53 replies to this topic

[Skeksi]

I had a friend round to watch the episode, so I really had to hold back on yelling and cheering at the screen in Yoren's last fight. It was very hard.

[WhiteWalder]

If you are trained to kill Snarks and Grumpkins, then you can kill 5 or 6 Lannisters at once.

[Envie]

Showing Yoren's last stand on film was a good call in my opinion. It wasn't described in detail in the book as that chapter was Arya's POV and they escaped.

I'm glad they changed it around to show the fight scene. So many great characters we love die in this story and viewers who haven't read the books are quickly coming to realize you shouldn't get too attached to any one hero as they may likely get killed. This is a great suspense tool that translates beautifully to television drama. Fans are loving it and many are rabildly devouring the books to try and get a better grasp on it all. It's a wonderful thing.

RIP Yoren, we loved you even if you were a mean bastard.

[Nebmai]

It was epic, although I liked the situation of the fight more in the book.  In the episode it was clearly 100% suicide to fight and nearly guaranteed they would get Gendry anyway, whereas in the book they were inside a holdfast and though it was dangerous to fight the situation wasn't quite as dire.

But yeah he did go out like a boss at least, and it was cool to see an old NW vet show what he was made of; they haven't really shown much how badass of fighters the NW can be yet, just shown them as grizzled old guys or newbies.

[Leto Atreides]

Yoren's last stand made up for how bad the whole scene was.

Yoren is supposed to take pride in the fact that he never lost anyone on the way to the wall. Yet on the TV show, at the first sign of danger, he made his group run out of the keep to a certain death/capture. At least in the book he tried to reason with the Lannisters as a neutral man of the Night's Watch.

Edited by Leto Atreides, 17 April 2012 - 03:07 PM.

[Lors' Edrick]

My appreciation for Yoren came at the time he was looked upon by Ned Stark and told the word 'Baelor'. Without hesitation, he grapped Arya and prevented her from seeing something no child should ever witness. In his sense of duty, the brother (Night's Watch) of Lord Stark's brother, vowed at that unspoken moment to protect the helpless of the realm. I thought it was a great way to show how the Night Watch doesnt get involved in the matters of the realm, but as we know they indeed do this on multiple occassions. Yoren was a great character to move the plot line along in the books, sadly his time has ended in the TV series as it did in the books.

[strifed169]

Chelly, on 17 April 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

I enjoyed Yoren explaining to Arya how he ended up on the wall. I have no issue with him giving Arya the idea of her "prayer".

His final fight was badass. My favorite part besides "I hate crossbows" The next part when he says "They take to long to load" and then he starts cutting bitches down. I loved it. I though it was a nice touch how even after he died, he still wouldn't go down. Lorch had to push him over. Yoren was so cool.

Badass lol

[Blutrabe]

I only thought it was stupid that they didn't barricade themselves in the holdfast like in the book. What a silly choice for the location then.

[Morrigan]

Yoren fan here. I always liked him in the books and I was genuinely pissed when he died. He had balls of steel and took no shit from anyone, and he's one of the only ones who stood up to the Lannister's tyranny and spat in their face. Fuck yeah.

Ser Plissken, on 17 April 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

Another badass line I would have loved to see in the show came just after the Gold Cloaks had been sent packing for the first time.  When Arya points out that the guy said he'd take Yoren's head, the Black Brother's priceless response was...

Well, as to that, if he can get it off my shoulders, he's welcome to it.

Yeah, I wanted that line and the one about the sword too, heh. Oh well. His "last stand" scene is a fair trade for those missing lines!

Fredwin, on 17 April 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:

He did give his life for his charges, in both versions.

Indeed! I think Yoren, in a way, is the deconstruction of the valorous knight. In Sansa's songs, the True Knights are all beautiful, elegant, pretty, clean, etc. But in the "real" Westeros, they are assholes who don't give a shit about the smallfolk. Book-Yoren is a smelly, dirty, lice-ridden, foul-mouthed old bastard (TV-Yoren is noticeably cleaner and better-looking haha, but that's OK because the actor was great), yet he is the one who defended the weak and protected the innocent in the end.

RIP Yoren. <3 \m/

[Envie]

Morrigan, on 17 April 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

Indeed! I think Yoren, in a way, is the deconstruction of the valorous knight. In Sansa's songs, the True Knights are all beautiful, elegant, pretty, clean, etc. But in the "real" Westeros, they are assholes who don't give a shit about the smallfolk.

I thought it was the Hound who ended up being the reality of what a valorous knight really is in Sansa's mind? She often mused about it later on in chapters long after he was gone.

[ManyFacedOne]

Not even being shot by a crossbow can stop Yoren from killing five guards. Not to mention it took four of those bastards just to bring him to heel.

And Francis Magee was fantastic in the role. He'll definitely be missed.

[Eogh]

Leto Atreides, on 17 April 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

Yoren's last stand made up for how bad the whole scene was.

Yoren is supposed to take pride in the fact that he never lost anyone on the way to the wall. Yet on the TV show, at the first sign of danger, he made his group run out of the keep to a certain death/capture. At least in the book he tried to reason with the Lannisters as a neutral man of the Night's Watch.

That's a good point, heedlessly running out of the holdfast was silly, and it would have made sense for him to at least try to reason with them as a neutral sworn brother. But at the same time they had already changed the scene in the show to have the Lannister men arrive specifically with the purpose of taking Gendry, so reasoning with them would be pretty pointless. In CoK Ser Amory and his men were just passing through the town, they weren't aware of Gendry at all, so Yoren stood a much better chance of persuading them not to attack.

[packersfan]

Yeah, I didn't understand the running out of the holdfast, but the ensuing badass last stand was great.  As for Yoren being too soft towards Arya, I think it was fine...since everyone else was asleep...his mission with her was not to take her to the wall, but to take her to Winterfell.  He knew who she was.  The gruffness we saw in the book and Season 1 was his way to get her to stay in character as a boy and always seemed to be in view of others.  While the conversation did not happen in the book, I think, it is believable.  It isn't like they hugged, and when he finished he laughed about how his story of revenge will help her sleep, haha.  I think Yoren gives us a real sense of the brutal world they live in.  The "good" guys are not all pacifist, perfectly moral, clean people...They are rough and have to be to survive.

Good point Eogh, I couldn't remember if Amory and his men were just passing or not.  Why did they attack in the book?  Was it because Yoren was not willing to give up the holdfast?  I do remember feeling that the shows depiction was not following what I read in the book.  I don't remember an instant "OK boys, these guys want to kill us, let's kill them first"

[boojam]

Triskele, on 16 April 2012 - 10:47 PM, said:

I wanted to call it "Yoren's last stand," but that might have been a bit too revealing for our non-reading friends.

My question to you is this:  How badass was Yoren's last stand?  Obviously, this is a rhetorical question.  I am not asking to hear you equivocate on whether it was worthy of a thread or not.  I am asking to see who among you can do justice to its awesomeness with the written word.

Begin.

If you read the book Arya and crew find him dead with quite a few Ser Amory's men, and during the fight at the hold fast wall he , I think, took out even more before the wall was breached.

Things of note:
- Watching Arya and Yoren's last scene together was I thought another little gem for episode 3, which has quite a few.
- Was that really Tom playing Jaqen in the cage?, almost got the impression they may have shot that scene before Wlaschiha was available. Not sure? Alas the elaboration of that sequence was really intense in the novel, we kind of lost that.
- A neat wrap on the Gendry thing , using Lommey, ... here' the thing, maybe I don't remember from the novel that well, Amory wasn't looking for Gendry , attacked them for being rebels, ... in fact seems to me the whole Gendry - bastard thing gets totally lost in the later chaos and never comes up again... and by ASoS nobody cares anymore.

Edited by boojam, 17 April 2012 - 09:54 PM.

[smo]

I thought the scene with Yoren was great.  It wasn't like the book, but I thought they did it well.  He did a good job taking on those Lannisters and it was suicide and he knew it.  And Arya was great in saying that Gendry was already dead.

Edited by smo, 17 April 2012 - 09:55 PM.

[atia-]

That was sad....and shocking.  Didn't expect everything to move so damn fast.

[Morrigan]

Envie, on 17 April 2012 - 05:34 PM, said:

I thought it was the Hound who ended up being the reality of what a valorous knight really is in Sansa's mind? She often mused about it later on in chapters long after he was gone.

Maybe, I know the Hound basically brings Sansa back to reality about what knights really are like (when he tells her his story of Ser Gregor), but the Hound himself doesn't really do anything that particularly chivalrous, whereas Yoren does give his life to protect the innocent and defend the weak (the knight's oath), so IMO Yoren dying for the smallfolk is the closest thing to a true knight that we've seen .

ManyFacedOne, on 17 April 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

Not even being shot by a crossbow can stop Yoren from killing five guards. Not to mention it took four of those bastards just to bring him to heel.

[...] and the corpses of four Lannister men-at-arms were heaped near Yoren’s. Arya wondered how many it had taken to bring him down.

Edited by Morrigan, 18 April 2012 - 03:17 AM.

[Kaldaur]

I've recently completed a re-read of CoK. As far as Yoren's death in the books, Amory Lorch is just passing through the area when they come upon the holdfast where Yoren has shacked up the recruits. He tells Yoren to open up and be inspected, although Yoren knows right away what's going to happen. He tells Lorch a few times that they're just NW men and no harm to anyone, but Lorch clearly wants a fight. Lorch is happy to throw away three times the number of his own men just to root them out of the building.

Out of Yoren's thirty, I think a good ten or so escape in the books. Arya, Gendry, Lommy, Hot Pie, two or three minor characters, and then the three men in the cages.

On the show, I understood time constraints were affecting them. They are cramming as much as they can to keep as many story lines afloat, and I'm glad of it. I'm also completely okay with Yoren giving Arya her prayer idea and loved the tribute they gave to Yoren before he died. A good way to send a good man out.

[boojam]

Kaldaur, on 18 April 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

I've recently completed a re-read of CoK. As far as Yoren's death in the books, Amory Lorch is just passing through the area when they come upon the holdfast where Yoren has shacked up the recruits. He tells Yoren to open up and be inspected, although Yoren knows right away what's going to happen. He tells Lorch a few times that they're just NW men and no harm to anyone, but Lorch clearly wants a fight. Lorch is happy to throw away three times the number of his own men just to root them out of the building.

Out of Yoren's thirty, I think a good ten or so escape in the books. Arya, Gendry, Lommy, Hot Pie, two or three minor characters, and then the three men in the cages.

On the show, I understood time constraints were affecting them. They are cramming as much as they can to keep as many story lines afloat, and I'm glad of it. I'm also completely okay with Yoren giving Arya her prayer idea and loved the tribute they gave to Yoren before he died. A good way to send a good man out.

Arya sees a lot of action in that fight at the hold fast wall. She wounds a few of Lorch's men trying to climb over , not long after she, Gendry and Hot Pie (of all people) kill one of the attackers.
The reader starts to realize Arya is 'hard candy' , and on the way to becoming as ruthless as the times demand.
In E3 she does not even get to use Needle as she did in CoK.

[Ser Steele]

There just aren't enough episodes and enough cash do do everything scene for scene, but I wish there was. That being said it was a great way to condense the transition of Arya in Yoren's hands to Harenhal. I can't complain for the awesomeness that Yoren had going down. Two thumbs up.