Game Of Thrones - a reflection

[archangel]

(Hope this interests ANYONE :eek: )

I'm almost 47 years old. I've seen a good share of TV shows. For me personally, Game Of Thrones was/is the best show of all time. Hard to imagine it will ever be superseded.

There is so much to love - too much to list. There are a few things I disliked in the end. I will list just those. You will see that even in those, there's true greatness. In no particular order, just the way they popped into my mind:

I hate that the last seasons had fewer episodes.

I hate that Cersei died a coward, without a worthy fight. The Golden Company, built up as a worthy competitor in the episodes prior to the last stand, was such a bad joke in the end. At least Cersei died aside the true love of her life (besides her kids).

I hate that only Drogon survived, and I hate big time that Rheagal was killed for no big particular story-related reason, without a comeback. The dead of Viserion had a great story though. Who had thought...

I hate that the killing of the Night King and his army was not the ultimate fight. How great it was though that and how Aria got him! My ATF episode!!

I hate that Aria sailed off to the West and we'll never know what she found. She was my favourite character. What a development she took.

I hate that Varys was executed by Daenerys, and pretty unspectacularly too. He deserved a richer end. Littlefinger's end was so much worthier, dramaturgically.

I hate that Daenerys turned mad, and had to be killed by John. Both turns made good sense. But I hated them.

I hate that we'll never see what else Bran will see in his life.

---

To be continued, I'm sure I'm missing some things right now. Feel free to comment on the points of my list, and/or add your own. Please refrain from bashing the show if you did not like it. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. This thread should please be free of bashing.

[Wartstein]

I did not see much of the show (almost nothing actually, since I never owned a TV set), but I guess I might have liked it.

Being a guitarist, what I saw / heard more is the "game of thrones theme":

You might like this acoustic version by "Forty fingers" (pretty well arranged imho), music starting at around 0:20 https://youtu.be/dk7R9FZj0L0

And here a version by a bunch of pretty cool (electric) guitarists (actual theme starting at 2:00 into the vid) https://youtu.be/6i0a7RDPkM8

[archangel]

I did not see much of the show (almost nothing actually, since I never owned a TV set), but I guess I might have liked it.

I'm sorry - WHAT???

SmartSelect_20210328-141449_Gallery.jpg (17.49 KiB) Viewed 1348 times

[Wartstein]

I did not see much of the show (almost nothing actually, since I never owned a TV set), but I guess I might have liked it.

I'm sorry - WHAT??? SmartSelect_20210328-141449_Gallery.jpg

It´s true

I never had a TV set and still don´t have one now.
I lived in quite a few flat sharing communities when I was younger and had no money, some folks there had a TV in their rooms (so sometimes I could watch TV there)
Other than that: Never. And never missed it (though don´t get me wrong, I am not one of those who thinks TV is "bad" at all. I personally just don´t need it).

I have internet at home and a smartphone for just about seven years now, so I can watch stuff on youtube or the internet outlets of news channels. Before that is was only radio and newspapers...
I also don´t play any PC, playstation...games, have never been on facebook, instagramm, twitter and the like, have radio only in my car at the moment (at least I HAVE a car! :D :p )

Pretty stone-age-ish, right? :D

[archangel]

I had a balanced childhood and youth, I'd say. Played soccer outside and hang around with others my age a good part of my life. But I always also enjoyed the distraction of television.

From what I've learned about you Gernot, you turned out ok the way you did your life. hehehe.... :D

Now some more GoT love please! :)

[benben]

I got to see enough of GOT to get the gist of it, and I liked it! Always wondered just how much the production cost was to shoot that show and some of those scenes? Huge $$$$$.

The way you feel about GOT is the way I felt about “24” the first couple of seasons! I used to get mad when it was over, an hour episode felt like it was 10 minutes long, it was a great show!

[Evil D]

Man this show was so good until the last couple seasons. I hate to echo everyone else but they really did give up on season 8. There was so much character development that just got thrown away with no examination. I gotta admit though I was most let down by the Jaime/Brianne ending. They gave us so much retribution with Jaime becoming a decent person and then just wasted it. I get that there was no happy ending for what was ultimately a terrible person (I mean he deliberately tried to murder his nephew) but to go back to Cersei and just die the way they did was lazy writing.

[archangel]

I have binge-watched all episodes, including the last seasons', multiple times. With breaks of months in between. This is why I titled the thread "a reflection" - I thought about what was bad about the end quite alot. I agree that Jamie's turns, and how he not stayed with Brianne who was so good for him, is a good point to add to the list. But you've said it yourself, he had very dark roots. And in the end, he returned to his true love, Cersei. It does make sense. Hard to swallow though.

How they ended or did not end several characters was indeed disappointing to watch at first. But to grant them all big bang endings would have taken forever. Well, hmm, ... why did the show have to end? I wish it hadn't yet...

[TomAiello]

Has anyone read the books?

If the end is ever released in the books you might find it more satisfying. There is a lot of divergence (after the first book) between the TV show and the books, and I hope the end of the books is more satisfying.

[TomAiello]

I did not see much of the show (almost nothing actually, since I never owned a TV set), but I guess I might have liked it.

I didn't own a TV set for about 15 years (from college graduation until I got married--my wife had one when we got married).

I admit that the older I get the more I like being able to binge watch things during bad weather. And I feel like the quality of programming has improved a lot, as the options have multiplied so that individual producers could follow their vision, rather than having to build a 'lowest common denominator' for mass consumption on one of the (very few) big networks.

Archangel, did you watch Battlestar Galactica? That had a lot of thought provoking material, although it was more philosophically driven, and less character oriented, than Game of Thrones.

[archangel]

Oh yes, and I enjoyed the first like 3 seasons or so (I assume you mean the new version, not the 80th' original). I stopped watching after that, not sure why but it didn't really pull me in front of the TV anymore back then. Years later I watched the whole show in a binge. Boy what a super disappointing last episode! :eek: This one is my reference for bad bad endings.

[RustyIron]

Has anyone read the books?

Yeah, I read the first two books and half of the third. I reached the conclusion that it was more of the "Same ol', same ol'" and gave up.

I was an avid GOT watcher from the beginning. When everyone started talking George R.R. Martin, it sort of rang a bell. Back when I was a youngster in the 70's, there was a magazine titled "Omni." It was a little bit science, a little bit fiction, all presented in a hip format. I recalled a short story written for Omni by this Martin dude. At the time, it was just another weird story that I enjoyed. After re-reading it, I now find it somewhat unsettling--unsettling, but written with a flair for painting a vivid picture in my mind.

The story is titled, "The Pear Shaped Man." If any of you kids enjoy unsettling, but well written fiction, I can recommend this. It's not at all like GOT or Fire and Ice. Let me know what you think.

https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2013 ... d-man.html

[TomAiello]

I actually enjoyed the books quite a bit. I had some long drives and listened to a lot of them on audio. When the TV show lost complexity and started feeling rushed, it diverged from the books more dramatically.

George RR Martin was never my favorite (I remember reading Dying of the Light a loooong time ago and not really getting into it), but I have enjoyed these novels.

edit: if you are ever in New Mexico, make the time to visit Meow Wolf, which had a large portion of it's funding donated by Martin.

[ChrisinHove]

JEEEEEZ.... SPOILER ALERT!!

We’ve been watching GOT over the last few months and got to s8, episode 3 last night.

I will come back to this thread at a later date.

[JuPaul]

I absolutely loved GoT...until George R.R. Martin got writers' block. Then the people hired to adapt hid books to the screen became writers of original content, and the show completely lost track of its overall themes, and the main story arcs went off the rails.

With that said, I watched the entire series, and there was certainly still a lot to love. It's visually stunning, for one. But still, I prefer to forget the last 2 seasons.

[archangel]

JEEEEEZ.... SPOILER ALERT!!

We’ve been watching GOT over the last few months and got to s8, episode 3 last night.

I will come back to this thread at a later date.

Sorry! :eek: Who would have thought people are still watching it for the first time these days..... :o

[archangel]

Oh, and I'm reading the books right now. Book two that is. But I'm not a book worm anymore. By my pace it might take me 3 more years.... I'm reading them in English (I hate when English names are being translated into German), and this is slowing me down even more. Looong descriptions of what a robe looks like tend to bore me, and I lay down the book in slight frustration.

[soc_monki]

I haven't watched seasons 7 and 8, basically because I knew they would ruin it since even GRRM didn't even have the story finished yet. Up to season 6 was prime though. However I have to say, I believe GoT is going to be overshadowed by the upcoming Wheel of Time series. If you've never read those books you must, they are amazing. I'm almost through my 3rd reread. I keep picking things up I missed the first and second time. So deep, so satisfying, such a great story.

Haven't really got into the GoT books even though I have them. Martin's writing style is weird to me. I'll get into them sooner or later though, I want to see how the story actually goes! Haha!

[shunsui]

It seemed like Arya and the Queen of Thorns were the only sane people in the story.

The writers really threw the Dragon Queen under the bus.

Some great moments though.

Oh and on the other series, I loved it when Starbuck disappeared in the last episode.

[ThomC]

I watched the show after reading the books.
While the first 2 and a half seasons were relatively good, with a lot of material being necessarily streamlined and trimmed down to fit in 50-minute episodes, I thought everything went down the drain past the second half of the third season.

I watched until the end mostly to see how bad it'd turn out, but I never expected it to be quite THAT bad. And, oh boy. The last 3 seasons were about 50 different kinds of fudged up.

Between characters having wildly erratic behaviours, story arcs coming to abrupt and disappointing resolutions, loose ends up the wazoo, VFX going from pretty good for a TV show to mediocre at best... I feel like everything was rushed to reach a conclusion. And a disappointing one at that.