Tag: renly

Thrones Post Game: The Ghost of Harrenhal

by Joe Starr

I had high expectations for tonight. After all, last week ended with a lady pushing a shadow baby through her Labia of Light. Were my expectations met? Did I still laugh every time Xaro said his name? Are you following @joestarr187 on Twitter yet? TO THE MAP!

CAMP RENLY!

Remember in Final Fantasy 3 when General Leo from the Empire makes peace with the Returners and the Village of the Magi and they all wave to the camera and the game does a fake happy ending and then OH SHIT HERE COMES KEFKA? You don’t? Well… me neither. Old video games are stupid, right?

…

Anyway, ‘The King of the Beards’ Renly Baratheon and Catelyn Stark get to have a similar scene. They make peace between the Beards and the North and gleefully hold hands and giggle and end the war. Credits! And by ‘credits,’ I mean that shadow man that Melisandre squeezed out stabs Renly through the chest and he fucking dies.

Guards jump in and blame the murder on Renly’s bodyguard Brienne of Tarth and try to kill her, which is stupid. Look at her. She’s like 9 feet tall. Brienne doesn’t want to leave Renly’s body, but Catelyn convinces her that she can’t avenge Renly if she dies. And if she stays, she’s dead. No one is going to buy the ‘shadow person’ defense in Westeros. It’s a shame she doesn’t have Cochran. “If the shadow stalks, Brienne walks!”

HEY GUYS THE 90’S.

After they bail, Renly’s people all join up with Stannis. It’s like the Republican primaries this way. “We stand with the lord that hates gays and reading!” And then that lord dies and they all go “We stand with the other lord that hates gays and reading!”

Littlefinger meets with the Tyrells and suggests that they haul ass out of the area. Loras is not thrilled about this, but eventually sees the wisdom in not dying. In a very cool moment, Littlefinger asks if Margaery wanted to be a queen, to which she replies “No…I wanted to be the Queen.” And then she doesn’t remove her dress, even though it would have been a good button to the scene.

KING’S LANDING!

Tyrion and Cersei seem to hang out a lot for two people that hate each other. Cersei laughs off Tyrion’s concerns about Team Stannis marching their way, and assures him that the King is overseeing the city’s defenses. Which means that Cersei is overseeing them, because King Joffrey is busy overseeing hooker fight clubs.

Tyrion sets out to investigate both Cersei’s plots and her schemes, and gives us this week’s LancelLOL, terrifying Lancel enough that he falls out of a tiny dwarf sized litter. Tyrion having a dwarf sized litter seems weird to me, since he’s not the kind of person to be like ‘I’m a tiny person that needs tiny things!’ so I’ve decided that he only had it made so that Lancel would fall out of it. Justification!

Tyrion discovers that Cersei’s defense plan is having pyromancers create wildfire. At first I thought she meant that the band Pyromancer was going to perform their album Wildfire at the city gates. HELLO KINGS LANDING WE ARE PYROMANCER! THANK YOU FOR COMING OUT! Pyromancer is a side project of Ogre Mage. It turns out that it’s just a few thousand jugs of napalm that they’re going to fling with catapults. Tyrion informs the head pyromancer that he now works for him and dismisses him so that the crazy old man can return to asking the Questions Three at the Bridge of Death.

Tyrion. All of these paragraphs started with ‘Tyrion.’ I am a poor writer.

IRON ISLANDS!

God damn, Theon is ugly. He’s ugly in that ‘so many girls want to fuck him for some reason’ way. You know that ‘I’m on meth’ look that makes ladies put on the blowjob hat? Anyway, he gets  his ship and his crew thinks he’s an idiot and they won’t listen to him. Probably because he fingerbanged his sister. And then one crew member comes to help him out AND IT’S CHRIS FINCH FROM THE OFFICE!

Muchos Tequilos later, Theon and Chris Finch seem to have come up with a scheme involving Winterfell… and hopefully, Finchy’s single barrel pump action yogurt rifle.

Fingers crossed that Mathew Holness plays Mance Rayder.

Holy shit that got me excited about watching The Office. But not you. You have to keep reading.

WINTERFELL!

I wish Bran would stop being a bitch about having legs that don’t work (#northpeopleproblems) because he’s actually doing a pretty good job as a mini lord while Robb is off winning at Westeros Warcraft 2 (the secret is archer towers). Rickon is with him, being a crazy little asshole. I want Rickon to fight the Go Go juice girl from Toddlers in Tiaras. Shaggy Dog can be there so that it’s a fair fight.

Bran is told that a town near Winterfell is being attacked and orders Winterfell’s small remaining force to leave and defend the Stark bannermen, leaving Winterfell defenseless! Could this be part of the plot that Theon and Chris Finch were giggling about in their canoe? PROBABLY.

QARTH!

We get some baby dragons, and then some tension between Dani’s handmaidens. And then at Xaro’s party, we get some tension between Dani and her bloodriders. And then there is some tension between her and Xaro, who suggests that if they get married, he’ll fund her invasion of Westeros. After that, there’s tension between her and Jorah Mormont because he’s always saying ‘that’s probably not a good idea, your Grace.’ We also get a really great monologue from Mormont explaining why he loyally follows the beautiful Targaryen, who has thankfully unchapped her lips. It’s a moving moment, but doesn’t completely pull the trigger on the obvious ‘Jorah wants to bang you’ story we will undoubtedly get in the future.

Also, a lady that looks like Iron Man if Iron Man made his helmet out of woven rugs knows who Mormont is. What was that about?

Also, these guys:

Shit a shadow baby and maybe we’ll talk. Open mic trolls, am I right?

BEYOND THE WALL!

The Night’s Watch sets up camp at the Fist of the First Men. While they do this, everyone bitches about how the First Men got slaughtered when they set up camp here and how it’s a terrible idea. So they stay. Naturally. The Halfhand shows up and out grizzles everyone. They talk about the army Mance Rayder is gathering in the mountains. Halfhand wants to put together a small team to kill the Wildlings manning any beacon fire outposts. That’s right Basterds, Halfhand wants his scalps. Jon ‘The Wolf Jew’ Snow joins up.

 HARRENHAL!

Arya meets up with Jaqen H’ghar, who tells her that for the three lives she saved two episodes ago he now owes the Red God three deaths to keep balance. Arya merely has to tell him three names and he’ll get it done. She names The Tickler, the torture guy from last week, and Jaqen kicks off what is still one of my favorite sections from the books: The ‘Arya tells Jaqen names and Jaqen kills them’ section.

Arya’s also working as Tywin Lannister’s cup bearer. In front of his war council, Tywin has Arya admit she’s from the north, and asks what they are saying about Robb Stark. Arya replies that he rides a direwolf and can’t be killed. When pressed if she believes that, Arya stares Tywin down and says ‘anyone can be killed.’ It is awesome.

Also, Gendry gets all shirtless making a sword and I have to admit, I sort of got a boner. It wasn’t even a sexual thing. It was just my penis’s way of acknowledging who the alpha male in the room was.

Ok, seriously buddy. You’ve gotta go

And that’s what you missed on Dark Ages Glee.

Thrones Post Game: Garden of Bones

by Joe Starr

Hi! I’m Joe! I review Game of Thrones for Geekscape and sometimes write other things too! Crazy, right? FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: @joestarr187

Episode four, people! Last night we all got on my buddy Bob’s giant ass couch that he calls the teddy bear picnic to watch Game of Thrones and ARE THOSE NEW LOCATIONS IN THE OPENING CREDITS CAN ANYONE SEE MY PANTS TENT? To the map!

A Battlefield!

Two guards are just dropping lasers on Renly Baratheon being gay when Grey Wind murders one of them mid piss. Then a bunch of dudes shout ‘King of the North!’ and Robb and company makes their charge. ‘Mid piss ambush’ seems to be Robb’s version of a Zergling rush, and you’d think at this point the Lannisters would change some rules on guarding, peeing, and fence building for their camps. Important note: the guards referred to the soldiers of each house as ‘lions’ and ‘wolves’ for the first time I’ve noticed it in the series and it pleased me. It pleased me greatly, ser.

By morning, the Northmen have mopped everyone up and Robb has a very flirty conversation with a hot nurse. I remember how badly I wanted to bang my wife the first time I watched her saw a screaming man’s foot off, too. Her name is Talissa and Robb is clearly smitten as she rides off into the sunset and I make a fart face because she’s not in the books.

Was the made up hooker not enough?

Camp Renly! 

Kid Gladiator AKA Lil Fingerz AKA Petyr B arrives at Camp Renly and gets a little sucking up done with the King of the Beards. I’ve decided that each king is the King of Something. Robb is the King of the North. Renly is the King of the Beards. Joffrey is the King of the Fucking Crazy People and Stannis is King of the Cold, Distant Step Dads that Will Never Love You, Not Like Your Real Dad Did.

Petyr drops by to see Cat Stark, who is not thrilled to see him. He argues that he did his best to support Ned and also offers terms: Sansa and Arya for the Kingslayer. He leaves out the part where no one knows where Arya is. And then he drops Ned Stark’s bones off and peaces out like his name was Pimpfingerz AKA King of the Tidy Mustaches.

And then he saddles up to Margie Tyrell who stays clothed for their conversation. Petyr suggests that her marriage to Renly is a little odd, since he’s currently balls deep in her brother three tents back. Tyrell shrugs him off. Remember, she’s played by Natalie Dormer, and in the paper rock scissor world of Game of Thrones, Dormer beats Littlefinger, Littlefinger beats Melisandre, and Melisandre shits shadow babies on Dormer. And I think that Arya is lava.

Renly and Stannis have a parlay. The Red Lady suggests Renly look to his sins and Stannis promises that his brother will die if he doesn’t drop his claim to the throne. I love Stannis. He’s not good, and he’s not bad- he’s just technically right about the succession and is the most stubborn, cold person in the world.

Qarth!

Thank the Seven that one of Dani’s outriders found a city, because I was getting tired of them sitting there dying every episode. Stormborn, the Blood of the Dragon, the Unburnt and Chapped of Lip gathers her little brood and head for the merchant city of Quarth Qarth. She meets the Thirteen. They are the 13 richest merchants that run Qarth. So Qarth is run like the United States, AMIRIGHT? Occupy! Yes we can!

Dani refuses to show these guys her dragons, so they plan on leaving her outside the gates to starve and die, until one of the 13, Xaro Xhoan Daxos (thaaaaaaaaaaat’s my name tooooooooooo) accepts responsibility for the group and lets them in as his guests. And then he passes Dani a chapstick.

PUT THIS ON YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW KHALEESI OK THANK YOU

King’s Landing!

Everything that happened on King’s Landing in this episode was incredibly pleasant and very similar to an episode of Friendship is Magic.

Ugh. Joffrey has discovered a love of crossbows. He is a big fan of pointing them at a crying Sansa while the court looks on. He can’t kill her, so he decides to have her beaten and stripped. Tyrion storms in pissed and saves the day, and we discover that while Joffrey is crazy, he’s still not bold enough to speak up to his uncle. So that’s a good thing. Because fucking hell, that kid.

Also, in this week’s episode of Lancel LOLZ, Lancel tries to act all bad ass with Tyrion and the Imp terrifies him into being a loyal spy. Oh, Lancel.

Tyrion wonders if maybe Joffrey is crazy because he really needs to get laid. All men watching the show kind of nod and agree with this assessment and Tyrion buys the king some whores.

And then the king has one of the whores beat the hell out of the other while he watches. Because fucking hell, that kid.

Harrenhal!

Let’s pause and talk about how amazing this series is. When I read the books, I have to admit that aside from King’s Landing and Winterfell, I pretty much picture every castle as the same pile of rocks with different banners. When I read about Harrenhal, it’s the same but in a minor state of disrepair.

Holy shit, production team! Harrenhal is TERRIFYING. Usually the adaptation of a book leaves you rolling your eyes at the sparseness of the meal the adaptation hands you. So far, Game of Thrones has fed us and wrapped up leftovers. I can’t remember the last time an adaptation actually enhanced the book for me.

Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie find themselves as guests in Harrenhal, where everyone gets tortured and killed. Arya has started her prayer of people she’d like to murder to get herself to sleep. Gendry is saved from torture when Tywin Lannister arrives, and is less than thrilled that possibly good laborers are being killed, setting the group free and putting them to work. He chooses Arya to be his new cup bearer and then demands to know the location of the Ajanti Dagger.

“My brother Noompsi has forgiven me!” 

The dark and full of terrors night!

Stannis has this conversation with Davos:

Stannis: Do you miss being a smuggler?

Davos: Nope. Pretty happy with my new life. I’ve cleaned up my act, now I’m a knight, and my wife and sons have the opportunities that they never would have had if I was still skulking into caves at night stealing things and helping assassins sneak into camps.

Stannis: I need you to go skulk into a cave tonight and help an assassin sneak into Renly’s camp.

Davos: Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

The assassin turns out to be the Red Lady herself, Melisandre. They banter a bit in their canoe, and we learn that Carice van Houten was cast as Mel because she gives both boners and the creeps when she talks. It’s tougher than you think and she deserves a Golden Globe.

The two discover that the passage to the camp has been barred. That’s when Melisandre drops her robe, shows off a sudden super pregnant belly, and gives birth to a shadow baby while poor Davos shits his pants.

And THAT’S how you do a cliffhanger!

SPOILER SECTION FOR NERDS THAT READ THE NERDY BOOKS

I am assuming that Talissa the Sassy Nurse is actually Jeyne Westerling and they’re trying to beef up Robb’s want to marry her over a Frey. Which I’m totally fine with, and it makes Jeyne a much cooler character.

Everyone keeps telling me that the shadow killing Renly and Davos seeing Mel crap a shadow baby happen in two different scenes but this is actually the way I remember it from the books so WELL DONE, TV SHOW.

So excited about Jaqen H’Ghar. Arya’s evolution into a murder machine is going to be so much fun to watch. I’m hoping that the series ends with her holding Bella Swan’s head by the hair and screaming ‘Valar Morghulis.’

Also, I am so excited to see Joffrey fucking die. It’ll be pretty damn satisfying.

Thrones Post Game: What Is Dead May Never Die

by Joe Starr

Hi! I’m Joe! I review Game of Thrones for Geekscape and sometimes write other things too! FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: @joestarr187

We’re three episodes in to Season 2 of Game of Thrones and things are beginning to pick up in dear Westeros! While the first two episodes had to dedicate most of their time to catching the audience up on WHERE EVERYONE IS, ‘What Is Dead May Never Die’ kicked things into gear and got us crazy close to hitting 55 miles per hour. Let’s take a look at the map!

King’s Landing!

Tyrion began playing his Game of Hands against the King’s Small Council by telling variations of the same plan to Pycelle, Littlefinger, and Varys to find out who would rat to the queen first. The queen confronts Tyrion with the Pycelle version of the story with a fantastic show of rage between Cersei and Tyrion that will hopefully not be their last, and Pycelle gets the classic ‘in bed with a whore one moment, being dragged out by barbarians, a dwarf, and Bronn the next’ treatment. Man. College, right?

IMPORTANT OPINION YOU WILL FIND NO WHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET: Tyrion is a fantastic character. He’s not a good guy, but he recognizes that his family can’t stay on top constantly being the douche bags that they are and is desperately trying to steer them on a decent path. Not that Joffrey is capaple of finding a decent path: if his encounter with Batman at a young age couldn’t do it, how much hope does the Dinklage have?

Katie Holmes should have let him burn.

Littlefinger ain’t happy to be a part of Tyrion’s tricks, but is probably a little happier to be dispatched by the Hand to treat with Catelyn Stark. Did you know that Littlefinger is the Kid Gladiator of Game of Thrones? I DROP TRUTH LIKE BOMBS.

Varys and Tyrion trade riddles in the dark decently lit room in a fantastic scene about the ideas of where power really comes from. It’s nice to see season 2 take the time to dig into the theme instead of constantly being in a hurry to catch you up on what everyone’s doing.

Poor Sansa has a dinner that comes dangerously close to Will Ferrell reminding Cersei that he drives a Dodge Stratus, while Mrycella and Tommen get some screen time in. Moments like the youngest Lannisters getting some character development in make me thank the Seven that Thrones wasn’t made into a series of movies. I’m looking at you, Harry Potter and the Half Assed Supporting Cast.

Did they both die? I can’t even remember. Those movies were terrible.

And in further Sansa developments, Shea is introduced as her new handmaiden. Maybe they’ll make out. Whatever, they’re both stupid.

North of the Wall!

The Night’s Watch is still camped out in Craster’s creepy little keep. Not a whole lot going on here…Sam falls in love with one of Craster’s daughterwives and gives her a thimble before leaving to reattach his shadow. Jon Snow had discovered that Craster offers his baby sons to the White Walkers and that Craster knew that he knows, and after a cryptic chat with Mormont, knows that the Bear knew what he knew already, which is surprising to Jon because he assumed that Mormont didn’t know what Craster knew that Jon had known. Did you know that? …Of course.

Winterfell!

The awesome POV wolf dreams continue! We get to see Summer as a grown direwolf! Also, Hodor! Bran attempts to explain his dreams to Luwin, who gently explains that there is no magic left in the world. It’s like the atheist response to Gandalf’s monologue about heaven in Return of the King. The movie, not the book. In the Lord of the Rings books, if it was long enough to be a monologue, it was a song.

Iron Islands!

Theon continues to be a bitch, especially in the shadow of his father and sister. Remember when he fingerbanged her? That was gross. It looks like he’s not going to hang on to any loyalties to Robb and that the Squids are gonna attack the North. They’re trying to make him sympathetic and conflicted, but remember when he fingerbanged his sister?

En Route to The Wall!

Arya can’t sleep, and Yoren shares a comforting monologue about the prayer he would use to keep the horrible things he had seen at bay: chanting the name of his brother’s killer.

The Gold Cloaks show up for Gendry with backup and Yoren dies because he shared a comforting monologue about the prayer he would use to keep the horrible things he had seen at bay with Arya. Arya frees Jaqen from getting burned alive and tells the Cloaks that the now dead Lommy was Gendry. And then they all get captured.

Also, Arya totally looks like Daniel Radcliffe from Sorcerer’s Stone.

Camp Renly!

Ser Loras is bested in a tournament by the very awesome Brienne of Tarth! Brienne is given a place in King Renly’s Kingsguard, and Renly is given the prize for ‘Best Crown.’ Seriously, it’s an awesome crown. Other things happened at Camp Renly, too. Cat Stark showed up and there was some talk of things and to be honest, I wasn’t paying attention. Natalie Dormer was on camera. She’s playing Margaery Tyrell and she’s Highgarden royalty along with Loras and she’s been married to Renly to combine his forces with Highgarden and then she takes her top off and holy shit, Natalie Dormer.

Something something Renly who cares?

SPOILER SECTION FOR NERDS THAT READ THE NERDY BOOKS

Yoren teaching Arya her prayer was a slight deviation from the book, but it game the episode an awesome ‘Captain America’s shield is in Tony’s workshop’ moment that I really loved.

I hate Shae in the books. I also hate her in the show.

Whereas in the books, I start to get bored when we’re not on a Jon Snow or Arya chapter, I’ve started to really favor the Dany stuff in the show.

When does Hagrid find Arya and say ‘yer a member of the assassin’s guild, ‘arry?’

 

 

SPOILER SECTION FOR NERDS THAT READ DANCE WITH DRAGONS

They should have named Reek Sisterfingers AMIRIGHT?

It’s a shame Luwin doesn’t live long enough for those Children of the Forest that look like the Mirkwood Elves from the Hobbit cartoon to show up.

Shut up and look at my balls, Bran! LOOK AT THEM!