Anyone else finally getting sick of the unrelenting grimdarkness of GoT?
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I didn't watch the show past the first season, in fact I'm not sure if I actually finished watching that season. That is because I started to read the books around the time the show started and I wanted to finish the books first and then I just didn't have the time and motivation to watch the show.
However I feel similar about the books. I enjoyed the first two or three books, in the 4th book I had to fight to finish it and in the 5th book I just had to stop halfway.
To me the story suffers from a few things that make it very hard to stay engaged. The first thing is, it lacks contrast, it doesn't matter how well it does the dark stuff if there isn't much lighter stuff to compare it to.
The bigger problem in my opinion is the lack of a proper mainthread. Instead you have so many tiny strands that it becomes incredibly hard to keep track of it all. That many don't seem to advance the plot or in Daenerys case dosn't seem to be part of the plot at all (seriously, as interesting as Daenerys and her dragons are, you could remove all her chapters and it wouldn't make much of a difference in the book so far) makes it even harder to stay invested in the story.
However I feel similar about the books. I enjoyed the first two or three books, in the 4th book I had to fight to finish it and in the 5th book I just had to stop halfway.
To me the story suffers from a few things that make it very hard to stay engaged. The first thing is, it lacks contrast, it doesn't matter how well it does the dark stuff if there isn't much lighter stuff to compare it to.
The bigger problem in my opinion is the lack of a proper mainthread. Instead you have so many tiny strands that it becomes incredibly hard to keep track of it all. That many don't seem to advance the plot or in Daenerys case dosn't seem to be part of the plot at all (seriously, as interesting as Daenerys and her dragons are, you could remove all her chapters and it wouldn't make much of a difference in the book so far) makes it even harder to stay invested in the story.
Nah, I've still been enjoying it. Grim-darkness only loses my interest if everything suddenly feels hopeless. The thing is, Westeros is the main character of this show. A dead noble character or a horrible injustice is merely a cut or a scrape, or occasionally a brutal gash for Westeros as a whole. If it ever becomes truly hopeless, and I'm led to believe that everyone is screwed no matter what happens, then maybe I'll lose interest.
However, (possible spoiler) in the current season and the end of last season, I've really been loving some of the recent team-ups, like Jorah Mormont with John Snow, or Tyrion with Daenerys. I think they really complement each other and give me hope for the future of Westeros. Of course, I may be setting myself up for disappointment.
However, (possible spoiler) in the current season and the end of last season, I've really been loving some of the recent team-ups, like Jorah Mormont with John Snow, or Tyrion with Daenerys. I think they really complement each other and give me hope for the future of Westeros. Of course, I may be setting myself up for disappointment.
I gave up on season 2 and I couldn't get more than 2/3 way through the first novel, it was poorly written.
Honestly the show comes off to me as a teenagers schoolyard attempt at 'maturity'.
Everything is swearwords, sex and killing.
I'm honestly surprised the show has made it as big as it has. Having a TV show and TV and internet hype does a lot for you I guess. It did well for Rowling.
There are far better far more mature fantasy novels out there.
Honestly the show comes off to me as a teenagers schoolyard attempt at 'maturity'.
Everything is swearwords, sex and killing.
I'm honestly surprised the show has made it as big as it has. Having a TV show and TV and internet hype does a lot for you I guess. It did well for Rowling.
There are far better far more mature fantasy novels out there.
Mainly because the Sand Snakes have the ass backwards logic of wanting to avenge their father...by killing his brother and his nephew. That and the moment to moment writing kind of makes you want to gouge your eyes and ears out. They were playing freaking patty cake in their cells. "Bad pussy" The "You're such a greedy *****" which sounds so out of tone with becoming a kinslayer (Just about the worst thing you can be in Westeros, to the point where in the books, Victorian Greyjoy is hesitant to kill his brother, despite the fact that said brother raped his wife) that I was waiting for the laugh track to start playing, the fact that NO ONE has a problem with Prince Martell being killed because they're all that angry about Oberyn, the fight scenes are pretty poorly choreographed in DorneSamtemdo8 said:
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And the Sand Snakes are just BADLY written. Yes, the little girl can kill the guy who looks like he's one head shorter than the fucking Mountain. With one stab. And in the books, Oberyn's lover was telling the Sand Snakes to exercise caution, not "HOW DARE SHE BREATH OUR AIR!" Clearly Marcella should've stopped breathing the second Oberyn died. Speaking of the princess, the second she died, Jaime should've turned the boat right around and gotten the Sand Snakes executed. It's not like Prince Martell wasn't sick of their bullshit. Not to mention the entire time it felt like Prince Martell was screaming "EVERYONE STOP BEING STUPID!" which was why he was the only person people liked in Dorne, and it's why people are so pissed that he's dead. Oh and it's a major departure from the books, where it turns out Prince Martell IS plotting revenge, it's just that he sent his son to make an alliance with Dany and is waiting for him to come back with dragons. IE he wants revenge, but unlike the Sand Snakes he wants to be SMART about it. And when he finally told him, they were all grinning, looking forward to what was coming. And in the show they just killed him.
In short, the Sand Snakes "avenged" Oberyn by single handily destroying his house, as all of his daughters are bastards, their mother is a companion not his wife, they killed the actual ruler of Dorne and his son so the house will die off, and they've got the combined wraith of the Tyrells and the Lannisters heading in their direction. Yes, you revenge plan good. Fuck Dorne.
FINALLY! A good episode from beginning to end! Less padding and the story is actually flowing now! Holy crap! After last season and the beginning of this season, I didn't even think that was possible any more... The only hiccup was, as I am sure you can guess, dealing with:
Winterfell and Wonder Boy Ramsay padding his death count some more in a completely obvious and pandering shock death of another character that is still alive in the books.
With this episode it looks like the writers have finally remembered that you need to balance depressing grimness with hope. What a great episode (Ramsey's scene aside, because he continues to be incredibly boring with plot armour thicker than Winterfell's walls).
This episode has set so much up to happen now and I'm actually invested in this story again, hopefully this build up actually builds up to something.
This episode has set so much up to happen now and I'm actually invested in this story again, hopefully this build up actually builds up to something.
So now it looks like Daenerys has control of all of the Dothraki. Just what Westeros needs, an invasion by a horde of rapey village burning slave taking barbarians, led by egomaniac from a family with a history of madness, not forgetting the trio of completely out of control children eating dragons. Things are looking up for the Seven Kingdoms!
But we need those Child eating Dragons to burn away the white walkersBreakdown said:
And so far she has not succumbed to the Targaryan madness.
She'd be more interesting if she did go crazy. As it is, Daenerys's dialogue is basically just variations of "do you know who I am?", "I'll have your heads for this!" and "have you seen my dragons anywhere?"Samtemdo8 said:But we need those Child eating Dragons to burn away the white walkersBreakdown said:
And so far she has not succumbed to the Targaryan madness.
Hm, I thought this was one of the weaker episodes this season (even with the lack of Da Bad Pussy Crew), but still so much better than Season 5.
Ramsay's plot armour is becoming annoying at this point, and not in the "Oh god, I want him to die horribly" Joffrey way, in the "I'm so fucking bored and expected that as soon as I saw it" way.
His letter to Castle Black contradicts the fan theory I mentioned earlier - it certainly implies that Shaggy Dog really is dead and the Umbers, which the show and the books renowned for their loyalty, have also forsaken the Starks along with the Carr-Starks.
I hope Daenerys' Esteros plotline can now advance, the entirety of the last season was basically stalling on that front and just throwing pointless aggravation her way. I honestly don't mind if they don't push her towards Westeros this season and focus on the consolidation of her power base, but I do want to see Esteros wrapped up.
Ramsay's plot armour is becoming annoying at this point, and not in the "Oh god, I want him to die horribly" Joffrey way, in the "I'm so fucking bored and expected that as soon as I saw it" way.
His letter to Castle Black contradicts the fan theory I mentioned earlier - it certainly implies that Shaggy Dog really is dead and the Umbers, which the show and the books renowned for their loyalty, have also forsaken the Starks along with the Carr-Starks.
I hope Daenerys' Esteros plotline can now advance, the entirety of the last season was basically stalling on that front and just throwing pointless aggravation her way. I honestly don't mind if they don't push her towards Westeros this season and focus on the consolidation of her power base, but I do want to see Esteros wrapped up.
It's not as much the unrelenting grimdarkness that's getting to me as much as all the deaths starting to feel gratuitous and empty of any meaning. From seasons 1 to 3, it was fine, considering that the characters who were on the line were characters we had spent time with, and who the viewers had grown attached to. Their deaths had weight, the editing made it so that it wasn't taken completely casually like the deaths of Roose or Doran this season. I mean, just compare the death scenes of Ser Rodrick, Maseter Luwin, or Jory to the ones of the characters I just mentioned, the difference in tone is just baffling.
They've run out of disposable characters people care about and who are in realistic and emotionally involving danger (mostly because they cut off so many characters from the original story in the first place), but they can't do away with the "gimmick" of characters still dying regularly, and so all minor characters are sent to the butcher, even if that might not be their fate in the books.
As far as the ugly matter of rape is concerned, I understand why the writers did what they did to Sansa. Her chapters in AFFC are not TV material (and would have required them to introduce a buttload of characters that should have already been known to the audience by now), it kept one of the better storylines in the books, and it was pretty much the logical conclusion of having her at Winterfell. What I cannot excuse though (and is often overlooked), was the rape of Cersei by Jaime by the dead body of their son back in Season 4, it was completely gratuitous, out of character for Jaime (who is one of the characters who despises rape the most in the books), and only meant to shock. It was absolutely disgusting.
Concerning the current season, I thought the first two episodes were complete garbage, that the second was dull as sin, but I liked the last one, it was surprisingly good, even though the ending was mindbogglingly stupid.
EDIT: I'd also like to add that most characters are now parodies of themselves. Tyrion can only quip, Brienne lost all of the vulnerability she had in the books (though she never had much of it in the show), Dany is always angry and defiant, and so on, and so on.
They've run out of disposable characters people care about and who are in realistic and emotionally involving danger (mostly because they cut off so many characters from the original story in the first place), but they can't do away with the "gimmick" of characters still dying regularly, and so all minor characters are sent to the butcher, even if that might not be their fate in the books.
As far as the ugly matter of rape is concerned, I understand why the writers did what they did to Sansa. Her chapters in AFFC are not TV material (and would have required them to introduce a buttload of characters that should have already been known to the audience by now), it kept one of the better storylines in the books, and it was pretty much the logical conclusion of having her at Winterfell. What I cannot excuse though (and is often overlooked), was the rape of Cersei by Jaime by the dead body of their son back in Season 4, it was completely gratuitous, out of character for Jaime (who is one of the characters who despises rape the most in the books), and only meant to shock. It was absolutely disgusting.
Concerning the current season, I thought the first two episodes were complete garbage, that the second was dull as sin, but I liked the last one, it was surprisingly good, even though the ending was mindbogglingly stupid.
EDIT: I'd also like to add that most characters are now parodies of themselves. Tyrion can only quip, Brienne lost all of the vulnerability she had in the books (though she never had much of it in the show), Dany is always angry and defiant, and so on, and so on.
I personally stopped after Season 5. A lot lead me to stop watching it but the final tip of the scales was the Sansa rape as well as the Shireen-and-the-pyre scene and my general increasing discomfort with too much violence in general (which I wasn' a problem at all like ten years back but is for me nowadays). It just doesn't do it for me anymore.
I can totally understand why someone would still watch it, and as I understand a lot of people do still watch it, because it is very well done from a pure craftsmanship perspective and acted quite well. Still, the reasons for not watching it anymore should be quite understandable as well.
I can totally understand why someone would still watch it, and as I understand a lot of people do still watch it
, because it is very well done from a pure craftsmanship perspective and acted quite well. Still, the reasons for not watching it anymore should be quite understandable as well.
I honestly feel it's not dark ENOUGH. Ever since the show got 'free' from the books, it seems people like Danny, Jon, Arya and Tyrion have been clearly defined as the heroes of the story, destined to bring about a happy ending. Yeah sure, a bunch of grim stuff is going on around westeros, but it all feels inconsequential to the 'grand jorney' of those characters. Tyrion became best buddies with dragons, Jon Snow is the prince that was promised, Arya will become fucking batman, Danny has taken control of yet another city with her flaming titties.
Sure, Ramsay is in his snowy cave, killing nice people, but it's so OBVIOUS that the writers are setting him up for a huge fall that it's not enjoyable in the way that seeing Joffrey fuck up the life of everyone was. In early seasons, the show felt dark and grim because anything could happen at any moment, there were (mostly) no predictable outcomes. Now it just feels like the 'grim' stuff is just filler until D&D get to have their defined 'heroes' win and be happy ever after or some shit.
Sure, Ramsay is in his snowy cave, killing nice people, but it's so OBVIOUS that the writers are setting him up for a huge fall that it's not enjoyable in the way that seeing Joffrey fuck up the life of everyone was. In early seasons, the show felt dark and grim because anything could happen at any moment, there were (mostly) no predictable outcomes. Now it just feels like the 'grim' stuff is just filler until D&D get to have their defined 'heroes' win and be happy ever after or some shit.
Still, I feel like we're more close to the climax than the ending right now. And with all the budding up between protagonists, and the way D&D have been getting 'inconveniences' out of their way (like stannis), I don't think the show is as 'hopeless' and 'dark' as people like to claim. Lately it actually feels like it just has a 'dark' coat of paint, if that makes sense.Moridin said:
I am getting really fed up with the writers' attitude towards the Dire Wolves at this point. Then ending of the latest episode visibly shocked my partner, but I couldn't get over the bad CGI in the tunnel and was still trying to get my head around the wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey nature of Bran's story this episode.
Other than the weirdness towards the end, I did quite enjoy this episode. Lots of different arcs got a look in rather than being ignored, and it felt like there was actually story progression in most of the respective areas.
Other than the weirdness towards the end, I did quite enjoy this episode. Lots of different arcs got a look in rather than being ignored, and it felt like there was actually story progression in most of the respective areas.