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

the one on the left is Lena Headey

you can tell because she's leaning her head

Think that's Ellaria Sand in the middle.

Is that guy's junk the only thing keeping his pants up?

I've had a suspicion based on some interviews and their on-screen chemistry that Cersei and Oberyn were irl doing it and I'm gonna go ahead and take that pic as confirmation

Is the kneeling guy Loras?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/game-of-thrones-characters-transported-back-to-the-80s-an

ha
more like
Bron:
http://i2.wp.com/www.rowsdowr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/38742.jpg

holy shit

Why am I so shocked but i am totally. I kind of knew there had to be something for all the build up but I thought it would end with Oberyn throwing a spear into Tywin or something.

that was next level grisly. i'm already having traumatic flashbacks

just now moving past that to remember the brilliance of Arya's laughing.

this is just some george rr martin bullshit at this point is how i feel about things

thought goth-sansa was lol

What does that mean?

Xpost mordy I mean

anti-reader sadist

just viciously anti-climatic + nihilistic

climactic*

that was anti-climatic?

Yeah to me, the whole Oberyn part was pretty intense. Maybe more moving than the red wedding

I don't think it was nihilistic in that it keeps with the show's general premise that revenge is stupid.

It wasn't just the brutality of the kill but Indira Varma's wail at the horror that made me feel the loss of a relatively minor (or at least, new) character. I guess I just didn't see the show/books writing itself into that much of a fucking corner.

happy for ramsay :)

... that's why I always bet on the Mountain.

/pukes

Stark girls were great this episode; Sansa telling LF why she lied for him, and as stated, Arya busting a gut.

PS I'm still barfing that fight.

Still love the show but. Getting tired of the whole 'killing good ppl just cause they're good' thing. Is it like that in the books or are they purposefully doing it to get ratings?

all of the main attention-grabbing deaths thus far in the show have been exceptionally faithful to the books iirc*. some minor characters have had different fates.

(* exception being robb's wife. she is not at the wedding at all in the books.)

fucking hell

I see.

Well, we're not even at episode 9, where shit always hits the fan..and I already have literally no one to care about anymore. Arya? Jon? Fuck it, really.

Pop

Did anybody else read that scene as an inigo montoya piss take?

The pillar and the stones would be a good GRRM fansite if its not already

Still love the show but. Getting tired of the whole 'killing good ppl just cause they're good' thing. Is it like that in the books or are they purposefully doing it to get ratings?

― Dreamland, Sunday, June 1, 2014 10:33 PM

not sure what the beef is here. like all the other big deaths, this one makes dramatic sense in its particulars and is true to all the characters involved.

xpost to forks all i could hear in that long pause before she said it was "franks and beans"

As a writer though, you can make ANY death or sharp turn 'fit'.

That doesn't mean you should, every few episodes.

I think it's weird that he was a character you were super invested in. He just showed up fa couple episodes. He was literally just a wedding guest!

yeah I mean what did you really know about oberyn? He liked to screw and had some subversive ideas about power in Westeros and seemed like a pretty good and sensitive guy overall but he wasn't exactly fleshed out.

Uh what?

He had as many episodes as Ned

Anyway, my beef isn't with oberyn at all, but where the show and books (seem to) be going: constant bait and switch.

Uh what?

He had as many episodes as Ned

Well, sure I guess, but Ned was the central character of season one. He was probably onscreen for nearly or more than half of each episode. Was there an episode where oberyn was onscreen for more than 5 minutes this season? You really feel as if you got to know oberyn better than Ned?

http://img3.hungertv.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/5750-9-015_f2-copy-518x470.jpg

that was spectacularly horrible. really glad I watched this episode before standard viewing session w/ my gf cos there's no way she will be able to watch that. having a GOTCHA where you polish off characters the audience root for can make things more interesting but the returns are diminishing as the sense that what the show really relishes is popcorn sadism increases. idk how to enjoy some dude having his head crushed as a guy tells him he raped his sister to death. I want to watch that turkish show about suleiman the magnificent called 'magnificent century' but I can't find proper english subtitles for all the episodes

http://i.imgur.com/eYgixu9.jpg

echoing comments above - the continued extermination of any characters i gain even a superficial appreciation for is quickly draining my interest in this show. i know enough of GRRM philosophy about writing this show to not have been surprised but there are diminishing returns to his approach. i like to have investment in characters beyond just wanting certain of them to die. if they carry out tyrion's execution that's probably the point after which any interest in this story is exhausted for me

what a bunch of crybabies

I suspect this death would have some repercussions and also some interesting narrative side effects w/r/t other characters. I wasn't surprised by this at all; to have the red viper serve as both the guy who'd save tyrion and kill the mountain w/other characters who fit those roles better still lurking around seemed unlikely.

I think this could be tywin's undoing tbh, I mean dorne seems to not love the lannisters already and didn't the red viper have a feared brother who was supposed to attend the wedding but chose not to go?

I don't think this scene was set up to be a mere bait and switch, it was set up for other reasons. Of course I haven't read the novels past a clash of kings so this is just total speculation.

During the whole fight scene, I was like "this feels off." It felt so triumphant and corny; in other words not like GoT at all, and I was naive enough to think that Oberyn might actually win. All narratives are emotionally manipulative, but man, GRRM-and-the-showrunners, this shit is just cruel. And I get how it plays into the whole thematic core of the series (Tyrion's beetle-crushing speech underlines it) but this is a lesson the story has already taught us many times. At this point, it really does feel gratuitous, and imo it just deadens the story. Anti-climactic is definitely the right word. So right now (I haven't read the books) it seems quite likely that Tyrion may die, and if he dies, I will feel like my time was wasted, even though it arguably wasn't wasted at all in a lot of ways.

What's funny about this is I am guilty of thinking that writers owe me something, even though they quite obviously don't. I guess that's one of the costs of being emotionally invested in any story.