I’m going to just write and publish stuff while I’m bored and on the beers, they don’t have to be bangers, nobody reads them anyway, I’ll do an edited highlights package or something
So last night I plugged my hard drive into my TV and of course it’s all organised in a haphazard way, there’s a folder called Game of Thrones and I thought ‘why not?’. I watched some other TV thing before that that was shite. It was Black Mirror, but not one of the good ones. Anyway thanks to the randomness of how it was just episodes that I torrented I just got two episodes, and I know that a million people have said this, but it was kind of an amazing juxtaposition. So I will review the two episodes, and then make some trite observations.
And I swear I didn’t make this up, this was just what the TV or the hard disk gave me
Season 4 Episode 6: The Laws of Gods and Men
There are two main plots in this episode. Tyrion Lannister is being tried for murdering King Joffrey, and Theon’s sister takes some warriors on a mission to break Theon out of Ramsay Bolton’s castle.
There’s also Stannis and Davos going to Bravos and not having fun, Tywin Lannister just lording it over everyone, and Oberyn Martell is for some reason one of the most important people in the government.
I got so nostalgic, I mean it also reminded me of better times in my life (trust me, they were better) but just how good it was.
There was not much action in it, there wasn’t really a great deal of plot, I mean a lot happened, but it was that thing of why Game of Thrones got away with it for so long, it was like real life politics and war, there was a lot happening, but nobody got to change much. There is this real intersection between the people who are ‘important’ and the fact that they didn’t actually get to do much at all.
So I’ll just quickly brush through the minor plots because there was one bit that actually did really get me in what was at the time not even a remarkable episode.
The ‘Crap’ Stuff
Davos and Stannis went to Bravvos to borrow some money for their war, it’s a long journey on a boat, and they are skint, they are in this huge office all day, then the bank guys come in and it’s a really quick meeting where they say ‘no, we won’t lend you the money, you are going to lose the war’
I’m sure that everyone even rich people have had a similar experience where you needed something and had to ask, and knew you wouldn’t get it, but you went and made a dick of yourself anyway, for some reason.
It’s got Liam Cunningham do a top class speech, and of course it’s class that he is as I write this actually on a real boat trying to bring supplies to Gaza against the evil Zionist bastards. And also the guy who plays Stannis deserves props.
Theon’s sister rescues Theon. This was kind of boring. I mean it was really well done and it’s way better than normal TV, but it’s very schlocky. They do a commando raid on the castle, they find out that he’s not in the dungeon he’s in the kennels, it’s not bad, it’s just schlocky.
Also worth noting, this is still the stage of game of thrones where it’s full of soft porn. It’s actually genuinely crazy how much there is, like it’s totally gratuitous and at the time everyone loved it. And then at some point when it became so huge and the actors and fans started going ‘Isn’t it a bit fucked up that we are making soft porn?’
I just came up with a stupid thesis there, like the thing with Game of Thrones was that it was grown up. There was politics, and the violence was brutal, and the there were big themes, and yes there was porn. Porn isn’t for grown ups, but it wasn’t porn porn, it was lots of lovely bums and tits, sexy men as well.
It’s a thing I need to come back to because I can’t really justify it, but I don’t think that I’m just talking rubbish. Like I was married at the time and my wife loved it, it wasn’t some weird childish thing.
Ok in a simple sentence, it felt like they trusted you. It was sexy more than porn.
my God, you probably won’t get to find out what the second episode is lol
The Good Bit
The Trial of Tyrion is amazing.
So I’ll just put this in quickly because even with pictures these go on. But this is current Hollywood Golden Boy Pedro Pascal getting his shot, he’s one of the judges which is in the book but makes no sense. But he’s brilliant, he is just sitting eating an apple or something.
So the trial is a show trial. I’m not going to explain it, you watched it. They do it quite well, some of it is cheese, like it’s ‘themes’ and having watched the whole show there are a few cringey bits knowing how it all plays out, it is worth remembering that Peter Dinklage was so much fun to watch.
It’s like when they let these classically trained actors just be really over the top and ham it up, he’s just lounging and he’s got his quips written for him and he has his own as well. Nothing like one of these really clever guys rolling their eyes.
But then there’s this big really well done ‘themes’ bit. He’s completely immune to it, he’s the antihero and so on. They are all pretending to gasp and he’s annoyed but not surprised. Of course it’s me lol
But then they do get him. His ex wife has been turned, and she takes the stand and goes against him. And it really gets to that thing, I of course never had anything like his experience, but I do know that feeling where you genuinely love someone, and we all kind of deep down feel pathetic and small, but we endure. And you meet someone who gets you, and sees you at your worst and still loves you, not even your family really love you in that way because that’s not a choice.
But of course, you let each other down, how can you not? But then she does it out in the open. It’s really heartbreaking, and the way he plays it. He’s really top class. Like Tyrion does just break, it’s the same theme as Stannis, when she turns up he looks worried, but he still hopes, even though he knows, but then it’s confirmed, and it’s all confirmed.
So then he does his big speech about how he wished he hadn’t saved the city. It had been arranged that he would be allowed to live in exchange for a confession, but they did him so dirty and found his weakpoint that he just lost it all and made it impossible.
He knows that he will see no justice in this world so he demands a trial by combat. This sets up the amazing fight between The Snake and The Mountain.
Just wow. This was an episode that probably annoyed me at the time because it was just setting more stuff up, but watching it back now, it’s got all of these guys just having great fun.
A non overdone observation which is probably overdone by smarter people. One of the reasons that this medieval and ancient stuff is so popular is because there are all of these guys who study Shakespeare, and actors who study Shakespeare really do study it, so it’s not historically accurate maybe, but there is a ‘real’ ancient and medieval world that these guys all know about and understand and have respect for.
Ok. I may add more later, but now I will have a break, and then go into the second one that Iwatched
Season 8 Episode 2: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
So this episode is entirely in Winterfell. It’s the night before the big battle against the Army of the Dead. All of the ‘good guys’ are gathering together and processing the fact that they are about to fight an unwinnable battle against a huge army of zombies.
It’s quite a weird episode because there’s not really much of a plot at all, it’s more like one big theme of everyone sitting around contemplating the end.
There’s kind of a centrepoint where some of them are gathered around a fire drinking wine, there are a load of reunions, and loads of things. It is very American television, like they just hoy all of these bits in where plots are resolved and it is satisfying for the nerd, but because they are wrapping it all up it becomes meaningless.
Here is a classic example, my mancrush (hah! mancrush how 2014! omg TMI!) Ser John Mormont is a grizzled old knight who disgraced himself and had this whole arc of finding redemption and he fell in love with Khaleesi and found a resolution between his better and worse nature and a reason to come home for this actual godess who he fell in love with and then loved as a queen, and then he did return home to fight for an unquestionable cause.
And then Jon Snow’s best friend Sam Tarley who is kind of the opposite who is this eternal innocent who we have found out is not stupid but chooses to be innocent because he has access to what the other knights covet and wants none of it, he is determined to fight, but he is rubbish at fighting, so he gives his fathers sword to Ser John, that’s an amazing story, but that’s just another thing that happened. It’s like why a film of a book would be 10 hours long and shit.
Ok yes, so what happens?
The beginning of the episode Jaimie Lannister shows up, they question if they can trust him, they trust him. That’s resolved.
Oh loads of stuff happens.
They sit at the fire. All of the characters make a cameo.
A nerd observation
Ok because I won’t write about this again and nobody will read it anyway. But I am very nerdy even though I’m not that good at this stuff (I’m good at things, don’t worry about me pal lol)
But because I like strategy computer games, I was really annoyed about the battle in the next episode. I don’t know how they could have made a film about it, but I think that they actually could have won the battle with conventional means against an army of zombies.
Have the cavalry picking them off at the edges, use the artillery and infantry keep them out of the castle, they didn’t really have that many good soldiers, just an endless supply of rubbish soldiers and about 10 of the warriors. And Arya just wiped out the top one pretty easily. Plus they had two dragons and the zombies only had one.
It would not have been fun, this is actually getting me onto my main point about what is fundamentally different and wrong between the two.
I’m onto something here lads!
So in Season 4, it’s already really big, definitely one of the big TV shows, but they are bringing you along with them. This is a fucking stupid show about kings and dragons. A bit I didn’t even mention because I just remembered it was that Khaleesi is sitting in a pyramid and a farmer turns up and supplicates and tells her that her dragon ate her son, this is a novel by some guy who is too nerdy for me with a US budget.
But then Season 8 it’s going to them. It’s not that far from a clip show.
This is the big point and the clever thing, the reason that Game of Thrones worked was because it was dark and deep political intrigue, and that nut GRR Martin wrote a really stupid version of Lord of the Rings, but with zombies and aliens.
Then it turned into a TV show.
But why can’t we have TV shows? There was this stuff like The Wire and The Sopranos, also really misanthropic and dark. I know that it’s not for everyone, it’s a privilege when it turns up.
And it’s not even misanthropic and dark, it’s just weird I guess. There is this thing that has always annoyed me. Like I get into something and then people turn up and it’s over. I’m from the countryside and late to everything, so I turn up, then my mates turn up, and it’s rubbish.
But like with Game of Thrones, or China lol. I will go there all weird and down on my luck, and they are so happy, then all of the cool people turn up, and they are better than me and I’m not allowed to go anymore
I know, boohoo. But at a point, it’s like, well why don’t you let me stay there? Why are you here when I left because of you?
Well because I left because of me
I’m sure that there is a point in there. I’m drunk, but it’s not an entirely facile point, I’ll get into it more.
What have we learned?
I honestly have no idea. I drank beer while writing this and wrote way too much and tired my poor brain.
One thing that annoyed me about the battle at Winterfell and what happened in all of the battles at a point was that people just stopped dying. Like Jon Snow was the true king, but he got murdered a bunch of times and would have died.
To be super nerdy, they could have maybe beaten the zombie army since they had a couple of elite western armies and a couple of elite Essos armies. The Ghenghis Khan guys would have been able to just easily ride around the zombies and get food to supply the castle, the Unsullied troops could kill 1000s of zombies without a scratch. The Northern and barbarian armies could defend the castle. The zombie god guys had a dragon and some good weapons but they were not that good at fighting because they hadn’t met anyone with dragonglass for hundreds of years.
The whole thing was stupid
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