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netgirl_y2kWell, that was underwhelming. I mean, coming after Blackwater it was always going to be. But that was Let's Kill Hitler, the end of Mockingjay, and every time the producers of Merlin say that it's going to get darker and more complex next series, honest, levels of underwhelming.
-I have been giving the Robb/Talisa storyline the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it was going somewhere, that the changes were for a reason. Apparently, not so much. First thing, Talisa doesn't even make sense as a character in this world. This is meant to be a world where the patriarchy is all consuming. Where you can become queen, the most powerful woman in the country, and still have no bodily autonomy or control over your own life, which is how you end up with a character as fascinatingly bitter and twisted as Cersei Lannister. Where you can escape the trappings of traditional femininity, but only at the cost of becoming a traumatised child soldier like Arya, or a laughing stock who is afraid to go to sleep for fear of being raped like Brienne. Then Talisa turns up and says that she didn't want to waste her life reciting poetry and playing the harp in favour of being a battlefield surgeon, oh, and she's decided to leave her family and entire prior life in a slave city for reasons of morality. Now this could have been an interesting story if there had been any sense that these decisions had cost her or were putting her in danger as would be true of, oh, any other women in that universe.
As it is it looks like the changes were only made to give Robb a more suitably plucky love interest than Jeyne Westerling or the nameless, blameless Frey girl. Which is where I have a problem because I don't want him to have a plucky love interest, I don't want him to have any nice things. I want him to sit in a dark room and think about his choices.
I don't have any great love of book!Robb but I can sympathise with him. This young boy, under an outrageous amount of pressure, grieving for his brothers, trying to live up to an unrealistic standard of honour, decides to marry a girl he believes he's taken advantage of, sacrificing his own honour to save hers.
Show!Robb marries Talisa because, well, he's a git. He's not a boy, he's a grown adult who has sat down with another grown adult and had enumerated for him all the reasons why this is a bad idea that may have dire consequences for them all. This is maybe because I have no romance in my soul (seriously, none; as girls I've been involved with in the past have cheerlessly informed me) and a never-ending hatred for this trope that seems to be everywhere in pop-culture that says that everything can and should be sacrificed on the altar of romantic love. But, for fuck's sake! I'm not saying that Robb doesn't love Talisa, I'm just saying that at least 50% of that wedding is him having a giant fit of pique at his mum. It ties in with this thing - which the books are guilty of too - where we're forever told that Robb is this brilliant strategic thinker rather than being shown. And I'm no great lover of Lord Tywin, but seriously, if Tywin Lannister has lost so much as a game of tiddliwinks to this idiot of the highest order then it's sign of a world gone mad.
-Also, House of the Undying, wtf? Okay, it was never going to be - and shouldn't have been - like it was in the book. Too many of Dany's visions were book specific or were never going to translate that well to screen. And there were some really gorgeous visuals - Dany walking through the gate at the Wall, Dany in the burned and snow (or possibly ash?) filled throne room. But, mostly, it felt like they'd filmed it with what spare change they had kicking about after Blackwater.
The scene with Drogo and Rhaego in the tent fell a bit flat for me, possibly because I'd never seen the Dany/Drogo relationship as anything other than a textbook example of what untreated stockholm syndrome looks like.
The whole thing just felt like it should have been longer and the sorcerer harder to defeat seeing as it was the culmination of Dany's S2 arc.
Doreah, curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal! I sort of knew it was coming because the show has been on a streak this season of ruthlessly stripping Dany of her support network - even though I notice that a large number of her khalasar miraculously came back to life in time for the looting - still it bugged me. Partly because I'd really liked their friendship (shipped them, even) but mostly because there was no lead up to it. And Dany's whole thing is that she has no army, no kingdom, no particular evidence that she'd be a good queen, but what she does have are three dragons and a massive massive cult of personality.
Also, locking them in that vault to suffocate. Sometimes the only difference between Viserys and Dany is the resources to carry out their threats, yes? It should be noted that this is no way diminishes my desire for her to win in the end.
-Still, here are some things I did like:
Ice zombies!
Revenge of the Theon feels!
Ygritte bopping Jon Snow on the head with his own sword!
The look of distaste on Loras' face when he's proposing the match between Margaery and Joffrey, the little glance between Sansa and Margaery, and the fact that Sansa couldn't even make it to the door before she starts grinning.
The Arya & Jaqen scene. I have to find my sister, her too. All the Stark girls feels!
Jaime and Brienne, and when he sees her killing those northmen being the point when Jaime starts subconsciously drawing hearts around the words Brienne of Tarth in his head. If I were being a book purist here I could complain about how easily she took to killing, but I actually liked the two quick deaths and a slow one in revenger of/mirroring what happened to the tavern girls. Even Brienne's younger and more naive book counterpart was most frequently moved to violence by rapers/men who hurt women, presumably because she could so easily imagine it being her.
-I have been giving the Robb/Talisa storyline the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it was going somewhere, that the changes were for a reason. Apparently, not so much. First thing, Talisa doesn't even make sense as a character in this world. This is meant to be a world where the patriarchy is all consuming. Where you can become queen, the most powerful woman in the country, and still have no bodily autonomy or control over your own life, which is how you end up with a character as fascinatingly bitter and twisted as Cersei Lannister. Where you can escape the trappings of traditional femininity, but only at the cost of becoming a traumatised child soldier like Arya, or a laughing stock who is afraid to go to sleep for fear of being raped like Brienne. Then Talisa turns up and says that she didn't want to waste her life reciting poetry and playing the harp in favour of being a battlefield surgeon, oh, and she's decided to leave her family and entire prior life in a slave city for reasons of morality. Now this could have been an interesting story if there had been any sense that these decisions had cost her or were putting her in danger as would be true of, oh, any other women in that universe.
As it is it looks like the changes were only made to give Robb a more suitably plucky love interest than Jeyne Westerling or the nameless, blameless Frey girl. Which is where I have a problem because I don't want him to have a plucky love interest, I don't want him to have any nice things. I want him to sit in a dark room and think about his choices.
I don't have any great love of book!Robb but I can sympathise with him. This young boy, under an outrageous amount of pressure, grieving for his brothers, trying to live up to an unrealistic standard of honour, decides to marry a girl he believes he's taken advantage of, sacrificing his own honour to save hers.
Show!Robb marries Talisa because, well, he's a git. He's not a boy, he's a grown adult who has sat down with another grown adult and had enumerated for him all the reasons why this is a bad idea that may have dire consequences for them all. This is maybe because I have no romance in my soul (seriously, none; as girls I've been involved with in the past have cheerlessly informed me) and a never-ending hatred for this trope that seems to be everywhere in pop-culture that says that everything can and should be sacrificed on the altar of romantic love. But, for fuck's sake! I'm not saying that Robb doesn't love Talisa, I'm just saying that at least 50% of that wedding is him having a giant fit of pique at his mum. It ties in with this thing - which the books are guilty of too - where we're forever told that Robb is this brilliant strategic thinker rather than being shown. And I'm no great lover of Lord Tywin, but seriously, if Tywin Lannister has lost so much as a game of tiddliwinks to this idiot of the highest order then it's sign of a world gone mad.
-Also, House of the Undying, wtf? Okay, it was never going to be - and shouldn't have been - like it was in the book. Too many of Dany's visions were book specific or were never going to translate that well to screen. And there were some really gorgeous visuals - Dany walking through the gate at the Wall, Dany in the burned and snow (or possibly ash?) filled throne room. But, mostly, it felt like they'd filmed it with what spare change they had kicking about after Blackwater.
The scene with Drogo and Rhaego in the tent fell a bit flat for me, possibly because I'd never seen the Dany/Drogo relationship as anything other than a textbook example of what untreated stockholm syndrome looks like.
The whole thing just felt like it should have been longer and the sorcerer harder to defeat seeing as it was the culmination of Dany's S2 arc.
Doreah, curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal! I sort of knew it was coming because the show has been on a streak this season of ruthlessly stripping Dany of her support network - even though I notice that a large number of her khalasar miraculously came back to life in time for the looting - still it bugged me. Partly because I'd really liked their friendship (shipped them, even) but mostly because there was no lead up to it. And Dany's whole thing is that she has no army, no kingdom, no particular evidence that she'd be a good queen, but what she does have are three dragons and a massive massive cult of personality.
Also, locking them in that vault to suffocate. Sometimes the only difference between Viserys and Dany is the resources to carry out their threats, yes? It should be noted that this is no way diminishes my desire for her to win in the end.
-Still, here are some things I did like:
Ice zombies!
Revenge of the Theon feels!
Ygritte bopping Jon Snow on the head with his own sword!
The look of distaste on Loras' face when he's proposing the match between Margaery and Joffrey, the little glance between Sansa and Margaery, and the fact that Sansa couldn't even make it to the door before she starts grinning.
The Arya & Jaqen scene. I have to find my sister, her too. All the Stark girls feels!
Jaime and Brienne, and when he sees her killing those northmen being the point when Jaime starts subconsciously drawing hearts around the words Brienne of Tarth in his head. If I were being a book purist here I could complain about how easily she took to killing, but I actually liked the two quick deaths and a slow one in revenger of/mirroring what happened to the tavern girls. Even Brienne's younger and more naive book counterpart was most frequently moved to violence by rapers/men who hurt women, presumably because she could so easily imagine it being her.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-06 10:09 pm (UTC)They've completely disconnected me from the upcoming Red Wedding, because none of the characters I like are recognizable anymore.