Game of Thrones (HBO) TV Show • Page 574

I’m also critical of Jon Snow being revived. Not sure why it even happened tbh. Were we supposed to stop questioning why at a certain point?

 

It was done just so HBO could leave us with a cliff hanger at the end of a season TBH

 

I think the answer is he still has a purpose to fulfill with the “gods.” With one episode left that purpose may still happen ... or it could very well just be the Red Woman had her magic but no actually validity behind it. She was wrong in her visions before.

 

It’s been mentioned a bunch of times in this thread and specifically today that it isn’t a problem for characters to survive because they are necessary to the plot, it’s an issue when they skip over the showing of their survival (like comparing staying with Jon getting his air in BOTB to Sam or Brienne getting COVERED in wights and then being totally fine right after) so that you’re taken out of the experience.

It’s also a problem when there’s no reason for the character to survive that particular moment except for the fact that they clearly want them dead at a different specific moment, without offering anything meaningful to their story to warrant it. Rhaegal could have died in the battle at Winterfell (in fact most people thought he did), and that would have done the same thing for hurting Dany’s spirit and power within the story. He also could have lived and been lost during the battle at KL to give some believability to Dany snapping since it would have been a purely visceral reaction to his death. But that doesn’t leave room for a shocking twist during episode 4, so they bent over backwards to make it happen at exactly that moment.

It’s still not coming down to whether the character lived or died, but how it happened within the story and whether or not they followed the logic of the world to get there or just reverse engineered it as a means to an end.

 

That’s actually the last place you see Jon in the books as well so it was a natural moment to use as a season cliffhanger

 

Ah I didn’t know that! (I haven’t read the books)

 

@EASheartsVinyl summed it up better than I could

 

Jon dying was one of the first big spoilers I remember reading as it aired. I don’t think I knew that they brought him back into way after that fact, but I assumed he would be. I don’t think I heard anything else huge through social media until Hodor died.

 

I don't really consider that plot armor though. The issue there isn't "they survived" it's "we didn't see how."

 

Yeah it’s getting into semantics about the phrase for sure, but I think it comes into play because if that same scene happened to a red shirt there would be no question that they died after the cut and were never seen again. If that kind of thing happens to someone we know and then they teleport somewhere else without any reason, that’s where the idea would come in. I’m not even the biggest fan of the phrase itself, partly because it’s been so overused, but I do think it’s important to clarify that it doesn’t just mean “they lived and in real life they wouldn’t”.

 

i wish i was creative enough to make something that @Anthony_ likes because i'd have a guaranteed cash flow the rest of my life

 

I also don’t think Jon’s death has even the slightest thing to do with plot armor. He died. He was brought back by magic. If anything you could say it’s a foregone conclusion or “spoiled by the medium” or something, because everyone knew he was too popular to stay dead. But in the story that isn’t an example at all.

 

The first problem isn’t “plot armor” it’s just poor filmmaking.

As for the second problem, honestly it just sounds like people are dissatisfied with the way the story went for certain characters more than “plot armor.” Like with Rhaegal, you said it yourself that his death could have happened at different points and still accomplished approximately the same thing in terms of the story. If that’s the case then why is the way it actually happened so bad? It still served a narrative purpose to happen that way, it just didn’t happen the way you would have preferred. I think your idea about Rhaegal dying at KL would have been better than what they did also, but that doesn’t mean what they did was bad in and of itself. And also I could just as easily say that if he had survived until King’s Landing that would also have been plot armor by your definition: he was kept alive just to be fridged for Daenerys.

At the end of the day, if you and others think that the show is no longer following any sort of logic within the world then this is a conversation that’s just going to go in circles forever because I disagree with that idea entirely.

 

Aka, plot armor? Lol

 

Uhhhh, those are totally separate tropes.

 

Whatever you want to call it, he’s being kept alive for plot purposes when he realistically should have stayed dead.

 

Call me stupid all you want, at least I have a coherent argument for my position. More than I’ve heard from you.

 

lol

 

Sunday is going to be amazing

 

Again, I don’t think you’re understanding that no one has a problem with a character surviving because they have a future role to play. Don’t know how many times that can be stated, lol.

Jon dying was something that made sense in the narrative and in the universe. The season didn’t start with him surviving his stab wounds, eating some soup, and then doing parkour the next day. He died. He stayed dead. The magic that exists in the story brought him back, and it was a huge shock to everyone. Whether or not it fulfilled a prophecy or whatever doesn’t matter, but it made sense within his story and the show.

Something being a foregone conclusion or spoiled by the medium doesn’t really have anything to do with a show in universe. It’s just the knowledge that at the end of the day you are watching TV and there are certain general rules that apply. There was no reason to expect Jon to come back to life except for the fact that he is a cash cow for HBO. The story itself isn’t lessened by that knowledge, and the shock isn’t any less meaningful, it just isn’t as surprising by default because of what you know going into it.

 

I’m going out of town and coming back to make sure I don’t miss the chaos. It’s been a super fun ride on here.

 

I have MASSIVE issues with where the showrunners have taken this story. The Night King and The White Walkers play a MUCH larger role in the version of this story written by me. Everything I was hoping to see from this show was obliterated when Arya sunk her knife into the NK's abdomen and he exploded into icy shards. They have undercut some of the powerful female characters in ways they really should not have. They took a character - Euron Greyjoy - who should have been fantastic and interesting and apparently is on the page and turned him into an annoying joke, wasting a lot of hard work from a great actor in Pilou Asbæk. Jaime Lannister's arc would play out completely and utterly different if I were in charge.

Even with all of that said though, I really feel like Benioff and Weiss were in a tough situation here. I would say the decision to try to finish the story in shorter seasons as opposed to handing it off to different writers / showrunners was the wrong move. So many people would have jumped at that opportunity - myself included. A petition to have this season remade is dumb and pointless though. The ratings have increased overall as this series has gone on, which is a pretty remarkable feat. The show has been a resounding success by almost most measures.

Jon not petting Ghost goodbye was straight fucking LAZY though. No excuse for that shit.

 

That 9 year cliffhanger

 

Yeah i'll be flying all day that day but i already read the spoilers so im more excited to see how people react than actually watching it

 

Honestly we’re just talking past each other at this point. I’m going leave the thread for good anyway, sorry I didn’t explain myself better.