[SPOILERS] GoT Discussion

It was interesting enough =) there definite changes from the book for sure. I do not know the battle itself wasnt lacking in terms of a 60 minute show just the impact was lacking. I remember first watching GoT all the key moments has impact effect. These season, Geoffrey dying was like "ohh that happend" (replay... did that just happend) now the battle... So feel like was more on HBO effect impact lacked this season. My opinion. poor ygritte she was bad ass, guess I got Jon Snow to myself muhaha!!!

Highlight of last episode to me was

ygritte dying
A giant dying
Sam got courage to kiss
if I collect the pieces and replay few times guess the battle is memorable, maybe because it has more impact reading it, than watching it collectively on a show was the difference I do not know... for me atleast

 

No matter what the first time you experience something is probably going to be the best. I think that's why Dimitra and others don't want to read the books because they want those scenes to have impact, same as not wanting spoilers.

To emphasize this, even the Red Wedding didn't have much impact on me because while I was reading I spoiled things for myself knowingly by reading wiki articles. I didn't, however, spoil the Mountain vs. Oberyn fight so to me when I first read it, I was completely blown away.

I can agree that in the books, the battle for The Wall was more detailed, but after you've read the books not all things are going to have the same impact as before.

 

Honestly the wall fight wasn't really like Helm's Deep in the books. Sure there were 100k wildlings at the wall, but that 700 foot high wall basically turned that angry mob into more of a minor inconvenience. The REAL threat was the attack from the south led by Magnar(who was NOT a cannibal as cannibalism is a big taboo even with the wildlings and only one tribe is known for cannibalism and it isn't the Thenns. The Thenns are the most advanced wildling tribe and are the only ones that can forge and reforge metal and are from a fertile volcanic valley) and Ygritte.

And the main reason that was the threat is because the castles along the wall don't have walls on the south side so as to give the NW more incentive to stay the fuck out of the politics that goes on in that if they do get involved pretty much anyone can raise and army, march north, and fuck their shit up. The fight on the south side was hectic and crazy with all kinds of make shift defenses and even almost "Home Alone" type traps set up. The attack from the north was closer to a minor inconvenience in that all they had to do was hang out up top and not get shot shot by arrows. I can only think of one person off the top of my head who got killed and he was just a no name guy who got shot in the leg, lost his balance, and fell off. There were a lot of casualties on the south side and the NW and refugees from Mole's Town and other villages barely scraped by and that attack mostly ended when Styr was killed by falling debris from the Wall(The Wall Defends Itself) instead of that cliche fight with Jon in which the leader of the antagonist army fights one v one against the leader of the protagonist army and the whole theme of the books is that cliches like that are mostly avoided.

The main thing that bothers me isn't the book to show differences as I understand that due to budget, time, and constraints of the medium itself it would be impossible to get a "perfect" word for word adaptation and it's tougher due to the timeline of events happening at the same time in books 4 and 5, but that this season, the majority of the changes have been HORRIBLE. The changes from the last seasons weren't all that bad and some were very fun and interesting. I enjoyed the Arya/Tywin moments, and loved the Varys vs Littlefinger scenes especially. But the changes in this season, were poorly planned, even more poorly executed and had a shit ton of lost of potential.(See earlier rant in another post about Locke).

And now with both Pyp and Grenn dead(both of them are still alive as of the ending of Book 5), and Jon's other friends left out of the show entirely, Jon really has no one to talk to either in the future(Edd and Sam will be sent off on their own adventures, that's all I'm gonna say as some of you might already bitch at me for spoilers).

For those that care here is how the battle at the wall happened in the books. Do note that there are minor spoilers in it that will be unspoiled in the next episode so you may want to wait until then to read. But it is VASTLY different from the show.

Battle of Castle Black - A Wiki of Ice and Fire


Also in terms of scale, action, and everything else the fight was AWESOME! Especially the parts where they showed some close one on one fighting(mostly Styr, Tormund, Ygritte, Ser Alliser, or Jon killing no name guys of the opposite faction) and then scaling out just to see the all around chaos was amazing. And then the defense systems at the wall with the giant anchor like hooks that scraped the sides off and wiped out the climbers and all that was left was one dude's arm made me gasp with amazement, though I don't know what the hell they were on when they decided that rope harness thing to have guys hang over the side to shoot down vertically was a good idea as that was just a death trap. They would have been better off just dropping rocks or sharp point stuff over and letting gravity do the work.

In closing my concerns aren't about there being differences between books and show, but that as of late most of the differences have been poorly thought out and executed and just seem to be there to shit on book readers, such as Jaime doing some Kinslaying and Raping during what is supposed to be his "Redemption Arc" where we are supposed to slowly start to realize that he's not a completely horrible person after all.(The bath scene with Brienne in S3 was terrific though)

Or the adventures of Arya and the Hound dragging on and on far longer then they should have

Or Stannis and Davos going to Braavos

or the omission of Marillion so instead of the nice explanation of he was jealous and murdered Lysa in the books which works out perfectly and makes great sense we get this flimsy "She was stressed and just jumped out the moon door in the show"

And then we have the Thenns and the battle at the wall,

But it's not all bad. We did get to see Missendei naked and I won't complain about that huehuehue.

Battle at the wall link again in case you lost it my wall of text and spoiler warning of you may want to wait till you see next episode.

Battle of Castle Black - A Wiki of Ice and Fire

Also I did not or have NEVER gone full retard. I did go about 25% retard though as part of an insult to kid in high school who was a complete jackhole, but that story would take far too long to tell here, but if you ask me nicely I may tell it at a later time. If I can remember the full details. It happened about 11 years ago.

 

Shut up and eat some chilaquiles.

 

"Juan de las Nieves"... oh my god.

 

@Nick - not going to quote that tl;dr but..

1) yes I agree on the part of the details for the Thenns being messed up
2) HOWEVER, how exactly did you get the idea from that episode that Magnars attack WASN'T the important part?

I mean geez, it showed a wildling try to fire arrows to the top of the wall and she made it half way like in the books. It showed the wildlings scale the wall and then get turned into red mist as soon as they got high enough.

The attack on the wall is dire because they're so heavily outnumbered that they can't hold out forever, BUT it emphasized the main points: the biggest threats were the attack from the south and the giant attacking the tunnel. That's exactly how the book was.

Now I know Pyp and Grenn died and that wasn't planned, but how exactly did you get the idea from that episode that the Thenn attack was insignificant? The wildlings were the most insignificant part of the episode, other than the fact that there's still 100,000 of them waiting.

Also, I'm not necessarily defending the choices that the show has gone with, straying from the books, but so far HBO only wants 7 seasons and at the current rate of George publishing his books and them covering books enough in a single season, they may NEED to alter the story. Be happy with the books, but honestly don't expect them to follow them perfectly because I don't think they have that luxury.

 

I am not a writer. But this guy is, and he put into words the reasons why I do not understand the whole shocking attitude to some fictional character deaths that people are having.



Once I saw a biker being rammed by a truck and his head being turn into a drawing board. After that, the Viper´s crushed skull was very amateur in my eyes.

People should stop being such pussies, reality is far more creative to turn a person into smithereens.

IMO.

 

Where did I say the Thenn attack was the insignificant part? The MAIN threat was the attack from the South, and that was mostly because the castles that the NW uses, don't have walls facing south because they're not supposed to care about the politics and thus no one would have any reason to attack them. The defenses on that side were hectic the NW and people from Moles Town and other villages, who fled to the wall by the wall because Jon warned them about the crazy barbarians who were heading their way and planning to kill everyone they see and thus not being dumbasses they listened and went to the wall, piling all kinds of shit up to make makeshift defenses and set up any kind of traps they could make in such a short time. They certainly didn't have time to go North and fuck around at Craster's Keep.

It was almost like the Home Alone movies, only in this case instead of the bad guys just some stupid thugs trying to steal your shit, they're a bunch of crazy barbarians who want to make sure you and all your friends die horribly and painfully. That attack happened during about the middle part of the books and it was crazy as hell. And later when the main army made it to the wall, all the wildlings on the south side were either dead or captured so then the defenders could focus ALL their attention on the main army that mostly just hung around outside. The Shadow Tower and East Watch were under attack too and there were patrols all over the wall at the time to look out for people trying to climb over in places that were more remote.

And my main issue isn't that there ARE differences in the books as in all adaptations, it happens. It's impossible to copy every little thing in a book word for word onto the other mediums, but at this point, and the last episode especially I wouldn't even call it an adaptation anymore, just an extremely expensive and fancy fan fiction.

We start out with Jon meeting Mance and Stannis saving the day which was awesome and true to the books. Loved seeing the action close in and then the zoom out to see Stannis's army flanking the wildling camp in a pincer movement. Really reminded me of playing a Total War game where you're zoomed out and looking down at your armies and seeing all those thousands of people running around and killing each other, it was awesome.

Dany's scenes were fine. Those dragons had to get locked up sooner or later.

Then we had Cersei and Tywin which was fun to watch, and then Cersei and Jaime having sex again which at this point the whole "Jaime Redemption Arc" thing is pretty much long gone anyways so what the hell, why not? Though they could have at least have let us seen a naked Lena Headey.

Then we get to Bran and friends and that was like What!? THE!? FUCK!? but I'm not gonna get into details on that right now, I wanna hear what you think about it Lucie because at this point pretty much other than there being a cave and the Three Eyed Crow that was pretty much nothing at like in the books. Guess it's not enough to kill off minor characters still alive, we gotta kill off the MAIN ones too.

And then we get to the last part with Arya, Sandor, Brienne, and Pod all conveniently converging on one spot that did not happen in the books at all, but then they had an awesome and brutal fight but I was still in complete What!? The!? Fuck!? mode so I don't really know what exactly to think about that scene. Though I do admit it's better than just watching Brienne travel up the road telling each and every person she meets "I am looking for a maiden of age 4 and 10."

But that big awesome reveal of Lady Stoneheart was fucking awesome! I mean Holy Shit on that scene! Awesome epilogue, nailed it perfectly! Oh wait, that wasn't even done at all.

Now however, the part with Tyrion. True to the books AND perfectly executed. Balls to the wall hella fucking awesome. Only complaints I have here is Shae, but I can explain that later.


Making changes is one thing, but when you do make changes on adaptations from book to film or book to TV, then at least try and make it so that the changes don't completely suck compared to the originals and don't shit on the fans of the original material by making a bunch of terrible changes that have no reason to be made.

- - - Updated - - -

Just read this and this is 100% absolutely true. And Ned, Robb, and Oberyn were all dumbasses. I gotta show this to my fiance because whenever I tell her of how Ned and Robb were killed due to their own dumbassery, she just rolls her eyes and goes back to playing Zelda.

 

I will have Lena Headey's head for breakfast for lying to me.

 

Happy Father's Day everyone! I hope no one died on the toilet.

 

Today, 2 people died after having a shit.

Shit In Peace.

 

Terrible way to die indeed.

 

So now we all know that Tywin Lannister does not shit gold.

 

who knows? maybe he was shitting gold

anyway that episode probably was one of my favourite episodes.
was so sad seeing the hound dying

 

Yea, was sad.. he was my fav. character

 

can anyone confirm if the hound did die from the books after arya left him despite of his request to end him?

 

I wanted to see Shane nude again before she died. Too bad.

 

In the books he had his awesome hound helm with him and that was left as a "marker" at a "burial site" and a septon did say that "The Hound" did die. Now whether or not Sandor Clegane died is up for debate. I could give the entire story but that would be spoilers and stuff.

But I can confirm that as of at least part way through book 5 that Jojen Reed was last seen alive. Also he never got stabbed by those skeleton wights thing. Nor was there a little girl that could throw fireballs. The REAL Children of the Forest are actually squirrel like beings.

 

Where's muh coldhands???

 

Sandor Clegane (The Hound) is PROBABLY dead, but it was never completely confirmed in the book. As Nick said, people find his helmet, and say he died, but as far as I'm concerned that doesn't amount to shit in the GoT universe. Still, hes probably dead.