Ah, yes, the complexity of a human being…in a story where every single character to a one does both smart and stupid things, is motivated by both pure and corrupt values, sometime simultaneously…reduced to “She is evil. QED.” Brilliant.
It’s boxed. There are spoiler requests from non-book readers throughout this thread. Clearly they think spoilers are ok if related to discussion at hand. The issue with the first thread, I thought, was that half the posts were spoilers talking about nothing at hand.
Why aren’t you complaining about the other boxed spoilers in this thread?
Ask a mod to delete it if you’re so concerned.
Well, what else could Martin possibly been trying to say there?
As one of those who called for the creation of a TV-only thread, let me state my personal preferences…and let me put it in Lord of the Rings terms (as I’m both a movie and book fan).
Imagine this exchange after the release of LOTR:FOTR
Newbie: WTF is with the giant eagle?
Sage: They’re basically messengers of the gods…they come and go as they please, but don’t run errands for mortals.
This would be ok – book knowledge that helps illuminate the movie.
However, this would not:
Newbie: Gandalf is dead??!???
Sage: Yes, but don’t worry, he comes back to life in the next movie.
Also not good: nattering on and on about Tom Bombadil and The Scouring of the Shire. They’re not in the movies. Get over it.
Hope that helps.
Good thing they invented the spoiler box then, huh?
There’s also the problem that the context of the post doesn’t indicate the level of the spoiler. Someone might well open it up expecting a joke (which spoiler boxes have been used for), or an occurrence from the books that didn’t make it to the TV series, or something minor that hasn’t happened yet.
If nothing else, some indication that you’re giving something big away would be nice.
Ok.
So are we saying that the only spoilers that should be here are ones that are specifically requested?
In any case, I’ll take the Sansa discussion to the spoiler thread now I guess.
…that people are complex and flawed and sometimes do the wrong thing. GRRM’s characters are ALL gray. None are black and white. Even the ones you think are evil right now have story lines later on where you can at least kind of see their point of view and why they act the way that they do (I don’t think that’s a spoiler–I’m just saying that all the characters become more complex).
Which is what made the other thread literally unreadable. It was just a long string of white space.
I haven’t read the books, and I’m not watching the TV show, which makes this stuff extremely hard to moderate. There have been multiple reports on Snarky Kong’s post at #135, so apparently that’s a big honking spoiler.
Please, people, use spoiler boxes appropriately, and indicate the level of spoilerdom within each box so people can know what to click on and what not to. There are, apparently, people watching the HBO series who have not read the books. These people are reading this thread. Please assume that people reading this thread have not read the books and are no further in the story than what has been shown on TV already.
Thanks,
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
You really should read the books. Everybody should. They’re really good. </hijack>
Thanks, twicks. Exactly what this thread - and the other miniseries episode threads - was meant to do.
So far I really am impressed by the fact that every single character is ambiguous with major flaws, and yet most of them can be sympathized with to some extent. (The exceptions, so far, anyway, being Cersei and Jaime Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon.
My current thought is that Robert Baratheon is an incompetent king. It seems to be implied that the Targaryen king was a terrible king, but at this point we don’t have direct evidence of that. So, so far anyway, Eddard Stark has a major weakness in his loyalty to a man who doesn’t really deserve it. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense that Cersei has to look out for her own future safety, although, obviously, taking one’s own brother as a lover doesn’t seem at this point to have been absolutely necessary to serve that purpose.
My husband’s comment (and he’s read the books!) was “Why doesn’t Ned just turn around and go home?”
He also said that while he had no problem reading the books, it’s a little hard to watch the events unfold on TV. I have to agree. In fact I’m kind of glad they’ve toned a few things down. For example, and I don’t consider this a spoiler so I won’t spoiler tag it, in the books the scene where Arya chases away Nymeria is much more prolonged and heart-wrenching. Nymeria doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to leave and only finally does after Arya starts pelting her with rocks. In the TV show she yells at her, throws one rock, and poof, Nymeria runs off. If they’d done it like in the books I’d have been a sobbing heap.
The nature of a TV series means that we don’t get all the information up front. But it seems obvious to me that Ned thinks that a world with a Targaryen king would be worse than a world with Robert Baratheon as king.
My question is that if Ned believes that, then why does Cat make such a fuss about his leaving? Surely, Ned wouldn’t have gone off unless he thought that whatever menace lies ahead is important. Does Cat really believe that a war between Baratheon and Targaryen would have no effect on the North?
I like the understatement here, and plan on using it in the future. 
“Accidentally putting my hand in the boiling water doesn’t seem at this point to have been absolutely necessary to making pasta.”
I think this is a basic difference between literature and drama. Viewers are used to the fact the in drama characters are played by actors and rarely have all the visual characteristics that people do in real life, especially when it comes to family traits. And also literature has the time to stretch out and make points like this. In drama, it becomes a drag.
And I believe that the real dire wolf was an American beast, not a European one.
I’m keeping an open mind to the possibility that it will be revealed that she had a really, really, really good reason.
However icky it is, Cersei and Jaime are lovers because they’re in love with each other. I think I remember that in the books, Jaime says that he’s never had another lover. Their childhood was not a happy one and they’ve just always been very close. Very, very close.
As a member of the Kingsguard, Jaime is supposed to be celibate, isn’t he?
I felt that difference, too, but was sorry I wasn’t a sobbing heap. That was such an emotionally evocative scene in the book, and here it felt so flat.
Couple things from the above…
Probably the biggest change we have seen from the books so far is that one of the reasons Ned took the job was because Cat wanted him to. In the show so far she is all loving wife and mother. In the books she is as well, but she is also a political animal and wants her husband to be the number two guy in the realm.
Besides, there is no way Ned would not have taken the job - as everyone should have figured out by now, he is all about Honor and Duty. The king asked, so he would have done it.
Finally, he isn’t dumb enough to think that the position would sit empty. If not him, then who? There are seven main families - with all the alliances being tangled between them there could very well end up being someone as Hand that has it in for the Starks.
As to Ned and the Targaryens, he is being realistic about them rather than obsessing like Robert is. There are only two of them left. They have no money and no power. The Dothraki may be terrifying, but they are across the sea and they’re nomadic barbarian horsemen. Unless they can teach their horses to swim across a sea they just plain aren’t getting to Westeros.
The last time they came and conquered they had dragons. Those have been extinct for hundreds of years.
As for Robert as a king, well, you’re right, he isn’t a good one. He was a good general and an unbeatable warrior. He had the skills needed to take a throne, but not those to run a kingdom. That is one reason the position of the Hand is such a big deal. The king may rule the kingdom, but the Hand actually is the person who runs the kingdom.
Really finally, the last Targaryen king…it’s not that he was a BAD king. It’s that he was a combination of Caligula, Nero, and another half dozen other completely insane inbred monarchs.
-Joe