[Book Spoilers] Renly and Loras

[LugaJetboyGirl]

But Loras? Isn't he the one who sleeps with Ceresi after Jamie is gone? I remember reading that Renly might not be all that into guys, but...

Dude. You are talking about Lancel, not Loras.

Edit: Ormond beat me to it. :ninja:

[Trebla]

Loras looks soft and weak. Not what I envisioned for someone who dismounted The Mountain. Oh well.

Jousting is about skill, not strength. It's why Dunk isn't a good tourney knight (yet) and why the Knight of the Laughing Tree (be it Lyanna or Howland Reed) could unhorse three knights.

[Popgun]

After reading the series 3 times, my take on it was that Loras was gay and loved Renly but Renly didn't notice that Loras had a crush on him. I certainly didn't imagine Renly being a whimp although when I think about it there is no mention of him ever being in a fight, but I just thought that was because he was a "Knight of Summer".

After Robert dies Renly offers Ned 100 men to strike and take the castle but Ned turns him down so Renly flees. I guess in reterospect it must have been the Tyrrels telling Renly to make a move.

Edit: Oh and just to add. In the books I also didn't pick up on Loras being politically savvy. I always pictured him as a youth who's main focus was to gain glory through battle and knightly deeds. The tv series is showing me the story from a totally new angle.

[Xxtayce]

Dude. You are talking about Lancel, not Loras.

Edit: Ormond beat me to it. :ninja:

Dude. My memory beat you all to it. :fencing:

Slowly, but still....

Either way, I stand by the Varys masculinity comparison.

[Rhonwyn]

I wasn't surprised with the gay line with Loras and Renly, afterall Loras had no memory of giving Sansa a rose nor did Margaery seem all that upset at Renly's death but then neither did Loras seem that upset. It explains Loras' willingness to take the white cloak and the vow of celibacy. It is easy to give up women when you don't really like them any way plus you don't have to have an heir.

[StormbornBee]

After I watched this latest episode I was like "WHAT! NO WAY! THEY ARE NOT GAY!" I've only read the series once, so naturally I haven't been able to pick up on the little nuances and things that go unnoticed on a first read. After watching the episode, I googled "renly and loras gay?" and came up with a great little factoid sheet with quotes from the books that shows they were meant to be gay. Here's the website:

http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/mlarchives/faq/lorasrenly.html

[Xenophon]

I wasn't surprised with the gay line with Loras and Renly, afterall Loras had no memory of giving Sansa a rose nor did Margaery seem all that upset at Renly's death but then neither did Loras seem that upset. It explains Loras' willingness to take the white cloak and the vow of celibacy. It is easy to give up women when you don't really like them any way plus you don't have to have an heir.

Welcome to the boards!

That's a good point about him being willing to go celibate. But Loras does get upset by Rnly's death--in fact, he goes on a killing spree, cutting down Renly's bodyguards for failing in their duty.

[Mixta]

Dislike Renly as a wimp. I felt he was always a bear (Always sunnny reference).

[phoenix_rising]

Way too much gayness. If you have to "shout it out" with a scene like that it kinda looses its revelation power that they are gay. That scene could have been 15 seconds. Watching Renly getting shaved and then getting a bj was a bunch of crap.

TONIGHT WE BROUGHT YOU CRAP....at least for 3 minutes

rest of the episode was just as awesome as the first 4, so i cant complain more than that.

[Hyper]

Ha, I saw this animated GIF on Twitter - I LOL'ed! :rofl:

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ll9tpoMMaz1qfv91lo1_500.gif

[Ser Luke]

Jousting is about skill, not strength. It's why Dunk isn't a good tourney knight (yet) and why the Knight of the Laughing Tree (be it Lyanna or Howland Reed) could unhorse three knights.

Okay maybe jousting requires more skill than strength, but melee certainly takes a good deal of stamina and strength. I'm just saying he doesn't look like he's in shape at all.

[MountainThatRides]

I'm fine with them being gay, and I'm fine with a less subtle depiction of their relationship, but this scene just rankled me. It was wrong in so many ways; however, based on the show thus far, it seems like they're going to be making a lot of minor adjustments so long as the end result is the same, at least plot-wise. For example, Ned taking a spear to the leg instead of being trapped under a falling horse. The leg breaks either way.

I have no problem with Loras or how he's depicted. He's supposed to look lithe and fair and feminine. Renly, on the other hand, is so different from the book version that it might as well be an entirely new character. He'll still fulfill his purpose in the plot -- which is to briefly be one of the five kings before Stannis Melisandres him -- but he's such a pussy. I could live with him looking different (i.e., not at all like Renly, who is supposed to be strapping, muscular and handsome) but he's just completely different.

The shaving was weird, the idea of Loras as kingmaker was silly, and the slurping noises were completely unnecessary. The foley guys probably spent twelve hours perfecting dicksucking sound effects, so they just had to get them in there. Apart from this scene (and the slightly odd depiction of the Eyrie), I thought the episode was satisfying.

[melicorn]

It makes sense to me that Loras would be more ambitious than Renly, but it feels wrong for Loras' ambitions to be of his own devising. I guess it's going to be a while before we get any more Tyrells in the show, but I wish there were some way they could show that Loras is under influences as much as he is influencing Renly.

[Lone]

Hey all, new here. I want to echo a couple of complaints. One, there was no reason to make Renly so weak and squeamish a character. I feel that there is evidence to the contrary in the books. He did fight in tournaments and was known for it (even if he was not the most proficient warrior out there). Whether or not he had a taste for real battle, it's extremely difficult to believe that he was afraid of blood. If his bravado was all an act, there would have been some hint that it was all an act.

Also, why do they have to be so kinky and over-the-top? I feel that that is a stereotype and is not at all "edgy," as I believe HBO is hoping it comes across. There's a tendency on TV to make gay characters physically weak and feminine. Why? Renly didn't need to have the wuss-factor to be convinced by Loras of his right to the throne. Also, if Loras had kept his shirt on, we wouldn't know that he has the body of a sea lion...

And then there's the fact that Loras is not at all the scheming type in the books. They did not hint at this, either. He was consumed with honor and glory in battle. Not politics. This didn't bother me nearly as much as what I felt was a transformation of Renly's character, though. If anything, he was narcissistic and magnetic in the books. In the show, he's just... bland and weak.

Anyways, it was disappointing, in more than a few ways.

[lifefullofwords]

I have no memory of Loras nor Renly being completely gay. Loras giving him a BJ was bullshit imo. Yeah both are wussy and I've read the books three times...i did not cone away with anything remotely like the scene that was portrayed. Total disappointed in our. Tyrion on the other hand was great as usual. I've got a complete crush on that imp

If you have no memory of Loras and Renly being gay then your weren't reading the books carefully. GRRM has said that it was supposed to be apparent that they are in a relationship. What do you think they were doing for hours in that tent the night before Renly died? Hint: not "praying." I assumed they were fucking so a BJ is actually a step down in sexual explicitness. It really wasn't much of a sex scene anyway compared to others we've seen this season, there was more lead-in than action. And as to their not being completely gay... why else does Renly show no interest in Margaery and Loras show no interest in Sansa? And both are also implied to be totally uninterested in women by other characters in the series. I seriously do not know how so many people missed this, even on a first read through the novel... I thought it was really obvious.

[WordOf]

I don't pride myself on being the most astute of readers, so me missing it in first read may not count for much. I usually rely on subsequent read-throughs to pick up finer points and subtler hints.

But if this thread is any indication, Renly-Loras being intimate was never very obvious. Several people confessed to missing it in the book, and more that it's definitely ambiguously described. It's a reasonable explanation that they're just very close friends, soul mates if you wish, but with no desires for carnal endeavors. A relationship need not be sexually consummated to be deep.

I'm definitely taking issue with the show taking a massive dump on GRRM's light touch with their relationship. I think some vagueness, less explicit portrayals would do this show a lot of good.

Other than that, the usual. Loras too soft to have been "training every day since i could hold a stick", which is a good decade. Fine, he can have an ectomorph build, be lean and willowy and offset it with agility and grace. But i simply refuse to believe that living, day after day a martial caste lifestyle will leave someone looking like that. I'm not asking for 300 spartan look, all tanned and shadowy definition drawn with a marker. There ought to be some middlegrounds here.

I do like their decision to make Loras the voice of ambition though. Makes a lot more sense of Renly's coming decisions.

[Ran]

Re: "Couldn't even hold a lance", Finn Jones actually trained with a genuine lance as part of his riding training, as they wanted him to be able to carry it convincingly. He also jousted, apparently, at least against some sort of quintain-type thing. He can hold and use one just fine, folks.

I laughed when someone elsewhere suggested that Loras should have been more like Nicholas Clay, who played Lancelot in Excalibur, right after complaining about Loras's build... Obviously, someone ain't remembering Clay's nude scene very well. Guy was not buff. Great actor for the part, though.

GRRM on homosexual characters:

Renly is “gay in the books, too,” says George R.R. Martin, the author of the bestselling novels. But online chatter suggests that not every reader picked that fact up.

“I never meant to make it a mystery,” Martin says. “I like to handle things subtly. I couldn’t ever actually say, ‘such-and-such is gay,’ because, as I’m sure you know, the word wasn’t invented until the 60s. And I’m talking medieval times, and I’m not going to say, ‘so-and-so is gay.’ But I thought it was pretty clear in context.”

As to "lots of money" for full creative control to D&D, that's the only way this would be made a series. As it is, their changes to Renly have their reasons -- clearer delineation of characters, plus a genuine questioning of Westeros's onerous cultural machismo. I would have loved to see the Renly that loved chivalry and pagentary, rode in the joust, etc., but given how little jousting was shown anyways for budgetary and time reasons, I suppose it's not really much of a loss.

Episode 6:

Several facets of that scene come into play in the episode, when Renly and Robert are hunting. It's a good scene.

[felice]

Way too much gayness. If you have to "shout it out" with a scene like that it kinda looses its revelation power that they are gay. That scene could have been 15 seconds. Watching Renly getting shaved and then getting a bj was a bunch of crap.

Why should it be some kind of shocking revelation? It's no big deal. And it's not "shouted out" any more than all the heterosexual coupling going on in the show, eg Theon and the prostitute at the start of this episode which you say was "awesome".

i simply refuse to believe that living, day after day a martial caste lifestyle will leave someone looking like that.

Most of the available pool of actors have spent their lives practising their acting, not training for combat. You have to make some allowances for that!

[Salome the Persian Witch]

As I had said in another thread, my disappointment is particularly that the two were sniping at each other like old women! I agree with others about Renly's character, and the fact that to me, Loras looked like he was 14. :(

But for those who didn't realize the machinations of Loras... does no one remember Renly showing Ned a picture of Margaery Tyrell? Renly asks him if she reminds Ned of anyone... clearly implying a hope that she looked like Lyanna. It was also mentioned elsewhere that Renly (and by implication Loras through their relationship) were looking to supplant Cersei by getting Robert to fall in love with the Tyrell girl. Of course, after Robert died and Renly fled, it was that same Tyrell girl that Renly married while proclaiming himself King. I thought it was pretty clear from the beginning that the Tyrells were trying to get in there (and potentially Loras was instrumental in convincing Renly). Although, I do believe their relationship was based in love.

[Ran]

Yeah, but Loras's beautiful to Sansa because he is very young, and looks it. I don't think Finn looks at all like a 14-year-old, but regardless, Loras=young-looking should be something to praise in the casting.

I do like their choice of putting a lot of the impetuous for the plot on Loras, pushing Renly, and doing it in large part just because he can, and because he'd like a war to fight in. I don't think that's how it actually was in the books, because in the books Renly is a lot more concerned about the Lannisters and couldn't countenance Joffrey on the throne anyways, but it's a perfectly reasonable take on things.