So do you feel like they are beginning to stretch the series out a bit longer, and or, perhaps they're giving the fat fart more time to get to writing? Its sometimes a bit weird, when I watch the show, I second guess myself, and wonder if I even remember what went on in the books lol.
The show is a big money generating machine right now, I get that they want to extend it as much as possible. I just don't want them to over play their position and have it become a drag. Like what they did with Dany this season, it kind of got lame after a while.
I think next season will have to have a lot of Iron Islands stuff. But, yeah, generally they are messing with the timelines a lot which isn't such a big deal as long as they don't make ridiculously large changes to people's overall story arcs.
WOW! That last episode was amazing. I also can't remember an episode devoted to one story line either. Best scene? After one of the giants had sent a massive arrow sailing and taken out part of the battlements, the watch then sent one back harpooning one of the big bastards, loved that bit
Iron Islands and Dorne is my guess. A lot of new characters and new places. Kind of how the Wire shifted main settings in season 2, but the old characters just started to interact with the new characters and story lines cross.
The Stannis segment sucked. Then Jojen Reed died at the hand of a lame skeleton that reminded me of the 80s Clash of the Titans movie. Then Bloodraven was just a boring old man in a tree. Brienne meets Arya after no follow-up about that ridiculous scene at the Eyrie, even though every lowborn piece of trash guarding that valley knew the Hound lived under a bounty. But the Brienne/Hound scene, complete fucking retardation.
Man the shitbags (Beinoff, Weiss) that run this show have really extended their bad storytelling just to cover the retarded plot holes that they created to attempt to create drama. It's like they lost their copies of ASOIAF for an entire season and tried to ad lib, and fucking failed.
I don't mind Brienne meeting the Hound. Added some excitement and still got the meaningful point of Arya not merciful killing the Hound. I mind that they just never addressed the fact that Arya was at the gates and the heads of the place know Sansa Stark is there. If I remember correctly, everyone is kind of still on the right path according to the books. How they got there has been adjusted for TV, but the path is being followed which I'm fine with.
The problem they have right now is that after the first three books the series jumped the shark in a big way. The Red Wedding was the last moment at which the original story held fast. I couldn't even get through A Feast for Crows because I was expecting a return to excellence and instead the thing got more formulaic. All creative endeavors have a half-life working against them and ASOIAF is no different.
Next season may be the last. People watching have developed a love for the characters that are focal to the show, to throw in Dorne and the Iron Islands as something of a side story is going to make people stop watching. Those arcs weren't strong enough to carry the books well and they will put the watchers to sleep. Tyrion's exploits overseas and Arya's faceless man training can't carry that. There's still Jon Snow becoming LC (even though they have killed most of the people that helped make that a great story), but since they attempted to make Cersei into a sane woman insteaad of the insane nutjob she was in the books, King's Landing is just boring without Tyrion in it.
I haven't watched the episode yet but wanted to know as I've read the books but my wife hasn't so I like to gauge her reactions to things: does Tywin bite it and do we see LSH? What is sort of the most shocking thing that happens?
No LSH although Harry was pretty much chiding everyone who thought otherwise, and yes, Tywin bit it, although it almost seemed like an afterthought and they tried to make a battle between Brienne and the Hound their episode crescendo even though it never happened in the books. Episode sucked, perfect ending to a suck season.
Not too upset with the episode. Have learned to just take the show for what it is, their interpretation of the books/thirst for $$. The major thing I thought they did screw up on was not telling the Tysha lie. Leaving that piece of information out was pretty significant for me. Its what sets Tyrion off. The Hound/Brienne battle was funny (more of a time waster). They realized they need to save some big moments for next season (LSH, Jon Snow LC), but there isn't much. The show is definitely going to take a fall, but BW will prob come up with some BS twists/turns to keep the show upbeat. Its going to be super difficult to beat seasons 1-4 because lets face it, they are filled with great moments. I'm just glad BW can't fuck up the books. So ill continue to enjoy those (assuming the pig finishes them).
Took me a minute to figure out what "BW" was, just call them "D&D" like the dorks on the ASOIAF forums do.
Lol Byz I love how grumpy you are. I thought the skeleton guys were cool. The Stannis part was weird to me; so here's this wild things king with an army of a million barbarians and some knights just ride into his camp and take him prisoner with ease, wtf is that?
As far as the Stannis thing, he had cavalry and trained soldiers against an army of unorganized hill people using things like clubs and handmade spears as weapons. He rolled over them in the books, too, although Mance only surrendered in the books because they captured his pregnant wife. The way they portrayed it in the show was as anticlimactic as it gets, just lazy bullshit.
ok I get that and yea, felt like the episode as a whole was anti-climactic for a finale. Idk anything tho, just started watching with the last couple episodes.
