[Book Spoilers] EP201 Discussion

[TheRiderThatMounts]

Anyone else notice the absence of "my giant of Lannister?"

You're right. And, also, it was kind of weird to see Tyrion and his whore in the Hand's Tower.

Didn't the only scene with both of them in the Hand's Tower end with a crossbow bolt in a lord's belly? I may not remember right.

[Towel]

To be quite honest, the wolves in the books are not dire wolves. Dire wolves were not as big and did not have long legs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf

And they weren't that smart either.

he legs of the dire wolf were proportionally shorter and sturdier than those of the gray wolf

You do know what proportionally means right? They were actually quite a bit taller than grey wolves.

Also not to beat a dead horse but brain case size being PROPORTIONALLY A BIT SMALLER than a grey wolf DOES NOT EQUAL "not that smart"

[Rockroi]

So, a few comments on what others have been ssaying:

Dany: I think the show is actually staying very true to the books; in Clash of Kings Dany has five whole chapters (she had 10 in GoT); by comparrision in Clash, Arya had 10 chapters, Tyrion 15. Hence, it should be expected that her scenes and their impact will be few and far between. I thought the scene was fine.

Cersei and Littlefinger: I thought this scene workled for two reasons and they are important. First, it shows how clumsy and ham-fisted Cersei is at the game ("Power is power" might have been followed by LF saying, "You know nothing, Cersei Lannister"). It also shows how she is enraptured by her power and loves makinga show of it (this chaffes when dealing with Joff; hence the only way she can flex her new-found power would be to do as Joff desires). Bu tthe second reason the scene works is by illustrating just how precarious, dangerous and fatal LFs position really is; at the whim of a crazy person; by order of a bad King, a confused Hand or a short-sighted Regent, his life .... ends. That's that. That's the danger of serving men like Aerys and women like Lysa Arryn; THEY decide when "you win or you die." Its why it MAY ACTUALLY be better to servea dangerous man like Tywin or a brutal one like Stannis than it would be to serve a fickle one like Cersei or an incompetent one like Ned. That scene absolutely worked for me.

Clean Craster: I thought the show's producers made a deision to juxtapose Craster's relatively regal appearance with the shit-kicking look of his daughter/wives. I thought the difference was pretty deliberate and it worked.

ETA: Cressen's Death: I actually thought they did the best they could; they had to make it clear that Cressen was trying to poison Mel; that it not be as ham-handed as it was in the book (in the boiok everyone in the world knows what he's trying to do; and its left slightly ambiguous as to whether the posion was taken by Mel or if it stayed in the cup for Cressen) and that the poison worked. By him drinking first it does two things: first, it's him saying "See, this drink is fine. Look! I'm drinking from it." Second, Cressen says that he is willing to die to expose Mel. When Mel sees this she... drinks. BAsically she is saying that these trivial tricks cannot harm her.

[Greywolf2375]

Regarding the "brothet tryouts" - I think the point of that scene was to establish that Ros is now "Chief Whore" or something like that. She has obviously replaced Alaya(sp?) from the books. Give Ros' popularity amongst this crowd, I doubt that makes it any better, heh...

yeah, that was another thing that bothered me about it. One - didn't need the scene in there, two - didn't need her parroting Petyr and C - in 6 months she goes from her tryout to Chief Whore In Charge?

[EnemyoftheDragon]

Loved the episode and all the new scenes:

the cersei\LF confrotion was awesome (and remmber guys LF is a human bieng and pepole make mistakes even stupid ones)

Robb is much more mature and theon seemes to be much more trustworthy better then then books theon.

one thing i d'ont understand is in the talk with jaime:

about what 3 victories was robb talking about he hasent gone to the west yet right?

can someone explain this?

[Tywin's bastard]

I'm surprised at how many people say that Grey Wind didn't look exactly like a real wolf when it actually is a real wolf shot on green screen. That shows a bit on how the critical eye works at times, which also can be applied to how some people are viewing scenes with the sole purpose of comparing changes to the book.

one thing i d'ont understand is in the talk with jaime:

about what 3 victories was robb talking about he hasent gone to the west yet right?

can someone explain this?

I don't think you need any more information about it. It's war and battles are fought. Jaime says that Robb has been travelling around and are lugging Jaime with him everywhere. From that we can just deduct that there are battles going on in the area Robb is now. Not all of them need to be crucial events.

[Ser_Niall]

Overall I enjoyed the episode. I kind of expected it to jump around a lot, they had to introduce a lot of new characters, new location (dragonstone), and get everyone back up to speed. I disappointed with Maester Cressen's scene where he tried to poison Melissandre. It was very dramatic in the book, but just seemed silly the way it was protrayed on screen. He basically had blood dripping from his nose before he had a chance to hand the cup to Mel, who in their right mind would drink that? Maybe they did it this way to show that it was indeed poisoned wine, and not some kind of magic from Mel that killed him? Also, I agree that Craster looked a little too clean cut. I imagined him being dirtier, long unkept beard, etc. For someone wanting good steel from the night's watch, he seems to not be lacking in shaving equipment.

[TheRiderThatMounts]

You do know what proportionally means right? They were actually quite a bit taller than grey wolves.

Also not to beat a dead horse but brain case size being PROPORTIONALLY A BIT SMALLER than a grey wolf DOES NOT EQUAL "not that smart"

My friend, I wasn't comparing the dire wolves to gray wolves, I was comparing them to the dire wolves in the story. It says there, if I remember right, that they had long legs. They were portrayed as tall creatures, lean, more like a great dane than a mastiff. That always made me think the wolves were built for speed, nor necesarily for power.

Now, a gray wolf looks like this:

Since it hunts in packs, it doesn't need to be big and strong. But it is quick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Alsatian

It is said that the American Alsatian was bread to resemble the dire wolf.

It is part English Mastiff.

You can see it is bulkier than the gray wolf, with more powerful legs.

Since dire wolves were part of the megafaunna, they hunted megafaunna. They needed to be powerful because so was their pray. They did not hunt thin, fast, deer. They hunted bigger, slower things that could crush them with ease.

Like I said, I was comparing the original to the fantasy version, not the original to its cousin the gray wolf.

What I saw in last night's episode was a bigger version of the gray wolf. And it looked just like the books say.

[Independent George]

I actually rather enjoyed fully-clothed Ros (wow, those are words I never expected to say). As much as I like eye candy, it's much less distracting this way, and she turns out to actually be a pretty good actress. Her scene wasn't gratuitous; it was a bridge from S1 into whatever role she's playing in S2, and was a nice segue into the whole baby murder thing. I loved the looks of disgust from the gold cloaks at the sight of the dead baby.

Did anyone else notice that Dontos was held down and tortured by the Kingsguard? I thought that was a nice touch.

The Tyrion and Edd scenes worked so well that I didn't even notice that some of my favorite lines from COK were missing (Dolorous Edd on axes, Tyrion's "It seems unjust that you'd open your legs for one brother and not the other.").

[Arataniello]

I can see why the producers might have put in the Cersei/LF scene, if they felt the need to lay a more obvious trail of breadcrumbs for the viewer to follow to understand why LF ends up leaving King's Landing for the Vale and orchestrating the events surrounding Joffrey's wedding.

In the preview for "in the coming weeks" it does look rather like Jojen's greendreams are being rolled into Bran's wolfdreams, and thereby eliminating the Reed children. Not sure what this is going to mean for Bran's storyline after the end of aCoK, when he is making his way north - perhaps they have Osha go with Bran, and some nameless Winterfell retainer go off with Rickon.

Bran's basket looked a bit weird to me, I always imagined it having him riding much more erect, so that his head was above Hodor's - at one point he cracks his head (ISTR) going through a door or arch because Hodor forgets to duck. I guess they had to go with a design that worked, given the size of the actor playing Hodor.

As has been said in many posts above, Lena Headley really seems to have improved as Cersei in this episode, much more like I imagined her being, all "wildfire when thwarted" type thing.

Still no sign of the rest of the Kingsguard being fleshed out, even though a couple of them start having important parts to play in the second book - Preston Greenfield, Mandon Moore, Boros Blount.

[TheEvilKing]

Gonna post my thoughts in random order before reading the rest of the thread.

Joffrey - This kid is an immaculate villain. Holy shit, that scene with Cersei. I'm just worried that they've upped his villainousness so much that he might be a type of season arc-villain, and his death will come at the end of season 2.

Robb - Robb took a level in badass this episode. Second most impressive performance after JG.

Dragonstone - Didn't see enough of Stannis. The dude who played Davos seemed fine. I like the chick who plays Mel (helps that she is smoking hot).

Cinematography - Immense. Sexiest looking episode of the series so far.

Dany/Rakharo - Are they going to bone? I hope so, simply to annoy the purists. Emilia's performance was very good. Quaithe in the next ep?? Really looking forward to seeing her for some reason.

The ending sequence - I was wondering how they were going to give the first ep a solid ending as there wasn't a natural one in the books - I thought it might end with Stannis or Renly being crowned or something. Also, Arya doesn't have much story at the start of ACoK. I think choosing to make the killing of Bob's Bastards more obvious and brutal was a good decision, and sets up a bit of tension for Arya and Gendry.

Tyrion in the Small Council - Just a great, fun scene.

Ros - I just want to congratulate her on her promotion, and for having a scene where she isn't fucking.

Winterfell - The Winterfell scenes were all well and good. I think they did a very good job at handling the warging. It's going to be a very difficult plot element for them. I see it in the flames.

North of the Wall - The Night's Watch scenes were fine. I don't really have much to say about them.

My expectations for the next episode: Can't wait for some Ironborn mayhem and some Natalie Dormer fun. Also moar Varys pls.

ETA: I didn't have a massive problem with the LF/Cersei scene. I think it'll work in that the n00bs will now underestimate him (as will Cersei). But one thing that was bizarre was his access and general vocal performance. Is it just me? He doesn't sound anything like he did in season 1.

[Greywolf2375]

Clearly that wasn't the Strangler.

If that is so, add this to the "disappointment" list - that was the introduction to what that poison can do which is supposed to be important later on.

It's funny, I'm more impacted - in S1 as well - by the detail changes since so many of them are the start of plot threads later on in the story than some of the "we had to cut out XX & YY completely" changes.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

And Osha really grates at me. I know she's a minor character, but she's just this horrible caricature, and why can't she talk without her head almost tilted off her shoulders?

:lol: during the second watching this really stood out for me too. I have no idea why she does that, it is very weird and a little distracting.

[Little Miss Sunshine]

*Tinfoil hat mode on*

was it just me (i dont think so because it seemed really obvious) or everyone else thinks that the "washing Cinderella" will be used to replace Jeyne Poole as Fake Arya? :idea:

[lostinwesteros]

I'm so bad. I watched it three times in a row last night -- but then, couldn't get into this site. Anyway, here's my input:

That scene between Cercei and Littlefinger was really shocking - I didn't think there was ever any conflict like that between them. I did love that after she'd done that to LF, she walked right into a confrontation with Joffrey and was pretty 'roughed up', so to speak, herself. Looks like they'll show Cercei starting to unravel pretty early on.

Loved Robb's conversation with Jaime and LOVED Grey Wind. I know they're computer-animated for TV, but gosh, it's good to see those huge animals and know they're dedicated to protecting the Stark kids. I think Ghost just wasn't allowed inside Craster's Keep.

Why did Craster keep focusing on Jon as a "pretty boy"? And Craster was too well groomed. Was that Gilly that he asked to tell the NW how happy she was there?

I didn't realize we were given a brief glimpse of Rattleshirt - I'll have to replay that.

So sad to see Silver bite the dust. I love the casting of Dany's 'tribe', especially her blood riders. And I wanted to yell out, char the meat, char the meat!

Wondered how they would treat the beginning of warging. I thought they did a good job.

I love Osha.

They're really showing Theon as a devious sycophant right from the start.

[Ran]

What's strange to me is that they don't really need to motivate Littlefinger betraying the Lannisters. He'll betray anyone when the time is right. He's not a Lannister partisan. He was prepared to sell out Cersei to Ned, if only Ned played it the way he wanted.

Events in episode 3 should be enough to shade any personal motive for his actions, and even that's not really needed. So, no, I don't buy that episode 1's Littlefinger-Cersei scene was required. It seems to me that mostly is just exists to get out the knowledge is power vs. power is power dichotomy. Cersei has plenty of opportunities this season to chew the scenery and get across the same idea.

[TheEvilKing]

was it just me (i dont think so because it seemed really obvious) or everyone else thinks that the "washing Cinderella" will be used to replace Jeyne Poole as Fake Arya? :idea:

Who?

I didn't realize we were given a brief glimpse of Rattleshirt - I'll have to replay that.

Say what?! Where?

[Little Miss Sunshine]

Who?

You see her first washing the blood off the floor on Joff's tourney, and then when Cersei and LF are talking about getting Arya back the girl is seen again by LF.... can be me totally seeing more than what was there, but I had the impression it was a like a hint

[Chalkius Stark]

Thoughts, without reading the rest of the thread. Probably all been brought up!

Negatives first!

- Has something happened to Aiden Gillen (Littlefinger), his voice sounded different. It's lost its character

- Craster should have been lean and bedraggled in my eyes, not plump and with a nice haircut. Also, the place wasn't creepy enough.

- The scene where Ros was the whorehouse mistress didn't work(before the Gold Cloaks entered). She's barely been there a few months! From northern whore to southern Madam in a very short space of time!

- Didn't like how quickly Cressen was introduced and then killed. Didn't look old and frail enough to me.

Positives

- Robb was badass 'Is he?'. As was the introduction of the new Grey Wind. Also, NCW played a good part.

- Liked seeing Hannah Murray as Gilly, she seems like she fits the part.

- Tyrion is awesome as always, and Lena Heady has improved.

- Joffrey has become even more unlikable....which is a good thing! Great work from Jack Gleeson.

- Liked Ser Dontos. I recognise the actor from a few things, think he'll be good at playing the fool!

- Stephen Dillane was perfect as Stannis, loved how picky and proper he is about things, seems just right for Stannis.

- I liked Melissandre. I'd imagined her more Christina Henricks sort of sensual and curvy, but Carice van Houten does seem to know how to play the part.

- Davos, Liam Cunningham was perfect. He was who I had in my head when I read his character, he's nailed it. Helps that he's an awesome actor.

- Thought the bastard killings, while harsh, were important, and handled well

[ShadowRaven]

So Joff did know he was a bastard......Did they ever imply that in the books?