I guess when you do the math we are getting 10 one hour long episodes. But still it seems so rushed. These character arcs were formed over years and then knee capped for the sake of wrapping things up.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
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I guess when you do the math we are getting 10 one hour long episodes. But still it seems so rushed. These character arcs were formed over years and then knee capped for the sake of wrapping things up.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
The North holds all the power now with the destruction of King's Landing. Sansa will be the Queen ruling from the North. Dany kills Tyrion for releasing Jaime although he and Cersei are dead. Dany gets killed when she moves against Sansa. Jon goes Beyond the Wall to live alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Political Hack
I believe it is about the same around 1 hr 20 minutes.Quote:
Originally Posted by msstate7
I think you are right about Tyrion. She already told him another mistake would be his last. It makes me think that either they find Jamie with Cersei and she then asks how he got away.
I think Dany is just broken now. You also have to think that the Unsullied and the Kalsar are cutthroats anyway. They have no problem with burning women and children even if they surrendered.
OK, there's a guy on YouTube that has a theory that GRRM is letting the two Davids flame out the series while he comes in with a completely different take on the ending in his next two books.
And he goes conspiracy theory: GRRM has finished both books ALREADY! He's waiting to throw some shade and push his books as THE true ending. Pushing sales through the roof.
It was actually the actor who played Ser Barristan Selmy who was killed off the show a couple of seasons ago. He said it at a Con. He said that D&D had a deal with GRRM to not release the books until the show was over so it didn't affect their ending. He said that book 6&7 are done and that is the end of the Song of Ice and Fire.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
No, it was a Youtuber who probably saw that vid and tried to sound relevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
On a side note, I'm interested about the Wheel of Time series coming to Amazon Prime next year. That's a very GoT setting with tons of character development.
GRRM came out today and emphatically denied that he was finished with Book 6. He said he wasn't holding the book due to the show and that was crazy since his publisher wants the book as soon as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
As far as the Wheel of Time series, it is probably my favorite series along with the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Both are being adapted into long series by Amazon.
The Dark Tower is actually going in chronological order so Roland Deschain (The Gunslinger) is actually a kid in the first season. I didn't think it could be adapted straight into a movie since so much happens which the movie just jammed in along with leaving things out.
Starting with him as a kid will be a lot easier for non book readers to follow.
Bran warging into a dragon sets up my best-case scenario. I seem to be among the minority of people who was really jazzed about Bran's magical vision quest only to be kicked to the curb. All knowing dude who can take control of any living creature? Awesome! What does he do in the show after gaining these unparalleled abilities? A lot of blank staring. Huzzah! (I also think that Bran's entire training period with the three-eyed raven and the surviving children of the forest was botched all to hell. But that's beside the point.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Political Hack
Anywho, if Bran takes over a dragon, he neuters Dany and allows for a quick resolution to what would otherwise be a massive problem -- the (magically still-alive post-Winterfell) Unsullied and Dothraki. He wargs into the dragon at some appropriately dramatic turning point in the show when Dany's about to obliterate everyone, he demolishes her remaining army, and then somehow kills the dragon at the end. Dany can die either during or after all this, either via Jon, Arya, Tyrion, or Bran-the-dragon-man. After it's all done, Jon can sulk up north with his wolf, Sansa, Tyrion, and/or some combination of leaders who are still alive can rule the 7 Kingdoms, and Arya can kick it with the Baratheon kid.
And of course none of that is going to happen. Rah.
This would probably be better than what will happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain.
It will end with Dany on the throne and all of us realizing we were pulling for the real bad guy the entire time. Welcome to Game of Thrones.
I am just hoping GRRM actually finishes the series and whatever D&D screw up, he corrects in the books.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawgology
I'm bracing myself to be thoroughly disappointed Sunday night.
There's bittersweet and then there's bullshit.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
Every theory I had has gone out the window with this out of nowhere Mad Queen heel turn. I think most of what I had in mind will be a book ending, assuming the fat old bastard ever finishes.
Watched a behind the scenes of episode 3. It seems when they had the script reading and they get to the part where Arya kills the NK there was collective "You gotta be shitting me." around the room. Kit H. was like "I really thought it was going to be an epic fight between Jon Snow and the NK." Amelia Clarke said "We all thought Jon would kill the NK."
Even the actors reading the effing script knew it was shit from day one. Conleth Hill (Varys) is publicly saying his character got shit on. Peter Dinklege has been throwing shade for a month. Amelia Clarke has been immortalized with her red carpet sarcasm "Greatest season ever!".
Yep, they are limping to the finish line. Varys was told he would die by the Red priestess and you would think there would be some type of meaning the way it was foreshadowed. He might as well have died from dysentery.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
The white walker battle was cool but it would have been better if Jon had actually gotten to fight the NK and then the NK raises the dead because Jon might take him out. It has just been a lot of missed chances that people on the internet have written better plot points. You could probably take the threads on this message board and wrote a better season 8.
There was hints of Dany going Mad Queen but she has never just disregarded women and children. Any time she has been cruel, it is because the weaker have been treated wrongly and didn't have anyone to take care of them. It would have made more sense if she went and burned the Red Keep and it accidentally ignited the wildfire. Her flying around burning women and children just didn't make any sense except they needed a reason that Jon or Arya would kill her.
There are plenty of plot points over the past two or three seasons that have gone nowhere, been sloppily resolved, don't make sense, and are, well, dumb. But I actually have no problem with Arya killing the Night King. I've dug her character arc better than many others and for whatever reason her eventual role in the battle jived with my understanding of her journey in the show. Don't know how that event comports with the sprawling stage that the first five books were setting. But I'm cool with it in the context of the show. And compared to many of the other endings we're getting for plot lines and characters recently, it was a cinematic masterwork.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
A semi-related digression:
When my wife and I were talking about the last episode and the way they fumbled Dany's turn to the dark side, I wondered aloud about the rarity of well-resolved, quality television shows. Game of Thrones has a very unique problem that most other shows, let alone shows of its caliber, don't have -- it's based upon an unfinished set of books whose intricate plot and voluminous cast of characters have, at least according to what little I've read about the topic, become unwieldy even for the author. But even without any of those issues to deal with, I think it's more the exception than the norm for a show of this quality to end in a way that is universally satisfactory.
I may be speaking for myself here, but I can't think of many shows of this caliber that were good throughout their entire run and that had awesome resolutions. Mad Men was stellar throughout most of its run and the last few episodes were probably appropriate enough, but I wasn't blown away like I was often earlier in the series. (And I didn't get much out of some of the side characters' stories, like, say, Betty's, in the final season or so.) The Wire ended well enough, I guess, but I felt that the last season was the weakest. Seinfeld ended with a wimper (and had been declining some anyway). The Simpsons was once pure genius week after week, but that ended long, long ago. The Sopranos lost me toward the end, too, and that doesn't even account for people's mixed feelings about the last episode. I dug MASH and the West Wing, but both faltered in their own ways down the stretch. The Walking Dead, Arrested Development, Twin Peaks, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, the list goes on. In fact, the only one I could think of while my wife and I were talking that was both great throughout and that had a personally satisfying ending was Breaking Bad. I thought that finale was just about perfect, all things considered, and that the show maintained its quality throughout the whole series. But even then, my wife disliked that show entirely, so the example didn't work for her.
I guess what I'm getting at is, it's really rare for a TV show to be really, really good throughout it's run. And it's even rarer when one of those shows ends in a way that's satisfying to all or most of its fans. It's just hard to do. (To digress even further, ditto for music. How many musicians have produced universally acclaimed albums consistently throughout an extended career up to and including their end? Not many that I can think of.)
All that said, the rarity of it doesn't make it any less annoying when it happens to a show that you like. It's a damn shame that they've gradually botched the last third of this series.
Come on, warg it up, Bran! Everything else may go to hell, but you still have time to fly your freak flag, buddy!
I dont get the hate for Arya killing the NK. She saw her father murdered in season 1 and has been training to be an assassin since. She's a killer. Far more dangerous than Jon.
I think they have a spin-off coming north of the wall so I don't expect Jon to go there. Maybe he returns to the Knights Watch with Samwell after having to kill Dany. The move the iron throne (the actual chairs) to the only remaining castle in Westeros and Sansa takes the helm with Bran and Arya by her side.
Sorry, I didn't mean that I didn't like that Arya killed the NK. I just hated that essentially there wasn't an actual fight. I thought they missed a chance to have a really good sword battle between him and Jon. He then could have raised the dead as a way to distract Jon and try and kill Bran. Then Arya does her thing as a badass assassin. My favorite part of that episode was Mormont taking out the giant and Arya killing the NK. The dragon fight in the air was cool also but they missed a lot of great scenes that could have been shot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain.
Woops. My bad. Yeah, that's a good point. A sword fight where a resilient Jon just keeps on coming would've been cool and wouldn't have jacked up the rest of the way they chose to tell the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
"Missed opportunity" is spot on. If there's a single summation for the show's last two or three seasons, that's it.
I think The Shield deserves a mention along with Breaking Bad. Fantastic throughout and an epic resolution at the end. But to further your point, I think Sons of Anarchy had the same thing happen as most of the others on your list. Great up until the last episode, then they completely threw all this curveball imagery in that they hadn't laid any foundation for during the show's run.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain.
I don't really have a big problem with Arya killing NK in the show. They've pretty clearly gone away from all the prophecies and such that GRRM laid down in the books, making the show its own entity with its own story. Like some of you have said, though, not having Jon & NK at least face off one-on-one was a big mistake.
I think my problem with Dany's heel turn is that it was so sudden. And in some ways, I don't feel like it's a true heel turn. At least, I'm hoping it isn't. I think it was just her boiling over from all the emotions and circumstances she's had to deal with, especially since landing in Westeros. She's angry and heartbroken from the death of Missandei. Heartbroken at the death of Jorah. Angry & heartbroken over the deaths of 2 of her "children," the dragons. Conflicted about Jon being the true heir to the Iron Throne. Frustrated that Jon, despite what he says, is unable to return her feelings in a physical way. I don't think she ever intended to attack the civilian population of the city the way she did, but in that moment, she needed to release all the emotions churning inside her. And in doing that, she went too far. I'm still hoping she'll show some remorse about what she did and try to make amends.
But like I said above, I'm fully prepared to be disappointed Sunday night. D&D seem lost with how to resolve this without GRRM to guide them.
Arya killing the NK doesn't bother me either but Jon Snow at least taking out a couple of white walkers b/c the NK doesn't want to face him or gets a taste of his battle prowess and decides his homies need to step in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prediction? Pain.
But no they just stand there while a 5'3" girl rushes passed them like Sonic the Hedgehog to shank their boss.
There has been a pretty interesting question making the internet. Why did the Lord of Light bring Jon back? If it wasn't to kill the NK but Dany instead that really doesn't compute. Not the way D&D are telling the story.
Man, I haven't thought about The Shield in a while. I dug the first season or two, but for whatever reason I didn't keep watching. (Just checked the timeline. That show ran from 2002 to 2008. That's why. I graduated undergrad in 2003 and spent the next five years in grad school, where I lost touch with pretty much every television show there was.) I'll have to go back and check it out sometime.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
You know, it hadn't even occurred to me that Dany's surely going to come through the other side of her psychotic break as an emotional train wreck. That makes total sense. I bet a big chunk of the episode is going to have to involve Dany's (and Jon's and Tyrion's, since they are the ones left from Westeros who loved or believed in her) struggle with coming to terms with what happened and how to move forward.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
And right after they figure it all out, Bran the Dragon ends it for them! Hey oh!
That, or a giant Monty Python foot squishes them all, leading straight to the closing credits. That could work at this point, no?
Well that went out with a whimper.
Thoroughly disappointed as I suspected. This series deserved so much better. D&D are now off to ruin the Old Republic era of Star Wars. Such great characters ruined by half ass writing.
They've been wanting to get this one over with ever since they got the Star Wars gig, HBO should have brought in other writers to finish the series up.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
I basically knew what happened before I watched it. With that said, I didn't hate it as much as when I read the spoiler. My biggest issue was how they changed the characters. Dany not even blinking an eye at burning women and children. They made her go from slightly mad to full blown crazy in one instant. There just wasn't enough time to change her character that much. It felt like it didn't fit and GRRM probably has a way to ramp up to it in the books without it feeling like they just changed the character.
Bran is the same issue for me. He was basically a super autistic kid because he was overwhelmed with knowledge. He would randomly talk to people. He seemed better this episode so at least they didn't make robot Bran the king but it still feels like we missed something.
At the end of the day if you told me it ended like this 2 or 3 seasons ago I would be interested to see how they got there. The problem is that they didn't really show you.
Bran is king because he is kind and has all this knowledge to pull from and he can't have children so it breaks the cycle. I am fine with that.
Arya goes off exploring. It makes sense for her character because she never wanted to be just a lady in a castle. I didn't know if the faceless men would come back into play but I guess it was purely for their training.
Sansa becomes Queen of the North and they are once again free from southern rule. Sansa has been working towards this the entire series and the North is once again free.
Jon has to kill Dany so he is heartbroken anyway. He wanted to go back north if he could and now he actually gets to live in peace with the free folk and GHOST. I personally thought he would be on the Iron Throne but not be happy about it. This is actually a happier ending than I thought he would get. I am ok with this.
Bron is master of coin and Lord of High Garden. Loved how the small council ended up being formed.
Brienne is captain of the Kingsguard with Pod as a knight. I liked how she finished Jamie's story. My wife thought she would be pregnant and write something about his kid but instead we got "he died protecting his queen". I am ok with that.
So looking at it that way, I am not as pissed about it. It seems they wrapped up most loose ends but they had to stretch to get there which went against all the character building the show did.
I think the books are going to have a very different ending for the various characters. GRRM has put way too many clues in for other endings to abandon them the way D&D did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
I'll be honest, I was thoroughly disappointed with the end. I was happy with the ending for a few characters: Brienne, Pod, Bron, even Tyrion and Sansa to a lesser extent. But I thought the endings for most were just garbage for what they could and should have been. After everything Jon has done to save Westeros from a second Long Night, he winds up Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, which now serves little or no real purpose with the end of the Walkers? I know he never wanted to be king, but it feels like they just completely trashed his entire arc this season.
I'm ok with Cersei and Jaime's fate, although I was rooting for something a bit more poetic for Cersei. Don't even get me started on Arya sailing west for no reason.
Best part of the episode was the scene with the Small Council. The banter was witty and generated several genuine LOL moments for me. It was really a throwback to previous seasons.
I am not sure anything else could really be done with Arya. She wanted to roam the kingdoms and be a knight when she was little in season 1. She liked Gendry but being a Lady was never in the cards for her. I think this was just an interesting way to give her a "happy" ending. I think she didn't want to be known as a killer and in the 7 Kingdoms that is all she would have been known for. I think when the Hound told her she could leave that it basically took that burden away from her. Her list is complete and she can now leave it behind.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
Jon ending up in the North at the Wall is basically about as happy of an ending as he was going to get. When Tormund was leaving Jon even said that he truly wished he was going with him. I think when he said that Ghost belonged up there that he was alluding to himself but he was needed at King's Landing. I feel like when he looked back at the door to the wall closing that it was ending his old life and he gets to start anew with the Free Folk. After everything he went through always for the good of the people, now he can actually have his own life.
Sansa got exactly what she wanted and it was to be Queen. The North are free again under Stark rule.
Tyrion got what he wanted which was to help improve the realm along with having a good king in Bran.
I didn't mind where the characters ended up but how they got there kind of changed how the show approached character building in this last season. If D&D had made 10 episodes over the last 2 seasons then it probably gets where it needs to go instead of just changing the characters that quickly.
Here's where I'll disagree: Part of Arya's story is her resolving the idea what it means to be a lady. She should have realized that she could be a "lady" without having to fit the stereotypical expectations of ladies in that society. They laid too many foundations for her and Gendry to end up together to just blow it up. Arya's story is intended as a mirror to Lyanna Stark. Lyanna resolved the conflict between the stereotypical idea of a lady and her concepts of being a lady, so Arya should have resolved that struggle too. It feels like they just said that her having any semblance of Westerosi life was wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
Jon...I get that argument. Don't particularly like it, but at least it makes a semblance of sense. Still think it's a shitty ending for him. I mean, how the hell did the Unsullied know Jon killed Dany? Drogon flew off with her body, so there was no evidence. He'd have had to admit to doing it. While I don't doubt he did, that's a loose plot thread that annoys me.
Like I said, I'm fairly satisfied with the endings of both Tyrion and Sansa. I had initially thought they'd wind up married and on the Iron Throne as co-rulers. But I don't have a big problem with their endings. They both basically get what they wanted, just not exactly what I'd hoped for.
The time argument is a red herring. Time wise, we still got 10 episodes each of the last 2 seasons, just compacted into fewer episodes. It was just shitty writing by D&D. Without GRRM to guide them, they struggled to resolve everything that needed resolving. It's annoying to have invested 10 years and waited a year and a half to get that half-assed ending.
As far as Arya, I don't think if she just ends up marrying Gendry but also roaming the countryside fighting battles fits any different than how it ended. I think going on an adventure fits in with her character as much as anything else.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
It did kind of annoy me that we didn't see Jon get arrested. I think there could have been some interesting dialogue there. In the end, Jon died protecting the Free Folk so in the end he goes back with them. He gets to lay down his duty which is what he truly wanted. He never wanted to lead, it was thrust upon him and he accepted it out of duty. If he was forced to be king or King of the North then he never actually would be happy which is why I thought he would be king since people kept saying bittersweet ending. He watched his love die when the Free Folk were just trying to escape the White Walkers. Then he had to kill his second love once again out of duty to the realm. He now gets to pursue his own happiness.
I think the shit writing is more to do with just rushing character changes. Arya just drops her list when they get to the Red Keep with a 2 minute speech by the Hound. I would understand if he was basically working on her the entire ride to Kings Landing but we didn't even get an inkling that happened. This should have been developed.
Bran was damn near catatonic and rarely spoke to anyone and now he is saying the reason he came south was to be king. Once again, it just wasn't developed.
Cersei and Jamie dying like that was a huge letdown. Also, Jamie basically acting somewhat normal when Euron punctured his lungs. Shitty ending for those 2.
I really think they missed an opportunity to make Arya the Master of Whispers. She was perfect for it. And could still be Gendry's wife and Lady of Storm's End with a double life as the spy mistress of the Six Kingdoms. Again, the writing and the imagination were not there. They have combined so many characters into other characters - Sansa was never captured and raped by Ramsey. That was another girl all together. - that just changing shit for the TV show should have been easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
And who the holy hell is gonna make a deal with Grey Worm about sending Jon back to the Night's Watch. Grey Worm would have killed Jon where he effing stood for killing Dany. Again, writing - the fight between Jon and GW would have been epic. I guarantee you Sansa would have had Tormund and his Wildlings along with every banner from the North at the gates demanding Jon's release. Why? Because Jon's the rightful heir. I mean Varys didn't get a single raven off with his little notes? Bullshit! Again, writing. The big secret about Jon's true lineage amounted to squat in the end.
And Bran, the Three Eyed Raven, puts everybody through this shit and tells Jon about his true lineage as the heir to the throne just so he eventually becomes king? HOLY **** BALLS BATMAN!! That's so dumb. Bran's useless ass was just waiting around to be king. My. God.
Tyrion - sentenced to death by the way - talks Bran into the throne and gets off by being the Hand of the King...while Jon THE TRUE HEIR TO THE MOTHER****ING THRONE goes back to the Wildlings and a severely depleted Night's Watch... who by the way were on the bloody wall to keep the Wildlings from invading en masse and overrunning the North.
And I just love how Yara Greyjoy just votes for Bran and lets Sansa declare the North independent...uh, the Greyjoys revolted against the Iron Throne for the Iron Isles to be independent... that's how effing Theon became the ward of Ned Stark.
Season eight became a complete and total cluster after episode 3.
And now Emelia Clarke revealed today when she read the final script she walked around London for hours in dismay. She did not like it at all.
Thanks Benioff and Weiss you cheese dick bastards. You ruined one of the greatest television shows ever made.
Its almost like Benioff and Weiss had Anakin kill a bunch of younglings.
Making Arya the Master of Whispers wouldn't have been the "happy" ending for her though. She went through all that stuff to prepare her to kill the Night King. She completed her task which is kind of what the Hound told her. It didn't matter how the last name on her list died because she was going to die. It freed her to be who she really wanted to be. The same could be said for Jon. He would have made a good king but it wouldn't have made him happy. He was happiest when he was with the Free Folk.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
I think they didn't show Jon get arrested because they didn't know how to get him in a cell without a fight with Grey Worm where one of them dies. They also gave Grey Worm his happiest ending by going where he told Messandi that they would go.
The Yara issue is a weird issue that I didn't think about. The only thing I can think of is Yara pledged that the Iron Islands wouldn't be raiders anymore and even though Dany is dead, she still feels that oath.
There are definitely writing issues with it. It felt there were some leaps in the story that were necessary but they didn't have time because of the shortened season. They should have done 10 episodes like HBO wanted and it would have probably been A LOT better.
I read an article last night that said the clock was ticking on their Star Wars trilogy and they needed to wrap up GoT ASAP. In fact, HBO told Benioff and Weiss they'd give them ten episodes each over an hour and even put a ninth season on the table too (Cause GoT is a cash cow for HBO) but they told HBO it was over and they only needed six episodes to wrap it up. It's obvious now they were probably already working on the Star Wars script while wrapping up GoT.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
That whole last episode would have been three episodes a few seasons ago. Without GRRM to guide them they just floundered. BTW, why wasn't GRRM feeding them drafts from Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring? GRRM doesn't have anything worth giving them? I believe GRRM has changed some major parts of the story.
Yeah, I think the Star Wars trilogy had a lot to do with the rushed ending. You would think that GRRM would be more involved with how the show ended but it doesn't look like it. It is a shame that a series that was very good at character development ended up rushing it and forcing an ending that didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the series. The buildup to it was lacking and I believe you are correct that it all points to D&D wanting to hurry up and finish it so they can start on Star Wars. Star Wars probably is going to pay a lot better than GOT even though it is the biggest show in the world right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame
That's the problem. We all know this wasn't a show that was likely to have a happy ending for very many of the characters. By throwing Jon & Dany under the bus and trying to give everyone else a happy ending, they stepped on the entire emotional arc of the previous seasons. Don't be afraid to kill a bunch of characters and have the place still in 17ing flames if that's what you've been setting up for 7.5 seasons. I think they got afraid of fan backlash, tried to go for a happier ending than what was originally planned, and created the very shitstorm they were afraid of in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe
It definitely didn't feel true to the story with how everything was set up to how it ended. I think it would have been appropriate if they had more episodes for that character development however Grey Worm letting Jon live didn't make sense at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by War Machine Dawg
What's wrong with the writing? What makes writing bad in your book?Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapGame