Game of Thrones Season 8

[Momma There Goes That Man]

14 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

Something like defection of one his "bannermen" finally getting fed up and turning on him.  That has been foreshadowed in the books, but they go in to way more detail with the Northern bannermen like the Karstarks, Umbers (btw, what happened to the Greatjon?), Manderlys, etc.  Something the show omits.

 

I was ok with how his defeat played out but I do admit I like this idea and I thought this is how it would play out when Jon said, “will your men still fight for you when they learn you wouldn’t fight for them?” 

 

But the BoB was pretty epic and it gave us a nice Sansa moment at the end killing Ramsey which I enjoyed. 

 

17 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

the Blackfish was another one of those unceremonious, pointless deaths.   

 

It was unceremonious but I don’t know that it was pointless. It’s the cost of war. He wouldn’t give up or make a deal won’t the Lannister army. There was no way he could survive that but given his character and being present for the Red wedding, I can’t imagine him giving up the castle. 

[mcsluggo]

11 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

I was looking for something a bit more than just being merely defeated in battle, being trumped at the last minute by the Riders of Roh- er Knights of the Vale.   Something like defection of one his "bannermen" finally getting fed up and turning on him.  That has been foreshadowed in the books, but they go in to way more detail with the Northern bannermen like the Karstarks, Umbers (btw, what happened to the Greatjon?), Manderlys, etc.  Something the show omits.  On the forums is called the "Great Northern Conspiracy"  The "lesson" being that fear and cruelty only takes a leader so far.  I think they didn't do something like this in the show, because after Rob got shived, the bannermen were never really developed as a characters - speaking of which, the Blackfish was another one of those unceremonious, pointless deaths.   

 

Its a general complaint with the show.  If they are going to merely kill of a character, with no narrative meaning, there's really no point in including them as even a minor character.  

 

Without the books, I suspect D&D (show creators) have simply been winging it and simply don't know what to do with alot of the characters. 

 

i agree on the boltons... and KINDA agree on deaths of minor characters in general.... but...this is a cruel place, during a cruel time.  death comes, and it isn't always for a big reason.

 

But in each of the cases you list... the way the deaths are handled in the show were just... lazy.   Overall i agree and actually think the show improved on the last two books by slimming things down.... but it has ALSO been accompanied by some laziness in writing.  with a LITTLE thought, they could make SOME of the downfalls of characters not be unexpected armies suddenly appearing out of the blue from thousands of miles away.  

 

ramsey getting turned on by his oppressed.. would've been gold

littlefinger getting busted mid-scheme (right when you thought he was going to succeed, yet again)  would've been much more fun.

the whole expedition above the wall, and the rescues... was wasted.  it was cool to look at, and COULD'VE been great.  but the motivation was stupid.  the timetravelling last second rescue was stupid.    

[Momma There Goes That Man]

7 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

littlefinger getting busted mid-scheme (right when you thought he was going to succeed, yet again)  would've been much more fun.

 

Isnt this exactly what happened?

7 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

e whole expedition above the wall, and the rescues... was wasted.  it was cool to look at, and COULD'VE been great.  but the motivation was stupid

 

Agree I think this is the biggest flaw in the entire show just because it’s a bad idea that previously proven smart characters came up with. Makes no sense from a plot or character motivation standpoint. 

 

Which is unfortunate it happened so close to the conclusion but hopefully, it was just a necessary evil to get the pieces where they needed to be for the final climax. 

 

The show had to get everyone where they needed to be and said **** it let’s just do this. For all we know, GRRM is still trying to figure out how to get all of his pieces back to where they need to be to conclude his story 

 

[Warhead36]

Is the final season gonna be in April or pushed to mid summer again like last year?

[mcsluggo]

19 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

 

Isnt this exactly what happened?

 

 

i suppose...sort-of..in a long-run sort of viewpoint...... but he hadn't really done ANYTHING recently (except teleport an army 5000 miles).  My perception was that he was just sort of meandering along for the last recent memorable past, with no apparent plan or actual (rational) strategic moves ... and then suddenly the writers got bored with this distraction.     

[PF Chang]

The Winterfell plot was a mess. 

 

They chose not to include a scene explaining how Sansa knew about LF's betrayal of her father. 

 

Bran's actor: 

 

Quote

"We actually did a scene that clearly got cut, a short scene with Sansa where she knocks on Bran’s door and says, “I need your help,” or something along those lines. So basically, as far as I know, the story was that it suddenly occurred to Sansa that she had a huge CCTV department at her discretion and it might be a good idea to check with him first before she guts her own sister. So she goes to Bran, and Bran tells her everything she needs to know, and she’s like, “Oh, s—.”

 

So choosing between nonsense option A, Sansa inexplicably figures out LF, and lame option B, a guy who can see everything that has ever happened tells her, they went with option A. 

 

At least option B could have been more interesting. In a world of magic you can't plan for everything. Littlefinger tries to manipulate Bran the same way he manipulated Robin Arryn. Flatter the child lord, give him a gift, get him on your side. The problem is Bran can essentially Google search all of history.

 

LF gives Bran the dagger that he held up to Ned's throat in the throne room in S1. This causes Bran to look into LF's past (and he then repeats LF's line "chaos is a ladder" back to him, something it's seemingly impossible for Bran to know). If Bran's looking into the history of LF and the dagger he'd see LF betraying Ned in the throne room.

 

So he was doomed by his own attempt to manipulate Bran and the hubris of continuing to carry that recognizable dagger (it's the same one that Sam sees in the book in the Citadel when he learns about dragonglass). 

 

 

[ExoDus84]

1 hour ago, PF Chang said:

So choosing between nonsense option A, Sansa inexplicably figures out LF, and lame option B, a guy who can see everything that has ever happened tells her, they went with option A.

 

It wasn't inexplicable. Sansa stated early in Season 7 that "only a fool would trust Littlefinger." She was on to him well before Bran and Arya showed up to Winterfell. The fact that she realized LF would try to turn her against her family to strengthen his own position would have occurred to her at some point.

 

Once Arya got there, and LF started to scheme, it would make sense that Sansa/Arya would test his loyalty by setting a noose up and seeing if LF would hang himself with it.

Edited July 12, 2018 by ExoDus84

[Momma There Goes That Man]

If you are somebody that has aspirations to marry the daughter of the one woman you ever loved (catelyn Stark) and then take the Iron Throne, Littlefinger was playing his cards exactly right. He currently has arguably the strongest and largest army in Westeros (due to the Vale not participating in the war of the 5 kings) and he aligned with the remains of the Northern army, making him powerful enough to overtake King's Landing.  

 

At this point, it's doubtful he believes in any White Walkers. His plan might even have worked had he not 1) underestimated Sansa's wisdom and growth since King's Landing and their time in the Vale and 2) he obviously had no way to account for Bran. 

 

I was fine with how his situation ended mid-scheme, taken by surprise and begging for his life. It was the first time he had been countered and he had no cards to play. Starks are naive and foolish, proven time and time again on this show. Why wouldn't he underestimate them here as well? I was also fine with the misdirect of not showing Bran telling them the truth. We knew he should yet somehow we believed he wouldn't despite being shown for 7 seasons how strong the bond is among the Stark children. The Arya/Sansa stuff was them feeling each other out and coming to terms with the new people they had both become in the time since they last saw each other. 

Edited July 13, 2018 by Momma There Goes That Man

[PF Chang]

14 minutes ago, ExoDus84 said:

 

It wasn't inexplicable. Sansa stated early in Season 7 that "only a fool would trust Littlefinger." She was on to him well before Bran and Arya showed up to Winterfell. The fact that she realized LF would try to turn her against her family to strengthen his own position would have occurred to her at some point.

 

Once Arya got there, and LF started to scheme, it would make sense that Sansa/Arya would test his loyalty by setting a noose up and seeing if LF would hang himself with it.

 

Sansa accuses LF of betraying Ned, which is something she could not have known without Bran's help. Bran's actor confirmed that in the scene they chose not to include, Bran fills Sansa in on everything LF has done (other than the Lysa thing which Sansa saw herself). 

[Riggo-toni]

[Momma There Goes That Man]

none of them look like real people against a real world backdrop. They look like a teenage girl cut them out of a magazine and stuck them on a bay door

Edited July 13, 2018 by Momma There Goes That Man

[mcsluggo]

I don't think it is unreasonable that they figured out that littlefinger was a fink...i just think it was boring and lazy the way the show chose to play it out.

[mcsluggo]

On 4/18/2018 at 11:05 AM, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

I think they knew who the characters were that casual viewers would give a chance to. Dinklage was reasonably famous, and that character is just nothing but an opportunity to entertain. Bean was really famous - especially in the world of fantasy movies. So presenting the show as this noble guy fighting all these horrible people with this drunken dwarf providing ironic commentary and also boobs was pretty smart.

 

I will say, the scenes with Dany in the first episode would not have hooked me had I not seen the final episode first. Watching a girl who appears to be 16 get fondled by her brother and raped by a body builder may be appealing to some of you but not to me.

 

I honestly think the best casting decision they made was Momoa, because he and Emilia had scorching chemistry after the first episode. The show would have been really creepy and uncomfortable if her falling in love with him was not 100 percent believable. And she's clearly not a good enough actress to pull that off with just anyone. Because she's had 0 sexual chemistry with anyone else on the show aside from the hot translator.

 

 

 

well... we finally know what LKB looks like 

 

 

 

 

(he looks a lot cuter than i expected in that blue shirt... )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 10:25 PM, DCSaints_fan said:

 

 

Without the books, I suspect D&D (show creators) have simply been winging it and simply don't know what to do with alot of the characters. 

 

Here is where book readers need to dangled by their ankles off a bridge.

 

Books and movies/mini-series are not the same things. In a book, you can (and apparently Martin does) spend 100 pages exploring the motivations of Dingus, the second son of House Mingus - who historically are pledged to House Stark since the reign of Otto the Hung. Clearly, a lot of you guys would like a tv show where someone just reads made-up genologies for 48 minutes a week before cutting someone's head off.

 

The problem with Ramsey is pretty simple: he was a one note character, and they hit that note 454 times. He was a Jerry Garcia guitar solo of a character. (I once went to a Dead show where I swear to go that Jerry played an 11 minute solo that was literally his fingers moving between two notes for the entire time. He died not too long after that, but but's another story).

 

Littlefinger was a bit of a cartoon villain whose accent eventually became so broad that lepruchans were complaining about unfair stereotypes. But there was SOME nuance there. I think he genuinely loved Cat (Cate? Kitt? That's car).  I think he had a very weird creepy uncle love for Poor Dumb Sansa too. Ramsey was a one-note villain in a show that already had one amazing one-note villain played by a better actor.

 

The other problems with Ramsey was that 1) all of his plans worked in ways that made you think he was a sorcerer and 2) his final plan failed because an army magically showed up out of nowhere at the last second, which is something that has happened at least three times now.

 

In the middle seasons, the how actually wasn't living up to its legacy. It kept adding characters, but it rarely killed any of them off - until the main cast needed to be listed in a phone book. Eventually, a culling was needed. It hasn't been the most sophisticated of things, but this show can't last until 2029.

 

 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

On ‎7‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 2:26 PM, mcsluggo said:

I don't think it is unreasonable that they figured out that littlefinger was a fink...i just think it was boring and lazy the way the show chose to play it out.

 

I had no problem with that. If Bran is going to know everything that ever happened ever, well, that's going to be bad for Littlefinger eventually.

 

The best part about that scene was his running to his generals and basically being told to piss up a rope. It was the first time in a long time that the showed dealt with "loyalty" in a pretty realistic way. I still don't quite know how the Lannisters have anything remotely resembling an army left after nearly losing a war to Robb Stark, saving King's Landing, losing Tywin, losing Tywin's brother, losing Casterly Rock (even if by a plan), engaging in several sieges, and getting wiped out by the Dothraki.

[Destino]

On 7/13/2018 at 3:26 PM, mcsluggo said:

I don't think it is unreasonable that they figured out that littlefinger was a fink...i just think it was boring and lazy the way the show chose to play it out.

 

It's not unreasonable but it seems important enough to put on screen.  That omission however still falls well short of the crime committed by whoever chose to leave the revelation about Tysha out of the show.  It explains exactly why Tyrion would act so wildly out of character by forgoing a quick escape to risk a confrontation with his father.  It also explains why he essentially tries to drink himself to death. 

[DCSaints_fan]

11 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

Here is where book readers need to dangled by their ankles off a bridge.

 

Books and movies/mini-series are not the same things. In a book, you can (and apparently Martin does) spend 100 pages exploring the motivations of Dingus, the second son of House Mingus - who historically are pledged to House Stark since the reign of Otto the Hung. Clearly, a lot of you guys would like a tv show where someone just reads made-up genologies for 48 minutes a week before cutting someone's head off.

 

The problem with Ramsey is pretty simple: he was a one note character, and they hit that note 454 times. He was a Jerry Garcia guitar solo of a character. (I once went to a Dead show where I swear to go that Jerry played an 11 minute solo that was literally his fingers moving between two notes for the entire time. He died not too long after that, but but's another story).

 

Littlefinger was a bit of a cartoon villain whose accent eventually became so broad that lepruchans were complaining about unfair stereotypes. But there was SOME nuance there. I think he genuinely loved Cat (Cate? Kitt? That's car).  I think he had a very weird creepy uncle love for Poor Dumb Sansa too. Ramsey was a one-note villain in a show that already had one amazing one-note villain played by a better actor.

 

The other problems with Ramsey was that 1) all of his plans worked in ways that made you think he was a sorcerer and 2) his final plan failed because an army magically showed up out of nowhere at the last second, which is something that has happened at least three times now.

 

In the middle seasons, the how actually wasn't living up to its legacy. It kept adding characters, but it rarely killed any of them off - until the main cast needed to be listed in a phone book. Eventually, a culling was needed. It hasn't been the most sophisticated of things, but this show can't last until 2029.

 

 

 

I know books have way more time to develop characters and alot has to be cut out.   If the show 1) invests time in a character, but then later 2) does not have time to have the character's action make sense in terms of the plot/established motives/personalities, there's no reason to have the character there at all.   My Blackfish example.  In season 3, we see the Blackfish seizing the bow from Edmure who repeatedly fails to hit Old Man Tully's funeral pyre.   it establishes him as the "competent" one.   So what makes you think he would go down in a pointless blaze of glory despite having the perfect opportunity to escape.   The only reason being the writers deciding "We don't need this character anymore, so let's kill him"

 

Littlefinger was way more than a "cartoon villain".  Everything he did was well thought out, cold and calculating.   So when he gives Sansa to the Bolton's like he did makes zero sense.  Its what the writers wanted, because they needed Sansa involved in something, and nothing of real importance was happening in the Vale.  Here's an option - instead of Littlefinger giving Sansa to the Bolton's totally out of the blue, a kidnapping is staged (to which Littlefinger is privy too, but Sansa isn't).   Or possibly, Littlefinger gets Sansa in on the charade who's sole purpose is to act as a spy and eventually get revenge on Roose/Ramsey for the Red Wedding and stealing Winterfell.   

 

When I have more time, I'll give several counterexamples to character's who deaths/exits at least served some sensible narrative purpose.   Even minor characters such as Syrio Forell (Arya's sword teacher in Season 1). 

[Destino]

9 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

I know books have way more time to develop characters and alot has to be cut out.  

 

The advantage books have when dealing with schemers like Littlefinger isn't just about how much time can be spent on every details.  Books can tell you what characters are thinking and shows/movies can't do that very well.  Books can put you right into Littlefinger's mind.  Even scenes where a character has no lines can be revealing in ways they can never be on screen. 

[DCSaints_fan]

6 minutes ago, Destino said:

 

The advantage books have when dealing with schemers like Littlefinger isn't just about how much time can be spent on every details.  Books can tell you what characters are thinking and shows/movies can't do that very well.  Books can put you right into Littlefinger's mind.  Even scenes where a character has no lines can be revealing in ways they can never be on screen. 

 

They can, but GRRM, to my recollection, never put us inside Littlefinger's mind.   What we know of him, we know only from his dialogue and his actions.    Probably because he knows too much. 

[Destino]

21 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

They can, but GRRM, to my recollection, never put us inside Littlefinger's mind.   What we know of him, we know only from his dialogue and his actions.    Probably because he knows too much. 

True, but if I remember correctly I think a lot of what we learn about him are in the thoughts of others which go deeper than just what the characters say.  His presence in a scene tends to make the scene take on a tone of characters negotiating with an evil genie.  Every word suddenly matters because it might mean something else entirely. 

 

Speaking of Littlefinger, I was expecting some sort of showdown between him and The Spider that never happened.  Early in the show and books they have a definite rivalry that seems to be building towards something... but then it just sort of vanishes.  If I had to guess how he'd meet his end, it would have been with Varys having him killed, either directly or by revealing his treachery.  Kind of a let down.

[mcsluggo]

[mcsluggo]

 

Quote

'Game of Thrones' castle selling in Northern Ireland for less than the cost of a New York apartment

Northern Ireland’s Gosford Castle, which served as a backdrop in Season 3 of the HBO series, is on the market starting at £500,000 (about $656,452). For comparison, in 2015, the median price of an apartment in Manhattan was $916,000.

<more at link>

 

http://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/2018/07/31/game-thrones-castle-for-sale-in-northern-ireland.html

 

 

who wants live in Riverrun,,,,,?

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

Not nearly as cool looking without the cgi.

[zoony]

It might be cheaper but imagine the taxes and upkeep.  Good luck with that