It occurs to me, sitting here and thinking about this now, that the flames could have been intended to serve as tracers, so that you’d have some idea of whether your shots were going where you wanted them to go. This idea did not occur to me last night, though, when watching–I thought it was as odd and pointless as everyone else seems to’ve.
I noticed that too. Joff didn’t look angry, he looked hurt. Joff wasn’t very nice to him, but you could tell he really enjoyed having his attack dog around. He probably felt naked and powerless without the Hound to guard him and do his bidding.
It’s also going to make it difficult for him to have conversations with Tyrion.
Watching the episode again, I’m betting Davos is still alive. We saw him blown off the ship, but never saw him on fire or anything. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him clinging to a piece of wood in the next episode.
Just watched this again. No volleys were loosed until Stannis’s troops hit the beach. Bronn sent a flaming arrow into the wildfire, but he was several hundred yards closer, on some peninsula, it appeared.
On top of which, he’s achieved the impossible by making one actually feel SORRY for the little shit on certain occasions. Just one look and you feel…pity. Now, the script-writers can tell him to perform certain lines, but he absolutely delivers on all fronts. He knocks it out of the park. On the one hand you want to strangle him, on the other you’re going to feel just a little bad while you’re doing it.
The flaming arrows were at least partially effective. The trigger for the Hound’s PTSD was a flaming soldier. It may not have helped much, but they were in a desperate situation. Speaking of the Hound, he may well have surpassed Tyrion as my favorite character. Sure, he’s completely one-dimensional on the outside. His purpose is to kill, and he does it well. But he finally gets sick of that role. Over the past two seasons he’s slowly been revealing greater depth.
Indeed, large portions of this season revolve around gender norms (and their violations). There’s the Hound who declares that all men are killers; that is their purpose. Cersei has an entire speech about how she and Jamie, although twins, were raised completely differently due to being different sexes. Theon believes he should be more important than his sister, due entirely to the fact that he’s a man. (I can’t think of any other reason he could possibly think he’s more deserving of her position. I think even he knows he’s a wanker.) He’d no doubt still be upset if it was a brother who kept putting him in his place, but it’s extra insulting from a woman. And of course Briene’s life story is one long struggle against expectations based on gender.
On a continuity note, I loved that the doll Sansa was holding was the one given to her by Ned in season one. At the time, she pouted about being too old for dolls.
I really loved Sansa doing her level best to get her future husband killed. “Oh right, I’m stupid, OF COURSE you’ll be in the vanguard!” Nice. Little girl is growing up.
Was I the only one who was getting paranoid every time Cersei passed a glass of wine to Sansa, wondering if it had a little something extra in it? Chekhov’s gun, she haz it.
Agreed - Gleeson is doing an unpleasant job very, very well. I actually feel a bit uncomfortable for the actor, though - in particular, that scene where he abuses the whores could easily be disturbing for a grown man to pull off, let alone a kid.
The Wikipedia article on Jack Gleeson says that he just turned twenty years old, so he’s not a kid any more.
I think Shae was right, I don’t think Stannis would have harmed Sansa. So as long as she can avoid crazed rape-minded soldiers and get to him first she could be okay. For one, Stannis wouldn’t have known he had a claim to the throne if Ned Stark hadn’t informed him of such, also Sansa could be a bartering chip to call off the “King in the North!”. But I think Sansa’s going to go with the Hound.
I hope the poster who said Tyrion’s wound did not look fatal is correct. I also agree that Mandon (or whoever that was) had not just decided to change sides, he had just killed someone attacking Tyrion - it seemed that he really wanted to do it himself.
Did anyone see what happened to Bronn? I didn’t see him fall back with the Hound but I would have thought he’d have gone out to walls with Tyrion.
Cersei was totally despicable.
It occurs to me that two of the best lines in the series revolve around corpse fucking. There was Yoren’s “there’s men out there want to fuck your corpses!” and the Hound’s “anyone who dies with a clean sword… I’ll fuck your corpse!”
It would’ve been an interesting twist of Joffrey turned out to be a natural leader in battle. Sure, we all expected him to do as he did - but what if it turned out that he was prone to bloodlust and legitimately lead his troops and saved the day? Would’ve been interesting with the city now loving Joffrey and entrenched his place as king even further - which gives him the confidence to be even more of a dick, and not take shit from Tyrion. Certainly would’ve made King’s Landing a more dramatically interesting place for a while.
I suppose Tywin Lannister would still backhand the kid like 50 times though.
Which… would be another awesome thing about that twist.
The flaming arrows served three purposes
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To increase terror; much like tracers do today
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To allow adjustment of “fire” they could see where the shots fell and adjust accordingly
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The invaders would be bringing quite a lot of seige equipment, lots of it wooden. A chance to set that alight.
I noticed Roy Dotrice’s name in the credits, I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know if he played a role or if he was sing “The Rains of Castamere” at the end of the episode.
He does most of the audio-book versions, I think it was a nice little perq for the fans.
According to IMDB he plays Hallyne, which would be the pyromancer.
Not to mention Arya, who’d rather practice archery and swordplay… and Talisa, who’d rather be tending wounded men on the battlefield…
Crap, I totally missed that detail. Thanks for pointing it out!
Yeah, I realized when I noticed a lack of any other actors in the credits. 
Tyrion, Cersei, Tywin, Davos, Sansa, Joffrey, The Hound, Stannis, Bronn, Varys, Shae… and that was it.
Fantastic episode… even knowing (mostly) what happens from the books, I got chills watching it. I almost teared up when Sansa started her hymn, too. Dunno why, but that was really powerful to me, for some reason.
Stellar performances from all, but particularly Cersei. Loved every scene she was in, and especially the little heart-to-heart chats with Sansa.
This cracked me the hell up.
Great episode. Compelling battle scenes, and great interplay between Cersei and Sansa, Tyrion and Bronn, and the Hound and Sansa.
Heheh. I really liked that, too. Punch those buttons, girl, and get your hateful, abusive fiancee to put himself in harm’s way out of pride!
Since Tyrion had figured out that Stannis would be going for the Mud Gate, why not have more dragonfire on the beach there (carefully apportioned and placed so as not to endanger the city walls), ignited when the invaders came ashore?
Favorite lines:
Bronn: “Are we friends, now?”
Tyrion: “Of course we are! I don’t think the fact that I pay you detracts from our relationship, does it?”
Bronn: “Enhances it, really.”