Not that much immediate family incest, though, and you still had to get
papal dispensation to marry your first cousin. Usually granted, but
still. The first thing that comes to mind with immediate family marriage
are the pharaohs. Not sure there's that much evidence for anyone else
that practiced this. There were…

Eh, still feels a bit off to me. Peter Dinklage is irresistible, but every time I become conscious of that accent it breaks my suspension of disbelief a little. Maybe they should have just let him use his normal American accent.

Totally agree, and nice breakdown. By the way, I caught a small line in AFFC (I think) where Littlefinger says something like, "I thought I'd have four or five years to lay my plans, but Cersei's been running the kingdom into the ground much quicker than I anticipated," which felt like an acknowledgement of the shift…

The Sword has several really awesome ASOIAF influenced tracks, like "To Take The Black," "Maiden, Mother, Crone," and "Lords." The ASOIAF connection is how I discovered them, but their first two albums, Age of Winters and Gods of the Earth, are truly excellent sludgy metal with fantastic fantasy inspired lyrics.…

Huh, my initial reaction was "you're nuts" but now that I think about it, you're not wrong.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. The Dragonstone thread has really suffered due to how fragmented the first two episodes have been.

Dondarrian looked like a bit of a doof in that scene; I hope they recast him by the time he reappears.

That's something you can pretty much guess, just looking at it. They did a great job with that shot; I'm guessing it was almost entirely CG.

A DANCE WITH SPOILERS

A friend and I were talking about GRRM's color choices the other day, particularly when it comes to the arms of various characters. Some of them would just look hideous if translated to screen. The man can be color-retarded on occasion.

I think they're lighter this season than they were last.

The sexy corrupting witch trope is subverted a little, since Melisandre is a priestess and a religious believer, and firmly believes she's serving the side of good. She believes she's playing kingmaker to usher in the Lord's Chosen, instead of manipulating a weak and insecure man.

Didn't they recast Tommen and Myrcella as different actors than the ones in season 1? I could be wrong, but they didn't look the same to me, and I can't bring myself to imdb it. Recasting minor characters probably won't fuck with viewers too much.

I love that the character must have heard about yielding somewhere and figured it as "all's forgiven as long as you yield, lemoncakes for everyone." Makes you wonder where he heard the word.

I don't know, he seems pretty tool-ish to me. Maybe he came off a smidge more of a douche in the scene with the captain's daughter in the book, but the corresponding scene in this episode really brought home his sense of entitlement to a position he's done nothing to earn, and his self-deception.

She groped Theon in the book, then he did some boob grabbing, if I recall correctly. Then she enjoyed his subsequent embarrassment and humiliation. It played out pretty much the same in the episode, except Asha/Yara didn't push his hand away when he gropes her on the ride back to the castle, and his hands wandered…

The outlandish "Indian" accents Americans fabricate for their own amusement are absurdly unrealistic, so now everyone has a skewed concept of what an "Indian" accent is thanks in large part to the Simpsons.

Capsule review of Tigana or another representative Kay novel for the Gavriel-curious?

Minor quibble - Tolkien has plenty of spots where he lapses into high-flown romance language, and they're in my opinion the weakest and most stilted portions of the series. He's got plenty of down-in-the-muck writing, too. The battle in Moria is a great example. There's plenty of others. I wish he'd been able to…

To be fair a lot of the reviewers are on record saying they don't care for the letter grade system. Frankly, I like it because it usually gives me a shorthand to determine whether something's worth viewing on a particular evening - B- or better, I'll go for it, C+ or below, I usually skip it. Also general trends of a…