The Glade 4.0

Lenas:

The Red Wedding is a solo chapter that comes mostly out of sequence and isolated from other events. It has plenty of tension on its own. Sorry, but I felt that sequence was just terribad television all around and truly soured me on the TV series.

*edit* Making it clear I'm stating an opinion.

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I wouldn't exactly call it a solo chapter. It's the 5th in a string of 6 Stark chapters in a row. It's not really isolated from anything.

Also, there wasn't really any tension for me reading chapter 51. I didn't expect anything to happen until Cat started freaking out. I wasn't even 100% sure about what was happening until Robb already had arrows in him.

Yes, it's in a string of Stark Chapters, but the Red Wedding is already a known quantity. Martin told you it was going to happen in what is arguably Dany's 3rd best chapter.

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If you're talking about her visions in the house of the undying, those scenes never made it to TV and they were far too ambiguous while reading to know that they were the RW. There's no way to know that the undying weren't just **** with her until much later.

The King in her vision is dead with a direwolf head sewn on his body.

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I was kinda pissed that Grey Wind didn't get out. I didn't like the fact that no one really fought back. Was it perfect? No but the show got the message across.

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Raell Kromwell

She has like 15 visions while she's in the house of the undying... Yeah it seems obvious in hindsight but I wasn't taking any of the visions literally when I first read them.

Lenas:

The Red Wedding was the only guaranteed obvious one. And the Frey/Bolton Betrayal is pretty readily established by that point in the novels, as 3 of the visions center around Robb's demise.

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Okay, well some of us don't read for a living! The RW caught me by surprise and my wife even more so. She was so upset after reading it that she put the books down for a couple of months. The only reason the impact was mitigated for me was because I knew she read something really bad during book three and I knew it was somewhere around the 70% mark, so I was expecting to be pissed. The reason why was still a surprise, though.

Either way, this thread is dedicated to the show. My friends that are non-readers were completely caught off guard and can't wait to see what happens next week. The further I get into the book and show, the more impressed I am with the directors for getting mostly everything right. Some characters are moved, or removed, some details changed, but ultimately the main plot points have all stayed the same while maintaining a good pace on screen.

You do yourself a disservice not watching, IMO.


You don't really find out the Boltons have betrayed Robb until Ramsay burns down Winterfell toward the end of CoK. Certainly after the Tower of the Undying.

I thought the acting was incredible. Lack of tension? I don't know what to say to that. Regarding Frey standing up....people complain about the weirdest stuff. Also, that wasn't a bastard daughter, that was Walder Frey's wife. This show already has way more characters than any show in the history of television. They didn't have time to introduce and establish a new character like Jinglebell. Regarding Greatjon, that wasn't him you are thinking of. Smalljon is the one that killed all the Freys and got his head chopped off by Bolton. Greatjon could have filled that role, but the actor had scheduling conflicts and couldn't do the series. Very disappointing.

Aegnor:

Greatjon Umber is paired with Drunk Merritt Frey at the Red Wedding in the novels, particularly since Merritt gets a closing chapter to himself and dies to the Thoros and Beric's outlaws. And killing Walder Frey's wife is worse than killing any of his children -- Frey is hard established as not giving a **** about and being murderous of wives. As for Frey standing up, it's negates the whole too sick, too gouty to march himself excuse he gives the Starks when the marriage pact is made. The Smalljon is simply killed; the Greatjon is kept captive and his hostage status is what binds Whoresbane Umber to the Dreadfort.

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For someone that said GRRM was a hack several pages back, you sure do remember a LOT of details about the books. A suspicious amount.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I got a Kindle and the first 5 books plus all three Tales of Dunk and Egg were bundled with my Kindle. Kaffis had been on me to read them for literally YEARS. I got bored, was out of stuff I NEEDED to read, so I read those. I have a lot of problems with Martin, but he's part hack and part genius. There are things he does in this particular series of novels which are novel, important (literary sense), and contribute to the canon of western literature. In fact, completely by accident, I would suggest Martin actually succeeds in creating the distinctly Anglo-Saxon mythology Tolkien wanted to deliver. However, we are dealing primarily with a chivalric romance, and Martin isn't exactly breaking a lot of rules there. How he tells the tale, however, is rather quite brilliant and perhaps far more interesting than the specific content of the novels.

As for remembering a suspicious amount of details, I've read the books completely 4 times now, and I'm working on my 5th pass (more margin notes, more sticky notes, more flags, more underlining, etc.). I plan on writing a long academic "thing" (book, article, chapter, not sure just yet which) on the novels.

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Ah, you don't do anything non-seriously do you? That "thing" sounds cool though. ASoIaF makes me think of a medieval soap opera. There's main character or quest. Maybe that's why each book is so long. Normally one may write something that happens, but since it doesn't serve the plot of the main character/quest, you don't put it in. GRRM doesn't have one, so everything he writes goes in.

From what I've read he also seems to write like we read. From page one to the end. D: No wonder he takes so long too!

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Episode 10 leaked screenshot, the king who lost the North (large)

That prop... Maybe it'll look better in motion.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Looks about right to me... Not supposed to fit perfectly

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Holy shitsnacks!

Really really good episode.

There were two good cliffhangers they could have had... disappointing

It was all just set up for next year. Davos getting the scroll from the Nights Watch was the most important thing to happen.

In the book there was a moment between Sam and Mormont as he lay near death in Crasters place, I was kinda pissed they never had that. Yet you have Sam...all of a sudden coming up with the wall wasn't built to keep out men.

No Cold Hands...

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Raell Kromwell

Is Cold Hands really that important or do you just think he's cool?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Signs in the book were pointing towards him being important, yeah. Considering he's, you know, a wight. Consorting with people. Suggesting they're aligning themselves on a certain side of the wight/Rh'llor conflict that is the titular event of the Song of Ice and Fire...

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm fairly certain they will introduce him next season. I don't think there is anything to indicate he won't be eventually. In fact the murder of crows during Sam's white walker scene strongly suggests he will make an appearance.

Do you think if Coldhands got married, the band would play...."Wight Wedding"...?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."