OT: Game of Thrones season finale

Submitted by M-Wolverine on
The wrap up to last week's shocker, then the long wait till next year. Reminder to those taping it's scheduled to run at least ten minutes long. Make sure your dvr accounted for it. Winter is coming.

I Bleed Maize N Blue

June 9th, 2013 at 9:03 PM ^

 

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the night of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is R'hllor when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

 

Blue in Yarmouth

June 10th, 2013 at 8:28 AM ^

because why would you neg someone for their opinion...but really? If you read the books (and I judge by your post that you obviously have) how could you say that Shae is being portrayed too sympathetically? To this point in the books she has been nothing but an angel and is shown to be in love with Tyrion despite how unbelievable it might seem.

As for Cersei...you think she is being portrayed sympatetically? My wife hasn't read the books and she finds her almost as repulsive as Joffrey. Other than her astounding good looks (which is consistent with the books) there hasn't been shown a single redeeming quality to Cersei Lannister aside perhaps for her love for her children. 

Either you and I have very different ideas as to what sympathy means or we are completely different in the ways in which we judge character. 

TheLastHarbaugh

June 10th, 2013 at 4:56 PM ^

Cersei has been just as big of an asshole in the TV show as she was in the books. To be frank, she is actually portrayed far more sympathetically in the books as basically having had to deal with a lot bullshit that has made her into the bitch that she is, almost solely based on the fact that she is a woman. 

The books give you a greater insight into her character as to why she is so heartless and cruel, because she is trying to almost make up for her "womanhood" by acting like an iron lady.

We get brief glimpses of that in the show, usually when she's drinking with Tyrion, but it's nothing compared to the books.

I mean the books basically go into her whole relationship with Robert Baratheon, and how she was so excited to be wed to him, she was actually A LOT, A LOT, A LOT, like Sansa in her doe-eyed idealism. Then she had a miscarriage of Robert's first child. Rather than comforting her, her blamed her, becoming cold and distant. He started drinking too much, fucking whores every night in their bed while Cersei listened outside, and then at the end of the night, he would rape her.

Some of that stuff has been mentioned in the show, but not to the extent that it is in the books. Cersei is most certainly one of the more sympathetic characters in the book.

Mr. Rager

June 10th, 2013 at 11:47 AM ^

Haven't read the books, but have a general idea of what they did in 4/5 that seemed to piss some people off.  I can't see how they would go "linear" with books 4/5 unless they get creative.  

They've split book 3 into two seasons.  My guess is that they will "combine" books 4/5 to make it "linear" and do 2 seasons of the show for those books (returning to the "1 book = 1 season" mantra).

The more seasons, the better.  But if there are going to be 7 books, I have a hard time seeing how they can stretch this out for more than 10 seasons or so on the show.  

Mr. Rager

June 10th, 2013 at 2:45 PM ^

You slightly misread what I said:

I think they will combine books 4/5 and make everything linear in time (instead of "book x" focuses on "regions x,y,z" and "book y" focuses on "regions a,b,c", like they did with the novels).

I agree I would be shocked if they were able to cram both books 4 and 5 into one, 10 episode season.  Unless the books were really that slow.  

joeyb

June 10th, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^

Books 4 and 5 are split between characters, so half the characters perspectives are in one book and the other half are in the other book. I think that the problem that a lot of people had with book 4 is that almost everything that almost everything that happens in book 4 is in Kingslanding and book 5 takes most everything else. Since everything else seems to be where the action happens, book 4 seems pretty uneventful.

I don't think that anyone thinks that they are going to be able to do a season for book 4 only followed by a season of book 5 only. Not only does that make people forget about characters, but the actors are put out of a job for a year but still locked into a contract the following year which limits their options for work.

It's obvious at this point that parts of books 4 and 5 are going to be worked into next season because certain characters are at the end of their storylines in book 3, e.g. Bran has no more content in book 3. So, unless they make up some stuff for him to fill until the book 5 content, they'll be working off book 5 content for him next season.

I'm personally fine with this because the books are all pretty much uneventful build up for the first half. If they can get the buildup to events out of the way for certain storylines while season 4 gets through some really good parts of book 3, then next season, they'll be able to start with some really good stuff for the characters they went ahead on while they build up events for the other characters.

M-Wolverine

June 10th, 2013 at 2:19 PM ^

But how was book 4 asnd 5 as a reading experience?  I think something with a shorter turnaround, like tv episodes, or even a montly comic book, that could be really interesting look at viewpoints.  But waiting for a book and then everything that happened in it has already happened and you know what's going on, you're just getting a different angle on it, sounds very disappointing to me.

Needs

June 10th, 2013 at 2:49 PM ^

I found books 4 and 5 significantly less successful/more frustrating than their predecessors. Without going into the content, I think there were three interrelated problems. 1. The introduction of new characters, locations and storylines that appear important to the overall story but which Martin spent far too much space on, giving the books a 'why do I care about this' quality. 2. The over elaboration of rather simple storylines, ie, journeys that could have covered 15 pages were expanded to cover 100+. 3. Making these choices required him to essentially "park" several characters that are quite significant in the first three books into stories that go nowhere.

This seems a problem of a lack of editing. Martin's publisher seems unwilling to ask him to consider the consequences to his larger narrative of overpopulating his world with peripheral perspectives. I'm sure there are financial reasons for this. Given the current state of publishing, there has to be an inclination not to turn down an extra book, but the literary cost was that as a reader, I became frustrated with the diffusion of the stories that Martin chose to tell. It also leads me to be skeptical that he'll actually be able to complete the story in two further books, given the profusion of stories and perspectives he's now introduced.

I'm actually hopeful that the constraints of the HBO series  -- 10 1-hour episodes -- will lead the showrunners to mitigate the flaws of the books. I'm sure lots of fans will object, but as storytelling, I frequently find the show to work better than the books.

joeyb

June 10th, 2013 at 2:51 PM ^

It's not really a different viewpoint on the same events. Keep in mind that, so far, Dany has pretty much literally been on her own island from the rest of the characters. Anything happening north of the wall is separate from everything south of the wall. You'll get brief cross-overs between those like Barristan Selmy jumping from Kingslanding to Astapor to be with Dany. Other than that, though, everything is pretty segregated, and breaking them into books isn't really that big of a deal on its own. Keep in mind that the 4th book came 5 years after the 3rd and the 5th came 6 years after the 4th, so waiting 5 years to get the less interesting storylines and 11 years total to continue the more interesting storylines was really the crux of the matter.

To put it into perspective, on reddit, the other day, someone took books 4 and 5 and came up with a new suggested reading order of the chapters in which he broke the books down into 5 or 6 "books" that followed different storylines. Each could pretty much be read independently aside from some small allusions to other storylines. This seemed to be a pretty common thing and people started listing their own breakdowns, so the book is really more like the current Marvel comic book movies where each character gets their own storyline, but then they come together to handle one big event, if that makes sense.

TheLastHarbaugh

June 10th, 2013 at 5:10 PM ^

It was weird.

IIRC, GRRM orignally wanted it all to be one monsterous book, but he was basically forced to split it into two separate ones when he "discovered" just how long it would be.

So naturally, it made the pacing of the books extremely slow, because all 546786576 POV characters were basically reacting to one single event and then progressing toward a certain goal. 

To be honest, I think book 4 (A Feast For Crows) was probably the most difficult to slog through. It wasn't bad and it definitely flipped the script on quite a few characters, so there was a tremendous amount of character development, but as far as action and things happening, it was pretty sparse.

A Dance With Dragons was better on that front IMO, but you can tell that those two books were necessary to set up the major payoffs in book 6.  Book 6 is going to be epic. 

More than anything else it was just weird reading through an entire book devoid of half the main characters. 

An Angelo's Addict

June 9th, 2013 at 10:14 PM ^

Hell I liked it. I have been assuming everything is essentially building to Denaerys vs. White Walkers eventually and the battle of the five kings will take a back seat. I really just want someone to kill Joffrey already, he is such a prick! 

I can't wait another year for the next season :(

Blue in Yarmouth

June 10th, 2013 at 8:48 AM ^

The wait is terrible. Up until the end of season two I hadn't read any of the books, but the wait for season three was so excruciating that I started reading them.

I began with the intent of simply catching up to where season three would begin and then follow along in the books as the season progressed. Now seriously, I am ashamed to admit that I am a guy who has never been big on reading novels. As a kid I had too many sports to play than to bother with reading and as an adult in university my studies in med school more than fulfilled my desire for reading. I can honestly (and shamefully say) that I have read maybe 15 novels in my entire life and most were no more than 400 pages.

Needless to say when I purchased the books I wondered how I would be able to get through the first two in time for season three to begin, but once I started reading I couldn't stop. I had finished the first four before season three began and have since finished the fifth book. I have never been so captivated by a story in my life and can't abide the notion that I will have to go almost an entire year for my next fix of game of thrones....I guess it's back to book one and start watching the season over again on my PVR. Dude, get the next book finished already!!!

M-Wolverine

June 9th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^

The Canadian Grand Prix, Television purchases, or grill suggestions, I'm guessing Omar is a lot like this....

Tell the truth...you logged on tonight JUST to piss on the GoT thread....don't hate because The Wire is done; there can be more than one good show on cable.

In reply to by DirkMcGurk

OmarDontScare

June 9th, 2013 at 10:46 PM ^

Yeah, talk about a disappointing finally. It's finale time to watch another show with magic and dragons.

jdon

June 10th, 2013 at 12:17 AM ^

I am a little concerned this site has become subject to random dumb ass trolls... people talkign about hardons for recruites, or logging into OT threads to bitch about them being OT, and a general decline in respect.

Its sad.  Sure it is inevitable as the sites popularity grows new people come, old people who have been here longer become arrogant, and generally becomes difficult to manage...

I would like to see the mods lock posters who intentionally troll these boards...  I had my time off in bolivia and it gave me some perspective.... perspective I had to share...

Omar: you are pathetic.

 

joeyb

June 9th, 2013 at 10:24 PM ^

I'm really disappointed with that episode. Cut out all of the bullshit talking scenes that don't progress the story. Put in the interesting things that happen next for several characters and you have a much better episode.

joeyb

June 10th, 2013 at 9:07 AM ^

I know, but a certain character has one chapter left in the book. Bran is done until book 5. They are going to have to draw content from those books anyway. Another character that doesn't have their own chapters until book 4 is going to be neither seen nor heard in season 4 unless they start pulling up content and you need the epilogue from this book to tie into that. I just kind of wish they had pushed those along like they did with Bran so that next season actually starts with all of that content they are going to have to pull down. Now, I just assume that they are going to put a lot of it in the season premiere, but who knows.

Perkis-Size Me

June 9th, 2013 at 10:27 PM ^

Just waiting for someone to put a knife in Joffrey's back already, but even a death like that is too good for that little shit. But damn that kid's a great actor, as I'm not sure that I've ever hated an individual character more than his. And fuck, poor little Theon.



Overall, great episode, acting continues to just amaze me. Not sitting too well with the fact that we've got to wait a year for the next season.



Oh well. ONTO BOARDWALK EMPIRE.

death by wolverine

June 9th, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^

Yes. Boardwalk Empire might be the best show on tv. I don't think it gets the respect it deserves. Overall, I think tv shows are becoming more interesting/ better made/ better actors etc. then movies have been lately.

falco_alba15

June 10th, 2013 at 12:15 AM ^

That the directors are worried that some idiot will see him and not be able to separate the character from the actor and try to beat the crap out of him. I thought that was amusing - he is playing Joffrey so well. I know how he dies, I won't give it away, but it should be very interesting. He is one of my favorite actors in this show, second to Peter Dinklage.

ToledoBlue

June 10th, 2013 at 6:55 AM ^

Thats one thing that amazes me about the book/show in that they have characters, i.e. Theon that you like, then hate, then feel so sorry for that you just want their suffering to end.

side note: Anyone like me, finished reading book 5 and worried that the writer might die before the final two books ever get finished?