135 replies to this topic

[Giskard Reventlov]

If Talisa is indeed some girl from Volantis instead of Jane Westerling that gave fake name to Rob....it is stupid and unnecessary change but I don't mind it much for some reason.

A little would be lost from the story (how Tywin had his hands in it) but not too much.

[Lord of Oop North]

Truly, anything that defies our preconceived notions of how a barely highborn daughter of a piss-poor noble house would act is completely illogical and has no place in the story.

[Sixshells]

It's not that it has absolutely no place, it's that it is nonsensical at this point and it better have some good justification. Arya is a truly highborn daughter of a really important house, yet it's not so weird that she is going around disguised as a boy, because we know how she has come to this. But I can't wait to see how they will sell the idea that an ambitious family not yet directly touched by the conflict would let their daughter run around on a battlefield far from home.
Although they didn't bother explaining why Robb would feel so much the need to justify himself to a random woman giving assistance to the wounded, so they probably just roll with it and do as if the question didn't exist.

I'll give that to the scene: it was nice to have someone asking Robb about his endgame, and remind us he is getting carried by the events.

[Mr. E]

Sixshells, on 23 April 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

It's not that it has absolutely no place, it's that it is nonsensical at this point and it better have some good justification. Arya is a truly highborn daughter of a really important house, yet it's not so weird that she is going around disguised as a boy, because we know how she has come to this. But I can't wait to see how they will sell the idea that an ambitious family not yet directly touched by the conflict would let their daughter run around on a battlefield far from home.

But the Westerlings aren't an ambitious family. And as someone else said, they're barely even noble anymore. They're a failing branch of a line whose soul saving grace at this point is that they are old.

Likewise, how far away from home is she? I'm pretty sure in ACOK the battle that the show was adapting took place near the Crag, right? Isn't Oxcross near the Crag?

[Envie]

This Talisa character really confused me as well, but by the way they were looking at one another, I think she's supposed to be Jeyne, maybe another name change like Yara/Asha?

I have no idea why they keep changing names of side characters. I also don't understand why she's on the battlefield tending the wounded. In the books, she nursed Robb back to health after an injury which is when he fell in love with her. We had no details prior to that, so I'm guessing they decided to write this scene in to show how adept she is at being a field nurse?

[isiman]

A walking cliche, the whole exchange about war was stupid.

[Lady Lilac]

I'm not sure if I'm too happy with how she turned out. The actress is listed as Jeyne, so it's most likely the Jeyne, but her character still seems a bit off.  Is HBO trying to flesh her out more and make it seem like she was worth a kingdom, or what?

[Blangadanger]

This was the only part of Episode 4 that I didn't really like. The two Lannister guys anticipating an attack had very little payoff because all we see is a flash of Grey Wind and then 30 seconds of darkness. The discussion with the nurse was odd and unexpected. As Robb was watching her leave, I suddenly thought, "could that really be Jeyne?" But I didn't see how it could be. The story didn't match, the name didn't match, and she neither looked nor acted like the character in the books. I'm hoping that if it is Jeyne (renamed or otherwise), this scene will make more sense in subsequent episodes, but for now, it seemed out of place and unnecessary.

I guess there's always a chance that HBO thinks its viewers can't grasp the concept of two characters having similar names and that they changed Jeyne Westerling to another name to avoid confusion with Jeyne Poole. That still doesn't explain the complete character makeover though. At least with Margaery or Yara (ugh), they are interpretations that make sense within the context of the show. The nurse has little in common with Jeyne from the books from what I've seen.

[Reposado]

yeah before she said her name, i was like, if this is jeyne, they really botched it. one of the things i was excited about for this season  was getting into this relationship that was offscreen in the book. but she's wandering about the battlefield healing random dudes. Very movie-ish. very hacky.

[Bastard of Boston]

Did anyone read the Richard Madden interview? I was beginning to think this Talisa gave a fake name as well, but Madden speaks of Oona Chaplin's role as if the name is truly Talisa...unless he's giving false info to protect the reveal.

[Lord Godric]

Luisa Aoiftrazzini, on 22 April 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

It's Jeyne, but she gave Robb a fake identity. The press info and so on all have the actress listed as Jeyne.

That is what I figured, but is she really from Volantis? Or was that a lie too? I liked the idea that the reason her last name wasn't given was because she was a Lannister (which fit with the "your men are not my men" bit), not because she's from Volantis.

[dtones520]

Bastard of Boston, on 23 April 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

Did anyone read the Richard Madden interview? I was beginning to think this Talisa gave a fake name as well, but Madden speaks of Oona Chaplin's role as if the name is truly Talisa...unless he's giving false info to protect the reveal.

I'm thinking they are just trying to protect the reveal. There is an interview with Oona where she refers to the character as Jeyne, so who knows.

[Ramsay Gimp]

It was a badly written exchange. Commoners simply wouldn't talk to a King like that. Neither would a noble disguised as a commoner. We're supposed to believe a scion of House Stark, the King in the North, would spend the aftermath of a battle talking to lowly nurses and taking shit from them?

[Ponyo Payne]

Did anyone think Robb should have flipped her a coin as she road off, like Theon did with Ros?

(null)

[A Time for Wolves]

Lord of Oop North, on 23 April 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Truly, anything that defies our preconceived notions of how a barely highborn daughter of a piss-poor noble house would act is completely illogical and has no place in the story.

This is a ridiculous distortion of what we're trying to say. Considering this is a story full of unconventional heroines, the book readers are going to be the last people to object to a female surgeon roaming battlefields with her knife and her political opinions. The point is that there's no legitimate reason for Jeyne Westerling to do so.

But let's accept that she has a legit reason, for argument's sake - let's say the TV Lord Westerling is like Lord Tarth and lets his daughter do as she pleases, and her particular goal in life is to be a female maester, which is fine. It still doesn't excuse the ham-handed introduction - if Jeyne is going to be an openly female maester the way Brienne is an openly female knight, then why would Jeyne keep her identity hidden in Stefford Lannister's host? If she's so afraid of being caught, then why bother riding with an army?

More importantly, how is she keeping her identity hidden when her father is one of Tywin's vassals? (Even if he's a relatively powerless vassal).

And I could STILL forgive all of that if she didn't have the obnoxiously teen rom-com (as someone else pointed out) conversation with Robb. That whole conversation about war...gah. That was just such bad writing in so many ways.

[The Red Lamb Chop]

I think this scene, though, served a double purpose and that the conversation about war was a more about Robb and less about Jeyne.

What I got from it is a good showing of how unprepared Robb is for this war and kind of bringing the character back down to Earth. He is still a kid really and doesn't exactly get the bigger scheme of things. He's riding around winning battles because "[they] need to win the war first," but he really has no idea about the bigger picture. Right now it seems like a lot of the viewers see him as that hero who can do no wrong: he's winning all his battle, not giving in to Roose's pressures to torture prisoners, etc. This moment is one of many I foresee coming this season where they attempt to show how naive Robb really is and how he's not perfect, climaxing in the moment where he marries Jeyne and screws his cause over.

It was a good juxtaposition. He won the battle but had no idea how to handle everything else that comes with war.

[atia-]

Their exchange was definitely cliche, like something out of a bad movie.  And people are way more disrespectful to high nobility in the show than they are in the books.

[Marjie Eilie Myatt]

I think they'll lose certain types of viewers if they keep avoiding actual battle scenes.  I understand there's a budget, blah blah blah, but I could do with less soft-core porn, less rats (that was a new one on me), less leg-sawing and exposed entrails prosthetics, and more hacking & slashing.

Yeah, Harrenhal looked like shit, but remember Tywin made a whole bunch of renovations in the book to get the place liveable.

[FiveByeSeven]

When she left on the back of the cart and Robb made googly eyes after her, my thought was:

Spoiler

"And thus The Red Wedding is born."

Everyone in the media is giddy over the first real potential romance in the show. Little do they know

Spoiler

that it ends in the unimaginably worst way possible.

Edited by FiveByeSeven, 24 April 2012 - 01:03 AM.

[Bastard of Boston]

Call me a breathing cliche, but the scene between "Talisa" and Robb was one of my favs...okay, maybe my crush on Oona Chaplin plays a big role in that. I just think it's interesting that some are turned off by her exchange with Robb. Don't we like characters who defy convention? We love a character like Arya because she's wild and just doesn't care. However, here comes "Talisa," and without knowing anything about her background, it's not okay for her to vent during an extremely raw and stressful scenario -- the aftermath of an extremely bloody battle? It begs the question, if you feel your world has been turned upside down, and you have no order, does Courtly courtesy remain a priority? Especially if you're angry? Especially if you're addressing a "King" who isn't even recognized as a King by anyone other than Northerners, which "Talisa" is not.

I say we wait for some background on this character. In understanding where she comes from, it might help us to understand why she could be so flippant.