Game of Thrones Season 4 Discussion (TV Spoilers Only)

[Mr Bean]

I forgot to mention the Hound and Arya scene. Great stuff. The Hound chortling about how ridiculous it is for someone to be killed by Meryn Trant was great.

I also enjoy how armor in the show is actually shown to be useful. This is opposed more typical fantasy settings having plate armor having the same protective ability as wet cardboard.

I hope we get more Trant, I loved lickspittle the King is always right Trant we got briefly this season and last season. He's the only other King's guard besides Jamie who gets screen time even if it's brief.

Liked this episode, like Hodor taking a life and seeing the blood on his hands. Loved that's how our good friend Locke went down. Even if the Jon VS deserter fighter... man Jon should have been dead six times over.

[Ralin]

Holy shit this episode was awesome. Jon got to do a great deal of fighting, and the duel between him and Karl at the end was awesome. Dude with two knives was scary as shit. ?

I thought it was laughable because he used that sword in close quarter combat. He's a buffoon.

I thought it was one of their better fight scenes, which generally haven't been all that great.

May not actually make sense, but visually it looked great to people who don't know anything about actual sword-fighting, and that's the important thing. Not like George R R Martin knows all that much about medieval fight-y stuff himself.

[TheHammer]

Holy shit this episode was awesome. Jon got to do a great deal of fighting, and the duel between him and Karl at the end was awesome. Dude with two knives was scary as shit. ?

I thought it was laughable because he used that sword in close quarter combat. He's a buffoon.

I thought it was one of their better fight scenes, which generally haven't been all that great.

May not actually make sense, but visually it looked great to people who don't know anything about actual sword-fighting, and that's the important thing. Not like George R R Martin knows all that much about medieval fight-y stuff himself.

I think it makes sense. For all of his training, Jon doesn't exactly have a ton of real world fighting experience, and that he does have is almost exclusively out in the open. I think they showed quite well what a disadvantage in tight quarters it was to have the sword vs the shorter blades. And that Jon would likely have died had it not been for the intervention of one of Craster's wives.

One might expect that Snow probably knows that it's not a text book to use a sword in that situation, but being relatively young. cocky, and inexperienced in such things he probably thought "I've got an effing Valerian steel sword" and decided to use it anyway and just about bit off more than he could chew.

Considering its all in the past now, I am curious how the book described the fight (presuming it went down roughly the same way).

[Ralin]

Considering its all in the past now, I am curious how the book described the fight (presuming it went down roughly the same way).

Spoiler

Not at all. The entire "We have to go get the Night's Watch mutineers" subplot was created for the show.

[JLTucker]

What do you all think of Bran taking over Hodor's mind? Was it immoral? If so, was it justified? Keep in mind Hodor's innocence and reaction when he saw the blood on his hand and looked at the body.

[Scrib]

Immoral? Mind Control? Yes.

[Meest]

Holy shit this episode was awesome. Jon got to do a great deal of fighting, and the duel between him and Karl at the end was awesome. Dude with two knives was scary as shit. ?

I thought it was laughable because he used that sword in close quarter combat. He's a buffoon.

There was plenty of room, Jon was overhead swinging like crazy and never hit the roof or beams. It was laughable because dual wielding daggers against a bastard sword and he's parrying the sword like it's nothing, not to mention Jon not using the thrust reach advantage nor did he use both hands.
Gif showing wide swings

[LaCroix]

I'd so have laughed if the raiders were to see the fire of Craster's Keep burning down and think it were the signal - The biggest fire the north has ever seen - and then attack Castle Black while the other force isn't... With Jon knowing about the signal, it would be a good tactic to lay a trap.

[fgalkin]

I'd so have laughed if the raiders were to see the fire of Craster's Keep burning down and think it were the signal - The biggest fire the north has ever seen - and then attack Castle Black while the other force isn't... With Jon knowing about the signal, it would be a good tactic to lay a trap.

Dude, Craster's Keep is 60 miles from the Wall. Were you even paying attention?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[LaCroix]

Yes, that's why I said "I would have laughed, if".

And, since they aren't sitting on the wall to look but look for the signal fire through bird's/warg's eyes, it could have been spotted, assuming no mountains between. At 1000m, you have a LOS of 112km, which is about 70 miles.

Would they fly that high? The wall is 700 feet tall, mere 250meters, if you are generous - but if you want to look over it to watch for a huge fire, geometry demands that you rise quite a bit higher if you are a bit away. A 1000 meters would not be out of line.

The data translation from bird to human brain might be squishy enough to not realize to real distance involved - it was dark, and that tends to interfere with distance perception.

Also, setting the true signal fire up a few miles away would be sensible - from the wall, the Nightwatch would notice if somebody were to errect a huge bonfire right under their noses, and the wall does block the sight on closer sites quite a bit...

Enough wiggle room for a huge misunderstanding.

[Elfdart]

Jezebel ("Game of Boners") posted a clip of the scene where Sansa finally appears to have figured out how to not only avoid saying anything that might give someone an excuse to kill her, but more importantly, how to play dumb and manipulate those who have the upper hand. She's turning into a cross between Elizabeth I and Claudius (as portrayed by Glenda Jackson and Derek Jacobi).

[TheHammer]

I wonder how long it will be before Liza takes a miss-step out the moon door...

[JLTucker]

What an episode. It's easily the best in the season by far.

I wasn't expecting Shae to show up. I really hope she was coerced instead of lying because of her previously-established irrationality. I grew tired of her incessant cries of disdain for the marriage between Tyrion and Sansa. He didn't want it. He did not sleep with Sansa out of respect for her wishes. He asked Shae to leave so Cersei wouldn't find out and have her killed. But it looks like Cersei knew anyway, and Shae may have been intercepted during her leave.

I have become sympathetic to Theon's plight, but I really can't say I like the way it was been handled. Given the plethora of characters and story threads that are addressed, we didn't really see the after effect of Theon's torture. We saw him being tortured, but not much more.

[Scrib]

What an episode. It's easily the best in the season by far.

I wasn't expecting Shae to show up. I really hope she was coerced instead of lying because of her previously-established irrationality. I grew tired of her incessant cries of disdain for the marriage between Tyrion and Sansa. He didn't want it. He did not sleep with Sansa out of respect for her wishes. He asked Shae to leave so Cersei wouldn't find out and have her killed. But it looks like Cersei knew anyway, and Shae may have been intercepted during her leave.

I have become sympathetic to Theon's plight, but I really can't say I like the way it was been handled. Given the plethora of characters and story threads that are addressed, we didn't really see the after effect of Theon's torture. We saw him being tortured, but not much more.

You mean besides the after-effects we saw both in this episode and the episode where he was shaving Ramsay?

[JLTucker]

You mean besides the after-effects we saw both in this episode and the episode where he was shaving Ramsay?

Yeah. Most of the scenes in season three consist of Theon just getting tortured. There is the scene at the beginning of this season where Ramsay and that woman are chasing a prisoner for kill, but other than that, the shaving, and what happened in this episode, there's not much.

[Scrib]

You mean besides the after-effects we saw both in this episode and the episode where he was shaving Ramsay?

Yeah. Most of the scenes in season three consist of Theon just getting tortured. There is the scene at the beginning of this season where Ramsay and that woman are chasing a prisoner for kill, but other than that, the shaving, and what happened in this episode, there's not much.

YMMV,but I think it got the point across. People said the torture was gratuitous but these few scenes makes it quite clear what happened to Theon.I dunno how much nuance you can (or need to)layer on that.

I also would like to note how right Varys is. Tyrion was just about to get away with murdering the fucking king (in the eyes of the realm) because he had a good brother and a powerful daddy.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The scene with Theon not being rescued was just.... so bloody unrealistic as to rip out my Suspension of Belief and trample it. Seriously? They couldn't think of something to show how broken he is (yet again), other than to have something that felt like a 5 minute wrapup from an episode of GI Joe?
Blah.

Mycroft Holmes, the Banker of Bravos = Awesome.
(But this whole scene would have worked much better later on in the series . (insert book spoilers here). ).
Tywin is just too stable.

Dinklage's acting in the end of the trial scenes was just... amazing. (I really want to see him on the big screen. He reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis in "There will Be Blood", all he needs is a voice like honey and an oscar ).

[TheHammer]

The scene with Theon not being rescued was just.... so bloody unrealistic as to rip out my Suspension of Belief and trample it. Seriously? They couldn't think of something to show how broken he is (yet again), other than to have something that felt like a 5 minute wrapup from an episode of GI Joe?

What specifically did you take issue with?

[Vympel]

Easily one of the best episodes of the series.

- Braavos looks awesome.
- Saaladhor Saan! Missed him!
- Davos' arguments to the Iron Bank were a highlight - it was great that the writers think about this sort of thing.
- I saw a lot of complaining in the comments of WiC.net about the Yara/Theon/Ramsay segment. Personally I think it served two purposes. One: to give all the relevant actors something to do; and Two: establish that Theon is "dead" as far as Yara is concerned.
- Looks like they're going in a new direction with Dany / Hizdahr. Good - seems much more interesting than it was in ADWD already.
- Dany's gonna receive a letter from Tywin, isn't she? Well - not really. But I bet one of Varys' little birds will get "caught" with a message for Jorah from Lord Tywin.
- Has Drogon grown since we saw him earlier in the season? He looked bigger.
- You just know Tywin had worked that situation from the moment it arose to make Jaime give up the white cloak and take his place as the Lannister heir. And Tyrion is placed out of contention at a stroke by having to take the black.
- Someone give Peter Dinklage another Emmy.

Stannis has 4,000 men - excellent.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The scene with Theon not being rescued was just.... so bloody unrealistic as to rip out my Suspension of Belief and trample it. Seriously? They couldn't think of something to show how broken he is (yet again), other than to have something that felt like a 5 minute wrapup from an episode of GI Joe?

What specifically did you take issue with?

"Aha! I have you in my clutches inside my castle with the guards alerted! Now you see how I have broken your brother, I will let you leave knowing what he has become! mwahahaaa" [/Convoluted scheme].

That just does ...not make sense. Particularly for Ramsey Snow.

If there were enough guards coming or around, then he would have captured Yaarah (whatever her name in the series is), so as to torture her horribly (and another ironborn hostage. But mainly horrific torture and rape).
If he didn't have a lot of guards right behind him (that we didn't see in the scene, at the end of the fight the numbers were roughly 3-4 on each side, with Yaarah not having fought yet) - then the logical outcome would have been a fight to the death, not him letting her go.

EDIT:

- I saw a lot of complaining in the comments of WiC.net about the Yara/Theon/Ramsay segment. Personally I think it served two purposes. One: to give all the relevant actors something to do; and Two: establish that Theon is "dead" as far as Yara is concerned.

(This ignores the fact that her agreeing with "My brother is dead" is one thing. Her leaving him behind is another - she knows how badly fucked up he is, and cut up. Her leaving him behind might have made sense if there was at least a (cliched) "We have to go now before they alert the castle/guards come", not when the castle is alerted and how the scene was constructed/played out).

[TheHammer]

Easily one of the best episodes of the series.

- Braavos looks awesome.
- Saaladhor Saan! Missed him!
- Davos' arguments to the Iron Bank were a highlight - it was great that the writers think about this sort of thing.
- I saw a lot of complaining in the comments of WiC.net about the Yara/Theon/Ramsay segment. Personally I think it served two purposes. One: to give all the relevant actors something to do; and Two: establish that Theon is "dead" as far as Yara is concerned.
- Looks like they're going in a new direction with Dany / Hizdahr. Good - seems much more interesting than it was in ADWD already.
- Dany's gonna receive a letter from Tywin, isn't she? Well - not really. But I bet one of Varys' little birds will get "caught" with a message for Jorah from Lord Tywin.
- Has Drogon grown since we saw him earlier in the season? He looked bigger.
- You just know Tywin had worked that situation from the moment it arose to make Jaime give up the white cloak and take his place as the Lannister heir. And Tyrion is placed out of contention at a stroke by having to take the black.
- Someone give Peter Dinklage another Emmy.

Stannis has 4,000 men - excellent.

I think the Jaimie thing kind of fell into Tywin's lap - there is no way he could have predicted that Jamie would make the offer that he did. It's clear he was never going to allow Tyrion to be killed, sending him to the Night's watch was always going to be the plan to begin with. He likely figured he'd then work on getting Jaimie to "do his family duty". Meanwhile, Tyrion would stay stashed away at the wall as a fallback plan - its unlikely Tywin viewed the Night's watch oath to be any more of a deal breaker than the King's guard oath. In this instance, he was both lucky and good that Jaimie came to him and made that job easy, at least until he pushed Tyrion too far with the Shae Testimony.

I agree on the point about the letter to Jorah that will "happen" to fall in to Dany's hands. A very Tywin thing to do, the epitome of the pen being mightier than the sword in his hands.

I'm not quite clear on why the hate for the Theon scene. Is it that people don't believe he'd stay where he was when his sister came? I think it was made quite clear from the scene that Theon didn't believe it was really his sister - repeating over and over "You can't trick me". He has been subject to "fake rescues", where Ramsay even went so far as to kill his own men. He likely wouldn't put it past Ramsay to have a look alike try to "test his loyalty" and the scars on his body during the bath scene indicate even more torture beyond what we saw in Season three took place before he got to his current frame of mind.

[TheHammer]

The scene with Theon not being rescued was just.... so bloody unrealistic as to rip out my Suspension of Belief and trample it. Seriously? They couldn't think of something to show how broken he is (yet again), other than to have something that felt like a 5 minute wrapup from an episode of GI Joe?

What specifically did you take issue with?

"Aha! I have you in my clutches inside my castle with the guards alerted! Now you see how I have broken your brother, I will let you leave knowing what he has become! mwahahaaa" [/Convoluted scheme].

That just does ...not make sense. Particularly for Ramsey Snow.

If there were enough guards coming or around, then he would have captured Yaarah (whatever her name in the series is), so as to torture her horribly (and another ironborn hostage. But mainly horrific torture and rape).
If he didn't have a lot of guards right behind him (that we didn't see in the scene, at the end of the fight the numbers were roughly 3-4 on each side, with Yaarah not having fought yet) - then the logical outcome would have been a fight to the death, not him letting her go.

You may need to rewatch the scene. As Ramsay shows up, he has blood on him and its clear he had to fight his way down to the pens. To me that says that there are other Ironborn in the castle that are being fought, and likely occupying other members of the household guard. As I recall, she set out with the "50 best killers" or something like that, and there were less than 10 that were with her at the time. Even if they left a contingent to guard the boats, that's still a lot of men potentially fighting offscreen.

As for "letting her go" that wasn't really the case. Initially it is the Ironborn who are cornered in the pens, but during the course of the fight that changes and its Ramsay who is cornered by the end of the fight. That's why Yara makes the statement that she does regarding him not having to die if he gave up her brother. Ramsay then counters that with the "how fast can you run" by UNLEASHING THE HOUNDS via the key in his hands. Yara realizes she would be hard pressed to fight both Ramsays' remaining group and the hounds makes a tactical retreat.

- I saw a lot of complaining in the comments of WiC.net about the Yara/Theon/Ramsay segment. Personally I think it served two purposes. One: to give all the relevant actors something to do; and Two: establish that Theon is "dead" as far as Yara is concerned.

(This ignores the fact that her agreeing with "My brother is dead" is one thing. Her leaving him behind is another - she knows how badly fucked up he is, and cut up. Her leaving him behind might have made sense if there was at least a (cliched) "We have to go now before they alert the castle/guards come", not when the castle is alerted and how the scene was constructed/played out).

He did bite her on the hand and staunchly refused to go with her. Her conclusion that her "brother is dead" was likely the realization that what made him her brother was gone.

[Ziggy Stardust]

"Aha! I have you in my clutches inside my castle with the guards alerted! Now you see how I have broken your brother, I will let you leave knowing what he has become! mwahahaaa" [/Convoluted scheme].

That just does ...not make sense. Particularly for Ramsey Snow.

If there were enough guards coming or around, then he would have captured Yaarah (whatever her name in the series is), so as to torture her horribly (and another ironborn hostage. But mainly horrific torture and rape).
If he didn't have a lot of guards right behind him (that we didn't see in the scene, at the end of the fight the numbers were roughly 3-4 on each side, with Yaarah not having fought yet) - then the logical outcome would have been a fight to the death, not him letting her go.

I agree. I really hated that whole sequence. It's only purpose was to shove the "Theon's been broken" exposition into the audience's face, despite that already having been made clear to us in the shaving scene a couple of episodes ago. It didn't advance the story at all and its execution was clumsy, despite TheHammer's defense of it. The fight choreography was confusing (how did the Ironborn and Ramsay "switch sides" during that fight anyway? One moment they are standing on one side of the room, the next they are on the other. Ramsay is shirtless and is able to take out Ironborn with shields and spears with his knives, because the Ironborn had the worst battle plan possible and basically just walked right up to him and let him stab them. It also seems like they could have quickly killed Ramsay while he was SLOOOWLY unlocking the dog cage and giving his usual irritatingly smug GRRR I'M SO EVIL speech).

I have said it before, and I will say it again. I absolutely despise the whole Theon/Reek storyline. It has added absolutely nothing to the series thus far. And it constantly feels like they are stalling. Last season had all the gratuitous torture. This season isn't much better. Yeah, we get it, Theon's been broken ... we don't need multiple episodes showing us that he is fucked up. And yeah, we know that Ramsay's plan is to attack a fort defended by Stark bannermen ... we've now had two separate drawn out sequences explaining that (one with Roose Bolton, and now the one in the bath).

----------------------------------

On a completely different note, how exactly is the Westerosi legal system set up? Why is "trial by combat" some sort of a trump card for any trial (Tyrion has used it twice, now)? Besides the fact that the idea of a trial by combat is a ridiculously stupid (at least the Brotherhood without Banners have the excuse that it has religious significance for them) way to let legal disputes be settled, what is the point of even having trials if it can always come down to a trial by combat anyway? I know there is some historic legal precedent for trials by combat in the Middle Ages, and I don't claim to be an expert on it, but as far as I can tell it was only used in pretty specific legal disputes, and wasn't the catch-all deus ex machina/plot device GoT seems to use it as. I don't think it was ever allowed historically in accusations of murder, nevermind something as momentous as regicide. I could be wrong, but in general it just feels super clumsy on the part of the show; it is just an obvious attempt to insert another fight scene (one which an upcoming episode title already spoils the participants of) and make the trial more OMG surprising.


EDIT: That said, overall I liked this episode. The trial was great, the Oberyn/Varys scene was great, and the scene at the Iron Bank was great. Here's something else that bothered me, though.

At the small council meeting, Varys talks about the Hound killing the people at the tavern (from a couple of episodes ago), and even goes so far as to say, "The phrase 'Fuck the king' was uttered." How the hell does he know that? Everyone in that bar is dead except for Arya and the Hound, who aren't exactly on Varys' speed dial. Are we supposed to just imagine that there was someone in the bathroom the whole time that heard everything? Or does Varys have some sort of supernatural abilities?

[Scrib]

The scene with Theon not being rescued was just.... so bloody unrealistic as to rip out my Suspension of Belief and trample it. Seriously? They couldn't think of something to show how broken he is (yet again), other than to have something that felt like a 5 minute wrapup from an episode of GI Joe?

What specifically did you take issue with?

"Aha! I have you in my clutches inside my castle with the guards alerted! Now you see how I have broken your brother, I will let you leave knowing what he has become! mwahahaaa" [/Convoluted scheme].

That just does ...not make sense. Particularly for Ramsey Snow.

If there were enough guards coming or around, then he would have captured Yaarah (whatever her name in the series is), so as to torture her horribly (and another ironborn hostage. But mainly horrific torture and rape).
If he didn't have a lot of guards right behind him (that we didn't see in the scene, at the end of the fight the numbers were roughly 3-4 on each side, with Yaarah not having fought yet) - then the logical outcome would have been a fight to the death, not him letting her go.

Did I watch a different scene? I thought that what happened is that Ramsay let out the dogs as a trump and Yara and co. ran/fought their way out. When he talked about them running he wasn't saying :"go on, scram!" he was saying:"oh,you're in deep shit now". We know that he loves to hunt. He loves to see people ripped apart by his dogs. It's possible that's what he wanted to do, the Ironborn simply got away.

Maybe she's just a good runner?

[JLTucker]

At the small council meeting, Varys talks about the Hound killing the people at the tavern (from a couple of episodes ago), and even goes so far as to say, "The phrase 'Fuck the king' was uttered." How the hell does he know that? Everyone in that bar is dead except for Arya and the Hound, who aren't exactly on Varys' speed dial. Are we supposed to just imagine that there was someone in the bathroom the whole time that heard everything? Or does Varys have some sort of supernatural abilities?

Is the owner of the tavern dead, along with his daughter? Maybe they sent word.