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

can someone explain without spoilers what Arya's doing and who the people coming off the boat were (Gatiss is Iron Bank guy but can't remember the others)?

Mace Tyrell of the lollipop guild was there to negotiate finances. Sent by Cersei and accompanied by Meryn fucking Trant.

The bigwig is Mace Tyrell and the other guy is the guy who helped kill Arya's sword-fighting teacher in season 1. I assume she wants to kill him or something.

xp

Gatiss is Tycho Nestoris.

ok thanks!

also thanks to that link
Arya is side-tracked from her quest to poison the Thin Man by a familiar face: Meryn Trant. Trant, you may recall, is one of the viler of Joffrey’s King’s Guard (now Tommen’s King’s Guard.) He was the perfect lackey to Joffrey’s cruelty, a mad dog kept barely in check, and the knight who showed up to take Arya prisoner when Ned Stark was arrested. Her Braavosi sword instructor, the great Sirio Forel, saved her life then, but died at Trant’s hand. He was one of the first on Arya’s ever-burgeoning to-kill list.

Meryn Trant is on Arya's list but not on a girl's list. a girl is going to wash out of faceless man school.

genuine lol ^

prob just trying to remind you that he's a shitty dude since there are so many other minor shitty dudes that he could easily be a shitty tree lost in the shitty forest

I have completely forgotten who that guy in the brothel was.

he's still meryn trant

Shit he's been in every season without having registered with me in any major way at all. I thought that honour was reserved for random wildlings and interchangeable members of the Night's Watch.

this show excels at the "remember this completely unremarkable character? well NOW you should!" switcheroos

why do you watch it then

that's no way to talk about the true heir stannis

Meryn Trant is on Arya's list but not on a girl's list. a girl is going to wash out of faceless man school.
― resulting post (rogermexico.)

why do you watch it then

I don't anymore, I just read this thread

why if meryn is the true test, seems pretty coincidental that this thin man likes his oysters at that exact dock, a girl might be getting set up for her true path

What if

can't help but think of the thin man as "Mr. Vanilla Oysters"

this show excels at the "remember this completely unremarkable character? well NOW you should!" switcheroos

― Οὖτις, Monday, June 8, 2015 4:42 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're not completely unremarkable at all tho

I didn't camp out on the Mad Men thread and ask people "why are you so enamored of smoking sexist and racist white people" for years so I don't fully understand the mindset of people who do that on the threads of shows they don't watch

each thread gets the morbs it deserves

the cast is hugely unwieldy at this point, that yr supposed to recall minor characters who bored you to tears a couple seasons ago because now they are all of a sudden thrust into the center of the action is v lolzy

Mad Men would occasionally bring back random minor characters too, but there I think they did a much better job of being careful about framing those characters' roles in the show and making sure they were all both recognizable and distinctive

(btw DJP when I said I stopped watching it I meant as of two weeks ago)

It does seem crazy that he's been in 16 episodes, but then again he rarely speaks.

nothing like the penultimate episode of a serialized drama in its fifth season to find out if a tv show is for you

lol

Still don't recognise Meryn Trant's name or face or remember anything he's done.

i've literally never been bored by game of thrones

the dorne stuff is definitely of lesser quality than other scenes, but GoT has previously demonstrated the ability to take seemingly meaningless interactions and turn them to key plot elements. i also think they just haven't really found the right voice for those characters yet, doesn't mean they won't in episodes to come.

same goes for the bran quest stuff in seasons past, wasn't my favorite but not unenjoyable. by nature GoT is a big, varied show.

How did greyscale infect Shireen via a toy if you can only catch it if you touch the infected area.

teddy ruxpin with real human skin

nothing like the penultimate episode of a serialized drama in its fifth season to find out if a tv show is for you

― Clay, Monday, June 8, 2015 3:48 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

clapping my hands at correct use of penultimate here

can't they just interrogate all the blacksmiths and find out who's making those masks. where do those masks come from there's an awful lot of them maybe they fell off a truck??

clapping my hands at correct use of penultimate here

incorrect tho

correct if you're just talking about the fifth season right

sure

I think with the Dorne stuff they were overestimating how much we love watching Bron, no matter what he's up to

Xpost Pedantultimate then

Surprised you all forgotten Trant (actually I haven't counted who had forgotten, so maybe it was just two of you), he was in this season and we were talking about him weeks ago. I forgotten about him killing the teacher but I remembered he was a horrible bastard.

Did that dragon run out of fire? Hope most of those Harpy guys are dead. Dany doesn't look too secure sitting on the dragon.

Quite surprised Selyse came to her senses about her daughter. I predict maybe Davos kills Stannis. But whatever the case, I hope Davos goes elsewhere.

I'm underwhelmed by the show from time to time, wish they crammed in more but certainly never bored. Some other shows are better overall but none have had me as invested as GoT. I loved Mad Men a lot but I would've easily avoided the final episode if that were a condition to keep watching GoT. I'm proper hooked.

Don't know why but when I started this show I thought it would cover more years and generations and I'm a tad disappointed we're not following Bran's grandchildren now but I can't fault them for that.

but if ever there was a time to complain about needless cruelty towards women in fiction that would seem to be it.

― Mordy, Monday, 8 June 2015 20:27

Trant taking the young girl away? Just this episode you mean?

And I was generally a bit underwhelmed by this episode because more big stuff seems imminent than the final episode will probably be able to handle. If all that happens is Cersei and Stannis dying, I'll be quite disappointed, because the cast really hyped up the final episode.

I forgotten about him killing the teacher but I remembered he was a horrible bastard...

You didn't forget. The nerdlink posted upthread is jumping to conclusions. Ser Meryn led the group of guards we last saw Syrio Forel fighting. We don't know what happened after that. Syrio is presumed dead, and probably is, but for all we know he's Jaqen.

Yeah, I just seen that theory on the Thronecast show tonight.

I didn't camp out on the Mad Men thread and ask people "why are you so enamored of smoking sexist and racist white people" for years so I don't fully understand the mindset of people who do that on the threads of shows they don't watch

― DJP, Monday, June 8, 2015 5:53 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like it wldve been worth considering tho

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the fighting pit!

a mad dog kept barely in check

Oh reviewerpaws. Dude's just an empty vessel through which others (Joffrey, the writers) manifest cruelty, not even a one-dimensional character like Ramsay.

Syrio is presumed dead, and probably is, but for all we know he's Jaqen.

NOOOOOO don't tell me you're one of those!!! :(

syrio is dead as heck

How apt that Dany cuts and runs when the going gets bad.

xp Yes but pretty sure in both books and show, Arya (and hence our viewpoint) runs away from the fight without knowing whether Syrio was killed or not.

Just finished this episode.

Kind of expected either Tyrion, Jorah or that beard guy to get killed by a random spear while they were watching daenerys fly away on her dragon drogon

I expected them to get during touching moment when Dany touches the dragon's cheek.

NOOOOOO don't tell me you're one of those!!! :(

― Falconetti Pot (Leee), Monday, June 8, 2015

lol no i am not. I just value precision enough to get my hackles up at "Her Braavosi sword instructor, the great Sirio Forel, saved her life then, but died at Trant’s hand." tolerate a little ambiguity, nerd. also learn to spell Syrio.

Kind of expected either Tyrion, Jorah or that beard guy to get killed by a random spear while they were watching daenerys fly away on her dragon drogon

that beard guy was killed by getting knifed though? unless you mean someone else?

Are there other giants? Where do the giants hang out?

In a show with hit-and-miss FX, the stuff they do to integrate the giant with the rest of the cast is really impressive.