Arya, and Tyrion is likable most of the time.  I hate that either of them is likable; they aren’t supposed to be.

Character with my most drastic opinion change: Grey Worm.  Loved him right up until the second to last episode when he threw that spear, then I immediately despised him.  When all surviving characters got their “happy ending”, I was mad that Grey Worm was the villain who got away with it.

[StarkTullies]

Plot

My favorite scene of the series: Cersei’s arrest.  Such a satisfying moment.

Favorite random moment that I thought was artistically well done: the way the camera disappears behind the swords of the Iron Throne with the ominous music playing when Joffrey tells Sansa that Ned must confess or he’ll receive no mercy.

My favorite scene in the last 2 season which I overall strongly disliked: Jon telling Theon that he was a Greyjoy… and he was a Stark.  I also liked when Bran told Theon he was a good man, though that was dampened by the stupid way Theon died seconds later.

One of the very few scenes that I thought was done better in the show than the books: Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding (with the exception that Jaime and Brienne should not have been there).

My happiest scene of the show: first episode when Arya throws food at Sansa, Robb laughs, Catelyn gives Robb a stern motherly look, and then Robb immediately switches to responsible older brother mode.

In fact, the first episode might be my favorite episode of the entire series.  I liked the medieval look of Winterfell.  I liked the fat unglamorous king.  I liked the tone.  And I liked the one and only episode where my favorite family (the Starks) were still intact and relatively happy.

Favorite battle: Battle of the Blackwater.  It seemed like a real battle with the tone and terror (and the episode was written by George Martin).

Most overrated battle/episode: The Battle of the Bastards.  A whole season of filler of Tyrion teaching Grey Worm and Missandei how to drink and tell jokes, just for Dany to defeat the slavers in five minutes with her well-behaved and obedient dragons and her well-behaved and obedient Dothraki.  Even worse was Winterfell, when Jon should have died 25 times and yet survived.  The “surprise” appearance of the Knights of the Vale was cliché, and made no sense that Sansa kept that secret.

I hated the inconsistency of the wights.  Slow moving but super strong zombies that are hard to kill in Season 1.  Fast moving super-skeletons that sweep over you like a wave of death at Hardhome.  Then easily killable monsters at the end.

I thought Season 7 was as bad if not worse than Season 8.  Season 8 was terrible, but at least things happened.  Season 7 was just a series of ultra-contrived events to hand the Night King a dragon, and otherwise filler.  My long list of complaints about Season 8 are generally nothing unique.

Season 1 was by far my favorite season, with my main gripe being the excess of gratuitous nudity and sex.  The only thing I considered an improvement as the show went on was the decrease in porn.

[SeanF]

Tyrion was lobotomised in the last three seasons.

Other beefs:-

1.  Trying to make the Ghiscari slavers sympathetic.  They aren’t.

2.  Presenting war ineptly, at least from the B o B onwards (apart from the Field of Fire).

3.  Robbing Daenerys of most of her compassion and empathy.

4.  Turning Arya into a sadist, who gets off on torture.  Also, giving her superpowers.

5.  Turning Sansa into the lovechild of Cersei and LF.

6.  Turning the Others into Monster of the Week.

7.  Teleporting armies that don’t need to be fed.

8.  Turning Sam into Harold Lauder, with Gilly as his prize (remember that horrid thimble scene).

7.  LF’s death.

8.  Bran’s becoming king, as a reward for staring into space and making cryptic comments.

9.  Sansa marrying Ramsay and rape making her stronger.

10. Porne.

11.  The wight hunt.

12.  Cocks and eunuchs rapidly ceased to be a source of much humour.

13.  Dany in Qarth.  This was the first time the two D’s produced substantial original material, and it showed how bad it would be.

14.  Tyrion’s “First they came for the slave traders, and I did not speak up …” speech to Jon, to my mind, the absolute low point of all eight seasons.  Quite how anybody could so misuse Niemoller’s prose poem defies belief.

15.  The decharacterisation of Jon, over two seasons.

The good parts.

1.  Season 1, apart from “play with her arse.

2.  Cersei blowing up the Great Sept.

3.  The High Sparrow.

4.  Hardhome.

5.  The Field of Fire.

6.  Cersei’s confrontation with Ellaria.

7.  Dany at Astapor.

8.  Tyrion’s trial (but not the stupid Cousin Orson scene).

9.  The Battle of Blackwater.

10.  The music

 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by SeanF

[The Bard of Banefort]

My hot take is that Dorne was already Porne in the books and the show blew the lid off of it, much like it did with Littlefinger. I’d say it’s a testament to GRRM’s talent that he was able to make such ridiculous (imo) plots/characters seem reasonable in the text.

[StarkTullies]

On 3/13/2023 at 4:34 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

even if Cersei went out with a whimper, watching HOTD has convinced me that she is an iconic character. Very few female characters have been able to reach her level of villainy while also remaining sympathetic.

I agree (Seasons 1-6), but I also have mixed feelings because I'm a bit of a book purist, and Cersei was one of the most-changed characters from the very beginning.  I loved her unhinged incompetent lunacy in AFFC, so I missed seeing that on the show.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Tyrion was lobotomised in the last three seasons.

Yep, and so was every "smart" character.  And then Sansa became "the smartest person Arya ever met" because Sansa suddenly knew better than blacksmiths that it gets cold during the winter.  When the show ran out of book material, they didn't know how to write smart characters.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Trying to make the Ghiscari slavers sympathetic.  They aren’t.

Did they though?  The slavers in Astapor and Yunkai were one-dimensional monsters.  I'm glad the show presented that some of the Meereen slavers spoke out against the child crucifixion, and that some (definitely not all) of the freed slaves thought their lives were better before.  Slavers are bad, but still different variations of bad.  I did not feel like the show defending slavery or sympathizing with slavers at all, and Dany's actions (at the time) were portrayed as heroic.  Tyrion's speech after the fact in Season 8 was a story-revision.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Turning Arya into a sadist, who gets off on torture.

I'm a Stark fan, but only because of the books and the early seasons of the show.  I didn't like any of the living Starks by the end of the show, and Arya was the worst of them all.  Some people complained that the show's end was fan-service to Stark fans, but this Stark fan hated everything about the ending and how the Starks (and everyone else) were portrayed.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

 Bran’s becoming king, as a reward for staring into space and making cryptic comments.

Yep, and his entire small council too.  Sam was rewarded for abandoning the Night's Watch and the Citadel by becoming Grandmaester.  Tyrion was rewarded for his utter incompetence as Dany's Hand to become Bran's Hand.  And Bronn was rewarded for "knowing nothing about money" by becoming Master of Coin.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sansa marrying Ramsay and rape making her stronger.

"If it weren't for Ramsay and Littlefinger and all the others, I'd still be a little bird," was one of the lowest points of many low points of the final season.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Season 1, apart from “play with her arse.

That episode (You Win or You Die) might have been my favorite episode of the entire show if not for that horrible scene.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Cersei blowing up the Great Sept.

I was caught in the hype of that entire episode thinking it was one of the show's very best on first watch, but retrospectively, I think Cersei blowing up the sept is when the show blew up whatever little remained of its plausibility.  When Helaena committed suicide, the people of Kings Landing rioted and overthrew Rhaenyra.  But when Cersei blows up the sept, killing the very popular "pope" and thousands of others including the beloved queen, no one seems to care and she is named the queen without any conflict or question of succession?

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Hardhome.

The Night King raising thousands of dead at the end was well done and appropriately creepy, but my enjoyment of that battle was diminished from the constantly changing nature of the wights.  And also the hilarious stupidity of the following episode with Jon anchoring his ships north of the Wall, traveling hundreds of miles past Eastwatch through wight-territory to beg to be let through Castle Black... rather than sailing south of the Wall.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Dany at Astapor.

I agree.  That was the brief period of the show when I loved Dany.

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Tyrion’s trial (but not the stupid Cousin Orson scene)

Other than Joffrey and Margaery's wedding, this is about the only other scene that I liked more in the show than the books, probably because of Peter Dinklage's acting talent.  When I still had faith in the show writers, I assumed the beetle-crushing speech was some brilliant metaphor that went over my head, but I still don't know what they were trying to do there.

[SeanF]

48 minutes ago, StarkTullies said:

I agree (Seasons 1-6), but I also have mixed feelings because I'm a bit of a book purist, and Cersei was one of the most-changed characters from the very beginning.  I loved her unhinged incompetent lunacy in AFFC, so I missed seeing that on the show.

Yep, and so was every "smart" character.  And then Sansa became "the smartest person Arya ever met" because Sansa suddenly knew better than blacksmiths that it gets cold during the winter.  When the show ran out of book material, they didn't know how to write smart characters.

Did they though?  The slavers in Astapor and Yunkai were one-dimensional monsters.  I'm glad the show presented that some of the Meereen slavers spoke out against the child crucifixion, and that some (definitely not all) of the freed slaves thought their lives were better before.  Slavers are bad, but still different variations of bad.  I did not feel like the show defending slavery or sympathizing with slavers at all, and Dany's actions (at the time) were portrayed as heroic.  Tyrion's speech after the fact in Season 8 was a story-revision.

I'm a Stark fan, but only because of the books and the early seasons of the show.  I didn't like any of the living Starks by the end of the show, and Arya was the worst of them all.  Some people complained that the show's end was fan-service to Stark fans, but this Stark fan hated everything about the ending and how the Starks (and everyone else) were portrayed.

Yep, and his entire small council too.  Sam was rewarded for abandoning the Night's Watch and the Citadel by becoming Grandmaester.  Tyrion was rewarded for his utter incompetence as Dany's Hand to become Bran's Hand.  And Bronn was rewarded for "knowing nothing about money" by becoming Master of Coin.

"If it weren't for Ramsay and Littlefinger and all the others, I'd still be a little bird," was one of the lowest points of many low points of the final season.

That episode (You Win or You Die) might have been my favorite episode of the entire show if not for that horrible scene.

I was caught in the hype of that entire episode thinking it was one of the show's very best on first watch, but retrospectively, I think Cersei blowing up the sept is when the show blew up whatever little remained of its plausibility.  When Helaena committed suicide, the people of Kings Landing rioted and overthrew Rhaenyra.  But when Cersei blows up the sept, killing the very popular "pope" and thousands of others including the beloved queen, no one seems to care and she is named the queen without any conflict or question of succession?

The Night King raising thousands of dead at the end was well done and appropriately creepy, but my enjoyment of that battle was diminished from the constantly changing nature of the wights.  And also the hilarious stupidity of the following episode with Jon anchoring his ships north of the Wall, traveling hundreds of miles past Eastwatch through wight-territory to beg to be let through Castle Black... rather than sailing south of the Wall.

I agree.  That was the brief period of the show when I loved Dany.

Other than Joffrey and Margaery's wedding, this is about the only other scene that I liked more in the show than the books, probably because of Peter Dinklage's acting talent.  When I still had faith in the show writers, I assumed the beetle-crushing speech was some brilliant metaphor that went over my head, but I still don't know what they were trying to do there.

It was a swipe at Orson Scott Card, who had criticised them.

WRT Arya, I think the show runners viewed her sadism as badass and empowering.  Indeed, there was no consistent line taken towards cruelty.  Sometimes it was glorified, other times portrayed as sinister.

Edited March 15, 2023 by SeanF

[SeanF]

Another beef from the last two seasons, was dressing up the characters like the Cenobites, from Hellraiser.

Cenobites From Hellraiser - Bing images

[SeanF]

On 3/13/2023 at 8:34 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Love the show or hate it, GOT had a big impact on all of us. The HOTD Musings thread has become a good place to have conversations about House of the Dragon, so I thought I’d start a sister thread for GOT. What are your thoughts about the show?

I’ll start with something positive: even if Cersei went out with a whimper, watching HOTD has convinced me that she is an iconic character. Very few female characters have been able to reach her level of villainy while also remaining sympathetic. She’s the type of character HBO was able to create back in the late-90s/early-2000s and that TV is missing now.

Lena Headey acted Cersei very well, to make Cersei what she was.  But …

the problem with making the Lannisters sympathetic is that it upends the story.  The Lannisters are certainly very interesting, in the books, but they are awful people.

[SeanF]

On reflection, I did like the portrayal of Olenna and Margaery.  The books lack a Tyrell POV.

 

[StarkTullies]

22 hours ago, SeanF said:

It was a swipe at Orson Scott Card, who had criticised them.

Oh... I just looked it up, and that is extremely petty and vindictive.  Similar to George W Bush's severed head in Season 1 (which I think was edited out before I ever saw the show).  No matter what you think of Bush's politics (or Bush), that was a despicable thing to do.

I read Card's criticism of them (as of Season 1), and while he said the show was terrible and unwatchable, he really only went into porn as the reason why (while saying the books were great).  And since that's my biggest criticism of Season 1, I mostly agree... though it didn't ruin the first season for me.

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

Lena Headey acted Cersei very well, to make Cersei what she was.  But …

the problem with making the Lannisters sympathetic is that it upends the story.  The Lannisters are certainly very interesting, in the books, but they are awful people.

That's why I have mixed feelings about Lena's Cersei.  I heard that the showrunners discouraged the actors from reading the books because they wanted the actors to portray their version of the character rather than George Martin's... which is a very arrogant mindset on the showrunners' part, in my opinion.  That said, discouraged is not forbidden, and if I was an actor in the show I would have wanted to read the source material for my character... particularly if I was a POV character.  It's weird to me that the majority of the actors didn't read the books.

Making Tyrion (George Martin's "the villain") and Tywin (who I consider the top villain of the first 3 books) semi-likable on the show is one of my top early-season complaints.  How can the story be adapted if the villains are no longer villains?  (Though I guess Tywin remained a villain.  He still burned the Riverlands, but we didn't see it.  He still "allowed" the Red Wedding, but his role was very understated.  They went out of his way to water down his villainy, at least.)

While I don't think Dany will be a hero in the books, I think Tyrion becoming her likely "advisor" will be a major cause of her non-heroism.  Removing Tyrion's evil influence but keeping Dany's non-heroic ending is one reason why her show ending was so terrible and ridiculous.

Edited March 16, 2023 by StarkTullies

[SeanF]

5 hours ago, StarkTullies said:

Oh... I just looked it up, and that is extremely petty and vindictive.  Similar to George W Bush's severed head in Season 1 (which I think was edited out before I ever saw the show).  No matter what you think of Bush's politics (or Bush), that was a despicable thing to do.

I read Card's criticism of them (as of Season 1), and while he said the show was terrible and unwatchable, he really only went into porn as the reason why (while saying the books were great).  And since that's my biggest criticism of Season 1, I mostly agree... though it didn't ruin the first season for me.

That's why I have mixed feelings about Lena's Cersei.  I heard that the showrunners discouraged the actors from reading the books because they wanted the actors to portray their version of the character rather than George Martin's... which is a very arrogant mindset on the showrunners' part, in my opinion.  That said, discouraged is not forbidden, and if I was an actor in the show I would have wanted to read the source material for my character... particularly if I was a POV character.  It's weird to me that the majority of the actors didn't read the books.

Making Tyrion (George Martin's "the villain") and Tywin (who I consider the top villain of the first 3 books) semi-likable on the show is one of my top early-season complaints.  How can the story be adapted if the villains are no longer villains?

While I don't think Dany will be a hero in the books, I think Tyrion becoming her likely "advisor" will be a major cause of her non-heroism.  Removing Tyrion's evil influence but keeping Dany's non-heroic ending is one reason why her show ending was so terrible and ridiculous.  (And I don't think Dany will burn down Kings Landing in the books: that will be Cersei, or JonCon, or nobody at all.)

Because Tyrion is so engaging from the outset, it takes a long while to realise just how appalling a person he is.

The whole notion of making the Vale peasants suffer in revenge for Lysa Arryn’s treatment, and laughing at Masha Heddle’s corpse, is awful.  He hears his father ordering mass murder and mass rape as terror tactics, yet he’s eager to serve him as Hand.

He resents the people of King’s Landing’s lack of gratitude, yet he and his family are the ones who endangered them.

Yet, I ended up hating show Tyrion more.  He was still his family’s enabler, and only broke with them when they turned on him.  As Daenerys’ Hand he was grossly incompetent, and got thousands killed with his stupid advice.  He was desperately trying to save his sister, but it never occurred to him to reveal the passages into the city, through which soldiers could infiltrate.  His “humane” alternative to storming the city was to starve the population into submission.  After talking Jon into killing Daenerys, to save his own hide, he then kicked him to the kerb, while failing upwards.

By the finish, I saw him as the Albert Speer of the tale.  A wicked man who persuaded himself and others that he was righteous.

Edited March 16, 2023 by SeanF

[SeanF]

14 hours ago, StarkTullies said:

 

While I don't think Dany will be a hero in the books, I think Tyrion becoming her likely "advisor" will be a major cause of her non-heroism.  Removing Tyrion's evil influence but keeping Dany's non-heroic ending is one reason why her show ending was so terrible and ridiculous.

I think Dany is unquestionably a hero.  But she may be a tragic hero like Turin Turambar or Julian the Apostate.   The hero who comes within a hair's breadth of greatness, but is brought down by some fatal flaw.

Edited March 16, 2023 by SeanF

[StarkTullies]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

The whole notion of making the Vale peasants suffer in revenge for Lysa Arryn’s treatment, and laughing at Masha Heddle’s corpse, is awful. 

His dream of a smoking Vale is when I first questioned that maybe Tyrion wasn't a good guy after all, but his victorious reaction to Masha's corpse is when I started hating him.

Having seen most of the seasons before reading the books, I was on the fence about Tyrion the first couple episodes until his motivational speech to Jon at Castle Black, and then I liked him.  When I read the books, I was surprised that it was Donal Noye rather than Tyrion who turned Jon's life around.  At first I assumed it was because the show couldn't include every character and transferred Noye's lines to Tyrion, but later I realized it would have been completely out of character for Tyrion to have said any of that.

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

He hears his father ordering mass murder and mass rape as terror tactics, yet he’s eager to serve him as Hand.

I kind of give him a pass on this, a little.  I don't think he was eager to serve Tywin specifically, but he just wanted the power.  ACOK was when Tyrion was at his best, mostly trying to limit the damage his family did.  And there was the "Daddy, please love me!" psychology involved as well.

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

Yet, I ended up hating show Tyrion more.  He was still his family’s enabler, and only broke with them when they turned on him.  As Daenerys’ Hand he was grossly incompetent, and got thousands killed with his stupid advice.  He was desperately trying to save his sister, but it never occurred to him to reveal the passages into the city, through which soldiers could infiltrate.  His “humane” alternative to storming the city was to starve the population into submission.  After talking Jon into killing Daenerys, to save his own hide, he then kicked him to the kerb, while failing upwards.

I agree with all these criticisms, but my dislike of most late-season characters was more about numbness to the show's bad writing.  Yes, Tyrion was idiotic as Dany's Hand.  The wight hunt was the stupidest idea in the history of ever, but everyone he proposed that numbskull plan to endorsed it.  Believing that Cersei (who had just recently blown up the sept) would honor her promise to help Dany/Jon defeat the White Walkers was idiotic beyond words, but no more idiotic than every other character who believed her.  I would have assumed that Tyrion was secretly serving his family and failing Dany on purpose, but nope... just really bad writing.  I would have assumed that Sansa was a scheming psychopath by withholding vital information from Jon that the Knights of the Vale were on the way, but nope... just really bad writing.

Honestly, there were few characters I truly hated by the end of show other than Bronn and the Sand Snakes (but I hated him all along). maybe Arya too.  Everyone else I didn't care about enough to hate.  The only characters I particularly liked at the end were Theon and Gilly, and to a much lesser extent Davos.

57 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think Dany is unquestionably a hero.  But she may be a tragic hero like Turin Turambar or Julian the Apostate.   The hero who comes within a hair's breadth of greatness, but is brought down by some fatal flaw.

My feelings are mixed.  She has a lot of undesirable traits, but she's sympathetic and her backstory adds tragedy to any villainous path she might take.  I don't think the show is a blueprint for her future path at all.  Dany isn't going to burn down Kings Landing.  Maybe it will be JonCon, and the "hearing bells makes someone go crazy!" story was transferred to her, or maybe the show was such jumbled garbage that it has no relation to anything George told them.

My assessment of Dany is based on what I think she will do more than what she has done, but since obviously I don't know what she will do, we'll just have to wait and see.

[SeanF]

19 minutes ago, StarkTullies said:

His dream of a smoking Vale is when I first questioned that maybe Tyrion wasn't a good guy after all, but his victorious reaction to Masha's corpse is when I started hating him.

Having seen most of the seasons before reading the books, I was on the fence about Tyrion the first couple episodes until his motivational speech to Jon at Castle Black, and then I liked him.  When I read the books, I was surprised that it was Donal Noye rather than Tyrion who turned Jon's life around.  At first I assumed it was because the show couldn't include every character and transferred Noye's lines to Tyrion, but later I realized it would have been completely out of character for Tyrion to have said any of that.

I kind of give him a pass on this, a little.  I don't think he was eager to serve Tywin specifically, but he just wanted the power.  ACOK was when Tyrion was at his best, mostly trying to limit the damage his family did.  And there was the "Daddy, please love me!" psychology involved as well.

I agree with all these criticisms, but my dislike of most late-season characters was more about numbness to the show's bad writing.  Yes, Tyrion was idiotic as Dany's Hand.  The wight hunt was the stupidest idea in the history of ever, but everyone he proposed that numbskull plan to endorsed it.  Believing that Cersei (who had just recently blown up the sept) would honor her promise to help Dany/Jon defeat the White Walkers was idiotic beyond words, but no more idiotic than every other character who believed her.  I would have assumed that Tyrion was secretly serving his family and failing Dany on purpose, but nope... just really bad writing.  I would have assumed that Sansa was a scheming psychopath by withholding vital information from Jon that the Knights of the Vale were on the way, but nope... just really bad writing.

Honestly, there were few characters I truly hated by the end of show other than Bronn and the Sand Snakes (but I hated him all along). maybe Arya too.  Everyone else I didn't care about enough to hate.  The only characters I particularly liked at the end were Theon and Gilly, and to a much lesser extent Davos.

My feelings are mixed.  She has a lot of undesirable traits, but she's sympathetic and her backstory adds tragedy to any villainous path she might take.  I don't think the show is a blueprint for her future path at all.  Dany isn't going to burn down Kings Landing.  Maybe it will be JonCon, and the "hearing bells makes someone go crazy!" story was transferred to her, or maybe the show was such jumbled garbage that it has no relation to anything George told them.

My assessment of Dany is based on what I think she will do more than what she has done, but since obviously I don't know what she will do, we'll just have to wait and see.

My impression was Benioff and Weiss’ take on the books is that it is good to be a scheming psychopath.  Ned and Catelyn and Robb (and ultimately Jon and Dany) were just stupid saps, whereas the Starks and Tyrion and Bronn had learned how to play The Game successfully.

[Nevets]

Random musings:

The Lannisters got whitewashed while the Starks got smeared and slandered.

Arya is even bloodthirstier and more violent on the show than in the books, which takes some doing.

Sansa is unrecognizable in the later seasons.  In the books, she's one of the nicest people around.  On the show, she's a venal, power hungry bitch.

Rape makes you stronger???   What kind of message is that?  It could have made Sansa meaner, nastier, and duplicitous, but I think that happened independently.  In any event that's hardly a compliment, even if the writers think it is.

Tywin being nice grandpa was horrible.  It ruined Arya's Harrenhal story.  Her experiences there are a big reason she's the fucked up mess she is when she arrives in Braavos.

The writers kept missing good opportunities.  For example, when the sex workers turned down Podrick's payment, I was waiting for the punch line: that Tyrion had paid them up front, to give Podrick confidence.  Cue to conversation about Tysha.  Could have been great, instead of a cheap laugh.

Speaking of Tysha, where's the revelation of her true nature?  Instead of Jaime telling Tyrion the truth, we get a long conversation about ... beetles??  Yet another lost opportunity.

That's all for now.  Unfortunately, I gave up around the middle of season 5, so I can't say too much about the later seasons, only what I remember reading about them.  Which was bad enough.

ETA: The main reason I stopped watching in season 5 was because the characters' actions ceased making sense.  Sansa/Ramsay was the worst.  None of the characters had any reason to do what they did, and every reason not to.  And that's even within the context of the show.  So I basically lost interest.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Nevets

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

Random musings:

The Lannisters got whitewashed while the Starks got smeared and slandered.

Arya is even bloodthirstier and more violent on the show than in the books, which takes some doing.

Sansa is unrecognizable in the later seasons.  In the books, she's one of the nicest people around.  On the show, she's a venal, power hungry bitch.

Rape makes you stronger???   What kind of message is that?  It could have made Sansa meaner, nastier, and duplicitous, but I think that happened independently.  In any event that's hardly a compliment, even if the writers think it is.

Tywin being nice grandpa was horrible.  It ruined Arya's Harrenhal story.  Her experiences there are a big reason she's the fucked up mess she is when she arrives in Braavos.

The writers kept missing good opportunities.  For example, when the sex workers turned down Podrick's payment, I was waiting for the punch line: that Tyrion had paid them up front, to give Podrick confidence.  Cue to conversation about Tysha.  Could have been great, instead of a cheap laugh.

Speaking of Tysha, where's the revelation of her true nature?  Instead of Jaime telling Tyrion the truth, we get a long conversation about ... beetles??  Yet another lost opportunity.

That's all for now.  Unfortunately, I gave up around the middle of season 5, so I can't say too much about the later seasons, only what I remember reading about them.  Which was bad enough.

ETA: The main reason I stopped watching in season 5 was because the characters' actions ceased making sense.  Sansa/Ramsay was the worst.  None of the characters had any reason to do what they did, and every reason not to.  And that's even within the context of the show.  So I basically lost interest.

With the exceptions of Cersei and Tywin, every major character was made either more stupid, or more nasty, than their book counterparts, sometimes both.

We dodged a bullet, when HBO chose not to make “Confederate.”

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by SeanF

[Angel Eyes]

On 3/16/2023 at 7:05 PM, SeanF said:

My impression was Benioff and Weiss’ take on the books is that it is good to be a scheming psychopath.  Ned and Catelyn and Robb (and ultimately Jon and Dany) were just stupid saps, whereas the Starks and Tyrion and Bronn had learned how to play The Game successfully.

Well, the books haven't shown the downsides of being a scheming psychopath (read: Littlefinger).

[Nevets]

8 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Well, the books haven't shown the downsides of being a scheming psychopath (read: Littlefinger).

Littlefinger seems to be doing well, but I don't expect that to last.  Tywin is dead, and whatever legacy he may have had is in shambles.  Cersei is losing power by the chapter.  Roose and Ramsay are stuck in a castle surrounded by enemies.  

Meanwhile, the Starks have much goodwill and everyone chomping at the bit for their return.  The Tyrells seem to be doing well also.

So yeah the scheming psychopaths are headed for a fall, while the basically honorable, decent folk are making a comeback.

[$erPounce]

I am going to express what will probably become a very unpopular opinion here.

I know there is great disdain here for A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Apparently people consider anything that doesn't push the plot forward as "filler." Those books are certainly not without flaws, but I have a hard time taking seriously the people who argue that entire chapters should be cut. Those chapters are in service of character development and atmosphere and are certainly not useless

I'm going to make no secret of it: I love FeastDance. George was always interested in exploring the human condition in ASOIAF, and that aspect became increasingly prominent. With FeastDance, George decided to emphasize the human aspect rather than plot. Personally, I think that's the right decision, because characters are pretty much what George is best at. But I am aware that people generally have different expectations than me for books within the fantasy genre.

I remember back in 2015, many book fans thought the decision not to accurately adapt FeastDance would save the show from demise. Although book readers were generally dissatisfied with some decisions such as the deaths of Stannis and Barristan (which happened in very illogical circumstances) - it seemed that the vast majority of book readers nevertheless overwhelmingly defended David and Dan's decision to "adapt" those two books in just ten episodes.

I know it's not realistic that everything from FeastDance would be adapted into the show. Anyway, subplots were going to be lost, characters scrapped or combined and so on. But D&D didn't even try. The essence of these books was completely lost and character arcs for the characters became practically non-existent. The storylines no longer made sense because logic was thrown overboard. D&D was no longer trying to be consistent and coherent. Season 5 and season 6 still have a few moments in common with the books and here and there is still a lost line of dialogue from the books, but the original context is completely lost.

D&D totally failed to consider the impact and consequences of their adaptional decisions. They had no idea what to do with the characters after they decided to eliminate their storylines from the books. Despite their attempts to streamline FeastDance, this did not result in better pacing than these books. In fact, D&D tend to add extra padding to most storylines (in an attempt to stretch them for 10 episodes and save the cliffhangers for the last episode). Result is a slower pacing for the show, but unlike FeastDance, that is not used for character development and other important things. 

That of the large amount of padding is most noticeable in season 6, in which very little happens before the last two episodes. Examples: Arya's storyline for the season has three episodes in which she is beaten with a stick as a blind person and later, for a few episodes, she is mostly a passive spectator for a play. Tyrion spends the first half of the season making jokes more than governing Meereen. Characters are unchanging and extremely passive, the situations from the books became far too oversimplified so there was no longer any depth. Despite all that time for those various storylines, the writers/showrunners didn't do anything useful with them.

I consider the praise fans gave D&D for "trimming the fat off FeastDance" to be completely undeserved. After all, what they did was remove all the depth from FeastDance and replace it with empty air.