I think it’s a lot more that they can’t leave one of the main characters of the show for several seasons.
I don’t think that’s the only reason.
In the book, Theon pretty much disappears for a book or two, then reappears as Reek, which you gradually realize in Theon after several chapters.
It would be unrealistic to have the show completely blow off a core character for a couple seasons, then bring him back. And it would be next to impossible to hide that Reek was really Theon on TV unless they resorted to some sort of heavy makeup or never showing his face, both of which would be really hard to pull off.
Plus, torture porn may be good for the ratings. Given that we know that’s really what went on, I can’t get too worked up over it. I think they’re handling it well.
Re:Theon, I was hoping they would leave him as defiant, so that next season when we see him completely broken, it’s a big gap (like we in the books had) I felt that ‘breaking’ was pretty accelerated. Speaking of asking an actor to disappear for a season, how much was Littlefinger used this season? about 3 episodes?
Jamie arriving before everything is a twist. I’m interested to see how that works out. I do believe the wedding has to be early in the season, just because there’s so much I want to see happen in the aftermath.
Like most GoT season finales, a lot of moving chess pieces into position…
It wasn’t explicit, but I think it was clear. If memory serves, there are at least three references, one as Theon thinks back on his torture and the flaying of his fingers, and has a brief thought about something else, something worse, but not specified. One to him not really being a man or something like that, and the clincher is when Ramsey orders him to service Jeyne with his mouth, because that’s the only way he can.
Of course the show’s sausage and dick-in-a-box scenes bring a whole new level of certainty.
Yeah, I like your idea. I thought it was weird and not believable that they peeled skin off parts of his body, cut his genitals off, and fucked with his head beyond all reason, and he’s still defiant, but then 3 smacks in the face and he gives in? If they’d elided it over the season break, and we came back to him completely broken, our imaginations would fill in what Ramsey did more horrifyingly than anything they could show.
With regards to Tyrion killing Shae… I’m hoping they drop that from the show. I thought killing Shae was horribly out of character for Tyrion in the first place, and hooking up with Tywin was out of character for Shae. It tainted the entire scene for me.
With the changes they’ve made so far in the show it would be even more out of character for both of them.
What would have worked better, and would work even better in the show, would be for Tyrion to do something insubordinate to Tywin, and for Tywin to ‘teach him his place’ by killing Shae, fulfilling the promise he made to kill any whore Tyrion brought to King’s Landing. That would also then provide even more justification for Tyrion killing Tywin.
What I think they’re really going to miss on the show is Theon/Reek’s insanity. The repetition of “Reek it rhymes with…” really unnerved me (in a good way) in the books.
Why did they have to keep showing the torture. It cannot be to have something for the actor to do. They brought two back after 2 years in this last episode.
I really wish they had introduced Lady Stoneheart. Unless they are going to have to recast it, they missed a perfect opportunity to end it on a twist.
I couldn’t disagree with this more. It really helped drive home that Tyrion had become unhinged.
Did he really become unhinged? Later in the books he seems like the old Tyrion, except more beaten down and without many resources. Am I misremembering that? Are there any scenes later on which show him to have the kind of brutality or unhinged behavior that allowed him to strangle the woman he loved?
He became depressed, but I wouldn’t say unhinged. I think he realized that his “love” for Shae was based on a lie, much like his love for Tysha. I think he had JUST discovered from Jaime, also, that Tysha was not a whore, was really in love with him, and that probably played a part in his reaction when discovering that Shae was just a whore all along.
Finding Shae in Tywin’s bed makes BOTH of them huge hypocrites who have betrayed him, from Tyrion’s perspective. Well, Tywin has already betrayed him, but now his hypocrisy is fully exposed. It’s really not out of character for him to kill Shae as well… he was already planning to kill Tywin.
Yeah, he had literally just learned a moment before that his father had the only girl who really loved him gang raped and that he took part in it. Then he finds Shae on his bed, btw book shae was just a silly girl concerned only about her dresses and jewels and that she couldn’t wear them while she was pretending to be a maid. At that point it was perfectly in character to kill her and him.
I think you may be right about Tywin killing Shae in the show. Perhaps he’ll put her on the stand in Tyrion’s trial, and she’ll try to defend him, but it will come out that she is his lover/whore, and Tywin will sentence her to death. Which will then further motivate Tyrion to take revenge.
It’s been a long time since I read the book, but am I the only one who thought Coldhands was the missing uncle?
No. That was a popular theory until ADWD came out.
Stoneheart shows up in the Epilogue of book 3. We’re still another season away from that happening.
Wait, did I miss something in ADWD? Cuz I still thought Coldhands was Benjen.
I believe it was revealed that Coldhands has been dead far too long for it to have been Benjen.
I’m hoping we’ll meet Coldhands next season but meeting him now would be something else to look forward to…
It’s okay that he didn’t help Sam and Gilly, because it lets Sam be a hero, get some respect at the Wall. But leaving Coldhands out means that we have a flimsy reason for Bran to travel north – finding the bird.
Is the three-eyed bird going to be the Greenseer? It can’t communicate with Bran south of the Wall?
I think all we know about Coldhands is that he’s been dead “for a long time”. I wouldn’t be upset if he turned out to be Benjen.
I’m really disappointed there was no Lady Stoneheart.
And no Coldhands? That says to me that he ends up being very important or very unimportant in the last two books. If his help can be green-dreamed into Jojen before he kicks it, then I can see not bothering to introduce him. Or he is a super huge deal and they’re just postponing him, like they did with Jojen and Meera.
I’m betting Coldhands shows up very soon after Bran and Co. pass the wall, the first episode maybe. Hope so, anyway.
And I like the idea of Tywin killing Shae, there was even something in the conversation between he and Tyrion at the small council table that made me think he knew about Shae. I got chills. Will have to rewatch it and see what it was. He’ll, he could even justify it as a way of being sure Tyrion impregnates Sansa rather than wasting the Lannister seed. Tyrions sons will be the only ones Tywin ever gets, after all, the only untainted Lannister heir, unless Cercei gets knocked up again by someone other than Jaimie.