My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 35

Thursday is theory day. And this time, for real.

This is the thirty-fifth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 35. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.

Becoming monsters - the insurgency of New Caprica

This post contains spoilers for the first half of season three of Battlestar Galactica.

When the people of the rag-tag fleet of survivors were conquered by the Cylons and occupied, not everyone complied with Baltar's decision to give up (which I have discussed here). Most people reverted to a sullen acceptance, cooperating only to the minimum extent, but cooperating, some cooperate more willingly (especially the New Caprica Police, NCP), while some few chose the path to direct resistance. Led by the inevitable Colonel Saul Tigh, these guys formed "The Resistance", with the goal of "hurting the Cylons". It can't surprise anyone that the Resistance was heavily comprised of the old Caprica paramilitaries and military personell. When your enemy possesses not only superior numbers and equipment, but also the ability to respawn at any time, the damage you can actually do is rather limited. So, before we can assess what ramifications the insurgency of New Caprica had, we need to analyse its goals first. 

We're coming in peace.

An analysis of Catelyn Stark

A guest essay by Mitchell Tweedie

Catelyn is probably one of the characters people are most partisan about. Whereas Joffrey is universally hated, Arya universally loved, and Samwell universally fat, Catelyn, like her daughter Sansa, divides people. Some people go so far as to say “Catelyn Stark is perhaps the most despicable character to have set foot in Westoros” (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/69094-catelyn-stark-a-denouncement). These people, the Catelyn haters (like the Sansa haters), seem to lack empathy. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the way they criticise some characters, Catelyn especially, only serves to emphasize that they cannot empathise. Furthermore, many of the haters (and lovers for that matter) commit cognitive bias and draw improbable assumptions and conclusions as they try to express why a particular character or action should be hated (or loved).

A Flight of Links

- This is not even my final foam.
- Extra Credits about difficulty in games. 
- They are making Lego the Movie and it has a trailer. Seriously. 
- Meta about Tywin and the Red Wedding. 
- Meta about Davos' diplomatic skills.
- Game of Thrones uses Qarth gate as table
- Yahtzee reviews Remember me
- BSG Newbie Recap continues
- Will Spiderman come to the Avengers universe?
- What good can games do?
- A look back at the Sopranos 
- 5 things games can do better than any other art form 
- Movie Defense Force: Alien4
- Meta about Jorah Mormont.
- Martin comments on the white savior trope. 
- And the winner is you. 
- Independence Day 2, really happening
- Escape to the Movies: Monster University
- Review of CoH2 Single player
- The Rock plays the new Terminator 
- World War Z kind of sucks 
- Review for Flight of Sorrows
- Sexism in video games - really interesting presentation 
- When and how did military shooters get brown?
- How to dominate Monopoly using math 
- Wertzone reviews the second half of GOT season 3.

The character behind the god - reviewing Man of Steel

In a superhero movie, you either destroy a little town in small-town America to show how grounded your story is in everyday life and what is at stake in the relatable lives of the earth&salt-people, like in Thor, or you opt to destroy New York City to show that even the mightiest cities might fall, like the Avengers did. Superman, of course, because he is super, does both. Smallville, your stand-in little Kansas town full of honest-to-god-farmers and workers, and Metropolis, the New-York-stand-in, get almost entirely destroyed in a battle that can only be described as excessive. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

This scene is not CGI. Beliiiiiiiiieve me.

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 34

Thursday is theory day, but Friday's the charm this week. Again.

This is the thirty-fourth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 34. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Pic: This is Yunkai!

Since requested. Pic after the break.

Why the Not-Jokes work better in German, but no Germans use them

I suppose you know what the Not-Jokes are, inserting a new one-word-sentence "Not." at the end of any given statement, like "I really hate The Nerdstream Era. Not." Fun-wise, they come just after the Knock-Knock jokes. If you don't know it, let the joke explained to you by Borat:

A Flight of Links

Got released early because I hit the wrong button. I'll update them until Monday. 

- GOT inspires a high fashion line.
- Comparison between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones; slightly over-interpreting it in my opinion. 
- HBO's next series will be about aliens. 
- Big Picture about Superman.
- Oh man, these reactions to some perfectly fine critique are all so depressing. 
- A really meaty discussion about what will be in the future GOT seasons. 
- They hired a real writer for the new Call of Duty, but I remain sceptical. The story of the last games was excruciatingly bad. 
- Most pointless rules for young epic heroes in training. 
- I think this gloomy description of game's inability to tell stories is premature. TV needed decades to give us the good stuff.
- 5 questions about the finale of GOT season 3 
- Let me translate Lucas' and Spielberg's bullshit: mimimimimi, no one wants to see her movies anymore! 
- Yep, Elsysium looks good. 
- Assassin's Creed 4 - I donnu.... 
- What if Shakespeare wrote Star Wars? 
- Star Trek cosplay...man, this is weird. 
- The entire premise of True Blood in 36 pics. 
- Jon Snow 80s montage training. 
- What would happen if Superman punched you in the face? 

Pic: The Misadventures of Theon Greyjoy

Pic after the break.

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 33

Thursday is theory day, but Friday's the charm this week.

This is the thirty-third article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 33. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Boiled Leather Audio Hour #21: Game of Thrones, Season 3

“Game” Show: “Game of Thrones” Season Three Reviewed

You wanted it, you got it: Sean and Stefan talk Game of Thrones Season Three, for 69 minutes and change. Two men and one show enter — one INDISPUTABLE VERDICT ABOUT GOT SEASON THREE leaves! Haha j/k lol. Topics include Catelyn, Stannis & Davos, Jaime & Brienne, Jon & the Night’s Watch, the emotional content of extreme violence, the Red Wedding, the season finale, my controversial comments on the show and race, the problem with book purists, what to look for in season four, what exactly makes for “a good episode” of Game of Thrones, and much more. It’s our biggest episode yet!

BONUS: If you really can’t get enough of hearing us yammer on about this show, Sean was a guest on Critic Proof, the Bloggingheads.tv video podcast about pop culture hosted by the great Alyssa Rosenberg. Give that thing a spin!

Mirror here.

Previous episodes here.

Podcast RSS feed here.
iTunes page here.
Home blog here.

Filling the gaps – a defense of Littlefinger in the HBO show

Besides Jon (and Ros, but she’s invented and technically doesn’t count), no character receives as much hatred for a supposedly bungled transition to the screen like Aidan Gillen’s interpretation of Littlefinger. He has been accused of being made murky by a partial merger with the Hound in season 1, of being much too inapt over the course of season 2 and of being a caricature Dr. Evil in season 3. Now it seems strange that Littlefinger is almost continuously not liked, but for different and shifting reasons, and while I admit that Gillen’s interpretation took some getting used to, I have to say I’m pretty much satisfied with his depiction in the show. Let me explain why. 

Not reading this essay is the dumbest thing you did since trusting me, my lord.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Recap, Episode 10 "Mhysa"

Can you believe this is the last “Game of Thrones” we will see for ten months? Man, that hurts. The only thing to do about it is, I guess, rewatch all seasons in a row or something. We also end this series of reviews with this issue, of course, and I hope you enjoyed them and took away something from them. For me, the most surprising – and also a little bit disturbing – thing in the writing process was that although I initially planned to keep it light on the book references, I really didn’t. I wasn’t able to stop comparing the two, but I consider it an achievement not to take the books as inviolable gospel. That being said, let’s delve back into the storylines.

Aaaaaand it's over.

A Flight of Links

- Interview with Michelle Fairly.
-Taking nitpicking JUST A BIT to the extreme. 
- Movie stars trashing their movies.
- Oh, man, this is so true it hurts. 
- Some very, very interesting thoughts about GOT episode 9.  
- That is soooo wrong. 
- I'd say Emilia Clark is in the right with this.
- Tower of the Hand has some Red Wedding reviews you have to read.  
- I love this stuff. 
- There's a cartoon in which the hero is a boy who gets girl powers, and FOX News freaks out. 
- In the defense of the silent protagonist. No, sorry man, this is just an excuse for bad writing.
- Yahtzee has some pretty weird ideas. 
- 3 board games you've been playing all wrong.  
- New episode of Extra Credits
- Totally not.
- io9 has the 100 best tweets about the Red Wedding. Or at least 100 entertaining tweets. 
- They currently make a game about America's crumbling infrastructure. Guys, perhaps you should raise some new revenue if game designers find that you don't really need zombies to make an apolcalyptic game in an urban American setting anymore.
- Buyers guide to the next generation of consoles. 
- Half in the Bag about Hangover III and After Earth. 
- Interview with Joe Dempsie.
- GRRM on Conan says some really interesting stuff.
- 13 text messages from superheros. GREAT!
- 5 ways your senses lie to you
- Game of Thrones staple
- The Internetship is best movie of 2005
- Which MovieBob confirms. 
- 10 Star Wars Characters who needlessly met Han Solo
- The Purge sucks 
- Curtain call for Richard Madden, beautifully written 
- Another piece about accents in GOT.

Pic: Celebrity names

Picture after the break.

Pic: Starks and Wolves

Picture after the break.

A communication error or just throwing blame around? - The Riverrun decision

I have repeatedly made the point that when Robb Stark and Brynden Tully gang up on Edmure Tully about his “stupid decision” to fight Lord Tywin at Stone Mill and the other places along the Red Fork, they are both in the wrong. Edmure had no way of knowing what the plan of Robb and Brynden could have been, and it is their fault for not telling him. I also assumed – a much more contested theory – that Robb and Brynden didn’t know of this “plan” themselves until after the fact and merely brought the hammer down on Edmure because he was a convenient scapegoat. Having seen the scenes playing out in the HBO adaption as well (with lower stakes, because Riverrun’s importance is downplayed and the engagement at Stone Mill aimed only at Gregor Clegane), I revisited my original thoughts and came to slightly different conclusions about why Robb und Brynden are basically talking bullshit.

I wear a T-Shirt with "Fuck Edmure" written on it.

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 32

Thursday is theory day.

This is the thirty-second article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 32. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

A casual observation that makes much, much sense

Noah Smith, an economist who also happens to be a nerd, made a very pointedly observation which has a lot of water to it:

What Westeros needs, more than anything, is universal literacy. The maesters and septons are holding the continent back. @mattyglesias
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) 3. Juni 2013

Red Wedding reaction shots compilation

Video after the break.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Recap, Episode 9 "The Rains of Castamere"

Catharsis. I know the term doesn’t fit exactly here, since you don’t feel purified, more soiled. But boy, the Red Wedding was a cloud that hung over the whole season for book readers like me. We always knew it was coming, always knew what it meant, and had to try not to spoil it for those who haven’t read the books. It was way harder than to pretend Eddard Stark wouldn’t die back in season 1. Now that it’s finally over, it’s like a veil has been pulled back. It was an emotional ride that I hadn’t expected, again, knowing exactly what would happen. That speaks for the quality of HBO’s adaption. But let’s cover all this in excruciating detail, shall we? Man, I’m still shaking. 

Read my lips: no more deaths of characters you like.

A Flight of Links

- The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race
- Leviathan - Warships review
- Tywin Lannister frequented whores
- Best of the worst: Children's movies. Hilarious.  
- Extra Credits Episode 11 and Episode 12. 
- GOT characters 90s style.  
- Some updates on "A World of Ice and Fire". 
- 7 bad storytelling habits that come from superhero stories. 
- GMing history
- How Iron Man 3 should have ended
- Machete kills seems even more weird than Machete. 
- Superman got 75.  
- After Earth either sucks or is just not good, depending on how you look at it.
- Yes. 
- No. 
- Heath Ledger's joker diary. 
- RPS has part 1 of the diary about Europa Universalis 4
- Ever felt sorry for Joffrey? Now you do. 

No spy

Well...I guess....that theory about Talisa being a Lannister spy...is dead.

Pic: Thumbs&Ammo

Picture after the break.