Jump to content

Beric175

Members
  • Posts

    544
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Beric175's Achievements

Noble

Noble (7/8)

  1. I agree that they could have used Mord but they wanted to get to the lords of the Vale and through Sansa's AFFC material as soon as possible so they had to combine a lot of stuff.
  2. As for Bloodraven's makeup, I think I have just accepted that the magic is somewhat downplayed on the show so this wasn't a shock at all. I mean, he's still a treehugger and the actor sold the dialogue from the books very well here.
  3. I like the skeletons because there are lots of skeletons on the floor of the cave, leading me to think that Jojen died because Bloodraven didn't want him around to counsel Bran against certain things that Bloodraven wants to do, which makes him much more sinister because it implies that he himself had a hand in raising the wights. I don't think that it is also inconsistent for the wights to be decomposed skeletons, that's why you have to burn them after all: unless incinerated they will come back to life.
  4. 9/10. Aemon and Ygritte had the best scenes and the fighting choreography and CG were all very well done. We also got some good character moments out of Sam, Jon, Pyp, and Alliser. Good to see itwas also true to the book so that Stannis can arrive when he's supposed to arrive.
  5. Well, since Ran gave it a 6 I sort of have to give it a 9 because I had the complete opposite reaction to him and Linda. This is one of the best episodes of the whole show for me and I didn't find the editing of the fight distracting, I don't have a problem with wushu being used as inspiration for Oberyn's fighting style (it's flashy and confident and hence it works or that character) and I got what they meant with the Orson scene, which the review did not even really bother to approach from a metaphorical perspective. I also have no problem with the Sansa and Arya changes. yeah, so no real complaints from me. I like the acting, the cinematograpy and that's that then.
  6. 9/10, just for Bronn, The Hound, Oberyn, Tyrion, Sansa and even Littlefinger all hitting it right out of the park with their performances. All the sansa stuff this year has been very well done and while I've seen some unsullied complain about sansa getting bratty again over "just a snow castle" I can seethat all the anger that has built up in her under Joffrey she unleashes onto Sweetrobin who while not exactly a 100% douche like Joffrey, is being very arrogant and douchey at least in the moment. While he is right that a small tower is no big deal and that he did not "ruin" it, he still was petulant and impulsively aggressive when she lashed out at him. In one sense I cannot totally condemn him but I can understand sansa more, given her present situation and the awareness that she has of it in general. I could see that when he came to her she wanted to be alone with her memories of a sweeter time and the moment was ultimately ruined by him showing up at all, given that he so nonchalantly talked to her about her family's death the moment they met. It frustrates me a little that the subtle scènes with sansa that are open to interpretation are usually reduced by the unsullied viewers as bratty teenage behavior, not considering that she has had a rough time at the vry least recently, with being aware of people's belief as to her implication in Joffrey's death, the death of Ser Dontos, who she arguably saved from death and the destruction of Winterfell that we are always reminded of in the opening credits because it is a permanent thing to her as well and it's tough to get over a loss like that one. I think we can take away from this that sansa is starting to stand up for herself more, just because she's done dealing with petty little psychos like Joffrey and Robert. Now Littlefinger's move here is interesting, not just because we are not sure if he is expressing feelings for sansa in the book, for Catelyn or if he is even expressing any true feelings at all here, given that having Lysa freak out over this kiss (and he knows that Robert will go straight to her to bring her here) and try to have Sansa killed is the perfect way for him to act on what we already suspected in episode 5: his absolute distaste for Lysa that he only puts up with because it allows him to marry into a powerful family with control over a region as of yet untouched by the war. He will be Lord protector of the vale once she dies. So either it's a fit of passion, in which case he forgot himself with sansa, which goes against much of what we know of this calm and usually careful man, or it was a planned move to provoke in Lysa exactly the kind of reaction she ended up having. I also would like to point out that Lysa implicates herself in the deaths of Sansa's mother and Sansa's uncle Jon so the confession scenario came about in a different way for which I am very grateful. I don't even mind them leaving out "only Cat" because that's them putting their spin on the story and it changes nothing between him here and the books if he says "your sister". The effect is the same and apart from a nod to the books, nothing gets lost. I didn't think we'd get Oberyn telling the story of Tyrion as a baby but it was well-written, well-acted and well-placed because Tyrion is in a tough spot right now and both this, Jaime's and Bronn's scenes were wonderful in communicating his growing despair so that when Oberyn offers his service to Tyrion, it's a wonderful moment of hope....that will get crushed in 2 weeks sadly and I will be very sad because Pedor Pascal, Martin and the writers for the show have made him an excellent character on the show and treated the character with a lot of respect, which I am very thankful for. The Jon scene once again emphasises what a bully Alliser Thorne is to everyone around him and it is a good way to build the tension because we know that in episode 9 a giant will come running though that tunnel and we'll go "had you guys just paid a bit more heed to Jon's warnings". I never thought reading AFFC that Brienne was brilliant and it's nice to see that she sort of has to rely on Pod to some extent and the inconsistencies like her asking for sansa Stark in public are pointed out as a bad approach by Pod later so it makes him more useful because otherwise Brienne does not really need him so it justifies his presence. Anyone else thinks it's like Sancho Panza and Don Quixote? The Arya and the Hound scenes were both fine (even though I would have preferred seeing Brienne dispose of Rorge and Biter but whatever, at least the Hound got wounded badly enoug to "die" of the festering wound in the next episode). It's also great to have the Hound tell his own story and we at least now know the father's involvement in all of this, which mirrors Tywin's treatment of Tyrion when compared to Jaime, something Tyrion even points outat the beginning and we can already see that he is getting insulting with both Bronn and Jaime to some extent. For now he will still hold back to some extent but once Jaime reveals the Tysha bit we'll get the more questionable and angry Tyrion for sure. the only slight misstep was the Melisandre scene but it added flavour to characters who we otherwise never see interact and the nudity would not be a problem for Selyse other than the fact that she might be jealous of melisandre or was the idea of Mel talking about magic tricks and illusions mixed with the image of her youthful body meant as a nod towards her glamour, since she is actually using magic to keep herself younger than she actually is? Is it wrong that I enjoy Cersei walking though the guts of dead prisoners? NB: the new Mountain is HUUUUGE.
  7. 9 for me. Not much to complain about from me. Yeah, the Jon stuff was filler-ish but it was short overall and we got a good payoff to Locke, Rast and qarl being dicks. I liked everything else a lot.
  8. I gave it an 8 because of the Jaime:Cersei scene not sitting all too well with me and because I do not yet see what they're setting up with Gilly. Other than that, superb acting and dialogue and the last scene made me feel that the new daario is a nice compromise between the one from episode 1 of this season and the one from last season. Keep writing him like that D&D, please. Lots of great speeches in the episode.
  9. I liked the thing that happend to thing at the thing....you know....
  10. @The Anti-Targ: You won't be hearing nor seeing Ser Illyn on the show again sadly because the actor has terminal cancer and he expected to die already last year but luckily he has not died yet but yeah, out of respect they will probably not recast him and hence, it's best to give his role to another character that people already connected with. @Knight of Ashes: you seem to be forgetting that in the same scene between Tyriona nd Cersei last season Tyrion mentions how Joffrey could have been smart by using poison to kill him so noone would have known it was him who killed Tyrion, which then now comes back into play because Cersei knows that he voiced such a possibility to murder someone efficiently. Also, have you noticed that every time Tyrion asks Cersei about some hideous deeds (the killing of the bastards, Ser Mandon Moore trying to kill him) she always goes silent and neither denies nor confirms anything? I like that far more because it leaves some ambiguity for the viewers. All the viewers have is Tyrion's assumptions of what happened, no actual evidence or facts to back that up and so why not have the audience led in the wrong direction? Just because Tyrion arrives at one conclusion as a result of her silence, does not mean that he arrives at the right conclusion.
  11. This was a great episode. 9/10 from me. If I had a problem it would be the Stannis scenes, only because they did not add much beyond mentioning the Great Other and establishing a love-hate relationship between Selyse and Shireen. The actors are well-portraying what they've been given but judging from what D&D have been saying about Stannis in the most recent Inside the Episode video, I think the problem with the Stannis characterization seems to stem largely from the fact that Weiss has a less nuanced position regarding Stannis than Benioff and that is crucially the problem with the character itself: he's a divisive character (some people think he's a kinslayer for having Renly murdered by shadow, others think he's got the ONLY legal claim when Daenerys also has a good birth right). I mean people reading the books have disagreed about the character, so why wouldn't that potentially be the case with the creators of the show? It's unfortunate that Weiss wants to portray him in a way that is more akin to a religious zealot than anything else, whereas bénioff seems to understand that melisandre is just a means to an end and some of that comes through with the actor's portrayal of the character in this episode to me because he seems disinterested in whatever religious procedure melisandre as going on and he at least says "hands off my daughter" so yeah, the complexity off the show version of the character has to be found elsewhere than in his speeches about claims and thrones. I can live with this portrayal of Stannis because I believe the intent is to have him turning up at the Wall as a hero in the last two episodes be a surprise despite the fact that they've established this motivation at the end of last season. A bit of a shame that the creators are not on the same page about him, but then again, many of the readers aren't. At least Shirreen and Davos are true to their book counterparts. I can live with the show version of Stannis for the sake of simplification and narrative economy. The rest of the episode was amazingly well-done and kudos to jack Gleeson who has been as good as anyone cpould have hoped for in that hateful role and I'm really liking Iwan Rheon's portrayal of Ramsay as well so here's to the psyhcos of Westeros. may both of them rest in pieces once the story's over. Alfie Allen should really get some recognition for his portrayal of Reek/Theon and now that we have the physical torture behind us it will be interesting to see where he goes rom here and Roose Bolton is also wonderful on the show. Really, all these serial killers of Westeros need is to hug their dads :D. "Who the f***'s Jon Snow?" made me laugh. Locke is one of the better inventions for the show methinks. Bran's story is also getting interesting and it's nice to see them bringing in material from when we first met the Reeds in the books. I think most of Bran's storyline in the books is not that eventful that chronology is strictly required, which could be an asset going forward, as they are inevitably going to have to do something with Bran once they run out of ADWD material so yeah, why not introduce elements from earlier books later on? Well-done. I also like the consistency of the visions because it shows that they have a clear endgoal and that we'll get there sooner rather than later. I see where the divide usually comes from regarding Lena Headey's portrayal of Cersei because when Martin writes her we get full-on idiot/asshole Cersei, not just deeply condescending/cynical Cersei and it's refreshing to see Lena portray that hatefulness and schadenfreude so well here. I don't have a problem how they usually show Cersei, it's just that viewers might hate her for slightly different reasons in the show than in the books but I can live with that. That scene with Pycelle was hilarious. They're really setting up her disappointment with him so once he gets to be in charge for a while he'll gloat and be sufficiently arrogant, which is always good. Tywin and Olenna are both awesome as matriarch and patriarch of their families, albeit Olenna is deliberately telling tywin to enjoy himself of course so as to make him let his guard down for just that second and then...the king's choking on the floor. All the wedding interactions are wonderful (Oberyn/Ellaria are so wonderfully progressive I would not be surprised they end up becoming fan favourites on the show, Jaime's really in no position to threaten anyone, and certainly wouldn't be able to carry out such a threat and it's lovely seeing Loras having a backbone here too, Brienne is wonderfully awkward and yay we got bowing on the show). natalie diormer is really making margaery much more interesting than she ever was to me in the books and I don't have a problem with Bronn stepping in for Ser Illyn because of, sadly, the actor's health preventing him from carrying on. ...and then of course, the mighty Jack and Peter having at it in what's probably the best building tension we've had so far on the show (I especially liked how the show managed to get around the animal cruelty charges that a pig and a dog would inevitably have brought with them and made us feel sad for both tyrion and Sansa, whilst also playing a nice game of "follow the cup" and if one looks closely, Tywin is eating the pie so for any viewers who might think that it's NOT the wine, there's your answer). Now to me at least it feels like every wedding we had so far has its own character and atmosphere so yes, I will always stick with my praise for the show's version of the RW because it now makes it a singular event, just as this PW is. A wonderful send-off that was too good for a character like Joffey to deserve but Jack Gleeson cetainly deserved nothing less and I already miss him. Next week is his last scene (as a corpse) so lets see if he can do anything more to make us hate him. NB: Sansa finally has some agency because her decision to leave is still her decision and it shows the beginnings of hopefully great things to come.
  12. I actually liked that they merged the Thenns with the cannibals just so we could get a sense of the Magnar being an actual threat that we hadn't encountered before. The Arya scene was gold and of course Oberyn was awesome. 9/10. Bring on the PW.
  13. I think the Internet has spoken and overall, it was extremely moving. They really did put the emphasis on Walder's misogyny (by first insulting Robb's wife, then joking about his daughter, having the pregant mother stabbed, and finally not caring about his own wie at all, which also makes him a huge hypocrite, knowing that supposedly this all happened because Robb did not marry one of his daughters about whom he clearly does not care one bit). I liked that we were first shown what guest right was instead of having mr. exposition comein and tell us all about it and the significance of it was revealed in episode 10 by Bran anyway so well-done. It'll make for a great rewatch knowing all the détails now. I think the way this wedding was adapted was entirely intentional because Tyrion's wedding, while being awkward ended in as happy a way as possible given the circumstances, whereas here they played the RW as a much more enjoyable affair at the beginning but with as bad an outcome as one can imagine. It's a nice contrast and in an episode that jumps around to different characters, if you buld up tension at the wdding, it's forgotten about by the audience once you switch over to a different character and if they'd staged the whole episode at teh Twins people would have thought something was up so in that sense it's a great adaptation of these events. Having Robb and his men and direwolf not fight back seemled also to be a way for them to take away the viewers' hope that much more effectively because they are killed whilst being completely helpless, which adds to the sympathy we feel for them as characters and the episode clearly did not want us to feem that there was any upside to this, which even the book did not do because there at least we were told that the Northmen defended themselves valiantly but clearly the feeling of hopelessness is more important here, which I have no problem with at all. I wonder if the Talisa stabbing was a nod to Dacey Mormont's death by axe in the belly or not?
×
×
  • Create New...