With the rule of two's relation to the throne room scene in TLJ, it'd be justified by some sources going into detail on how Snoke and Kylo weren't actually Sith and were simply dark side users with a different philosophy....if the films had actually bothered to go into detail on these differences rather than explaining everything in secondary sources and not even explaining their philosophy there well. Then TROS destroyed any potential for that with it just being retconned as "yeah, Kylo's basically just a Sith." With the Hardhome subversion, I'd say it works well in premise, but a major problem with the scene is the absurd amount of plot armour. It's nearly impossible to ignore how the White Walker conveniently just knocks back Jon everytime he's unarmed as opposed to landing a fatal blow straight away as with his prior opponent.
Fantastic work sir, I'm working on my own very long video for season 8, and while working on that and seeing just how much they really fucked the pooch, it's been really easy to forget what made me love this show in the first place. But the first four seasons will always be some of the best television ever created, and no amount of later seasons that deconstruct and destroy the narrative can ever change that.
It's very simmilar to how deconstruction gets thrown around. Now a days everyone wants to make a deconstruction of some trope but they don't fully understand what that is. It's like taking apart a lamp and examing each piece for flaws vs smashing a window with a hammer. Yes on paper each one has been deconstructed the difference is the lamp cam still be returned to It's original shape there is nothing wrong with deconstructing the Nobel selfless hero showing how truly flawed a character like that is and how it will bite him but you can do so without completely destroying who that character is what they represent. Smashing the window in this case would be out of the blew having the previously good hero suddenly out of nowhere massacre a village and go on a monologue about how he has been evil and selfish the whole time. Like with Jamie in Season 8 saying he actually never cared about the citizens of kings landing.
Something else that I would like to note about these "subversions", is that in both cases (meaning the deaths of Littlefinger and the Night King) the story that should have led up to it is badly undercut. In the Littlefinger example, the idea is clearly that Sansa has evolved to the point where she can recognize Littlefinger's true nature and methods and be able to use his own brand of cunning against him. However this is badly undercut by the fact that Littlefinger is being so overt; it is obvious to the viewer and should be obvious to Sansa as well, and in the end she doesn't actually outsmart Littlefinger because Bran just deus ex machinas the entire situation off-screen (this is confirmed), which makes Sansa look like a naive and easily confused and distracted idiot. In the case of the Night King, not only is the whole Jon-setup rendered completely redundant, the central message of the White Walker plotline is completely shafted. The core point of the White Walker storyline and the show as a whole is that the titular "Game of Thrones" is petty and useless and that it makes people ignore the much bigger threat that is going to destroy them all. But then in the end they don't even need to come together to face the threat, Arya just easily takes care of it with, meaning Cersei was completely justified and the White Walkers ultimately meant nothing. An easy solution to this would be to have them be defeated at Winterfell and be forced to flee, or alternatively if they have to defeat the dead in Episode 3, have multiple characters involved.
The mentor/apprentice relationship Littlefinger and Sansa developed was already drooped when Littlefinger married Sansa to a sadist. All that development indicating Sansa was his ambitious project, maybe ever a successor, throw away to use her as a disposable pawn. It was simply inconceivable that he would get her to trust in him again after that, yet he showed up as a brain drained dumbass. In the books Littlefinger arranged her marriage with an apparently minor lord that would inherent the Vale after the death of his cousins. From the description the guy seemed polite and normal. Sansa as given a role similar to Lysa: manipulate a lord in Littlefinger behalf. Much better than be a present toy for my allies.
@@EvanMonroe it's been 9 months since your last upload. I don't think anyone minds waiting for your content because of the quality you deliver. I just hope you upload again and haven't decided to quit... If you do upload again, maybe a video about your thoughts on el camino. I think it would be interesting to hear from you for everyone that has seen your video about breaking bad's felina episode.
Another issue with the Arya subversions is that she never actually finished her training and she should not be able to do the things she does in seasons 7 and 8. This in turn makes her a Mary Sue. Rewatching the training scenes you'll see she gets beaten up constantly, goes blind, gets beat up some more, gets ridiculous plot armour by surviving stabs to the stomach and defeats one person in the end. Whenever people say that her training paid off making the night king kill justified infuriates me because it technically didn't. She was just given more skills because plot and subversion.
In the books Arya "cheat" the blind part of her training by seeing through the eyes of a cat. Other thing the show drooped: the rest of the Starks having some skinchanging abilities. I don't thing Arya was meant to ever become as competent as her senior assassins, just a bit more resourceful. Also there was two face changing: a illusion that would break easily and the ritualistic stitching the face of a corpse on the assassin. It's already an overpower ability, the show made it even more so by removing all the drawbacks and conditions.
This was simply spot on. many people I find either praise or criticize something simply out of concept and show either little regard or complete disregard to the execution. a concept is simply an idea, usually a means to an end (whatever end that may be), the execution is the only thing that would give said concept weight or lack thereof. A good subversion is one that makes sense in the continuity, plot, and characters, and does leave an actual affect A bad subversion is one that has plot holes and disregards continuity/consistency I really liked your video mate, it's a topic I find sometimes annoying listen to from other people who praise or criticize something out of the idea and nothing more Thanks for the video and keep up the good work :) On the side note: what do you think about the show called Barry (HBO) directed by Bill Hader?
Excellent video on detailing why subversions can/cannot work. The reason why I think some members of Hollywood want to get on that train of subversion is that they want to be worshiped/ praised. Mauler remarked in his TLJ critique that there was a time that stories became predictable and in turn, the audiences upon seeing the patterns of a story could predict its ending. With the advent of the Internet, it is clear that a lot of producers/ creatives at Hollywood didn't anticipate individuals being able to predict key elements of their stories. So either in an attempt to comment on the meta-narrative/ be clever(Rian Johnson) or in not wanting to validate those who correctly predicted something(D&D), we get these bad examples of subversion. These creatives remind me of people who wish to gain a six/ eight pack but really do not want to do any of the work. Hence, they cheat through steroids. And that is sad. Two examples of subversion that I argue are well-implemented come from Harry Potter with Snape and Empire Strikes Back. The former works due to JK Rowling playing off the idea Snape clearly is the bad guy. He's mean to Harry, he's got an offputting mindset and happens to be Slytherin. And heck, this is mentioned in the first movie. But as we see Snape does indeed care for Harry. Every action he did was due to wanting to protect him. Whether it be killing Dumbledore due to his disease and creating a Patronus Stag to help him out in DH Part 1. In the case of Empire, Luke losing to Vader works because the stakes for the movie are incredibly high. Luke's friends are in danger/die and they need his help. So you'd think that Luke would win against Vader due to those elements. The scene with the cave before the revelation you could argue was more about Luke's impatience and how if he does not show restraint; it can lead him down the dark side. But with him loosing to Vader, it was clear that that scene was to showcase that the conflict he faced wasn't all black and white. That there was a massive complication. Overall, these two examples work because the writers involved put in a ton of thought/care into their stories. The 180 choices as you said provided consequences but ultimately line up with what's been established beforehand/ recontextualize events in a way that makes it easy to follow.
Something else about "subverting expectations"I don't understand is, does anyone who strongly believes this is a high priority actually rewatch movies? Even knowing how a movie ends and the plot, a great movie you can rewatch endlessly. If subverting expectations was really that important, we would never watch a movie a 2nd, 3rd, etc time. To be blunt, if all you really have is subverting expectations, people might watch your movie a 2nd time at most. It is as if the people pushing SE so hard are just hype pushers, pushing their product and then on to consume next product with no pause or reflection.
F this show. The last season made me feel like I wasted 10 years of my life waiting for all these things to pay off at the conclusion. Sopranos and Breaking Bad stand alone at the top
5:00 - 10:00 all this praise for early seasons and seeing all the characters makes me desperately want to rewatch game of thrones. 10:00- 14:30 oh no not season 7. 14:00 onwards please make it stop.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I love the confidence you demonstrate in the videos you make. It's the same kind of confidence I aspire to adopt in my own videos.
This is just another cheap Star Wars Sequels/GoT Season 8 complaint video. Really, Ned Stark randomly dying was more properly built up than a decade of us watching Arya train to become an assassin and assassinating the big bad guy? Your requirements don't even make sense for subversion. I think you're looking for the phrase "plot twist," not "subversion of expectation."
Really, Ned Stark randomly dying was more properly built up than a decade of us watching Arya train to become an assassin and assassinating the big bad guy? Even everyone expect you are too smart to notice that its true
As a writer, you know when you’re subverting expectations in good faith. It’s what’s best for the story/characters. However, you also know when you’re doing it for some agenda. That’s when it doesn’t work.
Unfortunately that Hardhome scene you showed at the beginning is one of the first major instances of GoT becoming like a generic fantasy show. That white walker should've killed Jon easily. Instead he absurdly kept throwing him instead of just... Stabbing him. It is completely ridiculous. So is the lucky coincidence of him being thrown right where his sword is.
Very nice video and everything was explained well. I think people would have viewed the last season of GOT more favorably if they'd only (#1 and foremost) gave John the showdown with the Night King he was destined to since the very start of the show. They worked that story line for too long not to have some kind of payoff. There must have been someway to involve John in the Night King's demise and coincide that with some type of subversion. This coupled with the poor foreshadowing of Daenerys's genocide put a bitter taste in GOT fans mouth. If they would have done John right then overall people would have a positive outlook on the last season of the show.
Only problem with that scene in Hardhome is two instances where White Walker could have easily killed Jon, but he instead decided to throw him and knock him away with spear instead of stabbing him. Anyways great video, keep up the good work man!
Love this video. But I'd like to add something about the subversion of x with Ned Stark. Sean Bean was the biggest name in GOT at the time and the central pivotal character. I think that, even more than his in story character made his death so surprising. It was kinda like John Travolta getting shot in the middle of pulp fiction.
Hey, your videos are detailed and well done. Fix your audio, I'm not an expert but something is off (either the volume or you need to change the pitch of your voice) and that might be why you're getting lesser views. Your video essays are otherwise better researched than a lot of famous channels.
I would take a well-executed, yet generic payoff over an out of character subversion anyday.
Great video.
Predicability is not inherently bad. That is something I wish more writers would understand.
This deserves way more views
The last season is so embarssing... This vidoe made me very mad, but still a great watch!
With the rule of two's relation to the throne room scene in TLJ, it'd be justified by some sources going into detail on how Snoke and Kylo weren't actually Sith and were simply dark side users with a different philosophy....if the films had actually bothered to go into detail on these differences rather than explaining everything in secondary sources and not even explaining their philosophy there well. Then TROS destroyed any potential for that with it just being retconned as "yeah, Kylo's basically just a Sith."
With the Hardhome subversion, I'd say it works well in premise, but a major problem with the scene is the absurd amount of plot armour. It's nearly impossible to ignore how the White Walker conveniently just knocks back Jon everytime he's unarmed as opposed to landing a fatal blow straight away as with his prior opponent.
Fantastic work sir, I'm working on my own very long video for season 8, and while working on that and seeing just how much they really fucked the pooch, it's been really easy to forget what made me love this show in the first place. But the first four seasons will always be some of the best television ever created, and no amount of later seasons that deconstruct and destroy the narrative can ever change that.
It's very simmilar to how deconstruction gets thrown around. Now a days everyone wants to make a deconstruction of some trope but they don't fully understand what that is. It's like taking apart a lamp and examing each piece for flaws vs smashing a window with a hammer. Yes on paper each one has been deconstructed the difference is the lamp cam still be returned to It's original shape there is nothing wrong with deconstructing the Nobel selfless hero showing how truly flawed a character like that is and how it will bite him but you can do so without completely destroying who that character is what they represent. Smashing the window in this case would be out of the blew having the previously good hero suddenly out of nowhere massacre a village and go on a monologue about how he has been evil and selfish the whole time. Like with Jamie in Season 8 saying he actually never cared about the citizens of kings landing.
D/D kinda forgot that once the source material dried up, they couldn't actually write.
Me: Sees spoiler warning
Also me:also sees that this a Game of Thrones analysis.
Still me: I don't care anymore Monroe.
Something else that I would like to note about these "subversions", is that in both cases (meaning the deaths of Littlefinger and the Night King) the story that should have led up to it is badly undercut. In the Littlefinger example, the idea is clearly that Sansa has evolved to the point where she can recognize Littlefinger's true nature and methods and be able to use his own brand of cunning against him. However this is badly undercut by the fact that Littlefinger is being so overt; it is obvious to the viewer and should be obvious to Sansa as well, and in the end she doesn't actually outsmart Littlefinger because Bran just deus ex machinas the entire situation off-screen (this is confirmed), which makes Sansa look like a naive and easily confused and distracted idiot.
In the case of the Night King, not only is the whole Jon-setup rendered completely redundant, the central message of the White Walker plotline is completely shafted. The core point of the White Walker storyline and the show as a whole is that the titular "Game of Thrones" is petty and useless and that it makes people ignore the much bigger threat that is going to destroy them all. But then in the end they don't even need to come together to face the threat, Arya just easily takes care of it with, meaning Cersei was completely justified and the White Walkers ultimately meant nothing. An easy solution to this would be to have them be defeated at Winterfell and be forced to flee, or alternatively if they have to defeat the dead in Episode 3, have multiple characters involved.
The mentor/apprentice relationship Littlefinger and Sansa developed was already drooped when Littlefinger married Sansa to a sadist. All that development indicating Sansa was his ambitious project, maybe ever a successor, throw away to use her as a disposable pawn. It was simply inconceivable that he would get her to trust in him again after that, yet he showed up as a brain drained dumbass.
In the books Littlefinger arranged her marriage with an apparently minor lord that would inherent the Vale after the death of his cousins. From the description the guy seemed polite and normal. Sansa as given a role similar to Lysa: manipulate a lord in Littlefinger behalf. Much better than be a present toy for my allies.
Daniel Chico Very true.
Just found your channel after you commented on my tweet! Great breakdown and voice! Don't give up with this, you have talent.
Thanks DJ. That means a lot. I'm pretty slow when it comes to making videos. But I'm definitely going to keep on making them.
@@EvanMonroe it's been 9 months since your last upload. I don't think anyone minds waiting for your content because of the quality you deliver. I just hope you upload again and haven't decided to quit... If you do upload again, maybe a video about your thoughts on el camino. I think it would be interesting to hear from you for everyone that has seen your video about breaking bad's felina episode.
Another issue with the Arya subversions is that she never actually finished her training and she should not be able to do the things she does in seasons 7 and 8. This in turn makes her a Mary Sue.
Rewatching the training scenes you'll see she gets beaten up constantly, goes blind, gets beat up some more, gets ridiculous plot armour by surviving stabs to the stomach and defeats one person in the end.
Whenever people say that her training paid off making the night king kill justified infuriates me because it technically didn't. She was just given more skills because plot and subversion.
Arya was one of the Un-Mary Sue charecters yet.
In the books Arya "cheat" the blind part of her training by seeing through the eyes of a cat. Other thing the show drooped: the rest of the Starks having some skinchanging abilities.
I don't thing Arya was meant to ever become as competent as her senior assassins, just a bit more resourceful.
Also there was two face changing: a illusion that would break easily and the ritualistic stitching the face of a corpse on the assassin. It's already an overpower ability, the show made it even more so by removing all the drawbacks and conditions.
Now this is good rat!
This was simply spot on. many people I find either praise or criticize something simply out of concept and show either little regard or complete disregard to the execution. a concept is simply an idea, usually a means to an end (whatever end that may be), the execution is the only thing that would give said concept weight or lack thereof.
A good subversion is one that makes sense in the continuity, plot, and characters, and does leave an actual affect
A bad subversion is one that has plot holes and disregards continuity/consistency
I really liked your video mate, it's a topic I find sometimes annoying listen to from other people who praise or criticize something out of the idea and nothing more
Thanks for the video and keep up the good work :)
On the side note: what do you think about the show called Barry (HBO) directed by Bill Hader?
Excellent video on detailing why subversions can/cannot work. The reason why I think some members of Hollywood want to get on that train of subversion is that they want to be worshiped/ praised. Mauler remarked in his TLJ critique that there was a time that stories became predictable and in turn, the audiences upon seeing the patterns of a story could predict its ending. With the advent of the Internet, it is clear that a lot of producers/ creatives at Hollywood didn't anticipate individuals being able to predict key elements of their stories. So either in an attempt to comment on the meta-narrative/ be clever(Rian Johnson) or in not wanting to validate those who correctly predicted something(D&D), we get these bad examples of subversion.
These creatives remind me of people who wish to gain a six/ eight pack but really do not want to do any of the work. Hence, they cheat through steroids. And that is sad.
Two examples of subversion that I argue are well-implemented come from Harry Potter with Snape and Empire Strikes Back. The former works due to JK Rowling playing off the idea Snape clearly is the bad guy. He's mean to Harry, he's got an offputting mindset and happens to be Slytherin. And heck, this is mentioned in the first movie. But as we see Snape does indeed care for Harry. Every action he did was due to wanting to protect him. Whether it be killing Dumbledore due to his disease and creating a Patronus Stag to help him out in DH Part 1.
In the case of Empire, Luke losing to Vader works because the stakes for the movie are incredibly high. Luke's friends are in danger/die and they need his help. So you'd think that Luke would win against Vader due to those elements. The scene with the cave before the revelation you could argue was more about Luke's impatience and how if he does not show restraint; it can lead him down the dark side.
But with him loosing to Vader, it was clear that that scene was to showcase that the conflict he faced wasn't all black and white. That there was a massive complication.
Overall, these two examples work because the writers involved put in a ton of thought/care into their stories. The 180 choices as you said provided consequences but ultimately line up with what's been established beforehand/ recontextualize events in a way that makes it easy to follow.
You used the magic word for the entire sequel trilogy: consequences. There's a severe and fatal lack of them.
Ha! Nice touch with the footage cut in from "The Shining".
Something else about "subverting expectations"I don't understand is, does anyone who strongly believes this is a high priority actually rewatch movies? Even knowing how a movie ends and the plot, a great movie you can rewatch endlessly. If subverting expectations was really that important, we would never watch a movie a 2nd, 3rd, etc time. To be blunt, if all you really have is subverting expectations, people might watch your movie a 2nd time at most. It is as if the people pushing SE so hard are just hype pushers, pushing their product and then on to consume next product with no pause or reflection.
I like this guy.
Likewise
You're quickly becoming one of my favorite video essayists! Keep up the fantastic work because this stuff is both fun and educating!
F this show. The last season made me feel like I wasted 10 years of my life waiting for all these things to pay off at the conclusion. Sopranos and Breaking Bad stand alone at the top
5:00 - 10:00 all this praise for early seasons and seeing all the characters makes me desperately want to rewatch game of thrones.
10:00- 14:30 oh no not season 7.
14:00 onwards please make it stop.
Well done mate, I hope you end up getting more subs cause you deserve it.
D&D never actually subverted expectations cuz their twists were ridiculous and unearned, but at the same time SUPER obvious.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I love the confidence you demonstrate in the videos you make.
It's the same kind of confidence I aspire to adopt in my own videos.
Good video. It's still hard to believe people talk about how Arya killing the NK was foreshadowed when it was just retconned.
Me, and intellectual: *sees Game of Thrones Season 8 Bullcrap yet again*
Me: HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD YET!?
GoT Discussion: I have no idea!
Your videos are fucking excellent Evan. They help me get through my shifts at amazon. Please keep making them.
damn man what a great video well done
This is just another cheap Star Wars Sequels/GoT Season 8 complaint video. Really, Ned Stark randomly dying was more properly built up than a decade of us watching Arya train to become an assassin and assassinating the big bad guy?
Your requirements don't even make sense for subversion. I think you're looking for the phrase "plot twist," not "subversion of expectation."
Really, Ned Stark randomly dying was more properly built up than a decade of us watching Arya train to become an assassin and assassinating the big bad guy?
Even everyone expect you are too smart to notice that its true
Defeating a massive army of ice zombies that previously almost made humanity extinct just requires 1 junior assassin and a kitchen knife
As a writer, you know when you’re subverting expectations in good faith. It’s what’s best for the story/characters. However, you also know when you’re doing it for some agenda. That’s when it doesn’t work.
Unfortunately that Hardhome scene you showed at the beginning is one of the first major instances of GoT becoming like a generic fantasy show.
That white walker should've killed Jon easily. Instead he absurdly kept throwing him instead of just... Stabbing him. It is completely ridiculous. So is the lucky coincidence of him being thrown right where his sword is.
You got some skills here sir. Look forward to seeing more.
Very nice video and everything was explained well. I think people would have viewed the last season of GOT more favorably if they'd only (#1 and foremost) gave John the showdown with the Night King he was destined to since the very start of the show. They worked that story line for too long not to have some kind of payoff. There must have been someway to involve John in the Night King's demise and coincide that with some type of subversion. This coupled with the poor foreshadowing of Daenerys's genocide put a bitter taste in GOT fans mouth. If they would have done John right then overall people would have a positive outlook on the last season of the show.
Great Video
Hey, I ended up here because a brazilian youtuber mentioned this video when talking about GoT, great explanation and examples, the video was great
Good stuff needs more attention.
Only problem with that scene in Hardhome is two instances where White Walker could have easily killed Jon, but he instead decided to throw him and knock him away with spear instead of stabbing him.
Anyways great video, keep up the good work man!
Love this video. But I'd like to add something about the subversion of x with Ned Stark. Sean Bean was the biggest name in GOT at the time and the central pivotal character. I think that, even more than his in story character made his death so surprising. It was kinda like John Travolta getting shot in the middle of pulp fiction.
Man... I remember liking the Little Finger death. Now it's really bad and inconsistent.
Subverting expectations is good, when GRRM writes em.
Hey, your videos are detailed and well done. Fix your audio, I'm not an expert but something is off (either the volume or you need to change the pitch of your voice) and that might be why you're getting lesser views. Your video essays are otherwise better researched than a lot of famous channels.
Sorry, but the discovering that valerian steel kills white walkers is incredibly contrived. Jon is absolutely dead.
Great content. Very well presented. Subscribed and notifications turned on, not something i do for every channel 😁👍🏼
0 dislikes. That’s what I call quality content
Man season eight still hurts. I’ll never recover.
I came here from efap.me and I'm happy I did
You deserve more views.
I like this guy
You need t oget on EFAP. This vidoe was excellent.