At the start of the episode, I was pretty sure Oberyn would triumph. He seemed to have interesting avenues for character development while the Mountain was nothing more than a big slab of meat. Makes sense to keep him alive for future stories. But then he started showing off in front of the crowd before the fight and I got that sinking feeling. The guy who shows off like that never wins. Bronn would have never done anything like that. I honestly have no idea what will happen to Tyrion, but I kind of think he’s going to survive somehow. The series is very short on likable protagonists and while it’s dark, I don’t think it would be wise to get so dark as to have the show be completely dominated by people the audience doesn’t care if they live or die.
I wonder, though, if Oberyn’s fate foreshadows Arya’s future. Oberyn fell because he let his obsession get the better of him. Is Arya going to meet the same fate at the hands of someone on her list?
Oh, and count me as another who really didn’t see the outcome of the fight coming. Particularly once Oberyn started showing off them Shaolin skills of his.
It seemed like a textbook example of skill versus strength, the confident hero against the dumb brute, overcoming through training when the Mountain’s coasted through brawn and ferocity alone his entire life… and then oops, turns out the plucky hero was damaged goods and pop goes the [del]weasel[/del] occipital lobe. Turns out might does make right because fuck you that’s why, life is unfair, *do *wear a helmet.
It’s pretty good subversion from where I’m standing.
It did seem like a textbook example, right up until Oberyn started showing off. The theme of this show seems to be that if you want to get ahead, you need to play your hand close to your chest and ruthlessly seize any opportunity that presents itself. That’s how Bronn wins his fights and I think he’s more or less the ideal fighter in Westeros. The way I had imagined the fight, the Mountain would step up, do some kind of intimidating roar or something, while Oberyn just smirked. He would dance around, dodge and parry until the crucial moment where he got the upper hand and strike. I kinda thought that the fight would be a way to show that House Martell is a force to be reckoned with, beneath all of that hedonism they’re always just waiting for the right moment. You know, build them up as a credible threat to the Lannisters for future plotlines. When he started his dance routine, though, it dawned on me that someone who places that kind of confidence over pragmatism is not someone long for Westeros.
I don’t know that it was him showing off, per se. I mean, before the fight took place everybody and I mean everybody including Oberyn’s paramour (who’s presumably been around him long enough to know he’s not a complete Muppet in a scrap) is convinced that he doesn’t have a chance in Hell and the Mountain is going to roll over him like he were a kitten. The pre-combat twirling, to me, was “Hey. Guys. GUYS. I actually know what the fuck I’m doing, OK ? Give me some bleedin’ credit.”
It’s a *little *complacent, I suppose, but I didn’t take it as him wordlessly going “this is going to be too easy”. To me, until the “no, no, no, that just won’t do” part that is, it spoke of self-confidence, not hubris - though I realize the line can be thin.
There is merit to what you’re saying, but I have a couple quibbes with this pararaph. Sansa is not a decent person; she’s a spoiled, petulant little shit who doesn’t care about anyone else but herself. Consider her treatment of Arya and her handmaid-lady back in Winterfell, or even how cunty she was to Robin last episode.
Oberyn had no interest in avenging wrongs, defending the weak, or stepping up for Tyrion because it was the right thing to do. (It wasn’t even the right thing if he did, since without outside knowledge there’s no reason to think Tyrion is innocent.) He was on a personal vendetta, no more, no less. It had nothing to do with Tyrion or his plight.
I didn’t see it that way, at all. As others have said, it seemed that she was laughing at The Hound’s continuing run of bad luck. Since he ran into Arya, all he’s been thinking of and planning for is cashing in on delivering her to her family and getting the fuck out of Westeros with a decent bankroll. After a long journey, right when he thought he’d reached his goal, the Red Wedding spoiled his plans to deliver her to her mother and brother. Now, after another long journey, where he found out he now has a price on his head and apparently acquired a nasty infection, the news of another likely “missed it by that >< much” FAIL was just too much for Arya to resist laughing at his misfortune.
She never expressed any desire to go to The Vale. She didn’t know her aunt and has no idea Sansa is there. I find it hard to see her all of a sudden having a nervous breakdown upon finding out some unknown aunt died. Now that all/most of her immediate family are dead for all she knows, she just doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than working on her list. She seems to prefer adventuring all over Westeros, not having to act all noble and ladylike. It’s not hard to see how she may not really be looking forward to being delivered to another castle where she’ll be expected to be all “highborn” again, and where she won’t be able to work on her list.
If there’s any character that has rolled with the punches and shown they can adapt to the constant changes and adversity without having a nervous breakdown over something relatively trivial, it’s Arya.
I had a massive crush on Oberyn and tuned in to watch him cause an upset and win against the odds in a sexy sort of way. Was really looking forward to my evening, too.
Of course she was laughing because The Hound had gone to so much trouble to bag the loot, that’s the kind of relationship they have. It was especially amusing to her because he only missed out by three days.
Fwiw, I think the only audience demographic that gets off on this is teenage boys, everyone else starts on a scale from ambivalent to never-watching-again.
But then teenage girls will be especially drawn in by the Grey Worm/maid and it’s, err, complications.
I do think the show is an object lesson in maintaining a huge number of spinning plates, each representing an audience demographic; everyone is at least interested in two or three character and story arcs and, while you’re waiting for your turn, here’s a nice set of tits or here’s handsome men protecting you from the bad people.
She was a petulant little shit in season 1, but she was only 13 or so, and had stars in her eyes. Most 13 year olds are petulant little shits.
As to Robin, he deserved getting slapped and worse. Far more of a little shit than Sansa ever was… Sansa never fantasized about making people fall to their deaths.
Roll with the punches ?! She’s become a pint-sized psychopath with a death mantra. She’s not rolling, she’s broken.
And while I do agree that in the grand scheme of things, from her cracked perspective Aunt Lysa is relatively trivial, it was still a promise of safety and comfort for a time. And her death could just have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, one more tiny little ass-nugget on the gigantic pile of shit life’s been industriously heaping upon her. People have shot up post offices for less.
I found the episode pretty much a downer throughout. The Dark Side was constantly scoring little victories throughout the episode - nothing “good” really happened. Plus, with the build up and the episode title, it started to feel like we were getting trolled by the total absence of King’s Landing for almost the whole episode, then a long fucking monologue about beetles. The shockingness of Oberyn’s death was the icing on the cake (if I liked neither icing nor cake) - for me it was the way The Mountain gloated over raping and killing Elia while sticking his thumbs in Oberyn’s eyes, the live demonstration of what he claims to have done to Elia’s children followed by the scream of Oberyn’s lover - in the end I just didn’t enjoy the episode much.
I almost fully expected Oberyn to win, until he started that twirly shit; then I was worried. The thing is, Oberyn has no excuse. He’s supposed to be a good fighter, and he has had years to study The Mountain and how to kill him. The Mountain turning him into a puddle of gore seems, to me, to be simultaneously unjustified and incredibly obvious.
Robb’s story is part of other’s. What he did or didn’t do had great effects for the Lannisters, Baratheons and King’s Landing. And now his death has affected The North, The Boltons, The Greyjoys, etc. If Arya died, it would affect almost nothing. Few know she is alive, and no one with any power cares much one way or the other at the moment. It’s always possible that deaths will have consequences we don’t anticipate, but at the moment it wouldn’t seem to serve much of a purpose as it would change almost nothing.
From *your *perspective she’s a broken psychopath. In the “real” world of Westeros, she’s remarkably well adapted, which will only help her avoid getting physically broken, like much of her family already has.
She hasn’t shown one iota of interest in safety or comfort and “promise” is something she’s already learned is only for suckers. Again, given her environment and circumstances, these are all positive traits. The most likely outcome of her supposed “promise of safety and comfort” at The Vale is being forced to marry Robin “Make them fly!” Arryn. So, yeah, no.
At first, I thought perhaps Oberyn didn’t wear a helmet because it affected his perception. I would imagine that they screw with your hearing and peripheral vision, and he couldn’t afford the hit to his agility and awareness. Whether it was that or plain arrogance, we’ll never know, but it may have saved him.
Still, helmet or no, his fatal mistake was clearly easing up on The Mountain so he could confess before Oberyn killed him. If he’d just pressed the attack, he wouldn’t have needed the helmet or a closed-casket funeral.
I mean, the Mountain is evil. Really, really evil. Sociopathically evil. And so are the people who keep him around to kill their enemies for them. I thought the episode made that point pretty well, and the blood and gore served a point.