[Book Spoilers] EP107 Early Discussion

[KyleLitke]

Really enjoyed the episode.

The one thing that really threw me off, though, was the scene with Jorah, as that completely changes some pretty major things. It could be that's how GRRM intended it, that Jorah got pardoned, but that seems really off to me. It doesn't make sense in the context of "Maybe Jorah will do it for a pardon", it doesn't make sense in the context of "Varys doesn't actually want Dany dead", since Jorah could have just said Fuck you, I've got my pardon and went on his way, and it doesn't make sense in the context of "The Spider wants Dany watched". Why in the world would he have gotten his pardon there? My assumption is that was done to show Jorah making the choice to stay with Dany rather than go home without her, but I can't come up with one good reason, under any of the potential possibilities of what Varys is doing (Varys actually wants Dany dead, Varys wants her watched and helped to put her on the throne, Varys is just legitimately working for Robert), why he would have granted Jorah his pardon then and there. It wasn't in the books and it doesn't make sense, it really threw me off.

Other than that I thought the episode was great.

[KyleLitke]

Edit: Double Post, sorry, the board got all errory on me.

[Wunhopkuendo]

Well to be honest... ye they did make it a little weird looking in the show, but imagine this, he was on foot 1st City guard might been some 500m away... maybe 200m... i dont know i make up numbers, and they would need to put report into the ''barracks'' since this was no ordinary riot to be stopped by 2 guards, so the guards possibly came off screen when it was all over.... Whole event played out in a matter of minutes, so i can fully believe Guards could not come....

Hell even police doesnt arrive in 5 min after i call them.... atleast in my country

You quoted my post and I don't have a clue why. I didn't say anything about guards or time or what not. I said that the brothel scene ruined the shock of the betrayal in the throne room. What this has to do with the guards coming in time is beyond me. A mistaken quote perhaps?

[Masha]

Hehe. In regards to the the people offended by the Littlefinger Roz scene...do you realize that he is running a high-end brothel? How do you think he evaluates his employees/slaves, etc? He teaches them the art. Guess what; sex really does take place even in Westeros. Who would have thought?

The book itself has more than enough of sex scenes, just adding gratuitous nudity and porn scenes and wasting at least 5 minutes on it (very obviously an effort to get one-up on Showtime and its series - Spartacus, Borgia), is really not cool. When I read the books, I thought they were pretty graphic as they were but notice that most of added scenes have to do with nudity and sex. They could have used those 5 minutes to get some of great scenes from the book, but they had to waste it on moaning. BTW. If there was another meaning to Petyr's words, they were wasted on me (and most other views especially those who didn't read the book), was too distracted by the scene and loud moaning.

[Balefont]

All right, I'll come out and say it: I'm officially sick of seeing Roz again and again. I don't care how much the producers liked her, it's going too far. Cast her in something else, like True Blood, if you like her so much but leave her out of my books!

[80r]

BTW. If there was another meaning to Petyr's words, they were wasted on me (and most other views especially those who didn't read the book), was too distracted by the scene and loud moaning.

I had no problem listening to Petyr; I thought the scene was quite well done, showing how Petyr runs his brothel while simultaneously revealing his backstory.

[Été]

LF's brothels are mentioned plenty of times in the books but I never really pictured him micromanaging personally (guess I assumed he employed competent madams or something), but then again show LF is way sleazier than how I imagined book LF. Both great though.

[Gnomestress]

LF's brothels are mentioned plenty of times in the books but I never really pictured him micromanaging personally (guess I assumed he employed competent madams or something), but then again show LF is way sleazier than how I imagined book LF. Both great though.

This is what I thought as well. Littlefinger's brothels are investments to him. I never pictured him giving whores tips. That's what madams are for. I never pictured him doing more than maybe setting prices for services and dictating who gets paid how much.

Remember, Littlefinger is the king's master of coin. That's easily a full time job. So's running a brothel. I just can't picture him of all people getting that hands on with erhm...quality control. :smileysex:

[Dark Knight]

Great great episode this one. Momoa was EPIC as an enraged Khal Drogo. A shame the Cersei offering herself to Ned was cut.

2 things annoyed me in this one:

-Ghost barking. Really???

-Sam blabbering about girls. What's up with that?! And his overwhelming cowardice isn't really shown in the show. Of all the main characters he's the biggest disappointment along with Theon who instead of being shown as an arrogant brat who conceals his lack of confidence is shown just as a pathetic miserable dude(recoiling when Luwin shows up? really??). I can't imagine how he'll pull off the scene with Asgrid...

[DurararaFTW]

Well just about every complaint that can be made has been said already, I can focus on the one that I really care about.

They cut Robert saying he made a worse king then Aerys and Ned defending him. WHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

[reiver]

The book itself has more than enough of sex scenes, just adding gratuitous nudity and porn scenes and wasting at least 5 minutes on it (very obviously an effort to get one-up on Showtime and its series - Spartacus, Borgia)

The Borgia's has been, despite the historical opportunity, very tame and tasteful for the most part. Rarely throwing us tits and ass for the purpose of ogling. I suppose there's still plenty of room for that to come in their decadent decline but so far it's been a very good show, better than GoT imo. Spartacus was Starz not showtime and was a mixed bag. I didn't exactly like the way they handled nudity but for some reason it never bbothered me anywhere near as much as GoT's use of it has. If they're trying to one up these programmes in tackiness well fair play to them, i suppose they won.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

I didn't mind ther sex scene, i mean he does run a brothel. Moaning was pretty loud though. Sounded like I was watching a porno. I always thought He simply financed them and gave them the whores, not him actually teaching them.

Other than that I really liked the episode. Drogo's speech was badass. Tywin was awesome, pretty much how I expected him, but didn't think he'd gut a stag, I see the symbolism though.

[Tywin's bastard]

Finally Jason Momoa got to do something really special as Khal Drogo and he executed that perfectly. Amazing that a long speech in a made up language can be so entertaining and draw you in that much. It really felt like the urge of war stirred in the great warrior and he made it feel like something fierce is going to strike Westeros.

Charles Dance is fantastic as Tywin Lannister so it wasn't even necessary to try to try to go for exact likeness. He really got the stern persona across and you can understand why all his children almost fear him, even as adults. Nikolaj did a great job showing emotions with just expressions when Tywin was talking and together they made a great scene that built on both characters, and the events of the story.

Ser Jorah also continues to impress and Iain is probably the biggest improvement over the book since his presence as an actor is making me much more emotionally attached to the character, and the connection is happening earlier than in the books.

The Borgia's has been, despite the historical opportunity, very tame and tasteful for the most part. Rarely throwing us tits and ass for the purpose of ogling. I suppose there's still plenty of room for that to come in their decadent decline but so far it's been a very good show, better than GoT imo. Spartacus was Starz not showtime and was a mixed bag. I didn't exactly like the way they handled nudity but for some reason it never bbothered me anywhere near as much as GoT's use of it has. If they're trying to one up these programmes in tackiness well fair play to them, i suppose they won.

Even if I try I can't see how GoT can come anywhere close to beating Spartacus in that area. GoT has a good deal of exposure but Spartacus isn't really wrongly described as softcore porn, showing more and having much longer scenes that rarely told any story (which basically all GoT sex scenes do).

[Dremora]

I cant believe people are complaining about nudity...lol

The added scenes are needed to give backstory which can't be given via someones POV, so why not add a few tits in, if you can't concentrate on what he's saying because you're busy watching the women then you cant really complain about the women, it was you who decided that they were more interesting than the dialouge.

[RDKfromwesteros]

A like the episode, it was awesome, despite the habitual complains

I laugh a lot when i get all nervous in the end, even though i read that part like one hundred times just to be sure of what was happening. I was actually with my heart on the troat hoping it could happen different that time.

Oh sad.

[Infidel]

I liked the fact that he didn't take any pleasure in it. There's only one fantasy young girl woman for Littlefinger!

Yeah, I think the juxtaposition of Littlefinger's academic disinterest with the racy action in the foreground add a significant character beat...

[Vuron]

1. The Kahl That Yelled At No One: Its universally agreed that khal Dragon’s speech as epic. But it, to me, was the worst of both worlds. First and foremost, in the book, the speech is not to his khaldasar: its to Dany. It’s a slow, smoldering rage, being fed methodically by his rage, but he;s not yelling, he’s not carrying ion: its to DANY he is doing this; its for HER! And so he speaks only to her. Quietly. But no louder than he needs to.

The show wrecks it all. Instead of a determined khal, we have “khal Pete Carroll! “ I AM SO PUMPED AND JACKED AT WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO!!!" Why is he yelling? He’s the khal! What is he afraid of? That they won’t follow? Its so, so lame. And then add this: who the FUCK is he talking to? Remember my constant complaint about the lack of people whoa re, you know, actually IN the hoard? There are like 20 people in that tent MAX! Why is he trying to get them so excited? Why, is he on the radio or something? It was a terrible clash of “better in the book” and “the show’s own limitations stunt what it was trying to do.” I know I am in the minority, but this scene made me only think that the show only gets half of what it is trying to do.

Actually, this was my favorite scene of the series, so far. The emotion from everyone in the room and expression on Dany's face just pulled me in. I, obviously, didn't see it the same as you and I understood his yelling to be yelling at the heaven/gods. I think it fit well and conveyed more emotion than the way it was described in the books.

[Vuron]

Really enjoyed the episode.

The one thing that really threw me off, though, was the scene with Jorah, as that completely changes some pretty major things. It could be that's how GRRM intended it, that Jorah got pardoned, but that seems really off to me. It doesn't make sense in the context of "Maybe Jorah will do it for a pardon", it doesn't make sense in the context of "Varys doesn't actually want Dany dead", since Jorah could have just said Fuck you, I've got my pardon and went on his way, and it doesn't make sense in the context of "The Spider wants Dany watched". Why in the world would he have gotten his pardon there? My assumption is that was done to show Jorah making the choice to stay with Dany rather than go home without her, but I can't come up with one good reason, under any of the potential possibilities of what Varys is doing (Varys actually wants Dany dead, Varys wants her watched and helped to put her on the throne, Varys is just legitimately working for Robert), why he would have granted Jorah his pardon then and there. It wasn't in the books and it doesn't make sense, it really threw me off.

Other than that I thought the episode was great.

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.

[SerArthurHeath]

I agree 100%. Littlefinger's scene just seemed really forced. I think so far that they've been pushing Littlefinger as the villan a little too hard. It's far less subtle than in the books. To be honest, it's so blatant that it makes me wonder just how dumb they expect people to be.

Book Petyr: I'm a scheming, clever, witty macheavellian villan. Don't worry though, I go a long way to make people doubt what I really am.

TV Petyr: HEY GUESS WHAT YOU GUYS?! I'M AN EVIL BASTARD! :commie:

That said, I did like the scene at the end with Cercei. She's been too sympathetic so far in the TV series. The way they did the throne scene gives me hope that soon we'll have conniving super bitch Cercei back again.

I'd agree with you but some people are really stupid. It's not so much the pointing out that LF is bad thing that is annoying in itself (tv shows in general are less subtle than most books, and some viewers would have been clueless otherwise) but because it made it less of a surprise even to clever viewers when Ned was completely screwed over. I know it's clear in the books that he's being really stupid, but as it's from his perspective, we don't see that he has no chance like in the show.

[SerArthurHeath]

I thought this episode was easily the worst of the bunch, and it exemplified all of my fears about this show.

Here goes:

• Robert's death. Just show the hunting scene. The KING died, that’s a BFD. We find out second hand? That's not good TV. It's good storytelling when you're writing from a close third person, but this show doesn't have that limitation. Imagine you've never seen this show before. It would make the plot alot clearer if we watched Robert drunkenly fight the boar and Lancel getting him hammered. I think that omission ruined this episode for me, hands down. This isn't the book. Stop trying to be the book.
  
• The Littlefinger porn tryout was horrible. A 5 minute long scene, including 3 minutes of "play with her ass." What? They could've made that scene 30 seconds long and still moved the plot where it needed to be: Littlefinger is a pimp and has twisted feelings for Cat. If you need a hardcore porn scene to get that point across, you're failing at making TV.
  
• Ned's scenes are borderline parody in this episode. Here are some questions a non-reader is asking: Why didn't Ned tell Robert about his son, even on his deathbed? Why bother warning Cersei? Or, moreso, why didn't Robert keep witnesses in the room when he named Ned the protector? I know GRRM didn't address these issues either, but if I didn't read the books... I'm dumbfounded. Seeing his plot unfold over ten weeks makes Ned's personality faults seem unbelievable.
  
• Theon and Asha (osha? I forget) are such minor characters in book 1. That scene could've easily been cut. I wonder what Rob, Arya or Tyrion were up to? 5 minutes with one of them would've been nice.
  

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I hate that LF scene. The rest I can live with. The LF scene is just horrible TV from every angle I can imagine.

I strongly disagree with you- in any medium, finding out suddenly from Ned's PoV what happened to robert rather than seeing it creates far more suspense, surprise and emotion for me. If they'd shown him being gored I would have hated it.

Lots of people think Ned's actions are ridiculous in the books. I don't think theyve changed that. On TVWP, so far people have gotten that Ned was silly but was doing it because he was honourable. I think the scenes do highlight Ned's choices as foolish but I'm fairly sure that's diberatd and consistent with the source. If you don't like it, your problem is with Ned, not the writers.

I'll agree on Theon and on Asha though. I thought the overall tone was EASILY the best episode so far though, in a different league from the first 4 which were also good