[Book Spoilers] Rant and Rave without Repercussion II

[Cas Stark]

I have found the music underwhelming this year also, which considering how good RD is, is hard to believe.

I agree, Penny Dreadful is better than this season of GOT, more atmospheric, better writing, better direction.

Why did the slavers decide not to sell Tyrion for his cock? Am I crazy, or was he just right there at the slave market and the slaver didn't even pay a premium for him? I guess I'm not supposed to remember that.

The episodes are getting better, but so much is wrong and the season started so badly, that it isn't going to matter much....

Also, I get that Emelia doesn't want to be naked anymore, but her keeping the cover all the way up to her chin when she's chatting with her lover seems a little silly....especially since the audience has already seen her breasts.

[kissdbyfire]

As a Disney fangirl I'm feeling so attacked right now. :crying:

Sorry! Maybe that was not a good example...

LOL, I'm not disagreeing with that. :P I love that movie. But the soundtrack in GoT is just too heavy-handed.

Yeah his acting is really saving his scenes. Lena was good too, but I think that's because his performance made her up her game. (I like her and think she's a great actress, but for me she's been delivering the same performance on and off since season 3.)

I couldn't agree more. He is absolutely fantastic, and I thought Lena's performance was better in that scene. I do like her too, but as with many other actors (Dinklage, NCW) this year, I feel her performances have been a bit lazy.

[kissdbyfire]

I've been discussing it elsewhere. but I think Shireen is doomed. The Show is making it very plain that by enlisting Melisandre, Stannis has made a deal with the devil.

I'm clinging to the hope that an attempt to sacrifice Shireen will be made, but it will be thwarted in the nick of time, possibly by Davos.

[Chebyshov]

Well, the pretenses as to why Tyrion was brought to Meereen are incredibly flimsy - last week he escaped his throat getting cut for no sound reason ("Cock merchant"), this week he joins the fighting pit crew even though he is clearly no fighter. He joins Dany solely by the power of Plotward zo Forward, the Meereenese god of rushed story development.

Well you saw their genius quote on it, right?

Benioff: Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.

From (x)

[kissdbyfire]

Well you saw their genius quote on it, right?

Benioff: Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.

From (x)

Oh well, that explains a lot, doesn't it? And truly, what argument can one use against that? :bang:

[PatrickStormborn]

I have found the music underwhelming this year also, which considering how good RD is, is hard to believe.

I agree, Penny Dreadful is better than this season of GOT, more atmospheric, better writing, better direction.

Why did the slavers decide not to sell Tyrion for his cock? Am I crazy, or was he just right there at the slave market and the slaver didn't even pay a premium for him? I guess I'm not supposed to remember that.

The episodes are getting better, but so much is wrong and the season started so badly, that it isn't going to matter much....

Also, I get that Emelia doesn't want to be naked anymore, but her keeping the cover all the way up to her chin when she's chatting with her lover seems a little silly....especially since the audience has already seen her breasts.

On the nudity issue - didn't all the main cast members renegotiate their contracts this year, signing on for seasons 6 and 7? Because if that's true, I wouldn't be surprised if all the main cast now have a no nudity clause.

I know everyone likes to think that the rumour of the actress who refused to get naked was Emilia Clarke, but it was most likely Natalie Dormer considering that Emilia had a nude scene in season 3.

As much as I'm happy for the cast not having to go through any awful D&D sex/nudity scenes anymore, I think it'll just make the show's quality even worse with more unnecessary nude scenes and sexposition (like Tyene/Bronn) because they can't have nudity in scenes that actually advance the plot.

Well you saw their genius quote on it, right?

Benioff: Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.

From (x)

LOL oh my god, they're like a parody of themselves.

[Mindwalker]

Yes, the music, which had always been good no matter how bad the writing was, is really worse this season.

In the first itineration of this thread, JonCon wrote:

Just something to rant I thought about while working...

Yes, I've complained that they have whitewashed Tyrion's actions. But they have also did the same with Jon. Look, I know Jon is probably one of the most excused characters here in the board. The kid could go and torch King's Landing and people would find a way to say "but... he did it with a reason, look..." while Dany is a completely and total crazy monster who eats babies and hangs around with communists. We know Jon's intentions to save Aemon and the babies, but that, indirectly, leaded to the dead of Maester Aemon. That's something Sam later ponders about. And also, he resents that Jon did what he did to him and Gilly (whose son he kept while she had to travel with Mance's baby).

And, as I said to a friend, he died without saying anything important, which is btw, about Dany, whether he's right or not, right? (I can be wrong, I don't watchi this but I read and hear comments). So... Tyrion whitewashed. Jon whitewashed... but Dany keeps all the mistakes and the denial of her potential as a messianic figure that she does have in the books despite many local boarders would like to tear those pages off the books and burn them while they dance naked and she's now probably waiting for Saint Tyrion to come to the rescue and save Meereen from her "ineptitude". I suppose D&D are those kind of Dany haters... You know what kind I mean.

As a show only person, my impressions are that Dany is painted as a person with good intentions, but without a strategy, understanding, or abilities to rule. In the beginning I really rooted for her - as an underdog etc., but now she is the character I'd like to root fot but can't. (Emilia's acting doesn't necessarily help, even though it's not in Dorne chicks territory.)

Often the parallelizations (is that even a word?) between she and Jon make him look good and Dany look bad in comparison. (E.g. the executions this season.) And when I read what she apparently will do in the future (fly away on Drogon)... It basically means:

- On the one hand, I think they missed the point a long time ago, when she should have gone to Westeros

- OTOH, she will leave Mereen with the chaos that she created.

And she has never even seen Westeros, so it's hard to expect it will go BETTER than in Essos...

So yeah, she doesn't come across as very competent. In conquering, yes, so maybe that is her function: Conquer, kill some badass/ the White Walkers etc., then perish.

I wish it was different, because in such a conservative genre as fantasy, I'd personally prefer the woman to be victorious in the end (whatever that may entail). Some of the women, at least.

And her characterization fits in very well with the overall deeply misogynistic view and tone this show conveys.

Btw., what did BookAemon say about Dany?

[Cas Stark]

On the nudity issue - didn't all the main cast members renegotiate their contracts this year, signing on for seasons 6 and 7? Because if that's true, I wouldn't be surprised if all the main cast now have a no nudity clause.

I know everyone likes to think that the rumour of the actress who refused to get naked was Emilia Clarke, but it was most likely Natalie Dormer considering that Emilia had a nude scene in season 3.

As much as I'm happy for the cast not having to go through any awful D&D sex/nudity scenes anymore, I think it'll just make the show's quality even worse with more unnecessary nude scenes and sexposition (like Tyene/Bronn) because they can't have nudity in scenes that actually advance the plot.

LOL oh my god, they're like a parody of themselves.

I don't know if it was Dormer, but being nude in a normal love scene, there is nothing exploitive about that as long as the camera isn't doing a close up or something. She's the queen of Meereen, feeding people to her dragons but she's holding up the covers while she talks to her lover? Makes no sense, but it's a nitpick.

What is gratuitous nudity is that sand snake bizarro jail house strip tease, whatever the fuck that was, though I would say that she's a better actress than Keisha Castle Hughes who thankfully had hardly any lines. But, um, really? She's in jail on a failed kidnapping rap and is such a sex freak/nut job that she amuses herself by stripping for a total stranger who she has poisoned. ? And this is an improvement on the snakes. Yow.

[David Selig]

Well you saw their genius quote on it, right?

Benioff: Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.

From (x)

LOL.

The whole article is hilarious

But as is increasingly the case on the show, the producers opted to progress the story beyond the characters’ stopping point in Martin’s most recent book, A Dance with Dragons, in order to maintain an intense TV-friendly pace.

Intense pace? What show are they watching? 7 episodes in and most plotlines have barely moved.

[Greywolf2375]

In the end, it saved Bronn so big picture I am ok with it but I didn't like that fact that the Sand Snake was able to keep her necklace. Since they are sposed to be so dangerous, I'da thought they'd have had anything that could be weaponized taken away.

[Greywolf2375]

Double.

[Mindwalker]

Well you saw their genius quote on it, right?

Benioff: Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.

From (x)

That is so delicious, it needs to go in my signature... :bowdown:

[HexMachina]

Excuse you, the Hunchback of Notre Dame had a great soundtrack.

:D yay! Hunchback is great. I'd take Frollo over the showFaith any day.

ETA:

Also, Tyrion beating the Slaver to death while everyone just stands like "lulz, he kill us all, isn't it funny?"

[Cas Stark]

LOL.

The whole article is hilarious

Intense pace? What show are they watching? 7 episodes in and most plotlines have barely moved.

I keep saying, the show is rushed and slow at the same time because they've done a poor job in how they set up most of the plots.

They could have used eps. 1-6 for the KL stuff to much better effect, doing a better job with the sparrows, making the whole thing a bit clearer and possibly not that extremely silly inquest scene. And still waiting on a good reason why they included the prophecy...

Same with Stannis, he needs men, he has a huge army, he marched last week and now this week he's already bogged down, but we only hear it from Davos...just a poor job at developing the story they want to tell...

Dorne is too stupid for words.

[Tijgy]

In another article we can also find the reason why the episode is called the gift: the meeting is a gift of the fans.

After five seasons, Tyrion and Daenerys are now in the same show! Game of Thrones had major tectonic plate shift by putting together two of its biggest and most charismatic characters (who have not yet met in George R.R. Martin’s books). The Thrones showrunners titled this episode “The Gift” and that seems appropriate—this is a gift for fans. Usually such bold departures from the show’s source material are the subject of some controversy, but putting Dany and Tyrion together seems to be enjoying rare unanimous support (judging by early reaction online). And that’s not all that happened this week:

Does it really have that unanimous support? Do some people not want Barristan alive and not yet the meeting? I certainly do. It would have a gift to me if I have finally some Northern Lords or something of the Riverlands.

Or you could maybe have referred to the Gift, the geographical location (do you know what would be really ridiculous? If in the original planning they really did that... but afterwards they edited it out) or maybe the Gift of Mercy. But no, we have the gift of Tyrion (who was only interesting in the books because he was the political POV in KL and because of the meeting with JonCon and f(?)Aegon). Oh joy, what a gift!

[TheCasualObserver]

LOL.

The whole article is hilarious

Intense pace? What show are they watching? 7 episodes in and most plotlines have barely moved.

Intense?! I would have more respect for them if they acknowledged that this was a season for setting things up. Even GRRM admitted that he was allowing the dragons and children to grow and moving pieces into place during AFFC and ADWD (not that it really helped.)

So Dorne wasn't bad this week and that final scene between Cersei and the High Sparrow was excellent. But it still couldn't save the episode. Sansa's storyline is just awful, Brienne isn't doing anything, LF still isn't making sense and we're treated to another near sexual assault, this time leading to a sex scene. That really, really makes me uncomfortable.

[kissdbyfire]

Well, the pretenses as to why Tyrion was brought to Meereen are incredibly flimsy - last week he escaped his throat getting cut for no sound reason ("Cock merchant"), this week he joins the fighting pit crew even though he is clearly no fighter. He joins Dany solely by the power of Plotward zo Forward, the Meereenese god of rushed story development.

Concerning King's Landing, it seems like D&D have read half of AFFC - hence they got the high sparrow character quite right, but goofed big time with the Faith Militant. Sparrow wants to be a people's leader to oppose the nobles, but the first thing his movement does is smash places, beat up and arrest people because they are deemed immoral. How on earth is he supposed to be the commoners' leader if the first (and so far only thing) he did was pissing off commoners? Or should we see him as that because he washed things twice so far?

The guy (was that Yezzan?) bought Tyrion because he was funny, not as a fighter. Right?

I can barely watch the Dorne scenes, truly appalling what they've done.

What the freaking hell are those curly toed high heel boots the SS wear? Sansa's necklace has some serious competition for ugliest fashion accessory ever.

ETA: I'm also totally gutted to see that Alexander Siddig is this year's Ciarán Hinds.

[Cas Stark]

It's kind of amusing that most everyone thought "The Gift" was referencing things from the books. The gift of death that Arya gives the insurance guy and Jon planning to settle the wildlings along the 'gift' of land that came from the Starks to the watch as well as Jorah's gift of Tyrion.

And yet it turns out that D&D's naming is so much more superficial than that, and is them patting themselves on the back for gifting viewers something that readers haven't gotten yet: Dany and Tyrion meeting. For the LOLZ.

[Chebyshov]

St. Tyrion, the one true gift.

[King Beyond the Firewall]

There's no longer any real complexity to this show. It's simplified to the point of absurdness.

- Faith Militant is now Budget ISIS

- No Northern Lords

- No Iron Islands

- Main point of Dorne removed (Arianne)

- No interesting journey for Tyrion through Essos

- King's Landing plot totally simplified

Is there a plot line that is in any way complex? Only Littlefinger's "plan". And that's not complex in a good way. More in a WUT? way.

Amusing things this episode:

Melli-sans-bra mentioning the power of king's blood. Hm, who was that third guy? Related to someone on the show, right?

Dany saying she can't face enemies within and without. WHAT enemies without? You're not being sieged. There is no other problem except the Sons of the Harpy. Also, glad to see that Barristan's death affected you. Straight back to fucking and flirting with Daario, no mention of Barry.

This is ENDEMIC of this season. A thing happens then is IMMEDIATELY forgotten.