I don't even notice the boards anymore. I've gotten used to them. I guess my cache has as well.

The whole multiple clicking to get to these boards is just so tiresome. They just aren't as user friendly as teh old ones were. lots more beels and whistles. Not as easy or satisying an experience to read and write here. this isn't just my opinion - many, mnay others agree.

Maybe its the fact that I post in several different sections of the boards, so moving back on forth isn't a issue with me. If you don't like all the multiple clicking, just bookmark the forum page for Game of Thrones. I've got bookmarks for both just these boards and also the FFG homepage. Personally, I actually like the totality of the boards better, as before it was harder to go from the GoT boards to the board game boards, and there wasn't a direct connection between the two. At least now they are all on the same server. Ditto when I want to check out the Cal of Cthulhu boards. In a wider sense, the boards are much better to navigate.

I guess - if you play their other games. But a large segment of the (old) comunity just came to these baords, just for this game - and all that extra functionality is just cumbersome eextar effort for us.

Clearly its not just me.

Well, like I said, then just bookmark the main page for the Game of Thrones section of the thread. This might not work as well for you, since I seem to recall your concern about having to enter your username everytime you visit the site, but it should suffice most of the time for most people. Then you get to avoid all the other steps inbetween.

The finale just aired here. So I'm joining the party late - please excoos the thread necromancy. But I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in just in case anyone is still viewing this forum.

I want someone to refute me here: but I found the finale very disappointing. It seemed like instead of having a faith vs science sort of ambiguity (did all this happen for reason or not?) it settled the question of God's existence straight out, and instead settled for ambiguity on what he is and what he wants. The ambiguity was in the wrong place. The angels-as-plot-contrivance felt very weak. Like the writers had put themselves in a corner and had to come with something at the last minute. The idea of Kara as 'whatever you want her to be' does nada for me. And why did angels 1 & 2 keep their Baltar & caprica six forms for 150 000 years?

GRRM in his blog said (& I agree):

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ends with "God Did It." Looks like somebody skipped Writing 101, when you learn that a deus ex machina is a crappy way to end a story.

Yeah, yeah, sometimes the journey is its own reward. I certainly enjoyed much of the journey with BSG ... But **** it, doesn't anybody know how to write an ending any more? I've seen Clarion students left stunned and bleeding for turning in stories with those endings.

Pfui.

(I sure hope those guys doing LOST have something better up planned for us. Though if it turns out to be They Were All Dead All Along I'm really going to be pissed).

(Some spoilers for non-BSG stuff removed - see his blog if you want to real the whole thing).

Hahaha, I'll admit I'm amused by that from GRRM because I can't help but want to retort that at least BSG made it to the ending...

But really, things with Kara were ambiguous? I thought it really didn't leave any wiggle room by the time she disappears.

As for the angels, well one could argue that their appearance is actually based on whatever the person seeing them is conditioned to see. Thus we still saw Caprica and Baltar because that's what we were conditioned to see. In a more basic explination, it was much easier to show them as the same characters so we as viewers knew what was going on rather than coming up with some way to explain.

As for ending with "God did it." Sure, that might be a bad choice for most things, but when the series was in so many ways about the interplay and ambiguity of science, chance or divine intervention, why is it so wrong to end the series with one of them being the final cause? Is it just because that final choice was that "God did it?" Why is that less valid after debating it so long than ending with "The humans are really all Cylons and Gaius and Caprica really are just mentally unbalanced?"

Yeha - liek I siad abive - I thought the ending was great. George can ***** more when he finsihes his story.

I have been reading a lot of crtiques of the finale and the wya it wrapped up, but I was perfectly fine with teh spiritual end to teh show. sprituality and the role fo religion was a very important theme for pretty much the entire run. Sure there was a lot of other stuff going on - but they pretty much wrapped that all up as well. Personally, i think some of the critics who were surprised that they settled on the resoluton as being ultimatley God's plan missed a lot of the development. It was pretty clear that Baltar underwent a relgious experience and covnersion during teh course of teh run, and Roslin was always motivated by a religious inspiration. In teh end - they turned out to be right.

I am fine with that.

I'll admit that several of the characters (Roslin, Adama) had very poignant endings.

But others .... would caprica 6 really get a free pass to grow cabbages from the last renmants of humanity... given she annhilated their civilisation? Did the failed mutiny mean that all was forgiven (for the cylons, not the mutineers)...? Of course, since God had a plan & a destiny for these characters and actively forced it using divine intervention it could be argued that the human race had no say in the matter. But is that satisfactory, really?

Would still say BSG is one of the better sci fi in recent years though. Probably the best since Firefly.

Ouch... poor GRRM. Most writers probably wouldn't appreciate the notion that people working on a story aren't entitled to comment on completed stories. Besides, GRRM has finished loads of stuff (including TV writing) & never yet used 'God did it'.... as far as I know.

Yeah - well true. But my patience with George has gone beyond the breaking point at this date.

I really think it is inexcusable that it is 2009 and DwD is still just a mirgae on the freaking horizon. Feast was disappointing, but at leats you had the hope that the good stuff was msotly done at tat point and would see release soon.....going on four years later.....

And as for BSG - it was pretty clear (to me) that the anti cylon faction had pretty much had their guts stamped out by the adama-Rosling clique (there was a freaking memorial wall up in Galactcica!) so since the toaster flew off in the base ship, and the few skin jobs left had worked to save teh ship and kill Cylons at the Colony, I was Ok with peace between teh few remnants and the humans.

LiquidIce said:

Ah, he's entitled to comment. I just can't resist sniping his tardiness a bit. Still though, whether he has personally used 'God did it' as an ending or not, have religious issues been a large part of any of his works like they obviously were in BSG even prior to the finale? I don't really mind 'God did it' being the final answer since a recurring question of the series was "Is God doing this?" If the recurring question of the series had been "What is 6x7?" then maybe I would have been miffed as there wasn't a legitimate connection already established.

I couldn't agree more about ASoIAF, Stag. He managed one (excellent) book a year for the first three years but has only managed one (not so excellent) book in the past eight years. Maybe he's spread himself thin & is losing interest in such an incremental project. I think in a sense it is a breach of trust - when you spend money on books that size you expect to eventually have a completed story - and that seems kind of unlikely with AsoIAF now.

Re. 6 x 7 - it was foreshadowed, sure. I think part of my problem is with suspending disbelief. The show had been so realistic in a lot of its plotting but suddenly this is a universe where God is proven to exist, and he's an interventionist, genocidal old-testament kinda God who kills & restarts humanity on a cycle. It's too different to the universe I live in. It's like if the question had been "what's 6 x 7" & the finale says "54".

In Martin's defense, the first three books were clsoer to three years apart each (1996, 1999 and 2002, iirc). Feast also came out in 2005, keeping the three year cycle going, but Dance is long overdue.

Then again, I am still waiting for David Gerrold to finish book 5 (of 7) of his War Against the Chtorr series, A Method for Madness. Book 4 was published in 1992. And he is about the same age as Martin.

I can't complain about "God did it" for BSG, because like everyone else has pointed out, god and religion were a huge part of the show. Was that the ending I wanted? No. But it was the ending I got, and it didn't just come out of nowhere. Still, the highlight of Season 4.2 wasn't the finale, but the two-part mutiny episodes.

Unfortunately its not quite the case Jones - Thrones came out in late '96; Clash was early '98 (about 16 months later). Storm was in early 2000 (almost 2 years later, but the book was longer). Then it's a five-and-a-half year wait for Feast (which was short) and a three year gap and counting for the next. Four books in 3 1/2 years, then one book in nine years, while at the same time the story overall is requiring an ever growing number of books to finish. '

I haven't read War with Chtorr, sounds like the same problem. Robert Jordan had it too, as does his successor... the final book of WOT has been split into three, so the series is now 14 books & counting with the end book (no longer called Memory of Light) now due in late 2011.

One thing for TV writing- if they actually do fix an end date it's usually set in concrete. Except for when the writers go on strike.

Or the show gets cancelled.

Or the studio changes it.