Game of Thrones Season 5 discussion thread

[Pangaea]

Little unsure what you have heard about the books that make you not want to read them, but they are a great deal better than the weird crap that is shown on screen. The big downside is that not all books have been released yet, and it's not so cool to come to the end of book five, know there is more, but not when it will come out. So in that sense it's probably a good idea to wait until the series is complete (hopefully it will be!).

Watching the show, especially lately, it probably comes across as a fairly typical Good vs Evil fantasy, more or less, with lots of rape and boobs thrown in for good measure. Thankfully the books aren't like that, and that is why I loved them. Unlike the TV show, characters don't walk around with neon signs with their intentions, and the characters are a lot more on a moral greyscale. That is one of the big selling points. Everybody have good traits and bad traits, sometimes do "evil" stuff and sometimes good stuff.

Due to this it's pretty depressing to see what the show has devolved into, particularly the last few seasons. The depth to the characters is gone. Context is stripped away. Moral ambiguity is largely cut away for more simplicity. The end result is that the TV show is a very different beast than the source material.

 

[Kyriakos]

Link to video.

That Canadian is awesome as a voice-impersonator (his Varys is amazing), and using pacing and expressions/body moves too. Very good. And i suppose like all so good impersonators, he is insane

 

[MacAttack]

You'd think I'd be about to hurl from the screams of a child being burned alive. But I wasn't. I was just disgusted about the thing happening at all, because it made no ing sense.

Sounds like you need to reread the books and pay more attention to Melisandra's intentions. This scene makes perfect sense when you put in the context of Melisandra's vision of forging her own Azor Ahai, meaning having Stannis fulfill the sacrifice piece of the prophesy. It's like the an NFL General Manager forcing the coach to play the quarterback he drafted, even though everyone knows he is not any good and won't even sniff the Hall of Fame. Whether or not the prophesy is legit, she has bought in 100% and even though her god has given her not so subtle clues that point to John Snow, she misinterprets them because she wants Stannis to be the guy. Particularly since she has full control of him. We clearly saw that Jon Snow, who has only been with one chick his whole life, wouldn't do her even when she completely threw herself at him like a groupie in a rock star's dressingroom, would not succumb to her temptation and control. And she does not like that which she can't control. Jon Snow has incredible and commendable self control there. He also seems to have a really good grasp on sizing people up.

 

[Pangaea]

I don't buy that at all. Stannis wouldn't burn his only child and heir like that. It may come to pass in the books at some point anyway, but I don't believe it would be like that. If it happens, it will be because Stannis, if he even has a say in it, will be pushed into a corner. That quite simply was no the case in that scene at all. Which is why I said it makes no sense. It was just yet another character assassination by the writers.

 

[MacAttack]

The prophesy requires a sacrifice of that magnitude, someone they truly love. Dany lost her child and Jon lost the only woman he's truly loved, even though it was by accident in the books, and by a loyal follower in the TV series, he was still very heartbroken.

 

[illram]

Stannis was in a corner; he was stuck in the snow and his army was about to either starve or freeze to death or both. He's followed Melisandre's wild prophecies before and she has ostensibly gotten results, and Shireen unwittingly built him up in his last little pep talk with her.

He knew it was going to be rough which is why he sent Davos away, because he knows Davos would either talk him out of it or do something rash.

 

[MacAttack]

I wonder if Stannis the Military Commander saw any value in having his troops watch a little girl burn. That has to have the worst impact on troop morale. I mean what must they be talking about around the camp fire, "Dude, we are so desperate that we are eating our burned and vandalized horses and our leader burned his little girl at the stake. Saying that we are F-ed is not even beginning to describe it."

 

[Evie]

What, are you expecting TV writers to consider sound military logic above cheap emotional manipulation of the audience?

 

[MacAttack]

I don't know why I notice the little things like that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I wonder if Stannis the Military Commander saw any value in having his troops watch a little girl burn. That has to have the worst impact on troop morale. I mean what must they be talking about around the camp fire, "Dude, we are so desperate that we are eating our burned and vandalized horses and our leader burned his little girl at the stake. Saying that we are F-ed is not even beginning to describe it."

That would probably be the response of modern troop. Considering we are watching a basically medieval society they may well be saying "Our leader has made a great sacrifice to the gods to get them on our side, on with the crusade. Now we can't lose!"

 

[Atticus]

It's odd that people have just now realized how they over utilize shock violence. I don't like it either, but already during the first season just thought to ignore it since the show was otherwise pretty good. I also habitually go fast forward the scenes where they make a feast of it.

The new episodes aren't that bad imo, but when Joffrey died, part of the drama died too. It begun to feel little over stretched. I'd imagine that's a deliberate choice, that's how life and world is too. However, it might not have been the best solution for story telling.

 

[illram]

I've mostly made peace with the show being different than the books. TV dramas need to be a little more over the top, shallower, and faster paced than an epic novel, even if you have the luxury of a seven season series. Each episode more or less delivers the goods and makes me want to see the next one, which is what DB needs to do.

At this point, since the show is apparently going to outpace the release of the final books, I'd prefer it if the show goes in a different direction, or gets to the same place but in a different way. That way the books are still enjoyable. I read all of them after the end of last season and the differences were enough to still make the books thoroughly enjoyable. From my recollection only Season 1 of the show was more or less a direct port of the first book. After that they branched off.

 

[Camikaze]

I'm lucky enough to have not had my expectations adulterated by the books, so I've found it a little perplexing to see people surprised about Stannis burning his daughter. I mean, you could see it coming a mile off. It wasn't a regular ep 9 shock, it was like a slowly impending train crash - you thought there'd be some deus ex machina (Drogon flying in to save Shireen before popping off to Meereen), but no, Stannis stuck by his unwavering determination, completely consistently with his character. The show could've perhaps done with an extra minute or so of dialogue between Stannis and Melisandre to provide some explanation of what precisely he expects to get out of this, or why there needs to be a graduation from leeches to a complete burning at the stake, but that's really just an editing issue, not a problem with the direction of the show.

I agree that this season hasn't been as good as previous seasons, but that's largely because of Dorne and a slow pace elsewhere. The former is just bad TV, the latter was probably the necessary result of storylines coming to an end in the last season. If you look at the first season, there weren't many distinct storylines running at once. There was King's Landing, the Eyrie, the Wall, and Dany. Now they have at least double the number, which means they can only spend half the time on each. And they've already jettisoned some storylines without satisfactory endings (e.g. the Greyjoys). They seem to gloss over nuances a lot more, but even so things move slower (the best example being Stannis not setting off on his march until like episode four or something). I don't know if there's any real solution to this other than merging storylines and not introducing more, and presumably that will at least happen to some extent with the Bolton and Stannis storylines in the next episode.

 

[Pangaea]

If the snowstorm in the show was as bad as in the book, at least it would make some kind of sense, but the situation showed in the series simply isn't nearly as grave. The timing is well off too. Ramsey and his 20 Good Rambos just attacked the camp, and for some stupid reason everything went up in flames at the same time, and before you know it, Stannis is throwing his daughter on the pyre. It simply doesn't make any sense. And it's made worse by the emotional trick they played a few episodes prior when Stannis went to such length to show his love for Shireen. It's a cheap trick, and based on what we see in the show it doesn't make sense.

But looking side from the many plotholes they have dug for no particularly good reason this season, what I find worse is that they have effectively carried out a character assassination of Stannis, on top of all the other character assassinations this season (and before to be honest). I simply find it very odd how they can read these books, and what they sit back with is the bastardisation of the characters we have seen on screen. Somehow they even managed to feck up Daenery's great moment, and turn it onto Damsel in Distress #16.

In short I find it sad that such a great source material is turned into this It could have been so much better, and hope it will be by somebody else at some point in the future.

Lord of the Rings was changed a fair bit too, but they didn't carry out character bastardisations across the board like this D&D duo is doing.

 

[Evie]

Fara-who, again? (Okay, he was better in the extended editions but still)

(Denethor, too, for that matter)

 

[Kyriakos]

That would probably be the response of modern troop. Considering we are watching a basically medieval society they may well be saying "Our leader has made a great sacrifice to the gods to get them on our side, on with the crusade. Now we can't lose!"

In the hellenistic era, when a king killed his son because his mistress told him to, the result was massive revolt, and soon he was destroyed by a nice alliance of Ptolemy and Seleucos (who then dissolved the alliance and Seleucos was assassinated as well ).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Perhaps the hard core Queen's Men might have their morale improved by the sacrifice, but the King's Men would not take it very well.

(Note for those who don't read the book: The term "King's Men" refers to those, like Davos Seaworth, who are loyal to Stannis Baratheon despite rejecting his new religion. Most of them still worship the Seven Faced God, although I suppose there might be some followers of the Old Gods and some who just aren't religious at all among their numbers too. The "Queen's Men" follow the Red God. Stannis's wife Selyse converted years before Stannis himself, and proselytized her servants. Originally the term was a reference to how his legal wife wanted only such religious fanatics around her, but before long his followers came to think of Melisandra as the real queen. The Queen's Men are often more loyal to the Red Priestess than they are to the man she claims is Azor Ahai.)

 

[Verbose]

In the hellenistic era, when a king killed his son because his mistress told him to, the result was massive revolt, and soon he was destroyed by a nice alliance of Ptolemy and Seleucos (who then dissolved the alliance and Seleucos was assassinated as well ).

This was more Agamemnon-in-Aulis-like.

Though unless the Red God was pulling something like what Artemis did with Iphigenia, there's probably not going to be a happy reunion.

 

[Flying Pig]

But looking side from the many plotholes they have dug for no particularly good reason this season, what I find worse is that they have effectively carried out a character assassination of Stannis, on top of all the other character assassinations this season (and before to be honest). I simply find it very odd how they can read these books, and what they sit back with is the bastardisation of the characters we have seen on screen. Somehow they even managed to feck up Daenery's great moment, and turn it onto Damsel in Distress #16.

They are doing it in consultation with the chap who wrote (and will write) the books - it's a fairly safe bet, I think, that he feels that the 'character assassination' is exactly in line with his own vision for the character. Personally I quite like seeing the bad side of Stannis' absolute determination, which previously had only ever seemed like a virtue.

 

[illram]

Stannis has always been a little too determined, a little too hardnosed, a little too infatuated with Melisandre's supposed prophetic ability. It's his big character flaw. Killing his own daughter is pretty extreme but not totally out of character. This is a guy who cut the fingers off the person who saved him and his men from starving to death, remember?