Game of Thrones TV extravaganza

I agree with Shellhead that Dany's fate has been preordained for quite a while.


However, I do agree that the resolution of the Jaime and Cersei storylines was very unsatisfying and off the mark.

The white horse was heavy-handed symbolism to reinforce that Arya has chosen to embrace life and turn her back on her revenge assassination list. The scene went on too long because the showrunners really wanted to make that point without resorting to a voice-over narration. Might have been better to just have Arya mumble something like "all men die, but first they must live" and cut the scene short.

When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

I think a good finale should build upon what's come before, and force the characters into making complex decisions based on all the narrative work that's gone before.

This show has taken the opposite approach of making everything simpler and dumber. Entire plot threads have been cast aside -- the Night King, Yara retaking the Iron Isles, Bran's ill-defined abilities, Arya's Faceless Man skills, Jaime connecting with Brienne, etc. Remember the direwolves? Yeah, neither do Benioff and Weiss.

I suspect Dany's heel turn was probably in Martin's original outline that he shared with Benioff/Weiss. If he ever actually writes those books (which grows more unlikely every day), I think he'll execute the idea a lot better. The idea itself isn't terrible. I just felt like the execution of that idea was poorly handled. Through his shifting POV chapters, Martin has a lot more tools at his disposal to show Dany's descent, both from Dany's perspective, and those around her. That COULD work, and be a lot more effective than the show's version that "Dany's sad her friend died, so she straight up murdered a half a million people in a vicious and brutal war crime."

Jeb is correct. It's not a white horse. It's a pale one. Arya's an assassin, which means that there's likely more assassinating in the last episode.

I'm not going to debate the flaws in this approach to Dany's character. There have been signs and there's been enough talk about the history of mental instability in the Targaryen line that this turn isn't beyond the point of reason. However, I think there was a good discussion on Twitter about the essential conflict between "plotters" and "pantsers" in fiction writing.

Plotters have a detailed outline for their stories. Those stories are, by definition, plot-driven. They know where they're going and many, if not most, of the steps along the way. The criticism is that their characters can feel wooden because they react to circumstances based on the plot, not as people. OTOH, pantsers are character-driven. They have a general idea of the plot, but they tend to start with characters and just follow them where they lead. That creates very human and interesting characters, but can cause problems down the road when trying to fit all of these disparate people into a coherent storyline.

GRRM is a pantser, par excellence. He's spoken often about delays in his writing because this or that character isn't speaking to him that day (or week or month or years(s)). Benioff and Weiss are more likely to be plotters. As showrunners, having to answer to a production schedule and a network, they have to be. (Martin has said for 25 years that he wrote A Song of Ice and Fire to be "unfilmable.") So, with the show approaching a decade in production and both they and some of their cast tiring of it, they likely laid out a plot that would try to bring all of the disparate characters to some resolution. It's failing, of course, which is part of why Martin is having such trouble completing the story. There's simply too much going on to bring it to any kind of decent ending without stretching it out for two or more seasons. He planted too many seeds and now can't control the garden. Neither can his adapters, despite how much they already tried to cut out of the story (or tried to use and failed, as with House Martell and Dorne.)

The key here in Dany's change isn't that it was outrageous. It's that it wasn't given enough time to blossom. Her mental/emotional collapse essentially took place off-screen, between the previous episode and last night's. When she appeared on screen this week, she was already gone. That's not good storytelling but it was probably the worst of many evils that D&D decided was acceptable. I think, even with the time constraints, they could have done better editing to at least show some outward display of her change in approach before incinerating the city. Interestingly, Vince Gilligan said that the writing room for Breaking Bad was also done in a "pantser" manner, despite having the outline that established the series and the overall plot (Walter White going from protagonist hero to protagonist villain) at seven seasons. They enjoyed writing their characters into corners and trying to get them out of them. They didn't fully succeed, either, as the last season cut some logic corners, too, but it still ended up better than GoT because the story wasn't nearly as sprawling. It was largely about the motivations of one person, not twenty.

I found Cersei and Jaime's end to be less dramatic than I'd hoped for, but it fit the essence of their relationship. Her outrage at her status, ambition to change it, and viciousness to fulfill that ambition was never going to end well. And she was the addiction that even the somewhat morally reformed Jaime simply couldn't give up. That they died together was always going to be the result. (It doesn't quite fit the prophecy that her younger brother would cause her death (both brothers are younger than she is), unless you choose to see it as him taking her under the collapsing keep is what killed her. Whatevs.)

Arya and the horse reminded me of the end of Once Upon A Time In The West.

Martin wasn't always a pantser. I've been a fan since the late '80s, and aside from his collaborative Wild Cards series, Martin generally seemed like a disciplined plotter who stuck to standalone books and short stories. Maybe he was a pantser as a tv writer, but I've never watched Beauty and the Beast. I think that Game of Thrones simply took on a life of its own, and then Martin allowed it to sprawl far from the original trilogy plan. Writer's block can be terrible, so when the opposite occurs, any writer might be tempted to just keep writing and hope that the inspiration continues.

My monthly hipster gaming group loved playing The Iron Throne last month, and requested that I bring back this month for a rematch. Last time, the hosts won with a Targaryen/Stark/Martell alliance. I will bring The Iron Throne on Friday, but I won't be surprised if the group wants to play something else instead. The Targaryen player is probably pissed about recent developments on the show.

I think they faltered in the final step of Dany's turning.

Shellhead wrote: Martin wasn't always a pantser. I've been a fan since the late '80s, and aside from his collaborative Wild Cards series, Martin generally seemed like a disciplined plotter who stuck to standalone books and short stories. Maybe he was a pantser as a tv writer, but I've never watched Beauty and the Beast. I think that Game of Thrones simply took on a life of its own, and then Martin allowed it to sprawl far from the original trilogy plan. Writer's block can be terrible, so when the opposite occurs, any writer might be tempted to just keep writing and hope that the inspiration continues.

I think that's right, and you can see it in the first book in the series. A Game of Thrones is TIGHT. Each POV chapter is edited and polished into brutally efficient prose. Everything is carefully placed and plotted, to lead you to Ned's final scene, then just rip your heart out. But by the third book, you can see where things are getting looser and messier. Martin isn't plotting anymore. Now he's winging it. But the 4th book, he's totally lost the thread. We'll see if he ever recovers it.

I've been harsh on this episode, so just in the interest of saying something nice, I will say that Arya's desperate run through the city was really effective at showing the chaos and horror of Daenerys' attack. Showing it through the eyes of a character we like and care about (even knowing that she likely has "plot armor") worked really well.

For me, the problem was entirely mechanical. If this had been Rocky 3, the plot would have been:

Mickey: what ever you do, Rock, please, please, fight Clubber Lang. Don’t jump into the audience and start beating up a bunch of strangers. That’s just not how boxing works.

Rocky: whatever you say, boss.

Clubber Lang: (standing two feet away) I killed Adrian with my own bare hands.

Rocky: Yaaargh! (Delicately and carefully extracts himself from the opposite side of the ring away from Lang, then starts punching people in the audience)

Mickey: (shellshocked, attractively smeared blood on his face) I guess that’s just how the world works. Tragic.

White horse appears and Mickey rides away on horse.

Most fans would have been screaming with frustration, but this penultimate episode would have made for a dramatic end to the show. White horse scene, and then fade to black. I am looking forward to the final episode, but am not obsessed with learning the end to each significant character's story.

Horseshit episodes. A lot of good posts here. I'll absolutely buy the core twist on Dany, but the work here is completely hamfisted and bizarrely 2 episodes long and incoherent.

What an ugly, shitty end to what may be the only end I see to my favorite book series.