A Game of Thrones **BOOKS OFF LIMITS** v2

[belsarius]

GoT jumped the shark when they killed Ned. Nobody who hadn't read the books/been spoiled saw that coming. Until then it was just a cool fantasy world of intrigue and politics and the threat of a boogy-man. Since then we've had dragons, magic, demon assassin spawn, people wearing other people's faces, the army of the dead, resurrections, seeing through tree faces, mind control and time-line manipulation to hold a door.

I can deal with some high speed ravens. Dial-up ravens are so last winter.

[Finger Cookin]

The phrase "jumping the shark" has jumped the shark. Right up there with deux ex machina. People throw them around all the time like it adds weight and meaning to their analysis. Hint: They do not.

[/endrant]

[JohnnyB]

This thread has really jumped the shark.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by belsarius

GoT jumped the shark when they killed Ned. Nobody who hadn't read the books/been spoiled saw that coming. Until then it was just a cool fantasy world of intrigue and politics and the threat of a boogy-man. Since then we've had dragons, magic, demon assassin spawn, people wearing other people's faces, the army of the dead, resurrections, seeing through tree faces, mind control and time-line manipulation to hold a door.

I can deal with some high speed ravens. Dial-up ravens are so last winter.

Wasn't the first scene of the show filled with white walker zombies?

[Looch City]

We have never seen any sharks in the world of Game of Thrones. Totally unrealistic.

Theon wouldn't even be alive if there were sharks.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

The phrase "jumping the shark" has jumped the shark. Right up there with deux ex machina. People throw them around all the time like it adds weight and meaning to their analysis. Hint: They do not.

[/endrant]

Jumping the Shark really applies more to shows with no set end date. The point is you have new plots introduced that become more and more contrived to keep things fresh.

If GoT fails to deliver on its ending, I'd agree, that's not what Jumping the Shark really means.

Deux ex Machina, however, is a much more universal expression that has actually been around for a couple thousand years now.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

The phrase "jumping the shark" has jumped the shark. Right up there with deux ex machina. People throw them around all the time like it adds weight and meaning to their analysis. Hint: They do not.

[/endrant]

Can I still use Maguffin, I really like that word a it fits so well with the zombie they just captured

[Locke]

Originally Posted by GGG

Can I still use Maguffin, I really like that word a it fits so well with the zombie they just captured

Well, its supposed to be 'McGuffin' and no, hes not a Dog that fights crime, thats McGruff. But I suppose its close enough.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Locke

Well, its supposed to be 'McGuffin' and no, hes not a Dog that fights crime, thats McGruff. But I suppose its close enough.

According to wikipedia MacGuffin and maguffin are both acceptable spellings. In fact, "MacGuffin" is the original spelling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

Now can we please end all this talk about literary devices and get back to the unresolved issues of the quality and availability of materials used in building Euron Greyjoy's fleet and the pertinent economic pressures affecting the policies of the Iron Bank.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Locke

Well, its supposed to be 'McGuffin' and no, hes not a Dog that fights crime, thats McGruff. But I suppose its close enough.

All future posts I will now refer to it as a Mcgruffin. The crime dog that led John beyond the wall.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

According to wikipedia MacGuffin and maguffin are both acceptable spellings. In fact, "MacGuffin" is the original spelling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

Now can we please end all this talk about literary devices and get back to the unresolved issues of the quality and availability of materials used in building Euron Greyjoy's fleet and the pertinent economic pressures affecting the policies of the Iron Bank.

Look you, I havent finished assessing the economic and engineering difficulties concerning the construction and payment for wagons.

One thing at a time man....one thing at a time. And then after this I've been asked to assess the accuracy of an ice spear from 200 yards.

I have things on my plate man...

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

But why do people keep thinking that the complaints are about them not showing the actual travel? That idea is so absurd it is hilarious.

The issue is with the passage of time between events. Characters exist on one side of the continent in one scene and then a few scenes later a scene that seemingly takes place only hours or days later that character is on the other side of the continent with no plausible explanation as to how that happened.

If there was a reasonable effort to show that large chunks of time had passed it would make sense, but it seems as though the show has actually gone out of its way to show us these events are only hours/days apart.

Nah.
What is absurd is in a show featuring dragons, undead frozen people, drowned people, resurrections, murderous shadow babies, wearing other faces, etc... that people are concerned about distance traveled as a function of time.

[Fuzz]

Perhaps next we could talk about the impossibility of dragon flight. Those things must weigh as much as a blue whale. No way are they getting of the ground. And the aerodynamics are all wrong. Care to weigh in, resident aircraft expert, Bigtime?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Nah.
What is absurd is in a show featuring dragons, undead frozen people, drowned people, resurrections, murderous shadow babies, wearing other faces, etc... that people are concerned about distance traveled as a function of time.

This is a poor arguement.

Fantasy and Sci-Universes have a set of rules. The physics of the game of thrones world allows for all of the above. The physics of the world also established that it takes time to get places. If they always teleported people it would be okay but not paying attention to it is lazy.

Now I think most are quite explainable and 15 minutes would have fixed it so it's not bad but saying just because something doesn't follow Earth physics means nothing follows Earth physics is illogical

[JFK]

[Tinordi]

GRRM may be the only hope to save Game of Thrones:

Two months ago it looked like Martin had lost control of his life’s work, upstaged by a televised series that had made him wealthy and famous but also one of the most mocked and pitied people in the literary world. Fast-forward six episodes, though—which Martin, whose recent public output consists of modeling hats, claims he hasn’t watched—and the conversation surrounding the Westeros world-builder has changed. For the first time since the show’s narrative progress surpassed that of the books, Martin seems like the true steward of the story and the best hope for a fully satisfying resolution. As we wait for Sunday’s HBO finale, Martin has been the biggest winner of a spotty Season 7.

After several seasons in which the series’ universally positive critical reputation matched its popular status as the only remaining show that it’s safe to assume a stranger has watched, a Game of Thrones backlash has begun. The latest season, which the show’s creators voluntarily truncated to seven episodes from the series’ customary 10—ironically, in an effort not to compromise on quality—has seemed to suffer from that brevity. The past two episodes, in particular, have been marred by far-fetched timing and travel, idiot plots, and, most distressing of all, deftly developed fan favorites acting out of character.

https://www.theringer.com/game-of-th...and-fire-books

[GGG]

Even in that article it recognizes that Martin likely doesn't have a better way to end it and thus hasn't written the ending.

The inciteful part is that much like the show was able to fix book issues by virtue of going second the books will be able to fix show issues by going second.

Though I'm still willing to argue to the death the the characters are making the same foolish decisions that they have always made and are acting in character as opposed to the mythology built around them by fans.

[JFK]

Originally Posted by GGG

Though I'm still willing to argue to the death the the characters are making the same foolish decisions that they have always made and are acting in character as opposed to the mythology built around them by fans.

Fans thinking they know the characters is always a pet peeve as stories grow long. In the beginning they just accept what happens but as they move through the story with them they arrogantly start to believe they "know" them and what each character would or wouldn't do.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by JFK

Fans thinking they know the characters is always a pet peeve as stories grow long. In the beginning they just accept what happens but as they move through the story with them they arrogantly start to believe they "know" them and what each character would or wouldn't do.

You honestly don't understand how that works? At the beginning of the series we know nothing about the characters or their motivations so it's hard to predict what they're going to do. As the series goes along and we start to understand who they are and what motivates them it starts to become easier to predict how they would act because we are familiar with that character. When they do things that aren't consistent with their previous actions we expect an explanation.

[Tinordi]

In all honesty finishing the books is going to be an order of magnitude more difficult than the show which ruthless cut back the extraneous story lines of the books.

But it's really obvious that without Martin's hand on the tiller, the show has really suffered in the most basic ways, plotting and story telling. They're lucky that this season sits atop 6 seasons of world and character building so that it mostly sticks together. However, it looks like only the most ardent/blind of fans are the ones sticking up for it. You know its bad when the most threadbare of arguments are being trotted out defending this season.

"You can't criticize a show for realism when it has dragons and zombies" is pretty much the worst argument. You can actually. The plotting, the characters decisions, what happens needs to be internally consistent. That's a basic of story telling. Previous versions of the show emphasized how distance was a key part of the story. The Wall was far away and therefore couldn't have been helped when the Wildlings attacked as one example. You can't use geography as a plot device in one season and then completely disregard it the next.

However, I'm less hung up on the timeline/geography stuff. Mine has more to do with just how the actual story doesn't make sense. How could Jamie have captured one of the great strongholds of Westeros in a day? Why didn't Olena see Cersei's attack coming? Why did Tyrion think it a good idea to attack Casterly Rock? Why does Jon Snow think it's a good idea to put his life in danger for the stupidest of plans to capture a wight when he's the King of the North and has to prepare his people for an existential battle? These are the things that bother me. It doesn't make any damn sense.

And yes, you can reverse engineer explanations for all these things. But the fact that you have to speaks to how spotty the storytelling is. You shouldn't need to do that. The plotting should unfold in a way that it all builds to the key moments.