So, uhh, Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones was pretty fishin’ spectacular if you ask me. Discuss below, but mostly I just wanted a pretext to post a link to this video, which imagines what Game of Thrones’ opening credits would look like if it were done like the opening credits to Friends.
Mark of New Jersey
Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.
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The episode was great, but also makes me feel like it was the mid season climax–so we’re going to have to endure more build-up to ep 9 and 10 for a couple weeks.
Are the books still first person by this point?Report
Yes. Or, to be more accurate, limited third personReport
I assume the books follow a single thread more diligently then?
Like many others, I’m curious to see how long each episode’s hop-scotching can stay fun and exciting.
At this point I’d rather pay HBO the full price of a Blu-ray collection and watch them all at once than come back to it each Sunday. It moves at the pace of a really decentralized special event superhero comic.Report
Oh, Lord no! It’s still four lines all waiting.
Except, we’re to the point that it’s eight lines all waiting (four per ep!), and then martin couldn’t fit everything into one book, so we got 1/3rd of a book of complete stalling on his part.
But you notice the dangling plotlines in book form less, because:
1) you can skip Dany, if you want.
2) Most of the POV characters inform other POV characters — Sansa And Tyrion And Cersei/Ned have insights on each other’s doings.Report
I assume the books follow a single thread more diligently then?
HAHAHAHA. No. I’d say that one thing making the series arguably better than the books is that it holds the plotlines together more effectively, has clearer continuities, and leaves out a lot of the parts of the books where one plot or another isn’t really progressing (for example, in the books Arya does a lot of fairly aimless wandering around before she meets the Brotherhood, and Dany’s Qarth storyline has even less to it than the TV one does although we get some great prophecy/prediction material out of it). It also introduces future characters and plotlines a lot more effectively – in the book series, the first book had a few mentions of Theon but virtually nothing about him, and then he’s just a major character all of a sudden in the second book. The Tyrell-Lannister interactions are also being developed far better and more clearly than in the books.
The only part I’m dissatisfied with is Jon’s arc. He’s a great character in the books, and comes across as a lot smarter and more skilled and effective there than he does in the show.Report
I know I posted this recently, but I am still shocked at how well it works:
http://youtu.be/hwF-D5wEEmk
And yeah, last week was pretty awesome. My wife was doing fist-pumps at the end.
And she can’t believe that she feels bad for Jaime.Report
Most readers were saying the same thing, especially since book James was, if anything, even more arrogant and unlikable than the actor James.Report
Oh, good, I was worried we weren’t doing GoT discussion threads any more.
This episode was awesome. Most of all for Dany (I’ve re-watched that ending scene 6 or 7 times now, because it is perfection, and the people who designed the Valyrian language deserve major props for making it sound so great), but also for Brienne telling Jaime off for being a spoiled little brat, and the Varys-Olenna scene, and Margaery being wonderful and showing (contra most of the rest of the show) that you don’t need to be an asshole to be effective. Her and Sansa’s BFFs scene was adorable. (Although, going right from Olenna’s scene to this one made me wonder…did they eve ask Loras about this whole plan? Or is it just, “Nope, we don’t care that you’re gay and your boyfriend just died, you’re marrying Sansa because we feel sorry for her (and want to keep her away from Littlefinger).”
My one issue was with the scene where Varys talked about his maiming. I felt like the attempt to relate it to what Tyrion wanted to discuss was a very awkward segue, and obscured the central point of the story – that it’s why Varys hates and distrusts magic. His backstory should have been covered in a scene where the discussion was about magic. (Although one thing about that confuses me [5TH BOOK SPOILERS]: Vs ur ungrf zntvp naq gubfr jub hfr vg, jul vf ur ba gur fvqr bs gur Gnetnrelraf, jub ner gur aboyr snzvyl gur zbfg urnivyl nffbpvngrq jvgu zntvp naq zntvpny dhnyvgvrf. Rfcrpvnyyl Qnal jvgu ure qentbaf.)Report
“because we feel sorry for her”
..lol, just lol.Report
lol indeed.Report
Speaking of which, in the scene where Margy is seducing Joffrey by pretending to find his sadism attractive, and he says that he’s considered making gayness a capital crime, I couldn’t tell if he realized that he was threatening her brother’s life.Report
Did you see the look on her face? I’d say that was strike one for Joffery.Report
No, I missed that. (Obviously.)Report
I assume that Loras has known for a while that he’s probably going to have to marry a woman, just as most nobles know that the person they marry will have as much to do with political convenience than their own desires even if usually that person’s the right gender. Although I wonder if his desire to join the Kingsguard, which is a celibate brotherhood, are worth considering in that light.Report
he might not have had to, had Renly survived. OTOH, Olenna might have said “two for the price of one!” and gone for a marriage as well.Report
What I don’t get: didn’t Loras join the King’s Guard last season? (and thus, the whole celibacy thing?) or am I misremembering (either Loras’s joining and/or an essential attribute of the King’s Guard?)Report
Good point. You remember correctly.Report
Turns out you can retire from Joffrey’s Kingsguard.
The times are achangin’Report
It’s fun to watch the n00bs spec on what is up with Pod.Report
I have a new suggestion for house Targaryen’s words:
“A Dragon chooses, a slave obeys”Report
I do like that (compared to season two) , season three’s scenes have a little more girth. By season two the story had split into so many independent threads that each scene never felt like more than an establishing shot, before moving on to the next. Season three seems less focused on hitting every thread every episode, and more on picking and choosing and spending a little more time in those scenes.Report
I’m puzzled as to why they’ve transferred Olenna’s plotting from her other grandson to Loras. Is it simply because it’s easier for the viewers to track since they already know who Loras is?Report
Basically, yes. Game of Thrones is already far more complicated than your average TV drama and indeed, even more complicated than “prestige dramas” like Mad Men or Breaking Bad just going by number of storylines and number of characters going on. At a certain point, it’s economical, both on a story level and for long-term planning to combine characters.Report
I’m not enormously grumpy about it. I understand the necessity. It just leaves weird plot holes that the books of course avoided. If Loras is in the Kings guard he can’t marry Sansa. The books solved this by adding another brother.Report