The Killer Snark

I think they're located northwest of the Wall, but I might be totally wrong.

DarkGeomancer - Yeah, the cannibalism thing seemed off to me; the other wildlings still have standards. I dislike it when the writers tone things down, but it tends to seem a bit incongruous and self-conscious when they try to make certain things more lurid than in the books. I'm reminded of Stannis' jarred foetus collection in that infamous moment in season 3.

First of all, the nits should be addressed so they can be got out the way as soon as possible. I'm not too keen on the slightly PC-conscious whitewashing of the opportunistic (in the novels) Shae and Cersei. Everyone who's read the books will know that two of the scenes they are involved in treat their characters at odds with the way they actually behave in the book series, so I wonder how the writers are going to deal with Cersei's batshit zaniness when adapting her chapters in the fourth book. I'm not keen on the way the Thenns and the natives of Skagos were shoved together. On with the positives: I think the casting and treatment of Oberyn is great, and has been well worth waiting for, and despite objectively not a massive deal happening in this episode, the diversity of scene and pacing meant that it just flew by. The final Arya and Sandor scene was excellent, though technically it actually arrived too soon in narrative-matching terms, which means that Arya will indeed be in Braavos by the end of the fourth season; it is shown in one of the trailers. Maisie Williams has grown into the progressing complexities of her character by growing into a very good actress. Oberyn is one of the only characters so far in the series whose physical appearance and general deportment are pretty much in keeping with the character in the books. The Daenarys scenes will just continue to get slower and slower, but the writers will just have to make the most of it. The dragons scene was very cool. We all know with the next episode what we're going to be in for, so if this episode were totally perfect, I'd still hesitate to give it full marks until I've viewed the second to compare them, but on its own terms I'm perfectly happy to give this one a nine. Probably the strongest opening episode we've had in Game of Thrones so far. Darkbringer - I prefer the old Daario also. It might at least have been better if he looked physically similar to the one they had before, but even his body language is different. It's not the actor's fault, but until and unless he grows on me I think it's a miscast.

It's been posted. I noticed that myself though when I finally got around to reading LotR.

The High Sparrow is fairly blatantly influenced by the figure of Girolama Savonarola, IMO.

Plus Howard Hughes had obsessive compulsive disorder, which approached a psychotic degree of neurosis because there was no understanding at his time period so much as there is now of the affliction, so there was no adequate counselling available or treatment, unless you were fond of electric shocks. He was mentally ill, but sane. Aerys, however was completely batshit crazy, so the analogy is not apt.

I noticed that myself. One thing that stands out is Lady Macbeth's attempts to make her husband look like a weakling when he feels so much guilt over the murder he evidently isn't sleeping with her. Very Cersei. I'm quoting from memory, but a line she has runs something like, "...this strange and self-abuse, is th' initiate fear which wants hard use." It means that Macbeth's self abuse, meaning guilt, is the fear of the novice murderer which gets dulled by further 'necessary' killing. It's also a rather dry piece of innuendo. She implies that he masturbates instead of sleeping with her, 'self abuse', this being akin to the fear of a virgin faced by a woman; the situation 'wants hard use'(of her) in order to satisfy needs he isn't fulfilling because of his guilt. Very Cersei, IMO.

I don't think anyone else has ever picked up on this, but the showdown between Oberyn and Gregor reminds me a fair bit of the deathmatch between De Racine and Protoid in the third, originally the last, run of Bad Company in 2000AD. Since Martin is a self-confessed comic-book nerd, I would find it actually suprising if he's never followed 2000AD. Anyway, without going into the backstory of Bad Company, De Racine intervenes to save one of the main characters from death at the hands of Protoid, a monstrous shape-shifting alien whose craft they are aboard and who is the central villain of the third story arc, who has just been revealed to be intending to kill the rest of the party spread out across the planet below. Racine has undergone many body modifications to turn his body into a cybernetic arsenal; he's also smarter than Protoid, so despite how one-sided the fight seems on paper he hands the alien's ass to him on a platter and loses whilst gloating because he lets his guard down, not realising Protoid is a physical extension of his ship. From what seemed certain victory, he dies a swift but horrible death by having his face sliced off by an enormous pair of surgical shears. Similar to what happens in Oberyn's contrapasso; both characters die through massive facial injury after taking their victories for granted; both are arrogant, handsome, permanently jaded sensualists who annoy other people with their attempts at dry wit. De Racine used to be a member of an Elite Earth fighting force but maybe left on account of having become bored of it; like Martell, he is fond of using poison, via his hidden biological weaponry: he can fire tongue-darts. In fact, he has undergone a highly expensive operation to have his blood transfused with a toxin poisonous to all life forms with the exception of himself.

I get the sense that the Children may have tapped into and used the 'consciousness' of the weirwoods in a very similar way the Elves awoke the sentience of the Ents. Martin plans to write an encyclopedia for the series (hopefully not now - George, just finish the damn thing!), so maybe this will be clarified.

Getting back again to LotR, the relationship between the ancient Elves and the Ents is very similar to that between the children of the forest and the weirwoods, IMO.

Thank you. Actually, I picked up on 'weir', meaning 'weird' first; I think it's an old Scottish word. I'm Scottish; it's probably still used way up north.

I reckon both, regarding the use of 'weir' in 'weirwood'. A weir (meaning dam) retains and diverts water, just as the trees retain the thoughts of the forest, and divert them via telepathic intercourse.

And the last few of those Emperors were political puppets anyway, so everyone was happy until the family line dropped off. I wish I knew who to credit with the TV Tropes and Idioms excerpts I used to fill up my first post. Anyway, back in their heyday, the unique Habsburg appearance due to association with power was quite fashionable for a while, a case you might call it of the 'Emperor's new clothes'. Does anyone else think that the appearance of the Freys might actually be down to family inbreeding? I'd kind of assumed that via some telling correlations in their sprawling family tree.

A lot of them suffered from prognathous jaws so long that they were actually deformed, sometimes with malformed tongues, so that not only could a few of them not close their mouths, but they also found it hard to talk properly. Common among them were oversized foreheads as well. The jaw thing was popularly known as 'Habsburg lip'.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Looking at that family tree more closely actually boggles the mind. I wonder what the Targaryens' would look like. Probably a very similar shape.

The following comes courtesy of Television Tropes and Idioms, and is the work of another writer or writers: The Habsburgs were inbred even by the standards of European royalty, which might not have been a problem except that their matriarch (Juana de Trastamara aka "Juana La Loca", known in old-timey English sources as "Joan the Mad") became a total basket case after the death of her husband Philip the Handsome (their marriage, fortunately for them and unfortunately for Spain, was Perfectly Arranged); she ended up incarcerated by her own father Ferdinand and, later, her son Carlos I/Charles V, who had to be told to treat his poor mother better as a condition to be elected Holy Roman Emperornote Yes, this is that Charles V. The one who might have been ruler of all Europe (save England and France) had it not been for the emergence of Protestantism. That one.. Don Carlos, the rebellious son of Philip II, was insane to the point of being physically dangerous and would take swipes at passing servants with a knife. Ferdinand II's favourite occupation was rolling around in the bin. Even the more mentally stable scions of the dynasty tended to feature a massively disfigured lower jaw, often to the point they could not even close their mouth. The trope's picture is a portrait of Charles II of Spain, last Habsburg King of Spain—and the art style of that time tended to gloss over any blemishes someone had (much like fashion magazine photos today) so in all likelihood, his looks were even worse. He was physically and mentally disabled as well as disfigured (he had the "Hapsburg Lip" to such an extent that he could not close his mouth; that's why his tongue is poking out). His subjects nicknamed him "The Bewitched". Unsurprisingly, he closed the Habsburg chapter in Spain by not perpetuating his genetic pool, constituted among many other issues by his grandmother being also his aunt. After all, Charles descended from Juana La Loca just 14 times... twice as a great-great-great grandson, and 12 times further. When your grandparents' most recent common ancestor is their great-grandmother,note For most people, their spouse's MRCA is ludicrously distant-past and her name is Joanna the Mad, you're not off to the best genetic start in life. It should be pointed out, however, that recently a lot of historians are questioning Joanna's madness. Witnesses who weren't paid by the ones who wanted her throne claimed she had opened the coffin of her husband once (which was the custom at that time, to ensure the right person was being buried). Yes, her throne: technically she inherited it from her mother Isabella and was a queen in her own right, a fact that annoyed her father, husband and son equally. While she most likely was depressive and passionate, her "fits of madness" mostly broke out when her children were taken from her or when she was locked up for years. Who wouldn't have fits under such circumstances? (By way of comparison, England's Queen Victoria was morbidly depressed for decades after being widowed and avoided almost all official business, to the point where leading political figures seriously considered declaring a republic just so they could have a full-time head of state to rubber-stamp their decrees; nobody thinks of her as insane, just broken-hearted.) Oh, just go ahead and link to Charles II's sordid, warped 'tree' that doubles back on itself◊. The Habsburgs felt that not marrying fellow high royalty was beneath the worth of a true king. They were also devout Catholics, and half Europe went Protestant after 1521. Furthermore, the greatest Catholic country remaining was France, which hated the Habsburgs and constantly was at war with them (although that did not prevent them from marrying each other a lot). This meant that the Spanish and Austrian branches of the Habsburg family married each other a whole lot. Taken from The Other Wiki: According to the medical coroner, Charles' body "contained not a single drop of blood, his heart looked like the size of a grain of pepper, his lungs were corroded, his intestines were putrid and gangrenous, he had a single testicle which was as black as carbon and his head was full of water." The only non-Hasburg genetics Charles had gotten in at least four generations was the syphilis his father got off a prostitute. It was simply throwing swamp water into a backed up sewage line. Now compare it to the following, also from the same site source. It's easier quoting here than using my own words: "Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss that coin into the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." —Barristan the Bold, A Song of Ice and Fire The page quote comes from A Song of Ice and Fire, in which the royal Targaryen line is blessed with greatness as much as it is cursed with madness due to centuries of inbreeding. It started with the first Targaryen king, who was a great man but unfortunately married and had children with both of his sisters (a family tradition, his parents were brother and sister too); from there on out it's been a crapshoot. The line has produced many able warriors, statesmen, and scholars as well as a rogue's gallery of tyrants and psychopaths. Some Targaryens begin quite noble and lose their grip on sanity as they age, such as King Aerys II— by the end of his reign, he was known as King Aerys the Mad, and in the end his excesses sparked a revolt that toppled the dynasty. Daenerys, the only POV character with Targaryen blood (so far as we know) seems to have come out fine; her brother, Viserys... not so much. The books do give us some other normal Targaryens— Rhaegar (universally loved, killed in Robert's Rebellion), Maester Aemon of the Night's Watch, and Aegon VI, who it turns out is still alive— and is essentially the opposite of Joffrey. Note: So it seems that Martin had some historical precedent for Aerion 'drinks wildfire when drunk because he thinks it will turn him into a dragon' Targaryen somewhat. Incidentally, it was the hydrocephalic, tongue-deformed Ferdinand "I am the Emperor and I demand dumplings" the First who used to sit in a wastepaper basket and roll around the floor in it, not Ferdinand II.

Surprised I'm the first person picking up on this one, but the evidently mad Slaver's Bay captain The Little Pigeon appears to be a parody of King Friedrich Wilhelm I, of Prussia. He was one of the more respected rulers of his generation, insofar as he avoided warfare, but he consolidated his own army early on, and then decreased expenses at court in order to build up an army of supertall soldiers averaging 6 to 7 feet. The Potsdam Giants, as his regiment wound up called, was recruited from all over his empire, even to the point of kidnap, though they were never risked in battle, on account of his fetishistic affection for his troops. He once confided to a French ambassador, "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers--they are my weakness." In other words, he was most likely a closet homosexual (it ran in the family), in which case what was actually a menagerie of sorts he was weirdly in love with no doubt provided the inspiration for another wacky character, The Yellow Whale. Friedrich Wilhelm used his troops purely for drill practice and parade in front of amabassadors in order to show off his military might, but also in later years had them march in front of his sickbed. They were led in their marches by their regiment's mascot, which was a bear. So the idea of a very short man attempting to compensate for it by building an army of giants on stilts dressed up as herons isn't actually so far fetched, since there was actually a half-mad ruler of Prussia to serve as inspiration for two of the zaniest commanders of Slaver's Bay.

Don't know if this is coincidence, and there's certainly no relevance, but Lothlorien in LotR was originally founded near an elven city called Tirion. Plus Frodo's father was called Drogo.

What Jon Flowers said, nearing the end of Fellowship myself. Gandalf realises they came from Mordor because there isn't even blood about.

I'm not too sure about that one, but you're right about where Martin lifted the name Florian, methinks.

The way that Margaery is framed by Cersei on false accusations of adultery, and the treatment of some of the suspects afterwards (somewhat) is lifted directly from the framing of Catherine Howard, on the same trumped up charges, by the councillors of Henry VIII, because they thought after her execution if they convinced the king, he might remarry into a family that would sway his hand again to his Reformation. They picked on two handsome young men, Thomas Culpeper (whose stand-in is The Blue Bard), and a dandy sensualist who had been Catherine's friend since childhood, Francis Dereham. Prior to Queen Kate's beheading, Dereham's death was unspeakably grisly - he was traditionally drawn and quartered, hung to near-unconsciousness, then fully castrated and killed through disembowelment. His severed head and limbs were then posted to each direction of the London walls. Culpeper was spared the mutilation whilst alive and allowed to die by beheading first, because of his prior closeness to the king. Some tell of Catherine's 'adultery' differently, but it is generally agreed the whole thing was a set-up on account of her family's religious affiliations. I guess they shouldn't have let her marry in the first place the worst tyrant and monster who has ever sat the English throne. Noted: Edited to correct my prior historical inaccuracies, because I wrote my post from memory and hadn't rechecked my facts.

Shiera Seastar is blatantly modelled on Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I wish that Martin had fleshed her character out more beyond one reference in the somewhat variable Dunk and Egg tales; everything that's known of Shiera Seastar was actually added by proxy to her Wiki entry after finishing the last tale.

The term 'warg' is lifted straight from Tolkien, if no-one's brought that up before. I'm only on the second of the six LotR books at the moment ('tis not actually a trilogy), so I don't know yet if the context is the same.

Being burned at a stake is a symbol of heresy, therefore in historical terms we like to think of such people as candidates for martyrdom. Martin throws in historical allusions constantly, so sometimes you can sort of predict where he's going. Jon is slightly based on Julius Caesar, Joffrey is Caligula, Cersei is Messalina Valeria, Ramsay is a combination of Nero and Gilles de Rais.

They are assuming Dany's prevarications and single-mindedness are going to get her killed. I love Dany, but I honestly don't see her surviving till the start of the seventh book.