Ooh, Granny Martell is a spitfire.
Declan
Yea that also kind of made Craster more grey.
I may be losing my mind, but did Margery’s hair change from blonde to brown during the episode?
Not sure, but if you watch older episodes you’ll notice that Tyrion used to be blonder.
What do you think of Jon Snow’s plan to attack Craster’s Keep? It seems to be in line with his father and brother’s insistence on doing what is honorable at the price of prudence. Because those at Castle Keep/The Wall know that a massive army of wildings is bearing down on them and his bright idea is to split their force and take a bunch of the Night’s Watch north to deal with mutineers? Wouldn’t it be wiser to stay at The Wall and work on strengthening defenses?
BTW, north of the wall, we’ve seen wildlings (some of whom appear to be free people, although some of them are cannibalistic) and various supernatural creatures (White Walkers and zombies). Remind me; are the humans and the supernatural creatures allies or enemies?
(And second BTW, we’ve seen Bran, but where is Rickon, his younger brother?)
Jon wants to kill (or at least capture and bring back) the mutineers because they know that Castle Black has about 100 men guarding it. Jon told Mance Rayder that Castle Black had 1,000 men. He doesn’t want Mance to know how weak Castle Black really is.
The wildling girl (Osha? Okra? Something like that) took Rickon someplace at the end of last season. Maybe heading south to Dorn. I can’t remember. Apparently Rickon isn’t important at all right now.
The wall is undermanned by a lot, compared to what the wildlings are assuming it will be. Capturing the mutineers would give that information to Mance and company, so its worth a short expedition to capture or kill the mutineers.
Secondarily, Crasters is the only place that Bran can be, from that conversation that locke overheard.
Declan
Ennemies. The humans (widlings) are fleeing the others/zombies. That’s why they’re attacking the wall.
At the request of Bran, the widling woman who was travelling with them brought Rickon away to safety at some Stark’s vassal’s (we didn’t see them again since they left).
interesting!!!
I’m like this super nice and merciful and compassionate guy IRL I swear, but for some reason, her crucifying 167 masters (or however many it was) didn’t bother me that much. It wasn’t obligatory, but I found it permissible. (I say that on the fantasizing assumption that she made sure the ones she killed were the worst of the worst.)
I mean they themselves had done the very same to children. Kind of had it coming.
I agree with Sauron - the motivation for Jon to go to Craster’s Keep isn’t honor or a sense of “vengeance” for Mormont. He has to prevent them from divulging to the Rayder’s army that the wall is lightly defended. His bit about Mormont and revenge was purely an additional appeal to the other brother’s sense of honor/vengence/justice to get more volunteers. However…
I don’t really think it matters does it? I mean, Mance Rayder is riding against the wall anyway. From Jon Snow he believes it is defended by 1000 crows but he is coming anyway to attack. I dunno… maybe from a tactical planning perspective it matters in how Mance will attack but it won’t change the fact that he is going to attack. Or am I missing something?
The Daenery’s storyline is just unbearably dull. I mean really, has her story been even remotely interesting in the last two seasons? Three? It seems every character on this show, even the “good ones” are complex and have faults and vulnerabilities but not Daenery’s. What was the term used in the last week’s thread - Mary Sue? Gah, I just can’t stand to watch her anymore.
The actress who plays Maergery… unbelievably hot. Yes, I noticed this before this episode but that scene with Tommen really drove it home. Maergery played that perfectly, just completely wrapped Tommen around her finger there. If I was a 14-year old boy you betcha I’d keep her visits a secret from mommy. Hell, as a 45 year old man I’d keep that secret…
As always, the Queen of Thorns was absolutely brilliant.
It wasn’t until about halfway through the episode I realized “Locke” was Bolton’s man. I do not recall though him being sent to deal with Jon Snow. I thought he was sent to find Bran and Rickon. Jon Snow is a bastard and therefore has no rights to the north. No one will follow him on a claim to Winterfell, even in Rob or Ned’s name. Now, that is not to say that Locke won’t use Jon to get to Bran/Rickon and even try to kill Jon at the same time but I didn’t get the impression anywhere that Jon is an actual risk to the Bolton’s.
I’m quite a bit surprised that Jaime would give Brienne his sword. I can see him sending her to find Sansa and protect her but with his Valerian sword?? Hmmmm, not quite buying that. I also liked how Jaime pretty quickly realized he couldn’t discuss Tyrion with Cersei. Very quickly she started with insinuations towards his own motives and potential involvement in the death of the King. He wisely stopped and took on the role of “Lord Commander” and followed orders.
Overall I did find the episode to be rather boring. The crazy crow at Craster’s Keep was just too over-the-top evil for me to take seriously or to buy into his continued existence beyond probably next week’s episode. Daenery’s story line was exactly what you’d think would happen, no drama or suspense. I also find Bran’s story mostly uninteresting. Like last week’s episode, it was clearly just setting more pieces in motion for the rest of this season and I’d assume next season.
I think after fencing practice with Bronn, Jaime realized that he’s never going to be a great left-handed swordsman, and the Valyrian steel sword is wasted on him.
I did like Tyrion’s suggestion that he and his brother were now the Kingslayer Brothers.
He’s giving Brienne his sword because it’s his way of helping keeping his pact to Catelyn. He can’t go himself so he’s sending his sword. That’s how I took it, anyway.
I didn’t find any of the storylines boring, I just feel like it’s hard to make a connection when we’re only with each person for a few minutes before flashing to the next. If each episode were two hours, or if we had double the number of episodes, maybe it’d be better. I’ve still been enjoying myself pretty thoroughly.
The only hope that the Night’s Watch has is for the wildlings to divide their forces and try to attack the entire wall. If they find out the actual strength of the Watch then they can concentrate their forces on Castle Black and overwhelm it.
I liked how the former gold cloak leader convinces the head of the Night’s Watch to allow Jon to go on the mission. It is so in keeping with the rest of the political schemes going on down south. It is like they are in an out of control car barreling toward a cliff and all anyone cares about is who gets to sit up front.
The white walkers and zombies are the enemies of mankind but were defeated a thousand years ago. The final scene implied to me that White Walkers are being made from Craster’s boys. My guess is that they have slowly been building up their strength and creating zombies to use as their army.
How did Ghost get captured by the mutineers?
Are Arya and Sansa going to have a reunion at the Eyrie?
I kind of miss Joffrey.
I didn’t mind Dany’s storyline. Megalomaniac queen of the proletariat works for me.
When they were discussing Bran and Rickon being alive they said the Wall was their most likely destination as they had a half brother there, and the bastard pointed out a half Stark might be able to rally the north in the Starks name and they should get rid of him too. Locke going as far as joining the nightswatch and taking the oath seems a bit excessive.
Either the same way Summer did or he was simply already locked up since the nighstwatch was camped there in the first place.
He’s serving Bolton, who’s the new warden of the north. If he breaks his oath, I’m sure Bolton will pardon him.
I have to go against the grain, or what I think is the grain, and say I wasn’t surprised or all that interested by the ending of this one: as soon as the White Walker picked up the baby and didn’t eat it or kill it (and I didn’t see them killing another baby) I figured they were going to turn it. It didn’t feel like a surprise to me because we don’t know enough about them for this to break the rules. But if this gets the unZombies out of the periphery and into the action, great.
I agree. It’s easy to sympathize with murdering a bunch of slaveowners, but that doesn’t mean it was a bright idea or a good thing to do. Danaerys chose vengeance and sending a message over good sense. If you’re fighting a war you usually want to encourage your enemies to surrender because it means you probably won’t have to fight as much. If you kill your enemies after they’ve already surrendered, the message that gets sent is “Fight to the last man because you will get murdered even if you surrender.” She’s already sent the message that she’s uncompromisingly opposed to slavery and that she’s able to convince slaves to take up arms against their masters on her before. But on top of showing a scarier side of her character, this was impractical and that could definitely cause problems for her later. Or it could just encourage people to start murdering their slaves if they hear she’s marching on their city.
There was a ton of setting-up in this episode, just like the last couple. But I did enjoy two scenes with Jamie “don’t mention the rape!” Lannister: his visit to Tyrion and his farewell to Brienne. I’m looking forward to seeing Brienne have something else to do. And hey, it looks like Jon will get to do something interesting for the first time in a while (and Bran might be relevant for the first time in forever).
This was definitely an episode of setting up things for later this season, but I enjoyed it.
But that’s still significant for him. It seems to me that the old Jaime wouldn’t have cared about a pact to a dead woman, or would have made just the smallest effort maybe. Parting with a Valyrian steel sword, even if he knows he can’t properly use it, seems like a big deal.
Of course it’s hard to get a read on Jaime now, since he seems to be behaving somewhat honorably now, except for the much debated scene from last week.
It could have been the same way that Bran’s direwolf was captured, by falling into the pit trap.
The oath doesn’t matter to him is what I’m guessing. He’s not planning on sticking around if he’s planning on killing Jon and/or Bran.