Game of Thrones S5

[Whitey]

You can fully expect spoilers from the most recent episodes in this thread, so if you get spoiled you can suck it.




I'm really glad they put Maggy The Frog in, with her prophecy about Cersei. Helps explain why Cersei is so obsessed with certain things and hates Margaery. Also the young Cersei had the mannerisms right which was good.

Drunken hopeless Tyrion is less fun after his magnificent bastardry of last season in the trial and with shooting Tywin.

Daenerys is going to continue to prove how unfit to rule she now is.

I'm looking forward to the Lancel/Cersei storyline, he's like a medieval Jehovas Witness. Jonathan Pryce as the high septon could be cool.

It seems like they're putting more naked dudes in it to counter the amount of naked women. I guess that's a good thing, depending on your preferences.

I think The Wall may be the most interesting storyline this year. Jon Snow might have some influential stuff to do, and Stannis being there could fuck shit up.

[BruceSmith78]

They left out Cersei's third question which explains her obsessive hatred for Tyrion, but they're probably saving it for later. Also, I think she misinterpreted the prophecy.

Agreed about Tyrion, both in the books and in the show.

I had the same thoughts about the male nudity last night.

[Whitey]

Yeah, I knew there was something missing I forgot it was to do with Tyrion. I think Cersei misinterprets a lot.

Hopefully the showrunners know that we want awesome Tyrion again so will change things somewhat so we get him back. It makes sense though to have him how he is currently.

There's probably quite a long way to go to make it even though, so many tits in previous series.

[Derived Absurdity]

The young girl playing 'lil Cersei was perfect.

The fact that the show made even Maggy the Frog young and hot, who in the books was described as an ugly old crone, is funny and pretty emblematic of the show as a whole.

I have no hesitation in saying I want more naked dudes on the show.

I sort of like how Varys is going to be much more prominent here than in the books, but I'm sort of disappointed in that it ruins a lot of his mystery.

The Wall is definitely going to be interesting. I might look forward to its storyline now.

So my biggest hugest problem with this episode was that it completely skipped the first Cersei scene, which is one of my favorite scenes from the book, when she wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers Tywin's corpse in the privy, and just moved right over that to where everyone is already in the mourning process. I think that was a huge mistake. First of all, it would have established a bit of strong continuity from the end of the last season, which is never a bad thing. We kind of want to know the immediate aftermaths of the dramatic ending episode, and we didn't get it, we just skipped ahead. Second, it gives Cersei a moment of humanity/vulnerability, when she finds her her dead father in a humiliating position and then discovers he's been fucking a whore all this time. It's a moment of pure panic and confusion, it would have been a nice change of pace. I'm getting tired of everyone in this show speaking and acting ponderously and portentously all the time, it would be nice if some of them acted like humans every once in a while. Third, it would give the beginning of this season a sense of drama and heightened intensity, which it sort of needs, but skipping over to the mourning process makes the episode seem very slow and ponderous. I don't know, I think it was just a huge blunder and I don't understand why they didn't include it. I was looking forward to that scene in particular for a while.

[Whitey]

I did think in my head 'Wasn't Maggy meant to be old and ugly?', but I don't think it was important. Though it did seem like they were trying to make her resemble Osha for some reason. It didn't bother me as it's just how TV seems to work, I mean Tyrion is meant to be ugly as hell but Peter Dinklage is a good looking dude.

More Varys is a good thing for sure. I've also wanted more Roger Allam on the show so I'm glad to know that Illyrio is back in the frame.

I forgot about the Vale before. Robin being taught how to fight was actually quite funny but I felt bad as his problems aren't his fault, they're his mothers. I'm interested to see Sansa's character progression now, she's improved a lot.

They've missed a few key scenes out in the past. The one that comes to mind is Jaime not telling Tyrion about Tysha last season. A few scenes were also mishandled such as the Jaime/Cersei sex scene that in the show becomes a rape.

[Derived Absurdity]

They've missed a few key scenes out in the past. The one that comes to mind is Jaime not telling Tyrion about Tysha last season.

Yes, that was disappointing as well. What's more, like this example, I can't think of any reason at all why it was changed. It would have been simple to keep reminding viewers of Tysha throughout the show so it didn't come out of the blue, so that's not an excuse. Like that one scene when Jamie and Tyrion were talking in the cell right before Oberyn was going to fight the Mountain, that would have been a good moment to talk about Tysha, but instead the show made Tyrion spend fifteen minutes talking about beetles.

I keep trying to like this show, but it just does too much stupid shit. If it only made better choices every once in a while it could become "brilliant" rather than "slightly above average" which is where it's at now.

A few scenes were also mishandled such as the Jaime/Cersei sex scene that in the show becomes a rape.

That's the worst thing they've ever done.

[Whitey]

I do really like it, and I don't mind changes persay, but I do wish the changes to key scenes they make....actually seemed to have a reason for them. Some of it just seems lazy.

With Tysha, they've mentioned her every season....then decide not to at the crucial point. They could have trimmed that beetle scene down even by a minute to give Jaime time to tell Tyrion what happened but they didn't.


All it would have taken in the Jaime/Cersei scene would have been a few lines from the book in the right place to make it clear that Cersei's only objection was to the location, that she did want to fuck Jaime. And that the location stopped mattering because she was as desperate to fuck him as he was to fuck her.

[Derived Absurdity]

I think they really betrayed their laziness with Shae's storyline. She had completely different characterization for the first three seasons or so, turning from a selfish and manipulative gold digger into a sympathetic hooker with a heart of gold. At the time I thought that was a pretty interesting turn, and I wondered where they were going to go with it. But then they simply made her do the exact same thing she did in the books, despite the fact that in the books she's an entirely different person and that her actions make NO SENSE based on the kind of person she is in the show. You can't simply change a character and keep the path she goes down exactly the same. That's storytelling 101. That's common sense 101.

After a while it became perfectly clear that the only reason they made Shae so different in the first place was to make Tyrion look better, because after all he can't be shallow enough to fall for someone on looks alone. They whitewash everything about Tyrion.

They're incredibly lazy. They have no idea how to create compelling storylines and consistent characterizations all by themselves. Which is why I'm worried about this season.

[BruceSmith78]

I hated that Jaime didn't tell Tyrion the truth about his first wife at the end of last season. It removes such a huge part of Tyrion's character and motivations (or lack thereof) at this point in the story.

[Dr_Liszt]

I didn't like how they handled the last season overall. Favorites are still S1 and S3 with S2 having awesome moments here and there.

[Derived Absurdity]

So... the second episode. That was boring as shit, wasn't it? Nothing happened. I barely even remember anything that happened. Even the big reveal of Jaquen H'ghar was sort of lame. I kind of like how Brienne found Sansa so fast, but now that she has it feels like her character doesn't have much of a point. Especially considering that she has NOWHERE TO TAKE HER. Like, at all. She's safer with Littlefinger than anywhere else she could be thinking of taking her. It'll be interesting now that Brienne seems to be going through some kind of existential crisis.

So Dany is perfectly willing to crucify a bunch of evil Masters she didn't like to make a point, but she's going to execute a former slave for avenging himself on an enemy everyone hates? Publicly? And she expected that to go over? Especially with a bunch of people who have no concept of fair trials or equality under the law in the first place? What a dumbass. She deserves that hissing.

So we didn't get the scene with Sam manipulating everyone to give Jon votes, he just gives a funny speech and Jon wins. Okay.

I am looking forward to Cersei this season. She's probably going to be the most interesting character. Kevan Lannister was boss. It's interesting that everything he said was true, but it all had a sexist undercurrent to it, which might complicate Cersei's character a bit.

I'm really hoping the show is going to give us a very good reason for Littlefinger to be parading Sansa around in public inns.

I just want Tyrion and Daenarys to meet already, I'm getting tired of both of their storylines in isolation.

God everything in this episode was just so clunky and choppy and clumsy. It was not well-paced at all. I don't know why. I really hope it was just moving the pieces for something intense later.

[Derived Absurdity]

I thought this was gonna be the thread where we discuss GoT, but if it turns out to be the thread where I talk to myself every week I'm actually fine with that too.

[BruceSmith78]

The show has repeatedly made Littlefinger act like a dolt, instead of the brilliant schemer he's supposed to be. That's probably my biggest complaint about it.

My wife had the same reaction to episode 2 as you. When it ended I think her exact words were, "That's it? Nothing happened." I was drunk and more easily entertained.

[Cassius Clay]

I'm not discussing because I've decided to wait until the season is over so I can binge-watch it. I think it will be more entertaining that way because of it's slow pacing.

Hopefully, I don't die before then.