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

i never liked paul kaye much at all but he's so excellent in this

His smirking is so aggravating. Though he's maybe one of the better of the P. Kay(e) Dicks (which includes Peter and Phil).

he has such a medieval face

I think the wind changed during his time as Dennis Pennis and he's stuck like that.

i realized not long ago that jacquen looks a bit like cyclist peter sagan and now i cant unsee it

Brienne and Pod's excursion to the Riverlands achieved precisely nothing

this isn't true at all lol? jon and sansa were unable to bolster their army, for one. but more importantly jaime and brienne reaffirm the weird accidental bond they have with each other. they have this showdown where they agree they must fight each other but then don't even bother & instead share a tender goodbye. their interactions say something about each character but more to the point remind us that the notion of loyalty -- which is what this whole season/show is about -- is malleable even for the most rigidly moralistic characters.

also jamie's compassion for brienne is contrasted with his brutal threatening of edmure. jamie has basically become a sympathetic character but we're shown again that he's essentially a total sociopath.

you may not like what the plot points achive but that doesn't mean they achieve nothing!!

This is what I mean: criticisms like "achieved precisely nothing" really mean "did not scoot us along toward boring dragons v. zombies fite"

The stuff that happened at riverrun (no armies for the north? Lots of places they didn't raise armies. Brienne and Jamie - not that important, but hardly had to happen there) could have been worked into the storyline a bit more elegantly rather than crating this odd set piece that seems unfulfilling.

https://theringer.com/ask-the-maester-the-high-sparrow-cleganebowl-837ce46e2de1#.4ckx1kkfd

By which I mean that this season seems to have had a few events planned, and then the writers are trying to fill up space. Certainly the pacing is a lot slower compared to the first few seasons. I'm no bagging on the show - it's still the TV highlight of my week.

"also jamie's compassion for brienne is contrasted with his brutal threatening of edmure. jamie has basically become a sympathetic character but we're shown again that he's essentially a total sociopath."

Edmure clearly had a very specific opinion about who Jaime is, so Jaime decided to "use" this impression of him to his advantage in order to win Riverrun in a clean way. AKA the brutal threatening was just a tool of manipulation.

I kind of like how the Lannisters have managed some pretty important victories with minimal bloodshed (red wedding and now this). Maybe they aren't that bad really.

Tommen's reign seems to be as good as it's going to get for the people. Compared to Cersei and Jaime's 'fuck everyone but us' his alliance with the faith is enlightened.

xxpost I read the scene that Brienne's presence forced Jamie into resolving the siege without resorting to combat, which, yes, meant he had to draw upon his reputation for ruthlessness. Negotiation and treaty-making has been a sub-theme of the show this season.

It's within his best interest to resolve a siege to his advantage without resorting to combat either way.

the notion of loyalty -- which is what this whole season/show is about

had no idea this show was about loyalty tbh

it's not. it's about thrones.

the word "game" the title refers to the various characters and their incessant striving for power - not a game in the traditional sense eg chess/tennis but akin to a game in that they are "competing" against each other to rule. a much more serious game when you think of it this way.

Thought it was about 'musical chairs', tbh.

i couldnt remember for the life of me what "rumors" cersei was asking qyburn to look into (unless it was the wildfire caches, but she'd already know about those from the blackwater siege)

(it is 1000 percent about musical chairs)

I thought it was about boobz

xpost. otm actually. i thought it was a generic game but that theory makes more sense. hence the music in the titles being v similar to most popular musical chairs tunes

wow. if you look up "throne" in the dictionary apparently it actually means a chair which a ruler sits on.

i put my ruler in a drawer

Musical chairs is a brutal game which pits brother against brother, knows no loyalties.

splinter is coming

strictly speaking it should be called:

"game" of chairs

this would make it clear it's not an actual game and that a throne is a chair.

Also when is Robson and Jerome going to sing a song about Fire and Ice?

i couldnt remember for the life of me what "rumors" cersei was asking qyburn to look into (unless it was the wildfire caches, but she'd already know about those from the blackwater siege)

― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 11:27 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought the extent of those caches being throughout the entire city was the rumor

yeah i assumed that he meant the bombs. presumably she did know about them but had him check if there were more.

hm alright

i also gotta say at this point i'm not sure why qyburn still rides/dies for cersei. yeah she gave him free reign to make zombie-clegane and before that could've offered him power/influence/etc. but now she's p much got nothing and still he sticks around. maybe he's down w/ her nihilism and wouldn't mind blowing up the city for funsies?

my impression is qyburn rode with the sellswords before jaimie brought him to king's landing so he's probably just sticking around until someone who will pay more for his services comes along

The game they are playing is clearly cyvasse.

though maybe I am conflating book & show plot line there xp

maybe he is bad at interviews

once you've been in a job for awhile you get kind of lazy about seizing opportunities

Tommen's reign seems to be as good as it's going to get for the people. Compared to Cersei and Jaime's 'fuck everyone but us' his alliance with the faith is enlightened.

― inside, skeletons are always inside, that's obvious. (dowd), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 10:04 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what?

hm alright

i also gotta say at this point i'm not sure why qyburn still rides/dies for cersei. yeah she gave him free reign to make zombie-clegane and before that could've offered him power/influence/etc. but now she's p much got nothing and still he sticks around. maybe he's down w/ her nihilism and wouldn't mind blowing up the city for funsies?

― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 12:03 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nobody else is taking him seriously or yes presumably paying him well, so if he sticks with her and helps her get back into power he makes out well in the end.

once you've been in a job for awhile you get kind of lazy about seizing opportunities

― Blowout Coombes (President Keyes), Tuesday, June 14, 2016 12:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is v true i can speak to it myself

I hope the dragons vs ice zombies stuff is kept to a minimum, but I was one of the few quite happy watching Mad Men with Don Draper not punching people through windows every episode.

what?

Jaime's and Cersei will kill every child in the world to benefit their family. Tommen is keeping peace. It's not an ideal peace,'but I'd rather live under the Faith (which the people share) than see the city burned to satisfy an aristocrat's ego.

that seems like a really reductive reading of both's approaches to ruling

Certainly the pacing is a lot slower compared to the first few seasons...

― inside, skeletons are always inside, that's obvious. (dowd), Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Well yeah. The first three books are some of the most tightly plotted popular fiction I've ever read, leading up to the Red Wedding as the end of Act I. Both the books and the show have been stuck in the baggy middle ever since. I'm hopeful things will pick up once we hit Act III.

X- post -Well, yeah, it is.

i was pretty annoyed that we had another five minute scene of tyrion trying to bide his time with drinking and trying to get those other two to laugh. grey worm "making joke" was like

http://i.imgur.com/ftT34go.gif

inexcusable scene. i get that it was all wind-up for "up on the roof there arose such a clatter" but sheesh.

I figured they were trying their best to humanize the Daenerys storyline characters using Tyrion.

something about the actor's portrayal of grey worm bugs me. I get the point of the stiffness but it feels overplayed. what's-her-name isn't great either but she's one of the best looking people on tv so it's slightly less annoying.

Grey Worm bugs me because he's so skinny and weak looking.

they should have made him dark and damaged and a little dangerous but he's kind of a robot puppy at this point.