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

and not be such a crybaby, basically

worst part of the episode was the 25-minute long build up to a really boring, short conversation between Missandei and Grey Worm, so that we could learn that no, Grey Worm does not know why unsullied are visiting brothels.

also dario's butt feature

dario has to be the least sexy guy who is supposed to be sexy, ever

I thought Dany's dragons combined the names of her brothers and Drogo with the names of historical dragons?

Dario had such a flat ass I felt embarrassed for him

been skimping on his deadlifts.

Dario was pretty much better in every way before they switched actors iirc?
Yea: http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/Pic5RL6F0hil.jpg

Beardo guy>malformed woman

i liked new-Dario actor in Nashville but he seems out of place in this

I think it's just because the first guy was such a nice fit and established the vibe of the character well that the new guy remains jarring since he looks so different (and carries himself differently, too).

also he's not sexy or cool (or crazy) or mysterious

i am v much team new daario, old one was a bit cookie-cutter-medieval gut tbrr

*guy

It's like if they recast Grey Worm as a taller, chubbier guy and expected the audience to eventually get used to it. Only thing that helped the Mountain was that the character rarely appeared ep to ep.

daario 1 seemed a bit closer to the book description iirc (blue hair aside)

dario 1 had cool romance novel vibes new guy just looks like hes yr neighbor who rides his motorcycle on weekends

he is, but there have been so many of those changes in one way or another that i hardly even think of book descriptions, like in the books varys is bearded and wears weirdass makeup

michel huisman is most definitely a better actor even if he's not harlequin-novel-cover-art material

lol! xp

wait varys has a beard in the book?

i couldve sworn i remember reading that in one of them but to be fair it's been some time. i am certain about him wearing lots of visible face powder and makeup in his book description tho.

in the books varys (who grew up with an acting troupe) is a master of disguises who sometimes dresses up as characters he plays to gain intelligence or throw a ruse (most notably the jailor), but as the public varys we know the show is pretty close to his description.

i am super glad they don't have that actor in fake moustaches and canes and bullshit accents bobbling around as varys the master of disguise, that would really really suck

drunk nihilist tyrion is pretty amazing, feel like we're underplaying that

Felt pretty rote to me

aka "tyrion"

i tried to work from home today but instead i ended up watching the other three leaked episodes. okay now when's the next batch going to be leaked

not soon enough. i need to see the outcome of that last scene!

all the spoilers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0XbcNcNJgQ

Just caught episode 1. It's mostly a "hey, remember where we were a year ago?" recap episode.

Cersei and Jaime do nothing. Some order called the Sparrows is introduced without details.
The Tyrells do nothing.
Varys reveals that he wants Daenerys as queen. Tyrion does nothing.
Daenerys needs to deal with the former ruling class. This one's fine.
Littlefinger and Sansa do nothing.
Brienne and Payne do nothing.
Sam and Gilly do nothing.
Stannis kills Mance. Jon Snow accomplishes nothing.
Reek and Arya MIA. (Bran and Hodor MIA for the whole season, supposedly.)

Tyrion implies he's open to traveling to meet Daenerys. That's something.

Loras does, heh heh, something.

episode 1 was a snooze.

on reflection i kinda think it's been a poor start. as abanana says - they've managed to force everyone back into doing nothing. also ffs when is queen of dragons going to actually do something besides kill a peasant, pardon a peasant, listen to sage advice about how to govern, learn her ideals may not cut it in this brutal world of men, AGAIN.

they may have left Bran's boring storyline by the wayside, but they somehow managed to turn everyone into Bran-crew in this episode. No doubt things'll pick up soon.

They do occasionally have these 'placing figures on the board' episodes, but I think by now, especially with an opening ep, people are impatient for advancement. I've just watched episode two (spoilers->), and, though it's more interesting than the first, the series does still feel like it's marching in place a little, or at least moving forward one step at a time. They seem more interested in hanging out with the characters than charging headlong with the story, though having so many different and totally separate plot lines, it's bound to slow things down. Everyone seems to have been split up into pairs, as well (Jaimie and Bran; Brienne and Podrick; Varys and Tyrion etc), just for added odd-couple banter.

I did like the cut between Tryion saying something like "She wants my head. How many dwarves will she have to kill?" - straight to a dwarf's decapitated head being thrown down onto a table.

And it does look as if it's all about to kick off on the Daenerys storyline at last, after she had that man executed without a trial.

Jon Snuurr's election - no surprises there.

someone on Grantland was saying that in the books the current Daenerys storyline was GRRM's explicit response to the Iraq Occupation, but that the tv show is playing the politics down a bit.

Any book readers with a take?

tbf the "explicit response" presented by the books is "conquering is easy governing is hard" and that seems to be coming across just fine.

At this point they've painted Jaqen H'ghar as this unstoppable mysterious superhero which is cool and great but it makes his original appearance as a prisoner in a cart among murderous oafs not make much sense in that context. I feel like this was probably brought up already, but is there anything beyond fan-theory that addresses that discrepancy?

Er... his superpowers don't extent to bending metal bars?

it's possible he was exactly where he wanted to be?

chap - I'm implying that such an untouchable assassin would be quite hard to catch and imprison in the first place.

rogermexico - yeah thats the kind of fan theory hindsight justification I mean, unless the book/story actually confirms it at some point?

But in general those "I had planned all of this since the beginning" are pretty lazy storytelling devices... "yes, all of these particular events that are in no way under my control all going according to plan"

in the books, the man who meets arya at the house of black and white isn't jaqen h'ghar, and it's heavily implied that "h'ghar" is elsewhere

I guess the root of my question is whether the show is overplaying his abilities vs. the books. The more amazing, feared, and mystical they portray him, the less his original situation makes any sense.

Not losing sleep here, was just curious.

i kind of assumed that the dude you think is jaqen is really just any faceless dude and maybe all the faceless dudes can use that face or whatever. it seemed odd to me that he didn't let her in at first but did only after she kills a pigeon. just seemed to unnecessarily drag the story which is more/less grrm's MO

Game of Thrones: Being an Epic Recounting of Pointless Detours

xpost yeah i'm not saying that's my theory, and it may never be explained at all, but i am def not losing sleep over it. bookswise max otm and afaict the show is overplaying in the interest of keeping things "tight" characterwise. i like art's assumption and i'm kind of choosing that myself for now but we'll see where the show takes it.

I didn't exactly mean to imply Jaqen specifically, but how likely is it that any faceless man could be captured? People who can shape shift their face and kill multiple guards at once on a whim shouldn't need to rely on a little girl to hand them an axe ever if I were to guess.

Really not trying to hanker for a perfect answer too much just clarifying my point.

I'll just move on to seemingly obsess over the next nit picky discrepancy now.

I also thought Arya's scenes were pointlessly extended in this episode. She goes in a house! Didn't need to take that long.

So how about Sam and Gilly's no-sexposition scene. Compare with the last episode's Loras sexp-- no wait, just sex scene.

Brienne always knows how to brighten my mood with ultraviolence. Also, Arya's effortless pigeon decapitation was cool.

Loved all the location photography, horses running through the forest, boats in the Braavos canals, crowd scenes. A great change of pace from all the boring two-shots in the last episode.

Is that black and white building a real location in Croatia or CGI? There was something inherently menacing about it. I wondered at the time if Arya would have gotten a different initial result if she'd knocked on the other-colored door.

Thrilled that Bron is back. I missed that guy.