It sucks that all the battles happened off-screen. Sure, the battle of the Whispering Woods was also off-screen in the book, but showing a few men running through the woods and the "whispers" of steel against steel would have been something. And the battle of the Green Fork was shown from Tyrion's perspective in the book, and he did participate, he wasn't a complete goof who missed it all. I know there are budget reasons and all, but this is pretty disappointing.

Also, the bloodmagic with Drogo occurs at night, with shadows dancing in the tents and all. Why film it in daytime? I liked the screams and the sounds though, nice touch.

I'm surprised they made Shae even more insolent than in the books. That accent will take some time getting used to, but eh. At least we got the Tysha story now. They can't gloss over that, it's fundamental to Tyrion's motives later. But they removed the last part of the story... I wonder why? I hope we'll hear it later...

TheExodusAttack, prepare to hate Joffrey even more in the future seasons, haha.

The finale was of course mind-blowing. Really liked how they filmed it. So sad and unfair, too.

I'm so disappointed...Why did that have to happen?:( Nevertheless the series is amazing, I want to see the next episode badly.

I REALLY REALLY hope the Lannisters and that Jeoffrey pay dearly. Also I want Littlefinger get tortured by the biggest motherfucker behind the Wall.

I also would like to say that so far my favorite characters (in no particular order) are Jon Snow, Tyrion, Bronn, Jorah, Arya, and The Hound.

Fuck Joffrey that little piece of shit. Ned was my favourite character, I hope Robb becomes more important now - I quite like how he took charge in Ep.8 (i've only read halfway through the first book so far).

I haven't been able to watch the series yet (and it would seriously screw with my exam prep if I got a hold of it now :/)
But ah to be watching it without knowing what's coming...
The first time I read this part in the books it was a brilliant 'oh he did not just do that! Did he?' moment.

Joffrey: Never have I wanted so much to reach into a book and strangle someone slowly...

Here, folks, use this as therapy:

Holy shit, that was The Crucible all over again. John Proctor = Ned Stark, except without the trickery and giving in at the end.

In many ways the first book just sets up the scenario for the series, so you can expect characters like Robb, Theon, Renly, etc, becoming more significant figures in future seasons.


Same. I actually felt a chill when I got to the scene at Baelor's sept in the book, and then later with Sansa and Joffrey atop the walls of the Red Keep.

Brilliantly written villain.

It's true, although I didn't end up with an endearing feeling towards him like say, Jaime, he was fun to hate! At Baelor's Sept that pretty much sums up how I was thinking - total disbelief. But the sort that when you really think about it, you knew there were signposts hinting at it before that. Such is the genius of GRRM...



Oh hell, I knew Dinklage was going to be awesome in this the moment I heard he was cast

Oh yes, this was great episode.

GDit, I think I'm going to stop coming to this thread. People aren't specifying whether the spoiler is about the show or the books. And even still, people are unconsciously spoiling stuff withouteven knowing it.

Yes, I know it's my fault, but that's exactly why I think I'm going to stop coming here.

If you're not current with the show AND the books you can expect to have spoilers in the thread, sorry dude. Anyways fuckin A where was the battle? Huge letdown there's some forthcoming battles that better not get the shaft in future seasons . The next episode should be awesome though, and the misfortunes of Jaime Lannister have begun... I love that guy!

Great episode again. One thing, apart from some Morrigan and others already mentioned, bugged me a bit, though.



Well, maybe "bugging" is too strong a word, that wouldn't be the first (and most apparent or extreme) time they've strayed from the books, but it's just something I was wondering about as I find the history of Westeros and the Targaryen royalty very interesting. Maybe Morrigan can clear this up.

@Azmodes: he says Aegon, not Aerion. Aegon V, called "The Unlikely", son of Maekar and brother of Aemon, father of Jaehaerys, grandfather of Aerys II (the Mad King)... And on the other side, great-grandfather of Robert Baratheon by way of his daughter Rhaelle Targaryen who married into House Baratheon.

No, I'm not enough of a nerd to know all of this, I just checked the ASOIAF wiki.

sorry bearkin

Okay, could be. It's a little hard to make out whether he pronounces a "g" or an "r". Regardless, they're still one generation short.

He says Aegon, but they did skip a generation. They're apparently pretending Jaehaerys didn't exist for some reason...

Yeah, I know. I was just confirming that your correction is... well, correct, if you'll excuse the redundancy, except for which brother was mentioned. Which is understandable, it was indeed difficult to make out certain bits of what he said. Perfect voice for playing an elderly frail man, though.

Now GRRM should make Jaehaerys relevant somehow, just to see how they retcon this mistake in the next seasons.

Yeah, I can't remember him ever being relevant in the books, so that glitch shouldn't be a problem for the series. I think he was refered to as being a pretty good king one time, as opposed to his, well, not-so-good-king son.
It just makes Aemon younger, which I think takes a bit of magnitude and impact out of his revelation.

It does, indeed. I remember that my first thought upon reading it in the book was "so, how old, nay, how ANCIENT is this guy now?". His age is also relatively important later IIRC (gotta re-read the books while I wait for the translation of the fifth to be published here), but well, we all get the picture that he's really old, so I don't think it will be a problem.

I don't think Maester Aemon's age and lineage will matter very much. GRRM just wanted to get the point across that he was very old in the books, something that the acting has to cover in the show (and, generally, the actors do a very good job of it). In fact, it seems to me that, based on the look of the actor playing Aemon in the show, it would be a bit ridiculous to describe him as being as old as he was in the books. He can still walk in the show, for instance.

Well, people can be made to look older with makeup and stuff like that, if they look younger than they're supposed to. Or a generation can be erased from existence. At least the mistake is consistent and coherent, to have an Aemon that looks younger than he should would be as weird as having one that looks older than he should. They've done worse, like the changes to Cersei that were discussed in this very thread after the airing of the first episode.

Speaking of ancient dudes looking younger... what was up with Walder Frey? He looked about 65, not 95, and he could walk. The Lord Frey from the book was so gouty he couldn't walk anymore. The whole point of him being so old is that everyone else keeps expecting him to die any minute and he doesn't.

Oh well, he was suitably creepy and lecherous.

(A Storm of Swords spoilers)

"I don't need reasons. I need to get rid of sons and daughters. You see how they pile up?"

Loved that line.

I was dissapointed with a few things in the episode (not shooting the battles ) but other factors were terrific. I especially loved the scenes with Tyrion and the episode conclusion was, of course, amazing.


Show spoilers:


future episode/book spoilers:

Love that line...and the words between Snow and Mormont was quite telling of the the honor that his bloodline brings and shows how the gears of war move to and fro.This is one amazing series!@!


I can't say enough about the acting and even the new comers are top notch!!

Dunno if this has been brought up in the thread already, but one thing I think the series changed for the better was employing more British-style words. Granted, neither British nor American English is really much like Middle English, and this is a fantasy world where it's up to GRRM to decide how its inhabitants talk, but reading the book and occasionally coming across a word so blatantly American as "ass" is a little jarring.

Where in the books does he use 'ass'? He uses 'arse' as far as I remember, and I have the American editions of the books.

(I shall now go back to not reading this thread until the last episode has aired.)

Uses ass plenty in the copies I got.

Game of Thrones star Sean Bean prooves he's badass!

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/ent ... hero_media

I agree. Whenever I hear 'fuck' in the show, it just seems artificial.

Which reminds me, why does this show love to drop 'fuck's in random places? The targaryen brother, cercei, tirion, littlefinger, probably a couple more I forgot.... They begin with a nice little chat and then all of a sudden from the f bomb as if to catch the audience of guard or something. Why...

What the fuck (no pun intended)? The f-word has been around for centuries, it's not an American invention, and why wouldn't one use the word fuck when it's so suitable? Give me that over "blood and ashes!" or "by the beard of Tryptykunykum!"

Mother's milk in a cup!

Fuck and cunt are both acceptable for the general time period the series is analogous to.

I guess it could just be me then.

But I'm more trying to stress the point that it seems like they're doing it to catch us off guard. Like, it's not commonly used, and I don't think it's ever been said by the same person more than once.

But again, maybe I'm just not as prone to fuck-bombs as the rest of us are.

The other stuff aside, Game of Thrones (the series) and other HBO series like to (ab)use fuck and other profanities because they can and most other series can't. The same with nudity.

They use "fuck" a lot in the books, too, so it's not just HBO being their usual self. The nudity, on the other hand...

Though, Hodor flopping his giant dong out in the godswood is true to the source material.

Well, that's HBO for you.


Canon must be obeyed!

The one thing I wouldn't have missed if they had decided to not follow the books when dealing with it, and they stay true to canon. Thank you, HBO, for filling my Game of Thrones with dicks of all shapes and sizes.

And before someone complains that I only complained about the amount of penis in the series, I think there are a few unnecessary instances of female nudity too.

Lord Commander Mormont was supposed to be naked in the wight-attack scene, so you can be thankful that you didn't get a dose of old man nudity, too.