Game of Thrones Season 7 discussion thread. (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Okay, y'all are killing it in taking down this most recent episode.
I just wanted to add that listening to D&D talk about how the Tyrells are bad at combat because they're sigil was a flower just shows how moronic they are. Loras Tyrell was like the second greatest swordsman of his time because being good at swords and being gay and liking flowers are not mutually exclusive you stupid fucks

So much this. The show just seems to have forgotten that the Knight of Flowers was a legitimate thing in its' early seasons and was such a great martial knight that he could stand up to non-mutilated Jamie Lannister in a duel. He was also considered the best jouster of Westeros. Not to mention that just the previous season the Tyrell army marched on King's Landing and threatened a showdown with the Sparrows, at which point everyone treated them as a serious fighting force to be reckoned with.

I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't feel as if the showrunners have no idea what they are doing from season to season (and sometimes episode to episode). They build Dany's forces up as this unstoppable juggernaut in Season 6, give her a free castle in Westeros for no reason... Then have her supposedly competent advisors all suffer a collective stroke so they can come up with an atrocious plan, waste their golden opportunity and allow their enemies time to react. Said enemies meanwhile materialize a fleet out of thin air, invents the naval radar and intercepts Dany's fleet. Then their new fleet apparently invents steam engines and ship screws, while a new army materializes out of nowhere and Jamie reveals that somehow the Lannisters just knows everything that Dany is planning and has the perfect counter-move. I'm sorry, am I supposed to take this seriously? Am I supposed to get invested when every new episode just seems to pull shit out of thin air and justify it with "dramatic tension"? I'm going to follow the show to the end, if only because it is only some odd 15 episodes left, but I doubt it will regain my confidence or trust in its' writing.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Okay, y'all are killing it in taking down this most recent episode.
I just wanted to add that listening to D&D talk about how the Tyrells are bad at combat because they're sigil was a flower just shows how moronic they are. Loras Tyrell was like the second greatest swordsman of his time because being good at swords and being gay and liking flowers are not mutually exclusive you stupid fucks

So much this. The show just seems to have forgotten that the Knight of Flowers was a legitimate thing in its' early seasons and was such a great martial knight that he could stand up to non-mutilated Jamie Lannister in a duel. He was also considered the best jouster of Westeros. Not to mention that just the previous season the Tyrell army marched on King's Landing and threatened a showdown with the Sparrows, at which point everyone treated them as a serious fighting force to be reckoned with.

It occurred to me that rather than have Jaime Lannister march an army of ten thousand Lannister ninjas through the Reach without ever being detected, the showrunners could have done a Red Wedding/Sack of King's Landing situation with Randyll Tarly.

Say it goes down like this: Cersei needs money to pay off the Iron Bank and she needs food for her city. Highgarden has both. She moves the Lannister garrison out of Casterly Rock, reasoning that it's needed elsewhere - maybe say that the Lannisters were keeping thousands of troops there in reserve to ward off the Ironborn, who are now allied with her - and sends Jaime to meet up with them and start raiding the Reach or marching on Highgarden.

Tyrion hears about this from Olenna through magic medieval raven email, and it factors into his decision to attack Casterly Rock, because he knows it is now lightly defended but does not know that the gold mines are dry, because Tywin kept that a careful secret.

Randyll Tarly marches his entire host up to Highgarden and says he's there to help defend against an imminent Lannister attack. Olenna lets the Tarlys indoors, and they do a Bolton, killing the garrison and capturing Olenna. Jaime is revealed to have been marching with the Tarlys - perhaps disguising Lannister soldiers in Tarly colours - and they do the scene with Olenna at the end of the episode normally, because that was a beautiful scene.

Tyrion's attack on Casterly Rock succeeds, but is rendered hollow by the fact that there's no gold there. This leaves the Unsullied on the other side of the continent with most of Daenerys' fleet, and now Daenerys has to deal with Euron's fleet, which has stayed eastwards because Dragonstone is on an island and moving all your ships away from the enemy's island stronghold when you have naval supremacy is really dumb.

That way, we get the following:

- The Tyrells don't come off as incompetent or weak, because they were betrayed by a bannerman who rationalises his betrayal by pointing to how Olenna had allied with Dothraki and a bunch of brown people. Like Tyrion using the sewers to breach Casterly Rock, this provides a sound explanation for how Highgarden falls so easily.
- Tyrion still comes off as fallible. He made the rational decision to let the Lannisters engage the numerically-superior Tyrells in the Reach and attack their vulnerable point in Casterly Rock. But he didn't know that Randyll Tarly has swapped sides, and he didn't know that Casterly Rock isn't as rich as it used to be. The Tyrells are unexpectedly decapitated, and Casterly Rock doesn't give them nearly as much loot as they wanted.
- Cersei does not come off as an omniscient and improbably competent strategist. She acts in-character; she makes an apparently foolish decision (engaging the Tyrells in the field) out of short-term desperation, because she needs money and food quickly. But she succeeds anyway, the way she and the Lannisters always have; through betrayal. Losing Casterly Rock is a setback she didn't predict, but in material terms is not nearly as important as capturing Highgarden. She can now bully the Tyrell's former bannermen into swearing fealty to her and Tarly, and has gained the resources and manpower needed to put up a decent fight against Daenerys.
- Euron never leaves Blackwater Bay, so we never have to deal with the issue of his magic super-fast sailing ships, his uncanny ability to know where his enemy's fleet is and make his own ships invisible, or his idiotic decision to wait until the Unsullied landed before attacking.

Throw a scene where Melisandre warns Daenerys that about the White Walkers and she brushes it off, and bam. That's like...eighty percent of the plot holes covered up.

Instead, what we get is Omniscient Super-General Cersei, who is suspiciously similar to Omniscient Super-General Ramsay Bolton from season 5. In fact, a lot about this reeks of season 5. I thought they'd learned their lesson. Why am I better at this than the guys who do it for a living?

 

[Jute88]

I'm not sure how I feel about the Tyrells getting defeated so easily. Isn't it rather out of character for everyone involved?

The Tyrells are supposed to be one of the stronger realms in Westeros. Tywin called them the only real rival of the Lannisters, Robert got his single defeat by their hand, their numbers made even Renly a serious contender and the Tyrells are led by the only person to be on something resembling equal footing with Tywin.

Woah wait, Samwell's dad is in the show? Is the actor any good?

Also, is Vale still remaining neutral in the war, or have they joined forces with the North?

Here you go, he's basically another grim and Tywin-like man.

Thank you for the videos! The actor seems good. Maybe a bit too lean for what I had imagined of the character, but that's a minor problem.

Here's a brief introduction to the events before the show started.

Okay, y'all are killing it in taking down this most recent episode.
I just wanted to add that listening to D&D talk about how the Tyrells are bad at combat because they're sigil was a flower just shows how moronic they are. Loras Tyrell was like the second greatest swordsman of his time because being good at swords and being gay and liking flowers are not mutually exclusive you stupid fucks

Let's not forget Garlan Tyrell, who trains against three or four swordsmen at the same time to make the battles more realistic.
But who's the best swordsman?

The Tyrell sigil is both an homage to Garlan Greenhand, but also shows how Tyrells prefer to use "soft power" aka. diplomacy, kind words, alliances etc. Or atleast, that's the image that they want to portray to the rest of Westeros. In truth they are not above of using morally dubious acts to gain their goals.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

07x01: bit on the slow side, but otherwise ok
07x02: starting to get a little iffy here, but whatever, salvageable
07x03: yeah, we're in full-blown bad fanfic territory now.

Euron is a fucking cartoon character. Cersei is not far off, and I'm half expecting her to start dressing like Maleficent. Given how magically convenient everything seems to go her way, she must be a fucking sorceress. There is no sense of time and scale anymore. Events that would've transpired over most of a season in the earlier seasons of the show (and several months in-universe time), now play in what seems like a matter of days, crossing vast distances in ways that come off as suspiciously convenient, coincidental and implausible. Some examples:

Euron sailed to Kings Landing to wag his cock at Cersei. Danaerys arrives at Dragonstone, sends Yarra to Sunspear and Grey Worm to Casterly Rock. Euron takes his massive fleet down south, something which completely eludes Danaerys and co on Dragonstone (apparently they don't scout, despite being so close to their enemy), and catches up to Yarra. Yarra rekt. Euron sails back to Kings Landing to wag his cock at Cersei again. Then its off to Casterly Rock, which is on the other side of the continent, in time to wreck the Unsullied fleet.

Meanwhile, the Lannister army marches from Casterly Rock without notice, takes Highgarden apparently almost unopposed and takes it with little effort, despite the armies of the reach being fresh and having the home advantage.

And throughout all of this Cersei's side seems all too aware of their enemies movements, while Daenerys is seemingly stumbling around in the dark even though they have spymaster Varys, who formerly was rather hypercompetent at this kind of stuff.

There's too many moments that smell fishy and seem to solely happen because 'the writers said so' and 'dramatic twist!' Like seriously, wtf happened to the writing? It can't just be because they don't have any books to hold their hands anymore. Several people in this thread have posted better, more believable sequences of events than what should be professional writers.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Several people in this thread have posted better, more believable sequences of events than what should be professional writers.

What sounds like its easy to write on paper mabye radically different when trying to make it work in execution.

And considering this is a 7 episode season...

It makes me wonder though, I thought they were gonna delay this season to next year?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Anyway the only thing I am interested in is Jon Snow and the North's perdicement, like Jon said everything else does not matter when the Others come.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It can't just be because they don't have any books to hold their hands anymore.

Unfortunately that's exactly what it is. Let's look at some of GoT's original works, stemming back to the beginning.

1. Roz the traveling prostitute. Remember Roz? I bet you don't. She was a character of such irrelevance she came and went serving no more purpose than making Joffrey seem "extra evil". Zero arc, little to no personality, just drifted around Kings Landing until her ignoble death.

2. Talisa. Replaces the character of Jeyne Westerling from the novels, re-writing her as an anachronistic and sassy battlefield nurse. A swath of character building is lost in the translation. Robb now marries for impetuous love instead of duty/honor, removing the whole "he is Ned Stark's son" echo. The Westerlings were Lannister bannermen, so Tywin's insider knowledge of the marriage is removed, which he used to orchestrate the Red Wedding. The most frustrating thing about these changes is there was absolutely no purpose for them other than the show writers thought they could do it better. They could not. Talisa seemed achingly out of place from the get-go, lipping off Lords on the battlefield and demonstrating 21st century values that are a complete misfit for the setting.

3. Karl "The Fookin' Legend of Gin Alley" Tanner. A sneering cartoon who exists to be bested by Jon Snow in a hero moment.

4. Locke. The flamboyant Vargo Hoat is re-written as the rather absent-in-character Locke. Whether Hoat would have survived the transition to screen is questionable, but why re-write the character? Locke contributes nothing.

5. Poderick has a huge cock! A random sub plot introduced by the show writers that takes up an inordinate amount of time in an already overstuffed show for no purpose.

6. Dagmar Cleftjaw, the fearsome Viking Warrior who makes men flee just at the sight of him, is re-imagined as Chris Finch from BBC's The Office. The Iron Born in their entirety are changed from terrifying Norse-equivalent reavers to lanky, miserable looking brigands.

There's obviously a ton more, especially as the show goes on (the Sand Snakes and Euron might as well be original characters given how far from their book versions they are), but the issues were there from the beginning. However, in the beginning, they had 90% book material and a lot of cooperation/oversight from Martin, who I suspect ghost-wrote some of their "original" dialogue in scenes that worked. After season 3, when they started to move into Dance/Feast territory and their "improvements" to the books' boggier passages, things start to dissolve rapidly.

 

[Laughing Man]

Didn't hate the rest of the episode as much as as some have

Ahh then you sir are in the wrong thread, it dawned on me pretty quick that this thread is not about actually talking about GOT it is rather for the would be professional writers of these forums to come here after an episode of GOT and then explain, usually at length every single thing that they feel is wrong with the plot of that episode, some of them will even come up with their own plots that are just as full of holes to poke at.

but the speed with which the series it tying up its loose ends as it steamrolls to its climax has me a little burned out. I mean, infecting Jorah with zombie plague so he could lament it for a few eps, then have it magically cured over the course of one (admittedly well-disturbing) scene? seems somewhat abrupt...

Firstly this is not an attack on your opinion here mate it is rather an interesting look at the dual nature of the people that seem to watch this show. You see over the last 6 seasons if you looked at the complaints from the show what you would find is that the episodes spent a lot of time doing nothing and setting stuff up, or to put it simply too much time spent on doing nothing that seemed worthwhile. A good example would be a season arc showing Jora coming to terms with his isolation with zombie plague before finally being healed at the end of the season. The usual complaint being oh they could have done that in two episodes and cut out all the shuffling around feeling sorry and deciding weather or not to kill himself and spent the saved time doing something else.

Now you have the show runners doing just what the folk asked and instead you now have people complaining about how we didn't get five episodes showing Euron sailing his fleet about Westeros or how we didn't get 6 episode of Jamie marching the Lannister army to High Garden before having it sit outside sieging the city for 5 episodes.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Now you have the show runners doing just what the folk asked and instead you now have people complaining about how we didn't get five episodes showing Euron sailing his fleet about Westeros or how we didn't get 6 episode of Jamie marching the Lannister army to High Garden before having it sit outside sieging the city for 5 episodes.

Except they aren't. The problem most of us that complained previously had was that the showrunners kept dragging stuff out and adding filler content that served no purpose (Poderick's sexcapades, Jamie/Bronn's Dorne "arc" and the "Bad Pussy"-scene) while simultaneously complaining that they didn't have enough time to focus on the important plots. Want to have the epitome of this sort of time wasting? The entire fucking arc of Loras' and Margery's imprisonment by the Sparrow. We spend a lot of time with that arc in season 7, loads of scenes with Margery and the High Sparrow verbally squaring off (those were good scenes in their own right and the tension built was excellent). Then the seasons end with both characters dying in a sudden explosion that Cersei pulled out of her ass. In a show that struggles to keep its' pacing because it juggles too many different arcs and characters, it is a cardinal sin to spend time on characters and arcs that will end up going nowhere. But wait you say, Margery's playing of the Sparrow set up Olenna's defection to Dany! Except, three episodes into the next season Olenna is dead and the Tyrell defection plotline went nowhere.

Or how about the many scenes throughout season 5 and 6 of Arya selling clams, walking around streets and getting hit with a stick. Did we need 6 different scenes of Arya getting hit by a stick again to establish that her training involves getting hit by a stick? Instead of letting stuff happen there, we kept getting a reminder that Arya was still blind and still getting hit by the Waif with a stick. It went nowhere, it was just stalling and reminding us that Arya was still in the story. Then she teleports to Westeros and kills off all the Frey men in two short scenes. Because setting up the pivotal fucking event that's Arya taking revenge for the Red Wedding is not as important as showing us her getting hit with a stick half a dozen times.

Maybe we should talk about Ramsay Bolton and how most of his seasons 5 and 6 shenanigans did nothing for the plot or character except remind us that Ramsay is in fact evil and likes to hurt people for fun. Instead of showing us all those important things that D&D supposedly can't fit into the show because they don't have enough time.

The show has picked up pace, but instead of finding a decent middle ground from "glacial drift" it jumps straight to "strapped to a rocket". It is especially egregious because most of the last episode basically consisted of undoing everything that the last season set up in terms of Dorne, the Greyjoys (remember how Yara stole Euron's entire fleet in season 6?) and the Tyrells. It was a quick and dirty way to even the field between Dany and Cersei, which D&D openly admits. It didn't fit into a larger narrative, it was just D&D realizing they've written themselves into a corner in terms of giving Dany too much power, so they had to strip it out to maintain narrative suspense. So we get half an episode dedicated to that.

 

[DraconianMod]

So, what is the relationship gap between Jon and Danny? Are they distantly related enough to be able to marry? Because I can see that kind of marital paring (for political reasons alone if nothing else, but also for the bloodline), but I don't recall how they are related. Are they first cousins? 2nd cousins?

She's his aunt.

Daenaerys' father was Aerys II, who went crazy and prompted a rebellion. Aerys' eldest son and heir was Rhaegar Targaryen, who "abducted" Ned Stark's sister Lyanna, who was betrothed to Robert. Jon was the potentially-illegitimate child of Lyanna and Rhaegar, so Daenaerys is Jon's aunt despite being younger than him by a few months.

Would Robert Baratheon kill Jon Snow if he finds out he's the son of Lyanna and Rheagar?

Ned Stark hid Jon precisely because he was afraid of this happening. Robert was a morally complex character, as shown by his decision to send an assassin after Daenaerys. It's implied that his relationship with Lyanna wasn't as idyllic as he remembers it.

It's possible that Robert may have been convinced to spare him, but uncertain enough that Ned was justified in hiding his parentage.

Also, is Vale still remaining neutral in the war, or have they joined forces with the North?

That's another goddamn plot hole...months are passing while armies get shuttled back and forth around an entire continent, but news about the Vale's defection has apparently not reached King's Landing, nor has the Vale done anything against the Lannisters.

I'd say something about how the Freys dying has left the Riverlands leaderless, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the Riverlands is dead already.

Is it not shown in the series that Lyanna and Rhaegar have a normal relationship? I thought it was like that in the books.

 

[DraconianMod]

It can't just be because they don't have any books to hold their hands anymore.

Unfortunately that's exactly what it is. Let's look at some of GoT's original works, stemming back to the beginning.

1. Roz the traveling prostitute. Remember Roz? I bet you don't. She was a character of such irrelevance she came and went serving no more purpose than making Joffrey seem "extra evil". Zero arc, little to no personality, just drifted around Kings Landing until her ignoble death.

2. Talisa. Replaces the character of Jeyne Westerling from the novels, re-writing her as an anachronistic and sassy battlefield nurse. A swath of character building is lost in the translation. Robb now marries for impetuous love instead of duty/honor, removing the whole "he is Ned Stark's son" echo. The Westerlings were Lannister bannermen, so Tywin's insider knowledge of the marriage is removed, which he used to orchestrate the Red Wedding. The most frustrating thing about these changes is there was absolutely no purpose for them other than the show writers thought they could do it better. They could not. Talisa seemed achingly out of place from the get-go, lipping off Lords on the battlefield and demonstrating 21st century values that are a complete misfit for the setting.

3. Karl "The Fookin' Legend of Gin Alley" Tanner. A sneering cartoon who exists to be bested by Jon Snow in a hero moment.

4. Locke. The flamboyant Vargo Hoat is re-written as the rather absent-in-character Locke. Whether Hoat would have survived the transition to screen is questionable, but why re-write the character? Locke contributes nothing.

5. Poderick has a huge cock! A random sub plot introduced by the show writers that takes up an inordinate amount of time in an already overstuffed show for no purpose.

6. Dagmar Cleftjaw, the fearsome Viking Warrior who makes men flee just at the sight of him, is re-imagined as Chris Finch from BBC's The Office. The Iron Born in their entirety are changed from terrifying Norse-equivalent reavers to lanky, miserable looking brigands.

There's obviously a ton more, especially as the show goes on (the Sand Snakes and Euron might as well be original characters given how far from their book versions they are), but the issues were there from the beginning. However, in the beginning, they had 90% book material and a lot of cooperation/oversight from Martin, who I suspect ghost-wrote some of their "original" dialogue in scenes that worked. After season 3, when they started to move into Dance/Feast territory and their "improvements" to the books' boggier passages, things start to dissolve rapidly.

It doesn't help that they killed of characters they had no reason to kill off story-wise.
What good did it do to kill Dany's legendary swordsman or leave out her mercenary companies (one of which according to the leaks has suddenly returned and totally switched sides outside of the story)
Why did we have to bring Rickon and Osha (Osha being so popular Martin promised to write her into the books only for her to have be killed off again on screen for no reason) into the story at all if we were just going to execute them in an entire betrayal fest that doesn't go the way it ever did in the books.

Oh and sometimes there are events that don't quite make sense : why did we have to elaborately bring the wildlings away from the wall to then have them man it again anyway?
A stupid detail perhaps but it was iffy for me : The North actually does have grainstores as the harvests have been particularly plentiful according to the mentions of the harvest feasts, what's the reason to just suddenly have them be nowhere in the series?
Why take out Tom Sevenstrings and his lads if you're going to pick up on Beric Dondarion again later in the show and even have a cameo that is absurdly similar to it featuring Ed Sheeran.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Why?

Because they can't write.

Ahh then you sir are in the wrong thread, it dawned on me pretty quick that this thread is not about actually talking about GOT it is rather for the would be professional writers of these forums to come here after an episode of GOT and then explain, usually at length every single thing that they feel is wrong with the plot of that episode.

Generally complaints of that nature wouldn't be necessary if the show's writing wasn't complete horseshit at this juncture. If you want people to hype you up go to the sub reddit.

 

[Laughing Man]

Generally complaints of that nature wouldn't be necessary if the show's writing wasn't complete horseshit at this juncture. If you want people to hype you up go to the sub reddit.

Hype you up?

The complaints are not the issue, it's the fact that that's ALL we get in this thread on top of the endless wannabes that have the cheek to call the writers crap and seriously think that they can do a better job. Here's the thing sticking 2 or 3 paragraphs of what you think the plot should have done DOES NOT make you a better writer and that's weather the writers are or are not actually doing a good job.

The best though are the folk that sit there and complain week after week, pulling the episode apart, finding the flaws complaining and then turn round and say but I am gonna keep watching because...(insert whatever convoluted self reaffirming statement you wish here) if you really think the show is THAT crap and the writing THAT bad why on god's green fucking Earth would you keep watching it?

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Ahh then you sir are in the wrong thread, it dawned on me pretty quick that this thread is not about actually talking about GOT it is rather for the would be professional writers of these forums to come here after an episode of GOT and then explain, usually at length every single thing that they feel is wrong with the plot of that episode, some of them will even come up with their own plots that are just as full of holes to poke at.

Dude, I'm not a hate fanboy. I think Game of Thrones is a great show and a lot of their decisions in adapting things from the books were either improvements or practical compromises. I feel it hit a low point in season 5 where the writers struggled with scheduling issues and having to quickly write new plot to replace plots cut from the book, but that it picked up again in season 6 once the writers found their footing. I liked the first two episodes of this series.

But this third one, it just broke my suspension of disbelief. Too many plot holes; too many twisted or illogical characterisations; too much liberty taken with the passage of time. I couldn't enjoy the episode anymore because my brain was distracted thinking "How the fuck did Euron get all the way over there? Wait, isn't Lannisport right next door to Casterly Rock?"

The complaints are not the issue, it's the fact that that's ALL we get in this thread on top of the endless wannabes that have the cheek to call the writers crap and seriously think that they can do a better job. Here's the thing sticking 2 or 3 paragraphs of what you think the plot should have done DOES NOT make you a better writer and that's weather the writers are or are not actually doing a good job.

I'm not seriously suggesting I'm a better writer than the people running the show. The comment is meant to illustrate that it's relatively easy to imagine a more sensibly structure narrative that would probably be much better on screen. It's probably much easier in hindsight, and I think the writers were simply blind to the faults in their storyboarding because they were distracted with the practical concerns of running the show, but that doesn't mean I'm going to not criticise a shitty plot when I see it.

The best though are the folk that sit there and complain week after week, pulling the episode apart, finding the flaws complaining and then turn round and say but I am gonna keep watching because...(insert whatever convoluted self reaffirming statement you wish here) if you really think the show is THAT crap and the writing THAT bad why on god's green fucking Earth would you keep watching it?

Well, like I said; I actually like the show a lot. I read Game of Thrones when I was about thirteen, and it was one of my favourite fantasy series. Seeing it adapted into mainstream popular culture so successfully is great for me.

It's because I like the show and am emotionally invested in it that I want it to be better than it currently is. Silly, unnecessary plot holes and loose writing make the show worse, and I really, really, really want it to be good. And when it isn't good I ***** about it, because bitching about it is cathartic.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Ned might have also stepped in. Aside from that? 50/50 - love of Lyanna vs. hatred for the Targaryens. But I could see a Severeus/Harry-esque relationship developing.

Nah, murder all the way..

Robert (like most people) believed that Rhaegar abducted Lyanna and that their relationship was non consensual, which may or may not be true (but based on everything we know about Rhaegar's character probably isn't). It's a big part of the reason why the war started in the first place. Rhaegar wasn't just a Targaryen, he was the whole reason why Robert personally hated the Targaryens so much. Any child of Rhaegar and Lyanna would just be a symbol of what Robert believed was a crime so terrible it warranted waging a war to overthrow the Targaryens. It's questionable whether he could ever be convinced to change his mind after investing so much into that grudge.

Not to mention, Robert wasn't very emotionally stable to begin with.. even if he could be dissuaded once, all it takes is one bad mood and Jon gets his head smashed in. Ned and Robert were good friends, but Robert was still an angry, stubborn douche and I think Ned understood that.

Why take out Tom Sevenstrings and his lads if you're going to pick up on Beric Dondarion again later in the show and even have a cameo that is absurdly similar to it featuring Ed Sheeran.

As I understand it, the cameo was basically a gift for Maisie Williams, as she's a fan. If you look at it like that, it's kind of sweet.. but yeah, really indulgent on the part of the writing staff and rightly panned by viewers and critics.

It strikes me as kind of symptomatic of a broader problem with the show that is starting to annoy me. In writing, sometimes you have to kill your darlings. Just because you love something or want to do it doesn't mean the audience will or that it's the use of limited storytelling space. It's kind of ironic to be having to point this out about a series the source of which is famous for killing off its darlings very literally.

So many scenes in the show just seem like they're there to give actors space to work, and while they're good actors and it's usually nice to see them I'd much rather that space was being used to advance the story and maybe fill in some of the plotholes people keep complaining about.

That said, I don't mind minor characters being cut or merged into single characters, even when it sometimes strains disbelief a bit. That's just economical storytelling. But giving Lena Headey a 10 minute monologue every time she kills someone isn't. We get it, Cersei is a *****, next scene?

See also: A whole season of Ramsey/Theon D/s fanfic, Arya Stark: Pedo Hunter and 90% of Dorne, plus a load of other stuff I've already forgotten because it's inconsequential.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The complaints are not the issue

Oh I beg to differ. I think the complaints *are* the issue, given how bitterly you're contesting them. Some people absolutely cannot abide having something they enjoy criticized.

...it's the fact that that's ALL we get in this thread on top of the endless wannabes that have the cheek to call the writers crap and seriously think that they can do a better job.

As evidenced here. This thread is full of a great many different posts, some praising, others criticizing. Only a few are directly attacking the writing, and most of those on the heels of the last episode.

Also, the writers are crap. That doesn't require any more "cheek" than excoriating "Dude Where's My Car".

Here's the thing sticking 2 or 3 paragraphs of what you think the plot should have done DOES NOT make you a better writer and that's weather the writers are or are not actually doing a good job.

The fact that a random forum goer came up with a more logical and internally consistent story beat in about 15 seconds isn't an argument that "they are a better writer". It's an argument that the show writers are being lazy hacks. Which is a self evident argument that scarcely even needs to be made at this point.

The best though are the folk that sit there and complain week after week, pulling the episode apart, finding the flaws complaining and then turn round and say but I am gonna keep watching because...(insert whatever convoluted self reaffirming statement you wish here) if you really think the show is THAT crap and the writing THAT bad why on god's green fucking Earth would you keep watching it?

Most people who have stuck with a show or a series for a long duration of its lifespan will stick it out to the end, due to sunk cost.

I'm not sure why that bothers you, though. "The complaints are not the issue", right? Lol.

Seriously man, go to the subreddit. All the people who enjoy the wank fest the show has devolved into are cloistered there, wetting themselves over the dubious CGI battles, Lena Headey's Maleficent cosplay, and the tortured 21st century dialogue the actors are now vomiting up. You'll find fewer troubling complaints there, and be able to enjoy your threads in peace.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

PS: If you are reading this Laughing Man, and once again asking yourself why I watch this show even though I don't like it, lets just say I have a little bit of Euron in me and also want to find out of Cersei likes a finger in the bum.

This fucking show is turning into a finger in the bum.

With an untrimmed nail.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

PS: If you are reading this Laughing Man, and once again asking yourself why I watch this show even though I don't like it, lets just say I have a little bit of Euron in me and also want to find out of Cersei likes a finger in the bum.

This fucking show is turning into a finger in the bum.

With an untrimmed nail.

It scratches itches in unconventional places?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It scratches itches in unconventional places?

I knew this metaphor would turn on me.