Game of Thrones - mostly

[StCapps]

I just had a random thought: What if Arya had not run into Hot Pie who told her Jon and Sansa were at Winterfell? If she had gone to Kings Landing and killed Cersei, who would be her heir? She has no children, there's no Barathion's left, Neither her uncle nor Jamie would have a valid claim other than by might, Littlefinger also would try but fail, not even being noble born. Might it have basically put Dany on the throne???

Another delay tactic by the writers to send Arya to Winterfell. Arya's entire storyline after the first season is one big stall. They wanted to save Arya doing all the badass shit until literally the end of the show, and filled in the gaps with traveling from point A to point B. Writers stalling with filler in key characters story arcs, that's the biggest problem with this show.

[heydaralon]

I just had a random thought: What if Arya had not run into Hot Pie who told her Jon and Sansa were at Winterfell? If she had gone to Kings Landing and killed Cersei, who would be her heir? She has no children, there's no Barathion's left, Neither her uncle nor Jamie would have a valid claim other than by might, Littlefinger also would try but fail, not even being noble born. Might it have basically put Dany on the throne???

Another delay tactic by the writers to send Arya to Winterfell. Arya's entire storyline after the first season is one big stall. They wanted to save Arya doing all the badass shit until literally the end of the show, and filled in the gaps with traveling from point A to point B. Writers stalling with filler in key characters story arcs, that's the biggest problem with this show.

lool yeah. That show has become at least 50% filler. Idk if you feel this way, but I think they expanded the show too much. Urine Gayjoy etc. They have introduced all these new characters, and now because of time limitations and lack of writing talent (probably budget concerns too) they are forced to kill off existing characters tomake room for the new ones. Littlefinger's death was a travesty. But we still have time to see Sam and Arya plodding around not doing jackshit. What a joke.

[StCapps]

I just had a random thought: What if Arya had not run into Hot Pie who told her Jon and Sansa were at Winterfell? If she had gone to Kings Landing and killed Cersei, who would be her heir? She has no children, there's no Barathion's left, Neither her uncle nor Jamie would have a valid claim other than by might, Littlefinger also would try but fail, not even being noble born. Might it have basically put Dany on the throne???

Another delay tactic by the writers to send Arya to Winterfell. Arya's entire storyline after the first season is one big stall. They wanted to save Arya doing all the badass shit until literally the end of the show, and filled in the gaps with traveling from point A to point B. Writers stalling with filler in key characters story arcs, that's the biggest problem with this show.

lool yeah. That show has become at least 50% filler. Idk if you feel this way, but I think they expanded the show too much. Urine Gayjoy etc. They have introduced all these new characters, and now because of time limitations and lack of writing talent (probably budget concerns too) they are forced to kill off existing characters tomake room for the new ones. Littlefinger's death was a travesty. But we still have time to see Sam and Arya plodding around not doing jackshit. What a joke.

Tried to be too much like The Wire, without the talent to pull of what The Wire pulled off.

In The Wire they don't check in with characters if they aren't part of the main story, some characters go for long stretches before the show up again, and the show was the better for it. Game of Thrones lacks the discipline and writing talent to accomplish this feat, and makes up the difference with excess filer. Game of Thrones checks in with the characters, just for the sake of checking in, for far too much of the shows screen time, like a lame soap opera.

[StCapps]

The Wire may have been a TV Novel, but David Simon knew it was still a TV show, and exploited that.

Game of Thrones is trying to be a TV Novel, but Benioff and Weiss forget that it's still a TV show far too often, and doesn't exploit it properly as a result.

The Wire knew how to end before it ran out of juice, Game of Thrones milked things for too long and ran out of juice and is trying to make up the difference with filler in between big action set pieces.

[heydaralon]

The Wire may have been a TV Novel, but David Simon knew it was still a TV show, and exploited that.

Game of Thrones is trying to be a TV Novel, but Benioff and Weiss forget that it's still a TV show far too often, and doesn't exploit it properly as a result.

The Wire knew how to end before it ran out of juice, Game of Thrones milked things for too long and ran out of juice and is trying to make up the difference with filler and big action battle sequences.

Man, they had 4 solid seasons, and 3 mediocre ones. I feel like they could have done some serious trimming of the fat. I'm not against adding new characters, but like you say they had to meet a time quota for each new one, and it feels forced and bland. GoT is worldbuilding done wrong.

[brewster]

In The Wire they don't check in with characters if they aren't part of the main story, some characters go for long stretches before the show up again, and the show was the better for it.

it's been a while but that's not how I remember it, at least in the later seasons. you had the mayor thread and you had the schoolteacher thread and you had the hamsterdam thread without a hell of a lot holding them together.

It's fair if you just don't like this style of storytelling, everyone's entitled to their taste. But this is how the books were too, you can't blame it on the show runners, who actually significantly improved on books 4 and 5.

I've certainly read other books that follow this format of narratives taking place in half a dozen different locations. The final trilogy of David Brin's Uplift SF series comes to mind. Big stories need big canvases.

[StCapps]

In The Wire they don't check in with characters if they aren't part of the main story, some characters go for long stretches before the show up again, and the show was the better for it.

it's been a while but that's not how I remember it, at least in the later seasons. you had the mayor thread and you had the schoolteacher thread and you had the hamsterdam thread without a hell of a lot holding them together.

It's fair if you just don't like this style of storytelling, everyone's entitled to their taste. But this is how the books were too, you can't blame it on the show runners, who actually significantly improved on books 4 and 5.

I've certainly read other books that follow this format of narratives taking place in half a dozen different locations. The final trilogy of David Brin's Uplift SF series comes to mind. Big stories need big canvases.

Oh I blame George R.R. Martin plenty, but the showrunners didn't have to stick as closely to the books as they did, they refuse to exploit the fact they are television show far too often.

As for The Wire, the Mayor Thread, the Schools Thread, and The Hamsterdam thread all had the underlying theme of institutions resisting reform and punishing the reformers, while the king stay the king.

Thematically it was the running thread throughout the entire series, that even in a major city in the most advanced civilization in the world, real reform is hard to come by, and fake reform that is to the benefit of the entrenched interests are a dime a dozen. Real reform is punished and Fake reform is rewarded, through the lens of Urban Decay, that's The Wire.

[heydaralon]

In The Wire they don't check in with characters if they aren't part of the main story, some characters go for long stretches before the show up again, and the show was the better for it.

it's been a while but that's not how I remember it, at least in the later seasons. you had the mayor thread and you had the schoolteacher thread and you had the hamsterdam thread without a hell of a lot holding them together.

It's fair if you just don't like this style of storytelling, everyone's entitled to their taste. But this is how the books were too, you can't blame it on the show runners, who actually significantly improved on books 4 and 5.

I've certainly read other books that follow this format of narratives taking place in half a dozen different locations. The final trilogy of David Brin's Uplift SF series comes to mind. Big stories need big canvases.

lol they left McNulty almost entirely out of season 4. Nicky Sobotka got a brief scene in season 5 telling Carcetti to fuck off for building condos and fucking over the union. The wire was masterful at that. Game of Thrones could take some writing tips from Simon. George Martin should stick to masturbating to hentai porn and leave the writing to the pros...

[StCapps]

If David Simon was the showrunner of Game of Thrones, it would have been so much better. Oh well.

[StCapps]

The Wire did commit the error of not giving enough screen time to media characters in season 5, but they were forced into it because that season had only 10 episodes, and they needed to focus on more important part of the story so the show could go out in the fashion it deserved. The last season could have used another two episodes though, I doubt it would have been filled with filler, had they been allowed to do that, and they could have fixed that minor problem. That's on HBO though, not David Simon.

In almost every other instance they used pretty much exactly the right amount of every character and had the balls to leave them out of the story in order to ensure that happened, or kill them off to ensure that happened.

Game of Thrones doesn't have the balls to do that though, so they played it safe by checking in, just for the sake of checking in, and the show has suffered as a result. When Game of Thrones actually killed off important characters to improve the story the show was really good, when they started saving characters for end game with silly stall tactics and filler, the show went downhill.

Lack of consequence for the fail. The Wire had consequences, Game of Thrones is at it's best when there are consequences, and at it's worst when it's saving all the good stuff for the end game. When it became clear that certain characters weren't going to die until the endgame, that made their part of the story much harder to invest in during the fifth, sixth and seventh seasons, in particular.