I don't see what is so difficult to understand when it comes to spoilers. If it regards something that hasn't aired yet, don't discuss it in the episode threads. If you must do it, please spoilerize. Seems pretty simple and obvious to me. Speculation is natural, as long as it is true speculation. Too many times I've seen 'speculation' in other show threads (such as Survivor) that seems kind of unjustified and out of the blue, but then turns out to be uncannily prescient - clearly those posters are geniuses and should not be wasting their time on DVDTalk when there are so many scientific unknowns they could be resolving. Considering anyone who has read the books knows precisely what is going to happen beforehand, please have the courtesy to self censor for those of us who have not. I don't think that's all that dickish of a thing to ask.

As for the show, I am enjoying it, though the sheer breadth of the story makes it sluggish in the telling (especially when limited to 45 minutes a week). The episodes are like a loosely connected series of tiny advancements in the story, so it doesn't feel like it's really getting anywhere yet, even though looking back it has progressed of course. Also, as was mentioned in another episode thread, I think the opening credits are one one of the best shows on television in and of themselves.

It's on HBO, the runtime is closer to 55 minutes

Well, there's the problem. I've been shutting it off 10 minutes early.

Which is exactly what's happened so far in this thread.

This is one of those necessary but slightly dreary episodes where a bunch of exposition needs to be laid out so that the action can proceed. A little bit of character development, a bit of back story (lots of backstory) and some world building. I like the story on the wall the best so far. they need to give Jaime more to do, the guy playing him is great. As I said before Littlefinger is probably my favorite character (along with Tyrion), I'm glad they gave him a bit more time this week. Four episodes in and we're only at the tournament, there's a long, long way to go here.

Good luck with that

I love the wall as well, I think it mostly had to do with how little exposition there was, and what was there, was mixed into the current scenes very well (Such as Jon being a virgin, why Sam was at the Wall etc)

I think there was just as much "exposition" at the Wall, it just worked better, for the most part.

The background "sparring" going on during some of the wall scenes was hilariously bad.

Pretty dull episode for the most part. Felt like an old Doctor Who where they couldn't afford to show us stuff, so they had people explain it to us. The closing scene was fantastic, though.

It seems I missed a few things, such as Jon being a virgin and the shot of Ghost. I always watch the episode twice, there's just too much to absorb in one viewing.

My favorite story so far is Dani, Vicerys, & the Dothraki. I espcially like the way they juxtaposed Sansa & Dany's stories with Dany growing comfortable as Khaleesi and Sansa realizing she doesn't want the life laid out for her anymore.

A question about Jon's wolf:

Interesting, I never knew that if ghost was or not.

THAT was Roz? I didn't catch her name at the time...guess I was distracted by something or other.

I'm a little disappointed...I was starting to hope that 'Roz' would just be this legendary creature that everyone mentioned but was never seen. Now I have to go back & re-watch Ep. 1. On Demand.

Roz was pretty legendary

I like how a lot of the dialogue has something behind it. Like when Ned tells the Queen "I was taught to kill my enemies." Also, they're really shaping Snow as a hero who can do no wrong. I like that they're focusing so much time on him. The dothraki storyline is probably the weakest for me, Dany arguing with her brother, Dany threatening him, *yawn we saw that last week. I was hoping Dany's husband was going to come into the tent and whoop his ass. Overall, decent episode.

I'm currently 80% through the first book and I don't ever remember that coming up unless I completely missed it or it's addressed in a later book.

Really? I thought that after this episode they were setting it up so that he was going to end up getting Sam killed. Sure, he was being picked on, but I kept expectnig Snow to take Sam aside and teach him how to fight on his own or something. Right now, he's just all buddy-buddy with the guy and telling everybody else not to hit him. From the sounds of it, they really do need to be going beyond the wall, then they definitely are going to need to know how to handle themselves. Right now, it seems like Snow is doing more harm than good when it comes to Sam's training.

And speaking of which, I'm not entirely clear why they've got to go beyond the wall in the first place. I had been assuming that the wall was a purely defensive thing, keeping the blue-eyed zombie things out of the rest of the world. However, if that were the case, why not just hang out at the massively-high wall and just stop anything that tries to go through/over it?

Indeed. If anything, this storyline feels to me like there were things left out for time, especially when it comes to Dany's character. She started out seemingly meek and subservient, and now she's all "I'm the queen of my people" and rather lovey-dovey with her husband.

Now, I know that in the story several months have passed, but since we didn't actually SEE much aside from a few scattered moments in that time, the transition is rather jarring.

A few other things:

- Where the heck is Ned's other kid? After pulling up a handy-dandy map of the characters that someone posted in a different thread, I see that Ned has a youngest son, Rickon. Is he at King's Landing with Ned, or still back in Winterfell? Also, I didn't realize that the King and Queen have two other kids. Have they been shown at all yet, even in the background?

- Anybody else think that the tournament was a little... puny for all the buildup? When we first saw that panoramic shot of King's landing in the first episode, it made the place look a lot more civilized and modern than Winterfell. That, and the mention that people were absolutely flooding the place because of the tournament, made me expect something more along the lines of an actual arena with a HUGE crowd. Instead, it looked like some hastily slapped-together thing in some random field somewhere, with not that many people actually attending.

Arya funnies that might be considered extremely mild spoilers:

They touched on that briefly, saying they don't have enough men to man all the outposts on the wall, so they need to go over it to see if any trouble is brewing and where it would strike (it's a thick forest, so they can't just spy from the top of the wall).

Recon and intelligence gathering, just like any army practices against its enemies. There's more than the zombie things beyond the wall (as we've seen and heard on the show already), most especially the group of people known as Wildlings. Did you see last week's episode, when Tyrion was talking about how the only thing that separates the "civilized" people from the wildlings is that they happened to be born on the right side of the Wall?
Rickon is at Winterfell with Bran and Robb, and is completely insignificant so far. We've discussed this before -- the boys stayed behind with their mother to protect their father's domain, the girls went with their father to find/secure husbands. There've been a couple of very brief shots of Rickon. In the first episode, he was seen laughing at Bran's poor archery skills.

The King and Queen's other two children were shown at the breakfast scene in Winterfell in the second episode. Tyrion interacted with them, illustrating his good relationship with them as the "fun" uncle. The Queen then said something along the lines of "the children don't need to hear your filth" when he started talking about whores, and took them away from the table.

He's back at Winterfell. He's pretty young (three in the books, I think, though they've aged the other kids a little so he may be 5 or 6 in the TV series). In the books up to this point, he hasn't had much more screen time than he's had on TV (though there's a great scene in the books involving Tyrion at Winterfell that would have included Rickon -- too bad they cut it).

Yes -- in the scene in episode 2 where the Lannisters are having breakfast at Winterfell, and I think in a scene along the Kingsroad. Like Rickon, they don't have much to do in the books at this point.

Yeah, I don't think they really did the tourney justice.

Regarding the tourney:

I agree with this, yeah buddy-buddy is one thing, but you need to help SAM how to fight, otherwise dude is going to get messed up


I'm not sure, it might be one of those things where even though you have a protective wall, you poke and prod at the enemy to see what their strength is?


Yeah, it is jarring both in the book and in the tv series, Dany transforms fairly quick in our eyes, but like it has been stated..this happens over months

A few other things:

Rickon is at winterfell (When Cat was with Bran, and Robb was talking about Rickon needing his mom, and how he was scared and holding onto Robb etc)

The other two children are seen several times, once at the king's arrival in winterfell, and the other was having breakfast at winterfell (Tyrion comes in and starts to ask about Bran's fall, he kind of plays with the kids a bit)





Yeah, but I think that had more to do with the issues with scale, it doesn't feel very big at all, maybe it is just budget related issues? (To build huge sets would cost $$$$)

OK guys, I think he gets that Rickon is in Winterfell and Cersei's kids eat breakfast.

Well I would hope so, because we haven't yet seen