Game of Thrones 4.03 "Breaker of Chains" 4/20/14 [No spoilers]

Cafe Society
61

I don’t have any complains about the accents. I’ve never been to Westeros so I don’t know what the actual accents there sound like.

Dany’s story is starting to get a little repetitive, and Sam’s interactions with the wildling girl are mostly dull. (Watching the goose getting plucked was more interesting than the dialogue and meaningful stares.)

That said, there was some good stuff this in this episode. Arya and the Hound are pretty much always watchable. It’s easy to see them as having a cute relationship, but this episode reminds us that the Hound isn’t a good guy. (Of course, he’s nowhere near the worst.) That poor farmgirl looked at Arya like she very much wanted to be friends.

I enjoyed the interaction between Tyrion and Podrick. I thought Tommen and Tywin’s scene was terrific as well. You really have to admire Tywin on some level. When life hands him dead grandchildren, he makes deadgrandchildren-ade.

62

Arya and the Hound had an interesting exchange about the First Sword of Bravos; I wonder if they will end up in Bravos?

63

I hope we see more of Jaqen H’ghar in season 4. He is by far my favorite minor character so far. Interesting storyline, great character and great acting.

Is it a spoiler for someone to say if we get more Jaqen in S4?

64

Given what that guy did for a living I’m going to go ahead and say yes, that would be a spoiler. If you’d like someone to PM you that information, that’s fine.

65

Yes, that would be a spoiler.

That being said, I hope we get to see more of Essos outside of Dany’s storylines. We keep just hearing wispers of it. That whole continent confuses me as to what it’s like. We had to mentions of Braavos this week (the First Sword and the Iron Bank) so hopefully it’s going that way.

66

You may not recall, but we have already met someone who held that title.

67

Yes, it’s pretty much the same thing over and over. I am only interested in her story for the dragons and we didn’t even get to see them. For that matter she didn’t even need to do the whole speechy thing just walk up and say “I have dragons!” Dragons swoop in and set people on fire and then on to the next town with more free slaves than she can handle, and so on and so on.

So Cersei could kill her own child if it didn’t suit her interests? We know now she didn’t kill Joffrey but everyone was previously shooting down my idea that she could have because she wouldn’t kill her own child. She knew Joffrey was a monster, she was even shown to be afraid of him at some points when he was on a tear and him being a married unpredictable King with her having no power anymore definitely did not suit her interests. Sure, she didn’t kill him but I still think she could have if she got it into her head. She might have used a nicer poison though.

68

Dragons don’t do targeted killing. She wants to free the slaves and let others choose to join her.

69

[whine] But I wanted to see dragons, not guys pissing in the sand![/whine]

70

Sorry, this argument doesn’t cut it with me. The actors portraying upperclass King’s Landing dwellers are obviously affecting upperclass English accents, e.g., RP. Some of the actors do it very well (Lena Headey, Charles Dance, Diana Rigg) - as they ARE English. Some of the actors do it less well - Nikolaj Coster Waldau does reasonably, despite his usual thick Danish accented English. But Peter Dinklage’s accent is occasionally atrocious. He is obviously trying very hard, and does seem to be improving, but it is VERY jarring, to me and others, when his English accent fails.

I think Aidan Gillan’s accent is a bit affected - maybe he or a director decided to attempt to add complexities to his speech as a way of hinting at his different, less privileged background.

71

That’s hilarious.

72

I would pay a bit extra on my HBO subscription in order to see this. (Yes, the character is horribly, painfully Mary-Sue.)

As for Dinklage’s accent: I would assume that he’s going for “upper class Brit” to distinguish his Lannister character from the horde of variations on “working class Brit” accents that abound on the show. But he’s gone too far; he’s into Bertie Wooster territory, and it is distracting.

He’d do better to model his accent on the one Charles Dance is using (which is U without being too much the toff). That would be logical for the character, as well as being less obtrusive.

73

Whether what happened would be rape in Westeros as that society defines things is one thing (though since I don’t think we ever saw her give consent at any point, it seems to me that even there it would be rape).

But I’m not judging Jaime Lannister, I’m judging the director of the episode if he thinks what was shown was not rape by our society’s standards (even if consent had eventually been shown as given).

74

Maybe Littlefinger is supposed to sound like he’s trying hard to put on an accent from a station above his origins. But it still sounds very weird to me because you’d think he would be more convincing.

75

AKA one of the most frequently-used justifications for rape: “she says No, but she means Yes!”

Seriously, “consensual by the end”?..charming.

76

So, finally watched it.

Sansa being Sansa. “I told you not to trust anyone, people in this city are betraying cunts. does cunt thing, betrays and murders a pawn” “Oh, OK, I’m coming with you then ? drool”

I’m loving what a magnificent bastard Tywin is shown to be - we’d been *told *he was clever before, but taking a guy who explicitly and directly told you his primary motivation was to kill you, and only you ; turning that guy into your ally ? Smooth. His scene with Tommen was good too, but then again it’s somewhat easier to manipulate a kid who doesn’t know what a “leading question” is.

That rape scene. I’m less angry about it than my SO, who was in literal, upset tears. But goddamn, that’s some brutally tone deaf character derailment, and reading the director defend his Vision™ does make my blood boil further. A little. Simmer ? Gently fume ? It wasn’t clever and it made* no fucking sense* considering what we know of Jaime’s character. And it’s the second fucking time they do this - Drogo was the first.
That it prompted an internet debate on “what’s really rape, no, really, when you think about it ?” with plenty of disgusting opinions thrown about was the crowning cherry on that particular shitcake. Ugh. Anyway, moving on.

Tyrion is such a boss. He’s *so *gonna die.

Sam… again, drool. “There are violent sex-starved men here, I can’t protect you ! You’ll be much safer in a brothel that I know for fact these guys routinely visit !”. Herpty derpty derp. The other Crow subplot is an interesting fog of war thing, it’ll be interesting to see where that might go.

Stannis was a bit forgettable, but it’s interesting to note that Joffrey’s death seems to have made him believe the Red God stuff for realz, when last ep’s bonfires seemed more resignated and going through the motions. Davos + Shireen are as adorable as ever.

The Hound… I’m still torn on whether he’s been character derailed as hard as Jaime or whether he’s still crookedly true to himself. I mean, two episodes ago he seemed to derive pride from the fact that he drew the line at stealing. Now he just robs a guy. So, um, yeah. I guess he objects to taking away your stuff all sneaky like behind your back, but he’ll more than happily thump you for it ? Coming from a guy who in season 1 risked his own life just because some poor shlub was getting bullied by the Mountain ? It’s a bit schyzophrenic.
I was looking forward to Arya & Hound starring in Akira Kurosawa’s Two Samurais, too :frowning: :).

For all my spite at Dany in general, I gotta admit, the slave collar thing was clever imagery. I liked that - and I particularly like the fact that a more “inspired” director would have had her throw swords and clubs, ARISE ! SECOND AMENDMENT > TYRANTS ! style. But bringing ideas to a swordfight ? No, really, clever.

77

My guess is, she never saw that first child as “hers”. It was Robert’s. She never wanted to marry Robert and she never wanted to bear his children. I’m surprised she even gave birth to it in the first place. Though mayber she wasn’t sure if it was Robert’s or Jaime’s. Then when she saw the dark hair, she knew it was Robert’s.

78

In this episode he struck me as being sort of a working-class Tywin: an essentially amoral person who won’t be a hypocrite or apologize for his behavior, and can justify anything he does. Unlike Tywin he seems deeply embittered by his experiences and perhaps PTSD-ed by the Battle of the Blackwater.

79

This needs to be on a t-shirt.

80

How does it make no sense?

We have a character who has been imprisoned for the last year, who’s kept himself going with the idea of returning to his family, and his true love, his sister, for the whole time. He takes a very dangerous and exhausting journey as a captive, gets maimed and loses his identity in the process, and after all this trouble, he finally makes it home, and his family and his sister reject him anyway.

His sister is completely cold to him, essentially blaming him for being a victim. His father more or less disowns him. He’s frustrated that he can’t fulfill his knightly oath to Brienne. His son scoffs at the idea that he can protect him without his hand, and turns to Meryn as his primary protector. He recommits to the kingsguard rather than to be his father’s heir, and yet he loses another king - his son - right under his nose. No one is happy that he’s back, he’s more or less rejected by everyone - except Tyrion.

He’s under all of that psychological stress and disappointment and now he’s in that very room with his one love, and the corpse of their first son. It’s a very emotional time for him and at the very least he would at this point expect some closeness from his sister. And she hints at it - starting to be affectionate with him - but apparently only as a tool to attempt to get him to murder his brother, the only person in his family that didn’t reject him since he returned.

So he’s overtaken by a wide array of feelings. Resentment, anger, lust, frustration, helplessness, unrequited love, loss, sorrow. His sister shows reserved affections towards him - is it manipulation or simply a confused set of emotions on her part too? He’s overcome by the moment, an emotional need to connect with someone, to share something vital and close.

And her reactions are at least somewhat ambiguous. At first she says “not here” rather than simply “no”, and even after she protests, she still proactively responds to him by kissing him back at some points. She’s filled with conflicted emotions too, briefly giving in to the same needs that he has, but then realizing that it isn’t appropriate, going back and forth between implicit permission and rejection.

It’s not hard to believe that he’s simply overcome in the moment - I don’t know what you feel is supposed to be so out of character for him. I thought the conflicted nature of the scene, the sort of squeamish sort of rape was portrayed pretty well and makes sense.