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[Book Spoilers] EP309 Discussion


Ran
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What I find really funny, is that Talisa's death didn't hit me as hard as D & D would have probably wanted. I said this before but I just wanted to reiterate, having someone butcher a pregnant woman or (cut and paste any other equally gruesome activity) is NOT enough to make me sympathize with them. The character is meant to be written properly so that when they finally bite it, we actually feel something. For This season Talisa has been one of the more irritating aspects for me and has just wrinkled pretty much every scene she's in.

What I find funnier is that the book RW didn't have any scene quite as gruesome as a pregnant woman being stabbed half a hundred times, yet it still hit you like a whirlwind, just the brutal efficiency of the whole thing. But in the show you have the writers basically saying,"oh please feel sorry for these characters, look how gruesomely we kill them off!!!" But personally I feel like they need to learn how to write a better character first, and then come and tell me to feel sorry for them.

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I am so grateful they did it justice.

But I am so, so sad. It was almost worse watching it than reading it. Michelle Fairley broke my heart.

not sure which is worse - her standing there catatonic or her scratching her face to shreds in misery

I thought in the book that Catelyn disfigures her own face in her grief????? I'm asking because it would seem that when she returns as Stoneheart, her face is badly disfigured and almost unrecognizeable....or so I thought?

she did - in her grief she clawed her face, but they can have her face disfigured easily after her throat was cut either by a person, by animals if she is tossed in the river, etc.

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I never cared for Talisa before, she was one of my least favourite changes that the show made from the books but in the last moments I did feel for her. It was horrifying to watch her get stabbed in the belly repeatedly. I hated the spy theory, and I'm glad that this did not turn out to be true. Of course I would have preferred if they would have handled the whole Cat/ Robb storyline differently from the beginning, but it is way too late for that anyway. I think this was the best possible ending for the Talisa character.

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I don't know guys, y'all are probably gonna crucify me for this but I wasn't really that affected when Robb died. It was a painful scene, I know, but i feel like I wasn't that sold into his character. Maybe if he had a POV, it would've been different. As for Catelyn, I was SO heartbroken. Just had to get this out lol.

Anyway, the RW was perfect. Cheers to Benioff and Weiss.

Edited by TheGreenBell
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It was excellent. Gut wrenching and shocking just like the book. Talisa getting stabbed in her uterus was a new wrinkle and tough to watch. When I saw her at the wedding, I knew it would end bad for her. Even though I knew it was coming, it still got to me. Watched the scene a few times and it still moves me, bringing me right back to the disbelief of my original reading. Great job, D&D.

Not surprised that some of you still managed to dislike the show. I think you're forever cursed as a book reader to not like any adaptation. This isn't a good thing of course, so I'm glad I'm not in your shoes, disappointed with everything. Twitter is imploding from the reaction of this episode, so it's obvious the show has delivered with impact. They sent a shock right up there with Ned's death, which you can at least respect.

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Wasn't there some mention that the Westerly girl was given a tea to help with her "fertility"? And Tywin didn't hold their considerable collaboration with the Starks against them. Seems pretty clear to me that she isn't pregnant in the books.

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What I find really funny, is that Talisa's death didn't hit me as hard as D & D would have probably wanted. I said this before but I just wanted to reiterate, having someone butcher a pregnant woman or (cut and paste any other equally gruesome activity) is NOT enough to make me sympathize with them. The character is meant to be written properly so that when they finally bite it, we actually feel something. For This season Talisa has been one of the more irritating aspects for me and has just wrinkled pretty much every scene she's in.

What I find funnier is that the book RW didn't have any scene quite as gruesome as a pregnant woman being stabbed half a hundred times, yet it still hit you like a whirlwind, just the brutal efficiency of the whole thing. But in the show you have the writers basically saying,"oh please feel sorry for these characters, look how gruesomely we kill them off!!!" But personally I feel like they need to learn how to write a better character first, and then come and tell me to feel sorry for them.

This, and a few of Robb's banner men like the Greatjon who we would've cared about.

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This sums up my feelings perfectly:

I was really impressed with how director David Nutter realized it on the screen. This was unpretty violence, an inglorious mob hit, carried out without poetry or the chance for glorious ends. The closest Robb and Talisa get to a heartrending goodbye is his watching the light go out of her eyes... All this is unromantic and ignoble, like the shooting of a trapped wolf in a stall.

http://entertainment.../#ixzz2V97qZUyF

In a weird way, The Red Wedding was almost the antithesis of Dracarys. There, were Dany seemed so powerful, here Robb and Cat were reduced to nothing. It was painful to watch. Grey Wind didn't have a fantastical last stand (perhaps one of the most horrible things I've ever seen), and Lame Lothar, Roose and Black Walder creep up on Talisa, Robb and Cat respectively to end their lives quickly, with little sense of justice. Further, each of the dying characters had to watch the person they love die before it was their own turn; Talisa had to endure her own unborn child being stabbed in her womb, Robb saw his wife die, and finally when Cat saw her first-born son die. Nothing will ever rival this.

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3. Greywind dies AFTER Robb. This is extremely important (sentimentally-wise) as Robb’s real last words are “Greywind…” not “Mother…” It is to be assumed Robb wargs into his direwolf after he dies since this is the same moment Greywind viciously attacks nearby Freys who have not yet began their assault. Robb is betrayed, killed by his own man, wargs into his wolf, then dies all over again. It is part of his death and cutting that out of the show makes it considerably less tragic. To match, the death they gave Greywind here was so lacking in dramatic force or quality, you barely even cared that he was killed.

No, it only matters to the people who assume that a Robb Stark who has never warged before and about whom nobody says that his eyes roll at the moment of his death somehow did a warg level 100 trick and entered Grey Wind. The only evidence is that a continuity error would suggest he had extraordinary physical power and some dialogue that would suggest warg dreams, completely different from entering your wolf at the moment of your death. I also don't know how it is possible to criticize the evident anti-conventional and anti-climatic quality of GW dying like he did and Arya seeing it (and assuming what happens from it), as opposed to him being liberated by a Westerling and going down fighting.

What I find funnier is that the book RW didn't have any scene quite as gruesome as a pregnant woman being stabbed half a hundred times, yet it still hit you like a whirlwind, just the brutal efficiency of the whole thing. But in the show you have the writers basically saying,"oh please feel sorry for these characters, look how gruesomely we kill them off!!!" But personally I feel like they need to learn how to write a better character first, and then come and tell me to feel sorry for them.

Absolutely, the books are famous for conveying emotions without any violence or gore. It's not like the wedding consisted of several lords you have grown attached to dying with tables thrown around or something. I'm sure that, if Talisa wasn't killed, the consensus would be that Robb's death was too lonely and that he was the only person to die with Catelyn coming back. Because that is what happens, Robb dies and loses his crown, unCat replaces Cat, Blackfish gets away thanks to his piss break in the show, Greatjon is merely imprisonned, Westerling boy runs away, Edmure is not killed. Who really dies that we care about in this ''massacre''? Talisa and Little Ned dying was a good touch, although a stab in the heart good have done it too.

Edited by CakeOfTheMorning
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What I find really funny, is that Talisa's death didn't hit me as hard as D & D would have probably wanted.... For This season Talisa has been one of the more irritating aspects for me and has just wrinkled pretty much every scene she's in.

Agreed. Being a non-book reader, I was pretty neutral when I learned that the character of Talisa was made-up and not part of the original storyline. But eh, whatever. I wanted Robb to be happy and to be able to marry for "true love" (after all, with all the horrible stuff happening to him & his family, the guy deserved a tiny bit of happiness)...But maybe Talisa was just miscast or misdirected or poorly written, but I found her to be incredibly annoying and even occasionally off-putting. Maybe it was her mannerisms or maybe just her face....but I wasn't the slightest bit moved by her death.

In fact, the whole RW wasn't nearly as epic as I was expecting it to be...maybe because it had been hyped up sooooooo much and everyone I knew who had read the books kept telling me that it was going to be crazy.

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This sums up my feelings perfectly:

http://entertainment.../#ixzz2V97qZUyF

In a weird way, The Red Wedding was almost the antithesis of Dracarys. There, were Dany seemed so powerful, here Robb and Cat were reduced to nothing. It was painful to watch. Grey Wind didn't have a fantastical last stand (perhaps one of the most horrible things I've ever seen), and Lame Lothar, Roose and Black Walder creep up on Talisa, Robb and Cat respectively to end their lives quickly, with little sense of justice. Further, each of the dying characters had to watch the person they love die before it was their own turn; Talisa had to endure her own unborn child being stabbed in her womb, Robb saw his wife die, and finally when Cat saw her first-born son die. Nothing will ever rival this.

:agree:

Exactly. And that was the reason that I was against people lying outright to friends about whether Robb would die (as to "not spoil them"). The big thing here is not that he dies, but how. Not in a battle or combat, but stabbed by an ally while complacent and unarmed along with wife and mother.

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It's only just occurred to me how half the people on here's response to Talisa is probably more or less consistent with Walder Frey's response to Jeyne.

As in Jeyne replaced Frey's little daughter (whom he doesn't care about until Robb replaces her) and Talisa replaced Jeyne (whom readers don't care about until tv-show replaces her)?

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I think Grey Wind's death in the show is more consistent with the overall theme of the Red Wedding, that it's a massacre and not a battle, with the Starks killed like fish in a barrel. Having Grey Wind go out in a blaze of glory (which didn't actually happen in the Red Wedding in the books, we only heard about it later from another character, if I remember correctly) would have run counter to that. I think it was entirely appropriate, the way it was depicted on the show.

Edited by Khal Porno
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As in Jeyne replaced Frey's little daughter (whom he doesn't care about until Robb replaces her) and Talisa replaced Jeyne (whom readers don't care about until tv-show replaces her)?

No, as in the Freys were upset that Jeyne existed for Robb instead of a Frey girl, and took to murderous ambitious because of it, and readers were upset that Talisa existed for Robb instead of Jeyne and maligned and derided her until the moment she died which quite a few on here seemed to enjoy.

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