The writing really disappointed me. Too many thing happened this season, because reasons. People seemed to get stupid in the decisions, the Night King turned into a giant McGuffin with no really use, and they storybook ended with the “goodest” guy in charge. The direction, effects and cinematography were amazing, but the pacing was just wrong.
I’m not much of a fan fiction type of guy, I like to be immersed in another’s world, but season 8 just felt off from the rest. Storytelling was dropped for effects and finishing.
In the end I was hoping for one final scene to “GRRM” it up, and show everyone is a shade of gray.
Spoiler!
Bran and Tyrion are talking in the aftermath of the new appointments.
Tyrion comments how Bran is king because of the amazing series of events trigger by the mad king demanding to “burn them all”
Bran looks off to the distance and nods in agreement, and mutters the words “burn them all” over and over, as we see him warg.
Cut to a perfect throne room and the Mad King on the throne with Jamie kneeling before him. Jamie asks the king to repeat himself, at which point we zoom in on his face and see his eye gloss over as he is being warged into. “Burn then all”. Cut to credits.
At least for me that would have been a much more satisfying and, IMO a more in line with the story type ending.
I would have preferred something like this, (maybe not this exact scenario). To me just having the storybook ending the way they did in the 2nd half of the episode was pretty jarring and tonally strange. There was a too much of an abrupt shift from the gravity of the Dany/Jon scene to the rest of the episode that turned into some type of SNL skit. I don't care that they gave roles to every character in the new kingdom. I don't think I needed that level of closure. Would have preferred a dramatic end.
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A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
"I was like Christ, lying on my back, with my arms outstretched, crucified"
-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
“Not everyone will be happy,” the 20-year-old says. “It’s so difficult to finish a series as popular as this without pissing some people off. I don’t think anybody will think it’s predictable and that’s as much as you can hope for. People are going to be angry. There’s going to be a lot of broken hearts. It’s ‘bittersweet,’ exactly as [saga author] George R.R. Martin intended. It’s a fitting conclusion to this epic saga.”
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I just finished binge watching the first 7.5 seasons so I could watch the last 3 episodes spoiler free.
The beginning of GoT and the end are definitely different and I would say the biggest difference is the source material is the finished books and the last is Hollywood.
Despite that, I got my $$$ out of the series. I think too many people are looking for water bottles and Starbucks cups and not just enjoying dragons and swords.
I liked the character development of almost all of the characters, and although I would like to have seen some of their fates turn out different, I enjoyed being surprised by their story arcs. Jamie Lannister for example - thought he was a real villain at the beginning, and by the end, I was surprised to find that he was one of my favourite characters. I hated that he went back to Cerci.
Are there giant plot holes, missed opportunities etc? Sure. But on the whole, a very enjoyable series. I think when something this massive gets going there is no pleasing everyone.
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GO FLAMES GO
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I've read every post in this thread, I've watched countless YouTube videos and numerous articles & blogs.
Absolutely no one has pointed out the most obvious reason for the reduction in quality.
I mean its shocking.
I've been rewatching the first two seasons as it's free on Bell on demand.
Go back and pick a random episode from seasons 1 or 2 and you'll see what I mean.
Early seasons showed boobs in pretty much every episode. Later ones didn't. I think the closest we saw of boobs in season 8 was Arya's airbrushed sideboob. Boobs were a dime a dozen in season 1.
Braun was right, you want to fix things, rebuild the brothels.
GoT with boobs >>> GoT without.
HBO never should have fired the 13 year old creative consultant that put boobs in ever episode.
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I'm looking forward to seeing the end of the show where Bran is the only one left alive and we get this long and ornate scene of him entering the throne room and then wheeling up to the Iron Throne and then being stopped by the stairs....
Sad face.....fade to black....credits.
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Not really the ending that was lame, but how they got there.
So much wasted screen time on storylines through the least 2-3 season that literally meant nothing.
Hopefully HBO (and others) learn from this.
Yeah. Dont trust GRRM.
So much wasted time largely because George's meandering was great when its just him plugging away at his crappy typrewriter endlessly, but when you actually have to come up with something coherent that has some form of direction its not so easy.
I look at all those 'pointless storylines' I remember that it was George who dragged us all around Westeros for no goddamned reason.
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So much wasted time largely because George's meandering was great when its just him plugging away at his crappy typrewriter endlessly, but when you actually have to come up with something coherent that has some form of direction its not so easy.
I look at all those 'pointless storylines' I remember that it was George who dragged us all around Westeros for no goddamned reason.
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not. Almost none of the extra “pointless storylines” from the book are in the show. And I’m about 90% none of the pointless storylines from S7/8 will be in the show at all.
Are you joking by blaming someone other than D&D for a change?
Not really what I had in mind, but I've felt this show was getting worse and worse. I thought the King in the North was the last great part in this show. I had faith they could carry on without their source material. Then The Expendables happened north of the wall and I just couldn't stop groaning for the rest of the seasons.
I'm not even really disappointed honestly because my expectations were so low. Like Big Ban Theory, I'm just glad it is finally over.
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I think that there was one big dramatic shift in the show that fundamentally changed things.
They got rid of the schemers, the political back stabber that really made this series the Game of Thrones.
You look back at it
You had
Olette Tryell - Was a gentle looking plain speaking woman who wanted Margaery on the throne. She even killed Joffrey and allowed Tryion to take the blame. Her manipulations caused war.
Tywin - The grand power behind the throne. Urbane and brilliant. His conversations about history with Arya were almost like a grandfather and his grand daughter. But he outright was the chess master of the 7 Kingdoms. He didn't see his children as his children but an extension of his legacy and he moved them around like pawns. He was willing to have his son Tyrion sentence to die so he could force him to the wall
The High Sparrow - Cersei tried to manipulate him against Margaery and the Tyrells and she got completely played as the Faith Militant became extremely powerful and basically started an inquisition that nearly broke her. Behind his kindly talk about faith and sin and absolution he was a political climber.
Tyrion - In the first few seasons he was a schemer, he manipulated events through out the kingdom. But later in the show they switched him to being the conscience of the show and not as much of a manipulator
Cersei - Ruthless, and vengenceful and mean spirited, but she was a plotter and planner. Later on in the show she lost that dimension and just became a driven and corrupted form of her former self exacting open vengeance.
LittleFinger - He was a manipulator but unlike everyone above, he became worse at it as the show went on and became this lovelorn bumbler.
As the series went on they replaced these schemers with mustache twirling killer victims
Ramsey Bolton - He was fun and interesting because he was a black hearted psychopath who took joy in his work promoting suffering. But it worked because he was the first true brutal monster in the show.
Euron Greyjoy - His character was so two dimensional that when he turned sideways he vanished. But there was no depth to him. He was evil for evils sake and basically a smack talker. He just wasn't interesting or cool and because of that his death felt meaningless.
Just my 2 cents. But at some point around the end of season 6 as I approach the end of season 7, Game of Thrones went from a game of thrones was a lot of pieces in play behind the thrones, to more of a run of the mill dungeons and dragons style quest show.
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I think that there was one big dramatic shift in the show that fundamentally changed things.
They got rid of the schemers, the political back stabber that really made this series the Game of Thrones.
You look back at it
You had
Olette Tryell - Was a gentle looking plain speaking woman who wanted Margaery on the throne. She even killed Joffrey and allowed Tryion to take the blame. Her manipulations caused war.
Tywin - The grand power behind the throne. Urbane and brilliant. His conversations about history with Arya were almost like a grandfather and his grand daughter. But he outright was the chess master of the 7 Kingdoms. He didn't see his children as his children but an extension of his legacy and he moved them around like pawns. He was willing to have his son Tyrion sentence to die so he could force him to the wall
The High Sparrow - Cersei tried to manipulate him against Margaery and the Tyrells and she got completely played as the Faith Militant became extremely powerful and basically started an inquisition that nearly broke her. Behind his kindly talk about faith and sin and absolution he was a political climber.
Tyrion - In the first few seasons he was a schemer, he manipulated events through out the kingdom. But later in the show they switched him to being the conscience of the show and not as much of a manipulator
Cersei - Ruthless, and vengenceful and mean spirited, but she was a plotter and planner. Later on in the show she lost that dimension and just became a driven and corrupted form of her former self exacting open vengeance.
LittleFinger - He was a manipulator but unlike everyone above, he became worse at it as the show went on and became this lovelorn bumbler.
As the series went on they replaced these schemers with mustache twirling killer victims
Ramsey Bolton - He was fun and interesting because he was a black hearted psychopath who took joy in his work promoting suffering. But it worked because he was the first true brutal monster in the show.
Euron Greyjoy - His character was so two dimensional that when he turned sideways he vanished. But there was no depth to him. He was evil for evils sake and basically a smack talker. He just wasn't interesting or cool and because of that his death felt meaningless.
Just my 2 cents. But at some point around the end of season 6 as I approach the end of season 7, Game of Thrones went from a game of thrones was a lot of pieces in play behind the thrones, to more of a run of the mill dungeons and dragons style quest show.
Joffrey says hi.
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Overall I enjoyed it, I didn't mind the aftermath ending, life goes on. GoT was a show that tried NOT to fit a story to serve the typical tropes and payoffs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
So much wasted screen time on storylines through the least 2-3 season that literally meant nothing.
Have you watched the last 8 seasons?? It's littered with plot lines and characters that fit this.. It's like THE major trope of GoT. Build up a character or plot line or whatever for years, then just *bloop* deleted.
I think they were trying to subvert traditional storytelling, but became a trope in the process.
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Fair enough on Joffrey, he was absolutely a monster, but he was also a coward, and not very smart or manipulative.
However Ramsey was all of those things, he was smart, he had the respect of his men, he could manipulate when he had to. Joffrey was like a berzerker, Ramsey was a serial killer
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I can’t tell if this is a joke or not. Almost none of the extra “pointless storylines” from the book are in the show. And I’m about 90% none of the pointless storylines from S7/8 will be in the show at all.
Are you joking by blaming someone other than D&D for a change?
Its a bit of a dig at both.
I liked the Finale, but to me I see the criticisms of the show being 'rushed' and that they wasted a lot of time in earlier seasons on things that never really got wrapped up and that small changes here and there could have made the finale better.
Honestly, I think GRRM was full of it when he says that he knew how this thing was going to end and that at some point the showrunners figured that out.
I mean them specifically because they're running a show. That means organizing the writers, directors, actors, etc. The whole show.
I think at some point they realized that they have this meandering source material from a guy who has no deadlines and at some point the whole group who have been at this for a decade figured that they had to wrap this up and to hell with George.
There were seemingly no Airtime or Budget constraints, the only thing seemingly lacking was patience and goodwill and that resulted in a hastily ended show.
So there were parts that took too long or stories that didnt end or things that were introduced that werent tied up, etc. and this is the result of not having George's source material because there wasnt any and George's propensity to bring in new things and figure out how to wrap them up later, well that doesnt go so well in TV. That gets you 'Lost.'
So it seems that everyone wanted to end this thing and thats why certain stories arent tied up and why the final season feels somewhat rushed while at other points in the series was the complaint about things going too slowly.
Ultimately I'm thrilled with the show. We got 8 seasons of amazing TV. I can hardly wait to go back to Season 1 and start it all over again. No matter which way you want to slice it I think this show was amazeballs. Some episodes better than others but even the worst episodes were probably some of the best TV out there.
I have enjoyed the ride from Day 1.
That being said you couldnt make me read the books with a gun to my head. I'd tell you to pull the trigger.
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Seriously though, in the GoT world, the peace would last about 5 min. It won’t take long until people get sick of having an emo kid in power with no governing or leadership experience. His council is made up of a bunch of noobs and outcasts. His master of coin didn’t even know how interest in a loan works a few seasons ago. His first act of king was to grant independence to one of the kingdoms because they used their words. How long until the other six do the same and what would Bran the Sulky do about it? Not to mention that a good portion of the population won’t like that Jon Snow was banished for doing what most would have to see as saving their cities from being burned.
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One thing I will say about this show is that for the most part its such a visual treat to watch. When they were standing in Kings Landing and the Ash was falling like snow. Everytime Drogan appeared. The completely chaotic battle scenes.
It was amazing to watch just for that, even from the perspective of the background music and sounds.
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Or a Master of Whispers? He doesn't need "little birds" when he can warg into actual birds whenever he wants.
The Maester can still serve the role of documenting stuff because even though the Three Eyed Raven can see everything, he isn't really great about sharing what he has seen. The Maester is also the closest thing they have to a doctor is Westeros.
Speaking of the Three Eyed Raven, we got a good look at Bran's sigil when Brienne was writing Jaime's history. No sign of the Stark direwolf.
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