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Thanks to a post on another thread, I just realized that in this episode, all the living Starks were featured and had lines--Jon, Robb, Catelyn, Arya, Bran, even Rickon--except for Sansa. I guess it's because 3x08 kind of overdosed on King's Landing plots so they wanted to clear out all the King's Landing plots of 3x09, but it seemed odd. She was also absent in spirit, too. Not even a reference to "your sister" from the Hound, any mention of her wedding in the Robb/Cat scene, or anything along those lines. I was feeling her absence.

Heh. I couldn't help but imagine the "Yoink!" from The Simpsons when I saw that happen. That makes no sense, for 3x10 anyway. If they stick with the books, the girls will probably be too catatonic with grief to busy themselves with nifty catchphrases about what the Northerners will or won't remember. Tyrion sees the bigger political picture about the repercussions of the Red Wedding, because he hasn't just lost his remaining family. What do Arya and Sansa care for what "the Northerners" will or won't do? As far as they know, they've just lost the only remaining Northerners they really care about: their mother and brother. Giving either of them that line, at least in 3x10, would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Not anymore, wouldn't you say? If Talisa (who occupies Jeyne's role as Robb's wife in the show) has been killed off, that seems to be saying that Jeyne is entirely irrelevant. Also, we have no idea whether Jeyne is pregnant or not in the books; there's a good argument that she isn't. The show seems to be saying that it doesn't matter for the plot either way; either she was never pregnant, she's pregnant before the kid is born, or she miscarries or the child is stillborn. Either way, this is confirmation that Book Jeyne's fate and the contents of her womb do not matter. Robb Stark's baby in the books will not exist.

You may yet. It looks like from the 3x10 promo that 3x10 picks up where 3x09 leaves off and shows the massacre continuing outside the castle walls. We haven't seen Wolfhead Robb in this episode, but we may very well next week. On another note, Osha said of Rickon "He'll learn to walk in darkness." I know she was talking about literal darkness, since they were leaving with the cover of night, but DUN DUN DUNNNNN, seriously.

Why make a big deal of the bread and salt if you're not going to explain what they mean? Was there a deleted scene or something? I can only imagine what non-book readers will make of it. It was just so unnecessary. I guess the writers wanted a cute reminiscence about Ned and Cat, and Ned sparing Cat the bedding (presumably out of concern for her, since the beddings seem to be way more traumatic for the women than the men) would certainly qualify--something along the lines of "Ned loves my hair" since I don't think they wanted dialogue for Cat after Robb dies, just the howl of grief--but on the heels of an episode where Tyrion also nixed the bedding, and also threatened to hurt people if they insisted on going through with it (Tyrion threatened to geld Joffrey, Ned threatened to break jaws), the parallel's pretty obvious. Nah, they'll all come crawling back, just like we did to the books. :D Well, grain of salt and all. Arya also "prophesied" that someday she would put a sword through Sandor's head. Unless the writers are seriously going to deviate from the books, no one thinks that will happen, do they? Sandor's "prophecy" did cause me to prick up my ears a little bit, though. I can totally believe Arya's kindness might get her killed; heck, it almost got her killed in this episode, when she tried to go to the castle to try to save her mother and brother despite knowing the danger.

Interesting "prophecy" for Arya in this episode from the Hound: the Hound telling her that her kindness would get her killed someday.

Did anyone notice that TV Cat tells Roose that TV Ned forbade the bedding at Cat and Ned's wedding, saying it wouldn't be right to break a man's jaw on their wedding night? Book Cat remembers her own bedding, so this is not true of the books. I'm just going to point out that TV Ned (retroactively) did the same thing TV Tyrion did in 3x08, one episode before (put a stop to the bedding and threaten violence). I know a lot of fans were joking about how Tyrion is the new Ned, but wow. Just...wow. ...Not to mention Ned would never put a stop to a tradition like the bedding and threaten violence if he didn't get his way. A very, very odd change from the books.

There's no way she could have done it in the show without coming off as a dick, and the writers knew it.

Man, Gendry's not having the greatest season, is he? I kind of figured Sansa would kneel. I also kind of figured the wedding night scene would play out more or less as it did in the books, only without physical contact and without either Sansa or Tyrion getting completely undressed. There was something kind of funny about Sansa's smallclothes being a white tunic thing (I was reminded of Mormon undergarments) rather than the pink corset/grey skirt combo she usually wears. It was very much "Attention, Tyrion, you're about to defile an innocent, angelic virgin" costuming, heh.

As apt a slogan for the series as "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention" is, there was an even better one in this episode, I think: "We're all being shipped off to Hell together." Indeed.

I guess my problem with Theon is that short of some non-book storyline, he doesn't really have much to do between now and Season 5 except be tortured. So what are they going to do? Have Ramsay take a digit or a toe off every two episodes?

Looking at reactions across different fan boards, it seems to me a lot of things were not immediately understood by viewers (especially non-book viewers) in relation to the King's Landing plot: 1. What Olenna meant when she snapped the quill pen (did it mean her consent to or her refusal of the Loras/Cersei match?). 2. The nature of the bad news Tyrion was giving Sansa. 3. Whose ship Sansa was watching. 4. Whether the ship was sailing away. 5. Whether Littlefinger's offer to Sansa to escape King's Landing was still on the table. 6. Why Littlefinger fed Ros to Joffrey. These things were all apparent to me (maybe because I'm a book reader and I was anticipating a few of the plot twists from spoilers and speculation based on previews and such), but it seems like they've been the source of a lot of genuine confusion. On another note, I did like the obvious Ros/Sansa parallel at the end: two naive, young women who were wary of Littlefinger, obtained better offers (Varys' protection/engagement to Loras) and lied to Littlefinger about it (Ros acting as double agent/Sansa concealing her reason for wishing to stay in King's Landing from Littlefinger), whom he ruthlessly screwed over and fed to the Lannisters (one Lannister in particular, in Ros' case) once he discovered their true intentions.

Something that occurred to me: Sansa is chatting away with Shae about her marriage to Loras (the superior dressmakers in Highgarden, the possibility of inviting her family to the wedding), so Shae knows about the Loras/Sansa engagement. Did she tell Tyrion about it? Tyrion didn't seem terribly surprised when Tywin mentioned the news of the Loras/Sansa engagement in 3x05. Could it be because he already knew? I find it hard to believe Tyrion would sit on that information. Or did Shae choose to keep that information to herself because she didn't trust Tyrion with it? Another interesting point is that Shae clearly knows Loras is gay (the wry "I'm sure he does" in response to Sansa prattling about Loras' love of brocade) but did not choose to clue Sansa in. Was it because she figured Sansa would be happier away from King's Landing even if she knew Loras was gay? Could she not bear to ruin Sansa's happiness? If Shae's as protective of Sansa as she claims, surely she wouldn't want to send her off into a marriage she knew would be loveless, and yet it seemed as if she was willing to allow Sansa to labour under her illusions about Loras without telling her the truth, which is what a friend would do. Very curious. We might never get clarification on these points--whether Shae deliberately sat on the Loras/Sansa engagement and why she chose to withhold her knowledge of Loras' orientation from Sansa--but they do pose interesting questions. We also got a reminder in this episode of Shae warning Sansa not to trust her in 2x06, and Sansa stating innocently in this episode that she trusted her anyway. That seems like a big warning sign that Sansa and Shae's BFFdom has an expiry date.

I didn't find the scene had a smartass tone. I actually kind of liked the decision to cut away, since I think the average viewer would have a pretty decent idea of how the scene would play out: Sansa would be freaking out and trying not to cry, Shae would be furious but trying to keep a lid on it, and Tyrion would be awkward, chagrined and grim. We didn't need to see the scene to understand Sansa's devastation: the wordless shot of Sansa in tears watching her only shot at escaping King's Landing sail into the sunset was all that was needed. To be fair, though, while I personally appreciated the approach the writers took, I saw a lot of comments after the episode wondering what exactly was awkward. They didn't seem to understand that Tyrion was breaking the news of his engagement to Sansa. In the books, yes, but not in the show. In the show, there is no alternative floated at any point. The TV writing indicates that Tyrion is the only husband Tywin will accept for Sansa, and that he has as little choice as Cersei does in marrying Loras. Tyrion asks if there's any way out of the arrangement and Cersei's suggestion is having both Sansa and Loras killed. She's joking (I hope?), but the implication is that both Lannister siblings believe that death is the only way out of their engagements.

Bryan Cogman stated in an interview or on Winteriscoming.net that Loras and Margaery are the only Tyrell kids for now (meaning they can add other Tyrell sons in later if need be), but this episode seemed to rule it out, by Tywin stating that if Loras were Kingsguarded, then succession would fall to Joffrey and Margaery's children. It seemed to rule out any other Tyrell children. Hahaha, when Robb was all, "We're winning every battle, but we're losing this war" I wanted someone to scream at him "And whose fault is that, asshole?!"

On the other hand, she got to watch Tyrion tell someone else he would be marrying her. Ha! It is interesting that Shae didn't want to leave the room. I could see it if it were someone like Littlefinger, but Tyrion? Seems to be setting up Shae's jealousy down the road. Something about Peter Dinklage's acting in the scene with Shae and Sansa gave me the impression that Tyrion was thinking that he would find this really funny if it were happening to someone else.

I'm kind of surprised Tyrion told Sansa himself. Did he and Cersei flip for it or something?

Agreed. Of course, my own take on the lack of prophecies in the show to date is that they've shown just how little many of these prophecies really ultimately add to or are needed by the books.

It was just awesome. Jon went down on Ygritte. Hound/Beric fight was great. Tyrion/Olenna was non-book but a lot of fun. Jaime/Brienne was everything I hoped it would be and more (and Jaime grabbing Brienne's hand in the 3x06 preview!) I'm also liking TV Selyse, who knows about Melisandre/Stannis and is on board with it. TV Shireen is so horribly precious. Tywin was appropriately terrifying with Tyrion and Cersei. Everything was great. That Gendry/Arya scene with a good bit of non-book dialogue broke my heart. "I could be your family." "You wouldn't be my family. You would be my lady." It broke my heart. Bawwwwww!

Hahaha, cosigned. Get on it, HBO! Yes. And when it comes to the Tyrells, it's not really paranoia if they are out to get you. The Tyrells were a big blind spot for Tywin, and his refusal to entertain Cersei's concerns is the first glimmer of this. He does have a point when he implies that Margaery being a civilizing influence on Joffrey might not be a bad thing, though.

There was one huge gaping plot hole in this episode which really bugged me. Varys knows that Littlefinger is heading off to woo Lysa Arryn. He is doing so on Tywin's instructions, to bring her into the fold. However, Varys is assuming that Littlefinger is banking on marrying Sansa Stark. Littlefinger can hardly marry both of them, though. Does he think Littlefinger's just going to renege on his promise to bring Lysa Arryn into the fold and marry Sansa Stark instead?

Dany was amazing. It's all downhill from here for her, but that was awesome. Funny that the Hound hasn't mentioned Sansa yet. It seemed like the bit with Sansa confirming that Mycah had attacked Joffrey would be mentioned by the Hound, as he did in the books. Seems odd. Looks like the Tyrion/Sansa engagement will come up in 3x05 (Tywin mentioning a "plot" where they need to act first sounds like what Tywin said in the books where he broached the issue, and there was a quick cut to Sansa in the promo after this in case we were in any doubt on the subject), but the wedding isn't until 3x08. Seems like a big lag for wedding planning, especially since the synopses for 3x06-3x07 allude to wedding-related stuff. I seem to recall the Tywin/Tyrion/Cersei conversation and the wedding proper being really close together in the books. Is Sansa going to be flitting around blissfully unaware for the next three episodes? Or will she have some warning? So, who leaks the news of the Loras/Sansa match? Tyrion, on information from Shae? We know from 3x04 that Littlefinger hasn't left KL yet, so it could be him, I suppose. It looks as if we'll know by the end of next week, from the looks of it. Interior of the Sept was gorgeous (and the exterior wasn't too shabby, either). The Tyrion/Sansa wedding will be a nightmare, but at least the venue will be beautiful.

Haw! Well, he is a bastard... Do the books use "bastard" in the sense of a synonym for "jerk"? Because that could get awfully confusing.

Spoilers for TV show:

Looking forward to all the silly hand puns in TV critics' reviews of this episode, by the way. The wordless rearranging of the chairs was so funny: Cersei dragging her chair to the other side of the table, and Tyrion moving his chair to sit opposite Tywin.