Game of Thrones - S3 Episode 4, Mad Men - 2 (S6?), and Dance with Dragons..

[shadowkat]

1. Game of Thrones - Episode 4, Season 3...well this episode was closer to what I remember from the books, well except for the bit with Theon.



* Damn, they are including the torture of Theon in this season. Apparently the writers decided we didn't have enough torture and mayhem this season and decided to add more? Granted Theon isn't exactly the most sympathetic character on the planet, but I sort of feel sorry for him. He got a rough deal. He is whiny in Clash of Kings though...so whiny, I skipped over his chapters and was sort of happy he disappeared from Storm and Feast - to such an extent that if it weren't for the tv series and my flist, I would have forgotten him completely. This happens in Martin's books, you forget about characters...it's not like there aren't that many or anything. The tv series is actually easier, because there's fewer characters - believe it or not.

Can't place the guy playing Ramsay Snow or the Bastard of Bolton. I know I've seen him before. At least I think that is who he is. Sadistic bastard. All my hopes were dashed in mere seconds when he rescued poor Theon, only to lead him directly back to the cross to be tortured some more. It's weirdly funny in a way. Theon just goes in a circle. Did rather love his confession of guilt and remorse - of how he made the wrong choice, picked the wrong father, and killed two innocent orphan boys..unfortunately the confession is to a sadistic bastard, but that's GRRM for you.

* Jamie, actually, is having better luck. I admit it was futile, but I was sort of hoping the writers would forgo Jamie carrying his chopped off hand around with him, while covered in muck. Apparently the writers are turned on by such things - and just had to keep that tid-bit. (This does not bode well for other, ahem, more gruesome events. Anyone else feel the need to warn people who haven't read the books?)

At any rate his conversation with Brienne (and I repeat - the casting of Brienne is beyond awesome) is better than I remembered. The best part of Storm of Swords were the Jamie and Brienne sequences. I remember skipping over sections to get to them, then having to back-track to figure out what happened - because Martin puts important plot points in chapters I don't want to read. At least the tv show has less of Davos pining in his cell on Storm's End, which I found incredibly slow going in the books.

Do however take exception to one comment. Brienne: crying and carrying on, just like a woman.
(This may have been meant ironically. Actually I think it is. Because women are the strongest characters in these books. So never mind. Plus Brienne is twice the size of Jamie and lot stronger than he is.)

Their brief conversation is interesting:

Brienne: "You want to die? You need to live. This is nothing."

Jamie:" Nothing? I lost my hand."

Brienne: "It is just a hand."

Jamie: It is my sword hand, it is all that I am.

Brienne: No. You've had it easy. You've just gotten a taste of what most people have to deal with. Have something important, vital, taken away from them. But it is not all that you are.I know what you did back there. 'Tarth the island of sapphires.' It's called that because of the color of the sea. But you knew that of course. You helped me. Why?"

Jamie says nothing, but the actor emotes paragraphs with his eyes.

* So too is Cersie's with her father, who she desperately wants to please and be close to and can't quite get there. Charles Dance actually looks like an old lion. Again perfect casting. And there conversation oddly reminds me of her conversations with Tyrion. Ironic how similar Tywin Lannister and Tyrion are, both are manipulative and brilliant stragetists.

Cersei: I'm concerned about what you are doing to find Jamie.
Tywin: What happened when Catherine took Tyrion, my son, captive? What did I do?
Cersei: You started a war.
Tywin: And I did that for that lecherous stump, what do you think I'll do for my eldest son,
my heir? (He says this while writing and stamping a letter with his seal.)
Cersei: All that you can.
Tywin (eyes glinting): All that I can. (Watch out Starks...seriously. That too is a bit ironic considering...actually it was more ironic in the books, here less so - although Tywin's actions make more sense, I suppose, so I'm happy with it. I admittedly didn't pay enough attention to what Tywin was up to in the book, so I'm happy to be reminded of it here. Granted we got it all through the limited perspectives of Tyrion and Sansa - who were clueless.)

Also...
Cersei: Margarey is able to manipulate Joffrey.
Tywin: Good. I wish you were better at it. Someone needs to be handling Joffrey. Perhaps you should follow her example.
Cersei: You don't see...
Tywin: I see that you are not quite as smart as you think you are. You let that boy run rampshard over you and half this kingdom. Instead of managing him.

He is right. Tyrion has said more or less the same thing to her. She doesn't listen. Cersei's fatal flaw is her vanity - she thinks she's smarter and cleverer than she actually is. Her arrogance is her biggest problem. She managed Robert and Jamie better than she manages her son.

* Ah, we have the big fight at Caster's finally. I was waiting for that. I remember that vividly. Was actually sort of hoping it wouldn't go into too much detail, and it didn't. It's a gory sequence in the books, really gory. This is when Samwell and Ginny take off on their own - mainly because they have no other choice.

* The Ayra bit with the Hound, I remember going down a little differently. She accused him of killing more people. He's actually more likable in the tv show than the books. And I love the actor playing him. (Again great casting - there is no tv series better cast than this one in recent memory...this even beats out the Good Wife, which is rather hard to do. Casting is about 80% of it - btw. If SMASH was cast better - it would not be cancelled. Dollhouse would have still been on the air (okay maybe not, that series admittedly had other issues) And if OUAT had better casting in ahem certain roles - it would be more popular. HBO has the best casting department on the planet, the broadcast networks should take notes.)
Lord Doderic though...I visualized slightly differently - taller and prettier? Also blond (although it's admitted hard for anyone to look blond when they haven't bathed in six weeks, just look at Jamie.)

* Varys gives Tyrion a bit of creepy information on the one good of the fire. Who answered the alchemist who burned off his genitalia back. He also shows Tyrion his idea of vengeance, which apparently bares some resemblance to a few other characters in these books. Varys to give him credit - is worried about Sansa Stark, or more to the point, Littlefinger. Sorry, Varys...but Littlefinger is always two steps ahead of everyone. Which may be why he respects him and sees him as the most dangerous man in the realm. No one takes Littlefinger seriously, Littlefinger has nothing to lose, and that makes him dangerous. So he persuades the Queen of Thorns (love Diana Rigg here) to find another better match for Sansa and get her away from Littlefinger and Kings Landing. (This is so going to back fire on everyone.)

* Meanwhile Dany is doing quite well in Astapore. I'd forgotten that was Astapor or she did it in Astapor. (What's going on in Dance With Dragons suddenly makes more sense.) Did enjoy what she did - even if it was rather bloody. Silly man, who thought he could get a dragon as a pet. They tend to be a bit on the unwieldy side (although to be fair, Dany forgets this too at a certain point down the road.).

Good episode. How many episodes are they doing this season, anyone know?


2. Dance with Dragons

Continuing to plow through and it is getting much better as I move forward.



* Poor Theon. He's now basically Bastard of Bolton's dog. He has a collar. Is scared to escape or even ask for freedom in return for a favor. Ramsay Snow has tortured him so badly that he is completely broken. That's what torture does to people - it breaks them. It is the worst thing you can do. People who physically, mentally, or emotionally torture others are sadists and deserve to die screaming - preferably of a painful ailment or disease. I have no patience for people who torture others.

But writing about it is a different story.

I know I'm supposed to be enjoying Theon's comeuppance, but I just feel sorry for him and find the whole bit cringeworthy and sadistically funny in places. It is admittedly that.
(Also it is very weird to be watching how Theon got to be "Reek" on GoT, while I'm reading where he ended up. Sort of like seeing flashbacks? The tv series and books do complement each other in the most interesting ways, don't they?)

Also, the chapters are admittedly compelling - because part of you wants to see how bad it will get. Like watching a horror movie - they won't go there...oh damn, they just did.

At any rate I really feel sorry for Sansa's friend Jeyne Poole who had dreamed of marrying a lord and a knight, with her pretty dress. She so does not deserve Ramsay Snow/Bolton. Cersei maybe, but not poor Jeyne. This is not going to be pleasant, at all.

Each one of these chapters is ending on a horrible cliff-hanger - it's like reading five horror novels at the same time.

* I think they are about to kill off Davos...and just when I was beginning to like the old guy. He grows on you. He's like Theon, okay maybe not. Although admittedly go into a den of sharks, the territory of the enemy, all by himself, while brave - may not have been the brightest thing on the planet to do. But from Davos perspective, it was either that or deal with Stannis' wrath. Seriously, I would have just sailed off with Sallah.

But who knows maybe Manderly's daughter will be heard yet? Trusting the Frey's is stupid. It's just as bad as trusting Littlefinger. Also I wouldn't worry about your son with the Lannister's - Tommen and Margary won't kill him, and Cersei is currently out of commission. Actually the Lannisters have their own issues at the moment. Or wait, does this take place before Cersei gets imprisoned in the tower. It's hard to know. Be nice if Martin gave me a time line or something - ie. Takes Place before the events of Feat, Takes place before Cersei gets thrown in Tower. But no, apparently part of the fun is figuring out when each chapter takes place, who is telling it (sometimes you don't know who the character is),
and where we are geographically speaking. No wonder the Plot occasionally gets lost. So too do the characters. What is it about historicals and bramble bush plots and characters you lose track off?



3. Mad Men - I'm an episode behind, so this is the second or third one?



* Don Draper is an ass. So is Pete. I feel so sorry for their wives. At least Judy has some back bone and threw Pete out. Or she ...put down some ground rules, not sure which. How Pete gets women is beyond me. He's creepy. What do they see in him? Don - I understand. Pete - not so much. Although the scene between Pete and the Peter wannabee was interesting.

Wannabee: I aspire to do this. You have everything.
Peter: Do I? I guess it must seem that way...
Wannabee: You can drink and smoke whenever you want, party all the time, eat at the best restuarants...
Peter: Yes, it must seem wonderful. Just all show...

I find the character fascinating and actor quite good - he plays both the creep and the vulnerability well.

* So did Meghan have an abortion? I'm guessing "miscarriage" is code for abortion. The way she put it - sounded like it was a planned miscarriage. Don didn't seem all that upset and was quite caring. Meanwhile he's having a wild affair with the very Catholic next door neighbor, whose hubby works nights as a doctor. Meghan in an ironic scene confesses her "miscarriage" to the next door neighbor, who tells her she has nothing to feel guilty about, until well she emphasizes it was planned.

* Peggy and Stan are my favorite couple. Please don't break them up - with Peggy going after the Heinze deal because Teddy told her too. And by the way, do you know who the actor is playing Teddy? I've seen him before somewhere. Can't place him.

Better episode than last weeks. No Betty, which may be part of it.

Comments

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think it interesting that actually the bloody mummers (or whoever they are on the show)play so directly into Tywin's hands. I mean, he's actually more worth to Tywin without the hand, since that ends his service in the kingsguard.
(I know what happens, but still)

About Theon in the books. I don't think we are supposed to enjoy his comeuppance, I think the point he is making is more that no one, not even a murderer of children, should have to endure this.

ETA: Just saw shipperX said it much better than me.

Martin puts a lot of emphasis on cruelty (though, like we agreed last week, he overdoes it) I think to distinguish the good from the bad guys. I mean even the "good" character like Dany murder and raid their ways through the books but they don't rape or torture for the fun of it.Though I really could do without the goon freakshow.

I have to say, the thing I dreaded the most, is what happened to poor Lollys, but at least that they left out on the show.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I can't even remember Lollys. Here's the main problem I have with Martin, is the frigging over-kill. The violence I'm sorry is gratuitious in these books, it's gotten to the point that I don't even take it seriously and find it either silly, oh...they are going to burn another kid now, or oh look, another guy got his hand, foot, finger, genitalia, or thumb cut off.

Titus Adronicus isn't this violent, nor is Silence of the Lambs.

It's a bit like your complaints about gratiutious sex scenes? Well gratuitious violence has more or less the same effect in fiction, after a while you just get bored and stop caring. It deadens the reader. I haven't cried once in these books. I find the characters fascinating, but the violence is so unrelentingly gruesome and deadening it's hard to care.

That's a problem.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Lollys was the mentally disabled daughter of some Lady that was gang raped in the Kings Landing riots and is later married of to Bronn.

I agree that there is too much of the violence and at some point it becomes annoying. I kind of see where it has to be omnipresent and inescapble to create a realistic picture of war. But at some point I could do with less realism.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I actually discovered a serial series that is more sadistic than GRRM. It's entitled Flesh Cartel. And is a psychosexual horror serial. And the reviewers on Good Reads and Amazon tout as being incredibly realistic.

Now, I ask you, how do you know it's realistic? It's a valid question. I want to ask people this - how do you know something is real or not in fiction? Some things sure...the things that we do, and have direct experience with. But unless you've ahem done some of these things or witnessed them first hand, how do you know?

I think it's the writing - certain writers convince you of the realism. It's similar to art I think - the realist movement, not to be confused with the hypo-realism, which is similar to post-modernism. Hypo-realism - exaggerates what is real. GRRM is hypo-realism, as was The Wire, and I think the Flesh Cartel. The things you accidentally stumble across on the internet.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm I guess I know it is real from history books and from the news and books written by people all around the world. History is more gory than GoT. Even Martin is to squeamish to be as cruel as reality, especially were sexual violence is concerned, something of the scale of FGM is not described even in GoT as far as I remember.

Usually the news and histories just tell you the bare facts, like thousands of women tortured and burnt. They don't describe you what it smelled like, but you know it happened and how it must have smelled.

I think sparing people the gory details makes the violence seem less horrible than it is and leads to the gloryfication of war. I don't know if the exact details of what Martin describes are realistic but the general horror of human cruelty seems very realistic to me, considering what humans did and continue to do to each other.

I recently read two histories, I, Claudius by Robert Graves and Maurice Druon's french middleage history. Those books are based on facts and though they do spare you the detail, they are as violent as GoT, they are filled with people poisened, tortured, mutilated, burnt, crucified, starved to death....

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hm I guess I know it is real from history books and from the news and books written by people all around the world. History is more gory than GoT.

Historians embellish. You know that right? Facts...ah, easier to manipulate than one may think. That's not to say these things don't happen they do.

But hypo-realism is when it is exaggerated. That is not to say humans haven't done the extreme - hello, the holocaust. But I don't believe you have to show it in graphic detail to get the point across.


I think sparing people the gory details makes the violence seem less horrible than it is and leads to the gloryfication of war. I don't know if the exact details of what Martin describes are realistic but the general horror of human cruelty seems very realistic to me, considering what humans did and continue to do to each other.

I respectfully disagree. There is a point in which it becomes torture for torture's sake - or "torture porn". Or gratuitious. You were recently complaining about "one" sex scene with prostitutes in the series - just one, in regards to a character who frequented prostitutes. That is just as realistic.

You can suggest without going overboard. And still get the point across. After all far better writers have as you yourself state above.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Historians embellish. You know that right? Facts...ah, easier to manipulate than one may think. That's not to say these things don't happen they do.

So we can agree that history has the better of Martin cruelty-wise?

You can suggest without going overboard. And still get the point across. After all far better writers have as you yourself state above.

I don't think they get the point (in this case being "war is horrible") across. In "I, Claudius" it's really all fun and games. It's exciting and dark humoured fun even. You don't shudder and are tempted to skip a passage because it's so horrible. It's so short and packaged with so much irony that you laugh even about things like children getting murdered. Don't get me wrong it is a brilliant book, but as far as getting the point across, how horrible war really is, Martin does a much much better job.

"torture porn"

I still think porn implies it being (much like the sexposition whore scenes) for the enjoyment of the viewer. In this case the violence is there to make the reader puke not to excite them, so I don't think the comparison holds up.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Forget history, there's things happening right now that are worse than anything Martin has written or for that matter happened in history. In part because it's easier now to torture people - you don't have to worry about them dying of an infection. Modern science has advanced human depravity, unfortunately. Humans have not, unfortunately, evolved that much. Technology yes. Humans, not so much.

But I avoid reading about them. I may have to give up on GRRM, life is tough enough, I don't need to read about people being endlessly tortured for no reason. Plus some of the torture is just plain ludicrious. There is no way Theon could have survived that - without dying of an infection. Clearly Martin knows zip about anatomy and/or disease and infections of the Middle Ages. I can see why medievalists and historians on my flist aren't crazy about these books.

I know the books are fantasy novels...but come on.

I swear..horror novelists are as bad as erotica novelists - they get bored. It's like okay I did that already, how can I top myself? How can I shock the reader...oh I know, I'll do this.

That's not realism, that's hyperbole.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I agree that the bacteria world of Westeros seems rather friendly compared to our verse. This is also something were Martin is unrealistic. Apparently people dying by infections is not dramatic enough (though there is Drogo).

And like you I read Martin's books despite all the cruelty not because of it. But I do see it as an integral part of the books and the setting. I don't think it is there for it's own sake. GoT is for a large part a horror story about war.

Btw. I didn't think that the sex scenes in the books were there for their own sake either. Especially Tyrion and Shae evolved massively in sex scenes. The were perfect to show how a smart cynical guy looses all sense of reality.

Unfortunately almost all of those scenes have been cut on the show, instead pointless sexscenes with pretty people were inserted.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Eh..ignore me.

Read one too many torture porn books lately. ;-)

avoid at all costs the Flesh cartel

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I do have a distinct problem with the way sex is treated in american shows. In this prude/porn divsion way.Nudity is a much more casual thing here. I have seen all of my better friends naked and people who wrap in a towel in the sauna are weirdos over here.
So what I dislike is this split between body and mind, where sex is something purely physical and the mind is sexless. That's why I loathe sexscenes, that are there just to provide a prudish watcher with visuals.

To me with both sex and violence it depends strongly on how it is done. Exploitive sex scenes, ugh, sex scenes with an emotional plot going on, yay (and that does not mean love story).
Glorification of violence ala standard superhero action movie, ugh. Nitty gritty, not exactly yay but at least it is closer to the ugly face it really has.

No, me personally, I do not have much violence going on in my life. But the EU is involved in wars, political descisions I make lead (even if it is a very very small bit) to more or less violence. Consumerism is a war on other countries on it's own. What I do here has consequences somewhere else. So I don't think it is something I can ignore.

Also I am/ was confronted with violence in my life. Not with a war or with Martin scale bloodshed, but with the abyss of human cruelty. Definitely. I do completely understand that sometimes you just have enough and don't want to read about it anymore (I feel the same sometimes), but I would not say it is a flaw in a story, just another topic one wants or wants not to explore?