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

Yeah, I understand why you're blinking, but that's still my reaction. I expected that it would be more of a battle and slaughter than it was. Pretty much everyone had left the room, the "Rains of Castamere" starts playing, and people are picked off like sheep with a few words thrown in. It was a nice episode, but I guess I just expected more.

 

Here's a question. Does anybody understand why Arya hates the Hound soooo much? I get that he's done some wrong, but is he that bad?

 

This is what makes the show so interesting - the characters follow their standard arc, I had worked out entirely what would happen to Rob as he would slowly win the war (because he's clearly one of the heroes) and then... BLAM they are dead.

 

Her hatred for him was sealed when he killed her friend Mycah. Sure, to the Hound he was just doing is duty to his liege Joffrey - what is one butcher's boy in the world? But it was Arya's friend.

 

She reiterated the reason for her hatred of Clegane when she accused him of riding down and murdering Mycah the innocent stable boy in front of the Brotherhood Without Banners. That, and his general association as the primary protector of the boy (Joffrey) who ordered her father's death.

 

Is life not unpredictable? Or do you happen to be a member of a particular species of temporally nonlinear alien who reside in a wormhole somewhere?

 

You say that like those are bad traits in a writer.

 

That's what the Red Wedding is. It's not a battle. It's a massacre.

 

Looks like without the Guest Rights, people were shocked.

 

He killed her friend, I think that is just cause. I mean at least for her.

 

While the Red Wedding is surprising in its brutality, in the books it's not really a sudden reversal so much as an underlining of a point already made: despite his martial skill, Robb lacked the political mind necessary to win his war, and was too stubborn to accept that he had already lost. The most he could have hoped for would have been the preservation of his life and to reclaim his control of the North. There was really nowhere left for the character to go, dramatically speaking. The same is true for Catelyn, and for Ned at the point of his death.

 

Ahh yes, very cut and dry there. Clearly he is single-minded in his desire to shock.

Fact is, the story requires Ned to die to set the war in motion, it requires Robb to die for various other developments. This is not their story. At some point he may have thought that these deaths would make for surprising developments in the story and highlighted them for the highest dramatic effect, but that doesn't mean they're the driving force behind the work.

Have you read the books? Have you even read that entire interview? I suspect not.

 

Could he he have preserved his life? Seems to me Robb was dead no matter what. There was no longer any way he could have won the war. His idea to attack Casterly Rock was a stupid one, and Catelyn even said so before letting her emotion get the better of her. If he had surrendered to the Lannisters, then he would have quickly had his head separated from his body. I suppose there was a chance that if he had decided to cut his losses and throw in with Stannis he might not have been executed. Would even the combined remainder of Stannis and Robb's forces be enough to threaten the Lannisters, though?

 

In the books? Yes, I think that until fairly late in the game, Robb could probably have negotiated a surrender that would have kept him alive and acknowledged as paramount lord of the North. Tywin is a fan of harsh gestures, but on tactical terms, not because he's personally vindictive, and in the long run leaving the Starks alive and in control of the North would have led to greater stability than something like the Red Wedding.

 

I had to miss this episode Sunday due to a prior engagement. Then I log onto social media Monday and it was just filled with spoilers coming from all different kinds of people and sources. I did finally see the episode last night, but knowing that something "OMG" was going to happen and that it was going to happen to the Starks ("thanks" to whoever spoiled that to me over Facebook) the scene lost much of it's intended impact.

So I'm kind of doubly frustrated; frustrated that I didn't get the same experience that a lot of other people got, and frustrated that they've killed off some pretty likeable and important characters, and that in this universe the Starks will probably never be avenged.

Having gotten that off my chest, there's still things I like about the series and I'm sticking with it for now.

One other observation- the gratuitous violence in this season has gone a bit overboard, most notably in this last episode, and in the earlier episodes with the torture scenes. I like this show because it's smart, not because of the graphic portrayals of violence.

 

I think the moment Roose Bolton started dealing with the Lannisters, any chance of the Starks retaining control of the North was gone.

 

There are various downsides to allying with the Boltons, though, of which Tywin would have been aware. But elaborating on that point would be more appropriate to the spoiler thread.

 

Their sigil is a flayed man, and their capital city is called the Dreadfort. I think the downsides of being friends with the Boltons is pretty clear.

 

Yeah, but there's more to it than that, some of which depends on things that haven't yet happened (or haven't yet been made explicit) on the show.

 

A Song of Ice and Fire is not about which king will sit on the Iron Throne. It was never really about Starks versus Lannisters. The main plot of the saga is introduced right at the beginning, the prologue in both books and TV show: Winter is coming. The Others, the White Walkers, the mythological creatures of the far north, have returned after millennia. All the fighting within the Seven Kingdoms is just a sideshow to what is really coming. Will the lords of Westeros wake from the bloodbath in time to unite against the true threat?