I just booked a little 3 day mini-vacation ( alone!!) so I can read the book in peace at a nice resort, after all that I will be REALLY annoyed if the release is delayed.
And there was also (immediately post-coital but surprisingly flaccid) Little Theon.
Good point - hadn’t thought of that.
Technically book background, but on a spoiler scale it’s like a 1.1 on a scale of 1 to 10…
There was a small group of guys called ‘Blood Riders’. I think there were three of them. They were Drogo’s super-loyal to the death kind of guys. They were supposed to have died when Drogo died. It’s that level of loyalty. IIRC, the one killed by Jorah was one of the three. The other two are there because they Dany convinced them to stay with her rather than killing themselves for Drogo.
I thought the CGI on the dragons was pretty good, actually. Everyone needs to remember that a dragon will never look too convincing because we all know intellectually that it isn’t real. It can look good (and I thought it did), but it’s never going to fool you .
I just hope next season that they don’t pull a dire wolf on us. If a dragon should be around in Dany’s tent, have a damned stuffed dragon in the corner. If they’re supposed to be flying around, and they don’ t want to spend the money on making them look good, have them be a speck in the sky that the characters watch.
None of this “Oh, the red one? You just missed him.” Kind of like the way they Vera Peterson the battle scenes…
Otherwise, well done. Though I continue to think the actor who is doing Littlefinger sucks hard. It could be the lines, though.
-Joe
Interesting way to look at it, because I thought he stopped her suicide attempt. I felt like she was looking for a way out of the situation she only just realized she was in. It was a great moment of growth for her. I’ll have to go back and see if that moment came before the line quoted above.
And why is the Hound so concerned about her so suddenly? Up till now, he’s used his size and demeanor to intimidate her into doing what Joffrey/Cersei wanted. I like him as a positive character, especially because I want to see him working for someone ‘good’. (Questions don’t need answers if they’re spoilery - just talking points for this thread)
She was stepping towards Joffrey about to reach for him. If it was a suicide attempt, she was going to take him down with her. And remember, this was right after she made a pretty specific wish to have his decapitated head handed to her.
I thought Sansa might be thinking that just one step would end all her pain. Then, maybe she could take the dreadful Joffrey with her. Or push him–which would have meant her death, anyway.
She hasn’t seen or heard any real kindness in weeks. The Hound was just telling her “Not today.”
The Hound’s elder brother was an abusive psychopath (and is responsible for his scars), so I think the idea is that the Hound is sympathetic to the now beaten and traumatized Sansa.
Weirdly, they had Littlefinger tell Sansa the Hounds story, even though apparently the guy who played the Hound was hired on the basis of his telling of the story during his audition. Probably would’ve made more sense to have the Hound tell it, as it would’ve made it a lot clearer why he’s at least semi-kind to Sansa. But I guess they needed something to fill out the tourney a little.
And we all got a look at Theon Greyjoy’s wedding tackle after one of his sessions with Roz, as I recall. Adding it all up, that’s a lot of cock for a single program. Especially when you figure in Hodor.
More on this (not really a spoiler, as it deals with stuff we’ve already seen. But it does build on Merijeek’s idea above):
One of (now) Dany’s Bloodriders is Jhogo. You’ll remember him as the guy having the discussion with Jorah Mormont about fighting in armor. He’s also good with a whip - he stopped the wine seller from running with his whip, and was rewarded by Drogo with one of his horses (just not his own or Dany’s silver). You see him behind Dany during her scenes.
I too thought Sensa was thinking of jumping-- until she walked up to Joffrey with no intentions of going over the side herself. I think Joffrey had the Hound smack Sensa not because of what his mother said but because he knows she would beat his skinny ass down if he were to come close enough to strike her himself.
Well, she’d embarrass him until The Hound snapped her in two.
It wasn’t the Hound who slapped Sansa, it was the other knight (incidentally, the same knight who broke Syrio’s sword).
I don’t know that the Hound would do anything to Cersei even now. He let Joffrey get slapped around by Tyrion a whole bunch.
Let’s relive that, shall we?
Ser Meryn Trant (I’m currently re-reading Game of Thrones, so it’s fresh in my memory). It was Sandor who cleaned the blood off her face (and, not coincidentally, did that by interposing himself between her and Joffrey at the moment she was considering throwing him off the gatehouse).
You got the Bloodrider’s name wrong. It’s Rakharo.
His name has been mentioned in the show before, but I’m spoilering it to be safe.
At least John Norman’s “Gor” novels had a rationale for the lack of techno progress (prevented by an advanced alien race known as the Preist Kings). You have to wonder about the Seven Kingdoms.
I love how many different videos there are of that scene on YT - that one, at least one of the whole sequence as shown, a couple different ‘10 minutes of Tyrion slapping Joffrey’…
There’s just something about watching the little bastard get slapped…
It’s a convention of the genre. GRRM may ignore most of those, but this one he decided to keep.
Season final got 3 million viewers. Highest of the season. Guess killing Sean Bean off didn’t scare off that many people.
What does this mean? I assume you read the book… feel free to respond in spoily tags.
VERY cool, BTW. I’ve been waiting on the dragons, and I can’t wait to understand what the hell is up with Blondie surviving the fire and KNOWING she would survive the fire… I don’t care about spoilage, I’m enjoying it so I’d welcome any explanations.