Also nice to see that the ratings went up a bit in the third episode:

"First, the ratings, courtesy of EW.com: Sunday’s 9 p.m. airing of episode three was watched by 2.4 million people, up from the preceding two weeks’ 2.2 million viewers. When you include the numbers from the 11 p.m. airing, the show had 3.1 million viewers Sunday night, up from the previous record of 2.9 million. Considering Osama bin Laden was announced dead around the same time, that’s pretty darn good."

See, I totally disagree. I think that Petyr Baelish was cast almost perfectly. I don't really remember him as being exceptionally good looking, and he ALWAYS comes off as a pretentious, smug little bastard who knows everything. I think this early, Aidan Gillen has done a great job.

"There were no deaths, no wolves and no sex this week -- let alone death from sex with wolves, which is practically what we expect from the always shocking Thrones"

OK, that made me laugh.

Petyr is a metrosexual of medieval fantasy. I wish he came off a bit more foppish, but maybe he will as it goes. Renly wasn't as striking as he is supposed to be, and I missed that they didn't put in the verbal sallies between him and Petyr. The change from the meeting them on the Kings Road (and Cat actually beating them to Kings Landing) took some of that character development out, so they could add in more background development which I guess is needed. The Spider was a little lackluster for me as well. He didn't quite come off as swarmy enough to me.

Ratings still trending up is good. This episode didn't leave us with a good hook (and had less action), so I hope it doesn't start losing ground.

I saw Littlefinger but all I could think was "Carcetti!!"

Joe Abercrombie (author of The First Law trilogy which starts with The Blade Itself) interviewed GRRM for SKY in the UK prior to the release of the HBO premiere. The interview is available in two parts on YouTube.
Part 1.
Part 2.

I haven't watched (well, listened to) it yet, plan on doing so tomorrow. But in case anybody else is interested..

/tk

GENDRY!!!! HODOR!!!! GHOST!!!!

Loved it. Thought Samwell was great

I was out of town and caught episodes 3 and 4 last night. I'm loving it and almost wish I had just found it on DVD so that I could blow through the entire season in a few sittings. :)

Peter Dinklage is an amazing actor. He (and the writers) have really created a complex character in relatively little camera time. His scenes steal the show for me.

I always pictured Renly the more metrosexual of the two, but Petyr is definitely characterized as prizing his appearance very highly. I'm with you on Varys as well, but I think he could end up impressing me further down the line.

I think they absolutely nailed Gendry, and I'm enjoying Arya's character just as much as the first episode, which I think is fantastic. I still think Sansa's not pretty enough, but she is doing a great job of annoying me, which is what her character did in the books, so I guess she's doing a good job :)

The scene between Tyrion and Theon in the recent episode (4) may be my favorite of the entire series so far.

I dunno - given the character/actress' age I think Sansa is attractive enough to fit the bill. I mean really...give her 2-3 more years of growing up and I can see her being a downright hottie by the time S3-S4 come along and she's what...17/18 at that point? Right when Sansa's storyline kinda...picks up.

I can't put into words how much Petyr telling the Hound's story to Sansa bothered me.

I thought Samwell was cast great. That actor did a great job.

The Mountain is too small. He is supposed to be something like 8 feet tall. They could have at least gotten someone who looks huge.

Renley seems to be cast pretty good. A bit younger looking than I thought, but pretty good all the same.

Agree on The Mountain. They surely could have found some 7 foot actor who looks thuggish to play him.

Someone like this 7' thuggish looking dude?

The guy they got for the Mountain looks plenty big - the actor is supposed to be 7'0" or 7'1" and 320 lbs.

Okay. I suppose it was tough to tell with him on a horse and in all that armor.

I don't know - this didn't bother me that much really. I guess I am thinking this doesn't mean so much that they are going to cut back on a certain storyline farther down the road, it's just that in the show's limited time frame they don't have the luxury of playing out the brothers' enmity for a long time as in the books, before finally revealing the cause of it. They just have to explain that kind of thing a lot earlier and straight up than the more leisurely explanation in the books.

I agree. And since they need Littlefinger to be a more developed character sooner than the Hound they probably have something else in mind for Hound+Sansa to develop a relationship.

It was the exact time in the book that the story is revealed, it is just the Hound reveals it when he walks Sansa back to her rooms. He also lets her know that it was no accident that the knight the Mountain rode against died ("my brothers lance goes where he means it to"). It is just a better scene, with secret between him and Sansa that establishes there strange relationship. I hate that it was lost.

Another little thing, when are they going to bring up Stannis? He doesn't play a role in this book, but he is pretty important in the next books. They don't mention that he went with Arryn to see the boy, and left Knights Landing after his death. I went to the family website just to make sure they didn't write him off all together. He isn't really vital now, but then neither are the Greyjoys and they spent this whole episode talking about them. At some point, it is going to be important that Robert has another brother that is older than Renly.

I watched it last night.

I really enjoyed it once again. That hour really flies by.

This episode was very heavy on the exposition and back story. Perhaps too much at times, but you really need some of it to put everything into context. You either have a choice of dumbing things down considerably, which eviserates the story, or having a lot of exposition. They dwelled a lot on the Greyjoy rebeliion, which helped define Theon. I assume we will see him become a bit more prominent. All that's really left at Winterfell are Bran, Robb, and Theon. At least until Osha shows up.

I really liked the actor playing Samwell. I thought he was great. The guy playing Jon Snow is really growing on me as well. He is becoming more and more "Jon Snow" with each episode.

It was interesting to see that they had Little Finger tell the Hound's back story to Sansa instead of the Hound himself. I wasn't crushed by it, but I would have liked to see it done as it was in the books. It makes me wonder if they are going to do away with the Sansa/Hound "relationship" as it were. It was something that I loved in the books and was very enjoyable, but, barring something very miraculous happening, eventually really doesn't go anywhere. Sadly, it may be an arc that they do away with entirely...

I loved the scene at the Inn when Catelyn called out Tyrion. My favorite moment was when the Frey guy stood up and was talking about Lord Frey being 90 and about to wed again. They cut to Tyrion and it looked like he so wanted to make a quip, but at that point he knew what was happening and just didn't have the stomach for it.

Re: The Sandor line given to LF.

I would think they threw that change in for non-readers at that point before the events of the beginning of the next episode (the end of the tourney). Otherwise, I can anticipate viewers being very confused as to why that scene plays out like it did. I do think, though, they will do away with most, if not all, of the Sandor/Sansa 'ship. One creepy relationship involving Sansa is probably enough for TV

so i left this thread for a while

any dongs yet?

No.

Thought I have been watching "True Blood" of late and caught a quick glimpse of a dong early on in the second season and I immediately thought of you. It was somewhere between, say, episodes 3-6 in the second season. Happy hunting!

And the Melissandre plot issue as well.

Ratings went up .1 again

Game of Thrones HBO ratings | Inside TV | EW.com

Ummmm.....errrrrr.....I think they going to release episode seven early for people to watch on HBOgo after the episode 6 airing May 22.

Oh I thought I posted that on here earlier - but I guess I just sent an alert to one of the fansites....yeah I got a notification about that on my FB page.

Seems like just a way to drive people to sign up for HBO Go and use it...I guess they won't be so concerned about the ratings for episode 7 then (cue the people on here who will point out the drop in ratings for episode 7 i'm sure)

Although H_B makes a good point in that the Sansa/Hound thing is probably DOA for the show, I'm with GrantDawg in that I'm sad to see they didn't use that scene. The whole Sansa/Hound interplay in the books in my opinion is a perfect microcosm of how thin (nonexistant?) the line is between good and evil in the series. There really are no "good guys" (even the Starks have wrinkles) and very few characters who are COMPLETELY "bad guys" - perhaps Gregor and the Brave Companions, maybe the White Walkers.



Realistically the series loses very little without that there. Stylistically and personally, I'm disappointed it's not there.

I didn't have a problem with them changing things like that, but since they don't include that little subplot between the Hound and Sansa, why tell the story at all? And I thought it was just badly done. I've always had a pet peeve about "private" conversations happening in a crowd. Arya was sitting right there! Just badly done, IMO. I thought the rest of the episode was great, though.

Finally got to see Episode 4 tonight. I thought it was very well done, as a reader and fan of the books. There was a lot of backstory to this one, as has been pointed out.

It's setting up for all of the good stuff in the back end of the book. We all know how this is rolling up (those of us whom have read the books).

I loved the scene with Catelyn and Tyrion at the end. I had forgotten how that went down, and as it started to go down, it came flooding back to me, and I just relished that whole scene. That was terrific. For cliffhangers and scenes of import, right up there with Ned Stark and Lady in Episode 2.

I don't know that I would count the Sansa/Hound relationship as dead just yet (although I could certainly see it happening that way). Right now, in the show, does it seem like the Hound has the kind of relationship with Sansa where he would tell her something so deeply personal about himself? There isn't time in the show to devote to the little scenes and thoughts and all that go into that, like there is in the book. I think this wasn't a bad compromise to get this in there without forcing the Hound/Sansa relationship on us out of nowhere. Now that Sansa knows this story, she might view the Hound differently and this can lead to the same kind of relationship we see in the books, except in "TV time", instead of book time. Plus, let's face it, it does provide us a lot more character for Littlefinger as well.

I would say for Littlefinger's character, in fact, this was a terrific episode.

As someone who had never even heard of the books before - I'm really liking the show, it's hard to follow at times- there are so many characters...but I like it. It actually has me wanting to read the books now

Yeah, as someone who is watching the show without reading the book, seeing the Hound just go into a extremely personal discussion with Sansa about how his face got messed up and explaining about his brother would have looked odd and out of character. The guy has said maybe 2-3 words all season and then he suddenly bares his sole to a 16-year old girl he barely knows?

I think the way the producers did this story (through Littlefinger) made a lot more sense and helped refine his character as a gossip queen/instigator (which I'm guessing is the role he takes more of as the story goes on).

Heh, I'm not going to spoil the fun, because Littlefinger certainly does fill this role in the books, at least in King's Landing. That said, his character is much more intricate and complicated, and it's not so easy to pin down what his overall role is. You'll see this, of course. Enjoy!

It wasn't a sudden "bare his soul" moment. It makes sense in the context it was set, which is to scare and disgust her (to break down her polite courtly armor she wears) and show his disdain for "knights." I guess it is just to deep for a tv show, but it sad to see just disappear.

And now I'm in your head. Oh, yes. I'm in your head.

Plenty more opportunities for San/Sar moments later on in Kings Landing, and I'd be surprised if they didn't find some other way to get the San/Sar interaction. Might have just been a case of needing to build of Littlefinger's character more+faster...

Fair enough, I will reserve judgement on that one. He just didn't look massive on the screen in his joust.

Hmm, he seemed pretty damn big to me actually.

ping: Pumpy

Yeah - I mentioned it in the random thoughts thread for him...LOL

I just geeked all over myself.

That was awesome! Fantastic episode. I don't know why they didn't cast Cat's uncle, but other than that, holy cow! They showed Varys with Illyrio! That confirmed what I always suspected from the book. Wow!

Yes. The first thing that popped into my head was "DONG ALERT! DONG ALERT!"

Damn youse, Pumpy.... Damn youse to hell!

That was really great.

I loved the additional scene between Robert and Cersei. It was exceptionally well done.

I heard that they decided not to introduce Brynden Tully at the Vale or even this season, because it would just be one more character to keep track of in an already packed roster. They did say he would show up in the second season.

Some more thoughts on last night's episode.

Another very solid episode. It wasn't until well after the episode ended that I realized that there were no scenes at the Wall or across the Narrow Sea, so no Jon or Dany "chapters" in this episode, if you will.

I thought everything about the Eyrie was pretty much spot on. They did a good job of making Bronn look like a bad ass during the fight. Dinklage continued to be outstanding and it was good to see him get into the action. Both Lysa Arryn and Sweet Robin were fantastic. Irritating, weird and annoying as they have always been.

The end of the tournament went pretty much as expected. It was quite brutal to actuall see the Mountain chop his horse's head off. The fight between the Hound and the Mountain didn't carry as much weight in the show as it did in the books, because they didn't have time to really build up either character. I am definitely glad they kept it in and continue to be interested as to where they go with the Hound. We all know where they are going with Mountain.

I enjoyed the small council scene. I thought they played it perfectly with everyone hitting the right notes.

If I recall there was really only two scenes at Winterfell, both pretty Theon focused. I liked how they continued to try and educate the audience about the world. It was a little more elegant this time - than some of the exposition in the last episode - with Bran's lesson while Theon shot his bow. The scene with Theon and the whore was more solid character development for Greyjoy.

There were at least three pretty long scenes that were not in the book. The first was the banter between Varys and Little Finger. That scene didn't blow me away, but I think it did a decent job of showing that Little Finger and Varys have their little networks of spies and that they are sort of the "behind the scenes" players at Kingslanding. I really liked how the scene ended with Varys sort of "winning" the little verbal duel. I really like both characters and how they've been portrayed on screen.

Then we had the HBO-ized scene between Renly and Loras, with the shaving and the suckling sounds. I think it's fine that the show is more open about their relationship than the books ever were. The scene did a good job of setting up the Renly character, which was needed, and it was also the first time we ever heard of Stanis.

The scene between Robert and Cersei was the best of the bunch. It was outstanding. I think it did wonders for both characters. I was really impressed with it.

I didn't mind the change the whole Ned/Jamie scene at all. They needed to make it a little more dramatic and they had been building up the Ned/Jamie rivalry quite a bit up til that point. I always feel bad for Jory though. I like Jory. He fought pretty well up until he ran into the Kingslayer. I really like the guy playing Jamie. I wasn't convinced at first, but I feel as if he's nailed it.

Be carefull, HB. You are getting pretty spoiler-ish in your discriptions. Remember, there are a lot of people on here that haven't read the books.

I like that they made you connect with Jory before killing him. Even the fact they had a Jamie-Jory walk down memory lane scene. They are doing some really good things with the tv adds. The Littlefinger-Varys scene didn't blow me away either, but I liked that Varys had an explanation for it to trump Littlefinger.

It really is a big testament that they were able to stay off the wall and Dany and still have one of best episodes so far, wasn't it? Next week is "The Golden Crown." Ought to be great.

Thanks. I just edited it a bit to remove that stuff.

I actually really really liked the Varys-Littlefinger scene. I thought it was awesome!!

Did they really need to make Loras & Renly lovers?

And I've said it before, I'll say it again. Tyrion just steals every scene he is in.

They were lovers in the books, so why not?

It's hinted at over and over again by various characters. However, because we never had a Renly or Loras perspective chapter, or actually see them in the act, it's never confirmed 100%. That said, I've known lots of people who have read the books and never made that connection.

I guess the real question was did they need to make it so explicit? The show hasn't shyed away in the least from showing hetero sex scenes and hasn't been subtle about it, so there is no real reason to shy away or be subtle about the gay relationship either, I suppose. This is HBO, remember. The network that gave us "Oz".

That said, the suckling sound was ill advised and unnecessary when it was the whore going down on Tyrion and was ill advised and unnecessary in the Renly/Loras scene as well.