The Scabbard Of the Morning

Shireen teaching Davos to read with the history of the Targ book will also mean a lot of opportunity for history info dump about the Targs.

Yeah, the babies in jars will replace the leeches, of that I am sure. There are 3 of them and really there is no reason to have them there unless they plan to do something with them.

Loras was in love with Renly and said that he could never love another in the books, here he jumps into bed with random guys he just met.

Arya's scenes were great, but they needed to be longer, Arya's story needs to be given some time to breathe. I think her arc is the one most underserved this season.

"There are no masters in the grave" and the slave praying for death. An interesting call back to the origin of the Faceless Men?

Pretty sure the Shadowbinder is just another term for red-priest in the land of Asshai. Rh'llor is the God of Flame and Shadow. I don't think you can be a shadowbinder unless you're part of his religion.

The progress was her internal development, her fear, her anger, her loneliness, and her desperation, her need for vengeance, all leading to becoming more more inured to violence and killing, to the point she can casually kill without feeling anything. Now ask yourself, does this shows version of Arya show any of those characteristics? This showArya is playing a game, the bookArya was playing for keeps.

I'm really unhappy with the changes to Arya's story. Arya slices a man's throat in cold blood and whispers "Valar Morghulis" on her way out of Harrenhal. Harrenhal was the beginning of Arya's journey to becoming a cold blooded killer. Nothing about show!arya coveys that she has that level of darkness in her. I think they have messed up her character arc in ACOK pretty badly, and given how Arya is my favorite character this is really ticking me off. ETA: HOTU in episode ten better be as freaking amazing as it was in the books (although I'm not holding my breath given what they did to Bran's 3-eyed crow dream), because otherwise the entire Dany story this season has been a big waste of time.

Arya was never a 9 year old apprentice in the House of Many Faces anyway. She was either already 11 or very close to it.

Since there will be no bloody mummers, I wonder if they will have Karstark cut off Jaime's hand.

Yeah, people seem to have trouble understanding the difference between Dagmer serving in the role of Ramsey in this adaptation, to Dagmer being actually Ramsey in disguise.

Yes but even in AGOT when she encounters Mya Stone she felts a twinge of shame for how she treated Jon. Cat is not perfect, but she is self-aware enough to own up to them.

I think the changes they made to why Catelyn releases Jaime was made to make her decision less of a purely emotional freakout decision and more of a "get the most out of a bad situation" decision. The show is implying that without Robb there, Jaime was a dead man before the morning, so Cat would rather have the chance of getting her daughters back, than a corpse of Jaime Lannister that is of no use to her. It makes Cat's decision more palatable. I don't mind this change to make Cat a less hated figure among the fandom. FWIW, I never hated Cat, I actually quite like her a character and frankly I think a lot of people hate her for entirely the wrong reasons.

Can I just say that I love Rose Leslie's performance as Ygritte. She's exactly how I envisioned her, except probably prettier, which only makes me like her more.

I think it's because they changed the purpose of Jon/Qhorin's mission. In the book they were just scouting, so letting her go wasn't a big deal, now they are going for a sneak assassination, so they can't afford to have anyone give warning, and have Mance be ready for them when they show up at his camp.

Yeah, I have to say I'm not crazy about the Harrenhal storyline. BookArya would never have revealed she knows how to read, she was so much better as disguising herself and aware of the need to remain hidden. Which is the perfect set up for her Faceless Men future.

I don't mind the change to Dany's storyline, they have to give her a little extra something to do. I'm fine with that, I'm sure she'll still end up at the same place as the books. Her storyline in ACOK was kinda boring, so they wanted to add some excitement, I'm fine with that. Plus it never made sense that no one ever tried to steal her dragons. So having at least one attempt will get that out of the way, and we won't have to hear "how come nobody ever tried to steal her dragons when they were little?" My complaint about this episode is that the dialogue was a bit off, especially the Robb/Jeyne conversation, it just didn't work for me. I also felt that the whole killing of Lorch scene was silly. Surely Tywin would be tearing the entire castle apart looking for a killer in their midst. Instead he acts as if nothing happened?

No that would be me.

Anybody notice that Melisandre's necklace and Quaithe's arm bracelets/facemask have the same pattern?

I do agree that book Stannis is more sympathetic than show Stannis, but then again most of the people who like Stannis didn't like him in the books until after he showed up at the wall, and gave his "duty before claim" speech. So maybe we should give show Stannis some more time.

Well it's never said out loud since we don't get Qhorin's POV but it can be inferred from the text. The first time Qhorin meets Jon, he asks "It's said that a direwolf runs with you." Basically indicating that fact above all else interests him. And when he asks for Jon to come, he says " The old gods are still strong beyond the wall, the gods of the First Men, and the Starks." I take that as he believes that the Stark's supernatural connection to the Old Gods (of which the only manifestation so far any one can see is in Ghost) would be of benefit. And after Mormont agrees to let Jon go, literally the first thing Qhorin says to Jon as they leave the tent is "We ride at noon, best find that wolf of yours." So in very scant few sentences we see Qhorin speak, he bring up the wolf time and again. He's clearly interested in Jon because he's got Stark blood and he's got Ghost.

I don't think Quorin picking Jon was all that surprising in the books. In the books their mission was simply to scout, not "assassination" as in the TV show, and Quorin makes it clear that he wanted having a well trained Direwolf along would help them in their scouting. He takes Jon because Jon commands Ghost, but he was more probably more interested in having Ghost come than Jon.

They have to set up Jon's warging at some point though.

Remember what happened to Bran's three-eye-crow dream last season, yeah, that same fate will befall the House of the Undying visions. I just hope they keep the "3 fires, 3 mounts, 3 betrayal" line, that's the best case scenario.

I am just glad that after a really dark and depressing episode last week this episode had such a light and humorous tone, with NO sex scenes of any kind. I'm glad the D&D recognized that you can't just have a relentless depressing show and expect the audience to stick with it. I think it was very important after last week's episode that we have a non heavy episode to keep the casual viewers interested, and it's good that the show producers recognized that.