But it has "analysis!" Much better than the decidedly pedetrian "reviews" and "commentary" you get in these parts.

Several great scenes this episode.
Cat and Robb was an elegant little grief-to-cold-rage bit, really liked Varys and Littlefinger giving each other verbal hand jobs, Commander Mormont's monologue was awesome, and the Tyrion/Tywin scene was just fantastic.

How fast do ravens fly?
Like, Bran and Rickon have the Ned's-dead dream (which presumably would happen the night after Ned was killed) and the raven's there the next day. Westeros is pretty big, right?

Chekhov's dragon eggs!
I think this was more strongly foreshadowed than "teased at best," but maybe I just have selective memory. How many did/didn't think that was going to happen at some point?

@Everybody in general

That'd be Sarella, naturally, not Sallera

BOOK FOUR SPOILERS

@Mr. Manager

Martin's got some writing tics I just got used to, and I've come to enjoy the writing for the most part. But hey, matters of taste and all that.

And personal disclaimer: I'm not a "fantasy person." Thought the LOTR books were poorly written, and only enjoyed the movies because they looked so awesome. Tried the Wheel of Time books based on recommendations after I read these books, and got through two and a half before giving up in disgust (those were very,…

@Mr. Manager

I think you're right on Tyrion, and a couple of observations:

@Sheila

Re: Ned's honor and his caving… his personal code was apparently not as absolute as he or we would like it. And we did have some prior evidence of that. I think the execution at the beginning isn't a good example (there I actually think he was being honorable, not *dis*honorable - he does his own dirty work, says "the…

Re: breakout characters - interesting, because with an adaptation the showrunners are on rails a bit in terms of where they can take the story, whom to focus on, etc. Breakouts can get more screen time, but the basic story is (probably, we assume) the same basic story from the source material.

And downthread from that comment:

Anyone who thinks anyone else is "stupid" because they have different opinions about the relative value and capabilities of different genres is being stupid. And also an ass. I refer you to Vonnegut's introduction to Welcome to the Monkey House.

I like that immediately after seeing the episode where Ned dies, people are already saying "yeah but there's no WAY they'd ever do XYZ, because that's not how stories work!" Ladies and gentlemen, the central character of the first season was just killed. I think they'll do whatever the hell they like.

@profdragon

Yeah I mean, that's fair, and a matter of taste. I'll up the stakes a little though: here, they did a very good job with the flow of that sequence - from "holy crap the battle's here already" to waking up after, to "where did the other 18,000 go," to "oh they sneaked up on Jaime, neat!" It worked that way.