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

they all look years younger than they ever did on the show, did reading the books as preparation rob them of their youthful innocence

Who is the guy on the far right?

kit Harrington innit?

Yeah totally

http://youtu.be/Sr2Grfi3lFg

That's so weird.

noooooo shaggydog!

In the flashbacks, it's sorta come back to bite them that they've aged everyone up. The young man who plays young Ned seems many years off from becoming Sean Bean. Also, way to stop before the good part :(

I'm watching this again, and it's pretty good, but honestly GoT ahead of GRRM feels more zombie-like than Veep without Arnucci. The language is off, the details are off. They're probably better than GRRM on plot, though, so that's why I'm watching. And for a couple of the characters. Which is fine. But I'm also reading A Clash of Kings at the moment, and man, when GRRM is at his best he can make up an anecdote that makes you want to waste hours digging into backhistory.

Wasn't he only writing like an episode a season before anyway?

I hardly feel like this show's dialogue has fallen off a cliff - you can't fall off a cliff when you're already dying at the bottom of it.

i was curious how they would work in that background material--and i suppose this way is as good as any since all options i can think of seem clumsy--but i have a feeling a lot of viewers are confused about the significance of what/who Bran is seeing.

it almost feel like a limitation of cinematic/tv fantasy since the deepest pleasure of the genre (imo) is finding yourself obsessed with the world-building deep fake-historical stuff and im just not sure how you can pull that off in a satisfying way on tv.

though i guess at this point we might assume bran touring the past could have been part of martin's plan but eh

loving max von sydow. he oozes dignity in a show that isn't exactly brimming with it.

he plays the same character in all his films

young ned stark was really poorly cast imo

definitely.

fair enough on von sydow, though that's a p common crime with actors. he's still good at it.

we sure learned a lot about howland reed. def worth the wait

who were they fighting? what's in the tower? i forgot from hte books

arthur dayne. lyanna is in the tower giving birth to jon snow presumably

baby ned seemed v young to have already fathered rob tho

The scene with Samwell and Gilly on the boat was likely the worst single scene I've seen in modern TV

And there was an actual scene where Tyrion Lannister is talking about how nothing is happening and how boring everything is

What makes it so significantly bad to you / how does it stand out? Isn't it just (arguably) one of many occasional clumsily written and acted scenes?

Baby Ned is supposed to be 20, which: hm. And the scene is supposed to take place just 15 years before the main events of the series.

And there was an actual scene where Tyrion Lannister is talking about how nothing is happening and how boring everything is

otm. the scene was almost admirable in its honesty because it's basically the writers admitting that the characters in the daenerys storyline are one-dimensional and incapable of interesting conversations. they have no interior lives. so tyrion is forced to sit around and wait for another well-developed white actor to show up so that he can relax.

xpost at this point I'm just glad they aren't recasting all the characters each episode

To be fair I guess it's tough to justify someone like Grey Worm having a ton of personality based on his programmed upbringing as a mindless super-soldier.

i find myself only really engaged in the stark plots as they stand right now, and reintroducing bran and rickon this season means there's more of those. i hope that the flashbacks actually lead to some kind of resolution of some historical question but i could see it easily being dragged out for at least the remainder of the season. some positive motion in aryas plot line was also encouraging. Im really glad we didn't have to go to dorne this week and i hope for many happy returns

There are so many pointless characters just hanging around at this stage but Grey Worm is easily one of the worst.

the bummer abt snow leaving the night watch is that now they have another way dole out screen time to another cohort of variously developed characters (witch, davos, watch vs snow)

Im really glad we didn't have to go to dorne this week and i hope for many happy returns

That fight between Ned and Darth Maul took place in Dorne iirc

A technicality, as obviously art was happy we didn't visit the Dorne Hyatt resort courtyard view we're used to visiting.

I am finding both Silicon Valley and Veep's politics and jockeying for power much more interesting than this atm

does anyone here actually like the show? i have no idea why, if everyone thinks it's so terrible, people are still watching and chiming in here only to complain endlessly. it's a seriously sad state of affairs when i have to go to reddit to have an actual, decent conversation about what's going on. i think i'm done with this thread, there's really no point to checking in here.

This is the second episode of the season! We're allowed discontent before not watching the show outright!

I am actually enjoying it - I welcome discussion. Though I also find it silly in places, I still watch it with enthusiasm.

it's an extremely addictive, fitfully entertaining, and mostly poorly written and badly plotted show. we cover it all here!

I like the show more than I used to! I am having trouble discussing it, though, since it's a bit of a mess of book and tv in my head atm.

I can't figure out what to think about the scenes in Kings Landing, for example, since in my head Jamie is in the Riverlands, and nothing makes sense with him there... Why don't Kevan trust him?

I enjoy it. Although I have to agree with what some poster upthread (cant remember who) who pointed out that a lot of these stories are inconsequential (and pretty meaningless) as its likely that its going to be a dragons v white walkers showdown in the end really.

xpost I assume blames Jamie and Circe for fucking everything up for the family

From what I've heard there's a plotline involving Kevan in the books that seems pretty unlikely to occur on the show given where a certain character is right now

I do enjoy the show a lot and for me throwing out a lot of dumb theories and jokes is way more fun than going scriptwriters' workshop on every episode as we usually do here

That's the point of the entire show, that the power struggle is a silly inconsequential fixation of the rich houses/names that distracts from the looming threat of "winter" (the white walker zombie armies).

xxp

whether i actually like this show is a question i have been grappling w for yrs tbh. i genuinely want to know how the plot is resolved for a handful of characters and would be completely fine with never hearing anything by way of resolution for the rest. i am, to some degree, a sucker for fantasy type action-y shows and this still manages to deliver satisfaction on that front pretty regularly. there's a lot i have found difficult with got though from stuff as basic as fluff plots and too many characters to more fundamental issues with the gratuitous nudity/sexual violence and grrm's portrayals of women in the books and translated to the show. i find it difficult to recommend to ppl who haven't been following for yrs bc i don't know if i believe it's worth the time investment. that having been said, via some combo of gambler's fallacy and aforementioned weakness for the genre/investment in the handful of plots, i find myself returning every week

That's the point of the entire show, that the power struggle is a silly inconsequential fixation of the rich houses/names that distracts from the looming threat of "winter" (the white walker zombie armies).

speaking of this, here's a simple question - what is jon snow doing right now? it seems likely that he'll head south with the wildlings to winterfell, based off of the scene with ramsey and the guy who says fook a lot earlier in the episode. and then the red woman hinted that he would be the king in her conversation with him about 10 seconds after he came back to life. but what is his goal? to head south, unite everyone in kings landing somehow, and then prepare for the zombie battle?

Yeah I guess he'll come to realize that his purpose is to rally everyone he can and spread the news about global warming the white walkers now that he isn't restricted to doing so from the nights watch.

I thought the actor for young Ned was very good! Instantly recognizable as the character he's supposed to be (although tbf that's mostly because of the haircut), and definitely not too young looking to play 20. I guess we haven't really seen him actually act though, so it's too early to pass judgement.

I do really like that they're going into the backstory from decades past, since GRRM fleshed it out so much already, and using Bran's visions as a framing device is kind of a cool way that.

Yeah, and young Ned may not be needed beyond Bran's second trip to the tower of joy, so even if he's not great it won't be a huge issue. However there's nothing really worrying me about it, though.

i don't care what young ned looks like as long as he gives us some answers

stick around thermo, though i feel the same way about this thread sometimes. anyway i like this show a lot and always have, since at its best it's genuinely great and at its worst it's just sort of eye rolling but still fun for the fantasy elements.

RIP Alliser, you were pretty miserable but at least you weren't Olly.

so do we know what Missandei means by "the Masters speak only one language?" What is Tyrion going to say when he spams every other city in Slaver's Bay?