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Targaryan Brotherhood : fire and blood in, fire and blood out.
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Nov 6, 2021 15:57
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Klungar posted:From the MCU TV Thread: that poor bastard lol imagining him sitting there thinking "hell yeah...hell yeah!!!" throughout all of season 1, and then "oh....gently caress" as everything starts to decline immediately afterward
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Nov 6, 2021 18:10
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The show was still awesome through season 3 though? It’s after that where it took a nose dive
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Nov 6, 2021 18:32
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Nah that's just what marketing tells you to save face. I couldn't even make it halfway through Season 2. It's quite literally a telenovela that strips out the scale by necessity, and without the scale it's just petty assholes being full of themselves. Plus the immensely uncomfortable sex scenes.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:48
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It was, but it was a pretty good fantasy telenovela (except for the awkward sex scenes). I didint mind the lack of huge CGI battle scenes at all On season 4 is that it starts to get silly (although there was still some good parts), and them dumber and dumber from 5 on.
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Nov 6, 2021 19:48
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When was Yara's daring assault getting repulsed by shirtless Ramsay and a handful of doggos? I think that may have been the Rubicon for the show. Prior to that, sure, you had dumb bits here and there, but overall the show was not only largely good, but also consistent with the rules it established for itself. There is no way a man shows up unarmored and barely armed - barely clothed in fact - to an armed confrontation and doesn't immediately die in season 1. Shirtless Ramsay would have opened his mouth to say something smug and taken a thrown axe to the chest or head in season 1. But honestly, I feel like a lot of the show's issues kind of revolve around God-King Ramsay, the Bastard Who Laughs. Like people talk about Mary Sues in fiction, whoooo boy was show-Ramsay loving bad.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:04
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been a while since i'd read the books, but i seem to recall Ramsay described as not actually being all that good in melee combat - at the very least he wasn't properly trained to fight iirc. i don't think he ever participates in combat too, come think of it. which makes the Shirtless Show Ramsay that much more perplexing of a choice
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Nov 6, 2021 20:09
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Book Ramsay was a stupid, ugly, thug, correct. Show Ramsay was basically all the worst aspects of when the Joker is written poorly but somehow even more overpowered and unstoppable. Remember when he magically routed Stannis' entire army? Or when he murdered his own father - who was being uncharacteristically stupid - and everyone was like 'lol neat you're the boss now'? Like I feel like the lovely Telltale game kind of got Show Ramsay's character down perfectly; he can just murder lords loyal to his father, do whatever he wants, and face no consequences because he's Ramsay loving Snow, an unstoppable god king.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:13
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Season 1 is a on a completely different level. It's also obviously the novel the required the least tinkering and had clear and satisfying storylines for each of the involved characters. It was really good TV. But probably the first book is also that much better than the other books as it got most of us involved enough that we read all five multiple times and then some other bullshit. I guess it's one of those things where a person does one good thing and that any attempt to continue it ultimately turns into pale imitation, gurm should have secluded himself in a cave for a decade and come out of it with his magnum opus complete, instead he's just an artistically bankrupt millionaire. I don't know where I'm going with whole rant over here, gurm never lived to the promise of the first novel, the show never lived to the promise of the first season and probably couldn't possibly done so unless it ignored the books in their entirety in an attempt to tell a more compact and meaningful story, which would have gone against the whole 'epic scope' thing which was a big selling point. The whole show was a con, let's face it.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:37
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It helped that Season 1 was carried by some great performances. Part of the reason Got declined is it seemed like every god damned season some badass actor got killed. Once Charles Dance was dead that was a definitive nail.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:48
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I don't blame her not giving a poo poo because of how bad the writing was, but yeah, Maisie Williams got really bad. As the show went on it wasn't merely a case of the badass actors having their characters killed off, it was the case of basically anyone who could act having it happen. Off hand I think, what, Bronn, Brienne, Cersei, and Jaime were the only actual actors left by the end? Plus Maisie, technically, but she either forgot how to act or stopped trying after she got sent to Essos.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:00
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The Yara rescue mission was also the first case of character teleportation in the series, I think. One episode Yara is telling her dad, on Pike, that she will take her ships and free her brother. The next she is not just in the North but in the freaking DREADFORT, which is hundreds, maybe even a thousand miles inland from Deepwod Notte, the bit she held. Even granting she sailed around the continent to strike from the East, it's still a looong journey. Those 'fastest ships' she took must have had a freaking warp drive. And yeah, the least said about Ramsay, the better. That they came up with Ramsay 2.0 (Or Joffrey 3.0 if you are feeling uncharitable) in the figure of Euron is salting the wound.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:20
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1 and 2 were the good seasons, imo. The Blackwater episode was really good. season 3 was carried, for book readers, by anticipation of the Red Wedding (or, more, accurately anticipation of show watchers' reactions to the red wedding) but, once you can't be smug toward show watchers about that anymore , you start thinkin about how poorly the whole war in the Riverlands was adapted. Now, even though the first couple seasons were good, a lot of weaknesses of the mid/late show are set up by streamlining changes that happened from the start. Not introducing Roose prior to season 1's Battle of the Green Fork, for instance, makes the setup of the Red Wedding weaker 'cause you're just like "hey, who is this mildly sinister balding man who's suddenly in scenes with Robb a lot?" and don't really get time to figure out what the guy's deal is til he sticks a sword through Robb. They changed that battle for budget reasons and because "Robb sent some guys on a suicide mission to distract Tywin" is a lot faster to explain than "Roose and the northern foot are meant to be fighting a series of inconclusive skirmishes and delaying actions against Tywin while Robb and the northern cavalry pillage the Westerlands to apply material pressure to the Lannister vassals", which is fine by itself. But then you miss Roose being a detached commander who is off by himself slowly sabotaging the war effort using the position of responsibility Robb gave him. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Nov 6, 2021 |
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Nov 6, 2021 21:38
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Elias_Maluco posted:It was, but it was a pretty good fantasy telenovela (except for the awkward sex scenes). I didint mind the lack of huge CGI battle scenes at all Oh it's not that the show needed any CGI battles, but literally the only defining aspect that makes the petty bullshit of the series tolerable is showing/feeling the associated cost that dumb melodramatic decisions have on thousands and thousands of people just because these assholes are technically in-charge of their lives. It's not really subtle about how insane politics actually is when you think about it, and is the only thing to give the franchise any meaningful heft. Stripping down literally anything other than drawn-out scenes of Dinklage's awful accent and random breasts is just boring television, full stop. I mean it's not a surprise the show was made by trust fund babies and adapted on that basis-- showing overtly privileged lives without reminding the audience "oh yeah this bad mood this one rear end in a top hat had that caused him to miscommunicate with his sister today just sent dozens of men to brutal deaths and they have to die knowing it." Nah the fodder is always just fodder, indistinguishable from the legions of Stormtroopers or literally faceless mooks in any Marvel production.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:48
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I don't blame her not giving a poo poo because of how bad the writing was, but yeah, Maisie Williams got really bad. As the show went on it wasn't merely a case of the badass actors having their characters killed off, it was the case of basically anyone who could act having it happen. Off hand I think, what, Bronn, Brienne, Cersei, and Jaime were the only actual actors left by the end? Plus Maisie, technically, but she either forgot how to act or stopped trying after she got sent to Essos. I think there were a sizeable number of good, or at least competent, actors left by the last season but no one got any good material. The only acting from Season 8 that really sticks in my mind was Theon and Jorah getting killed off, which was more about plot payoff and the set up than any emoting tbh. Davos, Cersei, Jaime, the Hound, Varys, Tormun, Beric, Qyburn, Brienne, even Edmure - all those actors are good to great and can put in some work if they have good lines. They were given less than nothing and despite their best efforts it absolutely shows. As much I enjoyed Bronn as comic relief/sidekick I think the guy who played him was not always great but probably also okay with that. Maisie Williams it's hard to say how much of it was lovely writing, how much of it was not giving a poo poo, and how much of it was her wanting to shift her career away from being seen as that little girl on GOT. Everything after she got to Essos didn't do her any favors though. PupsOfWar posted:1 and 2 were the good seasons, imo. The Blackwater episode was really good. In retrospect them speedrunning the war in the Riverlands should've been a clear tell. Tywin takes over Harrenhal and then two episodes later Roose holds it, and then just nothing until the Red Wedding.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:17
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Kit's performances were probably kind of meh because yeah Kit has never really turned in a great performance, but Jon really is a blank slate in both the book and the show. Jon doesn't really have anything that he personally strives for besides basic survival here and there. Even in the books, he doesn't push for a goal until Dance in the two minutes before he dies. His parts were also written for a younger character. It's a little less comical to imagine the lines Kit delivered if he had been 15 years-old in those early episodes. I think Kit is one of the better physical actors on the show, though. His fight scenes felt natural and that scene in Hardhome where he gets hurled around by the White Walker is really well sold. Emilia I feel kind of sorry for. I try to think of a line she has in the show where she's a) fully clothed b)speaking a real-world language c)not speaking to a man who has taken her acts/agency from the book for himself d)saying something about her character that isn't in clear contradiction to something else she just said. She had to have just wondered what the gently caress her character was all the way up until the finale. I think she was also directed to act as stern and cold, which why would you do that for someone as expressive as Emilia? Maisie, I can't really say. She was a good child actor in that she was good at acting like a child. Then, somewhere around The House of Tortured Theming, a switch was flipped, and she suddenly had to start acting out scenes where at one moment she was a psychotic adult who commits mass murder, to then having to act like a scared girl looking at wolves, then is a little girl feeling sorry for Ed Sheeran, then as Arya Stark who misses her family, then as a bad-rear end swordsman who can keep up with Brienne, then as a psycho who threatens her sister, and so on and so forth. Imagine being her age and trying to pull off that inconsistent bullshit. Alfie gets cred largely because he's a great emotional actor and they always had Theon feeling some kind of intense emotion, even when the writing for him was bad. Gemma Wheelan acted pretty consistently well, probably because she got to work with the talented Alfie or energetic Pilou once in a while, and not just fawn over dead-faced Jon/Dany like every other character. The cracks really do show with the rush to get to The Red Wedding. Those scenes with Arya/Tywin are really entertaining until you start realizing things like "wait, he just acknowledged that he had a high-born Northerner in his custody and he just left her?" mind the walrus posted:Dinklage's awful accent Even as an American, it sounded awful and got exponentially worse towards the end. He sounded like Augustus St. Cloud from Venture Brothers, or Sandi from Daria.
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Nov 7, 2021 02:49
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Sephyr posted:The Yara rescue mission was also the first case of character teleportation in the series, I think. Nah Yaras rescue speech was in the season 3 finale. The actual rescue with shirtless Ramsay was way later in episode 6 of season 4.
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Nov 7, 2021 08:46
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euron at least has the advantage of like, making sense on paper as a roided out weirdo that can get other people to follow him and do war crimes. that's sort of the whole ironborn thing. ramsay's completely over the top awfulness is completely in line with gurm's take on the character in spirit and it doesn't make any sense in the books, either. the whole theon/ramsay winterfell plotline is probably the most meanspirited, petty, and unrealistic part of the books. it's just torture porn and some weird fucker pretending to be the lord of winterfell and somehow succeeding.
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Nov 7, 2021 09:29
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Jazerus posted:meanspirited, petty That’s GRRM in a nutshell, if you read any of his previous works. Take a look at Sandkings, we don’t even have to mention the P-guy. Petty, obnoxious torture porn is what he does. That’s the main feature, not a side effect of his prose.
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Nov 7, 2021 10:19
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:That’s GRRM in a nutshell, if you read any of his previous works. Take a look at Sandkings, we don’t even have to mention the P-guy. Petty, obnoxious torture porn is what he does. That’s the main feature, not a side effect of his prose. Sandkings? Do I dare to ask....
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Nov 7, 2021 20:33
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Kuiperdolin posted:OK boss. Klungar posted:From the MCU TV Thread: lmao
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Nov 7, 2021 21:18
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emanresu tnuocca posted:
One thing that is a REALLY smart decision and helped the first book's success (and by extension the show) is that the first book is a murder investigation. It gives Ned an active goal rather than just reacting to King's Landing. It gets you the political fractions explained in a way that is engaging and connected to the plot. It can be hard to get a read invested in fake politics. If the Lannister Stark rivalry was just about political maneuvering, it would be harder to get folks on board. But a murder mystery is something that is easy to grab on to while you figure out the rest of the world.
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Nov 8, 2021 03:34
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I think the show falls into the same trap the books do. If GRRM didn’t think he had to subvert expectations so much after Ned gets killed, all the cool interesting characters would still be around. Ned getting murked was genuinely a unexpected moment for the time.
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Nov 8, 2021 03:54
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:That’s GRRM in a nutshell, if you read any of his previous works. Take a look at Sandkings, we don’t even have to mention the P-guy. Petty, obnoxious torture porn is what he does. That’s the main feature, not a side effect of his prose. GRMM figured out that he could elevate torture porn to an art by just never writing any more books.
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Nov 8, 2021 04:06
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Invalid Validation posted:I think the show falls into the same trap the books do. If GRRM didn’t think he had to subvert expectations so much after Ned gets killed, all the cool interesting characters would still be around. Ned getting murked was genuinely a unexpected moment for the time. Tbf in the books most of the interesting characters are still around, in fact the problem is he keeps introducing more of them, and bringing dead ones back. I think if the old man just pushed out two more books that finish the story in some way, even if the overall plot is as stupid as the show's and the writing quality as meh as the last two books, the fandom overall would be happy. But he won't.
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Nov 8, 2021 08:26
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he won't because he wants it to not suck but he can't make it not suck
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Nov 8, 2021 08:39
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Invalid Validation posted:I think the show falls into the same trap the books do. If GRRM didn’t think he had to subvert expectations so much after Ned gets killed, all the cool interesting characters would still be around. Ned getting murked was genuinely a unexpected moment for the time. The show did that stupid nonsense, but I don't feel like the books ever did, besides arguably Ned. The Red Wedding is shocking in its brutality, but like that Robb was making some mistakes that were going to have serious ramifications and that he was fostering dissent in his ranks was made clear. That Ned was a man with more honor than sense was also clear. His death was only shocking and unexpected because as the protagonist of a fantasy novel, we expect him to somehow pull out a win. Plus also you can argue it was a swerve since Joffrey was supposedly going to let him take the black until he was like 'lol nah.' Subverting expectations is the foundation of joke-telling but very rarely the foundation of good storytelling, because if your audience is smart then what they are expecting is for things that are set up to have logical pay-offs. The twists and turns in ASOIAF are by and large unexpected only within the context of the tropes and conventions of popular fantasy literature, but are generally all clearly foreshadowed and properly setup within the text itself. Ned and Robb had downfalls we did not expect because the good guys tend to win despite the odds, but which were very clearly what would happen to men behaving as they did within the story.
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Nov 8, 2021 09:10
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:The twists and turns in ASOIAF are by and large unexpected only within the context of the tropes and conventions of popular fantasy literature, but are generally all clearly foreshadowed and properly setup within the text itself. Ned and Robb had downfalls we did not expect because the good guys tend to win despite the odds, but which were very clearly what would happen to men behaving as they did within the story. I agree that the "shocking protagonist deaths" are heavily foreshadowed, but that's as far as I would go. Both Ned and Robb's deaths should not have happened by the rules of the setting, and are the decision of a single villain character (Joff / Old Frey) who arguably shouldn't have been listened to by their underlings. Additionally, lots of antagonist and villain characters get away with some insane things, e.g. everything Ramsay and Euron do. Tywin's crimes also have an extremely delayed and contrived comeuppance, and the BwB and Melisandre seem to be doing great so far. Jon is really the only hero character whose death was fully expected under the rules of the setting, and he's probably going to come back to life (if the book ever comes out). The deaths subvert the expectation that the hero gets away with anything, but they're not really a sign of the setting's realism and consistency.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:09
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pidan posted:I agree that the "shocking protagonist deaths" are heavily foreshadowed, but that's as far as I would go. Both Ned and Robb's deaths should not have happened by the rules of the setting, and are the decision of a single villain character (Joff / Old Frey) who arguably shouldn't have been listened to by their underlings. Frey breaks the biggest taboo in the ASoIaF world and no one cares. Robb punishes a man for killing a child and a major fraction of his army withdraws their support.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:05
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Alhazred posted:Frey breaks the biggest taboo in the ASoIaF world and no one cares. Robb punishes a man for killing a child and a major fraction of his army withdraws their support. The fact that none of the Frey's vassals or allies question this is really really bizarre (bad writing) I'm assuming it was supposed to be coming or something but just waiting till Arya murders him with a side of Frey bread is pretty dumb IMO. I'd also have actually expected Stannis claims that the Lannister Twins are loving to have gotten some traction, Cersei very much treats everyone like dirt, you'd expect the same kind of problems happening in Mereen to be happening in Kings Landing, with her overreacting to bread riots and stuff each time escalating the situation.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:29
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There are definitely plot holes like "why didn't Tyrion rat out Littlefinger to his father about the cat's paw?" or other "Why didn't Syrio pick up a real sword" types of gaps that exist primarily in the first book, but the Frey Guest Right question plays into a lot of George's comments on power. Westeros talks about all of its norms and honor and laws, but the second that those norms can be broken to give someone enough power, said norms don't really matter. If Guest Right is broken and nobody can immediately enforce those norms, then how much power do these unspoken agreements really have over everyone? It reminds me of when every day during the Trump administration, some new article would come out and say that Trump violated this law or that norm and how it could be impeachable, but Trump still stayed in office because the powers and institutions that be couldn't or wouldn't enforce said laws/agreements. "Power resides where men believe it resides," is George's main thesis in Ice and Fire, and in most cases in the books, it really holds up. Coquito Ergo Sum fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 19:57
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:There are definitely plot holes like "why didn't Tyrion rat out Littlefinger to his father about the cat's paw?" or other "Why didn't Syrio pick up a real sword" types of gaps that exist primarily in the first book, but the Frey Guest Right question plays into a lot of George's comments on power. Westeros talks about all of its norms and honor and laws, but the second that those norms can be broken to give someone enough power, said norms don't really matter. If Guest Right is broken and nobody can immediately enforce those norms, then how much power do these unspoken agreements really have over everyone? It reminds me of when every day during the Trump administration, some new article would come out and say that Trump violated this law or that norm and how it could be impeachable, but Trump still stayed in office because the powers and institutions that be couldn't or wouldn't enforce said laws/agreements. Except in real life Medieval Europe which GRRM claims to be emulating you don’t do this poo poo without extremely serious and immediate consequences, in no small part because religion was actually treated deathly seriously by people on every rung of power and not treated as just some cynical trick by the elites to fool the rubes.
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Nov 8, 2021 22:17
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Except in real life Medieval Europe which GRRM claims to be emulating you don’t do this poo poo without extremely serious and immediate consequences, in no small part because religion was actually treated deathly seriously by people on every rung of power and not treated as just some cynical trick by the elites to fool the rubes. He always said he prints the Legend, and used this method to create a fictional late-stage feudal world. Besides, aren't nations of our world supposed to follow international laws, and American cops supposed to be as subject to American law as any other citizen? The books are still internally consistent, and the books keep hinting that the Northerners will give the Freys theirs. Coquito Ergo Sum fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 22:21
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Yeah, I mean Henry VIII was able to defy the Pope, supposedly God's representative on earth, and create his own new church, and he got away with it because he had enough power.
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Nov 8, 2021 22:39
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Except in real life Medieval Europe which GRRM claims to be emulating you don’t do this poo poo without extremely serious and immediate consequences, in no small part because religion was actually treated deathly seriously by people on every rung of power and not treated as just some cynical trick by the elites to fool the rubes. I would question both the notion that the Freys get away with the Red Wedding too casually and the notion that irl medieval society enforced these norms more sincerely than Westeros does. Among other reasons, the guys who orchestrated the irl event GRRM based the Red Wedding on did more or less get away with it But let's unpack this some more: what immediate serious consequences do you reckon the Freys should suffer?
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Nov 8, 2021 22:43
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It's been open season on the Freys ever since the red wedding happened in the books, so that aspect doesn't bother me. The Riverlands are too devastated and weak from losing the war for the local nobles to openly revolt, but it's kinda clear that the moment they lose their hostages (which Jaine Lannister requested) and there's an excuse, they'll be eaten alive. The whole religion aspect in ASoIaF is very muddy. It's barely there in the first book, only mentioned in the second because Stannis adopted a weird religion that seems to be the only real one, then suddenly there's a Savonarola revolt in the capital. And for all that has been written, we know jack poo poo about the faiths of westeros. Other than praying to trees, how are the Old Gods different from the seven? Do they have names? Do they forbid anything the Seven tolerate, and vice-versa? The Faith apparently frowns on incest but kept mum through 300 years of Targaryens bedding their kin. And joining both topics, Euron may be a way worse offender than the Freys when it comes to just parachuting in, spititng on everyone's faces, and then just doing a victory lap. Came home after dishonoring your family and raping the wife of the current military leader? Eh, he's the one dumb guy who follows religious tenets. Start killing nobles that look at you funny? Well, you drowned then, so no blood was spilled and nobody cares! drop in for a kingsmoot in which everyone else has been fighting a war together for almost a year and established bonds and alliances? Blow a horn, and you win. Antagonize a key religious figure? Ehh, just abduct him and hang him from the prow of your ship as you sail into a suicidal fight, who gives a drat.
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Nov 9, 2021 00:32
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admittedly it would be funny if Euron didn't actually have a big eldritch master plan and ate poo poo against the Redwyne fleet immediately most subverted expectation in a while!
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Nov 9, 2021 00:57
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Yeah, I'll say that Euron may be as much of a villain-Sue as show Ramsay. Or show Euron. Euron's weird and I don't really like him.
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Nov 9, 2021 01:31
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PupsOfWar posted:admittedly it would be funny if Euron didn't actually have a big eldritch master plan and ate poo poo against the Redwyne fleet immediately It really would, but I doubt it. In GRRM-verse, sending the actual warships of your fleet to the other side of the world and then leading a ragtag fleet of squabbling not-vikings clans against the biggest professional naval power of the realm and ONLY end in victory.
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Nov 9, 2021 01:39
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Yeah, I'll say that Euron may be as much of a villain-Sue as show Ramsay. Or show Euron. Euron's weird and I don't really like him. Euron could still potentially be really cool, though, and it's telling that we haven't seen a first person chapter from him, or even from someone that interacts with him directly. We haven't really seen much of that mystic side of things yet -- so far it's just been rumors of what Euron (and Marwyn) have been doing and a couple interesting bits that show that it's not all just smoke and mirrors. Depending on how Euron gets fleshed out and goes after his end goal in the novels, it could tie in perfectly well with the unexplained magical stuff like the dragons coming to life and the White Walkers and the Doom of Valyria. but we'll never know because there won't be any more novels
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Nov 9, 2021 02:19
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