5541

I was reading a precap at Grantland for the next episode. I love how anxious they are about this series and especially Tyrion. I can’t wait to see the big smiley reactions after the next two shows. It should suck them right back in.

5542

The first 3 Black Company books would be good for TV. I can’t remember which series but didn’t some trilogy recently get sold to a cable company? Rothfuss maybe?

5543

And I’d agree with them. Though as grim and gritty as the Black Company is, that magic in that series is over the top. The Black Company has its share of kickass magic in a way that makes it very different from GRRM’s fare.

I would argue that in between LotR and Song of Ice and Fire, it is the most influential fantasy series in the genre. Without the grim and gritty nature of The Black Company, we don’t get to ASoIaF or the Kingkiller Chronicles.

5544

Not getting to the Kingkiller Chronicles is arguably a good thing. It’s like Mercedes Lackey wrote for Penthouse.

5545

I’m not a fan of fantasy novels so that’s probably why I’ve never even heard of The Black Company. But I had heard of Game of Thrones and obviously I knew of LotR (even read it in high school). I can’t imagine The Black Company is THAT influential in light of that.

5546

I disagree and would stand by my point.

It’s not that The Black Company is as influential as LotR - that essentially created the genre (or at least, was the principal founding partner of it). And LotR is obviously a trilogy which transcends the genre with a huge mainstream impact. We are seeing a similar thing now, albeit with a reduced scope, with SoIaF and Game of Thrones.

But The Black Company in the early-to-mid 80s was the series which influenced other fantasy and SF writers the most. It was a sharp dose of grime and grit which reached for a level of moral ambiguity in a genre which was prior to that time still locked into the post LotR Good vs Evil trope. There were anti-heroes before in the genre to be sure, but it was never as morally ambiguous as The Black Company. The use of writing from a first person perspective was also relatively rare in the genre, too.

It was never a best seller in its day. But it was the series which fans and authors of the genre all read. It had - and continues to have - a profound impact on all other authors in the genre. FWIW, one of the current bestellers in the fantasy genre, Steven Erikson’s Malazan series, is in many respects an out-and-out pastiche of Glen Cook’s work in the The Black Company.

And yes, GRRM read it, too - and loved it. Without the moral ambiguity in The Black Company, we don’t get to ASoIaF with either the author or the ready acceptance in the genre marketplace for it in 1996.

I would also argue that The Black Company was, for better or worse, a defining AMERICAN fantasy. I cannot imagine the Hobbits of Middle Earth, or the people of Westeros, speaking in something other than various flavours of a British accent. Not so with The Black Company. A British accent for most of those guys would seem inappropriate. Never would a Mid-West or a New York accent in a medievalish world seem more appropriate.

5547

I tried the first Black Company novel, and put it down. The writing seemed so… juvinile. I don’t know, maybe coming off the incredible ten book Malazan series raised the bar too high for my fantasy requirements.

5548

I think Erikson probably drew quite a bit of inspiration from Cook; Jordan, not so much.

— Alan

5549

I don’t know if this is correct, but I’d characterize the writing style as American also. In particular, Cook’s writing reminds me of Dashiell Hammett. Not nearly as good as Hammett, but the similar style of writing in an almost journalistic manner. NPR was reviewing some Irish author (forgot the name) and the critic they had on was gushing over the simplicity of the prose providing the story with a pristine flavor. The critic commented that many other readers had low opinions of the simplicity, but she thought they were missing out on its purity.

Getting back to Cook and the Hammett comparison, you could call the genre Fantasy-noir.

5550

Question for the bookreaders; does Ygritte say “You know nothing, Jon Snow” as her final words to Jon? Also, did the Nights Watch ever send pigeons south informing the realm about the shit hitting the fan soon and that they should probably send reinforcements to the wall?

5551

I seem to remember that the answer is yes on both counts.

5552

The southerners are consumed by their own conflicts. They simply don’t respond.

5553

Yup, that scene was word for word what happened in the book.

Birds were sent out from the Wall, but nobody cared. After Jon escapes the wildlings, Aemon tells him, “Kings sprout like weeds at every hand and we have sent appeals to all of them, yet none will come. They have more pressing uses for their swords, and we are far off and forgotten.” When the wildlings burn Mole’s Town before attacking Castle Black from the south, even more birds are sent, but by then it’s useless. The red wedding had just happened, the Greyjoys still had everyone cut off from the north, and the Lannisters and Tyrells are busy with Joffrey’s wedding, and then Mance’s army finally attacks from the north.

5554

Damn, this episode went really quickly…all of a sudden I only had about 10 minutes left, despite it feeling like it had barely started. I liked this episode much better than Blackwater back in season 2 (Giants!! Mammoths!! More Wall!!) - looking forward to the season finale and the ever-so-long wait for season 5. Only 10 months to go!!

5555

Think that’s scary? Consider this…he is NOT the strongest man in the world and that the biggest deadlift ever is almost 200 lbs more than the one pictured here.

5556

It was well done and fun for what it was, but in another way it’s the worst episode in the season for my money. It was probably hugely expensive to do, but it just shows you what a financial black hole big battles must be, because it still looks fairly cheap and small-scale. I can’t help feeling that they must have lost a bit of momentum with this episode.

Also, IIRC, isn’t Stannis supposed to come and save the day at some point? Might have been better to compress the whole thing bit more and have that at the end, mirroring Tywin’s arrival at the Blackwater. At this rate it looks like they’re going to go straight to Jon bringing in the wildlings - so how is Stannis going to fit in the picture? Kind of unsatisfactory.

5557

In the books, the battle where Ygritte dies and where Stannis saves the day are 2 separate events.

Edit: You’re clearly saying the same thing. So yeah,. not sure how they are going to do that. Filming 2 battles at the wall seems redundant. Maybe they’ll have Jon go out to meet Mance and have the battle with Stannis already have taken place off screen?

5558

Here’s what I learned from this episode: Don’t fuck with giants.

5559

So although there were some really fun, over-the-top moments in this week’s episode, I find that I was overall kind of “meh” about it. I guess I like the character moments in this series far more than the big showcase battle scenes.

Still, there was a lot to like from the character perspective:

Sam really came into his own here. His chat with Aemon, his rationalization to Jon, cussing Pip out at the gate, smooching Gilly… all great stuff. But I also liked his mentoring Pip (poor, doomed Pip) during the battle and his relatively calm competence as he scrambled from place to place. Sam for Lord Commander!

I liked Alistair Thorne’s progression here too. He sort-of apologizes to Jon; he kicks some ass down at the castle; he rallies the troops; he gets wounded. Janos Slynt’s progression I liked less: in the books he’s dangerously incompetent, but I don’t think he was actively cowardly… I guess it’s all in service of making Jon the lone candidate for Lord Commander next episode or next season.

I knew that some of the Night’s Watchmen that we’ve met had to die in order to make the battle personal for us, but I was surprised that both Pip and Grenn ended up dying. At least both of them got suitably heroic send-offs. Grenn’s getting rid of Slynt was a nice touch.

Jon and Ygritte’s reuniting was better than what happened in the book. Nice touch that she died via arrow, and that the archer that killed her was the kid whose parents she killed.

Other than that, it was mostly spectacle, and they did that fairly well. The long, continuous panning shot of the castle courtyard was pretty well-done… except that when you do something like that your lighting is going to be sub-par, and it was: I thought at times it looked more “staged” than it should have. Still an impressive technical feat.

Although I thought they did the close-ups of the Wildling army pretty nicely, it still seemed like the CGI long-shots looked a lot more sparse than they should have. I did not get the impression that a massive migration of 100,000 tribesmen was underway… and even if you assume that only 10% of those area actually warriors participating in the attack, it still looked like too few on-screen. It really looked like a few hundred woefully ill-equipped Wildlings were forlornly running at the wall. And that’s odd, given that they’ve regularly shown thousands of Unsullied and Bolton retainers on-screen before… albeit unmoving.

I really liked the giants in general. The ponderous, careful way that they moved as well as the bottom-heavy nature of their bodies and elephantine feet fits in well with the world: fantasy, but realistic fantasy.

I liked the “oh, wow” moments with the giant shooting his Big Bow and of course The Scythe. Cheesy but fun.

5560

I enjoyed it. I thought they had enough people to make the battle seem realistic, though obviously there were no where near 100,000 wildlings attacking the wall. The giants and the mammoth were awesome. Loved it when they scared off the mammoth with the burning oil, and the one giant ran after it and got shot through with the ballista bolt. The look on the other giant’s face was great. I could almost hear the giant version of Vader’s “NOOOOOOOO!!!”. I wish they’d been able to show the battle between Grenn and his guys and the giant in the tunnel though. Very sad that Grenn had to die in Donal Noye’s place. Also, once again they fucked with a pivital book moment, having someone else shoot Ygritte instead of John having to do it. While I get that it makes for more sympathetic TV, it takes away a lot from the character, leaving his growth and motivations both lessened as a result.

I am curious now how they will handle the Stannis thing. Also wondering which bits of other characters stories will make it into next week’s finale and which will be held for the opening of season 5…