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[Book Spoilers] EP307 Discussion


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The long Osha monologue was a bad piece of repetitive storytelling. It's nice to learn a little more backstory with her but what she described is basically the same thing Jon Snow went through in Season 1. There could have been a much better way to tell it then rehashing a tale that's already similar to one the audience has already seen play out.

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Slow ep but still good. I liked the Jaime bro rescue moment just as much as in the books. GRRM couldn't resist some stereotypical fantasy cliches by having prince charming swoop in and save the noble maiden (in a dress) from distress. Hell he seems well aware of it, given the title of the episode.

Shame they never included Vargo though. The way Locke looks is just how I envisioned the Goat in the books as well...

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The long Osha monologue was a bad piece of repetitive storytelling. It's nice to learn a little more backstory with her but what she described is basically the same thing Jon Snow went through in Season 1. There could have been a much better way to tell it then rehashing a tale that's already similar to one the audience has already seen play out.

If she had this monologue in season 1 before Jon killed the Wight, then this would have been AMAZING foreshadowing.

But it's in season 3 and is kinda pointless.

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Maybe what they will end up doing is after the Red Wedding, someone (Blackfish possibly if he leaves the group before the wedding?) reads Robb's will and it names Jon heir? I can't think of them shoving in "oh hey you have to write a will now, Robb!" without it seeming contrived.

I would think Talisa is killed at the Wedding, and the pregnancy thing is just to make it seem all the more brutal.

I was waiting for Jaime to shove Locke into the pit with the bear. I can't remember exactly what went down in the book with Vargo Hoat in that scene, I know he wasn't killed then, but why keep his replacement Locke around? Still don't understand why they replaced the memorable character of Vargo Hoat with the unremarkable character of Locke.

How soon did we see Meereen in the books? Because during the opening credits, shouldn't we see the outline of Meereen close above Yunkai? Maybe it's just not shown because Dany won't be going to Meereen until Season 4 and they'll update the opening.

I like that Margaery is a little more duplicitious in the show. You can tell she has an ulterior motive much sooner than it dawns on you reading the book and makes her more interesting on air. I didn't find her an interesting character until everything went down with her and Cersei.

Back to Robb's will, I think someone mentioned in this thread, that news of Sansa's wedding could reach Robb and perhaps someone, probably Blackfish (maybe Cat) since it looks like every other "commander" has left him now (Bolton, dead Karstark, Greatjon), will tell him that he needs to name an heir now just in the event that something does happen to him so that the Lannisters won't hold the North. That could be a plausible way of bringing up the will without revealing too much of the future episodes to non-book readers, and might be a better alternative to finding out who Jon named to be his heir after his death. It could be something like "in the event of my death, Winterfell will pass to my son, if my child is a boy, or to Jon"...Plus, I'd love to see Cat's reaction to naming Jon Snow heir to Winterfell.

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Oh and why have they barely (at all?) shown the direwolves? They are such a MAJOR part of the book. That's probably my biggest letdown from the show.

We've seen Grey Wind what, once this season?

Same with Ghost but twice I think.

Have they even named Grey Wind on the TV show?

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Three things I've learned:

1. Given limited material, George can't turn mediocre material into a great screenplay, only just good.

2. While the Reek/Theon chapters in Dance may be the strongest, I loathe the Theon storyline on TV. Loathe...

3. I blame Benioff and Weiss. Their fuckup of season 2 and how they decided to break stories for Storm of Swords is the cause of every major issue I have with this season, despite the better production values and generally amazing casting.

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Theon isn't even supposed to be on screen for at least another three seasons!

Well they can't do that in the show. Otherwise they could lose Alfie and the audience would forget about him.

He needs to be kept around, though I don't know why he is in so many episodes. Aren't they going to run out of ways to show him being tortured?

Hopefully they'll jump start the reek storyline soon.

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I agree with the above. Some of the scenes weren't bad perse, but didn't have as much new exposition as it normally does, instead choosing to rehash stuff we already knew. Also I thought the director didn't do a great job on this episode and played a big part in some the scenes being flat.

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I found this episode to be fairly low key for a GRRM episode. I guess D&D figured they threw GRRM a bone last season with Blackwater, so they decided to give him a fairly uneventful turn this time around? It's very intriguing to see him write the Talisa scenes. I can't wait for the commentary because I'd love to know his opinions of the character.

Aside from that, the best stuff (for me) was Yunkai. Pardon my vulgarity, but seeing Dany get her Queen on is always boner-inducing. Emilia truly has mastered this role. And seeing her with dragons stalking around her just adds to her whole "Do not fuck with me right now...or in your life" demeanor.

I hope Alfie took a long vacation after this season's shooting ended. Just one torture scene after the next. His acting reel just got a whole lot more awkward.

Also, shoutout to Ser Dance. Loved seeing Tywin exercise his power over Joffrey without actually having to do anything besides walk up a few steps.

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it's really incredible to me that the prevailing wisdom on here was that this was a solid episode.

theres some serious GRRM sycophancy happening and it's really annoying to read, especially after watching people break a sweat nitpicking about last week episode, which easily trounces this....

the fact that GRRM has written this garbage should disappoint you MORE so than if it were just some other writer...i really don't get you people.

cringe worthy moments include the very cliche romance moments, and as much as i hate to say it, the actress playing shae is terrible..worse than ros, i'm beginning to think they killed off the wrong whore. 'tyrion is a handsome man' - grrm wrote this as a line of dialogue for marg, yes book tyrion is different blah blah blah, this is just absurd to me however. the dragons look great but the bear looked really bad in my opinion, something was missing, the danger didn't feel real even if the bear was... just kills all the suspense for me, can't blame GRRM but clearly poor execution.

a few naked girls aren't going to change the fact that theon's torture porn is really getting over the line.. it's going nowhere, and sure it may have more impact than him retelling his torment later on...but there is no payoff that can be worth this. and theon's lack of factoring into major events really makes his story a drag on the whole show.

tyrion speaking of having children with his whore, sansa admitting she's dumb and never learns and then continuing to show that despite being aware of her faults, she continues to act the same way...not adhering to punctuality would be 'a slight' to frey, not the fact that YOU'RE BRINGING ROBB'S WIFE????????@??@?@?? bronn giving tyrion advice on how to do his duty as a lord, something he would know nothing about, i'm all for any excuse to get more bronn in the show, but this was dumb and poorly thought out.

i was also profoundly disappointed in the tywin/joff scene, not that it wouldn't be awesome to have a scene, but because of, again, the poor writing (baffling to say almost) and dialogue... wouldn't joffrey be upset that his grandfather gave away his favorite toy of spite to the imp, not that he doesn't get to sit on small council meetings? wouldn't this scene be much more interesting if he tried to go against tywin's wishes to wed sansa to tyrion? regardless if he actually understands the larger implications to the marriage or not, i would think the joffrey in the show (more sadistic and cruel etc) would personally want to take hand in any decision involving sansa..him being concerned about dany..may make a nice transition for the show to a dany scene, which i can't even remember if it did or not, but it was ultimately quite pointless and the conflict would have been much more interesting if tywin had gotten joffrey to back down after a lengthy argument about what to do with sansa.

this just seems like grrm had a rough draft and turned it in 2 days before they shot...really poor decisions, scenes of talking about nothing, leading nowhere, getting backstory of characters that could be compelling (osha) but in melisandre's case, wouldn't it have been better if she went in to how and for what purpose she arrived in westeros. book readers already knew she was a slave, i just wish there was more compelling material there, maybe george is saving it for the books who knows.

i just found myself for the first time this season saying after many scenes 'i can think of 3 ways off the top of my head this scene could have been written better' and it is just a feeling i am not accustomed to with this show.

just to be clear about something else, i am not a nitty nitpicker who hates the show or any changes they make from the books. as an adaptation, i think they do about as well as can be expected with such a massive cast and limited budget. i'm speaking as someone who enjoyed last weeks episode, which most people hated for reasons i understand, but when those same people praise this episode, which in my opinion is as bad as anything they did wrong in season 2, maybe worse considering the expectations i had going in given who had written it. this is the first episode this season i did not like, and i mean i HATE HATE hated, most of it.

Edited by Rubberburner
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cringe worthy moments include the very cliche romance moments, and as much as i hate to say it, the actress playing shae is terrible..worse than ros, i'm beginning to think they killed off the wrong whore. 'tyrion is a handsome man' - grrm wrote this as a line of dialogue for marg, yes book tyrion is different blah blah blah, this is just absurd to me however. the dragons look great but the bear looked really bad in my opinion, i'm sure most will disagree but seeing a giant exceptionally fake looking cgi bear just kills all the suspense for me. there was a surprising lack of violence and danger here, can't blame GRRM but clearly poor execution

The bear was quite real. Little Bart!

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