Game of Thrones Season 2 - OPEN SPOILERS Discussion Thread

Cafe Society
101

I don’t get it either. They’re saying that they’re taking too many liberties with the story, but the liberties they do take are minor and make sense in an adaptation.

RAKHARO IS STILL ALIVE IN THE BOOKS! Well, great, but the actor had a prior commitment, and they’re having him take the place of Doreah’s death in the Red Waste, it appears. So not screwing with the plot, just making a different character die instead.

JACELYN BYWATER IS THE NEW CAPTAIN OF THE CITY WATCH, NOT BRONN! And here’s where I go ballistic. They HAVE to cut out the chaff in this if they’re going to make a remotely coherent TV show. 10 new characters an episode is not sustainable. Since I don’t think the Stokeworths were cast, we need some other way of raising Bronn’s position, and this was a good way of doing it. Again, it follows with the plot of the books, even though it’s not exactly in line with it.

STANNIS AND MELISANDRE DIDN’T HAVE SEX! Yes, they did. It may not have been “on camera,” but it was implied as heavily as say, Loras and Renly, or the above-mentioned Theon dick-flaying. It was implied a lot more than S=J, or Manderley’s Frey Pie incident. Seriously, if you’re enough of a fanboi that you’re ranting about the above, and you also rant about this, I’m going to think you’re an idiot.

THEY CHANGED ASHA’S NAME! Listen up. This is television. We already know that you and I are going to be watching it, because we read and loved the books. But there are people who are going to be watching this show who have not read the books…and I know it breaks your heart to hear it, but THESE ARE THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE. Whether this show survives or not depends entirely on the casual viewer–the one who didn’t read the books but watches the show because it sounds interesting and is on HBO. And anything that makes this show more accessible to the casual viewer without changing anything fundamental is fine by me. I want this show to succeed. But it’s not viable if it’s a word-for-word adaptation of the book. This change is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I’m shocked that it’s getting so much rage.

I thought this was one of the most tightly-written and well-paced episodes of the entire series so far. I loved Pyke (my husband and I were squeeing at it in the credits), Yara was as I pictured her, all saucy and tomboyishly cute, and Balon scared the piss out of me. Cersei and Tyrion again chewed up every scene they were in. Arya and Gendry are adorable, as are Samwell and Dolorous Edd. The scene with Ros was the weakest link (it always is), but it served the purpose to show that the only person who actually gives a shit about this dead baby is a whore–everyone else only cares to the extent of how it might affect their position. I think this will become important in two ways–it gives a window to how the smallfolk feel, which will make the street attack on Cersei and Sansa fit into the narrative more coherently, and if I’m right, Ros is replacing Chataya and Alayaya, which means that eventually she’ll have to do some double-crossing of Littlefinger, and this is the way their schism begins.

102

Jaqen H’ghar looks a lot younger than I would have expected. I looked up the actor and, surprisingly he’s 39 years old. But he looks around 25 (at first glance. He didn’t get much screen time). I don’t know. I was always picturing someone solidly mid 40s.

103

Is there any particular reason they changed Asha’s name in the series? I don’t see what purpose it serves.

Edit: Also, I’m curios to see where they go with the whole Craster knocking Jon out, as that definitely didn’t happen the books.

104

I just spoiled myself a bit - but if all that happens is that Theon has his dick flayed or cut off, I stand by my earlier remarks. Yah, the Stark clan isn’t all sweetness and light - but Theon’s conquest of Winterfell really was pretty brutal, and he left them helpless before the Bastard of Bolton.

Yes, what happens to Theon is brutal. What he did was brutal, too.

105

Honestly, I think it’s just because they wanted a slightly more distinctive name for the character. There’s already Arya Stark, and Aegon Targaryen in the backstory - both “A” names. If you want people to be able to keep a large cast straight on a television show, it helps to give them very different names.

And I agree - whoever casted Yara knew what they were about. Has it been too many years since Firefly to still be making “I’ll be in my bunk” jokes?

106

In reading the Wikipedia article for this episode it looks like they did it because they thought that Asha was too similar to Osha, the wildling woman at Winterfell. Makes sense I suppose.

107

That is not what happens to him. Several of his fingers are flayed and left to rot until he begs to have them amputated (i think some toes too). It is assumed the same thing is done to his dick. His teeth are broken with a hammer. He is locked in a cell and starved to the point were eating a live rat with his broken teeth is the best thing that happens to him in months. I think i am forgetting some stuff actually. And not sure why we are using spoilers all of the sudden.

108

So, any speculation as to what happens to Jon now that Craster has knocked him out? (Actually weird to be able to speculate about what’s happening in this show rather than knowing…)

I sure as heck hope that they don’t forget that he happens to possess a quasi-mystical bond with a gigantic direwolf…

109

I think if Craster wanted to kill him he’d have used an ax, not a club. So, i imagine he just drags Jon back to camp and kills the Watch out.

110

It seems like they might be planning to combine a lot of the Greyjoy parts into this new Yara character. So far no Damphair or mention of Euron or Victarion. I suspect we’ll have Victarion simply because he seems like too important of a character to leave out of the later books, but having just “Yara” as his nemesis would probably suffice for Euron and the Damphair probably can be disregarded altogether.

I don’t know why but the change of having Bronn as the new Captain of the Watch bumped me however Drain Beads explanation is pretty compelling. It sucks that there aren’t casting the Stokeworths because that makes me fear they won’t cast Taena Merryweather, which would be a real shame since I want some Taena /Cersei lesbionics.

111

I read somewhere that the books have 1300 named characters, but I don’t know how many of those characters have dialogue, let alone major scenes. I have to be okay with leaving out 1200 or so.

HBO loves girl-on-girl, so we’ll probably get some Cersei and Taena.

112

Damphair has been cast, I think we’ll get a baptism soon. I think we’ll get both Euron and Victarion too. They could be pretty important going forward. Neither really needs to be introduced until the kingsmoot though.

113

Also the story itself is pretty good at “cutting the chaff”. We are already down 4-5 main characters from season 1.

114

The problem is the hydra effect. Cut the head off one character and two more viewpoints pop up in his place.

115

And even if Rakharo has an important role in the next book, can’t Jogho or Arstan or someone fill it?

Sure. There’s too many characters for a TV show to keep up with.

Agree. She literally birthed a shadow version of Stannis out of her vagina, how else does one think that magic gets started?

See, I don’t like it because it seems like a pointless change. No one is going to confuse Osha and Asha, because they never meet. Neither do Arya and Asha. Half the time we don’t even really hear a characters name anyway. I get that there’s a lot that has to change, but unnecessary changes irk me. But yeah, i the grand scheme of things, it’s not important.

116

On the other hand, Yara is an anagram of Arya. Maybe the writers have just been reading too many OOTS webcomics.

117

Yeah, if the rationale is that Asha and Arya are too similar sounding, going to Yara is even worse.

118

I’m surprised they haven’t cut/condensed more characters. From here on out the book series is pretty continuously adding new settings and new characters faster then they’re dying, and the main plot more or less disappears into a series of vignettes.

And since we don’t have the last two books, its probably pretty hard to figure out who you can safely cut.

I’ve enjoyed the series so far, but I’m glad its not my job to figure out how to make the later books into something filmable. (or affordable, each new set and character presumably costs money as well).

119

But it doesn’t sound anything like Arya.

120

Yar-uh, Ar-e-yuh, those sound pretty similar to me.