Game of Thrones Season 8

[mcsluggo]

still staying out of this thread.... but i just caught up to the "battle for Winterfell" episode...

[Going Commando]

48 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

You're missing out, Stormlight Archive is greatness

 

I believe you.  I know I'm being unfair, but it's hard for me to respect his style now.  TBH, I've been having trouble finding fantasy writers whose style really grips me.  I've been having better experiences from sci-fi and fiction writers.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

10 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

 

I guess we might as well ruin her character too making her a cute housewife for Gendry. 

 

I dont care if she kills again but she shouldn’t be with Gendry

 

 

 

The extent of her character is that she kills people? She has no capacity to change?

 

I don't really want to imagine that Arya walks the earth for the next 40 years in a murderous rage.

1 hour ago, Mooka said:

 

The first scene in the pilot episode shows the Wall and a White Walker attacking men of the Night's Watch. 

 

I always felt that was to establish that "hey, there's magic here."

[No Excuses]

The finale plot leaked online if anyone is curious and thinks they might die before Sunday and want to know how this ends.

[StillUnknown]

5 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

The finale plot leaked online if anyone is curious and thinks they might die before Sunday and want to know how this ends.

 

Watch where you tread around the internets these next 5 days lol

[No Excuses]

Just now, StillUnknown said:

 

Watch where you tread around the internets these next 5 days lol

 

I read it, because I am always worried every time I step into the metro lol. The leak is from the person who has nailed every episode so far so it's probably reliable.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

@No Excuses I'm just not able to do it. I need to be surprised. Even if i do have a sense of roughly how it will end haha

[StillUnknown]

Yeah, i prefer my final disappointment in real time.

 

If it gets spoiled, i wont care much at this point, but i can be patient for one more episode

[TD_washingtonredskins]

12 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

I read it, because I am always worried every time I step into the metro lol. The leak is from the person who has nailed every episode so far so it's probably reliable.

where can i find it?

[JamesMadisonSkins]

10 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

Yeah, i prefer my final disappointment in real time.

 

If it gets spoiled, i wont care much at this point, but i can be patient for one more episode

 

I will say, if anything, the way this show ends will bring great intrigue to the books should GRRM ever get around to finishing them. I think he's living more in the world of Westeros now than the world of the GOT / ASOIAF direct events, but I would think he'd be extra motivated to get it done now, especially with the distractions of the main show over with.

 

The show is so far past the books at this point, that it would be interesting to re-live the books through GRRM. And the show ending this way will bring some extra intrigue to the book story, i think. Especially if GRRM delivers events in different orders (Cersei, then the NK) ... or has different trajectories for different characters (Book Euron was shaping up to be cooler than show Euron).

 

Also, I think the books have built mystery around the WW and NK. We never see them, just hear about them. So you can avoid the Hardhome ****, as it doesnt translate as well to the books and that was purely for the show. I think book Jon's path forward will be much different than show Jon, even if they end at the same point. And while I didn't mind the way the show handled Jon's aloofness at times, book Jon is so much more badass.

 

The books can be the "re-do" that many crave. Of course, the show has an appeal to an audience that likely won't sit down and read multiple 1,000 page book, but you never know.

 

Dorne, Jon, Iron Islanders, WW threat. All could have been done so much better on the show. But i digress. It wasn't an easy story to translate.

Edited May 14, 2019 by JamesMadisonSkins

[StillUnknown]

3 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

 

I will say, if anything, the way this show ends will bring great intrigue to the books should GRRM ever get around to finishing them. I think he's living more in the world of Westeros now than the world of the GOT / ASOIAF direct events, but I would think he'd be extra motivated to get it done now, especially with the distractions of the main show over with.

 

The show is so far past the books at this point, that it would be interesting to re-live the books through GRRM. And the show ending this way will bring some extra intrigue to the book story, i think.

 

I've made my peace with the fact that GRRM will not be finishing the books.

 

Its sucks, but it doesnt hurt as much anymore lol

[JamesMadisonSkins]

3 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

 

I've made my peace with the fact that GRRM will not be finishing the books.

 

Its sucks, but it doesnt hurt as much anymore lol

I have too. I def. transitioned from what @Lombardi's_kid_brother came to hate to a more show fan. Which is easy to do when you go 8 years without reading material. My show viewing very much mimicks LKB's thoughts now too. I generally like this season. It's been entertaining. BUT, I do think it could have been done better, but i blame it on the fact that HBO and D&D did their best to close out a series that the author himself has been unable to do (1 book in 15 years?).

 

I am hoping after the dust settles this summer that GRRM announces WoW is done. I think once he gets one book out, it would move the rest of the story forward.

 

But you're probably right. He's living in the world of Westeros now. I thoroughly enjoyed Fire and Blood and look froward to the second installment. And if that's the type of thing we get from GRRM from now on, I guess I'm fine with that too.

Edited May 14, 2019 by JamesMadisonSkins

[No Excuses]

11 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

where can i find it?

 

Freefolks subreddit, pinned post at the top.

[StillUnknown]

7 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

 

I am hoping after the dust settles this summer that GRRM announces WoW is done. I think once he gets one book out, it would move the rest of the story forward.

 

But you're probably right. He's living in the world of Westeros now. I thoroughly enjoyed Fire and Blood and look froward to the second installment. And if that's the type of thing we get from GRRM from now on, I guess I'm fine with that too.

 

ASOIAF was the first piece of fantasy i read, and i have branched out since then. I can only be so mad at GRRM. I found those books when i was badly in need of some escapism. I'm not too much into peripheral books in the world, maybe i'll get to them one day. Problem is that i read fantasy so much slower than i can nonfiction. It takes my mind a bit longer to set worlds.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

14 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

 

ASOIAF was the first piece of fantasy i read, and i have branched out since then. I can only be so mad at GRRM. I found those books when i was badly in need of some escapism. I'm not too much into peripheral books in the world, maybe i'll get to them one day. Problem is that i read fantasy so much slower than i can nonfiction. It takes my mind a bit longer to set worlds.

I think you'd really enjoy Fire and Blood. Covers Aegon's conquering through I think 152 or so. Forget which one it ended on. I loved Jaeharys, who ruled from something like 40 AC to 102 or something like that. The Old King. Anyway, if you've already built the world of ASOIAF, Fire and Blood is a great, immersive piece that tells the story of the early days of the Targ rule, and the stories are told in a way that makes you really connect with the characters. And it's just as complex (characer and name wise) as the books. And it really builds an interplay of how the various families within the 7 Kingdoms interacted with the Targs in the early days, and sets the historical stage for everything we were given in ASOIAF.

 

I would love a spinoff on the early days of Jaeharys ... or covering the Civil War that wiped out the dragons.

 

It's all pretty darn interesting and impressive. The world Martin has built. And the fact that Jon/Dany's line of Targaryen's are often sprouted from 4th or 5th in line ... the family tree is complex AF. If he can keep spinning out content like Fire and Blood and The World of Ice and Fire ... I would be okay with him letting HBO finish the series.

 

But something tells me that the fan reactions to the HBO finale may motivate him to put the pen to paper and tell his damn story, seeing how the "rushed" finish is playing out on TV. Maybe he realizes to tell the story properly, he just needs to let it run it's course, even if that means 4 more books. I think he's tried to limit the story to a certain number of books, and that has handicapped him.

 

Also somewhat random, but having the Fire and Blood historical context, the flip a coin rule is pretty spot on. There are some pretty terrible Targaryens. Most of them, however, are either overthrown, die young by doing something stupid. But occasionally one sits for a period of time and wreaks havoc. And that actually helps me understand Dany's turn a bit more. But of course, if your only knowledge of this world is through the GoT show, that turn isn't as earned for the viewer.

Edited May 14, 2019 by JamesMadisonSkins

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

13 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

I have too. I def. transitioned from what @Lombardi's_kid_brother came to hate to a more show fan. Which is easy to do when you go 8 years without reading material. My show viewing very much mimicks LKB's thoughts now too. I generally like this season. It's been entertaining. BUT, I do think it could have been done better, but i blame it on the fact that HBO and D&D did their best to close out a series that the author himself has been unable to do (1 book in 15 years?).

 

I am hoping after the dust settles this summer that GRRM announces WoW is done. I think once he gets one book out, it would move the rest of the story forward.

 

But you're probably right. He's living in the world of Westeros now. I thoroughly enjoyed Fire and Blood and look froward to the second installment. And if that's the type of thing we get from GRRM from now on, I guess I'm fine with that too.

 

I think the show was clearly better when it had book material to draw from - particularly the dialogue. And I clearly think Martin had a better handle on Tyrion more than anyone.

 

I will also say that the "book seasons" were not all wine and roses. The first season of Dany was phenomenal. I hated nearly everything involving her in Qarth. I wasn't a huge fan of the slave cities stories with the exception of great moments. If Dany's "turn to the dark side" seems forced, it's partly due to the fact that they never really figured out who she was after Drago died. I think she has always been an underwritten character portrayed by an actress who does some things extremely well, but it is not going to create an inner life all on her own.

 

It also took ****ing forever for things to happen in the book seasons. The fact that the plot never moved at all was helped by the fact that the dialogue was so great. I loved every single "Tywin castigates a family member while looking at a map" scene. But we really weren't getting anywhere. It's bizarre the two slowest moving, most boring plots involved Jon North of the Wall and Dany putzing around in the desert cities.

 

Jon and Dany were arguably my least favorite characters for most of the show's history. I find myself liking them more now they are doing something "epic" in every episode.

 

I've honestly lost track but I think the first off book season was season 5, and I'm pretty sure that's the season I liked least because it felt like absolutely nothing happened. It's pretty clear that the show runners and HBO were thinking that maybe Martin will give us something to work with here, and they were buying a lot of time.

 

Then the last two seasons have basically been "We need to end this now or a main cast member is going to die in a car wreck and Sansa is going to turn 40."

 

And there was just far far far far far far too much plot to wrap up in too short of a time frame.

 

Question for the book nerds: Martin seems great at building character and a mess with a plotting. Is that accurate? I feel like by writing 10,000 pages or whatever he just accidentally created a lot of plot while what really interested him was Lady Oleana's choice in bedroom décor. I think he woke up one day and said, "Holy ****....that's a lot of plot" and that's the last day he wrote anything.

 

I mean, it's a lot of goddamn plot.

 

I'm dead serious about this: You could do an entire season of that weird Arryn kid emerging from whatever Knight's Training Littlefinger sent him to as a full on bad ass with noble blood. He's been doing Jedi training while all this crazy **** has been going on. Dany's a tyrant and Jon is torn on what to do because he's Jon so all the remaining nobles rally around this guy, because why the **** not? It's a name they trust if nothing else. How about this? (My fantasy booking is not about this actual show but another show that doesn't exist). That dude emerges with Bron as his lackey/hired gun, because Cersei is dead and Tyrion has no real power so that dude did the Lannisters bidding for a decade and got nothing for it. **** it, it turns out that Blackfish guy didn't die, and he's on that guy's side too. Admit it. You fan boys would jerk it.

[Cooked Crack]

Think I'll read that after this season. Didn't realize Martin released a book that recently. I read Dunk and Egg and started rereading the main series in hopes that GRRM would have a book out by when I finished. Just done expecting a new book or reading sample chapters. 

[Gamebreaker]

3 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

He's really good, let's not go too far.  I came to his books in adulthood, so I'll never love them the way I love Tolkien and Robert Jordan.  But in some ways, he's a finer writer than they are.  His style is exceptional for a genre fiction writer in general, and a high fantasy writer in particular.  Yes, it's disappointing that he's failed in his goal of writing ASOIAF, but he was experimenting with the boundaries of the genre.  I won't kill an artist for experimenting and ultimately failing, especially when in the process they created some good art.  And I also won't ever kill an artist for not cranking out work that's uninspired just for the sake of his publishing company and fans.

 

I was in High School when Robert Jordan got super sick and I remember that it was very distressing.  I'd never met him, but I feel like you come to know and love a writer's mind in ways that you don't with artists in other mediums.  But also, I was just sad that he wouldn't get a chance to finish his great work.  That experience seasoned me to being OK with a great and epic story being left unfinished.  That's why Marin quitting on ASOIAF doesn't hurt that bad.  You've got to appreciate the journey.

 

And yes I know that Sanderson technically finished WoT, but I hated the ones he wrote so much that I pretend they don't exist.  IMO it was a catastrophic artistic mistake to get him to finish the series.  Having a novelist take over another novelist's baby like that raises it into a Frankenstein's monster.  The work degenerates into fan fiction and the spell is completely broken.  I hated the Sanderson WoT books so much that it's kept me from reading his own work.  I don't blame him, he's a super nice guy and gave a lot of himself to complete an impossible and flawed artistic boondoggle for the sake of a great fantasy writer's widow and fans.  But it's poisoned my perception of his style.

 

I get that, GRRMs work in the first 3 books is exceptional. Not so much with Books 4 and 5, but I get your viewpoint on him. My issue with him is the lack of transparency, I figured he wasn't really working on TWoW years ago, and many rushed to defend him without any reason or proof to back up their optimism. He let them down even harder than he did me. Don't say the writing is going badly, and then stealth launch some side piece **** within the same universe that nobody asked for. Whether it was his publisher pushing for something to do make money with, or Martin taking advantage of the popularity of the series, it's still a smack in the face to the fans. I have no idea if he's still doing his annual "it won't be out this year" statements, I stopped paying attention. 

 

I would suggest you give Sanderson a shot. As you said, it's not fair that another author tries to finish work that wasn't originally his, his style is different from Jordan but they are both excellent writers in their own way. Sanderson's original work is amazing. The Mistborn trilogy, and especially the Stormlight Archives, are among the best fiction writing I've ever read. The Stormlight Archives has 3 books out currently, he intends it to go to ten. They're all like 1k pages and there isn't doubt Sanderson won't finish the series. And what I respect about Sanderson is he's very transparent on what he's working on and how long it's taking. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

16 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

 

But something tells me that the fan reactions to the HBO finale may motivate him to put the pen to paper and tell his damn story, seeing how the "rushed" finish is playing out on TV. Maybe he realizes to tell the story properly, he just needs to let it run it's course, even if that means 4 more books. I think he's tried to limit the story to a certain number of books, and that has handicapped him.

 

You once thought he would finish both books before the series was done.

 

Give up the dream, man.

[visionary]

I think the books had issues too, and the last two while they had good moments were something of a mess.  GRRM didn't exactly sound like he’s near finishing Winds of Winter in that article I posted yesterday.  I don’t really blame him for having a tough time with all of it, but it is what it is.  

[JamesMadisonSkins]

@Lombardi's_kid_brother A lot of what I am explaining out is inspired by the twitter thread someone linked to on here the other day. Forget who it was that linked it but it was great. Basically, GRRM's story is character-driven. He just writes, and as his characters get more complex, and he adds more characters to the story, it makes it harder and harder to move the plot along. This is how you get Dany in Mereen and Qarth and taking seemingly forever to do anything. In the books this also comes across as slow AF, but you do get a ton of insight into who she is becoming. The same can be said for Jon and his experiences at and North of the wall.

 

The reason the flip of GOT is so jarring to fans, is that as soon as the show moved away from the books ... and had an end-game in sight (8 seasons, and the final two being just 13 episodes), they were forced to flip from character driven to plot driven story. You spend an entire season with Arya traveling on the King's Road, but then in the final 2 seasons, characters are traveling thousands of miles in half-episodes. But the show had to do that to get these stories tied up in a quicker fashion. And this is a big reason why GRRM has been unable to write much after Book 3.

 

I think he wrote Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings and Storm of Swords (basically Seasons 1-3) in 5 years. He then planned to skip 5 years and come back to the characters later down the line in the story. I guess this was to allow him to get characters moved around without having to tell the story of how they got there ... but he ended up bailing on that idea, and split the 4th book into Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. And the stories he built up in those 2 books have him stuck, because he didn't skip those 5 years, and he's had a hard time getting Dany, Jon, Arya, etc. all in line to get to a finality.

 

But anyway, the bottom line is GRRM's story is character drive, not plot drive, and that's what got things hung up ... but also what got you such great dialogue, cahracter building, and interactions on the screen. But switching then to a plot driven story in Seasons 6-8 gives you a LOT more action and chaos and amazing battles, but makes it feel rushed, and makes it seem like characters aren't acting like they did in Season 1-5, and that's not factoring in the whole traveling/teleporting issues that are now just swept under the rug.

 

Kings Landing to WInterfell took 6 weeks (slow procession but still) in S1 E1 ... Winterfell to Kings Landing takes an episode or less in Season 8. And that can be a bit jarring.

10 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

Think I'll read that after this season. Didn't realize Martin released a book that recently. I read Dunk and Egg and started rereading the main series in hopes that GRRM would have a book out by when I finished. Just done expecting a new book or reading sample chapters. 

Fire and Blood came out last summer. I loved it. Highly recommend. I don't know when the 2nd part is coming out, but I was really disappointed when I realized it only covered the first half of the Targaryen dynasty, mainly because I'm fearful that he will never come out with Part 2 haha

[Bozo the kKklown]

 

[JamesMadisonSkins]

3 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

You once thought he would finish both books before the series was done.

 

Give up the dream, man.

Touche. Touche.

 

But it's really insane that he hasn't published a book in 9 years, when it was crazy at the time Dance came out that he hadn't written one in 7 years.

[Momma There Goes That Man]

1 hour ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

The extent of her character is that she kills people? She has no capacity to change?

 

I don't really want to imagine that Arya walks the earth for the next 40 years in a murderous rage.

 

The extent of her character from the very beginning never wanting to be a traditional lady that settles down with somebody. I never said she had to be an assassin murdering people her entire life. I like the idea of her walking away from a life of revenge, though it was handled poorly for several seasons if that is going to be the culmination of that idea.

 

It would still be a character betrayal for her to just go settle down with Gendry after this when she never wanted that type of life even before her father died and she began her quest for revenge. 

24 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

But something tells me that the fan reactions to the HBO finale may motivate him to put the pen to paper and tell his damn story, seeing how the "rushed" finish is playing out on TV. Maybe he realizes to tell the story properly, he just needs to let it run it's course, even if that means 4 more books. I think he's tried to limit the story to a certain number of books, and that has handicapped him.

 

He probably has less incentive to finish the books now imo. If he never finishes the books, people we will always assume they were better than the end of the tv show. He can ride that off into the sunset rather than bust ass trying to write at least two more books at this stage of his life that may not be well received anyway. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

3 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

 

 

It would still be a character betrayal for her to just go settle down with Gendry after this when she never wanted that type of life even before her father died and she began her quest for revenge. 

 

I think the idea of being a proper lady being forced to marry some asshole lord's asshole son is quite different from retiring from being an international assassin to settle down and bone a blacksmith in the castle he was just given. I think it's pretty clear that whatever this world was at the start of this series is no longer what this world is.

 

She's allowed to fall in love.