THE GAME OF THRONES/ASOIAF SPOILER THREAD (WARNING: SPOILERS)

So I think this episode came the closest yet to containing nothing actually from the book. Which is fine; obv it makes the show more suspenseful for longtime readers...

jon lewis otm. i spent a lot of the episode wondering if my memory had failed me that much that i remembered this all wrong.

however, does it bother any one else that in the tv show every one talks really openly about cersei & jamie fucking, especially these two. the scene where cersei opens up to tyrion felt really wrong to me. not only does she admit having had joffrey & kids with her brother, which in the books she only admits after a lot happens, she also uses that opportunity to say she has no control over joffrey and that she's afraid of him/regrets he's the new king and not tommen or myrcella (i'll admit i wasn't giving this scene my full attention cos my flatmate had questions so could be wrong on the whole not liking joffrey bit). in the books jamie & cersei sleeping together is more of a rumour that a few people actually know to be true, but that cersei & jamie actively deny, whereas here it seems like its common knowledge and hardly anyone gives a fuck. and cersei is completely blind when it comes to joffrey, basically giving him a free pass for any & everything, which is a strange contrast to how she sees him in the tv show.

Tyrion knows both in the books & show: in the book he even says "Who you lie with is no matter to me...although it doesn't seem quite just that you should open your legs for one brother and not the other" which seems rather more open than just talking about the kids. He also makes a few allusions to it in episode 1. The book can't really show you how widespread the rumours are but they are widespread, and the starving peasants in King's Landing are going to latch onto any unpleasant rumour going.

yeah tyrion knows about it (and i included him in the people who knew the rumour to be true). its just i found it kind of surprising to see how open cersei & jamie are about it when in the books it felt like they were no where near admitting it. in the books it felt like this burden that the two carried around without being able to say it because they knew other people would not look kindly upon it. here it's like " yeah i fucked my sister/brother, it was awesome! also, those kids come from this incestuous relationship, but hey u know, no biggie"

and, correct me if i'm wrong, the only time either one of them openly acknowledges it is when cersei gets captured by the septons? also yeah in the books the rumour is very widespread, i mean stannis putsup messages in every village in westeros talking about this !

tbh i guess it's a bit harder for the tv show to convey that message without having one of the two involved copping to having sex with his brother/sister. if anyone else says it i guess viewers could think that its just a rumour?

Well Cersei iirc was all about keeping it secret but Jaime, not so much. He talks to Ilyn Payne about it a lot. Also, Kevan (their uncle) knows about it and refers to it.

The taboo is mostly because Cersei's the Queen & her kids are in the line of succession; the Targaryens had largely phased out of marrying their siblings and it is frowned upon. Daenerys's parents were siblings.

here it's like " yeah i fucked my sister/brother, it was awesome! also, those kids come from this incestuous relationship, but hey u know, no biggie"

Cersei seemed pretty distraught at the idea that incest has caused Joffrey's incurable case of evil little shit-itis, I don't think it was nbd to her.

ya guess so. i mean i still have some problems with the way this strays from those chars attitudes in the books, but there was no way things would be exactly the same. tbh this isn't really important, so dunno why i felt the need to write it out.

Y'all gotta remember, too, the book contains a shit-tonne of exposition via internal monologue, especially concerning Westeros history. The Arya-Tywin and Tyrion-Cersei conversations imo were a super-effective way of bringing the audience up-to-date re: the Targaryens, dragons.

Most changes/omissions have been improvements, as far as I'm concerned. The assassination of 11 of the 13 was some much needed drama in an otherwise uneventful Daenarys arc

Yeah I like most of the changes too, don't get me wrong.

Wasn't there a LOT more about The Mountain in Book 2? I seem to remember him being this malevolent force pillaging the Riverlands

yeah there was. I guess there'll be more whenever the Brotherhood shows up?

I don't want to come off like some kind of bloodthirsty maniac, but I hope that HBO isn't shying away from making Arya a remorseless killing machine.

well she was thinking about stabbing tywin when he was talking with his back to her. so i guess she's still on track to being a killing machine.

True, but by this time in the books, her body count consisted of more than just a single fat boy.

true. she does get ppl killed though. can't wait to see "a man knows" dude change looks when she tells him to kill himself.
also, reading the other thread, you say metal mask chick is quaithe. and now i'm blanking out on who she is. is she the one that tells dany she'll be betrayed thrice, loved thrice etc ?

I'm also looking forward to Arya telling Jaqen to kill himself, if only to remember the mechanics of her gambit!

Damn, now I'm not sure about Quaithe. I want to say yes, though I can't shake the possibility that she gets that warning in the Houses of the Holy Undying. But basically, she's sort of an apparition that appears to Dany randomly to drops some prophetic business.

glad to see i'm not the only one who's confused about metal mask chick. dany does get the warning from an apparition in the house of the undying - there's no way they'll bypass that scene and have the prophecies come to dany via metal mask chick? right?

also iirc arya's gambit is basically that she wants jaqen to help her free the northmen in harrenhal. he refuses so she orders him to kill himself or smth like that?

yeah she needs him to do more than just one assassination to free them so she names him and holds him hostage to his own promise unless he helps her

I think that Osha's going to be escorting Bran beyond the Wall, and someone else will take Rickon (I have a suspicion/hope that it's Maester Luwin).

Disappointed that we still didn't get House of the Undying, but seeing Luwin pretty much established as Rickon's replacement nanny made me happy.

Really digging the exposition of Robb + whats-her-name

BLACKWATER.

... WASN'T THAT GOOD.

Considering how hyped this episode was, I thought it was pretty damn good.

I haven't read the books, but from the spoilers I've read, it looks like Tyrion got off a lot easier with that cut to his face than he did in the books, right? Like, his nose is still there.

he is TV lead character injured

Also, did they change the guy that cut him from being a dude that was supposed to be on his side but betrayed him to just being some big random enemy? I didn't recognize the guy.

It was definintely a Kingsguard mofo who tries to cut him down -- Meryn Trant? Who aside from Jaime and the Hound, is the only Kingsguard guy who's gotten a name. Anyway, same guy who strips Sansa at Joffrey's command earlier this season.

REEDS! BLACKFISH!

Entertainment Weekly’s James Hibberd has the (partial) cast list of characters introduced in Season Three. Reproduced below with original role descriptions:

Mance Rayder: We’ve heard about him all season. A former member of the Night’s Watch who became the “King Beyond the Wall,” the leader of the Wildlings.
Daario Naharis: A confident and seductive warrior.
Jojen Reed; Meera Reed: A teenage brother and sister duo with special insights.
Edmure Tully: A brash young member of the Tully family.
Ser Brynden Tully (The Blackfish): Catelyn Stark’s uncle.
Lady Selyse Florent: Stannis Baratheon’s wife.
Shireen: Stannis’ daughter.
Olenna Redwyne (The Queen of Thorns): Margaery Tyrell’s sharp-witted grandmother.
Beric Dondarrion: A skilled knight who is the leader of the outlaw group Brotherhood Without Banners.
Thoros of Myr: A red priest who follows the same religion as Melisandre.
Tormund Giantsbane: A Wildling raider.

oh shireen.

I hope Glenn Danzig plays Ramsay Bolton.

Wait, wasn't Beric already in the first season? I don't remember him but it seems he should've been?

yeah, he was. Guess that guy couldn't wait around (or maybe wasn't up to it)

needs more patchface

patchface creeps me out, I'd be glad if he didn't show up

He is very creepy. I don't like clowns or fools to begin with, but he takes it to the next level.

totally. creepy-sad clown.

i am glad the reeds weren't left out. i have been missing the more other-worldliness part of GoT (dragons, white walkers, physic powers, etc)

there's been loads of that this season...

yes, queen of thorns such a great character ! reeds also cool !

Edmure Tully: A brash young member of the Tully family.

he's just a bit younger than catelyn stark ! this makes it sound like he's around the same age as i dunno, the stark kids or smth.

I think they might have specified young as he is younger than Catelyn and also not yet married.

Olenna is U&K, but Blackfish is awes as well.

Also puzzled why they don't just say that Edmure is Cat's brother.

NOT LUWIN!!!!!!!!!!!! I BLAME THE REEDS!!

I like all the changes they've made so far, what have we got?

- Massacre of the Thirteen
- Robb exists in Book 2
- Theon is a wimp
- Arya/Tywin instead of Arya/Roose, massively expanded

I feel like there must have been something else that happened in Book 2 that I've forgotten, Season 2 seemed largely fabricated, aside from King's Landing + Stannis

All I remember now of Book 2 was Dany getting lost in the desert and it taking a long time.

Oh, they also made Renly a more visible character. All good choices

Stuff they took out:

- Jojen and Meera
- Tyrion's chain
- Edmure Tully

Oh, they also made Renly a more visible character.

It's funny, seeing the amount of people online complaining that there was not enough Renly this season when he got his story got fleshed out way more than was in the books.

jojen and meera are cast for season 3 so i guess bran crew is just gonna bump into them on their way through the woods or something. edmure will show up when we go to riverrun i assume

err being cast, not cast yet

So many good decisions! The only plot threads of which I preferred the book version have been Jon Snow, Samwell and Davos.

this last one definitely showed the signs of the budget being spunked on the penultimate episode. i guess i had low expectations for the house of the undying. they could've spent half an episode in there and really gone big with it but i didn't see it happening. what they did on the smaller scale worked fine tho.

i didn't think the winterfell thing was handled as well as it could've been. not even one shot of the northmen outside the gates? it was all too vague. the business with ramsay in the books seemed a bit unnecessary on reading but i actually missed it here. the show might have done better to add ramsay in and take its time more with that storyline. it mostly disappears in book 3 anyway, and the bran parts there could be easily condensed to accommodate an escape mid-season. the burned kids could've been the season cliffhanger.

i didn't much like how the jon/halfhand thing happened either - also needlessly vague. i mean, it was clear enough what qhorin was trying to do, but there was no moment when the penny seemed to drop for jon, and in the end he killed him cos he said something mean about his unknown mam. at least they got where they needed to be, by a roundabout way.

on the plus side, tyrion's face was impressively fucked up, even if they had to keep his nose. if dinklage was really committed to his art he'd have let them hack it off. disappointing.

this season was always when the real challenge of making a tv show out of such a wide ranging story was going to be obvious. they really could've done better. i know there are pressures and expectations, but they would've been helped themselves a ton by cutting dany out of nearly all the first half of the season. i thought robb rampaging off in the west and then returning with his marriage a done deal was a great narrative twist, and i don't know how well the show was served by making him much more static and giving that nurse so much screen time. meanwhile, other parts of the story got sometimes bizarrely truncated.