Game of Thrones Season 8 Discussion Thread

[Statilius the Epicurean]

So I've been rewatching the series for a few weeks and I'm of the mind that it seems like there are a million story threads being trod underfoot owing to the needs of our "final battle" scenario. The religious aspect in particular I feel like has been completely left by the wayside since Stannis was defeated. It seemed like earlier seasons were building toward something cosmic. After all, our protagonist has been raised from the dead, but that matters nought when he gets to shack up with Danerys.

The show is nothing but generic fantasy schlock now. Which, like, if that's what the average viewer wants, then great. But it's terribly disappointing artistically.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

isn't that why we fell in love in the first place, they didn't give us what we expected?

No, you f***ing idiot. The dumbest hack writer in the world can write an "unexpected" twist.

ASOIAF was unique because it was a brutal, realistic fantasy setting where actions had consequences, heroes didn't have plot armour, deaths were deaths and not heroic, battles and wars didn't solve anything, political intrigue was petty squabbling, there weren't any faceless motivationless chaotic evil baddies etc. etc.. Ned Stark wasn't killed just to make a unexpected twist for cheap shock value, but to make a point about the world of Westeros and the world we live in. All of that is out the window by now, the show is generic fantasy fanservice, dick jokes and cool shots of dragons.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Lol nah, I emotionally checked out of GOT a long time ago.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

So I've been rewatching the series for a few weeks and I'm of the mind that it seems like there are a million story threads being trod underfoot owing to the needs of our "final battle" scenario. The religious aspect in particular I feel like has been completely left by the wayside since Stannis was defeated. It seemed like earlier seasons were building toward something cosmic. After all, our protagonist has been raised from the dead, but that matters nought when he gets to shack up with Danerys.

The show is nothing but generic fantasy schlock now. Which, like, if that's what the average viewer wants, then great. But it's terribly disappointing artistically.

Well I'm still hoping the Lord of Light keeps GRRM alive to finish the books with his version of the story.

Martin has told them all the major plot points. D and D mentioned they've known it was Arya for three years. People seem to either forget about or wholesale ignore this.

The Night King doesn't even exist in the books. He was invented by D&D because they thought TV viewers needed a single character as the face of the White Walkers.

Either way, GRRM was supposed to have told them the major plot points before Season 1 was filmed, and they came up with Arya as the one to kill the Night King 3 years ago.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

isn't that why we fell in love in the first place, they didn't give us what we expected?

No, you f***ing idiot. The dumbest hack writer in the world can write an "unexpected" twist.

ASOIAF was unique because it was a brutal, realistic fantasy setting where actions had consequences, heroes didn't have plot armour, deaths were deaths and not heroic, battles and wars didn't solve anything, political intrigue was petty squabbling, there weren't any faceless motivationless chaotic evil baddies etc. etc.. Ned Stark wasn't killed just to make a unexpected twist for cheap shock value, but to make a point about the world of Westeros and the world we live in. All of that is out the window by now, the show is generic fantasy fanservice, dick jokes and cool shots of dragons.

If it was a generic fantasy show, Jon would have killed the Night King for no other reason than 'prophecy says so'.

Sure. Who said I wanted Jon to kill the Night King? I'm actually fine with Arya killing him, only the way it happened is absurdly stupid on multiple levels and makes the concept of the show's main threat utterly comical in hindsight.

Not that Jon and Arya killing the Night King is even mutually exclusive since they could have teamed up, like Jon could have died trying to and then Arya delivers the killing blow or whatever. Zero point in keeping Jon around anyway after the threat is gone. But that's not even my main beef.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

He didn't need to. One thing people tend to forget is that villains don't always need complex motivations. There is in fact an argument to be made the NK is nothing but a tool, nd the tool's purpose was to wipe out humanity.

Lmao. As I already said, one of the points of ASOIAF was that it was a fantasy setting where evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains don't exist. GRRM specifically set out to write a Tolkein-inspired story which criticised Tolkien's moral simplicity.

Like, if you're a dumbo who doesn't care about that stuff and only wants to see cool battle scenes, then whatever I guess. But for people who care about the thematic consistency of the setting then the direction which the show has went is pretty disappointing.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The leaks for this episode. LMAO. Glad I'm not watching.