Game of Thrones: We really hate weddings. (Now with trauma support group.)
The North Remembers. From the first season: Grey Wind about to teach Jon Umber a lesson. Where was the Greatjon?
Remember that it is fiction and It Didn’t Really Happen. If you have read the books, you knew this was going to happen, and you have been dreading the event even as you looked forward to seeing how the filmmakers would portray it.
Your sorrow is real, though, so see you in Comments. (Do not go there unless you’ve seen it. Then again, doesn’t “Spoilers Abound” just make you want to read the whole thing?)
Is it very cruel? Yes, but not much more cruel than life, which is heavily padded with tedium to ward off the blows.
Is this a good time to remind you that not everyone gets out of The Hobbit alive?
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Sunday we were at the mall with our one-year-old niece, Dany. Dany is short for “Daenerys”. Yes, we have a niece named for the Targaryen. If she had been a boy, she would’ve been named Rhaego. Yes, Rhaego the Stallion that Mounts the World. We don’t know how name-selection goes in your families, but in ours we had this discussion: “You can’t call your child Rhaego! Rhaego is killed by Mirri Maz Duur. Also, it sounds like a porn star name.” We were suggesting “Magneto Xavier” for a boy, “Sigourney Ripley Scully” for a girl. Daenerys is pretty cool, though.
We’re saving up for Paris so we were walking around the mall chanting, “Don’t buy anything, don’t buy anything.” Then we spotted Cutting Edge, the store that sells Game of Thrones T-shirts. We figured it was safe to go inside because they never have GoT T-shirts for girls in our size (T-shirts for boys are not flattering). They still didn’t have shirts for us, but they had this.
So we’re chanting “Don’t buy anything, don’t buy anything…Game of Thrones flask! We’ll take it.” They had flasks bearing the Targaryen, Stark and Lannister sigils. Our allegiance shifts between these three Houses, but we picked the lion because it’s a cat. Plus everyone in that family drinks and they would have the best liquor. (The store also sells coffee mugs, which cost more than the 6 oz stainless steel and faux leather flasks, refrigerator magnets, and a miniature dragon’s egg that will probably not hatch in the microwave.)
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Our Top 5 Game of Thrones characters:
5. (tie) Bronn and Varys. Bronn is his own person. Varys knows everything, and we’re not sure whose side he’s on but we’d probably pick that side, too. Both are very funny.
4. Joffrey “Baratheon”. He unites the TV audience in their hatred of him. We want to wipe the smirk off his face…with an axe. Jack Gleeson is brilliant as Joffrey. Even the way he slouches on the Iron Throne signifies “psychotic little shit”.
3. Arya Stark. How can we resist plucky little girl with a sword? In the books she is left-handed so actress Maisie Williams, who is right-handed, learned to use a sword with her left. Commitment! (Yes, we watched all the episodes with the commentaries.)
2. Tywin Lannister. The Lannisters are the true agents of the series. Ostensibly they’re the villains, but their characters have such interesting layers that we can’t really hate them. (Except that spawn of incest.) Consider the patriarch Tywin, the most feared man in Westeros, with the stare that freezes the blood. We can almost understand how his obsession with posterity drives his actions. Also, we want to have posture like Charles Dance’s.
That said, he still deserves to die.
1. (tie) The Lannister brothers, Tyrion and Jaime. With Tyrion it was literally love at first sight: the combination of the unusual appearance and that beautiful voice. We watched the very first episode with friends—some of them were in the kitchen getting snacks, and when they heard Peter Dinklage speak they hurried back to the TV to see who it was. Tyrion is a highly intelligent man with major issues. Of all the characters, he is the contemporary human being trying to be decent in a world that crushes the innocent. We are all Tyrion Lannister now. Also, Dinklage is a sexy beast.
Jaime was more of a hard sell because when we first saw him he was committing incest and child murder. The fact that he’s so good-looking only makes it worse—we want to punch him in the face. (Apparently somebody did, which only makes him more handsome.) But Nikolaj Coster Waldau has always hinted at depths beneath the self-entitled jerk. The slightest look, the most subtle inflection, the odd choice (He didn’t kill Ned Stark when he could have)—when Jaime had a major trauma and started turning into a human being, we weren’t really surprised.
The Lannister brothers: united in cleverness and self-loathing. If there were justice Bran would kill Jaime, but this is Westeros.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 3rd, 2013 at 18:07
Your grace, an inquiry. Where can I acquire such beautiful flask? I may use it while singing Rains of Castamere. Thank you, your grace….
June 3rd, 2013 at 18:16
wangbumaximus21: It’s a store called Cutting Edge on the third floor of Greenbelt 5, near Timezone. It is known.
June 3rd, 2013 at 23:50
I knew when the music started something bad was about to go down. That scene with Rob Stark’s wife literally hurt me. I almost cried.
June 4th, 2013 at 00:54
CaitlynsMomma: Good, because they set it up in the two previous episodes, complete with an explanation of the lyrics. Like a Pavlovian experiment.
June 4th, 2013 at 05:57
Yes, your Highness, I remember the scene where Cersei tells Margery the meaning of the lyrics. I love the interaction between those two. As soon as I heard the song, I went “uh-oh” …but i wasnt prepared for the violence, especially to Little Ned =( Should’ve expected it though, that Frey guy is a wicked-looking bastard!
June 4th, 2013 at 08:20
Nothing prepared me for that scene. I was wishing that Talisa would survive. After all, Jeyne (her book counterpart) did. I guess HBO just couldn’t resist killing Ned a second time…
June 4th, 2013 at 12:47
After long and thoughtful consideration, I have decided that the Stark flask should be mine. I will fill it with coffee in the mornings when I break my fast. One hopes that the TriNoma Cutting Edge branch in the Free City of Quezon will have it.
In other news, people are taking the Red Wedding very seriously and are being very eloquent about it over at https://twitter.com/RedWeddingTears. For example, Josie Wastell ?(@jfwastell) says “F****NG GAME OF F****NG THRONES I AM GOING TO KILL A B*TCH I SWEAR TO GOD”
I love it.
June 4th, 2013 at 13:02
People have been wandering aimlessly with froth in their mouths after seeing episode 9.
The only funny thing I found in the internet about all this, is this:
Why can’t George R.R. Martin tweet? Because he killed all 140 characters.
Hahahaha!!!
June 4th, 2013 at 14:11
CaitlynsMomma: Court etiquette: “Highness” is lower than “Grace” and “Majesty”.
Part we find most upsetting in book and adaptation: Grey Wind. More than the humans. Possibly our cats have been warg-ing. We have been waking up even later than usual.
June 4th, 2013 at 14:18
brewhuh23: The episode has some funny bits, which only make the horrors worse. Robb’s twerp uncle Edmure’s relief (his expression says “Jackpot!”) when he gets a look at his bride. Great-Uncle Blackfish being eyed by the Frey crones.
Essay question: Can one warg into a dragon?
June 4th, 2013 at 14:32
japz20: Fetch it quickly, they might run out.
We read that the Red Wedding was inspired by an actual event: the Black Dinner, in which the chiefs of Clan Douglas were massacred at Stirling Castle.
http://iainthepict.blogspot.com/2011/11/earl-of-douglas-and-black-dinner.html
We think of Winterfell as Scotland.
June 4th, 2013 at 14:55
have you seen this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkzodgRaze8
June 4th, 2013 at 15:09
radiohead: Yes, Rob Sunny in Philadelphia is an excellent interviewer.
We’ve watched the dvds with the commentary and so far the funniest has been 2.8 with Michelle Fairley and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N26G5gv4Kdg
June 4th, 2013 at 15:23
ManilaBeans: That also kills the Heir of the North theory. (And another treacherous family.)
We just remembered why we read Game of Thrones. We saw a trailer with Sean Bean a few months before the series started. Boromir! So we had to read the books. Fine, we cheated. We read the appendices first so there would be no horrific shocks. (We always read the ending first. Gets the plot out of the way so we notice the writing.)
June 4th, 2013 at 16:51
naiinis ako dyan kay Ned Stark tsaka sa asawa nyang kamukha ni Jennifer Love Hewitt kaya hindi sila kawalan sa kin sa panonood ng Game of Thrones. gusto ko silang batukan or pag-untugin every time makikita ko sila, for some reason. they’re the least interesting characters in GOT as far as i’m concerned.
June 4th, 2013 at 16:53
*Rob Stark pala, not Ned
June 4th, 2013 at 17:17
lola_basyang: Yeah, we never bought the young love subplot that was added to the TV series. Every time we saw them we yelled, “Listen to your mother, fool!” Honorable Robb, brought down by his dick. And yet, a very human failing.
You have to hear the critique of their love scene, it’s hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N26G5gv4Kdg
June 4th, 2013 at 17:17
Hello, I read somewhere the actor playing Greatjon of Umber had scheduling conflicts hence he was absent in S2 and 3.
Haven’t seen the ep yet but well aware (thank you awoiaf.westeros.org), so :(
Wawa dire wolf :( :( :(
June 4th, 2013 at 17:20
greeneggsnham: Maybe he’ll come back to raise Rickon or something.
June 4th, 2013 at 22:52
Galit yata sa kasal talaga si George R.R. Martin.
This is why I’m thankful that I read all the 5 books. To save me from total devastation. I was cursing profusely when I read Storm of Swords’ Red Wedding, pero if I found it out first by watching it, it would wound me more! That’s why I decided to read the books after I watched Ned’s beheading. Hindi ko kinaya.
June 4th, 2013 at 23:00
Have you read this? http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/steps-to-get-over-your-game-of-thrones-sadness
Laughed so much on #18, wanted to undo seeing #15 and seeing #20 connected the dots – Iwan Rheon aka Ramsay Bolton who tortures Theon Greyjoy in GoT is the same sweet lad who plays alongside Sir Ian McKellen and Jacobi Derek in the UK TV series Vicious!
June 4th, 2013 at 23:31
maryelogs: And every time we see The Fall we wish Scully would stab Roose Bolton (well, the actor) in the heart. Ser Barristan is in it, too.
The related article on most tragic deaths in geekdom misses the one we cried buckets at: King Theoden at the Pellenor Fields. And Joyce Summers, the Slayer’s mother, who died the same time as our mom so they are forever conflated in the memory.
June 4th, 2013 at 23:32
cjspotless: Kailan lamang ikinasal ang mga Martin, ilang taon na rin silang nagsasama.
Preemptive knowledge is always best.
June 5th, 2013 at 00:22
oops!! my most profuse apologies, Your Majesty.
June 5th, 2013 at 01:13
CaitlynsMomma: Haha, titles mean nothing. People who need to be addressed as “Engineer” or “Congressman” or “Attorney” at all times–yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
June 5th, 2013 at 02:29
Your grace, thank you for your information, your grace.
June 5th, 2013 at 18:59
I suspect that part of the scene when one of the Freys’ men closed the door and the band started playing the rains of castamere will be forever remembered in TV history. Also, in an impressive bit of world-building, Tyrion had apparently already been whistling the rains of castamere tune even in the earlier episodes of season 2.