|
Post by MrsCondomine on May 13, 2019 12:24:52 GMT
There's that joke about "rocks fall, everybody dies" as a crap way to get rid of characters you have no idea what to do with anymore, or to bring a quick close to a storyline you are sick of.
This was not the show in which that needed to happen. The source material and characterisation was so RICH, and then this? Really?
|
|
1,159 posts
|
Post by Steve on May 13, 2019 12:26:16 GMT
viserys I thought Maisie was remarkable in that scene with the Hound. Those enormous anime eyes were doing all the work. I thought that was great too. The Hound and Arya were superb.
And the general direction of the principal storyline remained consistent with what we had been led to expect this season, so I was happy with that.
But overall, I was extremely disappointed with the Daenerys storyline.
{Spoiler - click to view} We knew she was a budding despot. We knew she would take extreme measures to achieve her goals. But at her core, she exhibited extreme ruthlessness not only to attain the iron throne for herself, but also to lift up those on the bottom of society. That she should fail is her story, but what an awful plot hole that having destroyed all the dragon killing weapons, and with the red keep and Cersei in easy proximity for a strike by Drogon, that she instead decides to pointlessly kill every innocent human being between herself and Cersei. Better storytelling would have done either: (1) Have Cersei make it IMPOSSIBLE to reach her without killing thousands of innocents, like human shields crowded INSIDE, and STRAPPED alround the Red Keep, for example; OR (2) Set up scenes of Daenerys degenerating mental health more clearly, if indeed she was supposed to be "mad" when she decided to pointlessly kill all those innocents. Simply put, the story trajectory made sense, but the details of the execution utterly botched.
|
|
2,545 posts
|
Post by viserys on May 13, 2019 13:31:21 GMT
But overall, I was extremely disappointed with the Daenerys storyline.
{Spoiler - click to view} I agree to some extent. I also thought she was heading straight for Cersei and the Red Keep. But I think it goes back to her conversation with Jon, where she said that she can only rule by love or fear. So when she realized that people don't love her, she decided to rule by fear and what's better suited to installing fear in the people of Westeros by razing King's Landing to the ground and show them all the enormous power of her flying flamethrower?
|
|
1,159 posts
|
Post by Steve on May 13, 2019 13:34:55 GMT
But overall, I was extremely disappointed with the Daenerys storyline.
{Spoiler - click to view} I agree to some extent. I also thought she was heading straight for Cersei and the Red Keep. But I think it goes back to her conversation with Jon, where she said that she can only rule by love or fear. So when she realized that people don't love her, she decided to rule by fear and what's better suited to installing fear in the people of Westeros by razing King's Landing to the ground and show them all the enormous power of her flying flamethrower? {Spoiler - click to view} Yes, I see that that conversation was setting up her actions, but of course the people were already terrified by her destruction of the Fleet and Soldiers, and once dead, they ceased to be afriad of anybody.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on May 13, 2019 15:12:08 GMT
The rabid fanbase making lots of noise online have had too long to work out exactly what they wanted to happen. They were always going to be disappointed. And they are making a lot of noise trying to tell others how wrong it all is. No, no, no, it's mainly because the quality of the writing has gone off a cliff. None of the characters I wanted to 'win the Game of Thrones' were still alive going into this series so I am watching for entertainment. And my expectations weren't high after the last series but it's got way way worse. Let's see how dumb the show is this week: Varys, one of the cleverest characters on the show, manages to get himself executed by openly, including outside in broad daylight, conspiring against his Queen with her chief adviser and her lover, and when they don't agree to join in the conspiracy, he just waits around to get killed. Tyrion, one of the cleverest characters on the show, once again takes a huge, stupid risk by releasing Jaime and putting his faith in Cersei acting out of character by giving up, sending his brother to his death and risking his own life if Daenerys finds out. Last week the scorpion weapons hit a dragon three shots out of the first three from a few ships and the remaining dragon for absolutely no reason didn't counterattack, making it look like the scorpions were a serious threat to dragons. This week one dragon took out all the scorpions in the city and an entire fleet without getting hit once. It became clear one dragon was enough to sack King's Landing so Daenerys could have taken the city very easily when she had three of them but at that time they just decided...not to. Even though that's exactly how her ancestors conquered the continent. And they could have directly targeted Cersei in the Red Keep and spared many lives which they briefly were very concerned about. If Arya was planning to kill Cersei using her magical assassin powers, why not just tell Jon and give that a go before destroying the whole city? Instead, while not actually doing anything or utilising those powers, she puts her life in extreme danger, but fortunately for her Starks can't die any more. Euron decides to attack Jaime for absolutely no reason so as to give Jaime a dramatic final fight scene and gets himself killed. That's just basic stuff without even getting into how badly they have handled most of the characters (this week Daenerys, Jaime in particular) and butchered the overarching plots. And this week's episode was actually marginally less stupid than last week's. Yes, some people will be disappointed if the things they wanted to happen don't happen, but anybody who can remember how good the series used to be and can see how much they have gone off-piste is going to be unhappy with the nonsense of the past three weeks. I struggle to see how anybody can actually care now when all logic and continuity has gone out of the window. The entertainment value has actually gone up again because the show is so bad. It's incredible that HBO with its reputation for quality and plans to turn this into an ongoing franchise have let two idiots torch their biggest ever show. 70 episodes of building a rich world with great characters and storylines reduced to the level of the stupidest of Hollywood blockbusters with total contempt for the audience. At least there's some amazing content in the reactions: https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bjjjjj/actual_footage_of_the_writers_after_episode_3/
|
|
2,203 posts
|
Post by theglenbucklaird on May 13, 2019 17:20:06 GMT
called their daughters Khaleesi or Danaerys I was thinking that (there are some Theons around too, I think!). Weirdly, there are evidently some fans out there who think what she's done is cool. I know quite a few Jon's also
|
|
2,946 posts
|
Post by crowblack on May 13, 2019 19:30:16 GMT
temporarily left handed today - minor injury - but briefly i agree with den of geek's review, defending it against the current fan unhappiness. thought it was a strong episode - after the white walker global warming type threat, this was like blitz/dresden/recent middle east wars of 'liberation'... cersei as saddam, gaddafi
|
|
342 posts
|
Post by sophizoey on May 13, 2019 19:31:18 GMT
{Spoiler - click to view} I refuse to believe that's how Cersei and Jaime's storyline ends. They have to just be hiding under that rubble for a better killing, like Arya was. I've always wanted to believe Cersei will be the last to die in the series. She's also my favourite character in the series and I would quite like her to have a proper ending.
|
|
4,028 posts
|
Post by kathryn on May 13, 2019 20:47:58 GMT
Dragonfire is hot enough to burn stone and has a far wider spread of fire than those scorpion arrows - they never made sense as a dragon-killing weapon once the element of surprise was lost because a single sweep of fire would burn all the arrows up before they could reach a dragon. And a fleet of ships being unnoticed by a couple of dragons in flight really was a feat.
As ever, the tactics just don’t make sense, and the writers have to make the characters stupid in order to justify them.
Danaerys is stupid in this episode. So is Euron, and Varys, and a whole bunch of other people. Now obviously stupidity isn’t necessarily unrealistic, but it doesn’t make for particularly satisfying storytelling.
Dany isn’t actually crazy and really shouldn’t be stupid by this point.
They’re so keen to wrap all the plot points up in a big bow that they’ve lost sight of the characterisation that made the show compelling to start with. I don’t care about any of these characters any more because they’ve become mere plot-monkeys.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 13, 2019 21:35:05 GMT
my prediction. Jon will kill Danny and give the iron throne to Sansa.
I'm glad this is the final season. After the writing on this one I don't think I'd bother coming back for another.
|
|
4,028 posts
|
Post by kathryn on May 13, 2019 21:47:28 GMT
My prediction: Jon will kill Dany and give the throne to Tyrion.
Sansa doesn’t care about the South and so would make a bad Queen.
|
|
1,845 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by NeilVHughes on May 13, 2019 22:02:45 GMT
Well we are down to the last game
Jon v Dany
This series seems rushed and a cop out as they ended up in a cul de sac of their own making as they could not wait for the book cycle to be completed or as it seems to have taken so long even RR Martin is unable to come up with a coherent ending.
Both Sansa and especially Arya due to the artistic exit look as if they may have made their last stands unless Dany wants the North (Sansa) to bend the knee making Jon choose where his loyalty really resides.
No matter what, it has been fun.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 13, 2019 22:38:26 GMT
Well this wasn’t so much Smashie and Nicey as Smashy and Crunchy. I watched most of it from behind my hands (and at one point from behind my knees, because I needed my hands to put my fingers in my ears...) Bleugh.
|
|
230 posts
|
Post by hal9000 on May 14, 2019 15:19:41 GMT
I liked Tyrion's actions in the past episode. It's a weirdly positive step for the sake of his soul.
After he witnessed Dany's reaction to being a Targaryean alone and realising she won't listen to anyone, he knows he probably doesn't have long and he squeezed Varys arm indicating he's with him. Jaime did one last good thing for his brother by giving him a chance to be with his lover and to repay him for setting him free so long ago. Tyrion probably knows that the chance Jaime and Cersei will get into that dingy is slim to none, and that helping Jaime means helping the woman who hates him, but for Tyrion it's an act of love that he realises that he is lucky to have had, unlike Dany.
As for Jaime, he atoned to Bran, he fought for the living, he knighted Brienne and he tried to make a go of loving her back, but he has always been a surprisingly noble person who doesn't lie to himself and when he knew Cersei was going to die, he didn't want her to be alone. It's a fitting end for all those of "those yellow haired sh*ts", to quote Robert Baratheon.
|
|
2,203 posts
|
Post by theglenbucklaird on May 14, 2019 16:56:36 GMT
Well this wasn’t so much Smashie and Nicey as Smashy and Crunchy. I watched most of it from behind my hands (and at one point from behind my knees, because I needed my hands to put my fingers in my ears...) Bleugh. Eh?
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2019 17:36:53 GMT
Well this wasn’t so much Smashie and Nicey as Smashy and Crunchy. I watched most of it from behind my hands (and at one point from behind my knees, because I needed my hands to put my fingers in my ears...) Bleugh. Eh? So much sickening violence. It’s always been gritty, but this seemed excessive - especially the Clegane fight.
|
|
2,203 posts
|
Post by theglenbucklaird on May 14, 2019 17:41:54 GMT
So much sickening violence. It’s always been gritty, but this seemed excessive - especially the Clegane fight. Yep I agree, this episode was brutal. Clegane fight was one of the only things I liked about the episode. That needed to have excessive force. Why did they rush this series? Like they had the last 50p for the metre and needed to wrap up quick
|
|
2,203 posts
|
Post by theglenbucklaird on May 14, 2019 18:02:59 GMT
So much sickening violence. It’s always been gritty, but this seemed excessive - especially the Clegane fight. Yep I agree, this episode was brutal. Clegane fight was one of the only things I liked about the episode. That needed to have excessive force. Why did they rush this series? Like they had the last 50p for the metre and needed to wrap up quick Sorry two things I loved about the episode, the music remains outstanding.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2019 18:18:47 GMT
Yep I agree, this episode was brutal. Clegane fight was one of the only things I liked about the episode. That needed to have excessive force. Why did they rush this series? Like they had the last 50p for the metre and needed to wrap up quick Sorry two things I loved about the episode, the music remains outstanding. Yes it’s funny, I rarely notice the music on TV shows but I was very taken with the Night King theme a couple of weeks ago - now on my iPod. There was some nice stuff in this episode too.
|
|
|
Post by sparky5000 on May 14, 2019 22:22:21 GMT
The music was epic and moving and as a spectacle it was a fantastic (but brutal 😭 ) bit of television, but I was just so angry how they dealt with Daenerys in this episode it has just marred the whole episode for me. Her change into the mad queen was just too rushed and because of that just didn’t ring true at all. This should have been something that was explored properly over the past few seasons. Ugh
|
|
2,946 posts
|
Post by crowblack on May 14, 2019 22:31:43 GMT
how they dealt with Daenerys There are now several very well argued backlash-to-the-backlash pieces online defending the episode - I've just gone back and watched the clip of Dany's vision from series 2 and there it is, the throne room in ruins and full of not snow but ash.
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on May 14, 2019 22:44:24 GMT
Dany had no qualms about seeing her brother killed with molten gold She had no qualms in setting the Warlock on fire or locking the trader in his empty vault to die She had no qualms in setting the owner of the Unsullied alight She had no qualms in ordering the deaths of the Masters in Essos She had no issues with burning the Tarlys
We have seen Dany act badly many, many, many times
Was her behaviour extreme in this week's episode? For sure.
Was it completely out of character? Not in the slightest. She has used fire to get her way in the past. She took it too far - but she was following her instincts
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on May 15, 2019 0:10:09 GMT
Was it completely out of character? Yes, because it was unprovoked, and not in her interests in any way. This is a might is right world, none of the stuff she's done before was notably OTT in this context because she was acting in her interests as a would-be ruler. Go back and look at the stuff Ned or Rob Stark did as supposedly heroic characters. This was completely against Daenerys' interests. Cersei can hardly be popular after nuking the Vatican and she had a very tenuous claim to the throne anyway so Daenerys would broadly have been popular in replacing her. Instead...having won an easy victory and getting exactly what she set out to do, Daenerys...goes crazy and kills innocent people for no reason. Rather than directly targeting Cersei. It was telling that there wasn't a shot of Daenerys on the dragon in the actual moment of the rampage because the writers didn't really know why she was doing it so what is the director supposed to tell the actress? The cast know how terrible the writing is: digg.com/video/game-of-thrones-disappointing
|
|
|
Post by sparky5000 on May 15, 2019 1:04:04 GMT
how they dealt with Daenerys There are now several very well argued backlash-to-the-backlash pieces online defending the episode - I've just gone back and watched the clip of Dany's vision from series 2 and there it is, the throne room in ruins and full of not snow but ash. I don’t have any issue with Daenerys turning out to be the mad queen, if this was the intention. But the execution of it was terrible. The disintegration of her character should have been something that happened over multiple seasons, not in 3 episodes. Her sudden turn into some murderous villain who has no qualms about slaughtering innocent civilians wasn’t in any way believable.
|
|
|
Post by sparky5000 on May 15, 2019 1:06:31 GMT
Was it completely out of character? Yes, because it was unprovoked, and not in her interests in any way. This is a might is right world, none of the stuff she's done before was notably OTT in this context because she was acting in her interests as a would-be ruler. Go back and look at the stuff Ned or Rob Stark did as supposedly heroic characters. This was completely against Daenerys' interests. Cersei can hardly be popular after nuking the Vatican and she had a very tenuous claim to the throne anyway so Daenerys would broadly have been popular in replacing her. Instead...having won an easy victory and getting exactly what she set out to do, Daenerys...goes crazy and kills innocent people for no reason. Rather than directly targeting Cersei. It was telling that there wasn't a shot of Daenerys on the dragon in the actual moment of the rampage because the writers didn't really know why she was doing it so what is the director supposed to tell the actress? The cast know how terrible the writing is: digg.com/video/game-of-thrones-disappointingYes to this!
|
|
2,946 posts
|
Post by crowblack on May 15, 2019 7:43:50 GMT
Cersei can hardly be popular after nuking the Vatican and she had a very tenuous claim to the throne anyway so Daenerys would broadly have been popular in replacing her. But her claim - which has always been her overriding obsession - has been fatally undermined by the revelation, now leaked by all of those she trusted, including Snow himself, of Jon Snow's superior claim. She has been treated coldly since crossing the sea and now friends are dead, her lover and surviving advisors have betrayed her. It was hinted in last week's episode that she was prepared to massacre civilians but blame Cersei (reminding me of Western interventions in Middle East, or to GRR Martin's generation Vietnam. Dany loves the smell of napalm in the morning. ) and that was before she knew Snow's claim had been leaked. In her firebombing she nearly killed Jon Snow too - maybe she wanted to.
|
|
4,028 posts
|
Post by kathryn on May 15, 2019 8:24:44 GMT
And trashing her capital city after she has just won it - destroying a bunch of extremely useful resources that they need to feed her army through the winter - helps her deal with Jon’s claim how?
It actually helps him reach the throne a lot more than her, because we all see the where the show is going with it, right? We’re now meant to root for Jon over Dany. The characters in-show are going to turn on Dany. Except I can’t be bothered to really care because it’s so stupid.
The writers are claiming that she went mad, but people keep trying to come up with rational justifications for her madness. Thing is, there isn’t a rational explanation for madness - that’s why it’s madness.
If she’s not mad, then razing the city at that particular moment makes no sense at all. If she is mad, then she ceases to be interesting as a character because there is no real character-based motivation there - would she even be criminally responsible for her actions, in our terms?
This is the problem when you don’t lay the groundwork for a plot twist properly.
|
|
230 posts
|
Post by hal9000 on May 15, 2019 9:30:08 GMT
Dany was raised to believe in her superiority, in her right to rule -“I am your Queen!”, “You forget yourself!”, “Bend the knee!” - and the brown populations she dealt with in the past bent the knee after they saw what she could do with her weapons.
Now she has no legitimate right to rule her self-interest kicks in and her fallback behaviour of demanding turns to violence.
If this season is about anything it’s about how the characters choices battle their true natures. Dany wants to break chains, but also wants to rule. Tyrion wants to support a political system that may break the wheel, but loves his brother. Jaime wants to try an ordinary, decent life, but he loves Cersei. Jon wants to support his Queen, but he can’t support her ethics.
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on May 15, 2019 9:45:19 GMT
Dany was not born to rule. Her brother was ahead of her in the line of succession.
She could have stopped her brother's murder but didn't.
Her ruthless side has been there from season 1.
|
|
4,028 posts
|
Post by kathryn on May 15, 2019 11:35:06 GMT
No, she couldn't have stopped her brother's murder. She simply wasn't in that powerful a position at the time. Her brother was doomed to die because his arrogance/entitlement prevented him adapting to the local politics of the situation - even had she managed to persuade Drogo not to kill him then and there he'd have died ten times over since then. And then Drogo died because of his own arrogance and overconfidence.
Adapt or die; simply flying in and declaring yourself ruler is pointless if you don't successfully navigate the local politics; people are fickle; PR is really important; it doesn't matter how powerful your weapons are if they're not the right tools for the job - these have been the lessons of Dany's life.
Her failing to learn those lessons makes for an interesting tragedy. The writers just haven't done enough character work with Dany this season to achieve that. I am not even sure that they tried to - the goal seems to have been to make her an outright villain who we are happy to see die, like Joffrey, rather than a character whose downfall the audience regrets.
Oh, and Dany's belief in her right to rule isn't about her place in the line of succession, it's about the fact that she is the Mother of Dragons! That she resurrected the magical Royal emblem of her whole house, the reason that her ancestors became Kings, hundreds of years after it was believed to be extinct, like her semi-mythical ancestor did. Famously the only people who have managed to control dragons in the hundreds of years prior to their extinction were the royal family. The fact that Jon managed to fly on a dragon should have been absolutely mind-blowing to her, it should have been a major revelation - prompting wonder, terror and soul-searching. Not just for her, but for the other characters too.
The show treated it just like riding a horse. I am honestly not even sure why they bothered spending all that money on the CGI, they've treated it with so little importance.
|
|