Dragonstoned

Think the smackhead in Sherlock who Watson incapacitates is Black Walder Frey? Some nice meta-comeuppance if so.

Cheers for resuscitating this. Incredible. Maybe she wouldn't have had a better chance at seducing his horse?

At least this frees up all the Stark fans to join the church of Stannis next season.

2am in England, going to bed now and getting up later for the mayhem on here and all the unsullied collectively losing their shit.

Think you're onto something here, could well be they're worried the average viewer will think Jaime knew about the RW. They don't seem to give the audience a huge amount credit and that makes a lot of sense actually.

There was a clip of a rider amid what appeared to a battle and a Tully banner, looked like the attack on the camps so fingers crossed!

Mmn I made that same post of mine last week and spent the preview threads to the first four episodes going 'can we please have the Frey reaction to Robb's oathbreaking this time?'. With only one episode until the RW I think anxiety has started to kick in for many.

This is plausible, but if someone's told you to pass on their family's regards it's more natural to pass on their family's regards, rather than just that person's. We'll see.

Imagine he will repeat what Jaime said. It changes the meaning slightly as it could be interpreted as Roose making a comment about the Lannisters organising the whole RW, whereas if it was just 'Jaime Lannister sends his regards' it is Roose almost pathologically passing on his regards, indicating he's already committed treason by meeting Jaime and not bringing him back, but as something basically unrelated to the RW.

Tbf the showrunners haven't shown a lot of understanding of the RW. I mean they get the core principle which is Robb and Cat betrayed and killed but given how they cite it as their motivation for making the series they don't seem to care much for the build-up or anything else that happens around it, Robb oathbreaking, the Freys being previously very involved on the Stark side, Robb's plan to retake the North, the massacre aspect that comes from the other northern lords being killed with them. Early days obviously and I expect the scene will be everything everyone hoped.

I think it's more of a throwaway remark than outright simplifying. Robb and Tywin are both exaggerating the hopelessness of the northern position. Similarly Tywin wants to emphasise how long ago it was that dragons worth fearing were around.

Well that is the crux of the 'book purist' debate, some people's expectations for faithful adaptation were too great while others aren't that bothered, it's just what you went into it thinking.

This. Need more mountain clans. re the Balerion date, isn't it just another case of rounding up for convenience, like Tywin again saying how Robb had lost half his men.

And if you etc. etc. Ran just calls the bear pit sequence the most disappointing, excuses it by the fact it's a trained bear and says it's no-one's fault. Not exactly piling on the criticism. The review takes more of an issue with Cat, Robb & Talisa, the Theon scene 'inane dialog' which were all written by GRRM. There are also comments on how it's not Martin's best. Stop seeing anti-showrunner messages where there aren't any.

If you read Ran's episode review you would see he is equally critical if not more of this week's episode. Sorry to burst your bubble but there's already been a lot of criticism in this thread and I expect it to continue. Just cos GRRM wrote the episode doesn't make it immune from criticism, nor people's opinions on its flaws redundant.