[Book Spoilers] EP107 Early Discussion

[Abaddon]

It was Sam being deliberately manipulative and devious. That was a glimpse of Sam Tarly at the end of ASoS. He asked Pyp to sing in order to make Pyp leave so he could finish a private conversation with Jon. If you watch the scene, he appears to be wistful when he asks Pyp to sing, and as soon as Pyp leaves Sam whirls around and continues persuading Jon to stay in the NW without missing a beat.

Wow, you are totally right, and I completely missed that. God I love this board, thanks for pointing that out!

[Hombre de Murcielago]

Best episode so far imo. With the exception of the ridiculous LF brothel scene, this was the first episode that had the 'feel' of the books for me. The tension in King's Landing was spot on, and Drogo's speech was chilling. Sam and Jon's vows along with the shot of the face on the weirwood tree was fantastic.

I liked the Tywin scene. The metaphor was obvious, but appropriate, and I do think that Tywin would skin his own kill. He's not the type of man to leave the messy bits to others just because he's afraid to get his hands dirty.

[fall from grace]

She might not have known she was betraying Ned, but she absolutely went to Cersei to say goodbye and therefore let Cersei know Ned's timeline for striking; thus, allowing her to strike first.

She may not have knowingly betrayed the Starks, she didn't lose her direwolf for nothing...

I don't really think of it as a betrayal. Sansa was a child and really had no clue what was going on, or why her father wanted to send them back to Winterfell. However, iirc, Sansa went to Cersei in part because she wanted the queen to force Ned to allow them to stay in Kings Landing (beside her prince, where, in her mind, she belonged). She was just a spoiled child who wanted her way. I know people hate book Sansa for that act, but I cannot.

As far as this episode goes, I loved it!!!!* I thought the whole story played out really well. It was an awesome episode.

Drogo's speech was amazing, imo, and Dany looked strong and beautiful. I wish I didn't know what came next for them. Drogo is too beautiful to die. :(

I liked Orsha's talk about what's going on, on the other side of the wall...

The Renly/Ned scene played out really well - Renly looked strong and confident. I'm glad they gave us some more of his story and fleshed him out a bit, so we can see some of his motivations, though I know not everyone agrees.

Bitch Cersei is back!! Woo hoo! The closing scene was perfect - loved it!! :thumbsup:

*aside from the grunts and moans behind Littlefinger's speech - I'm just pretending that scene didn't happen

[fall from grace]

If we're going to completely make up juicy sex scenes that never happened in the book and then claim they're the only way to get character development and historical background, I would like to propose that Rory McCann gets stripped down in some future episode. Of course, we would need some other character in the same room loudly quoting an entry from A Wiki of Ice and Fire over the various sexy noises to provide the seemingly-necessary exposition.

That would shut me up for at least one week.

:ninja:

Ahhaha!!! :lol:

All the full frontals are starting to make me pissed off that we didn't get one of Jason Momoa. :angry: ;)

[aimlessgun]

The Tywin-Jaime scene took something out of Tywin character, I didn't like it very much. It's Tywin moving around the scene too much and dressing the deer. He's supposed to be a brooding silent man, sitting behind a desk and reading.

Actually I would've liked it much more if some servants of Tywin would be in the tent dressing the deer themselves, while Tywin (sitted) and Jaime (standing) are having the conversation occassionally looking at the servants (Tywin regarding it with a pleased but silent expression, while Jaime being all cocky and laughing at it).

That's what Tywin really is - he's a manipulator that has people do the dirty work for him. He had Clegane killing the Targaryen babes,Bolton and Frey executing the Red Wedding. He also commands battle from the rear... IMHO the scene would've been much better that way and the symbolism would've been more accurate.

Otherwise a great episode, I'm excited to see how the rest of the story will be executed in the next three episodes.

I agree completely that Tywin in the books is not at all a man who gets his hands dirty. In every single instance he is pulling the strings, keeping his hands clean, and letting others do the dirty work for him.

However, the scene here worked really well. It's a reimagining, but I liked it a lot.

[Starchaser]

Plus they probably figured, "Gee Tywin's going to be at the council table looking over a map in every other scene, let's diversify here while we can." Whoever keeps complaining about "ham hands" needs to stop nitpicking. We already know what's going to happen. If most of the non-readers don't pick up on it, and I assure you they didn't, then it's not ham-handing.

[King_Baratheon]

I thought this episode was great. Yes the LF porn audition scene was a little much; they could have had him shout out his intentions without that degree of sexuality in the background (nudity is great, but actual nipple suckage and simulated penetration was over-the-top for me).

A couple things:

Emilia Clarke is BEAUTIFUL, and doing a great job! :drool:

Arya is awesome, and coming along great :fencing:

Again it seems LF has lost all the subtlety that he has in the book :commie:

They really made it out to look like Drogo will eventually Kick Ass and Take Names :spank:

Though I've read the first four books three times a piece, I still screamed at Ned to listen to Renly :bang:

[arsonstar]

This was the best episode so far. Though while I don't have a problem with nude scenes, anal penetration makes me uncomfortable.

you just have to relax, dont tense up. :smileysex:

[Areo]

I have to agree that the sex scenes are becoming annoying at some point. I mean the ones that are used as background for dialogue, history lessons and the like. The ones I can point out are Ros/Theon, Loras/Renly and the lesbo duo orchestrated by Littlefinger (I'm not a homophobe, I actually don't mind seeing two women have sex ;). All the others come off as more natural, but these are out of place for me, sort of forced. This worked for HBO up to a point and now it's so-and-so and perhaps they need to think about other means of character exposition, background filling and for season 2. I'm not complaining of the overall sexual content in the show but of this specific use of sex, which went slightly out of balance several times (while some scenes were perfect like Doreah/Viserys Doreah/Dany and others).

[Thefalconemperor]

I don't mind the sex scenes but I was deeply disturbed by Viserys' crowning and even the knife through the eye of Jory.

You know, sometimes I feel the world would be better if more people thought like me.

[Spionkop]

Did anyone notice when Ned confronts cersie she's shot from below with the sun backlighting her.

An Angel........of death :D

[KyleLitke]

I understood the pardon to be "Thank you. We got your information and will act on it. Here's your pardon. Come on home because Dany is as good as dead."

edit because I hit enter too soon. Varys said in his conversation with Ned that the assassination order had already been sent and she was probably already dead. I think the order was placed and Jorah was given his pardon at the same time. It would have taken a while to cancel the order.

So, I think Jorah did choose Dany over his pardon.

The problem is Varys is the one directly controlling Jorah (this was said in the books, too), which means any pardon Jorah got would have had to come from him (with Robert's permission of course...but point is, Robert wouldn't send it to Jorah himself). And why would Varys want to give Jorah a pardon? It gives him a reason to just leave instead of saving Dany, and it takes away Varys' set of eyes right next to Dany, Viserys (as far as he knows at the time) and Drogo.

The only way it makes any sense is if Varys is legitimately trying to kill the Targaryens and thus Jorah has served his purpose, but we have very strong reasons (even from the show) to think that's not the case.

[Spionkop]

The problem is Varys is the one directly controlling Jorah (this was said in the books, too), which means any pardon Jorah got would have had to come from him (with Robert's permission of course...but point is, Robert wouldn't send it to Jorah himself). And why would Varys want to give Jorah a pardon? It gives him a reason to just leave instead of saving Dany, and it takes away Varys' set of eyes right next to Dany, Viserys (as far as he knows at the time) and Drogo.

The only way it makes any sense is if Varys is legitimately trying to kill the Targaryens and thus Jorah has served his purpose, but we have very strong reasons (even from the show) to think that's not the case.

Are not Varys and Littlefinger both spying on and trying to assasinate dany, Mormont may be littlefingers man, not Varys. And while Varys is pretending to trying to kill dany, Littlefinger is doing it properly.

[Spionkop]

Are not Varys and Littlefinger both spying on and trying to assasinate dany, Mormont may be littlefingers man pardoned by Varys to get him away. And while Varys is pretending to trying to kill dany, Littlefinger is doing it properly.

[L’Age d’or]

you just have to relax, dont tense up. :smileysex:

lol, I dont think she even touched her hole anyway, I looked very carefully and it was obvious she was not even doing anything to her.

ETA: Yes, I'm a perv :ohwell:

[Queen Dorothea]

lol, I dont think she even touched her hole anyway, I looked very carefully and it was obvious she was not even doing anything to her.

ETA: Yes, I'm a perv :ohwell:

You would have checked it with your "bare hand" as well I guess :leaving:

[DurararaFTW]

Varys is the only reason Robert knew about the marriage, the baby, or why that poisoner was there in the books too. I dunno what his game is, and if he really is a Targaryan loyalist, how his actions are to be explained but I'll lay off my critism of the more expliciet nature of the scene here until we do get to see his explanation.

[Grumkin]

I liked the scene with the two whores getting it on... until littlefinger interrupted them and talked through the whole sex scene! Those girls were doing just fine without your advice, LF!

[Huan]

Tywin would never ever skin a stag or another animal himself. He is Tywin Lannister, after all. But I accept this for the sake of symbolism, as it really shows quite nicely how the Lion of Casterly Rock took away the Realm from the Stag, golden dragon after golden dragon. And I'm really thankful that they did not talk about this explicitly.

GRRM uses this symbolism quite effectively himself. And I really do hope they will show us Roose Bolton skinning/hunting wolves.

Yes, Roose's wolf hunt (and using wolf cub fur for gloves!) is exactly what came to mind when I saw Tywin butchering the stag. You can imagine the two men making a pact. Although Roose is more overtly creepy than Tywin, Tywin isn't pretty.

[Wunhopkuendo]

The LF brothel scene is not bad because of the sex, or his directing, or Roz for that matter. The scene is terrible because it is so unbelievable that he would just lay out his plan (if not the actual method, at least the impetus) to his newest whores. It did resonate a bit like deadwood, which worked very well in that series, but this isn't deadwood and LF isn't Swerengen(sp). The may both keep with the company of whores, but the former lives in a world of spies everywhere, while the latter just lives with whores. I think the HBO stumbled onto something with Deadwood and are attempting to reproduce it here, but it just doesn't work. LF is supposed to be far more subtle than that. But oh well. I hated the scene, but I can certainly move past it seeing how this is the only scene I have hated so far. And hate is a strong word, because I really love hot lesbian action scenes lol.

As to the purity of the books, people have to understand two things here. First, it is a different medium and must be approached differently than a book written for POV perspectives. And secondly, we have the author consulting here. If anyone has ever written anything in their life, there will never be a time that you don't look over your work and wish you had done something differently. Well, GRRM has that opportunity. He can assist with adding certain lines, or taking away scenes, or developing characters further than he originally had done. Who is to say that many of the changes aren't for this very reason?

I have no idea if the stag is real, but it does look real. And skinning a stag takes a lot of time. It isn't something that has to be done in 30 minutes or the meat goes bad. That is gutting, which is obviously already done. So it might very well be real. It looks cool when Tywin is skinning it, but to be honest, he is only going through the motions. He isn't really skinning much of anything. He just keeps cutting away in the same area. So it could very well be a prop. The fact that an experienced skinner like myself can't even tell for certain is testament to how good the scene was.