I am absolutley adoring Peter Dinkelage’s work as Tyrion. Despite him being a Lannister and a complete ass at times, reading the books he became a pretty sympathetic character for me. I think his portrayal is spot on.
Mentioned upthread was relayed thoughts that Cat’s hate for Jon seemed to come from nowhere. It would be easy to miss but in the first ep, at the end of the archery scene, Jon is placing arrows back in the barrel and gets a very cold look from Cat up on the verandah. I thought it was a great little touch.
A question, does anyone know what breed of dog is being used for the Dire Wolves? I was thinking maybe Husky? or Malamut?
And in case anyone didn’t know, the Dire Wolf is an actual Ice Age species (canis dirus) that went extinct about 16,000 years ago. Slightly larger and shorter-legged than a grey wolf.
Having not read the books, I’m still finding it pretty easy to keep track of most of it. I just took Cat’s dislike of Jon as being because he is a reminder of Ned being unfaithful once.
However, I did cave in and look at wikipedia, so spoiler request regarding Lannisters:
I can’t let this go – no, it isn’t. Sansa hadn’t yet begun to menstruate, hence she was still a child in this world.
A child who, unlike her sister, had never played with the boys and learned how to fight – i.e., learned how to kill, learned that violence and death were expected of them and their livelihoods – but spent her childhood doing exactly a girl in her position was supposed to do: learn how to be a gently-bred lady. If she’s shocked that the world isn’t all sunshine and roses, it’s not because she’s stupid, it’s because she’s never been in the position to learn that lesson. Her along with all the other little girls who were bred to be ladies. It’s not like everyone else in this world knows what’s what and she’s the only holdout.
Her lie to the queen about what happened down at the river showed this very well (Martin did a good job at characterizing this girl) – she’s not a brat and therefore didn’t try to hurt her sister, but acted in the most diplomatic (and passive) way she could think of: “I don’t know what happened.” This is entirely in line with her upbringing and personality.
It’s a shame that so many dismiss her as stupid because she’s not. You may not like her, but she’s not stupid, she’s written very consistently and realistically, and Martin’s a sly fox in creating this character who is so underestimated both by characters within the text and by readers/viewers outside the text.
Also, it sucks to think some people* don’t like her because she’s a feminine girl, so by necessity not as cool as tomboyish Arya. Speaking as a former girl, I feel like Martin did a great job at creating a character that I could recognize my childhood self in. Especially later on in the series, the way she responds and adapts to her surroundings – that’s exactly how I would have felt. Not as badass as Needle-wielding Arya, but realistically drawn.
*I don’t necessarily mean anyone posting here, either. The Westeros boards are heinous for this reason.
Nicely made point. I can see her from your perspective now. However, there is still the fact that she refused to stand up for her younger sister where outsiders are concerned. This is a very basic thing between siblings; a trait she seems to be lacking. This fault puts here squarely in the ‘evil’, or at least in the ‘irredeemably malicious’ camp.
But she’s not malicious or evil! That’s entirely my point. She’s taking a passive stance so that she doesn’t have to alienate anyone – this is a good-hearted, if weak-willed, thing to do. She doesn’t want to piss Joffrey off because she thinks this is her dreamy future husband with whom she will have a wonderful life**, and she doesn’t want to piss Arya off because she’s her sister and knows Arya is telling the truth. There is no malice here, only human weakness. In a world where people rape, torture, mutilate, conspire against, usurp, assassinate, and destroy human beings simply because they get pleasure out of it, it is totally ridiculous to consider Sansa of all people evil or malicious because she feigned ignorance.
**And if anyone wants to consider her a moron for this, why, there have been a number of MPSIMS threads in the past couple of months wherein real people succumb to these fantasies in real life! There’s one going on right now if you want to look. Well-established dopers who have proven through their time here that they are not idiots, but somehow don’t want to admit that the person they idolize is actually abusive or otherwise seriously flawed. It happens all the time, y’all. Not just to teenaged girls, too, but grown-ass men and women who should know better but don’t.
She takes a passive stance in a case where an outsider swung a real sword with intent to kill at her own sister. I think the writer is boiling this down for us very simply. Sansa ends up on the wrong side of the good/evil line.
My wife tells me she loves me all the time but if I swung a sword at her sister, I’m pretty sure she would rip my head clean off.
Fact of the matter is that she isn’t stupid or evil, she’s just terminally nieve.To the point that it is terminal to those around her.
When Joffrey was trying to kill Arya, she couldn’t handle it because her world view couldn’t accommodate the concept that a prince (and therefore the most gallant guy in the land!) Would do something like freaking out and trying to straight murder her sister.
She was screaming at them that they were “ruining everything” because they were ruining her fantasy world.
Faced with a glowering king, surrounded by big men with swords, forced in an instant to choose between loyalty to her family and a very important prospective marriage, Sansa tried but failed to hang onto both. A majority of people would, I think, do the same in that situation.
[Note: the following is a huge, huge spoiler. Read only if you’re familiar with the books.]
She also betrays her family to Cersei in King’s Landing after tons more evidence of the Lannisters being shitheads. She holds on to her fantasy in the face of all evidence up until her father is murdered. If that’s what it takes, you’re a fucking idiot.
But this isn’t real life. This is the author of a book trying to describe, in a few words, the complexity of another human being. This author uses a device to help the reader relate to the character. The device is something most other human beings are familiar with, the unspoken loyalty of one sibling to another over an outsider. Good characters side with the sibling. Sansa didn’t. She is evil. QED.