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Game Of Thrones In The Media

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QuinnM

QuinnM

8 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

But the criticism has been focused strictly on D&D.  Plus, (while it will never happen) if Season 8 was redone, it would mean another season of work for most of the BTS people, perhaps more if they decided to keep going, instead of ending it with Season 8.  

Best part of the Vulture story was that some of the extras are getting calls for the prequel. I would imagine that there is a whole cottage industry that has been built up over the years based on filming in Belfast.  I mean hotels, pubs, etc seeing more revenue based on one series.  I'm sure there were small folks running a pub that practically had a wake when GoT ended.

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Francie
Francie

HBO honcho [about D&D]: “They’re smart. They’re bright...” Tyrion Lannister:  “Smart and bright mean the same thing.” Deadline writer, quoting HBO honcho:  “I want to leave it as it’s ow

Dev F
Dev F

I was thinking about this exact chart when I was writing my last post -- shaking my head at how the same writers who couldn't think of anything to do with Cersei other than have her stand at a window

Mya Stone
Mya Stone

I just think they're having a grand old time playing up the JON SNOW IS DEAD angle. "Jon Snow is dead, we killed Jon Snow. Jon Snow? Nope. He's stabbed like a ke-bob. Jon Snow is dead, we made sure

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Umbelina

Umbelina

https://slate.com/culture/2019/05/game-of-thrones-epic-incremental-change-finale.html

This is excellent, and I so agree with several parts of it, but especially THIS:

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It would also have been useful to dramatize the effects of the series’ events on the people we haven’t seen much of at all: the peasants of Westeros. In A Song of Ice and Fire—the real-world books, not the Tyrionless in-series tome—there’s always been a productive tension between the story’s pacifist and anti-aristocratic politics and its setting in a civil war among the nobility. Even though the common folk of Westeros aren’t the focus in the novels, George R.R. Martin keeps finding ways to shift our focus to them. The second book gives us a disguised Arya so we can see the people of Westeros at the beginning of war, and the fourth finds Brienne walking through the country for hundreds of pages so we can see what has happened to the peasantry as the war progresses (hint: nothing good). Meanwhile, the Night’s Watch as an institution transcends class—everyone from a garden-variety murderer to a Targaryen is part of it—which is one reason why Jon Snow winds up caring about the basic humanity of the wildlings, even if he pays for that care with his life.

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Umbelina

Umbelina

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As a fan of the TV show, I felt battered into submission. This season has been the same story over and over again: a lot of tin-eared writing trying to justify some of the most drastic story developments imaginable, as quickly as possible. As usual, the actors did their best with what was on the page; Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage, long the two standouts of the show’s ensemble, wrestled mighty performances from unwieldy monologues, with Clarke trying to justify Daenerys’s belief in the burning of the city, and Tyrion finally investing his support in Bran, a living archive of Westeros’s history. Pause and think about the logic of it all for a second, and it’ll collapse under scrutiny. But time and time again in recent years, Benioff and Weiss have opted for grand cinematic gestures over granular world building, and Drogon burning the Throne to sludge was their last big mic drop.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/game-thrones-season-8-episode-6-series-finale-the-iron-throne-review/589801/
 

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The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones gave us one of the most dramatic reversals in TV history, with the once-good queen going genocidal. The finale gave us yet another historic reversal, in that this drama turned into a sitcom. Not a slick HBO sitcom either, but a cheapo network affair, or maybe even a webisode of outtakes from one. Tonally odd, logically strained, and emotionally thin, “The Iron Throne” felt like the first draft of a finale.

When Dany torched King’s Landing last week, viewers were incensed, but I’d argue it was less because the onetime hero went bad than because it wasn’t clear why she did. Long-simmering madness? Sudden emotional break? Tough-minded strategy? A desire to implement an innovative new city grid? The answer to this would seem to help answer some of the show’s most fundamental inquiries about might and right, little people and greater goods, noble nature and cruel nurture. Thrones has been shaky quality-wise for some time now, but surely the show would be competent enough to hinge the finale around the mystery of Dany’s decision.

Nope. The first parts of the episode loaded up on ponderous scenes of the characters whose horror at the razing of King’s Landing had been made plenty clear during the course of the razing. Tyrion speculated a bit to Jon about what had happened—Dany truly believed she was out to save the world and could thus justify any means on the way to messianic ends—but it was, truly, just speculation. When Jon and Dany met up, he raged at her, and she gave some tyrannical talk knowing what “the good world” would need (shades of “I alone can fix it,” no?). But whether her total firebombing was premeditated, tactical, or a tantrum remained unclear. Whether she was always this deranged or just now became so determines what story Thrones was telling all along, and Benioff and Weiss have left it to be argued about in Facebook threads.

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Umbelina

Umbelina

Sometimes Sepinwall really nails it.  The bolding is mine, the rest of this review of the finale and season is also very good.  https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/game-of-thrones-series-finale-review-alan-sepinwall-837333/

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Now, there’s no sin in focusing first and foremost on a relentless and thrilling narrative. Thrones operated on a level of ambition that never seemed remotely possible for television, and it usually did so smashingly. But when that’s the goal above everything else, that puts exponentially more weight on What’s Happening Next to be great. When we get to watch Brienne tease out Jaime’s better nature, or watch Sansa learn how to outmaneuver Littlefinger, it can be incredibly satisfying. When instead we’re spending the better part of a season watching Ramsay Snow mutilate and emotionally torture Theon Greyjoy, or when Dany’s turn into villainy feels rushed because Benioff and Weiss wanted to do shorter seasons at the end, it hurts more because there’s not as much below the surface. That goes doubly so for the series finale: the plot holes loom terribly large because the plot is nearly all we have at this stage of things.

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Soup333

Soup333

Ultimately I feel cheated. I wonder if I’d feel the same if I didn’t know HBO offered the resources to do regular length seasons but instead the writers chose otherwise. They could have used the extra episodes to make this ending make sense. They could have written another ending entirely. But instead they simply chose not to. It’s not about the ending I wanted. It’s about the ending Thrones deserves.

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Umbelina

Umbelina

https://www.vox.com/game-of-thrones/2019/5/20/18632343/game-of-thrones-finale-season-8-bran-tyrion-iron-throne

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Game of Thrones’ finale betrayed the show’s core themesGame of Thrones’ political realism fell apart in season eight. Tyrion’s appeal for Bran was the fatal blow.

My comments on this one are turning into a show post, so I'll take them there.

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Leila6

Leila6

On 5/22/2019 at 5:48 PM, Dame sans merci said:

I also feel like the show going with this contradicts GRRM's much talked about '...but what is Aragorn's tax policy?' idea that he wanted to explore in the books. Having the best story bears absolutely no resemblance to having the qualities and ideas to successfully rule.

THANK YOU! The minute I found out about the Bran as king ending (I was spoiled), that was one of my first reactions. A great story (which Bran certainly does not have in comparison to everyone else) is almost totally irrelevant to how that person will be as king. Hell, I’d argue that Robert Baratheon’s story probably played better with the small folk than Bran’s, and he could not have cared less about the minutiae of ruling.

The more I think about it, the more Bran actually comes across as a villain to me in the end. He revealed that he had foreknowledge of his kingship and seemed to be manipulating events to get there, but he did nothing to stop the King’s Landing tragedy. That’s even more cold-blooded than Daenerys, who at least wasn’t quite right in the head at the end there. 

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QuinnM

QuinnM

2 hours ago, MJ Frog said:

Yeah, I'm still sore about a lot of the Battlestar finale. 10 years later. Very interesting article -- thanks for posting it!

Oh I know someone you can talk to about that.  It’s not something that is brought up in polite company around my friends.  I would say it out does the GoT easy.

I’m looking for the poll that was done that ends up with about 20% having this visceral negative reaction.  I’ll post when I find it again.

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benteen

benteen

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As usual, the actors did their best with what was on the page; Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage, long the two standouts of the show’s ensemble,

Oh please with Emilia Clarke.  Now I think she did her best acting in Episode 5 this season, her run of Emmy nominations has been entirely unearned.  She isn't even one of the 5 or 6 best actresses' on the show, let alone one of the top dozen overall actors.  Dinklage has done some great work to be sure but was rewarded at least twice for seasons where he didn't have much to do.

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Bryce Lynch

Bryce Lynch

On 5/22/2019 at 11:58 AM, Minneapple said:

I read that thread at Freefolk, and while it's nice that they set up the charity drive, the subreddit is overall disgusting. 

Also, it's pretty condescending to the actors to tell them, "Oh, no, we don't blame you! We feel bad for you guys!" 

I don't think that is condescending at all.  They all telling the actors they appreciate their work, but that the fans and great cast were short changed by horrible writing.  

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Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)

Holy crap, they should never have deleted the Sir Jorah stuff!   Also, that confirms that Sansa WAS correct about resting the troops as well.

This would have worked so much more logically.

They went for shock over making sense.

ETA

IGA's thoughtful review (they are all disappointed) and also an interesting theory that show Bran is bad.  All he asks is "where is the dragon?" and then says "I'll find him." added to the "Why else would I be here?" is either stupidly or intentionally evil.

Edited by Umbelina
Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)

OK, this one has a lot of profanity, but still, makes such excellent points about the failings of all of season 8, and honestly, the typical "mistakes" D&D have made throughout the series.  They are only past episode 3 here too!

Two I especially like, changing Tyrion's first wife to a whore (she was not) and the endless reliance on unearned shock/subverting crutches.

Edited by Umbelina
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bijoux

bijoux

On 5/22/2019 at 12:49 AM, Bryce Lynch said:

In memory of Stannis Baratheon.  The one true King of Westeros.  🙂

Modern day middle school AU. Stannis is that dour, strict teacher most kids just hate and have to drag themselves to his class, but you know they'll be quoting him 20 years down the line when they are correcting some idiot. Sam is the star pupil, natch, but Stannis can't stand the sound of his voice. 

On 5/23/2019 at 7:40 PM, Umbelina said:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/05/game-of-thrones-epic-incremental-change-finale.html

This is excellent, and I so agree with several parts of it, but especially THIS:

I have been thinking whether a sort of post scriptum would have worked or not. Tyrion semds out messangers to spread the news of the new king to the common folk and they are just not impressed. One asks if he sent supplies, they're starving. Another comments on Bran the Broken. What part of him is broken, who broke him, why isn't that person on the throne, who wants a weak, broken, pansy ass king? Just a clear demomstration that regular people don't give a fuck about this game, they just want to live their lives. 

On 5/25/2019 at 3:53 AM, Umbelina said:

Very glad the Sansa and Hound scene was cut and the show dialed that weirdness from the books waaay back. 

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Umbelina

Umbelina

(edited)
7 hours ago, bijoux said:

Modern day middle school AU. Stannis is that dour, strict teacher most kids just hate and have to drag themselves to his class, but you know they'll be quoting him 20 years down the line when they are correcting some idiot. Sam is the star pupil, natch, but Stannis can't stand the sound of his voice. 

I have been thinking whether a sort of post scriptum would have worked or not. Tyrion semds out messangers to spread the news of the new king to the common folk and they are just not impressed. One asks if he sent supplies, they're starving. Another comments on Bran the Broken. What part of him is broken, who broke him, why isn't that person on the throne, who wants a weak, broken, pansy ass king? Just a clear demomstration that regular people don't give a fuck about this game, they just want to live their lives. 

Very glad the Sansa and Hound scene was cut and the show dialed that weirdness from the books waaay back. 

The rest of the things they cut though?  Would have made the ending much more palatable, even though logic and answering all the raised questions went straight out the window in favor of CGI and "finish this damn thing ASAP."

Oh, and "lets make everyone eat stupid pills!"

Edited by Umbelina
Dev F

Dev F

20 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Wow, that article is fantastic. I hadn't thought of it that way before but it really is the best explanation of what the audience intuitively felt was off. So many individual criticisms step from it.

I thought it was a fantastic analysis too, but I do find its criticisms a little broad. I think it's dead-on accurate that the show shifted from telling a sociological story to telling a psychological one, but I'm not sure I agree that this happened because psychological storytelling is "the main, and often only, way Hollywood and most television writers tell stories." In fact, I think this kind of shift is pretty common even among shows that are run by Hollywood types all along. It's not the difference between a show run by GRRM and a show run by D&D; it's the difference between young, niche genre series and established, wildly popular one.

Basically, I think it's pretty common for a show of this type to start out exploring big ideas, sociology or philosophy or whatnot -- after all, when your series is just getting off the ground and no one knows any of the characters yet, there has to be a more abstract hook to draw people in. With Game of Thrones it was "Check out these thrilling political intrigues!" With Battlestar Galactica it was "We're exploring our post-9/11 society through a sci-fi lens!" And with Lost it was "Can these ragtag crash survivors figure out how to stay alive and build their own functioning mini-society on a deserted island?"

But once a show becomes really popular and the viewers start to fall in love with the characters, these bigger issues start to fall by the wayside. The audience starts to find the characters themselves inherently interesting, so the writers no longer need to connect them with these larger issues to maintain interest. Often creators and critics alike laud this shift as an artistic achievement: "It's so great now that we can just explore these characters we love, instead of having to do so many dumb plot things!"

But often it means that larger and more interesting ideas are replaced by fan service and incestuous vamping. Lost quickly went from being about the irony of a fugitive become the island's de facto law enforcement officer and a con man running its commerce, to being about "Oooh, are Kate and Sawyer going to hook up?" In Battlestar Galactica, the Cylon's genocidal plans were originally presented as an offshoot of their complicated religious beliefs and squabbling political allegiances, but by the end the writers glommed onto one particular Cylon who was a favorite villain and decreed that he'd personally masterminded the end of humanity because he had mommy issues. And, of course, Game of Thrones gave up on dramatizing the nuances of feudal succession once the writers realized that viewers mostly wanted to cheer on their favorite heroes, whom they may have named the children after. I think it's so telling that when BSG's Ron Moore defends both GoT and his own show, he's laser focused on this kind of storytelling: "People really love these characters from all these shows"; "I thought it was the perfect ending to all those characters."

And that's all well and good if the individual characters are the reason you're watching the show. But it's a source of frequent disappointment if you're someone (like me!) who was actually interested in the bigger-picture stuff. Rare and remarkable are the shows that are able to resist the pull toward narrowly focused character storytelling. Often they only succeed in doing so because the bigger-picture stuff exists comfortably alongside the personal, psychological stories (Mad Men), because the showrunner is such an auteur that he'll keep plowing forward without regard for what's crowd-pleasing (Deadwood), or because the show never becomes popular enough for the showrunners to feel much pressure to service their fans (The Americans).

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sistermagpie

sistermagpie

(edited)
46 minutes ago, Dev F said:

And that's all well and good if the individual characters are the reason you're watching the show. But it's a source of frequent disappointment if you're someone (like me!) who was actually interested in the bigger-picture stuff. Rare and remarkable are the shows that are able to resist the pull toward narrowly focused character storytelling. Often they only succeed in doing so because the bigger-picture stuff exists comfortably alongside the personal, psychological stories (Mad Men), because the showrunner is such an auteur that he'll keep plowing forward without regard for what's crowd-pleasing (Deadwood), or because the show never becomes popular enough for the showrunners to feel much pressure to service their fans (The Americans).

I think it's true that shows do often start turning exactly this way, but I also think the article is correct in seeing a more obvious shift where you've literally got a story started by one person whose interest has stayed pretty steady so far (that is, steady until he stalled at least since the books aren't finished!) and one that was taken over by other people who probably are, imo, coming at it from a very different perspective--whether or not that's because Hollywood only knows how to tell a certain story.

Like I would say about the shows listed here that they all stayed very true to the pov they started out with. I think the story the showrunners would have said they were telling from the start is where they ended. Building a society was always central to Deadwood. Mad Men was always, imo, interested in how characters' desires were affected by what they were told they were supposed to want or what they were promised by their society. The Americans, too, always seemed very aware and consistent the balance between the personal and the societal. (The article made me think, actually, about how I felt like sometimes people reduced the effects of growing up in the USSR to only Elizabeth being a hardliner, which was frustrating to me!) They kept their balance.

Lost, to me, did a bait and switch at the end, but I never felt like it was about whether these people would form a society on the island because their personal psychologies were always front and center. It seemed from the start like these people had specifically been brought to this island because of their personal issues. The bait and switch was when the ending pretended that all that ever mattered was their personal happiness, as if we'd never been promised insight into the mystical, spiritual forces at work on the island. They pretended the mystical was just there to serve the personal when the show up until then had always suggested that the personal was serving the mystical and that's what held it all together and propelled the story forward and drove the interest. At least imo. 🙂

Shows losing their balance, to me, feel slightly different than a show having fundamentally different pov. On GoT I do feel like it wasn't just that writers got more interested in the personal, it was that the relationships between the characters and their society changed too. Jon's defense of Dany and ultimate decision to kill her and Tyrion's defense of Cersei feel like the decisions of fundamentally different people ones they were at the beginning. Not because they've evolved through circumstances like the characters on the show listed above, or that certain parts of them have come to dominate where they didn't before or that they've become more caricatured or softer (the way so many network TV characters who became favorites did over time--for instance, the Fonz, Margaret Houlihan), but as if they just reset to where they wouldn't even understand the motivations of the ones they were at the beginning. That's maybe even why they can have that democracy joke at the end.

It's funny, I know I've read that David Simon gets really annoyed when people talk about loving the characters on The Wire because he wants people to just see the societal critique. I don't know that GRRM as a showrunner would be like that, but I think he'd have a hard time imagining the characters without the society in ways that the showrunners of the show wouldn't. Or to write a character making certain decisions without creating the outside reasons for them to do it. Like there's a difference between shows that are primarily psychological but see societal influences as part of that psychology (like in the shows listed above) and shows that are primarily sociological but see personal psychologies existing within that society.

Edited by sistermagpie
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Growsonwalls

Growsonwalls

(edited)

I think another thing that happened to GoT that they couldn't have anticipated when they cast the show so many years ago was that certain actors would really capture the public imagination so much that they outgrew the endings that were written for them. 

Great example: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime. Had Jaime been cast with a weaker actor, I think the ending of him going back to Cersei would have been acceptable. In real life, people often don't change and often do return back to destructive relationships because it's all they've ever known. 

However for better or for worse N C-W's portrayal of Jaime had a decency and humanity that always made him seem like he was not Cersei or Tywin. His redemption arc became something the viewers invested themselves in because N C-W made it so believable. His ending made viewers as heartbroken as Brienne.

On the flip side of the coin certain actors were not as strong and their continued storyline arc didn't support what we saw onscreen. Isaac Hempstead seems like a lovely person but his portrayal of Bran was so wooden that the ending was laughable. Now maybe it was his artistic choice to play Bran as so wooden. But I keep thinking what a stronger actor would have been able to do with Bran.

The biggest example of this was the emphasis on the Jon-Dany love story. It was in theory a good idea -- an icky mix of romance, politics, and incest. But Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke never developed the kind of chemistry where this Jon-Dany screentime seemed justified. Clarke was always a stronger actress with other characters. Their final scene together which I THINK should have broken hearts seemed almost anticlimactic. 

Many shows have adapted when it was clear the actors had much more depth than was originally intended. For instance there were a lot of complaints that LOST became the Ben and Locke show but I think it was because Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn were such strong actors. 

Anyway i think the GoT ending is an example not of writers not listening to the fanbase but of writers not observing their actors and what they can make believable or unbelievable. 

Edited by Growsonwalls
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Umbelina

Umbelina

I think "Bran" was acting as he was directed to act.  I don't see his portrayal as anything showing his faults as an actor, rather, the writing for him, and the way they directed him made him seem wooden and a bore.  The showrunners didn't give a shit about that character, and it showed.

Ditto the so called "lack of chemistry" between Dany and Jon.  Hello!  Give them scenes!  Words!  Their "love" was nearly all played out (what they bothered with) on CGI sets. 

With this kind of ending in their minds, we should have had more love developing scenes, not on the backs of dragons, or in battle scenes, but quiet moments where they were just allowed to actually act.  They had very few of those, and the best was probably an "after the battle" scene when Dany saw his scars and he called her his Queen. 

That's not much.

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benteen

benteen

(edited)
On ‎5‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 1:04 PM, Jack Shaftoe said:

I see that Ronald D. Moore is still trolling people a decade after that sorry excuse of a finale:

He is consistent, I will give him that.

Yeah, Ronald D. Moore has been defending shitty finales since the last episode of The Sopranos.  I was a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica but soured on the show, particularly when the writers confirmed in a commentary that they had no long-term plan at all for their central storyline.  Seriously, his own writers admitted that and when you see how BSG played out, you will realize that he had NO PLAN for the series whatsoever.  He has no credibility to make this argument whatsoever.

I agree that you shouldn't write your finale strictly on what the viewers want.  That would be a disaster.  But you should also realize that the viewers are the reason you have obtained the success you've had and pleasing them IS a consideration to keep in mind.

Edited by benteen
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QuinnM

QuinnM

4 minutes ago, bijoux said:

Maybe don’t attack others to defend the writers of your now finished show. Just an idea.

She gets her opinion same as a petition signer.  And we don't know what she's being sent.  I've heard this from a lot actors over the years.  I think just last week someone complaining about the dearth of good material for a woman of a certain age.  So maybe she is getting crap scripts. 

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bijoux

bijoux

28 minutes ago, QuinnM said:

She gets her opinion same as a petition signer.  And we don't know what she's being sent.  I've heard this from a lot actors over the years.  I think just last week someone complaining about the dearth of good material for a woman of a certain age.  So maybe she is getting crap scripts. 

Of course she could be getting shitty scripts, I have no idea. All I’m saying is this gig has ended and providing she plans to continue working in this branch, it doesn’t seem like the wisest choice to spit on everyone else basically. The same point could have been made only spinning it positively about GoT, not negatively about everything else. I’ve always found the scripts for our show to be complex and engaging, with twists and turns that always surprise the audience but weren’t self-serving. It’s pretty much what she said, only it doesn’t cast aspersions on anyone else.

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Danny Franks

Danny Franks

57 minutes ago, bijoux said:

Maybe don’t attack others to defend the writers of your now finished show. Just an idea.

54 minutes ago, Dame sans merci said:

Oof. This ain't it, chief.

Yeah, some of these young actors really aren't handling this criticism at all well. I understand that it must be very tough to deal with a show that was garnering near-universal praise get a slating by critics and fans, but that's just the way it is.

Attack the fans and the critics for their views if you like. It won't benefit anyone and will just hurt your standing in their eyes, but that ultimately won't hurt the actor much. But attacking the work of other people in the industry, saying they can't hold a candle to your show? Oh boy, that's a good way to lose important friends.

Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Isaac Hempstead-Wright and others will have to develop thicker skin if they want long careers.

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