HBO's Game of Thrones

[Jamesh22]

However, between Battle of Winterfell and this week's episode, the music/cinematography has been my favorite part this season.

Agreed. Such a shame the writing has let those great visuals down.

Episode 2 of this season still remains my favorite. I re watched 4 and 5 yesterday and they still don't sit right with me. Certainly don't dislike them, just a bit meh.

Cersi deserved better.

 

[Teebin]

^ I went back to the beginning to watch and it is visually striking how videoey it looks both in lighting and lack of post processing. The first episode almost looks like a video game at times.

My favorite episode from any season remains 6:10 the first 16 minutes. It is simply grand drama and expertly crafted and paced.

We all have our GoT thing I guess!

 

[Jamesh22]

My favorite episode from any season remains 6:10 the first 16 minutes. It is simply grand drama and expertly crafted and paced.

Ahhh I was just talking about this season. Totally agree, and the way the music slowly builds too, epic!

I love lots of episodes but I think my favourites In no particular order are:
5:08 - Hardhome
6:09 - Battle of the bastards
6:10 - The Winds of Winter
3:09 - The Rains of Castamere (red wedding)
4:09 - The Watchers on the Wall

I can watch all of them many many times and love them every single time!!!

 

[belloq87]

Ahhh I was just talking about this season. Totally agree, and the way the music slowly builds too, epic!

I love lots of episodes but I think my favourites In no particular order are:
5:08 - Hardhome
6:09 - Battle of the bastards
6:10 - The Winds of Winter
3:09 - The Rains of Castamere (red wedding)
4:09 - The Watchers on the Wall

I can watch all of them many many times and love them every single time!!!

We have similar lists. All of those would be in contention for me along with "Baelor," "Blackwater," and "The Children."

"Hardhome" is probably still my favorite episode. The way things escalate so quickly was such a totally unexpected thrill seeing that for the first time. And the standoff between Jon and the Night King at the end is probably one of the show's most iconic visuals, as well.

 

[Jamesh22]

"Hardhome" is probably still my favorite episode. The way things escalate so quickly was such a totally unexpected thrill seeing that for the first time. And the standoff between Jon and the Night King at the end is probably one of the show's most iconic visuals, as well.

100% yes!

 

[TheGentTrent]

So I finally watched Episode 5 last night and I thought it was beautifully tragic, even though the whole "Mad Queen" storyline may have been rushed just a tad. Perhaps one more episode building up to it would have made a little more sense.

I wonder if so many people would still be upset about Daenerys's actions had the books been finished by now and they knew it was coming. Martin said he always envisioned the ending of the series to be bittersweet and with only one episode left, I can't imagine the burning of King's Landing not being a part of the novels. It all cycles back to the original idea that this was never going to have a happy/fairy-tale ending in which good triumphs over evil. Instead, peace is a concept that never lasts as the world will always be full of violence and people ready to fight with each other.

He also said Tolkien was a big influence on him, and if the Battle of Winterfell could be compared to the Battle of the Morannon, then this was the Scouring of the Shire.

 

[GAcoaster]

The signs and foreshadowing of Dany's madness have always been there. I think people are overthinking all of this.

 

[JungleSkip]

The signs and foreshadowing of Dany's madness have always been there. I think people are overthinking all of this.

Ehhhhhhhhh. There were always subtle hints that she might not be as benevolent as she seemed, but it was a huge, wide jump between that and deliberate mass murdering psychopath.

I’m not mad they went that route, but it was (as most of this season has been) rushed, poor storytelling

 

[Brian G.]

The signs and foreshadowing of Dany's madness have always been there. I think people are overthinking all of this.

Foreshadowing is not character development.

 

[belloq87]

Foreshadowing is not character development.

True, but it's not worthless, either. Had we gotten 10 episodes last season and 10 episodes this season, I suspect the character progression would have been more acceptable to more people simply by virtue of having more breathing room.

Even without it, it mostly worked well for me.

 

[Brian G.]

True, but it's not worthless, either. Had we gotten 10 episodes last season and 10 episodes this season, I suspect the character progression would have been more acceptable to more people simply by virtue of having more breathing room.

And to that, I say..

See @JungleSkip post.

 

[Jamesh22]

I still don't understand why they had to rush season 7 and 8, sure make the seasons shorter so you can spend more per episode, but it feels like they needed to tie this up in 9 seasons not 8.

It's definitely the speed of change in Danny which is so jaring.

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

Ehhhhhhhhh. There were always subtle hints that she might not be as benevolent as she seemed, but it was a huge, wide jump between that and deliberate mass murdering psychopath.

I’m not mad they went that route, but it was (as most of this season has been) rushed, poor storytelling

Except we've seen this for the past 3 or 4 seasons set this up. Every time she's about to lose her mind and do something completely horrible she either has Tyrion, Varys, Jorah, Missandei, or Jon to talk her off the ledge. Where is her character's council now? 1). Tyrion has failed her numerous times. His council has costed her more than it has benefited so she's unwilling to listen to him. 2). Varys was trying to poison her/ in the midst of betraying her. 3). Jorah is dead. 4). Missandei is dead. 5). Jon won't hop on the incest train, so she feels like the one person she could lean on for honest council has betrayed her and she realizes that he is everything she is not (heir to the throne, loved by the people, level-headed, true to his word, etc.) Also she has always had knee-jerk reactions as a character from burning the witch to crucifying the masters. Maybe it's because I've been rewatching the entire series for the past two months and just caught-up last night, but there are hints of this being her true character throughout the entirety of the series when she gains some sort of power.

 

[JungleSkip]

Except we've seen this for the past 3 or 4 seasons set this up. Every time she's about to lose her mind and do something completely horrible she either has Tyrion, Varys, Jorah, Missandei, or Jon to talk her off the ledge. Where is her character's council now? 1). Tyrion has failed her numerous times. His council has costed her more than it has benefited so she's unwilling to listen to him. 2). Varys was trying to poison her/ in the midst of betraying her. 3). Jorah is dead. 4). Missandei is dead. 5). Jon won't hop on the incest train, so she feels like the one person she could lean on for honest council has betrayed her and she realizes that he is everything she is not (heir to the throne, loved by the people, level-headed, true to his word, etc.) Also she has always had knee-jerk reactions as a character from burning the witch to crucifying the masters. Maybe it's because I've been rewatching the entire series for the past two months and just caught-up last night, but there are hints of this being her true character throughout the entirety of the series when she gains some sort of power.

Again, all of her over the top actions are still directed at *enemies*, even when held back by her council. She went on and on last season about not wanting to be queen of the ashes and not wanting to slaughter normal people. If she firebombed the Red Keep and killed every Lannister soldier...okay. Still pretty despicable and unnecessary, but within character. Her jumping to "Kill all the women and children" was not adequately supported and felt like a big huge logical jump.

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

Again, all of her over the top actions are still directed at *enemies*, even when held back by her council. She went on and on last season about not wanting to be queen of the ashes and not wanting to slaughter normal people. If she firebombed the Red Keep and killed every Lannister soldier...okay. Still pretty despicable and unnecessary, but within character. Her jumping to "Kill all the women and children" was not adequately supported and felt like a big huge logical jump.

Except, in the frame of her history, she's had this happen once already. She "liberated" Meereen and had the entire city turn against her, why give it the chance to happen again? She practically spells that out with Jon. It's a compound problem with three external influencers/ motivators:

1). Hereditary mental illness- I don't think I need to go into this but she's progressively displayed erratic behavior and developing moments where her mental illness is triggered.

2). She realized Cersei was counting on her being merciful.

3). It shows that she never truly cared about being merciful, the bottom line was the throne. When everyone follows you because they believe you will be merciful and the righteous ruler and do good for your people, why would you say otherwise when the bottom line is more important to you? Go back and watch how she begins speaking about slave liberation in the earlier seasons, early on it seems genuine but then later on it begins to conflict with her actions and starts to sound more like propaganda to win over the people. Dany quite literally embodies the phrase "The road to hell was paved with good intentions" and that's aways been her character. I mean, she wants to "break" the wheel and get rid of all feudal lords and be the sole queen. That's a dictatorship and the problem with dictators is they never see themselves as being wrong.


I will say it was a turn, but I had more problems with Jamie’s flip-flop development than Dany’s turn.

 

[devinp267]

A person can snap in 10mins time, i can't see how this was rushed at all given what happened to her. She's been taking L's all season and the end of last season??:shrug:

 

[Teebin]

Watching season 1, I wonder if some people miss the verbosity of the scripts in these most recent seasons. In a commentary from this season Lena Headey (cersi) states how she had “pages of dialog” in the first few years of the series.

While I do love clever dialog, it doesn’t bother me as much how wam-bam it has become, but I do agree that this season could have well handled two more episodes to flesh out the story/history a bit more.

 

[belloq87]

1). Hereditary mental illness- I don't think I need to go into this but she's progressively displayed erratic behavior and developing moments where her mental illness is triggered.

I think if a person can buy that the Targaryen bloodline has a special, very potent, very dark strain of madness to it (which is supported by the way many people in the world of the show talk about past Targaryens), then Dany's turn goes down easier. I buy it, though I still wish we had more episodes leading up to it and dealing with the fallout from it.

 

[Legacy]

Game of Thrones finale: Why everybody’s so mad about Daenerys Targaryen - Vox

A long read, but valid.

 

[awhen]

It would take 10 years to finish this story with the same pacing as the first 5 seasons. There simply isn’t time or money anymore to have a character take half a season to cross Westeros.

I cut the writers some slack. Finishing this up is a thankless task. Maybe George realizes there’s no way to do it well, and is happy to let someone else take the fall.