Game of Thrones Season 4 [Spoilers]

[Agitel]

Yes, Payne's actor is indisposed. Using Bronn allows them to keep the actor on screen instead of only getting namedropped. I bet Bronn will travel with Jamie in Payne's place.

[Agitel]

I'm so not pleased with Jamie and Cersei's scene.

 

 

 

 

[Nolder]

I'm so not pleased with Jamie and Cersei's scene.

I don't really recall how it went in the books but...was it that rapey?

 

Also I will never look at a boiled potato the same way again.

[SinisterDeath]

 

I'm so not pleased with Jamie and Cersei's scene.

I don't really recall how it went in the books but...was it that rapey?

 

Also I will never look at a boiled potato the same way again.

 

I think it was actually. Well.. kinda. I guess its all in how you read that passage. Cercsei's just generally unpleasant, so its possible we didn't read it that way at all.

[Songstress]

The book scene started out with Cersei saying no and trying to push Jaime away, apparently concerned about the potential for being walked in on, and the inappropriate place and time. Jaime was not deterred, and by the end of the scene Cersei was clearly into it...

 

Of course in the book version this was the first time they'd seen each other since he left Kings Landing to go to war in the Riverlands... and after this scene is when he decides to decline his father's demand to leave the Kingsguard and take his place as the Lannister heir. Then Cersei gets pissed off because he refuses to have sex with her at the Kingsguard headquarters.

 

Making the show version a less consensual scene probably will be the reason for the final split between the two. The dynamic was always going to be different because the show chose to bring Jaime back before Joff's wedding, and have Cersei reject his advances then.

 

It certainly deals a blow to the "unsullied" show only fans finding Jaime a sympathetic character but I'm interested to see where this change leads.

[Red2111]

omg tress did you just call the non book readers "unsullied"  <3

 

 

yeah a few things i didn't like about tonights episode.

 

1st was the Jamie scene  >:(  it seems like HBO is going out of their way to make Cersi sympathetic and Jamie into a grade A arse.  its the other way around you iggots @ HBO.

 

2nd - wtf was up with giving Gilly's kid a name?!  i mean he ends up being killed anyways, so whats the point?

 

 

the rest of the episode was great though.  i cant recall though, what happens to Pods character?

[MasterAblar]

 

 

the rest of the episode was great though.  i cant recall though, what happens to Pods character?

 

He joins up with Brienne.

 

 

 

 

I'm so not pleased with Jamie and Cersei's scene.

I don't really recall how it went in the books but...was it that rapey?

 

Also I will never look at a boiled potato the same way again.

 

I think it was actually. Well.. kinda. I guess its all in how you read that passage. Cercsei's just generally unpleasant, so its possible we didn't read it that way at all.

 

 

 

It definitely wasn't as evidently unconsensual and brutal in the book, and Cercsei words afterwards indicate that while she didn't think that it was a very smart idea, she didn't consider it to be rape. I didn't care for the change. While Jaime is no saint, he's not a rapist least of all where his sister is concerned.

[Songstress]

omg tress did you just call the non book readers "unsullied" <3

 

I believe that was coined on the Television Without Pity GoT board, and has carried over to most other websites that discuss the show like Winter is Coming. It's a great appellation.

[Agitel]

Gilly's kid isn't killed in the books!

[Red2111]

yes it is.  they switch her kid with Mance Riders kid and the Red Lady sacrifices Gilly's kid to the Red god while Gilly and Sam take Mances kid to the south.

 

the Red Lady needed kings blood for her fires, Mance was "King Beyond the wall" therefore his wildling babe was ripe for the picking.  thsi is where she realizes the Jon is the reborn dude, not Stannis and starts being all up Jons butt.

[Songstress]

yes it is.  they switch her kid with Mance Riders kid and the Red Lady sacrifices Gilly's kid to the Red god while Gilly and Sam take Mances kid to the south.

 

the Red Lady needed kings blood for her fires, Mance was "King Beyond the wall" therefore his wildling babe was ripe for the picking.  thsi is where she realizes the Jon is the reborn dude, not Stannis and starts being all up Jons butt.

 

Nowhere in the books so far has Melisandre sacrificed the baby.

[Nolder]

Yeah I don't remember that happening either.

 

I remember a switch but I don't recall the actual sacrifice happening.

[Red2111]

i recall it being heavily implied that she did.  after all the entire reason for her swapping them was because she wanted to sacrifice Mance's kid.

 

 

the Red Lady has the vision in the flames tell her Jon is the reincarnation of whats-his-nuts and not Stannis after Gilly and Same are gone, but before Jon goes all Ceasar style.  and we never saw the babe after the switch either.

 

i always took those events to mean that the baby was barbaque 

[Songstress]

i recall it being heavily implied that she did.  after all the entire reason for her swapping them was because she wanted to sacrifice Mance's kid.

 

 

the Red Lady has the vision in the flames tell her Jon is the reincarnation of whats-his-nuts and not Stannis after Gilly and Same are gone, but before Jon goes all Ceasar style.  and we never saw the babe after the switch either.

 

i always took those events to mean that the baby was barbaque 

 

The baby was discussed well after Sam and Gilly leave - Dalla's sister Val watches over him, and calls him "Monster"...

 

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Monster

 

The last time he's mentioned specifically is in Chapter 49 (Jon) when Val was demanding that the baby and his wet nurses be moved out of the same tower as Shireen because of the greyscale.

[Songstress]

Quote from George R.R. Martin about the Jaime/Cersei rape scene (source):

 

 

 

“I think the “butterfly effect” that I have spoken of so often was at work here. In the novels, Jaime is not present at Joffrey’s death, and indeed, Cersei has been fearful that he is dead himself, that she has lost both the son and the father/ lover/ brother. And then suddenly Jaime is there before her. Maimed and changed, but Jaime nonetheless. Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her.

The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other’s company on numerous occasions, often quarreling. The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why Dan & David played the sept out differently. But that’s just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection.

Also, I was writing the scene from Jaime’s POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts. On the TV show, the camera is necessarily external. You don’t know what anyone is thinking or feeling, just what they are saying and doing.

If the show had retained some of Cersei’s dialogue from the books, it might have left a somewhat different impression — but that dialogue was very much shaped by the circumstances of the books, delivered by a woman who is seeing her lover again for the first time after a long while apart during which she feared he was dead. I am not sure it would have worked with the new timeline.

That’s really all I can say on this issue. The scene was always intended to be disturbing… but I do regret if it has disturbed people for the wrong reasons.”

[Nolder]

I don't care so much that it was rapey (you see enough of that in shows like L&O:SVU) but it's really going to change show only watchers perception of Jaime.

At this point most people are supposed to see him in a new light and sorta kinda start to maybe like that. Any redemption Jaime normally would have had at this point has been crushed.

[MasterAblar]

Exactly. Jaime is no saint but he never would have done that, least of all to Cersei.

[Songstress]

Interesting analysis of the rape scene by Elio Garcia at Westeros.org - who I'd have expected to be one of the most vocal critics of the changes to the scene, but he doesn't appear to see it quite as clear-cut as most do (source): 
 

If we had to estimate what scene most people would hate the most, it would have to be the scene following from Tywin’s lecture to Tommen, as he begins to insinuate himself on the new king, and in so doing drove a kind of stake through Cersei’s heart as he belittles her dead son and leads away the living one. It’s a moment of great vulnerability for Cersei, which is at is should be. Headey conveys Cersei’s grief and loss with a sensitivity that’s affecting and believable. So, too, is the way the poison comes out against Tyrion, demanding his death, trying to convince Jaime to do it. Jaime resists it, loving his brother too much, uncertain of the truth of the accusations aimed at Tyrion, the bonds of brotherhood seeming stronger than the bonds of lovers… but it’s that status as lover where the scene takes its turn to something all together darker and harder to easily define and interpret. For some, the simple question will be, “Did Jaime just rape Cersei?” For a few, it won’t even be a question, it will be obvious one way or another. But it seems clear that what the writers aimed for was ambiguity, an ambiguity that serves to remind viewers that however Jaime and Cersei interact, the romantic and sexual component of that relationship is perverse, and even dangerous.

One can notice how it’s Cersei, not Jaime, who first turns the scene towards the romantic, with her kiss… but that’s followed by her pulling away. It seems essential that she turns back to her son, body language suggesting withdrawal from Jaime, perhaps regret for doing such a thing in front of her dead son, or disgust at the reminder of the loss of Jaime’s hand. But is she also looking side-long at Jaime, trying to judge if the promise and than the withdrawal of sexual access might make him budge on Tyrion’s fate? Certainly, it seems to be the only way to read Jaime’s response after a long, fierce consideration: “You are a hateful woman.” It seems he feels manipulated or slighted, and decides to have none of it, and to take what he wants. When he grabs her and turns her to him, the camera frames the body lying there behind them, the focus changing from foreground to background to leave us in no doubt of the very real presence of the still corpse of Joffrey Baratheon. It makes what follows seem all the more grotesque, and it’d be simple to then read everything else that follows as a sordid rape.

But the camera chooses to frame—or not frame—other things as well, things that suggest that these lovers, lovers for more than two decades (nearer, one supposes, to three decades on the show), may be familiar enough with one another to read signs we as viewers can’t so readily see. Because while Cersei protests, for a moment we see her actively kissing back as they slide down to their knees, even as the treacherous camera slides further downward to obscure that instant of suggestive agency and instead shows us fumbling hands obscured by voluminous clothing, hands which tear at her clothes… and at his? Staring at it, trying to decipher the choreography, I’d offer a tentative yes: she’s participating actively, but her own desires are fighting with her sense of being overwhelmed physically and emotionally. The final shot of the scene, as Jaime moves on top of her, seems emphasize it: her plaintive cries that it’s not right are matched to the classic iconography of passionate abandon, a hand clenched around cloth (a funerary cloth, however, not bedclothes; a last reminder of where the scene takes place.)

It’s certainly a very different approach to a similar sequence in the novel, and it’s one that highlights—in a particularly uncomfortable fashion—the way that the Cersei of the show is unlike the Cersei in the novel. The move to a chillier Cersei, one who burns less brightly, whose passions and hatreds are more restrained, seems to be matched to a reduction in her sexual agency, a distancing from her sexual desire. The Cersei of the novel felt it was wrong and protested at first, and then abandoned herself to it, encouraged it; she clearly made a choice. This Cersei seems far less capable of choosing what she wants, of firmly saying no or yes, and if it’s more “yes” than “no”, only she and Jaime really know. It’s more complicated in that it’s more confused, but it leaves the character feeling weaker and less in control, less of a participant and more of a person acted upon. It’s not a change we’re particularly comfortable with, but at least it seems consistent with the general changes they’ve made to her character to date, so there’s that.

[Red2111]

*nods*  very good interpretation and spot on.

 

 

liek i said from season 1, when HBO selectively changed how Cersi presented the abortion she had with Roberts kid to Cat.  they're making her character more sympathetic in the show, and that is really the only complaint i've had with the show.  the reast of the slight changes or additions have been good because they kept true to the story ....  but the hatred the reasder feels for Cersi and the change of opinion that readers coem to get for Jamie is one of the better points of the books. 

 

i absolutely love how GRRM was able to make us start off hating Jamie, then end with us loving his character and even rooting for him.  i mean, even as much as we all hated Joff, we still hated Cersi more becuase we knew that as much as a monster Joff was, part of his montrosity was Cersi's doing.

 

the show is denying the ability for a wonderful central villian to take shape, and its a pity given that she's one of the last truely hated characters left in the series

[michellem]

Well, I had a talk with my husband about it, who hasn't read the books. I asked how he felt about Jaime after that scene, and he said no different.

 

I really agree with the viewpoints Tress quoted.

 

 

I had to roll my eyes a little at Dany's scenes though. Fine, they aimed the things they shot high, but there was still a chance slaves would be hurt by them. Overly dramatic and very effective in sending a message, but still a very real risk of damaging the people you are trying to save. I do love listening to her talking High Valeryian though. It's soo beautiful.

[asha'he-man]

Well, I guess it finally happened. The show has "spoiled" something that has not happened in the books yet...

[Tsukibana]

I assume you refer to the last scene?

[Nolder]

I really liked the scene between Jaime and Tyrion.

 

Also that last scene whoa.

[asha'he-man]

I assume you refer to the last scene?

 

Yeah

[Red2111]

wtf man.  wtf