Juliajms

Bestiality is animal abuse and has nothing to do with marriage rights. Polygamy is a marriage rights issue. Lots of people feel that consenting adults should be able to marry whomever they want. If that happens to be more than one person, why is it the government's business to tell them they can't? One of the rallying points of gay marriage has been the idea that government should stay out of the marriage business, why shouldn't the polygamists take up that idea? It seems to me a no brainer that they would and I do think they have a legitimate point. Personally, I can't imagine being married to more than one person. Then again, I can't imagine being married to another woman. In neither case, do I think it's my business to push my thoughts on the matter on other people. Everyone should have the right to run their personal lives as they see fit, as long as they are not hurting anyone else.

I think she is closer, even though I didn't care for that last scene one bit. Her dragons are older, she has proven that she can get people to follow her and her army is growing. I guess you could also say she's winning over people like Sir Barriston, who are loyal either way, but are going to be inspired by the possibility that she's going to be a just leader and not just another crazy.

I think most reasonable people generally consider rape and incest exceptions to any rule. Note I said reasonable people. This is always going to be a sticky issue because people will never agree about when life begins. But even in the case of rape and incest should it be legal to have an abortion a couple of weeks before the due date? Either way is going to be traumatic for the mother. Frankly, I'm glad I'm not on the SCOTUS, so I don't have to make these decisions. I'm not behind closing clinics in any case. I'm all for handing out birth control, contraceptives, morning after pills and the abortion pill free of charge to anyone who is medical approved to take them. The republicans have been so infected by the religious right they refuse to see the forest for the trees. It would save a lot of pain and money to take care of unwanted pregnancy early on.

^ Thanks Anne. That at least answers the question. I'm glad Texas didn't succeed in passing this and I hope they don't the second time around either. Even though I'm not gung ho on abortion after 20 weeks (I would make an exception for medical issues) I think anyone who wants one after that, means business. If they are that determined to do it, I'm not really gung ho to stop them either. I'd say I'm pretty ambivalent. I wouldn't join a march in either direction. Once a baby is viable though, I do wish people would just have it and let the chips fall where they may.

I don't think the media is doing the best job ever of explaining the situation in Texas. I've read some articles on it and I still haven't seen the details of the bill. I've seen it said that it would shut most of the clinics in Texas (which I agree is insane), but not why that would happen. Maybe I need to dig deeper, but I wish CNN would have just spelled it out. At this point, the only part of the bill I've seen emphasized is the ban on abortion past the 20 week point. It's hard for me to get worked up about that. I'm pro choice and an atheist, but 20 weeks seems like a long enough time to make up your mind. The cut off has to be somewhere. The part I do get worked up about is that the same people who don't want women to have an access at abortion are against birth control or morning after pills. If I really felt strongly about trying to minimize abortion, I'd be trying to hand out morning after pills like they are candy. Why not give high school kids free confidential access to b/c and morning after?

Hey Q! I'm guessing HBO, since that does sound like "our" Tywin. Plus this one is the actress who plays Ygritte: HBO has one hell of a website, so it makes sense they would do this sort of history, so people who haven't read the books have a better sense of what's going on.

Only two scenes have made me feel uncomfortable. One was Tywin laying into Tyrion about being a dwarf. I can't remember the episode, but it was pretty awful. It was a necessary scene, but I felt bad for Dinklage. I'm sure he has a tough skin though. The other was that last scene with Dany, I've already explained why. The sex has never bothered me. I guess I just think it's fundamentally true that women on the low end of the totem poll get used in that way. Dany was clever enough to make the most of it. Actually Roz was too, until she let Varys convince her that they were smarter than Baelish. Plus, we certainly saw quite a bit of Theon and he had his sexuality used against him as well, as have the unsullied.

Here's an interesting article on the matter: http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/09/game-of-thrones-future/

I don't think she deserves her issues exactly, but she seems to have over spent a bit. Happens to the best of us. She's lucky she has the opportunity to dig herself out.

She was going to push him off. I don't think she cared if she went with him in that moment. Sansa wasn't happy about Tyrion being a dwarf on the show either. She's a 14 year old who grew up dreaming about marrying a handsome knight more along the lines of Jamie. Not that different from today's teens who grow up dreaming of marrying Justin Beiber. I think in a couple of years Sansa could have grown to love Tyrion, but after The Red Wedding, all bets are off. I ship them in the books, but I can't really ship a 14 year old with a 40 something, tbh. That last scene with Dany was very glaring. I don't know what they were thinking. I've seen fan excuses that they are filming in Morocco, so naturally the extras are dark or that Dany has been surrounded by darker skinned people since marrying Drogo, she's on a continent where there aren't many white people and so on. It doesn't matter, imo. They should have found away to make that crowd include some white people.

Watching Lord Frey and Joffery gloat was very annoying to me. It was sort of fun to watch Tywin reaffirm who the real boss is, but I with he would drop all pretense. Joff is so arrogant and dense he needs things spelled out for him. I don't even think he caught the implied threat behind Tywin sending him to bed with Nightshade. Cersei and Tyrion did though. The first seen was a little bit of a heartbreaker for me. Sansa was warming up to Tyrion. I think she would have taken Maegerys advice, if not for the Red Wedding. The Sansa situation is the only thing that makes me regret Peter Dinklage's casting, since Tyrion is supposed to be in his early/mid 20's. Was Dany in the last scene of season? I can't remember now. I guess that last scene was to show us that she can win the love of the masses. That she would be a better ruler then some of the other main contenders. I think in some ways Gendry's scene was more about Davos than Gendry. Davos as a hero who wants to be loyal to Stannis, but not at any price.

It couldn't hurt to give it a try and see if you like it. Start from Episode 1, if you can. Makes the payoffs much better.

For sure. I really don't know what's going on with the Lord of Light, but it does seem to have real power. I'm just wondering if it's a force for good or evil. At this point I assume it's some sort of force that may help against the white walkers in some way. Maybe. I'm a little suspicious though given what happened to Renly, The Spider and Gendry. I just wonder if this is some sort of force with it's own dark agenda. Too soon to be sure I guess.

I''m not sure that's what GRRM is going for. I mean, this god demands little boy's private parts as a sacrifice. Is that progress?

I meant that I'm not sure she's in it for the greater good exactly.

I'm not sure Dany really is. I guess she's trying to free slaves, but Ser Jorah is right. If and when she gets to Westeros, the small folk will bleed just like any other war. She isn't going to be able to stop that. At this point, we've seen the white walkers, so we know that Osha and the Red Priestess are right. The true battle is beyond the wall. I guess we are supposed to see The Lord of Light as the good force here, which is kind of hard for me to do. I suppose he's some sort of old testament god who is good even though he's demanding blood sacrifice. One thing that kills me about this show is we have relatively good people on opposing sides of this fight (Tyrion, Dany, Davos, Stannis The Starks), basically weakening each other (or planning to), while the real fight hasn't even started yet. I'm really excited for the next episode. I want to see where things end for the year.

I think it's more that it would be too politically incorrect even for this show, if Cat killed a mentally challenged boy. Then having Lord Walder basically say that he didn't care if she killed a halfwit, since he had so many other sons and grandsons. Here is the book chapter where the Red Wedding occurs, for those who are interested. http://cdn1.vnetrix.com/A.Storm.of.Swords-Catelyn.pdf

Right, but Ned would have no reason to hide that from Robert. Robert would have been thrilled to have a baby by Lyanna, imo. I doubt they ever had sex. Dany's brother Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna, which is what started Robert's rebellion. Robert HATED the Targaryans because of this. He said he wanted to kill every one of them, which is why Ned had a possible motive to lie, even to Cat. Robert said in season 1 that Rhaegar Targaryan raped Lyanna. We don't know that's true. It could be he raped her and Jon is hers. It could be that he married her as a second wife and Jon is hers. It could be that Jon really is Ned's son. Ned told Jon that he is Ned's blood (father, uncle, who knows?), so that almost has to be true, considering he told him as he was leaving for the wall. It really isn't known yet, but I do think that the show hasn't made it clear that there is a lot of reason to suspect that Jon is the hero of the show. Maybe last night, they did make it clear. If Ned was lying to Cat all that time, I just think it's so tragic. All that pain and resentment for nothing. From my perspective, it's Jon that has Ned's sense of honor more than Robb. Robb broke a marriage pact. I can't imagine Ned ever doing that. Jon didn't break his vow, even though he loved Ygritte (good point, Ann). At the same time, Gendry is Robert's son and he's with Stannis now. I think he has a greater role to play then we might suspect so far. My disclaimer is that everything I'm saying is speculation. Soon the story gets much bigger so there isn't a ton of progress made in some of these stories in the books. I have to believe the show will really start to diverge from the books because of that. I don't we will get answers to the big questions until the last season of the show and the last book of the series.

This is a good interview by GRRM about why he did the Red Wedding. http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/02/game-of-thrones-author-george-r-r-martin-why-he-wrote-the-red-wedding/ Arya's wolf was abandoned somewhere near the Red Fork. I was hoping there would be some sort of hint that she is in the territory. While part of me hoped that Arya would get to Grey Wind, I knew it wouldn't save him anyway. He would have gone running straight to Robb and been killed. If I have any real quibble with the TV version of the show, it's similar to yours Ann. I'm not sure that people who have only watched the show are getting enough clues as to who Jon may be. It's still all speculation, but people should be speculating and that's not happening because they've left out a lot of the hints that are in the book. The only ones I see so far is that we know how honorable Ned was. The conversation between Ned and Robert in season 1, episode 2 was a little bit of a hint. Also knowing that Ned would lie for the love of his family when we saw him confess to treason to save Sansa.

I do see what you're saying. Whatever pay off there will be is a long way off. I do think there will be some, but it won't be until the very end of the series. It's a very long journey. I remember feeling exactly the way you do about it not being the same. I took the red wedding very hard. It's much worse in the books because I had read thousands of pages and the characters are more deeply drawn. It's a real heart breaker. Still, somehow, the series does keep working, if you give it a chance. One thing to consider is that not all of the Lannisters are bad. Tyrion is a good guy, imo. Jamie is a gray character, but I think he has one of the best redemption arcs ever. My speculation (not the least bit a spoiler) is that someday the remaining Stark children will meet again. At this point, I think it's pretty clear that Jon is the male hero of the series. He started of the lowest of the low, people were expecting Robb to be the hero, but it's really going to be Jon.

OMG. I didn't even think of that. Ack! Usually, I watch episodes more than once, but I doubt I'll be able to watch that with this episode. Way too sad. I remember when I read the books, I just couldn't believe it was happening. Tywin and Roose Bolton make interesting allies. They are both pretty ruthless, although not as bad as the bastard of Bolton. Wonder how Theon is doing. I hope we see him again before this season is over. I also have to give credit to the way the show has used The Rains of Castamere all season long to foreshadow the Red Wedding. When that music started tonight it was perfect. Like Lord Tywin was right there presiding over the whole thing. You could see from Cat's face she knew it.

Tywin hasn't won anything yet. Stannis and the Red priestess are still at work. Dany is across the narrow sea with dragons and an army of unsullied too. Plus, there are major players in the game we haven't even met yet.

In the books, Robb had the good sense not to bring her along. In this interview, the writers talk about Cat killing a child: http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/06/02/red-wedding-interview/ She didn't though right? Obviously, in the book she kills Jingle Bells, Frye's mental handicapped son (or grandson), but they are talking like she did it on the show too. Weird.

I think maybe Jon did recognize them, but he didn't have time to do anything about it. Dany is all about Darrio. I felt a little sorry for Ser Jorah, but he is a traitor so, not that bad.

Too bad she couldn't have killed Lord Walder, instead of his poor wife. Talisa's stabbing was pretty brutal as well.Poor Aria, so close and all she got was to see Grey Wind killed.