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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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    • 8
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    • 9
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    • 10
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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

To be clear I am not saying Robb should or would have accepted the duel, or that Jaime wouldn't have made the offer. I think Robb should have made a comment more on par with Jaime's in AFFC where Jaime would be on the losing end of duel, and he points out that having the superior army and position that a duel was a lose lose position. If Robb won the Lannisters wouldn't have surrendered so dueling his captive was a lose-lose situation and Robb could have said that without publicly admitting he would lose in front of his army. Then instead of giving an inspirational speech after the Starks biggest victory, gives the opposite. A depressing, we haven't done anything yet speech... Perhaps we will see more of the post victory description of what happened next episode, but I think the writing for that scene could have been much better.

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Quite the opposite. HBO's intent (or more correctly D&D's intent) is to capture the spirit of the story, as faithfully as possible within the inherent limits of the medium and the realities of modern television. Anyone who thinks otherwise is setting themselves up for endless disappointment. I thought people here understood that, but apparently not.

People are allowed to dislike what they see...and voice that displeasure. You can ease off the fanboi gas pedal just a little bit. You've been raggin on people all season. It's tiresome to read.

Anyway, lack of battles sucked(i would have shown the Whispering Wood tho) but they did a pretty good job with the rest of the material. My friend who hasn not read the books was watching it with me and she was flat out stunned at the ending. Sort of amusing, really. My highest score so far with a 8.

Edited by Relic
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To be clear I am not saying Robb should or would have accepted the duel, or that Jaime wouldn't have made the offer. I think Robb should have made a comment more on par with Jaime's in AFFC where Jaime would be on the losing end of duel, and he points out that having the superior army and position that a duel was a lose lose position. If Robb won the Lannisters wouldn't have surrendered so dueling his captive was a lose-lose situation and Robb could have said that without publicly admitting he would lose in front of his army. Then instead of giving an inspirational speech after the Starks biggest victory, gives the opposite. A depressing, we haven't done anything yet speech... Perhaps we will see more of the post victory description of what happened next episode, but I think the writing for that scene could have been much better.

Stunning lack of historical fact and military history. The truth of the matter is Robb certainly had to impress upon his forces that this was NOT the decisive victory they'd marched south for. Polygot armies where each faction owed their allegience to their particular lord, not the overall commander were very wont to do exactly that. His reinforcing that there was still much to do was great generalship. It's part of the defining of the the Young Wolf as a military genius, on the battlefield. We all know what his weakness turned out to be.

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Stunning lack of historical fact and military history. The truth of the matter is Robb certainly had to impress upon his forces that this was NOT the decisive victory they'd marched south for. Polygot armies where each faction owed their allegience to their particular lord, not the overall commander were very wont to do exactly that. His reinforcing that there was still much to do was great generalship. It's part of the defining of the the Young Wolf as a military genius, on the battlefield. We all know what his weakness turned out to be.

Ah!! Bullets!! My only weakness!!

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Fantastic episode. HBO needed for viewers to invest in Robb, Tyrion and the rest to bring them back next season after the lost of Ned.

My only quibble, Aemon scene with Jon. Stop the pity party Jon and give more of the scene to Aemon.

9.9 near perfect!

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Unfortunately the relatively low budget finally shows itself with the large scale of the battles being effectively glossed over. My worry moving forward however is that subsequent series will depend ever more heavilly on the younger actors. Whether or not GRRM will address this in future books and introduce some more mature central characters who knows. At the moment however I forsee series 5/6 should we ever get there ending up like some version of Sesame Street with Araya, Bran, Tommen et al heading up the cast.

This episode was stolen by Tyrion and Bronn obviously. Hopefully they won't beome entirely stereotyped as we move into the next series.

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People are allowed to dislike what they see...and voice that displeasure. You can ease off the fanboi gas pedal just a little bit. You've been raggin on people all season. It's tiresome to read.

So other people are free to voice their displeasure about what they see but the poster you're addressing should tone the same thing down? Just as you find his sort of complaints tiresome to read, so do others with complaints based on expectations that were fairly obviously unrealistic. I'd also say that someone explaining how to think in order to see what's realistic to expect is more constructive than just saying this or that sucked (and it doesn't bring more negativity to the discussions either), so your fanboi comment is a bit off the mark as well in my view.

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So other people are free to voice their displeasure about what they see but the poster you're addressing should tone the same thing down?

Honestly, it would be best if people just expressed their opinions in this thread, and saved their commentary on other people's opinions for one of the discussion threads. I have some of the same frustrations (and have succumbed to the same temptation to respond), but it's really not the place for tit-for-tat criticisms and responses to criticisms and responses to... blah blah blah.

There is a difference between voicing displeasure at the show (however shallow the criticism may be) and voicing displeasure at someone's opinion. They are not the same things, and the latter one is the one that's truly out of place here. Again, I am guilty of that too, but next time I am tempted to respond I will try to bite down the temptation and just move along instead...

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I'd give it a 7. Was great for everything but i really did want to see at least 1 battle. And that was the letdown for me. They should really have shown the battle where Jaime was captured. I know its a TV show and has a smaller budget than films, but i really did want to see that on screen. Even if it was scaled down to a level possible with their budget. Their failure to portray the battles makes me wonder how they'll do the Battle of the Blackwater in Season 2 and the fight at the Wall in ASOS and the Red Wedding etc.

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Dany's youth and naivety regarding Mirri Maz Duur is frustrating me all over again. The look on Ned's face when Joffrey put his big boy pants on and ordered him beheaded was fantastic. Very sad to be losing Sean Bean. The young lady playing Arya might be the second best actor left after Dinklage.

Tywin was excellently cast and he and Dinklage work well together. Disappointed with Shae's casting, though.

Compared to last ep, I had to give it a nine even though a ten would have been justified imo.

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Some parts were very well written, but they completely ignored the opening battle in the Stark-Lannister wars!

Although the acting was great, the show is not sticking to the details at all... what happened to Tywin and Jaime's armour? The budget is over $5 million, but they can't even do a CGI battle scene? Not at all optimistic for the Battle of King's Landing, or Dany's attack against the Yunkai and Mereen, or even the wildlings against the Wall.

Very Disappointed.

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I'll give this an 8. In general, very good.

I have no problem with glossing over the Green Fork (although having Tyrion knocked out by his own troops seemed a little trite). The whole point of the battle is a demonstration that Robb knows what he's doing, and that's effectively explained by Tywin's comments after the battle.

I wouldn't have had a problem with them not showing scenes from Whispering Wood, it's just that they didn't provide any exposition either. If you hadn't read the book you'd barely have any idea what that fight was about, or that it was anything more than a skirmish. Even if they'd just done Catelyn's POV from the book, that would have been enough; the tension prior to the battle and (particularly) Theon's after the battle excitement and Catelyn's response would have very effectively demonstrated the importance of the battle and the unfinished nature of the war).

On the other hand;

Jon and Aemon scene was great. As was Ned & Varys, and Ned's execution.

Also thought they did they did the Dany/Drogo stuff as well as possible, given it's a pretty complex piece of the book and they only had limited time on screen.

...not entirely sure about this Shae...

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Honestly, it would be best if people just expressed their opinions in this thread, and saved their commentary on other people's opinions for one of the discussion threads. I have some of the same frustrations (and have succumbed to the same temptation to respond), but it's really not the place for tit-for-tat criticisms and responses to criticisms and responses to... blah blah blah.

There is a difference between voicing displeasure at the show (however shallow the criticism may be) and voicing displeasure at someone's opinion. They are not the same things, and the latter one is the one that's truly out of place here. Again, I am guilty of that too, but next time I am tempted to respond I will try to bite down the temptation and just move along instead...

I can agree to a point but still discussion about what's written is the fundamental thing with a discussion forum. We do have the general discussion thread but I'd also say that there has been some relevant commentary in these rating threads as well. For example, some have said that a show has gotten a lower grade because something was different from the book, and then someone has told them that that event actually was just like that in the book as well. There's also been a few interesting points that I haven't seen mentioned in the general discussion threads.

But as I said, there is merit to your point, even though I see a thread where people just say what they thought in a very brief way, without any discussion about it, does get pretty flat. To me it's the discussion that makes it interesting as otherwise it's just a bunch of mostly bad reviews since people, understandably, don't take the time to write a real one. I think this is also something that can be self-moderating. If people want to discuss it, they will, and if they don't they don't have to respond. Still my main point was only that if you don't like someone commenting on another's opinion, it's not really logical to use the argument that people are entitled to their opinions.

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I wouldn't have had a problem with them not showing scenes from Whispering Wood, it's just that they didn't provide any exposition either. If you hadn't read the book you'd barely have any idea what that fight was about, or that it was anything more than a skirmish. Even if they'd just done Catelyn's POV from the book, that would have been enough; the tension prior to the battle and (particularly) Theon's after the battle excitement and Catelyn's response would have very effectively demonstrated the importance of the battle and the unfinished nature of the war).

This is one of my main problems with the show so far. The pacing is too fast, when most scenes are just 2 or 3 minutes long, it's hard to put in information and depth that the audience can soak in and absorb, especially important scenes like Jaime getting captured. I posted it earlier, but I find it hard to believe that non-readers even really know what is going on in relation to Robb's army moving south, other than the fact that Robb's army is moving south to fight the Lannisters.

I can understand it being OK with some, but it really pales in comparison to the details and depth of the book. It's not even close really.

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