Lily and I are working through S1 of Game of Thrones in anticipation of the new season. Some things I’ve noticed the second time through:
1.) Some people just look natural with long hair. Sean Bean is one of them.
2.) The whole show is visually stunning in a way that usually only movies capture.
3.) Arya Stark and Peter Dinklage steal every scene they are in.
4.) Fucking Lannisters.
BGinCHI
Fixed for historical accuracy.
David Koch
Whitney Houston’s autopsy reports came today—she drowned.
That’s why I always take showers, baths are too dangerous.
Linnaeus
Lannisters are the 1%! #OccupyWesteros
robertdsc-PowerBook
The books are magnificent. Can’t recommend them enough.
Cat Lady
The last scene of the last episode was awesome.
Mnemosyne
I usually make fun of boys and their toys, but we got a brand-new SawStop table saw at work today and holy FUCK is this thing impressive. They did a hot dog demo right there for us (but faces are visible, so here’s the hot dog demo from YouTube instead).
Seriously, if you’re a professional or semi-pro woodworker, you need one of these suckers.
Narcissus
I read the first two books and haven’t gone any further, they’re just so relentlessly grim.
I think I would have preferred more Daenerys and less Westeros.
Calimatt
Test…does commenting still fix the mobile problem?
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: Oddly, that goes perfectly with a Game of Thrones thread.
SiubhanDuinne
Lily is adorable and photogenic from every angle.
danielx
1. Lily is clearly obsessed.
2. First thing I saw Sean Bean was one of the Sharpe episodes on PBS, which I highly recommend. Have enjoyed everything I’ve seen of him since.
3. Another day in the 80s….40 degrees above average for this time of year.
freelancer
I’m watching last week’s Awake before I watch the 4th ep that aired tonight. A scene where police prematurely kill a black guy in a hoodie, even if he was an escaped convict was brutal to watch. The Martin fiasco is invading everything I read and watch, it’s that fucked up. And the striking thing is that it shouldn’t be a surprise to us that this shit happens. It happens all the time in this country now and the sense is that it has always been there in the first place.
Makes me feel sorry for that fact.
schrodinger's cat
How is the blog deity Tunch? Has he had his victuals?
freelancer
In lighter news, this is the best tumblr ever. I didn’t know the Bluths and the Starks had so much in common.
Bnut
@Mnemosyne: This one is better. The inventor uses a finger.
Some Guy
Here here.
Dinklage is just awesome. I only wish Arya had more story devoted to her.
I cannot wait for this season. Book 2 is all about e Imp.
Some Guy
Here here.
Dinklage is just awesome. I only wish Arya had more story devoted to her.
I cannot wait for this season. Book 2 is all about e Imp.
Dr J
Yes, the Lannisters are perfectly evil, except perhaps for the dwarf. On par with John Hurt as Caligula in I Claudius. The young king is even more evil than the rest of the Lannisters can stomach.
Mike in NC
But they always pay their debts!
David Koch
PPP Louisiana poll: Santorum 42 Etch-A-Sketch 28
Afters spending $200 million over the past 2 primary cycles, the presumptive frontrunner still can’t crack 30 percent in the GOP home base of the south vs two indigent clowns.
Roxie
Who would think Facebook could be so engrossing. Old High School friend who is a 911 dispatcher in Sanford is posting a blow by blow account about Zimmerman turning himself in on account of the Black Panthers running crazy all around Sanford!
Comrade Mary
I’m grumbly, disorganized and out of sorts. My sprained foot isn’t quite healed, work has dribbled down to a pittance, I have to get some financial stuff filed so I can bring in a few more bucks, and my house is upside down.
This should be the perfect time to deep clean the house, get my garage and bikes ship-shape, and go beyond some basic ideas for my web site and actually build the damn thing, but I’m sitting in front of the computer, refreshing. Bleah.
Tim F.
Some thoughts of my own.
1) Ceresi had no way of knowing that the Stark kids have some metaphysical connection to their wolf pets. It was bitchy to take Sansa’s wolf, but look at it from her perspective. Her kid almost certainly lied to her, so all she knows is that a wolf bit him in the arm and could have killed him.
I have met wolves and talked wolf safety with their handlers. It is really fucking stupid to let kids walk around with a full-blooded wolf like a house pet. I can only guess that a direwolf is a bit more dangerous still than the regular kind. Ned might know different but Ceresi and the king definitely do not, and it is not like every character in this series shits magic.
2) Just about everyone in the series makes decisions that look fairly reasonable when you look at it from their perspective, or else they act unreasonably for reasons that make psychological sense. There is no such thing as Manichaean evil in this series. You might count the plot-device ice zombies, though I am not sure they count as a character. For the most part you have different people with different motives trying and mostly failing to adapt to circumstances and keep their long-term plans afloat. This reminds me why I fucking hate Tolkien.
3) The surprise twist is completely not surprising when you step back and understand that being a key character who the audience identifies with does not protect you from stupid decisions. This theme – use your head or lose it – comes up again and again in the series. I am still pissed at Martin for at least two of those not-surprise twists, but I can hardly argue with the logic of either one.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Comrade Mary:
Sometimes I feel like the caged cocaine rat, punching the button over and over for the Balloon Juice fix.
Mnemosyne
@Tim F.:
Well, yeah, except that she knew perfectly well that the wolf that she ordered killed was not the wolf that bit her son. So it really was just petty revenge — if one Stark kid’s pet was not available to be killed, another one was just as good.
Which is also thematic to the way the Lannisters think, and it was a demonstration of Ned’s essential weakness that he was willing to kill an animal that hadn’t actually done anything, so it all worked, but I wouldn’t cut Ceresi too many breaks on that one.
I’m still suspicious that she killed her first child (the one she told the heart-rending story about), which not coincidentally seems to have been the only child she had that was fathered by Robert. (If this turns out to be the case in the books, don’t tell me.)
TheMightyTrowel
@Tim F.: you and me both. if he really did what it looks like he did at the end of book 5 i might need to start sending ice zombies in his direction.
also, there’s some very interesting (and not always heartening) subtext about femininity across the books. The TV show flattens it out immensely.
Kris Collins
Very long-time lurker who finally couldn’t resist the best pic of Lily ever. I’m a cat person who also loves dog and if i got a dog i want a Lily. As for G of T, never seen it and not interested, but I have been a huge fan of Peter Dinklage for years. Sexiest Little Person since Michael Dunn.
poguemahone
If you ever read the books, you might just come to appreciate Jaime after hating him in the first season. Not Cersei though. She stays terrible.
Mnemosyne
@poguemahone:
Actually, I find Cersei fascinating, because her monstrosity is so human. You can understand how the girl she was could be disillusioned and turn into the bitter woman that she became. You can’t excuse or condone her actions, but you can understand them.
It helps that the actress who plays her is so good (though her resemblance to Robin Wright in The Princess Bride is very distracting).
ChakUtrun
Here’s the thing about the TV series: it perfectly captures the plot of the books at the expense of story. The writers are trying so hard to cram in every single plot point that they often omit critical thematic scenes altogether — in particular I’m thinking of the mini-scene between Bran and Ned early on in the first book just after Ned beheaded the deserter from the Wall (won’t spoil it here if you haven’t read the books). That scene contains the most profound expression of the theme of the books that its absence in the TV series borders on negligence. Or at least a misunderstanding of what these books are about.
Jager
Aye, on the fooking Lannisters.
Murc
That’s even more impressive when you consider the budget requirements.
Game of Thrones doesn’t look AS good as Lord of the Rings, but it comes close. The first season had about eight hours or so of usable footage, which comes in a shade under the theatrical run time of Lord of the Rings.
Lord of the Rings cost the better part of half a billion dollars to make. The first season of Game of Thrones cost fifty million.
Sometimes there are obvious corners cut. Game of Thrones has yet to actually film a battle. Some of the sets have been lacking; there was no Riverrun (and I’m starting to think there flat out will NOT be a Riverrun) the tourney scenes were sparse at best, and Vaes Dothrak was a huge disappoint. But on the whole they’ve been doing an amazing job.
texascowgirl
Speaking of not so surprise twists, I have a theory: John Snow may actually be the child of Ned’s sister that ran off with the Targaryen and that Ned lied to protect him from Robert Baratheon’s wrath.
Yutsano
Note to self: get house professionally cleaned more often!
feebog
I’ve read all five books. Book 4 was a slog, but GRRM made up for it in book 5. My fear now is that the old coot keels over before he completes books 6 and 7. I have season 1 on ready to go on DVD, but wanted to watch all of seasons 1 and 2 of Justified first.
GRRM writes these by the chapter, and in fact, has said that he took some chapters that were meant for book 4 and held them for book 5. Some characters from book 4 never got a chapter in book 5. At this point, he has killed so many characters you just wonder who is going to get it next. I must say, the ending to Book 5 was a complete surprise to me, but I’ll bet the character we think he killed off survives.
PTirebiter
Lily was a real find. My little one will sit on the couch next to me and watch but she still hasn’t grasped that, like the actors, any dogs that show up aren’t really in the room with us. She barks, our other two run in barking and it’s off to the races. Walking Dead and Justified have been dog free so far this year so I can live with it.
Joseph Nobles
TheMightyTrowel: I have a friend that lives right down the road from Martin. He did what he did at the end of book 5, all right, and I’m sure you’re not talking about the Spider.
Jay
Sean Bean was a boss in “North Country.”
That is all.
The prophet Nostradumbass
“You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”
Oops.
xian
@texascowgirl: to obsessed fans, this theory is known as R+L=J (Rhaeger + Lyanna = Jon)
at this point it’s the dominant theory to a degree that some people wonder if Martin may change his original intent just to mess with readers who twigged it too soon.
one thing to remember is that the story was intended to be a trilogy, so if the original intended arc hasn’t changed then most of what comes out should be set up or foreshadowed in the first book.
John Casey
@Mnemosyne: There is no ‘first child’ in the books; it’s only in the HBO version.
TheMightyTrowel
@Joseph Nobles: ice fucking zombies. at his door. in the morning.
Mnemosyne
@John Casey:
Ah, okay. Reading the book first always ruins the movie for me, so I’m going to read them after the run of the series. I can enjoy both the book and the movie if I see the movie/TV show first, but not the other way around.
Billy K
I’ll be damned if you’re not correct on every point.
EDIT: What the hell is wrong with my blockquote!?
San
Joseph Nobles:
I need to unsee your comment.
Can’t wait til April 1. Currently rereading book 2 so that it’s all fresh in my mind when we watch season 2.
My husband is reading it for the first time. I can’t wait to see his expression and hear his wails when he gets to the RW in the third book.
Rodrik the Reader
If you like Tyrion and Arya, you’re going to love season 2. While the story of the show’s primary protagonists is still building momentum in remote locales, the stories of the Imp and the tyke are at the heart of the season’s theme, war, from the heights of power to its foulest depredations (so far). And don’t forget: Tyrion is a Lannister too, so they can’t be all bad, right? Dinklage will own a character as iconic as Al Swearengen or Dexter Morgan after this season.
xian
counting down till eemarm corrects my misspelling of Rhaegar
Arclite
*Sigh* I want to see this, but the Oatmeal sums up my frustration. I don’t have cable, I’m not going to pay $43 for the BRDs, and I’m not going to pirate, so I guess i’m just going to have to wait.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Skip skip skip! I haven’t seen it yet. Waiting until I get back from New Orleans. I LOVED last week’s ep, though, and that was after being a teeny bit disappointed with the second ep.
ETA: I have waist-length hair. I’m letting it go all white a la Storm from the X-Men, then I’m chopping it off.
IM
As of today game of thrones has arrived on german television. And I have just received and read my paperback of dance of dragons. So I am in full Song of Ice and Fire mood.
One quibble, though: This Dinklage guy is much to good looking to play my favorite imp.
Well, you can’t have everything.
IM
@feebog:
Actually I think he was quite sparingly with killing of important characters in the last book.
Batocchio
@poguemahone:
Yes, exactly. Martin sets us up to identify with the Starks, but then he complicates things by making the most interesting character in the whole series a Lannister, Tyrion. And Jaime becomes much intriguing and complex…
I thought book four really plunged in quality from the previous three. Book five was better (if not as good as the first three), although it still felt padded. I’m hoping Martin finishes strong. (Apparently, he’s told the major plot developments to the TV producers/writers in case something happens to him.)
I’ve been impressed by the TV series so far. They can’t do large scale battles, but they’ve made a relatively modest budget go a long way. Most of the casting ranges from good to excellent, which is particularly impressive given that it’s really the first gig for many of the cast.
Mary
Agreed. Except that every time I start to feel sympathy for Jaime I remember that he threw a kid out of window. What a douche.
Cheryl from Maryland
@texascowgirl: As well as ten jillion others. Go to Westeros.org. Be careful, major spoilers.
Tim F.
@TheMightyTrowel: don’t worry. I strongly suspect that someone nearby will breathe new life into that character, so to speak.
Joy in FL
The view over Lily’s ears improves any perspective.
Nemesis
Cant figure out why people, reasonable, rational, smart people, care for GoT. Unwatchable.
Chris from Arlington
Do you have a fridge in your living room? Tell me it’s full of beer. If so you are my hero and I would like to shake your hand.
Paul in KY
@Narcissus: Er, you need to read Book 3, nothing grim in there, nosiree…
Paul in KY
@texascowgirl: Wouldn’t he have silver hair then? All Targaryens are supposed to have silver hair.
Paul in KY
@Nemesis: Have you read the books or at least 1st book?
lethargytartare
@Nemesis:
and I can’t figure out why, for the entire history of on-line communications, wherever 2 or more people gather to discuss something they like, some d-bag will feel compelled to point out that whatever they like sucks.
congratulations.
Rob
I started reading the books after I watched season one. I’m up to A Storm Of Swords or what will be season three. Even though I know everything that’s going to happen in this coming season I’m still really excited to see how they play it out. There’s some really good stuff coming up.
DFH no.6
De gustibus non est disputandum and all that, but I can not agree with several here who found book 5 better than book 4.
Sure, book 4 was a bit of a slog, but wasn’t qualitatively much different from the first three books.
Considering Martin worked on 5 for, like, 20 years (yeah, I know, only 6) I found it fairly disappointing, and not nearly as good as the first 4. I think Martin just worked book 5 over and over and over too much, past the point of diminishing returns, and it shows.
He’s never finishing the series in time for HBO to do the whole thing, so that will be a bummer. Gonna be like Carnivale.
Enjoying it on HBO for now, though, so good with the bad I guess.
I at least hope Martin does finish writing the series eventually, and avoids the unfortunate fate of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Sanderson’s finishing of Jordan’s series really, really sucks. Way worse than Jordan’s own last few books in the series.
DFH no.6
@Tim F.:
Yes, that will happen. Count on it.
MCA1
@Nemesis: Thanks for that detailed critical takedown. We’ll all continue to closely follow your subtle and informed aesthetic assertions, so as to appear as thoughtful a connisseur of culture as you.
@John Cole – pretty sure Bean was in a wig as Ned Stark.
Agreed with the criticism of Lena Headey (although obviously not the tone and pottymouthiness) upthread. She seems wooden compared to everyone around her – Bean and Addy seemed held back by her inability to express anything beyond iciness and glum. I haven’t read the books, but I don’t imagine Cersei being nearly as flat as she seems on the show.
Also agreed on all the huzzahs for Dinklage. He’s absolutely killing it as Tyrion. Just a terrific actor – every time they end a Tyrion scene you feel pulled away too soon and can’t wait until they come back to his storyline again.
Nerf
Sean Bean should pronounce his name “Seen Bawn”
gravie
I’ve loved Peter Dinklage ever since I first saw him, in “Living in Oblivion.” Glad to see he’s getting the kind of visibility he deserves.
toones
Everyone looks great with long hair…
Lord of the Rings.
I rest my case.
Jado
“4. Fucking Lannisters”
BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!
Dude, that’s only season ONE.
Things get so much worse; you better pace your outrage or you’ll have nothing left for the Lannisters later.
PanurgeATL
@lethargytartare:
I can’t figure out why,…, wherever 2 or more people gather to discuss something they like, some d-bag will feel compelled to point out that whatever they like sucks.
If you were a prog-rock fan in 1977, you’d understand. It’d be very painful, but you would.
andrea
Rosie’s not a G of T fan?
Stentor
Looks like my comment was removed, fair enough. I was a little drunk when I posted it, so it may have come across as misogynistic, but I still maintain that Lena Headey can’t act her way out of a paper bag even if she has sharp instruments in both hands. Some people may not like the c-word, but I believe there are certain individuals who merit that title, Michelle Malkin for example, is one of them.
Stentor
What is up with the site redesign, no pictures?
racing
John McCain hit 43% after his Florida primary win. After his Super Tuesday wins, he hit anywhere from the low 50s to the low 60s. Romney is nowhere near that.