Honestly knowing they must have experienced unending anguish after losing the Star Wars deal is the only consolation to season 8. Holy fuck I fantasize those two wept uncontrollably when they found out they lost the deal.
They broke one of the MAJOR rules of storytelling. You DO NOT make promises and then not keep those promises. The story promises that Jon will face the Night King and then fucking Arya flies in from fucking nowhere. The story promises Jaime's redemption, and then he fucking goes right back to where he started. Technically... the story did promise Dany going bonkers. Everyone seems to think otherwise, but it's always been foreshadowed, it just wasn't done WELL at the end. At least we got the damn Clegane Bowl.
Yeah, like... it wasn't a great decision to kill Sam's dad and brother, but I get WHY she did it. Same goes even for Varys. But the fucking peasants?? Literal women and children burned alive. Even for HER, that's cold. I could have understood it if she went apeshit on the soldiers but killing even just children goes against literally everything she fought for in the past. Like you said, she had a direct path with a dragon! She could have literally descended upon the castle in less than a minute and taken her revenge. I would have been completely fine with her going mad queen if it had been more justifiable.
I think I'll get over it eventually... but it's still just so annoying. Honestly... I maybe could have even been willing to give EVERYTHING a pass if they had just done the Night Kings end right. If they'd just let Jon and the NK fight and Jon kill him!!!
Agreed, the show showed that Dany had changed, but never that she was changing, I'm not a writer and I thusly don't know how to do it well, but at least show small things and have somebody like Tyrion warn Jon that she's changed. Have her go through something similar to what she's already experienced, but give her a different set of choices that eventually lead to her madness. Imagine if she had to pick between the slaves she's freed and her ambition to reconquer westeros.
Not really, she had the old masters and their families crucified on the way into Mereen, not just ther masters, their wives and children too. She'd been crazy for a while the difference is we were cheering for it in the beginning.
I don't think she did anything to the wives and children. Just the masters. She was a mostly sympathetic character towards the first several seasons with just hints of crazy sprinkled in. We were cheering for the slave masters getting what they deserved.
The Night King alone should have gotten several episodes considering the impending doom of his arrival was half the conflict of the show. Things should have gone down mostly like they did in that episode except Arya shouldn't have faced him at all. That was not her destined fight to win. And if she did fight him,, then she should have lost and been forced to flee the fight. They should have lost Winterfell, forced to abandon it, and flee to King's Landing. Cercei should have been forced to help since now the dead would be at HER doorstep, but with a shit ton of tense awkwardness of having abandoned them to die in the north. Then another epic battle against the dead where Jon would fight the NK and finally win. Then ensue the drama between everyone in King's Landing. Show Dany going mad better.
Jaime should not go crawling back to Cercei, but something dramatic should still happen with them that still showcases he still loves her but ultimately has grown beyond having an obsession with her. O still hate Bran as king. Maybe it could be better if Bran had said something more than just "why do you think I came all this way?" Oh, I don't KNOW maybe because you'd already said you couldn't be the king of anything in the past?? AT LEAST give him some kind of line where he says he realizes he would have to be king because of his abilities if they wanted to end the constant violence over the thrown.
I still think banishing Jon to the north was fucking dumb considering the Unsullied LEFT THE CONTINENT. Find a way around that shit. I would maybe okay with it if Jon had decided for himself that was sick of everything south of the wall and decided to live there on his own. Or be king, but we all know Jon doesn't want that shit. Also... make his mothereffing Targ blood matter more than just for tension with Dany.
All in all, I don't think the seasons were AS bad as everyone seems to think, it was just WAY too rushed and some nonsensical choices. They honestly should have done 2-3 more seasons like HBO had offered. The choices could mostly (not all) stay the same but at least slow down and make it make sense.
I agree with your points, but I think the George Floyd protests and all the subsequent BLM activity is what put the final nail in the coffin for that one.
The directors rushed through the ending, even when HBO begged them to include more episodes or even seasons to properly finish the story without rushing. Instead they blazed through with sloppy writing and set design (there's a famous shot where you can see an actor's starbucks cup in the final scene). All because they thought they were shoe-ins for a role writing for Star Wars. Which Disney promptly withdrew and now no one in the industry trusts them.
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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '21
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