Juliajms

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.

HBO has one heck of an interactive viewer's guide. How impressive! http://viewers-guide.hbo.com/season3/#!/locations/village-of-the-lhazareen/

I'd say there is a chance. This is total speculation on my part, but I suspect that the ultimate showdown of this series will happen at the wall (or maybe Winterfell). I suspect that many of our main characters will end up there one way or the other. P.S. Darrio is very....attractive.

I guess I didn't mind. I thought Joff looked pretty scared when Tywin walked up those stairs to the iron throne. He physically shrank back. Plus, Joff is an arrogant idiot. He thinks being the king protects him. Tyrion, Cersei and (even) Jaime are smarter than Joff.

Tywin has to humor Joffery, since all it takes is one word from Joff and Tywin's head is on a spike. Given that, I thought Tywin did a pretty good job of letting Joffrey know who the real boss is. If I were Joff, I'd be very worried right now. Not sure GRRM does much without a reason. This is a very long story.

Good point, Q. One thing I liked about this episode was that Jaime got some of his cockiness back.

Right, but Melisandre can see things in her flames, so it's easy to believe she knows about Gendry. I understand why some of these changes are necessary. People can only follow so many characters at once and every new one costs money. Viewers already have some investment in Gendry, so I can see why they'd rather not add a character that people may not care that much about. Plus, when you think of all the story lines from the books, consolidation was a must. I don't love it, but I can accept it because they are doing so much right, imo.

She's not, but she sure does act like one.

I'm guessing that disfigured girl babies don't rate a mention in Westeros. Notice that Selyse didn't even think the little girl was worth a few mins of Stannis's time. I thought it was pretty sweet that she wanted to teach Davos to read.

Yeah, that was a really good scene. Cersei was gloating, but Tywin knocked her down a few notches. I almost feel sorry for her. Sansa could (and almost did) do much worse than Tyrion. Jaime/Brieanne was interesting too. I think she won him over with the sort of unflappable honor that Ned had. Also, interesting that it may have been Ned who ruined Jaime, in a sense. It seems like he started living down to people's lowest expectations once he was named a Kingslayer. Is Peyter romantically interested in Sansa? If so, that's beyond foul. I sort of wish Tywin hadn't found out about the Tyrell's plot.

I think the look of this show is helped by the fact that they have the budget to film on location. I thank god for that. This show would look so cheesy otherwise. I wonder how long Varys had that Wizard locked in the box? That was pretty creepy. I love how horrified Tyrion is by some of the things that go down in King's Landing. He should ride north and join Robb. Does anyone remember if they decided to make book 3 into 2 seasons? I'm really starting to worry that GRRM won't be able to keep pace. My dream is that the release of the 7th book could coincide with the last season of the show so that spoiling would be at a minimum, but if the show outpaces him, that's trouble, imo. I guess it could be like the Sopranos, where you don't get a season every year.

Possible Game of Thrones prequel in the works? http://tv.yahoo.com/news/game-thrones-prequel-possibility-could-other-shows-suit-172800482.html

What I liked about the chair scene was that Cersei was clever enough to think outside the box and get closer to her father than all the other ass kissers. Still, Tyrion proved that he was even more clever by putting himself on nearly equal footing with his father by taking the other head of the table. It's really too bad that Tyrion is on the wrong side (from my perspective) of the war of the five kings. Even now that we've seen the white walker army it's hard to remember that the real battle hasn't even started. The seven kingdoms are fighting a civil war, while the real barbarians are at the gate. One good thing about GoT's is that the real questions haven't even been answered in the books yet. I'm betting HBO will catch up to GRRM before they are, so no one will be spoiled on the real issues. For example, I have no idea if I'm supposed to believe that the "Lord of Light" is a good god.