#thinking unsavory things

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[punkrogue]

ended up thinking about the magneto + wanda vs charles + david dichotomy and --

(house of m #1 / way of x 2 + 4)

magneto is 100% not a great dad and even HE knows it and he KNOWS he's put his war before his kids but at the end of the day he does love and care for them and has wanda's state deteriorates he both tries to help her bc she just fucking DESERVES it and also falls the helplessness of someone who just cannot find a solution but so desperately wants one. it's shitty that he has her manipulate things into a mutant utopia but idk man it was kind of a dogshit situation already. I mean people are literally planning to euthanize her and given how things are going at that particular moment there's almost an argument for it. what a horrific position for him to be in as a father and a father who's trying to do at least a little for his kids to make up for YEARS of being the WORST. he WANTS wanda to have a life, even if he's not allowed in it.

MY MAN EGG CHARLIE THO-- he has a similar kid. mentally unstable reality warper. has literally reshaped related twice with his unending bullshit. david is back and FULLY in his "i rule me" era. which is when he's the most together and lucid. He's as on top of his mental issues as possible and RIGHT out the gate xavier has decided he's too dangerous to live. he refuses to return david's consciousness to his body. when david does it himself charles suspects HIS OWN SON of being the psychic poison corrupting kraoka and when david refuses to tell him what he's plans are and simply asks his father to trust him because he's his son charles violates his autonomy and tries to hack his mind. (i know xavier's getting onslaughty but also.... lbr.... it's not off brand for him to pull something like that)

like-- i'm not a charles xavier hater but i'm a charles xavier hater you know? i love david so much and charles is such a deadbeat dad. i also think this is just-- it's very telling of the differences between mags and xavier. magneto will put his mission above all 9/10 but when dealing with a situation like these it's VERY clear that it's killing him and WANTS to resolve it in the less harmful way. meanwhile charles would prefer his son back in a coma before he's shown even a SECOND of supposed instability than allow him a life because of "what he might do to the mission". like no one here is getting the dad of the year award but jfc charles is sooooooo good at rationalizing and stomaching doing horrific shit to his own kid(s) just bc they're not controllable or palatable.

[yellowsubiesdance]

i think i’ve learned a lot when it comes to not applying my own values to the media i consume

for my script analysis class yesterday, we discussed two gentleman from verona, and nearly every classmate of mine was up in arms about how sexist the story is.

and i'm not saying it's not, or that it's not infuriating to read. but i'm also not putting my energy into getting upset about something written 500 or so years ago. and i'm not about to put my own beliefs onto these characters that are not me. i'm going to let their choices speak for themselves, and interpret it in the context of the story.

all that said, this now brings me to the point of alastor in episode 5, and how viscerally people are responding to it. those of you up in arms about the choices he’s making, and the violent threat he gave husk, you’re missing the entire point of his character, of this place they’re in, of the story being told. he’s an overlord, and he became an overlord by killing much bigger overlords and broadcasting their deaths over the radio.

HE IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.

if you started this show with the belief that every character working the hotel is a good person, you’re in the wrong place. watch the good place if you’re looking for a good wholesome story about getting dead sinners into heaven, because that’s not what this show is about.

you’re more than welcome to hate him after seeing the way he exerted power over a being whose soul he owns, but you’re doing the media you’re watching a disservice by writing it off so quickly. if you don’t like to be uncomfortable watching media, watch something else. this is an uncomfortable show, it handles uncomfortable topics, and it’s going to be an uncomfortable ride, and if you’re not up for something like that, then you should take a break from it and pick up something else. you don’t have to get online and defend your own ideals while you watch a show that goes against your ideals.

[eff-plays]

Actually, no, I disagree. Astarion has his reasons for many things he thinks and disapproves of, but some of them are just ... He doesn't like it when people are nice. He actively likes cruelty. Those are both true.

And yeah, you get why. He's well-written and his motivations are understandable! You can have a lot of very long and sad meta posts about how he thinks cruelty is natural and kindness is fake, but that doesn't remove his joy at cruelty and his distaste for kindness. Those things are still true. He can get better, yes. He does get better if you encourage him to. But he starts out as an absolute jackass.

Stop woobifying him fr. He's a piece of shit, even if he's a well-written one. Just because you understand him doesn't mean he's right or somehow the only sane person in the group. Cruelty is not intelligence, kindness is not a weakness. xoxo <3

[batemanofficial]

can i say something controversial. the way people (especially american liberals but that's a whole nother can of worms) act about animal testing is sooooooooooo unhelpful. like is cosmetic testing on dogs/rodents/primates harmful and unnecessary? yes, in many cases! but does that mean all animal testing - for any application - should be categorically banned? no. animal testing is a vital process in many, many medical and research contexts and is conducted under a very strict set of standards, ergo applying "animal abuse" as a blanket label to all instances of animal testing is reductive at best and shows a flagrant lack of understanding of medical ethics on the part of the population. and don't even get me started on how slippery of a slope it is to go from condemnation of animal testing to just flat out eugenics

[kurokrisps]

Wait people actually think Jack's a good person I thought that was just a joke?

[sunieepo]

THEY DONT KNOW IT'S AYIN

(instead of doing it in the tags/replies i'm just going to start posting every time i see a THEY DONT KNOW ITS AYIN post that is very much about ayin even though THEY DONT KNOW ITS AYIN)

[no-light-left-on]

thinking still about how the Heart calls the Whalers 'puppets' and the amount of mystery there is around them, when playing as Corvo and perceiving them through the Heart, in comparison to how they are in reality.

we see them talk to each other in a manner any people would. they consider insubordination, they talk badly of Daud behind his back, we have Billie betray him. there are some that are loyal, yes, be it because they believe in Daud or because they see gain in this path, but by no means are they a monolyth.

however, we do hear from the Heart about a 'fog that surrounds them and hides their secrets' and it is even confirmed, by Billie (and also Galia in the books) that leaving Daud made them 'think clearly for the first time in years'

I've seen a couple theories and I do want to dive into each, to an extent.

there's the suggestion of the Heart talking badly of them, calling them mindless drones that only kill out of hatred and hurt. which, valid. the Heart also says certain things about Daud, 'why did you bring me here? do you expect me to forgive him?', so it's not unlikely that their attitude towards human lives and their willingness to kill for Daud is repulsive enough that the Heart does not see past it

another option is that the mindless puppets is more of a metaphor and is meant to talk about how the Whalers are, in a sense, a cult. which would be incredibly interesting to explore if we had more information on how the Whalers function. now I do want to point out that by cult I do not mean it in a Secluded Religious Organization but as a sociological thing. a literal cult if you will, with a leader that charms their followers, the seclusion and all the unhealthy attitudes of losing oneself to the group. and, that does check out - the loss of individuality, they are as one, following someone's orders without hesitation, someone they would die for. there are a lot of unsavory implications here (if you know how cults work, you probably had some cross your mind already), but arguably Daud is not charming enough to be a proper cult leader. the appeal is the magic, and his excellent skills as an assassin and a leader. maybe it's because of the time we see the Whalers at, right before a collapse, but Daud is regularly doubted and we see a lot of insubordination. the Whalers are not necessarily loyal to him because of who he is as a person. they want the power, they want the influence, maybe the protection, and the things keeping them from disobeying are fear, rather than loyalty.

the third thought or theory is, then, that many of these symptoms can be explained by the influence of the Void. we know the Void affects people, both physically as we see with Delilah's Witches or the Eyeless, as it influences them mentally, if the high numbers of people going mad because of their worship are something to go by. if, then, the Whalers are bound to the Void through Daud, it only makes sense that they would be influenced by this link to something that messes with people's brains. Galia saying she feels better after her Arcane Bond faded could easily mean that the influence the Void had on her has faded, and the creeping madness of it has subsided significantly.

all of these most likely come into play. one of the Heart's lines in dh2, if we point at a Witch, is reciting some of the recipes the Witches chant before quickly apologising. we do learn significantly more about them than we do about the Whalers, of course, possibly because Jessamine has more ill will towards the Whalers than to the Witches. still we see the Void affect the Heart. there is also a notion that the Witches are 'not quite human' due to their Arcane bond.

there's no real conclusion. it's just interesting

[bmpmp3]

kotarou maghni ai thank GOD i literally sighed an audible sigh of relief

[scary-white]

What do you think it would’ve been like if Sue did tell the gym teacher that the reason she asked Tommy to take Carrie to the prom cause Sue felt bad for what happened in the locker room?

unrealistic. susan is too stupid to make good decisions.

[hylianane]

Congratulations to Taz “Human HeartEyes Emoji” Skylar for charming me into rooting for Sanji in his romantic pursuits for the very first time. Never in my life did I think I’d feel sympathy watching Sanji, of all characters, get rejected by a woman, but he played his little moments with Nojiko and Nami so genuinely that I was like no! Dont feel bad! You’ll get them next time, love!

[airbenderedacted]

IF I WERE WOY CREW I WOULD ALSO FIGHT FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING THE LESBIAN FLAG SOMEWHERE ON OR NEAR DOMINATOR IN JUST ONE WHOLE SCENE IN THE SHOW  SEND TWEET

[undeadorion]

I will never understand the fandom tendency where a word is used just anywhere near a character and regardless of context they latch on to it and make that a primary feature of the character. There is never any canonical association between the character and that thing, other than they maybe said the word at one point. But the fandom makes it a whole thing.

[ainsleys-weird-thoughts]

the way you know it's bad when you have to resort to...

Unsavory methods

[shadowed-yet-vibrant]

Hey isn't it fucked up that "family channel" social media families have literally created the Truman Show. Like for real. Complete with product placement???

[glubglubism]

Zayne’s Nose. That is all.