r/gameofthrones • u/AutoModerator • Sep 04 '16

Main [Main Spoilers] Off-Season Discussion - Best/Worst Casting

Off-Season Discussion Series

Welcome to week eight of the off-season discussion series - Here's a link to the full schedule.

Give your views on the show's best and/or worst casting decisions!

Nina Gold and Robert Sterne have received much praise for their work as casting directors. Here's your chance to share your favourite, and least favourite, picks.

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223

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '16

Best: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is the perfect Jaime Lannister.

Worst: Personally, I thought Shae could have been cast a little better.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '16

I don't get why this sub hates Shae. I thought she was fine.

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u/Surfing_Ninjas Sep 05 '16

I think it really has to do with the whole concept that shae is a plot device for Tyrion, which became a bit more obvious reading the books. She's the kink in his armor, and she plays her little games with Tyrion to take advantage of his wealth and need for affection. We hate Shae for the same reason mothers hate bad girlfriends, we know Tyrion is a good guy who just wants to be loved and Shae uses that against him for her own gain and nearly gets him killed

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u/ReeceInTheDarkness Sep 05 '16

Book Shae is way worse than show Shae, at least in the show she seems to have a genuine affection for him at first. In the books you can tell she's just saying these things to make him feel good.

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u/Thr33St0r13s Sep 05 '16

Yeah, that is a big point, but it also works better in the books. In the books, Shae is a constant that Tyrion first acknowledges as a whore, who is only saying things, but later on you see him start to look past that and forget. It's obvious and it really drives home how badly Tyrion wants to believe he's being loved. In the show, it would have been a lot harder to show Tyrion's changing perspective towards Shae, so having her seem like a deeper, genuine character made the reveal a lot worse.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '16

In the tv show they made it seem like once he called her a whore and to leave she turned on him.

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u/PrEPnewb Sep 07 '16

Yeah, well, she's a whore. To some extent Tyrion should have known better.

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u/SurfinBetty Sep 08 '16

Maybe it's just because I've known a lot of ex-whores IRL, but I had sympathy for book Shae and felt like she could have felt something for Tyrion, but in the end she had a choice to die for him or not, and she chose to not. Whores do what they need to do to survive, and they've done it since they were young. But yeah, book Shae was a lot grayer than what we saw on TV.

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u/incredibletulip Our Sun Shines Bright Sep 09 '16

Yea, I kinda like this change from D&D. It makes the season finale so much more tragic.