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[Book Spoilers] Trial by combat


aFeastForDragons

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This was awesome. From the moment he lights the sword on fire to The Hound killing Beric. Awesome. 1 of the better swordfights i've seen. It's funny I hated the Hound after he killed the butchers boy but as the layers of his character are revealed I find myself rooting for him. Was kinda hoping for some 'Darth Vader' type redemption for him but from skipping ahead looks like thats not the case.

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Agreed on how great it was, and also wished the line was in there.. It is such a badass line and would have fit just as well. Would have been perfect between

Thoros' "The night is dark and full of terrors"

Sandor's "I'm the only terror here"

Beric lighting the sword on fire and Sandor suddenly flashing that look he had.

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This was awesome. From the moment he lights the sword on fire to The Hound killing Beric. Awesome. 1 of the better swordfights i've seen. It's funny I hated the Hound after he killed the butchers boy but as the layers of his character are revealed I find myself rooting for him. Was kinda hoping for some 'Darth Vader' type redemption for him but from skipping ahead looks like thats not the case.

I would say that the Hound gets redemption, in a sense, but it's hard fought and he's obviously got a long road ahead of him. That's what I like about him - the thing about the Hound is that he's unapologetic for his heinous actions on the surface, but he's deeply bitter and torn about them on the inside and he's absolutely, 100% not hypocritical when it comes to the way he sees himself or society in general. He and his brother are walking critiques of the so-called chivalric notions of knighthood.

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Gosh I love Rory McCann's Sandor. I hated the Micah jibe but I generally liked the scene a lot. Beric looks a lot more... whole... that the books led me to believe. Pretty damn good for a guy who's died so many times, really.

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Indeed the duel was very entertaining.

Arya," Burn in hell!"

Beric," He will.....but not today."

Anyone else catch that? lol

Yeah. There were a number of great lines in the whole cave series of scenes.

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Having Sandor not get injured makes him taunt Arya instead of begging for her to kill him. I could see that. Having her 2nd guess herself and having Sandor say the lines quick enough before someone grabbed the knife would've been really difficult.

It will also create a 180 degree turn when he asks for a "mercy kill" and Arya refuses as she clearly had no second in this scene about killing him.

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I am shocked at the love for this scene! Yes, the hounds fear of the fire was palpable (Rory McCann excellent as always), but the actual fighting was terrible! The first half anyway. Watch how many times Beric does that pointless little swing/swurl with his sword. Its ridiculous! I found it wooden and badly choreographed...I was totally expecting to see everyone talking about how bad it was! Also, the Beric killing stroke was an odd choice, hacking into his shoulder like that...I felt they went for gore over a more classically fatal move (sword through heart etc).

Obviously just my opinions! But I have loved all the other Brotherhood stuff so far, Paul Kaye has been a pleasant surprise!

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the Beric killing stroke was an odd choice, hacking into his shoulder like that...I felt they went for gore over a more classically fatal move (sword through heart etc).

The killing stroke was actually pretty faithful to the books. The stroke hit him between the shoulder and neck and almost cut him in two. Blame GRRM for that one. As for the fight itself - its a fantasy story not a documentary. Again, you will have to see GRRM about not being quite au fait with Medieval fighting techniques.

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I am shocked at the love for this scene! Yes, the hounds fear of the fire was palpable (Rory McCann excellent as always), but the actual fighting was terrible! The first half anyway. Watch how many times Beric does that pointless little swing/swurl with his sword. Its ridiculous! I found it wooden and badly choreographed...I was totally expecting to see everyone talking about how bad it was! Also, the Beric killing stroke was an odd choice, hacking into his shoulder like that...I felt they went for gore over a more classically fatal move (sword through heart etc).

just, ugh.

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The killing stroke was actually pretty faithful to the books. The stroke hit him between the shoulder and neck and almost cut him in two. Blame GRRM for that one. As for the fight itself - its a fantasy story not a documentary. Again, you will have to see GRRM about not being quite au fait with Medieval fighting techniques.

Just out of curiosity have you ever seen an informed movie or TV broad sword fight in a film or TV show?

I have heard description of it and even illustration from medieval manuscripts, but since it's not an Olympic sport, and that's really fencing, I could never wrap my head around that kind of fighting. Especially men in armor.

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Just out of curiosity have you ever seen an informed movie or TV broad sword fight in a film or TV show?

I have heard description of it and even illustration from medieval manuscripts, but since it's not an Olympic sport, and that's really fencing, I could never wrap my head around that kind of fighting. Especially men in armor.

You know what? 300 is probably the closest when they showed then in phalanx. For a decent description of armoured men on foot fighting, try reading someone like Bernard Cornwell

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I am shocked at the love for this scene! Yes, the hounds fear of the fire was palpable (Rory McCann excellent as always), but the actual fighting was terrible! The first half anyway. Watch how many times Beric does that pointless little swing/swurl with his sword. Its ridiculous! I found it wooden and badly choreographed...I was totally expecting to see everyone talking about how bad it was! Also, the Beric killing stroke was an odd choice, hacking into his shoulder like that...I felt they went for gore over a more classically fatal move (sword through heart etc).

I thought that Beric swirling around his sword a lot was dumb at first, then i realised that he's probably doing that as a way to scare Sandor. If you're fighting a guy who's scared of fire and you have a flaming sword, the smartest thing to do would be to swirl it around in his face.

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You know what? 300 is probably the closest when they showed then in phalanx. For a decent description of armoured men on foot fighting, try reading someone like Bernard Cornwell

God! 300?! That looked like over done comic book crud, the TV show Spartacus repeated the same conceit.

300 might have set the phalanx of, but the action totally unbelievable hype.

I think that mess of a goofy film by Oliver Stone ALEXANDER (2010) had a good representation of the phalanx.

I think even the 1963 film The Three Hundred Spartans did an even better job, alas that film was kind of shorted on production values.

By the by Starz Spartacus would set up Roman Legion formation , more or less right , then the hand to hand combat looked abyssal.

I can't remember a thing about Richard Burton - Alexander the Great (1956 film), except that I remember it was a better film that Stone's movie.

I know that when Stanley Kubrick did the 1960 Spartacus, he set up the final battle well, but in the end sent most of the action sequences to the cutting room floor because he thought it did not look real.

My favorite sword action is in the two Richard Lester films The Three and Four Musketeers, 1973 and 1974,

Very rough and tumble as if people were really trying to kill each other!

That still does not answer my question about a film that did convincing long sword - broad sword action in a realistic manner.

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I thought that Beric swirling around his sword a lot was dumb at first, then i realised that he's probably doing that as a way to scare Sandor. If you're fighting a guy who's scared of fire and you have a flaming sword, the smartest thing to do would be to swirl it around in his face.

Not just scare him but blind him a bit as well.

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Actually that 1960 Spartacus battle was something out of the box for sure...

But one thing can be determined from your post. Hollywood doesn't do a good job of accurate portrayal of sword action, or indeed bow usage which is typically even less realistic..

There could be one, I don't remember seeing it, a from-the-time good description of hand to hand combat with edged weapons from ancient times before the introduction of gun powder on a massive scale.

Fairly good descriptions of armed warfare from the Napoleonic Wars to the American Civil War.

(Painting from the times are so stylized can't tell anything from them.)

With the invention of the photograph and finally motion pictures and better journalism we got a better picture.

Early WWII movies were propaganda ridden, but from William Wellman's unusual 1949 film BATTLEGROUND, to PATHS OF GLORY, to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, to BAND OF BROTHERS , to THE PACIFIC ...(other films) things changed , to my eye we did get an accurate portrait of modern warfare.

Kenneth Branagh's Henry V did seem to make an attempt at medieval warfare.

Some recent films like Ridley Scott's Robin Hood or Kingdom of Heaven or Wolfgang Petersen's Troy, seem well mounted, but off. Tho I must admit Brad Pitt and Eric Bana's duel had a lot of panache to it... we would never know just exactly how accurate such a thing could be.

I tell you light years ahead of 300 is Steven Pressfield GATES OF FIRE , historical fiction , Battle of Thermopylae.

Lord the actual history and battle was a 1000 times more interesting than 300, make a great film, but has been in development hell for a decade.

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Strange, I am glad that they dropped the "I am the terror here" line, I think it would have sonded really cheesy on TV. The show only folk know that the Hound is a good fighter, but without the background from the books they do not really know about his fearsome reputation throughout Westeros.

On the other hand I like the line about Mycah, really drives home what a mean son of a bitch Sandor really is.

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