I would add:
10. Increase mental breakdown speed to 4x for Danaerys
11. Revert Jamie character development to season 1.
12. Upgrade dragon fire to explosive napalm giant death-ray
13. Disregard Bran still.
14. Set formerly formidable (wasn’t it supposed to be like 25k?) Golden Command to a small amount of quick fodder.
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Wasn’t that the point though? That her army was that much better than what Ceresi had?
Tyrion repeats this multiple times as do other people in the show. She stood no chance. Not once did Daenerys really struggle in any other battle besides at Winterfell, or am I forgetting something? To me it was made perfectly clear that Ceresi was being arrogant, as she has always been, and somehow always managed to pull through. I would have felt it was stupid as fuck if she once again managed to do that. This was a perfect way to show that no, she’s not invincible.
The dragon complaints - Most people are going off the fact that one of her dragons died in a surprised attack. But I think that was also made pretty clear that she was caught off guard, and then she comes back and surprises the Iron fleet, or am I again missing something?
Also, when did the Unsullied have morals? They were bread to take orders, they’re doing their job. They’ve killed hundreds of people before without question, just because the Queen said so, what’s different this time? because we perceive those people as innocent? Wasn’t that also the point of how this episode was shot? that to us they are innocent, to everyone else it’s simply sacking a city which was common in those days and even common in the show.
I’m genuinely confused about the complaints.
Her army was shown to be completely decimated at Winterfell. No idea where all these people were hiding when it was over-run. Especially the unsullied who were outside the wall. It didn’t even matter though, because super-dragon. Battles/armies had no bearing on any of it really.
One episode had scorpions hitting the dragon basically 3 times the second it came into their view at a ridiculous distance/height. Qyburn must have invented radar. The next one they were all completely useless. How could she surprise them if they were expecting the attack? They were all ready for it and staring up into the sky waiting…
Still overall entertaining, but the inconsistencies and rushed plot are harder to take on a show that used to be so good.
Didn’t they kind of make it clear that no one was going to be a real match for her dragons? Wasn’t it talked about how her ancestors conquered the entire world riding on dragons pretty much? Yeah, ok, she did it with 1 at Kings landing but she did it with the biggest one, the one normally shown to obliterated everything. So to me it was consistent.
But yes the surprise attack didn’t come off well, nothing with Euron ended up written well, he was wasted. I’ll say that.
Like I said every complaint has to do with the nature of the show rushing to the conclusion. Episode 5 was still pretty damn good though, and like someone else said in here - it was poetic justice.
This episode was about symbolism, not exposition. You either saw it in the imagery, or you didn’t.
I’ll also admit that the episode was not that bad as an individual episode. The ballistaes were now more realistic. In the last episode they were way too effective.
There were parts of what I really liked. Cerseis and Jaimes death was good (even though some complained). I liked how she was vulnerable at the end. The whole point of the series is/was/should to avoid black and white characters with clear motives.
This was the biggest flaws with the walkers, the whole build up/thing/hype was shallow and useless. Episode 3 was much, much worse than this one.
Sure, there was some stupid shit too, but with the current level, this was not too bad.
I was wondering how the dragon would die and that is probably the answer.
I think it more had to do with the fact that women aren’t allowed to fall from grace nowadays.
The expected arc from the typical reviewer was: all men fail, Mother-of-Dragons sacrifices her love and saves the day, becoming beneficent ruler.
We live in a media age where Thor becomes a fat, ineffective, loser so Lady Marvel saves the day and Luke Skywalker is pathetic and the world must depend on the 90 lb girl.
Never mind her psychotic tendencies have been clear from the start (crucifixions, burning prisoners, mad father), this was a surprise to many in the media age of #womenleadtheway.
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The biggest flaws are not that huge a deal. People are reacting to pretty minor things like a stepdad acts to the whistling nose of a red headed stepchild.
You would think 5 arrows shot in quick succession from 100 ships was more out there than the dwarf throwing a pebble at the dragon and killing it by lodging it in its throat and having it choke to death.
I think most people are shaking their heads at this trope rather than being angered by not seeing it.
I think because the show is ending people are no longer suspending disbelief and are punishing the show for the fact they did allow themselves to suspend disbelief in the first place.
The mad queen is a perfect example. This was a woman so naive that she was monstered by her brother, had her husband and baby killed. Was almost scared of leadership but as she gained power became more and more ruthless, less understanding and more and more power hungry over the course of 8 years.
Then as she is on the verge of taking power by winning the unwinnable battle, she finds power could be taken from her, her closest friend is executed, she is betrayed by her advisor, she is rejected by her lover and rightful hier, her “baby” is killed, the truth about Jon Snow is leaked, her advisors continue to provide bad advice, she sees the love people have for the alternative ruler.
I don’t think that is everything and it is already a lot to hold in your head over a handful of episodes but her actions are not the absurdity that people are making out. Behaving like the season 1 victim in the face of corrupting power that people are suggesting would have been the absurdity.
Now, I’m not saying that the show is perfect but it is a lot better than other shows that are rating far better than it.
First two episodes were rubbish though. 2 year break and a 6 episode season don’t mix well.
To a certain extent, the ending was always going to be disappointing. Either it feels unnatural, predictable, or both. I don’t think the plot developments have been ridiculous.
I do think that there has been a decrease in the tension and quality of the fight scenes. Previous seasons had epic fight scenes both single combat and battles. I don’t think any of the combats this season have been particularly impressive. The battle for winterfell jumped between nonsensical dark chaos and very slow walking with piano music in the background. The Cleganebowl was really quite disappointing, although I think some of that was due to the CGI background leading to a lack of stakes and an almost literal lack of grounding for the conflict. Euron vs. Jaime was full of weird cuts that didn’t seem to fit together with a lack of wide angle shots that let you know what was going on.
I’m not an expert in medieval combat, but I can’t name one season eight fight that I thought was really well choreographed and shot. I can name dozens from previous seasons.
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@Silyak
No, simply no. These two battle scenes were some of the best, probably THE BEST in TV, ever. period. It’s even up there with some movies. I personally (I know some of you will find this absurd) think these two battle scenes shit on most of the garbage Peter Jackson ever did on LOTR lol.
Yeah, there is definitely some of that going on. I’ve noticed most of the negative articles, especially from that awful buzzed site are coming from female YA writers lol. They are hilarious to read because you get the sense they either write it for click bait or for the fact that they are genuinely upset with the show doing that to the female lead.
Overall, I think most of the discontent either comes from the show rushing to end it (totally a legitimate complaint), or for them not ending it the way that person wanted it to end
Of course these are minor things.
The big problems which I was referring to are related to too fast/compressed storytelling which hurts the narrative. Also some of the character were downgraded a bit after the book portion ended. The Night King was just stupid and useless, years of build up and we have a stereotypical bad guy with his zombie army and zero motives to be wiped out in one battle.
Its still entertaining and decent show. I don’t follow the IMDB or compare this to other series, mainly since I havent watched anything like this before (there arent many fantasy series there?).
Bran goes on to become the night king somehow, then throws one of those anti-dragon SAM’s that travels back in time (kind of like on Donnie Darko), that knocks the last dragon out of the sky. Might as well get some complexity back into the show.
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I’m not even sure if you’re trolling. I’m not even saying that the fight scenes were bad, I just don’t think they match the quality of previous seasons.
Winterfell had some good parts, but I just felt the tension gets sucked away by a bad guy that calmly walks with his weapon sheathed.
As for the other two I mentioned (not sure which two you were defending), they just don’t stand up compared to single combats of seasons past.
Euron vs Jaime is mostly incoherent through the middle of the fight. Who knocks down whom? Who grabs whom? Who has which weapon? Who dropped which weapon? Who’s on top? The answers to these questions are elusive, but don’t worry. They’ll change in the next shot which will follow the current shot nonsensically. I went back and watched the exchange several times stopping between jump edits to make sure I wasn’t just missing something or getting confused. I still don’t understand what’s going on through the middle of this fight from the time they start grappling to the time that Euron starts crawling for his dagger. The edits are too abrupt, the two change sides of the screen frequently, and there is no explanation as to how they jump from grappling position to another grappling position.
As for the Cleganebowl, I felt that it was basically a lot of protagonist throws followed by a weird grapple. I suppose it makes sense if you assume that the Mountain believed himself to be immortal and was just enjoying tormenting his little brother.
well at least Jon finally found his balls again
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I honestly wonder how Martin feels about this episode.
The most jarring thing to me- That Sam even brings up the idea of democracy.
Oh, fuck Arya and the whole “eyes” crap. Is it so hard to be consistent writers?
Edit- Also, why is Sam on the small council? He is Jon’s friend, but to everyone else he’s the Tarly kid who joined the Night’s Watch, probably because his dad forced him to.
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So I’m guessing the meta theme is that 3/5 people raised by Sean Bean win.
Earlier in the series I thought the point was that you have to play the game and be ruthless. But the 4 or 5 most honorable people got the best ending.
Also Drogon was the wisest character. He realized that the lust for power is what killed Dany, not John.
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I think it’s more likely that the writers wanted to end this on a conventional manner and let the fan favorites get their way. Even there they’re not consistent- the Iron-born took advantage of the war to try to take land from the North and generally declare independence- did Yara (or the writers) forget this?
I honestly think that’s why they made Tyrion suddenly care about his family too, even though that flies directly against everything we know about him since he leaves King’s Landing. If he really became the utter mess he is in the books right now then he’d be be hard to like.
[quote=“Basement_Gainz, post:157, topic:255516, full:true”]Also Drogon was the wisest character. He realized that the lust for power is what killed Dany, not John.
[/quote]
I liked this.
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Also ghost is a good boy. That’s the real message.
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Horse-shit pie of an episode.
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