This is very close to where I’m at. I’ve no problem with a show going dark and the good guys getting whacked but in this show Ned was a major reason why I watched. The Imp, Dinklage is superb, is interesting as well and I like the tomboy daughter and the Lannister incest couple but without Ned I think I may struggle to give a crap about the drama.
I’ll stay with it and have started listening to the audio books(starting with the 1st one even though I’m watching it as well) but the chances of me giving up on it have risen quite significantly.
Ned has been portrayed as having a reputation for honor and honesty, so yes, I think he may well have been believed. Particularly given the circumstantial evidence of Joffrey’s shock of blonde hair.
The what, now? How would announcing the queen’s incest be “saving his own skin?” It would most likely result in his immediate death.
Seems to me that the queen was gambling awfully heavily on Ned being willing to publicly sacrifice his honor by giving a false confession.
Most of us who read Game of Thrones were appalled by Ned’s execution. But we managed to retain sufficient interest in the story to eagerly read all the books that followed & clamor for more.
If you don’t want to watch, don’t. But don’t expect others to care about *your *inability to care.
He may have had that reputation, but who in the crowd was likely to know it, and obviously they already believed he was a traitor, so why would they trust his rep when they “know” he’s a traitor already?
I imagine the new King wouldn’t let out the book of lineages that shows that Robert has only black-haired ancestors.
He might be betting on the crowd coming to his side. Although that would be a silly idea.
His daughter would be tortured if he turned tail. And no one would believe him. So what exactly would be to gain? Ned is rational, she’s betting on his honor to keep him from doing something random and pointless and deadly to his daughter.
At this point in the story, I found myself caring a lot more, because if Ned can die, anyone else can die as well. In fact, it’s had a weird effect on me: now, if I can tell that a story’s protagonists are immune to death, I have a lot more trouble caring about the story. I say this with no spoilers whatsoever*: do you think Arya is safe from death? Tyrion? Jon? Robb? Cersei? Who, at this point, has authorial immunity? Doesn’t that make the tension ramp way the fuck up? That’s definitely what it did for me.
And because this story is such a cast-of-thousands story, Ned’s death doesn’t end it, not by a long shot. It just means more attention will be given to the stories of other characters.
And nobody better come in here and provide any spoilers, either.
None of this is spoiler, as I have not read a single page of the books:
I pretty much thought Ned had to die from the beginning. This book/season is the first in a long series, and they introduced us to several generations of characters. Of course the older generation is going to die. It’d frankly be a pretty boring story if Ned assumed the throne, united the [del]clans[/del] realm, and we went into season 2 all happy and shit. The first episode pretty much opened with a stag being found dead and rotting - you can’t be too surprised when the Stag House faces some tough losses by the end of the season, can you? And while there are a crap-ton of characters to keep track of, I find it really hard to believe that only Ned the Foolhardy would be found sympathetic.
I think what I’m seeing from some non-book readers is a fear that without Ned, the story has now lost its moral center and will degenerate into an existential clash of amoral characters - that the heart will be gone. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I will say that the heart is not gone, and morality is not gone.
Ned was known to the other Great Families & members of the Council. How well did the rabble of Kings Landing know him? That ill-dressed, ragged Northerner who’d fought in that war, years ago. A friend of the fat, dead King.
Would he have had time to educate the crowd in the intricacies of Genetics in Westeros? No, they’d just think he was a raving traitor, saying bad things about their brave little King.
Any outburst would not have prevented his death & would probably have caused Sansa’s. And he knew Arya was in the crowd; her capture & death was quite possible.
I agree that Ned wouldn’t have been well served by ranting about Joffrey’s genetics at Baelor’s. Still, were I in his place, I would have at least made my first statement before my confession along the lines of, “I have been assured by the crown that confessing to my crimes will earn the mercy of His Grace, and that despite my crimes I will be allowed to live and serve the realm in the Night’s Watch. Was my understanding correct, Your Grace?” Not that looking like a double-dealing fraud in public would necessarily prevent Joffrey “I’m King, I Can Do Whatever I Want” Baratheon from beheading you, but at least you’d cement his reputation as an unstable tyrannical maniac in the public mind.
This reminds me of an interview of GRRM I saw once when he relayed an interesting anecdote.
He said that sometimes he’ll have fans come up to him and tell him how they’ve named pets (and sometimes even children) after characters in the books. His response is always (to the effect of) “I wish you hadn’t done that. You never know what they’ll end up doing. If you’re going to do that, wait until the character dies.”
Meaning that all of his characters are shades of grey. Despicable ones might turn out to be very moral and vice versa.
I’m not worried that morality is gone, it’s just that I don’t find any of the other characters sympathetic. I had the same problem with SOPRANOS – we watched the first season, because we thought Tony had some possibility of change and thus was a sympathetic character. We learned that he didn’t, and wasn’t. Nor his wife nor anyone else. Frankly, I had the same problem with SEINFELD (although to a less extent.) I don’t care to spend my time watching a show with characters who are (mostly) all shitty people, screw each other.
Yes, there are still some moral characters, but I don’t find any of them engaging.
Not in the least. I’ve been through plenty of shows where a character that I cared about was killed, but it’s either (1) the END of the story, like the tragedy of Hamlet, or (2) there’s always been some OTHER character to identify/symathize/empathize with. In this case, there’s no one else that I find interesting enough to invest my time.
Ah, I forgot that these threads were only for those who love the books and show. Sorry.
It’s uncalled for to uninvite opinions like Dex’s from the thread.
Given that, I find his opinion mystifying and inconceivable! If a story is a good story then I absolutely do not need someone to identify with personally on the basis of morality or sympathy whose well-being I need to be preserved until the end of the tale.
So long as Hamlet has come up – Richard III, man! Richard the Fucking Third! Not one sympathetic character in a prominent position from beginning to end. Just old Dicky being a murderous shit from start to finish until Henry Tudor shows up and kills him.
First. It is very possible that this story just isn’t for you. If you only liked Ned…well then you probably won’t like the rest of the story, because Ned isn’t in it anymore. Personally, by this point I liked a whole bunch of people. Danny, Jon (who sucks on the show, but was one of my favorite characters in the book), Arya, Tyrion, Jorah, Varys and others.
Second. Give the last episode a shot. My guess is that you will find the events of the end of the book/season compelling enough to continue on. If you don’t, no harm no foul. This is very much not a a story for everyone, and I know lots of people who gave up after the first book and I don’t think less of them for it.
Also, like I said upthread (which you probably didn’t read) this *is *the end of Ned’s story and Ned had to die for the rest of the story to move forward. It’s a whole and complete story that also happens to serve as set up for a much larger richer story. But this is the end of the story, and I think it was a good one. Ned is a tragic hero, and he died. So if you leave after the last episode, that’s cool. You at least got Ned’s whole story, and if that’s all you wanted to get out of it, there is nothing wrong with that. Enjoy his tragedy for what it is and move on.
Of course these threads are for expressing your opinion, whatever that may be. But no work of art will please everybody & I’m not going to try to convince you that you ought to continue watching.
I’d suggest that you, at least, watch the last episode this Sunday but not if your mind is already made up.
Of course these threads are for expressing your opinion, whatever that may be. But no work of art will please everybody & I’m not going to try to convince you that you ought to continue watching.
I’d suggest that you, at least, watch the last episode this Sunday–but not if your mind is already made up.
If a story is a good story then I absolutely do not need someone to identify with personally on the basis of morality or sympathy whose well-being I need to be preserved until the end of the tale.