Game of Thrones (Spoilers for the latest episodes)

[Kaymyth]

Well, that was just a fiery hot mess with a side of burnt citizens.

 

2 hours ago, Voidus said:

Honestly I don't even want the books to be finished now. If the ending is completely different and actually good then it'll still feel hollow and I'll be endlessly wondering why GRRM didn't give the writers better direction, and if it's the same then I don't want to have to go through this again.

This season has completely destroyed my enjoyment of the entire series, I don't know if I'll be able to rewatch or reread it again without it feeling bitter due to what I know happens.

From what I hear, he's not any happier with this stuff than the rest of us. He gave them a set of major plot points to work with, trusted them to handle them properly, and then they proceeded to fart out this half-cheeked disaster. (Remember, also, that they basically made up their version of the Night King out of whole cloth. That entire subplot with "let's have Arya kill the evil undead lord!" won't even exist in the books because the evil undead lord wasn't even supposed to exist.)

Honestly, I think he's been annoyed with them ever since they cut the Lady Stoneheart subplot. I get the feeling that he has some Important Crap (tm) planned with her, and their removal of her derailed some of the plotlines he could have given to them. And think, then, about how much other stuff they cut or dovetailed; they may have been snipping threads that unraveled half the plot-sweater near the end and thus we have this rushed mess. But also, they made terrible choices with what they DID have.

The man can only hand-hold them so much at this point, especially since they're not really required to take much direction from him. I'm not going to blame GRRM for the fact that two supposed professionals who do this for a living completely failed to write their way out of a wet paper bag.

[NottTheBrave]

Going to go ahead and jump in here to voice my displeasure as well.  I can't get over how monumentally awful the resolution for Jaime and Cersei was.  I don't think it could have been done any worse, outside of them lovingly sailing away to be a happy family.  Euron was such a dud the entire series too, and the rushed nature of these past two seasons just exacerbates the issues with him.  Not to mention, Yara just totally disappeared.

The way everything unfolded with Dany was just a gut punch too.  Not in the way they wanted either.  Everything was so ridiculously easy, and it made her decision to burn it all seem utterly ridiculous.  Mad Queen Dany isn't necessarily a bad thing (even if I find it trite and boring) but her going mad like this... boy howdy did it not work for me.  

I can't imagine the books ever coming close to being like the show, in fact I find it kind of impossible, so they aren't really ruined for me.  The show on the other hand... it makes me so sad.  The actors, the cinematography, the direction, the music... so much is being done at their A game to deliver some of the most tepid and poorly thought out episodes of television ever.  It's heartbreaking in some ways.

[+Sorana]

So nothing really more to add for me.

I don't even care how it will end anymore. Looking back the fight against the undead was one of the best episodes of this season so far, and it wasn't good.

The best thing of the newest episode? Cersei's red dress. That one was brilliant. And the dragon, I like the dragon. He's cool.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Sorana

[The Kraken's Daughter]

On 5/14/2019 at 11:40 PM, ZincAboutIt said:

Basically the only thing I liked about last night's episode was Arya's scene running through the city. It was shot well and I think she did a good job and it fit with her character. 

Also I will be endlessly bitter about Jamie's stupid death forever. Jamie!! Ugh. I just want to throw things. He was supposed to be the "younger brother" in the prophecy, I was SO SURE of it! I am so mad. *table flip*

Jaime and Cersei's deaths pissed me off too! I'd been anticipating Cersei's death since she blew up the Great Sept of Baelor, and I was expecting it to be an epic moment. It was just such a letdown. And I can't believe Jaime chose her over Brienne. (It didn't even seem like he was thinking, "I'm trying to be an honorable man now, so I have to be there for my new baby." I could have understood him feeling guilty about being unable to being a real father to Tommen and Myrcella, wondering if he could have turned Joffrey down a different path, that kind of thing. But nope, we didn't get that either.)

On 5/15/2019 at 1:55 AM, Kaymyth said:

 I get the feeling that he has some Important Crap (tm) planned with her, and their removal of her derailed some of the plotlines he could have given to them. And think, then, about how much other stuff they cut or dovetailed; they may have been snipping threads that unraveled half the plot-sweater near the end and thus we have this rushed mess. But also, they made terrible choices with what they DID have.

They completely botched Euron as well. He's an absolutely terrible person in the books, but him having the dragonbinder horn from Old Valyria and his scheme to

Spoiler

become a new god

make him a really interesting character. The conflict between him and Victarion, the possibility of the horn taming/controlling the dragons, and Euron's intent to raid Oldtown (where Sam currently is, IIRC) all seem like significant elements that the show completely dispensed with. And when he does come into conflict with the main characters, I'm pretty sure GRRM will be able to avoid that silliness with the surprise attack on open water and the easy dragonslaying.

On 5/15/2019 at 2:12 AM, Sorana said:

The best thing of the newest episode? Cersei's red dress. That one was brilliant. And the dragon, I like the dragon. He's cool.

I liked Cersei's dress too. Her outfits have become a lot more austere, which fits with the changes her character has gone through. Do they even have lion motifs anymore?

As nonsensical as the "as accurate as the plot requires, no more and no less" scorpions were, Drogon did look really cool torching them all.

Grey Worm was cool too. That scene of him, Jon, and Davos marching through the hole Drogon blasted in the wall was pretty awesome.

[+Sorana]

2 hours ago, The Kraken's Daughter said:

I liked Cersei's dress too. Her outfits have become a lot more austere, which fits with the changes her character has gone through. Do they even have lion motifs anymore?

No, she stopped wearing that motif a while ago. same with Sansa. How her cloths evolved and changed - or Dany. The costumes are brilliant and I hope they have some new, beautiful ones in the last episode. A series with that many great costumes is rare.

[NottTheBrave]

1 hour ago, Sorana said:

No, she stopped wearing that motif a while ago. same with Sansa. How her cloths evolved and changed - or Dany. The costumes are brilliant and I hope they have some new, beautiful ones in the last episode. A series with that many great costumes is rare.

Even with the problems in the writing department, the production is still so astounding, even breathtaking.  They're going to win many Emmy's for this season, despite peoples disappointment.  So much great work was done on GoT the past decade.

[+Sorana]

3 minutes ago, NottTheBrave said:

Even with the problems in the writing department, the production is still so astounding, even breathtaking.  They're going to win many Emmy's for this season, despite peoples disappointment.  So much great work was done on GoT the past decade.

My largest problem with this season is the plot, they character development. The costumes are still great and I enjoy to watch them only because the fights are still well rehearsed and fun to look at. (Not talking about tactics here.)

But the costumes are so great. I already decided to do a cosplay and bought some of the fabric.

[NottTheBrave]

20 minutes ago, Sorana said:

My largest problem with this season is the plot, they character development. The costumes are still great and I enjoy to watch them only because the fights are still well rehearsed and fun to look at. (Not talking about tactics here.)

But the costumes are so great. I already decided to do a cosplay and bought some of the fabric.

I fully agree.  I love the costumes, and am still tempted to buy things like the funko pops or mcfarlane figures simply because I've loved the casting, and the costuming, for the characters.  If I ever meet any of the cast members, I'd still have them sign photos from the show simply because there's just so many iconic shots and outfits.  They're great!

[The Kraken's Daughter]

19 hours ago, Sorana said:

My largest problem with this season is the plot, they character development. The costumes are still great and I enjoy to watch them only because the fights are still well rehearsed and fun to look at. (Not talking about tactics here.)

But the costumes are so great. I already decided to do a cosplay and bought some of the fabric.

Cosplay can be a lot of fun. Which character do you want to do?

[+Sorana]

3 hours ago, The Kraken's Daughter said:

Cosplay can be a lot of fun. Which character do you want to do?

Sansa Stark. I love her. I know some love her and some don't and I don't really want to start a discussion and her - but I lover her, her comments, the way she handles things. A friend will be doing Cat Stark, so we will fit together well.

[Orlion Blight]

My opinion on that season of Game of Thrones: 

[Use the Falchion]

So I'll admit I was wrong. When the leaks came out, I only saw a part of them to save myself the surprise as to how the story will end. This created an inaccurate picture of the series and the finale, and I was wrong to take such partialities as truths. THAT BEING SAID, I think where the show ended was about as perfect as it could get for the show it is. Or rather, I think the ending is great for the books.

Spoiler

Arya wanted an adventure at the beginning of the series. Her journey through the series has been one adventure fueled by necessity, survival, and unfortunate after the other. But now she gets to choose her journey. THAT BEING SAID, Arya's book path was always about family, and her shunting that to go off on an adventure can rub people the wrong way.

 

Sansa always wanted to be queen (or rather the most powerful woman in the room. First that'd be Lady of Winterfell, then Queen. But after so much abuse and losing Winterfell, she just wanted her home back. In the end, she gets both. 

 

Dany wanted to break the wheel that had burdened the Seven Kingdoms. She saw it starting with the Usurpers, but in reality it started with her family, and her using her family name and power to break the wheel would never have worked. So she needed to die. She was also a conqueror who's one time stint at ruling was VERY unsuccessful, so maybe she wouldn't have been a good ruler for Westeros regardless.

 

Jon's a bit trickier. He started out wanting to find a place he belonged and an identity he could accept. He found this in the Night's Watch, but once he lived with the Wildlings, he understood so much more. He couldn't be JUST a Night's Watch member. And in every role, he gained a new title, but those titles never gave him the happiness he wanted. So in the end, despite having found his birth identity he couldn't be happy because his duty was more important. So now he sent back to the wall (although the ending made it look like he would be helping resettle the Wildings, who more-or-less see him as their king, so...) where things make sense but he has no great purpose. At the beginning he wanted to go beyond the Wall, so maybe it's fitting the last scene is him doing so again?

It's unfortunate and as a friend pointed out, Jon never truly got his say in any of the events throughout the series. We know what he doesn't want, and that's power. 

 

Bran is weird. He wanted to be a knight in the books. Now he's king. 

There's so much more I could say, but I need to eat and go to bed. So I'll save this for another time.

Overall, Game of Thrones shows what happens when a show outpaces a series and takes shortcuts when streamlining characters. But the ending fit. 

[Voidus]

A mediocre ending, I guess it's better than it could have been but this did nothing to help what's already happened. Guess this is another series that I'll never be rewatching. Maybe by the time new books are out I'll give them a try but right now it's just so thoroughly disappointing.

[Wander89]

For what it's worth, I happened to enjoy the ending. It's not a matter of the show itself being bad, it's the pacing of the last few seasons/episodes that caused the drama. If the story was told over a lengthier period then it could have been panned out to fill so many gaps and answer so many questions. I enjoyed the show and won't be bitter about any other part of this, it's been my life for the past 8 years as I'm sure it has been with others. Just have to enjoy what we've got until the next big fantasy show appears (hopefully WoT)

[StormingTexan]

Ending wasn't horrible and I liked what happened to most of the characters. Again I feel like at least a half a season worth of events took place in one episode but it is what it is. The only thing rubbing me the wrong way is how relatively easy Jon got off with killing Danny. She had just got done pumping up her troops and Grey Worm with her little speech and I have a hard time believing they would not have revenged her death even though it was absolutely necessary. I would have almost rather this had gone down with both dying as morbid as that sounds seems like it would have been more GOT'ish. I did like how it turned out for the rest of the main characters especially Sansa and Arya. 

[Modal Seoul]

It would take a bit too long to write down my mixed feelings so I will just write a brief summary of my thoughts on the ends of certain character arcs.
 

Tyrion Lannister: Peter Dinklage is one of the best actors today so it's really disappointing that they are giving him this material to work with. Since Season 7, they've done some strange things with Tyrion and unfortunately, nothing paid off for me in this season. Tyrion is my favourite character but he is not given much substance in this season. Furthermore, I'm pretty surprised that he suggested Bran. Would not have expected that from him.

Cersei and Jaime Lannister: When Cersei first started out, I didn't like her that much. But by Season 3, I felt that they had come to the point where she had become an actually intriguing character. Cersei's arc is completed on a note that I feel is true to her character. Jaime, on the other hand..... yeesh. WHAT A LETDOWN. He had so much going his way but then he's pulled back so he can get back with Cersei. Jaime deserved better, honestly.

Daenerys Targaryen: STORMFATHER. WHAT. WERE. THEY. THINKING? The twist for Dany's character does make sense to a degree but the problem is that they never justify her reasons for doing so. This change was so rushed yet so drawn-out that it came out of nowhere. It was too shocking for me and it was thoroughly disappointing.

Jon Snow: Besides Cersei, Jon's character arc was the one that I had the least problems with. Part of me really wishes that he claimed the throne. They had built up to something but passed us some salt instead. I actually liked how he was the one who killed Daenerys. BUT STILL. He could have totally claimed it. Why didn't Tyrion suggest him? Any of Daenerys' supporters probably would have just left or been killed or something but I really see no major problems with Jon getting the throne.

Sansa Stark: This may just be me but I feel like Sansa has never been given a lot of focus, compared to other arcs. I believe she's a great character and she does get what she wants in the end, but I feel like there's something missing. I really can't put my finger on it.

Arya Stark: WHAT A WASTE. What a waste of potential! Arya has such an incredible power yet she never uses it in Season 8. I've really enjoyed Arya's character and I felt like they were turning it up to 11, but then changed their minds and dialled it down. A lot. It was so disappointing.

Bran Stark: Ummm. Yup. So that happened. I've never liked Bran. To me, his story was never interesting. They had the chance to do so but never did. I feel like they should have put Bran and Jaime against each other in this season. That would have been entertaining. But they didn't. He just continues to sit in his wheelchair, complaining about his crippling depression.

Others: Brienne got knighted which made me happy. I didn't like how the Hound died (or the Mountain for that matter). What they did with Melisandre was pretty weird. And I wish Davos had done something awesome.

Feel free to disagree.

[+ZincAboutIt]

I am relatively happy with this ending, it is satisfying to me. I like how basically Westeros is now stacked with Starks: Bran as King of the 6 Kingdoms, Sansa in the North, and Jon effectively as "King Beyond the Wall." I thought for sure they were going to kill off the last dragon, but I'm rather glad they didn't. Leaves some magic left in the world. While this last season hasn't been very great, I did like the last episode. It tied up enough things, and enough of my favorite characters made it through that I'm not super sad. I have been entertaining myself with imagining Bran as his own Master of Whisperers just making all his birds fly around and listening to stuff. 

"Oh hey, heard you were talkin' trash about me." "Your Grace I would nev--" "I WAS THERE I WAS A BIRD."

But I will never stop being mad about how they WASTED Jaime's character arc. WHYYY?!  

[+Sorana]

The ending was a lot better than I expected.

Sansa as Queen of the North is about the only thing I really wanted to happen and that happened. I love how she changed, how her costumes changed with her until she is a strong woman and someone I trust to rule wisely. And did you see the sleeves of her dress when she was crowned? That was such a beautiful embroidery, easily one of my favourite dresses of the whole series.

All in all I feel like the characters got an ending that fit them, that can or can't make them happy, and that was somewhat important to me.

Arya, well she had her one great scene. I'd hoped she would kill Cersei, but alas, she got the Nightking. Afterwards she was useless (again).

Bran - never liked him and that didn't change. He's king, or rather lets Tyrion rule. I trust Tyrion to do a good job, so I don't really care about Bran. That's an arc I don't get at all.

So all in all I am satisfied. The season was only mediocre, but the ending was, compared to the episodes before, good. The only sad thing is, that now it's over. I really enjoyed the evenings, watching GoT with friends.

 

[+ZincAboutIt]

2 hours ago, Sorana said:

Bran - never liked him and that didn't change. He's king, or rather lets Tyrion rule. I trust Tyrion to do a good job, so I don't really care about Bran. That's an arc I don't get at all.

This makes me so sad, Bran is one of my absolute faves! I don’t think they did him justice in the show, but I consider him one of if not THE most important people in the plot. Bran forever!  

[+Sorana]

Just now, ZincAboutIt said:

This makes me so sad, Bran is one of my absolute faves! I don’t think they did him justice in the show, but I consider him one of if not THE most important people in the plot. Bran forever!  

Oh no! Please don't be sad!

*hugs*

Bran is great! He is the most important person and I liked his plot a lot?

[+ZincAboutIt]

Just now, Sorana said:

Oh no! Please don't be sad!

*hugs*

Bran is great! He is the most important person and I liked his plot a lot?

Lol you don’t have to lie, it’s more a fault of the show. Show-Bran isn’t quite right, but so much of his plot line was internal and very magic-heavy which isn’t a direction the show went. If I had only watched the show I likely wouldn’t have enjoyed him much either. 

[+Sorana]

5 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Lol you don’t have to lie, it’s more a fault of the show. Show-Bran isn’t quite right, but so much of his plot line was internal and very magic-heavy which isn’t a direction the show went. If I had only watched the show I likely wouldn’t have enjoyed him much either. 

*has read the books and didn't like him there either*

You're right. A lot of his plot was lost in the show, as they focused on other things but the magic plot around him. I liked him better in the books, but he never counted to the characters I cheered for.

[+ZincAboutIt]

Ahh well everyone reads a story differently!  That’s what makes this fun.

[+Sorana]

It does. Apart from that it would be strange if we 100% shared our opinions as well. We're similar enough as it is.

[NottTheBrave]

I'm really annoyed with this ending.  Outside of Dany, the whole thing felt like Disney stepped in.  It was shockingly happy for basically everyone except Dany, which made her arc feel even weirder and unnecessary honestly.  

There was absolutely no consequence to her dying.  Jon gets off Scott free with his plot armor, the unsullied sail away to eunuch island, the dothraki... holy crap how are they still around?  There's no turmoil, no betrayal... it was such an easy ending for everybody.  Even the damnation dragon just flies away and is apparently fine.  Although him carrying her body away was super awkward.  I don't really want to picture drogon eating Dany, but okay then.

They might as well have had Jon talk sense into Dany, have her burn the throne as the cause of all this madness, then fly away together to be rid of the political nonsense she's not cut out for and he doesn't like.  Then we'd have really got the full Disney ending, and less people would have been mad.  And we wouldn't have had to deal with the trite "man kills woman in loving embrace" trope.

Not that I think that ending would have been good either, but with the way it ended, it only felt like they made Dany go mad just so that they wouldn't have a 100% happy ending for the sake of it.