Abaddon

We already have an entire thread dedicated to the LF/Cersei scene, can we please keep the discussion there?

If you're going to nerd-rage, you should get it right. The Tears of Lys were (allegedly) used on Jon Arryn and result in a terrible fever. The "Strangler" was used on Cressen; you are correct in that poison does result in asphyxiation and not bleeding from the mouth/nose (which was a little silly IMHO).

You must be forgetting last season, where they had two jousts. I don't mind the change though, there's only so much payoff for having jousting everywhere and it is likely very expensive and complicated to shoot.

7 on first watch, 8 on second. (I think that's the ceiling for me). Solid, at times spectacular. I think much like the first season we're going to see some really great stuff and I think we're going to see it sooner than in the first season (where in my opinion it didn't really take off until Episode 5). After all of the concern regarding the LF / Cersei scene I really liked it. Worst scene, for me BY FAR, was the Bran scene meeting with the complaining bannermen. Dull, dull, dull. Was just a big waste of time.

Please re-read what I wrote. This is an observation regarding how the (inserted, not in the books) Pycelle scene reflects on what we see happening with Dany, and casts a more ominous light on it than we might otherwise view it in. I suppose you could say that Dany burning MMD immediately made you think of the Mad King in the books, and if that's the case, well I guess that aspect of the scene was superfluous to you. I certainly did not make that connection in the book, and I thought the Pycelle scene making that connection worked well to do just that. [EDIT] Just to make sure this is clear, I liked the scene, this wasn't complaining.

Gave it a 9/10. Third best episode of the season, IMHO, behind 9 and 6. I liked the Pycelle scene (although not because of Ros, although I am just indifferent to her). One thing that not a lot of people seem to be picking up on is his talking about how the Mad king went mad and then the next scene (I think?) we have Dany burning MMD alive (sound familiar?). There's a lot of very strong hinting here that Dany is a Targaryan in some bad ways as well as good. We book readers know she hasn't gone mad like the Mad King but I thought it was a great addition to keep the non-readers a little off-balance when it comes to how they view Dany. Anyway, a few quibbles here and there but overall I liked it quite well. I hope a little more comfort and maybe a little more loosening of the purse strings will result in an even better, stronger, more confident, a wee bit more EPIC in the big-scale moments Season 2. Hats off to D&D, George, everyone else involved, we have a classic in the making here that will be remembered as something special for years to come. Just like the books.

My first question would be, do you like the book Shae character, as presented in only the chapter she is introduced, better? Or are you comparing the character we see in Books 2 and 3? Because that's not really a valid comparison. We have no idea what they are going to do with this 'new Shae' (and I agree she is quite a bit different at first blush). Secondly, what exactly about the book Shae do you like better? I always thought she was a pretty uninteresting character and didn't do much except give wicked smiles and pout and call Tyrion "My Giant of Lannister". What makes the book Shae so interesting in the first place? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to pick at you.

Honestly, it would be best if people just expressed their opinions in this thread, and saved their commentary on other people's opinions for one of the discussion threads. I have some of the same frustrations (and have succumbed to the same temptation to respond), but it's really not the place for tit-for-tat criticisms and responses to criticisms and responses to... blah blah blah. There is a difference between voicing displeasure at the show (however shallow the criticism may be) and voicing displeasure at someone's opinion. They are not the same things, and the latter one is the one that's truly out of place here. Again, I am guilty of that too, but next time I am tempted to respond I will try to bite down the temptation and just move along instead...

Well, my vote was a nine, but I think I'll just go ahead and up mine to a ten to cancel out your one (top/bottom 5% of votes being discarded for the average). :thumbsup:

Or, more correctly, managing someone else's money. Since it's not your money they're spending. There are a lot of back-seat drivers along for the ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXM_g3mqew.

Loved almost every part. I understand they had to cut the Tyrion's battle sequence, but couldn't they have shown them charging into battle and then found him unconscious on the field after the battle, next to the corpse of a kill of his? Having him knocked out by his own men was cheap and lame. Very disappointed by that. Other than that... I thought it was easily the best episode of the season. I have to give it a -1 for the Tyrion misstep so 9/10 for me.

Any possible poor acting by Arya was completely overshadowed by the awful stableboy acting. Yikes.

How convenient; you left out the part that indicates that the individual must be 18 years or older for this diagnosis :rolleyes:. And it's NOT "sociopath", it's Antisocial Personality Disorder, a much broader and less perjoritive term.

Sure, and despite any argument you might make, it won't prove she is, either. Personally, the only kill that really bothers me as a reader is her last one. That's crossing a very dangerous line, IMHO. I am very curious to (wait and wait and wait and) see what the next part of her journey looks like.

I don't think it was incompetence either (the rest of the camerawork/directing has been fabulous in my opinion), but it didn't work for me or(seemingly) almost anyone else.

Well, the scene being talked about was in Episode 7 and was pushed into Episode 8 instead. So, it's actually very topical here. That said, I totally agree with your second statement.

:lmao: One, two, three, COUNT, four, five, six, COUNT. Batty batty bat bat bat.

I gave it an eight, too. That says, to me, that it's 20% worse than the best episode of GoT I could imagine. (For the record, I've been giving out a lot of 9's, and would probably give Episode 6 a 9.5, but I'm waiting on a perfect 10). I already think it's better than 99.99% of TV out there, but just saying "well, the series is great, so every episode is a 10" seems pretty shallow to me.

I'm going to go with 8/10. As per my comment in the other thread, it was just too much crammed into too little time. The only scene I actively disliked was Arya's 'accidental' killing of the stable boy. Was glad we got a lot of Robb time and also that they are clearly building up Theon as very much in Robb's trust. They needed to start doing that in preparation for Season 2 and did it well. I thought GRRM did a nice job of being very economical with his dialogue, still managing to hit most of the high points from the book in very little time. Also, BIG props to the actor playing Joffrey and in general to the writing/direction in general in the Sansa/Joff scene; it was so obviously staged (where Joff accepts Sansa's plea 'graciously' despite the 'protests' of his advisors) and it was just done beautifully. It was weird to see Pycelle be so forceful; was it like that in the book? I can't remember.

Now that was funny. :thumbsup:

Gave this one a 9, I'd say it's my highest 9 yet... maybe a 9.3 or 9.4. Very close to giving an episode a 9.5+ = 10 and I think that in Eps 8-10 there should be some great opportunities to do so...

Yes, he does. And it was so early in the books (and surrounded by more interesting things) compared to when Dany finds out that I'd completely forgotten about that by the time I got there, and only really payed attention on a re-read. So I think it's understandable to forget it was in the book.

I'm struggling between an 8 and a 9. Voted 8 but I will probably replace it with a 9 later. I was worried about "Ned Stark: Chuck Norris" but the final sequence worked really well for me, I was holding my breath during the fight and it was just electric. Loved Jaime's expression of being torn between surprise that he wasn't beating Ned and irritation that the guardsman interfered. The transition to the Eyrie was abrupt, but lord it's gorgeous. Did not like the external view of the mountain as it just looked fake but after that everything else about the scene was stunning. Lysa and the breast-feeding of Sweetrobin were appropriately creepy, I practically LOL'd at the expressions on the faces of Tyrion, Catelyn et all as they watched her. GROSS!

I'd be more worried about my son seeing the the Ser Hugh scene than the rather minor nudity (slightly more the simulated sex than the nudity itself). But he's (almost) 6, so I figure I've got another 6 years or so before I can even begin to contemplate watching the show with him anyway.

Don't forget nobody has seen Ep7 yet. The same cannot be said of Ep1-6. I have a hunch that might be a factor here as well.