Thinking about the dragonpit scene a lot recently and I think here’s where DD fucked up They received these bullets from GRRM and ordered them this way, at least for the viewers: 1. Bran is king 2. Wheel (primogeniture) is broken 3. Jon, the rightful King, doesn’t take the Throne I have a feeling the book telling (lol) would go more like this: Tyrion and others realize the conquest/rule by lineage can’t continue, given Dany’s turn, Robert’s Rebellion, War of the Five Kings, etc. Jon is the rightful heir under the old system, but he makes clear he’s not interested and nobody wants a Targaryen anyway after the Mad Queen and Mad King. That gives the plotters the opportunity to try the new system. They start looking for candidates that literally cannot have kids so as to guarantee a second selection process takes place in the future. Bran is at the top of that list and the rest falls into place. The book would do this in like ten chapters, the show did it in ten minutes and out of order. There are some suggestions that the characters have “thought” about this but it was just too truncated to feel right, and again the ordering seems wrong.
I could see Jon realizing he has to take the throne in the books. Disgusted by Danys actions, he’s forced to take the throne from her, arrest her and execute her for her war crimes. He then abdicates his crown to Bran, pulls a Cregan Stark and dips back to the north and eventually north of the wall. The more I think about this, the more these last two seasons should have been 20 episodes. Just shitty writing through and through.
I think it is also worth noting that the elimination of certain major plots, perhaps most significantly the fAegon plot, caused the showrunners to have to attribute actions and motivations to other characters that likely didn't do justice to the depth of the story GRRM intends to tell. I think that had as much of an impact on how events in seasons 7 and 8 unfolded as did the abbreviation of the number of episodes.
I think DD have generally done a great job throughout the show’s run of pruning plots and combining characters where necessary to tell a solid television oriented story, so I’m willing to give them some benefit of the doubt on this one. As a general rule I think they sorted out motivations for all of the characters that (likely) make sense in their discussions and head canon, but a lot didn’t come across onscreen due to the decisions to do truncated seasons. Best examples are the last 30 minutes of both episodes 4 and 6, each of which deserved at least an episode’s worth of screen time.
100%. Episode 4 itself should have been 3 episodes. The fact that they cut a huge corner and make Dany snap and go full mad queen when in reality we should have seen her go into full isolation with the loss of all her close advisors and the failure of Tyrion rather than a finger snap of what happened in episode 5. Just a huge disservice to the 1b character in the series.
Nah fuck that. Still doesn't jive with me. Sorry for the novel but we're book readers after all so fuck it, here's my spiel. Why would the lords of the realm follow/agree to Bran as king when they and their ancestors have been jockeying for the crown/power themselves for thousands of years? Never ending feuds before the conquest, civil wars during the Targ reign, an eventual rebellion followed up by the war of the 5 kings. Hello!? Everyone wants the power! Why would they all of sudden agree to just give it to Bran? Because Tyrion talked them into it? Nah, the lords of Westeros hated Tyrion before and after he fled, and i doubt they'll suddenly love him when he returns. Uniting around the one who led the battle against the dead, the one who's peers thrusted him into leadership on multiple occasions throughout the story. That makes sense. Or Uniting around the one who resembles their own ancestor, the ancestor who was the first to unite the continent. One has won the love of the common folk time and time again and has over come so much, including her gender, to attain her position and the one who brought dragons back into the world? That makes sense. Having those 2 clash at first, then fall in love which creates political turmoil, which is all then set aside to unite to defeat the Army of the dead, only to have that turmoil resurface and then boil over because a secret became new information? That makes sense. Then having that divide grow, and reach a point where one is forced to chose between love/family/self or honor/duty/others? That not only makes sense, it was heavily foreshadowed. But after all that happens and the story reaches the critical point where the dust begins to settle, it should be up to one left standing to lead the realm. Jon, the one left holding all the power, should then be the one to call a great council, like the Old King before him. And like Jaehaerys, he should call all of the lords of the realm, not just some great ones. And it should at that point be where Jon reaffirms his position and power, only to set it aside, not be "forced" into exile to appease fucking Greyworm. He should then be the one who leads the council to determine how to best leave the realm, along with help from those like Sansa, Tyrion, Davos, Yara, etc. That's more like a version I could buy into, based on everything I know about ASOIAF, and I hope George has planned. And honestly, if that ends up being Bran as King, fine, but show me why all the lords of the realm feel it should be that way. Not just a fucking monologue from Tyrion in chains about fucking stories, followed by only some lords saying "Aye". And don't then turn around and have one, who clearly has a conflict of interest, say "Nah, I'm good we're just gonna do our own thing." And then have no one else demand the same. Fuuuuuuuuck that Thank you for your time. Hope there aren't many typos.
What if in the books, which we’ll never see, Bran is the one who leads the fight against the dead? What if he does more than simply sit throughout the battle and he actually plays a major role which leads people to view him as the person who is best equipped to protect the realm? The show did a bad job developing how or why Bran is chosen as king but one has to believe that GRRM will have it make sense when it’s all said and done.
There are certainly any number of ways GRRM could set up Bran as King. It could be more overt as you've suggested above, or it could be more subtle, i.e. through insights into Bran and other important characters' thoughts which would explain why those in a position to do so would defer to an unlikely ruler. I actually expect to get the latter, which is why I think the show struggled with it: they knew where the story was going to conclude but had no idea how to get there and failed to give a compelling reason.
That just makes their decision to shorten the last 2 seasons unjustifiable, IMO. The end you have planned or have been told must be isn't going to make sense if shortened but you just do it anyway, the fuck is that shit?
This criticism is fine but it falls more on Martin, imo. DD didn’t sign up to write ASOIAF fan fiction and there was no world where a ninth season was possible given new projects for the stars and writers. I think more fulsome seasons was totally a missed opportunity but generally not knowing how to get Bran into a believable position as King, given where he is in the books currently, is pretty understandable.
I just don't understand why they thought a few bullet points would be enough. did Martin refuse to help them further? did they not want help? it seems to me like a lot of these problems could have been solved over dinner unless one of the parties refused to cooperate.
Also, Martin likely doesn’t yet know how he’ll get to the bullets himself. Hence why he only provided bullets.
did it? I honestly don't know. if it did I'd question why someone at HBO didn't make sure it was repaired.
That was the rumor but I also don’t like when fans act like they know all the inner workings. Who knows. fsuNizz advise
I'd assume it's less 'loses her mind' and more vengeful/angry at the idea of being expected to kneel to fAegon. The idea that he takes King's Landing before Dany even gets there make some sense, since we know they are already on the ground about to take Storm's End. Less madness/more wild dragon fighting resulting in mass casualties
Yeah I think fAegon will be on the throne by the halfway point of Winds. I think Dany herself comes to Westeros (even if just Dragonstone) by the end of the book. But that only leaves a single book for Dany interact with and potentially fall in love with Jon Snow, sack and burn KL, become Queen and die (or just die before officially becoming Queen). You can bump up Dany's arrival to earlier in Winds but I don't see how they get her from where she is now to Dragonstone in half a book. There's just no way George can wrap this up in two books.
Even Viserion? It was a pretty clever way to get past the Wall imo. The way DD actually got Dany up there was insanity, obviously.
I would say I agree most fans don't know shit, and acting like they do is annoying, but there is always some kind of truth within the context of things. When it comes to the riff, and as much as some friends in my industry disagree with me, I guarantee D&D became assholes and stopped caring about GRRM and his interests. So, yes, I 100% agree there was a riff somewhere in the middle of the series; then after multiple seasons, that were only 10 episodes a year, they stopped caring. I do agree with all of this, even when it pertains to the complaints of the last season... and yes, I am still satisfied with the ending.
I like the theory that Euron has that horn and Mance has the dragonbinder horn, but both think they have the other horn
if a dragon-binder horn was buried north of the wall and a horn to bring down the wall was left in the ruins of Valyria, I hope there would be a really cool story as to how they got there.
Jason Concepcion reading sex scenes in GRRM’s voice is the best thing to come out of all of ASOIAF and GoT
Did people not understand that the NK wants to destroy all of humanity and killing the 3ER is just one objective to accomplish that goal? Not the goal itself? I’ll grant you that we didn’t get any further NK motivation, but that seemed obvious to me.
they spent a grand total of about ten seconds on the NK’s motivations so you’ll have to forgive people if it wasn’t clear to them.
I’m sorry but that’s on you if you didn’t understand that the night king was created to destroy man and it got out of hand. I agree that all of it sucks but that was easy peasy
NK has been dormant for over a thousand years and there have been hundreds of winters since the Long Night. Some insight as to why he chose now to attack humanity would have been nice.
From purely a show's perspective, disregarding the books almost entirely, this is the best and simplest explanation as to why season 8 was not up to par. Even touches on season 7 when things started to go bad.
In case anyone wants to get riled up this morning: Basically confirms everything about these two idiots
lol these guys just admitting they're fucking clueless. I hope Disney is reading this and reconsiders handing them the keys to Star Wars.