[amphibian]

The thing about the torture is that it happens to one noble and it's because of a clearly sadistic and deviant noble. The continued acts of torture upon Theon are horrific, but it's not the Mountain/Hound killing peasants. Stannis chopping off Davos's fingers is more horrific to me in the sense that a noble decides that the best way to deal with a smuggler helping him out is by maiming him and that's normal or even admirable to Stannis/Westeros.

The women are constantly being shown that they're less than men on the show. GRRM purposely set that into place bc his view of Westeros/Easteros has a culture that's taken much of what's terrible from our societies and either magnified it or made it more visible. I don't think he particularly plays well in that specific sandbox, but he does do an ok job keeping certain women possessing agency and their own story arcs. In the show, the several occasions of threatened sexual violence and assaults been a mixture of gratuitous and fitting into the narrative, sometimes at the same time.

Focusing on Sansa and Theon, rather than on what Ramsay was doing, was a good idea. What happened with Jaime/Cersei a while back was kinda ifffy and it never went anywhere - which meant that it ended up being more gratuitous than fitting into the narrative. There's been others, but listing them all gets a little weird and makes me think that the the show writers and/or GRRM don't really understand the impact of what's being used to make points on-screen.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 19 May 2015 - 05:50 PM

[Terez]

I understood the complaints about Jaime and Cersei. I think I even joined in, because it wasn't necessary and didn't fit Jaime's character development. I find it hard to criticize the Sansa scene, though. It's what happened in the books; the only difference is the character involved. It's like people are upset about it because it's Sansa rather than Jeyne, as if it's okay to rape and torture the steward's daughter, but not our little precious highborn girl.

In general I agree that rape is overused as a narrative device. In this world, though, that complaint is out of place. Bad things happen to just about everyone.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Spot on. I watched it last night and I was expecting a lot worse considering all the outrage.

I think it really is because it happened to Sansa and not a nobody we don't really care about.

Also, I'm very much disliking the narrative coming out of all this that horrifically torturing a male character and castrating them isn't worthy of much more than cursory acknowledgement, but sexual assault against afemale character is something that shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Also pretty tired of "the writers are misogynistic arseholes" every time they do something the feminist media dislikes. They're lazy and they make some dumb changes which do deserve ire (Jaime/Cersei) but I'm a bit tired of people being unable to separate the bounds of a fictional show based on a fictional book from the views of the real-life creative team.

Biggest pet peeve - complaining the scene is about Theon and not Sansa. The scene in the book is about Theon and not Jeyne. To Ramsay, Jeyne is merely an instrument with which to further torment Theon. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

[Primateus]

Wait wait wait...That scale disease thing? I reckon it spreads by touch, but do you have to just touch the person with the illness or do you actually have to touch the diseased areas? Because I'm thinking that otherwise those slavers are screwed!

[Tapper]

amphibian, on 19 May 2015 - 12:24 PM, said:

Traveller, on 19 May 2015 - 06:15 AM, said:

I wouldn't presume that anyone who has read Grrm or Erikson to be 'quick on the draw' Amph.. we all know how these long game plans work.

Yes, Sansa will probably exact her revenge of sorts down the road - but in the case of Sansa, she doesn't need to be given yet another reason. For me, it reminded me of the murder of Robs pregnant wife - something not in the books, not necessary as the death of Rob and Cat was shock enough, and seemingly added just to turn it up to 11 for the sheer hell of it.

It just looks a bit lazy to me. Added scenes like the one with Stannis and Shireen are new and add something. Another brutal scene? Not so much. It's not exactly a mystery what that event will 'mean to the character.'

It is imperative that we see what happens to Sansa in the next few episodes left in the season in order to understand how the writers put the narrative together (as they write mostly in blocks dividing the seasons up, rather than the whole show at once).

It could be that a pregnant-by-Ramsay-Bolton Sansa is important.

It could be something else. Or it could be an entirely gratuitous thing done to turn things up to 11. We have to see what the rest of the episodes bring us - although right now, it does have the flavor of gratuity rather than narrative importance. The way GRRM wrote the scene, I do think it was gratuitous and it's one reason why I don't like the book series all that much.

I don't agree that the murder of Talisa, Robb's pregnant wife, was done just to turn things up to 11. I think it was done to complete the destruction of the life and legacy of a person most people who watched the show cared about in Robb. Talisa and the baby-that-never-was were part of how people developed empathy for Robb beyond his being the son of Ned and Catelyn and a contender for kingship.

I guess GRRM put in the scene to make Theon rescueing Jeyne believable. Theon springing "Arya" removes the Bolton's claim to the North through marriage to the Stark's female line, fraudulous as it was to begin with. By placing Sansa in Winterfell in the series, they can speed this up (after all, who's waiting for a 10-episode Sansa training montage at the hands of Baelish?) and put a real Stark in Winterfell for the North to rally around. They will still need to do something with Theon, beats me what exactly, though.

Plus, this way they can build up Sansa's importance as a claimant to Winterfell (eldest known true blood Stark alive), the Eyrie (closest blood relative to accident-prone Robin through the maternal line) and potential successor to the Riverlands (given that Edmure is imprisoned and the Blackfish not having children) in a way they can't do with her pretending to be Alayne Stone - in the books, Baelish' is in a bit of a self-imposed temporary vacuum and there's Harrold Hardyng. It thus makes sense to keep Sansa close, but in the series there's no Jeyne, perhaps no Manderley, probably no Hardyng and no real need to keep Littlefinger in the Vale.

I expect we see either Roose or Sansa herself mention this sometime soon over a dinner with Ramsay, who is too focused on the short term to see that himself; it fits the "Sansa grows up and becomes a scheming politician" narrative the show seems to launch.

It also allows the show's writers to use Ramsay's inevitable demise to widow Sansa and give her a happy end to the series, which is much easier to arrange than setting up a seperate change of hands of Winterfell as well as introducing the characters and dynastic explanations required for a Sansa-Hardyng plotline that needs to be unwound yet again in two years time (that is, it needs unwinding if "my" suspicion of Sansa and Tyrion wedding one another like Henry Tudor marrying Elizabeth of York in the aftermath of the War of the Roses is correct).

[Terez]

Technically they are already married; they just have to reunite and consummate. In the books, anyway. That's what I hate most about the Ramsay marriage; I have thought for a long time that Tyrion would end up on the throne with Sansa his queen. It would fit a lot of foreshadowing, and we all know Tyrion is GRRM's favorite. Ramsay officially has to be unwound; Harry the Heir hasn't happened yet.

[Ceda Cicero]

How anyone can be more morally outraged by the Sansa scene than the fact that the Sand Snakes are actually getting paid--paid!--to do whatever it is they're doing in front of the camera is beyond me.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Terez, on 20 May 2015 - 01:50 PM, said:

Technically they are already married; they just have to reunite and consummate. In the books, anyway. That's what I hate most about the Ramsay marriage; I have thought for a long time that Tyrion would end up on the throne with Sansa his queen. It would fit a lot of foreshadowing, and we all know Tyrion is GRRM's favorite. Ramsay officially has to be unwound; Harry the Heir hasn't happened yet.

answer me this. If tyrion is Grrm favourite, what is the point of his kidanapping arc. Nothing happens. I thought tyrion would be teaming up with the targaryen prince and lay down the law on the seven kingdoms. Instead he gets dragged across in a circus troup to accomplish... What exactly?

[worry]

Well he's joining up with Dany.

[Terez]

BalrogLord, on 20 May 2015 - 08:12 PM, said:

answer me this. If tyrion is Grrm favourite, what is the point of his kidanapping arc. Nothing happens. I thought tyrion would be teaming up with the targaryen prince and lay down the law on the seven kingdoms. Instead he gets dragged across in a circus troup to accomplish... What exactly?

What worry said, but GRRM fell into a trap here, which was that he wanted Tyrion to go to Dany, but he didn't want to make it too easy, because making it too easy is bad storytelling. But in the process of complicating things, he got bogged down with some boring details. Easy mistake to make.

[Terez]

I wouldn't say it's obvious. GRRM doesn't like obvious. The more obvious ending (still not very obvious for the casual reader) is Jon + Dany. I suspect those two will indeed fall in love but they will both die, and maybe their dragons too. But I suspect all the Lannister children belong to Aerys, and thus Jaime could get one too in the end, if he makes it. We know Cersei and their children won't make it.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Terez, on 21 May 2015 - 02:05 AM, said:

But I suspect all the Lannister children belong to Aerys, and thus Jaime could get one too in the end, if he makes it. We know Cersei and their children won't make it.

I hadn't thought much on that theory until I started thinking about it in the frame of Cersei's descent into bananas-town. Which incidentally, where is that in the show? Surely that would have been an interesting arc to play, and Lena Heady's a great actress to give it to!

I

[Terez]

I wouldn't give up on it just yet. They are really rushing through her storyline this season, but for right now she has good reason to be keeping it under control because she feels like she is in control. But convincing Tommen to arm the Sparrows is sign enough of insanity, and hopefully we will get some good scenes when it all starts to fall apart.

The twincest thing is also a hint toward Aerys being their father, but the bigger hint is of course the bits about the inappropriate interest Aerys showed in their mother (who was, of course, a Lannister, making all of them Lannisters by blood either way). Plus it seems somehow fitting for Tywin to have been entirely impotent.

Tyrion is the one with the dragon fascination, though, and he's also the one who killed their mother in childbirth, which seems like a good prerequisite for being a dragonrider.

[Primateus]

Terez, on 21 May 2015 - 08:06 AM, said:

The twincest thing is also a hint toward Aerys being their father, but the bigger hint is of course the bits about the inappropriate interest Aerys showed in their mother (who was, of course, a Lannister, making all of them Lannisters by blood either way). Plus it seems somehow fitting for Tywin to have been entirely impotent.

I dunno, this somehow makes me think that Tyrion was the only true son of Tywin then and he wanted to kill him as a baby, not really because the mother died in childbirth, but because Tywin could see the difference between the older children, whom he would then have known were the offspring of another man. It would then be easy to see that Tyrion then would look like a failure, a monster, a freak, etc. So, Tywins' hatred for Tyrion was more a selfloathing rather than actual hatred of his son.

But I don't know, because I haven't read that far into the series.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Terez, on 21 May 2015 - 08:06 AM, said:

The twincest thing is also a hint toward Aerys being their father, but the bigger hint is of course the bits about the inappropriate interest Aerys showed in their mother (who was, of course, a Lannister, making all of them Lannisters by blood either way). Plus it seems somehow fitting for Tywin to have been entirely impotent.

Fairly sure Cersei cites "the Targaryens did it" as an excuse at some point.

I'd forgotten the Aerys/Joanna bit too until reading World of Ice and Fire. It seems a strange thing to throw in unless it is relevant to the parentage of this generation of Lannisters. I do think it would be a tremendous thorn in Tywin's side if Tyrion was his only trueborn child and the "golden twins" were Aerys'.

On Tyrion though, have to say Dinklage played that first sight of Drogo absolutely perfectly.

[Ceda Cicero]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 21 May 2015 - 06:06 AM, said:

Terez, on 21 May 2015 - 02:05 AM, said:

But I suspect all the Lannister children belong to Aerys, and thus Jaime could get one too in the end, if he makes it. We know Cersei and their children won't make it.

I hadn't thought much on that theory until I started thinking about it in the frame of Cersei's descent into bananas-town. Which incidentally, where is that in the show? Surely that would have been an interesting arc to play, and Lena Heady's a great actress to give it to!

I

I feel like it actually is playing pretty well (albeit, at a breakneck pace, as Terez said) on the show, it's just not as easy to recognize for what it is since we don't have access to the inner workings of her brain. She's still largely making all the sorts of terrible, rage/jealousy/paranoia-fueled decisions that she makes in the books on the show and I like to imagine that show-Cersei's internal monologue aligns pretty nicely with book-Cersei's.

And I imagine we'll begin to see more regular visits to bananas-town in the next few eps as the Tyrells and the Faith turn the game on the Queen Mother.

[worry]

In the books at least, Tyrion has the fairest hair of all, and the wacky eyes. I dunno. I imagine a dragon will breathe fire on him and he'll survive to everyone's surprise including his own?

As far as Cersei goes, I think CC's right. I think she might have a more overt "snap" on the show though, maybe with the Walk. I thought for sure they'd have woven Myrcella's injury into this somehow w/ the Sand Snakes instead of Darkstar, but that doesn't seem to be the path.

[Terez]

They tried to make Tyrion's hair blonde in the first season and it just didn't look right on him.

I am rereading the books (just started book 2) and rewatching season 1. I just went to visit my family a few weeks ago and I rewatched seasons 2-5 with my mom because she had only seen season 1 and she wanted to catch up so she could watch the new episode (5.3) at her brother's house. So I'm rewatching season 1 because it's been a while since I've seen it.

The very last scene of 1.3 is Arya's first lesson with Syrio. I don't think I noticed this before, but at the end Ned comes in and watches with a smile on his face....until he starts to hear (in his mind) the sound of steel clashing on steel, instead of wood, and real piercing sounds when Arya is struck, and the smile fades away. That scene was really well done.

PS: I also just read somewhere that the actors playing Loras and Gendry both auditioned for Jon Snow.

This post has been edited by Terez: 22 May 2015 - 04:02 AM

[Traveller]

That was my favourite scene from season one. Brilliant foreshadowing of events to come.

[Rhand]

Damn, but Sansa is so unlucky. Poor girl...