Game of Thrones (Season 5)

[Watashi]

C'mon. He's not dead. The entire Song of Ice and Fire revolves around him and Dany.

[

Show Spoiler

Melisandre will probably resurrect him.

]

[Watashi]

Also, this show really likes women.

[Raiders]

If he's not dead, then Harington is really fucking with people in that EW interview. I'm not sure I remember seeing an actor/filmmaker straight-up lie so directly in an industry interview before if that's really the case.

I must admit, I have to call bullshit on him only because it seems unlikely that Martin, the creators or HBO would want him committing so pointedly the fate of Jon Snow. But if so, wow, he really is trolling the fans then.

EDIT: It seems in a follow-up, Weiss is also committing to him being truly dead.

I swear if this warging thing with Ghost happens, I will laugh all the way. That'll be hilarious following Jon SNow as a freakin' wolf.

[Dukefrukem]

C'mon. He's not dead. The entire Song of Ice and Fire revolves around him and Dany.

[

Show Spoiler

Melisandre will probably resurrect him.

]

Yeh I feel like this is the way they are heading.

[Peng]

This season has its ups and (sometimes really cringey) downs, but I am hugely relieved that they didn't go the "two books, two seasons" route as I feared, but covered them more or less all in one season, even factoring in the changes.

Of course, excited for next one, as now book readers are in the same place as non- ones. My enthusiasm may be tampered a little bit by how D&D's deviations from the book this season have been really bumpy and often unsatisfying (although Hardhome is incredible). Still interested to see that, given Martin's outlines and not bound by books' text, how a more free-reigned season from them would look like.

[amberlita]

C'mon. He's not dead. The entire Song of Ice and Fire revolves around him and Dany.

[

Show Spoiler

Melisandre will probably resurrect him.

]

His significance in the Song of Ice and Fire is just fan theory (well, all of it is I guess since Martin has supplied zero answers). The prophecies and whatnot still work just fine revolving around Dany alone. Besides, the show has never delved deeply into the mythology, so why would the show feel the need to validate book readers' justifications of things that the show has never really committed to depicting? And GRRM himself is always grumbling about the unreliability of prophecy...which is basically a cheap cop out that allows Martin and whomever to ignore large amounts of foreshadowing.

Though I still agree with your spoiler. He can be "truly dead" and not returning in Season 6 if he is brought BACK from the dead in Season 7. Then technically everything Harrington and the show runners are saying in their interviews is true while still concealing his ultimate return.


side note: I think they lightened Kit Harrington's brown eyes in that final overhead shot of him bleeding out, so that they could CGI his pupils dilating as he died - which they totally did because I rewound 3 times to check for it (thank you HD tv). I mean, jeezus, they REALLY want us to think he's dead. So I dunno...

[number8]

I mean, if he spends the next two seasons as a wolf, then understandably as far as Kit Harrington is concerned, he's dead and moving on from the show.

[DavidSeven]

The last two scenes were pretty emblematic of the big issues I'm having with this show lately. The Cersei scene was basically an entire season's worth of socially problematic subtext manifest into one overlong, dramatically weak scene, which tries to be compelling throughout its absurd length solely by becoming more grotesque from moment-to-moment.

The last scene, however it turns out, strikes me as another example of the shooting for Twitter outrage as a marker for success. It's like, we get it, Red Wedding was a cool thing for us all to experience as a culture. But they are straining so hard to replicate that moment through child-burnings, sexual assaults, and big-hero-kills that I'm becoming numb to it all. Red Wedding was masterful because it felt like they knew exactly what they were doing. Do we still have that same confidence in this creative unit?

Anyway, I also think these last two seasons have been devoid of the sort of wit that provided much needed levity in early seasons. The story of this season basically vacillated between dull nothingness and outrageous awfulness (by way of girl burning, girl whipping, girl assaulting, etc.) as a change-up from the otherwise dull nothingness. There was that one great episode where Jon Snow set himself apart as the greatest leader in Westeros, which appeared to be the only point of this whole season (besides gender degradation) until the writers decided it was time to troll us again with that last scene and poo-poo on what that episode meant to its audience.

Thrones is cultural touchstone, maybe the last one remaining on TV, so I can't keep myself from watching. But man, I might have to hate-watch this thing like a mother next season. That being said, to see whether or not this really goes off the rails now that D&D have quite a bit of creative freedom will be pretty compelling in itself.

[Raiders]

Why do you say they have creative freedom? They are still following Martin's storyline (in broad strokes anyway). The series and book will arrive at the same basic outcome.

As for Cersei's scene, it's one time I felt the show did NOT trivialize the brutality it was showing. Unlike Myrcella's death which is just distasteful as can be (hey look, another female tortured/killed for a man to react!), I think the ugliness of King's Landing and the black heart of this culture were laid pretty bare in that Cersei moment. She's evil, but it is quite clear that this world is actually more evil. Also thought Headey did wonderful in that scene. Just wish it could have ended when she walked through the door, not with the Frankenstein's monster moment.

[Watashi]

I thought Cersei's CGI face on the obvious nude body double was a bit distracting.

[Watashi]

If he's not dead, then Harington is really fucking with people in that EW interview. I'm not sure I remember seeing an actor/filmmaker straight-up lie so directly in an industry interview before if that's really the case.

Benedict Cumberbatch: I am in no way playing Khan.

The fact that this article dropped right after the episode aired makes me even more suspicious. It would have been better if Kit kept silent on the whole matter.

[DavidSeven]

Why do you say they have creative freedom? They are still following Martin's storyline (in broad strokes anyway). The series and book will arrive at the same basic outcome.

As for Cersei's scene, it's one time I felt the show did NOT trivialize the brutality it was showing. Unlike Myrcella's death which is just distasteful as can be (hey look, another female tortured/killed for a man to react!), I think the ugliness of King's Landing and the black heart of this culture were laid pretty bare in that Cersei moment. She's evil, but it is quite clear that this world is actually more evil. Also thought Headey did wonderful in that scene. Just wish it could have ended when she walked through the door, not with the Frankenstein's monster moment.

To be honest, I'm not as familiar with the production background as others. I knew Martin had an ending in mind, but I figured the showrunners would have more latitude in creating scenes and storylines as long as they got to that same point.

I didn't necessarily find the Cersei scene totally problematic (like I did with the Myrcella death and Sansa assault), except that it went on for too long and the practical absurdity of her body being unaffected after weeks (?) of starvation. However, when viewed in a vacuum, I still think it sort of functions as an unintended visual representation of the larger critiques of this season.

[number8]

The Cersei scene is one of those scenes that, the longer it went on, the more compelling it became for me. When it began, I started laughing because I was thinking of the shaming scene in What We Do in the Shadows, and then I rolled my eyes because of the prolonged attention on her humiliation, but the scene just would not stop, long enough for me to reconsider its purpose and realize that the point of the scene isn't Cersei's shame and her suffering a low point, but an opportunity to show her intense endurance. In hindsight, I think it's necessary to allow that to come across, because what was previously presented in the episode was her yielding (partly) to her torture. It allows a villainous character to end the season on a completely in-character survivalist note, rather than one that's read as a sadistic "Cersei finally gets hers" fanservice.

And I thought Headey was so good that she didn't let the computer-generated nudity pull the focus away from her performance.

[Dukefrukem]

I was expecting her to say something at the end of it like: "Kill them all".

[[ETM]]

I don't think I'll have time to hate-watch the next season. Everything was so bloody... stupid. All of it. I guess I'm done with being made miserable by Martin, because it's just going nowhere right now.

[Ezee E]

Two things:
1)In the book world, is there any spell or something that Stannis is a part of that could prevent him from being killed by a sword? After coming through the battle, mostly unscathed (a massacre of the Baratheon army really), why would the army leave him alive anyway, and return to their base? Something's going on there. I think he lives.

2)Cersei's scene was pretty epic, for reasons number8 had already mentioned. The show was speeding through many other scenes to finish them, but let it rest on this scene. The use of sound, focus on Cersei's face, and the approaching castle were all well done. Like duke mentions, you basically expect a, "Kill them all," message at the end... But it's not needed. She knows that as long as she gets into that castle, she'll be safe, and will do exactly what she said she would do in the prison. I'd say this is the story that now intrigues me the most going into next season.

[Grouchy]

Ah, the "don't hurt girls" backlash. I knew it was coming eventually.

[Ezee E]

Ah, the "don't hurt girls" backlash. I knew it was coming eventually.

This post is a few weeks late.

[[ETM]]

Unsurprisingly(?), Jon Snow memorial set up in Brooklyn.

[Spinal]

"The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died. This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again."

Joseph Campbell

[Dukefrukem]

Unsurprisingly(?), Jon Snow memorial set up in Brooklyn.

Did 8 do this?

[Spinal]

1)In the book world, is there any spell or something that Stannis is a part of that could prevent him from being killed by a sword? After coming through the battle, mostly unscathed (a massacre of the Baratheon army really), why would the army leave him alive anyway, and return to their base? Something's going on there. I think he lives.

Well, Melisandre is able to 'glamour' someone so that they appear to others as a completely different person. I doubt that's what's going on here though.

[D_Davis]

Never trust a politician.

Better.

[Spinal]

Unsurprisingly(?), Jon Snow memorial set up in Brooklyn.

What are they doing quoting the Ironborn? That's offensive.

[Ezee E]

Well, Melisandre is able to 'glamour' someone so that they appear to others as a completely different person. I doubt that's what's going on here though.

Agreed. I guess they could invent a spell for the show. The whole setup just seems weird. How does Stannis start in front of his entire army in the open, and end up in the far back, in the forest? Never any sight of actual blood on him, just strong fatigue...