Game of Thrones Season 8 Discussion Thread

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I generally approved ... 8/10.  It was a semi-rushed (by necessity) episode to set up the next two.  The moment with Sam was top notch and kind of stole the show.  Visually, it was flawless.

Pumped for next week, which interestingly looks like it will contain the start of a battle (from watching the preview).

P.S.  I LOVED the scene at the Last Hearth.  I was worried they would dumb down the White Walkers a bit too much in this rushed final season, and - while I guess they still could - it was refreshing to see them emphasize the spiral symbol right off the bat in the premiere ... it gives me some hope that they will still dive into the mythology of the White Walkers a bit more.  Also, for people who think that the living will win the Battle of Winterfell in Episode 3 and defeat the Night King and then turn their attention toward Cersei in Kings Landing (~50% of the fan base from what I have seen), you are now predicting that the Night King will literally be in TWO episodes and will only see battle action in one ... not buying it.  Our crew is definitely going to have to retreat south.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the gang is going to get it's ass kicked in Episode 3 and have to stage a retreat.

I guess we all knew that Kid Umber was dead the second Sansa told him to go bring his people back (what no ravens to Umber?). 

I like that Cersei expressed our disappointment at not having elephants.  As a book nerd I'm still mad that the whole Rickon goes to the isle of the super wildlings and their unicorn creatures got ditched.  Also cranky that House Manderly was never part of the show as they seemed quite skilled in the books and their ships would be handy for a retreat.  Of course, that's probably where Yara comes in.  Again, as a book nerd having it done via House Reed and the crannogmen would be cool (and Meera's still out there somewhere) but that ain't gonna happen.  Yara just gets to sail up wherever and give them a lift.

The Bran-Jamie reunion was a great one cause Jamie gets the same look everyone gets from Bran, except Jamie don't know that.

I mean, you can say that, but think about it: if they retreat where exactly will the final battle be? Winterfell is probably THE most iconic location in the series. At this point, Winterfell and the Red Keep are the only two places on the map in the opening and the city is deeply tied to both magic and the Stark's identity. Nowhere else in the North comes close to its importance; if they retreat from Winterfell where would they go? Nowhere but Winterfell works in a narrative sense for the final battle unless they flee all the way to King's Landing, which doesn't seem very likely to fit into five episodes while still dealing with Cersei.

The last four episodes are two hours each

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I generally approved ... 8/10.  It was a semi-rushed (by necessity) episode to set up the next two.  The moment with Sam was top notch and kind of stole the show.  Visually, it was flawless.

Pumped for next week, which interestingly looks like it will contain the start of a battle (from watching the preview).

P.S.  I LOVED the scene at the Last Hearth.  I was worried they would dumb down the White Walkers a bit too much in this rushed final season, and - while I guess they still could - it was refreshing to see them emphasize the spiral symbol right off the bat in the premiere ... it gives me some hope that they will still dive into the mythology of the White Walkers a bit more.  Also, for people who think that the living will win the Battle of Winterfell in Episode 3 and defeat the Night King and then turn their attention toward Cersei in Kings Landing (~50% of the fan base from what I have seen), you are now predicting that the Night King will literally be in TWO episodes and will only see battle action in one ... not buying it.  Our crew is definitely going to have to retreat south.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the gang is going to get it's ass kicked in Episode 3 and have to stage a retreat.

I guess we all knew that Kid Umber was dead the second Sansa told him to go bring his people back (what no ravens to Umber?). 

I like that Cersei expressed our disappointment at not having elephants.  As a book nerd I'm still mad that the whole Rickon goes to the isle of the super wildlings and their unicorn creatures got ditched.  Also cranky that House Manderly was never part of the show as they seemed quite skilled in the books and their ships would be handy for a retreat.  Of course, that's probably where Yara comes in.  Again, as a book nerd having it done via House Reed and the crannogmen would be cool (and Meera's still out there somewhere) but that ain't gonna happen.  Yara just gets to sail up wherever and give them a lift.

The Bran-Jamie reunion was a great one cause Jamie gets the same look everyone gets from Bran, except Jamie don't know that.

I mean, you can say that, but think about it: if they retreat where exactly will the final battle be? Winterfell is probably THE most iconic location in the series. At this point, Winterfell and the Red Keep are the only two places on the map in the opening and the city is deeply tied to both magic and the Stark's identity. Nowhere else in the North comes close to its importance; if they retreat from Winterfell where would they go? Nowhere but Winterfell works in a narrative sense for the final battle unless they flee all the way to King's Landing, which doesn't seem very likely to fit into five episodes while still dealing with Cersei.

My prediction is as of now the living will use the secret tunnels below Winterfell (hinted at and foreshadowed way too much throughout the series) to escape, and they'll retreat to Kings Landing.  They will have no choice but to try to take the city before Cersei does something crazy like light it up with wild fire and add one million more to the Army of the Dead, and AS that battle is beginning the snow/wind will start swirling, and Episode 5 will be epic.  I don't think they CAN defeat the Night King's army; I think it will have to be by some "magic technicality" that Bran will need to discover.

I just refuse to accept that even D&D will screw up the entire theme of the series and make the final battle simply one crazy lady for the throne vs. a barely crazy lady with dragons.

After the Winterfell storyline in season seven, I put nothing beneath them.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Guys, the books are the books and the show is the show.  We have both to enjoy for what they are, so let’s do that instead of getting angry that the show and books aren’t the same (because that ship sailed in season 2, for better or worse).  I say that as someone who far prefers the books to the show.  Expecting them to be the same at this point is like asking a mongoose to be a horse.  You can scream until you’re blue in the face, but it ain’t happening.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

So I've been rewatching the series for a few weeks and I'm of the mind that it seems like there are a million story threads being trod underfoot owing to the needs of our "final battle" scenario. The religious aspect in particular I feel like has been completely left by the wayside since Stannis was defeated. It seemed like earlier seasons were building toward something cosmic. After all, our protagonist has been raised from the dead, but that matters nought when he gets to shack up with Danerys.

The show is nothing but generic fantasy schlock now. Which, like, if that's what the average viewer wants, then great. But it's terribly disappointing artistically.

Well I'm still hoping the Lord of Light keeps GRRM alive to finish the books with his version of the story.

Martin has told them all the major plot points. D and D mentioned they've known it was Arya for three years. People seem to either forget about or wholesale ignore this.

The Night King doesn't even exist in the books. He was invented by D&D because they thought TV viewers needed a single character as the face of the White Walkers.

Either way, GRRM was supposed to have told them the major plot points before Season 1 was filmed, and they came up with Arya as the one to kill the Night King 3 years ago.

- 1) GRRM has told them a number of additional plot points over the years, some as recently as three years ago

- 2) D&D were right, it is better in a visual medium to have a leader for the Others and the Night’s King served his narrative purpose quite effectively on the show.

He didn't need to. One thing people tend to forget is that villains don't always need complex motivations. There is in fact an argument to be made the NK is nothing but a tool, nd the tool's purpose was to wipe out humanity.

Lmao. As I already said, one of the points of ASOIAF was that it was a fantasy setting where evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains don't exist. GRRM specifically set out to write a Tolkein-inspired story which criticised Tolkien's moral simplicity.

Like, if you're a dumbo who doesn't care about that stuff and only wants to see cool battle scenes, then whatever I guess. But for people who care about the thematic consistency of the setting then the direction which the show has went is pretty disappointing.

If GRRM doesn’t do evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains then how do you explain Joffrey, Ramsay Snow, The Others, Littlefinger, Euron Greyjoy, Vargo Hoat, Qyburn, Walder Frey and his family, Roose Bolton, etc, etc, etc?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Okay, so much to say here, but...

1) I get and admire being positive about the direction a show goes in.  I am hardly ever a harsh critic of a show I love, usually because there is only so much left of that show.  That holds especially true for Game of Thrones (though GoTfan's apologism is nauseating, I admit).  However, don't do mental gymnastics to rationalize how someone who didn't like that ending is the one who is falling into tropey bullshlt; that's ing ridiculous.  That episode, while amazing for most of its runtime, was the definition of dumbing stuff down for the casual viewer.  Any know-it-all argument about how Cersei is this complex villain and people who don't like the Night King being defeated this early are just, like, zombie fans who don't appreciate the intrigue of the Iron Throne is so ridiculous it doesn't merit arguing.  Go take a look at YouTube, Instagram and Facebook comment sections ... I'm willing to bet the average IQ of people happy with defeating the White Walkers in Episode 3 is less than half of those who see it for the rushed wrap-up it is.  "It'S cAlLeD gAmE oF tHrOnEs, NoT gAmE oF zOmBiEs."

2) It is so immensely lazy to assume that wanting a final showdown with the Night King instead of Cersei plays into a fantasy trope.  Why, because he's not human?  ing absurd.  What we are going to get is EXACTLY a fantasy trope: glorifying the Throne and system that has oppressed the background characters of this series that starve and struggle to get by while our preferred aristocrats ride off into battle for glory fairytale style.  I am going to bet that GRRM the conscientious objector is not going to let it go down like this.  Before some parrot starts telling me how D&D "got the major plot points from George," they got "broad strokes" ala they will defeat the White Walkers, and ____ will rule Westeros after and things like that.  I will bet my life that Arya doesn't show up ninja style to stab the Night King with a Valyrian Steel dagger minutes after he survived ing dragon fire!  And again, Parrots, I know there is no "Night King" in the book, but there still could be eventually, and even if there isn't substitute "Night King" with "White Walkers" and the point still stands.  Which plays into my next point...

3) The White Walkers (or Others) are what made this story special.  Not because they were soooo spookey or soooo cool or whatever.  They made it special because they were a uniquely complex and mysterious villain for fantasy, AND they were always there on the side.  They served the purpose of getting the humans in our story to realize how TRIVIAL the battles and intrigue of the show actually were ... regardless of your opinion on this latest episode, absolutely nobody can deny that this is what GRRM has been doing for a while now.  The show planted these seeds and then, what?  Killed the Night King with no backstory, no motive (no, Bran's explanation absolutely does not count, and George's is bound to be much, much better) and no resolution?  Why did his White Walkers generals even come?  They did absolutely nothing.  Spare me the "keeping it a mystery" BS, too.  How many times do you need to hear the absolute knuckleheads D&D talk on the Inside the Episode segment to STILL believe they are these great storytellers??  The show foreshadowed so, so much only to throw a hollow, ill conceived curveball at the eleventh hour all for the sake of shock value.  George is on record of saying this is a horrible way to write stories, and he is clear that even if people had guessed something he was planning he would stick with it since he already put down the foreshadowing and plot development.  "They knew it was Arya for three years!"  Do you guys realize they were probably filming Season 7 already three years ago?!  This isn't some brilliantly developed plot line ... it's not a plot line at all.  They wanted to wrap it up so the final battle could be for the Throne, and that's what they did.  Quickly, sloppily and badly.

3) D&D start with the end in mind and work their way there.  Now, each writer/producer/whatever does this to an extent, but GRRM is sure to not let it dictate what his characters would do.  We watched HOURS of Rob's battle planning only for him to shockingly die.  We watched a TON of Ned Stark plot building just to kill him when we were most invested.  Why?  Because that's real life ... certain people aren't handpicked as too important to no longer matter in the blink of an eye.  Who died last episode??  Chopped liver is who ... Theon??  Jorah??  ED?!  Lol, who didn't see all these coming?  Again, if you can't see that they just wanted to rid the series of the White Walkers storyline, I don't know what to say.  Then they throw in little hedge-their-bets lines like the exchange between Jon and Beric beyond the Wall.  "Kill him, and we kill them all."  "You don't understand."  Uh, what doesn't he understand, Jon??  Sounds like he was 100% right, but they just wanted a scene that made us wonder if there was something more mystical and exciting that they'd have to do to vanquish the Night King ... nope, lol.

4) The Night King was in 3/4 of an episode.  Inexcusable, regardless of whom you thought the final villain should be.  If you want to wrap up the WW threat by Episode 4 and make the final battle for the Iron Throne, fine ... bad decision, but fine ... you NEED to put more time into wrapping it up.  Look at the first three episodes from a D&D perspective and try not to be let down ... "Episode 1, we'll do reunions ... check ... Episode 2 will be pre-battle goodbyes ... check ... Episode 3, they'll fight the battle and win ... check."  Guess what was EASILY the best episode, possibly of the series?  Yeah, Episode 2, where the show wasn't trying to rush anything (admittedly because they couldn't).

The bottom line is the story did an awesome job of developing the theme that maybe you actually SHOULDN'T care about the Iron Throne, and it did it brilliantly over several years.  It put in the time and story development to make us realize that the system Dany can't seem to see beyond despite all of her tough talk about breaking the wheel is fundamentally broken, and GRRM used the threat of the White Walkers to demonstrate this.  I very much believe the books will give them a more fulfilling motivation besides the painfully lazy D&D "AI gone rogue" spin or the overused "pure evil" line.  To the poster who said "Well what about Joffrey and Ramsay!!!!" one was a incest-born kid who was RAISED to think he was above everyone else ... he's a product of his upbringing ... and the other was a bastard whose father raped his mother and was a hard man with no love to show his son.  Why do you think Ramsay turned out the way he did?  Again, D&D were smart enough to know they couldn't make the Night King pure evil, so they went with that he's a machine on a program ... disappointing choice, but they could have made it work.  Don't make him ing smile up at Dany after surviving dragon fire, though, if you want us to think of him as simply an unfortunate, death-bringing product of his creation.  They wrote scenes for shock value and to fulfill cliches, and this was a perfect example.  The White Walkers were mindless killing machines when D&D needed them to be, and they were more complex than that other times (like letting Sam live north of the Wall and the NK showing a special interest in Jon earlier in the series).

They scrapped it all.  I love GoT, and I will be tuned in every week until it's over.  Heck, I made this thread, didn't I?  However, your blinders are THICK if you can't see why a fan would be disappointed with this "conclusion" to the show's greatest plot.  Tell yourself what you want, but this isn't how it's going down in the books.  The dreams, prophecies, religious texts, lore, histories and more of the books have been heavily invested in, and that is what made this fantasy special - it was an EERILY realistic world in all ways but one: the higher mysteries that captivated us such as dragons, magic and ... yes ... the White Walkers.  Episode 3 was visually perfect and contained some truly amazing moments.  I can admit that.  If you can't admit that parts were rushed and at least TRY to see why at least half of the fan base (and probably more from what I have been seeing) is let down, well ... D&D would be proud, lol.

Not sure how much [if any] of this is directed at me (if it is then just...lol at all the inaccurate assumptions contained within*, if not, then I’m gonna just let you and GoTFan keep fighting it out ), but I do wanna say a few things:

1) I feel like folks really need to take a deep breath and calm down

2) Since I know one part of the megapost was directed at me, so I’ll respond to that.  I listed a lot more than two characters and Evil for the Evilz doesn’t mean the villain can’t be a great and interesting character (ex: Roose Bolton).  Maybe you meant a “Mwahahahahaha, glorious cartoonishly evil,” in which case fair enough, but even then I think Ramsay and Euron both qualify.  

Regarding BookRamsay, I’m sorry, but the idea that Ramsay is the way he is purely b/c of Roose requires some serious mental gymnastics, to say the least.  Before Ramsay was even permitted to live at The Dreadfort or was given the time of day by Roose, he [Ramsay] murdered his half-brother Domeric.  BookRamsay’s strongly implied latent homosexuality manifests itself in the form of hunting down women with bloodhounds (he’s literally a serial killer) and the whole “Reeking Theon” thing.  The show (sadly) opted to make him a TDK(!)Joker expy VillainSue.  It worked for season 3, but got increasingly problematic after that, especially since Roose is a far more interesting villain (granted, Roose and Ramsay are kinda two sides of the same coin, but still...).  Also, BookTommen was a bastard raised by his completely deranged mother to think he’s better than everyone and he didn’t turn out like Joffrey  

3) I’m quite curious to hear your argument for why BookEuron (who is basically a personification of In It For the Evulz) isn’t an example of an evil for evil’s sake villain.  

4) I didn’t think Theon would die until the Night’s King approached the Godswood (although I thought it was possible he’d die in this episode) and I never for a second thought Lyanna might die prior to the moment the giant wight knocked down the main gate.  Second saddest death of the show thus far imo (after ShowShireen’s, but that one at least was predictable).  

5) The Night’s King is supposed to be a monster, a silent boogeyman ushering in the apocalypse.  I can only speak for myself, but I liked the choice to make him almost like a near invincible destructive force of nature rather than something with motive we can understand.  Some villains need a complex motive, but some work better without one.  Does anyone want to hear about how Michael Myers was really just the victim of abusive redneck parents or the backstory for how Xenomorphs were created by an evil Android after a billionaire’s space mission went wrong when a Humanoid engineer alien was awakened and started killing people because reasons?  Really?

*For example, I hated season seven (especially the painfully bad Winterfell storyline from that season) so much that I was gonna quit watching the show entirely if the first episode of season eight wasn’t a good one.  I’m quite vocal about the things I dislike about the show and my belief that the books are better overall, I’m not a D&D fanboy or anything (and would generally argue that when GoT works, it’s just as often despite D&D butchering something as it is because of their contributions).  

I thought that this episode worked really well [aside from the poor lighting during certain parts of the battle] by GoT standards (it was certainly their best Big Battle episode thus far tbh) and taken in isolation.  I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed it the second and third times I watched it too.  If you didn’t, that’s fine.  I thought the Night’s King worked great and loved the way he got defeated.  Granted, this and Hardhome are the only episodes that ever really got me really invested in the Others stuff [they’ve always felt like a boring sideplot in the books and did in the show until Hardhome].  It’s not blind GoT apologism, D&D fanboyism*, or me being some sort of low IQ moron, I just don’t agree with some of the opinions it feels like you’re treating as objective facts.

In other words, I understand why you feel the way you do, I just disagree with some of your opinions on this episode, but that’s okay.  I don’t mean this in a patronizing or condescending way, but some of this really feels like an “agree to disagree” thing (and that’s allowed, even on the internet ).  We don’t all have to like the same thing.  One person can look at a painting and see something beautiful while the guy next to him can look at it and see dumb, overhyped scribbles without either of them being right or wrong, such is the nature of art.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

So I've been rewatching the series for a few weeks and I'm of the mind that it seems like there are a million story threads being trod underfoot owing to the needs of our "final battle" scenario. The religious aspect in particular I feel like has been completely left by the wayside since Stannis was defeated. It seemed like earlier seasons were building toward something cosmic. After all, our protagonist has been raised from the dead, but that matters nought when he gets to shack up with Danerys.

The show is nothing but generic fantasy schlock now. Which, like, if that's what the average viewer wants, then great. But it's terribly disappointing artistically.

Well I'm still hoping the Lord of Light keeps GRRM alive to finish the books with his version of the story.

Martin has told them all the major plot points. D and D mentioned they've known it was Arya for three years. People seem to either forget about or wholesale ignore this.

Well it is selective recall then, but I think GRRM could still swerve and definitely flesh out this battle like he's describing food at a feast.

GRRM didn’t tell them all the major plot points, he told them things like the endgame for major characters (dead/alive, location at end of the story, etc), the broad strokes of his plans, and a few specific details he was already certain of like that Shireen would be burned (pretty sure that’ll go down a bit differently in the books though.  Aside from that D&D are basically filling in the blanks on their own although GRRM has said he has many conversations where they’ve consulted with him on one plot point or another.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Ugh...that was an awful episode!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Also, they completely ruined Brienne’s character for cheap Jaime/Brienne shipping fanservice.  I literally said out loud while watching “no, this isn’t gonna be a thing that happens.  Not even D&D are that bad at writing.”  I guess they sure showed me

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

In that last episode:



https://gizmodo.com/game-of-thrones-accidentally-leaves-modern-coffee-cup-o-1834545322

LOL.

Ehhh...it happens

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If you do a google image search for Bad Writers, the second result is a picture of D&D

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Good:

- The King's Landing chaos scenes were extremely well-directed, especially the ones with Arya trying to escape from KL (which were extremely suspenseful)

- I'm all for any version of Qyburn dying in a way that underlines his complete and utter insignificance in the scheme of things as if the universe is mocking BookQyburn's delusions of grandeur about the importance of his "work."  Of course, I suspect this was a happy coincidence.  

- While he's nothing like BookEuron, the guy who plays ShowEuron (a.k.a. Eurotrash Gaston) has been giving such a fun performance that he steals like every scene he's in

- I really liked that ShowArya ended up letting go of her desire for revenge and living for the future instead of letting her anger about the past destroy her (even if GRRM probably deserves credit for this rather than D&D) and her calling the Hound "Sandor" was a nice touch

- The acting by the folks playing Arya, Euron, Varys, Tyrion, and Cersei was solid (especially the first three)

The bad:

Everything else (and I want to stress the word "everything"), especially the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells of King's Landing randomly causing Dany to reign hellfire down upon KL.  Why did I turn the preceding sentence into a Hunchback of Notre Dame reference?  I dunno, but it made more sense than that horribly executed twist.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

^ I am truly sorry if anyone online has literally sent you death threats; that is inexcusable.  However, I simply disagree with your defense of this writing.  I think it has gotten so bad that it can't conceivably be defended with a straight face.

You have implied previously that my IQ is lower simply because I like this season.

Brought to you by non-sequitur

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This thread in a nutshell:

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think the "turn" was always a potential ending for Dany, but it was executed horribly on the show. I've pretty much yet to see a convincing "turn" of a good character (I hated how they did Anakin's turn in Episode III), since it's almost always done as a plot twist, so it rarely feels justified or logical from a character standpoint. Yes, there were "hints" that Dany was capable of turning, but it still felt rushed and overblown on the show.

Okay, I'll bite (just to show that it can be done well):

- Michael Corleone in The Godfather?

- Benjamin Barker in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979 broadway production)

- Magneto in X-Men: First Class

- Jimmy McGill in Better Call Saul

- Walter White in Breaking Bad (I'd argue it basically happens over the course of just the first episode)

That's five right there just off the top of my head.  What do those have in common?  It's not exactly a twist.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think the "turn" was always a potential ending for Dany, but it was executed horribly on the show. I've pretty much yet to see a convincing "turn" of a good character (I hated how they did Anakin's turn in Episode III), since it's almost always done as a plot twist, so it rarely feels justified or logical from a character standpoint. Yes, there were "hints" that Dany was capable of turning, but it still felt rushed and overblown on the show.

Okay, I'll bite (just to show that it can be done well):

- Michael Corleone in The Godfather?

- Benjamin Barker in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979 broadway production)

- Magneto in X-Men: First Class

- Jimmy McGill in Better Call Saul

- Walter White in Breaking Bad (I'd argue it basically happens over the course of just the first episode)

That's five right there just off the top of my head.  What do those have in common?  It's not exactly a twist.  

I can't comment on all of these, but as for Sweeney Todd, we never really see much of Barker before he's "turned." We see the already vengeful Barker become more and more deranged and vengeful as the show goes on. Sure, that's logical character development, but it's not like we see him go from a strong moral character to an evil one. Magneto's turn(s) are usually at least somewhat developed, but at times it still feels as though he flips a switch, and while some of what he goes through helps to explain why he sometimes does immoral things, at times it feels like his morality just ceases to exist,

- Re: Sweeney Todd: Fair

- Re: Magneto, that's why I specifically picked X-Men: First Class.  That's the only one that I think perfectly nailed the change in a very believable way.  You see how he went from point A-->B-->C-->D-->etc.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Did you all think we were dealing with high art here?  'cause we never were.  This is and always has been goofy elf and fairy, knights and damsels bull spit.  It literally features dragons, were you expecting the greatest story ever told?  FREAKING DRAGONS!  Now there is a petition to remake season 8?  Holy hell people, you're not owed a perfect show (as if that was even possible with you finicky phuques).


DRAGONS!

My understanding is that The Ring Cycle is usually considered to be High Art and that it absolutely features a dragon.

a dragon is a small part of one quarter of that (if my Googling is accurate), but you're right, dragons can be part of high art I suppose, but not normally.  I'd guess 99.6% of art with dragons is not high art and most of it is garbage.  Puff the Magic Dragon is a fine song, but it's hardly Bach.

Though you're correct that the books and the show were always... I don't know... high production values middlebrow? Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but pretending that this was not the case, sure, did no one any favours.

I'm not even sure it rose to middlebrow, and you're right, there is nothing wrong with that.

If Pixar can make a movie like Inside Out which is arguably a far higher quality, more thoughtful, and more sophisticated work than Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Hamlet then there's no reason not to expect high quality writing from a story simply because it is popular or has mainstream appeal.  Good writing should not be restricted to genres that have received a seal of approval from the same folks who threw a fit when Stephen King received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards in 2003.  In any case, the first three ASOIAF books (especially A Storm of Swords) are easily among the best modern works in the fantasy genre.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

After not watching Game of Thrones at all following Season 5, I made the snap decision to try and watch the final season this year.

I regret everything.

I mean, the first two episodes were both very good. Episodes 3 and 5 were very well-made technically outside of the writing.

I can certainly agree with that.  Last Sunday’s episode would have been fantastic viewing for anybody who hasn’t watched any of the preceding 71 episodes.

Seen every episode about 5 times and read each book the same. *snip*

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

After not watching Game of Thrones at all following Season 5, I made the snap decision to try and watch the final season this year.

I regret everything.

I mean, the first two episodes were both very good. Episodes 3 and 5 were very well-made technically outside of the writing.

I can certainly agree with that.  Last Sunday’s episode would have been fantastic viewing for anybody who hasn’t watched any of the preceding 71 episodes.

Seen every episode about 5 times and read each book the same. *snip*

Except I have.
*snip*

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

After not watching Game of Thrones at all following Season 5, I made the snap decision to try and watch the final season this year.

I regret everything.

I mean, the first two episodes were both very good. Episodes 3 and 5 were very well-made technically outside of the writing.

I can certainly agree with that.  Last Sunday’s episode would have been fantastic viewing for anybody who hasn’t watched any of the preceding 71 episodes.

Seen every episode about 5 times and read each book the same. *snip*

Except I have.
*snip*

Ah, so we're troll mode now i see.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Sorry about the double post, but this is hilarious.  Apparently this petition asking HBO to redo GoT season eight with competent showrunners has over a million signatures. 

https://www.change.org/p/hbo-remake-game-of-thrones-season-8-with-competent-writers

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Well that was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What does everyone think of this proposed ending for Season 8?

I like this guy's alternative ending, though I have questions as to how Arya is wearing Jaime's face when the original owner is still alive, and I think it more fitting for Daenerys to have triplets with Jon Snow as opposed to just one child, perhaps two sisters and one brother in an echo of Aegon and his two sisters.  

I liked this, and I think it would have gone over a lot better. Agree that Arya shouldn't be wearing Jaime's face if he's still alive, so just let "Jaime" kill Cersei and then reveal that it's Arya and the real Jaime is dead.

Arya’s whole arc is about turning back from the black hole of revenge instead of being consumed by it.  This would’ve been one of the worst possible endings for her storyline, even D&D managed an infinitely better one.