>It's season 3 already.

In any given season, things always seem to turn really bad around episode 9.

I just looked back at the other 9th episodes, and you're absolutely right.

Is that here yet?

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=2417

THAT FAGGOT BEAT ME TO IT.

You'd made that comment on another Red-Wedding-related video today. I don't necessarily disagree, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. It was a hell of a good episode.

Good episode of a good show.

I know what I'd mean if I'd said what CD said first:
The show is absolutely a stupid, guilty pleasure that the confused among us believe has middle-brow intellectual content. It has no intellectual content at all. It's gory, vicious, plotboiling, dragon porno that likes to break hearts by murdering almost any redeeming character and has not one idea in it. Nothing especially wrong with that as pure good-times TV. But for some damn reason people think it's vast and deep and true to life. There is something especially wrong with that.

I think we're used to popcorn movies and tv being so bad and so dumb, that once one is well-made, we start thinking it has something to say.

It's got plenty of intellectual content, middle brow intellectual content. Not too deep, not too shallow, it's a cut above your average popcorn flick - with plenty of flawed, dynamic characters - while not "saying" anything particularly deep or profound (unless you consider "incest can be fun!" to be a profound statement). I'd say that fits middle brow quite well!

As for the gorno, Shakespeare, Homer, and Chrischan were all bloody, vicious, and gory, yet I don't think any of us would argue that the presence of these things in any way diminished their work's cultural credentials.

I'm not saying that violence, sex, surprise or intrigue rule out or lessen any intellectual content. But in the case of GoT there's so much pulpy, good fun [and British accents] that it's making people confuse "This is good as in enjoyable and well-made" with "This is good as in meritorious, as in smart". Regardless of whether one needs more than enjoyability out of tv, there's nothing that pushes the show past "well-made high-concept plot-boiler with titties and chopping".
The characters are flawed, but not dynamic that I can tell. Who goes through notable changes? Jon Snow, *maybe*, Danerys *maybe*.

I love it whenever someone posts a clip from Game of Thrones, Mad Men, The Wire, The Sopranos, or Breaking Bad, and someone snorts loudly about what lowbrow drivel it is compared to....whatever the fuck else is left on TV.

It's like ever since we entered the golden age of serialized drama, calling prestige shows stupid is the new "I don't even own a TV."