Awww yeah. He’s completely my favorite.
So in the books there’s so much more of a lead-in to all this, to Ser Barristan the Hot appearing and revealing himself to Dany, and I want to be mad that they changed things and rushed it but I’m sorry, if we get more Ser Barristan, I refuse to see that as a bad thing.
Quick takes: How badass was the Old Bear, appearing out of darkness and setting the wights on fire? DRAGONS! Drogon is so big and catlike now, and I was dying laughing at the “catch it, grill it, eat it in midair” trick. Margaery Tyrell is a scary, scary woman, like Cersei but you know how Cersei can never put her resentment down long enough to make inroads with anybody? Margaery knows how to get out of her own way. She scares the shit out of me.
Speaking of scary, I actually jumped when Qyburn showed himself. And every time Roose Bolton mentioned his bastard … SHUDDER. It’s like a law of nature in Westeros that there is ALWAYS something worse out there, that no matter how far down you think this goes, there’s always another level. Roose Bolton’s bastard is like … don’t watch the rest of the season with the lights off, is all I’m saying.
MANCE RAYDER, and Tormund Giantsbane! My favorite wildlings ever!
So pretty much everyone starts from betrayal. The growth pattern on this show goes something like this: You find something you love, like Davos, like Brienne, like Catelyn, like Ser Barristan, like Stannis. And then the world wrenches it away from you, and you spend the next however many months flailing around doing God only knows what, in an effort to make sense out of that loss. You twist what you thought you believed in, in order to get it back.
You throw open the doors of the Kingslayer’s prison, you try to stab Melisandre’s heart out, you seek out an old enemy’s old enemy, you sit in the dark and stare into the flames, swear an oath to Mance Rayder, all to try to get back what you had. You betray who you thought you were, who everyone else thought you were, and in the process you become something new. Something you don’t recognize.
At this point in our story everybody’s only halfway through the process. It’s still hard to say, who’s going to get better and who’s going to get worse.
A.
Threw my hands up in the air for Ser Barristan.
Mance and Frost Giants! Was Qyburn found injured at Harrenhall in the book?
Think I’m going to turn all the lights on and await Ramsay and the Red Wedding.
Glad you got an early dragon fix. That’s what really matters on GOT, you seeing your dragons.
The dragons are heading towards that awkward adolescent stage.
For me the big moment was Tyrion facing his dad and asking for a little gratitude/reward for single-handedly setting up the defenses, taking out Stannis’ fleet and leading the hand-to-bloody-hand combat when his punk-ass nephew went crying back to mommy. Then dad, of course, resorts to the old “You killed your mom when you were born and I don’t even think you’re really my son” argument and Tyrion was all, “It’s on, old man, it’s on.” Cannot wait to watch this play out.
See, I’m going to get into all kinds of arguments about Tyrion this season, because this is where he starts to go off the rails. His fanclub, really, more than him, but we’ll see where the show takes it. The Internet was not, shall we say, detached and objective about this the first time around.
A.
@ ebonlock: it plays out, guy. trust me… it plays out. i only hope it happens the same way it does in the book.
Qyburn was affiliated with the Brave Companions (mercenaries) when he was first introduced. Wait until he gets hooked up with Cersei…
I wonder when we get to see what happened to the over-compensating frat boy (Theon). I wonder how much of it HBO will show.
The Mance scene was one of my favorites. Ciarán Hinds has presence. MR:’So, give us a good reason to not immediately kill you, crow.’ JS: ‘I saw a White Walker, didn’t immediately shit my pants and run to Dorne, and want to stay and kill them.’ MR:’You’re in.’ Loved it.
Clay, I loved the Mance scene as well.
Some friends of mine were really upset that Barristan was revealed up front, but I completely understand their decision to do so. There’s no surprise in the reveal given it is a TV show and we can see it is the same actor, so why not take advantage of two men you know will knock it out of the park playing prickly rivals and give us a long, slow burn on Jorah vs. Barristan?
I agree wholeheartedly about Margaery being so much scarier than Cersei, and personally I am hopping up and down with anticipation for the Queen of Thorns to come in. 🙂