Yes, this., There's a new puritanism appearing in criticism about sex and violence which bares all the hallmarks of a moral panic.

Absolutely, he gets turned on hearing about the possible rape and abuse of Shae and he fights mega dirty with a poisoned spear. The show regularly seems quite tone deaf in the way it softens some plot lines or characters and toughens up others.

Saddam and Uday Hussein would like a word.

Martin's response is to criticism that the books contain too much violence, he makes the fair point that a history book will contain a similar level and he's correct. The criticism is not that the books condense the violence down into a few years from a few decades.

But that doesn't really matter, the point is the events as you experience them are condensed.

It's just condensed, the same way a history book takes days to read not the same amount of time as the years it covers.

And that's why you don't get involved in a land war in Asia.

But my issues don't just occur at the end, the problem is the show Invested Everything With Meaning when the creators had no idea what the meaning was and the characters simply aren't strong enough to hold up the sloppily ad-hoc mysteries. But, more than that, the show completely fails at being sci-fi or supernatural…

Ok, I would say the journey vs destination talk is fair but isn't exclusively about the characters and I heavily disagree with the idea they've been downplaying the ending or the mysteries or just any of the plot stuff - they whipped up frenzies around that shit when they knew they had absolutely nothing.

"It was always about the characters!" Yeh, note that the promotional material for season 6 has Cuelof using that phrase a lot, whereas everything before 6 talks about the mysteries being paid off. Plus the glaring fact that with about 3 or 4 exceptions (which they go on to ruin anyway) the characters are deeply 2d.…

The ending makes the show meaningless (and yeh, I know they weren't dead the whole time), it's simply 2d characters (with some ruined exceptions) and tension that's ultimately based on nothing. It's horribly clunky to get where it needs to go but it doesn't go anywhere so the clunkiness is unforgivable.

No, there's an epilogue with Littlefinger sitting on a melted throne surrounded by ashes finally the King of a dead country.

Aha, thanks for the info.

I will never understand why the didn't just cast Nikolai Valuev and be done with it. He actually is on a par with The Mountain size and looks wise, much more so than any of the actors they actually cast.

Indeed, identity politics is the greatest trick the right never had to pull.

I don't quote Matt and Trey much but by god they were right about Gbson in the Imagination Land trilogy - the man knows how to make a movie.

Agreed, it was probably the greatest thing ever shown on the major networks, discounting The Simpsons of course. Astonishing doesn't do it justice, just a perfect 43 minutes of television.

The show really misses out on these subtleties, it's such a shame because they tend to be the bits that elevate the material from cool fantasy saga to "holy hell that is goddamn amazing"

Hey now, Germans watch and enjoy this show too.

I'd love to believe that, truly I would. Sorry.