Game of Thrones 2.04 - Garden of Bones

[prodigy]

Liveblogging this time.

- Hey, Qarth is in the opening credits now!
-"He's prettier than the Queen" No he ain't, not TV!Loras anyway. :P I don't mind the homophobic jokes characters make in-text about Loras and Renly, but they do ring a lot differently when the show treats them with a fair amount of homophobia -- oh, hey, Robb. Hey. Hello there, wet!Robb. Damn, Grey Wind. Daaaamn, Robb. All in all that wasn't bad as an opening scene to avoid filming a battle.
- I'm not sure I believe Robb would this easily speak with a commoner, or that a commoner would this fearlessly speak with Robb, but I like her. I definitely don't believe he would be tending wounds without any hesitation: Edmure, yes, Robb no. Imagine Cat's face.
- "an army of wolves" Thanks, Lancel. Joffrey is always so well-dressed: the best-dressed person on this show by far. I think the beating of Sansa in general is going to be one of the most disturbing elements of this show, which says a great deal about American desensitization to violence.
- Tyrion and Bronn are perfect in this scene! For once they pulled Bronn's line straight from the book, which works excellently. LOL Meryn Trant, what up now. GDI Tyrion and Sansa, you are always my guilty in-the-future OTP.
- "There's no cure for being a cunt." BRONN WISDOM
- Sandor scene Sandor Sandor Sandor. Sandor is pretty consistently good in GoT.
- Oh my God, is Joffrey going to get laid of all people? Jesus, HBO, how fucking gratuitous are you? I'm pretty sure book!Joffrey was implied to probably be a virgin, or if not certainly not cavalierly ordering lesbian spanking for his entertainment. This is SO GRATUITOUS AND NOT FROM THE BOOK. Ah yes, let's connect BDSM actions with evil some more, great idea, media. What the fuck. Oh come on, I've been hit with plenty of belts, they do not hurt that much. HBO why you so -- ridiculously HBO. Joffrey doesn't have this kind of sense or psychological understanding, he has no reason to realize this kind of display would unnerve Tyrion; they're deferring a lot of Tywin and Cersei's personalities onto Joffrey.
- Would Renly ever say he didn't like anyone? Have the words "I don't like you" ever come seriously out of Renly Baratheon's mouth? Oh well, at least we got to look at Brienne. Alas, now we get to having Petyr having an inexplicable lack of brain-to-mouth filter again, Margaery being the only IC character in this location, and GoT being unbelievably obsessed with Loras and Renly. They're gay. Have you noticed?
- Ooooh, Harrenhal. Looks wonderful and haunted from a distance, this is actually an improvement on my mental image. ("Don't worry, Arya, your boyfriends will protect you." "Thank god you have enough boyfriends.") First appearance of Arya's list!
- .... wait. Is this Petyr and Cat talking? Petyr and Cat, talking after Ned's death? This definitely doesn't happen in the book. HBO Petyr as ever being unable to restrain anything coming out of his own mouth for some reason. Actually, everything else about this seems in-character for both of them, but... hitting on Cat this soon after Ned's death, I'm not surprised you're the metaphorical 30-year-old virgin, Petyr. I feel like he would be able to restrain himself a bit longer. Pretty score on this scene, by the way. Good addition overall.
- Back at Harrenhal. For once I'm not sure there's enough exposition on Game of Thrones, a novel feeling, I think viewers might be confused what Harrenhal is and what exactly their purpose is there. Man, I'm not surprised GoT is causing (unintelligent) people to decide that ASoIaF must be gratuitously violent -- GoT is gratuitously violent. Also, a. that rat torture seems a bit spurious on the realism front and b. that is not a good way to get information out of a group of people.
- "And why is your stag on fire?" Renly would definitely say that. And everything else, honestly. Ah, Melisandre, you make R'hllor sound so legitimate. THANK YOU CAT, CATS GONNA CAT also Stannis is correct, Ned would in fact would have immediately thrown in with Stannis. Agh, this scene makes me cringe, but it is perfect Stannis and Renly. Ugh, poor Stannis. Stannis, you give me all the goddamned feelings too. Though Renly most certainly did not love him once. I don't think he would've decided against all claim to go against him if he had. The Baratheon family is even more dysfunctional than the Greyjoys and the Lannisters, and that's not a compliment.
- That guy's a bit white -- he's British. This guy is white. This guy is super-white. I have rarely seen a whiter guy. Apparently the Qartheen are white now. O-kay. (Lookin' good, though, Jorah.) Daenerys is one of the most in-character main characters on this show. I guess if the city is multiracial I'm more okay with the one dude being white, but for a moment there -- ooh. Ooh, Qarth. Well, that's more like it. ("If they're by the sea, just go around.")
- I am always disturbed by my attraction to Tywin in his armor. Correction, I am always disturbed by my attraction to Tywin in Game of Thrones, period. It is exceptionally wrong. But are they replacing Roose Bolton with Tywin?
- I'm not sure I believe Lancel would sass Tyrion like this, they're related. Tywin would not put up with that kind of disrespect and rank insubordination in his house. He's allowed to abuse his son, that doesn't mean anyone else is. Well played in general, Tyrion.
- "Fewer." "What?" "Four fewer fingernails to clean." Ah, Davos, only you could love your prissy boyfran. Ah, God, we know what's about to happen, we all knew what was going to happen the moment this episode was called the double entendre "Garden of Bones."
- "A man is good or he is evil." Melisandre's philosophy is spot-on there for Melisandre. Although "you want me" and "you want to see what's beneath this robe" are not the same thing, and I'm sure one is true, but not necessarily the other.
- Agh, pregnant!Melisandre is always disturbing. Okay, this scene is about as disturbing as I imagined and will probably get some talk in the ONTD circles. And, I bet, some macros. (Davos speaks for most of us with his "what the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck") Nice shadow baby, though, good CGI on it. I approve.
- Wait, that's the end of the episode? ... -- okay, then. Perhaps next time.
- Overall I think that was a good episode, but I would've ended on -- what happens next.

Comments

[leia_solo]

This episode went by way too fast.

God that shadow baby shit was creepy, but I was oddly fascinated by in the book and on TV for some reason.

[prodigy]

It's one of the first overtly magical moments we see and goddamn is it creepy. I see why they put so much budget into that CG, though, imagine how terrible and SyFy it would've looked if it was cheap.

[gloss]

Oh come on, I've been hit with plenty of belts, they do not hurt that much.
and this is why your GoT reviews are the best

[prodigy]

I'm like, what is that belt made out of, fire? It's your ass, it's the part of your body padded for belting. You're in metaphorical 1300s-1400s Europe, what did your parents use for discipline, the corner? Talk therapy?

[dantesspirit]

I think it depends on the belt.

When I was a kid, my dad had a leather one with evenly spaved holes the entire length. Let me tell you, you KNOW when you got a whipping if he used that belt.

[prodigy]

Yeah, I've felt nicer belts and nastier belts, but as a kid I've gotten my hide tanned with less forgiving non-beltlike objects and even with them I don't recall any being so painful on the first strike as to warrant an agonized squeal. Pained grunt, yes. Agony, no. Of course, out of nerve ending, out of mind.

[dantesspirit]

YUpyup.

[dantesspirit]

Hey, Qarth is in the opening credits now!


They seem to show only the main cities they visit in each episode, which is rather neat.

We don't remember Robb speaking to the woman on the battle field, honestly. And where is Edmure Tully anyway?

I love Bronn. He's one of my fav chars, next to Tyrion.

And yes, the Petyr/Cat scene was added. They didn't give Ned's bones back THAT easily and certainly not without assassins attached.

They did a good job on the shadow baby. Exactly how I pictured it. Same with Harranhal.

I was wondering about the Roose Bolton is suddenly Tywin Lannister bit too. It feels like they arbitrarily cut chars they didn't think were integrale to the story/hoped no one would miss.

[prodigy]

Yeah, I'm wondering about the absence of the entire Tully family. I understand why in terms of TV constraints it might suit them to cut Roose Bolton's existence for now, but I wonder what they're going to do about Ramsay Snow eventually. Altogether the world feels a lot less full in the TV series -- which, yeah, I get that it costs more money to fill a world on the small screen and people get confused, but it's still a shame.

My roommate relia commented that since Roose is such an ambiguous figure, giving his role to Tywin might accidentally make Tywin more sympathetic. I figure they just want to onscreen Tywin more in general. In the books we have the benefit of his presence in Tyrion's thoughts even when he's offscreen: here it might feel like he's never there and suddenly he's supposed to be important. I guess we'll see how it goes at Harrenhal.

[edited for my roommate's actual username, fail]

[dantesspirit]

I'm wondering if the whole Riverlands part has been completely cut. Because by now, that's where they should be and Catelyn should be dealing with her father being an invalid.

[devilc]

I understand why in terms of TV constraints it might suit them to cut Roose Bolton's existence for now

Roose was introduced this episode. He talks to Robb just before Robb meets nurse from Volantis who is not in the books about how flayed men have no secrets.

But, I can see how just about everybody missed that since he spoke normally instead of just a hair too soft, and didn't have the kind of presence that just fills you with the creeping willies for reasons you can't understand. Completely miscast.

[metonymy]

Oona Chaplin's faaaaace. <3

I spent a lot of this episode going D: D: D: and not always for the reasons they wanted me to. But definitely for the reasons they wanted me to with the shadow baby, holy crap. WELL DONE, FX DEPARTMENT.

[sinha]

Just wanted to point out that Roose actually was in the episode. He was in the scene with Robb/Talisa, speaking with Robb and being like "WHERE I'M FROM WE HURT FOLKS TO GET WHAT WE WANT" and Robb was all "No me gusta" and Roose was like, "OH, WELL I WAS LOOKING FORWAR-- UM, OKAY WE WON'T. I AM NOT PLANTING A PLOT SEED FOR FUTURE EVENTS PERTAINING TO MY HOUSE, NO M'LORD WE'LL NOT TORTURE ANYONE EVER". And then Robb was like, "GIRL WHAT IS GIRL WHAT IS YOU GIRL I HAVE FEELINGS?????? MOM COME EXPLAIN THIS TO ME"

So, he was introduced! Just... not where he should be, nor doing what he should be. >_>

[sinha]

(aaaand as soon as I hit post, I noticed somebody above already pointed this out. Ignore me! hahaha)