[Garak]

Meh, can't say I was impressed by this episode. The trial duel was ok but nothing spectacular, I had more fun watching Arya laugh hysterically. So the batle at Castle Black should be next episode, along with Tyrion's escape - why do I think the season will end with Mance just reaching the Wall? Which would be a shame, I've been looking forward to that battle.

[Abyss]

The episode overall i found a little mixed.... there was a lot of setup for the finale and dialogue... that said...

- Dany is i fear coasting into the extended placeholder status the books put her in at the end of STORM. The exile of Mormont was well done, but predictable;

- The Grey Worm Missandrei 'romance' is, i'm calling it now, being bui;lt up so the Sons of the Harpy can kill one or both of them in the finale, just for effect;

- Arya and the Hound at the Vale was priceless. Unfortunate timing tho', because it seemed like the guards should have known Sansa Stark was around. If the Arya laughing scene had just happened before Sansa's reveal to Lord Royce it would have made more sense;

- Sansa's reveal to Lord Royce and co, and then her chat with Baelish and decked out appearance at the end, was way better than the comparable events in the book. Nicely done;

- The Night's Watch sitting around whining was placeholder waste o time, but the Wildlings attack on Mole Town was awesomely vicious. Also humanized Ygritte a bit for what's likely to happen next;

- Reak/Theon at Moat Cailin went far better in the books, where he essentially reconstructs a facade of himself, then drops back to Reak afterwards... here he fell apart and a mutinous soldier did the dirty work... nice parallel to what happened to him at Winterfell i suppose, but not as interesting overall. Did think the scene between Ramsay and Lord Bolton was interesting tho';

- Jaime and Tyrion's chat about their counsin was way way way way too long and pointless;

- The Fight... overall it was pretty awesome... The viper was as fast and nasty as he had to be and the Mountain's sheer strength was clear, the Viper chiding the Mountain about his sister was nicely handled... i did however have a few minor problems... first, Jaime looks progressively happier during the duel but Tyrion never does, as opposed to the book where he's practically jovial by the time Clegor goes down... second... too many long shots... the fight would have been better for a few close in fists and sharp things and blood moments... and last, they blew the dialogue for the denoument... in the book the Viper keeps taunting the Mountain that he raped then killed his sister, then killed her children... and when the Mountain grabs him he replies that he made her watch him kill the kids before he killed her... that was kinda lost here. Still, overall i'm nitpicking, it was awesome.

[Terez]

Sophie Turner was amazing, by the way. Her whole defense of Littlefinger was perfectly delivered. Her last scene was beautiful, and I'm happy to see that turning point for her character happen now.

Also, I'm happy with the acting and the choreography of the Oberyn fight. It was everything else that bothered me; the staging, the writing, the direction and lighting. There wasn't enough gravity.

[amphibian]

Long shots in a fight are a gift bestowed upon an unappreciative audience.

The Jason Bourne style quick chops and/or the old TV trick of slewing the camera willy nilly with shitty angles are terrible, terrible devices that have somehow tricked audiences into thinking that's how fights should look.

Remember Jackie Chan and the long takes? Or the wide shots where a stuntman does the actual movements instead of it being faked with CGI and/or camera angles? Those are what you want in a movie/show.

[Abyss]

Terez, on 02 June 2014 - 03:35 PM, said:

Sophie Turner was amazing, by the way. Her whole defense of Littlefinger was perfectly delivered. Her last scene was beautiful, and I'm happy to see that turning point for her character happen now.
...

as opposed to the books where it still hasn't happened!

[Abyss]

amphibian, on 02 June 2014 - 04:31 PM, said:

Long shots in a fight are a gift bestowed upon an unappreciative audience.

The Jason Bourne style quick chops and/or the old TV trick of slewing the camera willy nilly with shitty angles are terrible, terrible devices that have somehow tricked audiences into thinking that's how fights should look.

Remember Jackie Chan and the long takes? Or the wide shots where a stuntman does the actual movements instead of it being faked with CGI and/or camera angles? Those are what you want in a movie/show.

I don't object to long shots... i object to their exclusive use. One close in shot of Oberyn spinning around Gregor's sword and driving the spear towards his face would have done wonders.

[Terez]

Abyss, on 02 June 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

Terez, on 02 June 2014 - 03:35 PM, said:

Sophie Turner was amazing, by the way. Her whole defense of Littlefinger was perfectly delivered. Her last scene was beautiful, and I'm happy to see that turning point for her character happen now.
...

as opposed to the books where it still hasn't happened!

That is part of what makes her plotline in the Vale a little boring.

Phib, I really have no idea what you're talking about in purely technical terms; I just know I was disappointed, and it had more to do with the rushed nature of the fight than anything else. In the books, it was a long, drawn-out fight with the emotional stakes getting higher and higher; I felt like this was over before before the emotions had a chance to build properly. The set-up was terrible too, in this episode anyway. Last week was perfect set-up; this week was inexplicable beetles.

[A Demon Llama!]

Did Arya ever make it to the Vale in the books?

Book Spoiler

Spoiler

Didnt the Hound die due to an infection that he sustained at some pub? When does Arya end up going somewhere/joining that religious cult thing and going blind?

[worry]

Interesting juxtaposition with that Roose/Ramsey scene and the whole Ned/Jon thing earlier. Situationally t's from the books but it's a little harder to miss on the show the way a "good" guy like Ned could leave Jon out in the cold with his rigid code of honor, while Roose has no issue with legitimizing a son who's done him well.

If there's a main thrust to the series (speaking of the books as well now) besides a well-told entertaining story, it's a critique of history's and (more particularly maybe) fantasy lit's Eurocentrism, especially where it comes to defining "civilization". Which isn't to say it's a defense of anyone else's claim to define it, only that it's laughable to pretend that smoking hellhole Europe's monstrosities were any more civilized than the rest of the world's, or that they were somehow aberrations from the culture. It just tickles my fancy.

[worry]

That beetle dialogue was fantastic. You guys are talking crazy. It was nearly as good as the riddle convo between Tyrion and Varys. Also maybe anticipation affected people in different ways, but that fight felt plenty long to me.

Re: Sansa, the point in the books is that it's not a turning point, it's a process. Just like Arya's training/self-forging. It has to be a turning point in the show because it's truncated storytelling (though the show did handle it, and Turner especially acted it, beautifully this episode).

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

worry, on 02 June 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

That beetle dialogue was fantastic. You guys are talking crazy. It was nearly as good as the riddle convo between Tyrion and Varys. Also maybe anticipation affected people in different ways, but that fight felt plenty long to me.

Re: Sansa, the point in the books is that it's not a turning point, it's a process. Just like Arya's training/self-forging. It has to be a turning point in the show because it's truncated storytelling (though the show did handle it, and Turner especially acted it, beautifully this episode).

What was the point of the beetle conversation? I didn't understand it, if there was one.

[Terez]

The best I got out of it was a Cersei analogy, maybe a more general Lannister analogy or a Game of Thrones analogy. It was still terrible.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

So was there no poison on the tip of Oberyn's spear? Cuz that's kind of important. Sure, it could be mentioned in a later episode, but that won't do it justice. Ah well. It was a good episode and I loved seeing Oberyn's wasted head.

[Terez]

Oh, I don't mind the poison information being withheld (and of course his blades were poisoned; changing that would change the story way too much). It's a good surprise that comes later on to complement Tyrion overcoming the odds like a badass. Then they'll learn Oberyn died because more than anything, he wanted justice. He made sure to draw enough blood to get the job done, and only then did he risk his life for a confession. Which he got.

[Abyss]

A Demon Llama!, on 02 June 2014 - 06:47 PM, said:

Did Arya ever make it to the Vale in the books?

Book Spoiler

Spoiler

Didnt the Hound die due to an infection that he sustained at some pub? When does Arya end up going somewhere/joining that religious cult thing and going blind?

I don't recall Arya ever making it to the Vale in the books... i thought they learned Lysa was dead before they got there, detour to a pub where the Hound, already weak from the infection, gets into a fight, gets cut up badly and then Arya moves on without him.

worry, on 02 June 2014 - 06:52 PM, said:

Interesting juxtaposition with that Roose/Ramsey scene and the whole Ned/Jon thing earlier. Situationally t's from the books but it's a little harder to miss on the show the way a "good" guy like Ned could leave Jon out in the cold with his rigid code of honor, while Roose has no issue with legitimizing a son who's done him well....

Nicely put. I missed that.

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 02 June 2014 - 07:49 PM, said:

worry, on 02 June 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

That beetle dialogue was fantastic. You guys are talking crazy. It was nearly as good as the riddle convo between Tyrion and Varys. Also maybe anticipation affected people in different ways, but that fight felt plenty long to me.

Re: Sansa, the point in the books is that it's not a turning point, it's a process. Just like Arya's training/self-forging. It has to be a turning point in the show because it's truncated storytelling (though the show did handle it, and Turner especially acted it, beautifully this episode).

What was the point of the beetle conversation? I didn't understand it, if there was one.

Terez, on 02 June 2014 - 08:00 PM, said:

The best I got out of it was a Cersei analogy, maybe a more general Lannister analogy or a Game of Thrones analogy. It was still terrible.

Someone elseforum suggested the point was some kids are vicious for no good reason, and some bugs need to be squashed, both references to Joffrey, but even so, i think they could have made the same point in one third the time.

Spoilsport Stonny, on 02 June 2014 - 08:03 PM, said:

So was there no poison on the tip of Oberyn's spear? Cuz that's kind of important. Sure, it could be mentioned in a later episode, but that won't do it justice. Ah well. It was a good episode and I loved seeing Oberyn's wasted head.

Pretty sure it was there and we'll hear about it in a later ep.

Terez, on 02 June 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

... Oberyn died because more than anything, he wanted justice. He made sure to draw enough blood to get the job done, and only then did he risk his life for a confession. Which he got.

Good point.

[worry]

Don't expect this to be perfect or even complete, but I'll give it a go:

At its most basic level, it was two brothers reminiscing about the past, their family, etc. On another level it was some "big fish eat the little ones" philosophizing about the "nature" of humanity and the world. Orson Lannister, reduced to the simplest version of himself, spends all his time smashing everything smaller than him. Taking lives as his whims instruct him to do. Not far removed from children burning up ants with a magnifying glass. This has real implications for the hierarchies of man in general, and for Tyrion in particular given his "born a dwarf" speech in the trial episode. What was his crime? To be made smaller than everyone around him. You could replace Orson with Tywin, with Cersei, with Joffrey, with The Mountain (most pointedly perhaps), with the Mad King (let's not overlook how readily the word "regicide" comes to Jaime's tongue). This is the world that Tyrion is at the mercy of -- and he's a nobleman. When Dolorous Edd says "Once I'm done with this world, I don't want to come back" he's getting at the same thing. It's not just the hardship or the brutality, or even just the pointlessness -- it's the cruel pointlessness of it all. Jaime, not an intellectual, only gets what Tyrion is saying in that tip-of-the-tongue kind of way. He is left shaken that there is no deeper answer he or Tyrion can suss out.

And contrast this with those wonderful scenes with Grey Worm and Missandei. Miss and Dany can hardly come to terms with what was done to him. The specificity of the cruelty done to him, the lifelong ramifications of his maiming, are striking them anew, even as they nervously dance around the subject. But when confronted with it by Missandei when they're alone, it's not really what's on Grey Worm's mind. He may have lost something, cruelly and pointlessly, long ago -- and it's gone for good -- but he's found something else, thanks to Dany and thanks to Missandei, and he treasures it. He was the beetle, the masters were Orson, but things are different now. He's been allowed to think outside of that frame of reference. Things have changed for him, at least in that moment.

But that comes before Tyrion. We're left with his speech and the trial by combat. Who's the beetle and who's the rock? Well as Littlefinger points out, when it comes down to it, eventually everyone's the beetle and the rock is coming for all of us. You better live your beetle life as best you can while it lasts. He's certainly trying to.

[Abyss]

worry, on 02 June 2014 - 08:30 PM, said:

...Who's the beetle and who's the rock? Well as Littlefinger points out, when it comes down to it, eventually everyone's the beetle and the rock is coming for all of us. You better live your beetle life as best you can while it lasts. He's certainly trying to.

Nicely put. Have rep.

[worry]

Mostly what I'm saying is when you visit the chamber pot, take your cell phone with you in case you need to call 911.

[Terez]

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Terez, on 02 June 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

Oh, I don't mind the poison information being withheld (and of course his blades were poisoned; changing that would change the story way too much). It's a good surprise that comes later on to complement Tyrion overcoming the odds like a badass. Then they'll learn Oberyn died because more than anything, he wanted justice. He made sure to draw enough blood to get the job done, and only then did he risk his life for a confession. Which he got.

OK yes, they probably WILL say it. But thats expository and lame. Just have Oberyn say "Don't touch the tip Tyrion" (Rule 34) and when Gregor moans in pain for all King's Landing we can infer why. Allude to it in some way so that its not a completely out of the blue thing. I guess my only problem with the show is that they dumb the subtext down.