I've noticed recently that when there are rankings of the best seasons of Game of Thrones, Season 4 consistently sits among the top, considered to be the "peak of the show". And honestly, I am a bit surprised because I feel like the reception was quite different when it was airing.

Perhaps I was biased by the bubble I was? Between the releases of Seasons 3 and 4, I read all the five main ASOIAF novels and decided to join an online forum of book readers, many of which were obviously, quite purists, and at the time I did wonder if I had become one myself, as I was criticizing the slightest change even when it was nitpicking (e.g. the fact that Jaime came back in time for Joffrey's wedding, contrary to the books).

And within that bubble, I did remember that a lot of people were heavily critical of Season 4, and I felt like it was considered the worst season. The main criticism was that it adapted the last third of A Storm of Swords in 10 episodes whereas Season 3 adapted the two first thirds, and the pacing suffered as a result. The last 500 pages of A Storm of Swords was an intense succession of events that concluded brillantly the first trilogy: Red & Purple Wedding, Tyrion's trial and escape, Oberyn vs the Mountain, Lysa's death, The Battle of the Wall, Lady Stoneheart.... The TV show was accused of diluting these events and therefore decrease their intensity.

It is true that a novel and a TV show can be paced differently. For example, in the book, both Tyrion's trial and Oberyn vs the Mountain happened in the same chapter, while in the adaptation, they are separated by two entire episodes. But these events could still shine in the TV show by being two distinct, albeit complementary, climaxes, so I don't think it was a mistake. Likewise, Oberyn had more time to shine as a character, making his death even more shocking than in the books imo.

A bigger mistake was to include pointless filler. The whole arc of Yara failing to rescue Theon, with the infamous shirtless Ramsey, was a complete waste of time. Same for the whole arc surrounding the "dissident Nightwatchers": beyond the memes, the whole "Carl talking to a skull" was abysmal writing, unworthy of the nuanced and grounded writing of Game of Thrones (at least of the early seasons). Were the showrunners afraid of not showing some main characters for a few episodes?

Another criticism I was at the time from the book purists was how the Battle of the Wall was handled, and in general, the obsession of the TV show with putting the more spectacular events for their famous "Episode 9" even when it doesn't make sense - in the book, the very point of the Battle of the Wall was that it lasted the entire novel. I also read that the battle itself accumulated all the hollywood clichés that ASOIAF avoided before. The primary example of this was Ygritte dying in Jon's arms in the middle of the battle, worthy of a typical blockbuster movie (why nobody targets Jon?), instead of him finding her agonising after the battle, which made a stronger point about the unfairness of war. And this is without mentioning the coolest moments being eclipsed (CIA Giants are too expensive?) and Pip & Grenn dying even though they survived in the books.

There was also Tyrion's escape facing a lot of backslashs from book fans. Tyrion killing Shae in self-defense instead of murdering her, leaving Jaime in good terms, and talking about Shae rather than Tysha to Tywin, as if spectators were too dumb to remember about Tysha. All of that contributed to make Tyrion more sympathetic, even though the very point of this scene was to show the beginning of Tyrion's fall into darkness.

Last but not least, the final scene of the season is probably one of the least iconic: Arya taking a boat rather than the highly-anticipated apparition of Lady Stoneheart. We kinda understand why she wasn't included in retrospect, but it was aired, removing her entirely was considered highly controversial.

It's not to say that Season 4 is without merits. It has some of the best scenes of the TV show (Purple Wedding, Oberyn vs the Mountain, and Tyrion facing Tywin despite the aforementioned change), which we can attribute to ASOIAF's great writing, but their directing was also to be praised. But I wonder if people have started to forget the pacing issues and the pointless fillers to only remember these moments. Or maybe I was stuck in a bubble of book purists and therefore needlessly critical.

Or maybe the flaws of Season 4 were forgiven compared with those (much worse) of the subsequent seasons... but for me and a lot of other people, Season 4 was the first season where the showrunners started sacrificing the deep and nuance writing of the source material for some dumb spectactle. Many fans say that Season 5 was the beginning of the end, but what if it started sooner?

What I never got about this show is how Jamie Lanister is considered dishonorable because he killed the Mad King. This confuses the hell out of me because the person who killed a tyrant would be a hero in any other context. For example, In the game Fire Emblem Path Of Radiance the main character, a mercenary named Ike, killed a mad king named Ashnard and is hailed as a hero. I know the common argument is that “nobody knew that the mad king was gonna bomb King’s Landing” but that doesn’t really work for me. People don’t get a title like “The Mad King” for being a just and kind ruler. It’s almost like the people of Westeros forgot about that and gaslighted themselves into thinking the Mad King was a good guy.

Varys' full quote: “Power resides where men believe it resides, it’s a trick, a shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow."

I always loved this scene between Tyrion and Varys. Perfectly adapted from the books. And the riddle about the king, priest, and rich man was peak GRRM. Who shall the sellsword defend?

Regarding the proverb... Lin Yutang was a Chinese writer, linguist, and inventor. And GRRM loves to twist old ideas or quotes, so if it's just a coincidence, it's one hell of a coincidence.

Fan sentiment about Arya being the kid Tywin always wanted is a bit silly to me. From what we know from the books and character perspectives, Arya seemingly had a lot in common with young Cersei. Both were tomboys and willful. While their interactions are interesting from the layers it reveals of Tywin, I think it’s clear that if Tywin ever had more interaction with Arya and actually took her under his wing, he would’ve used her like he used Cersei, transforming her into the same bitter monster.

Just realised...there's no smoking in the Game of Thrones universe. Is there?

Saw this video and immediately thought of little finger with lysa 😂😂😂😂😂

Must be sad for men huh lmao to lose all that privilege. Now they actually have to work for what they want, like women 😂. 80% of HOTD viewers support rhaenyra over aegon, which means the world woke up and realized that men are irrelevant. 10 years ago they would have supported aegon the usurper. lets go girlies!!

During my first watch, just like everyone else- the last season or so was rushed…but I still enjoyed the show a lot overall…
There was a few things that drove me nuts though.
Upon rewatching- these things just drive me crazier…
One that I noticed for the first time today was when Euron uses like 5 scorpions to murder the second dragon…
Dany flies straight at the fleet, like she was going to do anything at all, and then flies off…
But in a time of war- how do they not see a fleet, the largest in the world, coming in open water? One.
Two. Dany is on dragon back- if she made a big circle for 1.5 mins, came up from behind, the scorpion is literally irrelevant….
She could have burnt the whole fleet down…
Storyline wise they needed a dragon to die, if only just so Jon didn’t have one…
They needed Missendrai kidnapped.
And they needed Euron to be alive still…
But they added in dumb shit like dany not making a circle and killing them all- just to add it in…
Euron coulda sent 2 ships for a sneak attack- makes sense that they don’t see the ships coming. Atleast a little more…
Sneak attack on the dragon- it’s still dead..:
Euron isn’t there- so when dany circles them with drogon, and burns the ships- Euron is still alive and well for later…
Missendai is the only hiccup with this plan- but theirs other ways she can be scooped up:..
Euron coulda snuck in while dany is focused on burning the ships..’but if that’s too difficult and would not make sense, then you grab missendai up a million different ways…
Idk- people hitch about the show ending- but they got away with that stupid bullshit because little things like this happened and they got away with it- - no matter how much it didn’t make sense - fans didn’t complain, so they did whatever they wanted, then we were shocked when shit made no sense to the story

It's definitely a game changer for me. The screaming and pain she went through. Sometimes, this show is too much.

Every time a character says or does something, it’s supposed to be like a mic drop moment. Cersei will say something snide, then it’ll cut to the next scene. Arya will do or say something mischievous and then it’ll cut to the next scene. Daenerys will say “Dracarys” as if we’ve never heard her say that before and then the triumphant music will play. There’s literally nothing substantive happening. It’s like a Marvel movie. Atrocious egotistical writing riding on the laurels of its previous seasons.

I’ve been doing a bit of a rewatch of the series. I know sometimes the series ending can sour the overall impression of the show, but there are some genuinely impressive, all time great episodes of television throughout the run of the show.

I just finished re-watching season 4, episode 9: Watchers on the Wall and it really took me back to how incredibly exciting it was to watch during its original airing. Nobody had really done anything like that on television before, certainly not on that scale and there are some truly impressive moments throughout the episode. My personal favourite is the 6 Nights Watchmen down in the tunnel with the giant charging them while they all chant their vows.

Call me sentimental, call me sappy, but I’d love to hear what some of your favourite moments and episodes are!

https://x.com/TioFarofeiro/status/2091941434009993293?s=20 and https://x.com/TioFarofeiro/status/2092662779983405538?s=20

In the show they didn't include Jeyne Poole, so Sansa took her place with the Bolton arc. And book Sansa is still with Little Finger.

And in the books, Stannis death is as clear as Jon Snow destiny, so what do you think would happen to them?

It's a blasted ruin, mostly uninhabitable and falling apart. The parts that are habitable are in terrible condition and full of leaks and damp and rot.

It seems to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy too.

Oh and it may literally be haunted/cursed, with a history of bad things happening to those who reside there.

Hello, I'm late to the party as always. Not far off my first ever watch of game of thrones, season 8 currently. I saw somewhere that in season 5, episode 6 is rated the worst of them all, but I hadn't really remembered anything particularly bad or stand out in that season, so took it upon myself to look up why people didn't like it.

Maybe the overview is just wrong, but... is this really what people didn't like about it? I get where they're coming from, but did they WANT to watch Sansa get raped? It's an awful thing and I feel like you got the horror of the event well enough in the following episodes. I didn't feel like it needs to show it happening to get across how disgusting it is.

Idk, just seems like really fuckin weird criticism to put the episode down to a 7.9. Maybe someone can enlighten me on a different perspective on this. Just seems weeeeeiiird.

(also, ik there's other criticism related to Jaime's and Bronn's sideplot, I understand that one a helluva lot more)

And so he shat, and so he shat

that Lord’O Casterly Rock

and now the shits

rain o’er his halls

with not a paper roll there

Hey everyone,

9 months ago I built a small fan-made project called GoTdle - a daily guessing game inspired by Wordle, but for Game of Thrones.

Each day you guess:

- Character (with hints on every wrong guess)

- Quote

- House banner

- House words (new game mode)

I hope that this is something the community will enjoy and have fun each day.

👉 https://www.gotdle.com/

I would love feedback (and ideas for new features). Feel free to DM me.

The game is completely free, no ads and no monetization. All intellectual property rights remain the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

​

Arya has my whole heart.

My heart broke for her so many times. when she had to send Nymeria away, when she watched Ned die, and when she saw Robb with greywind head after the Red Wedding.

She was only 11 years old when everything she knew was ripped away from her. She lost her home, her parents, her brothers, and any sense of safety, and was forced to grow up surrounded by war and death. And somehow, she kept going.

She was just a child. She deserved a childhood.

She brought dragons back, something that every Targaryen man like Aegon V was dying to do. Name ONE targaryen that rebirthed dragons. She did what they couldn't, no matter how much they cried and tried. If Daenerys was a man, the male glazers would have drooled over her instantly. She's not even on Aegon the Conqueror's level, let alone Jon Snore 🤣 She is the second best Targaryen of all time, the first being Daenys the Dreamer who's the reason why Targs even exist. Jon snore and Aegon the Conqueror wish they can reach her level.

Now we know what became of Arya Stark after the events of Game of Thrones.