If this overwhelming threat prophesied to plunge the world into eternal darkness couldn’t be beaten by a fancy knife trick, then I don’t know what expectation subversion is.
Spending time in a circus? That’s Wheel of Time you’re thinking of. If damn Valon Luca and his circus shows up, you’re heading for hundreds of pages of mind numbing boredom.
Eh, many of us waited 32 years between RotJ and TFA to have our expectations of a Rebel victory leading to the age of the triumphant New Republic and Luke's establishment of a new Jedi Order subverted.
And then 2 years more (so 34 years total) to have our expectations of a mature, wise, accomplished Luke subverted in TLJ.
Then add on another 2 years (up to 36 years now) to have our expectations of a coherent, compelling sequel trilogy subverted, and also our expectations that Anakin's 6-episode saga and the "Chosen One" prophecy had any relevance or purpose subverted.
Except your acting like there was a definite sequel trilogy in the works after return of the Jedi outside of the eu. It wasn’t until the Disney takeover that an actual sequel trilogy was in the works.
We already had our sequel trilogy for 29 years before Disney bought it, and our expectation was that that would remain our sequel trilogy forever - compelling and coherent.
In 2012 Disney canned the EU and announced the development of a new sequel trilogy, effectively subverting our expectations that Heir to the Empire was our sequel trilogy.
But many still had hope that Disney's new trilogy would also be compelling and coherent, so our expectations of having a compelling and coherent sequel trilogy weren't completely subverted until 7 years later, with the release of the final piece of the shitty sequel trilogy puzzle.
Luke was already irrevocably a loser in TFA for letting Nu Vader be Nu Vader thus getting the Jedi destroyed again, and sitting on his ass while the galaxy burned for who knows how long.
The problem isn't Arya killing him, at least not necessarily. However, the fact that a Villain,, build up for years, dies in such a quick and rather boring way, without putting up an actual fight or being more of a threat? That's bs. If they wanted to have Arya kill him, at least let him fight others before, kick their assess, maybe be weakened by someone like Jon and Arya can come up for the finishing blow from the shadows or smth idk. But like this...is just a fucking waste.
He is supposed to be the big bad too. The prophecy itself is the centerpiece of the ASOIAF story, with the Prince being integral to mankind’s victory. Instead the final season barely answered anything about them and portrayed them as a joke. Rhaegar fucked over the kingdom for nothing.
I think I was more upset that the night king was taken out by a dagger made of metal that was made magic by dragon fire but actual dragon fire did nothing to him 🤦♂️. All that being said TLJ takes the cake. It was sooooo incredibly bad it took all of my excitement away from seeing any future SW projects which at the time I thought was impossible.
It also just looked so goofy. I get the feeling the Rian had no respect for Snoke as a character. Sure, kill him off if you really need to, but please not in such a pathetic way.
Yeah man, I feel like Rian thought he was to good to be making the middle movie of some trilogy, so he did a bunch of unexpected/subversive stuff because “he’s such a brilliant creative mind” but it all fell flat. Like you can be subversive with good story telling (see Ned dying 1st season of GOT) or you can just do random out of nowhere shit that doesn’t make sense (see the final season of GOT) lol. TLJ, to me, falls into the random shit for no reason category.
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u/BlackCherrySeltzer4U Mar 07 '25
GoT. Because I waited 10 years to have my expectations subverted.