Evamitchelle

She was 11 in the books and 13 in the show IIRC. She should be around 14 now.

She tells Robb that Balon is not trustworthy, but she makes no mention of Theon being the envoy. In the books she agrees to having Robb send his offer to the Iron Islands, but she specifically tells him that anyone would be better than Theon as messenger. Robb is the one who has the idea to send someone to Renly's camp, while Catelyn was the first one to think of it (even before the Blackfish) and during the King in the North scene when she should have been pleading for peace she stays silent, not long after she tells Robb that "we will kill them all".

The two situations are quite different from one another, so I'm not sure it's possible to compare how Catelyn is being smarter in one rather than the other. Sure, in the show it makes sense that she'd free him now rather than after the news of her sons' deaths reach her, but that's not what happens in the books so there's a false equivalency there. In both cases she tries to make the best out of a bad situation, but in the book version she is taking the initiative while in the show version she is just responding to Karstark's impending threat. Robb later admitted himself that he should have traded the girls for Jaime when he still had the chance. Even a Sansa-Jaime exchange would have been a great deal for the Starks. Sansa is extremely relevant, politically speaking, as the Lannisters and Tyrells quickly realize (and quickly take advantage of), while Jaime is completely useless. He can't be killed because the Lannisters have hostages of their own, but he can't be exchanged either because he's too important, and having him as a hostage does not in the least prevent Tywin from carrying out his plots. Sansa gives the Lannisters or Tyrells or whomever a claim to Winterfell, aka 1/7th of the kingdom. Exchanging her would have been the smart thing to do. Since Catelyn had no way of doing that earlier, she took it in her own hands in the only way she could. That doesn't make her actions stupid to me.

Like when she advised Robb not to send Theon back to the Iron Islands, or asked him to petition for peace with the Lannisters, or told him to ally himself with Renly or Stannis. Oh wait, Show Cat did none of those things. Show Cat is completely incapable to taking any initiative, she exists only to react to all the interesting stuff other characters do, to give us a POV into "important king stuff" and to remind the audience that good mothers stay at home.

Ugh. If she does I'll probably throw things at my screen. But I see no reason why they'd change that, that scene played mostly like in the books, where Catelyn draws Brienne's sword on Jaime to make him swear a litany of vows (as revealed in Storm) before letting them out of Riverrun. I gave the episode 8/10. Solid episode, I enjoyed most of it. Theon's arc continues to impress me. Rose Leslie made Jon watchable for me, which doesn't happen often, although they probably should have shortened the scenes a bit. Sansa/Cersei was great, as was Arya/Tywin. Took down a few points because Jaime's escape plan is pretty ridiculous (was he gonna walk all the way to King's Landing or something ?), because Cat keeps getting short-changed by the writers and because Cersei is being awfully maudlin, with Tyrion of all people.

I'm pretty sure they'll show Maester Luwin's death. He's had a lot of screen-time during the past two episodes - they even added several scenes for him over the course of the two seasons - they won't pass up such a great opportunity for drama when he dies. They've shown every named characters death on screen so far, even when the characters aren't supposed to die/be maimed (Mago, Irri, Rakharo, Marillion etc.), it would make no sense for them not to show Luwin's as well.

Yes, having Catelyn freeing Jaime because Karstark is going to kill him makes sense. It just strips her of any agency she ever had, turning an active decision she made on her own into a passive reaction to someone else's plan. I could have accepted it if it had been a one time thing, but the trend since season 2 has been to take every idea Cat ever had in the books and to give it to someone else (usually a male character). As such you have Robb advising her to go to Renly, Tyrion and LF convincing her to release Jaime and Brienne commandeering their escape from Renly's tent and Renly's camp. All of those things should have come from Cat. Instead she spends half her scenes crying "I should be in Winterfell with my babies !!".

On a positive note, LF is not teleporting around Westeros anymore (yay !) and Ros is still missing in action for the third episode in a row ( double yay !). And I think I'm actually going to miss the Spice King.

One episode is about an hour long, you can dislike one scene/character portrayal and still enjoy the rest. It's not like I love *everything* that's in the books either. Jon usually bores me to tears for example, but I've still read the series twice (without skipping his chapters). I'm not a fan of Jaime's new escape plan, mainly because I find it a completely stupid one. Did Jaime really expect to make it out of the Riverlands alone, after months of malnutrition and inactivity ? I doubt he would have killed a cousin for such a lousy shot at freedom. I'm also amused that Robb put one of his Lord's heir on guard duty like a common soldier, but I guess you could say he wanted someone reliable to watch over the Kingslayer. Apparently D&D are increasing Jaime's doucheness factor while decreasing Cersei's. That whole "is it the price for our sins ?" strikes me as really off, especially with Tyrion as audience. After all she's the one who said "You win or you die, there is no middle ground". The worse change was altering Cat's motivation to free Jaime though. Yes, it makes sense within the show because Karstark is still in camp and out for Jaime's blood. It was bad enough when they had Tyrion and Littlefingertell Cat that releasing Jaime was the only way to see her daughters again (because she is completely stupid and could never have figured that out on her own), but now she's just reacting to Karstark's threats instead of taking the initiative and freeing Jaime of her own accord. What's even worse is that this is apparently D&D's idea of making her character more sympathetic (read : making her a doormat). Considering how much I'm "complaining" you'd think I found the episode worthless but that's not actually true. I found everything else pretty great, especially Rose Leslie's acting and the Winterfell scenes. Alfie Allen's face is killing me (particularly at the beginning when that guard refers to Hodor as "the giant" and at the end when he looks at the children's burned corpses), and Donald Sumpter is spectacular as well. The corpses seem a bit too carbonized for Luwin to be able to tell it's no Bran and Rickon though, which would mean he would only realize they were still alive in his final moments. I'm already expecting a river of tears. For me Theon's arc is the best on the show so far.

I was more surprised by how quickly they managed to rip his arm off. It's like he kinda fell/was carried to the ground and in the next two seconds some guy was brandishing his arm as a trophy.

"POC", aka Person of Colour or People of Colour is used to describe all people who are not white, without having to define them by their non-whiteness the way the term "non-white" does. I'm not using it in an effort to be politically correct, or because I'm afraid to call black people black, brown people brown or white people white. I'm using it because it's shorter than writing "people of all ethnicities that are not Caucasian" and because it's widely used by "people of colour", like me, themselves. Honestly I think you're taking your hate of acronyms a bit too far there. You - correctly - pointed out that my use of "POC" could confuse a lot of people who are not familiar with the term, so I answered you what it meant and edited my post as well for potential future readers. That should have been the end of it no ?

People/Person of colour. And probably because I write it so often as "POC" that I don't think about it anymore.

The Hound just doesn't like Tyrion (as mentioned in the first episode of this season), which is why he tells him off at the end of the riot. It's very unlikely that he has any prior connections to the Starks, being from the Westerlands.

That's a possible reason, though I'm not sure how essential it would have been to see Irri naked. But I'm actually surprised at how nude-free Dany's been this season. During the first one she spent a lot of time naked or in semi-transparent dresses and she's remained completely clothed so far this season while she spent the whole book with one breast out (HBO actually *removing* unnecessary nudity shock of shocks). In any case I don't actually think they consciously decided to get rid of all POC - ETA : People Of Colour (Xaro is now black after all), but it's still an unfortunate decision if they do keep Doreah while writing off Irri and Jhiqui. That scene was especially impressive since she was speaking in a made-up language. And since she's actually Norwegian there's even a chance that she was actually acting in 2 languages that weren't her first. If so double kudos. I think it'd be weird if they've combined Jhiqui and Doreah considering that they shared one scene. I'm just sad that they're voluntarily getting rid of Amrita (unlike Elyes who just found a better role). Dany's chapters are pretty void of any well-developed side-charaters in the books after AGoT (only Jorah and later Barristan, but Jorah left in Storm and Barristan's role until Dance is basically to be an info-dump on the Targs and the Rebellion), and I felt the show had managed to improve a lot on that front. But now all that is pretty much wasted because all those good secondary characters are dead (Viserys, Drogo, MMD, Rakharo, Irri). At least it seems like they want to give Rakharo's replacement (Kovarro ?) the same attention.

Well I am disappoint. I don't see why they had to kill Irri to introduce a new character. I thought Amrita Acharia did a great job in season 1. And now her death wasn't even the focus of the scene because Daenerys only seemed concerned about her dragons. If they don't get rid of Doreah (Roxanne McKee) too I'm going to be side-eyeing them quite a lot though. Doreah died in Clash, Jhiqui and Irri were still present in Dance. But now Irri is dead and Jhiqui is a no-show. The pretty white girl survives beyond her original storyline while the two brown girls get an early disappearance ? I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt though. I'll wait and see what they do next.

No he's talking about Sansa. He's reflecting on the fact that her courtesies will save her life.

More of a reversed reference, but I've always thought that Ser Pounce-a-Lot in Dragon Age : Origins was clearly inspired by Tommen's kitty Ser Pounce, who appears in Feast I think. Especially since ASoIaF has had quite a bit of influence on the DA:O world.