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

And yet, dragon people trump all. If only there was some way to unite the dragon people and Starks, hmmm ...

Of course, someone would probably just kill one of them again and start the story all over again.

xp a big chunk of storyline has been about ppl absconding with or trying to find the stark kids. and recently we've seen the value of the stark lineage to the boltons with sansa and now rickon.

I don't understand what you mean here. What is the actual value of the kids? The Boltons are in charge, it doesn't seem as if people are banging down the door in support of Rickon Stark.

Not saying you're wrong, I guess I just don't quite see your pov.

To me, lineage is feted as important but when everyone can just kill someone and seize power, how is it important? Some religious guy threw the queen in jail. Some other family murdered the eldest Stark and his mother. Robert Baratheon was murdered as well, right? As a viewer of the show the lineage doesn't seem important at all - not as important as killing your way to the top.

Weren't Dani and her shithead brother claiming themselves rightful heirs to the throne at the beginning of the show? Didn't seem to matter much.

xpost is that true? the show doesn't seem to make that clear - if that's the case why aren't people bothering to do anything about walder frey or the boltons?

Middle Earth (and the rest of the Tolkein universe and its history) is waaaaaay less complex, there are two sides and only two sides to every conflict.

GoT has to spend a lot of time on motivation, and a lot of that time on stuff that doesn't make immediate sense to people who haven't lived under feudalism.

Has anyone done a compare & contrast with Chinese & Japanese medieval epics?

I mean, if I was to defend the show I'd say it's actually been a theme that all these idiot families think their name is important but actually they're just a few murders away from being yesterday's news. Or a zombie apocalypse away.

it's not like those events you described happened and were just brushed off, most of them resulted in wars. re the stark kids the reason the boltons wanted sansa so much was because their rule is extremely tenuous and they could rally support and legitimacy around connection to the stark house - and, more importantly, prevent anyone else from doing so.

Westeros is in transition, dudes. The same line ruled the entire continent for 300 years up until a couple of decades before the first book / first episode. Everyone is confused about what lineage and nobility really means.

Lineage matters, but we're specifically seeing all of the relatively rare times that someone is daring enough to kill someone else notable. It's like if we were watching a show about street racing, of course we're going to see all of the times that people were speeding or driving in the wrong lanes or whatever. Would you ask "Does anyone even follow the rules of the road? They seem pretty easy to ignore"? We're just seeing all of the exciting events condensed for the sake of the story. And of course the GoT universe is being majorly disturbed by all these shake ups via domino effect, so that helps with the frequency of these abnormal murderous power grabs.

the frey murders ended a war though, and surely were the most heinous act against the starks.

i dunno, at the least i think the line between what murder gets you and what lineage gets you is a bit confused. i don't mean that it should be entirely clear, or that it could be, but it seems for narrative purposes sometimes it's a world in which lineage limits everything and everyone, and other times violence conquers all.

xpost fair enough evan, to a point, but the consequences of those murders don't necessarily seem consistent or build any clear picture of how lineage works in this world. it's more like i'd naturally expect a show about street racing to feature the cops in it.

I actually think the resurrection stuff is some of my least favorite stuff in this show. If you need a character alive, then don't kill them.

Worth remembering that the possibility of ressurection in this world has been shown from the end of season 1, with Khal Drogo, but since then it's been shown to come at a heavy cost. If Jon's being brought back from the dead has a fundamental impact on the character then it's worthwhile. Remains to be seen if it will, though.

Like if the lineage was that important, surely all the people desperate for the rightful kings of the north to be in power would be the ones hunting down Rickon to put him back in the throne.

Don't forget everyone thinks Bran and Rickon have been dead since the end of S2.

I feel like the wildlings should be more suspicious of resurrected Jon Snow, considering that their only other experience with people coming back from the dead is the zombies raised by the white walkers. I mean, I get that Jon Snow doesn't look like a zombie, but still, I wouldn't trust him.

The show seems to treat lineage as massively important and then tear it up when it suits them.

this is v true, but also neat description of how the actual monarchy has functioned

yeah i guess that's the realisation i was coming to when i said:

I mean, if I was to defend the show I'd say it's actually been a theme that all these idiot families think their name is important but actually they're just a few murders away from being yesterday's news. Or a zombie apocalypse away.

daenerys' story line v explicitly about this theme atm

the widow spa retreat seems weird 2 me

You can kill your way to the top but without a power-base of loyalists you're not going to stay there for very long. It's not like anyone in Winterfell is going to fight much in the name of Ramsay Bolton when they could fight for even the lamest Stark or for that matter virtually anyone else.

xpost fair enough evan, to a point, but the consequences of those murders don't necessarily seem consistent or build any clear picture of how lineage works in this world. it's more like i'd naturally expect a show about street racing to feature the cops in it.

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Tuesday, May 10, 2016 10:47 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

True, though I also think there's universal confusion as a result of all the transitions. This is a world where news is spread almost exclusively via carrier ravens and poor children that ease drop.

And nobody carries ID!

the widow spa retreat seems weird 2 me

it's worse than dorne imo

i like this show though!

Let's see how much they drag it out. It certainly has the potential to be a bore.

What's with the set design though? I had a much more interesting vision of it in my head, but it turned out to be a big-ish hut amount the rest of the huts all sitting in a dusty, flat valley. They should have consulted me. I'm not expensive.

among*

Set design all around has seemed very cheap this season. There is very little sense of scale/population, and every scene seems to take place in one stagey foreground spot. Green screen budget must be down as the salaries go up.

i'm getting the sense that very little is going to be dragged out from here on -- i bet dany isn't there longer than a couple three episodes. if there's really only 13 eps after this season, then my guess is that she's ready to head to westeros by the end of this season, which is only what? seven eps away? i could see there being a lot more movement over round her end of things than in westeros, tbh.

if the endgame is dragons v white walkers, then dany's plot has got to hustle butt.

i was trying to think of a resolution to this plotline other than 'dragons come and save daeny' and couldnt

In some way, the whole thing about identity vs violence as the basis of rule is perhaps THE major theme of the story. The rule is already less stable because a 'usurper' took the throne 15 years prior, and the whole conflict kicks into gear when people figure out the crown prince is not who he's supposed to be. And already Renly plans to take the throne simply by force, even though his brother had a better claim. It's a bit fuzzy though, as questions of identity and blood and destiny seems to guide what happens to Jon and Denaerys anyway.

I won't blame anyone for thinking the story is screwing it up at this point, though. There's been a spectacular amount of kinslaying this season, and the ease with which the Sand Snakes killed off their uncle, or Ramsay his father and brother, and continued to be able to govern, is pretty questionable. Normally I would have agreed with Matt DC: t's not like anyone in Winterfell is going to fight much in the name of Ramsay Bolton when they could fight for even the lamest Stark or for that matter virtually anyone else. But that really seems to happen in the show. He straight up murdered a Frey woman as well, and we've heard no response from the Freys.

All these complicated rules are a huge reason why the books are so complicated, btw. Nobody takes their oathbreaking lightly, which means there has to be a HUGE buildup for anything to happen. Which also gets pretty dull after a while.

xpost

the other possibility is that jorah and daario show up and rescue the princess, with the help of dragons

Maybe Jon Snow's on his way to save her.

Pfffft. Daenerys is the liberator. She's not "getting rescued." She'll get all of those crazy widows to bow before her and march on whoever stands in their way.

All getting ready to spring a painstakingly planned two man + two dragons ambush rescue operation and then Dany and an army of empowered widows burst out of the spa and slaughter the dothraki and Jorah and Daario do a face at each other and one of them does a quip

Wasn't there some Dothraki prophecy about their spiritual savior or something coming back to where she is being held?

yes

To me, lineage is feted as important but when everyone can just kill someone and seize power, how is it important...?

I mean, if I was to defend the show I'd say it's actually been a theme that all these idiot families think their name is important but actually they're just a few murders away from being yesterday's news...

i dunno, at the least i think the line between what murder gets you and what lineage gets you is a bit confused. i don't mean that it should be entirely clear, or that it could be, but it seems for narrative purposes sometimes it's a world in which lineage limits everything and everyone, and other times violence conquers all...

hmm... where are you from again?

xpost Or specifically a "stallion that mounts the world." Which could be a dragon, maybe, say, the pseudo-literal child of Dany, erstwhile Dothraki queen. Or Prince - tow princes! - Jon Snow.

Whoops, two princes. I messed up my Spin Doctors joke.

Or three?

i'm getting the sense that very little is going to be dragged out from here on -- i bet dany isn't there longer than a couple three episodes. if there's really only 13 eps after this season, then my guess is that she's ready to head to westeros by the end of this season, which is only what? seven eps away? i could see there being a lot more movement over round her end of things than in westeros, tbh.

if the endgame is dragons v white walkers, then dany's plot has got to hustle butt.

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Tuesday, 10 May 2016 16:52

Yeah, I've been thinking that most characters are only 3 or 4 moves from the end.

How many direwolves are left now?

Is it just Jon's & Bran's?

And Arya's roaming wild somewhere?

yeah! I thought nymeria was killed but circei executed sansa's wolf instead..

In the books Nymeria is in the wild (the Riverlands?), leading a pack of wolves and terrorizing the country side -- so that's where she is on the show, in my head at least.

I'm holding out hope that that wasn't Shaggy. I mean, if I'm Rickon, I wouldn't want to decapitate my direwolf for the sake of some ruse.

i could see the ol bait and switch happening here, i mean he learned it by watching reek

So who will Arya kill by the end of the season? I'm putting my money on faceless douche.

hmm... where are you from again?

where do you think i'm from? if you're right, i'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on lineage/violence.

Normally I would have agreed with Matt DC: "it's not like anyone in Winterfell is going to fight much in the name of Ramsay Bolton when they could fight for even the lamest Stark or for that matter virtually anyone else". But that really seems to happen in the show. He straight up murdered a Frey woman as well, and we've heard no response from the Freys.

this is exactly it. there isn't really any sense of repercussion in the show. i don't mean that i want to see hours of people furiously moaning in taverns. just that there's no sense of support for the family powers. there seemed to be big support for frey killing the starks - and again no real repercussions. like wouldn't someone have done something about that if the starks were so popular? they must be barely popular at all to be murdered by one family at a wedding and for everyone to just basically shrug.

I guess you could argue that the institutions that once exercised control over everyone have been ripped to pieces - targarean (sp) rule for 300 some years exploded by Robert's rebellion then 3 new kings in a very short amount of time plus all the other heads of the houses finding ways to get killed from miscellaneous circumstances like the starks, whatsherface in the aerie, tywin, etc.

i thought brit. apologies if i got that wrong.

no worries - i'm irish - which significantly complicates the idea of monarchy v violence i guess :)

Indeed. Sorry for having got that wrong all these years!

this is exactly it. there isn't really any sense of repercussion in the show. i don't mean that i want to see hours of people furiously moaning in taverns. just that there's no sense of support for the family powers. there seemed to be big support for frey killing the starks - and again no real repercussions. like wouldn't someone have done something about that if the starks were so popular? they must be barely popular at all to be murdered by one family at a wedding and for everyone to just basically shrug.

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), 11. maj 2016 00:10 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it's a weakness. And at risk of repeating myself too much: It's better in the books. The Theon chapters in book five deal with the Bolton army in Winterfell, and the intrigues, alliances and subterfuge among the disgruntled Northmen. There's also a bunch of stuff about the importance of dealing with every smaller house. For instance, in the books Smalljon Umber, who in this episode delivered Rickon to Ramsay, is killed at the Red Wedding, but his father the Greatjon survives, and is held hostage at the Twins. And therefore House Umber chooses to stay calm, to avoid Greatjons execution. Other houses are wiped out in the Red Wedding, or is stripped of their holdings by the new leaders. Really, the simple answer is that people don't avenge the Starks because the Starks already tried avenging and lost badly.

Can I just say, are all of you who seem to know every damn characters name and how to spell it, readers of the books. I cant keep all these people straight in my head!

for those who haven't noticed, ask the maester is back on uh whatever this thing is https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-ringer/ask-the-maester-rickons-return-rhaegars-rose-and-the-sword-of-the-morning/1709123589354091

Frederik B otm re: Northern Bannermen. My thing with the North is that it's tenuous, and Roose knew he was only holding onto his control there because a huge majority of the Stark bannermen armies were killed at the Red Wedding. Roose knew there was a long game to play (those armies will be replenished at some point in the future, after all), and Ramsay's mistake is thinking short term.