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Mormont says on the TV show that Craster's been the difference between life and death for rangers many times, so they basically explain why the Watch lets him do what he does in very much the same way as in the novel.

Aha, good, thanks for the clarification! I did indeed miss that part - or maybe my preconceptions intentionally blocked it out :)

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I took Tyrion giving the girl an extra coin was like this:

He paid her for her work with Pycelle. As he turns to leave, he sees Pycelle sort of getting roughed up, so he gives her an extra coin to keep her mouth shut.

I guess I don't know if that makes total sense, since its not like they are trying to be secretive about it. Oh well, still a great scene.

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I don't think it's about him having a different accent than we imagined he would have, at least nor for me. It's about Dinklage falling in and out of his attempt at British English. I think that's reasonable criticism about an ACTOR... He has to control his accent as part of his job. Hugh Laurie controls both accents very well and that makes him a great actor.

This has nothing to do with the show having different accents already. It's about the fact that the characters with accents should be consistent. LF is another example of an inconsistent accent, especially this season. Shae has a very broken accent but at least she doesn't suddenly switch to australian or cockney.

I also have never heard about this being an issue. You laid it out pretty well, and can see where you are coming from. But here is my rebutal:

I always imagined Tyrion as highly intellectual man, who is well travelled and very well read. I don't see it being out of character for him to be able to slip in and out of accents depending on his mood or his surroundings. He has always been shunned everywhere he goes (except maybe the brothels). I see it as a weapon for him, being able to emphasize parts of his speech, to make it stand out, as well as help him blend in when needed. I guess I will start paying more attention to it going forward, now that the thought is in my head, but it hasn't caught my attention yet.

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Give them extra millions and they will give you an answer.

And I understand that. Yet money is spent on Littlefinger and Ros having in-depth, hokey conversation. Again, it's an example of David and Dan trying so hard to 'stamp' the series.

I know I've skewed negatively so far, but I do really like the show. I thought the first season was truly great in some instances, but I remain disappointed still with the adaptating of the material.

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I cannot stop thinking about this episode. I think it may be my favorite not only, of this season but the entire series so far. Little nuances keep coming to my mind at such random times. I was saddened to hear that some non-book readers were bored because in their words "there wasnt' any of the blond girl." I'm wondering how much many who haven't read the books are really reacting to the Theon story and if they GET it. I mean, to us it's just the beginning of Theon's incredible journey. Also, Tyrion and Varys are perfection together I cannot get enough of them. Margaery Tyrell is very spicy! It's funny when I first heard about Natalie Dormer I immediately pictured her as playing Asha Greyjoy solely based on how we meet her. I was a fan of hers on The Tudors where she played Anne Boleyn, but her interpretation of Margaery is intriguing. I supposed in the books we didn't get an extreme insight into Margaery's drive just other people's interpretation of her. But still. AMAZING!

My thoughts exactly. I realized how difficult it should be, to adapt the series to the TV show so both, readers and non-readers, to be pleased. It is a really difficult task.

I think the non-book readers respond to certain characters, who they already know from the first season. It would be now difficult for them to bond with all the new ones, who have completely new storylines.

My boyfreind, who hasn't read the book, but watches the show, doesn't think much of Stannis and wasn't very bothered when Theon burned the letter. He was like "Meh, sh** happens".

It this is just the beginning of the season and hope that the further episodes will change his attitude.

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So like I said earlier in the thread, why not use any of the existing cliffhangers in the books? Why make up one - and why make one up that doesn't flow? Actually, the show is being made for me, since I am one of those people you talk about watching it, just like it is made for you and every other viewer. My breathing is just fine - no need to worry about that. No, I'm not in the know about what they have written for future episodes - but why does that preclude questioning decisions on what they have shown us so far? They have made a very good adaption overall - but more than a few of the deviations they have chosen to make have not added anything to an all ready rich story. So please, notch down the self righteousness a little

After episode 2 aired, this place blew up with comments about the Craster/Jon cliffhanger. Yes, it was not part of the books. Episode 3 brought us right back to the where we should be based on the books. All HBO did was take several chapters worth of dialogue explaining what is going on with Craster and condensed it down to Jon witnessing it happening. This is on screen. Visuals are preferred. They are faster and cheaper to get the same point across. At the end of episode 3, we know what Craster is doing. We know that the Night's Watch knows what he is doing, and lets him do it because he still supports them when needed. We understand Gilly's fear of staying with Craster. We have the seeds of a Sam / Gilly romance. And we have the Nights Watch moving on. Sure, Jon has a bump on the nogin and a bruised ego, but HBO brilliantly condensed this part of the plot down to fit into the timeline that they have to use, being a 10 episode season.

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I think, and I don't know if anyone has asked D&D, that a decision was made to have everyone just flat speak in their 'everyday' (stage) accent. Some actors have keep their native accents but by way of stage training modified from what they spoke as puppies. I think some can drop back into their childhood accents when they want.

I think it a wise decision , Dinklage speaks a very eloquent refined (American ) stage English with a sophisticated elocution. I don't find it distracting at all. He and Charles Dance together are a master class in elocution.

Now I don't know how they picked Carice van Houten's accent, she might have a slight dutch now and then but it's so slight , to my ear, it's hard to discern. Tom Wlaschiha sure does not use a German accent, in fact that is one hell of a nuanced accent!

I don’t think they have (many) actors using their “native” accents. They intentionally have all the Northerners following Sean Bean’s distinctive Sheffield accent, which he retains for the show. Kit Harington is from the London area, but doesn’t sound anything like that. Richard Madden is Scottish, which perhaps is a bit closer to a Yorkshire accent natively, but he too is following Bean’s lead.

The urbane Southerners like Cersei do have a more Home Counties accent, though. They’re basically mapping accents from the north and south of Britain to the north and south of Westeros. I haven’t heard anything I’d call a distinctly Scottish, Welsh, or Irish accent. Well, that’s not true: Aidan Gillen’s native Irish did pop through a few places in this season’s third episode. But listen to Michelle Fairley: for the show she’s using something much closer to RP than her native Irish accent, which you can hear in her interviews.

Another one whose accent varies a bit, at least in the first second, is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. He’s not quite a native English speaker (he’s Danish), but he’s very good. But the thing is that his English when you hear him speaking off-camera is actually closer to American English than to one of the British accents. Nonetheless, he and all the other non-native speakers, including the two you mentioned, do admirably well.

One place where I noticed Peter’s accent flag in the last episode was when he said “bygahns be bygahns”. Especially the first of those two sounded too much like an unrounded “ah”, the way people with the cot–caught merger do it. I noticed it because I don’t have merger myself, and most of the time, neither does Tyrion. But there he did.

Edited by CrypticWeirwood
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First time I've been able to get on the forums since the ep aired...

I really can't believe that Mormont knows the full extent of what Craster's doing. I'm gonna assume that he thought craster just left the sons out in the woods to die so they wouldn't pose a threat to him, but the idea that the Lord Commander of the Nights Watch knows about the Others and has done precisely squat about is just too ridiculous.

In the book Gilly flat out tells Jon he's giving the sons to the Others, and Jon and Mormont have a talk about it. Jon neglects to mention the part about the Others and just focuses on the part about giving his sons to the woods which Mormont already knows. So if anything the show has somewhat fixed this part of the book, since Jon at least isn't sure what he saw. In the book there's no explanation why Jon is not freaking the fuck out about this and telling Mormont. You knew everything, Jon Snow.

As far as the Sansa/Shae scene goes, in the book the first Sansa chapter is the one where she saves Dontos. In the second Sansa chapter she gets the note from him. So there's absolutely nothing from the book that contradicts how Sansa might be acting at this point in the story in the relative privacy of her own room after she just had to sit through being taunted by Cersei. Nor does this scene mean that they've taken time away from her and anyone else since its been inserted into the timeline.

I'm now really curious how we are going to get the line that we know we are getting that is supposed to be the reaction of Tyrion to Cersei having Alayaya tortured. Since Shae is already Sansa's maid (way way early) how does that scene happen? There's lots of speculation that Ros is being used for Alayaya's part, but there's no need for Alayaya with Shae already Sansa's maid. Is Cersei going to actually get Shae? I was starting to accept Ros since she was getting a part that was actually in the books, but if she doesn't get it then I'm back to hating her.

There hasn't been much discussion of Tyrion sending LF to arrange Jaime's release with Cat. I think I see where they are going with this. I think they need Cat to free Jaime before the sack of Winterfell because they've rearranged the timelines so much, so she needs some other motivation than thinking Bran and Rickon are dead. I think LF is going to say something like we both know we aren't going to work out a deal that both Robb and Cersei/Tyrion will accept, but if you take it upon yourself to free Jaime I'll take it upon myself to free Sansa. It would give an interesting wrinkle to his later actions after Jaime finally gets back to KL. Or maybe he'll lie and tell her that Arya is dead?

While I'm totally on board with shortening up Arya's story, I don't like that Amory was sent to get Gendry. I miss that Arya & co were passing all the refugees headed for KL (which builds up the tension in both her story and in KL) and then just get caught up in the Lannister's waging total war in the riverlands after having to leave the kingsroad. Amory looking for Gendry makes for a tighter story to that arc, but disconnects it from the story at large. It makes the whole story more disjointed. And I agree with the one person earlier who though Yoren was too much of a badass at the end. It just cheapens it for other characters like Syrio, Selmy and Jaime when characters like Yoren can also cut through the red shirts just as easily as they can.

There was so much complaining about the casting of Renly and Loras last season, and that's mostly died down this season. I think by next season most everyone will have gotten used to Asha/Yara. The actor playing Loras looks like he got the memo all the rest of the male cast got before last season about looking like they've been to the gym with their shirts off.

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I don’t think they have (many) actors using their “native” accents. They intentionally have all the Northerners following Sean Bean’s distinctive Sheffield accent, which he retains for the show. Kit Harington is from the London area, but doesn’t sound anything like that. Richard Madden is Scottish, which perhaps is a bit closer to a Yorkshire accent natively, but he too is following Bean’s lead.

The urbane Southerners like Cersei do have a more Home Counties accent, though. They’re basically mapping accents from the north and south of Britain to the north and south of Westeros. I haven’t heard anything I’d call a distinctly Scottish, Welsh, or Irish accent. Well, that’s not true: Aidan Gillen’s native Irish did pop through a few places in this season’s third episode. But listen to Michelle Fairley: for the show she’s using something much closer to RP than her native Irish accent, which you can hear in her interviews.

Now I don't know GB and Irish stage training, ..., it was just my guess they are urged to sort of 'round off' any thick accents (except where the part calls for it), sort of like American actors , most of them seem to do the classic flat Midwestern , when they are presented with not particular reason not to.

Now at times New England, New York (and various kinds of Eastern US accents) , southern are part of a character, some actors from those regions have an ear for it, most good ones , now days, are very good at voicing an accent.

James Cosmo (to my American ear) seems to have a Scottish accent you could hang a hat on!

(I love him!)

While Rory McCann's Scottish accent seems urban Glasgow modified, but I am sure Scots have a better ear for regional accents than I do.

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After episode 2 aired, this place blew up with comments about the Craster/Jon cliffhanger. Yes, it was not part of the books. Episode 3 brought us right back to the where we should be based on the books. All HBO did was take several chapters worth of dialogue explaining what is going on with Craster and condensed it down to Jon witnessing it happening. This is on screen. Visuals are preferred. They are faster and cheaper to get the same point across. At the end of episode 3, we know what Craster is doing. We know that the Night's Watch knows what he is doing, and lets him do it because he still supports them when needed. We understand Gilly's fear of staying with Craster. We have the seeds of a Sam / Gilly romance. And we have the Nights Watch moving on. Sure, Jon has a bump on the nogin and a bruised ego, but HBO brilliantly condensed this part of the plot down to fit into the timeline that they have to use, being a 10 episode season.

It really was more like a few lines of dialogue, that they "condensed" by showing the scene.

This is what Gilly says happens to the babies which basicly gives exactly the same info Jon gets by following Craster:

Jon says"Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?"

For the baby, not for me. If it's a girl, that's not so bad, she'll grow a few years and he'll marry her. But Nella says it's to be a boy, and she's had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only the sheep's gone too. Next it will be the dogs, till... She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.

"What gods?" Jon was remembering that they'd seen no boys in Craster's Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.

"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."

And suddenly Jon was back in the Lord Commander's Tower again. A severed hand was climbing his calf and when he pried it off with the point of his longsword, it lay writhing, fingers opening and closing. The dead man rose to his feet, blue eyes shining in the gashed and swollen face. Ropes of torn flesh hung from the great wound in his belly, yet there was no blood.

"What color are their eyes?" he asked her.

"Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold."

She has seen them, he thought. Craster lied.

It's argueable the original dialogue would have been clearer as several non-readers have commented that they thought a wildling took the baby. They might have had to "adapt it" by having Jon mention the wight from season 1 to Sam after Gilly left, if they wanted to make it crystal clear to non-readers, but I don't think that dialogue would take any more time or money than what they ended up doing, though it would have made for less of "cliff hanger". Of course it didn't really end up being a cliff hanger, since nothing happened to Jon. In fact one might argue that the change of Craster kicking them out, rather than them leaving because that is what they were planning on doing anyway, will make Craster allowing them to come back in SoS less believeable.

The scene they created wasn't bad per se, though I do have to suspend disbelief that Craster would be bothered enough to attack Jon for what he saw, but would let Jon live.

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I assumed that the Shae/Sansa scene was for some future purpose and did not think Sansa was bratty at all but acted appropriately for her situation. I was wondering if anyone else noticed in "the more you love" trailer that it looks like Shae grabs Sansa roughly and looks really pissed off. Is it possible that they would have Sansa engaged to Tyrion at the end of this season? Who knows, the shot was so quick it may not even be Sansa that she grabs, but thought maybe this is why they are introducing Shae to Sansa so early on.

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Is anyone else hoping something happens to the actress playing Yara, so HBO can replace her with an actress that is at least some what close to Asha in the books, because this Yara is just not cutting it.

No. Unless she becomes seriously ill or dies, they're not going to replace her. And why would you wish someone ill just because you don't like how they're portraying a character? That's messed up.

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Is anyone else hoping something happens to the actress playing Yara, so HBO can replace her with an actress that is at least some what close to Asha in the books, because this Yara is just not cutting it.

Despite me not liking an actor, I hope nobody is recast, if that can be avoided.

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I'm worried about something, which I'm not sure if it has been mentioned earlier in the thread. So in this episode we've seen that Shae is now Sansa's maid, hence removing the need for Alayaya or similar character (I thought Ros was going to fill that role until this episode squashed that).

Now we have seen, in previews, Tyrion giving his line about how he would "hurt her for this" and how her "joy would turn to ashes". Awesome line from the book. However now there is no place to use that, unless...Cercei finds out about Shae for real and does something to her (kills her or something). That would obviously significantly change events from book 3. No longer would Shae brutally betray Tyrion and then hook up with his father, nor would Tyrion kill her. I honestly think this is where it is headed, and I don't like it. His betrayal and his murder of Shae has a massive affect on his character.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm guessing we'll see in a few weeks.

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Aegnor, I brought that up above you on this page. Even if Cersei gets ahold of Shae, it doesn't mean she kills her. But they could still pull a switcharoo even though Ros isn't Alayaya, it would just happen without the elaborate setup.

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Did anyone else cringe when it was implied Tyrion would send Littlefinger to negotiate Jaime's release with Caitlyn stark. Not only is this part a complete departure from the books, but it will lead to Jaime's release WAY earlier. I'm not a purist, and I am actually really enjoying the segments with Renly, Loras, and Margaery, and I don't even mind that they removed the segment where Arya, Gendry, Lommy, and Hotpie escape and make it on their own for a few days. But throwing off the timing of what happens dramatically, and to top it all off doing so in a matter completely inconsistent with the books is just.... pointless.

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