I continue to cling to the hope that Talisa really is Jeyne Westerling, lying about her name to Robb because of that whole thing where her family is fighting for the Lannisters and if he knew who she really was she'd make a great hostage. I have perhaps placed too much significance on the scene where she felt entitled to the maester's stores of healing herbs at the Crag -- but got this really worried look when Robb announced she was coming along with him to get them herself. Though that's been enough episodes ago that maybe the visit to the Crag came and went and nothing came of it -- but I'm still hoping that this is just an interesting variation of the Jeyne storyline rather than a replacement. (I'm too attached to the scene where Jaime pays off Jeyne's mother for the service done to the Lannisters in breaking Robb's alliance with the Freys -- though it's too late for her mother to be involved in demanding a shotgun wedding, since the wedding's happened and he never met her parents. An unrealistic hope of mine. Also I'm ignoring Talisa's foreignness because I seem to recall Jeyne's mother was not Westerosi born, though maybe it's her grandmother I'm thinking of.)
The one problem I have with the scene with Catelyn telling Robb what a bad idea this is has to do with the show having not built her up as having much political wisdom the way the books had -- we haven't seen her being proved right that much, her good ideas were given to other characters, all she gets to be is nagging mother, and then there's the trade of Jaime for the girls that comes across as typical for TV!Cat rather than a departure from pattern out of maternal desperation. Though I'm pretty comfortable with the way the show is letting the non-book-reading viewers float along with Robb's assumption that the Freys will be reasonable about this disappointment and allow him to make it up to them in some other way. Fit of pique with his mother or youthful hormones and an overdeveloped sense of personal honor, I'm okay with Robb having a splendid sense of battlefield tactics and strategy (that the show didn't have the budget to show us) but drastically misinterpreting Walder Frey here because he assumes his allies have honor of their own. (Same mistake he makes with the Boltons, after all. Also, IIRC he didn't actually go to the meeting Catelyn had with Frey, did he -- he's never actually met Walder Frey...)
Agreed that Dany's scene in the House of the Undying was stripped down, but they did a good job of being eerie on a budget, and I liked what they were doing: Tempting her with the Iron Throne, and then with her husband and son back alive and whole, and both times the dragons called to her more than the things she thought she wanted the most. She's earned the Mother of Dragons label here. And they did a really impressive job of flaming the fuck out of that chamber.
I was delighted that Olenna Tyrell is one of the characters mentioned as being cast for the third season -- I'm really looking forward to seeing her onscreen.
And, yes, that scene where Jaime is standing there boggling at how Brienne just casually kills three men single-handedly. Respect, she has begun earning it in his eyes.
I'm also charmed that the show let the non-book-reading viewer quite probably assume Theon's own men torched Winterfell on their way out, so there can be a nasty surprise next season when Ramsay Bolton reveals his true colors.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-06-05 02:26 pm (UTC)The one problem I have with the scene with Catelyn telling Robb what a bad idea this is has to do with the show having not built her up as having much political wisdom the way the books had -- we haven't seen her being proved right that much, her good ideas were given to other characters, all she gets to be is nagging mother, and then there's the trade of Jaime for the girls that comes across as typical for TV!Cat rather than a departure from pattern out of maternal desperation. Though I'm pretty comfortable with the way the show is letting the non-book-reading viewers float along with Robb's assumption that the Freys will be reasonable about this disappointment and allow him to make it up to them in some other way. Fit of pique with his mother or youthful hormones and an overdeveloped sense of personal honor, I'm okay with Robb having a splendid sense of battlefield tactics and strategy (that the show didn't have the budget to show us) but drastically misinterpreting Walder Frey here because he assumes his allies have honor of their own. (Same mistake he makes with the Boltons, after all. Also, IIRC he didn't actually go to the meeting Catelyn had with Frey, did he -- he's never actually met Walder Frey...)
Agreed that Dany's scene in the House of the Undying was stripped down, but they did a good job of being eerie on a budget, and I liked what they were doing: Tempting her with the Iron Throne, and then with her husband and son back alive and whole, and both times the dragons called to her more than the things she thought she wanted the most. She's earned the Mother of Dragons label here. And they did a really impressive job of flaming the fuck out of that chamber.
I was delighted that Olenna Tyrell is one of the characters mentioned as being cast for the third season -- I'm really looking forward to seeing her onscreen.
And, yes, that scene where Jaime is standing there boggling at how Brienne just casually kills three men single-handedly. Respect, she has begun earning it in his eyes.
I'm also charmed that the show let the non-book-reading viewer quite probably assume Theon's own men torched Winterfell on their way out, so there can be a nasty surprise next season when Ramsay Bolton reveals his true colors.