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(Book Spoilers ) Beautifully Disgusting Killers- A Karl and Locke appreciation thread


Darkbringer

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I think Locke reallly deserves a really big hand :laugh:





I really enjoyed Locke's performance, and I'm glad he's been kept on and included with this new story arc. I could care less about Karl. His performance was lackluster at best, and I hope he gets cut down in the next episode.




Yeah Karl is just a run of the mill scumbag and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Locke.


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I like both Locke and Karl - still can't wait to see them both go down, though ;)



I had a strange experience flipping through the channels the other night concerning Burn Gorman. First, I saw that he was in Pacific Rim. Then later he was in AGoT. Then, after that, I happened to see him on AMC in Turn playing a Red Coat. I actually thought to myself "Man, this guy's everywhere!" :P


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They are both fantastic actors.



I hope they have good death scenes, Karl certainly doesn't have long.



In the promo for episode 5 it looked like Jon initiates the attack by running (with war yell :cool4: ) towards Karl and all the brothers fight it out. I'm betting they really hyped up Karl being a 'legendary' killer so Jon will look impressive when he kills him.



Rast will be killed by Ghost because they have history- Ghost tormenting him in Season 1 and Rast tormenting Ghost in the cage.



However, Locke is a wildcard....I have no idea what will happen with him. I really love not knowing for a change!


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I think the Karl scene is superlong and doesn't add much except the "gift to the gods" chant by Craster's wives. It is a full five minutes from the Karl scene to when Rast hears the raven.



That said... I love Locke the Spy. He was slightly over-the-top last season, but he's killing it this year. I've enjoyed Noah Taylor in everything, especially "Shine."


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Karl's being absolutely filthy gave us an excellent image of just how disgusting human beings can be. That whole scene made a lot of sense to me once i saw what was happening with that baby and the Others. Everything made sense and i cant bitch about "boob quota" cuz really, the illustration and contrast between Karl and Craster's Keep and the Others/Land of Always Winter is a huge slap in the face. Its brilliant. Gorman's macabre portrayal of this character and Rast in reaction is just incredible. Contrast the quiet, orderly Others..


Wow. Just wow.



As for Locke, im really interested in where he goes. I like how the actor can be a really horrible person and then turn around and pretend to be a nice guy. Hes pretty great and will provide an excellent adversary for Jon to bounce off of. Those two look like they got enough chemistry to work it.


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As for Locke, im really interested in where he goes. I like how the actor can be a really horrible person and then turn around and pretend to be a nice guy. Hes pretty great and will provide an excellent adversary for Jon to bounce off of. Those two look like they got enough chemistry to work it.

Agreed. Hope he lasts through the Keep battle. I think he could be a strong voice for Jon in the choosing.

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I absolutely love Locke. Last season I didn't pay much attention to him but he is really standing out this season, the actor playing him really knows what he is doing. I hope he stays around a while. I know this would never happen but I secretly hope he turns good (lol ya right). Or more realistically if he stays into next season he could be the one who

Spoiler
get the events in motion that lead up to Jon being stabbed by his brothers

Locke is played by Noah Taylor. I highly suggest checking out some of his other work... even movies where he plays lesser roles (Red Dog, The Proposition). He is not nearly as well recognised as he deserves to be.

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Is there any chance for Karl to get spared by Jon? He did say to capture/kill them. I like to imagine him sparing Karl since they need men for the battle against Mance, then Karl will die taking some bastard wildlings with him. (probably wont happen :bawl: ). Karl is fucking too awesome to die and based on some footage that I saw before he uses a fucking KNIFE against Jon (using longclaw). Can't get more awesome than that!


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I wonder if Locke in the next episode or the episode following that, is going to replace Sam's role as..."lobbyist" for a certain someone in a certain something. Locke's anti-nobility sentiments could come in handy there. :cool4:



Oh, and as for performance, really like Locke. Actually like him better than Vargo Hoat, who was pretty one-dimensional in the books (mostly because GRRM can't give everyone chapters fleshing out their character's and making them feel more real). Karl otoh... well, I honestly thought he was a new character up untill then, and him boasting with Mormont's skull about his past in one scene isn't enough for me to find him interesting as a character. The actor did well, though. He honestly looked drunk...on power.


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Great to see Taylor (Locke) and Gorman (Karl) getting the attention/praise they deserve here... when I read the books originally I had Taylor in mind for Hoat and I really believe he could have played that role and made him both darkly comic and creepily malevolent- first saw him in a fantastic Australian coming of age movie 'The Year My Voice Broke' (also featuring Ben Mendelsohn and Bruce Spence, the gyrocopter pilot from Mad Max 2), in which he was brilliant (and in it's sequel 'Flirting' with Thandie Newton, Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts- both are worth seeking out although a world away from GoT). He turned up in an episode of Inspector Morse, Shine (as the young David Helfgott), Lana Croft Tomb Raider, The Life Aquatic and much more (already referred to in this thread).



He also played Hitler in the film 'Max'. He's definitely an actor who should be more widely known (and appreciated).



Burn Gorman, like Taylor, is a great character actor, if he turns up in anything it's usually worth a look, even if it's just for the scenes he's in. He got his debut in the British soap, Coronation Street, but I think it was the BBC adaptation of 'Bleak House' when I first started taking notice, the series was full of scene stealing actors (particularly Charles Dance) and Gorman as the hapless rather weaselly Guppy seemed to steal every scene he was in against some stiff competition. He then went on to appear in 'Torchwood' where, I presume, many sci-fi/fantasy fans will know him from previously.



Both Gorman and Taylor are adept at taking some pretty stark (small 's') roles and humanising them, giving the characters depth.



I suspect Karl will be offed first, unless he returns to the wall? Is that possible? The NW isn't in a position to be choosy... it seems unlikely, but...



As for Locke, because I'm such a fan of Taylor's I hope he sticks around. As for Locke saying his vows, he had to, to keep close to Jon, his thinking is that Jon is his ticket to finding Bran, the repercussions of that don't occur to him. If Bran and co do escape Locke can push Jon to go after them (with 'new Brother' Locke by his side, of course).


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Is Noah Taylor a known actor? I remember him from Almost Famous, Vanilla Ice and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I've seen others asking who he was or saying "he looks familiar!". I thought he was.

Noah Taylor's well known to anyone who's seen Australian films. His first film was Dogs in Space in 1986. A vastly underrated film, if you ask me, because audiences didn't realize that Michael Hutchence (RIP) was playing a severely short sighted man who had lost his glasses at the beginning of the film. Anyway, I'm biased ... it was mainly filmed at a friend's house so I loved the scene & the (true) story of heroin addicts living there in the 1970s. Since then he's been in about 40 films, so his face will be familiar to many... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Taylor. Bangkok Hilton (1989), for example, starred a very young Nicole Kidman. In Shine (1996), the film which took Geoffrey Rush from stage to immediate fame on screen, Noah played the younger version of Geoffrey Rush's character. In recent years he's continued to play supporting actors, but in Hollywood as well as Australia.

This brings me to a point people have been making about Locke's accent. Most of the northerners in the show have northern English /Irish or Scottish accents. Locke doesn't even attempt a northern accent & his natural Australian accent is closer to the accent in Essex (near London) than the north of England. From that point of view it would be odd if Jon recognized Locke as a northerner from his accent, because he clearly has the wrong one. Whether or not the character as written actually originally comes from the north is a different question. Roose Bolton could have taken on a southerner in his service... unless a "real" origin on Bolton land was mentioned somewhere.

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Is there any chance for Karl to get spared by Jon? He did say to capture/kill them. I like to imagine him sparing Karl since they need men for the battle against Mance, then Karl will die taking some bastard wildlings with him. (probably wont happen :bawl: ). Karl is fucking too awesome to die and based on some footage that I saw before he uses a fucking KNIFE against Jon (using longclaw). Can't get more awesome than that!

Yuck! No! Jon can't spare this nasty meatbag any mercy - he killed Commander Mormont ffs! Jon's made it clear in his speech to gain volunteers for his forray that this is not only to stop the wildlings from getting ahold of the mutineers but for justice against Mormont's betrayal / murder. There is no way they're going to spare Karl, no matter how awesome and evil he's portrayed and the actor who is playing him!

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Um, being from Essex, I'm confused by your comment that:





Locke doesn't even attempt a northern accent & his natural Australian accent is closer to the accent in Essex (near London) than the north of England.





Has this ever been true? That Australian and Essex accents are somehow alike? Or are you saying that because Taylor is Australian, him attempting an English accent ends up with someone who sounds (to your ear) like they come from Essex?



As for the geography of Westeros and all it's attendant dialects and accents matching that of England that precisely then why has Karl who grew up in Gin Alley in King's Landing in the South got a Mancunian accent (NW England)?



To me the accents matter much less than the acting performances and characterisations. Here in England just because you come from the North doesn't mean you have a Northern accent, it's where you're from in the North, which city or region and then whereabouts in that city or region, what your social class may be, or how you'd want your social class to appear, also your age, so many factors are involved... there are so many variables and subtleties. It must be the same in every country? But to transfer all those variables and subtleties to a fictional world and have the whole cast accurately meet all those requirements every time they deliver a line... well, I don't recall anyone trying to pin accents down to specific places in any other TV or film production... but I'm sure somewhere on the net there are examples.



I think if we attempted to identify specific locations in GoT with specific regional/local accents in the real world we'd find it's not just Locke or Karl or any of the Lannisters whose accents match where we make believe they should come from. To me it would be a foolhardy thing for anyone to attempt (this is where somebody directs me to a thread).

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Love Karl and Locke, but hell I love Stannis, Little Finger, Joffrey, Ramsey.....basically all of the douches on the show. I just find their characters and their motivations so much more interesting.

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Yuck! No! Jon can't spare this nasty meatbag any mercy - he killed Commander Mormont ffs! Jon's made it clear in his speech to gain volunteers for his forray that this is not only to stop the wildlings from getting ahold of the mutineers but for justice against Mormont's betrayal / murder. There is no way they're going to spare Karl, no matter how awesome and evil he's portrayed and the actor who is playing him!

They might spare him to make an example of him back at the Wall. But he'll probably be killed off right of the bat by either Jon, Locke, Ghost or a combination.

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