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Games of Thrones Unsullied thread


elizium

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14 hours ago, Throat said:

Subverting expectations is a big part of what made this show so fun to watch throughout its run, but what's the harm in doing the expected every now and then? Especially for a character who had been on such a long redemption arc. His end was unexpected, but I wasn't shocked and amazed. It just bummed me out.

 

Subverting expectations only works when the subversion is a payoff for something else.  The Red Wedding worked because we were introduced to Walder Frey as an ill-tempered, prideful man.  More than a book/season goes by before we're introduced to this ill-tempered, prideful man in the most ill-tempered and prideful way possible.  I once had a professor explain writing as building a wall.  She said, "anyone who knows the language and can hold a pencil can build stack bricks, but good writing is mortar."  My issue with this season of Game of Thrones is that there is no mortar.  The books/show introduces a shitload of characters, some minor, some major, and some that will never be seen again.  When they introduce a character like Walder Frey, you don't know where it is going to lead, but he has a name, a personality, and some character traits that lay the groundwork in case he comes back around.  There are thousands of those characters sprinkled around the books.  Lyn Corbray is a homosexual Knight of the Vale, who was introduced in Game of Thrones during Tyrion's trial.  He volunteers to fight Bronn (Corbray has a Valerian Steel Sword named Lady Forlorn.  He killed Lewin Martell of the Kingsguard during Robert's Rebellion.  He probably kills Bronn in seconds), but is refused.  He isn't seen again until Feast for Crows, and may or may not have a bigger role going forward.  Who knows if he's actually an important character, but if you want to tell a story this complex that is the kind of mortar you are going to need so the walls don't fall down.  The television show cut so much of that stuff out, that the walls are just piles of bricks.  They keep stacking these bricks, but it's becoming more and more clear that there is nothing holding them together. 

So when Jaime runs back to Cersei directly after he finds out that she tried to have him killed parts of the wall start crumbling down.  When you go to the wall and ask, "Why is Jaime going back to her?" or "Did we need that Bronn subplot?" or "Why did Jaime do all that other stuff, if he's just going to run back to Cersei?" You start looking between the bricks and find that there's nothing there.  There is no character moment, conversation, a character from the past, or anything else that lays the groundwork for that decision.  So it just feels like the showrunners are screaming, "Gotcha," and it isn't satisfying.

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7 minutes ago, supremebve said:

So when Jaime runs back to Cersei directly after he finds out that she tried to have him killed parts of the wall start crumbling down.  When you go to the wall and ask, "Why is Jaime going back to her?" or "Did we need that Bronn subplot?" or "Why did Jaime do all that other stuff, if he's just going to run back to Cersei?" You start looking between the bricks and find that there's nothing there.  There is no character moment, conversation, a character from the past, or anything else that lays the groundwork for that decision.  So it just feels like the showrunners are screaming, "Gotcha," and it isn't satisfying.

Perhaps they should've had Cersei hire Bronn to kill only Tyrion. It would've warmed Jaime's heart to hear she didn't want him murdered as he probably expected she would. Gotta go back to her!

I've never been more upset with this show than the "gotcha" moment of Littlefinger's death. So much was left out that could've helped make sense of it just for the sake of shocking the audience. D&D pushed a wall of loose bricks down on us and yelled "Surprise!" The surprise lasts for a moment. The disappointment with how poorly it was executed lasts a lot longer.

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Boy, if you really don't want this final season ruined even more, don't watch the very first episode. Half of the episode is about the white walkers. That is the opening mystery. Hell, that's how the first episode starts. It is the first gong of the doomsday bell.

I sat there watching the episode thinking about how much the white walkers didn't even mean anything. For everyone in this thread who said the white walkers were just a representation of death or how they weren't really that important or whatever...Y'all got it wrong. I don't really care what was in the books and I understand that the books just makes them sound like a fairy tale, but in the TV show, they are the central, overarching threat. Go back and watch those first episodes. You'll see.

It makes me feel like the best way to handle the threat of the white walkers would be to make some of the stuff from episode 7 happen much earlier. Basically, when they get past the point where the books end, that's where the story with the white walkers and the Night King should have ended. Of course, you have to find a way to have the Night King take over Viserion, but maybe you just create another macguffin, like the dragon horn or whatever to take down the wall. Make it a season finale type thing where you play it up that the world will never be the same again.

And then from that point, you start really getting into the meat of Dany going mad, Cersei being the big bad, etc. It would at least make this season all about that stuff with the white walkers a distant memory, but at least their disappearance wouldn't be cheapened. You need to have more space between each apocalyptic event. When you go from one right to another it feels cheap and unearned.

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You could have fixed a lot by switching the conflict order at the end. Dany goes crazy and takes the throne, and the disparate parties have to balance their horror with the knowledge that they need her to defeat the pending apocalypse. The central conflict—that the game of thrones is a game, distracting from the real problem—comes into sharp focus. 

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47 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Boy, if you really don't want this final season ruined even more, don't watch the very first episode. Half of the episode is about the white walkers. That is the opening mystery. Hell, that's how the first episode starts. It is the first gong of the doomsday bell.

I sat there watching the episode thinking about how much the white walkers didn't even mean anything. For everyone in this thread who said the white walkers were just a representation of death or how they weren't really that important or whatever...Y'all got it wrong. I don't really care what was in the books and I understand that the books just makes them sound like a fairy tale, but in the TV show, they are the central, overarching threat. Go back and watch those first episodes. You'll see.

It makes me feel like the best way to handle the threat of the white walkers would be to make some of the stuff from episode 7 happen much earlier. Basically, when they get past the point where the books end, that's where the story with the white walkers and the Night King should have ended. Of course, you have to find a way to have the Night King take over Viserion, but maybe you just create another macguffin, like the dragon horn or whatever to take down the wall. Make it a season finale type thing where you play it up that the world will never be the same again.

 And then from that point, you start really getting into the meat of Dany going mad, Cersei being the big bad, etc. It would at least make this season all about that stuff with the white walkers a distant memory, but at least their disappearance wouldn't be cheapened. You need to have more space between each apocalyptic event. When you go from one right to another it feels cheap and unearned.

Yeah, the entire season feels anticlimactic because everything has to happen at once.  It's kind of like how you need a throwaway match between main events on a wrestling show.  What do you mean about the White Walkers not meaning anything?  Between the two major conflicts of the show, that is the one that was at least a competition.  Sure, Cersei was last, but they were defeated before the battle even started.  The White Walkers were literally a second away from ending all life in Westeros.  If it wasn't for a faceless man trained assassin, who somehow survived the worst of the fighting, and was inspired by a red priestess coming out of nowhere with a Valryian steel blade, they would have won.  If Arya was able to make it back to Winterfell after her dad was beheaded, they would have lost.  They were more than a legitimate threat.  If it wasn't for all the pain and suffering that the Stark children went through they would have won, and won easily.  

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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

I sat there watching the episode thinking about how much the white walkers didn't even mean anything. For everyone in this thread who said the white walkers were just a representation of death or how they weren't really that important or whatever...Y'all got it wrong. I don't really care what was in the books and I understand that the books just makes them sound like a fairy tale, but in the TV show, they are the central, overarching threat. Go back and watch those first episodes. You'll see.

It makes me feel like the best way to handle the threat of the white walkers would be to make some of the stuff from episode 7 happen much earlier. Basically, when they get past the point where the books end, that's where the story with the white walkers and the Night King should have ended. Of course, you have to find a way to have the Night King take over Viserion, but maybe you just create another macguffin, like the dragon horn or whatever to take down the wall. Make it a season finale type thing where you play it up that the world will never be the same again.

The Night's King was invented for the show. The White Walkers are in the books (called Others; White Walkers is their alternate name), and we know that Craster gives his sons to them, but we don't know what they do with them. Everyone thinks they're a fairytale because nobody south of the Wall has seen one for thousands of years. If you don't care about the books, don't get into the magic horn business. The Dragon Horn and the Horn of Winter are (almost certainly) two different things. And the Horn Sam found at the Fist of the First Men (when he found the Dragonglass knife) might or might not be important.

The whole 'They just represent Death' is a Dave & Dan deal. GRRM loves an allegory,

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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

Boy, if you really don't want this final season ruined even more, don't watch the very first episode. Half of the episode is about the white walkers. That is the opening mystery. Hell, that's how the first episode starts. It is the first gong of the doomsday bell.

Desperately resisting the pedantic urge to get a stop watch and argue, as I know it'll bring me no joy.

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1 hour ago, Beech27 said:

You could have fixed a lot by switching the conflict order at the end. Dany goes crazy and takes the throne, and the disparate parties have to balance their horror with the knowledge that they need her to defeat the pending apocalypse. The central conflict—that the game of thrones is a game, distracting from the real problem—comes into sharp focus. 

I mentioned something to my wife when we were discussing the show.

NON-WRESTLING FANTASY BOOKING!

My idea was that Dany should have taken over King's Landing maybe a season or two ago. While this is happening John has united the north. Varys is getting word from his network of spies(people who watch Littlefinger) that this guy is fucking awesome and everyone loves him. John comes down to King's Landing begging Dany and her dragons to help kill the Night King. Varys and Tyrion urge her to help because this guy could be a powerful ally, setting up the idea that John isn't just some dude he's the fucking King in the North. She comes along and they probably still fall in bone and stuff. They defeat the Night King and she realizes that this guy is fucking awesome and everyone loves him. That would have been the end of last season.

Then this whole season is John and Dany tragically being forced against each other through the machinations of the supporting cast. Maybe Cersei is still around having escaped with Euron and the Iron Fleet.

 

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This is a great article about what kind of show GoT was and what kind it became when it outran the books - a sociological story vs. a psychological story:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

 

The appeal of a show that routinely kills major characters signals a different kind of storytelling, where a single charismatic and/or powerful individual, along with his or her internal dynamics, doesn’t carry the whole narrative and explanatory burden. Given the dearth of such narratives in fiction and in TV, this approach clearly resonated with a large fan base that latched on to the show.

In sociological storytelling, the characters have personal stories and agency, of course, but those are also greatly shaped by institutions and events around them. The incentives for characters’ behavior come noticeably from these external forces, too, and even strongly influence their inner life.

 

 

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52 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

She's giving the preceding seasons far too much credit. She's also over-complicating the reason most people found this stuff appealing in the first place.

Having read the spoilers, I'm very excited to for tomorrow's bloviating 2500-word-apiece fart sniffing extravaganza. 

What the hell are these YouTubers making a living about whining, theorizing and analyzing Game of Thrones going to do when the show is off the air? Go back to Star Wars or find The Witcher?

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2 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

What the hell are these YouTubers making a living about whining, theorizing and analyzing Game of Thrones going to do when the show is off the air?

React to one another's videos, obviously.

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1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

What the hell are these YouTubers making a living about whining, theorizing and analyzing Game of Thrones going to do when the show is off the air? Go back to Star Wars or find The Witcher?

There's certainly some evergreen nerd rage out there. I'm sure anyone who needs to make a living off of it will find a way. 

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It's not just the nerd rage, it's all the "Talking Thrones" type of channels and channels making one hour documentaries about passages from the novel that could translate into the TV show, that have never panned out FYI. 

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16 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

What the hell are these YouTubers making a living about whining, theorizing and analyzing Game of Thrones going to do when the show is off the air? Go back to Star Wars or find The Witcher?

You'd be surprised how many of those YouTube channels were doing this before the show.  Honestly, George R.R. Martin wrote the books but there has been an online network of people breaking down and analyzing the books for a decent amount of time before the show ever existed.  Honestly, do you think Benioff and Weiss figured out R+L=J on their own?  There are chapter by chapter breakdowns of those books online that scour every minute detail of the text.  I'm someone who has read the books multiple times, and would have missed probably half of the stuff if I wasn't an extremely online reader.  For instance, Bran studied under Bloodraven, to become the new 3-eyed crow.  That character has been mentioned once before Bran met him.  He was mentioned by Maester Aemon, as Bloodraven was sent to the wall at the same time he was, and was accompanied there by Ser Duncan the Tall.  The rest of what we could know about that character is from the Dunk and Egg novellas.  I had context for who that character was and why he was significant, not because I had read those novellas at the time, but because I was listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos about the books.  

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I read the novellas. Bloodraven (real name Brynden Rivers; Blackfish Tully (real name Brynden Tully; Blackfish comes from his being the black sheep of the family) is named after him) is a may or may not be Three Eyed Crow in the books. But they only just made it to the cave at the end of Dance, so it's too soon. Some people insist Coldhands is Bloodraven.

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