Bunch O' Stuff
Apr. 19th, 2011 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxFringe - Tornadoes had the show pre-empted in my area, so I didn't have a chance to see it until the Saturday 10pm re-airing. That was a really trippy episode with bits of Inception and A Scanner Darkly I pretty much knew that Leonard Nimoy's character had to die again. And I was relatively sure that he would continue to be a good guy (it's Leonard Nimoy, y'all!) Was surprised by Olivia bluntly saying that the unidentified guy in the zeplin is the guy who is going to kill her. Nice bookend with Peter recognizing the "not real" Olivia. Olivia probably needed that. And LOL at acid trip Broyles.
Upstairs, Downstairs - I forgot about this last week and so missed episode 1 entirely. But, I found it interesting and watchable this week. I found the flirtation with fascism plot quite interesting (and even timely). I'll be watching again.
Game of Thrones (BOOK) - Finally finished the book last night. It's paced quickly enough to be readable, though I find that I have ambivalent feelings. First off, I hate the Dothraki plot. I understand why it's there and the purpose that it serves... but the amount of skeeve tends to trump everything else for me. I understand that the Dothraki are some reflection of various 'horse peoples' from the Mongols, the Huns, to the Comanches. So I do understand the historical precedent, but... I still didn't enjoy that part of the story.
What I did like? Tyrion.
Tyrion is my favorite character in the book, bar none. I really could've just read 'the adventures of Tyrion' and been happier. Which isn't to say he's the only character I liked. I greatly enjoyed Arya. I have nothing against Jon Snow or Eddard Stark either. And while I liked them less, I totally understood both Catelyn and Sansa. I'd even argue that though I don't like her, Sansa is a well written character inasmuch that there are times I just want to slap her and other times where I genuinely feel for the girl (but that doesn't lessen the urge to slap her). So those were positives.
Will say that Ned was rather dim-witted in letting the Queen outmaneuver him. It was obvious that she was given ample opportunity to set everything up to her advantage. Ned was stupid to continue and continue convincing himself that she'd eventually flee when she flat out told him that this wasn't going to happen. Win or die. She was all in. So that blind spot was huge.
Also I'm curiously detached from Dany. They certainly put her through hell, and she's sympathetic enough. And yet... I just keep feeling that I should be feeling for her.
Finally, the ending... was a cliffhanger. I kind of expected more of an ending. I caught on when Tyrion got a hint of recognition (convenient though it was) from his father, with Bran getting an assload of exposition told to him as he expressed a desire to learn magic, followed by Jon deciding to remain at the wall, that this was going to be as much of a resolution as we were going to get in Book I. And certainly the birth of the dragons was a big image to exit on, but I still felt I would've like a bit more of a resolution for this novel rather than it clearly being a set up for the next.
I kind of feel a bit overwhelmed by the darkness of it all, though. I'm in for the next novel because I'm curious enough. I could deal with a bit more pleasure along the way though. Pleasure or zombies. More of either would be good.
I'm not totally complaining about the darkness, though. It makes sense, so it's not an objective criticism so much as an emotional one and preference. A lot of story seems reasonable enough. Having read my fair share about Eleanor of Aquataine, Queen Isabella she-wolf of France, Henry VIII, Lady Jane Grey, Queen (Bloody) Mary, and Elizabeth I, I can see the thrust of the story as being quite plausible and not any darker than real history. I know that the story is somewhat inspired by the War of the Roses (so I'm wondering Stark=York? Lancaster=Lannister?) But it's all rather emotionally taxing. And even that doesn't quite capture it because The Hunger Games is emotionally taxing. I think the difference is that The Hunger Games evoked tears from me. There were places where I had a good cathartic cry. I never had the urge to cry during A Game of Thrones. I was more detatched from the darkness which, strangely made it more depressing (if that makes any sense). JMHO.
Game of Thrones (TV) - so, yeah, still hate the Dothraki plot (and for the dude over on TWOP, it's not an insult to George R.R. Martin if people -- especially those who haven't read the book -- have some issues with the casting of the extras at the Dothraki wedding. It's not like he personally selected all the extras. So stop creating strawmen arguments around stuff that people didn't say and acknowledge that just maybe there were problems in the fact that the only people of color cast in the pilot episode appeared as 'savages'. Nothing in the book required this to be the case so allow folks some "did they really have to do that?") Still loved Tyrion, though he didn't have much of a role. Most everyone seems well cast, though the jury is out on Jon Snow's casting. They didn't give him much to do so it's hard to tell. Bean is a great choice for Eddard. I'm hoping the actress can make me feel more for Catelyn. Arya has potential. Sansa really is quite lovely to look at. The changes in the Dany deflowering... well, I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, that shit isn't fun to watch. I understand their changing it from overtly consensual to what is really a marital rape because it was rather confusing to go from a relatively tender love scene to the follow-up chapter where Dany doesn't have sex with Drago without pain and without his being tender at all without there being any real change other than chapters. So I can understand why they didn't bother with the way the wedding night played out in the book. And, honestly, I have no actual good feelings for Drago. Dany may have come to love him, but I never did. He was generally a cipher to me, so I'm not over bothered that they changed it. On the other hand, it's really grossing me out. This is part of why I hated the Dothraki plot. Again, I understand its purpose in the story and in Dany's plot, that doesn't mean that I have to like it. There was also some change in the Lannister Twincest. I really don't get why the show chose consistent doggy-style sex. It's noted that that's the Dothraki way, but that really isn't the way Lannister twincest happened in the book. But... I don't really care, other than it contributed to a sense of overkill.
I pretty much expected overkill. It's the HBO/Showtime standard with any new series. Amp up the sex and violence to 11 for buzz. Usually it tones down and they eventually get around to telling the stories. Not that the sex in the episode (other than Tyrion with the however many it was whores) wasn't in the book. Both twincest and Dany deflowering, and awful wedding humping were in the book. It's just that some things are easier to take in books than in visuals and I wish they had erred a tiny bit more on discretion because it's really easy to go for overkill.
Pacing-wise, I think that they had a crapload of exposition to try to impart so I'll give them a break on the pacing. There's really only so much you can do when you're trying to explain a half a bazillion characters, their relationships, and giving a quick rundown of what's going on. I've heard that the next several epsiodes are better paced, so I'm not going to complain about the pacing.
Since the pilot was shot then re-shot then pasted together (with a couple of different women playing Dany and Catelyn) I'm willing to cut some slack. It's an interesting story. I just tend to grow tired with things that are pretty relentlessly dark, so I fear I may find the series exhausting. Still, I'm interested in seeing how they do things (though I may ff Dothraki plot where I can).
Spike comic - Downloaded and read the recent edition. Eh. The whole Spuffy bit feels like they're trying to stick an afterthought bandaid on Season 8's infinite Spuffy lameness. Look, no bandaid is ever going to make the Spuffy reunion any less of the underwhelming raspberry in Spuffy fandom's face that Joss wrote, so I wish they'd quit trying to begrudgingly toss in stuff. You're in a hole. Stop digging! It's reads an awful lot like, "Yeah, fandom, you've bitched about never learning how Buffy found out about Spike being 'alive'. Here's a bone". Honestly, it's an underwhelming, lame bone (is it even a bone? I don't know that it even qualifies as that) that doesn't lessen the lame 'reunion' that can't be re-written now.
What's done is done. That cookie is cooked. It can't be retroactively fixed by piling on.
Upstairs, Downstairs - I forgot about this last week and so missed episode 1 entirely. But, I found it interesting and watchable this week. I found the flirtation with fascism plot quite interesting (and even timely). I'll be watching again.
Game of Thrones (BOOK) - Finally finished the book last night. It's paced quickly enough to be readable, though I find that I have ambivalent feelings. First off, I hate the Dothraki plot. I understand why it's there and the purpose that it serves... but the amount of skeeve tends to trump everything else for me. I understand that the Dothraki are some reflection of various 'horse peoples' from the Mongols, the Huns, to the Comanches. So I do understand the historical precedent, but... I still didn't enjoy that part of the story.
What I did like? Tyrion.
Tyrion is my favorite character in the book, bar none. I really could've just read 'the adventures of Tyrion' and been happier. Which isn't to say he's the only character I liked. I greatly enjoyed Arya. I have nothing against Jon Snow or Eddard Stark either. And while I liked them less, I totally understood both Catelyn and Sansa. I'd even argue that though I don't like her, Sansa is a well written character inasmuch that there are times I just want to slap her and other times where I genuinely feel for the girl (but that doesn't lessen the urge to slap her). So those were positives.
Will say that Ned was rather dim-witted in letting the Queen outmaneuver him. It was obvious that she was given ample opportunity to set everything up to her advantage. Ned was stupid to continue and continue convincing himself that she'd eventually flee when she flat out told him that this wasn't going to happen. Win or die. She was all in. So that blind spot was huge.
Also I'm curiously detached from Dany. They certainly put her through hell, and she's sympathetic enough. And yet... I just keep feeling that I should be feeling for her.
Finally, the ending... was a cliffhanger. I kind of expected more of an ending. I caught on when Tyrion got a hint of recognition (convenient though it was) from his father, with Bran getting an assload of exposition told to him as he expressed a desire to learn magic, followed by Jon deciding to remain at the wall, that this was going to be as much of a resolution as we were going to get in Book I. And certainly the birth of the dragons was a big image to exit on, but I still felt I would've like a bit more of a resolution for this novel rather than it clearly being a set up for the next.
I kind of feel a bit overwhelmed by the darkness of it all, though. I'm in for the next novel because I'm curious enough. I could deal with a bit more pleasure along the way though. Pleasure or zombies. More of either would be good.
I'm not totally complaining about the darkness, though. It makes sense, so it's not an objective criticism so much as an emotional one and preference. A lot of story seems reasonable enough. Having read my fair share about Eleanor of Aquataine, Queen Isabella she-wolf of France, Henry VIII, Lady Jane Grey, Queen (Bloody) Mary, and Elizabeth I, I can see the thrust of the story as being quite plausible and not any darker than real history. I know that the story is somewhat inspired by the War of the Roses (so I'm wondering Stark=York? Lancaster=Lannister?) But it's all rather emotionally taxing. And even that doesn't quite capture it because The Hunger Games is emotionally taxing. I think the difference is that The Hunger Games evoked tears from me. There were places where I had a good cathartic cry. I never had the urge to cry during A Game of Thrones. I was more detatched from the darkness which, strangely made it more depressing (if that makes any sense). JMHO.
Game of Thrones (TV) - so, yeah, still hate the Dothraki plot (and for the dude over on TWOP, it's not an insult to George R.R. Martin if people -- especially those who haven't read the book -- have some issues with the casting of the extras at the Dothraki wedding. It's not like he personally selected all the extras. So stop creating strawmen arguments around stuff that people didn't say and acknowledge that just maybe there were problems in the fact that the only people of color cast in the pilot episode appeared as 'savages'. Nothing in the book required this to be the case so allow folks some "did they really have to do that?") Still loved Tyrion, though he didn't have much of a role. Most everyone seems well cast, though the jury is out on Jon Snow's casting. They didn't give him much to do so it's hard to tell. Bean is a great choice for Eddard. I'm hoping the actress can make me feel more for Catelyn. Arya has potential. Sansa really is quite lovely to look at. The changes in the Dany deflowering... well, I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, that shit isn't fun to watch. I understand their changing it from overtly consensual to what is really a marital rape because it was rather confusing to go from a relatively tender love scene to the follow-up chapter where Dany doesn't have sex with Drago without pain and without his being tender at all without there being any real change other than chapters. So I can understand why they didn't bother with the way the wedding night played out in the book. And, honestly, I have no actual good feelings for Drago. Dany may have come to love him, but I never did. He was generally a cipher to me, so I'm not over bothered that they changed it. On the other hand, it's really grossing me out. This is part of why I hated the Dothraki plot. Again, I understand its purpose in the story and in Dany's plot, that doesn't mean that I have to like it. There was also some change in the Lannister Twincest. I really don't get why the show chose consistent doggy-style sex. It's noted that that's the Dothraki way, but that really isn't the way Lannister twincest happened in the book. But... I don't really care, other than it contributed to a sense of overkill.
I pretty much expected overkill. It's the HBO/Showtime standard with any new series. Amp up the sex and violence to 11 for buzz. Usually it tones down and they eventually get around to telling the stories. Not that the sex in the episode (other than Tyrion with the however many it was whores) wasn't in the book. Both twincest and Dany deflowering, and awful wedding humping were in the book. It's just that some things are easier to take in books than in visuals and I wish they had erred a tiny bit more on discretion because it's really easy to go for overkill.
Pacing-wise, I think that they had a crapload of exposition to try to impart so I'll give them a break on the pacing. There's really only so much you can do when you're trying to explain a half a bazillion characters, their relationships, and giving a quick rundown of what's going on. I've heard that the next several epsiodes are better paced, so I'm not going to complain about the pacing.
Since the pilot was shot then re-shot then pasted together (with a couple of different women playing Dany and Catelyn) I'm willing to cut some slack. It's an interesting story. I just tend to grow tired with things that are pretty relentlessly dark, so I fear I may find the series exhausting. Still, I'm interested in seeing how they do things (though I may ff Dothraki plot where I can).
Spike comic - Downloaded and read the recent edition. Eh. The whole Spuffy bit feels like they're trying to stick an afterthought bandaid on Season 8's infinite Spuffy lameness. Look, no bandaid is ever going to make the Spuffy reunion any less of the underwhelming raspberry in Spuffy fandom's face that Joss wrote, so I wish they'd quit trying to begrudgingly toss in stuff. You're in a hole. Stop digging! It's reads an awful lot like, "Yeah, fandom, you've bitched about never learning how Buffy found out about Spike being 'alive'. Here's a bone". Honestly, it's an underwhelming, lame bone (is it even a bone? I don't know that it even qualifies as that) that doesn't lessen the lame 'reunion' that can't be re-written now.
What's done is done. That cookie is cooked. It can't be retroactively fixed by piling on.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 03:35 am (UTC)I have always been really ambivalent about Dany on the page for two reasons - one is that she's totally a fantasy cliche in many respects, and the other is that for every other setting, we have multiple points of view which we can shift through to suss out what might actually be going on, but for the Dothraki/events taking place in the East, it's JUST Dany's point of view. So ... either she's omniscient, unlike everyone else in the series, or else we are getting a seriously limited POV. However, Emilia Clarke is really good at evoking my sympathy so I might end up liking Dany a lot more. (Like you, however, I never warmed to Drogo - for one thing, he didn't get his long-ass undefeated braid by being a nice guy and I always wanted to shake Dany for her surprise that the Dothraki, y'know, rape and pillage people! I was pretty much 99% Team Mirri Maaz Duur :P
There's not a lot of happy fun stuff, true, but I do like Sam a lot and his relationship with Jon which is a very true and real friendship. And Jaime has the most wonderful redemption arc, I'm telling ya :P
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 06:37 am (UTC)The brutality and darkness is what bugged me a little bit in the later books, I was pretty much fine with it till book three but then it became a little bit too dominant for me, even though I understood that this was meant to show the most horrible time of a war, were everyone is basically turned into animals.
About the sex scenes in the show: It's a bit funny I think, because Martin's book could really not do with being censored. The sex scenes are never superfluous, shit happens in them. For Dany it's some sort of turning point, Jamie and Cersei are the core of the political plot, Tyrion's history with whores is a central element of his character (though in the books there is not so much emphasis on it in the first book). On tv, even HBO they seem to find it hard to use sex for anything else than fanservice. And yeah, why is everyone so into doggy style?
Tyrion is my favorite charater too and also Martin's.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 07:48 am (UTC)If you burn a cookie to a crisp, no amount of icing and sprinkles can take away that it's still burned.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 09:01 am (UTC)Yep. That's why I keep saying that season 8 trashed Spuffy just as effectively as it trashed Bangel and no happy!happy!joy!joy! news about how awesome Spuffy is going to be in season 9 (which I highly doubt anyway) can ever change that. Joss ended Bangel with a bang (heh!literally). Spuffy didn't even get a whimper.
As for Game of Thrones, I've never read the books and quite enjoyed the first episode, despite the troubling stuff in it (and yeah, that racial casting thing is one aspect of what troubles me). I shall keep watching - intrigued enough to do that.
Was going to ask you which on earth character Tyrion was (haven't got all their names straight yet). But then I realised from what you were saying. Think he was my favourite.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 03:19 pm (UTC)The race-fail in the casting, I think, falls primarily on the heads of the TV guys. In the book they're a fairly transparent analog to Attila and his Huns. The only people unambiguously described as being black in book one is a mention of one of the areas of Westeros -- the Summer Isles. And I believe one of the advisers to King Robert may have been mentioned as having been from the Summer Isles.
Tyrion is 'the imp.' He has perhaps the most adventuresome plot in Book I, as he isn't tied down. He's smart, sarcastic, and frequently rueful about his situation, while there's also some real sadness in him over being thought of as 'disposable' by his father, and there's even a tragic romance in his past. So, yeah, he's the character that I most enjoyed. What can I say, I like the rogues.
Jon Snow "the bastard" is also enjoyable. He's more the young idealistic hero. In Book I he's only 14, so he's basically growing up in the first book.
Ned (Lord Eddard Stark) - is pretty much exactly as you see him. Honorable guy who wants to do the right thing and who loves his kids and he's somewhat rigid (and idealistic(?) in living by a strict moral code (so the opening scene with the beheading served its purpose in showing who Ned is.
Arya (the tomboy daughter) is interesting. She loathes sewing and wants to be a warrior. The two sisters are polar opposites and it's a lot easier to side with Arya in their fights. Plus, I rather loved her sword fighting instructor (and her father gets bonus points for having hired a sword fighting instructor for her. By and large, Ned is a pretty decent father. You understand why his children love him.) Young though she is, she's one of the more adventuresome characters in the first book.
And patriarchial world aside, I don't have great issue with the way that women are presented. They may live in a misogynist culture, but none of the female characters are actually weak. They generally drive their own plots (though you may want to slap Arya's sister Sansa for her naive fangirling. She's only twelve or so in the book (thirteen in the show), so her fan-girly 'romance' obsession makes sense, but that naive-insistence on believing in chivalric 'romance' despite what's quite obvious to the reader of the books can be terribly frustrating.) The Queen is highly intelligent -- if vile. I never warmed to Catelyn (Ned's wife)in the book, but I have little reason not to, so I hope the actress can draw me in. Catelyn's motivations make sense. They pushed her son out a window. She deserves her suspicions and righteous rage, so a good actress could win me over. And Dany (silver-hair sold to the Dothraki) suffers a lot, but you can tell that they're basically trying to set her up to become a warrior queen.
So, while it may be a misogynist world, I don't think the story itself is misogynist. The female characters are generally intelligent and are individuals. They're independent characters, not accessories, so on that score I was satisfied. (Still dislike the Dothraki stuff though. Could've done with 90% less rape).
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 11:45 am (UTC)It feels weird to say it, but maybe it was because of the 90% rape? They kind of pandered to the male gaze, but then turned it on its head, like in the scene where the nasty blond bloke stripped off his sister's clothes. Anyone thinking 'wahay! boobs!' was put in the uncomfortable position of identifying with the evil brother.
That said, I daresay some people would get off on that. It's a very fine line.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 10:09 am (UTC)Game of Thrones hasn't really been calling to me, and I have a feeling it might be because it's on HBO. I find all the amped up sex and violence just a bit, I dunno, immature; I might wait to see how the reviews are in a few weeks time.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 01:53 pm (UTC)I was pretty much expecting the uber sex and violence because HBO usually does that in the first couple of episodes of any series. It's like they have to get their "We on HBO bitches!" ya-yas out.
That said, it's also true that most of the sex in the first episode is actually in the book. We had the Dany de-flowering/rape (it was less rape-like in the book). And of course twincest, which at least in book 1 is the only time we actually have to witness it and it is a plot point.
But the whole Dothraki plot is kinda-rapey in the book which is why I uber-dred it in the show. I was actually (vainly, I'm sure) hoping that they'd tone that part down, because, honestly... it's rather gross. But that's a relatively small part of the plot and it does lead to Dany's arc as a character. But still... I really rather disliked that subplot as a whole.
Most of the stuff in Westeros is decidedly less sexy. So surely that'll sort of be lessened as we go along. It's far more political intrigue.
The only sex that was added was Tyrion in the whorehouse, which actually isn't in the book, but I do understand why it was there. It gives you a better entrance for the character (and he is a major character, so that's understandable) and it tells you something about the character. (He does sleep with prostitutes, but there's more to that story are reasons why that's there. As far as GoT characters go, Tyrion is a pretty good guy overall.)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 10:31 am (UTC)Though the references to King over the Water is more exciled Stuarts Old and Young Pretenter than the much earlier Wars of the Roses.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 12:57 pm (UTC)