HBO: Game of Thrones

[DRW50]

If you ever get a chance you should listen to the DVD commentary for The Prince of Winterfell. Michelle Fairley and Nikolas Coster-Waldau do it and some parts are hilarious, especially their reaction to Robb's story ( repeatedly shouting "King of the North!" and arguing over whether or not Robb had managed to last longer than seven seconds when he had sex with Talisa).

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

I'll PM you when I'm out of class ha

[DRW50]

So I finally found the season 4 credits...it's so sad to see Winterfell like that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg3JnJERijI

[Vee]

It's been like that since Season 3, IIRC.

[DRW50]

I haven't seen the season 3 credits so I wasn't sure.

(are there videos documenting each change in the credits?)

Mereen and that big statue of the woman (?) reminds me of Paradise Island for some reason.

I've been saving the end of season 2 to finish when I have time to watch all of it plus commentary, so hopefully that will be tonight or tomorrow...

I also got HBO so I could DVR the new episodes. I guess that gets me a merit badge or something.

[Vee]

You won't get Netflix Instant, but you are down for HBO? What am I doing with my life? (I have my friend's HBO Go; I could afford HBO but I may make a move soon and I'm trying to be conscientious for the moment.)

I don't know if there is a video showing all the locations. It wouldn't surprise me.

I personally don't get to commentaries until between seasons or after viewing the whole block.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Vee

[DRW50]

Game of Thrones isn't on Netflix Instant.

[Vee]

I know, but I was under the impression you'd denied yourself other stuff on streaming. Oh, it was TP because of the Log Lady intros. Never mind.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Lets see how badly or great they do this wedding....

Uhhh this show....so wrong ALL WRONG. Tyrion and Shae is nothing like this in the books and this completely ruins the whole storyline for him this season!

Edited April 14, 2014 by ThePrinceOfSunspear

[Juliajms]

I don't believe Shae got on the boat, at the very least she didn't stay on it. Tyrion is smart, but he can't outsmart Tywin, he admitted that himself.

The problem I see is that this world is getting too big. It's been an issue all along, but I really feel it all the more this season. It's impossible to stay true to the books, I'm fine with that. Now it seems almost impossible to even keep up with the world the show has created. I hope they manage to keep it together somehow.

I think that we should be able to talk about theories and speculation openly, since none of the major mysteries have been solved in the books.There is no chance of spoiling. If you think differently read no further:

I know some people think that Cersei and Jamie are Targaryens. I suspect it's Tyrion, but it could very well be none of them. Joff didn't have to be a Targaryen to be a mad king. No one knows, except GRRM and maybe TPTB at the show.

As far as tonight's episode, it was the right time for Joff to go imo. I know losing the character will upset a lot of people, but he had it coming. Interesting that Maegery seems a truly good and intelligent person. I've never been sure what to make of her.

[quartermainefan]

What a great episode! Mystery was the only thing missing from GoT and now Cersei could really do with a little help from Hercule Poirot. Martin is not Agatha Christie so I am not expecting this story to be written expressly to serve the mystery (in which case Cersei herself would be the culprit) so I am going to say Diana Rigg is the prime suspect of the moment. She made that vague comment, she would not tolerate her granddaughter being married to a monster, and she has a score to settle with Tywin. She also paid for the pie that was dry.

Other than her, I guess the next likely suspect is Margery, who I guess we can assume poured the glass he drank from off camera. But with no heir she wouldn't even be Queen after this, let alone the next Queen Regent. The new Martell prince had no access to the glass or pie. Cersei and Jaime are the dark horses who know they created a monster. Shae is the 1000-1 shot since we didn't actually see her leave the city. Sansa is another long shot but we have no indication she had access to anything. Tywin wouldn't kill a Lannister, even an incest Lannister, and Tyrion was never alone with the glass or pie.

Other than that, I am still not fond of the stuff with Theon. That guy is not fun to watch (whatever his name is that tortures everybody) and I wish the show would drop this sick character. Jack Gleeson will be sorely missed. He was excellent in the role and Joffrey' absence will hurt the show. His one dimensional evil was breath of fresh air in a show of subtle gray. One of the best TV villains of all time, and Gleeson should have been nominated and won an emmy long ago.

Edited April 14, 2014 by quartermainefan

[Vee]

What an episode.

I had suspected this was coming for Joffrey this week since just before the season started - I had no rumors or anything, but I knew the Purple Wedding would be significant somehow, and I soon noticed there was no apparent footage of Joffrey following the wedding in any previews; I also couldn't see why Tyrion would be in chains. I still think it was either Ser Dontos or him in collusion with someone else - I can't imagine who. The Martells seem too obvious.

Margaery remains the best and for my money, the smartest player around. I hope she comes through this alright and continues to take an active role in things somehow. You could tell she could barely stomach being around Joffrey. The stony expressions on many faces during the dwarf play were something else - that whole sequence was incredibly tense. I don't know what pleasure Cersei could possibly get out of any of that debacle at this point, or out of being so petty as to insist on feeding the leftovers to the dogs and not the poor. She knew what her son was, she knows she's not as smart as she thought. After the last two seasons, how much longer can belittling the less fortunate to exert some last shred of power possibly sustain her? She seems to be teetering on the brink as is. I didn't follow how she could have known about Brienne and Jaime, unless I've forgotten a scene or two last week. Still, Gwendoline Christie was amazing as always.

I loved that we got back to Dragonstone and Stannis's family - they were fascinating last season and they're even moreso now. You can tell, as I have suspected since the start and as was confirmed late last season, that Stannis, dogmatic and bullheaded though he is, has never been as truly committed to the Lord of Light as his poor, desperate wife or Melisandre, the woman who seduced him. In a way, his infatuation with her and that faith is almost a metastasized midlife crisis on a monstrous scale, infecting not only his own family but every aspect of his little fiefdom. He knows it's out of control, he wants out but he's too rigid, too Stannis to ever say so, to Davos or anyone else. That miserable family dinner scene in that wet, soggy cave with the bad meat said it all. He's always gotten the short end of the stick, ever since holding Storm's End. I believe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have always said their angle on bringing GOT to HBO was to do for fantasy what was done for the mob with The Sopranos, or the cop drama with The Wire, or the Old West with Deadwood - 'making them dirty and reinventing them,' they've said, and here it's a case of bringing fantasy down to human Earth. Stannis and his family and his holdings could, on a smaller, less fantastical scale, just as well be any family in crisis anywhere in America on a contemporary drama - a broken family, a dysfunctional home rocked by the presence of an alluring intruder who completely turns their world upside-down. They were already primed for someone like Melisandre and her red god to come in and totally turn them inside-out.

Great stuff with the Boltons, too - it's enthralling to see them portrayed as, from what I've observed, sort of the mirror-universe version of the Starks, with Ramsay as the scheming Roose Bolton's closest hand; unlike Jon and Ned, Roose's bastard is given real position, but is a demented sadist. Not unlike Stephen Dillane as Stannis, Michael McElhatton does a great job with the very extreme control Bolton exerts over how he presents himself to the world. Even when he looked Catelyn in the eye at the Red Wedding just before the carnage started, even when he stabbed Robb in the heart, his face barely shifted beyond mild neutrality. He's the same today. I think someone BTS mentioned that their take on Theon now is that he has been completely subjugated and brainwashed by Ramsay, whereas in the books Theon supposedly only obeyed out of fear.

I've been tired of Shae and her dramatics for a while - when she came onto the scene she postured as a woman of mystery, claimed to be so in tune with the ways of sociocultural and sexual politics, so in command of herself but she's been bitching about the necessities of Tyrion's public life for two seasons. Nonetheless, her rejection by a very pained Tyrion was heartbreaking all the same. Great work by both actors.

I cackled when I saw Loras and Oberyn Martell making eyes at each other. Naturally!

The brief stuff with Bran was great - Isaac Hempstead-Wright really sold the feral nature overtaking him. The look in his eyes was something else. I hope there's much more to his storyline this year; last season was mostly treading water.

Great show. I will agree Cersei is my long shot for killing Joffrey - maybe she just couldn't take it anymore and is hiding it that well, she just wanted it all to be over. She wanted herself freed, she wanted the Tyrells gone. Who knows? Other than her being the remote possibility, I have Dontos and...I dunno, Olenna? No, that wouldn't make sense; making Joffrey her grandson by marriage secures their house's future. It could also be someone working from beyond King's Landing - the Brotherhood, or Melisandre, or the Targaryen loyalists from Essos.

I loved the look on Varys's face throughout the wedding. He was just dying inside wanting to get out of there - priceless.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Vee

[Juliajms]

I think Cersei enjoyed it because it was a slap in the face to Tyrion and she truly hates him. She's still mad he sent her daughter to Dorne on top of blaming her for their mother. She's also a bit off her rocker and Tywin and Margaery are making it worse by taking away her power. Margaery took her place as queen and Cersei isn't having that. If she was lead by her brains and not her emotions, she would have realized how lucky she was that Joff had a wife who could manage him. Now Tommen is King and Cersei has more power again. That boy actually listens to his mother.

When Tyrion told Joff to get in there and fight the little people himself, I expected him to behead one of them. I'm very glad that didn't happen. I think Tyrion was pretty drunk and upset to suggest something so reckless.

I think the Tyrells will be just fine. They have all the money and all the food and Loras is the best knight in Westero, now that Jaime is hurt.

As I remember it, the Theon in the book didn't even know his name anymore he was so brainwashed.

The thing about Melisandre is I'm not even sure she's bad. She certainly believes that Stannis is the chosen one and will save the world from the white walkers. I think the lord of light is a brutal god, a lot like the old testament god.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Theon is about the only good thing the show is doing right in regards to the books. He is exactly like this in the books. Completely brainwashed and utterly snapped and broken as a man (except theres some ambiguity as to whether Ramsay Snow actually took away his manhood within the book world).

As for Shae my problem is not with whether she got on the boat or not. Its the scenes between her and Tyrion that are so horrible. The writers of this show are making her out to be the innocent victim who Tyrion is treating so badly and saying such hurtful mean things to....

Except its nothing like that in the books and whats worse is that it sets a radically different stage for what will happen next in that specific storyline.....so I didn't like it. I haven't liked what they've done with Shae for a while now. In the books Varys hardly talks to her and neither does Sansa.

At least they stayed true to the books with the wedding scene. That was overall fantastic and I'm glad they hit all the right notes with it. The flirting scene between Loras and the Red Viper while made up was hilarious! And I'm glad that they showed Ser Dontos taking Sansa away....

Jofferys purple face and Cersei's rage....pure perfection and exactly how I envisioned it....

[rhinohide]

I'm enjoying this season immensely. I didn't read the books, but I've had the experience in the past of a book I loved being bastardized in film, so I feel your pain. However, hearing the complaints just makes me glad I didn't read the books. I'm thoroughly enjoying the stories unencumbered by the distraction of trying to analyze its authenticity. Joffrey's death was fantastic. His behavior leading up to that was so atrocious. All the giggling and smug derision. The tension during the celebration made me tingle. Sansa's face as the "entertainment" reenacted her father's beheading was riveting. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I was momentarily giddy over the gruesomeness of Joffrey's suffering. I know I will miss him, but I'm really very interested in this "whodunnit" and why.

I am not going to miss Shae. She became clingy. The exact opposite of how she was introduced. She lost her power.

I don't get the purpose of Theon, but I'm intrigued about whether or not he will somehow come out of this and how.

So far the Stannis piece has not captured my interest.