[Book Spoilers] An Analysis of Why the Sand Snakes' Introduction Fell Short

[Daenerys_Is_Coming]

I guess I missed this the first time around, but I just re-watched the episode and did they digitally blur the nipples on Obara's armor???? In the pre-season production stills we saw of her armor, there were two hard pointy nips gracing her breast plate. Did Kraznys mo Nakloz cut them off? :drunk:

[the silver queen]

I don't believe the Sand Snakes were ever supposed to have this much focus on them, honestly. In the book, we meet them through Doran, who is our main character in Dorne. Doran and Arianne are fully fleshed out characters with complex motivations - while the Sand Snakes are very much more one-dimensional characters that serve to create trouble for Doran (and possibly be used by him in future plans), but they certainly aren't fleshed out enough to hold our attention like they're attempting to do in the show. Even worse, what little distinctive features GRRM gave them (for us to be able to differentiate between them) is completely gone and they are just clones of each other. Even a fourth clone was thrown in, in the face of Ellaria. So - four angry women who want revenge with nothing to tell them apart. The show wants us to love these badasses as much as we loved Oberyn, I think that seems clear to me. Everyone loved the badass Oberyn, so since he died, we need to cater to that love of badasses! Problem is, Oberyn has a distinctive personality and understandable motives - these women do not.

I get the impression that D&D don't realize that Doran should be the main focus, the main player, in Dorne - with Sand Snakes being secondary. The actor that plays Doran seems intriguing to me, but we got such a small introduction to him, and he was just bulled right over with Ellaria and she seemed to take more of the screen-time than him in that scene. That very cool introduction we got of Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister etc - they should have worked to make a very good intro for Doran in my opinion - not the SS. We should have learned of them through Doran, similar to the books. I'm not a book purist, but I believe that would have been the best way to do it, since the SS are not strong enough to be main characters on their own. That's what was so plain to me in that horrible intro scene.

[Edd Tollett's One Vote]

I don't believe the Sand Snakes were ever supposed to have this much focus on them, honestly. In the book, we meet them through Doran, who is our main character in Dorne. Doran and Arianne are fully fleshed out characters with complex motivations - while the Sand Snakes are very much more one-dimensional characters that serve to create trouble for Doran (and possibly be used by him in future plans), but they certainly aren't fleshed out enough to hold our attention like they're attempting to do in the show. Even worse, what little distinctive features GRRM gave them (for us to be able to differentiate between them) is completely gone and they are just clones of each other. Even a fourth clone was thrown in, in the face of Ellaria. So - four angry women who want revenge with nothing to tell them apart. The show wants us to love these badasses as much as we loved Oberyn, I think that seems clear to me. Everyone loved the badass Oberyn, so since he died, we need to cater to that love of badasses! Problem is, Oberyn has a distinctive personality and understandable motives - these women do not.

I get the impression that D&D don't realize that Doran should be the main focus, the main player, in Dorne - with Sand Snakes being secondary. The actor that plays Doran seems intriguing to me, but we got such a small introduction to him, and he was just bulled right over with Ellaria and she seemed to take more of the screen-time than him in that scene. That very cool introduction we got of Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister etc - they should have worked to make a very good intro for Doran in my opinion - not the SS. We should have learned of them through Doran, similar to the books. I'm not a book purist, but I believe that would have been the best way to do it, since the SS are not strong enough to be main characters on their own. That's what was so plain to me in that horrible intro scene.

I totally agree with the first bit.

Unfortunately, for the second, while I think you're right based on the books, I'm nervous that the reason D&D have done this is because the Sand Snakes do become major players later on. At this point, I have to assume they have some important information on what the Sand Snakes are going to be doing in WoW/ADoS.

If not, then I have no idea why they would have given them so much emphasis.

[Mingolla]

I get the impression that D&D don't realize that Doran should be the main focus, the main player, in Dorne - with Sand Snakes being secondary. The actor that plays Doran seems intriguing to me, but we got such a small introduction to him, and he was just bulled right over with Ellaria and she seemed to take more of the screen-time than him in that scene. That very cool introduction we got of Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister etc - they should have worked to make a very good intro for Doran in my opinion - not the SS. We should have learned of them through Doran, similar to the books. I'm not a book purist, but I believe that would have been the best way to do it, since the SS are not strong enough to be main characters on their own. That's what was so plain to me in that horrible intro scene.

They are still secondary characters on the show. That is not the problem. Oposite is the problem, they are less developed then secondary characters should be. Problem is that the main Dornish character is vengefull Ellaria instead of Doran so far. There is no conflict between SS and Ellaria, so their introduction scene sucked. It would work if they had their first scene with Doran, like in the books, one good long scene that would flesh out their personalities and Doran character more. And since Arianne is cut, there is even more reason to have them interact with him to keep a family conflict, that is the core of Dornish storyline intact.

[Good Guy Garlan]

I don't believe the Sand Snakes were ever supposed to have this much focus on them, honestly. In the book, we meet them through Doran, who is our main character in Dorne. Doran and Arianne are fully fleshed out characters with complex motivations - while the Sand Snakes are very much more one-dimensional characters that serve to create trouble for Doran (and possibly be used by him in future plans), but they certainly aren't fleshed out enough to hold our attention like they're attempting to do in the show. Even worse, what little distinctive features GRRM gave them (for us to be able to differentiate between them) is completely gone and they are just clones of each other. Even a fourth clone was thrown in, in the face of Ellaria. So - four angry women who want revenge with nothing to tell them apart. The show wants us to love these badasses as much as we loved Oberyn, I think that seems clear to me. Everyone loved the badass Oberyn, so since he died, we need to cater to that love of badasses! Problem is, Oberyn has a distinctive personality and understandable motives - these women do not.

I get the impression that D&D don't realize that Doran should be the main focus, the main player, in Dorne - with Sand Snakes being secondary. The actor that plays Doran seems intriguing to me, but we got such a small introduction to him, and he was just bulled right over with Ellaria and she seemed to take more of the screen-time than him in that scene. That very cool introduction we got of Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister etc - they should have worked to make a very good intro for Doran in my opinion - not the SS. We should have learned of them through Doran, similar to the books. I'm not a book purist, but I believe that would have been the best way to do it, since the SS are not strong enough to be main characters on their own. That's what was so plain to me in that horrible intro scene.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. If you think about it, no storyline has only evil, one-dimensional assholes. Even the Boltons' storyline has Reek, Jeyne, Dustin, even Sansa, in the show. The Ironborn have people like Asha, Tris, the Reader, to counterbalance the sheer villains like Euron. Hell, even the clusterfuck that is Slaver's Bay has semi-ambiguous characters like Hizdahr, the Shavepate, Brown Ben, etc.

But show!Dorne only has Lady Macbeth and the Sand Snakes, so far. And we're four episodes in already. And Doran is a non-entity, so he doesn't count. Ditto Trystane and Isolde, er, I mean, Myrcella, who haven't even show up yet.

Therefore, the only characters we've seen in Dorne so far are vicious assholes no one can possibly root for. And that's what you get for removing Arianne.

[Jp Lannister (nee Stark)]

Ellaria just asked a yes or no question. Obara could have just nodded her head and the scene could have concluded. Her monologue had nothing to do with the question at hand. Do you support my position to raise hell? When I was a little girl.....what?! That is not what I asked you and it is not salient to the question. If they wanted to show that Obara was hard-headed and didn't listen, then mission accomplished.

[Denam_Pavel]

I totally agree with the first bit.

Unfortunately, for the second, while I think you're right based on the books, I'm nervous that the reason D&D have done this is because the Sand Snakes do become major players later on. At this point, I have to assume they have some important information on what the Sand Snakes are going to be doing in WoW/ADoS.

If not, then I have no idea why they would have given them so much emphasis.

I think it's a bit much to say they will be "major players", but they are going to KL. For D&D that's probably enough, they lean on that location to freaking hard.

[jarl the climber]

yeah, this scene was the only one I didn't like this week.

Obara's exposition monologue was overly long and clunky.

I think Bronn's role in this season is to die at the hands of the Sand Snakes and thus prove they are worthy warriors killing the mighty Bronn.

I hope this isn't true and Bronn survives but I doubt it.

I'm not sure. Bronn is loyal to gold not the Lannisters and I think Jaimies bullshit is starting to wear thin with him. I think Bronn could end up turning his back on the Lannisters and Jaimie in particular. I don't know if bribing Bronn is really in the arsenal but Bronn would at least listen to a reasonable offer.

[Red Tiger]

What im wondering is this:

D&D combined all of Davos' kids into 1 cause of the change of medium, why didn't they just combine all the Sand Snakes into 1? You could have had one interesting new character, rather than 3 charicatures.

[The Dragon has three heads]

Excellent analysis. I think the main problem is Ellaria, she should not be the main Dornish character, especially since she was rewritten as Darkstar. In the books its clearly Arianne and Doran. Because of that she was one who confronted Doran instead of Sand Snakes and all Dornish characters including Doran and Ellaria suffered. Sand Snakes were robbed of their introduction scene, Ellaria character was changed 180 degrees and Doran got only short scene instead of very touching intro where he is mourning his brother´s death and have to suffer endless stream of insults from his upset nieces.

So they had to create new scene for SS introduction and it was done very badly. The concept of it was all wrong with Ellaria asking a pointless question, the answer was obvious and she already told Doran that SS are with her. Obara´s monoloque was from the books, but completely missplaced. Cut from the original audition scene created a situation that Tyene was not even named and Nym was just named, but got even less characterization then Tyene. Any relationship between sisters was completely missing.

Director also is to blame. If something from the script did not worked, he should contact D+D and adjust scene accordingly instead of cutting big part of the introduction scene. For example in Blackwater when Sansa singing to Hound did not worked, Neil Marshall did not cut whole scene in half, he changed it so it could work without Sansa singing and it worked just fine.

Ellaria is not the problem.

She's the only one who had any decent acting chops.

[WinterisAlwaysComing]

My guess is the "porn" sounding background noises during this scene were supposed to be the ship captain struggling again his gag.

[Mingolla]

Ellaria is not the problem.

She's the only one who had any decent acting chops.

Show Ellaria is the problem. Acting chops have nothing to do with it. Sean Bean have better acting chops then Kit Harington, but that does not mean Ned should survive season 1 and be send to The Wall and overshadow Jon there. If they written her differently (more Arianne then Darkstar), her character would be better, the actress would have better character to play, everyone would be happy.

Even if we take a basic premise that the plot is to kill Myrcella instead of Qeenmaker and that Ellaria is the ringleader, there is a room for more subtlety and characterization.

What the show did was:

Ellaria: "Lets chop Myrcella into pieces and start the war, do you agree with me?" (as if the answer isnt obvious)

Tyene and Nym: "Yes"

Obara: out of the place monoloque and basically "yes"

- result: Obara introduced badly, Nym and Tyene not at all, SS are just Ellaria´s minions, Ellaria is unsympathetic

What the show could do:

Ellaria: "Lets kidnap Myrcella and stage her murder to provoke the war, but do not kill her for real, Oberyn would not want it"

Obara: "Lets just kill her, that is the best way how to start the war, eye for eye"

Nym: "Wait a moment, she is older then Tommen, we could crown her, that would also provoke the war, but our hands would be clean"

Tyene: "Nah, we will do what my mother say and what Oberyn would wanted" (while she plan to murder her through poisoning later)

-result: all characters would be introduced as unique persons, they would also look way more sympathetic (expect Obara)

[Cashless Society]

What im wondering is this:

D&D combined all of Davos' kids into 1 cause of the change of medium, why didn't they just combine all the Sand Snakes into 1? You could have had one interesting new character, rather than 3 charicatures.

I think it has to do with the "fucking shit up in TWOW" that Martin has been saying.

[Johnsmith]

Did any of them look like the type of beautifully exotic women to swoon kingdoms.

They mostly had crewcuts looking like some sort kind of prison guard or witch the type that eats little children who are fairer than them all

Outside of the obvious fact that scorpions are not snakes

[Red Tiger]

Did any of them look like the type of beautifully exotic women to swoon kingdoms.

They mostly had crewcuts looking like some sort kind of prison guard or witch the type that eats little children who are fairer than them all

Outside of the obvious fact that scorpions are not snakes

http://images.designntrend.com/data/images/full/47560/2-jpg.jpg?w=780

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/polls/1401000/1401300_1406330905179_full.jpg

http://photos.vanityfair.com/2014/10/19/54441a18b761829379ff7a51_Nymeria-Sand-Game-Of-Thrones-Jessica-Henwick-620x350.png

Yeah, this girl could get it, IMO.

[Arkash]

Agree, Jessica Henwick is gorgeous.

And Nym is still the one that intrigues me most.

I'm sure we'll get some more individual scenes with each of the Sand Snakes to round them up more. Probably a Tyene / Ellaria, but what I really hope for is a Nym / Doran where Nym gets the opportunity to prove she's the most sophisticated and cold-headed of the lot.

[Johnsmith]

http://images.designntrend.com/data/images/full/47560/2-jpg.jpg?w=780

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/polls/1401000/1401300_1406330905179_full.jpg

http://photos.vanityfair.com/2014/10/19/54441a18b761829379ff7a51_Nymeria-Sand-Game-Of-Thrones-Jessica-Henwick-620x350.png

Yeah, this girl could get it, IMO.

One of a kind woot about the other 3? Maybe she was newly recruited into the same sister look alike brigade of the family of scorpions, children eaters, who haven't got any armies, because they foxfour girlpower it quite supernaturally considering where Oberyn liked to sleep.

My description is valid a general comparison into the final product shown not what she doesn't look like on the show.

Whatever making you disagree.

I wanted to see Dorne in exotic beauty which distinguished the Targaryens to intermingle outside of tradition within splendour. I had imagined Aladdin princesses diversely different from each other, corny I know. Not miss scary scarier scariest with the rest of her sisterhood looking like carbon copies of one another.

[WinterisAlwaysComing]

When I was a boy, my father took me to see the over-hyped Sand Snake scene. I did not know thees man, yet he inseested I learn how to do a horreeble "Latin" accent while making a drama school speech in Aladdin curly-toe shoes.

My mother cried and said, "Fast forward! Fast forward!" I looked at my mother's tears and at the remote...

I fast forwarded that sheet because God eet was awful.

I made my decision long ago. Only good scenes with good actors.

[Good Guy Garlan]

When I was a boy, my father took me to see the over-hyped Sand Snake scene. I did not know thees man, yet he inseested I learn how to do a horreeble "Latin" accent while making a drama school speech in Aladdin curly-toe shoes.

My mother cried and said, "Fast forward! Fast forward!" I looked at my mother's tears and at the remote...

I fast forwarded that sheet because God eet was awful.

I made my decision long ago. Only good scenes with good actors.

I'm putting this up on my bedroom wall somehow

[aFeastForDragons]

Anyone looked at the GOT Facebook page? There are a LOT of angry comments about this scene.