Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

[Chamomile]

I'm totally okay with the new Robocop having actually different themes from the original, since we now live in a world where cyborgs are real and saying that amputees with cutting edge prosthetics are inhuman zombies who need to regain their humanity is actually going to be kind of offensive in the near future.

The movie did spend too much time on its political philosophy and not enough on its main character's personal arc, but since that is the reverse of Hollywood's usual problem I'm okay with it. I thought Robocop 2014 was pretty good. Not great, but good.

[Kaelik]

-Arya's plotline in general, he goal was to reunite with he loving family, which almost happens but then lol red wedding. As of book 5 she is on another continent entirely training with some assassins we don't care about.

Arya's plotline is clearly not about reuniting with her family. Arya is a point of view character in Winterfell. Arya is a point of view character along the road. Arya is a point of view character in King's Landing. I mean, for godsakes. The entire point of her plotline is show all the motivations and events required to create a hyper assassin who will do whatever she will end up doing at the end.

[Parthenon]

-Arya's plotline in general, he goal was to reunite with he loving family, which almost happens but then lol red wedding. As of book 5 she is on another continent entirely training with some assassins we don't care about.

Arya's plotline is clearly not about reuniting with her family. Arya is a point of view character in Winterfell. Arya is a point of view character along the road. Arya is a point of view character in King's Landing. I mean, for godsakes. The entire point of her plotline is show all the motivations and events required to create a hyper assassin who will do whatever she will end up doing at the end.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Mistborn seems to be saying that Arya's motivation and goal is to be reunited with her family.
You say that he's being retarded and that her motivation isn't to be reunited, and instead the reason for the story to show her point of view is to show her motivations.

Her motivation and the reason to make her a point of view character are completely different things. Please explain what you mean.

[hyzmarca]

-Arya's plotline in general, he goal was to reunite with he loving family, which almost happens but then lol red wedding. As of book 5 she is on another continent entirely training with some assassins we don't care about.

Arya's plotline is clearly not about reuniting with her family. Arya is a point of view character in Winterfell. Arya is a point of view character along the road. Arya is a point of view character in King's Landing. I mean, for godsakes. The entire point of her plotline is show all the motivations and events required to create a hyper assassin who will do whatever she will end up doing at the end.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Mistborn seems to be saying that Arya's motivation and goal is to be reunited with her family.
You say that he's being retarded and that her motivation isn't to be reunited, and instead the reason for the story to show her point of view is to show her motivations.

Her motivation and the reason to make her a point of view character are completely different things. Please explain what you mean.

Arya's motivation is revenge, pure and simple. She's had a murder list since her father died and she keeps adding to it. Reuniting with her family is one of her goals, yes, but it isn't her only goal. And the entire story has been about stripping her of everything except her desire for revenge and dangling the means to achieve it in front of her.

[Parthenon]

Oh, okay, cool. That sounds pretty much what I remember, I just haven't read the books for years so I can't remember too well.

I was just curious because the reasons Kaelik gave seemed to have nothing to do with his argument.

[Kaelik]

I was just curious because the reasons Kaelik gave seemed to have nothing to do with his argument.

"The entire point of her plotline is show all the motivations and events required to create a hyper assassin who will do whatever she will end up doing at the end."

This tells you that her goal is to kill people. And that the point is to show how her goals change to only that over time. I didn't think I needed to write a treatise that explains it to people who have never read the books and spoils more than Mistborn already did. So I made a post that was sufficiently vague that someone who had read recently or remembered would understand the point.

[Blicero]

-The Others are an especially big problem for the series, because they'er introduced in the prologe and that whole plotline makes the other 90% pretty much pointless. The first thing we learn about Westeros is that there are ice zombies who are going to wreck everyone's faces. That sort of existential threat makes the war over who gets the pointy chair kind of pointless.

This is probably major structural flaw of the series. From what I can tell, GRRM started out wanting to write a trilogy about zombies invading medieval England and then being defeated by dragons. But then a book or so in, he decided what he really cared about was writing War of the Roses fanfiction, and also that he required four more books. And in doing so, he kind of sidelined the zombie invasion plot thread. This has caused all sorts of issues.

-books 4 and 5 in general are just irritating in general because instead of advacing the plots we care about new characters are introduced and their plots don't go anywhere either.

I read some review that claimed that, as the middle part of the series, FfC and DwD were meant to just flat-out be about failure. SoS ends on a relative high note for some characters, but these people all proceed to fuck themselves over. I don't know if that makes DwD a more satisfying book to read, but, viewed in that light, I can sort of accept its existence.

[Maj]

I just finished reading Fallen by Lauren Kate. It sucked. I am so sick of Young Angst fiction. This series has particularly egregious issues with telling versus showing. And it got to the point where during the most exciting part of the book, I was the least interested in reading. It felt to me a lot more like the supernatural romance version of the Truman Show. It was awful.

[hyzmarca]

-The Others are an especially big problem for the series, because they'er introduced in the prologe and that whole plotline makes the other 90% pretty much pointless. The first thing we learn about Westeros is that there are ice zombies who are going to wreck everyone's faces. That sort of existential threat makes the war over who gets the pointy chair kind of pointless.

This is probably major structural flaw of the series. From what I can tell, GRRM started out wanting to write a trilogy about zombies invading medieval England and then being defeated by dragons. But then a book or so in, he decided what he really cared about was writing War of the Roses fanfiction, and also that he required four more books. And in doing so, he kind of sidelined the zombie invasion plot thread. This has caused all sorts of issues.

-books 4 and 5 in general are just irritating in general because instead of advacing the plots we care about new characters are introduced and their plots don't go anywhere either.

I read some review that claimed that, as the middle part of the series, FfC and DwD were meant to just flat-out be about failure. SoS ends on a relative high note for some characters, but these people all proceed to fuck themselves over. I don't know if that makes DwD a more satisfying book to read, but, viewed in that light, I can sort of accept its existence.

Books 4 and 5 weren't part of the original plan at all. There was supposed to be a five year timeskip with important details covered by flashbacks.

It's just that he kept writing flashbacks until he had half a book worth of them and decided that he might as well write a whole book. And then he kept writing till he had three books worth and still wasn't finished so his publisher told him to split it because there was no way they'd publish something that huge.

Really, they're a bridge between Storm of Swords and Winds of Winter, and consist of all the boring stuff that GRRM had intended to skip over but ended up writing anyway.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Let's get some more hate up in this bitch.

Okay, so, like I said I haven't read any of the GoT books. I'm just familiar with the series through reading the TvTropes article back in 2010 and watching seasons 1-2 on Amazon.

What scenes did the television adaptation fuck up and how? Also, what characters did the adaptation fuck over? This is just my personal opinion, but, I have a feeling that they made the eunuch character more sympathetic than the books intended and made Littlefinger more of an arrogant sleaze than magnificent bastard. Again, haven't read the books, but from what I gathered the book Littlefinger is supposed to be the escapist manipulative charming bastard character who cuts through the bullshit and shows the spoiled nobility what's what... and the TV series character isn't like that. It might just be the actor's fault, but it feels that it's more of the writers' fault.

[Kaelik]

Honestly, Littlefinger probably takes the least damage because literally 100% of the stuff he says to people that isn't revealing his big plots is not essential to his character.

Don't get me wrong, the part where he tells Eddard Stark that not trusting him was the smartest thing he has done, and then weeks later reminds him of that during betrayal is cool. But most of LittleFinger is the plots, and those just get revealed and you have a new appreciation.

That said, pretty sure they don't show enough in the plot reveal scene in the show, so that I would not be at all surprised if people who watched the show were completely unaware that

Lysa Arryn poisoned her husband herself when Peter manipulated her to, and then sent a letter to Cat saying the Lannisters did it because he told her to do that too, and that is literally 100% of the reason that everyone went to war at Littlefinger's manipulation.

Also, I didn't watch the wedding episodes, so I have no idea if it was shown that Joff sent the knife to kill Bran or not. Or if the dwarvish mummers where shown, or if it was explained that Littlefinger had to lead Joff to the mummers and make him drink by explaining that Tyrion would hate it. But like, they revealed that he was behind killing joff and he was behind the betrayl of Ned, so does it really matter how he comes off in his obvious front?

Compare that to Tyrion, who goes from an ugly monster who actually carries himself well in battle to a pretty dwarf who is apparently just hated because fuck short people, but also doesn't have the actual competence that made his wit fun instead of arrogant.

However, two things that really piss me off are:

1) Renly and Loras being gay in the books is subtly hinted at until eventually the hints escalate (long after Renly is dead) to being super obvious.

In the show, any subtly is murdered immediately by showing them banging the first time you ever see Loras.

Similarly, Stannis cheating on his wife is left open to metaphorical cheating in the book because all you know is that he spends all his time with Melisandre, and that shadow babies kill people. But in the show, they make damn sure you see him fucking here.

2) What I would have said was the definite worse thing before the most recent wall episode: Fucking Robb's bitch. In the books, he is injured storming a Lannister bannerman's castle, and then they join his side, and their young nubile daughter goes and nurses him back to health, and when he hears about Bran and Rickon, he seeks solace in fucking her, and then he feels like it would be dishonorable to not marry her, and so he does. Oh, and then she never has a kid because her mother has been feeding her "moon tea" which is basically plan B, and telling her daughter it was fertility, because all along she knew this would piss off the Freys, and she was in communication with Tywin.

This means that Robb is manipulated like a young boy king should be, and that Tywin is a mastermind.

In the show, instead... Robb just sees some bitch and decides to marry her. Because he wants some tang or something and he is an idiot. This is... tremendously underwhelming.

Also in the books, he doesn't bring the queen to the Twins, because he is smart enough to realize that is basically just rubbing Walder's face in it.

3) Arya Stark, the girl always described as having a very starklike face is somehow hanging out with Tywin on a daily basis. Tywin knows she is some northern lordling's daughter, and he knows Arya Stark is missing from King's Landing, and he never once, at any point, decides to send for any damn asshole who saw Arya Stark to check. Despite her being described over and over as having a Starklike face.

4) The fucking wall. I can't really address this too much, because there are still spoilers, but for fucks sake, in the books, Slynt isn't there, the Steward, Bowen Marsh who rules the wall in the Lord Commander's absences (not "whatever asshole trains new recruits") takes the garrison and spreads out along the wall in too many places because scouts report wildling attacks on the wall everywhere but at castle black. Meanwhile Allister Thorne is on his way back from King's Landing so Jon Snow shows up to a bunch of green boys and old men, and leads them in the defense of Castle Black against the Magnar led Thenns and some freemen (not led by Thormund Giantsbane).

They use clever tricks such as a barricade, and setting fire to the winding stair that leads up to the wall with most of the Thenns on it to defeat the numerically superior force, and then the next day they begin the defense of the wall against Mance and the army who arrive outside.

Because defenders actually have an advantage in the books, not like this piece of shit crap where for some reason the wall is so pathetic that people would just climb it while being shot at, and hey those 100 or so Thenns manage to basically go 1 for 1 with the men of Castle Black even though they are attacking. Why? Who the fuck knows. How? Who the fuck knows? Shouldn't this be concerning that for some reason Wildlings attacking a fort can go basically one for one? Why didn't they just have 500 people climb the wall so they could kill literally everyone?

In conclusion, fuck everything at the wall. Also, while we are at it, the reason Bran never talked to Jon in the books is because he is trying to hide his continued being alive from everyone, and they don't trust the crows to not tell anyone.

In the show, apparently a bunch of people fucking just see him, capture him, and then even after all the untrustworthy traitor black cloaks see him, he is five feet away from Jon Snow and decides not to go see him anyway.

There are obviously other things, but those are the most annoying.

[hyzmarca]

Let's get some more hate up in this bitch.

Okay, so, like I said I haven't read any of the GoT books. I'm just familiar with the series through reading the TvTropes article back in 2010 and watching seasons 1-2 on Amazon.

What scenes did the television adaptation fuck up and how? Also, what characters did the adaptation fuck over? This is just my personal opinion, but, I have a feeling that they made the eunuch character more sympathetic than the books intended and made Littlefinger more of an arrogant sleaze than magnificent bastard. Again, haven't read the books, but from what I gathered the book Littlefinger is supposed to be the escapist manipulative charming bastard character who cuts through the bullshit and shows the spoiled nobility what's what... and the TV series character isn't like that. It might just be the actor's fault, but it feels that it's more of the writers' fault.

Book Littleginfer is basically Iago. He's a horrible person who is very good at making people believe that he has their best interests at heart. He's incredibly sleezy but is very good at hiding it.

Series Littlefinger might actually be less sleezy than Book Littlefinger, but he's much more obvious about it.

In both cases, Littlefinger has a stalkerish obsession with Catelyn and seriously believes that the only reason they couldn't live happily ever after was that he was from a minor house that wasn't good enough for her, never mind the fact that she had zero romantic feelings for her and saw him more as a brother than a love interest.

Which you should already know. And this drives him to do some very pervy things, which would be spoilers.

Fucking Lysa as a teen wasn't cool because he was just using her as a substitute for Cat. But making out with Sansa while he's pretending that she's his daughter crosses all sorts of lines.

And in both series and books, he's essentially a sociopath who uses people and throws them away as it suits him. The book version is just better at hiding it.

[Kaelik]

seriously believes that the only reason they couldn't live happily ever after was that he was from a minor house that wasn't good enough for her, never mind the fact that she had zero romantic feelings for her and saw him more as a brother than a love interest.

I don't believe this. While I doubt Cait ever had sex with him as he claims, every time in Cait's point of view she thinks about him she is deliberately vague about her feelings in the exact same way that Ned is vague about the Lyanna death scene. Sometime she says some things, but the things she doesn't say are more meaningful. She never thinks about how she wasn't attracted to him in any of the flashbacks, and she doesn't do the brother talk at all in her head in flash backs, that is just what she says as an adult years later having been married to Ned and what she says specifically to Brandon Stark to get him to not kill Littlefinger.

In fact, she specifically is talking at one point about how dutiful she is, and the examples she give include marrying Ned, waiting for her farther and raising Edmundure, and specifically then she starts to remember the fight between Littlefinger and Brandon, in which she says she dutifully gave him her token, and dutifully refused to speak to Littlefinger, and begged Brandon to be merciful.

Saying she dutifully sided with one participant and scorned the other sounds a hell of a lot like she might have preferred the other side. Obviously she would never forsake her duty, she is an idiot who only ever makes bad decision after bad decision to push the plot along, but she never forsakes her duty. But it makes perfect since that she actually had feelings for Pyter when she was what 16.

EDIT: and she does fondly remember when they "practiced kissing" when Pyter was like 12.

[Whipstitch]

Honestly, I'm not even sure to what degree it can be said that adult Littlefinger hides his personal douche bagginess. I think his single biggest advantage is that he's from a minor house and is playing such a ridiculously long game that people wouldn't think his plan would work even if he had explained it to them. His MO appears mostly to be useful to desperate people until it's time to kick them down the stairs.

[Kaelik]

Honestly, I'm not even sure to what degree it can be said that adult Littlefinger hides his personal douche bagginess. I think his single biggest advantage is that he's from a minor house and is playing such a ridiculously long game that people wouldn't think his plan would work even if he had explained it to them. His MO appears mostly to be useful to desperate people until it's time to kick them down the stairs.

He is useful to everyone, not just desperate people, but yes, I don't think he hides his douchebaggery at all. He is known for being a not dwarf version of Tyrion, with constant witty sorties at all times in all circumstances that people just sort of tolerate because he is useful/not a threat.

EDIT: Here is a Petyr reveal that I don't think occurs in the show, and shows some of the several things he was doing.

Lord Petyr loosened a seed with the point of his dagger. “You must miss your father terribly, I know. Lord Eddard was a brave man, honest
and loyal . . . but quite a hopeless player.” He brought the seed to his mouth with the knife. “In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people.
The players and the pieces.”
“And I was a piece?” She dreaded the answer.
“Yes, but don’t let that trouble you. You’re still half a child. Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think
they are players.” He ate another seed. “Cersei, for one. She thinks herself sly, but in truth she is utterly predictable. Her strength rests on her
beauty, birth, and riches. Only the first of those is truly her own, and it will soon desert her. I pity her then. She wants power, but has no
notion what to do with it when she gets it. Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is,
and how to move him.”
“As you moved Ser Dontos to poison Joffrey?” It had to have been Dontos, she had concluded.
Littlefinger laughed. “Ser Dontos the Red was a skin of wine with legs. He could never have been trusted with a task of such enormity. He
would have bungled it or betrayed me. No, all Dontos had to do was lead you from the castle . . . and make certain you wore your silver hair
net.”
The black amethysts. “But . . . if not Dontos, who? Do you have other . . . pieces?”
“You could turn King’s Landing upside down and not find a single man with a mockingbird sewn over his heart, but that does not mean I
am friendless.” Petyr went to the steps. “Oswell, come up here and let the Lady Sansa have a look at you.”
The old man appeared a few moments later, grinning and bowing. Sansa eyed him uncertainly. “What am I supposed to see?”
“Do you know him?” asked Petyr.
“No.”
“Look closer.”
She studied the old man’s lined windburnt face, hook nose, white hair, and huge knuckly hands. There was something familiar about him,
yet Sansa had to shake her head. “I don’t. I never saw Oswell before I got into his boat, I’m certain.”
Oswell grinned, showing a mouth of crooked teeth. “No, but m’lady might of met my three sons.”
It was the “three sons,” and that smile too. “Kettleblack!” Sansa’s eyes went wide. “You’re a Kettleblack!”
“Aye, m’lady, as it please you.”
“She’s beside herself with joy.” Lord Petyr dismissed him with a wave, and returned to the pomegranate again as Oswell shuffled down the
steps. “Tell me, Alayne—which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone
you never even see?”
“The hidden dagger.”
“There’s a clever girl.” He smiled, his thin lips bright red from the pomegranate seeds. “When the Imp sent off her guards, the queen had
Ser Lancel hire sellswords for her. Lancel found her the Kettleblacks, which delighted your little lord husband, since the lads were in his pay
through his man Bronn.” He chuckled. “But it was me who told Oswell to get his sons to King’s Landing when I learned that Bronn was
looking for swords. Three hidden daggers, Alayne, now perfectly placed.”
“So one of the Kettleblacks put the poison in Joff’s cup?” Ser Osmund had been near the king all night, she remembered.
“Did I say that?” Lord Petyr cut the blood orange in two with his dagger and offered half to Sansa. “The lads are far too treacherous to be
part of any such scheme . . . and Osmund has become especially unreliable since he joined the Kingsguard. That white cloak does things to a
man, I find. Even a man like him.” He tilted his chin back and squeezed the blood orange, so the juice ran down into his mouth. “I love the
juice but I loathe the sticky fingers,” he complained, wiping his hands. “Clean hands, Sansa. Whatever you do, make certain your hands are
clean.”
Sansa spooned up some juice from her own orange. “But if it wasn’t the Kettleblacks and it wasn’t Ser Dontos . . . you weren’t even in the
city, and it couldn’t have been Tyrion . . .”
“No more guesses, sweetling?”
She shook her head. “I don’t . . .”
Petyr smiled. “I will wager you that at some point during the evening someone told you that your hair net was crooked and straightened it
for you.”
Sansa raised a hand to her mouth. “You cannot mean . . . she wanted to take me to Highgarden, to marry me to her grandson . . .”
“Gentle, pious, good-hearted Willas Tyrell. Be grateful you were spared, he would have bored you spitless. The old woman is not boring,
though, I’ll grant her that. A fearsome old harridan, and not near as frail as she pretends. When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery’s
hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions about Joffrey’s nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure . . . whilst
my men spread disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell’s servants. That is how the game is played.
“I also planted the notion of Ser Loras taking the white. Not that I suggested it, that would have been too crude. But men in my party
supplied grisly tales about how the mob had killed Ser Preston Greenfield and raped the Lady Lollys, and slipped a few silvers to Lord Tyrell’s
army of singers to sing of Ryam Redwyne, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. A harp can be as dangerous as
a sword, in the right hands.
“Mace Tyrell actually thought it was his own idea to make Ser Loras’s inclusion in the Kingsguard part of the marriage contract. Who better
to protect his daughter than her splendid knightly brother? And it relieved him of the difficult task of trying to find lands and a bride for a
third son, never easy, and doubly difficult in Ser Loras’s case.
“Be that as it may. Lady Olenna was not about to let Joff harm her precious darling granddaughter, but unlike her son she also realized that
under all his flowers and finery, Ser Loras is as hot-tempered as Jaime Lannister. Toss Joffrey, Margaery, and Loras in a pot, and you’ve got
the makings for kingslayer stew. The old woman understood something else as well. Her son was determined to make Margaery a queen, and
for that he needed a king . . . but he did not need Joffrey. We shall have another wedding soon, wait and see. Margaery will marry Tommen.
She’ll keep her queenly crown and her maidenhead, neither of which she especially wants, but what does that matter? The great western
alliance will be preserved . . . for a time, at least.”

[name_here]

One reason he's so indispensible to everyone is that he's set up a complex web of investments and debt so the crown is simultaneously broke and filthy rich and he's basically the only person who can keep up with the payments. This is critically important, because the Crown owes money to the Iron Bank, and if the current king isn't going to pay it back the Iron Bank will find a king who will.

[Kaelik]

Wholly fuck, the GoT show is now deviating from the books just because.

Several characters are half way into Dance of Dragons. Others are not even at the end of Storm of Swords.

Weirdest of all:

Brienne who gets maybe probably hung at the end of Feast without ever seeing a Stark daughter (technically she sees Arya for like six seconds before she rides behind a building) is now chatting it up with Arya while the Hound takes a shit.

Despite several people being in Dance already, Arya is still fucking in the stupid shitty Westeroes plotline that has now greatly deviated from her actual plotline, and wtf why is she not in fucking Bravos yet?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Wholly fuck, the GoT show is now deviating from the books just because.

It's very rarely just because. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the minor character deaths occurred because those characters don't do anything meaningful coming up and it's not worth keeping them on salary. There's also the butterfly effect where earlier minor deviations force major deviations later.

Several characters are half way into Dance of Dragons. Others are not even at the end of Storm of Swords.

You get problems where some characters (Brienne I am looking in your direction) must have something significant enough coming up to justify keeping around as main cast members, but don't have enough actual in-book story to keep them occupied until then. Basically, the show needs a lot more recurring guest stars. How much time did they waste on Theon torture porn in season 3?

[Kaelik]

You get problems where some characters (Brienne I am looking in your direction) must have something significant enough coming up to justify keeping around as main cast members, but don't have enough actual in-book story to keep them occupied until then. Basically, the show needs a lot more recurring guest stars. How much time did they waste on Theon torture porn in season 3?

That is full of shit because they delete 90% of all Brienne things in the books, and then just replaced it with completely different stuff that was in no way involved anything she actually did do in the books.

Also, since I finished watching the last fucking episode:

Fucking Shae? Fuck me. They took the coolest fucking part of the books and turned it into the shittiest part of the show. Tywin's death scene is boring. Having him get mad at him for calling Shae a whore is completely fucking meaningless after he just killed her. Having him be all conflicted over the whore who betrayed him while killing her is fucking meaingless and boring. Literally no feels where had by me.

They also fucked up the Arya ship scene too. Because they fuck up everything. Everything.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That is full of shit because they delete 90% of all Brienne things in the books, and then just replaced it with completely different stuff that was in no way involved anything she actually did do in the books.

I think it's pretty closely involved to what she did in the books, which was fucking nothing. Unless you count wandering around plot-irrelevant areas so that George has an opportunity to describe bits of the setting he otherwise wouldn't.

[Kaelik]

That is full of shit because they delete 90% of all Brienne things in the books, and then just replaced it with completely different stuff that was in no way involved anything she actually did do in the books.

I think it's pretty closely involved to what she did in the books, which was fucking nothing. Unless you count wandering around plot-irrelevant areas so that George has an opportunity to describe bits of the setting he otherwise wouldn't.

Whatever you bullshitter. By any definition that declares the fucking Riverlands in the middle of the ongoing war between outlaws and Rocktower to be irrelevant literally everything south of the wall is bullshit.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Whatever you bullshitter. By any definition that declares the fucking Riverlands in the middle of the ongoing war between outlaws and Rocktower to be irrelevant literally everything south of the wall is bullshit.

Really? How about by the definition 'includes dragon-related artifacts?' That neatly includes the Iron Isles and excludes the Riverlands. That's not the definition I personally use, but it does counter-example your bullshit. But enough about your cherry-picking the least relevant part of my position to attack and still getting owned.

A lot of what Brienne sees might very well be set-up for later payoff (like the Cleganebowl theory), but in terms of what she actually does, it's basically nothing. She meanders around, pointlessly following leads that are not only false but known by the reader to be false ahead of time, frequently remembering how bad her life has been. It's godawful, it's like the number three thing people hate about that book (number two being Cersei taking up like four times the wordcount she deserves, and number one being all the missing characters). I don't agree with a lot of the adaptational choices, and I actively hate some of them, but having Brienne follow actual leads instead of false ones, and interact with significant people instead of insignificant ones is all to the good.

[Kaelik]

Really? How about by the definition 'includes dragon-related artifacts?' That neatly includes the Iron Isles and excludes the Riverlands.

Okay fine, any definition that isn't made by a retarded person. Now explain why Dragon artifacts that have never been used and may not even work are "relevant" to the plot but things that happen in the riverlands but will pay off later are "not relevant."

But enough about your cherry-picking the least relevant part of my position to attack and still getting owned.

Least relevant part of your position? Are you a fucking idiot? I mean, don't get me wrong, it was the least relevant part of your position. It was also the most relevant part of your position. Because it was your entire position! Your entire position is that the Riverlands outlaw part of the plot doesn't count. Since this is obviously an important part of the whole "Danny becomes Queen" plot that hasn't yet paid off, and may also have to do with other things. But since it hasn't paid off yet, you declare it completely irrelevant, even though by that definition literally everything is irrelevant. Including your precious Dragonhorn that has so far killed a random guy and done nothing else at all, and hasn't paid off in any other way.

A lot of what Brienne sees might very well be set-up for later payoff (like the Cleganebowl theory), but in terms of what she actually does, it's basically nothing. She meanders around, pointlessly following leads that are not only false but known by the reader to be false ahead of time, frequently remembering how bad her life has been.

So I suppose you hate every single Sansa and Arya chapter that has ever been written? Neither of them does anything special either. Arya eventually kills some completely inconsequential people and then goes on a training montage. Sansa passively observes a bunch of shit. If your theory is that people who's PoVs exist to show a bunch of consequential shit around them don't count unless they are doing the consequential shit then that basically 100% excludes both of those two from counting so far.

I don't agree with a lot of the adaptational choices, and I actively hate some of them, but having Brienne follow actual leads instead of false ones, and interact with significant people instead of insignificant ones is all to the good.

So you think Brienne chatting up Arya and telling her she is going to lead her off to safety improves Arya's plotline? Because you are a fucking idiot if you think that. Arya going to Bravos because she has no choice and no where to go is a hell of a lot better than... Fuck it, I could try to get this lady to take me to Jon, and she probably would, but I'd rather just fuck off for no reason.

[Blicero]

She meanders around, pointlessly following leads that are not only false but known by the reader to be false ahead of time, frequently remembering how bad her life has been.

This is true. Brienne's aFfC plotline is structurally dissatisfying because the reader knows she has no chance of succeeding. Her character development internal monlogue is often interesting, but it's the sort of thing that might be difficult to get across in television. For GoT, it's not an inherently bad idea to have the viewer think maybe she might find a Stark girl. But that doesn't excuse the Hot Pie scene from being embarrassing. And as Kaelik pointed out, giving Arya a chance to maybe actually see Jon or something ruins the emotional heft of her Braavos decision.

It's godawful, it's like the number three thing people hate about that book (number two being Cersei taking up like four times the wordcount she deserves, and number one being all the missing characters).

Cersei's aFfC chapters are hilarious. She had just enough of them. And people who complain about the missing characters don't understand anything at all.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Okay fine, any definition that isn't made by a retarded person.

I am not in fact a retarded person (that term has a specific medical meaning), so you're still wrong. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll eventually manage to move the goalposts to your satisfaction.

Your entire position is that the Riverlands outlaw part of the plot doesn't count.

My actual position is that Brienne's chapters don't have enough story content to justify the time spent on them. You might notice that the Riverlands outlaw part of the plot doesn't actually advance in book 4.

So I suppose you hate every single Sansa and Arya chapter that has ever been written? Neither of them does anything special either.

I don't agree that they don't do anything special. For example, Sansa's betrayal is a hugely important action in Book 1, even if it happens off-screen; and the 'weasel soup' incident is kind of a big deal as well. I could name others.

But even when the Stark girls are just observers, what they observe is often immediately relevant to the overarching plot. The confessions that Sansa hears in Book 3 are a big deal in a way that the coy revelation on the Quiet Isle just is not. Arya's viewpoint in Book 2 shows us the situation with the Lannister army; that's relevant to the war in a way that farting around with Nimble Dick and Hyle Hunt just is not. And they personally get character arcs that are complete within each book.

Brienne's chapters aren't all bad. Her interaction with Randyll Tarly is fantastic, even if it's all just characterization. But characterization is almost all she gets, and her character arc doesn't complete in book 4 or 5.

So you think Brienne chatting up Arya and telling her she is going to lead her off to safety improves Arya's plotline? Because you are a fucking idiot if you think that. Arya going to Bravos because she has no choice and no where to go is a hell of a lot better than... Fuck it, I could try to get this lady to take me to Jon, and she probably would, but I'd rather just fuck off for no reason.

I thought that scene did a good job of establishing why Arya wouldn't trust a person she'd never met before and who was literally covered in Lannister patronage. That she has an opportunity to reject the next iteration in her cycle of dubious protector figures and go alone by choice gives her more agency than simply being forced into it; I don't know if it's a better version of her transition to self-determination, but I don't think it's worse.

edit: Whoops! Attribution.