What TV SHOWS are you watching?

yeah i should have qualified that better. There were elements that took me completely by surprise, and then there was TONS of stuff that I could not even begin to comprehend why it would be in the finale at all (cuz it's either really boring or unnecessary). that's what I mean by being thrown all over the place by the finale. I was super happy in some spots and really let down in others. One thing is for sure, Season 7 is the weakest season of all of them. I still love the show and it still evokes emotion in me, which is good.

I'll hopefully post more later today, first day back at work in a couple weeks...

Black Barney wrote: One thing is for sure, Season 7 is the weakest season of all of them.

For me it's season 5, definitely. I would rather a breakneck pace, even if I have to turn my brain off at times, than treading water on filler that doesn't really add up to much in the scheme of things. Just so many boring tangents that I didn't care about that dragged on and on:
- The Sons of the Harpy
- Jamie rescuing Myrcella in Dorne
- Arya in Braavos (which took 2 seasons)
- the High Sparrow (which took 2 seasons)
- Jorah capturing Tyrion

The only interesting stuff took place in the north. Everything else was a bore.

Black Barney wrote: One thing is for sure, Season 7 is the weakest season of all of them.

I think it's better than 5. The pace was harried, but I'm convinced that that Episode 4 was probably the best of the series. I'm in the minority that doesn't care about twist endings and predictability as much as fidelity to character and rational storytelling. Much has been made of travel times and raven speed, but the constraint of the season was really trying to surprise the audience when it wasn't really necessary. Seeing the execution is the payoff. There is plenty of uncertainty even if every prophecy is fulfilled, right?

Think of how character deaths were handled in 5 compared to 7. In 5, the deaths had weight. In 7, they just feel like putting dirt under a carpet. A hasty clean up.

I just don't remember shaking my head as much in season 5 as I am with this one. Good point about épisode 4 though, that was incredible. I could watch Bronn laughing at Dickon all day too

Now that the story has to wrap up, there isn't really any more intrigue, which is a big part of what I liked. Now it's just straight storytelling. Being confronted with a possible two year span until the next season, I find myself shrugging my shoulders in indifference.

I think that this post is absolutely right.

www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2017/8...f-ice-and-fire-books

I still maintain that despite his increasing lack of editing and slowness, almost all of the good plot ideas and character moments come from George RR Martin.

I know that people have pixel-peeped maps and tried to make sense of scale in Westeros, but the teleporting makes more sense if you consider Westeros to be a squished, stretched, East/West twisted map of Great Britain. Given the inspiration from the War of the Roses* that makes sense to me.

Winterfell is York
King's Landing is London.
The Vale of Arryn is Wales-ish
etc.

The Wall is Hadrian's Wall, with the free folk living in Northumberland/Cumberland, and the desolate wastes beyond accounting for Scotland**

Winterfell to King's Landing would be around 300 miles. Carrier pigeons can fly 50+mph, so you're looking at six hours for a raven to get a message from one to the other (or Winterfell to Dragonstone), add in another 100 miles for the distance from Winterfell to the lake north of the wall (we don't know where it is exactly) so you're looking at a seven hour flap to get a message to Danaerys. If a dragon can fly 100mph, then it's a 3.5 hour trip back. Shivering on a rock for 10 hours seems possible. The dead are patient, until provoked.

For scale reference I usually point out to Americans that the mainland of Britain is about the size of Illinois in terms of land area. This usually results in some disparaging remarks about Illinois.

*The Lannisters won that one.
**There's a joke there, but I'm not going to make it.

JEM wrote: For scale reference I usually point out to Americans that the mainland of Britain is about the size of Illinois in terms of land area. This usually results in some disparaging remarks about Illinois.

That's certainly understandable.

It took a thousand tries but Jem made one heck of a quality post

I think this season has been a weird mix of highs and lows. On average, I would probably rank it on a par with Season 5 for the [-]worst[/-]least satisifying. But even the worst GoT season can still be great.

I dislike the vast number of people who are poo-pooing this season as being "boring" or "predictable." Certain things were inevitable, maybe, but I think there are still a lot of issues that can be resolved in a number of interesting ways.

Some think it's inevitable that Cersei will fall, but how will it happen? Who will do it? Will she beg for forgiveness or go down swinging? Or will she actually triumph in the end? That idea isn't as farfetched as you might think. History is full of the wrong people winning, and life moves on. Hell, even the backstory of GoT does this with Rhaegar. He was supposed to be the next great king, and then he got beat to death by a jealous lover with a hammer.

Jon and Dany hooked up, which was kind of inevitable just from the title of the book series. But how does their romance go? Rainbows and flowers or fire and blood? Do we actually expect both of them to live happily ever after? If not, which one dies and how? Will both die?

Anyway, my rant is just to say that knowing that the astronauts made it home safely didn't make Apollo 13 any less suspenseful or dramatic.

tl;dr - People suck and are never satisfied.

Gregarius wrote:

Anyway, my rant is just to say that knowing that the astronauts made it home safely didn't make Apollo 13 any less suspenseful or dramatic.

The first few times I saw it, it brought tears to my eyes. And I knew how it ended, and am a old-enough geezer to remember Apollo 13 in real life. Then again, I'm a big baby when it comes to movies.

JEM wrote: I know that people have pixel-peeped maps and tried to make sense of scale in Westeros, but the teleporting makes more sense if you consider Westeros to be a squished, stretched, East/West twisted map of Great Britain. Given the inspiration from the War of the Roses* that makes sense to me.

Winterfell is York
King's Landing is London.
The Vale of Arryn is Wales-ish
etc.

The Wall is Hadrian's Wall, with the free folk living in Northumberland/Cumberland, and the desolate wastes beyond accounting for Scotland**

Winterfell to King's Landing would be around 300 miles. Carrier pigeons can fly 50+mph, so you're looking at six hours for a raven to get a message from one to the other (or Winterfell to Dragonstone), add in another 100 miles for the distance from Winterfell to the lake north of the wall (we don't know where it is exactly) so you're looking at a seven hour flap to get a message to Danaerys. If a dragon can fly 100mph, then it's a 3.5 hour trip back. Shivering on a rock for 10 hours seems possible. The dead are patient, until provoked.

For scale reference I usually point out to Americans that the mainland of Britain is about the size of Illinois in terms of land area. This usually results in some disparaging remarks about Illinois.

*The Lannisters won that one.
**There's a joke there, but I'm not going to make it.

I noticed the geographic similarity 20 years ago when I first started reading the first book. It's always a nice touch when the author includes maps in the book. But I disagree with the specifics. I think that Dorne is Wales and Stark territory is Scotland. I agree that the Wall is originally inspired by Hadrian's Wall, but even allowing for stretching and distorting, I think that the raiders and land north of the Wall in the series are meant to correspond in a general way with viking invaders and their homelands. Ireland is just missing and Pyke is not meant to represent Ireland.

I enjoyed the season despite its faults. The one thing, however, that really bothered me is the tease of character death. The one thing that's held true in this show is that no one is safe and anyone can die. This season, it seems every episode they want you to think someone has died but they miraculously make it out. It's a de-evolution in writing and is pretty unsatisfying.

charlest wrote: I enjoyed the season despite its faults. The one thing, however, that really bothered me is the tease of character death. The one thing that's held true in this show is that no one is safe and anyone can die. This season, it seems every episode they want you to think someone has died but they miraculously make it out. It's a de-evolution in writing and is pretty unsatisfying.

It was easier for Martin to be heartless about killing characters, because they were just book characters. The show runners relate to these characters in terms of real actors playing their biggest roles of their careers.

I'm teaching my college course on a song of ice and fire and the political economic development of europe again, so I've been reading closely. This time I'm focusing on a dance with dragons, which can be tedious because it's disconnected from the narrative of the first 3 books... but it's also sort of quite good if taken by itself on its own terms.