Winter is Coming (GoT is back)

[Lief 🗽]

I hear the first four episodes of the season leaked online already.

yeah but they're only in 480p so what's the point

[Lief 🗽]

Which post-sex scene did you think would generate controversy?

Also Sansa better not get all her skin cut off by Ramsay... 😒

[Lief 🗽]

Oh yeah, that scene really creeped me out. I just have to assume the writers aged Tommen up to his actor's age. I'm pretty sure in the book he's supposed to be like 9 or 10 years old.

[Lief 🗽]

I don't know if it's "comparable", but in Mad Men in one of the flashbacks Don Draper as a child loses his virginity to a prostitute. I forget how old he is supposed to be in that, but the show pretty heavily implies that that experience screwed him up sexually for the rest of his life.

[Lief 🗽]

Yeah, it's hard to tell. In seasons 1-3 the character was played by a much younger actor who looked like he was about 10, but then in season 4 they switched to the current guy (and I don't think more than a year or so has passed in the time of the show), though maybe they just retconned the age of the character from the earlier seasons. Before last night I definitely had the impression that he was supposed to be younger, still in his early or mid teens.

But if the people making the show did not intend him to be closer to his actor's age, then that's sort of creepy (even keeping mind Medieval differences in marriage age/consent age, which are themselves overblown/exaggerated). Then again, these are the same people who apparently had no idea that the "Jaime raping Cersei" scene last season would come off to viewers as rape, so who knows.

[Lief 🗽]

IIRC, the showrunners said they only had enough time this season for either Dorne or the Greyjoys, so they picked Dorne. But (SPOILER) based on casting announcements for next season, we'll be catching back up with the Game of Thrones viking analogues in season 6.

[Lief 🗽]

That was surely one of the best scenes in the history of television.

Kind of makes it hard to care about anything that's happening south of the wall now...

[Lief 🗽]

The reason this show will never be as good as truly great shows like The Wire or Mad Men or The Sopranos is that the writers care more about SHOCKING TWISTS that'll get the internet talking than telling stories with consistent and believable characters. Stannis lighting his daughter on fire because it maybe might possibly give him an advantage (?? still not really sure what is supposed to happening from burning her) is completely out of character, and it ruins a great character just so they can squeeze out another SHOCKING TWIST.

Also it was already established in the show that you can just leach the blood out of someone with King's blood and burn the leach and apparently there's enough magic in there to CAUSE THE DEATH OF A KING, so immediately jumping ahead to BURNING HER ALIVE is again ignoring the reality of the show just so that the writers can be smug about how many SHOCKING TWISTS they're throwing at us.

[Lief 🗽]

Eh, the documentary just says that GRRM told them Shireen dies, not necessarily that Stannis kills her. In the book she's back at Castle Black with Melisandre while Stannis is attacking Winterfell. Melisandre probably kills her on her own in the next book. Stannis ordering the burning alive of his daughter just doesn't make any sense at all based on his characterization. He's an asshole, not a violent psychopath. It's profoundly sh[inks]y writing that values SHOCKING DEATHS over any consistent story-telling. And it's still garbage if GRRM came up with it.

Stannis, Day 1: "You are Princess Shireen of House Baratheon, and you are my daughter."

Stannis, Day 2: "She is my daughter. Get out."

Stannis, Day 3: Well we're out of supplies, better light my daughter on fire lol

[Lief 🗽]

This is a good blog post I found about why the Stannis storyline is really dumb: http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/121016611972/no-this-wont-happen-in-the-books

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[Lief 🗽]

This is a good blog post I found about why the Stannis storyline is really dumb: http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/121016611972/no-this-wont-happen-in-the-books

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OH GOD. Next thing I know you're going to be posting theculturalvacuum's unintelligible rants.

Both of these posters are unreasonable book snobs who have this season taken criticism of the show to illogical levels.

I don't really care about the books, which I have not read. I care about the television show, which used to be a good show but is increasingly poorly written and prioritizing SHOCKING TWISTS and torturing fan favorite characters over good storytelling.