#wicked rants

but the moment when glinda changes her name & she’s like “im making an announcement! i’m going to change my name!”, fiyero immediately so concerned just says “your name?!” & glinda very quickly turns to look at him and says “yes😇”

then elphaba equally as concerned as fiyero goes “are you sure???” and glinda again turns quickly to say “yes😇” & in the theatre i was like omg that was such a throuple moment between them

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I would say that it doesn’t get enough shit tbh. The only ones that truly criticize the show are a few book snobs and people who care about good writing rather than spectacle. 

Those people are in the minority. The show is still winning Emmys for writing, even though the writing has been absolute trash since s4. The show is still universally regarded as the best thing since sliced bread. It got a bit of public criticism with s7, but it still won Emmys for writing IIRC.

As for the source material, well … they shouldn’t have decided to adapt it if it was beyond their skill level. The only thing I sort of sympathize with them on is the fact that there are no more books out, so they did kind of “run out of source material,” (despite the fact that they cut/ignored several characters/plotlines, which made them run out of material faster, but whatever).

No offense, but I don’t like that people use time restraints as an excuse, or try to blame the show’s bad writing on GRRM for not publishing the rest of the series. These people are supposed to be professional writers. They signed up to write this show. Other writers with deadlines are able to write well written seasons under deadlines, why not them? And it does suck that they have to come up with their own material, since that technically isn’t what they signed up for, but every show has some sort of setback included behind the scenes. And again, professionals. They’re getting paid millions upon millions of dollars to write this … and this is what they give us. I’ve seen fans come up with better storylines than them. Fans who are not professional writers. Nearly every theory the fans gave us on Arya’s s6 story in Bravvos was better than the nonsense D&D wrote. The fans came up with the “Talisa is a Lannister spy” theory, which, again, was better than the bad fanfic D&D wrote.

And even without TWOW and ADOS, they should still attempt to embody the spirit of the series, but they haven’t. Instead they give us terribly written, lazy, high budget fanfiction where all they care about is spectacle and shock value over good writing and consistent characters. 

Season 7 felt the most like bad fanfiction, but the issues have been there even when the show was still good, i.e. when they did still have source material, because they either cut it in exchange for stupid stuff (like Pod’s magical penis, which has had well over a 3 season arc at this point), changed it and made it bad (like whitewashing Tyrion’s character to the point where he is a boring nonentity, or ruining Robb’s character with that Talisa bullshit and the way it was set up). You can tell they don’t care anymore. If they cared, there’s no way they would have had Arya do that ridiculous Assassin’s Creed escape scene in Bravvos despite her injuries, or make open kinslaying the biggest trend despite the taboo it’s supposed to be (Euron admitting to killing his brother and the Ironborn rewarding him for it by crowning him, the Ironborn helping him try to kill his niece and nephew, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes murdering their entire family … I feel like I’ve forgotten some). Hell, Cersei became queen with no riots from the smallfolk despite the fact that she not only murdered the family they loved, but killed a bunch of them too, and she still has highborn supporters despite the fact that everyone knows she pulled a 9/11 on the world’s equivalent of the Vatican (if Hot Pie knows she did it, then everyone knows). Not to mention the fact that the West is still supporting her even though she’s a kinslayer since she killed Kevan and Lancel, but again open kinslaying is the biggest trend in the show version Westeros). And I’ll be here all day if I rant about what they did to Jaime’s character, or Brienne’s character, or Sansa in s5, or Stannis, or all of the Martells except for Oberyn. They do not care. They stopped caring after they adapted the Red Wedding. They made it clear in interviews that that was what they wanted to get to. After that? Welp. 

Not to mention the grossness of their writing — the sexism despite their obvious pandering, the disgusting way they handled Theon and his PTSD, and really so many other things that would require me to write a thesis. It’s been there since the beginning in hindsight, but it’s gotten worse and more obvious since s4. 

It’s possible if they skim Jaime’s chapters instead of actually reading them. Or are still mad at him for pushing Bran and don’t care about any growth or reflections he’s experienced since then. Or have a black and white view of the world and don’t like the idea of humanity being morally complex (which ... how are they reading this series lol). Or — more likely for the sort of “readers” you’re talking about — just have no reading comprehension whatsoever.

Like. I didn’t know that reading comprehension was a rare ability to have, but judging from the hot takes from people who say that Jaime feels no remorse, or that he only stopped the wildfire plot to save himself, not the people of King’s Landing, or that he doesn’t really love Tyrion, or that he’s pURe eVIL ... yeah, reading comprehension is scarce.

Well, amongst people who say those things about Jaime, anyway. I guess Jaime stans were first in line when reading comprehension skills were being handed out, and Jaime haters (the ones who can’t read, not the ones who just don’t like his character, I’m not talking about them) got there after we’d taken them all? (Because look, our side of fandom knows how to fucking analyze text. I love reading book!Jaime and/or Jaime x Brienne metas because we always have receipts.)

So, yeah, anon, I don’t know. But I do know that people are outchea reading books, but can’t actually read. And those same people have the most to say about a character whose chapters and character they know jack shit about. Like, they literally say things about Jaime that is literally proven wrong by the text, lol. But they don’t know that, because they haven’t actually read Jaime’s chapters. 

But, some people are like that — being loud about the things they’re ignorant about. And a lot of those people just happen to hate Jaime. They don’t read, or read closely enough, so they take things out of context, and then let their headcanons prevail over what GRRM actually wrote. It is what it is.

Thanks, @knight-nick! You’re spot on. I don’t know why people use that argument. Not only is it asinine, but it implies that they think children are too stupid to tell the difference between something that was made with passion and talent, and something that was only done to make a quick buck. Children are way more intelligent than some adults give them credit for. 

Also, the “don’t criticize, it’s for kids,” argument implies that the adults working on these children’s stories shouldn’t be taken seriously as artists, which is bullshit. Are we really gonna act like the people behind The Secret of NIMH aren’t masters of their craft? Or on the flip side, are we gonna act like adults who do a piss poor job of creating children’s media should be let off the hook for their laziness/incompetence?