Is game of thrones a bit shit?

[Ishal]

That's the guy.

Like so many of D&D's additions, he was absolutely fucking ridiculous. Say what you will about GRRM's pacing and scope issues, he's not a complete incompetent. I wish I could say as much for the showrunners.

They've been doing that since Arya met Syrio and started training. Though it was less overt back then.

He speaks of the Westeros dance "Hacking and hammering!" They don't hack or hammer. For narrative purposes they try to make it different, but the style of Jamie Lannister wouldn't be so different from water dancing. Doubly so for someone like Barristan. The thrust is the most basic, and yet still one of the most effective ways to attack with a sword. The only people who would hack or hammer are fighters with flanged maces, or warhammers like what King Robert was said to have used.

When the Hound mocks Arya by talking about how Maryn Trant defeated Syrio by having "armor and a big fucking sword" I can't help but think they're setting it up so that Arya can overcome that and kill someone like that in her style. It just doesn't work that way. A sword isn't going to get through full plate.

 

[Zhukov]

If it isn't yet then it's certainly headed there at a rate of knots.

"So, we've got to try and pack a ton of material into a relatively short amount of screen time. Man, this is gonna be tough. Any ideas?"
"Yup. Add more stuff of of our own invention of noticeably inferior quality!"
"Brilliant!"

 

[Erttheking]

It's decent TV by TV standards. By quality TV standards (IE Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc) it's more than a "bit shit". Like The Walking Dead before it, it's one of the absolute worst "good shows" on television.

Frankly I've sat through all but the last season of Mad Men, and it's a freaking snore fest. At least Game of Thrones, for all its flaws, makes me give a shit as to what is going on.

Honestly, when you get down to it odds are there are very few things out there that you can't spend hours picking apart. People say Shakespeare is genius when a good chunk of his plots rely on people suddenly being magically in the right place at the right times. Really when people say something is of quality, they don't mean a lack of flaws, it just means they're willing to overlook the flaws because they like the rest so much.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Frankly I've sat through all but the last season of Mad Men, and it's a freaking snore fest.

Mad Men isn't a particularly salacious show, but it's extraordinarily well made.

I trust you are one of the viewers of GoT who got bored when Arya's S5 storyline was "dragging" when she'd been on screen for five minutes and not turned into a master swordswoman? =P

 

[Erttheking]

Frankly I've sat through all but the last season of Mad Men, and it's a freaking snore fest.

Mad Men isn't a particularly salacious show, but it's extraordinarily well made.

I trust you are one of the viewers of GoT who got bored when Arya's S5 storyline was "dragging" when she'd been on screen for five minutes and not turned into a master swordswoman? =P

No. I was the person who got bored when I was five seasons into mad men and I didn't give a single solitary fuck about any of the characters.

I actually think Ayra's story line is well paced thank you very much.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

No. I was the person who got bored when I was five seasons into mad men and I didn't give a single solitary fuck about any of the characters.

I actually think Ayra's story line is well paced thank you very much.

Hahahaha I'm just giving you a rough time, King.

Really I'm glad you're enjoying season 5. Someone has to.

 

[Erttheking]

No. I was the person who got bored when I was five seasons into mad men and I didn't give a single solitary fuck about any of the characters.

I actually think Ayra's story line is well paced thank you very much.

Hahahaha I'm just giving you a rough time, King.

Really I'm glad you're enjoying season 5. Someone has to.

Sorry. Lot of drama going on IRL and I'm a little on edge.

Oh don't get me wrong, I feel the earlier seasons were a lot better. I hear about the things they've changed and I'm not happy about it. I still think seasons 5 is good, but...well let's just say I'm reading the books now.

 

[happyninja42]

The series has it's issues, but so do the books. Nothing is perfect. If you think the series is a bit shit, that's fine. I disagree, but I'm also not some rabid fan of it. I enjoy it, and I enjoy seeing where the story is going. That's enough for me.

 

[spartan231490]

Frankly, I think the books and the show are both pretty bad. They've covered up that low quality with cheap titillation for longer than they have had any right to. Pacing is shit, there's no respect for the audience, and the setting falls pretty flat once you realize that all the interesting parts of it get sidelined immediately. Some decent characters can't make up for all that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Sorry. Lot of drama going on IRL and I'm a little on edge.

Oh don't get me wrong, I feel the earlier seasons were a lot better. I hear about the things they've changed and I'm not happy about it. I still think seasons 5 is good, but...well let's just say I'm reading the books now.

It's all good. I'm not having the best day either, if it helps. =\

I'd be VERY interested to know your thoughts after reading the books. People tend to 'attach' to whatever version they see/read first and view it as canon, but the show version is so much shallower and sillier I'd be fascinated to see a "show loyal" person compare it to the books.

 

[Politrukk]

I've made it through season 3 and I've got to say the show is overrated in my opinion.

- Only a handful of characters are interesting
- There's too many characters to follow so it's easy to get lost without repeated viewings
- There's far too much senseless nudity for shock value and cheap thrills
- The fantasy elements sometimes go to far (Kind of like how Lost was great when it was kept simple). You don't need things like a shadow monster that can assassinate people to make Game of Thrones interesting.

Don't get me wrong, Game of Thrones is very good and easily recommended but I don't feel it remotely lives up to the hype surrounding it. It's not on the level of something like Breaking Bad for example.

The too many characters thing is a very personal "bad thing"

And I'm sad to say to me it always comes up as sort of I suppose a less interested pose or perhaps a lack of intelligence or an attention deficit?


I'm not saying this to be mean but I know plenty of people who could easily keep up with the series and books and who have no problems with remembering everyone whilst the only people I've heard complain about the number of characters either were 1 not invested in the story or 2 didn't understand a lot of the story anyway.

 

[balladbird]

Eh, as a book reader, the omission of/combination of characters from the books doesn't bother me too much. Books are far less bound by the "show, don't tell" rule than tv series, which couples with the real-life difficulty of maintaining actors for bit parts who can reliably be called back every once in a blue moon those bit parts are active to make it okay with me if they decide to have, say, Bronn and Jaime head to Dorne instead of Balon Swann, or having it outright be Jaquen H'gar that Arya meets. Though having Jaime go to Dorne does create its own problem, considering what he's supposed to be doing is a lot more important for his character development, but eh.

As to the warging... most of that was done by Bran... and I'm not gonna lie: when I was reading through the books, ever single time a Bran chapter came up I would groan. His story was by far the most bland and archetypal of all the story threads, so I have absolutely no qualms with missing out on warging if it means less of that.

Can't defend the original show runner stories, though. The "fookin LEGEND of Gin Town" pretty much reveals why I'm a bit tepid about those. GRRM has his flaws as a writer, no doubt, but at least his characters have layers. A few complete monsters like Joffery or Ramsay roam about, sure, but for the most part the reader can see some good in the bad guys, and some bad in the good... Then the show runners throw in a filler character, and he drinks wine from skulls before ordering his followers to rape people to death. >.<


On the whole, I haven't really had a problem with season 5 so far. Not the best, but not the worst either (that still falls with the way the series handled book 2/season 2 for me.)

Edit: Just realized I was spelling Jaime's name wrong. DX

 

[Evonisia]

Sorry. Lot of drama going on IRL and I'm a little on edge.

Oh don't get me wrong, I feel the earlier seasons were a lot better. I hear about the things they've changed and I'm not happy about it. I still think seasons 5 is good, but...well let's just say I'm reading the books now.

It's all good. I'm not having the best day either, if it helps. =\

I'd be VERY interested to know your thoughts after reading the books. People tend to 'attach' to whatever version they see/read first and view it as canon, but the show version is so much shallower and sillier I'd be fascinated to see a "show loyal" person compare it to the books.

Funny you should mention that: I recently read the first book then watched the first season and I was shocked at how faithful it was to it (only cutting stuff out, not really adding stuff in), and now I'm doing the same with the second book/season and... BETRAYAL. What the hell are they making changes for? Why is it so important to have the Arya investigation be significantly less uplifting and well, good, for the sake of the camera? Probably because of the show's fascination with sexuality I guess.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Funny you should mention that: I recently read the first book then watched the first season and I was shocked at how faithful it was to it (only cutting stuff out, not really adding stuff in), and now I'm doing the same with the second book/season and... BETRAYAL. What the hell are they making changes for? Why is it so important to have the Arya investigation be significantly less uplifting and well, good, for the sake of the camera? Probably because of the show's fascination with sexuality I guess.

Yep, first season was VERY loyal. Not entirely (y u cut Sansa and Hound, show, y? y u do dis?) but for the most part. Deviations started piling up after that.

If you think season 2 is bad just you wait. It gets absolutely ridiculous later on. And virtually without exception, the deviations make absolutely no sense.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I had a chance to see a bit, and tried to read the first book... I can't stand either, they're both pretty shit in my opinion. The South Park Trilogy of episodes on it was pretty damn funny though.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Watch the show, haven't read the books. Not entirely sure I want to, not because I don't enjoy the series, but because I'm not sure I can muster up the willpower to tackle another heavyweight fantasy series. Maybe one of these days... preferably when it is finished.

As for it being "a bit shit," well, what isn't, really? But maybe I'm just weird. I'm one of those people that think the Lord of the Rings movies blow the books out of the water - I'm sure there's some kind of fantasy dungeon down in hell with my name on it.

 

[Loonyyy]

Why was this necessary? Why?

Because it's EXCITING!

Agreed by the way, although the two biggest trespasses of the show to date for me are "Talissa" and the complete white-washing of Tyrion.

Mind you, Season 5 should surpass that in pretty short order at the rate it's going to shit.

You're referring to whats his face? Carl? Karl? He was a FOOKIN' legend in Gin Alley??!?!

See, my memory of Jon Snow's arc from the books is a bit hazy. It's pretty standard hero's journey stuff, right? At least when compared to the other plots going on at the time. So, when I first watched that part, it made sense. Alright, give Jon Snow something to do and a bad guy to fight.

It was still horribly cringe worthy. Not only that, but the fight. Granted, this is entertainment, and I don't exactly expect them to study HEMA techniques to a T. This is a TV show. But c'mon, they made Karl the stereotypical rogue from any generic fantasy game. Two daggers fighting someone with a sword? And Jon swings it like that? You don't hack and slash with a sword you cut and thrust, small fast movements. Jon wouldn't need to swing his sword like a baseball bat, he just needs to thrust repeatedly maybe with some cuts and 2-4 strokes Karl would be maimed or dying.

Not only that, but even as Karl is portrayed they get it wrong. How many of his foes ever saw him coming? The classic dagger man didn't make a living by getting into fair fights.

That was my reaction too!

He's described as a cut-throat, why does that make him a fighter? He slits peoples throats in a slum, that means he lacks morals, not that he's a fucking ninja. Jon's been trained by Knights and Master's at Arms since childhood. He's got a bastard sword, and has all of the reach on his opponent. Daggers are pretty shit for parrying. I mean come on. It all looked so stupid.

 

[senordesol]

Not a raving fan, but I really like the show.

The theme of deconstucting the romanticism of the medieval period is something that not a lot of people have dared to do (or at least dared to do so well).

The fact that Danny can't rule her way out of a wet paper bag is fitting, I feel. She strikes me as all idealism with only an ounce or two of guile. She suffers, in many ways, from the affliction of her brother (i.e.: overestimating her own destiny) and we already saw where that gets you...

What became of Ned Stark was great as well; all puffed up about 'honor' and 'justice'. In any other story, he'd have been the protagonist; but it turns out that he was superfluous.

My main complaint with the show at this point is how it's meandering it's gotten in the new season. Apart from the showdown with Stanis and the Boltons; there's no driving crisis at this point (Seriously! When are the White Walkers getting here!?).

A bit shit? That assessment strikes me a tad hyper-critical. I'd say it's fine (if a bit lacking in the later hours) as is, and a damn sight better than most of the tripe that passes for television programming in this day and age.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Game of thrones is dumb. It's rated fantasticaly and far too many people are raving about it... and yet it is dumb. (the books, in contrast, do far fewer dumb things) from the top of my head:

Mm... Disagree.

The show is an exploitative tits'n'blood fest. It's dumb. It kind of knows its dumb, even if the fans haven't figured it out yet. All in all, it's kind of a blast.

The books, however, are also dumb. They are bog standard genre fantasy with just enough pseudo-medieval realism that some people seem to have become convinced they are some kind of epiphany for fantasy as genre, and that's fine, but what really annoys me is that GRRM seems to have bought his own hype on this one. Really, he's doing exactly the same thing as all the other fantasy novels he's claiming to have broken away from.. I mean, I'm really hoping it's all a big setup and actually the ending will be a total middle finger, but at this point assuming that's not true it's incredibly obvious what the big reveal and consequent resolution is going to be. The pieces are pretty much all in place.

Also, one massive pet peeve.

Spoiler

- magic in the tv series is overt and obvious. In the books it's subtle.

You mean, apart from all the 9th level D&D clerics running around casting "raise dead" on important characters.

Yeah, it happens in the TV show as well, but not for anyone we care about yet, and thank God.. because making us care about a death and then undoing it because a wizard said so is the dramatic equivalent of taking a shotgun to your own scrotum. Nothing you do can have real impact when the audience knows one of the characters can waggle their fingers and make it go away, and that you as an author have the complete lack of balls to let them.

Other than that:

Ros (a.k.a, "random whores") should have been in the books. She is actually a far better exposition tool than most of the POV characters. Through her, Theon Greyjoy actually gets a basic level of characterization prior to leaving Winterfell, for example, which the books really don't give him.

Series Dany is a much more interesting character. There, I said it. Various aspects of her personality in the book don't make sense in the context under which she grew up and thus come off as simplistic and Freudian ("I was mistreated as a child, so I'm going to be really kind to everyone!"). She's also a massively problematic example of the "white savior" narrative, which is worse in the books because she is presented as ridiculously competent and is always morally justified.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

They are bog standard genre fantasy with just enough pseudo-medieval realism that some people seem to have become convinced they are some kind of epiphany for fantasy as genre, and that's fine, but what really annoys me is that GRRM seems to have bought his own hype on this one.

They were revolutionary for their time and helped reshape the genre. It's rather like sitting in 1980 and pissing about Tolkien's "hype" because it's identical to all the other fantasy.

Ros (a.k.a, "random whores") should have been in the books. She is actually a far better exposition tool than most of the POV characters. Through her, Theon Greyjoy actually gets a basic level of characterization prior to leaving Winterfell, for example, which the books really don't give him.

Ros is a terrible non-entity and symptomatic of the showrunners inability to conceive of or write interesting characters.

Series Dany is a much more interesting character. There, I said it. Various aspects of her personality in the book don't make sense in the context under which she grew up and thus come off as simplistic and Freudian ("I was mistreated as a child, so I'm going to be really kind to everyone!"). She's also a massively problematic example of the "white savior" narrative, which is worse in the books because she is presented as ridiculously competent and is always morally justified.

Absolutely untrue. Her entire book 5 arc is about deconstructing her "hero" narrative.