Game of Thrones Season 4 - The Thread

@pyromagnestir: @zelyre: <-- Knows what's up.

@zevvion: Did you read my post on the previous page? I feel like it pretty clearly explains why Oberyn doesn't just kill The Mountain.

Frankly, it doesn't even really matter that much to Oberyn whether or not he survives the fight himself, though I don't think he actually wants to die. As long as he got his confession and has Tywin named as the man behind the rape/murder of Elia and her children his goal would have been accomplished. "Winning" the duel wasn't important to him, and saving Tyrion wasn't important to him.

@turambar: They do mention he is an expert in poisons and I suspected that he put poison on his blade. I really hope he did. A small bit of revenge even if late is better than nothing.

Did you read mine? I never said him not immediately killing the Mountain was his mistake. His mistake was that he was handing his life over to the Mountain which an experienced fighter should have realized.

I was confused by the bolded section here. I guess I've come to expect double negatives.

If all you're saying is that he shouldn't have gotten so close to Gregor, then I think everybody is in agreement there. That is pretty obvious, actually. The language you are choosing to use is too strong, and makes it sound like you are taking this very personally. "Inexcusable" and "disgrace" are odd words to hurl at a fictional character.

Oberyn was successful, at least in part, in his goal. He got his confession and The Mountain is almost certainly dead. Enacting vengeance against Tywin is completely out of Oberyn's hands whether he survives the fight or not. His brother, Doran Martell, is the only person who could bring the might of Dorne to bear against the Lannisters, which is the only means of hurting Tywin. Simply killing an old man would be meaningless. Being declared winner of trial-by-combat is meaningless. His focus was not on dispatching The Mountain, (minor spoiler) as that was accomplished as soon as he struck him with a poisoned blade, but on making sure everybody present understood that Tywin murdered the princess of Dorne.

@spoonman671: I get what you're saying.

But at the same time I really don't think I see anyone having the mentality of "I don't care if I die as long as I get the confession". He gets his confession, but by the time he's getting it I'm sure he barely hears it over his own screams of pain from having his eyeballs pushed to the back of his skull or the ringing he must be hearing from having a row of teeth punched out of his mouth. At that point, I don't see him as having achieved anything other than getting himself killed.

Is it more obvious in the books that everyone around him heard The Mountain say what he said, because the show makes it seem like you wouldn't really have heard him over the sounds of Oberyn screaming. It looks like everyone else is just watching The Mountain murder one last guy with his dying breath in a fight to the death.

Just thinking now, if The Mountain is dead, and Oberyn is obviously dead, who "wins" the trial by combat? Or does The Mountain win by virtue that he looks the least dead of the two? I know it doesn't really matter since they made up their mind, but it seems like a bit off. I guess they'll probably work the poison angle in next week or the week after and it'll be "well, he's dead now, but only because of poison so he still won". And that's just me speculating, please don't come back and tell me what happens.

@jesus_phish: I don't know what happens next, but I'd assume whoever dies first is the loser, end of.

No, Oberyn loves himself way too much to not care whether he lives or dies. The point is that he was not paying attention to The Mountain because he was focused on a more important task. I'm sure he'd say, "hey, you know, I'd really rather not have had my head squashed by a sociopath," but you can't always have your cake and eat it too. His mind was on his true task. If this event leads to the Martells marching on King's Landing and Casterly Rock, and snuffing the Lannisters out of existence, then I think Oberyn's ghost would be pretty satisfied with himself overall.

I choose to assume that everybody heard The Mountain. Audio is sometimes tricky in media. Often in this show you will hear a character whisper something dramatically and have people way out of earshot react as if they actually heard it. If the entire city of Meereen somehow heard Daenerys's speech while she was outside the city, I have to think that attendees of the duel now know that Gregor raped and murdered Elia.

As for determining who really won the trial-by-combat, I think you may have answered your own question. You say that The Mountain is "dead" and that Oberyn is "obviously dead". I don't think there is really any doubt who the victor here was, regardless of whether or not Gregor eventually succumbs and regardless of how masterfully Oberyn handled him throughout the fight. If you're speaking more to a hypothetical scenario in which both combatants literally perish simultaneously, then I'm not sure what would happen. Maybe they'd just have to go through with a regular trial all over again, or maybe the judges or priests (septons?) would just interpret the gods' will based on that outcome. Let's be honest, you can't call the whole trial-by-combat thing well thought-out. Anyway, maybe a book-reader could provide some insight there.

And that's pretty much the point where I see it falling apart. Saying he got what he wanted because maybe now the Martells will march on Kings Landing. He'll never know and it might never happen.

Obviously all of this is at the whim of the author of the books, I just think it's an incredibly badly written part of a story. Oberyn always gave the impression that what he wanted was to see the Lannisters get snuffed out. Not to possible put in motion an event that might possible snuff them out, but to actually see them fall from grace. To that end I don't think he would have been so sloppy in a fight to the death as to get that close to his opponent while looking away.

You're right, it might never happen, but Oberyn couldn't really do anything about that while he was living either.

I think the moment he has been anticipating for 20 years is exactly the time he would get too excited and get sloppy.

I guess we have to agree to disagree on this point.

As someone who read all the books, the latest episode just reinforced how much I hate that fight. Not simply because a potentially cool character died, it was just utterly pointless. Oberyn should have won and he should have known to not let his guard down like that. I really just think it comes down to a poorly written part of the story. Oberyn is portrayed as being so fearless and one of Westeros' most elite warriors. He wouldn't simply walk around a massive, powerful body like that after only a few stabs from a spear.

I'm just glad it's over as that was the worst part of the entire series IMHO. Man, GRRM really missed the mark with Oberyn I feel. His character just doesn't make any sense.

@zevvion: Totally on the same page as you regarding Oberyn. He acted like a damn child when he was fighting. It was like everything we knew of him up until then was a totally different person. It's not just hearsay too - he was a proven, experienced, hardened warrior, one of the best in the entire known world, and he fell to the fucking Mountain. I just hated everything to do with his entire character. He feels unfinished and rushed or something.

I do take it personally. There is nothing wrong with having feelings, even if it's fiction or not. Everybody does. Otherwise you wouldn't watch the series to begin with if you're constantly thinking none of it is real.

Also, Oberyn wanted to hear that Tywin gave the order. He already knew that the Mountain did it. That wasn't his objective at all. He didn't get the confession he wanted out of the Mountain. He failed on all fronts.

That's what I'm thinking too, there was a clear first person dead during the whole thing, and you have to think with all of the trial by combats this world has probably had in the past they have some sort of "even if the winner dies by his wounds after, he still technically won first."
Besides, didn't Tywin say something along the lines of "There we have it, the gods have spoken." Or something close to it? I don't see many people arguing with him on that one besides maybe Jaime. Most of the people who are upset are probably less upset about the trial outcome and more upset about Oberyn getting red everywhere.

@zolroyce: Haven't read the books. It would be cool if "the Viper's" lady poisoned Cercei, but I suspect whatever inevitably ends up doing Cercei in will be very pronounced, because she's basically the worst main-cast human on the show. I'm also not entirely sure his lady won't be killed or jailed or "disappeared."

edit: actually, I suspect Cercei will be left in a situation where she takes her own life. Fits the tone better.

"Size doesn't matter when you're lying flat on your back"

BOY WAS HE WRONG!

I thought the fight was ok, typically the series is at its best action wise with battles, not one v one. The best fight to date was and still is Drogo going ape shit on the one dude with no weapon. Best choreographed fight outside of movies that I can think of. Quick, precise, badass, and brutal.

Really just thought the fight was cheesy, Oberyn saying the same line wasn't convincing, I don't know, could've been better. That death was brutal though, damn.

Arya burst into laughter was fantastic and was the perfect length, perfect scene.

I like that idea, Cercei has always given me a very Lady Macbeth vibe, where her acts may eventually catch up to her and drive her nuts, or at the very least if she ever gets cornered she would choose to take herself out rather then let whoever cornered her take her out.

yeah he defiantly was dumb but I don't think that's all out of character for him. I think the fact that he was so fearless is what led him to make those mistakes.

If he were that fearless though, he would have died long ago. He is a cautious, evasive fighter and even his fighting style during that showdown proved it.

I don't know why I wrote "fearless" in my post, I meant to write feared. Oh well.

She's my favorite in the books. Too bad she doesn't get very many POVs in the last two books, so I wonder how they'll handle her storyline in the show. They might delve into it more than the books did, like how they've done for Theon/Reek.

Oberyn knew that Tywin gave the order just as certainly as he knew that The Mountain did the actual deed. It wasn't about extracting information from him, it was about making sure everybody in attendance heard. This event has a good chance to result in war between the Martells and the Lannisters, which is exactly what Oberyn wanted.

I think this fight is very different from anything else for him. For one it was against the mountain, most people would be out of the fight after everything he did. He was also very emotional during the fight and the longer the fight went on the more emotional he got. I think these factors combined with his confidence did him in.

Really? I thought the fifth book was mostly terrible, and the fourth was better, not great, but better than it. I've always wondered why it's so highly rated on Goodreads. The only explanation I could come up with was that I went through the books after the fifth one came out, so I didn't have any long waits to forget how good each preceding book was and how each subsequent book wasn't as good. With the exception of Dany, which has always been a lackluster storyline, the show has had the better parts of the books so far, with some great pieces still to come. I do worry about the future seasons where we'll need to put up with some boring characters, if their POVs were any indication. Some people who've read the books complain about filler, and I'm actually hoping they put some worthwhile filler down the road to make up for GRRM's long windedness.

I actually find Danaerys' entire arc in ADwD to be the only filler (or at least the only piece of it that I don't like). Man, she does NOTHING in that entire book. Well, except at the end. I also think it's the best book of all them so far. I really, really enjoyed reading that.

(Here be book spoilers, beware.) Brienne's storyline really dragged the fourth book down for me. Now we're talking filler. That said, I found that the majority of the fifth book was tremendous. It's far longer than it has to be, but the stories it tells are all great. In fact, I'd argue that some of the more tedious story-lines could've been made memorable by cutting them down. There's too much of Dany doing nothing in the book, and too much of that Dornish Prince making his way to meet her. Both of those story lines end in a superb fashion, and it's a shame those parts aren't what sticks in our heads. Martin needed a good editor, but the stories themselves are as good as they have ever been. Victarion remains the single, most bad-ass character in the entire series, Jamie is growing into his own, and Tyrion makes revelations across the board. I also think the majority of the Dhornish tales are interesting, the one exception being said prince (whose name I cannot recall). I think the real issue with the book is the fact that while it does a very good job of setting up events for the grand crescendo in the next book, which I assume will finish the story-line of the ongoing rebellion in the Seven Kingdoms, there just isn't enough pay-off by the end of it to warrant all of those longer, dragging storylines. Apparently Martin had intended to include two large battles at the end of the book that had to be pushed to the beginning of the sixth. Them being Victarion claiming Slaver's Bay and taking Khaleesi to Westeros (it's fucking happening, it's finally fucking happening!), and the second being Stannis' attempt at conquering Winterfell and the north along with it.

Now, if the fifth book had ended with those events, or hell, just the first, I don't think there's anyone who would be voicing complaint about it. So I reckon that by the time the sixth book is released and folks have read it, the fifth book will ,in retrospect, seem a much more coherent, important and enjoyable part of the story as a whole. As it stands, it's just a bunch of preparation for the good stuff to come.

You thought anime had filler, just wait until you get to Game of Thrones Season 5 and beyond!

Whenever people claim that the entirety (or majority) of book 4 and 5 are filler, I don't know what they're talking about. I see how it's all building up. How the pieces are getting closer and closer via slow circles (to borrow a Rothfuss quote) until it builds up to a Crescendo in book 6.

Just to say upfront, I don't watch this show and I'm only writing this as an inquiry.

Also, there will be spoilers and I will be marking them.

So something big happened last episode and I usually avoid spoilers in case I ever decide to watch the series, but this time I cracked and gave into the spoilers.

At first I read about what happened and it didn't really phase me, but then I watched the big "scene", and I only have one thing to ask. Is this show just a masochistic fuckfest where horrible things happen just for the sake of them being horrible?

It might be that I have a very limited view of the show and don't know all the details, so I'll say what I know/think and you tell me how far off I am (spoilers begin NOW).

So, is that about right? Is there a reason stuff like this happens, other than "oh yeah, middle ages. Shit was FUCKED UP. Not every ending is a happy one, brah". If so, I don't think this show is for me. Overt happy endings are bad, but so are horrific endings that are fucked up for the sake of being fucked up.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh. Im guessing there's more to the show than horrible things happening. I bet there's great characters, character relationships/development, story arcs, etc. For some reason the details of this specific plot thread really got to me. It's left a little bit of hopeless despair in my heart. I can only hope the mountain guy gets his eventually. I just don't know... It's weird because I've seen fucked up shit in movies/tv/games before, but just the way this specific thing played out is really getting to me.

@narujoe93: There hasn't really been anything this graphic before. At least not that i remember. That said i'd say you're interpretation of the events are pretty close and things like this are pretty common in the show. So no, this show is probably not for you. It's never happy. The worst that can happen to any character always happens and a lot of it is just for the sake of it so no there's not really more to it than constantly horrible things happening. I know a lot of people will disagree about that last bit but the show killing off a popular character or otherwise putting them through the worst situations has become so predictable and repetitive that it might as well be for the sake of it. It set a template on how things happen early on and never deviates from it.

To be completely fair, there are some great characters and relationships and story arcs. But my point stands. If something bad can happen, it will happen. Always.

@pr1mus: I'd agree with this. The first instance of a major character death made sense from a narrative standpoint because it served to drive the plot forward. This most recent event and the big one from season 3 both seemed more pointless, since ultimately the plot lines they end didn't amount to much at all. They seemed more like irrelevant diversions than decent additions to the plot. This most recent example stands out because it squanders some huge potential for the series. Oberyn was an interesting character (played by a great actor, though I know this wasn't something to be considered when the book was originally written). His continued presence and interactions with other characters (like Tywin) could have been far more interesting than anything that Daenerys or Bran have done in the entire series. I've heard that this event will have huge ramifications, but considering how frequently people say the next season and the books it will be based on are some of the most boring parts of GoT, I don't have much faith.

Basically, to me it seems like when GRRM can't figure out an interesting way to continue the plot, he just starts killing people to end it prematurely (and often graphically for maximum shock value), and the rest of the plot goes on mostly unchanged. This is just from the perspective of a watcher of the show, but that 's how I feel about the series right now.

Book spoilers: Oh my god, Quentyn Martell is such a waste of pages that could have been spent on someone more interesting, like Arya. He's the complete opposite of Oberyn Martell. I really liked Oberyn and was disappointed when he was killed off. Meanwhile, Quentyn's story was extremely boring and I was glad he was killed off. The only bad part about him dying was that it took so long to get rid of him. And in the end, it felt like he had no real impact to the story. GRRM spent way too much time with him and Dany, that it just dragged the whole book down for me into the worst in the series so far.

I cannot stop watching the denial edit of the ending fight. Something about the Tina Turner song kinda gets to me.

I KNOW haha. It's so good. The kill confirmation was sorely needed.

when I was watching the original episode, I kept thinking of dark souls with the flipping, only to realize "you die a lot in dark souls from silly mistakes."..... so yeah, listening to tina turner helps me not to think of that.

there's a lot to like still about ADWD IMO.

also they may chop and screw with it a bit.

@do_the_manta_ray: (End of Book 5 Spoilers) How can Victarion take Dany home to Westeros if she's off with some Dothraki in God-Knows-Where and stricken with dysentery to boot? No one in Meereen even knows she's alive. Honestly I don't expect her to head to Westeros until the end of Book 6, if she ever even does.

@hunter5024: Yep, with 2 books left that's at least 1 more full book of Daenerys being meaningless.

Wow this thread has become a minefield for show watchers. And the complete disregard for the OPs wishes is saddening.

You people are the worst.

@hunter5024: (Book 5-6 Spoilers.) I expect that to be resolved rather quickly. No matter how sadistic Martin is; I don't believe he'll just whisk Dany away, and have that be the new reason for why she's not returning to Westeros now that she finally has a method and a reason and cause to. Unless he specifically means to piss off his readers, this won't drag on for the duration of the book. Might take half the book, mind.

Just my two cents. Yes he wanted both a confession that Tywin was the one that gave the order and that he did it, deep down I'm sure he knew but part was him confessing for all to hear. I also think he heard it even with what was happening. With what happens after you'll see that killing the mountain is secondary, sort of, but even more that makes me think he never cared about winning in the first place. So say he got as far as he did and the mountain just confessed? Would he just walk out? He was dead the second the spear pierced him so it didn't matter if he dealt a killing blow or not. I also find it hard to believe he would be so clumsy though with him getting so emotional its understandable, not really even sure what he did wrong except walk to close. They could've shot the kill scene different because its obvious it was to cause a big shock which it did and I'm still recovering.

Oh, and did anybody catch how Ramsay was made heir to Winterfell, and is totally going to murder his father so he can be Warden of the North? Complete conjecture, I should note. I have no knowledge about what actually is going to happen, but this is so definitely going to happen.

Nah, they did it basically perfectly from the book. The only difference in the book is that the Mountain doesn't have the strength to sit up, so when he catches Oberyn, he crushes his head while laying on his back holding Oberyn above him. That would've been...messier.

Yeah, major book spoilers randomly thrown in with show discussion, no extra tagging or such. Suppose it's my own fault for being in this thread at all, which I'll now correct, but damn :(

@marino: yes I saw that from the graphic novel I think and I think I actually prefer that because then he is just dead on top of him but to me he should be able to do something in that situation if he is on the mountain doesn't he carry a dagger? In that graphic he kinda just punched him in the side of the head and that did it. I've got no issue with him dying even though I liked him it was just drawn out and sadistic which is the point I guess. Mountain also didn't roar his confession like the book, though as someone else mentioned the way they handle audio in the show is weird.

The fight for the wall begins in less than 9 hours.

They better do it justice. This is the Storm of Swords!

I doubt Satin will show up, right? It's not like he's a major character, but it's always nice to have a buddy around backing you up.

Decent episode tonight. Not as awesome as Blackwater, but still interesting.

I was expecting Stannis and the witch to show up since they were heading for Blackwater a few episodes ago. Disappointing there's no convergence there.

Eh. I found it super predictable and fairly uninteresting. When Ygritte died I didn't really care because so many people were dying that episode that a lot of the force behind the event was lost on me. Also, this entire thing is, as far as I can tell, so irrelevant to everything going on in King's Landing, which, along with whatever Arya's doing at any given moment, is what I actually care about. Overall, it was well-produced, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. High hopes for the finale though.

When you look at the events in the moment, they seem to be for nothing or to happen "just because". But the books, and now the show, have been betting on the long game the whole time. This series is all about how actions, both big and small, have long lasting consequences.

Your last paragraph in particular seems completely off base. Every big death in the show so far, especially the one's that you say are for maximum shock value, have completely altered the the course of the story for better or worse, including Oberyn's.

Giant arrows are super rad, and The Scythe is pretty dope too. That's most of what I took away from this episode.

Also, they should have let Ghost out way sooner.