I don’t think the Hound was trying to kill anybody.
I don’t think any one has commented yet: it’s not just that Ned was stabbed in the leg, but in the BACK of the leg. Robert might not react to Ned killed/harmed in fair fight, but the lancer’s stab wasn’t “fair.” There’s lots of back-stabbing in this show, but this one wasn’t political or metaphorical. (Odd, it’s not “literal” either since Ned was stabbed in the back of the leg, not in the back per se.)
Not that he’d have shed a tear if he’d put the Mountain down, of course. But with the King watching, no, I doubt he was really trying to do so just then.
The Mountain, on the other hand, clearly had murder on the mind when he went after Loras. I’m really surprised he got away with it at all. (Speaking of which, I had to watch the episode twice to notice the signs that Gregor’s stallion was effected by Loras’s mare. I was thus mildly surprised when Littlefinger mentioned the trick, since I’d thought they’d skipped over it.)
When I said “punish him” I meant “punish the Hound” - his head was closer to the oppenent’s guard since the Hound is considerably smaller. Anyway, a blow with the guard isn’t a killing move, but it can prepare one nicely.
But the Hound wasn’t trying to kill the Mountain, I agree there, he was fighting defensively.
Interesting that there are lots of scenes in the show that were definitely not in the book. Some of these scenes (IMO) substantially change the interplay between the characters vs the dynamics of the book.
The scene between the Cersei and Robert where they are almost wistfully discussing the threat from the Dothraki, their marriage, and his lost love was far more subtle and tender than the pure, venomous contempt and disdain they and for each other in the book. It puts a completely different light on their relationship.
The scene with Loras and Renly put completely front and center a relationship that was only tangentially hinted at in the book.
It makes me think the series and the book will be diverging a lot more than we expected in the future.
IIRC Mark Anthony had a full “front and center” scene where he was being cleaned by a slave.
I got the impression it was slanted.
I know I’m getting repetitive here, but since this thread has already spoiled me on a major plot point, I’m more than a little annoyed.
What was spoiled? I didn’t see it.
I haven’t noticed any spoilers in this thread. I always pictured the cells being really tiny and was surprised at how spacious (hah) it was.
The slope of the cell isn’t a spoiler, it’s a question of the production design. It’s like commenting that in the books pretty much all the knights have really…distinctive helmets, but so far the only ones that were exceptional are the Hound (dog), Loras (flower petals? It was weird), and Gendry’s.
-Joe
Yes, that was a VERY memorable scene.
I’ll respond in private message.
Did you note the portion of the OP that I quoted?
I’m curious too, could I get a copy? I don’t see anything like a spoiler in the thread either.
In other news, this is the episode that finally got my wife on board with the show. It also convinced me that the writers are doing a good job of making all the characters distinct, as she was very sad about Jory’s death and I wasn’t sure before then if they had made him distinct enough for his death to matter.
Re: Theon and the whore… don’t they know about the missionary position in Westeros? Haven’t seen it yet!
Missionary is hard to film and not half as sexy (from a viewership prospective).
Also, the show seems to be implying a sort of face to face lovemaking=genuine love/intimacy thing which they don’t want to give to Theon and Ros. That’s the art reason that the film makers are telling themselves. The real reason is the first one.
“Theon and the whore” sounds like a Bible story. 
It looks like he considers ANY MENTION AT ALL of anything in the books, whether plot point or not, to be a spoiler. Which is kind of extreme.
Eh. We’ve seen Cersei and Jaime going at it, and twisted though it is, I’d argue they count as true love and intimacy. Loras and Renly, we haven’t seen enough of to be sure, but certainly seem to be true…and their sex wasn’t face to face.
If we’d seen Ned and Cat making love at some point, and they were doing it missionary, then I might agree to an extent - the Lannisters are potentially too twisted to count, and Loras and Renly have only had the one scene together at all, so maybe Loras is just a power hungry little bastard who’s playing Renly - but the time Dany decided not to be ridden from behind and thus earned Drogo’s respect isn’t much of a data point, taken on its own.
See, I was counting Loras and Renly in my consideration, putting them into the almost face to face category. At least they are able to make eye contact. It’s not perfect, but I think it follows well enough that you can consider that it is being done on purpose. So you have Danny and Drogo (and I do think there is something there. If not real love, maybe genuine affection?), Loras and Renly. And if you follow that math, I think is says some rather interesting things about Jaime and Cersei. Maybe it doesn’t’ mean that they don’t love each other, but it does shed some light on how *they *feel about their own trysts.
There’s definitely something real in between Dany and Drogo, and the turning point really seems to be when she changed how they had sex - but the difference seems less that they did it face to face than that she a) stood up for what they wanted, and b) mounted him. It’s a character moment for Dany which also served to give Drogo a reason to respect her. (The strength of will involved in doing it.) Both in universe and out.
As to Loras and Renly - the eye contact and conversation happened before the act rather than after, but other than that, their scene is little different than the scene between Tyrion and his whore from the first episode. I doubt Tyrion thought the girl was anything more than a pleasant lay and some amusing conversation, though. The chief difference between the scenes is the seriousness of the conversations - discussing the future of the Seven Kingdoms, compared to teasing - but even so, under other circumstances, that scene would read as real sparks between Tyrion and the girl. Yet…