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

But in general those "I had planned all of this since the beginning" are pretty lazy storytelling devices... "yes, all of these particular events that are in no way under my control all going according to plan"

in the books, the man who meets arya at the house of black and white isn't jaqen h'ghar, and it's heavily implied that "h'ghar" is elsewhere

I guess the root of my question is whether the show is overplaying his abilities vs. the books. The more amazing, feared, and mystical they portray him, the less his original situation makes any sense.

Not losing sleep here, was just curious.

i kind of assumed that the dude you think is jaqen is really just any faceless dude and maybe all the faceless dudes can use that face or whatever. it seemed odd to me that he didn't let her in at first but did only after she kills a pigeon. just seemed to unnecessarily drag the story which is more/less grrm's MO

Game of Thrones: Being an Epic Recounting of Pointless Detours

xpost yeah i'm not saying that's my theory, and it may never be explained at all, but i am def not losing sleep over it. bookswise max otm and afaict the show is overplaying in the interest of keeping things "tight" characterwise. i like art's assumption and i'm kind of choosing that myself for now but we'll see where the show takes it.

I didn't exactly mean to imply Jaqen specifically, but how likely is it that any faceless man could be captured? People who can shape shift their face and kill multiple guards at once on a whim shouldn't need to rely on a little girl to hand them an axe ever if I were to guess.

Really not trying to hanker for a perfect answer too much just clarifying my point.

I'll just move on to seemingly obsess over the next nit picky discrepancy now.

I also thought Arya's scenes were pointlessly extended in this episode. She goes in a house! Didn't need to take that long.

So how about Sam and Gilly's no-sexposition scene. Compare with the last episode's Loras sexp-- no wait, just sex scene.

Brienne always knows how to brighten my mood with ultraviolence. Also, Arya's effortless pigeon decapitation was cool.

Loved all the location photography, horses running through the forest, boats in the Braavos canals, crowd scenes. A great change of pace from all the boring two-shots in the last episode.

Is that black and white building a real location in Croatia or CGI? There was something inherently menacing about it. I wondered at the time if Arya would have gotten a different initial result if she'd knocked on the other-colored door.

Thrilled that Bron is back. I missed that guy.

I was perfectly happy with last episode but found this one a little slow.

Keeping fingers crossed that the crazy wife of Stannis will get a tasty death scene.

Glad that Night's Watch coward got humiliated in front of everyone.

Couldn't Dany just have jailed that guy or gave him some other punishment?

Really surprised that Dornish guy wasn't interested in making a move. I thought this series was going to start with them coming down hard on the Lannisters. Their home looked lovely.

House of B&W exterior seems to be a set. http://watchersonthewall.com/split-pillars-confirmed-meereen-game-of-thrones-filming-continues-toome-today/

It rarely happens, but the House of Black & White was just about how I imagined it from the book. The streets of Braavos were significantly less populated with extras than my imagination, but otherwise I thought it was pretty cool.

It rarely happens, but the House of Black & White was just about how I imagined it from the book.

Yeah, loved how it didn't have windows.

I'm enjoying the Varys and Tyrion road movie and am kind of stoked for Jaime and Bronn on tour as well but in general most of the enjoyment in these first couple of eps as come from watching characters bounce off one another. They kinda need to do something soon.

Really starting to steer away from the books now, isn't it? Or am I just forgetting what happened in the books?

Yeah loads of quite significant changes, Jaime and Bronn going to Dorne is completely new for example. Even more to come in e3.

I'm guessing Bronn simply went away in the books but is too much of a tv show favourite to disappear?

Seems like they're consolidating a lot of the roles

I think they've always done that but they're doing it even more now.

so i guess daenerys' arc is supposed to mirror the millenia-long evolution of political rule? from leaders of warlike clans to philosopher queens, joining tribes together into something resembling a coalition, the formation of an advisory counsel...uh, i don't know where i'm going with this, but my point is that by the end of the show i fully expect to see daenerys defeated in an open election supervised by UN observers

or on trial for warcrimes

Dragons of mass destruction.

indicted by the highgarden war crimes tribunal

Maisie Williams was walking even more effeminately than she has in the past, hasn't she?

I also thought Arya's scenes were pointlessly extended in this episode. She goes in a house! Didn't need to take that long.

I can't remember if the house was connected to the land, if the only access was by the boat, or if the boat was the quickest route they took. But the point of the extension is that a wait weeds out the insincere applicants. Fairly classic trope. My question was 'if she was denied initial entry, what about the alleyway scene convinced Jaqen to accept her into the fold? That she was facing down three bullies?

he just wanted to eat some pigeon.

"You passed the test!"

"Really? That's great!"

"Yeah! I rejected you at the door so I could see how you'd handle that. You waiting for a long time. Like maybe a whole day. I was impressed with your persistence"

"Well, I mentioned I crossed the sea and had nowhere else to go. But then I got bored and pissed off so I threw the coin in the water and left."

"You proved that you are... slightly more patient than a few other people. You show great promise, child."

"I didn't do anything. I mean, you were the one that scared off the muggers."

"Check this out- recognize this coin?"

"You probably have a whole chest full of those things. Can I go eat this filthy pigeon carcass now?"

One jokey theory I've heard is that Arya wasn't allowed in initially because she knocked on the black door - if she had knocked on the white door, she would have been.

I was expecting Spy vs. Spy to answer.

It was like a video game scene. Unlock the door by chanting names, killing pigeon, throwing in water.

coin

The framing of Arya midway between black & white doors was my favorite shot of that episode. And agreed about the day (?) she waited being a "Why was THAT the difference?" stumper.

think it speaks to the general blahness of this ep that no one's bothering to post about it. the farther they go off the map, the more generic the scenes seem to get :(

Sparrows turn out to be corruptible Christians. Ho hum. I don't think Cersei is making wise decisions, and I'm guessing her days are numbered.

If Sansa had refused to go to Winterfell I assume Baelish would still have dragged her there.

(minor book spoiler that everyone has heard) I think they are dramatizing Tyrion realizing his first wife was genuine. Instead of just being told it from his brother.

think it speaks to the general blahness of this ep that no one's bothering to post about it.

May also speak of people having watched them all a couple of weeks ago.

i watched them all a couple of weeks ago and so have been waiting to see if others agree this season is shit so far

four whole episodes and nothing happens, shame on them. vince gilligan needs to run a class for the "one reveal a season" writers on most other shows.

ep was definitely boring. also, the sansa subplot doesn't make any sense. also looks like next week's ep will be very danaerys/dorne heavy which is a bummer.

wait wut why would dorne-heavy be a bad thing?

The whole "nothing happens" complaints are confirmation bias. You're remembering all of the "big things" that happened throughout past seasons and disregarding all of the slow setting-up-dominos-for-shit-storm that has always been a part of the show.

I kinda agree. Quite a lot of different things are happening everywhere just no dominant event.

Actively dreading whatever is to happen between Sansa and Ramsay tbh

How long has it been since the events at the beginning of the first season and now? when sansa returned to winterfell and someone was like "the north remembers you" i thought "well yeah, that was like 2 weeks ago right"

4 years

Xxxxp - i just dont have a lot of interest in the dorne subplot so far, given how it wasn't on the radar until last season when homeboy got his head squished. and i guess i dont really care what happens to marcella.

admittedly i feel like i go through similar cycles of "this show is boring and weird why am i watching it" every season. at some pt back in season 2 i just gave up and didn't catch up until the next one was almost halfway through. anyway that bit about confirmation bias is probably on pt

they shouldn't have to tee it up for half a season each year. i don't expect it to come in all guns blazing from minute one, but this is several seasons in now, they shouldn't have this ambling pace. feels like they are essentially just wasting time until emptying their half-pocket of events with a big battle in the last ep or two.

also the seeds they're sewing are quite poor - arya locked in a nothing happens loop, dragon queen discovering it is hard to rule hmm maybe i should release those dragons i imprisoned for a while tho i guess i am stuck here for a while one way or another, jon snow meeting stannis for a few episodes, another duo in dorne.

they really have divided it up into more strands. i have faith it'll improve but it does seem wasteful and unnecessary, like the end of a season is just a narrative reset button and now we all have to take our medicine.

if sansa is filling the role of a character from the books who marries ramsay snow, it will be very unpleasant indeed, but a. theyve been very quick to make changes in the show and b. there are some scenes in that storyline that if adapted exactly might honestly go too far even for HBO. they'll probably do some version of them though, and the presence of ramsay's fellow psychopath friend with benefits in the show is also prob gonna make things really goddamn disturbing

I have no idea where they are going with the sansa snow thing honestly. I have a gut feeling sansa is going to surprise us though.

i'm hoping that there will be an episode where ALL of the main characters are in the same room at the same time. and then it's like 45 minutes straight of Good, the Bad, and the Ugly-style staring at each other and sweating.

maybe in minute 26 of the showdown, someone's like "who are you again? there are so many of us"

fuckin ramin djawadi is utterly incapable of contributing the ennio to that scenario unfort

regarding the pace, every season has started slow. 2 is probably the slowest, like too slow for large chunks of it, and it is prob the weakest season even with its dynamite finish.

the plotlines from the remaining book chunks do increase in terms of how fast and compelling they are, and given the obviously growing impatience of the benioff/weiss brain trust i think that they will do an even better job with them.

i thought this episode was v good tbh! but it was one of the collection-of-scenes installments, for sure, and while i don't mind those if the scenes are good (and i thought these were), i can understand how they are less appealing to some.

in particular, i think once jaime/bronn arrive in dorne that stuff is gonna be gangbusters, although i havent seen episode 4 so i dont know what dorne stuff will be in it other than the preview scenes of the sand snakes getting pumped up by ellaria sand.