[Book Spoilers] Pre-airing Discussion

[gogorath]

If I recall, Tywin was at Harrenhal in the books, but just didn't meet Arya/Arry/Weasal. He left to supposedly go West to fight Robb, but really went South to King's Landing to take Stannis by surprise. He left the Bloody Mummers & Ser Amory Lorch in charge when he left.

Also, episode 10 is entitled "Valar Morghulis" according to HBO

Yep, Tywin was at Harrenhal. In fact, after using her first two deaths and upon Tywin leaving, she realizes that she's been wasteful and stupid. She could have picked Tywin or Joffrey or Cersei. It's a great part for me, and in her head, so I don't know if we will see it, but the whole progression is very young kid growing up.

[SerArthurHeath]

Why won't it work? Just looking for an explanation, not saying that it will but I think if anything it's a device that works better on TV

[Mendoza]

This is the first episode title of season 2 I actually like because The Ghost of Harrenhal is just another way of saying Arya Stark.

[Ashas Globetrotter]

When will we see the houses of the undying do you think? And do you think the scene will live up to the book? Will they show it at all, or will be just hear a narrative as dany comes out the door? excited and scared...

PS! Blackwater. Anyone read may edition of empire? quote from director Neil Marshall: " The B. episode is pretty much one long battle,on a much bigger scale than anything in Centurion (..) ..and A saving Private Ryan like beach battle with all these guys getting shot to pieces.." Sounds massive:-)

[PatrickStormborn]

When will we see the houses of the undying do you think? And do you think the scene will live up to the book? Will they show it at all, or will be just hear a narrative as dany comes out the door? excited and scared...

PS! Blackwater. Anyone read may edition of empire? quote from director Neil Marshall: " The B. episode is pretty much one long battle,on a much bigger scale than anything in Centurion (..) ..and A saving Private Ryan like beach battle with all these guys getting shot to pieces.." Sounds massive:-)

Episode 7's description says that "Dany receives an invitation", so it would appear that the Undying will be shown then. :)

[Tyrionthebest]

Episode 7's description says that "Dany receives an invitation", so it would appear that the Undying will be shown then. :)

The summaries were updated since then and indeed it mentions the House of the undying .

[gogorath]

I wouldn't bet on seeing Brienne and Jaime's escape involving boats. It's expensive and difficult and would be one of the first things rewritten.

[J_Crews]

... the Bloody Mummers cut off Jaime's hand and I don't think they will be shown this season. Also, Jaime is with Brienne, on their way to King's Landing, when he gets his hand chopped off. So Catelyn and Brienne would have to make it all the way back to Robb's camp (since there is no Riverrun as yet), Catelyn releases Jaime, the sends Brienne with Jaime to King's Landing. There would have to be a bunch of changes for all of this to take place before the end of the season. And who would they have cut off his hand, if not the Bloody Mummers? Curious how all this will play out on screen.

If you read the episode summaries that have been released (I posted them on her a while back), you'll see where I'm coming from. Considering what's been said about them moving part of his story arc forward and how TV works in general, him losing his hand is a logical cliffhanger upon which his Season 2 arc can end. That would still leave about 2/3rds of his ASoS face-turn/redemption journey -- and since we know ASoS is being split over Seasons 3 and 4 (assuming ratings hold, which I think is a good bet), that works out almost perfectly to tell us what Jaime will be doing over the rest of this season and the next two.

As for who will do the cutting, who knows? It could end with he and Brienne being captured, I suppose, by some non-descript peons, who could then take him to Hoat next season... but having such a dramatic, life-changing event happen in an early season episode? I can't see them wasting such a perfect cliffhanger, in favor of a less dramatic one.

Maybe Ser Amory Lorch will turn his cloak and Vargo Hoat will be eliminated entirely (hope not). Surely, they didn't cast Lorch just to have him kill Yoren, then get eaten by a bear.

[J_Crews]

if that's their attempt to make Jaime a swordsman before he loses it all, it sucks. Show don't tell, especially on a visual medium with no privileged access to private thoughts and where it is very easy to forget words but images will last a lot longer.

Pffffffffft

He killed Jory quickly but as he's basically a mook it's pretty irrelevant.

He was the captain of Winterfell's guard, second in rank in the garrison only to the Master-at-Arms Ser Rodrik Cassel. Far from a mook.

He loses to Ned in the eyes of the Unsullied (they all were sure he was going to lose and that's why the guard intervened).

If that's what they think, then they need to pay better attention or stick to less challenging fare such as Dancing with the Stars.

He gets captured and they mention in passing that he killed 10 men. So what? Missed opportunity to demonstrate what happened in the books where Jaime makes Robb's tactical superiority nearly redundant by almost cutting down Robb.

Wasn't shown in the book either.

Robb with nothing to lose refuses to duel him- of course Robb would lose, he's a teenager in his first battle!

Who's been learning swordplay since he was old enough to carry a wooden practice sword, and who is subsequently proven to be as good a field general as any of the greybeards who think him a boy... and better than most of them.

This Kingsguard are specifically non-skilled Lannister cronies.

The only point you made that might hold water. Easily fixed by adding dialogue between he and Brienne as they travel, explaining how Trant and the others are shits and the Kingsguard is only a shadow of what it was when he was selected, etc., etc.

Now he is going to be seen, without the insight into how both characters are feeling and without the emphasis on Jaime fighting bound and after months... of capture that in the book left him underweight... to lose to a woman in his next fight.

A woman who has already been shown to have bested Ser Loras, who is universally known to be an elite knight and figured prominently in the conversation the 2 soldiers were having last week re: who is the best swordsman in the kingdom.

[J_Crews]

I could never figure out from the books, and George never does much of a job of explaining it, just why did Robb leave Winterfell so vulnerable? Seems from the books there never was enough defense set up or boots on the ground... when , even as a outside threat it was possible for someone to make a raid on the place.

I thought the statement that Robb had taken all the young fighting force away was kind of lame, should have been possible to have recruited enough locals and 'tribal types' to have at least made it harder to take Winterfell.

But that's the way it is in the books, it's a plot hole to me.

Historically, castles were often lightly-held when an army marched and usually manned only by those too green, injured, fat, and/or old to be much use in a battle. A castle's walls are its defense, of which Winterfell has 2, separated by a moat. The ironborn scaling the walls and swimming the moat in the dead of night to take the castle with a small, stealthy force was rather daring and not something that could have been foreseen. Plus, even lightly-held, there should've been regular watches/patrols; somebody dropped the ball with Ser Rodrik gone (he also took a slew of men with him, remember) and was, likely, sleeping on duty, etc..

[SerArthurHeath]

Eh, we are clearly not going to agree on this

[Arkash]

Who knows..maybe they will have the Hound leave her to go on an adventure with Ros instead.

I think it will be a good idea... yeah, really looking forward for it... =D

Well, apart from this, seriously, about next episode... it seems we will see Yara / Asha, since she's the guest of Thronecast for next episode... so I guess we'll have at least a scene of her raiding on Deepwood Motte... I hope.

[Frost_Nocturne]

Spunky Healer girl is only pretending to be foreign spunky healer girl- she is Jeyne, for whom Robb fell when she healed him. I'm hoping they show the Jaime escape, Jaime gets a sword and kills some guys then the alarm is raised and the Lannister men with him killed before he can get away. Robb with his bodyguard will block Jaime off and tell him it's all over. Then he will try and do what he did in the book at Whispering Woods- do some good in his last stand by trying to cut through to Robb and cut him down, preferably with a snarky comment to start it off. He will get to Robb, killing the bodyguards that get in his way, disarm him like a pansy and go for the kill. Karstark's son will push Robb aside, meaning Robb gets badly wounded instead and Jaime kills Karstark Jr but gets his sword trapped as guards pile in. He gets taken down and surrounded with crossbows which he then says he hates. Jaime gets chained up nice and tightly, Karstark wants him dead, Robb needs healing which he gets from Jeyne. Boom.

This would be amazing. I can see that happening, and how it's Nicolaj's favorite scene.

I have high hopes for this episode. Particularly looking forward to Jaqen/Arya and his first assassination. No idea who it would be though. Polliver and the Tickler would make sense for the show, but that would screw up her later confrontation with them at the inn with the Hound. A great scene when she stabs the Tickler to death in mockery of his interrogation and finally gets needle back. She wouldn't be allowed to have needle as Tywin's cupbearer.

I agree with those who are concerned about how many storylines this episode seems to have. 4 or so focused storylines each episode work best, as ep 3 showed. I'm glad Bran gets another scene before Theon takes Winterfell (very curious to see the Winterfell story play out this season), and that we get to see more of Stannis and Davos, but at this point we'll have Renly's camp, KL, the Fist, Qarth, Winterfell, Stoney Shore, Stannis' camp, and at least 2 scenes in Harrenhal.

[Drogon's Personal Trainer]

Strictly speaking, the Dontos plot doesn't have to be introduced properly before the third season.

But if that's the case, why introduce him in Ep 1 at the tourney? They could have just used a random knight to illustrate Joff's cruelty there. If we're not going to get any more of Dontos all series, viewers will have forgotten he was the guy Sansa helped with the whole 'make him a Fool' suggestion. And as the actor said - in a post upthread - he was meant to have at least some screen time already but he's been cut. Weird decisions. We'll have to wait and see.

[Arkash]

I agree with those who are concerned about how many storylines this episode seems to have. 4 or so focused storylines each episode work best, as ep 3 showed. I'm glad Bran gets another scene before Theon takes Winterfell (very curious to see the Winterfell story play out this season), and that we get to see more of Stannis and Davos, but at this point we'll have Renly's camp, KL, the Fist, Qarth, Winterfell, Stoney Shore, Stannis' camp, and at least 2 scenes in Harrenhal.

I dont know about the Stoney Shore... I'm quite certain we will see Asha (see my above post), but I wonder in what circumstances, and I bet we wont see the Iron Born raids on the coast, too expensive, but it would be fucking amazing scenes: pure Vikings pillaging and burning, I'd love to see this in the show !

[Drogon's Personal Trainer]

If they don't have Ian McElhinney under contract, they shouldn't even try to introduce Arstan.

Please don't try to swap actors on us (eg Mountain), for this character it would incredibly confusing. Just pay the man!

(null)

I think they could do away with the deception of Whitebeard altogether, to be honest. It never fooled me when reading the books, and didn't really add that much to the plot. I think for viewers it would be cool to have him turn up to help Dany after he was so ceremoniously dumped from the KG by Joff and Cersei in Series 1. It would also set up a nice dynamic conflict between him and Jorah.

[Maia]

Tywin instantly recognized her as a girl.

This didn't make sense, actually. She had been in the stockade for a couple of days already and would have needed to relieve herself. There was nowhere to hide there, so she should have been revealed - like in the books.

If Tywin is a sharp as he think, then we will quickly recognize her as highborne (remember Roose's monologue with Theon about the pronunciation of "My Lord"?

To be fair, Roose Bolton, who is also not a dummy, never recognized her as a northener _or_ a highborn, and despite the fact that he must have seen his share of Starks at various ages, he didn't recognize her very prominent "Stark look" either. Book Arya always liked to associate with servants and common people, so I suppose that she may have been able to speak as one too.

OTOH, it always made zero sense to me that Bolton didn't recognize her northern accent. Particularly, since we later learned that Arya isn't particularly linguistically talented. And that her appearance didn't seem curious enough to him to warrant taking her along when he left.

As long as Tywin didn't know that Arya was missing nor that she was supposed to be a fiery tomboy, he'd have no reason to suspect her identity, IMHO. OTOH, taking a northener as a cup-bearer, when he must have had several squires and tons of servants seems completely out of character. The only explanation I can come with is that maybe he'll want to question her about the North?

At least Bolton could be sure that she was on his side... and the whole thing was an elaborately cruel joke, anyway.

[SerArthurHeath]

Arya picks up languages in aDwD pretty well I thought?

[Carne]

I wouldn't bet on seeing Brienne and Jaime's escape involving boats. It's expensive and difficult and would be one of the first things rewritten.

Gwendoline Christie said she did some canoeing this season.

[boojam]

Opps he did say 'I', gack, Benioff and Weiss wrote that episode , someone send them a message that could still be dubbed in correctly.

In the novel it is:

"The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life. This girl took three that were his. This girl must give three in their places. Speak the name , and a man will do the rest."

Hmm... I just discovered even George slips up with Jaqen. When Arya is tricking Jaqen into Weasel Soup she has him swear to keep his final promise. He says : "By the seven new gods and the old gods beyond count I swear it"

Neither George nor his publishers proof reader caught that one.