Game of Thrones: Thoughts on "Spoilers."

GAME OF THRONES

Season 4, Episode 4

"Oathkeeper"

I only used quotations around the word "spoilers" in the title because my husband insisted that what happened on Sunday night's Game of Thrones episode, Oathkeeper, was not a spoiler because it hadn't technically even been written, yet.

I disagree, so I Googled the definition of spoilers, because that is a thing you can actually do now.  Here's what Wikipedia said:

A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot elements which threaten to give away important details concerning the turn of events of a dramatic episode. Typically, the details of the conclusion of the plot, including the climax and ending, are especially regarded as spoiler material. It can also be used to refer to any piece of information regarding any part of a given media that a potential consumer would not want to know beforehand. Because enjoyment of fiction depends a great deal upon the suspense of revealing plot details through standard narrative progression, the prior revelation of how things will turn out can "spoil" the enjoyment that some consumers of the narrative would otherwise have experienced. Spoilers can be found in message boards, articles, reviews, commercials, and movie trailers.

Suck on THAT, husband.

Anyway, this post on my unpopular blog isn't so much a recap of Oathkeeper, but more a discussion with myself of, not only the spoiler at the end of the episode, but also of the what-the-hell-is-happening-here? story line that is currently taking place with Bran Stark.

I'll begin there and work my way up to the spoiler that my husband says isn't a spoiler and is wrong about.

So.  Bran, Meera, Jojen and Hodor are at Craster's place with the crazy, possibly cannibalistic rapists.  When last we visited Craster's, the crazy, possibly cannibalistic rapists had made the decision that murdering both Craster and also Jeor Mormont was a good idea.  They put that plan into action, Sam RUNNOFT with Gilly and her baby to face down white walkers in the woods and the usurpers were left to it.

Comparatively speaking, Craster's daughter-wives had it way better when he was still kicking around.  They are being pretty regularly raped and beaten, probably starved - who knows what else?  At least Craster seemed less consistent.  Fortunately, we don't spend a great deal of time having to make ourselves too familiar with the atmosphere at Craster's.  It's rape-y.  We get it.

Anyway, back to Bran.  So, someone leaves the baby boy of Craster's daughter-wife in the woods for the white walkers, because that's what they're supposed to do.  Bran and his group are not far away and hear the baby crying.  Bran goes to investigate, via Summer, who then falls into some sort of trap that I'm not certain these guys holed up in Craster's would be capable of making, because I'm not sure that they're capable of much of anything.

Long story short, Bran, Meera, Jojen and Hodor end up being captured by That Guy Who Drinks From Jeor Mormont's Skull and he demands to know who they are.  His friends outside are getting all stabby with Hodor, which makes me sad and is requiring Kristian Nairn to do more acting than they've let him do since the show started.

Jojen has a conveniently timed seizure, which prompts Bran to admit that he's Brandon Stark of Winterfell so that T.G.W.D.F.J.M.S. won't slit Meera's throat, or something.  The vagrant rapists are pleased by this development.

The thing is: none of this shit ever happened.  Like, ever.

I don't remember if Bran and Company are ever anywhere near Craster's while they're traveling, but they sure as hell don't go there and get captured.  You know what else never happened? Jon Snow going back to Craster's to dispense with the rabble.  Jon gets back to Castle Black after he leaves Ygritte and the Wildings and that's that.  He doesn't leave again, friends.

I can only assume that this is being done to elongate Isaac Hempstead-Wright's appearances in the upcoming seasons, because Bran is completely absent throughout all of A Feast for Crows, along with lots of other POV characters.  Martin did this because the timelines were becoming copious and Bran shows back up in A Dance With Dragons, along with all the other missing people.  Still, I hate it when they go so far off into left field and fabricate things that never happened.  I realize GRRM is working with HBO and I'm sure he had a had in it all, but yeah.  None of that happens.

Now on to the spoiler.  Frankly, it isn't as if logic wouldn't lead you to this conclusion on your own.  Why in the world would white walkers be killing babies, after all.  It only makes sense that they would be taking them to make more white walkers out of them.  But, still.  That revelation has not been written or even approached in any of the books, so far.  It hasn't been written.

And, in the aftermath of the episode, I have seen a lot of take-that-you-smug-book-readers type comments and blog posts.  So, let me focus on the "smug book readers" part for a second, because while that is sometimes meant in jest, it's oftentimes meant as a shot at the people who have read the books.  This, because we always know what is coming up and like to do things like film your reaction to The Red Wedding.  Here are my personal solutions to this problem:

1.     If you've read the books and your friend/spouse/partner/grandma/whatever has not and they are watching Game of Thrones with you, don't be a douche.  Sure, it's fun to see their reactions to things like The Red Wedding and the sweet, sweet justice of Joffrey being poisoned at his wedding, but tone it down.  Discuss it with them them afterward, maybe.  Don't say shit like, "oh my god you're going to freak out after this episode."  That spoils the fun of the surprise.  Sure, they don't know what is happening in this episode, but now they know that something is happening, and that takes some of the fun out of it.  And don't be a smug asshole on purpose.  There's no reason to act like you're better than anyone because you know the plot and they don't.  That doesn't even make sense.

2.    If you've never read the books and your friend/spouse/partner/grandma/whatever has, please keep in mind that this is fun for us.  If I had to guess, we probably encouraged you to read the books, right?  We told you that they're really good and you should try them out and you just weren't into it for whatever reason.  So, this T.V. show is a way for us to share a really good series of books that we really like with you.  Now, we get to see how you react to things (the same way we would if you were reading the series, I might add) and we can discuss things with you up until a certain point.  This is cool for us.  We may be a little overzealous, but we don't mean to be (most of us, anyway). 

Now, the spoiler itself in this episode was problematic for me because of the fact that it's something Martin hasn't actually included in any of the currently published books in the series, yet.  So, clearly, it's meant to be revealed later on in an as yet unwritten (or, at least, unpublished) book in the series.  This is an issue for me because I read the books, first and foremost.  My loyalties, I guess you'd say, lie with them, not the T.V. show.  So, when the T.V. show which hasn't even made it all the way through the fucking third book starts dropping spoiler bombs on revelations that haven't been written into the series yet and are major fucking information, regardless of how logical a conclusion it might have been - I have a problem with that.

I understand HBO's concern that they're going to catch up with GRRM considering the glacial pace of his book publication.  A Dance With Dragons was published in 2011, for Christ's sake.  If you look back at the publication dates in the series, Martin clearly has no problem with leaving his readers hanging for five or six years at a time.  But, that's another post for another time.

Anyway, I was thrown out of my comfort zone by the revelation in Oathkeeper and still haven't quite settled in.  I don't like the idea of the T.V. show giving me more information that the books themselves, but I suppose it's obviously something that is possible and, if I want to keep watching Game of Thrones (which I do), I'll just have to get on board.

Fandoms is hard.

Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 3

A Brief Message About Screencapped.net:

 

So, let me start off by saying that I can't post any screen caps.  Why?  Because Screncapped.net has gotten hit with a DCMA claim for screen capping Game of Thrones.  I am not even fucking kidding you.  They are being taken to task for providing screen caps of the show.  Screen caps that people will use for things like this recap, like fan graphics (icons, wallpapers, journal headers, etc.), like things posted on Tumblr - basically things that further and support the show by cultivating the fandom.

But, because HBO (to my knowledge) is being a bunch of assholes, Screencapped.net cannot post Game of Thrones, True Blood or How To Make It In America screencaps.  So, firstly, fuck off, HBO, and get your head out of your ass.  Secondly, should anyone come across this entry, please check out this petition and sign it to, hopefully, bring back the quality screen caps of these shows that Screencapped.net was able to provide.

GAME OF THRONES

Season 4, Episode 3

"Breaker of Chains"

  

There are always spoilers.

So, Joffrey died.  Which we all know and no one, anywhere, is sad about.  Moving on.

This week, people are recovering from the shock of Joffrey dying.  Namely, Cersei is convinced that Tyrion is responsible.  If you've read the books, you know who is responsible and, frankly, I'm not entirely sure why that wasn't revealed when Sansa left with Littlefinger, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We begin with Cersei flipping her actual shit first that Tyrion apparently murdered her son and second that Sansa has gone missing in the turmoil.  Being that Cersei is consistently looking for a reason to imprison her brother and/or just generally make his life miserable, she immediately demands that he be locked in the Black Cells, to the objection of literally no one.

Jaime seems generally unfazed by these developments, at least in comparison to Cersei, and Tywin is just pragmatic and Tywin-y, as usual.  Sansa is being led through the streets of King's Landing with Ser Dontos, who takes her to a little boat and tells her to get in.  They arrive at a ship upon which just so happens to be Petyr Baelish, who is made about a thousand times creeper than he should be by Aiden Gillan's portrayal.  Seriously, he makes Littlefinger seems like so much more of a weirdo that I got the impression he was in the books.  I mean, he's creepy, but Aiden Gillan makes him seem serial killer creepy.

Anyway, Sansa gets onto the ship and Littlefinger predictably murders Ser Dontos because witnesses and, besides, he was just doing it for the gold and who gives a fuck about Ser Dontos?  No one, obviously.  After minimal persuading, Sansa pretty much forgets about Ser Dontos' brutal killing and immerses herself in a conversation along the lines of what the fuck is going on here?  Littlefinger is unsurprisingly vague, so the audience has no idea what is up or where he's taking her.

I'll give you a hint.  It's to The Eyrie.

Margaery is super pissed that Joffrey was inconsiderate enough to die before consummating their marriage, because now she isn't the queen and that stupid, stupid Cersei is the queen regeant again because Tommen is now the king.  She and Olenna have another of their delightful political intrigue conversations in which Olenna points out that Margaery is in a much better situation than she was when she was married to Renly Baratheon.  Margaery assumes she's just cursed because all of her husbands have been murdered.  She might be on to something.

And now, on to the single most disturbing and gratuitous portion of the show:  The Incestuous Rape of Cersei Lannister.

Seriously, what in the fuck?  That scene technically sort of takes place in the book.  They do have sex in the sept, but it isn't rapey.  Like... at all.  Cersei is sort of meekly protesting, not because they're fucking six inches away from the corpse of their psychopathic son, but because they are in the sept and it's a holy place and blah blah the gods.  Although, I'm pretty sure Joffrey is lying in state in the book.  Still, the sex is consensual, although Cersei is sort of halfheartedly saying, "Jaime, we really shouldn't do this here... oh fuck it, nevermind, YES YES YES!"  Jaime isn't present in King's Landing when Joffrey dies (he isn't at the wedding) and so Cersei sees him for the first time, I believe, when he comes to her in the sept.  There hadn't been weeks of angry, sexual tension building up to a rape scene tied up with a bow.

Aside from the totally unnecessary rape, this also irritated me because of what it does to Jaime's character.  I think I saw someone elsewhere pointing out the fact (which I agree with) that Jaime is the same man who murdered the Targaryen king because he was, among many other nefarious things, a rapist and murderer and it had to stop.  Jaime knowingly broke his vows and killed the king to save the lives of thousands upon thousands, knowing that it would disgrace him and follow him for the rest of his life.  Jaime is not a rapist and certainly isn't going to rape his own sister.

I've read a few responses to the scene from the folks at HBO and was less than impressed, frankly.  I think one of them actually said something along the lines of, "It becomes consensual by the end..."  Did it?  Because I was under the assumption that a women struggling and saying, "Stop it," were the opposite of consent.  GRRM made a comment about the dynamic between Jaime and Cersei being different because of the fact that, on the show, Jaime has been in King's Landing for weeks and lots of weird, sexual tension, and just regular tension, has built up with Cersei rebuffing his advances, etc.  However, I'm still not really sure what, if anything, was necessary about the rape aspect of that scene and it didn't sit well with me, frankly.

Anyway, after Jaime rapes his sister next to their son's dead body, the entire episode had basically hit rock bottom.  Up near the Wall, Sam is concerned that Gilly is going to be mistreated by the dudes at Castle Black, so he decides that taking her to live in a brothel is preferable.  Let me stop here to interject that this never happened in the book and I have no idea why HBO felt the need to put it into the show.  Sam and Gilly eventually leave Castle Black, but that isn't until A Feast for Crows, when Sam (along with Gilly and Mance Rayder's baby - long story) is sent to Oldtown.  Maester Aemon accompanies him and ends up dying on the boat at some point, if I remember correctly.

In the show, however, for some weird reason, Sam decides to send Gilly and her baby to a house of ill repute so he can go back to Castle Black and not worry about her being raped.  I have no idea where they are going with this story line.  Literally, none.

The Thenns and the Wildings are out murdering innocent people because these people obviously had everything to do with "their land" being stolen.  Amidst the fray, Mr. Thenn murders some poor child's parents in front of him, then tells the child he's going to eat his dead parents and instructs him to go to Castle Black to tell everyone they're coming.  Jon realizes that he might have made a major tactical error in telling Mance's people that there were 1,000 men at the Wall (although, none of the Wildings really seemed to believe that) when there are just under 100, and that includes all the menial labor fuck ups.  So, basically, Castle Black is seriously boned.

Arya's still with The Hound and some poor, hapless farmer takes them in because Arya tells him The Hound is her father and that he fought for House Tully.  The Hound acts like a dick, because that's really all he knows how to do, and after the guy sets them up for the night and The Hound agrees to work for him (I'm still a little confused by why he did that) he cracks him over the head and makes off with his money.  He very pragmatically, if impatiently, explains to Arya that the man and his daughter will be dead come winter, which is probably true, and that money does no good to dead men.

Arya proclaims him the biggest shit anywhere ever.

Somewhere in there, Stannis is pissed because Ser Davos let Gendry go and obviously the Red God's blood magic is a powerful thing that works, because both Robb Stark and Joffrey are now dead, which is what Stannis wished for with his wish leeches.  Stannis rambles on in a threatening manner for a second when Davos tells him he's rallied three shitty houses to his cause and then that scene ends because even HBO knows that everyone hates Davos Seaworth.

Across the way in Essos, Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, is majorly pissed off at the people of Meereen.  Not only did they string up a bunch of dead people on the way to their city, but they basically tell Daenerys to fuck off when she shows up at the gates, as if no one has any knowledge of what happened to Astapor and Yunkai.  Daenerys decides, wisely, that inciting a slave rebellion will seriously help her cause, so she makes a moving speech and then catapults a bunch of barrels full of slave collars and heavy metal manacles at the city.  These barrels burst and spill slave paraphernalia all over the streets, which miraculously injure no one, planting the seed in the heads of the slaves that they can just kill all their masters, because they outnumber them, and because they're asshole slave drivers.

The End.

Game of Thrones: Season Four, Episode 1

GAME OF THRONES

Season Four, Episode 1

"Two Swords"

Note:  As usual, very little, if anything, is in chronological order.

I’m going to start posting here, again, because Game of Thrones is back on and Once Upon a Time is back on and Outlander starts soon, etc.  So, this post will be about Sunday night’s Game of Thrones and none of it is in any kind of order because it's all from memory.  

It’s both a blessing and a curse that it’s been long enough since I read the books that I can’t remember, with perfect clarity, everything that differs on the show.  It also helps that I’m not much of a stickler for detail, so even though I read the details when I’m reading the book, I tend to forget them in favor of the big stuff.  So, this season, we’ve so far encountered Daenerys, Jon Snow, Ygritte and the Wildings, the Lannister Clan plus one Stark, Arya Stark, Sandor Clegane and Needle and, last but certainly not least, Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand.  We’re going to start there because I fucking love the Martells.

First of all, shout out to HBO for finding a way to let me look at Indira Varma’s beautiful face again without watching reruns of ROME, which ultimately culminate with her throwing herself off a balcony because her husband is kind of a psychopath.  I had completely forgotten that she had been cast as Ellaria, so I got to be delighted all over again when she came on screen.  Oberyn is a bad ass, as well he should be, and is stalking around King’s Landing all, “Tell your dad that the Lannisters aren’t the only ones who pay their debts, bitch.  Imma kill me some lions.”  Oberyn is pissed off because Gregor Clegane raped and killed his sister, which seems like a pretty legit reason to be pissed off.  In the book, Oberyn is there primarily because Tyrion has agreed to secure the Martells a seat on the small council.

They may allude to that at some point later on in the season, but maybe not.  Tyrion (if I remember correctly) brokered a deal with the Martells for a seat on the small council while he was still Hand of the King.  Of course now, as we all know, he’s been replaced by his scary dad, Tywin, and Tywin isn’t too keen on honoring Tyrion’s promises because fuck everybody else.  That hasn’t been revealed in the show, and may not be.  It seems like it’d be just as easy to say Oberyn Martell is there for revenge under the pretense of attending the royal wedding.  Tyrion’s obvious confusion about why he is really there leads me to believe that the producers decided to scrap the whole “small council” thing and just make it a revenge thing.  Simple enough, and it will still work to bring Oberyn to be the plot point he’s meant to be.  So, we can basically assume that, whatever his reasons, Oberyn is there to fuck some shit up.

Jump to Arya.  Arya becomes such a little badass in the books, and her story line gets so fucking weird later on, but we’ve got a little while until that point.  She’s kicking around with Sandor Clegane, The Hound, who plans to ransom her off to her Aunt Lysa who is holed up in the Vale letting her thirty year old son suck on her boobs, or something.  It may be prudent to mention here that Lysa Arryn is batshit crazy and would probably throw Arya out of her sky death window before paying The Hound anything for her.  Of course, I guess Arya can’t know that, so that’s bad luck for her.  

What the fuck's a Lommy?

Arya is pissed off, and with good reason.  Her mother and brother were just brutally murdered and betrayed by that rat bastard Walder Fray and she’s being held (sort of) hostage by some big, smelly, scarred dude from King’s Landing.  I haven’t mentioned, yet, that I love The Hound, so I will. I love The Hound.  He's awful, but I love him.  While traveling, Arya sees the asshole who killed her friend, Plot Point, and stole her sword in the process.  She wants it back and maybe some revenge along with it, and Sandor just wants some chicken, goddamnit.  Cue shabby tavern brawl, in which The Hound beats and stabs everyone into submission and Arya gets to quote last season back to the Sword Stealing Dude and remind him of how mercilessly he killed Plot Point, then stabs him through the throat. Which we can’t really feel all that bad about because he murders children, rapes women and steals people's swords.

 This is for Plot Point, you chode.

So, Arya gets her sword back and gets a horse to boot, and The Hound gets his goddamn chicken.  Mission accomplished.

At some point, we join Daenerys as she begins to confront the fact that her dragons are dragons, not basset hounds, and she is going to have to accept that if she doesn’t want to get her face melted off.  Daario Naharis shows up, gambling with Gray Worm, and accepts Daenerys' sass by giving her random flowers (where the hell did he even get a rose?) under the pretense of impressing upon her the importance of knowing the land she wants to rule, but we all know he just wants to get in her pants and bitches love flowers.  Daario has been recast, which I’m a little annoyed with, because I liked Daario Fabio.  Daenerys and her Big Ass Slave Army are on the way to Meereen, where her story line is going to stall and drag and make you want to strangle her and JUST GO TO WESTEROS ALREADY, JESUS.  Along their way, they find some poor slaves strung up and rotting, pointing the way to Meereen.  They are apparently stationed at each mile marker between where they happen to be and the city, which is 163 miles, so we’ve got 163 dead folks pointing the way as the city of Meereen welcomes their dragon wielding overlords.

 Do you guys think there's a Denny's between here and there?

As usual, Ser Jorah forgets that Daenerys is a bad ass and insists that she wait while some poor bastard begins the arduous process of taking down all the dead people so she doesn’t have to see them.  Of course, Daenerys tells him to go sit down somewhere with a coloring book while she does adult things like stare into the faces of dead, rotting slaves.  I want to pause a moment to ask - who, exactly, was going to get the job of taking down all the dead, stinky slaves?  Because, that is a shit job.  Not to mention that it would probably take hours and the caravan would either have to sit and wait for them to finish, or they’d get stopped several times when the caught up with the dude who was put in charge of that.  

Thanks for overruling that brilliant Ser Jorah idea, Daenerys.  Some low ranking army guy appreciates it.

Back in King’s Landing, Sansa is having a crisis in which basically her whole family has been murdered and she’s having to sit around and drink tea with the assholes responsible for it.  Oh, and she’s married to Tyrion, who is a pimp, but she’s too distracted by all that silly family murdering stuff to notice.  Tyrion clearly loves Shae and is terrified Tywin is going to have her murdered for that reason alone (or Cersei, or anyone, really) so he's trying to keep her at arm's length a it.  Shae is a little slow on the uptake and just thinks he wants a piece of Sansa, so she's getting all jealous.  I see what they’re doing with this.  

Without giving too much away, Tyrion is going to be confronted (this season, should be) with a betrayal of epic, massive proportions and Shae is pretty directly involved.  I don’t recall Martin really playing up any sort of jealousy over Sansa on Shae’s behalf in the books.  After all, Sansa is repulsed by Tyrion and he’s less than interested in her, other than to try and help her recover from his asshole family killing hers, so there’s really nothing for Shae to be jealous of.  In the show, however, it looks like they’re setting up Shae’s jealousy over Sansa in order to have that provide sufficient motivation for what she does, because in the book, it was kind of like, “Damn, woman.  That was cold.  What did Tyion ever do to you besides love you and stuff?”  Apparently, HBO wants to make it a bit easier to see what Shae’s motivation was.  In the books, Shae’s motivation was later revealed as greed, basically, which really kind of made you not be so sad about what happened to her.

Tywin makes it pretty clear that he has no use for men without right hands and tells Jaime he can basically fuck off to Casterly Rock, because no one likes a cripple.  Cersei gives Jaime a commissioned hand made of gold, because that wouldn't be cumbersome and difficult to maneuver at all.  Jaime tries to get his thing on with Cersei who, to Jaime’s confused frustration, rebuffs his advances and then proceeds to tell him that he took too long being held prisoner and getting his hand cut off and left her all alone.  So, he isn’t getting any.  Jaime’s incredulous protests are interrupted by That Girl Who Saw Shae Coming Out Of Tyrion’s Room and this will, presumably, lead to Cersei causing some mischief that will destroy someone or another’s life, as usual.

Brienne shows up while Margaery and her grandmother are discarding precious jewels into the shrubbery and requests to speak with Margaery, whom she tells that Renly Baratheon was murdered by a ghost with Stannis’ face, like Margaery or anyone else really gives a shit about who killed Renly Baratheon, at this point.  She then moves on to trying to convince Jaime to smuggle Sansa out of King’s Landing, somehow.  He calls her difficult and I wait impatiently for the day that they make out and love each other, BECAUSE THEY DO.  Ser Drunk shows up while Sansa is sitting in the Godswood where no one will bother her except drunk dudes who used to be knights.  He gives her a pretty necklace and a remarkably coherent speech for someone who is supposed to be shitfaced, about how his family was toppled from the inside out because of fat alcoholics and he wants his family name to have one more day in the sun.  He thanks her for saving him again and that’s the end of that.  Except that, that scene took place in Clash of Kings and was supposed to be when Ser Drunk promises Sansa that he's going to help her get out of King's Landing, somehow.  The whole relationship with Sansa and Ser Drunk is weird (in the books) and a little on the creepy side.

 What are these made out of?  Robert's gall stones?

Jon Snow is back at The Wall and people are a little pissed off that he killed Qhorin Halfhand.  Telling people that Qhorin told him to do it didn’t really help, much.  I can’t imagine why.  He tells Sam about how Robb was always better at everything than him and how jealous he was of Robb, blah blah.  Sam points out that Jon is better at everything than he is, except reading, and Jon is kind enough to just let that one lie.   He goes to his Night’s Watch hearing, or whatever, and gets sassy with one of the council dudes, who doesn’t believe his totally believable story about Qhorin Halfhand telling Jon to kill him, then proceeds to detail Mance Rayder’s plans to destroy The Wall.  Aemon Targaryen tells Jon to go about his business and hobbles down from his chair.

Somewhere in a Wilding camp, Ygritte is fletching arrows moodily when Tormund sidles up and starts accusing her of letting Jon Snow go, which is a perfectly obvious thing that she did and there’s really no reason to suspect that it happened.  Just assume that it happened and move on.  The Thenns arrive, bag of rotting human flesh in tow, and Xerxes beings an uncomfortable verbal spar with Tormund, culminating with the revelation that the Thenns are cannibals, which wouldn’t be a revelation unless you hadn't read the books.

 

Any of you fucksticks have some barbeque sauce?

The End. 

Game of Thrones: Mhysa

If ever there were an episode of a television show that proved wholly anticlimactic, it was last nights Game of Thrones.  In fairness to HBO, it was a perfectly adequate episode, and what they’re doing is necessary.  Because Martin jumps all over the place with his characters (some of them disappearing entirely for a book or two - I’ll get to that in a minute), there is great deal of setting up you have to do, plot-wise.  I see why they wanted to go ahead and establish that Jaime and Brienne were back at King’s Landing.  That will be important for next season, because Jaime’s presence at King’s Landing plays a significant role in the events to come, particularly those involving Tyrion.  But, I’ll get to those spoilers in a minute.

I don’t recall Arya stabbing anyone to death in the books after The Red Wedding, but maybe she did.  I was so shell-shocked after the wedding itself, that I doubt I’d have noticed if she did.  I’m sure I approved, though.  I’d have stabbed the bastards, too.  Arya holding up the coin Jaqen H’ghar gave her and saying “valar morghulis” was extremely foreshadowing, if you’ve read the series, so they’re clearly setting that up early on.  Which is weird, because that part of Arya’s story line doesn’t get kick started until the end of Storm of Swords, I thought, but Game of Thrones has got me so turned around with doing time lines so crazy, I might be wrong.

Dani’s victory in freeing all of the slaves is a big deal, but get ready to watch her sit... and sit... and sit... and still not have marched on Westeros by the fifth book.  My frustration with Dani knows no bounds.

Jon Snow got shot in the back by Ygritte!  Which didn’t happen exactly that way.  She doesn’t shoot him in the back/shoulder, she just shoots him in the leg.  But she does shoot him, and can we really be surprised by that?  Ygritte is a wilding to the core.  And, if I remember correctly, as touching as the “I love you, you love me,” conversation was, that never happened.  But, still.  Oh, Ygritte.

 What else?  Oh! Tywin is being a dick (shocker) to Tyrion, and basically tells him he wanted to drown him as a baby, but let him live because he was a Lannister.  I guess that means Tyrion won’t be getting that Best Dad in Westeros t-shirt for him.  Cersei is ever a bitch, but I feel sorry for Cersei occasionally, because she really has been handicapped by her gender.  Can you imagine if she were a man?  She’d just rule everything and everyone.  She would be ruthless. 

Also, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy Tywin constantly taking Joffrey to task.  Sending him to bed without supper, while Joffrey is throwing a tantrum and insisting that he isn’t tired.  That little barbed threat that Tyrion threw at Joffrey will turn out to be a big problem for him (Tyrion) later on.

On that note, TO THE SPOILERS!  I’ll go ahead and start with that.  I’m enjoying all of the subtle foreshadowing going on in this last episode.  It wasn’t nearly as heart pumping as The Rains of Castamere, but you can’t murder three main characters every show.  Tyrion’s comment to Joffrey at the Small Council meeting is going to come back to bite him in the ass later on, because Joffrey is, to much rejoicing of the fandom, I should think, going to get himself dead.  Yep!  Just after his wedding to Margaery Tyrell, no less, which is rather fitting considering the tone of the last wedding we saw.  He’s poisoned and keels over at the wedding reception.  Goes all black and green and chokey.

So, of course, Cersei is devastated (probably moreso in the books than on the show - you’d almost think she’d be relieved, the way Joffrey is on the show) and immediately blames Tyrion.  They throw him into the dungeon and decide to have a trial for him, which ends up going poorly, as you might imagine.  He is testified against by Shae, of all people (which is just heartbreaking).  A lot happens that I won’t detail, then Tyrion escapes from the dungeon, decides to shoot Tywin through the gut with a crossbow on this way out (while he’s on the john, no less) and just so happens to discover Shae sleeping in Tywin’s bed.  So, he strangles her to death with the Hand of the King chain (which doesn’t exist in the show, so maybe he’ll stab her with the pointy end of the pin?).  And off goes Tyrion across the ocean.

Theon Greyjoy, on the show, is being ruthlessly tortured by Ramsay Snow (Bolton) because sociopath. In the book, Theon is actually absent from the sack of Winterfell on.  You kind of assume he’s dead for a long while, and then suddenly you’re getting perspective chapters from someone named Reek, whom you discover to be the broken remains of Theon Greyjoy.  At first, when all of this with Theon Was happening, I was really confused as to why they were totally fabricating this story.  Then, I realized (with a little help from a fellow fan) that they were taking the part of Theon’s story that we aren’t privy to - the part where he becomes Reek - and showing it to us.  I imagine this was to keep Alfie Allen employed, more than anything.  I’m sure they’d hate to recast Theon if Alfie had gotten another T.V. gig elsewhere during the several seasons that his character would be gone.

Gilly and Sam are cute as ever, and if I recall, their story line is basically right.  I'm not as interested in their characters as others (although I do love Sam) and their story doesn't really get good and interesting until later, when they leave Castle Black to go somewhere else with Aemon Targaryen and there's a baby swapping plot and Mance Rayder is involved and it's a little crazy.

Basically, hats off to a great season, I'd say.  They've set the stage for the second half of Storm of Swords very well, so I'm excited for next season, especially since Joffrey and Tywin both die, so the playing field (as far as murdered family members) is leveled somewhat for the Starks and Lannisters, even if it was a Lannister who murdered one of the other Lannisters.  Petryr Baelish, if I'm not mistaken, is the mastermind behind Joffrey's demise.  But, no one figures that out and he sails off to The Eyrie with Sansa where he will eventually throw Lysa Arryn out of the moon door.

Because it was way past time for someone to do that.

Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere

As sick as this sounds, I've seriously been waiting for The Red Wedding for the entirety of season three.  Not because I was excited to watch Robb and Catelyn Stark be brutally murdered, but because my husband never finished reading Storm of Swords.  He was so close to it.  He says he remembers talk of Edmure Tully marrying Roslin Frey to smooth over things after Robb Stark went and fucked it all up with Jeyne Westerling.  But, that's the last he recalls.

So close.

So, you can imagine the anticipation I've been in all season, wondering when The Red Wedding would feature.  I can't lie, I was mildly surprised that they didn't save it for the season finale.  I had fully expected them to, and the end of The Rains of Castamere was exactly how I had anticipated they'd end the season.  So, I'm very interested to see what next week brings.

But, this isn't about next week.  This is about Sunday.  The Day the Starks Died.

You can't help comparing the show to the books, if you've read them.  Being that I have, and I knew what was coming, I spent the entire episode up until the last fifteen minutes or so biting my nails and trying to keep a straight face and not fidget too much in my chair.  I thought HBO did such a good job of lulling everyone into a false sense of security.  Things with Dani ultimately went well, even if Ser Jorah was ruthlessly friendzoned.  Arya threatened to stab the Hound in the face, Edmure ended up with a smokin' hot wife, Bran superworged Hodor and we had some tears at Rickon's surprise soliloquy, but it wasn't too bad, and it was for his own good.  Gilly told Sam he was a wizard because he can read.  Jon Snow ran off and left Ygritte, which I'm sure jerked on some heartstrings.  All in all, a fairly typical Game of Thrones, right?

Except for the murdering.

In the books, Catelyn makes a super big deal out of the fact that everyone has to be sure to eat Walder Frey's food and take his drink.  This is because, once they've done that, they are guests in this house and it would basically be really bad form to slaughter them all, or something silly like that.  The first thing you notice in Catelyn's chapter (wherein there is much massacreing) that seems amiss is how god awful the minstrels are.  She goes so far as to remark on how she can't tell what song they're playing.  On the show, however, Catelyn says something about the minstrels being good.  In the book, you're sort of like, "Huh... I wonder why she chose to tell us how bad the music is.  Whatever.  WEDDING FEAST!"  Roose Bolton is totally there in the books, and he's totally sitting next to Catelyn, but it isn't him she finds the chainmail on.  It's what's-his-face-Frey who goes to shut the doors before all the killin'.  She grabs his arm, realizes he's wearing chain mail and has a definite "Oh shit" moment.

But, that's okay.  I thought they did that just fine on the show.  In the books, just as on the show, Catelyn has her second "Oh shit" moment when she realizes that the God Awful Minstrels of the Twins are playing "The Rains of Castamere."  This is bad if you know your Westerosi history because, A.) it's typically associated with the Lannsters, which is because B.) they fucking killed all of House Reyne in a bloody massacre.

Oh shit is right, Lady Stark.

There's also the fact that Catelyn bitchslaps Roose Bolton, which does happen in the book, except that it isn't Roose, it's still what's-his-name-Frey.  

As most people know, Talisa is not a character in the books.  She was created specifically for the show and, up until this episode, I had really wondered why.  Robb married Jeyne Westerling in the book, and he did it because he loved her and also probably because she was smokin' hot. Jeyne is not only never pregnant with Robb's child in the book, but she isn't even present at The Red Wedding.  So, I'm guessing HBO dreamed up Talisa for some gratuitous violence.  How can you make audiences desensitized by a crossbow bolt to Ros' crotch still cringe?  Stab a pregnant woman multiple times in the abdomen to complete, stunned silence.  And, holy shit, that was pretty brutal.  Of course, I also felt like it was pretty needless  I like Talisa okay, for a Character That Never Happened, but her violent death was really unnecessary and it came across as if her character had only been created because HBO decided they wanted to go all Roman Polansky's house at The Twins.

Aside from that, however, I thought the rest of the scene was well done.  Robb's death was pretty accurate.  Except that Roose Bolton doesn't say, "The Lannisters send their regards," in the book.  He says, "Jaime Lannister sends his regards."  I'm not sure why they changed that, unless they're not wanting everyone to hate on Jaime, so they removed it.  But, Catelyn gets a knife and snatches up, not Walder Frey's wife, but his simple-minded grandson, Jinglebell (or Aegon Frey).  I cannot even tell you how horrible I felt for Jinglebell in that scene.  God, it was awful.

On the show, of course, Catelyn grabs Walder's wife and tells him she'll slit the woman's throat if he doesn't let Robb go.  And, Walder Frey being Walder Frey, is basically like, "I have no fucks to give, woman," and has Robb killed.  I saw some complaints of "over acting" on Michelle Fairley's part in the show, and I would just like to point out that in the books, Catelyn goes a little insane and starts laughing maniacally, to the point that one of the Frey guys is like, "Um... I think maybe she's crazy."

She slits Jinglebell's throat (oh, poor Jinglebell) and then has her own throat slit for her.  But let me interject this.  Last night, I was talking to a friend of mine about how I didn't necessarily think that the books were more brutal than the show.  I used examples of Ros' death, which never happened, and of Talisa's death, which never happened.  However, emotionally, I might be wrong there.  I had completely forgotten about the fact that George R.R. Martin is a sadistic bastard.  Seriously.  Look at this:

It hurts so much, she thought, Our children, Ned, all our sweet babes.  Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Robb . . . Robb . . . please, Ned, please, make it stop, make it stop hurting . . . The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved.  Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown.  Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes.  It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed.  "Mad," someone said, "she's lost her wits," and someone else said , "Make an end," and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she'd done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No, don't, don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair.  Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.

- Storm of Swords, Catelyn, Pg 122

When I got to the part about her hair, I almost lost it, man.  What is wrong with you, George Martin?  You sick bastard.  So, I guess, in that sense, the book is more brutal that the show.  But, they still did a pretty good job of conveying the betrayal of House Stark.

Now, we'll have to see if they actually sew Grey Wind's head onto Robb's body, because damn that might have been worse than the rest of it.