Juliajms

I cannot believe we only have one more episode left!

On a happier note, I started Book 1!

I know! This season went by so fast! I think the finale is going to be really good though.

Holy [!@#$%^&*], Sean Bean is gangsta! Anyone here what happened to him? LEGEND!

Yes, I heard he was stabbed in a bar fight and kept on drinking.

I thought it was interesting that Varys was more worried about Stannis than he was about Robb. That means Stannis knows that he is the heir. Ned's messenger must have reached him.

interesting they consider Cersei a Lead, but Kate and Dany supporting roles.

That is odd. How is Ned more of a lead than Jon? I think perhaps they are going by actors experience more than relevance to the show. Even Jaime and Tyrion seem like leads to me.

Oh, I absolutely loved it, too. But is he really dead? (Rhetorical) With the way soaps have brainwashed my mind, because they didn't show his death, I cannot believe it just yet.

Ugh. That was so harsh. Ned finally betrays his honor for Sansa and he dies anyway. My only joy is knowing that Cersei, Pyrcell and Varys were horrified at Joff's decision. You could see them flipping out and trying to change that little psychos mind all to know avail. If only Cersei knew that Robb holds Jaime, she would have been freaking out even more.

I was so glad that Ned managed to tell Yoren where Arya was. I was glad Ned got to see her before she died and knew that she had a chance of being saved.

God, I love Tyrion. He is my favorite character. Lord Tywin is a complete SOB, but the actor is perfect.

One thing I will say is you can see the limits of TV this episode. Had this been a movie we would have been treated to epic war scenes. On TV it all happened off camera. That was a bit of a disappointment because they had discussed the battle so much.

Yeah, i think that's going to be an ongoing problem unfortunately. It's a weakness that involves time as much as money I think.

I liked the way that Maester Aemon was revelaed to be a Targaryen. I felt bad for Dany tonight. She is really screwed.

I see.... I dunno, I guess it could be seen from another point of view if one has read the books.

I think having read the books is sort of a disadvantage. It makes it harder for me to judge the episodes on their own merits because I have so much background info. I've read the books twice because there was so much time in between that I needed a refresher, so I pretty much know the story in and out. I wish I could see this with "fresh eyes".

I think the next two episodes should be pretty exciting.

Interview with Sophie Turner (Sansa). http://www.tvguide.c...er-1034079.aspx

Also short article on Sean Bean talking about Ned. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118038108/

Episode 8 was great, too. Though, for the first time, I didn't get that feeling of awe for everything that happened; probably because George R. R. Martin was writing. Does he have other scriptwriting experience?

He does. I'm pretty sure he started out in TV, although I can't remember what it is he's done. I know that old show Beauty and the Beast, but he's done more recent and famous shows too. It's slipped my mind, which ones.

For me, this was the best written episode, but I think that's because I know the books. So I know that he wasn't wasting my time with characters that are ultimately unimportant (Roz) and annoying "sexposition" scenes.

I feel sorry for Sansa. She can't see through Cersei at all.

There are 2 more episodes left. Poor Sansa begging mercy for her father. Cersei is such a bitch. I felt bad for the Septa too. Both she and Syrio sacrificed themselves for the girls.

Tyrion's scenes were good as always. Glad he is getting Lysa back by arming the clans of the vale. It just figures that he has to fight in the upcoming battle. I hope Bronn sticks close by him.

Episode 8 preview: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=6AoQQjkL2gc

Also tyrion preview:

YES! Paget is on her way back too!

http://www.tvline.co...rachel-nichols/

I'm glad the team is back in order. Criminal Minds is one of the few procedures I follow.

Well, HBO did have a linguist come in and create a Dothraki language, so it's not completely gibberish. I agree though, Robert's did a good job of pissing Drogo off, and the hoard he was so worried about is headed for his kingdom. Just figures he died and left the problems to others.

Now that was a great ep. But it needed some Tyrion.

So much happened, I didn't even miss him and he's my favorite. He better be back next week though. I wonder if he's headed to King's Landing or Casterly Rock?

If only Ned had listened to Renly and taken Joff under his "protection". Now the realm is well and truly screwed. The Dothraki are coming and Stannis knows he has a claim. Plus, you have Renly and Loras going who knows where to do god knows what. It sure didn't sound like Renly was planning on backing Stannia. Such a clusterfl*ck.

Me too! You guys are just terrible people. LoL

I know. I couldn't help myself. I'll watch live on Sunday too though. i always watch more than once.

For those who just can't wait

http://www.megavideo.com/?d=4LM1AXQN

and it is probably the best episode yet!

Thanks Q! I couldn't wait and that was awesome! Will discuss after it airs on Sunday!

I'm going to lay out the clues so far as to who I think Jon's mother is. I'll put this in spoilers, even though it isn't known for sure, even in the books at this point. Don't read this unless you want to know one of the major theories among book viewers. I'm only going to use clues we've seen on the show though:

Ned is very honorable. More honorable than most men. Fathering a bastard is dishonorable. So it doesn't seem that likely that he would do so right after marrying Cat. If he did, I don't think he would hide who the mother is.

Ned's sister Lyanna was promised to Robert. Rheagar Targaryen is presumed to have stolen and raped her. He had her for months. Robert hates the Targaryens. He has said he will kill every one of them he can get his hands on. Even after 17 years he is willing to kill Dany, while she is pregnant. Dany is a female and no threat to the crown. If she has a girl that child is no threat to the crown, but Robert won't wait. He just wants them all dead because of what Rheagar did to Lyanna. So I think it's possible that Jon is a Targaryen through Rheagar. This also makes sense because the symbol of House Targaryen is a 3 headed dragon. I tend to think there are three of them alive right now.

It also seems possible that Lyanna was not raped, but that she ran off with Rheagar on her own. I say this because Rheagar was know to be honorable. Sir Jorah calls him the last dragon. So I can believe that he would lose his head over Lyanna and behave badly over love, but rape and kill her? No. Also, Ned hasn't even told Cat who Jon's mother is. Why hide it, unless it was truly a matter of life and death? I think Ned figured Robert would lose his mind and kill them all if he found out Ned was hiding a Targaryen.

I am unclear who the english speaking confidante of the blonde sister princess/wife of the warrior guy is. Everyone seems to know him but I don't quite make the connection as to how these people know him.

He is Sir Jorah Mormont. Ned Stark was going to execute him for selling slaves, but he fled. He's selling Dany out to Robert in order to get a pardon, so he can come back to Westeros. His father is the Lord Commander on the wall. I think you can tell that Jorah has sort of fallen for dany. I think she's won him over more than he expected.

Here is a link to the veiwer's guide:

http://viewers-guide...!/guide/houses/

which makes it a lot easier to keep the characters straight. I cannot wait for this next episode.

OMG Ned's realization that Joffrey isn't Robert's real son! Now it makes sense why the bastards were being tracked down by Arryn. Maybe he was looking for a replacement heir, the Lannisters found out and got rid of him.

No. bastards don't count in the line of succession. The heir in line after Robert is now his older brother Stannis and then younger Renly. John Arryn was hunting down Robert's other children because he wanted to see if black haired Robert ever fathered a blond haired child. He never did. There was never a blond Baratheon as far back as that liniage book went either. And of course, Cersei's first little boy had dark hair.

I liked how you could tell everyone was rooting for Dany. There was such a look of sympathy on everyone's face when it seemed like she wretched that heart up (even Viserys, I thought). Then she pulled it off. Viserys was a bully, but that was such a brutal death.

I think having Bran's wolf missing from the Wilding attack was a glaring omission. That wolf wouldn't have left his side. I've read the breed of dog they are using are hard to train and they didn't have a lot of time for this season.

Tyrion was awesome as always.

I have mixed feelings on Sansa. Sometimes I hate her. Like when she rejected her father's gift. Yes, she's too old for dolls, but that means she's old enough to consider other people's feelings.

Episode 6 was another good one. I actually felt sorry for Viserys, even though I know he had it coming. He always seemed like the weak bully on the playground who would run crying the second someone stood up to him. Not the psycho bully who could and would throw down for real. You could see that he lost Dany's love when he threatened her baby though. She was simply done with him.

I liked the way Dany's people seem to love her now. You could just tell that everyone was rooting for her to keep the horse heart down.

Sensa is one of the characters I like least. She almost deserves Joffery, almost. It was a cute little family scene when Ned and Arya got a smile out of Sansa saying she didn't want someone brave and gentle, she wanted Joff.

I swear I remember warrior gay having blond hair. Odd.

Oh, that's Loras Tyrell, The Knight of Flowers. He's definitely important.

There have now been two Hollyoaks alumni on the show. And it looks like the second (the blond gay, sorry I'm not good with names) will be a more integral part of the show.

There isn't a blond gay. Renly and Loras, both have dark hair. I haven't seen Hollyoaks so I'm not sure who you mean...

Link to GRRM's "Not a Blog" with some thought's on people's reactions to Lady's death:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/216015.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Lysa was such a shock. Disgusting, demented, and so much fun. Tyrion keeps finding himself in worse and worse situations!

I know. That was awful. Cat looked as shocked and horrified and Tyrion.

I don't think they've given us many hints that Renly was gay, except maybe that he loves spending money on clothes. Loras and Renly aren't the only homosexual characters, but I can't remember at what point the other characters show up.

Well, there is one bi character already on the scene, but I'll say no more on that.

The course of events have merged in my mind because there are so many thousands of pages.

I just want to scream at Ned to get the hell out of King's Landing. What was he thinking when he went to that brothel tonight? Does it matter how many dark haired bastards the king has fathered with blond women? No, it doesn't! Get your daughters and go back to WinterFell.

Didn't GRRM himself make some comments about how he would suggest Books 3 and 4 would better be suited to 2 seasons each?

I bet he did say that about the third book. The fourth one is another matter. They are going to have to come up with some sort of plan to both merge and split book 4 and 5, I would think. Some of the major characters do not appear in book four at all. It was a big mess at the time that pissed a lot of fans off. GRRM claimed that the book was too big to publish at the time and he really had the whole thing written, but he had to split it up. 5 years later and the "second half" has yet to be published. It will be this July though. So how HBO is going to handle that, I have no idea.

They've already announced that season two will also be 10 episodes, but I think season 3 will either have to be more episodes or a split season. "A Storm Of Swords" is a huge book. It might just be best if they go ahead and do two 10 episode seasons from it, if the series is doing well. It took GRRM 5 years to write the 5th book in the series and the last thing we want is for HBO to catch up to him. That could lead to bad things, imo.

As for the books... I've been very torn as to whether I should read the books or not

I have read the books, but I am "pretending" that I have not on the boards and on social media, so as not to spoil the experience for others. Some things are actually a bit different, so this is almost like an alternate universe, sort of like "Fringe" if you watch that. LOL!

I don't regret having read the books, but it definitely colors how I see this version of the world. If I could do it all over again I would probably read each book after the season it depicts airs. The books are incredibly good. There is a lot of emotional depth in the books that the show just doesn't have the time to get into.

Here is a viewer's guide that HBO has put out explaining the various Houses:

http://viewers-guide.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/#!/guide/houses/