From casting news, people have been keeping track of who’s going to play who for months before the show began.
Ah! Makes sense. It also makes sense for that person to replace those people, TV storytellingwise.
Alright, in reference to my post in the no-books thread, can someone please hit me up with the least-spoilery back story on how/why Stannis came to chop off Davos Seaworth’s fingers?
TIA
Davos saved Stannis during the war against crazy King Targaryen when he was besieged by courageously sailing a boafull of onions into Dragonstone. Stannis rewarded him by giving him land and a title but, because he was a pirate, punished him by chopping off the tips of his fingers on one hand. Davos carries the tips in a bag around his neck.
[spoiler] Storm’s End, not Dragonstone.
Stannis rewarded Davos for bringing the onions and punished him for breaking the law for years while smuggling. For Stannis good acts don’t cancel out the bad.[/spoiler]
Some quibbling:
Jojen and Meera haven’t been cast, true, but that doesn’t mean they won’t show up. The show and books won’t line up directly anymore and Theon only take Winterfell towards the end of the season. They could push that storyline back or have the Reeds meet Bran elsewhere. It does seem like Osha taking Bran and Luwin taking Rickon is an easy fix though.
Yeah the cursed place.
Where Arya and Gendry should be on their way too, right?
Is this getting too spoiler-box centric?
You’re probably thinking of Harrenhall. Arya and Gendry don’t want to go there, but that’s where they end up. Storm’s End is the Barratheon ancestral stronghold. It’s on the eastern coast while Harrenhall is inland.
Waitaminit, now I’m all confused. Harrenhall is the mighty fortress that the dragons burned down. Stannis was at home when Crazy King went down and was rewarded Crazy King’s stronghold when everything died down.
Am I upright now?
Yes.
Actually i don’t think you got the locations right if i am reading that right. Stannis spent the entire war being sieged at Storm’s End, the seat of house Baratheon. After the siege and when the war was basically over Stannis was given a fleet to go take over Dragonstone, the seat of the Targaryens before the conquest and last loyalist stronghold left. After the war he was given Dragonstone to rule while Renly got Storm’s End, this was in no way shape or form a reward for Stannis because he got royally screwed in that deal. Storm’s End and the storm lands are a prosperous kingdom, Dragonstone only rules a few islands that are basically just useless rock.
Yeah, that’s what I thought I said, except that I was sort of making fun of all these “rewards” being passed around.
I enjoyed the episode, though after watching SNL I’ll just start laughing every time they show boobies now. 
One thing I was REALLY disappointed about, a change from the books, was:
Theon’s christening. I think the whole ‘drown and be reborn’ thing was pretty awesome in the books, and it wouldn’t have taken more than a minute or two to show it. It would have been FANTASTIC, and I have no idea why they cut that. 
I think the reason why is because they totally got rid of Balron’s brother and he was the one who was all drown-y.
I don’t think it went down like that in the book with Theon, that was some other Iron Islander in a later book.
Getting completely drowned and brought back is only down for priests and maybe a few other people who are VERY religious. IIRC from Damphair’s chapters, they used to do the full-drowning for everyone, but it fell out of favor because they didn’t like it when sometimes the person stayed dead.
It would have been cool to see though in the books:
I don’t remember reading about Theon getting baptized at all and I thought the one guy we do see drowned (in AFFC, I think?) was someone actually joining the drowned men priesthood.
Edit: And I now see that bouv beat me to the punch with their reply!
Background question. How big are the various cities supposed to be in terms of population? I understand that the show has a limited budget, so they shrink things… but the way Theon and his (small) merry band of pirates was able to take over winterfell makes it seem like it has a few dozen residents. Is it a city, or just the Stark’s personal castle? I understand that the fighting men were away, but even a small city of peasants with pitchforks should’ve been able to fight off a dozen pirates.
They do a better job of giving an impression of life and population to King’s landing.
Roughly how many people are the major cities supposed to have?
As per the internets, Winterfell is just the castle complex. There is a village outside the castle called ‘Winter Town’, but “its streets are muddy and lined with rows of houses made from log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied during the summer, but they would fill up once winter arrived”. Since it’s still summer, not many people are around.
The peasants are the fighting men, and I think they’re all supposed to be fighting the war in the south. There’s probably only women, children, and the elderly left in Winterfell. Rob’s nobles talked about wanting to go back north because they need to harvest the crops. That implies there’s no one there to harvest it right now.
Can someone give me some insight into Sandor Clegane/the Hound’s motivations lately? He seems to have some sort of affection for Sansa, but even when talking to her, he’s all, “I like to KILL! All men are KILLERS! MURDER is my main hobby! GRRRR!” Is he starting to feel resentful that killing is all he does, or is he like Merv Griffin and just really enjoys killing, and wants to talk about it?
It’s clear that an episode of fire-induced PTSD was the immediate trigger for him telling everyone in the castle to get bent, but is there more to it?
I don’t mind being mildly spoiled as to near-future plot stuff with him to help answer this, thanks!