To me Game of Thrones will never be the same (S4E8 discussion)

[Gluzzbung]

I can understand why you feel that way but the thing is, in Game of Thrones, there are no 'good guys' or 'bad guys,' it's all about shades of grey. For example, while the Lannisters are power hungry, paranoid and underhand, Tywin and Cercei and Jaime and Kevan and all the other Lannisters are just trying to protect their family, and only then would they try to advance it. Well, Tyrion is an exception to this in the Lannister's instance but he still protects himself and those he cares about, and you've got to think; were I in their position, would I not do the same thing?

Having said that, obviously you'll always support one house or one contender for the throne above the others (I'm a Stannis man myself) so it'll seem that all the events that go well for one family could be considered going badly for every other house as it makes one more powerful. I don't think the TV show does this as well as the books, and I can see the benefits of this but, to a certain extent, as it gets you more invested in certain characters and elicits a reaction to even the slightest thing they do, like when Joff walked away from the Blackwater. However, I feel like this reduces the effect of the shades of grey idea mentioned above.

I will also say that, while you seem to be taking this very well and the response you have; that the shock-horror of seeing a character die unexpectedly, has been dramatically reduced after this, is rather admirable, I know that a lot of fans of the show are going to feel entitled to more than what they've been given. Like they want the remaining Stark supporters or Stannis or someone like that to have a string of good luck which, I feel, is a bit whiney.

Oh, and by the way, if you think this was bad, you have seen nothing yet

 

[Isra]

You don't have to tell me what happened in the episode. Here comes my problem. Okay, Oberyn was caught off guard, fair enough. First of all, Oberyn is a martial artist. One of the first things they teach you in almost any existing martial art is how to regroup during your fall to minimize the damage. It's called "Ukemi" in some martial arts and this is why fighters are able to toss each other around without breaking skulls and bones. The warrior of Oberyn's level must have this kind of thing memorized to the level of reflex, ESPECIALLY considering very theatrical and agile fighting style of Oberyn. So, Oberyn was supposed to be able to regroup and simply roll away from the danger. But okay, let's assume he fell down and got stunned for a moment. So Mountain grabs and lifts Oberyn and tries to punch him in the face. You know what any sane person would do? Put a palm between his face and incoming fist. As simple as that. The Mountain didn't hold Oberyn's hands, so there was NOTHING preventing him from blocking that hit. So it's double bullshit. And my suspension of disbelief can stretch only so far when it comes to even extraordinary human beings. Unless The Mountain was injected with Captain America serum it was nigh impossible for him to do all that shit after getting stabbed, cut, poisoned and tired all the while wearing a medieval HEAVY ARMOR. You know, the kind of armor that was so heavy, that it would pin fallen knight to the ground.

I completely agree that Oberyn was a big loss to this series, just because he was exactly the kind of character the show needed, and many of the surviving characters are dull as rocks at this point. I knew Oberyn was going to die but when the actor was introduced and I saw the first episodes he was in, I hoped the producers would make a change from the books - books which got increasingly more boring just because all of the most interesting characters, both protagonists and antagonists, kept getting knocked off, and the annoying / dull as dirt characters just kept fucking going like the energizer bunny.

I really hoped this would be the point GoT broke away from the books and actually did something with the story because George R.R. Martin sure hasn't. Sad it wasn't so.

But I haven't paid too much attention to 'realism' in this series, since it's pretty ridiculously unrealistic. Besides the dragons, magic and super eunuchs, there have been a lot of moments I would have rolled my eyes at if I expected the show to be a paragon of realism. In a country full of barbarism and nomadic hordes taking any opportunity they can to conquer and pillage, the Masters were stupid enough to sell an army far larger than they could fend off. People are always walking around in plate from shoulder to toe but for no apparent reason they rarely wear a helmet or gorget. Almost everyone fights with longswords, which were relegated to secondary and personal defense weapons by the time plate came into common use (bloody swords get all the glory when they were practically useless against good armor). Tywin melted down Ice and fucking cast two new 'swords' (i.e. ornaments) out of it, wow, who knew the well kept secret to reforging Valyrian steel is to actually not forge it at all but to melt it down and pour it into a freaking mould? The skills of these blacksmiths!
Stannis threw his army at King's Landing's gates and failed horribly instead of laying siege to the (already starving) city with his vastly superior numbers, navy and obvious port blocking capability. Lyssa and her feebleminded son sit in a large, solid stone throne room that has nothing underneath it but a 10,000 foot drop. Ilyn Payne followed Joffrey's orders to execute Eddard Stark when it is made clear that Joffrey is not of age and that Cersei is Queen Regent. Why the crap does the mountain wear cuirass, pauldrons, vambraces and gauntlets but no sabatons, greaves or cuisses? That's just pointless. So on and so forth.

Frankly the thought of a large, experienced, comparatively well armored soldier killing a prince with no armor and a short spear is pretty believable by contrast to many other moments in the series. That wide headed spear would have never made it through cuirass, maille and gambeson. By the way, it's a myth that a man in full plate harness would be pinned to the ground if he got knocked down. It's actually quite easy to get back up, a decent suit of armor offered almost full mobility and full plate plus weapon weighed less on average than what modern soldiers carry today.

So bugger realism. It's just a huge shame that Oberyn was such an interesting character and the mountain can hardly be called a character at all.

 

[chikusho]

People say that GRRM likes to kill off characters for fun, or for shock value. I don't think that's the case though. I mean, he may have a nice little chuckle here and there, and there may be plot defining deaths that he KNOWS he has to write in from the start, but I think he's a bit more of a naturalistic writer. I think he kills people only if they do it 'to themselves', or get really unlucky. Sure, he kills off a lot of like-able characters, but that's because we've been conditioned to think that a character who is heroic, and/or good, is invincible.

This. When Martin kills a character, he does so in a very calculated way. They do not simply disappear; Martin makes sure to make the death a character defining moment. A death that sometimes robs the character of their essence, or clearly points out their flaws.

I think the "chock value" people need to slow down and consider the arc of the character who was just murdered. It's usually fairly easy to understand the purpose of those events.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

I'm gonna go ahead and add a big "spoiler" box.

Spoiler

It is really sad to lose another hero, and one as likable as Oberyn no less, but there is a method to the brutal, unapologetic madness.

It's my opinion that Oberyn was designed to be killed off and for his death to have a massive impact on both the audience and the other characters. We all saw that he's an absolute badass, he's charming, he's more intelligent than you might expect and he's justified in his vengeance to boot, but I'm going to make a controversial statement here: he was too perfect to live. Think about it, when you have Action Hero-Jesus on the board, he becomes the only piece worth moving, so the logical way to balance that out is to have him as a finite resource that is tapped and exhausted early on.

But Oberyn's death sends all kinds of shockwaves within and without the world of Game of Thrones. Outside, it adds serious tension among fans and furthers their already cult-like devotion to the series, and within his death catalyzes all sorts of repercussions. With Oberyn dead, Tyrion is sentenced to death with no apparent escape, and Tywin along with the rest of the Lannisters have lost Dorne as a potential ally in the impending war against Stannis.

This is where I go ahead and spoil the books for the sake of discussion.

Spoiler

In the same way that Ned Stark's death laid the groundwork for season's 2 and 3--his death and Robert's sparked the War of Five Kings and provided most of the conflict for those seasons--Oberyn's death causes 3 major events: Tyrion kills both Tywin and Shae during his escape of King's Landing, Tyrion flees to Essos where he becomes part of Varys' scheme to put Aegon and Danaerys Targaryen on the Iron Throne, Oberyn's brother, Doran, and his eight bastard daughters known as the "Sand Snakes" must now react to his death and plot against the Lannisters. And all of those events themselves contribute to even more plot developments.

Every loss in Game of Thrones is tragic, but it always serves a purpose in advancing the story further.

And if anyone is feeling really depressed about episode 4x08, I find this picture very comforting.

 

[Lonan]

I wonder if the creators were sadistic towards viewers, and took a horrible pleasure in searing that image into our minds.

Game of Thrones has in the past turned the camera away from horribly gruesome things. There are some people, some of whom have gone through very difficult experiences and some who have not, who want to force horrible things (not necessarily harming them physically, just wanting them to give up on their compassion for humanity and the feeling of disgust at these sorts of things, the latter is what I am referring too here) down the throats of the innocent because they are frustrated that these people do not understand how wretched the world can be. I used to be one of the former. I have a certain contempt for those who would want to do this and have not had horrifically traumatising experiences, and I feel as though the Game of Thrones team that had us see this scene falls into the latter of the two categories I made up here.

I did learn something about myself from watching this, that when I was traumatised as a child I was filled with so much fear, that I would rather live the rest of my life curled into a ball, doing as little and feeling as little as possible, than have a century of the best life anyone has ever lived, if there was a one in a billion chance I could be harmed, could feel the same fear and annihilation I felt before.

My issue with the end of that episode is that it felt like the death was not intended to be a reverse psychology of horror to moral introspection that people could benefit from, but rather that the creators took a sick pleasure in showing millions of hapless fans these horrible images. Some will say that this is simply the way the world works sometimes so GOT might as well show it, but the human reality of the value of compassion exists as well, and showing things that seem to exist for no other reason than to sadistically bring down the value of feeling compassion is something I do not approve of.

 

[PinkiePyro]

All, because the bad guys have had one too many victories. Joffrey's death was one victory for the good guys out of a dozen for the bad guys and each season thus far has ended with a very dark and mean spirited tone.

Spoiler

Ned Stark's death, Black Water, Red Wedding, and now Oberyn

whoa whoa whoa back up a F-ing minute

you are calling

Spoiler

the battle of black water

as a bad guy win?! it was much more of a grey area win..
think about this

Spoiler

if the battle had been lost by the Lannisters then Sansa Stark would of been raped or poisoned, and not to mention this would pretty much handover the kingdom to the CRAZY cult ***** and her follows... the Lannisters are bad but she and her smoke demon thing would be a lot worse

so in this case this is one time I was rooting for the Lannisters as a whole..

 

[Silvanus]

whoa whoa whoa back up a F-ing minute

you are calling

Spoiler

the battle of black water

as a bad guy win?! it was much more of a grey area win..
think about this

Spoiler

if the battle had been lost by the Lannisters then Sansa Stark would of been raped or poisoned, and not to mention this would pretty much handover the kingdom to the CRAZY cult ***** and her follows... the Lannisters are bad but she and her smoke demon thing would be a lot worse

so in this case this is one time I was rooting for the Lannisters as a whole..

I agree that it's a "grey area" win, for a number of reasons, but...

Spoiler

Let's not forget that Stannis is the only leader explicitly mentioned to strongly punish incidences of rape among his soldiers. I also feel you're very much overstating the extent of the power Melisandre would hold had Stannis won; keep in mind that he left her at Dragonstone precisely because he felt it would be seen as her victory if she were present, and he wanted to stop that from happening.

 

[Reiper]

All, because the bad guys have had one too many victories. Joffrey's death was one victory for the good guys out of a dozen for the bad guys and each season thus far has ended with a very dark and mean spirited tone.

Spoiler

Ned Stark's death, Black Water, Red Wedding, and now Oberyn

whoa whoa whoa back up a F-ing minute

you are calling

Spoiler

the battle of black water

as a bad guy win?! it was much more of a grey area win..
think about this

Spoiler

if the battle had been lost by the Lannisters then Sansa Stark would of been raped or poisoned, and not to mention this would pretty much handover the kingdom to the CRAZY cult ***** and her follows... the Lannisters are bad but she and her smoke demon thing would be a lot worse

so in this case this is one time I was rooting for the Lannisters as a whole..

Stannis is the only leader who forbids his men from raping / pillaging and executes them if they do

Stannis specifically told Catelyn Stark that he would make sure Sansa was returned unharmed

Stannis doesn't really care for the lord of light, he only tolerates it out of pragmatism for the power it provides

Who really cares what happens to Sansa, she has to be one of the most annoying and unlikable characters in the series.

 

[Brad Shepard]

I'm up to date on the books, and ill admit Oberon's whole thing was brutal, but I have issue with some of the changes they made from book to show. Its been over 2 weeks so spoilers for most of my stuff will be ok. The whole Harenhal thing in the show I loved way more then the book, and honestly made Tywin one of my favorite characters, that and what they expand on in books 4 and 5. And theres some stuff i didn't like. Like the whole "Rape" Scene with Jamie and Cersei, or the fact that they are trying to make Cersei a likable character. Thats like trying to make the Mountain a likable character imo. She is suppose to be a low down cesspool of a human. And spoiler alert for people who have not read the book

Spoiler: The sex scene I was talking about?

In the book, she said it was wrong what they where doing yes, but she wanted Jamie right then and there, not the way the show did it.

And now that I think about it, someone please respond to me on this, in the show, did Danny ever name her dragons?

 

[Hagi]

It's probably because I've read the books but I personally have a lot of trouble seeing how Oberyn could be in any way considered anything but a side-character.

I mean it's the Game of Thrones. And Oberyn did not care in the least about anything related to the throne. He wasn't a player in the game. He cared only about his sister and revenge. Not about the Throne nor about the realm.

He was a cool guy certainly, a good man. But he was never a player.

 

[Magmarock]

Wow, I had no idea when I created this thread it would get this popular or go for this long. I'm actually thinking of making a youtube video expressing some of my opinions on the show.

 

[Magmarock]

I decided to revive this thread because I just saw the season final and there's few things I'd like to talk about.

Spoiler: spoilers on episode 10

I remember talking to my friends how disappointed I was that Oberyn died because it meant once again the Lannisters won and I wasn't expecting the show to get more interesting afterwards.

People told me to wait and see and boy were they on the money.

Although I still kind of wish Oberyn had won I was very pleased with this final episode. Tywin Lannister bleeding to death while on the toilet was a kind of awesome. Oberyn kind of got his revenge but more importantly I believe this means the Lannister are in deep trouble now.

For me this makes the show interesting again. However one sad side affect of the Viper and Mountain fight. When Brienne of Tarth and the Hound were fighting, it was pretty intense to watch and not to mention brutal too. However it might have been the best fighter ever had I not seen the Viper and mountain fight. I was fully prepared for either character to die which felt a little detaching. However I was pleased with the overall outcome of it all.

I will look forward to the next season and this was a very pleasant surprise of an episode especially compared to the other season finals where no much seemed to happen.

 

[Magmarock]

All, because the bad guys have had one too many victories. Joffrey's death was one victory for the good guys out of a dozen for the bad guys and each season thus far has ended with a very dark and mean spirited tone.

Spoiler

Ned Stark's death, Black Water, Red Wedding, and now Oberyn

whoa whoa whoa back up a F-ing minute

you are calling

Spoiler

the battle of black water

as a bad guy win?! it was much more of a grey area win..
think about this

Spoiler

if the battle had been lost by the Lannisters then Sansa Stark would of been raped or poisoned, and not to mention this would pretty much handover the kingdom to the CRAZY cult ***** and her follows... the Lannisters are bad but she and her smoke demon thing would be a lot worse

so in this case this is one time I was rooting for the Lannisters as a whole..

Winter is coming.

Spoiler

No, really. It actually is coming at the end of AFFC/ADWD. Stannis would have been the only person who would have given a fuck once seated on the iron throne.

That's not a spoiler from the book is it?

Instead, half the realm will starve.

That's not a spoiler from the book is it?