Game of Thrones begins....

[Valmy]

Reading the comments about episode 8 got me to watch this again.  Got to agree with Berk on episode 7.  The richest Lord in the land cleaning out the entrails and then skinning an animal.  He doesnt have huntsmen or butchers for that sort of thing?  Remember how the Hound rode down a mere butcher's son?

How the Mighty Lannisters have fallen in the transition from book to screenplay.

Um I agree with Berkut on that scene but lets not go nuts about it.  The portrayal of the Lannisters in the show has, for the most part, been great.

[crazy canuck]

Reading the comments about episode 8 got me to watch this again.  Got to agree with Berk on episode 7.  The richest Lord in the land cleaning out the entrails and then skinning an animal.  He doesnt have huntsmen or butchers for that sort of thing?  Remember how the Hound rode down a mere butcher's son?

How the Mighty Lannisters have fallen in the transition from book to screenplay.

Um I agree with Berkut on that scene but lets not go nuts about it.  The portrayal of the Lannisters in the show has, for the most part, been great.

How is making a point about how incongruent the scene was with the books "going nuts"

[Valmy]

How is making a point about how incongruent the scene was with the books "going nuts"

I don't know.  That is why I found your second paragraph so puzzling.

[crazy canuck]

How is making a point about how incongruent the scene was with the books "going nuts"

I don't know.  That is why I found your second paragraph so puzzling.

Why, Lord Lannister was portrayed as a mere butcher in the very first scene in which he is introduced.  First thing that comes to my mind when I see that is how the mighty have fallen.

[Habbaku]

Yet you pluralized it, making it seem as if others have come across the same way.

[crazy canuck]

Yet you pluralized it, making it seem as if others have come across the same way.

The Lord of the Lannisters is brought low. Not so hard to understand I would think.

[viper37]

Reading the comments about episode 8 got me to watch this again.  Got to agree with Berk on episode 7.  The richest Lord in the land cleaning out the entrails and then skinning an animal.  He doesnt have huntsmen or butchers for that sort of thing?  Remember how the Hound rode down a mere butcher's son?

How the Mighty Lannisters have fallen in the transition from book to screenplay.

I see it in another way: it shows us a man who's not afraid to get dirty himself to achieve his goals.  In the book, you can describe the character of a person, in a movie/tv show, you have to see it.  We see that the Lord Lannister is not only plotting to have his ennemies removed from his path, like his kids, but he can actively take part in a confrontation if need be.  And that's all in one tiny scene.

[Martinus]

Reading the comments about episode 8 got me to watch this again.  Got to agree with Berk on episode 7.  The richest Lord in the land cleaning out the entrails and then skinning an animal.  He doesnt have huntsmen or butchers for that sort of thing?  Remember how the Hound rode down a mere butcher's son?

How the Mighty Lannisters have fallen in the transition from book to screenplay.

I see it in another way: it shows us a man who's not afraid to get dirty himself to achieve his goals.  In the book, you can describe the character of a person, in a movie/tv show, you have to see it.  We see that the Lord Lannister is not only plotting to have his ennemies removed from his path, like his kids, but he can actively take part in a confrontation if need be.  And that's all in one tiny scene.

Yeah, that's how I saw that scene too. It's a counterpoint to Ned Stark beheading the deserter himself (where the same argument could have been made, but there it was a scene taken straight out of the books). The difference of course being that where Ned Stark's "peculiarity" is rooted in his sense of fairness and justice (if perhaps misguided to some), Tywin Lannister's "peculiarity" is rooted in his brutality.

It also shows him as a practical man, and one quite different from his son in law who just goes to kill the boar (and presumedly promptly heads home in a drunken haze), whereas Tywin drives the point to its very conclusion, and does so with sober precision.

[Martinus]

Plus let's not forget that this is tv, and it needs it theatrics. What was the alternative? Tywin receiving Jaime while poring over maps and whatnot? That would be exactly the same as the "Tywin meets Tyrion" scene (albeit with no Shagga and Bronn to make it fun), i.e. boring. Plus it would show Tywin as a high level strategist, and not a man with blood on his hands.

I think the scene establishes above all else one trait about Tywin: ruthlessness.

[crazy canuck]

You have to be ruthless to spill a dead animals guts all over your tent?

No.  You just have to be a peasant to do that.

[Slargos]

 

Drop it, Marty. I don't think it matters how thoroughly you explain it to them, they still won't get it.

[Berkut]

It looks to me like he can actively take part in skinning a deer. That is right up there with weeding the potato garden and polishing his armor - menial tasks that great lords have others to do for them.

I don't see how it says anything about his political or military will to "get dirty".

[crazy canuck]

It looks to me like he can actively take part in skinning a deer. That is right up there with weeding the potato garden and polishing his armor - menial tasks that great lords have others to do for them.

I don't see how it says anything about his political or military will to "get dirty".

Come on, weeding shows that he is precise and willing to get to the heart of the matter.  Polishing his Armour shows he is ready and willing to fight.  These things cannot be explained in any other way.

[Berkut]

Drop it, Marty. I don't think it matters how thoroughly you explain it to them, they still won't get it.

because no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig, it is still a pig.

And really, comparing the willingness to behead a man you sentenced to death to your willingness to skin a deer?

Killing a man has a bit more emotional investment, I suspect, than skinning a deer, which is frankly grossly routine in that world. Nobody is going to find it an interesting character trait that this great and noble lord skins his own deer. It is pedestrian.

Indeed, in contrast to Ned's demand that he who passes the sentence should be willing to swing the sword, it seems even more ridiculously petty.

And yes, I can imagine several better ways to portray that meeting. If you really want to show that Tywin is a heartless bastard, he could be talking to Gregor Clegane, for example, and telling him what a fine job he is doing killing Riverlanders - or Tywin could be doing some of that himself, or rejecting some poor Riverlanders request for mercy or whatever.

Actually, I really like that idea - some poor peasant (or minor lord) thinking to go to the great Lord to beg protection or justice from the madman Mountain (peasant has no clue that Tywin sent him to begin with, of course) and how Tywin handles it.

But oh look, Lord Tywin is busy with his secondary profession of camp butcher! Nah, you have to be a bit of an apologist to make that work.

[Berkut]

It looks to me like he can actively take part in skinning a deer. That is right up there with weeding the potato garden and polishing his armor - menial tasks that great lords have others to do for them.

I don't see how it says anything about his political or military will to "get dirty".

Come on, weeding shows that he is precise and willing to get to the heart of the matter.  Polishing his Armour shows he is ready and willing to fight.  These things cannot be explained in any other way.

I still think it was some writer thinking this was cool in Gangs of New York, so would be extra cool here...