CletusMusashi

I'm rewatching the whole series, and just got to Ep 7. Even back then, he really did talk about his plans way, way, way more than any intelligently written criminal mastermind really should. So I'll accept that it's a well-established character trait. But, god damn it, he really needs to bring some trainee-whores up to the Eyrie to practice faking orgasms, during his monologues, because that really did make his speeches a hell of a lot more fun. I doubt Robin would complain either, although, considering how much he freaked out over the idea that people on the ground do not have moon doors, seven gods only know what the kid would make of non-lactating nipples. I do think he plays it better with Ned Stark than I remembered. You get to focusing on the new eps and remembering the older ones through a bit of a tinted lens, colored by such memes as "Stark was incredibly stupid," and "Littlefinger never shuts up about how untrustworthy he is." But, honestly, he played Ned reasonably plausibly. The long-ass speech to a bunch of hookers about why he's a James Bond villain, though, seems a tad impractical. It's not even like he was "in the zone," confessing everything to Ros right before he put on his Lord Bigfinger Stark costume and shagged her. He was invited to join them and had no interest. Some people complain about the sextrapolation because it's "cheap" or dirty" or whatever. Me, I usually enjoyed it. Not so much with, say, Renly and Loras, but even though they're not my demographic I still was okay with it as a way of establishing different things both physically and verbally in the same moment. I mean, I never sat there wondering "Wait, why would Loras say that while in bed with Renly?" Actually, I was just reminded in this rewatch of how much I liked him being offended at something he practiced his ass off for being called a gift. But with Littlefinger... yeah. It's like the writers are periodically just giving up and treating him as a free "talk to the audience" card. Funny thing. I only mentioned that Ser Loras; "Hey, I practice fighting!" example as an example of sextrapolation that worked as characterization, as opposed to sextrapolation that was funny and sexy but didn't actually make sense. But what does Littlefinger bitch about in his Episode 7 villain speech? The fact that he lost a duel and learned that, henceforth, he must always be as lying and full of shit as possible, because he's not a gifted sword fighter! So thinking of that now, I give the speech some extra points for content, but still not for audience. Finger and Varys riffing each other, when they both already know that the other guys knows anyway? That works. Littlefinger confessing everything to newbie whores? It just doesn't seem like as secure a vault. He's like The Motherfucker, in "Kickass 2," building his army of supervillains while Twittering about it the entire time. Except that there's not even any army of superviallins. There's just him, and whatever the closest facsimile of Catelyn he can find is. An army of supervillains would be completely useless to him, because he would have to poison them all anyway, on the suspicion that they had bigger fingers than he did. ETA: No, maybe he didn't play it so well with Ned. In Episode 8, when Stark announces the "discovery," LF goes into yet another "How I Spent MY Summer Vacation Being Sneaky" essay. I guess the character always sucked. It's just way more noticeable nowadays, without gratuitous female nudity.

Finally made time to rewatch the ep tonight. Some things I didn't really think about much the first time: Arya is the first Stark we've seen to profess anything close to atheism. We know that nonbelievers exist on the show, because Stannis admits that he himself was faking it until he saw proof, but the Starks seem to take their old gods and traditions very seriously. Arya, at the very least, seems convinced that the afterlife consists of absolutely nothing. Kind of a big deal for someone who comes from a traditional old-fashioned family of fantasy heroes in a world populated by magical shapeshifting assassins and whatnot. "These are my private quarters. If I want you here, I will summon you," is quite possibly the funniest thing Danaerys could have said to Daario right before giving in. The only thing missing was him replying with "That's what she said." And, it's pretty impressively thorough that Cersei took the time to make an offer to Bron. I mean, we sort of think he might have been able to take the Mountain somehow, on a TV show, largely through the magic of being a main character with plot armor, but I certainly wouldn't expect Cersei to think that. Maybe she just wanted to make absolutely certain that Tyrion had to get chopped up himself, instead of just being sent to The Wall or whatever after somebody else got chopped up for him. Well, tough luck there, sis.

Well, it's not just the money. It's also a way to stay on Tywin's good side. You've got to occasionally be useful to people who you're plotting to screw over. Otherwise they might spend a little too much time thinking about how disposable you are.

The Hound is not only a high profile enemy of the crown, but he's gaining a reputation as something of a loose cannon. I really don't think Littlefinger wants the baggage, but he might love to screw him over and collect the bounty. Unless maybe he plans to tie him up, put a long wig on him, and try to re-enact a happier ending to that long-ago pity date when Cat agreed to accompany him to the junior high dance. You think watching Ramsay and Theon was bad? Wait until we get an entire episode of Sandor having to repeatedly say "Yes, Lord Baelish, your fingers are much bigger than Ned's." Hopefully there will at least be free chickens involved.

What did Danaerys say to the masters of Mereen? What was the final proof that Lysa was crazy? What was Tyrion's main job responsibility as Master of Sewers?

Hmm. Maybe he could lighten up a little bit on the hooch then If the sewers were actually working, maybe people in the castle wouldn't always be using chamber pots. ETA: Oh. At Casterly Rock. I get it. So he was still an outsider to Robert's castle, hence the over-the-top whorehouse antics when he was able to get some vacation time joining the royal entourage up to Winterfell.

I'm re-watching Season 1, and kind of confused about what Tyrion has been doing for most of his adult life. Was he living in King Robert's castle the entire time? We don't get any hints that he's ever held any kind of job, yet he doesn't seem to have financial issues, either. Nor, actually, does he seem to suffer from a bad work ethic. I can't believe that Tywin spent over a decade throwing a wine and whore allowance at his unemployed adult son while bitching about it, because... Tywin is not that stupid. Tyrion mooching loans off of Jaime I could see, but not absolutely non-stop for that long. If that were the case, we should have heard some mention of it. There are mentions of Tyrion occasionally gambling, but the narrative does not do anything to indicate that it's a source of professional income. What was he doing all those years? And don't say "drinking" or "fucking," because everybody does those things in their leisure time. The question is: what was he doing to pay for his leisure time?

My understanding was that the no slavery thing was KIng Robert. Perhaps urged by his mentor Job Arryn, but very much specific to that particular administration. Tywin himself has never indicated any problem with slavery, and I doubt he's been urging Tommen to focus on that particular issue. So the law is probably unchanged, but nobody in power actually gives a damn. Joffrey, of course, thought that pretty much everyone he wasn't absolutely terrified of was a slave anyway. ETA: Actually, the anti-slavery thing might have been more of a Stark thing than anyone else. We don't really know how serious Robert was about policing the slave trade, but Ned was the one who chases Jorah off the continent.

I took pretty much everything between The Hound and Arya this week as a step forward in their acquaintance. It hasn't been a linear progression. It's tended to go forward, then back, then forward again, but I think there was enough forward progress this week to actually mean something. Maybe not much. But something.

All you have to do to beat The Mountain is keep dodging until, after about five minutes of screen time, it's time for him to change actors. Then you kill 4.0 while he's still busy getting into the armor.

Oy vey.

Apparently Littlefinger is starting to get in touch with his inner Jackie Gleason. "One of these days! Pow! To the MOON DOOR!"

Kind of like the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine. They were so obsessed with being consistantly negative that they screwed up all their communications by outlawing words like "yes." Even when the Worst Evil did something competently, it would do it in the last useful way possible. "Hey, what if we drive someone to suicide right under the Slayer's nose?' "OK, but not Willow or Xander or Dawn. Just kill some random potential whose name nobody will even remember in a month." "OK. What about torturing Spike?" "Yes. Let's do it by drowning him." The minions aren't chosen for usefulness either. Blind guys, a dimwitted stand-out-like-sore-thumb species of vampire that lost the evolutionary race long ago, a bunch of illusions that can't move anything, and one crazy preacher guy who might be pretty effective.. if he would just SHUT UP for five seconds! Oh, and possessed Spike. Does the Worst make him kill Buffy? Nah, it has him randomly sire a bunch of red shirt vampires for Buffy to kill if she gets bored.

Best Pets: 1. Ghost: He's smart, friendly, tough, and can work autonomously. Also, he eats zombies. 2. Nymeria: I assume she's still alive, because if they were going to kill her we would have seen it in horrible gruesome detail. Even though we haven't seen her since Episode 2, she still gets a high ranking, because Nymeria was the first one to realize that Joffrey should be killed. They should have just let her eat him, then buried the bones and said he was abducted by a horny Sasquatch. Everyone would have lived happily ever after, and Robert could add "Looking for Sasquatch" to his list of drunken activities. 3. Summer: Largely the same good qualities as Ghost, except that he doesn't eat zombies or Joffries. 4. Shaggydog: Better name than Summer, but loses points for not eating Rickon. Rickon is useless. 5. Ser Pounce: Survived in King's landing even with Joffrey trying to kill him. Kept Tommen from turning evil and/or insane. 6, 7,and 8: The Dragons, whatever their names are: Useful as weapons of destruction, but hard to keep from causing peripheral issues. Unpredictable behavior when hungry. Need at least 23 Unsullied to clean up each one of their poops. 9: The Three-Eyed Raven: Appears in lots of visions. May theoretically be useful someday. Almost single-handedly makes Bran's storyline boring. 10. Reek: It's hard to go to the kennel and look at strays without wanting to take one home, but in this case Yara was able to restrain herself.

I suppose I lean toward Tyrell. Oh, I don't view Mace as any kind of authority, but nobody else in Tyrell does, either. The chicks who we have seen pulling the actual strings are fucking awesome, and if you must have a patriarchal figurehead whether he's qualified or not, I love that they're willing to just laugh, shrug, and "follow" a really stoned human-sized muppet. Also, we haven't seen a Tyrell die yet, have we? I like not getting killed. Martell interests me as well, but we don't know enough about it yet. Hell, we don't even know much about Dorne. I'll play it safe and stick with Tyrell.

Maybe because it was the first evil, it just wasn't very good at being evil? All it really understood when it came into existence was that it didn't want to be good, but the nuances of modern language weren't invented yet, and apparently it has not learned much in the ensuing millennia. So, needless to say, confusion arises. "All right, minions! It's time to be the worst bad guys ever! So, give me all your worst ideas." "Hey, boss, I know a great way to kill Buffy..." "No! I said bad ideas only!" I originally meant this as a joke, but... actually, it explains a lot. From now on, I think this is canon for me.

From what we've seen of Gregor, I think that him choking on a pickle is more probable than him laughing. However, Tywin is even less likely to choke on a pickle, and also not real big on the laughs. Gregor can be outsmarted more easily than Tywin. Ser Loras demonstrated that a long time ago. Insert obligatory pickle joke here.

I think the reason he acted up so much at this trial was the same reason he acted up so much at the other one. The idea was work the crowd into such a furor that they would all be cheering to see him not only killed, but also hacked and humiliated in trial by combat. If the idea wasn't popular, Tywin might simply pull some legalese excuse out of his ass and deny the option. But Tywin knows that sometimes you've got to let the people have their circuses. This way, even if Tyrion has to fight it himself, there's still a tiny long shot of victory. Maybe, say, The Mountain or whoever will underestimate him so much that he tries to kill him while eating lunch, and ends up choking to death on a pickle. There's still a better chance of that happening than of Tywin suddenly declaring Tyrion to be not guilty. Tywin's not after the truth. He's after results that specifically suit his agendas. So getting everybody emotional about it was a way of slightly weakening Tywin's ability to control it. Same thing happened at the Eyrie, when Tyrion's antics convinced most of the room that they wanted to see him defeated in combat, thereby putting pressure on those who would much rather he departed quickly by way of moon door.

Why did Cersei have Sansa's wolf killed? Because the show isn't big enough for two giant bitches.

Please let Tyrion be allowed to call Shagga. Based on what we've been seeing in some other locales, I think King's landing is way over-due for some overacting. Jaime might discover that both sides expect him to fight for them. About the crown's champion- it isn't just a question of who. It's also a question of what. There's still that other Valyrian sword left over from Joffrey. We might be seeing it again soon.

Oh, you're right. Mace Tyrelll actually did have a line of dialogue this week. Still not as funny as Oberynn's "I have an ear for that, too." I think farmers are going to start heavily inflating their livestock losses, once word gets out what the crown is paying. "Khaleesi, your dragons have killed a thousand of my goats, five hundred horses, and two hundred and fifty pandas." Good fake-out on that opening scene, though. First I thought it was a shot of Dorne, and we were about to see what was happening with Mycella. Then I thought the dragons were flying ahead of an invading army, and we were about to see Danaerys re-take one of the eastern cities. It's fun to keep being surprised throughout the episode. And, finally we get to Salladhor and Yara again. I guess when our calendar says "Mothers Day" it's "Talk Like a Pirate Day" in Westeros.

I don't think the dragons ate the entire herd. I think they killed it, sort of like kittens in a room full of mice. Remember, they grew up around humans and horses, but have no reason not to consider any goats they see fair targets. Fucking LOVED this episode. This season started off great, and then slowly weakened each episode. Not enough to be bad, but I thought the eps had sort of slipped from A++ to more like B+. This one was back in the A+ range. Not only was every scene good, but the distribution of them made for exactly the right pacing. My biggest complaint this week is that I want to become the actor who plays Mace Tyrell. All he he has to do to get paid is sit there and look like a muppet, except that muppets actually move around and talk and ride bicycles and stuff. How are they even going to figure out what his vote is?

Also, there was kind of a gun pointed to his (brother's) head. With the extremely debatable exception of Brienne, Tyrion is the closest thing to a platonic best friend that Jaime has. Even extremely socially flawed people like having the option of company, and the fussier they are about who qualifies then the more value they assign to those who pass the test. Another debatable issue is whether that counts an exception to selfishness or merely an example of it. But, yeah, I think Jaime's gonna have to fight someone next week. Hopefully The Mountain, but as sadistic as this show is it wouldn't surprise me if they decide to hit us with a lose/lose situation like making the court choose Bron.

At least until you see him get slapped around by The Alchemist. I like how the show humiliates him just often enough to show that he's all talk, but not often enough to ruin the joke by forcing him into character development.

So who else thinks he's related to Doctor Venture? They look similar, they have similar voices, and if he found at as an adult that, for example, Rusty was the child (or perhaps clone) who was brought up in a life of adventure while Malcolm was given up for adoption- that could be his motivation. We don't even know how much of his origin story given in the pilot episode is true. My bet is little to none.