Two things:
1- Did anybody need to see that?
2- Half giant indeed.
Yes there is an Emmy for casting, but you probably won’t see it awarded on TV. It’s one of the awards they give out a few days earlier. It’s part of the creative arts Emmys.
I’ve read a thing on next season’s cast. They’ve done some re-casting. It also looks like they’re trying to keep it fresh with added directors.
About the re-casting: Very upset about one and not really caring about the other.
Eh? That link is from last year and says the current Dany and Cat were brought in after the pilot was shot.
Those are the current actors.
Holy crap, you’re right! I dunno what I was reading.
I agree. Arrogance and defiance, to show that he thinks (or puts on the front that he thinks) he’s a singular creation that Cat cannot understand. That meaning didn’t come through NCW’s delivery at all. Which is interesting because in interviews he comes across as having a very astute read on Jaime and all his layers, so that had to have been a deliberate choice.
Just last night we saw Maester Pycelle, jazzercizing in his flimsy nightshirt…
On a non-nudity related note…
Arya makes a much more convincing boy with her hair chopped off, for some reason. (Ironic, with Hot Pie’s claim that ‘he looks like a girl’.)
Daenerys’s would-be poisoner also showed his junk when he was tied to the horse.
Thank you, Snarky_Kong, for getting the threads going each week. I know they got off to a rough start and I appreciate your patience and persistence. The “what happened last week” recaps were usefull as well.
And now I’m off to reread, in the hopes that my library does not have a six-month waiting list for the next of that which cannot be mentioned. 
I also want to express my appreciation for Snarky’s work on these threads. I would love it if every TV series episode thread were run the way he did it.
Any word on the season two budget? I believe this past season set HBO back roughly 50 million.
No you are not. I thought to myself “Wow… they actually went *there!” *Until she turned around I thought the scene was being set for Sansa to have a virginity test of some kind.
I think it’s interesting that Game of Thrones and The Killing concluded on the same night. For a while TV geeks have been talking about HBO vs. AMC for crown of the best network out there for original programming. Lately it’s been pretty one sided in AMCs favor since The Sopranos and The Wire finished and a few of the HBO efforts fell flat. Needless to say HBO pretty successfully reclaimed it crown last night.
Maester Pycelle’s put-on might be even more symbolic than we’re seeing. Yes, he is obviously not the doddering old fool that he leads people to believe and he’s smart enough to know Roz is probably spying for Littlefinger and is wary of comments about Joffrey, but he also could be duplicitous on a larger level. From the viewers guide:
Now, maybe I’m reading too far into it, but the Maester is supposedly never supposed remove his chains and I think there’s an implication there that they also are supposed to be chaste like the men of the Nights Watch. So in this scene with the whore Maester Pycelle is doubly violating his vows. This could be just a trivial indulgence of a practical old man of power, but it could also mean that the Maesters are up to more than they claim. Perhaps the Maester’s of the Citadel across Westeros are conspiring in their own rights to pull the puppet strings. Or, in contrast, Maester Pycelle’s violation of the oath could mean that he’s breaking from the neutral and unbaised command of the Citadel and operating on his own outside of it’s control.
Could be a small thing, but perhaps they devoted so much time to the scene to reveal that he’s not the fool he seems to foreshadow some future betrayal. Or else it was just a excuse for some exposition and nudity.
For the record, I thought that was Cersei there for a while and not Roz. How wild would it have been for Pycelle to be poking the Queen?
I’m guessing that someone is sending the bastard north to protect him. The blacksmith really seemed not to know who his father is, and I think Littlefinger, Varys and Ned all knew. Maester Pycelle probably knew as well if we assume he’s quite a bit more astute than he lets on. So any one of them could be acting secretly to get the boy out of King’s Landing before the Lannister’s find out about him. Not sure why this boy is particularly important, since they seem to say that Robert Baratheon had tons of bastards, but perhaps this bastard’s mother was more than just some whore and he might actually have something of a claim to true nobility.
Of course I could be over-complicating things, and the boy’s boss knows who he is and is just trying to send him away because he’s protecting him the best way he can for nothing more than mercy. Or he was only ever employed there because someone in power asked the blacksmith to employ him and now that Robert’s dead that contract is moot.
Presumably the boy is going to have a role going forward, is that just as a good guy who protects and befriends Arya while never having more importance than that of a talented fighter or will his father’s identity become known and will he be a political player once House Baratheon gets cracking?
Since the scene is past it won’t be too spoilery to reference the book. In the book IIRC there is the implication the healer-women deliberately manipulated Drogo’s initial treatment for the wound so that his wound would go septic. In the show it’s just focused on the “life for life” black magic she did.
Me, too. That skinny Lanester kid-- was that another brother, or a cousin or nephew. I can’t remember.
I’m going to be a bit of a sourpuss here, but I really didn’t think this was all that great. It was good, and I enjoyed it, but I’d give it “B” level, not “A”. Maybe “B+”. There are still just too many damn characters. I’d rather see more screen time with fewer characters. Maybe they could’ve edited down to 3 kingdoms. 
Lancel is the son of Kevan, who is Tywin’s brother. Thus, he is Tywin’s nephew and Cersei/Jamie/Tyrion’s first cousin.
It’s an interesting philosophical point in the world of the Game of Thrones (book) universe (and this is not an action spoiler in any way) that the GOT world and societies have existed in a quasi-medieval technological state for thousands of years. The flip side is you have this intellectually rigorous school where maesters get their training with libraries full of books that also go back hundreds and hundreds (possibly thousands) of years. They also conduct experiments and have to master tons of different disciplines. And yet practically almost zero scientific or technological progress is made over time.
I think Jaime did the scene right, but for different reasons. [spoiler]The reason I’m quoting and posting is that Jaime feels absolutely no shame or self-loathing for his relationship with his sister; as for being the Kingslayer, he knows damn well that someone had to do what he did, and he chose to do it, knowing the results would be his dishonor if not dismemberment. He is a very proud man, and in his eyes, what he does at any given time is the right thing to do. Except…except for Bran. While there was nothing more than self-preservation in his pushing him off the wall, I do think it did kind of make him doubt himself just a little bit. Doubt his relationship with Cercei, just a little bit. Regardless, he’d have done all of it over again given the same choices. No, I don’t believe he’s less full of himself than before, but…I think he does see that he could be just a little bit…better. He’s played the parts that fate shoved him into, and now he’s starting to think maybe he can start acting instead of reacting.
My opinion, anyhoo, though the books completely and 100% support and explain his relationship with Cercei as being nothing to be ashamed of in his eyes. Is it a spoiler to mention the book now that the series is over? Because Jaimie regularly has suggested running off with Cercei and leaving the whole kingdom behind, regularly begged her to ditch her dreams of power and go where no one could say them nay. It was always Cercei holding them back, because wanted power in this world, not unfettered passion in another one.[/spoiler]