Death is Coming for Everyone in Game of Thrones Season 3

[Steven Bogos]

Death is Coming for Everyone in Game of Thrones Season 3


The new trailer features flaming swords, marching armies, and of course, Joffrey being a jerk.

"It's been a long time, my old friend," opens the one minute teaser for the third season of HBO's high fantasy drama, Game of Thrones. He could not be more right, with the second season finishing all the way back in June last year, fans have been hungry for more Game of Thrones for a long time. Those of you yet to catch up, be warned that both the trailer and this article may contain spoilers! Understand? Ok, let's proceed.

When we last left our heroes back in season 2, things weren't looking too great. About a dozen different groups were either fighting or preparing to fight a war, the Stark family had one dead, one missing, one crippled and one captured, Joffrey was screwing everyone over in the way that only Joffrey can, Daenerys was playing dragon trainer, and the White Walkers were finally making their move across the frozen north.

The new trailer looks like things are going to get worse before they get better, with Lady Stark herself telling us that "Death is coming for everyone and everything." Jon Snow and his Night's Watch are shown desperately trying to deal with the White Walker threat, Arya and Bran are shown becoming progressively more badass, Tyrion and Jamie actually look worried for once, Joffrey is still being a petulant sadist, proclaiming that "everyone is mine to torment," and Daenerys' dragons finally enter the battlefield.

Game of Thrones is based on George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of books. The first two seasons of the HBO series followed the plot of the first two books, and Season 3 deals with the events in the third book, A Storm of Swords.

HBO recently released publicity shots [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121725-HBO-Releases-23-Game-of-Thrones-Portraits-from-Season-3] of all of the Game of Thrones gang in costume for the new season. The first episode of Game of Thrones season 3 will premier on March 31st.

Source: YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

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[wooty]

I've still not seen season 2 yet, but its nice to see that the series is still good if people are raving about it.

 

[carpathic]

You know, I should love this show. I should love the books. They both have everything I ask for in entertainment, and yet I just cannot make myself like either the books or the show.

It confuses me, but I just cannot make myself like anything about either - and Lord Knows I have tried!

 

[kingpocky]

It's going to be nice to see everything that Daenarys does this season. After spending the 2nd book doing a lot of nothing, she actually starts making some progress and being a badass.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

I absolutely love this series, and I cannott wait to see the next season!

 

[DugMachine]

Well.. that's kind of spoilerific.

Spoiler: Guess I should put this in a spoiler

Cause yes, a lot of people should (if they don't stray from the book) die this season. And for those that don't read the books, You're just gonna have to wait and see ;D

 

[Elvaril]

Most excited to see the Unsullied and the Lightning Lord. Although I heard that this season is probably going to end with the Red Wedding, which is going to frikkin suck.

 

[Therumancer]

You know, I should love this show. I should love the books. They both have everything I ask for in entertainment, and yet I just cannot make myself like either the books or the show.

It confuses me, but I just cannot make myself like anything about either - and Lord Knows I have tried!

I sort of get it, the whole point is kind of to deal with fantasy politics and people talking about doing stuff, without much of a focus on what's actually happening. When big events DO happen it in many cases happens either entirely away from what's being focused on, OR are so relatively brief before you go back to more of the same that it might as well not matter. Basically the whole point is that it intentionally never becomes a more straightforward sword and sorcery epic, despite most of the characters being fairly stereotypical.

This is also doubtlessly why it became a TV series, as to do "Game Of Thrones" you can largely focus on people in period costumes gabbing at each other, without needing to also worry so much about who can routinely perform decent choreography along with their acting (or have lots of body doubbles around), or the FX scenes. You can get away with showing only small pieces of battles, or mostly talking about them, rather than showing them, which generally means you don't have to spend a fortune on FX. Especially seeing as conceptually we're dealing with unreasonably massive groups of troops for the tech level (which befits fantasy). They for example talk about some dude commanding 100,000 troops for his army like it's a big deal, but hardly implausible. Compare this to say the Battle Of Helms Deep in Lord Of The Rings where Saruman had "tens of thousands" of orcs but his force was a fraction of the size of just one of the armies being brought to bear. The fact that they never focus on showing this force going to war is one of the things that makes it possible.

Speaking for myself, I like the TV series, but was never able to get much into the books. It's something I can appreciate in doses for what it is, and want to see the development/end of, but probably won't ever be
a raving fanboy of.

To put it into perspective the Season 3 trailer is basically promising to show things finally starting to happen after two years of build up, but in the spirit of the series, I doubt we'll actually see much of those events, just a little here and there, with people mostly talking about them.

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In response to the series/commentary in general, I'll also say that as easy as it is to hate Joffrey, I think people to some extent miss the point. Joffrey seems to be insane pretty much because he's the product of incest (they even discuss how his parents were lucky apparently have 2 out of 3 offspring not be mad), and it's more the fault of his family for putting this loon in charge for political gain than anything because he wouldn't have acheived that position on his own. He's easy to hate, but I think he's supposed to be a slightly more sympathetic character than he comes accross as. Pretty much an example of "this is why you do not have kids with your sister". I also believe this is why they go out of their way to periodically remind you of the entire incest angle, Joffrey isn't just an evil douche, so much as an inherantly broken person. It's ironic that the guy who arguably put down the mad king, wound up putting another mad king on the throne, there being a degree of symbolism there I believe.

On some levels as someone with brain damage who had a lot of problems as a child and way way out of control, if someone made me a king I wouldn't have objectively been much better I suppose. With time and understanding comes control though, and to be honest I find it a little tragic that we'll probably never see if Joffrey is able to get a grip when he matures a bit.

 

[redknightalex]

I'm not sure if I hate or love these trailers for rekindling my desire to try the book series out again (after failing mid-way through book 2 and never going back). Then I remember some of what happens and tell myself I have a lot of other books to read. But trailers are so shiny...

 

[Leftnt Sharpe]

Looking forward to seeing the Brotherhood in this season, I just hope Paul Kaye gets Thoros of Myr right.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

snip

Thing is though, in the TV series they never seem to play him like he's clinically insane. Power-mad and sadistic, yes, but you always feel watching him that he's in control of what he's doing. It seems like it's more to do with the toxic product of growing up with a drunken promiscuous fool for a father and an evil manipulative ***** for a mother, all the while with the promise of absolute power in the future hanging over your head. They seem to be going more with that angle than just saying 'He's mad because incest.' It's still not entirely his fault, we're all mostly the product of our environments after all, bu the fact that he's played more like he's in sound mind when he's having people killed and tortured does make him far easier to hate.

OT: In the two shot's we get of her, it's nice to see that Daenerys is finally getting the chance to look like the badass she is. I'm still frustrated that we've seen nothing of Ramsay Snow yet (Although, I think that might be a shot of The Dreadfort near the beginning, just after the wildling climbing The Wall, it certainly didn't look like Pyke or Dragonstone). Mance Rayder looks a bit old and podgy for me, although he seems to talk the part well.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

it'll be interesting to how this season goes down as they had to divide Storm of Swords between this and Season 4. I'm wondering the season finale will be and how events go down because some BIG stuff happens in Storm of Swords

 

[Crazy_Dude]

it'll be interesting to how this season goes down as they had to divide Storm of Swords between this and Season 4. I'm wondering the season finale will be and how events go down because some BIG stuff happens in Storm of Swords

I heard rumors they would end this season with the Red Wedding.

 

[gigastar]

If Cersei dies... I will burn your house... your dog... your children...and put them out with the piss from your bladder that I ripped out of your screaming mangled form...

/endrant

Cersei is pretty much regulated to a side character by Tyrion then by Tywin in A Storm of Swords. Dont worry though, she gets a much more central role in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons.

 

[Deathfish15]

You know, I should love this show. I should love the books. They both have everything I ask for in entertainment, and yet I just cannot make myself like either the books or the show.

It confuses me, but I just cannot make myself like anything about either - and Lord Knows I have tried!

Well...

Spoiler

In season #1: The brother of the king's wife pushed Ned Stark's son out a window of a tower he was climbing, because he saw the king's wife and her brother (incest, yes) doing the horizontal tango. Ned's other son, a bastard child, goes north to become a member of the Night Watch. Ned and his two daughters go south to King's Landing to become the King's Hand. Someone tries to kill the son thrown out a window, Ned's wife goes around to find out and kidnaps The Imp, taking him to her sister in a sky kingdom. Ned gets into street fight with queen's brother over kidnapping, gets stabbed in the leg with spear. King gets bored by a boar. Assumed that it's Lanaster (another cousin of queen...they're a fast breading infestation)who got the king overly drunk and/or drugged during boar hunt. Ned found out that king's son isn't king's son... they're all queen's brother's kids. Over across the sea, in a side-off story, the daughter of the previous king (Mad King) gets married into a horse marauder tribe, goes all native, and watches her brother get killed at behest of her King/husband by way of pouring hot melted gold on his head. The end of her side story of the season shows her king dying by poison of a witch...well, brain dead (she actually places a pillow over his head to finish him off finally), her (now queen of horse marauders) walking into a funeral fire for her husband all the while burning the witch alive. The next day she's unharmed holding 3 baby dragons. Back in the main focus, Ned is captured by king's son, who claims throne, because Ned says he's not the king. This makes other, other son back in his home town upset, wants to start war (and does, rallying banners). They end up losing a few in a fake fight, only to get behind and capture queens brother. King's son, the new king, kills Ned by way of execution, showing his already well known cruel nature. War everywhere, people hate people, rumors of "White Walkers" proves true after two attack head of Night Watch, they march North beyond the big ice wall.

That's just Season #1. I won't go into season 2, and I'm missing tons of parts in my description about some very key characters, I know this. Sorry, but if I sat and wrote a summery of the entire season #1, or Season #2, it would be a book....incidentally, there's already a book out there that does that one can read.

 

[NooNameLeft]

"The new trailer looks like things are going to get worse before they get better" Nope. Things are going to get worse before they get hopeless.
Everything and everyone looks great except for Mance Rayder, that is described in the book sort of like a bard but here he just look like a tough wildman.

pictures:

Spoiler