Amph Game of Thrones - HBO

That was Rickon, the youngest Stark kid. He's obviously too young to have much of an effect on the plot, so you don't see him around much. He's been in the background in a couple of the big family scenes before.

And forget the dialogue; the shot of the ravens flying out was awesome.

 

An even cooler quote is:

"Tell him winter is coming. Tell him twenty thousand northerners are coming to find out if he really does **** gold."

Robb is such a badass.

 

FTFY.

 

Damn, what an intense ending. You know it's coming, but you still hope it's going to turn out differently. Joffrey, you're an inbred SOB.

 

Season Three! Season Three! Season Three!

 

When I read the first book I took Ned's death as inevitable. It didn't affect me emotionally. I read the event dispassionately, intellectually; and while I felt compassion for Arya (and to a lesser degree, Sansa) for witnessing their father's execution, his death did not hit me on a gut level.

Last night's show did. I teared up, and my gut clenched as the moment approached. Part of me, absurdly, cast about for alternatives: Maybe Joffrey will change his mind at the last second! Maybe the Hound will come and rescue Ned! Ridiculous, I know... but that shows you how involved emotionally I was with the events.

This show, for all its various missteps, shortcomings and questionable choices (and there have been a few), gets it right when it matters. It hits the nail on the proverbial head.

 

Yeah, Ned's execution was done absolutely perfectly. Gives me hope that they will do the Red Wedding justice as well.

 

Ned Stark's death with inappropriate music!

 

I had some interesting impressions on Cersei and what her obvious position was concerning the climax of tonight's epsiode -- wondering on this from people who have read the books...

I get the impression that Cersei's clear stance on not wanting Ned to die is not completely a political calculation, although that's the prime motivator. I sense that she genuinely doesn't want it to happen just because of who it is. Yeah, there's political considerations, but I think her stance would have been the same whether or not she had to worry about the Starks and Baratheons knocking down her door.

Maybe it's just the series playing this up, but her scenes with Ned suggest that she tells him that not taking the throne back in the day was a mistake not because it would have made the most sense for someone in his position -- I think that's her overt justification in "teaching" Ned a political lesson -- but the REAL reason is because she maybe suspects that had she been married off to Ned for seventeen years instead of Robert, life would have been SO much different.

All these things she says on loving Robert when she married him seems like she kinda wanted OUT of the situation with Jamie, wanted something more "normal". And Ned is kind of the guy she'd hoped Robert would have been. It's interesting because it seems like when Robert wanted to fire Ned as hand of the king, Cersei wanted to keep him on -- before he revealed he knew Joffrey wasn't the real heir to the throne, of course. Even preferred Ned over her own brother, despite all her earlier talk with her son about how family came first.

Curious actions for someone whose motives are supposedly so tied to only her family.

 

Well, you're asking people who have read the books so, obviously, some minor spoilers ahoy:

There's no sign that Cersei has anything but contempt for Ned. He's the kind of moralizing honest-to-a-fault type she wouldn't be able to stand, at least not as an adult. As a girl, she had a huge crush on Rhaegar Targaryen, the incredibly dashing young crown prince -- who carried off Lyanna, and was killed by Robert. But it was essentially a girlish crush; Cersei would never have actually been happy with any husband except Jaime. Her whole problem is that she's an incredibly ambitious woman, with a humongous ego, but because she's a woman she's denied the opportunity to actually rule or act with her own agency, and is subordinated to her husband and father and son, and she's deeply resentful of that fact. That comment to Robert that he should wear the skirts and she the armor was a great glimpse into that -- she genuinely thinks (incredibly wrongly) that she's smarter and better and more cunning than any man in the realm, and should be able to rule without being constrained into this womanly role, where the only thing she can do is use her body and her persuasive powers and behind-the-scenes manipulations over those who are actually able to hold the reins of power. Having a husband is always going to keep her subjugated and resentful -- unless the husband is Jaime, whom she actually does love (she doesn't want out with him, though she is, unlike Jaime, quite willing to be in multiple relationships to get what she wants) and who, critically, has absolutely no ambition other than to screw Cersei and kill things. It's possible that there's some entirely subconscious feeling that she'd have been better off if she'd just had a loving stand-up husband and been able to be a good wife, and the fact that she didn't get that is motivating her vehement rejection of it, but that's really outside the supremely ambitious character of Cersei, all of which is oriented around hating "normal," and there's no evidence for it in the books. Also, she seems to see Ned as some sort of combination of goody-two-shoes moralist idiot and good-old-boy buddy of her hated Robert; I think there's more loathing than attraction. It's just the political considerations, and the fact that Joff is bucking her authority.

 

I've often wondered whether Cersei is incapable of being happy with any husband. The reason she despised Robert is because he cried out another woman's name on their wedding night, IIRC. She might have loved Robert and she might have been a good wife for him except Robert's attitude and behavior alienated her affections from the very beginning. By the time of the first book, she only has true affection for Jaime and her children and she craves power. Of course once she gets power she proves incredibly inept at wielding it. And as of the end of AFFC, I think we've seen the last of a strong, deftly manipulative Cersei Lannister Baratheon.

 

Ok, so that's the books.

Do you think that the show is hinting a different version of Cersei like the one I described?

I think they're doing a bit to depict Cersei AND Jamie as twisted people that maybe know they're twisted, and kinda subconsiously wish it wasn't so.

 

That's the reason that she fell out of love, yes, but I think that she would have fallen out of love with him regardless; he just alienated her blatantly early on. Ultimately, unless a husband was a completely subservient figurehead who allowed her to rule, I think she would ultimately become dissatisfied, and even then, the fact that there has to be a figurehead at all is ultimately going to gall her. The thing about Jaime is that one, he isn't her husband; he's her lover, which is a different scenario. If they were actually married, some problems might emerge. Two, I have my doubts she's even capable of true love for Jaime; part of the whole screwed-up twincest thing is that she sees him, essentially, as a part of her. It's the closest she can get to being her own lover; there's this whole narcissistic undercurrent going on here of Jaime being her other half. Not that they are a part of a whole, a couple, but that he's a part of her. He's completely unthreatening because not only is he completely unambitious and in love with her, but because she conceptualizes him as an extension of her, her twin, and is particularly displeased when he displays an agency of his own.

I'm not sure that the show is. I think there's sort of an awareness (in the books) on Cersei's part that she missed her shot at happiness with Rhaegar and missed or never really had it with Robert, and she's resentful of that and she blames that for her current unhappiness with her position as a woman of limited power who had to suffer a poor husband. I think she wants that ideal husband, but I don't think the ideal really means anything. She's got this vague conception that everything would be nicer if she had a good husband, but the fact of her personality is that she'd never be satisfied with a husband and she's always going to be resentful of the fact that her womanhood is denying her full agency and full expression of her ambition, the same way she's always going to be simultaneously paranoid and overconfident. She has that vague sense of an ideal at the same time that she vividly hates men on the whole (except Jaime, who's her, and isn't put in a husbandly context), but that vague sense is a pure what-if from childhood that's long since died and she's not going to be interested in any man as a possible solution anymore, except Jaime. And that awareness is that she's unhappy with her lot, not that she's twisted or immoral, or any sense that her boundless ambition and ruthlessness are in any way wrong. And the show hasn't yet given me a feeling that it's deviating from that significantly. A little bit, with perhaps an upped desire on her part to make it work with Robert in the initial going, transferring a bit of that hero-worship of Rhaegar onto Robert, but that's more a desire to have a kind, gentle husband than it is an uncomfortableness with her own ruthlessness and ambition. Jaime, yeah, Jaime's uncomfortableness and subconscious awareness is there. It's straight out of the books, and I won't say more for the sake of let

 

Episode 1: King's Landing, Winterfell, The Wall, Pentos.
Episodes 2-4: King's Landing, Winterfell, The Wall, Vaes Dothrak
Episodes 5-8: King's Landing, The Eyrie, Winterfell, The Wall, Vaes Dothrak
Episode 9: King's Landing, The Twins, Winterfell, The Wall, Vaes Dothrak


I can't wait until we see other locations, such as Qarth, the Fist of First Men, Riverrun, Harrenhal, Storm's End and Oldtown.

 

I am personally looking forward to Vaes Tolorro. I've always liked that particular section of Dany's journey, even more than the rest of it.

minor spoiler, but why did Martin have to kill off poor Doreah? What did she do to deserve it?! I know he had to show the desert taking its toll, but still...

 

Yeah lol, I call him the Jesus Targaryen because of his portrait from AMOKA..

 

What an epic ending to an epic first season! Here there be dragons!

 

It appears that Tudors alumnus Natalie Dormer has been cast as Margaery Tyrell in Season 2. Margaery plays a fairly critical role throughout books 2, 3, and 4, so it'll be interesting to see Dormer's portrayal of the character.

However, isn't Margaery 16 in ACoK? I know that they've had to age up many of the characters for purposes of the show but Dormer is much older than Margaery in the books. I think she's older by almost double. Anyway, I liked Dormer in the Tudors and I think she has "assets" that will be useful for portraying Margaery Tyrell but it is an odd choice.

EDIT: Oh, and source is IGN