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The Wit and Witticism of Tyrion Lannister, Vol. 2


I’d ask who wants to see four minutes of Tyrion Lannister’s best lines from season 2 of Game of Thrones (obviously, there might be a few spoilers in here if you’re not all the way caught up), but the answer is obvious: everyone wants to see that. And meanwhile, we can consider this article the official TR GoT s2 Discussion page, if you want to converse about last night season’s finale or the season in general. I have a few thoughts after the jump. (Via Blastr)


I don’t think I’ll shock anybody by saying I liked it, but I did. The post-“Blackwater” episode has to get everyone in place for season 3, and I think it did it efficiently and entertainingly. As always, I compare my thoughts on Game of Thrones next to my friend and professional Game of Thrones maester Sean T. Collins; while I share his disappointment that the House of the Undying sequence wasn’t a tenth as weird on-screen as it was in the books, with as much weirdness happening in the episode, I understand why the show didn’t want to overwhelm its mostly non-nerd mass audiences. And I think choosing to give people Jaqen changing his face, the hordes of wildlings, the warlock tower as shown, and then the White Walker Irregulars was probably a more effective, efficient use of the show’s fantasy quotient.

I thought the show made a good end of Dany’s generally lackluster storyline; I felt like she genuinely learned a lesson by the end of it, became strong enough to kill her enemies and learned she can’t take the easy way back to the Iron Throne, although her plot did spin the most wheels this season.
The biggest complaint I’ve seen is how the Jon/Quorin Halfhand scene went. As far as I can tell most people are complaining about the show being vague if Jon killed Halfhand on behalf of the Night’s Watch or in rage. I think the former is obvious, given Quorin’s pep talk from two episodes okay, but I don’t mind the show trying to mess with its mass audience by making them wonder if Jon might really have betrayed the Watch. I’ll admit, it ends up being less “Did Jon betray the Watch?” and more “Does the TV show want us to think that Jon might’ve betrayed the Watch?” but I still didn’t mind.
But overall, what sticks with me most from the finale, and the entire season, really, is all the amazing images it’s presented. I’ll never forget the White Walkers’ army marching in the blizzard, or even the White Walker on his horse, starring at Sam. The wilding army might have been more vague, but it illustrated how fucked Westeros is going to be if the Night Watch fails. Then there’s Dany standing in front of her fire-breathing, warlock-barbecuing dragons; Tywin’s horse taking a massive shit before he enters the throne room; and this is to say nothing of the wildfire explosion in “Blackwater,” which still makes my jaw drop. Game of Thrones, more than any show I’ve ever seen, is presenting a fantasy story that is overwhelmingly grounding is reality, and how people act, but when the fantasy shows up, it is truly fantastical. There is truly nothing else like it.