Watching it last night, it wasn’t clear to me the Sand Snakes were after Myrcella (even though, having read the books, that makes sense). It seemed to me they were after Jaime. All in all, this was the clumsiest, weakest sequence in the TV series, made worse because it’s not in the books.
Showing up at the exact same time isn’t even the worst of it. Though that’s just laughable from an implausibility standpoint.
But really, you have Myrcella and Trystane who apparently have no guards around them. And you have Ellaria Sand who has full access to the entire palace. So even if your plan was something really really stupid like “I’m going to kidnap Myrcella in broad daylight from inside the castle!” how would you go about doing it?
Well, for starters, you’re probably not going to need a secret force of Sand Snakes. Because you can just walk right up to Myrcella yourself and say “hey, Myrcella. Can you come up to my room and help me try on dresses?” or “Does this cloth smell like milk of the poppy to you?” or whatever. Literally a dozen other non-violent means of going about your plan because you have 100% access to her at any time you’d like.
But ok, you send a goon squad in. And they simultaneously meet two dudes trying to abduct the same princess! Oh no! Here’s a choose your own adventure. Do you:
Fight them off using everyone available? If so, go to page 45.
Have one of your teammates attempt to kidnap her anyway, lessening your attack capabilities? Go to page 96.
Page 96: What timing! The palace guards show up! Do you:
Say to the guards “oh thank the Gods, you’ve arrived! These imposters killed some guards, knocked out Trystane and were about to abduct Myrcella! We did the best we could delaying them. Arrest them immediately!” Go to page 76
Say to the guards “I AM OBARA SAND DAUGHTER OF OBERYN MARTELL AND FUCK ALL Y’ALLS! IMMA KILL THIS BITCH!” Go to jail.
Just some bad choices all around for everyone.
Reek’s redemption will be even more meaningful to the TV viewers of the show when he helps Sansa escape. In my mind I see a scene where, after he runs the ramparts, he confesses not killing her younger brothers.
There is still a chance Brienne and Pod will come across the Lady Stoneheart AND the monks in her search for Sansa.
I’ll also add that Jamie and Bronn’s trip to Dorn is also a shortening and bringing together of plot elements that GRRM left floating around in his quest to not only to not finish a single story arc but to continually add subplots that go no where for no reason. This does not bother me because I didn’t give a fig about Dorn when I read it in the books.
Agreed, but I think they were going for Myrcella.
Remind me, have any of the GOT shows discussed the raucous “wed them and bed them” customs of Westeros, as described in the books, where the wedding guests drunkenly undress the newlyweds and throw them in bed together? Because we didn’t see that in Ramsay and Sansa’s nuptials.
Nope - the opportunity for any redemption in the eyes of the viewers passed when he allowed the rape.
As someone who loves Dorne, the “shortening and bringing together of plot elements” has been horrifically done. It was much more interesting and entertaining when Arianne Martell stole Myrcella away with the Sand Snakes help, in the middle of the night, IIRC, along with one of the Kingsguard who was sent to guard her. It was a great story arc which ultimately led to Doran informing Arianne of the lengths he had been going through to get revenge for Elia.
This is what I was alluding at earlier up thread. I’m assuming only Targaryen blood can fly dragons and with no baby Aegon and with Maester Aemon dead by the final season/episodes it just leaves John, Dany and Tyrion assuming of course all speculation is true. There may be evidence in the the TV show itself if look for it. Tywin’s last words were “you’re no son of mine”. There was also that episode early in season 3 where Tyrion asks for Casterly Rock and Tywin rebuffs him saying something to the effect that the only reason he acknowledges Tyrion as his son is because of the laws of men, he can’t prove otherwise, etc. It would really add to the show IMO if they went in this direction.
I think that if the audience would be willing to forgive his killing and roasting of two innocent young boys, then letting his master have sex with his unwilling bride is next to nothing.
They talk about it at the Red Wedding.
I don’t see allowing marital rape as any impediment at all for Theon’s redemption. Hell, in the book Theon takes part in the rape of Jeyne and it’s a sympathetic moment for his character.
Hilarious. It seems like the average Int in that world is more like 80 than 100, so just about everyone is stupid as fuck.
nm
Thanks. Didn’t want to pitch in any book-only stuff in the show thread.
Didn’t Joffrey attempt that with Sansa when she was married to Tyrion? Seems like I remember that, and Tyrion drunkenly threatening him as a result.
How was he supposed to stop it?
His physical condition was not strong enough to overpower Ramsay and more importantly, his mental condition - after being tortured - was very weak and made it unlikely that he could do anything about it.
The only chance he might have had was if he had a weapon and could sneak up behind Ramsay and kill him with a single blow.
Yes. You are correct. I guess I forgot. Thank you.
But, why is she washing corpses? Is that relevant to becoming an assassin?
Apparently becomes a assassin requires days and months of boring mysterious menial work- which HBO is happy to show you every minute of- since they can pack only so much torture, rape, beheadings and boobies in one epi without being called on it.
It wasn’t the royal residence though, wasn’t it? More like the royal vacation home that Doran uses as his de facto capital because of gout.
WAG: it’s a southern thing. The weddings we have seen have Seven-heavy symbolism.
Menial work, “wax on” type stuff that leads to insights/ensures seriousness. Plus your dead skin masks need to be clean!
I’m sure the royal vacation home would be pretty well guarded. It isn’t like when the President of the US goes to his vacation home, that they leave 2 guards at the door and that’s it.
The show has seemingly made that work (Ned forbidding a bedding at his wedding to Cat), but in the books, it was observed in the North as well (Ned and Cat do indeed have a bedding and Sansa recalls the beddings she’s observed from afar, since she was a kid, before her own marriage to Tyrion).
It also gave us Areo Hotah being a badass, (with his great line that “somebody always talks”) and introduced Dark Star (although YMMV, I personally didn’t like his emo shtick, but I know some people liked him).
I’m a couple of episodes behind, but this makes me said - I liked the Dorne chapters (except for Quentyn’s aimless quest) and the Ironborn chapters a lot. Ditching them so we can see more Ramsey ‘Westeros Psycho’ Bolton and Jaime and Bronn rescue Myrcella seems lame.
I fear that as the season progresses we’ll see more of Benioff and Weiss’s weak additions. IMHO Game of Thrones is much like the Jackson Tolkien adaptations - everything that’s been added has ranged from ‘okay I guess but a bit shit really’ to ‘downright awful’. Which is really infuriating when so much of the stuff that has been cut for time was really good.