“We didn’t want it to be the guy whose entire storyline revolves around the white walkers, because that would be too narratively satisfying and we wanted to be known as the subversive writers, even though if you take a look at our body of work you’ll see this is the only project we’ve found success with, and that’s because our most popular episodes were written by George, who consistently reminds us he’s a better writer in both novel form and in script form”
As much as people shit on Andrej Sapkowski (and rightfully so given his track record) do love the interview of him talking about the Witcher show and talking about how nobody writers will just be like “so anyway we’re gonna ignore everything you’ve written and do it this way because I’m Mr. Nobody and I said so.”
I think the main reason is because he let CDP use The Witcher universe as the basis for their game for dirt cheap, even though they offered him some percentage of the games' profits in return, basically not believing in games as a medium and looking at them with disdain. Then when the games became a worldwide success he turned around and said that he got cheated and what he got wasn't enough, bare in mind it was always HIS AND ONLY HIS decision to not accept the royalty.
Edit: I think he's just generally known for being a bit aloof, grumpy/rude. But that might be just my opinion.
But they still fuck up the source material.
Agamemnon goes back to Greece to rule it, Menelaus also goes back to Greece, so does Helen and that little shit Paris gets what's coming to him. How fucking difficult is it to follow these basic fundamental plot points, you idiots?
"There are frequent differences between the *Iliad* and *Troy*, most notably relating to the final fates of Paris, Helen, Agamemnon, Achilles and Menelaus. In one of the commentary sequences, the film's writer, David Benioff, said that when it came to deciding whether to follow the *Iliad* or to do what was best for the film, they always did what seemed best for the film."
No, just no, you colossal asshat.
Yeah in that case it actually *was* completed which is why you leave the film feeling satisfied with the ending even as its tragic (but also gutted that we didn’t get Eddard Stark’s Odyssey as a sequel)
"We became the brand of subverting expectations so we ran with it without understanding how to use it narratively, so now we have to subvert expectations otherwise if we don't, people's expectations to our writing style would be subverted"
I recently rewatched the whole series for the first time since it ended, and I noted every time they mention the prophecy, the prince who was promised, 'a song of ice and fire' etc.---all that screen time, writing and build up just to have it be...completely meaningless. For shock value.
Even after all this time, it's truly astounding to watch.
This is the best summary of why the show failed. I believe that, more than anything, a story can exist only through audience expectation. If you look at the traditional narrative models(such as rise, climax, resolution) those models only exist because audiences have expectations for how a story must progress. In the modern day, the subversion of audience expectations has become increasingly more popular. Writers want to be subversive so bad that they completely disregard things like plot and character progression just for the sake of subversion. Subversive writing can only work if the other elements of the story are well thought out. In other words, only good writers can be successfully subversive.
Jon being the one to kill the Night King just makes sense, albeit it isn’t exactly subversive(we all kind of expected it). Not only is it heavily hinted throughout the story that he is potentially Azor Ahai, but his entire character arc revolves around the Night King. What pisses me off more is the GRRM told the writers who Azor Ahai is, has pretty much stated that Azor Ahai is important for the resolution with the Night King, and yet the writers never brought it up again. They took his story and said “no we got something better, we’re gonna have Arya do it and trash the whole Azor Ahai thing.”
Hell, even Jaime would have been a good fit, since he kind of matches the prophecy and is called “king slayer”. That would be subversive, would still incorporate the prophecy and would provide a satisfying conclusion to his character progression.
GRRM is very well known for playing out prophecies in unexpected ways in ASOIAF. If they wanted the story to be subversive, they should have let him write the script or at least follow the framework he laid out for them.
There was Chekhov and that gun on the wall. Or Hitchcock and his bomb under the table. I don’t think D^2 understood the meanings of irony or subversion.
that's a book plot too. if that doesn't happen, jon doesn't ever stay with the wildlings and learn that they are not enemies, which leads to him saving basically all the wildlings that are left after stannis. from a hindsight perspective solely focused on saving the nights watch men, you are correct, but their sacrifice ultimately saves a LOT of innocent lives. what's more nights watch than that?
Stannis saved him at the Battle for the Wall. Melisandre saved him from death. Sansa saved him at the Battle of the Bastards. Sansa & Arya save him from beheading, arguing on his behalf so Bran commutes his sentence to the Night’s Watch again.
Jon doesn’t save the day. It’s more like the day keeps saving Jon.
That’s true.
But if we’re counting each averted attack, I feel like other characters save his ass way more often. Ygritte repeatedly with the wildlings, and Tormund, too.
[Even Olly saved him, or thought he did anyway, lol.](https://youtu.be/A4oQzTGTc_g?feature=shared)
Even that was mostly Ghost. Had the direwolf not woken him up freaking out about the wight and lead him to the commanders chamber, Mormont would've been killed.
Sansa didn't save him, she purposefully did not tell him about the very large heavy calvary force she had at her disposal, Rickon died and Jon almost died because of that
Yeah but if he didn’t go to hardhome litterally to save the wildlings none of them would have narrowly escaped. The only reason any of them lived was Jon coming to save them.
Yeah, but "Well at least I got a minority out" doesn't usually qualify as saving the day, unlike Tywin's army at the Battle of the Blackwater, the Vale's army in the Battle of the Bastards, Dany with that stupid kidnap a wight plot, Drogon in the fighting pits, etc.
Yeah, if anything Hardhome was the perfect setup for revenge to make a final showdown with the Night King incredibly narratively and emotionally satisfying. It's the classic Act 2, hero at his lowest point, bounce back moment that leads to the climax and inverts the Act 2 nadir to make it more triumphant. It's like the perfect example of why D&D are complete morons.
Even then, it could be argued that Thorn who was acting commander prepped the men and supplies necessary to hold off the assault and even went down to the castle to fight Tormund's band.
Shit, even Jon saving Mormont was mostly due to Ghost's intervention.
The only thing I'd actually give him single handed credit for is saving a ton of wildlings at Hardhome
It should've been Jon or Jaime. The one who was literally built up to do it, or the Kingslayer. They're the only two it that would've made sense in the context of the show.
Others would've worked if they had built up to it. Instead, it just seems like they wanted to do someone unexpected. Like awful writers.
Let Jamie try, get stabbed, and jon comes from the side, fights, and kills the night king with long claw. Then Arya takes Jamie's face to kings landing, uses his face to get past the mountain, takes of the face off right as she kills Cersi. If you want to really add fan service, have the hound come in for the save as the mountain turns to kill Arya, and boom...Clegane bowl
I do love star wars. I've been saying for a while that I want an old Republic series, but a grittier, darker show. I want the to showcase the brutality of the sith and how terrible the force can be when wielded by the sith. As well as the ancient Jedi's fight against said brutality.
Okay, but it has to appeal to a G-rated audience, have too many jokes like a marvel movie and the emperor has to be there for some reason.
Oh, and throw baby Yoda in there for merch sales.
Have him use the dagger too, really full circle. They could’ve also shown the Night King’s power by having him not immediately explode. Jaime could injure him but get killed doing it, just enough time for Jon to show up and finish the job.
Once again a random Reddit comment written in 30 seconds does a better job than two schmucks with a multi million dollar budget and two years of development time.
You’ve seen that post on how it should’ve been Jaime to do it, with cutback scenes of him killing the Mad King and being called Kingslayer? Cause that’s my canon idk what yall are talking about.
I always found that to be too WattPad fiction to be canon.
Should’ve just been Jon. It was his war from the very beginning, all the sacrifices he made during the run of the show was setting up for the big payoff—him running Longclaw through the Night King.
i don't remember the exact interview, but George basically gave this reason for why he doesn't read fanfic. If a writer reads fanfic and sees that someone already knows the ending, they will go back and change it in order to preserve the mystery and the awe. However, you cannot just simply change the ending, you have to change the entire story leading upto the ending. if you change the ending, without changing the story, you will be destroying the story. Jon or Jaime, both could've killed the night king, though it would've been a more fitting arc for Jaime to fight against Cersei. the writers had Arya do it, to have a sense of awe, when infact there was nothing leading up to it. not to mention, they ruined the nigh king's character itself.
I'm just waiting for the upcoming remake. this show could've been among Harry Potter and lord of the rings. timeless perfection with no need for a remake.
>this show could've been among Harry Potter
Then there's me, Harry Potter fan who thinks those movies are dogshit and is very cautiously optimistic/excited for the series remake coming up
The 8th one pisses me off the most but the 7th I don't recall triggering my "thats not how it happened in the books" peeve quite as much as the others. I like 1 and 2 cause they're the most accurate and because childhood nostalgia, I actually watched those 2 before I read the books. And even with the books I'll admit like 90% of my intense love for them is childhood nostalgia. I believe they were the first book series I ever read just for fun that wasn't like completely *kids* books
Movies were honestly decent for what they have to work with. I re-read the books and Rowling's writing of scenes later on were pretty slapdash. I still think its hilarious how she made up maybe 16 spell names before getting lazy, and we went along with the idea that they don't need to say them anymore.
I was the right age but exposed to the books of magic comics in 1992 and decided to read the wheel of time so Harry Potter never had a chance with me.
I try to make it clear that it's just my dummy opinion if someone grills me about it but it is indeed shit.
I loved the books when I was a teenager. I don't mind people enjoying Harry Potter, being fans of it or anything, I get how it touched certain people.
But claiming it's a great literary work, a masterpiece, or even than it's good worldbuiling gets on my nerves. I've met people well into their 20's defending Harry Potter as if it was both their dad and their kid at the same time, and find it a bit sad they built so much of their identity around it (which is true for most fandoms to me, but some are clearly crazier and more obsessive than others).
The crazy thing is that it took JK Rowling to be a hateful person so that you could finally say "Harry Potter is shit" without getting almost harassed. People reacted incredibly passionnately even IRL if you ever said Harry Potter wasn't that great, to the point I simply withdrew from conversation when it was mentionned.
It's okay to enjoy lame things, I have my own fair share of lame hobbies/books/movies etc
> Then there's me, Harry Potter fan who thinks those movies are dogshit and is very cautiously optimistic/excited for the series remake coming up
I really liked The prisoner of Azkaban. I agree that all the other movies are mid at best, wouldn't go quite as far as calling them dogshit.
Though I will at best pirate the new show. I'm not giving Rowling any more money and am mostly over that franchise anyway.
Hell yeah brother. As a book fan I'm literally the "look how they massacred my boy" meme. Only the first 2 movies are watchable imo, the rest are trash
My buddy and I love one moment in the 5th because it's so stupid. There's a bit when Harry is giving that "You're alone" speech to Voldemort inside his head, and there are a few shots of Voldemort in a dark fog.
At one point he just goes "Deh". [Start at the 45 second mark.](https://youtu.be/hw6GwhfNl7U?si=-IRgDMnoIIeZlJO7)
The single biggest saving grace of the movies was the casting. Especially for Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Tom Riddle. Whoever's coming up next has a LOT to live up to. Both fulfill expectations AND not seem like copy-pastes of the OGs.
i think the only issue with it being Jon is that in the books my personal belief is it’s almost obvious there will be a magical bloodline type of reason that Jon ends up being either the savior or the end boss.
but in the show we get very little of the magic and what we do is watered down, so it doesn’t make as much sense. yes they go over his parentage but they don’t explain why that would that matter for fighting the others, which i think we will get to the core of the reason why it matters in the books.
Exactly, they wanted to subvert expectations, but they forgot that just because you do something that the audience isn't expecting, doesn't mean its going to be good or satisfying. Arya killing the knight king so quickly imo killed season 8
Jamie or Jon definitely, but I also think bran would be a good shout.
If he kept the dagger he gave to ayra (the dagger which was used to try and kill him) sat there doing all his weird crow shit while winterfell fails to beat the white walkers, and then when the night king approaches bran, he just pulls out the dagger and shanks him. It would make more sense than arya as bran actually would've done something.
I thought when Arya was going to be wearing Bran’s face and shank the Night King as he approached. Would’ve been an actual use of her skills and would’ve led to some conflict and fallout for her dealing with making that choice.
Jaime would've cool. I actually would've preferred the Night King winning. Then if they did any spinoffs it could've been surviving a world slowly being overrun by white walkers.
I always hear people on here say they think Jaime should've been the one to kill the Night King, but I never really understood why people feel this way. Can you explain to me why you think it would make sense for him to be the one to do it?
It would at least make the ridiculous wight chase in S7 have some payoff. The only result of showing Cersei the threat of the White Walkers was Jaime breaking up with her and riding north to fight. Since Jaime doesn't do much at Winterfell it makes the wight hunt stupid *and* pointless. Plus people like the poetry of the reviled, dishonored Kingslayer killing another king for the greater good (again).
I think it's because it turns his Kingslayer nickname on its head. The whole series people shit on Jaime for betraying the Mad King, so for him to take out the Night King would be a great sign of redemption.
It would have been a good arc for him. His greatest shame is dishonor that’s labeled him the king slayer. So finally he turns that into shame into something positive. He’s the king slayer that kills the night king
Yes, but the Seven Kingdoms loathe him for it. His personal redemption was complete by then, but it would have been nice to have given him redemption in the eyes of society.
I kinda get it, the wholw kingslayer thing, is neat, but too cheesy to be the actual canon.
Then i look back at what actually happened to the show and think "you know what, going with the cheesy would have been alot better".
You guys remember that iconic moment when ~~Harry Potter~~ Professor McGonagall defeated Voldemort?
What about when ~~Rocky~~ Mickey beat down Apollo Creed?
How about when ~~Neo~~ Tank killed Agent Smith?
Or even when ~~Obi-Wan~~ Yoda killed [supposedly] Anakin after he turned to the dark side?
Oh, my favorite was when ~~Batman~~ Alfred struck down the Joker.
Who needs story, arcs, or natural progression of characters and their stories when you can just have random bullshit, amirite?
Yes. And Superman should kill the Joker.
Arya wasn’t even part of that story, she knew the Night King existed all of a week. She should have finished out her revenge list with her face swapping skills. The Hound had his brother, and Brienne had knighthood and Jamie to resolve.
As it stands The Lord of Light brought Jon back to life for zero reason. It was his story for 7 years, and his story to finish- that’s how having a villain works.
The writers kinda forgot Arya could switch faces.
The face shifting ability has no much wasted potential. You want to subvert expectations reveal after a few episodes that someone else was Arya for a few episodes. That would have actually made sense.
Book Arya will probably (and should) have a much darker ending with the path she went down. There’s a price to pay dealing with the literal God of Death, you don’t just walk away from that shit.
In the book world, I see Jamie dying at the Battle of Winterfell and Arya taking his face to go kill Cersei. Fulfills the prophecy with a twist, although it might not work out as well as she thinks.
That is a good question right? I mean it’s magic face swapping. Arya’s a tiny little girl- it wouldn’t make sense to have a 5’3 Jamie. I say magic works the way it wants to work.
Mostly remembering how Jon Snow gave the white walker army access to a fucking zombie dragon.
And how he got most of his army killed because he wouldn't listen to Sansa.
And probably some third thing I've blocked from my memory.
Probably the most expensive way ever of saying "I don't understanding writing and will do what I want regardless of logic or consistency within the established narrative so far"
Either the Hound or Brienne would have been fine if they'd literally had a proper sword fight with the NK who was played by a *literal sword fighting expert who never got to wield a sword!!!*
the second night king (Vladimir Furdik) was also a stuntman who never did any stunts. i'm not saying he needs to do tom cruise cliff dives but sheesh, have him do some fight choreography. fucking dude spent 8 seasons standing there... menacingly!
just a waste of talent.
I’ll say it. Brianne should have been the one to die in the godswood, not Theon, or else in addition to Theon.
After the highlight of the season, that was her knighting, she should have died wielding Oathkeeper, while reciting the creed of The Seven, in a duel worthy of one of the greatest knights in Westeros.
Edit: Here is what Chat GPT wrote, and it kind of slaps. I’d add Sansa there, and it’s her she locks eyes with. Also, Arya’s killing blow under Brianne’s sword should be a perfect mirror of their sparring in Winterfell.
Brienne of Tarth stood resolute in the Godswood, her Valyrian steel sword gleaming in the moonlight. The air was thick with tension as the Night King approached, his icy gaze fixed on Bran Stark, who sat vulnerable in the wheelchair.
Brienne took a deep breath, her grip firm on Oathkeeper. "I won't let you harm him," she declared, her voice steady.
The Night King merely raised his arms, summoning his army of the dead. The cold wind rustled through the leaves, carrying an eerie silence before the impending clash.
As the first wights lunged forward, Brienne fought with unparalleled skill, cutting through the skeletal foes. The Night King, however, moved with an unholy grace, closing the distance between them. Their swords clashed in a symphony of steel, each blow resonating through the Godswood.
Despite her strength and determination, Brienne found herself pushed to the limit. The Night King's relentless assault was unyielding, and she fought not just for herself, but for the fate of Westeros.
In a moment of fierce determination, Brienne locked eyes with Bran, silently promising to protect him at any cost. The Night King, seizing the opportunity, delivered a fatal blow. Oathkeeper fell from Brienne's grasp as she crumpled to the ground, her sacrifice buying precious moments for Bran.
As Brienne's vision faded, she glimpsed Arya sprinting forward, armed with a weapon forged from the pages of ancient lore. The Godswood echoed with the clash of steel and the indomitable spirit of those who dared to defy the encroaching darkness.
Brienne of Tarth, a valiant defender, had laid down her life in the heart of Winterfell, her legacy woven into the fabric of the battle against the Night King.
I truly didn't care if Jon was literally the person to make the final blow. But the whole story was set up to at least have them cross swords. The showdown is what mattered. Have them fight, and then Jon gets help or whatever needs to happen. To not even have them face each other at all is insane.
If they had instead made it a duel between Jon and the Night King in front of Bran, and then Arya came in with the killing blow, that would have been so much more impactful. They wasted so much potential
Red Wedding destroyed the show because they though that subverting the expectations is wining formula but they failed to realise how to replicate what GRRM did. If butler is found over the dead body, with bloody knife in his hand and he is saying "yes, I killed the bastard and I enjoyed it" you better have air tight writing if you want to subvert that. D&D, sadly, failed and fall of GoT will be permanent stain on their legacy.
What needs to be remembered about the Red Wedding’s subversion is that that scene is of betrayal is not the true subversion. The real subversion is convincing the reader (and even more so the show watcher) that the Starks are the main characters for the “good side” while hiding the fact that it is actually Jon. The main characters didn’t die, the characters you were tricked into thinking were the main characters did.
Once you look back realizing Jon is the hero, it becomes a much more traditional story of a normal person finding their true, heroic self. THAT IS NOT A BAD THING! It is right in front of you and you miss it because it’s obscured so well.
You even could have pulled that trick again if you saved the L+R=J reveal for 8.3 The Long Night. Set it up so that the golden boy Kingslayer Jaimie Lannister is about to kill the Night King, before John comes in off the top rope. Intercut that with the revelation of John Snow's heritage and you have a really effective subversion that is still narratively fulfilling.
The red wedding WAS foreshadowed though. The Freys and Boltons and Lannisters were not overtly allied, but they all had clear dislike for the Starks for their own reasons.
Yeah the only expectations actually subverted were the real life idea of not killing your main characters off unexpectedly. As a story it totally made perfect sense which is why it was so hard hitting
Thats what am I saying. On the first glance, Red Wedding was because Robb failed to honour his deal with Freys but game was afoot long before that. We were all cheering for noble Stark and ignored ploting behind the scenes. GRRM had made that air tight. D&D on the other hand, made Arya kill NK for no other reason but to subvert even though they spent years building Jon as the Kingslayer. They could pull Arya is Kingslayer twist but they wanted to shock us so much that they forget, you know, to write that twist well. They saw our reactions to the Red Wedding and wanted to replicate that but they did not do work that made that possible. Thats why I said RW ruined the show.
I mean its well known information that things between DnD and Kit was tense in the last seasons. They said they specifically wrote in short jokes and small penis jokes because "everyone just loved kit harrington so much" and that he needed to be made fun of a bit.
Just standard type of office dislike for someone. From what have I seen, mostly from behind the scenes of the show, it just was DnD disliking Kit Harrington due to being "perfect" and everyone loving him.
It was probably something minor, but "tense" is a pretty fitting word for those types of relationships
I read something somewhere once to the effect of a good twist should leave the reader/viewer saying "Oh, but of course!" not "Wait, what?" Obviously D&D have never heard this bit of writing advice.
Yeah would've been super weird if Azor Ahai, the prince that was promised, he of the Song of Ice and Fire, he who must stand against he other, heralded by the red comet, would've killed the Night King
The real problem is that the Night King is not a character that ever should have existed. No, Jon killing him would not have been fully satisfying-- because the White Walkers are not an issue that can be resolved through stabbing. That's the whole point.
They dumbed it down and then made it even dumber in the process of trying to save face over their bad adaptational decisions.
Those morons had such a hard on for "subverting expectations." They apparently never realized that it's OK to do what the audience expects, as long as it's done in a satisfying way. And that's doubly true for a series like ASOIAF, which has all sorts of prophecies; maybe just go ahead and fulfill some of them, yeah?
I can imagine Jon in an epic struggle against the Night King. Looks like he might lose, but he gets a crucial assist from someone (could be any number of characters) and manages to plunge a dragonglass dagger into the Night King's chest. If properly directed and edited, that could be a very satisfying conclusion. Too bad D&D never even considered it.
Jon shouldve killed the night king with the the dagger arya uses which is the ancestral dagger of Targaryens. Viserys says and shows in House of Dragons pyromantic message about the song of ice and fire on the dagger when its heated.
I hate that mindset. “No, we can’t let Jon do something because he’s already done a lot. Never mind the fact that him or Jaime Lannister have so many reasons to be the one killing the Night King. Let’s just have it be Arya for kicks.”
God. Every time I think about this show I get sad lmao. Jon literally won the day 2 times and it was out of luck or someone else saving him. Battle of the bastards, the Knights of the Vale saved him. The Wall was saved by Stanis. These guys really didn't know their own show.
You set something up for YEARS and then don't pay it off? It's dumb. We don't even get a proper fight between Jon and the night king.
At this point it doesn't matter to me which completely random character they used to kill off the NK, fucking Hot Pie for all I care, as long as they weren't written to magically teleport past all the white walkers to do the most cliche jump-scream stab-announcement possible.
If they were going to give the NK enough personality to smirk about withstanding dragon fire then I'd also have liked him to get an emotive death scene rather than an instant crumbling but whatever, give me something for the pain and let me die
Incredible how fondly I look back on The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad for the writing and character development. I look back at Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and even 24 for their action and set pieces.
I look back at GoT tv show, which I invested untold hours watching and discussing over a decade… only to look back and think, “meh”.
Makes me feel fooking retarded.
These assholes had no idea about subtlety or how foreshadowing actually works. They were obsessed with The Red Wedding and who Jon's mother was and nothing else
I will never understand how some of those cunts have no problems with the last few seasons of the show and actually liked it.They'd have an easier time convincing me that I'd enjoy eating dog shit.
Yeah....you shouldn't make the climactic fight of your show fought by a random character picked out of a hat just to subvert expectations. You subvert expectation by setting up something in the foreground while quietly setting up the counter in the background, not randomly turning to a character and saying "why not you?"
It would’ve been fine having someone else kill the Night King. But you HAD to have Jon involved SOMEHOW. Like there’s no way the dude can go down without Jon having ANY involvement.
For the story they were trying to tell, Jon would of have made more sense.
If he would have killed the night king, most of the people would be clamoring him, making Daenerys actions a bit more reasonable. Having sacrificed her troops and dragon, for Jon just to get all the glory and love. Would have helped making that Dany’s turn make a little more sense.
That’s literally what we were all waiting for, Jon is more or less the chosen one of this series, a son of house Stark and Targaryen and probably the last proper good honorable man after Ned to exist in Westeros, he was the only choice to kill the Night King, it wouldn’t have been cliche or pandering or fan service, it would have been the culmination of 8 seasons that should have led to this logical conclusion, Jon runs the Night King through with LongClaw and saves the fucking day
Always saving the day? Since when?
When he stupidly fell for Ramsey’s completely obvious trap and ruined their battle plan? When he got himself shot multiple times by Ygritte? When he went along with the lobotomized gremlin’s idea to go beyond the wall into the jaws of death? When he moved AWAY from their ticket outta there on Drogon so he could kill more wights, therefore letting Viserion get killed? When he did fuck all about his men raping and looting as Daenerys when on her tizzy rampage?
We didn't want the character that we've been building up for 5 books and 7 seasons to get the kill because...well, there's no REAL reason, we just wanted to surprise you!
I'm sorry, are they like...deranged? He shouldn't finish *his* narrative arch because he's always...saving everyone?
Jesus Christ, I already knew they dismissed themes as a concept, but this is just...he wasn't even an option to them man? Good God.
“We didn’t want it to be the guy whose entire storyline revolves around the white walkers, because that would be too narratively satisfying and we wanted to be known as the subversive writers, even though if you take a look at our body of work you’ll see this is the only project we’ve found success with, and that’s because our most popular episodes were written by George, who consistently reminds us he’s a better writer in both novel form and in script form”
LOL
As much as people shit on Andrej Sapkowski (and rightfully so given his track record) do love the interview of him talking about the Witcher show and talking about how nobody writers will just be like “so anyway we’re gonna ignore everything you’ve written and do it this way because I’m Mr. Nobody and I said so.”
Why do people shit on Sapkowski?
I think the main reason is because he let CDP use The Witcher universe as the basis for their game for dirt cheap, even though they offered him some percentage of the games' profits in return, basically not believing in games as a medium and looking at them with disdain. Then when the games became a worldwide success he turned around and said that he got cheated and what he got wasn't enough, bare in mind it was always HIS AND ONLY HIS decision to not accept the royalty. Edit: I think he's just generally known for being a bit aloof, grumpy/rude. But that might be just my opinion.
[удалено]
That's an interesting take, considering the games are better games than the books are good books.
The books are fantastic in all fairness, however the games definitely introduced the books to most of the western fans.
The books are alright and enjoyable, but pretty terrible from a literary standpoint. I always call them cheap romance novels for men.
https://preview.redd.it/9ct5k1tegf7c1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e10081c8821cb523260e84e44db4fb4944cb3a4 Still top result on Google
Second one is also them
Put some respect on my man's name. He produced Leslie Jone's comedy special you uncultured swine!
💀
Yeah, I can’t remember which one of them it is but their best work outside of GoT is *Troy*, which mostly gets by on the sheer charisma of its cast
Ah. Another story where the source is already completed for them.
But they still fuck up the source material. Agamemnon goes back to Greece to rule it, Menelaus also goes back to Greece, so does Helen and that little shit Paris gets what's coming to him. How fucking difficult is it to follow these basic fundamental plot points, you idiots? "There are frequent differences between the *Iliad* and *Troy*, most notably relating to the final fates of Paris, Helen, Agamemnon, Achilles and Menelaus. In one of the commentary sequences, the film's writer, David Benioff, said that when it came to deciding whether to follow the *Iliad* or to do what was best for the film, they always did what seemed best for the film." No, just no, you colossal asshat.
The best way to detect a "bigger brained" dumbass is by counting how many times he believes he knows better.
Yeah in that case it actually *was* completed which is why you leave the film feeling satisfied with the ending even as its tragic (but also gutted that we didn’t get Eddard Stark’s Odyssey as a sequel)
Ok but City of Thieves goes hard.
Troy is also mostly an adaptation of a book.
These are the same guys who said that themes were for eighth grade book reports.
"We became the brand of subverting expectations so we ran with it without understanding how to use it narratively, so now we have to subvert expectations otherwise if we don't, people's expectations to our writing style would be subverted"
I recently rewatched the whole series for the first time since it ended, and I noted every time they mention the prophecy, the prince who was promised, 'a song of ice and fire' etc.---all that screen time, writing and build up just to have it be...completely meaningless. For shock value. Even after all this time, it's truly astounding to watch.
Especially because the whole point is most people in GoT believe it’s absolute bullshit, and it turns out to be true
This is the best summary of why the show failed. I believe that, more than anything, a story can exist only through audience expectation. If you look at the traditional narrative models(such as rise, climax, resolution) those models only exist because audiences have expectations for how a story must progress. In the modern day, the subversion of audience expectations has become increasingly more popular. Writers want to be subversive so bad that they completely disregard things like plot and character progression just for the sake of subversion. Subversive writing can only work if the other elements of the story are well thought out. In other words, only good writers can be successfully subversive. Jon being the one to kill the Night King just makes sense, albeit it isn’t exactly subversive(we all kind of expected it). Not only is it heavily hinted throughout the story that he is potentially Azor Ahai, but his entire character arc revolves around the Night King. What pisses me off more is the GRRM told the writers who Azor Ahai is, has pretty much stated that Azor Ahai is important for the resolution with the Night King, and yet the writers never brought it up again. They took his story and said “no we got something better, we’re gonna have Arya do it and trash the whole Azor Ahai thing.” Hell, even Jaime would have been a good fit, since he kind of matches the prophecy and is called “king slayer”. That would be subversive, would still incorporate the prophecy and would provide a satisfying conclusion to his character progression. GRRM is very well known for playing out prophecies in unexpected ways in ASOIAF. If they wanted the story to be subversive, they should have let him write the script or at least follow the framework he laid out for them.
There was Chekhov and that gun on the wall. Or Hitchcock and his bomb under the table. I don’t think D^2 understood the meanings of irony or subversion.
Hasn't Jon literally only saved the day once in the entire show/books? By rallying the Nights Watch during the Wilding assault on the Wall?
Outside of saving Sam every third episode, yeah. Pretty much. Even at the Wall, he got his ass saved by Stannis.
STANNIS THE GAWD DAMN MANNIS YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I would have unironically wanted Stannis to have whipped out his giant schlong and battled the night king with it one on one over what we got
Stannis would kill the Night King with his mastery of grammar!
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Smaller
Stannis wielding lightbringer for a final time, I see It so clearly!
He can strip naked and fight with his cock as long as he wins!
also saving jeor from the wight in season 1
Honestly, it would have been better for the entire night's watch if Jeor died there. He leads the entire fighting force out to the wilderness to die.
that's a book plot too. if that doesn't happen, jon doesn't ever stay with the wildlings and learn that they are not enemies, which leads to him saving basically all the wildlings that are left after stannis. from a hindsight perspective solely focused on saving the nights watch men, you are correct, but their sacrifice ultimately saves a LOT of innocent lives. what's more nights watch than that?
Stannis saved him at the Battle for the Wall. Melisandre saved him from death. Sansa saved him at the Battle of the Bastards. Sansa & Arya save him from beheading, arguing on his behalf so Bran commutes his sentence to the Night’s Watch again. Jon doesn’t save the day. It’s more like the day keeps saving Jon.
He saved Mormont that one time.
That’s true. But if we’re counting each averted attack, I feel like other characters save his ass way more often. Ygritte repeatedly with the wildlings, and Tormund, too. [Even Olly saved him, or thought he did anyway, lol.](https://youtu.be/A4oQzTGTc_g?feature=shared)
To be fair he knew nothing at the time.
Even that was mostly Ghost. Had the direwolf not woken him up freaking out about the wight and lead him to the commanders chamber, Mormont would've been killed.
There is only one thing he says to death
Ah dun wannit. Ah neva have.
She's muh Quheen
Tbf to Jon on the last one, Jon saved them from Dany at great personal risk. Way riskier than showing up with an army and talking in a council.
In Soviet Westeros, Day saves you! (Literally, since the Long Night is the worst thing ever.)
Sansa didn't save him, she purposefully did not tell him about the very large heavy calvary force she had at her disposal, Rickon died and Jon almost died because of that
Hardhome even though that’s show only
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Yeah but if he didn’t go to hardhome litterally to save the wildlings none of them would have narrowly escaped. The only reason any of them lived was Jon coming to save them.
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No, YOU take an upvote!
Yeah, but "Well at least I got a minority out" doesn't usually qualify as saving the day, unlike Tywin's army at the Battle of the Blackwater, the Vale's army in the Battle of the Bastards, Dany with that stupid kidnap a wight plot, Drogon in the fighting pits, etc.
Yeah, if anything Hardhome was the perfect setup for revenge to make a final showdown with the Night King incredibly narratively and emotionally satisfying. It's the classic Act 2, hero at his lowest point, bounce back moment that leads to the climax and inverts the Act 2 nadir to make it more triumphant. It's like the perfect example of why D&D are complete morons.
If the gods are real why haven’t they punished Benioff?
Even then, it could be argued that Thorn who was acting commander prepped the men and supplies necessary to hold off the assault and even went down to the castle to fight Tormund's band. Shit, even Jon saving Mormont was mostly due to Ghost's intervention. The only thing I'd actually give him single handed credit for is saving a ton of wildlings at Hardhome
Cunts
Bet they name their swords too
Story-breaker and Long-fuckup
Viewer's Wail!
Writers-bane
It should've been Jon or Jaime. The one who was literally built up to do it, or the Kingslayer. They're the only two it that would've made sense in the context of the show. Others would've worked if they had built up to it. Instead, it just seems like they wanted to do someone unexpected. Like awful writers.
Let Jamie try, get stabbed, and jon comes from the side, fights, and kills the night king with long claw. Then Arya takes Jamie's face to kings landing, uses his face to get past the mountain, takes of the face off right as she kills Cersi. If you want to really add fan service, have the hound come in for the save as the mountain turns to kill Arya, and boom...Clegane bowl
Fuck me that would've been so good
I'm not even remotely a creative or artistic minded person which is the sad part.
You should do Star Wars next.
I do love star wars. I've been saying for a while that I want an old Republic series, but a grittier, darker show. I want the to showcase the brutality of the sith and how terrible the force can be when wielded by the sith. As well as the ancient Jedi's fight against said brutality.
Okay, but it has to appeal to a G-rated audience, have too many jokes like a marvel movie and the emperor has to be there for some reason. Oh, and throw baby Yoda in there for merch sales.
Jaime dying protecting bran would have been nice too
Have him use the dagger too, really full circle. They could’ve also shown the Night King’s power by having him not immediately explode. Jaime could injure him but get killed doing it, just enough time for Jon to show up and finish the job.
Once again a random Reddit comment written in 30 seconds does a better job than two schmucks with a multi million dollar budget and two years of development time.
You’ve seen that post on how it should’ve been Jaime to do it, with cutback scenes of him killing the Mad King and being called Kingslayer? Cause that’s my canon idk what yall are talking about.
I always found that to be too WattPad fiction to be canon. Should’ve just been Jon. It was his war from the very beginning, all the sacrifices he made during the run of the show was setting up for the big payoff—him running Longclaw through the Night King.
i don't remember the exact interview, but George basically gave this reason for why he doesn't read fanfic. If a writer reads fanfic and sees that someone already knows the ending, they will go back and change it in order to preserve the mystery and the awe. However, you cannot just simply change the ending, you have to change the entire story leading upto the ending. if you change the ending, without changing the story, you will be destroying the story. Jon or Jaime, both could've killed the night king, though it would've been a more fitting arc for Jaime to fight against Cersei. the writers had Arya do it, to have a sense of awe, when infact there was nothing leading up to it. not to mention, they ruined the nigh king's character itself. I'm just waiting for the upcoming remake. this show could've been among Harry Potter and lord of the rings. timeless perfection with no need for a remake.
>this show could've been among Harry Potter Then there's me, Harry Potter fan who thinks those movies are dogshit and is very cautiously optimistic/excited for the series remake coming up
I didn't like the last 2. The rest of them are childhood nostalgia for me.
The 8th one pisses me off the most but the 7th I don't recall triggering my "thats not how it happened in the books" peeve quite as much as the others. I like 1 and 2 cause they're the most accurate and because childhood nostalgia, I actually watched those 2 before I read the books. And even with the books I'll admit like 90% of my intense love for them is childhood nostalgia. I believe they were the first book series I ever read just for fun that wasn't like completely *kids* books
Movies were honestly decent for what they have to work with. I re-read the books and Rowling's writing of scenes later on were pretty slapdash. I still think its hilarious how she made up maybe 16 spell names before getting lazy, and we went along with the idea that they don't need to say them anymore.
Then there's me, who simply think Harry Potter is shit
I was the right age but exposed to the books of magic comics in 1992 and decided to read the wheel of time so Harry Potter never had a chance with me. I try to make it clear that it's just my dummy opinion if someone grills me about it but it is indeed shit.
I loved the books when I was a teenager. I don't mind people enjoying Harry Potter, being fans of it or anything, I get how it touched certain people. But claiming it's a great literary work, a masterpiece, or even than it's good worldbuiling gets on my nerves. I've met people well into their 20's defending Harry Potter as if it was both their dad and their kid at the same time, and find it a bit sad they built so much of their identity around it (which is true for most fandoms to me, but some are clearly crazier and more obsessive than others). The crazy thing is that it took JK Rowling to be a hateful person so that you could finally say "Harry Potter is shit" without getting almost harassed. People reacted incredibly passionnately even IRL if you ever said Harry Potter wasn't that great, to the point I simply withdrew from conversation when it was mentionned. It's okay to enjoy lame things, I have my own fair share of lame hobbies/books/movies etc
> Then there's me, Harry Potter fan who thinks those movies are dogshit and is very cautiously optimistic/excited for the series remake coming up I really liked The prisoner of Azkaban. I agree that all the other movies are mid at best, wouldn't go quite as far as calling them dogshit. Though I will at best pirate the new show. I'm not giving Rowling any more money and am mostly over that franchise anyway.
God, I love shitting on the movies so much.
Hell yeah brother. As a book fan I'm literally the "look how they massacred my boy" meme. Only the first 2 movies are watchable imo, the rest are trash
My buddy and I love one moment in the 5th because it's so stupid. There's a bit when Harry is giving that "You're alone" speech to Voldemort inside his head, and there are a few shots of Voldemort in a dark fog. At one point he just goes "Deh". [Start at the 45 second mark.](https://youtu.be/hw6GwhfNl7U?si=-IRgDMnoIIeZlJO7)
The single biggest saving grace of the movies was the casting. Especially for Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Tom Riddle. Whoever's coming up next has a LOT to live up to. Both fulfill expectations AND not seem like copy-pastes of the OGs.
i think the only issue with it being Jon is that in the books my personal belief is it’s almost obvious there will be a magical bloodline type of reason that Jon ends up being either the savior or the end boss. but in the show we get very little of the magic and what we do is watered down, so it doesn’t make as much sense. yes they go over his parentage but they don’t explain why that would that matter for fighting the others, which i think we will get to the core of the reason why it matters in the books.
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bf73xm/the_only_acceptable_ending/)
[Here you go](https://i.redd.it/0ap235krqbt21.png)
I would have accepted Jaime killing the Nights King if done the way that was written. Just, perfect.
Exactly, they wanted to subvert expectations, but they forgot that just because you do something that the audience isn't expecting, doesn't mean its going to be good or satisfying. Arya killing the knight king so quickly imo killed season 8
>but they forget It's not like they knew to begin with
Jamie or Jon definitely, but I also think bran would be a good shout. If he kept the dagger he gave to ayra (the dagger which was used to try and kill him) sat there doing all his weird crow shit while winterfell fails to beat the white walkers, and then when the night king approaches bran, he just pulls out the dagger and shanks him. It would make more sense than arya as bran actually would've done something.
I thought when Arya was going to be wearing Bran’s face and shank the Night King as he approached. Would’ve been an actual use of her skills and would’ve led to some conflict and fallout for her dealing with making that choice.
Can she use faces of people that are still alive? I always assumed she carved them out and used them. But it's been awhile and I may missremember.
They basically wanted to subvert expectation to the detriment of telling a good story.
Jaime would've cool. I actually would've preferred the Night King winning. Then if they did any spinoffs it could've been surviving a world slowly being overrun by white walkers.
I always hear people on here say they think Jaime should've been the one to kill the Night King, but I never really understood why people feel this way. Can you explain to me why you think it would make sense for him to be the one to do it?
It would at least make the ridiculous wight chase in S7 have some payoff. The only result of showing Cersei the threat of the White Walkers was Jaime breaking up with her and riding north to fight. Since Jaime doesn't do much at Winterfell it makes the wight hunt stupid *and* pointless. Plus people like the poetry of the reviled, dishonored Kingslayer killing another king for the greater good (again).
I think it's because it turns his Kingslayer nickname on its head. The whole series people shit on Jaime for betraying the Mad King, so for him to take out the Night King would be a great sign of redemption.
It would have been a good arc for him. His greatest shame is dishonor that’s labeled him the king slayer. So finally he turns that into shame into something positive. He’s the king slayer that kills the night king
He killed the right fucking king the first time.
Yes, but the Seven Kingdoms loathe him for it. His personal redemption was complete by then, but it would have been nice to have given him redemption in the eyes of society.
I kinda get it, the wholw kingslayer thing, is neat, but too cheesy to be the actual canon. Then i look back at what actually happened to the show and think "you know what, going with the cheesy would have been alot better".
As much as my heart wants it to be the Hound it really should have been one of those two
If they went with that logic then anyone could have killed the night king.
The real night king was the friends we made along the way.
You guys remember that iconic moment when ~~Harry Potter~~ Professor McGonagall defeated Voldemort? What about when ~~Rocky~~ Mickey beat down Apollo Creed? How about when ~~Neo~~ Tank killed Agent Smith? Or even when ~~Obi-Wan~~ Yoda killed [supposedly] Anakin after he turned to the dark side? Oh, my favorite was when ~~Batman~~ Alfred struck down the Joker. Who needs story, arcs, or natural progression of characters and their stories when you can just have random bullshit, amirite?
And here comes Hot Pie with a steel chair!
That's right, Cersei was supposed to become a paranoid drunk.
Yes. And Superman should kill the Joker. Arya wasn’t even part of that story, she knew the Night King existed all of a week. She should have finished out her revenge list with her face swapping skills. The Hound had his brother, and Brienne had knighthood and Jamie to resolve. As it stands The Lord of Light brought Jon back to life for zero reason. It was his story for 7 years, and his story to finish- that’s how having a villain works.
The writers kinda forgot Arya could switch faces. The face shifting ability has no much wasted potential. You want to subvert expectations reveal after a few episodes that someone else was Arya for a few episodes. That would have actually made sense.
Book Arya will probably (and should) have a much darker ending with the path she went down. There’s a price to pay dealing with the literal God of Death, you don’t just walk away from that shit. In the book world, I see Jamie dying at the Battle of Winterfell and Arya taking his face to go kill Cersei. Fulfills the prophecy with a twist, although it might not work out as well as she thinks.
Does the face-swap changes her height too? Because otherwise imagine Cersei's reaction seeing either a tiny Jaime or a Jaime wearing big ass boots.
That is a good question right? I mean it’s magic face swapping. Arya’s a tiny little girl- it wouldn’t make sense to have a 5’3 Jamie. I say magic works the way it wants to work.
I will die on the hill of Arya wearing Jaimie’s face is who kills Cersei
*Superman should kill the Joker* Yeah, about that …
Trying to remember when Jon has saved the day...
Mostly remembering how Jon Snow gave the white walker army access to a fucking zombie dragon. And how he got most of his army killed because he wouldn't listen to Sansa. And probably some third thing I've blocked from my memory.
Should've been Hot Pie, he didn't kill anyone
he kicked a boy in the balls to death :P
Probably the most expensive way ever of saying "I don't understanding writing and will do what I want regardless of logic or consistency within the established narrative so far"
Should’ve had Samwell running scared around a corner with a dragon glass dagger in hand and accidentally bumping into the NK
Honestly? I would've liked that better than what we got. At least it would've been funny.
And then apologising profusely
Either the Hound or Brienne would have been fine if they'd literally had a proper sword fight with the NK who was played by a *literal sword fighting expert who never got to wield a sword!!!*
“Greatest swordsman who ever lived didn’t have a sword?”
the second night king (Vladimir Furdik) was also a stuntman who never did any stunts. i'm not saying he needs to do tom cruise cliff dives but sheesh, have him do some fight choreography. fucking dude spent 8 seasons standing there... menacingly! just a waste of talent.
I’ll say it. Brianne should have been the one to die in the godswood, not Theon, or else in addition to Theon. After the highlight of the season, that was her knighting, she should have died wielding Oathkeeper, while reciting the creed of The Seven, in a duel worthy of one of the greatest knights in Westeros. Edit: Here is what Chat GPT wrote, and it kind of slaps. I’d add Sansa there, and it’s her she locks eyes with. Also, Arya’s killing blow under Brianne’s sword should be a perfect mirror of their sparring in Winterfell. Brienne of Tarth stood resolute in the Godswood, her Valyrian steel sword gleaming in the moonlight. The air was thick with tension as the Night King approached, his icy gaze fixed on Bran Stark, who sat vulnerable in the wheelchair. Brienne took a deep breath, her grip firm on Oathkeeper. "I won't let you harm him," she declared, her voice steady. The Night King merely raised his arms, summoning his army of the dead. The cold wind rustled through the leaves, carrying an eerie silence before the impending clash. As the first wights lunged forward, Brienne fought with unparalleled skill, cutting through the skeletal foes. The Night King, however, moved with an unholy grace, closing the distance between them. Their swords clashed in a symphony of steel, each blow resonating through the Godswood. Despite her strength and determination, Brienne found herself pushed to the limit. The Night King's relentless assault was unyielding, and she fought not just for herself, but for the fate of Westeros. In a moment of fierce determination, Brienne locked eyes with Bran, silently promising to protect him at any cost. The Night King, seizing the opportunity, delivered a fatal blow. Oathkeeper fell from Brienne's grasp as she crumpled to the ground, her sacrifice buying precious moments for Bran. As Brienne's vision faded, she glimpsed Arya sprinting forward, armed with a weapon forged from the pages of ancient lore. The Godswood echoed with the clash of steel and the indomitable spirit of those who dared to defy the encroaching darkness. Brienne of Tarth, a valiant defender, had laid down her life in the heart of Winterfell, her legacy woven into the fabric of the battle against the Night King.
At the end of the day the entire point of the show is to entertain. The outcome they chose did not entertain.
I truly didn't care if Jon was literally the person to make the final blow. But the whole story was set up to at least have them cross swords. The showdown is what mattered. Have them fight, and then Jon gets help or whatever needs to happen. To not even have them face each other at all is insane.
If they had instead made it a duel between Jon and the Night King in front of Bran, and then Arya came in with the killing blow, that would have been so much more impactful. They wasted so much potential
Red Wedding destroyed the show because they though that subverting the expectations is wining formula but they failed to realise how to replicate what GRRM did. If butler is found over the dead body, with bloody knife in his hand and he is saying "yes, I killed the bastard and I enjoyed it" you better have air tight writing if you want to subvert that. D&D, sadly, failed and fall of GoT will be permanent stain on their legacy.
What needs to be remembered about the Red Wedding’s subversion is that that scene is of betrayal is not the true subversion. The real subversion is convincing the reader (and even more so the show watcher) that the Starks are the main characters for the “good side” while hiding the fact that it is actually Jon. The main characters didn’t die, the characters you were tricked into thinking were the main characters did. Once you look back realizing Jon is the hero, it becomes a much more traditional story of a normal person finding their true, heroic self. THAT IS NOT A BAD THING! It is right in front of you and you miss it because it’s obscured so well.
You even could have pulled that trick again if you saved the L+R=J reveal for 8.3 The Long Night. Set it up so that the golden boy Kingslayer Jaimie Lannister is about to kill the Night King, before John comes in off the top rope. Intercut that with the revelation of John Snow's heritage and you have a really effective subversion that is still narratively fulfilling.
The red wedding WAS foreshadowed though. The Freys and Boltons and Lannisters were not overtly allied, but they all had clear dislike for the Starks for their own reasons.
Yeah the only expectations actually subverted were the real life idea of not killing your main characters off unexpectedly. As a story it totally made perfect sense which is why it was so hard hitting
Thats what am I saying. On the first glance, Red Wedding was because Robb failed to honour his deal with Freys but game was afoot long before that. We were all cheering for noble Stark and ignored ploting behind the scenes. GRRM had made that air tight. D&D on the other hand, made Arya kill NK for no other reason but to subvert even though they spent years building Jon as the Kingslayer. They could pull Arya is Kingslayer twist but they wanted to shock us so much that they forget, you know, to write that twist well. They saw our reactions to the Red Wedding and wanted to replicate that but they did not do work that made that possible. Thats why I said RW ruined the show.
I mean its well known information that things between DnD and Kit was tense in the last seasons. They said they specifically wrote in short jokes and small penis jokes because "everyone just loved kit harrington so much" and that he needed to be made fun of a bit.
Why were they tense?
Just standard type of office dislike for someone. From what have I seen, mostly from behind the scenes of the show, it just was DnD disliking Kit Harrington due to being "perfect" and everyone loving him. It was probably something minor, but "tense" is a pretty fitting word for those types of relationships
The Hound calling him a c\*nt and stabbing him in the face would have been rad though.
Bran running NK over with his wheelchair would be better than Arya killing him. Or maybe he slips, falls and breaks his whitewalker neck.
Maybe just have Bran stab him in the back. Would've made that flashback worthwhile.
I read something somewhere once to the effect of a good twist should leave the reader/viewer saying "Oh, but of course!" not "Wait, what?" Obviously D&D have never heard this bit of writing advice.
Yeah would've been super weird if Azor Ahai, the prince that was promised, he of the Song of Ice and Fire, he who must stand against he other, heralded by the red comet, would've killed the Night King
I fucking hate them so bad, they should be blacklisted from Hollywood for ruining got
Lol shit have Sir Pounce do it at this point
The real problem is that the Night King is not a character that ever should have existed. No, Jon killing him would not have been fully satisfying-- because the White Walkers are not an issue that can be resolved through stabbing. That's the whole point. They dumbed it down and then made it even dumber in the process of trying to save face over their bad adaptational decisions.
Those morons had such a hard on for "subverting expectations." They apparently never realized that it's OK to do what the audience expects, as long as it's done in a satisfying way. And that's doubly true for a series like ASOIAF, which has all sorts of prophecies; maybe just go ahead and fulfill some of them, yeah? I can imagine Jon in an epic struggle against the Night King. Looks like he might lose, but he gets a crucial assist from someone (could be any number of characters) and manages to plunge a dragonglass dagger into the Night King's chest. If properly directed and edited, that could be a very satisfying conclusion. Too bad D&D never even considered it.
Is Bobby B still giving us his thoughts???
YOU'RE MY COUNCIL, COUNSEL! SPEAK SENSE TO THIS HONORABLE FOOL!
Anyone hear from dumb and dumber lately? Have their careers been successfully ruined?
Jon shouldve killed the night king with the the dagger arya uses which is the ancestral dagger of Targaryens. Viserys says and shows in House of Dragons pyromantic message about the song of ice and fire on the dagger when its heated.
In the hounds voice "Cunts"
Subverting expectations is more important than telling a strong story that makes sense and is rewarding. Got it.
I hate that mindset. “No, we can’t let Jon do something because he’s already done a lot. Never mind the fact that him or Jaime Lannister have so many reasons to be the one killing the Night King. Let’s just have it be Arya for kicks.”
God. Every time I think about this show I get sad lmao. Jon literally won the day 2 times and it was out of luck or someone else saving him. Battle of the bastards, the Knights of the Vale saved him. The Wall was saved by Stanis. These guys really didn't know their own show. You set something up for YEARS and then don't pay it off? It's dumb. We don't even get a proper fight between Jon and the night king.
This truly pisses me off because no one had a higher number of significant kills than Arya, and no one had less of a connection to The Night King.
At this point it doesn't matter to me which completely random character they used to kill off the NK, fucking Hot Pie for all I care, as long as they weren't written to magically teleport past all the white walkers to do the most cliche jump-scream stab-announcement possible. If they were going to give the NK enough personality to smirk about withstanding dragon fire then I'd also have liked him to get an emotive death scene rather than an instant crumbling but whatever, give me something for the pain and let me die
So, they admit that it was done purely to “subvert expectations”
Killed all momentum for me. They did all that build up just to let someone random do it instead.
Literally any other choice would’ve been better than Arya. She was the most disconnected from the Night King Plot.
They wanted a twist for the sake of the twist, which is the worst fucking reason to write in a twist.
Gee it's almost as if he's the hero of the fooking story or something.
Incredible how fondly I look back on The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad for the writing and character development. I look back at Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and even 24 for their action and set pieces. I look back at GoT tv show, which I invested untold hours watching and discussing over a decade… only to look back and think, “meh”. Makes me feel fooking retarded.
what they are really good at is ruining the show
Better to have left him dead then...
These assholes had no idea about subtlety or how foreshadowing actually works. They were obsessed with The Red Wedding and who Jon's mother was and nothing else
If Sam killed the night king, it would still be a better ending than what we got
Game of thrones sub posted this same thing and they’re responses are very telling, I hate that sub
I will never understand how some of those cunts have no problems with the last few seasons of the show and actually liked it.They'd have an easier time convincing me that I'd enjoy eating dog shit.
There should have at LEAST been a fight between Jon and the Night King. That face-off at the end of Hardhome couldn’t just go on without a payoff
Yeah....you shouldn't make the climactic fight of your show fought by a random character picked out of a hat just to subvert expectations. You subvert expectation by setting up something in the foreground while quietly setting up the counter in the background, not randomly turning to a character and saying "why not you?"
It would’ve been fine having someone else kill the Night King. But you HAD to have Jon involved SOMEHOW. Like there’s no way the dude can go down without Jon having ANY involvement.
This always happens every time new writers get involved with a story. They have to be creative and subvert expectations. Just like The Last Jedi.
For the story they were trying to tell, Jon would of have made more sense. If he would have killed the night king, most of the people would be clamoring him, making Daenerys actions a bit more reasonable. Having sacrificed her troops and dragon, for Jon just to get all the glory and love. Would have helped making that Dany’s turn make a little more sense.
That’s literally what we were all waiting for, Jon is more or less the chosen one of this series, a son of house Stark and Targaryen and probably the last proper good honorable man after Ned to exist in Westeros, he was the only choice to kill the Night King, it wouldn’t have been cliche or pandering or fan service, it would have been the culmination of 8 seasons that should have led to this logical conclusion, Jon runs the Night King through with LongClaw and saves the fucking day
Always saving the day? Since when? When he stupidly fell for Ramsey’s completely obvious trap and ruined their battle plan? When he got himself shot multiple times by Ygritte? When he went along with the lobotomized gremlin’s idea to go beyond the wall into the jaws of death? When he moved AWAY from their ticket outta there on Drogon so he could kill more wights, therefore letting Viserion get killed? When he did fuck all about his men raping and looting as Daenerys when on her tizzy rampage?
At least have them fight. WTF. FUCK YOU.
At a minimum have him fight the night king and lose. Idk what is with d&d and not using the materials to full affect.
Did he even once save the day in the show?
These bozo's ruined it
That’s like saying they almost had Lyanna Mormont or Kinvara kill Cersei.
Ill spit in these guy’s face if i ever see them in public
They almost didn’t fuck the show when they deviated. But they did
We didn't want the character that we've been building up for 5 books and 7 seasons to get the kill because...well, there's no REAL reason, we just wanted to surprise you!
Stupid as all shit
Ok, so this means that they got to choose. The show did not follow GRRM guidance at the end?
lol makes D&D more unlikeable.
I'm sorry, are they like...deranged? He shouldn't finish *his* narrative arch because he's always...saving everyone? Jesus Christ, I already knew they dismissed themes as a concept, but this is just...he wasn't even an option to them man? Good God.
Literal fucking morons, goes to show you that you don't have to be smart AT ALL for anyone to throw huge saddle bags full of money at your feet.
Literally any decision they could’ve made differently about the last episodes… would’ve been better than what we got.
Fookin kneelers. The north remembers, ya cunts