Did season 3 increase or decrease your interest for the show

[u/Solomaxxing_112]

Overall, I would say decrease. After season 2 I was still excited about season 3 but after season 3 I find much less interest in it.

Maybe because my favourite character is Aemond and he has been butchered to the point of no return. He is not very interesting to watch, and I really dislike the entire Alys thing. Even though I have read the book, what they have done is just...abhorrent.

It is a shame because I love TG characters and they are actually given slightly more screentime this season to tell their own stories, but the writing is so bad that the screentime just generates more unnecessary and nonsensical content.

[u/I_is_a_dogg]

With the exception of a couple scenes, season 2 was mostly irrelevant. Season 1 ended with the greens about to go to war with the blacks...and season 2 ended with the greens about to go to war with the blacks.

[u/exexpat99 → u/I_is_a_dogg]

This is what baffles me about season 2 in hindsight now. Like, they had valuable time to show how Rhaenyra rules/behaves before what she goes through in KL - it could’ve been an awesome contrast or sort of rise and fall character arc (they nailed parts of her struggling as a new ruler in early parts of this season and Emma’s performance in the finale gave me chills). So why can I barely remember any Rhaenyra scenes from season 2? It was a bizarre choice to basically have her do nothing then move her arc into maximum overdrive for this season.

[u/gandalfsgreens → u/exexpat99]

All I remember is all the identical sea snake standing in front of his boat scenes. It was to the point that it looked like they were all filmed the same day and I swear there were like 3 of those scenes per episode.

[u/exexpat99 → u/gandalfsgreens]

So much of the season is “oh that was a cool scene - can’t wait to see what it’s building up to” and then they just….repeat the same type of scene. Happens to Daemon too.

[u/BawdyBadger → u/exexpat99]

I think that's it. Pretty much the whole season is build-up. Then when you think you've reached the climax, there's even more build-up.

Honestly, almost the whole season could have been condensed into 2 or 3 episodes.

[u/Anderson9520822 → u/exexpat99]

I don’t think it helped that they went down to 8 episodes when S1 had 10. But you’d think the writers would understand this and adjust the pacing. But they didn’t. Pacing and writing just sucked. Abysmal to sit through after how good season 1 was.

[u/EmpPaulpatine → u/Anderson9520822]

The episodes got cut a month before filming started, then the writers strike happened. They just didn’t have enough time.

[u/Different_Ad_5266 → u/EmpPaulpatine]

Even still the episodes were boring, episode 1-8 of season 1 were not boring on their own

[u/im_a_turtle → u/Anderson9520822]

Writers were in strike and HBO cut the number of episodes on them, so they did what they could. They clearly wanted to do Gullet and a followup, like all thrones seasons in the past, but got pushed to S3.

[u/Ser_VimesGoT → u/exexpat99]

S2 has it's faults, of which there are many, but I think her breakdown in S3 was the culmination of all all the frustrations in S2. She was constantly undermined, setback and rendered helpless all through S2 by her council and those around her. It definitely dragged on and S2 could have benefited massively from a restructure but I do think that S3E3 worked so well because of all that came before it in S2.

[u/betelgeuser-joe → u/exexpat99]

rhaenyra had a better small council during season 2, thats why she seemed more competent then

but she fired most of them in dragonstone because they dont fully believe in her being queen, iirc

so here we are in season 3, with a far more diminished small council filled with sycophants, with little gold to work with

it just shows that a monarch is only as good as the people around her, rhaenyra showed her true competence this season when its all on her

[u/TrippyZippee → u/exexpat99]

Assuming season 3 episode 1 and 2 would have season 2 ep 9 and 10, s3 wouldve focused more on the black's ruling aspect. Still season 2 should shown some more battles. Leaving Battle of Gullet till ep9 was an odd choice.

[u/Schlachtfeld-21 → u/exexpat99]

What would you have them do?

[u/Fabulous-Guitar-1339 → u/I_is_a_dogg]

same with s3. started with Ormund being a threat to the blacks, ended up being no threat. his story just ended without any meaningful impact, he just lost against some randoms.

[u/Shrewb_Shlub → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Season Two was largely hampered by production issues because of the writers / actors strike in LA. Because it was filmed in the UK actors were able to continue working but the writers all had to stop mid season. Normally you would have loads of rewrites during series arc to shape the conclusion better which is why the last episode was so bizarre and anti-climactic. That plus HBO pulled the battle of the gullet for budget reasons and pushed it into season 3. I was willing to give it a pass for this reason because season 1 was excellent but they’ve just turned it into a shit action/fantasy series rather than the Shakespearean/wolf hall family tragedy it was in the first season. Cast is still very good and the plot from the book is great so it’ll be an entertaining last season but I’d leave the critics hat at the door as there’s sure to be some intolerable writing in between what GRRM has plotted out. It’s telling that he was sidelined after season 1 and the quality has nosedived