Maybe not in execution, but in intention at least. This was Michael Haneke tier.
>take a morally grey show and use tropes and le current year trends to gradually fool the audience into picking and rooting for protagonists. >Make violence cool by framing it as Tarantino-esque expression of overcoming personal oppression. Yay strong Stark girls, murder your oppressors, feed Ramsey to the hounds, feed Frey's kids to him, slit Littlefinger's throat. Return the violence that has been wielded against you by your oppressors throughout the show. > Have the audience literally rooting for slaughter of the people who stood in the way of the subtly established protagonists, then given them a full dose of what they want. Force them to look at mothers and children being burned alive for 20 minutes, "good" Northern soldiers raping and murdering women, honorable and disciplined unsullied murdering surrendered prisoners. >Do much of this through the perspective of Jon and Arya who have been built up to be unstoppable badasses getting utterly crushed by the carnage around them. There's no going back to warrior or assassin from that. >People snap, cancel Dany, screech about white men, do ANYTHING not to feel disgusted with themselves and being tricked into letting their worst instincts take over. But ultimately the lesson that War is Hell even if you think you're on the side of the angels will seep in. Which really is what the entire series is about for better or worse.
All that was missing rewind scene like in Funny games where the rapist guy that Jon impales rewinds his death back and rapes that woman to death.
Agreed op. It's like someone finally understood how to actually subvert expectations in a meaningful way and not just Arya wins lol
Grayson Mitchell
>scene like in Funny games where the rapist guy that Jon impales rewinds his death back and rapes that woman to death. i don't remember a rape. i remember a kid being shot and his mother and father being thrown in a lake to drown.
Julian Brooks
Subversion isn't a substitute for good writing.
Joseph Stewart
You're bad writing
Matthew Sullivan
So based. Love the giant fuck you to SJW filth
Wyatt Rivera
i love the fat-bitch tears. how many movies/tv shows does this make that they've gotten offended by how it turned out?
yeah pretty much. it has been telegraphed this would probably happen, from the start. i think varys was given a vision of it.
James Anderson
I gotta agree OP, the change in tone was pretty genuinely shocking, forced me to reevaluate a lot. Also it's been a long time since GoT's genuinely shocked me anyway.
Jacob Powell
The "bad writing" parts actually played into it. Arya killing le big bad Night King in a contrived easy manner makes her ptsd mindfuck and forsaking her assassin ways that much more impactful. She's the center of attention (good and bad) and things that happen to her impact the audience much more.
IDK how much DnD planned it or if it's just accidental 4D chess but that's what it is
Nathan Adams
The part in the episode where Jon impales the northern soldier trying to rape that woman (saving her to get dragon'd later on). If that guy pulled out a remote and rewound the stab and knocked Jon out I would burgerclap.
Evan Brown
For an episode I thought was kind of shit like the rest of the season, I'm starting to come around to it. I was disgusted by Danies wholesale slaughter of civilians and the mass murder of surrendering soldiers and civilians by the unsullied and northerners. I love how the people who did it were characters many people had been propping on a pedestal of moral superiority. Seeing the seething reaction from Dany fans has been fantastic.
Aiden King
this
for all of their faults, D&D have balls of steel to shit on the normies like this
Subversion has become a meme thanks to Le Epic SpaceBear Man but if used right it can drive the point home better than clever plotting. The crux of the novels is that all the epic fantasy conflicts are actually hell on earth for the regular people wrapped up in them and ultimately accomplish nothing. It's a pacifist manifesto. This episode was an anvil dropped from up high nailing that manifesto into people's heads.
Camden Sullivan
Yep they wanted to show the 'innocents' getting slaughtered.
but how innocent were they really?
Angel Campbell
>but how innocent were they really? Remove the log from your eye before you set fire to a million townsfolk.
Lincoln Ward
>but how innocent were they really?
They all cheered when Ned Stark was being beheaded.
Luis White
Probably about as innocent as the collective population of New York, London or Moscow.
Kayden James
Because that was the message they were fed by the true wielders of power at the time, the Littlefingers and Varys's.
A fuckton of people cheered when Gaddafi died but he was basically African Jesus compared to the majority of the continent and what came after. Do we all deserve to get refugee bombed now?
Dominic Hughes
Yeah, I think people will really come around to appreciate it once they're no longer this emotionally invested. Will be on a bunch of "Top 10 TV episodes that flopped but became classics" later on
Nicholas Peterson
After this episode I think even The Long Night wasn't just a D&D creation but is very much how Gurm intends to have it play out in the books, i.e. it's an intentional anticlimax that leads into the revelation that Daenerys has been the true villain all along.
Even the way D&D phrased how they "chose" who would kill the Night King makes it sound like Gurm told them "Yeah it doesn't actually even matter who kills the Others since they're meant to be a red herring the whole time and misdirect the read away from Dany. I haven't really decided so just go with whoever you feel like."
It's hilarious normalfags and femcels are seething that their stronk heroic self insert was robbed from them when Daenerys as a villain can possibly go down as a truly classic, brilliantly conceived character.
William Cruz
Actually Arya killing him nonchalantly mattered a great deal. She became the most controversial (both loved and hated) character, turbocharged by the stronk womyn dynamic that's polarizing society... and then all the people whose eyes are now glued to the screen when she's there either because they love or hate her get to witness the most fucked up carnage in the entire series from her perspective... as she goes from all-powerful assassin to scared traumatized little girl and clearly won't be a cheery nonchalant killer anymore. The Hound especially giving her the let it go before it consumes you talk was kino
Brayden Cruz
People were tricked into gazing at their ugly reflections.
Jordan Cooper
Varys was staunchly against the execution and he's the one who convinced Ned to confess specifically so he wouldn't get executed. The only two people who wanted it were Joffrey and LF.
Caleb Jenkins
This episode is going to become a major plebfilter. I've shat on the most recent seasons of GoT like everyone else, but this episode was something else. A lot of the details weren't logical, but the big picture is great. I think this episode had the most GRRM influence of any in season 8.
Jayden Taylor
People predicted Mad Dany since season 1, its probably one of the most heavily foreshadowed things in the story: Targ madness, Azor Ahai, rise of the walkers in opposition to the riser of dragons etc
Elijah Kelly
My bad, but it was still their underhanded propaganda triumphing over Ned Stark's old school honor. Kind of how Hillary propagandafucked Bernie with BernieBros and other shit and most people bought it.
Jose Taylor
Yes but episode to episode they cajoled the audience by making her relatable for normies. She chained up her dragons when they burned someone's kid, she did bad shit but would constantly be talked into de-escalating and forgiving. She got convinced to put off her invasion to protect the North. There has been a drip-drip-drip of good girl Dany for like 5 years now to put people at ease. Then, BOOM, right to the cortex.
Lucas Sanders
its the end of Inglorious Basterds where people cheering at all the nazis being killed see themselves in the nazis laughing at all the people they've killed Suberversionkino
