HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

I mean it would make sense on one level since the hound hated his brother but there has been no lead up to it? Even Benjen was «brought back» even before he was brought back, no?

they mentioned the Hound a few times this season

okay, it's the hound then.

HOWEVER, I think I would prefer it if it was not. If they had somehow managed to just plain outsmart Cersei by putting her in a situation where brute force couldn't possibly win the day. The Hound will win because he is alive and knows his brother intimately, I guess, but bringing him back is also a bit too neat. It's fan theory stuff instead of real life deal-with-it logic.

someone just throws holy water on him and it does 9999 damage and dissolves him imo

I'm really hoping the mention of Brotherhood w/o Banners this week does not mean we're going to have a LS storyline coming up

Too many dead people running around = too many sharks jumped, no matter how much of it may or may not be in the novels.

seems weird to dread potential LS "storyline" when no one even knows what that might be (since in the books she has shown up but hasn't done much other than be stonehearted)

It's more about this season potentially featuring a resurrected Jon, a ressurected Mountain, a resurrected Benjen, a Hound back from the dead AND a Lady S - on top of time travelling and a zombie horde.

Benjen isn't "resurrected", it's more like emergency surgery. Story-wise he is simply reintroduced. Hound would also be reintroduced since he didn't die on screen. Mountain is a big frankenstein monster too, which to me is a little different than getting another life.

series ends with Sean Bean coming back from the dead

i missed this moutain / sparrow fight you're talking about. where was this referenced?

Cersei was talking to Jaime about her upcoming trial-by-combat, and she was all "nah it's fine, I've got the Mountain".

They have a tendency to kill one big character off every season and I'm not feeling good for the Kingslayer right now.

Kingslayer or Cersei or both, I guess. And Tommen is supposed to die before Cersei so the Lannisters are heading out.

Kingslayer killed by Oathkeeper
calling it

pushing dragonglass into a man's chest either makes him into the world's first white walker or just saves his life depending upon what?

how alive he is when you do it and which direction you wave your hands

which direction you wave your coldhands, that is

really really wonder if ls is gonna pop up; i'd assumed not since she was plausibly superfluous to the central plots and they'd passed up the opportunity to do that big reveal which i assumed for sure was either gonna be the last scene of either last episode of one season or first episode of the next. jaime going off to deal w/ the blackfish is somewhat surprising as that's a plot i would've thought was easily swept over (and thought already was), in the book it serves a few purposes but it's mainly so that jaime isn't there while cersei has packed the high council w/ yes men and proves to be historically/hilariously incompetent at ruling. iirc there's a steady stream of jaime finding out decisions she has made and reacting 'wtf - that can't be right' until next thing he knows she's not only rearmed the church and conspired to get the queen arrested but also managed to get herself arrested in the bargain (plus numerous other preventable dire mistakes, like telling the banks to deal w/ it even though a large part of the lannister's strength has come from 'a lannister always pays his debts'). after her walk of atonement she writes him a letter asking him to fight for her in trial by combat w/ all this melodramatic stuff about their love and they'll die tragically together to live among the stars or whatever etc and jaime just reads it, shakes his head, and throws the letter in the fire. maybe something big w/ the blackfish is going to happen or maybe they just needed to work the freys back in and remind the audience who they were but my guess is maybe they just need jaime back out on the road again, at the same time brienne is back out on the road again, which to me suggests we just might get stoneheart after all. at this point the show is so deviated from the books or kind of hamfistedly working in various plots and characters that it's rare any of the developments can spoil me, it's rare they confirm something that probably will happen in the books (that ramsey's letter to jon claiming he'd beaten stannis baratheon's army wasn't a bluff is one). the show is almost a half remembered telling of the books w/ some speculation and fan theory and fan fic filling in the gaps more and more. there's better fan theories out there (i've only read a few but some were really smart - the maester's conspiracy seems to me to be in some way what the whole series is about, and that there was a conspiracy against aerys, he wasn't just paranoid was another one i didn't pick up on but is clearly there in the text - but this is still fun, and there's always at least one great episode per season.

I think when we least expect it sometime near the end of the show Arya is going to kill Cersei. I'm calling it now.

like we don't even know if benjen is coldhands. on the show yes clearly but that could just be the showrunners merging characters and plots. euron greyjoy has already absorbed victarion greyjoy's plot apparently and i'm guessing (hoping as it's such a great moment in the book) that he'll absorb a big of quentyn martell's as well.

i keep telling myself that shaggy dog and summer are still alive and the show just didn't want to spend the money on large cgi dogs

i'm glad the freys and the blackfish and benjen are all back. the latter two seem like a couple of good middle aged tough good guys and they show's needed more of them to offset the fresh faced good guys.

though i thought the scene at the twins was sloppy as far as reminding us who everyone was, like don't insult the audience guys..."sons remember at the "red wedding" how YOU stabbed robb stark's wife and YOU cut catelyn's throat", i understand we need to remember who these assholes are but there are ways to write that sort of thing and ways not to. as much as i do like the show i think the writers aren't always particularly good at conveying information in clever non-obvious ways.

though to be fair it all does sound like something walder frey would say, he's no petyr baelish

lol i could see him referencing it like everyday, stuff like 'yknow this is the table i was sitting at at the red wedding. remember? when you stabbed robb stark's wife and you cut catelyn's throat?' and 'haven't needed to take a shit this bad since the red wedding. remember? when you stabbed robb stark's wife and you cut catelyn's throat?'

like don't insult the audience guys..."sons remember at the "red wedding" how YOU stabbed robb stark's wife and YOU cut catelyn's throat", i understand we need to remember who these assholes are but there are ways to write that sort of thing and ways not to. as much as i do like the show i think the writers aren't always particularly good at conveying information in clever non-obvious ways.

― nomar, Tuesday, May 31, 2016 12:37 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah but there's loads of evidence IN THIS THREAD ALONE that people need things very much spoon-fed to them in order to remember/keep track of characters that have not been in the forefront for quite some time.

Despite how close they are to freezing the frame and having an older version of Bran voiced by Bob Saget explain who everyone is directly to the audience.

Yeah, I totally saw that as Walder Frey still being very proud of having pulled that off and therefore referencing it whenever possible

xxp

it's almost as if such a sloppy and convoluted narrative is not suited to television

i got walder frey confused with the caster guy from north of the wall

i got jaime lannister confused with lancel lannister

xxp and that's why it was cancelled after one season and nobody watches it, the end

but then it was resurrected by mysterious forces no one understands

The white watchers

despite walder kindly playing the role of narrator i still didn't really know who anybody was, could be doing with some vh1 pop up video style accompaniment

Edmure appears to be in some sort of Chris Gaines phase, hair-wise

i'm guessing (hoping as it's such a great moment in the book) that he'll absorb a big of quentyn martell's as well.

― balls, Tuesday, May 31, 2016 9:32 AM (1 hour ago)

yes! also looking forward to the riverlands storyline, unless they make dorneshit out of it

i've often wondered, since so many of the best episodes are the ones that are largely or solely one setting/storyline, if the show would have been better if it more closely followed the structure of the books. might also allow them to work in that frequent uncertainty or misinformation or skewed perspective that lends alot to reading the books (the show touched on it something w/ varys' snark about the various red women thinking they've got the one true prince of light). considering how much ppl have difficulty following plotlines or remembering characters even w/ the 'previously on game of thrones' and 'after the thrones' (and some ppl on this thread asking for a 'during the thrones') i guess it's best they didn't.

yeah that would've been cool

Didn't they kill Quentyn Martell on the show already?

To be honest I follow this easier than most things. I enjoy David Simon's shows but I rarely know exactly what's going on in them. But in most things, as long as I know the character relationship dynamics I'm okay.

i've often wondered, since so many of the best episodes are the ones that are largely or solely one setting/storyline, if the show would have been better if it more closely followed the structure of the books.

i think this would solve a LOT of problems with the narrative, particularly in some of the previous seasons. it would be a much more satisfying show. i really dont understand why checking in with each sprawling storyline for 5 minutes a week seems like a better idea, though i understand why they think that's what the audience wants.

Maybe the audience does want that!

they killed a different martell son on the show (though maybe they named him quentyn, i forget). real quick backstory since it probably doesn't matter now (god knows when we see dorne again): the targaryeans had never been able to really subjugate dorne (not for long in any case)(this is why the martells still have/use titles like prince etc instead of lord, they're the most distant and autonomous politically and culturally of the seven kingdoms) and so they made a peace thru marriage, rhaegar - dany's brother who robert killed in a big battle that basically decided the war - was married to a martell who was killed along w/ their two children by the mountain under orders from tywin lanister after the lanisters took kings landing. the martell's had a marriage pact w/ viserys targaryean to aid him when he came back w/ his dothraki army (plus varys was scheming behind the scenes)(there's a theory that all of this is some grandscale version of a con that varys and the trader dude that viserys and dany are staying w/ at the beginning and tyrion briefly shacks up w/ after he goes on the run, wherein they would steal things from ppl then sell them back to the ppl they stole from) but viserys got his head melted. so doran, the guy w/ the gout, who in the books really is a tywin level schemer though underestimated by nearly everyone, sends quentyn to mereen to try to get the pact going again by marrying her. she's like 'nah' though. then some other stuff happens.

yeah I remember most of that. I just thought there was only the one son on the show and they killed him. I remember that whole portion of the books, the dating game where there were like 100 characters all on their way to try to marry Dany.

A whole 60 minutes with a single POV character every week would kill it. At the very least you'd need the promise of a second POV character to keep people from just tuning out. Which brings us back to the thread title, two flavors in each box

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Nerds-wonka-candy-638708_389_361.jpg

yeah like i like the last two books more than most i think (it helps that i wasn't waiting years for them) and even then there were times i'd be in a chapter and look ahead to see how much longer until i got to someone more interesting.

The irony is that while I'm happy to stick with it, the convoluted stuff is starting to shut my wife/watching partner out. I do my best to follow what is happening, or to remember who everyone is and where they're from and where they're going and why, but it's a struggle, and that's factoring in following things like this thread, or Ask the Maester. And when we watch it I really do literally have to pause it to explain things to her, and explain motivations/relationships based on fan theories and what little of the books I once read (which makes me feel really silly and self-conscious). I do have a couple of non-nerd friends who watch it as a thing to watch, I should check in with them and see if they know what's going on, or if they care. I know one of them dismissed the confusion by just saying the show will air forever, so they're in no hurry to tie things up, and I had to tell him that as of right now, that's not the case, that there is an end-point in mind. He was a little surprised to hear that, tbh.

Speaking of Ask the Maester, why is it so hard to find on the Ringer Facebook page? Does anyone have a link to this week's?

I know one of them dismissed the confusion by just saying the show will air forever, so they're in no hurry to tie things up, and I had to tell him that as of right now, that's not the case, that there is an end-point in mind.

I was similarly surprised they had announced how many more seasons they were. Has there been a dropoff in audience? Why wouldn't they just milk it forever?

there were

that should say