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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 19:34:05 GMT
It was definitely Lancel. I don't understand why the show had to have Littlefinger and Olenna involved, though. I think their involvement explains the High Sparrow's course of action. If the High Sparrow had Lancel's confession from the start, you have to wonder why he waited until that moment to arrest Cersei. It makes him seem less sincere if he's intentionally messing with Cersei. But if the High Sparrow had only just talked to Lancel, his arrest of Cersei at that moment makes sense and he comes off as more of an honest true believer. But I don't think the show established that Lancel was keeping that information close to his chest. He blurted it out immediately to Cersei at Tywin's funeral, and then got a star covered on his forehead. It does seem strange that he needed Olenna to persuade him to come forward.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 19:21:40 GMT
Now that Sam has given his obsidian dagger to Jon, do you think he will use it to kill an Other at Hardhome. Apparently the WW who brought Craster's last son to NK is in next episode, so could it be that Jon kills that guy? I'm curious about how Hardholme goes. Surely Jon and Tormund survive and get a bunch of wildlings to safety south of the Wall, so it seems like it will go better than in the books. Will it be considered by the characters to be a successful mission? I also don't see Jon being established as a warg this season. If that was going to happen it should have happened already. Which makes me very curious about his future.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 19:16:10 GMT
I wonder if Selyse on the ground could be her reaction to Mel leaving to go back to Castle Black and thinking they're doomed to lose now. Doubt it but that would be interesting. It seems like Ramsay is going to raid Stannis' camp. Couldn't Selyse on the ground be part of that sequence and be unrelated to whatever goes down with Shireen?
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 19:13:51 GMT
It's weird how it's convenient for some info to become widely known , or at least known, and some not. Ramsay knowing about Jon being lord-commander and no one in KL has a clue as to what LF has been doing ever since he left. Jon explicitly sent a letter to the Boltons as Lord Commander of the night's watch. And the Boltons have had Jon on their radar since Theon told them that Bran and Rickon would probably go to Jon. Of course the Boltons know that Jon is Lord Commander. As for Kings Landing's poor intelligence services - Varys hated both Tywin and Joffrey and couldn't have liked Cersei much. He always filtered the information he gave them. And his replacement doesn't seem to have any interest in spying at all and certainly doesn't have a country-wide network of spies. And Pycelle and Cersei haven't been getting along, so even if Pycelle learned something it isn't clear that he'd tell her or that she'd listen.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 19:04:26 GMT
I can now see Kevin coming back to KL to help Tommen now that Cersei is in prison. W Would he be able to get to KL quickly enough? I mean that's too fast even for jetpack travel. As for Sansa, I love how much she's showing her growth. She's trying all sorts of things to get herself out of this situation. I think there's definitely something bad brewing with Ramsey and his "new" sibling. Just as Roose said in the books, nothing worse than a young heir. I couldn't help but notice Sansa's reaction to Jon being LC of the Watch and made me wonder if the show will have her assume Alys Karstark's role. Anyone think she might flee on horse back to the Wall? I don't know if that would happen this season since Sophie says her finale will be ambiguous but I really felt as if they were setting that up. I expect/hope that there will be a small council meeting in 5x08 or 5x09 consisting of Tommen, Pycelle, Kevan, Qyburn, Littlefinger?, and maybe Olenna. There is indeterminate amount of time passing between episodes. 5x07 seemed to be a week or two after 5x06 except in Dorne where it was about a day after the last Dornish scene. I am still surprised that Pycelle and Qyburn haven't had much to do this season, but then they struggle to be as interesting as the Cersei / Margaery / Olenna / Tommen stuff. Good point about Sansa's reaction to the news about Jon - Sansa probably will want to flee to Jon when she gets out of Winterfell. I thought it worked well for Ramsay to drop that piece of news - clearly the Boltons had gotten Jon's letter. But also, it came off like Ramsay draws comfort from the successes of other bastards. I really like the way the show portrays Ramsay's insecurity about his status, and Roose's careful cultivation of that insecurity.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 4:42:25 GMT
I think she got the wheels turning in his head by pointing out that Tommen is a bastard, and thus, he has no claim to the throne. If someone seizes the throne, Tommen's acts are void unless the new King decides to honor them. Can you imagine Stannis or Dany honoring the legitimization of Ramsay Snow? Do you think Ramsay is smart enough to listen through his rage at what she just implied? I sincerely hope so. So far he hasn't seemed too politically savvy at all considering how he decided to get those taxes paid from the Northern Lords. Ramsay is a thug - it's Roose who has the mastermind and should be concerned if Tommen's legitimacy is struck down. Sansa made sure that Ramsay remembered that Walda is a huge threat to him. And yes, it may well backfire. But Sansa is trying things. She tried Theon + candle. She grabbed the pointy tool. And she tried to set Ramsay against Roose. And she tried the latter two before she knew that Theon had betrayed her - she knew better than to just assume that would work out. She's obviously suffering greatly, but she's also trying her damndest to do something with the measly cards she has - she's not just sitting back and hoping for rescue.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 4:12:48 GMT
I don't know about you all (no one's really mentioned it so far) but seeing Sansa that way was about 20 times more heartbreaking for me than last week's rape scene. Seriously. It's one thing to have it happening off-screen and in the last 5 minutes but it's entirely another to see her laying there bruised and battered, still in her wedding dress or what looks like whatever's left of the petticoats underneath ... my god has anyone even helped her bathe in days?? I'm just devastated really. Maybe it hit me harder than some. I know she's not entirely broken - she still has fight left in her even if challenging Ramsay's legitimacy and calling him a bastard to his face was probably the worst thing she could possibly ever do. My god my heart sank right then and I whispered "Ohhh Sansa, no no no..." Yes, that was rough. I do think Sansa was being purposeful, rather than just spunky, in riling Ramsay up. I think she was trying to push Ramsay to kill Walda so that Roose kills Ramsay.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 3:27:16 GMT
I really liked the LF / Olenna conversation in the broken brothel. Littlefinger was mourning the destruction of his property, but he doesn’t care that much about the brothel. Olenna was staring down the potential destruction of her family, the only thing she cares about.
I thought the sand snake scene worked well, for what it was. Got a sense of their personalities. Should we still be worried about Bronn’s survival?
I can’t see Stannis deciding to sacrifice Shireen. I think Stannis will tell Davos to get Shireen out of there. Still hoping that Yara intersects that plot somehow.
Sam can’t just decide to send himself for maester training, can he? Unless he breaks his vows and runs for it. So maybe Jon sends Sam in 5x10, along with Davos, Gilly, and Shireen? That seems overly optimistic, but something good has to happen at some point.
I didn’t know what to make of the big guy that freed Tyrion. Was he a nod to Belwas?
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 3:16:14 GMT
I hope we get Theon's come to Jesus at the weirwood scene. I think we need it or the show equivalent of it. He's not where he needs to be in order to run with Sansa. That poor lady and Sansa face, so sad. I know. And when Reek opened the door at the top of the tower and found Ramsay, a little part of me died, too. I was really counting on that candle. It showed Brienne watching the broken tower - isn't that what it was? And wasn't there a bit of light showing within? Ramsay's, perhaps, since he set up shop in there. I couldn't tell. Maybe it was just wishful, magical thinking on my part. Edit: I didn't understand that sequence on first watch. Yikes. Brienne isn't a very patient person; maybe she'll just go for it? Or maybe they'll do Pod the Bard.
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Post by janicia on May 25, 2015 2:57:18 GMT
I thought the implication was supposed to be that LF knew that Lancel knew Cersei's secrets. So LF told Olenna to talk to Lancel, and Olenna persuaded Lancel to tell the High Sparrow. Leading to Cersei's arrest.
Lancel isn't in Littlefinger's pocket; I agree with you there. But I don't see how Gendry could help Olenna get her grandchildren out of jail. Even if Gendry was a sparrow now, he can't vouch for anybody or incriminate anybody; he doesn't know any of them. And the sparrows don't care about kings.
For a longer play, maybe Olenna would have a use for Gendry. But the Tyrells are pretty committed to Tommen. And Tommen is a decent kid who is already married to Margaery, who loves and listens to her, was raised as a lord, and is officially not a bastard. It would be really hard for Gendry to be better for the Tyrells than Tommen is. Gendry is definitely a bastard, not provably Roberts, not a lord, not married to Margaery, stubborn, and disillusioned.
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Post by janicia on May 24, 2015 22:13:00 GMT
I'm really hoping what happens is that Ramsay attacks and Yara attacks him helping Stannis. And thus he finally has a sane, likable adult female character in his storyline That would be awesome. I would love to see Yara tonight.
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Post by janicia on May 22, 2015 13:25:55 GMT
I remember that they accidentally leaked an audition scene with Tyene & Bronn? The scene involved Tyene seducing Bronn and giving him the antidote. But what is the point of this seduction? Bronn becomes Darkstar or Oakheart? If Tyene is supposed to be a seductress, the show should probably have her seduce somebody. So far the sand snakes haven't been sexy. It might not be much bigger than that. But you have a point, maybe Bronn does manage to survive the season and then... shacks up with Tyene in Kings Landing? Goes with a snake to Mereen or Oldtown? No idea. I think it would be pretty funny to have a convention of the beleaguered traveling companions of the Lannisters.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 17:26:18 GMT
I think Littlefinger wants to start raising his army with Cersei's permission, but there is no way he told Cersei the truth about what he plans to do with his army. Why would he march north into winter?
I think the lords of the Vale will be ok with Sansa marrying Ramsay. They don't know his reputation, and Sansa as lady of Winterfell probably sounds pretty good to them. I doubt they care enough about Sansa to go to war for her in any case. Sansa's connection to the Vale is pretty weak - she's just a cousin of the lord of the Vale.
Anyway if Littlefinger presents them with a war plan they like, it seems like they'd be willing to go to war with him in the show. They seemed happy with Littlefinger at the start of the season.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 16:49:25 GMT
Seriously? Check if the Lord of the Rings fanbase has one bad think to say about Tolkien. Or Harry Potter regarding Rowling. In fact, Martin gets more critics by his series' fanbase than any other author of huge fantasy series I know. If you meant that people are more hard on their comments towards D&D than to Martin, that's another thing. Still, the LotR and Harry Potter movies also get a lot of negative criticism by the fans (and the LotR movies are, IMO, a true masterpiece, even with the adaptation flaws every movie will ever have). That is just natural. But no way GRRM is treated like a saint by his fans. (I don't mean to compare aSoIaF to LotR or to Harry Potter, it was just examples of popular fantasy series). Well yeah, saint is an exaggeration, especially if you compare the situation to Tolkien's or Rowling's. But GRRM is in a saint's position compared to D&D, they are slaughtered for every single little mistake. The fandom is calling for their heads and no one says anything about GRRM's horrible scenes. GRRM gets pilloried by readers for fat pink mast, "where do whores go", and darkstar, among other things. And the LS, Quentyn, Aeron, Aegon, and Dany arcs as well as all the travelogues are criticized heavily by significant portions of the readers as having a lot of bad material or being obnoxious on principle. But yeah, the show faces much heavier criticism because everything they do is a "pointless deviation" or "not how I imagined it". I'm not sure that the show is actually receiving harsher criticism this season than previously though. There was huge uproar about Jaime raping Cersei last season - a lot of people decided to pretend that scene just wasn't part of the show cannon. There was also a huge uproar about the lack of Stannis in 4x09 and a lot of hate about that episode that never seemed fair to me. But if you go back to ASOIAF forum, there are angry nitpicks from 1x01. Remember how vehemently people used to hate Ros, Talisa, and Shae? Everything from miscast to terrible acting to terrible writing to pointless character to scenekiller... most of the stuff we're hearing now about the sand snakes. The Pod brothel scene was heaped with ridicule in season 3, Dreadfort and Crasters keep were ridiculed in season 4, Qarth and Jon / Ygritte were loathed in season 2, Renly / Loras portrayals were disliked in season 1, as well as the famous sexposition scene in LF's brothel. Sansa's season 3 arc was heavily criticized for portraying her as a moron, while a bunch of people were incredibly unhappy with the Stannis portrayal until 4x10. Robb's arc always came under heavy criticism for having too much Talisa, not enough Catelyn, and not enough war. Littlefinger's jetpack and campaign to piss off all the important women in Westeros were grumped about in season 2. Unsullied generally dislike Bran and Sam. Those Arya / Tywin scenes from season 2 were criticized stridently as being out of character and moronic, even though they regularly show up on lists of "favorite character pairings". I guess I'm just saying that GoT has always been controversial and it is easy to forget the controversies from previous seasons. But now there are more critics that argue the controversies professionally.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 16:23:55 GMT
I think there is a decent chance that he marries Myrcella to Trystane at the end of the season and crowns them both. Which would make it a war of 4-5 queens? Cersei, Margaery, Dany, Myrcella, and maybe Sansa going for queen in the north.
But I could also see Doran giving Myrcella to Jaime and then supporting Dany. Presumably in that scenario he would be pushing for a Dany-Trystane marriage. Dany would need to be invading Westeros sooner rather than later to keep the momentum if that's the plan.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 13:09:12 GMT
I was talking to a friend about Tristan and his purpose. Someone had noted that he actually looks like Kit ()Jon Snow). So, I started to think and a crazy thought occurred to me. Maybe we won't get a fAegon storyline but a fJon. Let me explain. What's the purpose of fAegon in the books? It's to murky the waters for a secret Targaryen pretender. Well, would a faux Jon serve the same purpose? And with all the R+L=J hints we have gotten, we the audience will know he's a fake (no confusion) but the people of Westeros will not. Just a thought... Interesting thought. But the show creators tend to avoid the complexities of fake-identity plots. They took out Varys' disguises, fArya, most of Arya's fake names, most of the Alayne Stone stuff, fMance, Alys, Ramsay-as-Reek, Mormont's raven, Selmy's disguise, ect. The Martells already have a reason to enter the war - they want vengeance. The Martells already have an excuse to try to seize the throne through Myrcella. They don't need Trystane to be anything other than Doran's son to join the Game of Thrones. And while Trystane's complexion is a little lighter than you might expect for Doran's son, that could just be a casting choice. Anyway, wasn't Mellario fair-complexioned in the books? I know Ned was bound by his oath, but it was cruel to deceive Cat as he did and to raise Jon shrouded by lies. I wonder if Ned could have dropped Jon off somewhere to be raised quietly and honestly. Presumably not in Dorne, since Jon's existence was an insult to Elia. And probably Ned couldn't have trusted that secret to anybody safely.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 12:34:12 GMT
I think it makes more sense to pick least favorite scenes or maybe story arcs than episodes, since each episode contains so much different stuff. There has never been an episode that I didn't largely enjoy, never been one I wouldn't rewatch. But there are scenes I don't care to rewatch. Episodes should probably be judged more on their construction rather than for containing a bad scene or not containing any great scenes.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 2:31:28 GMT
I actually wanna know just why people claim he was redeemed. Because he got her pregnant, and believed the kid would be the stallion who mounts the world? Because he raped and murdered lamb people to fund Danaerys' return to Westeros, where he would rape and murder every person in every castle, village and city he came across? Or is it because he intended to enslave his enemies, sell them at slavers bay and get rich enough to plunder Westeros? It was probably that time he ripped that one guys tongue out. Yeah, more than likely. He was hot. Ramsay's not. I think that's the real difference XD I remember some negative response to the Dothraki wedding as being over-the-top and racist. I would say that Drogo never seemed to think "how can I make Dany miserable today?" and he didn't get off on her pain. It was more that Drogo completely lacked empathy for Dany and was indifferent to her pain. But he wasn't intentionally cruel, so once Dany figured out the rules of her marriage she did ok. I imagine that Roose and Walda have much the same dynamic, actually, except without the cross-cultural confusions. Stannis and Selyse seem to be somewhere similar too - Stannis isn't exactly indifferent to Selyse's pain, but he is so stern and they're both so emotionally stunted that it ends up in similar territory. Viserys also did a lot of PR work for Drogo by being so evil that he made Drogo look reasonable.
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Post by janicia on May 21, 2015 0:18:31 GMT
While neither are fleshed out, I think Ros and Olyvar have really helped to tie the Kings Landing story together and reduce the feeling of "this happens because the plot demands it". Like Ros' death motivating Varys to try to save Shae, which allowed us to see Shae's true intentions. And Ros and Olyvar getting entangled in the webs of people spying on each other brings that aspect of Kings Landing to life.
And the attention to detail in the costuming and the beauty of the settings is totally amazing to me. Also, they've gotten so many great actors, even in the minor roles.
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Post by janicia on May 20, 2015 22:49:18 GMT
I know she's a Frey and all, but I don't blame her for her bad family and I kinda have a soft spot for Walda now. They really played her up more than I expected and it works! Man, I hope nothin' bad happens to her ... and by proxy, the little baby Bolton. Gah I never thought I'd say something like that! I always had a little soft spot for Walda and Rosalyn because they seem like decent girls stuck in a crazy family. Most of the reason we think they're nice is that they haven't said much or been allowed to make any decisions. Walda has a pleasant smile, but we have little idea what is going on inside her head. I see her as a victim in this whole mess, and while I think her murder is inevitable, I don't cheer for it. But we haven't actually seen evidence that she's a nice person. We have just seen that she knows how to act pleasant around unpleasant people. Which, granted, seems to be a rare skill in Westeros.
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