(Today’s title credit must go to Bottom-Supporter Stella. “Home Tweet Home” indeed.)
I don’t have much to say. Y’all know the drill.
This was another long one. People had a lot to say. (And yell.) (With their fingertips.) I apologize to your loading speed (and our servers) in advance.
… Let’s just dive in, shall we?
(And remember, you can also view this directly at Storify if you have loading issues.) (Or go slideshow version. I love slideshow version.)
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Woohoo! Been waiting for this all day 😀
Excited we got a proper meme this week, very season 1.
Holy moly, that fruit pie!!!
NOT NOW HARLEY
Bravo! What a great night
After a few weeks finally a great twitter article,not that i blame you for the other ones Axey,there were still some very few snobby comments by some purists but it was to be expected ,there’s always going to be that 1%
urangutan21,
Well the way I see it, everyone is a purist to a certain degree. Like if they were calling the show Game of Thrones and it was a musical about a girl named Sansa’s high school glee club, I think 99.93% of the fandom would be having full-on froth rages. So we all want it to have some connection to George’s story.
It’s the dividing line of How Much deviation that’s always the sticking point.
But I agree. Some people just don’t take kindly to any deviation… or they simply don’t understand the television adaptation process.
No matter their gripes, Game of Thrones remains one of the best shows on television. (And my personal favorite!)
That Gendry pic had me dying!!! Haha.
I can honestly say that Gendry is the luckiest and safest bastard rowing that boat right now.
“Wun Wun just won 200 tickets playing Whack-A-Wight at Chuck E. Cheese”
I am holding my sides in at work trying so hard not to spit on my monitor. BEST of the Tweets to date and for good reason. I swear reading the Tweets from the time Jon and Tormund and Edd hit the shores of Hardhome were the EPICness of EPIC tweets. I can’t imagine any better. I laughed and cried….so damned good.
Thanks Axey!!
Out of curiosity, do you have to search pretty hard to find the tweets containing Theon love?
Maybe I’m prejudice, but I’d imagine most of them are more like @willevenwrites‘s “Sansa choking out Theon right now would kill two birds with one stone. Theon’s death and Sansa actually doing something. #DemThrones”.
Way to put me on blast Axey, lol.
To be fair, I don’t enjoy action for action’s sake. It’s maybe a personal preference. And I found it cheesy at times.
We will see if anything comes of the scene and it actually moves the plot forward instead of being a random battle inserted just so they could have a battle.
I’m also really confused about why they keep changing the rules about wights and the walkers (from within the show).
I didn’t think the episode was terrible but it wasn’t perfect either.
When the Night King spread his arms and stared at Jon, I fully expected some echoing, maniacal laughter to come booming across the water from him. They probably don’t laugh, though. Just kill shit.
Love this tweet segment, Axe, it’s always hilarious. Thank you
Deefalc,
Well, Hardhome (in the books) served to let people know that the Others had moved further south (and to the coast). The show version of Hardhome did much of the same–except they combined it with the Haunted Forest grove where Wun Wun and other straggling bands of Wildlings were found by Jon.
Amalgamation at work, as per the norm. Throw on top of that an action scene, because it’s better to see what descended onto Hardhome rather than just guessing (like we’re forced to do in the books).
Would you have simply sidelined Jon for more episodes? There’s nothing else for him to really do until probably the finale.
Axechucker,
I think they could have shown more of the struggle between Jon and the rest of the night’s watch, just not Ser Alliser and Olly, instead of rushing him away. Maybe they’ll show that coming up but I feel like they could have built up the rising tide of mistrust against him better.
I love that tart! It’s gorgeous!
Another great round up of some very funny people. Thanks, as always, for including me. I’ll try to watch my language…oh who am I kidding? I talk like a sailor.
Deefalc,
No. Just no. It’s been all talk all season so is time for some action and the result is positive. Expect more battles in the future if you dislike that kind if stuff.
What about the wights you say the rules are being changed. Please school me on that topic 🙂
I think upon reflection we will be in awe as to how D&D cut this season down to ten hours. Purists can go read imaginary book 6. This really is by far the best adaptation of anything. After a year of prep and warning for some of these cuts, I mean, what would anyone bring back to cut something different?
Deefalc, King Stannis,
Yeah, I don’t get the “rules changes” thing either. I’m not sure there were ever any ground rules set down on how animated corpses were supposed to behave.
Sometimes they move slowly, sometimes quickly, but it seems to me it depends on the corpse in question. The skeletal bastards that attacked Bran & co. had very little meat on them and seemed to move very quickly. The bigger/bulkier ones seem to move slower.
Oh, thanks for pointing out the slideshow, that made the reading much easier. – Im not much of a battle or zombie fan, but man oh man I loved this scene! Can’t wait to find out how they did it. Amazing stuff.
I know, right? All of that cleanliness, sauciness, and winking put me in the mood for some dwarf luck – for the first time ever.
Rat Kook,
I’m a Theon-lover. I mean, yeah, he has totally done things I might not be able to forgive in real life, in Sansa’s shoes, but he’s gotten worse than he’s ever given. I cannot help but have sympathy for someone who’s received ten times his comeuppance due. Theon is a shell of a human, a witless soul, and anyone who talks down to someone at that level is a bully. So every time Sansa says she’s so glad that Theon’s been abused, that he deserved every single thing he’s been given, and especially when she says that she’d do the same, she loses much of my respect and sympathy. I say to myself, Ah! There’s the bitch from Season 1 who lied for her own advantage and got the butcher’s boy and her direwolf killed.
Axechucker,
I think some people felt the continuity of the wights between seasons was lacking. Not so much from S4 to S5, but from S2 to now. The first group we ever saw en masse were slow, lumbering corpses a la Walking Dead. Now we’ve got 28 Days Later suddenly.
Ultimately, who cares really. Just people nitpicking. Something I’m wondering about is whether the Night’s King has been redesigned? I feel his S4 makeup was less CG than it is now.
Axechucker,
They were like Othor(Sp?) in season one. Slow, could die by fire, but hard to kill otherwise. Actually look human? I suppose the Bran ones were different, but that was such a small amount of screen time I kind of shrugged it off.
King Stannis,
See my above comment on wights. As for all talk… they completely cut out a lot of the politics at the wall. You could disagree with me if that is for the better but its gonna look out of the blue when things happen… just like a personal grudge from Olly. im worried about posting spoilers here so i wont say more.
But I LIKE the politics. They can be exciting. They’ve done it on this show in the past.
Deefalc,
The one on season 1 was a fresh Wight that recently died. Hardhome had them as well as the recent death.
As for Skeletons well… Those are old bodies that have rotten throught time.
If you remember on season one first episode the wights moved fast! Poor night watchmen was out of breath and he got caught. (Watch that episode again)
Fire? There was no fire at Hardhome so there was no fight to put up. It was a massacre!!! You can cut limbs but they still remain alive.
I love the politics of the show as well btw 🙂
King Stannis,
were’nt they Walkers and not wights? I know there was the little girl but otherwise i think it was Walkers?
There was fire and one of the Walkers walked right through it.
I’m not saying some shouldnt be skeletons by the way, but they all were which seems odd
Oh goodness! I can now die contented, Ser Axey chose to feature me, and three times even! R’hllor has blessed me with Twittery Fire! (In the real world, a woman goes by Margaret :).)
I’d like to thank the episode for allowing me this opportunity, for it was a superb work of art, truly. It’s my personal second best episode of the series so far. Everything about it was perfect, for casual viewers, obsessive viewers, Sullied, and Unsullied alike. Valyrian Steel effective against WW, confirmed! Sansa learns the truth about her brothers! Cersei slurping water off of a cell floor while Tyrion sips wine with the queen who’s coming to take her place. Arya working towards fulfilling her destiny. The cat. AFfC referenced. Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun!
And that battle!!?!? More like a massacre. Even as a book lover, I’m completely happy with the early reveal of the Night’s King character. If viewers didn’t already know, there’s now no question as to who the true enemy of Westeros is. Also, if that battle did nothing else, it at least showed that there’s only one thing that stands a chance of defeating the White Walkers’ army of hundreds of thousands of undead wights: Dragons.
And those performances?! Kit, Lena, Sophie, Alfie, Peter, Emilia, Iain. VFX teams. Stunt teams. Weapons teams. How is this not the best television show in the history of television shows??? GAME OF THRONES GETS ALL OF THE AWARDS.
Deefalc,
I really can’t tell honestly. They just move too fast. The link is on the bottom if you’re interested or care to put the puzzle together.
I know the Wight later on in the season at castle black was in close quarters which is why we didn’t get a chance to see how fast it runs.
I gotta see the scene the walker walks right trough the fire again, I thought he managed to put it out with mysterious powers as he walked by it O_o
Check out this video on YouTube:
Lol those people never heard of Marching?
What’s the point of The White Walkers running if they weren’t attacking in season 2.
Last I saw Stannis Army was walking out of castle black. I’m pretty sure they won’t be moving that speed when the boltons are near by. Just saying.
Hmmm, it can lead to other things too. Ollie worries me. Sam worries me too for not recognizing a potential threat to Jon.
Mountainstein! Will he/it arrive to bust Cersei out?
Oh geez, “Wildling Bjork” made me laugh so hard. XD
Excellent awesomeness as usual. Thanks Axey, for a great roundup!
Axechucker,
Pfft, the explanation is very straightforward once you think about it, Axey. The Night’s King, being at least a 20th level necromancer, has an aura about him that gives all his minions a boost to speed and damage.
Mr Fixit,
Ha, I was going to say pretty much the same thing! General Necromancer makes you move faster…
Well, I believe all wights we’ve seen were moving fast. Even the one attacking Jeor Mormont in his quarters was surprisingly mobile (which freaked me out back then).
The only exception would be the army marching towards the Fist of the First men. But I believe that might be it: they were marching towards it. Not yet attacking (which we didn’t see).
Mr Fixit,
Or that.
I definitely didn’t see the Night’s King near the Fist.
Ginevra,
Yeah I love him too. People are entitled to their opinions – I guess – but I can’t help but feel at least a pang of disgust when people proclaim Theon’s death as being some sort of “long overdue” plot point that the story needs to bequeath us with before it can be called good. Not only because the very notion of a story owing you anything is narcissistic and tediously self-entitled, but because I think it takes quite a deranged person to covet that of all things when the Boltons continue to hold sway in the north, Dany still hasn’t come west with her dragons, and the purpose of Dorne hasn’t become apparent yet.
Not only has the guy undergone severe physical torture and lost this sanity, as of last episode he’s now openly claiming that he deserved everything he got; that he deserves to be Reek. To my mind the consensus should be that nobody deserves to be Reek (except arguably the guy creating Reeks), yet Theon drops that into his confession all the same. And then people still want him to die, because apparently he hasn’t paid for his sins yet. And I know none of these people are calling for his death because it’s what the character would want, either.
At this point, I’m wondering if the “sin” that Theon is committing is just being there on the screen at all. Now that I really think about it, that 90 seconds they gave him could have been given to Jon or Tyrion or Dany or Arya or even Sansa instead. And when you add up each of those 90 seconds from the entire series, I kid you not almost an entire scene’s-worth of screen time has been wasted on a character who is actually not a badass at all.
How could GRRM and the show-runners have made such a fatal misstep? It’s almost as if they don’t know what goes into making a character interesting to begin with. Perhaps they should have given Theon some sort of severe psychological illness or something, where his personality fractures to such an extent that a differently named character grows out of it and fights against him every step of the way. This would create conflict which is what stories need to be good. As it stands though, they’ve just got this character Theon who needs to grow a fraction of a testicle and stop being a wuss already. A missed opportunity, I have to say. Whatever my original stance was at the start of this post I can’t even remember it that’s how angry the poor storytelling has made me. #KillTheon #DemThrones.
It WAS a really good epi. I think that nothing has been quite as good as ep 6 s 1 but this is pretty damn close.
Beat ep 9 of last season by a mile (and I have nothing Against the battle at the wall either!)
Rat Kook Personally, I want Theon to die because it would be a mercy for him and for me. I’m sick of seeing his stupid child murdering face and I’m sick of his torture plot. and, I think I’m in the minority. Obviously I don’t hate him like I hate Ramsey – I just don’t care about theon.
And for the record. Torture is not redemptive, and theon doesn’t “deserve” either redemption or death anyway, no more than say Jaime does. Good for either of them if they go on to do better things, but that doesn’t erase their past and the pain they’ve caused others.
Still on a personal level I’d like Theon to die sooner than later. I don’t expect it to happen given the showrunners seem to love him and his “oh woe is me I made bad decisions and keep making bad decisions because I’m weak” character arc.
Queenofthrones,
That’s the sort of thing I can at least understand. A reason why you’d like him to die supported by a set of rationale that actually make sense. The people I’m criticising are the ones that dismiss him as being simply weak and therefore a boring part of the story for no other reason than weakness is boring.
I still want him to die for beheading Ser Rodrick and allowing the orphan boys to be killed let alone betraying Robb and taking Winterfell.
Queenofthrones,
Interesting. In my opinion S01E06 was average episode by GoT standards.
Delurking to say:
Thanks, Axey, for the great tweet round-up of this amazing episode AND for using my suggested title!
That said, relurking. 🙂
DAMMIT JON YOU JUST ROWED OVER GENDRY! :rofl: Another great tweetfest, Axey 🙂
Love this feature!
One thing I will say though, I am absolutely saddened that Jon didn’t pick up the White Walker’s weapon after he shattered him. The only way to kill wights is by fire. Sword fighting does no justice.
I wish he had the sense to pick it up, retrieve Dragonglass from Dragonstone and tip the other end with Dragonglass. You need to really defeat the White Walkers before the Wights in order to succeed. Yes, yes, Valyrian steel works just as well, but Valyrian Steel will do nothing to a Wight. If he had that Ice blade with D’glass at the end, then whoever was wielding it could destroy any weapons the wights were holding, making it less easy for a wight to kill someone while also being prepared to kill a White Walker when encountered by one. Besides it would be one less weapon for the White Walkers.
You could use a fire torch with its back end tipped with D’glass too, but if you approach a White Walker, the fire will be put out by their powers and you will be left only with D’glass, fair enough for the White Walker kill but powerless against a wight.
I am sorry, but I just think WAY too far ahead in these things, I need to stop myself. -.-
BUT IT WAS A GREAT EPISODE.
I really liked the writing by Jane Espenson in that episode, she’s absolutely fantastic IMO and I was sad she wasn’t asked to return. As for events, the “crown for king/fire does not kill a dragon” scene was both deeply anticipated and well-realized, and The Eyrie in particular was spectactular.
I can rewatch that episode over and over without getting bored. In contrast in Seasons 3&4 I’ve felt very little desire to rewatch other than the final/climactic episodes. Season 2 as a whole missed the mark for me.
Rat Kook,
To be fair, this is twitter. You can’t expect people to detail the specific rational and emotional reasons why they want a character to go in 162 characters. Plus, people are trying to be humorous and give their unadulterated feelings about a matter. If you were to ask me to do that I’d probably say
“Theon and his stupid child-murdering face can go die in a fire for all I care”
or
“Please for the love of the Seven, Sansa put this creature out of his misery!”
etc.
Queenofthrones,
Haha. That’s a good point. It still felt good having a little vent about it though and I’m trying to do some writing every day now. Do you actually really dislike his face??
(oh also for the record, I didn’t put this in my last reply and it’s too late to edit it now: I don’t think being tortured is redemptive in and of itself. I think torture is the punishment for his sins, the payment. I agree that only his future actions could possibly redeem him. It’s just that those future actions may only be possible for a person like Theon after going through the bad stuff that he did. That’s why I really don’t want him to die because it has the potential to be very interesting and the death would rob us of that potential)
Fun stuff, Axey. Thx. Took a long while to get thru this week’s collection. I need some Targ pie. Also loved how folks were relating the “Hardhome” theme to the other arcs (Sansa, Cersei, etc). So many good follow-up creativity and reviews/pontifications after the episode!
Rat Kook,
As a character study, Theon is awesome! He’s the only one on the show I can think of who has taken such a scourging, looked into his soul, accepted responsibility for his actions, rendered a full confession, and is inching towards making amends despite having been completely broken and still in the concentration camp that is the Bolton Winterfell.
Cersei is STILL sneering rage, pride, spite, and denials at her accusers. Jaime, the Hound, Tyrion — let’s go down the list —
still tilt more towards self-pity and blaming others for their misfortunes and bad decisions. (Lancel’s crisis of the soul is self-imposed, and he has a no-cost get-out-of-hell-card courtesy of his Sparrow-pleasing testimony.)
Early in his captivity, before he became Reek, Theon had the clarity to acknowledge how sorry he was, how his real father was Ned, not that a-hole on Pyke.
Theon played cock of the walk early on as a defense mechanism against familial abandonment and his hostage status with the Starks. Even when he saved Bran from the wildlings in Season One, he got no thanks but was reprimanded that his stellar archery had put Bran at risk. The guy couldn’t catch a break.
His worst actions weren’t even his own ideas but the demands of others: the betrayal of Robb, the execution of that Stark family retainer, and the killing and burning of the farm boys all came at the prompting of others.
Theon made horrendous mistakes, and he paid for them horrendously. I would argue that the weakness in his scenes comes not from Alfie Allen (who all agree is killing it), but from the deranged Hobbit that is Ramsay (a case more of casting than the talents of Iwan Rheon).
Show Ramsay is Ramsay lite, if that can be believed, and audience impatience with him has much to do with the animus directed at Theon and the Winterfell arc in general.
Theon might never be whole, he might never redeem himself in the classic sense of taking definitive, heroic action, but his condition is a unique and compelling one in the world of ice and fire.
To appropriate and paraphrase what Aemon said about someone else: ‘A Greyjoy alone in the world is a terrible thing.’
The story is enriched by Theon’s presence. Let the haters hate…
Amen, Reader. Team Theon right here! He’s honestly my favorite character in the series, and will be disappointed if he doesn’t get some sort of upswing before his ultimate end.
(At least I think he’s headed for an end! I don’t see him surviving the winter.)
How dare everyone attack Jane Expenson and Theon while I’m not looking… boo…
Jane is fab going back to Buffy and Firefly and in person too… and we had like a total of One too many Theon torture scenes. We’ve had more time wasted on Miranda then Theon. Hate on Miranda and the Mandely or Dustin time we might have had instead…
Rodrik the Reader,
Thanks for that write up! When I read back my initial vent, I felt like I’d missed an opportunity to go more in-depth about his quality of life pre-Clash of Kings, and the the motivations that came out of it. But I think your post summed it all up perfectly. I agree that maybe Ramsay-Lite does have something to do with the less-than-sympathetic backlash Theon attracts on the show. And his indisputable hostage situation is maybe something that the show could have emphasised a little more. I feel like there should be a scene which gets the point across that there’s never been a time in the story when Theon wasn’t a hostage to some degree.
I do remember his confession to Ramsay at the gate just before he was betrayed, too, and I thought that was incredibly well done; the scene was arranged in such a way as to make it slightly unsettling for anyone who didn’t know what would happen on the other side of those bars, and outright tragic for anyone who did. I think what I found interesting about this latest confession in “Hardhome” was that he goes so far as to say he deserves to be Reek, knowing full well what horrors lead to that. It’s heart-breaking seeing his innate sense of self-loathing play a part in making that judgement.
@Axechucker man I hope he makes it through to the end, I really do. I just want him to attain freedom forever, and not the deathy sort. I want him to go live on the Iron Islands with his mum and with Asha/Yara, and let that be the end of it.
Rat Kook,
Nicely put. What is justice for Theon? Some want him to be punished even more (‘It can always be worse’) or at least be put down like a crippled animal. Others want him to go out in an unsung heroic act of self-sacrifice.
But why can’t Theon Dream of Spring along with the rest of Westeros and be among those who stay alive to bask in its renewal?
A heart-tugging news item from my childhood that haunts me to this day involved a rescued dog that had spent its life in a box. It couldn’t be removed from the box without freaking out. Eventually, it accepted removal from the box but for months would move only a few inches in either direction. It would pace back and forth within the dimensions of the box that was no longer there.
It took a long time for the dog to heal, to believe it deserved better, and to fully realize the warmth and hope of Spring.
So let it be with Theon.
MidnightInFleabottom,
I prefer “Frankengregor” myself :-).
King Stannis,
In the book, it was an Other who killed the Watch men, but there were wights, as well. Here, the darkness looks more like a wight than the whiteness of an Other, but the sword is definitely that of an Other. I’m not sure why they made the Other so dark, though.
Well said, Rodrik the Reader. Keep reading.
Rodrik the Reader,
That dog story is incredibly sad, even told second-hand. Long and difficult is probably the only sort of recovery left for Theon, but hopefully that’s exactly the route GRRM and the showrunners will take.
Rat Kook,
Poor Sandor. Just when he’s out, they pull him back in (or so we predict). And… he might not win (shudders).