HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

think this was my favorite ep of the season so far. lots of denouement which means the next couple episodes are going to be terrible until the second to last which will blow my mind and almost convince me to try reading these books again.

loved that trippy shot with Jojen in the tent. wish the show would do take that approach more often when portraying the crazy mystical stuff.

Yeah, Jojen's surreal flaming hand was cool, as was his "I saw you die" line. This was such a low-key and talky episode for the most part, and I really enjoyed it. Seeing two Starks come *this close* to reuniting before going down separate paths again was painful in the best way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYBAMxJecLI

I was anticipating that what was my biggest "oh I see" moment of Book Three-- Jon Arryn's murderer revealed-- was gonna be somewhat toothless because of time and extra info in the TV series, but that reveal felt completely throwaway and unfortunate

I was anticipating that what was my biggest "oh I see" moment of Book Three-- Jon Arryn's murderer revealed-- was gonna be somewhat toothless because of time and extra info in the TV series, but that reveal felt completely throwaway and unfortunate
--"got ye!" (flamboyant goon tie included)

I hope they return to it at some point because id like to better understand the motivation. Homeboy couldn't have been playing that long a con on the entire world right? Unless little finger is actually lex luthor or something

i dunno it took a few seconds to sink in but it felt like a pretty big "whoa" moment to the group i was watching with.

whole episode felt like one long delaying tactic - oh the Starks are gonna be reunited NOPE. oh hey Daenerys is gonna invade Westeros SYKE. Let's just drag things out as looooongggggggg as possssiiiiiibbbbblllllllllleeee

What was revealed? That Arran was poisoned?

yeah I was only kinda half-watching for some reason and can't recall

yeah by Littlefinger, was the implication

I dunno what's the big deal

Littlefinger was the man with the plan, Lysa Arryn was his proxy.

Lysa is icky enough with her weirdo kid, adding Littlefinger into the mix is like Creepshow 5000

groooooooooooosssss

but yeah shakey otm about all this dragging out of things

winter's coming... but first I need to find this tree and uh oh yeah I have to rule this other kingdom for a little while and oh yeah I have to get married and then I have to return some videos and oh shit I forgot about killing that other guy and zzzzzzzzzz

lol grumpy mo

i expected this to be a filler ep and really enjoyed it. loved the open with cersei working each of tyrion's judges, and the way we worked off the button of that setup ("everywhere in the world they hurt little girls") to see Arya, Sansa and Meera all learning that she's right.

bran/hodor bit was both stirring and heartbreaking. given that we know we're not even halfway through this thing I'm not clear why y'all are in such a rush. enjoy the journey maaaaan.

would be funny if they just start stalling so Martin can catch up.

i enjoyed the episode fine but I wanted Bran & Jon Snow to at least see each other ;_;

that moment when margery said about calling cersei 'mother', I thought cersei was going to gut her like a fish then and there

i love any scenes between those two

the thing w Bran and Hodor is... well, why didn't Bran just do that before?

Too many bad guys around with stabby knives. Hodor also doesn't like getting possessed, and also has moral compunctions against killing.

would be funny if they just start stalling so Martin can catch up.

Is this the tree we're supposed to find? Nope.

Is *this* the tree we're supposed to find? Nope.

This has gotta to be the... wait nm.

Hodor also doesn't like getting possessed, and also has moral compunctions against killing.

yeah, the shot of him wondering at his bloody hands was good - I couldn't remember if that had specifically been established before

Also, it takes a tremendously larger toll on Bran to go into a human than it does with an animal.

(xpost)

i think that's kinda the point, none of the wargs up until now have been able to take control of people... that would obvs be a huge game changer as you just project into the head of a rival king and kill yourself. more proof that bran is THE ONE i guess.

Hodor is kind of an exceptional case, though. Bran might not be able to warg into the next guy who slices his leg and tries to abduct him, for instance.

bran/hodor bit was both stirring and heartbreaking. given that we know we're not even halfway through this thing I'm not clear why y'all are in such a rush. enjoy the journey maaaaan.

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Monday, May 5, 2014 12:38 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aren't we actually literally halfway through the season? Even if you mean the overall series... I heard this is also sure enough about midway through the books or maybe I heard wrong.

Yeah if (if) it's seven seasons and same amount of episodes each, we are halfway through the whole thing.

Of all of Littlefinger's skills I think I'm most impressed that he could get it up for Lysa.

Close your eyes and think of Catelyn.

how do you not look at her and not have the Wicked Witch of the West theme going in your head immediately

or phrase that so it makes sense, you know know what I mean

Hm, I think in the books (or in my head) it was way more of a big deal to find out that Baelish a) told Lysa to kill Arryn and b) told her to blame to Lannisters. Firstly, the more-ambiguous-in-the-books Baelish hadn’t yet been explicitly proven to be a total shit; his betrayal of Ned seemed naturally related to self-preservation and revenge-for-Cat rather than the move of a master-criminal. Second, Baelish can thus be entirely credited with starting the war, the question is really “how many moves ahead was he thinking?” Was war his goal? it seems so. If he wanted to be Lord of the Eyrie he wouldn’t have needed to foment the mistrust between Starks and Lannisters. It seems like he had deeper designs than “I’m gonna try and fuck up Ned Stark’s shit”. Is there consensus in fan-world as to how clever he’s been?

dude just wants to be on his ladder

I think with Baelish getting around like a mustachioed cartoon villain these days none of his shenanigans are surprising because he's all but twirling his mustache and or eyeing stage left with every reveal

http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2011/03/29-mockingbird-part-1-as-high-as/index.html here's a three-part investigation of LF's long-game in the books that I found put everything in order for me. (Warning: major spoilers for tv show only ppl) xp

Awesome, thanks. I... def prefer book-Baelish when it comes to the reenactment of major plot-points like this one, but like all "the climb" monologues too

i'm just TV, but want to read *so* *bad*!

Yeah if (if) it's seven seasons and same amount of episodes each, we are halfway through the whole thing.
--Ned Raggett

Is it seven seasons? It's seven books, and we're still in book 3...

Rumor mills earlier this year indicate HBO/showrunners are thinking seven, GRRM wasn't so sure. Other rumor mills suggest telescoping books 4 and 5 into next season. In short, nobody knows anything.

so how conceivable is that that TV would catch up to the books before 5 and 6 are released?

what if GRRM kicks it before the books are finished?

This has been the subject of much, how you say, earnest talk. What's known is that GRRM has outlined the end of the story to the showrunners, but in exactly what detail nobody knows.

dont worry, brandon sanderson waits in the wings.

I believe that GRRM has said that Benioff and Weiss know generally where the books are headed, esp. the endgame, but that barring untimely death, he's going to try to get the books out before the show catches up (yeah right).

http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/george-r-r-martin-interview

David and Dan told me they came to see you here to talk about things because the they are getting close to you, with the show.

They are. Yes. It’s alarming.

Did you tell them where you’re headed with the story?

They know certain things. I’ve told them certain things. So they have some knowledge, but the devil is in the details. I can give them the broad strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet. I’m hopeful that I can not let them catch up with me. The season that’s about to debut covers the second half of the third book. The third book [A Storm of Swords] was so long that it had to be split into two. But there are two more books beyond that, A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons. A Dance With Dragons is itself a book that’s as big as A Storm of Swords. So there’s potentially three more seasons there, between Feast and Dance, if they split into two the way they did [with Storms]. Now, Feast and Dance take place simultaneously. So you can’t do Feast and then Dance the way I did. You can combine them and do it chronologically. And it’s my hope that they’ll do it that way and then, long before they catch up with me, I’ll have published The Winds of Winter, which’ll give me another couple years. It might be tight on the last book, A Dream of Spring, as they juggernaut forward.

he sounds like he knows he can't do it to me, at least not at the clip it's moving at now.

he's gonna die

Well, valar morghulis.

we'll have started book 4&5 (first half of book 5 is concurrent with book 4 chronologically) by the end of this season but we've probably got 2-3 more episodes of book 3 left still.

i haven't heard any news on the status of book 6 but he seems to be taking his time with it much like the last 2