|
When the show was running more closely to the books, Dany did have more agency. It was when they started diverging that they started weakening her character. In Yunkai, the books had her pulling a clever trick against the mercenaries. In the show, Daario just kills all the other officers and hands their heads to her. She was shown to have displayed better leadership in getting her remaining followers through the red wastes in the books, and she didn't just get rewarded all of Xaro's wealth after locking him in a vault in the books, either. As time went on in the show, she didn't really do anything, instead favoring having men who loved her doing things for her, so that if they succeeded, then the show could make it seem like she was an inspiring leader, and if her simps screwed up, then the fault was their own and she was blameless for their failures. There are shades of grey, but it felt like a line was drawn by the showrunners as to what Dany could or couldn't be seen doing, and it hurt her character in the long run.
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2021 01:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:36 |
|
|
Dany lying on her back reverently being carried around by people will never not be cringe to me. Such white savior crap. I dread to think of the plucky white dude who would be leading the otherwise inept resistance in their canceled Civil War but handmaid tale project.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2021 13:03
|
|
|
Discovered a new Thrones-related podcast after hearing Preston Jacobs mention it. It's called Unabashed Book Snobs and it's a negative view of the show starting at about Season 5 (which is rare, most I've heard either begin at season 7 or at least become negative around then). While they have a ton of unfunny in-jokes like renaming characters (which they stop doing after a while), it's kind of interesting to hear two women talk about the show. Besides having a viewpoint on the disturbing amount of female-targeted violence on top of the usual sexism accusations, they point out things that bothered me for years. One of these is what the women on the cast call "Nonversations", or conversations where two characters are essentially talking past one another instead of to one another, mostly as a way of trying to deliver lines that the writers believed were clever or profound.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 04:22
|
|
|
5 is when they did the 'Jaime goes to Dorne' plot and that's where the first big cracks appeared. There were some high points past that though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 05:55
|
|
|
Coquito Ergo Sum posted:Discovered a new Thrones-related podcast after hearing Preston Jacobs mention it. It's called Unabashed Book Snobs and it's a negative view of the show starting at about Season 5 (which is rare, most I've heard either begin at season 7 or at least become negative around then). While they have a ton of unfunny in-jokes like renaming characters (which they stop doing after a while), it's kind of interesting to hear two women talk about the show. Besides having a viewpoint on the disturbing amount of female-targeted violence on top of the usual sexism accusations, they point out things that bothered me for years. One of these is what the women on the cast call "Nonversations", or conversations where two characters are essentially talking past one another instead of to one another, mostly as a way of trying to deliver lines that the writers believed were clever or profound. Can you give a couple examples?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 09:33
|
|
|
Orange Devil posted:Can you give a couple examples? Pretty much any conversation in the last few seasons of the show that didn't involve someone being stabbed. It happened a lot early on too -- e.g. that whole sequence where Littlefinger drops a mad burn on Circe in the season 2 premier.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 09:40
|
|
|
An insane mind posted:Dany lying on her back reverently being carried around by people will never not be cringe to me. Such white savior crap. I think Dany being a white savior is actually pretty integral to her character, and definitely drives her story in the first book and season. The problem is, as you noted, D&D are way too loving racist to be able to understand, much less show, that it's a bad thing, or even the actual mechanism of Dany's subtle bigotries. After all, we don't get any named Dothraki in Season 7 or 8 who might expound a bit on how Dany naming every warrior in her Khalassar her blood rider is a massive reorganization of Dothraki society (because, you know, they have a society) or explain what the Dothraki expect to personally get out of their invasion of Westeros, especially because rape and plunder are likely off the table. Because to D&D, Dothraki are just what Viserys thought they were: simple barbarians screamers who kill because their leader commands it. And so there's no real mourning for them after Dany uses them as shock troops, because they're basically just "the horde" of limitless numbers, regenerating off screen. No moment of guilt for Dany that she used their society's most important communal bond to motivate them to give their lives for a people they'd never heard of before. They aren't really "people" to D&D, just extras to fill in the scene. Or to look for Dany's defense, why is there never a scene of Grey Worm and Missandei discussing why they respect and trust Dany in between all the scenes of the white characters debating if she's too loving crazy to be Queen? D&D are not interested in showing the two characters who have known her the longest giving their opinion on the big central question of half the season because it would cut into time where Jon Snow has to ponder the ethics of murdering his girlfriend with Tyrion, a man who's already murdered his girlfriend. Cause let's not forget that women aren't really important to D&D either. White men with a history of violence against their SO's are our point of view, minorities, even those who have critical insight into the scenario, must step aside.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 20:07
|
|
|
Precambrian posted:I think Dany being a white savior is actually pretty integral to her character, and definitely drives her story in the first book and season. The problem is, as you noted, D&D are way too loving racist to be able to understand, much less show, that it's a bad thing, or even the actual mechanism of Dany's subtle bigotries. After all, we don't get any named Dothraki in Season 7 or 8 who might expound a bit on how Dany naming every warrior in her Khalassar her blood rider is a massive reorganization of Dothraki society (because, you know, they have a society) or explain what the Dothraki expect to personally get out of their invasion of Westeros, especially because rape and plunder are likely off the table. Because to D&D, Dothraki are just what Viserys thought they were: simple barbarians screamers who kill because their leader commands it. And so there's no real mourning for them after Dany uses them as shock troops, because they're basically just "the horde" of limitless numbers, regenerating off screen. No moment of guilt for Dany that she used their society's most important communal bond to motivate them to give their lives for a people they'd never heard of before. They aren't really "people" to D&D, just extras to fill in the scene. D&D portraying the Dothraki as a savage people without any discernible society is actually one of the most book accurate things they did. In fact they sometimes didn’t go as far as GRRM did. In the books the Dothraki at parties would habitually just murder each other for the right to rape the dancing slaves.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 21:18
|
|
|
Specifically at weddings. Which could only begin to make sense if weddings are quite rare occassions only for nobility and everyone else just shacks up, because otherwise having multiple deaths at each wedding is going to be rather disastrous for your population size real loving quick.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:35
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:D&D portraying the Dothraki as a savage people without any discernible society is actually one of the most book accurate things they did. In fact they sometimes didn’t go as far as GRRM did. In the books the Dothraki at parties would habitually just murder each other for the right to rape the dancing slaves. Yeah, GRRM's writing of the Dothraki is... really not good (Here's obligatory link to the Devereaux blog), but while GRRM is pretty bigoted himself, he at least acknowledges that the Dothraki do have a culture that's made up of individual people. Dany thinks she can just assert her authority as a Khaleesi and not care about insulting a warrior's honor and emasculating him, because she's the Queen, and it gets her husband killed. Mirri points out the hypocrisy in her assumption that it's possible to be a benevolent Queen while on the warpath to press an inherited claim on a kingdom. The Dothraki might be a white nerd's imagining of badass manly men who are so manly, but the Dothraki have a willful culture that reacts to the orders of its leaders and expect to get something in exchange for their service. But by Season 6... none of that matters. What the Dothraki want, how they think of Dany, we don't see any of that because, to D&D, the exact situation that killed Dany's husband and defined her first season story isn't important. They're set dressing, not people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 23:34
|
|
|
The book dothraki are an improvement, but they still have as much in common with fantasy orcs as with steppe cultures.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 01:23
|
|
|
Open Source Idiom posted:Pretty much any conversation in the last few seasons of the show that didn't involve someone being stabbed. Pretty much this. The writers got really big for their britches after getting undue praise for "Chaos is a ladder" and "Break the wheel" then tried to insert as much faux-profound lines as they could, especially in Littlefinger exchanges. If Season 6 had gone on any further (god help us), then we would have gotten "Patriarchy is a furnace" or "Dynastical Rule is a rudder." The Dothraki stuff has always been a problem, and I think George tried to course-correct with the Orientalism as time went on. What was really sickening were the notes about the "mhysa" crowd scene in the show that said that Daenerys should be a "speck of pure white among the darkness" or something to that effect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 01:48
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:D&D portraying the Dothraki as a savage people without any discernible society is actually one of the most book accurate things they did. In fact they sometimes didn’t go as far as GRRM did. In the books the Dothraki at parties would habitually just murder each other for the right to rape the dancing slaves. That goes on in the show too. To put it mildly, the show has problems with orientalism. Dany must step in as a reformer of the Dothraki's mindless barbarism.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 02:11
|
|
|
Arbite posted:Funny thing in the books: Mirri's medical and magical advice is completely ignored. I’ve always wondered about Mirri’s magic because the show seemed to handle it completely different (although it’s been ages since I’ve read the books). There was some seriously bad magic poo poo going down the tent that night, and Dany was specifically told by Mirri not to enter the tent under any circumstances. And as I recall from my read, Dany collapsed and was dragged into the tent by her friends at what seemed to be the very height of the spell. So why is it Mirri’s fault Dany has a cursed womb? It’s not her fault Dany and the Boyz hosed up a really powerful blood magic spell. Also, doesn’t Dany’s baby turn into a stillbirth half human half dragon monstrosity, or am I just imagining that?
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 18:05
|
|
|
Mirri Maz Duur: [scoffs] Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped me before you "saved" me, girl. I saw my God's house burn. There where I had healed men and women, beyond counting. In the streets, I saw piles of heads. The head of a baker, who bakes my bread. A head of a little boy that I cured of fever just three moons past. So, tell me again exactly what it was that you saved? Daenerys 'Stormborn': that's a fair point when you take everything in context. you're free to go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRYa1fBMNDw
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 18:41
|
|
|
So have people come around in the pandemic to realizing that whole the last season was rushed it totally works because people usually in fact pretty stupid?
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 21:40
|
|
|
yeah. i mean, hang on, what
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 21:46
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7RgN9ijwE4
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:So have people come around in the pandemic to realizing that whole the last season was rushed it totally works because people usually in fact pretty stupid? It's mostly been a lot of discussion surrounding why it's of in the cold food of out hot eat the food
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
Lightningproof posted:It's mostly been a lot of discussion surrounding why it's of in the cold food of out hot eat the food Also me presenting my corkboards and handing out my tinfoil hats, that are shaped like lemon trees.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 23:02
|
|
|
I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch).
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 01:47
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch). By the final season of LOST viewership was at its lowest ever and most fans were just fine that it was over with an ending where our favorite characters were fine. Very different from GoT which owned the cultural zeitgeist then went down in flames.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 02:02
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:So have people come around in the pandemic to realizing that whole the last season was rushed it totally works because people usually in fact pretty stupid? Shouldn't your avatar be popcorn by now
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 02:15
|
|
|
For a year I worked in a grocery store and even the MAGA chuds in the meat department that loudly were just bitching about democrats and whatever were talking about GOT every week. I was having 10 minute long conversations with the whole crew after every sunday that year. Like 65 year old man chuds talking about how Cersei doing this or that is good or not. It was wild.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 02:28
|
|
|
The loving president of Argentina at the time made a facebook post about Game of Thrones and joked that she had contacted their cable company demanding them to leak the 3rd season to her. https://www.facebook.com/CFKArgentina/posts/531958633535343
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 02:58
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch). I feel like the main chat was just talking about how much LOST sucked?
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 04:21
|
|
|
I had a gig packaging and distributing wire content for a big newspaper chain a few years ago, and the biggest story of the day on Mondays would be the "what happened on Game of Thrones last night" recaps. It was enormous.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 04:28
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch). Lost didn't have any singular crystalizing moments that turned its fanbase against it, so its legacy is a lot easier to smooth out into "I guess it wasn't as bad as we all thought at the time". I legitimately don't think you're going to get that with Game of Thrones. I think the best the show is going to get for a legacy is the one it already has right now: "It was really good except for that awful final season." And unlike Dexter it's never gonna get the chance to take a mulligan on its ending.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 05:47
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:So have people come around in the pandemic to realizing that whole the last season was rushed it totally works because people usually in fact pretty stupid? If the show actually delved into how Daenerys' hubris about the fleet is what brought her down, nobody would be making jokes about how poor a decision it was to go charging in without scouting first, because that would've rather been the point, wouldn't it?
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 05:56
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch). Lost falls apart on a rewatch, but the individual episodes are still fun and enjoyable. It's a show where stuff happens. GoT, on the other hand, is brief moments of entertainment surrounded by anime-levels of exposition. Knowing all of that exposition is pretty much pointless means the only thing left is the world building. Unfortunately, especially by the later seasons, they just kind of forgot they did any world building.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 05:57
|
|
|
LividLiquid posted:No, because outside of the tactical realism crowd who are primarily interested in making themselves feel smart by performatively not understanding how drama works, everybody's problem wasn't the show portraying people as having made mistakes. It was the show treating those mistakes as anything short of mistakes. It's really kind of amazing how the phrase "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" is going to be the only thing scores of people are ultimately ever going to remember about the show after it basically erased itself from pop culture overnight. It's a hell of an epitaph for the show.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 07:39
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:And unlike Dexter it's never gonna get the chance to take a mulligan on its ending. I would be surprised if they didn't try a reboot eventually, or at least a sequel series that picks up years later. HBO made a pretty big bet people will still be interested after a few years cooling-off period.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 08:02
|
|
|
The series does do way better on a binge than having a week to think about them and see that the plot is either spinning its wheels or just jerking forward to get to the end. Like, all of Season 7 builds up to a conference between Dany and Cersei that achieves nothing, was never going to achieve anything, and even Cersei's betrayal doesn't matter. But if you skip right from that to Episode 1 of Season 8, Cersei's on the back burner as you have to think about what's happening in the North. Wasted time and plot holes just aren't as noticeable if you're just watching from set piece to set piece. But from people posting in this thread that they just started the show, it seems like the cracks still show, and by the time you get to the end, they've built up to the point of making things unsatisfying. The Sept explosion not mattering seems like the big break point for a lot of people, because they liked the High Sparrow plot, or, at least, wanted to see what the big, cool explosion set up. It's really shocking and memorable, and so you don't forget about it like you do all the other dropped plots. So I don't think there'll be a "rediscovery," particularly because it's not like the final episode dropped the ball, but the last few seasons became sloppier and sloppier until it finally ground to a halt.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 17:20
|
|
|
LionArcher posted:I’m giving it five years before it gets the lost treatment (people realize it’s not perfect but overall it’s all pretty good and it’s drat fun to rewatch). I tried to rewatch LOST recently and without the weekly serial format it loses a ton of appeal and momentum. Also some of the writing has just aged terribly, not because of dated references but rather because stylistically television writing has changed quite a lot. The pilot is still great and there's probably a viewing list that cuts a bunch of the filler, gets the story across, and preserves the really great performances but beyond that IDK. Feels like part of the shift in outlook on LOST has more to do with nostalgia for the excitement around it than the actual quality of the show.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 18:06
|
|
|
I remember having a good laugh when I saw all the characters' names.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
LOST or BSG's controversial endings are more murky than GOT. Whatever narrative problems their final seasons had (BSG having to contort the whole show around the final five reveal and Starbucks return and LOST's ultimate resolution being far more pat than expected), no one really objected to how the character arcs played out with some exceptions. The Shield is still the gold standard for post 1999 TV drama endings regardless of all that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2021 05:15
|
|
|
Again, I think it is important to note that  and  both had controversial/bad endings, but the individual episodes were entertaining. The seasons were also much longer, at 20+ episodes each. They each have a total runtime almost twice that of GoT and are easy to binge. And, even with the endings being a point of contention, they are still narratively satisfying and you can go "okay, the shows over and that all makes sense even if I don't like what happened."GoT has maybe one "fun to watch" episode per season. Besides that, it's mostly just misery, which is entertaining if you're with a first timer and get to feed off of their enthusiasm. But at the end, the joke is "haha, the show was pointless and actually bad the whole time!" rather than "oops, they whiffed the ending!
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2021 05:32
|
|
|
didn't this series end years ago?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2021 05:42
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:didn't this series end years ago? "No one talking about Game of Thrones anymore" says man posting in a thread about a show that ended 2 years ago.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2021 05:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:36 |
|
|
TOOT BOOT posted:"No one talking about Game of Thrones anymore" says man posting in a thread about a show that ended 2 years ago. Yeah, if you wanna talk about a "big" show that ended without anyone talking about it, talk about The Americans, or True Blood or Sons Of Anarchy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2021 06:03
|
|