I guess they wanted to show that death exists on the Red Waste and Dany's little Khalisar is facing the threat of death from one of Khal Drogo's former Bloodriders. They also explain what the term Shadow Lands means and how important it is to burn a Dothraki warrior.

Sad to see Rakharo die but it seems to be the nature of the show.

I also loved Asha/Yara's response to Theon wearing the skirt.

i still feel like i'm getting more than my fair share of "book coming to life". the fact is, martin wrote in the PoV structure for a purpose, but that doesn't mean other things weren't happening. it's exciting to me to see other parts of his story being fleshed out by guys who know the source material well. how do we know there wasn't some ***** that LF gave his sinister speech to? how do we know salladahor san didn't rant about religion?

not only that, some of the stuff we do know happened, and there's no harm in making it a little clearer in a medium where you can't afford to beat around the bush with exposition and can't use inner monologue.

for that matter, the book is being very faithful to some very character-defining scenes, specifically with characters liks Gendry, Cersei, Bronn, and Varys, with some of their lines being ripped right from the book and delivered excellently.

as far as actual deviations in plot, i feel like there really haven't been many. Jon seeing Craster deliver the baby to an Other is one of the more major ones, but i'm excited to see a story thread that fits in well with the books but that i also don't know the end of - it gives me, as a book reader, a feeling of tension and excitement that i wouldn't have if they just followed the plot exactly. that's the beauty of the adaptation, and i think David and Dan have recognized that.

sorry for the rambling. tl;dr version - i'm happy with the deviations and loving the moments that are directly from the page!

Not that I'm annoyed or bothered much by this, but why exactly would you change asha's name? I've gotten about half way through book 4, and

Book 4 spoiler









Asha is not just a random character








End spoiler


I'll stop my nitpicking now...

^^^the reason i heard was that it was too close to Osha, who they are turning into a somewhat more important character. i can buy that i guess, it's not a big deal to me.

Fair enough

quote:

---

I don't recall Danery's bloodrider being beheaded. Was that different than the book?

---

I dont think it was in the book.

idk if they are really gonna keep 3 bloodriders with Dany. What were they again: the arakh, the whip, the bow? Then Jorah, of course. They could be playing that down.


I think the biggest problem with having reoccurring minor characters is you need to pay them to come back. HBO doesnt have an unlimited budget for this show. And again, they only have so much attention of viewers. They were worried they introduced too many characters in Season 1 for the average viewer to familiarize themselves and be able to distinguish between characters. I bet they are worried about the same problem this season. Heck I watched s2ep2 with a family member and she asked me who is the guy speaking with that black pirate. I said it was Davos, Stannis' right hand man. To which she replied, "which one is Stannis?" "Dead King Robert's oldest brother..." "oh!"

She isnt stupid, just she has only seen Davos for 10 total minutes in 120 minutes of the second season. He hasnt really done anything but talk to Cressen and help edit the message to the Seven Kingdoms.

quote:

---

quote:

---

I don't recall Danery's bloodrider being beheaded. Was that different than the book?

---

I dont think it was in the book.

idk if they are really gonna keep 3 bloodriders with Dany. What were they again: the arakh, the whip, the bow? Then Jorah, of course. They could be playing that down.


I think the biggest problem with having reoccurring minor characters is you need to pay them to come back.

---

I read somewhere that the actor who was cast as Rakharo had scheduling conflicts for the rest of the season, so he was written out of the season. Not a huge deal. Dany can pick a replacement named Yakharo or Oshkaro or Ashkaro or even Roskharo, I suppose.

Other than the bloodrider with the whip, I cant really remember any of them having significant purpose on the plot. The show even gave "whip boy" an extra scene with Jorah discussing swords vs arakhs and armor versus speed.

Stannis, two-pump chump champion.

They've definitely accelerated a couple of the plot lines but its not necessarily a bad thing.

quote:

---

Because you enjoyed the books so much that you're excited to see the story come to life visually? Look at it this way -- the screen time taken up by the brothel scene doesn't tell us anything important about either Littlefinger or Ros, and took screen time away from other plot and character development. Clash of Kings is a big book; they've got only 8 more episodes to get through a lot of storylines. I get that HBO is edgy and R-rated. But IMO it's starting to detract from telling a good story.

---

I don't see why you would get upset about explicit sex in the show considering how very explicit the descriptions of sex were in the books.

[This message has been edited by Hobo Zombie (edited 4/9/2012 12:28a).]

i'm curious if, since the show creators are staying so true to some of the explicit sex from the book, we're going to see the infamous "fat pink mast" from book 4...

also, EW recap is out really quickly. i love these

http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/game-of-thrones-night-lands/

Not trying to be a jerk, Hobo, but did you read the response you quoted? I thought I made my reasoning pretty clear. If you don't agree, that's fine.

[This message has been edited by G Martin 87 (edited 4/9/2012 6:08a).]

I'm fine with the deviations because I resigned myself that the books and the show are going to continue to deviate, they have to. There are things I question such as the LF scene which seems to be just reinforcing something that has already been established (except Roz having a heart I guess) when that time could be spent developing other characters more central in the books. That said, they are clearly going to end up telling a similar but different story so you kind of have to go with it. I also found it interesting that they made such a clear point that Stannis has NO children in the show which is obviously a huge departure and basically means that his greyscale daughter and Patchface are nixed which is fine, they are kind of slow characters. I'm wondering if Endric Storm gets introduced though. I expect that most of the prophecies will be eliminated and the show will continue to be more "obvious" about things. In the books there is a tremendous amount of subtlety and that is very hard to translate to TV and people that have less information and shorter attention spans.

I am expecting that some plotlines will speed up and some will go away, I wouldn't be surprised if we see some Book 3 slip in with some characters and then for Book 4 to have a lot that is skipped over. I'm also wondering if they will start having episodes with 3 or 4 plotlines with more time instead of trying to give each one just a few minutes.

quote:

---

I also found it interesting that they made such a clear point that Stannis has NO children in the show which is obviously a huge departure

---

I thought Melisandre only said that Stannis's wife gave him no sons, which seems to fit that he only has a daughter.

Has anyone figured out who Esme Bianco is banging to get her role?

It is weird that couldn't have expanded the roles of the any number of *****s who appear in the book. Instead they created one out of thin air and then made sure she has a scene in almost every show.

^ on the contrary, i think they're compressing some of the hoars into her character, notably Chataya and Alayaya. my guess is that he'll be hiding Shae with Ros eventually, especially after this week when Varys threatened him about keeping her around

While creating one uber-***** to cover the ***** POV in westeros makes sense for the TV show, to me it still seems she appears way more than necessary.

We did not need to see her scene with littlefinger. The TV audience knows he is a ******* by now. It was pointless other than to show Bianco can play sad ***** as well as bawdy *****.

I think she is banging one of the producers.

[This message has been edited by Leap Day William (edited 4/9/2012 9:05a).]

idk. on a re-watch of that whole brothel scene, the LF-spying-on-*****s-spying-on-*****s seemed like a hilarious analogy for the scheming politics of the capital, and the "mouth wipe", though disgusting, was pretty funny. and LF's monologue to Ros...holy mother of god, it turned that guy from a scheming ******* into a ruthless sociopath, which i think is what the character needed after getting punk'd by Cersei last week.

I don't think the Littlefinger scene was as effective as it could've been, but it got the point across. The thing I like about the show is that they have several subtleties which you don't really pick up on unless you listen closely and relate what they say to what we know about the character's actions/motivations so far.

I mentioned last week that Cersei threatening Littlefinger was going to be the catalyst for him betraying the Lannisters in the show because, to a tv audience, he appeared aligned with them up to that point. The reason for that alignment being that Ned stood in the way of what he truly wants, Cat.

The Littlefinger/Ros scene served two purposes. It showed he was ruthless and laid the groundwork for his future plans of power and positioning in the GoT.

While telling the story of the sad hooker he 'sent to pasture' to be killed by a client, he mentioned bad investments and how they haunt him, especially when he can't figure out how to remedy the situation to make it right. He was talking about his situation with the Lannisters. I'm sure Littlefinger assumed with his knowledge of Joffrey's lineage and turning over Ned, he would be amply rewarded (with a Lordship and hopefully Cat) after the war was over. With Ned banished to the wall, he could claim he helped as a friend to have his life be spared.

After Joffrey chopped Ned's head and Cersei proved he can't rely on his 'birds' and secrets to save him, Littlefinger realizes how bad of an investment he made siding with the unstable/foolish Lannister clan and will never be able to get Cat back now. The is the tv show's way of explaining why/when Littlefinger began plotting his new course of kidnapping Sansa, escaping to the Erie, and breaking any type of veiled alliance he had with the Lannisters.

[This message has been edited by Acosmicbandito (edited 4/9/2012 9:37a).]

good analysis ACB, i hadn't thought about his "investment" with the lannisters before.

As an extremely lucky screener of the first 4 episodes I'll say that a few of the added scenes (which do nothing to add to the story if you're a book reader) play important set up roles for the direction of the show.

I'm surprised and glad to see that there isn't too much ire over the deviations from the books, but if you're upset now then you better hold onto your hat.

As an aside, this episode (2) was easily the worst of the first 4. The next two are great and should create some interesting discussions both on the 'non-readers' and 'readers' threads that go in totally different directions.

Also, for this episode I thought the show did a bad job of 'justifying' the need for some of the sex and it triggers the 'gratuitous sex for the purpose of gratuitous sex' reaction from many of the viewers, including myself. If it seems forced it draws me away from the immersion of a fantasy world and back into the reality that its only a tv show.

I thought in the first season they did an excellent job of demonstrating sex as an 'exposure to the realities of Westeros' whereas this season it sometimes feels like its being force-fed which triggers a different reaction.

The gratuity of the scene, the fear of another extended Theon dong shot, and the ship ****'s odd cross eyed stare made it hard for me to focus on the dialogue. None of the nudity, sex, or violence in the show really bothers me though. It can take you out of the scene when it isn't used properly which, as you mentioned, takes focus off the other elements of the series the creators are trying to convey.

That said, I'm not gonna complain about it. Bring on the blood and boobage.

i don't really understand the complaints about the sex. almost everything sexual from yesterday's episode is either directly in the books (theon messing with his sister and ****ing the captain's daughter) or it obviously happened but we didn't get to see it in the books (mel/stannis, and for that matter, *****s being *****s in LF's brothel). the only thing that was really "over the top" IMO was the spooge wipe, that was a little gratuitous, but it made for some raunchy comedy at least.

the sex in the book was pretty explicit and violent at times, i feel like the show hasn't made it any worse or anything

quote:

---

also, EW recap is out really quickly. i love these

http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/game-of-thrones-night-lands/

---

I liked how this line was stuck in there: "Turns out Papa Greyjoy is impressed Yara, but thinks Theon is weak (which rhymes with meek)."

haha yeah. ADwD made theon one of my favorite character arcs from the entire series. he's such a tragic fellow, i think if the series gets as far as book 5 that alfie allen will portray him well

uni, I think the biggest problem is that they cut from the captains daughter getting plowed in 3 different positions to loud effin to a dude getting a beej watching the loud screwin. That ~90 secs of yelling and voyeurism was very uncomfortable in mixed company. If they separated the scenes a little bit more, perhaps it would have been more palatable.

[This message has been edited by BillOnCapitolHill (edited 4/9/2012 11:23a).]

i'll admit that the editing choices were strange there - but the content was fine IMO

[This message has been edited by unicyclist_ag (edited 4/9/2012 11:22a).]

its not that the sex is there, its that it was poorly executed. In a few weeks we'll get similar amounts of sex and I thought it was much more cohesive.

My wife and I have been watching the series with friends, and our 21 year old son has been watching with us this season. Make no mistake, last night's episode was extremely uncomfortable to watch in mixed company. It was close to porn levels at times, and for no reason other than ratings. The explicit nature of the scenes is not necessary for the story.

Meh, the scenes were either in the books, or were in a similar vein to what is in the books. When the books were talking about what juices were flowing from whose c_nts, I don't think the semi-explicit nature of the sexual scenes in the book are over the top. There are any number of things that are not technically necessary, but add to the setting and tone.

I just wish people would get over their hang-ups.

[This message has been edited by Hobo Zombie (edited 4/9/2012 12:37p).]

Reading is a private activity. For the situations to be even remotely analogous, I'd have to entertain my friends and son by reading the sex scenes aloud from the book, and in character with accompanying sound effects.

Martin,

If you weren't forewarned that gratuitous sex could happen at any time after reading the books and watching the first season I don't know what to tell you. If you are with "mixed company" that makes that uncomfortable don't watch it in "mixed company". It's a strong R rated show and in truth the book was just as harsh though some of the scenes are slightly different.

I'm glad to hear that this was the weaker of the first 4 episodes though, this one didn't have the awesomeness of last week with no scenes on the level of Tyrion's first couple scenes or Robb and Jaime with Grey Wind. Personally I thought the Theon/Iron Islands scenes were the best. I was actually a little disappointed in the Jonas to the Wall scene, it wasn't as awesome to me as in the book. I liked how he was counting off his enemies in the book and just as Slynt was about to lose it he brought up his sons and Slynt was more resigned to his fate.

I distinctly remember Melisandre saying that there was "no life" from his relationship to his wife after saying she had given him no sons. They went the extra mile. Personally I think it won't matter unless GRRM makes her into a larger character later. It is interesting though that in the book Stannis' wife is Mel's biggest supporter.

I don't envy the TV show and the challenges they will have this year with so many new storylines and trying to keep them cohesive, it is a bit odd that they have chosen to invest so much in Roz though as a seemingly major character since she is not in the books though. I'm sure it will come around.

I think it is easier to make Ros the archetype for every ***** in the series than it is to cast and characterize all the minor *****s in the books. Plus, it is probably cheaper to pay for one recurring character who is comfortable with gratuitous nudity than to pay multiple actresses for recurring, sexually explicit roles.

[This message has been edited by maverick2076 (edited 4/9/2012 1:53p).]