ACTUALLY GARBAGE (& Here's Why)… Game of Thones "finale", Season 8, Episode 6.
20 May 2019 [link youtube]
Years ago, the one thing that made this show better than Lord of the Rings (or Xena Warrior princess) was political realism: people used to urge their friends to give this show a chance, precisely because of that peculiar realism (that it retained, despite the use of magic and dragons).
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I'm going to point out just one big
fundamental problem with the series finale of Game of Thrones I'm gonna point it out because I think it's something other people will not say I think other commentators and critics are gonna pre it be preoccupied with many of the very real very glaring errors in continuity problems with characters problems with holes in the plot loose ends and storylines that were never tied up just all kinds of things that flatly make no sense or that they find subjectively dissatisfactory I am NOT going to discuss any of that I'm gonna ask you to cast your mind back to a time when you were trying to convince your friends to watch this show maybe a brother a sister maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend at some point your life maybe five years ago maybe eight years ago you were writing an email to a friend or phoning a friend and saying hey you know what you should give this TV show a chance it's not like Lord of the Rings it's not like Dungeons & Dragons it's not like some mainstream crap on TV you grew up with it's not the next Xena Warrior Princess and you can probably remember even if distantly why it was or how it was you justified this to your friends for many people they probably said in whatever words the reason why you should watch this show is realism and in the last few years that concept has become the butt of jokes people said oh well how can you talk about realism in a TV show that has dragons and fire magic and wizards and what-have-you and yet we all know you know we all remember from those first four years of this TV show what it was that realism meant it is very simply a sense of social realism a sense of political realism that this TV show had and that it lost I'm going to illustrate this with two elements of two elements that are flagrantly on display in the season finale but they've they've really impaired the quality of the last several years of the TV show do you notice that people just stand around like dancers like like performance artists on a soundstage ready to go into action people sometimes hundreds of people in a scene soon as dozens just stand in silence wasn't like that in season one wasn't like that in seasons two three and four okay and that's now become routine characters communicate over a huge distance by whispering or speaking in a very low voice when facing away from the character they're talking to cinemas while walking Suns all standing in a throne room and there's nobody else around now my problem here isn't just one of style I think it really is one of substance think back to the first time Tyrion Lannister was put on trial the first and second times Tyrion Lannister is front row he's shouting right he's shouting at the people who are judging him the first trial you'll remember ends with Bronn fighting in a trial by combat the second trial ends with him murdering Shae long story short right there was a room full of skeptical people right different actors asking different questions and even if they weren't speaking adding their own weight and scrutiny to the scene there were different competing interests and you know this reflects and it also exemplifies the way in which the early seasons of the show conveyed a sense of social realism a sense of political complexity of many different players in the game having different motives now the books are even better and here's why in the books when Jaime Lannister goes to visit a prison he meets a character who's called the the chief under jailor he's the head of the underground prison thus the under under jailer and when Jaime Lannister meets that character that character does not think of himself as a bit part that character does not think of himself as a mere peasant that character thinks of himself as the main character in his own story the way george RR martin writes is that even the smallest characters are from their own perspective the protagonist the hero and the villain in their own tragedy in their own triumph and that again adds a sense of social realism political realism and Jaime Lannister has this long and for him very frustrating and annoying dialogue with his character and again a Brienne of Tarth she thinks of herself as a major character and she runs into other characters who consider her a fly who consider her a gnat and from those characters perspective they instead ought to be the main character of Game of Thrones so that's a step beyond merely the type of social realism you get in the earlier trials of Tyrion Lannister but what we got in this episode in the finale and we get in the last several seasons this vacuous silence the scenes of just two characters standing around whispering at each other in a huge room with a lot of distance between them when they shouldn't be whispering or indeed even scenes of a quote-unquote court that is in no way courtly like you have all kinds of people getting drunk in the same room with Daenerys and Jon Snow and yet you know we have these very wooden of poorly staged dialogues what have you doesn't make sense it doesn't look anything like the court of King Joffrey that we knew from the earlier seasons of the TV show right it doesn't even look like the scene and the the great Sept of Baelor something we get the sense of a complex feudal society with with many players with with many objectives so on and so forth for me I feel that the writers checked out I don't want to put a specific date on it for me the extent to which the writers had just abdicated their responsibility to write was unlimited by the dialogue in which Sansa Stark says to Tyrion and dismissively you know oh don't bother to say anything I'll just imagine that she said so just imagine that you said something witty well the show really for several years just put these actors on a soundstage had long supposedly meaningful silences long stairs exchanged between them and the audience was in that way invited to fill in the blanks in the same way that even Sansa Stark in character within the show is filling in the blanks or telling the audience to fill in the blanks just imagine that this character has some kind of motivation just imagine that this character has something meaningful to say just imagine that when Jon Snow asks Daenerys Targaryen what her political plan for the future is imagine that when he asks her how is she going to make a better world imagine she has a good answer imagine these are characters who have the kinds of complex nuanced political views and objectives that we got used to in the first four seasons and what we're being presented with again it's like a fill in the blanks exercise where the script just presents us with blanks that the the writers never filled in now again obviously the first four seasons were not like that when when Tyrion Lannister is put on trial he stands there and gives a very inspirational speech right he stands there and speaks to the crowd and he says that all his life he's been on trial because he's a dwarf and he really lets us hear it he lied and he has some kind of political philosophy but I'm what he's saying even if it's kind of ridiculous this used to be a show in which every dialogue between little finger and VAR e's they really had something to say they they had their own political philosophy and they were part of a sophisticated socially complex world in which they were not the most important person they were not a sole voice an isolated voice on a sound stage they were one voice in the midst of a cacophony trying to decide what direction that society should move in so guys the finale for season 8 there's a lot with it other channels will take the time to pick through all the crazy continuity errors why is it that in the red keep all the only part of the red keep that collapsed was the one part that needed to collapse to kill Cersei and Jaime and then magically the whole rest of the building is intact only the part of the building that was featured in the sword fight between Sandor Clegane and Gregor Clegane was destroyed apparently the whole rest of the building including the room Tyrion then convenes his meetings in and the map from all that was intact so gee sure was unlucky for them they didn't just have their sword fight in a different room or Jaime and Cersei didn't just stay in the map room they'd still be alive today it's ridiculously bad writing ridiculous disregard for continuity Arya Stark shows up on a white horse and then Bing next episode the white horse is disappeared um sure it's it's abysmal II bad writing we were promised a bittersweet ending and I think the most bittersweet element is precisely this cast your mind back to how at one time you tried to introduce this show to your friends your brother your sister your boyfriend your girlfriend you used to tell other people maybe five years ago give this show a chance there's something really meaningful here there's something of value here and now here we are in 2019 and we have to face up to the bittersweet fact that we were wrong
fundamental problem with the series finale of Game of Thrones I'm gonna point it out because I think it's something other people will not say I think other commentators and critics are gonna pre it be preoccupied with many of the very real very glaring errors in continuity problems with characters problems with holes in the plot loose ends and storylines that were never tied up just all kinds of things that flatly make no sense or that they find subjectively dissatisfactory I am NOT going to discuss any of that I'm gonna ask you to cast your mind back to a time when you were trying to convince your friends to watch this show maybe a brother a sister maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend at some point your life maybe five years ago maybe eight years ago you were writing an email to a friend or phoning a friend and saying hey you know what you should give this TV show a chance it's not like Lord of the Rings it's not like Dungeons & Dragons it's not like some mainstream crap on TV you grew up with it's not the next Xena Warrior Princess and you can probably remember even if distantly why it was or how it was you justified this to your friends for many people they probably said in whatever words the reason why you should watch this show is realism and in the last few years that concept has become the butt of jokes people said oh well how can you talk about realism in a TV show that has dragons and fire magic and wizards and what-have-you and yet we all know you know we all remember from those first four years of this TV show what it was that realism meant it is very simply a sense of social realism a sense of political realism that this TV show had and that it lost I'm going to illustrate this with two elements of two elements that are flagrantly on display in the season finale but they've they've really impaired the quality of the last several years of the TV show do you notice that people just stand around like dancers like like performance artists on a soundstage ready to go into action people sometimes hundreds of people in a scene soon as dozens just stand in silence wasn't like that in season one wasn't like that in seasons two three and four okay and that's now become routine characters communicate over a huge distance by whispering or speaking in a very low voice when facing away from the character they're talking to cinemas while walking Suns all standing in a throne room and there's nobody else around now my problem here isn't just one of style I think it really is one of substance think back to the first time Tyrion Lannister was put on trial the first and second times Tyrion Lannister is front row he's shouting right he's shouting at the people who are judging him the first trial you'll remember ends with Bronn fighting in a trial by combat the second trial ends with him murdering Shae long story short right there was a room full of skeptical people right different actors asking different questions and even if they weren't speaking adding their own weight and scrutiny to the scene there were different competing interests and you know this reflects and it also exemplifies the way in which the early seasons of the show conveyed a sense of social realism a sense of political complexity of many different players in the game having different motives now the books are even better and here's why in the books when Jaime Lannister goes to visit a prison he meets a character who's called the the chief under jailor he's the head of the underground prison thus the under under jailer and when Jaime Lannister meets that character that character does not think of himself as a bit part that character does not think of himself as a mere peasant that character thinks of himself as the main character in his own story the way george RR martin writes is that even the smallest characters are from their own perspective the protagonist the hero and the villain in their own tragedy in their own triumph and that again adds a sense of social realism political realism and Jaime Lannister has this long and for him very frustrating and annoying dialogue with his character and again a Brienne of Tarth she thinks of herself as a major character and she runs into other characters who consider her a fly who consider her a gnat and from those characters perspective they instead ought to be the main character of Game of Thrones so that's a step beyond merely the type of social realism you get in the earlier trials of Tyrion Lannister but what we got in this episode in the finale and we get in the last several seasons this vacuous silence the scenes of just two characters standing around whispering at each other in a huge room with a lot of distance between them when they shouldn't be whispering or indeed even scenes of a quote-unquote court that is in no way courtly like you have all kinds of people getting drunk in the same room with Daenerys and Jon Snow and yet you know we have these very wooden of poorly staged dialogues what have you doesn't make sense it doesn't look anything like the court of King Joffrey that we knew from the earlier seasons of the TV show right it doesn't even look like the scene and the the great Sept of Baelor something we get the sense of a complex feudal society with with many players with with many objectives so on and so forth for me I feel that the writers checked out I don't want to put a specific date on it for me the extent to which the writers had just abdicated their responsibility to write was unlimited by the dialogue in which Sansa Stark says to Tyrion and dismissively you know oh don't bother to say anything I'll just imagine that she said so just imagine that you said something witty well the show really for several years just put these actors on a soundstage had long supposedly meaningful silences long stairs exchanged between them and the audience was in that way invited to fill in the blanks in the same way that even Sansa Stark in character within the show is filling in the blanks or telling the audience to fill in the blanks just imagine that this character has some kind of motivation just imagine that this character has something meaningful to say just imagine that when Jon Snow asks Daenerys Targaryen what her political plan for the future is imagine that when he asks her how is she going to make a better world imagine she has a good answer imagine these are characters who have the kinds of complex nuanced political views and objectives that we got used to in the first four seasons and what we're being presented with again it's like a fill in the blanks exercise where the script just presents us with blanks that the the writers never filled in now again obviously the first four seasons were not like that when when Tyrion Lannister is put on trial he stands there and gives a very inspirational speech right he stands there and speaks to the crowd and he says that all his life he's been on trial because he's a dwarf and he really lets us hear it he lied and he has some kind of political philosophy but I'm what he's saying even if it's kind of ridiculous this used to be a show in which every dialogue between little finger and VAR e's they really had something to say they they had their own political philosophy and they were part of a sophisticated socially complex world in which they were not the most important person they were not a sole voice an isolated voice on a sound stage they were one voice in the midst of a cacophony trying to decide what direction that society should move in so guys the finale for season 8 there's a lot with it other channels will take the time to pick through all the crazy continuity errors why is it that in the red keep all the only part of the red keep that collapsed was the one part that needed to collapse to kill Cersei and Jaime and then magically the whole rest of the building is intact only the part of the building that was featured in the sword fight between Sandor Clegane and Gregor Clegane was destroyed apparently the whole rest of the building including the room Tyrion then convenes his meetings in and the map from all that was intact so gee sure was unlucky for them they didn't just have their sword fight in a different room or Jaime and Cersei didn't just stay in the map room they'd still be alive today it's ridiculously bad writing ridiculous disregard for continuity Arya Stark shows up on a white horse and then Bing next episode the white horse is disappeared um sure it's it's abysmal II bad writing we were promised a bittersweet ending and I think the most bittersweet element is precisely this cast your mind back to how at one time you tried to introduce this show to your friends your brother your sister your boyfriend your girlfriend you used to tell other people maybe five years ago give this show a chance there's something really meaningful here there's something of value here and now here we are in 2019 and we have to face up to the bittersweet fact that we were wrong