Game of Thrones season 5 - Your thoughts now that it's over

[the_dramatica]

Glad John Snow is finally dead.

 

[Terminal Blue]

You've got downright amazing things like the battle of hardhome, following up by Stannis sacrificing his daughter for nothing and his entire campaign falling apart because Ramsay is such a Gary Stu he can set the food stories for an entire fucking army on fire without anyone noticing, and then the woman who was practically begging Stannis to sacrifice their daughter gets cold feet at the last second? NO!

Apologies to Frankster, who I initially quoted. I botched the quotation.

I feel there's a lot of subtext and interesting possibilities for Stannis plot which just wasn't addressed very well in the show.

The thing is, he's spent his entire plotline basically being hyped. His army literally believes he is the messiah come to save the world, Melisandre has told him he's the messiah come to save the world, and despite initially being a cynic it's obvious that Stannis has increasingly bought his own hype. When news came about the impending wildling invasion, the smart, cynical thing to do would have been to do what everyone else did and say "nah, fuck it.. I'm not going to waste my army when it could be winning the throne." The old Stannis would have done that, but Stannis' hype says he has to save the world so off he goes.

But as I argued when I predicted that Stannis would kill Shireen, the problem with being a hero is that it's not just about you and what you want any more. If the world is at stake, would a hero do anything less than required to save it? The point is, we all love our heroes in fantasy fiction but in reality being a hero is a terrible curse, it's being called on to sacrifice everything, if needs be, for a greater cause. There are real heroes out there right now, they're all getting their limbs blown off by IEDs or developing PTSD from having to stitch car crash victims together. It isn't fair that someone has to do that, but sadly they do.

The nasty little twist in the tale is that, in the end, barring some enormous twist, it turns out Stannis wasn't even the hero he was hyped up to be, just a guy who would have lived far longer and more happily if he'd just stayed on Dragonstone, accepted that his brother was going to be king and made the best of what he had. As it turns out, hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.

Honestly, I like that.. It's probably the most subversive thing either game of thrones or song of ice and fire has actually done and I hope it was GRRM's intention, so we can have a more developed and well explained version in the books. The fact that Stannis was getting so much IRL hype from the fans as well, with this whole "Stannis the Mannis" thing, kind of made it even more perfect.

As for Meli, you have to remember that Meli is a hero too (I'm pretty sure R'hlor is basically the god of dramatic heroism). She's fighting a war, and it's not even Stannis' War for the throne, it's the ultimate battle between good and evil. If she loses, the world dies. She wasn't there because she really likes Stannis and wants him to win, she was there because she believed he was the hero who alone could save the world.. and she suddenly realized what he didn't seem to until right at the end, that he wasn't and he couldn't. Sure, she abandoned him, but that's who she is. She'd sacrifice anyone or anything, because again that's what heroes do when they need to do it.

I could be reading a lot into stupidity, but it's not because I'm a fanboy. I'll happily criticize stuff I think is genuinely stupid, like that Dorne bollocks. But honestly, the Stannis thing was kind of brilliant and the fact that it pissed people off is actually kind of part of why.

 

[Remus]

Glad John Snow is finally dead.

"Oh you think he's dead do you?"

These were his exact words. There are ways that Jon could survive death right there at the camp, not the least of which walked in shortly before he was stabbed.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

Snippersnapper

Well, I guess. It's just that I was under the (not terribly unreasonable) impression that the show was meant to be an adaptation of the books, instead of what is basically televised fanfiction.

 

[sky14kemea]

Watch out, the guy's (Minnyb) comment above mine contains a malicious link.

Good spot! I'll deal with it from here. :3

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It was mediocre. It had a hard act to follow because I feel like season 4 was one of the strongest seasons. That season also tied up many of the plots which began in season 1. In many ways, season 5 was like totally starting over and starting to really shift the focus of the show. Unfortunately, it felt rushed but at the same time, not much really seemed to happen. The things that did happen, happened in a way that felt rushed and awkward.

I've heard they only want the show to be 7 seasons and if that means dropping half the plots and tearing through stuff, that makes me kind of sad. Of course, if you are worried about wasting screen time, why so much wasted plot in Dorne? This season also had a lot of really cringeworthy action and acting. It also began to strain credibility in several spots due to coincidences, especially with Brienne.

It had its moments but we'll see. I knew season 5 was going to be a shaky season compared to the rest so I'll hold back judgement until season 6. I should also mention I am not a book reader and I don't really care if the show is 'defiling' the books. The books will always be there, just let the show be whatever it wants to be and then decide which you prefer or enjoy both.

PS: Why did we waste so much screen time on Dorne and the sand snakes again? What a waste.

 

[freaper]

I thought it was rather slow compared to the other seasons. Nothing happened during the first six episodes, only to dump everything at the end. The only episode I really liked was the one where they go and gather all the Free Folk up north and the zombie battle ensues -on a side note, has anyone else noticed that this series has MORE zombies than the Walking Dead? You've got the magic zombies (walkers), the disease zombies (dragonscale) and now the Mountain has become the science zombie.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

If you thought a series like 'A Song of Ice and Fire' would make it largely verbatim into a televised format, you haven't been paying attention to the history of cinematic adaptation.

I don't think this is the complaint, though. I hesitate to use the word "straw man", but a person would have to be a fucking idiot to think the books were going to make it to the screen unchanged. It's not that they change things. It's what they change, and why. Or rather, the lack of any plausible or rational explanation as to why.

I used to say ASOIAF was fundamentally unfilmable. Too many characters, too many CHILD characters, too much world building complexity, elapses over too large a window of time. And for a couple of seasons, they managed to show me up. It was hardly the books intact, but it was a pretty reasonable cinematic adaptation.

However, as time has gone on, the show has been suffering from an inexplicably pronounced degree of adaptation decay. There is no "translation from book to screen" that demands the changing of character identities or the introduction of plot lines made entirely from whole cloth (such as S5's Dorne). That showrunner inventions from S2 onward have been amongst the most ridiculed and despised aspects of the show (amongst book readers and the unspoiled alike) and the most popular moments and speeches were almost all lifted from the books verbatim raises the question of "What are they doing?" and "Why are they doing it?". Harsher critics than me have speculated that its the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action, but I'd like to think the guys who came up with Hardhome are capable of better things than Karl Fookin' Tanner or "De Bad Pussy".

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Again, on one hand you're dismissing the expectation and desire for GOT to be ASOIAF, and on the other you're ignoring the reality that as soon as the showrunners had fan feedback, it started to change.

Yeah, again...I'm not "complaining that it had to change". I'm asking how you defend the quality/intelligence of the changes that were made as the inevitable result of the translation from book to screen.

It's TV, which is a fundamentally pandering medium.

How so? That's quite a claim. Why is television "fundamentally pandering" in a way that other mediums are not?

 

[Silvanus]

Did Darkstar appear in the 5th season? Remember the character being pretty silly with a meteorite sword (or something, though I might be mistaken).

Nope, no Darkstar.

Ellaria Sand did play a semi similar role in the season finale, though...

Spoiler: S5E10 Spoiler

... Poisoning Myrcella.

Overall, the Dorne plot was probably the most significantly changed. It bore almost no relation to that in the book.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

If you thought a series like 'A Song of Ice and Fire' would make it largely verbatim into a televised format, you haven't been paying attention to the history of cinematic adaptation.

There's a world of difference between pruning the source material to make it more compatible for television as medium and making completely unnecessary changes that are, as I said, about the same quality as fanfiction. Okay, as much as I dislike their decision to do it, I can understand leaving out the Iron Islands plot. There's only so much you can cram into ten 50-minute-episodes.

But the whole business with swapping Jeyne Poole with Sansa? Karl "Fookin' Legend" Tanner? Special Agents Jaime and Bronn traipsing around Dorne? You can't justify those changes with "You can't adapt A Song of Fire and Ice verbatim to television". You just can't. Let's be honest: They're creative decisions made by the showrunners because (presumably) they thought it would be cool, and we book fundamentalists universally feel that these changes are atrocious. It's as simple as that.

(On an unrelated note... Apparently, this new Captcha format demands you answer a simple question correctly. I'm slightly saddened that answering "Elephant" to the question "Which one of these is math?" results in a Captcha error.)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't defend, and haven't tried to defend the quality of that pandering. All I've done is point out that your disappointment has to be predicated on naive expectations, or by definition you would not be disappointed.

So the only appropriate expectation for a television program is a rapid quality decline?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Rapid? Maybe not, but eventual yes. The tale of television is that quality is almost always inversely proportional to duration. I imagine that outside of the context of this specific debate, you've probably made similar observations, since most of us have. "The Simpsons was great for the first X seasons, but now..." Is it any wonder our fondest memories of QUALITY programming are of miniseries or short runs? Twin Peaks leaps to mind as a prime example.

There is definitely an observable trend wherein shows that outstay their welcome or exhaust the possibilities presented by their characters/world eventually observe a quality decline...sometimes gradual, sometimes rapid. I can think of several shows (The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos) where the show remained consistently high quality until the run was over. Comedy seems particularly vulnerable to exhausting its popularity, as "brevity is the soul of wit".

However, I'd argue against the suggestion that GoT is subject to that phenomenon. For one thing, they're not cooking up new seasons/storylines on the fly in response to the happy news they've been renewed for one more year. There's a set arc for the series they are ostensibly working within. They have a set of source material that is popularly and critically acclaimed. When they've deviated poorly, it has seldom been in service of populist characters. You'll notice in my opening rant in this thread I didn't include the White Washing of Tyrion's character amongst my gripes, because it's fairly evident why that is happening.

I think there's a genuine talent shortfall occurring here. I don't know if it's one bad writer or several, or the influence of an incompetent showrunner, or any of a number of other possibilities. They were making outright bad television as early as season 2, always coinciding with overt deviations where they were forced to substitute their fiction for that of the books. If I say "de bad pussy" is extremely poor dialogue, does that make me a book purist with naive expectations of the medium? Or are we just calling a spade a spade?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Basically, what I'm hearing is that you think GoT is somehow special, but I'm not hearing a valid explanation as to why or how.

What? No. Not at all. What you're hearing is me saying it's perfectly possible to deliver a consistently high quality experience, so arguments like "It's television what do you expect" or "They have to deviate from the books" don't hold much water if what they come up with is crap. If you're delivering crap television, the buck ultimately stops with the creators. The rest of it is a wall of excuses trying to support this idea that crap television is an inevitability, and it really isn't.

You're expressing a preference and I think you're confusing it with something objective and universally shared by the GoT audience.

I have never speculated that my opinions are "objective". I don't start every sentence with a disclaimer of opinion, because when we're discussing media criticism it really shouldn't be necessary.

Your view of quality entertainment isn't the issue here, GoT isn't for you, it's for the largest possible audience. What that group wants, and expresses through their Nielson ratings determines what the showrunners do. That is not to say you should have an illusion of their hypercompetence, because those changes are a hard and ultimately self-destructive balancing act.

I'd be curious to see what interpretation of the Neilson ratings supported the atrocity that was S5's Dorne storyline, or the act of shunting their most popular character into a series of dreary, plodding scenes that somehow managed to be even more boring than the tedious chapters they were based on.

The point with TV is not to create something for ages though, it's make money.

The networks want to make money. Showrunners often want to leave a legacy/make the best art they can.

 

[Thyunda]

Unless those were Stannis's own sellswords who had deserted him with what was left of his horses. Which makes sense I guess.

This is exactly what happened. It must be. I made a similar comment when the cavalry appeared because I wondered where in Winterfell they were keeping them, but it makes perfect sense for it to be part of Ramsay's trademarked Master Plan.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

What part of, "That they've responded to (what they believe are) the tastes of their primary viewership, that has become more and more apparent." didn't you understand when you choose to ignore that I said it?

I get why, because unless you ignore that you can't go on about "unjustified" and "unnecessary", which sound so much better than, "I didn't like them."

Like BloatedGuppy said before me, I've never pretended that my personal opinions are the objective truth. When I call the show's changes unjustified and unnecessary, I mean that I think they're unjustified and unnecessary. I'm not going to add an opinion disclaimer every single time I use such adjectives, thank you very much.

For me, the changes are unnecessary and unjustified. I don't think the "primary viewership", whoever these people might be, would appreciate the utter tosh that the showrunners invent any better than the original source material. But even if they did, I don't care. This thread is about our personal thoughts about the show, and I've talked at length about mine.

You feel that the changes cannot be criticised because money (yes, I know, this is an extremely blunt summary, please don't jump down my throat), and that's okay. I disagree, but I don't think there's a point in continuing to argue about this. I want the show to be a bit more faithful to the books, and I lament that they're only moving further and further away. It's a shame. I'll just stop watching the show and wait for The Winds of Winter, because the show evidently isn't for me any more. Maybe it never was meant for me. Oh well.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Between your opinion forwarded to support your notion that your taste and quality are synonymous, it's not much of a viewpoint to me. Television is a mass market, generally shitty product.

So...while you're lecturing me on not conflating my tastes with quality, you're giving me a definitive statement on the quality of television based on "the history of television". Please do substantiate how the "history of television" establishes it as "shitty", without deviating into opinion.

Finding a gem in the midst of it, then complaining that it's rough and uncut is kind of nutty to me.

A gem! That also sounds suspiciously like a statement of opinion.

When you assert a positive claim, engage in debate, and then simply retreat into the hole that it's "Just my opinion" is nothing I'm going to spend time with here.

I'm sorry, were you actually operating under the delusion that there was an "objective" debate to be had on the subject of criticizing a piece of media? If so, you are definitively wasting your time. I'm beginning to get "Galloping Gish" vibes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

No, I thought this was a pack of people complaining that nobody takes them seriously or entertains their complaints. It turns out it was a pack of people looking to do that, as a way to further voice the complaints that are generally highly personal and worth ignoring. That's fine, and I'm happy to ignore that type.

That was word salad, Brass. I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say.

Is the problem here that you're a fan of the show and you're a bit sore that I'm rather noisily shitting on it? You did choose to describe it as "a gem". Rather paradoxically after chiding me for what you believed was my naive perception that all television wasn't inevitably "shit".

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Your struggles with reading comprehension are none of my concern, and neither is your attempt at deflection. I watched 3 eps of the first season and realized it was a trite, overacted mess so no, not a fan.

I'm curious at your description of it as a "gem" then. Where did that come from?

I loved the books, but I'm not blind to their many flaws either, not the least of which is that they may never actually represent a complete story which ends.

The books are indeed riddled with flaws. Some of which one would have thought a television program, with its emphasis on pacing, could have improved upon.

If the best you have to offer in defense of your views on something as trivial as a television show is nastiness

Alright, Brass, let's start over. Because you apparently perceive me as being "nasty", and I can assure you I've been getting the same vibe from you since you came wading in about the "naivete of my expectations". What point are you trying to make in all this that you feel I am overlooking?

I hear you saying that the quality decline of GoT was an inevitably due to the nature of the medium change creating adaptation decay. That the necessity of maintaining a large audience means perpetually pandering to said audience, at the cost of a more nuanced, intelligent production. Is that a fair summary?

What I'M trying to say is that the decline in quality I'm talking about isn't being driven by obvious pandering, by book to TV translation, by issues of budget and scale, etc. I complain about those things too, but that's me being finicky and I acknowledge that. I'm taking about quality slips that make no sense at all. That both show and book fans complain about. That don't appear to serve any pandering or sensationalistic purpose, but merely seem to reflect poor judgment.

 

[ServebotFrank]

I was so very irritated that we won't be getting Lady Stoneheart on the account of "oh she doesn't do much" despite her being a big deal in Brienne's and Jaime's story arcs. Cutting her was a big mistake, Brienne literally had nothing to do this season. There were numerous scenes where she kinda just looked at Winterfell while Podrick was out being Podrick.

Jaime's move to Dorne made sense. I imagine the show runners wanted a character that the audience was familiar to be introduced to Dorne rather than have just a brand new cast of characters. However it was such a shit storyline, nothing happened at all. Ellaria is a fucking idiot, she just tried to murder the King's sister at the same time her fucking nephew is on his way to King's Landing. Is she trying to get her family wiped off the map?

Stannis's arc started out strong, and slowly took a turn into Shit Town. I would've accepted Shireen's sacrifice if we had more scenes of Stannis struggling with the blizzard and not knowing what to do. Here it just looks like he decided to take the easy way out after what seems like one week of hardship. Also does Stannis like not believe in scouts? He could've easily won that battle with the Boltons if he used that strategical mind we heard so much about back in season 2. Sure he had less men but it looked like the Boltons were all on horses and there was a fucking forest he could use like right there. I don't know what the writers have against Stannis and Melisandre, in the books Stannis is kind of an idiot politically but he wasn't a crazy religious zealot.

Jon Snow's arc was pretty good except for the end. The mutiny had to happen and it was a mix. On one hand I liked how the show used the "Previously On" to its advantage to trick book readers into thinking that Benjen was coming back. On the other I didn't like how petty the Night's Watch got after Jon made literally one decision. In the books they turn on him once he declares for Stannis and tries to break his oath in order to save "Arya Stark" and gets stabbed. Here it's just weird, especially cause Alliser Thorne was made to look more honorable than his book counterpart. So it was weird to see all of that characterization for Alliser get thrown out the fucking window.

Sansa's arc was fucking terrible. I love the Boltons but Sansa had no reason to be there. It was to "give her something to do" but they should've just left her alone for a season. Maybe have her show up for a couple of scenes and use the extra screen time to maybe make Dorne less shit.

The next season looks like it will focus on the Iron Islands and the Riverlands. If Lady Stoneheart doesn't make an appearance then what the fuck was the point of the Brotherhood Without Banners?