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[BOOK SPOILERS] Episode 105 discussion


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- The dragon skull was a bit confusing to non-readers when we first saw it, but then he remembered the exposition from Viserys last week and realized what it was. It was kind of a neat moment. I didn't really care for the Viserys bath scene - I thought the time could have been used for other things - but it was necessary. It shows that the writers really know what they're doing.

Nice little insight here. I actually liked that bathtub scene from the previous episode but I've read a lot of comments about people disliking it. Glad to see you pointing this out and that that scene serves its purpose in this episode.

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Well, that's your interpretation. Which incidentally, according to the CREATORS of the show, is totally wrong:

The Wolf and the Lion: Behind the Scenes

Oh, you mean like when GRRM said that Ned was the main character of the story? Behind the scenes snippets often don't contain the full truth due to the nature of spoilers. The showrunners can't bash Ned too hard, because they have to make him a convincing plot element.

And a second point, that is probably going to open up a whole 'nother can of worms that I don't even want to get into.

Listening to a creator's viewpoint on their work is almost NEVER a good idea. As odd as it sounds, the creator is often an unreliable narrator when talking about their work outside of the work itself. This is why millions of internet hours have been taken up defining "canon" as only what happens IN the books and whether or not authorial intent should be factored in.

It shouldn't.

If GRRM himself would do an interview and talk about a scene that isn't in the books, it wouldn't be canon, whether it was something ridiculous like a Ned-Cersei one night stand, or something perfectly believable like some new atrocity by Gregor Clegane. The same is true for D&D and the show-canon they're building, their interviews are meaningless and should not be seen as canon. (Although that doesn't mean its not INTERESTING)

As a further example, Loras and Renly would be gay in canon whether George answered the question or not, because its there in the book. Harry Potter's Dumbledore being gay is NOT canon, because it simply isn't in the books, and JK Rowling's interviews are no more canon than fan-fiction. Final example: HAN SHOT FIRST.

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Halfway through the season already and man, I love this show. It will be hard to wait a year (?) for the next season. But I guess I can watch this one over and over again. I hope the DVD comes out soon and that it's full of extras.

Some notes about the fifth episode (and sorry if I repeat points made by others before; I haven't had time to read all entries):

  • No Jon Snow and no Daenerys despite both the Wall and the plains of Essos being shown in the opening credits. I thought the opening sequence was supposed to show all the locations visited in each episode. But the did add the Eyrie.
  • Come to think of it, there was no Robb either.
  • But we did see Bran being given a cleverly inserted expository lesson from Maester Luwin about geography, coats-of-arms and mottos of the Great Houses of Westeros. Loved his line about the Lannister words being "A Lannister always pays his debts." Heh!
  • Theon comes off as a real jerk. This soon in the book I hadn't begun to dislike him. I'm not sure what his sex scene with Roz the famous whore was about - besides showing off some HBO skin. There really was no new information being dumped that we didn't already know. And Alfie Allen got the dubious honour of being the first male actor to show his, ehum, member.
  • I really like Ser Barristan Selmy, who now gets a name. He comes off as one of the few truly noble knights in the realm. Pity but inevitable that he'll get exiled eventually.
  • I laughed at King Robert sending his Lannister squire after a "breastplate stretcher". That scene also again showed the friendship between him and Ned, which is all the more sad when they clash later on and Ned resigns as the Hand.
  • The tourney wasn't more impressive this time around. Where were the crowds?
  • Man, the Mountain is a true monster. Is it even possible to decapitate a big horse like that with a broadsword?
  • Varys really lives up to his reputation here. He seems to be everywhere at once, or at least he can go from one place to the other in no time. First he talks to Ned while Arya is chasing cats. Then he's suddenly conspiring with Illyrio in the dungeons while being overheard by Arya, who's followed a cat down there. And just after that he's talking with Littlefinger in the throne room.
  • Now we see that having Viserys talk about the dragon skulls in the Red Keep in an earlier episode was necessary to give the audience an "a-ha" moment when Arya sees them.
  • I loved it when Arya told off the guards when she came back from the outside.
  • The added scene between Littlefinger and Varys showed that while they may conspire together sometimes, there isn't a lot of trust between them. And Littlefinger comes off as a rather unsavoury character when admitting to serve all sorts of perversions to lords so inclined. But really, would so many highborn have such nasty desires as we're lead to believe, even in this GRRM created world?
  • Nice of Tyrion to save Catelyn, even if he did eye the horses after she cut him free.
  • The Eyrie didn't look as impressive as I had imagined. In my mind it's something of a Neuschwanstein castle set atop a hill. We didn't even get that good look at it. And the sky cell they put Tyrion in looked too big and thus not so dangerous, and was the floor actually tilted downwards?
  • Lysa Arryn is one crazy bitch! I already knew that but I'm not sure she felt that way this early in the book. And a big eeeewww at her breast-feeding her Sweetrobin. That must have been a fake boob by the way.
  • I guess it was inevitable to show a scene between Renly and Loras. But it did convey that they are gay, something I didn't pick that up this early in the book, but my "gaydar" isn't very developed. It's a bit cliché to have a knight called "the Knight of Flowers" (the added a "the" in front of "Flowers" on the show) being picture perfect and gay. Not to mention the Rainbow guard. But this is something I also thought when I read the books. And here Loras planted the thought in Renly that he could become king, and we learn that the Tyrells are a rich house too.
  • A surprisingly candid and civilised discussion between Robert and Cersei. Who'd have thunk? It also showed that Robert is much more than a buffoon. He actually knows it would be suicide to meet a Dothraki army in the open field.
  • Jaime is acting brash as usual with his attack on Ned. Poor Jory.

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I don't understand the complaints about TV-Loras' body type. As somebody mentioned towards the end of the first thread, he's described as "slender as a reed". If this actor doesn't have the body type you pictured...well, that's fine, but you weren't picturing Loras as he was actually described in the books.

We are told that Loras is only an average swordsman but a top notch jouster, but never really told why. His older (and larger) brother Garlan is the swordsman. "He's highly skilled but just too damned skinny" is an ENTIRELY consistent explanation, especially in light of the reed comment. Great technique, weak physique. In the lists, his skills can get him past most knights, but he chooses to resort to trickery to defeat the Mountain, who has good technique and monstrous size. The one example we have of Loras going wild with swordplay is when he slays a good portion of the Rainbow Guard, including several very strong swordsmen. But we don't know the details of those fights beyond the fact that Loras was in a rage and the situation was chaotic enough that it might well have happened so quickly that his opponents were unprepared for his fury.

Just because you pictured something does not make it so. In fact, there is an almost 100% certainty that somewhere along the line in this vast tale, there is something you pictured dead wrong.

We all know that the ripped body of the modern athlete is a result of modern training techniques that mostly did not exist in ancient or medieval times. We know that Roman Gladiators prized a layer of body fat thinking it gave them more protection. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is not realistic, folks. They didn't look like that.

On the subject of the episode, it will get my lowest grade yet. I am pretty much bored with combat scenes and this ep had a bunch of them. I am more about character development and acting (I love I, Claudius and the effects and sets of that one don't put me off a bit).

I loved snitty Bran intentionally futzing his lessons. I also laughed at Theon's comment about the traditional skill sets of the Greyjoys. Didn't miss Daenerys or Jon one whit (plenty of NW last week and I applaud the decision not to split that subplot across two episodes).

Didn't care for the handling of the tourney. There should have been some montage shots of other riders at least heading at each other - good opportunity to throw Easter Eggs at the fan base with heraldry and give the impression of the scope of the event to the general audience. Maybe with a 'scoreboard' of some sort showing the sigils of defeated contestants being removed so as to demonstrate the passage of time AND reinforcing the fact that the Loras-Gregor tilt was the semi-final matchup. We also needed to see Sandor dump Jaime.

To stevelabny, you are simply wrong about what is canon. If it is in the author's notes and the author says it is canon, it is canon. End of story.

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I've seen a lot of complaints about Theon's redundant scenes (redundant, at least, from an info perspective). I think what the creators are doing is showing that everyone (even whores) thinks of him as a hostage, while he tries to convince himself that he's a ward. I think this nicely foreshadows his storyline in season 2 when he visits home and his treatment there.

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Great episode (my favorite since The Kingsroad episode)! My concern of a lack of "epicness" from the way the tournament was handled were somewhat laid to rest with the handling of the mountain clan battle. I thought it looked real, and was grizzly as hell. There is hope for Whispering Wood and the Greenfork. Sure I wish the tournament would have been grander, but I won't dwell on it. This episode had just the right amount of actual quotes from the books.

Most people have already laid out the pros and cons fairly well but I'll comment on the 2 most controversial:

Cersei/Robert scene: I liked this scene a lot. I guess AGOT is still pretty fresh in my mind since I'm in the middle of a reread (currently halfway through Clash). The two complaints I hear a lot are that Cersei is not as coldhearted and bitchy as she is in the books, and she isn't as sexy and sluttly as the books portray her either. I agree with Maia that the Cersei that we're seeing on screen at the moment is very consistent with the AGOT Cersei. We really don't get to see Cersei's scheming direct bitchiness in AGOT, with the exception of Lady's death, until her meeting with Ned in the Godswood, and then later when she tears up the King's final orders in the throne room. Other than that, we get disgusted looks and her occasional pissiness to Robert. As far as her permiscuity, we don't hear any rumors of that until ACOK. I thought the scene worked well and wasn't a departure in character. Cersei tells Ned in the Godswood that she did think that she could grow to love Robert, until the night of their wedding when he said "Lyanna" in bed. Maybe the TV Cersei held on a little longer, but not by much, and I don't think it's out of character to have a conversation about it like they did. I also liked that the scene showed the other side of Robert, and the main reason why he has turned out to be a drinking womanizer and lousy king. You can see that he believes things would have been different, he could have been a better man if he only had Lyanna. We don't know if he would have (Lyanna doesn't seem to think he would change his womanizing ways, according to her conversation with Ned), but it's nice to see that side of Robert.

Renly/Loras: I think Loras looks fine. The book describes him as slinder, somewhat effeminate. I like how the scene established a more solid foundation for why Renley would declare over his brother. It does kind of rule out trying to bring Margaery to Robert, but I don't think that it's overly important. I'll reserve judgment if Renly is too much of a wimp, I'll see how he plays to the crowd. If his outside confidence is how it is in the books, I don't have an issue with him being a little wimpier in the bedroom, since we never see how he is with Loras when they're alone. Going by how he acts in the council meetings, I think he will be fine.

EDIT - Looking at titles, is Episode 7 going to be when Ned gets beheaded? Aren't they taking a big risk by letting this episode get watched in advance a week early by the HBO Go (or whatever it is called) subscribers?

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Here's this week's review of Ep. 5 by.. I can never remember this guy's name. He's not as hilarious this week as he usually is, but he mentions that's because he was so furious when that guy stabbed Ned in the back of the leg during the Ned-Jaime fight, that he had to spend an hour in full 'nerd rage' about it before he could calm down enough to do the review.

LOL, its also enjoyable when reading or watching the reactions of non-readers. The one overwhelming trait they all seem to share by this point is that by now--they don't trust anybody anymore! Him, included. I laughed like hell when he says 'ok, Tyrion saved Lady Stark and he's pretty convincing that it wasn't him that tried to kill Bran, BUT, he's real smart, so who knows, and besides, he is a Lannister.'

Good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OtakuASSEMBLE

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stevelabny,

They don't need to bash them, no, but they also don't need to build him up. It's very obvious that the show's Ned Stark is intended to be Jaime's equal or near-equal.

And, who says Ned isn't the main character of the story? His character completely dominates AGoT. It all depends on what "the story" means -- that's obfuscation, not misrepresentation, which is what you seem to feel the producers are "really" doing when they talk about Ned's prowess.

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Oh, you mean like when GRRM said that Ned was the main character of the story? Behind the scenes snippets often don't contain the full truth due to the nature of spoilers. The showrunners can't bash Ned too hard, because they have to make him a convincing plot element.

GRRM specifically said Ned is the main character of the first season, and of the first book--because he had the most POV chapters. Which is true.

I don't buy that they're "upping" Ned for the fight because they want to convince audience members he'll live. They've ALWAYS had this element of Ned and Jaime being equals, from the very early leaked scripts.

And a second point, that is probably going to open up a whole 'nother can of worms that I don't even want to get into.

Listening to a creator's viewpoint on their work is almost NEVER a good idea. As odd as it sounds, the creator is often an unreliable narrator when talking about their work outside of the work itself. This is why millions of internet hours have been taken up defining "canon" as only what happens IN the books and whether or not authorial intent should be factored in.

It shouldn't.

I completely disagree. The creators are in effect, the gods of that universe. Its not yours. Its not mine. Its theirs. Utterly. In this case, Beniof and Weiss, sub-gods if you will, have just flat out said your interpretation of the fight is wrong. Which, even before I watched that scene, I agreed with them. It was an even fight.

That fans claim to know what is and isn't canon and what did and didn't happen is often bizarre to me. They have nothing to do with it.

If GRRM himself would do an interview and talk about a scene that isn't in the books, it wouldn't be canon, whether it was something ridiculous like a Ned-Cersei one night stand, or something perfectly believable like some new atrocity by Gregor Clegane. The same is true for D&D and the show-canon they're building, their interviews are meaningless and should not be seen as canon. (Although that doesn't mean its not INTERESTING)

That's just wrong. If GRRM said that something happened, I consider it to be canon unless he subsequently changes it in an actual book. Same with D&D for their show. They were the creators of the show and they filmed the scene with a specific intent. Its documented evidence. Look on the forum if you like. You may have interpreted it differently, but to claim that it wasn't their intent, based purely on your own observation (which is very contested) and zero evidence besides claiming we shouldn't listen to creators, doesn't make sense.

As a further example, Loras and Renly would be gay in canon whether George answered the question or not, because its there in the book. Harry Potter's Dumbledore being gay is NOT canon, because it simply isn't in the books, and JK Rowling's interviews are no more canon than fan-fiction. Final example: HAN SHOT FIRST.

First off, I consider Dumbledore being gay canon. Its the reason he delayed fighting Grindlewald and made sense. She (JKR) created entire histories of what happened to her characters generations later. The bolded sentence makes zero sense and frankly, is insulting to creators of any fictional content. She owns Harry Potter. She created him from nothing, and I suspect, knows rather more about what happens to him than you or I.

HAN SHOT FIRST is a poor example, as its a RETCON. Different animal entirely. Some of them are good, (The Hobbit springs to mind) and some less so--like Han Shot first.

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This episode definitely had its high moments for me and had some nice details. Many of them were visual and striking.

For example, that image of crazy Lysa with her kid was made so much more powerful by the twisty jagged wooden throne that framed her. That picture of her when she had her arm stretched out on the 'armrest' clutching the wood, with her eyes bugging out, was postively witch-tastic. Wow. They did a fantastic job.

I also loved that moment when Tyrion looked out of the sky cell and suddenly there was this yawning gulf, with clouds floating by below him. Both Bellis and I jumped straight up out of our chairs when it happened. It definitely transmitted a feeling of vertigo to the viewer.

I thought the image of the Mountain killing his horse was just...very visceral. I'd actually forgotten about that moment, and to see him just chop his beautiful black horse's head off right there in front of everybody was extremely shocking. That images is seared into my brain.

Another little detail that I loved was the constant buzzing of flies you heard in King's Landing, even when Robert and Cersei were talking. It helped to make the scenes feel more authentic - when it's hot enough that you have to have all the windows open, you get bugs. And Mediterranean flies are real evil bastards. It did gross me out when they had the buzzing flies around Ser Hugh, though. The Silent Sisters were excellant and seeing the quite gruesome nature of what they had to do was a nice touch. It even looked like that one Sister had blood under her finger nails.

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I don't understand the complaints about TV-Loras' body type. As somebody mentioned towards the end of the first thread, he's described as "slender as a reed". If this actor doesn't have the body type you pictured...well, that's fine, but you weren't picturing Loras as he was actually described in the books.
It's not his body type that I had a problem with - it's the complete lack of any visible musculature. He looked like someone who has done almost no exercise in his life. It was quite jarring. I think a smaller guy who's slender is a good fit for Loras - but slender doesn't mean not-muscled. Skinny guys can have muscles too - again, look at Manny P.
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I always thought that the term "canon" applied only to the written works themselves. Anything else, no matter WHO it came from, would not be considered canon. Interpretation, inference, analysis - it's all extra.

Of course this is just semantics, because if an author or creator comes out and says, "This is what I meant," then that becomes reality whether we interpreted it that way originally or not. But I would not consider it "canon."

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Well, that's your interpretation. Which incidentally, according to the CREATORS of the show, is totally wrong:

The Wolf and the Lion: Behind the Scenes

(check around 3:45)

Yeah, check around 3:45. That would be after they state that Lysa's behaviour is because she thinks the murderers of her huband are brought to her house and after they state that Varys is at any point just doing what is best for the Kingdom as he tries to convince Ned and Tyrion. It's not like Lysa killed her husband herself and Varys is at this point partial to Viserys' ascention to the throne, no matter what Ned does.

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Oh, and I have to add one more visual detail that I liked.

Before Varys and Littlefinger start sparring, Littlefinger stands contemplating the Iron Throne. Thereafter the sparring session starts. I loved that the two of them were there playing the actual game of thrones with the Iron Throne itself as a back drop. Nice touch.

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It's not his body type that I had a problem with - it's the complete lack of any visible musculature. He looked like someone who has done almost no exercise in his life. It was quite jarring. I think a smaller guy who's slender is a good fit for Loras - but slender doesn't mean not-muscled. Skinny guys can have muscles too - again, look at Manny P.

Agreed. A man who practices fighting daily should have visible muscles. It didn't bother me greatly, because I thought he did a great acting job, but it did look a little odd.

We all know that the ripped body of the modern athlete is a result of modern training techniques that mostly did not exist in ancient or medieval times. We know that Roman Gladiators prized a layer of body fat thinking it gave them more protection. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is not realistic, folks. They didn't look like that.

I don't think people saying he needs to look like Usain Bolt or LeBron James. There's a whole range between TV-Loras and highly conditioned modern athletes. Also, gladiators are a terrible example of what real fighting men would look like, given the difference between show-fighting and real warfare.

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Yeah, check around 3:45. That would be after they state that Lysa's behaviour is because she thinks the murderers of her huband are brought to her house and after they state that Varys is at any point just doing what is best for the Kingdom as he tries to convince Ned and Tyrion. It's not like Lysa killed her husband herself and Varys is at this point partial to Viserys' ascention to the throne, no matter what Ned does.

Well, we don't know what role they're going to give Lysa. But in that, they're deliberately not giving away a central mystery of the first book. Are you seriously equating that with talking about how good a fighter Ned is?

Re: Varys. Actually there are entire monologues from Varys about how his main motivation is the good of the realm. We really don't know yet what his motivations are. He may just believe that the Targs are what is good for the realm.

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