A Clash of Crows

I wonder if they would have been better off having her just come out of the Red Waste and end up in Astapor. The only value her whole story line gives this season is another level of confidence for Dany: She tries to negotiate; People don't take her seriously; She learns how powerful her magic is/the dragons are; She embodies the "true" Targaryan conqueror traits. I feel like they could have done all of that in Astapor through the process of negotiation for the army, then decides to burn the slave masters. The same points get across and you don't affect the rest of the storyline in any significant way. Just end her arc this season with her forceful taking of a powerful army and start season 3 with her charging through Yunkai(?) and Mereen(?). There's plenty in those stories if they wanted to drag it out too, but the Qarth story didn't seem to add anything the later storylines couldn't handle on their own

Let us make this clear: The show is not the books, the books are the books. If you love the story in the books so much that watching a different story truly upsets you, then re-read the books. Think for a moment about how unreasonable it is to be mad when a different medium ends up being different. Reasons why this was the best episode to date: - Charles Dance (Tywin) is staring to prove that he is the most talented actor on the show. His scenes with Arya have been absolutely outstanding. The growing tension we viewers feel in those scenes around Arya's identity is incredible, and I'm really enjoying being tricked into liking Tywin. Also, the show has so few oppertunites to get the history of Westeros in unless the characters talk about it. - The Jaime escape scene is a really nice nod to the style of the books, even if that scene doesn't actually take place. The characters in the books, especially the Lannisters, use their superior command of language and conversation to make their moves for the throne. The show has a difficult time doing that because of time (think about how abbreviated the conversation between Tyrion and Janos Slynt was when he got him to admit his betrayal of Ned Stark). They really let Jaime be Jamie in that scene to make his move the way book-Jamie would have. - People have found the Ygritte/Jon scenes to be slow, but not only is she extremely funny, but their conversations are doing a nice job of getting the history in. That is perfectly set up for what Jon has to do next. - As they said in the "Inside the Episode" piece, that scene between Tyrion and Cersei was incredible. She has nobody else to talk to but her brother, but she hates him. Her brother has a desire to comfort her but it feels awkward. The Lannisters have so much depth to them now instead of a black and white distinction of evil over good. One can ALMOST pity her in that moment. - I actually thought the Qarth chapters in the book were pretty boring. I'm enjoying those scenes way more in the show. The fact that one can easily guess that the burned bodies are not Bran and Rickon is a little disappointing, but the reveal is going to be so much quicker in this format than the books. There would only be what, two episodes where you thought they were dead? Still, this was a weak point in the show, especially since they were trying to make such an epic moment out of it and didn't quite get there.