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Game of Thrones: Walk of Punishment (2013)
It's not even the same show anymore
Walk of Punishment is GoTs writer David Benioff's directorial debut, and it is obvious.
First off, why would you decide to let someone direct for the first time on an episode of one of the most brilliant and popular shows of present time? While I was watching it I couldn't help but to think that HBO has lost the essence of the characters which I would have thought impossible considering George R.R. Martin is supervising the entire thing. The first scene that comes to mind is when Daenerys is speaking to the slaver about the terms of the trade. In the story she is supposed to be fooling the slaver by offering him her dragons, but in the show, Jorah is fooled by her too and quite startled. So we, as the viewer, are either supposed to think that Jorah is very dense, or we are supposed to believe Dany suddenly doesn't care about her dragons any more than gold. The scene made no sense, the way Jorah reacted would clearly indicate that something's up and alert the slaver.
The scene where Hot Pie says his goodbyes to everyone is another scene showing bad directing, the way it was drawn out was so clumsy and awkward, and when Arya and Gendry are riding off, Arya turns and yells "Hot Pie!" Young Arya, the clever and spunky girl had one more important thing to tell Hot Pie: the bread is really good! Wait... who said that? That couldn't have been Arya. I mean with the kinda stuff that this little girl has seen, you might expect her to say, "stay safe!" or "keep your head on!" The scene should have probably just been canned. This really is trivial to the story but it just seemed so out of line with her personality! What show is this!? Not just Arya that seems to be unfamiliar but also Jaime. The character holds onto his "Lannistery" sense of entitlement nicely, but the circumstances surrounding him are bad enough that he should definitely seem far more bitter than he acts.
Tyrion's banter with other characters isn't quite on point either, the scene with him and Littlefinger was underwhelming to say the least. But there are more naked girls than before in this episode; this time around GoT seems to be more concerned about pleasing those who watch this show for it's lusty appeal.
It's not all bad though, the character Robb Stark delivers a great tongue lashing to the ignorant knight that fails to obey his orders. Catelyn Stark is done wonderfully as well. The scenes north of the wall thankfully have not fallen in quality either.
I'm not saying Mr. Benioff is doing anything to hurt the story, which is progressing nicely, is just seems like the delivery is seriously lacking. The show needs to be tweaked hear and there to fit the important things into an hour, but changing the character's personalities is not something that should ever happen.