It did have very minor brief nudity with the ass of the man the masked woman was painting for his trip near Valyria.

Meh, Dennis Franz cracked that on NYPD Blue years ago.

Haha, I totally left that part out about ABC I meant to finish with.

It seems the wolves are less significant in the show than readers made them out to be.

Shouldn't she? She stood in a fire and was left untouched. She has dragons.

I'm still curious as to whether Dany has superpowers. They never really extrapolated the whole stood in fire overnight thing.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two scenes in season one that showed she wasn't affected by heat/burns like others are. Then she flat-out said Viserys wasn't the dragon because fire cannot kill the dragon after Khal Drogo "crowned" him. Of course, that's just hearsay.

We could talk about the wolves and if they are important, but we wouldn't want to spoil anything.

I imagine it has more to do with the forced perspective or digital work that is required.

A direwolf can make its presence known very quickly.

Based on what book readers say, I keep waiting for these wolves to have some momentous role in the show. And here I am, still waiting.

Well Bran's wolf did tear the throat out of an assassin meant to kill him. Also saving Cat's life.

Robb's wolf has been talked about tearing down Lannister men in battles we don't see, though we did see one eviscerated a few episodes ago.

Jon's wolf, Ghost, did help save Lord Commander Mormont's life when they brought a "zombie" back to Castle Black.

Nymeria saved Arya by The Trident when Joffrey was attacking her and Micah (the butcher's boy).

They already have had a major important role on screen.

Saved Bran from a would-be assassin, bit Joffrey's hand protecting the Stark girls, saved the Old Bear from the White Walker zombie, scared the beejezsus out of Bran et al in the Stark tomb... what more do you want?

Nah, it was just everybody comparing her to the book that made it obvious she plays a more important role than has been suggested in the show thus far. And you're right, I realize anybody can die at any time. I guess all of us non-book readers simply have our little nitpicks about things.

Not to mention Bran seeing through the eyes of his wolf

That has not been established. He's had dreams, AFAIR.

The wolves have not been established as always-present protectors of the Starks. It seems they are there at convenient times.

Stark Secret Service.

They seem established from Bran's point of view, remember he was talking about that it felt more real/more than just a dream, and Luwin basically said Old Nan just talks about wild stories.

He also had the weird prophesy about the sea flooding Winterfell and a bunch of people dying, which was proven true when Theon took the castle. I think it's pretty well established that he's not just a regular dreamer.

Is it safe to come into this thread now?

Good chemistry between Jon and Ygritte. I'm guessing we're going to meet Mance Rayder pretty soon.

Not feeling it between Robb and Talisa but maybe some more story development would help with that.

Good episode overall. Though not my favorite because of not much plot development, the character development (some great dialogue) was a good setup for the remaining episodes. I like how the story is taking apart some of the pre-conceived notions that we've had about whether a character is good vs evil. Cersei and Tywin both showed more depth than before and were actually characters you could support, if only temporarily. I even felt badly for Theon. He's well past the point of no return but now he's screwed no matter what he does.

Tywin's in for a big shock.

They're serving mutton again!

Actually, at times, I wonder if Tywin's a little bit suspicious. Either he simply enjoys the intellectual conversation with Arya, or he's probing because he senses there's something more to her than meets the eye. Either way, I suspect Arya will come out of this alive. While the author does have a penchant for killing off just about anyone, if there is any protagonist to this story, Arya would be a good candidate.

[SPOILER]Shaggydog eventually becomes King. With the cat that Arya was chasing in Season 1 becoming the Hand of the King. [SPOILER]

You can conceive of other options to explain walking into a towering inferno, sitting there until it burns itself out, and remaining unharmed?

Of course, but she certainly hasn't used those powers to her advantage. It could have just been a one-time phenomenon for all the viewers know.

That's a straight-up budget issue. All Martin has to do in the books is write about the wolves. They are almost always standing right next to their characters in nearly every scene. It's completely unrealistic to expect the show to do the same.

That said, so far...the wolves have been there on the series when they needed to be.

Do you think she should be jamming her hand in fires all the time? She hasn't had a ton of screentime since the dragons were born anyway...especially not where being impervious to fire would be helpful.