HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

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Jorah Mormont more like Borah Moron aren't I correct?

:wq (Leee), Wednesday, 12 August 2015 16:25 (eight years ago) link

was wondering how Lovejoy hadn't been in this yet

kinder, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 16:54 (eight years ago) link

I think Dany's story has improved too. In most of the earlier seasons her scenes were usually my least favourite but that could partly be to do with my loving the greener and colder settings more than the sandy places (that certainly holds true for Mario videogames).

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 17:48 (eight years ago) link

two months pass...

i'm on s01e03. this is really pretty bad. how is everyone so into this.

goole, Monday, 26 October 2015 01:48 (eight years ago) link

it gets a lot better, then worse.

ryan, Monday, 26 October 2015 02:19 (eight years ago) link

great!

goole, Monday, 26 October 2015 02:37 (eight years ago) link

Its p consistently empty/pointless imo

It has boobs and dragons, to answer yr question goole

Οὖτις, Monday, 26 October 2015 03:12 (eight years ago) link

fun stuff happens eventually

polyphonic, Monday, 26 October 2015 03:53 (eight years ago) link

season 1 coheres once you see its finale. it sets things up slowly.

aaaaablnnn (abanana), Monday, 26 October 2015 03:58 (eight years ago) link

I read it as S03e01 and still agree that it gets better then worse

a silly gif of awkward larping (Sparkle Motion), Tuesday, 27 October 2015 02:15 (eight years ago) link

Season 4 is still my favourite season of any show.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 27 October 2015 10:52 (eight years ago) link

this continues to be bad. i'm sticking with it out of... well i don't really know why

dinklage is a bad actor. nobody is really that great, but he's particularly bad. a lot of these people seem lost in their accents.

it has a teenage dork's idea of debauchery and high politics. scenes where people are subtly threatening each other are excruciating. the sense of a world driven by adult desire is signified by men talking about fucking whores all the time. like, that's your gritty addition to the milieu of howard, moorcock, tolkein, and lieber is... giggly shit about prostitution?

goole, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:30 (eight years ago) link

What episode are you at? If you're not remotely interested in any characters by the end of the first season then it's unlikely you'll want to stick with it.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:43 (eight years ago) link

like, that's your gritty addition to the milieu of howard, moorcock, tolkein, and lieber is... giggly shit about prostitution?

p much

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:43 (eight years ago) link

also rapes

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:43 (eight years ago) link

i've got like 2 left in s1.

goole, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:45 (eight years ago) link

may as well get to the "surprise" in the finale

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:45 (eight years ago) link

well i already know about that. poor sean.

the politics don't make much sense either, no idea why this realm or throne even exists (just to have a venue for scheming i guess).

goole, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:57 (eight years ago) link

GoT is one of those shows that definitely gets better even while it sort of doesn't. It's a frustrating paradox. (Unlike something like Walking Dead, which definitely gets much, much better past the first couple of seasons, but still pretty much stays bad.) So yeah, it never makes a lot of sense, and motivations remain pretty shallow and confused, but I'd say, sure, stick with it. As least the production value stays high, and the show does a good job getting you invested in the political machinations. Until it compulsively undercuts them. Or, er, overcuts them.

Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 29 October 2015 18:59 (eight years ago) link

season 1 is good but i think it's not as good as S2&3. 4 is good, 5 had some parts i didn't gel w/ but then again there was that massive white walkers episode, which was great.

nomar, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:01 (eight years ago) link

After reading the books this past summer, I appreciate how well the show captured the good parts as well as how bad the bad parts are.

ive reddit all your posts and I want a crowdfund (dan m), Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:10 (eight years ago) link

like, that's your gritty addition to the milieu of howard, moorcock, tolkein, and lieber is... giggly shit about prostitution?

The show shows the subjugation of women and other groups, and even glorifies it at times. But the larger themes of the story are about rising up and taking the mantle of power imo.

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:29 (eight years ago) link

the tv show doesn't engage any consistent themes beyond the power struggles that serve as the main drivers of the plot. which are also about as banal as anything in Dallas or Falcon Crest

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:34 (eight years ago) link

agree to disagree

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:35 (eight years ago) link

xpost Yeah, I agree. It's pretty soapy, but laced with portent and teeming with dragons and giants and magic and zombies.

Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:41 (eight years ago) link

it's all about power, but it's power divorced from any reality or context. why anyone wants to be king/queen is mostly rooted in revenge fantasies and/or because they simply take it for granted that they *should* be. there's one glaring exception to this, and her plotline gets p ridiculous p quick (and still involves a bunch of birthright nonsense). the show has no moral center or point of view, and when it *does* try to go there (via Danaerys freeing slaves, for ex.) it is very clumsy.

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:41 (eight years ago) link

why anyone wants to be king/queen is mostly rooted in revenge fantasies and/or because they simply take it for granted that they *should* be.

The show is very clearly a critique of this!

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:53 (eight years ago) link

also this ignores both Bran and Arya's plot lines which have nothing to do with power in the ruling sense, though Arya is definitely out for revenge

ive reddit all your posts and I want a crowdfund (dan m), Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:55 (eight years ago) link

also falcon crest and dallas were cool imo

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 19:57 (eight years ago) link

I generally want to defend this show but there's a trend I dislike that's been popular probably since the 90s that's in GoT and Boardwalk Empire (which I've been loving recently): characters going into monologues that are either supposed to be cool or disquieting/sobering or moving. It often feels quite mechanical, forced and a bit cringey.
You often get it in films/tv with criminals who start with "y'see it's like this..." and proceed to confidently rationalise their crimes as if they're justified or just an inescapable part of nature. Similar to Hannibal Lectures.

Glad I haven't read many new mainstream comics in a long time because they tend to be the absolute most excruciating for hip and "profound" dialogue.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:03 (eight years ago) link

The show is very clearly a critique of this!

it's not a critique, it's just plot mechanics. there's no pattern to which people are punished for their ambitions vs which people are rewarded for them. people and their misplaced ambitions are age-old dramatic devices that drive action, and that's what they do on the show.

but the show is not about how, for example, power corrupts (Tolkien), or a contest between order and chaos (Moorcock) etc. It just sets a bunch of windup toys in motion and lets them go, there is no lesson to be drawn from it, no moral, no worldview explored. It's just a parade of boobs murder and the occasional dragon, in endless succession. It's empty.

xp

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:07 (eight years ago) link

and before anyone jumps on me accusing me for asking to have my hand held through a story with a lesson at the end that's not what I'm getting at. Ambiguity is fine, contradictions are fine, nuances are fine - but the show isn't interested in underlying themes of the nature of power or evil or good or human institutions or gender or race or economics or anything at all really, it's just a series of titillating setpieces

Οὖτις, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:10 (eight years ago) link

It just sets a bunch of windup toys in motion and lets them go, there is no lesson to be drawn from it, no moral, no worldview explored. It's just a parade of boobs murder and the occasional dragon, in endless succession. It's empty.

That's kind of the point I think. Nothing really matters since we're all gonna die anyway, either killed by ice zombies or some other way.

silverfish, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:11 (eight years ago) link

Yeah, I think having no moral is this show's worldview. A lot of fucked up shit happens in real life for no reason.

It will still probably have some kind of happy ending though.

Modern French Music from Failure to Boulez (askance johnson), Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:19 (eight years ago) link

I think the show is extremely moral. Goodness *is* good, even if good people often suffer.

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:21 (eight years ago) link

I don't think GRRM is interested AT ALL in exploring the worn-out "good vs. evil" tropes of most fantasy stuff. He is definitely interested in human institutions, gender, race, economics, etc. How well he explores those themes is questionable, but they are there.

schwantz, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:25 (eight years ago) link

How well he explores those themes is questionable, but they are there.

yes

polyphonic, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:27 (eight years ago) link

imo the books are better at this than the show for what that's worth

a silly gif of awkward larping (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:42 (eight years ago) link

seconded

ive reddit all your posts and I want a crowdfund (dan m), Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:52 (eight years ago) link

agree that the second and third seasons are the best, if only relatively. the show over all has settled into a rhythm of turgid exposition for 8 or so episodes, leavened with bits of casual violence and nudity, and then 2 episodes of genuine dramatic development. outside of tyrion all the characters have little complexity, just some bare-bones notion of "conflict" which mechanically propels them forward in the narrative. it sucks.

ryan, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:57 (eight years ago) link

the most interesting thing by far is the mythological world building, particularly the mysteries surrounding the events before the first novel and the deeper history of westeros, but the show has no idea how to present that materia.

ryan, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:59 (eight years ago) link

material

ryan, Thursday, 29 October 2015 20:59 (eight years ago) link

I'd agree with that. The most interesting aspect is the world building, which is the show is probably incapable of adequately conveying. Right now it is certainly coasting far below the level of the LotR movies in that regard, and obviously they left tons out.

Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 29 October 2015 21:35 (eight years ago) link

Eh most interesting to me is watching the Lannister house tear itself apart from the inside. Also there is your moral compass in action. Good guys die a lot here but the bad guys inevitably get what's coming.

AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 30 October 2015 19:36 (eight years ago) link

winter?

Οὖτις, Friday, 30 October 2015 19:39 (eight years ago) link

I've been reading lots of early medieval history lately and its like GoT happening over and over again, minus the dragons. But people back then believed in even crazier stuff than that. I'm sure the Vikings seemed like White Walkers at the time too.

Why because she True and Interesting (President Keyes), Friday, 30 October 2015 19:47 (eight years ago) link

Also lol only 2 dead lannisters so far. Meanwhile literally everyone from house stark is dead except arya and bran.

Οὖτις, Friday, 30 October 2015 19:51 (eight years ago) link

Xxp

Οὖτις, Friday, 30 October 2015 19:51 (eight years ago) link

And Rickon, and probably Sansa and Jon.

I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Friday, 30 October 2015 19:53 (eight years ago) link

Jon looks p dead, rickon kinda belongs to another house. I forgot sansa tho yeah. She probably wishes she were dead at this pt.

Οὖτις, Friday, 30 October 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link


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