I think it's unfair to heap the blame on her for their shitty writing frankly. She was fantastic in the trial scene. Haters to the left.

Would you say that, judging by reactions like Larry's after episode 8 regarding the "cynicicsm of the show", the show tries to keep some characters more sympathetic than they would be at this point in the books so that people can still enjoy tuning in?

not at all, linecom

that was some beautiful ranting! I too agree with FTWard.

I tried to make a similar point earlier on in the episode reviews thread but I don't think I did as well as you guys...

I don't get the skeleton hate. It's not as if zombies are any less magical.

I think if they had looked a bit different ... I dunno. I'm not averse to magic or fantasy obviously but it just looked kind of unintentionally comical to me.

Link to the interview Kyle read from, very interesting that George went into such detail.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/16/game- ... le-martin/

The Varys theories always seemed a bit far fetched to me ... But maybe I was wrong. I both love and hate that he teases us with these details in interviews.

For me, it's almost just the physics of the thing, if they're skeletons, there has to be a magical force physically moving each bone, if it's a zombie, there's just something using the existing brain to work the muscles and tendons. I mean, if the magic can make unconnected bones move together, the skeletons should at least be able to fire their own ulnas like crossbows.

I don't know if I was thinking about the practicality that much but you make a good point. So are they wights that are more decomposed? The whole time I was just confused about what they were supposed to be

This may be over-justification and I wonder if they actually thought this far but I feel that the further north they are the more magic there is and skeleton zombies may be more likely. If we saw them at the Wall I could be upset (or see it as the growth of the power of the Others) but there is a guy that is half-tree that can warg through time and space. Why can not the Night's King have more influence closer to the Heart of Winter?

I love nerding out on this stuff!

You said it better than we did.
Well better than linecom anyway.

They act in a manner inconsistent with wights (except to an extent Coldhands). They don't just mindlessly attack they engage in complicated sword play.
We are led to believe that burning the flesh off of corpses is sufficient to prevent reanimation.
They are wearing metal armor and mail and are using metal weapons. Just who the fuck are they supposed to be?
Have they actually given ANY thought to who those people were and why they are where they are or do they just dig Ray Harryhausen?

i think you and i enjoy this book series for completely different reasons. i could give a flying fuck who wins in some fake world with fake odds at stake. what has captivated me into this amazing story is the grrm's beautiful writing and character development. he has taken a fictional land filled with fictional people and made them matter to me by making the characters involved interesting, complex, and relate-able. he has painted a story filled with conflicts involving shades of grey instead of black and white and as he often says, displays how the true battle is often between the good and evil within each individual.

by taking away the significance of tysha as such a crucial turning point in tyrions own character development, david and dan devalue the character, and in turn, devalue the story as a whole.

because it makes the greatest show on television look like a cheap, knock-off of hercules or xena warrior princess.

there's nothing wroing with cheesy, goofy special effects on television, i just dont want it mixed with stories like this one, which has a more epic, majestic scope.

I just don't understand the vitriol leveled against skeletons. I suppose pop culture has conditioned people into thinking of zombies as 'realistic'.

In ASOIAF, the wights are reanimated corpses with eyes alight with blue fire. Regardless of the state of decay, they are animated by magic.

Not to say I was a huge fan of the skeletons in the episode. I really liked the withered, dessicated look of the hands as they shot up from the snow. I would have preferred it if that withered flesh stretched over bones look applied over the whole creature, akin to the draugr in Skyrim.

I'm torn.
This clearly falls in "Shut the hell up, George" territory but it tends to strengthen theories I am proponents of (and is a subtle diminishing of the shows ["spoiler"] relevance).

Everyone has their own opinion and views. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to taste, no two people are the same. I would have liked a mention of Tysha, but they chose not to use her, assuming it would confuse the TV Viewers. I just am not invested in a character who never appears "on-screen" in the books or show. Tyrion already had a multitude of reasons to kill Shae and Tywin. I just don't care enough about it to be upset.

You are right, we care about different things. I care about the overarching plot, the stakes of the struggle, because if that sucks and is not done right, the character development and world building means jack shit. I didn't read the books (I started in 1999) or watch the show for some fake world A&E biography. There is story in ASOFAI (barely in book 5, but that is another topic) that is bigger than any single character, so yes, I care more about the overall arc of the story.

you make a fair point about quality of plot development and progression. martin's ability to weave several complex storylines in harmony is certainly important to the value of the story. i think the show viewers are more intelligent than suspected, and the poeple who just watch casually will be able to fill in the gaps wherever they deem necessary. its such a shame about tysha because the initial setup was done so beutifully by dinklage in season one, and although they didnt do a good job of keeping her memory afloat since then, all they needed was a flashback on 'previously on' to refresh everyone's memory.

whether tysha appears or not is not relevant ot me, but her memory and presence in teh development of tyrion's character and feeling of betrayal from his whole family, including jamie, is incredibly vaulable, riveting story telling to me.

You are right, they did setup Tysha, it would have been a nice moment, but I do think Dan and Dave do have to make hard choices to dumb it down. They might have even shot a scene or had dialogue, but it simply got cut in editing. They do choose wrong sometimes and there are glaring fuck-ups on the show (the Cersei scene in episode 3), poor editing, or bad effects. Most TV shows have those issues, it is really to not to let them kill your show.

I wish I could give most HBO Subscribers more credit, but I have little faith in people, there is a high percentage of viewers that likely don't read anything except texts on their phone, they will never be book readers They didn't read any of the "True Blood" books and won't read any of the ASOFAI books, but they will love those TV Shows.

I also think sometimes the writing has not consistent between writers in GOT, hopefully Cogman will keep the continuity within the show straight.

I dread season 5 more than any season, because it will be heavy ADWD, AFFC, more new characters, and made-up arcs due to the fact chapters of internal monologues make pretty poor TV. The continuity issues could be a problem in a season with so many things juggling and new characters.

I wish to be honest Dan and Dave did less writing, given the production challenges, this show is a year round monster to produce, and have Cogman write more, and maybe ask GRRM to write another script a season. I certainly hope he does have more episodes or at least writing duties when we get to season 6 & 7.

I don't see GRRM getting the books done before the show finishes, there is a 0% chance of that happening, so I almost wish he would write additional episodes for the show, he is a proven TV writer.

I don't think it got cut for time I think they made a conscious choice to exclude it. I think there probably are enough reasons in the show for Tyrion's actions but it is just not as rich or complicated. It more annoyed me when they tried to use some or the dialogue from the books about Tysha but made it about Shae. I get what they were going for but I don't think it quite worked. For reasonable viewers this should still do the job of making Tyrion more unlikeable hopefully.

Skeletons are awesome.

As are firebombs.

Stefan and Sean had a really interesting boiled leather podcast this week that goes into some great analysis/opinions on appreciating the show as a show and not just being an audio version of the books. Kind of made me rethink my approach to my own criticism, it's really worth a listen. I think Kyle would appreciate it based on some of his comments from this week's podcast.

Kyle had good points. Most Book Adaptations to TV/Cinema are going to be different than the source material, the medium is going to cause deviations, so I don't use a book purity test in evaluating a show or movie.

The show has had its issues with pacing, writing choices, and editing snafus at times, no TV show is perfect, but it is still way better than most shows on TV.

I think the show has plenty of issues irrespective of its adherence to the source material tbh

Any chance Cersei will find out about Jamie's part in Tyrion's escape and that will drive them apart?

Or she will at least suspect?

It does. The books have issues as well. But I think the criticism of the show based on the show gets lost in people's desire to just type "flip table, nerd rage." Do we really need to know the Mountain's motivations in epside 8? Or as Stefan said is it enough on a tv show to be told "this is a big, scary guy", accept it and move on because some details in that medium can and should be skipped?