Whitering

Arya probably doesn't have to kill her. If Rickon pops up as King of the North or whatever and Sansa rises as Queen of the Vale and Arya shows up somewhere UnCat may just expire, she really thought all her kids were dead save Sansa who was wed to a Lannister and a Dwarf. Cat had no reason to suppose that Tyrion would be relatively nice to Sansa. So, pretty much everything seemed lost when she was killed and that's the assumption she's running on. I mean, now she knows that Arya is alive somewhere and had been traveling with the Hound, and that Sansa has escaped KL but in the end she never valued her daughters the way she valued her sons, whom she still thinks are dead.

The big difference though, is there fleet would be rebuilt, pretty quickly, because of the reason it is so big in the first place; commerce. They have the wine, they need to ship it, big money. I am seriously wondering how the Ironborn even get the fleet they did in the last 20 years. I would have just assumed it was more or less destroyed back during their rebellion. Edit, oh there are slave soldiers whose honor may have kept them in line for a long, long time, and they probably led fairly comfortable lives, but this is THE SAVIOUR of their religion they have been sent to fight. They might not be rebelling for freedom, something they haven't done before, but for religion, maybe a lot more important to that group of people.

I guess my problem is that few of the characters to this point seem as capable as they did in books. Tyrion certainly does, I guess Robb. Well, hell, maybe most of the characters are. I mean, the changes are well written and all, but Arya does not seem as daring, as intelligent nor as desperate. It's a good actress and I get that it's a TV series on a budget, but a lot of what I considered key scenes have not been replaced with something equally as powerful. Dany also is missing a lot of the confidence she had gained throughout the series, I mean, we see glimpses of it, but it's not always there. Well, I do enjoy the show, but I don't know if that's because I edit them with my memories of the books or not. In the end I gave the episode a 7, but the highest I have ever given is an 8.

Wow, they made Jaime worse than in the books.

I guess for me the actors are all fine. My problem is Arya's arc at the moment. Yes, I love her book character, so I am biased. In the book the brief time she and her companions were free before being captured by the Mountain was an important in developing her leadership qualities. While they still managed to convey her shrewdness, they missed an important bit. I also don't like how Yoren gave her the idea for her mantra. Somehow, her hatred was shown to be more pure when she came to that on her own. Also, being captured by Lorch, is not the same as being captured by the Mountain. Though they are both horrible, Lorch does not convey the great malevolence that the Montain does. I suppose the show might have them meet up, but they missed an opportunity. The Mountain made it onto Arya's list for what happened during that time in captivity; Lorch made it on for killing Yoren. Probably the storyline of the trip with the Mountain was just too incredibly brutal even for HBO.

Well, I just got around to watching it. I gave it a 5 being, what I would consider, and average show. I don't understand the moves the directors are making. Why is Littlefinger telling Sansa about the Hound instead of the Hound himself? Do they mean to minimize that relationship while pushing Littlefinger and Sansa? I guess landscape and ease of shooting changed the Dothraki into nomads who wander through verdant lands. Okay. Dany's storyline kind of jerks along, jumping from lily pad to lily pad, whereas the books have a much smoother character progression. Sam and Jon talking about girls? Why? All in all, pretty average. That's how I've felt about the whole series so far. If I wasn't a gigantic geek fan of the books I likely would have dropped it already. I watch it now more just to see how they are going to mess about with the books I love so much. It was like this with the Lord of the Rings movies for me. I liked Fellowship, I could understand the changes they made, and why they made them. The second movie lost me though, I couldn't see any reason for the changes they made, while there were no Ewoks running around, it still turned me off and I never watched Return of the King. There have been no gigantic changes yet, but these little ones that just keep nibbling at me.

I voted 8 and it had nearly all to do with Arya and Tyrion. The actors are fantastic. I am a big Sean Bean fan and the small council guys all seem well suited the their roles. Varys is just the right amount of oily heh There is a show I watch called Make It or Break It. I Tivo every episode and skip large parts of it, this hour long show becomes a 15 minute episode the way I watch it. I filter out all the characters I don't like and all the teenage angsty crap. I noticed I skipped right over all the Dany stuff this episode. I certainly don't do that when I read. All in all pretty good, I hope to see more of Arya over the coming episodes. Edit, an oh ya, I agree about Old Nan, her 20 seconds there made the White Walkers way more foreboding and scary, in way less time than the intro to episode 1 did in a much longer time.