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Guy A. Person posted:Yea the whole story is “how do people react to a literally unexplainable event”. Even the last episode “reveal” doesn’t reveal the “how” or “why” and in fact may just be the character outright lying I thought the ending to the leftovers was perfect.
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Feb 17, 2021 17:23
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RCarr posted:I thought the ending to the leftovers was perfect. I don't think GAP was saying that in a negative light. The show spent an entire season saying "Let the mystery be" over and over again before each episode. I can't imagine there were too many people who stuck it through to the end and were legitimately upset (instead of performatively so) that the Sudden Departure was never given any sort of explanation. The payoffs were always about the characters and their relationships and emotional breakthroughs.
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Feb 17, 2021 18:00
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Agreed. I appreciated that the ending gave two options and let the viewer decide which they believed.
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Feb 17, 2021 18:03
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Oh yeah, if it wasn't clear I loved the ambiguity as well
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Feb 17, 2021 18:24
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RCarr posted:Agreed. I appreciated that the ending gave two options and let the viewer decide which they believed. And furthermore that it doesn't matter which option is "correct", because the receiver of the story has made the decision that it doesn't matter to them either, what matters is being across the table from the person telling the story. Bringing it back to this thread, does it matter if GRRM ever fully lays out how prophecy works or who exactly was the Prince Who Was Promised or Azor Ahai if we can get a good story out of how the characters react to those prophecies and the actions they take based on how they interpret them? Is there an appreciable difference between that an how, like, Dragons or Bran's or Melisandre's magic work?
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Feb 17, 2021 18:29
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I still don't understand why Lindelof thought it would be interesting to end the show with Angela's leg hovering over the swimming pool, like the whole point is whether she's choose to inherit the powers not whether the omniscient being hosed up in its quantum calculations. So weird.
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Feb 17, 2021 19:33
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emanresu tnuocca posted:I still don't understand why Lindelof thought it would be interesting to end the show with Angela's leg hovering over the swimming pool, like the whole point is whether she's choose to inherit the powers not whether the omniscient being hosed up in its quantum calculations. So weird. I took it as a mirror of Jon walking across the pool at Karnak as he prepares to fully divorce himself from humanity and leave Earth/"this galaxy" at the end of the graphic novel. Dr. Manhattan is back, and she's about to be concerned with a whole lot of human affairs.
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Feb 17, 2021 20:06
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TERFherder posted:I really was hoping for background on what was happening. Why was magic "coming back" into the world? Are there really gods? Do those gods fight other gods? Is it all just blood magic with everyone shaping what happens to pretend there are gods? I didn't want it spelled out, but I thought we would get more along those lines. It's probably six of one and half a dozen of the other but I do enjoy all the various theorizing that there's some big eldritch confrontation coming up and all the individual level magic we've seen (even the dragons coming back) is just knock-on effects of that.
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Feb 18, 2021 00:56
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Mat Cauthon posted:It's probably six of one and half a dozen of the other but I do enjoy all the various theorizing that there's some big eldritch confrontation coming up and all the individual level magic we've seen (even the dragons coming back) is just knock-on effects of that. Yeah I groove on that stuff. I don't need to have all the answers at the end, and in fact really enjoy the whole "this is just the beginning" endings. For example in True Detective, we start with the small crime, drift into a deeper web of corruption, and end up in this cosmic battle, of which the protaganist is a very small part. You never get more details, but the set up is there for much more. If GRRM does have a "big picture "background thing going on, I'd like to know. But I suspect he just writes things that sound cool, and scenes that resonate somehow. He says he started this series to do things he couldn't do on tv, but short stories really seem his speed. He has said that once he figures out what characters are going to do, he loses interest. I suspect he creates a scene in his mind, then works forwards and backwards from that scene to flesh it out. It's fun. Or it was. If I could go back in time and edit his material, knowing he wouldn't finish writing it by his death, I'd have him end the series with a set up, rather than a conclusion. A series of heroes each on their own path, unsure where it will end. John: Reborn in the north, free of his obligation, possibly tainted by his rebirth. Ghost warg Arya: Enters the house of the faceless men, leaving needle behind. Llinked up to Nymeria via warg. Sansa: Beginning to blossom as the game player. Bran: Time traveling wizard, possessed. raven warg. Rickon: Stories hint to him growing powerful somehow, eventually leading the island people. Summer warg. Caitlyn / Robb: Undead, with undead army. Robb is rocking the wolfs head on his noggin'. Dany: poised to launch to westeros. dragon warg Jaime/ Cersei: ending with Cersei in power, burning the tower of the hand, consolidating power Tyrion: either met up with Dany, or in limbo after fleeing. possible ties to iron bank. gently caress this gives me a headache just thinking about all the loving characters and their plot arcs. What I'm getting at is build up several cohesive factions, each in a momentary victory over their faction, but clearly soon to be fighting a larger war. If possible group them into 2 or 3 larger affiliations that might not be obvious to the characters, but are hinted at to readers so we have some overall structure to follow. Who wins or what happens next isn't the point - it's about the Game. It's a "war is hell" story. This creates some closure, creates an amazing IP for licensing, and GRRM gets to do what he likes - writing small scenes or one offs that add to the lore. He becomes a hero instead of a villain. Then he can tease small stories, or collections of them, as he wants. Expectations are set, and people can enjoy it for what it is. Properly writing all of these plot arcs is an insane task, and he shouldn't have tried.
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Feb 18, 2021 05:18
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If you never have, you should check out some of the Preston Jacobs videos on youtube, TERFherder. They're practically the next best thing to another book. A lot of the questions you're asking - about magic coming back into the world, what the maesters are up to, deeper plots and schemes, etc - he really goes in depth into a lot of those things, and does so in a really illuminating and insightful way that makes you look at the books in a different light. Some of his videos like, really DIRECTLY address some of the questions you're asking. There's a series specifically about the maesters and whether they're trying to wipe out magic/Targaryens/dragons or not. There's several long series about all the craziness and inconsistency around the Dorne and Ironborn plotlines - and this is some of my favorite stuff of his. He has a really fascinating take on the Dornish plotlines in books 4 + 5, which really made me look at those characters in a different light and like them quite a bit more. He throws a lot of stuff out there, and some of it I really disagree with. But enough is illuminating and insightful enough to make it worthwhile. He has some interesting takes on the events north of the Wall and the malign influence of Mormont's raven, as well. I have trouble reading those chapters in the same light, knowing that the raven is not only inhabited by Bloodraven but causing some really weird behavior, north of the wall especially.
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Feb 18, 2021 10:07
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kaworu posted:If you never have, you should check out some of the Preston Jacobs videos on youtube, TERFherder. They're practically the next best thing to another book. A lot of the questions you're asking - about magic coming back into the world, what the maesters are up to, deeper plots and schemes, etc - he really goes in depth into a lot of those things, and does so in a really illuminating and insightful way that makes you look at the books in a different light. Preston Jacobs can be entertaining if you don't mind that his stuff is basically fanfiction, but he's hardly a good place to go for insight.
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Feb 19, 2021 01:27
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Lol George R.R. Martin & Kalinda Vazquez Developing Adaptation Of Roger Zelazny’s Sci-Fi Novel ‘Roadmarks’ At HBO
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Feb 19, 2021 01:40
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Mat Cauthon posted:It's probably six of one and half a dozen of the other but I do enjoy all the various theorizing that there's some big eldritch confrontation coming up and all the individual level magic we've seen (even the dragons coming back) is just knock-on effects of that. Wasn't there a Damphair chapter snippet years ago where he's freaking out because he had some dream/vision of Euron in his suit of magical valarian platemail (which we never saw on tv because  ) having killed a god? Having the series end with an "oh poo poo, the white walkers were just a prelude and side effect of what's waking" would have been cool.But in reality Mance was an idiot digging around in forgotten/sealed tombs for a Horn of Blasting.
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Feb 19, 2021 02:24
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Lol ANYTHING BUT WRITE
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Feb 19, 2021 02:33
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWRlxSGf_ns
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Feb 19, 2021 02:39
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Evil Fluffy posted:Wasn't there a Damphair chapter snippet years ago where he's freaking out because he had some dream/vision of Euron in his suit of magical valarian platemail (which we never saw on tv because Yeah IIRC that's a preview chapter for Winds of Winter that has been floating around for a while now. If you want theorycrafting on the various magic stuff I think PoorQuentyn is more coherent and interesting than PrestonJacobs but they're both essentially on the same level as far as trying to forecast the logical progression of a plotline we're never going to see completed.
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Feb 19, 2021 03:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-94RDwiVFs This is all one needs to know about Preston Jacobs.
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Feb 19, 2021 08:07
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Basileus777 posted:Preston Jacobs can be entertaining if you don't mind that his stuff is basically fanfiction, but he's hardly a good place to go for insight. Yeah, there's a reason he says 'I'm probably wrong about half of this' at the end of each series. Still, his points on Visery's being railroaded, the pink letter, and others are intersting.
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Feb 19, 2021 08:51
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kaworu posted:If you never have, you should check out some of the Preston Jacobs videos on youtube, TERFherder. They're practically the next best thing to another book. A lot of the questions you're asking - about magic coming back into the world, what the maesters are up to, deeper plots and schemes, etc - he really goes in depth into a lot of those things, and does so in a really illuminating and insightful way that makes you look at the books in a different light. I've caught a few highlights of his videos. I don't think you can drill down into GRRMs writing like Preston does. It's fun and interesting, but as another poster wrote, it is basically fan fiction. If it were a few years back I might watch some videos you suggest - I'd be curious to hear his take on Dorne among other things. I care enough about the series to read any full novels GRRM puts out, but that's about it. I mean in the first book Tyrion is both crippled AND does some backflip off a balcony before pontificating to Jon. You just can't dig too deep into what GRRM writes. nine-gear crow posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-94RDwiVFs That was too much for my brain
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Feb 19, 2021 13:13
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I just started listening to this Preston guy and I find it entertaining because you soon realize all it is is him pointing out plotholes (why would this character do such an out of character or stupid thing??? Why don't the timelines work??), creating vast conspiracies based on those gaps, and then going "either Martin has elaborately left us hints and plotted this out with dedication...or he's just not good..."
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Feb 19, 2021 19:17
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Punkin Spunkin posted:I just started listening to this Preston guy and I find it entertaining because you soon realize all it is is him pointing out plotholes (why would this character do such an out of character or stupid thing??? Why don't the timelines work??), creating vast conspiracies based on those gaps, and then going "either Martin has elaborately left us hints and plotted this out with dedication...or he's just not good..." G.R.R.M Anon
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Feb 19, 2021 19:19
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Punkin Spunkin posted:I just started listening to this Preston guy and I find it entertaining because you soon realize all it is is him pointing out plotholes (why would this character do such an out of character or stupid thing??? Why don't the timelines work??), creating vast conspiracies based on those gaps, and then going "either Martin has elaborately left us hints and plotted this out with dedication...or he's just not good..." gonna be super fair and say that you could do this with any author on a work of sufficient size, but yeah also this is what happens when your best plot outlines exist mostly in the margins of a BBS from 1994.
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Feb 19, 2021 19:24
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Basileus777 posted:Preston Jacobs can be entertaining if you don't mind that his stuff is basically fanfiction, but he's hardly a good place to go for insight. I mean, some of his out there theories are loving out there and even some of his more basic theories I disagree with the conclusions, but I'd be genuinely curious to hear a better place for insight since the sheer encyclopedic referencing he does -- not only with tons of direct quotes from the books but also branching out into research of GRRM's oeuvre -- I feel like would be hard to match. Like typically I watch his videos and my thoughts are along the lines of "his theory that the moon is an eye that is watching the characters is batshit, but goddamned if he didn't present every single quote where a character talks about the moon and describe the context, while also referencing how Martin has used the moon in some of his other works"
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Feb 19, 2021 20:48
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Guy A. Person posted:I mean, some of his out there theories are loving out there and even some of his more basic theories I disagree with the conclusions, but I'd be genuinely curious to hear a better place for insight since the sheer encyclopedic referencing he does -- not only with tons of direct quotes from the books but also branching out into research of GRRM's oeuvre -- I feel like would be hard to match. This is how I feel about it - it's really out there, and I think he realizes this on some level as he says he is "probably wrong about at least half of this" at the end of any video series he does. But he also has some very fun insight and ideas, and while I do find myself thinking "what the gently caress, how do you get THERE from HERE?" sometimes, it's never in an annoyed way. His crazy ideas tend to delight me more than anything else, and I respect the imaginative mind that came up with it.
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Feb 19, 2021 21:35
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TERFherder posted:That was too much for my brain I'm sorry you had to find out that Preston killed the pope this way.
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Feb 19, 2021 21:44
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When did Ty stop being gurm's editor or whatever?
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Feb 20, 2021 02:21
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Prestons videos making GBS threads on the last few seasons of GoT were fantastic and some of the best content he’s put out.
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Feb 20, 2021 11:56
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Quote from years ago:LiterallyATomato posted:I wanted Penny to be there because I've secretly hoped the show would go downhill and end as infamously as Lost did. Hey, I got my wish!
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Feb 20, 2021 12:40
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I really respect the GoT fanbase for recognizing the show had gone to poo poo and taking it to task accordingly. A lot of fanbases will literally fight you to the ground over sunk-cost alone.
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Feb 20, 2021 14:27
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I’m still glad the show existed as it led to certain series getting green lit that might’ve otherwise been passed over in favor of other genres. I’m enjoying His Dark Materials season 2 now. I wish so many of the projects going ahead weren’t older fantasy works like LotR and Wheel of Time, but oh well. There was news about a Ghormenghast series being put into development a while back, and I would actually like to see that.
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Feb 20, 2021 16:24
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a song of rear end and farts
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Feb 20, 2021 16:33
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Ccs posted:I’m still glad the show existed as it led to certain series getting green lit that might’ve otherwise been passed over in favor of other genres. I’m enjoying His Dark Materials season 2 now. I wish so many of the projects going ahead weren’t older fantasy works like LotR and Wheel of Time, but oh well. There was news about a Ghormenghast series being put into development a while back, and I would actually like to see that. When is Cinemax going to get around to buying the rights to Jacqueline Carey's weird alt-history fantasy bdsm novels? Edit: I love the Kushiel's books but this would probably be very very bad. I'd honestly love to see someone try to do Banewreaker/Godlsayer, which are Carey's best works. Obviously. Desert Bus fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 17:03
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Alt Shift X made theory videos that were less elaborate fan fics.
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Feb 20, 2021 17:18
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Ccs posted:I’m still glad the show existed as it led to certain series getting green lit that might’ve otherwise been passed over in favor of other genres. I’m enjoying His Dark Materials season 2 now. that's the dick dorkins series right
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Feb 20, 2021 17:55
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mind the walrus posted:I really respect the GoT fanbase for recognizing the show had gone to poo poo and taking it to task accordingly. A lot of fanbases will literally fight you to the ground over sunk-cost alone.
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Feb 20, 2021 18:03
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ChubbyChecker posted:that's the dick dorkins series right The guy who wrote it is an atheist.
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Feb 20, 2021 18:27
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Punkin Spunkin posted:Yeah, though a lot of them cite the ending which is kinda silly. It had been that level of bad for entire seasons. There had been a definite decline for a few seasons, and it was really apparent in S7 that the directors had thrown out the realism that they'd painstakingly built in the first few seasons in favor of moving people around at lightspeed to hit plot points. The final season was what really sealed the deal, though; even with the sloppy plotting that got them there, I remember reading any number of fan predictions that would have been way more interesting than what ended up on screen, and any number of fan rewrites after the fact that built to a much more satisfying conclusion even while hitting the ending notes that D&D set out. If they managed to put out an ending that was at all interesting, then I think people would have a much better overall impression of the series as a whole -- "Sure it got a little sloppy in the middle, but the production values were always amazing and at least they brought Jon's story to a satisfying close" etc etc. The fact that everything wrapped up in the dumbest way possible meant that none of us are willing to forgive the flaws.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:09
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There were even good ideas in those last couple seasons. The dragon being killed in zombie land and being resurrected. The battle in winterfell could have been good but they didn’t know how to execute it. Plus having the literal zombie apocalypse be an mid boss of your grand epic is some choice. if GRRM really wants Cersei to be the end boss of the series he’s even dumber than I thought.
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Feb 22, 2021 04:07
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Wouldn't make much sense for Cersei to be the end boss in the books - people forget that she's portrayed as perpetually ignorant, self-deluded, vain, easy to manipulate, and downright incorrect in the vast majority of the assumptions she makes - at least based on her POV chapters and the way she's being played by just about every interested party. I'd forgotten just how much of an horrific botch they'd made of the story as far back as the latter part of season 4, and season 5. I think you can trace back when Tyrion's character stopped making sense to their decision to ignore the Tysha plotline with regard to Tyrion's escape, and having him murder his father because he feels betrayed by Shae, not Jamie for the monstrous lie. That also screwed up Jamie's trajectory from that point onwards, too. I'd also forgotten just how insanely absurd the plotline in the North is, especially with regards to Jon Snow's "ressurection" - which, contrary to everything we'd ever learned about magic and resurrection in the series, costs absolutely nothing to Jon personally and leaves him exactly the same as he was before he "died". Then there's the all-out disaster that was "the battle of the bastards" both in terms of writing, production, and execution. Ever wonder why it oddly ends with Jon beating up Ramsay in the yard at Winterfell? Because Benioff & Weiss insisted that 70 live horses be uses in the battle scene (an insane and apparently random number) while also calling for a number of shots to be emulated from Kurosawa's 1985 classic 'Ran'. Problem is, you could still maim dozens of horses while filming back then, and their director could tell that what they wanted was utterly impossible to produce with the absurdly inadequate 12 days they told the director he had to film the entire episode  He argued them up to 24 days, even though his own analysis indicated that he needed at least 42 days. In the end, they ran out of time and couldn't film the originally intended ending.This is all beside the point, since "The Battle of the Bastards" will almost certainly not happen in the books, or if it does happen it will take a wildly different form. GRRM's books were all about setting up expectations and then subverting them, almost to the point where it becomes predictable. The fact that things in the north are building to a traditional conflict between Jon and Ramsay means it will likely never happen. Did Robb and Joffrey ever have a battle? Or Stannis and Renly?
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Feb 22, 2021 05:20
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kaworu posted:I'd also forgotten just how insanely absurd the plotline in the North is, especially with regards to Jon Snow's "ressurection" - which, contrary to everything we'd ever learned about magic and resurrection in the series, costs absolutely nothing to Jon personally and leaves him exactly the same as he was before he "died". Then there's the all-out disaster that was "the battle of the bastards" both in terms of writing, production, and execution. Ever wonder why it oddly ends with Jon beating up Ramsay in the yard at Winterfell? Because Benioff & Weiss insisted that 70 live horses be uses in the battle scene (an insane and apparently random number) while also calling for a number of shots to be emulated from Kurosawa's 1985 classic 'Ran'. Problem is, you could still maim dozens of horses while filming back then, and their director could tell that what they wanted was utterly impossible to produce with the absurdly inadequate 12 days they told the director he had to film the entire episode Jesus Christ, for comparison to modern production. HBO cancelled a horse racing show because only two horses broke down and had to be put down during production. One was an accident, two was your show never existed, you’re all fired.
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Feb 22, 2021 05:31
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