HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

*could easily BE wrong, jeez

did the books have a few pages about the undigested food that could be seen through the ribs of that little boy zombie?

Lemon cake that could be seen through his boiled leather clothing

lol

Wait, that's Valyrian boiled leather

That scene with the four horsemen posted above reminded me of a famous painting or sculpture (picasso or dali?) that features a rough, skinny / angular looking horse. Seems like it's a sculpture in my mind but I thought about it during the scene and now again seeing the screenshot. Anybody know what i'm referring to?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/Donquixote.JPG
picasso quixote?
http://www.theequinest.com/images/dali-horse.jpg
dali's temptation of st anthony?

i was thinking of the Picasso but in my mind it was an actual metal sculpture. Thanks for the image/connection.

http://media.aintitcool.com/media/uploads/2015/quint/frazettadeathdealer2_big.jpg

ohhh. word my bad. i could easily wrong but i thought those were somehow children she knew (not hers, they get on the boat afaict) like maybe another wildling family - if only bc the show has previously portrayed the wights seeking out familiar people and settings as targets, like the wight that attacks lord mormont - and maybe that was the reason for that sadistic pause

― dellevadova depression beard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, June 2, 2015 9:34 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OK I'm seeing a lot of people read into this scene. Two main things are happening imo:

1) Horror movie trope of creepy children standing creepily for no real reason

2) They obviously worked quickly to establish that the wildling woman (Karsi) cares about the future of her children and the wildling children in general.

A) Jon mentions that their children will not have children of their own unless they join the south and this finally sways her.

B) She is specifically shown to be a mother (reinforces why she was convinced in the meeting) that cares deeply for the well being of her children.

After fighting very hard, the sudden sight of children as wights (in general) knocks the wind out of her because of the horrible future it represents for her own children and wildling children overall, and she is too emotionally broken to recover and perhaps even unable to bring herself to swing a blade at them. I don't think there's any reason to assume those particular children wights had any significance to her beyond that.

sorry i feel like I wrote "children" a billion times in that post...

it looks weird to me now

thought the whole establishing a cool character so they have someone to kill to give the scene more weight while not actually killing anyone of consequence and also she gets killed because even tho shes a fierce warrior shes ALSO A MOM progression was kinda lame tbh

http://t.qkme.me/3r5v79.jpg

evan otm, that moment was powerfully self-explanatory to me, excellent storytelling of a kind I wish we could expect more often from these guys.

sorry i feel like I wrote "children" a billion times in that post...

― Evan, Tuesday, June 2, 2015 10:51 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a copyeditor i would have to flag you for excessive repetition

it kind of bums me out that jon snow can't die. there are several good supporting characters in the wall/north of the wall, but if he was taken out, but if he died it would just fall apart. kind of takes some of the tension out of the apocalyptic zombie battle, although i guess there's always the possibility that tormund will die.

/whinycomplaints/

I loved the episode and the following isn't a huge concern of mine, but I think preferred the mystery of the white walkers prior to both this episode and the episode way back where the baby gets transformed via the icy finger poke.

I thought the white walkers were much more horrifying when they felt more like this empty, evil, humanoid force of nature that was just pushing south precariously along with the coming winter, like an unstoppable storm mindlessly pushing forward. But with these two particular scenes (especially this last one), with their outfits/gear and facial expressions/interactions, they're being painted as yet another rival culture looking to gain control, more literally human-like in motivation than merely supernatural-force-with-human-form with no real goal than just the compulsion to envelop life.

Just an observation, not a real protest.

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance

i'm kinda with you evan, although i'm hopeful that there will be occasional glimpses into the white walker's world that add more mystery and terror. like maybe there's a realization that the white walkers are just the most visible edge of whatever hellish cult is way up north?

Evan and Jordan both otm

I was a bit disappointed not to get white spiders the size of hounds.

with no real goal than just the compulsion to envelop life.

understand what you're saying in general but thats still p much exactly what they are, they've merely revealed now that the walkers happen to possess rudimentary vicious emotions

totalitarian death cults can organize politically too!

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015 11:30 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a lot of it turns on the fact that the king is an ineffectual child who doesnt understand how to wield power, cearsi was using the kings power by proxy so that explains the wife and brother in law getting locked up part, then the high septon just sort of took her under that precedent, and since she alienated all potential allies and the king is in his room depressed shes stuck, it speaks more to a power vacuum than the sparrows having any real power imho, and will likely conclude with the tyrells seizing the iron throne since they have actual resources

tho i guess theres a larger show wide theme of religion gaining in strength too as winter appraoches

the natural loser in that trend would be secularism as embodied by the lanisters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OP93UmgcfI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants'_War

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015

yeah the power vacuum thing scans for me but the whole "the king is too depressed in his room to do anything" thing for me really stretches the imagination

i mean basically anyone who would do anything has left king's landing but still, with everything we've seen and been told about king's guard throughout the series it's hard for me to believe that there wouldn't be an all out war happening

the septon plot would be way more convincing and satisfying if they would have spent a little more time building it up in seasons 1-4. they way it emerged powerfully this season over a few episodes makes it feel like a throwaway sidearc a la about a quarter of all battlestar galactica episodes. i'm still having trouble convincing myself that it's important enough to pay attention to even as they seize power and throw major characters into dungeons.

everyone hates cearsi and the tyrells are working toward political rather than violent solution is m/l what it comes down to

with no real goal than just the compulsion to envelop life.

understand what you're saying in general but thats still p much exactly what they are, they've merely revealed now that the walkers happen to possess rudimentary vicious emotions

― dellevadova depression beard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, June 2, 2015 11:42 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah but what I mean is they seemed to possess a mindless momentum, but now it is clear they actually strategize etc.

It was mentioned that Kevan was back, and earlier in the season he didn't really seem to like the way Cersei was running things. I'm guessing he would be able to get her out if he really wanted to, but it's probably easier to try to fix things while she is out of the way.

yeah the power vacuum thing scans for me but the whole "the king is too depressed in his room to do anything" thing for me really stretches the imagination

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015 12:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well cearsi also convinced him that if he tried to free marjorie the religious fanatics wld kill her so its not like hes not doing it just because hes sad

i'm sure this will be addressed shortly but is varys still waiting for tyrion to finish pissing?
seems like he pretty likely would've gotten to dwagonqueen by now and maybe that would've come up while those guys were drinking given tyrion's oblique "this great honest man directed me here, fuck if i know where he got off to"

the whole dang royal familes in the relgious dungeons a p cool plot imo in that its very ~psychological~ tho i do agree w zach that it feels a lil rushed

It actually would be pretty funny if Kevan made some kind of alliance with the Tyrells and that their condition for backing him was that Cersei remain in prison. Basically everything currently is going great in King's Landing (Margery and Loras out of prison, the Sparrows are taken care of) but they just kept that one nun to go ask Cersei to confess from time to time.

the White Walker 'kings' have always appeared to have had strategic thinking, haven't they? Their growing zombified army of wites have looked to be a mindless hoard - controlled to some extent by the Walkers, presumably.

i'm kinda with you evan, although i'm hopeful that there will be occasional glimpses into the white walker's world that add more mystery and terror.

a few possible really cool things regarding the white walkers/evil king guy that could be explored are mentioned in the last paragraph of the first answered question here:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/ask-the-maester-the-origin-of-the-nights-king-the-wights-and-dragonglass/

i am kind of baffled by the knowledge in that column since i started reading it - i can't deny i'm enjoying the tone though, the jokes and the captioned photos are good too.

yeah, "Ask the Maester" is great. I've been enjoying game of thrones way more since I started reading it.

Also kind of amazed by the amount of background information contained in these books (which I haven't read).

we need a cliff notes GOT thats the length of one normal book

it exists and is called "the world of ice and fire"

sry cant trick me

http://www.amazon.com/World-Ice-Fire-History-Westeros/dp/0553805444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433265209&sr=8-1&keywords=world+of+ice+and+fire

this is the primary source behind most of the ask the maester columns (aside from the books themselves and the dunk & egg novellas, of course)

the primary source except for these other thousands of pages of sources oh btw its also written by the same guy who cant get enough of boiled leather doublets, okay

lol, alright man

im not sure what you're protesting here! aside from GRRM's tastes in medieval fashion

bad long writing