HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

I wonder if Armin Van Buuren is pissed off that the week he releases his banging remix of the theme tune is the week they burn a kid alive.

it does maybe feel like the writers are thinking "how can we top the shock of the red wedding" and Sansa / Shareen is what we got

i thought my good old friend The Maester's criticism was on point:

What bothers me about the scene is that it’s based on a character acting in a way that’s counter to how he’s been depicted all series. Stannis has been depicted as one of the greatest generals in the realm. He held the Storm’s End against a one-year siege by eating rats. So if the device that gets Stannis to the place where he’s desperate enough to burn his only daughter and heir alive2 is (1) some snow and (2) a sudden and convenient ineptitude at doing war stuff, that feels off to me. Stannis, “the greatest military commander in Westeros” per Davos, is in enemy territory, on the march toward a belligerent castle, and for some reason (i.e., to make this scene happen) he doesn’t have scouts out or watchmen guarding the camp or have his army — made up largely of professional mercenaries who themselves should know better — in the state of alertness necessary in a war. Also: Ramsay is now a ninja. I don’t buy it.

i just watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 two days ago (which sucks btw) and the dragon riding in that was more believable.

let's put our worst actor on top of a CGI dragon called drogon, what's the worst that could happen

They annoy a few ppl who like to complain about the trickiest CGI shots on TV - that is the worst that has happened.

stannis have watchmen they were mentioned in the episode even, they failed due to im guessing low morale, and snow aka winter weather has decided a lot of wars like for instance the second world war, and all the greatest military commanders in history have eventually lost usually due to overreach which is what stannis is currently doing as has been amply explained and dempstrated, the maester is subscribing to an overly deterministic world view, wldve prob called napoleons defeat in russia unrealistic

but the maester has read the books so he is like a god to me. he knows things! he knows!

Stannis has never been depicted using magic and shit to get an unfair military advantage

feel like he shd just stick to explaining book things like this is really not strong work

Crackpot theory: A few years back, when Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss met with George R.R. Martin in Santa Fe so that the author could map out his story to its end — beyond what exists in the books — Martin, in the great tradition of J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse, and every writer everywhere whose job is to literally make things up as they go along, just kind of told B&W a bunch of bullshit. I mean, not total bullshit. That’s harsh. But, like, he’s sure of the solid brickwork of those story points, with the gaps mortared together with some yada yada. Again, that’s a writer’s job. And, really, who among us would not go so far as to build a 700-foot-tall wall of bullshit once the six- and seven-figure checks started flying to and fro? Is Martin going to be like, “No, I don’t really know the ending. I guess I’ll give the money back.” Do you really think the whole reason he hasn’t finished the books is because he writes slowly?

xpost - I feel like Stannis views himself as a tragic, biblical-style character, and sacrificing his daughter is just the latest in his series of trials and hard choices that he has had to make in order to save humanity or whatever.

i mean hes not writing the books because hes famous and busy now and wld rather ball around the world is a much more resonable answer thats backed up by reality than he cant come up with the story

bad writers expounding on how writing works<<<<<<<

concepcion (netw3rk/the maester) is def reaching to find really authoritative sounding reasons why he didnt like the scene when he could've just said "i didnt like it" but hey where be the clicks in that

(tbf any other explainer column that had such an ultimate conclusion would prob resort to the same tactics, i don't think concepcion is a full-stop bad writer more like trying too hard)

writing is magic / game of thrones is magic / someone hire me to write episode recaps jk id rather work in the fighting pit

concepcion (netw3rk/the maester) is def reaching to find really authoritative sounding reasons why he didnt like the scene when he could've just said "i didnt like it" but hey where be the clicks in that

― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 2:01 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean he cldve just said it felt like it came out of left field, which wldve been fair, instead he was all "the timing matters because context matters." and "Of course bad things happen on Game of Thrones. But when you arrive at those things through contrivances, it cheapens the shock. It’s about consistent storytelling." which is bad writing

i thought the scene was good tho

his general point is correct i think - that it was a rushed event in the context of a crap episode. i agree the scene itself was good but some of the blending of storylines this season has been awful. last week's ep was the first time they got it right.

Yeah early on I argued myself that just a little more desperation between the scene where he establishes his dedication as a father and the scene where is he burns his daughter alive would have helped. Not a huge criticism just figured it would have worked better.

feel like theres an inherent unexamined tension between the legions of amateur plot experts and their constant refrain of this episode was bad

A certain kind of recapper is obsessed with proving, at great length, that plot developments he doesn't like are objectively bad storytelling.

lag∞n otm

yeah i mean to some extent we all think about things that way but hardening those views into some sort of empirical theory of plotcraft is just lame and anhedonian especially coming from ppl who clearly have no idea what the heck theyre talking abt

the av clubbing of criticism

wait hold on a sec

who are the legions of amateur plot experts forming an empirical theory of plotcraft? also can there be a spinoff show about them because it sounds like they're up to big things

various critics, various folks on this borad

theyre everywhere... including this thread... v spooky

yeah people should stop criticising the plot of got until they've made five seasons of game of thrones themselves

perhaps you also shouldn't criticise plot critics until you've attempted to criticise a plot yourself

they should be burned alive

if only there was a way the common man could experience the plot of game of thrones and thus have an opinion on it

you all of course free to criticize the plot all you want

I'm trying to figure out if Stannis the Law Abider and Stannis the Religious Zealot are compatible, if being a Law Abider segues into buying wholesale into Melisandre or if there's a disconnect

i'm just waiting for either stannis or roose bolton to kill each other, because there can't be two characters that look the same and hail from cold northern places and both participate in the throne game and are completely insane. enough is enough.

yeah people should stop criticising the plot of got until they've made five seasons of game of thrones themselves

― bureau belfast model (LocalGarda), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 3:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on, man, no one is making /that/ much of a hardline stance against criticism, no one is being dave eggers here telling ppl only writers can critique other writers

i don't think it's anhedonian really tbf - personally the decreased enjoyment comes first, then the wondering why - i hardly think it's a rare pov to think this season has kinda sucked. the show has always juggled the diff storylines p well albeit with an obvious difficulty of cramming so many arcs into 50 minutes or whatever. watching it this season it feels like it's finally got a bit too much for them.

xposts yeah slothrop i know nobody is being that bad, i'm kind of messing, but i guess if that's not what people are saying, i'm curious what variation of that it is. as i say - not too controversial to think this season has is kinda flawed.

id just like to be able to talk abt a tv show on ilx from the perspective of watching it w/o the weird prosumer expert complex angle

we shd def to an autoreplace for arc

showrunner, trope, callback

thank god we're finally discussing the critics' critics' critics; was afraid this was gonna be about something stupid like the girl riding the dragon away into the sunset

right on time

Stannis is from an island on the east coast.

wow - many xposts

i lol'd

I'm trying to figure out if Stannis the Law Abider and Stannis the Religious Zealot are compatible, if being a Law Abider segues into buying wholesale into Melisandre or if there's a disconnect

― 龜, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 3:17 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like stannis has clearly made the decision to sacrifice rules for principles where they diverge and its causing him a lot of stress!

poor stannis he's very stressed :(

needs 2 chill, davos shdve suggested just kicking back w a brew instead of attacking

also if I were the 20 dudes in the night i probably would have just burned stannis's tent

showrunner, trope, callback

― lag∞n, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 3:24 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean those terms do have their applications, but obviously are overused by numerous folks

i think there's a reasonable compromise to be reached between not criticizing stuff and criticizing it in a way that creates tablet-carved objective standards of What Televised Storytelling Is and What This Means to TV As A Whole And Society and all that shit - ideas which inherently involve so much subjectivity - and i'm not sure many critics do that well. (alan sepinwall is one of the few tv critics who can talk about that macro stuff w a sense of perspective while also being an incisive critic of scenes/performances/writing etc. others can do one or the other maybe usually not both.)

feel like their strategy was pretty good except they didnt know stannis cld just sacrifice his daughter to fix everything xp