Reviews Series / Game Of Thrones

It didn\'t come off to my as condescending. Don\'t worry.

The part that came off as condescending was when you contended that the critics of the show threw around terms they didn't understand. It's one thing to say you disagree, and another to say that those who disagree with you don't know what they're talking about.

As for Daenerys, a problem that many people, myself included, had was that her arc was about fighting for what she believed in without falling prey to the madness that consumed Aerys and many other Targaryens. While she was ruthless in the best of times, most of her decisions were justifiable or at least understandable, and there was no good reason to burn down King's Landing after Cersei surrendered. The fact that she goes from being a morally gray but sympathetic protagonist to "The Mad Queen" in the space of the penultimate episode, a process catalyzed by Jon rejecting her, is extremely jarring and can be seen as misogynistic.

Other than this, I mostly agree with your review, particularly that the books aren't necessarily better. I don't think you need to describe your experience with the show, though, since that is of little use in evaluating the series or supporting your case about whether it's worth the reader's time.

From a guy who read the books and watched the show, I agree that there were parts of the TV show that simply did the drama better. For example, in the story arc where Theon and Sansa are trapped in Winterfell, Sansa's role is replaced by Jeyne Poole, who the Lannisters are forcing to pretend to be Arya so her marriage can give Ramsay some legitimacy to claiming Winterfell. Not only is the book version more complicated, but Theon has a stronger connection to the Starks than he does to some girl that indirectly suffered due to his actions. Heck, the latest book of ASOIAF is probably one of the most contended, as character time is spread very thinly across several characters, some arcs are just padded out like Jamie's, Arya's, and Bran's, and others are pointless. Ever wonder why Quentyn Martell was never adapted to the TV series? Its because he's just a device to deliver exposition about the problems in Essos, and then precedes to die in dragon fire once his purpose is served. He had at least 80 pages dedicated to his pointless journey and all of them could have been cut and the plot wouldn't have changed. The books have some aspects that were better than the show but it suffered its own weaknesses as well. I do believe that the ending to Game of Thrones is terrible, and if its book adaptation follows the outline that Martin gave D&D than its going to be terrible too. Regardless of whether ASOIAF is going to have adaptation expansions, or better delivered exposition, you can't polish a turd.

In the general "The Long Night" episode was incompetently handled. Defenses were badly constructed, battle formations were badly organized, and characters in general just acted like idiots. This is really bad, because the White Walkers are in only a handful of episodes, most of the series is build up to their presence, which was a writing direction I never really liked in books or the TV series. D&D could never figure out how to properly characterize him so he came off as a generic villain, and worse still a pretty stupid one. He walks into the World's Most Obvious Trap and gets defeated by a parlor trick. For clarification, Azur Azai fought off the Night King with a magic sword he spent a long time making and even sacrificed his wife to finish it. The Red Lady spent years trying to prepare Westeros for the White Walker invasion, Jon prepared the North and survived several encounters with the White Walkers which he barely walked away from. Arya barely knew anything that was going on and considered the Long Night a speed bump on her journey to kill Cersei. Unless you watched the show exclusively to watch Arya kill any enemy she came across, this resolution is unsatisfying.

It doesn't matter what Martin writes in his final books, you are never going to sell me a satisfying script that convinces me that Bran is a better ruler than Daenerys. When you take away the regal accessories and mythology away from the title king, its just another bureaucratic job. Daenerys actually does some pretty effective steps forward for a job that can be easily abused for self-indulgence. She's the only sympathetic character that actually delegates her duties to other members of a council that she chooses, holds meetings with lower classes to discuss government issues, and even marries briefly to try to make peace in Essos. She struggles more than any other character in the show to help the masses and try to reform a corrupt system, even though most of the things she does are relatively new. Then the series makes her throw away her Sanity Ball and the rest is history. The only other character that puts even close to this much effort is Jon, and Jon mainly focuses on military aspects rather than quality of life or long term administration. The show removes most of the unique characters from the North, making him more of a director of a number of faceless drones, rather than someone that can direct government. Like Valiona said, her burning of King's Landing is massive character derailment and is more of a Shocking Swerve than convincing characterization.

Bran has a lot of problems, but the most notable one is a lack of initative. Jojen tells Bran to go North, and Bran just sort of goes with it. For years, Bran is phyically and metaphorically dragged North so he can do some vague thing that could help him cope with being crippled for life. He arrives North to learn magic, and ends up cornered in a desperate scenario and has a lifetime of magic forced upon him, damaging his mentality and possibly killing Bran's individuality altogether. None of this gives me any sort of confidence in Bran as a character. The only time Bran makes any major decisions on the behalf of others is after his transformation into the Three-eyed Raven which makes it seem like Westeros is being governed by a spirit of dubious origins rather than an actual person. Besides that, Bran's only pony in his stable is magic, which the Melissandre has shown on multiple occasions to be fallible. He has no experience in administration or government and has inherited a group of kingdoms that are in shambles and tied together by the thinnest of threads. His first act of king to give the North independence is incredibly short-sighted and risks establishing precedences that could tear the Six Kingdoms apart.

Sansa was made Queen of the North, which felt like an apology for making yet another crazy queen of Westeros with a brief reign (seriously Martin, why did you make this trend?). The thing is that Sansa's complaint that the South did not help them, really lacks weight. Stannis saved the North from invsaion by the wildlings in a much earlier season of the show. More recently the knights of the Vale actually saved Jon's forces from Ramasay's army. Heck, they even particpated in the "The Long Night". Highgarden and Dorne did not help because they were defeated before they could make an alliance with the North. Still, they threw themselves into the lion's maw so Jon's forces wouldn't be destroyed before he made the alliance with Daenerys that won the war. This is also an insult to the Tullys who suffered immensely for helping the North in the war. Sansa's issue was mainly with the Lannisters' rule under which all kingdoms suffered, not just the North. And yet only the North can gets to weasel out of the massive taxes that are going to be paid to restore King's Landing as well as the other kingdoms damaged by war. So comes the question, why would any of the kingdoms stay? Dorne has always chafed under the rule of the Seven Kingdoms, Highgarden's reward for rebellion is having their dead blue-blooded ruling family replaced by a culturally ignorant, vice ridden mercenary, and Casterly Rock is being controlled by an enemy government that its been fighting against for years. So that leaves possibly three kingdoms loyal to a government with a decentralized army, whose first act is to offer unconditional independence to a kingdom which the king connected to through bloodlines. Yet this is the breaking of the wheel? This more like burning the wheel and thinking the smoke ridden ashes are some sort of liberation.

Returning to Sansa, she spends the final season acting like Cercei, bitching and complaining about the way Daenerys is doing things and constantly stepping on her toes. While Daenerys is toeing the edge of sanity during the final season, Sansa does everthing she can to try and push her over. She is one of the key figures that sabotages Jon and Daenerys's relationship, and in the long term she is rewarded for it, which is incredibly slimy. She complains about how the North is loyal to Jon rather than her, but its hard to sympathize when she does nothing but bitch about it rather than try to improve the situation. She did save Jon with the Vale knights, but that was about all she did, and rather than have the narrative make her more focused on being more administrative, the writers just decided to just make her complain in the last few episodes. Words are easy, action is hard.

I am an outlier in that I have never liked Arya. She is very antisocial and demanding. Her episodes with Gendry and Hot Pie, consist mostly of telling them what to do rather than weighing their ideas as a group. Beyond that, too many episodes focus on her training. In a series where characters focus on using what they have, having a character level up to the point where she is death incarnate seems disingenuous. She really doesn't struggle with any obstacle after leaving the Free Cities, which makes her hard to sympathize with. Her plot favoritism is so bad she can fight on par with Brienne, even though the latter has spent her entire life honing her skills. The moral of her story that revenge is bad seems silly, when her life was so much harder when she was just surviving as opposed to going out and killing people she wanted dead. Her defeating the Night King even though she barely knew he existed, and it feels out of place, like watching the Dark Knight trilogy, with the final face off between Bane and Batman being interrupted by Superman, who proceeds to punch out Bane and resolve the rest of the plot. Though,I did think her choice to leave Westeros did fit her character as she was always a lone wolf.

Jon's dialogue in the final season is really weak, and he seems way too easily influenced by his family members. Rather than try and comfort Daenerys about her losses, he just glibly talks about the campaign and keeps his distance. Sometimes when they are onscreen together, it seems like Daenerys is trying seduce a rock rather than a person. Jon used to proactive and compassionate, and yet in the final season, he is just stiff, and that makes him hard to watch. Jon would make a good consort to Daenerys, but even in his best episodes he is more of a functionalist military commander than a civil servant. Cultural practices and social events are alien concepts in the Night's Watch and organizing war strategies which is where he focused on honing most of his leadship qualities.

Sorry for this extremely long winded comment, but I just speak of some of the problems that hurt the show, mostly significantly involving characterization. I can forgive bad editing, or issues with lighting, and many of my favorite series generally have issues in both. But the characters are what really killed my enthusiasm for this season, and I hope that Martin considers revising his outline when writing the final books rather than scapegoat the writers entirely for following a really flawed storyline.

@Valiona You\'re right, I\'m not sure why I had the backstory in there, it just felt needed for context

@Immortalbear I appreciate you going point for point like that, and I\'m glad you understand that in the end Dn D were just following GRRM\'s original outline. I\'m not sure if I want A Dream Of Spring to end differently, but I do hope everything gets the explanation that it sorely needs.