protar

I think given what we know about how much planning, reading, and meeting these guys do for character arcs and the overall plot that they would attempt to avoid writing themselves into a corner where they have no choice but to do something so drastic that the plots become too different from the books. I'm somewhat optimistic since these guys know more about George's world than we do. I actually very much dislike their portrayal of Littlefinger thus far, but I think it will play out as I mentioned in the spoiler. Or at least I hope. If not I'm eagaerly awaiting your "I told you so!" post :P

I do worry though that when there's a cool actor/character or two involved they lose sight of things and fail to plan things out too far. The Arya/Tywin scenes, or the Ygritte scenes in S2 for example.

I agree. it's more damaging than a million people knowing. But change your comment from "quite literally everybody and their grandmother" to Varys and Olenna if you'd like to be accurate.

My question is, since this whole rivalry between Varys and Littlefinger is show created, is Varys' actual motivations just to spurn Littlefinger? We know he wants to destabilize the Lannisters and thus Westeros in general, but does he truly care that much about LF knowing that he has Aegon in the works and wants Westeros as fucked up as possible to make his conquest successful? In fact, supporting Littlefinger would only strengthen that, since LF is basically creating enmity between the major houses. I think he's just manipulating Olenna into marrying Sansa into their family to create more of a power struggle between the Tyrells and the Lannisters.

Possibly, it could potentially work like that and I hope it does. I really hope that D+D were thinking through the implications of changing a delicate spider's web (if you'll pardon the pun.) and have planned ahead for that rather than just writing the scene for some witty banter. I'm not overly hopeful tbh.

As far as I can tell, only Ros, Varys, and Olenna know. That's not a lot of people. Substituting Ros for Dontos, that's two more people that know compared to in the books. Two people who keep secrets to further their position.

When it comes to secret plots Varys knowing is more damaging to LF's schemes than a hundred others knowing. Like I say, why would Varys oppose LF in manipulating Sansa now, but then just ignore Sansa later? Makes no sense.

You haven't said what was incomprehensible about the Varys/QoT, save to say that it wasn't in ASoS, and in your opinion marginally changes the character of Olenna Tyrell. It was a perfectly plausible scheme and scenario.

The scene doesn't make sense because it creates the plot hole of how on earth LF is going to smuggle Sansa out of KL when quite literally everybody and their grandmother knows what he's up to? Specifically Varys knowing creates a plot hole. Why would he be hell bent on opposing LF's plans for Sansa now, but not be able to track her to the Vale later?

How is "You sound like a bloody woman" mocking sexism? Explain it to me like I was very, very slow, since it really needs careful explaining to make sense, at all. Unless we're in backwards land, perhaps.

It's a little something called sarcasm. She's taking the stereotypical sexist views of women in society and turning it against someone she sees as sexist. She's comparing him to a women as you say later in your post, but the male view of a woman, not the reality. You don't have female friends who make "stay in the kitchen" jokes?

A multitude of reasons which are better placed in the Arya re-read thread as it would need an essay.

I might pop over there to see why exactly one of the most faithful scenes in the episode was botched. Let me guess - Beric wasn't a complete skeleton? His speech wasn't from the books? And people call me unreasonable.

Ugh, botched BwB scenes, terribly botched Brienne/Jaime scenes (Brienne is a sexist since when??), Theon was a big??, Varys spilling the beans to the QoT is incomprehensible, the Pod thing is a waste of time.

The only saving grace was Dany in Astapor, the rest was really a mish mash of botched stuff and irrelevant additions.

Agree on the last two and about Dracarys being awesome, but disagree about most everything else. I have my worries about Theon's story and how confusing they are, but thought the material here was good overall. Thought the BWB scenes were excellent and seeing as (aside from tweaked dialogue) it was almost exactly the same as the books I fail to see how it was botched.

I assume you're referring to the "you sound like a bloody woman" line, in calling Brienne a sexist. I really disagree here, I thought it was quite clear that if Brienne meant anything by her comment it was mocking sexism and Westerosi attitudes towards women.

Gave it a 9. I really wish I could give an 8.5 because I never give 10 (that would imply a perfect episode) and reserve nine for the absolute top notch. But it was also much better than E3 which I can an 8. So I'll generously round it up to a 9. And that's definitely because of both the mutiny at Crasters and of course Dracarys! I had my quibbles but hey, like I say no episode will ever be perfect.

So I guess I am embarrassed because it never really occurred to me (until my reread of the Tyrion chapter in SoS) just what role Ros would actually play and now it seems so obvious to me... Say hello to the fake Arya Stark~!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who didn't put 2 and 2 together... :(

Yes, others have put 2 and 2 together and gotten 3 :P I think it very unlikely that Ros will play the role of Fake!Arya. Either they introduce Jeyne this season in LF's brothel, or Ramsay will marry Talisa, using her position as Robb's former queen to boost his authority. I was going to say that Ros would most likely be killed by LF after the PW but apparently we haven't seen the last of Ser Dontos, which suggests he will be taking the fall as in the books. So I'm not sure what Ros will be doing, but I really can't see what role she might play in the end game.

Gave it an 8, a one up over the last two episodes. Aside from the last scene and Dany's scene there weren't really any super awesome stand out scenes, but unlike the last two episodes there weren't any I hated either. And I thought Pod the Pimp was funny even though it could have been a bit shorter.

ETA: Actually the Stannis scene wasn't too cool but other than that it was good.

I think it is a tease.... she will tell him something vague about his future. Otherwise it is bogus. Fee Fii foo Fum.... I smell the Kings blood yum yum. Mel does not have this power else they would not be able to pull the wool over her eyes with Val/Gillys babe

Not necessarily. Mel can see Gendry in the flames and Stannis (who visited him with Jon Arryn) will either recognise the description or be shown the vision and point out that "hey that's my bro's bastard"

Which is an interesting choice, because from what I remember in the books he was pretty sober once he got, you know, sober and religious. Not that I have a problem with it at all. I'm actually surprised more people aren't up in arms over this change. More people seem to be concerned about a non-change to Catelyn than an actual change.

Thoros is an example of good adaptation because he's combining two characters, (Thoros and Tom o Sevens) into one, which creates a very vibrant character and saves screen time. That's how things should be done. Also Thoros is hardly a major character. Cat is. I think it's understandable that people are more upset at changes to Cat than to Thoros.

Ok so bad acting. Not going to try and argue that point because it will simply go in circles. I believe she's doing a good job distinguishing Shae from a common whore (or even an uncommon whore like Ros)

Fair enough. Agree to disagree.

Yes, how silly in a world where people are commonly killed, where the king slaughters innocent babes, where thousands of men are burnt to death in a single battle, that Tyrion would get so hung up over killing a whore he rather liked instead of his father lets say. In the books, Shae doesn't make a sufficient impact that a character so supposedly smart as Tyrion should get caught up with her. This Shae adds enough depth for it to be believable, so that in season 4 and onward, when he has issues with love and women, IT'LL BE BELIEVABLE! That's why we get so much Shae material, why she's so important (more so than Jeyne/Talisa) and why the actress is actually doing something with what was a one note character in the books

I'm sorry but you're just missing the subtleties of Tyrion's character plain and simple. He's smart about books, stupid about women. Lots of people are like that. I'm like that. It is in no way unrealistic.

Killing Shae in the books affects Tyrion so much because

1.) his personal kill count isn't that high. Prior to this he's only directly killed people in battle when his life depended on it.

2.) He was in love with Shae. The fact that she was a whore all along and didn't love him makes it all the more tragic to me.

Equally worse is laughable, and Shae gets much more screen time. It is a matter of choice. You get 550 minutes for a season, how to allocate those minutes are crucial

Shae gets more screentime yes. But my point is that both could have been written much better in the time they got.

So Tyrion's major flaw is that he gets fucked over by women? Guess what, that's not a character flaw. If he was too obsessed with women, then it'd be a character flaw, but really Shae is the only woman (aside from his first whore yadda yadda) he's developed a weakness for. Indeed Shae keeps him on the straight and narrow rather well. Tyrion's flaw is hubris in his own intellectual talent. He thinks he plays the game better than he does, which gets him screwed over, imprisoned, and exiled to Essos. Because he believes in his own intellectual superiority he continues to indulge Shae, as she is the only person he doesn't understand. You are still assuming that Shae is entirely genuine and won't turn away from Tyrion. Really if she was genuine and turned away it would be even more emotionally wrenching. While I won't saying I know what D&D are doing exactly, I understand how their approaching this and they are doing an excellent job.

Tyrion's flaw ruining things for himself because he has an unhealthy relationship with women. He also displays intellectual hubris because guess what? Characters can have multiple flaws.

Tyrion is not necessarily obsessed with women in that he can't keep it in his pants. He's obsessed because he lost the love of his life early on and is looking to fill that void. He uses prostitutes for that, but once he believes he's found love again he's entirely monogamous.

Really, his musings on her in the book could be read as him still not understanding her motivations. He's not so much torn up, weeping about his lost love, as thinking, "Why? I don't understand why she did this, and I'm usually so good at understanding everything. Why does a whore do what she does?"

Which again is part of the entire dynamic they have, it's not the entire thing.

Bottom line is that D+D have vastly simplified what was a very complex and messy relationship into a stereotypical tragic love story. The nuance has been lost imo.

I've heard people (Ran) saying Olenna's been watered down, is less witty etc.

She seems the same as in the books to me?

I don't get that complaint either. Pretty much all of her lines are directly transcribed from the books and Riggs delivery was just as I wanted it to be imo.

Why Bolton even Robb seems not to trust him and yet he leaves him harrenhal one of the toughest castles in Westeros !!!

Is there any indication that Robb mistrusts Roose?

I'm also surprised by the immense Shae hate I see here, because the actress really brings something to the role. Part of the problem I think people have with her is the odd cadence she uses, but it helps emphasize the exotic nature of Shae (and is probably part of the reason Tyrion falls for her). Unlike numerous other "foreign" characters who may as well be Westerosi in the show (Talisa or Thoros for example) there is a definite sense of otherness with Shae. In fact, comparing Shae with Talisa shows exactly why Shae is a good character in the show (while Talisa is one of the biggest mis-steps in the adaptation).

I'm sorry but I just don't feel that Sibel Kikelli can act. I admittedly haven't seen her in anything else, but tbh it doesn't really matter if she's winning Emmy's elsewhere - it doesn't change the fact that her performance here is imo, awful. It just sounds so wooden and stilted. The problem is not the accent.

Basically, Shae and Talisa are flipped from the books. In the books Shae is a one-note gold digger who somehow takes in Tyrion, while in the show Talisa is a one-note romantic love character. In the books the Shae character detracts from Tyrion because A. He shouldn't fall for that kind of thing and B. Why does it affect him so much during Dance. I don't buy how hung up he is in the books over a gold-digger, but I DO buy him being so hung up over this Shae characters betrayal (however it happens).

Oh yes, how silly of Tyrion, being hung up over murdering someone. She was just a gold-digger he shouldn't have cared. And yes he very well should fall for that sort of thing: as you say yourself characters should have flaws. Tyrion's is his issues with love and with women.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Jeyne character adds to Robb in the book, showing he has the same flaw as his father (his honor). In the show however, her substitute (Talisa) really dumbs down his characterization into a simple doomed love story kind of thing.

Well I agree here entirely. A fan of Talisa I am not.

I understand why D&D decided to emphasize Shae over Jeyne/Talisa (Tyrion is much more important long run than Robb basically, so if you have to pick which one is going to be more fleshed out, it ought to be Tyrion) but it still majorly damages Robb's character.

But it's not a matter of focus. Both characters have sizeable amounts of screen time and both could have been written equally well. Instead both were written equally worse.

So can someone explain to me why the show Shae is so terrible aside from "bad acting"? The worst part about show Shae is that the actress doesn't sell her connection to Sansa all that well, but her connection with Tyrion is MUCH more important, and in that respect she does a fine job showing why she isn't just another whore to Tyrion.

But that's the whole point of her interactions with Tyrion: that she is, in the end just a prostitute who doesn't care for Tyrion, demonstrating Tyrion's big, major flaw. Having Shae be genuine in her affections takes away from that. And like Talisa, it's another instance of D+D's obsession with sassy badass women, turning every single character they can into such and neglecting those that they can't.

And then of course there's the bad acting.

After watching the show's version of the Jaime/Brienne fight and thinking it over some more, I've come to the conclusion that the book version was pretty unrealistic. No way Jaime can fight effectively while his hands are manacled together and he's been literally chained up for months. I don't care if you are the best swordsman of Westeros, if you've been chained up for that long you're going to be in horrible shape and have no stamina at all.

Which is exactly what happens in the show as well.... or am I missing something.

I gave it a 7/10, same as last week even though I liked it a tad less. It was overall decent but I guess it just wasn't really memorable enough. I didn't agree with everything in last week's episode but virtually all of it stuck out. Here, not so much. A lot of it felt like filler and just recapping what had already happened, I felt like there could have been more progression.

But mostly it was a good episode, I thought that the Bran and Arya scenes were perhaps the best. I'm enjoying Thoros immensely and seeing a lot of Tom O sevens in him.

"9"

Great, great episode. And most of the criticism people make (like the 'toned down Tormud and Mance) are actually for the best. TV is a different media and some things won't work in a drama series.

Larger than life characters work fine on screen. Look at the Spice King for example. He was pretty much the only good thing about Qarth and it was because he was hamming it up all over the place. If they'd written Tormund as he is in the books I'd say he'd be a guaranteed favourite. As it is I'm worried he'll just be seen as some generic grumpy wildling. And his character hasn't been toned down from what I've heard - it's been outright inverted.

I know, I shouldnt be surprised anymore. I just wish that people would realise that it not being the same as the book, or being worse than the book, is not a valid criticism! If it makes sense in the context in the show, and is compelling and entertaining, that is what is important.

It's a perfectly valid criticism. If something is changed from the books unnecessarily than it is perfectly valid to criticise D+D for that.

Now fortunately this episode wasn't so bad in that regard. There were invented scenes but only ones on par with what we got in S2, and the plot deviations were fixing previous mess ups. It seems that so far the season is on track to be somewhere between S1 and S2 in terms of faithfulness which I can tolerate.

One thing I did think was a mistake was the lack of new characters introduced. That can bog down an opening episode but it can also move the plot forward which I felt was rather lacking in KL. KL was pretty much all a recap of S2 E10. I would've replaced the orphan scene with the QOT's arrival and then maybe had her dinner meeting with Sansa instead of the scene with LF at the docks.

It is a great title considering how well it linked all of the stories within the episode.

It worked, but I was surprised it wasn't worked into the episode itself. The scene with the Unsullied would have been a perfect spot for it.

Also, I would have thought that we'd actually get the line Valar Dohaeris in this episode, but apparently not. I guess I should be pleased that there was an exclusive nod to book readers.

I voted 7. Very good.

My main nitpick is that we didn't get to see the battle at the Fist, which I feel was a bit of a copout. I also feel like more could have been covered: in KL at least it felt like not much was going on. The QOT at least could have arrived.

My favourite scene was definitely the Unsullied. It was probably the most faithful to the books (possibly edged out by Tywin/Tyrion.) which I also loved and it got Dany's story off to a speeding start. Aside from the copout at the Fist, the CGI was very impressive. The dragons look much bigger, the manticore was cool and the Giant looked amazing. I am very much looking forward to seeing them in action.

Probably my least favourite scene was the Sansa/LF one, making Sansa look like an idiot trusting him (in complete contradiction to how she reacts to him IN S2 E10 mind you.). I can't decide whether the ship game was to show that she was still remaining idealistic or that she was still remaining naive.

EDIT: Also for some reason I thought Loras's unctuous smiling at the dinner scene was hilarious.

Well perhaps this will take the knot out of your tongue

"Game of Thrones explained"

Marie

What has that got to do with anything?

I think the writers and directors, etc, are genuine fans of the book and really talented. Again, contrast Dune.

Must...resist...making...comment