Game of Thrones Season 4 finale

[IllumInaTIma]

So, let's talk about it folks! Spoilers ahoy!
I am... surprisingly somewhat disappointed with the finale. Mainly because it had a number of "What an actual fuck?!" moments.
First of all Daenerys. So, Dany just lets one of her dragons to simply fly around and crisp people to death? And she's not aware of that? And she's not aware where that dragon is?!
Second, Stannis. How the fuck did he get his army across the wall?! It was still somewhat believable with one army coming from the front, but then he got second army coming from behind?! FREAKING HOW?! Please, if it's explained in book, tell me! I'm incredibly curious about that matter.
And lastly, Arya. Arya was my favorite character in the show, but now she is somewhat ruined for me. I always thought that Arya's motivation was all about justice. She's a screwed up kid, sure, but her moral compass always seemed to be firm. But the way she simple left Hound to die was completely out of her character. And it's especially jarring because I had an impression that she and Hound genuinely cared about each other, in their very own weird way. That move wasn't anti-heroish, as I perceived Arya, it was simply villainous. Now Arya looks just like a psycho to me and it is a shame.

Of course, there was a lot of other cool stuff in the episode, like incredible fight between Hound and Brienne, but these three moments kinda defined the whole episode to me.

Your turn people.

 

[DJjaffacake]

Spoiler

In the books, Stannis travels north by sea and lands his army north of the wall, then just marches it to Castle Black.

Also in the books, Arya's relationship with the Hound was never as friendly as it was in the TV show, and her mental state was rapidly deteriorating. And it's revenge she's interested in, not justice.

Spoiler: book spoilers

The thing that really pissed me off was that they made Tyrion killing Tywin about fucking Shae. Apparently Tyrion really cares about the honour of someone who lied about and humiliated him in public, condemning him for a crime he was innocent of in the process. No. No he fucking doesn't. He cares about Tysha, the girl who loved him, and who Tywin had gangraped.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Arya was never about justice.

She's about revenge.

There's a subtle difference.


OT: I really liked it, really setting up shit for the next season :3

 

[mmmikey]

I really felt underwhelmed. I think everyone was waiting for the fallout of the trial by combat from episode 8. I think the last episode threw off all the momentum that storyline had going for it. Bran's story had also gone cold at this point, and his story is one that seems nebulous. He's not involved in the struggle for power or really in the defending the realm against the white walkers.

I thought that Arya's story probably finished best of all. Her and the Hound had been peppered throughout the season well enough we could see their story evolve. And to have Brienne finally be the one agent of the past to cross her path, sent by her mother, and reject her "protection" was a great moment. She basically turns on the hopes of being with her family or being a Stark to go on a pathway to realize her revenge to the fullest. Even refusing to give herself the satisfaction of killing the Hound knowing that leaving him to die in agony was a crueler fate and one he didn't want to face.

Jon goes out alone to find a solution to the fact that Nightwatch won't survive a fight against the wildling army to have Stannis show up and meets Jon Snow to no great effect.

Bran's reached his destination to raise more questions and provide little conclusion. Jojen was killed by nameless skeleton warriors.

Dany has finally had to face the fact her greatest trump card is completely out of her control now and be one more monkey wrench to her new found position. It lands with little more than a thud.

& the biggest moment to have in the episode was whittled down to a small exchange between all parties involved to make room for everyone else. And as much as I hate the "the show deviated too far from the books" arguments I think it would've been better in its own interests to follow it closer on this point. Tyrion just happens to know how to get the Hand's chambers. We're never really given Varys's motivations in directly helping in Tyrion's escape when he wouldn't lift a finger for Ned, but would go so far to visit Ned and try to counsel him. Yes the big moments were still there but it cut a lot of corners to get there.

Ultimately I think it tried to do too much in an hour time slot.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Not sure why we're spoilering S4 Finale events in a thread entitled "S4 Finale", but okay.

Spoilers on Benioff and Weiss's Fan Fiction Theater below...

Spoiler

1. Stannis attacking Mance Rayder's army of 11 Wildlings was a bit CGI heavy and one of the smallest major battles since the Siege of Whiterun. Could've saved some money on the Harryhausen Skeletons and given us an aerial shot of some milling CGI extras to go with the CGI horses.

2. Jojen is dead now? OK then.

3. Brienne vs The Hound was a silly deviation but was enjoyable television nonetheless. As it leaves everything more or less where it should be, I don't really have an issue with it, and it was fun fan-wankery. A healthy Hound wins that fight, but hobbled as he was it ended the way it should've.

4. Scumbag Drogon gets his brothers locked up with his constant misbehavior.

5. Tyrion, Tyrion, Tyrion. God, where to begin. Kills Shae in SELF DEFENSE. Whines to Tywin about her, about how he loved the woman who clearly betrayed him and who he just murdered. Was flat in both scenes (even the marvelous Charles Dance was flat, not sure what happened there). And no Tysha? NO FUCKING TYSHA, SHOW? This is by far the worst of your many deviations, and the first that's had me seriously considering not watching any more. The white washing of Tyrion is just gone full ham at this point.

6. Maisie killed the dead-eye stare in her final scene with The Hound. That was well done.

Oh and for the OP...

Spoiler

First of all Daenerys. So, Dany just lets one of her dragons to simply fly around and crisp people to death? And she's not aware of that? And she's not aware where that dragon is?!

He's a dragon, not a dog with a tracking collar. She has no training or foreknowledge of how to deal with teenage dragons. They're huge, dangerous, feral beasts. Up until now, Drogon had been eating sheep, and Dany had been paying the shepherds.

Second, Stannis. How the fuck did he get his army across the wall?! It was still somewhat believable with one army coming from the front, but then he got second army coming from behind?! FREAKING HOW?! Please, if it's explained in book, tell me! I'm incredibly curious about that matter.

He lands at Eastwatch-by-the-sea and marches inland to Castle Black, lead by Night's Watch rangers. The Night's Watch maintains ports on both coasts (Eastwatch and Shadow Tower). Along with Castle Black they are the only manned outposts.

And lastly, Arya. Arya was my favorite character in the show, but now she is somewhat ruined for me. I always thought that Arya's motivation was all about justice.

You've been mis-reading Arya. She is consumed by a desire for revenge, not justice. She's not Stannis Baratheon writ small.

And it's especially jarring because I had an impression that she and Hound genuinely cared about each other, in their very own weird way.

To whatever degree The Hound might have cared about Arya (and it would've been a very small degree), she never forgot that he was the man who cut down the little boy who was her friend for absolutely no crime at all, purely on Joffrey's whim. The Hound is not a rough-around-the-edges Good Dude. He's a hard, violent man, prone to rage and cruelty. He's not his brother, but he's no hero, either. And Arya is long, long past the point of finding easy forgiveness. He was her captor, not her friend.

Of course, there was a lot of other cool stuff in the episode, like incredible fight between Hound and Brienne, but these three moments kinda defined the whole episode to me.

I was more or less okay with most of the episode, but the Tyrion stuff near killed the entire show for me. So done with their constant mishandling of that character. I get that they want to do "their own thing" to some extent, but the showrunners have repeatedly shown that they can't write for shit.

 

[Jandau]

This is the problem with the deviations from the books - the show's creators had somewhat different interpretations of some of the characters, but their actions remained the same, meaning that what made sense in the books now feels random.

For instance:

Spoiler: Arya and the Hound

In the books Arya's relationship with the Hound was not friendly. They didn't go around all buddy-buddy style. Arya pretty much hated his guts all the way until she managed to get away from him. Also, she was pretty much a minor psychopath by that point, which is also downplayed in the show. In the context of the show her actions didn't make much sense. In the context of the books, they did.

Spoiler: Tyrion and Tywin

In the books, Tyrion is motivated by his love for his ex-wife, a whore he married when he was young, who Tywin then had gangraped and banished. This is something Tyrion never forgave him, and it made everything that happened with Shae hurt him even more (he fell in love with another whore, his father took her away from him again). Before he shoots Tywin in the books he demands to know where he banished his former wife and sets out to find her.

And so on and so forth. Pretty much every time in the show when someone's motivations don't seem to make sense, it's usually down to the changes from the books (Jaime and Cersei rape scene from earlier in the season falls into this category as well)

 

[beavweav]

I haven't yet seen it - been busy with work and school but so far the friends who saw it were not so impressed , personally I'm sure I'll like it - thanks for all the spoilers, I had to look lol

 

[Colour Scientist]

I enjoyed it for the most part but the scene where Shae goes for the knife to stab Tyrion was a bit "bleugh".

I was wondering how they were gonna reconcile Super-Duper Tyrion with hooker strangling Tyrion but I suppose self-defence was what worked for them.

 

[Private Custard]

I was wondering how they were gonna reconcile Super-Duper Tyrion with hooker strangling Tyrion but I suppose self-defence was what worked for them.

I didn't feel he needed any kind of justification. She was an arsehole that tried to get him killed, she got a swift dose of GoT justice. She should have listened, way back, when Tyrion warned her that Kings Landing was dangerous. Never thought it'd be him to make it dangerous for her though!

I particularly like the whole box scene, when Varys realised what had happened, and made a snap-decision to escape the impending clusterfuck of blame, crooked trials and executions.

From a non-book readers perspective, I really enjoyed the entire episode......well, apart from the Bran segment. That bit's been so neglected, that I often forget he even exists!

 

[balladbird]

I liked it. It's clear they were straining for time, even with the extra minutes they afforded the finale, and the press for time is probably why they simplified a lot of scenes.

I don't really take issue with any of the differences from the books, although some of the death by adaptions have been shocking. Heck, even simplifying the Jaime-Tyrion-shae-tywin scene makes sense, when you think about the medium. Books, as a medium, are one of the only ones that aren't bound by the mandate of "show, don't tell", as a result, the scene works perfectly in the books, but wouldn't have done as well in any other type of adaption.

Basically, we only ever hear about Tyrion and his ex wife second hand; this works fine in season one for some simple character development for Tyrion, but as a MAJOR factor that influences the relationships of three major characters, an event that the viewers were never made privy to simply isn't strong enough in a visual medium. The series still put up a situation where Tyrion would be emotionally raw, and portrayed dozens of times that deep hatred existed between tywin and tyrion, so the scene works in its changed form, to me.

From a non-book readers perspective, I really enjoyed the entire episode......well, apart from the Bran segment. That bit's been so neglected, that I often forget he even exists!

Believe me, in that regard the series is mirroring the books perfectly. XD I would always groan when a bran chapter came up. "great, 20 more pages until something interesting happens."

 

[hazabaza1]

After most of the stuff in episode 9 I've decided to only watch some of the more interesting scenes so I'm speaking from possible ignorance, if I get anything wrong do forgive me.
First off, Tyrion. Like people have been saying, the self-defense aspect and the whole "guuh I loved Shae" thing is... dumb. It seems like they're trying too much to keep him as a definite good guy. So instead of his last moments with Shae have him manipulating her and then murdering her he's instead doing what needs to be done to save himself, and it removes a lot of the impact of his development so far. Tyrion has always been relatively calm and calculated when thinking about his plans so that moment when he snaps and disregards his safety for vengeance said a lot about his mental state at that point in time.
Second, was there no mention of Tysha and Jaime? From what I've been looking at there wasn't, which either makes me think that Tyrion and Jaime never meet again in the material the showrunners got or they're fucking up the ever present growing hatred of the twins.
Speaking of Jaime, did he rape Cersei again? I saw a screenshot that I didn't recognize and people were mentioning rape but I didn't get the full description of the scene.

Now, Bran's section. HOLY FUCK that was awful. What the hell happened? What was with the spooky scary skeletons? Where the fuck did they come from and why were they so awful? Why did Jojen just lay next to a skeleton for over a minute or some other ridiculous time, and why when he was getting stabbed did he have a sum reaction of... fucking nothing? Why could Leaf shoot crazy fireballs, why was she just a grey human with leafy hair and why was the three-eyed raven just a really old guy?
Blegh. Didn't like it.

Spoiler: Book spoilers

Don't even want to mention Coldhands since it seems like he's been cut, which is a shame since he's a really cool character and I highly doubt the group's ability to navigate north of the wall by themselves.

Arya. Arya has been turning into a mad psycho for a while, not sure what you were expecting from that, but I didn't have too much of an issue with the scene. Arya and Sandor did seem a lot more friendly with each other than in the books so I suppose her leaving him was a bit out of character for Showya but it still seemed kind of consistent. The fight was decent enough, maybe a few too many cuts, some longer shots would be appreciated but Rory and Gwen are both massive so seeing them in a brutal hands on fight was nicely satisfying.

Spoiler

CLEGANEBOWL GET HYPE

Didn't even watch a Dany scene, she's boring and won't stop being boring for a long time.

The Stannis scene was kind of alright, but it had too much of that ever present feel that "grr Stannis is so evil, isn't he viewers? You really shouldn't like this guy, he's so evil!" but if you play the Rohan theme over the fight it's at least entertaining. I wonder how they're going to portray the Jon/Stannis interaction what with him essentially being a villain at this point.

One final point:

Spoiler

The lack of Lady Stoneheart frustrates and confuses me, especially with some interviews saying that she might never show up.

 

[Twinrehz]

The thing I'm most disappointed about is having to wait another year for the next season. In the mean time, I've FINALLY got my hands on books 3-5, so I'll be reading those while waiting for the next season, do a Game of Recaps and watch all 4 seasons again, and rue the day when I'm done with the books, because there's (at least) 2 books still being made, and that slow-ass mofo Martin ain't in a hurry to finish killing all likable characters.

I was somewhat disappointed with not seeing one thing that gripped me about the pre-season trailer, it was the shadow of a dragon flying over what I think was King's Landing. Other than that, I was a bit surprised by Tyrion's actions, though I suppose the series have come to the point where all bets are off.

I find this very appropriate

EDIT: Seriously, how many more have to die in this series?? We get it, they live in a brutal world! Jeez...

 

[Scarim Coral]

Spoiler: Let see

While I get why she had to locked the two dragons up but those dragon are soo going to be pissed now! Also ain't all of the masters are dead so how can that slave be employed back again althought I don't see why she could just reinstate him being just a teacher or he doesn't like teaching new children?

They going to need alot of wood to burn the giants!

So is Bran going to become some kind of sage or something godlike? Jojen death was not suprising since we did get a foreshadow of it when they were captured althought I thougth he was going to be burned alived.

Why didn't Tyrion try to say something to Shae during the struggle instead after her death. Also I shall never underestimate a dwarf if I had to fight one for unkown reason.

Tywin death in the shitter just made it more hilirous, there goes his legacy being tarnish even more (firt being a father of an incest siblings).

The Hound death was fitting as in Arya leaving him to died and if Portrick really wanted to keep an eye on the fight, why didn't he intervene? Ok sure he would of gotten in the way buy still.

Lastly I loved the humming/ chorus of the show theme at the end!

Spoiler: Last thing

What the hell happened to Rickon and Osha??? Yes I know they went to that place still loyal to their house but I just wanted at least one scene of them arriving to that place since surely they had reach there in this season!

Spoiler: Question about in the book only

Is Lady Stoneheart going to appear in the next season since I thought she was going to appear in this season? No I don't read the books but I did read a few character bios. Just asking since they pretty much edited out Cold Hands.

 

[Twinrehz]

One final point:

Spoiler

The lack of Lady Stoneheart frustrates and confuses me, especially with some interviews saying that she might never show up.

I might be remembering wrong, but wasn't she listed among the potential casting choices for next season?

 

[hazabaza1]

One final point:

Spoiler

The lack of Lady Stoneheart frustrates and confuses me, especially with some interviews saying that she might never show up.

I might be remembering wrong, but wasn't she listed among the potential casting choices for next season?

Spoiler: Heavy book spoilers

I don't recall it personally, but if that's the case they're really fucked up. Won't be too hard to cast Lady Stoneheart seeing as Michelle Farley played her when she was alive, I can't imagine they wouldn't be able to get her back for a few small appearances every now and again.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I always feel that this show struggles in a one hour time slot. The downside of such a large story with so many characters is that often episodes are going to feel scatterbrained and not enough time devoted to each character. I didn't think it was so bad though.
One of the upsides of not being a book-reader is I am not constantly beset by disappointment when things aren't just as they are within the books. I imagine that is only going to get worse over time for the book fans, a shame for them.

 

[Twinrehz]

-snip-

Not sure I want to read that. Going to start reading book 3 shortly.

 

[hazabaza1]

-snip-

Not sure I want to read that. Going to start reading book 3 shortly.

Okay, yeah, don't do that. Have fun with the book, once you're done with it 4&5 are teeeedious.

 

[Twinrehz]

-snip-

Not sure I want to read that. Going to start reading book 3 shortly.

Okay, yeah, don't do that. Have fun with the book, once you're done with it 4&5 are teeeedious.

Can hardly wait. Off to holidays next week, and I acquired book 3 just in time.