Peter Dinklage, while delivering the "And who has a better story than Bran the Broken" line: "I'm just going to look into the distance, think really hard about my paycheck, and everything will be OK."
Guessed is one thing. But if a fan figured it out because of the hints and breadcrumbs you left in your well thought out story it means you were doing a good job. Stick to it.
This trend is textbook stupid. If fans were good storytellers, they wouldn't be fans, they would be writers. Paraphrasing Tim Minchin: do you know how quality envolving fan fiction is called? Fiction.
While watching Good Omens, I could predict a TON of the things that would happen. Does that mean the show is bad? Fuck no. It just means that my years of watching fiction have prepared me to be more aware of how stories work, so I can piece together clues that the writer has put there.
@@fexbio Lots of writers get inspired from other writers. In fact, most writers start out as fans of something. JRR Tolkien was a fan of the classics such as Beowulf, Shakespeare, etc. I get what you're saying, but the writers and fans analogy is... Not correct, I'm sorry to say.
And a good twist does not "jump from the brambles", it is built up and hinted at or at least explained in a logical way even if the audience did not see it coming.
Hehe you thought the story was gonna go on a natural course? Get this! Tyrion actually trips on his own foot and breake his neck on the floor! Bet you didn't see that coming, huh...brilliant, I know
That's what makes a good DM/GM: you are not the ENEMY of the players, you're there to facilitate the story unveiling before you. If you treat players as your enemies they will... feel it. They will, consciously or not, notice. Same with treating your audience/readers as hostile: you should want to SHOW them a story, not SHOCK them with a story...
I feel really bad for the actors here too. They brought their A game to this show and dedicated long years to it. Imagine being Lena Headey and putting all of that effort into Cersai only to get crushed by a rock. Awful.
She needed a grand final scene. She deserved it. I wish she would have either gone completely mad or realized how it was she who ruined herself and her kids.
To be honest, Lena Headey was probably already crushed by two straight seasons of 'here, Lena, just look out this window in this really nice dress. You want some wine?'
Or how the writers gave Peter Dinklage that ridiculous "stories" monologue in the final episode, and he had to figure out how to act that shit convincingly.
Exactly, and guessing the twist is not necessarily bad: it's actually satisfying when you see that happen for real. I mean, book- and screenwriting all live on basic tropes that are a thousand years old, so you can't really expect to come up with something absolutely new or unheard of story-wise. But it can still be engaging and well written, so just follow through with your plan... but I guess that's not how D&D think, since "themes are for 8 graders".
Yeah, the only reason I could see to rewrite a twist is if people have a visceral, negative reaction. In that narrow case you got to screen out the wet thuds, but if the accurate fan theory has a million upvotes, then you've done it right.
between dedicated theory and fanfiction communities of millions of people someone somewhere has guesses every possible ending or twist. showrunners only notice if theory become popular and that only when people either really like or hate thoery
Exactly. It's just as fun to say "I KNEW IT! SEE I TOLD YOU THAT WOULD HAPPEN!" as it is to say "woah, I didn't expect that at all... nicely done writers."
They turned their sweet, empathic disabled character into an emotionless droid because they were too goddamn lazy to write him. And then they have the gall, at the end, to say he has ~the best story~ for points. Idiots.
I don't mind Bran the boy "dying" to become the new 3 eyed raven... but I sure do mind the entire point of GoT somehow being that he should be kind "because he has the best story." That's ridiculous! Unless Bran was the lord of light and mastermoved every one of these things into place there is absolutely no way the story was leading to him being the king over John or Dany. That "he has the best story" schlock absolutely feels like something an author would think is poignant and cool. But it is not at ALL what the story had been leading up to and feels like a cheap copout.
Friendly ask not to use the phrase "wheelchair-bound" unless someone is literally physically tied to a wheelchair, please. It has some bad connotations, if you think about it. "Wheelchair-user" or "wheelchair-using" is preferred.
carlotta4th The point is (and it would parallel with some of GRRM’s other writing about hive minds attempting to exert control) that Bran really *was* dead, and was the 3ER now. Innocent Bran was gone, and a powerful being that *was* able to orchestrate events (consider all of the little conversations that Bran initiated or was present for in S8) in order to become king. Bran kept telling people he wasn’t Bran anymore, and no one believed him. When he was the offered the kingdom, he said, “Why do you think that I came all this way?” and people didn’t get that he said that because he KNEW he was to be made king. Bran wasn’t king because he was a good, innocent boy, he was king because he had been overtaken by Bloodraven, and willing to let a lot of people die because of his machinations. It was evil. And it was also more interesting. It illustrates another way that D&D fail with storytelling... The character was telling his truth, but there was never any confirmation of how amoral Bran truly was, right down to how he was explained by Tyrion and the show runners themselves. Either they didn’t get it, or wanted a different ending. They failed to portray Daenerys and her repeated betrayals, heartbreaking losses, and alienation in a way that made sense. Bran played her, and played people against her. Bran played Jon Snow, and his siblings. How much better of a story would it have been if the last three seasons had allowed a build up of these elements? But then, more seasons would probably have been required. Dan and David had a Star Wars project to get on with and ruin. Wait! They lost that project. Maybe the developer was a Game of Thrones fan.
Lindsay just straight up being like 'why are d+d even writers if they have no understanding of theme, basic plot structure and empathy?' is the content I subscribed for
And didn't they get signed on for some Star Wars shit? It will be amazing if they'd still be hired to do it after their flops. No one should really care to see their versions of anything really, especially Star Wars after that has been fucking up. Troy is the only good that has come out of those two, I'd say. Because all of the good GoT material they utilized they didn't write, it seems.
The only one who went full circle was actually jon, and sansa, the rest was wtf and some fanservice. I can see that woprking for star wars thou, its a popcorn movie.
I would argue that plot structure is the one thing D&D do understand. It is theme that they don't care about. If you asked Martin what Game of Thrones is about, you'd probably get a passionate rant about all the themes that initially hyped him to create this story. D&D wouldn't be able to see further past "a bunch of people want to sit in a chair". The thing is Martin is so in love with his universe that he bloated the story beyond the ability to ever have an ending. For awhile, D&D made the story overall less frustrating as around Season 5/Season 6 it was at least efficiently moving towards a conclusion. That conclusion was bad. But at least they were cutting fat and not adding a ton of big new characters and complications super late into the game.
Forgot to mention one of the worst parts, in my opinion. How vintage Alan Cumming, a political mastermind, tried to manipulate two young girls for at least half a season and failed so badly that he died.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick correction, two teenage SISTERS. Literally every girl I've ever known who has a sister would hate each other in their teens.
I hate how true this is. I miss old youtube, no, old internet, where people just made shit for the fun of it, and we got things like the meth minute and chocolate rain.
Exactly. People putting so much time and effort into theorizing about where the plot is going to go is about as clear a demonstration of fan engagement as is possible. When you change your plot just because a handful of redditors guessed the direction, you are effectively punishing them for liking your show by depriving them of the "HA! I knew it!" payoff moment.
In a normal world where writers try to create a good story ... yes In a world where the suits try to squeek out the maximum amount of subscriptions ... NOT AT ALL This is the theory they will use : if people know X is going to happen in episode N then they will only watch episode N and not any episode before. Therefor we have 'lost' a subscriber and not made as much money as we wanted. You can kind of see this with sports too. Only the dedicated fans will watch the entire season of their sport. The rest will only ever watch it whenever their favourite club/athlete has a chance of winning the main event. The suits think they can keep everyone subscribed by not telling them who will make it to the finals.
Also means that your foreshadowing is on point. If people have 3+ years to obsessively analyze a book, it's gonna be effectively impossible to foreshadow *anything* without *someone* guessing the twist.
Honestly, if I made such a high-profile show with a running mystery and people figured it out, I would be ecstatic that there were people observant enough to follow the breadcrumbs I left perfectly. If I changed anything at all, it might be to make a small winking nod at them that ultimately doesn't change anything beyond adding a funny line to the script. Changing your entire story because people...followed the clues you left for them to figure out? That's needlessly spiteful and only hurts yourself in the end.
19:48 The dragon didn't burn the throne for the symbolism. It burned it because it saw that its mom was killed by a knife so it killed the knifes family.
I wish. Turns out 2D wrote in the script that the Iron Throne was just burned by Drogon randomly, and it didn't have specific importance. I didn't think Dumb & Dumber could make the scene even more stupid, but here we are.
@@devilsadvocate4081 funnily enough bbc Sherlock is one of the dumbest shows I’ve watched. I liked the first seasons, it was a fun watch, but it tries sooo hard to be clever. You notice quickly when a writer tries to write a character who is supposed to be smarter than them- it’ll never work.
Leave it to Moffat to take the ultimate detective archetype where part of the thrill is understanding the thought processes that lead to the brilliant conclusions and just saying, “nope, audience needs to feel dumber - BOOMERANG!”
@@skiddadleskidoodle4094 I don't think that's true at all, that a writer writing a character smarter than themselves is inherently a problem. Remember, Gatiss and Moffat came from writing Doctor Who, where the protagonist is famously and definitionally smarter than all humans! They were always putting a new spin on the character, that's allowed. The problem with Sherlock was the problem with many shows: the quality dropped in later seasons, probably due to the writers running out of ideas, and maybe getting a bit bored and losing discipline in their writing. I'm seeing a lot of people having this criticism of Sherlock (in retrospect): that it was trying to be too smart. But if it took so long for everybody to realise that the writers weren't actually all that smart, I think that's evidence enough that actually, they did a pretty good job of achieving what they wanted, at least in the first couple of seasons. And it wasn't even one of those shows that was always teasing some big mystery that was never resolved-most mysteries were resolved within the episode.
The writers for the podcast The Magnus Archives said it best, I think: you should have some people who guess it perfectly, some people who get most of it, and some people who have no clue what's going on. Your big reveals have to be earned, they have to be built to. If literally no one could ever possibly see it coming, you failed.
That's also why Twin Peaks, which originated this shit is still above it. People managed to GUESS the twist in the finale even if they didn't guess the finale
Actually thinking about it now, changing a twist because reddit found out about it can even be cruel. Its like if your kid found out where you hid the christmas presents and then on christmas day you surprise them by giving a cheap last minute gift. It dosen't make you smarter than your kid it just makes you a bad parent.
I'd say its more like if your kid found where you hide the Easter eggs, then when he brought them to you, you spiked it on the ground and gave him some shitty melted chocolate they can't even eat.
the way the writers treated sansa's character arc still makes me so heated oh my god. i'm not even a stickler for keeping to the source material, but like... she was supposed to be the captive of littlefinger and learn his tricks of deception, politics, secrecy etc to become stronger and smarter, then eventually use what she learned against him. that's interesting and it's a different storyline than many of the other characters. but the writers just said fuck it, the only way a female character can become stronger is to be raped and traumatized for shock value. i hate them so much
Thing I would've loved to see with her was if she learned from LF without him realizing it. Like if she played the quiet little bird the whole while, only to turn things around on him. But no. Hamfisted, she's wearing black and looking like she's evil now. Or something.
@@dominicbounds8768 In the books at least (I don´t quite remember if it was in the show) Sansa actually did reveal Ned's plan to send them away to Cersei so without her stupidity she herself and Arya might have escaped to the North. Ned himself wasn't going to escape though so he likely would have died anyway though without the girls to blackmail him with he probably never would have given his false confession.
@@E-Man5805 In the books Littlefinger actually explains his thinking to her voluntarily, for various reasons probably (it hasn't really been made clear why).
My favourite thing ever is the Game of Thrones Season 8 table read. All these brilliant actors who probably could have written a better ending (barring some exceptions) looking absolutely HORRIFIED while D&D revel in their own 'brilliance'. Nothing will beat Emilia Clarke literally sliding down her chair while trying to hide her upset and Conleth Hill just openly fucking hating the script as Lena Headey grieves silently.
The whole "people predicted our twist so now we have to change it!" thing is so stupid. A good twist will make you see the previous events of the story in a different light, but it should still make sense. If people are guessing your twist, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're making it obvious, it can just mean that your foreshadowing is working. A twist without buildup or foreshadowing is just lazy shock value. Saying that Mystique from the X-Men is Danaerys' mom would be a shocking twist, but it makes no sense and there's nothing hinting at it before the reveal, making it a terrible twist. Besides, in this era of massive fandom groups on the internet, people guessing twists is inevitable. If enough people are making fan theories, odds are they're gonna guess a lot of your twists. (unless your twists are stupid and make no sense, like Mystique being Danaerys' mom) Also, woo, two-parter! I can't wait!
There's also the fact that we're talking about _the internet_ guessing the twist. Hundreds of thousands of networked individuals, running *millions* of calculations every god-damned second. The internet solved P.T _in a day._ The internet was able to correctly chart Shia Labeouf's stream locations, repeatedly, _within hours._ You do NOT outsmart the internet. There's just no way a single human being, or a group of human beings, can beat the sheer computational power of _millions of human beings working together._ How much of an ego do you have to have to whine that you weren't able to beat _the fucking internet?!_
It shows how they're treating their viewers. They believe people will be more interested in shock value than actual interesting storytelling. Yes the show built itself a lot on shock value and surprises ("oh this guy died, I wonder who dies next") but people stayed for the plot, because you can't build a story around random deaths and surprises.
For GoT there were at least two plausible and popular fan theories for everything. Even if there's a correct theory out there, not everyone's gonna be on board so it's still surprising to a lot of people. I mean, there were even people who didn't buy R+L=J!
It's almost as if the entire industry has a shitty and twisted view of women and we were right to question why they had so many rape scenes. It almost makes you think those scenes turn them on.
It's ironic that they were banking on a controversial but memorable ending when not even a year later the show has almost entirely faded from the public consciousness
Whenever it comes up in conversation my friends and I are still annoyed by it. It seems to me that it hasn't faded from the consciousness so much as people have stopped talking about it like it's the weird uncle who doesn't get invited to family parties any more. Shame 🔔
Pretty much dropped the entire thing once I saw Daenerys burn the city for literally no reason. Just completely forgot there were two episodes left, never thought about it again. After watching this I can see that it did, in fact, get worse.
It was probably a massive loss for those companies that invested in licenses of products related to the show in the last seasons. I saw all the merchandise that was selling like hot cakes before the 8th season, went on discount sales only a couple of weeks after the last episode.. Also there was a traveling show of the props that had many cities scheduled for the tour, and I didn’t hear if they ever continued it or cancelled it for lack of interest
Correct. Years later we still talk about LOTR and Harry Potter fondly because they were properly ended. GOT? We just swiped it under the rug. The most popular show in the world for 8 years just fades away into the nothing
3:35 The Boo Boo the Fool painting is interesting to me in this context because it's a painting of Stańczyk, the legendary Polish court jester who was famously the only person in the Polish court who actually kept tabs on what was happening in the crumbling empire and in this very painting is portrayed sulking over a report of a lost battle while others are having a literal ball. There is a metaphor about the people who read the books and saw all of this shitstorm coming in around season 5 somewhere, in there.
Eh, Game of Thrones as a whole went down after the *4th book* in my opinion. It's no longer this great, masterpiece of an Epic people say it still is *(shrug)*
@@tonymarshall3978 no some people don't like that the fourth focused on different perspectives bit the books are still solid although who knows if they'll ever actually all come out
Also, the use of "adding to that deluge" in 0:41. The Deluge, of course, is also the name of the book of Henryk Sienkiewicz about the mentioned crumbling Empire. Maybe that's a metaphor about how, people who have read longer bookseries could have foreseen the problems with the later books. Or not.
I did laugh at that line. Then I checked how long the video was and how much of my life she had already wasted, and I stopped watching. I mean with a summary like that, I don't exactly feel bad for skipping the video.
That had me dying. Literally everyone in the room knew that these two wingnuts couldn't write a fifth grade book report - let alone an eighth grade one - and were just pulling crap out of their ass for the finale.
Seeing the way Conleth Hill (Varys) distastefully (literally moves his mouth like he has a bad taste) places the script down on the table and sits back with his arms folded made me feel vindicated, somewhat.
That would have been heart-breaking. It's not just your favourite character dying, or your favourite character being shat upon, it's something _you made_. This is _your_ art, this is what you've dedicated your life to. This is their craft and it's so disrespectful to treat what they've given their time and effort and love towards so thoughtlessly. It's just.... cruel.
@@T33K3SS3LCH3N D&D tried to fill GOTS with filler too at first, Yara rescuing Theon, Hardholme, Jon goes to Craster's Keep to fight the mutineers. All filler either not in the books or only vaguely mentioned.
Seeing a quote from so-called 'writers' saying that themes are only for homework in school is deeply upsetting. That's like hearing a so-called doctor go 'Pff, a sterile operation room is not that important! We'll be fine!'
Structure and story development is what you learn in Screenplay 101 lol. None of that was cohesive or existent for a while in the show. "Writers" indeed.
Oof it gets worse. I saw someone post and interview of Benioff after a novel release say they he valued style over substance, and always struggled with 'story' because his favorite authors were more style than story (he cites Hemingway, while also admitting he missed the careful story of those books.) So yeah basically he literally doesnt understand story. I'd link the video but I'm on mobile He also admitted to being a compulsive liar.
It's just such a misguided, "edgy" thing to say -- like you honestly think you're better than having themes in your writing? What you write conveys messages no matter what; that's how storytelling works. Embrace it or don't, but don't deny that this is the fundamental nature of stories.
Bran has magical prophetic powers. If there was anybody who would understand how much better everybody else’s stories were, it would be somebody with magical prophetic powers.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Does it matter though if he doesn't even tell them (in the show)? He could've told everyone about Jon's actual parents way before, but he only said a story about his chair while it was Sam the one who told Jon after figuring it out. His powers stopped being useful in the show but he had to be kept around for the last season for some reason.
"Have you considered the best ruler might be someone who doesn't want to rule?" I guess the moral of the story is that Bobby B really was the best king in the entire series.
Which was weird because didn't the wheel chair boy say "Why do you think I came all this way?" Sounds like something some one who wants the throne would say lol. And the lil guy did take the job lol... Just sayin...
I've thought Robert was the best king the whole time! Okay, maybe he was drunk, bloodthirsty, financially irresponsible, and not very bright, but at least that's all that was wrong with him.
"West World writer had to rewrite an episode after redditer accurately guessed an upcoming twist"" Why? What kind of stupid logic is that? So someone guessed where you were going, is being surprising really is the most important thing to you as a writer? Not whether or not the story is good or makes sense, but just to catch your audience off-guard?
I think one of the worst things a writer could ever do is to change the story at the very last second because some fans figured out how it would end before it happened. Not only would it destroy the quality of the show, but you're also proving the fans that they're right.
.........Ok I'll break this down for you.........one of the most well known lines is "luke I am your father." This is not actually the official line from the movie, but it is so well known because of how it blew everyones minds back when empire came out. Fantasy really only took off after the success of SW and high fantasy wouldn't till LOTR. These are very niche genres that have not historically appealed to a broader audience unless your not doing something "by the books"/as expected. The issue then becomes, in scenarios where subversion/mystery is your key means of engaging a broad audience, what happens when millions have time to put their heads together to solve it. Sad to say but this kind of rewriting is fairly common in modern TV to keep it from becoming boring.
@@samuelazzaro ...but like....If you're writing and foreshadowing things doesn't it just make sense people who are actively engaged may guess where things are going? And... doesn't that just mean your writing is actually coherent and good? Like even when there is a twist that does catch me of guard if the film/book/show is good I can usually go back and see the hints and clues I missed before. If you're actively rewriting stuff whenever someone guesses your direction then I assume people who go back to see the hints where it was heading just see a bunch of dead ends and pointless subplots. Audiences can be smart, hell, some people in an audience may even be smarter than an author (especially in the case of huge fandoms). Changing a story so all the pieces barely fit just because someone who is invested in the work accurately guesses where it is going (because the writer did a good job leading the story properly) just makes the writer look less talented or, in the case of when they legit tell people they changed it because a fan guessed, like a jackass.
Sad thing is, there are GoT fanfics out there with better writing than what D+D pulled out of their keisters once they ran out of source material to adapt.
@@frankrizzo9678 still, Ned was more observant then most of the characters in the show. It would be like being the first in that world to figure out that you do not fall over the edge when you pass over the horizon (I think in the show, they said something like the world is inside the eye of a giant or some fantasy non sense)
@@drop_messages6226 And some people in our reality say the world is flat. Can't judge everyone because wackadoos proliferate. Pretty sure GRRM's confirmed Planetos is round, even if some peasanty types within the narrative are ignorant of this.
Maybe D&D, Abrams, and Rian Johnson should go back to eighth grade and do film school all over again, particularly with creative writing and script writing courses.
@@GAdmThrawn Rian Johnson actually is exactly the reverse of D&D, the guy didn't subvert expectations "just cause", the characters always act in a coherent way it's just that he put before them obstacles that given the way they are at that point in the story are difficult for them to deal with (ye know, like discovering the big bad is actually your dead dad you wanted to avenge or having your new boyfriend you finally opened up to after years of sexually charged bickering frozen and handed to the empire by one of his supposed best friends). Johnson asked himself what would make Luke go to an island in seclusion when there's his dark side addled nephew brandishing his lightsaber at any poor schmuck who looked at him funny? And that was the answer, it was never gonna be a pleasant one, Star Wars is also myth and tragedy not just fun and games and if there's a thing in tragedy is that tragic heroes may slip up at exactly the wrong moment (bonus points if a vision or prophecy is involved) and personally I fucking loved it. There's a them in that movie of things going wrong and making mistakes, and learning from them, be either the wrong or right thing. The good guys learn the right thing even if they stumble like Luke, Poe, Finn and Rey did, the bad guys like Kylo Ren don't and and persevere in taking away the wrong lesson from their mistakes and those of the others.
@@HOTD108_ he soaked it in themes. Contradictory themes. He was trying to say "something", he just had no idea what it was. (see: Wisecrack video on the topic, "The Last Jedi: What Went Wrong?" and like the million other critiques on UA-cam)
Trey Chambers The Wisecrack crew completely missed that you were supposed to think the bad guy(Kylo) is wrong and that there actually are good things from the past, see the clean cut “legend” of Luke Skywalker distracting the enemy army while the real unkempt Skywalker died alone on a rock
"We gotta change the show because we only exist to outsmart reddit." Okay, so on this point - which is one of my favorite quotes from this fantastic breakdown - one of my majors in undergrad was English with a concentration in creative writing. There was a lot of discussion on the idea of surprising the reader, specifically with regard to plot. While there are varying arguments on how to go about this, one of the strongest threads was that you need to balance between surprise and satisfaction. Specifically, you need to write a surprise knowing a good percentage of your audience is going to guess it by the end, and, in fact, that's what you want to aim for. Allowing the reader to feel like they've guessed the ending correctly makes them like the book *more*, not less. Concurrently, if you have readers who guess your ending, as an author, you should be happy about this. It means the reader has invested considerable thought and energy into your work. They get you. They get the characters. They get the motivations. Your writing brought the reader so far into your head, they thought like you. The idea that any of these showrunners think, especially in this day and age when fans can gather online in the millions, that people guessing their twists is a bad thing is just ridiculous.
This is a really good point and I feel like I've learned something. I'm just wondering why I didn't learn it during MY time studying English and Creative Writing. ¬_¬
Oh so that's what's going on there. I knew there had to be a reason for my visceral hatred of movie/tv writers who do the "oh the internet guesses this, so we're going to do anything but that" thing. I just had no idea how to express it beyond angry whinging. Thank you.
The problem folks like these showrunners have is confusing a well-written destination with a predictable one. There's nothing wrong with some portion of your readers - even all of them, in some cases - reasoning out where the story is likely headed. It's only a (potential) problem if everyone who hears even a rough description of the story thus far knows where it's headed: you're likely writing into cliche at that point. Which, in and of itself, isn't always necessarily a bad thing! But that's the kind of problem they seem to THINK they have anytime someone guesses correctly about where their shows are going when, really, it's more likely just an indication some people like and care enough about the story to have reasoned out its intended endgame. tl;dr reasonability isn't a problem; predictability might be.
Also English grad here- one of the greatest pieces of advice in writing I personally got (concerning twists) was “Don’t make a twist that makes someone scratch their head, make them go ‘oh, but of course’’”
Also as an author I'm baffled authors get mad when people figure them out. Isn't that the point? When you leave clues and people get it? I'd be thrilled
Cinema Gaming I agree - it’s one of the reasons I’m not generally a huge Christie fan. (Look at the deal with The Mousetrap to see how much importance she put on unpredictable, unspoiled twists, for instance. One of the things she’d do would be to wait until well into writing the book to even decide whodunnit.)
Same goes for their interviews post-filming, but pre-streaming. There's an entire compilation out there and I don't know whether it is more hilarious or devastating.
It's hilariously cringy when you see it, but it's depressing when you realize that people are blaming the actors for what their characters did and not the writers/producers.
Sophie Turner looking at Kit at the table read with that sardonic smile while his characterization is shattered is so funny to me; like WELCOME TO MY HELL, BUDDY
Lena Heady gave Conleth Hill a very consoling look when he learned how the writers had decided to dispose of his character. She knows what it's like to be written into a one-note part after being one of the most intriguing players. It's a crime that she didn't get an Emmy for playing one of the top three femme fatale villains of all time.
Themes are not for eighth grade book reports. Themes are the underlying moral message of the work. Without a consistent theme underpinning it, your story isn't actually saying anything. For example: the ending of Game of Thrones.
@Erika B I might argue that all stories have some level of a theme, whether the author intends it or not. Maybe it's something as basic as "everything is chaos and nothing happens for a reason," but there's unavoidably going to be some point to the story. After all, that's why people engage with it in the first place: to try and understand some element of how things are or how they ought to be.
@@frownyclowny6955 how could a story ever be good without themes... is it even a story without themes? I'm not even sure its possible to write without themes, they are always there, but they can be poorly integrated into story, or be inconsistent.
Imagine if Maisie Williams hadn't been available for filming so instead of the cumulative hours spent in Braavos, spread over years of broadcasting, we just got a title card at the beginning of Season 7 that said "Arya goes to ninja school, decides it isn't for her, and leaves."
It's funny how in the book she can never truly become a Faceless Man because loyalty is at the core of her character and she's spent almost 2 books trying to find her way home, so she can never give that up, and yet the signs of her warging ability - also a part of her Starkness - are becoming stronger all the time, so it's sad DnD just make her a ninja and ignore the rest.
@@Ash-ow5yc All of the stark kids in the books have the ability to Warg, just some are better at it than others. With Arya and Bran being the two strongest.
@@Ash-ow5yc It's implied that the Starks became the rulers of the north because they are powerful wargs, but this has been forgotten in universe. After Daenerys hatched her three dragons magic started coming back to the world. One of many sub-plots the show left out. Jon, Bran and Arya are all wargs, although only Bran and Jon can conscously control it because they learned (about) it from wildlings. There's a pack of around a hundred wolves led by a huge she wolf (Arya's direwolf Nymeria) roaming the Riverlands and sometimes killing Frey soldiers. One of many sub-plots the show dropped. Arya sometime dreams that she's a wolf and leads a huge pack, but she's not aware that she's inhabiting Nymeria's body at the time and thinks she's just dreaming. Sansa hasn't shown any abilities as of book 5 , probably because her direwolf was killed before magic came back.
I like that Nymeria got a cameo right alongside Ed Sheeran only to fuck off and not be at all relevant. It was just a quick "Yup, I'm still alive, have fun with the finale you fucks"
@@TheDraykon They hate them because of stuff like this, they don't get much SAY in any changes made, jut told. You act it. So while the writers go on crack induced character assassination, they just got to sit there and listen to character they put work into and tried to make interesting literately die on the page.
@@TheDraykon No, not even remotely. I don't know where this dude came up with the idea that writers give a flying fuck what the actor's think about the script at all, because it's laughably incorrect. The point of a table read is familiarization with the material and a very basic rehearsal before they move on to more complex rehearsals.
If people predict something that might happen in a later book/season etc. ...THAT ISN'T A BAD THING! Good writing requires setting up things and if you set something up and some fans guess it, then let them!
I have a rule for mystery novels, if the reader doesn't have enough info to solve the crime themselves by the time the big reveal happens, it's poorly written.
@Dave Pearson Yeah, I was gonna say... laws of probability dictate that every possible ending is probably going to be predicted by someone at some point. Except possibly the most stupid possible endings. Maybe if reddit people posted theories about stupid endings, we'd get better writing?
Right? Like even JK Rowling didn't back out from RAB being Regulus Black even though most fans immediately theorized this as soon as Half-Blood Prince was released.
this is what i ALWAYS say. i get annoyed when people say they saw some stuff coming cause I'm like... wow! congratulations! you have passable knowledge of planting and pay off! if you're even barely acquainted with story structure, you should be able to predict stuff. the problem is formulaic endings, which can be boring depending because you know where you're going since the start therefore there is no tension but depending on how they're set up they can be satisfying too so... whatever. it's just dumb.
Wait wait wait You realized that you couldn't properly make your point in the allotted time so you're making another video to wrap things up rather than rushing to a shitty conclusion? Somewhere, Dave and Dan's heads are exploding.
Gravity Falls actually had the right idea when it came to fans guessing the twist. There were a ton of people that guessed that Grunkle Stan had a twin brother who was the author of the journals, but the show went ahead and did it anyway. After the reveal the creator Alex Hirsch pretty much congratulated the fans on guessing the twist since it was a show that pretty much encouraged fans to theorize. I think that's the way to go. Fans guessing a twist isn't the worst thing in the world. If the story is well crated enough, people should be able to read spoilers and still enjoy it.
TheMellowFilmmaker probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t get why fans theorise and try and guess what’s going to happen. I’d rather watch a show I enjoy and let it play out without trying to show my intelligence by guessing what’s going to happen. Because of people constantly theorising over who Jon Snows parents were, the actually reveal was ruined because of fans theorising about it. I feel like thinking too much about these things ultimately ruins the overall show.
The Vault: Film & Games Reviews I understand your point. There are people who are curious and theorize and there are people who wait for the reveal. It doesn’t make anybody smarter or dumber. It’s just how people react to stories. I guessed about Jon’s parentage, and it just happened to be right. I could have easily been wrong.
@@thevaultfilmgamesreviews8081 that's the beauty of media, people all enjoy it in their own way. I personally love theorizing but I respect your way to watch too.
@@thevaultfilmgamesreviews8081 It's more fun to get smacked in the face with the twist; however, people's brains are equipped for figuring out the mystery, and that's how the world works. If humans didn't try and solve puzzles, we wouldn't see the intense puzzle-solving in scientific discoveries, detective-work, or great battle-tactics.
I'm hoping for more Olenna Tyrell appreciation! If not in the video then in the comments. My absolute favorite character, hands down- scenes with her and Tywin/her and Jaime are GOLD
When the fan theories in Steven Universe were confirmed it was so cathartic! Changing twists because someone figured it out is basically punishing your fans for being enthusiastic about your work.
It doesn't even make too much sense from a story-telling perspective. Obviously some twists are gonna be more predictable, and some mysteries easier to solve, but if you are consistent with your world and it's rules, there have to be some clues to what might happen. Who cares if a few people in a modern fan base figure it out, how would you even beat such a massive hive mind, as long as most people watching can't figure out while viewing or casually discussing it with a friend I'd argue you got a solid mystery.
I remember a couple people being upset about the Pink Diamond thing. But like ... the moment Steven had that dream from the perspective of Pink Diamond, there was only one possible explanation so I just waiting for the show to make it explicit. I'm not sure how they could have changed it, because the twist is way too central to the resolution of the main conflict.
@@21swords76 talks about disdain for fans then goes and says "steven universe *scoff* how can that have difficult twists?“. Watch something and then judge for yourself what quality of writing it has
It's incredibly childish, in my opinion. I've not watched Steven Universe (saw an episode or two, not my cup of tea), but clearly if people are figuring it out, it's only fair to let them get the satisfaction of earning that victory. [Mini-"Last Airbender" rant spoilers] If people called out that Zuko was gonna join Team Avatar, and the creators popped a 180 just because they REALLY wanted to manufacture a surprising twist, it would have really ruined what they built up over two seasons. All this time, Zuko learning what asshats the Fire Nation can be, and his place in it not being everything he thought it'd be, not giving us the payoff of him making the decision to switch sides when it was supposed to happen would have been for nothing, and just ruined his character. Imagine instead of him making his grand declaration, he stuck to his Fire Nation guns and just stayed bad guy the whole time? It'd be awful.
Writer 1: oh Gods they figured out our twist! We have to rewrite it! *explains new twist* Writer 2: that's stupid. Writer 1: but they won't expect it. Writer 2: because it's stupid!
See this is why I'm so glad Gravity Falls didn't change their plot when most viewers have already guessed the plot twist. And y'all weren't kidding about the final season being so dark, I can't see a damned thing.
@Carolyn "kids show" doesn't automatically mean a show has no plot. For example Avatar: The Last Airbender is a children's show with some of the best plots and chatacter development in a decade.
@Carolyn What does a show's plot being good or bad have anything to do with the demographic it's targeting or its art style? Apart from obvious limitations, if it's aimed for a younger audience, it doesn't affect the *plot* at all. If you completely dismiss shows like ATLA and Gravity Falls just because they're labeled as "kids shows"... Idk what to tell you, you're missing out.
alariel85 Actually I feel like thats not entirely true. IIRC part of the reason why they cut it short at 2 seasons was because Alex Hirsch the showrunner felt there was no need to continue when fans figured out the biggest twist of the show. It’s a shame because I feel like that show had a ton going for it that was rushed in Season 2, and I still think they could have gone 3 seasons at least with the material they had. It at least would have given more time to flesh out the main character relationships and flex their plot muscles more (esp since the rushed feeling of Season 2 built up some fan resentment towards the one-off, “not main plot” episodes that occupied much needed space in the final stretch).
@@syltrid Honestly, something that bothered me about Samwell Tarly. So at the end of the series, he's the Grand Maester in King's Landing, Lord of House Tarly (?), AND married to Gilly. Is he also still technically part of the Night's Watch? Which of these things is he or is he not? is he all of these? If so, how? How is half these things should make it impossible to be half the other things? Does Samwell just get to break all the rules?
Literally the only reason Bran is King is because nobody wanted him to be. Think about that for two minutes and tell me it doesn't make you want to go walk into the ocean.
what bothers me is like....the dothraki were ALL daenerys's bloodriders, which means they would avenge her death, and then join her in death....but at the end you see some of them just wandering about....where's the bloodlust? none of them even TRY to kill jon
Bronn is the Lord of the Reach? Tyrion seriously upheld that cutthroat deal made at gunpoint? And why is he also the Master of Coin when he doesn't know what a loan is? Especially when the crown has a seriously loan problem?
Daenerys killed the khals and none of the dothraki avenged them. Am I supposed to believe they had no brothers, cousins, sons, wives, or friends? That is a bigger problem..
Clegane-bowl was a serious regression in The Hound's character development. Any last meeting between the Cleganes should have been The Mountain asking his brother to end his suffering, maybe even with a bit of a scuffle before hand.
I think once The Mountain became a zombie, then CleganeBowl became pointless. The Hound wasn't going to get any emotional payoff in such a fight because his brother was already dead. It's like hitting a practice dummy. Like Lindsay said, "his (Sandor's) arc wasn't about getting revenge. It was about moving *past* that."
@@judeconnor-macintyre9874Well themes are for 8th grade book reports after all. It makes perfect sense why they would say that. D&D don't think themes are bad. They just have the intelligence of 1st graders so anything above that is beyond their comprehension.
I remember when I heard so much about how passionate Conleth Hill was about the show, how he would help the younger actors and how much he put into the show overall. Legitimately seeing him fold up the script and push it away just gives me life.
It breaks my heart a little bit. Conleth and the other actors, and the people who worked on set and behind the scenes all tried so so hard. They gave it their all and they did an amazing job. But to see them completely let down by writers who don't care at all is a tragedy.
Absolutely, but to me it is also depressing to think about actors who hav eno choice but to play lines they do not believe in to the best of their ability and blatantly lie about how brilliant they think they are. Thouhg, to be fair, that is true of so many jobs.
I don't understand the fascination with trying to outsmart the audience. I keep thinking back to your video on spoilers! For example, I was on the edge of my seat during the finale of Chernobyl. I know they don't stop it - but I couldn't help myself from hoping they would! It's about how you tell the journey
Because writers don't want to be accused of being predictable. You can design a story so that knowing the resolution ahead of time doesn't really matter. But for example, Ned Stark's death and the Red Wedding are famous TV movies because they shocked the hell out of people. During the white walker invasion of Winterfell, we knew which characters were expendable to the point where a several mainstays like Theon and Jorah and fan favorites could like Lyanna could go down and it could be remembered as bloodless
Well, if you're a smart writer you're happy because it means you've got a smart audience. If you're a dumb writer, you get angry, because your audience is smarter than you.
36:38 Arya's trip to Kings Landing turns out to be a complete waste of time because all it takes to persuade Arya to NOT kill Cersei is a speech from the Hound about how, "you don't want to become a killer like me." And I'm thinking, "Dude. At this point, Arya has killed HUNDREDS of people. She probably has a higher body count than YOU."
You know why fans worked it out? Because they picked up on the hints and foreshadowing written into the show. It means your writing is consistent if they can feasibly guess it. Deciding to suddenly change the ending because they pieced together your writing, means you render that writing inconsistent and worthless.
This^ I'm a hobby writer and when one or two of my reviewers message me with things they have correctly worked out, it freakin' makes my day! Means this torture that I do every day is coming together and actually makes sense and my foreshadowing is working! Just because people figured it out does not mean it's not good.
Fans predicted it before the shows were out. 6 years ago I had discussions of, “Jon must be the child of ned’s sister and a Targaryen” as well as, “I bet Danny goes mad like the mad king... all this power and murder and invading with foreign armies doesn’t paint a good picture for her prospects”
The issue isn't that Dany went mad, it's that until like s08 ep. 3 one of her defining characteristics was compassion for the common folk. Going back on that because "subverting expectations" is terrible writing. Similarly, making a huge deal of prophecy/power, the Lord of light resurrecting Jon, and Jon's Targaryan heritage just for Arya to kill the night king and the heritage to never be mentioned again makes no sense and you have to do a number of mental backflips to make it work in the context of everything else you've written for that character.
I know old comment, but there's a single youtuber called altshiftx with what, 400+ hours of got analysis Thats one guy Someone will guess something right even if its by accident, it pure probability
The whole "I can't let fan's guess my twist" fear feels like an ego thing. Like it's so important for them to be the smartest ones here. Why not just let some fans have their "Whoo! I called it!" moment! The best comparison to this season I've heard so far is that the writing essentially became the Iocane powder scene from a princess bride with the writers essentially going, "But you see I knew that you knew that I knew that you that I'd never fall for that old trick!"
It's hard because the nature of the mass proliferation of information on the internet makes it so anyone exposed to information that reveals the twist will feel like they were the ones who predicted it. What might otherwise be a small group of dedicated and intelligent fans feeling satisfied turns into the general audience feeling like the material was juvenile and predictable, because *everyone* guessed it, not just the few who actually did and told everyone else.
And it makes for things to be actually....really stupid. I don't even watch this show and I'm here because I wanted to know Why everyone is complaining that it's terrible.
Agreed. This is why it felt like the characters and plotlines had to zig-zag so much towards the end. It almost became a game of trying to throw you off the trail. "All of the foreshadowing and clues that were laid throughout the show? Psyche! They meant nothing and are never addressed again." "Other pieces of information like when Bran says 'I can never be Lord of anything'? Pysche! He can still be Ruler of the Seven (Six) Kingdoms!" It's just not good storytelling and not a convincing way to convey information or resolve the story lines. It became obvious that their priorities were wrapped up in making these big shocking/twisting moments that Game of Thrones had become known for, even if they had to achieve those twists by straight up feeding you false information. I had a terrible feeling that Season 8 would turn out this way whenever Littlefinger died in Season 7. You are shown several bits of conflicting information: Sansa stating that she knows Littlefinger isn't trustworthy but keeps him around anyway, she sends Brienne of Tarth away as some sort of confusing move to show that she isn't being fooled by Littlefinger, Arya spies on Sansa, Littlefinger spies on Arya and smirks - inferring that things are going according to his manipulative plan, Sansa and Arya fight, and lastly, it's specifically pointed out that Bran is not Bran and is acting so strange and has no desire to aid with his sisters' problems. Then, suddenly, all of the Starks are on the same side and wise to LIttlefinger's plan with 0 information on how they worked it out. Did they ask Bran for help and he cleared things up? Why were we shown that he is so distant and unwilling to help yet it's assumed he worked with them behind the scenes? Why were we shown that Littlefinger was successful in manipulating them and that the sisters were at each other's throats yet somehow behind the scenes they apparently worked things out without Littlefinger spying on them? None of these things were told in a satisfying manner and we were actually shown the opposite in many instances, never knowing quite whose perspective we were truly viewing things from. It was a twist for twist's sake. They needed a shocking moment for the S7 finale, so they fed us false information before killing him off. These things could have easily been clarified with an additional scene or two, but that would have ruined their "twist".
They got paranoid about this when they forewshadowed Jon Snow's resurrection harder than a Honkytonk Man guitar swing. They actually telegraphed it so hard that I was busy trying to figure out whom they were positioning Flame-Tits to revive towards the end of S4. It had to be someone, and Jon Snow was always the most likely, given his problems at the time with the rebellious Night's Watch. So I predicted that Jon Snow would be resurrected before he was killed, which should tell you that the problem wasn't this event in itself, but how wildly obvious they made it that it was coming, with their various "establishing" scenes with Flame-Tits and Thoros. Particularly the scene where Flame-Tits arrived out of the blue in the Riverlands to learn that Thoros could resurrect people. Really? Hmm, that's so interesting, bye now! I'm off to resurrect Jon Snow and spout some more erroneous prophecies! Why was she there? How did she get there? Wasn't she on Dragonstone hypnotizing Mannis just a scene and a half ago? Can she just randomly leave him to go on camping trips in the middle of a giant war zone? Oh I see, it was exclusively to establish the "surprise" resurrection of Lord Emo a season later! How incredibly subtle and creative!
@@therisingdyingidiot8022 There is a big difference between surprising people and surprising everyone. If your script surprises everyone, chances are it is because it doesnt make much sense.
You were six years late for the Hobbit conversation - it was still the most interesting critical examination of why that production was broken... For you, Lindsay, I'll wait... It's always worth it.
Really, I think we SHOULD take time to digest a media we've just finished watching before we write a worthwhile hot take about it, so we can have a chance to let it sink in, and also to research how it was made, since more details will likely come out after something has been released.
I'm all fine with the endings. Remember GRRM told them how some things concluded. But there was no lead up to them. They developed no story or in-character moments to how the characters got to their position. That's what's bugging me. D&D didn't have to run away from two funded seasons off to a new project. Then again I think the writing quality was already declining from season 5 onward.
I feel like cersei maintains her characterization much better/longer than most others, because from the start she was a character who thought she was really smart/conniving, but really wasnt. And near the end of the series all the characters starting feeling like that 😅
We all know Frodo's going to destroy the ring and the day will be saved at the start of Lord of the Rings, and it's only the 2nd most read book of the 20th century.
So, wait. D&D got the series in the first place because they figured out who Jon's parents were ... and now they're mad that fans are doing the EXACT SAME THING? Dumb.
@@lissaquon607 From the moment Ned Stark said to Jon: "When we see each other again, I'll tell you about your mother... hm?" and got really emotional for a second about it, my immediate reaction was: "Oh, there's no way Jon Snow is simply some bastard son of Ashara Dayne and Ned Stark (as was the prevailing internet theory at the time). He's way more important than that." I could tell right away Jon Snow was the main character who would outlast the show in the living department. And I've been proven right. Even with all the "subversion" thrown in by Dan and Dave to try and fool us. My immediate reaction to that final scene with Eddard and Jon together was: "Oh, he's totally Lyanna Stark's son. This has everything to do with Ned's dead Sister." It wasn't until a little later that I put it together that: "Oh, Rhaegar Targaryan is his father! That's why Ned lies about Jon being HIS bastard, and not Lyanna's! Because King Robert (and basically everybody else) would try to kill Jon Snow if they knew about that! It totally makes sense!!" The elongated point I'm doing a poor job of enunciating is: "I figured out pretty much right away how fundamentally important Jon Snow actually was to the entire show." Because the first season goes so far out of its' way to throw as much dirt on the character as possible, that I can sniff an attempted "burial of one's crimes" from a mile away. But you know what? Knowing the truth did not ruin the character. If anything, it made Jon Snow ten times more relatable and interesting to follow. Sometimes a really big twist NEEDS to be heavily foreshadowed for the audience. A good writer (GRRM) knows that! Bad writers (Dan and Dave) go out of their ways to try and avoid something so obvious, because they fail to see the BIG PICTURE over all the minutiae...
The thing I still find hilarious about the whole ‘avoid expectation’ thing is that they are so desperate to be unpredictable and yet they still wasted everyone’s fucking time with Cleganebowl
Yeah, subverting expectations by employing lots of fan service is exactly the sort of thing that sounds like a good idea to a guy who thinks theme is for eighth-grade book reports.
I laughed way too much with that, but if there's a character that truly deserves the shitty flute treatment is show Euron, also known by UA-cam close captions as "Urine".
Contents! i - writing bad : 2:05 ii - sunk cost fallacy : 4:21 iii - show summary/ re-cap : 5:36 iv - story telling shift : 20:53 v - "fantasy for people who don't like fantasy" : 23:45 vi - the planned ending : 26:49 vii - fan service : 33:00 viii - subverting expectations/ a need to be smarter than the audience : 37:26
this whole "smarter than the audience" thing needs to stop. it's no fun theorizing about a show when you know the writers are looking at fan threads and taking notes on what they now will definitely not be doing. like, the fun thing about the Steven Universe fandom was the wild mass guessing, throwing out contradictory ideas, and seeing which ones were right-- and then going back and finding all the clues you missed!
@@TriangularPrism I'm not saying I don't have any issues myself with the whole latter part of Varys' story, or that he only said completely glowing things about the last season or two and his place in it, obviously he publicly shared criticisms, but based on purely the footage of him in this cast read-thru stuff, I think people might be reading too much into everything he's doing. And even just because he's said those other things he has, doesn't automatically mean he was completely pissed off there as we saw him (unless he's said something directly about that day I've yet to read). Also in all fairness, Kit Harrington was so surprised since that was literally the first time he read any of the s8 scripts, he openly said he'd wanted to see it fresh with the whole cast like that.
the quote "she seemed like the best candidate, provided that we werent thinking about her at that moment" from the writer of the show literally means "we chose this cause it made the least amount of sense to us, from a narrative standpoint", so yeah.. thats great storytelling for you -.-
It's the difference between a Fight Club/Prestige kind of twist, where it causes everything to realign but in a way that makes sense, and a latter-day Shyamalan twist. Less "oh, that's where it was going" and more "where did that come from?"
@@blokey8 Like the Red Wedding or the beheading of Ned, they subvert expectations, but in hindsight you see all the seeds that were planted so that not only made sense, but that it should have been the most expected outcome.
But this was probably the thing I had the least problem with in the whole season. I mean, depending on how they did it of course, I'm sure I would've enjoyed a scenario of Jon officially "defeating" the Night King. But there's plenty of sense to Arya doing that. You have all the major beats previously set up over the last couple seasons (her training as a whole, ability to sneak up on anyone, receiving the blade itself, the hand-to-hand move used for the killshot). Plus it actually even feeds into the warning that George himself often gave, "it's dangerous to try and take prophecy too literally". Even including Dany's hairpin turn (which itself I didn't like at all) it can very easily be argued that at least Jon himself, if not also BOTH Jon and Dany were "the prince/ess who was promised, to help bring the dawn", as Arya couldn't have been in that position had they not brought people together on an unprecedented scale. It never had to be about Jon Snow literally being the one to kill the Night King.
... Years later, and deep deep inside me, I'm STILL angry about this. On my death bed, I'll still feel strong contempt for how this shit ended. I still don't understand how terrible a screen writer you have to be in order to make the terrible abomination that is the end of GoT. They had SO MANY hours worth of reference material, R. R. Martin was available, HBO offered them unlimited amounts of money and time, the actors were good and dedicated, the fans would've waited years for quality... Yet they still, they STILL drove it into a ditch, and for WHAT!? It wasn't even solely because of incompetence, but because of their fucking ego and narcissism! They could've passed it on to someone, ANYONE, who was dedicated enough to spend the time needed to end this show respectably. Even some random screen writing enthusiast out of r/Gameofthrones would've done better. This still fills me with an irrational amount of indescribable disappointment. The reading table scene just solidifies the disappointment, cringe and embarrassment. Honestly, I would've been less angry and disappointed had it just been cancelled... If they just cut to black. I'll forever curse Weiss and Benioff!!
THIS!! My GOD could I not stand that asshole! I would ask why in the everloving hell D&D thought that anyone would want to see the single worst Greyjoy spend hours (badly) chewing up the scenery, but I've long since stopped asking "Why?" when it comes to the storytelling choices those two made.
@@97Multiphantom it has gratuitous violence that ellis suggests is made to contrast the nongratuitous violence and emphasis on friendship in lothr which is the most well known fantasy. and Tolkien was better for not writing all that edgy sex stuff
Why do showrunners feel they need to avoid being predictable? There are many, many predictable stories and most of them are masterpieces. Game of Thrones might not of been predictable because GRRM tries to think outside the box but when it comes to fans theorizing and actually getting something right, THE FANS DON'T KNOW THEY ARE RIGHT, so when the plot point plays out and your theory ended up being correct you don't think "Ah saw that coming this show is stupid, ha i'm just too intelligent is seems" That's not how it is, and guess what, when you have thousands of people all brainstorming, bringing knowledge from different walks of life yeah they are gonna figure some shit out it's a numbers game. Don't change the story to make people wrong.
Amatthew123 a fun thing also about George writing, is that the first time you read it yeah you are surprised by the Ned death, the Red Wedding, but on a re-read you realize how much foreshadowing he has and you realize there really no other way things could have gone. But that’s really not the case of the show
I don't know why it is a trend, but I hope it's over now. Can you imagine if Shyamalan was like, "one person guessed the ending of 'Sixth Sense', I am just going to make it all a dream instead". Nobody wants the most surprising twist, they want a good story.
Exactly. I mean, people still watch and read Romeo & Juliet and it's not because they have no idea what's gonna happen and the end is such a plot twisty surprise. If a plot twist is ALL your story has, nobody is ever going to want to rewatch it.
@@justalostlocal My understanding was that after they got past the written books, Martin gave them the basic notes on the milestones of the story but beyond that left it to them.
The funniest thing about them changing the ending because Ben's figured it out is that the main reason George Martin chose them specifically to make the show was because they were able to guess Jon Snow's parents before it became a common theory
i heard someone say that if your audience guesses your plot twist, it means youve made a believable plot twist. if the audience guesses your plot twist, thats not necessarily bad. theres a difference between believable and boringly predictable
Yea no one was pissed at breaking bad for guessing Walt would become a villian by the end. It was pretty clear that was where the show was going. But the journey there is what was fascinating.
Peter Dinklage, while delivering the "And who has a better story than Bran the Broken" line: "I'm just going to look into the distance, think really hard about my paycheck, and everything will be OK."
the average service job experience
That line made my soul leave the parking lot where it was already fuming and walk into the ocean never to be seen again.
It would not😅
@@Nomadic813tyrion himself for one. Sansa arya jon snow. Pretty mych anyone. Even grey worm😅
ELMO! ELMO THE TICKLED!!! THAT’S WHO!!!😊
Changing your story because a fan guessed the outcome is idiotic
Like George RR Martin said
Guessed is one thing. But if a fan figured it out because of the hints and breadcrumbs you left in your well thought out story it means you were doing a good job. Stick to it.
This trend is textbook stupid. If fans were good storytellers, they wouldn't be fans, they would be writers.
Paraphrasing Tim Minchin: do you know how quality envolving fan fiction is called? Fiction.
@@fexbio Ehh, writers can be fans of other writers. Its not like they're ALL self absorbed narcissists.
While watching Good Omens, I could predict a TON of the things that would happen. Does that mean the show is bad? Fuck no. It just means that my years of watching fiction have prepared me to be more aware of how stories work, so I can piece together clues that the writer has put there.
@@fexbio Lots of writers get inspired from other writers. In fact, most writers start out as fans of something. JRR Tolkien was a fan of the classics such as Beowulf, Shakespeare, etc. I get what you're saying, but the writers and fans analogy is... Not correct, I'm sorry to say.
The point of a twist is to enrich a story, not to feel superior for outsmarting your audience.
P
SuBvErTiNg ExPeCtAtIoNs! 😵💫
And a good twist does not "jump from the brambles", it is built up and hinted at or at least explained in a logical way even if the audience did not see it coming.
Hehe you thought the story was gonna go on a natural course? Get this! Tyrion actually trips on his own foot and breake his neck on the floor! Bet you didn't see that coming, huh...brilliant, I know
That's what makes a good DM/GM: you are not the ENEMY of the players, you're there to facilitate the story unveiling before you. If you treat players as your enemies they will... feel it. They will, consciously or not, notice. Same with treating your audience/readers as hostile: you should want to SHOW them a story, not SHOCK them with a story...
I feel really bad for the actors here too. They brought their A game to this show and dedicated long years to it. Imagine being Lena Headey and putting all of that effort into Cersai only to get crushed by a rock. Awful.
She needed a grand final scene. She deserved it. I wish she would have either gone completely mad or realized how it was she who ruined herself and her kids.
imagine being Lena Headey, and a cardboard cutout could have done 90% of your job in S8.. such a shame
To be honest, Lena Headey was probably already crushed by two straight seasons of 'here, Lena, just look out this window in this really nice dress. You want some wine?'
Or how the writers gave Peter Dinklage that ridiculous "stories" monologue in the final episode, and he had to figure out how to act that shit convincingly.
@@Ealsante imagine her getting the script each episode and being like "again?"
If people guess a twist and it's A GOOD twist, keep it. Let them be right. The point of a story is to be a good story, not a surprising story.
Exactly, and guessing the twist is not necessarily bad: it's actually satisfying when you see that happen for real. I mean, book- and screenwriting all live on basic tropes that are a thousand years old, so you can't really expect to come up with something absolutely new or unheard of story-wise. But it can still be engaging and well written, so just follow through with your plan... but I guess that's not how D&D think, since "themes are for 8 graders".
Yeah, the only reason I could see to rewrite a twist is if people have a visceral, negative reaction. In that narrow case you got to screen out the wet thuds, but if the accurate fan theory has a million upvotes, then you've done it right.
Unless your name is Rian Johnson and want nothing other from a movie than to be surprised!
between dedicated theory and fanfiction communities of millions of people someone somewhere has guesses every possible ending or twist. showrunners only notice if theory become popular and that only when people either really like or hate thoery
Exactly. It's just as fun to say "I KNEW IT! SEE I TOLD YOU THAT WOULD HAPPEN!" as it is to say "woah, I didn't expect that at all... nicely done writers."
They turned their sweet, empathic disabled character into an emotionless droid because they were too goddamn lazy to write him. And then they have the gall, at the end, to say he has ~the best story~ for points. Idiots.
I don't mind Bran the boy "dying" to become the new 3 eyed raven... but I sure do mind the entire point of GoT somehow being that he should be kind "because he has the best story." That's ridiculous! Unless Bran was the lord of light and mastermoved every one of these things into place there is absolutely no way the story was leading to him being the king over John or Dany. That "he has the best story" schlock absolutely feels like something an author would think is poignant and cool. But it is not at ALL what the story had been leading up to and feels like a cheap copout.
bran was literally MIA for a whole season 😭
Friendly ask not to use the phrase "wheelchair-bound" unless someone is literally physically tied to a wheelchair, please. It has some bad connotations, if you think about it.
"Wheelchair-user" or "wheelchair-using" is preferred.
@@scharb I'm addicted to using wheelchair and I can't stop.
carlotta4th The point is (and it would parallel with some of GRRM’s other writing about hive minds attempting to exert control) that Bran really *was* dead, and was the 3ER now. Innocent Bran was gone, and a powerful being that *was* able to orchestrate events (consider all of the little conversations that Bran initiated or was present for in S8) in order to become king. Bran kept telling people he wasn’t Bran anymore, and no one believed him. When he was the offered the kingdom, he said, “Why do you think that I came all this way?” and people didn’t get that he said that because he KNEW he was to be made king. Bran wasn’t king because he was a good, innocent boy, he was king because he had been overtaken by Bloodraven, and willing to let a lot of people die because of his machinations. It was evil. And it was also more interesting. It illustrates another way that D&D fail with storytelling... The character was telling his truth, but there was never any confirmation of how amoral Bran truly was, right down to how he was explained by Tyrion and the show runners themselves. Either they didn’t get it, or wanted a different ending. They failed to portray Daenerys and her repeated betrayals, heartbreaking losses, and alienation in a way that made sense. Bran played her, and played people against her. Bran played Jon Snow, and his siblings. How much better of a story would it have been if the last three seasons had allowed a build up of these elements? But then, more seasons would probably have been required. Dan and David had a Star Wars project to get on with and ruin.
Wait! They lost that project. Maybe the developer was a Game of Thrones fan.
Lindsay just straight up being like 'why are d+d even writers if they have no understanding of theme, basic plot structure and empathy?' is the content I subscribed for
And didn't they get signed on for some Star Wars shit? It will be amazing if they'd still be hired to do it after their flops. No one should really care to see their versions of anything really, especially Star Wars after that has been fucking up. Troy is the only good that has come out of those two, I'd say. Because all of the good GoT material they utilized they didn't write, it seems.
I'm still laughing from her calling them chuckle fucks.
rich parents
The only one who went full circle was actually jon, and sansa, the rest was wtf and some fanservice. I can see that woprking for star wars thou, its a popcorn movie.
I would argue that plot structure is the one thing D&D do understand. It is theme that they don't care about. If you asked Martin what Game of Thrones is about, you'd probably get a passionate rant about all the themes that initially hyped him to create this story. D&D wouldn't be able to see further past "a bunch of people want to sit in a chair". The thing is Martin is so in love with his universe that he bloated the story beyond the ability to ever have an ending. For awhile, D&D made the story overall less frustrating as around Season 5/Season 6 it was at least efficiently moving towards a conclusion. That conclusion was bad. But at least they were cutting fat and not adding a ton of big new characters and complications super late into the game.
Forgot to mention one of the worst parts, in my opinion. How vintage Alan Cumming, a political mastermind, tried to manipulate two young girls for at least half a season and failed so badly that he died.
He forgot everyone else weren't NPCs, and they can actually talk to each other.
How terrible of a manipulator must you be if you couldn’t manage to make two TEENAGE GIRLS argue with each other?
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick correction, two teenage SISTERS. Literally every girl I've ever known who has a sister would hate each other in their teens.
@@folded_pizza Even better.
She brings it up in Part 2 aka "The Last of the Game of Thrones Hot Takes".
"I've got some feelings, and sometimes you gotta monetize them."
UA-cam's new tag line.
It could be the tagline for all of modern life.
Lindsay needs to merch the crap out of that line...
I never liked a video so fast in my life.
EternalGuardian07
”HOT FANTASY THAT FUCKS!!”
aaaaaand there goes monetization
I hate how true this is.
I miss old youtube, no, old internet, where people just made shit for the fun of it, and we got things like the meth minute and chocolate rain.
"Sometimes you've got some feelings, and you've just gotta monetise them."
A complete dismantling of Ben Shapiro's argument against reproductive autonomy ain't gonna monetize itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Love the way you and Alia Ris quoted the exact same line save for the spelling (monetise vs monetize)
44 minutes. One ad at the end. What a glorious woman
Eyy, it's the handsome devil himself!
All my favorite youtubers are involved in the greatest crossover constantly and it's one of my favorite things. :D
It's probably a good thing if someone guessed where your story is going, because it means your story is coherent and consistent
Exactly. People putting so much time and effort into theorizing about where the plot is going to go is about as clear a demonstration of fan engagement as is possible. When you change your plot just because a handful of redditors guessed the direction, you are effectively punishing them for liking your show by depriving them of the "HA! I knew it!" payoff moment.
@@mrrodgers0 Completely agree!
In a normal world where writers try to create a good story ... yes
In a world where the suits try to squeek out the maximum amount of subscriptions ... NOT AT ALL
This is the theory they will use :
if people know X is going to happen in episode N then they will only watch episode N and not any episode before.
Therefor we have 'lost' a subscriber and not made as much money as we wanted.
You can kind of see this with sports too.
Only the dedicated fans will watch the entire season of their sport.
The rest will only ever watch it whenever their favourite club/athlete has a chance of winning the main event.
The suits think they can keep everyone subscribed by not telling them who will make it to the finals.
Also means that your foreshadowing is on point. If people have 3+ years to obsessively analyze a book, it's gonna be effectively impossible to foreshadow *anything* without *someone* guessing the twist.
Honestly, if I made such a high-profile show with a running mystery and people figured it out, I would be ecstatic that there were people observant enough to follow the breadcrumbs I left perfectly. If I changed anything at all, it might be to make a small winking nod at them that ultimately doesn't change anything beyond adding a funny line to the script. Changing your entire story because people...followed the clues you left for them to figure out? That's needlessly spiteful and only hurts yourself in the end.
Old Nan should have been made queen of Westeros she has way better stories than Bran.
Munashiimaru underrated comment
Lmao
So good 😂
Hot Pie has a better story than Bran.
19:48 The dragon didn't burn the throne for the symbolism. It burned it because it saw that its mom was killed by a knife so it killed the knifes family.
And then after Drogon flies away, they go on a rebellion against anything that looks like a knife in all of Westeros and Essos.
@@droopsmoop Petition GRRM to make this canon.
@@vontosmagicmurderbag2611 A Song of Knives and Fire
I wish. Turns out 2D wrote in the script that the Iron Throne was just burned by Drogon randomly, and it didn't have specific importance. I didn't think Dumb & Dumber could make the scene even more stupid, but here we are.
LMAO best comment!
"The ending was, in fairness, foreshadowed by other things being bad."
Officer, I'd like to report a murder.
See also: Sherlock
If you still had high expectations by the end of s8 then I dont think you were paying attention lol
@@ComfortableTool86 see also: LOST
Seems like a similar problem that BBC Sherlock had, where the writers were actively contemptuous of and always wanted to be more clever than the fans
BBC Sherlock was never smart. There are some smart bits here and there but it wasn't and overall smart.
I cant wait for season 5 to reveal that Jim Morriarty was the Boomerang all along
@@devilsadvocate4081 funnily enough bbc Sherlock is one of the dumbest shows I’ve watched. I liked the first seasons, it was a fun watch, but it tries sooo hard to be clever.
You notice quickly when a writer tries to write a character who is supposed to be smarter than them- it’ll never work.
Leave it to Moffat to take the ultimate detective archetype where part of the thrill is understanding the thought processes that lead to the brilliant conclusions and just saying, “nope, audience needs to feel dumber - BOOMERANG!”
@@skiddadleskidoodle4094 I don't think that's true at all, that a writer writing a character smarter than themselves is inherently a problem. Remember, Gatiss and Moffat came from writing Doctor Who, where the protagonist is famously and definitionally smarter than all humans!
They were always putting a new spin on the character, that's allowed. The problem with Sherlock was the problem with many shows: the quality dropped in later seasons, probably due to the writers running out of ideas, and maybe getting a bit bored and losing discipline in their writing.
I'm seeing a lot of people having this criticism of Sherlock (in retrospect): that it was trying to be too smart. But if it took so long for everybody to realise that the writers weren't actually all that smart, I think that's evidence enough that actually, they did a pretty good job of achieving what they wanted, at least in the first couple of seasons. And it wasn't even one of those shows that was always teasing some big mystery that was never resolved-most mysteries were resolved within the episode.
The writers for the podcast The Magnus Archives said it best, I think: you should have some people who guess it perfectly, some people who get most of it, and some people who have no clue what's going on. Your big reveals have to be earned, they have to be built to. If literally no one could ever possibly see it coming, you failed.
The Magnus Archives is so, so good dude.
@@jazwhoaskedforthis I’m on season 4 now, and I’m blown away at how well written this short form horror podcast is.
@@TSDTalks22 DUDE isn't it wonderful?! Who's your favorite so far? What was your favorite statement?
@@jazwhoaskedforthis they're all great, but I'm partial to the first one, about the angler fish
That's also why Twin Peaks, which originated this shit is still above it. People managed to GUESS the twist in the finale even if they didn't guess the finale
If you been following Lindsay from the beginning you'd know this was actually heavily foreshadowed.
@@nullakjg767 She goes by the Nostalgia woman now.
@@nullakjg767 Idk what you're talking about but I know The Nostalgic Woman.
I get what you did there.
@@nullakjg767 that was 11 years ago. She's moved on since then.
Your username confuses me. Are you a good? Are you a bad?
Actually thinking about it now, changing a twist because reddit found out about it can even be cruel.
Its like if your kid found out where you hid the christmas presents and then on christmas day you surprise them by giving a cheap last minute gift.
It dosen't make you smarter than your kid it just makes you a bad parent.
I'd say its more like if your kid found where you hide the Easter eggs, then when he brought them to you, you spiked it on the ground and gave him some shitty melted chocolate they can't even eat.
@@jonmcinturff7003 to be fair you can eat melted chocolate, its just not a good experience. just like the GoT finale! heyo
@@OverlyPositiveFanboy yeah I like it a bit melted. If its too hard Its pretty weird to me.
Perfect analogies!
Loved that analogy.
the way the writers treated sansa's character arc still makes me so heated oh my god. i'm not even a stickler for keeping to the source material, but like... she was supposed to be the captive of littlefinger and learn his tricks of deception, politics, secrecy etc to become stronger and smarter, then eventually use what she learned against him. that's interesting and it's a different storyline than many of the other characters. but the writers just said fuck it, the only way a female character can become stronger is to be raped and traumatized for shock value. i hate them so much
The whole "I would not have become a strong woman if I weren't raped" trope is so problematic 🤢
Lindsay went into more detail about that in Part 2.
Thing I would've loved to see with her was if she learned from LF without him realizing it. Like if she played the quiet little bird the whole while, only to turn things around on him.
But no. Hamfisted, she's wearing black and looking like she's evil now. Or something.
@@dominicbounds8768 In the books at least (I don´t quite remember if it was in the show) Sansa actually did reveal Ned's plan to send them away to Cersei so without her stupidity she herself and Arya might have escaped to the North. Ned himself wasn't going to escape though so he likely would have died anyway though without the girls to blackmail him with he probably never would have given his false confession.
@@E-Man5805 In the books Littlefinger actually explains his thinking to her voluntarily, for various reasons probably (it hasn't really been made clear why).
My favourite thing ever is the Game of Thrones Season 8 table read. All these brilliant actors who probably could have written a better ending (barring some exceptions) looking absolutely HORRIFIED while D&D revel in their own 'brilliance'. Nothing will beat Emilia Clarke literally sliding down her chair while trying to hide her upset and Conleth Hill just openly fucking hating the script as Lena Headey grieves silently.
They shoulda aired the table read instead, honestly
The moment when Sansa's actor just smirks at Jon Snow's actor like... "first time?" 😏
The whole "people predicted our twist so now we have to change it!" thing is so stupid. A good twist will make you see the previous events of the story in a different light, but it should still make sense. If people are guessing your twist, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're making it obvious, it can just mean that your foreshadowing is working. A twist without buildup or foreshadowing is just lazy shock value. Saying that Mystique from the X-Men is Danaerys' mom would be a shocking twist, but it makes no sense and there's nothing hinting at it before the reveal, making it a terrible twist.
Besides, in this era of massive fandom groups on the internet, people guessing twists is inevitable. If enough people are making fan theories, odds are they're gonna guess a lot of your twists. (unless your twists are stupid and make no sense, like Mystique being Danaerys' mom)
Also, woo, two-parter! I can't wait!
Mystique being her mom would be a lot better than what we got
There's also the fact that we're talking about _the internet_ guessing the twist. Hundreds of thousands of networked individuals, running *millions* of calculations every god-damned second. The internet solved P.T _in a day._ The internet was able to correctly chart Shia Labeouf's stream locations, repeatedly, _within hours._
You do NOT outsmart the internet. There's just no way a single human being, or a group of human beings, can beat the sheer computational power of _millions of human beings working together._ How much of an ego do you have to have to whine that you weren't able to beat _the fucking internet?!_
It shows how they're treating their viewers. They believe people will be more interested in shock value than actual interesting storytelling. Yes the show built itself a lot on shock value and surprises ("oh this guy died, I wonder who dies next") but people stayed for the plot, because you can't build a story around random deaths and surprises.
also even if fans correctly guess a twist they don't know that they are correct, for all they know it's just another fan theory.
For GoT there were at least two plausible and popular fan theories for everything. Even if there's a correct theory out there, not everyone's gonna be on board so it's still surprising to a lot of people. I mean, there were even people who didn't buy R+L=J!
I just.... Sansa was RAPED for CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. And they legitimately made her say that she COULDN'T HAVE GROWN if it hadn't happened!!!!
41:22
As if that poor character had not gone through enough trauma prior to Ramsay.
It's almost as if the entire industry has a shitty and twisted view of women and we were right to question why they had so many rape scenes.
It almost makes you think those scenes turn them on.
The´Ol victims own fault for getting raped a guess:P
one of the reasons i stopped after that season.
It's ironic that they were banking on a controversial but memorable ending when not even a year later the show has almost entirely faded from the public consciousness
Whenever it comes up in conversation my friends and I are still annoyed by it. It seems to me that it hasn't faded from the consciousness so much as people have stopped talking about it like it's the weird uncle who doesn't get invited to family parties any more. Shame 🔔
Yep. Talking about it is so depressing so we choose to change the conversation every time.
Pretty much dropped the entire thing once I saw Daenerys burn the city for literally no reason. Just completely forgot there were two episodes left, never thought about it again.
After watching this I can see that it did, in fact, get worse.
It was probably a massive loss for those companies that invested in licenses of products related to the show in the last seasons. I saw all the merchandise that was selling like hot cakes before the 8th season, went on discount sales only a couple of weeks after the last episode.. Also there was a traveling show of the props that had many cities scheduled for the tour, and I didn’t hear if they ever continued it or cancelled it for lack of interest
Correct. Years later we still talk about LOTR and Harry Potter fondly because they were properly ended. GOT? We just swiped it under the rug. The most popular show in the world for 8 years just fades away into the nothing
Emelia Clarke has one of the most hilariously expressive faces when she's not acting, I love it.
@@aliasmcdoe "Best season ever!"
@@aliasmcdoe I mean with that dialogue there’s not much you can do with it
Shes very charming.
@@aliasmcdoe That's exactly how I feel about it.
For once someone has to tone _down_ their acting to play a character
3:35 The Boo Boo the Fool painting is interesting to me in this context because it's a painting of Stańczyk, the legendary Polish court jester who was famously the only person in the Polish court who actually kept tabs on what was happening in the crumbling empire and in this very painting is portrayed sulking over a report of a lost battle while others are having a literal ball.
There is a metaphor about the people who read the books and saw all of this shitstorm coming in around season 5 somewhere, in there.
Eh, Game of Thrones as a whole went down after the *4th book* in my opinion. It's no longer this great, masterpiece of an Epic people say it still is *(shrug)*
Do the books get bad
@@tonymarshall3978 no some people don't like that the fourth focused on different perspectives bit the books are still solid although who knows if they'll ever actually all come out
Also, the use of "adding to that deluge" in 0:41.
The Deluge, of course, is also the name of the book of Henryk Sienkiewicz about the mentioned crumbling Empire.
Maybe that's a metaphor about how, people who have read longer bookseries could have foreseen the problems with the later books. Or not.
Season 5 was 60% okay.
Season 6 wasnt terrible but not okay.
Season 7 is where the real damage can be seen.
"Sometimes you you've got some feelings and you just gotta monetize them."
I lol'ed.
I think that's my favorite line in any of her videos
I came down here because I knew this was gonna be a much-liked comment already lol
Agreed I also L O L ed
I did laugh at that line. Then I checked how long the video was and how much of my life she had already wasted, and I stopped watching. I mean with a summary like that, I don't exactly feel bad for skipping the video.
@@dudemcfurgusson7179 That's my favorite line in any UA-cam video, period.
Oh man. That footage of the cast at the table read of the finale is the most perfect embodiment of _"Everyone disliked that"_ I've ever seen.
That had me dying. Literally everyone in the room knew that these two wingnuts couldn't write a fifth grade book report - let alone an eighth grade one - and were just pulling crap out of their ass for the finale.
I feel so sorry for them
Seeing the way Conleth Hill (Varys) distastefully (literally moves his mouth like he has a bad taste) places the script down on the table and sits back with his arms folded made me feel vindicated, somewhat.
That would have been heart-breaking. It's not just your favourite character dying, or your favourite character being shat upon, it's something _you made_. This is _your_ art, this is what you've dedicated your life to. This is their craft and it's so disrespectful to treat what they've given their time and effort and love towards so thoughtlessly. It's just.... cruel.
@@Talisguy that´s hollywood for you
The ending should of been Lancel finding the breastplate stretcher.
Too bad he died :(. Maybe the reason he didn't put out the candle in time is because he *found* the breast-plate stretcher in the dungeon!
"Where did this come from?"
"That's a story for another time."
Or maybe Gordon finding the lamb sauce
Or we finally see what's in the Pulp Fiction briefcase.
We finally learn what the three seashells do
“HOT FANTASY THAT FUCKS”
RIP monetized feelings
I love fantasies that fuck as well as fucking my way through a few fantasies.
Isn't that the genre of book covers which Fabio posed for?
Finally, America knows what its like when the anime catches up to the manga.
At least Naruto just filled those gaps with fillers that you could skip. A few of those were even good (Guren arc).
Holy shit... you're totally right...
Damn... So much truth in one comment...
Game of Thrones: Brotherhood - coming in 2037 after Brandon Sanderson finally finishes the books!
@@T33K3SS3LCH3N D&D tried to fill GOTS with filler too at first, Yara rescuing Theon, Hardholme, Jon goes to Craster's Keep to fight the mutineers. All filler either not in the books or only vaguely mentioned.
Seeing a quote from so-called 'writers' saying that themes are only for homework in school is deeply upsetting. That's like hearing a so-called doctor go 'Pff, a sterile operation room is not that important! We'll be fine!'
I know writers who use subtext and they are all cowards
10/10 analogy
Structure and story development is what you learn in Screenplay 101 lol. None of that was cohesive or existent for a while in the show. "Writers" indeed.
Oof it gets worse. I saw someone post and interview of Benioff after a novel release say they he valued style over substance, and always struggled with 'story' because his favorite authors were more style than story (he cites Hemingway, while also admitting he missed the careful story of those books.) So yeah basically he literally doesnt understand story. I'd link the video but I'm on mobile
He also admitted to being a compulsive liar.
It's just such a misguided, "edgy" thing to say -- like you honestly think you're better than having themes in your writing? What you write conveys messages no matter what; that's how storytelling works. Embrace it or don't, but don't deny that this is the fundamental nature of stories.
"And who has a better story than Bran the Broken?".
Well, to quote Gary Oldman in The Professional: "EEEEEVERYOOOONE!".
Bran has magical prophetic powers. If there was anybody who would understand how much better everybody else’s stories were, it would be somebody with magical prophetic powers.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Does it matter though if he doesn't even tell them (in the show)? He could've told everyone about Jon's actual parents way before, but he only said a story about his chair while it was Sam the one who told Jon after figuring it out. His powers stopped being useful in the show but he had to be kept around for the last season for some reason.
@@roj4169 Because Weiss and Benioff didn’t want to use magic and prophecy in a show with dragons and witches in it.
@@dominicbounds8768 Or make a show about the Confederacy winning the Civil War.
Not the show writers, apparently
"Have you considered the best ruler might be someone who doesn't want to rule?"
I guess the moral of the story is that Bobby B really was the best king in the entire series.
Which was weird because didn't the wheel chair boy say "Why do you think I came all this way?"
Sounds like something some one who wants the throne would say lol. And the lil guy did take the job lol... Just sayin...
And to that logic Ned is the best ruler
I think the best king is a Lovecraftian abomination!
I've thought Robert was the best king the whole time! Okay, maybe he was drunk, bloodthirsty, financially irresponsible, and not very bright, but at least that's all that was wrong with him.
You're not wrong
In pure GoT tradition, the second part should be rushed and poorly scripted.
Let's try to guess what she's going to talk about so she has to change everything last minute!
Second part? I'm Swayze!!!!
@Diego Salvati Nice.
@@VolvoxSocks Also nice.
Yes please!
"West World writer had to rewrite an episode after redditer accurately guessed an upcoming twist""
Why? What kind of stupid logic is that? So someone guessed where you were going, is being surprising really is the most important thing to you as a writer? Not whether or not the story is good or makes sense, but just to catch your audience off-guard?
I think one of the worst things a writer could ever do is to change the story at the very last second because some fans figured out how it would end before it happened. Not only would it destroy the quality of the show, but you're also proving the fans that they're right.
.........Ok I'll break this down for you.........one of the most well known lines is "luke I am your father." This is not actually the official line from the movie, but it is so well known because of how it blew everyones minds back when empire came out. Fantasy really only took off after the success of SW and high fantasy wouldn't till LOTR. These are very niche genres that have not historically appealed to a broader audience unless your not doing something "by the books"/as expected. The issue then becomes, in scenarios where subversion/mystery is your key means of engaging a broad audience, what happens when millions have time to put their heads together to solve it. Sad to say but this kind of rewriting is fairly common in modern TV to keep it from becoming boring.
I hope it wasn't Aaron Sorkin
Talk to a DM. They have to do this sh&t all the time in reaction to people.
@@samuelazzaro ...but like....If you're writing and foreshadowing things doesn't it just make sense people who are actively engaged may guess where things are going? And... doesn't that just mean your writing is actually coherent and good? Like even when there is a twist that does catch me of guard if the film/book/show is good I can usually go back and see the hints and clues I missed before. If you're actively rewriting stuff whenever someone guesses your direction then I assume people who go back to see the hints where it was heading just see a bunch of dead ends and pointless subplots.
Audiences can be smart, hell, some people in an audience may even be smarter than an author (especially in the case of huge fandoms). Changing a story so all the pieces barely fit just because someone who is invested in the work accurately guesses where it is going (because the writer did a good job leading the story properly) just makes the writer look less talented or, in the case of when they legit tell people they changed it because a fan guessed, like a jackass.
“He takes more punishment than hodor took at the door” sounds like horrible fanfic lmao
Sad thing is, there are GoT fanfics out there with better writing than what D+D pulled out of their keisters once they ran out of source material to adapt.
oh my god.... it reads like a bad analogy for either making out or making love lmao
Ned Stark discovering Mendelian genetics will always be my favorite plot point
Mcmos9000 that’s where tony got his wits
and the most scientific plot as well.
I love him needing the book to think about the hair color of two people he's known for their entire lives.
@@frankrizzo9678 still, Ned was more observant then most of the characters in the show. It would be like being the first in that world to figure out that you do not fall over the edge when you pass over the horizon (I think in the show, they said something like the world is inside the eye of a giant or some fantasy non sense)
@@drop_messages6226 And some people in our reality say the world is flat. Can't judge everyone because wackadoos proliferate. Pretty sure GRRM's confirmed Planetos is round, even if some peasanty types within the narrative are ignorant of this.
"themes are for eighth book reports" -
- guess we should have got an eighth grader to write the finale
Maybe D&D, Abrams, and Rian Johnson should go back to eighth grade and do film school all over again, particularly with creative writing and script writing courses.
@@HOTD108_ themes are present in literally every thing, just need to be done well
@@GAdmThrawn Rian Johnson actually is exactly the reverse of D&D, the guy didn't subvert expectations "just cause", the characters always act in a coherent way it's just that he put before them obstacles that given the way they are at that point in the story are difficult for them to deal with (ye know, like discovering the big bad is actually your dead dad you wanted to avenge or having your new boyfriend you finally opened up to after years of sexually charged bickering frozen and handed to the empire by one of his supposed best friends).
Johnson asked himself what would make Luke go to an island in seclusion when there's his dark side addled nephew brandishing his lightsaber at any poor schmuck who looked at him funny? And that was the answer, it was never gonna be a pleasant one, Star Wars is also myth and tragedy not just fun and games and if there's a thing in tragedy is that tragic heroes may slip up at exactly the wrong moment (bonus points if a vision or prophecy is involved) and personally I fucking loved it. There's a them in that movie of things going wrong and making mistakes, and learning from them, be either the wrong or right thing. The good guys learn the right thing even if they stumble like Luke, Poe, Finn and Rey did, the bad guys like Kylo Ren don't and and persevere in taking away the wrong lesson from their mistakes and those of the others.
@@HOTD108_ he soaked it in themes. Contradictory themes. He was trying to say "something", he just had no idea what it was. (see: Wisecrack video on the topic, "The Last Jedi: What Went Wrong?" and like the million other critiques on UA-cam)
Trey Chambers The Wisecrack crew completely missed that you were supposed to think the bad guy(Kylo) is wrong and that there actually are good things from the past, see the clean cut “legend” of Luke Skywalker distracting the enemy army while the real unkempt Skywalker died alone on a rock
"We gotta change the show because we only exist to outsmart reddit."
Okay, so on this point - which is one of my favorite quotes from this fantastic breakdown - one of my majors in undergrad was English with a concentration in creative writing. There was a lot of discussion on the idea of surprising the reader, specifically with regard to plot. While there are varying arguments on how to go about this, one of the strongest threads was that you need to balance between surprise and satisfaction. Specifically, you need to write a surprise knowing a good percentage of your audience is going to guess it by the end, and, in fact, that's what you want to aim for. Allowing the reader to feel like they've guessed the ending correctly makes them like the book *more*, not less. Concurrently, if you have readers who guess your ending, as an author, you should be happy about this. It means the reader has invested considerable thought and energy into your work. They get you. They get the characters. They get the motivations. Your writing brought the reader so far into your head, they thought like you.
The idea that any of these showrunners think, especially in this day and age when fans can gather online in the millions, that people guessing their twists is a bad thing is just ridiculous.
This is a really good point and I feel like I've learned something. I'm just wondering why I didn't learn it during MY time studying English and Creative Writing. ¬_¬
Oh so that's what's going on there.
I knew there had to be a reason for my visceral hatred of movie/tv writers who do the "oh the internet guesses this, so we're going to do anything but that" thing. I just had no idea how to express it beyond angry whinging.
Thank you.
The problem folks like these showrunners have is confusing a well-written destination with a predictable one.
There's nothing wrong with some portion of your readers - even all of them, in some cases - reasoning out where the story is likely headed.
It's only a (potential) problem if everyone who hears even a rough description of the story thus far knows where it's headed: you're likely writing into cliche at that point. Which, in and of itself, isn't always necessarily a bad thing! But that's the kind of problem they seem to THINK they have anytime someone guesses correctly about where their shows are going when, really, it's more likely just an indication some people like and care enough about the story to have reasoned out its intended endgame.
tl;dr reasonability isn't a problem; predictability might be.
Also English grad here- one of the greatest pieces of advice in writing I personally got (concerning twists) was “Don’t make a twist that makes someone scratch their head, make them go ‘oh, but of course’’”
I feel like an emphasis on surprise over satisfaction is what made me hate both Last Jedi and Endgame so much.
I know how Romeo Juliet ends yet I avidly watch all its iterations. It's not about suspense,it's about emotional grip.
She mentions exactly that in part 2 of her GoT take down and in her Titanic video.
Also as an author I'm baffled authors get mad when people figure them out. Isn't that the point? When you leave clues and people get it? I'd be thrilled
I mean...probably depends on how easy it was to guess. But of course it gets easier the longer you make them wait for the next book.
It wasnt authors who wrote the ending. It was a couple of hack frauds.
Blame Agatha Christie for being wildly popular and believing that a detective novel was a contest between the writer and the reader.
Noaqiyeum but the detective doesn’t win if you have to change the ending to purposefully screw the audience.
Cinema Gaming I agree - it’s one of the reasons I’m not generally a huge Christie fan. (Look at the deal with The Mousetrap to see how much importance she put on unpredictable, unspoiled twists, for instance. One of the things she’d do would be to wait until well into writing the book to even decide whodunnit.)
Watching all the actors just honestly cringe their ass off hearing the script is one of the most hilarious/painful things to come out of GOT.
Same goes for their interviews post-filming, but pre-streaming. There's an entire compilation out there and I don't know whether it is more hilarious or devastating.
It's hilariously cringy when you see it, but it's depressing when you realize that people are blaming the actors for what their characters did and not the writers/producers.
BlazingOwnager the guy that played Jon was SHOOK
@@salenebrom6476 Varys was just pissed lmao.
Yeah. I feel so sorry for the Jon and Dany actors.
Sophie Turner looking at Kit at the table read with that sardonic smile while his characterization is shattered is so funny to me; like WELCOME TO MY HELL, BUDDY
I think she was reading ahead; that is the half smirk of a best friend knowing your day is about to get a lot worse.
Her schaudenfreude is delightful
@@JMarchel it's Schadenfreude,coming from "the damage/bad luck in this case - der Schaden" and "the joy-die Freude"
Total bs. She knows he hasn't read it before. It's no secret.
Lena Heady gave Conleth Hill a very consoling look when he learned how the writers had decided to dispose of his character. She knows what it's like to be written into a one-note part after being one of the most intriguing players. It's a crime that she didn't get an Emmy for playing one of the top three femme fatale villains of all time.
Themes are not for eighth grade book reports. Themes are the underlying moral message of the work. Without a consistent theme underpinning it, your story isn't actually saying anything.
For example: the ending of Game of Thrones.
I mean not all stories need themes, but the majority benefit from having at least one.
(I agree with your point overall)
@Erika B
I might argue that all stories have some level of a theme, whether the author intends it or not. Maybe it's something as basic as "everything is chaos and nothing happens for a reason," but there's unavoidably going to be some point to the story. After all, that's why people engage with it in the first place: to try and understand some element of how things are or how they ought to be.
Eyes of the Cervino good point :0
A unifying theme or message makes the story more coherent and predictable. Can't let that happen. :D
@@frownyclowny6955 how could a story ever be good without themes... is it even a story without themes? I'm not even sure its possible to write without themes, they are always there, but they can be poorly integrated into story, or be inconsistent.
Imagine if Maisie Williams hadn't been available for filming so instead of the cumulative hours spent in Braavos, spread over years of broadcasting, we just got a title card at the beginning of Season 7 that said "Arya goes to ninja school, decides it isn't for her, and leaves."
It's funny how in the book she can never truly become a Faceless Man because loyalty is at the core of her character and she's spent almost 2 books trying to find her way home, so she can never give that up, and yet the signs of her warging ability - also a part of her Starkness - are becoming stronger all the time, so it's sad DnD just make her a ninja and ignore the rest.
@@Ash-ow5yc All of the stark kids in the books have the ability to Warg, just some are better at it than others. With Arya and Bran being the two strongest.
@@Ash-ow5yc It's implied that the Starks became the rulers of the north because they are powerful wargs, but this has been forgotten in universe. After Daenerys hatched her three dragons magic started coming back to the world.
One of many sub-plots the show left out.
Jon, Bran and Arya are all wargs, although only Bran and Jon can conscously control it because they learned (about) it from wildlings.
There's a pack of around a hundred wolves led by a huge she wolf (Arya's direwolf Nymeria) roaming the Riverlands and sometimes killing Frey soldiers.
One of many sub-plots the show dropped.
Arya sometime dreams that she's a wolf and leads a huge pack, but she's not aware that she's inhabiting Nymeria's body at the time and thinks she's just dreaming.
Sansa hasn't shown any abilities as of book 5 , probably because her direwolf was killed before magic came back.
I like that Nymeria got a cameo right alongside Ed Sheeran only to fuck off and not be at all relevant. It was just a quick "Yup, I'm still alive, have fun with the finale you fucks"
you'll have to change your youtube username to your given first and last name, dude to the 2020 census. Thank you.
“I will not be queen of the ashes”
*Curb your enthusiasm theme intensifies*
she is not a good cricketer
*always sunny title theme*
Whats the matter consumer? Are your expectations not subverted? This has been reported to the screenwriters guild.
ARRESTED DEVELOPER NARRATOR: She would.
The entire point of a table read is to see if it's working! So it's even more frustrating how the writers ignored the cast's genuine reactions.
Is that what they are supposed to be for? I've just heard that actors HATE them.
@@TheDraykon They hate them because of stuff like this, they don't get much SAY in any changes made, jut told. You act it. So while the writers go on crack induced character assassination, they just got to sit there and listen to character they put work into and tried to make interesting literately die on the page.
They probably thought those reactions were great if they were purely after shock.
@@TheDraykon No, not even remotely. I don't know where this dude came up with the idea that writers give a flying fuck what the actor's think about the script at all, because it's laughably incorrect. The point of a table read is familiarization with the material and a very basic rehearsal before they move on to more complex rehearsals.
I wonder if they would’ve changed the story if an actor actually started crying or threatened to quit
"it had to be *hot fantasy, that FUCKS*." lindsay you are KILLING me
25:06
*dubstep music*
_ooohhhgh~_
If people predict something that might happen in a later book/season etc. ...THAT ISN'T A BAD THING! Good writing requires setting up things and if you set something up and some fans guess it, then let them!
I have a rule for mystery novels, if the reader doesn't have enough info to solve the crime themselves by the time the big reveal happens, it's poorly written.
@Dave Pearson Yeah, I was gonna say... laws of probability dictate that every possible ending is probably going to be predicted by someone at some point. Except possibly the most stupid possible endings. Maybe if reddit people posted theories about stupid endings, we'd get better writing?
Right? Like even JK Rowling didn't back out from RAB being Regulus Black even though most fans immediately theorized this as soon as Half-Blood Prince was released.
Yep. If you've done proper foreshadowing, then it's inevitable that someone will figure out a twist. As long as "someone" isn't "everyone", it's fine.
this is what i ALWAYS say. i get annoyed when people say they saw some stuff coming cause I'm like... wow! congratulations! you have passable knowledge of planting and pay off! if you're even barely acquainted with story structure, you should be able to predict stuff. the problem is formulaic endings, which can be boring depending because you know where you're going since the start therefore there is no tension but depending on how they're set up they can be satisfying too so... whatever. it's just dumb.
Wait wait wait
You realized that you couldn't properly make your point in the allotted time
so you're making another video to wrap things up rather than rushing to a shitty conclusion?
Somewhere, Dave and Dan's heads are exploding.
Yeah, they're still doing Star Wars. No, I'm not happy about it
Lol, I love you.
I cannot imagine, for a second, that this was coincidental.......
No career in block busting television show running for her.
@@thomasr.jackson2940 But this is so wonderfully conceptual...
Gravity Falls actually had the right idea when it came to fans guessing the twist. There were a ton of people that guessed that Grunkle Stan had a twin brother who was the author of the journals, but the show went ahead and did it anyway. After the reveal the creator Alex Hirsch pretty much congratulated the fans on guessing the twist since it was a show that pretty much encouraged fans to theorize. I think that's the way to go. Fans guessing a twist isn't the worst thing in the world. If the story is well crated enough, people should be able to read spoilers and still enjoy it.
TheMellowFilmmaker probably an unpopular opinion, but I don’t get why fans theorise and try and guess what’s going to happen. I’d rather watch a show I enjoy and let it play out without trying to show my intelligence by guessing what’s going to happen. Because of people constantly theorising over who Jon Snows parents were, the actually reveal was ruined because of fans theorising about it. I feel like thinking too much about these things ultimately ruins the overall show.
The Vault: Film & Games Reviews I understand your point. There are people who are curious and theorize and there are people who wait for the reveal. It doesn’t make anybody smarter or dumber. It’s just how people react to stories.
I guessed about Jon’s parentage, and it just happened to be right. I could have easily been wrong.
@@thevaultfilmgamesreviews8081 that's the beauty of media, people all enjoy it in their own way. I personally love theorizing but I respect your way to watch too.
@@thevaultfilmgamesreviews8081 It's more fun to get smacked in the face with the twist; however, people's brains are equipped for figuring out the mystery, and that's how the world works. If humans didn't try and solve puzzles, we wouldn't see the intense puzzle-solving in scientific discoveries, detective-work, or great battle-tactics.
The best was when he pretended to accidentally post a fake spoiler to throw everyone off.
Once upon a time, fans being able to see where a story is going before it gets there was called foreshadowing, and it was considered a good thing.
“You two seriously rode thousands of miles together and haven’t discussed this yet?”
Hey, when u fast travel there’s no time to talk 😉
Talking makes me thirsty
Maybe they were just burning pewter for hours and couldn't talk lest they bite their tongues off
Isn't that what the loading screen during fast travel is for? 😜
Oh boi it’s a two parter, my expectations have been subverted!
I'm hoping for more Olenna Tyrell appreciation! If not in the video then in the comments. My absolute favorite character, hands down- scenes with her and Tywin/her and Jaime are GOLD
...and I'm spoiled. This is so meta, I can't
Wrong your expectation has been exceeded.
When the fan theories in Steven Universe were confirmed it was so cathartic! Changing twists because someone figured it out is basically punishing your fans for being enthusiastic about your work.
It doesn't even make too much sense from a story-telling perspective. Obviously some twists are gonna be more predictable, and some mysteries easier to solve, but if you are consistent with your world and it's rules, there have to be some clues to what might happen.
Who cares if a few people in a modern fan base figure it out, how would you even beat such a massive hive mind, as long as most people watching can't figure out while viewing or casually discussing it with a friend I'd argue you got a solid mystery.
YES!
I remember a couple people being upset about the Pink Diamond thing. But like ... the moment Steven had that dream from the perspective of Pink Diamond, there was only one possible explanation so I just waiting for the show to make it explicit. I'm not sure how they could have changed it, because the twist is way too central to the resolution of the main conflict.
@@21swords76 talks about disdain for fans then goes and says "steven universe *scoff* how can that have difficult twists?“. Watch something and then judge for yourself what quality of writing it has
It's incredibly childish, in my opinion. I've not watched Steven Universe (saw an episode or two, not my cup of tea), but clearly if people are figuring it out, it's only fair to let them get the satisfaction of earning that victory.
[Mini-"Last Airbender" rant spoilers]
If people called out that Zuko was gonna join Team Avatar, and the creators popped a 180 just because they REALLY wanted to manufacture a surprising twist, it would have really ruined what they built up over two seasons. All this time, Zuko learning what asshats the Fire Nation can be, and his place in it not being everything he thought it'd be, not giving us the payoff of him making the decision to switch sides when it was supposed to happen would have been for nothing, and just ruined his character. Imagine instead of him making his grand declaration, he stuck to his Fire Nation guns and just stayed bad guy the whole time? It'd be awful.
I can't actually fathom that this happened only a year ago. It feels like a millennium away writing in June 2020....pray for us past Lindsay.
2020 is so oddly slow.
Best profile pic ever
It truly was a different world then
To be fair 2020 has lasted forever
It's 2021, things have not changed
Writer 1: oh Gods they figured out our twist! We have to rewrite it! *explains new twist*
Writer 2: that's stupid.
Writer 1: but they won't expect it.
Writer 2: because it's stupid!
+
BHAHAHA
Real plot twist - writer 2 did not exist.
James Turton well that would certainly subvert my expectations...🤪. Lol
That's a sure sign of a hack writer. You should want your audience to be able to figure out your twist. That means your story makes sense!
See this is why I'm so glad Gravity Falls didn't change their plot when most viewers have already guessed the plot twist. And y'all weren't kidding about the final season being so dark, I can't see a damned thing.
@Carolyn "kids show" doesn't automatically mean a show has no plot. For example Avatar: The Last Airbender is a children's show with some of the best plots and chatacter development in a decade.
@Carolyn What does a show's plot being good or bad have anything to do with the demographic it's targeting or its art style? Apart from obvious limitations, if it's aimed for a younger audience, it doesn't affect the *plot* at all. If you completely dismiss shows like ATLA and Gravity Falls just because they're labeled as "kids shows"... Idk what to tell you, you're missing out.
@Carolyn Most cartoons have at least a basic plot nowadays :v why do you think people online go insane theorizing about Steven Universe and whatnot?
alariel85 Actually I feel like thats not entirely true. IIRC part of the reason why they cut it short at 2 seasons was because Alex Hirsch the showrunner felt there was no need to continue when fans figured out the biggest twist of the show. It’s a shame because I feel like that show had a ton going for it that was rushed in Season 2, and I still think they could have gone 3 seasons at least with the material they had. It at least would have given more time to flesh out the main character relationships and flex their plot muscles more (esp since the rushed feeling of Season 2 built up some fan resentment towards the one-off, “not main plot” episodes that occupied much needed space in the final stretch).
@Carolyn Give them a chance. There are shows with great plots.
"Who has a better story than Bran the Broken..." Literally every single character in the entire setting...
Yeah, even Samwell "The Slayer" Tarly has a better story...
@@syltrid That inkeeper who kept insisting they had no rooms at the Crossroad Inn had a better story than Bran.
I would watch an entire series about Potpie before I'd watch another episode about Bran
I kept forgetting he was a character. I literally sat there thinking “wait, who?”
@@syltrid Honestly, something that bothered me about Samwell Tarly. So at the end of the series, he's the Grand Maester in King's Landing, Lord of House Tarly (?), AND married to Gilly. Is he also still technically part of the Night's Watch? Which of these things is he or is he not? is he all of these? If so, how? How is half these things should make it impossible to be half the other things? Does Samwell just get to break all the rules?
The romcom montage of Dany and Jon’s meetcute is still one of the funniest things this show has given us
Literally the only reason Bran is King is because nobody wanted him to be. Think about that for two minutes and tell me it doesn't make you want to go walk into the ocean.
Ellen S i didn’t need two minutes dude it only took the time it took to read your comment. 1 second
my feet are wet
Bran becoming king wasn't the issue; it was how he got there that makes it so stupid
Ellen S
By that reasoning, Joffrey was a master of diplomacy.
I wanted him to be a king
what bothers me is like....the dothraki were ALL daenerys's bloodriders, which means they would avenge her death, and then join her in death....but at the end you see some of them just wandering about....where's the bloodlust? none of them even TRY to kill jon
Bronn is the Lord of the Reach? Tyrion seriously upheld that cutthroat deal made at gunpoint? And why is he also the Master of Coin when he doesn't know what a loan is? Especially when the crown has a seriously loan problem?
@@elevate07 I thought it was some kind of skit or parody instead of the actual show
Jot this down on the long list of things D+D "kinda forgot".
Daenerys killed the khals and none of the dothraki avenged them. Am I supposed to believe they had no brothers, cousins, sons, wives, or friends? That is a bigger problem..
@@elevate07 What annoys me about the Reach thing is that the Twins were right there for the taking with all the Frey's dead.
"Sometimes you get some feelings and you just...you just gotta monetize them" Subscribed.
Clegane-bowl was a serious regression in The Hound's character development. Any last meeting between the Cleganes should have been The Mountain asking his brother to end his suffering, maybe even with a bit of a scuffle before hand.
I think once The Mountain became a zombie, then CleganeBowl became pointless. The Hound wasn't going to get any emotional payoff in such a fight because his brother was already dead. It's like hitting a practice dummy. Like Lindsay said, "his (Sandor's) arc wasn't about getting revenge. It was about moving *past* that."
@@KneelB4Bacon I guess the writers kinda forgot that revenge was bad.
@@judeconnor-macintyre9874Well themes are for 8th grade book reports after all. It makes perfect sense why they would say that. D&D don't think themes are bad. They just have the intelligence of 1st graders so anything above that is beyond their comprehension.
I remember when I heard so much about how passionate Conleth Hill was about the show, how he would help the younger actors and how much he put into the show overall. Legitimately seeing him fold up the script and push it away just gives me life.
It breaks my heart a little bit. Conleth and the other actors, and the people who worked on set and behind the scenes all tried so so hard. They gave it their all and they did an amazing job. But to see them completely let down by writers who don't care at all is a tragedy.
Can you imagine if Conleth got the part he auditioned for and was Bobby B, then gone from the show before the first season was done?
And when he just shakes his head later, it was beautiful
Absolutely, but to me it is also depressing to think about actors who hav eno choice but to play lines they do not believe in to the best of their ability and blatantly lie about how brilliant they think they are. Thouhg, to be fair, that is true of so many jobs.
I don't understand the fascination with trying to outsmart the audience. I keep thinking back to your video on spoilers! For example, I was on the edge of my seat during the finale of Chernobyl. I know they don't stop it - but I couldn't help myself from hoping they would! It's about how you tell the journey
Because writers don't want to be accused of being predictable. You can design a story so that knowing the resolution ahead of time doesn't really matter. But for example, Ned Stark's death and the Red Wedding are famous TV movies because they shocked the hell out of people. During the white walker invasion of Winterfell, we knew which characters were expendable to the point where a several mainstays like Theon and Jorah and fan favorites could like Lyanna could go down and it could be remembered as bloodless
chernobyl whips
Well, if you're a smart writer you're happy because it means you've got a smart audience. If you're a dumb writer, you get angry, because your audience is smarter than you.
... They stop the accident in the mini-series, don't they? Gotta subvert those expectations yo.
Idk about others, but there's a difference between assuming it won't work and knowing it won't. It can kill it somewhat for me.
36:38 Arya's trip to Kings Landing turns out to be a complete waste of time because all it takes to persuade Arya to NOT kill Cersei is a speech from the Hound about how, "you don't want to become a killer like me." And I'm thinking, "Dude. At this point, Arya has killed HUNDREDS of people. She probably has a higher body count than YOU."
Far higher and far more methodical too
You know why fans worked it out? Because they picked up on the hints and foreshadowing written into the show. It means your writing is consistent if they can feasibly guess it. Deciding to suddenly change the ending because they pieced together your writing, means you render that writing inconsistent and worthless.
This^
I'm a hobby writer and when one or two of my reviewers message me with things they have correctly worked out, it freakin' makes my day! Means this torture that I do every day is coming together and actually makes sense and my foreshadowing is working!
Just because people figured it out does not mean it's not good.
What did they change about the ending?
Fans predicted it before the shows were out. 6 years ago I had discussions of, “Jon must be the child of ned’s sister and a Targaryen” as well as, “I bet Danny goes mad like the mad king... all this power and murder and invading with foreign armies doesn’t paint a good picture for her prospects”
The issue isn't that Dany went mad, it's that until like s08 ep. 3 one of her defining characteristics was compassion for the common folk. Going back on that because "subverting expectations" is terrible writing. Similarly, making a huge deal of prophecy/power, the Lord of light resurrecting Jon, and Jon's Targaryan heritage just for Arya to kill the night king and the heritage to never be mentioned again makes no sense and you have to do a number of mental backflips to make it work in the context of everything else you've written for that character.
I know old comment, but there's a single youtuber called altshiftx with what, 400+ hours of got analysis
Thats one guy
Someone will guess something right even if its by accident, it pure probability
The whole "I can't let fan's guess my twist" fear feels like an ego thing. Like it's so important for them to be the smartest ones here. Why not just let some fans have their "Whoo! I called it!" moment! The best comparison to this season I've heard so far is that the writing essentially became the Iocane powder scene from a princess bride with the writers essentially going, "But you see I knew that you knew that I knew that you that I'd never fall for that old trick!"
It's hard because the nature of the mass proliferation of information on the internet makes it so anyone exposed to information that reveals the twist will feel like they were the ones who predicted it. What might otherwise be a small group of dedicated and intelligent fans feeling satisfied turns into the general audience feeling like the material was juvenile and predictable, because *everyone* guessed it, not just the few who actually did and told everyone else.
And it makes for things to be actually....really stupid. I don't even watch this show and I'm here because I wanted to know Why everyone is complaining that it's terrible.
Agreed. This is why it felt like the characters and plotlines had to zig-zag so much towards the end. It almost became a game of trying to throw you off the trail. "All of the foreshadowing and clues that were laid throughout the show? Psyche! They meant nothing and are never addressed again." "Other pieces of information like when Bran says 'I can never be Lord of anything'? Pysche! He can still be Ruler of the Seven (Six) Kingdoms!" It's just not good storytelling and not a convincing way to convey information or resolve the story lines. It became obvious that their priorities were wrapped up in making these big shocking/twisting moments that Game of Thrones had become known for, even if they had to achieve those twists by straight up feeding you false information.
I had a terrible feeling that Season 8 would turn out this way whenever Littlefinger died in Season 7. You are shown several bits of conflicting information: Sansa stating that she knows Littlefinger isn't trustworthy but keeps him around anyway, she sends Brienne of Tarth away as some sort of confusing move to show that she isn't being fooled by Littlefinger, Arya spies on Sansa, Littlefinger spies on Arya and smirks - inferring that things are going according to his manipulative plan, Sansa and Arya fight, and lastly, it's specifically pointed out that Bran is not Bran and is acting so strange and has no desire to aid with his sisters' problems. Then, suddenly, all of the Starks are on the same side and wise to LIttlefinger's plan with 0 information on how they worked it out. Did they ask Bran for help and he cleared things up? Why were we shown that he is so distant and unwilling to help yet it's assumed he worked with them behind the scenes? Why were we shown that Littlefinger was successful in manipulating them and that the sisters were at each other's throats yet somehow behind the scenes they apparently worked things out without Littlefinger spying on them? None of these things were told in a satisfying manner and we were actually shown the opposite in many instances, never knowing quite whose perspective we were truly viewing things from. It was a twist for twist's sake. They needed a shocking moment for the S7 finale, so they fed us false information before killing him off. These things could have easily been clarified with an additional scene or two, but that would have ruined their "twist".
They got paranoid about this when they forewshadowed Jon Snow's resurrection harder than a Honkytonk Man guitar swing. They actually telegraphed it so hard that I was busy trying to figure out whom they were positioning Flame-Tits to revive towards the end of S4. It had to be someone, and Jon Snow was always the most likely, given his problems at the time with the rebellious Night's Watch.
So I predicted that Jon Snow would be resurrected before he was killed, which should tell you that the problem wasn't this event in itself, but how wildly obvious they made it that it was coming, with their various "establishing" scenes with Flame-Tits and Thoros. Particularly the scene where Flame-Tits arrived out of the blue in the Riverlands to learn that Thoros could resurrect people. Really? Hmm, that's so interesting, bye now! I'm off to resurrect Jon Snow and spout some more erroneous prophecies! Why was she there? How did she get there? Wasn't she on Dragonstone hypnotizing Mannis just a scene and a half ago? Can she just randomly leave him to go on camping trips in the middle of a giant war zone? Oh I see, it was exclusively to establish the "surprise" resurrection of Lord Emo a season later! How incredibly subtle and creative!
@@therisingdyingidiot8022 There is a big difference between surprising people and surprising everyone. If your script surprises everyone, chances are it is because it doesnt make much sense.
You were six years late for the Hobbit conversation - it was still the most interesting critical examination of why that production was broken...
For you, Lindsay, I'll wait... It's always worth it.
I waited a long time for an Ellis video and all the content I got in the interim is her twitter political rants
Really, I think we SHOULD take time to digest a media we've just finished watching before we write a worthwhile hot take about it, so we can have a chance to let it sink in, and also to research how it was made, since more details will likely come out after something has been released.
@@undolf4097 Sounds like I have to check out her social media presence.
You know what would have been a really unexpected way to kill off the Night King?
A boomerang.
NEEDS MORE UPVOTES!!!!!
*A FUCKING BOOMERANG*
I imagined a cartoon boomerang taking him down and then Sokka peacing out ~water tribe~ haha
For those wondering: ua-cam.com/video/LkoGBOs5ecM/v-deo.html
@@Souzu21 knew exactly what this was going to lead to, but clicked it anyway to relive Hb's mental breakdown over a boomerang
Using papyrus instead of comic sans really subverted my expectations.
NYEH HEH HEH!
Hahahahahahahaha
PAPYRUS!!!! IT WAS PAPYRUS!!
Undyne: That´s all nerd shit!
Equals good writing!
Having a pre-defined ending that no longer fits the characters reminds me a lot of the ending of How I Met Your Mother.
There are still people saying the ending was good because it's "realistic"
Exactly my thought! "Oh we filmed this at the beginning of the show, we HAVE to use it!" Not if it doesn't work anymore.
Oh my god... That finale might be the single most evil ending to a sitcom ever...
I'm all fine with the endings. Remember GRRM told them how some things concluded. But there was no lead up to them. They developed no story or in-character moments to how the characters got to their position. That's what's bugging me. D&D didn't have to run away from two funded seasons off to a new project. Then again I think the writing quality was already declining from season 5 onward.
Compared to how HIMYM died, GoT almost comes off as maybe being OK and not a hit pile of stinking garbage.
"The ending was... was bad - it was quite bad but the ending was, in fairness, foreshadowed by other things being bad..."
Hilarious! :-D
Not hilarious. Just truth.
Cersei lying about sending help to the North is hilariously in-character for her and it's the last time she really feels like Cersei.
I feel like cersei maintains her characterization much better/longer than most others, because from the start she was a character who thought she was really smart/conniving, but really wasnt. And near the end of the series all the characters starting feeling like that 😅
It’s probably because writing evil/scheming characters is easier than smart ones. Everyone can lie, it’s a lot harder to go over your own head.
To quote Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, "never be afraid of the obvious."
Funny, he's the last one I would have associated with that quote...
I'm not a big fan of HDM beyond Book 1.
We all know Frodo's going to destroy the ring and the day will be saved at the start of Lord of the Rings, and it's only the 2nd most read book of the 20th century.
My friends told me not to watch your video because of how depressing it is, but I told them: "She...is my queen."
Let me fix that for ya: SHIES MUH KWIEEN
Lindsay is going to need a restraining order against you then, if the past is any indication
So, wait. D&D got the series in the first place because they figured out who Jon's parents were ... and now they're mad that fans are doing the EXACT SAME THING?
Dumb.
Really? that's it? That's why? It's not THAT hard to guess that, I figured it out pretty early.
@@lissaquon607 I think it's a lot more obvious than George realised. He must realise now though.
@@lissaquon607 From the moment Ned Stark said to Jon: "When we see each other again, I'll tell you about your mother... hm?" and got really emotional for a second about it, my immediate reaction was: "Oh, there's no way Jon Snow is simply some bastard son of Ashara Dayne and Ned Stark (as was the prevailing internet theory at the time). He's way more important than that." I could tell right away Jon Snow was the main character who would outlast the show in the living department. And I've been proven right. Even with all the "subversion" thrown in by Dan and Dave to try and fool us. My immediate reaction to that final scene with Eddard and Jon together was: "Oh, he's totally Lyanna Stark's son. This has everything to do with Ned's dead Sister."
It wasn't until a little later that I put it together that: "Oh, Rhaegar Targaryan is his father! That's why Ned lies about Jon being HIS bastard, and not Lyanna's! Because King Robert (and basically everybody else) would try to kill Jon Snow if they knew about that! It totally makes sense!!"
The elongated point I'm doing a poor job of enunciating is: "I figured out pretty much right away how fundamentally important Jon Snow actually was to the entire show." Because the first season goes so far out of its' way to throw as much dirt on the character as possible, that I can sniff an attempted "burial of one's crimes" from a mile away. But you know what? Knowing the truth did not ruin the character. If anything, it made Jon Snow ten times more relatable and interesting to follow.
Sometimes a really big twist NEEDS to be heavily foreshadowed for the audience. A good writer (GRRM) knows that! Bad writers (Dan and Dave) go out of their ways to try and avoid something so obvious, because they fail to see the BIG PICTURE over all the minutiae...
So what you’re saying is any one of us could have been given the series?
They're not mad about it, it was the Westworld quote. They just said they wanted to make the Ice King scene a surprise.
The thing I still find hilarious about the whole ‘avoid expectation’ thing is that they are so desperate to be unpredictable and yet they still wasted everyone’s fucking time with Cleganebowl
Yeah, subverting expectations by employing lots of fan service is exactly the sort of thing that sounds like a good idea to a guy who thinks theme is for eighth-grade book reports.
Two-parter? Two-parter? Don't you apologize! Get the content stretcher!
This is wonderful.
Keeping us abreast
GODS MY VIDEOS WERE SHORT THEN
👏👏👏
"Sometimes you have feelings, and you just gotta... Monetize them"
Man, the quote of our generation!
Legend has it that Lancel didn't die in the sewers of King's Landing. Instead he's still alive, still searching for the breastplate stretcher.
🤣😂😂
He just had to jump in a canal and find his actor friend who could magically heal stab-wounds first.
LMFAO
I feel so bad for GRR Martin... He really trusted them with his baby and the moment they got bored they shook it really hard in front of his eyes
😂 horrible image but basically true
_"sometimes you've got some feelings and you just got to monetize them"_
-- will be printed on every UA-camr's shirts
OH MY F**KING GOD Alia Ris - I would SO buy that! 😂
Love the way you and Philosophy Tube quoted the exact same line save for the spelling (monetise vs monetize)
Every artist
i love the aggressive recorder music in the background when captain crack sparrow is being discussed
Hahahaha Omigod I'm using that name for him from now on it's just too perfect
@@RedInkCat Hbomberguy
I died
Credit to @Hbomberguy for introducing me to shittyflute
I laughed way too much with that, but if there's a character that truly deserves the shitty flute treatment is show Euron, also known by UA-cam close captions as "Urine".
Contents!
i - writing bad : 2:05
ii - sunk cost fallacy : 4:21
iii - show summary/ re-cap : 5:36
iv - story telling shift : 20:53
v - "fantasy for people who don't like fantasy" : 23:45
vi - the planned ending : 26:49
vii - fan service : 33:00
viii - subverting expectations/ a need to be smarter than the audience : 37:26
+
Thank u!
MVP!
this whole "smarter than the audience" thing needs to stop. it's no fun theorizing about a show when you know the writers are looking at fan threads and taking notes on what they now will definitely not be doing. like, the fun thing about the Steven Universe fandom was the wild mass guessing, throwing out contradictory ideas, and seeing which ones were right-- and then going back and finding all the clues you missed!
*Me seeing that Lindsey has released a 44 minute video essay on got* - "PTERODACTYL SCREECHES"
Wait till you find out that this is only part one!
Part 1 of 5
I first read that she released a 44 minute episode on pterodactyl screeches and I was into it.
That is disturbingly accurate to the sounds I unleashed in my own home.
Weird..
Did pterodactyls sound like high pitched giggles?
😳
The footage of the cast at the final readthrough always kills me
they are clearly miserable
Have HBO but had not made time to watch the doc. Now Im so glad I didn't.
Dude Conleth looked like he was begging for oblivion, poor dude :(
@@lydia3713 cancel it pls.
@@TriangularPrism I'm not saying I don't have any issues myself with the whole latter part of Varys' story, or that he only said completely glowing things about the last season or two and his place in it, obviously he publicly shared criticisms, but based on purely the footage of him in this cast read-thru stuff, I think people might be reading too much into everything he's doing. And even just because he's said those other things he has, doesn't automatically mean he was completely pissed off there as we saw him (unless he's said something directly about that day I've yet to read).
Also in all fairness, Kit Harrington was so surprised since that was literally the first time he read any of the s8 scripts, he openly said he'd wanted to see it fresh with the whole cast like that.
the quote "she seemed like the best candidate, provided that we werent thinking about her at that moment" from the writer of the show literally means "we chose this cause it made the least amount of sense to us, from a narrative standpoint", so yeah.. thats great storytelling for you -.-
It's the difference between a Fight Club/Prestige kind of twist, where it causes everything to realign but in a way that makes sense, and a latter-day Shyamalan twist. Less "oh, that's where it was going" and more "where did that come from?"
@@blokey8 Like the Red Wedding or the beheading of Ned, they subvert expectations, but in hindsight you see all the seeds that were planted so that not only made sense, but that it should have been the most expected outcome.
But this was probably the thing I had the least problem with in the whole season. I mean, depending on how they did it of course, I'm sure I would've enjoyed a scenario of Jon officially "defeating" the Night King. But there's plenty of sense to Arya doing that. You have all the major beats previously set up over the last couple seasons (her training as a whole, ability to sneak up on anyone, receiving the blade itself, the hand-to-hand move used for the killshot). Plus it actually even feeds into the warning that George himself often gave, "it's dangerous to try and take prophecy too literally". Even including Dany's hairpin turn (which itself I didn't like at all) it can very easily be argued that at least Jon himself, if not also BOTH Jon and Dany were "the prince/ess who was promised, to help bring the dawn", as Arya couldn't have been in that position had they not brought people together on an unprecedented scale. It never had to be about Jon Snow literally being the one to kill the Night King.
... Years later, and deep deep inside me, I'm STILL angry about this.
On my death bed, I'll still feel strong contempt for how this shit ended.
I still don't understand how terrible a screen writer you have to be in order to make the terrible abomination that is the end of GoT.
They had SO MANY hours worth of reference material, R. R. Martin was available, HBO offered them unlimited amounts of money and time, the actors were good and dedicated, the fans would've waited years for quality...
Yet they still, they STILL drove it into a ditch, and for WHAT!?
It wasn't even solely because of incompetence, but because of their fucking ego and narcissism!
They could've passed it on to someone, ANYONE, who was dedicated enough to spend the time needed to end this show respectably. Even some random screen writing enthusiast out of r/Gameofthrones would've done better.
This still fills me with an irrational amount of indescribable disappointment.
The reading table scene just solidifies the disappointment, cringe and embarrassment.
Honestly, I would've been less angry and disappointed had it just been cancelled... If they just cut to black.
I'll forever curse Weiss and Benioff!!
They did the show purely so they could eventually get support for their ideologically driven show about the Confederacy.
@@valuebrandmelkor5973 which never got off the ground for some strange reason. 😏🍷
"Hot Topic pirate who is the worst character on the show, and maybe any show". Oh, God, I didn't know how much I needed that.
THIS!!
My GOD could I not stand that asshole! I would ask why in the everloving hell D&D thought that anyone would want to see the single worst Greyjoy spend hours (badly) chewing up the scenery, but I've long since stopped asking "Why?" when it comes to the storytelling choices those two made.
I know this was Said so many times, But If you compare Show euron to book euron...hooo boy. Two completel, different characters.
Have a look at the earlier scenes of him here on youtube. People loved him.
How much they kept all of the awful parts of Euron's character, and yet cut all of the cool parts, makes me very sad.
That’s why it’s so hard to watch? Cause Euron is actually an amazing character
Every "BoBBy B" added 10 years to my life
Bobby B!
BOBBY B
LIVE DAMMIT
GODS I WAS STRONG THEN
Doctor : You have a few months to live
Me : *watches this video again*
Bobby B!!!!
"Hot Fantasy, That Fucks," is the absolute best description of Game of Thrones I've ever heard and nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise.
@@97Multiphantom it has gratuitous violence that ellis suggests is made to contrast the nongratuitous violence and emphasis on friendship in lothr which is the most well known fantasy.
and Tolkien was better for not writing all that edgy sex stuff
There's a reason it was called "Boobs 'n' Beheadings" back in the first two seasons
@@maxbaugh9372 "Sexposition" also comes to mind.
@@maxbaugh9372
Tits and dragons in the later ones.
It's amazing how completely GOT has vanished from every day live, considering it was literally everywhere in the media before season 8.
Well it did end, in all fairness. not much left to talk about.
@@noahmay7708 Except to make comparisons to other shows/movies that f**ed up their endings.
Why do showrunners feel they need to avoid being predictable? There are many, many predictable stories and most of them are masterpieces. Game of Thrones might not of been predictable because GRRM tries to think outside the box but when it comes to fans theorizing and actually getting something right, THE FANS DON'T KNOW THEY ARE RIGHT, so when the plot point plays out and your theory ended up being correct you don't think "Ah saw that coming this show is stupid, ha i'm just too intelligent is seems" That's not how it is, and guess what, when you have thousands of people all brainstorming, bringing knowledge from different walks of life yeah they are gonna figure some shit out it's a numbers game. Don't change the story to make people wrong.
Amatthew123 a fun thing also about George writing, is that the first time you read it yeah you are surprised by the Ned death, the Red Wedding, but on a re-read you realize how much foreshadowing he has and you realize there really no other way things could have gone.
But that’s really not the case of the show
Yes. There's probably some people that predicted the ending of Gladiator from the opening shot! Still a great movie!
There are other ways it could gone. Just wouldn't have been as sastifying.
I don't know why it is a trend, but I hope it's over now. Can you imagine if Shyamalan was like, "one person guessed the ending of 'Sixth Sense', I am just going to make it all a dream instead". Nobody wants the most surprising twist, they want a good story.
Exactly. I mean, people still watch and read Romeo & Juliet and it's not because they have no idea what's gonna happen and the end is such a plot twisty surprise. If a plot twist is ALL your story has, nobody is ever going to want to rewatch it.
"The ending was, in fairness, foreshadowed by other things being bad"
You've suffered a terrible fate.
Oh, George RR Martin stopped being involved after season 4... everything makes sense now. Yikes.
Jennifer Woolley he was never heavily involved to begin with
MGBillionaire I believe that. Writers tend to have less influence than we’d want.
Jennifer Woolley he only wrote 2 episodes
@@MGBillionaire But I'm pretty sure that he gave some advice while he was involved.
@@justalostlocal My understanding was that after they got past the written books, Martin gave them the basic notes on the milestones of the story but beyond that left it to them.
The funniest thing about them changing the ending because Ben's figured it out is that the main reason George Martin chose them specifically to make the show was because they were able to guess Jon Snow's parents before it became a common theory
i heard someone say that if your audience guesses your plot twist, it means youve made a believable plot twist. if the audience guesses your plot twist, thats not necessarily bad. theres a difference between believable and boringly predictable
Yea no one was pissed at breaking bad for guessing Walt would become a villian by the end. It was pretty clear that was where the show was going. But the journey there is what was fascinating.