House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones) Thread

[Meacon Keaton]

And the books are far from out of ideas.

[Gazz]

Not seen the latest episode, but having caught up to last week's from the beginning of season 2 due to the Twitter spazz-out, I'm pretty disappointed. It just seems they ran out of ideas and just thought "hey, let's kill everyone!" Doesn't seem much point investing my time further.

Triple H?

[Benji]

I honestly don't know how any regular watching the show could watch The Rains of Castamere and not think of it as a wonderful piece of drama. Okay, so your favourite characters might be dead, but that's three seasons worth of politics and machinations build for their deaths, deaths which make the story more unpredictable and more interesting (seriously, eldest son avenges father's death is fun, but played out, and let's face it, the show isn't about any one character). The entire thing is that whilst The Starks are the relentless good guys, they are hopeless at the politics, and that's more important than anything in this series, because politics is all about relationships, both business and personal, which is where stories come from. Honestly, I can see and comprehend a number of criticisms for the show (none of which bother me, but which I could totally understand), but that episode is not one of them.

The one complaint I had from the finale was that Dany's scene was cheesey and ridiculously underwhelming. Season 1 we had the arrival of dragons, season 2 we had the march of the Whitewalkers, season 3 we had... a bunch of freed slaves? Really? I get that this isn't the end of one of the books, but they could have ended on something more interesting, like the fact that even Melisandre seems to be worried about the Whitewalkers.

[TEOL]

And the books are far from out of ideas.

... well let's not get carried away now.

[Benjamin]

Can you expand on that in the book thread? Because I feel that they're far from out of ideas too, it'd be interesting to know what made you say that.

[Cactus Drags]

They didn't run out of ideas...they're following the story in the books. It was in the books...so they used it.

I wrote "seems", I know it follows the books. It was a very good episode, I'm just not sure I want to waste any more time on it when it seems it's just going to amount to "everyone gets killed."

[GoGo Yubari]

I wrote "seems", I know it follows the books. It was a very good episode, I'm just not sure I want to waste any more time on it when it seems it's just going to amount to "everyone gets killed."

I guess yeah, then. A big thing regarding this series is the Anyone Can Die nature. This too doesn't really make it different from a lot of premium cable shows of its ilk (see: The Sopranos), but if that's a dealbreaker

To be honest, though, I think this season's Important Death tally was two major characters (Robb, Catelyn) and three or four supporting characters (Commander Mormont, Craster, Talisa, I guess Orell?). Considering how massive this show's cast is, it's not like they're indulging in overkill.

[Cactus Drags]

Yeah, when you put it like that, it doesn't seem so bad. But although it jumps about a lot, from the first series I got the impression the Starks and their struggles were essentially the key focus of the story, and that's all gone now. And it's not like they were felled by some equally-compelling house. I mean are the Freys really going to be a key part of the story? I'd wager we'd be more likely to equally never hear from them again.

I guess I'm basically hanging on for an Arya rampage of deathvengeance.and an entire episode devoted to Joffrey getting the snot beaten out of him by every other character on the show.

[GoGo Yubari]

I think you'll hear from the Freys. And to be honest, it wasn't the Freys who felled the Starks. It was the Lannisters and the Boltons, because like Tyrion said this week, Walder Frey would never ever take the initiative to do stuff like that without backing.

That being said, I feel you on the narrative turning out way different. I kind of like it, though? I think it's interesting the way that, say, the Lannister siblings have retained their characteristics from season one but are in vastly different lights by season three. There was a review of the finale that pointed out that a big theme of the first three seasons is that the characters who would have been the traditional heroes of a story like this (Ned, Robb, to a lesser extent Renly) have been taken out and that leaves the fate of the world in the hands of unlikely characters like Tyrion, Bran, Danerys and Sam.

[Pleatherface]

See. That's my biggest problem with the fan reactions of the general "There's too much death and graphic violence! This is awful! Why not just have a comet kill everyone, if that's what you want?!?!" view point.

They are normally expressed by people, upset because a particular character was killed.

We didn't get outrage when The Titan's Bastard got whacked, when Micah got ran down, or when the fat boy got needled. Because they weren't characters anyone cared about, or identified with.

On several different boards, I never heard anyone say anything about poor Martin and Willem Lannister, and despite them being little kids, I don't even think Lancel would care about them at this point. Because they're Lannisters.

So, while I certainly mean no offense to anyone, and everybody is entitled to their own likes and dislikes.. I can't help but find it a little silly that the main complaints I'm hearing on the internet about the Red Wedding aren't the skipped details and changes... but that it happened at all, because "GO TEAM STARK!"

I know it was in the books, but I really love the idea of "Hey, I heard you like wolves, so I put some wolves on your wolves." being just for the upset fans.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Pleatherface

[MDK]

Mate, I'm still mourning Ned Stark

[LL!]

Mate, I'm still mourning Ned Stark

To be fair, Sean Bean dies in everything so you brought this on yourself.

[MalaCloudy Black]

And now for something everyone saw coming, but is still great.

[Benji]

Mate, I'm still mourning Ned Stark

To be fair, Sean Bean dies in everything so you brought this on yourself.

Sean Bean cannot die, only the characters portrayed by him. Ohhhh yeeeeah.

[TKz]

Freakin' lovely.

[MDK]

Mate, I'm still mourning Ned Stark

To be fair, Sean Bean dies in everything so you brought this on yourself.

Sharpe and Silent Hill

CHECK AND MATE, MATE.

[Gazz]

His death scene in 'When Saturday Comes' was heart wrenching though.

No one deserves to die playing for Sheffield United.

[Rafael]

I mean, will the Greyjoys get any TV time next season or Theon's sister fails, both die and their father just sits there, waiting for his death?

Edited June 12, 2013 by RafaelFms

[Walker]

All this talk of people not getting over the death of Ned and Robb.

I can't get over the death of Grey Wind.

[TEOL]

Mate, I'm still mourning Ned Stark

To be fair, Sean Bean dies in everything so you brought this on yourself.

Sharpe and Silent Hill

CHECK AND MATE, MATE.

I have no idea what that second one is, I assume you dreamed it.