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Game of Thrones *NO BOOK DISCUSSION* |OT2| Season 7 - [Read the OP]

Surfinn

Member
Even with its flaws.. this season has been phenomenal and really produced some classic GoT moments. I hope they stay on track
 

Vectorman

Banned
I think this season pretty much explains why Martin isn't finishing the books.

He has written himself into a corner and will need more that 2 books to tell the remaining story.

D&D just want this to be over soon so they can move on to other things since they haven't done anything but work on GOT since 2010. They have run out of time and budget and will take any shortcut necessary for this to be over by early 2019.

It makes one wonder why D&D even bothered sticking with the show? They might have been able to leave it to better hands and let them go off and do their dumb Confederate series that no one wants apparently. And with the negative critical and fan reaction at the pace of this show, I wonder if HBO pushes back against D&D rushing the end and instead makes them do like 2 hour episodes to get this done that satisfies everyone. You can say it's too late for that but HBO probably doesn't want to lose their opportunities with this franchise to do spinoffs. They can't do that if the showrunners poison the well before this is even over in S8.
 
Any gif of that Snow/Night King stare down after the dragon falls? Dat pose.

Here you go

giphy.gif
 
Come on..really?

Yes really. I mean that old tarly guy and the why he would side with Cersei after she wiped out the sept and killing Margery. "Cos he racist of Dothraka, regicide and sacrilege is ok" - just a foil made red shirt to die in fire to justify "she might be crazy" dialogue.

Look at the Sansa Vs Arya drama. It's just a poorly telegraphed setup to kill off Littlefinger as he's not relevant anymore.

And we just killed off a dragon in order to find a Zombie to show Cersei. Despite already displaying zero fucks about anything, destroys her own son, baelor and a chunk of her people, that's someone rational we can work with to justify a dead dragon.

Oh please, no one talk to Bran yet cos he'll ruin all our contrivances wheel him into a cupboard whilst we crap out this drama.
 

RDreamer

Member
Even with its flaws.. this season has been phenomenal and really produced some classic GoT moments. I hope they stay on track

This season has produced some decent spectacle, but almost no actual "classic" GoT moments for me. Right now I put it maybe above Season 5. Maybe, though my anger at the last episode has me thinking it might be dead last. Personally I hope they pull this out of their ass and at least give the show I once adored so much a halfway acceptable sendoff.

It makes one wonder why D&D even bothered sticking with the show? They might have been able to leave it to better hands and let them go off and do their dumb Confederate series that no one wants apparently. And with the negative critical and fan reaction at the pace of this show, I wonder if HBO pushes back against D&D rushing the end and instead makes them do like 2 hour episodes to get this done that satisfies everyone. You can say it's too late for that but HBO probably doesn't to lose their opportunities with this franchise to do spinoffs. They can't do that if the showrunners poison the well before this is even over in S8.

D&D are really making it hard for spinoffs to be a success at this point. Not just because the writing is bad but because they've completely traded the writing for massive spectacle. It's something a spinoff can't even hope to do right off the bat. So people are going to have overinflated spectacle expectations on any spinoff now and they might get season 1 type budget.
 
Yes really. I mean that old tarly guy and the why he would side with Cersei after she wiped out the sept and killing Margery. "Cos he racist of Dothraka, regicide and sacrilege is ok" - just a foil made red shirt to die in fire to justify "she might be crazy" dialogue.

Look at the Sansa Vs Arya drama. It's just a poorly telegraphed setup to kill off Littlefinger as he's not relevant anymore.

And we just killed off a dragon in order to find a Zombie to show Cersei. Despite already displaying zero fucks about anything, destroys her own son, baelor and a chunk of her people, that's someone rational we can work with to justify a dead dragon.

Oh please, no one talk to Bran yet cos he'll ruin all our contrivances wheel him into a cupboard whilst we crap out this drama.

Not talking about your gripes with the show.
It's the stupidity in comparing people who're theorising to "the_donald".
 
yep. drogon can kill everyone around him with one tail swipe.

the fact that they didnt even try to go for the night king is frustrating. despite discussing it beforehand. you could end the fight right then and there. just have dany turn a dragon around or order one to fry the night king. they dont know if he's impervious to fire. at least try it. hell, it wouldve made for a great scene when they think they won the war and then night king comes out of the fire and impales the dragon anyway.

would've made more sense for the night king to kill a dragon attacking him than just randomly picking a flying dragon instead of one sitting right in front of him.

poor writing, poor setup, it's like they didnt think anything through. they had a year to write just 7 episodes and they come up with this. breaking bad and mad men's last seasons were so well written because of the shortened seasons, i assumed we would see similar writing quality here. but i guess now that they dont have any George R.R Martin writing to go buy, they have to actually write stuff themselves and they just dont have good writers on this show.

Martin has had 10 years since the show was first optioned to finish his story and he didn't. This show was optioned in 2007. D&D signed on to adapt this series and I seriously doubt ANYONE had any idea that Martin wouldn't be done now. Instead of adapting the series they're having to write the ending of a story that's not theirs and take the blunt of criticms levied at them because Martin is an undisciplined writer. Couple that with things like this:

It makes one wonder why D&D even bothered sticking with the show? They might have been able to leave it to better hands and let them go off and do their dumb Confederate series that no one wants apparently. And with the negative critical and fan reaction at the pace of this show, I wonder if HBO pushes back against D&D rushing the end and instead makes them do like 2 hour episodes to get this done that satisfies everyone. You can say it's too late for that but HBO probably doesn't want to lose their opportunities with this franchise to do spinoffs. They can't do that if the showrunners poison the well before this is even over in S8.

They bothered sticking with a show because they started it, they have a contract and no one is going to torpedo their careers when they're working on the biggest show in TV because they have to write an ending to a story they didn't think they'd have to write. It's ridiculous this amount of criticism is being thrown at them and not Martin when it's HIS story and he can't bother to finish it. Do people think HBO should have just left things as they were at season 5 and kept shooting once Martin finished? If they did that we'd have season 6 in 2027 and we'd never get an ending because Martin isn't capable of finishing his own story.
 

effzee

Member
Guys can we stop blaming GRRM or not having source material for the poor writing?

Season 6 was post books and even if you don't think its the best season, it certainly was one of the better season. To me it was the best.

This has less to do with these same writers not knowing how to write all of a sudden and more about just wrapping up a story by rushing through it.
 
Martin has had 10 years since the show was first optioned to finish his story and he didn't.

Yup, blame DnD all you want but this is also on GRRM, dude created a very convoluted story and left them with scraps to put together and finish the work on. The hardest part, the conclusion.

DnD aren't writers, plain and simple. There is a reason why they're behind the camera and he's behind the pen.

Sure, some shit is stupid and inexcusable, but there is plenty that isn't as well.
 

effzee

Member
Keep thinking how they missed 2 awesome dragon scenes with Jon being rescued by a Dragon (his dragon) and then the NK raising a dead dragon as he flies through the ice.
 

Jyrii

Banned
Beric and Thoros lighting up their swords was Bloodborne as fuck. I wonder if Beric will teach Jon how to do that.

Also, it was weird seeing Jorah using daggers instead of sword. Did he lose it?
 

Erebus

Member
Yeah this bothered me. Instead he just watches them for apparently 4 days lol.
Yeah the episode had tons of lame shit in it as it's been pointed out by everyone but the Night King just standing by for what seemed like a couple of days doing nothing is preposterous. He couldn't have known the the dragons were coming, right! (Because he apparently needs them in his undead army).
 
I'm all for pointing out when people are being needlessly nit picky on a fantasy/ficitonal tv show, but the fast travel stuff has become a legitimate complaint that is for me is hard to ignore. The entire series opens with Robert and Ned, long time old friends, reuniting for hte first time in who knows how long because Winterfell is such a long ride from King's Landing. And then IIRC they spend the next 2 or so episodes riding back. It established that this world is fucking vast and huge, and established that as part of the foundation for the show. Removing that imo removes a lot of the stakes. Dany's biggest concern with Jon's request that she help him fight the white army was that it would take away from her current focus of taking King's Landing....yet apparently it only takes a few days to get from where she was to all the way up the asshole of the North, days that she was just going to spend arguing with Tyrion anyway, so what exactly was the problem? Jon is telling her that there is a army of dead soldiers marching towards civilization and she needs proof before she does anything, but the moment she gets a raven from the Wall she hauls ass with dragons in tow to save the day? The entire thing just makes this massive, vast world feel small.
 
It makes one wonder why D&D even bothered sticking with the show? They might have been able to leave it to better hands and let them go off and do their dumb Confederate series that no one wants apparently. And with the negative critical and fan reaction at the pace of this show, I wonder if HBO pushes back against D&D rushing the end and instead makes them do like 2 hour episodes to get this done that satisfies everyone. You can say it's too late for that but HBO probably doesn't to lose their opportunities with this franchise to do spinoffs. They can't do that if the showrunners poison the well before this is even over in S8.
Possibly because D&D are under a contract with HBO to finish the series. HBO would love if GoT, their biggest flagship series in history, would continue for another 10 years. But D&D found a workaround to finish the show haphazardly and just blame "lack of source material". The truth is that they want to end the show quickly. Benjen was such a cool mysterious character who could have given much needed perspective, but he's done in such a bad way. That moment broke the camel's back for me.

I'm really upset after last night. It now seems like D&D are in JJ Abrams & Lindolf situation from Season 6 of Lost: you have all these moving parts that you started very nicely, but you land on your ass in trying to resolve everything in the last season and fans start screaming WTF???!! after ever subsequent episode from the last couple of seasons. It pains me to make the comparison because GoT never quite fell into the ridiculous tv trappings of "how in the world...?". I was willing to give GoT slack for timejumps and fast travel but last night I couldn't defend. D&D are out of ideas and just think they can free ride to the easiest resolution.
 

molnizzle

Member
Yup, blame DnD all you want but this is all on GRRM, dude created a very convoluted story and left them with scraps to put together and finish the work on. The hardest part, the conclusion.

DnD aren't writers, plain and simple. There is a reason why they're behind the camera and he's behind the pen.

Yeah. I kinda feel for D&D. They signed on to adapt a series of novels, not write the ending to them. They did a damn good job back when they had actual source material to work from.

This season they're adapting bullet points rather than novels... and it shows.
 

JB1981

Member
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok
 
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok
After seeing those abs, her decision was a wise one. She knew what was waiting under that cloak. You don't just give that up.

LOL, I knew someone would do this.
These are great. I wish they would slow it down when it got to kid though. Let them sit on him a bit longer.
 

SealedSeven

Neo Member
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok

Sometimes your instincts tell you they are alive. Stuff like that's in nearly every story.
 
Guys can we stop blaming GRRM or not having source material for the poor writing?

Season 6 was post books and even if you don't think its the best season, it certainly was one of the better season. To me it was the best.

This has less to do with these same writers not knowing how to write all of a sudden and more about just wrapping up a story by rushing through it.

He sold the totality of the story before season 1 of the HBO show started. The story needing to be "wrapped up quickly" in the last seasons is partly the fault of the source material.

I'm definitely not down on the season. It isn't great, but it isn't bad either. Its just rushed. What's amazing is that this is supposed to be the final book or some close approximation of it. So we're getting the final season/book split up into two seasons of 7 for 14 shows and not 10 like all the rest of the books. It still feels rushed. It should feel like there's filler ...
 

RDreamer

Member
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok

To be fair, considering how quickly Gendry ran to the castle Dany might have only been standing there like an hour to wait for Jon to come back on a horse :p

Then again, if Gendry and Jon can come back so fucking quickly how can Dany not literally see what's going on from the top of The Wall.

And again, this problem is solved by a tiny bit of dialogue where Dany is told he's been brought back to life before.
 
It makes one wonder why D&D even bothered sticking with the show? They might have been able to leave it to better hands and let them go off and do their dumb Confederate series that no one wants apparently. And with the negative critical and fan reaction at the pace of this show, I wonder if HBO pushes back against D&D rushing the end and instead makes them do like 2 hour episodes to get this done that satisfies everyone. You can say it's too late for that but HBO probably doesn't to lose their opportunities with this franchise to do spinoffs. They can't do that if the showrunners poison the well before this is even over in S8.

People don't exactly plan to get sick of doing something.
I am sure Peter Jackson loved every minute of making LOTR but by the time he was forced to do a trilogy on Hobbit he was clearly sick doing more Middle Earth.
I just sort of happens when you keep doing something for too long and what started as creative endeavor becomes a chore.
 

aBarreras

Member
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok

come the fuck on, wouldn't you do the same? hoping for the best on the worst situation?
 
Guys can we stop blaming GRRM or not having source material for the poor writing?

Season 6 was post books and even if you don't think its the best season, it certainly was one of the better season. To me it was the best.

This has less to do with these same writers not knowing how to write all of a sudden and more about just wrapping up a story by rushing through it.

It's more likely that the reason season 6 was good was because they had a much better idea and direction from Martin for what he was doing at that point. The reason this season appears to be off the rails for some people when it comes to writing is because it's highly unlikely Martin thought that far ahead to give the plot and story beats to D&D. You can see that from the behind the scenes stuff from season six to season 7. In the season 6 supplimental material, D&D seem to have a strong foundation and framework on how to direct the story. In the season 7 stuff (even last episode) they were like "we knew we had to do this, so we thought about how we get these people to this point, etc etc".

Yup, blame DnD all you want but this is also on GRRM, dude created a very convoluted story and left them with scraps to put together and finish the work on. The hardest part, the conclusion.

DnD aren't writers, plain and simple. There is a reason why they're behind the camera and he's behind the pen.

Sure, some shit is stupid and inexcusable, but there is plenty that isn't as well.

Right, exactly. The ending is the hardest part and they're writing the ending to story they didn't create. That has to be extremely taxing, especially when you couple that with how hard it must to be create this show from a production level. It's got to be insane.

Also, to be honest, it's kind of amazing to me to see people shit all over D&D and let Martin's ass off the hook. The guy had 10 fucking years to finish this story. martin even said at one point a few years ago he thought the show could go on hiatus while he finished and do some side stories instead. Fucking ridiculous. What a deluded asshole.
 
Guys can we stop blaming GRRM or not having source material for the poor writing?

Season 6 was post books and even if you don't think its the best season, it certainly was one of the better season. To me it was the best.

This has less to do with these same writers not knowing how to write all of a sudden and more about just wrapping up a story by rushing through it.

The difference being season 6 is a lot of just the conclusions to where we're at with the ending of book 5. Season 7 is the beginning of the end, and all they have are bullet points on where they're supposed to be headed.

...
I'm really upset after last night. It now seems like D&D are in JJ Abrams & Lindolf situation from Season 6 of Lost: you have all these moving parts that you started very nicely, but you land on your ass in trying to resolve everything in the last season and fans start screaming WTF???!! after ever subsequent episode from the last couple of seasons. It pains me to make the comparison because GoT never quite fell into the ridiculous tv trappings of "how in the world...?". I was willing to give GoT slack for timejumps and fast travel but last night I couldn't defend. D&D are out of ideas and just think they can free ride to the easiest resolution.

This is a terrible comparison. Lost writers had no idea what they were actually leading up to the entire time: they were literally just throwing shit at the wall and hoping to figure it out down the road at some point. D&D agreed to adapt someone else's work with nearly 5 years of lead time for the author to get the end game mostly together: he didn't do it and now they have to try and clean up the mess.

I don't mean to suggest that the showrunners are blameless for any issues this season or next, only that the majority of the blame can be laid directly at the feet of GRRM.
 

Lumination

'enry 'ollins
Dany flies away looking back at Jon surrounded by thousands of whites. And drowning in a lake....but she is waiting on the wall for him to miraculously show up. Ok
What makes it worse is that they never showed both remaining dragons in the same frame after the fight, so I thought the second one was lost and she was waiting for it. Not for Jon to miraculously survive freezing water, an army of the dead, and the ride home. Not only horribly written, but also horribly conveyed to the viewer.
 

gun_haver

Member
Why then dont start the attack the moment Gendry is out of sight? Why engage in a 3 days staring contest?

I don't like the episode, but the reasons are this:

- The NK/Walkers realised that the ice was thin and halted the wights from rushing them. They were standing watching and waiting for the ice to freeze up enough that they could start to approach - when the Hound threw the second rock and it landed on the ice, this indicated to the NK that it was safe to move forward. This is all kind of stupid but that's the logic.
OR
- The NK was probably keeping them alive to lure Dany and her dragons, which he probably had a psychic vision of coming, down so that he could get a good shot at one of them and convert it. If they were all dead, Dany might just have flown on. Waiting was the point.

Could be a combo of both.

Also people saying why didn't the NK go for Drogon when he was right in front of him. I think the idea is that Drogon wasn't currently flying around spitting fire and killing hundreds/thousands of his army, but Viserion was lining up for another pass, so he went for him first and then went for Drogon second when they were about to fly away. This is assuming the NK wants to kill Jon/Dany and all of the dragons. We don't know if he has another intention that needs specific people alive.
 
It would be cheesy and its overdone....but I kind of hope the end of the ice dragon is it recognizing Dany after it's slaughtered tons of men, and has a moment of hesitation. Then Drogon rips it to pieces, or it catches a dragonglass canon to the face.
 
Yup, blame DnD all you want but this is also on GRRM, dude created a very convoluted story and left them with scraps to put together and finish the work on. The hardest part, the conclusion.

DnD aren't writers, plain and simple. There is a reason why they're behind the camera and he's behind the pen.

Sure, some shit is stupid and inexcusable, but there is plenty that isn't as well.

Yeah, epics are usually really hard to wrap up in a satisfying way. I don't care who's behind the wheel, in film the 3rd in a trilogy for example is usually the most dissapointed part, return of the Jedi, Spider-Man 3, and tv is no different. Lost, and breaking bad come to mind ( even though the last season of BB had the best episode of the series)

The audience loved the characters and thier journey. The problem with the end is the journey is over and we have learned just about everything about our beloved characters. It's a conundrum that I'm sure us hard to solve.
 
Possibly because D&D are under a contract with HBO to finish the series. HBO would love if GoT, their biggest flagship series in history, would continue for another 10 years. But D&D found a workaround to finish the show haphazardly and just blame "lack of source material". The truth is that they want to end the show quickly.

What makes you think that? Or are you just suggesting that because the story being told isn't something you're feeling? These guys are the producers of the show, what they're doing is juggling 12 chainsaws because no matter what they do people won't be happy. And now they've had three more chainsaws thrown into the mix because Martin didn't do his fucking job and finish the story. Working on anything for 10 years has to be hard, but I seriously doubt these guys jumped into this, as fans of this material and now want to get off because "they want to end the show quickly". Come on.
 
Guys can we stop blaming GRRM or not having source material for the poor writing?

Season 6 was post books and even if you don't think its the best season, it certainly was one of the better season. To me it was the best.

This has less to do with these same writers not knowing how to write all of a sudden and more about just wrapping up a story by rushing through it.

Isn't that the season where Arya gets stabbed like Swiss cheese

She is in love.

Fitting for the Dragon Queen.

"This boy better survive this shit or he's not worthy"
 

Tuck

Member
I don't like the episode, but the reasons are this:

- The NK/Walkers realised that the ice was thin and halted the wights from rushing them. They were standing watching and waiting for the ice to freeze up enough that they could start to approach - when the Hound threw the second rock and it landed on the ice, this indicated to the NK that it was safe to move forward. This is all kind of stupid but that's the logic.
OR
- The NK was probably keeping them alive to lure Dany and her dragons, which he probably had a psychic vision of coming, down so that he could get a good shot at one of them and convert it. If they were all dead, Dany might just have flown on. Waiting was the point.

Could be a combo of both.
The Night King laying a trap would have made the scene make a lot more sense, but theres nothing there that indicates he was doing that. Its pure head canon.
 
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