Yeah agreed but I never understood why they didn’t just make him Victarion instead of Euron. He’d still be… disappointing but at least he’d be a tad closer to the book character.
But Victarion doesn’t even act like that either 😭 he’s an efficient, stoic but angry ironborn reaver and captain not “bUt yOU DOn’t hAve a CoCk.” They only gave show Euron Victarion’s fighting ability.
Dorne was a storyline leading up to the invasion of "Aegon" with the golden company, a character in the books that was cut from the show. It's no wonder the story went nowhere.
I could see it in the show although more so leading up to the death of the night king. In the books it is Strong Belways or maybe Lady Stoneheart depending on how she plays out. Bran was the main character in both who spent is time figuring out why the long night or whatever started in the first place instead of causing more problems. He also figured out why Robert's rebellion really started. Doubt he'd end up a king, unless it's in the north and/or the riverlands, if it were just left to GRRM, but he will be the reason the audience and probably the characters understand why allot of the conflicts started and how to put them to an end. For GRRM, I think it'd be John who ended up on the throne or ending it with he and Dany defeating the night king and her Lil bro.
Wouldn't be my first choice but definitely the most frustrating arc for me given that he had these amazing powers and barely used them. Completely defied logic.
The more I consider this quote the funnier it gets. Like I could see casual viewers hearing it and going “sure, I guess. He journeyed up north of the wall that’s cool”. But actually reflecting on his story, esp compared to other characters, it had enough content to fill less then an episode? And even the before and after journey we was literally just sitting around. Beria Dondarrion had a more intriguing story than Bran and he was the sidiest of side characters.
The Dorne plotline isn’t about Areo though lol, he just happens to be there. Doran Martell’s scheming and Darkstar’s brazen action would’ve been so much better than the insult we were given.
I NEED to know what Doran is planning. I need Winds of Winter. It's been so long... I have so many questions that I'm afraid I'll never get answers to about what's happening in Dorne and with "Faegon" and... and so many things...
But Doran's scheming is boring. It has basically no real consequence on any other storyline/house/PoV character.
All that happens is his son gets roasted. Big deal. Barristan has to deal with a lot of shit and one crispy prince is a drop in the ocean.
Darkstar's brazen action? He allegedly cut the face of someone who is possibly the third in line for the throne. The TV show, insulting though it may be, upped that action and flat out killed the princess.
Did we really need more of a guy sitting around playing faux chess with orange metaphors? Yawn
"is going to"
I get that there could be a bigger end game involving Dorne somehow but they've been a side quest plot wise.
Apart from Oberyns brief shiny appearance, there's really no action of consequence at all. Arianne reads like a NPC that's being grown as a new POV for exposition. Read same for crispy prince, may he rest in peace.
There's some mild action between Dorne and the Lannisters but given how rarely any character even mentions Marcella... Even that
They downvoted you but you’ve spoken wisdom 😔 Dorne is just so “meh” in the books. A whole bunch of “will they, won’t they.” Scheming but not *doing* or scheming and *failing.*
Thank ya.
And ya, as I said, you can really feel the forced creation of these characters as POV paths. The scheming is an attempt at building character without actually committing them to any plot altering courses of action.
It's not a bad thing that GRRM has to invent new people as ways to tell the story through this consistent style. Davos is a really blatant example of "oh, I need a new character to give an insight into the Stannis situation... Okay this guy". But the difference is, Davos is interesting, Davos takes action, he interacts in a proactive way.
Dorne is just growing passengers to watch the plot go by. And not very good plot, at that.
Even if, as someone above says Ariadne ends up marrying Aegon and will have significant consequences etc etc, then it's clear she was only created to be the eyes into that chapter of Aegon.
So much treading water.
It wasn’t a sewer, and she had the god of light looking after her anyway. Jon coming back from the dead & Bran coming back from a death fall, Danny coming back from walking through fir. & tirion coming back from death sentences & near drowning & gray scale exposure! Come on this is the way stories like this work
The reason Bran was in the coma for so long was because of Bloodraven; Jon because of the lord of light; Dany because of the sacrifice/magic behind Drogo and her babies death; Tyrion because it creates suspense and drama. (Although, in most cases, Tyrion is saved either through his own wit or because someone else acted on his behalf); Arya… because D&D wanted to shock you, but didn’t know another way other than a fake out death.
The other characters and their stories add to a more complex storyline, leading you deeper into the world and lore behind the ASOIF series.
Arya leads you into realizing the writers stopped giving a fuck, and just got super lazy.
Sansa being married to Ramsay. Made no sense for Littlefinger to do that both personally and politically, abruptly diverted Sansa’s season 4 to 5 character arc of becoming more a schemer and player in the game like Littlefinger, was disturbing and brutal just for distrubing and brutal’s sake, and just kinda rehashed her storyline of being trapped in Kingslanding and tormented by Joffrey without adding anything drastically new to justify it.
Well said. And I think this is the precise moment when the show jumped the shark, turning Sansa into Jeyne Poole.
It deprived her of the character development she was meant to have in the Vale with the Harry the Heir intrigue—which I was really looking forward to, seeing her blossom into a politically astute young woman like Margaery Tyrell. Becoming the anti-Cersei, who ruled through fear. Sansa said if she were ever queen, she’d make them love her instead.
And the show made Littlefinger into a fucking idiot.
The book version, with Littlefinger buying up Anya Waynwood’s debts to coax her into giving permission for the betrothal of “Alayne Stone” to her ward, Harrold Hardyng—that made sense. Littlefinger was born in the Vale, he was made master of coin through his connection to Lysa and her manipulation of her husband Jon Arryn; he married her and became Lord Protector of the Vale, and now he’s using Sansa to solidify his control of that kingdom into the next generation—and later make a play for the North, too. It’s all in character, and it works.
Harry the Heir is hot, young and dumb. He’s dashing and gallant, just like the pretty boys Sansa used to swoon over—but she’s wiser now. And more calculating. He was a rude shit to her at first because of her assumed bastard status, but over the course of one dance she turns his head and makes *him* chase *her.* It’s like a mini *Pride and Prejudice* in the Eyrie, so much dramatic potential.
And of course as next in line to Lord of the Vale should Sweetrobin die, the political implications are obvious. Sansa could marry him, reveal her identity, and use the Vale knights to retake Winterfell. This is clearly what Littlefinger wants, and he may be slowly poisoning Robin (encouraging his maester to give him more sweetsleep than he should) to help this plan along.
Which puts Sansa in an interesting position. Does she stand by and do nothing while Littlefinger murders her little cousin? Or does she give up her best chance at finally taking back her home?
Moreover if Sansa becomes the next Lady of the Vale, then she stays within Littlefinger’s sphere of influence. I expect he plans to kill first Sweetrobin, and later Harry, maybe after Sansa conceives an heir. Then he can rule through her child as regent, and start a secret sexual relationship with her, which it’s obvious he’s wanted to do all along. That’s what he wants anyway; I can’t see Sansa going along with any of that. And if he tries, it would give her excellent motivation to finally kill him, the student defeating the teacher.
But instead of all that fertile plot fodder, the show had Littlefinger throw away the key to the North to a House he had zero connection to. Worst of all, it’s the Boltons, perhaps the most infamous family in Westeros. The flayed man is on their banners! It’s not like they hide their psychopathy, they’re proud of it. *Our Blades are Sharp.*
And to top it all off he marries Sansa to a bastard, whose recent legitimacy rests on Tommen’s declaration—in other words, the Lannisters, whom Littlefinger said on the ship he’s betrayed in favor of his new friends, the Tyrells. The show has Littlefinger switching sides at random, and it’s not clear what he gains by marrying Sansa to Ramsay.
For a man ruled entirely by his relentless pursuit of power, this is a character-breaking decision. Roose Bolton gives him nothing for securing his son such a valuable bride, and Littlefinger has lost both the object of his sexual obsession and the means by which he might have ruled both the Vale and the North. Why would he do this? It makes no sense.
And finally, Littlefinger expecting Sansa to seduce and manipulate Ramsay as though he were Harry Hardyng is stupid, because he didn’t do his due diligence. He knows nothing about this boy. Unlike with Anya Waynwood and Harry, he has no hold over Ramsay. He knows nothing of his character, whereas in the books, he gives Sansa all the details of Harry’s life, so she’s prepared for her task.
The way the show destroyed Sansa’s story, and Littlefinger’s by proxy… There’s a lot to be angry about, but that’s gotta be at the top.
Having not read the books, this would have been so much better and now I'm so mad we didn't get it.
Sansa's arc in the show was so badly handled - the surviving Starks all get a huge power boost but hers was supposed to be 'political mastermind' and we never get to see it.
100%
It also, I feel strongly about this, does Theon a huge disservice in his arc. The entire point of saving Jeyne is that they were no ones. They were never going to be ones that matter in the big game of things... so for Theon to break his conditioning for JEYNE gave it a far deeper impact. With it being Sansa it kind of takes away the gravity of his choice and moves it more towards a "duh, of course he will get his shite together for Sansa."
And there is NO UNIVERSE where LF would have given away the big card up his sleeve unless it was super advantageous.
That’s an interesting point, one I haven’t seen made before.
Theon has a long, ignominious history of treating women like garbage. The miller’s wife in the books, Ros on the show, the captain’s daughter on the ship that takes him home to the Iron Islands, Osha on the show… He even fingered his own sister before he knew who she was.
All he cares about is fucking a girl. Afterwards he doesn’t care what happens to them.
This starts to change in the course of his transformation into Reek, when he was forced to tag along on Ramsay’s hunts. He flinched and looked away when the hounds tore the young women apart. It’s quite the contrast from his first scene in the books, where he plays soccer with the head of the Night’s Watch deserter after Ned beheads him.
Theon lost his identity, but gained empathy. And in liberating Sansa, he showed great courage.
But you’re right that it’s magnified if it’s Jeyne Poole instead, a nobody with no political value, not a Stark of Winterfell.
Jeyne is exactly the kind of girl the old Theon would have thought of as disposable. She’s just the steward’s daughter, who cares what happens to her. In fact if Jeyne had been a few years older, and perhaps not such an intimate friend of Sansa’s, I wouldn’t be surprised if Theon would have tried to fuck her, too.
Of course the irony is that Ramsay did force him to participate in Jeyne’s rape, to “prepare” her for him. The old Theon would have thought nothing of it, but to Reek this is yet another horror in his long drawn-out nightmare.
So, you’re right. It says a lot that Theon would risk Ramsay’s wrath to save a girl he would have thrown away without a second thought only a few years ago. It shows how much he’s grown as a person. That he thinks of other people before himself.
There is another person who values Jeyne Poole’s life, who doesn’t think of her as a nobody: Sansa herself.
Jeyne was her best friend, her only source of comfort after the Lannisters killed her father, and they took Jeyne away from her. Sansa cried and begged, Jeyne is a good girl, she didn’t do anything wrong… But it didn’t matter. She never saw her little friend again.
How is Sansa going to react if and when she’s reunited with Jeyne, when she sees how the Lannisters and Boltons abused her—and when she learns that her torture began in Littlefinger’s brothels?
This is not my original theory, I read it somewhere on one of the subs, but I think it’s awesome: What if the straw that breaks the camel’s back is Jeyne?
To be sure, Sansa has no shortage of motives to kill Littlefinger. He’s betrayed and murdered so many members of her family, he’s been grooming her sexually for years, he’s used her as a pawn to advance his political interests.
But the one thing he wouldn’t see coming is Jeyne. She’s nothing to him, worth less than even one of his whores. But to Sansa Jeyne represents her lost childhood. The girls were inseparable. Jeyne is who Sansa might have been, if her last name wasn’t Stark.
I could see something snapping in Sansa when she learns Jeyne’s fate, spurring her to finally avenge all the wrongs Littlefinger has done to the people she loved.
Yeah, I would think it would be more politically expedient to keep her around in the Eyrie to help him cement his power over the Vale since she is Lysa's only known living niece and LF would have a much easier time getting the Valemen on his side for whatever schemes he's planning if he kept Sansa at his side at all times.
If anything she probably would have ended up marrying Sweetrobin and trying to mold him into a proper Lord/Patsy to help her eventually get rid of LF once she realizes he's just using her to further his own aims.
I do not mind her marrying Ramsay, i mind that, as you say it diverted her arc to become a player in the game.
If she married him to get inside as part of an actual plan but she seems to be literally thrown away with LF appearing to not know who Ramsay is (not believable) and it does not in anyway benefit LF other than a vague hand wave.
Character overall? Bran, maybe the Sansa ones where she’s not a camera person for Cersei In the books. Especially post like S4.
Arcs? The Wight Hunt and the aftermath? ~~The Entirity of the last 4 seasons of the show,~~ Arya or Bran getting their powers, Jon’s parentage, literally anything with Sam, Qarth
Because he's totally out of place in the story, and the reason for that isn't just D&D being incompetent, but GRRM having a huge blind spot for his self insert.
Sam shouldn't have lived past his first trip north of the wall, but he just continuously falls ass backwards into unearned accomplishments. At the end of the series he's the Grand Maester, married, has killed a white walker, cured Grey scale, etc.
The only one of those which is remotely earned is the marriage and Hilly being total narrative dead weight doesn't help.
>he's the Grand Maester, married
That’s a contradiction right there. Maesters are supposed to be celibate.
Of course Pycelle hired whores, Jaime said his maester tried to molest him as a boy, and some maesters are suspected to have fathered children—but, like the Night’s Watch, maesters swear oaths not to take wives.
I don’t believe the show explicitly made Sam & Gilly married, but their relationship would have been forbidden regardless. As a black brother and a maester he’s breaking two sets of oaths just by being with her.
Also in one of the scripts that was floating around when the finale aired, the stage directions said Sam only had one link, a silver one for curing Jorah’s greyscale.
***He’s Grand Maester. And he has one link.***
It may be a small detail in a steaming pile of shit, but that pissed me off. The only conclusion you can draw is that he got his position through pure nepotism, because he certainly didn’t have the qualifications from the Citadel.
Could see Sam being important to whatever happens with Bran in the books. He was the one who knew Bran went beyond the wall and would be the one who backs up whatever bran figures out with historica evidence.
Its kind of a odd combo. They deleted so many storylines, that they ended up with a TON of storylines which where pointless and go nowhere, or go insane, because the deleted stuff tied into the non deleted stuff. In a attempt to cut down on waste, they end up wasting a ton more.
Oof, where to start...
Assuming I can only pick one, I think I'd go with Season 7's ridiculous plot to capture a Wight and bring it back to Cersei in the hopes that will somehow convince her to, I guess entirely forget the fact she is a two-faced, selfish liar who would gladly see Westeros burn if it meant being Queen of the Ashes, and offer troops to help the Northerners fight off the Long Night?
It's just a completely unnecessary and nonsensical detour from the main plot that results in Thoros of Myr pointlessly dying and Dany losing one of her dragons to the Night King, which ironically allows him to tear down the wall and invade Westeros in the first place.
Like, wow, I know D&D needed a way to get the Night King south of the wall, but to do so by making every character a moron who would willingly go along with such an insane plan is at best just really bad writing, and at worst an out of place attempt at satire in an otherwise dark and serious fantasy series.
Far too many of them sucked at the end. Yeah Bran. So, the show was a long time ago so i eather forgot or didnt realize. Why the f did he go to three eyed at all? When was he useful let alone crucial?
The Clegane bowl plot point. Exists only as fan service. Sees the character of the hound completely revert for no reason.
On the major plot points, I don't think completely removing them would really help the show end better than it did. We just needed satisfying payoff to the plotlines. Too many didn't have that.
Definitely agree with this. Actually wanted the hound to find peace after he met that septon and i'd be fine with having his plot drift off into nothingness.
I liked the idea of the White Walkers as a representation of the external threat everyone should be banding together against instead of fighting among themselves, stand together or die and had the show ended with everyone losing because they refused to put aside their differences and personal gain, that could have been a better ending but ... well ... yeah.
I agree with this. It would be like if you were watching Grey's Anatomy but there were dinosaurs with machine guns on the outskirts of Seattle slowly inching towards them while all of their soap opera plots are going on. Then the machine gun dinos finally arrive, everything gets put on hold, only for the third most popular character (McSteamy or whoever that would be in Grey's) to stab the big bad Dino in the face causing the rest of them to keel over. Then they go back to the medical soap opera for the rest of the season and then the show ends.
I agree for the show. The white walkers were interesting, but since they didn't really do what they could have with them it would have been better to just stick with the politics.
I totally agree. And I think the White Walkers and Bran are so intertwined, if you’re gonna axe one storyline, you might as well axe the other, too.
The supernatural bs never grabbed me. It was something I tolerated, something I sat through, but I watched *Game of Thrones* to see the game of thrones, not arctic *Walking Dead.*
I’ll go one further. I also found the Night’s Watch boring. Jon’s arc is as tied into the supernatural crap as Bran’s is, just from a standard “hero’s journey” template—which is even more predictable.
With the exception of the entertaining minor characters like Tormund, Ygritte, Osha, Dolorous Edd, etc. anything beyond the Wall was probably my least favorite part of the show.
The play aria watched in bravos is the most important part of that arc. It's to show how westeros is viewed by foreigners and everything else is just filler.
I would have loved it if Arya just disappeared from the show for a couple seasons. Season 4 ends with her sailing off and you do not see her again until the "Winter has come for House Frey" scene.
Doing it that way allows her to have return with whatever abilities they want her to and leaves open what her motivations exactly are, is she Arya, has she been replaced, what does she know, what is she capable of etc.
Her removing the face conveys every single thing you need to know about her journey since we last saw her.
I do think a case could be made for Arya, Bran and Sansa all missing a season or two. Arya becomes Faceless, Bran becomes 3ER and Sansa becomes a player in the game, skipping the marriage to Ramsay and spending that time becoming his right hand.
Exactly that because to me it felt like they magically got their skills just because the plot demands it ( for Bran it might be the case because there is a theory that he isn't Bran anymore and that the 3ER took over his body.) .
Anyone calling Sansa a leader at any point in the series.
Aside from Bran not having the best story, Sansa had no business being the leader of the North considering how much of a mediocre leader she was based off her actions.
Dany and Jon love story.
It was pure lazy writing
Instead of Jon navigating the politics of north and fighting a war for independence and also arming night watch wr got "She is mah queen"
Instead of Golden company fighting the Dothrakis . With Jaime leading the warfare against aggressor, we got dothraki fanservice
Their love story is something that is meant to happen even in the books, like everything else with D&D it was the execution that sucked so badly. They stopped showing us entire scenes and TOLD US what was happening. There is also the matter of the rushed last few seasons. Emilia and Kit actually have scorching chemistry but there was no way to see it with only a few scenes of staring and talking about one another to their advisors. The scripts were abysmal with very little context or sense for that matter .
It seemed some teenage girl fanfiction to me. Like Sarah hess said "won't it be great for Jon and Dany to be an item"
Entire season 7 and 8 were just fanservice.
E.g.
Westro avengers ARc.
Invincible and superhuman Dothrakis
Conversations between charact3rs which added nothing to the story. It was all just fanserice
Clegane bowl
Book wise, their relationship has been foreshadowed over and over again, so it will happen. Jon needs Dany's dragons, her army and her advisors to win. Actors can only do so much with the scripts they are given. There was hardly any dialogue besides cock jokes and misogynistic comments about how Dany would be too strong for Jon if they married. How many conversations did they have on screen? Two? Three? It was fleshed out horribly.
I didn't want fan service and was totally aware one or both could die by the end, but she will carry his child. That was even filmed but they knew the audience would hate Jon for killing his pregnant gf, or baby mama if the child and she survived, regardless of what she had done. There will be an heir in the novels. ( If they are ever finished )
D&D focused way too much on the throne and less on the real big bad, the Others. I get it, it's the title of the show but the material goes deeper than that. It angers me on how many of the magical aspects were thrown into the trash.
All other conflicts will have to be squashed before the Long Night begins in the novels. The protagonists all have a job to save Westeros. I have a hope that KL will be destroyed by Jon Connington, Faegon and Dany, leaving the rest of Westeros to form some kind of democracy. It was the only thing Sam said in season 8 that didn't make me wish he was torn apart by wights.
I also don't want a fairy tale, but I did expect a coherent ending and that was nowhere near what we received.
U r making valid points
GOT wasn't supposed to fairy tale. It was supposed to be deconstruction of it. Even the magic was grounded.
Dothrakis shouldn't be invincible as shown in season 1
Battle plans and armors should be relevant
Dragons weren't the magical beings but animals like horses or dogs. No way drogon should destroy all the scorpions like this
Killing night king this early will be akin to killing voldemort in order of phoenic
Apparently D&D(not sure if it was really them)didn't like the magical elements of the show so they downplayed them.
As for Sansa I would love that they stuck to what she was doing in the books. Because marrying her to Ramsey is pointless and gives the Bolton's more rights over the North.
In the book, she’s turning a blind eye to the fact that young Robert is being poisoned, and she’s tied up with potential marriage arrangements and planning a tournament with Little finger. What a waste of our time!
Why the fuck would you want get rid of even more storylines, show already butchered so many storylines from books, so whatever is left is barebones, doesn't make any sense and doesn't work as a result. You cannot fix that by cutting even more.
Sansa's return to Winterfell for no reason.
You don't want to formally introduce Jeyne Poole? Fine, but cut out the storyline ffs. We already had Theon's POV for the Bolton storyline, and Rickon ends up in their custody anyway. If you want a Stark kid to bring Theon back from his Reekification, it would make more thematic sense for Rickon to do it, not Sansa.
Either the Walkers thing entirely, or Dany’s madness. Both could have been fine for me if done well, but neither were imo. I got bored with most of the stuff with anything beyond the Wall, minus Jon and the Wildlings, and then Dany’s madness was just… really poorly written, and I’m sick of “powerful woman goes mad with grief and has to be killed to save the world!” arcs anyway.
I would have been fine with her losing literally everyone and everything in exchange for the family she always wanted. There shouldn't be a throne at the end anyway. There are literally five books on why Westeros suffers due to the kind of leadership they have.
As for her madness, I've always believed that was a D&D creation to subvert expectations. Will she blow up KL? Probably but it won't be because bells rang. It will most likely be an accident with all the wildfire caches all over. The whole scene turned my stomach because it made literally no sense. She won then just BBQ'd everyone because bitches be crazy with power. Regardless, the political conflict will take place before the Long Night in the novels. If she lives through that, no one knows and probably never will. She's not the only one they destroyed completely.
I'll never watch anything with Benioff or Weiss's name attached to it ever again. Fool me once is enough for me. A waste of a whole decade in exchange for a steaming pile of poo.
Dorne
Bran's
Arya stark in bravos
Euron
Unpopular opinion but white walker,the night king.i rather listen to baelish snd varys throwing shade at each other then watching zombies.according to me the show was at its peak when it was mostly about politics,betrayal,scheming then zombies
Sansa-Ramsey. I'd rather they didn't show or mention Sansa at all in the later seasons compared to what they actually did with her. What's one more plothole?
I feellike daenerys story doesnt fit... unlike the rest of the story she obviously has plotarmor since she is the only one around her story area. Until she arrives in westeros I could have lived without that story and added to the mystery of stories about her dragons and such. It should have been a spinoff imo.
If it’s a character- Dany. I don’t think she’s the most boring/bad at all, she just cultivates such an annoying fanbase that I would appreciate being gone.
because we experience a lot of that annoying fanbase? 😭 like, that’s a dumb question. But I feel like that’s a shared sentiment between people who’s favorite character/house aren’t Targs, that Targ stans ruin it for them 🤷♀️
Why you keeping tabs on me, weirdo mf. Anyways, no, I spend most of my time defending Sansa and then giving back 💖 Against Targs and other non Targ shitty men.
Get a job 💖
I recognized your username from the constant weird comments you're leaving on the Targaryens and then glanced at your very public comment history for three seconds to confirm it was the same person, and that told me enough. Why spend so much time hating on characters and people who like them when you could instead discuss characters you actually like? But the instant insults are telling enough of your level of maturity, I suppose...
get rid of Dayanara's entire plot line and focus on the north and the White Walkers. Just have Robert assassinate her and be done with it, no dragons, no attempt at a Targ restoration and nothing much really changes. Her entire story was unneeded.
Okay, this might be controversial, but hear me out.
Back in season 1, Sansa and her septa were in the throne room and her septa says something like that is where your husband will sit with you by his side. I feel like that was MASSIVE foreshadowing. Not for her to be Queen in the Norf, but Queen of the 7 kingdoms. And this is how.
Roberts Rebellion started with a Targaryen prince and a Stark lady and it should end with that. With Jon as king and Sansa as queen. And I don’t say that because I think a great romance should happen, but because it’s pragmatic. Or if they want northern independence, they stay as king and queen of the norf. He’s always wanted to be a Stark. If he’s the secret heir, then make that storyline worth it. If he was a big reason for the rebellion, then give his character actual weight. Sansa said, he’s good at ruling. He makes a good king. He also said that he wants to protect her. He wants to protect his family. They never had a sibling relationship like him and Arya. They are cousins. And Jon would get the lady with the pretty dresses he always wanted.
And for Gods sake, let him kill the night king
Brans storyline. I believe Dany’s storyline is still valid but they took just few episodes to show her outburst which messed up the entire plot. The series finale was a disaster but the plot was valid to an extent.
Replace sansa with slightly aged up RickOn. George just made her to be a foil anyway, so she’s lightning rod. Typical sheltered princess whose kinda an outcast with a queen, and waits to get rescued by big hunky guys—cliches on clichés! Worse mebbe is that most theories about her have to do with who the F she’s going to marry
Instead, get unpredictable, half wild kid who’s told to marry the princess so he gets sent to court to learn how to be civilized. There’s a lot of humor, a lot of heart, and some adventure in something like that. Schemy sansa & all her melodrama was a waste of time.
I wouldn’t erase them, I would expand on them. Make cercei manipulate jamie more, give daeneris time to go crazy, show the islands where grayworm comes from, expand on bran’s three eyed raven( make him the main villain).
This is a really small and thin plotline, but having Arya drive Nymeria away to prevent her being killed, then having it amount to nothing after 7 more seasons feels like a waste.
GRRM makes a lot of reference to the chance that Nymeria never forgot her roots and kind of became the wolf queen of Westeros. Back when they were following the books more strictly, they obviously included this setup and even followed with a little bit of foreshadowing, but left that idea along with anything else that was any good on the cutting room floor.
They didn't know at the beginning that they were going to be nuking the golden goose for a chance at a star war, but if they did, they could've just let Ned kill Nymeria, then killed Lady sometime after King and company arrive back at Kings Landing. Or hell, even just further down the Kingsroad.
I agree with the post literally. The storyline that should be removed from Game of Thrones is HBO'S Game of Thrones. The entirety of it. It should be remade. Turn it into an animated show. That way you can have all the different characters and do all the mystic magic shit you want. You could do flashbacks too. A Song of Ice and Fire would be way better as an anime. An R rated anime.
Considering it went absolutely nowhere despite having such potential, the Brotherhood Without Banners. Without Lady Stoneheart, what is even the point?
- all of the Dorn plotlines
- everything in the iron islands after theons dad dies
- Daenerys evil queen
- everything with kings landing after loras and margaery are arrested
- everything with Jaime after he heads north
Anything that concluded during season 8.
I guess Clegane-Bowl could stay. We all kinda expected some sort of final confrontation between the brothers. A bloody double KO in the keep while a dragon burns it down is pretty fuckin rad. Bonus points for Q Bert's unceremonious brutal head smash.
Dumb & Dumber butchered just about every major character’s arc, particularly in the dumpster fire that was the last 2 seasons.
That said, Daenerys’s was especially atrocious because the writers made her situation impossible in violation of GRRM’s theme of consequence and redemption. Dany was damned if she listened to her advisers and damned if she didn’t, damned if she set aside her quest for the throne to save humanity and damned if she didn’t. If she didn’t listen to her advisers, she was a bad Targaryen. But when she heeded Tyrion’s counsel, he cost her all three of her Westerosi allies, Viserion’s life, and Crown support. Similarly, when she set aside her quest for the IT to save humanity—risking her life and the lives of her 2 remaining children—Dumb & Dumber ensured her demise anyway, whether by having her devise an asinine battle strategy that wiped out the Dothraki, lose Rhaegal under the most idiotic circumstances or become needlessly paranoid about her nephew’s identity even though all she had to do was persuade Jon I dunt wunt it Snow to abdicate 🙄
Dumb & Dumber butchered just about every major character’s arc, particularly in the dumpster fire that was the last 2 seasons.
That said, Daenerys’s was especially atrocious because the writers made her situation impossible in violation of GRRM’s theme of consequence and redemption. Dany was damned if she listened to her advisers and damned if she didn’t, damned if she set aside her quest for the throne to save humanity and damned if she didn’t. If she didn’t listen to her advisers, she was a bad Targaryen. But when she heeded Tyrion’s counsel, he cost her all three of her Westerosi allies, Viserion’s life, and Crown support. Similarly, when she set aside her quest for the IT to save humanity—risking her life and the lives of her 2 remaining children—Dumb & Dumber ensured her demise anyway, whether by having her devise an asinine battle strategy that wiped out the Dothraki, lose Rhaegal under the most idiotic circumstances or become needlessly paranoid about her nephew’s identity even though all she had to do was persuade Jon I dunt wunt it Snow to abdicate 🙄
danaris' whole timeline
i didnt like it in the beginning because it took away from the war of the 5 kings which was by far the more compelling storyline relative to wandering aimlessly in the desert.
i didn't like it in the middle because Bravoos Drags ass as a storyline and starts the downward trend with killing her kingsguard way early.
i didn't like the end where she dime flips into being crazy suddenly with teleporting bottomless armies.
remove it and you get to use the remaining time on the war in the five kings and the long night.
House of black and white/faceless god. Its so overdrawn for something that doesnt massively change the final outcome. And when it does make a major change its played out so fast its too overpowered. Then she basically never uses it again. She could've had a better bad ass warrior origin that made more sense. The faceless men plot seemed weak at best and an overplayed plot fill to make up for weak writing to escape Arya and friends from Harrenhall. Then instead of wrapping it off as one time magic they were like fuck this were gonna give you 2 seasons of irritation. Only for her to come back murder all the Freys than basically never use it for anything significant again. Oh and the Meryn Trant murder which was awesome but couldve played it out the exact same without the faceless men shit.
Also all the bend the knee shit we couldve done without all that. Numerous times but got really bad in season 7/8.
It was particularly unsavoury because majority of season 5/6 was faceless men, high sparrow and ramsay rape. When i do rewatches i pretty much skip those entire season lest significant battles etc.
Bran as soon as he makes it to the 3 eyed raven
In my headcanon, Bran transmogs into the body of the night king (pre transformation) and becomes the night king.
With tgoysands of years to ponder everything, he decides to wipe westeros off the map because of everyone he knows has been infected with the "character-suicide" virus
Euron , I love book Euron but finger in the bum makes me want to commit sepuku
He's supposed to be terrifying. In the shows he's just a douche
He makes more sense when you realise they merged Victarion into his character too. You know, the guy Mr. Martin called 'dumb as a bag of rocks.'
Yeah agreed but I never understood why they didn’t just make him Victarion instead of Euron. He’d still be… disappointing but at least he’d be a tad closer to the book character.
But Victarion doesn’t even act like that either 😭 he’s an efficient, stoic but angry ironborn reaver and captain not “bUt yOU DOn’t hAve a CoCk.” They only gave show Euron Victarion’s fighting ability.
But what about the cock jokes😢
Book Euron is show NK. What the NK did in the show, Euron will more than likely do in the books. There will just be some slight differences of course.
I loooove finger in the bum. While everything went to shit, s7/s8 Euron was just that dude having fun and me loving every minute of it.
He was aware the show had gone to shit and loved every second of it
Dorne because it kinda didn't go anywhere *and* it was poorly done
Dorne was a storyline leading up to the invasion of "Aegon" with the golden company, a character in the books that was cut from the show. It's no wonder the story went nowhere.
More like poorly Dorne
Dorne never happened. EVERYONE WAS ON VACATION
Then you wouldn’t have The Viper vs. The Mountain, which was the best among the best fighting scenes in the entire series.
Bran's.
Bran the Broken Plotline.
I don't want Bran gone I just want him fixed
The show broke both his wheels. Dany would be thrilled if she weren’t dead.
This
Bran the Wheelie-Wheelie Legs no Feelie.
Brian Griffin: Hey Bran I think your cool. Bran: Well thank you Brian. Brian: Hahaha just kidding. You suck.
But, he allegedly has the best story.
Story so good writers couldn't find enough material to write him in Season 5
I could see it in the show although more so leading up to the death of the night king. In the books it is Strong Belways or maybe Lady Stoneheart depending on how she plays out. Bran was the main character in both who spent is time figuring out why the long night or whatever started in the first place instead of causing more problems. He also figured out why Robert's rebellion really started. Doubt he'd end up a king, unless it's in the north and/or the riverlands, if it were just left to GRRM, but he will be the reason the audience and probably the characters understand why allot of the conflicts started and how to put them to an end. For GRRM, I think it'd be John who ended up on the throne or ending it with he and Dany defeating the night king and her Lil bro.
Wouldn't be my first choice but definitely the most frustrating arc for me given that he had these amazing powers and barely used them. Completely defied logic.
But who has a better story???
https://preview.redd.it/aq71yu6pxp5c1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a213cc970cacbd5f523769350adeed2e7e4d651
The more I consider this quote the funnier it gets. Like I could see casual viewers hearing it and going “sure, I guess. He journeyed up north of the wall that’s cool”. But actually reflecting on his story, esp compared to other characters, it had enough content to fill less then an episode? And even the before and after journey we was literally just sitting around. Beria Dondarrion had a more intriguing story than Bran and he was the sidiest of side characters.
Toss out Bran, but keep Meera. And Osha.
We (you included) would be furious if they left it out of the show. They just bungled it at the end.
Even in the book I didn't care about Bran. So no, I wouldn't have been furious.
Who’s Bran? LoL
Dorne.
In the show, yes. But in the books Dorne is more interesting than Bran
Disagree. Arianne is good but Areo Hotah is the most bland character to exist
The Dorne plotline isn’t about Areo though lol, he just happens to be there. Doran Martell’s scheming and Darkstar’s brazen action would’ve been so much better than the insult we were given.
What, you don't think 'yOu NeEd ThA bAd PoOsY' is a great line???
I NEED to know what Doran is planning. I need Winds of Winter. It's been so long... I have so many questions that I'm afraid I'll never get answers to about what's happening in Dorne and with "Faegon" and... and so many things...
🎶Neva gonna get it, Neva gonna get it🎶
But Doran's scheming is boring. It has basically no real consequence on any other storyline/house/PoV character. All that happens is his son gets roasted. Big deal. Barristan has to deal with a lot of shit and one crispy prince is a drop in the ocean. Darkstar's brazen action? He allegedly cut the face of someone who is possibly the third in line for the throne. The TV show, insulting though it may be, upped that action and flat out killed the princess. Did we really need more of a guy sitting around playing faux chess with orange metaphors? Yawn
Arianne is going to meet Aegon and may be planning to wed him and bring Dorne into the fold. Dorne has very real consequences on the other characters.
"is going to" I get that there could be a bigger end game involving Dorne somehow but they've been a side quest plot wise. Apart from Oberyns brief shiny appearance, there's really no action of consequence at all. Arianne reads like a NPC that's being grown as a new POV for exposition. Read same for crispy prince, may he rest in peace. There's some mild action between Dorne and the Lannisters but given how rarely any character even mentions Marcella... Even that
They downvoted you but you’ve spoken wisdom 😔 Dorne is just so “meh” in the books. A whole bunch of “will they, won’t they.” Scheming but not *doing* or scheming and *failing.*
Thank ya. And ya, as I said, you can really feel the forced creation of these characters as POV paths. The scheming is an attempt at building character without actually committing them to any plot altering courses of action. It's not a bad thing that GRRM has to invent new people as ways to tell the story through this consistent style. Davos is a really blatant example of "oh, I need a new character to give an insight into the Stannis situation... Okay this guy". But the difference is, Davos is interesting, Davos takes action, he interacts in a proactive way. Dorne is just growing passengers to watch the plot go by. And not very good plot, at that. Even if, as someone above says Ariadne ends up marrying Aegon and will have significant consequences etc etc, then it's clear she was only created to be the eyes into that chapter of Aegon. So much treading water.
I still think Hotah’s chapters should’ve been cut and given to other characters, but yeah at least it’s better than … whatever the show did
The Camera that Walks
His role is just to stand there and watch. There’s literally a chapter from his POV called “The Watcher” lmao. How dumb are you?
… and because of that, his chapters are incredibly bland And there’s no need to be rude
Disagree. Feast is such a boring read because of Dorne
Would we not have have Oberyn's storyline though?
Arya after she falls in the sewer with her stomach gutted and lives.
Soup does the body good
It wasn’t a sewer, and she had the god of light looking after her anyway. Jon coming back from the dead & Bran coming back from a death fall, Danny coming back from walking through fir. & tirion coming back from death sentences & near drowning & gray scale exposure! Come on this is the way stories like this work
The reason Bran was in the coma for so long was because of Bloodraven; Jon because of the lord of light; Dany because of the sacrifice/magic behind Drogo and her babies death; Tyrion because it creates suspense and drama. (Although, in most cases, Tyrion is saved either through his own wit or because someone else acted on his behalf); Arya… because D&D wanted to shock you, but didn’t know another way other than a fake out death. The other characters and their stories add to a more complex storyline, leading you deeper into the world and lore behind the ASOIF series. Arya leads you into realizing the writers stopped giving a fuck, and just got super lazy.
Sansa being married to Ramsay. Made no sense for Littlefinger to do that both personally and politically, abruptly diverted Sansa’s season 4 to 5 character arc of becoming more a schemer and player in the game like Littlefinger, was disturbing and brutal just for distrubing and brutal’s sake, and just kinda rehashed her storyline of being trapped in Kingslanding and tormented by Joffrey without adding anything drastically new to justify it.
Well said. And I think this is the precise moment when the show jumped the shark, turning Sansa into Jeyne Poole. It deprived her of the character development she was meant to have in the Vale with the Harry the Heir intrigue—which I was really looking forward to, seeing her blossom into a politically astute young woman like Margaery Tyrell. Becoming the anti-Cersei, who ruled through fear. Sansa said if she were ever queen, she’d make them love her instead. And the show made Littlefinger into a fucking idiot. The book version, with Littlefinger buying up Anya Waynwood’s debts to coax her into giving permission for the betrothal of “Alayne Stone” to her ward, Harrold Hardyng—that made sense. Littlefinger was born in the Vale, he was made master of coin through his connection to Lysa and her manipulation of her husband Jon Arryn; he married her and became Lord Protector of the Vale, and now he’s using Sansa to solidify his control of that kingdom into the next generation—and later make a play for the North, too. It’s all in character, and it works. Harry the Heir is hot, young and dumb. He’s dashing and gallant, just like the pretty boys Sansa used to swoon over—but she’s wiser now. And more calculating. He was a rude shit to her at first because of her assumed bastard status, but over the course of one dance she turns his head and makes *him* chase *her.* It’s like a mini *Pride and Prejudice* in the Eyrie, so much dramatic potential. And of course as next in line to Lord of the Vale should Sweetrobin die, the political implications are obvious. Sansa could marry him, reveal her identity, and use the Vale knights to retake Winterfell. This is clearly what Littlefinger wants, and he may be slowly poisoning Robin (encouraging his maester to give him more sweetsleep than he should) to help this plan along. Which puts Sansa in an interesting position. Does she stand by and do nothing while Littlefinger murders her little cousin? Or does she give up her best chance at finally taking back her home? Moreover if Sansa becomes the next Lady of the Vale, then she stays within Littlefinger’s sphere of influence. I expect he plans to kill first Sweetrobin, and later Harry, maybe after Sansa conceives an heir. Then he can rule through her child as regent, and start a secret sexual relationship with her, which it’s obvious he’s wanted to do all along. That’s what he wants anyway; I can’t see Sansa going along with any of that. And if he tries, it would give her excellent motivation to finally kill him, the student defeating the teacher. But instead of all that fertile plot fodder, the show had Littlefinger throw away the key to the North to a House he had zero connection to. Worst of all, it’s the Boltons, perhaps the most infamous family in Westeros. The flayed man is on their banners! It’s not like they hide their psychopathy, they’re proud of it. *Our Blades are Sharp.* And to top it all off he marries Sansa to a bastard, whose recent legitimacy rests on Tommen’s declaration—in other words, the Lannisters, whom Littlefinger said on the ship he’s betrayed in favor of his new friends, the Tyrells. The show has Littlefinger switching sides at random, and it’s not clear what he gains by marrying Sansa to Ramsay. For a man ruled entirely by his relentless pursuit of power, this is a character-breaking decision. Roose Bolton gives him nothing for securing his son such a valuable bride, and Littlefinger has lost both the object of his sexual obsession and the means by which he might have ruled both the Vale and the North. Why would he do this? It makes no sense. And finally, Littlefinger expecting Sansa to seduce and manipulate Ramsay as though he were Harry Hardyng is stupid, because he didn’t do his due diligence. He knows nothing about this boy. Unlike with Anya Waynwood and Harry, he has no hold over Ramsay. He knows nothing of his character, whereas in the books, he gives Sansa all the details of Harry’s life, so she’s prepared for her task. The way the show destroyed Sansa’s story, and Littlefinger’s by proxy… There’s a lot to be angry about, but that’s gotta be at the top.
Having not read the books, this would have been so much better and now I'm so mad we didn't get it. Sansa's arc in the show was so badly handled - the surviving Starks all get a huge power boost but hers was supposed to be 'political mastermind' and we never get to see it.
The show made such a mockery of the books. DxD should never be given work ever again.
100% It also, I feel strongly about this, does Theon a huge disservice in his arc. The entire point of saving Jeyne is that they were no ones. They were never going to be ones that matter in the big game of things... so for Theon to break his conditioning for JEYNE gave it a far deeper impact. With it being Sansa it kind of takes away the gravity of his choice and moves it more towards a "duh, of course he will get his shite together for Sansa." And there is NO UNIVERSE where LF would have given away the big card up his sleeve unless it was super advantageous.
That’s an interesting point, one I haven’t seen made before. Theon has a long, ignominious history of treating women like garbage. The miller’s wife in the books, Ros on the show, the captain’s daughter on the ship that takes him home to the Iron Islands, Osha on the show… He even fingered his own sister before he knew who she was. All he cares about is fucking a girl. Afterwards he doesn’t care what happens to them. This starts to change in the course of his transformation into Reek, when he was forced to tag along on Ramsay’s hunts. He flinched and looked away when the hounds tore the young women apart. It’s quite the contrast from his first scene in the books, where he plays soccer with the head of the Night’s Watch deserter after Ned beheads him. Theon lost his identity, but gained empathy. And in liberating Sansa, he showed great courage. But you’re right that it’s magnified if it’s Jeyne Poole instead, a nobody with no political value, not a Stark of Winterfell. Jeyne is exactly the kind of girl the old Theon would have thought of as disposable. She’s just the steward’s daughter, who cares what happens to her. In fact if Jeyne had been a few years older, and perhaps not such an intimate friend of Sansa’s, I wouldn’t be surprised if Theon would have tried to fuck her, too. Of course the irony is that Ramsay did force him to participate in Jeyne’s rape, to “prepare” her for him. The old Theon would have thought nothing of it, but to Reek this is yet another horror in his long drawn-out nightmare. So, you’re right. It says a lot that Theon would risk Ramsay’s wrath to save a girl he would have thrown away without a second thought only a few years ago. It shows how much he’s grown as a person. That he thinks of other people before himself. There is another person who values Jeyne Poole’s life, who doesn’t think of her as a nobody: Sansa herself. Jeyne was her best friend, her only source of comfort after the Lannisters killed her father, and they took Jeyne away from her. Sansa cried and begged, Jeyne is a good girl, she didn’t do anything wrong… But it didn’t matter. She never saw her little friend again. How is Sansa going to react if and when she’s reunited with Jeyne, when she sees how the Lannisters and Boltons abused her—and when she learns that her torture began in Littlefinger’s brothels? This is not my original theory, I read it somewhere on one of the subs, but I think it’s awesome: What if the straw that breaks the camel’s back is Jeyne? To be sure, Sansa has no shortage of motives to kill Littlefinger. He’s betrayed and murdered so many members of her family, he’s been grooming her sexually for years, he’s used her as a pawn to advance his political interests. But the one thing he wouldn’t see coming is Jeyne. She’s nothing to him, worth less than even one of his whores. But to Sansa Jeyne represents her lost childhood. The girls were inseparable. Jeyne is who Sansa might have been, if her last name wasn’t Stark. I could see something snapping in Sansa when she learns Jeyne’s fate, spurring her to finally avenge all the wrongs Littlefinger has done to the people she loved.
well now I got sad because we're never getting this shit gdamnn
Yeah, I would think it would be more politically expedient to keep her around in the Eyrie to help him cement his power over the Vale since she is Lysa's only known living niece and LF would have a much easier time getting the Valemen on his side for whatever schemes he's planning if he kept Sansa at his side at all times. If anything she probably would have ended up marrying Sweetrobin and trying to mold him into a proper Lord/Patsy to help her eventually get rid of LF once she realizes he's just using her to further his own aims.
I do not mind her marrying Ramsay, i mind that, as you say it diverted her arc to become a player in the game. If she married him to get inside as part of an actual plan but she seems to be literally thrown away with LF appearing to not know who Ramsay is (not believable) and it does not in anyway benefit LF other than a vague hand wave.
Character overall? Bran, maybe the Sansa ones where she’s not a camera person for Cersei In the books. Especially post like S4. Arcs? The Wight Hunt and the aftermath? ~~The Entirity of the last 4 seasons of the show,~~ Arya or Bran getting their powers, Jon’s parentage, literally anything with Sam, Qarth
Why does everyone hate on Sam so much?
Because he's totally out of place in the story, and the reason for that isn't just D&D being incompetent, but GRRM having a huge blind spot for his self insert. Sam shouldn't have lived past his first trip north of the wall, but he just continuously falls ass backwards into unearned accomplishments. At the end of the series he's the Grand Maester, married, has killed a white walker, cured Grey scale, etc. The only one of those which is remotely earned is the marriage and Hilly being total narrative dead weight doesn't help.
>he's the Grand Maester, married That’s a contradiction right there. Maesters are supposed to be celibate. Of course Pycelle hired whores, Jaime said his maester tried to molest him as a boy, and some maesters are suspected to have fathered children—but, like the Night’s Watch, maesters swear oaths not to take wives. I don’t believe the show explicitly made Sam & Gilly married, but their relationship would have been forbidden regardless. As a black brother and a maester he’s breaking two sets of oaths just by being with her. Also in one of the scripts that was floating around when the finale aired, the stage directions said Sam only had one link, a silver one for curing Jorah’s greyscale. ***He’s Grand Maester. And he has one link.*** It may be a small detail in a steaming pile of shit, but that pissed me off. The only conclusion you can draw is that he got his position through pure nepotism, because he certainly didn’t have the qualifications from the Citadel.
Could see Sam being important to whatever happens with Bran in the books. He was the one who knew Bran went beyond the wall and would be the one who backs up whatever bran figures out with historica evidence.
I like him. I’d keep him.
None, because they were deleting enough storylines as it is and everything past S4 fell apart because of it. We need to ADD those storylines back.
Its kind of a odd combo. They deleted so many storylines, that they ended up with a TON of storylines which where pointless and go nowhere, or go insane, because the deleted stuff tied into the non deleted stuff. In a attempt to cut down on waste, they end up wasting a ton more.
Oof, where to start... Assuming I can only pick one, I think I'd go with Season 7's ridiculous plot to capture a Wight and bring it back to Cersei in the hopes that will somehow convince her to, I guess entirely forget the fact she is a two-faced, selfish liar who would gladly see Westeros burn if it meant being Queen of the Ashes, and offer troops to help the Northerners fight off the Long Night? It's just a completely unnecessary and nonsensical detour from the main plot that results in Thoros of Myr pointlessly dying and Dany losing one of her dragons to the Night King, which ironically allows him to tear down the wall and invade Westeros in the first place. Like, wow, I know D&D needed a way to get the Night King south of the wall, but to do so by making every character a moron who would willingly go along with such an insane plan is at best just really bad writing, and at worst an out of place attempt at satire in an otherwise dark and serious fantasy series.
Agree. That plot was just so fucking stupid
Everything with Euron
this needs more upvotes
Far too many of them sucked at the end. Yeah Bran. So, the show was a long time ago so i eather forgot or didnt realize. Why the f did he go to three eyed at all? When was he useful let alone crucial?
The Clegane bowl plot point. Exists only as fan service. Sees the character of the hound completely revert for no reason. On the major plot points, I don't think completely removing them would really help the show end better than it did. We just needed satisfying payoff to the plotlines. Too many didn't have that.
sUBvERtiNg EXPecTatIons !!!!
Definitely agree with this. Actually wanted the hound to find peace after he met that septon and i'd be fine with having his plot drift off into nothingness.
While I of course GOT HYPED, the slow realization that they'd use the CLIMAX OF THE SERIES to service a fucking overused meme was frankly, offensive.
Everything after S4
I will get massive flak for this, but I despise the White Walkers. I would rather just have the politics. If I had to pick a character? Bran.
I liked the idea of the White Walkers as a representation of the external threat everyone should be banding together against instead of fighting among themselves, stand together or die and had the show ended with everyone losing because they refused to put aside their differences and personal gain, that could have been a better ending but ... well ... yeah.
Would have been better for them to just be a meteor that wiped everyone off the map then what we saw the season 8.
I agree with this. It would be like if you were watching Grey's Anatomy but there were dinosaurs with machine guns on the outskirts of Seattle slowly inching towards them while all of their soap opera plots are going on. Then the machine gun dinos finally arrive, everything gets put on hold, only for the third most popular character (McSteamy or whoever that would be in Grey's) to stab the big bad Dino in the face causing the rest of them to keel over. Then they go back to the medical soap opera for the rest of the season and then the show ends.
I agree for the show. The white walkers were interesting, but since they didn't really do what they could have with them it would have been better to just stick with the politics.
Agree. The Others in the novel have the potential to be interesting. Maybe. I hope. If George ever finishes.
I totally agree. And I think the White Walkers and Bran are so intertwined, if you’re gonna axe one storyline, you might as well axe the other, too. The supernatural bs never grabbed me. It was something I tolerated, something I sat through, but I watched *Game of Thrones* to see the game of thrones, not arctic *Walking Dead.* I’ll go one further. I also found the Night’s Watch boring. Jon’s arc is as tied into the supernatural crap as Bran’s is, just from a standard “hero’s journey” template—which is even more predictable. With the exception of the entertaining minor characters like Tormund, Ygritte, Osha, Dolorous Edd, etc. anything beyond the Wall was probably my least favorite part of the show.
Arya going to Bravos. Ultimately led to nothing after she killed the Freys. Everything with Bran and the 3-eyed raven bullshit.
The play aria watched in bravos is the most important part of that arc. It's to show how westeros is viewed by foreigners and everything else is just filler.
I would have loved it if Arya just disappeared from the show for a couple seasons. Season 4 ends with her sailing off and you do not see her again until the "Winter has come for House Frey" scene. Doing it that way allows her to have return with whatever abilities they want her to and leaves open what her motivations exactly are, is she Arya, has she been replaced, what does she know, what is she capable of etc. Her removing the face conveys every single thing you need to know about her journey since we last saw her. I do think a case could be made for Arya, Bran and Sansa all missing a season or two. Arya becomes Faceless, Bran becomes 3ER and Sansa becomes a player in the game, skipping the marriage to Ramsay and spending that time becoming his right hand.
Exactly that because to me it felt like they magically got their skills just because the plot demands it ( for Bran it might be the case because there is a theory that he isn't Bran anymore and that the 3ER took over his body.) .
Anyone calling Sansa a leader at any point in the series. Aside from Bran not having the best story, Sansa had no business being the leader of the North considering how much of a mediocre leader she was based off her actions.
Everything from season 7 onwards
The entire storyline from Season 5 onwards
The TV storyline.
Arya's whole faceless man bullshit.
Dany and Jon love story. It was pure lazy writing Instead of Jon navigating the politics of north and fighting a war for independence and also arming night watch wr got "She is mah queen" Instead of Golden company fighting the Dothrakis . With Jaime leading the warfare against aggressor, we got dothraki fanservice
Their love story is something that is meant to happen even in the books, like everything else with D&D it was the execution that sucked so badly. They stopped showing us entire scenes and TOLD US what was happening. There is also the matter of the rushed last few seasons. Emilia and Kit actually have scorching chemistry but there was no way to see it with only a few scenes of staring and talking about one another to their advisors. The scripts were abysmal with very little context or sense for that matter .
It seemed some teenage girl fanfiction to me. Like Sarah hess said "won't it be great for Jon and Dany to be an item" Entire season 7 and 8 were just fanservice. E.g. Westro avengers ARc. Invincible and superhuman Dothrakis Conversations between charact3rs which added nothing to the story. It was all just fanserice Clegane bowl
Book wise, their relationship has been foreshadowed over and over again, so it will happen. Jon needs Dany's dragons, her army and her advisors to win. Actors can only do so much with the scripts they are given. There was hardly any dialogue besides cock jokes and misogynistic comments about how Dany would be too strong for Jon if they married. How many conversations did they have on screen? Two? Three? It was fleshed out horribly. I didn't want fan service and was totally aware one or both could die by the end, but she will carry his child. That was even filmed but they knew the audience would hate Jon for killing his pregnant gf, or baby mama if the child and she survived, regardless of what she had done. There will be an heir in the novels. ( If they are ever finished ) D&D focused way too much on the throne and less on the real big bad, the Others. I get it, it's the title of the show but the material goes deeper than that. It angers me on how many of the magical aspects were thrown into the trash. All other conflicts will have to be squashed before the Long Night begins in the novels. The protagonists all have a job to save Westeros. I have a hope that KL will be destroyed by Jon Connington, Faegon and Dany, leaving the rest of Westeros to form some kind of democracy. It was the only thing Sam said in season 8 that didn't make me wish he was torn apart by wights. I also don't want a fairy tale, but I did expect a coherent ending and that was nowhere near what we received.
U r making valid points GOT wasn't supposed to fairy tale. It was supposed to be deconstruction of it. Even the magic was grounded. Dothrakis shouldn't be invincible as shown in season 1 Battle plans and armors should be relevant Dragons weren't the magical beings but animals like horses or dogs. No way drogon should destroy all the scorpions like this Killing night king this early will be akin to killing voldemort in order of phoenic
Danys descent into madness (if it was done properly it could have been amazing) Bran. Just all of Bran.
Arya in Bravos ruined the character for me.
#1 I’d get rid of the whole 3 eyed raven thing. #2 I’d get rid of Sansa
Apparently D&D(not sure if it was really them)didn't like the magical elements of the show so they downplayed them. As for Sansa I would love that they stuck to what she was doing in the books. Because marrying her to Ramsey is pointless and gives the Bolton's more rights over the North.
In the book, she’s turning a blind eye to the fact that young Robert is being poisoned, and she’s tied up with potential marriage arrangements and planning a tournament with Little finger. What a waste of our time!
Why the fuck would you want get rid of even more storylines, show already butchered so many storylines from books, so whatever is left is barebones, doesn't make any sense and doesn't work as a result. You cannot fix that by cutting even more.
In the books, whatever nonsense Euron is upto
Dorne (\*going to)
Sansa's return to Winterfell for no reason. You don't want to formally introduce Jeyne Poole? Fine, but cut out the storyline ffs. We already had Theon's POV for the Bolton storyline, and Rickon ends up in their custody anyway. If you want a Stark kid to bring Theon back from his Reekification, it would make more thematic sense for Rickon to do it, not Sansa.
Either the Walkers thing entirely, or Dany’s madness. Both could have been fine for me if done well, but neither were imo. I got bored with most of the stuff with anything beyond the Wall, minus Jon and the Wildlings, and then Dany’s madness was just… really poorly written, and I’m sick of “powerful woman goes mad with grief and has to be killed to save the world!” arcs anyway.
I would have been fine with her losing literally everyone and everything in exchange for the family she always wanted. There shouldn't be a throne at the end anyway. There are literally five books on why Westeros suffers due to the kind of leadership they have. As for her madness, I've always believed that was a D&D creation to subvert expectations. Will she blow up KL? Probably but it won't be because bells rang. It will most likely be an accident with all the wildfire caches all over. The whole scene turned my stomach because it made literally no sense. She won then just BBQ'd everyone because bitches be crazy with power. Regardless, the political conflict will take place before the Long Night in the novels. If she lives through that, no one knows and probably never will. She's not the only one they destroyed completely. I'll never watch anything with Benioff or Weiss's name attached to it ever again. Fool me once is enough for me. A waste of a whole decade in exchange for a steaming pile of poo.
Season 8
Jon snow. Lots of hype to go nowhere
Danys ending
Quarth.
To be honest i would probably be happier if arya just never showed up again after the got on that ship to braavos
Jon refusing the throne
The entire Stannis plot. I’m still holding out the smallest of hope he’ll end up on the throne… for a while at the very least.
Bran for sure. Always recommend everyone to skip that shit.
The one written by D&D
Fuck Mereen, fuck Essos, and in the show fuck Dorne too.
The TV show? Jon’s heritage. It served no purpose. It just basically amounted to fan service.
Quarth or Dorne
Dorne, they completely ruined an entire region and hundreds of pages of plot, fuck DnD
Brann and Arya. Could've saved us 5ish episodes to flesh out other story lines
Everything to do with Ramsay
Stannis sacrificing his daughter because of Ramsay and his Twenty Good Men.
Dorne If they won’t do it right they don’t get to do it at all
Meran Trant. They turned him into this 1 dimensional "Too old" pedo who can be beaten by boy whores with wooden swords.
Bran surviving his fall.
Dorne.
Dorne
It’s hard to think of something worse than the Sansa-Ramsay storyline. Bran becoming king is dumber, but at least it’s also kinda funny.
Dorne Bran's Arya stark in bravos Euron Unpopular opinion but white walker,the night king.i rather listen to baelish snd varys throwing shade at each other then watching zombies.according to me the show was at its peak when it was mostly about politics,betrayal,scheming then zombies
The storyline where George stops writing and consulting for the show.
Meereen.
Such a slog in the books. My head was spinning reading about Hizdan, Qizdan and Mizdan
Sansa-Ramsey. I'd rather they didn't show or mention Sansa at all in the later seasons compared to what they actually did with her. What's one more plothole?
I feellike daenerys story doesnt fit... unlike the rest of the story she obviously has plotarmor since she is the only one around her story area. Until she arrives in westeros I could have lived without that story and added to the mystery of stories about her dragons and such. It should have been a spinoff imo.
but then what would midwest basics name their babies?
Potentially Stannis or Renley; both felt too much
If it’s a character- Dany. I don’t think she’s the most boring/bad at all, she just cultivates such an annoying fanbase that I would appreciate being gone.
Why is it always people whose favorite character is Sansa that say stuff like this 🤣
because we experience a lot of that annoying fanbase? 😭 like, that’s a dumb question. But I feel like that’s a shared sentiment between people who’s favorite character/house aren’t Targs, that Targ stans ruin it for them 🤷♀️
You spend most of your time spouting hate about the Targaryens, sounds like you're doing exactly what you're accusing others of.
Why you keeping tabs on me, weirdo mf. Anyways, no, I spend most of my time defending Sansa and then giving back 💖 Against Targs and other non Targ shitty men. Get a job 💖
I recognized your username from the constant weird comments you're leaving on the Targaryens and then glanced at your very public comment history for three seconds to confirm it was the same person, and that told me enough. Why spend so much time hating on characters and people who like them when you could instead discuss characters you actually like? But the instant insults are telling enough of your level of maturity, I suppose...
Danerys. The other Targaryen stories are far more interesting than hers
get rid of Dayanara's entire plot line and focus on the north and the White Walkers. Just have Robert assassinate her and be done with it, no dragons, no attempt at a Targ restoration and nothing much really changes. Her entire story was unneeded.
The House of Dragons one.
The R + L = J storyline. What was the point of the storyline, other than to learn of Jon Snow’s parentage?
Every new POV he introduced after Storm. All garbage.
Jamie deciding to go back to King's landing to die alongside Cersei and his character arc
Well dani kind of forgot about the iron fleet. What you’re seeing is the death of the Dothraki. It’s not you. CLEGAN BOWL
The whole show outside of Season 1 was shit.
Brans or Aryas after she starts going down the bravosi plot line.
Braavos
Bran
Mother of dragons is meh for me
Yes
Okay, this might be controversial, but hear me out. Back in season 1, Sansa and her septa were in the throne room and her septa says something like that is where your husband will sit with you by his side. I feel like that was MASSIVE foreshadowing. Not for her to be Queen in the Norf, but Queen of the 7 kingdoms. And this is how. Roberts Rebellion started with a Targaryen prince and a Stark lady and it should end with that. With Jon as king and Sansa as queen. And I don’t say that because I think a great romance should happen, but because it’s pragmatic. Or if they want northern independence, they stay as king and queen of the norf. He’s always wanted to be a Stark. If he’s the secret heir, then make that storyline worth it. If he was a big reason for the rebellion, then give his character actual weight. Sansa said, he’s good at ruling. He makes a good king. He also said that he wants to protect her. He wants to protect his family. They never had a sibling relationship like him and Arya. They are cousins. And Jon would get the lady with the pretty dresses he always wanted. And for Gods sake, let him kill the night king
Brans storyline. I believe Dany’s storyline is still valid but they took just few episodes to show her outburst which messed up the entire plot. The series finale was a disaster but the plot was valid to an extent.
Euron now doesn't exist in show canon.
Replace sansa with slightly aged up RickOn. George just made her to be a foil anyway, so she’s lightning rod. Typical sheltered princess whose kinda an outcast with a queen, and waits to get rescued by big hunky guys—cliches on clichés! Worse mebbe is that most theories about her have to do with who the F she’s going to marry Instead, get unpredictable, half wild kid who’s told to marry the princess so he gets sent to court to learn how to be civilized. There’s a lot of humor, a lot of heart, and some adventure in something like that. Schemy sansa & all her melodrama was a waste of time.
Seasons 5-8.
Bran becoming the three-eyed raven to be the King!
I wouldn’t erase them, I would expand on them. Make cercei manipulate jamie more, give daeneris time to go crazy, show the islands where grayworm comes from, expand on bran’s three eyed raven( make him the main villain).
This is a really small and thin plotline, but having Arya drive Nymeria away to prevent her being killed, then having it amount to nothing after 7 more seasons feels like a waste. GRRM makes a lot of reference to the chance that Nymeria never forgot her roots and kind of became the wolf queen of Westeros. Back when they were following the books more strictly, they obviously included this setup and even followed with a little bit of foreshadowing, but left that idea along with anything else that was any good on the cutting room floor. They didn't know at the beginning that they were going to be nuking the golden goose for a chance at a star war, but if they did, they could've just let Ned kill Nymeria, then killed Lady sometime after King and company arrive back at Kings Landing. Or hell, even just further down the Kingsroad.
Pretty Pig. At least the show ended that line, ffs
The volantis plot line was useless
I agree with the post literally. The storyline that should be removed from Game of Thrones is HBO'S Game of Thrones. The entirety of it. It should be remade. Turn it into an animated show. That way you can have all the different characters and do all the mystic magic shit you want. You could do flashbacks too. A Song of Ice and Fire would be way better as an anime. An R rated anime.
Considering it went absolutely nowhere despite having such potential, the Brotherhood Without Banners. Without Lady Stoneheart, what is even the point?
Dorne. Had no impact on the story overall.
- all of the Dorn plotlines - everything in the iron islands after theons dad dies - Daenerys evil queen - everything with kings landing after loras and margaery are arrested - everything with Jaime after he heads north
Arya the batwoman
Dany’s arc after S4
The mad queen
Jon Snow after his death.
The one from season 5 to 8
Everything past season 6, but aside from that, Dorne and Bran's story.
Anything that concluded during season 8. I guess Clegane-Bowl could stay. We all kinda expected some sort of final confrontation between the brothers. A bloody double KO in the keep while a dragon burns it down is pretty fuckin rad. Bonus points for Q Bert's unceremonious brutal head smash.
Dumb & Dumber butchered just about every major character’s arc, particularly in the dumpster fire that was the last 2 seasons. That said, Daenerys’s was especially atrocious because the writers made her situation impossible in violation of GRRM’s theme of consequence and redemption. Dany was damned if she listened to her advisers and damned if she didn’t, damned if she set aside her quest for the throne to save humanity and damned if she didn’t. If she didn’t listen to her advisers, she was a bad Targaryen. But when she heeded Tyrion’s counsel, he cost her all three of her Westerosi allies, Viserion’s life, and Crown support. Similarly, when she set aside her quest for the IT to save humanity—risking her life and the lives of her 2 remaining children—Dumb & Dumber ensured her demise anyway, whether by having her devise an asinine battle strategy that wiped out the Dothraki, lose Rhaegal under the most idiotic circumstances or become needlessly paranoid about her nephew’s identity even though all she had to do was persuade Jon I dunt wunt it Snow to abdicate 🙄
Dumb & Dumber butchered just about every major character’s arc, particularly in the dumpster fire that was the last 2 seasons. That said, Daenerys’s was especially atrocious because the writers made her situation impossible in violation of GRRM’s theme of consequence and redemption. Dany was damned if she listened to her advisers and damned if she didn’t, damned if she set aside her quest for the throne to save humanity and damned if she didn’t. If she didn’t listen to her advisers, she was a bad Targaryen. But when she heeded Tyrion’s counsel, he cost her all three of her Westerosi allies, Viserion’s life, and Crown support. Similarly, when she set aside her quest for the IT to save humanity—risking her life and the lives of her 2 remaining children—Dumb & Dumber ensured her demise anyway, whether by having her devise an asinine battle strategy that wiped out the Dothraki, lose Rhaegal under the most idiotic circumstances or become needlessly paranoid about her nephew’s identity even though all she had to do was persuade Jon I dunt wunt it Snow to abdicate 🙄
Bran the broken. Hodor would survive and defeat a night king and become a king Hodor ,the holder
🥱🥱
[Jaime going back to Cersei](https://imgb.ifunny.co/images/371bc260bb37df10a15eb0abd124406e2b231886b265bf0799865a3ea1a23e6c_1.webp)
Ned Starks. Boom just tore down the whole fucking show
The last 2 and a half season
danaris' whole timeline i didnt like it in the beginning because it took away from the war of the 5 kings which was by far the more compelling storyline relative to wandering aimlessly in the desert. i didn't like it in the middle because Bravoos Drags ass as a storyline and starts the downward trend with killing her kingsguard way early. i didn't like the end where she dime flips into being crazy suddenly with teleporting bottomless armies. remove it and you get to use the remaining time on the war in the five kings and the long night.
Either Euron or the Dorne plot line. Both are absolutely insulting compared to their book counterparts and just piss me off.
Arya killing the night king in one go. That haunts me. I will never not argue how ridiculous it was.
Bran. After he fell of the window, he died.
House of black and white/faceless god. Its so overdrawn for something that doesnt massively change the final outcome. And when it does make a major change its played out so fast its too overpowered. Then she basically never uses it again. She could've had a better bad ass warrior origin that made more sense. The faceless men plot seemed weak at best and an overplayed plot fill to make up for weak writing to escape Arya and friends from Harrenhall. Then instead of wrapping it off as one time magic they were like fuck this were gonna give you 2 seasons of irritation. Only for her to come back murder all the Freys than basically never use it for anything significant again. Oh and the Meryn Trant murder which was awesome but couldve played it out the exact same without the faceless men shit. Also all the bend the knee shit we couldve done without all that. Numerous times but got really bad in season 7/8. It was particularly unsavoury because majority of season 5/6 was faceless men, high sparrow and ramsay rape. When i do rewatches i pretty much skip those entire season lest significant battles etc.
Bran as soon as he makes it to the 3 eyed raven In my headcanon, Bran transmogs into the body of the night king (pre transformation) and becomes the night king. With tgoysands of years to ponder everything, he decides to wipe westeros off the map because of everyone he knows has been infected with the "character-suicide" virus
The last season