re: Game of Thrones S5E4 "Sons of the Harpy" (Bookish Types; SPOILERS)

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Stannis also made a comment last night while he was watching Jon train, something to the effect of, and I am paraphrasing, "Do you really believe he is actually Ned Starks bastard?" It's like Stannis knows who Jon Snow really is. Between him, the Red Witch, and the way LF acted it's like all of Westeros knows who Jon Snow really is, or at least suspect who he is, and this has all really come out of nowhere. Kind of ticks me off the way the writers are treating this like it is all of the sudden common knowledge.

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Stannis' comment last night was in response to his wife basically calling Jon a bastard of Ned and a bar keep winch, to which Stannis replied something to the effect of that wasn't Ned's way (or something like that). And LF's look really only suggests that he suspects that Lyanna wasn't kidnapped against her will.

So each one suspects a piece of the puzzle, but I doubt that either know that R+L=J.

ETA: LF suspects that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love and ran off together. And Stannis suspects that Jon isn't Ned's bastard. But I think those scenes were more for the tv viewers (along with Barristan description of Rhaegar) since they never expounded really on the events prior to the pilot episode.

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The implication was there that he knows something about Jon Snow.

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saying something didn't make sense and knowing something as fact are not the same thing

he knew Ned was an honorable man and that him knocking up some whore doesn't make sense

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Stannis basically said he didn't believe that Ned Stark fathered a bastard child. The implication was there that he knows something about Jon Snow.

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This being in the same episode where LF tells Sansa about Rhaegar and Lyanna at the tournament at Harrenhall CANNOT be a coincidence. This is overtly setting up the long-term R+L=J that many of us believe - we caught a glimpse of that when Mellisandre intially reacted to Jon, and now she's tried to seduce him (to make a shadow baby with which to assault Winterfell, perhaps?).

Now King's Blood isn't a requirement in the books, as she made the offer to Davos when he was a prisoner. In this case, it is just that she is treating Jon - similarly to the way she treats Stannis, which is more of a nod towards R+L=J.

Now that book readers are caught up I want to say my thoughts on the season so far.

Going away from the books is not necessarily a bad thing, even though David and Dan are missing out on plots that could make for really good TV. Remember George has a background in television, and was getting nominated for Emmys while those two were probably getting picked on in high school. I'm glad that they're not going verbatim anymore (they really stopped after season 2) because that way the show can't really spoil anything for us book readers. As I have stated countless times, I think David and Dan have done what they set out to do and now the show is just a sandbox. What does bother me a little is that they took so long to get to this point when they really should have done it from the beginning.

Going mostly verbatim at the beginning lead readers to think "we're going to get the pages on screen!" Which is like a bait and switch. I don't necessarily mind that because the show got me reading the books earlier than I would have. Same thing goes for me and TWD, but this is where TWD is actually doing better job than GoT. No, I'm not saying that TWD is better than GoT,(it could be now that TWD getting to some real meat of the comic locations and characters) but the one thing that TWD did and continues to do, that GoT didn't, was not going verbatim. It lead readers to not expect the pages to jump right to screen. Are there scenes that come directly from the panels? Yes, but it's not "we're going to throw six issues on a script." That has left the readers to be able to tune in every week to find out what happens next, as apposed to GoT that took books and made them into seasons. Then when they did leave out stuff from earlier seasons that would be important later, if left them with, very lazily, throwing those important plot materials in awkward scenes with "subtle" hints, like the Sansa Littefinger scene from last night, or the Tyrion's meeting of Oberyn last season. Both with details on the past and what happened to have the plot lead to these events. Another example is the Braavosi bank plot that was just thrown in there last season - "Oh turns out we're bankrupt and we only mentioned this once when Ned first met with the Small Counsel."

I'll continue to watch, but I won't be as critical with them sticking to the books as I have in the past, (except for that Bloodraven scene, they better have him looking somewhat more mystical than Obi-wan in PJs.) but I will be critical of them trying to be subtle or allowing plot material to be mentioned once and forgotten, only to become largely important later down the road.

At least now we can just enjoy the show and treat it as a separate entity like we probably should have from the beginning, without the worry of being spoiled.

Jorah will take his place I guess. Tyrion will be her Westerosi advisor.

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Why was he even out walking around? Isn't the point of a queens guard to be a constant presence when the queen meets with subject, to at least act like a deterrent?

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did you not watch the scene when Dany specifically told him to go out to the streets and that she didn't need him by her side at the time?

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frick Game of Thrones
frick the show-runners
frick the Sons of the Harpy


and frick the King

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and if you don't like it, I'm gonna have to eat every fricking chicken in this room.

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Where the frick did this come from?? Nobody insulted you

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HA HA HA HA HA, that reminds me of the Will Ferrell family dinner SNL skit where he yells at Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ana Gasteyer about how he drives a Dodge Stratus.

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So Barristan is really dead? That didnt seemed definitive to me.

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yep