Ran

More the latter. It's maintained and edited by the community.

Yeah, not the most accurate depiction. The hair is all wrong, too. I understand the desire to have some sort of image, but something completely wrong doesn't make sense. Any depiction of Alleras needs to have the brown skin (light brown to be more exact, per GRRM) and the tight cap of curly hair.

Indeed. I think it's 3 or 5 posts. Basically a way to weed out spammers.

Ah, well. I admit that I'm not too concerned about the old posts, just glad it's not a problem affecting people now. That said, I will look into whether there's any fix for it.

Since I rarely use emojis, can someone explain in full the problem?

:grouphug:

:grouphug:

I have finally gotten around to some interwiki work, so now the Persian wiki at westeros.ir is supported (using the prefix fa, for Farsi, as is Wikipedia standard). If I've forgotten any other interwiki requests, please post them here.

You need something like 3-5 posts on the forum before you can edit.

According to the forum, this episode is just a bit better than season 2 as a whole -- 7.95 average rating for season 2, presently an 8.09 rating for season 3. Season 1 had an average rating of 8.5 With 354 votes in, this episode is rating 7.18, the second lowest of the season, and third lowest of the series. It's also the lowest-rated finale episode.

You know, Stannis was going to personally execute Davos before he read the letter to him. That's from the book. That said, yeah, his, "I've already made my decision" was... kind of an odd way to characterize him as someone who's very unimaginative and unwilling to change his mind on something. This was at best a 7 for me -- some really forced exposition, some very odd characterization choices (seeing Theon's manhood in a box sure seemed to change Yara's opinion of him massively; maybe it really is as big as everyone claims :P), and Yunkai was confusingly lacking at least a scene to better explain what was going on. Plus, the bane of the show, trying to service every single story line at the end. Why? Wrap some up in 8 -- even in 7 -- and give the story room to breath. We don't need to see characters at least every other episode. Sometimes we can go longer with more. Also I think the whole Ramsay reveal was .... underwhelming at best. I mean, "Oh, yeah, that's pretty treasonous of them! Torturing Theon, yeah, no wonder we had to wait all season to find out who he is!" You'd have to remember way back to the start of the season to recall that Roose's huge treason was... not telling the truth to Robb regarding Theon's whereabouts. If only we had known, we might have realized he was a traitor, instead of just... I don't know... torturing the hell out of Theon because that's his view of justice and he knew Robb wouldn't agree. Or something. Yeah, I think they made a miscalculation on the value of that "reveal".

What did you think?

Book spoiler discussion of the show goes here, for those who want to discuss the episode in relation to the books, and with reference to spoilers from them. This topic should open automatically around the start of airing.

Spoiler-free discussion of the show goes here, for those who want to discuss the episode without any reference to the books whatsoever or other spoiler material This topic should open automatically around the start of airing.

Khal Pono, I said "usually" what works. Given that about 90% of the story and the characters is from the books, it's not a surprise that 90% of what works is also from the books. But there are things they add that work well -- Joyeuse as Catelyn's victim was smart, Theon in that candle-lit room on Pyke, Irri and Rakharo's arguments, Ned spotting Arya and directing Yoren's gaze to her -- that one praises. But they are relatively few and far between, since again, 90% of what's on the screen is from the novels. One need not say, "Hey, the story is good." It's a given. That's the source material, it's being adapted because it's good. So how well do they do it? And where do they deviate, and why, and how well does that work? That's the way I view it, of course. There are many who choose to simply put the books aside and simply watch it as a show. That's their right.

How often can you repeat "Excellent production values, good actors, great plot"? They are default positions. Episode-by-episode, analysis would naturally instead focus on the things that stand out in the depiction, and particularly the things that don't work. Why those rather than the things that do? Well, because it's an adaptation, usually "what works" is stuff that we're already familiar with: story and character and plot points from the novels. Saying "the Red Wedding is great" is something we've all heard for for over a decade. Saying "the adaptation did not establish the same atmosphere as the novel" is something we could not say before yesterday.

I've tried to find that in the episode, rewatching several times, but near as I can tell, every glimpse of her up to the music features her smiling or laughing or generally being pretty cheerful. As is everyone else. It's not a bad wedding party. Talisa makes a point of it.

Yeah, the Ned thing was just kind of a WTF moment for me. I don't understand why they feel compelled to do such things.

Make it an unpleasant, uncomfortable wedding. Make a point of the horrible food, the horrible music, that it's all too loud and discordant and headache-inducing, something you suffer through. It's a horrible wedding -- people who have been to weddings have probably come across an awkard, trying one in their time, so they can sympathize. You want it to end, you want them to get on with it, not go, "Oh, well, here's a happy wedding, it's all worked out in the end." Psychological horror films are capable of inducing dread and unease without resorting to narration and inner dialogue. The secret of Catelyn's last chapter is that it's basically a work of horror fiction, not fantasy, in terms of the mode in which it is written. George does everything but throw in the boogie man. Really, TV can do this stuff. Whether the writers want to do it or not, that's up to them. But it is possible.

This is an 8 for me, after a long of consideration. They failed at capturing the atmosphere, which is the thing that really sets this scene apart. That Catelyn chapter is full of dread from start to finish, but they actively went against it and took what, to me, seemed like the easy way out: hide what you're going to do until the last minute, to heighten the shock value. Shock is easy, as any number of shlock horror films will reveal. Controlling the atmosphere, unsettling people in subtle ways, that's hard.

What'd you think?

Book spoiler discussion of the show goes here, for those who want to discuss the episode in relation to the books, and with reference to spoilers from them. This topic should open automatically around the start of airing.

Spoiler-free discussion of the show goes here, for those who want to discuss the episode without any reference to the books whatsoever or other spoiler material This topic should open automatically around the start of airing.

With votes tapering off, this episode ends up at a 8.35 with 714 votes in. Season average to date is 8.06 after 8 eight episodes. At the same point, season 1 rated an average of 8.37 while season 2 rated 7.8. So it's almost exactly in between those two seasons. I am actually considering a Season 1 Rewatch thread and related polls for the summer, to get people to go back and watch the first season in light of the following seasons, and re-evaluate their scoring. I'd be interested to see whether opinions during the first season were less critical due to the novelty and excitement, or more so.

This is absolutely true. He could have marched up to purposefully be discovered and brought to her or whatever. I would explain this away as another example of him showing off, by showing that he had the power to kill Daenerys in his hands, that he's skilled and capable enough to infiltirate her camp and her tent. It seems to fit the character, but on the other hand, obviously it was intended by the writers to create some doubt and uncertainty.