Game of Thrones Nominated for Two Hugo Awards!

31 Comments

1. HODOR!!!

2. Oh so glad to see recognition for The Expanse in there !

3. Arkash:
   Oh so glad to see recognition for The Expanse in there !

   I haven’t seen the expanse, how is it ?

4. I don’t want to be that guy, but Game of Thrones should have that Hugo in the bag right ?
   Awesome to see Thrones get nominated for more awards 🙂

5. I don’t get it. “Battle of the Bastards” was great, but “Winds of Winter” was just as good if not better. Why does it get no love in awards nominations?

   Don’t get me wrong. The two action sequences in Battle of the Bastards were fabulous. But if an award is being given for “dramatic presentation”, I thought Winds of a Winter
   excelled.

6. I love the Huge Awards nominations/winners lists. I’ve found many great novels and my favorite authors through it.

7. Ten Bears,

   I agree. I think Sapochnik and D&D simply picked “Battle of the Bastards” instead of “The Winds of Winter” to nominate for all the awards. Although Hugos are nominated by the voters, and not submitted by the creators.

8. Ten Bears,

   Yeah, I know… I suppose we can consider that the Hugo Awards are for science fiction and fantasy and Winds was a bit “lighter” on that. The whole thing is fantasy of course, but I don’t know… just thoughts.

9. San Junipero should walk this category. Charlie Brooker is a genius, and I’m delighted he’s finally getting the recognition he thoroughly deserves (besides the best season 6 episode of GoT didn’t even make the shortlist).

10. Knight of the Walkers,

    Sorry but the BOTB was better than anything on tv last year,to not win would be a crime . It went way beyond the tv standard,almost movie production feel,in fact the battle was better than most of the battles that you see in modern movies .

11. PS. I didn’t mean to imply by omission that “The Door” is undeserving. “Dramatic presentation”? Those last ten or fifteen minutes of that episode, first alternating between the tranquil settling in the past and the sh-storm about to erupt in the cave (with Bran spaced out and Hodor freaking out, and Meera frantically trying to get them all out), had me on an emotional rollercoaster.
    Same thing with the final back-and-forth between poor brain-fried young Wylis flailing on the ground in the past, and his grown up self holding the f-cking door in the future. Arg!!! ?
    What’ll always stick with me though is Meera’s muted voice from the future and louder in the present pleading “Hold the Door” over and over.
    Jack Bender did a masterful job. Were it not for Miguel S’s kickass doubleheader to end the season, Jack Bender and his episode would be a shoe-on for all of these awards.

12. Matthew The Dragon Knight: I haven’t seen the expanse, how is it ?

    Glorious !

    Best sci-fi show for a long time, and there have been some great ones lately.

13. DragonBallfan,

    I agree with you whole-heartedly! Best episode of TV in a long time!❤⚔️

14. #Justicefor610

    It’s nice to see The Door get a nom though.

15. Ten Bears,

    I also prefer Winds of Winter. Those first 15 minutes were the best ever and also the rest of the episode was very good.
    Battle of the bastards didn’t touch me emotionally. I liked the part with Dany and the dragons. But the battle with Jon somehow didn’t touch me. And I really love Jon Snow (it’s my favourite storyline since season 4), so that’s not the reason.

    But congrats to Game of Thrones!

16. On a completely different note, has anyone seen this Oldtown animation for the opening credits?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vTvdztHIpw

    Looks like it could be a real early rendition, doesn’t it? And uploaded shortly before the S6 finale.

17. Dutch Maester,

    Ok, it’s probably just an impressive fan creation. I do hope we’ll get to see it appear in the S7 intro, though. Along with Highgarden and Casterly Rock.

18. Clob,

    Ah, you’re right. Winds of a Winter was more of a “human drama” as opposed to “Sci Fi or fantasy. “

19. Dutch Maester,

    Nice work. Looks like it could be the intro to a mid-1990’s Sierra point & click adventure game. Or perhaps a fan film called “A Game of Ice and Minecraft.” 😉

20. Ten Bears: I don’t get it. “Battle of the Bastards” was great, but “Winds of Winter” was just as good if not better. Why does it get no love in awards nominations?

    Hugo nominations are popularity contests, not critical awards. (That is why the fairly mediocre “Return of Doctor Mysterio” got nominated: there are a lot of Whovians!) Moreover, any episode could get nominated by people with voting rights for the Hugos (which is, insofar as I can tell, about everyone), which means that each GoT episode was competing with 9 other GoT episodes, several of which were really good. So, getting two nominations is really outstanding. GRRM was plugging people to nominate it and just to nominate things in general on his not-a-blog.

    I’m glad to see The Expanse up there. I do find it funny to read people say that Expanse is the “Game of Thrones for SciFi” when GoT was billed as the “Babylon 5 for Fantasy” 20 years ago!

    Ten Bears: Ah, you’re right. Winds of a Winter was more of a “human drama” as opposed to “Sci Fi or fantasy. ”

    Well, so was Battle of the Bastards! Except for one giant, there was nothing fantastic about that episode. The Door obviously had much more of a fantasy element to it, though.

    Also, what makes good SciFi & Fantasy, well, good is when it remembers to be a “human drama” rather than just a showcase for imagination. A big reason why the SciFi types left the Hugos for the Nebulas years ago was the fact that SciFi has always focused on that: almost all SciFi stories deal with some element of what it will mean to be human in the future. Fantasy…. not so much! But that is what makes GoT different from most fantasy: it’s got more Tolstoy than Tolkien to it.

21. Wimsey,

    What I intended to say before the Russian Bots froze my cellphone was that the scene of the three dragons simultaneously streaming fire from the sky onto the Masters’ ship was just fabulous. Great visual image. (It’s replaced my screensaver image of the STNG Enterprise firing its phaser at the Borg cube). The staging of the actual “battle of the bastards” outside Winterfell was impressive, but for me at least it was upstaged by the Mereen Sea & Air Show that preceded it. Maybe that was in part because the massive bloodbath had been talked up for months by the producers and technical directors themselves; and the release of the title of the episode left no doubt we’d see Jon & Allies vs. SausageWiggler & Doublecrossers in E9. However, unleashing the three dragons to end the Masters’ aerial bombardment of Mereen took me by surprise. I did not know that was on the agenda when I settled in to watch the episode.

    The green wildfire ignited underground in E10 (a tiny bit CGI-ish looking) was arguably the only “sci fi” or fantasy element in that episode, unless you count Arya’s face-peeling*.

    In any event, I’m not so sure what does and doesn’t qualify as “sci-fi and fantasy” these days. (I don’t consider Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan to be fantasy; except for the presence of Wun Wun, the Winterfell battle was was like the battle scenes in those films.)

    Nor am I familiar enough with the Hugo and Nebula nomination and voting processes to know what they consider worthy.

    Still, the flamethrower dragons in the sky in E9, or the frantic escape from the cave loopy time stuff in E5, should satisfy any definition of “sci-fi” or “fantasy.”

    * I wanted to ask you something about that, as it applies to “Chekhov’s Gun” and its corollaries … I’ll follow up about that later if it’s okay.

22. Matthew The Dragon Knight,

    Pretty decent quality TV. Personally I’ve enjoyed the first season tremendously. I think the script was good and they’ve got some good acting. Thomas Jane seems to have a load of fun doing this even though his storyline looks static compared with the rest of them. Story is split accross galaxy and seems chaotic for a bit until you know the factions and what they are all about, but everything comes together nicely towards the end. I recommend it.

    Anyway, congrats for GoT. Looks like they got a reasonable shot at this.

23. Ten Bears: * I wanted to ask you something about that, as it applies to “Chekhov’s Gun” and its corollaries … I’ll follow up about that later if it’s okay.

    I look forward to it!

24. Catspaw Assassin,

    Lol. In my defense, I did say early rendition xD

25. Great to see The Expanse nominated , it is the best TV science fiction since Star Trek.
    Even tho the type, solar system space opera, has been common currency in prose science fiction for 75 years now this is the first time it has really been done on TV.
    It is a favorite of George R R Martin.

26. Boojam: Even tho the type, solar system space opera, has been common currency in prose science fiction for 75 years now this is the first time it has really been done on TV.

    Babylon 5 basically did this 20+ years ago, although it was a bit more than just the solar system. At the time, it was hailed as being the first SciFi TV show to be the sort of sociopolitical drama that so many SciFi books are. Prior to that, most “SciFi” TV really was “Science Fantasy” TV a la Star Trek or (most) Doctor Who. (If you are only familiar with the new series of Doctor Who, that might seem odd: but the new series is almost nothing like the old one.)

27. The Door is the only episode that was spoiled for me. Thank heavens for it. Yes, everything with Hodor is awful and gut wrenching. However, my wife and I were dealing with our puppy (grown doggo of 9yrs) in his final days of being afflicted with cancer. “They’re all good dogs, Brent,” but Mr JuneBug was a unique dude. Knowing beforehand Summer died horribly, she and I decided to DVR the episode so we could fast forward thru that part. Generally hate spoilers, but I was and am thankful for that one.

    If the Hugo is for drama, it’s gotta be The Door. All the feels.

    Save the direwolves!

28. Wimsey,

    Thanks !

    My question has a few subparts that I need to clarify and condense before imposing on you for your opinion.
    However, as to the specific example of the “face-peeling” device: I guess I’m wondering how many times a “gun” can be fired before it loses its dramatic impact and becomes predictable and cheesy. (Or in more crass terms, can Chekhov reload after he has already shot his load?)

    The FM face-changing was first introduced by Jaqen 1.0 when he parted ways with Arya in S2 (?).
    Arya then used the face-peeling trick on Meryn F. Trant in S5e10. [First shot?]
    Then, in a show-only transfer to Arya of Book!Manderly’s in-progress “Frey Pies” side story, Arya disguised as a serving girl used the face-peeling trick again on Walder Frey in S6e10. [Second shot.]

    My assumption is that the show won’t resort to the same trick/fire the same gun a third time. Arguably, it wasn’t necessary to deploy it to kill Walder and his damn moron sons. If the showrunners were planning on using it again in S7 or S8, they would not have “wasted” it on that one brief scene in S6e10. Now, any dramatic effect has been spent.

    On the other hand, I’ve read predictions that, for example, Arya will kill Cersei using Jaime’s face, and this “gun” has been hung in the finales of S5 and S6.
    If that is the case, then anytime ANY character is in close proximity to another (known or unknown) character,
    I’m going to be thinking, “Hey…Maybe that’s really Arya and she’s gonna kill [Lord X, Ser Y, or random person Z].

    From the standpoint of [in?]effective storytelling, is Arya’s face-peeling like Wolverine’s retractable claws, Dr. Banner > Hulk, or Hellboy’s flammable girlfriend when they’re angry? Just a “superpower” that Arya has from now on ?

    { Darn. This was supposed to be concise, and now my keyboard’s starting to freeze and I can’t edit…}

29. Hmm, that’s a good question. Basically, Chekhov was stating: “Do not waste the audience’s time with stuff that does not have a payoff.” Show us that a god can revive the dead? Well, someone important better be so revived.

    So, basically Chekhov is saying: R’hllor better be used to revive a Jon Snow, Daenerys, etc. However: what happens if you use R’hllor ot revive Jon, Daeny, Tyrion, Bran, Arya, the third guy on the left, etc.? OK, Beric now definitely was not a waste of time: but, um, dudes: a little originality?

    Arya’s face shifting might now be more comparable to, say, Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak than to reviving the dead. It’s a tool that she has, just as Harry had his cloak. So, the show runners (and GRRM) now have a fine-line to walk. It will border on a plot-hole (or at least an idiot plot) if Arya does not use it at some point where it makes sense for her to use it unless there is some good and understandable reason for her to be unable to do so. (E.g., Snape has her supply of faces!) On the other hand: you don’t want it to be like Doctor Who’s sonic screwdriver, either. So, that means that they need to be careful to plot things so that Arya can use this talent without it becoming too redundant.

    Chekhov might have written something about mixing things up, but if he did, then he didn’t come up with anywhere near as catchy a line as he did for not expounding on gratuitous details. (And it took him too tries: the first time he wrote it, it involved chapters in books, not acts in plays!)

    So, how about the Ten Bear Gun & Knife Show: If you show a Gun in the first act, then it had better be fired by the third act: but use a knife for the next murder, please.

30. Extra Stark, Please: If the Hugo is for drama, it’s gotta be The Door. All the feels.

    Unfortunately, I think it is for numbers of fanboys & fangirls.

31. I’m very happy for every nomination and/ or award GOT gets. My fingers get tired of being kept crossed 🙂
    I like The Winds of Winter more than The Battle of Bastards, I guess it’s a matter of personal taste after all.

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