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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 5 - Sundays on HBO

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Forkball

Member
So I'm guessing no screeners next year. HBO should just rent a theatre and show the first few episodes to critics.

Also I guess I can't use Twitter for a while.
 

Brakke

Banned
Travel disruption--guess I won't be able to catch the premier until Monday. Bummah! Y'all have fun for me tomorrow.
 

Jigorath

Banned
Yeah, they discussed that on the "Watch the Thrones" Grantland podcast. Speaking with one of their writers that has read the books, he thought (and I agree) that Martin's kind of out of nowhere announcement that he has some twist that the show wouldn't be able to do was an outburst of frustration from Martin that he is now in this situation (knowing that he put himself in this situation of course).

Martin did what now?

*hits up google*

That's... interesting.

Anyways, this is the season that TV viewers will finally fall in love with Stannis. I can feel it. #teamstannis will be vindicated.
 

LAUGHTREY

Modesty becomes a woman
Apparently so. Grantland's nonbook reader review had some rather asinine comments about the last two books, and Martin. Granted I do think Martin has made a mis-step in terms of basking in the spotlight. His big news about coming up with a huge twist the show couldn't possibly do reminded of a nerd who doesn't get invited to the big party, and instead offers to have a less interesting party at his parents' house. Like...really desperate, and something I didn't want to hear. I'm sure it'll be cool, in fact I think TWOW will be amazing...but I can do without attempts to steal the spotlight from the show.

Martin can't be pleased with this...but he brought it on himself. I think AFFC and ADWD were great but I understand why they get shit on. And I can sympathize with the argument that Martin made a mistake by expanding the world immediately after his greatest accomplishment (the ASOS climax). I have no idea why Martin thought the show would follow his bloated ADWD blueprint with a limited budget; AFFC was already out before the show so there was nothing to do about that.

I liked Tyrion's arc well enough in ADWD but it could have been more entertaining. I wish Martin would just skip the travelogues, or at least shorten them. Not a fan of Dany's ADWD arc and it really bogs down the book. I liked Jon's arc but...as with nearly every major plot in the book, it's just a bunch of plotting and planning for something that never happens. Tyrion doesn't meet Dany, the Wall isn't attacked, Dorne's major plan blows up in Quentyn's face (literally), Stannis and the Freys don't engage, etc.

I'll continue defending the books, and yea these snarky reviews rustle my jimmies...but at the same time I understand. And hopefully Martin does too. With two books left he really doesn't have anymore time to world build at the expense of moving towards his endgame.

I think since ADWD was supposed to happen after a time jump, but then he scrapped that, so everyone still does what they would've done after a 5 year time jump more or less, but it feels like Dany was just going to be skipped over and she arrives on westeros and it took her 5 years or something. Even Aegon and Connington end up in Westeros before her, she just sits in Meeren doing basically nothing relevant to the overarching plot until she finds the dothraki at the end as they last piece of her army puzzle.
 
Is this season finally going to give us some good Greyjoy content? Feels like a wasted opportunity not to take that story line and really flesh out some interesting new perspectives
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Even though I find the character a little cartoony I wouldn't mind Euron showing up as a new big bad guy...all we got left right now are the Boltons (edit - who are great, but Euron's campaign of terror will be missed if it never happens).
 

LAUGHTREY

Modesty becomes a woman
Even though I find the character a little cartoony I wouldn't mind Euron showing up as a new big bad guy...all we got left right now are the Boltons (edit - who are great, but Euron's campaign of terror will be missed if it never happens).

He's more than a little cartoony though, he's like literally captain hook transplanted into the story.

At some point you start making characters so despicable you have to make them ridiculous to top the last guy.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I expect HBO to either individually watermark each screener they send or just force everyone to stream on some private site like the other networks seem to do and individually mark the streams.

I can't imagine what is happening over at HBO right now anyway.
 
Without the Greyjoys about im kinda wondering how that 80k Reach army is going to exhaust itself come the final season.

Oh...just thought, Dragons...

I'm really curious as to how the Tyrells will end up in general.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
I expect HBO to either individually watermark each screener they send or just force everyone to stream on some private site like the other networks seem to do and individually mark the streams.

I can't imagine what is happening over at HBO right now anyway.

I think HBO is just fine. They have already given these four eps away for free to everyone on HBO Now anyways thanks to the first month being a free trial. The rest of their viewers are probably already subbed so income-wise, it probably makes next to no difference for them at all at this point.

They'll shrug and move on, I suppose.
 

Real Hero

Member
The idea that Sansa
would be be able to wrap Ramsey around her little finger is so monumentally stupid. Why would she be able to? Because she wore a black dress at the end of the last series?
 
The idea that Sansa
would be be able to wrap Ramsey around her little finger is so monumentally stupid. Why would she be able to? Because she wore a black dress at the end of the last series?
Putting herself in the power of crazy family that murdered her family makes little sense. I don't understand how she could expect to wield any power in the hands of the Boltons. And why would Littlefinger put his precious piece into the possession of a cunning family that he could absolutely never trust? It reeks of forcing things because that's how they want the plot to go rather than something that makes sense for the characters to actually do.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I think HBO is just fine. They have already given these four eps away for free to everyone on HBO Now anyways thanks to the first month being a free trial. The rest of their viewers are probably already subbed so income-wise, it probably makes next to no difference for them at all at this point.

They'll shrug and move on, I suppose.
I don't think it's the four episodes being "free" that they're worried about. It's that basically no one has any reason to tune in for the next four weeks and any hype they might have created is gone.

Why the fuck do they need to send out four episodes anyway????
So that the reviewers have more to work with. I think in the same way that having no press screenings before a movie comes out probably means bad things, not letting critics watch more episodes has the same connotations.
 
So that the reviewers have more to work with. I think in the same way that having no press screenings before a movie comes out probably means bad things, not letting critics watch more episodes has the same connotations.

Though the show's gotten so big that promotion from reviewers probably isn't that big of a deal for them anymore.
 
So that the reviewers have more to work with. I think in the same way that having no press screenings before a movie comes out probably means bad things, not letting critics watch more episodes has the same connotations.

I get that, but these kind of leaks have happened before (although not with GoT), with the show as big as it is now there is some element of risk they have to accept when sending copies of over 1/3rd of the season out before the first episode has even aired.

The show isn't an unknown quantity at this point, no connotations will be implied if the critics only received one ep at a time
 

Aiii

So not worth it
I don't think it's the four episodes being "free" that they're worried about. It's that basically no one has any reason to tune in for the next four weeks and any hype they might have created is gone.

This is not an issue for HBO at all, they want to sell subscriptions. They won't sell any for the first four eps since they're giving those away for free anyways and they will sell subs for the remaining six episodes since who in the hell only watches the first four eps and then skips the rest.

They won't lose a single dime they would have made otherwise, is all I'm saying.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Though the show's gotten so big that promotion from reviewers probably isn't that big of a deal for them anymore.
Even though we're in a recap culture right now, I think some reviewers like to see more episodes to at least see that threads developed in one episode will pay off in another. Listening to legitimate reviewers who have seen these episodes (and episodes of Veep, Silicon Valley, and so on), they tend to give broader impressions first, which end up informing their individual episode recaps.

I don't know if that's just critics by convention asking for more episodes, or networks offering more episodes in the hope of getting more coverage. It's just how reviewers talk about the shows they review these days.

This is not an issue for HBO at all, they want to sell subscriptions. They won't sell any for the first four eps since they're giving those away for free anyways and they will sell subs for the remaining six episodes since who in the hell only watches the first four eps and then skips the rest.

They won't lose a single dime they would have made otherwise, is all I'm saying.
Perhaps. I think having a month where the most "hardcore" fans aren't talking about your show because they've already seen them is a bit of a problem for them though.

Even if these episodes were "free" or paid for already, I can't imagine a scenario where someone at HBO isn't freaking out right now.
 

CCS

Banned
Just to clarify, can we discuss the leaked episodes behind spoiler tags or are we not to discuss them? Thanks :)
 

Patriots7

Member
Putting herself in the power of crazy family that murdered her family makes little sense. I don't understand how she could expect to wield any power in the hands of the Boltons. And why would Littlefinger put his precious piece into the possession of a cunning family that he could absolutely never trust? It reeks of forcing things because that's how they want the plot to go rather than something that makes sense for the characters to actually do.
It's beyond asinine, and makes Littlefinger look stupid. I can't fathom to understand how marrying Sansa to Ramsay benefits Littlefinger at all.
 
A brief word on how we’re going to handle the Game of Thrones leak going forward:

There’s a passage on piracy in the Terms of Service that is written with respect to Gaming Side, and this more or less gets carried over to the OT for television, music, and other media. If you want to discuss the business implications of the leak for HBO, what this means for them going forward, and the mechanics of how they might have been stolen from the network, this is fine.

Linking to pirate download sites, directions on how to get torrent software and the like to work, reviews and impressions of pirated content, talking about how you're currently watching/plan to watch illegally obtained episodes, and anything else like that is strictly prohibited. Obviously, posting spoilers from the leak is going to cop you a lengthy ban, as well. This applies for any television show that we talk about in the OT.

All discussion of this subject is being redirected to this thread. You should not bring up the leaks in either of the two main Game of Thrones threads. The primary reason for this is avoid derailing threads that are intended for discussion of the television show as it airs on HBO as scheduled. We're going to keep those threads on track as best we can.

Hope that makes sense. Please contact moderation if you have specific questions.

EDIT: The OP has been updated to reflect this, as well.
 
Here I was thinking I could finally get through a season without getting spoiled by memes, the book readers(not talking about Gaffers just the internet like FB, twitter) and etc.
 

_Ryo_

Member
Why would you be in a thread with unmarked book spoilers if you cared about people spoiling the books for you?
 

WaffleTaco

Wants to outlaw technological innovation.
So along with new stuff are we expecting this season to cover the entirety of aFfC and aDwD as well?

No reason for it not to happen. There may be one or two characters stuck in at the end of a plotline for S6, but I wouldn't count on it. A lot of the fluff is being taken out Jon's, Tyrion's, Danaery's and Cersei's plotlines, which are the majority of those books. Sansa, Brienne, and Jamie are getting invented plots/merged with others. Arya's is probably gong to go somewhat off the books, but can have her plot be changed at a whim since it affects no one else.
 
It's beyond asinine, and makes Littlefinger look stupid. I can't fathom to understand how marrying Sansa to Ramsay benefits Littlefinger at all.

It doesn't even make sense in the show's world. Show LF is obsessed with Sansa, just like Book LF. Why would he offer her up to a man he knows to be a psychopath whose behavior cannot be predicted or anticipated? He's a wildcard. What if he rapes Sansa, or what if the Boltons decide to send her to King's Landing...it's too dangerous.

Do we know if the Boltons know she's Sansa, or is she just LF's bastard to them?
 
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