Game of Thrones Season 8 Discussion Thread

[Xing]

I somehow totally missed this thread. Anyway, I could do a full effortpost, but I'll just say that you can add me to the list of people unhappy with how hastily they're trying to wrap everything up (and how the Great War ended.) I'm not surprised, though. That's always a problem with complex sagas that involve multiple different story arcs and tons of characters that have developed and changed. Unless the stories of several main characters start wrapping up quite a bit before the end of the entire story, the overall ending feels rushed and messy. And if they wrap up some arcs of the story earlier on, the whole universe in which the story takes place feels as though it shrinks. I definitely started to feel that they faced a mixture of those two problems in the seventh season; they were writing several major characters and places out of the story, to bring all of the main characters together, as well as having some main characters act in a way that seemed out of character, just because that got them closer to a potential ending that would at least tie everything together.

Anyway, I'm not sure who will end up on the most uncomfortable chair in the world. We've heard for a while that it'll be a bittersweet ending. Well, it seems like D&D are going for one that is much more sweet than it is bitter (like episode 3), so maybe that means Daenerys, but who knows? Maybe her decision to make Gendry the legitimate son of Robert Baratheon means he'll be the one on the throne. That's an idea that I had, since Jon/Dany ruling would be very predictable.

[Xing]

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.

[Xing]

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,

[Xing]

If the leaks are true (and they have been at least 95% true so far) then we are getting one of the most non-sensical endings I have ever seen to a show.

Wouldn't surprise me. Hopefully GRRM sets this all up better.

[Xing]

I mean, ending a series like this in a way that satisfies everyone was always going to be an impossible task, but... what on earth did I just watch?