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"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 6 "The Iron Throne" - Spoilers post 2 forw

Nody

Note anything after this post may contain spoilers for the episode; do not read or open this thread until you have watched the whole episode!!!

This is ONLY about the specific episode! No information from any other source but listed below are allowed to be posted but book related information is allowed as well as the lore from the DVDs. Anything relating to interviews or articles directly related to this episode can be posted with a spoiler tag.

The "Next Episode" and any speculation on what may come in the future episodes should be put in the appropriate stickied Season 8 speculation thread; any funny pictures from the episode should be posted in this thread until Wednesday rather than the funny picture thread.

Note - No spoiler tags required for the current episode in this thread.

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TerrorFirmer

Where the characters actually ended up is fundementally grand, so my first reaction to the episode was mildly positive, purely because I expected them to make an utter hames of it narratively - pull something utterly absurd out of the bag just for the sake of being shocking.

I can make peace with where the pieces lie on the board as we exit Westeros, but the episode only becomes indescribably more disappointing upon rewatching and on retrospective thinking.

Jon's fate is grand in itself and a fine send off, but the whole Greyworm angle was a bit farcical.

Jon murders the Queen while Greyworm has his hands full butchering prisoners, but the latter for some reason decides to then imprison Jon Snow for murdering his friend, leader and Queen and later accepts him being sent to the Night's Watch as justice....OK.

The episode had some slightly better dialogue in spots compared to preceeding episodes, though "I know a killer when I see one", in the context of everything, is so absurdly bad it almost feels like a cheap inside joke.

Poor Kit Harrington can only do so much given the writers have not had anything remotely intelligent for him to say this entire season.

Emilia Clarke did a very decent job of portraying a disturbingly child-like manic Queen in that final scene to her credit, and the backdrop of Greyworm executing Lannister prisoners as Jon strides in to confront her was a fantastic mood-setter.

The death itself was completely hollow though and carried almost no real emotional weight, though I didn't have too much of an issue with the symbolic melting of the Iron Throne or the questions raised over the level of sentient thinking attributable to dragons.

There is so much wrong with the episode and wider season I just can just accept that without too much critical thinking.

The whole climax of Daenery's journey is just absurdly flat, rushed and poorly handled however.

Hark back to pivotal moments like Ned Stark's beheading, Robb's murder, Joffrey's death, the Mountain crushing the Viper's skull, Tyrion shooting Tywin, Jon facing down Ramsey.

You would imagine that Jon Snow murdering Daenerys Targaryen would inevitably feature in that list, but it doesn't, and it doesn't even come close either. It's just something that happens in a clumsy, unconvincing manner because it needs to and doesn't connect on any level.

Also, Jon also could've somewhat credibly claimed Daenerys melted the Iron Throne and simply flew off on Drogon, but that wouldn't have allowed the 'new world' to develop as the Unsullied and Dothraki would've remained in place awaiting her return, so they had to learn she was dead.

Tyrion discovering the bodies of Jaime and Cersei was so sloppy as to defy belief. In 'The Bells', we see the Red Keep completely collapses on top of them; the finale shows the crypts are not only still entirely intact, but arches, walls and ceilings that we literally saw crumble to dust under the crushing weight of the collapsing keep are magically restored.

That one really angers me; the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted Jaime and Cersei to die in high, dramatic and emotional fashion, but also wanted to provide Tyrion with an element of closure by easily discovering their bodies....while clearly not giving the remotest **** whatsoever about blatant inconsistency.

The means by which Bran came to sit on the throne was almost offensively lazy, utterly daft and completely unearned.

Don't really have an issue with Bran in principle, but that scene almost like bad comedy. Bran becomes King...just because.

The future of Westeros placed in the hands of a crippled boy without as much as a token discussion, not even the faintest facade of plot intelligence, because the writers are in a rush and just want to wrap everything up while expending as little brain power as possible.

Hard to believe this is actually the same show I started watching in 2011.

Yeah, we'll devote 10 minutes to a completely unnecessary scene where Tyrion, for some absurd reason, needs to actually explain to Jon why Daenery's has to go.

It's grand, we'll make up the time by just rushing through the bit where they chose a ruler to ultimately sit on the Iron Throne...you know, the bit these past 8 seasons have been building towards.

Apart from a load of other bits we carefully built up over the same time and then sort of pushed aside because we got tired of spinning so many plates and decided to fling most of them out the window rather than make any effort to set them down.

In the end, absolutely nothing is earned this season - and certainly not in this episode - and pretty much nothing carries any weight as a consequence.

This show used to be about the complex 'game' that everyone, in all walks of life, had to play, no matter what their ultimate objective. This season has been an insult to that premise and what GoT used to be, but this episode is particularly exposed as being utterly braindead when Benioff and Weiss have no major spectacle to mask their scripting.

This episode fails to really connect on any level emotionally and just feels like a box-ticking exercise; an hour the writers devoted to lazily tying up the remaining threads with as little effort as possible once they'd achieved all their big battle set-pieces.

Looking back on the season, 'A Knight of Seven Kingdoms' was a genuinely strong episode and head-and-shoulders above the rest in terms of character interaction and dialogue, tellingly not written by Benioff and Weiss. The only episode I got a true 'Game of Thrones' vibe when watching.

First episode was OK, and without revisiting my thoughts on E3-5, there's no denying that there was tremendous and seriously impressive spectacle on offer at least.

And to think that Benioff and Weiss openly talked about how they hoped the finale would be compared with that of Breaking Bad and go down as one of the best finales in television history. It almost defies belief that they would say such a thing.

As an ending on paper the finale - and the fate determined for most of the characters - is perfectly fine and there's a nice level of closure to it that can often be missing from shows. I like that aspect of it.

It's just executed extremely badly and my impression as we leave Westeros behind us is that I feel like I'm still waiting for the "real" Game of Thrones.

Goes down in my books anyway with the likes of Dexter and Lost for letdowns. It's not a direct comparison before anyone takes issue with parallels being drawn with either.

Stop moaning ffs

The last season of the Wire was dire. It didn’t ‘ruin the legacy of the series.’
Neither does this last season of GoT

The funniest thing in that last season was McNulty at Quantico helping the CIA profile the ‘killer’ and watching him literally squirm as they’re describing him and his life down to a tee and stuff about himself he isn’t even aware of.
That was comical.

Penn

I definitely disagree the final season of The Wire was dire. Not up to the standards of other seasons, sure, and they pushed the credibility of things too far, but it still had a lot of excellent moments, scenes and stories far better than what would be featured in the best series of most other shows.

But the final season of The Wire is in many ways a stain on its reputation in much the same way I think the final season of GoT will be. The fan and critical response will always be an albatross around its neck.

Utopia Parkway

Yermande wrote: »

I know I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but it's not a patch on the likes of The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Well written characters portrayed by top quality actors is the common denominator there. Game of Thrones didn't have enough of either.

In fairness not all shows are consistently great. Breaking Bad didn't really get into it's stride until season 3. The Wire's final season was a big drop off compared to the others. Mad Men had it's dips and even The Sopranos had more than a few filler episodes in between all the great ones.

What helped the likes of Breaking Bad is it actually got better towards the end after a slow start. GoT and The Wire got worse towards the end.

brendanwalsh

If season 7 and 8 had been released as one extended season without the two year interval, would people's opinions be different.
It felt like we waited two years for nothing, whereas if they ran one into the other it mighT have paced differently,

Sardonicat

brendanwalsh wrote: »

If season 7 and 8 had been released as one extended season without the two year interval, would people's opinions be different.
It felt like we waited two years for nothing, whereas if they ran one into the other it mighT have paced differently,

That couldnt have fixed the totally screwed pacing of the final episode. It was terrible.

Dr. Bre

The night king battle should hve been the last episode

Yermande

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

GoT and The Wire got worse towards the end.

Perhaps, except the former seems to have suffered the most.

Notwithstanding the inherent ridiculousness of referring to Rotten Tomatoes for any type of qualitative discussion, it's worth noting that Game of Thrones' final season currently sits at 67%, down from a series average of 92%. Whereas Season 5 of The Wire scored 93%, down from a series average of 97%.

I expect there are similar scores across Metacritic and IMDB as all three are usually in broad agreement.

Just to repeat, I'm not trying to prove anything one way or the other. I just think it's worth noting that both shows didn't suffer the same drop in quality, at least in the eyes of professional critics and fans.

Stop moaning ffs

I’ll just never understand people that take the time to rate things on any of those sites but worse, who use those kinds of sites as a guide as to whether they’ll watch whatever film or series it is. It’s just so lazy. Make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.

Plus, it’s far more weighted and leans toward people unhappy with something to rate than someone who enjoyed it. That goes for everything but boy it’s manifseting often brutally on those sites these days thanks to this complain culture outrage nonsense. Even reading back on this thread and previous you can see it. (Not everyone. There has been plenty of considered fair complaints) but there’s been a lot of screeching too.
‘Benioff and weiss should have all future projects cancelled on them and only that will satisfy me’. Paraphrasing but that’s just one example in this particular sub forum.

AlanG

Penn wrote: »

But the final season of The Wire is in many ways a stain on its reputation in much the same way I think the final season of GoT will be. The fan and critical response will always be an albatross around its neck.

The difference is that the last season of the wire was not the climax of the show - each season was pretty much standalone and certainly not building up to a final season or event. There were no season ending cliff hangers and limited links between the seasons. The wire was also struggling financially when the last season was made.
GoT was always building up to this season, has a massive following of invested fans and took extra time to complete the production just to get it right. Even with all this they made a mess of it.

[Deleted User]

Penn wrote: »

When Thormund was saying goodbye to Jon at Winterfell, he said they were going to wait at Castle Black for some storms or something to pass before going North of the Wall. Presumably they were just still there when Jon got there, and there was probably still some time between Jon arriving at Castle Black and them heading North of the Wall.

They weren't waiting for Jon, they were just waiting anyway.

That must have been at least 6 months of storms given the timeline surely

lawlolawl

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

I’ll just never understand people that take the time to rate things on any of those sites but worse, who use those kinds of sites as a guide as to whether they’ll watch whatever film or series it is. It’s just so lazy. Make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.

Plus, it’s far more weighted and leans toward people unhappy with something to rate than someone who enjoyed it. That goes for everything but boy it’s manifseting often brutally on those sites these days thanks to this complain culture outrage nonsense. Even reading back on this thread and previous you can see it. (Not everyone. There has been plenty of considered fair complaints) but there’s been a lot of screeching too.
‘Benioff and weiss should have all future projects cancelled on them and only that will satisfy me’. Paraphrasing but that’s just one example in this particular sub forum.

To be fair, that Rotten Tomatoes rating comes from professional TV critics.

The user rating is even worse.

Foxtrol

AlanG wrote: »

The difference is that the last season of the wire was not the climax of the show - each season was pretty much standalone and certainly not building up to a final season or event. There were no season ending cliff hangers and limited links between the seasons. The wire was also struggling financially when the last season was made.
GoT was always building up to this season, has a massive following of invested fans and took extra time to complete the production just to get it right. Even with all this they made a mess of it.

What you're implying as things that should have been helpful to GoT are just as much hindrances, while the situation with the Wire seasons made it so much easier for them.

It is so hard to compare shows in an objective way.

Penn

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That must have been at least 6 months of storms given the timeline surely

Yeah. Probably three at least, but the seasons in westeros last for numerous years and they're at the very North. Not out of the realms of possibility that there could be significant storms that last for a while, or at least long enough that there was no urgency for the wildlings to leave castle black until it completely passed, especially considering it could take days or weeks to get back to where their camps were if they're still there at all, as well as the fact they had little to no supplies. Better to wait until the weather clears enough to give them a proper chance to start again, and that may have been long enough for Jon to arrive back anyway.

Yermande

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

I’ll just never understand people that take the time to rate things on any of those sites but worse, who use those kinds of sites as a guide as to whether they’ll watch whatever film or series it is. It’s just so lazy. Make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.

Game of Thrones episodes on IMDB garner hundreds of thousands of votes. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic draw their scores from what they consider to be established critics (we can debate the veracity of that separately), who, in my experience, are less reactionary than the huge swathes of people who passionately weigh in on the subject after an episode airs.

I think both types, i.e. a pool of critics and a popular vote, are useful tools for checking the pulse of a TV show and far more informative than the opinions of a handful of people in a forum, myself included.

Just to repeat (for a third time in case you missed it), I'm not trying to demonstrate the quality of anything. I was speaking specifically about how the purported drop in quality of each show was perceived by critics and fans, and I've done that by referring to, you guessed it, critics and fans.

Brock Turnpike

NuMarvel wrote: »

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

The Drogon melting the throne bit was explained in a previous season.
In the second episode of Season 6, Tyrion said that: "Dragons are intelligent, more intelligent than men according to some Maesters. They have affection for their friends and fury for their enemies."
The throne and Dany's obsession with it ultimately led to her death,kinda fitting that Drogon melted it.

The melting of the throne might have worked if they showed that dragons had this level of intelligence, instead of hoping people would remember a few lines from an episode that aired about three years ago.

I mean it's up to individual people to remember the show they are watching. We were told that dragons are intelligent.

is_that_so

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

The last season of the Wire was dire. It didn’t ‘ruin the legacy of the series.’
Neither does this last season of GoT

The funniest thing in that last season was McNulty at Quantico helping the CIA profile the ‘killer’ and watching him literally squirm as they’re describing him and his life down to a tee and stuff about himself he isn’t even aware of.
That was comical.

Nah, it was a beautifully executed "what if" piece and showed how a dishonest moment can cause things to spin wildly out of control. Like 3 & 4 best myself.

is_that_so

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

I’ll just never understand people that take the time to rate things on any of those sites but worse, who use those kinds of sites as a guide as to whether they’ll watch whatever film or series it is. It’s just so lazy. Make up your own mind after you’ve seen it.

If you dig into reviews, i.e. the non-lazy route, you can find some thoughtful and well-argued reviews. There is also the link to the likes of metacritic etc. I've found it invaluable in saving me from a lot of really bad stuff down the years, although it's no longer a completely reliable arbiter on quality, it can still offer useful insight.

Foxtrol

Yermande wrote: »

Just to repeat (for a third time in case you missed it), I'm not trying to demonstrate the quality of anything. I was speaking specifically about how the purported drop in quality of each show was perceived by critics and fans, and I've done that by referring to, you guessed it, critics and fans.

The numbers you point to could just as easily be an example of how different shows are treated by critics and fans based on their genre, popularity at time of release, or period when it was released.

I don't see how those same critics could have such an issue with the flaws in this season and give a rating of 93% for season 7, where most of the same issues were clearly visible.

Stop moaning ffs

lawlolawl wrote: »

To be fair, that Rotten Tomatoes rating comes from professional TV critics.

The user rating is even worse.

That was my point though. Look at the massive disparity between the scores for the last Jedi. In the 90%s with critics, audience score actively sh!t bombed as part of a campaign against it. Same with black panther and every comic book film happens to have a woman in the main role.

So such an easily messed with metric shouldn’t be trusted. Ever.

Grayditch

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

You make some salient points, but I do have to ask as to whether you have a job? I mean you seem to pay massive GOT related posts fairly regularly in the episode threads.

EDIT: That was directed at Terror. Not you

Weird question.

Yermande

Foxtrol wrote: »

The numbers you point to could just as easily be an example of how different shows are treated by critics and fans based on their genre, popularity at time of release, or period when it was released.

I don't see how those same critics could have such an issue with the flaws in this season and give a rating of 93% for season 7, where most of the same issues were clearly visible.

There are any number of variables at play. That's why I'd never take anything from any of those sites other than a very general feel for how something has been received. That's the only context in which I raised the subject.

Despite their inherent problems and biases, I still feel that those sites are quite useful, especially these days when there's so much TV around. How many times have you been recommended a TV show and when you look it up online it's already in its second or third season? That happens to me all the time. I have a limited amount of free time and a backlog of recommendations so I'm not very keen on taking a chance on something out of the blue or because a friend was talking about it very briefly over a pint. I remember the days of living in the dark, buying DVDs and boxsets on a wing and a prayer and often left feeling like you've wasted time and money. That day is over.

The classic case for me was Breaking Bad. I was very late to that. In fact I think the whole thing was either wrapped up or already on its final season. A few mates were talking about it, told me to check it out but included the "stick with it" proviso as it was a slow starter. I was unsure about putting a couple of weeks into something before it got going. So I went online, checked out the websites and saw some of the highest critical reviews I've ever come across, for anything. That wasn't a guarantee that I was going to like it, but it was confirmation that it was a very significant show and that pretty much made up my mind for me.

That's how I use it. Over the past ten years I've watched plenty of stuff that wasn't to my liking but I honestly cannot remember the last time I watched a flat out, waste of time piece of television or film. Maybe I'm missing all sorts of hidden gems but it's a system I'm happy with.

Foxtrol

Yermande wrote: »

There are any number of variables at play. That's why I'd never take anything from any of those sites other than a very general feel for how something has been received. That's the only context in which I raised the subject.

Despite their inherent problems and biases, I still feel that those sites are quite useful, especially these days when there's so much TV around. How many times have you been recommended a TV show and when you look it up online it's already in its second or third season? That happens to me all the time. I have a limited amount of free time and a backlog of recommendations so I'm not very keen on taking a chance on something out of the blue or because a friend was talking about it very briefly over a pint. I remember the days of living in the dark, buying DVDs and boxsets on a wing and a prayer and often left feeling like you've wasted time and money. That day is over.

The classic case for me was Breaking Bad. I was very late to that. In fact I think the whole thing was either wrapped up or already on its final season. A few mates were talking about it, told me to check it out but included the "stick with it" proviso as it was a slow starter. I was unsure about putting a couple of weeks into something before it got going. So I went online, checked out the websites and saw some of the highest critical reviews I've ever come across, for anything. That wasn't a guarantee that I was going to like it, but it was confirmation that it was a very significant show and that pretty much made up my mind for me.

That's how I use it. Over the past ten years I've watched plenty of stuff that wasn't to my liking but I honestly cannot remember the last time I watched a flat out, waste of time piece of television or film. Maybe I'm missing all sorts of hidden gems but it's a system I'm happy with.

I agree with everything in this post, and sometimes use those sites in a similar way, but unfortunately your words don’t really align to how you used the site data in your earlier post. No matter what caveats you added, quoting specific percentage numbers to compare two shows from different eras, with very popularity and genres, isn’t using the sites for a ‘very general feel’.

The two shows aren’t an apples to apples comparison and by using questionable quality data from those sites just muddy things further.

Peatys

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

You make some salient points, but I do have to ask as to whether you have a job? I mean you seem to pay massive GOT related posts fairly regularly in the episode threads.

No you don't

Paddy Cow

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

You make some salient points, but I do have to ask as to whether you have a job? I mean you seem to pay massive GOT related posts fairly regularly in the episode threads.

EDIT: That was directed at Terror. Not you

What's having a job got to do with it? Boards most active time is 9-5, Monday to Friday because people are bored at work and posting :pac:

Stop moaning ffs

This is easily the best tweet ever

https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/1122730861097566208?s=21

Stop moaning ffs

Ok this dude can see the future

https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/1120218841399746560?s=21

Alpha_zero

Drogon Eats Ghost.

Yermande

Foxtrol wrote: »

I agree with everything in this post, and sometimes use those sites in a similar way, but unfortunately your words don’t really align to how you used the site data in your earlier post. No matter what caveats you added, quoting specific percentage numbers to compare two shows from different eras, with very popularity and genres, isn’t using the sites for a ‘very general feel’.

The two shows aren’t an apples to apples comparison and by using questionable quality data from those sites just muddy things further.

That's how I use those sites when I'm 'previewing' stuff I might want to watch. Earlier in the thread I wasn't gauging for a 'general feel' of what to watch. I've already watched those shows in their entirety.

There I was illustrating that there was a huge difference between how critics and fans perceived the apparent drop in quality of The Wire and Game of Thrones based on those sources. I quoted the exact percentages to illustrate the extent of the difference. At no point was I directly comparing each show to each other in terms of their inherent value or quality.

I'm happy with the approach I took to illustrate a general point. You're not happy with it. No problem.

osarusan

Bran, you must govern because you know us best, all our past, all our failures, all our history.

Ok, but you must be my Hand, you must atone, you must redeem yourself.

I will do that.

/Cut/

/New scene/

ok, I'll look for the dragon, you carry on with kingdom-fixing stuff. Bye.

Sure, see you later. Hey, did I ever tell the rest of you about when I visited a brothel with a donkey and honeycomb?