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That’s just not true. Plenty happens, some of it wasn’t well written but it doesn’t distract IMO from how amazing S4 is. I agree with OP

Yep. And with GRRM not even finishing the books, I don't trust that the entire problem was only on those two idiot showrunners. Don't trust HotD at all on landing the ending, and considering they are keeping GoT with its trash ending as "canon" for the future of the same world that HotD takes place in, I don't even care about it in the first place. How can anything on HotD even matter or make sense in the context of the non sense that happens in the future?

But in response to the OP - yes season 4 was great. And it was the last great season too :(

Not true. There were solid climaxes on all of the first 5 seasons or so. Yes they fucked the conclusion and we are all lesser people because of it, but you cannot take those first 5 seasons away from us. They were magical

It took him 7 years to write book 5. And that was great. And before tv show even started. So I don't think that you can draw any conclusion. He is just a slow writer .

They should have given us Lady Stoneheart.

Seasons 1-4 of GoT for me are easily the best pieces of television i've watched, ever. Only thing that comes close would be Breaking Bad, i personally prefer the fantasy epic's over anything, which is why i loved GoT way more. That's just me though.

I used to rewatch every single season of GoT before a new one would drop, was doing this since season 3 or 4 i think. That's how much i loved it.

After seasons 7 and 8 and what they did to the show, a large part of my life was just gone. No interest in further rewatches, no interest in book re-reads, in my head GoT was a great piece of television which aired for 5 seasons and then just abruptly ended, no idea why HBO cancelled it!

( the reason why i included season 5 which wasn't as good as season 4 is beacuse of episode 8 "Hardhome", which is a straight 10/10 )

Also season 1 of HotD was fine to me, but nowhere close to season 1 of GoT. I'm interested to see what they can do with season 2, but season 1 was just, eh. I have 0 interest in rewatching it.

The characters and dialogue in HotD for now are just orders of magnitude worse than early GoT 's Tyrion, Tywin, Jamie, Ned, Bobby B, Littlefinger, Varys.... the list goes on and on.

Viserys and Daemon had a few solid moments, but that's about it. I rewatched GoT season 1 alongside the books so many times it's hard to keep track of, couldn't be bothered to even think about a HotD rewatch. I know i'm judging them by the insanely high bar of GoT, but it is a prequel

5 was closer to 6-8 in terms of quality than to 1-4

It had some cool moments but the quality of plot, writing and dialogue took a tumble there

Season 5 definitely wasn't as good as the first 4, true.

I always give it a pass though beacuse the last 3 episodes in season 5 were really fucking good, especially episode 8.

Yeah the notion that an unfinished story has no value is a very pessimistic one. We spend plenty of time piecing together the stories of real history even though we know we'll never have a complete picture of it.

It's a fucking shame how it all turned out and I don't blame any individual for not wanting to engage with ASOIAF any further. I just hope that the prevailing narrative that the early seasons/the books are fundamentally tainted will start to shift soon and that they can be appreciated in spite of their conclusion or lack thereof.

Not even the best GoT season

Season 4 is definitely my favourite. Oberyn Martell, The Trial of Tyrion, death of the cunt king, just an amazing season.

I think that 5 might might not have been as good as season 1-4 but it was a lot better than most other shows, and far from 6-8.

I’d say the wire beats both breaking bad and GoT

So much happens here. Sansa escaping KL and coming into her own was a big jump in her arc. Jon steadily grows into a significant figure. Arya and Hound continue an unlikely bond with each other. Amazing stuff all around.

it's not a game though. Remember goat stands for game of all time.

Good writeup. Yeah those 4 seasons were supreme. Even when met with competition like Breaking Bad or Sopranos, what wins the case for GOT is how many levels above it was compared to others in ambition and scope. Basically it was much easier to mess up Thrones than something like Mad Men or BB. There are just so many parts in motion and a great skill was required to make it all coherent and thrilling.

> After seasons 7 and 8 and what they did to the show, a large part of my life was just gone.

Same. I dunno how many hours I have sunk in watching, reading, discussing, arguing over Thrones.

> the reason why i included season 5 which wasn't as good as season 4 is beacuse of episode 8 "Hardhome", which is a straight 10/10 )

Hardhome is magnificent. I always get chills during the last 20 minutes or so. Such fine piece of filmmaking.

HOTD was above average. The story isn't exciting and neither are the characters too compelling. But visually it is dazzling.

it's a fun debate. I think the wire is a better show, but i enjoyed breaking bad more.

I completely understand that. I think the wire is a heavier show to swallow. Some scenes are fucking brutal. I think breaking bad is a much more fun show and easier to watch. Idk if that makes sense

D&D didn't like all that fantasy stuff in their... Fantasy show.

Ironically they made GoT S6-S8 typical fantasy with rushed ending

I preferred Season 6.

the craziest thing about this part of the story is that Seasons 3 and 4 are combined into one book. Imagine all the climactic moments from both these seasons but happening back to back to back.

> It had some cool moments but the quality of plot, writing and dialogue took a tumble there

That's how I'd describe 6. 5 was a mixed bag and the lows were really low but it still felt like they were trying.

> Don't trust HotD at all on landing the ending

The story being told in HotD is already finished in Fire & Blood, they'll have to flesh it out a lot but it has a clear and defined trajectory.

dont really agree. that storyline never went anywhere and the character literally had no character. im glad it got cut out of the show.

man its just a tv show. and this type of commentary is so exaggerated and nostalgic.

yes the last few seasons were a drop in quality, no it wasnt the worst tragedy in human history and were still fairly entertaining.

> no it wasnt the worst tragedy in human history

Literally no one said this mate

> and were still fairly entertaining.

Dude, now you're just making me laugh. If that was entertaining to you then holy shit lol. GoT went from a 9-10/10 rated show to 2-3/10 at best.

GoT was a global and cultural phenomenom in it's prime, and you're surprised people are still sad it got butchered towards the end? Man please, complete nonsense of a comment

Shae was a much more interesting character in the show and giving her the same book fate made no sense to me. Season doesn’t work for me for that reason. Wish they went off book for her.

To be fair (I haven’t read the books too for what it’s worth), do we know it doesn’t go anywhere? I was under the impression it was kind of still developing as of the end of the most recent book.

> GoT went from a 9-10/10 rated show to 2-3/10 at best.

this is exactly what i'm talking about, this is a completely ridiculous opinion.

you still watched every episode. you were so engaged that you cant let it go until today, years after it's over. thats a fucking 2 out of 10? lmao. what rating is the other 95% of garbage pumped out by every studio constantly?

it was entertaining to you as well, you just cant admit it because of the narrative that arose.

if it wasnt, you would have stopped watching it.

? Are you actually serious?

Yeah i was totally gonna not watch the last season of a show i've been watching/following/reading books about for years... ?

I have no idea if you're actually serious or just a troll, genuinely no idea.

Season 7 was bad and riddled with mistakes, ofcourse everyone also watched season 8 just to watch the train derail and burn completely.

Bro what are your comments genuinely?

They made the right choice to cut it if they weren't going to dive deeper into what's happening in the riverlands.

developing is a big stretch. there were a few chapters about it and they were quite vague. it was basically just a way to give some well-liked characters a reason to group up.

they arent even really mentioned in the 5th book afair, only up to the 4th book. and that shit was in 2005. almost 20 years, thats no longer "developing"

Should D&D have cut Oberyn Martell because his only function was to get his head crushed by the Mountain?

Lady Stoneheart did serve a function: She was the main person exacting poetic revenge on the Freys. They gave this role to Arya, which is problematic because Arya was already a vehicle for a million other happenings.

It also gave us reasons why Jon Snow's resurrection may not have been a good thing, where in the show it was unambiguously the right decision.

That careful crafting of tension and ambiguity is something D&D forgot to do in the final seasons, something Lady Stoneheart would've given more of.

nah i was just joking. the show was complete unwatchable garbage and a 1/10, you're right. off you go.

I've heard many opinions on the internet but enjoying season 8 of Game of Thrones is genuinely next level wild. More plotholes in season 7 and 8 than there are grains of sand on earth lmao

W/e man, i'm glad atleast you enjoyed it

from that perspective it just wouldve been a total red herring (it is, as far as we know since the books wont be finished). jon snow is revived without any issue or drawback and nothing ever happens to him.

also thats a pretty weird comparison to those characters btw who are all well-developed and you know, actual characters with conversations and personality. vs zombie lady who doesnt talk and we know nothing of her intentions/motivations other than general revenge, and we follow her because?

I’ll hop in here to back him up. I enjoyed the last two seasons of GOT as well. They are a clear decline from the prior seasons but still entertaining.

There is just nothing on tv that is made on that scale. I think the biggest thing that stopped people from enjoying it was their own expectations. If you go into it focusing solely on the negatives and “plot holes” of course you’re not going to enjoy it. But it is possible to just appreciate it for what it is.

Lady Stoneheart represents revenge the way GRRM intended: limitless, destructive, unclean.

By giving this moment to Arya in a crowd cheering moment, Arya is no longer a real character on a real journey, she instead became an omniscient, fast travelling, can-do-no-wrong dora the assassin.

They removed the best twist of the books post-season 4, then ruined one of the best characters by offloading all that baggage on Arya, and then completely subverted the way revenge is meant to be portrayed as intended by GRRM.

All this... just because Stoneheart might've been a bit meaningless? Lol. At that point, they should've just removed Oberyn Martell too.

I recently did a full rewatch and I don't think the story lost much without her. I think D&D made the right decision.

For starters, it would've been another storyline/character that D&D would have had to wrap up before the end and they clearly were struggling with what they already had.

They had Arya do what, 1 or 2 scenes taking revenge on the Freys? They would have needed to add more to justify Stoneheart or it wouldn't have been at all worth it to keep/revise a character that had little to do with the main story. Did we need more scenes of the Freys being hunted down? Nah. Arya standing in place was fine and took care of the Freys.

With John and Beric and the Mountain being revived from deaths, yet another character coming back would have lessened the stakes. (That said, D&D lessened the stakes anyhow with plot armor for the main "good guy" characters).

They wouldn't have had time to shoe-in more of John struggling about coming back than what was already in the show.

There were so many other problems with the later seasons that Stoneheart would've just been a waste of time.

We don't know if it goes anywhere but the show has been long over and the books don't seem likely to be finished so really, it doesn't matter whether or not Stoneheart is vital to the book storyline.

But currently, she just seems to be a revenge zombie which wasn't something the show needed.

The sheer build up and execution to the Watchers of the Wall is enough to qualify it alone. But I also love everything else about S4 as well.

People up here still justifying D&D's rampant cuts to the story and over-simplification of characters and themes despite this obviously ruining the show in spectacular fashion.

I mean it's widely regarded as the worst ending to a cultural phenomenon TV show with some of the worst glaring plotholes and rushed endings on TV ever, D&D themselves admitted they rushed the ending and declined HBO's proposals for more seasons/episodes.

If you guys actually enjoyed that trainwreck, then all the power to you, atleast someone gained some joy out of it.

Also this whole sentiment of "focusing on plot holes" is weird as hell. How in the actual hell do you not focus on extremely obvious plot holes which literally ruin not only the show but the previous 6 seasons aswell? There is no getting past that.

The fact that there's people actually defending Dan and Dave's "well she just kinda forgot" plotlines of season 8 is absolutely blowing my mind right now, genuinely the worst piece of television i've seen ever, i'm not trying to hate or be offensive but holy shit i'm actually baffled. Interesting conversation for sure.

There are literal 5 hour videos explaining and detailing every single gigantic plot hole and rushed production of season 7 and 8, but w/e.

The discussion is over, the show is ended, who cares amirite

So either you only read my first two sentences and completely overlooked the multiple times I criticized D&D or you're talking about other people in this thread. Your reply is very vague.

So here, D&D divebombed the show spectacularly, but losing Stoneheart was one of their rare right choices.

Honestly in my recent rewatch I thought that was one of the best seasons of a TV show I had ever seen. They did a great job of building up to an amazing pay off that happens in the last two episodes with the Battle of the Bastards and Cersi's revenge.

I can see why there was so much hype going into Seasons 7 & 8, and they definitely fumbled the ball at the goal line.

Arya fast travelling inside the Frey's castle and killing them all off screen in 30 seconds was easily one of the worst moments of the show.

Revenge in GOT became a cheap quick thrill for the crowd.

Arya became a fake character rather than a real person, an omniscient assassin who could kill the bad guys cleanly without any fallout because that's what the audience loves.

And we lost the best twist of the books after the Red Wedding, which is the reveal of Stoneheart, an insane moment justified by its own merit.

For all your problems with Stoneheart, a million more sprung up in her place because of her omission.

>Seasons 1-4 of GoT for me are easily the best pieces of television i've watched, ever. Only thing that comes close would be Breaking Bad

That was the time man, when GoT fans and BB fans used to argue about being the GOAT. As a fan of both, I could barely pick one myself and was just glad to be watching such peak television.

But once again, it was just another proof of why BB having such a perfect ending is a such a milestone in television. It's just extremely rare to have shows that consistently good throughout and also nail the ending.

S4 is hands down my favorite season and one of the best seasons of television ever made. The watchers on the wall puts most movie battles to shame. So many quotables, so many awesome moments, I dare you to not get pumped when the giant is charging the inner gate.

Then there's Oberyn, there's the purple wedding, the Mountain vs the Viper(for better or worse), Sansa finally playing the game(short-lived as that was), Tyrions trial, Brianne vs the Hound... I could go on.

Such a shame it was all downhill from there.

Yea i think its safe to say BB wins in the consistency and ending department 💀💀💀

I agree that Arya becoming a superhuman, and her "growth" as a character in general, were awful.

That said, all of the issues you brought up could have been fixed with better writing of her character.

Adding Stoneheart in in place of Arya just for your reasons would have been a complete waste of time. You're clearly very attached to the books so you should obviously be aware that as of this point, Stoneheart has had literally no effect on anything of importance in the story. I'll be generous and say she's in or referenced in maybe...15 pages of the books at this point? For all we know Brienne will get out of her noose and chop off Stoneheart's head right there. We have - and probably will continue to have - no idea.

They wanted to take out magic to appeal to "mothers and NFL players". That's a real quote.

The Sopranos is in its own orbit. Nothing like that was made before, and in some ways, since.

If I had to guess what Stoneheart's "ultimate" purpose is (since it seems like audiences everywhere are just obsessed with that stuff)...

Remember that story Catelyn told about how she hated Jon Snow and desperately wanted him dead?

Jon Snow would've likely reunited with Stoneheart at some point, and we'd seen a conclusion their specific dynamic. Either Jon would have to end Stoneheart's revenge spree out of pity, or Stoneheart would remember her promise to the gods, and finally put aside her hatred of Jon Snow and let him live, against all odds.

But I don't know, I'm not payed millions by HBO to deliver a fucking story rather than cut it to shreds.

Ashamed to admit I'm one of the people that this was for. Everytime the show turned into dragon fest i was bored. The dragons are easily my least favorite part of HOTD too. I like the political drama, not so much the fantasy elements.

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Who am i denying which opinion? The last season was objectively hot garbage according to 99% of critics/reviewers/fans/whoever.

Season 7 was bearable kind of but still riddled with horrible plot holes.

How is saying this being obnoxious? And it's not the comparison that makes them shitty, it's the plot holes

The fact that there's people defending one of the worst TV productions in years if not ever on a sub called /r/television is hilarious though lmfao, you guys absolutely deserved D&D.

Saying seasons 7 and 8 "weren't that bad" and were still "fairly entertaining" as the guy i replied to orginially is complete revisionism nonsense

Given that George RR Martin was also getting paid by HBO to deliver a story, and he spectacularly failed in doing so, I'm actually willing to give D&D a bit of slack here.

They were adapting books they loved based on the promise from the author that he'd have the whole thing wrapped up by the time they caught up with him, and instead they started having to write their own material because the author himself found it impossible to untangle all the different threads.

Did they do a great job? No.

Should they really have been put in that position? Also no.

GRRM: "I was pretty much out of the loop After GOT Season 4"

"you get the famous creative differences thing – that leads to a lot of conflict."

I'm not willing to give D&D "dany kind of forgot lol, sansa is the smartest character lol, also we killed off barristan selmy because the actor got sad about it" any slack.

They should've given showrunning over to someone willing to carry things the rest of the way with passion and care. It's obvious they just didn't care anymore, they just wanted to film a bunch of cool battle scenes for a giant paycheck and then move onto something else.

HOTD's success paired with keeping GRRM involved only confirms to me that D&D were the main factor in GOT falling apart post S4. They thought they could do better than GRRM, they failed spectacularly, end of story.

Pedro Pascal really felt like the only actor/character that actually challenged Tywin and put him in his place

I agree, the Sopranos is so overrated Game of Thrones was better

Sopranos is overrated

The Sopranos beats the Wire

Yeah. I don't really understand why so many people seem to extend their justified anger about the last two season to S5+6 as well.

Yes, both seasons start to show some cracks, but they are not a big step down from the first 4 in my opinion. They also deliver a lot on the build up from previous seasons which to me almost makes up for some of the areas that were not as great.

Very few characters are mentioned in both the 4th and 5th books, they take place at the same time in different parts of the world. As of where the books left off, Lady Stoneheart is moments away from executing two of the most important characters in the story, I would say that definitely seems to be going somewhere.

Bro let people have their opinions goddamn 💀

Oberyn and Tyrion's "I will be your champion" scene is the best in the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4eH46P-SoU

"'That's not a monster,' I told Cersei. 'That's just a baby.' And she said, 'He killed my mother.... Everyone says he will die soon. I hope they are right. He should not have lived this long.'"

>For starters, it would've been another storyline/character that D&D would have had to wrap up before the end and they clearly were struggling with what they already had.

Absolutely not, as the beginning of Lady Stoneheart was the end of Beric Dondarrion.

The Winds of Winter is the best episode of the show for me.

It's not a real quote. Someone misquoted them as they were live-tweeting an event, and publications ran with it. When the audio turned up with what they actually said, those publications didn't rush to correct themselves. What they actually said:

>“With the fantasy genre on television, tonally it’s very easy [go too] campy. Every scene, you change these two lines and it’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Weiss jokes. “Also, in terms of fantasy exposition, with proper nouns, it’s almost like a game of Jenga, where you’re trying to plow as many of them as possible without the whole thing falling over. In the first pilot, we had one too many and the whole thing fell over. Going forward, we tried to keep that stuff to a minimum, because we didn’t just want to appeal to a fantasy fanbase. We wanted them to love it, and we wanted our parents to love it, and people who play professional football to love it. We wanted to reach a wider audience, and to do that keeping the tone [under control] was very important.”

Character was introduced in the final page of a book released 23 years ago. Since then, they've appeared in a single chapter from a book released 18 years ago.

I don't think GRRM has any idea what's going on with the character. I don't blame D&D for dropping her.

That doesn't negate what I said.

In the show, Dondarrion, after Arya left the gang, is mostly nothing more than an extra sword with maybe a line or two of dialogue per ep. Dondarrion ultimately dies in the final battle against zombies. He never had any of his own storylines, he was always a part of someone else's.

Replacing him with Stoneheart as in the books would have required whole new storylines. Stoneheart as a character would have required an end point and she would have needed a more significant ending than what Beric got since Cat was a majorly prominent character. So, like I said, it would have been another storyline/character to wrap up in a show where D&D were already very clearly struggling to juggle storylines and characters.

They would have struggled a lot less if they had thrown out less.

The writers took out a lot, but they seemed to disregard the difficulty of writing plot to replace what they cut.

Dondarrion being just an extra sword is a result of the writers cutting the end of his story and then having to come up with more for him to do.

Maybe if they had let him die bringing back Stoneheart, we wouldn't have had to suffer through the "seven dudes try to capture a zombie for some reason" plot line. Beric would be dead, Thoros and Gendry would be with the Brotherhood under Stoneheart.

There is a middle ground between Season 1 of the Witcher in which they absolutely do have too many "proper nouns" introduced for most viewers, and then whatever it was that they gave us. The key is being a good writer, so, ya know...

Low key, Sansa had the best and most consistent arc of the entire series.

That is one of the cuts I can live with. The question is: Where is the character going? We don't know since we don't have the ending for her.

Then you have brain damage

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It's not even the best season of the series.

It has some of the best moments in the series but its where the cracks first started to show, in the fact everything that happened in the north before the attack on the wall was inconsequential filler.

You can't compare the Sopranos and GoT. They're probably my two favorite TV shows, but it's like they're not even playing the same game.

I agree with you and I'm not ashamed to admit. The political scheming was by far the best part of the show. The dragons and White Walkers were always much less interesting.

Season 4 is the peak of the show and books

I feel like The Witcher was confusing on purpose though with the timelines, it's like they wanted you to always be wondering "wtf was that about"

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That sucked, but what really got me was the way they resolved Tyrion's arc.

In the books, he's constantly revisiting the trauma of his relationship with Tysha. She was the first woman Tyrion was ever with, and he wound up falling for her and marrying her. Tywin found out, and ordered her to be raped by his entire guard, then ordered Tyrion to rape her last before he sent her away. Tywin reveals he did this because she was just a whore who was conning Tyrion, and Jaime admits that he knew about it. This obviously fucks Tyrion up, both because of the obvious horror of what happened to her and the implication that nobody will ever love him genuinely. The whole Shae situation reopens this wound.

When Jaime and Varys come to smuggle Tyrion out of the city, the subject of Tysha comes up. Jaime admits that he lied, and that Tysha was actually just a commoner who fell for Tyrion. Tywin forced Jaime to pretend otherwise to teach Tyrion a lesson. In a rage, Tyrion admits (falsely) to assassinating Joffrey, and tells Jaime (truthfully) that Cersei is fucking just about everybody she can behind Jaime's back. He then sneaks into the Tower of the Hand, murder's Shae in cold blood, then has an argument with Tywin about Tysha. This culminates with him shooting Tywin the second he calls Tysha a whore.

In the show, all the Tysha stuff is dropped. Tyrion sneaks into the Tower of the Hand unprompted, and tearfully kills Shae in self-defense. He then kills Tywin for calling Shae a whore. He also has a tearful, sentimental farewell with Jaime. All in all, it was a much more sanitized happy ending for Tyrion, and wound up robbing both him and Jaime of their purposes in future seasons. Jaime was supposed to grow distant from Cersei, instead he keeps doing her bidding and we get whatever the fuck that Dorne arc was. Tyrion was supposed to stay on his trajectory of becoming a vengeful monster who wants nothing more than to hurt everybody who's wronged him. Instead he becomes a cheerful drunk who likes to make quips and ask invading queens to pretty-please not kill any of the people who wronged him.

I don’t see why the show should affect your enjoyment of the books. They are such vastly different stories, in terms of themes explored, that I just separate the two.

Plus, the ending of the show had massive plot points straight up invented by D&D.

Yeah, ASOIAF was my favorite series and I was so excited (and scared) when the show was announced. At the time I only knew one or two other people in real life that had actually read the books, and this show made my DAD read them. And he doesn't read fantasy. Anyways, I was scared they'd butcher the characters and turn them into caricatures. The show improved some characters (Oberyn and Davos were show favorites of mine and I did not care for them in the books) and made others worse (book Jon >>> show Jon, Mance Rayder) and some I feel were perfectly cast (Jaime, Cersei, Tywin, Tyrion, Jorah). Plus the show gave us that badass Mormont child leader. She's the best part of the last seasons.

Anyways, while the show had book source material it stayed great. And when it started "spoiling" the books for me my resentment and anger (at GRRM, whether that's fair or not) totally did contribute to my less charitable opinions on the storylines. I had wanted to read these, not see the dumbed down version with missing character arcs try to wrap it all up. And it was so underwhelming because the expectations were high AND I was bitter and predisposed to not be happy about it no matter how good it was. And it did end up being... not great. Maybe in book format we'd have had enough story added to make the ending work, but we didn't have that here. But there's no way objectively that it's 2/10. I'd say 6.5/7. But if our expectations were for 10/10, then 6 or 7 feels like a huge letdown. As big of a letdown as if a 6-7/10 average show had a 2-3/10 finale.

> that storyline never went anywhere

I mean, that has more to do with GRRM not writing anything for the past decade.

I think there will probably be a couple big roles for LSH in the books. First, she'll be a model for how fucked up the process of resurrection can leave a person. When Jon is resurrected, I think there will be a lot more uncertainty about his temperament, and whether it's even still Jon in there.

Second, I think at some point she'll meet Arya. They both have similar goals in exacting revenge against those who wronged House Stark, in particular those involved with the Red Wedding. I think this will bring them together, and seeing her mother as a fucked up revenant murdering her way through the Riverlands will be what finally steers Arya away from revenge. It would be a more compelling resolution to that character arc than the Hound looking at her and telling her "actually, don't kill Cersei" at the eleventh hour.

GoT season 4 is incredible. The stretch of 1-4 is unmatched Side note the best two episodes of tv ever to me tho are at the end of S6

I was able to follow it without any issue because I had CC turned on. Without those, all of the jargon and names tossed at you are much harder to remember. So for example, if you see the queen's name in ep 1, it's pretty straightforward to connect the dots later in the show when they mention her in the past tense.

I had read the books and played games, and while I knew the storylines I still kept getting a bit tangled in the timelines. But then again the books with their short story format also jumped around. So while some things were obvious as different times, some things were only apparent in hindsight, even if I had some frame of reference that the average viewer would not have. So I think it HAD to be purposeful, because it was confusing even to me, but I only realized HOW confusing it was in the last episodes.

GOT S1-S4 is the goat 4 season stretch of television in my opinion

They wish their writing was half as good as Monty Pyrhon.

The 2nd half of book three is just heart-pounding thrill after thrill and season 4 adapted it damn near perfectly.

Tiny pink cock

That was my favorite season of tv ever.

Until Arcane. Legit the most perfect season of anything I've ever seen.

Ouch. 😭

"dora the assassin"!! Fuck me silly that's the funniest line of the week.

My best guess is that she will be responsible for the death of House Frey in lieu of Arya.

I think you're selling HotD a little short there.

Even if it were a real quote, a show aiming to appeal a broad audience is not a bad thing.

There's also the theory the she will be used to resurrect Jon in the books, but that's kinda out there lol

S6 still had some really good moments/episodes and the overall pacing was also fine, compared to S7/8.
It was much better than S5, which doesn't get nearly enough hate IMO. I read the books afterwards and the way that the Dorne plot was butchered in the TV adaption is absolutely disgusting.

Everything about Season 4 was superb to me when first watching it, EXCEPT that exact point! In fact, I thought it was the very first time in all four seasons that GoT had a visible (that I noticed while watching it) plot hole. Everything about the show, every single episode, up to that point, felt like a naturally occurring story. One thing was leading to another with surprising but logical twists and turns.

Then this "betrayal" happened.

It was the first time ever it felt like something happening in the show wasn't a "real-world" (within the show) event - it was immediately immersion breaking. I was watching a character doing what she was doing not because her character development and the plot had led her to do that in her world, but because the writers of the fake TV show I was watching were making her do that on my TV screen, to force a new soap-drama plot point that they had not developed.

I remember looking on Reddit to see what others were saying at the time, and people were proclaiming "yeah, that was supposed to happen, she was like that in the books too!" But after looking into it, it sounded like in the books she never had any scenes where she was doing the right thing or actively trying to help when no one knew what she was doing. She was only pretending to do the right things and help when she thought it would be public to someone(s).

But in the show, there were multiple scenes across multiple seasons where she clearly tried to help and/or do the right thing when it did NOT potentially benefit her and when it would have been more beneficial if she did the opposite. Yet suddenly all at once "yeah she has been pretending from the beginning" - when it was very clear in the show (because we the audience were shown things that only we knew, despite other characters not knowing) she was not pretending in any episode previous to her betrayal.

They literally retconned her character. Was the first time I noticed a bad plot problem in GoT. As I said in another post, I have no confidence in GRRM's ability to give a good conclusion to a long/complex series, but I don't think it is a coincidence he left after the end of season 4 due to "disagreements" with the showrunners. I bet how that plot/character was handled in particular was one of multiple final straws for him.

The tea I heard was that he wasn’t getting his work done so D&D had to kick him off the show so he could work on the books. People say the Purple Wedding episode was good because GRRM wrote it when he only wrote the first draft. He was trying to introduce all the other book plots (like Ramsey’s wife who gets raped by dogs instead of Sansa) and the writers had to change it so it’d fit the show.

Before season 5 aired. They did a big one day event where they were showing the final two episodes of season 4 on IMAX. It is one of my all time favorite movie going experiences.

It's comical that people would follow someone who was resurrected by the god they believe in?

Seems kind of wonky but who knows. I think George RR Martin has grown to hate his original ending so maybe he should just canonize his favorite fan theories.

It may not be verbatim but that is still exactly what they said...literally the same message

There are plenty of 100% drama shows out there, no need to ruin a well-written fantasy that incorporates politics into it very well.

I don't want full CGI dragon episodes either but if you completely remove them the story doesn't even make sense. IMO they would be better used like a monster who you rarely see on screen at all, but that doesn't mean they don't exist and they are erased from the story.

If you are not a fan of fantasy you probably do not even realize what we are talking about with Lady Stoneheart. Catelyn Stark comes back from the dead. That's a pretty major plot point for a major character to come back from the dead, and they just left it out because they are clueless schmucks who didn't know what to do with it.

I know about Lady Stoneheart. I understand the fantasy elements are important to the story, I just said they're my least favorite parts. I didn't ask for them to be removed or anything.

> I didn't ask for them to be removed or anything

And I never said you did. However you commented in support of it after the fact and cited multiple examples where you are in favor it happening.

In contrast I don't like seeing well-written stories ripped apart and having the elements that make them special removed or suppressed just for generic broad appeal.

I don't like pure political dramas but I don't want Hollywood to start modifying them to make them more appealing to me; I just don't watch them.

I just feel like the original story should be told a little closer to the way it was written. Sorry if I have been overzealous in expressing that.

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Season 4 has great moments and the intro to Oberyn was flawless.

But its also where I see the cracks in the writing really forming. To me seasons 1 and 3 were all better overall, though 4 benefits from some great pivotal moments done well and more production budget, and was better than season 2 IMO.

Aside from the massive difference in tone... they're talking about fantasy vocabulary, not magic itself.

The first 4 seasons of GOT are among some of the best tv I've ever seen. It was very consistent. I'd argue that seasons 1-4 should've won or at least tied with Breaking Bad and other shows that beat it during that era.

The ending of season 4 was a dud, all they had to do was put the Book 3 epilogue at the end and it would have been the best season of all time

It is the best GoT season for sure, but The Wire S4, The Americans S6, Breaking Bad S5 are a tier above that imo.

Straight banger of a cold open to start the season. Just a final "fuck you" to the Starks. This is what happens when you lose. There's no honor, no closure... They melt down your sword and burn your wolf pelt and erase you and your house and your legacy. CHILLS.

Agreed. GOT is playing in a whole different league. Much harder imho.