#got criticism

[growingstrong2019]

David Benioff on the sacking of Highgarden:

"The Tyrells...Fighting isn't really their forte, I mean they're just not known for being the most fearsome warriors, so to have a long extended battle there didn't make a lot of sense."

What the fuck was he talking about? The Tyrell’s helped Tywin defeat Stannis Baratheon at Kingslanding. Tywin even entrusted Loras to save Cersei & Tommen from Stannis’s soldiers. His arrival stopped Cersei from killing then both.

Loras even defeated Jamie at a tourney before the events of the show. Like they forgot what they established in their own show. I’m so glad D&Ds careers are over.

[hell-heron]

Show negative thoughts don't like don't read:

GRRM makes the choice not to show us book Theon's POV before Bran and Rickon's escape, only through Bran's eyes. Thats a cool literary device and so heartbreaking, we are left to wonder oh Theon did it feel good at least while it was happening did you have time to feel any joy and vindication before it all went bad?

This left so much room for D&D to play with a contrast of before and after, lots of room for creative portrayal of this downfall arc, but they... Didn't really? Like obviously there was a downfall in a certain sense but Theon is absolutely in Theon VI mode from the very beginning. We have a scene of him bungling an execution and publicly breaking down, it's moved to before the escape. We have a scene of him being confronted by Ser Rodrik on his hostage/loyalty issues and just plainly admitting how traumatized he is because he's just that broken down and raw etc. And thats also moved before the escape. These are his first actions in Winterfell, in fact. I know time costraints etc but just... How the fuck do you read the Beth parley scene and not find it something so cinematic you absolutely must render, what's wrong with you, couldn't they just merge Beth and Jeyne if that was the issue?

We just get Theon being so sensitive and embarrassing and publicly spiraling from the start and everything that happens is a natural consequence of his own specific brand of patheticness present there from the start, downfall arc routed in the inherent impossibility of ruling mercifully in a conquest situation and cruelty of war etc what is that. Just as with Ramsay we'll helpfully be treated to many good reasons about how the Reek treatment Is tailored on Theon's specific oh so pathetic and sensitive individuality, alienating results of torture and Ramsay are an escapable force of evil what are those.

[ymabdarogan]

Between Game of Thrones’ glorious crash and burn and The Anne Boleyn Sapphire Caricature Show rotting in obscurity less than two years post-release it must be that a finger curls on a monkey’s paw every time there’s a new installment in the low effort & racist cinematic universe

[mainflopgirl]

[bighound-littlebird]

why do you think d&d made sandor such a crude almost gross character? because in the books hes not really a “mans” character if that makes sense? he’s like borderline poetic and self conscious and he cries damn near all the time but the show kinda made him into some “oh hes a badass and hes gross guys will love him” character which was a strange creature decision

The frat boy show writers cannot write original material for any of the complex characters of asoiaf - and least of all one like Sandor Clegane.

They absolutely cannot reconcile that one of the largest, fastest, fiercest warriors in Westeros also:

wears a jeweled brooch

cheers Tommen's jousting play

gently wipes Sansa's mouth

carefully encourages her to dress

gives nicknames to Sansa and Arya

takes Myrcella's side over Joffrey

cares about the welfare of his horse

bends down to pet dogs

cries

knows and secretly enjoys the same songs and fairy tales as Sansa

noticably takes care of his appearance as best as he can

commissions clothing with his house sigil and wears them on special occasions.

sings, laughs, visits bars and brothels

expresses his vulnerablity both emotionally and physically to Sansa and Arya

attempts to comfort grieving Arya and Sansa

House Clegane is a relatively new, smaller house of landed knights - they are not considered smallfolk by any means in Westeros. And there is nothing in canon to indicate that Sandor is unclean, constantly eating and drinking, or swearing, so show!Sandor is the creation of the writers (except in the episodes GRRM wrote).

D&D and Cogman view belonging to any house other than the most powerful in Westeros, as synonymous with being one dimensional, dirty, vulgar, rude, unhygienic, with no manners or social skills.

When asked which asoiaf house they identified with, both D&D immediately answered "House Lannister", which, considering the way they mistreated Sandor Clegane, seems accurate.

They obviously were going for cheap laughs as well. Portraying Sandor Clegane as a bit of a joke allowed them to keep his character development on the shallow side for the majority of the series.

Of course this completely backfired on them, because it rendered his time in recovery meaningless and made his final confrontation with Gregor an unnecessary regression - just like everything else in S8.

[thebluelemontree]

How do you feel about GRRM's response to the fan outrage over what GOT very infamously did to Sansa's character? You know, THAT episode? A lot of articles seem to frame it as though he was supportive of their decision. I read his whole blog post about it, and to me it sounds more like he was being diplomatic? Still, I love Sansa so much that I can't help but feel disheartened. He's supposedly passionate about his characters, so how could he not be thoroughly disgusted by that atrocity?

Oh, I’m sure he personally would have preferred to never have been asked what he thought about THAT episode at all. Well, it was unavoidable since it was all anyone was talking about at the time. My impression from what I read is that the answer he was willing to give publically was as vague and diplomatic as possible. His private opinions, of which I’m sure he had many, are between him and his closest confidants. Keep in mind he released the Alayne I TWOW sample chapter about a month prior to the episode’s airing, so take that as you will. 

It’s frustrating as a fan, I know, but some things (like publicly criticizing the show you’re involved with) just aren’t going to happen. You have to consider:

No matter if he said he loved it or hated it, neither one of those answers is going to be worth the inevitable media and fandom uproar because he knows the world dissects every little word he says ad nauseum. 

He’s definitely not going to show himself to the industry hire-ups to be someone who gives bad press to a show that is making them all a lot of money. He’s got a spinoff series in the works at HBO to think about. I know this sounds disappointing, but the man knows which side his bread is buttered on. And while it would be lizard-brain euphoric for me to hear GRRM take D&D down a few pegs, he knows how the tv industry works. He’s not going to fuck up his hard-earned success and future success by dying on that hill. Look how quickly the show is evaporating from the cultural consciousness anyway, and ask yourself if shooting your own career in the foot would’ve been worth it? 

I have no doubt in my mind that GRRM was probably really pissed and horrified at a great many things in the show and the showrunners themselves. As far as I’m concerned, the best revenge would be to get TWOW published and have it be a smashing success in sales and critical acclaim. Fingers crossed. 

[fangirlfish]

Why Game of Thrones Had the Worst Series Finale of All Time

So here is my Post #900! And what a fun “hallmark post” this is!

Not going to lie. At first when I found this video, I was honestly scared this was going to be one of those annoying rant videos by a Dany stan complaining about how the ending was unjust to her character, what she stood for, and the way it ended for her.

However what I actually got watching this video was the overwhelming urge to clap and whoop. This video in just 10:11 minutes summarized almost everything, if not everything that was wrong with the final episode. Heck it even brought up some issues about the earlier part of season 8.

I kind of agreed with his points about Daenerys. The real issue with her is that the final spiral at the end was a bit rushed and not well set up in the sense that she just suddenly decides to burn down King’s Landing for almost no apparent reason. I mean you got some seeds, but it still came across as her just deciding, “fuck you assholes” and just start burning indiscriminately at innocent people unprovoked. She had all this opportunity to just fly to the Red Keep and kill Cersei. Yet she spends all this time burning all the people in the streets before she flies to attack the castle. This is all after they rang the bells indicating they were SURRENDERING TO HER. If this was better executed, it would have been obvious that she just decided if they weren’t going to crowd surf her to the Red Keep, they were ungrateful wretches that would never accept her. Now THAT would be in keeping with how she’s acted in the previous 3 seasons.

Seriously, I highly recommend you guys check this out. This video does a pretty good job covering all the things we collectively hated about the ending. I’m pleased to note that he didn’t complain about Sansa and even mentioned her only in the context of how she warned Jon about Daenerys, but D & D decide Jon need to be a dumbass who only had two basic types of things to say in his dialogue: “She’s my queen” and “I don’t want it.” The narrator doesn’t explicitly say it, but the fact he didn’t complain about her becoming Queen of the North says to me, he was okay with that because that ending seems to be one of the few that was actually deserved and paid off.

What do you guys think?

@jonskory @trinuviel @fedonciadale @une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir @oreoswirl1117 @thelawyerthatwaspromised @nessataleweaver @noonecanprotectanyone @murderouswhoresansa @turtle-paced @cantfightfatetoo @gillyflovvers @gingerlou0120 @an-oranophobic-maniac @kellyvela @sillyanshe @fortunatelylori @jonsameta @ladyandtheghost @jonsameta @qinaliel @nutellaninja0001 @twilight-sparx @wolvesofspring @yol101 @nothinghappensinalstonville @anouk-kim @arin-arryn @bricklebeary

@tubbylita @viking-hel @riahchan @athimbleful @rose-of-red-lake

[gotjonerys]

the only good thing that came out of the mess that was game of thrones (the tv show) for me was the way I look at the media that I consume and the false progressiveness in them.

in tumblr, for years, the show was the protagonist of countless analyzes on how multifaceted the female characters were and many of them still today are in gifsets about strong and empowered women (usually with 90% of them being white but this is another topic that deserve an entire post) and eventually when any of these posts return to my dash and i look the scenes in those gifs, I remember that these were just "great moments" of the character before she was brutally r*ped or killed.

the character had no real agency and when she started to have it (with a scene worthy of gifsets) it was just to be killed or cut next. it was so recurrent that in the last few seasons I already knew who would die just because of the sudden importance that the female character gained in the story.

it's all absolutely frustrating but at least we collectively learned the lesson of not applauding mediocrity and bare minimum.