Discussing Season 4

[Ser Pounce FTW]

I've thought before that if Arya and Jon's warging is necessary (and it certainly seems like Jon's is) that Bran might be the one to grant it to them.

Actually Arya really becomes aware of her warging ability when she is training with the kindly man and wargs the cat so she will probably learn next season on her own. Jon will need to be told, it seems, since he's fighting it.

[FreeParking]

Actually Arya really becomes aware of her warging ability when she is training with the kindly man -

Yes, I know. The show likes to have two characters we are already familiar with interact with each other. Here you can have Maisie and Isaac play off of each other.

[Thendera]

I think bringing back Jaqen is a really smart move. He provides another point of reference in a season that will be filled with new places, new characters, and a less-than-gripping Dany arc in Meereen. Do you think they'll even bother sending Sam to Braavos? I love when he and Arya cross paths in the book, but it seems kind of expendable, in the grand scheeme of things...

[Ser Pounce FTW]

I think bringing back Jaqen is a really smart move. He provides another point of reference in a season that will be filled with new places, new characters, and a less-than-gripping Dany arc in Meereen. Do you think they'll even bother sending Sam to Braavos? I love when he and Arya cross paths in the book, but it seems kind of expendable, in the grand scheeme of things...

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that Jaqen's a contender for the Hot Hunks of Westeros calender. I would be surprised if Sam goes to Bravos. It makes sense to send him directly to Oldtown, tbh.

[sj4iy]

I think bringing back Jaqen is a really smart move. He provides another point of reference in a season that will be filled with new places, new characters, and a less-than-gripping Dany arc in Meereen. Do you think they'll even bother sending Sam to Braavos? I love when he and Arya cross paths in the book, but it seems kind of expendable, in the grand scheeme of things...

I was wondering that about Sam earlier. It may just serve to have Aemon die on board and not even bother with the Braavos stopover since we don't have Dareon.

[DanaKz]

American figureskater Chase Belmontes skates to "Game of Thrones".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiDdSoDed4s

He is junior figureskater and he is not the best skater here, very average, but at least he showed other figureskaters that "Game of Thrones" Soundtrack is not the mucic only for small room,

I mean for 4 years already figurescating community asks athletes to make figure skating programms to the music of Game of Thrones, but figure skaters says this TV show's music it too synthetic and monotonic for big arenas. (They said this music "lose itself" on ice" - it's good to listen in headphones, but not for big stadiums.)

This year we will have at least two figureskaters who will dance to this soundtrack.

[rhymeswithleek]

Well, if we're discussing the season as a whole here, I'm just going to say what I've said before on these forums- this was easily my favourite GoT season, far surpassing the achievements of Seasons 1 and 3. I think that, save for the Yara and the Sept scene, everything was brilliantly done, and there were about 7 standout episodes, whereas previous seasons had about 4. 10/10 imo.

I have to agree, although it may not be a popular viewpoint amongst book readers. As standalone television, the first three seasons don't even compare, 4 is the best by a country mile.

I think we have to start accepting the changes, D&D are going to overtake the books and were probably only given the story in broad strokes, so I don't think there's any point in decrying the omission of minor characters and scenes =since this is only going to get worse. They are going to have to heavily condense and alter books 4 and 5 to make them work for TV, I think they managed to nail all the best bits of Storm of Swords whilst trying to ease people into the realisation that changes are coming. I'm not going to be an ass and just say 'deal with it' because I love the books as much as anyone, but D & D had to start making the show their own sooner rather than later, or the shift will be more jarring, anyone get my drift? (I'm not suggesting season 4was perfect, mind, the sept scene was cringe and I missed LS at the end, but they probably judged her character as dead weight amongst an already crowded narrative, in tv you've got to be more ruthless when streamlining the story).

[rhymeswithleek]

Actually Arya really becomes aware of her warging ability when she is training with the kindly man and wargs the cat so she will probably learn next season on her own. Jon will need to be told, it seems, since he's fighting it.

Possibly the Stark warging never becomes specifically important apart from in Bran's case, or D & D are leaving it until it becomes necessary to the story. Apart from Brandon, it's just a family trait that creeps in every so often.

[boojam]

I think bringing back Jaqen is a really smart move. He provides another point of reference in a season that will be filled with new places, new characters, and a less-than-gripping Dany arc in Meereen. Do you think they'll even bother sending Sam to Braavos? I love when he and Arya cross paths in the book, but it seems kind of expendable, in the grand scheeme of things...

As far as I remember , we never, but never, know the Kindly Man's name (sometimes referred to as

the Kindly 'old' Man, tho we really don't know if he 'old' or not). Kind of an anonymous person

on the page. Having Tom play him make's perfect sense.

[boojam]

I've thought before that if Arya and Jon's warging is necessary (and it certainly seems like Jon's is) that Bran might be the one to grant it to them.

In the novel Arya violates FM rules three times.

She keeps Needle.

She Wargs*, seemingly the FM know this and don't know this! She uses it at the end of her 'blindness

training' and the Kindly Mann does not seem aware she is doing it... for some reason?

She takes revenge twice (once in WoW) which is a FM no-no.(Tho... Jaqen has this weird 'Red

God' debt thing, which does not seem to be a FM rule taught to Arya in Feast or Dance

.. and also

'seems' to conflict FM SOP, but then maybe a senior FM has more latitude?

However keeping Needle and and 'revenge' killings seem more important than Warging.

I have to admit that Warging is a character component for both Arya and Jon, tho , so far, a whole

lot more for Arya than Jon.

*(At least I remember the FM telling her not to Warg.)

[Annara Snow]

As far as I remember , we never, but never, know the Kindly Man's name (sometimes referred to as

the Kindly 'old' Man, tho we really don't know if he 'old' or not). Kind of an anonymous person

on the page. Having Tom play him make's perfect sense.

Well, he is no one. Like all of them. None of them have actual names, do they? "Waif" is also a nickname, and "Jaqen H'ghar" was a temporary identity.

[boojam]

Well, he is no one. Like all of them. None of them have actual names, do they? "Waif" is also a nickname, and "Jaqen H'ghar" was a temporary identity.

That's true. I always took that to be something like 'once a Marine, always a Marine' kind of thing.

That is, the FM can hold both being 'Nobody' and their name day idenity as two things in their

minds , keeping their real origin 'in the closet' , so to speak. Not that they they totally 'brain

washed' themselves.

Arya seems a special case, maybe. In MERCY she slips into and out of Arya. I still think that's

an attribute the FM would like her to have... because I think she is being trained to be an

Uber-FM and will get direction , eventually, from a power higher than the FM.

Some 'hand that rocks the cradle' wants a FM who is High Born to do something more than

classy FM assassin hits.

[Karmarni]

Ha! 'Hand that rocks the cradle' = GRRM, our very own higher power. :)

[Stannis H'ghar]

IMO this was the weakest season by far. I just hope season 5 picks up the pace.

[Beric175]

Oh dear, you had two build-up episodes in the middle of the season as opposed to the beginning. Whatever shall we do? It's not like we had an awesome fight in the first episode, the purple wedding in the second episode, 3 great speeches in the third episode, conirmation of the Others turning craster's children into Others in episode 4, LF revealing his involvement in getting the whole plot started in episode 5, tyrion's trial in episode 6, Lysa dying in episode 7, Oberyn and the Mountain fighting in episode 8, an episode-long battle at the wall in episode 9, jojen, the Hound and tywin dying in episode 10 with stannis coming to the rescue and Arya going to Braavos as cherries on top....

[Fisch]

This may have been discussed in earlier pages - I'm juggling multiple projects ATM, so no time to go through it - but did anyone else feel that the reappearance of Stannis should have been saved for the last episode? Given where they ended his story at Season 3, his brief pop-ups throughout Season 4 felt the most obvious examples of padding this season IMO.

[Frey Pies]

Oh dear, you had two build-up episodes in the middle of the season as opposed to the beginning. Whatever shall we do? It's not like we had an awesome fight in the first episode, the purple wedding in the second episode, 3 great speeches in the third episode, conirmation of the Others turning craster's children into Others in episode 4, LF revealing his involvement in getting the whole plot started in episode 5, tyrion's trial in episode 6, Lysa dying in episode 7, Oberyn and the Mountain fighting in episode 8, an episode-long battle at the wall in episode 9, jojen, the Hound and tywin dying in episode 10 with stannis coming to the rescue and Arya going to Braavos as cherries on top....

This isn't the only season to have a slower episode in the middle. Season 3 had episodes 6&7 which were quite slow, and almost everything from E4 to E8 was not that great in Season 2. This season only had 2 slower episodes (which were still high quality), whereas Season 1 took the first 4 to pick up steam.

[FreeParking]

In the novel Arya violates FM rules three times.

She keeps Needle.

She Wargs*, seemingly the FM know this and don't know this! She uses it at the end of her 'blindness

training' and the Kindly Mann does not seem aware she is doing it... for some reason?

She takes revenge twice (once in WoW) which is a FM no-no.(Tho... Jaqen has this weird 'Red

God' debt thing, which does not seem to be a FM rule taught to Arya in Feast or Dance

.. and also

'seems' to conflict FM SOP, but then maybe a senior FM has more latitude?

However keeping Needle and and 'revenge' killings seem more important than Warging.

I have to admit that Warging is a character component for both Arya and Jon, tho , so far, a whole

lot more for Arya than Jon.

*(At least I remember the FM telling her not to Warg.)

Arya's warging hasn't been plot important yet. As you point out, she breaks the FM code in several other ways. As for Jon's warging ability, I am going by the foreshadowing in ADWD (Varamyr's death, Mel's vision) that it will be important soon.