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Game of Thrones 2.03 - What Is Dead May Never Die
Brienne! Brienne Brienne Brienne! Game of Brienne! What Is Brienne May Never Die!
You have to understand, of my four favorite ASoIaF characters, one of them is in my icon, one of them is in two of my other icons having a bad day, and one of them is in one of my other icons having a really bad day. And one of them is the Maid of Tarth.
- This show is really melodramatic. I realize this revelation is likely to arouse a series of yuk-yuks and "it's a fantasy series!!!" fromtroglodytes people who don't care for the fantasy genre, but I mean to say that I think the show is incredibly melodramatic, not solely as a consequence of the events depicted on it. The tone of cinema/TV is so dependent on lighting, filming, and soundtrack, among other things: sometimes people realize how much these things manipulate how you react to a filmed work, but most of the time not. The directors and film editors of Game of Thrones... do not have a love affair with understatement, that's for certain. Which is really causing most of the violence to get really dull and desensitizing; everything's a dramatic moment, everything's dark. A lot of the straight-up humor and black humor of the book series is cut out in favor of more grit -- you can see it even more in the way they film every location. It's the most painfully 90s way to show a European location between 1000 and 1500 C.E. ever (Hollywood believing that everything was beautiful and marble in Europe before then, and beautiful and brocade after then). I am getting really worn out on how dark and gritty and dramatic everything is. For one second I would like someone to die on this TV show without feeling like it's turning to me expecting me to go "Augh!!" You are never going to get people to care about your major character deaths and real depressing moments this way. Not everything has to be onscreen. Not everything has to be grubby. More things could do to be hilarious.
- Okay now that I've got that out of my system.
- Renly and the Highgarden camp are definitely an improvement on how GoT's been treating Renly so far otherwise, though I'm still not totally happy -- these people should be dripping in bright colors and luxury! Otherwise Cat's lecture to them seems kind of misplaced. Renly has a Rainbow Guard -- I suspect someone at HBO was like "I wonder if that's insensitive" which, funny story, this would definitely be the first time you cared about not characterizing Renly homophobically, considering in S1 you were committed to showing how much contempt you hold your homosexual characters in so straight viewers would feel more comfortable watching them make out. Uh, not that this pisses me off or anything.
- That being said, I liked Renly and Loras's actually passionate scene: one of the few times I believed the people were actually sexually aroused in a GoT sex scene, or proto-sex scene anyway.
- Renly had more charming, flip and/or politicking moments this episode than usual, but he was still a little too uncertain; I don't believe Renly Baratheon wouldn't have had a polite arrangement with his bride discussed at the time of the actual wedding. Either he'd be able to get it up long enough to have one kid or he'd provide a black-haired lover of some sort, to be blunt. This still plays into the whole faintly-homophobic filming.
- I'm definitely enjoying Margaery, though, she seems on-point, and Natalie Dormer is perfect casting. Game on, sister, game on.
- Still, I liked how he interacted with Brienne, I liked Loras's jealousy over Brienne, and Brienne!!!!!! She looks perfect! She's tall and muscular and pale-blonde and ugh, she's just so Brienne! Her stoic crush on Renly! Her awkward respectfulness to Cat! I cannot waiiiiiit for S3 when she is a main character.
- If they seemed like they were making Cersei a bit too even-tempered in S1, they're making Shae really unrealistically hot-tempered in general. It's not a matter of whether she has the right to feel unhappy or not -- it's kind of ridiculous that she never manages to put on a fake face of happiness. At this rate it's going to make Tyrion look exceptionally personally dense when some things about Shae later come to light. Come on, girl. After years of sex work in this patriarchal world you can't be so comfortable with a lord of Lannister as to abandon all brain-to-mouth filter around him.
- However, every moment Bronn is onscreen is magic.
- I don't even know if it bears commenting at this point that Tyrion was awesome.
- I hope there's more Sansa screentime next ep -- well, there's bound to be, given her beatings apparently start then, poor Sansa. She was great in this one, her scene with Cersei was perfect (on both ends, really; I love the chilling smiles Lena Headey gives Sophie Turner, they have the perfect creepy Cersei-Sansa dynamic). Basically I think Sansa should be getting more screentime overall given what a prominent character she is, but w/e, I guess with TV they have to make some adjustments.
- The series is pretty favorable and spotlighting of Theon, surprisingly. I've also warmed to the young woman who plays -- sigh -- Yara, every time they pan to one of her reactions there's this kind of cynical grit and grimness where you know she doesn't love everything about this either, but this is the path she's chosen and she has little sympathy for her brother's unhappiness and tantrums. Which, why would she? She's basically had to be a Greyjoy Ironborn son but three times over to be able to overcome her setbacks particularly in the Iron Islands -- she has to be Balon's perfect son to even be regarded as a half-son. The acting really humanizes her there, I think I get a stronger feeling about the culture of the Iron Islands from her than from anyone else.
- They shot Theon's baptism with a lot of dramatic lighting and pretty soundtrack: in general the Iron Islands scenes are oddly beautiful, aside from how Balon never cuts his hair, that is. And hey, is that Aeron Damphair?
- Ugh, Yoren, you fucking BAMF, I wonder how the Harrenhal men are going to explain having so many losses to one adult men and a bunch of kids. I still think the way they film this storyline is way too gritty and depressing and wahhh kids are dying we have to make sure you know we think this is dark and fucked-up too, but whatever. Arya gets all the amazing dadfigures, I swear.
You have to understand, of my four favorite ASoIaF characters, one of them is in my icon, one of them is in two of my other icons having a bad day, and one of them is in one of my other icons having a really bad day. And one of them is the Maid of Tarth.
- This show is really melodramatic. I realize this revelation is likely to arouse a series of yuk-yuks and "it's a fantasy series!!!" from
- Okay now that I've got that out of my system.
- Renly and the Highgarden camp are definitely an improvement on how GoT's been treating Renly so far otherwise, though I'm still not totally happy -- these people should be dripping in bright colors and luxury! Otherwise Cat's lecture to them seems kind of misplaced. Renly has a Rainbow Guard -- I suspect someone at HBO was like "I wonder if that's insensitive" which, funny story, this would definitely be the first time you cared about not characterizing Renly homophobically, considering in S1 you were committed to showing how much contempt you hold your homosexual characters in so straight viewers would feel more comfortable watching them make out. Uh, not that this pisses me off or anything.
- That being said, I liked Renly and Loras's actually passionate scene: one of the few times I believed the people were actually sexually aroused in a GoT sex scene, or proto-sex scene anyway.
- Renly had more charming, flip and/or politicking moments this episode than usual, but he was still a little too uncertain; I don't believe Renly Baratheon wouldn't have had a polite arrangement with his bride discussed at the time of the actual wedding. Either he'd be able to get it up long enough to have one kid or he'd provide a black-haired lover of some sort, to be blunt. This still plays into the whole faintly-homophobic filming.
- I'm definitely enjoying Margaery, though, she seems on-point, and Natalie Dormer is perfect casting. Game on, sister, game on.
- Still, I liked how he interacted with Brienne, I liked Loras's jealousy over Brienne, and Brienne!!!!!! She looks perfect! She's tall and muscular and pale-blonde and ugh, she's just so Brienne! Her stoic crush on Renly! Her awkward respectfulness to Cat! I cannot waiiiiiit for S3 when she is a main character.
- If they seemed like they were making Cersei a bit too even-tempered in S1, they're making Shae really unrealistically hot-tempered in general. It's not a matter of whether she has the right to feel unhappy or not -- it's kind of ridiculous that she never manages to put on a fake face of happiness. At this rate it's going to make Tyrion look exceptionally personally dense when some things about Shae later come to light. Come on, girl. After years of sex work in this patriarchal world you can't be so comfortable with a lord of Lannister as to abandon all brain-to-mouth filter around him.
- However, every moment Bronn is onscreen is magic.
- I don't even know if it bears commenting at this point that Tyrion was awesome.
- I hope there's more Sansa screentime next ep -- well, there's bound to be, given her beatings apparently start then, poor Sansa. She was great in this one, her scene with Cersei was perfect (on both ends, really; I love the chilling smiles Lena Headey gives Sophie Turner, they have the perfect creepy Cersei-Sansa dynamic). Basically I think Sansa should be getting more screentime overall given what a prominent character she is, but w/e, I guess with TV they have to make some adjustments.
- The series is pretty favorable and spotlighting of Theon, surprisingly. I've also warmed to the young woman who plays -- sigh -- Yara, every time they pan to one of her reactions there's this kind of cynical grit and grimness where you know she doesn't love everything about this either, but this is the path she's chosen and she has little sympathy for her brother's unhappiness and tantrums. Which, why would she? She's basically had to be a Greyjoy Ironborn son but three times over to be able to overcome her setbacks particularly in the Iron Islands -- she has to be Balon's perfect son to even be regarded as a half-son. The acting really humanizes her there, I think I get a stronger feeling about the culture of the Iron Islands from her than from anyone else.
- They shot Theon's baptism with a lot of dramatic lighting and pretty soundtrack: in general the Iron Islands scenes are oddly beautiful, aside from how Balon never cuts his hair, that is. And hey, is that Aeron Damphair?
- Ugh, Yoren, you fucking BAMF, I wonder how the Harrenhal men are going to explain having so many losses to one adult men and a bunch of kids. I still think the way they film this storyline is way too gritty and depressing and wahhh kids are dying we have to make sure you know we think this is dark and fucked-up too, but whatever. Arya gets all the amazing dadfigures, I swear.