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[Book Spoilers] EP 206 Discussion


Ran
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Dany announcing what she and her dragons will do in every episode is becoming very much like Robb's camp announcing that he's KOTN. Really just comical to me.

And are we really expected to believe that Robb would not question his mother about Renly's death, or notice the 6'3" woman she's picked up on her way back? :shocked: Really, because that just seriously pushes the envelope of credulity in my estimation. I don't care how infatuated you are with Volantine Medicine Woman, a six foot three woman wearing battle armor following your mother around would still be hard to miss.

Or, perhaps I'm just preternaturally perceptive. LOL.

Nope, I think those are valid - especially considering they are still considered potential assassins of Renly.

Now, this was an egregious oversight. Maybe they thought it would be too funny, though, so they took it out.

I thought I did hear it in the background of the yelling, could be wrong though.

Dance-is-with-wolves?

Oh well played!

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"POC", aka Person of Colour or People of Colour is used to describe all people who are not white, without having to define them by their non-whiteness the way the term "non-white" does. I'm not using it in an effort to be politically correct, or because I'm afraid to call black people black, brown people brown or white people white. I'm using it because it's shorter than writing "people of all ethnicities that are not Caucasian" and because it's widely used by "people of colour", like me, themselves.

Now you’re talking ethnicity, which is orthogonal to color. Why say color when you mean ethnicity? That just confuses people.

Plus I know people who are dark as can be but are certainly Caucasians: check out the Aryans in India, who are blacker than most of these fabled persons of color you refer to.

I know, I know: you would sentence me to ten weeks hard labor at a sensitivity-reorientation camp.

No thanks. It’s all silly, made-up stuff anyway.

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Now you’re talking ethnicity, which is orthogonal to color. Why say color when you mean ethnicity? That just confuses people.

Plus I know people who are dark as can be but are certainly Caucasians: check out the Aryans in India, who are blacker than most of these fabled persons of color you refer to.

I know, I know: you would sentence me to ten weeks hard labor at a sensitivity-reorientation camp.

No thanks. It’s all silly, made-up stuff anyway.

It's just a usual manner of speaking. It's frequent to mix skin colors and ethnicities for the sake of simplicity.I think most of us understood what she meant. Don't understand why you're getting so worked up about it, especially since she explained it.

Edited by Fantôme
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This series starting to be hit & miss with me, with stuff in each episode. I enjoy lots of thing, but get annoyed with others.

On this whole, this is a good week, the Kings Landing scenes were very good and when the Hound rescued Sansa was awesome. Tyrion smacking Joff was excellent. But the 2 main gripes I have is the changes, which wouldnt be so bad if they wasnt so extreme.

This whole Robb romance thing would have been easy to do, the next time he sees this bird (Jeyne Westerling?) is when she's treating his wounds in her old mans keep after Robbs taken it. That explains the romance, and keeps it relevent to the books for when she next appears infront of Cat as Robbs new wife.

The other part, and its a good/bad is still Harrenhal. I actually enjoy Tywin in this, the actor plays him down to a T. But at the same time, I keep reminding myself he shouldnt be there, Maybe next week some of the Northeners (and Roose?) will arrive in chains allowing for Arya to free them with her last kill moving the story back in sync with the books...

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Overall I thought it was a pretty good episode. It seems a lot of people are complaining that Dany's khalasar is being killed off, but the victims looked like Daxos' servants to me (other than Irri). I also wonder if Drogon may have escaped the dragonappers, since they only showed two tails. I do think they're portraying Dany as too much of a petulant, entitled brat but I guess she doesn't really start to show here true leadership capabilities (and heart) until ASoS.

Edited by sharksbreath
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Anyone else find Amory Loch's illiteracy somewhat far-fetched?

No, absolutely not far-fetched in any way or fashion, none whatsoever. It’s perfectly historically accurate. Things were very different between the time times of the ancients (who were all literate in Rome) and modern times (where most of us are). Those in-between times were.... different.

Society in Westeros is modelled after the later Middle Ages in Europe. If you have three classes — nobles, clergy, and peasant — then only the clergy (hence, clerks) were typically literate, and some of the higher nobility.

Hedge knights were typically not literate at all, and only knights who were actually part of the high nobility like Ser Kevan Lannister, brother to the Lion of Casterly Rock, would normally be literate.

This began to change a bit with the rise of the merchant classes, but Ser Amory is neither a high lord, nor a maester nor a septon, nor perhaps a merchant.

Also, literacy is not a black and white, on and off kind of thing. From this page, we learn:

Arguments about the level of literacy in the middle ages, or any other exotic port, can get extremely tangled around the concept of what the term literacy actually implies. It is possible to be adequately literate for a position in society, even an elevated one, without being a speed reader of today’s standards and possibly without being able to write at all. We tend to see reading literacy and writing literacy as inseparable concepts. ...

Having been bludgeoned into early literacy, we then fail to recognise a culture based on oral testimony and feats of memory. We consider a basic test of literacy as being whether a person can read without moving their lips. In a culture where reading was a co-operative activity where one person read aloud to others, this criterion has no relevance. In a culture which remembered much, reading a familiar work might consist of a large percentage of memory, jogged along by periodic reminders from the text. ...

Writing was a different matter altogether. There were professionals who would write for you; priests, lay scriveners, notaries. From Charlemagne to Margery Kempe there were people who could probably read, to some degree, and who valued the written word, but who employed others to write for them. The society of ancient Rome, from which our written heritage derives, was essentially literate. Written documentation was essential to its forms of government and administration. It had platoons of authors. ...

The barbarian invaders from the north were illiterate. Some adopted the Roman mode of literacy pretty quickly. Theoderic the Ostrogoth, invader of Rome itself, had fancy Bibles made in the Gothic language. It was a way of being Roman. In England the Anglo-Saxons did it their own way and conducted their affairs through sworn and witnessed oral testimony. It took a long time for this to be entirely replaced.

And from elsewhere on that same site:

In our time, we tend to conceive of literacy as an absolute, with reading and writing inextricably combined. We attempt, without notable success, to educate all members of society to the same standard of literacy. We think that everybody can be taught literacy in the same way, and classify those that cannot as suffering from some sort of medical condition or gross social deprivation. In the medieval era, reading literacy was not an absolute. There was always a broad range of levels and types of literacy, from those who had total competency in several languages, through those who were trained to understand certain kinds of texts and read them in particular ways, to those totally ignorant and obliged to seek out professional assistance if they required something to be read.

There’s a lot more there on the site; I strongly encourage reading it. Please.

All these things people are saying about Ser Amory and his “literacy” are culturally-biased nonsense that make no sense in the medieval society that Martin is trying to largely simulate here.

It’s even worse to conflate competence with literacy, or intelligence with literacy. Amory could have plenty competent without meeting the modern notion of literacy.

And doubtless was.

God! Kids on the internet these days! ;-}

Edited by CrypticWeirwood
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The cicumstances in which I watched this episode may have tainted my opinions.

I was driving home from a hockey game at 10pm when my non-book reading wife called me and yelled into the phone "OMG why didnt you warn me that they would steal her dragons!".

I asked her to hang up, because believe it or not, she just let out a spoiler, as no dragons are ever stolen in the books.

When I finally got home and watched the episode, I could only focus on the fact they Dany's dragon's will get stolen. Since I hadn't seen the scene yet, nor had the context I was bothered by the idea and all other scenes were through a filter of annoyance.

Anyhow, fast forward to Monday night. I re-watched the episode, and what I thought was originally mediocre episode actually turned out to be a great one.

It's sometimes hard to turn off the idea that I Know what's supposed to happen and just let it flow. On second watch, none of the changes seemed out of place, nor would destroy any future story lines.

That being said, I am still not digging TV-Jon. He's a bit of righteous dummy on the show. I don't know. Maybe it is because I know how things turn out, that I forget the path characters need to take to get there. But come on Jon! Make a decision!! In the near future you will need to defend the wall and make some pretty quick decisions...

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Anyone else find Amory Loch's illiteracy somewhat far-fetched? They turned him into Charlie from It's Always Sunny When I was watching that scene I was half expecting someone to yell: "Goddammit Charlie, your illiteracy has screwed us again!"

Remember that Davos was totally illiterate, and he was obviously superior in every way to Loch.

The fact that a Loch may have begun as a commoner would not be surprising at any time in history such have risen to be officers.

I bet they leave out Davos's education next season, tho there is a plot pivot there.

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Not to mention Lorch's flub was sending a raven to Doron of House Mormet and not Moron of House Dormet, or whatever.

Subordinates screw up and CC the whole office and get fired all the time.

If only we had poison darts at the job.

Very good catch! You’re quite right. There’s no reason to imagine that Ser Amory would have written the letter himself. That’s what scribes, clerks, and maesters are for. There’s no way to know at what stage of the transmission process things got mangled. Someone might have misheard or misremembered. Plus all of us from time to time write certain words in the order wrong, or swich things around from be they should how. Give the fellow some slack (not that he deserves it).

Edited by CrypticWeirwood
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Absolutely loved loved loved this episode!!! I watched it 3 times in a row, and I think the changes they make are OK, it keeps me not knowing exactly what is going to happen next and they always seem to bounce right back to the book after a little change so thats ok by me.

My favorite part was the look that Jaquen gives Arya after she says NOw, IT Has To be Now! He just looks at her like an annoying little sister but u knw that he will listen to her and get it done!!!

Like so many others have said, the Sansa and Shae friendship is not sitting well with me. In the books Sansa NEVER trusted a hansmaid, so how does she knw that Shae is not one of the wrong people.

Tyrion and the Hound were GREAT! As was all the KIngs Landing scenes.

But the best part was of course Winterfell. And I do feel more sorry for Theon than in the books. And Rodricks last line about Theon now being truly lost was epic!!! Oh and the guy playing Dagmer has an awesome scary voice. Cant wait till next week, but i hate how this series seasons are only 10 episodes long :(

Especially as it was Sandor who warns her to not trust anyone.....and schools her about liars :(

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Is a colored person like black, or brown, or yellow, or pink, or like what? This seems like a weaselly euphemism for something, but I can’t pin it down. Are you trying to avoid saying a dirty word of some sort?

Christ, she meant people of non-white ethnicity, that was obvious to anyone except you, get over it.
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Dagmer can't be Ramsey. He's at least as old as Roose!

I don't know if I like the switch. I really wanted to see the Stark and Bolton men meet up, just as Theon, with Maester Lewin, is about to have a change of heart.

I think Quaithe stole the dragons. She will take them to tHotU, because she wants Dany to see something.

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I love Tywin and Arya together; but why would Lord Tywin Lannister unburden himself about his son's childhood dyslexia to a serving girl, even a clever serving girl? He's not just a distracted politician, he's Tywin, who is not egalitarian or at all interested in what servants think of him except their knowing to obey him.

Speaking of HBO nudity requirements, I was thrilled to see yet another Roz-free episode.

Tywin talking to Arya was an improvement on last season's "dude talking to Roz or another prostitute" scene. (I believe the fans have called that expositwhore or something like that.) They need a way to share what a character is thinking in a way that won't affect the story. it has mostly been men talking to prostitutes (Peytr, Pycelle, Theon, etc.) since those women can't do anything with the info they hear. Similarly, Arya won't be able to use the info Tywin is sharing, so the writers decided to use this method. Even, though it is uncharacteristic of Tywin, it's better than another Roz-like scene.

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While this episode had a rather big bunch of inconsistencies, some of the complaints are rather far-fetched and at times illogical themselves. If you're already in a bad mood because of errors, it can easily happen that you begin counting them and include more stuff than actually is supposed to be in there.

A thing I wanted to mention about the "teleportation": With so many different characters, it's really impossible to tell the story in any way with the time passed being synchronised, or even completely chronological. Martin has been pretty extreme here too. Littlefinger changing location every episode seems extreme, but you can't really tell how much time has passed.

About who stole the dragons: I might have to watch it again, but when first viewing it, it was obvious to me that this was Pyatt Pree, because the guy carrying it looked like him. Dom the amount of discussion about this, I might have been too quick to judge, but...edit: watched it again and yeah it's unclear, though I still believe it's pyatt pree. You get a quick glimpse of the foot, which looks wrinkled, and the arms also look a bit thin.

About tywin talking to a cupbearer: He doesn't talk with arya. He talks to her. Big difference. He doesn't care about her as a person. It seemed more like he was just reminiscing about the past by talking out loud.

I'm also disappointed about Sansa. Especially her line to Shae "But I can trust you" made me both cringe and facepalm. Cringe because Sansa had already been established about being a bit more clever than that....And facepalm for Sansa, because honestly? Yeah, you can totally trust the handmaiden that someone you don't know sent to you, replacing the old handmaiden. Right. >.>

Edited by insertname
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This episode's theme seems to me "the silly things I do for love/passion":

Ummmmm, what was Jon doing the whole episode? I mean, really. They are making him look like an idiot for the whole season now, and this episode especially. Talking that way to Qhorin was strange, and his indecisiveness about Ygritte even more. I like Jon in the books, but I am starting to wonder if this is supposed to be the same person - I have no idea how they will make his being chosen for LC work. Anyway, the scene with "Stop moving!" was funny in a ridiculous way.

Theon sees a naked girl and forgets about everything, like that she might not be as loyal as it seems.

And Robb. I do not really like his scenes with the random Volantene who is probably Jeyne Westerling. But Carelyn was priceless.

I like Tywin and Arya scenes, like most here, I think. They are great.

Does LF have an airplane or what? How could he possibly travel around Westeros that way?

I was really afraid for Sansa for a moment. A painful moment, just as Ser Rodrik's beheading.

What I like the most:

1. The pacing has gotten quicker, now things are starting to actually happen. I assume it has something to do with the fact that there were no Highgarden and no Dragonstone scenes this time, so the story acted like a story and no random scenes from different parts of the continent.

2. We managed to see two episodes without pointless too long sex scenes. Yes, I know we have seen Osha's seducing Theon, but that was one shot and then she was climbing out of bed. No stupid Ros or sexposition scenes!

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I think Quaithe stole the dragons. She will take them to tHotU, because she wants Dany to see something.

Hmm I'd love that, but I think they would've shown Quaithe in the "previously on". I don't think non-readers even took note of her.

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Tywin talking to Arya was an improvement on last season's "dude talking to Roz or another prostitute" scene. (I believe the fans have called that expositwhore or something like that.) They need a way to share what a character is thinking in a way that won't affect the story. it has mostly been men talking to prostitutes (Peytr, Pycelle, Theon, etc.) since those women can't do anything with the info they hear. Similarly, Arya won't be able to use the info Tywin is sharing, so the writers decided to use this method. Even, though it is uncharacteristic of Tywin, it's better than another Roz-like scene.

Maybe Ros is already a spy for Littlefinger ... so she can very well use the information she gets that way.

But I agree that this season's take on characters' psychology is better, if you look at it that way.

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