Traumatized by tonight's episode of Game of Thrones?
June 2, 2013 7:02 PM Subscribe

It gets better. (Spoilers through S03E09, plus vague references to events in later books.)

A support group is waiting for you at /r/HalfwayThroughASOS.

Meanwhile, book readers who enjoy the schadenfreude of show watchers finally catching up to our pain might be interested in the reaction videos being collected by Operation WaW.

posted by Jacqueline (601 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite

Wow, you had your finger poised over the 'post' button for this, didn't you?
posted by painquale at 7:07 PM on June 2, 2013 [11 favorites]

THEON GREYJOY KILLS DUMBLEDORE
posted by Kinbote at 7:07 PM on June 2, 2013 [27 favorites]

> "Wow, you had your finger poised over the 'post' button for this, didn't you?"

Heh. ;)
posted by Jacqueline at 7:09 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

i am lemongrabbing at the teevee like whoa
posted by elizardbits at 7:10 PM on June 2, 2013 [16 favorites]

I love the term lemograbbing. UNACCEPTABLE!
posted by Lord_Pall at 7:12 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Anyone care to share what the big deal is to someone who cancelled his HBO subscription after last season? I don't mind spoilers.
posted by sp160n at 7:14 PM on June 2, 2013

sp160n: Google "Red Wedding"
posted by Jacqueline at 7:15 PM on June 2, 2013

Just a note to potential flaggers, I figured this post was completely unavoidable and have been expecting it all weekend. Just be marginally less horrible than the Freys, eh?
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:16 PM on June 2, 2013 [29 favorites]

Robb Stark killed Cersei. It was crazy.
posted by painquale at 7:16 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

Argus Filch did the thing.
posted by elizardbits at 7:16 PM on June 2, 2013 [8 favorites]

I know I'm not alone in thinking that Catelyn and her whole "mother hen bereft of her chicks" schtick and Rob's continual hiking-up of the big-boy pants started to get old by the time we get deep into A Storm of Swords. It's not like Martin killed off Tyrian or Arya. He just pruned some dead wood from the plot.

Fuck it. I'm glad they're dead.
posted by R. Schlock at 7:17 PM on June 2, 2013 [10 favorites]

I was expecting better. Kind of "meh."
posted by greasy_skillet at 7:17 PM on June 2, 2013

From the video: "it's going to get exponentially worse". It's true, particularly for the story editing. Just wait until the whole book that's Tyrion's adventures down the river and back again, where he ends up right back where he started and nothing changes!

The TV shows are doing a good job tightening up the story a lot. I also like how they've highlighted some interesting characters, like the Tyrells. They didn't get enough time in the early books, glad to see so much screen time on the TV.
posted by Nelson at 7:22 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

I'm wondering whether viewer reaction will be whoa or meh. I think a lot of the whoa reaction from readers is due to the fact that it happened in the middle of the novel.
posted by painquale at 7:23 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just be marginally less horrible than the Freys, eh?

How about the Boltons? How much less horrible than them should we be? Just trying to calibrate.
posted by maudlin at 7:26 PM on June 2, 2013 [11 favorites]

Red wedding, eh? Monty Python did it first.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:28 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

Actually one of the things I'm looking forward to about Season 3 is how they're handling the Boltons by re-splicing the timelines. (I'm a season behind because I'm just watching it on DVD - fuck HBO, that's why.) So I can't accurately define the differences.

Tor.com as usual, has some interesting things to say, mostly about how the show changes the focus a little bit by giving more screen time to characters like Robb who were fairly distant in the books.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:29 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am a book reader. However, I watch the show with two non-book readers. I spent much of tonight's episode trying to figure out how not to let my obvious anxiety about coming events spoil my friends. As it turned out, they swore they didn't notice me burying my head in the pillow round about the time the door closed.

I just left their house. They seemed to be recovering.
posted by thivaia at 7:32 PM on June 2, 2013 [9 favorites]

I have been waiting for this for years. Basically since the day the show was picked up.

And now my GOT-watching club has been kicked out of our usual space because the owners are scared of getting a nastygram from HBO for letting a private club watch a single legitimate Go stream together on their property. So all I can do is revel in the schadenfreude.

I appreciate this topic is what I'm saying.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:35 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

The wife loves the show, hasn't read the books. We're a week behind on our DVR recordings, so I've had to warn her three times not to go chatting with friends about this.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:43 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just be marginally less horrible than the Freys, eh?

... Mayhaps.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:45 PM on June 2, 2013 [9 favorites]

It's true, particularly for the story editing. Just wait until the whole book that's Tyrion's adventures down the river and back again, where he ends up right back where he started and nothing changes!

Yeah. I will keep reading/watching, but as far as I'm concerned the story is over after next season (the end of Storm of Swords). The rest is just a tedious, slow, agonizing limbo of failed expectations.

But tonight's episode was satisfyingly brutal. My heart was pounding like crazy with The Rains of Castamere started playing.
posted by Justinian at 7:45 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm interested to see what the TV audience makes of this episode and what the longer term fallout is. The Red Wedding pretty much killed my desire to continue reading the books. Though of course I know I'm in the minority there.
posted by Sara C. at 7:46 PM on June 2, 2013 [6 favorites]

Cool Papa Bell: I advise prioritizing catching up on GOT before any of your other shows unless she plans to avoid the internet too, because the wailing has already begun on Facebook and Twitter.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:46 PM on June 2, 2013

I did not read a single word of this thread. But I will after I watch it this evening.
posted by flippant at 7:46 PM on June 2, 2013

Yes, the wailing. Sweet, delicious tears.
posted by Justinian at 7:47 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

True dat, Jacqueline. I don't even really follow GoT up to the minute on TV, and I immediately knew where we are in the story based on a random tweet. And it wasn't even that spoilerrific of a tweet. She's going to have to stay completely off the internet from now until you guys watch it.
posted by Sara C. at 7:47 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

You know what, I hear what R. Schlock is saying. It'd have been way more of a kick in the shins to kill off Tyrion or Arya. Still, new people might have been expecting the season to end with a big battle at Casterly Rock. Every one of Robb's scenes this season has been setting up that battle. In that context, I don't mind Martin flipping this particular table.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:49 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Ever since the last episode of the first season, I just watch every scene fully expecting anyone and everyone to die horribly or at least be maimed by the end of the scene. I'm happy if any character makes it through an episode with all their body parts intact.
posted by octothorpe at 7:50 PM on June 2, 2013 [9 favorites]

I just figured out thivaia's house sigil: Gules* pillow argent. Motto: WILL NOT LOOK CAN'T MAKE ME.

* The etymology of "gules" from Wikipedia seems strangely appropriate: "The term "gules" derives from the Old French word goules, literally meaning "throats" (related to the English gullet; modern French gueules), but also used to refer to a fur neckpiece, usually made of red fur."
posted by maudlin at 7:50 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Oh, and don't worry that we seem to be losing characters. Soon there will be ninety billion Dornish folk that nobody gives a shit about.
posted by Justinian at 7:52 PM on June 2, 2013 [47 favorites]

Jesus this post couldn't wait 3 hours until after the West Coast airing?
posted by bitdamaged at 7:54 PM on June 2, 2013

I'm a non book reader, and was (miraculously) completely unspoiled for this. My wife and I were absolutely stunned. Certainly one of the more shocking TV moments I can recall (very Whedonesque, if I may).
posted by schoolgirl report at 7:57 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

Eh? I'm in California; it aired 2 hours ago on HBOe. There's no reason you have to wait for HBOw.
posted by Justinian at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2013

I just figured out thivaia's house sigil: Gules* pillow argent. Motto: WILL NOT LOOK CAN'T MAKE ME.

Winter is coming! . . . (Right. So, uh, I'll just be under this duvet over here until everybody's stopped dying in brutal and grotesque ways. Cool?)
posted by thivaia at 7:59 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Is it me, or did the fighting in this episode feel poorly choreographed?

The fight choreography is not one of the strengths of the show, I'm afraid. This one didn't feel that out of place to me. They do have a whole lot of fights to do on a TV-show schedule, I guess.
posted by furiousthought at 7:59 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Rains of Castamere.

For earworm removal, or just because it's gorgeous.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:59 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

bitdamaged: Why should East Coast people have to stay up past 1am to discuss the show when West Coast people can simply refrain from opening the thread until they've seen it?
posted by Jacqueline at 8:03 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

The Red Wedding pretty much killed my desire to continue reading the books.

Really? Gosh, it was about the best thing in Storm of Swords, to me, and it - and events directly afterwards made me feel like putting up with all the crap was somewhat worth it.

It was the last time I had that feeling with the books, and I feel bad for all the people who have gotten into them now, expecting something satsifying to happen/the series to end.

I started reading those book In the nineties. I had a HyperColour T-shirt when I started reading those books...
posted by smoke at 8:04 PM on June 2, 2013 [11 favorites]

The fight choreography is not one of the strengths of the show, I'm afraid.

This just makes me miss Syrio more.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:05 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

This just makes me miss Syrio more.

What do we say to the Lord of Death?

A surprise reappearance in the last book, maybe?
posted by R. Schlock at 8:09 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

I was expecting this, but I wasn't expecting this, if you know what I mean.

Poor, poor Talisa. At least Jeyne Westerling only had to drink moon tea.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:09 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

The fight choreography is not one of the strengths of the show, I'm afraid.

It's entirely possible I just never noticed before. I was watching this episode at the edge of my seat, knowing what was to come. So it really could have been a heightened awareness.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:11 PM on June 2, 2013

it was about the best thing in Storm of Swords, to me

It's not so much that I thought it was a bad idea or poorly done or anything. It was about half bitterness that they killed off one of my favorite characters, and the other half was mostly that I was kind of over the whole thing anyway. (And I've said before that I think the TV show is better than the books, and that I wish I'd just waited -- there's a strong possibility that I'll pick up the TV show eventually and watch it all the way through past this point.)

In an abstract sort of way, the Red Wedding idea is BRILLIANT plotting for reasons mentioned by others upthread.

I'm still mad that he killed Catelyn without letting her ever see most of her kids again. IIRC there's even a scene just before this where she and Arya are super close to finding each other, but there's a minor plot point that prevents it from happening. I'm sure my inability to forgive is all mingled up in my own personal feels about, like, mom and daughter stuff.

Maybe the fact that I'm still upset means Martin is a genius and I've been selling him short for years. (Though I will say his prose style still blows.)
posted by Sara C. at 8:15 PM on June 2, 2013

Oh, god, the urge to spoil...
posted by restless_nomad at 8:20 PM on June 2, 2013 [22 favorites]

I liked how Talisa was at the wedding. Better than the book. But then, I think that the show has been better on the whole than the books.
posted by gaspode at 8:21 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

Oh, god, the urge to spoil...

I know, I know!

I've been waiting for months for tonight's internet tears. They're as delicious as I'd hoped.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:21 PM on June 2, 2013 [29 favorites]

I love that one of the people that I was watching it with, and another friend posted on Facebook afterwards:

"Shit just got real!"

... because that's exactly what I said (out loud to myself) when I finished reading that scene in the book.
posted by MsVader at 8:23 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

From reddit: "Don't hate the flaya; hate the Game".
posted by lalochezia at 8:24 PM on June 2, 2013 [31 favorites]

I've been waiting since the TV show was announced to watch the Internet tonight. It is already glorious beyond reckoning.
posted by sparkletone at 8:32 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

Except for that one magic dude who came back to life like six times.
posted by sonmi at 8:35 PM on June 2, 2013 [25 favorites]

Except for Beric.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:35 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

> "It's powerful because in this story, dead means dead."

Beric Dondarrion and the Lord of Light beg to differ.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:36 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

You don't have to worry that a character who seems to die, or who unambiguously dies, will return either because he/she really wasn't dead to begin with or because of some strange magic.

So, about [former Maester] Qyburn ...
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:39 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

Talisa being there did make the scene suspenseful for this book-reader. I wasn't sure whether she'd survive. I guess that within the show, she's not a spy. For the Lannisters anyway.
posted by painquale at 8:41 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hey now. Spoilers.
posted by bonehead at 8:43 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

So I'm a non-book reader and am really into GoT on the TV. It's weekly appointment TV for me and my bf - his 80+inch TV, the east coast feed, super loud surround-sound and whatever takeout we feel like that week (tonight=kabobs!). I knew that there was something called the "Red Wedding" and that it was a BFD but no idea what it was, what happened or when. With all of the talk of weddings though I figured it must be in the works for the end of this season.

Which is to say that I was freaking out. I definitely DID NOT expect that. But ultimately: Robb Stark was weak-minded. His wife was SO ANNOYING. He's a pretender-king fighting a war he's clearly losing, so yeah, let's decorate a fucking nursery wahwahwah giant eyes whatever. And Katelyn Stark is kind of the worst mother of all time so whatever lady, WHATEVER. The Stark men seem dumb as shit when it comes to women. Thank god for Arya. I hope she shanks them all.

But even more surprising for me what the Jon Snow/Wildings show down. Plus, there were lots of dire wolves, which I LOVE SO MUCH (and yeah, I'm pissed about Grey Wind). So all in all I felt like it was insanely action-packed and kind of necessary.
posted by marylynn at 8:45 PM on June 2, 2013 [10 favorites]

Though I will say his prose style still blows.

But what about those tender love scenes between Jon and whatsherface that cropped up every ten pages in Storm of Swords - so tender, so not-wholly-gratuitous-to-plot-and-characterisation, so realistic, so obvious that none of the people north of the wall would ever have had or heard of oral sex?

It's powerful because in this story, dead means dead.

Hahaha.
posted by smoke at 8:45 PM on June 2, 2013 [17 favorites]

I actually liked the Red Wedding because it gave the promise that the novel series would be fairly short. It took a plotline and ended it. One Red Wedding equivalent ( in terms of resolving a plot) in each novel would end the series in a reasonable number of volumes. I just don't see that promise now.
posted by happyroach at 8:46 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Hey now. Spoilers.

Sorry, if that was directed at me: it's not a spoiler, she hasn't been revealed to be that in the books either. There's been speculation about it, that's all.
posted by painquale at 8:48 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Traumatized no, mildly spoiled by the title of this post yes.
posted by aerotive at 8:54 PM on June 2, 2013

That. Was. Great.

Sansa married a red dragon? Tywin discovered in bed with the Tyrell boy? Ygritte and Jon Snow in beautiful dresses? Rob Stark just quitting the war to study music?!

Shit just got real!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:54 PM on June 2, 2013 [26 favorites]

And Tyrion regenerates into Matt Smith!
posted by stet at 8:55 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Who is up for some pie?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:01 PM on June 2, 2013 [26 favorites]

thats not pie
posted by elizardbits at 9:08 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

I've read the books and have been living with the RW for years. Now my wife is drunk and in a fetal position. I told her that actually, I didn't even know if Arya was alive after that chapter (she got brained with an axe) but the missus finds that little consolation.

Yahumm....

I was reading ASOS on the bus home, got to Cat's chapter as I was getting in to my stop so there I was book in hand face buried in it getting up out of my seat, pushing through the door, walking away from the bus stop and then I finished the chapter and literally had to sit down. And read the last page and a half again because in my haze I'd completely missed what happened at the very end of it.

This took place a week after episode 9 of season 1 had aired so I'd felt well over that grimness and enjoying the show and the books and then... yeah.

Ever since, even thinking about the event I get symptoms not entirely unlike a minor panic attack. Breath shortens, my hands go ice cold, my pulse races, and I am overwhelmed with a desire to kill every last Frey there is.

And then the show went and added THAT. You know what I'm talking about. That. Bloody hell.

So yes, pie all round.
posted by dumbland at 9:09 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

I'm a little sad that they didn't have Walder say 'mayhaps', just as a bone to throw to the readers (unless he managed to sneak one by me). They did put in that bread and salt scene after all, which only really made sense if you'd read the books.
posted by painquale at 9:13 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah. I will keep reading/watching, but as far as I'm concerned the story is over after next season (the end of Storm of Swords). The rest is just a tedious, slow, agonizing limbo of failed expectations.

I'm hoping that they combine 4 and 5 in to a single season and hand pick the best stuff to focus on, but I'm not putting much faith in that actually happening.
posted by codacorolla at 9:14 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I read ASOS when it first came out. Hit that sequence and was floored.

It seems to have traumatized me to the point that I blocked out the rest of the series. Like I don't remember anything except for snippets of the red wedding. It was that significant of a trauma/emotional event.

Amazing stuff.

Unfortunately it was then like a 5 year wait until the next book came out, and I blocked it all out so much that I didn't continue.

TLDR: ASOS traumatized me so much I blocked out the rest of the books
posted by Lord_Pall at 9:16 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

When we started watching the show, I was ahead of Mr. Mustachio.

I warned him - "Just remember - don't get to emotionally attached to any of the characters."

Before he watches this, I will have to emphasize that again.

Not that I am in a position to offer any advice. I'm still bummed about how they did poor Ros.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:17 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's powerful because in this story, dead means dead. You don't have to worry that a character who seems to die, or who unambiguously dies, will return either because he/she really wasn't dead to begin with or because of some strange magic.
posted by brain_drain at 8:34 PM on June 2 [2 favorites +] [!]

I'm pretty sure that's intended to be a joke.

While the Red Wedding is an astonishing plot twist it's ultimately soured for me by the fact that it seemed like Martin had no exit strategy for what to do following it. The momentum of the plot just stone cold dies after Storm of Swords, and if you had to pick an exact point in Storm of Swords where it starts to founder, the Red Wedding would be it.

Turns out that in addition to all those other characters, the Freys also killed any chance of the books ever being finished.
posted by Ndwright at 9:19 PM on June 2, 2013 [8 favorites]

What if the Starks didn't make stupid decisions?
posted by elizardbits at 9:25 PM on June 2, 2013 [18 favorites]

I'd like to point out the Venture Brothers premiere is a nonstop parade of GoT refs right now,
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 PM on June 2, 2013 [6 favorites]

I watched this episode in a bar filled with people who were clearly unspoiled, and it was awesome. Everyone lost their shit.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:36 PM on June 2, 2013 [15 favorites]

Read the books, just now on season two of the TV series. Was wondering how those poor, ignorant folk would take the Red Wedding. The wailing and gnashing of teeth is glorious!
posted by deborah at 9:39 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

And they partook of his salt and bread.
posted by homunculus at 9:42 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Rains of Castamere yt .

For earworm removal, or just because it's gorgeous.

Now every time I hear that music I also hear Admiral Ackbar screaming in my ear "It's a trap!"
posted by homunculus at 9:46 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

After having watched season 4 of Arrested Development, I love that they had Robb Stark say just before the Red Wedding, "I've made a huge mistake."

Well, OK, he said, "I've made a terrible mistake." Close enough.
posted by painquale at 9:48 PM on June 2, 2013 [6 favorites]

Between the 30 rock call backs on Mad Men, the GoT jokes on Venture Brothers, and the Mad Men/A/Archer cast sharing, it's like all my favorite shows are occuring in the same shared universe,
posted by The Whelk at 9:51 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

And Katelyn Stark is kind of the worst mother of all time...

FINALLY. Yes, she's terrible. She plays up being an aggrieved parent, but she doesn't like her kids or actually help them much. What she seems to really be after is political power, but she's disastrously bad at politics.

What if the Starks didn't make stupid decisions?

CATELYN: You should take this job as the King's Hand.
NED: No. Let's stay up North and kill all the Boltons.
posted by fleacircus at 9:52 PM on June 2, 2013 [13 favorites]

Now every season people will expect shocks and horror. Imagine their surprise when the real horror is the existential despair of a viewer confronted with the relentless tedium of never-ending boat sequences, meaningless characters we neither know nor care about, and people returning to exactly where they started 15 years and 3000 pages ago!

A metaphor for life, maybe.
posted by Justinian at 9:54 PM on June 2, 2013 [26 favorites]

Quite a bit has changed for the show. I see no reason the meandering can't be tightened.
posted by flaterik at 9:56 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

I suspect they're going to be able to do much better things with the pacing since they can avoid Martin's horrible "I should skip ahead 5 years/no wait I shouldn't" flailing and just move on with the important bits.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:58 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was pretty upset when I hit this part in the books! Still Rob was never one of the most important characters.

Just finished Dance of Dragons. Faith in series pretty much restored after somewhat lackluster book four, in my opinion. I'll be waiting for people's reactions to some of the events in this latest book :)
posted by meta87 at 9:59 PM on June 2, 2013

Between the 30 rock call backs on Mad Men, the GoT jokes on Venture Brothers, and the Mad Men/A/Archer cast sharing, it's like all my favorite shows are occuring in the same shared universe

NOBODY DROP THAT SNOWGLOBE
posted by mightygodking at 10:03 PM on June 2, 2013 [9 favorites]

Oh yeah, I remember when A Storm of Swords came out in 2000, back when the series just started picking up steam. Many of the posters in rec.arts.sf.written were reading it and came to *that* chapter. Should've known when he killed off Ned in the first book that Martin didn't play to the usual epic fantasy rules, but it still was a shock.

Wouldn't have thought we'd still be waiting for the series to be finished thirteen years later...
posted by MartinWisse at 10:03 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

NOBODY DROP THAT SNOWGLOBE

THIS IS HOW YOU GET ANTS
posted by The Whelk at 10:07 PM on June 2, 2013 [24 favorites]

I gotta ask, did they sew into this episode the fate of Grey Wolf?
posted by fleacircus at 10:07 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

fleacircus: not that part, no. So much more to hate!

I find the parallel between Ned and Robb pretty striking, and, in retrospect, kind of obvious. DAMN YOU GRRM YOU GOT US TWICE THE SAME WAY.
posted by flaterik at 10:09 PM on June 2, 2013

Man there was something ridiculous about the way that scene was filmed. All the fake blood and stabbings were like something out of a samurai movie.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:10 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

I threw the book across the room and swore off it for a week when the Red Wedding happened.

It happened faster than I expected on TV in the moment, but at the speed I would have expected it to when I read it.

The real kick in the gut when I read it though, was the setup with Arya. "No, it's not going to be this easy for her..."

Full disclosure: totally caught up on the books, but if her and Dany don't get a moment at some point this whole thing has been a waste of time.
posted by Cyrano at 10:11 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

While the Red Wedding is an astonishing plot twist it's ultimately soured for me by the fact that it seemed like Martin had no exit strategy for what to do following it. The momentum of the plot just stone cold dies after Storm of Swords, and if you had to pick an exact point in Storm of Swords where it starts to founder, the Red Wedding would be it.

With respect to ASoS: no. The rest of the book is where the Tyrion/Tywin plot comes to a head, where Jon Snow finally ascends to the point we had been waiting for him to reach, where Davos finally convinced Stannis to be the righteous king that is needed, and where Jaime and Cersei's relationship finally sours once and for all. It's a fucking rollercoaster.
posted by mightygodking at 10:12 PM on June 2, 2013 [19 favorites]

I was expecting better. Kind of "meh."

I hope you mean the link, because that shit tonight was worse than the Campbells at Glencoe.
posted by Hoopo at 10:14 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

If hbo slims down all the "boring" parts of books 4 and 5 I'd be worried about running out of content before the next book comes out.... I mean is there not a chance that we have another long delay like between the last two books?

One hopes that either they know something we don't, or there's some sort of contractual obligation which gets George to stop eating Nachos and start hitting the keys.
posted by codacorolla at 10:16 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

Episode 10 preview.
posted by maudlin at 10:18 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

Recast GoT with the characters from Mad Men! recast Mad Men with the characters from Venture Brothers!
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 PM on June 2, 2013

I knew it was coming and I was still traumatised.

Oh well - guess it's nightmares for me tonight.
posted by Defying Gravity at 10:19 PM on June 2, 2013

One hopes that either they know something we don't, or there's some sort of contractual obligation which gets George to stop eating Nachos and start hitting the keys.

One hopes! I'll definitely have to reread the whole series if it takes six years again. Early events are vague. Not sure how much of that old stuff is really important anyway.

I think things are starting to come together now and I can definitely see him pumping the last couple out in short order.
posted by meta87 at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2013

I mean is there not a chance that we have another long delay like between the last two books?

I know Justinian is up in here with his usual awesome GOT commentary and I have been holding off posting this comment of his to see if he would post it first but it looks like no, so here it is:

The publication history of the 4th and 5th books aren't a hint, they are proof positive. Martin couldn't even publish a whole book, he had to awkwardly split one in half and publish the first half as filler supposed to tide fans over for a year. That year lasted 72 months. . .

1. A Game of Thrones August 1996
2. A Clash of Kings November 1998
3. A Storm of Swords August 2000
4. A Feast for Crows October 2005
5. A Dance w/ Dragons July 2011

Martin isn't going to finish.
posted by mlis at 10:25 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, I am still waiting for some reason to like Jamie, people who have read the books and stick up for him. Yeah, he was nice a few times so far but he's still kind of a slimeball and I kinda love that he got fucked up recently. I have a bad feeling Jamie is just going to wind up the least hate-able character left alive at some point.

Side note: probably don't name your kid after a guy killed by the king for being a traitor. Bit of a jinx, maybe.
posted by Hoopo at 10:26 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Martin isn't going to finish

Say it ain't so! Personally I can't imagine the willpower it must take to work on a project this long if you have lost the desire. I've been working on a tech project for 6 months and I'm already losing focus.
posted by meta87 at 10:29 PM on June 2, 2013

Neither my partner nor I have read the books, so we didn't see it coming. I'd managed to stay semi-unspoiled, except that I had heard something about "the Red Wedding," and had a sense that Robb died, but I had no idea they had anything to do with each other -- I assumed the Red Wedding had something to do with Joffrey and Margaery's wedding, and that Robb got killed on the battlefield (maybe leaving Cat to lead the army!). So for us was absolutely a moment of sudden, lurching, dawning horror, about three seconds before it all went to hell. (At which point we just jumped up from the couch and repeatedly yelled "HOLY SHIT!" at the TV.)

It feels awful, and it's hard to compute from a narrative/protagonist sense, but in other way it makes total sense in terms of all the competing storylines. JUST TELL ME THAT TYRION LIVES TO BECOME KING OF EVERYONE, YOU GUYS.
posted by scody at 10:30 PM on June 2, 2013 [12 favorites]

I think the rest of A Storm of Swords is damn fine; I see no evidence of Martin losing his way yet.

It's clear to me, and I think to anyone who considers it deeply enough and knows the backstory, that Martin loses his way exactly where restless_nomad says he loses his way; in his terrible and completely unnecessary decision not to skip forward 5 years in the narrative as he had originally intended to do. Come on! The narrative demands it! In virtually every storyline!

Consider just a few examples: Doesn't the story absolutely point to Sam becoming a maester? He even !*$*!@ leaves the Wall to study to become one! Guess what would and should have happened during the five year gap? Sam becomes a maester! How about the realm falling apart under Cersei's mismanagement? Or Dany's over in Slaver's Bay? We're shown things collapsing way faster than they should. Guess what would happen in a five year gap? That's right, five years of mismanagement leading to where we see things in A Dance with Dragons. Wouldn't that make more sense?

Not to mention Jon's storyline... or Arya's...

Anyway, yeah, Swords is solid all the way through. Martin fucked up by changing his mind about the narrative gap after he'd already written thousands of pages of story which demanded that gap. And it all could have been avoided if he'd simply had the courage of his convictions.

I think things are starting to come together now and I can definitely see him pumping the last couple out in short order.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

and I have been holding off posting this comment of his to see if he would post it first

I attempted to stop ranting because I always rant about this. But I failed. I failed.
posted by Justinian at 10:31 PM on June 2, 2013 [28 favorites]

JUST TELL ME THAT TYRION LIVES TO BECOME KING OF EVERYONE, YOU GUYS

He bears the golden circle like a champ, especially for someone of his scale.
posted by fleacircus at 11:05 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

I'm interested to see what the TV audience makes of this episode and what the longer term fallout is. The Red Wedding pretty much killed my desire to continue reading the books.

Where does the line start to punch GRRM in the face because seriously
posted by jokeefe at 11:07 PM on June 2, 2013 [4 favorites]

Just wait until the next wedding!
posted by Jacqueline at 11:12 PM on June 2, 2013 [19 favorites]

There's no way they could have fit all of ASOS into one season, but it's a shame that the show won't have the relentless string of events right away after the Red Wedding like the book. That's really what I love most about the Red Wedding, it's the moment where the series kicks into high gear and the momentum is just unstoppable for the second half of the book, but there's gonna be a whole year's wait in the way on the show. It'll be amazing to marathon seasons 3-4 on dvd, though.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:17 PM on June 2, 2013 [3 favorites]

God. I knew something big was coming this episode, from remarks here and there, and somebody referenced the Red Wedding on Mefi, etc. I was watching the entire hour full of apprehension and when the music started up and those doors closed it was just like Oh fuck. And Arya, my god. She was minutes away, she thought, from throwing herself back into her mother's arms. I'm feeling a bit sick.
posted by jokeefe at 11:20 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

At this point, I would like to salute the book readers for their perseverance in withholding spoilers for all of us who haven't read the books. Thank you and well done.
posted by homunculus at 11:22 PM on June 2, 2013 [12 favorites]

Just wait until the next wedding!

Wait, what? No, I can't hear you. La la la la la...
posted by homunculus at 11:23 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Favorite characters in Game of Thrones (via Reddit)
posted by Jacqueline at 11:25 PM on June 2, 2013

I was expecting better. Kind of "meh."

Indeed, far more disturbing in the book but I'll trade what the books do better for what the television show does better and vice versa.

I just watch every scene fully expecting anyone and everyone to die horribly or at least be maimed by the end of the scene

Well that is life in Westeros and beyond. Can you imagine the obituaries in the Westeros Standard?

Oh, god, the urge to spoil...

Start by turning off your fridge and opening the fridge door. Freezer too if you're Westeros serious.

"Shit just got real!"

Isn't it wonderful, the different perspectives people have. After all the other horrible slaughter and double crossing that has occured it 's only real now?

Man there was something ridiculous about the way that scene was filmed. All the fake blood and stabbings were like something out of a samurai movie.

Agreed. Poorly shot and executed, but the cinematography has been a little off this season in general.

Oh well - guess it's nightmares for me tonight.

For the last 2 years I've had nightmares with literally alarming frequency but they are rarely caused by television shows fortunately. The trick is to become lucid. They're so frequent I just scream myself awake and eventually they stop.

Also, I am still waiting for some reason to like Jamie, people who have read the books and stick up for him. Yeah, he was nice a few times so far but he's still kind of a slimeball and I kinda love that he got fucked up recently.

He's the archetypal guy who is usually self-centred and horrible to his wives and girlfriends but is forgiven for all of it because of the few times when he's not like that. Those guys are everywhere, as are their forgivers. He many not end up being the least hated but he's probably the most familiar.
posted by juiceCake at 11:26 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

From Twitter: "I sense a great disturbance in the force. As if millions if GoT watchers suddenly cried out, and watched silenced credits"
posted by jokeefe at 11:27 PM on June 2, 2013 [15 favorites]

Thank you and well done.

At some point there was this unspoken agreement to let THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE SPOILED remain cloaked in mystery cause we all really wanted to watch your reactions.

BTW, it's totally been worth it.
posted by The Whelk at 11:27 PM on June 2, 2013 [42 favorites]

Basically, the red wedding is Christmas, and we wanted to make sure you believed in Santa.
posted by The Whelk at 11:30 PM on June 2, 2013 [44 favorites]

I put the over/under on The Winds of Winter at April 2017. Takers?
posted by Justinian at 11:30 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'll put $20 on under.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:31 PM on June 2, 2013

Still, as unsettling as this episode was, I was more upset by Ros.
posted by homunculus at 11:32 PM on June 2, 2013 [8 favorites]

I'm just annoyed that I don't watch this show and no one will talk about the Venture Bros. with me. That is clearly more important.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:33 PM on June 2, 2013 [5 favorites]

DecemberBoy: Make a FPP about it and they will come.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:34 PM on June 2, 2013

He's not a ghost, he's an intern.
posted by The Whelk at 11:35 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Still, as unsettling as this episode was, I was still more upset by Ros.

Ohhh, rumormongering ahead!

So baseless speculation on various ASoIaF forums about this is as follows: Oona Chaplin (who played Talisa) said in one of her interviews a few months back that one of the major actresses in Game of Thrones who got naked a bunch in Season 1 had stated to the producers that she didn't want to do nude scenes any more because she wanted to be known for her acting, not her body. Scuttlebutt had mostly assumed this was Emilia Clarke as Danaerys. That made sense; she was one of the leads, she was naked a whole bunch in season 1, and was becoming much more well known. But then she got all nakked up a few episodes back so it no longer made any sense. And then Ros ended up dead! Without so much as a fare-thee-well! So now people speculate maybe it was Esme Bianco to whom Chaplin was referring and that played a part in her sudden demise.

True? False? Dunno. But it's juicy gossip and that's what counts.
posted by Justinian at 11:39 PM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

@RedWeddingTears is retweeting reactions to the episode.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:39 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

Did somebody say Venture Bros FPP?
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:39 PM on June 2, 2013

With respect to ASoS: no. The rest of the book is where the Tyrion/Tywin plot comes to a head, where Jon Snow finally ascends to the point we had been waiting for him to reach, where Davos finally convinced Stannis to be the righteous king that is needed, and where Jaime and Cersei's relationship finally sours once and for all. It's a fucking rollercoaster.

Well, and hello, Joffrey gets married! And Shae makes some interesting choices! And crazy things happen at the Eyrie! And, and, and.... I can't AT ALL understand thinking the momentum dies in ASoS dies after the Red Wedding. In fact I kind of worry that withholding some of the upcoming events until next season will dilute the experience, which in the book is just one WTF!! after another.
posted by torticat at 11:41 PM on June 2, 2013 [8 favorites]

And then Ros ended up dead! Without so much as a fare-thee-well! So now people speculate maybe it was Esme Bianco to whom Chaplin was referring and that played a part in her sudden demise.

Did she not die in the books? The writers are channeling the Lannisters.
posted by homunculus at 11:44 PM on June 2, 2013

Ros didn't exist in the books. She's a composite.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:45 PM on June 2, 2013 [7 favorites]

I feel used.
posted by homunculus at 11:47 PM on June 2, 2013

I'm still mad that he killed Catelyn without letting her ever see most of her kids again. IIRC there's even a scene just before this where she and Arya are super close to finding each other, but there's a minor plot point that prevents it from happening.

LOL, Sara C, your memory is correct but the minor plot point IS the Red Wedding. Arya's right outside the Twins when in happens and barely escapes the melee out there as the Freys kill off the people partying outside.

And yeah, I never liked Catelyn much but it did seem too cruel for her to die before being reunited with any of her other kids (and just after watching Robb die AND with Arya just outside).
posted by torticat at 11:52 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Stark family :(
posted by Jacqueline at 11:55 PM on June 2, 2013 [20 favorites]

homunculus, I've seen a lot of people speculating that she was more or less the show writers saying "see, we can do that too, and even you smug people who read the books won't see it coming!"

(since, as noted, Ros' character doesn't exist in the books; she may have been an expansion of a passing reference/various other minor characters, used for plot-exposition purposes)
posted by ubernostrum at 11:59 PM on June 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Basically, the red wedding is Christmas, and we wanted to make sure you believed in Santa.

No!
posted by homunculus at 12:12 AM on June 3, 2013 [12 favorites]

The momentum of the plot just stone cold dies after Storm of Swords

I sometimes fear that the momentum of this series is the momentum of a glacier advancing and all we despair about is just so much noise.
posted by hat_eater at 12:24 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

No!

If you're good, Santa comes at Christmas!

This is why everybody in Westeros is horrible.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:30 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I haven't seen the episode yet, but I've been waiting YEARS to see people's reactions to the Red Wedding, so I could finally talk about it! Seeing people's reaction to Ned's fate was just a sweet appetiser.

I warned my wife right at the very start of series one not to get too attached to any one character - she's not read the books, and I've been scrupulous about no spoilers, apart from that. After Ned Stark, she turned to me, and said 'Oh my God, you weren't kidding were you. Do they kill off anyone else like Arya, Tyrion or Rob?'

'Spoilers, sweetie.'

Watching the episode tonight should be interesting, she thinks Arya is getting reunited with her family. just one more day of keeping silent...
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:32 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I feel used.

Yessssssssssssssssssssssss
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:37 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I wished Grey Wind at least could have escaped, but it sounds like worse is coming. Sewing? Bleh.
posted by homunculus at 12:49 AM on June 3, 2013

Message from George R. R. Martin.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:05 AM on June 3, 2013 [13 favorites]

OMG that page of tweet reactions is just too precious.
posted by newdaddy at 1:15 AM on June 3, 2013

One minor plot point that was dropped in the show is the exchange where Robb tells Catelyn that he is legitimizing Jon Snow so that he could be heir to Winterfell if necessary. Hmm.

Also, the Blackfish did not attend the Red Wedding in the book, and neither did Jeyne (Talisa). Not sure what Talisa's death means for Jeyne's future in the books. Wasn't it left open in ASoS that Jeyne could possibly be pregnant? And wasn't there some speculation that the Westerlings were in on the RW plotting? The show seemed maybe going in that direction with Talisa's letters "to her mother," but I guess that was misdirection since Talisa was a victim of the RW herself.

But more important, Blackfish! Did he escape the RW, and how? Was he one of the ones who carried the newlyweds out for the bedding before the doors were closed?
posted by torticat at 1:20 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

> "Blackfish! Did he escape the RW, and how?"

In the episode, he left just before the bedding began "to find a tree to piss on" and we didn't see him die, that we can assume that he's still alive on the show as well.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:36 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just realized the point I made here, jason_steakums had already made better here, so yeah. I agree with jason_steakums. Particularly worry that upcoming deaths will not have the same impact.

But I will say, I was leery all through the first season and skeptical about the rave reviews it got, but have a lot more faith in the showrunners now. I feel like the actors and writers have got their footing, they seem more confident and comfortable. And the changes the show has made to the story from the books have been big improvements in many cases.

Almost more than the RW, I was dreading in this episode Jon Snow's betrayal of Ygritte. She is one of my FAVORITE characters, and I hate Jon's coldness riding off. However, the warging in that whole scene was pretty cool, and we got lots of direwolves this ep, so yay for that! (but WEEP for poor Grey Wind.)
posted by torticat at 1:39 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

In the episode, he left just before the bedding began "to find a tree to piss on"

Ah yes he did didn't he. Thanks, Jacqueline, I'm relieved!
posted by torticat at 1:41 AM on June 3, 2013

At some point there was this unspoken agreement to let THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE SPOILED remain cloaked in mystery cause we all really wanted to watch your reactions.

BTW, it's totally been worth it.

Slow clap. well done.

Dicks.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:00 AM on June 3, 2013 [15 favorites]

In the episode, he left just before the bedding began "to find a tree to piss on"

Ah yes he did didn't he. Thanks, Jacqueline, I'm relieved!

So was the Blackfish...
posted by Pendragon at 2:36 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Joss Whedon on tonight's episode. :)
posted by Jacqueline at 2:37 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh God, Not The Starks! NOOOOO!
posted by Jacqueline at 3:00 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Wasn't it left open in ASoS that Jeyne could possibly be pregnant?

That was just a fan theory because Cat at one point muses about Jeyne's great child bearing hips while Jamie later muses about her totally narrow hips and people immediately smelled a conspirancy, switcheroo, something-something.

Except IIRC GRRM conceded in an Q&A that he just couldn't keep his description of the girl straight over four books. And I think this is D&D's version of literally killing that fan theory.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 3:03 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I knew people being happy was a bad sign...
posted by Artw at 4:07 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Jacqueline, that made me laugh loud enough to annoy Mrs. Ghidorah, who hasn't watch the series at all.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:36 AM on June 3, 2013

@RedWeddingTears is retweeting reactions to the episode.

For once, I understand the giddy glee of the troll. G.R.R.M is probably rolling around on the floor gibbering like a chimp on nitrous oxide while his agent reads that retweet list to him...

This is why the series will never be finished - G.R.R. Martin will never again be able to sucker-punch his readers so hard for TEH LULZ. All that work mapping out subplots and developing the characters is kind of pointless if everyone already knows he's gonna cut the plotline and kill everyone in it.

One day, it will occur to him that if he can make really hated villains sympathetic, he can make really sympathetic heroes hated villains, and then it will be fun for him again for a book or two.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:05 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

I've been thinking lately that in the TV series, it might make a lot of sense to actually plot in the 5 year gap at the end of SoS, both in story time and in real life. That way, Martin (hopefully) get far enough ahead that everything works out properly.

Season four next year, then re-broadcast seasons 1-4 on an annual basis and watch the hype grow. If any network has the convictions to pull off that kind of hiatus, it's HBO.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 5:15 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Man there was something ridiculous about the way that scene was filmed. All the fake blood and stabbings were like something out of a samurai movie.

It's fine once you realize that Westeros isn't on Earth, and on their world the "humans" all have 1500/800 blood pressure.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:23 AM on June 3, 2013 [10 favorites]

That was just a fan theory because Cat at one point muses about Jeyne's great child bearing hips while Jamie later muses about her totally narrow hips and people immediately smelled a conspirancy, switcheroo, something-something.

Oh. I never heard that. I just thought it was an open question because she'd been held back from the RW (so she's still alive) and she & Robb had been trying for an heir. Of course her mother was giving her the moon tea, so there's that.

I just checked the wiki of ice & fire and it is true that Jeyne's mother had been negotiating with the Lannisters. I can't remember why--because she didn't think Robb's prospects were good? Anyhow, if she knew in advance about the RW, that's a pretty cold thing to do to a son-in-law.

As you say, ZeroAmbition, Talisa's demise pretty much puts an end to the speculation about Jeyne. I know a lot of book purists hate it when the show appears to give away things that are still open in the books, but I enjoy it. GRRM has SO MANY minor characters wandering around and minor plotlines still unresolved, I like being able to check some of them off the list.
posted by torticat at 5:32 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I've been thinking lately that in the TV series, it might make a lot of sense to actually plot in the 5 year gap at the end of SoS, both in story time and in real life.

That won't work with the child actors. They already seem to be aging too quickly.

The best thing that could happen is that Martin admits the tv series is moving faster than his writing and gives blessings for the former finish on its on schedule. The showrunners know how Martin wants to end things, at least the broad strokes, so let'em off the chain. At least they have incentive to finish the damn story in a timely fashion.

If Martin still wants to write the two final books, let'em. They'll sell, people will get their book fix and everything will be fine. Those who only want to read the books won't be forced to watch the tv series.

Man there was something ridiculous about the way that scene was filmed. All the fake blood and stabbings were like something out of a samurai movie.

For such a dramatic turn of events, it was poorly directed and edited. The scene was played for shock value effect, which made the scene look like torture porn. It was just ridiculous, except for Catelyn's slow realization of what was occurring. On the other hand, her play to grab Fey's wife, instead of stabbing Fey was starkly stupid.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:33 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

On the other hand, her play to grab Fey's wife, instead of stabbing Fey was starkly stupid.

Agreed. She should have stabbed Walder Frey instead. The Feys, I imagine, are as to the Freys as the Karstarks are to the Starks.
posted by juiceCake at 6:20 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

So, this series has no ending, right? That "Winter" has not come? That the whole conflict with the non-human forces hasn't been written?

HBO is forcing the author to cobble together an ending for the sake of the TV show, correct? That the author is holding out for more money and may even die before the series is written?

If the drama around LOST is any indication, if our experience with Star Wars being resurrected can teach us, the fact that this series has no resolution is probably going to disappoint readers and fans much more than spoilers about red weddings, magic, and resurrections, etc.

On the other hand, is there any other precedent for an unresolved book series that was completed for the small screen?
posted by eustatic at 6:22 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

The best thing that could happen is that Martin admits the tv series is moving faster than his writing and gives blessings for the former finish on its on schedule.

My gut feeling is that there's going to be a "world split", when GRRM plots out a 2-3 season ending for GoT(HBO) then gets back to writing GoT in the direction he really wanted to go with it.

HBO isn't going to wait for GRRM to finish the books, and I don't think GRRM wants to lock himself into a plot that he may later find impossible for him to write. So, calling the end of ADOD the split point, writing out a plot-to-end for HBO, then going back and writing what he really wants to do, seems wise.
posted by eriko at 6:29 AM on June 3, 2013

Is it me, or did the fighting in this episode feel poorly choreographed? Not just the red wedding. All of the fight scenes looked like they were on a sound stage of a low budget film - much worse than previously done on the show.

Yes, and while it may well be a series-wide thing as others have indicated, I didn't notice it either until the 3-on-1000 fight. I was half expecting the screen to flash with onomatopoeic exclamations.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:32 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

HBO isn't going to wait for GRRM to finish the books

Yeah, I agree. And in season one that was super upsetting to me because some ridiculous part of me still clung to the wild fantasy that he would ever actually finish the books. Now I don't particularly care if he does or not, because either way I know we'll get some kind of closure via the show.
posted by elizardbits at 6:37 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

Now I don't particularly care if he does or not, because either way I know we'll get some kind of closure via the show.

It's going to be Ghost, The High Sparrow, Rhaegal, and a wilding playing poker. They'll all go all in, cut to thirty seconds of black, then roll credits in silence.
posted by eriko at 6:42 AM on June 3, 2013 [8 favorites]

I won't overly disappointed by he fight scenes. The show hasn't been all that woo when it comes to that. Still, the fight with Grey Worm, Naharis, and Mormont worked for me in that it showed, through fighting style, a god deal of their characters, at least with Grey Worm and Mormont. Mormont was all knightly hacking a d slashing, and Grey Worm was rote, almost formal in his moves, yet so well practiced in them as to be deadly and indomitable.

Naharis should have stupid blue hair.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:45 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's going to be Ghost, The High Sparrow, Rhaegal, and a wilding playing poker. They'll all go all in, cut to thirty seconds of black, then roll credits in silence.

still better than waiting 6 years for a 1,000-page book on people i don't care about
posted by elizardbits at 6:48 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Actually the ideal ending would be that it was all a bad dream that Bran had after his fall and when he wakes up, he gets out of bed and runs to tell Ned and Catelyn about it and they all laugh because wow, what a crazy dream!
posted by elizardbits at 6:50 AM on June 3, 2013 [24 favorites]

On one hand, I need a hug.

On the other hand, my husband is on a business trip at the moment and I cannot WAIT to happily suggest we watch this week's episode together when I meet up with him later this week. I'm looking forward to experiencing a small, small bit of that schadenfreude all you book fans got out of last night.
posted by olinerd at 6:53 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

So, this series has no ending, right? That "Winter" has not come?That the whole conflict with the non-human forces hasn't been written?
Pretty much. There have been a lot of hints and small but in the main nothing has happened. It's definitely coming. It's just that by the end of Book 5 (most likely series 7 on TV) it hasn't yet arrived.

HBO is forcing the author to cobble together an ending for the sake of the TV show, correct?
I don't think so. At the current rate of production, HBO have 4 years of material left. GRRM has stated he thinks he needs 2 more books to bring it to a close. Problem is that pretty much nobody expects GRRM to have written the next 2 books by then. In any case, not many TV shows make it that far so it may not be an issue.

That the author is holding out for more money and may even die before the series is written?
I doubt he is holding out for more money, he is already quite wealthy. But yes, given that it took him about 11 years to produce the last two books, and the guy is 64, there musty be a reasonable chance that he won't make it.
posted by bap98189 at 7:01 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I count 5 years of material left, if the next books are all two seasons each. By then, we may have at least one more book, which would give them two additional years. It *might* work out...?
posted by muckster at 7:16 AM on June 3, 2013

At least now I know where whores go.
posted by Mezentian at 7:19 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, I am still waiting for some reason to like Jamie, people who have read the books and stick up for him.

Jaime easily has the best and most satisfying character arc in the series. He never really stops being a haughty, entitled prick (i.e., a Lannister), and it's easy to dislike him. The rabbit Martin pulls out of his hat is that you find yourself rooting for him in spite of this.
posted by echocollate at 7:24 AM on June 3, 2013 [10 favorites]

Too true about Jaime. Also, there are a lot worse villains around by now. A little incest and throwing Bran out the window way back when doesn't seem so bad compared to the Boltons and the Freys. Even Cersei doesn't seem quite so villainous anymore after the last book. Anyway, to me, the complicated morals that are so unlike traditional fantasy are the most interesting thing about GoT.
posted by muckster at 7:43 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

There is a significant amount of Winds of Winter that was written at the time Dance with Dragons was published. The meereenese knot was untied with Dance of Dragons and that was a major stumbling block for Martin to get books 4 and 5 done. I think he has indeed picked up steam. Not the kind of steam he had when he started the series but enough to get him across the finish line.

There are enough WTF moments in the last 200 pages of DwD to keep HBO viewers freaking out for quite awhile.

Hodor.
posted by Ber at 7:46 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

The series will be finished. Doesn't matter if GRRM abandons it or dies in the interim, the publishers will have their pound of wood pulp. They'll just drag in Brandon Sanderson - or for this series, more appropriately Joe Abercrombie or Glen Cook - to nail the last volume or so down.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:52 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

One day, it will occur to him that if he can make really hated villains sympathetic, he can make really sympathetic heroes hated villains, and then it will be fun for him again for a book or two.

This is my dearest wish for Dany's storyline. "God, I try to be nice and please everyone and free all these slaves and it SUCKS ASS. I have DRAGONS and a genetic predisposition to utter insanity, TIME TO TEAR SHIT UP."

I count 5 years of material left, if the next books are all two seasons each. By then, we may have at least one more book, which would give them two additional years. It *might* work out...?

No way in hell are there four seasons' worth of material in the last two books. They split the third book in half because it's nonstop crazy bonkers events after crazy bonkers events. That momentum is... not maintained.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:53 AM on June 3, 2013 [8 favorites]

The thing that sucks about Game of Thrones is that you basically can't read any online 'uncontrolled' online commentary for risk of spoilers from the books.

I actually had a feeling just based on the name of the episode it was going to be depressing, then I saw this post and the words "Traumatized by tonight's episode..." I wasn't really in the mood for traumitization, so I held off a while.

Then, after watching it this morning I thought "Oh, I can read this thread now" then realized... okay actually I can't.
posted by delmoi at 8:01 AM on June 3, 2013

Yeah. The first three books cover around 20-24 month. The last two books cover around 4-6 month (the same six month just from different POVs). So the brakes have been put on that story something fierce. And I says this as someone who loves AFFC for all the character stuff.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 8:02 AM on June 3, 2013

I look forward to the story arc explaining the rich history, culture, and geography of Dorne.
posted by brain_drain at 8:04 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

No way in hell are there four seasons' worth of material in the last two books.

But there are at least three seasons worth of material for an utterly unwatchable, mind-numbingly dull Dornish spinoff.
posted by thivaia at 8:04 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Oh wait, no I don't.
posted by brain_drain at 8:04 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Some Debbie Downer thoughts:

The Red Wedding is the climax of the story that GRRM has written so far. As delicious as Ned getting his head cut off, as unexpected as the Red Wedding is, it doesn't build from there. Instead the books go into a long, often tedious sprawling unedited mess. Book 1 is like The Hobbit, full of childish excitement and adventure. Books 2 and 3 are Lord of the Rings, a bit slower, more stately, but full of nuance and some thrilling moments (Aieee! A Balrog!). So Books 4 and 5? They're the Silmarillion. Enjoy your tedious studies.

So if the HBO folks can't make the show more interesting than the books, then viewership is going to drop off. And if viewership drops off enough, they're going to stop making the show. Which would be a shame, because it's some good TV. But you don't spend $6M an episode unless it's working.

It's a shame that GRRM has moved to a level of fame where he no longer has an editor, like JK Rowling or Neil Stephenson. There's some delicious themes left in the story he's telling with Ice and Fire, particularly the growing power of magic, the malice of the undead, the dangers of dragonfire and red priestess magic. Also the pathetic squabbles of ordinary men in the face of a crushing environmental danger. It's a grand story, but it's lost in the weeds.
posted by Nelson at 8:05 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

The RW reignited my interest in the show. I've been bored because S3 seemed to involve a lot of moving people around Westeros, introducing more supernatural woo and fretting about House alliances, which all seemed like a lengthy exercise in setting up future story lines. I didn't see the RW coming, although I expected something just because S1 and S2 both used the penultimate episode for huge events: Ned's beheading and the sea battle. When Robb sought his mother's strategic advice (in the Risk board scene), however, I thought maybe he would stop being such an idiot and, especially with Arya poised for a reunion, the Starks might rise again next season, which would be a standard plot arc: wrong. Now I'm psyched for S4.
posted by carmicha at 8:05 AM on June 3, 2013

Good reading; Interview with GRRM on the Red Wedding and the impact the most recent episode is having on fans. "The Red Wedding is based on a couple real events from Scottish history." He cites the Massacre of Glencoe and the Black Dinner.
posted by Nelson at 8:07 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

I more or less agree with what Nelson says about books 4 and 5, but I will say that Dance with Dragons (book 5) is far, far better than A Feast For Crows (book 4). While DwD does not reach the heights of the first three, it renewed my interest in the plotlines after book 4 nearly extinguished them.

If I was HBO, I'd make two key tweaks to the storyline of the books: Somehow make the stuff with Danaerys move along, and maybe just skip the Ironborn. Salty pirates are just not that interesting.

Even if it's the rough equivalent of The Simirallion, there is still some great stuff to come.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:25 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I was way more bored by the Iron islands stuff than Dorne, myself.
posted by PMdixon at 8:33 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

On the other hand, is there any other precedent for an unresolved book series that was completed for the small screen?

If I recall correctly, the Hitchhiker's Guide series was more or less written at the same time as the radio plays and the TV series. Very different feel though and the sort of series that can handle a bit of continuity weirdness.
posted by Jilder at 8:41 AM on June 3, 2013

Both the Ironborn and the Dornish people might get more engaging if played by charismatic actors... I'm holding out hope.
posted by prefpara at 8:41 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think people overstate the case for books four and five being bad/boring. To the degree things don't move as fast that can be a major benefit to the TV show which has been a bit of a rush lately honestly. I think the Greyjoy stuff starts getting better. Cersei does a ton of interesting things. I think Theon's character arc in book five was among the highlights of the entire series so I am looking forward to that at least. And of course, we have yet to be introduced to the greatest character in the entire series, DARKSTAR.

If you merge the books together you can get at least two great seasons of TV out of it, four seasons may be a stretch though.

I expect the next book in the series to be out in time and be more like book three with crazy amounts of plotlines being resolved and a ton of "Oh shit!" moments. All the pieces are in place for it, so that might be another split. The book after that? I think HBO is gonna get ahead of him.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:42 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

For the small screen maybe not, but the best precedent for Game of Thrones is probably the Scott Pilgrim movie, where the script had to be done far in advance of the final volume of the comic, and the collaboration of the original author with a filmmaker who really "got it" produced a damn good final act.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:42 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

I remember reading something about that too, but I think it was a mefi comment about having read it somewhere instead of an actual source link.
posted by elizardbits at 8:46 AM on June 3, 2013

I look forward to the story arc explaining the rich history, culture, and geography of Dorne.

It's a land of contrasts.

Also, if they don't cast Naveen Andrews as Oberyn Martell I am going to be so annoyed.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:46 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I hear they're going to kill Catwoman.
posted by Decani at 8:50 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I guess I'm assuming we need precedent for an adaptation of a book series that will need to (a) finish filming before the final installment is written, and (b) deal with an author who is not nearly as good at scheduling as JK Rowling proved to be.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:58 AM on June 3, 2013

And of course, we have yet to be introduced to the greatest character in the entire series, DARKSTAR.

Please tell me that this person has a sidekick named "Bomnum Bertwenty" or something like that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:00 AM on June 3, 2013

Knowing that Martin has told HBO "how the series is going to end" doesn't make me feel that much better. I'm sure he gave them enough to go on in making a semi satisfying tv ending.

However I'm just as interested in how he ties together all the more minor characters and plots from the books, which I doubt he told HBO. So keep going George!
posted by meta87 at 9:28 AM on June 3, 2013

Andy Greenwald at Grantland: It's Like 'Rains' on Your Wedding Day:

And so from the moment the band switched from faithful covers of Now That's What I Call Lute, Volume 17 to a doomy version of "The Rains of Castamere" (which instantly jumps to the top of this list, right?), I suddenly felt chillier than a Wildling in a meat locker.

Much more serious and meaty commentary follows. Greenwald is writing some of the best reviews of GoT anywhere.
posted by maudlin at 9:29 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

According to what i've read -- no links, I'm beyond sleep deprived at the moment for reasons unrelated to GoT -- the 4th season covers a lot of the material in books 3, 4, and 5, and the 5th season covers the rest of books 4 and 5. There will only be 7 seasons of the show. Martin has stated that he expects Winds of Winter to be out in late 2014, which I will believe when it shows up on my Kindle.

The stated reason for the ridiculous delays for books 4 and 5 is that he couldn't figure out how to get Dany out of Meereen, so he shoved that out of book 3 and into book 4, and then shoved it out of book 4 by virtue of just not writing about her, and then had to figure it out for book 5. If that's true, then it makes sense that he could return to writing at a normal-slow pace.

I . . . think I heard this in the commentary to one of the Season 1 episodes on DVD? anyway, my understanding is that when these guys wanted to adapt GoT for HBO, part of their pitch to Martin was that they thought they knew who Jon Snow's mother was*. Martin was pleased enough with their answer to give them the gig. They shot the pilot, but part of the deal for picking up the whole season was that he give them an outline of the rest of the series, and committed to stiff financial penalties if he didn't have the books finished.

My expectation is that book 6 will drop in November 2014 or January 2015 (in between the shooting and airing of season 5), that Martin will work with the showrunners to write book 7 and season 7 simultaneously, and then he'll drop book 7 on the premiere date for season 7. That means 3 years for book 6, and 2 for book 7, which I admit is . . . a different pace than we're used to out of him.

I do believe he has a sense of where things are going, though. If you go waaaay back to the beginning of book 1, in Bran's first dream with the 3-eyed crow, read through Bran's whole vision that he has there. That gave me a lot of hope.

*memail me if you want to know my theory
posted by KathrynT at 9:32 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

my understanding is that when these guys wanted to adapt GoT for HBO, part of their pitch to Martin was that they thought they knew who Jon Snow's mother was*

If your theory is the accepted one (can a theory be a spoiler? if so, ALERT!), Jon Snow's mother and father are pretty much a given by this point.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:48 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Comment removed; we're not really going to police mefi discussions for spoilers in general but maybe be a little careful about just flatout dropping big character reveals from the next couple books in this context.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:53 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

5 Stages of Grief Following Last Night’s “Game Of Thrones" (from The Frisky)
posted by fuse theorem at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2013

Also, I think another interesting storyline for the next novel will be what happens with the rest of the North - the whole strength of Winterfell went south, but Winterfell was not the most prosperous or populous of parts in the Northlands. No, those are run by men who loved having a Good King, but were complete bastards themselves with deep pockets and a severe hate-on for everyone south of the Neck, a convenient goat to scape in the Dreadfort, and another Good King (YMMV) complete with Unstoppable Army right nearby...
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:05 AM on June 3, 2013

Probably feeling overly sensitive and liberal artsy today, but this seems pretty lame to take a really helpful campaign like It Gets Better, and piss all over it by associating it with the Firstest of first world problems, angst over a TV series (on a premium channel no less).

Oh well. Let the mockery commence. :)
posted by blackfly at 10:05 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Jon Snow's mother and father are pretty much a given by this point

Yeah, once you see it you can't unsee it.
posted by Justinian at 10:06 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

The moral of the story: Don't f*ck with Filch.

But, I did find this interview with George R.R. Martin oddly comforting.
posted by Leezie at 10:06 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I did not find this nearly as shocking as everyone else seems to have. Game of Thrones is bleak. Robb and Talisa were too excited about babies last episode ... something bad was going to happen.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:11 AM on June 3, 2013

Probably feeling overly sensitive and liberal artsy today, but this seems pretty lame to take a really helpful campaign like It Gets Better

I think you are feeling a little overly sensitive and liberal artsy today. It's humor, and it should be obvious that it's the angst over a TV series that's the punching bag, not It Gets Better.
posted by mcstayinskool at 10:16 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

On the other hand, is there any other precedent for an unresolved book series that was completed for the small screen?

This sort of thing is uber-common in manga/anime. The production schedules for comics vs cartoons and which got started first and what not means there's lots where one finishes way before the other. Sometimes they have very different conclusions, sometimes not, is my understanding.
posted by sparkletone at 10:18 AM on June 3, 2013

Theon knows how it all ends. The actor who played him shadowed GRRM for ages until the author finally told him what's going to happen. So we do have some hope of a definitive ending, no matter what else happens in the interim.

I always hated Catelyn Stark for being such a horrible mother. She spends weeks at Bran's bedside while he is in a coma and doesn't even know she is there, ignoring Rickon, her youngest, so much that her other kids give her hell for it, and then the moment Bran wakes up and is very nearly killed, she rushes off to warn Ned despite the fact that as far as she knows the people who tried to kill Bran are still hanging out in Winterfell. Then, when she comes back from Kimg's Landing, she goes not to Winterfell, where her youngest boys--one of them permanently paralyzed--are trying to get by with no parental supervision whatsoever--but first to the Aerie to vent her spleen on Tyrion, and then to make war beside her eldest child, Robb, who frankly would have fared a lot better without her meddling in his affairs.

Cat is the root of all evil, as far as I am concerned. She curses all who come into contact with her. No, really, just consider this timeline:

Ned didn't want to go to be the Hand in the books, but Catelyn forced him to, because her sister was upset about her own husband dying.

Cat makes Ned take not just Sansa, betrothed to Joffrey, but also Arya with him to King's Landing so that Arya can "learn to be a lady." Otherwise, Arya would have stayed in Winterfell and never seen her own father beheaded right in front of her eyes.

Ned wouldn't have trusted Littlefinger if Cat hadn't hidden in his brothel when she came to King's Landing, allowing Littlefinger to parley that advantage. His betrayal of Ned in the infamous Cersei vs Ned smackdown leads to Ned's beheading and starts the war.

Robb would never have been promised to a Frey girl at all if it weren't for Catelyn. She tells Robb to let her handle negotiations and comes back from meeting with Waldur Frey with Robb promised to one of Frey's daughters. The Freys, cunning Waldur aside, are a bunch of inbred idiots who couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. Take down old Waldur and that threat is pretty much null and void. Robb might have struck a much better bargain on his own, with a dire wolf and his sworn men by his side, than the one his mother struck. He could have just stabbed the eldest Frey through the heart and been done with the whole business.

Cat takes Tyrion prisoner. There's reason enough to hate her, right there.

Renly dies after Cat visits his camp and arranges the meeting with Stannis. That meeting is what pushes Stannis to the breaking point where he is ready to enlist Melissande's sorcery (before then, Remly was basically prancing around on pretty ponies and throwing tourneys for the adoring masses, hardly posing any real threat).

Cat was all for killing Tyrion--who had nothing at all to do with Ned's death--but lets Jaime, who has fought in actual battles against her eldest son, go free, despite having no reason to believe Tywin will trade her daughters for his son. Her action leads to dissension and rebellion among Robb's troops, making Robb look weak in front of his men.

She pushes for Robb to make amends with the Freys, assuring his presence at the Red Wedding. Personally, I would have opted toward an alliance with Stannis. Cat was the one who struck the deal with the Freys (without Robb even being present) in the first place. Had Robb simply sent Cat and Edmure in his place, Robb would still be alive, and, though weakened, might still have joined up with Stannis at least. Robb's father was always a Baratheon man and Ned saw Stannis as the rightful King of the Seven Kimgdoms, anyway.

Even Jon Snow chooses the Wall rather than his home at Winterfell largely because of Cat's constant cruelty to him (her sad little speech in the Tv show aside, she never spent a single moment even trying to be kind to Jon Snow in the books). In doing so and taking the Black, he is now not even eligible to become Lord of Winterfell, which he would have been if Robb had prevailed. Robb wants to make Jon Snow his heir, but Cat won't hear of it.
posted by misha at 10:18 AM on June 3, 2013 [30 favorites]

Now I don't particularly care if he does or not, because either way I know we'll get some kind of closure via the show.

It's going to be Ghost, The High Sparrow, Rhaegal, and a wilding playing poker. They'll all go all in, cut to thirty seconds of black, then roll credits in silence.
posted by eriko at 6:42 AM on June 3 [3 favorites +] [!]

Nice try eriko, but I think we all know what happens.. Tywin Lannister gets to the dining room before the rest of his family arrives, one by one. We see a guy in a members only jacket disappear into the restroom, then Tywin and Tyrion eat onion rings until Tywin looks up to see Cersei, who was having trouble parallel parking the carriage, walk in. CUT TO BLACK, cue fan rage.
posted by ben242 at 10:23 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

> "...seems pretty lame to take a really helpful campaign like It Gets Better, and piss all over it..."
> "Let the mockery commence. :)"

I think you might be misinterpreting the direction of the mockery.

The video isn't mocking the It's Get Better campaign.

It's mocking the hyperbole of fans getting so upset over the Red Wedding that they seem to need a suicide intervention campaign.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:33 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

This just in from my troll-like co-workers who enjoy torturing the people around them: the next phrase you're going to hear a lot of from incredibly smug book-readers who will refuse to elaborate is The Escape. Expect teh innerwebs to go almost as bonkers as today when it happens, what ever it is, to whoever it happens to.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:37 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

This just in from my troll-like co-workers who enjoy torturing the people around them: the next phrase you're going to hear a lot of from incredibly smug book-readers who will refuse to elaborate is The Escape.

I'm a book reader and I actually don't know what that is referring to. I mean, I have a guess, but it's not nearly as canonical as the Red Wedding.
posted by Ragged Richard at 10:40 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

"The Escape" = TL after PW? That's my best guess.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:42 AM on June 3, 2013

Yeah, that's my guess too. I guess my point is that "the escape" as a phrase is not nearly as much of a thing as "red wedding." Hell, even PW is never actually used in the books.
posted by Ragged Richard at 10:43 AM on June 3, 2013

Cat is the root of all evil, as far as I am concerned.

Eh, based solely on watching the series, I put much of the blame on Robert, who had no business being on the throne for more than two minutes.

Expect teh innerwebs to go almost as bonkers as today when it happens, what ever it is, to whoever it happens to.

Nah, there's still another small matter which I think the interwebs will freak out about.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:45 AM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Re: "The Escape" (if it is what I think it is)

I just hope they manage to work in the line. You know the one. About the stuff that comes out of the place.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:45 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Also, if they don't cast Naveen Andrews as Oberyn Martell I am going to be so annoyed.

Oded Fehr from The Mummy, please.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:47 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

A little incest and throwing Bran out the window way back when doesn't seem so bad compared to the Boltons and the Freys. Even Cersei doesn't seem quite so villainous anymore after the last book

I guess it's got to be a books vs TV thing, because I haven't forgiven Jamie even a little bit yet. Or Cersei for that matter. I have been cheering at every misfortune they've suffered on screen to date.
posted by Hoopo at 10:49 AM on June 3, 2013

At least something happened. I was getting sick of all these talking episodes.
posted by wcfields at 10:53 AM on June 3, 2013

If the drama around LOST is any indication, if our experience with Star Wars being resurrected can teach us, the fact that this series has no resolution is probably going to disappoint readers and fans much more than spoilers about red weddings, magic, and resurrections, etc.

On behalf of the rest of the book-readers, I welcome you at long last to Camp Disillusionment. Here's your bungalow assignment. Heavy drinking starts at noon, and after dinner we're having an open mic poetry slam. The theme, as always, is hope, death, eternity, putrefaction, things like that.
posted by fleacircus at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

You know what I think was most unbelievable about last night's episode?

Arya's eyebrows. They're perfectly shaped and plucked all of a sudden. What, did the Hound pull over to have them threaded or something?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2013 [8 favorites]

> "I guess it's got to be a books vs TV thing, because I haven't forgiven Jamie even a little bit yet."

I don't know if it's possible for them to do it on TV, since in the books it was mostly about getting inside Jaime's head via his POV chapters and learning about how Cersei has been manipulating him since they were children. He's a victim too, and might have turned out OK if not for her.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2013

Eh, based solely on watching the series, I put much of the blame on Robert, who had no business being on the throne for more than two minutes.

Robert was the quintessential great war leader who's a shitty administrator. Without him the Targaryens would almost certainly still be on the Iron Throne. But he was the leader of the rebellion so there was no way anybody else would end up as King once they won. Doomed from the start.

Ironically, if only Jaime weren't such an idiot (and hadn't joined the Kingsguard) Tywin could have just masterminded the whole thing openly, put a Lannister on the throne, and that would have been the end of it. But none of his kids were in a position even to be a figurehead. Small wonder he's so pissed off at them.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:55 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here are a couple of my predictions for the end of the series: Note that these aren't spoilers in and of themselves since they are guesses, but if you haven't read the books it will let you know who is still alive later on, sort of but not really.

1) Dany and Jon get married and restore the Targaryen dynasty.
2) Dorne forms Dany's major base of support for her invasion of Westeros.
3) Tyrion is hand of the king (again).
4) Rickon is Lord of Winterfell.
5) Dorne is boring as hell and nobody cares about these people.
6) Jaime kills Cersei.
posted by Justinian at 10:57 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

if only Jaime weren't such an idiot (and hadn't joined the Kingsguard)

Right, but wasn't that at least halfway due to the aforementioned manipulations of Cersei who couldn't bear the thought of him ever getting married and therefore fucking/having kids with someone who wasn't her?
posted by elizardbits at 10:58 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Also, you gotta give Jaime some points for killing the Mad King before the king burned the entire population of King's Landing to death.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Also Sansa should kill Littlefinger.
posted by elizardbits at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2013 [14 favorites]

I have no idea where Sansa's story is going.
posted by Justinian at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I guess even if he weren't dumb Cersei would still have hooks in his brain (but they would probably not be having actual twincest). That shit has got to be tough for anyone to grow up with.

He's still dumb, though.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:00 AM on June 3, 2013

She and Margaery should've offed Joffrey and been CoQueens.
posted by elizardbits at 11:00 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

And somebody better get eaten by a dragon or I'm going to have to write a strongly worded email of complaint.
posted by elizardbits at 11:01 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

I vote for Margaery to join up with Arya, jump shows and fight crime with Vastra and Jenny.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:03 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

1) Dany and Jon get married and restore the Targaryen dynasty.

I love Dany so much but I actually can't decide whether I even want a perfect happy heroic Dany ending. Like maybe that, but then as an epilogue she goes mad. That would be twisty.
posted by peep at 11:03 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

"The Escape" = TL after PW? That's my best guess.

"True Love after Paul Weller"? Which means Arya... is going to escape the Hound... after meeting PAUL WELLER? And then they FALL IN LOVE? OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS IS AWESOME
posted by scody at 11:06 AM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

And somebody better get eaten by a dragon or I'm going to have to write a strongly worded email of complaint.

Oh. Oh, my... if you were a minor character in one of the Wishmaster movies, you'd be done before the opening credits were even over, all I'm saying.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:07 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have no idea where Sansa's story is going.

Having not read the books (with zero intention to do so), I'm guessing she's slowly drawn into playing the political game. I doubt she'll care much about being a Stark as time goes on and more concerned with amassing power for herself.

And somebody better get eaten by a dragon or I'm going to have to write a strongly worded email of complaint.

I just want to see Arya extract some of her vengeance.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:09 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sansa turns into Cersei? That could be interesting.
posted by maudlin at 11:12 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

> "I just want to see Arya extract some of her vengeance."

I am still pissed that they cut this Arya scene from the show and instead had Jaqen H'ghar kill The Tickler for her. :(
posted by Jacqueline at 11:23 AM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Regarding HBO's stretching to show until GRRM's last couple books come out, couldn't they get some mileage by dipping into history? There is a ton about Robert's rebellion that hasn't come out on the show. And there are the Dunk & Egg stories.

I guess that some of the history might be difficult because the books still haven't revealed some of the key facts (Tower of Joy for example), but it seems like something could be done with it.
posted by torticat at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Here are a couple of my predictions for the end of the series:

I don't see how, for all the cynicism the show displays (I haven't read the books), it avoids a big obvious fantasy showdown without being completely unsatisfying. My read of the obvious trajectory:

- Winter comes
- White Walkers pour over the Wall, begin devouring the depleted Northlands
- Dany finally shows up with all 108 Suikoden stars on the south end of Westeros, finds them depleted & in disarray from all the infighting, begins chewing them up northwards
- the kingdom of Westeros takes this opportunity to fall apart entirely
- Stannis, if alive, recognizes Dany's claim because he is Stannis; also, the various Lord of Light followers fall in behind Dany because fire affinity something something
- big fuck-off fight in the middle of Westeros
- survivors pick up the pieces

Dany is apparently infertile, so maybe it could gear up towards some ominous succession war or something. Or it could end just prior to the big fuck-off fight, I suppose, Angel-style.
posted by furiousthought at 11:30 AM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Regarding HBO's stretching to show until GRRM's last couple books come out, couldn't they get some mileage by dipping into history?

Stories are supposed to end, not be stretched out.

Robert was the quintessential great war leader who's a shitty administrator.

Just curious for those who have read the books: On his deathbed, did Robert order everyone out of his room, except Ned, when writing the letter that named Ned as "king".

'Cause that was just beyond stupid. Not that it would have mattered in the end, but not even Hodur would have done that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:33 AM on June 3, 2013

And there are the Dunk & Egg stories.

These are great, btw. I just finished the third and last of them. They are relatively hard to come by and was reduced to reading them in eBook form (the horror). The stories are The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight. Compared to aSoIaF, they are pamphlet-sized, but weigh in about 80 pages or so a piece. They also do not follow the POV jumping that the big books do, but center on two main characters Dunk and Egg. Great backstory to Westeros, esp. with regards to the Targaryens.
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:34 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

I am still pissed that they cut this Arya scene from the show

Hopefully they will find a suitable replacement for Arya to do that to when they wrap up her season 3/4 storyline, because that was one of my absolute favorite moments in ASoS.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:34 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Theon knows how it all ends. The actor who played him shadowed GRRM for ages until the author finally told him what's going to happen.

GRRM didn't tell Alfie Allen the ending. He told him who Jon Snow's parents were. Supposedly... honestly it wouldn't surprise me at all if GRRM didn't give him the real story.
posted by torticat at 11:35 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

furiousthought, you forgot the other obvious part where Joffrey gets killed in every single episode going forward like an intensely satisfying version of Kenny from South Park.
posted by Hoopo at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

Stories are supposed to end, not be stretched out.

Normally, of course. But the whole problem here is that the ending might not be available when HBO wants it.

Personally I'd prefer that they stretch the show a bit rather than create an original HBO ending. Stretch it within limits, of course--if GRRM takes 11 years to get the next two books out, there's not a lot to be done about that.
posted by torticat at 11:39 AM on June 3, 2013

Robert's Rebellion would make an awesome feature-length movie.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:40 AM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

Dany is apparently infertile,

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind, like leaves."

posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:42 AM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Robert could have been a chapter in What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:42 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Regarding HBO's stretching to show until GRRM's last couple books come out, couldn't they get some mileage by dipping into history? There is a ton about Robert's rebellion that hasn't come out on the show. And there are the Dunk & Egg stories.

They can't do anything like this. All the actors are under contract. If they let those expire to wait for GRRM they would scatter to the winds and it would be impossible to get them all back together again.

No, they finish it straight through or they never finish it.
posted by Justinian at 11:43 AM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Personally I'd prefer that they stretch the show a bit rather than create an original HBO ending.

It would be great if they created an original HBO ending. The comparing and contrasting between whatever Martin finally does would be interesting from a story creation viewpoint.

Plus I suspect HBO would tell a tighter story, which I value highly.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:47 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

They shot the pilot, but part of the deal for picking up the whole season was that he give them an outline of the rest of the series, and committed to stiff financial penalties if he didn't have the books finished.

I think the exact wording of the terms is that the Iron Bank will have its due.
posted by ersatz at 11:47 AM on June 3, 2013 [9 favorites]

Dothraki vs. Frey weddings
posted by Jacqueline at 11:48 AM on June 3, 2013 [9 favorites]

What I find particularly interesting at this point in the story is that, as far as anyone in King's Landing (and pretty much most of Westeros) knows, Bran and Rickon are dead, making Sansa the default leader of the North. The marriage of Sansa, the head of the Starks by death right, to Tyrion effectively unites the two houses in the exact same way marrying her off to Joffrey would have. Which was the reasoning behind the marriage, of course.

BUT.

How messed up is all that, from Sansa's point of view? Tyrion has been nothing but respectful of her, unlike Joffrey, but still his family killed her Dad. Still, after some very practical advice from the much more savvy Margery, Sansa might have stopped whining about how horrible her fate was and settled down eventuallly.

Now though, once she hears about the Red Wedding!? Sansa the perfect lady can't even think about getting revenge on the conniving family who killed her own, since she's a Lannister now and part of that family too!

She may have been living in a fantasy world, but she didn't bring this on herself like she did with her silly schoolgirl, "I don't want someone Brave and Strong and Gentle, I want him!" Joffrey crush. I find her sulkiness annoying (probably because the actress is not really just 14 years old, and also because Dany handled far worse with much better grace), but I do feel sorry for her, caught up in this ugliness. She's been dealt a terrible hand, as has Arya, on the literal doorstep where her brother and all his followers were killed yet with no way to help any of them.

Also, Tyrion is basically King of the North now.

If you think that's going to get Tyrion the respect he deserves from anyone, though, you are watching the wriong show.
posted by misha at 11:53 AM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

The comparing and contrasting between whatever Martin finally does would be interesting from a story creation viewpoint.

Any ending the show puts out will be infinitely better than Martin's ending given that Martin's ending will likely never exist.
posted by Justinian at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Someone should make one of those "year in remembrance", "to those we lost" Academy Awards-type montages each season.
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2013 [10 favorites]

Agreed, 2bucksplus! They do that over on AMC with The Walking Dead, even for the zombies that have been extinguished in each episode.
posted by misha at 11:58 AM on June 3, 2013

I find her sulkiness annoying (probably because the actress is not really just 14 years old, and also because Dany handled far worse with much better grace), but I do feel sorry for her, caught up in this ugliness

I very much dislike book!Sansa for precisely this reason, and it annoys me up until whatever book has her up in the Eyrie. Show!Sansa is much more likeable, probably because of the lack of whiny internal monologues.
posted by elizardbits at 11:58 AM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Re: Ending predictions, I am basically 100% sure that no matter what else happens, as long as Martin actually does write Daenerys' return to Westeros, she will put King's Landing to the torch. Or dragon.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:00 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sansa has been shellshocked for 20 episodes straight. We could just about have a cardboard cutout on a roomba at this point.
posted by 2bucksplus at 12:00 PM on June 3, 2013 [26 favorites]

I guffawed at Sophie Turner's line about being 14 years old. Dragons, yeah. Ice zombies, sure. Sophie Turner as a 14 year old? Nope.
posted by Justinian at 12:02 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

We could just about have a cardboard cutout on a roomba at this point.

A VERY SPECIAL ACHEWOOD EPISODE OF GAME OF THRONES
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 12:40 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Re: Sophie Turner (b. 1996), here's a lovely nugget from her Wikipedia page:

After season one production ended on Game of Thrones, the Turner family adopted Zunni, the dog that played Sansa Stark's direwolf Lady in the show.
posted by carmicha at 12:43 PM on June 3, 2013 [19 favorites]

Dany has done better, but she has had some powerful allies who want to help her get what she want in life. What Sansa wants is more passive and naïve (if more attainable), but she sure hasn't had anyone killing her abusive life-wreckers and calling her "moon of my life". She's also hedged in on all sides by the most ruthless and powerful people in the land.

Though I think Sansa was lost from the beginning, when she tried to make the first power play of her life and got her wolf killed before she even got to King's Landing. She is Catelyn's daughter, after all.
posted by fleacircus at 12:48 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

...an utterly unwatchable, mind-numbingly dull Dornish spinoff

Arianne Loves Arys
posted by R. Schlock at 1:05 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Just curious for those who have read the books: On his deathbed, did Robert order everyone out of his room, except Ned, when writing the letter that named Ned as "king".

Admittedly I don't remember well enough to give you a straight answer, but the realistic answer is "who cares?" The people who could be in the room are Pycelle, Varys, Cersei, Littlefinger, Whitecloaks, etc. Who among them would care about what actually happened? Ned's got the letter, yes. Cersei knows about it, yes. What was needed was a proclamation that went out to the heads of various Houses, to the people, etc etc. Even that might not have been enough.
posted by Lemurrhea at 1:11 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's addressed very well in the first season in a conversation between Varys and Ned, isn't it? The one where Varys talks about a King, a Priest, and a rich Merchant each ordering a soldier to kill the other two. The King for duty, the priest for God, and the merchant for cold hard cash. Who has the power in that situation?

Varys' answer is the correct one; the man with the power is whomever the soldier believes has the power.
posted by Justinian at 1:15 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

furiousthought, you forgot the other obvious part where Joffrey gets killed in every single episode going forward like an intensely satisfying version of Kenny from South Park.

The Brotherhood Without Banners kidnaps Joffrey. Beric: "The Lord of Light has plans for you!" and does some lay-on-hands thingy. Subsequently: Joffrey loses swordfights to Arya every day for the rest of his lives.

Interlude: one day, Joffrey and Theon Greyjoy meet, look at each other, both think "damn. It really could be worse, I guess!"
posted by furiousthought at 1:27 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

...an utterly unwatchable, mind-numbingly dull Dornish spinoff

Arianne Loves Arys

No way - the Sand Snakes pretty much map perfectly to the "Fox Force Five" show Mia Wallace did a pilot for in Pulp Fiction. Dornish crime fighting! Every episode ends with them drinking a fine bottle of Dornish Red.
posted by LionIndex at 1:30 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

They should just make all the Dorne stuff a series of low-budget webisodes, and let the people behind Metalocalypse turn the Ironborn storyline into an animated series.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:35 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Hitler Finds Out About the Red Wedding
posted by Jacqueline at 1:47 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

More: Fans react to Game of Thrones' most shocking event

"It's a nice day for a Red Wedding."
posted by homunculus at 1:59 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Of all the reaction videos, this one made me cry harder than watching the actual episode did. (Even though I knew what to expect for Robb and Cat, Grey Wind's whimper and then his face on the ground still broke my heart.)
posted by Jacqueline at 2:06 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

If there was ever a time to subvert that damn "Downfall" meme, this would be it. I mean, leading people to their slaughter through promises of safety and hospitality? Where's a .gif of Hitler taking notes?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:07 PM on June 3, 2013

Reactions compilation.
posted by waraw at 2:14 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Any like this?
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:17 PM on June 3, 2013

Any like this?

Actually yes: at 1:10 in the video I just put up, the girl in the middle is a reader who cracks a grin when everybody else is freaking.
posted by waraw at 2:26 PM on June 3, 2013

Kindle to the rescue:

“For the feast,” Robert whispered. “Now leave us. The lot of you. I need to speak with Ned.”

"The lot' includes Pycelle, Cersei, Renly and some others.

Dumbest. King. Ever.
posted by Frayed Knot at 2:27 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Great use of music in that episode, BTW. As soon as that song played you knew they were fucked.
posted by Artw at 2:28 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

And then the silent credits while you sit and think about what you just saw.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:39 PM on June 3, 2013

It's a bittersweet relief having the Red Wedding secret be finally out there. Finally! We don't have to avoid any mention or speculation about what happens to Robb Stark any more! You know what we book readers know! (well... not ALL of it yet....) It's been a very weird 3 years, knowing that would happen eventually. Thing is, I'm not sure it's quite such a big thing for TV show viewers as it was for book readers.

It was a complete surprise for my wife, in the end. Though she thought something bad was up when they shut the doors. When we talked after, she figured they were going to kill Edmure, and Reese Bolton had come prepared for a fight to protect Robb Stark. In the end though, though she grabbed my hand when Talisa got stabbed, she wasn't that upset by what happened. She'd never really connected with Robb or Catelyn - and she'd borne my advice early on in mind that nobody was safe... As a reader, I did really connect with both of them, I think partly because they were such key POV characters in the books - they were Ned's family, people we were rooting for because they weren't machiavellian monsters like the Lannisters.

So in the end, keeping quiet about the Red Wedding for so long had a much bigger effect on me, than actually seeing it happen did on her. If anything, Jaime losing his hand was a bigger shock.

She will get very upset if anything happens to Arya, Tyrion, Dany or Ygritte, apparently, as she's much more attached to them. She also wants to know that something very slow, very painful and very fatal happens to Joffrey.

I've told her nothing, but keeping schtum is HARD WORK, you TV-only people. Seriously, we're not close to done with the surprises yet, and we have had to wait so long between reveals...

But I am glad the Red Wedding was still a secret to so many in these days of internet spoilers. Something like that deserves to be experienced fresh, and will likely go down as a famous moment of TV - "Where were you when you saw the Red Wedding?"

Now welcome to the disillusionment that follows the realisation that really, nobody at all is safe from GRR Martin. We understand. We've been waiting for you. Have a glass of wine.
posted by ArkhanJG at 2:59 PM on June 3, 2013 [9 favorites]

And then the silent credits while you sit and think about what you just saw.

Well, mainly I thought about Adric and Earthshock, but yeah.
posted by Artw at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

Just curious for those who have read the books: On his deathbed, did Robert order everyone out of his room, except Ned, when writing the letter that named Ned as "king".

Admittedly I don't remember well enough to give you a straight answer, but the realistic answer is "who cares?" The people who could be in the room are Pycelle, Varys, Cersei, Littlefinger, Whitecloaks, etc. Who among them would care about what actually happened? Ned's got the letter, yes. Cersei knows about it, yes. What was needed was a proclamation that went out to the heads of various Houses, to the people, etc etc. Even that might not have been enough.

When you ask who cares, presumably King Robert would. On one hand it's an illustration of how dull whited and blind he'd become, believing what he said or wanted would matter after his death. It's an astonishingly idiotic action, to dismiss everyone and thentell Ned what his wishes were.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2013

Ned lies to him anyways. Robert says Ned is to be regent for Joffrey, but Ned writes something like "my trueborn son" instead.

Ned should have told Robert the truth about the kid's parentage, in public. Not only is it smart, but it would have made Robert happy. He couldn't stand Joffrey either.
posted by BeeDo at 3:13 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Well, there'd be the required murdering that followed that...
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on June 3, 2013

Murdering is Robert's second favorite thing ever, after Duck Dodgers.
posted by BeeDo at 3:25 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

But Ned would be very huffy about it.
posted by Artw at 3:28 PM on June 3, 2013

True. Someone should make a virtual pet game called "Virtual Stark". It feeds and waters itself, but you have to constantly watch it or it makes the dumbest possible decisions...
posted by BeeDo at 3:32 PM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

The truth being known, would everyone have drawn on Cersei? Would Lannister power have cowed everyone in the room? What would Cersei's counterplay have been? I wish the narration had clarified why Ned didn't just tell everyone what he knew.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:32 PM on June 3, 2013

Ned knew that if he told everyone what he knew, Robert would have not only killed Cersei and Jaime but their children as well. And while Joffrey is a dick, Myrcella and Tommen are just innocent little kids.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2013

In the books, it's because he thinks he is being merciful to Cersei and her children by giving them the heads up so they can flee the city before the hammer of justice falls.

because Ned Stark is a giant fucking doofus.
posted by KathrynT at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

And while Joffrey is a dick, Myrcella and Tommen are just innocent little kids.

Bah, mostly offscreen characters aren't *people*.
posted by Artw at 3:40 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I wish the narration had clarified why Ned didn't just tell everyone what he knew.

Because he was a stupid, honourable sod. He wanted to give Cersei time to run with her children, as he believed Robert would kill her and the children. He gave her until Robert got back from hunting in the show, IIRC, in their confrontation in the gardens.

By the time he realised his mistake (of trusting littlefinger and the goldcloaks to back him up when Robert was dead) it was too late. By keeping silent, he thought he would save his girls from the Lannisters, especially Cersei. Oops.
posted by ArkhanJG at 3:41 PM on June 3, 2013

Riiiiight. Forgot for a second that Ned was Ned and that Robert would have killed all the kids.

Even though discussion above my comment had established all that.

Never mind.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:41 PM on June 3, 2013

Have a glass of wine.

I've heard it dulls the senses.
posted by homunculus at 3:55 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Riiiiight. Forgot for a second that Ned was Ned

As far as some of the far future speculation, story line wise, going on upthread is concerned: I think many people forget how much you could've counted on Ned being Ned at all times that Ned was Ned.
posted by coolxcool=rad at 3:57 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

I think Ned being such a guileless, sentimental sod is one of the main points of the book: that the honor of the nobility doesn't really mean that much. It's also why I think the series inevitably has to end in a successful peasants rebellion instead of any single entity sitting on any single throne. The 'noble' noble who rules his peasants benevolently is a dying fiction in Westeros, with both Ned and Rob being the last two of a kind.

But here I am making fun of Ned's gullibility while simultaneously positing an actual end for the story.
posted by codacorolla at 3:58 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

> "...the series inevitably has to end in a successful peasants rebellion..."

TEAM SMALLFOLK REPRESENT!
posted by Jacqueline at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I dream of a free Westeros ruled by its indigenous ice zombie population.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:09 PM on June 3, 2013 [13 favorites]

I dream of a free Westeros ruled by its indigenous ice zombie population.

What if in the final chapter of the final book, we find out that the ice zombies melt in the hot southern climate of King's Landing and it's like Signs all over again. What. If.
posted by prefpara at 4:10 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I would also be happy with that big honking meteor smashing in to the planet and ending all life altogether like a quarter way through the next book with the remain 500 pages just being a flipbook of GRRM slowly extending his middle finger at the reader.
posted by codacorolla at 4:14 PM on June 3, 2013 [8 favorites]

What. If.

Also one of the dragons malfunctions and Dany has to go into its radioactive core to stop it from blowing up and killing Jon and Tyrion and it looks like she dies but Maester Sam synthesizes a serum made from Beric Dondarrion's blood and she comes back to life!!!
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:21 PM on June 3, 2013 [12 favorites]

In Westeros, a successful peasants' rebellion would only collapse on itself. If you think this has a happy ending, people.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:21 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Every time someone goes on about who is who in the line of succession or heir to what, my husband starts yelling at the screen "Have any of you possibly given any thought to switching to a representative goddam democracy?!"
posted by KathrynT at 4:23 PM on June 3, 2013 [13 favorites]

Vote for Joff or Your Head's Off
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:26 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Vote for Ned: Better Dead than Led by Red

(Lannisters wear crimson, right?)
posted by BeeDo at 4:29 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I Like Pyke
posted by fleacircus at 4:29 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Tippecanoe and Tywin Too
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:31 PM on June 3, 2013 [16 favorites]

Loras Is For Us
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:32 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Be a dearie and love the Aerie
posted by BeeDo at 4:32 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's Morning in Westeros

A Head on Every Pike!
posted by scody at 4:34 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Bolton party.
posted by Kinbote at 4:34 PM on June 3, 2013 [9 favorites]

King Rob Does the Job
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:34 PM on June 3, 2013

The reaction videos are pretty funny, if only because I was probably reacting pretty similarly to them. I know my bf (who I don't think knew what was going to happen, and I know has not read the books) was laughing hysterically at me while it all went down.

But at the end of the day, I guess also: they killed Ned and that shocked me more, but it also meant that I knew that I could trust nothing and no one that they presented to me in the course of the rest of the show. And what I also guess I realized then is that this is the kind of TV I LIKE which is to say it's the kind that makes absolutely brutal decisions and sticks with them. In the world of Westeros Robb Stark is a born loser in the Game of Thrones. He never stood a chance and I knew that, though I thought he'd get himself disemboweled on a battlefield somewhere. And he deserved to die.

Westeros is a brutal place. To SURVIVE at all its clear that one has to be lucky and clever and a little bit ruthless. But you can't sign up to play the Game of Thrones and win it if you're Robb Stark, raised as the privileged first-born son of a noble (in both senses of the word) family. Robb would have been a great ruler of a throne he inherited, but was never a rebel leader of any merit. And if you play the game you either win or you die. So I'm actually glad he's dead so we can focus on some real contenders, some true gamers.
posted by marylynn at 4:36 PM on June 3, 2013

Keep Calm and Tyrion
posted by fleacircus at 4:36 PM on June 3, 2013 [39 favorites]

Better Red than Wed.
posted by Kinbote at 4:37 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

A Return To Necromancy

(neckromancy?)
posted by fleacircus at 4:38 PM on June 3, 2013

Vote Restoration. Vote Freedom. Vote Targaryen.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:39 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa? He's Also Your Uncle, Ha Ha Ha
posted by scody at 4:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [27 favorites]

Warriors, come out and flay-yay...
posted by Kinbote at 4:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Do you want tyranny - or Tyrell?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hot pies for everyone! Hot Pie is For You!
posted by Ghidorah at 4:43 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Pick Beric

The Night Is Dark And Full Of Terrors, Especially If You Don't Vote Melisandre
posted by furiousthought at 4:47 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

The Brotherhood Without Banners might tell you you can trust them - but a band of marauders sacked and put to the torch a village full of ordinary people just like you. Did they have banners? They didn't even wear colors.

You have the facts. Vote safety. Vote Clegane.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:49 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Ros for Boss
posted by Drinky Die at 4:50 PM on June 3, 2013

Don't swap kittens in the middle of the stream. Vote Tommen.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 4:50 PM on June 3, 2013 [12 favorites]

HODOR
posted by fleacircus at 4:52 PM on June 3, 2013 [22 favorites]

HODOR HODOR HODOR.
posted by ArkhanJG at 4:53 PM on June 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

Vote for the lesser of two fingers.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:03 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Hey, hey Waldor Frey! How many kids did you kill today?
posted by carmicha at 5:05 PM on June 3, 2013 [9 favorites]

Oh man I would so watch a sketch where Hodor is running for political office and has to debate someone. Ideally it should be someone super quick-witted like Littlefinger or Varys. And Hodor wins.
posted by Sara C. at 5:05 PM on June 3, 2013 [12 favorites]

Just like Toronto.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:05 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

HODOR
posted by fleacircus 19 minutes ago [5 favorites −]

In stark blue and grey, painted by Shepard Fairey
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:13 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Just like Toronto.

Did you just compare the sweetest, most wonderful half giant to Rob Ford? Shit like that could get a man flayed.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:19 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just watched it with my husband (I saw it last night but he doesn't like to stay up late so I always watch it a second time with him) and shortly after the Rains of Castamere began playing he asked me, "Why are you watching me instead of the show?" :D
posted by Jacqueline at 5:37 PM on June 3, 2013 [14 favorites]

(Personally I'd prefer that they stretch the show a bit rather than create an original HBO ending.)

It would be great if they created an original HBO ending. The comparing and contrasting between whatever Martin finally does would be interesting from a story creation viewpoint.

Plus I suspect HBO would tell a tighter story, which I value highly.

If television was a democracy I would vote for this. GRRM is a genius at setting things in motion, but the plotting for the last few books was starting to get kinda sloppy. It seemed to be turning into a series of random events. I would be totally okay with HBO scriptwriters taking on the daunting burden of wrapping up all of the story-lines. They would probably do a better job.

But to GRRM's credit, the 5th book has some swell dialogue and hilarious humour, and we do want to hear some of it.
posted by ovvl at 5:39 PM on June 3, 2013

In stark blue and grey, painted by Shepard Fairey

HODOR
posted by saturday_morning at 5:47 PM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

> "Keep Calm and Tyrion"

This needs to be on a shirt.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:50 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh Shit, I Totally Forgot That Happens!, George R.R. Martin, The Onion, 03 June 2013

At any rate, holy shit! I almost don’t want to see what I do next week. All I know is Tyrion better not get killed, because if he dies I’m done with this show, man. Done.

posted by ob1quixote at 5:52 PM on June 3, 2013 [8 favorites]

I guffawed at Sophie Turner's line about being 14 years old. Dragons, yeah. Ice zombies, sure. Sophie Turner as a 14 year old? Nope.

I agree that Turner doesn't quite look 14, but Wikipedia has her down as being currently 17 years old (born 21 February 1996). Assuming the Tyrion/Sansa wedding was filmed sometime late last year, she would've only been 16 at the time, which isn't too much of a stretch.

I think the reason she looks a bit older is because she's somewhat taller than average and we only see her in fancy medieval clothes and hairstyles. It's the same reason your grandparents look like they're 35 years old in their high school photos: They're wearing fashions that we associate with older people.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:52 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I remember reading the Red Wedding at about 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning and then I curled up on the sofa an sobbed for an hour. The only other book I recall ever having made me this upset was when I read "Where the Red Fern Grows" in the Fifth Grade.
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:54 PM on June 3, 2013

BENJEN STARK: In Your Heart, You Know He's A Wight.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:55 PM on June 3, 2013 [14 favorites]

Shaggydog: Mange We Can Believe In
posted by Dr. Zira at 5:57 PM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

Can we restore a dynasty of incestuous aryan dragonriders? YES WE CAN
posted by brain_drain at 6:04 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

What do we say to the opposition party? NOT TODAY.

Vote Bravosi, Vote Syrio.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:06 PM on June 3, 2013 [11 favorites]

I remember reading the Red Wedding at about 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning and then I curled up on the sofa an sobbed for an hour.

Ugh, yes. It was a total suckerpunch, on several levels. As a Heathen, I took Frey's violation of the laws of Hospitality profoundly personally. I spent days after reading that chapter alternating between sobbingly depressed and viciously pissed.

This past Christmas, Younger Monster's bestie got a Kindle, so I got him all five books to date, and he devoured them rapidly. He also read the Red Wedding at some ungodly hour, and called me immediately after, sobbing his 17 year-old heart out in utter betrayal. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaa! I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

He brought his girlfriend over to watch with us last night. She's not speaking to any of us at the moment.
posted by MissySedai at 6:20 PM on June 3, 2013 [19 favorites]

she would've only been 16 at the time, which isn't too much of a stretch.

Filming wrapped in February so Turner was essentially 17. I do realize that 3 years isn't a huge stretch, but there is a major difference in appearance between a 22 year old playing a 19 year old and a really tall 17 year old playing 14. I'm not saying they could have done anything differently and if you've seen Turner's audition tape she looks really young. It just so happens that she grew way the hell up in the last 2 years.

Not a criticism; I just find it funny that was what broke my suspension of disbelief. Rather than the, you know, dragons and zombies.

Also Bran's incipient 'stache, as I've mentioned before.
posted by Justinian at 6:21 PM on June 3, 2013

> "Keep Calm and Tyrion"

This needs to be on a shirt.

I hereby suspend my hatred of the Keep Benedict and Cumberbatch On meme specifically in the case of this t-shirt.
posted by Sara C. at 6:24 PM on June 3, 2013

I wore this jersey all day and people just glared at me! Doesn't anyone like the Bolton Wanderers? They're a good loyal team!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:25 PM on June 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

> "Keep Calm and Tyrion"

This needs to be on a shirt.

I was given a GoT shirt, but felt I had to make an important modification.
posted by waraw at 6:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I haven't read the books and don't plan to, but - seriously, the internet didn't see that coming?

I mean, they did everything shy of having a dude next to Robb take out a picture of his girl back home and then mention that he's only a few days from retirement. I am stunned that there was anyone who saw the scene where Robb and his wife are having tender naked moments (where she tells him she's pregnant) and thought, "Yeah, they'll be fine."
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:48 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

I didn't read the books...did read the wiki so I knew this was coming...I would like to read the RW as it was written. My husband has the books.....can anyone give me an approximate page number where the RW starts? Save me lots of thumbing and paper cuts. Thanks.
posted by pearlybob at 6:54 PM on June 3, 2013

It's ASOS Chapter 51 (Catelyn VII). Exact page numbers for English language editions can be found here.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:00 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Maisie Williams is taking it well.
posted by homunculus at 7:03 PM on June 3, 2013 [16 favorites]

Is that her attempt at a Southern accent? Because English people seem incapable of decent southern accents. Southern USA I mean.
posted by Justinian at 7:07 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Arya as Tiny Tina...
posted by the_artificer at 7:08 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am stunned that there was anyone who saw the scene where Robb and his wife are having tender naked moments (where she tells him she's pregnant) and thought, "Yeah, they'll be fine."

Oh, I totally assumed Robb and Charlie Chaplin's Granddaughter were doomed. I just figured he'd get killed in battle, possibly by Jaime with a regrown sword hand.
posted by scody at 7:11 PM on June 3, 2013

Is that her attempt at a Southern accent? Because English people seem incapable of decent southern accents. Southern USA I mean.

Inverted Dinklage Syndrome.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:13 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I LEND MY HAND TO JAIME LANNISTER
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:40 PM on June 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

Probably feeling overly sensitive and liberal artsy today, but this seems pretty lame to take a really helpful campaign like It Gets Better

It's good for us to stop and think about this a little, because it means we have a conscience. Just as it's good that we have friends to give us perspective. That's why we're a community, right?
posted by ogooglebar at 8:18 PM on June 3, 2013

BRON CARES
posted by Artw at 8:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Joffrey. Now More Than Ever.
posted by ogooglebar at 8:42 PM on June 3, 2013

arrg, I just read the second last chapter of Dance with Dragons this morning, so I'm in a whole different pot of fuck you GRRM today.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 9:04 PM on June 3, 2013

An acquaintance on a social network made an Office finale/Red Wedding joke, and I had the following response some of you might enjoy:

OH GOD. THE FREYS ARE THE SCHRUTES OF WESTEROS. This will never leave my brain. Now imagine the apology scene with Walder/Dwight saying insane Schrute-isms instead of creepy sexual comments. The Red Wedding is his revenge for years and years of House Halpert pranks.
posted by sparkletone at 9:27 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

5_13_23_42_69_666: I dunno, I tend to compare that chapter (it is the one I'm thinking of, right?) to, coincidentally enough, Arya's chapter end around the Red Wedding.
posted by PMdixon at 9:36 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

No, I think what appeared to happen clearly happened. But then something else will happen similar, coincidentally enough, to something we saw happen in "The Rains of Castamere".

Is that vague enough?
posted by Justinian at 10:28 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

***********************

HEY HEY HERE BE SPOILERS!!

***********************

Sorry I just need to discuss with the community and all...

1. I don't get the hatred for Dorne and I think it'll play very well on screen. And maybe I'll finally understand what the hell went down in that Myrcella scene.

2. A Feast for Crows ain't bad at all if you read it understanding that it's mostly about Cersei's rule (and knowing that you won't be touching on Dany, Tyrion or Jon at all...) Hell, in a certain light it's practically got a happy ending! Still...

3. HBO will absolutely 100% be combining books 4 and 5 for broadcast, because the actors are under contract, it makes better cinematic story sense, Maise Williams and Sophie Turner and Issac Hempstead-Wright are all rapidly aging, and they've already peppered in stuff from Book Five into this season covering the first half of Book Three, simply to give Alfie Allen something to do. Even if those books pissed you off they will play much better on screen.

4. If you claim ASoS went limp after the Red Wedding then you read a different book than I did entirely. The Red Wedding kicks off everything you remember about that book after a first half that included nothing of note aside from Astapor.

5. HBO series have a habit which at this point is basically convention of using the penultimate episode for the climax and then the season finale for the denoument. (This is obvious in GoT, but was very clear in The Wire as well, and could be seen in it's incipient stages in The Sopranos. Given that, how excellent would it be if they subverted all of that and had Joffrey and Margaery's wedding happen in S3E10? Like, this coming week. Tyrion has had very little to do this season, let him end it awaiting trial.

6. I'm serious. I know it will almost certainly not happen, but after the reaction to this episode, beginning the finale (as it probably will) with the nightmare-fuel image of Grey Wind's head sewn onto Robb's corpse will upset everyone anew, then they'd get the moment they've been waiting for for three seasons, and then their favorite character will be innocently jailed for it at the very end. TOTAL ROLLERCOASTER!

7. As to that rumor about the actress who did a lot of nude scenes in Season 1 and then didn't want to do them anymore, I'd like to imagine that was indeed Emelia Clarke, who agreed to do them again this season as a private "fuck you" to her boyfriend for his insipid "We Saw Your Boobs" shit at the Oscars.

********************

NO MORE SPOILERS HERE!

********************
posted by Navelgazer at 10:38 PM on June 3, 2013 [7 favorites]

I LIKE PODRICK
posted by homunculus at 10:47 PM on June 3, 2013

So do the ladies!
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:49 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

RAMSAY BOLTON: HOPE AND FEAR
posted by Navelgazer at 10:50 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, and by this point I basically see the only possible end being Westeros laid to waste by the combination of Dany and the White Walkers, and slowly resettled by the Free Folk, because the whole series has kind of set up that no end which continues any respect for blood could possibly be satisfying, but I guess there's a way open for Dany and Jon (and Tyrion?) to set that precedent as well. It's just an odd one.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:54 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

who agreed to do them again this season as a private "fuck you" to her boyfriend for his insipid "We Saw Your Boobs" shit at the Oscars

Well, they did break up shortly after the Oscars.
posted by Justinian at 10:57 PM on June 3, 2013

I hate myself for knowing this.
posted by Justinian at 10:57 PM on June 3, 2013 [11 favorites]

Oh, and by this point I basically see the only possible end being Westeros laid to waste by the combination of Dany and the White Walkers, and slowly resettled by the Free Folk, because the whole series has kind of set up that no end which continues any respect for blood could possibly be satisfying, but I guess there's a way open for Dany and Jon (and Tyrion?) to set that precedent as well. It's just an odd one.

I've seen an interesting theory that paints Petyr Baelish as a radical driven by loathing of Westerosi society who is trying to destroy the ability of Westeros to defend itself against the winter.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:03 PM on June 3, 2013

Well he's doing a damn fine job of it.
posted by merelyglib at 11:09 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Is that her attempt at a Southern accent? Because English people seem incapable of decent southern accents. Southern USA I mean.

I think she was joking, but I'd posit that the actual issue is that people from the southern Unites States will always insist that a southern accent is being done poorly, even when it is actually an Austrian doing his native Austrian accent.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:11 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

>>"Keep Calm and Tyrion"

>This needs to be on a shirt.

By your will. Not yet on a shirt, but ready for print.

I'd like to also give a callout to Michelle Fairley as Catelyn. Perhaps because she played her role so stoic and cold throughout the series, I found her face utterly transformed by grief and desperation in the final act of the Red Wedding... to the point of appearing to be another person.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:24 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Is that her attempt at a Southern accent? Because English people seem incapable of decent southern accents. Southern USA I mean.

That's our joke Southern/Hillbilly accent we use for a laugh. It's meant to be bad. Admittedly, it's the only Southern accent a lot of english people can do.

On the other hand, christ, there's a lot of bad attempts at a british accent. We're not all born with a poker up our arse, contrary to popular belief. I'm not sure what accent Dinklage is trying for in the show (it seems to vary!), but he's not hitting it.

We love him anyway.
posted by ArkhanJG at 11:28 PM on June 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

The 100+ Best Tweets about last night's Game of Thrones, Rob Bricken, io9, 03 June 2013

6 Minutes of People Losing Their Shit Over Last Night's Game of Thrones, Neetzan Zimmerman, Gawker, 03 June 2013
posted by ob1quixote at 11:42 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

but I'd posit that the actual issue is that people from the southern Unites States will always insist that a southern accent is being done poorly

But... I'm from Los Angeles...
posted by Justinian at 11:47 PM on June 3, 2013

YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, HARRY?! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK ARGUS FILCH IN THE ASS!
posted by Navelgazer at 11:48 PM on June 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Maisie Williams is taking it well.

Note the entirely too appropriate "SHIT HAPPENS" magnet behind her.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:58 PM on June 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

That's our joke Southern/Hillbilly accent we use for a laugh. It's meant to be bad. Admittedly, it's the only Southern accent a lot of english people can do.

To be fair, most Americans do one generic "English" accent, even though there are lots of accents in England.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:01 AM on June 4, 2013

Caitlin Kelly on twittter:

Somewhere, there's a couple all of a sudden reconsidering their Game of Thrones-themed wedding.

posted by ArkhanJG at 12:05 AM on June 4, 2013 [13 favorites]

Heh. I got spam from the HBO shop a week or two ago asking me to "toast Tyrion and Sansa with these new glasses..." Womdering what we might see this week.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:07 AM on June 4, 2013

a few Keep Calm and Tyrion shirts exist.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:12 AM on June 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

The 100+ Best Tweets about last night's Game of Thrones

Featuring cortex!

Also this, which is gold:

Why doesn't George R.R. Martin use twitter? Because he killed all 140 characters. #gameofthrones

— Carlos Adrianzen (@ingloriousClos) June 3, 2013

posted by davidjmcgee at 12:31 AM on June 4, 2013 [10 favorites]

PMdixon and Justinian - I actually had a different theory about how that will play out, but it still angers me. even though I totally saw it coming.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:55 AM on June 4, 2013

One of the tweets in the io9 link pretends that Smash Mouth's "All Star" played over the credits. Dying of laughter.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:16 AM on June 4, 2013 [7 favorites]

Inverted Dinklage Syndrome.

Don't make light of IDS. There are literally dozens of us!
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:39 AM on June 4, 2013

I'm not sure what accent Dinklage is trying for in the show (it seems to vary!), but he's not hitting it.

I thought as you did, but then I read this very interesting comment by Len relating Dinklage's accent to the accent of Scottish actor Richard Wilson (of One Foot in the Grave). Regardless of whether or not Dinklage's accent is actually aiming to emulate Wilson, it let me make peace with what's coming out of his mouth as a possible accent, even if it seems to be an unlikely one.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:58 AM on June 4, 2013

Thanks for that link, ocherdraco, if only for this relevent comment from Justinian.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:04 AM on June 4, 2013

Actually, that whole thread is hilarious to read after the fact.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:16 AM on June 4, 2013

The Rad Wedding.
posted by rewil at 9:39 AM on June 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

I can live with members of the same family having different accents (i.e. WTF is going on with the Barratheons*?) as I'm not that much of a pedant, and some of the child actors variety from their parents is fair enough. So Dinklage can get away with not matching the RP accent of the Lannisters, as sported by natives Charles Dance and Lena Headey.

I can kinda see the Wilson now you mention it, but it's not thaaat close, and definitely wanders off and gets mugged a lot. Bless 'im.

Wilson discussing 'Merlin'

Best of Tyrion, season 1

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau definitely deserves props for his RP though, I was floored when I heard his native Danish(?) accent. And Rose Arbuthnot-Leslie is impressive when she switches from her normal RADA RP into Hulloh, you knuh nuhthing John Snuoh pretty accurate northern in interviews.

*it might seem unimportant to any but a super-nerd, but to a brit watching GoT, it can be like if different members of the same close family in an american show had texan, minnesotan and brooklyn accents.
posted by ArkhanJG at 10:43 AM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Stark accents are fairly easy to explain. Robb has the same Northerner accent as his father given he is the heir and they spend so much time together. The girls have a more southerner accent because they are mostly educated by tutors and such and spend more time with their mother. Plus Sansa probably spoke like that on purpose given her fascination with the court and such.
posted by Justinian at 10:52 AM on June 4, 2013

Oh, the Starks are generally fine as northerners - as you say, the girls spent a lot more time with their mother, who's a southerner Tully (played by an irish actress!). And I'm not going to criticise teenagers for accents anyway, it's a tough enough job as an actor at that age as it is, especially in something so high profile.

But Stannis, Renly and Robert Baratheon? Sheesh. The vale seems to be a broad house when it comes to accents too.
posted by ArkhanJG at 10:57 AM on June 4, 2013

I only got into this series this year, but man it is doing nothing to calm down my Crusader Kings II addiction.

In one game, I fought a war to depose an infant king (whose brother had been murdered by his own spymaster) in favor of his uncle, off to whose daughter I had married my son. I then ensured that all of his sons died in infancy. This meant that my grandson became king of Scotland upon his mother's death at the hands of "highwaymen."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:16 AM on June 4, 2013

I only got into this series this year, but man it is doing nothing to calm down my Crusader Kings II addiction.

I haven't played a computer game in a decade, but I kinda want to buy CKII purely so I can get the free Game of Thrones mod for it. (Then I would fight to make the Beesburys the kings of the realm just for funsies.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:18 AM on June 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have a much different accent than either of my parents or my one sister. My dad had a rural Pennsylvania accent with bits of Welsh from growing up in a mining town full of recent immigrants and my mom had a thick Bronx accent from her childhood in Riverdale. But unless you hear me say the word "water" (wudda), I have a standard Brady Bunch American accent. My younger sister sounds like me but my older sister has a much more pronounced New Jersey accent since she never left the state.

It wasn't that uncommon in Europe for the royal wife to not even speak the local language very well since she hadn't actually grown up there. And tutors were often brought in from other countries to teach the children. So different royal children might have picked up different accents based on how much they'd bonded with their father, mother or private tutor.
posted by octothorpe at 11:27 AM on June 4, 2013

The AV Club: Why Game Of Thrones’ Red Wedding packs such an emotional impact
posted by scody at 11:34 AM on June 4, 2013 [8 favorites]

The AV Club: Why Game Of Thrones’ Red Wedding packs such an emotional impact

I was just about to post this. I think overral it's a very smart piece of writing, though I think it understates just how misguided Caetlyn's actions generally are.
posted by sparkletone at 11:42 AM on June 4, 2013

I haven't played a computer game in a decade, but I kinda want to buy CKII purely so I can get the free Game of Thrones mod for it. (Then I would fight to make the Beesburys the kings of the realm just for funsies.)

I would play the hell out of that mod, but I don't know whether they have a mac version yet. I'd love to play a game of What If the Starks Were Smart.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:54 AM on June 4, 2013

scody, that link is pretty great!

Robb and Catelyn’s grotesque ends complicate the search for justice considerably, and move it far into the future. But it doesn’t make the quest impossible. It just means it’ll be that much sweeter and that much more satisfying when it finally arrives.

"Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei, valar morghulis."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:28 PM on June 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, boy. There apparently are ways to make the GoT mod work on OSX, though the new build is unstable. I might not comment as much as usual for the next few days.

If anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to report back - if not here, then on MeFightClub's CKII thread.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:58 PM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Man, that AV Club piece actually makes me want to either pick the books back up or double down on watching the series.

I mean, I already knew that the reason the Red Wedding is such a big deal is that it's the death of hope for the white hats to win. But I now have a lot more respect for that choice and its place within the larger story.
posted by Sara C. at 1:39 PM on June 4, 2013

pick the books back up

I think it's worth it. By the latter sections of DwD I was back to "can't put it down" territory.
posted by flaterik at 1:52 PM on June 4, 2013

I, on the other hand, simply become more and more disappointed.
posted by Justinian at 2:20 PM on June 4, 2013

I was going to direct the shattered and bereaved to the Song of Ice and Fire forum off Westeros.org but the usage for the last two days keeps crashing their server.
posted by Ber at 2:54 PM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Some of the people on Westeros.org are crazypants. "NO. THAT MINOR CHARACTER IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE AUBURN HAIR. NOT BROWN HAIR. THIS RUINS EVERYTHING."
posted by Justinian at 3:01 PM on June 4, 2013 [6 favorites]

HBO tries to kiss and make up: a nine minute behind the scenes feature on TRW.
posted by maudlin at 3:06 PM on June 4, 2013

TAWNY
posted by flaterik at 3:27 PM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

So, I've been reading lots of RW related stuff since Sunday night, and many times (including in EW and Grantland) I have seen reviewers say something like "Catelyn threatens to kill one of Walder Frey's wives." Frey only has one wife! I mean, he has had many over the years, but he's not a polygamist, like (the incestuous) Craster. I don't know why this annoys me so much.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:32 PM on June 4, 2013 [6 favorites]

Probably for the same reason it bothers me when someone gets a minor detail wrong in a Mad Men recap. I know that the writers are all watching frantically while jotting down notes and spending more time trying to get the broad strokes and come up with insights that will bring the pageviews, and that sometimes a minor point like whether a certain scene happened in a bar or a restaurant gets past them. But it's still like, "OMG DO YOU EVEN WATCH THIS SHOW I DONT EVEN..."
posted by Sara C. at 3:53 PM on June 4, 2013

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to take issue with the otherwise insightful article linked by scody, in this instance:

There are plenty of protagonists left behind to take up the fight, but none have Robb and Catelyn’s moral purity of cause, combined with the army to back it up. They were the last appeal to adult authority, the last illusion that someone sensible and severe could come in and take charge.

We already have somebody sensible-- by Westeros standards-- and severe, and adult, who has taken charge: Tywin Lannister. He's brought the Northern rebellion to a certain and complete end, halting the carnage of war; he's made allies with the rebels' former supporters, brought the North and South under the sway of his family and King's Landing through marriage, and generally united Westeros under one banner. If you were to write an alternate history of GoT, Tywin might be remembered as the man who pulled everything together and brought peace in time to deal with the oncoming winter and the zombie/dragon invasion.

Of course there's still, you know, Stannis, but we'll see how that plays out.
posted by jokeefe at 4:22 PM on June 4, 2013 [7 favorites]

Otherwise Boring Game of Thrones Features Shocking Coldplay Cameo
posted by homunculus at 4:28 PM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Tywin: the hand that Westeros needs, but not the one that it deserves right now.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:36 PM on June 4, 2013

homunculus: “Otherwise Boring Game of Thrones Features Shocking Coldplay Cameo”

I thought it was weird that the shot seemed to focus on the drummer. Now it makes perfect sense.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:06 PM on June 4, 2013

I might have to get this.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:13 PM on June 4, 2013 [3 favorites]

I finally just figured out why Jojen Reed looks so familiar. The actor played the kid in Love Actually.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:43 PM on June 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Red Wedding: Tolerable Edition.
posted by Errant at 6:20 PM on June 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

Ninja please.

Bravado aside, I have only now come out of my panic room.
posted by chemoboy at 8:10 PM on June 4, 2013

Bahahaha.

So, back when the first season came out, I read through the first book.... Thought it was okay, but I much preferred the TV show. I figured I would just watch the show.

Then, there was that thread a while ago, where everyone who had read the book was near bubbling with glee about THE BIG THING THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN OMG.

At that point, I knew three things: 1) I wouldn't get to see the TV show in time to enjoy the Internet Reaction to this BIG THING OMG (I have to wait for DVDs, as I don't get HBO), 2) I didn't want this Internet Reaction to be one major spoiler for me and 3) I so didn't want to miss out on that Internet Reaction.

So I read it. Thousands of pages. I even finished the entire series, just to be prepared for all the Big Things that would ever happen. So, more or less, I read just about the entire. series. just so I could enjoy the reaction to this episode.

I gotta say: worth it.
posted by meese at 8:43 PM on June 4, 2013 [16 favorites]

Tywin's a sensible adult, for sure, but there are a few others, like Prince Doran. You could write a possible future in which he saved Westeros. I also have high hopes for Marwyn and Mace Tyrell, who have only been glimpsed behind the scenes.

I'm a non-book reader, so I don't think I've heard of Prince Doran or Marwyn. The more I think about this, though, the more it makes sense to me. There are brutal English kings who became revered national heroes while their various betrayals and treacheries were excused or overlooked. Tywin has brought Joffrey under control and defeated two huge threats to the stability of the realm, and I am quite sure that the Freys will end up taking the blame of the breach of hospitality. So, from a strategic point of view, killing the Starks makes sense.

Except for that whole kind of loving them as characters thing and hating the Lannisters with the passion of a fiery suns because the Starks were good and noble and Winter is Coming and how dare they do that to Arya because my heart just broke when she was looking over the Twins and thought that her nightmare was about to end GAH
posted by jokeefe at 8:50 PM on June 4, 2013

So I got the GoT mod working.

The game gives you various years at which to start - the age of King Harren, the opening of Aegon's conquest of Westeros, Robert's Rebellion, and so on - but I decided to start at the War of the Five Kings, just as Renly is negotiating with Stannis, and I decided to play as Renly.

Since refusing to support Stannis's claim was a death sentence, I chose to help him. The Lannisters, like the Martells and the Tyrells, stayed out of the war, and Joffrey's troops were too busy with Robb's invasion of the northern Crownlands to protect King's Landing, so our combined force took the Red Keep, and with it, the Iron Throne.

Stannis, now king, managed to convert King's Landing to the worship of the Red God. That done, he turned his attention northward, where Robb's massive army was wreaking havoc. I still wanted the throne for myself, so I set about plotting against Stannis's daughter and heir Shireen. The court hated Stannis for his worship of a false god. They helped me forge a letter proving Shireen to be illegitimate. I would thus be next in the line of succession. I confronted Stannis with the letter, but he didn't believe a word. That plot failed.

Still, the court that had wanted Shireen to be a bastard now wanted her to die. We plotted her murder. Meanwhile, Stannis died in battle against Robb Stark, and his armies collapsed. As Robb began to lay siege to the undefended Crownlands, Shireen became Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

She reigned for only a few months. Maester Pycelle, one of my co-conspirators, had her strangled. I inherited the crown.

My first act, unfortunately, was to acknowledge Robb's independence from the Red Keep. His armies packed up and left for the Kingdom in the North. The Lannisters and the Tyrells, de facto independent during the war, returned to the fold. Tywin and Jaime had died; Tyrion now sat in Casterly Rock. The Martells and the Arryns were embroiled in civil wars. The Martells would win their war, but I couldn't lose the Vale to the Northmen. I sent all my troops north to depose weak, sickly Robert Arryn.

The war was long, though successful, and my vassals tired of having to support it. When I left the game, Tyrion had declared war to put one of his puppets on the throne, the Lord Commander of my Kingsguard had joined him, and Lannister armies had just defeated the loyal Tyrells.

I expect the next few game years to be interesting.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:53 PM on June 4, 2013 [10 favorites]

I'm a non-book reader, so I don't think I've heard of Prince Doran or Marwyn.

Doran is the head of House Martell, the ruling house of Dorne, in South Westeros. You'll see him in upcoming seasons. Marwyn is the head of the Maesters -- he's kinda like the head scientist or scholar of Westeros. He's mentioned only from time to time (I think Qyburn mentioned him this season) and has appeared in only one short and not very significant scene in the books, but it's clear that he has a lot of power and influence.
posted by painquale at 9:59 PM on June 4, 2013

Glad you got it working, RE, although for my money the most fun way to play is to use the Ruler Creator to make your own house to replace one of the minor high lords, and see how much power you can consolidate. The scheming, marriages, succession drama, and so forth are more fun than large wars in CKII. (In my opinion).
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:24 PM on June 4, 2013

Re: westeros.org - yeah, some of those people are bonkers. One of the reaction threads contained people complaining that Jon Snow didn't get on a horse the same way as he did in the books during his escape scene. RUINED I TELL YOU, RUINED
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:06 AM on June 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

This just in from my troll-like co-workers who enjoy torturing the people around them: the next phrase you're going to hear a lot of from incredibly smug book-readers who will refuse to elaborate is The Escape. Expect teh innerwebs to go almost as bonkers as today when it happens, what ever it is, to whoever it happens to.

Dude, why did you do that? You are the person who ruined that for me. You. Dick move.
posted by Diablevert at 8:23 AM on June 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

For all the focus on the rival houses, the various influences of religion and magic cannot be ignored, either. Old Gods and New Gods and the followers who support them are vying for power as well.

There's no question that religion is taking a firmer hold in King's Landing, for instance, as the people there lose faith in their ruler (Joffrey, and who could nlame them?). We certainly have had times in the not too distant past when the people have risen up against the aristocracy (France comes to mind), and said to hell with that noise already. We've also eschewed all the trappings of wealth and position entirely and embraced religious austerity (Cromwell and the Commonwealth) for a while, though that didn't last long. Except maybe in America, where Puritanism is still alive and well--but I digress.

TL;DR version: I'm not so sure this is ever going to be as easy as, "The Targaryens\Lannisters\Starks\Bartheons WIN!"
posted by misha at 8:50 AM on June 5, 2013

painquale: "Marwyn is the head of the Maesters -- he's kinda like the head scientist or scholar of Westeros."

This is not an accurate description. Marwyn is an Archmaester, not Grand Maester (the head of the order). Pycelle is Grand Maester, and, at the time of the books, he has been for several decades. Nor is Marwyn the Seneschal, an archmaester appointed yearly who presides over the day to day operations of the Citadel. Marwyn is the order's leading researcher into the occult and magic. He is an Archmaester because of this specialty, but he is ostracized by the rest of the maesters because they're basically all skeptics with regard to the presence and/or utility of magic.

I think it's kind of ridiculous that I know the political power players of Westeros better than that of my own country. Yeesh.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:12 AM on June 5, 2013 [5 favorites]

They helped me forge a letter proving Shireen to be illegitimate. I would thus be next in the line of succession. I confronted Stannis with the letter, but he didn't believe a word. That plot failed.

Still, the court that had wanted Shireen to be a bastard now wanted her to die. We plotted her murder. Meanwhile, Stannis died in battle against Robb Stark, and his armies collapsed. As Robb began to lay siege to the undefended Crownlands, Shireen became Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

She reigned for only a few months. Maester Pycelle, one of my co-conspirators, had her strangled. I inherited the crown.

You're a dick. :P
posted by Drinky Die at 11:07 AM on June 5, 2013

In the Game of Thrones, you die or you live long enough to see yourself become a complete prat.

And die.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:08 AM on June 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

You're a dick. :P

The non-dicks don't leave the wedding.

Also, yeah, duh, did you not read this
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:16 AM on June 5, 2013

Some random infant, fine, but not poor Shireen! Anyway, in my head all those GoT mod games end with, "And then we were all slaughtered by ice zombies" so at least that part is satisfying.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:27 AM on June 5, 2013

I dunno. I think my Renly more richly deserves to be annihilated by dragonbreath for so nakedly usurping a usurped crown (and killing poor Shireen to do it), but I guess ice zombies are scarier because they take longer to get to your door and kill you. I could probably change my mind.

Anyway, my Renly is probably actually going to be killed by the Iron Bank for defaulting on his loans, which is anticlimactic.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:34 AM on June 5, 2013

Someone really needs to do FPP about the awesomeness of CK2 and the various DLC and mods, especially GOT. I guess it will probably be me...if I can stop playing it long enough. The new pagan, raiding/looting, and Zoroastrian incest mechanics--the fact that I can use that string of words is a testament to how wierdly fantastic the game is--in 1.10 and The Old Gods are pretty awesome. The Norse were initially overpowered, but they're being nerfed via patch next week, so I'm excited to see what the GOT modders can run with the new stuff for the Iron Islands, a true Faith of the Seven, Wildlings, and so forth.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:06 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

The AARs scene on the Paradox forums and elsewhere (Something Awful, with Let's Plays) is a rich community. A lot of material to make an FPP out of.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:18 PM on June 5, 2013

This is not an accurate description. Marwyn is an Archmaester, not Grand Maester (the head of the order).

I am shamed. Thank you for the correction.
posted by painquale at 6:16 PM on June 5, 2013

How the Patriarchy Screwed the Starks

Game of Thrones Offers A Complex, Nuanced Critique of Patriarchy
posted by homunculus at 6:17 PM on June 5, 2013 [5 favorites]

That's our joke Southern/Hillbilly accent we use for a laugh. It's meant to be bad. Admittedly, it's the only Southern accent a lot of english people can do.

Gary Oldman on speakerphone to Luc Besson: "The only possible way that I will do this crazy Sci-Fi Epic film, is if you agree to let me recite my dialogue in a joke Southern/Hillbilly accent..."
posted by ovvl at 6:43 PM on June 5, 2013 [5 favorites]

Game of Thrones Offers A Complex, Nuanced Critique of Patriarchy

Well, yeah. If not for the Patriarchy, the whole series would just be a really drawn out series of events leading to Cersei moving one seat over.

I kind of hope that's what it turns out to be anyway.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:51 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Game Of Thrones - Needs More Gay
posted by The Whelk at 9:34 PM on June 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

TL;DR version: I'm not so sure this is ever going to be as easy as, "The Targaryens\Lannisters\Starks\Bartheons WIN!"

If anyone emerges a clear winner, it'll be a betrayal of everything that came before. That said, I don't know what kind of ending would be satisfying. "Wights fall, everyone dies" certainly wouldn't work.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:44 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Westeros’ patriarchy may be a metaphor that can't exist in our real world, but that's what makes it so rhetorically powerful.

I'm not sure what non-trivial aspect of Westeros' patriarchy "can't exist in our real world" where brutal, sexist societies exist and thrive. Some like to think that oppression and corruption naturally whither before freedom and fairness, but history seems to show they can pretty much last indefinitely. If anything, hat's what makes Westeros' society rhetorically powerful.
posted by wobh at 10:34 PM on June 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

Wait, what?

How can Westeros' brutal patriarchy be impossible in our world, but people justify all the rapifying and whorituding and woman abusing in the series as "historically accurate"?
posted by Sara C. at 10:50 PM on June 5, 2013

Yeah, the bit about Westeros' patriarchy being a metaphor that can't exist in our world is either completely wrong or utterly trivial, depending on how you interpret it.
posted by Justinian at 11:52 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

How can Westeros' brutal patriarchy be impossible in our world, but people justify all the rapifying and whorituding and woman abusing in the series as "historically accurate"?

Westeros' brutal patriarchy absolutely exists in our world, in many, many places, and right now, this second. And its shadow still informs our society, as well; otherwise the Queen's jubilee last year would have been a poorly attended event of limited importance or consequence (not to mention non-existent).
posted by jokeefe at 7:39 AM on June 6, 2013

Made-up fantasyland can never have "historical accuracy". Really the appropriate term would be verisimilitude.
posted by Artw at 7:44 AM on June 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

...in other words, what Justinian just said.
posted by jokeefe at 7:45 AM on June 6, 2013

Gawker YouTube two-fer: Martin reacts to fan reactions on Conan, plus an alternate ending.
posted by maudlin at 10:18 AM on June 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

More: 'Game of Thrones' Author Talks 'Red Wedding' on 'Conan'
posted by homunculus at 10:53 AM on June 6, 2013 [5 favorites]

Westeros' brutal patriarchy absolutely exists in our world, in many, many places, and right now, this second.

Texas, for example.
posted by homunculus at 2:22 PM on June 6, 2013 [4 favorites]

Holy shit.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:27 PM on June 6, 2013 [2 favorites]

Gawker YouTube two-fer: Martin reacts to fan reactions on Conan, plus an alternate ending.

Why do you hate the rest of the world?

I am assuming this is the video in question for those of us elsewhere.
posted by Mezentian at 4:15 PM on June 6, 2013

Noo -- that's better! Sorry, those YT embeds in the Gawker story worked in Canada, but not antipodally, I guess. (It's a little soft now, but the uploader says a sharper copy is coming.)
posted by maudlin at 4:22 PM on June 6, 2013

I finally got curious to look up the exotic locale where GRRM grew up. If anyone is curious. Not sure which exact house.
posted by Mezentian at 4:29 PM on June 6, 2013

And here is the exotic view of Staten Island that so entranced him.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:16 PM on June 6, 2013

So... I've learned my lesson regarding comments on GoT recaps on Onion AV or the Guardian. Do not, even for second, let your eye fall on the comments! And so, having accidentally found out what is in store for tomorrow night's episode (!) I located where we are in the narrative in Storm of Swords and read forward... enough to ruin the other big thing which is likely going to happen (!!) and I will henceforth never ever ever read the comments.

But for now I am one of those people who can say !!! in an annoying and smug fashion.
posted by jokeefe at 12:11 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Game of Thrones - Cosplay Piano
posted by homunculus at 4:10 PM on June 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

omg

they did the thing
posted by elizardbits at 7:08 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just watched the episode and still don't know what thing you are talking about!!
posted by Justinian at 7:25 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am still pissed that they cut this Arya scene from the show and instead had Jaqen H'ghar kill The Tickler for her. :(

She had a similar scene tonight. Valar Morghulis.
posted by homunculus at 7:53 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Valar Dohaeris.
posted by Justinian at 7:55 PM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

It'll be a few hours before I can see the episode, and I've read the books, and I can't remember what "The Thing" might be. Time to bow out so as to be shocked, at least as it builds towards The Thing and I'll have this slow, sinking feeling in my gut.

Unless there will be wild clapping.
posted by Mezentian at 8:07 PM on June 9, 2013

they did the thing

??? You mean the "All bow down to the King in the North!" opening scene?

I was surprised at how little development there was in this episode (but it was still good! Extra scenes with Walder Frey are always desirable). One major event that I sort of expected (relating to Jon Snow) didn't happen. I realize now that the first half of season 4 is going to be jam-packed with action, unlike any of the other seasons. Actually, I'm a little skeptical that they'll be able to cram the rest of ASoS into season 4... they might run some of it into season 5.
posted by painquale at 8:37 PM on June 9, 2013

I am so dreading what's going to happen after next season. How are the showrunners going to sustain things through the complete non-entities that are Feast and Dance? There is no way they can do the entire Greyjoy and Dorne storylines. Fuck, I'm about as big a fan of the first couple books as you can be and even I don't remember 2/3 of those characters. Nor care about them.

Sometimes I want to slap GRRM with a trout.
posted by Justinian at 9:10 PM on June 9, 2013

There should be more than 10 episodes a season. The Wire (except for Season 5) had 12-13 a season and Deadwood 12.
posted by mlis at 9:11 PM on June 9, 2013

Justinian speaks for me in all GoT and Song of Ice and Fire related matters.

and even I don't remember 2/3 of those characters.

Neither does GRRM -- remember the New Yorker article where he was quoted as saying when he can't remember something from the series he calls up his assistant, who started out as a fan?
posted by mlis at 9:14 PM on June 9, 2013

I see people defending Feat and Dance sometimes and I want to make a list of all the incredible scenes and significant events in the first 3 books, have them do the same for the last 2 books (which are close to the same length in terms of page count to the first 3 books) and compare our lists.

"Brienne travels around looking at stuff."

"Brienne travels around a slightly different area looking at stuff."

"Brienne travels somewhere else to, yeah, look at some other stuff."

"Tyrion has a boat ride in which nothing important happens."

"Tyrion has a different boat ride in which nothing important happens."

"Dany hangs around doing nothing much."

"Dany hangs around some more doing nothing much."

"Dany goes back to where she started."'

In fairness, I'd include the Jon Snow bit which I will not name as it would be a spoiler as something that actually happens. But that's one thing? In two books?

Makes one want to cry, it does.
posted by Justinian at 9:41 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just Write It!
A fantasy author and his impatient fans and MeFi thread.
posted by mlis at 9:41 PM on June 9, 2013

GRRM owes me nothing. If he wants to sit around counting his money and eating cheetos, hey, more power to him. I, on the other and, owe GRRM nothing. If I want to talk about him sitting around counting his money and eating cheetos or how disappointing his last book was or how he's never going to finish, I am perfectly free to do so.

The people who are dickish to his face or on his website, however, are a different matter entirely. That's not cool and is completely inappropriate. He's not your buddy and he's not your employee.
posted by Justinian at 9:45 PM on June 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

Sausages.
posted by Artw at 11:25 PM on June 9, 2013

Well hell, the two things I thought were going to happen didn't. Yet.

An excellent ending to an amazing season (wish I'd never seen the Theon torture scenes, though).
posted by jokeefe at 11:35 PM on June 9, 2013

Yeah, Theon torture porn is getting old.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:37 PM on June 9, 2013

Just pretend it's Joffrey up there, and the scenes get a whole lot better.
posted by ArkhanJG at 11:45 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Theon's penis died for your sins.
posted by homunculus at 11:51 PM on June 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

OMG, it's a dick in a box! (Poor, poor Theon.)

A fairly low-key season final, as expected. Despite the fact that Jaime and Brienne weren't even supposed to be back in King's Landing yet, I was happy to see them. Was that the first time Brienne actually genuinely (half) smiled? And at Jaime? How far they've come.

Arya seeing RobbWind made me tear up. Just awful.

I see people defending Feat and Dance sometimes and I want to make a list of all the incredible scenes and significant events in the first 3 books, have them do the same for the last 2 books (which are close to the same length in terms of page count to the first 3 books) and compare our lists.

I quite enjoyed AFfC, but I'm a big fan of the characters of Jaime, Brienne and (to a lesser extent) Cersei. I do agree that there was a fair amount of superfluous descriptive prose and a lot of seemingly aimless wandering around. And I could have done without so much of the Ironborn storyline; at times it was a bit of a chore to get through.
posted by Defying Gravity at 12:57 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think The Thing was when they sewed Grey Wind's head on Robb Stark's body.

jokeefe, I was going to ask if whatever you thought you were spoiled on actually happened, because yeah, none of the upcoming big stuff made it into the finale.

I thought the showrunners did a pretty deft job with that episode, revisiting ALL the threads without feeling rushed, and nicely wrapping up some narrative arcs while setting things up for next season. In several places they deviated significantly from the book, but in ways that make plenty of sense for what they are doing (i.e. splitting the book into two seasons and also tightening up the story). Book purists will be pissed though.

Anyone else find the last visual kind of troubling? The beautiful white "mother" coming to liberate and instruct all the brown slaves? It's straight from the book, and maybe troubling there too, but I guess it struck me more when I saw it on the screen.
posted by torticat at 12:58 AM on June 10, 2013 [4 favorites]

Yeah, they transferred that faithfully, and it can't help but seem problematic.

My favorite scene tonight was the Rat Cook scene, and the ensuing encounter with Sam and Gilly (all the hodoring was wonderful!).
posted by ocherdraco at 4:01 AM on June 10, 2013

Martin really has a thing for chopping off body parts, doesn't he?
posted by octothorpe at 5:37 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

The book has some that aren't in the show, on the other hand. Such as Vargo Hoat's ear and Tyrion's nose.
posted by painquale at 7:42 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Anyone else find the last visual kind of troubling? The beautiful white "mother" coming to liberate and instruct all the brown slaves? It's straight from the book, and maybe troubling there too, but I guess it struck me more when I saw it on the screen.

It bothered me, yeah. The consensus among the folks I watched the show with was about the same: that scene was some bullshit.

Everything else was decent enough, although the pacing of this season was a problem. I'm concerned that they've settled into the rhythm of having a couple things happen in the premiere, then mostly moving pieces around with the plot moving forward a little bit, then having a Big Thing happen in the ninth episode and then losing all its momentum again. The wedding massacre was a nice bit of plot movement, but it didn't change the fact that the show was seriously dragging its feet on the way to it. I'm hoping they figure out a way to make that work in future seasons.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 7:55 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure season 4 will be wall-to-wall action and development. The Red Wedding kicked off a freefall in A Storm of Swords: a lot happens. I'm pretty sure I can predict the big events of episodes 8, 9, and 10 next season... they're all huge, and plenty of other stuff needs to happen to get to them. And they'll probably make up a new plot or two for Dany and for Stannis and for Theon/Yara, and pull in some of the plots from Book 4 in as well, such as Brienne's storyline. (Justinian: hush, you.)
posted by painquale at 8:15 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

that scene was some bullshit.

The racially charged offensiveness was kind of mitigated by the hilarribleness of the crowd-surfing aspect of the scene.
posted by elizardbits at 9:13 AM on June 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

Um, hasn't she been pulling that shit for like 3 seasons now?
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on June 10, 2013

Yeah, Daenerys has been hauling the White Man's Burden around since coming off of Drogo's pyre (at least), and the offensive racial overtones have been present since episode one.

I wonder how they'll handle the Dornish.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:22 AM on June 10, 2013

OK, I finally watched s03e09 last night with my wife, a non-ASOIAF reader.

Her response? "Eh, I didn't like Robb and his mom anyway." Huzzah.

Unfortunately, though I didn't much like either either, the wedding created a power vacuum that was never filled. Tommen?! Don't care. Theon? Don't care. Rickon? Don't care. Bran? Don't care. Arya? Don't care. Sansa? Don't care. Littlefinger? Don't care. Tyrion? ... eh.

Dorne? Fuck yeah. Fill me to the brim with DARKSTAR.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:31 AM on June 10, 2013

Um, hasn't she been pulling that shit for like 3 seasons now?

Not like that, though. It's true the "racial overtones have been present since episode one" as Rustic Etruscan says, but up to now there's been a tradeoff involved. Drogo gave Daenerys the status of Khaleesi. With the Unsullied she gained an army. The "mhysa" scene is the first time we see worshipful masses of former slaves following her with nothing to offer her in return.

But yeah, I agree that the overtones have been there from the start.
posted by torticat at 9:38 AM on June 10, 2013

Game of Thrones being Game of Thrones my main thought at that is "expect something massively bad to happen next season".
posted by Artw at 9:45 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

(I do kind of wonder what she's going to do with all these people she's accumulating - lead them to a promised land of ice zombies?)
posted by Artw at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2013

The "mhysa" scene

Très Jar Jar Binks.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2013

(I do kind of wonder what she's going to do with all these people she's accumulating - lead them to a promised land of ice zombies?)

I guess that, for symmetry's sake, she'll land in Dorne and advance north as the ice zombies go south. The clash between the two will be the climax of the series.

I expect a really on-the-nose scene in which her dragons melt down the Iron Throne for some reason.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:56 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Making the Meereenese white would have been an interesting choice for that scene, I think. A lot of the racial casting in the show is just due to the writers falling back on unthinking stereotypes. The Unsullied are all albino white in the books.
posted by painquale at 9:58 AM on June 10, 2013

/gets the impression EVERYONE is albino white in the books.
posted by Artw at 10:03 AM on June 10, 2013

I don't wanna get book-spoilery but if anybody's really concerned, you can at least be assured that despite the initial optics of Lady Gaga crowdsurfing her adoring Little Monsters, the white lady does not solve all the problems of the Meereenese in an uncomplicated way.

I wonder how they'll handle the Dornish.

FIERY HOT-BLOODED SPANIARDS! With roses clenched in their teeth!
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:06 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

A lot of the racial casting in the show is just due to the writers falling back on unthinking stereotypes. The Unsullied are all albino white in the books.

Wait, what? Where are you getting that? I don't think that's right.
posted by Justinian at 10:08 AM on June 10, 2013

the white lady does not solve all the problems of the Meereenese in an uncomplicated way.

Yes, like most of the fantasy stereotypes Martin uses he is setting it up just to knock it down.
posted by Justinian at 10:08 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

It does seem to be more of a show thing than a book thing. Theon's mutilation was much more off-page in the books. The show is more direct, largely to save time, I think.
posted by bonehead at 10:05 AM on June 10 [+] [!]

As much as I find the torture difficult to watch, I can't be the only person kind of . . . perversely glad to see a male character face this kind of debasement and violence? The specifically sexual nature of Ramsay's crimes against Theon, including the early threat of rape, are the sort that we see all the fucking time on this show--only against women. It feels almost refreshingly equalizing to see a man stuffed in a refrigerator to provide motivation for his sister to stand up to her dad and go save her brother.

Also Iwan Rheon.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:10 AM on June 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

While it is true and troubling that there's that white-lady-frees-the-brown-people complex going on, I do take some small amount of solace in the fact that Dany is the least convincing blonde since Sinbad.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:10 AM on June 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

FIERY HOT-BLOODED SPANIARDS! With roses clenched in their teeth!

Oddly enough I always associated Dorne with North African Spain.
posted by elizardbits at 10:13 AM on June 10, 2013

The Unsullied in the books are absolutely not albino white, fwiw. I don't know where that impression came from. They mostly are described as having copper skin and almond eyes.
posted by Justinian at 10:15 AM on June 10, 2013

She had a similar scene tonight. Valar Morghulis.

There wasn't nearly the same build-up and catharsis there as there was in the book, though. I'm glad she got to stab someone but I am left feeling like Arya got somewhat cheated out of her best scene in the story so far.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:18 AM on June 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Wait, what? Where are you getting that? I don't think that's right.

Hmm, you might be right; I can't find reference to it anywhere. And the Unsullied are supposed to be slaves from everywhere, including Westeros, so I guess it wouldn't make sense for them to be a unique race. I wonder why I thought this? Possibly one of the Unsullied is described as being very white and I just generalized it to all of them.

Curiously, almost all the fan art of the Unsullied and of Grey Worm that I've seen (on the wiki and elsewhere) is consistent with them all being white.
posted by painquale at 10:19 AM on June 10, 2013

Ah, you know, I probably just transposed the color of the warlocks of Qarth with the Unsullied. Darn, I liked the idea of albino Unsullied; I thought it was a clever upending of racial expectations. At least the show made Pyat Pree white.
posted by painquale at 10:24 AM on June 10, 2013

I always pictured Grey Worm looking a bit like Shan Yu.
posted by elizardbits at 10:24 AM on June 10, 2013

I cant even remember my original Grey Worm! As the show goes on, it's harder for me to remember how I visualized the characters before seeing the actors. I only really remember when the characters are very different-looking in the books, like Tyrion or Roose or Daario.
posted by painquale at 10:29 AM on June 10, 2013

I'm glad they changed Daario's appearance. The weird spiky multicolored beard and mustache thing would not work on TV. It would come across as comical.
posted by Justinian at 10:31 AM on June 10, 2013

I always pictured Grey Worm looking a bit like Shan Yu.

Shan Yu the psychotic dictator?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:34 AM on June 10, 2013

I hear you, painquale. TV Stannis is really good but with every passing episode, I get farther and farther away from the Stannis in my head that looked like Lee Van Cleef. He was a good Stannis.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:35 AM on June 10, 2013

After the LotR movies I had to do a re-read to do a visual image purge. I can see that happening for GoT too. I think I was already imagining Dinklage, though.
posted by fleacircus at 10:35 AM on June 10, 2013

No, cartoon Shan Yu the Hun.
posted by elizardbits at 10:36 AM on June 10, 2013

Justinian GRRM owes me nothing. If he wants to sit around counting his money and eating cheetos, hey, more power to him. . .The people who are dickish to his face or on his website, however, are a different matter entirely.

Agreed. It is a good article, though, good overview of the history of GRRM beginning circa ASoIaF ("A Song of Ice and Fire", e.g., the books) and explains how the assistant I mentioned in my earlier comment came to be hired.
posted by mlis at 11:00 AM on June 10, 2013

I think I was already imagining Dinklage, though.

Book Tyrion is really different, in my mind's eye. He's much shorter, and Martin always goes on and on about how hideously ugly Tyrion is, how his eyes are different colors, and how he has to waddle everywhere because he is misshapen. Dinklage has achondroplasia, which is a type of dwarfism that shortens the limbs but otherwise doesn't change the body's proportions very much. Unlike book Tyrion, he's quite a handsome guy, which I guess is why they are having Sansa on the show warm up to him.

Also, Dinklage's Tyrion has a dashing scar instead of a missing nose.
posted by painquale at 11:05 AM on June 10, 2013

Although Daario needed to change, I hope we do eventually see a full Tyroshi beard, even if it's just played for laughs. It's a neat signifier that aesthetic norms are very different in the Free Cities. Maybe have some random Tyroshi dude get pickpocketed in Braavos when we get there, or something.
posted by painquale at 11:10 AM on June 10, 2013

Eh, I think there is some unreliable narration going on with how hideous Tyrion might be. Pre-noselessness, at least.
posted by fleacircus at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2013

Game of Thrones Recap: The Family Who Slays Together, Stays Together

What Game of Thrones Season 3 Did Better — And Worse — Than the Book
posted by homunculus at 11:47 AM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

There are a couple of hilariously glaring errors in those write-ups, wow.
posted by elizardbits at 12:13 PM on June 10, 2013

jokeefe, I was going to ask if whatever you thought you were spoiled on actually happened, because yeah, none of the upcoming big stuff made it into the finale.

Yeah, I was expecting events in King's Landing-based character arcs that didn't take place, and on reflection it's understandable. They needed to wrap up storylines in this final episode (or at least bring them to the brink of their next stages). So we got Yara setting sail to rescue Theon-- I loved that, I have to say-- and Jon making it to Castle Black, and Sam and Gilly doing the same. Jaime returning home to a shocked Cersei. Stannis deciding what to do next and turning his gaze to the North. And Arya, who has transformed from Syrio's delighted pupil to a killer, which is horrific, you know? This girl who has been basically destroyed (as how could she not have been) by the war and what has been done to her family, and who is motivated now by burning vengeance. Which was also her mother's downfall, of course.

As far as I'm concerned at this point Sam is the best human being in the show--brave, loyal, noble, and loving. I adore him, and adore him with Gilly as well. The look he gave her when she said the baby's name was Sam was lovely.

How to wait until March for Season 4?
posted by jokeefe at 2:07 PM on June 10, 2013

The thing is that Sam can have those qualities because he doesn't actually have any significant power. He'd be an absolute disaster as a ruler. Which is kind of the point of the show, really. When you have a system where being a successful ruler requires ruthless amorality you end up with ruthlessly amoral rulers.
posted by Justinian at 2:46 PM on June 10, 2013

The thing is that Sam can have those qualities because he doesn't actually have any significant power.

But he's, like, a wizard.
posted by painquale at 2:50 PM on June 10, 2013 [11 favorites]

Yeah, about that...why would Gilly know what paper is if the concept of writing is so fantastic? And once you understand that writing is speech turned into "marks on paper," would it really seem like magic? Sometimes the dialog on GoT makes me facepalm, and wonders how this can be coming from the same Benioff that wrote City of Thieves. On the other hand, everyone has an off day I guess.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:27 PM on June 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Pfft. If marks on paper weren't in fact a sort of magic, we'd all be talking about something else, yes? Westeros is nothing else, really.
posted by jokeefe at 3:38 PM on June 10, 2013

When you have a system where being a successful ruler requires ruthless amorality you end up with ruthlessly amoral rulers.

Not exactly a stretch from this world, is it...
posted by jokeefe at 3:39 PM on June 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

I love the mix of naivety and fierceness in the wildlings. One of my favorite moments in the show has been Ygritte looking at a windmill with wonder, and when Jon Snow tells her it's just a windmill, she mocks him: "oh, leuk at me, Jon Sneuw, a fancy high-beurn." That moment instantly gave wimpish and watery Jon Snow a lot more authority, and she knew it, so she had to try to cut him back down. It's the only time you see any weakness in Ygritte, and in that moment she's synecdochical for the wildlings as a whole.

Gilly's hitting a lot of the same notes. I didn't take much note of her in the books, but she's a great character on the show. Kinda like Ygritte: strong and proud but clueless.
posted by painquale at 4:10 PM on June 10, 2013 [4 favorites]

Apparent GRRM let slip some spoilers for upcoming seasons while on Conan last week.
posted by nubs at 8:55 PM on June 10, 2013

I can't see that video, but I believe I watched it on YouTube up-thread, and while I've read the books so things wouldn't obviously jump out at me, I believe it boils down to "there's a lot more death to come".

I didn't take much note of her in the books, but she's a great character on the show.

Probably because she's mostly in the much maligned A Dance With Dragons (I grant that A Feast For Crows was bogged doon in Dorne, but it wasn't that bad), and all I can remember here doing is crying a lot. Maybe puking.

I cannot for the life of me recall if she has a purpose besides acting as Samwell's surrogate "family" and unattainable love interest. And I can't remember if she does the thing or goes and does another thing. I can't even find her in the back. But I did just discover Septon Cellador (lamest pun in the book) and Nimble Dick, of whom I remember nothing.
posted by Mezentian at 11:46 PM on June 10, 2013

"Making the Meereenese white..."

Dany isn't in Mereen yet. That was Yunkai.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:31 AM on June 11, 2013

I don't think the Meereenese are going to be suddenly white anyway.
Not only does it go against every other skintone we've seen on Essos, isn't Mereen the largest, most influential city on Slaver's Bay?

I think making the most powerful city state on Slaver's Bay ruled by whitey would make people who believe AGOT is racist have Scanners-style exploding heads.
posted by Mezentian at 1:50 AM on June 11, 2013

while I've read the books so things wouldn't obviously jump out at me, I believe it boils down to "there's a lot more death to come".

Not really. It's more like there's a lot more *misery* to come (Theon/Reek and Brienne are both good examples of what happens to ASOIAF "characters") ... and maybe some people think the later books are aimless and not a great harbinger for the next/last 2ish.

More death would be more interesting. Major characters do indeed die, but not really very many.

Now that we are 500+ comments or whatever, I'll try to be spoiler free but can't concern myself too much about predictions that give a little away so READ WITH CAUTION: NOT SPOILERS, BUT PREDICTIONS BASED ON FUTURE EVENTS IN THE BOOKS:

...

...

The problem with the Red Wedding in ASOIAF is that it ended a MAJOR plotline ... the battle between the Starks and the Lannisters for the one true king of Westeros (with Daenyras waiting in and with the literal wings) ... now that that's gone, they really need to pump up Stannis and Melisandre (which I think the books try to do as well), and/or make Cersei/Jaime a story again. The Margaery/Cersei thing doesn't seem that interesting to me, but maybe if they get it on ...

I dunno. I didn't like Robb much, but the killing did come as a suprise in the book b/c "what now?" and the answer was ... the Iron Islands, the Dorn, the Astaporians/Yunkai/Mereneeseians/Ghiscari, and that idiot Quentyn Martell (spoiler link), all angling for position for a battle between ... the Others and Humans? with Dany and Jon each riding one of the two remaining dragons? (wait, here comes the third ... IT'S BRAN AS A WARG?! ...)

I was gonna say, c'mon, I can't be the only who think Bran will end up as a dragon warg, am I? But no, I am not. 13 July 2011.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:35 AM on June 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

How to wait until March for Season 4?

the odinsleep
posted by elizardbits at 9:27 AM on June 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

DJ HODOR IS IN THE HODOR
posted by homunculus at 2:35 PM on June 11, 2013 [8 favorites]

I just hodored so hard I hodored right into my hodors.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:58 PM on June 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

(Haven't read the books, don't plan to as long as the series gets new seasons.)

I guess that, for symmetry's sake, she'll land in Dorne and advance north as the ice zombies go south. The clash between the two will be the climax of the series.

I expect a really on-the-nose scene in which her dragons melt down the Iron Throne for some reason.

I'm not sure she'll make it in time. The prophecy dream she had while captive by the warlocks shows the throne room at King's Landing in ruins, *snow* falling everywhere, and a very dead king/queen on the throne (kind of a normal sized corpse I thought, which would take out Joffrey and Tyrion from the spot... Stannis? Cersei? one of the pompous ass Tyrrells?). If the Walkers got that far south and turned everything into a dead tundra, I'd assume the whole continent should be considered lost. I'd stay on Essos and hope the fucking seas don't freeze next, otherwise the dragons might be too few to make a difference when everybody in Westeros, now ice-dead, comes visiting. (Will they get the dragons to breed? That might be an interesting plot point.)
posted by Iosephus at 5:40 PM on June 11, 2013

How to wait until March for Season 4?

Some folks might find this helpful. Or not. YMMV.
posted by homunculus at 9:00 PM on June 11, 2013

DJ HODOR IS IN THE HODOR

DJ Hodor's on the CDJ's? I expected Tech 12's with Valyrian steel platters and tonearms and the faces of The Seven and a Direwolf on the dicer buttons...
posted by jason_steakums at 9:15 PM on June 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh dear god - is Bloom playing multiple roles?
posted by nubs at 9:17 PM on June 11, 2013

No, I guess that's Luke Evans. So much Bloom in that trailer I got confused I guess.
posted by nubs at 9:25 PM on June 11, 2013

Let a thousand roles bloom.
posted by homunculus at 9:31 PM on June 11, 2013

A Game of Thrones fan asked his dad to name GoT characters from pictures after watching the finale.
posted by rewil at 11:42 AM on June 12, 2013 [8 favorites]

I would watch Dragonlord: The Last Dragon every week.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:43 AM on June 12, 2013

I'm holding out for a buddy comedy with King of the Guys and Commander of the Jon Snows.
posted by rewil at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

GoT Season Finale Sets Torrenting Record, Possibly Due to Stark Fans Who Cancelled HBO Too Early
posted by homunculus at 12:46 PM on June 12, 2013

GoT Season Finale Sets Torrenting Record, Possibly Due to Stark Fans Who Cancelled HBO Too Early

I hate it when Internet People get all "HBO is just TOO STUPID to realize they should offer HBO Go to everyone! They'd make SO MUCH MONEY!" 170,000 illegal downloads? HBO has 114 million legitimate subscribers, and it has them because they made deals with cable companies, deals that require exclusivity. Offering HBO Go to everyone would turn their entire business model upside down, and it would almost certainly lose them money.

HBO isn't stupid just because they're not doing what you personally wish they would do, Guy From Geekosystem.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:53 PM on June 12, 2013

170,000 illegal downloads?

No. 170,000 illegal downloads at the same time. The actual total is way, way higher.

Here's one article from last year: "[...]the second season of the show has been downloaded more than 25 million times from public torrent trackers since it began [one month prior], and its piracy hit a new peak following April 30th’s episode, with more than 2.5 million downloads in a day."
posted by Sys Rq at 1:00 PM on June 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yep, GoT is pirated like crazy. But it doesn't follow that offering HBO GO to everyone would make them money. They'd have to charge at least $10 a month and likely require you to sign up for 6 months at a time. And they'd have to start cracking down on people sharing HBO GO subscriptions. So the complaints would simply shift from "I'm not paying for a cable subscription to get HBO!" to "I'm not paying that much money for HBO!" or "I'm not paying for 6 months of HBO when I only want to watch Game of Thrones!".

What people really want is to pay next to next for almost everything.
posted by Justinian at 1:04 PM on June 12, 2013

Does HBO make $1 per subscriber per episode of GoT? What's a reasonable valuation per view of an episode? I'm genuinely curious. Is it 10¢, $10, what?

How would that compare to a simultaneous release with the broadcast show for an extra $1 charge per viewer on a widely available on-line distribution network like Netflix or Youtube, perhaps half of a retail fee of $2?

I frankly don't see how subscription add-on packages give HBO more money than a wide release does, at all.

Or, is HBO not doing this because the big distribution networks are paying them off/threatening them?
posted by bonehead at 1:14 PM on June 12, 2013

I frankly don't see how subscription add-on packages give HBO more money than a wide release does, at all.

HBO, Showtime and the other premium channels are used by the cable companies as an incentive for people to subscribe to cable at all. Their big-budget shows are partially underwritten by funding from the general subscription fees paid by cable viewers, not just the monthly premium for the super-special channels.

The fact that their business model is so opaque is part of the reason why people will not stop asking for a la carte options.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:17 PM on June 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

A better look at the Smaug the Terrible
posted by homunculus at 1:32 PM on June 12, 2013

Those glowing eyes look ridiculous. Like a cheap animatronic at an amusement park haunted house.
posted by painquale at 1:53 PM on June 12, 2013

Hilarious reason Peter Dinklage doesn't watch Thrones on TV
posted by homunculus at 4:07 PM on June 12, 2013

Does HBO make $1 per subscriber per episode of GoT

HBO doesn't make any money per subscriber per episode of GoT. The number of viewers means, quite literally, nothing. Directly, I mean. The only thing that matters is number of subscribers and HBO gets on the order of $10 per month per subscriber.

So if you are willing to pay $10 per month for HBO GO for the entire year even though GoT is only on for under 3 months then, yes, it would make sense for HBO to let you subscribe directly.

I frankly don't see how subscription add-on packages give HBO more money than a wide release does, at all.

See above. To answer your question, HBO makes about $12 per episode per subscriber ($120 per year divided by 10 episodes). Are you willing to pay $12 per episode?
posted by Justinian at 5:38 PM on June 12, 2013

But if I'm not willing to subscribe to cable and HBO just for Game of Thrones, then getting any money from me is a net gain. The problem would be finding a price where they make appreciable profits from online subscriptions without losing cable subscribers.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:06 PM on June 12, 2013

If HBO had a PayPal address and asked you to pay whatever you thought was fair for the episodes you downloaded, how much would you pay?
posted by fleacircus at 6:16 PM on June 12, 2013

That's a non-answer, Justinian. What HBO needs to know, has to know is the marginal value of a GoT episode to the average viewer. How much does HBO gain, per episode view, from including GoT in their line-up. That's some marginal add to their revenue stream. It's clearly a knowable, and known amount, because HBO continues to fund development, even with high costs.

My question is can that revenue stream be expanded by wider distribution and an unbundled subscription? Time Warner is clearly afraid of that answer, as seen by their gaming that value in their contract negotiations with HBO. So far HBO hasn't tried the experiment, but Netflix seems willing fund another season of House of Cards.

It's quite arguable, from that perspective, that HBO is currently leaving money on the table because their unwillingness to abandon their old business model. There's no guarantee HBO or TW have their estimates right. Blockbuster looked solid in the early 2000s too. As long as they have time to finish, I guess. Or maybe it doesn't matter: perhaps season 7 will be on Netflix.
posted by bonehead at 8:36 PM on June 12, 2013

I don't understand why this HBO Game Of Thrones thing is such a debacle for HBO. Every other channel seems to offer season passes of individual shows on iTunes, and/or Amazon. Nobody seems to lose much sleep over it, despite the fact that those channels' business models are commercial based and not subscriber based. The cable companies don't seem to have a problem with it. There are tradeoffs to subscribing this way, on both ends, but it seems to work well for other channels and other "water cooler" shows.

So, yes, of course this can be done. It's simply not being done. There's no real defense on HBO's part, at this point, since everybody else is already doing it.
posted by Sara C. at 11:00 PM on June 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

But you say why it's a problem right there in your comment! It's because, as you say, those channels have a business model which is not subscriber based.

There's no real defense on HBO's part, at this point, since everybody else is already doing it.

No they aren't! The channels that offer such passes are not subscriber based. It is comparing apples and oranges.
posted by Justinian at 12:48 AM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

But shouldn't it be easier for HBO to offer subscriptions to individual TV shows because they are already subscriber based? None of the other channels are saying, "we can't possibly do this, our business model all about commercials and our advertisers would be upset if we made commercial-free content available". They are figuring out how to do subscriber-based content. Surely this can't be that difficult for HBO to logic through.
posted by Sara C. at 12:50 AM on June 13, 2013

Oh I see. It's non-obvious but the absolute second HBO offers subscriptions to individual TV shows the cable companies will immediately drastically cut the money they pay HBO per subscriber. So it involves a massive hit to HBO's bottom line. It's not simply a matter of HBO maybe losing some subscribers but gaining some revenue from those people switching to paying per-show.

Advertisers don't care if they make commercial-free content available because the amount they pay is based on how many people actually watch the commercial-interrupted show. So they don't take a financial hit. Cable companies however take a hit from HBO allowing the same thing. So they would instantly retaliate by blowing up HBO's revenue stream.

An easy way to think of it is that right now HBO and the cable providers are partners. When one succeeds the other succeeds. If HBO offers their shows directly to the audience they are no longer partners, they are direct competitors. Moving from being a partner with some of the biggest companies in America to being a direct competitor is a monster step.
posted by Justinian at 12:57 AM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Does that make sense? You're considering it like it's just HBO adding another revenue stream when instead it is making an enemy of several billion dollar corporations?
posted by Justinian at 12:59 AM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're arguing that HBO can't change it's business model, because that would involve changing it's business model. That may even be true.

However, I suspect that if HBO continues to require cable subscriptions then the production companies simply will start to look elsewhere. Indeed, in Amazon, Apple and Netflix, they already are. It's not like different models than HBO don't exist, or (seem to) make decent money.
posted by bonehead at 1:33 AM on June 13, 2013

Why would the production companies do that, though? HBO spends piles of money on its original programming. The people who make Game of Thrones are getting paid already.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2013

I agree with bonehead, though I don't think the pressure is going to come from "production companies". That's not really how TV development works. However, it would be very easy for another content provider (whether it's Netflix, or another cable network, or whoever) to become known as the big innovator in the format, the way HBO did in the late 90's.

At this point, because of HBO and a couple of other cable networks, nobody thinks of "good" TV being on the Big 4 and cable just being a a wasteland of back-catalogue reruns and low-budget stuff like it was in the 90's. Good TV is now everywhere.

It's not hard to see Netflix taking on that mantle recently. I also feel like, with a few exceptions, HBO's real golden age is behind it and it's producing content that could be easily done elsewhere. The only thing I can think of that separates an HBO series from a series on any other channel is the swearing and nudity. Part of me thinks the real reason they gatekeep their series so strongly is to protect the mystique. They want to be exclusive and premium content. Since nothing about the content is necessarily special, they have to keep a high wall erected so that people will think it's exclusive and premium.

In other words, this is a question more like "why can't you buy Prada at Target?" and less like "why do the cable companies uniquely have HBO by the balls in a way they don't seem to have any other network?"
posted by Sara C. at 7:40 AM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're arguing that HBO can't change it's business model, because that would involve changing it's business model. That may even be true.

No, I'm arguing that HBO changing its business model is a very difficult prospect and one they won't undertake until they have to. And right now they don't have to.
posted by Justinian at 10:04 AM on June 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I suspect similar decisions were being made in Blockbuster corporate HQ in 2006.
posted by bonehead at 11:45 AM on June 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

Apples and Oranges. HBO can change their business model on a dime by, as we're discussing, simply allowing people to subscribe directly. They can lay down the entire groundwork for that change in advance. My guess is they've already done so, or are in the process of doing so. So that when it is time they just have to flip a switch, more or less.

Blockbuster had no such obvious path to a new business model.
posted by Justinian at 12:54 PM on June 13, 2013

> "If HBO had a PayPal address and asked you to pay whatever you thought was fair for the episodes you downloaded, how much would you pay?"

$2/episode. Maybe $3/episode.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:12 PM on June 13, 2013

(But I already spend more than that buying the DVD set when it comes out later.)
posted by Jacqueline at 6:22 PM on June 13, 2013

I'm pretty sure I'd drop 6 dollars an episode. More than that and I'd need to think about it. It's an interesting question.
posted by painquale at 7:34 PM on June 13, 2013

That is: I'd drop 6 dollars an episode if the alternative was that I just didn't get to watch them until the release of the box set.
posted by painquale at 7:35 PM on June 13, 2013

Game of Thrones Season 3 As Infographics
posted by homunculus at 10:13 PM on June 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

Those are great! I like the "number of prominent eunuchs" graph.
posted by painquale at 11:48 PM on June 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Jon Snow 80's-style Training Montage
posted by homunculus at 1:44 PM on June 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Jon Snow 80's-style Training Montage

WILDLINGS!
posted by zombieflanders at 3:51 PM on June 15, 2013

The best (and the weirdest) of “Game of Thrones” fanfiction: Missing the show? Take to the Internet!
posted by homunculus at 8:11 PM on June 16, 2013

Well, True Blood is back, for what that's worth.

Ah, Pam. Don't ever change.
posted by homunculus at 8:25 PM on June 16, 2013

The Entire Premise of True Blood Explained in 36 GIFs
posted by homunculus at 8:46 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's true that Pam shits tigers!
posted by scody at 9:50 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

You know Stark bannermen are hiding at your office when you see THIS
posted by homunculus at 2:59 PM on June 17, 2013

HBO & Ommegang Reveal Their Next Game of Thrones Inspired Beer – Take the Black
posted by homunculus at 8:33 PM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

The best (and the weirdest) of Game of Thrones fanfiction
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:40 PM on June 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Game of Thrones as other popular TV shows
posted by homunculus at 3:18 PM on June 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

PASO - Game of Thrones theme (ska version)
posted by homunculus at 5:46 PM on June 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

There are 146 baby girls in America named Khaleesi
posted by homunculus at 5:50 PM on June 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

That's not a name! Her name is Danaerys! Goddamit!
posted by Justinian at 12:44 AM on June 22, 2013

Wait, I thought she was Kelly C.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:23 AM on June 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

A Mobile for Babies in Westeros
posted by homunculus at 12:02 PM on June 23, 2013

Most Creative Game of Thrones Cosplay Yet
posted by homunculus at 2:50 PM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

There will soon be TWO competing Game of Thrones porn spoofs
posted by homunculus at 6:50 PM on June 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

HBO should really just cut out the middleman here, it's not like there isn't good canon material in the book.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:57 PM on June 27, 2013

And neither is called "A Game Of Bones".
Oh, I long for the days of Edward Penishands or Buffy The Vampire Layer.

If my memory of the trailers is accurate, Axel Braun seems to make the best versions (at least of super hero films) and Lee Roy Myers is not so good. But perhaps Myers shoots better sex scenes?

HBO should really just cut out the middleman here, it's not like there isn't good canon material in the book.

This song just popped into my head:
"Brothers! Sisters! Shake that Fascist Grove Thing"

It needs to happen.
posted by Mezentian at 4:34 AM on June 28, 2013

Oh hey, way to read the fucking article, man.
I shame my family.
posted by Mezentian at 4:35 AM on June 28, 2013

Sorry, must share:
Behind the Green Hodor
posted by Mezentian at 4:37 AM on June 28, 2013 [7 favorites]

And neither is called "A Game Of Bones".

I feel like the world has failed me.
posted by Artw at 6:59 AM on June 28, 2013

A Game of Bones, by T.B. Thread.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:03 AM on June 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Man, Hustler takes the least inventive, don't-sue-us approach to porn titles. At least get the Dornishman's Wife in there or something.

My vote is an easy one: Lay That Sweet Ass Down in the Grass

(the songs are ripe with opportunities.)
posted by mrgrimm at 8:28 AM on June 28, 2013

parodies of your favorite characters get it on in ways you can only imagine!

But if I can only imagine it, it wouldn't be in the film...and if it's in the film, then I don't need to imagine it, because I can view a recording of the "ways" they "got it on" that actually happened at some point...

Am I being too literal minded for a press release about a porn film?

OK - so, time for a jokey prediction:

House Stark: Will have a family member named or nicknamed "Winter"
posted by nubs at 10:52 AM on June 28, 2013

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