Monday, April 15, 2013

Game of Thrones 3x03 Walk of Punishment

By s. Monday, April 15, 2013 ,
Dear HBO,
You seem not to realize it, but it's really not that hard to see tits. I'm a woman. If I want to see them, all I have to do is look down. Here they are. Every woman who watches Game of Thrones can do so too. And as for guys, I'm sure if they google it, they'll see it. So why do you have this obsessive need to infest my favorite show with tits?

And they were doing so well last week. Yesterday it's almost as if they had to make up for it. When I read that episode 3 featured "the most pointless sex scene yet" I immediately thought to myself - Good God, Pod will get laid. I hate being right.

So we had pointless and stupid scene where Bronn and Tyrion bring Pod to the brothel and introduce him to the whores, naked whores obviously, doing weird acrobatic stuff. Pod looked like he was about to cry. So did I. Random sluts got more screentime this week than Stannis.
That considerably brought episode down for me, as they are rushing through half of story lines and they use that time to show this. One of the good examples was Jon's scene this week. It was almost as if they only showed him so that his fangirls wouldn't rant about the lack of their squeeze box this week. I'm not even sure Kit Harington managed to say one line. He just stood there, confused. Yeah, it's all he does, but usually there is something going on in the background. But we did get very cool looking circle of dead horses. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Meanwhile, Sam and the rest of The Night's Watch reached Incest Town, Craster's Keep. Here we get to hear few horrible remarks, see a lot of creepy stuff and we get so much screaming. Gilly was giving birth and gave birth to a boy. As you may remember from season 2, Craster sacrifices male kids to White Walkers. So, Gilly is horrified. Sam, who was watching the whole thing, was horrified too. I was as well, because I remembered that at on point we will get a sex scene between these two.

I must mention this - they are ruining all of my favorite lovely Arya's moment from books. We didn't get "That's the Hand's daughter - Arya Stark of Winterfell" and now we didn't get Hot Pie getting all embarrassed and calling Arya "my lady". We did get a nice little scene where he bakes her a wolf pie, which I'm given to understand the audience really liked, but still, I wish they stayed a bit more faithful to the books in Arya storyline.
This week we finally got to see Catelyn's home - Riverrun. They added it to the main intro, which was a nice touch. In the opening scene we witness the funeral of Catelyn's father and we meet two new characters - Edmure Tully, Cat's brother and Blackfish - her uncle. Edmure was established as a failure here, as he couldn't hit the boat with the flaming arrow and Blackfish took over, succeeding at his first attempt.

I must mention Robb. While Edmure was failing, Robb was laughing. Really? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Robb Stark, in all his fucking nurses and laughing at funerals glory. They really need to improve his character in upcoming episodes or it will have disastrous effects before the season is over. And where the hell is Grey Wind?

We did get few great scenes there, with Blackfish comforting Cat and Robb yelling at Edmure. Blackfish is well cast, though Edmure is not how I imagined him at all. But so far that storyline is shaping up pretty good and we will be getting lots of great scenes after they leave Riverrun.
The most hilarious moment of the episode was the small council scene, where everyone carefully chose the place to sit. Cersei made a big spectacle, moving away from her advisers and sitting next to her father and Tyrion ostensibly sat across the table. We finally got to see Varys in that scene, oh, how I missed him. He is one of my absolute favorite characters in the show and his expressions are hilarious.

This is when Tyrion was made The Master of Coin as Littlefinger has to leave King's Landing and go to Eyrie to court Lysa Arryn.You remember Lysa, no doubt. Batshit Lysa. I'm a bit confused about the fact Littlefinger is already leaving for Eyrie, but maybe he will stick around a little longer until he departs.

We had a nice little scene with Tyrion and Bronn talking about money. I'm amused at the fact the writers chose to leave Strong Belwas and Brave Companions out of the show in order to save non book readers some confusion, yet they have Tyrion mentioning the Bank of Braavos so early.
This week we didn't get any meeting between the girls club - Shae, Sansa, Olenna, Margaery and the biggest girl of them all - Joffrey - were all missing. But we did get to see Ros. Why? How is she important to the storyline? The answers are - who the hell knows and in no way is she important.

I really enjoyed the scene between Melisandre and Stannis. I'm a huge Stephen Dillane fan and he is finally allowed to show some fire in Stannis. That scene was really hot and him and Carice van Houten have great chemistry. Melisandre is leaving Stannis in this scene to bring something for him. This is a big deviation from the book, as they are merging two characters together. I think it may actually work and I can't wait to see Melisandre's upcoming scenes.

If I didn't hate Theon so much I'd feel bad for him. A lot of people were complaining about how Winterfell storyline was handled last season, but I think they are really making up for it here. It's all brilliantly written and Iwan Rheon is doing a terrific job. If I wasn't so horrified about what is going to happen, I'd laugh about a lot of people saying things like "oh, this cute guy rescued Theon!".
The scene where he rescued him had the episode's best line. Even though Jorah's There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand was featured here, You little bastard was genius. The moment when the Boy took Theon's hand sent chills down my spine.

In Astapor Daenerys is bringing in her girl power politics. Unfortunately for Jorah and Barristan, it means following her around like two insignificant shadows. While Dany certainly needs to appear strong after last season's events I was disappointed. In the books ser Barristan and Dany bond a lot and he tells her stories about her family.

They kept a bit of thar with Barristan talking about Rhaegar and Daenerys saying she wishes she got to know him, but seeing how it was only the second scene between her and Barristan they couldn't keep the best part of the scene - him responding I wish he knew you. That was disappointing.
I remember how horrified I was when I was reading the book and Dany offered one of her dragons in exchange for Unsullied. I was mortified. How can she do this? They are her children. Fortunately, in the next few chapters my horror was swept away with the awesomeness you will get to see this Sunday.

Calling it now - Missandai is going to take Irri's place in one particular scene which I'm sure HBO is going to feature. She is actually more interesting in the show than she was in the books, but I really wish they spent more time on Daenerys interacting with Jorah and Barristan.

In this episode we saw the horrors of the slavery with Daenerys walking next to crucified men. She is clearly appalled by everything that is going on there and I was grateful we didn't see some of the things that were happening in the books, though HBO may still throw a lot of gore at us regarding the awful lives of slaves.
Once again the best parts of the episode were in Jaime and Brienne storyline. They were only in two scenes but they were both fantastic - in the first one Jaime was advising Brienne not to fight off their captors as they will inevitably rape her as soon as they reach the camp. Brienne wouldn't hear any of that and responded she will fight back.

I noticed a lot of whining about Jaime/Brienne duel scene from last week - it was a good call to feature Jaime explaining his poor condition to Brienne in new episode as some of those saying they didn't like the scene apparently forgot all about it.

And then, the ending sequence. That was amazing. I have nothing but praise for Gwendoline Christie and Nikolaj Coster Waldau. Her agonizing screams in this scene actually made me yell "Jaime! Talk about sapphires!". He did. But before he did that, there was a quick little moment that was my favorite part of the episode.
We get to read about the events in that particular scene from Jaime's point of view in the books. He is having an internal battle - he is an indifferent jerk but at the same time he doesn't want Brienne to be raped. He mentions how the wench deserves better than that. It's hard for the actors in the show to show the internal conflicts we read about in books in great detail, and even if there are several better performances in the show, Waldau really is the only person who manages to accomplish that. Here it was something so simple as a quick moment of Jaime looking down, clearly being affected by Brienne's screams and coming up with the plan to save her.

So he leads Locke to believe that Brienne's father will pay for her as Tarth is called Sapphire Isle and he is wealthy. He is lying - sapphire refers to the blue water that surrounds the isle, not actual wealth. But Locke buys it and Brienne is saved. The calm matter in which Jaime spoke to Locke reminded me of the scene with his cousin in last season, where he also manipulated someone by using reasoning and deceit.

But...then the first truly shocking event of the season happened. Jaime Lannister, one of the finest swordsman in all of Westeros. That is who he is - someone who is great with the sword. His smugness, self-confidence and wit all stem from this talent. He feels unbreakable, undefeated with his sword. And what happens? Locke cuts off his sword hand with a knife.
In the book the chapter ended with the quote from the beginning of this recap - "And Jaime screamed". His next chapter was after 100 pages or more and I rushed through them because I wasn't sure it actually happened. I didn't think they would do that, cut off his hand clean off. But the next chapter started with graphic description of Jaime's festering wound.

This is the thing about Martin's writing - just as someone is not only a villain anymore and we start to genuinely like this person, something awful happens. I cannot wait for the upcoming scenes between Brienne and Jaime. And the most heroic act (at least for me) in the series to come in episode 7.

One last thing - I don't know what they were high on when they decided to use that rock song over end credits. As cool as it was, it was horribly misplaced. Something horrible happened and we hear a fucking rock song? That was awful. Never mind that the song should be played in episode 7.

Here is the promo for next episode And Now his Watch has Ended. I think this will be the best in the season so far. I have one word for you all:
DRACARYS
PREVIOUS RECAPS:

34 comments:

  1. Congrats on your two LAMMY nominations, Sati.

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  2. I had a misfortune of hearing that rock song a bit earlier than it was meant to start and it totally ruined the scene for me. Oh well, it was still shocking! And yes, their story line was amazing yet again.. I feel bad for Arya, I want better scenes for her but I can wait.
    The chair scene.. my god, I laughed so much and everything about that scene was perfect. I also was a bit giggly at the whole Pod aka sex god thing.. I'm not sure what happened there, how is it in the books etc but I liked his expressions when he had returned the money.
    Nice write-up as usual! :)

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    1. Arya's scenes are going to improve next week :)

      That Pod moment wasn't in the books at all, pretty much every single brothel scene is the show's invention :)

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  3. Congrats on your LAMMY noms! You certainly have my vote! I absolutely hate the brothel scenes as well, but I thought this one with Podrick was pretty funny. They could've cut out introducing us to each whore. The Stannis/Melisandre thing is starting to freak me out because I really don't want her to kill Gendry, and I have a feeling that's where it's going. I hope I'm wrong. Gendry is one of my favorite minor characters, and I'm really bummed that they seem so be skipping over all the sweet moments he had with Arya. Iwan Rheon totally scares me. He seems so sweet now...

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    1. Thank you so much! :)

      I don't think they will kill Gendry off, but I think they will use him for leeches scene. I love that sequence so I'm really hoping it will happen in the show.

      I think he will reveal his true colors in next episode.

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  4. Another great episode this week. Really enjoying this season so far.

    I have to agree about the rock song during the end credits. While I don't have a beef with the song itself, the transition was rather jarring, to say the least.

    Weird to not see Joffrey and/or the ladies this week. But I guess every character can't be in every episode.

    I loved the Pod scene. I haven't read the books so I don't know if we missed anything more important, but I thought it brought some much-needed comic relief.

    BTW, congrats on your LAMMY nominations! Very well-deserved.

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    1. Yeah I liked the song but the transition was so off. The way they used Rains of Castamere last season was terrific, but Bear and the Maiden Fair placing was terrible.

      They will be back this Sunday :)

      I just wish they had more witty lines and scenes like small council and less random sluts in the show.

      Thank you so much!

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  5. Sorry I skilled this post, outside of the awesome intro. But what I did read was brilliant.

    Congrats on the Lammy nods. You deserve them. Shame you got no love on the community builder front...though, if it's any consolation, I hear the chap who nominated you is a handsome genius.

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    1. No problem, you probably have few episodes to reach season 3 :)

      Thank you! I was quite surprised, I thought if anything my relentless commenting will get me s place in that category :) Haha, indeed! ^^

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  6. Oh man, the Seth MacFarlane "We Saw Your Boobs" song should be like the other theme of Game of Thrones.

    I found the horse heads thing really silly, albeit it being v. pretty. I mean why would zombies make a snowflake out of dead horses?

    Robb's annoying and so is Ros.

    I am intrigued by "Boy". Also yaay cute Brit man! Ugh Theon.

    Loved the council scene. Just every scene with Tyrion in it, I swear.

    Danaerys and Jaime were the heroes this week. Danaerys's GIRL POWAH! moment was awesome. And man, poor Jaime. I didn't even think about the sword-hand thing. Shit.

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    1. They decorated the village with bodies in series prologue too. It's kinda a warning/message thing. They are not completely brainless creatures, for example their leader didn't kill Sam last season because it would be pointless and Sam, alone, behind the rock, didn't pose a threat.

      Yeah, that was really a dick move to cut off that hand :(

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  7. I actually found the brothel scene hilarious this time around. Especially the ensuing scene where Pod turn out to be a complete stud! The rest of the episode was quite awesome. Especially the scene where Dany is bargaining.

    Somehow, inspite of all the nudity and hand-cutting, this episode was one of the lightest ones I have seen in the series so far. I guess even Game of Thrones needs a bit of comic relief once in a while!

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    1. I found the scene to be funny and that Meereenese knot joke was inspired, but they are rushing through storylins and something like this comes up....that's not good writing.

      LOVED the scene with Dany bargaining, chilling!

      I agree, it did feel quite light!

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  8. My top 3 scenes are the opening funeral, Talisa treating, and Melisandre & Stannis, although the Talisa scene is too short and not really important...

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    1. Mel and Stannis scene was great, but people keep whining they are ruining Stannis in the show. I don't see that, I thought it was great to see that he has passion.

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  9. Was it me or was there a bit more "comedy" injected into this one episode than we've seen in long time.

    Other than the Brienne/Jaime scenes and the small council scene, this episode left me a bit cold. There's just so much I feel like they're missing out. Cutting between the events that's going on all over the place. I'm not entirely sure the scene with the captured Lannisters and Talisa was necessary. It cut into time from beyond the wall.

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    1. There really was. I think they are trying to make us laugh while we still can since the last two episodes of the season will turn people into sobbing messes.

      I think they wanted to establish that not all Lannisters are monsters so that when Robb does what he will do to Karstark is even more justified.

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  10. Ooooh, someone cut Nikolaj's hand??! What, what??!

    Ahah, Nikhat is right... "We Saw Your Boobs" should be the theme of this show, ahahaha...

    Btw, big congrats on your multiple LAMMY noms!! I think you'll win big, girl!!

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    1. Thy did :( His sword hand even. Pretty much the worst thing that could have happened to him.

      Well, to be fair boobs showed up 10 minutes in Rome pilot episode...

      Thank you! Oh, I doubt it :)

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  11. Congrats on your Lammy Noms

    Spot on about them getting me to feel a wee bit of sympathy for the king slayer only to chop off his hand a moment later.

    great recap as usual, GOT hour was as usual the fastest hour of the week.

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    1. Thank you!

      I always liked Jaime but I see a lot of people starting to warm up to him now.

      Yes, exactly! And now it's a long wait again!

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  12. The show is progressively departing from the book more and more with every plotline, which makes it easier to follow with so much ground to cover, but I'm really going to miss seeing characters like Vargo and Belwas.

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    1. Well, I think Taylor is really doing a good job as a replacement, but I'll sure miss that moment when Belwas takes a dump in front of city gates :)

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  13. Great review, I always love reading these write-ups from someone who's read the book. At this point I've basically made myself try to forget about the books, seeing as even if I were to have complete control over the show I wouldn't be able to fit in all of my favorite moments.

    I completely agree about how much of a waste of time the Tyrion comic relief scenes have been this season, I love Dinklage and Tyrion is my favorite character in the books but there are simply far too many things that could better use the time.

    I also legitimately thought I had be Westerosi-Rock-Rolled when that rock song came on, I had to look it up to find out that it was intentional. Like you said, it's a cool version of the song that reminded me of Flogging Molly a bit, but it was way to abrupt and distracting for the scene at hand.

    Lastly, I'm totally confused with what they're doing with Theon's character, but the fact that they're basically going with a time period that happened off page at least means they have some wiggle room with work with in the ways of original stories. I have my theories, but nothing more

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    1. Thank you! :) Yeah it's good because it means not being rendered comatose by all the shocking moments but it's frustrating trying to guess where they are going with certain storylines.

      Exactly, if the show run for 1,5h go ahead but they are cutting so much stuff in favor of these scenes.

      They really should have used that song in episode 7 after the actual bear scene.

      I think it will play like in the books - Ramsay will trick him and then horrific torture will follow.

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  14. "So why do you [HBO] have this obsessive need to infest my favorite show with tits?"

    Why do so many people have this obsessive need to comment on the fact that HBO shows tits? Seriously. I bet the ratio of GoT posts to mentions of nudity in GoT run almost 1 to 1 wherever I happen to encounter them. Know what else the show has a lot of? Foul language and violence - both of which are almost never mentioned when the show is discussed, and neither of which do much to advance the plot. (To your credit you did mention the nipple cutting in your episode one recap, along with your comment about the nudity.)

    I am constantly amazed by the fact that we are in the third season and people still haven't gotten used to the fact that GoT is R-rated entertainment.

    I found the scene with Pod to be funny and entertaining. Did it advance the plot on who will rule Westeros? No, but neither did several other scenes in the episode yet they are not getting much flack (and some were also entertaining - like the bit with the chairs.)

    By the way, I notice you aren't complaining about seeing Theon's butt - the showing of which also did not advance the story. I've got a man's butt. I can see it any time I want. Know what? I don't have an issue with them showing his butt. Why? Because it's part of the overall presentation of the show.

    The purpose of the show is not to present the stories from the books (which as a reader you will know have a bunch of sex scenes in A LOT of detail that the show is leaving out), but to present an entertaining show to viewers. As such they have been deviating from the books some and I expect (and frankly hope) this will only accellerate as we get into the stories from books 4 and 5, which really get bogged down.

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    1. My "obsessive need" to mention it comes from the fact that foul language and violence is in the books. Pointless brothel scenes are not. Yet every single episode in season 2 had tits. They are going out of their way to save time but they include that. It's stupid and beneath everything else in the show, hence - ruining it.

      Foul language is how the people speak in Westeros, violence does push the plot forward - Jaime, Red Wedding, Oberyn's duel. How do tits do that? Thy don't.

      I am happy about it being R-entertainment. I'm not happy about them wasting time like that.

      The chairs bit showed that Tyrion is clearly cutting away from his family, setting up him wanting to meet Dany while Cersei has only her daddy to protect her - setting up season 5.

      You seem angry. I do wonder why woman's tits don't bother you when they are in such pointless scene but them setting up false Ramsay rescue from horrific event is something I should pinpoint as flaw? It's brilliant writing - him rescuing Theon, gaining his trust. I have no problem with that as it's actual story. Pod's scenes are not story, they are cheap scenes for horny teens.

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    2. I am far from angry; I am greatly amused at the sheer amount of time people spend obsessing over it - which gives a very good indication of what is and is not actually important to them.

      (And to be clear, I am not singling you out. It's almost impossible not to come across complaints about the nudity on the show in any GoT thread. There are tons of them on IMDB.)

      You are correct that there are not many brothel scenes in the books. What the books do have is many sex scenes with the major characters. Since most of them have no nudity clauses in their contracts they have to remove those scenes from the show. The brothel scenes are simply taking the vacant slots that those removals left.

      "I do wonder why woman's tits don't bother you when they are in such pointless scene"

      Why should a natural part of a woman's body in any way bother me, unless the presentation is one in which there is violence towards the woman (i.e rape)? Why should they bother any person more than the violence or foul language on the show?

      You say that they are wasting time because they do not advance the plot, yet there were several scenes in just the latest episode that did not advance the plot. I mentioned showing Theon's ass. You countered that the scene was integral. I agree that the overall scene is important; the showing of his butt had nothing to do with anything, though. The scene could have played just as it was without it, yet I am not complaining about his bare ass appearing.

      The scene with Caitlyn talking about praying for Jon Snow is another perfect example. It is not in the books. It is pointless in advancing the story. It is there in order to try to develop her character more - to try to make her a little more likable than she was in the books. The latest brothel scene is there to develop Pod's character a little more. Is he as important a character as Caitlyn? No, but I could say the same about many of the characters they spend time with.

      I could write another whole paragraph about the Hot Pie/ Arya goodbye scene that is also there for the purpose of the characters, not to advance the plot. It didn't bother me either. In fact, I liked that scene, too.

      My point is that a case could be made for most any scene being considered a waste of time if it's not something a person is interested in seeing. Personally, I have no interest whatsoever in several of the storylines, but I put up with them in order to see the ones I do like. If I had a show that was just about Tyrion, Arya, and Dany, I'd be a happy man.

      In regards to losing story time I'm bugged by HBO announcing they were going to add a few more minutes to all the season three episodes. So far they've only done that with 1 of the 3 that they have broadcast. Where's the missing 8 minutes or so they said we would be getting?

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    3. You have an odd way of showing amusement. Usually people laugh, you just leave comments stating the same thing twice. I don't know what you think it indicates but it should indicate that I care about the story not cheap nudity. As well as other "complaining" care about it. They certifiably care a great deal more than those who see no problem with it.

      That's just a bad excuse. They can still use those scenes, just without massive amounts of nudity. And what sort of reasoning is that? "Oh we can't show important sex scene so we need to replace it with other scene with nudity"? This is why people laugh at HBO when it comes to amounts of nudity - they behave like they are catering to horny teens.

      Because as I explained repeatedly, they are inventions, cheap inventions whereas the language and violence have purpose.

      It added to the horror of the scene. Yep, you aren't. You are just repeatedly complaining about things I write.

      Jon and Cat's relationship will be very important before that whole series is over. Pod is insignificant.

      I don't know.

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  15. I haven't been watching this season just yet, but a lot of those complaints rang true for the previous season, and is part of why I'm not exactly going out of my way to see season 3 just yet. Pointless sex scenes devalue the show, taking a very adult source material and degrading it to something more aimed at horny teens. Really obnoxious stuff, and they went overboard with it last season, so it's not too shocking to hear they're doing the same again this season.

    That, and the further along in the story they go, and more and more they seem okay with changing things around, and not always for the better. There were a lot of changes that annoyed me last season, and based on what I've heard, several of the changes this season are already bound to get under my skin. SOME of the changes haven't been too bad, though, like I enjoyed the scenes with Arya and Tywin from last season, for instance.

    But I dunno, I suppose I'll check out the new season at some point, but my expectations are lowering by the week. Good read, though! Nice to see I'm not the only one who's growing annoyed by the show as it goes on.

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    1. Yes, totally. Good point about season 2 doing way too much of it - there is considerably less of these kinds of scenes in season 1. Another thing is that they are being unbelievably sexist by showing so many naked women while men are always clothed, apart from 3-4 minor characters. That ratio is just adding to the unfair amount of female nudity comparing to male nudity.

      I too enjoyed Tywin/Arya scenes. I would be fine with most of the changes but they seem to be making them to save time and when they use that time on pointless, gratuitous scenes it really annoys me. I love the show and I don't know why the writers themselves are sabotaging it.

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