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

king's landing is only about 300 years old, and the nk would've been human thousands of years ago--i think he has some sort of greensight or magic similar to bran

watching cable news

the episode was largely fan service, but the unashamed trashy fan I am, I loved the ep and felt aptly served. in fact, knowing how many deaths are likely coming at Winterfell, part of me would be perfectly happy if everyone just hung out in Winterfell drinking and joking and singing together for a little longer. The scenes meant to inspire emotion did it for me.

― Unctious, Monday, April 22, 2019 10:58 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm...I think it's weird ppl act like was there a time when this show wasn't corny in a lot of ways? trashy in many ways? ridiculous in hundreds of ways?

I think we see everything through the lens of "prestige" TV I actually love GoT as this incredible monumental effort in trash TV, so much money and time and effort spent into something that's at its heart pulpy fantasy but also compulsively watchable and compelling

This episode reminded me of a lot of classic western and war movie tropes that I'm a sucker for...the boys holed down in a saloon before the big gun fight or drinking in their tents before the big battle...after all this time I liked the smaller scale, personal episode, you'll get plenty of CG pyrotechnics don't worry about it

otm...I think it's weird ppl act like was there a time when this show wasn't corny in a lot of ways? trashy in many ways? ridiculous in hundreds of ways?

but...there was! i know because every year i rewatch all the previous game of thrones episodes in the leadup to the new season, and every year i witness the transformation of the show into normcore

as my partner said during one of the scenes in last night's episode, "if the show was like this in the first season i wouldn't have kept watching"

but fuck, i'm all in now, so

Yeah I think once they ran out of books, things got progressively weaker. Still enjoying the show, though.

i witness the transformation of the show into normcore]

i don't know what normcore is in this sense, i only think of that as like 28 yr old ppl who wear big glasses and dress like dirtbag versions Mr and Mrs Walsh from 90210

hahaha

that's probably about right. i don't use it in its proper sense. i guess for me it's whoever wants to see that scene with jon snow and daenerys flying around on dragons for 25 minutes

This episode reminded me of a lot of classic western and war movie tropes that I'm a sucker for...the boys holed down in a saloon before the big gun fight or drinking in their tents before the big battle

yeah! ... shut up and take it like a fan!

also I cheered for the Arya sex scene ... like, hey, that would kinda be what I would do if I was likely to die in battle the next day?

yeah, and podrick's singing echoed one of the greatest of those types of scenes, from Rio Bravo: https://youtu.be/1uuAjwvtxEM

a lot of people got major return of the king vibes from pod's song too, and i don't blame them: https://youtu.be/GWoUrBWsP58

xp

ew at the writers deciding that all the adult women still alive need to be paired up with a dude, even when it makes no sense for them to be. who tf asked for a Theon/Sansa budding romance?

i didn't get romantic vibes from that interaction tbh

Awww, loved Rio Bravo, though Pod is no Ricky Nelson, oh well

xpost they laid it on kind of thick with the lingering exchanges and the pause just before Theon explains why he returned to Winterfell.

lingering looks* exchanged*

i guess, i thought it was more a look of fellowship/friendship, but then again, theon is definitely going to die defending bran, so it doesn't matter much.

there def is that "pairing off" happening, but it seemed more like it was about being "family" as opposed to romance-y ... otoh, considering the prevalence of characters romancing family members ... it's kinda the white ppl equivalent of Grey Worm/Missandei

you could probably easily do a twenty minute supercut of just the first two eps of this season of people doing the thousand yard stare
zs, get on that

or you could make gifs of the racist northerners when encountering black ppl

How does the Endless Night hold up on other continents? Are the cities of Essos more or less safe from all of this?

I got zero romantic vibes off of the Theon/Sansa reunion, just a lot of emotion

Theon's arc went from wanting to be a Stark to completely fucking them over, including his initial failure to help Sansa, so the pause and looks were more about his lingering guilt and the fact he's pretty much gone full circle and wants to stand with them

xp - no one is safe. the night king doesn't see color.

xpost ok fine, i could be misreading the scene I guess - the consequence of having watched way too many CW shows in my life. I still don't like this general "pairing off" vibe though, I was really enjoying Ice Queen Sansa.

anyway, am only rooting for Tormund at this point - far and away the best part of both these new episodes.

next episode titled "Theon Sansa Rises". an hour of Theon and Sansa in love but unable to act on it. lots more getting tight by the fire. hound plays slap the bag. sansa spends the last winterfell's wealth on a young, beautiful dothraki athlete.

xxp -- i agree re Ice Queen Sansa, also Tormund.

didn't theon's dick get cut off?

i just assume everyone on this show had their dick cut off

if helps assign character motivation

I assume all the characters have had their genitals violently removed offscreen unless it's explicitly stated otherwise

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQIqq81YOJJIo7T9CZKek_eyS12Y00guEwW6JAHnYf4yrdNFMie

sick of all this "paring off"

Castration pun?

If you're off'er-ing, sure.

male characters with removed genitals: Theon, Varys, Grey Worm
male characters whose dicks definitely work as of Season 8: Tormund, Gendry, Euron

good sans-serif fonts for headings: Theon, Varys, Grey Worm
good serif fonts for body text: Tormund, Gendry, Euron

anyone else notice the moment in this episode where Davos ends up talking to the little girl who wants to join the battle, and she has facial scarring that's reminiscent of Stannis's daughter who was sacrificed?

not sure if it was just an emotional callback for his character or if he's going to end up confronting her again after something goes down in the crypt

felt mostly like the former

Both if he is tasked with burning her

rumor has it the little girl is melissandre in disguise

poor davos--they keep talking about all the battles he's survived so far, makes me think he's a goner

Tuomas at 9:24 16 Apr 19

Maisie Williams has had to carry a lot of the narrative load and i think she's done a great job.

Agreed. She should have a great future ahead of her, though I really hope that her height and older-than-she-looks-like appearance won't doom her into being typecast kid characters, or eternally young ones (like she did in Doctor Who), for the next 15 years.

Me at the end of this episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otptS-eOXvI

As for the pairing of characters, that didn't really bother me at all, because it makes sense that if you knew you were likely gonna die tomorrow, of course you would want to explore previously unaddressed affections, and/or look for solace and warmth in others. And all these bondings had been heavily hinted at in the previous seasons: Arya's infatuation with Gendry, the unspoken platonic romance between Brienne and Jaime, whatever it is that's going on with Sansa and Theon...

What I don't like, though, is if all of that is used as cliched emotional irony, as a way of marking who's gonna die in the battle next episode. So if Missandei and Grey Worm talking about their future in her homeland, Arya and Gendry having sex, Jaime and Brienne expressing their feelings between the lines, and Sansa and Theon forming a deeper bond means that one in each of those pairs is gonna get killed next, that's just cheap.

Brienne and Grey Worm are toast for sure

What I don't like, though, is if all of that is used as cliched emotional irony, as a way of marking who's gonna die in the battle next episode. So if Missandei and Grey Worm talking about their future in her homeland, Arya and Gendry having sex, Jaime and Brienne expressing their feelings between the lines, and Sansa and Theon forming a deeper bond means that one in each of those pairs is gonna get killed next, that's just cheap.

I don't think it's meant to foreshadow who will die--rather, it acts as a way of removing as much plot armor as possible so that it seems that anyone COULD die during the battle. Some won't, some will, but the point is that it obfuscates it. I think you might be able to argue that it's just a cheap way of raising the emotional stakes for the viewers, and I get that. But like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed it and it made me feel emotional before going into the battle, so I'll take it.

That all being said, it's probably an unwelcome departure in a lot of peoples' eyes--specifically that the story didn't used to care who was at a narrative end to their arc or not. Apparent plot armor or not, everyone was fair game. Now they're ditching a lot of plot armor to up the suspense (i.e., they're trading shock for suspense).

How are people seeing romance between Sansa and Theon!? Their looks/reunion is one of two people who went through hell at the hands of the same man (Ramsay) and surviving it.