No, it’s randos (so far) from three specific time periods—the Stone Age, the Viking age, and the 19th Century. The main storyline is about a Viking Age woman who has integrated enough to join the police force and is teamed with a modern guy to solve the murder of a Stone Age woman. The backdrop is how all the various peoples learn to integrate together
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First “oh no” moment for me was the idiocy of the end of littlefinger. The master schemer and smartest guy in the world getting wrecked in an upstairs downstairs Victorian farce
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Interesting. Everyone I know, including myself, loved that episode. I suspect it has something to do with empowerment and the women finally breaking out to save themselves by using a man’s weakness against him (especially after the egregious treatment of Sansa up till then).
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His plot may have worked (although his actual motivations and desired endgame were always muddy) if it hadn’t been for the all-seeing Bran. That’s another level of lazy writing. Give a character superpowers so they can save the day when you need them to but nerf their powers without explanation later when using them would remove any sense of real threat.
I also think I may have had a different experience binging the whole series in less than 4 weeks. Jumping quickly from one episode to the next there’s less reflection. It was also unique in that it was really just one long story. Even other shows that go by this formula usually have a new story arc/characters/villains every season.
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If sansa had just been like “this guy sucks lets chop his dick off” that would’ve been cool. And very in tune with the matter of fact nature of characters dying in GOT. The totally convoluted nature of the scheme with the ultimate ending being lol Bran saw you back in tiiiiiiiiime!! was no good.
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I’m assuming we don’t need spoilers anymore for GoT.
Would love to hear a newbie’s reaction to Ned Stark at the end of season 1 and the Red Wedding. I assume you were spoiled for those, but they must have still garnered a reaction.
My contention has always been that the whole point of the series was to create a foundation for Dany’s behavior after the Battle of Winterfell coming out of nowhere in a way that was shocking and could come across as trolling the audience. If the ending felt rushed, it’s because they only had three episodes after that, but Dany needed to be at peak heroism during that battle and her decline shouldn’t have started until after that point. As it was, I felt it was foreshadowed enough and consistent with her previous behavior that there were fan theories arguing that it would happen.
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Ned’s death and the red wedding weren’t specifically spoiled, just that it had a reputation as a show that can kill off any character at any point (something the writers arguably got lazier with as the series went on). The only specific spoilers I had heard were about Jon Snow’s death and revival, and that Bran ended up king.
I wasn’t that invested in Ned Stark as a character by the end of season 1. One thing that sort of happens in a long series is that all characters start off sort of one dimensional and then get added to later on. Especially this show that spends so much time cutting and jumping between characters and places. I was sort of indifferent to his death. He was the main character, but wasn’t one of the more interesting ones. The sequences leading up to his death did a good job establishing Cersei as the real villain of the series though.
The red wedding was another thing entirely. That was a hell of an episode. The idea that the Frey’s would switch alliances and in the process lure the Stark’s into a trap and mass execute them wasn’t by itself a huge surprise, although I admit I didn’t see it coming at all. But the execution of it. Holy shit. I don’t think I’ve seen a sequence of deaths in a series that felt more real and tragic than that.
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I loved Sansa’s ascension and Littelfinger’s end.
The one they did wrong was Varys. My god. What a great character who was suddenly so terrible that even the actor said wtf.
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For me GOT starting plummeting downhill in S5 or S6, can’t remember the exact timeline and I refuse to rewatch those later seasons but when they ran out of book plot lines and turned the show into Michael Bay style blockbuster action sets it started sucking. I’ve watched the 1st 4 seasons a bunch and still love them.
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I think The Two Who Shall Not Be Named turned out to be terrific at adapting and simplifying and sometimes improving the books.
But yeah, when it came time for original content from a vague outline…
Exactly, I thought they did an amazing job with the source material but once that ran out it was not good. I think we can just blame this on GRRM’s stupid ass for being a lazy bum
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GoT became irredeemable episode 5 of season 7. It’s after the Loot Train episode (that I loved) which ends with Bronn saving Jamie as they both jump into a lake. The next episode starts with the 2 of them literally coming up out of the lake far and away from where they went in. Jamie in full armor. Was offensive.
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He was wearing the ancient magical armour of “Plot”. Very buoyant.
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Hahahahaha the sudden ability to teleport anywhere in Westeros was pretty funny. A shame really, because I feel part of the appeal of GoT was that it spent most of the season filling in those areas other shows would skip, like the stuff that happens while traveling vast distances to accomplish one small piece of a grander design.
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What irritated me more about that sequence was that he was supposedly riding at the dragon in like ankle deep water, gets knocked off his horse and thrown a few feet, and is now drowning in very deep water? OK sure, I’ll play along. Showing him sinking to his death but then being fine the next show was bad too.
They do that a few times. Sansa and Theon jumping off the wall too. The first 7.5 seasons still had their dumb moments, but most shows do.
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I thought this was going to lead to great things.
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But this is why the books will never be finished. It’s not possible to get everyone where they need to be in a reasonable time frame and have them all arrive at the same time given the distances involved and GRRM is too stubborn/proud/has too much integrity (depending on your point of view) to cheat like the TV show.
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The books will never be finished because GRRM hasn’t known where to go with them for a long time and is pretty clearly not devoting much actual time to writing them.
The later seasons of Game of Thrones did give me newfound respect for some of the actors, particularly Emilia Clarke.
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Can’t we just get Brandon Sanderson to finish everything??
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GRRM has explicitly said that he is intentionally vague about dates and distances so that he can’t be nitpicked about continuity.
I honestly think he might not be capable of thinking up a better way than the show of getting to his intended end place for all the characters. If he ever finishes the series, we’re going to have points where we all go: “The TV show did it better”.