Your brother wins 1 million internet dollars.
Then gosh - I bet it just won’t matter who the mother is, and it’ll never come up or be an issue.
Prediction: considering the running theme of power being an illusion based on the collective’s belief of who has the power, the emergence of that “knights without banners” group (or whatever it was), an entire continent rising up and “democratically” (for complete lack of a better term) choosing their leader, Jon Snow will eventually find himself in a position of leadership on a much grander scale than just the Night’s Watch.
Mel gave some handwave answer to that. Something like “Robb Stark is dead, and Stannis is no closer to the throne. big results require a big sacrifice” Presumably, the other leeches could work and then the crown would pass to Tommen and Stannis would still have the Lannister/Tyrell army to fight. Yes, one more leech could get Tommen, but the point remains, killing figurehead kings one at a time doesn’t stop the army.
Kuh-niggets!
Which makes me wonder if Stannis has any idea that Tywin is the one pulling the strings. He has to, right? And why haven’t we heard any more beating of the “Joffrey’s a bastard” drum?
Assuming they even “work” in the first place. Most of the magic we have seen has been significantly more literal and less subtle. ie, Renly wasn’t killed by some confluence of circumstance and intrigue like the Starks. A giant smoke monster crawled out of Melisandre’s vagina, appeared in Renly’s tent out of nowhere and stabbed him through the heart.
ka-NIG-its!
So, having finally seen it :
Man, Yara is a badass. I think I like her now.
Also I’m pretty sure that’s not what Justin Timberlake meant, Bolton’s Bastard. Although I have to say, that sausage gag of yours was funny, in a dark way.
Speaking of Bolton, I was kind of expecting him to either roll his eyes or lop off Walder Frey’s head halfway through his “they all laughed at me !” speech. Especially after Bran’s little tale.
And now we know where the groom is, I guess. Good to hear the Black Fish escaped though, I like him.
Told y’all Ygritte was going to hunt Jon down if it was the last thing she did. Much faster than I expected though. I also pictured their encounter to be more up close and personal - shooting someone with a bow’s a bit cold. People who *truly *care use serrated rusty knives.
Sam, Sam, Sam. You killed a fricking White Walker. You’re a bona fide badass. You can stop being so goddamn goony all the time !
Arya is turning into the most adorable pint-sized psychopath. Anyone else get Léon/The Professional vibes from her and the Hound ?
Loved Joffrey hysterically screaming/crying “EVERYONE IS MINE TO TORMENT !”. Too bad Jaime wasn’t in the room, I’m sure it would have sent him on a pleasant stroll down memory lane. Where’s a backstabber when you need one, eh ?
They use belladonna as a sleeping aid in Westeros ? Guessing the Maesters don’t have an FDA equivalent then, jesus. That’ll make you sleep, all right. Give the little bitch a whole bowl of it, why don’t you ?
As much as I enjoyed Cersei’s scene with Tyrion and the mask slipping a bit, I’m pretty sure “give her a rape baby, it’ll make her happier” is not very good advice.
Mark my words : Shae’s going to be trouble. I don’t know if she’s going to cut a bitch or shank a dwarf or what, but there’s trouble in Lannister paradise there.
Why *is *there a g in night, anyway ?
Woah, Melisandre ! Your prophetic powers are truly amazing ! You can predict what was in a letter that’s just been read to you. Not many people can do that.
I was half expecting Davos to reply “so why don’t **you **make it, then ?” to Stannis when either he or Melisandre justified killing Gendry by saying “great results demand great sacrifices”. I’m happy that my “Oooh, he’s gonna lose more than fingers now” prediction when he freed the kid was wrong.
[QUOTE=Ibn Warraq]
Conversely, Danny’s brother, who’s name escapes me, may have had a great legal claim to the throne, but because he had no army, it was irrelevant.
[/QUOTE]
Viserys. And he might not have had an army, but by the old gods and the new, he did get a crown !
I think that a lot of show viewers, being generally skeptical types, reflexively make fun of Melisandre the same way the would in the real world, because in the real world, she would obviously be a fraud.
But she isn’t a fraud! She can in fact birth magic shadow babies and is immune to (at least one specific) poison. She also is at least theoretically on the same team as Thoros of Myr, who can raise the fucking dead.
Sure, but on that one she was being ridiculous and fraud-y. It’s not like the dead rising in the North is a new thing, it’s been happening since season one. And just now she “sees it in the flames” ? *30 seconds ago *she was speechifying about having to make big sacrifices to get Stannis the Iron Throne, and then “Oh, this war of Five Kings is bullshit, there’s a much bigger threat, I knew that !” ?
Come on.
I am starting to wonder if Dany will ever come back to Westeros at all. She seems to be doing a pretty good job of conquering “Easteros” (I have no idea what it is called).
I was confused by this. Can someone refresh my memory?
I guess he has to, indeed. However, he’s such a legalistic smartass that he still has to target the nominal king, I suppose. I just realized that it doesn’t bother us because we hate Geoffrey, but I guess he would have done the same if the king had been a very nice 4 yo.
At least this way, assuming that burning a leech indeed results in the victim’s death he could eventually gets rid of all pretenders, leaving only him. Which makes Melisandre explanation about why Gendry has to be sacrificed rather than just leeched not very sensible. And when I think of it, makes the shadow baby thing useless too. Why not just leeching some of Stannis blood to get rid of Renly?
Note : I’ve read the books, as you might know, but this part of the story is handled differently in the show. So, my comment here is purely show-based.
I was also under the impression that Shadowbaby was made from, ahem, other bodily fluids from Stannis in S2. But maybe Shadowbabies made from that method don’t have enough range or something.
The only people that know that for sure are the Wildlings and the Night’s Watch. Everyone else thought they were full of shit.
It was during the Small Council meeting in the last episode. Joffrey was being his usual charming self, Tyrion threatened him, Joffrey blustered, Tywin said something to calm the situation and Joffrey said, “While [so-and-so] was killing the king, you were hiding under Casterly Rock.” Immediately after this, he went silent. I think after this, Tywin sent him to bed with a warm glass of milk (or essence of nightshade).
Essos. But yeah, Martin might as well have just called it Easteros.
…in much the same way that his joke name Joffrey is written “Geoffrey” by people who are unaware that Geoffrey is pronounced Jeffrey and not Joffrey.
I think he meant explain what Joffrey was talking about. To be honest i don’t quite remember if this has been covered on the show or not, i want to say yes but i am not 100% sure. I guess if Joffrey is talking about it then it must have, but i’ll put it under spoilers either way. During the war Tywin didn’t join any side until Robert/Ned had basically won, then he showed up at King’s Landing and offered his help to the king then proceeded to sack the city once the gates were opened and murder the rest of the royal family.
I didn’t pay attention to that, but you’re right. Unless she has to concentrate on something specific to see things (like Sauron with the Palantirs), and she hadn’t turned her gaze to the North yet.
Finally, the episode was better than I expected reading the first comments. Indeed they are placing the pieces for next season (Not sure though that casual viewers will remember that stuff next year) but there are some good scenes. But also some that are less so.
Disappointments first. I was mostly uninterested by the Tyrion/Cersei scene. The Tyrion/Sansa scene could have been more dramatic, too.
The Greyjoy scene. I suppose I was supposed to feel something, even the music hinted at it, but I didn’t care the slightest bit. Poor lines, poor acting, poor filming? I don’t know but the scene fell flat and I still don’t care about Theon’s sister.
I wasn’t interested much in the Bran scene, except for him meeting Samwell. And something bothered me a lot. Until now, he was heading north to search for the three eyed raven. Fine. But now, he and his friend are clearly implying that he has to go to save the world or something to that effect. Where did this idea come from?
The final Dany scene. OK, it seems like a good idea to present her as some sort of prophet figure with an enthusiastic following (and an army, and dragons). But the scene was badly executed. And she wasn’t credible. Especially her childish smile when she’s carried around. I’ve never been enthusiastic about this actor anyway, but the fault is probably more on the director. Here too, I wasn’t convinced as a viewer while I think it could have been a very impressive scene.
After the bad, the mediocre : Theon and Bolton’s bastard. However there isn’t much that can be done to make something of those scenes, and at least, for once, I didn’t just thought “How many torture scenes are we going to see?” and was a bit interested. So, I guess it’s an improvement over the previous iterations.
Now, the good stuff : The small council scene, with the Geoffrey/Tyrion and Geoffrey/Tywin clashes. Great. Although the “It’s my right to torment whoever I want” sounded a bit over the top.
Samwell. Finally, they fleshed out this character and made someone interesting out of him. I rather like him, and I’m hoping that now other viewers, who seemed not to care the slightest bit, will be more interested.
Bolton and Frey : great scene. And I especially liked Bolton. He’s made into a very interesting, and not all one-sided character (for instance his comment about how he could have kept following Robb if the latter had been a better leader), especially in contrast with Frey. The actor is very good at letting us understand a lot with just a silent gaze. I will wait for his appearance with a lot of positive anticipation.
Ygritte and Jon. Good and surprising scene (Yes, I’ve read the books but I didn’t remember this scene, or it has been changed in the show). I really enjoyed the whole of it.
Finally Aria. The whole scene was great. But specifically, the change in Aria is really striking and interesting. Her playing the poor, famished little girl before savagely stabbing the soldier to death is a massive evolution in her character. I even liked the Hound’s fight scene. Exactly as brutal and quick as it needed to be. When I think of it, whoever is in charge of the fights is doing a great job. Look at how differently the various characters fight and kill.
A last note : did people notice how huge the head of Robb’s direwolf was? Direwolves appear to be growing larger and larger, but it seems to be a problem for the show makers. Bran’s direwolf isn’t nearly as large as you would expect it to be after seeing this head. I’m pretty sure that it’s the reason why they showed the beast being killed in a cage with crossbows. Just a big dog near soldiers wouldn’t do. In fact they show the direwolves as rarely as they can get away with. Which really is a shame, but I’m not sure how they could solve this issue without costly CGI expenses. I still hope they somehow will. They need dragons and giants, after all, why not direwolves? Even if we get to see them only rarely, I’d like them to be as impressive as they’re supposed to be.
I still hate Sam. I hate how he still stammers and hems and haws when trying to say something important. I want to kick him constantly.
Was his name Geoffrey in the books or something? Book readers seem to have a mental block preventing them from typing Joffrey.
(I keep reading it as Jeffrey – which is how Geoffrey is pronounced – and pausing a beat trying to figure out who Jeff is.)