Peter Dinklage hosted last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live on NBC, turning in a variety of hilarious performances on the show. Gwen Stefani was the musical guest, and even popped into a sketch.
The opening monologue acknowledged right off the actor’s reason for being there: Game of Thrones. He was joined by a few of SNL’s cast members, including Bobby Moynihan who parodied writer George R.R. Martin, an act he has done before.
HBO’s Game of Thrones brandishes a consistent and high degree of fidelity to the nearly 5,000-page-long source material of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, but there still, of course, are differences. While most of these gaps from the page to the screen are small and detail-oriented, it is nonetheless the case that the most subtle discrepancies often hold the biggest insight into the adaptation process, into the demands of filmmaking, and into the rigors of the literary narrative.
This, then, is the anatomy of a key scene of Thrones – not because of its dramatic importance or visual effects whizbangery, but because of the telling nature of its realization.
There is an assortment of odds and ends revolving around the wedding of Lord Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey that serves as garnish for the main, grizzly feast: Grey Wind, Robb’s direwolf who literally never leaves his side in the novels, snaps at the first Frey envoy outside the castle, causing him to be locked up in the pens for the remainder of their stay; the young bride Roslin is demure and polite but also constantly tearful as her husband-to-be shows her unfailing kindness; the drums in the gallery that pound through every song, appropriately or not, are secretly the signal that coordinates all activity in both of the Freys’ castles and in the lands surrounding them; the tents outside the Twins that house the majority of the Starks’ bannermen are burnt to the ground, killing all trapped inside; the blow to the back of Arya’s head from Sandor Clegane’s axe is left entirely ambiguous as to whether it was intended to simply knock her out or to fully kill her, adding a final layer of tension and desperation to the climactic scene.
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Join me as I venture into the annals of Game of Thrones fandom for its most iconic event: the Red Wedding. With it, GoT taught everyone what George R.R. Martin had taught some of us years before in ASOIAF: no one is safe!
As an individual who ran a blog that once documented Robb Stark fans’ reactions to the Red Wedding, I’ve been able to chart the various responses to the infamous televison event. As it’s now ubiquitous in fandom and mainstream conversation about the show, I find it perhaps easiest to categorize the major types of reactions in order to understand the mayhem of D&D’s interpretation of the worst wedding ever.
I’ve broken it down into eight categories. Let’s take a quick swing through examples of each as we recount the episode which redefined a classic show and changed television forever.
A Game of Thrones episode as pivotal as “The Rains of Castamere” requires a lot of lovin’ and a lot of attention. It stands as the dividing point of the series- everything is before or after the Red Wedding. Today we’ll be enjoying this incredible episode with three posts: after this one, we’ll have a fun look back at the fan reactions to the scene that broke the internet, and then we’ll cap the day off with Marc N. Kleinhenz’s Anatomy of a Throne analyzing the book-to-screen adaptation for the episode. Starting us off with our walk down Memory Lane- please welcome back Greatjon of Slumber! – Sue the Fury
Game of Thrones as a television show was already well accomplished by the time it reached the penultimate episode of season 3; its ratings were strong, it was hailed for close attention to character, acting, and engaging storyline, was both a critical and cultural favorite, and had tons of fans among both fans of the novels and those who discovered it via HBO. But it was this episode – more commonly known as “The Red Wedding,” that turned it into a phenomenon.
Game of Thrones fans can get a little antsy waiting for the new season. April 24th starts to seem like a long way off and sometimes fans get…creative in how we direct that energy, manufacturing fake images of the season to come.
Well, this year we decided to channel that enthusiasm in a more fun direction with our very first Photoshop challenge! We challenged our readers to show us their hopes, wishes, and suspicions about the new season, creating new images for everyone’s enjoyment. Skill was not necessarily required, only cleverness, humor, or an idea. We asked you all to show us what you’ve got, and Game of Thrones fans delivered.
Based on the submissions, it seems fans want to see in season 6 a whole lot of payback, the return of bastards and kings, ships coming true, dragons, hype and violence. Lots of violence, but then this is Game of Thrones.
As promised, we’ve chosen a grand winner of the contest, and a runner-up, based on deliberations among the Watchers on the Wall staff. We had a great selection to choose from and it wasn’t easy. Thank you to everyone for your submissions, and we hope you all enjoy their offerings!
{Warning: Image-heavy post!}
Contrary to previous reports, the writing of Game of Thrones season 6 hasn’t been affected in any way by criticism concerning female characters, says a new article from Entertainment Weekly.
Last December, GoT director Jeremy Podeswa stated that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss “were responsive to the discussion and there were a couple of things that changed as a result” for the new season. The director stated that, “They did not want to be too overly influenced by that (criticism) but they did absorb and take it in and it did influence them in a way.”
Talking to EW, Benioff and Weiss express respectful disagreement with Podeswa’s sentiment, with Weiss saying, “Jeremy is fantastic. It’s hard to know what the context was – whether or not that’s exactly what he said or he said something adjacent to that and the words got shuffled around because whoever typed it up liked the way it sounded better.”
Another annually celebrated tomfoolerish day in our journey through the realms of time, and the powers have once again handed the keys to the kingdom to the resident village idiot. How appropriate.
Today we travel back through the annals to relive Episode 8 of Season 3 and to rediscover the chauvinistic, the espoused, the misbegotten, the lover and the slayer.
Take your clothes off and come sit in Oz’s lap, and I may let you peruse the memory lane for the Second Sons…
Gwendoline Christie discusses Brienne’s journey next season and how the fans have responded to her character. We also have more video interviews with other members of the cast building hype for season 6.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Christie promised more Brienne action next season.
Greetings, Watchers! Welcome to another trip down Memory Lane as your erstwhile host Geoffery takes the reins again, this time for season three, episode seven of Game of Thrones: “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.”
There are two new interesting interviews promoting Game of Thrones season 6 that turned up online yesterday. They feature Isaac Hempstead Wright and Ellie Kendrick in the first video, and Maisie Williams and Tom Wlaschiha in the second. The interviews include the actors sharing their thoughts on where their characters are currently with some intriguing teases for the season to come.
In the first, Kendrick and Hempstead Wright discuss returning to the set after taking a year off. Isaac talks about Bran’s developing powers being trained “like Luke Skywalker,” while Ellie talks more about the “tricky situation” Meera finds herself in, in season 6.