So Tyrion’s trial has come to a conclusion and I realized that I had a handful of observations.
Given the cross-blog arguments that we’ve seen on the front page, I admit that I read the book with my shouldered hunched up waiting for the really bad thing to happen. I keep wondering when it will.
It seems that all of the chapters are devoted to vaguely sympathetic characters. Now, I understand that none of these vaguely sympathetic characters have plot armor (they demonstrated that with Bran in the first hundred pages) but I’ve noticed that I’ve never yet seen a chapter devoted to a bad guy.
The magnificent examples of poor judgment I’ve seen have all been set up in such a way that they’re pretty understandable, all things considered. Then again, there are a lot of judgments to come.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
There are very few genuine “bad ‘guys'” in Game of Thrones – I can name at least three, but that would be spoilers, from what I remember of where I think you are now. I think bayl bar jnf n cbvag bs ivrj punenpgre va gur svefg obbx, though. (and in reading, I’ve only completed the first book, but am caught up with the HBO series)
The blond Lannisters, I tell you what!
Hey, wait a second. Why are all of the Lannisters blond but Tyrion looks like Peter Dinklage?
Maribou told me that she could give me the answer to that if I wanted it and I said “thanks, I decline”.
But, seriously. Something’s going on there.
Let me just say it would be inaccurate to describe the Lannisters as the Family of Stupid and/or Evil.
I ain’t to that part of the book yet.
‘Tyrion looks nothing like Peter Dinklage’ may help a bit.
That’s some unfortunate casting then.
HBO Tyrion does away with the physical deformities (he’s really supposed to be rather hideous) and focuses on the social stigma and the damaged relationships within the Lannister family instead of having a Tryion that most people dislike because of his hideousness. I think it’s worked in the show’s favor – I wonder if GoT the show would be nearly as well received with a really ugly dude playing Tyrion.
I have to give David Benioff and DB Weiss credit, they’ve done well with what they’ve changed and seem to have thought it through very well – something Peter Jackson did a considerably poorer job on with LoTR.
I’ve never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones. I’ve walked through the room when it was on and now I know what Joffrey, Sansa, and Daenerys look like. Of course I also know what Sean Bean (spoiler!) looks like and Peter Dinklage.
When the movie of what I read plays in my head, that’s what those characters look like now.
When I was a kid, we had to cast the books we read ourselves. When I read the Belgariad, I cast Robert Symonds as Belgarath (without knowing his name, of course… he was “the old guy from The Ice Pirates”) and got into arguments with people over whether Burgess Meredith (that is: “Rocky’s Trainer”) would be better.
Now? The book comes out, it’s optioned, and they have a pilot in a couple of years.
So, who do you see when you think ‘Batman’?
I still see all the LoTR characters in my head as their versions from the Rankin/Bass animated versions.
There are 50 Batmen.
Sometimes you need a Dark Knight Returns Batman, sometimes you need a Jim Aparo Batman, sometimes you need a Batman: The Animated Series Batman.
Now, there’s only one *VOICE* that I hear when I hear what the Batman sounds like: Kevin Conroy.
Casting is interesting. There are a few characters I never had a very good impression of (Ned being a major one), and now he just looks like Sean Bean when I think of him. But the show has had a difficult time casting the characters who are supposed to be genuinely beautiful (Jaime, Cersei, Renly, Loras), instead casting actors who are merely really, incredibly good-looking (a subtle difference). In my head, these characters (those four in particular) don’t look like they do on TV. I also have to mentally change the colors of Tyrion’s and Dany’s eyes when I watch the show.
Other characters – Arya! Varys! Littlefinger! – will forever look like their TV counterparts in my head.
Why are all of the Lannisters blond but Tyrion looks like Peter Dinklage?
He’s blond in the series. Several of the actors who play Lannisters and Targaryens do so with dyed hair.
I swear to goodness, he was brunette when I walked past…
I see what you mean. Tyrion is not as blond as Cersei or Jaime, but to me he looks far blonder than Peter Dinklage. I don’t know what they made that choice, when in the books:
One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it seemed white.
As a wag, I’d say because the Targaryen are portrayed on TV with platinum blonde hair, (as they are in the books) and they didn’t want to be confusing things in that direction. It also works dramatically and thematically, imo, that Tyrion has slightly different shading than his siblings.
I agree with Plinko that it would have done no good to make him up as, say, Sloth from Goonies, but then again Dinklage is (guilty of Grand Theft Series but also) kinda playing the Hollywood Homely trope.
Well,not-quite-a-spoiler-because-it’s-only-a-theory, of course.
Reading Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, looking forward to the finale of Game of Thrones tonight.
I enjoyed the first two-thirds of The Diamond Age very, very much. The story has a very strange climax, though.
Yes, that was my impression as well.
I was surprised to find myself disappointed when I ran out of episodes of Psych (need to hook up with seasons 5/6 I guess). So I’ve just barely started watching the HBO / Jill Scott series of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
I am reading about 13 things, among them Pulphead by Sullivan (which I just finished, which was grand) and Bones of Avalon by Rickman (no opinion yet).
Fifty Shades Darker.
At the end of the day, and as you dig deeper into the books, you’ll find that poor morals are in short supply, although moral oversights and self-justifications are not. It’s particularly fascinating when you get into points of view from characters you had formerly thought of as bad guys (esp., Jaime and Cercei).
It’s the poor judgments, rather than the poor morals, that are the most infuriating and thus the most interesting.
Maribou told me that not only is it the case that no one has plot armor, no one’s *CHARACTER* has plot armor. So I’m guessing that this means that I’ll get to watch some of my favorite characters become my formerly favorite characters.
Edit: I should have used a thesaurus for that last sentence because I’m using two very different “characters” in it.
At this juncture, I feel the need to point out that it is quite a challenge to have read the extant volumes of the Song of Ice and Fire twice through, and then to have someone in one’s household reading the first book Very Slowly and keep asking questions about it that can’t be answered without spoilers…. without actually *wanting* you to give spoilers… while wanting you to engage in conversation about the book.
That someone is enjoying himself, though, so it’s all good.
Mrs. P., being far enough along in the show to have said lack of plot armor hit home, looks at the regularly during the show with doe eyes and asks if everything is going to be alright with X. Something she asks if Y will meet a terrible end and, if so, how soon and by whose hand?
I do not do well with keeping a straight face through these to say ‘keep watching’ or ‘I have the books right over here.’
At this juncture, I feel the need to point out that it is quite a challenge to have read the extant volumes of the Song of Ice and Fire twice through
Honestly, you could have stopped right there. I liked Feast much better the second time through; the pieces fell into place better, and it felt less like “Why are you going on about all this extraneous junk instead of tell the story?” I’m hoping a re-read of Dance will improve it similarly, but skeptical.
It may have less to do with re-reading than with reading the books again after reading later ones. I expect Dance will be better once we’ve had a chance to read The Winds of Winter.
Not in this case, because I re-read Feast (and the other three) as preparation for Dance coming out.
I think you are both right: I wasn’t impatient to find out what happened, so I was more interested in POVs I had blown off or gritted my teeth through the first time. Not entirely coincidentally, these same POVs had often become more meaningful to me given later developments.
I’m thinking I might re-read books 3, 4, and 5 in the TV off-season. Given how much I hated 5, I am unsure if that’s healthy for me.
I wish I had more to contribute, but others seem to have done a nice job.
I will say that you get more POVs in the future, at least one of which is from someone who is genuinely just evil (although keep in mind that I have a running disagreement with Sean T. Collins about whether this character is evil – but I’m right and he/she is). You will get others from characters who are of more questionable moral content than any of the leads in A Game of Thrones, but they are not precisely bad guys.
Also, at the risk of spoilers (but not really), I will say that it seems unlikely any of your favorite characters will become your former favorite characters for reasons relating to choices they make. The fact that they are forced to star in two incredibly boring books, however…