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[Book Spoilers] EP404 Discussion


Ran
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You are more than entitled to your opinion. I just find it staggering that some people seem utterly shocked by the changes and perceived quality of the show. To call the show mediocre and fantastically dumbed down is again, an opinion you're perfectly entitled to, but one very few people seem to agree with. The show is a MASSIVE success both critically and in terms of viewership, with incredible production values for TV, some reputable actors giving terrific performances, and about as massive a scale as you're likely to see anywhere but in feature-film epics. The show is shooting concurrently in multiple countries around the world each season with the biggest cast of principal actors in TV history.

To even attempt to condense a story and a world as unfathomably large as ASoIaF into the space that they are forced to on the show is already an impressive feat. Changes are necessary to both trim the fat AND engage viewers who have no previous knowledge of the series and will never pick up one of the books or even come close to being able to remember most of the ancillary character's names and back stories. HBO owes book readers nothing. It's encouraging that D&D seem to legitimately be massive fans of the books and seem to be trying to bring GRRM's vision onto screen without utterly catastrophic changes, but that won't always be the case. They are trying to make as compelling a television show as possible, using an adaptation/variation of the ASoIaF stories as a basis.

:agree:

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This is the first episode of the season I didn't like. There was some really good stuff in there but overall not having the Ygritte battle right away this season has really screwed a bunch of things up. HBO clearly doesn't have the budget for certain things so they change them for the worse. It's such a shame because they've made so many wonderful changes as well. Oh well, it was a medicore episode but better than most of what's on TV.


Edited by DrownedSnow
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Just look at the scene when Jon asks for volunteers , pay attention to the mediocre typical-hollywood background music, acting, directing, camera work... sums up the whole show which is incredibly hollywoodized version of phenomenal and original novels.

So hollywoodized, mediocre, fantasticaly dumbed down and adjusted for mass appeal. Starting from dialogues, visualisations [Others, Giants, wildings ...] (which will now stay in collective memory even though many commisoned artist presented world much, much closer to Martin's vision, but that was expected anyway) coreography, characters adjusted to popular tropes of hollywood drama and quasi-realistic drama series.

No wonder this show is so popular. Truly painful to watch.

But hey! the show is epic, Hodor is epic, Martin got "truckload of money" delivered and we will probably see resolution in the much quicker way, who has time to read fat books when you have this "epic" show with such cool actors.

I just hope Illuminati conspiracy against fantasy fiction will be battled against so this show can get all the emmys, golden globes and whatnot.

Dude seriously relax. We still have our books :)

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Dude seriously relax. We still have our books :)

Well, are you sure about that, they're catching up...

I just want last two or three books totally , totally unaffected by this adaptation (and i hate that "[A] Game of thrones" (article "a" as the compromise) title is replacing asoiaf everywhere).

Don't worry I'm relaxed cause i knew from the first few episodes of season two this will happen.

and i don't get excited when i'm consuming art (:D) or typing whether i'm disappointed or otherwise.

The only time i got totally excited is when i read Bran's awakening chapter from AGOT and realized how much potential does book have then the adaptation.

It's more laughable to me to watch quasi-dramatic scenes even though show have many, if not the most great actors (kit harington is not one of them)

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I haven't read the last 15 pages of the thread, so don't know if anyone's already suggested it, but I think one of the reasons we saw Craster's keep was specifically to link them to the Others - to see the women chanting "gift to the gods", be reminded about what happens to male craster babies and basically for all of that to lead us to the Others location and revelation about what happens to the babies.



In my eyes, the ending (which I thought was awesome) is not a spoiler. A spoiler spoils a plot development: Joff is poisoned, the Freys kill Robb etc. What is the spoiler? An unnamed son of Craster dies/is turned into an Other? I suspect (and of course I could be way wrong) that this information about them might not be in the future books (whose POV is going to show us that?) but it could be info in the World of Ice and Fire book. So it's more like background information available, rather than future plot events.



However, the implications of this revelation raises this question: since Craster's boys become Others, what does that imply about Gilly's baby who's currently at the Wall?


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Although the last scene was amazing I am very disappointed in Bryan Cogman. There are a lot of changes that will have important repercussions. They are trying to fix some stuff with the battle that will take place at Craster's next week but they are creating many others. You know, the butterfly effect. I still don't understand why they can't have some characters just stay in the background for a season. Why couldn't Bran show up in just 2-3 episode this season and the next? No, they added drama, and than they added a meeting with Jon (or at least something very close to that). They always think like that: why not take advantage of the proximity of some cool characters to see what they might chat about.



First we have Locke. I love the character and the actor, they are both great, but I have a feeling that he is going to replace Bowen Marsh. I'm not exactly against this, it might work, we just have to wait and see. Although it makes the Boltons a little too smart if Locke is the one with the knife at the end of season 5.



Than we have Jon knowing that Bran is alive. So, what will happen next season when Stannis offers him Winterfell?? If he knew his brothers were alive he wouldn't consider about it that long. At least that's the Jon i got from the books.



As for the white walkers, I didn't mind the spoiler. Do you really think this is the first time they've done this? They spoiled/confirmed/contradicted a lot of theories in the past. Remember the idea that Jeyne Westerling was pregnant? Destroyed. There are plenty more examples. I saw many posters commenting that the baby should be dead, or at least freezing after that journey. Do you forget that the white walkers make the weather colder around them? All that heat is going somewhere. I'm not saying they draw the heat to themselves :), but if they can control the weather in one way, why no the other? is it that unbelievable that they could keep him in a warm bubble?


Edited by Bayard
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aside from whats going on North of the wall etc, the WTF moments that has my head spinning.........



Brienne's storyline is literally in fast-forward ... she should be in a cell right now



If she ends up in the hands of the BWB by seasons end, where the hell do they go with her story next season? its happening wayy too fast


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I liked this episode quite a bit. A lot of good stuff. Really well shot too, visually the most impressive episode in a while. NCW is an amazing Jaime.



The Northern plotline is quite stupid though. I don't care that they made changes from the books (this was a snoozefest in the books, plus I don't mind well done changes anyway), the problem is that many of these changes are just stupid.The White Walkers stuff was nice though.


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I call bullshit. That baby would have had frostbite a long time ago. Everyone knows infants lose their heat through their heads.

maybe the magic starts extending to them once they are placed in the sacrificial spot......

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Hi, can someone give me a strictly culinary spoiler for this episode ? Since start of season, I've tried to keep my monday night dinner menu in synch with the episode we watch that night. After Ep. 1's chickens and ep. 2 pigeon pie, I was sadly not at home last week and couldn't cook a rabbit stew...


So, tell me please, what's on the menu for ep. 4 ? (apart from iced baby apparently)

Edited by Floredaï
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I expect a lot of weird things from the show, but Ice Maul was the last one on the list. Him having 12 friends is interesting though.

Yep, it was 12... quite interesting, actually.

Are these the 12 companions of The Last Hero?

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So who the hell will rescue Bran from Craster's? Surely they won't have a scene with Bran and Jon together right? Jon knowing about him being alive is one thing, but an actual reunion, Idk how I'd feel about that change.

Well, based on the promo,

We see Jon & Co. fighting the Craster Crew. So the only thing I can think besides a reunion is during the commotion Bran escapes (probably wargs Ghost or Summer to help the fighting). However, Bran's likely to see Jon through a wolf, so I don't know why he wouldn't stick around.

I'm putting 50-50 odds on a reunion

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An improvement from last week but still boring, they focused too much on the north scenes. I understand why they changed Tommens actor now, just imagine the scene that occured on this episode with the original actor :stillsick:



Lol @ Cersei acting fine with Jaime after what happened


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Very good episode. Not enough Arya of course:)



But I almost enjoyed every scene. Except for Littlefinger and Sansa. And Dany. I never enjoy Dany scenes anymore.



Littlefinger is still puffing out his lines and Sophie Turner has returned to saying her lines strangely.


I guess things are back to normal then. I gave her a fair go. Fast forwarding their scenes from now on. Especially once they add in Lysa to that craptacular threesome.



Jon talked about Bran! He only has 3 siblings left to remember now. And GHOST.


Bran was very enjoyable, might be the first time I've liked the Reeds.



Tommen is a million kinds of awesome. Ser Pounce! Margaery, seriously girl close your legs. He's a child.



'Your grace' and 'Lord Commander' - ouch.



Brienne and Jaime were fantastic as always. So in the first episode, Arya was more than likely dead, now she's probably dead Jaime? Are you going for an each way bet.



Jaime and Tyrion were fantastic too. I know this may be a totally wrong thing to say but Peter Dinklage looked so cute when he was standing up.



Whitewalkers are creepy.


Locke at the wall - oh oh.



Pretty good ep all up considering no Arya or Tywin.



Next ep - Arya training yay - although I think the Hound is gonna annoy me again.

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Looking back at episode 2, Roose didn't even order Locke to KB.

Was there a line of dialog like that?

Locke asked where he might look for the Stark boys, and Theon speculated.

So Prest-O Change-O there is Locke at CB!

I guess they wanted to get some more Noah Taylor , he has that same creepy 'Batman' whisper-voice, which is getting on my never.

Maybe that Noah Taylor normal speaking voice?

I checked, he does have a bit high pitched voice, and another of those mysterious UK accents, but he does sound 'wispy' on the videos I have seen.

Edited by boojam
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