Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended

cafecillos

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Might give this another watch soon.

After a slowish start I remember being blown away in those first few seasons..

Was hard at first keeping track of who was bumming who and why,
throw in a few whores, boobs a lot of dialogue, thousands of characters and boobs and medieval violence...I eventually loved it

minus the last season which was ok, up there with The Sopranos as one of my favourite shows of all time.
What was okay about it?
 

cafecillos

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Ok im not a massive game of thrones nerd, i think it felt rushed but i still really enjoyed it.
Neither am I. Just going by the show, the shift in tone and the general decline was so blatant (admittedly not only in Season 8) and the writing got so horrendous that I just can't get over the fact some people think nothing much was wrong with the show's final seasons. I know enjoyment is subjective, and back when they originally aired I was looking forward to the new episode as much as the next guy, but the series was so incredibly bad by the end that I struggle to process even mildly positive opinions about it now that we all have had time to take some distance :lol:
 

Massive Spanner

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I don't think you have to be a Game of Thrones "nerd" or addict to see that the last few seasons were clearly an enormous drop off in quality, all around. I think the only thing you need are eyes and ears. Actually maybe even just ears.
 

Mr Pigeon

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Neither am I. Just going by the show, the shift in tone and the general decline was so blatant (admittedly not only in Season 8) and the writing got so horrendous that I just can't get over the fact some people think nothing much was wrong with the show's final seasons. I know enjoyment is subjective, and back when they originally aired I was looking forward to the new episode as much as the next guy, but the series was so incredibly bad by the end that I struggle to process even mildly positive opinions about it now that we all have had time to take some distance :lol:
I still maintain that although the last two episodes of Season 6 were fun, bombastic, spectacles they ruined the show. Especially the final scene where you see Dany and her massive army sailing over. Her numbers are far too great compared to anyone else's, and she has Dorne and the Reach on her side.

"Ooooh, Cersei is going to be fecked!" Yeah, more than likely. She should also have the entirety of King's Landing wanting her head on a spike after destroying the Sept. But, feck reality, just have every single one of her enemies make incredibly dumb decisions so she has a chance, and brush any problems under the carpet.

The writing was on the wall in Season 5 with Ramsay's ten good men just somehow wrecking Stannis and him saying "Nah, suddenly I'm going to stop being practical. Let's just march on and all die in a big field together".

Ideally Dany would have marched on King's Landing to find it utterly fecked up, half of the peasants dead from riots and the remaining ones demanding independence after Cersei has run off to Casterly Rock. Dany thinks she'll get a hero's welcome and instead she's met with rejection.

feck it; you could have Drogon eat the Night King and have him flying above Westeros, shitting out little white walker turds that chase after folk, and it would have been better
 

Sylar

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I still maintain that although the last two episodes of Season 6 were fun, bombastic, spectacles they ruined the show. Especially the final scene where you see Dany and her massive army sailing over. Her numbers are far too great compared to anyone else's, and she has Dorne and the Reach on her side.

"Ooooh, Cersei is going to be fecked!" Yeah, more than likely. She should also have the entirety of King's Landing wanting her head on a spike after destroying the Sept. But, feck reality, just have every single one of her enemies make incredibly dumb decisions so she has a chance, and brush any problems under the carpet.

The writing was on the wall in Season 5 with Ramsay's ten good men just somehow wrecking Stannis and him saying "Nah, suddenly I'm going to stop being practical. Let's just march on and all die in a big field together".

Ideally Dany would have marched on King's Landing to find it utterly fecked up, half of the peasants dead from riots and the remaining ones demanding independence after Cersei has run off to Casterly Rock. Dany thinks she'll get a hero's welcome and instead she's met with rejection.

feck it; you could have Drogon eat the Night King and have him flying above Westeros, shitting out little white walker turds that chase after folk, and it would have been better
Added to that, Arya getting stabbed numerous times, falling into water, then being chased by the female terminator was.... out there.

The ending of s6 was fantastic imo. And it should have played into Cersei inviting people 'in' to use them as a shield against Danys army. Meaning Danys army would do what they suggested in s8, cut out food supplies etc (but in doing that the people inside see Dany as this invader being bad thus not accepting her as the hero).

The three episodes, The bells, Long Night, Beyond the Wall, were all spectacles. If you watch it as a standalone episode, with no context, they arent bad and are actually fun. But in terms of the story, the characters and logical decisions, they can all be easily torn apart (and hell, they all have been). Thus reality is, none of them make sense at all except for, we got big budget, lets use it.

Last of the Starks however is the worst episode for me, because its all just stupid, throughout.

Ok im not a massive game of thrones nerd, i think it felt rushed but i still really enjoyed it.
Ep1 and moreso ep2 I thought were really built well and good character episodes. Ep2 however became kinda pointless once ep3 happened and concluded.
Ep2 also kinda became pointless with what happened in Last of the Starks too.

You also could have had a seasons worth of content after The Long Night episode.
And then another seasons worth of content after The Bells episode.
 

Red Shorts

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I still maintain that although the last two episodes of Season 6 were fun, bombastic, spectacles they ruined the show. Especially the final scene where you see Dany and her massive army sailing over. Her numbers are far too great compared to anyone else's, and she has Dorne and the Reach on her side.

"Ooooh, Cersei is going to be fecked!" Yeah, more than likely. She should also have the entirety of King's Landing wanting her head on a spike after destroying the Sept. But, feck reality, just have every single one of her enemies make incredibly dumb decisions so she has a chance, and brush any problems under the carpet.

The writing was on the wall in Season 5 with Ramsay's ten good men just somehow wrecking Stannis and him saying "Nah, suddenly I'm going to stop being practical. Let's just march on and all die in a big field together".

Ideally Dany would have marched on King's Landing to find it utterly fecked up, half of the peasants dead from riots and the remaining ones demanding independence after Cersei has run off to Casterly Rock. Dany thinks she'll get a hero's welcome and instead she's met with rejection.

feck it; you could have Drogon eat the Night King and have him flying above Westeros, shitting out little white walker turds that chase after folk, and it would have been better
Added to that, Arya getting stabbed numerous times, falling into water, then being chased by the female terminator was.... out there.

The ending of s6 was fantastic imo. And it should have played into Cersei inviting people 'in' to use them as a shield against Danys army. Meaning Danys army would do what they suggested in s8, cut out food supplies etc (but in doing that the people inside see Dany as this invader being bad thus not accepting her as the hero).

The three episodes, The bells, Long Night, Beyond the Wall, were all spectacles. If you watch it as a standalone episode, with no context, they arent bad and are actually fun. But in terms of the story, the characters and logical decisions, they can all be easily torn apart (and hell, they all have been). Thus reality is, none of them make sense at all except for, we got big budget, lets use it.

Last of the Starks however is the worst episode for me, because its all just stupid, throughout.


Ep1 and moreso ep2 I thought were really built well and good character episodes. Ep2 however became kinda pointless once ep3 happened and concluded.
Ep2 also kinda became pointless with what happened in Last of the Starks too.

You also could have had a seasons worth of content after The Long Night episode.
And then another seasons worth of content after The Bells episode.
I never got so far in the novels relative to the series. Do you both know if these scenes happened in the books or were more "creative adaptation"?
 

Mr Pigeon

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I never got so far in the novels relative to the series. Do you both know if these scenes happened in the books or were more "creative adaptation"?
Creatively shat out of the brains of the masterminds that brought us "Haha Varys has zero penis Iol"
 

Mr Pigeon

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I mean, everytime Tyrion popped out those 7 altering lines about Varys, I burst out laughing. I Guess penis jokes still get me at my age.
Did you laugh like Bronn did whenever he heard "Dickon Tarly"?

Everyone likes the odd knob joke but when it's Tyrion, who used to be so witty with his retorts, doing it over and over it got a bit dry.

Unlike my knob lmfao
 

Sylar

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I never got so far in the novels relative to the series. Do you both know if these scenes happened in the books or were more "creative adaptation"?
I believe the books ends the same way s5 ends. But the two bolded parts don't happen :lol:

That was a Tv show brain child. As was ... dorne (or the way it was portrayed)
 

Sylar

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Did you laugh like Bronn did whenever he heard "Dickon Tarly"?

Everyone likes the odd knob joke but when it's Tyrion, who used to be so witty with his retorts, doing it over and over it got a bit dry.

Unlike my knob lmfao
I laughed at that. Though I thought that was a fantastic episode (last second save aside) and the follow up of not searching for them
 

Mr Pigeon

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I laughed at that. Though I thought that was a fantastic episode (last second save aside) and the follow up of not searching for them
It's annoying because that episode is definitely amazing, but Jaime and Bronn being captured would have still made sense because they end up where Dany goes eventually anyway. Having them magically get away only to go to Winterfell in the long run just screams of writers who really couldn't be arsed trying to tie their story together. Plus, with Jaime captured it would give Cersei the chance to answer the big question on what she values more; her true love or power.
 

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It’s crazy how tarnished the GoT legacy is now. Probably the biggest series ever at the time, and yet most people prefer to forget it.
 

Red Shorts

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Did you laugh like Bronn did whenever he heard "Dickon Tarly"?

Everyone likes the odd knob joke but when it's Tyrion, who used to be so witty with his retorts, doing it over and over it got a bit dry.

Unlike my knob lmfao
Yes, pretty much. Like every immature adult still does. It's in our blood to laugh at dick jokes, no matter the delivery.
 

lsd

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It’s crazy how tarnished the GoT legacy is now. Probably the biggest series ever at the time, and yet most people prefer to forget it.

It was like if on the last episodes of The Sopranos we found out Tony was an undercover cop all the time and wasn't even Italian
 

One Night Only

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It’s crazy how tarnished the GoT legacy is now. Probably the biggest series ever at the time, and yet most people prefer to forget it.
It's weird, I hated the ending, but still loved the overall series, and don't think "the end was shit so it was all shit". I'd still watch it all again, even the last season.

Season 8 is still better than any of the netflix bollocks which gets rave reviews. They're all cookie cutter BS which make feck all sense and cater to one audience, morons.
 

Sylar

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It's weird, I hated the ending, but still loved the overall series, and don't think "the end was shit so it was all shit". I'd still watch it all again, even the last season.

Season 8 is still better than any of the netflix bollocks which gets rave reviews. They're all cookie cutter BS which make feck all sense and cater to one audience, morons.
TBF, that can be true whilst also still being shit based on the logic of the show and general tv viewing.
 

Bobski

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It's weird, I hated the ending, but still loved the overall series, and don't think "the end was shit so it was all shit". I'd still watch it all again, even the last season.

Season 8 is still better than any of the netflix bollocks which gets rave reviews. They're all cookie cutter BS which make feck all sense and cater to one audience, morons.
This is true in many ways, nothing has come close since in terms of genre TV. The thing is that as good as seasons 1-4 were they could and should have been even better and all the issues that would drag the quality down in the later seasons were already there.
 

MiceOnMeth

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Decided to do a rewatch and something big sticks out to me:
The early seasons were full of side characters who were played by actors who commanded your attention with great screen presence

Yoren
Lord commander Mormont
Benjen Stark
Craster
Syrio Forel
Qhorin Halfhand
Maester Luwin
The blackfish
Great jon Umber
Mance Rayder

And then the bigger ones like Tywin, King Robert, Barristan Selmy, Drogo

Almost Every single one of these characters were killed off by season 5 and I think it really hurt the series losing so many of them
 

George Owen

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Decided to do a rewatch and something big sticks out to me:
The early seasons were full of side characters who were played by actors who commanded your attention with great screen presence

Yoren
Lord commander Mormont
Benjen Stark
Craster
Syrio Forel
Qhorin Halfhand
Maester Luwin
The blackfish
Great jon Umber
Mance Rayder

And then the bigger ones like Tywin, King Robert, Barristan Selmy, Drogo

Almost Every single one of these characters were killed off by season 5 and I think it really hurt the series losing so many of them
And replaced them with random cameos of celebrities.
 

Mike Smalling

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And replaced them with random cameos of celebrities.
One cameo that might not be obvious to a lot of people outside of Denmark was Frank Hvam as the slightly grumpy administrator type person, when Sam checks into the citadel to become a maester. He is a Danish comedian, actor and producer most well-known for starring in the comedy series "Clown", which is heavily inspired by Curb your Enthusiasm. Apparently the GOT producers were fans of the show, so offered to give him a minor role. The kicker, however, was that his accent is so heavy that they couldn't include his own lines it in the episode - it had to be dubbed. I was so taken aback when I saw a B-tier Danish celebrity suddenly show up in Games of Thrones with someone else delivering his lines :lol: Amatuer hour.

This is the scene: Link.
 

Jev

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Decided to do a rewatch and something big sticks out to me:
The early seasons were full of side characters who were played by actors who commanded your attention with great screen presence

Yoren
Lord commander Mormont
Benjen Stark
Craster
Syrio Forel
Qhorin Halfhand
Maester Luwin
The blackfish
Great jon Umber
Mance Rayder

And then the bigger ones like Tywin, King Robert, Barristan Selmy, Drogo

Almost Every single one of these characters were killed off by season 5 and I think it really hurt the series losing so many of them
Not to mention Oberyn who stole every single scene he was in during the fourth season.
 

AlPistacho

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I agree that the show went down hill from season 6. Although season 6 also had arguably the best finale and episode of the entire series. Think it was to do with no book material to use and the writers getting bored, but more likely just not be able to work without source content and dialogue.

One thing I don’t agree with is the hate for Danaery’s going mad/bad. I think that was always the plan and the seeds were planted from very early on that sooner or later her angry side would take over
 

goalscholes

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I agree that the show went down hill from season 6. Although season 6 also had arguably the best finale and episode of the entire series. Think it was to do with no book material to use and the writers getting bored, but more likely just not be able to work without source content and dialogue.

One thing I don’t agree with is the hate for Danaery’s going mad/bad. I think that was always the plan and the seeds were planted from very early on that sooner or later her angry side would take over
As with lots of the end content, the issue comes from the speed she turns, eroding seasons of character development and pacing.

I doubt many would have complained if the transformation happened over a number of seasons.
 

Mike Smalling

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I agree that the show went down hill from season 6. Although season 6 also had arguably the best finale and episode of the entire series. Think it was to do with no book material to use and the writers getting bored, but more likely just not be able to work without source content and dialogue.

One thing I don’t agree with is the hate for Danaery’s going mad/bad. I think that was always the plan and the seeds were planted from very early on that sooner or later her angry side would take over
Curious what seeds you are talking about? In early seasons she was brutal against people that wronged her, such as her brother, Mirri Maz Duur, the warlocks and whatever. But that also applies to other characters. Jon Snow hangs a child as payback, for instance.
What are the seeds that indicated she would slaughter thousands of innocents?
 

Jotun

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Not to mention Oberyn who stole every single scene he was in during the fourth season.
People talk about last two seasons being terrible, but my god, the 4th season was a bore. Basically they stretched out the Tyrion trial over a whole season. Perhaps non book readers feel differently, but for me it was the worst season, despite the writing getting worse in the last few seasons.
 

AlPistacho

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Curious what seeds you are talking about? In early seasons she was brutal against people that wronged her, such as her brother, Mirri Maz Duur, the warlocks and whatever. But that also applies to other characters. Jon Snow hangs a child as payback, for instance.
What are the seeds that indicated she would slaughter thousands of innocents?
Less actions and more personality traits. Which was something the early seasons did well at showing. Can’t remember too many specific moments at the top of my head as not watched for so long.

But I remember before, she turned, discussing her character with a friend. I contrasted her to Jon. Jon was instinctively good, he didn’t need to think “what would a good person do” or be advised against doing bad. Danaery’s always came across as someone who was “trying to be good” and often needed counsel against “burning everything down”. In tense situations or when things got difficult she often appeared to be fighting her real nature.

Now she’s obviously not evil in a cunning or sadistic way. But when her obsession is to rule the 7 kingdom and she has dragons and an army then you could see that mass slaughter was a possibility.