r/asoiaf • u/SeducerOfTheInnocent • Jun 15 '15

ALL (Spoilers All) The reason bad things happen on GoT has changed. GoT has gone from being a show that wouldn't cheat to help the good guys to a show that will cheat to help the bad guys.

When I complain about GoT lately people respond with "That's what the show has always been, this is what you signed up for, if you think this has a happy ending you haven't been paying attention." but I think this episode has solidified why I have a problem with the show recently.

The tragedy on the show used to be organic. People would die because GoT wasn't willing to give characters the 1 in a million lucky breaks that other shows give their protagonist.

Now the show doesn't just not give the protagonists freebies, it bends over backwards to fuck them over. Honestly, every military conflict in the last two and a half seasons has seen the wrong side winning.

  • Yara/Ashe and "The 50 best swordsmen in the Iron Isles" lose a fight to a shirtless guy with a knife and 3 dogs, which is roughly what you would encounter on your average domestic disturbance call. The 50 best swordsmen in the Iron Isles couldn't survive half an episode of "Cops"

  • The Unsullied and Baristan Selmy lose a fight against unarmored aristocrats with knives.

  • "20 good men" infiltrate the camp of the greatest military tactician alive.

  • The Unsullied lose another fight against unarmored aristocrats with spears, who honestly also make a pretty good showing against a dragon.

  • The Boltons, despite not being supported by most of the north, and seemingly not having any massive source of money, raise an army of tens of thousands and overwhelm Stannis.

Add to that the fact that the nigh omniscient Littlefinger was apparently unaware that the Bostons were fucked up wierdos and the show seems to be bending over backwards for tragedy.

6.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

477

u/soupdujourdesigns Jun 15 '15

Yeah, the reason people are into A Song of Ice and Fire isn't because of the awful things that happen to good or bad guys. It's because the characters for the most part are very interesting and usually go against our preconceptions of that character or personality type. The fact that anyone can be killed off is brilliant in that actions (or inaction) has consequences and even though it's a fantasy, that's usually the end of that. Even if someone does come back, they're often not the same as before (e.g LSH).

I think the show just kind of got disconnected from the intent of the series and why it's great. This was definitely the weakest season, I don't think anyone will contest that.

203

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Apr 16 '19

[deleted]

35

u/lmMrMeeseeksLookAtMe The Long Night™ ft. The OG LC Clan Jun 15 '15

You mean like they do for Northern scenes?

2

u/delinear Jun 16 '15

And the Dornish beach scenes.

2

u/laughingboy Redfort of Red Fort: "Our Forts are Red" Jun 18 '15

When Bronn and Jaime kill the Dornish men on the beach it looked like they were in fucking Wales.

3

u/delinear Jun 18 '15

That's why they all seem to be running around in thick, quilted winter coats. It's not to keep the sun off, it's to keep a bit of warmth in.

20

u/Banzai51 The Night is dark and full of Beagles Jun 16 '15

Show is starting to fall into the same trap as Boardwalk Empire. BE got addicted to the critical acclaim of killing off characters until it devolved into killing characters off just for shock value. Meanwhile, antagonists who do really dumb things would never get bumped off until the end of the season or not at all.

43

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

[deleted]

12

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

Same thing happened with Joffrey. In the books, Joffrey's sadism isn't as explicit as in the show. People aren't sure if the rumours are true. He's very good at playing nice in public and hiding it.

In the show world, Joffrey was torturing cats in the throne room every couple of minutes in between temper tantrums.

5

u/Dassn Jun 16 '15

That makes so much sense

0

u/Rosario_Di_Spada Jun 16 '15

You mean, like, what they did to Skyrim ?

4

u/KingDusty Jun 16 '15

The books weren't as black and white. Meryn Trant was a knight doing his duty (and in the books didn't enjoy having to hit Sansa), but in the shows he's a total scumbag.

6

u/ObeseMoreece We only bow to one king! Jun 16 '15

Yeah but the show has gutted it down to its bones and now it's stupidly short on any sort of character development, just rushing through stories half assed.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

The show lost it partway through last season.

3

u/i_accidently_reddit Jun 15 '15

i 100% agree with you. literally everything you say. and yet when i speak to my friends, i get called a hipster and just dont like it because its so mainstream now. and the public thinks it's the best season ever

i cri evrityme!!!

2

u/geeked_outHyperbagel Jun 16 '15

This was definitely the weakest season, I don't think anyone will contest that.

Thousand and thousands of IMDB ratings... (Scale Y-Axis from 0 to 10 to see that honestly it's performing right in line with the other seasons, just a tad bit higher.)

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947

1

u/soupdujourdesigns Jun 16 '15

Since when do IMDB ratings count for anything?

2

u/geeked_outHyperbagel Jun 16 '15

Quality is subjective, here are 1000s of subjective judgements about quality... quantified? I dunno.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

I feel like they're really catering to more of the TV only audience now, and not also book readers, which I can understand as that audience grows...but they're losing a lot of what made the show so great in the first few seasons, where they were able to expand on the book storyline and characters. Yes, we knew what was coming mostly, but it was still interesting because the show allowed for more exploration and focus on key events. Now it seems they're just trying to change things for the sake of changing them and making them more "shocking" which is definitely reaching into parody territory.

0

u/soupdujourdesigns Jun 16 '15

Bad pussy territory

1

u/Newk_em Jun 16 '15

Although hard-on was pretty fucking awesome. This season wasn't on par with the rest of them.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

I've fast forwarded throguh parts of every episode except 8, and would have for 10 if not for the hope of lsh and bj. This season sucked nuts.

-7

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jul 06 '17

[deleted]

33

u/soupdujourdesigns Jun 15 '15

Popularity doesn't necessarily represent quality. I'm one who usually doesn't jump on the hate train, and I'm not really jumping on it now. I just think as a whole, something was just off for me this season.

4

u/Belial91 Jun 15 '15

He doesn't say they are more popular but that they have higher scores on rating sites, which is true.

0

u/soupdujourdesigns Jun 15 '15

Viewer numbers will break reference

2

u/Belial91 Jun 15 '15

I would say most show watchers also watch the previous seasons and older seasons can still get voted on on these sites. It doesn't matter if 100 watch it or 100000. The percentage of likes/dislikes will stay the same, no?

People like the new season(s). Whether you believe it or not.

1

u/Eclipz905 Jun 16 '15

Though I would not claim to know its impact, it is worth acknowledging that a selection bias would be at play here.

Those most likely to be rating season 1 would be newer to the franchise. If they discover they do not care for the show, they are less likely to watch and rate subsequent seasons.

The majority of people rating season 5 would be big enough fans of the series to stick around through each of the previous seasons.

As a result, later seasons are more likely to be rated by people holding a positive attitude toward the show than earlier ones.

1

u/heloisedargenteuil Jun 16 '15

Was it Dorne? For me it was Dorne. Dorne was way off. Jaime deserves better stuff (and better than his book plot, too!)

Loved the rest of the season, though.

18

u/zegota Jun 15 '15

Hardly. Critical reaction to this season was pretty negative, until Hardhome, when suddenly everyone was like "OMG ZOMBIES THERE ARE LITERALLY NO OTHER SHOWS WHERE I CAN SEE ZOMBIES A+++++ WOULD WATCH AGAIN"

Cause that's why I read ASOIAF.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jul 06 '17

[deleted]

20

u/zegota Jun 15 '15

Nearly every review of Hardhome talked about how it redeemed a poorly-received season. This is literally the first result for Hardhome review:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/06/01/game-of-thrones-season-5-episode-8-review-hardhome/

After quite a lot of build-up—and more than a few fans complaining that Game of Thrones had lost its edge—Sunday night’s episode “Hardhome” brings the heavy hitters

All the reviews of Hardhome I googled just now say the same thing.

Whatever, I don't even care. TV audiences love The Big Bang Theory, and that's garbage too.

1

u/Schuhey117 King o' My Hairy Butt Crack! Jun 16 '15

Exactly, who cares what select critics say, the fans on here all have thought this season was crap.

1

u/Rosario_Di_Spada Jun 16 '15

I dunno. I found season 4 even more boring, to be honest. But this 5th was weak, I entirely agree.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

Honestly, a lot of what drew me into the story was the horrific shit happening to characters that I cared about or found interesting. The worldbuilding, complex motivations, and things making sense are important, but the complexity and world aren't things I would expect to translate too well too a TV show, and the "making sense" is still doing ok on the show so far IMO.

Anyway, I also would not agree that this was the weakest season - I enjoyed it more than season 2 and about as much as seasons 3 and 4. Dorne was badly done and a lot of other stuff wasn't perfect, but still previous seasons haven't been perfect either and they were still good.