Game of Thrones 2.01 "The North Remembers" 4/1 - ZERO SPOILER Discussion Thread

The new season of Game of Thrones begins this Sunday.

I want to make the spoiler policy very clear because we had a lot of threads ruined and derailed last year over it. This thread will only cover things that have happened in the show, up to and including the episode named in the thread title. No information from the books is welcome. If people judge for themselves what constitutes a spoiler and what doesn’t, they may get it wrong, and most likely they will ignite a fight over whether or not it was a spoiler, and it’ll create all sorts of hijacks and threadshitting - so we’re going to have a zero tolerance policy. No spoilers, even in boxes, of things that occured from outside of the TV show.

Now - last year we ran 3 threads, there was an omni thread where all spoilers were open for people who read the books to discuss the TV show, and there was an in-between one, where people who were watching the show but wanted to ask for more information or specific spoilers from the books, and the weekly episode threads concerning only the tv show. I welcome the people who made those threads to make them again, so we can take our spoiler discussion to those threads. Once we had that system worked out last year, everything went smoother, and the weekly episode threads were about discussing just the TV show. Please no fighting about the spoiler policies - if you read the threads last year, you’d realize what a giant clusterfuck it turns into when we start discussing that. If you have an idea for a thread that involves a greater allowance for spoilers, please go ahead and create it and link to it here.

And of course don’t read this thread if you haven’t seen season 1, or (after Sunday night), season 1 episode 1. There will be open discussion of that content. So there should be no need for any spoiler boxes for any reason in this thread.

So when we left off, the Lannisters and Starks were at war. Drogo is dead, and Danyris laid some dragons. Ned was executed. The Lannisters have Sansa, the Starks have Jamie Lanister, and Arya is in hiding. There’s evidence that things are stirring north of the wall, and the Night’s Watch are sending out a party. Differing factions are fighting for the throne - claimants are Geoffry, Stannis Baratheon, and Robb Stark.

Moderator’s Amendment:

Spoiler policy for this thread:

  1. Anything that has not yet been AIRED ON TV is not acceptable in this thread. (This includes webzines, DVD extra content, magazines, speculation based on unaired content and so on.)
  2. Any discussion, comparison or really anything related to the books the show is based on needs to go to the Closed Spoilers thread. (See below)
  3. We follow the US airing schedule. There is no “grace period” for letting the rest of the world catch up. (Like us Europeans, people who DVR the show, stream it later, etc, etc)

This is in order to allow people who want to ask specific questions and receive specific answers regarding backstory or things they missed, be able to use this thread as a resource. For those who wants limited spoilers - for instance people who have read the books up unto a point but don’t want spoilers for the rest of the books - this is the place to be. Please report information which should not be in the open by using the Report Post tool.

If you want to ask questions regarding backstory, discuss how the series reflect the books, speculate in the future based on unaired information or otherwise engage in a discussion in an enviroment in which posters are to use their best judgement to decide what is or is not a spoiler, please follow this thread:
Game of Thrones Season 2 - CLOSED SPOILERS Discussion Thread

For those who want to discuss in a COMPLETELY open-spoilers enviroment in which the books, the series, webzines and in short all the information available anywhere is valid and open for discussion, please follow this thread:
Game of Thrones Season 2 - OPEN SPOILERS Discussion Thread

Meta-discussion of the spoiler policy itself should happen in a separate ATMB thread if really necessary, though I invite people to PM me instead.

With regards,
Gukumatz
Game Room & IMHO Moderator
Consulting Game of Thrones Moderator

Omgicannotfuckingwait.

I already watched the first season again. I’m ready.

I’ve watched the first season again as well, and highly recommend the blu-ray discs for those who have the resources. There are several extras that make the investment worthwhile; I’m not sure how many are also included on the DVD’s, but the background information and histories of Westeros are very interesting, and well-done.

I’m anticipating this season will be even better than the last; I took the hiatus as an opportunity to read the series (I’m another of the new converts who hadn’t read any of the books before the series), and have now read all but A Dance with Dragons. There’s a lot of really great storylines in A Clash of Kings, and I can’t wait to see how they’re portrayed on screen. Of course, that means I’ll have to be very circumspect when posting about the episodes as aired, but I don’t think that will be a problem for me (I don’t usually post very much anyway).

Question:

Is stuff that was on the Blu-Rays/DVDs, but were “extra” (for instance: the narrated history of Westeros/history of the houses,) but not explicitly mentioned in the show, considered a spoiler?

Also:
HOLY SHIT, CANNOT WAIT!

As long as everyone obeys the rules, it’s a lot of fun for those of us that have read the books to see the reactions to people who haven’t…things seem to have more “oomph” to them on the screen, so things like Ned’s death on screen probably hit people who didn’t read Game of Thrones harder than those of us who read it.

Another spoiler question: Are things seen in official HBO promo videos and such allowed to be discussed? Can we link to them?

We’ve had a whole year. You mean to tell me that there are dopers who STILL haven’t read Clash of Kings?

These threads last year contained more arguing over what was and wasn’t allowed than actual discussion of the show. Do we HAVE to go through that again?

Can we also keep down the spoiler bitching that was constantly aimed at speculation, guessing and theories that we had last year?

I haven’t read any of the books.

So is this the spoiler -free thread or the thread for those who have read Clash?

They stated somewhere on the Bluray that the Complete Guide to Westoros covers storyline that they weren’t able to fit into season 1. If you aren’t gonna read the books, I recommend you at least go thru the Bluray special features before starting s2. They are excellent!

–>Raises hand. I watched all of Season 1, thoroughly enjoyed it, and have little or not interest in reading the books. You wanna spoil, post to a spoiler thread, is it so hard to not post spoilers in a spoiler-free thread? If you want to do that, yeah, we HAVE to go through that again. Easily avoided, though!

Sure, just say you are speculating, guessing and theorizing and not basing what you say on the books. Easy as pie.

Spoiler free, as I tried to hammer over and over in the OP. Just the TV show. There will be other threads for open spoiler discussion.

Yeah, part of the reason we had those was that some people were so cavalier with actual spoilers that people became wary that speculation was another spoiler because they didn’t know the difference. Hopefully with a zero spoiler policy, we won’t have either end of the argument.

Regarding stuff that’s in the DVDs and stuff - I would skew towards not discussing any stuff not in the show just because where different people will draw the line - the difference between background and spoilers - can vary, and I basically want a safe haven for people who just want to discuss what the show has done. It’s probably not a huge deal.

I am sorry but that is simply pure fabrication, there were tons of spoilers accusations and damn near zero actual spoilers. There was tons of spoiler paranoia, tons of people calling things explicitly said and shown on the show spoilers simply because they didn’t remember or pay attention, tons of people accusing others of spoilering when they were making innocent guesses or speculations, actual spoilers? not really.

I’ll have to skip the threads this time around, as I don’t have HBO this year, and I am very much looking forward to watching the show. See you when it comes out on disc in about February of next year.

I’ll agree that except for the terminally oblivious, and the terminally twee who would try to sneak in a spoiler as if, “I was just speculating whether the show would have this exact scenario from the book,”, the spoiler policies in the Season 1 threads had worked out very well by week 3 or 4. Good luck on that this year!

As I recall, there were a few actual spoilers, despite all the requests.

And your “it’s all the fault of the people who don’t want to be spoiled” sniping is exactly the sort of thing that ruined the thread. There were actual spoilers, and an environment where people don’t know whether people are speculating or spoiling, these things can happen.

If we have a zero tolerance policy on spoilers, then no one will have to wonder whether someone is speculating or spoiling. Both problems will solve themselves, if everyone plays by the rules.

At this point, you are not honestly asking what will be allowed in the thread, but instead trying to make a snipe at the anti-spoiler people. This is exactly the sort of thread shitting that we do not want in the threads this year.
Stop it.

Whatever, i felt the constant and usually completely unjustified spoiler bitching made the threads a chore to participate in but i guess since you decided to jump the gun by almost a week you get to make up the rules right?

You are digging yourself in a deeper hole, giving a prime example of the sort of behavior I’m trying to stamp out.

Besides which, if there are no spoilers, then there will be no spoiler bitching. A zero tolerance policy on spoilers helps the very thing you claim to want to stop.

So the best thing you can do is to actually endorse my policy, not have the issues of spoilers even be an issue of discussion in these threads, and stop acting like a spoiled child, trying to get in the last snipe.

Speaking as someone who has read every book in the series about five times, the spoiler bitching last year was completely and absolutely justified. As I mentioned above, by week 3 or 4, the consensus of those in the HBO threads was that SenorBeef’s rules were reasonable, needed, and appropriate.

I’m sorry if your desire to ruin things for those who do not want to read spoilers is being interfered with, but that’s life.

That’s where you are wrong. The lack of spoilers did absolutely nothing to stop the spoiler bitching, and i see no rules about “no constant bitching about spoilers unless you are absolutely sure one has been posted, if in doubt just STFU”. That would make a thread everyone would enjoy participating in.