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Episode Names


Ran
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Episode Names  

173 members have voted

  1. 1. How would you like episodes to be named?

    • Numerically (e.g. Episode I, Episode II ... Episode X)
      19
    • Titles (e.g. Lost's "The Constant", BSG's "33")
      154
  2. 2. If they go with titling episodes, what sort of titles would you prefer?

    • Titles drawn from quotes (e.g. "Stick Them With the Pointy End, "... The Lone Wolf Dies Alone")
      109
    • More abstract or thematic (e.g. the series titles, like A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, etc.)
      31
    • Either works
      30
    • Something else (Please specify in a post)
      3


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Bryan Cogman's most recent post at the Making Game of Thrones site has reminded us that presently, they're just giving the episodes numbers. This may or may not be a temporary placeholder -- no one has clarified that publicly -- but I thought I'd run a poll to see what fans here would be interested in seeing.

Feel free to also use this thread to discuss episode titles.

Edited by Ran
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Episode titles are preferable (amongst other things, they make identifying them on the wiki easier!). I think either abstract titles, book quotes or simple descriptive ones work quite well. Babylon 5, Lost, BSG and Rome all have great episode titles, for example.

Descriptive or quotation episode titles could include (a very obvious selection):

As Tall as a King (Tyrion victorious in the duel in the Vale?)

The Whispering Woods (or maybe 'The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors')

The King of the North (the final episode)

The City of Bones (Dany in Vaes Tolorro)

A Clash of Kings (confrontation between Stannis and Renly)

The House of the Undying (Dany in the warlock house)

All Men Must Die (Jaqen killing on Arya's behalf)

The Battle of the Blackwater (or maybe 'The Bridge of Ships' or 'The Gates of Hell')

The Fist of the First Men

The Brotherhood Without Banners

The Rains of Castamere (probably less spoilery than 'The Red Wedding')

A Storm of Swords (the Battle of the Wall)

Book 4 ironically makes things a little easier with the descriptive chapter titles.

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Ooh, I realy do hope that they go with episodes titles. I honestly don't even know a show where eps are only numbered (The Tudors come to mind at first, but they named the episodes retrospectively).

Don't know about quotes though. It works fine with Damages, where every episode's title is a line spoken by one of the characters, but I don't think this can be done with GoT. Or maybe it can be done, but not with so obvious quotes, like the ones Ran gave.

IMHO, the best route to go would be giving descriptive and/or abstract titles. I quite like the ones Werthead gave, although I'm sure the creative team can come up with better ones. :)

Oh and Ran, you're a LOST fan too? :) I mean, who isn't?

Edited by straphe
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Ooh, I realy do hope that they go with episodes titles. I honestly don't even know a show where eps are only numbered (The Tudors come to mind at first, but they named the episodes retrospectively).

Don't know about quotes though.

IMHO, the best route to go would be giving descriptive and/or abstract titles. I quite like the ones Werthead gave, although I'm sure the creative team can come up with better ones. :)

:agree:

I think they should do the same thing that the Wire did giving a quote from each episode in the title sequence of the episode that way we kinda get the best of both worlds

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Definately episode titles. Though it might be hard to find a title that summarizes an episode in a good way since there might be pivotal things happening in distinctly diffrent places within one episode but I guess it's just a matter of making a decision.

Titles could take inspiration from a lot of references but there are a lot of quotes that are great titles. For me the first episode should definately be called "The things I do for love".

Other great quotes could be:

The crow is a tricksy bird.

I'm going to kill that.

We take it all.

There are no men like me.

And now my watch begins

Dark Wings, Dark Words

I am king here.

The night is dark and full of terrors.

The Others take your honor.

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In my opinion, the titles of the chapters should be a mix between quotes and abstract titles. As long a quote (or a misquote)can be found that resumes adequately the essence of the episode, they should go for it. Other times, an abstract title could work better.

I like when the title of an episode doesn't ring a particular bell at first, but then stays with you once you've seen the episode itself, for instance Whore!from Spartacus:Blood and sand, or Suffer the little children from Deadwood. Then, I love also when the title warms you up with expectation about the things they're going to unfold in front of you (ie. Kill them all from Spartacus:Blood and sand

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Do we prefer episode titles that are superimposed on the screen, or available only in meta, such as IMDb and the boxed set?

Only in meta. If they do something superimposed then it could be nice to use a quote from the episode like in The Wire after the title sequence of each episode.

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Off the top of my head...title suggestions:

Episode 1 - "The Things I Do For Love"

Episode 2 - "His Name is Summer"

Episode 3 - "Settling in"

Episode 4 - "the Unrequested Tournament"

Episode 5 - "Crowning Achievements"

Episode 6 - "The Confession"

Episode 7 - "Chastised"

Episode 8 - "I told you not to trust me"

Episode 9 - "And now my watch begins"

Episode 10 - "Grim Decisions"

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Episodes names must be titles and not numbers (it has to be, or else there won't be fun for us to guess or to understand the title before who doesn't know the series).

I usually hate quotes titles so I go with abstract titles (but not like BSG' ones).

For the pilot I'd say "Until we fall" could be a good title.

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I really like the idea of titles that cast a particular light on the events in more than one thread, so some of my ideas are based on my ideas of how story lines in different threads should be used together to create certain effects. We already know that in some cases this will be different from the POV switches in the book. If the events I describe don't end up taking place in the same episodes, oh well...

I've always thought the name of the final episode should be "The Higher Mysteries"; "King of the North" is great for us, but for those who don't know the books, I think it is either spoilerish or a reference they won't know.

Second to last episode should be "Only Death Can Pay For Life".(assuming it includes Mirri Maz Dur dancing with the dead, and Eddard's execution). I thought about ways to shorten this, but they all came off sounding silly, and HBO doesn't seem to have a problem with long episode titles, e.g., "Deus Impeditio Esuritori Nullus (No God Can Stop a Hungry Man)".

I would save "Valar Morghulis" for the red wedding. Not really a spoiler since, to paraphrase the Red Viper "how can it be a spoiler to point out that men are mortal?" (but Rains of Castemere is a good idea)

For Robert's Death and Jon saying his vows, I like "Protector of the Realm" (although "Now My Watch Begins" certainly has some charm.)

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