Games of Thrones Unsullied thread

[TheVileOne]

Apparently there's precedence for what's happened with Ned hearing his son calling to him from the future before?  Or characters hearing whispers or something in the forest?  Like didn't this happen with Theon?  

[AxB]

That hasn't been in the books yet, but it happened in a preview chapter for the next book, on GRRM's website.

Am I remembering wrong, or did Ned hear voices while he was in jail, back in season 1?

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

That hasn't been in the books yet, but it happened in a preview chapter for the next book, on GRRM's website.

Am I remembering wrong, or did Ned hear voices while he was in jail, back in season 1?

You were not mistaken.  We've got The Shining going on where future Bran is communicating with Ned in the past.

[supremebve]

There are plenty of instances in the books of people around Heart Trees hearing the voices of The Old Gods.  

8 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

What else has Ned lied about.

Also, "he could hear me!"

"Uh, no he couldn't. The wind is all."

"He turned around and looked in my direction. "

"So how bout those Cubs?"

Ned didn't lie about what happened at the Tower of Joy.  Ned said that Ser Arthur Dayne would have killed him if not for Howland Reed, which is the absolute truth based on what happened in that fight.  

I hate some of the show changes, I don't know why we have to see so much Ramsey torture/rape.  None of that stuff happened "on screen" in the books, but the show seems to delight in showing it all.  Now we get Rickon and we get to see him torture a child.  

I also don't like how everyone just acknowledges that The Mountain is Cersei's monster.  I liked in the books how everyone knew that is who it was, they were just too damn scared to say anything about it.  Now that I think about it, Pycelle's "Yeah, when The Mountain comes in I shut up, but when he leaves I be talking again," reaction was great.

[BobbyWhioux]

23 minutes ago, supremebve said:

I hate some of the show changes, I don't know why we have to see so much Ramsey torture/rape.  None of that stuff happened "on screen" in the books, but the show seems to delight in showing it all.  Now we get Rickon and we get to see him torture a child.  

 

 

Ramsay is a midcarder/shock and cheap pop gimmick.

Benoiff and Weiss, however, are convinced he's a main event heel and have thus overexposed him, judging by the fatigued reaction I'm reading here and elsewhere (and even feeling myself, a little).

[Jingus]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

Ned didn't lie about what happened at the Tower of Joy.  Ned said that Ser Arthur Dayne would have killed him if not for Howland Reed, which is the absolute truth based on what happened in that fight.  

Although it's further proof of my This Show Deliberately Avoids Badass Heroic Deaths theory.  "Hey guys, remember that legendary swordfight we've all dreamed about for years?  Turns out it was a glorified squash that Ned only won because his buddy stabbed the world's greatest warrior in the back.  And it didn't even happen IN the tower, it was just in the tower's back yard."  Guys, quit fantasy booking your "Jon is gonna chop Ramsey's head off in a moment of epic badassery!" stuff, because this show does not do that.  A heel getting a death they "deserved" looks more like a bunch of guys horribly strangling to death on the gallows and it's not even remotely fulfilling or cathartic for the viewer.  Above all else, this show is deliberately designed to make you feel like cold dead shit even on the rare occasions that the babyfaces "win".  

[supremebve]

1 minute ago, Jingus said:

Although it's further proof of my This Show Deliberately Avoids Badass Heroic Deaths theory.  "Hey guys, remember that legendary swordfight we've all dreamed about for years?  Turns out it was a glorified squash that Ned only won because his buddy stabbed the world's greatest warrior in the back.  And it didn't even happen IN the tower, it was just in the tower's back yard."  Guys, quit fantasy booking your "Jon is gonna chop Ramsey's head off in a moment of epic badassery!" stuff, because this show does not do that.  A heel getting a death they "deserved" looks more like a bunch of guys horribly strangling to death on the gallows and it's not even remotely fulfilling or cathartic for the viewer.  Above all else, this show is deliberately designed to make you feel like cold dead shit even on the rare occasions that the babyfaces "win".  

If anything the Tower of Joy was a face vs. face match.  Even Ned said that Ser Arthur Dayne was a great guy, and the best knight he'd ever seen.  He never had a bad word to say about Arthur Dayne, Gerold Hightower or Oswell Whent, they were just the three guys who stood in his way when he had a job to do.  If they would have killed Ned, they would have been in the right.  All of those guys fought more out of necessity than desire.

[Eivion]

Quote

A heel getting a death they "deserved" looks more like a bunch of guys horribly strangling to death on the gallows and it's not even remotely fulfilling or cathartic for the viewer.

Joffrey?

[supremebve]

2 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Joffrey?

I don't think the faces got their comeuppance on Joffrey, he just got got.  

I think the best is Janos Slynt, who was directly responsible for Ned's death.  He thought he could talk shit to Jon, and get away with it.  Jon decided he was going to hang him, but he still wouldn't stop talking.  Then Jon said the words..."Edd, fetch me a block.  That was satisfying.

[odessasteps]

Tyrion killing Tywin? 

Although I don't know if people wanted his death like Joffrey.

[Craig H]

Arya brutally murdered Trant. The idea that heels don't get a good death is weird because it's happened multiple times.

[Jingus]

Almost all of those still involved some level of the show deliberately sabotaging the "fuck yeah!" factor through the way the deaths were handled.  

-Joffrey died in the arms of his sobbing mother, damn near making the moment sympathetic.  And Sansa and Tyrion were immediately blamed for it; the episode ended not with Joffrey's death, but with Cersei pointing at her brother.  Meanwhile, the actual culprit was Littlefinger, arguably the worst piece of shit on the entire show, who killed Joffrey for purely selfish political reasons.  

-Tywin died by his own son's hand, while taking a shit.  Not exactly a heroic comeuppance.  And he showed zero no fear, no guilt, no acceptance of his own responsibility in any of his evil bullshit even at the end.  He stayed smug and stoic even after the first crossbow bolt went into his gut.  

-Arya didn't look like a righteous avenger with Trant, she just looked like one sociopath ambushing another sociopath.  It was less "hell yeah, he had it coming!" than it was "goddamn, that girl has issues".  And then she's immediately punished by having one of her trainer-friends killed for her actions, and also being struck blind.  

The closest example was Janos Slynt, but even he had mitigating circumstances.  His turn into a whining blubbery mess at the end made it more of a comedic scene than anything else, and his sudden execution was one of the many actions that pissd off Jon's men and helped him eventually get assassinated.  

[Craig H]

I see a lot of goalpost moving.

[Jingus]

Which sounds more to me like "I can't particularly find fault with any of the specifics of your argument".  This show simply does not give us viewers any big generic Righteous Hero Ethically Kills A Villain Who Had It Coming moments without intentionally crafting the scene to still make us feel like shit anyway.  

[Craig H]

No, it's goalpost moving. You specifically stated one thing, a bad guy on the show not getting their deserved death, to which multiple people responded with evidence to the contrary. And yet, that's not enough now because of reasons x, y, and z.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I don't think it's goalpost moving unless you mean exactly in that moment it was a satisfying death. I still wholeheartedly agree with Jingus about the Ser Meryn Trant thing. I think the show went out of the way to show Arya had gone nutso, thus justifying her losing her vision.

None of those moments have a sustained victory lap.

[piranesi]

I think there are a couple of parallel but different things going on here with how this show deals out death scenes as audience catharsis.

Both play on the audience psychologically in similar ways but the long term impact is maybe different.

There are:
1) traditional cathartic death scenes in which villains are dispatched in a way that seems like they got what was coming to them.  There are very few of those here but Joffrey definately counts as his death was basically a youtube party and I think Meryn Trant although they really had to twist us with his horribleness to remind us why we should care.

2) then there is the trickier area of nihillistic slaughter of expectations.  the show has traded much more in this, giving people a perverse pleasure in unexpected death scenes that don't feel good...but are still addicting and provide a rush of adrenaline.  Ned Stark, The Red Wedding, Oberyn Martell, Jon Snow.

These provide a cathartic rush because we have been trained to be waiting in terror for them and to freak out when they happen.

But here is where I think a shift may almost have to happen.  The second kind is like a drug.  It's hard to keep giving people the same high and it's starting to wear thin.  Also there aren't many people left that the audience is hugely invested in to pull it off and the ones who are left make it tricky to move forward if you off more than one of them (Tyrion, Danearys, Aria, Sansa)

The show seems to recognize this by breaking the "anyone can die" oath it took at the end of season 1 by making it clear that "anyone can die except for Jon Snow because he has stuff to do." This seems like a tilt more toward the traditional narrative where the few true heroes are immune from anything but very late and very heroic death.

It also signals that we may start to get more of type 1 death catharsis and less of type 2. I know Martin has mentioned Tolkien as a huge influence and that has always seemed weird given how much Tolkien followed the basic convention of not cutting a hero's quest short and Martin seemed to glee in doing just that.  But that may have been a smokescreen for a story that, these last few seasons, is going to start working more and more like a normal epic now that we have whittled down to the true heroes (Jon Snow, Denearys, Arya, Tyrion) who almost have to be there for the final stretch.

When you get right down to it, Ned Stark, Robb, Cat, Tywin, Oberyn, Joffrey were minor characters puffed up to seem important in order to mask the true basic story of brother and sister orphan prince/princesses who must find each other and unite to save a world against evil.

[MarcosLoura]

13 minutes ago, piranesi said:

I know Martin has mentioned Tolkien as a huge influence and that has always seemed weird given how much Tolkien followed the basic convention of not cutting a hero's quest short and Martin seemed to glee in doing just that.  But that may have been a smokescreen for a story that, these last few seasons, is going to start working more and more like a normal epic now that we have whittled down to the true heroes (Jon Snow, Denearys, Arya, Tyrion) who almost have to be there for the final stretch.

When you get right down to it, Ned Stark, Robb, Cat, Tywin, Oberyn, Joffrey were minor characters puffed up to seem important in order to mask the true basic story of brother and sister orphan prince/princesses who must find each other and unite to save a world against evil.

Martin respects Tolkien a lot but also likes to criticise Lord of The Rings and fantasy tropes in general. He wrote A Song of Ice and Fire with the intent of subverting fantasy tropes.

Even if the show follows a more usual path of Fantasy Epic the books will definitely not.

 

[supremebve]

12 minutes ago, piranesi said:

I think there are a couple of parallel but different things going on here with how this show deals out death scenes as audience catharsis.

Both play on the audience psychologically in similar ways but the long term impact is maybe different.

There are:
1) traditional cathartic death scenes in which villains are dispatched in a way that seems like they got what was coming to them.  There are very few of those here but Joffrey definately counts as his death was basically a youtube party and I think Meryn Trant although they really had to twist us with his horribleness to remind us why we should care.

2) then there is the trickier area of nihillistic slaughter of expectations.  the show has traded much more in this, giving people a perverse pleasure in unexpected death scenes that don't feel good...but are still addicting and provide a rush of adrenaline.  Ned Stark, The Red Wedding, Oberyn Martell, Jon Snow.

These provide a cathartic rush because we have been trained to be waiting in terror for them and to freak out when they happen.

But here is where I think a shift may almost have to happen.  The second kind is like a drug.  It's hard to keep giving people the same high and it's starting to wear thin.  Also there aren't many people left that the audience is hugely invested in to pull it off and the ones who are left make it tricky to move forward if you off more than one of them (Tyrion, Danearys, Aria, Sansa)

The show seems to recognize this by breaking the "anyone can die" oath it took at the end of season 1 by making it clear that "anyone can die except for Jon Snow because he has stuff to do." This seems like a tilt more toward the traditional narrative where the few true heroes are immune from anything but very late and very heroic death.

It also signals that we may start to get more of type 1 death catharsis and less of type 2. I know Martin has mentioned Tolkien as a huge influence and that has always seemed weird given how much Tolkien followed the basic convention of not cutting a hero's quest short and Martin seemed to glee in doing just that.  But that may have been a smokescreen for a story that, these last few seasons, is going to start working more and more like a normal epic now that we have whittled down to the true heroes (Jon Snow, Denearys, Arya, Tyrion) who almost have to be there for the final stretch.

When you get right down to it, Ned Stark, Robb, Cat, Tywin, Oberyn, Joffrey were minor characters puffed up to seem important in order to mask the true basic story of brother and sister orphan prince/princesses who must find each other and unite to save a world against evil.

This is mostly true, but the "anyone can die" oath doesn't exist.  From the very beginning the show and the books started telling the story of Jon and Dany.  We didn't know it then, but if you were to rewatch, or especially reread, you'd see that the tracks were laid very early.  Ned died, because in order to tell this story, Ned had to die.  He seemed like the main character, because traditionally his character is who fantasy books are about.  The whole "anyone can die" thing was created by the watchers/readers, therefore it wasn't an oath nor could it be broken.

[Brian Fowler]

It seems like Ned's story until he dies, then it do clearly feels like it's building to Robb vs Joff (even set up with that sword fight practice at the start of the series) right up until one then the other drops dead. 

It's starting to get more and more clear who matters, but there is no guarantee Martin doesn't have another "ole!" up his sleeve.

[EVA]

At this point, it's pretty clear that the "cripples, bastards, and broken things" (and women!) have always been the key to everything.  It's the characters that the traditional power structures of Westeros don't have much use for that, in fact, have the proper perpsective on power and unique skills/abilities learned from the alternate paths this society has forced them to take (and dragons and magical powers!) to rescue the world from the brink. 

So Jon, Dany, Bran, the Stark sisters, Tyrion...you're looking good!

[AxB]

I don't think you need the 'and women' there. Most of the female characters who are needed for the endgame would fall under the category of 'broken' one way or another.

[MarcosLoura]

Plus bastards were always involved in a lot crazy important events (both in real life and in the books' world).

[tigertooth]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

I don't think you need the 'and women' there. Most of the female characters who are needed for the endgame would fall under the category of 'broken' one way or another.

I can see how Dany is currently "broken" (from a societal standpoint) by being Drogo's window, and clearly Arya was broken down to nothing to be reborn.  But what about Sansa?  Sure, she went through a horrific ordeal, but all things considered, she seems to be doing reasonably well.  Granted, it's still early -- we've only seen a few moments of her since her escape, but she seemed about as good as you could be.  I suppose she might be "broken" from a societal standpoint since she's still married to Ramsey, but that wasn't her first marriage, so once Ramsey eats it, she should be okay.

I wonder if we should be including Brienne.  She's "broken" in the sense that she wants to be a knight, but she can't as she was born a woman. 

[AxB]

Which horrific ordeal do you mean? Having her Wolf killed, seeing her father beheaded, being horribly mistreated by Joffrey, nearly being raped during the riot in King's Landing, hearing about her Mother and Brother's murder from a gloating Joff, or actually being raped by Ramsey? Or being forced to marry to Tyrion (which wasn't that bad by comparison, but in the eyes of most Westerosi, Tyrion is the lowest form of pond scum).

Does Cersei count as being broken since the walk of shame, or does she have to see Tommen die first before she truly breaks? Obviously Jaime counts as crippled now he's missing the hand...