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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  March 11, 201911:19 pm| 46 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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I’ve been rewatching Game of Thrones. I’m on season six, and this is about the fourth time I have watched the thing. Two things I have noticed- I am far more sympathetic to Sansa Stark than I was the first times I watched, and Jorah is a far more interesting character than I previously realized.

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Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    Doug R

    March 11, 2019 at 11:25 pm

    Maybe remembering what happens to Littlefinger, you have more respect for her retroactively?

  2. 2.

    debbie

    March 11, 2019 at 11:35 pm

    @Doug R:

    I absolutely hated her up until the most recent season.

  3. 3.

    Archon

    March 11, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    I felt like Sansa has been a sympathetic character since the end of season 1.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 11, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    I’ve never seen GoT. Have been fascinated for many decades with the “Wars of the Roses” dynastic family feuds, and I expect I’d enjoy GoT just based on what I know of the real-life Yorks and Lancasters. But I’ve heard enough about the gratuitous violence in the TV series (looking at you, Red Wedding) that I’m honestly not sure I could stomach it.

  5. 5.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    March 11, 2019 at 11:49 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I find the violence difficult to watch. I haven’t been able to get past the scene where Cersei tortures the ‘nun’. I really dislike Cersei, don’t think she has a single redeeming quality. Must try again so I am ready for the new season. May have to fast forward through the yukky stuff. ?

  6. 6.

    Pogonip

    March 11, 2019 at 11:50 pm

    What did happen to Littlefinger in the show?

  7. 7.

    Pogonip

    March 11, 2019 at 11:51 pm

    Cole, you may or may not believe this, but neither Son of Pogonip nor I could find the mustard today.

    How’s your dad?

  8. 8.

    debbie

    March 11, 2019 at 11:53 pm

    @Pogonip:

    Tag teamed with Arya.

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 11, 2019 at 11:54 pm

    @Debbie(Aussie):

    Yeah, I really dislike watching violence. Call me a wuss and an escapist, but I just don’t like putting those kinds of images in my mind.

  10. 10.

    Ruckus

    March 12, 2019 at 12:04 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    The real world is violent enough that I don’t need to look for more in my entertainment.
    The concept of GoT has never interested me in the least. And it’s primarily based upon the violence that is a major part of it.
    As @Debbie(Aussie): says “May have to fast forward through the yukky stuff.” I’m saving time and not even bothering to fast forward through any of it.

  11. 11.

    bmoak

    March 12, 2019 at 12:07 am

    I’m binging Father Brown on Netflix at the moment.

  12. 12.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    March 12, 2019 at 12:09 am

    @Pogonip: There is no mustard, the mustard is a myth.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    March 12, 2019 at 12:09 am

    I fast forward through the violence and battle scenes when they get too gruesome, but I love the set designs, costumes, and locations just amazing, so it’s worth it to me for that. Probably won’t see but about 40% of this season.

  14. 14.

    eclare

    March 12, 2019 at 12:12 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: I made it four or five episodes in, then decided it wasn’t for me. Based on events in later seasons, it was the right decision.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 12, 2019 at 12:13 am

    @Mary G: a lot of great actors, too, or at least who are a lot of fun to watch, I would’ve enjoyed more Robert Baratheon

  16. 16.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    March 12, 2019 at 12:15 am

    @Mary G:
    Me too. And the story is interesting.

  17. 17.

    VeniceRiley

    March 12, 2019 at 12:16 am

    @Debbie(Aussie): Oh, I love Ceresi. She’s my favorite after Olenna Tyrell. Formidable. I also dig Khaleesi. And, I suppose, the Stark girl children. Did not like their mother or father very much.
    Absolutely cannot stand Jon Snow. he fails UP like the mediocre bumbling white dude he is. I’d trade 1000 of him for one Tormond.

  18. 18.

    Pogonip

    March 12, 2019 at 12:17 am

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: There was mustard! There really was!

  19. 19.

    oldgold

    March 12, 2019 at 12:22 am

    GOT is a legitimate contender for the title of GOAT television productions.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    March 12, 2019 at 12:35 am

    GoT? Meh.

    this is about the fourth time I have watched the thing

    Title of World’s Most Interesting Man remains secure with the Dos Equis dude.

    :)

    @Pogonip</a.

    The mustard is a lie.

    Mustard comes
    And mustard goes
    Where it winds up
    No one knows.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    March 12, 2019 at 12:36 am

    Coding fix.

    GoT? Meh.

    this is about the fourth time I have watched the thing

    Title of World’s Most Interesting Man remains secure with the Dos Equis dude.

    :)

    @Pogonip

    The mustard is a lie.

    Mustard comes
    And mustard goes
    Where it winds up
    No one knows.

  22. 22.

    Cathie from Canada

    March 12, 2019 at 12:42 am

    Though I took occasional excursions into GoT over the years (like the Red Wedding scene and the Shame, Shame scene), I only started watching it consistently over the last couple of seasons — luckily, my son had watched from the beginning so he was able to tell me some of the backstory as we were watching, so I could follow the plot. Now I am hooked and can hardly wait until the final season begins!

  23. 23.

    frosty

    March 12, 2019 at 12:53 am

    I started from the first episode and have watched consistently, and enjoyed most of it. I can deal with the violence, but the torture? Urghh.

    My favorite bits have been Arya and the Hound along with Brianne and Jamie. Oh, and John Snow and Ygritte. They got married IRL!!

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 12, 2019 at 12:54 am

    @frosty: yeah, the Reek scenes were hard to watch

  25. 25.

    Ellen R

    March 12, 2019 at 1:45 am

    Sansa marries The Hound.

  26. 26.

    Emerald

    March 12, 2019 at 2:11 am

    GoT is worth it just for the Hodor story alone.

  27. 27.

    cckids

    March 12, 2019 at 2:42 am

    @Mary G:

    I love the set designs, costumes, and locations just amazing, so it’s worth it to me for that.

    This is the website for one of the costume designers from the show; it focuses on her embroidery and beadwork. I find the depth of detail and thought behind the smallest items just fascinating. Hope you enjoy it too!

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    March 12, 2019 at 3:22 am

    @cckids:
    I bought the recent Entertainment Weekly issue devoted to the show for light commuting reading. It had some nice, brief, pieces on the costuming, and how some of the weapons are customized to reflect the characters and noble houses. Fun stuff.

    ETA. I recently went back and watched season 1 and noted how little character touches and themes were set up in the early episodes. Very well done.

  29. 29.

    lahke

    March 12, 2019 at 3:50 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: The Buddhists say that you become what you practice. Why not spend your time, even screen time, with people you like and admire?

  30. 30.

    Sab

    March 12, 2019 at 4:08 am

    GoT:I always loved Ned and Sansa. They were both totally committed to the same moral code, at considerable personal cost. I think that’s why the Hound loved Sansa. He thought it was a crock, but he realized she really did believe it and he respected her integrity when everryone else in his world was a hypocrite.

    I fucking hated Catelyn Stark. I am a step-mother who married into having teen-agers that I learned to love. What the fuck is wrong with a woman who can’t accept a motherless baby that her husband loves. I utterly enjoyed the Red Wedding, when they killed off Catelyn and that Outlander knockoff wife of Robb.

  31. 31.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 4:32 am

    Just finished Season 4, second time viewing. I’m spacing my viewing out so that I finish it up right before the Season 8 premiere, which puts me just a few episodes ahead of schedule.

    Agreed that Sansa becomes a far more sympathetic character on subsequent views.

  32. 32.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 4:35 am

    @Sab: I get the Catelyn hate, but WTF did Talisa do other than not be the right highborn?

  33. 33.

    Archon

    March 12, 2019 at 4:37 am

    @Sab:
    Marrying a man with teenage children is one thing. Your husband coming back from a war with a newborn babe he claims he’s the father of is another

  34. 34.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 4:38 am

    @Pogonip: Was given a neck smile by Arya with the same knife he used to frame Tyrion for Bran’s attempted murder.

  35. 35.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 4:44 am

    @Mary G: The only scene I could not stomach at all was Theon’s finger flaying. Not because I have any particular sympathy for Theon, but because extreme bloody torture of appendages makes my stomach turn. For some reason or other, the killings don’t really bother me so much, probably because I know the victim’s pain ends once they die. But the infliction of unbearable pain on someone who will survive it gives me the willies. For the same reason, I could never sit through the scene of Sayid torturing Sawyer by jamming bamboo under his fingernails on Lost, either.

  36. 36.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 4:46 am

    @Archon: Yeah… but how is that the baby’s fault? It’s as completely irrational as Cersei’s hatred of Tyrion for “killing their mother”.

  37. 37.

    Sab

    March 12, 2019 at 4:56 am

    @janesays: Outlander knockoff. She never seemed real to me. Why was she even in Westeros? Nothing about her story was even remotely plausible.

  38. 38.

    janesays

    March 12, 2019 at 5:00 am

    What exactly does “Outlander knockoff” mean? Is this a reference to the show Outlander? I’ve never seen it, so I wouldn’t know the context (assuming that’s what the reference is about).

  39. 39.

    Sab

    March 12, 2019 at 5:22 am

    @janesays: In the book Robb was about 15, seduced by another 15 year old. He blows up every alliance by marrying her instead of the arranged marriage. Stupid, but it made sense with that cast of characters.

    In the show Robb was quite a bit older and so had to be faced with a more mature dilemma. They could have come up with their own story, but instead they stole an idea from the other bestseller series from the 1990s. Medical woman out of her milieu wandering around lost that the hero falls in love with because she is so damn competent and spunky.

    Westeros is the utter boondocks in their world. Travel is slow and until recently they were at peace. Talisa is from one of the big Eastern cities. Why would she even have been in Westeros? There was nothing going on in there that could possibly attracted her. If Robb needed a romantic interest (and he did) they could have come up with someone original. Also he didn’t need to marry her. She wasn’t interested in marriage. They could have had their fling on the side and not blown up their world. Both of them were old enough to know to better, but they went against every common sense notion of because the writers needed their plot to get to the Red Wedding.

  40. 40.

    zhena gogolia

    March 12, 2019 at 7:31 am

    @bmoak:

    What’s your position on Bunty vs. Lady Felicia?

  41. 41.

    sherparick

    March 12, 2019 at 8:23 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: The “Red Wedding” then the last scenes of King Lear, MacBeth, or Titus Andronicus were gratuitous violence (of course one could argue that the entirety of Titus Andronicus was gratuitous violence, but we will save that for another day). In fact it is amazing how much George R. R. Martin and the HBO showrunners have, following the example of the Bard himself, have stolen from him.

  42. 42.

    Robert Bowsher

    March 12, 2019 at 9:52 am

    @Sab: I thought that in the books, Jeyne Westerling’s (Robb Stark’s wife in the books, for those of you who haven’t read them) relationship with Robb was possibly the result of a Tywin Lannister gambit. At Tywin’s behest, her parents could have thrown two good-looking 15-year-olds together and let what happens, happen. This plan was mentioned in the books at some point, as “Tywin was just about sneaky enough to do this.” With the Westerling’s being sworn bannermen to House Lannister, it makes sense.

  43. 43.

    Footnotes

    March 12, 2019 at 10:01 am

    Ser Jorah (or as we refer to him, Lord Friendzone) has become one of my favorite characters as well.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    March 12, 2019 at 10:45 am

    @sherparick:

    Even more violent were Henry II’s methods of torture and punishment.

  45. 45.

    PJ

    March 12, 2019 at 11:50 am

    @Sab: I realize that this thread is dead, but I just watched the episode where Talisa and Robb first really get to know each other. Her background is explained – though she is “high born”, she did not want to be a Lady, and after her younger brother was saved from drowning by judicious application of CPR by a slave, she wanted to spend her life helping people, but in a place where slavery was outlawed. The scene was completely believable to me, and it’s also believable that a young smart man of, say, 18 – 20, would fall in love with a young smart woman who had devoted her life to service. If she were just another “Lady”, devoted to needlepoint (like Sansa) or to power, with the occasional visit to an orphanage (like Margaery), it’s doubtful Robb would have broken his vows – it’s Talisa’s independence and initiative that attract him. Catelyn warns Robb that marrying Talisa is foolish, and that breaking his word to the Freys will have repercussions, but he doesn’t care, because he’s won every battle he’s fought, he believes his bannermen are behind him 100%, and he’s not old enough to imagine the form that payback could take.

    As for the Outlander stuff you are invested in, that only recently became a series, and the notion that the writers would have said to themselves, “we need to make Robb’s love interest a nurse because there’s a nurse in an obscure book series” seems pretty far-fetched.

  46. 46.

    mere mortal

    March 13, 2019 at 10:35 am

    “Jorah is a far more interesting character than I previously realized”

    Watch Iain Glen in his Jack Taylor tv movies. It’s almost the same guy, a fallen hero trying to do right. They are remarkably good.

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