[Book Spoilers] EP110 Discussion

[Gnomestress]

Sensationalism leads to attention. Well, you're right. Because I bit.

I'm glad that's what you took from what I wrote. Truly, you are a paragon amongst forum dwellers. I have seen the error of my ways. Sarcasm, analogy, and any hint of amusing sentiment are a scourge and should be purged from the internet.

Seriously, some of us are going to not like things you like. We might even say that in a way you don't find pleasing. The horror.

[The Knight of Grasses]

Maybe b/c Osha equipped an epic hairbrush and you can actually see her face!

Me: Well, it looks like Osha finally got her hands on some good conditioner.

My wife: And you have to figure that Winterfell's hard water had something to do with it as well.

It was excellent.

I wonder a litttle at he idea of Pycelle playing the Game. Despite some suggestions based on how some have read AFFC, I never saw him as a player...but it makes for more interest in the show...

I think there's a shade of gray here - I don't think it's accurate to characterize everyone as either a player or not. Clearly, there are people who are VERY involved in the game - Cersei, Tyrion, LF, Varys, etc. And clearly there are people who want nothing to do with it - Ned, Brienne, etc.

But Pycelle is involved. He may not be the best player, and he may only be in at the first layer, but in the books, he's got a hidden agenda that's revealed when he informs Cersei of Tyrion's plan. It's also still possible that he's even more involved, but it hasn't been revealed to us yet. His hidden agenda may be very simple. It would still behoove him to project a frail image so he's underestimated by those with competing interests.

[The King's Foot]

That was Marillion? Are you sure? There was a scene in the books where Joffrey gives a singer a chance to choose between his fingers and his tongue. It wasn't Marillion though...did they mention Marillion's name in the scene or did you recognize the actor? Just wondering. :) I'll have to rewatch that part.

I didn't realize it either but read it in another post that it was the same actor. Haven't gone back to look at the scene again myself but it seems accepted. Rather than pay another actor for a speaking part they used the singer we know from before. No biggie as far as I'm concerned.

[Gnomestress]

I didn't realize it either but read it in another post that it was the same actor. Haven't gone back to look at the scene again myself but it seems accepted. Rather than pay another actor for a speaking part they used the singer we know from before. No biggie as far as I'm concerned.

I agree. There's no lack of scummy singers in Westeros.

[freamon]

ACOK has a lot going on. We've got Theon marching on and taking Winterfell (and 'killing' Bran and Rickon). We've got Arya and Harrenhall and Jaqen H'gar. We've got Stannis marching on Renly, Renly marching, Stannis killing Renly, and THEN the Blackwater. Tyrion, Cersei and Sansa are all playing their parts in KL and that's probably the most interesting bit. Plus we'll be seeing more of characters we didn't have PoVs for - like Robb.

Obviously stuff happens, it's still a huge book. But all the things you listed above can be handled in half a season. I seriously doubt they would keep Dany in the purgatory that is Qarth for more than half a season. I think they will speed it up, even if it's just for her sake and get to the parts when she actually does stuff, because she's the favorite character of a lot of viewers right now.

[Été]

I think A Clash of Kings can be done in 6-7 episodes since most of the important stuff happens in A Storm of Swords anyway.

aCoK is mostly preparation for aSoS. Except for Blackwater. Other than that, Dany is chilling in Qarth and the Brothers of the Night's Watch are chilling (literally) north of the Wall without much happening.

They're already into aCoK so I think the last few episodes of Season 2 can be from aSoS.

That's unlikely, unfortunately: GRRM said in his blog that the Blackwater episode is #9. More time for character development up till then - it can be even more faithful to the books.

NMH. Just sayin' :smoking:

[IheartTesla]

Let me put down my thoughts of the episode

- Osha was hot all cleaned up. There, I said it

- As soon as I saw that naked leg in Pycelle's bed, I knew who it would be. I chuckled, knowing the reaction that it would get here and elsewhere on the internets. I was a bit annoyed too, truth be told. I'm sure we can come up with reasons why that scene was necessary, or what purpose it served. But it was not entertaining to watch.

- GoT is really lucky to have so many good child actors. Jack Gleeson is nailing it, and even Clark isnt that old, and she's done an awesome job.

- Not feeling Shae.

- Mormont taking his rangers north of the Wall was epic, this show does music quite well setting the tone of a scene.

- I loved, loved, loved the dragons. Hearing them screech at the end was the perfect finale.

All in all, it didnt quite have the emotional impact of the penultimate episode (except for the dragon hatching), but that's understandable. It was a solid end to what has been a very, very enjoyable season thus far.

[Mad Sweeney]

I'm actually not okay with Cersei's supposed empathy for Bran. I didn't believe it; Cersei doesn't give a damn about other people's children unless they are valuable to her own, or to her. Maybe she was trying to verbally disarm Catelyn. And I had a real problem with Cersei saying she'd had a black-haired son who had died as an infant. We know that she never had any black-haired children of Robert's, only Jaime's blond children. In later novels, Cersei reveals pride in her own consuming of Robert's sperm (off her fingers), she speaks of eating Robert's children; and she has also said that she got aborted the pregnancies that Robert managed to give her - the level of hate and resentment that would inspire a woman in Cersei's position to take these measures is tremendous; and very much a part of Cersei's character. But in the TV series, Cersei did not hate Robert that much, she appears to borne at least one child to him (I doubt she would lie about that to Catelyn; since it would be known that the Queen had one child who did not survive), and the TV writers seem to imply that the child was Robert's, else why would Cersei have even mentioned the infant's hair color? Unless the infant was really another of Jaime's blond bastards, and Cersei lied? Possible, but this was something that Catelyn could have found out with some searching. Cersei's revelations puzzled me; and made no sense given what we know of her character; unless one accepts, as I probably have to, that TV-Cersei is a rather different character than Book-Cersei.

Showing that Robert's offspring, coupled with Jon Arryn's dying words "The seed is strong", is the onl reason for that scene. It was their way of showing what the blonde hair of Joffrey implies.

[Mad Sweeney]

I guess it all depends on what people think Tyrion would or should fall for. It's almost unbelievable to me that he would fall for show Shae. As has been mentioned, he's surrounded by hard to get people who all want to use him. And Tyrion desperately wants to be appreciated, to the point that he acts irrationally not just with Shae but with his father and the entire court. He thinks it's pathetic how grateful he is when Ser Garlan praises him for his part in the battle, but he just can't help himself...

Moreover, show Shae doesn't seem to admire him in any way; I can't imagine her calling him "my giant of Lannister" without irony in her voice. If she's going to pretend to fall for him, why start out so abrasive? Surely there are clients she could pull in that way, but just as many who will kick her out the door - and as for not being a cheap camp follower who would be glad to get a knight or lordling, Bronn took her from a knight a few tents down, she wasn't exactly in a Chataya-like establishment. It would be pretty strange if some random knight had a high born courtesan.

If she really does start to fall for him, IMO, it makes her more a villain for her betrayal. There's something incredibly more repulsive about a woman who sells the man she genuinely cares about for the promise of a manse and a marriage to a knight than there is about book Shae who was always a whore. I think that there's a more sympathetic although not entirely innocent story from book Shae's perspective. If the POV were from the perspective of a low born, uneducated whore who knows that her client participated in the gang rape of his first wife and gets more and more disgusted with having not just to fuck the guy but put on an elaborate pretense of love and admiration, until under threats and promises from the queen, she testifies against him falsely... that character is one who I think deserves as much pity as hatred. She was always in above her head. Not everyone has to be a skilled player.

All I can say is 'wait and see'. Those are my thoughts on why the Shaes are different. However, if you were a dwarf and paid for women constantly, and were a smart and intellectual fellow, what would intrigue you more: just another in a constant stream of whores saying the same things, showing the same affection and all motivated by money, or a whore who seems to not care so much about the money, who challenges the jon with a feisty attitude and who had a different path to whoredom than the typical whore (as shown in the game they played in ep 9)? We know Tyrion is smarter and more well read than most people in the country so appealing to his intellectual side with mystery seems to be the route they're going.

[Eponine]

So, do any of the "Shae-haters" want to revise any earlier "They better not replace Shea with Ros!" opinions? :rolleyes:

I repent! I confess, I wish they'd replaced Shae with Ros.

I don't think that Ros is a poor actress or an annoying character. She can be charming the way that Shae was supposed to be, and I can easily imagine her turning on the smiles for Tyrion. My two complaints with her sexposition scenes (besides the one with LF which nothing will make me approve of) is that they tend to go on too long, probably at the expense of developing other characters who are plot important (Robb in early episodes, the Hound, Beric Dondarrion), and that at this point it seems pretty ridiculous that she manages to sleep with almost every important character (N+R=J, you know it's true). As I already said, a reveal that she's been one of Varys spies from the beginning would improve the second problem.

While I don't think it would have been suitable for Tyrion's whore to be someone that everyone in the North had slept with or almost slept with, they could have gotten almost any chick with nice boobs for shortened scenes with Theon, taken out the LF part altogether, and then the actress who plays Ros would have been a good Shea as long as she refrained from sleeping with everyone else in the seven kingdoms - because then what would Cersei have to do.

[Mad Sweeney]

Well, I certainly can't point to anything in the book that refutes your points--it's not like GRRM explains WHY things happen. However, we definitely have read it differently...and I suspect it pleases GRRM to no end.

One thing I'm curious about, which I don't think you mentioned, was the significance of Jorah carrying Dani into the tent. The way the scene played out, it seemed that her entering the tent was a Big Damn Deal, in both the book and the TV show. In your reading of this, what's your interpretation of this event? That is, what would have happened if she had remained outside? Or does it matter? [To my reading, if she had stayed outside, Drogo would still have been a vegetable, but her baby wouldn't have been a dead lizard, and the dragon eggs would have been rocks.]

Of course, one thing that's hard for me to reconcile is Dani's perception of the eggs being alive before all this. Since only she perceived it, I've always felt that these were basically premonitions--that is, they were just rocks, but she was picking up on the potential for them to be reanimated.

With plot points like this, it fascinates me how different people can read the same events and interpret them so completely differently...

-VM

Her baby might not be a dead lizard, but it would be dead. I don't think the eggs hatching have anything to do with MMD's blood magic spell, however the trauma that Dany goes through during MMD's Revenge might be an emotional/supernatural trigger for the eggs to hatch. And maybe she needed to "burn" as well to activate the eggs. And that would easily explain her empathy with the eggs.

[wandarah]

I'd like to say that Ros is being well acted. I also have no idea why she's in it so much, but I suspect she's going to play off LF a lot next series.

She's just got a droll, wry wit about her that I really like. And a cracking pair of jugs.

[SerArthurHeath]

For whomever it was, who asked earlier: We learn about Lancel and Cersei about midway (a little less) through aCoK but it is implied to have started approximately when Jaime got captured

[ZombieWife]

I'm in the pro-whores bandwagon.

I like Ros. I do think her presences feels like a bit of a writing device, but in truth? I think the actress is great. I enjoyed her scenes with Theon, especially the goodbye scene.

I adore Shae. I think they picked a really great actress. I like her character. I think she has wonderful chemistry with Tyrion (Dinklage).

[brokor]

Even if they replace shae with Ros, they will still fail on this role.

my only complaints in casting so far (apart from children's age which is perfectly understandable in TV)is Shae and Cat.

Cat i imagined younger and more fiesty yet gentle, shae i imagined younger, giddy and naive. shae shouldnt be curious, mysterious or interrogating after tyrion's decisions. she is a girl that makes a living out of whoring but still has fun and is fascinated by being so close to a powerful man like tyrion. she teases and pleases, she is not supposed to make him think or judge him.

Ros was fine up untill the LF scene. the "play with her ass" line just ruined any credibility of those nude scenes. up untill then i thought that even theon-ros scenes had a reason to be there and they did. but after that moment i might aswell fastforward through those scenes. dont get me wrong i love boobies as much as the next guy but i would prefer to see cat's boobs in ep1 when she is in shock after her sister's letter (shaggy as they may be) than 2 whores who steal screen time. (scenes like jory looking at a whore's breasts before he dies or dany feeding her milk to the dragons are fine since they are fillers not scenes of their own)

ros would also make a bad shae anyway. she is too seductive and trained in the art of whoring to be anything but. shae gave me the appearance of a farmer girl turned whore not some damned professional. after all bronn found her in a camp not in a brothel or shanaya's house.

[johnnysd]

Pycelle was a Lannister lackey in the books, nothing more. He wasn't a "player" like Varys, Littlefinger, the Imp, etc.

Don't be so sure of that.

[Kalbear]

Yeah - given what we know of the Citadel from AFFC it seems clear that there's a lot more to the maesters than meets the eye. Plus...why would Pycelle say that he killed Jon Arryn? I mean...how many people actually poisoned the guy? Lysa admits to it, Ser Hugh is implicated, Pycelle admits to it. Did anyone not poison him?

Plus he either lied or insinuated that Margaery slept around, and we know that wasn't true (or at least wasn't nearly so accurate). At the time I thought it was just to support Cersei's play, but if he was actually making a case to get her put away and get Kevan back...that's not bad.

[Lord O' Bones]

I have to say, I'm pretty underwhelmed by this thread. The constant pettiness, pedantry and lack of perspective about television and it's majority audience or insight in general seems out of character.

I can't believe no one has mentioned how annoying overcritical complaining is yet. I mean, I haven't read the thread or anything, but still...

I'm disappointed that they didn't show Dolorous Ed being dolorous. This pretty much defines the entire Night's Watch's character. They couldn't lose 20 seconds of Mormont uselessly blah-blahing about what's going on north of the Wall to give us some Dolorous Ed?

Also, why is no one upset that Joffrey is being portrayed as having short hair? That was NOT in the books! I can't understand why they would change something so critical to his character and later developments. HBO really dropped the ball here.

AND WHERE ARE THE DIREWOLVES!? That used to be a staple of these threads, logical explanation be damned. It's not like it would have cost that much to have a few more whiny posts about direwolves.

And oh god Ros. There is so much fucking Ros in these threads I'd lose an eye to never have to see her in a thread again! No, I don't care if she had like 6 scenes in ten episodes. Enough is enough. As a heterosexual male I can honestly tell you that I literally can't look at tits anymore without puking my ass off through my face in a clown car. Literally.

*sigh*

I'll keep reading, for now.

But if any typos happen, ever

I WILL NEVER READ THESE THREADS AGAIN!

[Xanrn]

Why has all the boldness gone.

First Tywin has a full set of hair.

Second Dany hair survives her ritual, baahhhhh.

Also I got to say it made Dany look even more like she knowingly performed a Life for Life spell to get her dragons.

Poor Maegi woman made to look evil when she was only killing baby Hitler and getting some revenge, everybody else in the series after revenge isn't made to look evil.

[Bronn Stone]

Loved two bits from interviews today that shed a lot of light on the decisions to downplay the direwolves and large mounted battles.

In her interview with Ran and Linda, Natalia Tena mentioned that the small scene in the crypts took far more takes than one would normally expect because instead of growling at her, the dog portraying Shaggydog kept coming up and licking her face.

And in another interview, one of the D&D pair mentioned that they've learned that just adding a horse to a scene doubles the time spent making the shot correct. This of course all but doubles the expense involved as well. Animals and children are the bane of the serious actor. GoT has both in abundance.