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GAME OF THRONES


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Hey Gloin did you do these for seasons 1-3 as well? I couldn't find them if you did.

Here's how the different storylines are apportioned in Season 4. There's a bit of overlapping here and there but nothing that makes much of a difference. I've separately rounded off the running times (to the nearest five minutes) and the percentages (to the nearest whole number).

  • King's Landing: 175 mins (34%)
  • The Wall and the Night's Watch: 110 mins (21%)
  • Daenerys: 55 mins (10%)
  • Arya: 45 mins (8%)
  • Sansa with Littlefinger: 35 mins (7%)
  • Bran: 30 mins (6%)
  • Reek and the Boltons: 25 mins (5%)
  • Stannis and Melisandre: 25 mins (5%)
  • Brienne and Pod's Journey: 20 mins (3%)

As with the last two seasons, I've kept track of the amount of time spent on each thread of the story. This one was the easiest to split up: there are four major blocks - The Wall (and beyond), the North, King's Landing and Meereen - each of which gets a standard feature film's worth of time, and three minor ones (Braavos, Dorne and Tyrion's journey) with about half as much time each.

Stannis's storyline is the only major thread to bridge two different blocks, being at the Wall for the first five episodes and then passing into the North. Tyrion's storyline joins the Meereen one from his arrival at the lower fighting pit. If we were to regard Tyrion's journey as part of the same thread as Meereen, it would bump that up to the largest of the four major blocks rather than the smallest. Times are rounded off to the nearest five minutes.

Season 5

  • The Wall: 115 mins (22%)
  • The North: 105 mins (20%)
  • King's Landing: 95 mins (18%)
  • Meereen: 85 mins (16%)
  • Braavos: 50 mins (9%)
  • Dorne: 40 mins (8%)
  • Tyrion's Journey: 40 mins (8%)
I'd guess that the fact that the time is distributed fairly evenly among the four major blocks is a factor contributing to the sense of having too many climaxes too close together that many people have expressed for this season...

Also, I dunno if its fair to combine all the Winterfell/Bolton/Sansa stuff with the Stannis stuff and just group it as North. The storylines have nothing to do with each other until the final episode.

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That's a different kind of slow burn. I never got the feeling watching True Detective, or Saul earlier this year, that it wasnt going to go somewhere. It was slow, but steady....

The writing and characterisation in True Detective are on another level of sophistication to Game of Thrones. I'd never compare them.

Plus there isn't an army of characters in that show. Entirely different approach in the storytelling as well.

Yes, that's fair. Game of Thrones could easily have been awful.

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I did Season 3 a couple of months ago; here were the results:

Season 3

  • King's Landing: 130 mins (26%)
  • Robb and Catelyn: 55 mins (11%)
  • Daenerys: 55 mins (11%)
  • Stannis and Melisandre: 45 mins (9%)
  • Jaime and Brienne: 45 mins (9%)
  • Jon Snow: 45 mins (9%)
  • Arya: 40 mins (8%)
  • Sam and the Night's Watch: 35 mins (7%)
  • Theon: 30 mins (6%)
  • Bran: 25 mins (5%)

I might do the same with Season 2 some time; it has a slightly more awkward web of storylines, but I think they could be divided up in a way that makes sense. With Season 1, on the other hand, the web is so complex that I'm not sure whether there is any meaningful way to divide it up.

Also, I dunno if its fair to combine all the Winterfell/Bolton/Sansa stuff with the Stannis stuff and just group it as North. The storylines have nothing to do with each other until the final episode.

Yeah, I take the point. Stannis's journey from Castle Black to Winterfell could be taken as a separate bridging thread. I find the four block structure a more satisfying way to view the overall form of the season, personally, without trying to extricate the Stannis stuff from either the Wall portion or the North portion. As far as screen time is concerned, it's approximately as follows for Stannis (and his entourage):

  • Stannis at the Wall: 35 mins (6%)
  • Stannis in the North: 25 mins (5%)
  • Stannis Total: 60 mins (11%)
There's about about five minutes of time where the Stannis and Winterfell segments overlap.
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Good point about the earlier seasons being more intertwined and less separate-out-able.

It really was a later season idea to start taking characters and pairing them up and sending them off on their own adventures for long periods of time.

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That's a different kind of slow burn. I never got the feeling watching True Detective, or Saul earlier this year, that it wasnt going to go somewhere. It was slow, but steady....

The writing and characterisation in True Detective are on another level of sophistication to Game of Thrones. I'd never compare them.

Plus there isn't an army of characters in that show. Entirely different approach in the storytelling as well.

Yes, that's fair. Game of Thrones could easily have been awful.

Yes but couldn't you tell that story effectively in two-three hours? Does it need to be so long?

I appreciate the shows' production values, performances, characterisation, themes it tackles... But I also feel it can be extremely self-indulgent. It's not quite as profound as it tries to portray itself to be.

The otherwordly and visually striking final episode was quite something, though.

Karol

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Well, this made me laugh: A Complete Analysis of the Upcoming Siege of Winterfell

Especially considering how the "siege" turned out in the end...

Well he's writing about the books, right? The book version might be superbly more elaborate.

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I thought I rememebered reading once that the plan was for act 2 of his overall story to end with 2 big battles - The Battle of Winterfell and The Battle of Slaver's Bay - and fans were surprised that Book 5 ended without either happening yet

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I'm made up with how the siege at Winterfell was shown on screen.

1. I was already battle fatigued this season.

2. It made Stannis look like the hapless tit he was.

3. What little we did see prior to the massacre was shot in a very comical fashion. I laughed out loud.

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Before catching up on your posts...

I was quite dumbfounded, slack-jawed and speechless (but no one to spak to, anyway) for a few moments after the last 2 minutes of the season finale.

Wow.

What an end to the season and to a good guy!

Stunning.

Gee.


I think Melisandre will revive Jon Snow somehow. Did Theon and Sansa jump into a big snow pile or something? Why didn't Arya kill the other guy AND the guy on her list? What was that ring Daenerys took off her finger? Why hasn't Jorah's stone-man condition been referenced in 2-3 episodes now?

What a cop-out to not actually show the Battle of Winterfell. I told ya'll it would happen!

I very much doubt it.

Pretty obvious that Melisandre will be bringing Jon back. Knew he was the one she was after, not Stannis. Poor Stannis.

You too?

I still don't think so, though resurrecting someone could be a surprise now we're used to losing nice people for good.
However, I think her vision of Bolton burning was correct, but it was not supposed to happen right then and she made the mistake of believing it was a vision of the near future rather than of, say, season 6.

I have the feeling that the story (in both the book and the TV show) has too much invested in the character and backstory of Jon Snow to throw it away at this time.

Also, Sam told us a few episodes ago that Jon "always comes back", an obvious in-joke between the writers and those viewers who knew what was coming. How the production team handles the aftermath, before the next installment, is going to be as interesting as the actual story!

An interesting theory.

Ho, here's some cool theories about what might happen to Jon Snow now

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/14/game-of-thrones-finale-jon-snow-dead_n_7557158.html?143433fs850&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000024

I think the most interesting one is that he wargs into Ghost, the Night's Watch burn his body, but being a Targaeryn the body is reborn and he returns to it from Ghost....

Intriguing.

Why didn't Arya kill the other guy AND the guy on her list?

No idea, but I'm seizing the opportunity to say how cool I found the face-peeling; so that's how they do it, exactly.

And now-- who is the real Jacqan? Is there (still) one actually? And how many copies of one face can there be? There seems to be only one, based on the one Arya used (or maybe she did not quite know how to take just one). Or maybe the second Jaqan was the real one-- but then, how could his face end up in the collection? Don't they come exclusively from dead persons? It's quite possible, though, that this is the last stage in become no one: giving your face.

What was that ring Daenerys took off her finger?

I suppose this has been answered already; but I wondered, too; probably the local equivalent of the crown-- she has never worn one.

Shouldn't she be recognizable enough anyway? Surely people all around, like those horsemen, have heard of her and know what she looks like; there don't seem to be many white-blond-haired girls like her in the vicinity.

Now that I have read on, it would seem the riders are Dothraki and the ring was given to her by her Dothraki husband, or maybe her Meereenese fiance (I'm not sure they had been amrried yet); thanks!

Some shots clearly show the head of Lena Heady CGI's on some woman's body. I can't blame the actress for not wanting to do that scene in the nude herself.

I didn't spot any such thing, and I might have missed it, but I doubt it because there were reports during filming of a problem with the local government because Lena Headey was to walk through the streets in the nude. The report might be incorrect (mixing up the character and the actress), but I do think it was her.

In any case, I felt the scene was effective.

I don't remember any quotations now, but I liked the scene with Tyrion, Jorah and the sellsword guy in the throne room.

Bloodboal: good points on the never-to-be-developed possible consequences of Shireen's sacrifice; word may leak to Davos, though, who is now free to turn against Melisandre when he learns she had the little princess sacrificed-- right now, he doesn't not have a reason to pounce on her as you expected, other than half the army being dead, which he can blame on Stanis' not listening to him; therefore, right now, he may be more disappointed with Stannis (and have expected such an ending;he did find it odd he was asked to act as a mere Messenger boy) than furious against Melisandre.

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It is nice Jon took a quick shave (really made him look younger) before meeting his uncle Benjen. ;)

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I knew there was no way they were going to have Stannis back

All the others were obvious


It's noted that they don't bring Jon Snow up


~

What We Can Expect from Game of Thrones Season 6

Creators Weiss and Benioff say the ring Dany dropped in this final scene was a breadcrumb so anyone following could track her.

Well, there you go.

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Ah they are going for the Lord of the Rings/Aragorn level of tracking skill with Jorah and Daario then.

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Very much so.

Not idly do the leaves of Deanerys fall!

My mind went straight to the scene where the three hunters were surrounded by the Rohirrim in TTT when those Dothraki started to circle Dany. :)

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Interesting article here

WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE BOOK THAT MIGHT BE ON THE SHOW, AND SPECULATION BASED ON SOMETHING ON THE SHOW THAT COULD SPOIL A FUTURE BOOK

This article seems to think the show will not include the Aegon subplot at all, because he'll be revealed to be an impostor in the next book

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Ahh, that would explain a lot. I just thought the writers cut that out to trim the fat. But I would prefer this theory to the alternative.

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Some shots clearly show the head of Lena Heady CGI's on some woman's body. I can't blame the actress for not wanting to do that scene in the nude herself.

Wrong.

She actually did the nude scene herself. It caused a bit of a stir when they were filming, because they were doing it on sacred grounds and they had to pay a handsome sum to keep it all secret.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2782295/Game-Thrones-bosses-burn-200-000-trying-Lena-Headey-s-naked-body-wraps.html

1412350437030_Image_galleryImage_Filming

And I found the scene satisfyingly effective. It's a huge moment in the book, and any less screentime just would not have done it justice. GoT usually aces big setpieces like this and this is no exception.

I could have done without the scheming revenge moment with the undead-Mountain though.

I'm sure this has been addressed since that message, but still, here are two links:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3125348/Lena-Headey-used-body-double-brutal-nude-walk-shame-Game-Thrones-season-finale.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3125348/Lena-Headey-used-body-double-brutal-nude-walk-shame-Game-Thrones-season-finale.html

So in the end everybody was partly right: Lena Headey did shoot some of the sequence in the nude or at least topless or from certain angles, and a body double was used to complete it.

I'm surprised I didn't notice such poor CGIed heads as shown in the articles, which Stefancos had mentioned; I must have been focusing on something else-- and no, not necessarily just the body, because it was quite an impactful scene. Even having seen 300 did not help--and it was so long ago she might have changed.

This makes me think of another scene with nudity: the one with the pretty viper girl teasing Bronn with her gorgeous body.

This led to nothing much as regards Bronn, since she gave him the antidote right after the poison took effect, there do not seem to be any sequels, and they are now separated.

Unless this was meant to set up something between them in the long run (which is still quite possible), was the point (at least in the short run) to introduce the idea that those girls and their mother use poison, before the latter killed Jaime's daughter/niece with a poisoned kiss?

If so, that was not necessary, we could understand it without it-- but thanks for the nice shots, cute viper girl. ;)

Game of Thrones: Is This Really the Last We’ll See of Jon Snow?

Interesting article, which starts off quite similar to the article LeBlanc posted on the previous page about the various theories regarding how Jon could come back, but then it goes into detail about some stuff that wasn't mentioned in LeBlanc's article (from "What Do You Mean She Needs a New Messiah?" onward).

Wow, really cool article! Lot's of VERY interesting theories in there!

This whole rebirth of Azor Ahai stuff is actually really neat and I hope the show talks about it more! Actually, I suppose this could be the kind of thing Sam will go discover while studying to be a maester?

That's a problem in the series: I cannot remember such a thing; unless you have read the books or watched the episodes several times or read a lot about either or both, how are you supposed to know or remember such things if they are only mentioned once and never referred to for several seasons, and thus several years?

[in reply to Daenerys' brutally cancelled planned marriage]

I know, but all of its isnt gonna happen. So it was just a bunch of dead air.

It reminds me of the previous season where Roose Bolton sends one of his men (the one that cut off Jaime's hand) to Castle Black to spy on Jon Snow. That's a potentially interesting storylines. But the guy gets killed as Crasters Keep an episode or two later so absolutely nothing is done with thats toryline. It's completely useless.

It's that kind of writing that will make sure GOT will never become true Golden Age TV.

It's a realistic angle: things don't always go as planned; the point is to add to the characterization and set up a bit of suspense for a while.

The real issue is the one I have just addressed: while such things as you mentioned are dealt with quickly enough so that you remember some détails, other, more important ones, are left for you to remember, like the cousin servant that Cersei slept with at the very beginning of the show; four years later, she pays for this and we're supposed to recall that rather insignificant character at once when he is shown to have joined the Sparrows religious order and Littlefinger meets him.

Even though it adapting those books into a series of ten-episode seasons is a huge undertaking, they have had the advantage of several books of material (as opposed to groping in the dark), months of planning ahead to produce short seasons and the relative certainty of being renewed each time.

Under such conditions, one might indeed expect a bit more care from an army of producers and writers in plotting out their course, so as not to drop some plots and characters for a long time while spending an awful lot of time to achieve nothing much.

Are they overwhelmed by the quantity and the complexity? Do they have a poor continuity supervising team?

They do take care to develop things (like Daenerys learning the difficulties of ruling, or some character arcs), but there's also much plodding about, which is not even necessary here to convey the idea of time passing.

I liked your summary of the evolution of Tyrion's arc this season, Stefancos. Funny.

The sad thing is that now, instead of Daenerys & Tyrion plus Varys, we'll have a full season of Daenerys elsewhere, which means a lot of exposition on her side, politics on Tyrion's, and a possible reunion at the end only.

I had failed

Wandering the Riverlands somewhere

A better question is why did Ghost show up to stop Gilly from being raped, but not Jon from being killed?

I wondered to, but assumed it was chained or had been killed; surely they would not make the mistake of attacking Jon without taking care of his direwolf.

Unrelated: the dragon was splendidly done!

You know, when the series is over, I'd love for a fan to do an edit of the show combining all the footage from each storyline. That'd be interesting to see for example all the Wall footage with no cut to other storylines. That way, you have little to no idea about what's happening in other places in Westeros, just like the characters (you learn everything via other characters visiting the Wall, etc.). Could be really interesting.

Indeed!

Creators Weiss and Benioff say the ring Dany dropped in this final scene was a breadcrumb so anyone following could track her.

Hm.

Right.

I'm pretty sure anyone who manages to track her to that point in the mountains that she reached, flying dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of miles on a dragon, leaving not a single track on land, won't need a ring (they would have to find in all that grass-- but then they've found the place, so why not the ring) to know she's been there.

Thanks to all for the links and explanations throughout the thread!

:)

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Interesting article here

WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE BOOK THAT MIGHT BE ON THE SHOW, AND SPECULATION BASED ON SOMETHING ON THE SHOW THAT COULD SPOIL A FUTURE BOOK

This article seems to think the show will not include the Aegon subplot at all, because he'll be revealed to be an impostor in the next book

Young Griff is most often referred to as "fAegon" by the online

ASoIaF community, so it's already a pretty common belief that he's a fake. He's thought to be inspired by the story of Perkin Warbeck, who showed up in England in the 1490s claiming to be one of the "Princes in the Tower" who were supposedly murdered as children by Richard III.

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The music has been bland as usual but had some occasionally decent stuff. Daenerys' material gets the best workout. The arena sequence from episode 9 and Arya's Faceless God scenes feature the most interesting bits.

Speaking of which, what a fantastic scene. Maybe that's why I can tolerate the music here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ-LIOFXzgM

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I'm not saying it's good music! Just that those bits are better than the endless droning in the rest of the score!

And the music works dramatically in that arena scene!

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The music for the mysterious Arya stuff has been interesting.

The Walker motif is probably going to remain the best thing Djawadi came up with for this show.

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