Game of Thrones & House of the Dragon

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#426 Post by domino harvey » Mon May 20, 2019 12:17 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 12:09 am
Would you read additional books if they're ever published?

I ask as someone who hasn't read the books and won't unless I know they've all been released.
Depends. If they’re like the last two, probably not. I’d probably wait to hear what others think first, though this past season has been a good lesson in learning to ignore and/or not seek out most voices online!

Actually, honestly, since movielocke’s been pretty honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the source material and did so without galvanizing or damning the TV show unduly, I think I would take his recommendation on whether it was worth reading before I bothered

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Blutarsky
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Re: Game of Thrones

#427 Post by Blutarsky » Mon May 20, 2019 1:26 am

After reading the books and rewatching the series, part of me finds the ending to be a sly nod to how Martin basically has his fans on puppet strings. As for now I am sick in my bed getting massive texts from my friends who feel “betrayed” by this finale.
A choppy season yes but how it concludes such a monumental series it is just fine. At least it didn’t Seinfeld its ending. But it wasn’t a 30 Rock/Sopranos masterpiece finale.

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barryconvex
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Re: Game of Thrones

#428 Post by barryconvex » Mon May 20, 2019 4:18 am

Well, that was underwhelming. Aside from Bran's outcome and Jon ending up a broken man leading a pack of wastrels across the tundra on an endless trudge to nowhere, there weren't really any surprises tonight nor anything particularly satisfying regarding these characters i've invested so much in over the past however many years.The series really shot its load last week-not to mention used up what was left of the effects budget hence the Bran "seeing if he could find" Drogon line never going anywhere. To quickly sum up my feelings: i love this show as much as anything i've ever watched and i'll probably always rank it in a personal top 5 of favorite shows of all time. Tonight could've ended much more poorly than it did and i'd still defend it tooth and nail but...why, why, why couldn't i get an explanation about Dany's fire invulnerability? And the girl who could survive an inferno that would melt rocks without getting so much as an eyebrow singed dies from a poke in the ribs?

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tenia
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Re: Game of Thrones

#429 Post by tenia » Mon May 20, 2019 4:26 am

barryconvex wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 4:18 am
And the girl who could survive an inferno that would melt rocks without getting so much as an eyebrow singed dies from a poke in the ribs?
2 very different things, though, aren't they ?

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Roscoe
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Re: Game of Thrones

#430 Post by Roscoe » Mon May 20, 2019 9:57 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 12:09 am
Would you read additional books if they're ever published?
An interesting question, not that you were asking me. The books are different enough from the series to make me interested in how Martin was/is planning on wrapping it all up. I'd probably pick up the next book if/when it ever actually comes out. The destination of the two works (novels and series) might be the same, but it looks like the novels are taking some different paths to get there.

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Shrew
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Re: Game of Thrones

#431 Post by Shrew » Mon May 20, 2019 10:01 am

barryconvex wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 4:18 am
And the girl who could survive an inferno that would melt rocks without getting so much as an eyebrow singed dies from a poke in the ribs?
Fire pokemon are weak to rock and ground attacks.

Snark aside, I mostly enjoyed this, at least the epilogue bit. The initial part setting up the ostensible climax was rough though, and the show's racial politics continue to be awfully tone-deaf. Still, pulling as satisfying of an ending as it did out of the show's many narrative threads as mysteries is an accomplishment.

I do wonder how much a books/show divide inflects people's reactions to Bran. That character's been badly served by the show for years, but the books, while they've gone to weird places, at least make that arc seem reasonable.

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Murdoch
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Re: Game of Thrones

#432 Post by Murdoch » Mon May 20, 2019 10:07 am

As someone who appreciates Martin's writing but am in the same position as Domino of not wanting to return to the show given the last few seasons, I would definitely read through the books if they were wrapped up.

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#433 Post by movielocke » Mon May 20, 2019 2:54 pm

tenia wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 5:35 am
It was interesting and different at first, but in the end, it's just another way of writing about "how Benioff and Weiss are bad writers / showrunners and this 8th season is poorly written".
For instance, we can see the decision as not "her tyrannical genes turning on", but a strategic decision that actually makes sense.
That was excellent, thank you for the link! Not where the show was going, but plays into the broader idea the books will have for that moment that will retain more rationalizations, strategic thinking and motivational ambiguity in the decision.

domino harvey wrote:
Sun May 19, 2019 10:33 pm
This was okay. Obviously the best part by far was the first council meeting. I suspect no one sincerely thought the person who ended up on the throne would “win,” but I don’t really get the reasoning the show tried to have Tyrion offer... still, it was a surprise amidst all the more predictable elements.
SpoilerShow
Poor Jon Snow, right back where he started from though... truly don’t understand why he wasn’t made King no matter what he did, but I don’t think the show wants us to ask this very obvious question
I can speak to this, and a lot of it goes back to the infinite mobius strip think pieces post season five finale (when Jon Snow is murdered), that all argued from "the story doesn't make sense if Jon Snow dies!"
SpoilerShow
Fundamentally, the story does not make sense if Jon Snow becomes king. The story only makes sense if Jon's parentage doesn't matter, or is a liability. If you make Jon Snow king, you're just re-affirming (by circuitous path) all the fantasy mythology that Martin has been having fun with subverting and deconstructing.

Look to the Tad Williams series, Memory Sorrow and Thorn for what this is not. It's one of the late eighties early nineties fantasy series Martin has cited as making him interested in writing in the genre (as he adored Lord of the Rings but the genre was more or less dead for thirty years, filled with Conan esque pulp or theme-less LOTR knockoffs like Terry Brooks). The Williams series plays with being a bit more cynical than LOTR, but it is still reaffirming the basic mythos of a dark lord, and an Arthur story or chosen one.

So one of the core things all along Martin has been building to has been: "what if the chosen one isn't chosen?" This has been one of the core things I've been banging my head against for nearly two decades (as I've dipped in and out of the fandom), fundamentally, in the style of story Martin is telling: R+L=J doesn't matter. What is fascinating in looking at the reaction to the final season is how incredibly devoted our society and culture is to what I call "the magical semen theory of politics and leadership." Wherein if you come from magical semen but are also raised outside the system producing that semen then ipso facto you will be the bestest politician and leader EVER! It's both Nature and Nurture! This is the story we want, down in our bones! An entitled outsider, a status quo in new cloths.

Jon actually sort of hits on that directly in the finale when he tells Tyrion if Dany was fated to go nuts, then he would have to be to, but "Our House Words are not imprinted on our bones!" or some such line he has.

And I love the idea of Snow returning to the Night's watch. The show has more or less ignored/refused to deal with the subject of Snow's vows, but basically readers have been eagerly awaiting Snow's resurrection because they think Jon Snow is the sort of person who will be thrilled to follow a loophole out of a contract/oath and will then enthusiastically go off and become the much desired Secret Semen King of Destiny(!), leading men and fucking queens and riding dragons and all the deeply troubling wish fulfillment that entails.

I've sort of been maintaining since 2011 that a resurrected Jon is going to be dragged along that path, resisting every step, that he won't want to be out of his Night's watch vows or become King in the North or any of the other things he cared about before he was killed. Undead book Jon, I've long thought, is going to be more singularly focused on the undead threat, having lost much of the boy that tried to desert the Night'sWatch when Ned Stark was murdered. After we've had two-three novels with Jon protesting extensively every new honor put on him, do we really think he's going to protest his ass on the throne. Exiled, dismissed, and manipulated back to the Night's Watch is his happy ending, his state after killing Dany is the state that Ned Stark was in, but he actually does get to go to the wall, he's not summarily executed, it's a nice little parallel mostly unnoticed because of just how fast all these plot beats progress. Fundamentally, Jon is not becoming the king of oathbreaking and loopholes and there is no political reality within the mileau of the story that would make the various factions of that continent accept him as king.

Jon, by the way, will be even more invalid as a king choice in the book, because much of the point of the (f)Aegon book storyline is to salt the earth with a fake Aegon Targaryon. After we have the next 1500 page book in which all of the south-of-the-neck storyline is dealing with a fake Aegon Targaryon and the fallout of that fakery, do you think anyone--whether small folk or nobility--is going to accept that Jon Snow is actually the REAL Aegon Targaryon? Of course they won't, Martin is making it more impossible for Jon, by making everyone hostile to the very idea of his story, so it will be more clear in the book that other than the Northern factions, he has no political coalition or capital to manipulate with his name. And with Sansa completely outmaneuvering him on that front, all he will really have is the wildlings, who aren't even at King's Landing.

In the books, the Azor Ahai scene has the prince who was promised killing his spouse/love in order to prove he is a king. Jon / Dany have long thought to be likely fufillments of that prophecy, but as Marwyn says, "prophesy will bite your cock off" and I adore the Martin twist that in fulfilling (though not consciously) the final piece of the prophecy (killing his love) Jon definitively puts the crown out of reach, rather than qualifying for it via a sociopathic murder. The mythology of the past and the faith in prophecy is deconstructed, there is no magical belief lottery that is going to come up with Jon winning if you just hit the right combination of things.

By the way, I read Snow's final scene not as his deserting to live with the wildlings, the wildlings are going home, in a peace Jon has created (but that probably can't be maintained without him at the border). The Route out of Castle Black Jon is on is the route to the Wierwood tree where men say their Night's Watch vows. I see that scene as him going to reaffirm his vows, not to escape them. Most everyone on the internet seems to think he's off to frolic.

In any event, my dearest wish for the finale was that Jon's parentage matters fuck all, that the iron throne gets melted to slag and that Arya sails off into the west ala Frodo. So I got exactly my wish on those fronts, semi-sad character appropriate endings for those two characters is what I'd been hoping for!

If there was one area I think they really dropped the ball post Hodor, it's Bran.

And that, fundamentally, is that Martin does not fucking know what to do with Bran, he doesn't know any of the details of how it all works for Bran, any of the details of Bran's connection to the night king and others, All Martin knows is that Bran becomes a bit like Merlin and becomes the king in the end.

Just before Season five started, I re-read the books, And I had the fleeting thought as I started reading chapter one (just after the prologue) how ODD it was that we start the book with Bran, that Martin has said the Bran chapter (not the prologue) sprang into his head almost fully formed, that Martin has said Bran is by far the hardest character for him to write (which is why there are so few chapters), but here we are, starting with Bran. Even though Martin rewrites everything from every perspective, he didn't. So it all hit me and I thought, "wouldn't that be a bitch if the first chapter of the series is Bran and the very very very last chapter of the series is Bran. Hah. that'd make sense" I did not really think that Bran would become king, but I was thinking Bran would somehow be elevated, as I had no feeling that he was due a bittersweet ending like Arya and Jon have always seemed fated for.

I think Bran is really a giant sucking black-hole problem in the last two seasons of the show. They have fucking no idea what he is, what he's supposed to do, what he is or isn't manipulating, what his powers are, or how he really winds up king in the end. He just has to wind up there, so they got him there. All of his fatalism and pre-destination justifications I find very creepy and foreboding, I think they leaned into that a little bit, but they also gave us very little to work with in terms of suspecting whether Bran is using the pre-destination arguments to his advantage and when it is convenient, or is passively passing on information with no care for its fatalistic implications.

And I think Martin has the same problem, but I would expect that what happens with Bran is profoundly more ominous in the books than what we get in the show--maybe the Night King was trying to save the world from King Bran? ;)

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#434 Post by movielocke » Mon May 20, 2019 3:06 pm

barryconvex wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 4:18 am
Well, that was underwhelming. Aside from Bran's outcome and Jon ending up a broken man leading a pack of wastrels across the tundra on an endless trudge to nowhere, there weren't really any surprises tonight nor anything particularly satisfying regarding these characters i've invested so much in over the past however many years.The series really shot its load last week-not to mention used up what was left of the effects budget hence the Bran "seeing if he could find" Drogon line never going anywhere. To quickly sum up my feelings: i love this show as much as anything i've ever watched and i'll probably always rank it in a personal top 5 of favorite shows of all time. Tonight could've ended much more poorly than it did and i'd still defend it tooth and nail but...why, why, why couldn't i get an explanation about Dany's fire invulnerability? And the girl who could survive an inferno that would melt rocks without getting so much as an eyebrow singed dies from a poke in the ribs?
Martin's statement on Dany's fire invulnerability from 1996 onward was that it was a one time thing that had to do with the magics going on in that precise moment of hatching the dragons, and was not a truism to her all the time. Further Martin implied he really didn't understand how it worked, nor was he remotely interested in trying to craft a metaphysical explanatory framework for it.

(and a few years later, when the world learned about midicholorians we can see this sort of explanatory metaphysical framework for the supernatural is a bad idea!)

The show has found it to be an extremely convenient shortcut to have her be invulnerable to fire across the board. So the two are quite different in this regard.

But it's worth remembering that the show has absolutely no explantory metaphysical framework to explain fire invulnerability either. You seem to be implying that by being immune to fire, she should also be like Superman: invulnerable across the board, but we have nothing to actually suggest such an inference.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#435 Post by movielocke » Mon May 20, 2019 3:11 pm

How about the first shot of Dany in this episode when the dragon wings unfurl behind her. I loved that. Or Sansa's Coronation dress being red embroidered weirwood leaves on white, DAMN, one of the more amazing costumes in the entire series: too bad it was almost unseeable. :-/

Btw, it's unspoken, but with Brienne the Lord Commander of the King's Guard, instead of Lord Commander of Sansa's Queens Guard it means that Sansa is keeping the goings on of King's Landing tightly on her leash, she wouldn't put Brienne there otherwise.

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#436 Post by domino harvey » Mon May 20, 2019 3:14 pm

I hadn’t thought about that Brienne implication— I guess Sansa releases her of her protection duty, but is that something she can even do?

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Re: Game of Thrones

#437 Post by Roscoe » Mon May 20, 2019 3:22 pm

She's Queen of the North -- she can do what she wants.

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#438 Post by domino harvey » Mon May 20, 2019 3:24 pm

I was thinking more that no command from anyone could invalidate Brienne’s oath to Catelyn, but you’re probably right that there’s some sort of exception for when the recipient is now the queen!

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#439 Post by movielocke » Mon May 20, 2019 3:40 pm

Iirc Brienne swore an oath to Sansa when she entered her service.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#440 Post by YnEoS » Mon May 20, 2019 4:04 pm

As far as revisiting the show, I'm pretty sure I'll give it a re-watch at some point, though certainly not until some time has passed. I'm curious to see how it plays out all together since its such a long story arc and over the years the early events of the show lost some of their immediacy. I'm also curious to see Daenerys's storyline play out again knowing where its going, though I've already seen plenty of videos analyzing key moments, so I don't think my opinion will change much, but it'd be interesting to see it again all together in context. I remember originally I thought they were setting her up as the villain, then when Varys and Tyrion got behind her it felt like they might go in a different direction, and they were definitely hinting at the possibilities of her doing something really bad in the last 2 seasons, but not quite in the same way they ended up going with it.

I'll probably read through all the books when the 6th book gets announced, though I don't particularly looking forward to the potential 6+ year wait for the 7th book, but I have a feeling there will be enough buzz around the 6th book when it finally does get released that I'll end up caving and reading just to participate in the conversation.

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Roscoe
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Re: Game of Thrones

#441 Post by Roscoe » Tue May 21, 2019 8:46 am

I can vouch for certain fairly episodes having signs of things to come --
SpoilerShow
Just before the Battle Of Blackwater, when Joffrey is showing off for Sansa, making her kiss his sword etc., she asks him all sweetly and innocently if he'll be leading the troops into battle. When he is rather taken aback, she equally innocently asks where else a king could be during a battle? Thus demonstrating that she had a brain in that head of hers long before it became really evident.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#442 Post by aox » Tue May 21, 2019 8:55 am

Roscoe wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 8:46 am
I can vouch for certain fairly episodes having signs of things to come --
SpoilerShow
Just before the Battle Of Blackwater, when Joffrey is showing off for Sansa, making her kiss his sword etc., she asks him all sweetly and innocently if he'll be leading the troops into battle. When he is rather taken aback, she equally innocently asks where else a king could be during a battle? Thus demonstrating that she had a brain in that head of hers long before it became really evident.
Sansa was never dumb. She was naive and bought into the fairy-tale princess narrative laid upon her, with that being her primary objective. Then, she experienced brutal reality.

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Roscoe
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Re: Game of Thrones

#443 Post by Roscoe » Tue May 21, 2019 1:50 pm

aox wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 8:55 am
Sansa was never dumb. She was naive and bought into the fairy-tale princess narrative laid upon her, with that being her primary objective. Then, she experienced brutal reality.
Agreed -- and she rose to the occasion earlier than it might usually be thought of as happening.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#444 Post by Persona » Tue May 21, 2019 6:21 pm

Shortly after GoT producer/writer/lore-nerd Bryan Cogman confirmed his prequel series for HBO was dead, turned out he is going to help run the new LotR show for Amazon.

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#445 Post by movielocke » Thu May 23, 2019 7:41 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 12:17 am
mfunk9786 wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 12:09 am
Would you read additional books if they're ever published?

I ask as someone who hasn't read the books and won't unless I know they've all been released.
Depends. If they’re like the last two, probably not. I’d probably wait to hear what others think first, though this past season has been a good lesson in learning to ignore and/or not seek out most voices online!

Actually, honestly, since movielocke’s been pretty honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the source material and did so without galvanizing or damning the TV show unduly, I think I would take his recommendation on whether it was worth reading before I bothered
Thanks! I don't agree with all of her conclusions, as I adore the books (and the show), but I think Nussbaum has one of the most measured takes on the Game of Thrones ending I've seen

https://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/201 ... heory.html

tldr, it's not a story that remains especially functional if it ends, that's not a bad thing, it's built into the molecular structure of the show.

It reminds me of a thought I've had kicking around since the show ended, which amounts to this:

The dedication page to Game of Thrones, take out your book, and read it. It says, roughly: "to so and so, who made me put the dragons in."

And that's such a kicker, because it sort of illustrates what Nussbaum is saying, the story began with no dragons. The story began with no white walkers. These elements were grafted on top to add sizzle and spice, but actually neither is a core part of the series, and the series was at its best when they were at the utter periphery of the story.

so all the thinkpieces about the existential threat of climate change made manifest, yeah, it's not, because the white walkers are just an idea added for a cool factor, it's not a ragnarok-cum-Sauron sophisticated mythos.

The thinkpieces about the meditations of the danger of nukes and weapons of mass destruction, it's just a logical inference for the story to grow in that direction after adding some cool dragons.

It's a glorious grown up soap opera with frequently fun dialogue, really wonderful characters and is occasionally self-aware of the hellish nature of life in the middle ages, but not too much, because the bad teeth, matted hair and the shit and mud on everyone would ruin the fun.

Also, endings of series are really hard. Rowling did it very well, but she's the outlier (and a much better writer than Martin), even if her draftsmanship (I said loud-LY and Loving-LY) is occasional-LY is less sophisticated.

There's another epic fantasy that ended recently, Scott Bakker's _The Second Apocalypse_ and when that's the series title and the titular second apocalypse hasn't happened yet, what do you think happens at the end? Still, some were surprised, but it wasn't the surprise of the bad guys winning that frustrated readers, what frustrated readers was basically all the same problems of the last two seasons of game of thrones. a mad often baffling dash of all characters into the end game location, literally teleporting in a sort of figurative respect, combined with feet dragging on some really pointless and repetitive plotting. A sudden break bad many thought was coming, but still came out of nowhere and then was quickly undercut and made a lot less meaningful to set up the final few pages and then some incredibly confusing and bad writing at the very end, Still a lot of people liked it, about as many as disliked it.

But then the author followed this up by doing some reddit type stuff where he began to contradict the actual words on the page, meaning he's either gaslighting his readers (because he does in fact enjoy trolling his readers and has a history of doing so), or thought he wrote the greatest thing and has no clue as to its weaknesses, contradictions and even content and where what he thought he communicated might not align with what he actually put on the page.

So I mean, I'm fairly non-plussed by all the game of thrones backlash, at least David and Dan can comport themselves with grace and know what they've made. :D

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#446 Post by domino harvey » Thu May 23, 2019 9:16 pm

I Googled the Second Apocalypse and the entire Wikipedia entry for the author alone is awful from the top down

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Re: Game of Thrones

#447 Post by movielocke » Thu May 23, 2019 9:44 pm

I mean the series is fine if you like Dune but thought it had too many powerful female characters. ;)

Also if you don't mind an unconventional character name system, it's internally consistent, but game of thrones names (brandon, jon, ned, jamie, robert, catelyn etc) it is definitely not.

For example, Drusus Achamian, Anasurimbor Kellhus and Cnaiur urs Skiotha are the three main characters.

I'm laughing a bit just writing them out, but I got used to them reading the series, and those are the accessible version of the names, as I am leaving out the diacritical marks on those names (every name)!

whenever I stop and think, the names always makes me recall the "Grignr" apocrypha.

or, you may like it if you think philosophical repetition is cool.

of if you think the two female main characters should have sex with all the Gary Stu male main characters.

or if you like thinly veiled Jesus stuff.

And Predator/Alien/Giger body horror stuff

but don't get discouraged when the first book climaxes at a council of Elrond meeting gone pearshaped (exciting! a meeting!)

Nor be discouraged that the first book that is structurally nutty (like Lord of the rings volumes, near simultaneous but geographically separated storylines are not interwoven, it's 250 pages each setting, but of three story, and aforementioned council of elrond "climax").

hmm. seems it's a hard sell, which is why I have only once actually once recommended it! with the somewhat unfair and offhand description, "it's a fantasy series with whores instead of princesses"

Why have I read it?

well you know it's been 19 years and George R R Martin has only published two books. this series was publishing new books in that interval. Strangely, I was somewhat dissuaded from starting any other fantasy series!

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Re: Game of Thrones

#448 Post by barryconvex » Sat May 25, 2019 7:15 am

movielocke wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 3:06 pm
barryconvex wrote:
Mon May 20, 2019 4:18 am
Well, that was underwhelming. Aside from Bran's outcome and Jon ending up a broken man leading a pack of wastrels across the tundra on an endless trudge to nowhere, there weren't really any surprises tonight nor anything particularly satisfying regarding these characters i've invested so much in over the past however many years.The series really shot its load last week-not to mention used up what was left of the effects budget hence the Bran "seeing if he could find" Drogon line never going anywhere. To quickly sum up my feelings: i love this show as much as anything i've ever watched and i'll probably always rank it in a personal top 5 of favorite shows of all time. Tonight could've ended much more poorly than it did and i'd still defend it tooth and nail but...why, why, why couldn't i get an explanation about Dany's fire invulnerability? And the girl who could survive an inferno that would melt rocks without getting so much as an eyebrow singed dies from a poke in the ribs?
Martin's statement on Dany's fire invulnerability from 1996 onward was that it was a one time thing that had to do with the magics going on in that precise moment of hatching the dragons, and was not a truism to her all the time. Further Martin implied he really didn't understand how it worked, nor was he remotely interested in trying to craft a metaphysical explanatory framework for it.

(and a few years later, when the world learned about midicholorians we can see this sort of explanatory metaphysical framework for the supernatural is a bad idea!)

The show has found it to be an extremely convenient shortcut to have her be invulnerable to fire across the board. So the two are quite different in this regard.

But it's worth remembering that the show has absolutely no explantory metaphysical framework to explain fire invulnerability either. You seem to be implying that by being immune to fire, she should also be like Superman: invulnerable across the board, but we have nothing to actually suggest such an inference.
Not necessarily Superman but she always struck me as a character more from the realms of the supernatural than any other person on the show other than Bran and Melisandre. Of course there would be limits as to what she could survive-and this felt like something that she definitely should have despite having nothing to do with being burned. Martin's take on Dany seems to leave out the bonfire of the khals-is that not in the books? It was that second instance of surviving an inferno that led me to think Dany had something to do with the lord of light and that she might even be the lord of light.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#449 Post by moreorless » Sat May 25, 2019 12:53 pm

I tend to think the issue the show has suffered from since the 5th season has been that characters arcs have advanced more quickly than the plot has. I mean I think the reason you could get away with a season of say Arya and the Hound slowly traveling across Westeros was that both characters were progressing during it but as time went on we saw less of that. The weakest parts of the 5th and 6th seasons were I'd say plots like Jamie in Dorne and Tyrion in Mereen were the characters showed little progression and we were left with mere plotting and some questionable snark. I suspect the real shift in the last couple of seasons was the show shifting from trying to do justice to all of the plotting towards looking to tell plots it felt could be sustained by the characters involved.

I do think the finale justifies the way the Undead plot was dealt with personally, basically treating it as a good vs evil conflict that is then undermined. Ideally perhaps the two might have been combined more but that would have been rather complex and perhaps over cluttered plotting and I felt both being separate worked very well on their own terms.

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Re: Game of Thrones

#450 Post by jbeall » Sat May 25, 2019 9:17 pm

As someone who's only read the first GRRM book:
SpoilerShow
1) I have some *serious* issues with the first 45-50 minutes of the episode. There was a shit-ton of shorthand, along with plot holes galore. Dany deserved better from the writers.
2) That said, I really liked the last 5-10 minutes.
3) Am I wrong in thinking that Tyrion is the *real* winner of the GoT? I mean, for starters, he's the one who advocates for parliamentary democracy, and he winds up as the first "Prime Minister." Moreover, there are some important visual cues here. After the Iron Throne, which Ned Stark complained was uncomfortable back in seasons 1, is melted by Drogon, Tyrion is seen sitting in a *BRANd new chair* that has the symbol of the Hand of the King, albeit reversed: where the HotK pin has the fingers pointing downward, Tyrion's *uncomfortable* chair has the HotK logo with fingers pointing up--which symbolizes power; a crown; and oh yeah, THE IRON THRONE--and in a yellow/reddish color that hearkens back to, y'know, the last term in a song of ice and fire. Also, the last time we see him, he's leading the small council and telling a story about his exploits in a brothel. It's clear Bran isn't really running Westeros; he himself says he's indifferent to all that. Tyrion holds the new "seat of power" in a parliamentary democracy.
3) There's political strife on the horizon. As Sansa announces that the North will remain free, the camera cuts to a shot of the new King of Dorne and Yara Greyjoy, both of whom are most likely to want independence next.
4) The Starks are winners, too. Sansa is the new Queen of the North, and Arya gets to go explore. The last time we see a raised banner, it's the Stark direwolf on the ship's mast. I understand the reasoning behind the "she's the new Columbus" reading, but she's not doing so in terms of trying to find a new trading route for Bran or Sansa. Also, Columbus sailed with the explicit objective of searching for a new route to Cathay; he wouldn't have embarked without that explicit objective in mind. Arya isn't doing this. If one argues that her voyage will inevitably lead to colonization, well, despite the considerable trauma she's endured, she's also privileged in her own way, too. She has the luxury of sailing a ship with the Stark banner without worrying about the effect it may have on any lands that lie... well, west of Westeros. (And people who've been traumatized and oppressed can do bad things; 53% of white women voted for Trump, fwiw.)
5) The scene of the Stark siblings + cousin together for the last time was touching.
6) Jon is the new Mance Rayder. Moreover, it's an ironic commentary on Tyrion's pronouncement that he can't father children, since he's leading a group of wildlings, the majority of whom appear to be children, north of The Wall. He "wins" in his own way, especially since he doesn't want kingship. Jon and Tormund become the "fathers" of the next generation of wildlings.

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