Enough “oh shit” moments for two or three episodes here. The Lannisters are broke? What’s the Iron Bank of Bravos going to do if the crown defaults? Wreck their credit rating? Would you buy Westeros junk bonds?
Cersei and Oberyn’s talk about Myrcella got me thinking. She’s engaged to some Martell or other. If Tommen dies, she’s the queen and the Martell’s get a whole lot more power than they have now.
It feels like the story is shifting from the Lannisters sneakily usurping the throne to the Tyrrells and Martells fighting over marrying into it.
Good episode, but they need to die Danny’s eyebrows to better match her hair. Cersei could use some, too. When was the last time we saw the dragons? CGI too expensive for HBO?
It’s been mentioned in the show that if you are a castle-owning level defaulter, the Iron Bank will fund an opponent’s army to attack you and get their money back from the spoils.
They knew Mance Rayder was heading toward Castle Black with his army. Mance however doesn’t know that Castle Black only has 100 men defending it. If he knew this it would give him a strategic advantage. Jon Snow figured if Mance happened upon Craster’s on his way that he’d interrogate the guys he’d find there and they’d cough up the “only 100 men” info. So Snow and company decided to eliminate the possible leak.
I think because they had the same resources Craster had, so there’s no reason to think the mutineers won’t survive there just fine, at least for a little while longer.
Or did the Watch supply them, in exchange for being a useful outpost?
Because there’s a pretty good chance Mance would capture them before any of that happens. To Sam Lowry’s point, the entire purpose of these episodes was to close out Craster’s Keep plot line. The Bran & Co getting captured by the traitors and then Lock ended up mostly a Red Herring. Other than perhaps revealing to us that Bran thinks his mission is so important that he would make the difficult choice of not saying hello to his brother.
My sense is that the penalties of defaulting the Iron Bank are a bit stiffer than a low credit rating and that there aren’t a whole lot of options for a bailout.
My take on that scene was that Littlefinger did recognise Arya, but decided to shut up about it because he didn’t see any way to turn it to his advantage, or because he thought not busting her might turn out to be to his advantage at some future time.
Sansa is a virgin. Her marriage to Tyrion wasn’t consummated. We had this same discussion two episodes ago with regard to Margaery & Joffrey: no consummation = not legally married.
Has it been established whether or not Mance has heard about any of the crazy shit that’s been going down at Craster’s place lately (well, even more so than usual)? He’s already got forces south of the Wall, so it seems pretty negligent of him not to have preemptively sent scouts or outriders or something that way.
I was also thinking that maybe Snow and company would try for some stealth kills since the mutineers were drunk and not expecting an attack, but instead they just ran in yelling and waving their swords. They still ended up with a favorable kill ratio, but I’d be thinking that loyal brothers are a rare and valuable resource at the moment.
I’m not talking about in-world reasoning. I’m talking about plotting. The screenwriters could have simply ignored this entire subplot of resolving the Craster’s Keep story. If it came up – “oh, they all died.” Simple. The subplot was unnecessary unless they were going to do something consequential with it. As it stands, the Jon Snow and Bran plot lines are reset to where they were before this diversion.
The Night’s Watch was worried that Mance might capture the mutineers. There’s no reason he’d know of what’s been happening, only that he’d probably find out at some point unless the mutineers were silenced.
Kissing up to Tywin is obviously to get him to rule against Tyrion, but i didn’t get why she was being nice to Margaery. When she got in between her and Tomnen during the coronation i thought their conversation was going to go the complete opposite way.
Excellent episode. I’m very surprised that the “big reveal” isn’t getting more discussion. Littlefinger started this whole thing in motion - seduced Lysa, got her to poison her husband and to send a letter to Caitlin claiming it was the Lannisters. And we now also know from last week he was instrumental in the death of Joffrey with the aid of the Queen of Thrones. Everything we thought we knew was wrong - MUHAHA!!
I liked the scenes at Craster’s Keep, especially Jolene’s (sp?) parts. I did comment to Mrs. MeanJoe that it sure was an awkward angle for Jon to stab him through the head, seems it would have been easier just to run him through via the back. Naturally the Misses pointed out that wouldn’t look as cool on t.v.
Daenery’s… still unbearably boring. The meeting with her counselors was good though, she definitely showed us that she values Ser Jorah as a capable advisor. But anyway, “I shall rule!” - Yeah, okay… Zzzzzz!
More than interesting. That’s a bombshell that completely turns this series on its side I think. John Arryn dying and Kat’s belief the Lannister’s did it are what drove the events of this entire series into motion and colored our perceptions of the Lannisters from early on.
The Lannisters are not nice people, to be sure (with exceptions of course) but I think Varys’ comment that Littlefiger would burn the Kingdom down of he thought he could rule the ashes (paraphrasing) is right on point.
Eta: Cersei was nice to Margery because she is pragmatic and loves her children. She knows that is what is best for her son.