Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Abagadro]

I call bullshit on getting docked points for something that happened last season. Plus Roose should have got something for his verbal beat down of Ramsey.

[WayAbvPar]

I don't think his thinly veiled threats to Ramsey are going to lengthen his life expectency.

I am not in the game, so I can just comment on the show (which I am current on, finally). Was sorry to see Doran go, but I should have seen it coming. I started to admire and like him, which is the death knell for any GoT character.

[Hoax]

So same shit as always even if we are off GRRM's shitty plotting?

[Zetleft]

Yeah, that part with the prince was a bit jarring.  As far as I knew, he went back with them on the ship to kings landing.  So... they magically teleported there and walked onto the ship without any issues somehow.

Well that scene happened as the ship with Jamie had already arrived to tell Cersei of the bad news but the prince was definitely on a ship.  Best I can guess he went later on his own ship before news of Jaime's daughter death had gotten back to Dorne.

[Bzalthek]

Were they supposed to be on the same ship?  I just assumed the prince was traveling on a different ship, presumably to some other destination.  I had the feeling they did a lot of river boating and coast hugging to avoid that whole searing desert thing.

[Hoax]

Bottom line is from the send off on the dock last season onwards it was poorly done because nobody is sure on their first watch how any of that worked logistically.

[apocrypha]

Too many story arcs going on at once in this. 5 minutes per arc x 10 does not make for great TV. They need to merge some story lines, kill a few people off or start focussing more on 1 or 2 groups per episode.

I'm starting to not care about anyone in it, might skip the weekly watching and just binge it all in June.

[Pagz]

I'm super dissapointed I missed out on the fantasy draft =/. They really need to tie the lines together though, like, Aryas story is so separate that even if she did become grandmaster smash and return to westeros everyone on her list and her entire family will already be dead. Has a bit of Ser Davos syndrome, what are they both actually fighting for now that everyone they ever cared for is dead?

[Merusk]

Arya still has her list.  Davis issu no. Ow.  Looks like just to save his ass and the guys who supported John because he respected John.

[IainC]

I'm super dissapointed I missed out on the fantasy draft =/. They really need to tie the lines together though, like, Aryas story is so separate that even if she did become grandmaster smash and return to westeros everyone on her list and her entire family will already be dead. Has a bit of Ser Davos syndrome, what are they both actually fighting for now that everyone they ever cared for is dead?

Does Davos know that Stannis is dead? For that matter does anyone know that Stannis is dead? Even if they know about the battle (which I don't think the people at the Wall do yet), Stannis was alone and away from the rest of his army when Brienne found him. I don't think even Ramsay has seen his body. Also, it would be super lame, but I'm not 100% sure that she did kill him. We didn't see him die and the show is usually pretty explicit about showing the actual deaths of major characters. In the books, he's still very much in play at the moment and maybe there's going to be a flashback scene where we see him come to some agreement with Brienne over Sansa and Ramsay while he goes off to find a new army to get back into the game.

[Rendakor]

Maybe he'll take the black and become the Lord Commander we need, instead of Allister Thorne, the Lord Commander Westeros deserves.

[Khaldun]

Ramsay and Roose seemed pretty sure Stannis was dead, though. I think if no one had found his body, they'd probably assume he was still alive.

I'm still waiting for people in the North at least to actually act like it's winter. Even when it's cold and snowy, nobody seems to worry much about supplies or rationing. And there only seem to be high snowdrifts when the plot requires it (Theon and Sansa jumping). I guess that's part of the point of the show: that the war has stripped people of their ability to think clearly about this. Why, for example, is Roose Bolton worrying about the Lannisters for the time being? He should be locking down the castles he holds and if necessary, doing quick raids southwards to grab as much food and supplies as he can for his soldiers. Nobody fucking marches a medieval army in the middle of a heavy winter in northern Europe. You might do a lot of diplomacy etc.--esp. in GoT world where you can communicate via teleporting ravens that arrive about ten minutes after they take flight from a thousand miles away. But nobody's coming north with military force now if winter is even slightly like what it's been advertised.

[Paelos]

Are they still in the books or have they spun off in a completely new arc yet?

[Rendakor]

I think most stories are now past (or different from) the books; Samwell and Kevan Lannister are still behind. The other exceptions are the characters who just haven't been introduced yet: the other Greyjoys, Septon Meribald & Elder Brother, Griff and crew, etc.

[jgsugden]

They are working from Martin's outline. They change things freely, but most major points remain the same. Almost all storyline are now moving beyond the novels and into virgin territory.

While there will be a lot in the books that will not be in the show, most of the beats from the show will be in the books in some form or another.

[Hoax]

I'm super dissapointed I missed out on the fantasy draft =/. They really need to tie the lines together though, like, Aryas story is so separate that even if she did become grandmaster smash and return to westeros everyone on her list and her entire family will already be dead. Has a bit of Ser Davos syndrome, what are they both actually fighting for now that everyone they ever cared for is dead?

Does Davos know that Stannis is dead? For that matter does anyone know that Stannis is dead? Even if they know about the battle (which I don't think the people at the Wall do yet), Stannis was alone and away from the rest of his army when Brienne found him. I don't think even Ramsay has seen his body. Also, it would be super lame, but I'm not 100% sure that she did kill him. We didn't see him die and the show is usually pretty explicit about showing the actual deaths of major characters. In the books, he's still very much in play at the moment and maybe there's going to be a flashback scene where we see him come to some agreement with Brienne over Sansa and Ramsay while he goes off to find a new army to get back into the game.

Davos knows what the red woman said. Which was that they were all gone. The queen, the princess and Stannis.

Roose seemed quite explicit that Stannis was dead when he asked if Ramsey knew who had killed him because he wanted to reward him etc.

It'd be an odd twist if Brienne didn't kill him and not a very good twist for how the show has presented everything.

As for the north and snow. I get what you're saying but I'm not sure Bolton is worrying about the Lannister army in the near term, he says something like "there will be reckoning" in that "feel like a winner" speech and he's always on about how their hold on the north must be absolute when it comes. Which seems to imply he's talking quite a bit down the line.

[Merusk]

Viewers know with 100% certainty that Stannis is dead. It's been confirmed by show runners.  And as was said they inserted into the Roose/ Ramsay conversation that he's kaput. 

[Threash]

"It's been confirmed by showrunners" is absolutely meaningless, they've sworn up and down Jon Snow is dead also.  They are not under oath, they WILL lie.  It's fucking stupid to expect them to spoil their own show in the first place so I don't understand why anyone asks them.

[K9]

Yeah, that part with the prince was a bit jarring.  As far as I knew, he went back with them on the ship to kings landing.  So... they magically teleported there and walked onto the ship without any issues somehow.

Well that scene happened as the ship with Jamie had already arrived to tell Cersei of the bad news but the prince was definitely on a ship.  Best I can guess he went later on his own ship before news of Jaime's daughter death had gotten back to Dorne.

The scene opens with him painting those corpse eye stones that seem to be a feature of Westerosi religion, presumably for Myrcella. So this doesn't add up as a theory.

Too many story arcs going on at once in this. 5 minutes per arc x 10 does not make for great TV. They need to merge some story lines, kill a few people off or start focussing more on 1 or 2 groups per episode.

I'm starting to not care about anyone in it, might skip the weekly watching and just binge it all in June.

Yeah, this is definitely the show's biggest problem right now. GRRM has said before that he used LOTR as a model, whereby everyone starts together in one place, gets split up, and eventually reuintes, only the people who split up have been split again, or killed, or just lost to the aether, and now you have a situation where almost none of the main POV characters is interacting with any other major POV characters. Given that the draw of most TV shows is either big action set pieces or human interaction, the show is almost delivering on the first (Hardhome was the best thing of Season 5), but it barely has any opportunities to do the second.

So now we have a ton of plot to establish and not enough time to do it in. The scene with Jorah and Daario was the best example of this in the first episode. It was what, 4-5 minutes of pretty scenery and irrelevant chit-chat that built up to 'they have her' and that's it, off to the next narrative thread. That's beyond bite-sized narrative.

Tyrion and Varys is about the only interesting relationship happening. All the cool political intrigue of Kings Landing from seasons 1-4 has gone and we're left with a load of people not interacting (because they're all in prison) or just moping about. Most of the more interesting characters are dead. Everything at Castle Black is waiting for Jon to come back to life, which at the current plot pace will happen around  half way through the season, and the show didn't even cover a third of the poltlines that are supposed to be in this season (Vale, Iron Islands, Bran)

[eldaec]

I've always felt the number of plot threads is an excuse.

They don't need everyone in every episode.

Same thing happens every year, early episodes are weaker because they feel the need to catch up with every damn character.

That said, this wasn't a bad episode 1. Dorne seemed less ridiculous now they've put Ellaria firmly in charge, I liked the North, liked Arya's scene, probably the first time I found Dany watchable. OTOH Mereen was sufficiently dull that I passed the time remembering that Tyrion would not have roamed KL without guards, so it was weird that he'd do so in Mereen, also noting that Mereen has highly educated multilingual graffiti writers.

[Tale]

I've always felt the number of plot threads is an excuse.

They don't need everyone in every episode.

Er, they've actually reduced the number of plot threads for TV.

[Hoax]

His point still stands, that episode clearly felt like a "we're worried you have forgotten where things stand" type ep. If they give the north, dornish unrest and KL the bulk of the time and only pop in on the boring training shit going on (Arya, Bran, Tommen?, Dany learning some queenly lesson or another) this could be a good season and we'll forget all about how quick and shitty the 2-4min devoted to most plot points felt ep1.

That ep was also proof that despite how cool the Young Griff (not to mention integral) stuff seems. They can barely fit what they've got. There's no way Euron or the real Dornish story would fit.

Also the north has the potential to put /a lot/ of people back in the same place maybe with the way things might line up.

[Khaldun]

The Young Griff stuff in the books seems to me the antithesis of cool. Not only does it come through a heaping helping of Tyrion-on-the-dull-boat stuff, it involves a kind of duplication of plot elements and themes. I am sure it's partly Martin wanting to fuck with people in terms of their assumptions about what happens next, and also in pointing out that this is what tends to happen in dynastic states when there is political chaos (lots of people "discover" lost heirs as part of their bid to take over the throne). But until the next book (which I would assume is never) I don't know that you can tell whether it's a short-term fake-out or something Martin is very serious about developing more.

[Rendakor]

I don't like that arc either; aside from what you mentioned, it seems lame to have characters who died ages ago offscreen suddenly back to life and important. We don't need any more characters at this point anyway, much less additional characters whose death was important to the motivation of several others (Dany and Oberyn, just off the top of my head).

[eldaec]

I'm in a minority that has no hate for the young Griff storyline. I don't think it undermines the backstory because I don't think you are supposed to believe he is Aegon, I don't even think Doran believes it.

But clearly correct for the show to duck it at this point, if only because the TV audience have only heard a tiny fraction of the back story. Backstory on TV  seems to get dished out as a way to give the better actors screentime, rather than because of its relevance to theme or plot. A spoiler dodging TV viewer knows every detail about Jorah's ex wife but has never heard of the Tower of Joy.

I'm not even certain the TV show is going to tell us who Jon's parents are.

[Khaldun]

I think it's going to tell us that. Soon, in fact.

[Merusk]

Yeah lots of rumors about the Tower of Morning being in the early part of the season.

[palmer_eldritch]

His mother. It was clearly established his father is Ned Stark.

YES IT WAS THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT SHUT UP BOOK READERS SHUT UP

[Rendakor]

Not sure if sarcasm.

[palmer_eldritch]

I mean that if there's stuff people who read the books know about then they should take care not to drop hints about it here in the TV thread, at least without spoiler tags, please.

No I am not really shouting SHUTTUP at anyone.

[Khaldun]

At this point there is almost nothing a book-reader knows that a TV viewer doesn't. Anything the book reader knows that the viewer doesn't is either: a) irrelevant because it belongs to an alternative version of the story or b) highly speculative, effectively a fan theory.

[Threash]

There was a no book spoilers TV thread, nobody ever posted on it.

[Teleku]

At this point there is almost nothing a book-reader knows that a TV viewer doesn't. Anything the book reader knows that the viewer doesn't is either: a) irrelevant because it belongs to an alternative version of the story or b) highly speculative, effectively a fan theory.

I'd say if you read the books, at this point you have a fairly good idea who Jon's mother is.  I don't think they've given nearly as many hints in the series, though there are a few lines by Ned in the first season that should give it away a bit if you pay enough attention.

[Rendakor]

It's just a theory though; until we get real proof all that stuff could just be elaborate misdirection. Or, irrelevant if he stays dead (I don't think he stays dead).

[Teleku]

If it turns out not to be, it will only be because GRRM pulled a lost and changed it because everybody guessed it already.  It's fits everything based on what the characters have said and done, both in the books and the show.  It literally can't be anything else unless he has been planning an elaborate fake out since 1995.  Which would be really silly for such a plot point.