So the interminably-horrible Game Of Thrones TV show has ended. Hoo-fucking-ray.
Watched the very first few episodes because the Son&Heir (who had read all the books) said I should, then walked away when Sean Bean was killed — I knew even back then that a writer who slaughters the main characters in his story has only contempt for his readers, and so it proved.
Good riddance. But hey, don’t take my word for it; try this bloke’s take on the final episode (if you care):
This whole pitiful spectacle couldn’t have been more stultifying if it had opened with the words, ‘This is a party political broadcast on behalf of the Liberal Democrats of Westeros’. The problem was that Game of Thrones, once so irreverent and mercurial, started to believe its own press releases. After winning more Emmys than any series in history, it imagined it was Great Art. Since its first episode in 2011, which stunned viewers with two electrifying shocks in the final scene, the show has killed off more than 100 characters, not to mention countless thousands of serfs and nameless soldiers – and never paused to regret a single one of them. But that psychopathic streak was forgotten yesterday, as the handful of survivors moped around the city of King’s Landing to a soundtrack of sad cello music.
Sometimes when one has seen an especially-bad movie (e.g. Lord Of The Rings trilogy), one demands a return of those hours of wasted life. Imagine what one would feel after eight seasons of this shit…
Which reminds me: I need to call the Son&Heir and mock him.
Haven’t seen a single episode and never will. Read up to book four before giving up in disgust. It’s hard to stay attached to a series of novels when the majority of the characters you start identifying with are killed off. Especially when they are killed in pointless ways.
Only heard about the show when a friend of mine was raving about how good GoT’s was and I knew she hadn’t read a single book. I wasn’t nice about my summation of the story back then. Fiancee is all hot and bothered about it and she knows my opinion because I will literally rant about it when it comes up. 😀
Man, that’s why a lot of people don’t like our (real) history, no matter what part of Earth from from. It often sucks. It’s not a fairy tale. Not even goose, in most cases. So what?
“…walked away when Sean Bean was killed…”
Same here. They killed the only adult in the whole thing. I stepped off instantly. My wife watched 1 more show then threw it under the bus. I’ve liked Bean since his “Sharps” series way back when.
That ties in perfectly with my idea for the perfect ending for GoT.
Whatever happened in the actual ending happens, then the screen fades to black. When it fades back in, we see Sean Bean in his 95th Rifles uniform, sleeping on a cot. He startles awake, then grabs his head as though suffering from a severe headache. He bellows “Sergeant Harper!’, instantly regretting this because of the aforementioned headache.
When Harper appears, Sharpe asks, “Sergeant Harper, where did you get that wine you brought me last night?” Harper replies “Off some dead Frogs a few miles back.” Sharpe then asks “Did ye happen to notice what they’d died of?”
I like that!
Well if the truth be told the books sucked too.
I’ve thrown the entire genre of SF/Fantasy out wholesale. They’ve been over run by authors that are homosexuals, purple faced raging feminists, socialists and other tards. And of course the stories reflect the degenerate world view of the authors. GoT was actually the only original work in the last 40 years too…and that was in developing characters the reader might identify with… and then killing them. Or perverting them. That is what passes for best selling literature these days.
I used to be a voracious reader… but the dreck they pump out these days isn’t worth my time or money.
I’ve dropped SF as well for the very reasons you describe but you might try Diana Wynne Jones, who I’ve only just discovered, (pity she’s dead)
Try Gene Wolfe.
Or Larry Correia…
Add to the list John Ringo (Although the Paladin of Shadows (Kildar) series is NOT for everyone)
David Drake is still producing
Tom Kratman
Sarah Hoyt is definitely NOT politically correct.
Nick Cole’s “Galaxy’s Edge” series is good, as well. He’s a US Army veteran and throws in a lot of obvious references to Army/Marine Corps infantry life. And Tom Kratman is a national treasure.
Add David Weber to the list of SF/F authors given by the other posters here. In fact, you would probably enjoy almost any of the authors published by Baen in the last 20-30 years. Other publishers, not so much.
Good point – I could list more authors, or just direct people to Baen publishing.
Maybe one more – Michael Z Williamson’s “Freehold”
I agree with others who’ve already commented. There are good authors out there. Face it, 90% of any given genre sucks ass. The trick is to find the good 10% and the last people you should depend upon are SJW reviewers employed by left-leaning organizations. If you haven’t figured that out on your own, well, then.
Yep, friends told us we needed to watch GoT, I could not make it through even one episode and I like violence in movies and TV shows when it makes sense, like the old movie ‘The Wild Bunch’ but GoT, naw.
Too bad real-world violence often makes little sense other than “terrorize the opposition “. I’d say your expectations are as off as a Hay’s Code enforcer.
Off on a tangent… Sorry. This reminded me of a thought provoking SF book “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman:
https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
I’ve never watched or read any of this Game game.
Don’t spend the money for HBO, so never saw it.
But GRRM’s penchant for killing off main characters was hardly a surprise for someone who read his early stories published in Analog in the 70’s. (And thus never bothered to continue with his later works)
Bah, Sean Bean dying in a film is expected these days. Sharpe is the exception.
Given your historical distaste for any kind of fantasy, Kim, I’m not sure why anyone would give much credence to your opinion of a fantasy TV series. That’d be like getting a folk-rock fan’s opinion of, well, non-folk rock. Which I’d perfectly valid for folk-rock fans and of little use for anyone else. I know you’re only presenting your own opinion, but by this standard, wouldn’t practically any movie that ended with the hero’s death be a bad movie if the bad guys survived? Braveheart had any number of flaws, but since it ended the same as the 1st of 8 seasons of GoT did, did that make it awful on that basis alone? It seems to me that whether or not your favorite character survives the first ~10 hours of GoT (7 more seasons adding up to a whole lot more time)? Hint: the worst of the bad guys got deaded, some of the better ones survived. If that’s different from realistic storytelling, I’m curious as to how? And if you’re opposed to realistic storytelling (within the limitations of human experience plus the milieu the story is set in), then I truly don’t understand your visceral dislike for fantasy (and possibly SF, but those posts were long ago, well before you went dark due to Connie’s illness). I understand people who dislike swords and sorcery (as you once did, IIRC) and prefer past-to-current murder mystery (as my wife does), SF (as a friend does), or historical fiction as others do (but thst’s an oxymoron if there ever was one), but I have trouble imaging why you’d have ever watched any if GoT, and why you’d think your hero would survive the first 1/8? Take a look at the War of the Roses, or the reign and aftermath of Henry VIII, or most any contentious period of human history. Just because it offends your sense of stories doesn’t mean it’s not a good story. The Peloponnesian War had the best of both sides die before it was over, often pointlessly. Even if modern audiences weren’t historically illiterate, that hardly means a long multi-season series covering it would be automatically bad. That’s just a romantic idea of how stories should go, which in many cases, is just a lie in a better costume. I’m disappointed, all in all. At least disclose your dislike of (much) fantasy right off the bat, while disclosing your preference for a different kind of fantasy (Hays Code good always wins, evil never prospers). Though evil didn’t prosper by the end of GoT, and some who turned to evil redeemed themselves before the end. Oh well. Didn’t happen by the first 1/8 of the tale, therefore … awful. I’ll be the first to admit the writing slipped badly in seasons 7 & 8. It was hasty, cut short, and not well laid out. It was explicable with much discussion with the wife, but when 3 and then 4 episodes are slashed from the last 2 seasons (almost 1/3), it’s damned hard to tie all the loose ends up, let alone adequately explain some actions of characters. Whatever.