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[Book Spoilers] EP 205 Discussion


Ran
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Not gonna read through 32 pages to see if it was mentioned....and I'm sure it was......but I'm pissed beyond belief that the first guy Arya names is the Tickler. One of the most memorable moments in SOS is when SHE kills him. Why the flying f*** would they ruin that?

And its been a while since I read....but I think I'd remember Stannis boning the red woman. It goes against so much of who he is. Stupid......just an excuse to add more nudity to blind us from the fact they don't want to spend money on action.

Even with 10 hours to play with, they can't stick close to the book. What a waste. I don't even care to watch anymore. The show is really all about nudity and little else.

Whens the next book come out?

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A few things. One, Tywin (and most of Westeros) is not on the look-out for Arya Stark; most of them all think that Arya is in the care, custody and control of Cersei. That is the story emanating from KL. Second, if the books laid the foundation for one thing its that Arya, even being highborn, is a plain looking girl. The fact that she is scruffy, dirty, beat up and probably malnourished adds to the "subterfuge." Most men- even men as cagey and observant as Tywin -"see what they expect to see."

I would agree with your second point, except that you're mixing book and adaptation here. On the screen we see Arya as she is, yes, with short hair and some dirt on her face, but still this is Arya and she talks, walks, looks like a noble girl, despite of all her wilderness. Tywin would see that. Same thing happens in Shakespeare plays when some character switches clothes no one recongizes her/him, but if you would film that play nowdays (not in Globe Theater back then where this was a rule that all viewers accepted - if an actor changes his clothes-that's another character) - you would have to come up with something that will justify that no one recognizes same person in different clothes. Yes, Tywin never met Arya Stark before, but the fact that she didn't have a good bath for some time, doesn't make him blind. And that's why Arya doesn't serve him in the books, so he wouldn't see her all the time.

Regarding your first point: yes, most of the Westeros thinks Cersei has Arya, but not Tywin because Tirion already told him that she doesn't.

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Have you actually read any of the English history from which GM took his inspiration? Serious question not being sarcastic because I'm trying to see where you're coming from with your modern ideas of what feudalism actually meant in the Middle Ages. There have been very few instances, in the long 1000 plus years history of rulers of what is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in which power didn't pass smoothly from father to son or father to grandson or, occasionally, uncle to nephew.

Once William the Conqueror set himself on the throne in 1066 there have been less than half a dozen unique incidents involving either an outright rebellion or a war between claimants to the throne:

1 - Matilda and Stephen following the death of her father (his uncle) Henry I. Matilda should have been queen but she would have been the first female ruler and the barons weren't so sure about that so Stephen went for the throne. His reign was short and resulted in him accepting Matilda's son as his heir.

2 - Simon de Montfort's baron's rebellion against his brother-in-law Henry III, which centred around Henry being pissed off at de Montfort using his name to secure a loan from European bankers and used it as an excuse to try and get rid of him and his fellow barons who were seeking reform in the way in which the country was governed by the King. In his one year long de facto reign, de Montfort called the first recognisable version of a Parliament.

3 - One long period of history, starting from the fact Edward II was a dick and unfit to rule, in which the descendants of Edward III fought over who had the senior claim to the English throne - called the War of the Roses and, oddly enough, one of the main inspirations from which George Martin draws his ruling families and the Five Kings War in Westeros.

3a - Henry VII seizes the throne from Richard III to basically end the War of the Roses.

4 - the Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley, tries to put his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey on the throne instead of Mary I (his excuse being that he doesn't wish to see England return to the Catholic faith and because neither did Edward VII and there's no suitable male heirs in the Tudor line).

5 - the exiled Stuarts two failed rebellions in 1715 and 1745, unlikely to succeed because there's been a German born king on the throne quite successfully now for a period of more than 50 years (also no longer technically in the Middle Ages).

So yes, in the more than 1000 years history of English rule, pretty much every succession bar these few have passed without any incident and without barons failing to swear allegiance to the crown.

(None of this includes the English/Welsh or the English/Scottish conflicts, they are not based on feudal fighting but sovereignty over another country).

Under any version of primogeniture and sovereign law, Stannis has the senior claim over Renly.

1) Can't type well, will be brief;

2) Your lumping is pretty broad. For example, the WoR you cite as 1, but that covers a 30 year period (not constant, but that far apart) and includes several distinct assertions or claims. If you line several 30-year-several-claim periods together, you have a LOT. The Anarchy was another couple of decades. Considering the time span...let's be generous and call it 750 years...the fact that your (incomplete) list alone accounts for upwards of 70 years of conflict just deciding...I wouldn't call English feudalism a prime example of a well oiled mechanism.

3) But examples you omitted, top of my head;

Robert vs. Henry

Henry Bolingbroke

Henry II's sons vs.Henry II

Isabella/Edward III

1st Baronial Revolt (J. Lackland/Magna Carta)

I'm sure there must be more.

That's a pretty hefty chunk.

Edited by James Arryn
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its been a while since I read....but I think I'd remember Stannis boning the red woman. It goes against so much of who he is. Stupid......just an excuse to add more nudity to blind us from the fact they don't want to spend money on action.

This has been covered extensively in other threads, but it's quite clear he boned her in the books as well. GRRM just didn't show it explicitly, because neither of them were POV characters until far, far later. Do a search on this board; people have posted enough quotes directly from the book to prove it that it could nearly fill an entire thread all by itself.

Whens the next book come out?

We all wish we knew.

Edited by J.S. Crews
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I finally watched the episode.

It wasn't bad, but seemed disjointed. I wanted more of each scene; it was as if I was seeing a snippet of something interesting, only for the scene to shift to something else. Though the Daenerys/Jorah/Xaro Xoan Daxos scenes could have been shorter. I might have missed something, because I fell asleep while Dany was talking to XXD and then the next thing I saw was the dead Tickler and Arya's looking up at Jaq'en. I think I missed most of the Arya/Shirtless Gendry scene too - darn.

Favorite moments - Arya/Tywin dialogue, especially their eyes when she says that anyone can be killed. I am surprised that Tywin doesn't realize that this girl is not a peasant urchin, but perhaps he's preoccupied with the war. And Dany and Doreah training Drogon to char his meat - that is one cute little dragon. Speaking of cute CGI effects, where was Ghost? And I loved Bran's turn as the young lord of Winterfell, very nicely done.

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I finally watched the episode.

It wasn't bad, but seemed disjointed. I wanted more of each scene; it was as if I was seeing a snippet of something interesting, only for the scene to shift to something else. Though the Daenerys/Jorah/Xaro Xoan Daxos scenes could have been shorter. I might have missed something, because I fell asleep while Dany was talking to XXD and then the next thing I saw was the dead Tickler and Arya's looking up at Jaq'en. I think I missed most of the Arya/Shirtless Gendry scene too - darn.

I think the nature of the story makes the show disjointed. There are so many characters all over the kingdom whose individual story lines don't interweave at the moment. It means they have to jump around from one scene to another to fit all the important characters in and it gives the show a slightly disjointed feel.

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I thought I recognised Pyat from somewhere until I remembered it was from a Doctor Who episode which oddly enough had James Sives (Jory) as the Queen's Captain of the Guards, Ron Donachie (Ser Rodrik) as the Castellan of a Castle and Ian Hanmore (Pyat) as a wierd priest.

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But...that's all wrong. She's supposed to go with his brother.

I'm actually kind of disappointed Arya has become Tywin's cupbearer as great as the their scene together was. I know they've completely butchered her timeline to the point that something had to change but I was rather looking forward to the surprise and amusement from Bolton that a lowborn cupbearer could actually talk to him instead of clutching their throat and dying at just the thought of it.

Edited by bloodymime
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This has been covered extensively in other threads, but it's quite clear he boned her in the books as well. GRRM just didn't show it explicitly, because neither of them were POV characters until far, far later. Do a search on this board; people have posted enough quotes directly from the book to prove it that it could nearly fill an entire thread all by itself.

Yes, though it is implied, rather than explicitly stated so someone missing it is understandable. An interesting side effect of only having one shadow baby is the loss of strength and life that Stannis seems to have from the effort. It is implied that the process is draining his life, making him older and more gaunt. Without that it will be interesting to see how they explain Stannis not using shadow babies against all his enemies.

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Robert vs. Henry

Henry II's sons vs.Henry II

1st Baronial Revolt (J. Lackland/Magna Carta)

Isabella/Edward III

Henry Bolingbroke

No all those you mention, where relevant, are included in my original comment. But, specifically:

3 - One long period of history, starting from the fact Edward II was a dick and unfit to rule, in which the descendants of Edward III fought over who had the senior claim to the English throne - called the War of the Roses and, oddly enough, one of the main inspirations from which George Martin draws his ruling families and the Five Kings War in Westeros.

which covers both Isabella and Roger Mortimer's removal of Edward II and then later Edward III claiming his throne back, a period of 3 years if memory serves during which he was a minority. He retook his throne as soon as he was old enough to rule himself without needing a council. It also covers Henry Bollingbrook's rebellion and seizure of the throne as that directly comes as a result of the fall out of seniority from Edward III's children, which I said.

The War of the Roses consisted of sporadic rebellion and counter rebellion over a period of time from 1455 to 1485. From 1485 there is no real conflict over the succession to the throne of England (later England and Scotland), with the exception of the Lady Jane Grey incident, until the 1700s when the Stuart dynasty gets mired in Catholic/Protestant debate and the exiled Stuarts try to take it back from the Hanovarians, who were actually invited to take the throne by the people (which I also mentioned).

The debate was over whether the succession to the throne had been without incident, not whether there had been any conflicts during a King's rule. The conflict between Robert and Henry was mostly over the Dukedom of Normandy, as they had been separated by their father, not the English throne and it was over and done with in 1106, (after a period of six years) when Henry defeated Robert and took the Dukedom as well as the throne of England which he'd held since 1100. The conflict here came, as I said, when Matilda inherited her father's throne and some of the barons refused to be ruled by a woman, which I mentioned at point 1.

The first baron's revolt didn't remove John from the throne and it wasn't about his succession to it, it came at the end of his reign and was about his method of ruling not whether he should rule in the first place. It resulted in the signing of Magna Carta to clarify what power the monarchy should be able to exert over the barons. There have been rebellions against the throne throughout history. That's not what was at debate though, it was whether the successions passed over smoothly with all the barons and vassals happily swearing feality.

You're arguing two separate points but only one of them is relevant - the length of time of the Anarchy and the War of the Roses. The Anarchy lasted from 1135 to 1153 a period of 18 years, the War of the Roses lasted from 1455 to 1485, a period of 30 years, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed but never crowned queen for 9 days (July 9 to 18th) and the two Stuart rebellions add up to a period of three years (in combination not in time scale) between them giving a total of 51.09 years in which there was conflict over the succession of the throne.

Considering the first accepted king of a united England was Aethelstan in 924 and our current Queen Elizabeth II is still sitting on the throne in 2012, I think the English succession can absolutely be held as a good example of feudal succession. It's fairly easy to gauge the success of the English monarchy (and obviously the change to England and Wales, then Great Britain, then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and now, finally, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) by the fact it's still there.

Edited by Cadiva
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I got a question about the division if Renly's former army.

In this episode Stannis says that all of Renly's bannermen except for the Tyrells have joined forces with him. It's unclear if this means just the House Tyrell, or their vassals as well. In the book, if I recall correctly, the only Tyrell vassal forces to join with his were the Florents, the rest were Stormlords. Thus, about 20,000 men joined with Stannis, while the other 80,000 didn't, and eventually joined the Lannisters.

However, Stannis' quote (I meant quotation, sorry grammar-Nazi-Stannis!) about the Tyrells fleeing suggests that the troops that still haven't sided with him are in minority. Why else would they need to flee? It makes it sound like the Tyrell host is only a few thousand strong, at most. This would severely weaken the Tyrell's role in the upcoming victory at Blackwater, and thus undermine their hold over House Lannister.

I'm guessing the bulk of Stannis' ill gotten army will just turn on him once the ghost of Renly makes an appearance. Stannis' magical cheat is too easy, so it only makes sense that it gets undone by an even easier cheat. The ghost of Renly doesn't really make any difference in the books, Stannis is just caught in a completely compromised position and has no chance. Unfortunately they never established Renly's signature armor, so I may be howling up the wrong weirwood.

Someone earlier was asking how did Rodrik get all the way from Oxcross to Winterfell, but the show never said anything about Robb going west or Oxcross. They only said Stafford Lannister and were completely vague about the rest. So there's nothing to put Robb anywhere but still in the Riverlands.

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But...that's all wrong. She's supposed to go with his brother.

I think Meera and Jojen, or only one of them, will meet with Bran, Summer and Hodor after the Sack of Winterfell (season 3).

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I think Meera and Jojen, or only one of them, will meet with Bran, Summer and Hodor after the Sack of Winterfell (season 3).

I think it will be a combo character, probably Meera, but they'll make her the same age as Jojen was so that she would be of an acceptable age that Bran's crush could be reciprocated without it being weird (since I think they'll try to give him a little first-crush plot to liven up his journey to the wall). And she'll probably have Jojens greendream abilities. So basically i'm expecting a female Jojen.

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I got a question about the division if Renly's former army.

In this episode Stannis says that all of Renly's bannermen except for the Tyrells have joined forces with him. It's unclear if this means just the House Tyrell, or their vassals as well. In the book, if I recall correctly, the only Tyrell vassal forces to join with his were the Florents, the rest were Stormlords. Thus, about 20,000 men joined with Stannis, while the other 80,000 didn't, and eventually joined the Lannisters.

However, Stannis' quote (I meant quotation, sorry grammar-Nazi-Stannis!) about the Tyrells fleeing suggests that the troops that still haven't sided with him are in minority. Why else would they need to flee? It makes it sound like the Tyrell host is only a few thousand strong, at most. This would severely weaken the Tyrell's role in the upcoming victory at Blackwater, and thus undermine their hold over House Lannister.

In the books, all Renly has with him is his vanguard, so Loras manages to get to the bulk of the army before Stannis' men - and to lead them away. Now that it didn't happen or wasn't explained well enough on the show, the sudden Tyrell political weight in King's Landing post-Blackwater would be a plot inconsistency, unless... see below.

I'm guessing the bulk of Stannis' ill gotten army will just turn on him once the ghost of Renly makes an appearance. Stannis' magical cheat is too easy, so it only makes sense that it gets undone by an even easier cheat. The ghost of Renly doesn't really make any difference in the books, Stannis is just caught in a completely compromised position and has no chance. Unfortunately they never established Renly's signature armor, so I may be howling up the wrong weirwood.

It does though. It is said repeatedly in the books that Renly's ghost had a great effect on the troops, and iirc, this legend grows even bigger and more elaborate with time - Tyrion is annoyed with its popularity because he doesn't get credit for his part of the plan among the common folk at all. I'm not saying that Garlan wearing Renly's armor won the battle but it was a factor in the victory.

Also, there is an HBO featurette on the making of Renly's armor, so it has been established plenty. Your idea of the formerly Renly troops changing sides during the battle would actually make great sense. If Loras wears it (who else, really) and it's made out to be a big deal during the battle, it can explain how the Lannisters would owe the Tyrells in the show canon.

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