Season 3 Episode 9: Have NOT read the books/BEWARE SPOILERS MOD NOTE POST #1

My reactions went something like....

Talisa being knifed - Whoa, that's pretty intense. But whatever...
Rob being crossbowed - That's a shame...
Rob being stabbed to death - Oh well....
Caitlyn being throat slashed - Meh, never really liked her anyway.

....

Dire Wolf being killed....

pixelburp wrote: »

Meh, whatever; substitute the hyperbole for "Catlyn, Robb, Talisa(sp)" and I still stand by my point. The Stark family is in effect dead as a lineage & the North is now utterly leaderless, considering its largest family is thrown to the winds, and 2nd largest likely to follow.

Think you're misreading what I said- it's not that the show is moving at a snails pace, certain character arcs have been. Theon, Bran, the White Walkers etc. have been going nowhere and it's frustrating that one of the few arcs that had traction, and was a focus of the show, has just been brought to a shuddering halt by a bit of gratuitous plotting.

On the contrary I think that it rakes up a whole lot of interest in the Stark storyline. Suddenly the broomsweep torturer becomes the possessor of some of the most important knowledge in the realm- that Bran is alive. And for the rest of the realm it draws in the vultures circling Sansa. Tbh I was over Robb and Talisa since they got together and although I admire aspects of Catelyn's character, she was starting to hack me off- I'm glad that they've gotten rid of some of the characters that were less compelling to watch and injected some momentum int characters I'm more interested in but seemed to be just plodding along.

pixelburp wrote: »

The problem isn't that "something happened", it's the nature of how it happened, and purpose behind it. Which was to arbitrarily shock the audience for the sake of it. It's not being clever imo, and just undermines the notion of building up any kind of link between the characters and the audience.

Like I said, this event proves to me that caring about the characters is completely a pointless exercise, as their author clearly delights in twisting the knife at a moments notice.

I don't think that it was done arbitrarily or purely for shock value, in many ways its amazing that Robb got that far without someone sticking a knife in him. IMO the defining quality of a Stark is his honour, and Robb lost that the day he broke his word to Frey and married Talisa. I think that he was doomed from this time forward although admittedly the manner of his downfall was shocking. I think that this moves the story along with previously unimportant characters, like Bolton and Blackfish, suddenly becoming more interesting.

I also think that, far from the universal threat of death stopping us from caring for our favourite characters, the opposite is true. If we have a favourite we become more invested, actively willing them to survive and flourish. It seems incredibly cold to stop caring for someone because its likely they will die, it's not so irl nor, for me at least on tv. (I will add the provisio that I'm a bit of a sap when it comes to these things, so maybe this is less true for others.)

pixelburp wrote: »

Uhm, I imagine they're just as dead - why wouldn't they be? Clearly Frey doesn't care for his family so won't shed a tear to off Edmure & his bride in their beds & Blackfish will also likely be killed considering a rout was happening when we faded to black. Unless Frey will try and strike a deal with the two Tullys, which seems unlikely considering their sister just got murdered.

I don't think we can assume anything...there could be a tactical reason to keep Edmure alive to father an heir to Riverrun who would be loyal to the Freys. I don't think they would have been so pointed about Blackfish going outside to wee if there wasn't significance in it- he's pretty bada$$ so I imagine it would have been in his capacity to get away.