I agree with this. Not only was the dialog wooden, but the scene was like three times longer than it needed to be. I like how it led to Dany standing up for herself, but that one scene could have been seriously trimmed and others would have benefited from it.
I was seriously disappointed that we didn’t get to see The Hound fight this episode. Oh well, next week I guess.
I love Arya so much. Her blurted “Why do they call you Littlefinger!?” was so perfect, and I really liked her delivery of “No, that’s not me” to her father.
The actress who plays Sansa, on the other hand, isn’t really doing it for me. She seems to be very one-note. I suppose the role isn’t as juicy as Arya’s, but she could at least try to make Sansa something other than timid.
Athryn
2002
I wish that the girl that plays Lucretia Borgia on The Borgias had been cast as Sansa instead.
Clay
2003
Really? I think she’s great. The role seems to have been made a little more despicable for television, but so do all of them with the exception of Jon Snow and Arya. I’m quite happy with Sansa’s portrayal so far; I think the actress is doing a good job.
Well, she’s vain, needy, boy-crazy, and has a completely unrealistic view of how the world works… so I find her to be very similar to my own teenage daughter. Despicable? Maybe, but not spitefully so… and of course she gets better later.
This is one area in which the age difference between the books and the show breaks down. It doesn’t seem to matter much that Bran and Arya are older in the show than they are in the book, but Sansa’s actions are very much those of a 12-year-old, not a girl with her drivers license.
The actress was 14 when the series was shot. I don’t think those traits are very uncommon among 14 year old girls, or 16 for that matter.
I was looking for sigils in patch or banner form that Catelyn called out at the Inn at the Crossroads, but didn’t see any. Did anyone else catch them?
If they weren’t actually there, I wonder if the producers dispensed with them as a budgetary limitation. Kind of like Ned Stark’s insignia of the Hand: in the book it’s a big necklace of interlocking hands, in the show it’s like a little sheriff’s star.
I didn’t see them during the show, but if you watch hbogo with the “Enhanced version” one of the popups shows them all.
I just recently read all the books, and I’m pretty sure you’re wrong on this. Ned had a simple Pin - Tyrion and then Tywin used the necklace of interlocking hands.
So the big news from HBO today:
Episode 7 is going to be available from HBOgo immediately after Episode 6 finishes airing on television. If you don’t have HBOgo, you’re going to have to wait a full week, though, the flip side of it is that if you watch 6 & 7 on the same night, you’re going to have to wait two weeks for the next new episode.
Of course, if you’re an HBO subscriber, you get HBOgo for free.
This woman has put together some infographics containing the relationships on the show.
What’s interesting is that she hasn’t read the books. So these are based on the TV show only (and the HBO website), and don’t contain stuff from future storylines.
I like the colour coding, and can’t wait for when she realizes she needs to colour Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen as Lannister Yellow instead of Baratheon Brown :).
I haven’t re-read to where they mention the necklace extensively, but the first book makes a big deal about the pin/clasp Ned wears and casts off dramatically all of the time, so I think you’re right.
Sansa is the only trueborn Stark that I think is worth a damn in terms of being a character whose fate I’m invested in. The rest are reckless idiots who frequently imperil the realm and everyone around them in the name of their whimsical honor, or just dead weight on the plot. In contrast, I think Sansa genuinely develops as the story progresses and becomes a plausible, interesting piece of the best part of the early story (King’s Landing shenanigans, that is) before coming into her own. That’s not to say I would want them out of the story, as Ned in particular is a crucial foil to the people who should be kings and those who clearly shouldn’t. But I know whose side I’m on, and it’s not with those egomaniac Northerners.
To be fair, Arya’s fine in a “fly on the wall” sense in the second book, but her overall trajectory as a nerd archetype is far less interesting.
I’m only invested in Sansa in that I want her to realize she was the cause of what happened to Ned, and then die herself.
Yeah, a little girl who was caught in the middle of a bunch of scheming adults is directly responsible for Ned Stark being a suicidal moron who can’t help but fall for every trap that’s laid for him but is too chickenshit to risk compromising whatever mirage of honor he has at the moment to do perfectly logical things to prevent cataclysmic warfare from engulfing the land. Renly (another person far better suited to lead than Ned Stark) even gave him an out after he’d fucked everything else up, but he decided his own personal honor was more important than the safety of his family or stability of the kingdom.
Even Stannis is more likeable, as a leader and in his relations with those he is responsible for. Countless deaths and suffering could have been averted if Eddard had broken his neck falling down the stairs at the start of book 1. Wouldn’t have made for a good story, of course, but he is the first of many tragic heroes in the story, and his flaws are so egregious in a leader that it makes him easy to single out as the primary cause of his own demise. Like everyone else, I respond reflexively to the way we have been conditioned to like certain character types and dislike others by the fantasy/medieval genre in general, but re-listening the books really does him no favors.
In contrast, Sansa is flawed in normal ways for an immature girl and (frankly) for many normal adults as well. She makes poor choices as well as good ones, but simply because I don’t identify with her directly doesn’t mean I start projecting the reader’s omniscience and consequence-free environment on to her character. The main people responsible for Stark’s death are those that engineered the ludicrous situation that could allow for it, those that followed the orders of a spoiled brat in carrying it out, and Stark himself for being checkmated by every single other player in King’s Landing. Sansa did her best to save him, but he did even better at getting killed.
I for one am really looking forward to how the folks who haven’t read the books react to Ned’s death. Killing off what is generally seen as the main character is a pretty bold move in a show, and I don’t think people will see it coming.
Oh, there’s certainly a long line of mistakes Ned made, or his wife (causing the whole situation to come to a head by capturing Tyrion) that could also be pointed to, but it’s indisputable that Sansa running to Cersei to spill Ned’s entire “Get out of town!” plan was a crucial moment.
How would getting Arya and Sansa out of town have saved Ned? Ultimately, no one other than Joffre wanted him dead, and that was something that came out of left field at the moment he was supposed to take the black. Which, you know, Sansa can take some credit for arranging.
Now telling Cersei that made her own life and that of Arya’s a lot harder, and did much to complicate things for the Starks going forward, but the death was all Ned. And while we’re on it, when I’m doing top sekrit things of life and death I usually don’t inform 13 year olds and count on their discretion. Because they’re 13.
He would never have gotten in that situation - he would have taken Joffrey and controlled the court if Cersei hadn’t been prepared by Sansa stealing the beans about it.
Or at least that was the impression I got - Cersei often points this out in later books as a crucial point.
He refused to take Joffre and Cersei, which he still could have done with Renly, as a matter of principle anyway. In any case, his bizarre fixation on the proper heir is uncomfortably obsessive: Robert himself was a usurper in the most obvious way, as Renly points out in one of his many “man you’re going to hate it that I don’t become king” moments. The only reason it matters that Joffre not become king is because he’s a bratty little sociopath, and that’s something you negotiate around (and maybe un-betrothe your daughter from). But he’s fixated on a concept of right and wrong that is wholly personal and mostly bullshit.
I mean, for chrissakes if he had his preference he’d have put Stannis on the throne. I like Stannis as a character, but talk about trading a somewhat troublesome ruler for a huge fucking problem. It’s not like the Lannisters are stupid, just hand over the keys to Tywin and go north where he can chop people’s heads off in peace.
I’m really surprised that she was able to get so much information without reading the books. I don’t remember half the names / positions she mentions being said out loud on screen.
Yeah she must have taken notes during the credits or something, or the website must be pretty thorough. The only gap I noticed (which is a tough one) is the elder Mormont/Jorah connection, which the show has mostly ignored for now.
