Alexandra Leaving

Dear friends, I am so sorry for the second day of ranting but I feel compelled to tell you all what I think about this over-celebrated character because some discussion on over-celebrated characters arisen in yesterday’s comments.

Disclaimer: These are just my thoughts, and I do not hold the right to absolute truth and welcome discussion. To tell you the truth, this week is the week students are back to Universities, and I am having a case of a terrible cranky. Did I tell you I work in one of UK Universities (in Information services department as "systems analyst" which is another word for database programmer)? I hate the first "back to school" weeks mostly because the traffic becomes unbearable. The situation evens out a bit later on (it is known that one only attends their lectures in September and October), but late September and October is a killer traffic-wise.

So: What about Robb?

One of the most puzzling (to me) phenomena that I see on LJ is immense popularity of Robb Stark. Recently, I have made few polls in LJ ASOIAF communities and he always tends to be near the top. To me personally, this character (although quite sympathetic) never held too much value, because:

( Book spoilers )

I have been trying to think of explanations for his popularity, but all I could gather is:

- Robb is played by a young attractive male actor. Is this a good enough reason? I will not go as far as claim any "sexism!" or "ageism!" or any other explanations, but one wonders. :D But if I have ever seen an over-celebrated character, it is Robb in my opinion.

PS: BTW, I think Robert Madden is fabu!

PS2: I think Rhaegar and other "white knights" are also over-celebrated, just not as much. For one thing, Rhaegar was the Crown Prince

Finally have gotten to watching Downton abbey and am loving it. Consumed the series 1 in one day.



There is not much to say apart from "This is a fabulous gem!!!" . May be just 3 things:

1. I think the show is a little bit unfair to poor Thomas, the only evil guy in the series. I am not drawing any "discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation" conclusions here, but I am just back from "Equality and Diversity" committee (did I tell you that I am an Equality and Diversity champion in our work area? I guess my outspokenness is known) and I am on my high horse.

2. Violet Crawley/Isobel Crawley is the best love/hate relationship I have ever seen on TV . I can enjoy a show just about them alone.

3. How do I love the way they make shows in Britain. Everything seems so REAL and at the same time everything is just so easy on the eye. I can't help but compare everything with HBO "Game of Thrones" at the moment, and I must say comparison is not into "Game of Thrones" favour. As much as I love Game of Thrones, my feeling of reality in this show is quite often broken by some prop that just doesn't look real. And this is not about the fantasy elements (they are actually good) , and not about the grunge feel as I love grunge feel. I can give you one of the examples I keep repeating again and again - the wigs. But there are many other little things too. I have heard Game of Thrones creators' complaints about budgets, but surely, "Game of Thrones" has a bigger budget than "Downton Abbey" (I checked, GoT's budget is at least 5 times bigger)? Plus the things that are bothering me are not expensive CGI dragons, it is the little everyday things that feel "fake". Besides, they could have let many characters (like Loras) use their own hair which would have saved them money?

I tried to chose not-so serious pictures because - it's Friday! I am off on holidays for two weeks! Life is fabulous!

Peter Dinklage


( The rest )

This is so beautiful it gives me goosebumps and brings a tear to my face.

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I am successfully re-reading through "A Feast for Crows", only 150 pages left! I will finish the book by Tuesday, it seems. One of the in-your-face things that I noticed is how much Jaime loved and still loves Cersei. This feeling seems to be so sad and so one-sided, as there is nothing in Cersei's chapters to indicate that she ever loved him in any way other than as her own mirror and as a convenient sex-buddy. But he is still so much in love with her, I am really interested to find out what is going to happen to them next.

I am so saaaaaaaaaad! And a little bit shipping them together, may be one day she will learn what she had and let go of (I mean Jaime's love)?

There is a handful of new Nikolaj Coster-Waldau pictures:



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I have made a "Your favourite everything , season 1 of Game of Thrones" poll in game_thrones community. I am cross-posting the results so that I can keep track of this.
This is the second poll of this kind, the results of the previous run (created after the episode 5 of the season 1) can be found here.

Sub-poll 1: The character(s) you love the most

There aren't too many surprises in this category. There are few changes in comparison with the previous run, though. Tyrion has moved to the first place, placing Arya as the second. Dany has moved to the third place, placing Jon as the fourth. There is much less love for Jaime : he gave way to Sansa and Robb who share the fifth place.

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Tyrion Lannister	1	79	58
Arya Stark	2	68	50
Danerys Targaryen	3	55	40

Sub-poll 2: Character you love to hate

Few people asked for clarification of the "love to hate" term. This is the explanation I found scouting the Internets (Wordreference.com), which corresponds with my understanding of the term: "The term was most famously applied to Erich von Stroheim, a German actor of the silent and early sound period, who made a career of playing villainous Prussian noblemen. His portrayals were so strong that the audience would enjoy the feelings of animosity he engendered. Therefore, he was the man you love to hate."

The way I see it - the character you love to hate is the character you hate, but at the same time she/he engenders strong feelings from you and is important to the story. It is not an easy thing to write a bad character that is not cartoonish and will feel real enough to hate strongly. Someone you can channel your pent-up rage towards. My apologies for the late explanation.

There are some major changes in this sub-poll in comparison with the previous run. Joffrey seems to engender the universal hate and loathing, with as much as 67% of the voters naming him as their most hated character.

Also, as far as loathing goes, Petyr Baelish has moved up.

One surprising result for me personally: Catelyn is still hated more than Gregor Clegane, Walder Frey, Alliser Thorne and the rest. Although, looking on the positive side - Catelyn hate decreased from the previous run.

But no-one hates Ned Stark!!!!!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Joffrey Baratheon	1	92	67
Cersei Lannister	2	74	54
Petyr Baelish	3	43	31

Sub-poll 3: The best casting

Tyrion is leading - 61% of voters list him are one of their favourite castings!

And YAY! Bronn received three votes (one of them mine)!

( The full list )

Character	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Tyrion Lannister	1	84	61
Arya Stark	2	65	47
Ned Stark	3	57	42

Sub-poll 4: Your favourite pairing

Shipping! The results are very interesting. I have heard some worrying reports from here and there that large numbers of folks don't like Ned and Cat.

Do not fear! Ned/Cat as OTP triumphs everything! Yes to the great love and partnership! Dany/Drogo came second, although I am personally not very sure about this ship. Sansa/Sandor came third - the story of the Beauty and The Beast will never die!

The honorable mentions go to : Loras/Renly and Arya/Gendry (fourth and fifth).

There is also an amazing number of inventive ships! "Ros/Another Show" is my personal favourite, but there are also many other great ones, like "Jon Snow's hair/The wind".

( The full list )

Ship	Place	Number of votes	Percentage of voters (%)
Ned Stark/Catelyn Stark	1	48	35
Daenerys Targaryen/Khal Drogo	2	43	31
Sansa Stark/Sandor Clegane	3	35	26

Plsease feel free to discuss the results and bond over the shared favourites.

This is cross-posted: I have made this post for an ASOIF community.

Martin uses fairytales quite extensively, right? I don't want to mention the most obvious ones (like for example, how many times the Beauty and the Beast story crops up in the series? 3? More?) or the ones that I have already seen mentioned somewhere else (Jaime and Prince Charming from Shrek are long-lost twins), here are just a few:



( More fairytales )

What do you think? Do you know any fairytale stories that you think might have influenced A Song of Ice and Fire series?

Jaime Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was wearing a HAT! And Emilia Clarke was so cute in a little dress!! Also, Sean Bean and Mark Addy were cutting a dash!



( the rest of the pictures, totally adorkable )

Poor Sansa! But I find it unsuitably amusing that Sansa is taller than Joffrey (you little so-and-so, I wish you terrible and painful death!). :P I can't wait for the new episode but I am going to feel the loss when it ends. But nevermind, the new book is out in July! I still can't quite believe it, though.



PS: Because I always think of these things, I think about the actor that plays Joffrey, Irish actor Jack Gleeson. Personally, I think he is doing a great, even fabulous job. He did the creepiness so well! And his moment of tendeness with Sansa was so believable too! But the actor is so young! Won't he only get bad roles of horrible people from now on? And I do hope he is not going to be bullied or have anti-fans or anything crazy like this.

These are from the episodes 8 and 9. Take, enjoy, credit is nice.

Preview:

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