Game of Thrones - Season Final - Mhrysa..

[shadowkat]

Just finished watching the finale, I'm admittedly behind. Keep in mind I have to get up at 6am each morning, and GoT comes on around 9. Also was busy watching or trying to watch the godawful Tony's...beginning to think awards shows and I are unmixy things now? My tastes have changed again.

Before I do a review, a brief take on a discussion regarding GoT with a co-worker, regarding the books and tv series characters:

Co-Worker (not the one who skipped Storm of Swords, entirely different co-worker - this one has read all the books, but got fed up because of how DwD dealt with her fav): How can't you like Davos and Jon Snow in the books they are morally upstanding characters...
Me: See, I read and watch things a bit differently than you do. I honestly don't care if the character is morally upstanding or not, or even if they have morals for that matter - they just have to interest me on some level. If they bore me...I don't like them. Which is why I wasn't a fan of Davos or Jon in the books or Bran or Ned Stark or Catelynn...

So here's the thing - which may explain a lot to people who have read me over the years? I don't care about the morality of fictional characters, well I do but not to the degree some apparently do, I care about how the fictional characters actions are explored and more often than not flawed characters, deeply flawed ones, are explored better than morally upstanding/perfect characters. I don't know why this is. It just is. Maybe because the writers find them more interesting too? (shrugs) This isn't always the case. I find Superman and Buffy interesting.



Apparently various discussion boards call people who are unspoiled and haven't read the books the unsullied? (amusing considering the unsullied are constrated, niave, and follow anyone who owns them) While book walkers are the one's who have read the books possibly more than twice and get off on baiting and spoiling the unsullied. I'm guessing a reference to the walking dead and the zombies in the north? Also amusing. And why I'm very glad I'm not in the GoT fandom. Ach. One internet fandom per lifetime is enuf. I can deal with lj folks, they are more civilized.

This was a wrap-up section. For a bit I expected them to do the Joffrey/Margery wedding, but they are apparently holding that for next season. Which makes sense, but it would have been an awesome season ender.

* Finally they explain why we had to endure Theon's torture arc in the same section as Jamie getting his hand sliced off, Brienne almost being killed by a bear, and the Red Wedding...because we're supposed to feel sympathetic towards Asha's plight or her decision to sail after her brother. (I don't remember this happening in the books, unless they are spoiling me again on the fifth book A Dance with Dragons? Actually I Theon's entire arc has almost been spoilt for A Dance with Dragons, and some of sadistic humor lost. My least favorite thing about the books and this season is admittedly Theon.) I do vaguely remember Theon's cock being delivered to Balon Greyjoy, so I think that was in the books. Wonder if they will let her succeed? Half tempted to tell her not to bother...by the time you get there, he'll be dead. Only people who reunite with family or loved one's are the people who sort of wish they hadn't. (aka The Lannisters) While it is admittedly hard to care what happens to Theon (boring character and on the whiny side), no one deserves this.

* Jamie and Brienne - they've changed the story. In the book they don't arrive until ahem, much much later and another "major" game-changing event has occurred. One I thought was going to occur at the end of this episode, but did not. Which makes me wonder how those major events are now going to play out?? Because there is no way they can happen the same way they did in the book. Jamie not being present at Joffrey/Margery's wedding feast was important. Now what? This is as big if not bigger change from Robb Stark marriage.

Which means the series continues to veer ever so slightly away from the bookverse.

* Davos endears me - he scenes with Gendry were wonderful with some funny lines...

Gendry: The gold cloaks are still hunting me..
Davos: Do they know your face?
Gendry: No.
Davos: Don't worry about them, they've been hunting me for 20 years - it's the Red Woman you should worry about.

They've consolidated Davos arc - he spent ten chapters in the dungeon ruminating on his life after freeing (in the books Edric, Gendry stuck with the Brotherhood), him. Here, he gets to tell Stannis and Melissandra about the threat to the north, which Melissandra, accurately interprets as a far more dire issue than their WAR. In fact that the WAR means nothing in comparison to that threat. This saves Davos' life, because she realizes that Davos is right, Stannis needs him to garner support.

* Meanwhile Dany is doing quite well with her huge following, the only question is - how does she plan on feeding and taking care of all of these followers? But the reaction of her advisers is interesting - both see her for what she is - a leader. She is the antithesis of Stannis, Joffrey, Robb etc...she's garnering loyalty with respect and love, not fear and anger and vengeance. Dany is an example of a morally upstanding character that I find interesting.

* Joffrey can you be any more monsterous? Also stupid. At that table were at least three people I would not want to piss off: Tyrion, Tywin, and Varys. Tywin deals with him well - sending him off to bed without his supper, as Tyrion notes wryly. Tywin's scene with Tyrion is fascinating.

Tyrion: Easy for you to talk about putting family first above yourself, when you make all the decisions for everyone. When have you ever done anything against your own self-interest?
Tywin: The day you were born. I wanted to throw you to the waves and watch you drown, but I did not - and chose to raise you as my son, because you were a Lannister.

Tywin: You know it wasn't the Freys...
Tyrion: Walder Frey is many things, but a brave man? No. He wouldn't have done it without assurances...
Tywin: From me, yes.
Tyrion: And you no doubt gave Roose Bolton similar assurances?
Tywin: Warden of the North, that is until Sansa's firstborn comes of age...you better get working on that.
Tyrion: After what you've done, she's hardly going to open her legs for me.

Tywin: I wish someone would explain to me the difference between killing 10,000 in battle and a couple of thousand at a dinner?
Tyrion: So killing them at the dinner was meant to save lives?
Tywin: No, it was to win this war.

And earlier the scenes between him and Cersei, which go a long way to explaining Cersei.

Tyrion: Sansa is not going to be happy about this. Someone needs to tell her.
Cersei: Give her a child - it will help towards making her happy.
Tyrion: You have children, are you happy?
Cersei: No. But there are moments...(pause) even with Joffrey. It is nice to have someone focused on you, who cares for you, and is made happy with you - even if it is for only a little while. Before Joffrey, I was so lonely, after Joffrey...they say the nasty miserable babies will turn out nasty, that's how you can always tell, but Joffrey was a happy baby, always smiling and laughing...

And of course what Tyrion states to Joffrey...Tyrion, Jamie and Davos get the best lines.

* The actress playing Sansa seems really tall to me, of course she's paired with a lot of shorter people. I loved Shae who tells Varys that she loves Sansa, and would kill for that girl. That actress is fierce. (I hope her story veers away from the books. I didn't like Shae in the books, I like her a great deal here.)

* Oh dear...they actually showed what was only mentioned but never described in the books, and had us see it through Ayra and Sandor Cleghan's eyes. I sort of was hoping they wouldn't do that. Although after Theon and the Red Wedding, can't say I'm all that surprised.
Yes, they actually showed that the Freys chopped off Robb's head and sewed his wolf's head on his body and carted around the corpse. Which was grisely enough in the books. It wasn't too bad here - since it was at a distance and not up close and personal, but still - ugh.
Did pack the necessary wallop emotionally - and did a good job of explaining where Ayra is going and why.

Ayra after she stabs the man who brags about sewing the wolf's head onto her brother's body...:The first man? Yes, that's the first man I've killed.
Sandor: Where'd you get the knife?
Ayra: From you.
Sandor: Well the next time you decide to do something like that, tell me first!

They are doing the Sandor:Ayra (PLATONIC!) tale quite well. Very happy about this. It and the Jamie/Brienne bits are amongst my favorite.

* Bran's story was well-done here - where tells about the Rat Cook, one of the few tales of Bran's that I remember vividly from the books - because it does a great job of explaining exactly why what the Frey's did is such big problem in that society.

Bran: The cook who used to live here...was upset with the king for slighting him, so he killed the king's young son and served him to the king in a pie. The king liked the taste of his own son, so much he asked for another slice. The cook offended the Gods, so they turned him into a giant Rat for eternity, doomed to eat his rat children, but never be full and always hungry...some say he still haunts these halls.
Mereen: That's funny, not scary...
Bran: You don't understand, the Gods did not turn him into a giant white Rat for killing the king's son or for serving him, but for doing it to a guest at his house, someone who was dining at his table. That is a sin against the Gods...an offense that can never ever be forgiven or forgotten.

Trust me, the Frey's will get it. That story more or less tells us as much.

* Jon doesn't believe Ygritt will harm him. Teary-eyed, she shoots him full of arrows, but doesn't kill him. Go Ygritt. I adored her. Jon...not quite that much.

Excellent episode. Hit all the necessary points and pushed the plot forward, even though not a lot of action. I actually liked this episode better than the previous one. Mainly because it featured my favorites.

Overall rating - A


This was a great season, the best to date. It echoes the books in that respect. And they are giving me hope for later seasons by bringing forward certain events from latter books, and tightening the story. It's not quite as sprawling and tedious as the books were in places.

Co-worker: I envy the people working on the series - they must know where GRRM is headed with the story.
ME: No, they really don't.
Co-worker: He had to have told them.
Me: He's not that type of writer. He writes intuitively, he's not a planner. He doesn't have them outlined way in advance. He sort of sees where it takes him. In short, he doesn't quite know where it is going and even if he does? He has a tendency to change his mind.
Co-worker: Arrgh.

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

because we're supposed to feel sympathetic towards Asha's plight or her decision to sail after her brother. (I don't remember this happening in the books, unless they are spoiling me again on the fifth book A Dance with Dragons?

Not exactly. At least not as I remember it. She was in the North, however, so I can see how they may use this to get her to the same eventual destination. I don't think she'd be against saving Theon. She doesn't hate him and she seems to be quite human, but that never seemed to be her particular purpose there. (And I did in fact like her in ADwD. Then again, I also sort of came to like Theon in ADwD. Of course, just about anyone would come off as rootable when pitted against the Boltons.)

My theory is that Asha is slated to eventually be of importance with the Iron Islands and in order for her to gain command of them, she needs to call into question the her uncle king becoming king of them, which requires the resurrection of Theon from the husk of Reek. After that he can mercifully die (because, sheesh, he's been triply placed through the ringer).

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. You can see that GRRM (in the books, and maybe in the show), is lining up his chessboard for the endgame. Just hope he doesn't get bored and decide not to let us have it.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I wondered too about Jaime showing up before the Joffrey wedding. I don't think it can work with him there--he'll hae to go away fro soem reason.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking much the same thing. It doesn't quite work for him to be there, because one of the main bits in Feast - is the fact that he wasn't there and how that eats at both Cersei (enduring it alone) and Jaime.

Plus, Jaime unlike Cersei wouldn't have accused Tyrion and Sansa, he'd have seen through it a bit better. They are obviously changing a few things.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

But the reaction of her advisers is interesting - both see her for what she is - a leader. She is the antithesis of Stannis, Joffrey, Robb etc...she's garnering loyalty with respect and love, not fear and anger and vengeance.

As someone who has only watched the show and not really read the books, I think she's definitely a contrast but not exactly.

Loyalty to Stannis seems to depend entirely on his legal claim. He has made no effort to be loved or really even to be feared. He's subcontracted almost all of that to the Red Priestess. He mostly just seems to glower.

Joffrey and Robb seemed like more of an interested compare/contrast. Neither of them listen to their advisers. With the difference that Joffrey gets sent to bed or hides out with the women while Tyrion and Tywin do the actual leading.

Rob is at least his own leader, but he's just not competent at it. He lost his home capital and tossed away his primary alliances. Robb's trying to be likeable, unlike Joffrey, but in their case it really doesn't matter that people like you. (no one likes Tywin but he's currently succeeding regardless)

That said, with what Dany does, it leads one to believe she could actually do a good job on the throne if she ever got there because she seems to care at least a little about the value of the people she is planning to rule over. Tywin and Stannis don't.

But this seems to be a world where people who follow you would turn on you, even if they liked you, if it seemed you were no longer the right horse to back. The Tyrells flipped very quickly to the Lannisters even though they very obviously do not like them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

All that's fairly true of the books...Dany does run into ahem, cultural issues when she attempts to rule people that she can't understand. Actually Dany's arc in the book's is fascinating from a political and cultural anthropology pov.

Dany's the ruler who means well, not that Robb Stark didn't too - but he was more motivated by vengeance, Dany less so. Which is an interesting contrast because Dany lost more than Robb did initially. They are the same age in the books or close. Not sure about the tv series. Robb looks 26 and I know Dany is being played as 16 or 17.

Stannis and Tywin are similar. Stannis is self-righteous and fanatical about religion. Tywin is fanatical about family and lineage.

Robb's problem is he rules with his emotions, much like Joffrey, except Robb is not a sadist. Although as you state - Joffrey unlike Robb or Dany doesn't actually lead so much as yell and get sent out of the room.

And you are correct - it's a world very similar to our own nasty history, where people support whomever they believe will support their own best interests.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I think Dany's upbringing must be a huge asset for her, compared to Stark. At least as a potential ruler, she has seen how her brothers' approach was a failure. That she can't just say "I'm the Targaryaen" isn't enough - that she has to *be* a queen, not just assert a claim. She also has experience being poor and dispossessed so can see the peasantry as a constituency to be marshaled and not just pawns.

Robb might have been motivated by vengeance, but he didn't seem all that vengeful. In fact, it often seemed like he didn't really know why he was conducting the war or what he was really trying to accomplish, which is probably a big part of the problem.

I guess the show never really communicates Stannis as a religious fanatic - it looked more like he was keeping Melisandre because she's powerful and persuasive - not that he actually believes it.

And yeah, Joffrey's pretty much purely a figurehead. Tywin is the real king. And I sort of feel like if Joffrey actually asserted himself, he'd be in a lot of trouble because Tywin doesn't actually need him. There's a little brother right?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think Tywin puts up with Joff for the same reasons he puts up with Tyrion - he's a Lannister (in this case pure Lannister, hence the problem).

Good point on the upbringing. Dany uses her's to her advantage. Although she did have a crazy brother and has decent advisors, also she fell in love with the man who married her and then died.

Robb was raised by kind/good well-meaning parents, who made good landholders, soliders and lord's of the manor, but horrific strategists and politicians and leaders. He wasn't raised to be a leader or King. He was raised to run an estate. While Dany was raised to be a Queen.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think the major change is more that Brienne comes to King's Landing before Sansa left.

Jaime being at the feast or not is not goign to make much of a difference (he still wont know if Tyrion did it or not).

I think they might give Brienne Ser Dontos role? That she helps Sansa to get away with Littlefinger since Cat is dead anyway. Hard to tell.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, actually...Jaime being at the feast and back at Kings Landing is a big deal for various reasons:

1) Jaime frees Tyrion and was not present for his trial nor did he believe him guilty initially (until Tyrion confesses)

2) Jaime sends Brienne on a quest to find Sansa Stark and help her. (I wonder if he asks Brienne to rescue her and send her to her aunt at the Erie? That would make sense, and he'd know to do that not Brienne.)

3) Jaime and Cersei are at odds because he wasn't there, and when he resturns, she's gone insane. Here - her big issue is that her father wants her to marry Ser Loras, when he returns, and well she can't control Joffrey.

4) Joffrey is his son - he worries for pages and pages and pages in Feast over what might have happened if he had been there and could have prevented what occurred.

Also really changes Brienne's arc.

Granted, Brienne's quest to find Sansa Stark never made any sense to me. Seriously, then what? Do you take her to Kings Landing where Cersei kills her, or to the Eyrie where her aunt resides (because been there done that already with LittleFinger). She has no remaining family that she can reasonably go to.

So this may well be the writers fixing a problem in the story, which Martin couldn't fix. I know the writer mentioned the TV series giving him an opportunity to fix or undo things in the books. He'd written himself into a few corners that he couldn't write himself out of.

There's also Asha going after Theon - doesn't happen in the books, apparently.

Lots of weird changes.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

but 1) can still happen, just as in the books. especially since jaime will feel extraguilty for not being able to champion for tyrion in the trial.

3) them falling apart had a lot to do with how much Jaime had changed and I think that is also something that will just happen anyway.

4) but jaime knows jeoff is a monster. tyrion fake confesses to the murder and jaime still lets him go. it ill be interesting to see jeoffs monstrosity play directly on Jaime though.

i agree though that for brienne it makes all the difference.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm admittedly more invested in Jaime's arc than you may be, so remember it better. While other arcs less so.

But it does effect his arc, I think. Brienne's quest is very important to Jaime, he is the one who sent her on it and he worries about it throughout.

I agree the big events will most likely still happen, but how they happen is going to be different. This is actually a bigger change than Robb's wife being killed. But I then I didn't care what happened to Robb, so there's that.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think it wont be a problem to end with Jaime sending her on the quest once Sansa is gone. The timeline will be different. But the emotional arcs will be fairly similar.

I guess no one who read the books cares much about Robb and his wife.

[shapinglight]

I will have to avoid for fear of spoilers.

I liked the finale (mostly). It was low key after last week, but that's probably a good thing.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, stay away from the post and the comments, unless you want book spoilers. The story veered away from the books in a couple of major ways so we feel the need to discuss it. ;-)

In some respects I liked the finale better than last week. Although could have done without the wolf head bit...which is in the books. And haunted me from the books. Ugh. Also...the Theon torture, ugh.

Other than that? I was mesmerizing and resulted in lots of rewinding.
Loved, loved, Tyrion's scenes with his relatives.

Adored Bran's storytelling session, as well as Davos's scenes.

Feel sorry for Ygritt, she deserves better than Jon Snow.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

If, as seems likely, Jon Snow is the hero of the books, what are you going to do?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

We can't put any spoilers here - shapinglight hasn't read the books and is completely unspoiled so far. Let's keep her that way. ;-)

He is growing on me. Far more interesting now than to start with. But it's not like I can't stop reading...done that before. Or give up on the series. Done that too. Also Martin doesn't really have one clear hero or protagonist, nor does he write that way - he doesn't write like Whedon or Tolkien or CS Lewis, he's more interested in the ensemble - hence the million and one points of view. Reading and watching Game is a bit like reading and watching five fantasy novels by the same writer at once.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Oh, no spoilers from me. Besides, with the series unfinished, it's all just speculation anyway. Right now, Martin has enough balls in the air that there are several possible characters who might come out on top (or none, for that matter). It's interesting, though, that the first book contains some big clues about certain things that the TV show has left out or made much more subtle.*

*Not that I caught those clues, mind you. Didn't see them at all until I read them on line.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

*Not that I caught those clues, mind you. Didn't see them at all until I read them on line.

Which leads me to believe they aren't clues so much as fan's thinking they are clues. The GoT fandom reminds me a great deal of the BTVS fandom in this respect - a tendency to read too much into minor details, which the author or creator probably didn't think about or has forgotten.
Remember how we all thought the numbers on the T-shirts in Bargaining, meant something? Turns out that was just the costume designer having fun with t-shirts. While not exactly like that...it's similar.

People think that Martin plots out his books ahead of time and has this all neatly laid out and outlined (just as they did with Whedon) - but that's not the case. These writers are making it up as they go along.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Heh. I do remember that bit about the shirts.

I think it varies from issue to issue. Some theories strike me as well-supported, others not so much. It's weird -- Twilight Zone weird -- to read some of the old posts at ATPo. Occasionally someone would predict exactly what would happen so long before the event that I'm not sure Joss had even thought of it yet (and certainly long before there could have been any spoilers). But those were mixed in with so many bad predictions that there was no way to figure out which was which.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Predictions that stuck with the thread of the story usually were correct - such as Spike getting a soul, or Willow turning dark, or Anya becoming a vengeance demon again, or Xander standing up Anya at the wedding and being an a-hole over Spuffy and Spanya.

Stuff that veered away from the thread were harder to predict, or things we as an audience did not want.

Predictions that were basically fans pipe dreams were off and did have the negative result of turning off those fans.

Dicy biz speculating. If it's what you want to happen - yay, but if it isn't...or is disappointing...