Weeping Sore

thanks! love the gif. What's working for me is I can totally see Thoros lifting this tiny cloaked thing up to his ear and making pronouncements. Then somebody wrests it away from him and finds out it was just a potato. I swear, every second with Paul Kaye onscreen as Thoros is pure gold.

Forget unTalisa. I want unNedfetus. He could have a little cloak, and Thoros could keep him in his pocket. Maybe his commands could be so quiet that only Thoros could hear them.

The fake hanging of Edmure is pure comedy gold. Show Edmure & Brynden are a great pair and I hope we see them again at Riverrun.

Boy I hope they don't cast anyone else as Stoneheart. How many scenes does she have? Surely Fairley could be convinced to shoot a handful of scenes over the next couple of seasons. It has to be her to have the righteous feeling of vengeance against the Freys, and also the "she's still alive! err, that's not really her anymore.." queasiness that gives Stoneheart her essence.

Found the fight scene super-fun, but out of place. I agree the conclusion was awkward, really the first false notes of Dany's S3 thread. I wish this could have been a Stark/Snow-only episode, but they may have wanted to avoid telegraphing the ending with a little, "see, there's other stuff going on, too, the wedding is just a sideshow..."

If they were going to have her age explicitly stated, they should have just said 15- slightly more believable, and still too young for Tyrion.

On the show, Robb had made an alliance with Renly via Catelyn, though it's unclear how explicitly Stannis knows that. Might make him less hesitant.

Thanks! As a Verhoven fan, I'd been meaning to see Black Book anyway- now I've got another reason. Verhoven would make a good GoT guest director, come to think of it. Maybe the fighting pits episode in Meereen?

Dany's always been pretty casual about being nude, it didn't seem out of character. Also, where is Mel from? Lys? Was she a bed-slave before she joined up with the Lord of Light? This might have been Carice Van Houten's best-acted scene to date. Which brings me to my point about the nudity. I have a lot easier time with it when it's a real actor (acting while nude), as in this episode, rather than nudes-for-hire who couldn't act their way out of a paper bag, as in the last one (Ramsay's girls).

If Tywin finds out about the Ros murder, it might trigger his little confrontation with Joffrey, where Joff gets sent to his room without supper. Not because Tywin cares about the whore, but because Joff is out of control. I agree Cersei would take it as a motive for Tyrion's killing Joffrey later. You'll recall in a Littlefinger/Tyrion scene they made a point of Littlefinger saying "I know...I know" to Tyrion about the true nature of Tyrion's relationship to Ros and Cersei's misunderstanding of it. That plus the Penny & Grout show...bang! Tyrion's in the bag.

Plus- Barriston schooling the champion of Yunkai in place of Strong Belwas! Though I doubt he will shit afterward.

8.5 Agree that the Stannis scene was jarring, but I think we're just seeing a Stannis low-point. It's an arc. We're going to see him climb out of it. Pod scene. Sorry, waste of time. Is anybody watching just marking time through all the plot points waiting for boobs? Love the chairs. Strong Dany scene- not as rushed as episode 1-Astapor looks awesome- a big step up from Qarth last season. Boy does Craster have it coming. Great scene. Quite pleased with Locke & company- can't wait to see events at Harrenhal, likewise the further adventures of Theon & the Bastard. Over too fast! What happened to this year's episodes being ten minutes longer?

I've seen a couple non-book readers misunderstanding who is torturing Theon, thinking the Ironborn have him. If you recall from S2, Robb's bannerman Roose Bolton sends "his bastard" to Winterfell from the Dreadfort (check the map, it's relatively close to Winterfell). Robb said all the Iron Islanders would be spared with the exception of Theon Greyjoy. Theon was of couse beseiged by attackers (remember the horn-blower). The Ironborn then turn him over to save their skin. Now, the report via Bolton says that Winterfell was put to the torch and the Ironborn fled, no one has heard from Theon, and there is no sign of Bran & Rickon. But the X crucifix that Theon is attached to matches the "flayed man" sigil of House Bolton. Bolton's Bastard has Theon.

Way late to this thread- watching on my iPad by logging in with a friend's HBO credentials- Am I the only one who has always hated the Asha character in the books? I kind of like the actress because she fits how I feel about the character- she's a jerk! Why is she so damned pleased with herself all the time, and really, her sexual humiliation of Theon (who is admittedly a tool) is really uncalled for and just plain yucky. Ok. Taking a breath. Really the whole Iron Islands plotline just slogged for me in the books and I am enjoying it much more on the show. There, I said it. Better than the books. Theon - perfect. Balon - perfect. Pyke looks absolutely amazing, and I loved the whole segment. Stannis/Mel sex - this was always implied in the book, perfectly played. Stannis is still so rigid and brittle, but human. No reason not to show this, it gives Stannis' guilt an extra dimension when Renly dies.

To be fair, that does point against Benjen as Coldhands. When Bran worries that the wights will kill Coldhands, Leaf says, "They killed him long ago." So right, when a 200 year old person says this, you don't think 2 years ago. But maybe he just meant "They killed him already", and wanted to add a little gravitas to the line. Anyhoo...

Right his mission was to defend the realm but he did have personal warmth for the Stark family. Much like Beric we barely knew him... Still, whether he "counts" or not has no bearing on Brienne, who could be either alive or undead. But I vote alive. Because undead would kill a set-up GRRM spent a whole book on.

Oops erased the quote tags around Fearsome Fred's quote above.

GRRM never suggested only 3 return from the dead. He indicated that of those characters that have returned from the dead, "some" (evidently at least 3) have shown echoes of a particular pattern: focus on mission they had in life, which they focus on to compensate for a loss of humanity. I see no argument from you that we have seen this pattern with Coldhands. And if Coldhands was Benjen, would not Bran recognize him Given that she was being strangled by a noose, it is (at the very least) PLAUSIBLE, that the word she screamed was not intelligible to her executioners, who hence would not have cut her down. Hence, we certainly do not HAVE to accept that she MUST be alive. RE: Coldhands- Benjen was obviously on a mission ranging beyond the Wall- I assume to assess the threat & find out why there was an increase in Wildlings fleeing south; he would feel bound to protect his brothers in the Watch and his family. I think all the descriptions of Coldhands have him hooded with his face not visible- so Bran may not recognize him if he is unBenjen. RE: Brienne- I agree no absolute proof she's alive- but I feel that only as a live human could she embody the dramatic tension between keeping her oath and protecting the man she loves. So I just think GRRM has at least one more test for her as a human.

I won't argue with that. They (the CotF & Coldhands)have to be at the very least, collaborating- I don't think the stag would naturally volunteer to carry a wight as Summer definitely didn't like the smell of him. I'm not sure why I'm resisting the idea of him literally being Warged- it just seemed like he had something of his own personality.

My feeling is that ASOIAF resists a reduction into good vs evil. Moqorro & Melisandra are manichean, absolutely believing they are on the side of light, and absolutely opposing the darkness. There is no in between, and all gods but R'hllor are false gods. I think GRRM as a liberal will repudiate this worldview before the end of the series somehow. I thought he might do it by showing these true believers that they are following a false flame, and unwittingly serving the darkness. That said, you may very well be right about Coldhands. Still, he feels like he is acting for his own reasons (helping out his nephew?) and he's also unable to enter the greenseer's cave (why, if he's being controlled by them?)

I support the reading of unBeric, unCat, & unBenjen (Coldhands) as the three returned from the dead. I doubt GRRM would want to keep resurrecting characters willy-nilly; it is certainly possible according to the laws of his universe, but just ill-advised for narrative reasons (it would just get stale). Death has still altered them pretty severely; I think the reader still feels that Catelyn is gone, for example. I think we have to accept that Brienne is alive alive since we have it straight from GRRM's mouth that she said "sword", and she was going through a slow, strangling hanging and not an instant, neck-breaking hanging. Pretty plausible that she would live if cut down immediately. Also, a living Brienne with the strongest temptation ever to break her oath (to unCat) for the man she loves, is a much more compelling than a revenant eslaved by unCat going to trick him. Tangent: If Coldhands is in the same category as Beric & Lady Stoneheart, it might lend credence to the theory that R'hhlor and the unnamed Other god of Night are one and the same. R'hhlor is shown having real power, but not necessarily as being good. I have a hard time believing that Melisandre and her ilk will be the world's salvation, and somehow I don't think Dany & the Dragons will throw in with them. I think the power of R'hhlor is really the power of the Others in another form, that those returned from the dead are all wights with a greater or lesser hold on their will and lifeforce.