Game of Thrones [Potential Book Spoilers]

Exactly. The reason there was no Romantic Plot Tumor in the books was because Robb didn't have a storyline in the books, all his scenes were meetings with Catelyn. And tbh, I'm being a bit harsh calling it a RPT, it doesn't get that much screentime and it doesn't distract you from the rest of the plot.

I agree that it was a problem not to have both Robb and Catelyn do their "big mistakes" after hearing of Bran and Rickon's deaths. As it stands now, the series makes things squarely Catelyn's fault- as she released Jaime without that prompting, and Robb was lead to be impulsive with Talisa in part because he felt Catelyn had betrayed him. This contrasts from the book where at root, it is all Theon's fault.

I still maintain that Talisa has some connection to the Lannisters though- she seemed kind of cagey about who her father was and there was that scene where she was clearly hiding a letter from Robb. Basically, my theory is that she's a Composite Character of Jeyne Westerling and Joy Hill (i.e. she's Gerion's daughter and grandaughter).

Edit- I think part of the logic behind the change was as a not totally successful effort to make the Red Wedding a surprise. Basically, I think that the creators figured that if it was a clearly rash/not in the right min decision of Robb to sleep with Jeyne/Talisa, then people would realize right away that Robb was doomed- especially if he wasn't given a lot of development. So, in theory, by having Robb as a more developed character and by obfuscating his recklessness a bit, it should be more of a surprise.

However, the problem is that after Ned, people aren't going to be fooled again. And regardless, Robb does seem pretty rash.

edited 24th Aug '12 9:30:28 PM by Jordan

I still maintain that them ending the third season on the RW would be a terrible idea, and I think the PW is a bit too far ahead to act as a good cliffhanger. Although I'd love to -see- them end on the RW, if only to hear the massive controversey/fan outrage from people who started out watching the TV series.

As I've said before, the question isn't "when does the season end?"... The question is "what is the Wham Episode(episode 9)?"

The RW is the most likely event for the Wham Episode. It's the only event that occurs early enough in the book for it to work at that point.

If that's true, it means the "cliffhanger", the moment the season ends, will probably be (ASOS)Jon and the Nights Watch's defense of the Wall against Styr's raiders, and the death of Ygritte... Either that or Danerys learning Arstan is really Barristan the Bold... More likely the latter, with the former event starting season 4...

edited 25th Aug '12 6:02:22 AM by Swish

Could be both, previous series have ended on multiple minor cliffhangers. You want to space out the surprises to some extent, but a season finale needs a couple of good ones.

While I worry that this will come across as narm, given that seasons 1 and 2 both end with creepy shrieking, it sort of seems natural to me that season 3, episode 8 or 9 is the Red Wedding, so that in the final episode of season 3, the last shot will be Catelyn coming back from the dead and emitting a bloodcurdling shriek (which I know would be probelmatic also because her throat was cut).

edited 25th Aug '12 2:58:30 PM by Jordan

spoilers yo

The greatest thing I've seen today.◊

More GoT/Mean Girls goodness.◊

Please tell me there's a GOT/Futurama captions thread.

Edit: Ask, and the Internet shall provide. [[www.tumblr.com/image/7104034774 Westerama]]

Tho I'm still looking for one of Theon saying "I always knew he'd run away like this. Why... Why... Why didnt I break his legs?"

edited 29th Aug '12 6:37:49 PM by johnnye

It's funny cause it's true◊. *Laughs until he starts crying a little inside*

On a Game of Thrones podcast I listen to, there were two trains of thought behind the changes done to the whole Robb and Talisa plotline/mess. And part of this definitely stems from the fact that the show decided to devote so much time to showing what Robb was doing, when in the books, his point-of-view is not shown at all.

The first was that Jeyne Westerling needed to be "spiced up" per se to make it more compelling for Robb to fall in love with her (then again, as mentioned before, we don't really know whether or not Robb and Jeyne are actually in love. He marries her because of his honor). This would be a good change since we know next to nothing about Jeyne in the books, but it still comes across as awkward in the show. I was onboard for the changes to the character, up until Talisa's boring backstory about her not being a lady, but a Strong Female Character™.

The second is that Talisa is not who she says she is. Honestly, at this point, there is no real indication as to whether Talisa is Jeyne or not. We still have yet to find out. There is a group of fans that believe that Talisa is still Jeyne Westerling but is masquerading as Talisa. I want to believe that this is true, because it would definitely save this plotline if Tywin has masterminded the whole thing. Basically the idea is that Tywin and the Westerlings are using Jeyne to have Robb break his vows to the Freys. However, given that the show hasn't done a very job with its original plot, this could all be for naught.

Season 3 predictions: Major focus on the Brotherhood I'd say. Jaimie's maiming, Tyrion's impotence and marriage to Sansa. John gets his tragic love story. Bran meets the Reeds, learns a bit of warging, and maybe we get a flashback with Sean Bean. Stannis sulks, with brief scenes showing him ever more under the Red Woman's sway. Danni gets her army. Red Wedding as the wham episode makes the most sense, probably combined with the first wilding attack on the Wall. Figures then that they move up the Catelyn Zombie scene for the last scene of the last episode, with her hanging Freys and teaming up with the Brotherhood. Arya's story ends when she abandons the Hound. Jon ends the season in an ice cell. Jaime ends the season saving Brienne, while Tyrion tries to comfort Sansa, and the rest of the Lannisters rejoice. Basically, it looks like the Lannisters have won... but then Zombie Catelyn - and the audience thinks there will be Lannister blood in season 4

I'm not sure if it will be season 3 or season 4, but there's one touching scene I see in my head that I hope will be filmed well, I have an idea of why they introduced the idea of Jaime being dislexic- basically, there will be an end of season that shows Davos learning to read and you'll also see Jaime in his Kingsguard uniform, struggling to both read (because of the dyslexia) and write in (because of the missing hand) the White Book, and there will be this nice parallelism that draws attention to Jaime's Character Development

Also, presumably season 4 has to have Stannis' forces showing up at the Wall to pull a Big Damn Heroes with the same music played as played in season 2 when the Tyrell forces and Tywin showed up out of nowhere and defeated Stannis' forces.

edited 3rd Sep '12 4:39:34 PM by Jordan

Hey, does anyone know where I can watch this without paying an arm and a leg for it? I'm interested in seeing the first season (having just finished the first book), I'm even willing to pay for it, but I'm not willing to pay $33 bucks on iTunes for ten episodes.

I'm in Canada, so some of the US sites for watching it don't work here.

Do you have access to HBO Go there? HBO has a deal with certain cable providers so that if you're one of their subscribers and have an email account through them, you can sign into HBO's site and watch basically any of their shows online for free. Pretty sure Game of Thrones is on the list of shows.

I don't have cable.

TV-links.com is pretty good for me. I'm in Britain, so I don't know how well it'll work for you, but at least it's not a US-only thing.

Torrenting. All the cool kids does it. Honestly, virtually everyone I know torrents it.

Watch it online. >.>

edited 15th Sep '12 10:14:50 AM by Patty

Which is a practice in no way endorsed, encouraged, or partaken in by any member of this community, who repudiate any method of freely gaining access to 99% of sought-after media.

edited 15th Sep '12 10:09:06 AM by karasu91

Precisely!

edited 15th Sep '12 10:16:15 AM by Patty

Yeah, I know that, it's the "how" that's giving me difficulty.

Well, the series is somewhat infamous for being widely dispersed online. I know at some point between the first two seasons I stumbled upon entire episodes posted with a simple search.

If you're "willing to pay for it", but you're not willing to pay the standard ~$35 for a box-set DVD(here's one on Amazon), then I don't believe the statement that you're willing to pay for it...

The cheapest you can find the first season is $29(streaming, on Amazon. That's for the whole season, it's ~$3 for each individual episode). If you don't want to pay that to stream, you don't want to pay for a box-set, or you don't want to pay for cable or satellite, your only option is to find it online and download/stream it illegally.

We can't give you information on where to find locations to do the last one...

edited 15th Sep '12 12:16:16 PM by Swish