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[BOOK SPOILERS] Nitpick Without Repercussion


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Jeyne didn't need much personality, as Robb basically just had sex with her and felt he had to marry her. Of course he's written shallow characters. Not every character can or should be fleshed out. We see what happens when minor characters have pages dedicated to them (AFfC, anyone?).

ETA: they only added more of a personality to Talisa because they CLEARLY thought the whole "forbidden romance between two characters with zero chemistry" angle was better. You can't really sell that with the amount of characterization Jeyne gets. But again, they serve two different purposes so it makes sense.

He has over 2000 characters that are in the story or mentioned in the story. A majority of them are going to have to be shallow. The show can't afford to do that, though, so that's why I didn't mind the love story between Robb and Talisa.

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^ It's sad that they fanfictioned* Talisa for passionate scenes, while later rape-alize Jaime/Cersei and don't show Dany/Daario at all...



*nope, the show's own scenes are not fanfiction, except when they're so bad that they actually could be.


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The way they've portrayed Ser Alliser in the show compared to the books, I think they might have gotten away with Jon asking him why he hates him when they had their honest conversation at the top of the wall, with impending death coming their way. Would have been interesting to me. Might have been cool to have Ser tell him he treats them all generally the same as shit, but Jon worse because he actually expects the most out of him as one of the few with the blood, brains, and temperament to be a leader. Another type of "forging", in other words. Would that be out of character and wreck the whole dynamic?

Also, I wonder if they'll forgo the whole Slynt's disobeying thing and use his cowardice as the excuse to have Jon give him the Stark justice bit. Just realized that with Jon's justice, all the grown Starks, and Theon, from Ned down, will have administered one each.

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Quite honestly, I don't think someone with Jeyne Westerlings temperment/character would have had any screen presence. I found her to be a wallflower in the books by the description her, and we already had a 'weak' character in Sansa. Feisty Talisa worked well with Robb, and Oona Chaplin has great acting lineage/cred.

Just my take on the whole thing.

Eta: Concerning the Talisa Maegyr family ties thing (Essos nobility) ... wasn't Maggy (as in Maggy the Frog) a shortened form of Maegyr? I could be wrong, but that stood out for me when she chatted about her childhood for some reason.

Just checked the wiki, and it says that Maggy is likely a bastardized version of Maegi. :P

More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

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The way they've portrayed Ser Alliser in the show compared to the books, I think they might have gotten away with Jon asking him why he hates him when they had their honest conversation at the top of the wall, with impending death coming their way. Would have been interesting to me. Might have been cool to have Ser tell him he treats them all generally the same as shit, but Jon worse because he actually expects the most out of him as one of the few with the blood, brains, and temperament to be a leader. Another type of "forging", in other words. Would that be out of character and wreck the whole dynamic?

Also, I wonder if they'll forgo the whole Slynt's disobeying thing and use his cowardice as the excuse to have Jon give him the Stark justice bit. Just realized that with Jon's justice, all the grown Starks, and Theon, from Ned down, will have administered one each.

He also hates Jon because he's "Ned's son"

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He also hates Jon because he's "Ned's son"

Yeah, that's true isn't it? Even though it was Tywin who gave him the wall or death choice, it makes sense he'd hate anyone on Roberts side of the rebellion. Thanks for reminding me.

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^ It's sad that they fanfictioned* Talisa for passionate scenes, while later rape-alize Jaime/Cersei and don't show Dany/Daario at all...

*nope, the show's own scenes are not fanfiction, except when they're so bad that they actually could be.

:lol:

The way they've portrayed Ser Alliser in the show compared to the books, I think they might have gotten away with Jon asking him why he hates him when they had their honest conversation at the top of the wall, with impending death coming their way. Would have been interesting to me. Might have been cool to have Ser tell him he treats them all generally the same as shit, but Jon worse because he actually expects the most out of him as one of the few with the blood, brains, and temperament to be a leader. Another type of "forging", in other words. Would that be out of character and wreck the whole dynamic?

Also, I wonder if they'll forgo the whole Slynt's disobeying thing and use his cowardice as the excuse to have Jon give him the Stark justice bit. Just realized that with Jon's justice, all the grown Starks, and Theon, from Ned down, will have administered one each.

I hadn't even considered Slynt's demise being because of cowardice. Huh.

Yep, Robb and Jon do what they can to carry on Ned's justice!

More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

Reading this it just hit me. Not only did they kill her, but little Ned too!

That deserves 2 Faceless Men!

Damn Freys.

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Jeyne didn't need much personality, as Robb basically just had sex with her and felt he had to marry her. Of course he's written shallow characters. Not every character can or should be fleshed out. We see what happens when minor characters have pages dedicated to them (AFfC, anyone?).

ETA: they only added more of a personality to Talisa because they CLEARLY thought the whole "forbidden romance between two characters with zero chemistry" angle was better. You can't really sell that with the amount of characterization Jeyne gets. But again, they serve two different purposes so it makes sense.

The problem isn't that they gave Talisa "more personality" than Jeyne, it's that they made a "forbidden romance" book Robb wouldn't touch with Walder Frey's dick. The book description is pretty weak (mainly since we don't see it on-page, we get the Robb-talking-to-his-mother-censored version), but basically, Robb sleeps with Jeyne when he's wounded (i.e., closer to death than he's ever been) and he hears that his two true brothers are dead -- his sisters are Lannister captives, leaving him with a bastard brother who can't inherit and some cousins in the Vale he's never met (and notice that, in the books, he legitimizes Jon even though he's hoping to father children with Jeyne specifically because he doesn't want the unknown cousins as his heirs). And then he marries her, because if he doesn't, even if he did get her with child, that child couldn't inherit any more than Jon could. Technically, he could legitimize any bastard, but he'd have to live long enough for the child to be born, and that would still piss off the Freys.

Show Robb just falls in "twu wuv" and says "Fuck it" to his given word.

The show fucked Robb harder than Jeyne did in the books.

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Yeah, that's true isn't it? Even though it was Tywin who gave him the wall or death choice, it makes sense he'd hate anyone on Roberts side of the rebellion. Thanks for reminding me.

It also makes it clear why Ser Alliser is so happy when Ned gets declared to be a traitor and he gets to call Jon a "traitor's bastard." Alliser got sent to the Wall for defending the establishment against rebels, so when one of the rebels gets accused of betraying one of his fellow rebels, and Alliser has that accused traitor's son under his command...yeah, LC Mormont should probably have taken stronger precautions than just telling *Jon* not to do something stupid.

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The problem isn't that they gave Talisa "more personality" than Jeyne, it's that they made a "forbidden romance" book Robb wouldn't touch with Walder Frey's dick. The book description is pretty weak (mainly since we don't see it on-page, we get the Robb-talking-to-his-mother-censored version), but basically, Robb sleeps with Jeyne when he's wounded (i.e., closer to death than he's ever been) and he hears that his two true brothers are dead -- his sisters are Lannister captives, leaving him with a bastard brother who can't inherit and some cousins in the Vale he's never met (and notice that, in the books, he legitimizes Jon even though he's hoping to father children with Jeyne specifically because he doesn't want the unknown cousins as his heirs). And then he marries her, because if he doesn't, even if he did get her with child, that child couldn't inherit any more than Jon could. Technically, he could legitimize any bastard, but he'd have to live long enough for the child to be born, and that would still piss off the Freys.

Show Robb just falls in "twu wuv" and says "Fuck it" to his given word.

The show fucked Robb harder than Jeyne did in the books.

He has over 2000 characters that are in the story or mentioned in the story. A majority of them are going to have to be shallow. The show can't afford to do that, though, so that's why I didn't mind the love story between Robb and Talisa.

Both of you appear to have responded as if I was arguing with you...? We are saying the same things... Lol Idonotunderstand

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Both of you appear to have responded as if I was arguing with you...? We are saying the same things... Lol Idonotunderstand

*ahem*

NOONEUNDERSTAAANDS

Oh. Waitaminit. You're not AngryGoTFan.

Sorry. :P

:lol:

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Both of you appear to have responded as if I was arguing with you...? We are saying the same things... Lol Idonotunderstand

No, I was agreeing with you ^^ Just elaborating my answer.

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More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

She's not from Volantis, she's from 21st Century Feminism Island, coming to Westeros to make fun of their barbaric culture and show them that women can choose too.

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I don't like Talisa because she wasn't in the books. However, there is another problem that bothers me. This is also true for the show's version of Xaro Xhoan Daxos.


Both characters have backstories that seem to me more interesting than the characters themselves. I was more interested how these two ended up where they were


far a way from their home rather than what they were doing in the show.


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The way they've portrayed Ser Alliser in the show compared to the books, I think they might have gotten away with Jon asking him why he hates him when they had their honest conversation at the top of the wall, with impending death coming their way. Would have been interesting to me. Might have been cool to have Ser tell him he treats them all generally the same as shit, but Jon worse because he actually expects the most out of him as one of the few with the blood, brains, and temperament to be a leader. Another type of "forging", in other words. Would that be out of character and wreck the whole dynamic?

That would be better and more in line with the sympathetic Alliser they created in season one. But they seem to be intent on making Alliser into their version of Marsh, so they couldn't have him mentoring Jon in any way.

Also, I wonder if they'll forgo the whole Slynt's disobeying thing and use his cowardice as the excuse to have Jon give him the Stark justice bit. Just realized that with Jon's justice, all the grown Starks, and Theon, from Ned down, will have administered one each.

I think disobeying will still be the reason for the execution. They just made him a coward to make him even more despicable and to be able to exclude him from the LC election (no need for a long scene to be wasted on that now). I think that was a smart move to do really, although I think it would have been better if they had just implied his cowardice instead of letting him hide with Gilly (which didn't feel very Slynt to me). That way they could eliminate yet another pointless Gilly scene as an added bonus.

More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

If they don't tie the Talisa storyline to Dany and Tyrion's storyline, I'll be fucking pissed. They should just merge Talisa's (grand)mother with the widow of the waterfront. That's the only way they can rectify part of that Talisa mess.

The problem isn't that they gave Talisa "more personality" than Jeyne, it's that they made a "forbidden romance" book Robb wouldn't touch with Walder Frey's dick. The book description is pretty weak (mainly since we don't see it on-page, we get the Robb-talking-to-his-mother-censored version), but basically, Robb sleeps with Jeyne when he's wounded (i.e., closer to death than he's ever been) and he hears that his two true brothers are dead -- his sisters are Lannister captives, leaving him with a bastard brother who can't inherit and some cousins in the Vale he's never met (and notice that, in the books, he legitimizes Jon even though he's hoping to father children with Jeyne specifically because he doesn't want the unknown cousins as his heirs). And then he marries her, because if he doesn't, even if he did get her with child, that child couldn't inherit any more than Jon could. Technically, he could legitimize any bastard, but he'd have to live long enough for the child to be born, and that would still piss off the Freys.

Show Robb just falls in "twu wuv" and says "Fuck it" to his given word.

The show fucked Robb harder than Jeyne did in the books.

Agreed. Reading your post a much more interesting possibility occurse to me. If they let Robb take a wound and have Talissa take care of him, they could make Talissa into a femme fatale/golddigger who wants to be Queen. That's a kind of character we haven't really seen in the show, nor in the books (well, Daario doesn't count because he's ridiculous). They could keep the Volantis angle (if they bring that back in Tyrion's storyline), without the gaping plotholes and the sappy backstory she had on the show (really, no guards at all? And of course you're against slavery). It would probably be cheaper to, since they wouldn't need to shoot on location (just a room and a wounded Robb).

EDIT: And just think of what they could do in season 3 with the Cat and Talissa scenes. Cat wouldn't look as dumb as she did in the show and they could have some real interesting convo's.

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Quite honestly, I don't think someone with Jeyne Westerlings temperment/character would have had any screen presence. I found her to be a wallflower in the books by the description her, and we already had a 'weak' character in Sansa. Feisty Talisa worked well with Robb, and Oona Chaplin has great acting lineage/cred.

Just my take on the whole thing.

Eta: Concerning the Talisa Maegyr family ties thing (Essos nobility) ... wasn't Maggy (as in Maggy the Frog) a shortened form of Maegyr? I could be wrong, but that stood out for me when she chatted about her childhood for some reason.

Just checked the wiki, and it says that Maggy is likely a bastardized version of Maegi. :P

They could easily have fleshed Jeyne out to create a likeable character who was sweet and meek. Not every female character needs to be a feisty, backtalking badass you know. In fact it's one of my big complaints about the show. D+D must have an obsession with badass women. They change quieter female characters into more "feisty" versions, give more screen time to the already badass women, and if they can't change a female character to be more in line with what they like they just ignore them.

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More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

Another set of characters to follow...I doubt the show story will follow thru on that one.

But it's a neat idea to have it sets up the odd scenario that Volantis would move against Westeros instead of Meereen.

Has anyone noted that her name was Talisa Maegyr?

One of the current Triarchs is Malaquo Maegyr , an uncle, her father, a relative.... until you brought it , had never noticed that before.

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More importantly, shouldn't her family in Volantis, presumably with some power as they are noble, be fucking pissed that she was killed with her unborn child? Is this a show Chekov's gun or another error?

Just another of the many loose ends. There is no way they're going to introduce an entire made up Volantis sub plot about "Talisa". All of their made up sub plots end where the book plots end. So, unless Volantis for some reason ends up involved in helping the Northern lords in the books, which seems impossible, then I'd say "no"

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