[worry]

It's possible, but I'm still betting (and more than that, hoping) it's not. He did The Bear and the Maiden Fair this season and it wasn't exactly climax city. If anything I'd wager it's the Balon episode.

[Terez]

I think if it happens that quickly, then 1) the set-up will probably be unsatisfactory, and 2) they'll have to spend the whole rest of the season on Tyrion's trial, which could get very tedious—or they'll have to jump into Tyrion's journey, because it's not like he gets more than one episode off a season. I'd like it if they did get into his journey, but it still seems to me that Tyrion's escape and Tywin's death are season climax material (though Jon will have the spotlight).

When do we get episode titles? I can seem them giving us obscure ones so we won't know when it's coming...

[worry]

Terez, on 12 June 2013 - 03:12 AM, said:

When do we get episode titles? I can seem them giving us obscure ones so we won't know when it's coming...

Haha, exactly what I was wondering!

[worry]

Briar King, on 12 June 2013 - 03:27 AM, said:

I'm really liking what the show did with Shea. Makes me wonder if that outcome might be completely different then the bks just from her scene with Varys. It would be much more dramatic if it plays out bk wise after that scene though IMO. Still with that part added in the potential to mix it up is there.

Book spoilers definitely ahead:
Yah....this is wild speculation, but I'm willing to bet it happens fairly similarly, except we get show-Shae's half of the story....perhaps she's working for Varys, perhaps she's trying to convince Tywin to do something for Tyrion (and can only pay him one way), or perhaps Tywin has forced her to be there somehow (it's gonna be well within his power)....but regardless, I bet she's there in his bed, Tyrion finds her, and he still takes her out before she can explain herself, in some dreadful tragic irony. In fact, this might even have been the case in the books, and we just don't have the information to shed that light (though the book Shae does have quite a bit more avarice, admittedly).

[Terez]

Briar King, on 12 June 2013 - 03:27 AM, said:

I'm really liking what the show did with Shea. Makes me wonder if that outcome might be completely different then the bks just from her scene with Varys. It would be much more dramatic if it plays out bk wise after that scene though IMO. Still with that part added in the potential to mix it up is there.

I was also wondering if they'd do her ending differently, a la Talisa, but I don't think Tyrion would kill her if she hadn't betrayed him.

[worry]

http://i.imgur.com/VWHiqey.gif

[blackzoid]

Sigh.....Stannis, what have they made of ye. Though I guess it was inevitable that your surprise entry at the wall could not be maintained for a whole year. so thats understandable. But ya, after seeing the show character over two years now, he is very much a diminished character. Hopefully at the wall he is seperated from Melisandre pronto. Its very badly needed for his character so he can actually develop some shades of grey and not be an obvious puppet on string for her.

Think my highlight was Roose and Walder and Ramseys letter. Worry you mentioned something I had not thought off. Show Roose is just as much a sociopath as Joffrey and Ramsey, the difference is that he is trying to do a quasi-Dexter and blend in. So he trys to act like how human people would act, though he doesn't understand the emotions he is trying to ape. His inner-sociapath shines occasionally through in his trolling of Jamie and that happy look he gives Catelyn when she spots the chainmail. He drinks in their terror. But still has to laugh mechanically to fit in with "normal" people like Walder. I wasn't sure but am now loving his portrayal.

I also liked Aemon back. Real presence with that actor.

Was a bit.....disturbed about that final scene with Dany. My non-book reading friends didn't like the idea of a white girl freeing all the coloured people yet then been held aloft as if she was above them at the end. I don't think it was that blatant in the books? Not a big deal, but maybe questionable in how the execution of the scene was done.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 12 June 2013 - 08:18 AM

[worry]

That Dany scene was definitely majorly majorly problematic, compounded by the visuals but just skeevy all the way through. In the books, there's much less of that great white savior thing in part because there's seemingly no racial underpinning to the slave trade, it's more Roman-style in Slaver's Bay or cross-tribal in the rest of Essos that we've seen (and even on the show we've had Doreah, plus Varys and Melisandre's pasts)...and it's not like A Storm of Swords didn't introduce the trope, but GRRM did eventually play with it a bunch, particularly in ADWD. I imagine part of the issue is getting extras in the location they were filming, but that's not a good enough excuse really. The show's gonna have to address this issue in just as serious a way as the books did, or that scene is gonna remain a big sour note.

This post has been edited by worry: 12 June 2013 - 09:05 AM

[blackzoid]

As regards that Dany scene, I just read that that was filmed in Morocco. So of course all the extras would be coloured. But maybe it would have been better if she was standing with them, at their level, and not been carried above them. I don't know. Execution could have been better.

I also have a worry that it will be Tywin and not Tyrion that kills Shae. Tyrion is one of the "good guys" and so the show won't go the whole 9 yards and grey him up by killing her. So Tyrion kills Tywin in revenge. I hope i'm wrong on that. I prefer shades of grey and at the moment Tyrion has lost that edge for me.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 12 June 2013 - 09:25 AM

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Are we seriously finding racist issues with that final scene? Like...really? And yet no one thinks that the term 'coloured' is a little politically incorrect, these days?

Game of Thrones isn't always what it seems on the surface but I think you're reading way too much into this one.

[QuickTidal]

blackzoid, on 12 June 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

Sigh.....Stannis, what have they made of ye. Though I guess it was inevitable that your surprise entry at the wall could not be maintained for a whole year. so thats understandable. But ya, after seeing the show character over two years now, he is very much a diminished character. Hopefully at the wall he is seperated from Melisandre pronto. Its very badly needed for his character so he can actually develop some shades of grey and not be an obvious puppet on string for her.

Huh, see now I never got that reaction to him in the books. He really isn't much more than a puppet on Mel's string to me...and to be honest his character always just feels like this niggling thorn in everyone's side that they all wish would go away. Give it up Stannis, you ain't gonna be king.

[blackzoid]

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Are we seriously finding racist issues with that final scene? Like...really?

Eh...somewhat yes? Not majorly, but disturbing undertones in how it was portrayed.

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

And yet no one thinks that the term 'coloured' is a little politically incorrect, these days?

I'll happily change that term to one you think is appropiate. Darker-skinned? Essosi?

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 12 June 2013 - 11:43 AM

[Studlock]

Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast, on 12 June 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Are we seriously finding racist issues with that final scene? Like...really? And yet no one thinks that the term 'coloured' is a little politically incorrect, these days?

Game of Thrones isn't always what it seems on the surface but I think you're reading way too much into this one.

See the thing with racism is it isn't always intended, indeed the majority of the time it isn't. It kind of just hangs around, in unspoken certainties. That that scene didn't raise a flag with the (white) showrunners is in itself problematic and speaking as a POC the scene was deeply disturbing for me. A white person held above all others while the praise her and call her mother as if they were children? The infantilization, and the perceived inability to help ourselves was a big rationalization for colonizing back the day (and still held up nowadays).

Other than that I felt the last episode on it's own merits was lackluster, but that may be because of the horror of the previous episode.

This post has been edited by Studlock: 12 June 2013 - 11:43 AM

[blackzoid]

Seems a few people spotted that too.

http://latino.foxnew...eason-3-finale/

Game of Thrones, HBO’s blockbuster show based on the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series by George R.R. Martin, wrapped up its third season on Sunday evening. But the closing scene of the episode may have left some of the reported five million viewers uncomfortable with the scene’s cultural insensitivity and potentially racist tone.

The scene shows heroine Daenerys Targaryen appearing before the thousands of Yunkai slaves she has just liberated. The fictional city of Yunkai’s main trade is slaves, and Martin’s books note that Yunkai slave traders have captured a broad spectrum of individuals throughout the years. As such, one would expect the Yunkai slaves to be diverse in appearance, notwithstanding the scorching sun.

Well, that wasn’t the case.

From the first wide-angle shot of the crowd of slaves, to the close-ups of the slaves as Daenerys walks among them, it is all a sea of ethnically brown and black individuals. Making the scene even more culturally insensitive was the visual of these dark-skinned slaves raising in adoration a platinum blond, blue-eyed individual as their savior. The question is… Why? Why did HBO make a conscious choice to portray the slaves almost exclusively as brown and black, particularly when the book does not describe them as such and, on the contrary, notes the slaves of Yunkai hail from all over and thus reflect a variety of ethnicities? Making the scene even more culturally insensitive was the visual of these dark-skinned slaves raising in adoration a platinum blond, blue-eyed individual as their savior. The undertones of colonialism are evident.

In contrast, while apparently skewing the books in order to portray slaves as dark, the show has done the opposite for a key figure: Daario Naharis, a main character introduced this season, is understood by book readers to have dark skin. HBO instead cast a blond, blue-eyed Calvin-Klein-model type.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 12 June 2013 - 11:52 AM

[Garak]

Or they're praising her because she freed them from slavery and calling her Mother because she's known as the Mother of Dragons. Her skin color has nothing to do with any of it (if she was black then no one would bat an eyelash?).

I'm just saying that I think we're seeing things that aren't there. The probably didn't have any extras who were white if they filmed it in Morroco or wherever. They should have thought of it but probably decided the logistics were too much hassle. As for Daario, yeah the deviation from the book is annoying in his case.

This post has been edited by Garak: 12 June 2013 - 11:57 AM

[blackzoid]

Garak, on 12 June 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

Or they're praising her because she freed them from slavery ........... Her skin color has nothing to do with any of it (if she was black then no one would bat an eyelash?).

Oh ya, its all all true in the show fictional world, agreed.
Out here in the real world however.....

[Studlock]

I'll have to agree with blackzoid. If the show existed in the a culturally vacuum it would have been fine, but it doesn't. Just because fiction isn't real, and doesn't have the same history as the real world doesn't mean it doesn't interact with it (the history that is). This is especially true in America where the scars of slavery as still not yet fully healed. I've already stated my problems with the scene, it mirrors a little closely to the myth of the White Burden. It didn't ruin the show for me, I rarely quit a piece of fiction because of problematic elements, it just gave me pause and again deeply disturbed me.

[polishgenius]

Garak, on 12 June 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

Or they're praising her because she freed them from slavery and calling her Mother because she's known as the Mother of Dragons. Her skin color has nothing to do with any of it (if she was black then no one would bat an eyelash?).

The point is the implication that all them brown people need a white person to rescue them from slavery.

I agree that it probably wasn't a deliberate decision and to do with logistics, but the thing is that Hollywood and American productions do this sort of 'mighty whitey' thing all the time and that changing a scene where the people are specifically noted to be of all races to one where they're not is at the very least insensitive should be noted.

It was also a naff scene. That should be said too... >_>

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

I'm siding with Garak here.

I'm all for racial equality but talk about being overly sensitive! Natives lift up foreign 'saviour'. End of story, really. Besides, they're just local extras.

No one's trying to put down black people. Or encourage white supremacy. It's just an uplifting scene (excuse the pun) at the end of the episode.

Perhaps attempting to get foreign Shae to leave the country is racist as well?

To be honest, the racist connotations didn't even cross my mind because the skin colour of the actors wasn't something that bothered me. Perhaps what you should be asking yourself is why are you concerned with the colour of their skin?

[Illuyankas]

Oh my fucking god are you a fucking imbecile? "Perhaps it is you who are the true racists!?" Do you not comprehend how this shit can be subconsciously added and still pretty terrible even if unintended? Do you really think using that sort of mealy-mouthed 'I don't even see skin colours pfnar pfnar' bullshit to deflect attention is not awful and stupid? I'm actually more annoyed at your shitty ability to dismiss people's concerns by calling them racist than by the awkward casting.