Climbing the Spitball Wall - An Unsullied's Take on A Song of Ice and Fire - Reading Complete! Now onto Rewatching the Show and Anticipating Season 6!

[Terra Nova]

Again, not treating the tower room moment as existing in a vacuum....that still brings the arrow of "YOU DID THIS" to Jaime and Cerei Lannisters Practice o' the Loose Pants. 

 

Sure, the point is exactly that even without Ned investigating everyone was already about to use that to advance their own interests, which sooner or later would have brought to war. Varys for sure would have conveniently revealed everything the moment before his Targs set foot on the mainland.

 

ETA: exactly, Avaleigh, that's what I was trying to say. Tyrion, all his self-loathing considered, sometimes still gets blinded by perceived praises.

 

ETA2: @WSmith84:

*some time later*

Penis: maybe a period of abstinence is advisable.

Jaime: ...

Penis: And you can always tend to your own urges with your han- GODSDAMMIT!

Edited January 24, 2016 by Terra Nova

[stillshimpy]

Yup, by not allowing the King to have a legitimate heir, the stage was indeed set for this particular brand of pear-shaped stuff.  

 

And that still leads back to the problem with The Pants Lannister. 

[WSmith84]

Btw, on the subject of poor old Ned, I think he would have died regardless of what Joffrey did. Reading the descriptions of his wounded leg, it sounds like he had a serious infection and would have died on the road North. That might have actually been worse than Joffrey killing him.

[stillshimpy]

Ned was essentially dead from the moment that Catelyn told him he had to be The Hand.   

 

As I've mentioned, I feel that Catelyn wasn't following the rules of their world when she kidnapped an innocent man and later didn't want him to have a trial.

 

Right, but she didn't know she was kidnapping an innocent man.  She thought she was kidnapping a guilty man and taking him off to the Eyrie.  

 

God knows I'm not arguing that Catelyn was smart because she was NOT smart.  There came a point where she even understood that "would someone really use their own hyper-distinctive dagger to arm an assassin?"  and (this is where the brainlessness comes in) ...she decides to trust Littlefinger and Crazypants becasue Catelyn is stubborn as hell.  

 

As for not wanting him to have a trial....eh....not really, but that one I'm not willing to argue anywhere near as strenuously because it occurs well after the "FOR FUCKING REAL, CAT, THE HELL?" point of "you really should have seen that you had fucked the hell up, sideways, down and inside out" ...but it's  more that Cat doesn't want to let Tyrion call Brotherhood of the Traveling Loosepants as his champion and forestall (what she shouldn't having been clinging to the fiction of it all) justice.  

 

So that one I'll grant by about a third.  By the time Tyrion is on trial at the Eyrie, Cat knows Lysa is out of her mind, she just can't accept it due to family loyalty and pride.  Why she ever trusts Littlefinger so entirely is stupid and then Tyrion didn't help matters by being an abrasive, mouthy person , but then again?  If he'd just let the Mountain Tribes kill her?  

 

One and done.  

[Terra Nova]

Btw, on the subject of poor old Ned, I think he would have died regardless of what Joffrey did. Reading the descriptions of his wounded leg, it sounds like he had a serious infection and would have died on the road North. That might have actually been worse than Joffrey killing him.

 

From a physical pain point of view, surely, but his last moments outside the Sept must have been the stuff of nightmare: he confessed for nothing, one daughter was firmly in the grasp of the Lannister, the other allegedly so but he never saw her, he knew his son would have gone to war in earnest. And he never got the chance to explain the truth to Jon. That must have been heart-wrenching.

 

Dying on the road because of an infection maybe would have given him the time to write that infamous letter to Jon - he would have gone with Yoren, someone I think he could trust -. Or at least some letter to his family, like Davos while waiting in the Wolf's Den.

 

:( my poor Ned...

 

ETA: @WSmith84:

(it gets even better!) *Bathtubs, Harrenhal*

Penis: Look at this wench, she's not too bad!

Jaime: what-NO! 

Penis: I can barely see her from underwater! Here, let's take a better look *stretches*

Jaime: D: Pliz stahp!

Edited January 24, 2016 by Terra Nova

[stillshimpy]

Yes, poor old Ned would have done better to have purposefully died with his honor because he accomplished nothing there other than giving his poor kids even more stuff with which to cope.  Bad enough to have your father executed, worse still to have to deal with everyone calling your dead father a traitor, still worse to have him confess to exactly that, so you can't even shut them up. 

 

Another Daenary's chapter down.  So Brown Ben Plumm was trying to buy Tyrion as a wedding gift for Dany.  I don't have a lot of sympathy for Dany "The Sellswords betrayed me!" Not really, they did what sellswords do: reassign loyalties based on the most likely profits.  They don't die for causes.  It's in the name. 

 

Also, Dog Four Ways.  Fuck off some more, Martin. 

 

I'm not really sure what to make of the current situation in Mereen, but I am heartily sick of "You know nothing, Jon Snow" and "If I look back, I am lost."  Yes, yes whatever.  

 

I have to go walk my dogs again, because that's how I roll. 

[Trisan]

I'm not really sure what to make of the current situation in Mereen, but I am heartily sick of "You know nothing, Jon Snow" and "If I look back, I am lost."  Yes, yes whatever.  

 

"Wherever whores go" ... No recurring line can get to the annoying heights of that one ! ^^

[Terra Nova]

I consider the 'you know nothing' in Dance chapters the most obnoxious: it just pops up every now and then, often without any true connection to what's going on. At least the 'look back' has some consistency, since it happens always when Daenerys feels that she should maybe question some of her decisions and then nope! I'm perfectly right and fine, thank you.

 

Public Service Announcement: the next chapters are

Theon! and Dany in Daznak's Pit! Aw yiss!

Edited January 24, 2016 by Terra Nova

[Delta1212]

Mayhaps it is a blessing!

[Alayne Stone]

I'm very curious as to what her take will be on Daznak's pit. The show fell fretfully short of such a big moment for Daenerys and probably the chapter that saved Meereen for me. I really want to be like KEEP READING but that would probably be a spoiler in and of itself.

 

I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't remind all the "You know nothing" and "If I look back, I am lost" repetition.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Alayne Stone

[stillshimpy]

I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't remind all the "You know nothing" and "If I look back, I am lost" repetition.

 

Just you and George R. R. Martin in that particular boat, basically.  Leave your dog on the shore, trust me here. 

[WindyNights]

I consider the 'you know nothing' in Dance chapters the most obnoxious: it just pops up every now and then, often without any true connection to what's going on. At least the 'look back' has some consistency, since it happens always when Daenerys feels that she should maybe question some of her decisions and then nope! I'm perfectly right and fine, thank you.

Public Service Announcement: the next chapters are

Theon! and Dany in Daznak's Pit! Aw yiss!

I believe "You Know Nothing" is supposed to show up whenever Jon is too sure of himself in contrast to when Daenerys is having doubts and thinks "If I look back I am lost" yolo.

[Ballade]

I agree with this in addition to throwing Littlfinger and Lysa onto the war starting pile. I think they're all to blame. When I think of the destruction of the Riverlands specifically I'd say that six main characters in the story are directly to blame. In no particular order, Littlefinger, Tywin, Jaime, Cersei, Catelyn, and Lysa.

Ned too also had an opportunity to keep the realm out of war but ultimately thought war was preferable. I think there were multiple points where the war could have been stopped before it started but then of course we wouldn't have a story.

I think we're also leaving out two seriously culpable individuals: Varys and Illyrio - from the conversation Arya overhears in the Red Keep they are CLEARLY both interested in fomenting civil war in Westeros in order to effect a Targaryen restoration (or rather to put their candidate Aegon on the throne since Dany doesn't have her dragons yet.) Illyrio's concern is that the impending civil war is happening too soon (what good is war now is what he asks Varys, implying that they have been working towards war eventually). And I'm certain Varys knew all about Jaime and Cersei before either Stannis or Jon Arryn figured it out but for reasons of his own, he chose not to reveal that knowledge - perhaps keeping it in reserve for when HE wanted the civil war to begin. But had they not had incest babies around to use as their weapon, I am also certain that Varys and Illyrio would have found SOME way to start a civil war in Westeros so Aegon Targaryen (whom they have basically been grooming for kingship since Robert became king) would be able to swoop in and save the day.

In short, much like WWI, the causes of the civil war in Westeros are myriad and I can't point to any one person or group of people or their actions as THE cause, the one instigating factor. If Lysa and Petyr hadn't murdered Jon Arryn, if Jaime and Cersei hadn't had sex (repeatedly) and bastard children, if Catelyn hadn't captured Tyrion, if Tywin hadn't acted like himself in reacting to that ... There would have still been a civil war with all its attendant miseries though maybe not the specific misery for the Starks of the Red Wedding.

With that said, I don't think this little trip to see Lady Stoneheart is so much about Jaime facing Catelyn or apologizing to her or whathaveyou but more about Brienne's character - so far she has never had that dilemma that Jon, Jaime, Ned, Robb etc have all faced: when you have two terrible choices, two sets of oaths, how do you pick which one to follow?

ETA: Since where I live is now buried under two feet of snow, what better time to start a reread of "winter is coming", right? It's giving me new commiseration for Jon's journey through the Frostfangs since I'm dealing with snow along with all mod cons (and a bored second-grader which is honestly a nightmare the Night's Watch should be glad they're spared! If only I could suggest catching cats ;))

Edited January 25, 2016 by Ballade

[stillshimpy]

Well it's offiicial: Wyman Manderly and the guys from White Harbor are my favorite characters in this entire series.  Better to die knowing who you are than to live on a stranger to yourself.   I was laughing out loud at "He would have grown up to be a Frey." 

 

Made of awesome until the last.  

 

So, my standard complaint of "show some fucking restraint" with the eye-roll worthy idiocy of implying bullshit with the dog.  Like maybe the reading audience wouldn't be horrified and grossed out enough by a brutalized child.  Thanks for the warning, Mya, but mostly that hit my feeling of annoyance because Martin can be, and often is, a better writer than that.  Anyone can be heard with a loudspeaker and megaphone, dude. 

 

However, Martin's ability to be a better writer was actually on display in the rest of the chapter.  That was all awesome. When the chapter started out under Theon's name, it was a case of "Oh....shit...well, he's going to die isn't he? He's finally going to die as his better self."  

 

I have to admit, the books earn the shit out of that.  There's a beautiful symmetry to the fact that all that time he wouldn't risk even attempting suicide, not simply because he was too afraid, but because there's a part of Theon who is afraid he deserved it all.  That he didn't deserve to be spared by retreating into death.  That he finally risked it to try and save an imposter child, fits beautifully with earning that symmetry after he reached the point of no return by killing those Crofter's children.  

 

I don't know if he'll be dead or not, but he should be, that would a perfect arc for the character.  However, with one eye on the "Martin has trouble practicing restraint"  I know that there's a possibility he didn't just kill off Theon.  

 

Season five

and fuck the show once more for buggering that really well done structure of Theon truly being lost by murdering two boys as props, and then saving himself just in time for death (I hope) by risking the terrible fate he fully understands to try and save a child being used as a living prop. Boo, show, boo.

 

Also, I will never, ever understand why the show took a pass on including the Manderlys and the men of White Harbor, come to die slaughtering Freys and avenging dead children.  I was always a sucker for the good guys and I always will be.  I truly believe that it's a myth that good isn't as complicated or layered, or interesting.  I felt like doing the dance of joy when Roose Vampire Bolton was unnerved enough to shout.  Yippee!

 

Hopefully poor terrorized Jeyne has also been freed from her hellish existence.  

 

So ....Mance and his washer women are likely really screwed and then some.  Here's hoping the end is swift for them.  For that reason alone I am glad the show cut them, because they are unlikely to have merciful ends.

 

I hope Ramsay's dogs eat him alive, by the way. 

 

Theon thinking about playing on the stairs and fighting pretend battles with Robb was one of the saddest things in the books.   So Theon reclaimed his name and jumped off a Wall with it.  Good for him.  

[WSmith84]

On Brown Ben Plumm; yeah, I never got why Dany was so angry at him either. He just didn't want to die and made a choice. Perhaps the wrong choice, as it may or may not turn out, but still. She had no problem with the Second Sons betraying Yunkai, so I don't know why she takes it so personally. I do think though, that Dany has too much trust for older figures i.e. Mirri, Brown Ben, the Green Grace (if there's a real Harpy, that's who I would bet on), probably due to her parentless childhood. It's perfectly understandable, of course, but I think it's a flaw that she needs to recognise within herself, so she can guard against it.

[stillshimpy]

Oh hey, and over on Facebook Mya was just warning me about the Mereen people liking...Yeah, I'll skip saying it...as a delicacy.  People, Google Chrome totally lets what you talk about inform your news feed.  Anyway, since in Tyrion's chapter where he was sold as a damned slave, children were fighting over roasted TURKEYS...fuck you, Martin, every time you say Puppy?  I will say TURKEY.  Motherfucker.    Dog?  HELLO HALIBUT.  

 

So having cleared that up? Yeah, I noticed the children fighting over roasted TURKEYS and grumbled, swore and thought dark, dark thoughts about it.  But I was showing restraint (Martin) in not simply doing the same thing over and over and not raving about his gross use of TURKEYS.  

 

Fucking Turkey killer. 

[Haleth]

Ok, so any time he mentions a dog in any context I will now read it as "turkey." It should be pretty amusing.

[Delta1212]

"He would have grown up to be a Frey" is my favorite line in the book and one of the things that cemented Wyman Manderly as my favorite minor character in Dance.

Minor thing though it is, it's probably been the thing I was most looking forward to in the story for weeks now. I don't know if you remember a discussion way, way back in the thread about the best burns in the series, but that one was my pick (under spoilers).

[WindyNights]

Maybe A Dance With Dragons should be re-named to A Brutalization of Dogs.

[Brn2bwild]

Maybe A Dance With Dragons should be re-named to A Brutalization of Dogs.

 

A Brutalization of Any Animal would be more accurate.

[Terra Nova]

On my first read I was so engrossed that when Theon thinks 'if they take us alive, they will deliver us to Ramsay' I just frantically thought 'Not Ramsay! Jesus Jump! Jump!!! Jump already!' I was also metaphorically fist-pumping though, what a way to finish a chapter!

 

Why didn't they include Manderly in the show? Because a jolly fat murderous man who finally strikes back at the Freys wouldn't have been bleak and hopeless enough, clearly.

 

And I mean, Manderly is clearly the stuff of greatness (and props to Martin): this guy killed in cold blood people and then baked them and served them as Frey pie! Were we readers appalled by this? Heck no! I think everyone cheered! I was amazed by how he took every precaution not to breach guest right.

Truly a wonderful minor character, he even gets his own small arc: mocked because fat, craven and not a real Northener he sets on a suicide mission to exact bloody gruesome revenge on those who wronged his liege lord, while at the same time securing his family and his heir, armored in his own life-saving sack of suet :D and before croaking he even plans to single-handedly deplete Bolton's food stocks. I'm in awe.

 

ETA: Funny thing, death by dogs is one of the fan-favorite for Ramsay ^^ especially in a scenario that involves a Stark skinchanger unleashing them on him and/or Nymeria's pack coming North and tearing him apart.

 

On a different topic, there has been a huge number of posts explaining the outrage about Sansa in Winterfell, not only the part where she's plucked from her storyline to be brutalized by the charming villain, but especially the omission of Jeyne. I won't link the one I'm referring in particular since it's spoilery, but the point is that Jeyne's role in the narrative is (also) to show that common people do not matter, they're used as chattel or props and this poor girl in particular is not inherently worth saving, only 'Arya Stark' is. That a commoner girl without the protection of a noble name or blood can and will suffer without the rest of the world giving a thought about it. And we as readers should be appalled by this.

In the show, they removed her claiming that it would have been a waste of time to introduce a new character while an older, well-known one could have just taken its place. And that anyway people would have reacted much more strongly to a character they already have an emotional connection with. So basically they confirmed what Martin was trying to say in the book: if you are a nobody, you're worthless and we do not care about what can happen to you. A commoner being raped? Boring! A noble girl being raped? Riveting! It's a storyline they wanted to adapt since Season 2!

And they also claimed that Theon redeems himself when he saves Sansa... but I would consider him saving a 'nobody' much more poignant! Theon himself at the beginning was quite uninterested in the well-being of the smallfolk (i.e. the captain's daughter he banged all the way to Pyke and discarded later when she started to get all clingy, not to mention the miller's boys). Where is the thematic weight to this?! Maybe saving a commoner is not redeeming enough - and this circles back to the former point - ...

Edited January 25, 2016 by Terra Nova

[mac123x]

Catching up:

 

Just finished a Jon chapter in which Alys Karstark is married to the Magnar of Thenn and once again, whereas it's smart on one hand, it also requires Jon to keep acting like he doesn't understand that he also once viewed the Wildlings as dishonest and threatening in all that they did and represented.

 

I really enjoyed that wedding ceremony.  It sort of humanized the religion of the red god, since most of what we've seen so far has been blood sacrifices and shadow baby assassins.  The symbolism when they jumped through the fire (two people enter, one couple comes out) was pretty neat.

 

I think Jon was incredibly smart arranging this marriage -- the Thenns (in the book) are organized much more like traditional Westerosi, and now he'll have basically a friendly neighbor to the south-east.  I also think Jon was incredibly stupid:  "the Watch takes no part..." except this is a massive interference.

 

At least the 'look back' has some consistency, since it happens always when Daenerys feels that she should maybe question some of her decisions and then nope! I'm perfectly right and fine, thank you.

 

It's her subconscious saying "yeah, maybe you should look back and reevaluate things."  "Where ever whores go" is just Tyrion perseverating.  Book 5: 

At least Dany finally listens to her subconscious and looks back in her final chapter.  Hopefully she'll act on it before the end of book 6

[stillshimpy]

I think Jon was incredibly smart arranging this marriage -- the Thenns (in the book) are organized much more like traditional Westerosi, and now he'll have basically a friendly neighbor to the south-east.  I also think Jon was incredibly stupid:  "the Watch takes no part..." except this is a massive interference.

 

Well the thing is that Jon isn't really acting as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, as much as he is Warden of the Far North.  Arranging marriages for the value of alliances and to protect people within the realm?  Yeah, that's not the job of the Night's Watch.  It would be the job of the Lord of Winterfell and the Warden of the North.  It's a great move for a Warden and a less than brilliant move for the Commander of the Night's Watch. 

 

The book is doing an incredibly good job of setting up why what is going to happen, will seem -- if not justified -- at least far from baffling.  Jon's actions are not that of someone who "takes no part" he's demonstrably and frequently taking part in the affairs of the realm.  He refers to Stannis as King Stannis, for goodness sakes and whereas Jon Snow has really good reason to distrust the Lannister's ruling via a pretend Baratheon, he doesn't actually really get to make that call. 

 

The Thenns in the book have almost no relationship to the Thenns of the TV series.  The only two things they have in common are the name and tribal scars.  That's pretty much it.    

[Delta1212]

Oh, this is also the point at which I wanted to mention that while the response to the altered chapter naming convention that started in Feast has been fairly mixed, I think Martin's been able to use it brilliantly to convey character information in a number of instances, most specifically with Sansa and, now, Theon.

That chapter title being "Theon" has a real kick to it. I think now it should be obvious why so many people have a high opinion of the Theon chapters in this book. They aren't flawless, but the character development is excellent, and really the whole Northern plotline that he's embedded in is firing on all cylinders.

I think the way Winterfell was handled in season 5 is the biggest disappointment of the show. I mean, the execution was technically superior to the way Dorne was handled in pretty much every way, but I think that the storyline we got in the books was badly needed to maintain narrative balance, and I think dropping that and upping the horror factor in various ways hurt the overall story more than the mishandling of Dorne did.

Everyone always talks about how Martin kills off all his good characters and how if you get attached to anyone they will immediately die horribly, but he does provide a payoff for the misery. Sometimes those payoffs feel like slivers of driftwood that you have to cling to in the midst of a storm, but he never a leaves you entirely without anything to grab onto, and the low points make the highs that much higher when they do show up.

The show feels more like it's telling the version of the story that everyone talks about rather than the one that actually exists, in that it has always wallowed in the misery just a bit more than the books did. That's not the same as being bad, I still like the show, but it has been bleaker pretty consistently as a whole, and the biggest mistake of this past season, I think, was that they took away the driftwood. There was some legitimately cool and enjoyable stuff that happened in season 5, but there wasn't a lot that a viewer could look at and root for unreservedly without the sense that it was all going to end horribly, which it all inevitably did.

At least with Wyman Manderly in the books, I think it always felt like, even if he was dancing on the edge of a knife blade at times, he was tweaking the noses of everyone who needed a good nose tweak while doing it, and if he died, he'd still have, first of all, accomplished a good amount of 'sticking it to the bad guys because fuck all of you' before he went, and when he did go, he'd go out like that secondary character in every action movie who gets mortally wounded and then waits for the villainous horde to descend on him before cackling hysterically and detonating the bomb he was sitting on, secure in the knowledge that others would continue the fight.

Manderly really was a giant helping of catharsis and a vindication of everything the "good guys" stood for when he showed up in Dance, and it's something I think the story really needed at this point, even if it was fairly minor in the grand scheme of the plot, and the show chose to forego it, which I think was a mistake.

I think they might do something similar next season, whether with Manderly or the Umbers or someone else, but I think that really needed to be in season 5 for the sake of rounding out that season.

[Trisan]

The Thenns in the book have almost no relationship to the Thenns of the TV series.  The only two things they have in common are the name and tribal scars.  That's pretty much it.    

 

And the bronze ! A small detail I enjoyed seing kept on the show. 

[stillshimpy]

At least with Wyman Manderly in the books, I think it always felt like, even if he was dancing on the edge of a knife blade at times, he was tweaking the noses of everyone who needed a good nose tweak while doing it, and if he died, he'd still have, first of all, accomplished a good amount of 'sticking it to the bad guys because fuck all of you'

 

Well and everything he does at Winterfell is essentially the antidote to the Red Wedding.  He walks into that situation with no one in his party being  in the dark as to why they are there.  He's not even being all that subtle about it either.  He didn't bring hostages, so everyone has the heads up that he's minimizing Bolton's leverage over him.  He is Northern Lord so Bolton and Ramsay are held at least a little in check when it comes to the truly heinous things they might otherwise be inclined to do.  They can't just skin the guy with impunity, he's a powerful dude, not the lord of some inconsequential holdfast.  

 

Plus, he's making active and informed choices.  He's no lamb to anyone's duplicitous slaughter.  He's the antithesis of Robb Stark at the Red Wedding.  He came to exact some justice with a side of vengeance and by the time he's being attacked openly with steel, he's practically said, "So go ahead and stab me, you fucktard, the time is nigh for the cards on the table."  

It's a true shame the show opted out of depicting him, because whereas he's not a POV character, or a main player, he's not a minor character either.  He's an illustrative character.   Sure, he's practically marching to the sea and declaring it a good day to die, but it is his choice and choice of the people in his command.  I like that there are characters who aren't just appalled by the Red Wedding and Bolton's betrayal, they are pissed right the hell off into striking a blow against it.  

 

Season Five

and part of what went wrong in Season Five's depiction of it, is that it is set up to seem as if Sansa is making those same, active choices.  That she's trying to actually do something for her family, for her name, as an answer to all that has been done to her home and the Starks...and herself.  But the show pulls the rug out from everyone and just has her being horribly mistreated and the only people who try to help her are either daft -- Brienne's candle vigil is infuriating because it's so damned stupid "Tell her to light this if she needs help!"  ...you mean like she's been married off to the family that murdered hers?!?  AGAIN.  Because that already qualifies as being in need of an effective ally...or feeble, in the case of the old woman who...there was no point to that other than to horrify the audience some more with Ramsay's skinning ways.   It wasn't just botched, it was a perversion of the source material.

 

Similarly season five

Jon's arc of well intentioned, smart-for-a-different-world-role choices is truly going to earn the moment when he's killed by the very people he insists on thinking of as his family and his brothers.  Whereas in the show it's Overly Obvious Ollie with the Grudge and the Significant Looks and Jon letting wildlings through the gate to keep them from being killed.  That, by the way, being viewed as a betrayal is fucking absurd, because the giant threat of the White Walkers is because they make dead people into their army.  It's actually smart on grounds that have nothing to do with compassion, to keep the number of lives the White Walkers can claim to a minimum.  Jon looks like a complete doofus for not picking up on the fact that he's surrounded by corrupt jackasses who would betray him at any turn, for almost any reason and that Ollie is a seething pile of resentment at the best of times...and not subtle about it.

 

Book Jon does things that are wise ruling decisions and but poorly thought out ones from the angle of good command structure.  It's a really good arc for illustrating why Jon doesn't actually belong on that fucking Wall in the first place.  He's a macro planner with poor micro attention.  Also, it becomes easier to understand why he's viewed with resentment.  

 

Okay, well I have time to read another chapter, so I think I will.  

[Dev F]

The thing that frustrates me the most about both the Dorne and the Winterfell storylines in season 5 is that they aren't bad because they're different from the book; they're bad because they're just bad. I can easily imagine a Dorne storyline that incorporates Jaime and uses Ellaria as our entree into the Dornish machinations without turning the whole thing into a dimensionless revenge melodrama. I can imagine a Winterfell storyline that incorporates Sansa by placing her at the center of the "North remembers" material instead of making her an agentless victim yet again.

 

Interestingly, there are indications from the casting spoilers from next season that some of the material that didn't make it into these storylines last year has in fact been postponed rather than omitted. (I'm being deliberately vague here for the sake of people who don't want to be spoiled for season 6.) Which . . . I guess I'm glad that not all of the nuances have been stripped out for good, but it doesn't make the end of season 5 any less one-dimensional. And it means that their goal in a number of these storylines was to fart around doing nothing important so as to save the important shit for later, which is the kind of storytelling I hate the most. If you don't have anything meaningful for Jaime or Sansa or whomever to do, just sideline them for a year like Bran, and use that extra time to flesh out other storylines like Jon's or Stannis's that became a rushed, incoherent mess.

[Andeleisha]

Aaand, welcome to the frustration of BookWalkers! You can pick up your complimentary wine and your blood pressure medication at our weekly meetings.

 

The argument that the TV show is separate from the books and therefore should not be critiqued based on the books has never held water with me. The whole POINT of doing an adaptation is that a lot of people really like a particular story and want to see it on screen. That's part of why it's so frustrating to see the show mess up so badly: IT WAS RIGHT THERE ON THE PAGE. What are you doing telling a crappy story when you had a good one right in front of you ?!

 

I'm not a book purist in the sense that I think everything should be adapted exactly as is, but I do think that adaptations have a responsibility to the source material. When you are working from a successful story, creators should really ask themselves "Why am I making this change?" more often. They should be trying to tell the same story, with the same message, the same themes.

 

(Spoiler tagging just in case: this is what I wished they done with Season 5.) 

And you know what? The potential to do something awesome with the Northern storyline was there. If they really wanted Sansa to go to Winterfell, there are things they could have done besides having her be brutally raped and victimized.
She could have gone to Winterfell in disguise, as Alayne. That would have given them the chance to show her masterful adoption of Alayne's identity, and then, once we get to Winterfell, all the nostalgia of being home again. Imagine her interacting with the Boltons as Petyr Baelish's natural daughter! Theon, of course, would recognize her, which could have amped up the tension in his story too, as he struggles with his PTSD and whether or not he'll tell her secret. Winterfell should have been full of Northern Lords. Sansa, as Alayne, secretly begins organizing a coalition to oppose the Boltons, and we see the murders, the "accidents", happen every night, and know that's because of Sansa.

 

Or imagine if the Boltons approached HER for marriage, as a way of appeasing the unhappy Northern Lords. How differently would things play out if Sansa was in the position of power? In the hall of Winterfell, Sansa cleverly takes greater and greater precedence, until she's the one who is really leading the Northern party. Ramsey wouldn't dare hurt her when she has powerful allies on site. Imagine the tension building in their "marriage" as we see Sansa cooly go through the motions of being a good wife in public, all the while turning the North Men away from the Boltons. It would have been a really interesting twist on what happened in the books: what happens when Ramsey's bride IS a real Stark.

 

Both of these would have been huge departures from the books, but if they were done well, they would have still maintained the essence of the characters, the themes, and of course, all leading to the great battle in the North. But no. The northern plot line in Season 5 didn't even make sense as a stand alone story, let alone in comparison with the books. And it's just...why ?!?! Like do they seriously not have writers capable of pulling off a good story? As I said earlier, I do think that "follow the book" should be the default choice, so when you make changes, you should ask "why"?

 

Why did they give us this story? Well, wanting to have more characters in the same place I understand, but that's really about it. Otherwise, the only reasoning I can reverse-engineer based on what they showed us on screen is that they wanted us to feel like we hit rock bottom after Ramsey defeats Stannis. That's all I got. Assuming they are not actually literally incapable of writing a new story for Winterfell, the only reason to put Sansa there is to make us feel bad. The old lady: to make us feel bad. Brienne and her candle: to make us feel bad. Ramsey's 20 good men: to make us feel bad. I also personally think it is cheap to lean so heavily on "shocking" (aka violent) moments, and that the show has prioritized these moments at the expense of good story telling. This is why I have come to have so little regard for the showrunners, and I've stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt. Season 5 happened because they wanted to rape Sansa.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Andeleisha

[vibeology]

I recognize that when adapting a story from one medium to another, you have to make changes because some things cannot work and other things will not work to their full effect. I want the show to change things to take advantage of the visuals or to use the episodic element of TV to build tension. I don't mind things being changed or shifted around to better tell whole one hour stories, for example. I think, for one point, the first two Harry Potter movies were weak because they tried too hard to be faithful to the books while ignoring what makes a movie and book different. Breaking from that made for more exciting movies.

 

That being said, the show doesn't just adapt things; it has been eliminating them, ignoring theme and mood and making choices that have left people disappointed.

Dorne and the North were the worst examples of this in season 5. What was happening in Dorne? Does it make sense? "Bad pussy"? Does it help tell the story? Same with the North. Does it make sense that Ramsay can abuse actual Sansa with no blowback?

 

That's why I've grown weary of the TV adaptation. I am always hopeful that with a new season, the show could right itself and start to focus on the themes that attracted me to the story, but it is disappointing. The show did change some things for the better. Tyrion moped far less on screen. Huge improvement just with that but not enough to make right the places where they really dropped the ball.

[Haleth]

Hear, hear!

Just to add a silly note, the substitution of turkeys for all things canine is paying off, as Penny valiantly rides her pet turkey into mock battle. :)

[WSmith84]

'The Turkey' isn't quite as intimidating as 'the Hound', is it? Though I would love to see Sandor with a ridiculous turkey-head helmet.

'I am Sandor Clegane, the one they call the Turkey. My arms are three black turkeys on a yellow field. My House's words are "Gobble gobble." Stop laughing!'

[Which Tyler]

The Usurper's Turkeys

[stillshimpy]

Awesome, Haleth, instead of crying foul any longer, I decided to cry fowl and I'm glad it's working for you too.  

 

Now this will actually have to do with a casting thing I saw.  I haven't plunged into show spoilers, but I also haven't been trying to do backflips away from headlines any longer.  So upcoming season speculation, with added gripes season six

so I have known for a while that they cast Sam's dad.  That Papa Tarly will show up in season six.   So I read the last book expecting him to do something that was integral to a plot.  Similarly I'm well past the half way mark and you know who hasn't done anything worthy of being cast and making headlines about it?  Papa Randall Tarly.    So not only did they cut all sorts of neat material and characters who actually do things...and are presented in the books as being POV characters, no less....they have made a big deal about a truly minor character.

 

Continuing that train of thought

in the books so far Samwell has been shown to have all sorts of Daddy issues, because his father was terrible....but we already knew that.  We heard Sam tell the story of "it was go to The Wall or I'd have a hunting accident"  and one thing the show shouldn't be doing is casting parts specifically to show more horrible treatment of people.  So there's also Sam's flashback "I was chained up by my father!"  (restraint, Martin, it's a bloody stranger to you, Sam's father threatening to stone-cold have his kid killed was enough establishing)...and I will about pitch a damned fit if they cast the part just to have more protracted and gloried in torture scenes. But the only other scene he was in, was so incredibly inconsequential that someone had to remind me of it.  Brienne meets up with him.  He didn't even register with me as "Oh my god, what a key figure!"  

 

So I'm no purist either, but the point of an adaptation is to ....have an adaptation.  I don't have a problem with the use of the Direwolves in the show.  I think they would have had the potential to look overly hokey.  I don't think it was necessary to include the Stark kids being wargs if they weren't going to take it anywhere in the books anyway.  Some trimming down and pruning will occur.  But what they choose to prune and what they choose to expand upon just baffles me.  A season's worth of dwelling over Theon's torture included a metric fuckton of added and created material.   It becomes more difficult to forgive the limitations of adaptation when the changes aren't necessary.  

I've read every argument about how ...wow...Alfie Allen...etc.  and I'm in no way seeking to take away from his performance.  It's just I don't personally think it was worth the very substantial trade offs.   

[mac123x]

Great, now I'm going to start doing that in other contexts.

 

"Smithers, release the turkeys"

"Cry havoc and loose the turkeys of war!"

[Silje]

Season 5 spoiler:

This is why I have come to have so little regard for the showrunners, and I've stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt. Season 5 happened because they wanted to rape Sansa.

 

I completely agree with you, Andeleisha.

 

From an interview where D&D and Cogman (another writer) talk about season 5:

 

"...it’s because of Turner’s strength, Benioff continued, that it made sense to give Sansa a dramatic storyline this season and to use Ramsay’s engagement for that very purpose. In fact, the showrunners first thought about putting Sansa and Ramsay together back when they were writing season 2. “We really wanted Sansa to play a major part this season,” Benioff said. “If we were going to stay absolutely faithful to the book, it was going to be very hard to do that. There was as (sic) subplot we loved from the books, but it used a character that’s not in the show.” “You have this storyline with Ramsay. Do you have one of your leading ladies—who is an incredibly talented actor who we’ve followed for five years and viewers love and adore—do it? Or do you bring in a new character to do it? To me, the question answers itself: You use the character the audience is invested in.”

 

Emphasis mine. It really is hard to give these guys the benefit of the doubt when basically the only thing they keep from the subplot they loved is rape. Since they've thinking about bringing Sansa to Winterfell from back when they were writing season 2, there really is no excuse for this shitty storyline. And calling it Ramsay's storyline? ...

 

Edited January 25, 2016 by Silje

[Terra Nova]

You laugh about them, but the turkeys of Casterly Rock must have been mightly fierce to chase away the lion that attacked old Tytos Lannister.

The henhousemaster was rewarded with lands and a title for braving everyday that hellish den of ye foulest fowl.

 

(On another note, the Turkey and the Little Bird, a perfect lovestory *^*)

 

Or, to quote Old Nan: "And the Others came silent on the Last Hero's trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as turkeys..."

 

ETA: @Silje:

as GotGifsandMusings said in her Winterhell retrospective, the only possible main character for that storyline, as the plot itself is framed, can be only (season 5)

Ramsay. He crushed his enemies, saw them driven before him (or would have, they all died lol) and heard the lamentation of the women

Edited January 25, 2016 by Terra Nova

[Delta1212]

Just a note for shimpy, as someone who follows the casting stuff, "the show" doesn't generally make a big deal about casting any of the characters, great or small. That's mostly a thing that happens on fan sites that manage to dig up or piece together casting information that then occasionally finds its way into entertainment press.

The actual production stopped making big casting announcements somewhere around season 3 or so, so if you see anything about a particular character having been cast, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how the people making the show view the importance of the character as much as it does with how excited fans are to see said character. And that may or may not have much to do with how much the character actually does in the books.

[glowbug]

Similarly season five

Jon's arc of well intentioned, smart-for-a-different-world-role choices is truly going to earn the moment when he's killed by the very people he insists on thinking of as his family and his brothers.  Whereas in the show it's Overly Obvious Ollie with the Grudge and the Significant Looks and Jon letting wildlings through the gate to keep them from being killed.  That, by the way, being viewed as a betrayal is fucking absurd, because the giant threat of the White Walkers is because they make dead people into their army.  It's actually smart on grounds that have nothing to do with compassion, to keep the number of lives the White Walkers can claim to a minimum.  Jon looks like a complete doofus for not picking up on the fact that he's surrounded by corrupt jackasses who would betray him at any turn, for almost any reason and that Ollie is a seething pile of resentment at the best of times...and not subtle about it.

 

Book Jon does things that are wise ruling decisions and but poorly thought out ones from the angle of good command structure.  It's a really good arc for illustrating why Jon doesn't actually belong on that fucking Wall in the first place.  He's a macro planner with poor micro attention.  Also, it becomes easier to understand why he's viewed with resentment.  

 

This, this, this and this. Did I mention this? Spoilers for season 5.

The motivation for Jon's stabbing on the show didn't make any sense. Instead of having the members of Night's Watch kill him for legitimate reasons, they had them do it out of blind hatred for the wildings. This is especially ludicrous given that there are members of the Night's Watch on the show that saw Hardhome, not to mention the Fist of the First Men. In addition to your point that they don't want the Others to have more potential members for their undead army, the Night's Watch on the show literally has like twenty people left. They need the wildings to help fight the White Walkers even more than their book counterparts do (although they sorely need the help too.) I feel like the show wanted to keep Jon more unambiguously good (or right), making his character less interesting as well as turning the Night's Watch storyline into a moralistic tale about the dangers of blind hatred and prejudice.

[WindyNights]

Ramsay's a villain sue.

D&D want us to think they've created a cool, badass, suave, handsome Ubermensch whose bare-chested torso puts fear in the 50 best killers of the Iron Islands.

Then again apparently his two dogs are enough to scare the shit out of the ironborn.

[mac123x]

They definitely fell in love with the character they created.  And to be honest, I liked Ramsey in previous seasons (except for the torture porn that was way overdone).  His methods for breaking Theon and creating Reek were psychological and cunning.  I particularly liked the scene where he bathes Theon before sending him against Moat Cailin. 

 

Then they ramped up his evilness and his Sue-ness because he was supposed to be a replacement for Joffrey as "the character you love to hate".  Yeah, no, I just hated him.

 

Then again apparently his two dogs are enough to scare the shit out of the ironborn.

 

You seemed to have misspelled "turkeys". 

[Terra Nova]

Then again apparently his two turkeys are enough to scare the shit out of the ironborn.

 

Of course they are! I would start considering selling all my fortunes and move to a safer place... the Land of Always Winter, just to name one.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Terra Nova

[Haleth]

Hey, turkeys can be very aggressive. (Not as bad as swans, but still vicious.). The thought of being chased by a snarling, slathering pack of turkeys is chilling.

[mac123x]

I'd suggest changing it to rabbits instead, but that'd lead into a huge riff on Monty Python and I'm already displaying an inordinate amount of nerdiness.

 

Book 5: 

Of course the real reason I'm hitting Refresh on this page so much is I'm waiting for Shimpy's next chapter since it's Danzak's Pit

Edited January 25, 2016 by mac123x

[stillshimpy]

Okay, so that Dany chapter did not play out at all like I was expecting it to.  She essentially becomes a dragon wrangler, and of course the added information from her talk with Quentyn is that a person can only ride one dragon.   

 

So there was the standard freaky detail of people selling Popcorn, peanuts and turkeys because the man once saw that ASPCA ad with Sarah McLachlan music and has been acting out in anger ever since.  Turkey torture and theme beating will abound, apparently.  Damn you, Sarah McLachlan, damn you.  

 

But I was genuinely startled that the plan had been to feed Tyrion and Penny to the freaking lions and that Hizzy was just delighted by the entire idea and very put-out that feeding people to lions was not going to be part of the entertainment.  Then when Drogon showed up, it seemed like everyone just about fainted when he was eating the dead body of the warrior felled by the boar.  

 

So Hizdahr's evil, right?  I mean, not just "a different culture will value different things and have a different ethical code" type, but actively evil.  

 

So Dany takes to the sky as a dragon-rider, having won her place on Drogon.  

 

Season five

huh, well this is one of the few times I don't have a firm opinion on whether what the show did was better or worse....Drogon choosing to come to Dany's defense and then both of them getting the hell out of Dodge...only to meet a wandering clan of something or other is really pretty unrelated to what just went down...and I guess I'll have to see what more is to come in Dany's arc this book before I know whether or not that was a giant misstep or not.

 

That was kind of a strange and disorienting chapter.   Dany being so fluttery about the fighting pits is ....weird.  It's weird.  Even she thinks about her wedding and the Dothraki way of life.   Strong Belwas getting sick was odd too.   
 

I did like that Dany's disillusionment with Mereen and the practices of its people just came to such a head that she sent out some kind of Dragon Summoning signal into the skies above Mereen.  

[Haleth]

I swear to God there is a turkey commercial on tv right now. Honeysuckle White. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.

[Alayne Stone]

That they choose to expand on certain characters in the show is baffling.

 

In relation to the spoilers for season 6 you mentioned, Shimpy ... there's even more to it that will baffle you. I know you said you don't bend over backwards to avoid spoilers, but this includes more casting news so don't click if you don't want to know. Season 6 spoilers:

They've cast Sam's entire family. His mother, Dickon and one of his sisters who I am fairly certain was never even named in the books. I could be wrong on that last count though (as far as her never being named goes).

 

The entire Winterfell plot in the show was so baffling because as people said already, they managed to take one of the strongest plots in the series and make it the absolute weakest and nonsensical in the show. Season 5 spoilers:

You're supposed to expect us to believe that Sansa was savvy enough to know that she could trust her true name to the Vale lords at the end of season 4, but not intelligent enough to know that essentially handing herself over as a hostage to the people who murdered her mother and brother was not a smart move? Without any allies WHATSOEVER. And Littlefinger was stupid enough to not look into Ramsay ahead of time, or ... I don't know ... maybe leave a couple of Vale knights with her as personal swords to protect her? No, it was all stupid and contrived.

 

I'm glad you were able to take some good things from the book at least. House Manderly is one of my favorite minor houses. Their loyalty to the Starks is beautiful.

Edited January 25, 2016 by Alayne Stone

[Delta1212]

Yeah, (season 5)

the show is different, but I don't think it's necessarily any better or worse than what is in the books. There are a couple of points I could quibble about, but overall, I think this falls into the category of changes that are actually necessary for playing off the strengths of books vs television.

Both scenes are essentially about Daenerys finally coming to a crisis regarding her total incompatibility with the culture of Meereen and Drogon whipping down out of the sky to carry her away from it all at the peak of her struggle with it all. In the books, that struggle is very much internal and on the show it is more physically manifested as an external threat, which makes sense for a television show.

[Alayne Stone]

Ah, you have finally gotten to Daznak's pit!

 

In regards to the locusts, just consider who they were originally intended for. It might not be so weird after all when you consider the implications there.

 

As far as the two versions of the dragon riding goes: Season 5 spoilers:

In the show, all of Dany's agency is gone. She is a damsel in distress. She is guided into the pit by Jorah after the Harpies attack. She grabs Missendei's hand when they are all surrounded, presumably accepting her death. Then BAM. Deux Ex Drogon shows up. Instead of a whip she uses some sort of Vulcan mind meld to tame him? In the show, Drogon rescues Dany. In the books it is the other way around. I thought it was a powerful moment when Dany vaulted into the pit to save her "child." I also thought it was very poignant that she had to physically tame him, similar to the way you might a wild horse you are attempting to domesticate. And of course when she vaults onto Drogon's back, she's not leaving her companions to an uncertain fate. Also ... can we hear it for brave Barristan vaulting into the pit after Dany and taunting Drogon to come after HIM instead of Daenerys? Talk about a true Queensguard doing whatever he can to protect his Queen. So, so bummed they killed him when they did and deprived him of this amazing moment.

 

Daznak's is one of my top three chapters in the entire series. I thought parts of the show were done well. The CGI for Drogon is absolutely amazing and Emilia Clarke's most emotional moments are ironically when she's staring up at a hanging tennis ball and pretending it's a fantastical creature. But it still fell flat for me. The CGI at the end when they are flying off did not help.

 

One final note on episode 9 of season 5:

Maybe it fell flat for me because it is difficult to find the moment triumphant when the scene directly before had been of a little girl burning. Kind of takes the steam out of things when you are raging at the utter absurdity of the world and deciding that a White Walker purge of Westeros is actually the best thing that could happen.

 

Spoiler not for Shimpy:

I can't wait for her to turn the page in the future and BAM. It's a Barristan chapter!

Edited January 25, 2016 by Alayne Stone

[Delta1212]

Not for shimpy

I feel like overtly hinting at things like the poison locusts that are explicitly revealed in later chapters is cutting dangerously close to spoiler territory.

[Andeleisha]

This is my favorite analysis of book vs show Dany flies off on Drogon: http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/120985002501/why-what-you-just-watched-with-dany-was-totally 

 

Totally safe to click on shimpy, I checked :) Only covers events that you have read. 

 

Okay but Delta I have to ask you: do you really think season 5 of the show was good television? Sincerely asking, not trying to be snarky! Completely setting the books aside, so much of the season was just weak, I'm at a loss to understand what you liked about it. Can you talk a little bit about what scenes or storylines worked for you? (Again, independent of how they changed from the books.) 

 

Spoilers for season 5: 

"You want a good girl, but you need a bad pussy." ::CRINGE::  Who on earth authorized that ?!