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HBO's Game of Thrones

Started by Bromptonboy, August 18, 2009, 06:17:55 AM

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Bromptonboy

Good episode.  Glad Daenyrs got a little screen time in this one.

[spoiler]Looks like they got rid of Kevan Lannister - and Pod is playing some of his role.  I do recall Jaime 'forcing' Cersei in a sept, but not with her son's body in the room. Very sexually graphic episode.

I don't care of the changes up north at the wall.  Why would the wildings broadcast their coming by letting the boy go?  they aimed to surprise the wall for the rear.[/spoiler]
Pete

Rico

Another solid episode.  Again, Westeros (unlike Disneyland) is not the happiest place.  Loved the Daenyrs stuff.  Some comments...

[spoiler]Seems a bit odd they suspect Tyrion so much and aren't looking too much elsewhere.  I would be looking at who had more to gain by killing Joffrey.  Tyrion wouldn't get much from it and he is way too smart to do something so obvious.  John Snow already knows the Wildlings are coming, so does it really matter they let that boy go?  Also, where are all these Wildlings they keep talking about?  I never see more than about 20 of them.[/spoiler]

Bromptonboy

Quote from: Rico on April 21, 2014, 04:04:41 PM
Another solid episode.  Again, Westeros (unlike Disneyland) is not the happiest place.  Loved the Daenyrs stuff.  Some comments...

[spoiler]Seems a bit odd they suspect Tyrion so much and aren't looking too much elsewhere.  I would be looking at who had more to gain by killing Joffrey.  Tyrion wouldn't get much from it and he is way too smart to do something so obvious.  John Snow already knows the Wildlings are coming, so does it really matter they let that boy go?  Also, where are all these Wildlings they keep talking about?  I never see more than about 20 of them.[/spoiler]
Rico, don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.  :)
[spoiler]Yes, much of that is clearer in the book.  Cersei is all game to go after Tyrion, and as you will see there have been elaborate preparations to frame him for the crime.
In the book, Jon Snow rides away from that raiding party, and they immediately attack Mole Town and the wall, so they don't loose surpise.  Shortly afterwards the huge Wilding army attacks the wall from the other side.
I get chills when Daenrys makes her speeches!  So great to see a person of integrity in this world![/spoiler]
Pete

Rico

Not reading then.  I can control myself.    :innocent

Bromptonboy

I get goose-bumps from Daenyrs's speeches. 
Pete

Bromptonboy

Great episode again - some pretty significant departures from the book here, but they may be early looks at what GRRM has planned.
[spoiler]Bran and Hodor getting caught by the mutineers - that would mean that rumors of Bran's survival would start percolating south.

That new guy on the wall looks like the same guy that chopped off Jayme's hand?  Am I mistaken>

The thing that really floored my, was the appearance of the Others - and that ceremony turning the baby into one of them.  They looked a bit demonic.  GRRM must have had a hand in this I would think.[/spoiler]
Pete

ChrisMC

Quote from: Bromptonboy on April 28, 2014, 03:30:40 AM
Great episode again - some pretty significant departures from the book here, but they may be early looks at what GRRM has planned.
[spoiler]Bran and Hodor getting caught by the mutineers - that would mean that rumors of Bran's survival would start percolating south.

That new guy on the wall looks like the same guy that chopped off Jayme's hand?  Am I mistaken>

The thing that really floored my, was the appearance of the Others - and that ceremony turning the baby into one of them.  They looked a bit demonic.  GRRM must have had a hand in this I would think.[/spoiler]
The breakdown says that the [spoiler]Other at the end was the Night King. We now that GRRM has told the show runners the way things are gonna shake out. [/spoiler] Book readers got spoiled for once.
Check out our Classic BSG podcast! http://ragtagfugitivepodcast.com/

Bromptonboy

Wow, that is interesting!  I hadn't read that anywhere.  Thanks
[spoiler]I made a quick count of the other figures standing with the night king - there were 15 counting him - not sure if that is significant in any way.[/spoiler]

Question about the new guy joining the Night Watch:
[spoiler]Wasn't that the guy who cut off Jayme's hand?  I think Sam letting Jon know that Bran is still alive really changes things.
[/spoiler]
One about tyrions mistress:
[spoiler]I think it looks like Bron is not a turn coat, but she must be waiting in the wings to betray Tyrion.[/spoiler]
Pete

Rico

Ok, I'm not reading any of your 'spolier' boxes guys but it was an interesting episode.  Poor Hodor.  Man, just when I think there is going to be an upside more bad things keep happening to the only good people around.


Rico

More spoilers.  Pretty soon I will just have to stay off the internet completely.  :)

Bromptonboy

Quote from: Rico on April 29, 2014, 01:12:28 PM
More spoilers.  Pretty soon I will just have to stay off the internet completely.  :)
Yeah, for this one, I got spoiled, and I have read all the books - and released chapters.  :)
Pete

Bromptonboy

Some interesting observations from the NY Times about violence in the series.  I'll enclose in a spoiler tag to be safe:


[spoiler]From its very beginnings, "Game of Thrones" has been riddled with sexual brutality. The franchise, which started as a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin about a bleak, feudal world, has at various times included a warrior king who claims his child bride on their wedding night, and the gang rape of a young woman by "half a hundred shouting men behind a tanner's shop."

These scenes and others have raised concerns, but this discussion was confined to readers and critics of fantasy fiction.

Now the debate about the series's sexual violence has spilled into the mainstream and grown vehement, fueled by the explosive growth of HBO's "Game of Thrones" series. In its fourth season, the show, which airs on Sunday nights, averages more than 14 million viewers and has become its cable network's most watched series since "The Sopranos."

In the latest episode, women held captive in a wintry shelter are sexually brutalized. In the deeply controversial episode that preceded it, a scheming noblewoman in an incestuous relationship with her brother is forced to have sex with him, despite her cries of no.

Rape is often presented in television plotlines, where it has far-reaching and lasting consequences for the affected characters. But critics of "Game of Thrones" fear that rape has become so pervasive in the drama that it is almost background noise: a routine and unshocking occurrence.

Many viewers were roiled by the television episode containing the rape of the noblewoman, Cersei Lannister, by her brother Jaime, and protested on blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

The outrage was further fueled by comments from the director of that episode, who told the website Hitfix.com that the characters' coupling became "consensual by the end."

That left audiences wondering if the show's producers truly understood what they had depicted. "That is not what I saw, and that is not what many people saw," said Maureen Ryan, a television critic for The Huffington Post, who wrote that the scene was unequivocally a rape.

Mr. Martin's "Game of Thrones" novels, known collectively as "A Song of Ice and Fire," have more than 31 million copies in print, and have been translated into more than 25 different languages, according to his publisher, the Bantam Books imprint of Random House. The HBO series is broadcast in more than 150 countries and is the most pirated show worldwide.

It's also perhaps the most popular entertainment property to depict sexual violence frequently and throughout its incarnations on page and on screen. The latest issue of the Game of Thrones comic book, released last week by Dynamite Entertainment, graphically depicts, by the fourth page, a barbarian preparing to rape a nude woman after conquering her village.

In response to email questions, Mr. Martin wrote that as an artist, he had an obligation to tell the truth about history and about human nature.

"Rape and sexual violence have been a part of every war ever fought, from the ancient Sumerians to our present day," said Mr. Martin, 65, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M.

"To omit them from a narrative centered on war and power would have been fundamentally false and dishonest," he continued, "and would have undermined one of the themes of the books: that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves."

David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the show runners of the HBO series and responsible for its day-to-day operation, declined to be interviewed.

Michael Lombardo, the president for programming at HBO, said in an email that "The choices our creative teams make are based on the motivations and sensibilities that they believe define their characters. We fully support the vision and artistry of Dan and David's exceptional work and we feel this work speaks for itself."

Other television shows like "Downton Abbey" and "Private Practice" have had story lines about rape, but they were singular events that explored the repercussions.

"The best depictions don't just leave it at the dramatic device of the rape itself," said Scott Berkowitz, president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, an anti-sexual violence group. "They use it to tell a deeper story about recovery and what effect it has on that person."

But "Game of Thrones" does not seem to be doing that.

[/spoiler]
Pete

Rico

I don't want to see spoilers, but are they saying the series is too violent? I heard the books are even more violent.

Bromptonboy

It is talking specifically about the violence towards women.  If you have seen the current show, you should be ok reading the article.
Pete