It's time to admit Game of Thrones has surpassed Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos

[Professor Emeritus]

This shyt legit pisses me off.


GOT does not deserve to even be in the same sentence as The Wire or Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

It is a show of spectacles. It is a show for the social media generation with big special effects and big payoffs. It is fantasy version of soap opera. The writing is not GOAT, the dialogue is not GOAT, the acting is not GOAT, the character development is not GOAT, it is NOT a GOAT.

It's just a show that's really good at building up to spectacle.


Breaking Bad and The Wire and The Sopranos were so great because the characters drove the plot. Game of Thrones is fantasy/soap opera, where the plot drives the characters so they have to do stupid things they wouldn't otherwise do to keep the plot moving.


That's been even more true at the end of Season 7 than it ever has been.

Like, why did the characters make the stupid idea of trying to get a white walker? Cersei ain't joining with them in a million years whether she sees one of them things or not, and Jon Snow/Tyrion know that. It's just a stupid idea that the writers forced the characters into to create an exciting suspense scene followed by a dragon fight followed by a zombie dragon.

As always, there was constant deux ex machina shyt (Benjen Stark coming out of nowhere to rescue Jon Snow, the dragons showing up at the right time - flying in like two minutes after the raven got sent - like they always do, Bran suddenly coming up with the knowledge right when it will doom Littlefinger, etc.).

Constant, “Oh look, the hero is almost drowning but he won’t drown!” shyt.

Constant really bad plans that still work out with people surviving due to some miracle.

When will Bran decide to use his sight? Only in the rare moments when the plot demands it. When will the dragons get used? However will best lead to some great buildup followed by a spectacular fight. When will dragons get killed? In the exact situation that will make something cool happen. When will things that should be difficult instead happen really easily (Jaime and Bronn getting away from the train attack, Jaime and Tyrion meeting in King’s landing without even a disguise, the dead magically not being able to get across or even throw shyt at a little island to kill them), it’s because the plot needs it to happen easily.


It's like a Ke$ha song - it's entertaining for a lot of people, you get why it appeals so much to its target audience, but it is NOT a great piece of work for anything other than pleasing easy audiences.

 

[bucks3115]

Sopranos and wire still on top

 

[Professor Emeritus]

This is the same shyt I had to lay out last year at this time:

Game of Thrones is about shock value and cinematography. They spend a ton of money producing it and then fill it with as much sex, violence, and shocking character deaths as possible. It's closer to Walking Dead than it is to those icons of television. The plot depth and long-term character development isn't anything compared to Sopranos, The Wire, or Breaking Bad.

Then again, on a forum with hundreds of WWE stans....

Let's take "Battle of the b*stards" alone, which is supposed to be "The Greatest Game of Thrones Episode Ever!" by some of the fanboys, and break down the places where the writing and/or plot/character depth just sucked.


* Daenerys and Tyrion talking casually while violence reigns down from the sky and a wall even crumbles down near them is corny as hell. No way they wouldn't have secured themselves somewhere well away from where any of the incoming could land. But the writers set them up like the situation is desperate, even though it's not really desperate, and the way they're acting isn't in line with the situation at all - it's just a writing play to set up the next scene. And Tyrion needs to explain WAY too much here...he's really talking to the audience, not Daenerys.

* Daenerys's "You must be mistaken, we're here to discuss your surrender" was just a corny, cheap movie line that you could see coming a mile away.

* The burning of the ships was more than a bit silly. Not because it was dragons, but because the strategy was ridiculous. It was like they filmed it thinking, "they're dragons, people will believe anything", rather than having them attack or defend in the slightest strategic or realistic manner ever. If you had helicopters, would you have trained them on a single ship and kept firing on it even though its occupants were already dead or fleeing, when all the other ships were right there? Would you stay hovering in one spot when they have artillary firing like crazy? Would you unnecessarily burn the ship to the core even after Grey had just said, "Our queen likes ships"? The dragons would have been moving from ship to ship quickly, focusing on getting the people (one sweep of fire would do the trick) and disabling the weapons, not burning a single ship to the ground.

* The whole "we have to kill one of you" followed by "kill him, he's low-born" thing was as corny as hell again, seemed really contrived, poorly acted (even though the acting is usually much better), and once again, you could see what was coming a mile away.

* Tyrion's "go back and tell your people what you saw here" was another corny, cheap movie cliche that's been done a million times.

* The Sons of the Harpy's random pillaging scene gave the impression that the director had gotten tired of thinking through battle scenes and took a quick way out. Try to think in your head for a second about why those random freemen are randomly milling about outside the gate in nice little well-separated groups in the open so they can be raped and ravaged. The background that led to that scene doesn't make any sense if you think about it.

* Then the whole, "Here comes the overwhelming calvary - haha you're getting destroyed" when the Dothraki ride in was another film cliche.

* Finally, it all ends with a way-too-overtly-feminist moment.


On to the western battle....

* Ramsey being a brilliant battle commander makes no sense. He is carefully and strategically able to manipulate Jon Snow the whole time, which is totally out of line with his unhinged, emotionally unstable character. Why does every move he makes in battle perfect? This is the issue with the character development in this show. Ramsey has been able to make moves like this perfectly over and over, always executes his evil plans perfectly, even though he didn't appear at any point to be the kind of person who should have been able to plot so perfectly.

* Why does Rickon run in a straight line like an idiot, doing exactly what Ramsey wants him to do? Why is Ramsey clearly a master archer? Remember the similar but far better running scene in Apocalypto? That's how a real man would act, dodging and weaving and looking for cover, not just running like an idiot when he knows that any talented archer will taken him out the first moment he wants to.

* Why are all those men loyally fighting to the death for Ramsey again? When he murders Rickon Stark, the heir of Winterfell, right in front of their faces, why do they keep fighting? Completely unexplained.

* Davos having the archers get ready to fire, and then having them stand down because "it's no good - we'll just kill our own men" was a real sign that they're pandering to a stupid audience. There's no way he ever would have had his archers ready their arrows in the first place, and the explanation for standing down definitely wasn't necessary. Ramsey firing into the battle, and Davos not doing it, should have been enough to establish that Ramsey is a cruel man (which of course we know already). Davos's actions don't make sense except to create a cheap movie moment for an audience that needs things explained to them really slowly.

* Jon Snow losing his mind over and over, making error after error, doing a dozen things that should have gotten killed but having some lucky salvation every time, getting missed by hundreds of arrows...it just got old after a while.

* How the heck did a bunch of guys with big shields surround the other army, including calvary and a giant who can kinda see over people's heads? That made no sense whatsoever. Just a ridiculously silly thing (at least the director admitted it was a budget-saving device that was done to "look cool" on the cheap, since filming with active horizons is really expensive.

* The Stark forces are saved by a deus ex machina (here comes the new guys riding in for the rescue! - same stupid device that LOTR and the Hobbit used way too often), which is all the more silly because that device happens twice in the same episode. And for the Bolton forces to be destroyed by something outside of Ramsey/Snow's characters/relationship was really a disservice to the characters. Not to mention....why weren't these guys here earlier? Why wasn't the possibility even mentioned by Sansa? Couldn't Jon Snow have died unnecessarily ten times before this happened? Again, just audience manipulation - Jon Snow nearly dies and is barely saved just to play with the audience, not because it makes any sense when you think about it.

* Sansa getting her revenge and Ramsey being eaten by his own hounds....yet another cliche moment.


Overall, so much crap happens the way you know it has to happen for the audience, but makes no sense according to how it should happen for the characters. That's what I'm calling lack of plot/character depth. It's an audience-driven show, not a plot-driven show. They're in it for the ratings (hell, even George R.R. Martin has talked about how much he has the audience in mind when he writes), not for the world that they've created.

Like Boesky says especially, the show looks beautiful, and they're lining up those "moments" constantly, and that stuff combined with enough intricacies to go into forever will keep the fanboys hooked...just like a soap opera.

It follows the same plot points as any soap opera, with the fantasy element for visual spectacle. Repeating for truth:

As far as I'm concerned this show gets by on hype, deaths, and sports like character allowance rather than quality at this point

If you take away the budget and production value Fame of Thrones is a corny show on the same level as Sons of Anarchy and Power. And I like both of those shows but they are glorified soap operas

People have been getting fooled by British accents since forever

Actually, now that I think about it, Thrones is on the exact same level as House of Cards. Fancy looking shows that are full of flaws...

lol how does that make me miserable I watched 5 seasons of this show, it just wasn't that good. And yes a bunch of British accents will make shytty writing sound like Shakespeare (he was British and his name is synonymous with great writing, see how it works?). Its not a "militant" thing. Plenty of black people watch this show, but that doesn't make it great...

2 years ago everyone said Breaking Bad was the greatest show ever. 7 years ago everyone said Lost was the GOAT show. Its cool ya'll are having fun in the moment, but we're allowed to have differing opinions...

The whole goal in Game of Thrones currently, seems to be female empowerment, and "breaking the internet" moments.

lol at this thread. all yall need is overt sex scenes and graphic violence and a show is GOAT to you

 

[Dr. Acula]

I was bored of Game of Thrones by season 6.

Breaking Bad out of all the shows listed still ranks as number 1. I know for some folks this might seem blasphemous in comparison to say the wire which is treated like royalty but The Wire has one knock against it which is season 5 which was definitely a decline in the quality of the show and was not the strongest season. Breaking Bad was consistent from start to end. The Sopranos started to wane a bit too.

 

[Adam3000]

This shyt legit pisses me off.


GOT does not deserve to even be in the same sentence as The Wire or Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

It is a show of spectacles. It is a show for the social media generation with big special effects and big payoffs. It is fantasy version of soap opera. The writing is not GOAT, the dialogue is not GOAT, the acting is not GOAT, the character development is not GOAT, it is NOT a GOAT.

It's just a show that's really good at building up to spectacle.


Breaking Bad and The Wire and The Sopranos were so great because the characters drove the plot. Game of Thrones is fantasy/soap opera, where the plot drives the characters so they have to do stupid things they wouldn't otherwise do to keep the plot moving.


That's been even more true at the end of Season 7 than it ever has been.

Like, why did the characters make the stupid idea of trying to get a white walker? Cersei ain't joining with them in a million years whether she sees one of them things or not, and Jon Snow/Tyrion know that. It's just a stupid idea that the writers forced the characters into to create an exciting suspense scene followed by a dragon fight followed by a zombie dragon.

As always, there was constant deux ex machina shyt (Benjen Stark coming out of nowhere to rescue Jon Snow, the dragons showing up at the right time - flying in like two minutes after the raven got sent - like they always do, Bran suddenly coming up with the knowledge right when it will doom Littlefinger, etc.).

Constant, “Oh look, the hero is almost drowning but he won’t drown!” shyt.

Constant really bad plans that still work out with people surviving due to some miracle.

When will Bran decide to use his sight? Only in the rare moments when the plot demands it. When will the dragons get used? However will best lead to some great buildup followed by a spectacular fight. When will dragons get killed? In the exact situation that will make something cool happen. When will things that should be difficult instead happen really easily (Jaime and Bronn getting away from the train attack, Jaime and Tyrion meeting in King’s landing without even a disguise, the dead magically not being able to get across or even throw shyt at a little island to kill them), it’s because the plot needs it to happen easily.


It's like a Ke$ha song - it's entertaining for a lot of people, you get why it appeals so much to its target audience, but it is NOT a great piece of work for anything other than pleasing easy audiences.

You spent a lot of time typing up some bullshyt

 

[obarth]

You spent a lot of time typing up some bullshyt

I'm reading that shyt thinking "This nikka realizes he's describing Breaking Bad, right?"

Game of Thrones has a lot of people in their feelings after this season

 

[Johnny Kilroy]

GoT is definitely up there. Once a show reaches a certain level it's all debatable and acceptable.

But when Daenerys got word and made it over the wall before the water froze I was ready to stop watching altogether.

 

[The G.O.D II]

I would say it's earned its place on God tier with Sopranos and The Wire. Breaking bad is a level below tho

 

[King Static X]

I've never liked Game of Thrones. It's just not my thing.

 

[BlaKcMoney]

Show dropped out of the goat race with seasons 5-7. 1-4 pure classic

 

[sayyestothis]

Yr old neg to op...crazy talk

 

[RhymesWell]

Honestly, I couldn't make it through the first season. Does it get much better in season 2 or is this just not a show for me? Mind you I'm not really into this midevil shyt like that in the first place but there's some bad bitties in this show and the dragons look cool af.

 

[KevCo]

Honestly, I couldn't make it through the first season. Does it get much better in season 2 or is this just not a show for me? Mind you I'm not really into this midevil shyt like that in the first place but there's some bad bitties in this show and the dragons look cool af.

Gets much much better..season 1 is the setup for the rest..its all about explaining how things work...it may not be for you but you prob shouldnt decide that just off the first season IMO...

 

[Diunx]

Still laughing at this lame ass thread

 

[hex]

It definitely already surpassed Breaking Bad.

Seeing this (and this thread in general) always makes me chuckle.

"Breaking Bad" is who the writers of this show are striving to be better than. That's the bar they're aiming for. GRR Martin has a character inspired by Walter White in his next book, too.

Only on The Coli is it a B tier show.

Fred.