Game of Thrones

Bumped thread to say i'm in love with this new character ..

Also, i hope Theon realizes that his actions will end with his head on a stick.

her bum rubbing thing is the only thing in this programme that made me need a wank

despite this show being pretty fucking abysmal on the whole, i can't stop watching it. it's about on par with battlestar galactica in terms of uneven acting, story, dialogue and characters while still being extremely entertaining. and sometimes people are introduced with all this gravity and i have no idea who the fuck they are or why i should care. not sure why everyone is acting like it's the greatest thing on television, but it's addictive.

c'mon, apart from the pilot and a handful of other episodes, battlestar doesn't even get close to measuring up to GoT (disclaimer: haven't seen any of Season 2 yet). Battlestar made me want to vomit, they just plucked hot button issues from current popular culture like Law and Order or something. Oooh...cloning. Oooh...stem cell research. The ethical dilemmas were forced, the politics tedious, the neo-Christian allegorical stuff laughable...First season of GoT was badass, you had unexpected plot twists, unexpected deaths of major characters, incest, tasty double crossing and treachery, immeasurably better writing, and most importantly - a coherent overall story arc.

the writing is shit

mostly

your opinion is shit

mostly

your opinion of my opinion is shit

entirely

but seriously, i don't see how the dialogue is good (or particularly better than on BSG). not that it has to be good for it to be enjoyable.

edit: dialogue y0

Its better than Hercules:The Legendary Journeys & Xena Warrior Princiess combined, maybe even better than those plus BeastMaster too. TV hasn't given us much medieval fantasy shows of any quality to compare this with so on those grounds I'd say this is like a faberge egg.

  On 5/13/2012 at 3:48 AM, lumpenprol said:

c'mon, apart from the pilot and a handful of other episodes, battlestar doesn't even get close to measuring up to GoT (disclaimer: haven't seen any of Season 2 yet). Battlestar made me want to vomit, they just plucked hot button issues from current popular culture like Law and Order or something. Oooh...cloning. Oooh...stem cell research. The ethical dilemmas were forced, the politics tedious, the neo-Christian allegorical stuff laughable...First season of GoT was badass, you had unexpected plot twists, unexpected deaths of major characters, incest, tasty double crossing and treachery, immeasurably better writing, and most importantly - a coherent overall story arc.

i thought battlestar was quite shit, with the exception of one or two episodes in the first and third seasons. there are a couple eps of that show that rank among the best i've seen on tv. i think game of thrones is almost completely shit. and the plot twists aren't very organic, it's pretty clear that martin enjoys killing off characters to upset an audience, not really to serve any cohesive story. basically, i think both shows are pretty bad, but entertaining. i stuck with bsg and it got worse and worse, and i have a feeling game of thrones will do the same, just with really tedious psychological motives rather than the theological shit bsg tried to get into. so bsg wins, slightly, in the end, because it was actually about something greater than satisfying the audience's need for intrigue, tits and blood. all of which are fine, but i need something a little original or human or engaging thrown into that mix. thrones lacks that. and i noticed my depression last week fed directly into me wanting to watch this...it's the lowest possible form of entertainment. it is what it is.

also, weren't you saying that particular unexpected death in thrones bothered you, somewhere earlier in this thread? hmm

the actual lowest form of entertainment is ghetto rap...........

it's big business, it's big business ya'll........

I'm all bout it bout it....

THEON AND JOFFREY SHALL SUFFER!

  On 5/13/2012 at 7:54 AM, zaphod said:

also, weren't you saying that particular unexpected death in thrones bothered you, somewhere earlier in this thread? hmm

haha, quite possibly. I really need to see Season 2 before I open my yapper

  On 5/13/2012 at 2:11 AM, zaphod said:

despite this show being pretty fucking abysmal on the whole, i can't stop watching it. it's about on par with battlestar galactica in terms of uneven acting, story, dialogue and characters while still being extremely entertaining. and sometimes people are introduced with all this gravity and i have no idea who the fuck they are or why i should care. not sure why everyone is acting like it's the greatest thing on television, but it's addictive.

i appreciate you are probably older, wiser, more into your films/tv than me, but i really kind of pity your relentless cynicism, ive rarely on this forum actually seen you enjoy anything. this program is pretty much a beast as far as im concerned. maybe im just dim.

they said if you count the pirates into the audience rating they have more viewers than the superbowl

damn Iwish there was some way to count us, I mean them.

  On 5/13/2012 at 7:54 AM, zaphod said:

i think game of thrones is almost completely shit. and the plot twists aren't very organic, it's pretty clear that martin enjoys killing off characters to upset an audience, not really to serve any cohesive story.

I believe he kills characters because the harsh world they reside in and logic demand it. I love that whole storylines get spun up and seem like they're going to be epic and then - woosh - somebody makes a mistake or is in the wrong place at the wrong time and they're gone. It gives it an air of credibility and danger.

There are wonderfully few instances of deus ex machina in this series, it's one of my favorite parts.

The Ned Stark execution was a great example - there is a brief moment where in just about any other series(BSG included) Arya would have used her 'needle' to perform a daring and ridiculous rescue of her father. Not in Game of Thrones.

from the standpoint of a writer it kind of wreaks of audience manipulation. maybe it makes "sense" in the story but i found it sort of obvious, like martin is trying to show us how bad the world is and how good people don't get rewarded for their actions. it just felt like he had contrived it in an effort to be subversive. and then that death is really the only thing the series had going for it, which is not good. if he had been saved would the whole series be regarded the way it is? what does that say about everything else in it. also, to reply to messaien, maybe you don't read all of my posts, i really don't blame you because i'm spewing a lot of shit, but i tagged every one of them with the fact that i'm thoroughly entertained by the show, despite its lack of any real artistic quality. if i didn't like it on some level i wouldn't have watched every episode, so i'm happy to admit that the show works as entertainment. it just isn't a great example of genre writing.

I think keeping characters alive against all odds is a better example of audience manipulation.

  On 5/13/2012 at 10:54 PM, zaphod said:

it just felt like he had contrived it in an effort to be subversive. and then that death is really the only thing the series had going for it, which is not good. if he had been saved would the whole series be regarded the way it is?

I think the fact that a lot of people were quite shocked/angry/sad that Ned Stark died shows that it wasn't the only thing the series had going for it. I imagine your average person watching the show would probably have enjoyed it more if he hadn't died.

I don't think the series about the world being bad and punishing people - to me the world is chaotic neutral, much like our own(only a lot more chaotic). It's also grounded in the bloody history of Europe - check out this guy's story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hywel_ap_Ieuaf, this sort of stuff was happening all the time.

I believe GoT is pretty much inspired by the War of the Roses.

holy shit were those bodies the kids?

  On 5/14/2012 at 5:55 AM, azatoth said:

I believe GoT is pretty much inspired by the War of the Roses.

It definitely is. I remember George Martin saying as much in an interview, I think.

I am not trying to give any sort of literary credence to these books/story, but when reading them, I never felt like the deaths imposed on the story arc were a gimmick or meant to simply shock. They all tie in to the story pretty well, though I am not sure if that will be completely envisioned in the show, where I think non neckbearded fantasy nerds could become fatigued with all of the different names/location changes.

also:

not sure if the spoiler was required, but some people get butthurt :P

I think I might be getting butthurt over your use of the word butthurt. It makes me feel like getting butthurt. :-/

Also, what I like about GoT wrt to other series generally on TV is the build-up to actions of people in the story. There's always a build-up to actions of important characters in the story without being predictable, but always providing a good explanation in hindsight. Was it Theon who chopped off the head of the awkward beard dude? (not too familiar with all the names, and haven't read the books) It was uncertain until he actually did it. It could go either way. But in hindsight, given his current position in his fathers army he just had to. And the build-up to his action - his father, sister and even his subordinates mocking him - provide plausible grounds without it being to obvious. I mean, you still get a sense he could rebel against his own family. So in that sense I think the story is very well written.

  On 5/14/2012 at 6:23 AM, GORDO said:

holy shit were those bodies the kids?

Don't think so, I think he just took the two kids that Brann mentioned when they came to that house. Theon needs to keep up appearances.

Yeah, probably so. They mention getting food from the farm, knowing two Winterfel orphans live there and Brann worries if they find out that they would hang.

I was like "fuck this shit, i'm done with this show" i was so upset that i had to read the GoT wiki because i couldn't believe Theon did this.. then i made the mistake of reading spoilers for A Storm of Swords .. i can't handle this.