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Why haven't any of you doll fuckers started a Game of Thrones topic?
- Thread starter Castor Troy
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"Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?"
"More or less," Brienne answered.
Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
"Then they get a taste of battle.
"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.
"They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .
"And the man breaks.
"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."
When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, "How old were you when they marched you off to war?"
"Why, no older than your boy," Meribald replied. "Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he'd stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape."
"The War of the Ninepenny Kings?" asked Hyle Hunt.
"So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was."
"More or less," Brienne answered.
Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
"Then they get a taste of battle.
"For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.
"They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . .
"And the man breaks.
"He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."
When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, "How old were you when they marched you off to war?"
"Why, no older than your boy," Meribald replied. "Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he'd stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape."
"The War of the Ninepenny Kings?" asked Hyle Hunt.
"So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was."
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close your eyes, Aaron, and imagine you going to Chicago to hang out with Taiso at the Burlington Bar. You guys can write a new book about .. whatever. Man, that was a cool daydream.
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A few weeks removed from the disastrously executed finale to the series, I'm weirdly more obsessed with it than ever.
I keep thinking about how this thing crashed so hard so fast.
Somebody at HBO...SOMEBODY...had to see how awful this was going to end.
Why didn't anyone step in and pull rank?
The thing that I want, more than the next book in the series even (because I still love ASoIF) is the REAL story of how Game of Thrones utterly collapsed under the weight of some of the worst pacing and most awful shock twists in television history.
They could call it The Short Night.
I keep thinking about how this thing crashed so hard so fast.
Somebody at HBO...SOMEBODY...had to see how awful this was going to end.
Why didn't anyone step in and pull rank?
The thing that I want, more than the next book in the series even (because I still love ASoIF) is the REAL story of how Game of Thrones utterly collapsed under the weight of some of the worst pacing and most awful shock twists in television history.
They could call it The Short Night.
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It's not just us, either. There's a significant amount of people who feel this last season has killed the franchise, at least with the '5 HBO shows in development (yeah right)' GRRM has mentioned. In businesspeople terms, that is also a significant amount of potential money gone.
I said it in this thread before but I'll say it again, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the high power HBO execs meeting on how this turned out. Those guys fucked up big time giving D&D carte blanche for two years and having this be the result.
One thing that is wild is that The Mildly Long Evening took 55 days to film. 55 days and what they edited all that into was episode 3.
I'm not going to lie and say, "this TV show kept me going" but I will say the first few seasons provided some great entertainment and relief in my life. So maybe this is why I feel so strongly about this. Like a promising child who grows up to be a deadbeat.
I said it in this thread before but I'll say it again, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the high power HBO execs meeting on how this turned out. Those guys fucked up big time giving D&D carte blanche for two years and having this be the result.
One thing that is wild is that The Mildly Long Evening took 55 days to film. 55 days and what they edited all that into was episode 3.
I'm not going to lie and say, "this TV show kept me going" but I will say the first few seasons provided some great entertainment and relief in my life. So maybe this is why I feel so strongly about this. Like a promising child who grows up to be a deadbeat.
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They were coasting, absolutely. Lots of people coast in life, no big deal. But the number 1 show in the world (not just America!), and the showrunners were like, "whatever, just have Arya do all the shit Jon should've done and whatever". This would make a great documentary if enough of the people who worked on the show were brave enough to speak about it. A few actors - like the people who played Varys, Brienne, Jon, etc - have already said enough in professional speak that what happened was stupid and made no sense.
I can understand guys who weren't fans and are all, "just move on" but this is fascinating on a whole bunch of levels. Everyone at this point knows season 8 ruined this show - go ahead, watch earlier seasons and try to care. "Oh Craster's baby became a white walker, DOESN'T MATTER WE'LL NEVER SEE THIS EXTRAPOLATED AGAIN". Unless it was just a "It was all a dream!" copout ending, there are very few shows that crash this hard on the last season.
There is as much to pick apart here as Terminator: Salvation imo.
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HBO's public position has been 'this is D&D's baby' the whole time.
However, that has to be their position because the last thing HBO would want is to admit that D&D pulled a Chapelle and GTFO'd on this series after getting irritated by all the suits wanting to have their say.
I mean....do we know all these coffee cups and water bottles are gaffes? Or it is just viral marketing taken to a new, insulting, disrespectful low?
If it were to turn out that D&D were pressured to awkwardly shoehorn shit into this show, as with what happened in The Walking Dead (especially the automobiles, which were fucking embarrassing), then I wouldn't blame D&D for fucking off to greener pastures before they couldn't take it anymore.
If this were to be the case, it'd be too bad for us fans, the cast and crew, GRRM, D&D and everyone EXCEPT HBO.
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there wasn't any branding on the products that found their way past the editors. The coffee cup wasn't a starbucks cup, but people assumed it was because of brand strength. Collateral benefits, I guess.
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Finally saw season 8 and enjoyed reading what everyone said - their ideas, their loves, their hates. I know squat about the books, so it was fun to get some intense opinions. I had no idea the wolves were more important characters than the show depicted.
The only scene I want to revisit is a scene with Sam in the Citadel - he's eavesdropping on a prophecy being told by the other. . . "maesters", I guess those guys were called? Wonder how that turned out. Right around that time, I was picking up a theme about the world coming to grips with two big changes - magic (dragons reborn) and GoT's-version-of-science (The things Sam and Qyburn were bringing to the world). I thought the stonemen might actually be creations of the past's undeveloped science, and Quyburn was going to perfect it. Cersei needed dragonglass if she was going to defeat the undead, and so while Jon/Danny had real dragonglass (magic), Cersei/Quyburn's golden army would become an army of mutants (science). Maybe they'd be dragon-like ("gray-SCALE") or maybe they'd be more stone/dragonglass-like.
. . . thought the Night King was a Targ, since he could ride a dragon, and that's where the true reference to "A Song of Fire and Ice" came from.
With that thinking going into season 8, the only disappointment I had was how quickly the Night King/army-of-the dead was removed from the season. "Bran has the best story", and Tyrion listened to it, but we didn't get to hear it. That seemed like an excellent time to spill the beans on a few details about Bran and/or the Night King - help viewers justify his claim to the throne or resolve general issues about why this was happening to begin with.
Overall, the last season was just fine. The show wasn't a grail to me to begin with, so nothing was tarnished. The show always had issues of wasting time (half the show was the equivalent of escort missions for the 3 Starks). When there were still future seasons, we could look at it through the lens of infinite time - that wasted minutes didn't hurt the show. When the end was inevitable, then you could feel the hurt of wasted time in each episode. The pending mortality of the show also made it harder to swallow actions/decisions that didn't make sense by characters, though you may have forgiven those same actions had they happened in earlier seasons. I can't otherwise argue with anything you guys-in-the-know have said. One can't blame fictional characters for those choices.
I enjoyed reading all you guys wrote.
The only scene I want to revisit is a scene with Sam in the Citadel - he's eavesdropping on a prophecy being told by the other. . . "maesters", I guess those guys were called? Wonder how that turned out. Right around that time, I was picking up a theme about the world coming to grips with two big changes - magic (dragons reborn) and GoT's-version-of-science (The things Sam and Qyburn were bringing to the world). I thought the stonemen might actually be creations of the past's undeveloped science, and Quyburn was going to perfect it. Cersei needed dragonglass if she was going to defeat the undead, and so while Jon/Danny had real dragonglass (magic), Cersei/Quyburn's golden army would become an army of mutants (science). Maybe they'd be dragon-like ("gray-SCALE") or maybe they'd be more stone/dragonglass-like.
. . . thought the Night King was a Targ, since he could ride a dragon, and that's where the true reference to "A Song of Fire and Ice" came from.
With that thinking going into season 8, the only disappointment I had was how quickly the Night King/army-of-the dead was removed from the season. "Bran has the best story", and Tyrion listened to it, but we didn't get to hear it. That seemed like an excellent time to spill the beans on a few details about Bran and/or the Night King - help viewers justify his claim to the throne or resolve general issues about why this was happening to begin with.
Overall, the last season was just fine. The show wasn't a grail to me to begin with, so nothing was tarnished. The show always had issues of wasting time (half the show was the equivalent of escort missions for the 3 Starks). When there were still future seasons, we could look at it through the lens of infinite time - that wasted minutes didn't hurt the show. When the end was inevitable, then you could feel the hurt of wasted time in each episode. The pending mortality of the show also made it harder to swallow actions/decisions that didn't make sense by characters, though you may have forgiven those same actions had they happened in earlier seasons. I can't otherwise argue with anything you guys-in-the-know have said. One can't blame fictional characters for those choices.
I enjoyed reading all you guys wrote.
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I honestly can not recall if there was ever a show before that took such a hard nosedive in quality. The writing was nonexistent. Jon was not a character this season. His only lines were, "I dun wannit!" and "You are muh queen".
Bran turned out to be a huge pile of nothing. I can not rewatch this show, the earlier seasons where Jojen and Meera and Hodor are risking life and limb just so he could...do nothing. Oh wait, "why do you think I came all this way."
The cutaways were a big sign of the lack of quality this season. Instead of Bran talking to Tyrion or Jon telling his sisters he's a Targ, they cut away to the next scene. Lazy lazy lazy.
Arya killing the Night King was dumb af. Dumb and Dumber only did that because it subverted expectations.
There's so much wrong with this season. The show ended months ago and /r/freefolk still regularly hits the front page of reddit with memes about season 8, and I think that says a lot.
Earlier in this thread I said I hope Dumb and Dumber lose their jobs and never create in Hollywood again. Yesterday, they were removed from their Star Wars projects. I was so happy.
Bran turned out to be a huge pile of nothing. I can not rewatch this show, the earlier seasons where Jojen and Meera and Hodor are risking life and limb just so he could...do nothing. Oh wait, "why do you think I came all this way."
The cutaways were a big sign of the lack of quality this season. Instead of Bran talking to Tyrion or Jon telling his sisters he's a Targ, they cut away to the next scene. Lazy lazy lazy.
Arya killing the Night King was dumb af. Dumb and Dumber only did that because it subverted expectations.
There's so much wrong with this season. The show ended months ago and /r/freefolk still regularly hits the front page of reddit with memes about season 8, and I think that says a lot.
Earlier in this thread I said I hope Dumb and Dumber lose their jobs and never create in Hollywood again. Yesterday, they were removed from their Star Wars projects. I was so happy.
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D&D recently did a Q&A at some Austin, TX convention and in it, they admitted they didn't care about themes and that they wanted to de-emphasize the magic because they thought it would draw a larger audience. They also admitted they didn't really know what they were doing and sort of stumbled into the success the show brought. One of them even said that even after a decade of working on this show, they couldn't complain about anything the second they saw what a set designer had to go through.
#1: If you aren't going to care about theme, then don't adapt material that relies so heavily on it, you fucking cunts. Recuse yourself from the project. But no, that would require some kind of creative principle and as we've seen, their level of creativity wasn't up to the task of truly leading this series after it lapped Martin's books.
#2: De-emphasizing the magic and fantasy elements perfectly explains why Jon Snow was stripped of all his potency as a character. Jon is the best and coolest character in the books and it's not even close (sorry Tyrion fans, he's interesting but not as cool as Jon) to anyone else. Not even close. Taking away Ghost makes so much more sense now. They didn't care about Jon's storyline but couldn't divorce it from the shitty costume drama aspects they were hyping up. They de-emphasized so many of the things that actually MATTER in ASOIF and selfishly cherry picked the parts they liked (which is why Arya turned into an absolute shit character in the last few seasons). The return of Winter IS the fucking story-everything else is distraction. They didn't care about it and it shows. The Night King is a concoction of hacks that didn't know what they were doing; there won't be one in Martin's books.
#3: Of course they failed into this situation. It was way bigger than them because Martin knows how to craft a story and these two dumb shits can't even craft a ham sandwich. The series WAS pretty hammy, though. Especially after they ran out of the books to crib from.
In summation: Fuck Weiss and Benioff for what they did to this series. I don't care about all the good will they supposedly established early on. Their pitiful conclusion made the series unwatchable on repeat viewings. Never let these two miserable literary butchers near any property I care about again. If they were ever to come close to Berserk, I think one of you would have to intervene to save them from me.
Anybody adapting a story heavy on theme disrespecting the content of theme itself has no business touching that story. Go make your own shit and see how well you do.
Yeah, I'm still pretty pissed off about this.
#1: If you aren't going to care about theme, then don't adapt material that relies so heavily on it, you fucking cunts. Recuse yourself from the project. But no, that would require some kind of creative principle and as we've seen, their level of creativity wasn't up to the task of truly leading this series after it lapped Martin's books.
#2: De-emphasizing the magic and fantasy elements perfectly explains why Jon Snow was stripped of all his potency as a character. Jon is the best and coolest character in the books and it's not even close (sorry Tyrion fans, he's interesting but not as cool as Jon) to anyone else. Not even close. Taking away Ghost makes so much more sense now. They didn't care about Jon's storyline but couldn't divorce it from the shitty costume drama aspects they were hyping up. They de-emphasized so many of the things that actually MATTER in ASOIF and selfishly cherry picked the parts they liked (which is why Arya turned into an absolute shit character in the last few seasons). The return of Winter IS the fucking story-everything else is distraction. They didn't care about it and it shows. The Night King is a concoction of hacks that didn't know what they were doing; there won't be one in Martin's books.
#3: Of course they failed into this situation. It was way bigger than them because Martin knows how to craft a story and these two dumb shits can't even craft a ham sandwich. The series WAS pretty hammy, though. Especially after they ran out of the books to crib from.
In summation: Fuck Weiss and Benioff for what they did to this series. I don't care about all the good will they supposedly established early on. Their pitiful conclusion made the series unwatchable on repeat viewings. Never let these two miserable literary butchers near any property I care about again. If they were ever to come close to Berserk, I think one of you would have to intervene to save them from me.
Anybody adapting a story heavy on theme disrespecting the content of theme itself has no business touching that story. Go make your own shit and see how well you do.
Yeah, I'm still pretty pissed off about this.
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It is obvious that these hacks can't write, only reason they were so good is GRRM's plot/dialogue and strong casting and high production values. As soon as the show went past the books, the quality of everything dropped and that ending is an amateur hack job.
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In short...the series ended horribly. Period.
Just like the Sopranos that ended with a whimper and it ruined the entire thing.
Despite the good beginning of GoT, in my mind it will always be a failure and I'll probably never watch it again knowing how horrible the last seasons were.
Sad, really.
Just like the Sopranos that ended with a whimper and it ruined the entire thing.
Despite the good beginning of GoT, in my mind it will always be a failure and I'll probably never watch it again knowing how horrible the last seasons were.
Sad, really.
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Dude, what. No. Sopranos ending was brilliant. And the show is still rewatchable.
Game of Thrones has been ruined. Watching the earlier seasons will never be the same. Night King shows up, "wow, I wonder what his deal is." Nope, doesn't matter, a little girl teleported out of nowhere and killed him. Craster's baby becoming a white walker, nope never mentioned or seen again. Bran's going to be a god, nope, just gonna creep on Ramsay raping his sister and then warg into a flock of birds and have his entire plan literally be just wait for everyone to die so he can be king. Jaime's redemption character arc, nope, going back to die with his sister who wanted him dead. Jon gets resurrected and Melisandre has actual powers, nope never explained in the slightest.
Sopranos is still watchable. Game of Thrones, I don't know how many years need to pass until I will want to rewatch. All of the lore, the mystery, it meant nothing because the fucking writers didn't even know the answers. Season 8 was so terrible it killed the entire franchise. Fans who bought merchandise can't even bring themselves to look at it. There's a prequel series happening and even I don't care.
Game of Thrones has been ruined. Watching the earlier seasons will never be the same. Night King shows up, "wow, I wonder what his deal is." Nope, doesn't matter, a little girl teleported out of nowhere and killed him. Craster's baby becoming a white walker, nope never mentioned or seen again. Bran's going to be a god, nope, just gonna creep on Ramsay raping his sister and then warg into a flock of birds and have his entire plan literally be just wait for everyone to die so he can be king. Jaime's redemption character arc, nope, going back to die with his sister who wanted him dead. Jon gets resurrected and Melisandre has actual powers, nope never explained in the slightest.
Sopranos is still watchable. Game of Thrones, I don't know how many years need to pass until I will want to rewatch. All of the lore, the mystery, it meant nothing because the fucking writers didn't even know the answers. Season 8 was so terrible it killed the entire franchise. Fans who bought merchandise can't even bring themselves to look at it. There's a prequel series happening and even I don't care.
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Meh...I thought "choose your own adventure" was a cop-out. Even the writers stated at the time that they wanted to leave Tony's fate to the individual viewer...which is shit writing.
Breaking Bad ended with balls...that's a good ending for a crime-drama...not a black screen.
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Not even joking that would have been better than what we got. Way better.
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For those who are still interested in GOT, the prequel shows w/ Naomi Watts got cancelled. HBO saw the pilot and chose not to go through with it. Kind of bummed out on this, wanted to see how the STarks & Lannister started out.
They did however supposedly going to pickup House of the Dragon. Never care for the Targaryens plot line.
They did however supposedly going to pickup House of the Dragon. Never care for the Targaryens plot line.