EPTWatch this complete deconstruction of why it worked. Its not just shock value as some of you claim, its way more than that.
[TV] HBO Game of Thrones - Page 1802
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FreakyDroid
Macedonia2616 Posts
Watch this complete deconstruction of why it worked. Its not just shock value as some of you claim, its way more than that. | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
The Red Wedding happened at a wedding, and everyone died. That is what was shocking about it. Not that a main character was suddenly betrayed by an ally and killed. GRRM decided to kill off Robb. But then he decided to come up with the most shocking way to do it. So he decided to do it at the wedding, for shock value. And that doesn't make in any more or any less compelling. I don't know why you keep linking the two. The Freys could have killed only Robb in his sleep. It would still have 'deconstructed' and subverted everything you say it did now, but lack the shock value. Then you talk about weird expectations that we as an audience may have and about how the story can surprise us by subverting those expectations. Over 10 years, the story clearly gave us the expectation that something bad might happen to King's Landing. They also gave us the expectation of dragons growing up to be really big. We had small dragons at some point and we kept hearing stories about ho destructive they were. That is a second expectation. And then we have Daenerys and her twisted view on her destiny, power, and how people had to surrender and love her. And we saw what happens when people do not do that. And we knew that she was taking an army of evil horse nomads and an army of amoral mercenaries to Westeros to repeat what she did in Essos. And we have this strange idea of Targaryens being crazy or evil. What kind of setup did you all think that would be? Never mind all these scenes with her advisors speculating about her state or mind. Yet you compare this 10 year build up as if an asteroid suddenly hit King's Landing. Or that in episode 4, Varys inexplicably talking about Daereys maybe being a mad queen was the first hint we ever got. Have we been watching the same show all these 10 years? Truly! | ||
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Sermokala
United States13736 Posts
I truly find it bizarre how hard you are going after GRRM when you refuse to read his books and instead decide to judge him on the show based on his books. They are incredibly distinct properties. Its like the people who accuse Tolken of being a racist because the orks in TLOR look like black people. Trying to argue with you on this is really difficult until tomarrow when we can talk about the books and the things GRRM actually did with the story that they didn't do with the show. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11916 Posts
On May 19 2019 21:17 Rasalased wrote: I think you did not explain properly what you meant with 'shock value'. The Red Wedding happened at a wedding, and everyone died. That is what was shocking about it. Not that a main character was suddenly betrayed by an ally and killed. GRRM decided to kill off Robb. But then he decided to come up with the most shocking way to do it. So he decided to do it at the wedding, for shock value. And that doesn't make in any more or any less compelling. I don't know why you keep linking the two. The Freys could have killed only Robb in his sleep. It would still have 'deconstructed' and subverted everything you say it did now, but lack the shock value. Then you talk about weird expectations that we as an audience may have and about how the story can surprise us by subverting those expectations. Over 10 years, the story clearly gave us the expectation that something bad might happen to King's Landing. They also gave us the expectation of dragons growing up to be really big. We had small dragons at some point and we kept hearing stories about ho destructive they were. That is a second expectation. And then we have Daenerys and her twisted view on her destiny, power, and how people had to surrender and love her. And we saw what happens when people do not do that. And we knew that she was taking an army of evil horse nomads and an army of amoral mercenaries to Westeros to repeat what she did in Essos. And we have this strange idea of Targaryens being crazy or evil. What kind of setup did you all think that would be? Never mind all these scenes with her advisors speculating about her state or mind. Yet you compare this 10 year build up as if an asteroid suddenly hit King's Landing. Or that in episode 4, Varys inexplicably talking about Daereys maybe being a mad queen was the first hint we ever got. Have we been watching the same show all these 10 years? Truly! I'm sorry but this is nonsense. I literally don't believe that you believe that. What makes Robb dying shocking is the circumstances in which he dies, rather than the fact that we expect him to succeed because we're on his side and we are used to underdogs reverting the odds in fantasy stories? If the Freys had killed him in his sleep that wouldn't have been shocking? You're arguing for arguing's sake at this point. You keep bringing up the foreshadowing as if you were arguing with people who think that Dany should stay a good person. You aren't. You should lose that. From the point of view of storybuilding, yes, having Dany go mad like this definitely falls under "we are shocked because weird things are happening". The notion that we are using this main plotline of a long-ass TV show to tell... what are we telling exactly? "Sometimes the people you could be rooting for turn out to be mad"? That's a weird message. It's not something that illustrates an interesting question about fantasy, and making that point doesn't require eight seasons of buildup. We as an audience should expect better, and most of us did. | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
People have said that there wasn't enough of a build up and that Daenerys burning down King's Landing was shocking because it was unexpected. But it was expected. And just after you accuse me of falsely claiming people say it was unexpected and that people don't mind Daenerys going evil, but that it was poorly written, you again say Daenerys burning down King's Landing was a weird twist of the story because it isn't consistent with everything else we have seen on the show. So which one is it? Daereys burning down King's Landing is literally all the pieces of the story falling together. I now literally have people doubling down on the lack of foreshadowing and others doubling down on me arguing that there was sufficient foreshadowing. Your posts are right underneath each other! Then you start talking about 'illustrating an interesting question about fantasy' which completely loses me. You think the story has some moral message? No. It is just 8 seasons of buildup suddenly falling into place in an extreme event that was foreshadowed in a clear but subtle way for 10 years. And yes, it doesn't full make sense and it is shocking and surprising, but not 'weird', 'our of place' or 'completely unexpected'. And it is completely consistent with everything we know about the story and about Daenerys. This thread is about the tv show. GRRM is a writer on the tv show. He came up with almost all the characters. We have interviews of him explaining why he wrote the show the way he did. He gave d&d the ending. Why can't I bring him up? This clearly is his ending and not something made up by Hollywood writers. But me bringing him up is like calling Tolkien a racist? WTF | ||
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Sermokala
United States13736 Posts
GOT is not GRRM's work. Its inspired at the most by his work at this point but in no way is he responsible for what goes on. They've clearly moved far far away from his storytelling. This ending was made by hack hollywood writers in lue of any concrete direction from GRRM and all at the behest of D&D. Heck hes commented that the doesn't even watch the show anymore. You complaining about GRRM for the ending seasons of GOT is like the people who complained about tolken for how orcs looked in the movies. They did not do those things nor have control over those things. As a comparison, JK Rowling was on set and was in control of the harry potter movies. She had creative control and was responsible for everything in the books that wasn't written but was set up in the movies beforehand, see snape. | ||
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UsedEgg3
126 Posts
1. Boy-King rises quickly due to the combination of his military prowess and having an army of loyal men fighting for a cause they believe in. This gives him confidence and a false sense of invulnerability. 2. He breaks his promise to marry for political reasons and instead marries for love, ignoring the advice of everyone around him, including his own mother. We can totally believe that a confident and idealistic teenager would do this. 3. It gets him killed because untouchable in battle =/= untouchable in politics. Tywin, a vastly more seasoned politician, seizes this opportunity. We get a great line from Tyrion after the fact, "he lost the war without ever losing a battle." Believable actions having believable consequences is what made GoT so great through four seasons. The deaths of Ned and Oberyn were similarly well-written. We understand why the characters behaved the way they did and how it led to their demise. Ned played the Game the only way he knows how, with honor, which gave him a huge disadvantage against those who didn't limit themselves in that way. Oberyn got cocky as fuck, totally believable based on his talent + eccentric personality, and paid for letting his guard down for just one moment around The Mountain. Bronn warns about that when he declines to be Tyrion's champion. "One false move, one bad step is all it takes." That idea of believable actions having believable consequences has eroded ever since, to the point where the show is a fucking joke now. I don't have a problem with specific characters dying or not dying, but I have a huge problem with how it happens. 1. Tons of main characters don't die at Winterfell. It's okay that they live, but don't completely cover them in undead like 5 different times, it would be impossible to survive that. 2. Totally cool that Arya kills the NK. But how does she just appear behind him without being noticed by the multitudes of the strongest undead (basically their officer corp) surrounding the area? Based on her skill set and experience, they had many ways to make it cooler and more believable. 3. How is the city surrounding Arya completely turned to ash, bodies around her blackened and charred beyond recognition, but she and her white horse are just bloodied a bit? Again, it's cool that she's alive, but they put her in a scene where it should be impossible not to be scorched. Anyway, I could go on and on about stuff like this but it would be beating a dead horse. The show was great for awhile, but now it's comically bad. I'm glad it's over soon. | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
You realize I didn't even criticize GRRM, right? I just a said I don't read fantasy books. And certainly not post-modern fantasy books. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11916 Posts
It's not his ending in that it's not written consistently with how he has written events happening in the past, because the event isn't illustrative of anything interesting. You dismiss that more or less by saying that nothing interesting was said before either, and it was just a succession of events happening for shock value and to move the story forward to a position. This is demonstrably false, and the demonstration would be me talking about the project of GRRM in his books and how it works (and by extension what we see of it in the show), but you refuse to get into that. So... There's not much more I can do there? If things are good because they are shocking and not entirely out of the blue, then you're right, that was very good, I guess. My assumption would be that most people want a little more than that in their good TV shows, which is why they disagree with you that this is good. | ||
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FFGenerations
7088 Posts
when you're shown varys plotting against dany, you know what's coming when your shown jon acting like a cuck, you know what's coming when jamie goes to cersei, you know what's coming (it would have been 10x more unexpected and thrilling if they actually escaped together) when you're shown dany raging, you know what's coming (or, it doesn't make sense to you coz you didn't find the buildup believable and you were expecting her to fly at the red keep when the camera pans back and forth between her and cersei) when you're shown arya escaping rubble, you know what's coming (after she survives the first 10 minutes anyway) when you're shown euron climbing out of water at exactly the spot where jamie is, you know what's coming when you see the mountain and hound fight and the hound is getting battered, you know what's coming IDK, i just think it's dodgy production that is making people feel unsatisfied. i think if the production was up to scratch then none of us would really be arguing about anything , nomatter which way the story went the production in the first 4 seasons was inargueably excellent, and in the rest inargueably was on a lower level. really i think we would agree with each other on everything if we were all equally satisfied by the production. some people just dont find the production convincing enough to enjoy | ||
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Sermokala
United States13736 Posts
On May 19 2019 21:57 Rasalased wrote: OMG, just go on fucking imbd and check his writing credits. GRRM has 73 writing credits and 67 co-executive producer credits. How can you say this with a straight face? And it is also pointless. I get that some book readers really dislike the show and have high hopes for the books. Fine. But you are talking now with a non-book reader. I have no emotional attachments. I just see that he has writing credits and I assume it is not all some conspiracy of HBO against GRRM. You realize I didn't even criticize GRRM, right? I just a said I don't read fantasy books. And certainly not post-modern fantasy books. Stan lee got writing and producer credits for everything in the MCU. You critized GRRM repreatedly calling him a troll writer and how he wanted to piss off half his audience just beacuse. I would consider it a pretty heavy insult to put the blame on the ending of GOT on him instead of the egotistical jerks of D&D who've decided to ruin the ending of GOT so they can go off and get Disney money. | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
You say I criticized GRRM. I think it was more 'praise'. I only really criticized GRRM for the empty mystery box that were the White Walkers. But no one ever responded to that. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21343 Posts
On May 19 2019 22:24 Rasalased wrote: The books aren't far enough in the story to have gotten to where the white walkers are actually doing anything right?So Stan Lee wrote on MCU. Did I deny that? You say I criticized GRRM. I think it was more 'praise'. I only really criticized GRRM for the empty mystery box that were the White Walkers. But no one ever responded to that. So how can you criticise GRRM for the empty mystery box when you haven't even seen his box yet? | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
Did you miss the: Davos: "The Lord of Light. We play his game for him, we fight his war and win. And then... He fucks off. No signs. No blessings. Who knows what he wants?" Tyrion: "I don't imagine thinking about that subject will leave you any happier than before." | ||
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solidbebe
Netherlands4921 Posts
On May 19 2019 22:37 Rasalased wrote: Because the White Walker plot completely ended already. You think this evening the White Walkers will be back tonight? Or that Bran will suddenly start to explain stuff? Did you miss the: Davos: "The Lord of Light. We play his game for him, we fight his war and win. And then... He fucks off. No signs. No blessings. Who knows what he wants?" Tyrion: "I don't imagine thinking about that subject will leave you any happier than before." Literally just the writers telling the audience to not bother thinking about the writing 😒 | ||
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Rasalased
89 Posts
You can't tell me that GRRM has no blame in this. He came up with this White Walker story and has how many words of novels based on it? And then he tells d&d everything he knows about them, and this is the best d&d can come up with for the tv show. This very line. I understand that GRRM is a gardener and not an outliner. But I do think this is fair criticism. There is no way in which d&d could have made up an alternative ending for GRRM to his White Walker story. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21343 Posts
On May 19 2019 22:37 Rasalased wrote: Glad we established that your criticising the writer of the books for something the writers of the show did that hasn't even remotely been reached in the books.Because the White Walker plot completely ended already. You think this evening the White Walkers will be back tonight? Or that Bran will suddenly start to explain stuff? Did you miss the: Davos: "The Lord of Light. We play his game for him, we fight his war and win. And then... He fucks off. No signs. No blessings. Who knows what he wants?" Tyrion: "I don't imagine thinking about that subject will leave you any happier than before." Don't equate that happened in the show to what will happen in the book in the same way. While the big rough points might be the same (Jon + Dany beat the WW's at Winterfell) the details will 100% not be the same and the details are what make a story. On May 19 2019 22:47 Rasalased wrote: You make a lot of assumptions about the cooperation between D&D and GRRM in writing season 7/8 here.Yes! Very bad. But I never defended everything about GoT. You can't tell me that GRRM has no blame in this. He came up with this White Walker story and has how many words of novels based on it? And then he tells d&d everything he knows about them, and this is the best d&d can come up with for the tv show. This very line. I understand that GRRM is a gardener and not an outliner. But I do think this is fair criticism. There is no way in which d&d could have made up an alternative ending for GRRM to his White Walker story. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11916 Posts
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Rasalased
89 Posts
I don't think I make a lot of assumptions.GRRM talked years ago about how season 7 and 8 should unfold. Right now, it seems they have a really strange relationship as GRRM claims he isn't even watching the show. It almost sounds like they had a falling out. But if you force me to make assumptions then I can see a meeting where d&d and GRRM talk about the ending and d&d fire off these questions they have about where GRRM intended the story to go only to get a lot of "I don't know yet's from GRRM. And then d&d awkwardly glancing to each other 'wtf do we do now?!' | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11916 Posts
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