And that whole scene were she actually told Robbs wife she’s been a hateful bitch to him all his life except for the few hours when she thought he might die don’t really count?
She said that? I thought she just said that she didn’t raise him as her own son.
I think I see where it is going, but I am a bit surprised at the slowish going over the first two episodes. Knowing nothing about the books and reading the Season 3 hype, this season is supposed to be stunning plot twists and big-deal changes in fortune.
I thought it was pretty clear, from this speech and from her prior behavior, that Jon Snow just enrages her, and she can’t keep herself from hating him. The best she’s been able to do is try to ignore him, but everyone must have known that she loathed him. Honestly, I don’t think they’re trying to paint her as an all-around sympathetic character. Everyone has big flaws in this show. Hers is obsessive family devotion, which includes huge resentment at her husband’s bastard.
I felt like they’re moving pretty fast in this episode, introducing a lot of new threads and pushing forward toward some serious conflicts. Jaime and Brienne getting captured, the Hound getting taken by the Brotherhood, but also narcing on Arya, Olenna Tyrell bringing the snark and the intrigue, and Theon’s situation. A lot of explosive stuff could come out of that. Now, I’m pretty damn bored with Bran’s plotline, it’s true, and Robb and Cat are stuck in major set-up mode, but I wouldn’t call it generally slow!
I agree with all of this.
I’ve never tried the “hey, lets go kill things together” angle on a date. Maybe that’s why I’m single.
All fair. Oh, I have a question: Are we supposed to know who has Theon? He got sapped by his Iron Island not-so-loyal right-hand guy up at Winterfell, and I believe the fella who was helping him in the torture chamber referenced Theon’s sister as a source for help. So does that mean he’s in his Dad’s prison? If so, has it been established why? Is it basically because he is a disappointment to Dad? And why would his sister be helping and nice to him - or is this just a set up for Theon to get conned again?
Poor naive Theon.
I think it’s deliberately not immediately clear, but there is evidence pointing towards who it is.
Diana Rigg has looked better though. 
She actually kinda does look like Margaery.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Theon was tied onto an X-shaped brace that’s exactly the same as the sigil of the flayed man. Which is a pretty big clue as to who has him and where.
The pirate guy and the onion smuggler guy are alive!
Is it all that bad if the Brotherhood guys know who Arya is? They seem like Robin Hood or something. They’d want to ransom her back to the Starks, which is better than walking home without any protection, right?
Holy crap, a giant. And it looked really good and real.
How does the physiology of eunuch-ification work? I thought that without testosterone, guys ended up looking like Varys, rather than medieval super-soldiers? He lost his nuts as a little kid, maybe these guys get chopped as adults?
Is “You’ve never seen a _____, Jon Snow?” going to be a running joke? I hope so.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but I thought those two kids who found Bran, et al were some kind of freaky forest spirits until they identified themselves.
Hodor? Hodor.
King Joffrey was in peril of becoming a cliched sniveling/cruel evil dickhead, but now the royal family story is a lot more interesting. He’s showing much less of the adolescent bravado and is acting…deflated? As though the reality of his tenuous position and his own inadequacy as a king (and person) has finally seeped through.
Is Marjorie actually nice, or just doing her best to shore up the crown (and her position with it, or maybe without it) with the Princess Di charitable PR stuff. She’s probably concerned for her brother, since the king said he might make homosexuality a capital crime. Either way, it’s clear she wants to displace the Queen Mother in terms of influence on the King.
It looked like there were some shoebox-size cages in Joff’s room during the crossbow scene. I thought they’d wind up shooting a rabbit right then and there. Then screwing in a pool of its blood and entrails. It’s HBO.
I liked this episode, though it raises a lot of questions:
Who are the Brotherhood without Banners? What is their purpose? What will they do with Arya now that they know she’s a Stark?
Who (and what) are the brother/sister pair who’ve joined up with Bran’s group? What is their motivation?
Who has Theon?
Margaery is becoming an interesting character–especially with the addition of her grandmother. The scene with the two of them and Sansa was great, as was the scene with Margaery and Joffrey. She played him like a fiddle. Seems like a dangerous game, though, as he is like to take sudden offense and have you killed.
I loved the fight scene with Brienne and Jamie on the bridge. They have an odd but enjoyable chemistry.
:smack: Ooh, good catch.
She was perfectly channeling Katharine Hepburn from The Lion in Winter.
Agreed all around. The brother and sister (Jojen and Meera Reed) are the children of a Stark bannerman, Howland Reed. He once saved Ned’s life during Robert’s rebellion. Jojen has psychic powers (I don’t think they’re telling us exactly what, but he can meet Bran in Bran’s prophetic dreams at least), which is presumably how he found Bran, and why Summer didn’t kill him. His chi vibrations tell him Bran has a Great Destiny, so between that and his family being loyal to the Starks, he’s helping them.
I don’t think we’re meant to know who has Theon. The audience shares his perplexity, which enhances the horror of his situation. He has absolutely no handle on the situation, and no way to give them what they want, since he doesn’t know their motivations.
Margaery playing Joff was truly impressive. I think of her like one of those extraordinary people who rescues and trains wild bears, or tigers (or lions I suppose!). They really do seem to have some abilities and understanding that makes them much safer than the average schmoe going into that cage would be. But still, every once in a while, one of the animals just gets a wild hair and mauls the person to death. She’s playing a dangerous game, but she plays it incredibly well.
Margaery has been very clear on her intentions, at least to littlefinger.
What were those again? I’ve forgotten a lot since the last season.
She doesn’t want to be a queen, she wants to be THE Queen.
Littlefinger: Do you want to be a Queen?
Margaery: No. I want to be The Queen.
ETA: Faceless manned!
It is clear that Joffrey is sick of being his mother’s son instead of being the King. Not that he wasn’t enjoying being King, but he is clearly getting fed up with mother trying to use him as a puppet. In an odd way I kind of “liked” Joffrey when he complained his mother was boring as hell with all her machinations and such. In the long run it will likely mean Joffrey simply has nobody controlling his evilest instincts, but for a moment I was like, “Yeah, fuck off Cersei.”