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[BOOK SPOILERS] EP104 Discussion, Take Two


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It was a fantastic episode. The response also is fantastic, because you either have the people as wildly enthusiastic as me, or the hilariously awesome nitpickers who explode with melodramatic dismay at each deviation. I must say, the outrage over Sandor and Sansa is the most enjoyable yet.

What I'm really looking forward to is the response to GRRM's episode (eight, that would be). I'm curious how many of the hyper-pedantic fans will manage to survive that ordeal, struggling with the concept that GRRM is the originator of the series and so understands his story better than anyone else...and the matter that there are differences so omg it sucks! They'll probably terminate with spasms of geeky apoplexy.

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Well, in the sense that it was just Gregor being Gregor, I think that's true. I don't believe anybody told Gregor to kill Hugh.

With that said, I think the fact that Hugh was a person of interest for Ned and that an inexperienced knight, with no squire to make sure he was properly fitted, was matched up with Gregor was no coincidence.

Who put together the funds for the tournament again? Littlefinger. Who actually plotted Arryn's murder? Littlefinger. We'll likely never get a definitive, but I think its pretty likely that Littlefinger was behind pairing those two.

But, no, I don't think Gregor was in on the plan to kill Hugh any more than the boar was in on the plan to kill Robert.

Good points. I could see that sure he wasn't told to kill him since they wouldn't have needed to. You put him against a bad knight he will kill him for fun anyway.

Can't believe people are sending comments to the writers over twitter ripping them for giving someone else lines.

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Good points. I could see that sure he wasn't told to kill him since they wouldn't have needed to. You put him against a bad knight he will kill him for fun anyway.

I forget if it's explained in the book. How he ended up jousting the Mountain practically in his first match. How do you end up with the biggest/baddest guy being one of the first you'd be jousting against? And it's been a while since I read the first book so maybe someone can remind me how the order is set in the jousting tournament. How does the inexperienced knight who got knighted out of the blue end up jousting against Gregor? It almost looks like purposefully setup.

Did they draw numbers out of a hat and OPPS, To bad NEW GUY, you get to go up against the mass murdering most dangerous knight EVerrrr! Nope, you don't start out battling the lower end knights, you end up with the most dangerous knight on our list of competitors.

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Well, in the sense that it was just Gregor being Gregor, I think that's true. I don't believe anybody told Gregor to kill Hugh.

With that said, I think the fact that Hugh was a person of interest for Ned and that an inexperienced knight, with no squire to make sure he was properly fitted, was matched up with Gregor was no coincidence.

Who put together the funds for the tournament again? Littlefinger. Who actually plotted Arryn's murder? Littlefinger. We'll likely never get a definitive, but I think its pretty likely that Littlefinger was behind pairing those two.

But, no, I don't think Gregor was in on the plan to kill Hugh any more than the boar was in on the plan to kill Robert.

You have a devious mind. :bowdown: And I think that's a great point!

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It was a fantastic episode. The response also is fantastic, because you either have the people as wildly enthusiastic as me, or the hilariously awesome nitpickers who explode with melodramatic dismay at each deviation. I must say, the outrage over Sandor and Sansa is the most enjoyable yet.

What I'm really looking forward to is the response to GRRM's episode (eight, that would be). I'm curious how many of the hyper-pedantic fans will manage to survive that ordeal, struggling with the concept that GRRM is the originator of the series and so understands his story better than anyone else...and the matter that there are differences so omg it sucks! They'll probably terminate with spasms of geeky apoplexy.

But, but George will rectify all the missdeeds of the previous episodes by having one hour of super-awesome revisionism back to the details in the books.

Of course George must be well and truly on board with all the changes if he's been signed up to pen one episode per season, because he's got to perpetuate the deviations from the books. This isn't like LOTR where the author and owners of the copyright of the original works have no say in anything.

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Well, in the sense that it was just Gregor being Gregor, I think that's true. I don't believe anybody told Gregor to kill Hugh.

With that said, I think the fact that Hugh was a person of interest for Ned and that an inexperienced knight, with no squire to make sure he was properly fitted, was matched up with Gregor was no coincidence.

Who put together the funds for the tournament again? Littlefinger. Who actually plotted Arryn's murder? Littlefinger. We'll likely never get a definitive, but I think its pretty likely that Littlefinger was behind pairing those two.

But, no, I don't think Gregor was in on the plan to kill Hugh any more than the boar was in on the plan to kill Robert.

You know, I never thought of it that way. Good point!

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Just a quick note for those who fear we won't get the fight scene between Sandor and Gregor - I just rewatched this artisan video and around the 1:30 mark the fight coordinator talks about the Hound vs Gregor fight scene and they show shots from the rehearsals with all of them in costume and Loras squirming on the ground. There are some more bits in the arms and armour artisan videos, so I really doubt that the scene has been cut.

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I forget if it's explained in the book. How he ended up jousting the Mountain practically in his first match. How do you end up with the biggest/baddest guy being one of the first you'd be jousting against? And it's been a while since I read the first book so maybe someone can remind me how the order is set in the jousting tournament. How does the inexperienced knight who got knighted out of the blue end up jousting against Gregor? It almost looks like purposefully setup.

Did they draw numbers out of a hat and OPPS, To bad NEW GUY, you get to go up against the mass murdering most dangerous knight EVerrrr! Nope, you don't start out battling the lower end knights, you end up with the most dangerous knight on our list of competitors.

A tournament should be seeded, as many sports tournaments are today. You want the two best guys to face each other in the final so you make sure they don't end up on the same side of the bracket. Seeding makes it so the best faces the worst in the first round, the second best faces the second worst and so on.

There's no logic in having the low end knights fight other low end knights and force the good ones to face each other and thus have a far harder road to reach the final.

As for this tournament, I expect Jaime and Loras to have been the highest ranked knights and had they won all their tilts they would have met in the final.

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He loses to the Hound in their semifinal, I think.

Yes, the Hound almost falls off his horse in the first pass, but manages to hold on, and then knocks Jaime off his horse on the second pass. When Jaime falls his helm gets twisted around and dented so he can't take it off, and he can't see, and King Robert is laughing loudly at his brother-in-law while he stumbles off.

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A tournament should be seeded, as many sports tournaments are today. You want the two best guys to face each other in the final so you make sure they don't end up on the same side of the bracket. Seeding makes it so the best faces the worst in the first round, the second best faces the second worst and so on.

There's no logic in having the low end knights fight other low end knights and force the good ones to face each other and thus have a far harder road to reach the final.

As for this tournament, I expect Jaime and Loras to have been the highest ranked knights and had they won all their tilts they would have met in the final.

That makes a certain amount of sense, especially since Westerosi tournament seem to be modeled after modern sporting events with semi-finals and finals. But how does that fit with the losers having to give up their armor to the winner (which is said to be part of why Jorah went broke)? Given the stakes you'd expect a random draw, or even pairing opponents of similar experience. I guess these could be different sorts of tournaments.

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In an effort to procrastinate, I watched this episode again. A couple more notes:

I don't see what the complaints about the crowd are - I thought the overhead shot established that there were lots of people there. Sure, where the highborn people are there's not a ton, but I took that as being like a luxury box :)

Whoever said Sophie Turner is gorgeous, gotta agree. She's a beautiful girl.

I didn't see much in the way of heraldry during the inn scene, but I think it's a minor thing in that scene. There's plenty of banners and shields and such when it matters.

More and more love for Thorne. Great scenes. Love it.

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In the novels, I am absolutely sure that it was just Gregor being bloodthristy and nothing more.

On the show, I'm less sure.

SSM sure or "I'm Ran Jeremy Dammit" sure?

Because I think it is one element of GUCT that holds up. Even more so in the show with LF being the one that leads Eddard to Ser Hugh, but even in the books, we know LF was working Joffrey behind the scenes. Why not Gregor?

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(Ouch 28 pages on this episode already, didn't read them all, i hope i'm not saying something someone has already said...)

Hi, didn't you think that the tournament was a little cheap ? It was supposed to cost a fortune, and to be really a big popular show, and we only see a few dozen nobles watching it seated, a hundred commoners, and only one track, really close to the spectators. I don't remember precisely how it was described in the book, but i read recently Dunk and Egg's stories, and the tournament was much bigger than that, Dunk had to walk hours to go from his side of the festivities to the main event...

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SSM sure or "I'm Ran Jeremy Dammit" sure?

Because I think it is one element of GUCT that holds up. Even more so in the show with LF being the one that leads Eddard to Ser Hugh, but even in the books, we know LF was working Joffrey behind the scenes. Why not Gregor?

Translation?

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GUCT = Grand Unifying Conspiracy Theory. Though in this case I think Ockham's Razor applies: Gregor doesn't need a motive to be ultraviolent. If the Lannisters thought Ser Hugh was implicated in Jon Arryn's death, they might have had him disposed of at some point, but handily he met an untimely end without anyone having to plot it.

(Ouch 28 pages on this episode already, didn't read them all, i hope i'm not saying something someone has already said...)

Hi, didn't you think that the tournament was a little cheap ? It was supposed to cost a fortune, and to be really a big popular show, and we only see a few dozen nobles watching it seated, a hundred commoners, and only one track, really close to the spectators. I don't remember precisely how it was described in the book, but i read recently Dunk and Egg's stories, and the tournament was much bigger than that, Dunk had to walk hours to go from his side of the festivities to the main event...

There's still the entire second half to come next episode, which others have suggested will be better-attended. Tbh I didn't even notice the size of the crowd or the number of banners; it's not as sumptuous as in the book but that certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the scene.

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That makes a certain amount of sense, especially since Westerosi tournament seem to be modeled after modern sporting events with semi-finals and finals. But how does that fit with the losers having to give up their armor to the winner (which is said to be part of why Jorah went broke)? Given the stakes you'd expect a random draw, or even pairing opponents of similar experience. I guess these could be different sorts of tournaments.

I forgot to add that it could be a random draw as the poster I responded to already had said. That would again not make it odd that Hugh met Gregor, just unlucky (or deliberate bad luck by someone else's hand as the speculations go).

It does seem very harsh that if you're a rookie you'll be almost guaranteed to lose your armor as you'll face the best right away, but on the other hand the best seem to regularly meet in the final rounds (which means they don't happen to meet earlier) so there must be some system, and it doesn't sound like you have more than one tilt if you lose the first which eliminates the possibility of a group stage before the best moves on to a quarter final or so.

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