Yes, what Bozuit and Bone said. I haven’t read the books yet, so have no idea whether posts that refer to the author and writing style are spoilering anything. And I shouldn’t have to wonder. The point of these non-spoiler threads is to talk about the HBO series as an independent and for-television-written series. Making any book references, whether to GRRM or anyone else, makes no sense. Book writing and screenplay writing are only distantly related.
Not being able to reference Martin at all is stupid. His name is in the credits and it’s common for fans to know who is a driving force behind the scenes even if they’re not a series creator.
A small moment I appreciated: After sending the Hound tumbling down a hill, Brienne starts calling for Arya. The camera pans up to a rock formation, and we don’t notice anything unusual until suddenly Arya moves, stands up and walks off.
I think it was shot this way deliberately, to reveal Arya as a character who can blend in to her surroundings, and be for all practical purposes invisible - a handy talent for someone not large or strong enough yet to prevail by force.
One hopes, if she winds up training with the Faceless bunch in Bravos, she uses her stealth for good and not for evil.
No, we must treat the show as if a film crew has been magically transported to the actual world of “Game of Thrones”, and this is a “The Office”-like documentary. Except that doesn’t work, because the film crew got involved in that one. We must treat this as if it’s “Planet Earth”, but without the David Attenborough voiceover.
Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s not that hard.
Yeah it’s not that hard. I’m one of the biggest sticklers for the spoiler rules, but I don’t think that a general reference to Martin and the world he created is a reference to the books. He is a creator of the TV series.
As I pointed out, Sherrerd was also needlessly referring to the title of the book series rather than the actual TV series. You have to read it all to know there’s not a spoiler there. Meloy’s and Munch’s posts were pure straw man - I haven’t seen anyone seriously claim that any references to Martin should be excluded. But if your post is full of references to an author and a book series he’s writing, it’s reasonable to assume the post is about those books.
As I said, it’s not a big deal and no harm was done by Sherrerd’s post, but this whole thing is easily avoidable.
Um…whoosh. Though as absurd as the discussions and defense of the “no books” rule gets in here, I can see the confusion. Poe’s Law, I guess.
If you were being ironic, my apologies.
Hmm, I thought she was basically hiding behind a rock. Maybe it was just me but I saw her plain as day leaning up and lying still against the rock.
Game of Thrones TBT pics (Throwback Thursdays)
Olenna wasn’t kidding when she was boasting about her bygone sexual prime.
You must be too young to remember Mrs Peel in her leather jumpsuit.
I’ll be in my bunk.
Your TV might be better than mine - when I watched, until she moved she blended right in.
I, too, saw her immediately. You might try adjusting your brightness and/or contrast.
I can’t work out why you think that this makes sense.
I haven’t read the books. My post did not refer to anything that happens in the books, because I don’t know what happens in the books.
“Needlessly referring to the title of the book series”…what does that mean? How does referring to the fact that the TV series is not an original work from the imaginations of the show runners, spoil anything?
You really need to answer that question if you want us to believe that simply typing the word “Song” violates the no-spoiler rule.
Yes. As mentioned above, there’s no conceivable way that spoilers are conveyed to a post’s readers, simply by typing “Martin” or “Song.”
Calls for eliminating the typing of “Song” and “Martin” do not evince intelligence. The point of “no spoilers,” surely, is to avoid posting spoilers…isn’t it? Or is it, instead, intended to be some sort of ritualistic prohibition on the typing of certain words, regardless of whether the words convey any information contained in the as-yet unfilmed books?
I suppose that ritual has its place–but surely that place is not The Straight Dope.
That was my experience, too (and I agree that it was a clever set-up by the director).
(I guess there are some advantages to having a less-fancy tv set…;))
I thought that, too. The chief guard should’ve said something like, “Wait here while I check with his lordship.” He’s got all those archers on the ravine’s heights to make sure they sit tight. If Littlefinger ever finds out that Arya Stark was there and was allowed to just walk away, he will not be a happy camper.
Yes! It would’ve been a great scene if one corpse wasn’t burned, but was secured atop a pile of wood and tinder, and kept under observation until it went all violent and ice-zombie. Then you could burn it. Stannis and his top dudes could see all that and then really know what Jon Snow was talking about.
Even more decent than the Starks?
Robb Stark was also married at a weirwood tree, wasn’t he?
As Brienne says, she’s not a knight. Westeros doesn’t seem to have a title for such a person - she’s not a “ser.”
I disagree. His real objective is to be King of Westeros. Destroying the White Walkers is something he has to do to secure his realm.
Yes. I liked that Rayder toasted May and then Grenn, and Jon, in reply, reversed them.
We generally leave these threads to Gukumatz, but please take the argument about spoilers somewhere else. It doesn’t belong in this thread.
The point of the “act as if the books don’t exist” rule is to prevent this sort of hijack. The season one threads were probably half arguments about what was and what wasn’t allowed to be talked about, so we adopted a “fuck it, no mention of the books at all” stance and things went much smoother, for the most part.
She was also kind to Sansa, although partly as a means of intelligence-gathering.
This seems to be the rule in Westeros: Primogeniture - Wikipedia
Quite so. If Charles Dance gets an Emmy for playing Tywin (and I think he should), they should show this scene. He is so clearly reluctant to admit the awful truth of what Cersei is telling him, but can think of no way to rebut it. Here is a strong, decisive man utterly flummoxed.
I thought that was an interesting scene - the queen as lawgiver. She’s probably going to have to place some limits on those contracts other than their duration alone.
I wonder if a Balrog’s wings could do the job just as well…?
Agreed, but she has mixed motives - she’s not granting him mercy, but neither is she actively killing him. Letting him suffer is her least bad option under the circumstances. There is a tiny, tiny chance that he might survive and, notwithstanding her oft-cited list of people who need killin’, she is purposefully choosing not to be his murderer.
As to Shae… her true nature as (a) unloving, self-interested and deceptive whore, (b) longtime agent of Tywin or (c) genuine lover of Tyrion (until spurned) is, I think, purposefully ambiguous and essentially unknowable. There is enough data to support any of those views.