The Mountain and the Viper Episode Guide

[Mr Fixit]

It does - haunt implies that it's all about Gregor and only has power if Gregor actually feels remorse, but hunt indicates that Oberyn still won't be done with him when he dies; his thirst for vengeance will continue, regardless of whether Gregor is capable of feeling any remorse.

No, it doesn't since I was talking about my feelings on the scene. I said that to me it makes no difference whether it's hunt or haunt. In my eyes, no, no, no, you can't die yet coupled of course with Pedro's magnificent delivery leaves a much stronger impression than Oberyn's book lines.

"Who gave the order?" is hardly a great line - if GRRM had included it in the book dialogue it would certainly not stand out. Pedro's delivery is what makes it so powerful and so memorable.

Of course it would stand out! It's Oberyn accusing the most powerful person in Westeros in front of dozens of witnesses of ordering the rape and murder of a princess and her children. It's a significant departure from the books. Incidentally, while I was reading the book years ago, this very thing bothered me a lot. Why wouldn't Oberyn use this opportunity to mention Tywin's role? Why would he be so hell-bent on getting a confession out of a meaningless pawn while the person who orchestrated the whole damn thing is sitting right there? It really bothered me!

[PatrickStormborn]

No, it doesn't since I was talking about my feelings on the scene. I said that to me it makes no difference whether it's hunt or haunt. In my eyes, no, no, no, you can't die yet coupled of course with Pedro's magnificent delivery leaves a much stronger impression than Oberyn's book lines.

Of course it would stand out! It's Oberyn accusing the most powerful person in Westeros in front of dozens of witnesses of ordering the rape and murder of a princess and her children. It's a significant departure from the books. Incidentally, while I was reading the book years ago, this very thing bothered me a lot. Why wouldn't Oberyn use this opportunity to mention Tywin's role? Why would he be so hell-bent on getting a confession out of a meaningless pawn while the person who orchestrated the whole damn thing is sitting right there? It really bothered me!

You are of course entitled to feel however you like. But that doesn't mean that "haunt" and "hunt" have the same impact of implications. They may mean the same to you, but any sort of analysis would render your view incorrect. You are still entitled to a preference, of course.

I was talking about the words themselves, but you're right that Oberyn accusing Tywin would have been powerful. But I expect it was Oberyn's intention to eventually make Tywin pay... Perhaps he hoped Gregor's death and confession would make the other Lannisters beware what fate he may have planned for them.

Asking Gregor who gave the order is, unfortunately, pointless. He would never admit that it was Tywin, and he has no proof anyway so there's no way that Tywin - the Hand of the King - would be punished for it.

Ultimately, "Who gave the order?" is only necessary if Oberyn knows he's going to die.

[Mr Fixit]

Asking Gregor who gave the order is, unfortunately, pointless. He would never admit that it was Tywin, and he has no proof anyway so there's no way that Tywin - the Hand of the King - would be punished for it.

Well, expecting Mountain to confess anything is foolish, yet Oberyn insisted because he's just cool that way. :cool4:

[Hath4]

Well he did confess he killed Elia and her children( well he really killed aegon? Or random baby and Elia). but yeah I do not think he would ever admit tywins role.

[Miodrag]

Oberyn's public accusation against Tywin is yet another not very reasonable thing the show invented. Let's speculate for the moment that Gregor does say it was Tywin who gave the order. It's a ridiculous assumption, of course, because why would Gregor tell anything in his dying moment, but let's say he does pronounce Tywin's name. And? What happens next? What consequence the House of Lannister faces after that? Other than some not too damaging humiliation - there'd be no consequence at all. I mean, we're talking of a man (Tywin) who tricked a king into letting his, Tywin's, army into the city, and then sacked the city - and literally everybody knows about that! And neither Tywin nor Lannisters suffered any consequence because of that. What would Gregor's confession change then? Not a single thing, aside from the fact that in effect it would be Martells' official declaration of war against Lannisters - a declaration delivered in the worst possible circumstances, as far as Oberyn and his retinue go. Not to mention that in the only realistic scenario - in which Gregor doesn't confirm Tywin gave the order - everything's even worse for Oberyn and his retinue.

If we assume Oberyn's not a moron, he'd probably be aware of all this. So, would a sane man publicly humiliate his enemy on his (enemy's) ground and telegraph his own final goal, without any real gain? Of course not. And that is the biggest reason why Oberyn's TV accusation is ridiculous. As usual, when D&D make characters say or do something out of the canon, it's impossible to determine what's going on in the characters' heads. Really, what would be the idea behind Oberyn's public accusation? "When Gregor confesses, I'm going to..." what exactly? Kill Tywin right then and there? Charge him with murder? Burn KL?

In the novel, everything makes sense because book-Oberyn is not a moron. He's written as someone who actually thinks about what he says and does. And for the life of me I couldn't tell why did D&D mess with that. Did they think the scene needs to be improved?!

[Good Guy Garlan]

I don't understand why people have so many problems with the fact that Oberyn wanted Gregor to confess. That's straight from the book:

"Before he dies, the Enormity That Rides will tell me whence came his orders, please assure your lord father of that."

If anything, D&D were just picking up what Martin himself seemed to drop

[Miodrag]

When Tyrion welcomes him to KL, Oberyn underlines the obvious: I'm here to clear the crime against my sister you Lannisters want everyone to forget. And he mentions Gregor, like, not even the Enormity That Rides will stop me. That is way different from what we got in the show. In the book, he reminds Tyrion how dangerous he, Oberyn, is. In the show, he demonstrates to everyone how stupid he is.

That is, TV Oberyn's public accusations would be stupid in a universe in which actions have consequences. But, it's hard to take this show's universe that way.

[Ran]

You're taking a line from the first Oberyn appearance, and obviously as he was in King's Landing, as he interacted with Tywin and Tyrion, he didn't really need to know where the orders came from any longer -- he knows who had the children killed, and Tyrion's obvious lie was confirmation for him -- whereas he seems to be aware of the fact that Tywin did not order Elia's rape or death.

[Rashtibram]

You're taking a line from the first Oberyn appearance, and obviously as he was in King's Landing, as he interacted with Tywin and Tyrion, he didn't really need to know where the orders came from any longer -- he knows who had the children killed, and Tyrion's obvious lie was confirmation for him -- whereas he seems to be aware of the fact that Tywin did not order Elia's rape or death.

I don't know where you get the idea that he didn't think Tywin ordered Elia's death. Are you suggesting he believed Tywin in 4x03?

[Ran]

In the show? He asked only about Elia's death, and Tywin said no. He already knows Tywin ordered the death of the children. His only question was about Elia, because that's the only one he was unsure about. And I think that the show suggests he didn't believe it, but it's rather foolish since the fact is that the reason he was suspicious in the books -- his belief that Tywin ordered it out of spite after the Princess of Dorne appears to have gone out of her way to make sure Elia married Rhaegar after he rejected a match -- doesn't exist (for that matter, I'm not sure the show has yet touched on the idea that Tywin had hoped to marry Cersei to Rhaegar to begin with).

[Miodrag]

Ran,

perhaps I'm forgetting something, but I think that Oberyn not asking about the children is just D&D's way to make it as simple as possible for the viewers. Not that I think they've done a good job with it, nor that it was necessary, but that's how I'd understand Oberyn asking only about Elia. Of course, the omission of all the details that surrounded the death of Elia and her children really didn't help.

[Ran]

It's possible. It's strange when they also change his last line as he plunges the spear into Gregor from being about Elia to "the children". It's a little disjointed.

[Miodrag]

Well, have to say D&D generally don't strike me as writers who are too bothered by disjointed storytelling.

[Rashtibram]

In the show? He asked only about Elia's death, and Tywin said no. He already knows Tywin ordered the death of the children. His only question was about Elia, because that's the only one he was unsure about. And I think that the show suggests he didn't believe it, but it's rather foolish since the fact is that the reason he was suspicious in the books -- his belief that Tywin ordered it out of spite after the Princess of Dorne appears to have gone out of her way to make sure Elia married Rhaegar after he rejected a match -- doesn't exist (for that matter, I'm not sure the show has yet touched on the idea that Tywin had hoped to marry Cersei to Rhaegar to begin with).

I don't think the show implies this in any way, to be honest. I suppose everyone has their own interpretation, but I never got the sense that he believed Tywin hadn't ordered Elia's death. His reasons for thinking this are another question, but one that doesn't really require a convoluted explanation IMHO.

[Beric175]

Ran,

You are still just saying that this is what you got out of the scene as written in the books but there are other people in the world who read these books and it doesn't matter whether they rmember the individual lines or not, what they get out of it is their personal experience with the material. The fact that a passionate and confident man like Oberyn would pursue revenge at all costs is hubris because his thirst for revenge and justice is what makes him NOT kill Gregor immediately because he wants to humiliate him by making him confess and so he wants to hear him say what he did and who, if anyone, was ordering him to do so, and this is what Tyrion's speech is about: we are looking for reasons like someone doing as they are told to rationalize something that may in Elia's case have been just Gregor's sick pleasure and it really does not matter that he accused Tywin in public or not, you are right he has no real way of knowing but he's rationalizing it because Gregor is Tywin's lapdog and so the presumption is that he acted on Tywin's orders. The fact that your comment seems to indicate that no other interpretation of that scene is possible is sad to me as a reader and as someone who is open to debates. If Oberyn died because he was cocky that's still in line with what happens in the books where he wants to finsih off the Mountain with a knife only after he confesses. The way the show presented Oberyn was as an extremely confident man who was single-mindedly looking for revenge and he got revenge but he let his pride get in the way by not leaving the Mountain dead on the floor once he got him through the gut. I always througt he took pride in his search for vengeance in the book because he knew he was right and wanted to show everyone how right he was. He was too proud to just be content with a mere victory, no he wanted the sweet confession as an icing on the cake. What he got was a mailed fist in the teeth, sadly enough.

Even if the shots were not intended to give us a god perspective, it still does not change the fact that it did so incidentally anyway and for people who don't constantly research everything about the poduction of the show it's a nice thing to think about. Again, this is not HoU level disappointment for most people, not even close and I don't know how someone could have th idea that it was given that the HoU complaints were that they did not stick close enough to the book when most of the dialogue here either mirrors or is directly taken from the book and the outcome of the fight isn't different from the book either, and while I understand why you might feel thie way you do, this is not an absolute fact for every viewer or book reader and the rest of the episode was well-acted, well shot and overall moved the story along quite nicely (Sansa is already near the end of her AFFC material). Expectations are an individual thing and many readers that I know were very much enthralled with the way this scene was being handled and I think it's just sad that you weren't able to enjoy it. If anything this is rains of castamere level, as you indicated in your review and the fact that there was lots of good stuff in the episode and the fact that the fight was very close to the book with an excellent actor playng Oberyn in his final moments, the rating that you gave is not consistent with the analogy you are making in your own review because I seem to remember that the Rains of castamere was still an effective episode (good but not great I recall from you) on a lot of levels and this one was too. You just could not get past the choreography and that is a bit sad.

I don't know why Martin killed off Shae in the way he did, who was a character that was a device if there ever was one and killing her in this brutal way for no reason other than to give Tyrion some nuance felt gratuituous to me and borderline misogynistic because she was never allowed to be a 3-dimensional person in the books, even though Tyrion went to her in many of his chapters. I wished he had actually made her interesting so we could actually be allowed to root against Tyrion because many readers in that moment felt he was justified in killing both her and his father, which is awful.

[PatrickStormborn]

I don't know why Martin killed off Shae in the way he did, who was a character that was a device if there ever was one and killing her in this brutal way for no reason other than to give Tyrion some nuance felt gratuituous to me and borderline misogynistic because she was never allowed to be a 3-dimensional person in the books, even though Tyrion went to her in many of his chapters. I wished he had actually made her interesting so we could actually be allowed to root against Tyrion because many readers in that moment felt he was justified in killing both her and his father, which is awful.

We only ever saw Shae through Tyrion's perspective, and he saw her exactly how he wanted to see her. She was a three-dimensional person the whole time; that's why her betrayal is such a shock for him - he doesn't actually know anything about her.

[The hairy bear]

I wished he had actually made her interesting so we could actually be allowed to root against Tyrion because many readers in that moment felt he was justified in killing both her and his father, which is awful.

We are inside Tyrion's head when he kills Shae and his father. It would be bad writing if Tyrion did not feel that his own actions were justified.

[shae] was a character that was a device if there ever was one and killing her in this brutal way for no reason other than to give Tyrion some nuance felt gratuituous to me and borderline misogynistic because she was never allowed to be a 3-dimensional person in the books, even though Tyrion went to her in many of his chapters.

Of course Tyrion is misogynist. It's been an integral part of his character fro the begining, and it's been there in plain sight. He sees Shae not as a person but as a fulfillment of his fears and frustrations. He sees her as his property. That's why George would be doing a very bad service to the story and to Tyrion's charaterization if he wrote Shae as a 3 dimensional character: Tyrion never would see her that way.

But accusing GRRM of misogyny for writing Tyrion is like accusing him of being a murderous madman for writing Joffrey, or pro-slavery for writing the Mereneese. A complete nonsense.

[HairGrowsBack]

We are inside Tyrion's head when he kills Shae and his father. It would be bad writing if Tyrion did not feel that his own actions were justified.

Of course Tyrion is misogynist. It's been an integral part of his character fro the begining, and it's been there in plain sight. He sees Shae not as a person but as a fulfillment of his fears and frustrations. He sees her as his property. That's why George would be doing a very bad service to the story and to Tyrion's charaterization if he wrote Shae as a 3 dimensional character: Tyrion never would see her that way.

But accusing GRRM of misogyny for writing Tyrion is like accusing him of being a murderous madman for writing Joffrey, or pro-slavery for writing the Mereneese. A complete nonsense.

Great point.

I do understand the show's attempt to flesh out her character, because it can't work like the POV construction of the books did.

The problem is that a lot of people take the POV's words as gospel, hence the amount of hate Book!Shae gets.

It's much more disturbing, however, that TV Shae is experiencing the same thing.

[Miodrag]

The show didn't attempt to flesh out book-Shae's character. They made a completely different character, which shares only the name and the occupation with her book original. And, what's much worse, she's written very unrealistically and inconsistently. Like, she refuses diamonds that would make her a rich person for the rest of her days (which, truth be told, isn't ridiculous only in the universe in which whores give the money back if the customer managed to satisfy them). And she refuses the diamonds because she loves Tyrion. And she repeatedly insists she likes and cares about Sansa. But then, at the trial, she practically secures the death sentence for both Tyrion and Sansa! And on top of everything, Tyrion, when talking to Jaime afterwards, says Shae never loved him! Really, Tyrion? Never? Not even when she refused your diamonds? Not even when you had to insult her directly because otherwise she just didn't want to leave you?

As for the POV structure of the books, it really doesn't hide how nasty piece of work Shae truly is. When she testifies against Tyrion, not only that she secures a death sentence for him (let's say she was forced to do that, though it's more probable Cersei bribed her, just like she states in AFFC), but she also publicly mocks and humiliates him. Whether he was right to kill her or not is for the discussion, but Shae was a nasty and immoral person and she was written as such, regardless of the POV structure.

[HairGrowsBack]

^"Flesh out" was poor choice of word; and as I said, it was an attempt, and it failed because they took her charatcerization where the scenario needed it to be, which is plainly bad writing.

I completely disagree with your vision of Book Shae though.

1) Tyrion was going to be found guilty anyway. The idea that without her testimony, he wouldn't have been condemned is ridiculous.

2) Shae is a low-born whore, and does what she can to survive. Tyrion, her "employer", is screwed so she goes over to Tywin, (who probably threatened her anyway) who can provide for her. Shae never pretented to be anything else than what he paid her for.

Overall, in my book (and not that I don't feel sorry for Tyrion,) : lowborn prostitute's survival> wealthy, highborn man's feelings.