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

perhaps oberyn's paramour will witness the hound kill the mountain fall in love with him forget her myriad vendetti and they can sail away together?

Maybe everyone has been someone else all along, and when they're all dead Ned Stark will pop up, take off his mask, and be all, hey, everyone, I'm back! Everyone? Hello? Where is everyone? OMG, I am the last man alive on a planet populated by dragons and snow zombies!

And then they can start a spinoff. "Stark Choices?" "Last Ned On Earth?" "Better Ned Than Dead?"

Good points made by Ask the Maester, as always:

In the books, even a clear win, such as Theon helping Arya escape from Bolton-controlled Winterfell, is diluted by the fact that THAT ISN’T REALLY ARYA.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 7, 2016 10:26 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

theon helped sansa escape tho wth is he trying to say here

Tv and book differences, but you might be on the jokes tangent?

I was also confused- apparently it's referring to the book events which are wildly different there.

the phrase "narrative blueballs" is everything wrong with the world

yeah, in the books Ramsey marries a fake Arya instead of Sansa

whos the fake arya is it the same fake arya as the show

concepcion is referring to a character who was only in like the show's pilot but experiences all the horrible shit that happens to sansa at ramsay's hands in the books and is passed off as arya stark by the boltons

(jeyne poole is her name iirc)

yrc

Yeah I can see how that would be an unnecessary character at this stage, especially if Sansa just disappears in the meantime.

Best bits in this episode were Jaime and Bronn and the scene with Leanna Mormont. Davos is the only character in the whole thing who is actually good with kids.

Someone told me they thought that was Arya running in the preview and this leads me to think that the best way they could solve this is a) the waif was dressed up as Arya, trying to lure her out of hiding and b) Arya was dressed up as the old lady, revealing her disguise as the waif to a shocked waif-as-Arya as she stabbed her. c) The waif is dying. d) Someone - probably Jaqen - is coming for Arya-as-waif in the next episode.

It would work in terms of the arya-waif dynamic and you wouldn't have to invent stupid shit about Jaqen to make it work.

Wouldn't Arya had to have died at their hands in order for them to use her face? Like The Waif's face isn't her own and that's why Arya could also use it just before killing Meryn. Or did we see Arya's face in their stupid face library already? Maybe the promo ads suggested they could use any already-dead person's face. Either way this has got to be the stupidest idea in the books (which I've not read). I much preferred that blue lipped wizard's type of trickery.

no, it was used in an earlier episode.

her face, that is. The good thing about the explanation I just gave is that it lets Arya sort out her own problems, outsmarting her antagonist. I hvae no idea if that's where they're going with it of course but to me, at least, it would be more satisfying than frustrating.

no, it was used in an earlier episode.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, June 8, 2016 6:21 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSM1wfuFlAw

So does Jaqen just cut corpses' faces off to pass the time

It's either that or parley with the waif.

*Arya takes off mask. It's waif. Waif takes off mask. It's a sheep rustler. Sheep rustler takes off mask. It's Sawyer. Sawyer takes off mask. It's horse.*

loved bean as sawyer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izJbgzP1tRA

https://thewholedangthing.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/meddlingkids1.jpg

Did not know King Diamond did an episode of Scooby Doo.

And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

The faceless thing is the nadir of the show this far. It's so boring and the kind of magic it is seems like a bad fit for the show over all. It stands out like a sore thumb.

Disagree. It has went on a bit long but I think it's one of the more interesting parts.

lol at the nadir of the show being anything but the treatment of dorne overall (and a fair amount of it is boring in the books too)

It's kinda funny that they just killed off half the characters in the premiere, and then didn't do anything about it since. They've even stopped talking about it. We're never going to hear anything more about Dorne again, I don't think, and that's probably for the best. Complete misfire.

They're obviously going to attack King's Landing.

Generally Daenerys storylines are the least interesting ones to me.

Got no shame saying Tyrion stuff has always been the best, of course he is banished to wherever to do whatever. Even reading the two books that I did GRRM clearly had more fun writing him than writing nearly anything else.

Ever since that Maester column brought it up I've been sort of fascinated by a potential paradox the show/books have introduced, whether I'm watching/reading or not, namely that GRRM has consistently subverted (or at least resisted) many fantasy/adventure tropes even as the story he has created keeps funneling him toward those same 9unavoidable?) fantasy/adventure tropes. I'm curious to see how long either mediums can go while resisting fully embracing the very tropes and cliches that have driven stories for millennia. Like, are there fundamental, almost formall rules (which is to say, cliches) that almost all eventually *must* be followed, the equivalent of the 180 degree rule in film? Will it inevitably devolve into a clear tale of good vs. evil, or will it stay muddy/confused/unfulfilled? And in the case of the latter, how would that sit with readers/viewers, and particular viewers, conditioned to expect something cleaner and more obvious? It's a tricky one.

i would say the dorne stuff might pay off in an interesting way at king's landing with some kind of attack, yeah. my suspicion is that with cersei focused on revenge and tommen focused on converting so he can get laid (a failed endeavor it might seem though it sounds like he's whining to the high sparrow about it) and jaime lannister fighting up north, they're missing out on a dorne army massing and heading in their direction. i wouldn't be surprised if the final episode involves that somehow, along with daenerys finally sailing forth and the white walkers breaking through the wall while sansa and jon play soccer with ramsay's head. one caveat on that last point would be that i'm going to be mildly surprised if theon isn't involved in ramsay's comeuppance. but who knows.

as bad as the dorne stuff was it didn't bore me quite as much and for quite as long as the faceless stuff has, it feels like they could have treated arya like they did bran and had her skip a season with little ill effect. but in its defence my laptop screen is pretty shitty and i can never tell what's going on in those super dark faceless hq scenes

Maisie / Arya too popular to sit out a whole season.

Ever since Bran had that vision of the Mad King I've been wondering if they're setting up someone finishing what we he started--destroying Kings Landing with the hidden oil. Maybe the Sparrows, sensing defeat or Tommen in a religious fervor or Cersei in an act of revenge.

that wildfire is totes going off sooner rather than later

I thought they used it up at the Blackwater

GRRM has consistently subverted (or at least resisted) many fantasy/adventure tropes even as the story he has created keeps funneling him toward those same (unavoidable?) fantasy/adventure tropes. I'm curious to see how long either mediums can go while resisting fully embracing the very tropes and cliches that have driven stories for millennia.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, June 8, 2016 6:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait, wait. what if he's been trying to write to those tropes all along and he's just really bad at it

oh shit i accidentally killed my protagonist fuck

http://img.ifcdn.com/images/a38d230802b56d30de61e0f1bac0b1cc65bd1e27f1fec528c92c5d1ad4b987ea_3.jpg

The faceless stuff is just really boring, they've done a really bad job of creating any sense of magic or mystery to it, mostly because it was largely just three characters standing around a dull set and talking / hitting one another with sticks. Again and again and again.

If the end point is Arya becoming some awesome masked assassin then there are so many more watchable and interesting ways they could have done it. As it stands it's a complete waste of one of the best characters in the show.

Episode 9's title is a massive spoiler.

Episode 10 is going to clock in at 69 minutes. Both directed by Sapochnik who did last season's Hardhome episode.

The problem with Arya's arc since splitting from The Hound is she gets zero 'fun' interaction with other key characters and it's not clear who she'll be running into next. They crushed the life out of the Jaqen character too - both should join the playgroup ("fuck a many faced god, a man shall tread the boards!").

"you must become no one" is p much what they tell you at acting school.

"a man must be unemployed"

Jaqen should start a brothel instead. He's basically a pimp trying to break Arya in.

Episode 9's title is a massive spoiler

Not really given that the entire season has been building up to it. Literally everyone who's been paying attention to the show (and how previous seasons have been structured) knows what they're going to do in Episode 9.

If anyone but Brienne kills Ramsay I riot.

why? they've barely even met.