First of His Name
May. 7th, 2014 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kExcellent, we have finally achieved an episode that didn't offend or annoy me! And it's only taken half the series. Keep up the good work, show!
-All hail the kitten king, Tommen the First! Long may he reign!
You know, I'm all for recasting Tommen if they felt that the young extra playing him before wasn't up to the task, and especially if they're going the Mrs Robinson route with Margaery. But I really wish they'd cast someone who was less the same physical type as Jack Gleeson, or at least styled him differently. Just in such a huge cast I'd like more of a visual cue that this isn't Joffrey II.
-There was lots of great Cersei stuff this episode. Cersei is one of the few (possibly the only? maybe Tyrion too?) characters where I think the show interpretation is unequivocally better than the book version. I love that the show is explicit that Cersei knew what Joffrey was (she's not blind or stupid, dammit) and loved him anyway. I wonder if the little detail that the Lannisters are out of gold is one of the tidbits being dragged forward from Winds of Winter, because that would fit with Cersei's run of luck.
I loved everything about the scene with Cersei and Oberyn. I wonder if the namedrop of Myrcella and the Sand Snakes means we're going to Dorne next season? Or if they're paring back on the Dornish stuff the way they have with the Ironborn stuff. The only difference is that I rather like Dorne, whereas if I never see a Greyjoy Uncle I will thank the Old Gods and the New. And "Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls" was so fucking on point, surprisingly so for a show that's been so very bad on that front recently.
-Speaking of Oberyn Martell, he was writing poetry for his daughter. Man, it'd be more subtle if the show just drew sparkly hearts around his face and and subtitled his every scene "isn't he dreamy?" in glitter.
To be fair, he is quite dreamy.
-I don't mind "Alyane" being introduced as Petyr's niece rather than his daughter. It strikes me as one of those changes that doesn't really effect the plot and simplifies things for non-book readers. Man, Lysa hasn't located a marble since we last saw her, has she? I would say that she was no more than Littlefinger deserved, if I thought for a second their marriage had a future. Gosh, I wonder if that giant hole in the floor is going to be a plot point? Surely having it open at random intervals throughout the day is a health and safety violation.
Two things that were great about the Eyrie scenes, well besides the delightfully bonkers Aunt Lysa, 1) that Sansa still defends Tyrion, even in a situation where it can't possibly do her any good, she still defaults to defending him, and 2) Sansa's face while listening to the sex noises.
-Arya and the Hound. I wonder if Arya managed to nick the Hound through his armour after all, or at least if the Hound hasn't sown the seeds of his own destruction by giving Arya protips on murder. Because it really feels like their roadtrip is coming to an end, and as the Hound didn't get any injury to fester in the fight in the tavern presumably it's going to come from some other source. I've noticed the show doing this again and again, they'll veer away from canon and then panic and veer back.
That's actually another repeated thing I've been noticing, Arya and the Hound, Jaime and Bronn, Jon and evil!Burn Gorman - do you want to fight pretty or do you want to win?
-Speaking of road trip buddies, Brienne and Pod. Two things,1) Brienne looks so awesome in her new armour; I would climb her like a tree, 2) Pod is as cute as a fucking button.
I read a comment somewhere about how Brienne as a perpetual outsider herself should have been kinder to someone as obviously awkward and innocent as Pod. And, yeah, but Brienne's never had a squire before (and Jaime giving her a squire has probably raised a hackle or two, because squires are something knights have, and she's sensitive about being teased...) she didn't ask for one, and she's got no evidence at first that he won't be more of a hinderance than a help. But you can see her warming to him over the course of their scenes, and I think they're going to have a really a fun dynamic.
Also, Brienne snapping at Pod the first time he went to help her with her armour I think was less about him, and more about the fact that Brienne has major issues surrounding being touched by men, even ones as obviously harmless as Pod. And that just makes me want to smush their faces and fast-forward to Ser--Milady Brienne and her unflaggingly loyal squire Podrick Payne who would die for one another.
-Surprisingly, events at Craster's Keep went a long way to redressing the wrongs of the last episode for me. Yes, Meera Reed is threatened with rape and it was awful, but given what we knew about the mutineers it would have been more of a surprise if she'd been left alone. There was no gratuitous nudity, and the scene was framed to be in no way titillating.
Because here is where I think the argument about sexual violence in Game of Thrones gets a bit of a case of crossed wires. Almost no one is saying that the show shouldn't depict rape, they're objecting to the framing of sexual violence as something titillating, and the addition of rapes and attempted rapes that weren't in the source material. There's a reason why the bouncing breasts in last week's rape scene in Craster's Keep upset and annoyed me in a way that no amount of brothel scenes have managed.
And evil!Burn Gorman being undone not by some judicious white knighting by Jon Snow but by one of his own victims was a nice surprise too.
-All hail the kitten king, Tommen the First! Long may he reign!
You know, I'm all for recasting Tommen if they felt that the young extra playing him before wasn't up to the task, and especially if they're going the Mrs Robinson route with Margaery. But I really wish they'd cast someone who was less the same physical type as Jack Gleeson, or at least styled him differently. Just in such a huge cast I'd like more of a visual cue that this isn't Joffrey II.
-There was lots of great Cersei stuff this episode. Cersei is one of the few (possibly the only? maybe Tyrion too?) characters where I think the show interpretation is unequivocally better than the book version. I love that the show is explicit that Cersei knew what Joffrey was (she's not blind or stupid, dammit) and loved him anyway. I wonder if the little detail that the Lannisters are out of gold is one of the tidbits being dragged forward from Winds of Winter, because that would fit with Cersei's run of luck.
I loved everything about the scene with Cersei and Oberyn. I wonder if the namedrop of Myrcella and the Sand Snakes means we're going to Dorne next season? Or if they're paring back on the Dornish stuff the way they have with the Ironborn stuff. The only difference is that I rather like Dorne, whereas if I never see a Greyjoy Uncle I will thank the Old Gods and the New. And "Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls" was so fucking on point, surprisingly so for a show that's been so very bad on that front recently.
-Speaking of Oberyn Martell, he was writing poetry for his daughter. Man, it'd be more subtle if the show just drew sparkly hearts around his face and and subtitled his every scene "isn't he dreamy?" in glitter.
To be fair, he is quite dreamy.
-I don't mind "Alyane" being introduced as Petyr's niece rather than his daughter. It strikes me as one of those changes that doesn't really effect the plot and simplifies things for non-book readers. Man, Lysa hasn't located a marble since we last saw her, has she? I would say that she was no more than Littlefinger deserved, if I thought for a second their marriage had a future. Gosh, I wonder if that giant hole in the floor is going to be a plot point? Surely having it open at random intervals throughout the day is a health and safety violation.
Two things that were great about the Eyrie scenes, well besides the delightfully bonkers Aunt Lysa, 1) that Sansa still defends Tyrion, even in a situation where it can't possibly do her any good, she still defaults to defending him, and 2) Sansa's face while listening to the sex noises.
-Arya and the Hound. I wonder if Arya managed to nick the Hound through his armour after all, or at least if the Hound hasn't sown the seeds of his own destruction by giving Arya protips on murder. Because it really feels like their roadtrip is coming to an end, and as the Hound didn't get any injury to fester in the fight in the tavern presumably it's going to come from some other source. I've noticed the show doing this again and again, they'll veer away from canon and then panic and veer back.
That's actually another repeated thing I've been noticing, Arya and the Hound, Jaime and Bronn, Jon and evil!Burn Gorman - do you want to fight pretty or do you want to win?
-Speaking of road trip buddies, Brienne and Pod. Two things,1) Brienne looks so awesome in her new armour; I would climb her like a tree, 2) Pod is as cute as a fucking button.
I read a comment somewhere about how Brienne as a perpetual outsider herself should have been kinder to someone as obviously awkward and innocent as Pod. And, yeah, but Brienne's never had a squire before (and Jaime giving her a squire has probably raised a hackle or two, because squires are something knights have, and she's sensitive about being teased...) she didn't ask for one, and she's got no evidence at first that he won't be more of a hinderance than a help. But you can see her warming to him over the course of their scenes, and I think they're going to have a really a fun dynamic.
Also, Brienne snapping at Pod the first time he went to help her with her armour I think was less about him, and more about the fact that Brienne has major issues surrounding being touched by men, even ones as obviously harmless as Pod. And that just makes me want to smush their faces and fast-forward to Ser--Milady Brienne and her unflaggingly loyal squire Podrick Payne who would die for one another.
-Surprisingly, events at Craster's Keep went a long way to redressing the wrongs of the last episode for me. Yes, Meera Reed is threatened with rape and it was awful, but given what we knew about the mutineers it would have been more of a surprise if she'd been left alone. There was no gratuitous nudity, and the scene was framed to be in no way titillating.
Because here is where I think the argument about sexual violence in Game of Thrones gets a bit of a case of crossed wires. Almost no one is saying that the show shouldn't depict rape, they're objecting to the framing of sexual violence as something titillating, and the addition of rapes and attempted rapes that weren't in the source material. There's a reason why the bouncing breasts in last week's rape scene in Craster's Keep upset and annoyed me in a way that no amount of brothel scenes have managed.
And evil!Burn Gorman being undone not by some judicious white knighting by Jon Snow but by one of his own victims was a nice surprise too.