[Book Spoilers] Nitpick without repercussion!

[Buckwheat]

I'm going to post even before reading all the other lot in this thread. I was even dreading to go here after the episode ended.

3. Where the hell is Ghost?! He was the only external factor that made it possible for Jon to defeat Quorin. Now, Jon looks like a better fighter than he really is.

Yes! And now it looks like a cold-blooed murder from Jon. I liked that Qhorin's last words were part of the NW vow, but I wish they would have shown Jon's motivations about that too. How hard would it have been to, lets say, have Jon's lips moving in the same words said by Qhorin just to show that Jon is still serious about his vows? I have no idea how they will show his loyalty towards the NW when he joins the wildlings. Show his repeating the vow to Ghost or a random weritree somewhere? Apparently not, because there is no Ghost nor trees north of the Wall. (Not to mention, the wildlings have not even seen Ghost and reacted to him yet - Jon should show some warging abilities, tor that changes him a lot in their eyes.)

The second missing direwolf is Greywind, on the same scale as Ghost. He only appears when threatening Jaime, we do not know if he wlaks around the camp in his free time, does he sleep in Robb's tent, does he follow Robb around, where is he? What is his reaction to the Volantene nurse? What does Catelyn think of him? Robb's warging dreams? There was not much Robb in the books, so they could have shown many things that would not be against the book-canon for his story, instead of just focusing on the romance with the 21st cebtury character magically transported to a feudal system society.

[Come Try Me]

Also, Qhorin Halfhand was an extreme disappointment. Not only was there a lack of interaction with Jon explaining the situation, but he is suppose to be one of the finest rangers in the Night's watch. A living legend. Yet on screen, he just comes off as tired, weak looking old man. Horrible casting IMO.

[White Raven]

The board ate my last post here so I can nitpick again:

I really like the color schemes of the dragons in the books: black and red for Drogon, green and bronze for Rhaegal, white and gold for Viserion.

So I'm a little disappointed that Viserion looked all golden in this episode. His prominent color should be white, with gold for the wings and horns. The other two dragons looked fine though.

[Dolorous Ali]

Arya not killing the guard!! That's ducked up, I want to see her kill, even more than she has done in the books. Just my luck.

I agree that HOTU was shit! Nothing about the "three" things. Come on, in the later books she always whines and ponders about the three.

Jon's story was fucked up. I liked the books much better.

[SerMixalot]

I wanted to post something on the adaption thread, but it got closed! :o(

someone had commented that HBO had improved Brienne's character

I say what? what? what?

Again, I just cant understand where people come up with stuff like this.

Use Sunday's episode as an example. She kills 3 men, 1 quite cold bloodily. She shows no remorse, she just does it and ooooh she is the avenging angel for the murdered tavern girls. I fully expected a quip to follow something along the lines of "Hang This" that is so one dimensional, there are no ramifications for killing someone, no downside. Even her killing of three armed men is incredibly easy, the equivalent of a single gunshot killing 3 indians in an old timey western.

Compare that to GRRMs works where when Brienne takes a life she suffers from self doubt, regret, pain. Those complex and real emotions make her infinitely more interesting cause there is actually a human being there to relate to. Even Brienne haters (and I find myself not loving her chapters) can understand her motivations, her personality in the book-huge freak of a woman with no true role to play, a brain that works slowly to get to certain points with a high degree of honor (nicely tied to her slow wits) a touching unrequited love for the charismatic king who showed her a simple kindness

compare that to the 1 dimensional cartoon character on tv!

[Matthew Marzolf]

Margaery is a whore who apparently owns one dress.

This has been my biggest and longest running problem with this show. There's a lot of things I realize they don't have the budget for. There are SO MANY characters and they can't all be cast by good talent. Too much happens to fit into 10 episodes so things will get cut. I even understand how hard it is to tell that a scene will seem to drag and eat time in the writing stage when it seems miniscule on paper and once you're filming, you're pretty much committed to your script, with maybe a few minor changes. So why, with so much different do I hate the wardrobe issues? I guess because I can get into this being a different experience, like, say the Harry Potter movies. But minor details kill the immersion and this suffers from one of my big pet peeves - The Character Uniform Syndrome. I should mention that awesome shows like BSG and DS9 & B5 often skirt this being involved with a military organization of some sort, and even BSG especially dressed down many characters at point. Essentially, this syndrome is the characters of any given show wearing the same damn clothes every minute of every day, sometimes even in bed, while having sex, etc. For days, weeks, even years. For many shows I can see this as something overlooked, or even viewed as tedium, but christ sakes the fucking book describes a wardrobe for every character in every scene. The work is done for you. As tedious as it seems in the book at times, it's one aspect that really makes the world come alive. I still have this picture stuck in my head of the Freys and Dreadfort men passing Moat Caitlin. It was that well conveyed how intimidating they looked. I've read dozens of fantasy novels with armies marching and none seem to convey the size and sheer numbers like Martin does and it's because of the details. So wealthy people like Littlefinger, the fucking Queen, Tywin Lannister who btw is the richest man in Westeros all wear the same outfit every day for, what a year running now. Don't ask why this irks me but it does. It's a part of the books you take for granted, just like the fact I gain 20 pounds everytime I read one, just from the descriptions of the food. Hilariously, he writes in a format very similar to TV shows which you'd think would make their job easier.

[Matthew Marzolf]

Jon. Another character that got screwed up. His killing of Qhorin was just too ambiguous. The non-reader I watch with wasn't sure if he killed him on orders or because he got pissed. Couldn't they had him order Jon to turned and kill him in a more clear way? I don't know if they trying to create drama by making the audience questions Jon's motives but that is just not Jon! he was always loyal and never truly wanted to turn cloak. Jon and Qhorin's relationship was just destroyed here.

This one made no sense to me. Ygritte says something the effect of

"Tell Mance Rayder this is the man who killed Qhorin Halfhand."

Really? The Qhorin who managed to get captured while accomplishing not very much on his ranging/intel mission. How is this impressive. And Rattleshirt (I think) caught him so wouldn't that be MORE impressive, considering I cannot imagine Qhorin Halfhand allowing himself to be taken alive. He arranges his escape from being taken alive nicely in the book.

[Lord of Cheese]

!!!!!!!! I think im about to have a heart attack!!!!!!

Was i mistaken when i heard Hodor, yes HODOR! say "My fucking Lord" when he took Rickon's hand after they left Luwin????!!!!! He said it very low, but just watch it again.... I swear he said it!

:-O

[Elba the Intoner]

Since the existence of dragons has so much importance to the strength of sorcery, I have no problem believing there is something special about dragon fire.

This is a nitpick without repercussions thread and that remains one of my nitpicks. I get that the dragon fire is unnaturally powerful but that scene was very anticlimactic and based on some of the other comments here I am not the only one who thinks so.

Also, I want to say how much I agree with the comments people made here regarding how Brienne killed that last guard slowly to draw out the pain and suffering. Even if it was supposed to be in retaliation for what the guard did to one of the three tavern wenches that were strung up it was so unnecessarily cruel. Book Brienne would never have done that, even if it could have been justified as revenge. That just makes her the same as the guards who killed the tavern girls in the first place, which goes against everything that Brienne's and Jaime's story is about (same thing with how Jaime coldly premeditated the murder of Alton which is just not Jaime - who acts very rashly and without thinking when he or someone he loves is threatened).

What most bothers me about this, now that I think about it, is that I think we are supposed to believe that Brienne is so "badass" for doing this and therefore cool, awesome, to be admired, etc. I don't like how this idea is being perpetuated on this show that being "badass" is awesome, especially if you have to do something overly cruel to come off as "badass". Just because it is in revenge for something doesn't make it good. Though I admit that it's not just this show that seems to perpetuate this idea. It seems to be a modern ideal that can be found in many movies and shows today.

[DrogonEatsYou]

Like many here, I was highly disapointed in the episode, and the series as a whole. I remember at the end of season 1... I couldnt wait to run out and buy the books, I bought the paperback, 'from the original series on HBO' 4 book set, so I guess HBO made some extra cash off me there somehow. I really wish they hadn't. I dont feel good about even contributing time to watch the series now, I know I'm just one TV, but I dont want them to have any decent ratings if its going to continue like this. The zombie march at the end just put me over the edge. There was sooooo much deviated this season from original content in the books, I was okay with some, but a lot was just nonsense, the zombie march, just nonsense. I dont know if I'll be back here to post ever again, as far as I'm concerned, if there is another season, I will abstain from it and get my 1 hour back every Sunday evening. I dont want to watch any more of this and have it tarnish the great stories I read by GRRM.

[Reposado]

Margaery is a whore who apparently owns one dress.

not true. it was definitely a different dress. she just favors dresses with an open front.

[David Selig]

Margaery's dress this episode looked much better than the ridiculous ice cream cone shaped one she wore in episodes 4 and 5 of this season.

[Tadco26]

Really? The Qhorin who managed to get captured while accomplishing not very much on his ranging/intel mission. How is this impressive. And Rattleshirt (I think) caught him so wouldn't that be MORE impressive, considering I cannot imagine Qhorin Halfhand allowing himself to be taken alive. He arranges his escape from being taken alive nicely in the book.

The other thing is if Qhorin can steal a sword so easily and is supposed to be the best ranger in the watch, why doesn't he just wait and steal one to kill Mance himself? Why would he have any faith that bumbling TV Jon Snow could do the job? Not to mention that Jon's "mission" as much as it was given on the show was to kill Mance, rather than to ride with them and report back to Mormont on what they discovered. TV Qhorin was such an opposite of his book version. The book version respects the wildlings, the TV version calls them goat fuckers. The book version obviously believes in his vows, the TV version spits on them. The book version takes Jon under his wing, and the TV version thinks Jon is a moron. Book version would never allow himself to be captured alive, and the TV version is captured with no visible injuries.

Which all goes back to my main complaint with this season in general. I completely understand that they don't have the budget to show all the battles or the CGI to show the wolves in as many scenes as we would like if they had a movie budget. But the core story and dialogue could stay more faithful without those things in the same amount of screen time, with the same budget.

As I have said before, all they had to do to stay faithful to the core of Jon and Qhorin's story is have Ygritte escape and NOT be recaptured by Jon. Qhorin finds Jon and tells him he and the other rangers killed a group of wildlings, but all the other rangers died and there are more wildlings hunting them. Qhorin tells Jon that if they are captured he must join the wildlings, and do whatever is necessary. He tells him to ride with them, and report back what he finds.

Wildlings trap Jon and Qhorin and Jon asks to join them. Rattleshirt tells Jon to fight Qhorin to prove himself and he does. Jon joins. Jon and Ygritte get their one on one talking time on the walk to Mance instead of as prisoner/captor. This could have all been done by changing a few lines of dialogue and reordering the sequence of events in the same amount of screen time they used without any need for more CGI or any more budget. And Jon and Qhorin being hunted is a hell of a lot more dramatic than watching Jon with Ygritte as a prisoners followed by Qhorin and Jon as prisoners just walking thru the snow.

So what is frustrating is that I can come up with a reasonable way to be more faithful to the story without adding the CGI of Ghost or being 100% line for line, or adding any more budget pretty easily just by following an outline of what happened in the books rather than writing my own completely redone interpretation. Changes I expect, complete re-writings should be for battles or things that are clearly just too expensive to portray on a TV budget.

[Roose Seal]

This is a nitpick without repercussions thread and that remains one of my nitpicks. I get that the dragon fire is unnaturally powerful but that scene was very anticlimactic and based on some of the other comments here I am not the only one who thinks so.

Also, I want to say how much I agree with the comments people made here regarding how Brienne killed that last guard slowly to draw out the pain and suffering. Even if it was supposed to be in retaliation for what the guard did to one of the three tavern wenches that were strung up it was so unnecessarily cruel. Book Brienne would never have done that, even if it could have been justified as revenge. That just makes her the same as the guards who killed the tavern girls in the first place, which goes against everything that Brienne's and Jaime's story is about (same thing with how Jaime coldly premeditated the murder of Alton which is just not Jaime - who acts very rashly and without thinking when he or someone he loves is threatened).

What most bothers me about this, now that I think about it, is that I think we are supposed to believe that Brienne is so "badass" for doing this and therefore cool, awesome, to be admired, etc. I don't like how this idea is being perpetuated on this show that being "badass" is awesome, especially if you have to do something overly cruel to come off as "badass". Just because it is in revenge for something doesn't make it good. Though I admit that it's not just this show that seems to perpetuate this idea. It seems to be a modern ideal that can be found in many movies and shows today.

I think that a lot of writers are under the impression that if you want to write a good "strong" female character, she must be ruthless and cruel. Apparently if you are a woman, you cannot be "badass" and compassionate at the same time. So you're either a naive innocent virgin or a cruel heartless bitch.

Brienne is such a strong character in the books because she does not enjoy killing but if it's her duty to do so, she will, but won't be happy about it. She appears as strong and detached but at the core, she still has qualities that we usually define as "womanly", such as compassion and empathy. Show!Brienne just looks like a mindless killing machine so far and there's nothing about her that makes her a strong female character. She's just a stupid man in a woman's body.

The way she killed the man seemed unnecessarily cruel but for some reason the writers are under the impression that a woman being cruel is supposed to be "badass". If the roles had been reversed and a man killed a woman by slowly pushing his sword in her vagina, I doubt anyone here would call it "badass".

Double standards are insulting to both sides: the subtext here is that the only way a woman can be assertive and 'badass' is by being heartless and sadistic.

[RoamingRonin]

Why. Didn't. Rhaego. Have. White. Hair.

[Archmaester Marwin]

They turned Jon into a straight up turncloak, in addition to a whining, brooding idiot. They really should have had Jon and Qorin escape capture, and Qorin give his orders, Jon refuse, Qorin insist, then the wildlings come and Jon kill Qorin under explicit orders, not just some corny half baked, poorly acted ruse. Not to mention the ruined the halfhands character in general. He spoke and acted just like Yorin, wheras in the books he was described as sitting cross legged with perfect erect posture, preferring to drink plain boiled water, a long silver braid down his back....everything spoke of an almost native american cliche of rugged nobility and intimate connection with the land...not just another foul mouthed brit lowlife. Did they even show his hand? or Davos? stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

The Ros scene...god damnit why.

[Dread Pirate Euron]

- What the hell is with the wedding in the light of the 7? The Starks follow the old gods, it is known.

- Dany looks like a stone cold bitch by condemning Doreah to be eaten by XXD

Other then that I'm just trying to look ast the changes. Its just disappointing to see how well the books were followed in the first season and not in the second. It seriously wouldn't have been that hard to do and may have even been easier. I get it that they won't be exactly the same but the first season was superb television and was extremely faithful so don't try to tell me the second season would ahve been anydifferent if they simply looked at the damn books.

Brienne's scene was fine by me. She had to protect her mission and these guys were going to kill her. She prolonged the guys death by what? A minute? Fuck it, he deserved a sword up his ass.

[Grendel Khan]

The really sad part is, it would have taken like 10 seconds to establish John is doing his duty for the watch by killing Halfhand.

They could have done everything the same, but during teh fight scene, Halfhand charges John and tackles him down a hill and they roll away from the wildlings. JOhn ends up on top of HH and they whisper their plans,

John: What are you doing?

HH: We are both dead men unless they think you've turned your cloak. Do whatever they ask of you and do not hesitate.

Continue fight and HH gets shivved. Easy as that. Not only does it clear up HH's clever plan for the audience, but it shows that JOhn is still loyal to the watch and is playing infiltrator. His struggles in accepting the wilding ways in SoS become more believable and we book readers can stop complaining about how poorly that whole scene was handled.

[lojzelote]

Why. Didn't. Rhaego. Have. White. Hair.

Because his father was dark haired Dothraki warrior, who (unless he had some Lyseni blood in him or something) had no reccessive genes to pass on?

Rhaego in Dany's vision in aGoT might have been just how she imagined her son would look like. It was a dream. Not all Targaryen dreams have to be neccessarily prophetic, and this was certainly wasn't - Rhaego was stillborn, he never grew up into the tall and proud man she saw.

[Grendel Khan]

Just wanted to add...

KILL ROS ALREADY!

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. There;s too many charcters that need storylines beefed up to keep wasting time with the TV writers pet project.