game of thrones (hbo)

i mean, i'm fine with dumb mindless entertainment. i'm a fan of the show burn notice for fuck's sake. but it only starts to annoy me when people start crowning dumb mindless entertainment with "best show on tv!" acclaim and start throwing emmys at it. then i'm like, wait a minute, this isn't something that belongs anywhere near the conversation with stuff like the sopranos, the wire, mad men, etc. and when you dare to point that out people get like personally offended and defensive. which is weird

it also doesn't help that twin peaks, which has been absolutely killing it, airs right before this every sunday

This show just has a real tendency to be utterly fucking stupid sometimes and it gets really hard to ignore. That doesn't make me hate the show, I am generally entertained at your typical OMG SHIT GOING DOWN moments. I am excited to tune in on Sundays and see all the reactions. Frankly I'm glad there was large amount of people complaining about the time jumps/distances to be traveled in the last ep. Everyone's favorite thing to say is but there's draaaagons and whiiiiite walkers in this show who caaaares how fast Gendry could run, how fast the raven and Daenarys could fly, how quickly Jon should've froze to absolute fucking death underwater, where the Night's King got the chains...

Some of those are the types of errors and oversights that can actually pull a person out of the atmosphere and story and it did this time, several times in the past. Enough that so many people noticed the staff on the show had to actually respond and acknowledge the liberties being taken here with 'fantasy.'

Like I'm hardly a Fandomentals level Book Snob but they are hardly wrong with their assessments. I mean...severe lols

We also learn that Jon’s real name is Aegon Targaryen, which I read in the spoilers, but didn’t fully believe was true until now because oh my god that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If I was Elia Martell I would have Gone Girl’d Rhaegar by now, because what a fucking asshole. You already have a son named Aegon, but you’re going to name your second child with another wife Aegon as well? And delegitimize your other kids while you’re at it? Great. What a good guy.

yeah that makes no sense and i can't for the life of me figure out why they'd do that? there's no way they didn't know it was already his other kids' name, right? the ONLY explanation i can think of is if they've never mentioned the name in the show before and did this as another "fuck you" to book readers, since a major plot in the books that the show never bothered with is aegon potentially still being alive (or perhaps an imposer pretending to be him). so the absolute best case is that they named him that as a mean petty joke?

i mean, i guess it's possible that came from martin? but much like the annulment story, if that IS from the books there's no way there isn't a huge backstory behind it

Originally Posted by box elder

they can't have their cake and eat it too. if arya's so damaged as to be threatening to murder her sister for dumb reasons, then their "make up" scene is pretty worthless, isn't it. also, are you suggesting we weren't supposed to give the "fuck yeah revenge murder!" fist pump as she killed littlefinger? like, she can't be "awesome badass assassin" AND "utterly broken mess" at the same time -- and you certainly can't just pivot back and forth as the plot requires without reason or consequence. that's called shitty writing

yeah i agree with everything you're say ITT, just probably not as bothered by it as you. i should clarify that the second paragraph in my post is kinda negated by the first because either she's acting psychotic or it's part of a plan. the second paragraph was really more in response to criticism of the previous episode that i thought was mildly unfair but i wasn't caught up til last night.

so the game of thrones writing joke by the rick and morty crew... I got to admit I had a good laugh when I saw it.

Originally Posted by black mozart

isn't arya's psychotic behavior kinda absolved because she was most likely just doing it to make littlefinger think she was feuding with sansa? she was blind for a while and is probably able to sense when littlefinger is spying on her and when he isn't so she was just trying to throw him off so he could eventually be executed in front of everybody like her father

btw, turns out this was not at all the intent and they really were literally about to murder each other until the finale

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-finale-cut-scene-1202541941/

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

yeah I read that last week. so now it makes it even more fucking stupid. the bran scene or reference would have really been helpful to the viewer. that is some lazy ass shit right there.

jon/arya scene was nice and it's good they finally took a second to remember that these are supposed to be actual characters rather than chess pieces, but otherwise this show just feels like a checklist at this point. jon rides a dragon-check, jon finds out his real parents-check, etc. you could basically just read the wikipedia synopses and get just as much out of it as watching the show. and the bran character is basically a cheat code for the writers now -- he knows everything in the universe and can reveal anything at any time to bend any situation any way he wants and can potentially even alter past events too! which means they have the same problem they did last year where shit plays out nonsensically considering he could have stepped in immediately and avoided his sisters nearly killing each other for no reason

it was just great to see the characters again. I am with you, they had a formula for this episode and they seemed to want to hit all those points directly. I sometimes have to remind myself that the other characters do not know half of what has gone on with others.

all in all it was a pretty boring episode, but it served its purpose. had a few good throw away lines. I enjoyed seeing arya/jon, arya/hound. I did think the ending as far as jon now knowing his true lineage was delivered by the right person in sam. no one else would have made any impact telling him.

we are not using spoiler tags, correct? at this point if people have not caught up on this show...

if it has aired then it's fair game. obviously spoiler tag anything that's an actual spoiler if that ever comes up

Nice to see the show back. Not nice to see Branbot still being Branbot and Sansa getting her sassy on vs. Dany and vice versa because women can't just goddamn get along in this show and cattiness must always happen. Jon and Arya was my favorite part of the ep.

And yes Sansa dragons eat whatever the fuck they want bc Drogon sure looked like he wanted to eat Jon while he was sucking face with mama.

also, they've always made a big deal about only targarians being able to ride dragons but then not only does dani just sort of offhandedly suggest that jon try it (who of course is a targ, but she doesn't know that), but also doesn't seem at all surprised that he just immediately succeeds at it when even she had to struggle with it?

All I know is I saw the report about one of Kit's balls getting "trapped" during that and now it's all I can think of

ouch, I can never not think about that whenever I see that scene again.

also Sansa > Dany.

They both gonna be on the same level in the ground if they don't get over their bullshit and listen to Jon anyway

that's another annoying thing about this show. they just can't refuse the "bitches be catty" angle even if it makes no sense

Yo the reactions to Arya tonight are killing me lmaoo

show still feels like a checklist at this point. and a fan-ficy one at that. i haven't really thought about the implications of the arya sex scene much, but aside from all that it's just...dumb. it's like the show is just trying so desperately to just be fan wish fulfillment now. it also just becomes more and more obvious that other than whatever broad strokes martin gave them years ago, these dudes just have no idea what to do with this story post-books. it's a shortened final season and yet half of it still feels like padding for time

i actually enjoyed this one. maybe because i gave up on this show being satisfying in a "coherent narrative" type of way so i'm here for the Big Dumbness of it all. that being said, a lot of this was staged incredibly poorly and it was hard to tell who was who or what exactly was going on. Arya killing the night king was another moment that was a bit too fan-servicy for my taste, but i didn't hate it. i wish they'd have allowed her to have some dialogue with Bran there though, instead of them just staring at each other. i swear Bran seems to have way more affection for like theon and sam than he does for his own siblings (and has anyone even mentioned rickon since he died??). one thing i definitely did not like was the nonsensical charge at the beginning that served no purpose other than to officially complete Dani's dothraki genocide

Arya and Lyanna

Thanks for nothing, Bran!

way late as usual, but I was moving. for me the eyes got a little misty for Lyanna but even more of a gut punch was Jorah and Theon. I always dug both of them a lot, Theon may have had the most interesting arc of any character.

as for last night, I think they are throwing out the 'mad queen' stuff so strongly as to through people off, right? like it can not be so simple as she becomes her father or so I hope. I have a strong feeling that Jon will not survive. I have nothing to base this on, other than when he was saying his goodbyes they had a tone of finality. I may just be reading too much into it.

I as always love every scene with the Hound. I just want a bigger bloodbath next week and then some truly awesome backstab/twist that I could never see coming in the finale.

Bring back the white walkers

I refuse to believe Dany and her dragons could not see an entire fucking fleet before being attacked. Mountains, no mountains, the ships had multiple line of sight...to dragons so high in the fucking sky they can SEE things far in the distance...such is their advantage as big ass flying things.

Anyway how 'bout that Starbucks cup?

True story, Dany and her 'children' suffer from the same retina condition. It impacts seeing big fucking arrows and the.devices used to launch them.

Yeah you just have to let those lapses go and just enjoy what will hopefully be lots of carnage.

As for the cup, people went wild over that shit

i'd like to think the mad queen stuff is a misdirection, but i don't have that much faith in this show. i actually went to bed after the rhaegal death tbh. i intended to watch the rest the next day but then didn't bother and just read about it. after being able to enjoy the long short night for what it was, this was a huge fat reminder of why this show sucks ass

that is a bit harsh man. the show is flawed in many ways, but no one is watching for anything deep, right? I mean it is a soap opera with some great effects and dragons n' shit. it was never a force in comparison to other great dramatic series. it does tell a fun story and has several cool characters. I know sometimes the shitty stuff becomes more unbearable but its still almost always a fun watch.

It's just not very fun when really stupid, frustrating things are happening on screen, tho. The writing makes me scratch my head a lot of the time, and I'm not even a book snob. I enjoy a few staged moments for sure, and mostly just enjoy character moments, but the battle last ep was probably the most I've enjoyed an ep in a long time and that also requires me to ignore quite a few things including Arya just flying out of nowhere. I already ignore a lot of other silly things in the show as it is for the sake of it.

It's also hard to enjoy a lot of the battles when the planning is so, so, so stupid and I'm angry at the plan most of the time...yes charge into the dark night with no visual sight of your enemy laying in wait so you can just be ambushed. Yes, stand out in the open and yell very loudly to Fus Roh Dah the undead dragon*. Very good tactics from all these lords.

I couldn't even be impressed visually by what happened even though I could actually see everything this time. It was just a lot of frustration. The only thing that really makes it fun is watching my parents react at this point, because they literally don't care about things like writing and making sense or how fucking absolutely aggravating it is to try to prop Sansa up as so much stronger now bc she got raped and abused. Rape and abuse is such a lazy way to make women stronger in media. Sansa is smarter than people take her for and that's really why she's stronger now but meh meh meh at the way it is framed.

Oh and thanks for fridging Missandei, too, show for the sake of motivating the mad queen.

*I have seen people say Jon was yelling "goooo, goooooo" to Arya offscreen but eh it was about as clear as the view of the battle

agreed on the frustrations and the flaring problems, but they have been there from the very beginning. I agree with almost all Sean said, but at this point expecting those things to change or even improve is too much to ask for. especially in reference to the writing. yup that was dead a long time ago.

thats the first I have heard about Jon yelling off screen. was he even close enough at that point to see what was happening?