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!

[Lady S.]

There has been a ton of casting speculation throughout the whole process, though. GRRM has a blog and would post casting clues in the form of riddles about the character and actor that would be playing it. It continued even past the premiere of the show as each season introduced new characters, although George stopped dropping hints after, I think, the second or third season.

 

He did it for s4 too actually, I think he only stopped recently when he finally decided to hunker down on writing Winds.

 

Shrimpy, on the maps thing, I know when I'm reading books like these, whether it be Tolkien or Gregory Maguire's take on Oz or whatever, I always find myself flipping to the maps as the characters travel. Same with historical fiction that provides family trees, or books set in other countries which provide language glossaries. As to your Targ incest question, Rhaegar didn't have a sister to marry because Dany was only born during the Rebellion, after his death, in fact. (This is all in the exposition of Dany I, but this shit is still confusing at first. IA that the show did a terrible job of revealing her backstory onscreen. I was never really Unsullied, but I only gave into the books in 2013, and I remember before then I had a hard time keeping straight the weird Targ family tree. And when they mentioned the Targ babies being killed I used to have an image in my mind that was like Anakin slaughtering the younglings. It wasn't until s3 that Rhaegar's kids were identified and said to be killed by Gregor Clegane, and Elia wasn't name dropped until Obie was on the scene in s4. Not revealing that Rhaegar had a wife and two li'l Targs, and that's who Tywin had murdered, is one of the more baffling early adaptation choices to me.)

 

I sometimes like to wonder about what Lena Headey's version of Cat would be like, because it's obvious D&D love her even if Cersei isn't lovable. I doubt her Catelyn would have been pushed to the side as much when Robb became KitN. Michelle Fairley was amazing with what little she was given in s3, and it's an injustice that she didn't even get any awards noms for 3.09, but it felt like D&D just found her in a Shakespeare stage production (that is the story, I believe, she was playing Emilia in Othello when they approached her for the re-cast), but didn't give much thought to her character after s1. Catelyn, as a character hated even more than Ramsay Snow in some corners of the book fandom, was kinda put in a similar boat as Stephen Dillane's Stannis, though I think the D&D hate such-and-such chatter is almost always hyperbole. Really though, I think Fairley could have pulled off all of Catelyn if given the chance, but she wasn't as pretty as Lena or Jennifer Ehle, and tbh I feel like that was what worked against her more than anything else on this T&A fest of a show.  

 

I obviously have way too many thoughts on the character, but I don't want to subject Avaleigh and everyone who's seen them before until that's a relevant discussion topic. The only thing I want to say on the Cat/Jon ugliness is that I don't think he was surprised she didn't call in the guards because that was clearly an empty threat. They're Ned's guards and Idt any member of the Winterfell household would want to get involved in Ned/Cat's marital spats, since that sounds like a good way to lose your job or at least get your lord in a bad mood.  (The same reason is why I'm sure she's behind Sansa's recognition of Jon's bastardy and her calling him my half-brother. Septa Mordane is awful, but I don't think Jon would be on her radar since that's none of her business, and she and the septon are only members of the household because Ned allows it.

We learn in Storm that Cat made sure to teach Robb that he was the heir and that Jon was only the bastard.

) The fact that Jon was trained by Ser Rodrik and had a sword made for Arya behind Ned's back is proof enough for me that he had good standing with all the Winterfellians except his stepmother, who refused to even call him by name (textbook emotional abuse, but I guess getting past that is my bit of moral relativism, since the honor and obey aspect of Ned/Cat is also a shock to the 21st century senses). The flaw in the fanon Catelyn as constant tormenting stepmonster characterization to me has always been that Ned would have to step in daily if shit was that obvious yet we know he did come to love her. And I think Ned still could have done a lot more for Jon even without spilling R+L=J, I feel like Ned gets overrated as a father just because all the other fathers are terrible, when his hands-off fun dad parenting didn't prepare Robb and Jon for everything and both parents failed Sansa miserably. (Wow, sorry, that turned out way too long for a paragraph that started off saying I only wanted to say one thing.)

 

Did you notice that Drogo did rape Dany repeatedly after their wedding night in Dany III? So that's why the actors and tptb felt it was better to ditch Martin honeymoon romance novel bullshit.

[stillshimpy]

What did you think of Ned's hard ass parenting telling Catelyn that Rickon is already three so he needs to learn to face his fears and stuff?

 

I was pretty taken aback by that one, actually.  Although, I sort of chilled out a little because of a book I read about The Way We Never Were which is actually a sociology book....(everyone's eyes glaze over as they wait for me to expound, so I'll sum up):  Toddlers use to routinely do all kinds of work...so whereas it was surprising to me, given both Ned's characterization and the fact that Rickon is pretty freaking teeny compared to show Rickon (three is a little, little kid)  didn't help with that.  However, I kind of felt like it was Martin's way of stressing the "fantasy land yes, but do apply the 'times were different back then' mindset called for in that sociology book as being apropos for this time and place" ....I mean, Bran just talked about being "A Man Grown Soon" at eight.  

 

Ned has more facets in the book characterization too and does seemingly expect one thing from sons, and another from daughters, even if he is remarkably flexible in those gender expectations, all things considered.  So I also put it down to that. 

 

 

 

Are you happy the windowless (?!) wheelhouse didn't make it into the show? ;-)

 

Damned happy for the actors, that's for sure.  Just what you'd want....a shoot in a box, in heavy costuming.  Woo!  And yeah, I was really glad not to see inside Robert's , thanks ever so! 

 

 

 

What did you think of Sansa's date with Joffrey?

 

You know, I actually do have something to say about that, but I am keenly aware that I am the goober who argued for years, "He (meaning Jon) could be Ned's son...." when the book pretty makes it clear immediately that is as likely as "We'll speak when I return" ....tends to be as an outcome.  

 

But I had always had the impression that Joffrey started to hate Sansa after she saw him sniveling like a coward, rather than prior to that, and I got the impression that he'd just had a veneer covering up his ever-present-for-all-things loathing all along.  Not that I ever thought he was fond of her, I just thought that incident caused his antipathy and I got the impression that it was always there after that.  

 

As for Septa Mordane's obvious preference for Sansa...I'm going to have to return with more thoughts on both the Joffrey date and that in a bit :-)  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Delta1212]

It's funny, the dragon hatching actually somewhat blindsided me coming when it did in the books, whereas I thought they were making it painfully obvious that "these eggs are important!" on the show. I suppose foreshadowing is always most obvious when you know what's coming.

Season 1 Renly is basically nothing like the description in the book, but funnily enough, season 2 Renly is almost exactly how I pictured him in my head even though he still technically doesn't match the physical description from the books. Somehow my mental image of Stannis also looks more like the book's description of Renly than of Stannis, so my brain seems to do funny things with characters.

I think the Faith of the Seven is supposed to be based on Catholicism with the "Seven faces of God" correlating with the "Three in one" of the Holy Trinity. So they're all distinct aspects of a single God, but also sort of separate. Or not.

Oh, and Lady's death was the second point I put the book down and questioned my decision to read this series. It's also the strongest of the three times where I was thinking "Why am I reading this?" but of course I did keep going. That scene was definitely something of a gut punch, though.

[Haleth]

About aging up everyone for the show, I reconcile it by imagining the years on this world are longer than 12 months, so their 12yo looks 15 to us, their 17yo looks over 20, their 35yo looks 45, etc. The seasons are wonky, why not the years too?

 

I don't know how old that would make Maester Aemon.  Yikes.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Haleth

[Avaleigh]

Lady S. I'm always happy to read your thoughts. 

 

I'm glad that other people are curious about what Lena would have done with the Catelyn character. (I would love to be able to view the original pilot with Jennifer Ehle just to see a different portrayal of the character.) 

 

I agree with you that Catelyn is likely behind Sansa's chilly attitude towards Jon. 

 

Shimpy, interesting that you thought at one point that Joffrey might be Ned's.

 

I think one of the things that I've been struck by on this reread is how tough things seemed to be for Arya even before everything went to hell at the Trident. She seems like she really does want to be "in" with Sansa and her friends and even though she's a daughter of a great lord just like Sansa it's like she's already this outcast in a way and nobody really gets her other than Jon. 

 

Bran's excitement at the thought of going on an adventure to the south makes me so sad. Out of all of the Stark siblings he seemed most excited about going to King's Landing so on top of everything else that had to have burned to wake up and know that almost everyone is gone. 

Edited June 19, 2015 by Avaleigh

[stillshimpy]

I like that rationalization, Haleth.  

 

 

 

Did you notice that Drogo did rape Dany repeatedly after their wedding night in Dany III? So that's why the actors and tptb felt it was better to ditch Martin honeymoon romance novel bullshit.

 

Yes, she absolutely referred to being in pain and crying, but it seemed to be related to being injured from riding and it's absolutely bizarre because whereas -- yup, that's marital rape, painful , etc. etc. -- the book doesn't actually indicate anything about that other than she was glad he couldn't see her crying, and I'll confess, I don't know what the message was supposed to be from that.  "Because she wanted to continue to have sex?  Because she didn't want to displease him?  Because she didn't want to show what she perceived as weakness? So what's up with the 'glad he couldn't see her tears'? thing: "Dany was relieved that Drogo couldn't tell he was sexually assaulting her? " huh?  

 

So I just let that one go entirely with a sense of bafflement.  

 

 

 

It's funny, the dragon hatching actually somewhat blindsided me coming when it did in the books, whereas I thought they were making it painfully obvious that "these eggs are important!" on the show. I suppose foreshadowing is always most obvious when you know what's coming.

 

You know, I think that's going to be true with a lot of things I'm encountering.  Of course every instance of Ned balking at discussing Jon's mother will stand out a mile and a half to me because I spent almost five full seasons arguing that I just thought it was too damned twee for this story to have Jon be the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna if it was some sort of "she went with him willingly" union. 

 

So there's an element of that with the dragons for me also.  I argued  -- because y'all have likely figured this out about me anyway -- at some fucking truly extended length that "no way, there is no magic in this land and whereas there may be dragons at some point, those eggs are petrified.  You know what doesn't yield life?  Petrified things" and all the other things I'm sure I said, because I've met me, and that is all likely shit I said.  

 

Therefore, it's one of those "good thing I'm not making a damned drinking game out of 'every time I find evidence that I was clearly just fucking wrong, A LOT, take a shot' because even I confined it to water, I'd be risking foundering even without inebriation being a factor.  Fuckity-duckity-duck." 

 

Edited:  

Shimpy, interesting that you thought at one point that Joffrey might be Ned's.

 

Oh lord, what karmic god of typos have I angered this time?  Wherever I said that, or implied that, or in anyway indicated that I thought that might be the case by replacing a word or letter....I can assure you, I never even once thought Joffrey Baratheon was Ned's son.  Not once.  I wish I could adequately convey my full horror at the thought.   

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Triskan]

About your comments towards faithfulness. It is true, the first season is extraordinary faithful !

 

But dont worry, it starts to deviate after that, more and more, and we get two different tellings of the same story, which is a very peculiar thing I've always loved personally (as opposed to quite a bunch of "integrist" book-walkers).

 

I really cant wait for you to start reading the first main deviations (and I know exactly what scenes I so wish to read your take on it). But we're not quite at that bridge yet ! ^^

 

(By the way, if you have anything to say about book Theon, I'm really curious ! He's definitly my pet character... poor, poor Reek). 

Edited June 19, 2015 by Triskan

[stillshimpy]

Oh...I see, no...that's not what I meant, Avaleigh, that was just me not being clear enough with my pronoun usage :-)  

 

I meant that since I didn't want to repeat my track record of "here's my speculation ....that everyone else will know is wrong, wrong, the opposite of right..."  I thought I'd hold off on weighing in on the Sansa and Joffrey date for a bit...but that I got the impression he'd never liked her in the book.  From the TV series, I thought he started to hate her because she had seen him be weak and sniveling.  

 

Oh GoT...where a person could be far, far more horrified by the thought that Ned slept with Cersei Lannister...than I am about the fact that Jaime Lannister boinks his twin sister as a part of the main plot.  

 

Yup.  Thanks for that specific form of brain damage, story.  My reaction?  "Ned and Cersei?  Gross!! No, I know that Joffrey is the hellspawn of the twins.  Whew, glad I got that cleared up." 

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Avaleigh]

To me the most noticeable thing about Theon so far during this reread is that he seems like he's almost always laughing.

Oh...I see, no...that's not what I meant, Avaleigh, that was just me not being clear enough with my pronoun usage :-)  

 

I meant that since I didn't want to repeat my track record of "here's my speculation ....that everyone else will know is wrong, wrong, the opposite of right..."  I thought I'd hold off on weighing in on the Sansa and Joffrey date for a bit...but that I got the impression he'd never liked her in the book.  From the TV series, I thought he started to hate her because she had seen him be weak and sniveling.  

 

Oh GoT...where a person could be far, far more horrified by the thought that Ned slept with Cersei Lannister...than I am about the fact that Jaime Lannister boinks his twin sister as a part of the main plot.  

 

Yup.  Thanks for that specific form of brain damage, story.  My reaction?  "Ned and Cersei?  Gross!! No, I know that Joffrey is the hellspawn of the twins.  Whew, glad I got that cleared up." 

This misunderstanding has cracked me up no end. 

 

Marriage is something that is routinely speculated on in this series and the above is one of those what if pairings that has always interested me. It isn't time to elaborate but I've often wondered how Catelyn would have turned out if she'd been the one who ended up queen and married to Robert and how Cersei would have turned out if she'd been married to Ned as a seventeen year old.

 

I really cant wait for you to start reading the first main deviations (and I know exactly what scenes I so wish to read your take on it). But we're not quite at that bridge yet ! ^^

 

As fun as all this is it's ASoS that I want Shimpy's (and other new readers) take on. That's all I'll say.

[Triskan]

Of course, I look forward to reaching Storm, but there are certain events

around Winterfell

from Clash that will be interesting for them to read as well !

Edited June 19, 2015 by Triskan

[stillshimpy]

(By the way, if you have anything to say about book Theon, I'm really curious ! He's definitly my pet character... poor, poor Reek).

 

Yeah, I don't know how familiar you'd be with my personal feelings on Theon from Ye olde Spitball Wall so I'll try to sum up my thoughts in the past: Boy I didn't like TV series Theon from essentially his first scene, because on the show he went out of his way to be mean to both Jon Snow and Bran...while holding a dagger up to a wolf pup.  Please check out my avatar for an indication of "I wonder how shimpy feels about the dog citizens of the planet?' and I'll give you a further clue:  Today we found a brown recluse in our house and my first reaction was not "We're all going to die!! ZOMG!! Death, woe and death and EXTREME PEST SERVICE CONTRACTS LIKE...IN A TIME MACHINE CAPACITY!"  It was "okay, I know that bites from them are actually super rare, and we have a pest service, so we'll just call them for an extra visit, ....BUT IN THE MEANTIME, WHAT ABOUT THE DOGS??" 

 

Spoiler: Only if he'd been drop kicking a kitten at the same time could I have been quicker to decide "So....Him?  I'm a gonna hate, like, yeah...lots."  

 

But as the TV series marched on and he killed children as props while sacking Winterfell and various other mischiefs, including the murder of Roderick in front of Bran, who was begging him to stop....I found out that the hatred I had thought I would feel was, in fact, the pale, weenie, ringworm infested version of the utter loathing I felt for him.   

 

And then...Enter. Ramsay.  

 

No one, ever, in the history of doing sucky things and misguided actions, up to and including murdering children as props and betraying people who trusted him, could deserve what Ramsay did to Theon.  No one EVER could deserve that.  Dude, even if he'd offed the pup in the first seconds of....well....okay STILL couldn't have deserved Theon's fate...who I will never refer to as Reek because....fuck....Ramsay. 

 

I outline this because it will help give some background to my reaction to Theon Greyjoy in the books thus far.  "huh...I....don't hate him.  I rather...like him.  He hasn't menaced a child, or an animal, or a woman.  He's just been lively and reasonably decent.  Well, that's fucking inconvenient considering my well established "at least let him die already story, Jebus! Also...fuck....Ramsay."  stance.  

 

I am regarding him with something approaching alarmed caution at present.  I keep expecting him to do something that will make me dislike him, but so far, not even the wolves have growled at him and I am primarily confused by this.  He seems...likable.  He's talked about his father owing the Starks a great service.

 

And I have a feeling it's all winding up to kick me SO HARD in the stomach over what is going to go down.  I'm sure he will still betray the Starks and other "people, when power is on the line?  Oh let the Sucking Games Begin" type of folly.  

 

But he better get busy menacing a child or something, or it is very likely to upset the shit out of me when that Ramsay business goes down on whole new levels.   

[Delta1212]

Theon is a character I always liked in the books despite myself (once I learned who he was enough to remember him as a distinct character). I think if Theon lived in the real world he'd be a slightly douchey fratbro.

[Protar]

Fratboy is definitely the way to describe Theon. He's cocky, and a bit of a dick, but he's certainly not hateable in GoT. He does kick Gared's head after Ned executes him, and seems pretty amused at the idea of the wolf pups dying when they first find them. But you can see why he's Robb's buddy.

 

Season 1 is definitely like 90% faithful to the books. There are a few specific things different but mostly it's the same story down to a T.

[Avaleigh]

I thought it was telling that Jon always knew Theon was an asshole. I liked show Jaime too commenting that he doubts that Theon is a good lad.

Robb didn't notice a lot of stuff if he didn't want to.

[mrspidey]

Wow, Stillshimpy finally gets into the books! I've been enjoying your musings on the show ever since season one, but, as a book-walker, never could reply to any of them, regardless of how much i was itching to do so.

Can't wait to read your thoughts on some key chapters. ACOK talk -

For example, with your show knowledge, the book version of the House of the Undying should be very interesting.

I'm a bit confused, though, about the final straw that made you grab the books. It was Shireen's death being an HBO thing, yes?

Who said that? Because there seem to be conflicting takes on the matter.

[Mya Stone]

Anything that does not have to do with the first book should be in spoiler tags.

I'm a bit confused, though, about the final straw that made you grab the books. It was Shireen's death being an HBO thing, yes?

Who said that? Because there seem to be conflicting takes on the matter.

I can answer this, because we talked about it - it was a headline on the Huffington Post.

[mrspidey]

And can we talk about the Inside the Episode tidbits?

[Mya Stone]

And can we talk about the Inside the Episode tidbits?

Thats up to Shimpy. She hasn't watched them yet, as far as I know, but it's up to her whether or not she wants to discuss them here. This is really only about the books so far. :)

There are 5 books, as well as 5 years of show stuff for her to get through. I understand your excitement, but let's let her get through this at her own pace. :)

[Delta1212]

Still in the process of catching up with you since I didn't have a lot of reading time yesterday, so apologies if some of my thoughts are on a bit of a delay.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Sam. I have always liked Sam in the books, but I felt that John Bradley immediately had a great deal of charisma in the role that book Sam was (believably) lacking.

I think I agree with your thoughts on Joffrey's walk with Sansa as well. I'll have more to say about him, and especially about Jack Gleeson's performance, once we've gotten through a bit more of Joffrey's material in the books.

[stillshimpy]

I'm not watching inside episode tips at this point, at least not yet, so I guess if you could spoiler-tag those, Id' appreciate it. 

 

Okay, so this feels awkward to do, because an entire post about "let's talk about meeeeeeee, shall we?" is just an inherently "Uh, sure.  Anybody who has no interest if what went down, just skip this one, I guess."  Here goes: 

 

Who said that? Because there seem to be conflicting takes on the matter.

 

My friend Alex posted on Facebook that "That didn't happen in the books! Fuck you, HBO."  and seeing as the chiefly upsetting thing that happened, was Shireen being burned alive I could pretty easily suss out to what he referred, but I didn't ask him specifically. That whole "You can't unsee" thing , while a joke, is also the truth of the matter, because when I clicked on Huffpo the same day, there was a giant picture of Stannis, with a headline that read (and I have to paraphrase here, because I didn't read the bloody thing) "Martin okay'd Character Death" so that was bouncing around in my brain. 

 

I'm not sure how there could be conflicting takes on whether or not Stannis had Shireen burned alive, but I was angry.  Just fucking livid that that was material created for the show.   That was a miserable experience, which I'm assuming you all know.  But I did actually double-check that on Monday of this week, before I finally decided about just reading the books and I doubled checked that story element with Mya Stone, actually.  Because I was pretty damned sure that was going to be my breaking point with the show anyway.    By the time they were torching a child, I was pretty much over the entire gig, regardless of whether it went down solely on the pages of a script or a book.  

So that's probably pretty key to the entire thing for me.  Plus, all season long it had been bothering me that the pacing was from Wagner and two of the stories felt so off anyway, that I highly suspected that plot points were either being invented, or a page's worth of story development was taking six weeks to play out onscreen.  Giant clues include: Jon decides to set off for Hard Home in one episode and I swear, two episodes later he's still at Castle Black, dithering around.  Other clues include, "Huh, feels like I've had far fewer problems with people just wanting to tell me one thing, or doing things to try and spoil us on the internet."   

 

I personally wasn't happy with season.  There are posters I really haven't been able to talk to at length for five years, who were actually pretty darned good friends of mine (in that internet capacity, but you know, we had fun together, talking about stories) at the start of this whole business.   I missed their viewpoints, pretty sincerely.  At least one of them is right here.  There are at least three names in this thread that I know from other fandoms. 

 

Anyway, I had already figured out that I'd watch the finale, and see how I felt as to whether or not I wanted to keep doing the Spitball Wall thing...which actually involves a fair amount of effort....and I'd been lax on this year, because I just didn't like the season.  I figured that it wasn't all that pressing and I could decide later, see how I felt.  Don't do things in haste and repent at leisure and all that.  

I watched the finale and it contained the proverbial straws for my personal back : they killed Jon Snow and blinded Arya Stark. I ended up in floods of tears.  For all the things I'd managed to figure out "This seems like it is from the books...but man...that seems off and furthermore, I can't even tell where they are going with it....because it's sort of senseless" ...it was just a bridge too far.  I figured, "I'll wait until the end of the day,  because I need some context on this to make me understand why I'm watching this damned show.  If this show was a dude one of my friends was dating I'd tell them, "you're in an abusive relationship, for love of God, dump him!"   and being Unsullied, you don't get any of the other payoffs.  None of the rich world-building stuff.  None of the inner-monologue that explains "Why the hell did you just do that insanely daft thing...?"  

 

Sansa jumped off a building, Arya was blind, Jon is dead and Bran is apparently off somewhere becoming a hell of a botanist, or something.  

 

I re-read my posts about the episode from that day and realized, "Okay, I sound...really angry." because I didn't know if all of that was stuff HBO was doing, or if it was from the books, or what had happened, but I felt manipulated and was upset.   So I decided that I was done...and I do have a lot of friends who are book readers.  My son has read the books.  I figured I'd go ahead and read them.  

 

Then I am facebook friends with Mya, after I'd quit we had a chat about certain story elements after I'd told her I was going to read the books. She asked me "Listen, you don't have to, but would you post your thoughts on the books?" and I got a few PMs on that here too, because I'd quit and announced I was done and off to read.  

 

In a weird aside that at least some people know about already: about five years ago I watched the Star Trek series for the first time.  Not TOS....TNG, DS9, Voyager.  I'd never seen those and I didn't really know what happened in them.  I started posting on TWoP and you know what's sort of rare?  An almost complete newbie in that fandom.  The Trek fans were sooooo happy to have someone new reacting to the stories.  It was a fun thing to do and you know, I've always like scifi and fantasy fans...because the vast majority of them are the grownup versions of the people who invite the new kid to sit at their lunch table on the first day in a new school.  They are kind, they tend to be accepting and they like stories that examine human nature through metaphors and allegory.  Good folks.  Now, any population can contain creeps, but speaking in generalizations (while always fraught with peril) they are the people I like in life and on the internet.  Really into details, ready to lend a hand with info.  It was fun to feel like just watching something and talking about it was making other people happy.  

 

So I'd already done that, knew it could be fun for other fans and that it's always fun to make people happy.   I've always been aware that there are super nice bookwalkers who did nothing but be kind to and protect that group since its inception.   So I said, yes.  

 

I keep thinking maybe some of the other Unsullied will join the ranks here and I am sorry that you guys only have me at present.  

 

You can feel free to ask me anything about my take on stuff and I'll expound on it....and don't mistake me here, it's not that I think I'm all that fascinating or that I have such keen perception, it's that I've sat around waiting for the next installment of things in my life too.  BSG had an epic hiatus once of 18 months and I figured it might help bookwalkers pass the time to the next season, or the next book.  

 

I guess I could have said "You guys seem like the nice lunch table people to me" ...but I'm fairly certain that wouldn't have made a ton of sense.  

 

Wow, that was a metric ton of the "Me me me" chorus and I apologize for that.  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Delta1212]

I'm not sure how there could be conflicting takes on whether or not Stannis had Shireen burned alive, but I was angry.

You would be surprised, but I'll hold off on elaborating since that we're currently so far in advance of that whole storyline.

Anyway, if it makes you feel any better about us being "stuck" with "just you", you'd have easily been on my short list if someone asked me to pick one Unsullied to be doing this.

[Protar]

On Shireen (Spoilers from Inside the Episode and Winds of Winter speculation):

In the "Inside the Episode" for episode 9, Benioff said that it does happen in the (unreleased) books. He said "when George told us about this". But...that really can't be the whole truth. "This" certainly refers to Shireen's death, but it cannot happen as it did in the show because as of the end of Dance with Dragons, Stannis and Shireen are hundreds of miles apart (Shireen, Selyse and Melisandre all stay at the Wall in the book.). So the fan speculation is that either Mel will burn Shireen behind Stannis' back, or if Stannis is responsible, it will be when like The Others are marching on Westeros and it's do or die. And even then I'm of the opinion that Stannis would sacrifice himself rather than kill his own daughter.

 

On the general bleakness of the series: Maybe it's just me but I always thought the books were far more hopeful than the show, even though undoubtedly lots of dark shit goes down. Martin does not ascribe to a cosmic karma system that rewards good deeds and punishes bad, but people certainly can reward good deeds. 

 

Unrelated to all that, I noticed you had gotten past the first Small Council Meeting. What were your thoughts on that, and the introductions to Pycelle, Varys and Littlefinger?

[stillshimpy]

On the general bleakness of the series: Maybe it's just me but I always thought the books were far more hopeful than the show, even though undoubtedly lots of dark shit goes down. Martin does not ascribe to a cosmic karma system that rewards good deeds and punishes bad, but people certainly can reward good deeds.

 

I'm already finding that to be the case, by the way.  A moment of warmth, compassion or an expression of love goes by on the screen very quickly -- as does a moment of happiness -- it's an incredibly fleeting thing and when it is framed by so many tragic or upsetting events....and this is solely my viewpoint...it can feel like the series was mocking me for emotionally investing in characters.  

 

But on the page, those moments last longer.  Are fleshed out.  They are already more sustaining.  This is my initial impression: it feels less "Mwhwhahahaa, I'm hurting you, because you are letting me!" when you know enough about the inside of someone's mind to care what happens to them, regardless of whether or not it is good or bad.  

 

I have no idea why the show took a complete pass on telling me that Stannis was on the Small Council, but that is a good illustration of what I'm talking about:  Robert, ever so clearly a Crap King.  Being able to conquer or wage a war and being able to rule are not necessarily related traits in a person.  I've always thought that the reason Robert ended up in that position was not that he craved power, but because he had these BIG emotions that were based in the things I consider important: Love, loyalty, decency and the strength to act upon convictions....but that he only had those convictions about matters that primarily involve the heart, vs. the mind that builds structures.  

 

I know Robert eventually says (in the series) "I never loved my brothers" -- which is somewhat unsurprising in that Renly was a child when Robert was fighting wars.  Stannis seems emotionally removed (and that's the mildest description of how he came off to me in the series) and Robert doesn't.  For people who wear their hearts on their sleeves, emotionally restrained or unemotional people can be tough rows to hoe.  It made sense to me -- when the eventually got around to introducing me to Stannis -- that Robert had only a sense of obligatory love for Stannis and even for Renly.  

 

Renly clearly has the contempt for Robert that is born from the same place that Robert's inability to love Renly seems to be:  A big age gap and having grown up separately means that Renly never knew Robert at his best...and that seems to be the saving grace of Robert, who is a Crap King and a terrible administrator of all things relating to keeping the trains running, so to speak.  

 

That one they seemed to have borrowed from Henry VIII ...who was really bad at keeping gold in the treasury and loved the big, showy, gamesmanship aspects of court life....and was actively bad at accounting practices.  

 

So that was my reaction to the first Small Council meeting:  It meant a lot to me that Robert had actually named Stannis to the Small Council, because it bothered me in the TV series that (like Richard III and Edward IV) Stannis's battlefield expertise had helped secure the Throne for Robert, but Robert let his personal dislike of Stannis keep him from giving him any just reward for that.  The TV show has it that Robert gave Stannis the back-of-beyond keep of Dragonstone and little else as a thank you. 

 

My reaction to the small council meeting is definitely informed by "The stuff I already know backwards and forwards"  ...so reading the books is like playing the world's most intricate game of Clue for me.  "Aha!  It was Robert, with the appointment of Stannis to the small council, in the capital!"  while the story was busy telling me "Robert is a really bad king"  I was thinking "Martin got that trait from Henry VIII, dude liked a party"  and while Ned was questioning Robert's fitness to rule (basically) ....I was having it confirmed that the guy I liked for having a big heart (in some capacities) had actually done something that fit with my impression of Robert:  he hadn't snubbed Stannis the way the TV series would have me believe.  

 

So meeting Varys:  Wow, am I ever nonplussed at the moment.  The book sort of goes out its way to make him seem an oddity, powdered, odd, off-putting in his affect.  But I've long liked Varys because the actor who plays him is amazing.  He's hardly ever around, but Colin Hill is just really good and doesn't come off the way that book Varys does , at least at first.  So I will fully admit that I chose not to react to the "huh, the book seems to want me to find Varys pretty freaking creepy and I actually like Varys now....I decline the invitation to judge him as sinister, thanks anyway, book..." 

 

Littlefinger, I love the actor who plays him, so I just grafted him onto anything about Littlefinger, but was pleased that Book LF is just more in-your-face-Ned than TV series LF was....whereas I do know this is still the guy who is, to me, the best fleshed on villain from the TV series.  

 

I enjoyed meeting the infamous knifey and I'll tell you one other thing:  I have long, long since assumed that the assassination attempts had to come off so much better in the book...and that one sort of didn't.  "Huh, so apparently the guy who was hired to kill Bran was just that 'let me stop and chat, to give you a sporting chance' about the whole thing..." but I guess I will eventually find out if he was supposed to be that damned inept?  

 

Because when the series finally confirmed who killed Jon Arryn, and I went ahead and assumed that the same person sent Ser Chats a Lot to kill Bran....and I'm happy to report that at least the book has LF doing something smart:  The hide it in plain sight thing of "Yeah, that's my knife."  

 

I would not have figured that out from the book though.  I needed the details from last season's "I did it all for yooooooouuuuuuu!" stuff from Lysa.  

 

And one other thing bugs me almost immediately:   Selmy Barristan did attend the Small Council meetings?  That's going to be interesting when he does finally get where he's going after here.   So that was a change that was easy to spot too. 

 

I'm also going to go ahead and guess that when Stannis later kills Renly, it's going to bother me a LOT...and it already really troubled me as a character action....because the only way I was ever able to forgive it on any level was that Stannis wouldn't know Renly any better than Robert would have, due to the age difference that even the show took pains to depict.  

 

So that Small Council meeting was like a weird march of "Aha!  I knew I was always justified in disliking Stannis!"  

 

Also the book immediately brings in the Bank of Bravos stuff.  

 

One other thing: My inner 12-year-old giggles every time the word Asshai  is spelled out.  "Ass...high?  Really? Snerk."  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Protar]

There is some more knifey stuff left out of the show that

clears up why it was done so clumsily

(not a direct spoiler, but a hint).

 

Conleth Hill as Varys is one of the best actors on the show absolutely. And though there's some differences in how he is written, the actor himself is perfect. That's often the case: Characters will be written differently, but cast perfectly. 

 

Personally I love Stannis. Maybe he's my third favourite character? I mean I certainly wouldn't want to go out clubbing with him (wait what am I saying, that would be hilarious), but I'm a big Mannis fan.

[stillshimpy]

Thanks, Protar, because from Jump that whole thing has bothered the hell out of me.  "Who would hire that guy for anything other than publicly urinating and creating unkempt distractions during a bank heist?  He's terrible at his job.  I'd have better luck with asking a day laborer from Manpower to rebuild the drive train on my damned car.  The hell?" B 

 

 

 

Conleth Hill

 

Thank you, for the correction on that.  I never looked at the cast names in the credits if I could help it, because it gave away who was likely to be in the episode.  To the extent that other day when I was talking about Jaime, I just kept going to google and cutting and pasting his name to here...because to this moment, I don't stand a prayer of communicating his name even close to accurately.  

 

So I have a question for long time fans....did you end up liking different characters as the series went along? Did your opinions change with more details?  I'm asking because even seeing Twyin Lannister's name in print conjures Charles Dance in my mind and the tiny details about him already support the characterization of him that I saw onscreen eventually.  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Mya Stone]

One thing I've noticed on this reread is how clearly Jon's parentage story is amiss is telegraphed right from the start.

I know you've always held the "Jon being special" opinion as being hokey...

My question is do you still feel this way or do you feel that the writing has made it more believable?

[Delta1212]

As the book series went on or as the show series went on?

Because there are definitely instances where my loyalties bounced around a bit as the books went on, and there are also instances where characters I really liked in the show, I didn't care about in the books and vice versa.

[Mya Stone]

I personally like show Stannis because of Stephen Dillane. Which surprised me, because honestly, I didn't really care for any of the Dragonstone crew. Same with Davos and Liam Cunningham. Not that I hated the character of Davos, but Cunningham made me love him.

Unpopular opinion, but Emilia Clarke has also made me love Dany; I have never been fully attached to her on the show. And Harry Lloyd actually made me pity Viserys, which is not a feel I felt from the book alone.

[stillshimpy]

I know you've always held the "Jon being special" opinion as being hokey...

 

That is absolutely one of those things that I'm reading in the "Here I am, looking for clues" standpoint rather than "My first impressions of Jon would have been..." because I don't stand a prayer of figuring that out in any sincere capacity.  I've discussed him too many times.  Good lord, the whole Completely Unspoiled Speculation gig with all its rules started because of Jon Snow.  

So he's a character that I've had a firm opinion on all along and part of it has to do with the fact that Kit Harrington looks like a grown man (because he is) and that it makes the adolescent angst tougher to take in someone who looks like he really ought to be acting like "a man grown" .  Plus, the TV series presents Jon going to the Wall differently.  I'm going to say VERY differently and here's one of the areas I feel that translating to the screen can just bite a book in the butt:  So much of Jon's inner-monologue is just the stuff that a person his age would think, but having to have the character say those things aloud changes the character a lot. Jon's "he's special and may contain the stuff of greatness" actually lies partially in how much he chooses not to say.  

 

It matters that he was basically consigned to the damn wall with no choice.  it matters that he proposed the idea when he was drunk for the first time in his life and it really, really matters that things like Ned and Benjen failing to tell him about The Wall being....prison, really...is something he thinks, rather than talks about.  Book Jon is decidedly not whiney and finding out why the hell people liked him in that first season has been really delightful.  Plus, I was always going to be immune to Kit Harrington's charms, Mya and I think you're likely to understand why more than almost anyone else here would:  We look like we could be pretty damn closely related.  

 

Only being exposed to screen Jon...he's tough to take solely on the screen.  Kit Harrington looks every second of at least 21 years old in that first season and they have him acting like a 14 year old...and even more of a 14 year old than book Jon ever acts like.  In that scene with Cat, over Bran's unconscious body, only from the screen version (and somewhere around in the world exists the TWoP on the Way Back Machine archive, so there is actually a record of me saying all of this stuff somewhere)....Jon is actually the one who seems a bit of a jerk.  

 

Solely on the Screen version:  Cat is hovering over Bran, practically having a nervous breakdown and distraught.  Jon comes in, he won't leave, he says incredibly touching things to Bran and ....really, that should have been a moment of sharing the same emotional page....but instead the two character are having a "fuck you" "No, fuck you."  "NO! YOU SHOULD GET FUCKED" off onscreen....and one of them is hovering over her seemingly dying child.  Removed from any broader context and Jon's inner-monologue it was actually JON who didn't come off well in much of that and they removed details that would have shown that to me, 

 

They removed the "It wasn't your fault" which is the soul of generosity on Jon's part.  When Jon says to Robb, "She was very kind" the inflection is...Robb's supposed to know that Jon is just saying that, whereas in the book?  Robb's genuinely relieved. 

 

Plus, Screen Jon, without Book Jon context suffers from the same thing I think Sophie Turner's Sansa does:  it's hard not to expect a character to act their size and appearance, vs. their stated character age.   Sophie Turner reads as being a girl in her mid-to-late teens when she's playing an eleven-year-old's reactions.  

 

I was always able to forgive Sansa's character more easily than Jon's and that was partially because Sansa's character was under constant "I cannot STAND HER" assault whereas a lot of people reacted to Jon with the "Sooooo dreamy" type of vibe which....he's acting like a spoiled child a lot of the time in the series and worse still, in situations he's insisted that he wanted.  

 

I do not envy the actor that task and my problem with Jon is (actually was, even onscreen it became a thing of the past) likely that Kit Harrington really put his back into the angsty stuff and played it very believably. 

 

I eventually grew to like Screen Jon, but until I was bawling my eyes out last Sunday, I wouldn't have guessed how much and I'll tell you a big turning point for me.  When the poor guy simply smiled at the sight of Ygritte....when she was about to stone-cold-kill him, he knew it, but loved her enough that he couldn't help smiling when he saw her.  Broke. My. Heart.  

 

But yes, absolutely, it's obvious that Jon is special in the story from the first pages...it's just a lot of that "he's special" lies in what he thinks, feels and then stoically, for his age, primarily doesn't say.  That he has a big enough heart to tell Cat it isn't her fault, when she's made his life unhappy enough that he fears her.  When he cares enough about Robb's feelings to actually protect him from Cat's poisonous words and demeanor.  

 

Book Jon has so much heart that he's almost instantly lovable....and he really doesn't whine.  

 

Yes, the writing supports that, I think, right away.  Also, the "I see a lot of clues" reading that is...there's no way for me to unknow what I know....and so yes, my goodness, the "that is so not Ned's son" thing is bolded, underlined and practically trumpeted.  Including having Ned tell Arya that everybody lies.  

 

Unfortunately, I don't think that necessarily means that he's anything other than dead now.   I'll see how that progresses, but a lot of characters that seem pretty special in the book are dead now :-/

 

 

 

As the book series went on or as the show series went on?

 

I was specifically asking about books, Delta, but whichever one you want to use as a clarification point would be fine by me :-) 

 

 

 

And Harry Lloyd actually made me pity Viserys

 

Same here, Mya.  If I'd met Book Visery first I simply would have spiked a football and done a dance when he was killed.  As it was, he was pitiable in that "he's a figure of ridicule and doesn't know it" and then Lloyd ends up with a line-read right before he's killed that....it just about tore my heart out.  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Protar]

Well my favourite character is Tyrion, and I latched on to him pretty quickly. I guess some of the characters with obvious redemption arcs/pity trips like Jaime and Theon I grew to like more later on. My love for Dany waned over time a little bit. EDIT: I guess I got a little tired of her not invading Westeros :P

Edited June 19, 2015 by Protar

[Mya Stone]

Shimpy, that line of Ned's jumped off the page at me.

“It was right,” her father said. “And even the lie was . . . not without honor.”

I'll be honest with you. The guy that got me into the books to begin with (here out known as "My Crack Dealer") sat with me after I finished the first book, and flat out asked me, "What are your thoughts?"

I said to him, "There's no way Jon's Ned's kid." He looked at me, and with an almost Jurassic Park delivery, said, "Clever girl."

What I'm saying is I know hindsight is 20/20, but it's much more telegraphed on the page than on the show, and had you only had the page to illustrate that, you would have caught on. Especially as what really drives it all is Ned's internal monologue, something that the show lacks. The simple fact that you all picked up that strange things were amiss at the Circle K regarding Jon's parentage from JUST what the show has shown us was kind of amazing to us bookwalkers.

[Haleth]

^ Indeed!  I would sometimes think you had a bookwalker amongst you.

 

So I have a question for long time fans....did you end up liking different characters as the series went along? Did your opinions change with more details?  I'm asking because even seeing Twyin Lannister's name in print conjures Charles Dance in my mind and the tiny details about him already support the characterization of him that I saw onscreen eventually.

 

I was going to ask if you meant the book series or the tv series, but I see you've said books.  I'd have to say Sansa is the one who changed my opinion the most.  Of course her POV chapters make her an insufferable teenager, but so true to someone her age.  She was a brat.  Period.  However I do find myself rooting for her now.  

 

Conleth Hill is a perfect example of an actor who surpassed the role by giving him more depth than the book character.  His haughty Varys definitely evokes a spider more than the powdered, mincing Varys of the books.  Charles Dance is another great example.  In fact I would be hard pressed to find an instance where the actor didn't exceed my expectations of what that character was.  I think the casting has been almost always brilliant.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Haleth

[Protar]

I wouldn't say any of the main characters have more depth in the show than their book counterparts (Some minor characters are expanded and actually end up with more depth). But there are certainly a lot of actors which give their characters more charisma. And Conleth Hill and Charles Dance are definitely among those (not that Varys and Tywin aren't already great). I'd say Harry Lloyd as Viserys is up there as well. 

Edited June 19, 2015 by Protar

[Delta1212]

I'd say my biggest "all over the place" feelings toward any group of characters mostly centers on the Lannisters. Early on when I was reading book 1 or 2, I think, someone online said that they were rooting for the Lannisters over the Starks, and I thought they were either trolling or just being contrary, because the Lannisters were so clearly the villains and why the heck would anyone root for them?

I still don't root for them over the Starks, of course, but I can actually understand how someone might (if I squint a little).

Stannis is a big one that I switched from not caring about/mildly disliking to rooting for, pretty much on a single line which, of course, was cut from the show. One of the few times that I had an "oh come on" reaction to changing something small from book to screen, but having seen the end of last season, I can see why they did some of the things they did in his storyline now. I'm reserving judgement on those things until the next book and season both come out, and my opinion of Stannis as a character will probably hinge on stuff from both of those things, to an extent.

From a book to screen perspective, Viserys definitely comes out ahead with Harry Lloyd being a much more pitiable figure, and Jorah is...different, in a good way.

I know book Hound has a lot of fans, but I love Rory McCann's Hound on the show in a way that I never really connected with the one on the page.

There's one book character that I didn't care about for a good while and was utterly bored with their entire surrounding storyline and then, like Stannis, flipped hard in the other direction basically on a line (it was more like a paragraph), but enough of that was changed/not revealed in the show that I'm going to hold my tongue on this bit for now.

I wouldn't say any of the main characters have more depth in the show than their book counterparts (Some minor characters are expanded and actually end up with more depth). But there are certainly a lot of actors which give their characters more charisma. And Conleth Hill and Charles Dance are definitely among those (not that Varys and Tywin aren't already great). I'd say Harry Lloyd as Viserys is up there as well.

Yeah, Charles Dance and Conleth Hill are up here on my list, but at the same time I already love both characters, so I can't say it changed my impression of them. They were less "improved" by the show and more "differently enhanced."

[stillshimpy]

^ Indeed!  I would sometimes think you had a bookwalker amongst you.

 

We very clearly did, by the way.  I mean, some of it was obvious almost right away.  The "if the word womb comes up....you got yourself One Who Walks with Pages...." thing I already covered, but this went on for pages and pages that first season....where I argued myself fucking blue in the face with some person who was there under the screenname Tears of Lys (yeah, I know now maybe that should have been a screaming clue, but at the time, nope...didn't know that he'd literally taken a screenname declaring himself poison)....who spoiled absolutely everything that was going to happen right up to Ned's execution.  

 

He kept arguing that Ned was going to take the black and man, I must have thrown down with that guy for fifteen posts on my part alone, because at that point in the story we had been told that the Wall was for people who "would father no sons"  ....we had no clue that Lord Mormont was Jorah's father so by the stated rules of the show....that shouldn't have been a possibility.  "Can't happen.  The story has already told us that." and it went on for ages.  

 

I mean, just every reader looking at that thread must have been beside themselves because he literally just handed everyone the plot ....without mentioning "and then...he'll get his head chopped off anyway".   I still hope that dude has incidental impotency from the withering thoughts I had about him as the episode played out on TV, because as soon as it started to go down I realized what had happened and it was a case of "Fuuuuucccccck." almost immediately followed by "why the hell would anyone do that?"  

 

Anyone who had read the books would have known and all he was really doing was making me look like a fool which...spoiler: is not that much of a challenge on most days, so it's not like beating Bobby Fischer at chess or something. 

 

But there were always people who it became clear in retrospect, after things went down that "great, so that was a bookwalker and that was a bookwalker and....oh brother."  

 

 

 

I'd say my biggest "all over the place" feelings toward any group of characters mostly centers on the Lannisters. Early on when I was reading book 1 or 2, I think, someone online said that they were rooting for the Lannisters over the Starks, and I thought they were either trolling or just being contrary, because the Lannisters were so clearly the villains and why the heck would anyone root for them?

 

Yeah, i'm with you.  Onscreen there was just not anything to support that "Jaime, I love him!" stuff I would occasionally see because I was freaked out that anyone just loved a character that really....mainly known for kid-shoving, sister schtupping and "Jesus Christ, he just stabbed Jory in the eye!!"  At least, nothing I could see beyond the actor being pretty and pretty just doesn't cut that much ice with me.  That's a lot of ice, you know? 

 

I have to say, to this moment in my reading, there still isn't anything other than the "said with loathing" that actually indicates anything more about Jaime...at least not yet.  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[mrspidey]

  Kit Harrington looks every second of at least 21 years old in that first season and they have him acting like a 14 year old...and even more of a 14 year old than book Jon ever acts like.  

[..]

Plus, Screen Jon, without Book Jon context suffers from the same thing I think Sophie Turner's Sansa does:  it's hard not to expect a character to act their size and appearance, vs. their stated character age.   Sophie Turner reads as being a girl in her mid-to-late teens when she's playing an eleven-year-old's reactions. 

On the show there were two or three more years between Robert's Rebellion and Robert's visit at Winterfell at the beginning of the story. They changed this in order to age up all the children. So Show-Sansa is actually 13, not 11. 

Edited June 19, 2015 by mrspidey

[Protar]

Yeah it would have been literally illegal to film Dany's story with a 13 year old Dany. So they had to age her up to 17/18. And that meant also changing the gap between the Rebellion and the series and also ageing up everyone else.

[stillshimpy]

On the show there were two or three more years between Robert's Rebellion and Robert's visit at Winterfell at the beginning of the story. They changed this in order to age up all the children. So Show-Sansa is actually 13, not 11.

 

Yes, I know, but she looked like she was 18 and I now know she is acting out an eleven year olds actions and by the way?  There were things that we were told before any rules were in place about spoiling....so that is one pretty much every knew, because it came up immediately.  Same deal with what happened on Dany's wedding night.   "Seduced!" and "13" were things everyone found out and everyone also found out about the age differences. 

 

Edited: Oh one other thing on the Tears dude, in the only defense I'll ever offer of that person:  I assumed afterward that it was a test to try and see if we were all a bunch of readers and he did actually eventually say "Oh yes, you're right" and backed off.  I am probably the only person it really stuck with because I am the human equivalent of a terrier and I just dug in like a tick on that in terms of arguing the point because I was so thoroughly baffled as to why anyone would argue and argue something that we knew couldn't happen.  

 

But the second Varys suggested "You could take the Black" it was a giant case of "Oooooohhhh shiiiiiiiiit! Nooooooo!" 

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Delta1212]

I remember that argument about Ned taking the black. Yeah, that was agonizing to watch.

Honestly, the worst ones were the ones who hid it just well enough that you couldn't tell unless you were really, really familiar with the source material.

Like I can think of a few times where there was someone that would land just a little too close with a lot of specs, but would always be just far enough from a super-specific bullseye that that they didn't have a neon "book walker" sign plastered over them. Especially true when speculating about one thing or another that wasn't revealed on the show at all, and they'd either go in vaguely the right direction, but with a logic that was ridiculously in line with stuff from the books, or just land very close. Things like knifey, or this or that character's machinations being behind one thing or another, where any one of them could just be a really good spec, but they'd build up over time until it became obvious they weren't just guessing and were trying to nudge people closer to the truth.

I think I still have a PM I sent about one of those when it started becoming really blatant.

Edit: Oh, and the screenshots of that damn necklace. Christ that person was insistent. I'm not going to talk about how closely that mached or didn't match what happened in the book, since I know "the assassination plots" is one of the things you're interested in reading, but I swear that having someone who clearly "knew what to look for" trying to shove that theory down everyone's throats right out of the gate probably made the way it played out on the show seem about twice as ridiculous as it might have otherwise.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Delta1212

[Seerow]

Hi! I've been following the Unsullied thread since like episode 2 of the first season, and like many others here I'm really excited to finally be able to talk directly with at least one of you! I'll admit back in the first season I was really tempted to make an account and post in the thread, not to give spoilers, but just to talk (and maybe occasionally toss out a fake speculation along the way for fun).

 

Shimpy, you've always been one of my favorites. I think it may just be because your name stood out combined with you being such a prolific poster, but I might be able to name 3 others off the top of my head, but if I had to pick a single unsullied for a Spitball Wall Climb, you'd be at the top of the list. So don't sell yourself short. Honestly, early on you (and a couple of the others who are still around) made some predictions that were so on the nose I really thought you were a bookwalker in disguise. As the years went on it became more and more clear that was not the case, but I do feel like you sell yourself short when talking about how often you are wrong. Sure it happens, but that's always the case when speculating. Occasionally getting something 100% right with very little context to guide you there is much more impressive.

 

Anyway, that's all I really wanted to say right now. I'll be following along with this thread, but since I just loaned out my books I can't do a read-a-long so it's hard for me to keep straight where you are so I won't be contributing much to the discussion. Either way, happy to have you on board.

[Mya Stone]

I remember that argument about Ned taking the black. Yeah, that was agonizing to watch.

Honestly, the worst ones were the ones who hid it just well enough that you couldn't tell unless you were really, really familiar with the source material.

Like I can think of a few times where there was someone that would land just a little too close with a lot of specs, but would always be just far enough from a super-specific bullseye that that they didn't have a neon "book walker" sign plastered over them. Especially true when speculating about one thing or another that wasn't revealed on the show at all, and they'd either go in vaguely the right direction, but with a logic that was ridiculously in line with stuff from the books, or just land very close. Things like knifey, or this or that character's machinations being behind one thing or another, where any one of them could just be a really good spec, but they'd build up over time until it became obvious they weren't just guessing and were trying to nudge people closer to the truth.

I think I still have a PM I sent about one of those when it started becoming really blatant.

You just explained how incredibly hard it is and was to mod correctly perfectly, haha. ;) Edited June 19, 2015 by Mya Stone
iPad makes me sound drunk...I'm not a day drinker, I swear.

[stillshimpy]

Mya, you have all always done an amazing job in a really tough situation.  So did our mods at TWoP. It's damned hard to spot people who are trying to pull something over on people.  It was so incredibly difficult for the mods on TWoP, because you had to read every person in a thread.  Or you were supposed to.  It must have been nightmarish for them and they tried so hard.  

 

Plus, after a bit, it became obvious that good-bookwalkers were looking out for us too.  

 

It really looks to me like the first book was really adapted to the screen pretty faithfully too, which had to make it even more difficult.  

 

I did already know that there were people who thought I had to be a bookwalker in that first season and I even know what it dates from: I wrote a defense of Robert that apparently really made people think, "That chick has to have read the books" but was actually down to Mark Addy just giving one hell of a good performance.  I got one icky PM about that and then I had someone openly accuse me of it in the thread. 

 
But I think the stuff that I was just so damned wrong about stands out to me in my own mind, because it was mortifying on occasion, particularly in that instance with Tears of Lys, because from my perspective?  I'd debated someone to the point where they had to concede the point so I was all "Yay! Woo hoo! I argued my point well enough to....apparently take a cream pie to the face in front of a LOT of people, oh god." 

 

So that one will always stand out to me, because that dude made me look like a complete imbecile and was doing it on purpose.  Ow.    

 

Thanks, Seerow, I appreciate that.  I really do. 

 

Edited:  

I know book Hound has a lot of fans, but I love Rory McCann's Hound on the show in a way that I never really connected with the one on the page.

 

I am really finding that to be the case, by the way.  That's one character who...the guy I met on the screen is NOT the guy on the page.  Like, by a fair amount.  The way Series Hound talks does things and the seemingly ...I don't know how to put this....the relative ease and comfort with people that Book Hound seems to have just don't match up at all for me.  

I'm seeing the value of Rory McCann's choices though, because Series Hound kept me guessing for a really long time as to what was going on with him and Page Hound doesn't have that kind of hulking mystique.  Screen Hound has an air of being a tragic figure , but fully capable of being menacing, that Page Hound is not pulling off and there's more nuance, I think to Screen Hound.  

 

Whoever made that call made a smart one, I think.  The Hound was scarier than hell and one thing that wasn't in the book that was great on the screen?  Screen Hound telling Tyrion, "He won't forget that" with what sounded like a fairly sincere attempt to warn Tyrion that "No seriously, watch for daggers to the back"....not in a caring way, but in a way that made me believe The Hound did have something resembling empathy for the broken things in life.  

Edited June 19, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Protar]

Funny story, I was almost going to be a mod for you guys. Back when TWOP shut down and you hadn't yet settled in here a poster over at Westeros.org set up a potential website for you to settle down and I was invited to mod. Kind of sad my modding career never got off the ground :P. But glad I can finally interact with at least one Unsullied now. 

[stillshimpy]

Well thank you anyway for being willing to, Protar.  It all worked out fine in the end, but a couple of people around here were willing to truly help that group and it was always appreciated tremendously by all of us.  

 

Okay, time for another workout over here and then a bit more reading.  It's been raining for a solid week where I am, so that's part of why I am a tad omnipresent at the moment.  

[Delta1212]

Where are you at now, by the way, shimpy?

I just got to the point where Littlefinger brings Ned to see Cat after the Small Council meeting, and man, Petyr played that whole encounter flawlessly. His demeanor throughout practically screamed "manipulative psychopath" but, of course, the danger of such people is how hard they are to recognize unless you already know what you're looking for.

[stillshimpy]

Where are you at now, by the way, shimpy?

 

Heh, just back from walking my dog for the first time all day, thanks to a brief abatement in the torrential downpours that have been haunting this region of Missouri all week.  If anyone is in the area, let's start a mushroom farm, because there is little else left to us ;-)  

I'm just being goofy, by the way, I know what you're asking :-)  I am at the "Jon" chapter where Sam has just entered the picture.  At least, I'm assuming it is Sam, because I'm at the sentence that refers to "the fattest boy Jon had ever seen"  ...which by the way, leads me to something else:  Oh illuminating detail that I feel very grateful to the show for leaving out is that apparently Tommen is also a person of some size.  They talked about that early in this book and it made one detail from this last season retroactively both wince-worthy and also make more sense: When the Medical Maester who raised Mountainstein talks about how Tommen won't even eat as a sign that he's very upset by Margaery's and Cersei's incarceration.   I had trouble figuring out if the show was trying to depict Tommen as being sort of slow-witted, or what and that line was baffling.  "He's not eating"  "uh...okay? So one would think that was a sign that as the King, he should do something?"  ...but I get it now.  Eating is his thing, I take it. 

Okay.   

 

So that was a retroactive sense-making.  

 

 

 

I just got to the point where Littlefinger brings Ned to see Cat after the Small Council meeting, and man, Petyr played that whole encounter flawlessly. His demeanor throughout practically screamed "manipulative psychopath" but, of course, the danger of such people is how hard they are to recognize unless you already know what you're looking for.

 

That was much more involved than in the show too.  I can understand why the show didn't have them practically scaling down a cliff, that's a lot of set up for something that isn't that important, but within the book, I appreciated that detail....because it would go more towards convincing Ned that he had gone to great lengths to help.  

 

The actor who plays Littlefinger is just great and he did a lot of that stuff flawlessly.   His line-reading on "Not trusting me was the smartest thing you've done since you got down from your horse" was the stuff of genius too.  He managed to make it wholly sincere, but on rewatches it became "Wow, he really did a ton of that 'I hide my intentions in plain sight, mixing truth and lies' and it makes him a lot of ...if not fun ...because his betrayal of Ned in the Throne Room and that "I told you not to trust me" line-reading is more mustache-twirly.  In the book I've been impressed by how much he actually does do to be an outward jerk to Ned.  To let him know that he really doesn't like him and tells him not to trust him.  

 

It's a really intricate characterization so far.  

 

 

 

But glad I can finally interact with at least one Unsullied now.

 

I have to admit, that I'm excited to be able to openly interact with the bookwalkers of the world too.  Over the years I'd occasionally get a PM from someone and just not a lot could get said beyond the "you guys are hilarious and fun" and I'd get to say "thanks" and we'd all have to move on.  Early this year I got a PM from someone who asked if they could ask me one question:  Did I really find the stuff at the Wall as boring as I said I did...and I did answer them at some length but also indicated we couldn't really have an exchange and I assumed it was because of the "People really tend to like Jon Snow much more than I have" thing that has been present throughout.  

I also went into how yes, I did find it dull as hell, but that it was also one of the ways I'd tease White Stumbler for grins, because he really liked Stannis and I obviously never did.  So it was also about ribbing one another.  Knowing how much watching that thing with Shireen upset me, I felt so bad for Stumbler and that's another reason I was so incredibly angry about it.  It made both my husband and me almost physically ill and I knew that it would upset someone from our group even more.  

 

I thought about that PM when Shireen met her end too, but I didn't realize until the finale that it was as likely because of Jon that someone wanted to ask me that. 

 

But you know doing this is one way that I can just finally talk to people who have been nothing but kind to me over the years.   There are things I always wanted to ask too and some of them have already been answered by the books.  For instance, I'd always assumed there would be horror-movie levels of descriptions on violent acts and it's far more toned down than I thought it would be.  

 

I think over the years I started to think of this story as being a cross between Stephen King and a fantasy series.  Far less King-esque stuff than I was anticipating, thus far.  Admittedly, we haven't gotten to the worst stuff yet.   

 

One detail I really enjoyed that I wish had been in the series is Arya talking about going to look for Rubies at the Trident, because that was where Robert had killed Rhaegar Targaryen with his warhammer.   Good opportunity for backstory there.  I guess it isn't that important, but years later we were still trying to piece together any kind of details from that rebellion, so it would have been helpful. 

Edited June 20, 2015 by stillshimpy

[Haleth]

Regarding Tommen, he's a chubby little boy, about the same age as Bran. I don't know if anything was ever said about him being slow witted, but he's much more sheltered and pampered than Bran. This helps to understand why later he seems powerless.

(And quit sending your rain to us in Indy. <squish, squish>)

Edited June 19, 2015 by Haleth

[unworried well]

Onscreen there was just not anything to support that "Jaime, I love him!" stuff I would occasionally see because I was freaked out that anyone just loved a character that really....mainly known for kid-shoving, sister schtupping and "Jesus Christ, he just stabbed Jory in the eye!!"  At least, nothing I could see beyond the actor being pretty and pretty just doesn't cut that much ice with me.

 

 

I have learned to accept that liking an actor for some people means liking the character too. I had a very disturbing conversation recently about Ramsay. I kept hearing the word 'dreamy'. It stopped being strange when I realized she meant Iwan Rheon not Ramsay Snow.

Edited June 19, 2015 by unworried well

[benteen]

Regarding Tommen, he's a chubby little boy, about the same age as Bran. I don't know if anything was ever said about him being slow witted, but he's much more sheltered and pampered than Bran. This helps to understand why later he seems powerless.

(And quit sending your rain to us in Indy. <squish, squish>)

I really wish they hadn't cut the scene where Bran and Tommen are sparring in the practice yard.  I know that scene was shot because some of the actors made reference to it on one of the DVD commentaries.  But it must have been cut from the original version of the pilot.

[Delta1212]

I really wish they hadn't cut the scene where Bran and Tommen are sparring in the practice yard. I know that scene was shot because some of the actors made reference to it on one of the DVD commentaries. But it must have been cut from the original version of the pilot.

The one thing that I'm most curious about from the original pilot because it's never been commented on by anyone from the production, as far as I'm aware, is a couple of frames from one of the early trailers that looks an awful lot like Brandon Stark (Ned's brother, not his son) in the throne room with Aerys on the Iron Throne in the background.

And just throwing this out there because I just passed Arya's first "dancing" lesson. Arya is left-handed. Maisie Williams is right-handed, but insisted on learning all of Arya's swordplay left-handed because she knew that the character was in the books. (Her parents read the books and tell her what happens in Arya's chapters).

Edited June 19, 2015 by Delta1212