HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

I love Carice van Houten but I agree w/ fgti, Melisandre has been largely a waste so far

one of those cases where the writers forgot that "nudity" is not a character personality trait or plot point

I hope that they rectify the gender imbalance when it comes to nudity and give us a fully nude zombified Mountain. Or the Clegane vs Clegane battle that's inevitably coming is fully nude.

eh, my prediction is that the big battle with the dead will happen halfway through the season, leaving the final episodes open for half the characters to fight for the throne, and the other half to go on some mystical quest

if the mountain became a white walker at this point, would there even be a significant difference other than his loyalties?

I'm shipping Cersei and the Night King btw

But if they do not do something effective with Melisandre to justify her vulturous and useless presence for season after season, as well as the Lord Of Light, I’m going to be disappointed enough to write a user review somewhere

― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, April 16, 2019 8:23 AM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

melisandre existed to bring jon snow back from the dead

eh, my prediction is that the big battle with the dead will happen halfway through the season, leaving the final episodes open for half the characters to fight for the throne, and the other half to go on some mystical quest

― We were never Breeting Borting (President Keyes), Tuesday, April 16, 2019 9:02 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i kinda think so too--maybe around episode 4, they'll be vanquished somehow.

ughhhh I feel like they just killed Jon Snow to give Melisandre something to do

I just re-read a Melisandre synopsis and I had completely blanked on all her post-exile activities. Glad she's gone back to Volantis and I hope if she re-appears it's for only a very good reason

like after everything she's done, how is she not dead? easily as monstrous an individual as Cersei

The best aspects of Melisandre were her entire influence on the Stannis storyline, which gave it a twistedness I enjoyed, and also her somewhat shockingly reasonable take on the white walker threat. So many characters had been calling it bullshit and she immediately said “hold on this is bad we better get up there.”

think a reasonable - though perhaps obvious - endgame here would be for Cersei to join up with the night king ("the living have done nothing but torment me I SIDE WITH THE DEAD" *gets zombified, makes out with the mountain*) and then melisandre comes back for a one-on-one battle of light vs dark
then the dragons make out

Cersei to join up with the night king ("the living have done nothing but torment me I SIDE WITH THE DEAD"

this would rule

Also there was something annoyingly flat and anticlimactic about the scene when Arya and the Hound came face-to-face again. Way to go ruining your best double-act there.

There's just something very Monkey Island about all those scenes where you see a load of disparate characters standing together and only a couple of them have any dramatic function in the scene.

love any monkey island reference ever but not getting this one - what do you mean?

http://images.gog.com/8cfae96b35a9b5c0d4435c7f83eeb557e50b6f614e7a7424d2ed6bc9840ce050_product_card_v2_mobile_slider_639.jpg
*Talk to THE HOUND*

pop connection I had not expected

Need a cure for your #GameofThrones katzenjammer? How bout a look back at when Brienne of Tarth aka Gwendoline Christie donned rabbit ears for @goldfrapp's Strict Machine single release? pic.twitter.com/xCjzw1wOEU

— MuteUSA (@MuteUSA) April 15, 2019

https://imgflip.com/i/2yqckg

https://i.imgflip.com/2yqckg.jpg

Hilariously bad dialogue.

I think they're allowed one 'the gang's all back together' episode without major developments, and it was a very enjoyable example of that genre. They better hit the ground running next ep though.

Hopfully the final major conflict of the series will be Dany vs Jon, as seeded in this episode - much more scope for genuine drama than everyone against the zombies.

you could replace any of the other leads (except perhaps Maisie Williams) with other actors and lose nothing of the character.

Costa-Waldau is good imo.

i don't hear enough praise for liam cunningham as davos. i tell people he's my favorite character and they think i'm crazy

Can't really imagine anyone else as The Hound. And don't want to.

Heady is tops (as was the actor who played Robert Baratheon in the first season) and most of the character actors are pretty great. But they whiffed big time on almost all the younger cast—aside from maybe Samwell.

whatever the intent w/Daenerys is at this point in the story, Emilia Clarke was playing her up as more arrogant and cold, and the dialogue demanding loyalty and recognition as queen seems to at the very least be laying the groundwork for a shift into crazy Targaryen territory. I do think some of the awkwardness between her and Jon in the romantic scenes was fairly intentional, though if anyone found the scenes awful nonetheless i'm not going to make an argument in their favor beyond this.

and the previews of next week's confrontation w/Jaime suggest we'll again be reminded of the apparently quite good reasons why he killed the Mad King...

come on man Rickon was outstanding, huge hole in the show now that he's peaced out

huge hole in his chest too

Cunningham, Headey, Coster-Waldau, Christie, McCann are all great imo. Iain Glen has his moments, he's a likable presence. I like the dudes who play Beric and Gendry a lot. Maisie Williams has had to carry a lot of the narrative load and i think she's done a great job. Carice van houten has a ridiculous character to play but i think she's generally done well with it.

out of the RIP characters: Bean, Fairley, Dance, Dormer, Dilanne, dude who played Roose, a couple others I'm forgetting...all really excellent.

most of the ones I'm not a huge fan of I don't even mind that much, the only time i had to grit my teeth was when the sand snakes were still a thing.

otm, don't forget diana rigg

For whoever's interested - I put this mix together (featuring a shedload of GoT samples):

https://www.mixcloud.com/metalmaester/game-ov-thr0nes-the-metal-mixtape/

Maisie Williams has had to carry a lot of the narrative load and i think she's done a great job.

Agreed. She should have a great future ahead of her, though I really hope that her height and older-than-she-looks-like appearance won't doom her into being typecast kid characters, or eternally young ones (like she did in Doctor Who), for the next 15 years.

Conleth Hill is great imo. I agree that Onion Knight is great. I guess some of the really strong actors had other shit to do so weren't around long, eg Ciaran Hinds or Bean.

Most of these characters (Davos, Varys, the Hound, Gendry, Friendzone Guy) are what I meant by second-tier characters and yeah the actors playing them are all good, great it some cases. The Kingslayer is one of the leads and Coster-Waldau is excellent in the role, but I don't think there's as much subtlety in his performance as Lena H's.

kinda wanna more deeply extrapolate my thinking behind zombie queen cersei (she's already got a zombie army and a necromancer; presumably the night king has been in touch) but i have other shit to to do; even so, this is one easter egg i missed that I'm deeply amused by

“that boy eddie, the ginger, came back with his face burned off. he’s got no eyelids now.” pic.twitter.com/Sq7oBnbhWd

— dunk my donuts (@og_hapsburg) April 15, 2019

tbf I'm not sure the extremely fragmented scenes help the actors much either.

I guess some of the really strong actors had other shit to do so weren't around long, eg Ciaran Hinds or Bean.

Bean was quite good in this episode playing Euron and two of the prostitutes.

I guess some of the really strong actors had other shit to do so weren't around long, eg Ciaran Hinds or Bean.

The Kingslayer is one of the leads and Coster-Waldau is excellent in the role, but I don't think there's as much subtlety in his performance as Lena H's.

another standout actor whose character is now dead: Charles Dance

tywin was maybe my favorite character on the whole show

"Not you..."

can't believe I didn't spot that Sheeran reference.

Brienne is a great character but I thought Christie was a bit wobbly to start off with.

When Lena's on-screen she totally raises the bar, agreed.

Wait, was Brienne even onscreen? I must've missed her.

LOL yeah I missed that ref was to Sheehan as well, fuck if I'dve twigged who "eddie" was tbf

My leaderboard of favourite performances (with 'how well the character was written' as a factor')

Main cast

Top tier

Tywin
Olenna (not main but too good not to rank)
Catelyn
Ned
Hound
Margaery, oddly enough, I feel like her part was really hard to do as well as she did
Robert

Excellent

Bronn
Jorah
Tyrion
Arya
Cersei
Jaime
Varys
Tommen (best of the kids imo)

Good

Sansa
Davos
Robb
Gendry
Roose
Shae

Whatever

Grey Worm
Ygritte
Tormund
Ramsay
Jon Snow
Theon
Joffrey

No Thank You

Missandei
Bran
Talisa
Samwell (though the actor is good)
Brienne
Littlefinger
High Sparrow
Jaqen
Daenerys

Raspberries!

Ellaria Sand
Stannis
Melisandre
Gilly

Supp. cast

Hon. mention: Pycelle, Hodor, Osha (weirdly? odd choice of performance but she committed to it and I liked it), Luwin, Aemon

No mention: Lancel, Alliser, Loras, Beric, Pod, Yara, Qyburn, Meera, Jojen,

Dishonorable mention: Euron

i actually kinda liked dillane as stannis. he was so dour that it was funny.

Every time I think of anything related to Stannis/Shireen/Melisandre I get a headache, I mean, Euron is the worst but at least he's quotable. I cannot remember a single word that Stannis uttered and am happy about that

I gotta give to Joffrey one of my favourite laughs in the series. "I hear that Stannis never smiles." *pulls out his sword about four inches* "I'll give him a red smile. From ear to ear."

My favorite voices on the show: Roose Bolton, Beric Dondarrion.

I must be the only person who liked Littlefinger!

Hey, wither Podrick?

xp jorah mormont has my favorite voice on the show

and yet here i stand

Couldn’t care less about Daenerys but something about Jorah confessing his undying love and devotion toward her makes me emotional