Jon is also quite a terrible King. Can't delegate for crap. Doesn't trust anyone to do anything. He doesn't think beyond his next impulse. He's spent more time on road trips than actually dealing with his people. He's over concerned with the dead behind the wall; not enough concerned about his people surviving now.

Not to mention, he needs saving more than any hero in fantasy history. Dany brought 3 dragons, lost one of them, and he's all " Nah, y'all go ahead, I'll catch the next dragon."

Jon's just doing what the plot needs him to do like everyone else now. I will say that it has crossed the line to being truly bad rather than just different. Almost nothing believable happened in the last episode. It was almost a comedy.

JJxvi said:

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Jon's just doing what the plot needs him to do like everyone else now. I will say that it has crossed the line to being truly bad rather than just different. Almost nothing believable happened in the last episode. It was almost a comedy.

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I think the last episode had some pretty horrible writing. The whole raven cell phone thing just doesn't work for me. And then there's this thing called hypothermia.

I think this is the episode the whole fandom agrees well the writing isn't gonna get any better but screw it.

Also the only thing about the Sansa-Arya subplot that makes sense is that they're both terrified of Lyanna Mormont.

Was thinking about this last night. This season definitely has it issues and I think a lot of them could have been avoided with some additional vetting of the logistics and pace. And of course there have been some scenes that were nearly laughable in how they were written (Jamie in the river, Gendry's snow marathon, etc). That being said........


What I think is really bothering both readers and shower viewers is this. All the remaining characters and arcs have essentially came together in three camps. You have Cercei/King's Landing, Dany/Dragonstone, and Jon/The North. And after last episode, we're now down to two camps with the North aligning to Dany. This is a literally 180 degree shift from where the books are and even where the series was in terms of how the story is told. The relevance of many of the characters is greatly diminished when they are all on the same team. In other words, when they are now all working towards the same goal, their individual identities and story arcs have much less meaning and that is a huge departure to how this story has been told through five books and six previous seasons.

For example, Varys as a character, with exception to some good dialogue here and there, essentially lost relevance the moment he brokered the alliance of Highgarten and Sunspear to Dany. It was his last move in the game. Tyrion offers little at this point once Dany landed at Dragonstone. The Sansa/Arya fued seems like filler material to keep something going at Winterfell and the vehicle to close our LF, who is the only character still playing the game but literally has no game to play now. Even the question of who sits the throne is relegated to second tier story arc since Cercei is essentially "contained" at KL and Dany and Jon are going to focus on the WW's. And that was always what this about anyway, Ice and Fire, it just basically simmered in the back ground while the vast majority of characters and arcs somehow supported or tied back to the Game of Thrones..

HBO writers could do better, but cleaning up and closing this out is almost an impossible task, especially when the remaining episodes and seasons are limited.

i think they just got lazy in that they new they had 5 seasons of book material and figures we need about 2 seasons to wrap it up, we will come up with something...well in reality they probably needed 3 seasons to deal with time and space logistics, or start to condense season 4 and 5 and cut out some of the bull***** the sand snakes and area's training could have been all condensed.

I don't mind it that much tho, I'm on the edge of my seat every episode. So besides the normal gripes i think they are doing alright but got a little lazy along the way.

I'm really enjoying the ride but will admit that it's frenetic. Given 13 episodes to bring a ton of loose ends to a conclusion, I think the writers have done fine with it. I think what they really needed was about 20-25 episodes, but that's not on the writers.

Joseph Parrish said:

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JJxvi said:

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Jon's just doing what the plot needs him to do like everyone else now. I will say that it has crossed the line to being truly bad rather than just different. Almost nothing believable happened in the last episode. It was almost a comedy.

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I think the last episode had some pretty horrible writing. The whole raven cell phone thing just doesn't work for me. And then there's this thing called hypothermia.

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it seems if you watch the behind the scenes stuff the producers are more worried about how things can/should/need to look on screen versus the actual story. Apprently they have had this zombie bear idea for a while and have been trying to work it in in seasons past but this episode they finally said screw it we don't care, we are going to get this bear in one way or another.

pretty telling to me that they just want to make visually appealing TV and not gut wrenching story-telling.

Jon H. Ryan said:

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Joseph Parrish said:

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JJxvi said:

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Jon's just doing what the plot needs him to do like everyone else now. I will say that it has crossed the line to being truly bad rather than just different. Almost nothing believable happened in the last episode. It was almost a comedy.

---

I think the last episode had some pretty horrible writing. The whole raven cell phone thing just doesn't work for me. And then there's this thing called hypothermia.

---

it seems if you watch the behind the scenes stuff the producers are more worried about how things can/should/need to look on screen versus the actual story. Apprently they have had this zombie bear idea for a while and have been trying to work it in in seasons past but this episode they finally said screw it we don't care, we are going to get this bear in one way or another.

pretty telling to me that they just want to make visually appealing TV and not gut wrenching story-telling.

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Only thing that irks me about the ****ing bear is that they go through all that hassle and they still won't put Ghost in the damn show

DannyDuberstein said:

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I'm really enjoying the ride but will admit that it's frenetic. Given 13 episodes to bring a ton of loose ends to a conclusion, I think the writers have done fine with it. I think what they really needed was about 20-25 episodes, but that's not on the writers.

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D&D ARE the primary writers and exec producers/creators. HBO even came out and said they were disappointed in not having more episodes, but D&D were adamant about needing 13 more. So this is almost ENTIRELY on them. GRRM deserves some of the blame certainly, but Benioff and Weiss had an outline of how this would end. the fact that they are mucking it up so much is on them.


I still love the show, but perhaps the silver lining to all this is that GRRM is motivated to "right the wrong" and finish the story how he intended, and not let the show do it for him.

*must avoid a LOTR rant*

dcAg said:

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I realize a lot of people on here had read some if not all of the books. I have not. I see this as a TV show and have noting to compare it to.

I am not as riled up as a lot of you because I do not know all of the story and plotlines and how they are in comparison. I am kind of glad as after all it is said and done I might go back and read the books for a different experience than reading the books then being disappointed.

Martin and HBO are all somewhat responsible. The Harry Potter movies followed the books pretty well because Rowling was imbedded with the studios. I never read the LOTR but I think that people were happy with those interpretations for the most part.

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I'm not disappointed in the shows as a whole. I actually really like it. The books had far too many characters and story lines to fit into a series that is less than 15+ seasons. What bothers me is the turn toward more formulaic story telling. If the battle scene from Beyond the Wall had been adapted from the book I would bet money there would have been more people die than nameless people. I continue citing that, but it's just an example.

ok_ag95 said:

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DSAg44 said:

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So we finally all agree Sopranos is better???

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Hell to the no!

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Totally unfair to compare the two. They're two totally different shows. The Sopranos is my number 1 show of all time. The writing and acting is what set the stage for shows like BB, The Shield, Mad Man etc. it's a true 'drama' show.

GoT is a fantasy series, and will go down as the greatest in it's category.

One of the producers on a recap was going on about how happy they were to have the bear scene, and I thought it was pretty telling. Right now they are wrapping up and just throwing in whatever they want, it's a wish list, which would also explain why the season is only 7 episodes long.

Given the amount of special effects we've seen this season, and the cost associated I think they are partially mailing it in, this is what happens when you are creating material vs interpreting material. They could have spent more time connecting everything rather than what we've recently seen.

Don't get me wrong, I love the dragons and the battles this season, but it's just not quite the same.

Then again, I might just be bitter and sad because the season and show are almost over, I'm going to miss it.

Jon H. Ryan said:

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Joseph Parrish said:

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JJxvi said:

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Jon's just doing what the plot needs him to do like everyone else now. I will say that it has crossed the line to being truly bad rather than just different. Almost nothing believable happened in the last episode. It was almost a comedy.

---

I think the last episode had some pretty horrible writing. The whole raven cell phone thing just doesn't work for me. And then there's this thing called hypothermia.

---

it seems if you watch the behind the scenes stuff the producers are more worried about how things can/should/need to look on screen versus the actual story. Apprently they have had this zombie bear idea for a while and have been trying to work it in in seasons past but this episode they finally said screw it we don't care, we are going to get this bear in one way or another.

pretty telling to me that they just want to make visually appealing TV and not gut wrenching story-telling.

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This is exactly my point.

The greatness of both the Show and the Books up until this season seemed to be about the storytelling with some incredible scenery dropped in for dramatic effect. Now it feels like filler waiting for incredible scenery. Watching the Behind the Episode and how giddy D&D were about the special effects was kind of disappointing. The story is what makes GOT so special, not just putting dragons and zombies on the screen. There is lots of fantasy out there where heroes are put in impossible situations, are saved by improbable or impossible (by the rules of the writers themselves in terms of the limits of magic, time, or whatever) over and over and it's just not that interesting. The Show has gotten deeper and deeper into miraculous saves and protecting favored characters.

This isn't just about saving favorite characters from dying btw but from being more human. For instance I hated how they took out how Jaime tells Tyrion that his first marriage was actually real and not a farce. That was the straw that drove Tyrion to be so angry with his brother and to drive him to go and kill his father and Shae. Tyrion also has been protected and made into Mr Nice Guy and that has taken away his humanity. They have been making the characters simpler and in the "good vs evil" category and it's disappointing.

In the end they have made a mess. Tyrion is less and less interesting now after being such an incredible character. He's clearly conflicted about battling his family and he is coming up with one stupid idea after another. "Don't attack KL because people will think you are mean. In fact don't even just fly your Dragon to the Red Keep and roast my sister and end the war." "Send your Navy to pick up Dorne instead of just marching them up over your own territory. Don't bother blockading KL." "Delay everything so you can send several of your best assets on a suicide mission Beyond the Wall so my crazy sister might believe you about the WW even though she doesn't care about anything but herself."

Bronn has gone from cool sidekick to comic relief with limitless plot armor. How much better would the story have been had he been knocked off his horse, saw the gold right in front of him with the knowledge he was so close to what he wanted, than turned around only to have a Dothraki kill him? Then let Jaime be captured and either find a way to trade him with Cersei or better yet take him as a prisoner to the gates of KL and see how she reacts.

So many things that could have made the Show more gripping and kept the feel of GOT instead of a super predictable protect the heroes storyline and keep saving them with illogical and impossible It's fine as long as you don't want to spend any energy thinking about how it adds up but that sucks because the beauty of the story is how in the end it ALL connects in the Books so far. They don't have to be perfect but damn, make an effort. Right now I feel like I can't figure out what will happen because they keep changing the rules. Like Jaime will die or be captured. No, he will instead swim underwater for 3 miles in full view of Dany and Tyrion along with his sidekick and in full armor and get away clean.

I don't hate the Show and I am still very thankful they have made it what it is. Their job is really tough. It's just the bar is so high and they have a chance to end this as one of if not the best show of all time in many ways and instead it will be just really good. They seem so thrilled to have huge budgets that they need to go nuts on special effects at the expense of focusing on the story.

A lot of whinging going on with this thread......

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GoT is a fantasy series, and will go down as the greatest in it's category.

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^^^^^^!!

Seriously, you guys can't grade your gritty-realism drama shows to a FANTASY EPIC. It's like comparing athleticism between an NBA player and an NFL QB.

Also, I feel like too much credit is being given to GRRM. The very reason HBO doesn't have a road map to base it's show off of, is precisely because GRRM turned his books into a narrative mess. It's become completely unwieldy.

I think HBO deserves some props for what they've been able to do. Also, can we at least wait to see how this thing concludes? It's clear they're rushing, but we should consider the destination. It might be worth rushing to.

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My ep 7 guesses:

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Where I stop reading.

lol no offense, but it seems like too many people's 'guesses' are based tangentially on what other (potentially spoiler *******s) have postulated.