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How Would You Rate Episode 109?


Ran
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420 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your rating from 1-10, with 10 being the highest/best

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I don't understand all the complaints. There doesn't need to be battles for this show to be awesome. And the show doesn't need to be word for word in order to pay homage.

The writers and producers are not sitting in their offices laughing "HAHA those NERDS! We sure got em this time!"

No.

They did the best they could. And darn it, their best is pretty fucking impressive.

No spoilers... but something happening next week may be a big budget scene. And I am certain it will be spectacular.

It wasn't the battles for me. It was the way they portrayed Tyrion. Tyrion is one of the characters who makes this story special and different from others. He is UNIQUE and he deserves to be treated like so. GRRM treated him that way and the actor has fulfilled the image on screen. I don't think treating him like he is a special character, even after the fact, is too much to ask from the writers on screen.

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Seems like we're just going around in circles now.

All I can say is the people defending no battles in this episode will have no right to complain if the next episode ends with NO DRAGONS. Perhaps we can just hear the dragons make some noises instead, along with a dramatic Dany reaction shot and an appropriately epic music score. That would sure save HBO a lot of $$$.

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Seems like we're just going around in circles now.

All I can say is the people defending no battles in this episode will have no right to complain if the next episode ends with NO DRAGONS. Perhaps we can just hear the dragons make some noises instead, along with a dramatic Dany reaction shot and an appropriately epic music score. That would sure save HBO a lot of $$$.

They could spring for some smoke shadows, if they overwrite lifting the Siege of Riverrun for another Ros scene.

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I don't see much substance added to a story or character in any of the battles that they could have (or could have not: $$) added to the episode, the desire for this seems masturbatory. Martin's characters are so complex and go through so much as a result of war. War's consequences seem to be more important than the heat-of-the-moment action scenes. That's a lust that can be sated with practically any old hollywood film nowadays.

Considering also the logistical inefficiency of using precious air time to show something easily glossed over in so complex a story. Getting to know about Tyrion and Tysha was more important than watching Jaime's sword go back and forth with the redundancy of watching leaves fall off of a tree. In the end one can infer the tree lost it's leaves and that Jaime lost the battle. Though GRRM writes suspenseful action sequences, imho that's not what makes him particularly special.

I think the episode stayed fairly true to the spirit of the books. Such a monumental story was deftly handled and I say deserves a 10. As GRRM shows, one can be emotionally pulled to the edge of one's seat, without falling to the sating of a lust. The best one to date I think...

Also... did Martin himself actually show the Battle of the Whispering Wood? It's been awhile but I don't actually remember a firsthand account from the books so it seems strange to me to expect the show to spent massive time and money on it.

YES! Everything you said a million times yes.

:bowdown:

And to answer your question: no, we heard about Whispering Wood after it happened. There wasn't a POV character there.

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YES! Everything you said a million times yes.

:bowdown:

And to answer your question: no, we heard about Whispering Wood after it happened. There wasn't a POV character there.

Well we did have a Cat PoV that showed what it looked like from afar full of her worries that very effectively depicted the confusion of that battle. And in TV you kind of ought to show and not tell. And those battles have a strong impact on Tyrion (as a premarker for the Blackwater) and for setting Jaime up as an in-universe memetic badass. So far he has been underwhelming in combat and so when Brienne kicks his arse, instead of making her look good, it's going to make him look sh*t and thus have the opposite effect to intended on 2 characters for whom combat IS important. You don't have to enjoy the battles- but they are important because some of these characters revolve around them.

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Not having them fight in battles on screen is like saying "Ned's honourable but full of compassion and loves his children" instead of showing that in his scenes and then executing him and expecting the words you half-arsedly chucked in to compensate for the lack of any genuine content

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Or cutting a lot of littlefinger's manipulations and cleverness in favour of him telling us how smart he is... Oh wait.

I liked this episode the most of all the series so far. It wasn't great but it worked well as a TV interpretation of the book and for the most part the changes intrigued rather than annoyed me. Shae's personality for example or the Northern army not splitting as fully. The change that did irk me is the last part of the Tysha story being left out. It removes so much of the dissonance around Tyrion that i think it makes for a less interesting character.

As to the battles, well i agree with those who say not seeing Jamie was a loss. I feel that a lot was sacrificed early in the series to shoehorn him in and there were some pretty shitty scenes as a result. Why go to all that effort then neglect an excellent and far from expensive chance to include him. That the scene would have been all kinds of awesome makes it doubly dissapointng. For the wider battles i'm not so bothered. In the same way i didn't need the play with the ass scene i'm quite happy to not have the violent equivalent. The broad strokes of the battle and the drama involved combined with the outcome is all i need. I don't really want to see a few minutes of extras hacking at each other. So by that standard it wasn't a great job but i'm not overly saddened either. That said it may be a result of reduced expectations from what has largely been a rather mediocre show.

An 8 this week

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A solid 8 from me.

As has already been mentioned in this thread, I wish people would try judging the episodes by their own merits. If you are expecting a literal tranlation from the books, you are always going to be disappointed. TV shows have budgets that have to be adhered to.

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Long time lurker, first time poster.

I gave the episode a 9/10

I thought it excelled in portraying Ned's execution. And pretty much everything else, I thought the Twins looked particularly great.

My only nitpicking is that Roose Bolton wasn't given command of the Foot and thusly that the ford over the Green Fork isn't blocked and that Tywin isn't outmaneuvered by two forces, which forces him to retreat to Harrenhal eventually. I am curious to see how that all is going to play out.

As for Tyrion, to me it makes more sense that Tyrion get's knocked out early in the battle than that he slays several men. I found those parts in the books surreal, as if Tyrion had plot armor.

Or the Tywin post-battle scene where he learns that Robb wasn't in command and was riding hard to Riverrun with most of his men.

At that point in the episode Tywin didn't know where Robb was, is my guess. From the preview of Ep10 we learned that he has that post-battle debriefing.

Yeah, it's about character, but how about they show how great a strategic move Robb made?

You didn't see it? Robb sends home Tywin's spy thinking he'll have twenty thousand howling wolves on his ass. Yet Robb wasn't there and sent a small diversion. They way they filmed it, I'm sure the new viewers thought that he was there with his twenty thousand as well. That's about as showing as strategic moves can get.

Edited by VikingMaekel
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I just watched the last scene again and while I've seen it once already, read the book three times, I was still moved by it. Absolutely brilliant piece of filmmaking. Episode should be a 10 just for the way that was filmed.

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That is pretty ridiculous indeed.

I gave it a 9, just like last week's episode. At first I missed the two battles as well but soon I realised we didn't see the battle at the whispering woods either in the books. Better to have no fight scene in this case than an half-assed one.

I think it was a bit naive to expect a big battle on the TV screen all of a sudden, still the producers might run into some problems in the coming season.

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I dislike the high number of blind tens

Well, my vote was a nine, but I think I'll just go ahead and up mine to a ten to cancel out your one (top/bottom 5% of votes being discarded for the average). :thumbsup:

Edited by Abaddon
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I need to do a rewatch, but as of tye 1st viewing I haveI mixed reviews. I liked everything dealing with Catelyn and Robb, but really hated Tyrion, Shae and even Bronn. I also felt a little cheated that we didn't get a battle. I liked the ending, but thought that Cersei was a little more upset by Ned's death then I imagined she would be.

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There were some scenes I really liked from this episode, like the ending and Maester Aemon’s talk with Jon and all of the wall story line, as well as the opening Ned/Varys talk. But as a whole this was my least favorite episode by a large margin.

The biggest disappointment is the changes to Shae’s character so far. In the book she seduces Tyrion pretty much from the start, but here she seems almost stuck up and bitchy and certainly not seductive. It’s kind of funny that the show finally gets a chance where more sexposition with Tyrion and Shae would have fit fine and they choose to add drinking truth or dare? And then add exposition about things that don’t even happen in the books when they are so pressed for time? Bronn north of the wall for a job? Even worse were most of Shae’s comments. She is threatening her employer? Refusing to answer questions when she is willing to have sex for money? Challenging his intelligence by saying he should have known Tysha was a whore?

when we later find out she wasn’t

The conversation went on for too long and did not feel like something I could imagine those characters possibly doing together the first night Tyrion met Shae. Based on the changes they have made to Shae so far I would have preferred they just made Ros into Shae, cut the Littlefinger whore monologue, and had her reappear here after heading south from Winterfell. They also cut the end of Tysha’s story where Tyrion was forced to use her as well last and pay a gold coin because Lannisters are worth more. The reason Tyrion falls for Shae is because she is so convincing at seeming innocent and accepting and completely smitten by him. He allows himself to believe she loves him. The TV Shae on the other hand him, with replies like “Who women you have paid?” in reply to Tyrions comment about how enjoyable his company is, refusing to participate in any meaningful conversation and all and all coming across as very cold for someone who has just been given the equivalent of a dream job financially. This version of Shae’s only relation to the book version is her name and that she is a whore.

Drogo’s fall into a near death state didn’t come across very well to me either. In the books he took an arrow in addition to having his nipple cut off, and couldn’t fully lift his arm. Here he just gets a scratch and the next scene he is dieing… Without explaining how Drogo ignored instructions not to drink, or to properly treat his wound it is hard to understand how in the context of the show Dany would possibly request, much less insist that Mirri to be the one to continue to treat Drogo’s injury instead of a Dothroki healer.

The lack of battle scenes of course was also disappointing, though not all together unexpected. I just don’t understand why they bother to change the description of what happened and numbers of troops for something that they didn’t show. In the books Rob took a portion of the cavalry to capture Jaime in an ambush, while the majority of his force was under Roose Bolton’s command vs Tywin. So what was the point of changing this description that they didn't show any way? A forced march to attack with 2,000 vs 30,000 as the show describes was quite unbelieveable for me. Why bother changing it when you aren’t going to show it?

I didn’t like the addition of Jaime challenging Robb to a duel either, in particular Robb’s response that he would lose. Even if Robb did believe that (and based on his comments in the book where he says he would defeat Jaime again, when Catelyn asks if he is scared of him when trying to persuade a Jaime for Arya/Sansa captive exchange, this does not appear to be the case), I don’t believe he would publicly admit such a thing in front of his men. It is irritating to have lines that I really like from the book shortened or cut to add lines that aren’t based on anything in the books and add nothing to the story.

I can accept the realities of budget constraints even if they are disappointing, but it’s hard to accept the idea that good dialogue from the book was cut due to lack of time when significant parts of the episode are dedicated to dialogue not based on the book in any way and changes that don't have any clear explanation for needing to be changed.

Individually, some of the things listed above could be ignored on their own as nitpicks, but all together they combined to really poison my impression of this episode.

The good news for the future of the show is that most non-readers and apparently a good number of readers really liked the episode. But as an adaptation it was a let down for me, only enhanced because I am going to have to deal with their changed version of Shae for 3+ seasons.

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The lack of battle scenes of course was also disappointing, though not all together unexpected. I just don’t understand why they bother to change the description of what happened and numbers of troops for something that they didn’t show. In the books Rob took a portion of the cavalry to capture Jaime in an ambush, while the majority of his force was under Roose Bolton’s command vs Tywin. So what was the point of changing this description that they didn't show any way? A forced march to attack with 2,000 vs 30,000 as the show describes was quite unbelieveable for me. Why bother changing it when you aren’t going to show it?

I didn’t like the addition of Jaime challenging Robb to a duel either, in particular Robb’s response that he would lose. Even if Robb did believe that (and based on his comments in the book where he says he would defeat Jaime again, when Catelyn asks if he is scared of him when trying to persuade a Jaime for Arya/Sansa captive exchange, this does not appear to be the case), I don’t believe he would publicly admit such a thing in front of his men. It is irritating to have lines that I really like from the book shortened or cut to add lines that aren’t based on anything in the books and add nothing to the story.

Whilst I am emphatically not a fan of their treatment if Jaime's capture-

A) I thought Robb was saying he would lose no matter the outcome because the Lannisters would not give up if he killed Jaime (Tywin would kill everyone with a double consonant ending as a revenge and write a song about it) so either he would lose a captive or his life. Plus he's got Jaime captive and routed 30,000 men. Duelling Jaime would be sooooo stupid even if he thought he could win

B) it acted as a fairly meagre attempted substitute for some action to try and remind us that Jaime can fight. Which is good (though not enough) because that's kind of important to his arc and so far the show has depicted the opposite. Love NCW, he nails Jaime's character. But drawing to Ned in a duel and looking like losing? That sucked.

C) It's pretty in character for Jaime in fact he does it so much in aSoS and aFfC he may as well have "let's end the (insert situation) with a duel, you and me". He loves his duels. As I said it's a character trait and a vital one at that

D) Robb is not stupid enough to think he could beat Jaime in a fight when he's actually thinking straight and not making petulant comments, especially after Jaime killed 10 men trying to get to him and only lost because he got his sword stuck in Robb's bodyguards' corpses. Even if it did happen off screen and thus may as well never have happened

E) admitting that he, at 17, would not match the most famous sword (or one of) in Westeros in a swordfight is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of maturity and intelligence and was picked up as such by the Unsullied on TWOP

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