HBO Game of Thrones, Season 2

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by BvBPL

However, it's not just who is in a flattering light, but also who as the power. Most of the powerful women in Game of Thrones are either despicable (Cersei) or only achieve any degree of authority by opening their legs (Daenerys). The message of Game of Thrones, is that girls can only become figures of authority by becoming manipulative.

And here I was about to praise Mr. Martin for building a believable world based on classical and medieval intrigue. Aww, shucks!

[chegel]

She does not get the dragons but the eggs as some exotic and very expensive but ultimately useless wedding gift. The dragons hatch through her power.
And it is not her intention that Ser Jorah falls in love with her. He is rather delusional in that anyway (poor guy) and at first only with her to betray her.
She does not have sex after Khal Drago's death for a long time iirc and I do not see her using sex as a mean to manipulate men either. She does not seem too sluttily dressed and seductive in her speech at Qarth's walls.

[holy king]

Originally Posted by BvBPL

The Stark men, Tyrion Lannister, That six-fingered smuggler on Stannis's payroll, Renly.

Spoiler:

eddard stark the man who so rigidly stupid follows his code of honour that he gets his head chopped off as a reward?

robb stark, who loses a war and his head because he cant keep it in his pants?

jon snow, who basically just stumbles from one unlikely situation to the next without even understanding what is going on until his limited awareness of his surroundings gets him stabbed multiple times?

tyrion lannister, an ugly dwarf who is a regular in every whorehouse of westeros throwing around his familiy's money he never ever worked a single minute for?

renly, the boy king who thinks war is some kind of game and dies before he ever really encounters it?

i give you davos, however, and raise you a catelyn.

[GoodSarmatian]

[SPOILERPOLICE]
Dude, hide or delete the Robb thing.
Have you no decency ?
[/SPOILERPOLICE]

[North King]

I don't really see what point you're trying to make here, BvBPL. That women's lot in life in Westeros really sucks? Yes, yes it does. Much like it did for all of history. Do you seriously think this series is trying to depict that as a good thing? You'd have to be a sick, twisted person to watch the rape scene and not be mildly uncomfortable with it.

I'm not sure how sweeping issues like long cultural traditions of misogyny under the rug helps anyone.

[Yeekim]

Indeed. Thinking GoT is misogynistic requites quite a massive cherrypicking of data.

Anyway, what a great episode this last one was!

Spoiler:

I love that the writers addressed one of my greatest problem's with Martin's storytelling - why did no-one even try to rob Daenerys in Qarth?

[GoodSarmatian]

WTF is happening in Qarth ?
That caught me compeltely off-guard.

[Yeekim]

I'm pretty sure the warlocks are responsible.
Even if not, this robbery gives Dany required motivation to vist the House of Undying.

[holy king]

YAY RAMSAY'S IN!

now let's hope for the goat.

also, they killed off irri? or was it jiquhi (sp?)?

[GoodSarmatian]

Bolton mentioning his bastard wasa relief, but Reek's absence still cripples Theon's storyline a bit.
Sad about the Dothraki girl, but at least Doreah has survived the red waste.
It annoyed me in the first season that Cersei seemed a bit more humane than the book version, but now I'm staring to like the changes they make to Tywin. He's much more sympathetic and not the comic book villain he's in the source material.

[mitsho]

I am also baffled why they had to kill Irri. The banter between her and Doreah (Dothraki vs. City Girl) would have been a perfect commentary on Dany's further shenanigans...

I do like the Qarth story line so far. Ramsay exists and Dagmer takes over the bad counseling, that is ok for me.

I guess they still haven't had enough budget for horses in the King's Landing Riot scenes though... and CGI isn't good enough to let Ghost capture Ygritte for Jon.

The only thing bothering me with Tywin is why he doesn't put two and two together. A northener girl that can read, the chances are high that she is of noble birth. I don't say he should know that she's a Stark, but there are so many lesser noble houses or something else...

EDIT: To me, it was always clear why noone tried to steal Dany's Dragons in the books, btw. . It is a clear freaking breach of guest right as Dany is a guest with Xaro Xoan Daxos. Whoever took them, murdered the guard of unsullied (those weren't Dothraki to me) of Xaro. Xaro will not like that and it will result in inner turmoil with the Thirteen. But they were only slaves, so Xaro can get paid (which will further drive Dany away from Xaro). If someone wanted to steal the dragons in the books, he would have had to do that quietly, and good luck with that...

[North King]

Tywin's not that one-dimensional in the books. See: Kevan's conversation with Jaime in book 4 (IIRC).

[GoodSarmatian]

Originally Posted by North King

Tywin's not that one-dimensional in the books. See: Kevan's conversation with Jaime in book 4 (IIRC).

No, but can you imagine Book-Tywin to have such a grandfatherly interaction with a (northern and suspiciously literate) commoner girl ?
On the other hand the books only show us Tywin from his children's perspective. The series doesn't outright contradict anything about his characterisation, it just shows some facets a reader wouldn't expect.
It looks like a major deviation from the source material, but it makes the character much more complex and interesting.

[Leoreth]

Also, I accept any deviation from the source material that gives Tywin a reason to talk more. Gods, I love his voice acting!

[Jos Ballenbak]

Are there really only 4 more episodes left? I really want to know how they are going to end this season!

[Leoreth]

It's going to get pretty intense soon.

[mitsho]

at least 14 episodes left at the moment, it got renewed, now if only we didn't need to wait a year

But yes, you can look forward to the last ones...

Can I nitpick on the episode titles btw.? They seem so really out of the blue most of the time, it's like they randomly picked cool quotes from the book, as they seldomly relate to what's happening in the episode... Titles for 5 and 6 for example could well have been switched.

But I guess if that's my biggest problem...

[Murky]

Doesn't CoK end with the breaking of the siege at King's Landing? I wonder if that's where they will end the season.

[holy king]

episode nine will be the battle of the blackwater, judging from it's title "blackwater".

[Yeekim]

Originally Posted by mitsho

Can I nitpick on the episode titles btw.? They seem so really out of the blue most of the time, it's like they randomly picked cool quotes from the book, as they seldomly relate to what's happening in the episode... Titles for 5 and 6 for example could well have been switched.

But I guess if that's my biggest problem...

Nah, not "most of the time"... but I really couldn't get the idea behind "The Old Gods and New" either.