I'm surprised the show didn't use Jazmine more in this episode. One of my favorite stories in the comic strip was Jazmine's sensitivity about her hair and Huey's mocking of her. Also it seems that Jazmine's voice actor is different now, its gonna take me a while to get used to that.

I think the show's message about power just being a social contract can also be applied to a great number of the social narratives we tell ourselves. Those narratives are based in certain realities but are ultimately as this review says, a way of maintaining order as well as allowing people to create meaning.

But of course there was always some late season plot twist that revealed that the "real" bad guys were a rogue group of powerful American men trying to protect American's oil interests or something.

In terms of how the show is viewed now, I think Jack Bauer as a character sort of eclipsed the rest of the series. I occasionally still see people using Jack Bauer's name as a synonym for bad ass, but I rarely hear anything about the show outside of that.

You said that Jamie is likely a product of his culture, I'm pointing out that rape is not condoned in this culture and the kingsguard in particular holds itself to a higher standard. Does it still happen and do people frequently look the other way? Sure, just as they do in this culture. Jamie at the very least takes…

Getting sent to the wall is viewed as a punishment which is why Tyrion mentions that many men choose to be castrated as punishment for rape rather than joining the Night's Watch. That should give an indication of how much people dread going to the wall.

D&D seem pretty set on doing 7 (possibly 8) seasons and given that after this year they will still have 4 massive books to cover (assuming WoW and ADS will be huge), you can be certain that they will condense a lot of the story and cut out parts that won't be exciting to fans. They seem very aware of the fact that the…

I have no issue with rape being depicted in a story, I just felt that this particular rape scene was gratuitous and didn't make much sense from a character point of view either. I also don't get the feeling that the show is going to do a good job of dealing with the way in which something like this would change Jamie…

Game of Thrones managed to get fans who otherwise never would have imagined that they would be interested in a fantasy story. Its also HBO's biggest ratings hit, is popular overseas, and dominates the cultural conversation every week. I think its place in pop culture is pretty secure and I don't really see the…

Martin has no say over the changes that D&D make to the story and said in his blog that he never even discussed this scene with them.

I think the showrunner for House of Cards said it best when it comes to people's fascination with amoral characters:

Yeah that orgy seemed to exist purely to spell out for anyone who hasn't caught on yet that Oberyn is bi. I think D&D have said that they want those sex scenes there, but given what the show runner of True Detective said about there being a nudity mandate, I wonder how much of it is the result of HBO meddling.

They haven't said exactly how they'll split it up yet, but they seem pretty set on doing 7 seasons at this point, which means that AFFC and ADWD will almost have to be one season. I'm betting season 5 gives them nightmares because those two books are far less eventful than what we're getting now and there worried…

Thats odd because I just watched the Inside the Episode on HBOGO and one of the showrunners says that Jamie forced himself on Cersei (which is definitely what I took away from it). I wonder if there was some sort of miscommunication between the two parties.

I wouldn't really credit Joffrey with any of that. He did order Ned's death, but Cersei had more to do with his capture and the defeat of Stannis and Robb was more of Tywin's doing.

The fact that each season is structurally different seems very intentional to me. I think the writers were afraid of the show becoming too formulaic which is why each season has a different focus, whether it be a single case or a "big bad".

While I didn't hate Jimmy as much as some of you did, I am kind of afraid that his arrival will bring back the type of story lines that I like least about this show and that the series seemed to leave behind this season.

Good point on Mickey. The show seems to further emphasize this point by showing that while Mickey is usually the more dominant partner in that relationship, he usually takes the more passive role when he and Ian have sex. It seems like an intentional subversion of expectations on the part of the writers.

I thought this premiere did a much better job than the previous two seasons of getting things going again. Saving Bran, Theon, and Stannis for next week was a good choice and all of the scenes felt like they moved the story along in some way instead of just playing catch up.

All of Renly's forces except for the Tyrells joined up with Stannis after his death. But most of them ended up dying at Battlewater. I'm not sure how many men the Lannisters/Tyrells have left, but Stannis's attack surely must have weakened them at least somewhat. Also it wasn't really treachery if the two of them…