Here’s The Newest ‘Game Of Thrones’ TraileSTART THE SHOW ALREADY GEEZ

As do I, and Theon is actually one of my favourite characters, no matter how much hate people like to ladle on him. He’s a tragically misguided, insecure person, and he’s about to start paying for his mistakes a thousand times over. I could never hate him.

I like Asha (I’m not going to call her Yara) but the rest of the Iron Islanders are dickheads. This is known.

A woman believes that Asha is badass, particularly when compared to all other Westerosi females who lack agency.

A man would point a woman to a woman who is a match with swords with the Kingslayer, a 12 year-old superassassin in-training, the she-bears of a certain island, oh and a woman with 3 dragons and an army of supersoldiers.

Hijack your discussion? Oh really I thought this was America? Guess this is a communist country. (pants fall down as police escort into car)

Keep going, it’s the best one.

Definitely better to read the book first. Then you can argue like a dick with everyone else that the changes are so wrong!

Keep going on book 3, it will payoff handsomely.

I’d advise waiting but only because I enjoyed Season 1 more than last year (after I read all the books) because it ‘s just a much more gripping viewing exp not knowing what will happen next.

I disagree about reading after watching, if only for the reason that reading the main plotlines after the fact is a little laborious. If there is any book you should read first, it is the 3rd one. But good news- you only need to read until about 2/3 through before you catch up with where the end of this coming season will be. Then you can take all next year to read the end of ASOS and maybe start AFFC.

SPOILERISH

I’d say that S2 mostly missed to shape the Halfhand better, so what BWaNiI said. One other thing was that Stannis already made Davos his Hand, but since we didn’t see Florents, a delay most likely would have no payoff in this season (really liked this in the book).

IMO, one could nitpick a lot about small stuff, especially at Harrenhal (like the way Arya ordered Amory Lorch’s death, or how her interactions with Tywin were set up).
But this a lot like the scene with Tywin in S1 where he butchered a deer: It makes absolutely no sense that he would do such a thing himself, but it worked very well TV wise (and had symbolic meaning etc). At Harrenhal, it gave the opportunity to show a human side of Tywin (who is quite a character), which wasn’t possible in the books because of the narrative structure.

I adore the Harrenhall storyline in S2 so much. I’ll even admit that my fondness for it may obscure my ability to detect any issues regarding what you mentioned, but I saw no issue with Amory Lorch being urgently killed or the set-up on her becoming Tywin’s cupbearer. More importantly though, besides developing Tywin, which I certainly appreciated as he is indeed a great character, the Harrenhall arc works really well as a distinctive chapter in Arya’s character arc. Tywin in the role of the twisted mentor shaping her mindset (accompanied with the lesson regarding misplaced anger and lashing out against the bullies rather than the ringleaders like Tywin) helps to inform her behavior later on in the series better than that lesson by itself, the redundant abuse from the staff and brief interaction with Jaqen as in the book. As well, the show effectively created a better reason for her to not kill Tywin. She actually kind of liked him, and only remembered that he was going to war with her brother when it was too late, because he was off going to war.

@Jamaal I keep hearing people say that, and I just don’t see it.

I did like the scene in which Stannis makes Davos his Hand, but that in itself is not enough to merit the time that would’ve been spent and how it might’ve affected pacing.

Also, it amuses me that my name apparently merits an acronym. Just call me Board, mate. Or LB, based on my handle over at Pajiba.

If you mean at :37, that’s Daario.