That didn't work for me. It just underlined what was going on without making it any less uncomfortable. Plus, it took me right out of the scene. It was like they put a big neon sign up that said, "Yes, we, the scriptwriters, some relatively PC white guys from 2013, get that this is coming off as pretty colonialist.…

Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe and the Caucuses.

Dothraki are Mongols + Huns - complexity.

Jim.

Glad I'm not the only person who found that ending painful. I love this show, but…. Yikes, you know?

I pronounce it "disuse."

I think some of that comes from sexism, but some of it comes from the fact that Talisa was Florence Nightingale, right down to the outfit and the backstory. Florence Nightingale was a badass, but she was also a nurse.

We've all have it coming, kid.

Another fun fact: In Dante's Inferno, people who betray their guests are in the worst part of hell but one. The only people punished more are those who betray their liege lords. So Bolton and the Freys just committed the two biggest sins, according to late-Middle-Ages/Renaissance thinking. Actually, since the Freys…

You don't think the arrogance was deliberate and strategic? She's trying to get what she wants from the city without having to fight and shed blood for it. If you can convince someone that you are a bit nuts and supremely, rightly confident of victory, you have a chance at making that strategy work. If you're all…

I skipped it too. Pretty much as soon as I see Theon's face on screen, I hit fast forward.

@avclub-9ff7c9eb9d37f434db778f59178012da:disqus

@avclub-f16faf5d680d7b88e2e157c1c137c497:disqus Mormont said something about waiting for their wounded to be strong enough to travel. Craster was kind of a dick about it and said that the men were dying and should just be killed to get it over with quickly. My impression was that Craster was actually right, that none…

@avclub-9ff7c9eb9d37f434db778f59178012da:disqus I did that, actually. I flagged the comment of which you speak. I hesitated a lot before I did it, but I did it for a solid reason. The event you mention was described one way in the show and another way in the book. You forgot this, and you described the end of Tyrion's…

Well, in some medieval thought, the idea was that male humors were hot and dry; female humors were cold and wet. If a man wanted his seed to find purchase, the woman had to be sort of "warmed up" to make her womb more hospitable. So basically, conception required foreplay and, ideally, female orgasm.

Separate things: Lady Hornwood? Horn-something? Is this dignified, late middle-aged lady that Bran meets and likes in Book Two. She's the widowed, childless heir to her husband's lands. Ramsey marries her a sword-point, rapes her in front of everybody to make the marriage "legal," then throws her in a tower cell and…

Yeah, I was over on the newbies board, and I really think that "Talisa" backfired badly. She was supposed to make Robb more sympathetic, but instead people think he's being kind of selfish and dumb and thinking with his dick.

Also, thing I love about book-Cersei: She's completely right that her sex made her a pawn, kept her from real power, and led everyone to underestimate her. But she's also completely wrong about her own capabilities. She's reasonably smart and charismatic, but nobody has any use for her talents; she's just a brood mare…

@nowlo:disqus Ah, I kind of love drunk, crazy Cersei in the books. But I like what Lena Headey has done with her too. One of the few plot changes I enjoy in the show is the changed relationship between Joffrey and Cersei. Having Cersei be scared of her son and unable to control him is interesting, and ….
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Hugely irrelevant but maybe spoilery comparison between book Salladhor and movie Salladhor follows: