Sunday Calendar Letters: ‘Game of’ endings

After years of blood and torture and every conceivable betrayal of humanity, Lorraine Ali suggests more [“‘Game of Thrones’ Finale Review: The Big Chill,” May 20]? Seriously?

She finds fault with Bran on the throne, but Bran is only an inspiration. Tyrion is “king, leader, whatever” as it should be. He was the heart of the story. He has risen to the heights of sanity in an insane world.

As for Jon Snow’s banishment. He got what he wanted — to return to the north.

This review misses the point of great epics. They need to bring a spirit of redemption to the world or, in reality, we are all lost.

Jo LaMond

Studio City

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Re: Greg Braxton’s “Bend the Knee, Skeptics,” May 21: Anyone familiar with Agatha Christie’s mysteries could have predicted the Three Eyed Raven becoming king in “Game of Thrones.”

He was a possible choice; he did not appear to be a main character; he had no apparent selfish motives; he only showed up occasionally. It was obvious that he would prevail.

David Trutt

Los Angeles

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I enjoyed Mary McNamara’s homage to Tyrion Lannister [“It Was Tyrion’s Victory All Along,” May 21]. I agree. He was the linchpin of the series.

So many of the characters did not invite identification from the audience because they were too villainous or idealized.

Peter Dinklage’s triumph is that he took material that was somewhat indifferent (essentially a glorified comic book) and brought acting craft to it. He gave back more than he was given.

It’s too bad that the last season was so plot driven. The writers were obligated to resolve the Night King situation and the Cersei situation and the succession all in six episodes. It was a Herculean task that probably required another season.

But for all the marching to and fro, it would have been wonderful to allow all the actors who grew up on “GoT” to really come into their own. Alas, it was not to be.

Stuart Gallant

Belmont, Mass.

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I don’t imagine that Meredith Blake intended to create a parody of the #MeToo movement, but that is certainly what she did in her review of the “Game of Thrones” finale [“‘Game’ Finale Cheats its Real Stars: Women,” May 21].

There were many female characters who achieved leadership, became warriors, killed who knows how many men, and brashly forced their way to the top of kingdoms, tribes and armies, but that’s not good enough?

Mike Post

Winnetka

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“Game of Thrones” ended just as it should. I didn’t expect Bran to be named king, but Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) explained why he should be to my satisfaction. Arya, Jon Snow and the other characters’ futures brought hope and adventure.

I watched the whole series in a five-week binge and count myself as a big fan. One of the best TV shows ever.

Martin Towery

Cypress

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I thought the “Game of Thrones” finale was good. Not great, but acceptable.

But to all the people who absolutely loathed it: You stopped watching too soon. After the credits, there was a shot of Winterfell with snow falling all around. The camera pulls way back until we see it’s a snow-globe. Pulling back even more, we see Hodor is holding and shaking the snow-globe and laughing with delight.

There. That’s how it really ended. Satisfied? Now stop obsessing over it. And always stay for the post-credits tag.

Ken Moreno

Pasadena

Editors note: In case it wasn’t obvious, there was no post-credits scene in the finale of “Game of Thrones.”

Set in concrete

Regarding Christopher Knight’s column “Concrete Reverberations Awaiting LACMA” [May 19]: One can add to his critique of the concrete walls in LACMA’s model by noting the windows at the end of the imagined gallery, which would make paintings difficult to see due to the raking light. If the architect is intent on a one-story design, why are there no skylights? This reader can recall a magical afternoon in London’s National Gallery, sitting on a comfortable bench (also lacking in LACMA’s space) in front of Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus. The shifting illumination from a skylight on a partly cloudy day allowed for the perfect experience of the exquisite painting’s innate luminosity. Future visitors to LACMA’s chilly interiors will never have a chance to experience that kind of artistic magic.

Julia I. Miller

Laguna Woods

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The beauty of the new museum and how it will fit into its surroundings is apparent when one stands above the three-dimensional model which contains all of the existing buildings in a four-block area. LACMA is fortunate to have a large green area surrounding it, in large part due to the La Brea tar pits being next door. The new structure, with its graceful curvatures and low profile, appears to protect and preserve the ample green space between it and the stark, rectangular structures that make up the Mid-Wilshire corridor.

Gregory Grinnell

Ojai

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A couple of thoughts came to mind while reading Christopher Knight’s article about the concrete walls in the new LACMA building. First, how soon will those walls resemble shrapnel-scarred buildings in a war zone from repeated rehanging of paintings? Second, how long until said walls disappear behind a veneer of drywall to make it easier to hang new shows?

Gay Anderson

Long Beach

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The L.A. County Board of Supervisors’ vote to release $117.5 million for demolishing and building a new and less adequate space for LACMA’s current collection, appears to be a gross misallocation of county funds. The museum should provide more access to its highly acclaimed art collections, not less. While government funding is appropriate for our public institutions, it is important that LACMA should not in any way be portrayed as an elitist institution either by creating unfriendly designed buildings or forgetting to honor its Los Angeles County name.

Forget the bridge over Wilshire, the more important bridge that needs to be built would connect the Los Angeles public at large and the museum’s growing world-class collections. If the new design can not house and exhibit the current collections, will citizens be inclined to contribute funds or their private collections to the museum if there is no space?

It would appear the majority of the collections might be in storage off site, and unavailable to be seen or studied by academics or students, similar to the off-site curators across the Wilshire bridge.

Is it too late to go back to the boards (the LACMA trustees’ board, the L.A. County board of supervisors and the architect’s drawing board)?

Nicole W. Ruskey

Los Angeles

The writer is a past chair of LACMA’s Costume Council, a past president of the Junior League of Los Angeles and a former board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy.

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One must be taken aback at the prospect of spending millions to house paintings and other art forms while tens of thousands of homeless line the streets in our cities.

I don’t know how many works of art LACMA plans to house, but, given the $117.5 million that has been allowed for this edifice of concrete, part of the overall cost of $650 million for the entire structure, it seems the cost per item will be far higher than what has been allowed for each homeless person in our city. How ironic that we value art more than humanity.

Don Tonty

Los Angeles

Huxley’s Door

Regarding the three-book review “A Haven for Radical Thought” [May 19]: Excuse me, but I have to call Scott Bradfield on the rug for his side comment calling novelist Aldous Huxley (author of “The Doors of Perception” and other works) a “crackpot.” Yes, Mr. Bradfield too is a novelist, but on the level of Mr. Huxley? No comparison.

John Densmore

Santa Monica

Musician, author and actor John Densmore was the drummer for The Doors.

Top of the world

Thank you so much for your article on the Carpenters and the Carpenters convention [“Yesterday Once More,” May 19]. I wish I could have been a part of it.

I spent my teenage years in Downey in the ’60s and ’70s, living just two blocks from the two apartment complexes Richard and Karen bought as a gift to their parents. The buildings are clearly signed in front as “Close To You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.” I used to drive by their house in north Downey from time to time, often seeing their van with their logo painted on the sides, parked in the driveway. I have always loved their music. What a team they made.

I read your article with their “Gold” album playing, as it is again right now. “Superstar” is coming through my speakers.

Kevin Sutlick

Long Beach

A classic debate

When you take on something as iconic as “Catch-22” [“Enjoy the Book? There’s the ‘Catch’,” May 17, by Robert Lloyd] you invite competing responses. While you benefit hugely from name recognition, you also risk alienating or offending an audience by presuming to mess with a classic. George Clooney and company [“How Absurd: First he said no, then George Clooney agreed to adapt the satiric ‘Catch-22’ for a new generation,” May 19, by Meredith Blake] can only hope that Chris Abbott as Yossarian fares better than, say, Russell Crowe did as “Noah.”

David Macaray

Rowland Heights

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Robert Lloyd did a great job with the review of the new Hulu series “Catch-22,” but there is an error in the review. Lloyd mentions “fleets of B-52 bombers.” There were no B-52 bombers in WWII. B-25s were the correct planes.

Michael L. Friedman

Torrance

Why so pessimistic about an apocalypse?

For some time it seemed as though the gifted film critic Justin Chang was the new hope for those of us who’ve been longing for a cinema-savvy film critic whose verdicts we could trust.

In his rhapsodic synopsis of Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy “The Dead Don’t Die” [“‘Dead’ on Arrival,” May 15] he joins the nihilistic chorus of pessimists who dominate our discourse and this points to his darker turn. Justin Chang, what has happened to you?

Michael Jenning

Van Nuys

Overrated? That’ll be the day

Regarding “Underrated / Overrated: Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’” [May 12]: On a weekend at home during my first fall quarter at UCLA in 1971, I got word that a high school friend had drowned. At 18, it was the first time a crack into the invincibility of youth reared its unforgiving head in my life.

That Sunday night, as my dad drove me back to campus, was the first time I really heard “American Pie” on the radio. We were both quiet in the car, and I listened to the lyrics. There couldn’t have been a better song that spoke of hope, life and death.

Almost 50 years later, that song will still take me to that Sunday night. And that’s exactly what classic music will do.

Don McLean’s “American Pie” overrated? Certainly not to a generation who understood its meaning, that the day the music died was indeed a marking point from going from childhood to adulthood.

Maybe you just had to be alive then.

S.R. Fischer

Los Angeles

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