Lord Leyton has been up in his tower for ten years and nobody's seen him! He's consulting books of magic with his daughter, known as "the Mad Maid." Obviously something is up.

Yeah, I almost never read their show discussions, because they're terrible, but was feeling withdrawal from the lack of an early review here. Their book discussions are also generally terrible, but there's more of a balance between morons and reasonably intelligent people.

Is that even a scene in the book? I don't think there's any talk of Davos as Hand until A Storm of Swords.

The dinner at Winterfell wasn't bitchy enough for you? Half of Game of Thrones has always been episodes like this where characters have tense conversations and slowly maneuver into position.

Isn't he basically a poor man's Charles Dance?

Huh? No. Stannis was talking about how Sam's father is the only guy to beat Robert in battle.

He can, however, catch a horrible, fatal infectious disease. So there's that.

Just one generation. Aerys is now Aemon's nephew, instead of his grand-nephew.

The Blackfish and Edmure are also still alive, although the latter is a Frey prisoner and who knows where the former is supposed to be on the show. But Robin Arryn can't give Sansa away because a) he's a little boy; and b) Littlefinger can't let Cersei know he's involved in this shit.

Stannis actually does seem to have some suspicions. "Perhaps, but that wasn't Ned Stark's way."

Not done with his blessing in any particular way except that he sold them the story with no right to prevent them doing whatever they wanted with it, as far as I'm aware. His editor has apparently been whining about changes on Twitter the last week or so.

Come on. We already know Quentyn is insignificant. And, in general, if you think that Martin has brilliantly plotted this so that disposable characters like Aurane Waters are going to prove to be of key importance, I think you're really reading the books wrong.

Didn't she ask what the point of Ramsay's Theon business was at some point? And she told Walda that Winterfell was her home, it was the people who were strange.

I think that motivation made sense in the novels, when we had a bunch of northern lords that the Boltons need to impress. It wouldn't have made sense here, where there are no signs of any anti-Bolton northern lords. Or any non-Bolton northern lords, for that matter. I guess there was Lord Cerwyn, who was spared dying…

The most annoying 5% of pedantic book readers here would be among the least annoying 5% of commenters on Westeros.org.

Is show Dany even thinking about Westeros at this point? The guy who was always urging her to Westeros was Jorah. She seems to be committed to making Meereen work, at this point, without anything but vague long-term thoughts about Westeros.

"Now my bastards presum to teach me courtesy," Lord Walder complained. "I'll speak any way I like, damn you. I've had three kings to guest in my life, and queens as well, do you think I require lessons from the likes of you, Ryger? Your mother was milking goats the first time I gave her my seed."

It's where Jorah kidnapped Tyrion from, in fact.

Who knows what the Hightowers are up to? They don't seem to have sent many men to join Mace's army - we never hear about any Hightowers in the Tyrell forces. They're also harboring Alekyne Florent in the Hightower in Oldtown. I kind of suspect they're playing their own game.

I assume Stannis was married to a Florent because Jon Arryn had some Realpolitik idea that propping up the Florents would create an alternate base of power in the Reach that would be loyal to the new dynasty, since the Tyrells were suspect. The Florents are also closely connected to the Hightowers and the Tarlys, so…