Board 8 > Game of Thrones: the good, the bad, and the ugly (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wrote a lot about Game of Thrones between Seasons 5 and 6, when the show was at its cultural peak, still doing 10-episode seasons, and still seemed like it could deliver a fucking climax when it wanted to. Seasons 7 and 8 certainly fell off and got ripped badly, both deservedly so and undeservedly so. The biggest loss in those seasons was the crunch in complexity - fewer storylines and therefore fewer possibilities, converging on the end - which just meant there was way less to talk about.

So instead of analyzing depth of the story or ranking characters or arcs, I'm mainly just going to look at what we got, and perhaps what went into that - what the creators faced, how they chose to handle it, what worked and what didn't work. No particularly organized structure to this one, just a bunch of topics I thought of/wanted to rant about.
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Cool, tagged.

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The OK: Show-Euron

A lot of the fanbase has complained that Show Euron is not the same as Book Euron. This is certainly true. Book Euron wears an eyepatch and has ties to magic. Show Euron is not, and the fan reaction has been incredibly negative.

The show has traditionally handled clearly magical and fantastic elements at almost arm's length. Dragons and White Walkers and a shadow baby and Beric Dondarrion exist in this world, but very little else is directly shown to be magical. The books' Euron is effectively the first villain who is determined to use magic for his wicked ends. That honestly would not really have fit the early seasons' tone.

That doesn't mean that show-Euron needed to be a brute who loved dick jokes, necessarily. His first appearance is unquestionably uneven, a drab Kingsmoot scene.

But afterward, he seems pretty much fine. Pilou Asbek plays him with utter delight, a man who loves fighting and fucking and appears to be very good at it. He's got a magnificent leer, a maniacal grin, callous jokes, and the best warship of the series. Do his motivations make a ton of sense? Not particularly, but overall he's just fairly fun.
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I will tag this topic
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Writing vs Directing, part 1 of who knows how many

One of the trends that emerged in the show was that it was clearly written by different writers each episode. As the show became "more cinematic," it was driven less and less by its writing, and it showed in the inconsistencies from episode to episode as directors got to stage things however the fuck they wanted. Someone theorized that the director for one episode might not even know the script for the subsequent episode, and that makes a ton of sense to me. Any given director seems to have free rein on what they want to happen on-screen.

Examples of this are all over Season 8. Very notably, 8x03 (the battle of Winterfell) seemed to show 95% of the Dothraki being wiped out, along with 99% of unnamed characters. Why? Because it looked cool, basically - the rule for pretty much all direction in Season 8. When we return in 8x04, we find out that the fatality rate of the epic battle was only around 50% (and a massively impractical-looking funeral is shown) and that perhaps somehow the entire castle has been cleaned of the bodies... what, overnight? How long did it take to get that feast in order? Why did 8x03 show us this false tension of only about 100 soldiers surviving if it turns out over half (and almost all the named characters) did? The easy answer is that Miguel Sapochnik, directing 8x03, wanted to make his episode look super-cool, and all he was told was that X characters survived - not how many would be required to survive for later. This could easily have been fixed with something as simple as showing more survivors (which would also improve 8x03 by making it less implausible so many named characters survived).

Another "it just looked cool" example can be found with the extremely controversial death of Rhaegal. The Scorpions launched from Euron's boat seem hyper-deadly, like the one that shot down Drogon in the Field of Fire episode. However, in 8x05, Drogon lays absolute waste to the entire city, including to entire castle walls mounted with Scorpions. Is it that a dragon will always defeat Scorpions if the dragon is prepared? Or is it that a Scorpion is a long shot even if you know the dragon is coming? (They definitely expected Drogon). Certainly they don't seem that worthless if Euron hit Rhaegal on literally his first shot.

The only explanation, again, is that they wanted Euron's shot to shock us. This could easily have been fixed if they'd shown a ton of Scorpion bolts in 8x04 missing before that one hit Rhaegal. The visual storytelling would be a lot more consistent without changing any of the written story beats: yeah, it's a little less shocking when Rhaegal gets hit, but at least we would understand why Drogon was unhittable by dozens of Scorpions trained right on him, while one magic Euron effortlessly sniped Rhaegal from a million miles away.

Fans complained why the Scorpions weren't used to shoot at Dany and Drogon when she came to the outside of King's Landing. That's just poor directing. It seems clear to me that the Scorpions were intended not to have that type of range, but the show is unable to stage that convincingly, so Cersei just looks silly not firing there.
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tag
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Tagarino
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Another "it just looked cool" example can be found with the extremely controversial death of Rhaegal.

That was when I stopped watching. Resorted to spoilers for the rest of the season.

journey > destination
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Is it that a dragon will always defeat Scorpions if the dragon is prepared? Or is it that a Scorpion is a long shot even if you know the dragon is coming? (They definitely expected Drogon).

Euron is a Rogue who dumped all his points into maximizing Sneak Attack. So on attacks of opportunity he has mythic level accuracy.

I think the intention is a combination of "If the dragon is aware of the threat it's much harder to hit", "Euron is really skilled", and "Drogon is a step above the other dragons"
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xp1337 posted...

I think the intention is a combination of "If the dragon is aware of the threat it's much harder to hit", "Euron is really skilled", and "Drogon is a step above the other dragons"

No, one of the showrunners had an interview where he said "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" or something like that.
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like i can't even read this topic anymore this show still upsets me so much

reading that last post about writing vs directing, all I want to do is yell in your face about how bad it all was

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Aecioo posted...

like i can't even read this topic anymore this show still upsets me so much

reading that last post about writing vs directing, all I want to do is yell in your face about how bad it all was

like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQdL-jrALG0" data-time="
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Anagram posted...

No, one of the showrunners had an interview where he said "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" or something like that.

it was literally in the about the episode recap they do with D&D right after the episode ends

they literally show Dany looking at a map of the fleet earlier in the episode, have her (edit - her dragon) killed by SURPRISE, and then say "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet"

ugh I'm getting UPSET

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Anagram posted...

xp1337 posted...

I think the intention is a combination of "If the dragon is aware of the threat it's much harder to hit", "Euron is really skilled", and "Drogon is a step above the other dragons"

No, one of the showrunners had an interview where he said "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" or something like that.

I thought that was specifically on how they got sneak attacked by a fleet despite the fact they had air superiority!

Basically what I'm saying is "they forgot about the fleet" is how the Iron Fleet even managed to catch them by surprise. But that combination of things is why Euron's shot actually landed/Drogon isn't riddled with holes later.
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It would take me a long time to decide which of my unholy trio of shows I watched all way through that I'm most upset in wasting my life on (GoT, LOST, Heroes).
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FFDragon posted...

It would take me a long time to decide which of my unholy trio of shows I watched all way through that I'm most upset in wasting my life on (GoT, LOST, Heroes).

Isnt Heroes easily the shortest of the three?

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xp1337 posted...

I think the intention is a combination of "If the dragon is aware of the threat it's much harder to hit", "Euron is really skilled", and "Drogon is a step above the other dragons"

Objectively, I can totally buy this explanation. But man, the presentation within the actual show was godawful.

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I stopped watching GoT after the finale of S5 to avoid book spoilers (even though I was spoiled a bit by that point).

Apparently I didnt miss much, or perhaps even made the right call.
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While we're on this, some obligatory viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7zy1PTMp0" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B8Ycfy-Ldc" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K0KaEYX41c" data-time="

Do some explanation on the differences between S6/7 and 8. The writing was already getting way simpler and frankly dumber/worse in 6/7, but the seasons were still good and enjoyable. 8's writing was not particularly worse, but it felt way worse. Why?
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Aecioo posted...

it was literally in the about the episode recap they do with D&D right after the episode ends

I didn't know that, ha.
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foolm0r0n posted...

Do some explanation on the differences between S6/7 and 8. The writing was already getting way simpler and frankly dumber/worse in 6/7, but the seasons were still good and enjoyable. 8's writing was not particularly worse, but it felt way worse. Why?

This is a good question! There are several reasons why. Here's an incomplete list.

- In Season 6 especially, the writing still was better (in certain instances). In S6, Jon returning from the dead and executing the traitors of the Night's Watch, campaigning for support, and becoming King in the North is an above average plotline over the course of the series. Cersei's lack of trial and subsequent blowing up the Sept was a good idea by the writers. Tyrion's plan to capture Casterly Rock is a good idea. Qyburn's Scorpion is a good idea. Cersei appealing to Randyll Tarly and his xenophobia is a good idea.

- The set pieces were better. Battle of the Bastards was a visual feast. Yeah, the ending is shit from a writing perspective, but that didn't mean you couldn't feel the weight of the battle. The Sept detonation is incredibly fun to watch and almost without dialogue, thanks to the music. The Field of Fire battle where Dany and the Dothraki obliterate the Lannister army is magnificent and arguably the best of those. And on a smaller scale, Euron wrecking face against the Sand Snakes and the Greyjoys is great. These battles all have very clearly defined stakes and very clear character motivation, thin as they are. The Siege of Winterfell is absolute shit in comparison, with poor visibility and no true tension, while The Burning of King's Landing is dramatic but undermined by the stakes.

- The payoffs were better. Let's take one of the most widely panned storylines of Season 6, Arya's second straight season of Braavos training. From a writing perspective, this is absolute shit. No one ever believes Arya will ever lose her identity, and she doesn't even try to sell it. She then succeeds her "test" by becoming blinded and making an enemy out of the most powerful assassin's cult in the known world by stating herself Arya Stark, the opposite of what the cult preaches, and the cult leader then tells her "congrats, you've graduated." However, we wind up with Arya slaughtering Walder Frey at a feast (and subsequently eliminating the Frey clan), which is pretty fun and badass, even if it's not very good writing! So you can be more forgiving for the awesome. Season 8 lacks good payoffs to justify its shit writing.

- In Season 6, there were more storylines. So while Arya is fucking around in Braavos, you have more entertaining Lyanna Mormont, or Bran and Hodor, or The Hound, doing cool stuff elsewhere. In Season 7, there was more story momentum: things move at a breakneck pace as you get reunions and characters meet who you never thought would (Jon and Dany! Whoa! Faceoff between Hound and Mountain!) In Season 8, all of that newness is lost...

- When each major character has their own storyline, things are dandy, but for the most part, the writers have no idea how to make more than one (or at tops two) character have agency in any given scene, or situation. Your favorite character might have been a sexual assault survivor who learned politics from the greatest, but when she's stuck with Jon and Dany, her only role is "I'm smarter than you and Dany is bad." Or your favorite character might be the one who convinces Stannis to save the realm instead of trying to win the throne, but when he's shoehorned into a Great Council, his job is to crack jokes about how he's not even sure he should be there. In general, Season 8 obeys the Shonda Rhimes law of "if you have the most lines in a scene, you are dominating the scene and 'winning.'"
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I feel like that last point is important: the writers are not particularly capable of writing intelligent characters, especially when surrounded by others. Several of the most cunning characters turn into idiots by the end of their run: Tyrion, Littlefinger, Varys, and Roose Bolton (hugging your murderous traitorous bastard son? are you fucking kidding me?).
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Littlefinger's end was emblematic of the show's descent for me, even if it happened after the show's downslide. Could anything be more symbolic than killing the last remaining politics character so they can focus on the ice zombies, which are the least interesting aspect of the story?
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tag

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Tag
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SeabassDebeste posted...

words about writing

I agree with almost all of your points. I think another thing to realize is that this was their first foray into writing unique material (for the most part), but it was the closest to the end point of the books that they had. Everyone knew Snow was going to be resurrected, that Cersei was going to get revenge on the high sparrow, that Daeny was going to ride into Westeros with an army and wreak havoc, etc. Once they accomplished the obvious plot threads and had to then go further, they were left to their own talent and an open map as to where to go minus the general ideas Martin had given them (which lets be honest, even he seems to be getting overwhelmed with the plot at this point).

It's not hard to understand why some of the best stuff from the show was what followed the books the closest, and the bad stuff was them using their own ideas. They just couldn't compete with the world building Martin had already done for them, and season 6 and 7 still let them at least use some of his material to build their own world. Season 8 was so far removed from their source that they were left to do it on their own, and clearly... they can't.

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Also full warning I'm going to reply to most of this thread. Not to hijack it but to give the opinion of one of those people that feels personally affronted by the last season to the point I watched the Emmys in the hopes to see them lose every award (except the acting, still top notch)

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Would love to hear your most disappointing character arcs from the first half of the series to the last.

Brienne or Dany have to be up there.

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I think a lot of GoT comes down to the question "Can a bad ending ruin an otherwise good journey?" Except in this case it's like the last three seasons and not just the ending.
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Anagram posted...

I think a lot of GoT comes down to the question "Can a bad ending ruin an otherwise good journey?" Except in this case it's like the last three seasons and not just the ending.

Yeah I have a board project I'm going to get started on soon that's basically a "best of the 2010s" list. It seems blasphemous to not include Game of Thrones as one of the best TV shows of the decade, but it's really hard to justify when the show only had 3 truly great seasons (at most).

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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Anagram posted...

I think a lot of GoT comes down to the question "Can a bad ending ruin an otherwise good journey?" Except in this case it's like the last three seasons and not just the ending.

Yeah I have a board project I'm going to get started on soon that's basically a "best of the 2010s" list. It seems blasphemous to not include Game of Thrones as one of the best TV shows of the decade, but it's really hard to justify when the show only had 3 truly great seasons (at most).

1-3 are fantastic
4-5 are mostly solid
6 shows a lot of problems
7 and 8 are lol
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I'm more of the mind that 1-2 are great, 3-4 are good, 5-6 are bad with some great moments, and 7-8 are really bad.

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1 is a truly excellent season of TV
2-5 are boring and dry af
6-7 are dumb but fun (other than high sparrow)
8 is bad AND boring
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SD, what would you say is the high water mark of the show?
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Anagram posted...

Littlefinger's end was emblematic of the show's descent for me, even if it happened after the show's downslide. Could anything be more symbolic than killing the last remaining politics character so they can focus on the ice zombies, which are the least interesting aspect of the story?

More on this in a bit, but this is kind of an intractable problem. The series literally begins with ice zombies. Like, if that's not the endgame, then what was even the point of that?
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FFDragon posted...

It would take me a long time to decide which of my unholy trio of shows I watched all way through that I'm most upset in wasting my life on (GoT, LOST, Heroes).

Man LOST was all fake hype. It didn't get bad, it was just always just kinda about BS that could never be resolved in the most satisfying way.

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Aecioo posted...

I agree with almost all of your points. I think another thing to realize is that this was their first foray into writing unique material (for the most part), but it was the closest to the end point of the books that they had. Everyone knew Snow was going to be resurrected, that Cersei was going to get revenge on the high sparrow, that Daeny was going to ride into Westeros with an army and wreak havoc, etc. Once they accomplished the obvious plot threads and had to then go further, they were left to their own talent and an open map as to where to go minus the general ideas Martin had given them (which lets be honest, even he seems to be getting overwhelmed with the plot at this point).

It's not hard to understand why some of the best stuff from the show was what followed the books the closest, and the bad stuff was them using their own ideas. They just couldn't compete with the world building Martin had already done for them, and season 6 and 7 still let them at least use some of his material to build their own world. Season 8 was so far removed from their source that they were left to do it on their own, and clearly... they can't.

Might as well start talking a bit about those intractable problems here. I'm not going to defend the actual writing here, because there are some mindnumbingly stupid choices they made, and there's no excuse for the dialogue sucking that badly. But GRRM left them a hot fucking mess, and it must have been hard for them to handle that.

I talked earlier in brief about only one character having agency per scene. Two key examples from Season 8 (but far from the only instances - look at Tyrion anytime after he leaves King's Landing): Sansa's "being smart" and Dany's feasting.

The writers decided that after being raped by Ramsay, Sansa was now Really Smart. She first demonstrates this Smartness in S6 by telling Jon that he's falling into a trap, though she suggests no alternative and fails to tell him that she's got fresh soldiers from the Vale in her back pocket. In Season 8, this gets even more unbearable, as Sansa continually tells us that Dany is bad news. While she raises nice points about logistics (housing, food, dangerous dragons), Sansa also becomes the Only Voice of Reasons in these scenes. Jon's dialogue drops to repetition ("She is my queen!") when he talks to her, and Dany gives a very cursory attempt at girl-power bonding. Even more aggravating, Sansa is proven right when Dany winds up torching King's Landing (a move so poorly psychologically built that it seems to imply Dany has lost her agency too, in a moment that should have been her decision).

In a more pointed and immediate example, there's the feast after the Army of the Dead is killed by a single knife-flip-trick. Dany raises her glass and says, "Who is the Lord of Storm's End?" Not a single person can answer, so she bequeaths it to Gendry. Okay so, what the fuck? No one knows? Not Varys, not Tyrion, not Davos? What the fuck is even the point of having intelligent characters surrounding Dany to have this type of "dialogue"? Dany is the agent in this scene, happy with her political power and making deals, so no one else is permitted to have knowledge proficiency here.

The execution on these is incredibly sloppy, of course, but that is an avoidable problem, not necessarily an intractable one...
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But there are several problems that just seem inherent in the show, unless GRRM gives answers. These fall under two categories: bad plot development by GRRM and a nearly impossible-to-deal-with concepts/"knots."

Intractable points:

- How the fuck can you beat the White Walkers satsifyingly? We can all agree that the showrunners chose an absolute shit route with the "kill one, kill all" method. However, there's a very delicate balance to strike. Can't the dragons obliterate the undead if one specific White Walker can't keep them in check? If the Army of the Dead moves past the North (seemingly a much more interesting way to face the "final boss"/a more convincing way to make an extinction threat), then won't they be far too big to ever be able to handle? These are questions that require a master world-builder/writer to answer, possibly the one who cooked up the idea to begin with.

- A thinning cast, with no internal monologue given. Jon and Dany's actors mature over the course of the show. They're extremely well-developed characters in the books who go from struggling to survive to solving (and often failing to solve) dilemmas in leadership. They are not the most charismatic of characters, but they become by far the most important. Without Martin's complex plot and creative external situations they must face, they seem far more wooden and are unable to bring much into the show. A lot of the interesting aspects for them are internal wrestling, and when what limited dialogue we get is so stilted, we wind up basically looking at a couple of morons in charge of Very Big Things.

- Related to the White Walkers: When one person has the dragons, does politicking matter? The show attempts to answer this with Dany flagrantly crossing the line and slaughtering innocents and then getting all fascist in a way that was never implied by her previous actions, offering a meek justification of Targaryen madness. This, and they way they "foreshadow" this (a bunch of characters suddenly talking about how Dany has Mad Queen potential without her actually demonstrating it) sucks ass obviously, but ... we know something like this will actually happen. Two important actual questions: 1. How can you take your heroine and turn her evil and not cause everyone to rebel? and 2. is one person having absolute military superiority an interesting story - and can it be militarily justifiable? Hell, is that superiority clear, or should it be? These questions are pretty tricky to answer, so you can see why writers struggle.

Next post: More to come on GRRM's own mistakes/bad writing.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

more pointed

I c u

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SeabassDebeste posted...

More on this in a bit, but this is kind of an intractable problem. The series literally begins with ice zombies. Like, if that's not the endgame, then what was even the point of that?

Sunken cost fallacy. Fuck the zombies once you realize you have actual characters that can do things and don't need them anymore.
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there's no reason you can't make ice zombies compelling, or that you can't come up with compelling scenarios around dealing with them even if they aren't.
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CoolCly posted...

there's no reason you can't make ice zombies compelling, or that you can't come up with compelling scenarios around dealing with them even if they aren't.

You could give the main ice zombie more characterization than 'smiles one time.'
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Ice zombies didn't need characterization, not in the context Game of Thrones used them in. They were the contrast to the 'political backstabbing' side of the show - an objectively threat that was always getting stronger while all the nobles of the realm had an extended slapfight instead of sorting their shit out and preparing. There's plenty of interesting things you can do with that setup. Game of Thrones did none of them.

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White walkers worked as a cool allegory but then the show (not books?) decided that they needed to be a very literal force with their own mythology.

I still wish they won while everyone else was divided fighting one another

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KamikazePotato posted...

There's plenty of interesting things you can do with that setup.

All of which could also be done by something with actual writing and intrigue

Even the ideal use of white walkers was always gonna be the worst part of the story
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In related news, the creators, D&D, have opted out of their star wars trilogy to chase all that Netflix money. Too bad, I was excited to see them fuck up star wars

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FFDragon posted...

It would take me a long time to decide which of my unholy trio of shows I watched all way through that I'm most upset in wasting my life on (GoT, LOST, Heroes).

Lost was fine. I still don't get the hate for it. It definitely took a dive towards the end, but it wasn't as bad as the lows of Thrones or Heroes.

Dexter is definitely up there for me.

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So just a little more on how the writers had a really difficult job, not just because they were presented with intractable plot/adaptation questions, but also because the source material had major problems of its own.

First off, the Dorne subplot is bad. It features a slew of new characters that take up a large segment of A Feast for Crows, a big reason that AFFC even exists (instead of just ADWD, the initial plan). And there are zero major characters in Dorne that appeared in any of the previous books.

Doran Martell is allegedly a player, but until Winds of Winter or ADOS even, his actions in AFFC/ADWD have yet to affect the "main plot" of the Starks, Targaryens, or Lannisters in any meaningful way. We're kept out of his POV because he apparently would spoil the future plot. This structure also prevents future plots from even ever happening IRL, since GRRM has to contend with writing around Doran and the molasses-like pacing he's decided to give to his Dornish POV characters. Doran has a very badass line at the end of AFFC where he promises to bring vengeance to the Lannisters - specifically, Fire and Blood. His master plan winds up being to send his son over to propose marriage to Daenerys in exchange for her armies and dragons. Four chapters of Quentyn affecting no major plotline later, he's laughed out of the throne room by Dany and roasted by Rhaegal. He also sends the Sand Snakes out, though there's never any hint that they're actually doing anything useful, because their characterization in the books is limited to "this one uses a spear and is angry, that one uses poison and is blonde." There are certainly hints that bigger plots are at play, but none of them has come to fruition - in other words, GRRM clearly wasn't up to the task of the plotlines that Dorne generated, and he wasn't good enough at writing them to justify including Dornish POVs at all. Dorne in the show has zero good moments, but it's arguably not worse than the source material it's based off.

One of the show's worst characters is adapted relatively faithfully: Samwell Tarly. Samwell is the most obviously plot-armored character in the ASOIAF universe, if for no other reason than he is the author's avatar - faithful, book-loving, fat as fuck, inexperienced with women, all that stuff. He's Hurley in LOST. Despite being put into mortal danger and having no particular skills, survives everything. His comic value in the show actually outstrips his shitty role in the plot. Anyway, ASOS gives Sam the only White Walker kill of the books' universe. I guess there's some point to be made about how even the unlikeliest of people can be heroes when they show a moment's courage, but that felt more like a shitty look for the Others. Like, can we blame the showrunners for having a shit end to the Others threat when GRRM decided that a fatass coward would slay the only Other in his series? Why is Sam getting so many POV chapters? Presumably something cool is going to happen in Oldtown. We've been waiting for 14 years to find out what that is. Can't blame the showrunners for figuring "Oldtown is probably just boring."
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Then there are the things we learn based on the structure of the universe/show that we know are important in the books' world, but that we know have an extremely vague path to actuality. The Others have, according to Mance Rayder, been gathering forces for at least twenty years. If they've been this slow, that actually saps a lot of the sense of urgency from the universe. Maybe they never really can cross the Wall? In the show they only cross the Wall because Tea Jon/Dany brings them a dragon in one of the single stupidest episodes of all time. What's the plan in the books?

And how about Bran becoming King? A little more on this later maybe, but this has to be GRRM's idea. The execution's badness on the show is beyond the pale, but Martin dreamed this up. How much do you trust him to bring this arc to fruition? How much do you trust him to go with something better than "he has the best story" and everyone agreeing? How the fuck do you integrate Bran's superpowers into the world of politics? I'm hopeful that GRRM will prove me wrong and write an incredible path to Bran's kingship. I hope my grandkids survive to see it.
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