Arya vs Sansa what are your thoughts?

[Raksha 2014]

On 8/23/2017 at 4:21 PM, A Ghost of Someone said:

What blew me away in the books was that joff was only 12 years old and nobody stopped Ned's execution . Cersei barely did anything  and varys did little more.  They were listening to s 12 year old kid. Sir jznos an illyn Payne. 

 

Joffrey was the King.  They could not publicly countermand an order given in public by the king, however bad it is, if they wanted to preserve the king's authority.  And Joffrey's mother and Varys valued Joffrey's authority more than they valued Ned's Stark's life.  Ilyn Payne was directly ordered by the king to execute a confessed traitor - since Payne was the executioner, that was his job.  (I've never thought Payne should have been on Arya's list at all)

[Pandean]

41 minutes ago, Raksha 2014 said:

 

Joffrey was the King.  They could not publicly countermand an order given in public by the king, however bad it is, if they wanted to preserve the king's authority.  And Joffrey's mother and Varys valued Joffrey's authority more than they valued Ned's Stark's life.  Ilyn Payne was directly ordered by the king to execute a confessed traitor - since Payne was the executioner, that was his job.  (I've never thought Payne should have been on Arya's list at all)

Similarly, you can't really call the Crown Prince a liar in public. Same reasons. 

Also, I agree with you about Ilyn Payne. He did his job. I don't think he was ever described in the books to be sadistic or loving killing or anything. If anyone, Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, etc. were the ones who should've gone on the kill list. Considering, y'know. Everything.

 

[Joey Crows]

As some others have mentioned, I think the writers are trying to accomplish two things:

First is making sure that viewers don't fully commit to Arya (or Dany) as being "good" or "winning" characters, even though (or probably because) they do fan service to both. Because they are in the strange position of knowing the outcome of the story, but having to tell the last bits of meat their own way, without being as able to truly give the insight necessary to understand and showcase the characters and their motivations as GRRM.

Secondly, they are setting up a more direct (if somewhat rushed) sequence of events, that will ultimately lead to LF being found out totally and paying the price. In the show this season, LF has been in the background. But we always expect him to be playing a game to his benefit (or to the detriment of the realm). And even though the version of him and his game is far less complex in the show, the writers still need to acknowledge it exists. So this is their attempt at bringing him back into the mix. It starts with him turning Arya against Sansa. And probably ends with his death. It won't be subtle or satisfying, but it will be a solution.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Pandean said:

Also, I agree with you about Ilyn Payne. He did his job. I don't think he was ever described in the books to be sadistic or loving killing or anything.

In the books, he's a pretty sympathetic character. He didn't ask to be an executioner, that's just what Robert thought would make up for his mutilation by the Mad King, and he responded by learning to be the best executioner he could, killing people as cleanly and painlessly as possible. Sure, "I was only following orders" isn't a get-out excuse, and he's certainly not a hero or anything, but he's not the villain either.

But I think that's part of the point. Arya made her list as a traumatized 10-year-old girl, so of course it's not an accurate catalog of the people most deserving of death in Westeros.

[Pandean]

11 minutes ago, falcotron said:

In the books, he's a pretty sympathetic character. He didn't ask to be an executioner, that's just what Robert thought would make up for his mutilation by the Mad King, and he responded by learning to be the best executioner he could, killing people as cleanly and painlessly as possible. Sure, "I was only following orders" isn't a get-out excuse, and he's certainly not a hero or anything, but he's not the villain either.

But I think that's part of the point. Arya made her list as a traumatized 10-year-old girl, so of course it's not an accurate catalog of the people most deserving of death in Westeros.

Yep. He was sympathetic as a character. All in all, just a man doing his job.

That does make sense. I believe part of the reason Arya survived was due to her clinging onto her hate and revenge and spite.

Kids who grow up in bad situations do tend to survive and thrive when they wield spite. "I'll do this because everyone said I wasn't able"

I know it's how it worked for me. TBH, I really do connect with Arya as a character. And Sansa of course. Despite my criticism of Arya this season. 

[Maid So Fair]

7 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

Not lately. Most of the "Inside the episode" stuff  has been absolute garbage and just illustrates how little D&D understand the essence of the characters and how much they (and as s consequence, the other writers and the episode directors) are not telling a cohesive story but just fitting pieces in to fulfill certain spectacle or fanservice objectives, regardless of how those pieces make sense or fit in with the characters involved.

Agreed, it's just a message lately. But beforehand you used to get D&D talking about an interesting plot/character moment/point they iny need to convey with a given scene only for the show to literally be *footage not found*. They would think they wrote something (good) that they never did, at times even ending up with the complete opposite on screen.

Arya me Sansa conflict is actually a good example I think - I think they think they have a great character driven plot and don't seem to realise that what they put on screen is Arya behaving like a complete psycho towards her extremely reasonable big sister.

7 hours ago, falcotron said:

Well, honestly, I think it makes more sense to explore this next season, when Bran starts to be able to come to grips with his abilities.

But that does mean it's a challenge to use him this season. One they've mostly handled by just keeping him off-screen as much as possible and hoping we don't notice, which isn't exactly ideal. (I'm not sure exactly what I'd do if I were in charge, but maybe that's why HBO isn't throwing millions of dollars at me to write their flagship show…)

IDK, I doubt there will be time to explore something as subtle in the season finale. They will need Bran to be in perfect mastery of his powers at that point to do whatever he needs to do. It would have made a lot !ore sense, if that's where they were going, to adress it now so that we can see him progressively gaining more control and sense of self gradually.

[Anarres]

8 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

Not lately. Most of the "Inside the episode" stuff  has been absolute garbage and just illustrates how little D&D understand the essence of the characters and how much they (and as s consequence, the other writers and the episode directors) are not telling a cohesive story

That's something I've been wondering about; I usually have a lot of time for D&D as I think they did a great job translating a book to a TV series. But more recently I'm often finding it hard to rhyme their comments with the things actually on screen. Based on their earlier work, I have to assume they are aware of this issue, but maybe they're not and have become convinced of their own genius? In which case the writing staff comes across as dysfunctional, with nobody in a position to call the lead out on their nonsense.

In the past few weeks there have been numerous people making notes about subtle changes to the episodes that would have straightened out a lot of quirks. Simple lines of dialogue, or rearranging the order of scenes. Nothing too fancy or expensive. This is stuff that should have been picked up by a critical team even before filming started - and the fact that it wasn't makes it seem as though there are too many individuals signing off on important steps in the production process.

[TommyJ]

On 23-8-2017 at 8:01 PM, A Ghost of Someone said:

she believed that her father had still commited treason and she still wanted to be Queen. 

 

Thats not the case I think, she was just really scared and I don't think she still wanted to be queen.

She almost pushed Geoffrey from that bridge (the hound prevented that). Killing her possibility to be queen.

Thereby, that is not a thing someone who thinks her father is a traitor will do

[Jiriki]

I'm not a fan at all of this season's Arya/Sansa storyline. The Starks should be smarter than to allow Littlefinger to come between them. And if Bran "sees all", he should be able to at least warn Arya and Sansa of Littlefinger's games. Although, really, they should know this on their own. Sansa certainly witnessed (and was a victim of) Littlefinger's manipulations firsthand. 

I hope this is all a trap for Littlefinger, otherwise the Starks really are "Homer Simpson-level stupid", as someone above mentioned.

 

 

[A Ghost of Someone]

7 hours ago, Raksha 2014 said:

 

Joffrey was the King.  They could not publicly countermand an order given in public by the king, however bad it is, if they wanted to preserve the king's authority.  And Joffrey's mother and Varys valued Joffrey's authority more than they valued Ned's Stark's life.  Ilyn Payne was directly ordered by the king to execute a confessed traitor - since Payne was the executioner, that was his job.  (I've never thought Payne should have been on Arya's list at all)

A child that had not reached maturity yet. same age as Tommen who was aged up to get a post sex scene with Margeray Boleyne. He had a Regent.

[A Ghost of Someone]

1 hour ago, TommyJ said:

Thats not the case I think, she was just really scared and I don't think she still wanted to be queen.

She almost pushed Geoffrey from that bridge (the hound prevented that). Killing her possibility to be queen.

Thereby, that is not a thing someone who thinks her father is a traitor will do

She was scared for both.

She knew Treason could lead to her father's death.

She also knew that the situation jeopardized her being Queen of Westeros.

She thought when the deal was made, her father would be at the wall, basically alive but not really and she would be Queen. She was happy................ and then they took his head as soon as he confessed in public.

[Raksha 2014]

1 hour ago, A Ghost of Someone said:

A child that had not reached maturity yet. same age as Tommen who was aged up to get a post sex scene with Margeray Boleyne. He had a Regent.

 

I think the Regent (who was it, Cersei?) could have gotten away with countermanding Joff's order if he had been nine or ten; but a young teenager was edging close to manhood in Westeros would be harder to publicly correct if they wanted to preserve his authority as king.  If Cersei had bluntly countermanded the order while Joffrey was loudly demanding Ned's execution, and had the Kingsguard drag the brat back to the palace to save Ned, smallfolk and lords alike would have snickered at Joff for being cowed by his mother.  I think if Tywin had been there, he would have managed to stop the execution, because everyone could understand even the King taking direction from Tywin Lannister.

There's a way that Cersei could have stopped it, but I think she was so surprised at how her precious son had gone off-script.  If I had been Cersei, I'd have commanded Ilyn to hold while I spoke with the king, then I would have whispered into Joffrey's ear that if he must say he had been jesting to put the fear of the Seven into the heart of a traitor and instead he commanded that Stark be sent to the Wall  (and tell Joffrey that if he didn't do so, he would be caned so badly that he wouldn't be able to walk for a few days).  But Cersei would never threaten her precious Joffrey with corporeal punishment.  

[A Ghost of Someone]

41 minutes ago, Raksha 2014 said:

 

I think the Regent (who was it, Cersei?) could have gotten away with countermanding Joff's order if he had been nine or ten; but a young teenager was edging close to manhood in Westeros would be harder to publicly correct if they wanted to preserve his authority as king.  If Cersei had bluntly countermanded the order while Joffrey was loudly demanding Ned's execution, and had the Kingsguard drag the brat back to the palace to save Ned, smallfolk and lords alike would have snickered at Joff for being cowed by his mother.  I think if Tywin had been there, he would have managed to stop the execution, because everyone could understand even the King taking direction from Tywin Lannister.

There's a way that Cersei could have stopped it, but I think she was so surprised at how her precious son had gone off-script.  If I had been Cersei, I'd have commanded Ilyn to hold while I spoke with the king, then I would have whispered into Joffrey's ear that if he must say he had been jesting to put the fear of the Seven into the heart of a traitor and instead he commanded that Stark be sent to the Wall  (and tell Joffrey that if he didn't do so, he would be caned so badly that he wouldn't be able to walk for a few days).  But Cersei would never threaten her precious Joffrey with corporeal punishment.  

Joff was 12 and Cersei was basically the Regent, self appointed of course but the most shocking was that Sir Janos Slynt and Sir Illan Payne just flat out ignored Cersei and Varys who, while they should have and could have done more to stop, they were in shock too but the fact that Janos and Payne just did it was the surprise. Now, I think the books will play out in this further that LF convinced Joff to have Ned killed before they went to the Sept. The Hound was Joff's guard and will likely have been whitness to that arrangement, if it existed/exists.

[Illiterati]

23 hours ago, Tywinelle said:

LOL so this genius is actually claiming the spoilers are his own personal theories?

Nah, it's based on an analysis that has grown over the last two episodes if you follow the direction of my posts over time, but if it makes yourself feel better about yourself when you run others down for their opinions, you knock yourself out.

[Pandean]

4 hours ago, A Ghost of Someone said:

Joff was 12 and Cersei was basically the Regent, self appointed of course but the most shocking was that Sir Janos Slynt and Sir Illan Payne just flat out ignored Cersei and Varys who, while they should have and could have done more to stop, they were in shock too but the fact that Janos and Payne just did it was the surprise. Now, I think the books will play out in this further that LF convinced Joff to have Ned killed before they went to the Sept. The Hound was Joff's guard and will likely have been whitness to that arrangement, if it existed/exists.

I believe show!Joffrey was 19 in Season 4 and thus in Season 1 he would have been 15 which is considered on the cusp of manhood/adulthood.

[Maid So Fair]

10 hours ago, Raksha 2014 said:

 

I think the Regent (who was it, Cersei?) could have gotten away with countermanding Joff's order if he had been nine or ten; but a young teenager was edging close to manhood in Westeros would be harder to publicly correct if they wanted to preserve his authority as king.  If Cersei had bluntly countermanded the order while Joffrey was loudly demanding Ned's execution, and had the Kingsguard drag the brat back to the palace to save Ned, smallfolk and lords alike would have snickered at Joff for being cowed by his mother.  I think if Tywin had been there, he would have managed to stop the execution, because everyone could understand even the King taking direction from Tywin Lannister.

There's a way that Cersei could have stopped it, but I think she was so surprised at how her precious son had gone off-script.  If I had been Cersei, I'd have commanded Ilyn to hold while I spoke with the king, then I would have whispered into Joffrey's ear that if he must say he had been jesting to put the fear of the Seven into the heart of a traitor and instead he commanded that Stark be sent to the Wall  (and tell Joffrey that if he didn't do so, he would be caned so badly that he wouldn't be able to walk for a few days).  But Cersei would never threaten her precious Joffrey with corporeal punishment.  

I think the easiest way would have been to simply announce that while Ned deserved death, beheading him in this holy place would incur the wrath of the gods. There's no way Joffrey van argue against that without coming across as a petulant child (not that it's above him) and once back in the Red Keep there are numerous options available to resolve this without bloodshed. Joffrey doesn't react well to threats, he needs to be manipulated.

[Illiterati]

3 minutes ago, Maid So Fair said:

I think the easiest way would have been to simply announce that while Ned deserved death, beheading him in this holy place would incur the wrath of the gods. There's no way Joffrey van argue against that without coming across as a petulant child (not that it's above him) and once back in the Red Keep there are numerous options available to resolve this without bloodshed. Joffrey doesn't react well to threats, he needs to be manipulated.

Given the cast of characters that were vaguely protesting his edict, I might even argue that it was their plan all along not to interfere with Joffrey's order, that they gave some token protest to make it look good.

[Maid So Fair]

6 minutes ago, Illiterati said:

Given the cast of characters that were vaguely protesting his edict, I might even argue that it was their plan all along not to interfere with Joffrey's order, that they gave some token protest to make it look good.

Well, out of people with potential power and interest in this scene, we know that LF orchestrated the whole thing and that Cersei is too stupid and was too caught up in her power trip/refusal to discipline Joffre that she might not have intervened even if she was smart enough to understand the full implications. I don't remember if Varys was present, but there's hardly anything he can do at this point - no one's going to listen to him over the King - and he wanted a war anyway. LF specifically played it so that  Varys couldn't use his soft  power to intervene. And the rest of the people present are powerless or lackeys.

Cersei is the only one who could have reasonably stepped in and the fact she didn't is a major indictment of her political competence.

[Mladen]

On 8/25/2017 at 2:21 PM, Raksha 2014 said:

There's a way that Cersei could have stopped it, but I think she was so surprised at how her precious son had gone off-script.  If I had been Cersei, I'd have commanded Ilyn to hold while I spoke with the king, then I would have whispered into Joffrey's ear that if he must say he had been jesting to put the fear of the Seven into the heart of a traitor and instead he commanded that Stark be sent to the Wall  (and tell Joffrey that if he didn't do so, he would be caned so badly that he wouldn't be able to walk for a few days).  But Cersei would never threaten her precious Joffrey with corporeal punishment.  

I am 99% sure that Joffrey didn't do that by himself. I am sure LF did it by manipulating him which is why Joffrey did what he did. Cersei was naturally caught off guard as I suppose, everyone were. It just shows how LF played them all and entrenched them into a war that, well, eventually will be their doom. 

[A Ghost of Someone]

On 8/25/2017 at 0:49 PM, Pandean said:

I believe show!Joffrey was 19 in Season 4 and thus in Season 1 he would have been 15 which is considered on the cusp of manhood/adulthood.

books came first and he was 12. show adapted first season quite accurately. Even on show, they castrated his power when Tyrion was sent to KL and then when Tywin got there. Joff could not control anything and anyone not within his own physical reach. He did not like it one bit but because he was still in minority of age, he was somewhat helpless.