[Book Spoilers] EP 207 Discussion

[wolverine]

Wait...did you guys actually think Bran and Rickon were dead when you read the book? Personally I don't believe a character is dead unless I see it with my own eyes, and something definitely felt off about that Theon/Reek scene on the hunt.

Totally agree. They came back the right size but basically unidentifiable. Why would Theon make them unidentifiable if he wanted to be able to prove he captured them?

Oh yea, because he didn't actually capture them he just found a couple other right-sized boys whom he could maim until no one could identify them and he could claim he found and killed Bran and Rickon.

ETA: Also, as the Maester says, the boys are worth a hell of a lot more to Theon alive than dead. Why would he kill his only valuable hostages? They pissed him off? He's not that stupid.

Edited May 16, 2012 by wolverine

[Evamitchelle]

snip

At this point you've created this giant straw-man argument around the idea that I find D&D evil misogynists who spend their time plotting the best way to demean all women, all the time. I don't know what D&D were thinking when they changed Cat's narrative, but I remember at least one preview for season 2 where they said that the women of the series are the strong ones. Most likely they believe it too. Well, I don't really give a shit what their intentions were. Intent doesn't matter, only the end result does. Despite what you think, I don't believe I can see inside the writers' minds. Even if I could, it wouldn't change my opinion, because I'm basing my argument on the final product and not the original concept. They could have started with the best intentions in the world, or the worst, the result would be the same, and I'd still find their portrayal problematic for a number of reasons.

In the same way I don't really care what your opinion on Cat is either, though for what it's worth I did think you liked the character. But that's besides the point. Despite what you've said I'm still getting the idea that you find a lot of Book Cat's actions pretty stupid, since you've been repeating several times per post how she's so much smarter in the show (not mentioning Theon is smarter than doing so, not harping Robb about Jeyne is smarter than saying something, releasing Jaime out of immediate necessity is smarter than choosing to do so on her own etc.). So basically, you find a woman to be smarter when she shuts up rather than when she speaks up. That's sexism with a velvet glove right there (see how I'm not attacking you ?). “That makes her appear much smarter than when she stays of her own will and then fucks up.” When you say that she fucks up, it seems a pretty clear indication to me that you thought she acted stupidly.

As for the scene with Karstark, no she never had a confrontation with Karstark with weapons drawn, but she had an earlier scene much like it, except better, that was not included in the show. When Renly is slain by the shadow, a couple of guards and knights of the Rainbow Guard pour inside the tent, and while Brienne is busy fighting 2 or 3 men at once Catelyn literally puts herself between her and Ser Robar Royce, catches his by the arm before he can draw his sword and not only does she convince him not to attack Brienne, she even manages to have him fight the other guards outside. Then she saves the unarmoured Brienne from the steel-clad Ser Emmon Cuy by hitting him on the head with an iron brazier. And unlike what's in the show, she did it while alone in the middle of an enemy camp and not surrounded by her husband and son's men, i.e. in much greater personal danger. So excuse me if for not finding it spectacular when they deign to include toned down versions of her canon “badass” scenes every once in a while.

It's not making the female characters more sympathetic that I find problematic, it's the elements they've chosen to alter in the story lines that make it so. As I've already shown, pretty much every reason people have for hating Cat has been altered : she's not as mean to Jon, she's not as opinionated as in the books, she wants to go to Winterfell to be with Bran and Rickon, she doesn't betray Robb etc. All of that basically boils down to : she should be a better mother, i.e. not being as abrasive towards her teenage “step-son”, not choosing to stay away from her youngest children, complying to her eldest son's wishes. The changes they've made in Cersei's character also revolve around the idea of motherhood and family. Making her more sympathetic involves the following : she had unrequited feelings for her husband until a year into their marriage, she never aborted a baby but instead had a miscarriage/stillbirth, she never orders the murder of her husband's bastards etc. So apparently D&D think the viewers would have more sympathy for a woman whose feelings for her husband are not reciprocated rather than for a woman forced into marrying a man she hates. Or that a woman who willingly performs an abortion on an unwanted (forced) pregnancy isn't worthy of sympathy. On the whole I find Cat and Cersei to be the two characters they have tried to make the most sympathetic, and it just so happens that these two occupy the Mother role in the story, albeit on different sides. With Shae they seem to be going with the “whore with a heart of gold” archetype, and Margaery's portrayal is not really relevant because there is nothing to really compare her to in the books, given how little she's present in Clash.

But the whole “sympathy” thing isn't my primary gripe with Cat's portrayal. She should be the agent of her own story, the one calling the shots on her own life. Instead she submits to her teenage son's will (yes, Richard Madden is 25-ish and looks it, but Robb's still supposed to only be 18). In the books, it is her choice to stay at her son's side rather than go home to Winterfell, and to make that possible she orders Rodrik to go back in her place to act as castellan and military advisor. Catelyn doesn't want to go pay homage to Renly, but still does it of her own volition because Robb offers sending the Greatjon as an envoy instead. Hell, during their first reunion Robb asks her if she's going to send him back to Winterfell like the boy he is. But in the show he is ordering her around from the start, preventing her from going where she wants, sending Rodrik to Winterfell in her place and making her ride to the Stormlands the next day. Nothing is her choice any more, she's become the sidekick to Robb's story when it should be the reverse. You think that Robb ordering her to stay is good because it shows that he values her advice, while in my opinion it's bad because it strips her of her agency and makes her the passenger of her own life. I just find it infinitely more interesting to read about a woman who makes her own decisions, even if those decisions aren't necessarily the right ones, than about a woman who does well in everything because she is constantly told to do by the men in her life. Book Cat is the former, Show Cat is the latter.

In short, I think D&D have simply missed the point of the character and her role in the story. Change in itself doesn't bother me as long as the thematic of a character's arc is kept mostly intact. In my opinion that's what they did with Catelyn. To give an example with another character, I find it as bad as if they'd taken out the entire identity-crisis theme out of Theon's narrative and only played the “what a backstabbing douchebag” angle (to be clear : I don't think they did that, they've done a perfect job with Theon so far IMO).

And finally, reverse sexism. Lol. Yeah, good luck with that argument.

[Currawong]

The show lost me the moment they tried to make THE WHORE relevant....and I mean Shae.

...(snip)

This show had some great 1 on 1 moments....its just so sad that ALL of them made no fucking sense in terms of the characters and the emotions they displayed as well as their actions.

Save for Sansa and the Queen I would have given the episode a 1.

You surely can't have watched Episode 7. Did you actually listen to the dialogue, and given more than 5 seconds thought to what you learnt about the various characters? Seems not.

I suspect that the reason they are making Shae more of a character on the TV show is so that her eventual betrayal of Tyrion will have more of an impact. Don't forget that Sansa eventually marries Tyrion, and having Shae as both her handmaid and Tryion's special whore (remember he brought her to KL against Tywin's orders), will mean that viewers understand just why Tyrion feels so betrayed to find her in his father's bed, and why he kills her in a rage.

Remember that a lot of what we see of Shae in the books is just Tyrion POV thoughts, as well as just brief glimpses of her. GRRM provides a great deal of information via POV internalisation and exposition in the books, but this does not translate easily to the screen, hence we need additional scenes, or some characters need to be given slightly greater prominence.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Currawong

[wolverine]

I hated Catelyn in the book and though she was a selfish idiot. In the show I think she comes off as way more intelligent and capable. But whatever.

With the killing of most of the 13 in Qarth it makes me wonder if they are going to try and speed up Dany's storyline. Why else would they need Xaro to have more power than he does in the books? Maybe they are just doing it for fun but it makes me wonder about their plans for the future. IMO there are certainly other threads that could be streamlined from the books, particularly from AFFC.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

You surely can't have watched Episode 7. Did you actually listen to the dialogue, and given more than 5 seconds thought to what you learnt about the various characters? Seems not.

I suspect that the reason they are making Shae more of a character on the TV show is so that her eventual betrayal of Tyrion will have more of an impact. Don't forget that Sansa eventually marries Tyrion, and having Shae as both her handmaid and Tryion's special whore (remember he brought her to KL against Tywin's orders), will mean that viewers understand just why Tyrion feels so betrayed to find her in his father's bed, and why he kills her in a rage.

Remember that a lot of what we see of Shae in the books is just Tyrion POV thoughts, as well as just brief glimpses of her. GRRM provides a great deal of information via POV internalisation and exposition in the books, but this does not translate easily to the screen, hence we need additional scenes, or some characters need to be given slightly greater prominence.

Actually I DID watch the show and listen to the dialogue. I'm not impressed. Her scenes did nothing for me and have done nothing all season long except reinforce how stupid the character is.

[CrownedStag]

I have mixed feelings about this episode. I was really looking forward to seeing Riverrun this season seeing as that's where Jaime was set free from. But it seems like the show is taking a different angle on this development. I really haven't liked the whole Robb and first aid girl dynamic, it's just not doing it for me and betrays the shock of the Westerling marriage. Jon has been wasted the last couple of episodes, not sure how they're going to explain the turncloak assignment. The Arya/Tywin dynamic works for me though.

[bardgal]

Shouldn't we be meeting Podrick and Edmure soon?

[Arawni]

For me, I just have to try suspend my cultural bias in order to enjoy it and not get creeped-out. Like you said, the way we think of age-appropriateness now is wholly a product of the last century. My great-grandmother was married to my great-grandfather when she was 12; family lore talks of her waiting for him to go to work to sneak and play with her dolls, which is sad by today's standards, but marrying young like that was perfectly normal back then. You gave daughters to men who could provide for a family, not boys.

Actually it wasn't that normal to be married off at 12 during middle ages. Well, it did vary, "middle ages" does cover time period for hundreds of years and average marriage age did not stay the same all the time. However, there were times when average marriage age was well over 20 years even for women. There were many reasons for this; for instance at some point church took over marriage deciding it was one of the sacraments and so blessing of a priest was required for a couple to be legally wed. This was not free and many poorer people needed years to collect suitable amount of money which meant that they were forced to delay their marriage.

For nobles and roayl persons things were of course different. They were sometimes married off very young so in that sense GRRM is quite correct in his books even though it does creep me out (and is one the reasons I don't want to read the books, sorry).

[StannisandDaeny]

At this point you've created this giant straw-man argument around the idea that I find D&D evil misogynists who spend their time plotting the best way to demean all women, all the time.

That's basically what saying Cat is 'just a reminder woman should stay at home' and questioning their intentions comes down to.

Most likely they believe it too. Well, I don't really give a shit what their intentions were. Intent doesn't matter, only the end result does.

Then why complain about how you're worried about their intentions a bit earlier? You haven't managed to answer the other inconsistency I addressed in my previous post either.

In the same way I don't really care what your opinion on Cat is either

Followed by an entire paragraph of text... lol. Bringing what I said about Cat acting smarter on the show to that horrible line that implies I think she should shut up (while I was focusing on things she did say) is biased as hell and I'm just going to let you go back to reread those parts. This is the second time I literally have to say I don't think she's dumb (which doesn't mean she's perfect or flawless), I hope it'll be enough.

Again you keep whining about badass stuff that hasn't been included most likely to shorten the scene.

Your opinions on the adaption are your own, bringing it all down to sexism as you were doing at the start of your argument, at least, is not.

Your continued repetitions of your gripes with the adaption are not helping to make clear you understand I don't mind what you think of it either, I just felt your comment was very biased in your perception and towards the screenwriters intentions.

And finally, reverse sexism. Lol. Yeah, good luck with that argument.

I literally said I'm not making that point because it would be nonsensical, it was a hypothetic example to illustrate how it didn't make sense for you to say Cat was a sexist stereotype in the show either. Simply finding her less interesting is a whole different thing. Please learn how to read comprehensively.

Edited May 16, 2012 by StannisandDaeny

[Morrigan]

Good job, you've addressed... exactly zero of her points.

Pearsl before swine, Eva. I'm afraid you're wasting your breath.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Morrigan

[Evamitchelle]

That's basically what saying Cat is 'just a reminder woman should stay at home' and questioning their intentions comes down to.

Then why complain about how you're worried about their intentions a bit earlier? You haven't managed to answer the other inconsistency I addressed in my previous post either.

Followed by an entire paragraph of text... lol. Bringing what I said about Cat acting smarter on the show to that horrible line that implies I think she should shut up (while I was focusing on things she did say) is biased as hell and I'm just going to let you go back to reread those parts. This is the second time I literally have to say I don't think she's dumb (which doesn't mean she's perfect or flawless), I hope it'll be enough.

Again you keep whining about badass stuff that hasn't been included most likely to shorten the scene.

Your opinions on the adaption are your own, bringing it all down to sexism as you were doing at the start of your argument, at least, is not.

Your continued repetitions of your gripes with the adaption are not helping to make clear you understand I don't mind what you think of it either, I just felt your comment was very biased in your perception and towards the screenwriters intentions.

I literally said I'm not making that point because it would be nonsensical, it was a hypothetic example to illustrate how it didn't make sense for you to say Cat was a sexist stereotype in the show either. Simply finding her less interesting is a whole different thing. Please learn how to read comprehensively.

This conversation is going nowhere. Apparently you still think finding fault with the way they've chosen to adapt Catelyn's story = thinking D&D are consciously changing things around because they hate all women. Maybe you've missed the parts where I said I found them to be doing a good job with Brienne, Arya and Melisandre, to name a few ?

And so far you've established that I'm insulting towards Michelle Fairley, insulting towards the screenwriters, that I lack reading comprehension, that I'm ignoring half your points (I'm pretty sure I've managed to touch them all in my 1,500 word wall-text up there, except maybe the one where you said that having Jaime kill the young cousin who idolized him is supposed to make him sympathetic), that I whine a lot about missing badass scenes (there needs to be a counterpoint to your constant "she stood up to Karstark" spiel) and that I'm generally too biased to make any sense.

But I think my favourite part is when you accused me of sexism in the very first line of your very first post against me, and somehow manage to get offended on the screenwriters' behalf when I have the gall to find their adaptation of a fictional female character problematic.

And I'm understanding less and less what your reverse sexism argument is all about. Basically you're saying that it's nonsensical to find a female character's portrayal sexist because a male character's portrayal is obviously not ? I think I'm missing something here. But interesting choice of words in that hypothetical example of yours by the way : Jon has been hypothetically discriminated against because his adaptation has turned him into a "pussy", which is a word with overwhelming female connotations. So sexism against men = making them more woman-like. Okay then.

[J_Crews]

For nobles and roayl persons things were of course different. They were sometimes married off very young so in that sense GRRM is quite correct in his books even though it does creep me out (and is one the reasons I don't want to read the books, sorry).

You're doing yourself a terrible disservice.

Edited May 16, 2012 by J.S. Crews

[dark sister]

Yup, I am a girl, and still think there was too much blood for her first time, I have always heard girls saying that the first time, there was almost nothing. You say, she might have been bleeding for an hour, but they show that much blood that she could have been bleeding the whole week. At least in my experience.

I think the blood on her legs and some smaller stains on her gown and sheets would have told it quite sufficietly and much more realistic.

Every girl's first period is different. Some first "flowerings" are extremely heavy, and some aren't. It's as simple as that :)

[Ghost714]

You're doing yourself a terrible disservice.

I agree. Not reading the books for a reason like that is ridiculous. Do they also refuse to read history, because people getting married and having sex so young is just so creepy? Even if you do find it creepy, it's still a horrible reason to not read the books. I love that GRRM did that with the ages, that's part of the reason for why the story is so real, gritty, and awesome(as weird as that might sound).

[Arawni]

I said it was ONE of the reasons and in fact not nearly my biggest issue with reading these books. Main reason is that I simply have no strong interest in them. I like the series a lot but feel no need or urge to read ASOIAF as a book version. There are some reasons that make me feel even less enthusiastic and age thing is one of them though there are other WAY bigger ones, but as said, most importantly I just don't feel like it. There are thousands of good books in the world so I don't really see why not reading THESE books would make my life worse than not reading some other novels.

[J_Crews]

I said it was ONE of the reasons and in fact not nearly my biggest issue with reading these books. Main reason is that I simply have no strong interest in them. I like the series a lot but feel no need or urge to read ASOIAF as a book version. There are some reasons that make me feel even less enthusiastic and age thing is one of them though there are other WAY bigger ones, but as said, most importantly I just don't feel like it. There are thousands of good books in the world so I don't really see why not reading THESE books would make my life worse than not reading some other novels.

Again, the disservice is to yourself, so to each his own. My point was that, as someone who enjoys the TV series, you're missing out by not reading the books... quite simply, because they're better, and, if you like one, you'll love the other.

[Fred Stark]

I might of missed something here, but isn't Sansa supposed to of received the anonymous letter from ser Donto's/litlefinger by now ?

My first post by the way.. Hi all ! :D

Welcome to the Forum !!

As for your question,I reckon that storyline will be moved to season 3...the sad thing is ,if true we will not see the Hound flirting miserably with Sansa when he finds her coming from the godswood as the Hound will be away from KL by the tenth episode of season 2

Edited May 16, 2012 by Fred Stark

[Arawni]

Again, the disservice is to yourself, so to each his own. My point was that, as someone who enjoys the TV series, you're missing out by not reading the books... quite simply, because they're better, and, if you like one, you'll love the other.

Well, actually one of the reasons for my reluctanse to read these books IS the fact that I enjoy the series so much. Firstly, I tend to prefer tv-productions to books. It has happened with Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Lord of The Rings and with many other "books turned to tv-series/movies" which is why I really doubt that I would think ASOIAF is better than GoT. And actually stuff that I've read here on this forum has only made me more convinced of this. Take this Catelyn's decision to free Jaime. Sure, I haven't read books but from the debate here I got pretty goot idea about her motivations to do so in book universe. However, I really prefer her motivations in the show. Freeing Jaime based on a emotional decision while you have NO guarantee that Lannisters free her children is stupid. And what's even more stupid is that she doesn't even have any way to make sure that Jaime actually gets to King's Landing without being killed on the way which would then result to her daughters death.

I much prefer show Catelyn, at least based on the information here and on other sites I've looked for info about ASOIAF. And this brings me to my second point: I like show characters so much that I don't want to "spoil" my mental image of them reading the books and being influenced by the same characters there. I understand that this might sounds horrendous to people who love these books but that's the way it is. This is something people rarely understand in my way and need to consume fiction so I won't dwell on it deeper. This is a discussion about the episode 7, after all, and not my relationship with the series or books.

I haven't really taken part to discussion here because I'm pretty conscious about my English but I do read this forum a lot end enjoy discussions and debates here.

[boojam]

ATTENTION MEN: INCOMING TMI. IF YOU GET QUEASY WITH "GIRLIE FUNCTIONS" PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT POST.

It's always amazing to see a statement like that, Americans, in particular, tho not exclusively, have the strangest un-enlightenment about things so common to the natural world, like human biology.

[Greywolf2375]

Shouldn't we be meeting Poderick soon?

Shouldn't we be meeting Podrick and Edmure soon?

We have met Pod - he was (briefly) in the scene with Tyrion & Janos Slynt. He poured some wine and exited stage left before Tyrion started in on Janos.