4441

If you don’t want to be spoiled at all for book 3 before you finish it, I’d avoid this thread!!

4442

I only read the first three books and that was quite some time ago (back when those were the only books available) but I had a huge difficulty keeping a lot of lesser, or non-POV at least, characters straight. I’m finding the show is working far better for me on that count.

4443

My experience exactly. I tried to read book 4 when it came out but had forgotton many of the lesser characters. Since the show has proven itself, I’m skipping the rest of the books and just enjoying the show’s presentation.

4444

Good episode tonight, though I thought last week’s was the season’s high point so far.

4445

Beric vs. The Hound is pretty much how I envisioned it, though there could have been a slighter gap to Beric’s return (and leaning on Thoros). Still, damn a flaming swordfight that looked badass. Well done.

— Alan

Edit: They do seem to be ignoring Dorne, which I’m sure will make a full appearance next season. They can not do away with the Red Viper.

4446

That was so well staged, it really blew my expectations out of the water.

Excellent episode in general.

4447

I though the individual scenes of the fight were fantastic, but that the fight as a whole was incredibly jarring. Other than that the episode was great.

4448

“Black humour” is probably the appropriate term.

4449

Great episode, probably my favorite of the season so far. I guess I’m just a sucker for hot tub scenes.

The fight between Berec and The Hound was well done, as others have mentioned. I liked the blood igniting the sword.

The Jon Snow hot tub scene was kinda meh-worthy, but then that whole plotline has been more bit plodding on the show than it was in the books; I suspect it will be better next week.

The whole thing with the Karstarks was executed very nicely. I had forgotten what happened in the books, so Robb’s decision to behead his banner-man was pretty shocking, especially after the good arguments made by his mother and wife. Gosh, I hope everything works out well with his jilted almost-father-in-law next week or the week after.

The stuff with Stannis and Dragonstone was mostly dull, but needed to be seen to move the plot along. I’m surprised that they introduced Stannis’ wife and especially his daughter as characters. They seemed pretty cut-worthy to me. But I guess the greyscale disease becomes more important in a couple books/seasons. Stannis’ wife and her jars-o-babies were nicely weird.

I really, really thought that the scene between Jamie and Brianne in the bath was riveting… and for a dialog-heavy ten minutes of effectively nothing but exposition, that’s hard to pull off. Kudos to Waldau. Plus both my wife and I got some added cheese/beefcake; always a plus.

The stuff at King’s Landing was fun: the scene between Tyrion and the Queen of Thorns wasn’t necessary, but was enjoyable. The Littlefinger-placed spy-slash-sex toy thing was amusing, especially on the heels of watching The Spider get his info last week – different people, different tactics. It also underscored how deeply Sansa is out of her (admittedly shallow) depth as she tried to play the player. Finally, watching Tywin instruct his reluctant kids on to whom they will be hitched was great fun.

Oh, and the short couple scenes with Daenerys. Eh. Mormont and Barristan bickering was fine, I guess. Gray Worm was younger than I had pictured in my head… I know the unsullied are all supposed to be roughly the same age, but somehow I had envisioned him as in his 30s somewhere. He kinda looked like a young Obama with the chin and ears.

4450

Other than the swordfight I thought this was a fairly slow episode, however there was a ton of exposition in this one that is much needed if folks are to understand events that are unfolding now and in the near future. I too thought that the Jaime/Brienne bath scene was riviting (more for the dialog than the view), and afterwards I had to briefly explain to my non-reader wife what it was Jaime was referring to. I also thought the exchange between Barristan and Jorah was good, showing how much they had in common, yet highlighting their differences and mistrust as well. The Jon Snow stuff was meh, but neccessary (honestly I’m not a huge fan of that storyline at this point in the books either, but it needs to happen to put latter events in perspective). Tywin’s revelations to his children at the end was a great scene as well.

I was surprised to see Selyse (I think that’s her name) and Shireen (the daughter) this late in the game as well. I figured they had suffered the fate of so many minor charaters. Interesting that Patchface seems to have been cut, and I totally DO NOT remember the babies in jars from the books. That scene totally creeped out my wife, but I suppose they were trying to impart just how looney tunes Stannis’ wife has become.

The Karstark scenes were great, and I don’t even mind that they’ve altered the motive behind appealing to the Freys at this point. It’s probably much easier to understand since the TV show seems to be ignoring the actual war and it’s various battles, movements and motivations unless they directly impact main characters (such as Blackwater). That’s fine, and I’m sure it saves them a ton of money they can then use elsewhere, but it does kind of require them to change some details so that viewers can understand why certain characters are where they are or make the decisions they make.

4451

Judging by the preview, it doesn’t seem like Walder Frey is in next episode (some of his sons are).

— Alan

4452

Seeing Cersei having the smug look of “I know what’s going happen to you” on her face to getting sideswiped like that is priceless.

4453

I was about to turn off the video during the credits, and then they just started playing Shireen’s song quietly over the words. I was riveted. Sure, the gimmick of having little girls sing creepy songs is done to death for horror movie trailers, but this one caught me off guard: She’s sincere, sweet, morose, and tragically calm describing death by drowning.

4454

The game of thrones Wiki has Loras listed as the third son of Mace Tyrell. http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Loras_Tyrell

Is that still true in the HBO series? It seems that Garlan and Willas have been cut – and didn’t we even hear mention of Loras as heir to Highgarden? Are we even going to see Mace Tyrell? In the books, Tywin suggests Mace as a possible match for Cersei.

And maybe someone with a more fresh recollection of Storm of Swords can help me out, but regarding the potential weddings of Tyrion and Cersei, wasn’t Tywin’s instructions/suggestion to his daughter more of a “what do you think of Mace Tyrell?” type of thing and less of a direct order in the same vein as the order delivered to Tyrion? Or maybe I’m misremembering.

4455

Yeah, they’ve cut some Tyrells and are having Loras heir, which is a change.

I liked all the set up for the RW. Knowing what will happen, I do feel the hand of Tywin in all of it, just like when I reread ASOS. He knows Rob is railroaded into attacking Casterly Rock, which in turn means he needs to appease Walder Frey. Presumably he’s already in contact with Roose Bolton, and we’ll see some of the fruits of that next week. I hope we get to see Jamie rescue Brienne and then kill Locke. Jamie is just about my favourite character in the books, and I really enjoyed his scenes this week.

There will be a problem though, because Jamie isn’t meant to get back to King’s Landing until after Joff’s wedding, and that presumably won’t be in this season.

4456

Man, Jaime’s monologue was utterly fantastic. Though I’m still expecting that to turn out yet another devious mindgame to fuck with Brianne.

What on earth goes through people’s minds when they decide to casually spoil reveals like this when answering questions posed by people who have probably not read the books? Or at least in a thread filled with people who have obviously not read the books?

For fuck’s sake. That’s something I had absolutely no desire to know until the storytellers wanted me to know.

4457

This is the spoiler thread, and has been throughout its entire existence.

4458

A spoiler thread for episodes that have already aired? Absolutely.

A thread for people who have read the books to casually spoil things that haven’t happened in the TV show? Not from what I’ve seen in the last 10-20 pages (and not implied by the thread title), but I only just started watching the show and caught up a few months ago.

4459

If you’ve read the last 10-20 pages, you would know that like 15 of them is people arguing about what constitutes an acceptable spoiler in this thread. The reality is alot of people who have read all the books frequent this thread and discuss things beyond where HBO is.

4460

Umm…what was going through my mind is that I thought this was the spoiler thread where people can feel free to speculate without getting an ass reaming? Based on previous posts in this thread I thought what I said was absolutely innocuous. Hey it’s the Internet guess I was bound to piss someone off eventually.