Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[MediumHigh]

I love how we all expect the tv writers to go there own way with the story this season and all we're really getting is a halfassed cut and paste. I'm really worried for the next few seasons.

[Chimpy]

[Rendakor]

This week's episode was a considerable departure.

[Khaldun]

I wish it had been more of one. I really thought we were getting some kind of character growth for Sansa.

[Rendakor]

What exactly were you expecting of her? Any plot she might be involved in requires her to play nice until the appropriate time.

[Threash]

The appropriate time just flew right by.

[Rendakor]

She's biding her time until Stannis or Littlefinger show up. What good would cutting Ramsey's throat have done? She would still be in a castle alone, with only vague hints of loyalists.

[Samwise]

But now she won't be able to rally the people around her virginity, or something.

Yeah, I also don't know how "character growth" would have resulted from a suicide run at the Boltons.  She had to play the hand Littlefinger dealt her.  Which, by the way, fuck him sideways.

[Merusk]

Remember:  Littlefinger is only on his own side. He knows Starks are trusting and he used that perfectly, just as he's using Cersi's paranoia to his own ends.

Sometimes I expect him to wind up on the throne at the end. He's a damn perfect cad and master manipulator.

[Khaldun]

I'm really thinking about the writing. This scene only becomes inevitable if the writers decide on the sequence of events that gets us to it. I think as long as they're substituting Sansa for False Arya, the implied character development in Sansa from last season needs following through. Both because that's good writing: keep your characters evolving! and because it's a good correction for one of the most pointless parts of the books, something they've been doing otherwise. Make Sansa more cunning, more aware. If she has to be victim again, show us more clearly that she's playacting at that and has a plan, rather than being the helplessly reactive and naive girl of the early seasons. Something to hold on to! One of the basic themes of the books and the show has been that when rulers try to use either brute force or trickery to stay in power, they misunderstand what power is, and will eventually lose it. It's why Littlefinger is still bothering with the niceties like getting Cersei to legitimate his move on Winterfell; it's why Varys is interested in Danerys. So there's nothing wrong with setting the Boltons up for a very big and nasty death--the message of the show and books is not that evil wins, it's only that "good" people who misunderstand power are just as likely to suffer as "evil" ones do.

[Lucas]

Hmm, for all the fuss the book series haters are making when talking about the supposedly bad latter books (personally, I still prefer the books, although yeah, I'm among those who don't like the "false Arya" plotline nor the Tyrion/Penny one), the show writers are not exactly doing an outstanding work when having to create brand new scenes/scenarios in this season, IMO.  

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I had high hopes early in the season that they were just going to outright abandon most of what didn't work in Books 4 and 5 but they're still following a lot of it. This has got to be the last season where all the characters are so spread out--the storylines have got to start converging from here on out.

[eldaec]

That is the way GRRM describes it, everyone starts converging in late Dance.

Of course his original plan was also not to write most of Feast or Dance and dive in half way through Dance with a 'five years later' title.

My feeling right now is that both TV and book would have been better with that approach even if it meant some of the audience wondering how some people got from A to B.

That would have freed HBO to do whatever the fuck they wanted as a side story while they wait for books or just plough on into Winds and Dream.

This doing the books but not really doing the books is a bit of a mess. Keeps reminding me of Phillipa Boyens talking about how she just *had* to make Faramir a dickhead in LotR. Find I'm watching mostly for actors stealing scenes, which to be fair they are doing a decent job of.

[Samwise]

Highlights of this episode:

 - Sansa backsassing Miranda.
 - Arya learning the game of faces.
 - Cock merchant.
 - Cersei vs Oleanna staredown.

Lowlights:

 - Sansa continuing to not do any plot business.
 - Jaime and the Snakes arriving within minutes of each other for plot convenience.
 - Margaery getting trapped by stupid bullshit that she's too smart for.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, the whole bit with Oleanna and Margaery getting trapped in that hearing was absolutely fucking dumb. I guess I could buy her thinking that having the King wrapped around her finger was good enough but not the Queen of Thorns walking in that room without some legwork. One thing the book had done by this point was reveal that the entire population of the city was seriously pissed off and that only Cersei didn't understand just how dangerous that was. Without that being at least referred to, it just looks like they got outplayed by the High Sparrow and the Faith Militant/Cersei, which doesn't really sit right in terms of how they've built those characters up. I assume Oleanna will be responsible for the obvious counterattack coming soon.

[Merusk]

Yeah that was the dumbest of diversions. Cersi setting-up a bunch of guys accusing Margary of treason by sleeping with them worked and would be a trap Margaery couldn't have seen coming.

This whole plot thread thread with Loras is some pretty hamfisted modern day allegory bullshit. "Oh look, they're the evil guys because they're persecuting gay men!"

[MediumHigh]

So predictably enough this may be the worst episode of the season if maybe the series. The only thing worse than this episode are the instantaneous reviews whining about how game of thrones isn't safe for woman.... Anyway those of you that think Sansa is a good character or should be becoming a good character... she isn't. She really isn't. So stop feeling pity for her, stop thinking she is some sort of guided kharma missile. She is at her best a victim at her worst another product of the westerous school for extremely sheltered girls. If her and Ayra were to have died in kings landing you literally wouldn't have missed them.

Speaking of Kings Landing. Wow did the show writers had to stretch to go back to the book plot. Oh wow, just wow. And seeing Tommen just sit there, man and I thought I hated Joffery. Whats the point of aging him up in the books? Why? I mean shit this season doesn't even have the fucking boobs from there coupling, and now you expect me to believe that the only pay off for him being older is that he is magically good in bed? Oh fuck this show.

[Rendakor]

[K9]

This episode started off so well, and then somehow managed to get progressively worse with each new scene. The Bland Snakes were probably the low point, although the whole issue of Loras and the Faith militant was really poorly done too as said.

[HaemishM]

I actually didn't mind the switch from book Loras's fate to this - I imagine the whole Margery fucking some Kingsguard guys fell into the trap of "we don't want to create another useless character just to accuse her of banging" thing.  While yes, the Tyrells probably should have seen this coming a mile away, it's also giving us a reason not to like Tommen. In the books you can at least excuse his inaction because he's a kid. In the show, the kid either has to grow up or be recast and I think going with an older Tommen works just as well to prove the point about power. I actually thought this episode did a decent job of taking the threads they've put out there and circling them back around to where the characters end up in the books.

[Merusk]

[Chimpy]

[MahrinSkel]

I don't know why people keep trying to convince themselves and each other that Sansa is playing some kind of deep game as a protege of Littlefinger. There's not the slightest shred of evidence that she's ever doing anything more than passively going along with whoever is currently in control of her fate.

She is the most passive character in the entire series, with absolutely no agency and never the slightest hint of backbone. Anyone trying to say otherwise is reading "subtext" that simply isn't there.

--Dave

[jgsugden]

But we're supposed to think she is developing strategy and backbone...

GRRM is really good at subverting our expectations and not having a character get a chance to learn from mistakes.  I think she continues to repeat them and then dies...

[Ceryse]

Personally, I didn't mind the last episode. The Cersei/Tyrell thing made sense to me (as someone who hasn't read the books). It wasn't that Cersei out-played the Tyrells, but that she under-played them; they were not expecting her to actually be stupid enough to go through with the plan and likely figured it was her way of warning them that she wasn't going to accept being side-lined, and that the inquest would be the end of it and there'd be no trial, due to how important the Lannister/Tyrell alliance is to keeping the Lannisters in power negating any possibility of Cersei doing what she did. It was in keeping with how the Cersei character has been portrayed, as well; believing she is the smartest/most capable one in the room while being far from it.

Sansa.. meh. She's getting some backbone (she never would have talked to Miranda like that in the past), but she's still, well.. Sansa.

[MediumHigh]

Sansa.. meh. She's getting some backbone (she never would have talked to Miranda like that in the past), but she's still, well.. Sansa.

Actually Sansa talked to everyone like that...in season 1, and book sansa had moments like that throughout her marriage to tyrion. The one thing you can say about Sansa is that she has a good grasp of who she can run over.

[Rendakor]

I thought the episode was fine, too. Had some interesting non-book moments, Tyrion being Tyrion, and Jamie+Bronn vs the Snakes was a decent fight scene.

[MediumHigh]

The sand snakes being utterly outclassed was oh so comical.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Why? Their ability to fight was never proven...all their talk of being badass probably is just that, talk. Latin machismo (femismo?) style stuff.

[disKret]

and Jamie+Bronn vs the Snakes was a decent fight scene.

You realy call it decent? It was looking like children with wooden weapons fighting with low-class teachers in fucking slow motion. Daughters of the Snake my ass.

[Merusk]

Just one episode before had Jamie struggling to kill a single wounded common swordsman.  If the sand snakes had any prowess he should have died in seconds to one not fought her off until the guards showed up.   It did indeed only set the tone for them being utterly inept. 

[Slayerik]

Well that one made a perfect spear throw! HEADSHOT

[Khaldun]

Others have noticed this too, but my wife and I both spotted something bad during the Sand Snake fight.

[Chimpy]

I noticed it as well.

[Bunk]

Yes, that detail seemed pretty well focused.
I really didn't like the Sandsnake fight at all - they should have forked out for some Cirque performers or something. That fight looked like two grown men trying hard not to accidentally hurt little girls in a fake fight.