Weekend

[shipperx]

Returned to the beach this weekend. Almost anything to distract my Mom.

My sister was still working on her Mother-in-law's house in Destin trying to get it set up as a beach rental, so there was still quite a bit to work to rework the house into a vacation rental rather than 'grandma's house', so Mom and I went down to help her and to do something for Mother's day with just the three of us.

Did make it back to B'ham for the usual Sunday TV binge (though I couldn't stay awake for Mad Men).

Game of Thrones
Actually, I don't know... I remember the Shae testimony seeming more humiliating in the book. It was the specifics of their sex life that I think made it seem so humiliating in the novel, the way Book!Shae rather mocked him.

In the novel Shae is somewhat different. Book!Shae always seemed rather simplistic to me. She was what she was and nothing more. I didn't actually buy that Book!Shae felt anything for Tyrion but that he was well-paying protector. Show!Shae has always seemed to have real feelings for Tyrion, and I'm still wondering whether or to what degree she was coerced into this testimony by Cersei and/or Tywin. (In the book, I always felt she was just doing whatever she had to, and thus not much coercion was required. I still have the feel with Show!Shae that there must've been coercion going on.) At any rathe the very bought-and-paid-for nature of their sexual liason made She revealing all of the details in the most humiliating way possible in the book seem even more...well... reduntantly humiliating in the book. At least to me. This... actually felt a little toned down.

On other subjects, Hizdar whatever Loraq always bore me to death as a character, but the show version is already more interesting than his book counterpart.

Then there's the Iron Bank stuff. Not sure how Davos made detached digits any sort of asset to bargin with, but ::shrug::

Tyrion trial, aside, it felt a bit like a slow week. Oh, except for dragons are not BIG!




Once Upon A Time - Two Hour Finale

Okay, so this was total shipper fan-service (unless your ship is Outlaw/Queen in which case...well, hey, when things have gone along that smoothly, you've gotta expect angst).

It was sort of funny the way they kept intercutting old Season 1 Snow/Charming flashbacks with newly filmed Snow/Charming flashbacks, and we were supposed to ignore that the actress is ginormously pregnant (despite avoiding the stomach region) in the newly filmed scenes as opposed to the original scenes. But... what else can they do? The actress is pregnant, so a little suspension of belief is required.


Anyway enjoyable bits:

- I laughed my ass off when Emma changed into the corsetted outfit and Hook could not tear his gaze away from her cleavage, later coupled with her adjusting said corset to go seduce Past!Hook (with Present!Hook growing jealous... of himself) with her shooting back "I know I am his type." Busted. She noticed Hook's inability to tear his gaze from her cleavage too. (And it was cute the way he was jealous of himself.)

- Charming asking "Charles" whether "Leia" was his princess followed by Charming's confusion over "Charles" & "Leia"'s relationship with Hook confessing, "I don't think her parents approve of me." Past!Charming points out it's clear that "Charles" would do anything for "Leia", how could her parents not approve? "Hope you remember that, mate" [/hook] Heh. (Although, honestly, it's always seemed that Charming is far more amenable to Hook/Emma than Snow White is.)

- Also liked Hook gathing Emma into his arms as Snow 'died.'

- Totally liked Emma's revelation that she loved her parents. That it was painful to be with them and them not realize who she was. Aw at her calling them "Mom" and "Dad" at the end.

- Totally sad for Rumple drinking the memory potion. I honestly don't think he did it to preserve the timeline. I think he did it because knowing the futility of it all was just too damn painful for him to tolerate. Rumple [i]does[/i] have cowardly aspects which brings me to my dislike...

- Holy crap, Rumple did marry Belle while being a lying liar to her. I mean, I do buy that he genuinely loves her. However, he lies to her far too damn easily, and his going into this marriage with that big-ass lie going on? This is not the way to enter a marriage. This is going to bite him in the ass.

- I guessed right off the bat that the woman that Emma saved was Maid Marion. I'm not sure how they are going to deal with that next season. They can't just kill Marion because they already did that with Neal in the Neal/Emma/Hook triangle. I think they were faking out out with Regina 'going evil' because I don't think she did, if she had, she would have gone psycho right thing and right there. That was partially an audience fake and a call-back to Daniel's death. The Emma/Snow parallel was deliberate. I anticipate Regina being quite bitter at the start of next season -- and having already lost Daniel followed by losing Robin could sap a lot of hope from her. I anticipated that they were going to throw Regina off track, but I cannot say that I'm entirely sure how they're going to handle this next bit.

- So the other thing "brought back" was the Snow Queen... aka Frozen's Elsa. Having already seen elsewhere the producers clarify that Elsa is not a villain (just misunderstood), I can see how thematically she could tie in. Elsa has been wronged (by Rumple, I'm thinking. She was basically his prisoner in the the vault). She's dangerous because she's powerful... which I think are things that are already set-up with Regina and Rumple as well. So I can see how dealing with a not-evil Elsa will work as a mirror to the precariously situated Regina and Rumple who may or may not 'go bad' in the wake of what's happened. They are on a knife's edge and either can tip right back into bad guy territory. (And I do wonder whether Charming/Hook's scene with Hook saying that he didn't think Emma's parents would approve of him, might also tie back into that).

... I basically got what I was expecting with Hook/Emma. I never bought into fan speculation of a huge love confession or a "true love's kiss" (I swear there are fans who have no CLUE about pacing). There was no reason whatsoever for the show to go into that kind of overdrive. Hook/Emma have a ways to go before they reach that point, so a happy moment with a real kiss (okay, make-out session) was the 'payoff' that was scaled correctly for where they are in the story. The show will have to build the relationship to a point where one of the show's trademark "True love's kiss" is an appropriate payoff... because I do think they are working towards going in that direction. But, it's still too damn soon for that.

Mad Men
Didn't see that episode yet.

(Belated) Big Bang Theory comment
Liked the Leonard/Penny engagement. "I don't want to be a bran muffin. I want to be a Cinnabon... or a Pop Tart!" LOL!

Comments

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed OUAT last night. There is actually chemistry between Hook and Emma, to the point where I'm really warming to her now (especially when she thought Snow had died -- she played that really well -- and then calling them "Mom" and "Dad" for the firs time).

I'd love to see them take Regina all the way to the good, and have her buck up, give Robin a smile, and tell him "as long as he's happy, she's happy," but I know that would be a stretch for Regina. (Of course, that reaction to him doesn't mean she wouldn't be back to hating Emma.) Hook was right, consequences!

It was a good episode.

Now I absolutely HAVE to actually SEE Frozen...

[liliaeth]

Thing is, if Marian had been killed by Regina and Robin discovered this, it could have in the end damaged Regina/Robin just as badly. At least this way, he'll still care for her.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

Word on Hizdar in the show. I already want more of him.

And same goes for Davos who's so much better in the show. I loved the Braavos part (even squealed a little when they showed the Titan). As for how he got Iron Bank backing - he just described the political situation in a very shrewd and realistic way. 7 kingdoms are propped by Tywin and when he goes it all falls apart.

For Tyrion and Shae part - I was thrilled how they did it. They showed Tyrion becoming a monster, right before us. This final humiliation from Shae was about how his father and sister really despised him. It wasn't really about Shae, here and in the book as well. It was that it wasn't enough to get rid of him. send him to the Wall or kill. They had to humiliate him. And that made him a monster. In the books they never followed up on that, that's why I stopped liking Tyrion in Book 5. On the show there's still hope they'll show him properly.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I guess, since they cut all the sex between Tyrion and Shae out it would have been difficult to refer to it the way the book does.

I wonder how they will move on with Shae. Show Shae is more sympathetic even now and if they let it go the way it goes in the book, Tyrion will be a very dark character indeed.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

Tyrion will be a very dark character indeed.
Well, killing Shae *did* make hima a very dark character in the books, and one of my big frustration with Book 5 was that it was never properly addressed.
But the show gave me hope that it would be treated properly! The way Tyrion turned into monster before our eyes was so chilling and powerful! If they let him kill Shae like in the books, I hope they would follow through with showing him as a monster.

Because it was a monstrous thing to do, very Lannister and very "big player" in the game. Tywin I'm more OK with as they were equals, but Shae was powerless, and the pawn in the game of Lannisters against each other. Another great thing in this episode is how they emphasised that for Tyrion, the anger at Shae's words wasn't about Shae, but about Tywin and Sersei, how they wanted to humiliate him on top of everything.
In the books Shae was doomed to be killed by one Lannister or another, whichever way she turned. We'll see how they'll play it here.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I've never really thought of Tyrion as a monster. I thought it was more that he was broken.

Killing Shae was a crime. It's inexcusable, and I am in no way saying she deserved to die. She didn't. So I'm not saying anything like that. I'm not justifying. HIs crime was not justified.

Still, I think he loved her and that after everything that happened... he snapped (which isn't justifying it. It's just what happened).

And that the reason he doesn't touch on it afterward is because it hurts too much. (I also think the "Where do whores go?" isn't just about Tysha but about dead Shae. It's an existential angst line. It's not just "where is Tysha?" It's more slight-of-hand philosophical than that).

Sometimes avoiding looking at something is it because that's the thing that hurts too much to face. Killing Tywin was one thing (I actually feel not one iota of problem with that. Tywin had been plotting various ways to kill Tyrion since book 1. I always thought that Tywin's "i'd send you to the wall" was part bullshit and part a way to kill Tyrion anyway. Tywin deserved to go down at the hands of one of his emotionally abused offspring.)

Killing Shae was something else entirely. That was terrible. That was horrific and wrong.

But I don't see Tyrion as a monster even though his action was monstrous. (That's what makes it tragic) I see him as destroyed.

Basically, I still have sympathy for Tyrion. Though, like Arya, I don't know if the character trajectory can change. Their psyches have been horribly skewed by everything that's happened.

At this point, I think it'll depend on Penny's fate. His deciding to protect Penny is sort of a last ditch connection to old Tyrion. If he abandons her to her fate or she is killed, there may be no path to something better. To quote AtS's Gunn, there may only be more down. But I loved early Tyrion enough that I want him to find... I don't know.

I don't know that there's either redemption or peace, but some bit of his soul again at least.

But, this being GRRM, that may be entirely too optimistic.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

Tywin deserved to go down at the hands of one of his emotionally abused offspring.
Yep, Tywin had it coming. No argument from me. :)

I also think the "Where do whores go?" isn't just about Tysha but about dead Shae. It's an existential angst line.
I chose to read it in the same way too, to maintain any connection to Tyrion.
Surely he would have recognized the irony, that he himself did to Shae what his father did to Tisha? He was the one in power, destroying someone who had no power just because he could and felt like it.

So yes, I was hanging on any hint in the book which showed Tyrion angsting over what he did to Shae. And Penny is his redemption/punishment arc, where he was put in a position of no power, and had to suffer like Shae or Tisha.
Still, it wasn't enough for me, there was so much plot stuff going on with him which I couldn't bring myself to care about because I only cared about what he felt about Shae.

Show looks promising in that regard, that they are setting it up to show Tyrion acting like a monster aand feeling it afterwards. Hope they won't bail out now. I thought they would skip Shae plot after shipping her to Volantis, now I see they are not afraid to do it. Good on them.

As for Tyrion being broken - yes he was, but when he killed Shae he was a monster. What he became later, beside being disgusted with his life and himself - hard to tell from the books. We'll see.