22 replies to this topic

[Ran]

Thread for no spoilers discussion of the episode, when it's available.

Edited by Ran, 22 April 2011 - 02:08 PM.

[Ran]

Just to kick things off, what did non-readers make of the Daenerys section of this episode? Did it play all right, or did it feel like it was missing some connective material?

[Balefont]

This guy's weekly reviews are divine.  The title of his review is "Why I Hate the Lannisters".  It only took 2 episodes.

[Senta Signora]

Balefont, on 25 April 2011 - 07:16 AM, said:

This guy's weekly reviews are divine.  The title of his review is "Why I Hate the Lannisters".  It only took 2 episodes.

Thanks for the link.  It's funny and endearing.

[Ondine]

Hello everyone, I’m new to this forum.

I’ve read that some of you are wondering what do people who haven’t read the books think about the show and since I’m one of them here are my impressions of it so far.

First off all I must say that I’m not a big fan of epic fantasy shows ‘cause they almost always look so cheap. Obviously, GoT is not one of those and that’s quite refreshing :-)

So, I’ve read on this forum that people who didn’t read the book have trouble keeping up. Honestly, I don’t know why, I thought it was all very clear. (except for the names, still having some trouble remembering who’s called what)

The story is very interesting so far, and the only part of it that I find a bit disappointing is the Dothraki one. They are supposed to be warriors, if I understand well, but so far they only appear to be savages and very cliché ones. Drogo is supposed to be a king right? And yet the only thing I’ve seen him do in these 2 eps is have sex with Dany. Some of you seemed a little upset by the sex scenes. I think that most of them are ok but the Drogo/Dany sex scenes do seem somewhat gratuitous because I really don’t care if they are doing it doggy-style or missionary or if she’s on top, and I don’t see how it is important to the story. Maybe that’s explained in the book, but it seems to me that there are more interesting things they could put in an one hour show. And they could have made better wigs for Dany and her brother they look sooo unnatural!

Anyway, except for the Dothraki part, the show is very good so far. Hope it gets even better.

Oh, and I do hate the Lannisters already  

[Linda]

Hi Ondine and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you're keeping up well so far and its understandable if the Dothraki are harder to get into. Their storyline is pretty separate from the rest and has perhaps suffered the most from the compression needed for the TV show.

That said, they will get more developed as the season progresses. Drogo isn't quite a king, though, he's a khal, a leader of one particular tribe (khalasar) among the Dothraki. They are warlike and fight both amongst themselves and when they raid neighbouring cultures, but we will see later on what it is they are up to right now.

[Rand]

Ondine, on 25 April 2011 - 12:00 PM, said:

The story is very interesting so far, and the only part of it that I find a bit disappointing is the Dothraki one. They are supposed to be warriors, if I understand well, but so far they only appear to be savages and very cliché ones. Drogo is supposed to be a king right? And yet the only thing I’ve seen him do in these 2 eps is have sex with Dany. Some of you seemed a little upset by the sex scenes. I think that most of them are ok but the Drogo/Dany sex scenes do seem somewhat gratuitous because I really don’t care if they are doing it doggy-style or missionary or if she’s on top, and I don’t see how it is important to the story. Maybe that’s explained in the book, but it seems to me that there are more interesting things they could put in an one hour show. And they could have made better wigs for Dany and her brother they look sooo unnatural!

Yeah this is one area that the TV show so far hasn't really made it clear.  While you say Dany and her brother's wigs look unnatural, to someone who's read the books they don't look unnatural enough, and they're missing the unnatural eyes.  While most of the book is grounded in realism, Dany's lineage is one thing that is not.  If you recall the scene with Catelyn in the woods as she huddles with her advisers and son, she remarks that the dagger is made of 'Valyrian steel with a dragon bone hilt'.  This is what Dany and Visery are, descendants of Valyria.  In the series lore the people of Valyria were able to raise and tame dragons, as well as make awesome weapons (it hasn't been mentioned yet but Ned's big ass sword that he used at the beheading is a Valyrian blade), conquered & enslaved other nations at will, until some disaster fell upon them and wiped out their nation.  The only survivors was a family living at a remote outpost in Westeros, the Targaryens.  

All this info is available on HBO's spoiler-free viewers guide found here.

Edited by Rand, 25 April 2011 - 12:51 PM.

[SergioCQH]

The Dothraki are a more cohesive group of people in the books, with more phenotypic homogeneity and a more coherent fashion sense. The TV Dothraki suffer from the production's inability to find enough phenotypically similar extras, so they had to make do with enough "swarthy" looking people. Also, the costume designer has gotten a significant amount of flak on fansites for the hodgepodge nature of the Dothraki's look.

Also, the reason you do not see Drogo do anything but have sex with Dany is because the story is being told through her eyes, and at this point in the story, this is the extent of her interactions with her husband. The view of Drogo, the Dothraki, and Daenerys will widen as she assimilates into the culture and their relationship evolves.

[Valmy]

SergioCQH, on 25 April 2011 - 12:55 PM, said:

so they had to make do with enough "swarthy" looking people.

They are not even all that swarthy.

Which is probably a good thing.  White barbarians are less controversial.

[Ondine]

Rand, on 25 April 2011 - 12:50 PM, said:

Yeah this is one area that the TV show so far hasn't really made it clear.  While you say Dany and her brother's wigs look unnatural, to someone who's read the books they don't look unnatural enough, and they're missing the unnatural eyes.  While most of the book is grounded in realism, Dany's lineage is one thing that is not.  If you recall the scene with Catelyn in the woods as she huddles with her advisers and son, she remarks that the dagger is made of 'Valyrian steel with a dragon bone hilt'.  This is what Dany and Visery are, descendants of Valyria.  In the series lore the people of Valyria were able to raise and tame dragons, as well as make awesome weapons (it hasn't been mentioned yet but Ned's big ass sword that he used at the beheading is a Valyrian blade), conquered & enslaved other nations at will, until some disaster fell upon them and wiped out their nation.  The only survivors was a family living at a remote outpost in Westeros, the Targaryens.  

All this info is available on HBO's spoiler-free viewers guide found here.

Thanks for explaining. Although I don’t particularly like it when, in other to understand a tv show, I have to go to sources other than the episodes themselves. But I guess that when it’s adapted from a novel, especially one that is as complex as “A song of ice and fire” seems to be, it’s inevitable. They've done a grate job with that map on the official site.

SergioCQH, on 25 April 2011 - 12:55 PM, said:

Also, the reason you do not see Drogo do anything but have sex with Dany is because the story is being told through her eyes, and at this point in the story, this is the extent of her interactions with her husband. The view of Drogo, the Dothraki, and Daenerys will widen as she assimilates into the culture and their relationship evolves.

Ok, that actually makes sense, now that you put it this way    But still it doesn't fit with the rest of the show because the strak/lannister etc part of the story isn't shown from anyone's point of view: we have access to all that is happening. But I get it, that par of the story is quite separate from the rest even in the book, right? So they may as well show it in a different way.

[Manakhkubar]

Ondine, on 25 April 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

Ok, that actually makes sense, now that you put it this way    But still it doesn't fit with the rest of the show because the strak/lannister etc part of the story isn't shown from anyone's point of view: we have access to all that is happening. But I get it, that par of the story is quite separate from the rest even in the book, right? So they may as well show it in a different way.

Well, in the books, of course, it is. The Stark/Lannister-side however, there are a couple of different people whose point of view the books are covering, Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Catelyn and so on, with the Dothraki, there is only Dany. In the books, nothing is written about that but what Dany sees and "does" and all from her perspective and with her "cultural filter". The TV series producers have basically no idea what Khal Drogo and "the horde" are doing in their free time, because it is simply not covered in the book. Of course, they could always just invent something on their own (and incur the everlasting hatred of the "bookies").

[Asha—Not Yara!]

Ondine, on 25 April 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

Ok, that actually makes sense, now that you put it this way    But still it doesn't fit with the rest of the show because the strak/lannister etc part of the story isn't shown from anyone's point of view: we have access to all that is happening. But I get it, that par of the story is quite separate from the rest even in the book, right? So they may as well show it in a different way.

Yep, Dany's story is very separate from the rest of the action in the book as well. Also in the book, Dany is the only Point of View character in her storyline. In the book we don't get a PoV chapter from Drogo, or Jorah, or Viserys. In the book we only see the story through Dany's eyes.

However, in the Stark/Lannister storyline in the book we have Tyrion as a PoV character, we have Eddard, Catelyn, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran. This why you see different perspectives.  

Granted, though we did see some scenes with Jaime and Ceresi alone and they didn't become PoV characters until later in the books. We also know there's going to be some upcoming scenes later on in the series between some characters who aren't PoV characters in the book. So it will be interesting to see if later on we do get some scenes with Drogo by himself. However, due to time constraints, I'd expect them to keep the focus mainly on Dany and her brother.

Edited by Mellisandra, 25 April 2011 - 01:44 PM.

[Ondine]

Mellisandra, on 25 April 2011 - 01:41 PM, said:

Yep, Dany's story is very separate from the rest of the action in the book as well. Also in the book, Dany is the only Point of View character in her storyline. In the book we don't get a PoV chapter from Drogo, or Jorah, or Viserys. In the book we only see the story through Dany's eyes.

That’s a shame. I mean, why bother creating a very different culture if you are only gonna show it / judge it through the eyes of another culture? Well, I guess I’ll get used to Dany’s point of view and the Dothraki in general as the show progresses. If I had read the books I would probably appreciate very much that HBO stayed true to the novels even regarding the point of view of the story, as you all seem to

Edited by Ondine, 25 April 2011 - 02:20 PM.

[Asha—Not Yara!]

That's a good question. I'm not sure if George Martin ever explained why he chose to tell Dany's storyline in that way. If I were to speculate, it may be that Martin needed to find some way to converse space (the books are VERY big after all), or he may have done it on purpose to help give the reader a better sense on how isolated and alone Dany is in some ways.

[Manakhkubar]

Ondine, on 25 April 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

That’s a shame. I mean, why bother creating a very different culture if you are only gonna show it / judge it true the eyes of another culture? Well, I guess I’ll get used to Dany’s point of view and the Dothraki in general as the show progresses. If I had read the books I would probably appreciate very much that HBO stayed true to the novels even regarding the point of view of the story, as you all seem to

Writing from one characters point-of-view makes a lot of sense in literature. It doesn't make too much sense in a mainstream TV series. In literature, if said character encounters a different culture, the reader will "enjoy" the culture shock together with the character. That doesn't work too well on screen either without belittling that other culture.

I'd have liked the Series to get away from the books here, get the focus off Daenarys and give the Dothraki their own real life early on. They gave them a language that they didn't really have in the books. However, budget and screen time seems to be the major obstacle here.

[Ondine]

Manakhkubar, on 25 April 2011 - 02:24 PM, said:

Writing from one characters point-of-view makes a lot of sense in literature. It doesn't make too much sense in a mainstream TV series. In literature, if said character encounters a different culture, the reader will "enjoy" the culture shock together with the character. That doesn't work too well on screen either without belittling that other culture.

I agree with what you sait about TV shows.
I also agree, up to a certain extent, with what you said about the point-of-view in literature but that really depends on setting of the story. I mean if it’s a story set in the real world than this kind of point-of-view could be very interesting but only because we all know at least a little about other culture, even if it’s just clichés. Than we can discover along with the character whose point-of-view is shown more about that culture and enjoy the cultural shock, as you said, or discover how wrong we were about that culture, etc. But in a fantasy world of witch we know nothing except what the author has told us, I’m not sure if it’s so smart. Well, that’s my opinion, but I haven’t read the book, so maybe it does work well in it

[chris.t.]

Long-time reader of the books.  For the most part, I've been pretty "meh" on the t.v. series.  I thought it would be neat if they show was good, but didn't care much either way.

Last night's show firmly moved me from the "that's pretty cool" to "that's freakin' awesome!" camp.  I'm in full bore now.  Can't wait 'til next week.

[arrowfan]

Yea definitely enjoyed this ep.  Really enjoyed the scene with Sansa, Joff, and Arya.  Also liked the scenes with Ned and Robert talking.  Oh and of course the stuff with Jon and Tyrion on way to the Wall.  

Was that scene where Jaime teases Jon in the book? I don't think so, but I thought it was good anyway.  Set's up Jaime's taunting character and Jon's resolve.

[Brude]

First report of second episode ratings, "more than 2 million," though the article isn't clear if that is just the first viewing or all viewings and DVR.  If that's just the first viewing, that's very good and means it's holding a significant audience, probably.

[BlackStoneCA]

I will say I got my cubicle mate here at work interested in the show, and he has never read the books, and in tunr his wife, who is not a Fantasy fan by any stretch, interested in the show as well to the point she got in a fight with him about watching Episode 2 without her.

Sadly though, my Brother, who turned my on to GRRM and ASOIAF, is not watching the series.   He is one of the many that have given up, and will not read another novel or watch the show, until the series is done.  He is more then a bit miffed by the long wait for ADwD