The Best of Thrones - The Red Wedding and How to Subvert Expectations

The link to your book is broken?

I think a good twist is also more than foreshadowing + the unexpected. The main character being hit by a car seconds before the movie ends isn't really a twist. Even if it was foreshadowed and is somehow thematically appropriate, I still wouldn't see it as a twist. A Twist(TM) (as originally popularised by the 'twist ending' trope) is something that recontextualises everything that came before it and makes you see the story and events in a new light, and changes the trajectory of the rest of the story (if there's still more to come).

Examples from popular media of "recontextualisation" twists I found compelling:
- I, an orphan with no family, am directly related to the main villain I'm trying to defeat, meaning much of my identity and current worldview is built on lies from people I trusted and my old plan for defeating him is out the window (you all know this one)
- my wife isn't giving me the cold shoulder, she's just mourning my death (you all know this one too)
- my greatest enemy and the beloved hero who will I hope will one day save me from my enemy are, in fact, the same person. No one is coming to save me. I have to save myself. (hint: another HBO show)
- the guy I came to looking for help against our common enemy isn't a fellow target, he's the common enemy (hint: a critically-acclaimed comic)

Good twists aren't just satisfying because we should have seen them coming but didn't and they make sense for the story. Sometimes they also take the story in radically new directions you couldn't have seen coming, but are satisfying nonetheless.

The Red Wedding recontextualises things in that you realise you were deliberately fooling yourself, missing clues and foreshadowing in the HOPE that this would turn out like an archtypical heroic fantasy story. It then sets the story on a different trajectory that follows logically from the recontextualisation.

"Overcoming one's flaws does not mean you succeed..."

bro, that's hella deep

The Red Wedding is why Disney thought it a good idea to have Luke chuck his lightsaber and why TLJ sucked in general.

The Rains of Castamere is my ringtone. Love that song.

I only watched that episode once, i cant rewatch it, its too difficult

i wonder that when the slaughter of norther soldiers begun how many escaped and how much did they killed of freys and boltons

So, Tim is working hard to explain expectation subversions... and I'm over here (learning so many things, yay! and) wishing we just had him play Hamlet. Because... read more Shakespeare please.

re Arya - you say it doesn't fit in with her arc but she is the ONLY one to have the training of the dead. WTF you guys just really do not think even the MOST trained woman can do anything - even the most obvious thing. Arya is the only one besides the night king who has wielded death herself. She even can wear their faces. She is also the only one who has the specialized training to BOTH deal with the intense pain of the night king grabbing her AND the fighting training to be able to be so quick to do the actual deed.

Sheeeesh. She is the ONLY choice for the kill of the Night King.

It's too painful to even watch THIS video💔

The thing Martin was able to do that really set him apart was to identify the characters people were invested in to the point that they'd drop the series if they were killed off, and keep just those ones alive. Amazing really, when you think about it. Gives the distinct impression that any character could die at any time, but that was carefully, systematically, skillfully never the case.

I'm generally not someone that sees twists coming, even some of the more obvious ones, but I always thought the red wedding was incredibly obvious. The amount of death flags makes me wonder how anybody was so surprised.

I have a hard time picturing a version of the story in which the Red Wedding doesn’t occur.

I’ll tell ya what would subvert my expectations: a Hello Future Me video with absolutely no mention of Avatar hahaha.

Ok.

Just hearing you talking about this episode makes me sad.

"I think you lost the war the day you married her."

Rickard Karstark to Robb: I think you lost the war the day you married her.

That old man was onto something.

compared to the book, i really wish they'd not made both catlyn and robb idiots in the show, the changes were miniscule but so crucial.

in the book robb's weakness isn't complete disregard of duty for love, it's HONOR, just like his father. in the book he marries jayne, a daughter of a lesser lord—who still has SOME soldiers, like she was still a noble, she wasn't a rando on some field—bc he had bedded her in a moment of weakness, knowing he would alienate the freys, but he also thought he still had jamie.

whereas catlyn sets jamie free after getting word abt the deaths of bran and rickon, leading her, overcome with grief, to desperately want to save her two girls. she does it still thinking robb will marry a frey, she's not so stupid as to lose their only bargaining chip.

so when catlyn receives the letter after she's let jamie go, and robb marries his honeypot, knowing FULL WELL that he no longer has jamie? well. sure, it's still terrible, but i still wanna scream and give these dumdums a solid knock on the head.

In the books the massacre was foreshadowed so much, when you read them again you see it everywhere

I hate when people say "Rob chose love", no, Rob chose sex, and then got hit with the guilt stick and got married to a nobody and got himself killed.

When GoT were unexpected and, well, good

I gotta rewatch this show…

Unbelievable. So great. I truly don't think I'd ever be able to even consider writing the stories in my head if not for your videos. Thank you for your hard work.

I think a great element of Rob's story is the fact that his "flaws" are the ideals that other stories strive to reenforce. He marries Talisa because of LOVE rather than and arranged marriage of duty. He beheads Karstark for JUSTICE rather than let a child murderer go free for political gain. In other stories, the audience roots for the hero to make these choices because they reflect the values we want to see in characters, but in the world of GOT, the character's values mean nothing when up against practicality and strategy. It subverts expectations because it subverts the very values we look for in a fantasy hero. In hindsight, we wish Robb sold out his values for political gain. We wish he ignored Talisa and married for strategy. We wish he discarded his sense of honor and justice and made peace with Karstark. To me, that's where the genius of the Red Wedding shines.

This is just normal storytelling for grownups seen in thousands of novels and plays based on history.
The reason this was seen so groundbreaking is because Hollywood has been showering us with the same, childish hero's journey, special boy narrative for decades.

I'm currently rewatching GoT (again) and your videos enhance the experience so much! Thank you Tim!

this is quite unpopular opinion...but despite how bad Walder Frey is, his hatred was justified, Robb owes him too much to be repaid and Robb still insist to force Walder Frey to act like honorable house despite Frey at that time is one of the last big house that still support him after Karstark withdrawal..Walder spiting Robb for every spite he had received prior

I expected a last jedi comparssion :D how not to subvert expectations.

For me, the subversion was also largely to the fact that Frey gives the bread and salt to his guests, which is a big deal in the book. It’s a big no no to harm your guests under your roof, but he is so petty that he goes against what the people hold sacred. In the book many were shocked that he would mock the gods, especially the Stranger, like this.

And this all makes Arya's revenge so much more satisfying.

This isn't even the part that subverts expectations the most.
What's really going to blow everyone's expectations away is when Book 6 comes out and Robb is revived as a Fire Wight with a wolf head on his shoulders and he gets revenge on the Freys. The King of the North rises again as the Night's King.

Dakingindanoff!!! 👑

The second time watching this, when Talisa says they will name their son “Eddard”, it freaking killed me!

I couldn't watch the actual episode but it impacted people who never watched it. That's powerful for a tv show.

Did GRRM foreshadow the events of the red wedding just by the name he gave the patriarch who oversaw it? Ooh! My new video reveals all...

The scene where roose says he doesn’t drink doesn’t really men much though since he has said it before when talking with Brienne and Jaime and he never drank from his cup when dining with Ramsay and walda

The reason I hate the red wedding is because of it's lackluster aftermath. I was already disappointed when Ned died, but that was fine since he kept being talked about and since his death actually impacted the story. All Robb's death did was end an interesting storyline. Sure, it was build up to nicely and it was mentioned a few times afterwards, but that's it. And no, that one scene where Arya killed the Freys does not make up for that.

TBF, the Red Wedding would have happened even if Robb didn't break his promise.

Yeah.....I remember being speechless my first time seeing it and I looked over at my girlfriend at the time a few minutes later and I said I just can't fathom how the story will continue now....tf just happend? But it got better and I was like...bro 😯

Your best video - thanks

The only aspects I disagree with are the inciting action and how much responsibility lays at Robb's feet.

His mother is the one who negotiated the marriage hastily. True, she was sent as an envoy by Robb but she could have negotiated his other two brothers and other favorable terms rather than placing Robb, who was her Royal superior at this time in a compromising position. She could have negotiated for land following the conquest or even her own political marriage to Walder Frey or one of his relatives, which would have made more sense seeing how shes already had her experience with a loving marriage and was widowed.

Add that to the fact that Robb would not have been motivated to execute the Karstark leader if she hadn't, as she kept doing throughout the series, impetuously released Jamie and acted without consulting the hierarchy of their appointed decision makers and leaders. It wasn't just political Ignorance on Robb's part but literally being compromised by his own mother step by step, who, by the way, also was one of the primary voices of encouragement to trust Walder Frey and go head first Into the Red Wedding.

Basically. F*** Catlyn Stark.

When I watched this episode, I thought the Freys would get revenge by backstabbing Robb’s army in battle… but I didn’t expect they’d be eliminated even before going to battle

Jon was more likely to lose his mind due to coming back from the dead than dany. Remember what beric said about losing a part of himself each time he came back. It makes no sense for dany to get so jealous and crazy so fast without much development. I hate what they done to her. Dany cared about her rule over the people. THE PEOPLE. She said multiple times that she didn't want to be queen of the ashes or be like the mad king.
Season 8 was too hard to finish on rewatch cuz I know it was going to get dull and frustrating real fast

Remember that GRRM wrote this, not the copy-paste Hollywood writers who destroyed the show in the last four seasons.

Kim Jong Il would be extremely successful in Game of Thrones to be honest.

The red wedding didn't subvert SHIT for me. I KNEW Rob and his entire party were fucked the moment he married himself off and STILL walked right into the Twins like everything was going to be ok. I may not have known exactly how it would play out, but I knew they would be betrayed and that they would all die.

And Im not even talking about the show. Im talking about the books, which I finished before season 2 even aired. Everything that happened leading up to that event told me Rob was fucked.

Yeah, no. I knew it was coming. It didn't subvert my expectations; it lived up to them.