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As promised, here’s the GLoP Game of Thrones season 7 recap podcast with special guests New York Times columnist (and National Review movie critic) Ross Douthat and The Washington Free Beacon’s Sonny Bunch sitting in for the Game-less Rob Long. Need less to say, this show contains wall-to-Northern Wall spoilers as well as arcana and details that only people who actually live in Westeros or die hard Thrones fans will appreciate. That said, if you watch the show and want to hear some smart guys geek out about it, then this podcast is for you. Winter is here.
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Ross Douthat looks exactly like Sam Tarly. Except, I think Ross would be perfectly happy being stuck in The Citadel, droning away on scholarly research.
…but not, perhaps, cleaning bedpans.
The character of Sonny Bunch is a lot more well-rounded as a villain in this interpretation.
Sonny is most certainly the Night King. He would be flattered by this comparison.
A+ for the art this week.; LOL at Jonah Tormund.
Glad you did a Thrones show. Rob was a wet blanket last week, and it will be TWO YEARS before there’s more.
Glad to hear that Jonah joins me in being annoyed that Wun Wun the giant was given no weapon in the Battle of the Bastards… I will also point out that at least one of the giants among the army of the dead is seen with a weapon, so we know the Ice King is smarter than Jon Snow…
I’m a huge GLOP, GOT and Substandard fan so this was a rare treat. I’m now a big Douthat fan too.
Excellent work gents. Made my drive super enjoyable. Podcasts are why I donated. Thanks.
Douthat is great.
A+++++
Indeed.
Weirdly, my biggest gripe from the GoT season was that the Dothraki are a nomadic steppe/grassland people (analogous to Mongols/Scythians/etc.). Their horde is made up of lightly armored cavalry and horse archers. It’s extremely unlikely that they would have attacked heavy spear infantry head-on like they did. They had a dragon so it worked out, but it seemed out of character.
NB: this is a non-expert opinion. My understanding may be flawed.
I am a reader of A Song of Ice and Fire. The TV show A Game of Thrones started out incredible, but slowly started deviating from the books, in a process that accelerated in Seasons 4 and 5. Then the show writers ran out of material in Season 6 — and, yes, this is very much George R. R. Martin’s fault — and the writers didn’t know what to do. They were brilliant at adapting already-written material, but terrible at coming up with something new. The result was unintentional slapstick comedy, with all the interesting character development and plot complexity from the books tossed out the window.
I still watched Season 6 last year, but it was like watching a caricature of the books. Season 6 had occasional high points, but they were so much outweighed by the negatives that I decided not to watch the show at all this year. I’ve followed spoilers for Season 7 — they don’t bother me too much given how different the products are now, and the show is likely to provide the only resolution anyway — and it very much seems like Season 7 is more of the same.
It is frustrating to me that so many smart people still love the show despite its devolution. I know from occasionally visiting diehard A Song of Ice and Fire fan websites that I am not alone in the true fan nerdom in my negative view of the show,* but it seems that otherwise the show continues to get lauded even by folks like Jonah Goldberg and John Podhoretz. Jonah has hinted on Corner Posts that the show has declined at least a little bit, but he is still relatively enthusiastic. I wish he had put his snark into taking down the show the way it so much deserves now.
What makes this even worse is that Martin is very unlikely to finish the books. He may or may not get Winds of Winter out — I put it at about 50/50. So, the show will end the story — very much for the worse I fear.
* For some great book and show analysis but horrible contemporary political analysis, check out https://racefortheironthrone.wordpress.com/.
As someone who also read the books, I could barely stand books 4 and 5. I think a lot of the expansion GRRM did in Braavos and Meeren were very weak, just to name a few things. I have little faith in GRRM’s resolution of this story and even less in his ability to actually finish it. Considering the quality of the last two books, I don’t entirely believe GRRM’s version will be any better.
I don’t strongly disagree with you about books 4 and 5, though I still feel they are heads and shoulders above the show’s adaptation of the material. GRRM did what so many other epic fantasy authors do — he unnecessarily expanded his universe and wrote himself into a corner. Even though I like Jaime’s POV in A Storm of Swords, I worried as soon as it came that GRRM was going to expand him story into a mess from which he would be unable to extricate himself. Now he can’t write himself out of this corner and has apparently either lost interest in his story or can’t figure out where to go from here. For these reasons (as well as, sadly, his advancing age) I don’t believe that it is likely he will finish A Song of Ice and Fire.
Don’t even get me started on the Lady Stoneheart storyline. God, that will be a mess to resolve since it’ll involve Jaime, Brienne, Sansa, and Littlefinger. Yes, many fantasy authors expand, expand, and expand their worlds. However, some show the ability in writing convergences. Unfortunately, after reading 5 books, I see little signs that this is one of GRRM’s strong points. We’ll have to disagree because for the most part, I’m fine or even happier with most of the consolidation that the show runners did. If GRRM ever finishes this story, I’ll read it and I hope that he’s able to resolve things better. But for now and for the foreseeable future, I’ll go with the show and I’m content with it.
I’m with Rob…
How true. I’m sorry, no discussion of GoT is complete without Rob Long chiming in about how silly the show is. I just can’t bring myself to listen to any commentary without his Statler & Waldorf style sniping about dragons, over the top dialog, and Hollywood’s gender preferences.
I’m hoping for a bonus GLoP episode about non GoT stuff.
For me, the best part of Season 7 (besides Prince Cruithet’s speech to the Grey Knights at the Feast of the Half Moon, which my roommate and I still quote to each other!) was watching the Zoorachian army making the long trek across the Rhafliet Mountains to fight Queen Xuina’s troops in the Den of Dragons — and without Jack Prann’s silver amulet to help them! OMG!!!
Just incredible television!
Greatest show of all time.
I want zombie Wun Wun to punt Lyanna Mormont over the wall
anyone know the WH Auden poem Douthat refers
I agree the show’s tanking in quality coincided their running out of source material (as great as the Season 6 finale was last year, the rest of the season was a stinker; and yes, I include the Battle of the Bastards).
Regardless, I disagree that the show provided no good material outside of the books. IMHO, the (wholly show-invented) scene between Robert and Cersei in Season 1 was equal to anything in the books, and I much preferred the show’s Brienne vs. the Hound to the books’ Brienne vs. the Brave Companions.
I would watch the hell out of that. People’s infatuation with that character hurts my teeth.
Mr. Douthat mentions a fine poem by Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts.
That scene was great. I completely agree.
I’m with Rob on this. Enough with the Game of Thrones, already!
OUT THE MOON DOOR, ROB! FLY!
So why are you commenting here?
Do what I did: take the first 15 seconds of this show and make it your ringtone.
The only thing I know about Game of Thrones is what I gleaned from watching the South Park story arc a few seasons back.
This was still an entertaining podcast.
Would have been even better if you’d forced Rob to listen on mute, and then given him a five minute rebuttal at the end.
That was different. A whole episode devoted to GOT. Let’s not do that again.