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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 5 - Sundays on HBO

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John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Kudos so the producers for making this season more palatable than Feast for Crows... Lots of really good stuff so far!

Dorne leaves a lot to be desire visually since it all seems like one set piece... But adding Bronn was an entertaining touch.

High Sparrow gets high marks... Though I think they could do a better job with the rest of the Faith. Only showing two or three barefooted guys with face tattoos doesn't really give me the weight of their threat, and how they are seemingly tearing down a royal family when so many failed. Kings guard are one thing but why are here never any gold cloaks around? Is like all the regular soldiers are on vacation!
 

jett

D-Member
CF88NIRUUAAEtzr.jpg

Funny how I don't remember Mereeen in ADWD being even one tenth as exciting as that picture pretends it is.
 

foxtrot3d

Banned
Funny how I don't remember Mereeen in ADWD being even one tenth as exciting as that picture pretends it is.

Agreed. The only time I ever got hyped as fuck for Mereen was when reading Tyrion's TWOW preview chapter.
Fucking Ironborn battling, sellsword politics, dragons flying around randomly burning and eating people, just pure WAR awesomeness.
 
A number of my friends were already close to their limit after the Red Wedding, with the idea of "it's a bad place and bad things happen to our heroes!" thing having fully lost its novelty, and the Sansa scene was close to the final straw for a lot of them.

Most are still watching out of sheer momentum but they've lost all enthusiasm. I have a feeling the way "for the Watch" is handled at the end of the season will determine whether or not a fairly big chunk of watchers will continue to stick with the show.

I think the issue is less about bad stuff happening and more about the fact that it's not being tempered with anything particularly awesome happening. S4 got better ratings than S3, remember, and people fucking loved watching Joffrey/Tywin/the Hound bite it.
 

Sean C

Member
As far as the decline in the ratings goes, people will always read whatever criticism they personally have into that decline -- and that may be partially true, but is rarely the whole story. I intensely dislike the Sansa rape story, and that definitely has cost them viewers since I know people who stopped watching on that account, but it's not like it's anything like the sole cause (the trend had already started). Though it definitely does supply a convenient discussion point to center media discussions of the show's ratings on, which does hurt the show. Likewise, I think this incident ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of a lot of the sexual violence depictions in both the show and the books, which could be a mounting problem going forward (you could see that colouring the reactions to the Gilly scene, which even on its own was unnecessary).

In general, all shows will peak, and it's extremely rare for them to do it in their final season (a la Breaking Bad).

On some level I wonder if the ratings starting to peak (if that's what's happening) might be somewhat good, as if the show just kept growing the commercial pressures to keep it going would continue to mount, and possibly infringe on the art.
 

Lothar

Banned
Funny how I don't remember Mereeen in ADWD being even one tenth as exciting as that picture pretends it is.

That's how I remember it.

I was shocked when I came online and saw people didn't like it. Those were my favorite chapters other than Theon. It was so enjoyable to see things finally go wrong for Dany and for the situation to constantly get more and more fucked up. She came into Meereen with good intentions and it because a total disaster where everybody starts to hate her. It was fun to read.
 
I think the issue is less about bad stuff happening and more about the fact that it's not being tempered with anything particularly awesome happening. S4 got better ratings than S3, remember, and people fucking loved watching Joffrey/Tywin/the Hound bite it.

Taking into consideration that we don't know much about the last 2 (or more) seasons of the show, it would have been pretty hard to top season 4 just in content it had to adapt.
 

TRios Zen

Member
Why would Oberyn's daughters be held in a cell anywhere near a westorosi sell sword accused of attempted kidnapping?

Under what circumstances would the Sand Snakes believe that sell-sword would be released anytime soon to be of any help to them?

Finally, why would they have anything but contempt for the man who was assisting in stealing their vengeance from them?

I'm not comparing Dorne to the books, I'm wondering why everything about it in the show has been crap.
 
As much as that wasn't a terrible scene in and of itself, I'm not sure what its actual consequences are supposed to be. Bronn was poisoned and now he's not?

Maybe he needs to keep taking the antidote or the poison will kick back in or something. That'd be neat, I guess, and it'd keep him under their control. I dunno.
 

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
Why would Oberyn's daughters be held in a cell anywhere near a westorosi sell sword accused of attempted kidnapping?

Under what circumstances would the Sand Snakes believe that sell-sword would be released anytime soon to be of any help to them?

Finally, why would they have anything but contempt for the man who was assisting in stealing their vengeance from them?

It's best not to think too hard about any of the scenes/storylines this season as none of them hold up under closer inspection.
 

Speevy

Banned
The tits scene was meant to show that the sand snakes are just dangerous, like Oberyn, but not evil.

Whatever their purpose are, we got nice tits and a great character (Bronn) wasn't wasted on these stupid girls.
 

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
I don't think the sand snakes were planning to murder Myrcella on the spot or she'd be dead.

They probably wanted to keep her as a political prisoner so the Lannisters would declare war on Dorne, I guess?

didn't ellaria want to mutilate her or something though?
 

Jayof9s

Member
Are you implying that book readers were all hyped about Euron when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the 4th book after being mentioned maybe once or twice in passing before?

Can confirm. I still don't give a shit about him or any other ironborn. Wait...
 

Madness

Member
Tyene took advantage of the situation and gave him the antidote to get Bronn in her debt to try and use him for something in the future.

I thought that was fairly obvious from the scene, but it seems like a lot of people didn't get that interpretation.

I said it several pages back that they might still roll Gerold Dayne aka Darkstar and Arys Oakheart into Bronn's character. Bronn is a sell sword. Maybe by Tyene saving him and enamoring him to her, they are conspiring and he agrees to help them. He has no love for the Lannisters, especially as Jaime said if he ever saw Tyrion again he'd kill him. Why does he care if war happens between Dorne and Casterly Rock?

I just don't see any reason for the Sand Snakes, to do this Dorne story, cast Hotah, all to build it up for a 20 second amateur fight that lead to nothing. Who knows though? I could be way off base. But there had to be a reason for that scene, poisoning Bronn and then saving him with the antidote.
 

Kyougar

Member
I thought about another issue with the aging up of Tommen:

He clearly had sex with his Queen AND he should be aware of the concept of an heir. How can he sit there and let his Wife and future heir rot in a cell? The least he should ask the Faith is to hold her in a place that is appropriate for a pregnant woman.

But maybe he is still the little 8 year old boy from the books and doesnt understand these things.
 
I said it several pages back that they might still roll Gerold Dayne aka Darkstar and Arys Oakheart into Bronn's character. Bronn is a sell sword. Maybe by Tyene saving him and enamoring him to her, they are conspiring and he agrees to help them. He has no love for the Lannisters, especially as Jaime said if he ever saw Tyrion again he'd kill him. Why does he care if war happens between Dorne and Casterly Rock?

I just don't see any reason for the Sand Snakes, to do this Dorne story, cast Hotah, all to build it up for a 20 second amateur fight that lead to nothing. Who knows though? I could be way off base. But there had to be a reason for that scene, poisoning Bronn and then saving him with the antidote.

Yeah we'll see, I think when the season's completed, it'll end up being an arc much like the one in Feast, mostly a setup as Doran and Dorne as a major player in the future.
  • I assume Jaime and Doran will meet and come to some kind of agreement, not really sure what the nature of this would be though. Perhaps Jaime agrees to leave Myrcella there and through what Doran says, he pieces together that Dorne sent no threat about her, but it was Cersei's doing.
  • Most importantly, Doran has a meeting with Ellaria, in which he reveals his actual plan, which I assume in basic terms is prop up the Trystane-Mrycella engagement as long as possible to keep the peace with the Lannisters, but intend to cast her aside and marry Trystane to Dany. Maybe he has a mission for Ellaria as well? Sets up Doran as a major player.
  • Sand Snakes...no idea, maybe they use Bronn while the above is happening to pull of something stupid that threatens to fuck up Doran's plan...?
 

Speevy

Banned
I thought about another issue with the aging up of Tommen:

He clearly had sex with his Queen AND he should be aware of the concept of an heir. How can he sit there and let his Wife and future heir rot in a cell? The least he should ask the Faith is to hold her in a place that is appropriate for a pregnant woman.

But maybe he is still the little 8 year old boy from the books and doesnt understand these things.

HE IS THE KING, AND THERE'S NOTHING HE CAN DO ABOUT IT.



You know something is amiss when they've written their description of a character into his dialogue.
 

Brakke

Banned
Yeah Tommen's total incontinence was real conspicuous this episode. I don't think that's really a "problem" in the writing, I think it's just that yeah, Tommen is totally useless. Having a nincompoop king on the Throne helps motivate whatever Queenmaker thread they pull on, and it motivates people caring about Dany getting out of Meereen eventually.

But it puts us in kind of a weird place. High Howland is so thoroughly competent and populist and sincere and earnest, if it wasn't for this whole smashing gay dudes thing I'd definitely be on the side of the Faith at least with regard to King's Landing. One thing I hope they address is how much good will Margaery had built up during her little AmeriCorps project handing out food and dolls. Seems to me enough smallfolk should feel affection toward her that jailing her for perjury just wouldn't be that tenable.
 

Moff

Member
So attracted to that look she has going on there.

well in the interview she says she is 18 soon, so I guess in the pic she is still a minor, you perv

I am always amazed how people care so much about that number, she has been pretty for a while now


I think a decline in viewers was inevitable given how difficult these two books are to adapt. However the interesting and amusing thing about this is that a few years ago I remember quite a few people arguing D&D wouldn't have much trouble creating something more interesting than AFFC/ADWD. Now even AFFC/ADWD haters have quietly admitted D&D somehow managed to make things worse lol.

I still think they could have made it more interesting witthout much trouble, and besides the dorne plot, I'd still say it is, and even the dorne plot is at least not as dragging and boring, even if it is plain stupid.
 

Moff

Member
He clearly had sex with his Queen AND he should be aware of the concept of an heir. How can he sit there and let his Wife and future heir rot in a cell?

well he is aware of that and they established that if he would attack they would kill her first
 

suzu

Member
They're going to call Kevan back to KL right? Even if they go and put Olenna and/or LF on Tommen's council, it'd be pretty silly if Kevan ignored what was going on. lol
 

Brakke

Banned
He doesn't even have a clue.

How'd y'all read that LF / Queen of Thorns bit? Did LF orchestrate Lancel coming forward? Or did Howland already know? Since Lancel was the very first Sparrow we saw, I figured he'd already told Howland. But I guess it's possible he kept it to himself?
 

Moff

Member
He doesn't even have a clue.

How'd y'all read that LF / Queen of Thorns bit? Did LF orchestrate Lancel coming forward? Or did Howland already know? Since Lancel was the very first Sparrow we saw, I figured he'd already told Howland. But I guess it's possible he kept it to himself?

I think it was made very clear that the high sparrow already knew, and for a long time.
so no idea what LF was talking about, and it's even weirder if he doesn't appear anymore that season.
 

devilhawk

Member
I think it was made very clear that the high sparrow already knew, and for a long time.
so no idea what LF was talking about, and it's even weirder if he doesn't appear anymore that season.
I'm not sure who LF was referring to. The way the scenes were cut makes it seem like it would be Lancel, but you are right that it doesn't make sense for him to only now come clean.

So who is it? Who is this gift? Tommen? That would infer another death which doesn't add up. Olyvar to recant his testimony? Definitley possible. Gendry? I'm guessing not. Rickon? Nah. Robin from the Vale? But what would Olenna gain from him that LF doesn't already control.
 
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