Tyrion definitely knows - remember the season 2 scene where Cersei has one of her “armour off” heart pouring sessions and weeps that she can’t control Joffrey anymore and he’s a monster, and maybe that’s the price she and Jaime have to pay for their sins ? To which Tyrion goes “Sins ? :dubious:” and she goes “Yes, yes, I know, the Targaryens wed brother and sister for generations. That’s what Jaime and I kept telling ourselves when we had our doubts. But *they *had crazy kids too !”
As for Jaime, I doubt she used to keep secrets from him and she told Sansa how he’d forced his way into her delivery room each time (while Robert hurried off to a hunt). Note that apart from Queen Bitch, he’s the only one who rushed to Joffrey’s side with a panicked look and tripped over himself - that might be because he’s *supposed *to be his bodyguard of course, but it could also have been a father’s pain, as Jaime otherwise doesn’t tend to lose his cool very much. And there’s other Kingsguards.
I wanted to amend a statement I made last week about there being only a paper thin difference between Stannis Baratheon and Roose Bolton, Stannis being barely on the good side.
Following this week episode and the burning of faithful vassals and family, let me put Stannis squarely on the evil side. At this point, it’s the difference between Stanis and the mad king that is becoming paper thin. Can you imagine this guy ascending to the throne? :dubious: Joffrey might have been less of a murderous tyrant. Too bad, I liked the character until now. Now, he’s possibly heading my “to be dispatched as soon as possible” list, second maybe only to the Bolton bastard.
Speaking of which kudo to Lord Bolton for being able to keep his bastard under control (by under control, I mean that lord Bolton himself isn’t yet dead). It must take some nerves to let someone like him live under your roof.
Amongst the bad guys, Cersei must be given some credits too. I know that she was already considered as evil by many, but I didn’t exactly considered her as such. But now she seems to be acquiring a vindicative petiness that should help her progresses in the dark side charts. I suspect the recent events won’t improve her attitude the slightest bit.
Since i’m giving brownie points, some will get to Loras for his dialog with Jamie. Aftetr being interested in him at the begining, when he was trying to convince late Rely to become king, I had eventually put him in the “empty heads” category. Seems he can do better than that.
Generally speaking, I liked a lot the various new interactions between characters (Jaimie/Bronn, Cersei/Brienne, Oberyn/Lannisters, etc…). I thought they were much better handled than last week. I wish they would not make of Oberyn such a caricature, though (only stopping caressing his paramour when he randomly meets a pussy or an attractive knight, seemingly).
Something I just watched on another board : while Joffrey is dying, Tywinn, in the background, is hiding prince Tommen. Not anything significant, but I like such little touches.
I don’t get that. He’s clearly not *enjoying *it (later in the evening : “I do a lot of things I hate. I endure them.”). From his point of view, he gave an royal order (“everyone’s to switch religions starting next Monday, kthxbye”) and when some people disobey, and as such break their feudal oath to him, he has no choice but to punish them. They swore to obey. They did not. They must be made examples, even if they’re family.
So he’s rigid as fuck, sure. And a tyrant, that goes without saying (but then, every lord is). But evil ? There’s no glee in it, no anger, not even spite. He’s not chaining heretics to his bed to fire crossbows at them. He’s not setting his own city on fire indiscriminately like the Mad King would have. He’s doing what (he thinks) needs to be done. Kind of like Ned would reluctantly lop off heads because that was the Law.
Heh, interesting that we have such polar takes on that scene & that relationship :).
Stannis doesn’t seem to particularly care one way or the other about religion. His red woman promised him his crown if he embraced the Lord of Light and so he’s doing whatever she says he needs to in order to get it. He’ll burn people, sacrifice the innocent bastard of his late brother- whatever it takes to be king.
He’s evil in the same way Tywin is, though they’re pretty different people. He’s not at the level of Ramsay Snow, who’s actually a true sadist.
I’m not even sure he cares about the religious/magical aspect of it any more. It was a while ago, but I remember him expressing strong doubts about the extent of Mélisandre’s powers after B. Bay, and of course he let Davos free Gendry without particularly harsh repercussions. I mean, sure, he had him thrown in a dungeon, but if he really was both obsessed with getting the throne and believed sacrificing Gendry would have been a sure shot, he’d have straight up strangled him.
At this point I feel he’s more in a “sure, fine, whatever, I’ve lost and everything is shit anyway” kind of fatalistic mental zone.
A little more on the party banter that I’d like a better explanation of:
After Jaime catches Loras giving the Dornish Prince the 'come-hither" look, he promises Loras that Loras will never marry his sister. 1) Why does he care? B) How does he plan to make sure it doesn’t happen and, on the gripping hand, do you think Jaime actually saw Loras making goo-goo eyes at Obeyin?
And on the other side the incestuous bed, what was all that grilling Cersei did of Breinne? Asking if she loved Jaime. Cersei just not a hot minute ago told Jaime she was through with him, why didn’t he take his useless one-handed self and tend to Casterly Rock. Does Cersei suffer from some kind of cunty Tourette’s Syndrom?
Have you never been in or around an ex- situation with a jealous person ? “I don’t want him but YOU can’t have him either 'cause he’s still mine” is not altogether uncommon.
Like Kobal said, she might not want Jaime anymore but she still probably doesn’t enjoy the idea of anyone else having him. Add in that she probably just thinks it’s amusing that this woman she clearly kind of sees as a freak is in love with Lord Famous Handsome Lannister. And yeah, she’s a cunt in general. As Tyrion said in season 2 or 3, her love for her children is her only redeeming quality.
This threw me off, because I noticed at the beginning of the episode Tyrion referred to Shea as his rose.
I rewatched this last night and thought it was a nice touch when at the beginning of the episode Tyrion and Jamie are eating and Jamie knocks over his wine with his new hand and Tyrion dumps his wine onto the table saying “Oh it’s only wine”
While I don’t think Cersei had anything to do with the poisoning, the fact that she told the Maester to give the leftovers to the animals instead of the poor piqued my curiosity after the fact.
It certainly got the maester, who might know how to save the King from poison, out of the way, as well as giving Cersei a chance to assert a little power and undercut Queen Margaery’s PR-friendly gesture.
Maester Pycelle was back by the time of the poisoning, he’s shown sitting at a table eating during that time. It’s simply unlikely that he’d be able to act in time to counteract such a quickly acting poison, even if he carried a satchel of antidotes around everywhere he went.
Cersei has a history of being skeeved out by Pycelle, so when he was being lecherous towards that girl it’s within character for her to be nasty to him.
I don’t think that Stannis and Tywin are the same at all. Stannis has a nearly-paramount respect for the rule of law and order. Tywin has a nearly-paramount respect for wanting the Lannisters to come out on top.
Neither one is a sadist like Ramsey or Joffrey, but while Tywin will ruthlessly do whatever is necessary, Stannis clearly feels very constrained by legality and his beliefs about what are right and wrong.
Those beliefs are often harsh and cruel by our standards, but they are far from capricious.
It’s so needlessly convoluted that it will be disappointing if that is how the assassination was carried out. Somewhat reminiscent of a series of machinations in Breaking Bad which I won’t spoil, just in case.
Does anyone believe Shae stayed on the ship to Pentos?
Is it at all likely that it’s Cersei that killed Joffrey?
[ul]
[li]She thought he was an uncontrollable monster[/li][li]With the wedding, she stopped being Queen Regent and lost her power, and this way she is once again Queen Regent and has got her power back[/li][li]She gets to frame Tyrion, whom she hates (can someone remind me why?)[/li][/ul]
So, it would be a win-win situation for her