Game of Thrones 3.9 - "The Rains of Castamere" - Rate and discuss

Poor Ser Jorah. Everyone's so upset about the Starks that they're forgetting him being forever friend zoned.


Granted, I will miss Catelyn. Mostly because of brilliant Michelle Fairley.

 

He's been friendzoned from go, he just didn't realize it because Dany had nobody to show interest in until Romance Novel cover model guy showed up.

The way the whole attack on Yankei was in this episode was sloppy as hell. It sounded like Dario, Mormont, and Grey Worm were going to infiltrate the city kill the guards by the main entrance and then open the gate. So that happens and then a larger and more armed group of 'guards' shows up against the 3 of them.

Then we see nothing that happens until it goes back to Dany at her tent asking Selmy what was taking so long. Finally Mormont, Grey Worm, and Dario return and make it sound like the rest of the slave army inside gave up.

So then they had opened the gate and Dany's forces attacked? Couldn't that have been mentioned at some point?

 

Yeah the Yankei part was very lame. Made no sense from what we saw on the screen, a bit of dialog about opening the gate or whatever would have helped. It sounded like they just talked them into declaring their freedom and siding with Dany.

And people SPOILERS are anything, anything at all that happened in the books after what we have seen on the screen. It doesn't matter if we don't know if they are going to show it or not.

 

I have read the books so I knew this was coming. I think the massacre at the Red Wedding in the book had more impact for me because Robb was only 16 when he died so that the image I had of him after reading the books was quite different from the Robb in the TV series.

 

A reaction compilation video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=78juOpTM3tE

 

That's exactly it. A spoiler doesn't need to be explicit to give away significant plot details. I've just never run into a fandom where it's this difficult to avoid spoilers. If I wanted to know what was going to happen I would have kept reading after A Clash Of Kings.

 

I knew what was coming from reading the books, so I thought I would be prepared for it. I wasn't. Not even close.

 

This isn't a criticism, but unless you want to live in a hermetically sealed bubble or you can travel through time and prevent the book from being published, spoilers are a risk you're going to run, and pretending the source material doesn't exist won't make the spoilers go away. I don't think Game of Thrones fandom is any worse off spoiler-wise than The Lord of the Rings fandom a decade ago.

 

I'm not trying to defend people who spoil things for others, but it's important to remember that the Red Wedding happened 13 years ago. It's a pretty old spoiler guys.

 

So true! I think there should be a ten-year statute of limitations on spoilers- if something is older than ten years it should be fair game.

I do not understand people who say they haven't read the books like it is a point of pride or it is somehow your fault. Does anyone who hasn't watched Band of Brothers complain if you mention that Hitler lost WW2? "Dude, spoilers, now I know how that show is going to end!"

 

Obviously we can debate spoiler "rules" for adaptations, but the fact is that some people are attached to the TV version of the story and want to see how it plays out in that medium, and the whole point of having a spoiler-filled discussion thread on this BBS is to keep big book spoilers out of the episode threads. Accidents will happen regardless, but I don't see that it's a particularly onerous task.

 

I think it would be good if a moderator added SPOILER FREE to the thread title.

 

I completely agree with you and as someone who has read the books I try very hard not spoil anything. I watch what I say and what I gave away indirectly, but it's hard to do that for a decade. When something is that old in your memory it's easy to slip up and give away little bits here and there.

 

If someone wants to watch this (inferior) version of the story on TV rather than read the books let them do so and enjoy it without you sons of whores spoiling everything.

Knowledge is power; use it for good, not for evil.

 

Quite true, and I think the cases in this thread (and some similar, smaller ones in the past few episode threads) are clearly just slip-ups. It doesn't help that a bunch of us bounce back and forth between the episode threads and the spoiler thread, making it easy to forget where you are. And sometimes you just plain don't realize something is a spoiler, as in the case Cyrus brings up. I don't know how to avoid situations like that one, short of banning all discussion of the show vis-a-vis the books from the episode threads, which would be a real pain.

It would also be nice if pop culture websites could hold off on or be subtler about their "our thoughts on last night's shocking Game of Thrones!" pieces. I had to tell my mom, who hasn't read the books and isn't likely to, not to look at any of her bookmarks until we'd watched the episode. EW.com in particular wasn't even trying to hold back the spoilers.

 

It really isn't that hard. Unless you can talk in terms so vague that there is no way a show watcher will glean what you mean from it, just don't mention anything that has happened past the point the show is at.

I disagree that pointing out something didn't exist in the books is always a spoiler though and on some level we should be able to make observations like that. They've done a lot of things completely different in the show. Whole characters and storylines have been excised and replaced with cheaper, quicker alternatives. Talisa isn't in the books either, nor anything that happens while Robb isn't in a room with his mother.

 

Comparing Band of Brothers to Game of Thrones is a little silly; one is a historical event taught in schools so if you come through the standard educational system you'd know Hitler's dies.

The other is a collection of fantasy novels which had a small but loyal following that went viral once the show turned up.

Some people want to enjoy the series without being spoiled. I had never read Lord of the Rings so I treated it like any other movie and avoided spoilers. Respectfully GoT should be be treated the same...?

 

I was surprised that it was this week, I would have thought that would be the closer of the season... Well done. Scary as well.

That said... I've read up to the third book and I haven't gone on... some of the reason is time, but the other reason, a lot of the characters that I can root for are dead, or the characters that I started with are dead... so, so many new people have stepped forward, it's hard to get invested.

And it's sorta true with the TV show for me...

I don't think many of the drama queens who are threatening to drop HBO will drop HBO, but I do wonder, will ratings start being affected by this... Will the quality of the show, the acting, etc, be able to hold an audience through some really dark shit and loathsome people?

Again, I haven't read the remaining books, but, I'm not very motivated.

 

Anyone read the top 100 tweets of ep309?

http://io9.com/the-100-best-tweets-about-last-nights-game-of-thrones-511003444

 

Exactly... Unfortunately ASOIAF fans seem to attract an unusual amount of attention-seeking-spoiler-spreaders, out to ruin the enjoyment of show viewers. It's quite embarrassing, really. I suspect quite a few of them (on other sites) are not actually readers, they just google the crap and pretend to be.

I also cannot stand the talk about the "obviously inferior show" compared to the book. They are different mediums, with different strengths. And GRRM, as a writer, is NOT perfect by a long shot, as much as many seem to portray it. The novels can be a tedious slog to get through at times, between the great parts. The books are not for everyone - stop pretending that everyone will have their lives incredibly enriched by reading them.

I really do like the novels, but I also envy the people experiencing the story for the first time through the show.

And finally, to get back on topic, I loved this episode. Excellent. I think they nailed the Bran/Jon and RW scenes. The only weakness was the Dany/Yunkai stuff which felt very abrupt ("we won a battle off-screen, yay!").