Joanna's Tear

Also, I would caution you against questioning budgetary decisions. In a budget the size and complexity of Game of Thrones, there are no “zero sum” games. That is to say, the fact that they spent money on this scene doesn’t mean they one-to-one didn’t have money to spend on something else you wanted to see. I would keep your analysis to the literary aspects D&D definitively control. Questioning aspects you don’t understand makes your piece come off as fanwank.

Well… thank you for the presumptive tone policing, anon?

You know, maybe we do sometimes use “D&D” as a metonym for the production as a whole, which is maybe not always appropriate, but, D&D are the “show runners”. If they’re willing to accept awards for the whole show, they should be willing to take responsibility for the whole show too. Yeah, it is the writing that is the main problem 90% of the time, but other things contribute to the meaning of the piece too.

And does it matter who is responsible for a decision like the lighting in Braavos? The fact is that it was a bad decision, whoever made it. And someone made a decision about the budget too. I don’t care if it was D&D, or anyone else, budget allocation is a perfectly legitimate thing to criticize, so is scheduling. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with Sand Snakes’ Bed, Bath, and Beyond tent, the props in Braavos are still ridiculous. The fact that these things are difficult to balance does not make any failure any less of a failure.

We don’t want your soup, Doran.

But also, the idea that these are out of bounds or reaching is confusing to me. D&D watch and approve cuts of the show. They see what lighting choices were made and approve it. They hire the directors in the first place. They tell set designers what aspects to focus on. They made the decision that it was wise to spend their resources so that Porne could be shot at a Spanish landmark, because apparently the cost and limited time to film were considered worth it for the pretty backdrop. This is what showrunners do. The buck stops with them.

If they weren’t both Cersei Lannister, perhaps they actually would be surrounding themselves with people who challenge what they do, and who would have more control over other aspects of this show than them. We only see evidence to the contrary.

I honestly believe Aerys + Joanna = Tyrion.

Because saving the world shouldn’t be limited to some elite “aristocratic” “race apart” (GRRM) of people with Targaryen blood. GRRM, in your own Rolling Stone interview: “We’re all capable of doing great things”. Surely we all have it within us to help humanity, and it’s our choices, not our paternity, that really matter?

Because GRRM is a better writer than JKR, and House Lannister isn’t the “evil house”, House Lannister isn’t the enemy in a world where the Others exist. The ideas behind some of my objections are coming to me from your own posts, Sean.

Because three women already had to die to bring Tyrion, Jon, and Dany into the world; must all three of them have been raped too for the sake of prophecy? What kind of horrible message is that to have in A Song of Ice and Fire, that three women had to be raped to save the world? 

Because, unlike Jon Snow, Tyrion’s paternity is never a question for Tyrion. 

Because Tywin’s parenting fucked all of his children up and all three of them are going to destroy Tywin’s legacy.

Because if Aerys raped Joanna, why did Tywin continue as Hand for years after, when he resigned immediately over Jaime? 

Because if Joanna was raped, why wouldn’t she have had an abortion, just as Cersei did after she was maritally raped?

Because of the gross idea that Tyrion’s dwarfism is the result of a “botched abortion” (abortions don’t work that way) / a Targaryen “genetic defect” / someone doing something “wrong”, when in reality, achondroplasia is just something that happens. 

(made rebloggable by request)

Cat is unhappy that 10 year old Bran is going to see an execution. In the books she thinks 3 year old Rickon is too young to be expected not to be scared of a direwolf, but that’s not exactly the same, not only because of the age difference but because actual direwolves are not part of Ned’s models of northern/Starky lordliness, while performing one’s own executions are. Book!Cat accepts that her children will be northern and Starky all the way, especially her boys (but not necessarily herself because it isn’t really necessary, just the heirs matter, etc).

Cat is nervous at the idea of Sansa marrying the prince, and livid at the idea of Ned accepting Robert’s offer to become king. In the book, she is very open to the ambitious potential of these offers, however, and Lysa’s letter saying that the Lannisters killed Jon Arryn only strengthened her resolve, since Ned could use the power to pursue justice. She didn't want to be separated from Ned, but she did suck it up with pretty much minimal fuss, because that’s what Catelyn does with her personal desires – suck them up. They don’t matter. That’s how she lives. In the book, therefore, she is very much a product of her society, a great (as in high on the aristocratic ladder) noble lady with dynastic interests and an unquestioned sense of self sacrifice as a product of internalized patriarchic norms. In the show, she’s the hero’s Little Woman, symbolizing hearth and home and everything the hero must leave behind, helping to define his conflict and angst, and devoid of the kinds of ambitions that would offend people in a female character, even confuse them (hah hah hah) in a non Femme Fatale.

At Bran’s bedside Catelyn begs Ned not to go, bitterly accusing him of caring too much about honor and duty like all men. In the book, I don’t think Catelyn would EVER be bitter about honor and duty. In fact, it’s Petyr Baelish who is bitter at how much she embraces those principles. Family Duty Honor – it’s like they decided Family = female and Duty Honor = male, and I really hate that. That’s not Cat, that’s not the point of her construction. She is not the little woman who just wants to nest up all cozy and isolated from the outside problems. If anything that’s Ned, he’s the Little WoMan, he just happens to be living his brother’s life thanks to circumstance.

They omitted “It should have been you” when Jon came in to see Bran. They also omitted a lot about the background of this tension so maybe it equalizes out, but it is a change and it’s fair to say that they thought it’d help people like her better.

They had Cat suspect the Lannisters’ role in Bran’s fall because she found a golden hair, instead of remembering that Jaime had not joined the other men in the hunt that day. It’s not a huge deal but it is stupid XD

When she enters King’s Landing she just waltzes right in on her horse. In the book they showed what efforts she and Rodrik went through to avoid being seen by people who’d know her there. Again it’s maybe not as huge a deal but it does make her seem less smart, and a lesser deal that Varys was able to find her.

In the show she throws something at Littlefinger and calls him a little worm. Book!Catelyn would never be so demonstrative, she expresses her disdain coldly and aloofly in situations like this. She withholds her familiarity and that’s what wounds Petyr; she doesn’t throw things like a little kid.

In the show she also objects to being in a brothel because, it’s implied, it’s improper and sinful and unladylike or whatever. In the books, she is shown to be far less prudish and sensitive in her sexual sensibilities than men assume her to be/project on her. What she objected to in the book was being ordered around despite being a great lady, not that she was in a place of sin or whatever. It’s understandable that they had to abbreviate the bedroom scene in Winterfell, but the sum total is that that aspect of characterization, a testament to the little ways that men’s concepts of women are not really real, is just gone.

In the mountains of the moon, HBO!Cat cowers against a rock while the men fight the attacking clansmen. In the book, when she’s attacked Tyrion saves her, and then when he’s in danger she cuts the attacker’s throat with her dagger. It’s not something she usually does, and I wouldn’t expect her to come off like a badass ninja warrior, but she still did it because it had to be done to protect her prisoner, and we lose that really interesting dynamic between Cat and Tyrion, can I trust him maybe I can maybe I can’t etc.

In the Eyrie all her observations about the ridiculousness of Lysa’s overly officious proceedings, her sham trial, are gone. She’s disappointed when Tyrion is freed, but there’s no reason a viewer wouldn’t conclude that she’s just unhappy that her side lost. There’s nothing there about the mockery of justice or the ramifications of losing Tyrion as a hostage. She’s mad that Lysa won’t help her husband confront the Lannisters; this comes off to me like an obvious band-aid to correct her non-confrontational demeanor when she first got Lysa’s letter. It’s internally inconsistent of course because they fucked up at the beginning.

When Catelyn and Robb reunite in episode 1x08, we never see him going to her for advice/encouragement on his battle plans, not there nor after. We get instead this inserted scene showing how Robb uses a caught prisoner to his advantage to trick Tywin, and that’s all well and good since Robb did have his cunning in the books too, but obviously the balance is different. Compounding this, after the battle at Whispering Wood, Robb gives this speech that basically echoes Catelyn’s sentiments throughout the books, that one battle does not a won war make, etc. In season two, when he meets with Talisa he’s outraged at the thought of her thinking he’s fighting for glory. In the books it’s Catelyn who is the mouthpiece of caution and prudence and war, that it isn’t about glory and it shouldn’t be prematurely celebrated, etc. Gone too is the scene in A Clash of Kings where she chides Robb for using Grey Wind for melodramatics when sending his terms to Cersei. The whole balance is different and Catelyn’s particular role as the main adult, mature and wise voice in Team Stark is pretty much erased entirely.

In the King in the North scene, Catelyn should have been standing against the whole hoard of men pleading wisely, maturely, rationally and bravely in the face of futility, for peace and life and no more killing. The show gave her a little worried glance, as if this is going to mean anything to show viewers. She was a star, if not THE star in that scene and the show obviously took the entirely opposite view.

In the books it is Catelyn’s idea to treat with Renly, it is she who sees the political advantage there. In the show that idea is given to Robb. Robb has cunning on the battlefield but politics is his mother’s forte relative to his, in the books. Why change it, why.

In the books Catelyn does NOT want to go home to Bran and Rickon, she insists on being by Robb’s side, believing in her own usefulness to him, believing that she can best help all her children by helping him (and she’s right). In the show, it’s as if they felt that if she didn’t express the desire to go home all the time, if she wanted to do anything other than return to her smallest children, she would be a Bad Mother, because mothers belong with babies not grown men, grown men can only be nagged and emasculated by mothers after all. They had to reassure the audience that she is a Good Mother by showing she knows her place – in the home, out of men’s manly affairs.

In the books it is completely her idea to free Jaime, for better or for worse. In the show it’s implied that she was prey to Littlefinger’s manipulations. In the books, she takes total responsibility for her actions, because for good or ill, the point is SHE chose, it’s HER choice. The tv show seeks to mitigate her culpability by making her a poor victim of a mean mean man. While it was a good idea to remind viewers that Tyrion did say he’d give back her daughters, they could’ve handled the whole deal differently overall.

In the books, it is after she learns that Bran and Rickon died that she frees Jaime. There are other things, yes, like the girls’ persisting danger, like Karstark’s deathwish for Jaime, but it took THAT to make it happen. In the show neither she nor Robb even knows about Bran and Rickon’s fates when they do their big mistakes (letting Jaime go, sleeping with Talisa/Jeyne). And then in the show Robb comes back and scolds his mommy for being stupid and irrational and zomg betraying him scarring him 4 lyfe, whereas in the book they were both caught in this situation where they had to forgive each other. It’s like B&W couldn’t WAIT to drive home what an EMOTIONAL and SILLY little woman Cat is compared to her righteous manly man son – who then goes on to process his anger by marrying Talisa? The emotional logic behind these changes are stupefying, I literally have no words.

Despite various reservations I have about some of the casting and some of the roles themselves, I’m sure the actors will be just fine in what they’re doing. (Has anyone ever just not fit at all in this show? The acting has never been a problem, it’s the scripts people worry about.) I greatly look forward to Alexander Siddig as Doran, that’s a dreamcast come true, and hopefully he’ll be a saving grace in whatever the hell is going on in the show’s Dorne plotline.

Re Arianne, it’s not just tumblr “overreacting”, it’s literally everywhere ASOIAF/GoT is discussed: w.org, reddit, wic.net, the new WotW, facebook, other forums — hell, even youtube’s talking about it. I don’t think it’s an overreaction to find it extremely curious and upsetting that a significant POV character seems to have been eliminated altogether.

Now, it’s possible that the role has been offered to a particular actress and the contract negotiations are still going on — last year we were getting casting announcements through September — but the description of Trystane as Doran’s heir does not lead one to think that possibility is especially probable. If there’s a later announcement, then there will be, and we can relax — but until then or until some PTB says otherwise, we can only work with the information we’ve got.

Spoilers and speculation under the cut: