HBO: Game of Thrones

[Juliajms]

Tywin has to humor Joffery, since all it takes is one word from Joff and Tywin's head is on a spike. Given that, I thought Tywin did a pretty good job of letting Joffrey know who the real boss is. If I were Joff, I'd be very worried right now.

Not sure GRRM does much without a reason. This is a very long story.

[Ann_SS]

For once, I agreed with Joffery. He is right to be concerned about Daenerys and her dragons.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Considering all the scenes we've seen of Tywin (from his first with Tyrion to the one with both his children) Charles Dance has been terrifying. The scene was a major disappointment cuz Joff didn't really seem all too worried or scared of Tywin. Nor did Tywin really put him in his place like he does in the novels (albeit in a totally different scene with both Cersei and Tyrion present...)

[quartermainefan]

Charles Dance has emerged as one of the MVPs of the show. His character started out so minor in season 1, but now if Tywin doesn't show up every episode I am disappointed. And he works well with everyone, from Arya to Joffrey and all the adults along the way.

[Juliajms]

I guess I didn't mind. I thought Joff looked pretty scared when Tywin walked up those stairs to the iron throne. He physically shrank back. Plus, Joff is an arrogant idiot. He thinks being the king protects him. Tyrion, Cersei and (even) Jaime are smarter than Joff.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Juliajms

[EricMontreal22]

Finally caught up with the last few episodes--so I'll prob reply to a few posts.

Selyse was in season 2--I think she even had some lines, but played by a different actress and barely mentioned.

[EricMontreal22]

Sorry, I had to laugh. We really disagree.

Books work differently than movies or TV--and can be denser and more complex. There is simply no way the books could continue to be adapted faithfully the way you want--due to budget, but also due to simply they would be too confusing. The show already is found to be confusing by many viewers--and I wouldn't criticize them for being "lowest common denominator"--it does take a lot more concentration for many to keep up with all the odd names, stories, etc. As a big fan of the books (well, at least book 3--I have some later issues) I think the job they are doing is still simply as much as I could ask for, and I find some of the changes in story have been brilliant.

Besides, Martin approves. He seems to realize that changes have to be made. I think simply disliking the changes because they are different is short-sighted.

[EricMontreal22]

Exactly.

One of the showrunners discussed before this season premiered how they tried to get more time but HBO simply couldn't afford it--the best they could do was they allowed most episodes to be 5+ more minutes than they had been int he past (which he claimed, with ten episodes, added up to basically one whole extra episode time wise which I think is overstating things, but...)

As a big fan of adaptation done right--I think fans of the original source material always have to keep in mind the context of the adaptation.

Well since most of this book will take place over 2 seasons, it is 20 episodes (but we've already been told other plot threads from later books will be weaved in--a wise mood because book four in particular suffers from being entirely focused on mainly less interestingcharacters.)

[EricMontreal22]

Which brings me to this.

I think the one episode a season George R R Martin chooses to write himself usually are a mixed bag. And this one was no different. Some lovely juxtaposition and even changes from his own book, but his dialogue as spoken runs the gamut from embarrassing clichés (some of Jon's stuff made me sorry for the actor who managed to sorta pull it off), to some beautiful lines that would read gorgeously but are awkward when spoken, to some note perfect dialogue.

I watched with a friend who hadn't read the books and, for the record, he was slightly confused about the whole Jaime thing--why he could go back, why Brienne was stuck there, etc. I think he's fairly bright so I'm not sure if he just missed some lines or it wasn't clear, but--he still got the gist.

OK but the huge weakness was with the Theon scenes. I admit, I don't even remember the details from the book clearly as I read it what feels like ages back, so I can't compare the scenes, but considering Martin wrote the script, I'm gonna blame him here (but maybe the director and others are just to blame, who knows.)

First off... We get it. The audience has gotten the point of the Theon stuff and really they could have just cut it down to several minutes and it would have had the same, if not more impact, IMHO. Granted, I hate torture porn, but in this case the violence WAS gratuitous. And so was the sex (granted not a first for the TV adaptation, though they've gotten better at it.) As my friend knew, as soon as Theon is woken by the two girls, it's obviously more of the torture (granted Theon himself felt this, but it wasn't cleverly done to make anyone think otherwise.) It went on WAY too long, when they could have devoted the time to other things, and it lost the shock value even of the end of the scene simply because of that, IMHO. A seriously misguided moment. Put more simplistically--we got the main material from the torture in the previous episode. This episode they could have really cut it by 3/4s (it seemed endless to me) as the nly real important part was the castration.

Edited May 17, 2013 by EricMontreal22

[EricMontreal22]

No, it was Little Finger--Sansa realized (or thought anyway) she missed one of her only chances of escape. Loras is still around I assume, both from the books and the fact that in the TV show his role seems to be amalgamated with those of his, in the show so far, unseen (or mentioned?) brothers so is needed.

I had a complaint with some of the writing of this episode. I thought the Loras and Sansa scene talking about the wedding (I think it was this episode--I watched four all together, I was so behind, so they're a bit of a blur--was poorly written or directed. Loras not even being able to really fake much interest except when talking about pretty dresses seemed out of character for someone who I've always seen as pretty clever in his own way, and a bit too obvious some sort of gay stereotype or joke (I mean I'm pretty gay, but in a situation like that I could damn try harder.)

Of course the show so far has been far more explicit when it comes to gay stuff than the books (even if there hasn't been much)--from the fact that Renly and Loras relationship was much more suggested in the books, onwards (some of this is due, no doubt, to the fact that in the books neither character is given a role as narrator, so it makes sense that those characters who do narrate wouldn't know the details.) Of course they also changed the way people discovered about Loras and Sansa's engagement by using that gay prostitute in the TV series (I sthink in the books it was a spy who befriended Sansa and she told.)

[Ann_SS]

I have nothing against torture scenes, but even I have found the Theon torture scenes neverending and repetitive. Most of all, the Theon story is taking away from more interesting plots. I had so been looking forward to Shae and Sansa's reactions when Tyrion told them about the impending marriage, only to be crushed when we never got it.

I think this season has not been very strong due to poor plotting and weak dialogue.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

She was shown standing by Stannis' side while Melisandre burned the idols of the Seven Gods of Westeros in the first episode of Season 2...that's it. No lines and nothing else.

And you're free to disagree about the books but I'm not the only one on the planet who thinks the show is mostly garbage nowadays.

And of course Martin supports all this crap. He gets paid regardless and he knows people that know no better will watch the show and not have a clue how utterly disappointing and weak it is compared to the novels. So why not make as much money as you can off this train? But it does make me respect him less as an author by him allowing it to occur

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks! I couldn't remember if she had lines--it's fair then that someone who had no idea who she was wouldn't remember.

Meh lots of Martin "fans" have lost respect with him for more ridiculous reasons.

I didn't mean to sound so harsh with you--although I will say a lot of hardcore fans (more hardcore than myself) have accepted and even prefered a couple of the changes.

In your post, you didn't give ANY reason for why the changes were "garbage" except that they weren't in the book. That's it. That's the worst kind of argument when arguing an adaptation, IMHO. Lazy, and makes someone come off as being simply unable to let go of the book (and dare I say, trying to feel special for being fan before they went "mainstream"--although when I started reading them about fiftee years back they really were about as big a hit in mainstream culture as thick histocial fantasy ever could be.) I am no placing you int hat category, but I did find it easy to dismiss your argument as simply bitter fan reaction simply because you gave no reason as to WHY it didn't work for you.

Yes, showing us only the post reaction for that scenes was a poor choice. The torture scene was as gratuitous as anything I've seen in the show (the scene in this episode--not in the previous.) Oh and had awful dialogue from Martin.

I agree the dialogue has been subpar all season, I think the overall storytelling for a very complex part of the series has been strong enough to overcome that, but I agree.

[Ann_SS]

There are a lot of poorly written shows on tv, but Game of Thrones is such an expansive saga that it deserves better dialogue (and plotting). It is time for HBO to take a long hard look at that writing team. It should pay big money to snag a couple of the writers from Justified or Archer. IMO, both shows have some of the best writers on tv right now.

[EricMontreal22]

The showrunners script an awful lot of the episodes themselves. I wonder if that's a mistake. By no means would I drop them--from all I've read and mostly what I've seen they managed to make this viable in a way nobody else could figure out, but I wouldn't mind having a more varried staff. But that does not excuse Martin's own obligatory e one episode a season which always seem to have great highs and awful lows (dialogue wise, anyway) even though eh apparently starts writing them--or did the past two seasons--a year in advance.