Is it even fair for her to kill the Mountain in revenge? The man is already an undead zombie, killing him would be a mercy for him. Because I doubt even the Mountain likes being a Zombie Slave.Breakdown said:
Game of Thrones Season 7 discussion thread. (SPOILERS ABOUND)
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Did he Rape Her? Does he still have a functioning Sexual Organs and a libido urge to fuck?Breakdown said:
But still the point stands, he's already a dead man to Arya, Arya wants to make her targets suffer, to make them cry and beg for mercy for all things they have done to her, she won't get that satisfaction with the Mountain who is now a mindless stupid zombie who probably cannot comprehend pain.
She may kill Cersei though...so I am calling a Hound/Arya Team Up to kill the Mountain and Cersei together. Hound distracts and kills the Mountain while Arya sneaks into Cersei's room and murder-fuck her.
You know I kinda wish they only stopped adapting the books after season 3, because I really wanted to see how they would film Arya getting her Revenge on Joffery.
I think you've spent more time thinking about the Mountain's current state than the writers ever will. They probably just see the Mountain as a big boss who needs to be killed by a good guy.Samtemdo8 said:
And he will, but I don't think it will be Arya and I am hopeful they the writers would understand why.Breakdown said:
I mean Jon maybe but isn't it implied that Vyserus(not even bother googling it you know who I mean) was all up on her and she was sold as a rape bride and her parents were related. I'm imagining a hilarious scenario where Jon has to explain to an oblivious Dany why he's retaking his oath and going back to the crows because breaking up with crazy is dangerous, breaking up with crazy on a dragon is suicide.Samtemdo8 said:
Can we all agree this was the best part in the entire freaknin Season?Gethsemani said:
Winter has come at last...
No. =PSamtemdo8 said:
I'll give it that as sheer spectacle it was pretty awesome and had GoT been an action series I would have been all over that scene.
But, that scene is also unearned, contingent on Jon, Dany and everyone around them carrying enough idiot balls to host a dodge ball convention. The scene is only possible because everyone is stupid as fuck (the whole "catch a wight" expedition), the Night King pulls the ability to one hit kill dragons out of his ass (which is a lesser problem and can be sort of justified) and then somehow the wights that can not build or swim somehow creates massive ass chains and gets to the bottom of a frozen lake to pull the dragon corpse out. The Night King literally catches a lucky break because his enemies are too dumb to live and sends him the one thing he needs to tear down the wall (what would his plan be otherwise?), all because they already had started off on a plan that was so stupid that their too dumb to liveness (legit word btw) is closer to terminal idiocy.
The problem, to tl dr it, is that the writers are now obviously having characters do stuff because "it'll be cool" or to set up future plot points, not because it fits with the character. The Night King has to have a dragon, so everyone acts like a moron so that a dragon flies north of the wall. It is hack writing at best and it stands in stark contrast to the great character driven plots of the earlier seasons, when things unfolded as they did because you could see how characters and their motivations bounced off each other.
Apart from that, it was a really cool scene on its own and enjoyable for the spectacle of it all.
I think you've summed up my problems with the latest series quite well there. Its become less character driven low fantasy and more action packed high fantasy. Whilst the change from low fantasy to high was expected from the first season, the change from character driven to action packed was not.Gethsemani said:
Well that is why I am rooting for the Night King to win next season, because everyone around him is an idiot, so he's taking advantage.Gethsemani said:
And what's weird is they say the zombies can't swim yet even before the whole chain pulling dragon, they were seen underwater trying to pull Tormund in with them.
I just think they should have just done them like how Curse of the Black Pearl did, than again why do they need to brake down the wall if they can do this:
How about we just say that that entire episode was a total mess from outset to finish (warp speed Ravens!) and the less we think about it, the lesser our chances of a collective stroke from the incredibly poor writing?Samtemdo8 said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm invested enough to see the show through to the end, but at this point I am doing it because I've invested some odd hundred hours of my life into the series. That and there's the same fascination with which you watch a massive traffic pile up. You know it is horrible and there's blood anywhere and you should feel bad, but damn if you don't want to see some of the gory bits for the excitement of it all. GoT is like that, I am certain it will end in (writing) disaster at this point, but I'll see the disaster through to its' inevitable mess of a conclusion.
...okay, I have to ask, is there a difference between "this is the best thing ever!" and "this is the worst thing ever!"? Because taking this as writ, that's the transition Game of Thrones has undergone.
Granted, I've only just finished season 5, but while I agree it's the weakest season I've seen so far, I'd still call it good. But apparently the Internet declared it a crime against humanity (or a crime against fiction at least), so does that make me an abetter? Or, to quote an accustation leveled at me elsewhere, a "bootlicker?"
I guess what I can also say is that judging from this, the show's had the opposite problem from the books. Show's become too streamlined, while the books suffered bloat (A Feast for Crows, somewhat rectified with A Dance with Dragons). So, make of that what you will.
Granted, I've only just finished season 5, but while I agree it's the weakest season I've seen so far, I'd still call it good. But apparently the Internet declared it a crime against humanity (or a crime against fiction at least), so does that make me an abetter? Or, to quote an accustation leveled at me elsewhere, a "bootlicker?"
I guess what I can also say is that judging from this, the show's had the opposite problem from the books. Show's become too streamlined, while the books suffered bloat (A Feast for Crows, somewhat rectified with A Dance with Dragons). So, make of that what you will.
The show certainly caused some problems by streamlining, but overall its' excising of non-essential side plots is a boon to the tempo of the story being told. The show's problem, as far as I can tell, seems to be that it is an adaptation of a book series written with a very character focused narrative. The books and early seasons of the show can both trace their narrative escalation and drama from the way different characters interact and how their motivations and personalities clash. The story goes out of its' way to establish that a situation or character is a particular way so that it can be played off of later (like the Frey's controlling the only large route into the North and Walder Frey being very sensitive to slights, while Tywin Lannister prefers to use guile and paying people off over brute force to win conflicts, all essential components for the Red Wedding to happen).Hawki said:
Later seasons of the show simply foregoes this. There's a radical downturn in the writing by the time the show passes the book (end of season 5), which seems to be because D&D either don't know or don't care about what made Martin's writing so compelling. D&D's writing is not about grounding narrative in characters, but is all about delivering spectacle and shock. If you want an analogy, it is a situation very similar to what Shamus Young identified with the Mass Effect trilogy, which started as "details first" hard sci-fi and ended as a "drama first" action game in ME3. What made ME1 compelling was not present in ME3 and the same goes for GoT. For those of us who came for the well-written story and its' solid grounding in the characters and the details of the world GoT has taken a sharp veer for the worse in its' ambition to deliver ever more spectacle and "shock". Watching the behind the scenes of each episode even has D&D state this repeatedly with quite some pride.
I've only played the first ME game, and maybe there's truth to that, but that seems like a natural transition. In the first installment of a trilogy, it makes sense for that installment to focus on worldbuilding. By the third installment, worldbuilding becomes far less important. And since the entire series is leading up to the arrival of the Reapers, it makes sense that there'd be more spectacle. Numerous works of fiction have their greatest spectacle at the end of the series, and GoT has been hinting at this for quite awhile with the White Walkers. I mean, if we want to look at another fantasy series, in Lord of the Rings, the level of spectacle increases with each movie (and books, technically), but I haven't heard anyone complain about that. You could point out that these are different series in different worlds, but like I said, fiction in general usually has the greatest spectacle towards the end of its story as a form of climax.Gethsemani said:
And look, I get the notion of spectacle overshadowing character (since Sam's made the analogy, I'd say PotC fell into this trap with the third movie), but so far GoT has been free of this to the same extent. Maybe I'm talking out of my arse, and I am lagging behind, but I can still be happy with a "good" rather than "great" series.
Don't get me (or Young) wrong, it is not that I am against spectacle in itself, a grand finale requires a very real climax. The problem is that details first and drama first are two very different things and appeal to different audiences. If you start out with a story that's all about the details and stress the importance of things like the gender oppression of your medieval world, the complex interactions between lords in the feudal system and the problems of communication and supply over large distances then your story better keep adhering to that. If your story suddenly throws these components out the window because "it'd be so much cooler if this girl became all empowered to fight back".Hawki said:
But, let me give you a few examples of the sort of writing that had us Detail Firsters so up in arms (potential spoilers for seasons beyond 5):
* Sansa's season 5 plot of marrying Ramsay Bolton. Where the fuck did that came from? The Doylist (out of story) explanation was simply that D&D wanted to keep Jeyne Poole's arc from Feast for Crows, but since Jeyne was never a character in the show they threw Sansa in there. Fair enough. The Watsonian (in story) explanation? Something, something, getting back at the Bolton's by letting them legitimize their claims to Winterfell. Not only is the entire plot stupid as fuck, it also undoes all of Sansa's arc from Season 4, which was all about her learning to play the political game and becoming a player in her own right... Which was promptly undone so Ramsay could abuse and rape her during Season 5.
* The Dorne plot. Bronn and Jamie goes to Dorne to get Myrcella. They fight the Sand Vipers, they all get imprisoned and then Jamie and Bronn are released and allowed to leave with Myrcella, who's poisoned before boarding the ship and then promptly dies. Then the Sand Vipers simply kill the King of Dorne and take over. Only to be promptly captured or killed at the earliest convenience. The entire thing is superfluous, goes in circles, ignores the established social stigma about kinslaying (the thing that Tyrion was about to be executed for? The Sand Vipers get away with it without anyone even raising an eye brow) and then gets aborted utterly.
* The infamous Season 7 dude running for days on end without pause, hyperlight Raven and supersonic dragons. In the same episode we also see the unnecessary death of a sidecharacter, the story bending over backwards to give the Night King what he needs (because if he doesn't get it the entire threat of the White Walkers is gone) and Jon and a known slave trader sentenced to death by Ned buddying up, despite slavery being seen as a grievous and unforgivable crime in Westeros.
* Arya's entire Braavos arc which is basically "Arya getting beaten with a stick" repeated in half a dozen variations, the Waiff hating on her for no reason and Jaqen spouting nonsense platitudes for like two seasons. It goes nowhere, Arya has almost no character development and yet the end of the arc is treated as this deep revelation. To top that off, the Arya in season 7 oscillates between being Arya Stark and being creepy sociopath assassin with no clear character focus apart from what builds tension in any given scene.
* Really, just all of Season 7. You'll see it when you get there, how the show bends over backwards to accommodate the script, even when it goes against everything previously established about the world, including travel time and logistics.
I'd be too, but Season 6 and Season 7, especially the latter, see a sharp decline in writing quality. It is obvious that without Martin's writing to fall back on D&D do not have the writing chops to maintain the plot coherence and details first oriented drama that has been the hallmark of GoT. Season 5 in many ways foreshadowed the problem (once again Sansa's entire "get abused by Ramsay"-plot), but it gets so much worse.Hawki said:
I'll be frank, I don't really have a problem with that arc. You're right in that it's effectively replacing the Jeyne plotpoint (because that's what the books needed, more characters), but it seemed on the level for me. Littlefinger manipulates Sansa. Sansa sees the point that her getting into a position of power could work in the long run. Both make the mistake of not understanding the type of person Ramsay is, but even in Winterfell, Sansa is shown to be a much stronger person than in King's Landing - she gives Myranda and Theon shit, makes attempts to escape, does escape, etc. Ramsay raping Sansa isn't pleasant, but I'll be frank, it's pretty small fry on the list of attrocities he's committed, and since Westerosi tradition expects the marriage to be consumated on the wedding night, sad fact is that I'm sure many women end up in similar positions to Sansa. IMO, the Winterfell arc shows how far Sansa has come since King's Landing. She's far more proactive, even if she is in a grim position.Gethsemani said:
Y'know, everyone kept talking about the Dorne plot as if it was the worst thing since unsliced bread. Having seen it, I have to ask "what Dorne plot?"Gethsemani said:
In other words, Dorne is problematic in season 5, but not because of its content, but because of how underdone it feels. In fact, a lot of season 5 feels underdone in various areas, but Dorne isn't problematic for me in terms of content, it's just problematic in terms of how comparatively little content there is. That said, while I'm not that far, I can buy the Vipers getting away from it since Season 5 establishes that most of the people of Dorne want to avenge Oberyn, and is kinslaying actually a stigma in Dorne in the same way it is elsewhere? We do know that bastardry isn't frowned upon in the same way for instance, and even if kinslaying is, see the 'wanting war' argument.
Can only comment on Season 5, but I can't agree with that in said context.Gethsemani said:
The girl hating Arya seemed self-explanatory to me. She seems dedicated to the creed of the Faceless Men, while she sees Arya (correctly) as wanting to have their skills, but not wanting to forsake her identity (demonstrated when she kills Meryn Trant). It doesn't help that in the girl's mind, Jaqen is showing her favoratism (also a correct assumption).
Arya herself doesn't get character development so much in Season 5, but it does have characterization per se, as it shows her where she is. Abandoned thoughts of home, but still fixated on revenge. It's basically her having a strong sense of personal identity, which is at odds with the nature of the Faceless Men.
Absolutely, we see that Sansa is less of a passive victim then she was in Seasons 2 and 3, but she's far from having any particular agency. Her escape is all about Reek finding what's left of Theon inside him and "manning up" to help Sansa and most of Sansa's strength is little more then her being catty to people she talks to. Even the one escape attempt she makes on her own relies on Brienne coming to her aid. Throughout the entire Sansa/Ramsay arc Sansa has almost no agency, she endures shit and she shows that she can endure it better then she could prior to Littlefinger grooming her, but that's not much of a plot.Hawki said:
Which still doesn't address the glaring issue: How does a marriage to Ramsay Bolton further Sansa's plans of getting Winterfell back and restoring the Stark Legacy and how does it, in anyway, profit Littlefinger who at that point was obviously grooming Sansa to be his bride as a substitute for Catelyn Stark? They must both be aware that the moment Sansa weds Ramsay her claim on Winterfell becomes his, they must both also be aware of the fact that any heir Sansa gives birth to will be the heir to Ramsay's new claim on Winterfell, not Sansa. They must also be aware that Ramsay is a shady as fuck untrustworthy bastard in a house that's full of shady as fuck, untrustworthy bastards. Neither Littlefinger nor Sansa seems to be planning any Crusader Kings 2 style assassination sprees to get Sansa to the top of the heir list, so what's the plan? Neither Sansa nor Littlefinger seems to have an endgame and D&D have admitted that they transferred Jeyne's arc to Sansa because they wanted to keep playing up Ramsay as a villain.
In essence, the problem is not what happens to Sansa. The problem is why it happens in the first place. The entire set-up is one scene of Littlefinger saying it is a good idea and Sansa going along. The show doesn't tell us why, the show never hints at Littlefingers and Sansa's greater plan or ultimate goal. Sansa is sent to marry Ramsay because D&D were busy having hard ons for Ramsay as a villain.
I absolutely think you nail it here. Dorne is so under cooked that if it was a chicken dish it'd be a health hazard. That lack of content, pared with how rushed it is makes the entire painful to watch. That's helped none by how they try to cram too much stuff into Dorne (the Myrcella Rescue, the Vipers' take over and the Vipers' ultimate plan), when they don't even have time to characterize the characters, much less show us anything about Dorne that's not the Water Gardens or Bronn and Jamie walking/riding around.Hawki said:
I personally hate the words self-explanatory in fiction, as one of the important parts of fiction is making us understand the characters, not just hoping we draw the right conclusions from their limited characterization. I made the same interpretation of the waiff as you did, but the character doesn't grow from there. She's nothing more then the girl with a hate boner for Arya until the moment she's written out of the story, which is pretty bad for an oft-recurring characters during 2 seasons. As for Arya's arc, enjoy seeing the same thing repeat during season 6. You've already figured it out and yet you'll have to watch another 10 episodes of Arya, the Waiff and Jaqen doing the same dance over and over.Hawki said:
What it all breaks down to for me is that these are all examples of poor script direction and writing that adds up to show how D&D aren't up to the task of handling the source material they've been given. The first 4 seasons are outstanding in terms of direction and manages to keep things coherent, but once season 6 hits it all goes south very quickly. Since you're not there yet I don't want to spoil either season 6 or 7 for you, but there are some egregious problems to be found there that absolutely drive it home.
Also, thanks for a nice discussion!