Jar-Jar Binks in a Fur Cape = Game of Thrones, Season 8 Episode 1

Game of Thrones is so badly written that
now the only dramatic tension in the TV show is provided by wondering how harsh the reaction on YouTube is going to be episode wraps how how negative is Elio Garcia's critique of this company that's really the only question I I find myself asking this is a series of characters who used to be brilliant and focused and highly motivated and mysterious and have intrigue and insight and philosophically interesting things to say look at VAR E's look at Baris the spider think about what he represented in season 1 season 2 season 3 you were interested in what he had to say next what do you just even his comments about life and philosophy and religion and politics was interesting you're interested about what he was concealing there was intrigue there was mystery you wondered what the hell is vari he's doing now he's a guy standing around on on a soundstage with nothing to do no particular motivation no mystery no injury I don't care I don't care what Varner's they might as well have written him out of the show this point I can say that about the entire cast I think a lot of people you felt that already last season with with Littlefinger you know this great schemer this great character no he just ran out of things to scheme this just ran out of plot it's almost as if a bunch of really bad writers had been handed a really great series of books and after a few years of adapting the books they just ran out of books that's that's what it seems like then all of a sudden these these brilliant fascinating interesting characters whether you look at var ease or Littlefinger or you know even even Tyrion himself it's just got it's got nothing to say we get we can what see after the other after I have to shout out my girlfriend how how many scenes can end with the staged instruction walks off stage two quickly hop stated stoic silence and it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if the scene is one of seduction and romance or one of comedy or one of like death threats just walk off stoically guys think about think about in seasons 1 through 3 when major characters arrived somewhere I know stay with me it's not majeure when you know Ned Stark arrives in King's Landing the capital city you have the sense the carefully construed sense of a complex feudal society with complex relations he's received there is a court you have the sense of courtly life of a complex in ID there are festivals there were feasts yeah but that's not all there is to it both in the books and in the show when Catelyn are sir Catelyn when Catelyn arrives at the inn on the crossroads you have the sense of a complex feudal society and there are schemes and plots and there's a lot going on and now when people arrive somewhere the Empress of the Seven Kingdoms the Conqueror of marine and the known world when she shows up at Winterfell they're just a bunch of guys on a soundstage they're just a bunch of characters standing there making eye contact and of course it ends with everyone walking off so ugly in silence there is none of the sense of social or political complexity that you had there in seasons 1 2 & 3 now look my interest is more in that social realism and political complexity not everyone says for some people some people really do read the books as romance and then want to feel that romantic tension a romantic complexity like there was a time when Sansa Stark was kind of sort of in love with Sandor Clegane we don't we don't get any of that here either so if that was what you cared about the books is that kind of romantic component that's also been drowned like an unwanted kitten here oh you know there are other major themes than the books get more and more important and in the TV show of just disappeared yeah yeah remember remember the religion of real or remember that was a big deal when that really mattered remember when the the religion of the old gods was like way more important than just a decorative element in the background those trees and what they represent it's gone there's no I mean there's both no political narrative or meaning anymore it's also no religious or philosophical many more it would be like you know if in Star Wars as the Star Wars movies progressed this whole thing about the force and the dark sever it just kind of disappeared you know what what wait a minute there were these big questions about the gods and magic and the meaning of life and magic returning the world there was no magic before and there is now and the legends about the past we don't know if they're true or false where they meant to figurative or symbolic or literally true there were all these questions I mean you know when the books and in the show that were set up just all just all fades away just nobody really cares anymore about real or or you know the old gods or the religion of the seven there's a picture yeah remember no more that was a big deal remember one like the question of burning down the Sept and and Cersei destroyed did that have any plot consequences for anyone no the religion of the seven and the faith healing of Sandor Clegane and like yeah remember the religion the seven it had like the largest army in the Seven Kingdoms because it organized the poor the poor were begging for bread and dying of famine so they all got organized and radicalized and part of this huge religion hood what what happened to that that's just that just petered out that just disappeared the same way that like you know the armies of them it's name is Submarino so the guy the follower of relora anyway saris his name's the Stannis the armies of Stannis Stannis has you know the greatest army in the history of the world he was up there in the north of the wall they just oh yeah they just they just fade it out you know just just disappeared and so did Ramsay Bolton army Ramsay Bolton army beat that army it's just gone let's just don't worry about it you know one whatever fee after the other dissolves so you know there were a lot of things here that if you drew them on a chalkboard might seem interesting even if we're starting from like even if we accept like okay this is like a Star Wars universe but then everything that made Star Wars interesting in the first film has just gradually disappeared from the other okay but nevertheless so you've got people speaking different languages from different cultures all living together in tents in the middle of the frozen tundra that could be kind of interesting a good writer could say oh wow we have the Dothraki and there was so much work put in back in season 1 - making the Dothraki kind of interesting right in the books there's even more so many pages given to trying to make the reader interesting this right so when the Dothraki come back there must be something interesting about that right having the Dothraki living in the same tents with people from the far north having people from the south having well again they're a totally different culture you know the army of eunuchs you know from marine and so on like okay so all these people from all over the world are for the first time ever living in one place at one time and they don't even really know why they're there and they've never even heard of the great ice wall but they don't this is all so what's going on with that that's it wow you come from the desert you've never seen snow before and then they're telling you there's this giant wall made out of ice and there were zombies March to it okay that might be an interesting story to tell even if it's just literally the peasants I perspective of those people living together in a camp what if also it's the contrast between hey you know you guys with the religion of the seven your religion is largely made up of abstract philosophical symbolic gods mother maiden Crone the stranger yeah yeah but guess what there were some other religions in the storyline that are literally true and then like like they actually have cause and effect magical powers like hey guess what the trees they're not an allegory these magical trees they actually have magic they actually matter and it's connected we still don't know that I mean all this stuff was set up season one with you know the Ravens and the trees and what's the connection between the Ravens of the trees and the army of the Dead and like oh yeah all this this was all kind of the fault of these magic elves be magical elf people hate the children of the forest and the magical elf people are kind of working for the trees and the old gods the kind of are the old gods which side are the old guns but none of that is worked out none of it produces tension or anything interesting what side is brand on Brandon Stark what do you represent you so you say you know what you are the old gods who created this bioweapon the Martian army did no nobody has any motivation except survivalism except escaping simply no escaping the Winterfell which doesn't it's not really a place to escape to just sit there and wait to die what's the strategy here guys sorry I mean you know this like Oh we'll just abandon the wall okay so that's the greatest natural and man-made fortress on the planet just gonna give that up okay let's just keep just keep but any any concept I mean look in the books even by the third story in the Dunkin egg novels I mean I admit the first two Dunkin egg novellas or short stories or long stories the first two are not that politically retro political complex but by the third story you really get the sense when you're in a castle as a setting in the Game of Thrones world it's politically complex in the books even at Winterfell even when Jon Snow is the ruler Winterfell and you've got Stannis and his men they're just like the the third dunk and egg story this question of knights are motivated because Knights don't want to be Knights forever Knights want to become Lords with their own castle or keep that want to own property they want promotions different people are jockeying for different political outcomes and political outcomes and economic outcomes and who's gonna get what land and who's gonna get what marriage and change marriages in the price the prices being paid for different alliances it's complex and you know indeed again we could have some rich or meaningful sense of the relationship of the peasantry to the aristocrats here zero ABS absolutely none and instead all we get is one scene after another that's incredibly dimly lit to my mind incredibly aimless and incredibly poorly written I mean for me from start to finish it just feels like you're looking at a bunch of placeholders look yeah there could have been some good some good writing here you know some what what Sansa says of of Tyrion oh I used to think you were the cleverest man in the world when was the last time Tyrion said or did anything clever you know it's it's been a long time since Tyrion had anything clever to say and even if he were now coming out with really witty jokes like even he were really getting punchlines that were whole whole hilarious um it would feel aimless and pointless I think the only character who has any motivation anymore is is Cersei Lannister who's unbelievably badly written I mean it's without even doing a book to show comparison her motivations are completely different from the book but if Cersei is out for revenge I mean again this is not really the book but if what Cersei wants is revenge against the man who killed her father and she doesn't care if the world burns doesn't care if the if the zombies take over the planet at least she's got a storyline because it seems like absolutely nobody else does so look um there was a time when it look okay okay good news first good news first good news first show's gonna end and then finally in the year 2020 being a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire can go back to being a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire I mean there must have been a time when fans of The Lord of the Rings books they really kind of felt like oh we used to have this small cool scene and that people who were really into the books and then the movies were a big hit and you know kind of it kind of destroys the scene even though it's a multi-million dollar success story right and then the movies fade away and now we get to go back to being more of a literary scene people who are really into into those books I hope and I expect something similar is gonna happen with Game of Thrones Song of Ice and Fire the TV show is gonna fade out and I hope in 20 20 or 20 21 I'm gonna have to get to go to my first conference I'm gonna write and publish my first essays I'm serious cuz I've been for me I'm really in it for the long haul I really appreciate the books primarily as a kind of political artifact I love to write an essay looking at the Chinese translation in contrast in English translation the Chinese political interpretation the Chinese response to the politics of the books fascinating to write about love to write about love to make use of it is I think there's a lot of really meaningful questions raised there and now all we've got to do is wait for the TV show to die and be forgotten so the fandom to get back to being something halfway meaningful and you know the bad news is that at this point it's just so obvious this show is just as bad at and it just as terrible as you know the the Star Wars prequels where any pretense people might have had if they were fans the original Star Wars movie the very first Star Wars movie where they fell hey this is something politically provocative or some kind of social commentary or some kind of meaningful fable whether you think of that in religious or philosophical terms and then you know hey you're looking at Jar Jar Binks and the Jar Jar Binks Happy Meal and the reality of what Star Wars had become after its reincarnation and commercialization and you just have to hang your head in shame and say well this is something I can't even publicly be a fan of anymore Game of Thrones in 2019 it really is that bad that's all I can say to you is don't evade it don't turn away don't make excuses face up to it yes yes the quality writing is so bad the romance between Cersei and the The Pirate King the one-eyed pirate king have you read a worse written middle-age romance in your life in your life it's worse written than soap commercials it's worse written than videogames a fantasy star 8 for the Sega Genesis or something is better written than this it's really that bad and then right in the middle what do we do we cut away from the boring middle-aged people having sex cut to brawn and a wallet of waffle run in a warehouse gratuitous female nudity and more terrible writing objectively bad writing that goes no bare and accomplishes nothing and CEO and then oh when that seems done cut back to cut back to Searcy it's it's just a cavalcade of terrible writing shout out to the dragon demands shout out to Elio Garcia showed everyone else who is suffering through it and what can I tell you Game of Thrones the TV show I probably would have never heard of these books so that the TV show was it eight years ago now which time is past but um guys you know that there's a lot to be learned from the study of of good writing and I've got to say with me that's just a point of diminishing returns I just don't think there was that much to be said about bad writing here you know but you know there's a lot that's meaningful and worth examining with celebrating in in the game of thrones books and in this TV series and what it's become that's all it is this this is just Jar Jar Binks in a fur cape you know waiting for the zombie army to you know carry them away and make them into a figurine that's sold with happy meals that is it see you next episode