When a TV Show Gives Characters More Depth than the Original Books: Game of Thrones’ Margaery Tyrell and Jaime Lannister

Posted on April 19, 2013 by wellsdc

I vowed last year that I would stop comparing the HBO series Game of Thrones to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, in part because it becomes more and more difficult to hold a story told in the television format to the story found in a (so-far) five-volume, 3,000+ page series of novels. Also, the TV series deserves to be judged on its own merits, not just for its fealty to its source material. That said, the first few episodes gave depth to two characters that, to the best of my recollection, was missing in the books.

SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to talk about things that have happened so far on season 3 of Game of Thrones, some of which also happened in the book A Storm of Swords (book 3 in the ongoing series). This will, of course, draw on things in the first two seasons and first two books. I am still only halfway through book 5, A Dance With Dragons, so if something I say here contradicts something I haven’t read yet, shut up. I’ll finish the book, really.

-Margaery-Tyrell-margaery-tyrell-32848038-500-600

Via fanpop.com

Margaery Tyrell: The books are told in third-person, but each chapter is from the point of view of a specific character. You therefore see certain events from a specific character’s perspective. The death of Ned Stark, for example, was seen through Arya Stark’s eyes in the book, and we learn about Sansa Stark’s experience later. At no point so far have we seen anything from the point of view of any of the Tyrells. Most of what we have seen of Margaery Tyrell is through the eyes of Sansa and Cersei. Cersei is obviously a less-than-reliable judge of Margaery’s character, but the fact that Cersei hates her is a mark in Margaery’s favor. It is therefore fascinating to see how the show develops her.

We know from an exchange with Littlefinger in season 2 that Margaery is ambitious (“You want to be a queen.” “No, I want to be the Queen.”) Now we get to see her schemes firsthand. Natalie Dormer plays the role with both hypnotic beauty and a very subtle cunning (which might be redundant.) She is genuinely kind to the orphan children, even if we know she has an agenda. That scene was a brilliant foil to Joffrey’s character, who refused to get out of his litter lest the common people try to hurt him. Joffrey expects the people to follow and obey him because they have to, because he is their king, end of story. Margaery knows that she must earn their trust and their love, and that this will bring their obedience. The books only show this through Cersei’s horrified eyes. Continue reading →

SXSW 2013 Diary, Day 1 (March 8, 2013)

Posted on March 9, 2013 by wellsdc

I’m going to be honest here: I’m not really feeling it this year. I suspect that is approximately 100% due to the fact that I moved into a new house at the beginning of this week, and am experiencing the associated anxiety and odd depression that always seems to come with that. Don’t get me wrong, I love our new house. It’s just that I also sort of hate it at the moment.

It was in the midst of this chaos that I embarked on my second year as a badge holder at SXSW Interactive. Once again, I don’t really have a clear notion of my goals, other than to meet people, learn more about tech, blogging, and social media, and just be around talented, interesting, and occasionally self-important people. I’m sucking at the “meeting people” part so far, but being at the Austin Convention Center in a relatively festive atmosphere is a welcome reprieve from a week spent mediating between furniture deliveries, movers, and contactors. (Also, the purchase of a house with enough repair needs to quickly burn through most of our money, but let’s not go there just now.)

I took the Capital Metro rail for the first time, parking where I’m probably not supposed to park and riding the train to the final stop just outside the Convention Center. I don’t know if the train is usually that crowded, or if that is a SXSW effect, but it was a decent ride. It certainly beats trying to find parking downtown.

Since I don’t do much late-night partying anymore, I was able to arrive downtown at about 9:30, give or take, and it took a mere 5 minutes to get my badge. I remember last year needing about 20 minutes, but then seeing that the line had circumscribed the Convention Center later in the day. This would be an example of the hipness of being square – less time waiting in lines, or something.

I spent much of the morning catching up on work, and found the environment to be oddly conducive for work. Maybe there was some osmosis of creative power, or maybe I was just determined to finish so I could move on to fun things.

By the time I broke away from the siren call of legal-blogging-for-hire, I was not sure where I wanted to go. I considered catching a shuttle to a different venue for a panel on the business potential of animated GIFs, but ran into a friend who was going to a panel on disaster relief.

Disaster: The Future of Crisis Communications addressed how the Coast Guard has made use of social media and other technologies in disasters like Hurricanes Sandy and Irene. Very interesting stuff. Much of what they said seems obvious at first, but when you consider conditions after a disaster, you understand their importance, and how easy it might be to overlook them. In sufficiently serious crises, the very network we rely upon for information might be out of commission. How would we get information without our smartphones? Yes, many people still use things like radio or newspapers, but social media allows responders to get information out in, to use a cliché, real time.

Teaching Cheetahs: Disruptive Education in Africa was the only other panel I went to this day, partly because it sounded interesting, and partly because I didn’t have to change rooms. A group of panelists included two executives from a nonprofit that funds scholarships for top students from African to study at American universities, the founder of a Kenyan startup that provides tablets to students loaded with school curricula, and the director of an organziation that produces documentary videos highlighting educational needs. There was far more than I can justifiably summarize here, but the overall theme was “African solutions to African problems.” I just read an article the other day about well-intentioned but catastrophic efforts at aid to Africa, most of which amounted to dumping America’s leftovers in rural Africa rather than supporting infrastructure and education. It is also generally annoying that people in the U.S. often refer to “Africa” in a unitary sense, when in reality it is a continent with 54 countries (I think that’s the right number), about 1 billion people, and a wide diversity of culture, history, and language. It’s also more than twice the size of the U.S., so it’s big. Here are the organizations and companies represented, and I’d say they are worth checking out:

African Leadership Academy in South Africa
African Leadership Bridge in Austin, Texas
The Nobelity Project, also in Austin
eLimu, a startup based in Nairobi, Kenya

After that, I went home to assemble IKEA furniture.

Other highlights of the day included getting my picture taken in the Iron Throne…

…and also with Clifford the Big Red Dog…

There was also this odd display by 3M, which I call 3M’s 2D Hottie.

Finding archetypes where none exist: another mutilation of Game of Thrones

Posted on September 13, 2012 by wellsdc

Any discussion of the women of Game of Thrones that fails to mention Septa Mordane is wrong. Just plain old wrong.

I’m about to geek out on Game of Thrones again, fair warning. I will limit my discussion, as best I can, to the television show up to this point, but beware of spoilers.

Over on Huffington Post, Ann Marie Rasmussen decided to blow her nose on her keyboard and call it commentary on female archetypes in the Game of Thrones series. It is the sort of reasoned analysis that makes you suspect that she had never heard of the show, let alone the books, until a couple of hours before her deadline, and that she spent at least an hour of that time eating a sandwich.

She does an appreciable job of shoehorning some of the show’s female characters into some prefabricated fiction archetypes, although none of them quite seem like traditional “fantasy” archetypes: the Tomboy, the Princess, the Seductress, the Self-Made Woman, and the Good Wife. Wha?

Let’s start with the “Tomboy,” Arya Stark, or as Rasmussen calls her, “the little daughter with a boy’s haircut.” It is actually entirely incidental to Arya’s persona that she has a boy’s haircut. Yoren cut her hair so that the Lannisters wouldn’t find and decapitate her. Not very archetypal, I dare say. Arya’s tomboyishness is not so much an important part of the story as the trials she has to endure to survive. At any rate, Arya is not the bone I have to pick with Rasmussen. Let’s move on to Sansa Stark.

Sansa, of course, is the “Princess” archetype, but it is Rasmussen’s description of her that wakes my dragon: “Sansa Stark, sister to the Tomboy, is not too bright and is often punished for her vapid and romantic delusions.” No, just no. Yes, Sansa begins the series as the spoiled, petulant mean girl of the Stark family, but that just makes her struggle more tragic. She grew up believing in the tales of gallant knights and beautiful princesses, and the prospect of becoming queen was dangled right in front of her. Not only must she now endure beatings from the very knights she thought would protect her, but she had to watch as her prince ordered the execution of her father right in front of her. She is not being punished for being vapid. She is being punished by a psychopath with no checks on his power. She is not stupid. She is a survivor. She may be annoying to watch, but it is that veneer of helplessness that is keeping her alive. Do not mess with Sansa.

Continue reading →

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: Blackwater Keep on Rollin’

Posted on June 3, 2012 by wellsdc

"Tyrion Battlecry" by ~Kanish, on deviantART

To all who lament television’s sharp descent into unscripted hell, “Blackwater” reminded us of what the television medium can do. This was epic storytelling at its finest. Any deficiencies in settings or backdrop, such as the facts that the magnificent city of Qarth appears to be little more than a series of rooms, and Jon Snow’s trek in beyond the Wall seems to involve walking back and forth across a single span of glacier, have led to the spectacle of the Battle of the Blackwater.

Who is the “good guy” in this battle? The lack of an easy answer to that question is at the heart of the story’s genius. We like Tyrion and want him to succeed, but his success most likely means the Lannisters’ success. We don’t much care for Stannis Baratheon, but we like Davos Seaworth. Same problem. The closest thing to a “protagonist” army that we have are those of Robb Stark and Daenerys Targaryen, and we’re beginning to see that they aren’t much better than anyone else.

This episode focused exclusively on the events of a single night in King’s Landing, so we got to see much more development of individual characters than usual. Tyrion got one of the best Braveheart speeches in television history, and finally served as a heroic character rather than a comic one (see last season’s battle fought while Tyrion was unconscious, the only time the show has ever overtly resorted to “dwarf humor.”)

Sansa demonstrated her own strength and leadership when Cersei fled their hiding place with Tommen. Unfortunately, she may have lost the only two people who ever truly protected her in King’s Landing: Tyrion, who is now wounded, and the Hound, who is running away. Cersei at least understands the importance of keeping Sansa alive, but we know that she will not step up to protect Sansa if Joffrey threatens her. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: “I hope it’s a very beautiful bridge”

Posted on May 21, 2012 by wellsdc

This episode was really nothing but battle prep. The theme seemed to be “doing what must be done.”

Qhorin Halfhand, captive of the wildlings along with Jon Snow, told Jon explicitly that he must do what needs to be done. We don’t know exactly what that is yet (well, I think I do, but I’m not telling.)

Daenerys must go to the House of the Undying to save her dragons. This scene in the book was a twenty-page acid trip. I can’t wait.

Tyrion must mount a defense of King’s Landing, basically by himself. Everyone else is caught up in their own petty crap. Tyrion enjoys the “Game,” as does Tywin. Cersei and Jaime hate it. All three of Tywin’s children have relied on their family’s wealth all their lives, but Tyrion has had to develop the most skills in order to survive. Both Cersei and Jaime showed remarkable clumsiness–Jaime by haphazardly killing Stark men, and Cersei by threatening and hurting the wrong woman while trying to get at Tyrion. Tyrion’s only weakness is Shae. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

Posted on May 20, 2012 by wellsdc

NOTE: This is about the episode “A Man Without Honor,” which aired May 13. I’m just behind on my blogging.

I’m happy because Ygritte said her catchphrase.

As for spoilers, yes, there probably will be some.

I took my own advice from last week and put the books as far out of my mind as posible during this week’s episode. As I was watching the episode, I realized that, for the first time since the shpw premiered last year, I felt real dramatic tension. Previously, I felt tension from knowing what was going to happen but not knowing exactly how the producers would show it, or how the actors would convey it. Now, all bets are off, and it is awesome.

In that vein, I’m going to look at last night’s events in light of how they relate to other aspects of the show.

Arya/Tywin –> Arya/Ned

I am fascinated by the quasi father-daughter relationship building between Arya Stark and Tywin Lannister. Tywin is, in his own way, showing her a remarkable amount of warmth and kindness. I suspect he is playing his own game, as he clearly knows she is not who she claims to be. Perhaps he is keeping his enemies closer, but then again he is allowing her access to quite a bit of intel. Arya, of course, has no means to do anything with this intel (that she knows of.) Tywin, I think it is fair to say, values strength above all else. His own children, Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion, have their own kinds of strength. Tyrion is by far the most like his father, but neither of them would ever admit that. Arya is very much like Tyrion, a person born with traits that greatly disadvantage them in their world, but that also hide great reserves of strength and cunning. I wonder if Tywin Lannister sees in Arya the traits he does not want to see in Tyrion. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: I’ve been going about this all wrong, and I’m sorry

Posted on May 9, 2012 by wellsdc

This makes up for any shortcomings this show might ever have. Ever.

(At this point, I have no idea if this post will contain spoilers.)

I’ve been kind of a douche about this show, and for that I apologize. See, I have been watching this show with rapt attention, but also with my ass puckered up over its various divergences from the books, as if I could somehow control a scripted television show’s faithfulness to its source material through the sheer power of my sphincter.

Since last April, I have felt a compulsive need to compare the two media, in a very hipsteresque effort to prove my bona fides as an early-adopting Game of Thrones fan. I have little doubt that I have annoyed some people. When someone asks me where they are taking Arya and Gendry, all they really want to know is that it’s called Harrenhal, and it’s a big castle people think is haunted. They do not necessarily need to know why people think it is haunted, or that Harren completed it right before the invasion of Aegon the Conqueror, or any of the other random bits of trivia I could pull from my puckered behind.

I can thank Christina H. at Cracked, whose article “6 Common Movie Arguments That Are Always Wrong” addresses the common trope among fanboys that “it all makes sense if you read the comics.” Substitute “series of books” for “comics” and “television show” for “movie” and her analysis is spot-on:

The thing is, you shouldn’t have to do homework or required reading before seeing a movie in order to understand it. Movies are a story in a roughly two-hour package, and they have to use those two hours to let you know who’s who, what’s going on and why you should care. Even James Bond movies usually spend the first sequence showing you how good he is at killing people and how he always gets a free woman to sleep with afterward, for the two audience members unfamiliar with how James Bond works.

You’re supposed to relax and let the movie take you on a ride into its world. Movies are sold as an escape, not as another source of obligation. Can you imagine being asked to go see the latest Harry Potter movie and having to tell your friends, “Oh, I can’t. I’ve been trying really hard to cram for it, but I’ve still got 10 chapters to read. I’ve just been so busy this week …” and them shaking their heads in disappointment at you? Or watching Star Wars Episode II knowing you’ve not only wasted the two and a half hours watching the actual movie but the two weeks of studying the comics in preparation for it?
I can understand wanting to get further into the universe of some movie if you really enjoyed it, or being able to get more tidbits about your favorite character from additional stories, but it should be optional. You shouldn’t have to stare bewildered at some character exploding for no apparent reason as a penalty for not doing your homework.

Several people asked me, during the lead-up to “Game of Thrones” season 1, if I thought they should read the books before trying to watch the show. Of course, I think everyone should read the books because they are awesome, but consider this: a television show that requires you to read a 700+ page book in order to understand its first season would be a fucking terrible television show. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: “Anyone Can Be Killed”

Posted on April 30, 2012 by wellsdc

(Watch for spoilers, as always.)

Arya Stark: I think it is fair to say that there was enough badassery crammed into little Arya Stark tonight to create a quantum singularity in the middle of Harrenhal.

Apparently people are “shipping” her and Gendry. Arya is ten years old, maybe eleven. They aged the characters up for the TV show so they could show Daenerys naked, but that still makes Arya twelve at the oldest. Ew.

I hope they show more Jaqen. Pun retroactively intended.

Bronn: He has to be the most endearing sociopathic killer of all time. He and Tyrion are quite the a grim comedy duo.

Theon Greyjoy: They’re building this up quite nicely. (If you haven’t read the books, un-read that last sentence…)

Qarth: Judging from the map during the opening credits (which I didn’t really notice last week), Qarth is not quite where I thought it was. Not that I had much information to go on.

Doreah: In one of what is becoming more and more departures from the books, Doreah rather conspicuously did not die of dehydration in the Red Waste. Since she is both interesting and hot, I can’t blame the producers for keeping her around. It’s intriguing how Daenerys is consciously dispatching her as a sex spy.

Pyat Pree: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. That dude is creepier than I imagined. He clearly owes a bit to some other creepy scifi/horror icons.

Notice how he looks a bit like Rev. Kane from Poltergeist 2:

And the Gentlemen from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer:”

And, of course, Bob from “Twin Peaks:”

Good luck sleeping now…

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: I Can’t Believe They Went There

Posted on April 26, 2012 by wellsdc

This will be a quick one. It will almost certainly have spoilers.

Melisandre: For once, I wish they hadn’t stuck so close to the book. I know exactly what it is coming out of Melisandre’s nethers, and that still seriously freaked me out. I worry a bit that we will stay hung up on the fact that we just watched Melisandre birth a smoke monster, but for the love of the Seven, pay attention to what happens next.

Littlefinger: Seriously, that had to be the worst pick-up line ever. I think the Littlefinger/Catelyn Stark non-romantic subplot may put the lie to the Nice Guy(TM) theory like no other.

This is also yet another disappointingly-blunt statement from the famously-understated Littlefinger. I am concluding that his level of subterfuge and intrigue just doesn’t translate to the medium of television.

Robb Stark: I wasn’t sure where they were going with that encounter between Robb and the Volantene nurse (which was not in the book, BTW). She was awfully sassy for someone addressing a king. I think the scene showed two things: Robb is not the sort of king to take slights too personally, and Robb is not a hero to most of Westeros. His explanation of why it was necessary to maim that kid encompasses the absurdity of everything about his world.

Harrenhal: Yes, it’s a place, not a character. The audience doesn’t know very much about it, though. I feel like readers of the books have a major advantage here. It has to be hard to convey Harrenhal’s ignominious history through expository dialogue, but it seems like the screenwriters haven’t even tried yet. Maybe if some of Littlefinger’s hospitality consultants asked about Harrenhal’s history while naked, we might get to hear the story.

Also, I highly doubt that anyone much remembers the throwaway scene from last season when Ned Stark sent Beric Dondarrion to the Riverlands to bring the King’s justice to Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane. Without that information, Polliver’s gratuitously-cruel interrogations about the “Brotherhood” make no sense at all. Those of us who have read the book are feeling a strange sense of dramatic irony over those who haven’t.

Daenerys Targaryen: Qarth looks pretty. I’m glad that I finally know how to pronounce Xharo Xhoan Daxos’ name. I don’t remember exactly what his character does, but I like him so far. Just don’t get too attached to him or anyone else.

Tyrion: Stop being so freaking cool! Also, I don’t care if it screws up the continuity, please let Bronn kill Ser Meryn. That would just be fun, albeit in a sadistic way.

Thoughts on Game of Thrones: When Sansa Met Shae

Posted on April 19, 2012 by wellsdc

(AGAIN WITH THE SPOILERS!)

I spun this off into a separate post, because it just seems that important, somehow.

People hate Sansa Stark. Lots and lots of hate going around. Yet a Google search of “Sansa Stark hate” yields quite a few good posts in her defense. Her scene with Shae this week, to me, goes to the heart of this show’s overall conflict: people trying desperately to be themselves against the pressures of their regressive society.

Sansa Stark began the show, last season, as an entitled little shit. But she’s 13 years old, and has lived her whole life as the daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, with dreams of knights and heroes and princesses. She gets pledged in marriage to the king’s eldest son, meaning she will one day be queen.

And the king she’s going to marry turns out to be Joffrey.

It is not fair to call what happens to Sansa a “rude awakening,” unless you consider waking someone up with a flamethrower to be “rude.”

Shae, in marked contrast to Sansa, is a whore. I don’t mean that as an insult–it’s her job. In a way, Shae comes into this story with more freedom than the “noble” characters. She’s a foreigner, and it is not at all clear how she first came to Westeros. She was a “camp follower,” but it appears as though she could have refused Tyrion’s original offer. Once she signs on with him, she is promised gold and the wonders of King’s Landing, and all she has to do in return is fuck the Imp now and then (okay, a lot).

Once in King’s Landing, her life is in danger, considering Tyrion’s father specifically told Tyrion not to take her. Cersei will look for any way to gain an advantage over Tyrion, which is the more pressing danger to Shae’s life. Presumably because it would be too complicated in the television medium to hide her across town at Chataya’s, Tyrion hides her in plain sight in the castle. She avoids kitchen work by becoming Sansa’s handmaiden, except she clearly has no idea what she is doing.

Sansa treats Shae like shit. For someone as skilled at seduction (and therefore acting) as Shae, she is remarkably clumsy at filling the handmaiden role, treating Sansa without even a modicum of the deference Sansa has come to expect from servants. That’s the moment where a theme comes through: Sansa is being a shit to Shae, not so much because she is a shit, but because for one, shining moment, she can be a shit. This is a brief glimpse of Sansa’s old life coming through. Even if it was a life of snobbery and shallowness, it was a child’s life, and that was ripped away from her (cf. flamethrower reference.)

It reminded me of last season’s scene with Septa Mordane. She was answering a question for Sansa, when Sansa interrupted her to say she didn’t care. It was a callous, privileged, entitled, shitty thing for Sansa to do, and she did it because she could. As we all know, Septa Mordane marched directly into Lannister swords to allow Sansa to escape, even if Sandor Clegane caught her later. Septa Mordane gave more to Sansa than Sansa ever would have given to her. Shae would never do anything like that for Sansa. Sansa probably thinks she is a spy for the Lannisters (which she sort of is).

Sansa was a shit to Septa Mordane because she could be. She was a shit to Shae because, in her own way, she had to be, in order to hold onto a little bit of who she was.

If you are a Sansa hater, all I will say is this: don’t count her out just yet. She may never stop being a shit, but she represent us, the viewers, in quite a few ways. Honestly, how do you think you would respond if everything that has happened to Sansa happened to you?

Cryptic Philosopher

Farting in Idiocy's General Direction

Tag Archives: Game of Thrones