Game of Thrones *Spoiler* Thread
 

There's been some recent confusion with the old spoiler thread, so I'm kicking off a new one for tonight's premiere. This is going to be the one for folks who've read all the books. So anything anybody might want to talk about is in bounds. Suffice to say, if you haven't read the books, you'll probably want to stay out of here until you do...

I'll bump the old spoiler-free thread shortly in case anybody's interested. For future reference the link to that one is here

i have wood.

wheres the ADWD thread? i finally finished the book

:rockon:

SOOOOOOO pumped for this. My wife, in honor of the premiere, is cooking up a royal feast centered around a king-sized pork shoulder roast.

Gonna be a great night.

Oh, also.... I've been reading that there are going to be some more changes to this season - more so than the first. Do we think this season will begin with the Clash prologue?

I hope so.

Haven't made it all the way through yet, but it's already the best thing I've seen this year.

Only 10 seconds of Ayra. Rubbish!

Watching Cersei flex her vagina only to get punked by Tyrion or her brat is lulz!

I imagine that we will see more Arya as we go. There's just so much going on that it is going to be difficult to cover it all and there will have to be characters that don't appear much in various episodes. Much of what happens with Arya at the beginning of book 2 was already covered in Season 1 with her leaving KL and getting into a confrontation with Lommy and Hot Pie.

Tyrion gave her as big a virtual bitchslap as she's likely ever had in that three minute exchange, and Littlefinger suffered the backlash, even if he was pushing her buttons.

And I have a feeling that they are going to change the focus every episode between characters like they did this week. Next week, we'll likely see little of Robb and Tyrion, while they focus more on Arya and Danny. I'm assuming.

Next week may also bring in Renly, Margery and Brienne as well as Balon Greyjoy,and Theon's uncle and sister. I think those are most of the new characters for this season. I hope they get into the background of Davos and Stannis as well, their backstory is interesting and will help viewers understand these new characters better.

It will be interesting to see how much time they give Robb since he's ironically not a central character in ACoK.

MORE ARYA! Her arc with her troupe in ACoK was my favorite so GET ON IT!

The Littlefinger/Cersei scene was great! Although I really disliked how, after the guards released him, she ordered them through a synchronized swimming routine. A strange complaint, but it was just odd to me. He got the picture of what she controls. Just lean in and tell him to STFU or next time she won't tell her guards to stay that order.

Oh snap, and Brienne! For sure, Catelyn will treat with Renly next ep. The promo pic for next week had Balon and I think Theon in it.

It's nice to see more of "Robb the King" being shown. We hear about it a little from Bran/Cat's POV, but don't see it first-hand, really.

Yes Tyrion got her although I was disappointed they cut out the dialogue there where he was giving her shit about sleeping with Jaime and she slapped him 3 times for it. That part gave me lulz when I read it.

Something like " you were ****ing our sweet Jaime" *slap* "though it seems unfair that you would open your legs for one brother and not the other" *slap* " I never understood what Jaime saw in you besides his own reflection" *slap*

The casting is excellent in this series but the Melisandre and Stannis choices aren't doing it for me early on. Maybe they'll grow on me?

I really like the portrayal of Davos. Strong, but subservient.

Also, I had heard somewhere that Meera and Jojen Reed are not in this season. Hopefully they will show up at the beginning of next season. I just can't see Bran traveling North with only Hodor as his companion. Maybe they will be written into the show as sympathetic wildlings, possibly friends of Osha.

I liked Melisandre, but I agree about Stannis. I'm hoping he'll get better. And I hope that Renly will be better now that he's king.

Renly is a shadow of his former self.

Great point. Maybe they're saving that scene. It's so great! Is it then that she tries to slap him again and he grabs her and and says she won't do that again! Maybe with her slapping Joffery they didn't want her slapping half the people she talked to in one episode.

It's funny to think about King Robert slapping her and now it's her rebuttal of choice.

Another thing about changes I didn't like. In season one Jaime said the line, "The king shits, and the hand wipes." But in the book it was, "The king eats, and the hand takes the shit." I just like the book line so much more. So many things in these books should be word for word.

My theory on Stannis is that if we like the character, they're doing it wrong.

Yeah Melisandre just doesn't seem foreboding and/or seductive enough for me. Maybe if they'd have kept her red eyes. I feel like she should have a voice like Galadriel in TLotR.

And Stannis was BORING, although he's described as such when Loras said "Stannis has the personality of a lobster."

I thought the same thing. I remember thinking at the time, I can't wait to see how Peter Dinklage pull this scene off...

I agree

I think that's why they have her wearing the glowing red neckace.

She seems much more dark in the book, they also skipped a lot of that scene. Stannis didn't have any interaction with Master Cressan.

In the book Stannis seems much more outspoken and dark, that just me?

Another drawback of going the audio route with the books. In those, I got to know him through his voice, and his voice sounded nearly identical to this guy -

http://www.planet-familyguy.com/pfg/...ers/pirate.jpg

Agreed. My complaint isn't that they don't portray Stannis as likeable (he isn't supposed to be), my complaint is the old "he isn't what I pictured when reading the book" which isn't really valid but nonetheless it is there.

I don't know why, but I always envisioned Stannis as bald for some reason.

For some reason, I had it in my brain that Stannis was the oldest Baratheon, and RObert was middle kid. I could have sworn they said Stannis was the middle son in the show.

Is that correct, or is my attention to detail just plain poop?

Same for me. I always thought Stannis was the oldest brother.

(I think we're both wrong about that, however)

I'm pretty sure Stannis is the oldest. And speaking of how his pictured in your mind's eye, I always pictured him as a younger version of Christopher Lee's Count Dooku. No idea why, but like Vailpass said, it's probably why I'm not entirely on board with this actor yet.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Stannis_Baratheon says he's the "elder of Robert Baratheon's younger brothers". (That's the older wiki that was originally for the books, not the newer wiki for the tv series).

Huh, that's weird. I wonder if he's just mentioned somewhere in the book as the "eldest of Robert's brothers" or something like that, and I just interpreted Stannis as being the eldest Baratheon brother. Not that it really makes a difference at all.

I always pictured Stannis looking exactly like Gerard Butler in 300, only with a receding hairline

Really? I always pictured him as much thinner than that, not so pumped.

Craster and his keep didn't look nearly as gnarly as I imagined.

Agree about Craster. He was almost refined. I imagined him to be downright grotesque and crude and completely barbaric.

Yes although the part where he was groping the ass of his daughter-wife was enough to make my wife call bullshit.

I'm seeing that episode 2 is hitting the "scene" already! :rockon:

You know I thought that the dude who plays Stannis was really great in the show Adams when he played Thomas Jefferson. That was a show I really liked, so I was actually stoked when I heard he was playing Stannis. I thought he did a decent job in the first episode.

Dude- Crasters house was DEAD ON! Loved it. And Dolorus Ed popped up for a line or two. Great start so far, but wow... this story is so huge. Following all these characters and stories at once is going to be insane.

My only down point was the Dany scenes. I wasn't digging the acting from any of them.

Agree on scope. I'm already feeling like I'm not spending enough time with the various stories. That is just going to get worse. Could make each episode 2 hours, and I'd be happy.

Yeah. MOAR!!!

There's sooo much content. It's hard to fit a thousand pages into ten hours of television.

Erg... Episode two is already out there. Trying hard to resist watching it. Ha!

I can't remember, was the Brotherhood Without Banners shown at all in Clash of Kings? Or did they mostly appear in Storm of Swords? I can't wait to see Thoros and Dondarrion.

100 pages an hour isn't bad, but there just isn't a lot of fluff to leave out like you have with normal books/written stories.

They're going to have to start stretching certain storylines over multiple seasons I think. Some events (RW...) make more sense toward the end of a season than they do near the middle.

Looks like the first episode was a huge ratings success! According to this link, and other stories I have read, it looks pretty certain that they are planning for book 3 to take two full seasons. With ratings like this, you have to think HBO will be on board!

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/168...-ratings.jhtml

Man, I hope those ratings stay up. I was worried about the pace of this season. A lot of cool stuff happens in Clash, but it is a very chatty character driven book. Having Rob more involved to show more action is good idea. I can't wait for Arya to get her 3 wishes, is that this book? Probably not, but her story is fun. The Pyromancer, Tyrion's chain, & more great elements are to be had. I'm also wonder if they'll build up the hound for the ending of this book...

Jaqen H'ghar and Harrenhal should be this season.

A man could be interested to see that.

I don't think they will spend a lot of time on Dany this season, her role in book 2 is pretty small (only 5 out of 70 chapters). But I am "dying" to see how they will handle her trip through the house of the undying and all the visions she sees...

Plus I hope that Barristan the Bold meets up with her this season, and I REALLY REALLY hope they do not eliminate the character of Belwas the Strong! He is awesome! I did not see him listed in the casting lists which worries me. Still, he doesn't show up until the very last Dany chapter, so they may not have listed him because his role would be pretty small this season. Staying optimistic.

No doubt! Arya's story arc should be a highlight this season.

Yeah, they showed Harrenhal in the preview that followed the season two premiere and I got chills.

Jaqen is easily my favorite peripheral character. Can't wait!

This is kind of cool and might provide some reading ideas for fans:

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/04/the_...nes/singleton/
The real-life inspirations for “Game of Thrones”
Mischief and murder --medieval-style -- inspired the epic series
BY LAURA MILLER

Lena Headey in "Game of Thrones"

TOPICS:BOOKS, EDITOR'S PICKS, GAME OF THRONES, HISTORICAL FICTION, HISTORY
Yes, “Game of Thrones” has dragons and ice zombies and giant clairvoyant wolves, but for every viewer (or reader) who climbed onto George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy bandwagon for the magical stuff, I suspect there are two of us who are in it for the palace intrigue. Velvet sleeves concealing jewel-encrusted daggers, scheming eunuchs with networks of spies, parvenue commoners outwitting the supercilious aristos and totally, utterly ruthless power plays — what’s not to love?

Martin has always maintained that he’s been influenced at least as much by history and historical fiction as by the traditional epic fantasy of writers like J.R.R. Tolkien. Aficionados know that his novels (collectively called “A Song of Ice and Fire”) are loosely based on the Wars of the Roses, a vicious series of battles of succession that took place in 15th-century England. Martin has also listed Maurice Druon and Thomas B. Costain as models, two mid-20th-century historical novelists who wrote about medieval France, and you can see echoes of that material in his fictional universe, as well.

It would probably surprise several generations of British schoolchildren to learn that the dynastic politics of the late 1400s could be transformed into anything coherent, let alone entertaining. (“It’s worse than the Wars of the Roses!” Lucy Pevensie cries in dismay when someone tries to explain a particularly complicated bit of Narnian history in “Prince Caspian.” She speaks for many.) This, however, hasn’t kept many novelists and historians from trying.

It’s not that there aren’t fabulous characters and nefarious doings in the Wars of the Roses — Secret marriages! Mad monarchs! Vanishing princes! This is a story that concludes with one of the players being drowned in a barrel of wine, after all. But keeping the Wars’ family trees, convoluted legalistic arguments and perpetually shifting allegiances straight is enough to give anyone a headache. It certainly doesn’t help that all the male principles seem to have the same three names (Henry, Richard or Edward) or that they are forever gaining or losing and then gaining again the titles that serve to distinguish them from one another.

For fans who wish to investigate further into the real-life inspirations for Martin’s characters, one of the most lucid popular histories of the conflict is Alison Weir’s “The Wars of the Roses” (originally published as “Lancaster and York”). Some of Martin’s references to the Wars are easy to pick up. For example, the two dueling clans in “Game of Thrones,” the Lannisters and the Starks, have names that resemble those of the two sides in the Wars of the Roses. Like the Yorks, the Starks are northerners, while the Lannisters, like the Lancasters, are famously rich.

Both English families were branches of the House of Plantagenet who vied for the throne after the deposition of the last Plantagenet king, Richard II, in 1399 and before the establishment of the Tudor dynasty in 1485. There’s no one-to-one correspondence between the characters in “Game of Thrones” and actual historical figures, but Martin was clearly inspired by Edward IV in creating, say, Robert Baratheon, the great, strapping warrior who became a stout, ailing king. There’s a dash of Edward, too, in Rob Stark, a brilliant commander who makes an impetuous, disadvantageous marriage.

Cersei Lannister, Robert’s ambitious, conniving widow, is thought by many to have been inspired by the hot-headed Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, the king Edward IV helped depose. Henry’s bouts of insanity left him frequently unable to rule, and Margaret, a leading Lancastrian, fought ferociously against those she saw as threatening her family’s hold on the crown. Historians view her as a prime driver in the Wars of the Roses, just as Cersei is substantively responsible for the War of the Five Kings in “A Clash of Kings.” Cersei also resembles Isabella of France, an earlier medieval English queen, who conspired with her adulterous lover to dethrone, and possibly to murder, her (bisexual) husband, Edward II, in the 1300s.

Cersei is a crude, incompetent politician, however, which cannot be said of Isabella. Although unpopular in England, where she was nicknamed “the She-wolf of France,” Isabella has acquired some sympathizers over the years, including the indefatigable Alison Weir, who wrote a contrarian biography of her in 2006, “Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England.” Weir has also written novels about various women in the Tudor era, no doubt aspiring to the success of Philippa Gregory, whose romantic historical novels routinely land on the New York Times Bestseller List.

For her own part, Gregory has already published three books in a series set during the Wars of the Roses, “The Cousins’ War” (an apt title, given the intricate blood relationships among the many combatants). The most recent of these, “The Lady of the Rivers,” may even be infused with enough magical elements to appeal to some “Game of Thrones” readers: In it, the character of Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, possesses psychic abilities (the real duchess was tried for witchcraft by her political enemies) and is initiated into the mysteries of alchemy by her first husband. For those who prefer a more grounded view, Gregory collaborated with two historians, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, on a nonfiction book, “The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother,” published last year.

You may have noticed that most of these books are about women, despite the fact that, with very few exceptions, the women of the Middle Ages had little power. Much of today’s popular historical fiction about the rulers of the Middle Ages is read by women who are primarily interested in the lives and problems of women. Since the historical record contains next to no information on this topic, fiction has stepped in to fill the breach.

Another, more manly, popular contemporary historical novelist, Bernard Cornwell, has set a series of novels, “The Grail Quest,” during a slightly earlier period. His hero, an archer named Thomas of Hookton who gets caught up in the Hundred Years’ War, is an entirely fictional commoner in search of that fabled relic. What Cornwell’s novels lack in historically based, Machiavellian aristocrats they make up for in action-packed, blood-soaked battle scenes.

For the ultimate in medieval scuttlebutt, however, you can’t do better than Barbara Tuchman’s prizewinning 1978 history, “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.” This account of the Hundred Years’ War centers around the life of a French nobleman who married an Englishwoman, but it’s more expansive than any novel, taking in such fascinating details as the bizarre fashion for long-toed shoes in court (so long, they had to be tied up with strings and were inveighed against by puritanical clergymen) to the legendarily brutal rampages of British mercenary John Hawkwood through Italy. If you really want to know how the peasants fared while their rulers skirmished, the peculiar challenges of sewage-management in a stone castle, what the real agenda was behind the Crusades, or just how dastardly the highborn and royal can behave when it suits them, then look no further.

I'm not much of a history buff, and never thought of Martin drawing directly from European history. However, when looking at a map of Westeros, I always thought it looked like Great Britain with the lands of to the east being the rest of Europe.

Anyways, cool article, thanks!

I decided to watch episode 2. With Easter coming this weekend I probably would have been too busy so.... anyway, this show is flying through the book, and there were some surprising differences already.

Thanks NC! Definitely going to include some if those on my reading list.

Wow. They've changed quite a few things from the books in episode 2.

Nothing that changes the overall story much, but changes that move the story along at a much faster pace.

Yes, this.

About through with book 2 and - **** Theon in the ass with a cock soaked in wildfire.

So for those that have read the book.....Judging by a lot of the comments I've read, Arya is some sort of badass?

IMO, she is story wise already, and I think is about to be the full fledged biggest badass of the bunch in other ways too.

My wife is short, around 5'. She went to grade school with Peter Dinklage. (I think she liked it because whenever they would line everyone up by height, she wouldn't be on the end, LOL.)

GoT is now a Peabody award winner.

(Along with Homeland, Tremé and Parks and Recreation, among others)

Or something similar that will make his skin crawl.

She's nobody.

You lie.

:clap:

No, he's correct- It is known.

Dinkledge is 4' 5'' so he's not miniscule necessarlly. That's cool that she knew him back in the day. Seems like a cool dude.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/1...hic_2000px.jpg

GoT infographic if anyone is interested.

It is NOT known.

Ha! Okay, it IS known in the latest books. The show is another story.

BTW- The original post we're referencing may not exactly mean what you think it means.

Maybe I'm just confused. But I feel like you maybe didn't get Swanman's post.

THIS IS THE SPOILER THREAD. STOP TALKING IN RIDDLES! I just wondered if Arya becomes some sort of a badass in the books.

LMAO You have a point.

She's on her way to becoming a badass, but in doing so she is becoming a faceless "nobody." LOL! Is that better?

Episode 2 spoiler, & The thing that shocked me the most-

Holy cow.

Game of Thrones has received a Hugo nomination. Not an episode of Game of Thrones. The entire first season. It's in the long form category against films. :eek:

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)


(ADWD is also in the running in the novel category)

That's outstanding. Has a series ever won before? Go Thrones!

Awesome. Game of Thrones is easily the best work among those nominated.

Wow. So some interesting changes last night. Can someone help refresh my memory regarding the last two scenes?

Is there even any hint in the book that Stannis and Melisandre are hooking up? Doesn't that sort of smash his super pious and pure image. I remember part of his stubbornness in the books was rooted in that sort of unwavering purity. Seems like he can't be as judgmental and righteous if he's banging the red witch.

Also, I know some kind of variation of that scene with Craster and Jon Snow takes place but it's been so long, I can't how it all goes down in the book. But what we saw last night was way different, right - and way early?

Stannis and Mel, there were some hints, but it was never stated expressly and does seem out of character with Stannis (though we also have been led to believe that Ned fatehred a bastard, so apparently honor doesn't always include faithfulness to wife). I guess they felt it was needed to explain the shadow she's about to birth.

Jon finds out that the sons of Craster are left as sacrifices to the others in the books, but nothing like this where he sees it or gets knocked out. Just adding some drama to the show since the action with Jon doesn't really pick up until later in book two.

Bronn as leader of the city guard. Very different, but I like it as it clearly shows the city watch are now Tyrion's without having to go into painful detail or introduce another new character.