[Book Spoilers] Nitpick With Impunity

[TheDarkEye]

Am i the only one that thought Obryen's head blowing was ridicolus?

[raj34]

Am i the only one that thought Obryen's head blowing was ridicolus?

Have you ever seen the MetRx world's stongest man competition?

I can assure you, those dudes could easily make a skull explode with their bare hands.

[Tadco26]

Littlefinger slipped back from mastermind to "lucky that worked out for me". Then Sansa becomes evil queen of the night. Lots of people know Arya and Sansa are alive now, hard to believe someone with connections to Varys wouldn't.

The whole Jorah thing felt so rehearsed. It was like she already knew from Barristan what had happened, and was passing judgement on a random stranger who had betrayed her, rather than her closest confidant. Why not show her reaction when she first finds out? There was a lack of emotion. Of course they reduced Jorah's lust for Dany, and Jorah's strained relationship with Barristan. Not denying the pardon as a forgery was also questionable, as well as a copy of the pardon even existing.

Messendei and Greyworm romance seems like there are better things to spend screen time on, and someone turned into a eunuch at ~5 is pretty unlikely to have sexual feelings towards a woman.

The beetle speach was way too long for what, if anything, it added to the show. So much original dialogue is cut due to lack of time, to spend that much time on smashing beetles.

What are the Ironborn doing? Balon is still alive. If Balon had still been alive when Theon tried to retake Moat Cailin, then Victarion and his men would have still been there. They left Moat Cailin weakly defended because they all left to attend the King's Moot. So why are they so weak, sickly, and unsupported in the show with nothing to distract them? No mention of the bog devils either.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

Have you ever seen the MetRx world's stongest man competition?

I can assure you, those dudes could easily make a skull explode with their bare hands.

Yeah, i read it takes about 500 pounds of pressure to crack a skull, so it's not a ridiculous thing to imagine a guy of the Mountains size and strength doing. Not anymore than what he does in the book imo.

[Haus of Targaryen]

Do any of you watch Vikings? It's this show that, while not especially well written or anything, is very self aware. So it doesn't try too hard to be profound or anything. For that, I really enjoy it. Everything fits the tone, and it's really exciting to watch. But that's not why I bring it up. There was one scene in particular where the main character, Ragnar Lothbrok, and his vikings are raiding a town in England (which involves a lot of indiscriminate slaughter). At that point the show was trying to sell us the idea that Ragnar had some compassion. While he and his comrades were looking for treasure in a little house, Ragnar spies a little English child hiding in a corner. He looks back, looks at the child, and then puts a cloth on top of him and walks away. That's all the show needed to tell us.

But with the modern GoT Dawson's Creek style writing, of course that's not enough for us, the plebeian audience. They have to make sure that we know what's going on. Instead of simply having her close the curtain and walking away, allowing us to digest the incredibly obvious fact that she's acting from compassion rather than simply being too bored to deal with Gilly, they have to give us that little shot of her saying "shh" and putting her finger over her mouth, so that Ygritte and Gilly can clue us in on their little secret. Of course these writers have to go that extra mile for those of us in the audience whom they perceive to be absolutely fucking retarded and in need of every non-subtle explicit explanation of what's happening.

I know this is a small deal, but it's just one of the many stupid displays of zero subtlety in the GoT writing that made me want to throw a boot at the TV screen.

Omg you are in my effing head seriously! I was very, very upset that they made her do that. I thought the subtlety of them observing each other, understanding the situation and having Ygritte just close the curtain and walk away saying nothing would have much more powerful.

And its funny you say that D&D dumb things down and have to explain everything to the audience which in some cases I completely agree w/ you. But I was just today reading a review article from an unsullied viewer, by Vanity Fair no less, and the author not only found himself having to wiki Most Cailin and its strategic importance to the North (and therefore why Roose needed Ramsey to get this castle back) but he couldn't figure out why Cersei wants Tyrion dead so badly.

So either this guy is not paying attention and should not be writing review articles or Dan & Dave need to be better at picking their moments of subtlety vs the overtly obvious.

[Colonel Green]

This isn't a new nitpick, since the previous episode had the same thing, but whatever: the writers seem to have forgotten that Lysa and Robin lived in King's Landing until Jon Arryn died.

[Northernmonkey]

• Why was Missandei even bathing in a lake?

Is this the stupidest criticism of an episode ever? Why does anyone bathe in a lake? To get clean, obviously.

[Cas Stark]

Why did Black Sansa dye her hair after her identity has been revealed? I mean, I know the answer is because All Black Sansa is super dramatic....but it isn't very logical is it?

[Bridgeburners]

Omg you are in my effing head seriously! I was very, very upset that they made her do that. I thought the subtlety of them observing each other, understanding the situation and having Ygritte just close the curtain and walk away saying nothing would have much more powerful.

And its funny you say that D&D dumb things down and have to explain everything to the audience which in some cases I completely agree w/ you. But I was just today reading a review article from an unsullied viewer, by Vanity Fair no less, and the author not only found himself having to wiki Most Cailin and its strategic importance to the North (and therefore why Roose needed Ramsey to get this castle back) but he couldn't figure out why Cersei wants Tyrion dead so badly.

So either this guy is not paying attention and should not be writing review articles or Dan & Dave need to be better at picking their moments of subtlety vs the overtly obvious.

To be fair, though, we don't really find out why Cersei truly wants Tyrion dead so badly until well into aFFC with her flashback dream. Nor do we ever really realize how truly terrified of him she is until her PoV (until then we probably thought she was just being a bitch and faking her horror of him to gather sympathy from other lords).

[Bael's Bastard]

My impression is that a small circle now know she is Sansa, but she is still going to be put forth with a false identity to everyone else. I guess we'll see.

[Northernmonkey]

Why did Black Sansa dye her hair after her identity has been revealed? I mean, I know the answer is because All Black Sansa is super dramatic....but it isn't very logical is it?

I thought it was to make herself look more like Cat in order to manipulate LF.

[Cas Stark]

I thought it was to make herself look more like Cat in order to manipulate LF.

Er, Cat had red hair like Original Sansa, and also didn't dress in crazy feathers, so I'm thinking that is not the reason.

[Northernmonkey]

Er, Cat had red hair like Original Sansa, and also didn't dress in crazy feathers, so I'm thinking that is not the reason.

Maybe you're right but my first thought was that she looked like Cat.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

Why did Black Sansa dye her hair after her identity has been revealed? I mean, I know the answer is because All Black Sansa is super dramatic....but it isn't very logical is it?

Can't exactly be going around the vale looking like Sansa. someone would put two and two together. Plus she only revealed to the 3 people in the room during the trial. She'll still be Alayne to everyone who doesn't already know.

[Cas Stark]

Can't exactly be going around the vale looking like Sansa. someone would put two and two together. Plus she only revealed to the 3 people in the room during the trial. She'll still be Alayne to everyone who doesn't already know.

Why not? She already trapsed through the Vale and right up to the door with the red hair before she pulled her hood up with the long red hair sticking out, LOL. And then had the red hair while she was there...with all the servants able to see her red hair.

And then, one day, Black Sansa.

While it's true that the book stretched credulity a little that no ever checked out the "daughter" that showed up exactly when Sansa disappeared....at least they had the hair black before she gets to the Vale where no one but a handful of LF people sees her.

[Bridgeburners]

Okay I have something else to air my grievances over, although I'm not sure anything can out-douche Ygritte's abominable shushing.

Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to make Oberyn dance like a ballerina? Yes, all of his flips and double spin-jumps and spear-twirling is impressive, I'm sure it takes a lot of practice. It just doesn't do shit for a fight. I would have been okay with his initial display to impress the crowd if, afterwards, he went into regular fight mode. Instead, he kept the ballerina act throughout the whole fight. That is not a way to get the audience invested in a fight at all. When you suspend reality to that degree, we can no longer really make sense of what the character's struggle is any more. Gregor just knocked Oberyn to the ground? Should we be worried about this potential positional shift in advantage? In a real fight, yes, but who know if Oberyn can fly into a fancy double spin jump from the ground from Gregor's next sword swing? Whoops, there he goes.

I loved the way it was described in the books. Oberyn went through great lengths to keep the distance between them to use the advantage of his superior ranged spear (unlike in the show where he went into swinging distance, like, 20 times). He keeps his ground and avoids the parries with careful side-steps. It's described so brilliantly, that every moment there's tension, and the way he's described to move at just the right time, meanwhile giving us the impression of what could have happened if he didn't, or how delicate his motion is. Well in the show, where he's a fucking flying fairy, we have absolutely no notion of the impending danger or tension.

[Chebyshov]

^It's based on the Wushu fighting style, so it certainly can be pragmatic.

[Vesemir]

^It's based on the Wushu fighting style, so it certainly can be pragmatic.

I imagine it would be very pragmatic against unarmored/lighty armored opponents, like chinese fighters for example.

But a 7 feet guy with a plate armor on? No freaking way.

[Milcov]

Honestly this show is terrible, I just love the source material too much. I love Umberto Eco's novels but my only gripe with them is that sometimes I feel like Eco writes them purely for himself because the level of knowledge to get most of his writing is so ludicrous that you feel only he really gets his books, this show is the opposite. I feel like the writers assume I'm a five year old with severe memory loss from the past 4 years. The writing and directing are pathetic, the production and set design is mind-blowing though. Specific gripes for this week:

- Oberyn's fight, it was like Darth Maul. Stupid, it looks flashy but it's so absurd that you couldn't take it seriously as a fight.

- Beetles. Jesus Christ, were they letting their school teachers know that they read Wittgenstein, or are they just hack writers. Who knows.

- Darth Sansa. The hair has come at a completely illogical time, but what was with the feathers and necklace.

- Arya. She's a terrible actor and the writing is terrible. 3edgy5me crap. We're back to "Nothing is nothing." and "Death is my God."

- The Mountain. 3rd time was not lucky, the guy can't deliver a simple line. "I smashed her head. In like this." rather than "I smashed her head in. Like this."

- Everyone is stupid. Sandor declaring himself and Arya, no one doing anything about it. Yohn Royce just accepting that since Sansa is who she says that LF should remain Lord Protector

I could go on and on. The show just can't be subtle, or have any good original dialogue.

[Kyrion]

I have my fair share of criticisms, but that was ridiculous.

Ragnar put the blanket over the child rather than leave the child.

He took an action.

Ygritte did a shh motion rather than just leave, doing an action.

Both did a single action...wtf?

Anyways...surprised noone has said Moat Cailin. No mention of Victarion or anything, and why the hell did they change the scene that was so easy to do? All you needed to do was do it exactly like it was in the books, there was no more characters to be casted or anything, have it so that Reek actually does stuff besides just present the letter. Why this change? Again, I think they wanted the stupid visual of the guys head, and they think they know better than George, thats just ridiculous.

The Arya laughing.....this was just terrible. Why? Now the people at the Bloody gate know the Hound, a wanted man mind you, has Arya Stark? Knowing D&D they will just show the hound collapse somewhere back in the riverlands this last episode, skipping over they part of the people tellng the Lords of the Vale that they HAVE ARYA STARK!!! This was stupid.

Sansa showing her power over littlefinger way too early, in AFFC this went over many peoples heads and even though I made a topic about how Sansa will use Littlefingers attraction towards her over her when he asked for his kiss at the end, it was at the end of AFFC....this seems like Sansa is advancing way too fast with no time to reflect or anything. Also we get the hair dying AFTER going to the Vale rather than before wth? D&D think they know better than the writer.....ugh and its made to make Sansa look even more like Catelyn, so we assume Sansa is exerting even more power over Littlefinger....way too fast for Sansa's development. Shes not a intrigue master yet D&D -_-.