[Book Spoilers] season 2 grade

[Mulled Wino]

I can tell you this, seasOn 1- i couldnt wait for Sunday night and the episodes stayed on my dvr even though i could get them on demand.

Season 2, pretty much i would find time to watch the week's episode usually by Wednesday and the episode would be deleted directly after viewing.

Jon Show and the other goofballs north of the wall killed it for me. I just couldnt get over the lack of consisteny and lousy interpretaion of how serious and dangerous things are in the real north.

There were a lot of missed opportunities for dramatic tv. D&D seemed like they purposefully kept the action and drama to a minimum. Weasel soup, the chase of the rangers by Rattleshirt, Jamie and Brienne's chase, arya performing violence........

I agree that GoT is becoming more fluffy, but please lets not get to calling it True Blood yet.

[sdchris]

I give it an A. I thought they did a good job trying to condense the book into an easily followable series. I'm happy with how they stuck to the general theme, regardless of differences in the book.

I'm looking forward to them splitting a storm of swords into two parts. This might give them more wiggle room with budget. Also, there isn't a giant battle as there was in ACOK, so I feel that they can make seasons 3 and 4 better than the previous 2 seasons.

I still very much enjoy the show and the interpretations of the books.

[Lord Over]

I give it B+

Not bad, but I expected you to do better <insert student name>

Were it not for the Blackwater episode, which I had re-watched five times now, I would have given this season a much lower grade. Nonsensical Quarth plot-line, insipid Talisa romance and the ascenion of Ros the Slayer...oh come now, you all know she's Azor Ahai reborn.

[Lonin]

I give it A,

its my favorite TV show.. watched it instead of a NBA playoff game.

There are just so many story arcs in the book thats its almost impossible to cover all the readers favorite character incidents.

I believe they did a great job of covering acok in about 10 hours of TV.

Looking forward to season 3.

[xylem]

I'd give a B- (relative to A+ for season 1).

I'm grading it purely from a viewer perspective, as I'm only now in process of reading the first book, so I can't evaluate it relative to the book; only relative to the story-telling I saw in season 1.

I was disappointed in season 2. On the other hand, it was this very disappointment that started me reading the series! I had carefully avoided reading the books between seasons 1 and 2, because I had thoroughly enjoyed the rare experience of getting to enjoy tv/movie fantasy unspoiled by book expectations. It was wonderful to not have a clue what was coming up... and to be able to watch the show unmarred by dashed expectations about how things "should have been done".

But season 2 felt largely disjointed and minimal in character development. The things I loved best about season 2 were the development of Theon's character and the introduction of Brienne. I was surprised and disappointed that the story arcs for Arya, Sansa, Bran, and Dani didn't progress more than they did... it seemed like Dani just spent the entire season hanging out in the city; Sansa pretty much the same thing, except stuck in a different city! Bran's and Arya's story arcs started to take shape, but I'd expected more... And as for newly introduced characters like Stannis, I just never quite got a sense of what he was about and what his motivations were. I get the impression from reading this forum that there's a lot of backstory to the Baratheon brothers that just hasn't made it into the tv series.

Overall, it felt like there was a ton of war and gore, with little payoff in terms of character development or interesting political development.

Anyhow, the end result is that I was left so frustrated by season 2, that I've started reading the books so that I can get the backstory I'm missing. (And really enjoying it so far!!... I'm about halfway through book 1 right now... )

[mooksman]

Tried hard as I could not to be too nerdy here, but I don't see how I can give this season more than a straight up D. I feel like the themes and characters are oversimplified or misinterpreted across the board, the story is watered down and the world and setting are ruined. Some decent performances (Charles Dance, Alfie Allen) and fantastic set pieces (Harrenhal, Blackwater) are not enough to save this clunky dud. I'm continually mystified that this show is becoming so popular. How does the casual viewer even know what's going on? We have corny, trite dialogue replacing/contrasting GRRM's original wit (I don't want to be a Queen, I want to be THE Queen god that line made me barf) and unlikable (Robb, etc), inconsistent characters (Tywin, etc) across the board.

Doctors without boarders in the West, Larry Fine and his girlfriend in the North - Lord Tywin Lannister, once and future Hand of the King, the most powerful, wealthy, and influential man in Westeros, annoyingly omnipotent and generally badass - sharing tea with his cupbearer and discussing his innermost feelings about his children? Would TYWIN fucking LANNISTER suffer to be questioned by a servant? The payoff at the end of book 3 is ruined. Lots of stuff is ruined/wasted. I got lots more but I'm tired of this post.

Also, one of 1,000 nitpicks but this one particularly irks me: In episode 7, Dagmar (I guess he's supposed to be Dagmar, even though he looks/acts/has a completely different role) tells Theon he has to kill Rodrik - he must 'pay the Iron Price'. What. That is not the iron price what the hell is HBO smoking? That doesn't make any sense! So Rodrik has to kill Theon and take his necklace? Why would Dagmar suggest that Rodrik - one who is not Iron Born and an unruly captive (somehow, they never explain how exactly they captured him and his army of several hundred men) - submit to a tradition of the Iron Islands wherein he must only keep loot he gained from plundering? It's watered down horseshit is what it is. Then Rodrik tells Bran he's going to 'be with his father, boy' which just made me break into laughter. I do not think that was the intention of that scene.

Rant over!!!!

[protar]

Tried hard as I could not to be too nerdy here, but I don't see how I can give this season more than a straight up D. I feel like the themes and characters are oversimplified or misinterpreted across the board, the story is watered down and the world and setting are ruined. Some decent performances (Charles Dance, Alfie Allen) and fantastic set pieces (Harrenhal, Blackwater) are not enough to save this clunky dud. I'm continually mystified that this show is becoming so popular. How does the casual viewer even know what's going on? We have corny, trite dialogue replacing/contrasting GRRM's original wit (I don't want to be a Queen, I want to be THE Queen god that line made me barf) and unlikable (Robb, etc), inconsistent characters (Tywin, etc) across the board.

Doctors without boarders in the West, Larry Fine and his girlfriend in the North - Lord Tywin Lannister, once and future Hand of the King, the most powerful, wealthy, and influential man in Westeros, annoyingly omnipotent and generally badass - sharing tea with his cupbearer and discussing his innermost feelings about his children? Would TYWIN fucking LANNISTER suffer to be questioned by a servant? The payoff at the end of book 3 is ruined. Lots of stuff is ruined/wasted. I got lots more but I'm tired of this post.

Also, one of 1,000 nitpicks but this one particularly irks me: In episode 7, Dagmar (I guess he's supposed to be Dagmar, even though he looks/acts/has a completely different role) tells Theon he has to kill Rodrik - he must 'pay the Iron Price'. What. That is not the iron price what the hell is HBO smoking? That doesn't make any sense! So Rodrik has to kill Theon and take his necklace? Why would Dagmar suggest that Rodrik - one who is not Iron Born and an unruly captive (somehow, they never explain how exactly they captured him and his army of several hundred men) - submit to a tradition of the Iron Islands wherein he must only keep loot he gained from plundering? It's watered down horseshit is what it is. Then Rodrik tells Bran he's going to 'be with his father, boy' which just made me break into laughter. I do not think that was the intention of that scene.

Rant over!!!!

As awful an adaptation as season 2 was, you didn't like the Rodrik beheading? Probably the most powerful book deviation of the series.

[Ran]

I agree, the decision to have Theon kill Rodrik personally -- rather than indirectly (because, face it, Rodrik dies because of Theon in the novel) -- was a terrific move. Some people may grouse about Reek or the Reeds not being around, but it was a great adaptation choice and I've seen very, very few people (one, exactly) who has taken issue with it.

[The hairy bear]

While I also agre that Rodrik's death was a great scene and one of the "good desviations" from the book, referring to it as "paying the iron price" was an inconsistency with how this term had been defined both in the books and in the show itself.

[ICE CROW]

I agree, the decision to have Theon kill Rodrik personally -- rather than indirectly (because, face it, Rodrik dies because of Theon in the novel) -- was a terrific move. Some people may grouse about Reek or the Reeds not being around, but it was a great adaptation choice and I've seen very, very few people (one, exactly) who has taken issue with it.

I agree having Theon kill Rodrik was was an amazing and powerful scene, but one aspect of it felt sloppy to me. They say they caught him coming back from Torrhen's Square and it seems he was by himself, where were the 200 hundred men that went with him? and why would he head back to Winterfell by himself. I could understand leaving a hundred men at Torrhen's Square in case of another attack, but Ser Rodrik would not have gone back to Winterfell by himself.

I don't think i rated this season yet, for me it was a 7 out of 10. Season 1 was 9 out of 10, hopefully ASoS being split into two seasons will give the show a chance stay more in line with the book.

[Chaircat Meow]

I can't judge the show from a purely tv standpoint as I don't watch very much tv.

In regards to both how faithful an adaptation the show is, coupled both with how entertaining to watch it is, in addition to how well it is written, I'd give season 1 8/10.

It only lost marks for its presentation of Cat Stark, which I did not care for (she was my favourite character), too much pointless nudity and some poor added scenes that I just couldn't bring myself to like, such as the Cersei/Robert scene. I know lots of people liked it but I thought it was horrible.

This season is more like a 4/5. Lots of people are behaving out of character, too many seemingly pointless divergences from the books and whole storylines (Jon's) that even on their own terms make no sense and lack all suspense and drama.

Characters feel very flat and uninteresting compared to the books, and many of the fascinating locations from the books, Harrenhal, Quarth, lack any feeling of uniqueness.

[Rockroi]

So, this is not a very easy question as it involves a varying metric: after all, by what measurement do you use to judge Game of Thrones Season II? For me its this: "Did what I watch entertain me? Did I enjoy it?"

Because the show is an adaptation, I cannot really just ask "did it stay truthful to the books" because there is no way you could- budget, time and cast make that impossible. I think we have to use our eyes: did what we see make us want to see more? And did we enjoy what we saw?

With that:

Overall Grade: B

Why: I gave Game of Thrones Season II a B because I very much enjoyed what they actually put on the screen. When the show tackled a story it did so with thought, purpose and intelligence. The show was able to take us from Ned's death all the way through the Blackwater and in doing so gave us enough (though just enough) of each character to make them all seem real and tethered to the story. The Highlights:

-Tyrion: Season cannot work without the central character for the story to revolve around and Peter Dinkledge's Tyrion Lannister is - in many ways -the perfect character for the story he is in (he rivals Al Swearengen in Deadwood). The entire story deflates into a confabulation of disparate parts BUT FOR Tyrion. The Riot, the taming of Joffery, the playing with Baelish-Pycell-Varys, and especially the Blackwater all work because Tyrion works.

-Stannis: Every good story needs a villain and although Stannis is more the de facto villain than a real arch-enemy he scares the hell out of so many characters that he gets the mantle, even by default. Stannis had major growing pains but in the end when he stormed that beach we all stormed it with him. Blackwater- the episode that is almost universally hailed as the highpoint of the show (or its "saving throw" as it were) only works because we believe in Stannis- for better (the fans) or worse (the producers).

-The Queen: Maegery Tyrell was a bright, shinning surprise in Season Two. Much in the same way Mark Addy greatly improved upon Robert and Harry Loyd made a two dimensional Viserys into a three-dimensional lunatic, Natalie Dormer's Magaery is complex, hungry, driven and all out. Unlike other characters who try to balance desires and duties, Aegery Tyrell in Game of Thrones combines them all into one sharp point- its her duty to be Queen. I said it many times, but Margery Tyrell is "In it to Win It" and its an incredible character development.

-The Iron Islands: I never expected to like or appreciate the story of the Iron Isles given their treatment in AFfC; but the actors and dialog not only made them palatable, but enjoyable. Listening to Theon frantically decry where he is because of his father's failure was a moment I had been waiting for over 12 years and 5 books. Finally, somebody said what we were all thinking: Balon Greyjoy sucks. And yet the actor who played Balonw as brilliant. THe most impressive moment is when Theon is yelling at Balon the camera freezes on the Sea-Chair King's face and its one of regret and pain.

-Pace: The pace of the season was very good; it did not dwell too much on one or two characters and provided the space to see all we needed to see. There were very few slow spots.

-Tywin and Arya: The best new show on cable would have been Tywin Lannister talking to various Westeroes characters while Arya laughs at how stupid they all look. Here we saw the grafting of a new story on the body of the old and how incredibly intricate these two people were as they intersected each other. Tywin's coldness and aloofness combined with Arya's "Down and Dirty" lifestyle. What could have been dead or confusing air was, instead, a master-stroke.

-The Blackwater: I could either write a 45 paragraph treatise on why Blackwater worked or just say this: Without the Blackwater Season II would have been a disaster. Stannis, Tyrion, Joff, Cersei and the battles and CGI enhanced the season mightily in just 55 minutes. It. Worked.

Why Not a Better Grade: If Season Two suffered from any sin it was the fragmentation of the story; before we could really come and enjoy one area we were immediately dragged off to face another. This clearly hurt Stannis and Mel the greatest (people are still unsure if she really believes in Stannis or is in his thrall). As so much story had to be churned out we got a disparate mix of "The Wall" and then the "Stormlands" and then "King's Landing" and then "East." Most of the time it worked, but far too often it felt like you were watching a show go through a blender as some psychotic chef yelled "Quick, look at how the peaches go with the ice!!! Quick you might miss it!!!" I thoygh the show wasted time on either a) characters we did not care about or b ) story lines that took up far, far too much space. Overall, Season two was far more uneven than Season one (for better or worse: season Two's high-point [blackwater] was far greater than anything in season one). However here are some stark examples of how the story floundered:

-Catlyn Stark: Its not that she was bad, its more like Catlyn represents the "Well, she has to be here" problems of making a TV show with a carry-over cast. In CoK, Cat does not really take any actions until the very tail end (her presence with Renly is just an excuse for the reader to see Stannis and Renly) when Bran and Rickon are "killed." But her interaction with Jaime was bifurcated between the end of S1 and the end of S2 and so it lost its intensity (Jaime is basically lost in Season 2 much as he was in the CoK). And when she does show up its with Robb and therefore Robb's story suffers because instead of a RASH move in marrying Jayne Westerling, Robb just looks like an idiot when his mother is TELLING HIM how stupid he is being but he does it anyway in marrying the Volantis woman. I think the show did not know what to do with Cat and it cost them.

-Jon Snow: No character seemed so utterly perplexed by his own existence than Jon Snow. Jon seemed to bumble from place to place before the writers gave him his legs back and had him kill Halfhand. Prior to that it was a bad romantic comedy where the young teenager does not want to have an erection near a girl. GIRLS ARE ICKY! The show lost so much time in trying to get Jon by making him this comic fool. It was all wrong, felt wrong and looked wrong.

-Dany: Ughh... maybe the biggest miscalculation of the season was enlarging Dany's footprint in the season when her presence in CoK is minor. The show made her do too much, take on too much, and take way way wayyyyyy too much time away from other characters. A massive and hopeless time sinc that wasted away many valable minutes from other spaces the show could have spent that time. Maybe the most terrible example is the enlargement of the "King of Qarth" storyline and how completely pointless it all was. An utter failure.

Bottom line: Season Two had great highs and very deep lows. The unevenness of the whole story left us either "overstuffed" of starving for substance. The decision to expand Dany and then lose Jon were tragic miscalculations. However, Tyrion, Stannis (and his cast), and the injection of some much needed interaction of characters (most notably Tywin and Arya) gave us more than enough to declare Season Two a success.

[Blutrabe]

Season 1

Just for the record, I don't believe that the changes from this season screwed up anything in the long run, and I don't hold the ideas behind most of these, but last year at this time, these were the things people were saying about season 1...

Now, everyone is giving Season 1 an A

They completely changed the characters of Ned and Catelyn when they reversed the positions of who wanted to go to Kings landing and who wanted to stay.

They robbed the Hound of every significant line his character had

They created the character of Ros out of thin air and she took up valuable screen time from what the real story was.

They made Ned Stark look like some kind of a cage fighter by having him fight Jaime in the streets.

Varrys was much too effeminate

They ruined the characters of Renly and Loras by making them gay

They completely cut the ToJ dream sequence and now the viewer will never understand about R+L=J

They made Littlefinger a pimp

They made Pycelle a whoremonger

Mark Addy was a terrible choice for Robert because he looked nothing like him,

Just a little reminder for those that are throwing fits about the changes in Season 2

These changes are relatively minor for the most part (and Renly's relationship with Loras is heavily implied in the books). Now compare them to the changes they made in S2 - that's a whole new dimension. And it's not the fact that they made changes that most book fans are complaining about; it's clear that they have to change stuff for budgetary and production reasons (e.g. delay the introduction of some characters etc) and to streamline the story a bit in order to fit it into 10 hours and make it more accessible for the audience. But there can hardly be an excuse for changing a character's personalisation, motivations and development in a way that makes less sense than in the source material and could easily have been avoided! That happened a lot more often in this season than in the first.

[mooksman]

Yeah what those other guys said. The scene could have been a powerful choice if they hadnt been so sloppy about it. The set up was just inconsistent. Instead of getting caught up in the emotion of the scene I was being trying to figure out how Rodrik was captured and what the hell the 'Iron Price' comment was supposed to mean. That's a common problem in the show, imo. One of it's greatest sins is just letting things get away from it. The books are so compelling and gripping partly because the characters are fleshed out and consistent and the situations are clearly defined within a world with structure and rules you understand. The biggest scene in the series, the Red Wedding, is all the more powerful because you know the hierarchy of Westeros and where the Starks and Freys stand and how Walder Frey would take such an insult (little nuances, like the Westerlings being EXACTLY the type of family the Freys would especially take offense from, add more and more exponentially). That way when something happens it's already been set up so well it's pretty much allll impact. In the show there's always a hasty explanation if anything and then a pale imitation of the scene from the book, usually contradicting something that happened before.

A lot of this is just pointing out that it's incredibly difficult for something to be translated between mediums, especially to a medium like television which lives and dies on how many people watch it each week so it HAS to be immediately gratifying. It's just a shame that millions of people will watch the Red Wedding and think 'oh thats too bad!' then change the channel, when reading that scene in the book was basically like the Mountain punching me in the gut, gauntlets on, ruining my night. But hey I guess those people wouldn't have read it anyway.

[mooksman]

Inconsistencies, yeah, so annoying. Like why would Tywin Lannister stop by the prisoner's ward where they are torturing them for information - an act he himself ordered presumably (that's how it is in the book, and wouldnt it only make sense in the show since they're trying to find the Brotherhood Without Banners? Which by the way still hadnt been clearly defined at that point had it?) - and show mercy and those commoners? Like whaaat? And then four episodes later he tells the Mountain to go and burn the Riverlands and salt the earth! Make up your damn mind! I didn't know Tywin was a flip flopper, gossiping with Arya about Jaime's dyslexia (lol!!) and sharing tea all day. Tywin Lannister is supposed to be fucking God.

[HyacinthGirl]

A+. Maybe I'm easy to please or whatnot, but that beats having all these fits of rage I see some of you suffering.

[mooksman]

Tyrion's role in season 2 was cut down to basically nothing and ruined much of the character's complexity. It's perplexing that HBO could involve so much gratuitous sex and yet still manage to cut out so much of the sex scenes from the book. I mean GRRM has plenty in book 2, but they're basically all Tyrion and Shae, and they certainly aren't gratuitous. How many Tyrion Shae scenes did we even get in the show? I mean that stuff is pretty important - as Tyrion begins to take control of King's Landing, his scenes with Shae keep him grounded and reveal to the reader just how vulnerable and flawed he is as a character, which makes sense for someone in his situation. He constantly moves her and goes to great lengths to protect and hide her - he puts his personal safety at risk for something that (at the time we think, probably) doesnt even exist because he has the demons of his father and Tysha haunting him. It endears him even further to the reader. Maybe they cut it out because they seem obsessed with making Cersei a sympathetic character? Anyway Tyrion does all these brilliant maneuvers to take control of the city and manage it's defense but as a reader you know just how fragile and precarious his position is, adding to the intensity and the drama and all that. So when Tyrion takes control of the defenses himself and actually leads men into battle, it's like whoa, dude just doesnt care, what a badass. All the corny 'son of a bitches' in the world couldnt take away from that moment.

In the show, he basically never seems threatened. There's little conflict, he just kind of knocks everyone out of his way and makes jokes with Bronn. Then he leads those men into battle and it's like haha, yeah, is there anything this little guy can't do? It's still cool, but it's nothing compared to what it coulda been.

[Chaircat Meow]

Tyrion's role in season 2 was cut down to basically nothing and ruined much of the character's complexity. It's perplexing that HBO could involve so much gratuitous sex and yet still manage to cut out so much of the sex scenes from the book. I mean GRRM has plenty in book 2, but they're basically all Tyrion and Shae, and they certainly aren't gratuitous. How many Tyrion Shae scenes did we even get in the show? I mean that stuff is pretty important - as Tyrion begins to take control of King's Landing, his scenes with Shae keep him grounded and reveal to the reader just how vulnerable and flawed he is as a character, which makes sense for someone in his situation. He constantly moves her and goes to great lengths to protect and hide her - he puts his personal safety at risk for something that (at the time we think, probably) doesnt even exist because he has the demons of his father and Tysha haunting him. It endears him even further to the reader. Maybe they cut it out because they seem obsessed with making Cersei a sympathetic character? Anyway Tyrion does all these brilliant maneuvers to take control of the city and manage it's defense but as a reader you know just how fragile and precarious his position is, adding to the intensity and the drama and all that. So when Tyrion takes control of the defenses himself and actually leads men into battle, it's like whoa, dude just doesnt care, what a badass. All the corny 'son of a bitches' in the world couldnt take away from that moment.

In the show, he basically never seems threatened. There's little conflict, he just kind of knocks everyone out of his way and makes jokes with Bronn. Then he leads those men into battle and it's like haha, yeah, is there anything this little guy can't do? It's still cool, but it's nothing compared to what it coulda been.

I agree with this 100%. Good elucidation of the problems with the show's presentation of Tyrion.

I also missed the grave feelings of insecurity and inadequacy Tyrion suffered from throughout his tenure as Hand.

I still enjoyed this part of the show though and I liked Dinklage's acting.

[mooksman]

A+. Maybe I'm easy to please or whatnot, but that beats having all these fits of rage I see some of you suffering.

Well I can't speak for everyone, but this kind of stuff is actually kind of fun for me.

[mooksman]

And yeah no problem with Dinklage. He's a joy to watch.