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SPOILER WARNING If you only watch the show, this thread will spoil you of future events in HBO's Game of Thrones. Thread contains discussion of all books of the series A Song of Ice and FireClick Here for the spoiler-free thread. |
On May 20 2015 00:22 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 00:00 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 19 2015 23:41 r00ty wrote:On May 19 2015 23:27 The_Red_Viper wrote:
GRRM said his ending will be bittersweet, i am excited to see how he defines it :D
Kinda. He made some statements before the whole thing rose to the popularity it has now. I didn't want to mention it, because it goes even beyond the books, but in the end it's all speculation. There wasn't much sweetness to the stuff i read a couple of years ago but it was very cryptical... His ideas might have changed, but i trust in him to stay true to his original masterplan. I would be interested in what this means me too
Guys, this is completely out of my memory. There's a good chance it maybe tainted or flat out wrong! Don't hold it against me in 10 years, when we know the ending.  Just consider it as speculation!
+ Show Spoiler +It was some Interview where he told the journalist, that the final image in his head is that when the snow melts, all that's left is a field of graves with a single raven flying over it or sitting on a gravestone? Something like that. Then he grinned. He's a very sarcastic person, it might mean nothing. Sounds very fitting to me, though.
My personal guess is that few characters will survive and it will be Rickon or Arya to finalize the Stark revenge. That has to happen. Bran maybe, but I don't trust the three eyed raven and Dany's not a safe bet either. I think everyone who enters the Game of Thrones will die (Hi Sansa).
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On May 20 2015 02:41 Sholip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 02:27 Odoakar wrote:
Can someone remind me why Boltons accepted the risk of taking Sansa into a family, when knowing Lannisters accuse her of killing the King?
I mean, they were official Wardens of the north and could probably keep the north in check, even without legitimate connection to Starks.
Surely lord Bolton knew that he would lose alliance with lannisters if his son marries sansa, and will gain nothing from it basically. I think it was mentioned in the show, maybe in a conversation between Roose and Littlefinger, that although the Boltons rose to power thanks to the Lannister alliance, it no longer means much after they returned to the North. The crown is unlikely to send troops to the North, neither to help, nor to invade, so at this point what the Boltons do does not really matter regarding the alliance. I think they hope that with Sansa, the North will actually rally behind them, since she is a Stark? I don't know.
Easy. Jeyne Poole is not a Stark but posing as "Arya Stark". Lannisters know this and are fine with it if it means more support from the north. A nice plan if it weren't for the fact that Jeyne is getting tortured by Ramsay.. which the north resent. So he needs to die. How this works with an ACTUAL STARK like in the TV-show.. that's accused of regicide.. well.. the writing should pick up after Dorne maybe.
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On May 20 2015 04:19 r00ty wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 00:22 The_Red_Viper wrote:On May 20 2015 00:00 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 19 2015 23:41 r00ty wrote:On May 19 2015 23:27 The_Red_Viper wrote:
GRRM said his ending will be bittersweet, i am excited to see how he defines it :D
Kinda. He made some statements before the whole thing rose to the popularity it has now. I didn't want to mention it, because it goes even beyond the books, but in the end it's all speculation. There wasn't much sweetness to the stuff i read a couple of years ago but it was very cryptical... His ideas might have changed, but i trust in him to stay true to his original masterplan. I would be interested in what this means me too Guys, this is completely out of my memory. There's a good chance it maybe tainted or flat out wrong! Don't hold it against me in 10 years, when we know the ending. Just consider it as speculation! + Show Spoiler +It was some Interview where he told the journalist, that the final image in his head is that when the snow melts, all that's left is a field of graves with a single raven flying over it or sitting on a gravestone? Something like that. Then he grinned. He's a very sarcastic person, it might mean nothing. Sounds very fitting to me, though.
My personal guess is that few characters will survive and it will be Rickon or Arya to finalize the Stark revenge. That has to happen. Bran maybe, but I don't trust the three eyed raven and Dany's not a safe bet either. I think everyone who enters the Game of Thrones will die (Hi Sansa).
He can't really kill everyone though. At some point, the story has to matter. Especially with all the legends, the stuff about the Great Other and R'hllor, the Others in general, etc... ending the story with everyone dying would be pretty shallow, if you ask me.
I recall him saying the ending would be bittersweet. I imagine the Starks will get revenge, but in the process they will almost be wiped out, and they will likely end up behaving very, very ruthlessly. Which would lead the reader to liking them less; at least some of them.
Just my two cents though.
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People saying that they had to change stuff from the books because it wouldn't work on TV (not so much here, mostly on reddit) are funny because this show's on a channel that's famously described its own original shows as novel-like, and episodes of those shows as chapters of a novel rather than self-contained episodes of TV.
Game of Thrones is to HBO as The Walking Dead is to AMC.
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On May 20 2015 05:16 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 04:19 r00ty wrote:On May 20 2015 00:22 The_Red_Viper wrote:On May 20 2015 00:00 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 19 2015 23:41 r00ty wrote:On May 19 2015 23:27 The_Red_Viper wrote:
GRRM said his ending will be bittersweet, i am excited to see how he defines it :D
Kinda. He made some statements before the whole thing rose to the popularity it has now. I didn't want to mention it, because it goes even beyond the books, but in the end it's all speculation. There wasn't much sweetness to the stuff i read a couple of years ago but it was very cryptical... His ideas might have changed, but i trust in him to stay true to his original masterplan. I would be interested in what this means me too Guys, this is completely out of my memory. There's a good chance it maybe tainted or flat out wrong! Don't hold it against me in 10 years, when we know the ending. Just consider it as speculation! + Show Spoiler +It was some Interview where he told the journalist, that the final image in his head is that when the snow melts, all that's left is a field of graves with a single raven flying over it or sitting on a gravestone? Something like that. Then he grinned. He's a very sarcastic person, it might mean nothing. Sounds very fitting to me, though.
My personal guess is that few characters will survive and it will be Rickon or Arya to finalize the Stark revenge. That has to happen. Bran maybe, but I don't trust the three eyed raven and Dany's not a safe bet either. I think everyone who enters the Game of Thrones will die (Hi Sansa). He can't really kill everyone though. At some point, the story has to matter. Especially with all the legends, the stuff about the Great Other and R'hllor, the Others in general, etc... ending the story with everyone dying would be pretty shallow, if you ask me. I recall him saying the ending would be bittersweet. I imagine the Starks will get revenge, but in the process they will almost be wiped out, and they will likely end up behaving very, very ruthlessly. Which would lead the reader to liking them less; at least some of them. Just my two cents though.
One of my favorite theories about the ending I read on reddit was that the Starks would get their revenge eventually, but their name would die and and they would go down in history as the bad guys. Ned trying to take the throne, Robb the false king, Arya the assassin/murderer, Bran the evil sorcerer, Catelyn the undead mother, Sansa the adulteress and schemer, Jon the guy who didn't protect the wall properly.. Certainly fits the definition of bittersweet.
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My favorite theory was that pretty much all the POV characters die till the end but westeros is saved. The last chapter is some singer in an inn who performs "the song of ice and fire".
I would love that personally, hehe
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On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well.
The Heroes, Jon, Daenearys and Tyrion are alive. And the heroes will win, with a shitload of costs, but they will. Martin already said that the series will have a bitter sweet ending, not a bad one.
It's a tail of triumph trough failure.
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On May 20 2015 06:31 TMG26 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well. The Heroes, Jon, Daenearys and Tyrion are alive. And the heroes will win, with a shitload of costs, but they will. Martin already said that the series will have a bitter sweet ending, not a bad one. It's a tail of triumph trough failure.
I would not bet on all three of them staying alive thou. I think part of the charm is that you actually dont know how it will go in the end, you might have an idea but there is alot of stuff that can change during two books
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On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well.
It's one of the biggest criticisms and it's one of the biggest misconceptions. Martin isn't writing realistic fantasy, he's doing a deconstruction of it. Which means, take the tropes, analyze them, see how they work. Arya's story arc isn't realistic; she meets a bunch of extraordinary people, when realism would have her die in or near King's Landing at the end of book one. Instead her arc is a study of the notion of "initiation" that occurs in a lot of fantasy, when a young person travels around the fantasy world and becomes a better person because of what they see. Ned's character isn't realistic. He's a typical fantasy hero. A Game of Thrones displays the mechanism of that heroism, and provides a very unrealistic worst case scenario in order to have a reflexion about heroism. Is it convenient to have this type of character? How far are you willing to go to stick to it? How far should you be? This is true of everyone and everything.
Long story short, nobody ever died in Game of Thrones because of realism. They died to illustrate points about fantasy. People who dismiss ASOIAF because realism doesn't make good stories haven't been paying attention.
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But I came here to rant about this year's pointless controversy, where Sansa getting the Jeyne Poole treatment is a bad thing, as it takes away Sansa's agency and brings her back to being the victim she was in season 1...
Seriously? That doesn't even make sense. Sansa knew who the Boltons were, and knew what she was getting into. She was offered a choice and chose to endure this. It's the very fact that she has agency that puts her in that position. In the scene with Myranda where she completely owns, you can clearly see a very different Sansa from season 1... But suddenly a completely expected rape happens, and her character is destroyed? I'm getting tired with this already.
It doesn't help that once again, sexual violence is described by this part of the audience as "unnecessary" and is supposedly there for "titillation", but it's perfectly okay for them to say in the same sentence that violence (fights and blood and gore) is cool and all, because it's more "realistic". That's some cool rationalization there, you're all about that realism when it comes to violence, but then sexual violence happens and realism flies out the window. Sounds to me realism was never your concern, sounds to me violence was. Maybe you find it a little more "titillating" than you care to admit.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
From http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/36egon/spoilers_all_the_significance_of_the/
6. Why Sansa? Does this not diminish Sansa's character arc?
I am also concerned with why it was Sansa, but I realize they have an opportunity here to depict a special story arc: An arc that defines someone as a complex human being who happened to be raped, instead of just a rape victim.
Oftentimes, we associate rape for weakness. The show has an opportunity to subvert this trope. They could show a person who was raped is more human than victim. Perhaps they could show Sansa staying in control of herself and be assertive even though she was afflicted. This would represent strength and endurance.
Of course, this is all in the hands of the later episodes
7. What happened to Darth Sansa? Why did they build her up to be a player and yet she still has to endure such horrific acts?
I'd like to answer this with a quote:
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucius
Life isn't fair and struggles are part of the game. It is how a person endures such struggles that depicts their strength. The rape scene is literally the worst thing that can happen to Sansa, but as I've said before, what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger. I think this is an opportunity for Sansa to rise above her struggles instead of playing the victim again.
Of course, again, this is all in the hands of the later episodes.
Character destruction is contingent on what happens in subsequent episodes, it's illogical to jump to any conclusion before that. The current commentary on the rape scene annoys the hell out me because everyone is making that illogical leap.
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Christopher Moltisanti: You ever feel like nothin' good was ever gonna happen to you?
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: Yeah. And nothin' did. So what? I'm alive, I'm survivin'.
Christopher Moltisanti: That's it. I don't wanna just survive. It's says in these movie writing books that every character has an arc. Understand?
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: [shakes head]
Christopher Moltisanti: Like everybody starts out somewheres. and they do something, something gets done to them and it changes their life. That's called an arc. Where's my arc?
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Sansa: Hey David and DB, I don't want to just survive and get raped. I want to have an arc. Where's my arc?
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On May 20 2015 06:52 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well. It's one of the biggest criticisms and it's one of the biggest misconceptions. Martin isn't writing realistic fantasy, he's doing a deconstruction of it. Which means, take the tropes, analyze them, see how they work. Arya's story arc isn't realistic; she meets a bunch of extraordinary people, when realism would have her die in or near King's Landing at the end of book one. Instead her arc is a study of the notion of "initiation" that occurs in a lot of fantasy, when a young person travels around the fantasy world and becomes a better person because of what they see. Ned's character isn't realistic. He's a typical fantasy hero. A Game of Thrones displays the mechanism of that heroism, and provides a very unrealistic worst case scenario in order to have a reflexion about heroism. Is it convenient to have this type of character? How far are you willing to go to stick to it? How far should you be? This is true of everyone and everything. Long story short, nobody ever died in Game of Thrones because of realism. They died to illustrate points about fantasy. People who dismiss ASOIAF because realism doesn't make good stories haven't been paying attention.
I don't disagree with this at all. ASoIaF is one of the better fiction series that has been written in a very long time, but, at least for me, there are some really frustrating aspects of it that keep it from sitting next to the very best in the fantasy genre.
The problem is that when you structure the series like Martin has (a huge amount of characters and story lines that you bounce between within each book) it just takes far too long and is really disengaging.
Can you really say that all the crap in the 4th and 5th books was necessary? Because I've heard near-universal criticism of the 4th and 5th books when compared to the first three, and I whole-heartedly agree. They're just awful, and instead of the first couple books, where I had to force myself to put the book down, with the last two, I had to force myself to pick the book up. All that extra stuff just adds to the frustrations that people have right now; the books being far too slow, the feeling that the bad guys are always winning (even though most of them have ended up dead or beaten), and a lack of characters that we care about anymore.
Seriously? That doesn't even make sense. Sansa knew who the Boltons were, and knew what she was getting into. She was offered a choice and chose to endure this. It's the very fact that she has agency that puts her in that position. In the scene with Myranda where she completely owns, you can clearly see a very different Sansa from season 1... But suddenly a completely expected rape happens, and her character is destroyed? I'm getting tired with this already.
Eh, that scene wasn't that great. The fault was either with Turner's performance or the script itself, but she came across as a terrified girl that barely held together a bluff against a probably unstable common girl.
The episode didn't bring her back to the useless spoiled brat she was in season one, but she still has yet to display any level of personal agency and real competence. Maybe she will in the next couple episodes.
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On May 20 2015 06:43 DODswe4 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 06:31 TMG26 wrote:On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well. The Heroes, Jon, Daenearys and Tyrion are alive. And the heroes will win, with a shitload of costs, but they will. Martin already said that the series will have a bitter sweet ending, not a bad one. It's a tail of triumph trough failure. I would not bet on all three of them staying alive thou. I think part of the charm is that you actually dont know how it will go in the end, you might have an idea but there is alot of stuff that can change during two books
I wouldn't bet on the trio being alive, but when one of them dies, it would be near the ending.
Also, about the 4th and 5th books, there are many people that consider them the best for re-reading, thanks to all that world building and interesting speeches.
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On May 20 2015 08:03 Cheren wrote:
Christopher Moltisanti: You ever feel like nothin' good was ever gonna happen to you?
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: Yeah. And nothin' did. So what? I'm alive, I'm survivin'.
Christopher Moltisanti: That's it. I don't wanna just survive. It's says in these movie writing books that every character has an arc. Understand?
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri: [shakes head]
Christopher Moltisanti: Like everybody starts out somewheres. and they do something, something gets done to them and it changes their life. That's called an arc. Where's my arc?
best show ever :D
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On May 20 2015 08:07 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 06:52 Nebuchad wrote:On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well. It's one of the biggest criticisms and it's one of the biggest misconceptions. Martin isn't writing realistic fantasy, he's doing a deconstruction of it. Which means, take the tropes, analyze them, see how they work. Arya's story arc isn't realistic; she meets a bunch of extraordinary people, when realism would have her die in or near King's Landing at the end of book one. Instead her arc is a study of the notion of "initiation" that occurs in a lot of fantasy, when a young person travels around the fantasy world and becomes a better person because of what they see. Ned's character isn't realistic. He's a typical fantasy hero. A Game of Thrones displays the mechanism of that heroism, and provides a very unrealistic worst case scenario in order to have a reflexion about heroism. Is it convenient to have this type of character? How far are you willing to go to stick to it? How far should you be? This is true of everyone and everything. Long story short, nobody ever died in Game of Thrones because of realism. They died to illustrate points about fantasy. People who dismiss ASOIAF because realism doesn't make good stories haven't been paying attention. I don't disagree with this at all. ASoIaF is one of the better fiction series that has been written in a very long time, but, at least for me, there are some really frustrating aspects of it that keep it from sitting next to the very best in the fantasy genre. The problem is that when you structure the series like Martin has (a huge amount of characters and story lines that you bounce between within each book) it just takes far too long and is really disengaging. Can you really say that all the crap in the 4th and 5th books was necessary? Because I've heard near-universal criticism of the 4th and 5th books when compared to the first three, and I whole-heartedly agree. They're just awful, and instead of the first couple books, where I had to force myself to put the book down, with the last two, I had to force myself to pick the book up. All that extra stuff just adds to the frustrations that people have right now; the books being far too slow, the feeling that the bad guys are always winning (even though most of them have ended up dead or beaten), and a lack of characters that we care about anymore. Show nested quote +Seriously? That doesn't even make sense. Sansa knew who the Boltons were, and knew what she was getting into. She was offered a choice and chose to endure this. It's the very fact that she has agency that puts her in that position. In the scene with Myranda where she completely owns, you can clearly see a very different Sansa from season 1... But suddenly a completely expected rape happens, and her character is destroyed? I'm getting tired with this already. Eh, that scene wasn't that great. The fault was either with Turner's performance or the script itself, but she came across as a terrified girl that barely held together a bluff against a probably unstable common girl. The episode didn't bring her back to the useless spoiled brat she was in season one, but she still has yet to display any level of personal agency and real competence. Maybe she will in the next couple episodes.
You call them slow, I call them great at world building. You call them awful, I call them engaging. You call it 'the bad guys always winning', I see interesting things happening to interesting people, with both good and bad characters dying left and right. You say we don't have any characters we care about anymore, but for me I've always cared about Arya, Jon en Tyrion most.
I loved books 4 and to a lesser extent 5 (I never cared much for Dany, and a lot of her POV chapters seemed to be 'I want to be a good ruler but it's hard' over and over again).
I find GRRM's way of fleshing out literally every single character into an actual person and not just a stereotype or extra really refreshing. I find him playing with the 'good guys always win/live in the end' trope really refreshing. In fact, I tried reading The Wheel of Time recently after reading ASOIAF, and I hated the fact that characters never really felt in any danger. The same was true for LOTR for me. I know characters and good guys die, but it's much easier to tell when their part in the story is done. It's much easier to know in advance who lives and who dies, and that makes a lot of the more action oriented scenes very boring.
You are ofcourse entitled to your opinions about books 4 and 5 and the series as a whole, but try not to present them as if they were facts.
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On May 20 2015 06:31 TMG26 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 22:56 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 19 2015 22:47 karazax wrote:On May 19 2015 19:57 -Archangel- wrote:On May 19 2015 19:23 Conti wrote:
All the show-hate aside, what do you guys think they will do with Arya becoming a faceless man? I mean, in the books it's not an issue at all for her to get a new face. She'll still be Arya, have her POV chapters, her thoughts, her emotions, everything. Nothing would change for the reader.
In the show, they would have to cast entirely new actors to play her, and that rarely goes over very well for all kinds of reasons. Are they really going to do that? Are we going to see entire episodes with Arya being portrayed by some totally different actress? Or are they going to work around that somehow? I'm really curious. My guess is that her scenes as a completely different character will not last long. If she is going to now get a new face , she is probably not going to live as a street urchin for 2-3 episodes like in the books but just go murder that merchant and come back and get blinded in ep9 or 10. I suspect she will have a new face long enough to kill someone, and then change back immediately. She will kill Meryn Trant at some point as he went to Bravos with Mace Tyrell to see the Iron Bank. Regarding the rape scene, rape is a sensitive subject for lots of people. Sure Jeyne's fate was even worse, but it was one tiny part of two huge books and she is destroyed after it happens. They really worked hard to make a ridiculous scenario where Sansa can be raped when they cut or changed over 50% of two huge books. And I suspect that in a few episodes Sansa will act like it never happened just like Cersei did with Jaime. It's a realistic outcome for Ramsay and Sansa in that scenario, it's just not one you can say is necessary. The book plot revolves highly on the northern lords who don't even exist in the show. The rape and torture of fake Arya is heard regularly by the lords of the north who are visiting and helps lower morale and loosen support for the Boltons. Without the lords even being mentioned on the show, there really isn't even anything to gain from marrying Ramsay to Sansa in the first place. Become enemies of the crown is a pretty poor trade off for having a figure head Stark bride. And even after going with the ill conceived Sansa in Winterfell plot, they had the option of having Sansa rescued before the bedding. Even if Sansa personally kills Ramsay the damage of having her family killed and then being raped by the son of the murderer makes it a pretty hollow "victory" at that point. It didn't offend me, but in the end this is a show meant to be entertaining, and lots of people don't find that subject matter entertaining at all. My fiancée was already bored most of the season. Sansa was one of the last Starks alive and she basically said " Why am I watching this any more? Everyone who is left is either evil or a victim. Who is the hero at this point? I'm not really getting any entertainment from seeing the characters I care about get murdered, tortured or raped" Couldn't really give her a good answer. This is one of the biggest criticisms of Martin's writing as well. Fans will say, "Well it's more realistic! It's better because in most writing, the hero always wins!" The problem is that story telling isn't about realism. If it was, it would be incredibly boring because 99% of life is quite boring from a story telling perspective. In reality, being different isn't making it better, it's just being hipster. Consistently eliminating POV/other interesting characters that can be seen as protagonists isn't engaging or interesting, but it's the opposite; by repeatedly having antagonists win in near comical fashion and engaging characters killed, all you do is drive the reader away. Of course, the books seems to eventually get around to the protagonists actually being interesting or accomplishing things (and some sense of justice is eventually arriving), but it's just taking far too long. For the better part of three incredibly dense (and, for the most part, dull) books, we've had this happening, and when it goes on for so long, it gets boring. The show, by virtue of being based on the books, seems to be having that problem as well. The Heroes, Jon, Daenearys and Tyrion are alive. And the heroes will win, with a shitload of costs, but they will. Martin already said that the series will have a bitter sweet ending, not a bad one. It's a tail of triumph trough failure.
Maybe Jon will survive but he will be totally different. In the Books Melissandre stays at the wall with Jon and people think she will revive his body after he gets killed or she will heal him before he dies.
In the show she leaves with Stannis, so Jon can only survive by warging into Ghost. His body will not be recoverable after that.
Jon as we know him will be different.
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I do not have the feeling Arya and Jon will really start warging... they should have given hints by now in the show...
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On May 20 2015 19:55 Ketch wrote:
I do not have the feeling Arya and Jon will really start warging... they should have given hints by now in the show...
I wish the wolves played more of a role in the show so that the connection that Sansa losing Lady left her relatively lost (compared to the others). I definitely don't see Arya warging, and if she does it will seem like an extension of some FM related magic. Jon still could though, he has a strong relationship with ghost and not explicitly stating he can warg would add to the stabbing scene's cliffhanger.
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EPT
