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[_Ryo_]

So it looks like real mance was killed. I am bummed out. :/

 

[WaffleTaco]

Ugh.

I was really looking forward to discussing GoT on GAF for the first time, but now the leak has completely fucked me. Any bit of plot/character references I mention that could allude in even the slightest way to the next three episodes may be seen as me talking about the content of the leaks... when I actually wouldn't be.

Might have to bow out for a few weeks.

I'm thinking of doing the same, except speculation about future seasons. Though most of it now is just random guessing.

Also Arya didn't show up till Episode 2 for Season 3. And maybe Season 2?

 

[Jackson50]

I watched the episode again, and I am curious about Baelish and Sansa's destination. They're heading West from the Vale, so there are a few options. They might be traveling to Harrenhal. But I don't see why Baelish would lie to Royce if that was their destination. The Blackfish escaped the Red Wedding and likely returned to Riverrun. But I doubt Baelish would return Sansa to her great nuncle. Perhaps that letter Baelish received last night charges him to capture Riverrun for the Lannisters. If Jaime is heading for Dorne, they might have replaced him in the Riverlands arc with Baelish.

 

[eot]

I watched the episode again, and I am curious about Baelish and Sansa's destination. They're heading West from the Vale, so there are a few options. They might be traveling to Harrenhal. But I don't see why Baelish would lie to Royce if that was their destination. The Blackfish escaped the Red Wedding and likely returned to Riverrun. But I doubt Baelish would return Sansa to her great nuncle. Perhaps that letter Baelish received last night charges him to capture Riverrun for the Lannisters. If Jaime is heading for Dorne, they might have replaced him in the Riverlands arc with Baelish.

Don't you have to go west to go anywhere from the Eyrie that isn't some eastern part of the Vale? I thought there was basically one road out of there, like the Kingsroad.

 

[f0rk]

So Littlefinger's going with Irish this season

Watching this episode, I feel like the shows divergence is going to be to not even bother with anything that still has questions around it in the books and just close of the story in the most straightforward way from where we are now, introducing as few new elements as possible. It'll still take 3 or 4 seasons. The biggest question is around the white walkers.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

I watched the episode again, and I am curious about Baelish and Sansa's destination. They're heading West from the Vale, so there are a few options. They might be traveling to Harrenhal. But I don't see why Baelish would lie to Royce if that was their destination. The Blackfish escaped the Red Wedding and likely returned to Riverrun. But I doubt Baelish would return Sansa to her great nuncle. Perhaps that letter Baelish received last night charges him to capture Riverrun for the Lannisters. If Jaime is heading for Dorne, they might have replaced him in the Riverlands arc with Baelish.

I sort of thought he meant they were going east to Essos. He did say somewhere Cersei couldn't get her. Riverlands would make more sense though, yeah.

 

[BobTheFork]

So Littlefinger's going with Irish this season

I have tried to ask politely a few times about if the actor has some issue that effects their mouth or speech. It's really jarring to hear lines of dialog from the first season and hear the ones we get now. It's not even the ascent, it's the weird muffled, 'disguise' voice he's been doing. He's standing across from a person and talking like he's Batman in the shadows.

It's odd

 

[PhoenixDark]

Watched the episode late last night...wasn't a bad episode. I liked the flashback, it was well done and Young Cersei was quite genuine. I assumed the next scene would be Cersei being woken up/learning about Tywin's death but skipping to the funeral made sense. You can also tell that wide shot is going to be used again when Cersei does her walk of shame.

The Wall stuff...meh. Why cast a great actor and do nothing with him? I loved Mance's scene with Jon, specifically when he learned he'd be burned; that was great acting. There was charm and wit in that scene that we hadn't seen in previous seasons. He's been hyped since S1 yet didn't have a memorable scene until last night. Meh. No wonder non-book fans in the other thread are so apathetic about the entire thing, and disappointed.

I'm surprised they didn't have Arya in the first episode instead of Sansa.

 

[Jackson50]

Don't you have to go west to go anywhere from the Eyrie that isn't some eastern part of the Vale? I thought there was basically one road out of there, like the Kingsroad.

Yes, the High Road. But there are not many places west of the Eyrie for them to visit. He's not returning with her to King's Landing. She'd be recognized instantly. The Riverlands seems to be the only acceptable destination.

I sort of thought he meant they were going east to Essos. He did say somewhere Cersei couldn't get her. Riverlands would make more sense though, yeah.

If they were heading to Essos, wouldn't they go East to Gulltown? I am surprised they're leaving the Vale. Its isolation is perfect for protecting Sansa's identity.

 

[NeoGiff]

Did you get the screeners too? I thought only Sue got them. Or are you just referring to knowing stuff due to filming leaks and whatnot?

Yep, Sue's the only one who got them, but I was just referring to general placement of scenes and storylines etc.

This sucks

 

[foxtrot3d]

I have tried to ask politely a few times about if the actor has some issue that effects their mouth or speech. It's really jarring to hear lines of dialog from the first season and hear the ones we get now. It's not even the ascent, it's the weird muffled, 'disguise' voice he's been doing. He's standing across from a person and talking like he's Batman in the shadows.

It's odd

I believe I read an interview recently where he sort of admitted that his Irish was slipping more into his scenes. Really it's more of the directors fault for not correcting him than his fault. It's the same thing with Bale-Post Begins Batman, all Nolan had to do was say "Hey Christian, stop that." But, they don't so the actor thinks it's okay and keeps going.

On a separate note I do think we as book readers fail to take into account the budgetary restrictions of the show. The show already has basically the largest cast in TV history that only ever gets bigger and salaries are what tend to eat up the most of a budget. So forever expanding the cast to include what may prove to be minor characters doesn't make budgetary sense.

 

[bengraven]

Welp.

I've gotten spoiled by a lot of what happens in the four or six episodes by people who downloaded the leaks yesterday and burned through them in an afternoon. At first unintentionally ("don't tell me, don't tell me" "but you read the books" "I don't care" "look, just a litttttttle spoiler?" "fine, a little one...") and then I gave in ("just finish me off and slice my throat like Michelle Fairley because you basically already killed my son, daughter, and grandson with your so called little spoiler").

If you guys would rather I stay the fuck out for the next few weeks, just let me know and I'll respect your decision and stay away with no hard feelings.



Just don't ban me. lol

Edit: I think I'll stay out just so people don't get paranoid about everything I say. Apparently he only watched 4 episodes, so I'll be back in 5 weeks I guess.

Yep, Sue's the only one who got them, but I was just referring to general placement of scenes and storylines etc.

This sucks

Talk to us, Giff. Just stick to what you love about the episode or general "this episode" stuff. Like I said above about myself, just ban yourself from speculating.

 

[Cornballer]

Just don't ban me. lol

I'll be back in 5 weeks I guess.

Keep in mind that the fourth episode will air in under three weeks, so it isn't quite that long.

 

[Martian]

So it looks like real mance was killed. I am bummed out. :/

Nah man. They cut back to Tormund too much for that to be the case. It looked to me like they wanted to see his(real Mance) reaction. Tormund didnt even have any lines in this episode, so why would they give him so much screentime

 

[BobTheFork]

Keep in mind that the fourth episode will air in under three weeks, so it isn't quite that long.

When the gif cuts there, it looks like he's taking a gun of out his left pocket.

 

[Staccat0]

I know ya'll were wondering where Rickon & Osha was at. Here they are haters.

 

[CassSept]

Maggy is squat and warty, with crusty yellow eyes, no teeth, and pale green jowls.

Well, close enough I guess.

They totally wasted Ciaran Hinds and Mance. This definitely felt like they were killing off real Mance for good, after this scene the whole switcheroo deal would be off-putting. Tormund is just like, the only wildling alive in the show that's recognizable, at all.

 

[bengraven]

When the gif cuts there, it looks like he's taking a gun of out his left pocket.

Dishonored: Westeros

Keep in mind that the fourth episode will air in under three weeks, so it isn't quite that long.

Bye. ;(

 

[Martian]

Btw how can Cersei have met Maggy the frog as a child, when Jeyne pooke is Maggys granddaughter. Cersei is 40ish and Jeyne is 15ish, it feels like GRRM messed up his dates imho

 

[foxtrot3d]

Btw how can Cersei have met Maggy the frog as a child, when Jeyne pooke is Maggys granddaughter. Cersei is 40ish and Jeyne is 15ish, it feels like GRRM messed up his dates imho

Cercei is not 40ish in the books.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I think they're really going to need LSH this season for some kind of spark to drive interest, because there isn't anything nearly as shocking in AFFC/ADWD.

 

[Staccat0]

I think they'r---

hush

 

[badcrumble]

I think they're really going to need LSH this season for some kind of spark to drive interest, because there isn't anything nearly as shocking in AFFC/ADWD.

Is she really, truly that interesting, though?

They're pretty clearly restructuring a lot of the story to concentrate more characters together slightly faster than the books do. I think it'll be fine, honestly. If anything, they've had several years to ponder how to handle adapting AFFC/ADWD into one single linear work, to decide whether it should take up roughly one season or roughly two seasons, and so on.

 

[Daemul]

Btw how can Cersei have met Maggy the frog as a child, when Jeyne pooke is Maggys granddaughter. Cersei is 40ish and Jeyne is 15ish, it feels like GRRM messed up his dates imho

Cersei is actually in her early 30's, she and many other characters were aged up in the show.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Is she really, truly that interesting, though?

The character herself, not really. The ramifications, yes.

I could see her appearance making for an awesome episode ender. I still can't believe they didn't end S4 on her.

 

[badcrumble]

The character herself, not really. The ramifications, yes.

I could see her appearance making for an awesome episode ender. I still can't believe they didn't end S4 on her.

Well, I mean, as for the actual ramifications of Lady Stoneheart being a thing, we sort of need to wait for TWOW to find out precisely what those are. We don't actually know what the major consequences of her being around are going to be just yet.

 

[ZeroRay]

I wonder if it was Hinds that wrote that letter to D&D complaining about getting offed too early as he expected his character to do more that season.

Either way, he did a great job in all his scenes. Unfortunately won't see him as a Abel most likely.

 

[BobTheFork]

Cersei is actually in her early 30's, she and many other characters were aged up in the show.

I nearly spit when I did a re-read and Sansa comments that Barric Dondarrion was 22 and 'old'

I'm fine with the aging since it seems to have been spread to most characters. Hell I think Walder Frey was only 40 in the books

 

[CoolOff]

So, after the entire arc is done, let's discuss.

Would Dominic West have been a better Mance?

 

[NeoGiff]

Talk to us, Giff. Just stick to what you love about the episode or general "this episode" stuff. Like I said above about myself, just ban yourself from speculating.

Noooo, you can't tell me to stay and then hightail it yourself! I might as well just stay but not post as much in the meantime.

 

[Van Owen]

I realize Emilia Clarke doesn't want to do nudity anymore, but she should at least engage in some love scenes. There's like zero passion with Daario that you get from the books (partly because he's just a dull looking bore on the show) but showing these pre and post sex scenes makes everything fall flat and makes me question why they're even together.

 

[Fuzzy]

I nearly spit when I did a re-read and Sansa comments that Barric Dondarrion was 22 and 'old'

I'm fine with the aging since it seems to have been spread to most characters. Hell I think Walder Frey was only 40 in the books

I don't know if you're joking but he's over 90. He was even in the third D&E novella.

 

[bengraven]

Noooo, you can't tell me to stay and then hightail it yourself! I might as well just stay but not post as much in the meantime.

I actually wrote something else about refraining from posting speculation,but then I remembered Ellsworth in season 1 of Deadwood and didn't want to spend the next three weeks wondering if DapperDanCornballer was going to feed me to Wu's pigs for what I saw.

"A friend would tell me if I'm gonna get banned...".
"Trust me Ben - when I know you'll fucking know".

I'll be popping in perhaps after a couple of events... Carefully...

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

So, after the entire arc is done, let's discuss.

Would Dominic West have been a better Mance?

If they left the arc the same, no. West is not on the same level as Hinds. West may be a better fit for how Mance is depicted in the book, so maybe if they changed things up he could have worked better. But Hinds is still the better actor I think, and may still have been a better choice.

 

[bengraven]

If they left the arc the same, no. West is not on the same level as Hinds. West may be a better fit for how Mance is depicted in the book, so maybe if they changed things up he could have worked better. But Hinds is still the better actor I think, and may still have been a better choice.

Agreed as a Hinds fan who want happy with his casting here.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

I realize Emilia Clarke doesn't want to do nudity anymore, but she should at least engage in some love scenes. There's like zero passion with Daario that you get from the books (partly because he's just a dull looking bore on the show) but showing these pre and post sex scenes makes everything fall flat and makes me question why they're even together.

Probably out of her range.

 

[NeoGiff]

I actually wrote something else about refraining from posting speculation,but then I remembered Ellsworth in season 1 of Deadwood and didn't want to spend the next three weeks wondering if DapperDanCornballer was going to feed me to Wu's pigs for what I saw.

"A friend would tell me if I'm gonna get banned...".
"Trust me Ben - when I know you'll fucking know".

I'll be popping in perhaps after a couple of events... Carefully...

As will I. And all those who doubt us suck cock by choice.

 

[BobTheFork]

I don't know if you're joking but he's over 90. He was even in the third D&E novella.

I know, just a comment on the aging of characters in the show.

 

[CoolOff]

Just watched the preview for next week.

Spoiler

SIDDIG-HYPE

 

[adamsappel]

Cersei is actually in her early 30's, she and many other characters were aged up in the show.

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

 

[NeoGiff]

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

No, he was just hoping to accurately depict medieval society in a fantasy setting, which he has done very successfully.

Times change, people change, cultures change.

 

[Iksenpets]

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

I think his original thought was that they would age over the series, so Arya would be like late teens by the time it was all over. It didn't end up happening that way, but the show kind of brings it back to the original plan, just because we can see everyone aging and each season feels like it takes a real year, even if those events in the books only cover a few months.

 

[kswiston]

GRRM went with the JRPG school of character ages. 30? Washed up old has been. 14? Hottest thing anyone has ever seen.

I am perfectly fine with everyone in the show being aged up 5-15 years.

 

[jett]

GRRM went with the JRPG school of character ages. 30? Washed up old has been. 14? Hottest thing anyone has ever seen.

I am perfectly fine with everyone in the show being aged up 5-15 years.

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

It's supposed to mimic medieval times. 500 years ago your daughter would be about ready to start pumping out children. The average life expectancy was really fucking low so there was no time to lose.

 

[kirblar]

It's supposed to mimic medieval times. 500 years ago your daughter would be about ready to start pumping out children. The average life expectancy was really fucking low so there was no time to lose.

He also planned to have them all age 5 years with a time jump when he started.

 

[bengraven]

As will I. And all those who doubt us suck cock by choice.

Truth. And not the book readers telling me I'm spoiling, or the savage fucking TV viewers or any of these other limber-dick cocksuckers passing themselves off as backseat mods had better try and stop me.

(we're quoting Deadwood, people, no one really wants you to suck cock unless that's what you're into and the way I look at it: "hey, everyone does weird things in college").

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

And including what everyone up here said, his original intention was actually to gradually age them up. He said something recently about how one chapter might be 8 months after the one before, etc. And then there's the proposed 5 year gap which would have, for example, brought Dani back and it was years later and she finally had Mereen in control. He realized he was going to need extensive flashbacks and some likely awkward dialogues to explain what happened during this time and decided against it.

He said he would have aged them up had he known.

 

[Daemul]

I'm doing a re-read now and I'm baffled as to why GRRM chose the ages he did. Sansa is twelve. Arya is ten. Was he hoping to draw in young adult readers, and ended up writing too brutal a series? My daughter is twelve and while I love her dearly, she is not ready to be married off or to kill people.

GRRM wanted to accurately depict medieval society in his series, 12 year olds then are very different to 12 year olds now. There was nothing like the teenage years, which are pretty much an extended period of childhood, once a girl had her first period she was announced a woman and eligible for marriage. People matured faster, by necessity mind you, and thus were able to cope with all the pressures of adulthood at a young age.

 

[DrForester]

Even stranger when you consider the timeline. Haven't only 1 or 2 years passed in the books since the beginning?

 

[kswiston]

It's supposed to mimic medieval times. 500 years ago your daughter would be about ready to start pumping out children. The average life expectancy was really fucking low so there was no time to lose.

The average life expectancy being really low equating to short lives is a misunderstanding of how life expectancy works. It was really low because it includes all of the children who die at or within a few years of birth. A lot of kids died early, bringing down the average age. If you made it to 20, your chances at seeing 50 were pretty good. Especially when we are talking about nobility.

EDIT: Of course we live longer overall now, but only 9 of 58 English monarchs have died before the age of 30 since the 800s.

43 of the 58 made it to 40.

 

[bengraven]

Here it is:

Originally, there was not supposed to be any gap. There was just supposed to be a passage of time as the book went forward. My original concept back in 1991 was, I would start with these characters as children, and they would get older. If you pick up Arya at eight, the second chapter would be a couple months later, and she would be eight and a half and [then] she'd be nine. [This would happen] all within the space of a book.

But when I actually got into writing them, the events have a certain momentum. So you write a chapter and then in your next chapter, it can't be six months later, because something's going to happen the next day. So you have to write what happens the next day, and then you have to write what happens the week after that. And the news gets to some other place.

And pretty soon, you've written hundreds of pages and a week has passed, instead of the six months, or the year that you wanted to pass. So you end a book, and you've had a tremendous amount of events — but they've taken place over a short time frame, and the eight-year-old kid is still eight years old.

So that really took hold of me for the first three books. When it became apparent that that had taken hold of me, I came up with the idea of the five year gap. "Time is not passing here as I want it to pass, so I will jump forward five years in time." And I will come back to these characters when they're a little more grown up. And that is what I tried to do when I started writing Feast for Crows. So [the gap] would have come after A Storm of Swords and before Feast for Crows.

But what I soon discovered — and I struggled with this for a year — [the gap] worked well with some characters like Arya — who at end the of torm of Swordsas taken off for Braavos. You can come back five years later, and she has had five years of training and all that. Or Bran, who was taken in by the Children of the Forest and the green ceremony, [so you could] come back to him five years later. That’s good. Works for him.

Other characters, it didn’t work at all. I'm writing the Cersei chapters in King's Landing, and saying, "Well yeah, in five years, six different guys have served as Hand and there was this conspiracy four years ago, and this thing happened three years ago." And I'm presenting all of this in flashbacks, and that wasn't working. The other alternative was [that] nothing happened in those six years, which seemed anticlimactic. The Jon Snow stuff was even worse, because at the end of Storm he gets elected Lord Commander. I'm picking up there, and writing 'Well five years ago, I was elected Lord Commander. Nothing much has happened since then, but now things are starting to happen again." I finally, after a year, said, "I can't make this work."

and just for fun

Was it going to be five years and then Winter was going to arrive or was it going to be during Winter?

No, it wasn’t going to be during Winter. The arrival of Winter which would have been on stage.

So, like another five years of Fall?

Yeah. There is plenty of precedent for that [in] the way I set up the series. Summer lasted ten years. A five-year Fall [is] nothing much.