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scifi_rewatchThis is an episode where things start to go off the rails some from canon, particularly in the Qarth and Harrenhal storylines, but even a little bit beyond the wall and with the Starks. (We do get a canonical dramatic twist at Winterfell, however.) In general, I feel iffy, at best, about the changes, particularly those that brush up against modern sitcom tropes. :P But there’s one thing in King’s Landing involving Sansa that I actually appreciate, unlike most of her fans.
Lots of choices and consequences this episode, and occasional inner reflection. Those folks seem to do better than those who don’t.
Summary:
Winterfell
Chaos all around, Maester Luwin barely has time to barricade himself in with the ravens and get a message out to Robb before he’s surrounded by Ironborn. Theon and Dagmer enter Bran’s room—they’ve taken Winterfell and he has to yield. Bran’s a little slow on the uptake, given that he’s just waking up and last time he saw Theon, he was with Robb. But he rights himself with a never-before-seen but useful pullbar, promising to throw the turncloak out. Theon gets up close and personal, insinuating that as Lord of Winterfell the boy has a duty to keep his smallfolk safe. In response, Bran asks “did you hate us the whole time?” to which Theon doesn’t have an answer.
Outside in the appropriately rainy yard, Bran yields Winterfell. Osha attempts to join Theon as a soldier but he refuses her; she later reminds Bran that his dream came true and she doesn’t want to be a slave. Theon tries to assert power but at best he meets vengeful stares, at worst, open rebellion. Dagmer kicks the kennel master down for being feisty, but things really heat up when Rodrik, fresh from chasing the Iron Born from Tohhren’s Square, turns up a prisoner. They argue more personally about the past warfare between the Starks and Greyjoys, and Theon’s place at Winterfell. Things escalate, and although Theon wants to drag Rodrik to the dungeon, Dagmer insists upon “the iron price.” Theon is hesitant, but ultimately agrees. Ignoring the pleas for mercy from Bran and Rickon, as well as the council of Luwin, he sets to hacking off Rodrik’s head in a brutal, thankfully mostly off-screen fashion. Guess that decapitation thing takes work.
Osha appeals to Theon sexually later on. He’s buying; she just wants her freedom…or DOES she? Once Theon is asleep, Osha kills the guard and leaves Winterfell with Bran, Rickon, Hodor and the wolves in tow. Say what you will about how it went down, but Osha is a rocking caretaker.
Robb’s Camp
Robb walks among his men and flirts with Talisa. We learn that she’s high born. Catelyn (and Brienne) return, startling the boy. He introduces mother and new crush, and although Cat is curious about the girl, alone she reminds her increasingly defensive son that he made a vow last season to marry a Frey girl for her father’s alliance in the war.
But such talk is cut short with the arrival of Roose and the Winterfell note. Robb and Cat are devastated to hear what’s happened; Cat reminding her son of her good advice earlier re: not trusting Balon. She wants to go talk to Theon but Robb refuses; he’s going north to hang him for treason. He’s passionately emotional when Roose argues—how can he stay here and call himself king with his castle and brothers now hostage? Roose points out that he’ll lose all he gained here, so why not send someone else—like Roose’s own bastard son, who stayed home? Robb consents, and tells Roose to make sure the guy knows Bran and Rickon’s safety is paramount.
Beyond the Wall
Ghost sort of randomly leaves the group, and alone now with Qhorin Halfhand and his men, Jon endures more lecturing from someone he admires. He has to stop this “north is home” thing, because is Beyond the Wall ever really home? If they’re not fighting the wildings, they’re fighting the weather. Moreover, Qhorin implores Jon to see beyond the noble Night’s Watch words--fight for your life! No one will even know your name if you die, though they will benefit from it. He raises: are the oaths just pretty ways to make us feel like we have a purpose? Not that the Halfhand plans on deserting, it seems, but he’s honest about his life.
The crew gets down to business later, surprising a scouting crew and killing most of them. But when Jon yanks the hood off the last wildling, he sees that she’s a woman. He falters, despite the Halfhand’s instructions. He introduces himself to the girl, and she calls herself Ygritte. Qhorin steps in there to try and gather intel about Mance’s movements, but she’s not forthcoming. She is incredibly blunt when she says that the “free folk” would kill Qhorin either way—slowly if they were feeling mean about it. He steps in to kill Ygritte—don’t have food for her, after all—but Jon interjects and says that he’ll do it. Qhorin and the other men leave. Jon tries, but is unable to deliver the death blow. Ygritte senses her chance, kicks him in the nads and runs off with him in hot pursuit. He ultimately catches her, but they’re good and lost now. He can’t even call for help cos who knows how many wildlings are here. They walk for awhile and then make camp out in the open, despite Ygritte’s rational protests. Jon’s too square to even think of sleeping next to her for warmth, but to be fair Ygritte immediately starts rubbing up against him teasingly. :P
Harrenhal
Tywin’s bannerman Armory Lorch has accidentally sent a tactical letter to a Stark bannerman rather than a Lannister one. When Arya proves she can read by fetching a book, Tywin even uses his cupbearer against the high born lord. Arya’s pleased by his praise that “maybe you can plan our next battle” but her smile drops instantly when Littlefinger is announced. What if she’s spotted? Unfortunately, Tywin keeps her around to feed and water the guest while Littlefinger relays recent events at Renly’s camp. At first he doesn’t pay her much mind but when she spills wine, he starts peering at her. Uh oh. Tywin dismisses the girl just as Littlefinger starts talking about Tyrion’s plan to visit Cat about her daughters…
When we next see Arya she’s still at Harrenhal, Littlefinger is gone and Tywin is still treating her like a cupbearer of sorts. Seems like her cover is safe. She and Tywin have a sort, frank and somewhat touching conversation about their families (Tywin recounts teaching a dyslexic Jaime to read and Arya admits that her father died for “loyalty.”) She swipes a letter about Robb when Tywin isn’t looking, but is intercepted by Lorch! She makes up nervous excuses that he doesn’t believe, so she runs away from him, finding Jaqen as quickly as she can and naming Amory Lorch as her number two. He dies from a poison dart as he opens the door to Tywin’s chamber.
King’s Landing
A weeping Myrcella is finally leaving for Dorne with much fanfare. Cersei quietly threatens Tyrion about taking the person he loves most in the world, so he stalks off. Joffrey bullies Tommen for his tears, leading Sansa to say under her breath “I saw you cry.” She quickly amends her story when he turns to her.
Joff and his court walk through the streets of King’s Landing to get home. His subjects stand to the sidelines, hailing him weakly, which quickly turns into angry pleas for food. Tyrion, sensing danger, quickly moves to shortcut Tommen to the keep. Sure enough, soon the shit literally flies into Joffrey’s face and he starts ordering executions. All hell breaks loose! Joffrey’s still yelling about killing people as the Hound drags him along, slashing people in his wake. Cersei, surrounded by Lannister guards, gets to the keep behind her son. Tyrion watches, wide-eyed, as the septon preaching for Myrcella’s safety earlier is literally ripped apart by angry peasants. Where is Sansa, anyway? Separated from everyone else, she’s scared, disheveled, and spotted by vicious men who give her chase.
Tyrion arrives in the keep to hear Joff still ranting and raving. He responds with his own anger—the king let this escalate into a blood bath, and meanwhile the people are still starving due to war shortages. You can’t talk to me that way, Joff screams, I’m a king! It earns him his second adaptation punch from his uncle. This does not bode well, however, as Tyrion implores the kingsguard to look for Sansa. “I take my orders from the king!” Ser Meryn snaps. Joff merely glares and walks away. Ugh.
Things are looking bleak for Sansa as the group of men chase her into an abandoned storage unit. She slaps one, but they get her down, holding her legs open so that one of them can rape her. Tension is mounting in this highly disturbing scene until Sandor arrives, disemboweling and otherwise killing Sansa’s attackers. He picks her up and carries her to safety. Tyrion thanks him once they get to the keep, to which the Hound responds brusquely “I didn’t do it for you.”
Later, Shae cleans one of Sansa’s cuts in her room as the girl tries to make sense of the situation. Why would strangers want so desperately to hurt her? Shae explains how she represents everything they don’t have: “your horse eats better than their children.” Sansa says she would have given them bread if she had some, and that she hates the king more than they do. Be careful with what you say! Shae warns her harshly. The wrong people might hear. “But you’re not the wrong people,” Sansa protests. Shae moves away, and says distantly, “don’t trust anyone. Life is safer that way.”
Qarth
Jorah may be off looking for a simple ship to Westeros, but Dany is still trying to ask major favors of the Qartheen. She’s turned down Xaro’s marriage offer and is visiting the still passive aggressively rude Spice King from earlier. Dany wants his ships in order to return to Westeros, but he rebukes her: does she have an army? Has she been to Westeros recently to ascertain how much support she has? No to all of these, but Dany does promise to pay him triple-fold! The Spice King doesn’t like the odds, so Dany tries another approach: her dragons. The eggs were supposed to be merely commemorative, but she had a vision that they would hatch if she followed them into the fire. “I’m no ordinary woman. My dreams come true.” Striking. This dream, however, will not, as the Spice King leaves her without ships.
The rest of her day is similarly unproductive with the Qartheen. As she and Xaro return home, he mentions that his rise to power has often been paved with unsavory acts, but he hasn’t regretted any of it. They enter his home, however, to find it ransacked. :-O Dothraki and guards lie dead in the yard—Irri herself is dead in Dany’s room. :/ And in the same vein…her dragons are missing. “Where are my dragons?” Dany cries out. We see a man wearing Pyatt Pree’s sandals carrying the cage of screeching dragons to a spiky tower. Could that be the House of the Undying? We’ll have to wait and see!
Those killed on the show still alive in the books: I’ll just quickly mention that Theon didn’t kill Rodrik, but he does die in a later battle. And ok, Amory Lorch also dies in the book but Arya has little to do with it—once Roose comes to conquer Harrenhal, he sentences Lorch to be eaten by a bear. Sometimes I think more context would help, but let’s move on. :P
Irri is in no way dead in the books, as the dragon-napping never happens. She remains one of Dany’s most trusted confidantes for a long time. :/ I hope she and adaptation Rakhraro are in the night lands together!
Thoughts:
There’s a lot to love, metaphorically speaking, about Theon’s conquering of Winterfell, most importantly the acting of Isaac and Alfie Allen. I’m not sure which of their scenes together is my favorite. The final scene certainly carries a lot of punch—what a juxtaposition: Bran and Rickon helpless to stop Rodrik’s murder, just as their sisters, Sansa and Arya, were with Ned. Everything from Bran’s angry, futile pleas to Theon’s second-guessing, hacking murder mess just made that gristly scene come alive.
In the book, Theon actually accepts Osha as a warrior whereas in the adaptation she has to sell her body. Many fans have a problem with this and honestly, I’m on the fence. The actual seduction isn't about Osha's character growth, and I understand frustration with using female sexuality this way. At the end of the day the sex is about Theon—how his lust leads to Osha pulling a fast one on him. At the same time, and squarely centering on Osha, her actions show her selfless bravery and protective streak towards her young, innocent housemates. She deserves major kudos.
I especially love the talk between Qhorin and Jon; like I said last episode, a conversation with a personal hero pulls the wool back a little bit from Jon’s eyes. Life and choices aren’t as black and white as he believed. The scene with Ygritte is pretty canonical up until the time when he stupidly chases after her (in the book, he just lets her go.) Now he’s lost without friends—worst place to be—but I can’t ignore that Ygritte’s teasing is funny. It also seems probably that Ghost’s somewhat inexplicable separation from Jon is a plot device to leave him alone with the girl (and also without extra protection.)
Jon and Ygritte have more chemistry than I see with Robb and Talisa, frankly. I liked them better when they were debating war. At least she’s a high born, so it’s less unbelievable that she’d speak her mind to a king. Catelyn’s advice to Robb about honor is sound, though I suppose it’s a bit out there to assume on first glance that Robb would break his marriage contract over a crush. Maybe Cat’s been watching too many Lifetime movies. :P
Roose’s suggestion that his bastard take care of the Winterfell problem works a little differently in the books due to character storylines that the show decided not to address canonically.
This is the week when Harrenhal started to annoy me a bit. I’m on the fence about the Arya/Littlefinger interaction: it was obviously “false tension” since it didn’t lead anywhere. I’m ok with Tywin using Arya to mock his bannermen, but honestly why would Lorch be writing a letter rather than a maester? The second scene with Lorch is where I threw my hands up. How is it that he allowed the girl to escape into a slew of his own soldiers and not call on them to grab her? She really shouldn’t have been able to run through so unscathed, let alone get to Jaqen. Honestly, I heard circus music in my head. I’m not thrilled with Lorch’s death being played off as humor, either. ASOIAF is about the serious cost of violence, after all. It shouldn’t be about slapstick.
I did very much enjoy Arya and Tywin’s personal scene where they divulged information about their families. It revealed a human side to the Lannister patriarch—someone who cares, in his way, for his son and might even want some human contact. For Arya, who’s lost contact with everyone she’s ever loved, Tywin might actually remind her of home; he’s a lord, like her father was, and he notes her accomplishments. It’s a departure from her canon storyline where her scullery life actually makes her feel small and nameless. But in this scene, the emotional tension worked.
Relatively small changes in King’s Landing leading up to the riot scene. Myrcella didn’t actually cry, but I assume the showrunners figured the audience would see that as unusual for a young girl being sent away. I love Sansa’s sassy remark to Joff. :P I wish there were a way for the show to do what the book did, where she actually got Joffrey to give the peasants some money. :O Sansa’s kindness streak has, unfortunately, been underplayed. Similarly, Sansa’s good relationship with Shae came completely out of left field. It’s not canon at all but I’m glad for it—girl needs more friends and I would have liked to see that play out! I enjoyed their scene together very much where Shae tried to educate her on class inequality and, perhaps the wise move to not trust anyone.
Sansa’s near rape, which was wildly skewed from the canon version where she simply slipped from her horse and the Hound saved her, will live on in mostly negative infamy. But I will posit that this scene wasn’t just about being sensational or moving the plot along—it actually does influence Sansa’s life, first in the scene I mentioned above and next episode as well. This world is dangerous for women; in canon, another high born women actually did get gang raped. Again, there are only so many minutes in an episode to explore the themes of these books, and I want main characters like Sansa to be involved as much as possible.
In Qarth, the dragon-stealing scene is where this adaptation storyline completely divorces itself from its counterpart, because purists can posit that the extremely rigid Qartheen culture would not allow for this. In terms of the adaptation, I believe the dragon theft serves two purposes. A) Dany has to rely on herself after several failed attempts of relying on the Qartheen for her desires and B) it gives Dany a tangible reason to go to the House of the Undying. I’ll get to why this event is important in both canon and tv in later episodes!
___
Lots of choices and consequences this episode, and occasional inner reflection. Those folks seem to do better than those who don’t.
Summary:
Winterfell
Chaos all around, Maester Luwin barely has time to barricade himself in with the ravens and get a message out to Robb before he’s surrounded by Ironborn. Theon and Dagmer enter Bran’s room—they’ve taken Winterfell and he has to yield. Bran’s a little slow on the uptake, given that he’s just waking up and last time he saw Theon, he was with Robb. But he rights himself with a never-before-seen but useful pullbar, promising to throw the turncloak out. Theon gets up close and personal, insinuating that as Lord of Winterfell the boy has a duty to keep his smallfolk safe. In response, Bran asks “did you hate us the whole time?” to which Theon doesn’t have an answer.
Outside in the appropriately rainy yard, Bran yields Winterfell. Osha attempts to join Theon as a soldier but he refuses her; she later reminds Bran that his dream came true and she doesn’t want to be a slave. Theon tries to assert power but at best he meets vengeful stares, at worst, open rebellion. Dagmer kicks the kennel master down for being feisty, but things really heat up when Rodrik, fresh from chasing the Iron Born from Tohhren’s Square, turns up a prisoner. They argue more personally about the past warfare between the Starks and Greyjoys, and Theon’s place at Winterfell. Things escalate, and although Theon wants to drag Rodrik to the dungeon, Dagmer insists upon “the iron price.” Theon is hesitant, but ultimately agrees. Ignoring the pleas for mercy from Bran and Rickon, as well as the council of Luwin, he sets to hacking off Rodrik’s head in a brutal, thankfully mostly off-screen fashion. Guess that decapitation thing takes work.
Osha appeals to Theon sexually later on. He’s buying; she just wants her freedom…or DOES she? Once Theon is asleep, Osha kills the guard and leaves Winterfell with Bran, Rickon, Hodor and the wolves in tow. Say what you will about how it went down, but Osha is a rocking caretaker.
Robb’s Camp
Robb walks among his men and flirts with Talisa. We learn that she’s high born. Catelyn (and Brienne) return, startling the boy. He introduces mother and new crush, and although Cat is curious about the girl, alone she reminds her increasingly defensive son that he made a vow last season to marry a Frey girl for her father’s alliance in the war.
But such talk is cut short with the arrival of Roose and the Winterfell note. Robb and Cat are devastated to hear what’s happened; Cat reminding her son of her good advice earlier re: not trusting Balon. She wants to go talk to Theon but Robb refuses; he’s going north to hang him for treason. He’s passionately emotional when Roose argues—how can he stay here and call himself king with his castle and brothers now hostage? Roose points out that he’ll lose all he gained here, so why not send someone else—like Roose’s own bastard son, who stayed home? Robb consents, and tells Roose to make sure the guy knows Bran and Rickon’s safety is paramount.
Beyond the Wall
Ghost sort of randomly leaves the group, and alone now with Qhorin Halfhand and his men, Jon endures more lecturing from someone he admires. He has to stop this “north is home” thing, because is Beyond the Wall ever really home? If they’re not fighting the wildings, they’re fighting the weather. Moreover, Qhorin implores Jon to see beyond the noble Night’s Watch words--fight for your life! No one will even know your name if you die, though they will benefit from it. He raises: are the oaths just pretty ways to make us feel like we have a purpose? Not that the Halfhand plans on deserting, it seems, but he’s honest about his life.
The crew gets down to business later, surprising a scouting crew and killing most of them. But when Jon yanks the hood off the last wildling, he sees that she’s a woman. He falters, despite the Halfhand’s instructions. He introduces himself to the girl, and she calls herself Ygritte. Qhorin steps in there to try and gather intel about Mance’s movements, but she’s not forthcoming. She is incredibly blunt when she says that the “free folk” would kill Qhorin either way—slowly if they were feeling mean about it. He steps in to kill Ygritte—don’t have food for her, after all—but Jon interjects and says that he’ll do it. Qhorin and the other men leave. Jon tries, but is unable to deliver the death blow. Ygritte senses her chance, kicks him in the nads and runs off with him in hot pursuit. He ultimately catches her, but they’re good and lost now. He can’t even call for help cos who knows how many wildlings are here. They walk for awhile and then make camp out in the open, despite Ygritte’s rational protests. Jon’s too square to even think of sleeping next to her for warmth, but to be fair Ygritte immediately starts rubbing up against him teasingly. :P
Harrenhal
Tywin’s bannerman Armory Lorch has accidentally sent a tactical letter to a Stark bannerman rather than a Lannister one. When Arya proves she can read by fetching a book, Tywin even uses his cupbearer against the high born lord. Arya’s pleased by his praise that “maybe you can plan our next battle” but her smile drops instantly when Littlefinger is announced. What if she’s spotted? Unfortunately, Tywin keeps her around to feed and water the guest while Littlefinger relays recent events at Renly’s camp. At first he doesn’t pay her much mind but when she spills wine, he starts peering at her. Uh oh. Tywin dismisses the girl just as Littlefinger starts talking about Tyrion’s plan to visit Cat about her daughters…
When we next see Arya she’s still at Harrenhal, Littlefinger is gone and Tywin is still treating her like a cupbearer of sorts. Seems like her cover is safe. She and Tywin have a sort, frank and somewhat touching conversation about their families (Tywin recounts teaching a dyslexic Jaime to read and Arya admits that her father died for “loyalty.”) She swipes a letter about Robb when Tywin isn’t looking, but is intercepted by Lorch! She makes up nervous excuses that he doesn’t believe, so she runs away from him, finding Jaqen as quickly as she can and naming Amory Lorch as her number two. He dies from a poison dart as he opens the door to Tywin’s chamber.
King’s Landing
A weeping Myrcella is finally leaving for Dorne with much fanfare. Cersei quietly threatens Tyrion about taking the person he loves most in the world, so he stalks off. Joffrey bullies Tommen for his tears, leading Sansa to say under her breath “I saw you cry.” She quickly amends her story when he turns to her.
Joff and his court walk through the streets of King’s Landing to get home. His subjects stand to the sidelines, hailing him weakly, which quickly turns into angry pleas for food. Tyrion, sensing danger, quickly moves to shortcut Tommen to the keep. Sure enough, soon the shit literally flies into Joffrey’s face and he starts ordering executions. All hell breaks loose! Joffrey’s still yelling about killing people as the Hound drags him along, slashing people in his wake. Cersei, surrounded by Lannister guards, gets to the keep behind her son. Tyrion watches, wide-eyed, as the septon preaching for Myrcella’s safety earlier is literally ripped apart by angry peasants. Where is Sansa, anyway? Separated from everyone else, she’s scared, disheveled, and spotted by vicious men who give her chase.
Tyrion arrives in the keep to hear Joff still ranting and raving. He responds with his own anger—the king let this escalate into a blood bath, and meanwhile the people are still starving due to war shortages. You can’t talk to me that way, Joff screams, I’m a king! It earns him his second adaptation punch from his uncle. This does not bode well, however, as Tyrion implores the kingsguard to look for Sansa. “I take my orders from the king!” Ser Meryn snaps. Joff merely glares and walks away. Ugh.
Things are looking bleak for Sansa as the group of men chase her into an abandoned storage unit. She slaps one, but they get her down, holding her legs open so that one of them can rape her. Tension is mounting in this highly disturbing scene until Sandor arrives, disemboweling and otherwise killing Sansa’s attackers. He picks her up and carries her to safety. Tyrion thanks him once they get to the keep, to which the Hound responds brusquely “I didn’t do it for you.”
Later, Shae cleans one of Sansa’s cuts in her room as the girl tries to make sense of the situation. Why would strangers want so desperately to hurt her? Shae explains how she represents everything they don’t have: “your horse eats better than their children.” Sansa says she would have given them bread if she had some, and that she hates the king more than they do. Be careful with what you say! Shae warns her harshly. The wrong people might hear. “But you’re not the wrong people,” Sansa protests. Shae moves away, and says distantly, “don’t trust anyone. Life is safer that way.”
Qarth
Jorah may be off looking for a simple ship to Westeros, but Dany is still trying to ask major favors of the Qartheen. She’s turned down Xaro’s marriage offer and is visiting the still passive aggressively rude Spice King from earlier. Dany wants his ships in order to return to Westeros, but he rebukes her: does she have an army? Has she been to Westeros recently to ascertain how much support she has? No to all of these, but Dany does promise to pay him triple-fold! The Spice King doesn’t like the odds, so Dany tries another approach: her dragons. The eggs were supposed to be merely commemorative, but she had a vision that they would hatch if she followed them into the fire. “I’m no ordinary woman. My dreams come true.” Striking. This dream, however, will not, as the Spice King leaves her without ships.
The rest of her day is similarly unproductive with the Qartheen. As she and Xaro return home, he mentions that his rise to power has often been paved with unsavory acts, but he hasn’t regretted any of it. They enter his home, however, to find it ransacked. :-O Dothraki and guards lie dead in the yard—Irri herself is dead in Dany’s room. :/ And in the same vein…her dragons are missing. “Where are my dragons?” Dany cries out. We see a man wearing Pyatt Pree’s sandals carrying the cage of screeching dragons to a spiky tower. Could that be the House of the Undying? We’ll have to wait and see!
Those killed on the show still alive in the books: I’ll just quickly mention that Theon didn’t kill Rodrik, but he does die in a later battle. And ok, Amory Lorch also dies in the book but Arya has little to do with it—once Roose comes to conquer Harrenhal, he sentences Lorch to be eaten by a bear. Sometimes I think more context would help, but let’s move on. :P
Irri is in no way dead in the books, as the dragon-napping never happens. She remains one of Dany’s most trusted confidantes for a long time. :/ I hope she and adaptation Rakhraro are in the night lands together!
Thoughts:
There’s a lot to love, metaphorically speaking, about Theon’s conquering of Winterfell, most importantly the acting of Isaac and Alfie Allen. I’m not sure which of their scenes together is my favorite. The final scene certainly carries a lot of punch—what a juxtaposition: Bran and Rickon helpless to stop Rodrik’s murder, just as their sisters, Sansa and Arya, were with Ned. Everything from Bran’s angry, futile pleas to Theon’s second-guessing, hacking murder mess just made that gristly scene come alive.
In the book, Theon actually accepts Osha as a warrior whereas in the adaptation she has to sell her body. Many fans have a problem with this and honestly, I’m on the fence. The actual seduction isn't about Osha's character growth, and I understand frustration with using female sexuality this way. At the end of the day the sex is about Theon—how his lust leads to Osha pulling a fast one on him. At the same time, and squarely centering on Osha, her actions show her selfless bravery and protective streak towards her young, innocent housemates. She deserves major kudos.
I especially love the talk between Qhorin and Jon; like I said last episode, a conversation with a personal hero pulls the wool back a little bit from Jon’s eyes. Life and choices aren’t as black and white as he believed. The scene with Ygritte is pretty canonical up until the time when he stupidly chases after her (in the book, he just lets her go.) Now he’s lost without friends—worst place to be—but I can’t ignore that Ygritte’s teasing is funny. It also seems probably that Ghost’s somewhat inexplicable separation from Jon is a plot device to leave him alone with the girl (and also without extra protection.)
Jon and Ygritte have more chemistry than I see with Robb and Talisa, frankly. I liked them better when they were debating war. At least she’s a high born, so it’s less unbelievable that she’d speak her mind to a king. Catelyn’s advice to Robb about honor is sound, though I suppose it’s a bit out there to assume on first glance that Robb would break his marriage contract over a crush. Maybe Cat’s been watching too many Lifetime movies. :P
Roose’s suggestion that his bastard take care of the Winterfell problem works a little differently in the books due to character storylines that the show decided not to address canonically.
This is the week when Harrenhal started to annoy me a bit. I’m on the fence about the Arya/Littlefinger interaction: it was obviously “false tension” since it didn’t lead anywhere. I’m ok with Tywin using Arya to mock his bannermen, but honestly why would Lorch be writing a letter rather than a maester? The second scene with Lorch is where I threw my hands up. How is it that he allowed the girl to escape into a slew of his own soldiers and not call on them to grab her? She really shouldn’t have been able to run through so unscathed, let alone get to Jaqen. Honestly, I heard circus music in my head. I’m not thrilled with Lorch’s death being played off as humor, either. ASOIAF is about the serious cost of violence, after all. It shouldn’t be about slapstick.
I did very much enjoy Arya and Tywin’s personal scene where they divulged information about their families. It revealed a human side to the Lannister patriarch—someone who cares, in his way, for his son and might even want some human contact. For Arya, who’s lost contact with everyone she’s ever loved, Tywin might actually remind her of home; he’s a lord, like her father was, and he notes her accomplishments. It’s a departure from her canon storyline where her scullery life actually makes her feel small and nameless. But in this scene, the emotional tension worked.
Relatively small changes in King’s Landing leading up to the riot scene. Myrcella didn’t actually cry, but I assume the showrunners figured the audience would see that as unusual for a young girl being sent away. I love Sansa’s sassy remark to Joff. :P I wish there were a way for the show to do what the book did, where she actually got Joffrey to give the peasants some money. :O Sansa’s kindness streak has, unfortunately, been underplayed. Similarly, Sansa’s good relationship with Shae came completely out of left field. It’s not canon at all but I’m glad for it—girl needs more friends and I would have liked to see that play out! I enjoyed their scene together very much where Shae tried to educate her on class inequality and, perhaps the wise move to not trust anyone.
Sansa’s near rape, which was wildly skewed from the canon version where she simply slipped from her horse and the Hound saved her, will live on in mostly negative infamy. But I will posit that this scene wasn’t just about being sensational or moving the plot along—it actually does influence Sansa’s life, first in the scene I mentioned above and next episode as well. This world is dangerous for women; in canon, another high born women actually did get gang raped. Again, there are only so many minutes in an episode to explore the themes of these books, and I want main characters like Sansa to be involved as much as possible.
In Qarth, the dragon-stealing scene is where this adaptation storyline completely divorces itself from its counterpart, because purists can posit that the extremely rigid Qartheen culture would not allow for this. In terms of the adaptation, I believe the dragon theft serves two purposes. A) Dany has to rely on herself after several failed attempts of relying on the Qartheen for her desires and B) it gives Dany a tangible reason to go to the House of the Undying. I’ll get to why this event is important in both canon and tv in later episodes!
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