#5044 
by Spinozasgalt » Jul 19, 2017 12:31 am
See, I get that people like the books and might be disappointed where the show departs from them. But as far as I can tell and as Vaz suggests, Martin made things very complex and difficult and may now have trouble following up on the original narrative threads. Story pretty much gets lost in character and setting. As a show unto itself, GoT looks pretty good to me.
I don't think the opening was fan service. It was a pretty clear plot point: wipe out the remaining Freys (we've known as far back as S01 that they're a large family) so that not only is House Stark avenged narratively, but the weak ally that the Lannisters chose for a quick end to the original conflict over much stronger potential alliances is wiped from the table. I think it's just that fans enjoyed the deaths because of what the Freys did to the Starks. I don't think you can say there's no moral grey in there though. The later Arya scene, in which she talks to Lannister soldiers and finds they're just people with families and interests like hers, is pretty strong on this and it worked fine for me. Better than usual, actually.
Same with Lady Mormont. You don't want a one-note character, but it's pretty clear that she's the only one with full and unwavering allegiance to Jon and is consistently standing up for him like no others are willing. I don't think she's a badass, I think she's just a child ruler who has to fight to be taken seriously and does so by always standing very firm and being loud and forthright. And given that the decision Jon makes is to rest key castles in the hands of these children and arm women and girls, it actually seems like her tough-face approach is even more appropriate here than in her earlier scenes.
I'm controversial on Sansa though: I don't think she's ever been annoying, but a lot of people seem to disagree. For me, she's the woman character without the showy tricks at the beginning. She didn't have a handle on courtly intrigue, she didn't have a position of power, she didn't have dragons, and she didn't have the urge to kill and the attitude that goes with it. All she could really do was survive and watch people use her, and along the way she's picked up on how these people work and how they maintain their power and make their decisions. She's also a callback to Caitlyn, just as Jon is with Ned. I quite like that there's this tension between her and Jon, because it's what I'd expect from their two perspectives clashing. If people love and adore Jon, I'm sure Sansa's disagreeing with him and pushing will seem annoying, but I think he's pretty naive, so...
And as far as King's Landing, the show is going to have less courtly intrigue because Cersei flipped over the board and then blew it up. She couldn't defeat Margaery by way of such intrigue, and she couldn't even defeat her or these other enemies when she changed the rules and brought the Faith in (she actually made her own position worse and Margaery still adapted and made out without the loss of dignity that Cersei underwent), so she took the nuclear option. But again, it fits perfectly with where the show is heading. We're returning to the original threat, so pieces have been cleared off the overall board. The show is now about this other war. They're all going to be drawn into it and I figure that's where the intrigue will be. I don't think it's an accident that Cersei looks like Dany on that throne either. We've seen the show draw parallels between rulers before. Dany and Stannis, for instance. Cersei no longer has her children and is seated alone, just as Dany was alienated from her "children" in Mereen and was thrown back on her own abilities. Cersei just used the nuclear option and we have it pretty clearly understood that the dragons are Dany's nuclear option.
Euron works fine for me. There's a pretty steady progression from Joffrey to Ramsay to Euron. These sadistic characters and the way they pop up just speaks to the power vacuum after Robert died and the sorts of people who are drawn into it. If he seems cartoonish, I think it's because he's both mad and eccentric; it's sort of a point about his travels through the weirder places in Martin's world.
As far as Dragonstone, I thought the show was pretty clear that Stannis had abandoned it. He made clear himself that he detested the place and only held it because Robert asked him to. I don't remember them establishing that anyone else lived there, but if it's abandoned I can understand why they'd move on. We were sort of given to understand that it's wasn't the most fruitful place by itself.
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight, roll up the joint.
Or don't. Just follow your arrow wherever it points.
Kacey Musgraves
