Game of Thrones begins....

[Habbaku]

[Lettow77]

Friendly reminder that Balon has now won the War of Five Kings on endurance.

[Habbaku]

[Grinning_Colossus]

What is dead may never appear again on this program.

[Martinus]

Given that the GoT casting calls for season 6 are looking for actors closely resembling Euron and Victaryon, it is a safe bet in season 6 we will go back to Iron Islands. Hopefully it will be better than the Dorne detour.

[Syt]

http://rt.com/politics/267235-russia-series-ban-thrones/

Anti-gay lawmaker targets Game of Thrones as threat to traditional values

A pro-Christian politician is suggesting an official rating of various creative works, saying such a measure would help to protect the population from various harmful products, such as the popular TV series, Game of Thrones.

Vitaliy Milonov of the St. Petersburg city legislature addressed the Russian Culture Ministry with an initiative to develop the "concept of defending the national information space," the popular Russian daily Izvestia reported on Monday.

The essence of Milonov's draft is that the authorities issue a rating for all creative works, giving them "quality marks" if they match the nation's traditional values, and attaching negative appraisals to potentially harmful products. The lawmaker holds that the general public will bear this rating in mind when making choices regarding entertainment.

In comments with Izvestia, Milonov said that virtually all Western cultural products were destructive for Russian traditional values and this especially applied to many famous works.

"They are infusing all quality works with certain ideological content. This content is not crucial for the main idea of the work, because this would make it too direct, but still they demonstrate that the ideas that had once been inadmissible are now normal."

He added that such an approach prevented creative works from being listed as propaganda as the main influence was on the subconscious level. "Freedom of expression is just a flashy label that conceals the cancerogenic ideological additives," Milonov said.

The lawmaker said that the cult US television series Game of Thrones was a typical example of such a harmful product. He blamed the authors for picturing "every tenth character" of the series as having some sexual deviation and suggested this was done on purpose, so that the public saw such deviations as the norm.

At the same time, Milonov admitted to reporters that he had not seen a single episode.

The cultural rating isn't the first or the most eccentric suggestion drafted by Milonov over the past few years. He has in the past proposed outlawing child beauty pageants, organizing the forced resettlement of homeless people to rural areas, and introducing responsibility for fake accounts in social networks.

Milonov's most known work is the St. Petersburg regional law that bans promoting homosexuality to minors – a motion that has been passed on a nationwide level, despite widespread criticism in Russia and abroad.

Milonov's relentless campaigning has attracted a lot of public and media attention, but it also had some negative consequences for the lawmaker. In November last year, Upper House MP Konstantin Dobrynin asked law enforcers to probe Milonov over public calls for terrorism, saying the St. Petersburg politician has repeatedly and insistently made statements banned under the Federal Law against Extremism. However, this request was turned down by prosecutors.

Yeah, Game of Thrones is a show people turn to when they look for moral guidance. 

[Martinus]

I think it is helpful to show the face of the politician:



Isn't it funny how so many of the most vocal anti-gay people look like retarded pedophiles?

[Brazen]

FINALLY Season 5 is available on demand for those of us with the wrong digital TV provider. How far back do I need to skip to see the comments from the beginning of the season without reading spoilers?

[Liep]

FINALLY Season 5 is available on demand for those of us with the wrong digital TV provider. How far back do I need to skip to see the comments from the beginning of the season without reading spoilers?

Too far, most of it is just a few people discussing whether or not this show is stupid.

[Martinus]

My newest theory is that the goal of the writers is to make everybody hate everybody in Westeros so much that by the end of the show, audiences are actually rooting for White Walkers.

[Grallon]

Well another year of waiting.  I wonder how wide the gap between the books and the show will be by the end of the seventh (and presumably final) season?  Btw, did Sansa jump to her death?  or was there frozen water down below?



G.

[Liep]

Btw, did Sansa jump to her death?  or was there frozen water down below?



G.

I'm hoping for a frozen moat and one Brienne fishing them out.

[Berkut]

My newest theory is that the goal of the writers is to make everybody hate everybody in Westeros so much that by the end of the show, audiences are actually rooting for White Walkers.

I was actually considering the idea that overall Martin thinks the truly righteous people in Westeros are in fact the Willdlings, and this entire thing is their story about how they finally defeated thousands of years of exile and oppression to bring democracy and freedom to Westeros.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I wonder how people view Cersei's confession? I have seen a number of reviewers calling her out on refusing to admit having sex with Jaime and seeing this as another point against her (even though understandeable, as the punishment for incest is probably greater than adultery). To me, while Cersei is obviously always self-serving to a degree, this was above all else a practical example of her Prime Directive: Protect the Children. No matter what she does, she will never do anything that endangers her kids - and, clearly, revealing she had an incestuous relationship with her brother would put the lives of Tommen and Myrcella in a great danger (not that it helped Myrcella a lot).

[The Larch]

Btw, did Sansa jump to her death?  or was there frozen water down below?

In the books Theon and Jeyne Poole jumped over a snow bank that would cushion the fall. In the show the scene was so rushed that I couldn't clearly see what they were throwing themselves at. Anyway, I'd count on both returning for the next season.