Modred's post expanded on that more. Robb's 20k wouldn't make a dent in King's Landing. He's young, not stupid. He's fighting Lannisters, forcing their hands in those matters.

Yes, he's trying to enlist the aid of Renly and then they'd be in a better position to siege KL.

Then why did he state that he needed ships to take King's Landing? "We can't take King's Landing without ships" or something to that effect. Furthermore, why would he need ships to take Casterly Rock? Are they going to sail around the entire continent? Wouldn't he be better off just marching west? What am I misunderstanding?

I'm kind of confused about this point here too.

Sorry, you're right. They are focusing on King's Landing, but they can't until they get the Greyjoy fleet to blockade KL. The only problem is that the Greyjoys are on the other side of the continent and Casterly Rock is much closer.

Not that Balon Greyjoy "said anything about [fighting] the Lannisters".

I'd have to say that Melisandre's quite hot.

Amen to that. And she has one of those faces that looks different in every photo. I think she's okay on the show, but she's actually even hotter in some candids: http://mygoddessesoflove.blogspot.co...an-houten.html

Dutch women.

Whoops. What I said was technically correct, but you guys are right Robb's plan is to attack King's Landing. It's the Lannister army that would be defending KL in the event of an attack though. I'm also pretty sure that the majority of their army is not currently at KL because they are fighting Robb in the North. Wherever the ships went, at least some of the army would have to follow.

OK, so if I'm just completely being dense here, let me know...why do they need the ships to take out King's Landing? I'm still not understanding that.

Kings Landing

Davos mentioned last week that Mace Tyrell was backing Renly. Tyrell rules over one of the Seven Kingdoms, The Reach, so Renly has the armies from the Stormlands and The Reach behind him.

Right, but all the water that surrounds it is the Narrow Sea...unless you're saying that King's Landing can't defend from an attack from the sea?

I just don't see why they have to have ships to take it.

I'm just guessing, but KL looks pretty well fortified and probably easy to defend if you only had to worry about enemies coming from one direction. To overrun it probably requires surrounding it on all sides and a LOT of men.

Here's another wider shot that might better demonstrate why ships are needed: The castle almost looks like it's on an island. In any case, access to it looks bottlenecked. Thus, ships...

Not exactly about this ep., but I was smiling and the entire time on this:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/REasBBiJm00" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Guys, look at a map of Westeros, or at least the opening credits where KL is situated. It's not on the open sea, it's in a bay.

Slight spoilers, although some of this was inferred in the episodes that have aired:

Robb's point is basically that to march straight to Kings Landing or Casterly Rock with 20k men is foolish, since he has no interest in taking ANY southern territory. He just wants the Lannisters to beg for peace, which would require them to give up the north and give back the girls.

Think WWII. You didn't need ships to take Berlin, BUT you certainly needed them to establish a beachhead from which you could stage your armies.

Why march half way across he continent taking land you don't want and could never keep? They want to kick ass and get he fuck out.

The politics follow European Fuedalism. The king has no standing army. He has the seven kingdoms who swear fealty to him. To raise an army he asks his nobles to march with him.

No one is going to just automatically jump on a teenage boy's team, but he has a powerful and respected Grandfather, Tywin. The kings army is basically the Lannisters army.

Renly staked his claim to the throne, so he has some of the Baratheon bannermen who swear fealty to whoever has been given Storms End and the Tyrell army on his side.

That's three of the 7.

The Stark army is with Robb
The Aryn bannermen are just cooling their heels in The Vale with batshit Lysa and her son
The Riverlands (Caitlyn's family) is technically not really committed but Tywin sent raiding parties to harass them
And the so far unseen Dorne is a mystery at this point

Minor players is the rebellious Iron Islands who seem to have other plans and the ships and allies of Dragonstone who are following Stannis

A POST ABOUT BOOBS (since there has been so much discussion about them in this thread):

(1) Re: Carice Van Houten (Melissandre)...somebody had mused that he was hoping to see Christine Hendricks play the role. If that had happened, Stannis would have had two black eyes after the seduction scene.

(2) Re: the "nasty" ones on Theon's plaything who wants to be his salt wife...this was another example of great casting. The girl (the ship captain's daughter) was described as scrawny & a little buck-toothed in the book. Most shows would have thrown a hot starlet in there, but they found somebody who looked underfed and slightly homely (which helps explain why Theon had her turn over...a "bag over the head" type of maneuver.

(3) Re: Yara (Asha) allowing Theon to fondle her. Some didn't care for the implied incest (although Theon didn't know she was his grown sister) and the fact that she allowed it. From the books, I got the impression that, besides being a chance for Asha (Yara) to mock her brother & belittle his arrogant behavior, it also shows how little she cared about the fondling. It is perfectly in line with her character...although she does have a very sexual side to her nature, she also is all about ruling & leading soldiers. Her casual (and almost smirking) allowing Theon to take liberties shows her 'masculine side' in that reinforces her disregard for the traditional 'helpless female' whose modesty is at a premium. It seemed obvious that she wasn't the least bit interested in him (or aroused) & that he might as well have been shaking her hand. In other words, she was returning the same attitude that Theon was showing toward her in that he was just using her body in the same way he always used women, and she was using her body indifferently to put him in his place.
Still don't like the name change. Maybe they thought "Asha" would be confused with "Arya".

(4) Speaking of Arya (and anatomy): My wife & I disagree over this. I think they need to do a bit more to disguise Arya's gender (beginning with the haircut...at least Maisie Williams allowed them to cut her hair rather than wearing a wig). Regarding the obvious (to me) emergence of her chest, that's something that the wardrobe dept. needs to work on, IMHO. Giving her some baggier clothes (considering the motley band she's now a part of, that would be entirely consistent) and not having a tight belt around her waist (which emphasizes her hips) would be a good start. It's not too hard to suspend disbelief (Bran also has a soft, "pretty" face, so the face is not the problem), but it's going to be harder to hide her femininity as time goes on (without giving anything away). On the other hand, my wife thinks she looks shapeless, so maybe this isn't as big an issue to most viewers. Arya does seem quite a bit older than when we first saw her, so puberty is playing its part.
I'm sure that the producers have a plan in mind for the aging of the younger actors (starting with the adding of a couple of years to the characters to begin with).

(5) Re: Roz...she's getting to keep her clothes on this season.

I can't remember if it was Robb or Davos talking to Saladhor Saan, but one of them was saying they wanted to blockade King's Landing which would be easy to do in that bay. It's a huge city and if they can't get any food from the sea (or over the countryside due to armies being in the way) they could starve them out.

Could be -- there was Robin (Robert) Arryn to avoid confusion in S1.

That was Davos

No, I meant I couldn't remember if Robb was saying he wanted to blockade KL, or Davos telling Saan that Stannis wanted to blockade KL.

As for Asha, they said they changed her name to avoid confusion with Osha, not Arya.

OK, this combined with the fact that since it's on a long pennisula any ground forces would be bottlenecked/sitting duclks makes sense to me.

Am I the only one who found her extremely attractive?

I'm not sure I would say "extremely", but I definitely saw it. She would be a fun time met out one night at the bar.

Yeah, she'd definitely get a tumble.