Meddler

I've been wondering if they'll do the sequence where he tries to escape with Kyra. It would feel a bit redundant to his initial escape attempt with Ramsay, but they do seem to be hinting that they're going to keep the love-of-the-hunt aspect of Ramsay intact, so I have a feeling we'll see another escape attempt thwarted. Otherwise I do think it's mostly going to be Theon getting broken and transformed into Reek. Not necessarily just tortured, but broken, to the point where he's viewing himself as "Ramsay's creature". I do imagine some of the ADwD stuff will get moved up to season 4, possibly the Moat Cailin stuff, but it may be more just some of the details, like why Reek starts rhyming is name with everything and earning a bit of Ramsay's trust and getting to sleep with the dogs and eat meat. It doesn't actually cover THAT many pages in the books, but there's really a lot that the show can cover between Moat Cailin (which may not actually be Moat Cailin, we'll see), Barrowtown, and the Winterfell wedding--even expanded on. They could show Roose conspiring with the Karstarks, some of the story with Alys Karstark and her escape (maybe they could even have Ramsay try to hunt her with or instead of Cregan, fail, and go on a tirade), all the murders at Winterfell, etc. A lot of the specific details of the dynamic between Ramsay and Theon will likely be moved up into semi-invented stories, since those are things we don't see in the books until much later, and that would also clear room for more heavy plot lifting with this arc during seasons 5 and 6. I also wonder if they're going to even include the Maderly/Glover subversion. There's no Wex, so no one knows Bran and Rickon are alive besides Theon and Ramsay at this point. Maybe they'll blend Wex in with the Liddle at some point this season and have the Liddle serve that purpose later for Maderly and Glover.

Probably stuff that will come up more in season 4. They've really avoided going deep into historical stuff until absolutely necessary. I don't believe Aegon and Rhaenys were even named until this season. I also don't believe Sam found a horn with the dragonglass FWIW, interesting implications there too.

Mel sure doesn't seem to believe she's a fraud in her POV in ADwD, I can dig what you're saying in a sense though. She's definitely frequently mistaken in the books, but obviously has power. She also seems a bit more independent than Thoros in terms of her relationship to any kind of central church. Both in the books and as verified in this episode, Thoros was on a mission given to him by some sort of institution. Nothing like this is ever really implied with Mel, she's always seemed a bit more on her own. Another thing that just hit me, the theory that she's actually dead/resurrected and that her beauty and youthful appearance is a glamour has some serious implications for her reaction to meeting Beric if true.

Well in the books, it's pretty strongly implied that Tywin is in almost complete denial of the notion that Jaime won't inherit the Rock due to his vows. Perhaps this is even part of what Cersei was thinking when she dismissed Barristan, setting a precedent for Jaime down the line. However, Tywin calling specific attention to the same set of details as they involve Loras is interesting, you are right about that. I wouldn't say it's completely out of character, but it does raise some problems the show is going to have to find a way to deal with, and ones that they could have quite easily dealt with just by giving Loras a brother, even if they'd made Garlan or Willas a younger brother or something. I kind of figured from the beginning that Cersei was going to have to marry Loras, or at least get engaged, but she would get out of it the same way she tried to dispose of him in AFfC--by encouraging to go on a borderline suicide mission to take Dragonstone unnecessarily. That seemed the natural course when Cersei was told she'd marry Loras.

I do think it's a bit messy, but I am digging it. They basically took the Hornwood Inheritance, the Reek storyline, and the background we hear from Theon in ADwD and rolled it into one package. It serves a number of purposes. It shows off Ramsay's cruelty (introduced in the book via the Hornwood Inheritance), his deviousness (the Reek storyline), informs Ramsay that the Stark kids are still alive (also happens during Reek), shows the darkness surrounding House Bolton prior to the RW (expressed more through Roose in the books, difficult to do in the same way in the show), etc. I didn't really get the point making Theon think he was in the Karhold, that comes off as confusing to me to non-readers who are still trying to figure out what's going on. I guess I see what they were trying to do, but I'm just not sure it was a good idea to use the Karstarks, since they were serving another purpose at the time--it's something that makes readers kind of raise an eyebrow, but seems totally plausible to non-book readers, and doesn't do anything except give them ammo to misunderstand. If they'd used something more random (maybe the Hornwood as a nod?), a place the first-time viewers would be skeptical about, it might have played a bit better. There are a few things like that about the whole thing that didn't feel "tight," but overall, I do think it's one of the stronger elements they've added to the narrative, and I definitely get what purposes it's meant to serve.

Also possible, but that would entail getting Gendry back to the Brotherhood, which I just can't see happening in the show at this point. They sold him out, he was clearly hurt by it, and they're taking money seemed to reinforce that this was not meant as a benevolent or redeemable action on their part. All I'm saying is after seeing the Gendry go off with Mel, and it becoming clear he was replacing Edric, my gut reaction was that it seems much more plausible now that Edric has a more important role in the future of the story than Gendry, which wasn't something I really gave much credence to before. I'd read other people speculating such, and never really thought much about it one way or another, but this seems like a point in favor of such speculation, since the book Gendry storyline seems likely, for all intents and purposes, over, and the Edric one is directly replacing it.

Sure, but I'm far from the first one to propose he might come back. That kind of story dressing is indeed characteristic of GRRM, but so is having something appear as such only to turn out to be crucial. I definitely wasn't a huge Edric theorist until this episode of the show, but it makes me wonder why they couldn't come up with an easier way of replacing Edric. At the very least, it takes Gendry way on a different path, and makes me think his story is less significant than I'd hoped (I always liked him in the books).

Originally tried to post images of all three of them, but take a look at pics of Renly compared to Anguy and Gendry in the show too, Anguy actually kind of looks a bit like Renly, while Gendry doesn't really at all. Could they be setting Anguy up to be another of Robert's bastards somehow....?

I would have thought so as well just based on the books, but that's more just based on the heavier role Gendry has had so far. There's plenty of speculation that Edric's role isn't over, and his departure and function to this point is quite a bit more ambiguous. Gendry's served a number of purposes, and there's not a whole lot of hint that he has anything important left to do. Edric's function still seems like something of a mystery. After watching this episode, I definitely came away leaning more towards the idea that we'll see Edric again in the books, and that in the show, Gendry is just going to take over that story, since he doesn't really have any huge functions that we know of left to fill. We only really see him again in the books after this point when Brienne shows up at the Crossroads Inn, and he doesn't do anything that Anguy couldn't do. The only thing we'd miss out in is her confusing him for Renly, and that could still theoretically happen sometime later if she encounters him on Edric's path.

I think there's a key piece of the Theon story that's being missed by almost everyone. It's not just an excuse to give Alfie Allen screen time, and it's also not just a replacement for the Reek storyline. It's also a replacement for the Hornwood inheritance problem. This was the first we hear about Ramsay at all, and even if we don't directly meet the character, it shows his extreme sadism and brutality. This is an important aspect of the character, and one we don't get with the Reek story. With Reek we see the deviousness and cunning, but we don't see the sheer brutality. Transmuting the Reek and Hornwood stories into the "Boy" story shows both elements of the character, and yes, gives Alfie Allen something to do. Beyond that, I think it's also a setup to show non-book readers some of the darkness that surrounds House Bolton. In the books, we get a decent sense of this through Roose, but in ways that would be difficult to depict in the show--the way people feel when he speaks, his interactions with the other lords, details about the history of tensions between House Bolton and Stark, etc. For newbies, it would be completely shocking not just that the RW happens, but that when Roose is actually the one to finish Robb, it would be downright confusing. He's been Robb's most trusted general for the last two seasons, whereas in the books he has very little direct interaction with Robb after they split up at the Twins.

I actually think it's the opposite. I think it's a hint as to Edric's potential importance in later books. It definitely seemed as though Gendry felt betrayed by the Brotherhood, it's hard to see him winding up back there. But if he just takes over Edric's story from here, it seems if anything it's a hint that Edric could be important down the road, since they're killing off the Gendry storyline in favor of the Edric one.

Had a thought for how we might potentially get Arya's Crossroads Inn scene into the series after this episode, thinking about the whole setup with Mel hinting she'll kill three people (the three sets of different colored eyes). In the books, we know that that Arya kills three people between this point and the end of ADwD: The Tickler, Dareon (who also go a name drop in this episode), and the moneylender. However, the Tickler's already dead, and the other character who gets killed at the Crossroads Inn (by the Hound) is Polliver, who is yet to appear in the show. However, we don't really have any role for the Mountain during the Red Wedding for the show (in fact, has he even appeared yet this season? I don't believe he has). In the books, he's feigning a pursuit of Roose Bolton, and supposedly catches him by surprise as he's crossing the Ruby Ford. This turns out to be a ploy to remove some Stark Loyalists from play prior to the RW and spare some Bolton supporters from having to attend the massacre though. When the Mountain arrives at the Ford, the only men yet to cross are a small rear guard of Manderly Knights along with some Lockes, Norreys, and Burleys, who are Stark-loyal mountain clansmen. Roose then leaves behind Ryswell, Cerwyn, Hornwood, and Barrowtown men to guard the far side of the ford, supposedly to prevent the Mountain from crossing, but really because these are factions that would later support him when he's granted the North. None of this is going to happen in the show. That leaves the Mountain free to potentially show up at the RW, perhaps in a confrontation with Sandor and Arya. Maybe Arya will see one of the Mountain's Men kill someone (or something, Grey Wind anyone?). After some family drama between the Cleganes, the chaos will allow the Hound to escape with Arya, but Arya's got a new Mountain Man added to her hit list (Polliver perhaps?), someone they can then run into at the Crossroads Inn in season 4.....