Game of Thrones Season 6 general discussion.

[BloatedGuppy]

Spoiler

That whole bit kind of annoyed me actually.

I mean, Gilly grew up in a very, very abusive household dominated by a brutal, violent man who treated "his" women like possessions. They even played it for awkwardness in this episode by talking about Gilly's father and how super cool he must have been to teach his daughters how to hunt. Regardless though, that isn't an environment where backtalk gets tolerated, or where people learn how to be strong and stand up to bullies, especially not older, male patriarchal bullies who can get you kicked out of the house or kill you if they feel like it.

I don't know, I don't think it's malicious so much as just thoughtless writing, but it just seems quite unhelpful to imply that people just "get over" stuff like that. I mean, Sam comes across as an okay dude but not someone so completely wonderful that someone would essentially violate every survival instinct they presumably must have developed in order to stop him getting chewed out over dinner.

It's not the biggest deal though. I only realized how much it bothered me when I thought about it a few hours after watching the episode.

That's a pretty cogent insight, actually. I've been saying for some time now that the show writers don't really have any grasp of the characters at all, and this is another example of it. "Character" as a notion has been abandoned almost entirely, they're basically just mouthpieces for terrible dialogue and instruments to jog the plot along at this point.

Season 6 was a huge step up in quality from season 5, and as long as I try my best to divorce the series from its source material it's a fun enough watch on its own. Kind of like comparing the 2003 Fullmetal alchemist series to its source material.

You have an alarming notion of "quality", my friend. Mind you, season 5 was terrible too, so you might be detecting gradients of terribleness I have no real capacity to differentiate.

The show has pretty much descended to hate-watch for me at this point, which is unfortunate. Around Season 3 I still genuinely liked it, however full of purist complaints I was.

 

[balladbird]

You have an alarming notion of "quality", my friend. Mind you, season 5 was terrible too, so you might be detecting gradients of terribleness I have no real capacity to differentiate.

The show has pretty much descended to hate-watch for me at this point, which is unfortunate. Around Season 3 I still genuinely liked it, however full of purist complaints I was.

Haha, yeah, it does seem I accidentally let my comment come across as more of a compliment than I intended. I had assumed the "damning with faint praise" nature of being favorably compared to season 5 was implied. XD

I don't know if my continued ability to enjoy the show comes from my somewhat emotional distance from the source material (I read the first two books in high school, and the next three when season 1 of the show came out, so aside from the shipping communities I wasn't super big into the fandom) but I surely don't fault the people who hate-watch or drop the series. D&D have had their fair share of hack writing and shock for its own sake thrown into the show, after all.

 

[happyninja42]

All very true. I just don't think it's a coincidence that Aerys makes his debut on screen for the very first time in Bran's vision, repeating his famous line that is the only thing the television audience really knows about him, right after we saw Bran's ability to influence people in the past.

I don't think it's coincidence either, I just don't think it means that Bran influenced it directly. I think that night was one of the "nexus points" in the timeline. Many important things happened that night, that are shrouded in mystery, and the answers to which could help save or damn humanity. The least important aspect of that to me, is whether or not Bran made a guy who was already batshit wacko into thinking he should blow up the city. By all accounts, he was already thinking that way anyway. I think what we will most likely learn, is the true heritage of some of the key players. Like Jon Snow's lineage (at least I think the night they found him was on that night, when they raided the castle, but I could be mixing up my history of GoT.)

Isn't it plausible that Aerys had always been unstable and due to the Targaryan's attraction to fire had the wild fire created on his own?

Yes, that is in fact exactly my stance on the subject. You were the one that was theorizing that Bran drove the Mad King mad. So, thanks for making my point for me? xD

Then Bran's warg intrusion during the siege of King's Landing, maybe hoping to unite the factions against the white walkers, or, if they do the time is circular thing, maybe Bran was helping Ned's and Robert's forces win the siege, sent him over the edge. This leads Jaime to believe he had finally lost it completely. Not saying he was ever a good dude, considering what he did to Ned's father and brother.

Oh I wouldn't at all be surprised if Bran knowingly, or unknowingly does something to move events of that night. But I seriously doubt they're going to go down the "It's all Bran's fault" route with the entire war of the 7 kingdoms. It just, meh, it makes no sense. Now, showing that he might do something, and establishing that it was his actions that pushed events down a particular line, sure, no problem, in fact, if I had to guess, I suspect that will be what happens. That he will be the "voice in someone's ear" that makes them make a choice. I just seriously doubt it's going to be the "BURN THEM ALL!!! BUUUURN THEM AAAAAALLLLLL!!" of the Mad King. Why would Bran do that? I just, I mean, his entire family line is famous for going insane. So unless Bran went back in time and mind fucked every Targarean, it is an unnecessary plot element. We've already got a justified reason for him to go mad...he's Targarean.

Now, if you want to simply say in your Bran Theory "I think Bran will end up messing with someone's head in the scene of the night the Mad King died, either on purpose or by accident." Then I am 100% on board with you. But that wasn't the theory you originally proposed. xD

Anyway, this is just me spit-balling. If any of this is true I won't be happy about it. I just see Bran becoming more relevant in the show as he develops his powers and I just don't see Aerys being introduced all of a sudden without it being related to Bran in some way.

Oh the show has already told us that Bran is going to be more relevant in the show as things develop. The most recent episode basically said in giant glowing letters of fire "YOU WILL BE INSTRUMENTAL IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE UNDEAD!" xD

And again, I agree that the events with Aerys are important, and weren't being shown for no reason. But as I said above, there are a lot of things that are unknown about what happened on that night. Things that were only ever told from the viewpoint of King Robert and Eddard Stark, both of whom had good reason to maybe hide elements of the truth. THOSE things I think are what the flashback scene are going to reveal, not why someone killed Aerys.


And, to the fans in general, clarify something for me please. Was it the night of the Mad King's death, where Robert and Stark stormed in, found the Stark woman who was supposed to be Robert's wife, but who was taken by the Targareans? My brain is saying that happened when they stormed the castle. But maybe it happened prior to that, I honestly don't remember. If that is the case, then I suspect we will see whether or not Jon Snow actually is Eddard Stark's bastard at all, or that of the other woman and the Targarean. And learn whether or not she was "kidnapped and raped" as Robert liked to say, or was actually in love with him, like the fan theories have us believe.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Haha, yeah, it does seem I accidentally let my comment come across as more of a compliment than I intended. I had assumed the "damning with faint praise" nature of being favorably compared to season 5 was implied. XD

I don't know if my continued ability to enjoy the show comes from my somewhat emotional distance from the source material (I read the first two books in high school, and the next three when season 1 of the show came out, so aside from the shipping communities I wasn't super big into the fandom) but I surely don't fault the people who hate-watch or drop the series. D&D have had their fair share of hack writing and shock for its own sake thrown into the show, after all.

There was a point where I raged against every deviation, no matter how mild, because I felt a better show was in the offing then the one being presented. "Sure, it was okay...but it could have been EXCELLENT" was the rallying cry. Now, I have no idea WTF they're doing. They've gone pants-on-head insane with their writing and continuity. I started laughing during the Kingsmoot sequence and couldn't stop. I'd think of other shows with equally bad writing to compare it to, but shows with writing that bad get cancelled.

I knew it was in trouble when it ran out of adaptable material, I just had no idea how much trouble, or how abruptly it would leave the tracks.

 

[springheeljack]

I really like this season so far things actually seem to be happening and the plot is finally moving forward which has taken fucking forever. I've never read the books but I don't know how people can put up with the story being drug out for so long

 

[Terminal Blue]

That's a pretty cogent insight, actually. I've been saying for some time now that the show writers don't really have any grasp of the characters at all, and this is another example of it.

Also, while I joked earlier about Sam being in the show so socially awkward guys could have someone to identify with, there's something really tone deaf about giving him a whole plot detour devoted to his abusive relationship with his father, and then have a character who was literally forced into marriage with her dad reduced to providing sympathy. It speaks to some rather questionable assumptions about whose "struggle" the audience is supposed to be relating to in this situation.

It also, involuntarily, makes Sam look like a total dick, which is fine (to me he comes across as a dick in the books as well) but here it doesn't feel deliberate. Oh sorry Sam, do keep moping about how hard your life has been and how badly your father treated you to your incest survivor girlfriend.

I remember you and I spent most of last season arguing about whether the show was terrible of not, but it's stuff like this and Dany's "hey brown people whose culture totally has a raging hate boner against magic and witches, worship me because I am white and can do magic stuff!" thing which does make me start to feel I was on the wrong side. I mean, the imagery was a bit questionable the first time, but at least it made vague plot sense.

At this point, I like the show in the same way I like shlocky exploitation films, it's generally fun to watch and some plot lines have me invested to a degree, but I'm not even going to pretend that for all their problems the books aren't vastly superior at this point. I think I just have an aversion to people comparing the two with arguments like "oh my God, GRRM would never have [character I personally like] do [action of which I disaprove] or [character I personally dislike] get away with [winning]", because in my estimation of his plot writing nine times out of ten he totally would, it would just be explained better.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

And, to the fans in general, clarify something for me please. Was it the night of the Mad King's death, where Robert and Stark stormed in, found the Stark woman who was supposed to be Robert's wife, but who was taken by the Targareans? My brain is saying that happened when they stormed the castle. But maybe it happened prior to that, I honestly don't remember. If that is the case, then I suspect we will see whether or not Jon Snow actually is Eddard Stark's bastard at all, or that of the other woman and the Targarean. And learn whether or not she was "kidnapped and raped" as Robert liked to say, or was actually in love with him, like the fan theories have us believe.

No, the attack on King's Landing culminated with Tywin Lannister finding and killing the supposed Targaryan children. Lyanna (aka Robert's love and Ned's sister) was being help elsewhere. Ned goes to find her afterwards in that tower we visited with Bran where he fights Ser Arthur Dayne (aka The Sword of the Morning). Him and his men were the last knights loyal to Rhaegar. It is heavily implied in the books and the show that a certain prince is responsible for a certain bastard.

 

[Erttheking]

Ugh. Not a huge fan. Granted episode 6 was a step up, but it feels like they're flailing about trying to play catch up. Jaimie has kind of regressed back to his old personality, whereas in the books he was fed up and done with Cersei, Cersei managed to totally screw the pooch and had the entire navy desert to go play pirate, Dorne...FUCKING DORNE! Ramsay Snow wonder boy never being allowed to loose and just...guh.

Spoiler

I did like the return of Benjen Stark though. He's basically playing the role of Coldhands and so many people THOUGHT he was Coldhands, so it fits.

The problem is that they just took many things out of the books. For fuck's sake, THEY TOOK OUT THE BROKEN MAN SPEECH!

http://genius.com/George-r-r-martin-a-feast-for-crows-brienne-v-broken-men-speech-annotated

 

[RedDeadFred]

I have a feeling that we may actually get Lady Stoneheart as the Brotherhood Without Banners was referenced again. Could be the shock moment for episode 9. The plot feels like it's starting to pick up, although Danny still seems to be treading water in the sense that we've basically had this story already. I'm really not psyched for her sections in the next book if it's going to be following similarly.

Aria's story is finally interesting again.

North stuff is great.

King's Landing stuff is hit or miss.

Dorne wasn't good in the books either, so no real huge damage here.

Iron Islands stuff is very hard to care about. I felt like I was watching a spoof during the Kingsmoot.

Dane was as badass as I expected.

Mereen can be entertaining, but unfortunately, not even Tyrion can fend off the boredom that this city creates.

To be honest, I used to complain a lot whenever the show diverged from the books, but it was only the first 3 books that were truly great anyway. Since we're in the much later sections or even beyond the current books, I have no problem with them changing the less than stellar stuff. Unfortunately, they've kept the boring part of the Greyjoys and removed Victarion, they've kept the boring parts of Mereen and removed Barristan, and they've kept the boring parts of King's Landing while removing Jaimie's character development.

It's still entertaining, but I can't help feeling like it had the potential to be so much better.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Can't we just put spoiler heavy in the title of this so everyone can stop? I mean, clearly, spoilers.

This season has been a little too mediocre for my tastes so far. It's pretty much just become a masochist circle-jerk in my opinion. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching.

Can we, however, talk about how Sna-sna turned away the fucking knights of the vale? Like what the actual fuck? I know it was all tied to littlefinger, but like- you're desperate for a fucking army- and here is one full of renowned, trained knights right at your fucking doorstep. Blackfish isn't going to help them because he's going to be fucking besieged, and Ramsay is going to win and kill Jon Snow again because his plot armour is so thick it rivals Kai Leng's from Mass Effect 3.

I feel like Arya is going to die, too, like, she clearly can't handle the embodiment of jealousy that's after her.

Let's just get the rest out of the way- Iron islands seems extremely rushed and it really sucks (Happened about two books ago in Martinville, when it was still fucking relevant). CLEGANEBOWL GET FUCKIN HYPE. It seems like they really love delaying any possible story progression in King's landing (High-sparrow is, too, reaching maximum amounts of plot-armour; interesting character, though). Nice to see they brought back Rickon, a largely pointless character, for no goddamn reason. Coldhands is better in the books; also not Benjin in them, and I saw that from a mile away. Hodor. YUUU NEEHD A GUD SHOW BUT YU WUNT A BAD POOSI (AKA they could have fucking kept Dorne far away and no one would have given a shit- why were they still cutting deeper with it?). Essos is okay. Like, I don't even know with Sam anymore? His dad's probably going to kill him for taking his sword? I'm kind of okay with that, because like, he isn't likable when he's not at the wall for some reason?- and yeah, I think that covers the rest of what is unwinding to be an unfortunate shitshow. Seasons 1-4 were so good, what's happening?

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

because in my estimation of his plot writing nine times out of ten he totally would, it would just be explained better.

I'm not disagreeing with you- but a good explanation beats the writers pulling trite out of their asses. George can hurt me all he wants just as long as he has a good reason for it- not "They touched you in dreamville, now they suddenly know where we are and how to get past our defenses" and leave it at that.

 

[happyninja42]

And, to the fans in general, clarify something for me please. Was it the night of the Mad King's death, where Robert and Stark stormed in, found the Stark woman who was supposed to be Robert's wife, but who was taken by the Targareans? My brain is saying that happened when they stormed the castle. But maybe it happened prior to that, I honestly don't remember. If that is the case, then I suspect we will see whether or not Jon Snow actually is Eddard Stark's bastard at all, or that of the other woman and the Targarean. And learn whether or not she was "kidnapped and raped" as Robert liked to say, or was actually in love with him, like the fan theories have us believe.

No, the attack on King's Landing culminated with Tywin Lannister finding and killing the supposed Targaryan children. Lyanna (aka Robert's love and Ned's sister) was being help elsewhere. Ned goes to find her afterwards in that tower we visited with Bran where he fights Ser Arthur Dayne (aka The Sword of the Morning). Him and his men were the last knights loyal to Rhaegar. It is heavily implied in the books and the show that a certain prince is responsible for a certain bastard.

Aaah, right. Yeah I knew about the theory about Jon Snow's parentage, I just wasn't sure about her placement physically and on what night they find her. So she was in that tower where Young Ned attacks the place, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[happyninja42]

because in my estimation of his plot writing nine times out of ten he totally would, it would just be explained better.

I'm not disagreeing with you- but a good explanation beats the writers pulling trite out of their asses. George can hurt me all he wants just as long as he has a good reason for it- not "They touched you in dreamville, now they suddenly know where we are and how to get past our defenses" and leave it at that.

Isn't this assuming that this wasn't George's plan for how they find them all along? I dunno, seems reasonable to me, when you are dealing with mystic, esoteric, batshit weird things like astral projection and time walking, that making contact with another traveler would give you a link to them. It's hardly the first time a magical story has done something like this. The physical contact is more a metaphorical representation of the person finding the other persons' mind and tracing it back. The only issue I had was how the undead seemed to just show up immediately, like they'd already been in the area in force, and just suddenly were called to the set. But the whole "he now has a foothold in here, and can bypass our defenses" thing is on par with many other similar fantasy stories.

 

[Terminal Blue]

For someone so concerned about these issues, it's like you've never taken a moment to consider that Sam is pretty much George R. R. Martin, written into his own world. Nobody is perfect, so chill out.

Firstly, what exactly are you basing that on?

Secondly, it has crossed my mind yes. But I don't think it's the case.

Thirdly, my problem here is not with GRRM's writing at all. Book Sam is often thoughtless, self indulgent and emotionally imbecilic, but that's cool.. he's written that way. The book never pretends he's some kind of hero or even a really good person. However, the difference between the book and the TV show is that in the book everyone reacts accordingly. Noone hero worships Sam, noone constantly goes on about how special and awesome he is and if only mean people could see that he's a real hero under the surface. They treat him like what he is, a random guy whose main distinguishing talent is being of above average intelligence in a world where that doesn't really mean anything to anyone and being lucky enough not to die.

The character of Sam doesn't annoy me at all. The way the show seems to want to push us into liking or identifying with him is a problem. Furthermore, it's not just a problem with him. Most of the show "fan favourite" characters (Tyrion being probably the worst offender) are absolutely not written as particularly likeable or relatable characters. That's fine, of course, but it does make it kind of weird when the show gives them the same flaws and then tries to pretend they're all super cool and shit.

George can hurt me all he wants just as long as he has a good reason for it- not "They touched you in dreamville, now they suddenly know where we are and how to get past our defenses" and leave it at that.

Yeah. I didn't think about that, but now you mention it it's weird that they didn't even really explain what he's doing there or what a greenseer is.. which is really a crucial plot reveal (since it's kind of explains why the Northerners worship trees).

But I meant more the stereotypical things fans seem to whine about as nonsensical actions. The big one this season so far being the sand snakes murdering the Martels or Ramsey murdering Roose. Those actually seem like fairly typical George R.R. Martin plot progression precisely because they subvert a bunch of audience assumptions. I think most people, at this point, know better than to assume that "good" or "honorable" characters will have any kind of plot armour, but people still tend to assume that "smart" characters or characters who seem to know what they're doing will be protected from the short sighted ambitions of others..

If you got this far in and still think that, I don't think you grasped some of the themes.

 

[Breakdown]

TV Sam is annoying because he's blatantly broken his Night Watch vows. He's clearly formed an emotional attachment to Gilly and young Sam, and now he's nicked his family sword because he thinks it belongs to him, even though he's given up all family ties and inheritances.

 

[happyninja42]

TV Sam is annoying because he's blatantly broken his Night Watch vows. He's clearly formed an emotional attachment to Gilly and young Sam, and now he's nicked his family sword because he thinks it belongs to him, even though he's given up all family ties and inheritances.

I think they've pretty firmly established at this point that the rules of the Nightwatch, as they are now, are going to be discarded in a lot of ways, leading up to the undead attack. I personally think Sam took the sword, because he did what I did when he hard "Valerian steel" he thought "Ooh, that kills Wight Walkers good! I should probably make sure that gets back to Castle Black to help in the fight."

Besides, the vows they all took, have sort of mutated at this point. Most of the members of the Nights Watch think their purpose is to fight the Wildlings, because that's the only direct threat they've known for years. They're aiming their "tradition and legacy of the Watch!" anger at the wrong thing. So I really don't care if they break the vows. The rest of the Kingdom considers them a joke, because they've all forgotten the real reason they were founded. They think of it as a place to just send miscreants and criminals and bastards. The entire thing is a hollow sham at this point in the story. So to me, vows made to a broken order, fighting the wrong war, are hardly the biggest issue to deal with. And Sam knows that too I think.