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Season 4 Impressions


Westeros

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Torture porn is not a real thing. It's not a genre that exists in terms of cinema or TV. The Theon castration after getting him aroused is as subtle as Ramsay gets, which is not very subtle at all. He's sneaky but he's a murderous maniac and rapist so it's not like he's got any sophistication about that stuff. I still felt that the Theon scenes last season are needed to understand how we got to that point without extrenious exposition. I also felt that there was a progression. Help him, bring him back, take away the thing he has the least need of and then take away his most important bodypart, the one that actually says something about Theon's identity and Alfie Allen has commented on Theon's sexual proess as being one of his only ways to express himself. The scene that had everyone so angry last season is actually a role-reversal, with Theon getting sexually assaulted by women, when previously he would be the one imposing his presence on them (the saltwife in season 2 and Osha in season 1) so in terms of visual storytelling I thought it was great to see such a reversal without much dialogue from him at all and of course they arrived at his redemption much sooner than in the books but then again, it was in a moment that he was actually hopeful but withRamsay that's just the point: he gives you enough hope just so he can see you despair when he takes it away and all that was there for me last season. Any chance of the Reek/Ramsay stuff being more interesting in season 4 to the mainsteam audience to which I don't seem to belong :D?


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It's not a genre that exists in terms of cinema or TV.

The Hostel, Saw, etc. beg to differ.

One might want to call them splatterfilms, but when the father of splatterfilms scratches his head and criticizes the new films as torture porn, there's definitely a shift (in Romero's case, he was noting that he felt they were brutal for brutality's sake and "lacked metaphor" behind what they were depicting).

Lets call torture porn a sub-genre of a sub-genre.

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On Dorne and Quentyn:



Well, one has to admit that 'sexposition' really could be the way to describe 'The Soiled Knight'. That chapter really shows how being obsessed with Arianne could be used to give us background information, character motivation, and a sex scene in one chapter...



Quentyn can easily remain in the show, but they can easily cut 'The Merchant's Man' and 'The Windblown', and just have him popping up at Dany's court without showing his journey. That could really work nicely if they cut from Doran's reveal of Quentyn's mission directly to Quentyn.


Whatever they do with Dorne in season 5, it really should hammer the fact home that the Martells want revenge. And 'The Captain of Guards' is just a brilliant chapter. I really want to see the blood oranges on the marble, and the Water Gardens.



The whole Hizdahr marriage thing would really work best if Dany has also the offer to marry a Dornishman from Westeros, getting another chance to leave Meereen. If Quentyn isn't there, it would be just Hizdahr and Daario.



And if they cast a fine actor for Quentyn there is potential for great drama and tragedy there. Quentyn is not an average attractive, shy introvert, who is not exactly comfortable around women. It would be interesting to see him court Dany as well as following how he finds his strength, tries to become a dragonrider only to fail miserably.


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There's a time and place for it. I think the critique has to do with the fact that across three episodes, approximately 80% of the scenes with Oberyn are in a brothel and feature random naked people.

One episode, fine, but one hopes every other scene isn't going to be them surrounded by prostitutes, much as one hopes every other chapter set in Dorne isn't going to be about someone sleeping with someone (or a bunch of someones).

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Yes, of course, I'm also not exactly happy with everything I have heard about the placement of Oberyn/Ellaria up to this point. Does he have a non-brothel life in the first three episodes? Or is he Littlefinger 2.0?



I merely wanted to point out that the whole Arianne-Arys plot could very well work as sexualized 'sexposition' plot while staying remarkably close to the books.



But for that they would have to want to adapt that particular tidbit. Showing us a bunch of naked Sand Snakes is not going to accomplish anything, I agree.


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Among my friends , who watch the show, almost all are non readers, and they love it.

I have a few who are real TV aficionados, who view the show as being 'original' and not derived from another source.

They are mainly critical of 'time scaling' , that is so much narrative and characters crammed into 10 hours per season.

Other wise they like the show.

As a reader I sort of feel the same , but I keep the prose version of ASoIaF and the visual narrative of GOT separate in my mind, so to speak.

So far I have only felt let down the Dany narrative in season 2, which I feel defeated D and D , due to lack of interest on their part or difficulty in translation.

For the record, and I am repeating myself, I knew something had to be done about condensing Harrenhal in season 2, and I loved the substitution of the Tywin-Arya tête-à-tête, when I figured out Weasel Soup had to go.

So I liked both the book version and show version of Arya's stay at Harrenhal.

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I love both the show and the books and have reread/ rewatched many times and although there were things I wish I could tweak about both to be honest, I see them as two separate entities and as long as they don't loose the essence of a plot/ character which I personally don't think they have done, I will watch the show and love the show.



My favourite character in the books is Catelyn and I know many people have been upset by how she's been handled by the tv writers but I personally think the character in the show is still a very faithful Catelyn (and I adore Fairley) although obviously her motivations are slightly changed. I think the reason many Cat fans have reacted negatively to the changes because theres lots of Cat bashing from book and tv fans, and scenes such as the Bran and Maester Luwin scene and Talisa and Cat scene highlight Cat's negative attributes which some of her haters use as evidence against her. I however think these scenes highlight some of the complexity of her character that we see from the books. Yes, some people have jumped on these scenes as an excuse to bash Cat but let them. She kicks ass and we Cat fans don't need their approval haha. Only thing I wish they'd kept in was her slitting one of the tribesman's throat in S1 but to be fair the scene when she fends off the assassin is pretty awesome.



Apologies for going completely off topic but I think it's relevant to the point in the video where he discusses some fans seeing the books as two completely different beasts and loving both (like me).


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OP



I really like your reviews, but I hope in this series you mention some of the changes they've made regarding what goes on with Jorah. It kind of annoyed me that you didn't mention this in the previous seasons reviews (especially the 3rd one) but were fine talking about changes they had made to what Bron was doing. If you're going to comment on the issues of adaptation it doesn't make sense to not talk about this. I assume that you took it for granted they would simply move this to a later date like Sam stabbing the walker but that is a big assumption to make. Plus I assume from the early episodes regarding the siege of Meereen as well as from the trailers with Jorah advising Dany on ruling Meereen that whats been changed is quite apparent. So I hope you also mention about the changes they made going back into season 3 as well since it is relavent, especially if they do randomly end up including scenes from the first part of ASOS in season 4.


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I have to speak against that, and thought we already made this point: Other than a couple of relatively short scenes early on which genuinely feel like they just wanted to put some characters together but didn't actually have anything for them to really say to one another that advanced or enriched their characterization, or moved the plot, or at least revealed some interesting setting detail, there really isn't any filler.

I would not mind seeing Dorne, even with my concern about their likelihood of simplifying it to Sexy-people-being-sexy-land, because, well, I'm a fan of Dorne. But... yes, it's a concern.

Sorry about that, and thanks for the clarification. Perhaps it was cognitive dissonance reinforcing my own fears (expectations), but I thought your point on that topic was that the scenes in KL were absolutely filler and that you (or at least Linda) expected that to continue for the rest of the season.

You also talked in the beginning about the artificial regression of certain characters as well as the lack of strong character moments through the first few episodes. I know you weren't specifically talking about filler there, but to me there is a direct correlation. Again, I'm evaluating your restricted commentary of something I haven't seen yet, so the odds of me misinterpreting are fairly decent - sounds like maybe that's what's going on.

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I like both the books and the tv series. I did make a point- when I decided that I did in fact want to read the books as well as just watching the show- of keeping the two separate. I enjoy both.



The fact of the matter is, things have to get changed when an adaptation is done. You will never manage to please all of the fans and no matter what you do there will always be someone that says 'that's not how I pictured it/that's not the actor I would have gone with/they took that bit out'.


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Nah, there's just a couple of brief scenes that just, as I said, sit there and they just seem to be about bringing a couple of characters together, but they don't really have anything important to say to one another, nor does it deepen our understanding of them. It's just.. well, there. They could easily have excised those and no one would have missed them, really.

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Stannis!Stannis!Stannis! That was one of the few parts of any book that made me want to lift weights.

I agree.

just my impression so far. but it seems like they've butchered the characters of Jaime, Arya and Cersei and these are MAJOR fucking characters. and ONLY in 3 episodes so far...yikessss

I can understand Jaime, but how are Cersei and Arya butchered?

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I agree.

I can understand Jaime, but how are Cersei and Arya butchered?

the fact that they've taken away cersei's sexual agency and bodily autonomy away from her is butchering in my opinion.

as far as arya is concerned her entire storyline just seems like fanfiction this season which i dont like. but these are just my opinions so don't come after me people

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