Game of Thrones Season 2 - CLOSED SPOILERS discussion thread

Game of Thrones Season 2 - CLOSED SPOILERS Discussion Thread
This thread is for CLOSED SPOILERS discussion of the second season of Game of Thrones and the books in the series.

Spoiler policy for this thread:

  1. Anything that has not yet been aired or shown on TV is permissible, but must be put in Spoiler Boxes and disclaimed.
  2. What has been aired can be discussed openly after the episode has ended.
  3. Questions, speculation, casting discussion, interviews, DVD extra material, etc, etc, etc, can be discussed here.
  4. The books can be discussed here, but should be Spoiler Boxed and disclaimed.

This is in order to allow people who want to ask specific questions and receive specific answers regarding backstory or things they missed, be able to use this thread as a resource. For those who wants limited spoilers - for instance people who have read the books up unto a point but don’t want spoilers for the rest of the books - this is the place to be. People in this thread are to use their best judgement as to what constitutes a spoiler. Please report information which should not be in the open by using the Report Post tool.

In other words, if you do not want to be spoiled at all, do not read this thread. People in this thread should have a reasonable expectation of not unwittingly having future events spoiled, but it’s the nature of the beast that someone forgets themselves.

If you want to discuss each episode as they air, with no information whatsoever outside what has already been aired on TV, please follow this thread:
Game of Thrones Season 2 - ZERO SPOILERS Discussion Thread [Episodic]

For those who want to discuss in a COMPLETELY open-spoilers enviroment in which the books, the series, webzines and in short all the information available anywhere is valid and open for discussion, please follow this thread:
Game of Thrones Season 2 - OPEN SPOILERS Discussion Thread

Meta-discussion of the spoiler policy itself should happen in a separate ATMB thread if really necessary, though I invite people to PM me instead.

With regards,
Gukumatz
Game Room & IMHO Moderator
Consulting Game of Thrones Moderator

Asked this in the wrong place so repeating the question.

I read the first two books, but I have not seen any of the shows. I have heard such great things about the show. I would like to watch it, but would rather get the info from the books first. Does the first season only contain plot points for the first book? Or, should I read all of the published books before watching the first season?

Moderator’s Note:
After a brief conference with my CS colleagues, I’ve stickied these three threads for two weeks so people can get used to the system.

With regards,
Gukumatz
Game Room & IMHO Moderator
Consulting Game of Thrones moderator

First, thank you for using the appropriate thread! :slight_smile:

The first season is pretty good - really, close to perfect - in not spoiling the later books and vice versa. It’s as close to 1:1 in terms of content that I’ve ever seen in a television adaptation and I’d give an almost unqualified recommendation of only reading the first book before watching the show.

hah. Well, you can thank **Biggirl ** for telling me about the appropriate thread. I got mixed up for a second there.

Awesome! I watched the first episode and LOVED it. But, I became worried that they might go too far. I’ll keep watching. Thanks for the tips.

Yeah, aside from a very small snippet in the last episode of season 1 that is in book 2 (and I mean small snippet…like three minutes of screen time, not even a full chapter) each season, right now, is one book.

Season 1 is book one, i.e. Game of Thrones (for which the whole TV series is named.)
Season 2 is book two, i.e. Clash of Kings.

We don’t know how the other seasons/books will break down (or even if the other books will even get TV seasons), though I know there has been some rumors that book three (Storm of Swords) might be two seasons, since it’s a long book.

Anyway, I’m really excited for a certain episode.

I think the episode is just called “Blackwater,” and it’s (obviously) about the Battle of Blackwater Bay. It was written by George Martin himself (last season who wrote “The Pointy End,” so I expect it to be really good. Though I think it’s the penultimate episode, so I’ll have to wait a few weeks.

Here are some awesome promo vids from HBO that I guess would be considered spoilers, since it shows characters and locations we didn’t see in season 1, so keep talk of them in spoiler boxes. Though there are only very, VERY minor spoilers, so I would encourage everyone to watch them:

Seven Devils Trailer. (I love the music in this one.)
There’s also some cool "Pledge Your Allegiance"videos:
House Stark
House Lannister
House Targaryen
House Greyjoy
House Baratheon

This is not strictly true for season two.

Robb does not make an appearance in the book (although he is spoken about a lot) but acquires a love interest in season two. I have only read up to Clash of Kings but my husband, who is still reading the third book, tells me Robb gets one then.

That’s a pretty major move.

You’re right, I forgot about that. But there is a good reason, though.

It wouldn’t be good for a TV series to just flat-out not have one of the main characters for a whole season, especially after last season and the whole “King in the North” and avenging Ned’s death and all…but the girlfriend…I really hope she only shows up at the very end, since she shows up in Storm, but even then not right away…I don’t think…

I don’t think it’s that big a move considering the timeline:

Robb meets Jeyne Westerling during A Clash of Kings, it just happens “off screen” and we don’t hear about it until A Storm of Swords when Robb reunites with a POV character.

The cheap and easy answer is to declare my allegiance to House Stark, but the Dragon Mistress Kalissa is just too hot (in a figurative AND literal sense) for words. I am her slave!

I liked this episode, but I can see a lot of people who haven’t read the books being pretty confused at the Dragonstone scenes. None of these people were in season 1, and only Stannis was even mentioned then…they never even said Melisandre’s name, did they?

And it might not have been very clear that the Maester was trying to poison her…which is important, because we see that they both drink from the same cup, but only he dies.

You know where they saved Abigail chunck of money? Not showing Dragonstone.

How many episodes this time?

When will I learn not to post from bed on my Kindle Fire? That should say: You know where they saved a big chunk of money? On not showing Dragonstone.

Also-- did the series make it seem as if Joffrey ordered the infanticide and not Cersei? Holy 7 Fathers, I hope the kid who plays Joffrey doesn’t get eggs thrown at him in real life!

Yeah, it definitely did. What with this and the chat between Cersei and Robert last season, it feels like they’re trying to make Cersei a more sympathetic character. Even her interactions with Tyrion seems less incomprehensibly spiteful.

i wrote my predictions and then realized that the board i did it on was like a year old … so, here, i spent too much time writing this
ok so this is what i think’s gonna happen (well what i want to happen)

Joffrey does something to really piss off Tyrion, and then to top it off the father kills his woman: Tyrion defects to the Starks (who will likely be somehow allied with the rightful heir, the brother, whatever his name is). This will be the reason the starks beat the hell outta the lannisters. Why do I think this? Despite being a jerk, Tyrion is a good guy, he’s not like the rest of his family. I don’t know why anyone hasn’t mentioned this, maybe I’m nuts but I think the signs have always been there.

Arya ends up killing Joffrey - it has to happen. Maybe he kills her with a cheap shot, but there’s definitely gonna be a showdown.

Arya and Tyrion, and the sword teacher are my favorite characters … i hope the sword dude is somehow still alive, however i know this story tends to have the goal of disappointing you

-these are the 2 that i really think are gonna happen

now for my wild speculations:

lannisters get the s*** kicked out of them… starks are gonna have to cede a lot of power to facilitate this getting allies, starks are gonna be thinned through this process. i hope jamie gets tied to the posts on the beach like they were talking about, that’s be a good one, his sister, don’t really care i can rest easy knowing that something awesomely terrible will happen to her, father lannister, gonna croak on the battlefield of a heart attack,

most of the starks die-robb is definitely doomed-the hound will prob kill him, dunno about the rest, lannisters will be long gone,

Jon and robert’s bastard are going to team up and be bastards together, jon’s going to die doing something heroic in a corny moment: he was doomed to this fate from the beginning. Who cares about the other bastard, his helmet will definitely save his life at one point. Sam is of course gonna get f’d up, but no clue how; speculations are endless and immensely fun to ponder. Maybe he picks up the helmet off the dead bastard and kills something with the horn, in his one moment of non-cowardness before he gets f’d up.

Bran and winterfell? that’s really hard to predict, one thing i really don’t have the slightest clue about… maybe he has some kind of mind powers that can keep that place safe from zombies? doubt it…

it really makes me mad that littlefinger is a littleb**ch…thomas carcetti shouldn’t be a traitor, it is what it his, i think that robb’s old ho who’s master ho is gonna end up killing him…maybe

The sister with the kid who’s like 12 and still breastfeeds’ castle is going to be the first place to fall to the zombies- that’s gonna show everyone how serious this stuff is. -The kid’s gonna end up “flying” he has to.

long battle is ultimately coming between the 7 kingdoms and zombies (the nuts in the north will team up with them, eventually)-obviously, i know… starks and lannisters are gone except maybe tyrion and bran …then when the dragons are ready, the hottie blonde will come and deal with them… she’ll take over, the white dude who was the slave trader (i’m bad with names) is gonna be her right hand, NOT HER LOVER, i think they want you to think this will happen, but it wont, i’m pretty sure about this one

from there i think the story’s kinda over, that’s prob the end of where book 3 would be and he just kept going because he liked all the cash he was taking in. in short, that’s prob when i’ll stop watching … but i guess prob the daphraki or wtf they’re called will ride in on cthulu and destroy all the kingdoms

think that covers it all … i hate when i watch 11 episodes of something in 3 days to catch up and it’s over, i needed to let that all out

Moderator’s Note:

This thread has been unstuck, now that people are hopefully used to the system.

Cheers
Gukumatz

I’ve only read up to book 2. My husband is currently 3 chapters away from finishing book 3. He counters my complaints of the TV show veering away from the books with “that’s from book 3”. My husband is not a reliable source, however. For one thing, he insists that Roz comes from the books and that the scene between Littlefinger, Cersei and the guards happened in book 2.

The one thing he could not argue was the changing of Theon’s sister’s name. I’m thinking this is probably to distinguish her from Osha and Arya.

What other differences have others seen so far?

Roz and the Littlefinger/cersei scene are most definitely not in any books. Neither was the scene with Jon and Craster at the end of the last episode (although what Craster was doing is hinted at). Apparently the Reed kids are not going to be in the show at all, being replaced by Osha in order to keep the character count reasonable. The same as Bronn being head of the gold cloaks instead of Jocelyn Bywater, another minor character that can be easily cut. There is more, usually scenes of characters just talking to each other which are not common in the books.

How do you know about those characters not appearing? The TV show hasn’t got to them yet.