max Game of Thrones, The Final Season

[Cristiano]

 

[Arilynn]

I have not seen any episodes of GoT.
...
Personally I am glad I invested 0 in this.

I don’t regret the time I invested in watching it, and overall really enjoyed the it. I think a lot of the internet chatter/furor/whatever is due to how invested so many people were in the show.

A lot of folks have been hating on Arya's end, but I honestly think it's the only narratively satisfying end to her story that doesn't involve her dying. Arya is an outsider. Her entire story is about her struggle to survive without traditional or reliable support networks. In learning the skills to do so, she becomes less and less able to live within the constraints of the culture she's left behind. People talk about her marrying Gendry, or becoming Sansa's Queensguard, but as she says herself "that's not her." Arya has been on her own so long that she can no longer be subaltern to anyone, and that's the only sort of role Westeros offers her. Riding off into the sunset is literally the only option for her.

I agree. I just wish - like with so much this season - it had been done differently so it felt more like the next natural step in Arya’s journey and not a quick, cheap way to end things for such an important character.

 

[Vaelissa Cortes]

This is amazing:

 

[Ava Glasgow]

This is amazing:

The council of surviving characters!

 

[Free]

 

[Ann Launay]

If you missed it, The Last Watch documentary was really interesting and mostly focused on the crew and all of the work they did, rather than the stars or showrunners.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

I’ve decided the Hound had to die because if he’d gone west of Westeros with Arya some sick fuck would write fan fiction about them becoming lovers and Maisie Williams and Rory McCanns heads would both explode.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

So.... I liked seasons 1-4. I lost interest during season 5 since I felt like they were trying to hard to just keep shocking the audience. This feeling increased when I read that some consensual sex scenes were switched to rapes for the show. I also felt like they weaved themselves too deep into a web that they'd never find their way out of. I feel vindicated, lol.

 

[OrinB]

If you missed it, The Last Watch documentary was really interesting and mostly focused on the crew and all of the work they did, rather than the stars or showrunners.

That was fabulous! I love the camaraderie and work ethic of film crews. It's great to see it so well portrayed to those that haven't been involved in it. Within a crew and location environemtn, you are all so far removed from reality, so that everything you all do together is for one goal... to make the best you can with the resources you've been given. It's a shame not all of that emotion and vigour come through on screen, as that's the ultimate goal too... to put the money on the screen.

 

[Free]

Posting just because.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Sorry if this is a bit dated (but still, can we really object to necroposting in a thread about a working in which death is but a temporary inconvenience, as Jon Snow can confirm?), but anyway, I have just come across this, by the blogger David Allen Green, which seems to hit the nail on the head:

For what it is worth, I think the writers got it right.

The baddies are not always the ones who are bad.

Give a person lethal fire power they will tend to abuse it.

Give a person absolute power and, as Acton observed, that power can corrupt them absolutely.

War and chaos cut off and disrupt promising character arcs.

Descents into madness are not always gradual but are sometimes sudden and shocking.

Innocents – women and children and civilians – die when built-up areas are attacked.

Soldiers do disgusting things when nothing can stop them.

For me, episode 8:5 was more insightful about the real nature of war and destruction and chaos and ambition than all the other episodes of Game of Thrones put together.

For there to be complaints that war and destruction and chaos and ambition did not accord with expectations shows that the complainants perhaps do not understand the nature of war and destruction and chaos and ambition.

In defence of Game of Thrones, episode 8:5

SPOILERS – if that is not obvious from the post’s title. There are a number of commentators – from newspaper pundits to earnest vloggers on YouTube (who have studied story-telling…

davidallengreen.com

 

[Halo Minoptra]

All of that is true, but it didn't develop in a very natural way. Dani went from being a clever angel to being fussy and pissy and then jealous and evil in just a couple steps. If the writers had known this was how it was going to end, they would have given some hints of her bad character earlier on, so it we would have been shocked but not completely surprised.

That's the problem with almost all of the stuff that happened. It all makes sense if you want to think about it, but it was not a well-developed story arc.

"Okay, everybody dies! The End!"

 

[Kara Spengler]

Did GOT end yet?

 

[Noodles]

I don’t regret the time I invested in watching it, and overall really enjoyed the it. I think a lot of the internet chatter/furor/whatever is due to how invested so many people were in the show.

Yeah definitely. Shortly after the finale I was at a family get together and talked about the show a bit with my cousin and mom, both I am pretty sure aren't super hardcore forum junkies, and neither really seemed that disappointed by the end. My cousins even said she liked that Bran ended up on the throne I think.

 

[Khamon]

Thank You All, as long as we're necroposting anyway, for allowing me the opportunity to watch the series by reading through this thread. It would've been lost on me as we don't have HBO. But now I can visualize the entire story and make up the bits in between.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Thank You All, as long as we're necroposting anyway, for allowing me the opportunity to watch the series by reading through this thread. It would've been lost on me as we don't have HBO. But now I can visualize the entire story and make up the bits in between.

The rest is mostly sex and murder.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

All of that is true, but it didn't develop in a very natural way. Dani went from being a clever angel to being fussy and pissy and then jealous and evil in just a couple steps. If the writers had known this was how it was going to end, they would have given some hints of her bad character earlier on, so it we would have been shocked but not completely surprised.

That's the problem with almost all of the stuff that happened. It all makes sense if you want to think about it, but it was not a well-developed story arc.

"Okay, everybody dies! The End!"

Yes, I agree the ending was horribly rushed, so lots of things seemed forced -- because they were being forced into one season rather than two or even three -- but I think, as Tyrion pointed out to Jon in the final episode, blood and fire had always been Dany's first choice solution for most problems


When all you've got a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. When all you've got is a dragon, everything doesn't just look, but is, combustible.

[ETA: More accurately, when all you've got is a dragon, the Unsullied, and the Dothraki Hoard (miraculously returned from the dead, but it worked for Jon Snow), then everything not only looks like, but is in grave danger of becoming, toast]

I thought the dramatisation was terribly flawed, since they were scrambling to resolve too many plots in a largely character-driven drama far too quickly, but I thought the underlying idea that the liberator can very easily become the tyrant, particularly if she (or he) enjoys overwhelming firepower (in this case, quite literally) was very good.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

Game of Thrones fans puzzled as The Hound star is snubbed in Emmy submission

No Emmys nod for Rory McCann.

metro.co.uk

 

[Cristalle]

Yes, I agree the ending was horribly rushed, so lots of things seemed forced -- because they were being forced into one season rather than two or even three -- but I think, as Tyrion pointed out to Jon in the final episode, blood and fire had always been Dany's first choice solution for most problems


When all you've got a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. When all you've got is a dragon, everything doesn't just look, but is, combustible.

[ETA: More accurately, when all you've got is a dragon, the Unsullied, and the Dothraki Hoard (miraculously returned from the dead, but it worked for Jon Snow), then everything not only looks like, but is in grave danger of becoming, toast]

I thought the dramatisation was terribly flawed, since they were scrambling to resolve too many plots in a largely character-driven drama far too quickly, but I thought the underlying idea that the liberator can very easily become the tyrant, particularly if she (or he) enjoys overwhelming firepower (in this case, quite literally) was very good.

Most of us would feel that way, in that the ending was not earned. And as much as we might be disturbed at Brandon getting the throne, it's not so much the fact that he's getting it but the fact that this is a character that sat out one season. The whole narrative is just really messed up because they did not put the time in to tell the story correctly. The better argument for him being king is not that he has a good story, but that he does not want anything and his aspiration is for everyone else and not himself.

 

[Eunoli]

Most of us would feel that way, in that the ending was not earned. And as much as we might be disturbed at Brandon getting the throne, it's not so much the fact that he's getting it but the fact that this is a character that sat out one season. The whole narrative is just really messed up because they did not put the time in to tell the story correctly. The better argument for him being king is not that he has a good story, but that he does not want anything and his aspiration is for everyone else and not himself.

Actually, to me - the better "GoTish" argument for Bran being king is that he knows everything and has carefully played everyone ever since becoming the Three Eyed Raven. But, that's just me.