Hawki said:
I'll not quibble semantics and interpretations too much. Sufficient to say is that I chose to pick a few examples of the problems I had with season 6 and 7 and left out a lot of other problems with internal consistency.
Hawki said:
-Season 7 can give the illusion of Westeros having suddenly grown smaller, but the key word is "illusion." Every season is meant to take place over the course of a year. Season 1 spent a period of time getting to King's Landing. Season 7 doesn't show the travel time, but that doesn't mean that the travel time isn't occurring. However, at this point in the story, highlighting that travel time is far less important. The series has long since established approximate travel times, it doesn't need to remind us of it this late in the overall story.
I'd be much more inclined to accept this if the show actually cared about mentioning it once in a while. However Jaime can be in King's Landing, go pick up an army in Casterly Rock off screen, besiege and sack Highgarden and move all the spoils to just outside King's Landing, while Captain Sparr- Euron sails off to destroy Yara's fleet off of Dorne's West coast, sail back to King's Landing,
then sail
around Westeros to Casterly Rock to destroy Grey Worm's fleet and return to King's Landing (never mind how he got into and out of King's Landing when the fleet had to pass Dragon Stone, which is in enemy hands, 4 times) all in the time it takes for Team Dany to hear about the loss of Yara's fleet, get a bit mad and then somehow conjure up a third fleet that can transfer all her Dothraki's from Dragon Stone to the inroads towards King's Landing to surprise attack Jaime.
I mean, I am just taking umbrage with distance and time here. But we could discuss how Euron had the majority of his fleet stolen from under him in S6E10 by Yara and somehow still conjures up a bigger fleet in what is essentially a few weeks at the most, on a bunch of islands that has no forests. We could discuss the absolutely inane strategy that Team Dany decides to employ to justify the chance for the Lannisters to destroy them piecemeal, instead of just going with the original plan of dogpiling King's Landing with absolutely superior numbers. We could discuss the utter stupidity of not sending three dragons to just destroy the Red Keep, "justified" by the poor logic of "innocent people will die", as if that's not the logical end point of a prolonged siege of a city of King's Landing's size. We could discuss the utter stupidity of no one objecting to the widely considered illegitimate Queen somehow getting away with blowing up the supreme leader of a cult that was played up as more powerful then the combined forces of the Tyrell's and Lannister's without no one in that cult even trying to get even or rallying people against this heretical queen. We could discuss Jon's absolutely baffling decision to go to a hostile throne pretender with all of maybe 5 bodyguards and an advisor instead of doing the smart thing and parleying on neutral ground. We can discuss the entirety of the Winterfell arc which goes nowhere (but in this case The Fandomentals [https://www.thefandomentals.com/winterhell-s7-retrospective-part-1/] got us covered [https://www.thefandomentals.com/winterhell-s7-retrospective-part-2/]) or the sudden turn of Arya's plot arc that is so weirdly handled that we can't be sure if we should consider her a dangerous psychopath or if we should be fistpumping her awesome when she murders every man of house Frey. We could talk about Sam's arc, which goes nowhere and only serves as a convenient plot device to further the plots of other people. Which, if we want to talk about it, is exactly the problem with Bran's arc, having him be reduced to an exposition machine that conveniently knows secrets that needs to be known for the plot to advance. We probably should discuss the utterly insipid plan and all the contrivances surrounding the "catch a white walker"-plot line and how it disrespects logic, time, distance and pretty much all the characterization of most people involved, all to convince a person that Team Dany should have put 6 feet under 8 episodes ago but didn't because the writers wanted the Lannisters around as big bads for the last season. We should probably also discuss the stupid shilling for Ramsay Bolton, his villain sue tendencies and how the plot bent over and broke so that his mustache twirling villainy could be played to the max, including breaking the characterization of other characters like Sansa and Stannis so that Ramsay could get his limelight.
All these things are the results of the writers diverging from Martin's details first approach in favor of drama first. Just like with Mass Effect 3 I feel the writing is already on the wall: The writers don't understand what made the first 4 or so seasons great (hint: Martin's writing and involvement) and are increasingly relying on maximizing drama to maintain tension while brute forcing their way through all the plot points they need to hit to reach their desired end, no matter how much of the characterization or internal consistency that has to be sacrificed to reach said end.
If D&D turns around and proves me wrong I'll be one happy camper, because I think GoT deserves better then the writing of the last 3 seasons. But at this point I've been hoping for like 2,5 seasons that GoT will return to form and it is increasingly obvious that it won't do that.
