HBO: Game of Thrones

[EricMontreal22]

Well deserved!

[Cheap21]

I honestly had to rewatch the first 2 episodes bc I missed alot and didnt quite get the connections. Going to the official page on HBO helped alot in getting the names right. Favorite character so far is Arya. Man that little girl rocks! Not feeling Sansa. I was disgusted with her when she was begging her mother to convince her father to allow her to marry the Prince so she can be queen someday. And then of course she lied, which resulted in Lady being killed.

LOVE Kalysee. I love how she started off as very timid and scared but grows stronger and more assertive of her place. Love her owning her role as wife of Khal Drogo. I cant stand her punk ass brother Viserys.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Cheap21

[EricaKane70]

I love Kalysee and Arya too. Out of the guys I love Tyrion.

I just finished watching the entire season, and Kalysee owned in that last scene. I can't believe I have to wait til spring 2012 to watch season 2. The actor that plays king Jeoffrey(sp.) seriously is a good actor, I love to hate him.

Edited July 17, 2011 by EricaKane70

[quartermainefan]

Joffrey is the best. I don't know where they found this kid or how old he is, but he is the best villain on TV no exception. I do hope we see more of his grandfather next year because he looks like a real piece of work himself.

[YRBB]

Amazing final episode. I could not believe what Joffrey was doing--he is such a horrible, evil piece of sh*t and I love every minute of it. And I feel so sorry for Sansa--she once was the stupidest bitch teen ever, now she makes you feel bad for her. Great writing and acting. Jon going past the wall promises a lot of drama in the upcoming season. And loved everything with Dany... so great that she walked into the fire and then the dragons were all over her.

[quartermainefan]

Game Of Lego

more

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dufresne07/

[Cheap21]

Im not sure if I feel sorry for her bc I kinda think she deserves her misery. She was so pretenious and horrible as she vied for that crown. Now she has her king and the lifestyle she wanted and is absolutely miserable bc its nothing like she imagined. The only part I feel sympathy for is having to see her father killed in front of her and then being forced to look at his head. That was jus cruel

Joffrey is such a snivveling piece of [!@#$%^&*]. The actor is great but the character is definetly someone I love to hate.

Oh and how creepy was Cat's younger sister and her son? Those two look borderline incestuous. That boy is messed up and she seems to be in love with him. He'slike 7 and still breast feeding? I think I find them creepier than the Queen and her brother

[YRBB]

Oh, yes, Sansa most definitely deserves all the stuff that's happening to her but, like you, you feel bad for what happened to her concerning her father. Which is why it's so great writing. Her arc has been fantastic, just like Dany's evolution.

Oh yes, Cat and her son are just nightmarish. And I love them!

[EricMontreal22]

I don't think she deserves it at all. Well, ok maybe a little bit. Yes she came off as a spoiled brat often enough, but she obviously never set out to be cruel to anyone, she comes off as hopelessly naive (even later on when she falls into Cercei's game so easily), and easily glamourised. But she's also a silly, young, teenaged girl (I believe she's meant to be 14?) Then again, I've been told I tend to be too sympathetic to people who sometimes don't deserve it, so *shrug*

Anyway, this weekend I finally watched the final two episodes. I had been keeping up to date, but missed ep 9 due to a vacation, and on that vacation picked up at the airport the novel, and was reading that. By the time I got to roughly where ep 8 ended, I decided I should watch the last two episodes before finishing the book, so finally got caught up. Anyway terrific stuff. (My older brother is quite annoyed with my extreme love for Thrones - he's been trying, with no luck, to get me to read the books for the past ten years or so).

Comparing the novel, I think Benioff and Weiss did a superb job of adaptation; knowing what to cut, what to combine or re-arrange, and what to focus on and keep. The tone is spot on. A few things have become clearer to me due to the novel (though the novel's long appendix with some history of the world, family trees, etc, is both a help and almost makes me more confused...) I do think some things in the novel change perspective--if Sansa's best friend had been kept in the TV show I think she'd come off a bit more sympathetic, for example, but there are already so many characters, that the early TV episodes are kinda intimidating until you have a grasp on who's who, so to add non essential ones wouldn't be wise).

I admit, I wasn't at first keen with Benioff and Weiss as showrunners. I knew a lot about the series already from my brother and was looking forward to it, but the screenwriters of that historical mess of a film, Troy, hardly seemed a good match, but I stand corrected.

My one complaint is, as Juliajms pointed out I believe, the several gratuitous sexploitation scenes. Maybe it would bother me less if (that one, fairly tame gay scene aside), the nudity seemed more balanced between men and women, but... I have no objection to graphic sex and nudity, if anything the opposite, but at the same time this isn't True Blood which relishes its pulpiness so that feels less out of place. The one scene that stood out the most this way for me was one midway through where Littlefinger instructs two whores on how to pleasure a man and then gets them to demonstrate. This scene isn't in the book *whatsoever*, and kinda screams out to me "Well this is HBO, and we do wanna secure a young male demographic, so..." Granted, the scene did have one dramatic purpose, it led to Littlefinger's monologue about how he lost Cat to Ned's brother, which is the kind of exposition that's very hard to deal with in a tv show, but very easy to deal with in the narration of a novel, but still it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Someone commented about not liking the George RR Martin episode (8). That was the last one I saw before starting the novel, but I thought it was perhaps the best written out of all of them. Martin does have a background in TV writing, he worked on Beauty and the Beast and the new (1980s) Twilight Zone among others, but he said he left it when he could afford to because he hated how all of his scripts were edited and watered down by execs, he doesn't seem to think any of those pieces reflect his voice (which in the case of Beauty and the Beast, I say thank God to). Anyway, I found the actual episode to have the best dialogue, and a very clever flow of scenes. But it was also one of the subtlest one (ending on a quiet note instead of a climax, in fact), without many big huge moments, so it might depend on what you like.

I will say that I actually don't mind if they can't afford huge battle scenes (the show looks so incredible gorgeous and *expensive* anyway). But that's me, I find battle scenes in movies, for the most part, beyond boring. Unless there are clmactic fights between two characters I care about and know, or something, big war scenes leave me cold and I'd rather they just fade to black and tell us of the aftermath.

Anyway it's an absolutely terrific show, and the ending leaves me with a problem - do I read Clash of Kings now, or do I wait (ugh 9 months or so?) towatch Season 2 first and read it after. The books and series, so far anyway, complement each other so well that I can't decide (not the same kind of show at all, but I haven't had this problem with True Blood, after trying the books and really not thinking much of them at all). At any rate, the last episode leaves all the characters heading in such compelling directions... (I'm glad that it looks like Arya will end up seeing Jon and that the king's bastard son is joining her - forget his name but I had actually kinda forgotten about him except I know the actor from Skins lol)

Juliajms you may find this recent article about George R R Martin from the New Yorker, if you've not read it, interesting. It talks a bit about his background and about the series, but also about his absoilutely crazy fans, including the many who have turned their backs on him and see him as a betrayer for taking so long to come out with the 5th book that was just released. Absolutely ridiculous.

Just Write It! A Fantasy Author and his Fans

Edited July 19, 2011 by EricMontreal22

[EricMontreal22]

Interesting, because in the original filmed pilot, Daenerys Targaryen was played by Tamzin Merchant who was Queen Catherine Howard in The Tudors. The pilot also had, as Cat, Jennifer Ehle - most famous for starring as the lead in the classic mid 90s BBC Pride and Prejudice. She still looks a bit too yougn and, well, happy for the role - I can't imagine either role played by anyone but who we have now, but it'd be interesting to see.

[Cheap21]

Sansa was such a bitch to her governess and for no reason! I remember the one episode where she asked her about her life and as she was telling her, Sansa interruped and said "oh wait, I forgot. I dont care". I wanted her to get the snot knocked out of her with that line

[Juliajms]

Sansa is not one of my favorites by any stretch, but I do feel sorry for her. I don't think she ever wanted a crown in the way that most of the players do. Sansa isn't after power, she's a girl who was raised on fairytales. She was snotty to both her father and the Septa, but to me that's just being 15 years old. She took her father and Septa for granted and was acting out against them because of what happened with Lady. And yes, it was her own fault for lying, but she's a teenager, she had no idea how high the stakes really were in King's Landing. I loved the way the Septa tried to protect Sansa in the end. She and Syrio were so loyal.

That said, I almost wish she had pushed Joff over that ledge. She would have been executed, but it would have been worth it.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Juliajms

[Juliajms]

Season 2 casting news:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/19/stannis-melisandre/

[EricMontreal22]

Great, I'm a big fan of several of those actors. Ugh can't handle having to wait...

As for Sansa, I get what Cheap means, but I really think she's largely a victim of circumstance (and her own foolish naivity). Even when she said that to her Nanny, it's more a snotty teen acting out. I'd like to think I was never like that, but I know a lot of people who were (to an extent) as teens and grew out of it. She's a girl in over her head, and she quickly realizes that in quite a shocking way. But even early on with the direwolf situation, she obviously had regret about it even if she didn't own up to what she should have. I would have a lot lot less sympathy for her if she was an adult, but... (The direwolf situation was such foreshadowing of what was to come for her...)

[Juliajms]

Ugh! I see more of my teenage self than I like in Sansa. Not the "my prince will come" crap, but the taking my teenage angst out on innocent victims stuff.

I agree it's going to be a long wait until season 2.