Brienne is cast: http://hbowatch.com/gwendoline-christie-cast-in-game-of-thrones-s2/
Hm! Fans are casting the show. I’m pleased/conflicted. I’ve never been able to make my imaginary Tyrion and Brienne as ugly as they’re really meant to be.
Just FYI, if anyone thinks Tyrion is getting his nose chopped off at the end of season 2, think again. Dinklage is not gonna have a voice changing, acting impeding prosthetic for the rest of the show! He’ll get a cool scar, or maybe lose an ear.
Athryn
3163
Well, she definitely meets the height requirement to play Brienne - she’s 6’3".
But (and you may be well aware of this) even before he lost his nose, Tyrion was meant to be ugly, not just short.
Well yes. All I meant was if HBO wants acting over book faithfulness, I’m all for it. I was always against making dinklage look hideous just to match the book. I also doubt brienne is going to get a festering cheek hole either(though I suppose it might be for only one scene! :p)
Athryn
3166
According to Martin, when she came in to the casting, she looked like Brienne.
If it works for the man, it works for me.
I think the exact opposite, that GRRM has clearly signalled she’s more like Rhaegar than her father. Selmy tells her that in so many words, and he seems to have had immense respect for the former prince.
It seems rare that GRRM takes the plot and characters in a direction that is good for them. Hence my opposite belief.
I’m not sure the two are mutually exclusive. I think she can (and indeed may) resemble Rhaegar but also have a touch of the family touchedness develop. It fits with her often otherwordly plotline and tolerably bizarre life circumstances.
Similarly, just because she gets away with being uncompromisingly saintly sometimes doesn’t mean it won’t bite her badly later. Per the discussion of Ned Stark I’d say the GRRM-verse doesn’t punish the good or the wicked as a rule, except in the sense that I suspect the (surviving) good guys will win at the end of the series.
Has anyone mentioned that she’s 6’3" yet?
Yeah, I went through the books recently, and I didn’t really find them as grim as advertised. Now that we’re getting close to the end I think the major “good” characters remaining will get, if not final victory, at least a heroic send off.
As an aside, am I the only person around who actively scours the net for spoilers? Ever since I was a kid I’ve always peeked ahead to the end of a book. Not sure if that’s a character defect or a gift.
I prefer being surprised. Knowing how a narrative arc will end disengages my brain from the fun of guessing at possible outcomes.
I have to take you all to task on one thing. I never saw Brandon and Senior Stark as treasonous. Didn’t they ride down to King’s Landings with retainers, come in the hall as partitioners, ask for sis back and Aery’s cooked em and THAT was what made Ned call the banners and join Robert. I have always thought they were justified. I just concluded a 3rd reread to get ready for DoD and I am fairly certain I have that right?
Did someone say otherwise?
Jaime poured the last half cup of wine. “He rode into the Red Keep with a few companions, shouting for Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. But Rhaegar wasn’t there. Aerys sent his guards to arrest them all for plotting his son’s murder. The others were lords’ sons too, it seems to me.”
“Ethan Glover was Brandon’s squire,” Catelyn said. “He was the only one to survive. The others were Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, and Elbert Arryn, Jon Arryn’s nephew and heir.” It was queer how she still remembered the names, after so many years. “Aerys accused them of treason and summoned their fathers to court to answer the charge, with the sons as hostages. When they came, he had them murdered without trial. Fathers and sons both.”
“There were trials. Of a sort.
I’ll often peek ahead on the last couple of pages, but a couple of things work in my favor most of the time: 1. Because I have no context as to where things are and who might be involved it’s mostly a mash of complete mess that just brings me back to where I was with the book anyways. 2. I forget quickly what the hell I read anyways. This goes for movie/game spoilers as well. I want to know, but I know by the time I get around to reading/playing/watching that part I’ll have forgotten it anyways, so it’s all good!
Yeah, I did, so I don’t think it’s “you all”, and it was based on what Jaime said as well as how it was recounted in the wiki (which, again, AVOID until you read ADWD). My main focus is on how it’s an honor-driven reaction reflecting tremendously poor strategic judgment in a world where female siblings are primarily marriage opportunities anyway, as well as a false understanding of the situation between Rhaegar and Lyssa. It’s one a reader can empathize with, of course, but I don’t see how it could have ended well even had Aerys been sane at the time.
In any case, I don’t think you’re right or wrong, I just think we’re all working under a great deal of ambiguity that’s only worth it if you have something broader to derive from it. The pre-GoT historical material is purposefully presented with unreliable narrators and opaque references, so it’s really what you want to make of it; my initial reading was more of a “PTSD for the good guys” kind of thing in the flashbacks, and my second reading was definitely more tilted towards the Targaryens and Lannisters as I became more comfortable with setting aside initial sympathies and focusing on the enormity of acts on both sides. This wasn’t to create some false equivalence, which is a waste of time, but rather to find a coherence to the cause and effect in that world.
I’d say it was more emotionally driven than anything. In the same way that Jaime’s confrontation with Ned outside the brothel was more to do with the love he had for his little brother than any sense of honor.
Also, where are you getting the misunderstanding of the Rheagar/Lyanna thing from? Are there some passages that drop some clues or is the ambiguousness of events leading you to draw your conclusions?
There’s nothing authoritative, but the official version - that Lyanna was kidnapped - is undermined by Ned’s PoVs and flashbacks in aGoT and the Reed’s story of the tourney at Harrenhall in aSoS.
It’s also undermined by various comments by other PoVs on Rhaegar’s nature.
Someone did a mashup of the one-man violin theme song cover and the one-man metal cover. This two-man cover is extremely awesome.
Then someone else made a really cool (and very large) map of Westeros plus house crests plus marginalia. Thanks, internet!
