Speaking of unCat, is there anything in the books explaining what kind of magic made that happen?
Isn’t the Red Priest guy from the Brotherhood Without Banners, the one that keeps resurrecting Mr. I-Can’T-Win-A-Fight?
I know there was a much bigger gap in the books, but it’s not like Lady Stoneheart is some happy-crappy reset button that undoes the tragedy of the Red Wedding. If anything, it perpetuates it: Cat doesn’t even get the solace of oblivion, but has to wander the earth as a half-dead thing whose entire purpose is vengeance for her children’s slaughter. I think it would be an epic scene to end on, and would cause further heartache for those who were horrified by the RW.
And yes, Thoros brings her back. Only he got to her a lot later than he ever did working on Beric, so she’s kind of all Pet Sematary.
The more I think about it, the more sure (and relieved) I am that we won’t see Lady Stoneheart next ep. We haven’t even seen her thrown into the river yet. So that’s probably what we’ll get next ep. Hurray? Love this show and the weird emotions it gives me.
Beric brings her back, giving up his life in the process.
I’m leaning towards thinking we’ll see her next episode. The titles tend to have multiple meanings and it’d be perfect for her to appear in an episode titled “Mother.” Maybe her being revived will be what happens in the last two or three minutes of the episode. I could be wrong of course.
I just can’t think of any other “oh shit” cliff hanger they can fit in next episode besides lady stoneheart. Maybe a shot of Mance’s army at the wall, but they would have to do the whole attack on castle black first and that just seems like too much.
Yes, it’s Beric and not Thoros who brings her back from the dead.
I was disappointed with Grey Wind’s death scene (in the book he takes a few guys down with him).
Also, we are never shown, even in the book, Cat being thrown into the river. We only know it happens because Tyrion mentions it in his POV chapter.
I was a little disappointed. I found the book to be much more powerful. It’s not that it was bad (I think if I had been Unsullied I’d have been nearly CATatonic today), but my heartstrings were more pulled by Cat’s descriptions and the original shock. So not being surprised (had Talisa spoiled for me by my own dumbassery) and not having Cat’s interior processes, it wasn’t as powerful.
Although that is on a sliding scale because I cried nearly the entire hour.
I didn’t hate Talisa as much as others did, and I had a hard time understanding why the tv writers switched things up, but it made sense to me finally today. If she had been Jeyne, no amount of “Her mother is giving her moon tea” dialog would keep tv viewers from speculating, just like many book readers have. It ends the issue by having her not be from a Lannister-following family and by dying. The pregnant thing was just to be cruel.
Doesn’t Arya see this in a wolf dream?
Oh, yeah. She does see her mother’s body on the riverbank in her wolf dream, you’re right.
Yeah, I never hated her, but I never really liked her that much either until recently. And, perhaps because I knew everything else that was going to happen, her part was the most emotionally affecting. Especially the bit about “little Eddard.” That was where the lump in my throat started.
Re: Cat in the river… we may not have been shown it directly in the book, but I’ll bet it’s in the show. Too horrific of a visual to not put it in.
Although nothing could replace reading the Red Wedding in Cat’s POV, I think the second beheading of Lil Eddard was a little gift to those of us who have read the books.
Something else that bothered me a little- both Robb and Grey Wind went down fighting in the book. On the show they both went like whipped pussies.
There’s an Onion spoof of the author’s reaction to the Red Wedding…
Robb didn’t fight anybody in the book.
I don’t think anyone went down like a “whipped pussy” and I don’t think they could have filmed it better. I’ve never actually read the Red Wedding scene (I read the first two books and only made it a few chapters into the third before getting bored of it) but everywhere I look there are people complaining about the wolf not fighting, about them not doing gross shit with Rob’s body and his unborn baby’s body, about Cat not messing up her own face or whatever, etc. A lot of that might have been great on paper but probably wouldn’t have translated too well to screen and looked goofy (and frankly, the wolf getting shot while it’s penned up just adds to the hopelessness of the situation). I’m rewatching a lot of episodes right now and I really think this one is the best of the series. And it’s not just the massacre in the last ten minutes that are good. It was nearly perfectly done from credits to credits, in my opinion.
By not introducing us to Talisa’s family, the producers avoided hiring more actors. Why waste time & money on a really minor detail?
The only quibble I have with the actual filming of the carnage was that both Bolton and the Frey (Raymund? IIRC from the book) that killed Cat both kinda popped up out of nowhere to deal their death blows to Robb and Cat respectively, like haunted-house jack-in-the-box monsters. I think it would have been a little more effective and less cheesy if they were already in-frame. (Bolton smirking menacingly while Robb and Cat had their “farewell” and the Frey covering Cat w/sword-drawn as she threatened his step-mom.)
Heh. “Sure, I’m an executive producer on the show and they send me all the scripts on these things, but I never read them. Those things are full of spoilers.”
Don’t have a link right now but Cracked has a video of a sketch about the show’s writers refusing to read the books because they don’t want to be spoiled.