Game of Thrones [2]

The only real problem I had with AFfC was the missing POVs. ADwD was a letdown, mostly for the time it took for its release. And unless I'm missing something, I still see one of the POV characters from ADwD as an obvious and weak plot device.

But book 5 was, at the worst, disappointing. I think season 5 actually killed a part of my soul

Incidentally, I happened to catch some of the 1994 Jungle Book on TV yesterday. It was weird to see Lena Headey in that movie.

Egads!

wow she has had some serious plastic surgery. her nose is completely different.

I think this would be a good thing for anyone watching the show to read.

http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/127506668146/got-season-5-sexism-part-8

Although I still generally subscribe to this view.

Yes, of course, Benioff and Weiss don’t know how to deal with rape in a meaningful manner. But they don’t know how to deal with anything in a meaningful manner either. Have you seen the way they deal with death, murder, revenge, punishment, war, love, sex, religion, faith, honor, duty, emotions, slavery, responsibility, parenthood, poverty? Not a bit better than with rape. They are still to meet a sensitive issue they understand, let alone address in a competent way.

When you’re repetitive in a short form of fiction, it’s clumsy and silly. When you’re repetitive in a huge saga, it can be tiring and draining. But when you’re repetitive in an adaptation of the source material that is anything but repetitive, it’s outright pathetic. And when the repetition includes sensitive matters like violence, it’s also insulting and tasteless.

Benioff and Weiss are charlatans, first and foremost. It is, I believe, wrong to ascribe sexism or misogyny to them. Like countless talentless writers, they are even less competent when they write characters of the opposite gender, and generally, characters whose experience they didn’t share personally. And, all in all, they’re no fundamentally better when dealing with male characters and their arcs. Just recall the ridiculous Jon arc in season 2, when his brilliant mission with Qhorin in the books was completely ruined just so he can flirt with and be dumb in comparison to Ygritte. Just look at TV Stannis and everything that happened to him whenever his scenes strayed away from the source material.

Benioff and Weiss endless incompetence suggests privileged backgrounds, which are typically associated with political correctness. Their rare but insightful political comments seem to point in the direction of progressivism as their real-life mindset. All of which could mean that they are not consciously mistreating women or homosexuals (or almost any other group, really) in their writing, but it is the product of their drastic lack of skill and craft.

Perhaps they are not Tywins of the House HBO, in that there is not some dark mission behind their missteps and failings. Perhaps they’re also not Ramsays, because they’re not even enjoying all the damage they’ve inflicted. Perhaps they really are like Theon Greyjoy when he, per some wild chance, took Winterfell under his command: murdering little children, just so they can appear competent and to hide their shortcomings.

https://pawntoplayer.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/unbroken-unbent-unbroken-unbowed-unbowed-unbent/

D&D, not the game, probably consider themselves progressives. They are just incompetent at their craft. (I don't know what other conclusion one can reach considering how many problematic themes creep into their writing, hopefully, unwittingly.)

Given how enjoyable most of the series has been, and in the first few seasons more true to the books than anyone had a right to expect, I think it's going way overboard to call D&D charlatans and incompetents. People seem to want to take all criticism to extremes, which is patently stupid.

The PJ criticism is often taken to excess as well, but to my eyes what D&D has done is closer to LotR level missteps rather than Hobbit level missteps.

I agree Halfy. saying they are charlatans strikes me as delusional at best and just plain nasty at worst.

''Yes, of course, Benioff and Weiss don’t know how to deal with rape in a meaningful manner. But they don’t know how to deal with anything in a meaningful manner either. Have you seen the way they deal with death, murder, revenge, punishment, war, love, sex, religion, faith, honor, duty, emotions, slavery, responsibility, parenthood, poverty? Not a bit better than with rape. They are still to meet a sensitive issue they understand, let alone address in a competent way.''

this is laughable.

I don't feel like running through that entire list right now, but I was pretty disappointed by the way they handled themes of religion and slavery in the most recent season. And I think generally speaking the show demonstrates a pretty shallow understanding of such things. On the other hand, thematic depth is not the end all, be all of storytelling, and if D&D didn't have corresponding strengths to balance out their weakness in this area (and others), the show would never have gotten off the ground.

I'm not so sure. To me season 5 were the first time they, by their own choice, stood on their own two feet. And to me, the proof is in the pudding. For all their probable perceived progressive outlook their handling of themes somehow always manage to turn into something problematic. That is of course my personal opinion.. err.. of course. So, feel more than free to disagree. I would advice reading the link I posted for someone going through the specifics and facts. To be honest, I'm not bothered enough with this show anymore to do it myself. (I hope you guys get that. If I don't join the debate it's nothing personal, I'm just not sure I want to delve into this show again to the degree I would need to to do so. )

Mrs Figg wrote:I agree Halfy. saying they are charlatans strikes me as delusional at best and just plain nasty at worst.

''Yes, of course, Benioff and Weiss don’t know how to deal with rape in a meaningful manner. But they don’t know how to deal with anything in a meaningful manner either. Have you seen the way they deal with death, murder, revenge, punishment, war, love, sex, religion, faith, honor, duty, emotions, slavery, responsibility, parenthood, poverty? Not a bit better than with rape. They are still to meet a sensitive issue they understand, let alone address in a competent way.''

this is laughable.

I'm not laughing. I agree, for the most part, with the commenter.

halfwise wrote:Given how enjoyable most of the series has been, and in the first few seasons more true to the books than anyone had a right to expect,  I think it's going way overboard to call D&D charlatans and incompetents.  People seem to want to take all criticism to extremes, which is patently stupid.

The PJ criticism is often taken to excess as well, but to my eyes what D&D has done is closer to LotR level missteps rather than Hobbit level missteps.

I agree, somewhat, though I don't think PJ or B&W get near enough criticism. Also, I think, starting with Season 5, it's edging closer to The Hobbit level, where the show creators are starting to make up their own stuff and it's showing. The Dorne scenes and Sansa's pointless detour (or whatever it is) are as bad as anything in The Hobbit.

Probably a fair assessment.  Both LotR and the first few years of GoT wouldn't have been so wildly successful if there wasn't true quality there.  But the later work diminished rather than grew.

I don't think it's completely fair to look down on B&W for not having as high quality in season 5: it's much harder work to come up with nearly fresh writing under tight time constraints than to adapt.  And GRRM took years to write his stuff.  They probably deserve more pity than rage.

PJ unfortunately didn't have this excuse.

I don't know if they deserve pity, really. They're still getting the ratings and accolades, probably still laughing all the way to the bank. I agree they probably deserve less flack than PJ, but how much is up for debate and/or yet to be determined. As far as coming up with new writing, book 5 was out before the series even debuted, so it seems they had plenty of time to plan for something better than what they gave. But, for whatever reason, they decided to diverge from the source material. And the argument of expediency and economy simply don't hold water, given the amount of time spent on filler.

I may be biased against B&W now, but I was probably biased in favor of the show before. I believed in this series and eagerly sang its praises; I would've placed it among the pantheon of The Wire and Breaking Bad. S4 showed some troubling signs, but still had a fair amount of bang for the buck, and I still eagerly looked forward to season 5. Even after hearing some of the criticism of S5, I was hoping, somewhat confident, even, that the criticism was wrong. At one point, I even thought I would give up on the books and just follow the show. To my dismay, perhaps because of still undiminished expectations, I thought S5 was worse than was suggested. A lot of it I found simply dull and few, if any, of the changes or inventions made any sense. The bloom quickly fell off the rose and I turned around on the silly idea of abandoning the books in favor of the show. As frustrating as it is to wait for the books, at least the author seems to understand how to tell a story (protracted as it arguably is).

my worst criticism of S5 can be narrowed down to the boring bits. eg Sandsnakes, that was one interpretation that utterly failed. S5 was weaker in some respects but I don't think its that bad. and I really enjoyed it.

And the Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects goes to..

well it's not as terrible as the hobbit... I can excuse this because it's a TV show!

Yeah, no. I get that. There's certainly a lot of bad cgi out there. The problem is rather that it's now award winning and classed as Outstanding.

its fabulous! and 100 x better than The Hobbit.

hey anyone who makes cgi's dragons is ok by me.

I don't see what's so bad about the gifs shown. Looks pretty good to me, actually. Unless that was a pyramid his wing flapped through.

Errr.. it looks like it's out of a 1920s movie, with the actress just transposed over a movie screen. The first gif is particularly clunky.

But again.. my complaint isn't that this is the worst example of cgi ever. It's just a milion miles from award winning, and really not something the tv-show with the largest budget around should be proud of or commended for.

In general, to me the way they brought that really vivid scene to screen really was a let down. (Let's not even get started on the Daenerys/damsel in distress angle.)

Mrs Figg wrote:hey anyone who makes cgi's dragons is ok by me.

Hey, I have nothing against cgi dragons. Just Game of Thrones.

Bluebottle, just out of curiosity, what show should have received the Emmy?

I have to admit, I can't really see the flaws in those gifs either; they does look rather superimposed, especially the first one, but the CGI itself seems fairly solid. I dunno, maybe my eye needs more training.

The CGI is probably the least of my complaints, though. Also, GoT may have a large budget but it's not bottomless.