7 ms·

This is what the Game of Thrones TV show proved: overall the show should not be considered a masterpiece, even though the early seasons seemed good at t

by fao_ 5y ago

This is what the Game of Thrones TV show proved: overall the show should not be considered a masterpiece, even though the early seasons seemed good at the time, since the stories they were telling mostly led nowhere. Oh, for only you could provide that wonderful evidence of which you talk about -- that proof for the first half of this quote. If only you could enlighten us all, cast the drapes from our eyes, and elucidate what difference lies between the fact of merely hinting at plots, and having an ending written, versus having the plots written, but the ending languishing in dreams. Sure, it had its excellent moments, but that's about it - overall, it was a show about the good guys winning easily, women being irrational and just kinda forgetting, armies fighting without consequences, and so on. The fact that the early seasons made you think it would be a different story was proven an illusion by the end. Thus, I am to take it that you feel the end of a work invalidates the whole? If I may be so bold as to talk about my experience, I find myself most content to read the latter half of a work, and circle around to the start. While I find myself most humble in hopefully not alluding to presume the minds of others, I do not think that the majority of people who cast their eyes over The Lord Of The Rings do so merely because they wish to find out what happens at the end? Surely, if they do so they must be rather disappointed by all of the videos and movies put forth in the years hence, that describe to one's eyes and culture the most intricate details of the ending in exact terms. It seems rather well documented, indeed -- it has been subsumed into our very culture, that the short of stature hobbits win their restless battle, in the end. That "Good" wins, and "Bad" fails. Alas, what reason is there to read the book now? For you already know the ending, why should one know the journey? Why open a book for which you know in advance the ending? Oh, simply the writer's prose, I suppose. Perhaps even, the skill and wit and deft of description. Merely the entire story and content of those soft white pages, before the last handful. From your perspective, surely you deem such things to be inadequate? After all, since a story only holds merit, if the ending holds merit, how could such things matter! I'll assent, that to be let down by an ending that you feel is shoddy or hastily jotted down by a perhaps all-too-sleep-deprived author, feels like being besmirched by their very hand at a prim and proper dinner party. And I shall even assent that these are all personal feelings, forthwit! What a dull and dreary world you must live in, it makes one sad. I truly pity you, and hope you too one day come to know the pleasure of taking the journey of things, and not just the finality.

tsimionescu 5y ago
I'm not sure how, but you seem to have deduced that I am somehow against... spoilers? My point is that a plot can seem interesting and mysterious while you are reading it, but only the ending will tell you if that feeling was justified or not. For example, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is not in any way dulled by knowing how it ends, the moments where you were reading about Orpheus trying to reach Hades and not yet knowing if he'd succeed are not in any way wasted if you know how it does end - the dramatic tension is beautifully resolved, if tragically so. If instead the story ended with Orpheus, given the right to try to leave hell with his beloved if only he never looks back would turn around to ask her what time dinner would be ready, as he just kinda forgets about Hades' deal, or he starts remembering some other woman he likes more and doesn't even care if Eurydice is no longer there; then the whole thing would be easily written off as a hack job and not remembered for some 2000 years later. Simialrly, the reason the ending of the Game of Thrones TV show destroyed the value of its entire story isn't simply that we found out how it ends, it's because most of what seemed in earlier seasons to be building up was proven to have been irrelevant. For example, for the longest time, you wondered if the world could band together and whether it could survive the threat of the White Walkers. However, the show made that out to have been an irelevant worry, since the whole White Walker army was easily defeated by a random assassin with a random knife (well, one made of good steel, but nothing more), who just had to find a moment when the main baddie had his back turned. The White Walker army turned out to be unable to even defeat half of the armies that stood against them in an open field - they were really a non-issue in the end. Even the themes of climate change, of politics and old rivalries and mistrust getting in the way of necessary action - these are all wiped out and proven to have been incorrect readings of the show. The White Walkers weren't a metaphor for external problems that an inward looking system can't solve, they were just ice zombies that are hard to kill individually, but easily coapse if you kill the queen bee. Similarly, for the entire duration of the show we look at Daenerys Targaryen and see how she confronts the antiquated, monstrous systems she encounters, and wonder if she can truly defeat them. Then, near the moment of her opportunity to do so, she snaps and goes crazy (according to the writers themselves) and decides to burn down the very people she has been trying to help. Any character building she had shown is made irrelevant, as it's simply the bad genes she inherited from her mad father that make her fantasy Hitler in the end. Not her haughtyness, not her tendency for retribution, not her belief in her own rights as a monarch - things that could have led to an interesting descent into madness or evil - no, just her bad blood.

by fao_ 5y ago

tsimionescu 5y ago

I'm not sure how, but you seem to have deduced that I am somehow against... spoilers? My point is that a plot can seem interesting and mysterious while you are reading it, but only the ending will tell you if that feeling was justified or not. For example, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is not in any way dulled by knowing how it ends, the moments where you were reading about Orpheus trying to reach Hades and not yet knowing if he'd succeed are not in any way wasted if you know how it does end - the dramatic tension is beautifully resolved, if tragically so. If instead the story ended with Orpheus, given the right to try to leave hell with his beloved if only he never looks back would turn around to ask her what time dinner would be ready, as he just kinda forgets about Hades' deal, or he starts remembering some other woman he likes more and doesn't even care if Eurydice is no longer there; then the whole thing would be easily written off as a hack job and not remembered for some 2000 years later. Simialrly, the reason the ending of the Game of Thrones TV show destroyed the value of its entire story isn't simply that we found out how it ends, it's because most of what seemed in earlier seasons to be building up was proven to have been irrelevant. For example, for the longest time, you wondered if the world could band together and whether it could survive the threat of the White Walkers. However, the show made that out to have been an irelevant worry, since the whole White Walker army was easily defeated by a random assassin with a random knife (well, one made of good steel, but nothing more), who just had to find a moment when the main baddie had his back turned. The White Walker army turned out to be unable to even defeat half of the armies that stood against them in an open field - they were really a non-issue in the end. Even the themes of climate change, of politics and old rivalries and mistrust getting in the way of necessary action - these are all wiped out and proven to have been incorrect readings of the show. The White Walkers weren't a metaphor for external problems that an inward looking system can't solve, they were just ice zombies that are hard to kill individually, but easily coapse if you kill the queen bee. Similarly, for the entire duration of the show we look at Daenerys Targaryen and see how she confronts the antiquated, monstrous systems she encounters, and wonder if she can truly defeat them. Then, near the moment of her opportunity to do so, she snaps and goes crazy (according to the writers themselves) and decides to burn down the very people she has been trying to help. Any character building she had shown is made irrelevant, as it's simply the bad genes she inherited from her mad father that make her fantasy Hitler in the end. Not her haughtyness, not her tendency for retribution, not her belief in her own rights as a monarch - things that could have led to an interesting descent into madness or evil - no, just her bad blood.