Health & Fitness
Game of Thrones: One Change I Like and Another I Don't
My posts are usually somewhat philisophical. Here's one that's more for fun.
I thought I’d switch it up today and do something different than the posts I’ve previously written: a small review. I watch the highly popular TV series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s books A Song of Ice and Fire. The first season stayed really true to the first book, something I was immensely pleased by, while the second season has taken more divergences. I’m not a purist; I’m not outraged at the idea of making changes. I actually think some of them have worked rather well. An example of a change that worked well was the way Theon was portrayed in season two. Like in the books, he decides to join his father’s war, betraying the Stark family (he had been their ward/hostage since his father’s first failed rebellion) and capturing their castle. A Clash of Kings, the second book, plays up his anger at being a hostage and feeling out of place, an anger that’s also a part of him in season two. However, season two also shows more of how much he wanted to be part of the Stark family, such as in the scene where Theon tells Robb he will go win his father’s support so that they can avenge Robb’s father together. By playing up how he craved acceptance, I believe season two established him as a more complex and sympathetic character than book two did. The scene where he wrote Robb a letter of warning, then struggles with himself a bit before deciding to burn it is one of the best scenes. As he watches the flames consume the note, you could really see his decision to throw in with his father, with whom he thinks he might still find acceptance, and betray the family he likes but feels he could never truly be a part of. In the books, however, we just see him decide to join his father without much sense of internal conflict.
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The change I don’t approve of is replacing Jeyne Westerling with Talisa Maegyr as Robb Stark’s love interest. To make myself perfectly clear, it has nothing to do with the actress or even the character. Personally, I think Talisa is much more interesting than Jeyne, who always appeared to me as just the means by which Robb messes up the marriage-alliance with the Freys. My disapproval lies with the different reasons that lead Robb to marry them. In the books, Robb had sex with Jeyne Westerling and knowing that her marriage prospects would be bleak now that she was no longer a maiden, married her himself. The whole women-must-be-virgins-or-else-they’re-impure thing has been judged as archaic nonsense today (by most), but Robb is set in an older time period, so we can understand his reasoning and admire his wish to be noble like his father without judging it as simply stupid and outdated. TV Robb’s decision, on the other hand, is just stupid. In the scene where Catelyn, his mother, reminds him he’s already pledged to marry a Frey girl, he essentially says, “I know that going back on my promise is dangerous, but I’m going to do it anyway, because I’m in love.”
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Book Robb was thinking about Jeyne when he made the decision, “choosing her honor over his own” to paraphrase another character in the book; TV Robb made his decision more for himself and his passion than for another person or even for honor in general. People making rash decisions for love is nothing new to stories (or real life), but here it just looks flagrantly irresponsible to me. He’s in a war, after all, and if he loses the strength from that alliance, it will affect not just him, but also his family and his men. I’m not saying I no longer like the character for his lapse of judgment. I’m only saying that his decision is made a little more selfishly here and less about him struggling to do what’s right. In short, it takes a little away from the sympathy I have for him.
Just my thoughts on a couple of the changes they’ve made to the story. In any case, can’t wait for 3/31/13.