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

Probably me.

I skipped several episodes of this season but did just catch up with the last two. Battle of Bastards was great from start to finish, I think, up there with the best of the show, which clearly does better with action than with talking (which is perhaps why all these hours of talking the last couple of seasons have been problematic). It and the season finale were a great mesh of set pieces and, like, Silence of the Lambs-y, with very satisfying grisly, gothic revenges eked out, even if they were mostly yet again more hitting the reset button than advancing the story. Season finale was a lot more uneven than the penultimate episode, with more of the sorts of head scratching decisions/confusion endemic to the series. Like all the books in the library (which would only be plausible if those were literally all the books), or Verys in Dorne one scene and back on the ship with Dany the next (even if it was a flash forward, showing passage of time is not the show's strongest suit). Or returning to Dorne at all, even if it becomes important for some reason later on. Or still total lack of clarity of what the Three Eyed Raven even is/does, a subplot which to me rivals Twin Peaks for inexplicable bullshit thus far, albeit of a more joyless bent.

Curious how the Dorne stuff or even Littlefinger's obscure machinations will play a roll in the last remnants of this tale, as there doesn't seem like there's a lot of room for soapy political maneuvering when the show is still ultimately set up to be an epochal battle between dragons and zombies. Maybe the Dragon Queen will show up to King's Landing with her fleet and army, and the Iron Island guy will show up, too, and they will fight over who gets to fight Cersei. And then Dorne will show up and lay claim to fighting her, too. And then just when it's all about to go down, it starts snowing and zombies (on boats?) attack, and they all have to attack the zombies, and Sam swoops in with the vital information re: dragon glass, and then they win, and then they all turn to each other again and are all, OK, the great evil has been vanquished, so where were we? Ah, yes, time to battle each other for the Throne!

xpost Having skimmed some of his book descriptions, is a lot of Simmons sort of high concept riffs on old lit and/or Stephen King?

Like all the books in the library (which would only be plausible if those were literally all the books)

I don't get your issue.

I didn't think about it until now, but that scene before the Battle where Ramsey keeps calling Jon "Bastard" is probably meant to remind of the scene in the first episode of the series where Tyrion calls Jon "bastard" a bunch of times and then tells him to wear the name like armor.

I thought Ramsey's villainy was run into the ground several seasons ago, but he was super effective (or better written?) in the Bastards battle.

xpost I think it was discussed upthread? From what we can tell most of this world is functionally illiterate, and certainly not doing a lot of readin' and writin', certainly pre printing press. So kind of crazy to suddenly see a library stuffed with thousands of books. Who wrote them? About what? Instruction manuals? Beach reads? Who's reading them? Just a handful of Maesters? It was a shot designed to be spectacular - which is fine and effective - but it doesn't make much sense. Then again, the ancient libraries of Greece supposedly housed hundreds of thousands of books, so I dunno.

weirdest nit pick evah

Yeah I guess it's safe to assume the majority of Westeros is illiterate, although I don't think that's been explicitly stated, but there has certainly been a large enough literate elite for long enough to create many large libraries worth of books. As you say, they existed in the mostly illiterate middle ages so this really is not an error at all as far as I can tell.

xpost Oh, for sure. It's absolutely minor, like the crates at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just saying that I had nothing bad to say about Battle of Bastards, but started noticing some familiar little things bugging me again in the finale. But that's just me.

I don't enough about the history of books, but I think a lot of Greek society was well read, but European middle ages was ... not? Certainly religious books abounded, and poetry and stuff, recopied over and over again by monks and whatnot. I suppose in this GoT world, maybe the Maesters have spent millennia doing the same. And certainly no one being able to read would explain why no one knows shit about the impending doom of historical precedent.

I don't think the overall literacy of the population means much here. This library is restricted for the use of maester's. They probably had to institute the policy after too many beggars came in just to wash themselves in the restrooms.

I suppose that goes back to the show's issues of scale, then, too. How many Maesters are there?

It seems like your sort of repeatedly going "here is some information the show has not provided, and here is a list of potential plausible explanations which I came up with really easily." I don't think the onus is on the show to provide explanations of that kind.

*you're

The show could add a Snow-Prize for people providing such explanations.

Sam might be disappointed to find most of the books are blank and waiting to be written on, or boring diaries.

most pages just drawings of severed cocks

Or Mellisandre's boobs.

certainly no one being able to read would explain why no one knows shit about the impending doom of historical precedent.

tbh one could read the impending doom much like we regard today the apocalyptic shit described in the bible, floods and plagues and people turning into salt or whatever. there are certainly some people who take it seriously and at face value but most people think of them as just allegorical fiction.

Never really considered that ancient libraries might have a large amount of drawings in them.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ae3d5o-5AP0/SSzf6SarHoI/AAAAAAAAAWg/7iW4-CxinaQ/s400/ME+Family+Circus+9+alt+copy.gif

I don't think the onus is on the show to provide explanations of that kind.

I agree and I don't agree. Does the show have to explain everything and anything? No, plenty of shows, from Lost to Twin Peaks, explain little, sometimes to good effect, sometimes to ill. That is, Twin Peak's surrealism is not beholden to logic, but Lost was sort of set up as a mystery, not just as mysterious, so the lack of satisfying answers was frustrating (to great infamy). It's a delicate balance to withhold information for the sake of surprise/plot vs. expediency/convenience, especially in a world where deus ex machina is an actual thing and not just a plot contrivance (though it's sometimes that, too).

tbh one could read the impending doom much like we regard today the apocalyptic shit described in the bible, floods and plagues and people turning into salt or whatever. there are certainly some people who take it seriously and at face value but most people think of them as just allegorical fiction.

Sure, but this is a world where actual dragons roamed and rampaged not long ago - 150? - and no one is denying they ever existed. It seems strange to me where it's like "oh, yeah, fire breathing dragons were totally a thing - glad they're gone! - but long winters and snow zombies? GTFO."

idk Dragons would just be actual extinct creatures to people in this world, not forces of magic.

dragons can be regarded as the equivalent of dinosaurs, yeah.

Why wouldn't zombies be harder for them to believe?

We were talking about stuff that occurs in books being perceived as legend vs. history. Today we have thousands of history and science books that hypothesize about the distant past, and they are generally read and considered in a different context from religious tracts. We don't know how religious/faith-based the people of GoT are - regular people don't find their way into the narrative very much - but devastating fire-breathing dragons (and with it, magic? show's been less than clear) existed in their world a mere 150 years ago, not 1500 or 150 million, so you'd think it'd be harder to discount lots of MIA stuff. But who knows. Like I said, we don't get a lot of perspective outside castle and palace walls.

Anyway, show's doing what the show wants to do the way it wants to do it. I concede it's unfair to expect the full detail of history from its particular brand of fiction.

there are ways to make the ideology and uh shared cultural imagination of a place feel real and lived in w/o a lot of awkward exposition. write it, stage it and act it well enough and it works great.

Mad Max did it incredibly well; you knew exactly how the war boy society was structured and how their beliefs were determined by and supported it. the language is brief but very rich. HBO did it very well in the first season of Rome, really showed how alien and foreign the pagan past was. even something like Carlos did it really well for the communist left, another disappeared planet.

idk know if it's Martin's fault or the show adapters, but if there are a lot of questions left over, it's not your fault

Let's rehash another stupid argument and discuss how an arrow shot into the eye of a giant would be the killing blow. I don't think it could've reached far enough into the skull to damage the brain WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU RAMSAY.

I know some groused, but I actually thought the giant's death was perfectly staged! He was clearly on his last legs. Now, why he wasn't armed with a club or spear or tree ...

now would be a great time to read the books

Hey guys u know this show isnt even set on planet earth or anything for all u kno.

the planet's name is thrones, and he's the gamemaster

http://i.imgur.com/P5hts59.jpg

https://twitter.com/virgiltexas/status/754065184596103168

Good news everyone! http://fortune.com/2016/07/18/game-of-thrones-season-shortened/

Summer instead of spring

~18 minutes of the actors signing posters at the San Diego ComicCon.

https://www.facebook.com/GameOfThrones/videos/10153871047482734/

https://youtu.be/nFdquXir9FY?t=6m37s

Obligatory "No wonder he writes so slowly" joke.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/30/hbo-slammed-for-sexual-violence-against-women-in-its-shows.html

Linda Holmes from NPR kicked off the questioning, asking if the network is relying on sexualized violence against women as a way to create stakes and drive the narrative. Instinctively bringing up Game of Thrones, Bloys says the violence “is not just specific to women. It’s men and women. It’s kind of indiscriminate.”
When she followed up, Bloys reiterated that he didn’t think the violence is specific to women. “Plenty of men are killed as well,” he said, setting off a #TCA16 firestorm on Twitter.

Writer Melanie McFarland then asked if that means that we’ll be seeing more of the same kind of violence, specifically rape, with male characters, Bloys joked, “We’re going to kill everybody!”

Eric Deggans at NPR took the final stab at the question, explicating the difference between violence against women and generalized violence, that there is a difference between what happens to Game of Thrones—a dismemberment, per se—and rape against women, which is a particular kind of violence that is about oppressing women.

“The violence is pretty extreme on all fronts,” he said, a fair PR-ing of a tough question but missing the point: that there’s a boiling point rising in the frustration over what has, with its gender imbalance and frequency, become a misogynistic trope on TV. And, if there isn’t, that perhaps its uniquely on television could be contributing to a desensitizing over it.

But Bloys did concede, “I take your point—so far there aren’t any male rapes.”

RIP Maester Grouty
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38225796

Surprised the plot leaks of the next season didn't really spread. Or maybe they did on Ice & Fire places.

holy fuck can't believe i didn't realize that was grouty

Surprised the plot leaks of the next season didn't really spread. Or maybe they did on Ice & Fire places.

You mean the one about this all being a fantasy theme park populated by robots?

the plot leaks spread but all the ones I saw were just "the northern alliance is gonna look like THIS" which is boring imo. Well, and Gendry showing back up. That might be interesting. Also, Hot Pie rides a dragon.

fuck you guys

Unless the dragon is made of bread, I refuse to believe that last one.

RIP Neal Fingleton aka the Giant :((((

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/game-thrones-actor-neil-fingleton-dies-36-211400051.html

New season starts July 16th.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxWfvtnHtS0

They're going all-in on Cersei, huh. I find her uninteresting. She hasn't changed from the first episode.