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Some other stuff D&D 'kind of forgot about'

posted 5 years ago by arflexit (2376)
22 replies | jump to latest

So I was just thinking today on how utterly disappointing the last season was; and I thought about a few more 'plots and topics' that were seemingly forgotten about in the last 2 season (mostly the last season). Most other points have been covered but these I think deserve mention. So here is a few more things Dan Beniof and DB Wies 'kind of forgot about' in the series' final season:

1. The existence of an entire continent (Essos). For being such a primary location in the series, once Dany left Slaver's Bay, it seemed to drop out of existence; not even getting mentioned a single time in the last 2 seasons.

2. Slaver's Bay, so what's up with Daario Naharis and the fact that with Dany and her closes advisors dead; and Grey Worm taking the unsullied on a suicide mission. What is to stop it descending into utter chaos and the slave master rising back into power? Seems like a pretty big lose end.

3. The existence of Illyrio Mopatis; I know he was mostly a background character but he spent years conspiring with Varys to put a Targaryen back on the thrones; Varys died and a Stark is on the throne; he just going to sit back and live with it?

4. The old gods and the new, Lord of light gets a cameo mention at best; considering that the religions played a key role in many of the characters' lives it is pretty amazing how they all just seemed to forget they were religious. Even Melisandre barely mentions the lord of light before dying.

5. The iron Bank. Apart from the presence (and only presence) of the 'do nothing then die' Gold Company; the Iron Bank is an after thought. Considering how screwed Westeroes and the '6' kingdoms are financially after War and famine and infrastructure and power collapse (or are we to believe that cripple boy and dwarf that everyone hates will hold it all together?); how do they intend on working out a payment plan with the iron bank? Or did the iron bank "kind of forgot" how much money they are owed.

Some of these might have been covered by others before but these were just on my mind today.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

You make a good point about the first three things.
4. A mere background issue.
5. The Iron Bank has lost on a couple of gambles in Westeros - Stannis and Cersei. Who do they go to claim their money as both are dead. The new government with King Bran could void their debts. How much money should one spend going after a bad debt? The Golden Company is lost and Dario Naharis might not help.

You missed a few points.
- What about the Dothraki left in Westeros? Where was Sir Davos wife during the series? why have a night's watch? Why send Jon there?
I didn't mind season 8 but I feel it was too rushed - a few more episodes with better dialogue would have been good.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Thanks;

4. That is just it though for the first 4 or 5 seasons the 'gods' were not just part of the background; they actually played a role in the people's lives; like real religions did. It is like when Cersei blew up the Sept of Balor people forgot about their religions across the entire planet.
5. The whole point of the Iron Bank is they will get their money back. They don't gamble, they will find a way to get paid. That is why even Tywin was concerned about them. If they can use the excuse of 'new King Bran' to forgive the debts, why couldn't Cersei use the same excuse? 'I am a new Queen, I can't be expected to pay back the debts of the last king, not when my kingdom is a state of Civil War' I don't think the iron bank would accept such an answer, and the whole point of that organization is 'they will get their money back. the point about Dario Naharis was that he and the entire existence of Essos (inlcuding slaver's bay) were not even mentioned in the last season. It was just forgotten about.

I am aware of those things, but those were 'primary' issues people already pointed out, or stuff like we 'essentially saw the end of the Dothraki' in episode 4 but then they are just back in Episode 5 and 6 like they re-spawned like Orcs.

I personally thought season 8 was the worst final season of any show ever; not only did it leave gaping plot holes, it also ended in completely nonsensical and not properly set up way (Bran is king but his sister leaves his kingdom, and the north just goes along with it, they follow Sansa over the Ned Starks last surviving son?) but it also renders the entirety of the show pointless. Other series that ended badly, such as Dexter, you can still go back and enjoy because each season was rather self contained. This is not the case with GOT, everything in the show was about the build up to the finale and that finale was a joke.

[–] HarlemEagle42 (18433) 5 years ago

I'm kind of disappointed they never explored the southern continent. Just as like a side venture.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

What about what happened to Meera?
Were they eaten by white walkers on the way to Winterfell?

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Good one; Meera dropped off the face of the planet after last seeing her in Season 7. I guess they 'kind of forgot about her"

[–] Alerra (244) 5 years ago

Which is really annoying, given how important Howland Reed was in Season 6. When Sam tells Jon who he really is, that was prime opportunity to say something along the lines of, "Oh, and Lord Reed, down in Graywater Watch also knows this, so if you wanted to send a raven and ask him about it..." Which Jon could then have used with Dany, when she questions the source of his information in the next episode.

Also, there's the fact that MEERA MIGHT HAVE DARK SISTER. Why on earth wasn't that given more thought? There could have at least have been a conversation about how it was Valyrian steel and needed at Winterfell. Even if it wasn't DS, it was shown to be effective against White Walkers.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Yup, ever since the 3rd season the Reed's were set up as significant; the last season not even one mention. Just totally forgotten about. Pathetic writing to say the least.

[–] BourbonKing (5788) 5 years ago

You make sound citations in each talking point, but perhaps we should all question the source material at hand?

George RR Martin created all of these characters, the continents, and the overall cosmology, but he never had any origin story or evolution of how any of those things came to be.

His little half-ass homage to Atlantis, and in a way Numenor, with the lost Kingdom of Volantis reads like a decent historical source for all things that came afterward in GRRM's world but even with that there's no rhyme or reason behind why it existed in the first place, only the pinpoint to explain Valerian Steel and give some mythical properties. Even with the original Altantis story there's some allegorical and context to extract from it, and with Numenor there's an entire narrative that ties into the events before it existed and after it was destroyed and it ties into the fate of Aragorn and the Men of Gondor.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

That is a good point about the source material; for this I was focusing on the joke of a job the show runners did. But you are correct that it is not all their fault. They were building on a house of cards. Martin is no Tolkien in terms of deep contextual world building. He lacks the discipline of Tolkien but uses other allegrocial stories (usurps them almost) and doesn't bother to develop his own context for the allegory.

For example; the Targeryan dynasty had no real contextual ties to Volantis; the doom of Volantis has no in story connection and it plays no role in the white walker threat. The doom had nothing to do with the Winter or White Walkers; so what is the connection to dragon glass and valerian steel? Why are White Walkers connected and it serves as their weakness? No context is given in the books and the show developed some really lightweight superficial context with 'the night king' being created by insertion of dragon glass to his heart completely independent of Volantis and Dragons. So it is shoddy world building at best.

[–] BourbonKing (5788) 5 years ago

I actually think a better team could have at least adapted GRRM's loose ends and weave a contextually tight story-line that would explain all of the different religions, cultures, protagonists and antagonists. The problem with D&D is that they've never done this before but if they did and say they worked on Lord of the Rings instead of Peter Jackson the result would have been just as shoddy.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

I don't know; D&D were pretty okay at adapting scripts straight from a source material. I don't think they would have done as good a job as Peter Jackson on LOTR but since it was a complete story with a hugely rich backstory and support material (not to mention the Silmarilion and Book of Unfinished Tales which were material created by the man himself and then assembled by his son).

The problem with D&D is they were complete and utter hacks at filling in loose ends and deviating from the source material. Every thing they did to rush, steam line, fill in gaps, or cut down on material resulted in absolute terrible results in the story and writing.

With Martin I get the impression he wanted to finish in time for the show runners but quickly things got unmanageable. Classic case of a man's ambitions surpassing his ability.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 5 years ago

I agree the last season was disappointing especially what they did with Daenerys

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

They also forgot to consider how the hell Sansa is going to rule a kingdom facing a 20 year winter, when the country was ravaged by war just when everyone should have been stashing food stores.

Ya think it might be handy to have a central government to appeal to for help, when your region is facing long-term famine?

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

haha, good point; but since they basically turned her into a genius (I think, they never really show her doing anything intelligent but they sure made sure to keep reminding us through dialogue she is like super smart now) I am sure they hoped the assumption is she'd figure it all out.

Her desire to split off makes no sense either. It was her own brother and rightful heir of the north that was made king. It was her own selfish ambition that lead to that decision but the way they frame it is like it was a good thing she was selfish and ambitious; without showing any consequences. Nope just a nice tidy wrapped up in a bow clean ending for her; wow, this show went from gritty realism to cliche fantasy real fast.

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

Oh, I think we're supposed to vaguely assume that either spring will come now that the NK is gone, or that Bran will make it okay and feed the North because he's king now, and the rest of Westeros totally wouldn't resent King Bran giving aid to a foreign power while their own region is in need.

They didn't think anything about the final council and its decisions through, absolutely nothing about the post-war scenes make any sense.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Yeah; logic was going out the window real fast starting with Beyond the Wall and then nose dived in Battle of Winterfell; but the final council was a whole different level of insane illogical nonsensical things happening; starting with Grey Worm's whole "you are not here to speak" and then proceeds to let the prison speak literally the entire time and lets THE PRISONER decide the new king. I mean it is just insanity; it like watching something written by moron stoners on an acid trip.

I think they had an end goal of Bran being king, Sansa being Queen of a independent north, and Tyrion as Hand of the king but they had absolutely no idea on how to get there so they just throw a bunch of contrived nonsense together and were like "nah, it'll be fine; the moron's that love GOT will just eat it up".

There is a trend in Hollywood egos today; they are so arrogant they think they can outright disrespect consumers so long as they are an established franchise or 'star'; then they don't even care about what quality product they put out. Not until the backlash comes; but then they try to deflect or insult the fans for not loving it. Too narcissistic and arrogant to admit failure. The part that sucks about this is they do somewhat get away with it; because really dumb consumers WILL still buy the 'product' no matter the quality because of the name recognition alone. The GOT prequel House of the Dragon will open with millions of viewers toning in (I won't be one of them) but they will say; look game of thrones is still profitable the last season must not have been that bad. and a good portion of the viewers will just forget about the terrible insulting GOT final season and like good little sheep they won't "think, just consume the product".

[–] Alerra (244) 5 years ago

At the very end of the last season, we see flowers poking through the snow. I'm guessing it's a sign that spring has come. So I don't think the world is facing a 20 year winter.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

That is another good point; is the suggestion that the long winters was directly tied into the White Walkers and now that they are gone the winter was over? So the white walkers created the strange season affect of that world? We actually don't know because the show (and book) did not or have not yet given an answer on these things.

[–] Alerra (244) 5 years ago

I posted about this in another thread on here about how we never actually see evidence of seasons changing outside of the North. The leaves never change, the harvest is never brought in, people never really change their attire (at least until Season 7). In Season 2, Pycelle says basically that, all the Maesters got together and simply decided it was Autumn. There's no reference to the angle of the sun -- they just got together and saw that it seemed to be getting cooler in a bunch of places, so it must now be Autumn. And unpredictable seasons are often seen on a planet in a binary system, and we only ever see one sun.

BUT the characters still age naturally. Sansa talks about how old she is. Joffrey celebrates his name day. There are multiple references to specific dates. This implies that there is a solar year -- that whatever planet Westeros is on has a regular orbit with a star. I've often wondered if this means that the world has been having regular solar seasons all along, but with the White Walkers and Long Night and Doom of Valyria, the climate became so conflated that people stopped looking at the sun to figure them out. This might explain why there was that false spring right before Robert's Rebellion.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Well; that is more of a flaw of the world building as set up by Martin really; the books never give any direct indication of why the seasons are irregular; if it is natural or unnatural. There is no reference tied into the seasons being related to the white walkers though. So the White walker threat being over, there is no plot specification that suddenly it will be spring or it there was a 'false' winter or anything.

Outside the few flakes of snow in King's landing at the end of season 7 and then the tiny bits of snow in the north during season 8; there is not much of an indication there was any winter to begin with. Poor filming that. They should have either filmed in studio or find a rougher winter like climate to film in (like they found for Empire strikes back).

[–] BourbonKing (5788) 5 years ago

I forgot about the Iron Bank too (thanks D & D) but I think that's a human trait when all of us would like to forget out debt obligations.

Perhaps Bran, with his all knowing perception, will mind meld with the greedy bankers and reveal their fates if they choose to challenge his seat, but that would be too easy. Either way, the Iron Bank was propped up as an integral part of the world building fabric of Westeros, and by the series finale everyone they backed financially is either dead or broke. With the golden army destroyed I can't see anyone group of thugs wouldn't just grab some ships and raid the bank.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

" I think that's a human trait when all of us would like to forget out debt obligations."

Lol; I would love to forget about the bank when it comes time to pay my mortgage. Wish I could forget about the government too at tax time.

Sure why not; Barn's powers are so unexplored and seemingly limitless in terms of knowing the past present and possibly the future; why not just assume he can mind meld people too. He is even in a wheelchair, why not just call him King Xavier.

"Either way, the Iron Bank was propped up as an integral part of the world building fabric of Westeros, and by the series finale everyone they backed financially is either dead or broke. With the golden army destroyed I can't see anyone group of thugs wouldn't just grab some ships and raid the bank."

Possibly they were not in a possession to do anything about the debt they were owed at the time; but the point is since the 1st season the Iron Bank was getting built up as something to be concerned about. The last season they are not even mentioned. The only indirect tie to them is the gold company that went completely unexplored and died in seconds. It was a forgotten plot point.