Winter is Coming (GoT is back)

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I have to say, I'm very angry on Sansa's behalf, and a little worried about where the show will take certain elements of Margaery's plotline (and more than a little worried about where it's already taken her characterization to be honest). So much of what the show is doing at this point is just unnecessary and uncalled-for.

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It's also of plot relevance in the books that Margaery (who is about sixteen) could, conceivably, still be a virgin* at this point in the story, but that's low on the list of pointless and unnecessary deviations that the show has made.

*in straight terms because book-Margaery is implied to be sleeping with her ladies-in-waiting

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I was a bit shocked at the Tommen-thing as well. What makes it worse is that they've made Margaery appear a lot more mature in the series. Book-Margaery (if memory serves) would have been young and immature enough that it wouldn't be very creepy for her to have sex with show-Tommen.

And yeah the Sansa thing is very worrying on several levels.

I'm pretty sure book-Margaery and show-Tommen are more or less exactly the same age, so yeah, that wouldn't be creepy.

Also, with regard to Sansa…isn't it rather unrealistic that when Littlefinger explains the engagement to her, and tells her "We'll turn around and go back to the Vale if you don't want to go through with it", or whatever version of that he told her….that she didn't demand to know what his plan was, as a condition of her going through with it?

I mean, he clearly has *something* planned, given his "avenge them" comment.  That suggests that he's going to stab the Boltons in the back.  So why doesn't Sansa ask him to explain his plan, if he really wants her to go along with it?

It's a contrivance of storytelling that's rather common in TV.  It's more suspenseful to the audience if we don't know his plan right off the bat, so they're not going to have our point-of-view character ask about it.

Book-Sansa probably would not feel comfortable asking book-Littlefinger, because their relationship is even creepier, and more based on fear (and, frankly, obvious pedophilic 'grooming'*), than in the show, but show-Sansa has become conniving and unsentimental enough, and has enough of a rapport with show-Littlefinger at this point, that you're right that there's really no excuse.

Then again, book-Littlefinger is in many ways more forthcoming with information with book-Sansa without her having to ask him. Book-Littlefinger would have told book-Sansa what he was doing, but not given her the option of saying no.

*book-Sansa is thirteen at this point

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It's not that it's 'shocking', it's that it's mean-spirited. The show's habit of having things like this happen is, obviously, extrapolated from the books, but the extent to which and scope with which the show extrapolates it are overblown to the point of coming across as frankly sickening. Whatever artistic point there is to this, it's been made.

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Once they started down the Sansa-Ramsay marriage thread,

There's the issue.

The other side of 'completely logical and narratively consistent outcome of the choices Sansa made', which I don't deny, is 'what if getting this to happen is why the writers had Sansa make the choices she did?'. I don't have enough faith in Benioff and Weiss to trust that that's not the case.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The show has never exactly been friendly turf for Stannis fans anyway. Not that he's a wonderful person in the books, but the show often seems really reluctant to see what good there is in him.

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EDITED IN THE HOPES OF COMPLYING WITH JOE REPUBLIC'S EXACTING STANDARDS

Balon Greyjoy is PROBABLY SUPPOSED TO BE dead, WHICH COULD BE BECAUSE he had a slip-and-fall on Pyke that in the books was almost certainly engineered by a Faceless Man hired by his awful brother Euron.

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I haven't read the books or any spoilers or anything, but there's like, literally, no chance that a TV show will feature a major character murdering his little girl by burning her alive. Even on Game of Thrones. I wouldn't worry about that at all.

There's a fair chance Selyse burns Shireen on her own.

I will pull my hair out

Yeah. I think the book version of Selyse has a fair case for a defamation suit against Benioff and Weiss as it is without this compounding matters.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Balon Greyjoy is dead, he had a slip-and-fall on Pyke that in the books was almost certainly engineered by a Faceless Man hired by his awful brother Euron.

If it didn't happen (on or off-screen) in the show, it didn't happen at all.  Some of us don't care what happened in the books.

There's no need to be so truculent about it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I thought it was clear that this is a thread dedicated to discussing the TV show.  I get tired of sifting through discussions about stuff that only happened in the books, when everybody knows that they've diverged, and many/most of us haven't read them anyway.  Take it elsewhere.

I'm not aware of a separate thread for the books, at least none that's active. It'd be nice to see one started, but since (as you point out) such a thread might not attract enough traffic compared to this one to be viable, and since it would be silly to ban discussion of the books out of hand, just using this thread for both really shouldn't be such a hardship.

And really, if the books provide a clear answer to a question that somebody asked that the show hasn't evinced any interest in addressing one way or another, why not bring up the answer from the books? I mean, it's as good as any other explanation for Balon's absence, isn't it?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I thought it was clear that this is a thread dedicated to discussing the TV show.  I get tired of sifting through discussions about stuff that only happened in the books, when everybody knows that they've diverged, and many/most of us haven't read them anyway.  Take it elsewhere.

I'm not aware of a separate thread for the books, at least none that's active. It'd be nice to see one started, but since (as you point out) such a thread might not attract enough traffic compared to this one to be viable, and since it would be silly to ban discussion of the books out of hand, just using this thread for both really shouldn't be such a hardship.

And really, if the books provide a clear answer to a question that somebody asked that the show hasn't evinced any interest in addressing one way or another, why not bring up the answer from the books? I mean, it's as good as any other explanation for Balon's absence, isn't it?

Did Balon not die in the show as well? I really thought that he did. I'm thinking that the Greyjoys will return for next season (it seems unfeasible to just ignore them).

I'm kind of hoping the Greyjoys come back because I actually liked that storyline in AFFC, but considering they're doing the Meereenese knot with no Ironborn involvement, I kind of doubt it.

Either Balon's death wasn't mentioned in the show or it was mentioned so offhandedly that both Harry and I forgot that it was specified to have occurred. Admittedly, at first this is true of his death in the books as well.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In Madeline's defense, it isn't that important of a spoiler (unless they're changing things dramatically from the books). And also she may have thought (like I did) that he was already dead in the show as well.

Yes, I did think so.

Also: I wasn't 'trying to play coy', whatever that's supposed to mean. Joe didn't bring up spoilers as a concern until several posts later, and I couldn't really have guessed that he had that concern because 1. I wasn't aware it was a (potential) spoiler and 2. the read that I was getting from what he was saying was 'nobody cares what happened in the books because we all know the show is diverging anyway', which seemed almost like the opposite of a concern about spoilers. So, that's why his reaction didn't make sense to me and struck me as unmerited.

Anyway, I'm sorry.

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There are people who like the Aegon plotline?

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Tywin was an excellent bad guy and so is his daughter.

Cersei's actually one of my favorite characters, though she's obviously a terrible person and ruler.

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Apparently, a couple years ago, George RR Martin gave the details of the last 2 books to the showrunners so they could start planning the show, and there 3 were specific "holy sh**t" moments"
1. Stannis sacrificing Shireen
2. Hodor's origin story
3. TBA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin_us_57449e29e4b0aad87c8baeac

If that's the case it confirms my suspicion that Stannis beats Ramsay in the books - since Shireen isn't with him in the books he can't lose and die against the Boltons if he is to later sacrifice her.

One of my friends' theory is that in the books Melisandre will sacrifice Shireen while Stannis is fighting the Boltons. I'd prefer this to be case, but I'm not convinced.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Why did King Tommen refer to his mother as 'Cersei Lannister'?  Wouldn't she be 'Cersei Baratheon' just as he is 'Tommen Baratheon'?  Was that intentional or just a mistake by the writers?

No, I feel like they've always referred to her as Cersei Lannister on the show.

In the books too. In general there doesn't seem to be a consistent rule about whether women use married names in Westeros.