I'm not watching a trailer. I'm not reading articles about it. I don't care about theories. If I can help it... i'm going in blind and unknowing. I'd love to say i'm going to wait until it's over and binge watch it. But I don't have that kind of discipline. And it'd be impossible to keep from hearing about the surprises.
That leads me to speculate that Gendry Baratheon will end up as king. Baratheon sigil is the stag. Gendry has been so quiet and unassuming the entire series, and I don't think it's inconsequential that Jon Snow sent him out of harm's way when the expedition north of the wall went bad.
First post in this Game of Thrones thread in 2019. Folks, finally the end is within sight. I just hope the shortened season is packed full with long episodes and surprises.
A show this successful would only ever end on it's own terms. Thank goodness! I'm so happy we are only about four months away from season eight. I already completed my series rewatch in December, and I am now re-reading the series. I'm about 1/3 of the way through A Dance with Dragons at the moment. As much as I love the show, I'm an even bigger fan of the books. Absolutely adore them. I continue to harbor the secret desire that right after the series concludes, George R.R. Martin will appear and announce a release date for book six, The Winds of Winter. One can hope. I got the new Targaryen history, Fire & Blood, for Christmas from my husband and I'm reading that next.
I’ll still read the last books if he ever finishes them (something that’s becoming increasingly doubtful), but with the show coming to an end I think I’m probably going to feel like I’ve gotten enough resolution to stop caring whether it ever happens. Unless the ending is really disastrous and unsatisfying— but I have to think the ending is not going to be radically different from what he has in mind for the books. In minor details maybe but not in broad strokes. You have to wonder how Martin is going to feel if and when he ever gets to the end of book 6. It’ll come out, and he’ll be seventysomething and back at the bottom again of a mountain of writing — but now people will have seen a version of the conclusion to his saga, and pop culture is going to move on to something new and Game of Thrones will be old news.
Coincidentally, last week I revisited season 6&7 (after having revisited the earlier seasons recently also). While I'm as excited and looking forward to the new season as much as the next guy, there is no doubt in my mind that the show has really 'dumbed down' it's content with each succesive season. And yet its still entertaining!
Yes, I agree completely. I wonder why this choice was made, as the fourth and fifth books are just as complex (if not more complex) than the first three. The first four seasons of the show--which were uniformly outstanding--were adapted fairly faithfully from the first three books. They changed a few things, cut some stuff, snipped here and there, but overall they kept most of the great stuff that makes the story so compelling. I don't think Benioff & Weiss enjoyed A Feast for Crows or A Dance with Dragons as much as the first three books (or else they decided they wanted to wrap the show up more quickly) because they adapted each book in one season and changed a HUGE amount from the books--including most of the more complex political stuff. They absolutely butchered both the Dorne plot and the Ironborn plot, completely excised the Aegon/Young Griff plot from the books (from which A Dance with Dragons gets its name), gave Sansa the plot of a very minor character from the books...they just changed so much and really honed the plot down to a much smaller batch of plot lines with far fewer complexities. And now we are into material the books haven't yet reached (and won't ever reach in many cases, as so many things have been changed). As you say, the show is still highly entertaining and I still enjoy it greatly, but it definitely isn't the same. They also really diluted the complexities of many of the characters. Tyrion is far darker in the books and Jon Snow is not a boy scout and paragon of goodness either. Everyone is more grey. (All this to say that this final season will not quench my need for the last two books in the series. At this point, they barely resemble one another and an ending on the television show will not wrap up the books. I look at them almost as two different things at this point. Both great, but very different. )
I like Game of Thrones the TV series. I do think the last season (7) wasn't quite as good as the previous ones. I tried reading the first book and just was quite bored with it. I usually prefer reading the books over movies/TV-series.
Let’s not kid ourselves, books 4 & 5 were pathetic placeholders at best. No narrative was furthered significantly. No wonder Benioff & Weiss couldn’t do much with that mess. More complex? I beg to differ (greatly); believe what you want, though.
Like everyone else. I read 4&5 immediately upon release. They are truly inferior to the 1st 3. I read something once about how, in the beginning, the 1st book was told from 7 primary character viewpoints. With each succeeding book Martin kept expanding the story and players but he (Martin) lost his way. He was a younger man when he 1st wrote the original book, I honestly don't think he has it in him anymore. Anyways, I revisited 4&5 and I simply skipped over all the tedious side stories and histories, I skipped over a bunch of chapters! I simply stuck to the stories of the original playas and it was a much more enjoyable read (not to mention shorter, it felt like I got 1 books worth of relevant material as opposed to 2!). We should ask ourselves what would be better, a new, inferior, book OR should he leave it be? With the money that book represents, there'll be no stopping it!
Too each his own, I guess. But I thought books 4 and 5 told significantly less of a story and suffered from being overlong. Maybe it's because they were compared to the incredible storytelling of the first 3 (the 3rd of which is my favorite by a longshot). What the last two seasons lacked the most is not the storytelling, which more or less go by what the author had in mind. It's the dialogue which was so sharp and witty in the first four or so seasons.
Okay. I have a completely original (to me at least. Not read online) thought. I'm rewatching this with my kids. Just finished season 3. Bran is in a brick tower with Hodor, Jojen (?) Reed, and his sister hiding from the storm. Wildlings were outside with Jon Snow. Hodor gets scared. The wildlings hear him. They don't want to be heard. And caught. So they look to Bran to do something...anything... to shut Hodor up. Bran's eyes go white. He jumps into Hodor. Hodor loses consciousness. Bran regains his. Jojen says... you aren't supposed to able to jump into a human. No one is. So... why couldn't Bran jump into the Night's King at the end to control him? It was thought once that Dany's three dragons might be ridden by Dany, Tyrion and Bran. Well... there's only two dragons now. So that can't be a thing. But if Bran doesn't warg into the Night's King... why couldn't he warg into his dragon? Anyone think that could be a thing? Yeah... me either.
I thought of the 'Bran-wargs/saves-the-day' theory a while ago... but...that's TOO EASY! Maybe, now that he's the 'three-eyes-raven', he can't do that anymore....
maybe not that grandiose, but i'm totally open to the idea of bran doing something spectacular to save the day. let's just hope it's not full-blown superhero style. like he should probably die as a result of his actions and accidentally kill a few heroes while saving the day. that would be more in-line with GOT.