HBO's Game Of Thrones

[Earl Dukes]

Read the book?

[Scumhook]

Originally Posted by Earl Dukes

Read the book?

Nope.

However "Read" is one of those words when used in the above context could be a question "Have you read the book?" or a suggestion "How about you read the book and STFU, you fat whining bitch?".

I decided it was the first one.

[Bucho]

This won't take the place of a proper episode but I liked it. Tywin, Ygritte and Jon yapping it up with Jonathan Ross.

Tune in just to hear The Greatest Actor On Television talk about "the amount of rumpy pumpy" and how it's all "doggy fashion" and "flip, wallop, pump".

Originally Posted by Rufio

I disagree, you're assuming that the payoff of this is the reveal of the torturers identity, it's not. The importance is the change that theons character goes through, its not a change that could've happened in just 1 or two episodes, it had to last most of the season.

I get what you're trying to say Rufio but that's not how narrative works. Not for me anyway. Thing is, even if a mystery is set up in service of character or plot development that doesn't change the fact that, narratively speaking, when you set up a mystery the solution to that mystery is important. If you accomplish character development but don't pay off that set-up in a satisfying way you've done a half-assed job with your storytelling.

See also the gargantuan wailing and gnashing of teeth from Lost fans after that finale.

[jpj1421]

Originally Posted by Bucho

This won't take the place of a proper episode but I liked it. Tywin, Ygritte and Jon yapping it up with Jonathan Ross.

Tune in just to hear The Greatest Actor On Television talk about "the amount of rumpy pumpy" and how it's all "doggy fashion" and "flip, wallop, pump".

The Jonathan Ross Show with Game of Thrones cast. - YouTube





I get what you're trying to say Rufio but that's not how narrative works. Not for me anyway. Thing is, even if a mystery is set up in service of character or plot development that doesn't change the fact that, narratively speaking, when you set up a mystery the solution to that mystery is important. If you accomplish character development but don't pay off that set-up in a satisfying way you've done a half-assed job with your storytelling.

See also the gargantuan wailing and gnashing of teeth from Lost fans after that finale.

Meh, the Lost finale was great, and people complaining are wrong to do so. The resolution of the narrative is more important than the resolution of the mystery. The island is magician, I don't need to know more, just like I didn't need to know about medichlorians.

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by jpj1421

Mesh, the Lost finale was great, and people complaining are wrong to do so. The resolution of the narrative is more important than the resolution of the mystery. The island is magician, I don't need to know more, just like I didn't need to know about medichlorians.

If the mystery is part of the narrative and the mystery is unresolved then the narrative is unresolved. You can be as cute as you like with the themes and metaphors and artsy-fartsy Lynchian constructs or whateverthefuck, but if you show me the gun in the first act you better fucking shoot somebody with it later.

I don't make this shit up, it's just how God told it to Moses.

And obviously Lost is not a direct analogy, but it is the most notorious case of an abysmally badly paid-off setup. The question is whether or not there's an orgasm after this massive cock-tease (yes pun) and if GoT leaves me with blue balls I am going to be very put out.

[jpj1421]

Originally Posted by Bucho

If the mystery is part of the narrative and the mystery is unresolved then the narrative is unresolved. You can be as cute as you like with the themes and metaphors and artsy-fartsy Lynchian constructs or whateverthefuck, but if you show me the gun in the first act you better fucking shoot somebody with it later.

I don't make this shit up, it's just how God told it to Moses.

And obviously Lost is not a direct analogy, but it is the most notorious case of an abysmally badly paid-off setup. The question is whether or not there's an orgasm after this massive cock-tease (yes pun) and if GoT leaves me with blue balls I am going to be very put out.

Well, there is precedent for things not being revealed in a narrative that is built up, there's even a trope for it: The Unreveal

The presence or importance of a mystery in a narrative is dependent wholly on the perspective of the characters involved. When a mystery is the most important thing in the narrative, the story is traditionally told from the perspective of the detective/mystery solver. They find that there is one and seek out it's conclusion and that's the story. If the mystery is told from the perspective of the villain, it is less important than whether it will be discovered or the effects of the mystery. There still is one, it's just not terribly important to the character focused on.

Now if say, the story were told from the perspective of the hero's sidekick. He dutifully helps the hero, but dies during the course of unraveling the mystery, well...that's it. For him the mystery remains unresolved and while it was important for the effect it had on him (death) the actual mystery was more of a macguffin.

I think a good example of this, other than the works of David Lynch, is The Vanishing. Guy and girl go on vacation and the girl goes missing. The guy destroys his life in the pursuit of what happened to her. He tracks down the culprit, eventually, who refuses to tell him what happened, unless he drinks from a drugged glass. He does so and finds out exactly what happened, but would have been far better off letting that mystery go unresolved. The mystery itself was not that important, but it's affect was, and he should have let it go.

So to tie that back into poor, stupid Theon. The only reason that there is a mystery is because Theon doesn't know, even though he probably should. So we're left to see the breaking of Theon by a torturer unkown to him, and therefore unkown to us. And when it is finally revealed, I imagine it will feel the same for most of the audience as it will for Theon. Huh...ok...but what does that matter? Isn't it more important what happened, and what that means for the future? The mystery was just a component of what was happening in the room.

Needless to say, I like the Theon stuff more than most...I also love the Lost finale and David Lynch movies. I don't need every mystery or solved, or if they are to be solved to be terribly satisfying, as long as the story arc continues on.

Not to say I don't think the identity of the captor is neat, which I do, I just don't think it's terribly important to Theon beyond the fact that it happened.

[Scumhook]

GoT Survival guide: how to cope with Game of Thrones withdrawal

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by jpj1421

Well ...

That's not a bad argument.

I'd be easier on the Theon story-line for season 3 if GoT was better-paced in general. Last year they fucked Dany's story-line so badly that many who'd come to love her in S1 came to find her unrelentingly, tediously irritating for most of S2. They did the same with Jon's, stalling his momentum for no good reason (unless you count the many shots of his pretty, dumb, oblivious face as a good reason) although he was never as interesting as Dany to begin with so it wasn't as much of a disappointment.

And last season Theon was probably the best non-Lannister character in the show, which makes all the repetitious torture bollocks this season wildly frustrating. What makes a dipshit like Theon fun to watch is seeing him make dipshitted decisions, so while he's been without agency this season the best thing about his character has been removed from his story-line. So because there's nothing interesting happening in Theon's narrative (unless you're a fan of torture, in which case, party on) the mystery component, which maybe is not supposed to be the main thrust, becomes the thing bored fans will latch onto.

Which brings it back to what I said earlier. The theory behind what's happening in Theon's narrative may work, and apparently from what you're saying the books deliver on that theory in a satisfying way, but the TV series is failing to deliver on it. I mean, shit, I'm so bored with Theon's story-line this season that I'm watching two nubile nudes flouncing around with him, tits in every frame, and yet by some black magic I find myself wishing for more scenes with fucking Bran and Rickon. If that's not an indictment of how they're handling it I don't know what is.

Actually, that might be unfair to the Bran and Rickon story-line. At least they have Hodor.

[jpj1421]

Originally Posted by Bucho

That's not a bad argument.

I'd be easier on the Theon story-line for season 3 if GoT was better-paced in general. Last year they fucked Dany's story-line so badly that many who'd come to love her in S1 came to find her unrelentingly, tediously irritating for most of S2. They did the same with Jon's, stalling his momentum for no good reason (unless you count the many shots of his pretty, dumb, oblivious face as a good reason) although he was never as interesting as Dany to begin with so it wasn't as much of a disappointment.

And last season Theon was probably the best non-Lannister character in the show, which makes all the repetitious torture bollocks this season wildly frustrating. What makes a dipshit like Theon fun to watch is seeing him make dipshitted decisions, so while he's been without agency this season the best thing about his character has been removed from his story-line. So because there's nothing interesting happening in Theon's narrative (unless you're a fan of torture, in which case, party on) the mystery component, which maybe is not supposed to be the main thrust, becomes the thing bored fans will latch onto.

Which brings it back to what I said earlier. The theory behind what's happening in Theon's narrative may work, and apparently from what you're saying the books deliver on that theory in a satisfying way, but the TV series is failing to deliver on it. I mean, shit, I'm so bored with Theon's story-line this season that I'm watching two nubile nudes flouncing around with him, tits in every frame, and yet by some black magic I find myself wishing for more scenes with fucking Bran and Rickon. If that's not an indictment of how they're handling it I don't know what is.

Actually, that might be unfair to the Bran and Rickon story-line. At least they have Hodor.

I probably should have ended my post with a "That being said, the book handles the reveal of Theon not dying in book 2 completely backwards from the way it is." But I'll circle back to that.

Now I, love Game of Thrones, I'd probably rank it as my third favorite show (after MST3K and the West Wing), but it does have huge pacing issues. I love the books and they have huge pacing issues....in the most recent two books. In the show, I think the problem is that people grow attached to characters and they become popular, so the creators want to show people what they love...even if the source material they are afraid to stray from doesn't really support that. The fourth and fifth books, because they were written after the book series got big have the same issue, in my opinion. But to stick with the show, Dany, Robb and Bran are indicative of this problem. I love them dearly, and love them on the show but they were written the way they were in the books for a reason. Up to this point int he show, Bran is the least visited main character in the series. His story, as of this point in this series, seems to be more important to the larger meta plot about magic and good vs evil as opposed to the politics of the realm; so we don't see him very often other than as a check in. Dany in book two had very few chapters because while Qarth was important to her growth (a beautiful trap that she almost gets ensnared in, so she can learn how to avoid these in the future) in wouldn't be terribly interesting if overexposed, as we saw. Robb is a much more seen character in the show because he won over everyone in season 1, and most of his story to this point was heard through others or seen through the viewpoint of Catelyn so you an see the burden of the king from the mother's viewpoint. And it worked well enough in season 2, but it's been probably too much this season. So yeah, they drag a bit (or a lot), but it comes from a good place I suppose. They want to give people what they want.

I'm going to talk a little about Theon in the book as unspecifically as possible and I don't think I'm going to say anything anyone doesn't know already, but...viewer discretion advised.

What we learn about Theon was also controversial in the book reading community. The way the books work is that Books 1-3 were all set chronological. Books 4 and 5 were supposed to be one book, got too long, was cut in half, and half of the characters got their story told in each book. Book 5 did go on past the events of Book 4, so things did advance in Book 5 in relation to Book 4. So Theon blacks out in Book 2, and isn't a viewpoint character in Book 3...probably due to pacing, heh. In Book 5, in a scene not long after the events of the third book, a viewpoint character appears who was aware of Theon's fate, and while dealing with stuff in the present. This could be 'boy', it could be Theon, it could be one of the ladies in the room, whomever. Each chapter you see them, they deal with the present, and they reveal a little bit more information in their thoughts about what went down in that room. The mystery, if you will, is how far did things go, and how worried should we be worried about the people who allowed this to happen/'boy'/the people who sold out Theon when they deal with other people.

Now, there are a few reasons that they can't do it this way. They have vowed to not show flashbacks, even though a lot of the books are in flashbacks as people think about things. And even though they have a perfectly serviceable device for showing us things we wouldn't otherwise know (I'm looking at you Bran, and your three eyed raven.) And....Theon became a very important character last season and brought home one of the best performances of the season. His contract, and audience expectations means he can't drop off the earth for one or two seasons. So...we got what we got. Which I like, but I understand why people are getting agitated, and I would have done it slightly differently to get across everything that needs to get across.

Hi, I'm jpj1421 and I overthink Game of Thrones.

[Tank]

Boom.