I think the first major crack came earlier in this season, with that absolutely ridiculous plotline of Yara trying to rescue Theon. Not only is that whole scene stupid, but the travel logistics also made no sense (they had to circumnavigate Westeros to get to the Dreadfort by boat!)
@@tiagolascasas not to mention that was the last we saw of the ironborn until season 6,skipping over all of the world building possible to show you the state of other factions still operating in Westeros
They removed the single biggest changing moment in Tyrions life up until this point because they didnt want Tyrion to be seen as evil,therefore they neutered him and removed his more Treacherous and evil actions that are supposed to show he is Tywins son in every way
It seems like the show runners got REALLY into the ✨idea✨ of certain actors and the prestige they had the potential to bring. Not actually giving them material to do so, just getting chubbed up about it
Yup, they did the same with all the fan favorites. Dany's whitewashing was by far the worst. Their MHYSA! could do no wrong, until they got ready to kill her off. And to make 100% sure people would all worship them and no one else, they also removed all the good stuff from characters they didn't like.
Tyrion can do no wrong and is just a super nice fellow; Daenarys is the peaceful Queen of Kumbyah; Jon is the quiet brooding Dindu Nuffin-Diddint Wunt it-King; Cersei is the poor broodmare Lioness who had her poor children ripped away; Catelyn is the poor wife who just wanted her husband to stay in Winterfell, totally didn't meddle in any affairs she shouldn't have, was always right in her counsel to Robb (who has basically nobody around him in the show), and TOTALLY prayed to the God's to spare the ****ing life of Jon Snow which she would TOTALLY confide in Jeyne West-I mean . . . . . . Seven Hells I can't even remember what moronic name that moronic character had in the show.
@@newpgaston6891 Like Stannis. They totally butchered that character simply bc they didn't like him. Then they completely butchered Euron simply bc they didn't like all the magical aspects of his character. Complete hacks and makes me wonder why GRRM ever signed off on them being the show runners
@@MrFredsttTo be fair, they did a great job adapting most of the early books (minus the Stannis character assassination). It goes downhill in the second half of the series. GRRM couldn’t have known how bad it would become.
Season 4 episode 10 is one of those episodes that is good in isolation, but the changes from the source material in that episode sets the rest of the show up for its collapse. Dropping the Tysha reveal leaves Tyrion's character completely stranded
The butterfly effect that GRRM talked about in his criticism of HoTD. I think cutting Aegon was another major butterfly effect that affected most of the characters
I mean they did, but they "kinda forgot" about her in season 3 which means Tyrions entire driving purpouse after this point is non-existent and it slowly makes his character worse.
They left out a lot of unsavory aspects of Tywin while adding way too many show only scenes that make Tywin look better. It’s clear that Tywin is D&D’s favorite character.
@@nont18411 I mean they included plenty of scenes that categorized Tywin as a monster, even if they did cut some... So it's not like Dany which they completely whitewashed. I have a feeling the 'good stuff' is because they had a quality actor for him; They tend to give better stuff to characters who were well acted/with renowned actors.
Solid take. This episode definitely does feel like the Butterfly Effect episode for the remainder of the series: Jaime staying with Cersei gives us the terrible Dorne plot. Fan service of making Arya this badass little girl killing machine directly leads to Arya Magical Ninja Assassin Robot because the Braavos arc turns her into a superhero instead of showing us the tragedy of a life consumed by violence and revenge and the subsequent loss of one's self. And worst of all they stripped Tyrion of all chances of being a nuanced antihero/villain and so he turns into Oppo in the later half of the show. Season 5 was the harbinger of the worst that was yet to come but this episode was the first misstep. Season 4 was so good we all just kinda forgot, like Dany with the Iron Fleet.
11:07 to be honest, book Shae and show Shae are two completely different characters in that regard. I don't see show Shae begging that way, but it fits for book Shae perfectly. Honestly Shae's character change to someone who sort of actually kinda maybe loved Tyrion was a big mistake imo.
I think the mistake that started it was making her a bit too mature and self-reliant, but you could probably still have her break down and ask for forgiveness, would bring a gut-punching human touch to Tyrion murdering her. Honestly, the biggest mistake by far was not having Tyrion go down the villain route, I think that could've been accomplished either way, but it would work alot better if the "start" was an unsympathetic murder instead of self-defense.
nah D&D fucked up bad. Shae's death is one of the major things that tells the reader that Tyrion is now evil and will be the villain and they didn't want to do that.
@@a.a677They could have left their complex relationship from the show (I think show Shae is more sympathetic and a better character than in the books) and still having her death being more like in the book (murder as opposed to self defence). This way it would have been more dramatic, really showing Tyrion new role as a villain.
@@a.a677this is the answer. Tyrion is *not* a hero in the books, and sits way closer to villain. At best, he’s morally ambiguous, and even that is arguable. That’s not to say he isn’t better than a hell of a lot of other characters, but he’s still very much a awful person
Idk if it was because the actress isn’t very good or it was on purpose but I never thought Shae in the show loved Tyrion, and I think the self defense part works better if they built it up correctly. Shae trying to kill Tyrion shows that she really was manipulative of Tyrion and that she didn’t care for him, only his money and status. Then the Tysha reveal and Tyrion telling Jaime he killed Joffrey would’ve conveyed his anger more. But like I said, that only would’ve worked if they built off it, and they didn’t, so it doesn’t
Season one has gradually become my favorite season. You can really tell it was the only season where they were actually trying to set up where the books are likely going.
@@pumpkin2477Id even say Game of Thrones is my favorite book, especially since I don’t feel the dread of running out of pages to read yet and worrying about Winds of Winter. Game of Thrones book has plotlines that we can see the conclusion of.
Big agree. I think seasons 1-4 make for great TV but as an adaptation it starts to flounder as early as S2. I honestly think the only reason those seasons are so highly beloved is because the source material is just so good that even a vastly inferior version is still hailed as one of the best things on TV.
Cutting Jeyne Westerling was an awful idea. Talisa makes no sense. They replaced Jeyne with a random field nurse who was on the other side of the world smack talking a king. It was so out of place it was absurd. They gutted the dubious nature of Jeyne probably sleeping with Robb while he was delirious from fantasy morphine, then Robb not wanting to dishonor her despite the fact that her sleeping with a drugged and wounded man is incredibly creepy. Robb's downfall in the show is the result of him acting uncharacteristically undutiful, thinking with his dick rather than him trying to do the right thing in a messy situation.
Yep, adding Jeyne would have elevated Tywin so much because that was his masterplan to honeytrap Robb while showing how desperate and out of depth Robb was in the situation. But nah, the show just took a simple route of "Robb was horny bruhhhh".
But he WAS horny. This love drug thing is only a theory. Not everything has to be hyper engineered. A beauty of Robb’s storyline is that he was a teenager that made a dumb mistake, consistent with his development as a great-at-war but shit-at-politics character. And it is consistent with the broader theme of the story, of how a single mistake can have huge consequences.
@@josephstalin2829 Except that House Spicer and Westerling were rewarded by Tywin for their "contributions" for the red wedding. It was, in fact, very hyper engineered by Tywin himself. Robb was set up since the beginning.
Whether or not it was Tywin's plan, the fact that Jeyne was a Lannister vassal made Robb's situation even more complicated. This would have been perfect for Robb's storyline in the series, especially considering his plan to attack Casterly Rock. The loyalty of his people is truly put to the test when they see their king marrying an "enemy." So, I agree with you.
Totally agree I think once Tyrion is talking about Cousin Orson, or whatever hes called, crushing beetles, rather than the conversation between him and Jaime about Tysha, the show had discarded the first of many important emotional hearts, and by the end it didnt have any left at all
Especially because that was a dig at Orson Scott Card, who was critical of the show. It’s *deeply* petty and childish, and I’m saying this as someone who REALLY does not like Orson Scott Card and thinks his criticisms were presented in a fashion I will call ‘debatable’.
@@babzm.1666showrunners were hella petty and childish lol Didn’t they kill off Barristan (or wanted to kill him off sooner) just because of the actor voicing his own input?
@@johnmurdoch8534 It comes off as a scene you would see Tyrion alongside Podrick and Bronn, just got too drunk on to much wine back in S2. An Tyrion completely out of his mind just telling a very drunken story, of this weird cousin of his back in the day. If something like that was shown i would believe it. But something like Tyrion in his cell talking to Jaime it feels very off, and the Tysha thing would have made way more sense.
@@georgia4111eh not rly. Napoleon wasn't prepared for the russians to burn down their own capital instead of leaving it in french hands. They starved them out
I think that was the first moment for me too. It’s just felt so…lazy. I was suddenly reminded that I’m watching a fictional show made by writers who can make lazy decisions that don’t make sense lol
Season 4 is weird because when they actually stick closer to the source material then it is arguably the best and the most hype part of the entire series but then it starts to have those diviations like Yara going to the Dreadfort or the Bolton guy searching for Bran which don't really even go anywhere and don't accomplish anything. Also it's weird how they decide to make Jaime into a good guy by not including his role in the Tysha story to then just turn his character around back to Cersei at the end of the series
Isn't it funny that Stannis suddenly has a cavalry army double the size of Theoden's Rohirim in Season four, but for some reason he's left with a couple of foot soldiers in season five. Yes it snowed, I know. It's still dumb.
The excuse is that a lot of his army abandoned him after he sacrificed Shireen, despite them supposedly being hardened sellswords from Essos and that sacrifice clearing the snow which was probably gonna kill a lot of them.
@@harrysiddall3392 That is literally what happened. He had plenty of men to siege Winterfell prior to sacrificing Shireen. Like 2/3s of his army left him following Shireens death.
First bad episode? S02E04 Garden of Bones. It's the one where Jeyne Westerling is needlessly replaced by Oona Chaplin's pointless character, a noble girl from Volantis who realized that Slavery Bad when a slave saved her brother from drowning (?) so she went off to fight slavery in Westeros (?) by becoming a field medic (?) Small diversion, you might say, but a sign of things to come. The first instance of Benioff and Weiss flexing their writing muscle, trying out to see if they can do what GRRM does. The answer was a resounding no: Jeyne Westerling's minuscule character arc is a poignant little side story about teen love and familial treachery; it shows Tywin Lannister as a master schemer (as opposed to a guy who just wrote to the Freys and asked them to betray their liege lords). "Talisa", conversely, was an utter waste of space. The tragedy is, the audience didn't care about this blatant demonstration of authorial ineptitude, so Benioff & Weiss figured that they didn't really need Martin. The rest is history.
@@MrFredstt Yeah, I think they knew about Westeros not having slavery, but they didn't put much thought into why this anti-slavery noblewoman would just emigrate to another continent and blithely ignore institutionalized slavery back home. (Instead of, you know, freeing the slave that saved her brother's life?) But it's all just a couple throwaway lines - her background never gets mentioned again, leads to nothing whatsoever. They cut Jeyne Westerling for no reason, replacing her arc with literally nothing. Must've been testing how much Martin would allow them to stray.
Also D&D chose to shank a pregnant Talisa to death in the red wedding for nothing but edginess' sake. She died for nothing. Meanwhile, Jeyne is still alive in the books (so does the Blackfish). She still has a purpose on the succession crisis of House Stark and the regrouping of the scattered House Tully.
i would've believed her if she said she is aemthess empress herself time tavelled from great empire of dawn over a noble volantie came westores to fight slavery.
I just wanna say in general I really like that you're putting out some bolder, more original takes. (Not that there was anything wrong with your other work- I just like it when folks form their own theories and ideas, and aren't afraid to just put it out there. It's refreshing.)
A Clash of Kings really should have been two seasons. They cut the Harvest Feast/all of Brans stuff, Renly's peach, Patchface, the Tullys and Edmures repelling of Tywin, a lot of what Arya went through and so forth. IMO Season 2 is kinda where the ball got dropped.
I agree. If they took their time and decided to split the books after the first one into two or more seasons the show would've been much better. Also, Martin might have actually pulled TWOW not having to go through all the drama. It would've been impossible, of course, since all the children actors would've be too old by season 5, but still.
Idk, while I wished they included some of that stuff, others I’m glad they condensed, like all the parts about Arya traipsing around the riverlands did not need to be multiple chapters. And let’s be real, apart from introducing us to some of the northern lords, the whole Donella Hornwood plot was needlessly complicated
@@MrFredstt True but talking about season 2 specifically I think having Theon kill Ser Rodrik was a good change. Same with having Arya getting captured immediately after the battle instead of walking around the riverlands for 2 chapters before she gets captured anyway. (Would've liked to see the Mountain's Men though)
After I read the books, I actually forgot the show didn't include the Tysha reveal. I swear I had a memory of Charles Dance saying "wherever whores go." Unfortunately it seems my mind retroactively edited my memory of the terrible Tywin death scene in the show.
Season 2 is still one of the strongest seasons, but the Qarth arc was one of the first big red flags for me with how much they changed and butchered the adaptation of the storyline.
"What do you think was the first bad episode in GoT?" - Not so much an episode as a season-long subplot: Season 2 Daenerys was just painfully bad, and it suffered from exactly the things you'd see amplified to the extreme from season 5 onwards. We just didn't notice it as a warning sign yet because it was enclosed in an otherwise overall good season, and then Season 3 Daenerys was genuinely great again.
Another thing regarding the fight between Brienne and Sandor: How tf did they just stumble upon each other in some random location in the Vale??? I mean Brienne already randomly stumbled upon Sansa in the inn, but now she also finds Arya by happenstance? So stupid Also, I am not quite sure how Brienne recognized Arya, when I believe she was thought to be dead and Brienne had never seen her before but yeah yeah, sure sure😂
The happenstance with Brienne & the Hound happened before the one with Sansa & Littlefinger which makes the latter even more stupid that she finds the second girl shes looking for in an inn after already randomly finding the first girl she was looking for on a field in Westeros
Ha wait.. then she randomly finds Sansa again while her and theon are just about to recaptured by Bolton men. She had no idea she escaped and was riding around the north
@@jordanharris868 yeah true. And then later in s5 (or6) Brienne also stumbled upon Sansa just as she and Theon had escaped Winterfell and saved them from the Bolton-men😂 And before that she found Stannis dying in the forest so she could avenge Renly. The only thing Brienne didn’t stumble upon is logic
That whole fight just annoys me. I do appreciate Sandor’s “Safety… there’s no safety…” speech to her but the fight is just so gratuitous. Didn’t happen in the book and did not need to. I hate that fight and the reference to it later on, so much. I’m so glad this video spoke to this. I agree with all said about it here.
I hate the fact that I'd forgotten how bad most of this episode was, just because Peter Dinklage and Charles Dance were so damn good in the last scene! They did that bit more or less perfectly, and almost made up for all the utter crap that came before. Almost, but not quite. That small glimpse of Tyrion going bad was so beautiful. I wish the writers had been smart enough to commit to it! Watching a few more seasons of Peter Dinklage chewing the scenery at his best would have been glorious.
I'm not sure this is the first *BAD* episode but it is the moment the show went off the rails, jumped the shark or what have you. I think S4 in general is overrated and had too many bullshit 'dumbed down for TV' moments. People give it a lot of slack because its highs are very high. But it also has that scene with Tyrion and Jaime in the black cells talk about nothing for what feels like 10 minutes.
The scene where tyrion talks to jaime really struck me as weird on a rewatch. Even the camera angles make them look really weird. Like from some soap opera
Just to add some more thoughts on The Children. - Mance Rayder not threatening to potentially use The Horn of Winter which he claims will tear down the Wall changes the stakes of the scene and gives him less bargaining power. - Theres a lack of scouting for Stannis, this would’ve helped illustrate the plan and tease the twist for the audience, given the fact that he came straight from the Iron Bank the ambush comes pretty out of left field in the show. - i’d prefer official paperwork for Pycelle’s dismissal to make it more legitimate and not just Cersei who isn’t the highest claim to power at the time just having her way. Use Tommen as a puppet and put his signature on it. - They don’t show how Dany escorts the dragons to the prison, in the books they make it really difficult for her, and they act smarter in knowing they are being controlled, in the show the dragons seem more naiive. - Varys’ intentions behind getting Tyrion out are different, i prefer the book version where he feels more in control, in the show he seems like hes jettisoning out of fear and was forced by Jaime - Geographically the way Pod and Brienne discover one of the two people in the world theyre looking for is super lucky and arguably contrived - i get the inspiration for grabbing the blade, just not what i would’ve chosen. Also The Hound not being black out dead from that fall is insane. Also the editing in the fight scene is horrid, the amount of cuts is silly. - Not having the secret passage from the brothel to the hand’s tower in the show makes it very out of left field, as is how in the show Tywin’s hypocrisy isn’t seeded properly, and the twist doesn’t work. In the books, Tywin Lannister not shitting gold is a great thematic conclusion, in the show it comes across as random and jarring, and spits in the face of a character who doesn’t fit this ending - The Tysha confession being omitted makes Tyrion risking it all to go to The Hand’s Tower completely different. In the books the moment of finding out it was all a lie makes him see red, and so he is driven to go there, and uses the secret brothel passage to not get caught, in the show that rationale is gone. - Arya at the Saltpans at the end is cool, but i just personally wish on the boat they show her having wolf dreams which then ends Season 4 on Lady Stoneheart. Great video, keep it up.
You know, I tried rewatching GoT with my wife around a year or 2 ago. And when we got to this episode, I physically cringed and audibly groaned when we got to the ommission of the Tysha confession. It really is the microcosm of the downfall the series takes. Overall I personally thought the episode was pretty good up until that point, but at the end (much like the show at large), it fell flat on its face.
Also for the record, we did not finish our rewatch. Watching season 5 was not fun and I think we went through seasons 1-4 in the same amount of time it took us to get through season 5 alone. We decided to call it there and haven't even talked about picking it back up again for season 6 and onward. The fall off is steep and very depressing on rewatch.
@@thing_under_the_stairs see, on my first watch, I had faith that they would turn it around. The first 4 seasons were so good that it gave me faith that they would get it back on track for the end. The end of season 6 had so many big moments that sorta gaslit many fans (myself included) into believing that OG GoT was back...but then season 7 was awful and season 8 was just insulting. And upon rewatch, you see the steep decline but you know it doesn't get better.
@@blaubeer8039 But of course, D&D didn't think that audiences would be smart enough to understand the "fake Arya" plot, and they wanted a chance to SA Sansa onscreen, too. Or maybe it was Sophie Turner they wanted to abuse.
I think that's a consequence of shows/viewers being more.. "simple". If the sansa story happened to Jeyne Poole people wouldn't care nearly as much, because ti's not sansa and all.
@@newpgaston6891 we don't know if the viewers are simple, we just know that the writers thought so. There was a time when an adaptation of ASOIAF was utterly unthinkable due to the complexity and tragedy of the writing, yet audiences seemed to enjoy the book-sourced stuff the most.
The first bad sign for the Show even goes back to Season 2, when they totally messed up the House of the Undying. Season 4 is a strong Season overall and is so highly regarded, because it has banger Episode after banger Episode and it‘s often forgotten that Episodes 1, 3, 4 and 5 aren‘t actually that good. I hate the whole Crasters Keep Stuff, the stupid attempt of Asha(Yara doesn’t exist) rescuing Theon and Danys poorly executed Storyline. They literally took her last two Chapters From A Storm of Swords and added some really awful scenes, to make one of the most boring storylines of the entire Show.
I would say the first glimpses of how bad the show could be, excluding unnecesary sex scenes in S1, go all the way as early as S2, with the omission of the Ramsay and Reek subplot. It hurts Theon's and Bran's stories, and it leads us to those stupid S3 torture scenes to introduce Ramsay to the audience there.
I really like how you don't see the torture in the books but only the sorry human called Reek that was tortured and you connect the dots to him being Theon
@@leonrussell9607 I would not be that sure of that, you can get quite creative with changing someone's appearance drastically especially in animation, but also you can do a lot with make-up etc. and I am sure the people, who do that kind of stuff would love to take on a challenge like that even of it's the same actor
@@samuelschonenberger GRRM tends to like showing the in depth trauma and aftermath of such things and focusing on that more than showing the act itself and moving on which is very different from how D&D does things
SPOT ON. I've always said this; Most people seem to think the show turned bad in the 7th or 8th season (and some more courageous point to the 5th season), but the cracks started showing SO MUCH earlier... 4 had some genuinely terrible moments, but even as early as 2nd season there were cracks. It was just cracks by then so these seasons were still great, just like the ice can be great to stake on even though it's cracked, but it's far from perfect. Even as early as S2, this show started doing this 'black&white' thing where all the 'good guys' were made better, while all the 'bad guys' were made worse... Cut all the bad stuff from our favorites (Tyrion, Dany, even Jon), and cut all the good, character building scenes from the characters we don't like and don't want you to like... There's a reason why there are characters that are among the top favorites among books readers, but least favorites among the show's viewers; They made them unlikable, by simply removing all the stuff people liked about them. (and did the opposite for the favorites, removing all the bad stuff that could make some people not like them as much). The Tyrion/Shae scene was probably THE moment where it was no ambiguity anymore what they were doing with this show. They had no balls and no desire to write a solid, poignant story. They just wanted to make the good guys shine and be perfect in everything.
@@MrFredstt Yeah I only checked it out a couple episodes but dropped it. I don't have any faith about these anymore, plus I don't care too much about targaryen, especially after how they shoved them down our throat in GoT. I think the only series I'd watch from now on would be Robert's Rebellion, but I doubt they'll ever do that because it'd make the Baratheon look good and Targaryen look bad.
@@newpgaston6891As someone who hates the last four seasons of GOT, I think HOTD is significantly better. I’d recommend you finish it. The portrayal of Rhaenyra and her father Viserys is really well done in the first season. Daemon too.
@@MysterE95 they've already ruined iconic book scenes while padding for time, a problem ASOIAF simply does not have despite being longer than the bible
When I think about it, yeah this episode had a lotta bad parts. Stannis and Davos dismounting simultaneously then not flinching as that guy runs toward them and a rider comes outta nowhere, it’s just silly
It seems as though some of the changes were from the writers wanting to either continue writing characters a certain way, regardless of their book counterpoints’ eventual conclusions (Jaime’s codependency with Cersei, Tyrion being the underdog the audience can wholeheartedly back), while also trying to tie up loose ends for other characters in a way unique from the books (killing off Jojen so overtly allows them to avoid the Jojenpaste scenario).
S5E4 Sons of The Harpy. While there are of course episodes before that got bad or boring scenes, this one is the first for me where all my least favorite plot lines fill a whole episode: Sand Snakes, Hizdahr/Mereen, Faith Militant, Ramsay/Sansa, Stannis adventures in the north.
I think the show is unwatchable after season 1, it has its moments, but so much of it is changed and cheapened that I find it insulting, Danys arc in qarth is pathetic, it's like a tv sitcom, and stannis' story feels the same way, they lighten all the stories in ways to make it more "digestible" which is insulting
Sorry, I have to add on, but a lot of times they change stuff for the TV shows, it's done in a "the audience won't understand this" or "the audience doesn't want to see this" which boils down to "we know what the audience wants too see" when all I want is a accurate adaptation, and I find it super insulting when they change stuff cuz I might not understand, not understanding art is a part of art, I'm not stupid, let renly eat a peach ffs
I have a similar opinion with the Winds of Winter. At first I thought a lot of scenes where cool, Cersei blowing up the sept, Jon's birth, Dany coming to westerose but they even made no sense or led to nothing. Cersie faced no consequences for killing most tyrells millions of kings landing her own kin and the high septon then became queen the WHOLE continent should hate her. And Dany coming to westerose was butched and Jon's heritage led to nothing. The more you think about the WOW the worse it becomes. (Ramin Djawadi carries of course)
I'd call the biggest issue in all of game of thrones is "The Jeyne Problem' Removing Jeyne Poole and Jeyne Westerling were the cracks in the foundation of the entire show.
So the Tysha confession thing is fascinating because I'd assumed for a while that they wouldn't adapt it due to it not being a focus in the story at all. In the books, we get Tyrion's inner thoughts and Tysha is often on his mind. In the show we can't get that, so adapting the Tysha confession wouldn't have had the same impact. What I thought they were doing was have Shae be in a more traditional relationship with Tyrion, for her to be murdered by Tywin. I kinda wish they'd also characterised her as doing brothel work out of necessity to survive and discussing it with Tyrion, pointing out how much she hated doing it. But yeah, they way they were going, I didn't think Tyrion would kill Shae. I assumed she'd be substituted for Tysha. I thought what would happen was the following - when Jaime releases Tyrion, he would tell Tyrion that Shae had been blackmailed into testifying. Tywin forces her to lie through threat of being hanged, so she betrays him to live. Jaime knows what's going on but is told by Tywin to keep quiet to Tyrion about it. However, Tywin then has her killed anyway, and when Jaime finds this out, he releases Tyrion. Tyrion in a rage attacks Jaime because he considers it too little too late, the book discussion plays out and Tyion kills Tywin much the same way, after Tywin berates him for falling in love with a whore. Yes, we lose Shae's written death to a potential offscreen one, but I think it would have been a shocking reveal to find out she was coerced into it and then killed. I think Jaime's role in such a thing would need to be explained, but I think they could have done that - it would have allowed Tyrion to keep his hatred from the books, and actually have it be more recent and raw because it related to Shae, who we've also seen as a tangible character. Instead, they just turned Shae into a jealous girl who betrays him because she thinks he likes Sansa. I just think the whole thing falls flat the way they adapted it. They could have made her more tragic.
Brienne of Tarth does not beat the fucking Hound! Also the worst season in the series to me was Tyrion talking to Jamie about the beetle genocide, like wtf was that?
The Brienne/Sandor fight really irks me every time I rewatch and I’m only able to watch it due to McCann’s great delivery when he’s telling her off. Their story lines are fine as they were in the book. Arya leaving Sandor with his infection is more effective without the fight- it’s more about their dynamic. Which makes sense.
For me the first time I felt like, “wow this is not good”, was season 5s episode “unbowed unbroken unbent”. I was subconsciously feeling that way with season 5, especially the dorne stuff, but this episode made me consciously realize that this is a far cry from season 3 quality.
Yes, yes, yes I was at the height of my GoT-Hype when that episode came out, and had read the books after Season 3 and that episode left me so disappointed. Firstly the Arrival of Stannis' Army felt so epic and relieving in the Books. STANNIS STANNIS STANNIS. In the show there is this ominous, evil music as if Stannis didn't just saved the Wall, but somehow is the villain in this, further hammering down that Stannis is a villain we should never root for. The Jaime and Cersei Stuff felt so wrong knowing Jaimes Character development, The Children of fthe Forrest and The Three-Eyed-Crow are so rushed and cheap and should habe been in Season 5, don't know why they had to include this bad rushed scene here. And of course Tysha and Shae. Also No Lady Stoneheart!!!!!
Omg, I had recently commented on an old Supercuts video that was focused on overly praising season 4, and it encouraged me look deeper into that season and why I didn’t agree with him. Thank you for standing up to people like me who acknowledge and critique season 4’s flaws!
I never saw the show, only clips. When I read the Tysha portion of the book and Tyrion killing his father I was so excited to see the scene play out in the show. I couldn’t believe how the scene is completely different in its meaning when you remove the Tysha element. Such a bad call.
It's why I've learned to never get attached to great book scenes when watching a show adaptation bc odds are they aren't going to do the scene at all or they're going to butcher it
you know, I dont really know why, but it had never clicked for me before how absolutely insane Jojens death actually was, this is kind of blowing my mind that they did that
Honestly I lost all interest in the show's story as early as season 2. I hated the direction they went in with Robb, Tyrion and Jon primarily. Not that they were bad characters in the show, but hey were stripped of the essence the books versions had. So I just stopped caring about the story altogether and just focused on individual good scenes, which the show is full of.
If you get people, who really care, who can adapt it such that the descriptions are actually implemented I tend to get hung up on these annoying details that the TV shows get wrong like the Targaryan eyes
After rewatching seasons 1-4, it’s quite apparent now that the writers did everything worse than George. Like really hard. Almost zero good material outside of George.
I don't think that's completely true, having the robert and cersei conversation in S1 was good, having Tywin replace Roose Bolton in Arya's S2 scenes worked very well, and having the wildlings attack the wall and castle black at the same time was also a good choice. D&D are able to make clever alterations, they just can't write their own story
Not really the first bad singular episode but I think the first real signs that the show was being handled by people who didn’t care about the story was Dany’s storyline in season 2. And I don’t just mean having her shout about killing the thirteen of qarth because they won’t let her in. Now there are understandable changes to the Qarth storyline- such as cutting out other political factions and just leaving in the 13 to streamline the story, and obviously the HoTU couldn’t be fully realized given the budget and technology available to them at the time. But Dany’s storyline in Clash is filled to the brim with religious overtones. From wandering in a desert- to being greeted by 3 “wise men” and finding a city full of temptation and luxury. Which furthers Dany’s characterization as a Messianic figure as well as her own conflicts between doing what she believes is her duty in reclaiming Westeros versus her personal desires for safety and comfort. The show dropped all these themes and character beats for short term drama and suspense. Having her yell in the face of those who don’t meet her demands- having her handmaiden betray her- the dragons being stollen- none of it has any real substance and reads more as D&D wanting to give her something to do
The first bad arc was Qarth in season 2 but other arcs in season 2 made the overall episodes a net good, so I agree that it was later for the first overall net bad episode to happen, despite earlier adaptation issues.
Honestly, I think it goes even further back to either the last episode of Season 3 or the first episode of Season 4, cutting Lady Stoneheart was a massive mistake that seriously screws up the story. Sure there had been other changes prior to that point, but those were mostly just prophecies and foreshadowing that could've been delivered another way (sorry Patchface my beloved). Lady Stoneheart meanwhile, last we see her, convinced Brienne and Pod to lure Jaime to his death. You can't just assign something like that to another character.
I thought they might have had Sansa become the one who carried out the Lady Stoneheart vengeance. Instead of having her sent to Winterfell. I think that could have worked.
Great points overall, it’s interesting the more I analyze the shows decline, the earlier I have to admit the quality started to deteriorate. On my initial watch I still really enjoyed season 6 due to the dramatic climaxes and artificial sense of progression. In hindsight this was really just denial and and the afterglow of the near perfection of seasons 1-3. I do think the omission of the Tysha confession is an inflection point in the shows quality. I think maybe the critical acclaim got to D/D’s heads, and this was when they started to foolishly believe they were better writers than George. To desecrate one of the best, most pivotal scenes between 2 of my absolute favorite characters really is unforgivable, and indeed, the beginning of the end for my enjoyment of the show
100%, my biggest problems with the later seasons boil down to the fact that the show starts doing things that are either shocking/awe-inspiring or convenient. Whether something makes sense or gets a logical conclusion doesn't matter to them, and a lot of that starts here. Shock/awe: Bran and Co. fight with the wights, the Hound/Brienne fight, then expediency at the cost of complexity: removing the Tysha confession. The way that conversation haunts both Jamie and Tyrion in the books and changes their characters makes it so irritating that they decided to have them just hug and say a loving goodbye.
I first knew the show was going to be shit for the rest of it's runtime when they decided not to include Aegon. He is and will be an absolutely crucial character going forward. Making the Brotherhood Without Banners just some guys who sit in a cave and do nothing in season 3 without barely explaining their motives was also a huge disappointment.
Season four is also where I started to see the cracks. For me it was the Arya and the Hound road adventures. They took the whole season to cover less distance than Littlefinger travels in a single episode. This was the point where I started to read the books, because I wanted to see if this was a departure from the source material.
Dragon Demands argued years ago that the omission of the Tysha confession was part of a larger sanitization of Tywin's character likely stemming from Benioff's own unresolved daddy issues
I completely agree with your analysis. My only criticism of the video is how it is edited. I am not sure if other people felt this way but the way the text appears on the screen feels hard to look at for whatever reason. I think just having the text fade in or appear would work better. Otherwise, great work and thought your analysis was original and thoughtful!
I do remember when the episode finished thinking "some of that was really good but....." Looking back, that was the first time I ever thought that. Then season 5 arrived and that happened most of the time from then on, apart from Hardhome which is still my favourite episode. Utterly terrifying.
I understand what you say, but i think "Mockingbird" or "First of his name" are worst and are from the same season. I think in this chapters you can see more how the story is ending and how they try to slow down to have others chapters better.
"Stannis's arrival was excellent... shows the importance of mounted cavalry..." Nonsense. Cavalry charging into the woods is completely asinine. It's budget-conscious, but a ridiculous compromise. If you can't afford a CGI aerial shot of Wildlings on a plain being smashed to pieces by armored knights, rewrite the fucking scene completely, or keep the camera in the tent, IDC. Just don't put it in the fucking woods.
"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" was where I felt the show fell in quality. From the hilariously bad Dorne fight to the uncomfortable wedding scene between Ramsay and Sansa, it's the only episode pre-Season 7 that I dislike.
This isn’t really their fault but the battle of the Blackwater is extremely underwhelming on a rewatch and especially if you’ve read the books. They had no budget the entire battle takes place in the same 30 yards of beach
While Tyrion’s storyline with Tywin was absolutely muuccch more compelling in the book, there wasn’t much build up in the show…. And book Shae really doesn’t behave like show Shae…. So I understand the comparison but to be honest the episode was weak in comparison to the book but in the context of the show itself, I really think it wasn’t……. I wasn’t bothered at all by the show’s choices to this point to be honest……
@@QuinnTheGM I didn’t understand the distinction you were making until watching most of the video Your example of the final episode of season 4 illuminated your point beautifully Season 2 did many things wrong but the pros did outweigh the cons Season 4 was the last decent season before the show went off the rails n then the cliff Good thumbnail btw as well 👍
The fall off began around where you're talking about. But the last good episode was the explosion at the Sept. Everything after that is completely without narrative thrust or any kind of semblance of writing quality for the dialogue. It became Game of Thrones Avengers once all the players got to a single location.
I just rewatched season 1-4 and noticed this, too. I really enjoyed every episode, considering it's been my 4th watch of the show until s4 e10. In the back of my mind, I was like, when is this going to end?
When you read all the interviews from 2011 again it becomes extremely apparent that David and Dan simply did not care anymore after the red wedding. They wanted to do the red wedding, that’s the whole reason they took on the project, and after they achieved that goal their personal investment immediately vanished.
If there was a single moment for me that foretold the direction that the show was going to head in, it was the change to Tyrion’s murder of Shae. Book Tyrion is a far more fascinating character because he can wrestle with a darkness that DnD wanted to avoid but not actually replace. For more or less the rest of the show, Tyrion was suddenly in this weird purgatory wherein his character arc was more or less logistical rather than being emotional and as such he became so boring to watch post season 4- you felt as though he remained the same, authorial voice character for the rest of the show. Likewise, literally everyone in the cast has a moment where they suddenly become the good guy or the evil guy in s5 and 6 with them then not changing as a character from that point.
This is so interesting because I always thought this episode was a bit lackluster compared to the rest of season 4, both in the context of the books and of the show itself. They cut so much, altered scenes for the sake of spectacle at the expense of logic, and started with the trend of characters saying condemning things but facing no consequences for them
I think they cut the interaction between Tyrion and Jamie mainly because audiences did not sympathize with or like Jamie as a majority, only even picking up some in the final season. They wanted to redeem him so couldn’t give him another thing like that
Great video but I disagree about the fight between the Hound and Brianne. I think it’s the culmination of Arya and the Hound’s arc, that they trust each other now. Further Arya has no reason to trust Brienne especially because she has Jaime’s sword.
I knew this show was going to fail when they swapped Jeyne Westerling for Talisa. Not specifically for the reasons you might think. I dont necessarily like that she was some random but still, that can work. The issue here is that she is some sort of battle field nurse. This role in specifically this way does not exist in this universe. It expressed to me that the writers were willing to carelessly change the canon on a dime for no legitimately good reason at all.
I still liked it, but.. i didnt know that particular plot change from the book. It makes sense that he'd murder Tywin over Tysha, due to his guilt. TV Shae.. it makes less sense, as her jealousy was her own, her betrayal was her own and her attempt to kill Tyrion was her own.
The first episode I actively thought was bad was the season 5 finale. In the books it made perfect sense but in the show there is nothing to justify what happened. I thought most of season 4 held up pretty well. The changes to Jamie's character didn't bug me at the time because it seemed like they were going for something different from the books which I thought was a cool idea. Shame it played out the way it did.
This is easily the best episode of the show up until this point. But its nice seeing a bookpurist for once returning to their roots and being honest: many had those issues when the episode aired initially. Season 4 for bookpurists was far from being the last good, let alone best season back then.
I think the ultimate cause of most of these issues, especially at this time in the story, was the erasure of Lady Stoneheart. It had massive butterflies for the story.
I think the first major crack came earlier in this season, with that absolutely ridiculous plotline of Yara trying to rescue Theon. Not only is that whole scene stupid, but the travel logistics also made no sense (they had to circumnavigate Westeros to get to the Dreadfort by boat!)
And then giving up in a winable fight
Who doesn't love some shirtless ramsay
I HATE that they just abandon Theon too
Victarion would be ashamed. No ironborn warrior would ever run away from a dog.
@@tiagolascasas not to mention that was the last we saw of the ironborn until season 6,skipping over all of the world building possible to show you the state of other factions still operating in Westeros
They removed the single biggest changing moment in Tyrions life up until this point because they didnt want Tyrion to be seen as evil,therefore they neutered him and removed his more Treacherous and evil actions that are supposed to show he is Tywins son in every way
It seems like the show runners got REALLY into the ✨idea✨ of certain actors and the prestige they had the potential to bring. Not actually giving them material to do so, just getting chubbed up about it
Yup, they did the same with all the fan favorites.
Dany's whitewashing was by far the worst. Their MHYSA! could do no wrong, until they got ready to kill her off.
And to make 100% sure people would all worship them and no one else, they also removed all the good stuff from characters they didn't like.
Tyrion can do no wrong and is just a super nice fellow; Daenarys is the peaceful Queen of Kumbyah; Jon is the quiet brooding Dindu Nuffin-Diddint Wunt it-King; Cersei is the poor broodmare Lioness who had her poor children ripped away; Catelyn is the poor wife who just wanted her husband to stay in Winterfell, totally didn't meddle in any affairs she shouldn't have, was always right in her counsel to Robb (who has basically nobody around him in the show), and TOTALLY prayed to the God's to spare the ****ing life of Jon Snow which she would TOTALLY confide in Jeyne West-I mean . . . . . . Seven Hells I can't even remember what moronic name that moronic character had in the show.
@@newpgaston6891 Like Stannis. They totally butchered that character simply bc they didn't like him. Then they completely butchered Euron simply bc they didn't like all the magical aspects of his character. Complete hacks and makes me wonder why GRRM ever signed off on them being the show runners
@@MrFredsttTo be fair, they did a great job adapting most of the early books (minus the Stannis character assassination). It goes downhill in the second half of the series. GRRM couldn’t have known how bad it would become.
This better be about not including patchface
No, I think it's about the lack of moonboy
@@avipretekin5048Ormond kettleblack or even moonboy
@@avipretekin5048for all I know..
No
It's about the incredible missed opportunity to have a portrait of Mushroom in Cersei's room
Season 4 episode 10 is one of those episodes that is good in isolation, but the changes from the source material in that episode sets the rest of the show up for its collapse. Dropping the Tysha reveal leaves Tyrion's character completely stranded
The butterfly effect that GRRM talked about in his criticism of HoTD. I think cutting Aegon was another major butterfly effect that affected most of the characters
Yeah agree with this
Not including Tysha was the worst.
I mean they did, but they "kinda forgot" about her in season 3 which means Tyrions entire driving purpouse after this point is non-existent and it slowly makes his character worse.
@@Alexander-kc8oq "Tyrion kind of forgot about Tysha" - D&D
Tyrion being existentially messed up about the Tysha reveal would’ve at least helped explain his drastic change in competence later in the series.
They left out a lot of unsavory aspects of Tywin while adding way too many show only scenes that make Tywin look better. It’s clear that Tywin is D&D’s favorite character.
@@nont18411 I mean they included plenty of scenes that categorized Tywin as a monster, even if they did cut some... So it's not like Dany which they completely whitewashed.
I have a feeling the 'good stuff' is because they had a quality actor for him; They tend to give better stuff to characters who were well acted/with renowned actors.
Solid take. This episode definitely does feel like the Butterfly Effect episode for the remainder of the series: Jaime staying with Cersei gives us the terrible Dorne plot. Fan service of making Arya this badass little girl killing machine directly leads to Arya Magical Ninja Assassin Robot because the Braavos arc turns her into a superhero instead of showing us the tragedy of a life consumed by violence and revenge and the subsequent loss of one's self. And worst of all they stripped Tyrion of all chances of being a nuanced antihero/villain and so he turns into Oppo in the later half of the show. Season 5 was the harbinger of the worst that was yet to come but this episode was the first misstep. Season 4 was so good we all just kinda forgot, like Dany with the Iron Fleet.
11:07 to be honest, book Shae and show Shae are two completely different characters in that regard. I don't see show Shae begging that way, but it fits for book Shae perfectly. Honestly Shae's character change to someone who sort of actually kinda maybe loved Tyrion was a big mistake imo.
I think the mistake that started it was making her a bit too mature and self-reliant, but you could probably still have her break down and ask for forgiveness, would bring a gut-punching human touch to Tyrion murdering her.
Honestly, the biggest mistake by far was not having Tyrion go down the villain route, I think that could've been accomplished either way, but it would work alot better if the "start" was an unsympathetic murder instead of self-defense.
nah D&D fucked up bad. Shae's death is one of the major things that tells the reader that Tyrion is now evil and will be the villain and they didn't want to do that.
@@a.a677They could have left their complex relationship from the show (I think show Shae is more sympathetic and a better character than in the books) and still having her death being more like in the book (murder as opposed to self defence). This way it would have been more dramatic, really showing Tyrion new role as a villain.
@@a.a677this is the answer. Tyrion is *not* a hero in the books, and sits way closer to villain. At best, he’s morally ambiguous, and even that is arguable. That’s not to say he isn’t better than a hell of a lot of other characters, but he’s still very much a awful person
Idk if it was because the actress isn’t very good or it was on purpose but I never thought Shae in the show loved Tyrion, and I think the self defense part works better if they built it up correctly. Shae trying to kill Tyrion shows that she really was manipulative of Tyrion and that she didn’t care for him, only his money and status. Then the Tysha reveal and Tyrion telling Jaime he killed Joffrey would’ve conveyed his anger more. But like I said, that only would’ve worked if they built off it, and they didn’t, so it doesn’t
Season one has gradually become my favorite season. You can really tell it was the only season where they were actually trying to set up where the books are likely going.
I’ve been called crazy for saying the show gradually went downhill from Season 1, it’s just a huge drop after season 4 that gets you.
Same here, the more I watch it and read the books, the more I realise season one is a masterpiece
@@pumpkin2477Id even say Game of Thrones is my favorite book, especially since I don’t feel the dread of running out of pages to read yet and worrying about Winds of Winter. Game of Thrones book has plotlines that we can see the conclusion of.
@youngnat I worked overnight in preparation of Thanksgiving and I listened to AGOT abridged and I enjoyed how it was a closed story (kinda)
Big agree. I think seasons 1-4 make for great TV but as an adaptation it starts to flounder as early as S2. I honestly think the only reason those seasons are so highly beloved is because the source material is just so good that even a vastly inferior version is still hailed as one of the best things on TV.
Cutting Jeyne Westerling was an awful idea. Talisa makes no sense. They replaced Jeyne with a random field nurse who was on the other side of the world smack talking a king. It was so out of place it was absurd. They gutted the dubious nature of Jeyne probably sleeping with Robb while he was delirious from fantasy morphine, then Robb not wanting to dishonor her despite the fact that her sleeping with a drugged and wounded man is incredibly creepy.
Robb's downfall in the show is the result of him acting uncharacteristically undutiful, thinking with his dick rather than him trying to do the right thing in a messy situation.
Yep, adding Jeyne would have elevated Tywin so much because that was his masterplan to honeytrap Robb while showing how desperate and out of depth Robb was in the situation. But nah, the show just took a simple route of "Robb was horny bruhhhh".
But he WAS horny. This love drug thing is only a theory. Not everything has to be hyper engineered. A beauty of Robb’s storyline is that he was a teenager that made a dumb mistake, consistent with his development as a great-at-war but shit-at-politics character. And it is consistent with the broader theme of the story, of how a single mistake can have huge consequences.
@@josephstalin2829 Except that House Spicer and Westerling were rewarded by Tywin for their "contributions" for the red wedding. It was, in fact, very hyper engineered by Tywin himself. Robb was set up since the beginning.
Robb was never a POV character in the books either. The show - for better or worse - built him up far more as a character.
Whether or not it was Tywin's plan, the fact that Jeyne was a Lannister vassal made Robb's situation even more complicated. This would have been perfect for Robb's storyline in the series, especially considering his plan to attack Casterly Rock. The loyalty of his people is truly put to the test when they see their king marrying an "enemy." So, I agree with you.
Your pick is pretty good, because I remember being confused for days afterwards at where Lady Stoneheart was.
Totally agree
I think once Tyrion is talking about Cousin Orson, or whatever hes called, crushing beetles, rather than the conversation between him and Jaime about Tysha, the show had discarded the first of many important emotional hearts, and by the end it didnt have any left at all
Especially because that was a dig at Orson Scott Card, who was critical of the show. It’s *deeply* petty and childish, and I’m saying this as someone who REALLY does not like Orson Scott Card and thinks his criticisms were presented in a fashion I will call ‘debatable’.
@@babzm.1666showrunners were hella petty and childish lol
Didn’t they kill off Barristan (or wanted to kill him off sooner) just because of the actor voicing his own input?
That whole bit of dialogue was dumb and out of place even without this real world reference .
@@johnmurdoch8534 It comes off as a scene you would see Tyrion alongside Podrick and Bronn, just got too drunk on to much wine back in S2. An Tyrion completely out of his mind just telling a very drunken story, of this weird cousin of his back in the day. If something like that was shown i would believe it. But something like Tyrion in his cell talking to Jaime it feels very off, and the Tysha thing would have made way more sense.
That's one of the best monologues ever and an amazing metaphor lmao stfu
It was stannis the mannis' death for me that did it
The best commander in the seven kingdoms not knowing the north is cold
In fairness, misjudging the cold also took out napoleon (😭😭cope that our mannis doesn’t go out like that😭😭😭😭)
U r right... but it hurts
@@georgia4111eh not rly. Napoleon wasn't prepared for the russians to burn down their own capital instead of leaving it in french hands. They starved them out
Best commander feels like a stretch. And he’s also going through the same in the book
I think that was the first moment for me too. It’s just felt so…lazy. I was suddenly reminded that I’m watching a fictional show made by writers who can make lazy decisions that don’t make sense lol
Season 4 is weird because when they actually stick closer to the source material then it is arguably the best and the most hype part of the entire series but then it starts to have those diviations like Yara going to the Dreadfort or the Bolton guy searching for Bran which don't really even go anywhere and don't accomplish anything. Also it's weird how they decide to make Jaime into a good guy by not including his role in the Tysha story to then just turn his character around back to Cersei at the end of the series
Isn't it funny that Stannis suddenly has a cavalry army double the size of Theoden's Rohirim in Season four, but for some reason he's left with a couple of foot soldiers in season five. Yes it snowed, I know. It's still dumb.
The excuse is that a lot of his army abandoned him after he sacrificed Shireen, despite them supposedly being hardened sellswords from Essos and that sacrifice clearing the snow which was probably gonna kill a lot of them.
@@harrysiddall3392 That is literally what happened. He had plenty of men to siege Winterfell prior to sacrificing Shireen. Like 2/3s of his army left him following Shireens death.
@@reesespieces8173 I know... that's what I said...
First bad episode? S02E04 Garden of Bones.
It's the one where Jeyne Westerling is needlessly replaced by Oona Chaplin's pointless character, a noble girl from Volantis who realized that Slavery Bad when a slave saved her brother from drowning (?) so she went off to fight slavery in Westeros (?) by becoming a field medic (?)
Small diversion, you might say, but a sign of things to come. The first instance of Benioff and Weiss flexing their writing muscle, trying out to see if they can do what GRRM does.
The answer was a resounding no: Jeyne Westerling's minuscule character arc is a poignant little side story about teen love and familial treachery; it shows Tywin Lannister as a master schemer (as opposed to a guy who just wrote to the Freys and asked them to betray their liege lords). "Talisa", conversely, was an utter waste of space.
The tragedy is, the audience didn't care about this blatant demonstration of authorial ineptitude, so Benioff & Weiss figured that they didn't really need Martin. The rest is history.
Is that really what they changed it to? I thought slavery was already illegal in westeros… it’s the whole reason Jorah is exiled
@@Insanepie Yes and yes. Ofc you can't expect D&D to actually know or care about the lore
@@MrFredstt Yeah, I think they knew about Westeros not having slavery, but they didn't put much thought into why this anti-slavery noblewoman would just emigrate to another continent and blithely ignore institutionalized slavery back home. (Instead of, you know, freeing the slave that saved her brother's life?) But it's all just a couple throwaway lines - her background never gets mentioned again, leads to nothing whatsoever.
They cut Jeyne Westerling for no reason, replacing her arc with literally nothing. Must've been testing how much Martin would allow them to stray.
Also D&D chose to shank a pregnant Talisa to death in the red wedding for nothing but edginess' sake. She died for nothing. Meanwhile, Jeyne is still alive in the books (so does the Blackfish). She still has a purpose on the succession crisis of House Stark and the regrouping of the scattered House Tully.
i would've believed her if she said she is aemthess empress herself time tavelled from great empire of dawn over a noble volantie came westores to fight slavery.
I just wanna say in general I really like that you're putting out some bolder, more original takes. (Not that there was anything wrong with your other work- I just like it when folks form their own theories and ideas, and aren't afraid to just put it out there. It's refreshing.)
A Clash of Kings really should have been two seasons. They cut the Harvest Feast/all of Brans stuff, Renly's peach, Patchface, the Tullys and Edmures repelling of Tywin, a lot of what Arya went through and so forth. IMO Season 2 is kinda where the ball got dropped.
And it's where the OC do not steal Talisa Maegyr came in just for nothing to be done wi th her.
I agree. If they took their time and decided to split the books after the first one into two or more seasons the show would've been much better. Also, Martin might have actually pulled TWOW not having to go through all the drama.
It would've been impossible, of course, since all the children actors would've be too old by season 5, but still.
Idk, while I wished they included some of that stuff, others I’m glad they condensed, like all the parts about Arya traipsing around the riverlands did not need to be multiple chapters. And let’s be real, apart from introducing us to some of the northern lords, the whole Donella Hornwood plot was needlessly complicated
@@ComicRaptor8850 That's why a balance was needed but D&D said fuck that and went all in on extreme and nonsensical changes from the source material
@@MrFredstt True but talking about season 2 specifically I think having Theon kill Ser Rodrik was a good change. Same with having Arya getting captured immediately after the battle instead of walking around the riverlands for 2 chapters before she gets captured anyway. (Would've liked to see the Mountain's Men though)
After I read the books, I actually forgot the show didn't include the Tysha reveal. I swear I had a memory of Charles Dance saying "wherever whores go." Unfortunately it seems my mind retroactively edited my memory of the terrible Tywin death scene in the show.
Season 2 is still one of the strongest seasons, but the Qarth arc was one of the first big red flags for me with how much they changed and butchered the adaptation of the storyline.
I agree, I came here to post this. Qarth storyline was an omen for what happens when the showrunners had minimal guidance.
"When I came to this city, I had nothing. TRULY, nothing" SHUT UP XARO NOBODY CARES
"What do you think was the first bad episode in GoT?" - Not so much an episode as a season-long subplot: Season 2 Daenerys was just painfully bad, and it suffered from exactly the things you'd see amplified to the extreme from season 5 onwards. We just didn't notice it as a warning sign yet because it was enclosed in an otherwise overall good season, and then Season 3 Daenerys was genuinely great again.
Another thing regarding the fight between Brienne and Sandor: How tf did they just stumble upon each other in some random location in the Vale??? I mean Brienne already randomly stumbled upon Sansa in the inn, but now she also finds Arya by happenstance? So stupid
Also, I am not quite sure how Brienne recognized Arya, when I believe she was thought to be dead and Brienne had never seen her before but yeah yeah, sure sure😂
The show had such a huge issue with people just showing up out of nowhere
The happenstance with Brienne & the Hound happened before the one with Sansa & Littlefinger which makes the latter even more stupid that she finds the second girl shes looking for in an inn after already randomly finding the first girl she was looking for on a field in Westeros
Ha wait.. then she randomly finds Sansa again while her and theon are just about to recaptured by Bolton men. She had no idea she escaped and was riding around the north
@@jordanharris868 yeah true. And then later in s5 (or6) Brienne also stumbled upon Sansa just as she and Theon had escaped Winterfell and saved them from the Bolton-men😂 And before that she found Stannis dying in the forest so she could avenge Renly. The only thing Brienne didn’t stumble upon is logic
That whole fight just annoys me. I do appreciate Sandor’s “Safety… there’s no safety…” speech to her but the fight is just so gratuitous. Didn’t happen in the book and did not need to. I hate that fight and the reference to it later on, so much. I’m so glad this video spoke to this. I agree with all said about it here.
I hate the fact that I'd forgotten how bad most of this episode was, just because Peter Dinklage and Charles Dance were so damn good in the last scene! They did that bit more or less perfectly, and almost made up for all the utter crap that came before. Almost, but not quite.
That small glimpse of Tyrion going bad was so beautiful. I wish the writers had been smart enough to commit to it! Watching a few more seasons of Peter Dinklage chewing the scenery at his best would have been glorious.
Dinklage and Dance carried season 4
@@nont18411ygrittes actress was great too imo
@@nont18411and pedro pascal
I'm not sure this is the first *BAD* episode but it is the moment the show went off the rails, jumped the shark or what have you.
I think S4 in general is overrated and had too many bullshit 'dumbed down for TV' moments. People give it a lot of slack because its highs are very high. But it also has that scene with Tyrion and Jaime in the black cells talk about nothing for what feels like 10 minutes.
The scene where tyrion talks to jaime really struck me as weird on a rewatch. Even the camera angles make them look really weird. Like from some soap opera
Just to add some more thoughts on The Children.
- Mance Rayder not threatening to potentially use The Horn of Winter which he claims will tear down the Wall changes the stakes of the scene and gives him less bargaining power.
- Theres a lack of scouting for Stannis, this would’ve helped illustrate the plan and tease the twist for the audience, given the fact that he came straight from the Iron Bank the ambush comes pretty out of left field in the show.
- i’d prefer official paperwork for Pycelle’s dismissal to make it more legitimate and not just Cersei who isn’t the highest claim to power at the time just having her way. Use Tommen as a puppet and put his signature on it.
- They don’t show how Dany escorts the dragons to the prison, in the books they make it really difficult for her, and they act smarter in knowing they are being controlled, in the show the dragons seem more naiive.
- Varys’ intentions behind getting Tyrion out are different, i prefer the book version where he feels more in control, in the show he seems like hes jettisoning out of fear and was forced by Jaime
- Geographically the way Pod and Brienne discover one of the two people in the world theyre looking for is super lucky and arguably contrived
- i get the inspiration for grabbing the blade, just not what i would’ve chosen. Also The Hound not being black out dead from that fall is insane. Also the editing in the fight scene is horrid, the amount of cuts is silly.
- Not having the secret passage from the brothel to the hand’s tower in the show makes it very out of left field, as is how in the show Tywin’s hypocrisy isn’t seeded properly, and the twist doesn’t work. In the books, Tywin Lannister not shitting gold is a great thematic conclusion, in the show it comes across as random and jarring, and spits in the face of a character who doesn’t fit this ending
- The Tysha confession being omitted makes Tyrion risking it all to go to The Hand’s Tower completely different. In the books the moment of finding out it was all a lie makes him see red, and so he is driven to go there, and uses the secret brothel passage to not get caught, in the show that rationale is gone.
- Arya at the Saltpans at the end is cool, but i just personally wish on the boat they show her having wolf dreams which then ends Season 4 on Lady Stoneheart.
Great video, keep it up.
I agree on every single point
@ thanks!
You know, I tried rewatching GoT with my wife around a year or 2 ago. And when we got to this episode, I physically cringed and audibly groaned when we got to the ommission of the Tysha confession. It really is the microcosm of the downfall the series takes. Overall I personally thought the episode was pretty good up until that point, but at the end (much like the show at large), it fell flat on its face.
Also for the record, we did not finish our rewatch. Watching season 5 was not fun and I think we went through seasons 1-4 in the same amount of time it took us to get through season 5 alone. We decided to call it there and haven't even talked about picking it back up again for season 6 and onward. The fall off is steep and very depressing on rewatch.
@@samskott2344 I found the fall off steep and sudden the first time.
@@thing_under_the_stairs see, on my first watch, I had faith that they would turn it around. The first 4 seasons were so good that it gave me faith that they would get it back on track for the end. The end of season 6 had so many big moments that sorta gaslit many fans (myself included) into believing that OG GoT was back...but then season 7 was awful and season 8 was just insulting. And upon rewatch, you see the steep decline but you know it doesn't get better.
@@samskott2344 I get that. I just got disgusted and gave up mid-S5.
@thing_under_the_stairs that was me with Lost when they literally moved the island, lmao.
The first crack was the first episode for not including Jeyne Pool.
So much of the same!
Butterfly effect like Gurm likes to harp on in his hotd criticism!
@@blaubeer8039 But of course, D&D didn't think that audiences would be smart enough to understand the "fake Arya" plot, and they wanted a chance to SA Sansa onscreen, too. Or maybe it was Sophie Turner they wanted to abuse.
I think that's a consequence of shows/viewers being more.. "simple".
If the sansa story happened to Jeyne Poole people wouldn't care nearly as much, because ti's not sansa and all.
@@newpgaston6891 we don't know if the viewers are simple, we just know that the writers thought so. There was a time when an adaptation of ASOIAF was utterly unthinkable due to the complexity and tragedy of the writing, yet audiences seemed to enjoy the book-sourced stuff the most.
The first bad sign for the Show even goes back to Season 2, when they totally messed up the House of the Undying. Season 4 is a strong Season overall and is so highly regarded, because it has banger Episode after banger Episode and it‘s often forgotten that Episodes 1, 3, 4 and 5 aren‘t actually that good. I hate the whole Crasters Keep Stuff, the stupid attempt of Asha(Yara doesn’t exist) rescuing Theon and Danys poorly executed Storyline. They literally took her last two Chapters From A Storm of Swords and added some really awful scenes, to make one of the most boring storylines of the entire Show.
I would say the first glimpses of how bad the show could be, excluding unnecesary sex scenes in S1, go all the way as early as S2, with the omission of the Ramsay and Reek subplot. It hurts Theon's and Bran's stories, and it leads us to those stupid S3 torture scenes to introduce Ramsay to the audience there.
That works perfectly in the show though
I really like how you don't see the torture in the books but only the sorry human called Reek that was tortured and you connect the dots to him being Theon
That wouldnt work in a visual medium
@@leonrussell9607 I would not be that sure of that, you can get quite creative with changing someone's appearance drastically especially in animation, but also you can do a lot with make-up etc. and I am sure the people, who do that kind of stuff would love to take on a challenge like that even of it's the same actor
@@samuelschonenberger GRRM tends to like showing the in depth trauma and aftermath of such things and focusing on that more than showing the act itself and moving on which is very different from how D&D does things
SPOT ON.
I've always said this; Most people seem to think the show turned bad in the 7th or 8th season (and some more courageous point to the 5th season), but the cracks started showing SO MUCH earlier... 4 had some genuinely terrible moments, but even as early as 2nd season there were cracks.
It was just cracks by then so these seasons were still great, just like the ice can be great to stake on even though it's cracked, but it's far from perfect.
Even as early as S2, this show started doing this 'black&white' thing where all the 'good guys' were made better, while all the 'bad guys' were made worse...
Cut all the bad stuff from our favorites (Tyrion, Dany, even Jon), and cut all the good, character building scenes from the characters we don't like and don't want you to like...
There's a reason why there are characters that are among the top favorites among books readers, but least favorites among the show's viewers; They made them unlikable, by simply removing all the stuff people liked about them. (and did the opposite for the favorites, removing all the bad stuff that could make some people not like them as much).
The Tyrion/Shae scene was probably THE moment where it was no ambiguity anymore what they were doing with this show.
They had no balls and no desire to write a solid, poignant story. They just wanted to make the good guys shine and be perfect in everything.
Same shit is going on in HoTD
@@MrFredstt Yeah I only checked it out a couple episodes but dropped it.
I don't have any faith about these anymore, plus I don't care too much about targaryen, especially after how they shoved them down our throat in GoT.
I think the only series I'd watch from now on would be Robert's Rebellion, but I doubt they'll ever do that because it'd make the Baratheon look good and Targaryen look bad.
@@newpgaston6891 I want one exploring Ashai and Stygai
@@newpgaston6891As someone who hates the last four seasons of GOT, I think HOTD is significantly better. I’d recommend you finish it. The portrayal of Rhaenyra and her father Viserys is really well done in the first season. Daemon too.
@@MysterE95 they've already ruined iconic book scenes while padding for time, a problem ASOIAF simply does not have despite being longer than the bible
When I think about it, yeah this episode had a lotta bad parts. Stannis and Davos dismounting simultaneously then not flinching as that guy runs toward them and a rider comes outta nowhere, it’s just silly
Silly, but cool as hell. Plus twenty points
It seems as though some of the changes were from the writers wanting to either continue writing characters a certain way, regardless of their book counterpoints’ eventual conclusions (Jaime’s codependency with Cersei, Tyrion being the underdog the audience can wholeheartedly back), while also trying to tie up loose ends for other characters in a way unique from the books (killing off Jojen so overtly allows them to avoid the Jojenpaste scenario).
S5E4 Sons of The Harpy. While there are of course episodes before that got bad or boring scenes, this one is the first for me where all my least favorite plot lines fill a whole episode: Sand Snakes, Hizdahr/Mereen, Faith Militant, Ramsay/Sansa, Stannis adventures in the north.
Isn’t that the episode wheee they killed Barriston Selmy? Terrible
Yep, this is the one!
All storylines that were good in the books as well 😂
I think the show is unwatchable after season 1, it has its moments, but so much of it is changed and cheapened that I find it insulting, Danys arc in qarth is pathetic, it's like a tv sitcom, and stannis' story feels the same way, they lighten all the stories in ways to make it more "digestible" which is insulting
Sorry, I have to add on, but a lot of times they change stuff for the TV shows, it's done in a "the audience won't understand this" or "the audience doesn't want to see this" which boils down to "we know what the audience wants too see" when all I want is a accurate adaptation, and I find it super insulting when they change stuff cuz I might not understand, not understanding art is a part of art, I'm not stupid, let renly eat a peach ffs
I think a rewatch is difficult due to the very first scene.
Sets up the biggest dropped plot right away
I have a similar opinion with the Winds of Winter. At first I thought a lot of scenes where cool, Cersei blowing up the sept, Jon's birth, Dany coming to westerose but they even made no sense or led to nothing. Cersie faced no consequences for killing most tyrells millions of kings landing her own kin and the high septon then became queen the WHOLE continent should hate her. And Dany coming to westerose was butched and Jon's heritage led to nothing. The more you think about the WOW the worse it becomes.
(Ramin Djawadi carries of course)
All that is the fault of the seasons after, not WOW. WOW on its own is great
I first thought you made a joke about having read the unreleased book😂
the winds of winter was a great finale for game of thrones, i love the open ending. sad it had to end after 6 seasons but maybe it's for the best
The population of kings landing is half a million not millions
I'd call the biggest issue in all of game of thrones is "The Jeyne Problem'
Removing Jeyne Poole and Jeyne Westerling were the cracks in the foundation of the entire show.
nah, it was savable without both talisa wasn't that bad just made Robb a whole stupider and more unlikeable
So the Tysha confession thing is fascinating because I'd assumed for a while that they wouldn't adapt it due to it not being a focus in the story at all. In the books, we get Tyrion's inner thoughts and Tysha is often on his mind. In the show we can't get that, so adapting the Tysha confession wouldn't have had the same impact.
What I thought they were doing was have Shae be in a more traditional relationship with Tyrion, for her to be murdered by Tywin. I kinda wish they'd also characterised her as doing brothel work out of necessity to survive and discussing it with Tyrion, pointing out how much she hated doing it.
But yeah, they way they were going, I didn't think Tyrion would kill Shae. I assumed she'd be substituted for Tysha.
I thought what would happen was the following - when Jaime releases Tyrion, he would tell Tyrion that Shae had been blackmailed into testifying. Tywin forces her to lie through threat of being hanged, so she betrays him to live. Jaime knows what's going on but is told by Tywin to keep quiet to Tyrion about it. However, Tywin then has her killed anyway, and when Jaime finds this out, he releases Tyrion. Tyrion in a rage attacks Jaime because he considers it too little too late, the book discussion plays out and Tyion kills Tywin much the same way, after Tywin berates him for falling in love with a whore. Yes, we lose Shae's written death to a potential offscreen one, but I think it would have been a shocking reveal to find out she was coerced into it and then killed.
I think Jaime's role in such a thing would need to be explained, but I think they could have done that - it would have allowed Tyrion to keep his hatred from the books, and actually have it be more recent and raw because it related to Shae, who we've also seen as a tangible character. Instead, they just turned Shae into a jealous girl who betrays him because she thinks he likes Sansa.
I just think the whole thing falls flat the way they adapted it. They could have made her more tragic.
see, this is how they shouldve been thinking lol, if you going off the beaten path dont go timidly and wander back into trail, do something cool.
Brienne of Tarth does not beat the fucking Hound! Also the worst season in the series to me was Tyrion talking to Jamie about the beetle genocide, like wtf was that?
The Brienne/Sandor fight really irks me every time I rewatch and I’m only able to watch it due to McCann’s great delivery when he’s telling her off. Their story lines are fine as they were in the book. Arya leaving Sandor with his infection is more effective without the fight- it’s more about their dynamic. Which makes sense.
This episode was the first where Qarl the Maid’s absence from the adaptation really felt noticeable.
Can you explain that one
@ Yes, I comment something about Qarl the Maid (or often simply his name) to all your videos, regardless of context or relevance. 🙂
@@tomralfe5428💀
@@tomralfe5428 That's fair, he's a pretty decent minor character to fixate on!
@@thing_under_the_stairs Glad you agree! I hope it's comfy down there under the stairs. x
peter dinklage would have KILLED book accurate tyrion shame that we will never see it his casting was beyond perfect
For me the first time I felt like, “wow this is not good”, was season 5s episode “unbowed unbroken unbent”. I was subconsciously feeling that way with season 5, especially the dorne stuff, but this episode made me consciously realize that this is a far cry from season 3 quality.
Leaving out the Tysha confession really is the one unreparable crack.
This is where I believe it exactly began. The change in character's motivations and dynamics really did them dirty, especially Jaime and Tyrion.
Yes, yes, yes I was at the height of my GoT-Hype when that episode came out, and had read the books after Season 3 and that episode left me so disappointed. Firstly the Arrival of Stannis' Army felt so epic and relieving in the Books. STANNIS STANNIS STANNIS. In the show there is this ominous, evil music as if Stannis didn't just saved the Wall, but somehow is the villain in this, further hammering down that Stannis is a villain we should never root for. The Jaime and Cersei Stuff felt so wrong knowing Jaimes Character development, The Children of fthe Forrest and The Three-Eyed-Crow are so rushed and cheap and should habe been in Season 5, don't know why they had to include this bad rushed scene here. And of course Tysha and Shae. Also No Lady Stoneheart!!!!!
Omg, I had recently commented on an old Supercuts video that was focused on overly praising season 4, and it encouraged me look deeper into that season and why I didn’t agree with him. Thank you for standing up to people like me who acknowledge and critique season 4’s flaws!
I never saw the show, only clips. When I read the Tysha portion of the book and Tyrion killing his father I was so excited to see the scene play out in the show.
I couldn’t believe how the scene is completely different in its meaning when you remove the Tysha element. Such a bad call.
It's why I've learned to never get attached to great book scenes when watching a show adaptation bc odds are they aren't going to do the scene at all or they're going to butcher it
you know, I dont really know why, but it had never clicked for me before how absolutely insane Jojens death actually was, this is kind of blowing my mind that they did that
Honestly I lost all interest in the show's story as early as season 2. I hated the direction they went in with Robb, Tyrion and Jon primarily. Not that they were bad characters in the show, but hey were stripped of the essence the books versions had. So I just stopped caring about the story altogether and just focused on individual good scenes, which the show is full of.
An animated series would be amazing to done, it could be true to the story. the ghost of winterfell story would have been nice to see.
If you get people, who really care, who can adapt it such that the descriptions are actually implemented
I tend to get hung up on these annoying details that the TV shows get wrong like the Targaryan eyes
It would happen if the novel series would be finished
You should do more videos about bad changes from the book to show adaptation, this is by far your most interesting content.
After rewatching seasons 1-4, it’s quite apparent now that the writers did everything worse than George. Like really hard. Almost zero good material outside of George.
I don't think that's completely true, having the robert and cersei conversation in S1 was good, having Tywin replace Roose Bolton in Arya's S2 scenes worked very well, and having the wildlings attack the wall and castle black at the same time was also a good choice. D&D are able to make clever alterations, they just can't write their own story
Not really the first bad singular episode but I think the first real signs that the show was being handled by people who didn’t care about the story was Dany’s storyline in season 2.
And I don’t just mean having her shout about killing the thirteen of qarth because they won’t let her in.
Now there are understandable changes to the Qarth storyline- such as cutting out other political factions and just leaving in the 13 to streamline the story, and obviously the HoTU couldn’t be fully realized given the budget and technology available to them at the time.
But Dany’s storyline in Clash is filled to the brim with religious overtones. From wandering in a desert- to being greeted by 3 “wise men” and finding a city full of temptation and luxury. Which furthers Dany’s characterization as a Messianic figure as well as her own conflicts between doing what she believes is her duty in reclaiming Westeros versus her personal desires for safety and comfort.
The show dropped all these themes and character beats for short term drama and suspense. Having her yell in the face of those who don’t meet her demands- having her handmaiden betray her- the dragons being stollen- none of it has any real substance and reads more as D&D wanting to give her something to do
I miss Mance
We all do. He was a good one.
Good luck with finals mate, in the same boat myself atm your videos are great to listen to while I type essays
The first bad arc was Qarth in season 2 but other arcs in season 2 made the overall episodes a net good, so I agree that it was later for the first overall net bad episode to happen, despite earlier adaptation issues.
For me the first crack was season 2 Daenerys arc in Qarth
That was so bad probably the first badly adapted plot from the books
What did they change in Qarth?
Honestly, I think it goes even further back to either the last episode of Season 3 or the first episode of Season 4, cutting Lady Stoneheart was a massive mistake that seriously screws up the story. Sure there had been other changes prior to that point, but those were mostly just prophecies and foreshadowing that could've been delivered another way (sorry Patchface my beloved). Lady Stoneheart meanwhile, last we see her, convinced Brienne and Pod to lure Jaime to his death. You can't just assign something like that to another character.
I thought they might have had Sansa become the one who carried out the Lady Stoneheart vengeance. Instead of having her sent to Winterfell. I think that could have worked.
Great points overall, it’s interesting the more I analyze the shows decline, the earlier I have to admit the quality started to deteriorate. On my initial watch I still really enjoyed season 6 due to the dramatic climaxes and artificial sense of progression. In hindsight this was really just denial and and the afterglow of the near perfection of seasons 1-3.
I do think the omission of the Tysha confession is an inflection point in the shows quality. I think maybe the critical acclaim got to D/D’s heads, and this was when they started to foolishly believe they were better writers than George. To desecrate one of the best, most pivotal scenes between 2 of my absolute favorite characters really is unforgivable, and indeed, the beginning of the end for my enjoyment of the show
The first bad episode is Winter is Coming for cutting George and his silly hat
100%, my biggest problems with the later seasons boil down to the fact that the show starts doing things that are either shocking/awe-inspiring or convenient. Whether something makes sense or gets a logical conclusion doesn't matter to them, and a lot of that starts here. Shock/awe: Bran and Co. fight with the wights, the Hound/Brienne fight, then expediency at the cost of complexity: removing the Tysha confession. The way that conversation haunts both Jamie and Tyrion in the books and changes their characters makes it so irritating that they decided to have them just hug and say a loving goodbye.
I first knew the show was going to be shit for the rest of it's runtime when they decided not to include Aegon. He is and will be an absolutely crucial character going forward. Making the Brotherhood Without Banners just some guys who sit in a cave and do nothing in season 3 without barely explaining their motives was also a huge disappointment.
Season four is also where I started to see the cracks. For me it was the Arya and the Hound road adventures. They took the whole season to cover less distance than Littlefinger travels in a single episode. This was the point where I started to read the books, because I wanted to see if this was a departure from the source material.
Dragon Demands argued years ago that the omission of the Tysha confession was part of a larger sanitization of Tywin's character likely stemming from Benioff's own unresolved daddy issues
Agree 100% Always thought Season 4 started showing the cracks that broke wide open in Season 5 and on
Not having Jojen paste was dissapointing but not having Jamie repeat the line about Moonboy over and over again was a damn crime.
I completely agree with your analysis. My only criticism of the video is how it is edited. I am not sure if other people felt this way but the way the text appears on the screen feels hard to look at for whatever reason. I think just having the text fade in or appear would work better. Otherwise, great work and thought your analysis was original and thoughtful!
I do remember when the episode finished thinking "some of that was really good but....." Looking back, that was the first time I ever thought that. Then season 5 arrived and that happened most of the time from then on, apart from Hardhome which is still my favourite episode. Utterly terrifying.
I understand what you say, but i think "Mockingbird" or "First of his name" are worst and are from the same season. I think in this chapters you can see more how the story is ending and how they try to slow down to have others chapters better.
Can we just appreciate that sick AF thumbnail?
"Stannis's arrival was excellent... shows the importance of mounted cavalry..."
Nonsense. Cavalry charging into the woods is completely asinine. It's budget-conscious, but a ridiculous compromise.
If you can't afford a CGI aerial shot of Wildlings on a plain being smashed to pieces by armored knights, rewrite the fucking scene completely, or keep the camera in the tent, IDC. Just don't put it in the fucking woods.
I love the little subscribe bird you have at the end of your videos. Makes me smile :)
It needs a name
@@QuinnTheGM perhaps it's Maester Cressen, since you suggested the theory that he is a chicken in Glidus' video about horses.
Good video, thanks for that good good content QGM!
"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" was where I felt the show fell in quality. From the hilariously bad Dorne fight to the uncomfortable wedding scene between Ramsay and Sansa, it's the only episode pre-Season 7 that I dislike.
I never liked that they scrapped all the political intrigue of Jeyne Westerling for someone Robb met randomly one day.
Completely agree. I feel like this exact criticism has been living in my brain for years. I appreciate you voicing it
Let's hear that gospel Quinn! This is the video I did not know that I needed to see but I am very happy to see it
This isn’t really their fault but the battle of the Blackwater is extremely underwhelming on a rewatch and especially if you’ve read the books. They had no budget the entire battle takes place in the same 30 yards of beach
While Tyrion’s storyline with Tywin was absolutely muuccch more compelling in the book, there wasn’t much build up in the show…. And book Shae really doesn’t behave like show Shae…. So I understand the comparison but to be honest the episode was weak in comparison to the book but in the context of the show itself, I really think it wasn’t……. I wasn’t bothered at all by the show’s choices to this point to be honest……
First time watching a video and you just nailed my feelings on season 4 within the first minute, god damn
So you thought season 2 flawless then
“Where’s my dragons…. Where’s my dragons…. Where’s my dragons…. “
Not flawless! Just thought that each individual episode has more good than bad
@@QuinnTheGM I didn’t understand the distinction you were making until watching most of the video
Your example of the final episode of season 4 illuminated your point beautifully
Season 2 did many things wrong but the pros did outweigh the cons
Season 4 was the last decent season before the show went off the rails n then the cliff
Good thumbnail btw as well 👍
The fall off began around where you're talking about. But the last good episode was the explosion at the Sept. Everything after that is completely without narrative thrust or any kind of semblance of writing quality for the dialogue. It became Game of Thrones Avengers once all the players got to a single location.
I mostly agree. To me, the show starts losing steam in S5, so is natural that the finale of S4 already had signs
I agree. This is the first episode where I went “welp 🤦♂️”
Am I the only one think that Hound holds Brienne's sword is like reference to Victarion Greyjoy fights a knight and holds the sword and bleed
I just rewatched season 1-4 and noticed this, too. I really enjoyed every episode, considering it's been my 4th watch of the show until s4 e10. In the back of my mind, I was like, when is this going to end?
When you read all the interviews from 2011 again it becomes extremely apparent that David and Dan simply did not care anymore after the red wedding. They wanted to do the red wedding, that’s the whole reason they took on the project, and after they achieved that goal their personal investment immediately vanished.
The end to the series was so bad that 5 years and a pandemic later we're still wondering how it all went wrong
If this is considered bad then you have literally no idea how good we had it back then
If there was a single moment for me that foretold the direction that the show was going to head in, it was the change to Tyrion’s murder of Shae.
Book Tyrion is a far more fascinating character because he can wrestle with a darkness that DnD wanted to avoid but not actually replace. For more or less the rest of the show, Tyrion was suddenly in this weird purgatory wherein his character arc was more or less logistical rather than being emotional and as such he became so boring to watch post season 4- you felt as though he remained the same, authorial voice character for the rest of the show. Likewise, literally everyone in the cast has a moment where they suddenly become the good guy or the evil guy in s5 and 6 with them then not changing as a character from that point.
This is so interesting because I always thought this episode was a bit lackluster compared to the rest of season 4, both in the context of the books and of the show itself.
They cut so much, altered scenes for the sake of spectacle at the expense of logic, and started with the trend of characters saying condemning things but facing no consequences for them
Already liked the video before arching. Great title!
I have been reading Feast for the first time and would love to see a video on the Sand Snakes and their future in the series
I think they cut the interaction between Tyrion and Jamie mainly because audiences did not sympathize with or like Jamie as a majority, only even picking up some in the final season. They wanted to redeem him so couldn’t give him another thing like that
Still my fav, sets up the future seasons for failure but still enjoyable on its own
Great video but I disagree about the fight between the Hound and Brianne. I think it’s the culmination of Arya and the Hound’s arc, that they trust each other now. Further Arya has no reason to trust Brienne especially because she has Jaime’s sword.
I knew this show was going to fail when they swapped Jeyne Westerling for Talisa. Not specifically for the reasons you might think. I dont necessarily like that she was some random but still, that can work. The issue here is that she is some sort of battle field nurse. This role in specifically this way does not exist in this universe. It expressed to me that the writers were willing to carelessly change the canon on a dime for no legitimately good reason at all.
I still liked it, but.. i didnt know that particular plot change from the book. It makes sense that he'd murder Tywin over Tysha, due to his guilt. TV Shae.. it makes less sense, as her jealousy was her own, her betrayal was her own and her attempt to kill Tyrion was her own.
The first episode I actively thought was bad was the season 5 finale. In the books it made perfect sense but in the show there is nothing to justify what happened. I thought most of season 4 held up pretty well. The changes to Jamie's character didn't bug me at the time because it seemed like they were going for something different from the books which I thought was a cool idea. Shame it played out the way it did.
Quinn got so popular very quickly . Love it
This is easily the best episode of the show up until this point. But its nice seeing a bookpurist for once returning to their roots and being honest: many had those issues when the episode aired initially.
Season 4 for bookpurists was far from being the last good, let alone best season back then.
I think the ultimate cause of most of these issues, especially at this time in the story, was the erasure of Lady Stoneheart. It had massive butterflies for the story.