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Skeksi

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Hedge Knight (5/8)

  1. Just to address this, I don't think that Stannis should have turned up before Jon goes to kill Mance. I just think that all of the "battle" should have been in this episode- Jon going to Mance, their scene, and Stannis's arrival. They already changed the order around by bringing Ygritte and Tormund in for the "main battle", and having Ygritte die there, rather than in a smaller skirmish earlier on in the season, so it's not like the show (or I, come to that) has any issue with changing stuff around to keep the pace moving/ pack storylines into a season, if that's what is needed. I think that in an episode where we have an awful lot of footage of people battling (brilliantly shot, great special effects, don't get me wrong), there would have been more than enough time to have Jon's scene with Mance, and Stannis's arrival at the end of the episode, had a few other scenes been cut shorter. It wouldn't NEED to be more than a 5 minute job, because all it has to end with are the wildlings beginning to attack the Wall, a larger force surrounding them/ fighting them, and men chanting "Stannis"- cut to quick shot of Stannis. I mean, at the end of Blackwater it didn't take more than 5 minutes to show Tywin and the Tyrells arriving, and Tywin to declare the battle won, leaving the next episode free to deal with the fallout. As it is, this is now another scene that they have to add to the final episode, which is starting to look crowded. Unless they leave Jon's election as LC to next season, that's at least 2 big scenes on the Wall to fit in, including more battle. There's Tyrion's escape, and the murders in KL, and given that Tyrion is an audience favourite and Tywin's role is even larger in the books, I find it hard to believe that they're going to skimp on these scenes in order to make time back for the Wall. According to the promo for next week, there's a scene with Cersei, too. Bran and co. are arriving at the Children of the Forest, which, given the title of the episode, I would expect to be a fairly sizeable scene. There's tying up Arya and the Hound's storyline for the season- possibly with his death/ Arya leaving him behind. There's at least one scene with Dany. If you don't want Stannis's arrival to be a 5 minute rush job at the end of Episode 9, how much time do you honestly believe that his arrival is going to get in an episode where nearly every other major plotline requires tying up? I mean, I am a Stannis fan, not going to lie, but by and large, I've been OK with him having a more reduced role in the series because of the time limits of TV, I just think that in this episode it takes the piss a bit to push one of Stannis's only major awesome bits into part-way through next episode, the main focus of which is going to be elsewhere, to replace it with Jon walking through a gate. And I think it's silly to have a whole episode dedicated to the Wall, and the battle with the wildlings, and take plenty of time to flesh out your side characters, and do long, beautiful battle sequences, which is fine and dandy, but then basically cut off the ending/ Act 3/ whatever you want to call it, of the sequence. I'm not going to stop watching the show or anything, and I didn't expect Stannis to be the focal point of this episode, but given that his appearance DOES bring the battle to an end, and it is a pretty major moment for his character, then yes, I was kind of expecting to see him.
  2. Well... my reactions to this episode were a very mixed bag. Firstly, might as well get the obvious out of the way, I was not happy with a lack of Stannis in this episode. I assumed (apparently wrongly) that this episode would end with Stannis "riding to the rescue", so to speak, as all seemed lost- a kind of "positive cliffhanger" to end the episode with. As it is, it felt like the ending really trailed off a bit. The next episode is going to be really packed in now to finish all the arcs for the season, even if we assume that some characters are already done (I'm assuming Darth Sansa and Petyr won't show up again this season, and that we won't see any more of Ramsay and Reek, but I could be wrong on both counts), there's now another battle scene, and Jon and Mance's meeting, and Jon's election, we know there's still quite a lot of KL stuff to go too, plus tying up storylines for Bran, Arya and Dany. It seems like episode 10 could be very overstuffed, when a big part of the wall storyline could have fitted into this episode. It was a shame to see Grenn and Pyp go, and the Ygritte death scene was done pretty well, but since this is probably the area of the show/ books I have the least interest in overall, it was a bit of a distant sadness for me. That's definitely a very subjective thing, though. I really, really enjoyed seeing Alliser Thorne get a chance to shine- he's a distinctly unpleasant person, and not well liked for a damn good reason, but he's also a brave, skilled fighter who'll do what he believes needs to be done, which is held up in stark contrast to Janos Slynt. Any scene with Dolorous Edd in it is a good scene for me, and his face when he was told he had the wall did not disappoint. If there's one thing to be said for an episode with so few "main" characters in it (you've got Jon, Sam, Ygritte, Tormund and Gilly in terms of characters who made it to the credits), then it's that it gave the supporting characters a chance to stand out more, and allowed the action to develop more than if it had been cutting away to other characters. All that said... I still found it a bit anticlimactic. And that's possibly because of an overfocus on the Wall. I admit, as I said before, it's one of my least favourite plotlines and I find Jon Snow dull as dishwater, so I'm definitely biased. But I'm not sure it merited a full episode in the way that Blackwater did. Blackwater takes place at the end of S2, where King's Landing is basically THE main location, and Stannis is a major subplot. We saw Tyrion, Bronn and the Hound on the frontlines, we saw Cersei, Sansa and Shae in the palace waiting for the outcome, we saw Stannis and Davos in the oncoming ships, not to mention Joffrey, Varys, etc. There were a lot of major characters there, and it felt a bit more like it merited the focus of the whole episode. S4 has been a lot more spread out than S2, and the focus is certainly not as strongly on KL as it used to be, but it hasn't really been on the Wall this series, either, and there aren't nearly as many major characters there. Particularly for show only viewers, I'm wondering how popular this episode will prove. To sum up: - The episode was well done, but I feel they could have fitted more into it. - Enjoyed the expansion of the role of supporting characters like Alliser Thorne and Edd. - Given how many "big moments" remain in the series to tie up next episode, I worry that it's going to feel rushed. - Think that Stannis's arrival when all seemed lost would have provided more of a "positive cliffhanger" kind of ending, as it was it fell a bit flat for me. - Dramatic though it was, I'm not sure the battle at the Wall merited it's own "sole focus" episode.
  3. XD I now have the image in my head of Jon and co. returning to the Wall to find Ygritte and Tormund's group fighting the remaining forces there, and Jon being like "... Whoops..."
  4. Really liked this episode overall (more on that in the Positive Nitpicking thread). The only things I had a bit of an issue with were 1) We don't really get a lot of story progression from the material at Craster's Keep. We get a definite resolution to what happened to the brothers there, it closes off the "Craster and his wives storyline" with the wives making their own way, and Jon reunites with Ghost, that's pretty much it. Oh, and Locke dies. Saying that, it does give both Jon and Bran something to do before the end of the season, and I accept that they have to give major characters scenes every so often. It was an enjoyable watch, if largely fillery, and 2) Sandor's line "I bet his hair was greasier than Joffrey's cunt", which, yes, hilarious, let's belittle Joffrey by comparing him to a woman, like he didn't have plenty of negative points going for him all on his own, and which I'm mentally depositing in the basket of "Ill advised and tiresome lines". I confess, I thought that the middle of this season was going to be a bit slow with such major events/ deaths in the first and last few episodes coming up, but this was a much better episode than the two that came before it, IMO. I also noticed that the show is really doubling down on it's message of fighting fair getting you nowhere. We had Sandor's scene with Arya, pointing out that if a great swordsman goes up against a man with a real sword and armor, he's almost certainly going to lose, and then of course we had Jon vs. Karl "Focking Legend" Tanner hammering it home. With Bronn hitting Jaime around the face with his own hand last episode too, it's certainly a big recurring theme in the show.
  5. Haven't read through the whole of the last thread, so this might already have been mentioned, but Aidan Gillen plays Stuart (one of the main characters) in the UK "Queer as Folk" series.
  6. Hi there, I'm Skeksi (or, Emma in RL, feel free to call me that, but it's such a damn common name it's probably easier to go with Skeksi). I've been a fairly avid fantasy reader for a few years- Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan) and Malazan Book of the Fallen (Steven Erikson) are probably the two authors I read the most from over the past few years. I've not read as much for the past few years as I'd like, as I spent the last four years (until this July just gone) doing a degree in Maths. Fun times... Anyway, I'm now seeking employment, and spending the rest of my time reading and internet-ing. I've been hearing about A Song of Ice and Fire for years now, and have kept meaning to read them. When I saw that a series based on the first book was coming out, I decided it was time to stop making excuses and read the thing. So, bought a copy of "A Game of Thrones", read it, loved it, started on "Clash of Kings" whilst I was watching the series. My boyfriend, who doesn't usually like fantasy, watched the series with me, loved that, and is now reading the series with me. I'm up to "Feast for Crows", he's up to "Storm of Swords- Book 1" (I don't know if Storm of Swords is divided into two parts in all it's editions?). Anyway, yeah, I love the books. I love that it's unpredictable, and that it tries to be realistic and avoid typical fantasy cliches. I love how, even when beloved characters die, there's such a wealth of other awesome characters that there's always a reason to keep reading. I'm looking forward to the last two books of the series, and really hope this trend continues- I love not being able to predict how a story will play out, and ASOIAF is one of the best books for that, IMO. Hmmm... what else... Well, my favourite characters are Varys and Littlefinger (Not that I'm a sucker for puppetmaster-type characters, no, not at all...). I'm also a big fan of Tyrion, Arya and Asha. I should add, these are just characters I enjoy reading and am rooting for... I make no claim that they are morally good characters. I'm a pretty terrible person when it comes to my fictional characters, it seems. Really nice to find this forum, and I look forward to discussing the series :)
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