Jon Snow's arc is the one thing I think the series has really messed up on. He's much more petulant and incompetent in the series than he is in the books. What happened in the books: They set upon the wildlings and kill two and capture Ygritte. Halfhand orders Snow to "do what must be done," which Snow interprets to mean kill Ygritte. He instead chooses to let Ygritte go. The Night's Watch scouting party continues on together (they don't split up). Eventually they find themselves being pursued by Rattleshirt's group, and reaching a point where only Halfhand and Snow remain, Halfhand tells Snow that when they are eventually caught he must join the wildlings so that he may survive to warn The Watch. The only way to convince the wildling's of Snow's sincerity is for Snow to kill Halfhand in combat. When Rattleshirt catches up with them, they execute this plan and Snow is accepted into the wildling group. The show really fucks with this sequence of events, and makes it look like Halfhand's capture was Snow's fault, that Snow lost Ygritte instead of deliberately letting her go, and that Snow killed Halfhand out of anger instead of as part of a long con that he reluctantly kills Halfhand to make work.
Aetius: Couldn't agree with you more, the writers will have to do some really quick repair to keep that storyline intact (though it appears it has remerged with the book at long last). A couple of things I noticed about this season: The Robb stuff? Yeah, that storyline was much more of a shocker in the book. You didn't see the build up, and you didn't see the wedding, he just showed up married. To those saying 'not much happened' - a fuckload happened. What makes Martin's novels so good, and so adult, is the fact that all actions have consequences. Yes, those consequences don't get tidied up in 60 minutes. Pretty much every SCENE, much less every episode, will come back to your memory next season when you say 'HOLY FUCK.' If they do next season as well as they did this season, well, purists will look back and say 'season two is where the action REALLY was, though season Three is the best.' I'd lay down an avatar/signature bet on the above, if there are any takers.
Nope. He offered to take her, but she passed it up. The one thing I've liked about the Sansa situation is how she's learning how to play the game the hard way. Speaking of which, is anybody else looking forward to the Cersei/Margaery catfight like I am? Margaery, at least to me, looks every bit as ambitious as Cersei does.
The part of me that likes interesting characters and good storytelling says yes. The part of me that likes all the tits in this show is hoping they argue while somehow bathing together.
She hasn't been in the series too long so it's hard to pass judgement but I still hate the look of that girl's face that Jofferey is now marrying. It's like a caricature. Besides her scene with Littlefinger earlier the actress sounded, to me, like she was over acting all of her lines. I too was kind felt a tad misled about Sansa not leaving with The Hound. Hopefully he turns back up, he is an interesting 2nd or 3rd player.
Co-signed x100. This show is just a "Just wait for it...wait for it...BOOM!" type of show because its based on the books and that's how its laid out. A lot of chess pieces just got moved into place. A lot of things you expect to happen won't, and they undersell a lot of things that are going to be huge. I think they had to play up the Robb marriage because they don't want anyone being so caught off guard when the consequences happen. And that is not a spoiler because it was talked about (undersold slightly) and its obvious something is going to happen. It what makes the series great. I haven't watched the episode, but as soon as Halfhand and Jon split up, I knew they were going to botch the situation. All for some oddly attractive ginger to get in some sex/dick jokes.
I think the entire North of the Wall storyline is being handled poorly. Not to beat the horse to death, but Jon's story is completely fucked in the TV show. I think he is one of the best characters in the books and the most boring on the show. I can't see any reason why the producers/writers thought changing the events would work better. In the end, they are only more confusing and poorly explained. However, my biggest gripe is the portrayal of the white walkers at the end of the episode. Until now the Others have been shown as dark, muscular, armored creatures with blue eyes. They are a complete unknown and we never get a good look at them so they are fucking terrifying. Now they show one in broad daylight and it looks like a scrawny, cartoony CGI mess (with no armor and some sort of tribal loincloth). All the tension and drama built up around them evaporated in under a second. The show should have kept us in the dark and maybe only shown the dead horse and a quick flash of what he looked like as Sam peeked around the rock. Just a comparison between Season 1 and Season 2's finale: Spoiler Before: After:
Ok I havent read the first two books but am interested now that I have some more free time. Should I just pick up on Book three? I don't feel like rehashing all the earlier stuff unless it is necessary to follow the narrative.
Pick up the first two books. There's a lot of shit in there that explains what is going on in the show, but not necessarily shown (for instance, the Sansa stuff). You've probably got a year before Season Three begins, so plenty of time to hit all three books. In my humble opinion, Storm of Swords is the best book in the series to date, and book Two, which is largely a set up for it, is even better the second time around.
I was pretty unimpressed with the finale, especially after such an excellent penultimate episode. The Jon Snow and the Daenerys storylines were a drag throughout the whole season, and giving them such a large part in this episode underlined the weaknesses of the show. The entire Dany arc could have been told in a single episode, and was there any doubt that she would get her dragons back from a bunch of wizened freaks and some random merchant? No suspense there for me. In the first season there were enough interesting characters (Drogo, her brother, the witch) to keep her company, but she's not terribly interesting by herself. Neither is Jon Snow, and after the promise of an impeding White Walker invasion in Season 1, I didn't care about chasing after wildlings. When the Walkers did come in the end, they just looked like a bunch of George Romero castoffs. Where the show does shine is all the going-ons at King's Landing, since a large number of well-written, devious characters get to clash against each other. The battle of Blackwater was great spectacle, but what really sold it were the character moments (Cersei getting drunk, the Hound losing his mojo, Stannis matter-of-factly declaring that thousands will die, etc.) and the uncertainty of the outcome (towards the end I genuinely thought that they were going to kill off all the Lannisters in the city). I hope that in future seasons there will more of this good stuff, and less storylines where we follow a bore wandering around in some far-flung corner of the GoT world.
Question for those who have read the books. As a disclaimer, I have NOT so this isn't a spoiler, just a theory that popped into my head today. The face-shifting guy who allowed Arya to escape...was he her dancing instructor when she was at court? Is it the same guy who's been with her all along, and just changes identity so he can keep an eye on her? When he gave her that coin and said, "If you ever need me, just find someone from [whatever place he's from] and give him this coin and ask for me," I thought that maybe [that place] only has one inhabitant and, given that he's a shape shifter, if she ever gives away that coin she'll just be giving it back to him.
Spoiler Not so fast. That actually is a theory that book nerds have been talking about for quite some time. I mean, probably not, but a decent number of people believe that Syrio was face of "Jaqen" at some point.
Spoiler It would seem to make sense, given that you never saw the dance instructor die. Also, he had the same habit of calling Arya "Boy" or referring to her in the third person. I also have a theory that Jon Snow is not Eddard Stark's son. BWA-HAHAHA.
I could have sworn GRRM had spoke on the subject at some point, thus my answer being so certain, but now I can't find it. So... yeah, still potentially up in the air. I'll keep looking in vain though. Spoiler One key thing though is the guy sent after Syrio is still alive so that at least strongly indicates Syrio is dead. But no, not conclusive.
I thought the ending with the white walkers and wights (zzzzzoooooommmmbbiiiieees) was great. Yeah, Jon's season long arch was lame. A full on invasion? Awesome. Also it looked like some of the horse mounted leader Others were just that, a higher in command white walker. The other ones we've seen looked more like warrior ones that had a much different build. That's my guess at least.
I too was turned off by the ending with the white walkers. This is something that kind of happened deep into book 3. Not a huge spoiler, but look at your own risk Spoiler I thought it was going to end with Sam saving his brothers by killing a Wight with the dragonglass dagger. I think that would have been better. It was pointless to end the season this way wondering whether Sam will be killed or not because its pretty clear that they intend to reunite him with Gilly at some point. I've read the books and I know what happens, but it seems to me like it would be a huge waste of precious time for Sam to rattle on about Gilly in every episode only to kill him off like this. I thought that the cinematography and sound for the House of the Undying sequence was great. As important as this sequence was in the book, what made it so important, the warlock's prophecy for Dany, was completely left out. I'm with everyone else wondering why they messed up Jon Snow's storyline. The internal struggle he felt in the book of knowing what he had to do (kill Halfhand) but not really wanting to, all while having to defend himself from an excellent swordsman that was fighting as hard as he could to make the entire ruse more convincing. Here in the show, I think Jon really believed that he defeated Halfhand outright, only then to be let onto the scheme with Halfhand's dying words. As pissed as people were about the Robb Stark wedding being given screen time, I think even more people would be upset if he just showed up married like he does in the book. Did anyone else find his wife alot less attractive when seen from the side? It was just as obvious in the book that this wasn't his best decision. Next season is going to be the shit. Imagine all of the buzz the show got after season 1, then multiply it by 100. I'm not exaggerating.
White Walkers: Non-human "ice-type" beings. Wights: Human corpses reanimated by the White Walkers. The ones on mounts were White Walkers, the rest were wights.
Was it ash or snow falling on the throne room when Dany had her vision? Why did she have a vision? Who sacked winterfell? Thought Robb sent some northerners to save it, why would they burn it let alone accept theon's crew's surrender. I agree the white walkers looked better in non cgi form. If they make it out of the wall, I hope it doesn't become a cgi fest in future battles.