A Song of Ice and Fire (Spoilers! Only enter if you have read all books)

GATTACA!

GATTACA!

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ShamrockOnHelmet said:
I guess I’m the only human alive who enjoyed Season 8.

Forever alone.
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GATTACA!

GATTACA!

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NorthDakota said:
I didn't read the books. I think the showrunners got put in a shitty spot. I was "fine" with the last season. The end of the season was stupid. They messed up.
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They put themselves in that spot. HBO, GRRM, and the fans all wanted more seasons, which the show desperately needed. Instead they decided to rush the ending and cram 5 seasons worth of plot into 15 episodes because they wanted to move on to Star Wars. Or they could have just handed off the show to show runners that actually wanted to keep making it. They did neither and just phoned it in.

Yes it stinks they ran out of book material but I’ve read dozens of theories and ideas on how the series can end that are all better and more thought out than seasons 5.5-8.
 
IrishLax

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GATTACA! said:
They put themselves in that spot. HBO, GRRM, and the fans all wanted more seasons, which the show desperately needed. Instead they decided to rush the ending and cram 5 seasons worth of plot into 15 episodes because they wanted to move on to Star Wars. Or they could have just handed off the show to show runners that actually wanted to keep making it. They did neither and just phoned it in.

Yes it stinks they ran out of book material but I’ve read dozens of theories and ideas on how the series can end that are all better and more thought out than seasons 5.5-8.
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It is crazy how they managed to basically fall ass-backwards into one of the greatest shows of all time thanks to the help of others and then managed to self-sabotage themselves out of their future career prospects by proving to be massively incompetent when they had to do things on their own. For the first ~4 seasons of the show everyone thought they were geniuses.
 
Jiggafini19Deux

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IrishLax said:
It is crazy how they managed to basically fall ass-backwards into one of the greatest shows of all time thanks to the help of others and then managed to self-sabotage themselves out of their future career prospects by proving to be massively incompetent when they had to do things on their own. For the first ~4 seasons of the show everyone thought they were geniuses.
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Those episodes all followed the books the closest if I'm not mistaken.
 
IrishLion

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ShamrockOnHelmet said:
I guess I’m the only human alive who enjoyed Season 8.

Forever alone.
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In hindsight, I think I'm with you. I enjoyed almost all of it as a spectacle. It was greatly entertaining, even if the established lore and resulting climaxes didn't totally match up.

The problems were with how rushed it was (which @GATTACA! already nailed).

Getting Dany to suddenly betray everything she believes in with little buildup to "Mad Queen" status isn't the problem, nor is Jon knifing her. The problem is that they could've used an entire additional season to build to that moment, and could have actually made it meaningful, rather than so totally ridiculous that it bordered on satire.

Instead, they hinged on one boat sex scene, and one kissing-in-front-of-dragons scene, to encapsulate this deep love we were supposed to believe in between Jon and Dany. Everyone expected Jon to be the ultimate hero, and I get they were trying to turn that on its head as much as possible while still throwing a "twist" in at the end... but you still have to build to it. We have to care about their relationship. But... there is no reason to. Dany sucks more the later in the show it gets, and Jon gets neutered for the sake of circumventing him as the ultimate hero.

It could have all ended in generally the same ways, but it moved too fast for any of it to have a legit impact on the viewer. Such a shame.
 
Jiggafini19Deux

Jiggafini19Deux

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The whole "Who is Jon's mother" scenario meant absolutely nothing in the end.

The people from HBO sat down with GRRM and the first thing they asked him was "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"

It was such a major component of the first several seasons that was always in the back of our minds. Then we find out, and it ultimately led to nothing in the end.

Season 5 is pretty bad minus one episode.
 
Katzenboyer

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IrishLax said:
It is crazy how they managed to basically fall ass-backwards into one of the greatest shows of all time thanks to the help of others and then managed to self-sabotage themselves out of their future career prospects by proving to be massively incompetent when they had to do things on their own. For the first ~4 seasons of the show everyone thought they were geniuses.
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It's crazy to me because some of the changes they made from the books are REALLY good. They curtailed some plotlines, avoided some of the wandering "knots" the GRRM wrote himself into, and basically streamlined things for really good television.

And then...they blew it. THEY wanted to move onto other projects, and selfishly wouldn't let someone else take over as showrunner. And in doing so, left an awful taste in the mouths of millions of fans who fell in love with the show in the first place.

It truly is a world-class bungling. And it's pretty telling that these guys haven't come close to being in consideration of any serious projects since (and lost a Star Wars franchise because of it).
 
zelezo vlk

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Jiggafini19Deux said:
The whole "Who is Jon's mother" scenario meant absolutely nothing in the end.

The people from HBO sat down with GRRM and the first thing they asked him was "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"

It was such a major component of the first several seasons that was always in the back of our minds. Then we find out, and it ultimately led to nothing in the end.

Season 5 is pretty bad minus one episode.
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I believe you have it backwards; GRRM was interviewing Benioff and Weiss to see if they really knew his books and his first question was the identity of Jon Snow's mom. Which any dummy with Google could have figured out back then. I believe they're on record as saying that they cared most about adapting The Red Wedding and everything else paled in comparison.
 
DomerInHappyValley

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Jiggafini19Deux said:
The whole "Who is Jon's mother" scenario meant absolutely nothing in the end.

The people from HBO sat down with GRRM and the first thing they asked him was "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"

It was such a major component of the first several seasons that was always in the back of our minds. Then we find out, and it ultimately led to nothing in the end.

Season 5 is pretty bad minus one episode.
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Not to mention Arya killing the Night King

Huge build up to Jon being the Prince that was Promised.

Azor Ahai reborn.

Nope fucking Arya.

You'll never convince me that whole clusterfuck of a season wasn't so they could show Disney.

"See we can have strong female leads.
We won't fuck up Rey we promise."
 
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IrishLion

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Jiggafini19Deux said:
The whole "Who is Jon's mother" scenario meant absolutely nothing in the end.

The people from HBO sat down with GRRM and the first thing they asked him was "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"

It was such a major component of the first several seasons that was always in the back of our minds. Then we find out, and it ultimately led to nothing in the end.

Season 5 is pretty bad minus one episode.
Click to expand...

That's what drives me most crazy about waiting for the books. There's no way GRRM lets that go out with a fizzle the way the show does. He's a brilliant writer. I want to see how he brings out the goosebumps regarding Jon's lineage and his ensuing love/conflict with Dany as the true heir.

I'm starting to believe that part of GRRM's problem with finishing the story is that he has known for a while that he has to not only bring Jon back to life pretty quickly, but he has to get Dany across the sea quickly enough for them to meet and fall in love. And we need that love story to evolve over nearly two whole books, that way his end with Jon betraying Dany at the Iron Throne has impact. He might even be building towards a legit military conflict between Jon and Dany, where they each gather loyal Westerosi lords to their cause after Cersei bites the dust, however that happens.

GRRM probably realizes it's too much to accomplish in two books after having seen the show, so he's stuck. (Not to mention the 10+ other storylines full of other shit that probably need three whole books to conclude in a satisfactory fashion.)

DomerInHappyValley said:
Not to mention Arya killing the Night King

Huge build up to Jon being the Prince that was Promised.

Azor Ahai reborn.

Nope fucking Arya.
Click to expand...

I could see GRRM pulling that off somehow, still. He's obviously building Arya for something big, and most believe it's to kill Cersei and clear Dany's path to the throne through chaos/power vacuum.

With Arya's storyline, he's got time and flexibility to get her back to Westeros the way they did in the show, and her training as a Faceless man basically give him agency to do anything he wants with her. She can fill any prophecy with her abilities (whether it's dumb in the narrative context is another debate).
 
Jiggafini19Deux

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zelezo vlk said:
I believe you have it backwards; GRRM was interviewing Benioff and Weiss to see if they really knew his books and his first question was the identity of Jon Snow's mom. Which any dummy with Google could have figured out back then. I believe they're on record as saying that they cared most about adapting The Red Wedding and everything else paled in comparison.
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I did have it backwards.

In a Q&A back in 2013, the story was told of how the three of them sat down for a lunch that was eventually dragged into a five hour meeting. Martin recounted, "I did ask them a few pointed question to determine whether they had actually read the books, and they gave me the right answers."

When asked to specify what they were grilled on, Weiss elaborated:

He asked us, “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?” We had discussed it before, and we gave a shocking answer. At that point, George didn’t actually say whether or not we were right or wrong, but his smile was his tell. We knew we had passed the Wonka test, at that point.
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Ultimately, my point is that nothing really came of it at the end. There was really no point.
 
IrishLion

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That shit just gave me goosebumps. THAT would have killed in the show. Would have been one of the most memorable scenes ever, and would have been a perfect conclusion to Jaime's redemption.
 
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