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!

[Mya Stone]

I can assure you all that the Unsullied Habitat is continuing.

[WindyNights]

  On 4/19/2016 at 12:31 AM, Hecate7 said:

How would Edric Dayne actually know who slept with who? He wasn't even born yet.

I assume people told him like Ashara's sister/ his aunt or even his dad.

[OhOkayWhat]

  On 4/18/2016 at 4:34 PM, WSmith84 said:

Completed my season 4 rewatch. Wouldn't you know, Lysa makes it pretty clear that Sansa can't marry again until Tyrion is dead. That obviously was completely ignored for the 'thrilling' plot with Ramsey in season 5.

 

Season 4 left me slightly tired, to be honest. I didn't find it all that enjoyable, although it had some decent scenes and episodes. I find that the series really likes to dwell on the negatives and misery. Brienne is simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest person in Westeros; she manages to find pretty much everyone, but no one wants to go with her. She also comes across as quite a bully, honestly, given how she treats Pod.

 

I don't know if I have the energy to watch season 5. It was just so bad in so many areas and has the terrible Winterfell and Dorne plots. Poor Jaime. They screwed him so badly in season 4 and season 5 was just worse.

 

Lysa is talking about being married under the Faith of the Seven. Season 5 spoiler

  Reveal spoiler

Sansa married under the Faith of the Old Gods in season 5. In fact that difference makes the story more interesting.

 

In season 4 Brienne is frustrated and poor Podrick suffers because of that. But that attitude of Brienne in season 4 (season 5 spoiler)

  Reveal spoiler

gives sense to her apology the next season.

Edited April 20, 2016 by OhOkayWhat

[GertrudeDR]

  Reveal spoiler

If I recall, they hand-waved the marriage away basically because Tywin was dead. He was the one who was backing Roose and was obviously the power behind the crown. Without him, they don't trust that Tommen can or would want to support them in the North, so marrying Sansa is a better way to gain power/legitimacy. Petyr even says the Lannisters can not come North to enforce anything, especially with Winter Coming . They are basically playing by their own rules, gambling that by the time Tommen/Cersei can do anything about it, it will be too late and they will have their Stark/Bolton heir. I'm not surprised that Lysa would look at it the way she did. She had no wish to cross the Lannisters because she had everything she wanted in her own little lala land, namely, Petyr.

 

  Reveal spoiler

I don't recall anything about the books or show making a distinction over which faith was invoked for a wedding. Did Ned and Cat have two ceremonies to seal their marriage? Robb in the show was married by a septon and the Northerners didn't mind. I know that was the show, but we are talking show Sansa here too. I'm sure I'm fan-wanking a bit here to fill in the obvious illogical blanks the marriage creates (thanks show), but I am pretty sure that everyone involved was like - whatever, this is what we want and Cersei can't do anything about it anyway.

Edited April 19, 2016 by GertrudeDR

[WSmith84]

Nope, the law is the law. A marriage by the Seven is recognised by followers of the Old Gods and vice versa. Ned got married in a sept. Do you think he thought that his marriage was invalid because they weren't married in front of a Heart Tree? Did any Northerner claim it to be so? No. Robb in the show married Talisa in a ceremony of the Seven (for some reason) and none of his Northern bannermen called it a false marriage. Sorry, but there is no evidence to suggest that faith of the Seven marriages are not recognised by the Old Gods and vice versa, and plenty of evidence against it. The writers messed up, that's all there is to it.

 

As for season 5

 

  Reveal spoiler

 

None of the three principal characters in the Winterfell plot had sensible motivations. Roose had just murdered his King to seize power and end a (as far as he was concerned) pointless war. Why would he wish to antagonise the only allies he has? Sure, maybe the Lannisters won't send an army North (though I'm not sure what logic that is based on) but they can do plenty of other things: hire an assassin, refuse to sell food and other supplies to the North, declare Roose a traitor and offer a reward for his death. I don't even know what Roose gets out of this marriage. Despite being the 'key to the North' not a single Northern Lord shows up to the wedding or tries to help her, so I don't know if Roose even told anyone. Surely the point of the marriage must be to get the other Northern Lords to fall in line? This requires him to tell them (and then not brutalise Sansa). Why didn't Roose just arrest Sansa and Baelish the moment they arrived at Winterfell (before they could be offered Guest Right) and claim some nice reward for catching two traitors.

 

Then there's Sansa. She puts herself at the mercy of a family who killed members of hers (after just escaping a family that killed a member of hers) all for... revenge. Even though she has no plan, no knowledge or allies that might help her, absolutely nothing to fall back on if things go wrong. That is a stupid character. An utterly stupid character. The advice given to her is to charm Ramsey, make him hers. How does she try to do that? By acting like a moody cow the entire time. Oooooh, you go girl! That's how you charm a man. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I f*$£ing hate this story because of it's bulls*&t reasoning just to get Sansa raped, and I'm sorry, but that is all that seems to happen. Sansa gets raped, Theon and Sansa jump off the walls. Neither of these main characters undergo any character development and Sansa actually regresses back to a victim. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Finally, we have Littlefinger. His motivations seem to be the most obvious: marry Sansa to Ramsey, tell Cersei and take the Vale armies North to kill the Boltons and be named Warden of the North. Except that his plan doesn't actually need Sansa to be married to Ramsey. Cersei accepts his news that Ramsey married Sansa at face value; he offers no evidence (and he doesn't even have any) and she doesn't ask for any. So why go through with the marriage? Just tell her that it happened without actually doing it. Cersei doesn't even attempt to have the news verified, for God's sake. If he did this, Littlefinger wouldn't have to risk a piece as valuable as Sansa Stark and, whether he cares about Sansa as a person or not, he certainly wouldn't needlessly risk a piece of the game. Then there's the fact that Stannis is bearing down on Winterfell, and may well defeat the Boltons. If he does, any marriage between Sansa and Ramsey will be short-lived. And even if he doesn't, Sansa is surely going to be at risk during the siege/storm of Winterfell. The Boltons may use her as a hostage against Stannis, or kill her out of spite (like Cersei was going to at the Blackwater). What will Stannis do with her when he finds her married to Ramsey? The Boltons are traitors, and Sansa married them. He could do anything from naming her Warden of the North to executing her. Or he might take a middle route and marry her to some bannerman. Let's say that Stannis is defeated and Baelish turns up with the Vale army; again, what is to stop the Boltons from using Sansa as a hostage against them? Will Yohn Royce risk her life? Will Lady Waynwood? And all these problems could be avoided by Littlefinger simply lying to Cersei. And if she doesn't believe him, well, he had no evidence to offer when he actually did marry Sansa off, so what difference does it make?

 

 

The worst bit of the Winterhell story is that it ignores Theon, the central bloody character. They ignored all of his wonderful source material in exchange for this daft, poorly written, senseless turd of a story that makes Sansa, once again, look like a complete, frigging moron. Dorne might be slightly worse in terms of absolute quality, but in terms of worse adaption, I'd say Winterhell takes the trophy easily.

[mac123x]

Quoted from a spoiler tagged section but the quoted part is non-spoilery:

  Quote

I don't recall anything about the books or show making a distinction over which faith was invoked for a wedding. Did Ned and Cat have two ceremonies to seal their marriage? Robb in the show was married by a septon and the Northerners didn't mind.

 

Alys Karstark married the Magnar of the Thenns in a Lord of Light ceremony and everyone present, including the Northern clans, accepted it.  It seems like the definition of  marriage is "had some sort of ceremony followed by consummation". 

 

One of the reasons Tywin gave Tyrion so much crap about bedding Sansa was that the marriage could be set aside if he didn't, so it appears that consummation is the key.  Same thing with Book!Tommen -- he marries Marge but Jaime reminds Cercei that he's not old enough to consummate the marriage so they can always set it aside later.

 

Lysa wanted to wait to wed Sansa to Robin until after Tyrion was dead -- Roose and crew might have just assumed that "sentenced to death, killed his father and disappeared" was effectively the same as "dead". 

[Shanna Marie]

I've started my skimming through of season 4, and I really have to wonder how anyone got through the Purple Wedding scene without knowing what was coming. It was so horribly unpleasant that the only saving grace for me was anticipating what was going to happen to Joffrey. I'm not sure I'd have been able to watch it at all if I'd had any suspicion that he was just going to keep on being awful. That might have been my moment of deciding that life is too short to spend it watching unpleasant things and turning off the TV.

 

I did notice that as the camera panned the head table during all Joffrey's awfulness, everyone but Cersei was looking intensely uncomfortable and unhappy, but she was grinning along with Joffrey. The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Shanna Marie

[Hecate7]

  On 4/19/2016 at 12:49 AM, WindyNights said:

I assume people told him like Ashara's sister/ his aunt or even his dad.

 

And how would they know the truth? It's not like there was a wedding or a bedding. They weren't in the room. When it comes to what's going on between people in bed, nobody actually knows the real truth except the participants. I wouldn't accept Edric Dayne, a kid who received second hand information from people who had second hand information themselves, as any kind of an authority.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Hecate7

[stillshimpy]

Season four is tiring.  Season five is downright exhausting to even contemplate. 

 

I think Terra asked if I could give examples of things that I liked in the show, but after reading the books I had an almost snarling reaction to.  Arya and Tywin is an example of that.   I thought it was a fun scene in the show, but it's sort of senseless when Arya's POV is factored in.  Plus, it got rid of the scenes with Roose Bolton that were more interesting than Tywin sharing his former parenting woes. 

 

There's also always going to be the decision to render Ned Stark nearly daft and dim-witted.  It wouldn't have occurred to me that the show actually just created that as a personality trait.  Much of Littlefinger's personality is also manufactured for the show.  I enjoyed him in that "he's the only villain who is fun to watch on this show" way  -- up until season five , that is -- but he gets further and further away from his book characterization.  I've always liked the actor, but now I'm a little baffled by his choices. 

 

I enjoyed Oberyn on the show -- exit scene excepted, of course -- but in watching I ended up wishing that they'd allowed him to be a darker shade of gray and made it clearer that he was also participating in a bid for power.  In the show it always was a tiny bit baffling that almost twenty years after the fact, he showed up and his sole animating force was a quest for vengeance.   The actor is charming enough that I just didn't spend much time thinking about it.  Knowing that the show runners jettisoned his less noble personality traits, probably to make his death more painful, is very frustrating. 

 

Name anything about the Northern Lords.  I always thought they were just doing some dark take on the Scottish clans, but assumed it was from the source material.  It's not.  Sure, they are rougher and tougher than the Southern Lords, but they aren't all wandering around in drab colors, looking like they missed the invention of the bath.   So prior to the Slaughter of Starks I had enjoyed them well enough, and now I just get so irritated watching the Northern scenes.  

 

Here's the thing: if they were doing a dark take on the Scottish clans of old, all that duplicity and treachery makes sense.  My mother is actually from Scotland, so please understand, I'm not out to insult the Scots.  That said?  Yeah, the skirmishes between clans were nasty affairs and they did do things like lure one another into traps.  Really don't have time to go into all the insanely brutal shit that went down, but suffice to say?  I assumed that Martin has been using them as inspiration and if that were true, then the show did a good job. 

 

Martin may have been using the clans for inspiration, but they weren't the Great Unwashed, always dressed in dingy group either.  

 

I really enjoyed Lady Olenna on the show and that is something that didn't change.  The Show made changes when it comes to her and I support all of them. 

 

I also like Margaery, up until season five .which is going to be such a big thing, we can probably just take it as read that almost nothing positive survived season five.  I really disliked season five while I was watching it.  Reading the books just gave me more reasons and some specificity as to why I so thoroughly disliked it.  However, after reading the books, I wished that they'd made Margaery a little more enigmatic.  I love the actor and I think she really could have done a very good job with some more subtle material. 

 

One of the most interesting things about the Tyrells in the books is that are more guarded and less showy about what they are up to.  Plus whereas I've always found Loras characterization just plain-old offensive, that was made worse by finding out he's meant to have brothers.  

 

One thing I did appreciate that show changed is Lady Selsye's appearance.  Sorry if I am misremembering her name, Stannis wife is who I mean.  The whole gig with Florents having large ears and just how homely she was supposed to be in the books was overkill.  Actually, Martin has a tendency to go overboard in how grotesquely ugly he likes to make characters and then he'll revisit whatever makes them so ugly repeatedly.  Not that everyone needs to be gorgeous or anything, but it becomes a case of "we get it, she's ugly, good grief,  ease up".  I will give Martin something on that one though, he doesn't have the same weakness that a lot of writers who use that trick -- making someone just repugnantly ugly -- it isn't just a mark of evil in his books.  Good and bad alike are frequently unattractive (what an understatement) , so in his books, it isn't about worth of character, which I appreciate.  

 

Still, glad the show made Stannis wife Hollywood plain (take an otherwise pretty actress, dowdy her up a bit and put very little makeup on her) vs. the ungainly Dumbo that Stannis had pawned off on him in the books.

 

Of course, there are decisions that the Show made that I really support.  

 

The biggest, " I really enjoyed much of that" stuff was Cersei's characterization in the show because I really like Lena Headey.  However, it's much less enjoyable, even if it doesn't warrant boiled cabbage, when I know that adding depth to her characterization came at the cost of getting rid of a lot of shading for Jaime's characterization.  

Edited April 20, 2016 by stillshimpy

[Terra Nova]

Yes, it was me, thanks Shimpy ^^

 

Also, since I am not going to watch Season 6, and I will embark on a fool questo to see if I can avoid... well, it's more for how long I can avoid spoilers, I will stay here lurking around until the end of the week, and then I will disappear in a cloud of sulphur.

 

So, thanks everyone for the ride, it's been a blast, and most of all thanks Mya for being an excellent mod (and helping me embed a picture in a comment XD) and Shimpy for the inside, the snark, the chance for a collective (re-)read and all the rest :)

[mac123x]

  Quote

Martin may have been using the clans for inspiration, but they weren't the Great Unwashed, always dressed in dingy group either.

We really didn't meet the Scottish clans analogs until ADWD, with the Wulls and Norreys and Whatnots visiting the Wall.  I think the show took that characterization and applied it across the board to all Northerners.  Kind of a disservice to the North, but since they cut out the mountain clans entirely, it was probably a version of their "compress 3 characters into 1 and flatten them out" philosophy writ large.

 

  Quote

The biggest, " I really enjoyed much of that" stuff was Cersei's characterization in the show because I really like Lena Headey.  However, it's much less enjoyable, even if it doesn't warrant boiled cabbage, when I know that adding depth to her characterization came at the cost of getting rid of a lot of shading for Jaime's characterization.

 

I agree with that, though I was minorly irked that the show took two of her rather despicable actions and gave them to Joffrey (slaughtering Robert's bastards, getting Mandon Moore to try to kill Tyrion).  It wasn't like we needed more reasons to despise Joffrey.

[WSmith84]

I'm guessing shimpy that you were about as big of a fan of the Winterfell plot in season 5 as I was.

[OhOkayWhat]

  On 4/19/2016 at 1:18 PM, WSmith84 said:

Nope, the law is the law. A marriage by the Seven is recognised by followers of the Old Gods and vice versa. Ned got married in a sept. Do you think he thought that his marriage was invalid because they weren't married in front of a Heart Tree? Did any Northerner claim it to be so? No. Robb in the show married Talisa in a ceremony of the Seven (for some reason) and none of his Northern bannermen called it a false marriage. Sorry, but there is no evidence to suggest that faith of the Seven marriages are not recognised by the Old Gods and vice versa, and plenty of evidence against it. The writers messed up, that's all there is to it.

 

WSmith84, that is an interesting commentary, but I think that if we analyze this particular case, (season 5 spoilers)

  Reveal spoiler

we will notice that we are watching two vile manipulators (Littlefinger and Roose) who will use the new political situation to manipulate the common man and some lords, making them to think that the law is not always the law in this new environment.

 

 

  On 4/20/2016 at 2:48 PM, stillshimpy said:

......Arya and Tywin is an example of that.   I thought it was a fun scene in the show, but it's sort of senseless when Arya's POV is factored in.  Plus, it got rid of the scenes with Roose Bolton that were more interesting than Tywin sharing his former parenting woes......

 

.......I enjoyed Oberyn on the show -- exit scene excepted, of course -- but in watching I ended up wishing that they'd allowed him to be a darker shade of gray and made it clearer that he was also participating in a bid for power.  In the show it always was a tiny bit baffling that almost twenty years after the fact, he showed up and his sole animating force was a quest for vengeance.   The actor is charming enough that I just didn't spend much time thinking about it.  Knowing that the show runners jettisoned his less noble personality traits, probably to make his death more painful, is very frustrating......

 

Shimpy, I liked (even if they are not perfect) the Tywin-Arya scenes and I think they stand on their own. They are not just fun, there is a hidden tragedy there too. The scenes provide us with character development and they make Tywin and Arya more complex characters.

 

About Oberyn, maybe I do not understand very well what are you saying......is it bad Oberyn is a better person because he will die eventually? with the same logic, why not to transform Robb in a very cruel man, so that way, when he dies, we do not feel so bad about his death. And if that is the meaning of your commentary, then there is a logical problem there, as you can see.

 

I think like this: the show has its own Planetos with its own characters, they are good, bad, grey persons. Some of them will die, some of them will not, and we are not sure if that is related or not to the fact they are good, bad or grey characters.

 

 

  On 4/20/2016 at 8:14 PM, WSmith84 said:

I'm guessing shimpy that you were about as big of a fan of the Winterfell plot in season 5 as I was.

 

 WSmith84, Shimpy (Season 5 spoilers)

  Reveal spoiler

 

About Roose, I think Littlefinger and him discuss how Kings Landing never will send troops as far as the North. Maybe to send troops to the Riverlands is possible, but the North? almost impossible, specially after the death of Twyin. Therefore Roose decides a long term plan: while the North houses are licking their wounds, he will marry a Stark to his son, he will not invite anyone to the wedding, too risky. Eventually with a Bolton-Stark baby in her arms, Roose finally will call the Lords of the North to show them the Bolton heir with Stark blood, or at least, it seemed to be his plan.

 

Also, Roose needs Littlefinger alive because the Vale troops. At the time of the deal, Stannis (if i am not wrong) still was trying to get some North houses to his side, if Stannis succeeded on that, then the help of Vale was needed if Roose was not able to get some help from another houses of the North himself.

 

Littlefinger tells Cercei about Sansa to get permission to move Vale troops through Riverlands to the North. Also, he needs Sansa staying actually in Winterfell for two reasons: first, he needs to make an alliance with Roose. We should remember Petyr is playing the part of a serious business partner to Roose. He is saying, with other words, "look, we are in the same boat on this, in fact, I am giving my most valuable possession to this enterprise we both have now" and yes, the valuable possession is Sansa, because in his vile plan, he is using her like that, like very expensive jewel he is investing. Why  does he need to proyect the image of a serious business partner to the Boltons? well, because he needs to be able to pass Moat Cailin with the Vale army (from South is almost impossible to do that).  And the second reason is to have an excuse to ask the Vale to send the knights to rescue the daugther of Ned (that will involve lots of lies I guess).

 

About Sansa, in my opinion,  she never stopped being a victim. Even with Petyr, she is one. The damage is more subtle, but it is still there,  and maybe it is even worse than in Kings Landing, all of that hidden inside the tricky words of Littlefinger.

 

Being under the tutelage of Littlefinger is like being in a nice place.....only to notice too late all the floor is rotten and there is a abyss beneath you. The little victorious moment with the Vale Lords, the fact she saved Petyr, became the trap that Littlefinger used against Sansa later, he made her feel she was capable to manipulate more people, and she was not. Littlefinger is using her little triumph to make her feel safe while actually she is not, and his plans will risk her well-being and his lessons will corrupt her slowly.

 

And the thing is this: Sansa does NOT need to manipulate people. She can INSPIRE them.

 

I think Sansa was thinking the Plan was to do something close to the Purple Wedding. When Littlefinger reveals the truth about the marriage to Sansa with the whole "avenge them" speech, he also tells her something like "marry the son and one day you will be the Wardeness...." to any other pair of conspirators that could mean "Roose someday in the future will die of old age..." but for them, specially after all she knows about Littlefinger from season 4, it means another thing entirely, it probably means "a new version of the Purple Wedding but now with Roose instead of Joffrey". Obviously with more minutes to explain it, the plot could be more clear.

 

The big problem with the Winterfell plot is not that it does not make sense. It makes, mostly, sense. The big problem is than from a hypothetical group of Sansa story plots where each one of them makes sense (I am almost sure there is more than one way to tell her story), they chose one that is so dark and tragic, a tragedy that includes very serious themes (rape is one of them). And here comes the old discussion about if it is correct to include such themes in shows, movies, etc. Lets imagine we admit that a show can include those themes as part of its plot. Even if we admit that possibility, we need now to look at the particular case of Game of Thrones, and in the case of this show, when it included those themes, it was done with big flaws (that include the case of Sansa too). And to me, all of this constitute a big problem because, I think, the art has a responsibility with society.

Edited April 21, 2016 by OhOkayWhat

[WSmith84]

  On 4/21/2016 at 1:55 AM, OhOkayWhat said:

WSmith84, that is an interesting commentary, but I think that if we analyze this particular case, (season 5 spoilers)

  Reveal spoiler

we will notice that we are watching two vile manipulators (Littlefinger and Roose) who will use the new political situation to manipulate the common man and some lords, making them to think that the law is not always the law in this new environment.

 

 

 

Shimpy, I liked (even if they are not perfect) the Tywin-Arya scenes and I think they stand on their own. They are not just fun, there is a hidden tragedy there too. The scenes provide us with character development and they make Tywin and Arya more complex characters.

 

About Oberyn, maybe I do not understand very well what are you saying......is it bad Oberyn is a better person because he will die eventually? with the same logic, why not to transform Robb in a very cruel man, so that way, when he dies, we do not feel so bad about his death. And if that is the meaning of your commentary, then there is a logical problem there, as you can see.

 

I think like this: the show has its own Planetos with its own characters, they are good, bad, grey persons. Some of them will die, some of them will not, and we are not sure if that is related or not to the fact they are good, bad or grey characters.

 

 

 

 WSmith84, Shimpy (Season 5 spoilers)

  Reveal spoiler

 

About Roose, I think Littlefinger and him discuss how Kings Landing never will send troops as far as the North. Maybe to send troops to the Riverlands is possible, but the North? almost impossible, specially after the death of Twyin. Therefore Roose decides a long term plan: while the North houses are licking their wounds, he will marry a Stark to his son, he will not invite anyone to the wedding, too risky. Eventually with a Bolton-Stark baby in her arms, Roose finally will call the Lords of the North to show them the Bolton heir with Stark blood, or at least, it seemed to be his plan.

 

Also, Roose needs Littlefinger alive because the Vale troops. At the time of the deal, Stannis (if i am not wrong) still was trying to get some North houses to his side, if Stannis succeeded on that, then the help of Vale was needed if Roose was not able to get some help from another houses of the North himself.

 

Littlefinger tells Cercei about Sansa to get permission to move Vale troops through Riverlands to the North. Also, he needs Sansa staying actually in Winterfell for two reasons: first, he needs to make an alliance with Roose. We should remember Petyr is playing the part of a serious business partner to Roose. He is saying, with other words, "look, we are in the same boat on this, in fact, I am giving my most valuable possession to this enterprise we both have now" and yes, the valuable possession is Sansa, because in his vile plan, he is using her like that, like very expensive jewel he is investing. Why  does he need to proyect the image of a serious business partner to the Boltons? well, because he needs to be able to pass Moat Cailin with the Vale army (from South is almost impossible to do that).  And the second reason is to have an excuse to ask the Vale to send the knights to rescue the daugther of Ned (that will involve lots of lies I guess).

 

About Sansa, in my opinion,  she never stopped being a victim. Even with Petyr, she is one. The damage is more subtle, but it is still there,  and maybe it is even worse than in Kings Landing, all of that hidden inside the tricky words of Littlefinger.

 

Being under the tutelage of Littlefinger is like being in a nice place.....only to notice too late all the floor is rotten and there is a abyss beneath you. The little victorious moment with the Vale Lords, the fact she saved Petyr, became the trap that Littlefinger used against Sansa later, he made her feel she was capable to manipulate more people, and she was not. Littlefinger is using her little triumph to make her feel safe while actually she is not, and his plans will risk her well-being and his lessons will corrupt her slowly.

 

And the thing is this: Sansa does NOT need to manipulate people. She can INSPIRE them.

 

I think Sansa was thinking the Plan was to do something close to the Purple Wedding. When Littlefinger reveals the truth about the marriage to Sansa with the whole "avenge them" speech, he also tells her something like "marry the son and one day you will be the Wardeness...." to any other pair of conspirators that could mean "Roose someday in the future will die of old age..." but for them, specially after all she knows about Littlefinger from season 4, it means another thing entirely, it probably means "a new version of the Purple Wedding but now with Roose instead of Joffrey". Obviously with more minutes to explain it, the plot could be more clear.

 

The big problem with the Winterfell plot is not that it does not make sense. It makes, mostly, sense. The big problem is than from a hypothetical group of Sansa story plots where each one of them makes sense (I am almost sure there is more than one way to tell her story), they chose one that is so dark and tragic, a tragedy that includes very serious themes (rape is one of them). And here comes the old discussion about if it is correct to include such themes in shows, movies, etc. Lets imagine we admit that a show can include those themes as part of its plot. Even if we admit that possibility, we need now to look at the particular case of Game of Thrones, and in the case of this show, when it included those themes, it was done with big flaws (that include the case of Sansa too). And to me, all of this constitute a big problem because, I think, the art has a responsibility with society.

 

  Reveal spoiler

 

Littlefinger doesn't need to make an alliance with Roose. He doesn't need to go through Moat Cailin. He has Gulltown. He can send troops North via ship, and there's diddly squat the Northerners can do to stop it. Besides, we've seen that you can apparently 'go round' Moat Cailin, from Brienne and Pod, so I'm not sure why it should be such a problem. As for getting the Vale to agree to going, why would they not simply go if Sansa asks? If they're willing to rescue her, surely they'd be willing to help her reclaim her birthright. And surely one of the questions they will ask when they find out Sansa is in the North, married to Ramsey, is 'why is she in the North and married to Ramsey Bolton?' What, is Littlefinger going to tell them she went off on her own? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Let's say the Lannisters won't send an army North (although the show could really do itself a favour and tell us why this is the case); they can still do plenty of other things that will make Roose's reign a living hell. They can hire assassins, encourage rebellion in the North, make deals with Northern lords in exchange for Roose's head, cut off supplies to the North for the entire winter... Hell, as far as Roose is concerned, the Lannisters have enough money to hire a legion of swellswords to attack the North if they so wish. The North might hate the Lannisters, but they almost certainly hate the Boltons and Freys a great deal more. I bet that there would be many a Northern Lord willing to accept Lannister rule, at least temporarily, if it meant Roose's head on a spear. And Roose has to assume that at some point the Lannisters will find out; to do so otherwise would be monumentally stupid.

 

So Sansa thinks she's going to pull of some Purple Wedding business? How is she supposed to achieve that with no poison, no escape plan, no allies, no resources, no knowledge, no anything. That makes her a moron, and it gets worse when she finds out Stannis is coming; her reaction should be one of panic, of anger. She should be asking why she was there if Winterfell was potentially going to be sacked. She knows what happens when a place is sacked. But she seems totally unfazed by it, like it won't be a problem and she won't potentially die.

 

The thing is, the show has taken every opportunity it has to remove any agency Sansa has. In the books, she may be a prisoner, but she has her own agency. She takes risks in order to try and free herself, she attempts to defy her captors. She makes the decision to escape KL rather than stay as Tyrion's wife. The show removed all of that and left her as nothing but a victim. And then when she takes some kind of step towards character growth, the show reduces her back down to just a victim, again.

 

Winterfell in the show doesn't make sense. But it's not the worst thing about it. It chooses entirely the wrong character to focus on (Ramsey) and ignores the fantastic source material from which it draws. It doesn't stand on its own as a work of TV, and fails miserably as an adaption.

 

[OhOkayWhat]

  On 4/21/2016 at 4:03 PM, WSmith84 said:

  Reveal spoiler

 

Littlefinger doesn't need to make an alliance with Roose. He doesn't need to go through Moat Cailin. He has Gulltown. He can send troops North via ship, and there's diddly squat the Northerners can do to stop it. Besides, we've seen that you can apparently 'go round' Moat Cailin, from Brienne and Pod, so I'm not sure why it should be such a problem. As for getting the Vale to agree to going, why would they not simply go if Sansa asks? If they're willing to rescue her, surely they'd be willing to help her reclaim her birthright. And surely one of the questions they will ask when they find out Sansa is in the North, married to Ramsey, is 'why is she in the North and married to Ramsey Bolton?' What, is Littlefinger going to tell them she went off on her own? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Let's say the Lannisters won't send an army North (although the show could really do itself a favour and tell us why this is the case); they can still do plenty of other things that will make Roose's reign a living hell. They can hire assassins, encourage rebellion in the North, make deals with Northern lords in exchange for Roose's head, cut off supplies to the North for the entire winter... Hell, as far as Roose is concerned, the Lannisters have enough money to hire a legion of swellswords to attack the North if they so wish. The North might hate the Lannisters, but they almost certainly hate the Boltons and Freys a great deal more. I bet that there would be many a Northern Lord willing to accept Lannister rule, at least temporarily, if it meant Roose's head on a spear. And Roose has to assume that at some point the Lannisters will find out; to do so otherwise would be monumentally stupid.

 

So Sansa thinks she's going to pull of some Purple Wedding business? How is she supposed to achieve that with no poison, no escape plan, no allies, no resources, no knowledge, no anything. That makes her a moron, and it gets worse when she finds out Stannis is coming; her reaction should be one of panic, of anger. She should be asking why she was there if Winterfell was potentially going to be sacked. She knows what happens when a place is sacked. But she seems totally unfazed by it, like it won't be a problem and she won't potentially die.

 

The thing is, the show has taken every opportunity it has to remove any agency Sansa has. In the books, she may be a prisoner, but she has her own agency. She takes risks in order to try and free herself, she attempts to defy her captors. She makes the decision to escape KL rather than stay as Tyrion's wife. The show removed all of that and left her as nothing but a victim. And then when she takes some kind of step towards character growth, the show reduces her back down to just a victim, again.

 

Winterfell in the show doesn't make sense. But it's not the worst thing about it. It chooses entirely the wrong character to focus on (Ramsey) and ignores the fantastic source material from which it draws. It doesn't stand on its own as a work of TV, and fails miserably as an adaption.

 

 

WSmith84, (season 5 spoilers)

 

  Reveal spoiler

 

Interesting reply, but you are including in your reasoning some things that are not established in the show.

 

Gulltown, if I am not wrong, is not mentioned in the show. I admitt that it seems it is mentioned in the History and Lore extras in the blur-ay disks, so lets accept it as part of the show. The problem is it also seems that the Gulltown stuff is information from the past (maybe from 10,15 or more years ago, if I am not wrong) and therefore we have not current information about the state of that big port. Does it have enough ships for thousands of troops and the horses? even if they have enough ships, are them ready for war?

 

Another important detail is the weather. It is changing quickly, specially in the North. And in Hardhome we see the weather in the sea. How quickly it will be same in the whole North? And weather is very important if we analyze an invasion.

 

It is also very important to mention the situation of the North at the moment Petyr was elaborating his plan. Stannis was there, with an army, ships and trying to get the Houses at his side. To include an invasion using ships in the plan did not make a lot of sense then. Maybe now, with Stannis defeated, Petyr will use ships, but again, we do not even know if they exist.

 

Therefore his plan still needs to use Moat Cailin. And about Brienne and Pod, they are only a couple of persons, and they can avoid using Moat Cailin, but it is not the same for a big army. In fact in season 4, they show that the Boltons needed that place and Ramsay asking Theon to trick the soldiers inside it.

 

About the Vale. Your reasoning implies it is the same for them if Sansa is safe with them asking help to retake her birthright lands and Sansa prisoner of the Boltons, in the issue if they will send the Vale army or not to Winterfell. And we do not know if all the Lords and Knights think like that.

 

About what Petyr will say when asked about how Sansa ended there with the Boltons. As I said, I think he will lie and blame other people too. He will say she was kidnapped , and some people from inside the Vale helped the Boltons to do that. Or something like that.

 

Roose and Littlefinger talk in season 5 about the fall of the Lannister after the death of Tywin. Roose does not fear them, maybe because Cercei is now in charge. And as we saw, she is not a good ruler. So he accepted the plan because he assumed the Lannister could not be a problem. Even more with the Lannister dealing with their own cold war against the Tyrell and their own internal problems, they could not have time to deal with the Boltons. And that is assuming Cercei find about the marriage. And here comes the next point i made.

 

That was one of the reasons to keep the marriage as secret as possible. That way Cercei could not make deals with the North houses. And we are assuming the North Houses are unite or strong enough, or want to make a deal with Cercei, to attack the Boltons at the moment he made the deal witn Petyr, and I think it was not the case. Maybe they will unite later or become stronger too. That is the reason Roose own plan is a long term plan.

 

About Sansa, it is also a kinda long term plan. She know the Boltons need a heir or two. So she probably could think she was at not risk until she have one or two babies. It have not point for her then, to have poison in her pocket. In her time in Kings Landing (two, three years?) she saw how two kings died. If she and Petyr want Roose dead, she could think it is not a short term plan. And she thinks she has an ally: Littlefinger, sadly we know, of course, she should not trust him. About the information of Stannis attacking the Boltons, Petyr kinda acts like he found about that after they arrived Winterfell.

 

I think she never stopped being a victim. About taking a step to character growth, if we are talking about the moment she saved Petyr with the Vale Lords, well, as I said before, in the narrative,  it became later the trap that allowed Petyr to manipulate her.

 

And finally, I do not think the show only focus on Ramsay, if that is what you mean. I think the focus is Sansa, Theon and Ramsay. Obviously, each person of the audience will decide if they give the same importance to each character or not.

 

Edited April 21, 2016 by OhOkayWhat

[Chris24601]

Regarding the season 5 topic at hand;

  Reveal spoiler

What I took from season 5 was that Littlefinger was basically arranging things into a "Heads I win, Tails you lose" situation where he gets what he wants (Warden of the North) regardless of the outcome.

If Stannis beats the Boltons and finds Sansa as essentially a prisoner, Stannis will make her Wardeness of the North because Ned supported his claim. Littlefinger then figures he can swoop in and make some sort of political match that gets himself installed as Warden of the North. If the Boltons beat Stannis, well he's already turned Cersie against the Boltons and has gotten her assurances that so long as he also puts Sansa's head on a spike when he takes Winterfell from the (now weakened) Boltons he will be appointed Warden of the North.

Would he PREFER for Sansa to live so he could presumably wed and bed her? Probably, but in the end he's using her as a pawn and would be perfectly willing to kill her if that's what it took to achieve his ends.

My hunch though is that D&D specifically had Cersie ask for Sansa's head on a spike above Winterfell because his fate will match the book version's likely fate... where instead it is Sansa who puts Littlefinger's head on a spike above Winterfell because his betrayals will be discovered.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Chris24601

[WindyNights]

Oh boy. Spoilers are out for the first episode and people are not going to be happy.

[Alayne Stone]

No. No they are not.

 

I don't think one bottle of wine is going to be enough for me tomorrow. I might have to bump it up to some hard liquor.

[Brn2bwild]

  On 4/23/2016 at 3:14 AM, Alayne Stone said:

No. No they are not.

 

I don't think one bottle of wine is going to be enough for me tomorrow. I might have to bump it up to some hard liquor.

Oh God, who gets raped or horribly killed/tortured?

 

(I actually don't really want to know.  I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers until Sunday.)

[WindyNights]

@Alayne I'll recommend some weed with that hard liquor.

[ambi76]

Re leaks:

  Reveal spoiler

Yikes. Well, if this keeps up I might "watch" (more like follow) season 6 after all. Just for the Lulz.

 

  Reveal spoiler

The Melisandre = ancient woman in glamour thing is actually rather lame (was guessed ages ago by readers) and male-Dorne being exterminated might actually lead to a "Arianne-like" character I just don't think they can make that one be Ellaria (who will feel horribly guilty if she survives this). Will likely be Obara on the show.

Edited April 23, 2016 by ambi76

[Avaleigh]

  On 4/23/2016 at 9:33 AM, ambi76 said:

Re leaks:

  Reveal spoiler

Yikes. Well, if this keeps up I might "watch" (more like follow) season 6 after all. Just for the Lulz.

In terms of the worst character adaptations

  Reveal spoiler

Ellaria

officially wins hands down for me.

  Reveal spoiler

I hope the Others take her.

[Terra Nova]

Saw the pictures and, yep:

 

[Haleth]

It is rather disappointing.

[Shanna Marie]

Okay, now I'm curious. Part of me doesn't want to be spoiled, but part of me thinks I might be happier if I have a chance to brace myself. I must say that rewatching the series is making me take it a lot less seriously because the seams become more obvious. There's a lot of material it's easy to scroll past.

[WindyNights]

@Shanna Well if you can hold out until tomorrow, you'll be good.

Let's just say something is extremely mishandled in episode 1.

[glowbug]

Spoiler for Season 6, episode 1:

 

  Reveal spoiler

We're talking about Dorne, right? I thought the show couldn't handle that region and its characters any worse and then these spoilers come out. I haven't seen a whole recap—just a few snippets—but nothing else stood as as truly terrible. Mel being an old woman in disguise is a bit cliché (I know Shimpy won't be happy with that one based on prior discussions) but it's not the worst thing in the world.

Edited April 23, 2016 by glowbug

[Shanna Marie]

  Quote

Let's just say something is extremely mishandled in episode 1.

On this show? Never! 

 

After last season, I think it would be more of a shocking surprise if they handled something particularly well. I'm in the middle of rewatching season 5, and after season 3, it's so disappointing how badly they bungled Jaime's storyline. They did season 3 so well, and then it was like they completely forgot all that development.

 

Meanwhile, there's sooo much Ramsay. I can get through about 3-4 episodes a night by scrolling past all his scenes. See shirtless Ramsay singlehandedly hold off the Ironborn! See women competing to be in his bed! See long conversations with Ramsay and a naked woman! I keep getting the creepy sense that he's become something of a self-insert for the writers, when the way the character strikes me is as the way a lot of Internet trolls must see themselves. It makes me want to do one of those "what my friends think I am, what my mother thinks I am, what I think I am, what I really am" meme things.

[Avaleigh]

  On 4/23/2016 at 5:50 PM, glowbug said:

Spoiler for Season 6, episode 1:

 

  Reveal spoiler

We're talking about Dorne, right? I thought the show couldn't handle that region and its characters any worse and then these spoilers come out. I haven't seen a whole recap—just a few snippets—but nothing else stood as as truly terrible. Mel being an old woman in disguise is a bit cliché (I know Shimpy won't be happy with that one based on prior discussions) but it's not the worst thing in the world.

I'm happy about the (S6 spoilers from episode 1)

  Reveal spoiler

Mel reveal because otherwise there's no point to the ruby stuff that the book has given us. That glamour with Rattleshirt was a major clue that pretty much spelled out that she would have a very different appearance if she didn't have that necklace on all the time. I think it's more interesting to have Mel turn out to be this old character who has seen a lot and will maybe even be able to give us backstory from hundreds of years ago. Carice gave a clue in an interview awhile back saying that Mel is super old, so I always expected this to come around on the show and am pretty shocked that multiple posters at Westeros and WOTW seem to think that this is a "MAJOR" reveal and spoiler that has leaked. I can see it being a shock to the Unsullied viewers, but book readers seem like they should have been reasonably prepared to expect this development. The only thing that I find irritating is that she was shown without the necklace in that tub scene with Selyse. I suppose we'll have to fanwank that she took some sort of potion or was bathing in something to create the same effect but I feel like that's reaching.

 

[Alayne Stone]

Spoilers for season 6, episode 1 ...

 

  Reveal spoiler

Yeah, I'm definitely talking about Dorne. I'm not the least bit surprised by the Mel reveal. I think we all suspected it from her chapter in ADWD (although to be honest I kind of was thinking she was old, but wouldn't necessarily look old - like maybe she was an avatar for R'hllor was the fire version of the White Walkers and thus a Fire Wight of sorts - but again not too surprised by this.) Apparently this is revealed when she takes off her necklace though, which some people have already pointed out is a continuity error because she already appeared without it in the episode she takes a bath while Selyse is around. Again, not a big deal to me. But Dorne? OMG. Why did they even bother? Seriously? Fellaria and the Sand Fakes were universally recognized as the WORST portion not only of Dorne but of the entire show last season. What is the point of keeping them around? Who are they even going to interact with? Seriously. I have no idea. Hopefully they just fall into the sea and we never hear of them again.

 

As for holding off -- I don't know. That's a tough one. I was trying to remain spoiler free but couldn't resist clicking the link I found on tumblr and ... I'm happier for it. I think seeing it with no warning whatsoever would have probably lead to me breaking things. Now I feel prepared for it. I may even just fast forward through the whole thing.

 

But anyone who is trying to avoid spoilers, just ... don't go on reddit or tumblr. You should be safe over at Westeros.org because they have a strict no leak policy over there too. Can't even talk about any of it.

 

@WindyNights - You know, I've never even smoked weed. But I'm seriously considering it now.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Alayne Stone

[Avaleigh]

More about that spoiler from the first ep of s6:

  Reveal spoiler

I actually thought that Mel would look a lot scarier without the glamour. This woman has black blood dripping out of her so I was expecting a blackened, rotten looking body. I sort of wish too that without the glamour that she'd still have the red eyes. I too liked the speculation that she's a kind of fire wight or maybe even a fire version of an Other.

 

Regarding Dorne:

  Reveal spoiler

I'm assuming that the Ellaria and the stupid Sand Snakes will eventually be Team Dany. Ugh, is there even a chance that Ellaria or any of them will acknowledge that Oberyn wouldn't have wanted Trystane to be killed?

 

[Brn2bwild]

Okay, I took a peek.  My thoughts:

 

  Reveal spoiler

Eh.  I was fearing we'd find out Mel used her glamour to turn herself into unJon Snow and that the real Jon Snow was now and forever totally dead.  I'm not surprised she's actually ancient, as the books hinted at that.  I thought with Dorne we'd learn that Doran was in on the Ellaria treachery and secretly wanted Myrcella killed.  Dorne was pretty much ruined from the point they decided to exclude Arianne, so I'm not too broken up about it.

[glowbug]

Spoilers for season 6 episode 1:

  Reveal spoiler

I was sure they could never dig themselves out of the hole they created last season with Dorne but I thought they might be able to maintain the same level of awfulness at least, maybe even take some of the feedback and improve it slightly, but no, they just decided to dig themselves into a deeper hole. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...

The Mel stuff doesn't bother me that much either. I kind of wish GRRM (I'm guess this came from him) hadn't gone in that direction (I like the idea of her being old but not looking like a crone much better) but it's not a big deal to me and it is cool to have a fan theory confirmed. I definitely wasn't surprised by it. It's a little clichè as Shimpy pointed out but I'm not one of those fans that thinks GRRM should subvert all tropes, nor do I think he has or will.

[stillshimpy]

Okay, so ...huh.  Season six

  Reveal spoiler

Melisandre is going to turn out to be a withered crone?  Oh jeez.  Reminds me of American Horror Story's first season, but thanks to our discussions here, I was braced for the possibility.  Can't say I'm jazzed about that turn of events.  I understand that in some ways it is actually addressing the ludicrously superficial nature of what we value most in women in particular and people in general.  I guess the show hinted at the whole thing with the bath scene when Selsye and Mel just being all "Oh so what?  It's just flesh" but I admit I am wincing over here.  I haven't looked at the spoiler.

 

Continue

  Reveal spoiler

since I haven't looked, I'm just going to ask:  Did they just kill off everyone in Dorne or something?  Because GOOD LORD, SHOW.  Really?  First you fuck up that plot beyond recognition and now you're taking 'em all out in a Moldavian Wedding Massacre or something??  Okay.  That seems ...lacking in narrative sophistication.   Let me guess, Jaime kills the shit out of everyone because of Myrcella.  But what I am also picking up just made me want to leap off of something tall.  The Sand Snakes survive?  Oh....that's just.....not a good choice.  They were universally mocked for a reason.  

 

I have to watch tonight.  My husband is home, he's rewatched the entire series in anticipation of the premiere tonight and he's sort of noted my lack of "Yay, GoT tonight!"   When he asked me why, I was suddenly in the "Now I'm married to an Unsullied, what do I say?"  I went with....very, very little.  

 

Love the video, Terra :-)  Thanks for that! 

Edited April 24, 2016 by stillshimpy

[Mya Stone]

Just when I thought they couldn't screw

  Reveal spoiler

Dorne

up anymore than they already did...

Thankfully they only have

  Reveal spoiler

a handful of scenes this season

from what I've heard.

[WSmith84]

@ Chris24601

 

  Reveal spoiler

 

My point was that Littlefinger's strategy works better if he doesn't actually marry Sansa to Ramsey, but instead simply tells Cersei that. That way: Sansa's not at risk, the Vale Lords won't be asking awkward questions about how she got there, Stannis won't be asking why Sansa is in Winterfell married to Ramsey, he doesn't risk Roose arresting him and Sansa the moment they enter Winterfell etc.

 

 

@ OhOkayWhat

 

  Reveal spoiler

 

Well, Gulltown is also discussed in the HBO Viewers guide for season 1 and 2. There it is described as the largest city and port of the Vale. But even if we pretend it doesn't exist, assuming the Vale, the region closest to the continent of Essos, has ships is a fairly safe bet. As for Stannis, yes he had ships transport an army from Essos to the Wall (without much of a problem, it would seem) but we don't know what happened with those ships afterwards (they are never mentioned again). However, assuming that they are still available to him, there is nothing they can do to stop ships from the Vale unless they have prior knowledge that the ships are leaving. If they knew in advance, sure, Stannis' fleet could attempt to meet the Vale ships as they move North, although it would be sailors and pirates on Stannis' side vs sailors and soldiers on the Vale's side. And why would they have knowledge of this fleet anyway? If they don't know it's coming, there's nothing that Stannis' fleet can do to stop the Vale ships. The Northern coastline is enormous and there are way too many landing points for Stannis' fleet to stop the Vale's fleet.

 

As for weather... Well yes, weather is an important detail, and travelling by sea in late Autumn/early winter could be tricky. But as we've seen from Stannis, travelling by foot in the North is just as dangerous, maybe even more so. Littlefinger is planning to invade the North during, at best, late autumn and, at worst, early winter. What are his plans if the weather turns bad and he ends up trapped, just like Stannis' army was? And why would Roose allow a Vale army past Moat Cailin anyway, now that he has already defeated Stannis? He may believe himself to be allied with LF, but that doesn't mean that he's going to allow a foreign army into his lands when there is no reason. That's another advantage of using ships: there's nothing Roose can do to stop it.

 

Roose can't know that Cersei is going to wreck the Tyrell alliance. He barely knows the woman and even if he believes her to be incompetent, he can't expect her to destroy it so completely in such a short amount of time. In the books, even LF is surprised at how quickly Cersei is destroying it. So I can't see why Roose is expecting no reprisals if Sansa is discovered. Again, just because the Lannisters might not invade the North, that doesn't mean they won't do anything else. I've already listed possibilities, but here they are again: hire assassins, cut off food and other supplies from the North, find Northern Lords prepared to betray Roose (not difficult) etc. Roose can't expect Cersei to ignore so blatant a treason as marrying Sansa Stark, and indeed she doesn't. Nor can he guarantee that he won't be rumbled.

 

Sansa has no plan. And LF didn't give her one. The goal of her being in Winterfell isn't even obvious; some vague notion of revenge isn't enough. Is she to kill Roose? Make allies? Have heirs and prepare them to rule the North? No idea. Sansa has no plan, long or short, that would allow her to do anything. She can't meet other Northern Lords, because they aren't going to be at the wedding and travelling during winter is more than a tad difficult. So building alliances is out of the question. She has no escape plan if things turn bad, no allies to turn to in a pinch, no resources to make use of and no advice from LF to use. In fact, the only advice she receives from him is wholeheartedly ignored. She appears stupid, and if the TV audience believe Sansa is a complete moron I can't blame them. Do you think most TV audience members looked at Sansa's decision to accept the marriage and thought 'well, she must have some kind of plan here' or 'you bloody idiot, what the hell are you doing?!'?

 

As for LF... Well, he could lie and say Sansa was kidnapped. Of course, he has to guarantee the silence of the Vale soldiers who escorted them there and anyone in the Riverlands/North/Vale who saw them head to Winterfell. All it would take is one loose-lipped guard and Yohn Royce will have LF's head on a spear. Is LF going to murder every guard who travelled with them? How will he explain how the kidnapper got Sansa out of the Vale, through the Riverlands, past Moat Cailin and all the way to Winterfell? And in all that time, why did LF not tell Royce and the others? Did LF not send out rescue parties to bring her back? Etc. etc. That's a lot of questions that LF has to answer correctly or he'd dead. Royce and the others will not hesitate to kill him if they suspect him of treachery. And it's not like they need him to lead them North. And what happens if they get North, rescue Sansa and she says 'LF married me to Ramsey Bolton'? How's LF going to talk his way out of that one? Because there is no way he can guarantee Sansa being on his side after the marriage. If she requests LF's head on a nice, shiny platter, you think Royce and the others will refuse? And again, LF is planning to invade the North during winter. What are his plans for that?

 

And yeah, Ramsey was the main character in this story. Where was Theon's transformation from Reek to Theon? It didn't happen. Where was Sansa actually doing something for once? Nowhere. Sassy remarks and refusing toasts don't mean that you're a pro-active character. Ramsey got a girlfriend (with a completely pointless arc of her own), daddy issues, and probably the most screentime of the three (definitely more than Theon, anyway).

 

Sansa is still a victim in the books, I agree. But that isn't all she is. She makes decisions, takes pro-active choices and risks her life to free herself from King's Landing. In the show, all she is is a victim. Nothing else. And that makes her a weak character.

 

[DigitalCount]

Man, did anyone else NOT read the spoilers? I feel like I'm the only one. Should I just nope on out of this thread until later tonight?

[stillshimpy]

Sorry, Digital Count, no we can stop talking exclusively about that and there's something I've long wanted to ask you, I'm going to now:  

 

At one point you said something about how you were nodding along like mad to something and something else about noting your avatar.  That you were waiting for my reaction on something.  

 

I can't figure out what that referred to.  What was it? 

[DigitalCount]

I remember the post I made, but not the circumstance of when it happened. Them's the breaks, I guess. Kind of a non-reveal, but at the same time this is the Game of Thrones subforum.

 

zzzzzzzzing

[bobbybuilderton]

Aw man I missed the discussion of the only episodes I saw lol. I only watched up until oberyn's death. It was such an intense scene to read for me, but seeing it acted out I felt absolutely nothing. That was when I realized I just simply didn't like the show anymore. I wasn't like "oh, thats REALLY GOOD" or "WTF THIS IS TRASH." I just watched it with a blank look on my face and was completely indifferent when the episode ended. I can't comment on a season 5 rewatch because I watched literally none of it. 

 

I was reminded of this thread because of the leaks. I really look forward to sitting back and letting the show be bad this season.

[WSmith84]

You know, I think if the last two books were already out and I'd read them, I'd just watch the rest of the show to see how it is. To see what they did well, what they messed up, what was different, what was the same etc. But I really don't want the show to be how I find out how the plot goes, because it's just not of a good enough quality in my opinion. I don't buy for an instance that bull about 'two different stories, same characters'; there are going to be major spoilers in the show. I'm at risk of breaking and watching it anyway; I just don't know whether the energy required to sit down and watch the thing and the disappointment I'll feel outweigh the energy required to avoid spoilers for however long it takes.

[Alayne Stone]

I really don't think you have to worry about the show spoiling anything. Especially with

 

Season 6 spoilers:

  Reveal spoiler

House Martell completely extinguished in the show. Like ... they are all still obviously very alive in the books. Not to mention Brienne is no where near Sansa and Sansa is no where near Winterfell and Jaime is no where near Cersei and Stannis is still alive, etc, etc, etc.

[WindyNights]

  On 4/25/2016 at 1:33 AM, WSmith84 said:

You know, I think if the last two books were already out and I'd read them, I'd just watch the rest of the show to see how it is. To see what they did well, what they messed up, what was different, what was the same etc. But I really don't want the show to be how I find out how the plot goes, because it's just not of a good enough quality in my opinion. I don't buy for an instance that bull about 'two different stories, same characters'; there are going to be major spoilers in the show. I'm at risk of breaking and watching it anyway; I just don't know whether the energy required to sit down and watch the thing and the disappointment I'll feel outweigh the energy required to avoid spoilers for however long it takes.

Believe me. The first episode contains no major spoilers for TWOW really.

I can tell they're already making massive divergences from the source material.

[mrspidey]

So Shimpy...Are you finally going to make your final step into the uncharted lands of the bookwalker review threads for season six?

[stillshimpy]

The episode threads for this season with Book Talk?  Yes, indeed.  I've just jumped in with both feet and hopefully didn't give anyone too much of a "What the fuck is she doing in here?!?" start.  

 

By the way, it was weirdly freeing to be able to watch the show knowing where the plot has already diverged and watching it become an even more separate entity.  

 

Instead of thinking I'd end up spoiled for the next book, instead I had more of a feeling that, if anything Martin wouldn't do the same things in the books, because he wouldn't want readers spoiled for what was to come.  

 

I could be wrong and I completely get not wanting to risk it.  I just hadn't been looking forward to this season at all and weirdly, it was the first time in ages I didn't feel in the least ticked at the show.  

Edited April 25, 2016 by stillshimpy

[mrspidey]

Btw. did anyone notice how Dany mentioned being infertile? I thought that was funny, considering how much we talked about that topic in here. 

[WindyNights]

  On 4/25/2016 at 5:30 PM, stillshimpy said:

The episode threads for this season with Book Talk? Yes, indeed. I've just jumped in with both feet and hopefully didn't give anyone too much of a "What the fuck is she doing in here?!?" start.

By the way, it was weirdly freeing to be able to watch the show knowing where the plot has already diverged and watching it become an even more separate entity.

Instead of thinking I'd end up spoiled for the next book, instead I had more of a feeling that, if anything Martin wouldn't do the same things in the books, because he wouldn't want readers spoiled for what was to come.

I could be wrong and I completely get not wanting to risk it. I just hadn't been looking forward to this season at all and weirdly, it was the first time in ages I didn't feel in the least ticked at the show.

Well it seems more like D & D made the decision to diverge rather than GRRM.

D & D have twice gone on record saying that season 6 won't spoil TWOW aside from a few key elements.

I'm guessing Jon's parentage is one of those things.

Like Ellaria is a pretty peaceful person in the books and the Sand Snakes know now that Doran wants revenge the same as them so there would be no reason to kill him.

[glowbug]

  On 4/25/2016 at 9:02 PM, mrspidey said:

Btw. did anyone notice how Dany mentioned being infertile? I thought that was funny, considering how much we talked about that topic in here.

I was just coming to this thread to clarify this. I caught it when Dany said it on the show and thought, "wasn't that a book only thing?" Has Dany's infertility been established on the show before? I wonder how the show is going to handle the prophecy. If they're going to have it fulfilled the way GRRM seemingly has done, I wonder how since there is no Quentyn to rise in the west and set in the east

  Reveal spoiler

and no other Martells either

.

[mrspidey]

  On 4/25/2016 at 10:35 PM, glowbug said:

I was just coming to this thread to clarify this. I caught it when Dany said it on the show and thought, "wasn't that a book only thing?" Has Dany's infertility been established on the show before?

No, that's just it. Some bookwalker got caught by Shimpy and others during season 1 because he claimed Dany was infertile even though MM never said that on the show. 

[stillshimpy]

Dany eventually did tell Jorah that her dragons were the only children she would ever have though, so the show did get around to having Dany seemingly believe it.  Not from anything Mirri Muraz (or whatever) said though.  

 

Plus, yeah we actually had more than one get caught that way.  Including a woman over on TWoP  who claimed she was taking her med school finals, while pregnant and had just checked her dvd copies and reported that yes, MM had said it.  Only....she hadn't.  Come to think of it, I've no real reason to believe that that poster was actually a woman, I just found it to have a lot of flourish....not merely a medical student, conversant with wombs, but a pregnant one, no less.  

 

I guess she/he believed a good con was in the details :-)  

 

ETA:  I also admit to revisiting this thread repeatedly throughout the day so as to play Terra's video over and over :-) 

Edited April 26, 2016 by stillshimpy