Elena: You were ambivalent about the Jaime scenes last week. What did you think of them this time?

Rachel: It may have been a bad call for Cat to release Jaime, and it certainly makes things extremely difficult for Robb – who will need as many people not mad at him as possible – but it has facilitated one of my very favorite side plots in all of Westeros: The Brienne and Jaime Show!

We only got a quick taste of it this episode, but I can ASSURE you that it is awesome. Jaime plays the lovable rogue, and Brienne is his ever-suffering straight man. He quips, she grimaces. He’s so very charming, and she is just…not.  Brinne is touchy about her honor while Jaime is merely stretching his newly freed douche muscles. I’m not sure how smart it is to abandon your horse and get in a canoe with no provisions…but I’m sure SOMETHING will happen. * innocent face *

I’m also glad to just plain see more Brienne and Jaime at all. Jaime has been sadly AWOL for most of the season (it’s not very interesting sitting around in the mud), and Brienne has been relegated to the few scenes it makes sense to put Cat in, and even then she’s just glowering in the background. Brienne is such a fan favorite, I hope that the show-only fans can begin to appreciate the Maid of Tarth.

But with Brienne off escorting Jaime, Cat is alone and clearly no one likes her anymore. I wonder how much clout Cat will have when she finds out Robb is dallying with Talisa? (I think we just need to stop hoping for some more convoluted plot line and admit to ourselves that Jeyne is actually Talisa of Volantis the Noble Nurse Lady…sigh – I actually like the nurse angle I just don’t UNDERSTAND why she is from Volantis.) I’m sure Cat will remind Robb that he made a promise and despite his youthful infatuation…honor should win out. But Robb is mad at mommy right now. THE DRAMZ. It’s why we watch, my friends, it’s why we watch. Cherish your plot movement while it’s happening.

Rachel: Do you concede defeat in the Battle of Lady Talisa’s Heritage as well?

Elena: Sadly, yes, I, too, felt forced to admit that Lady Talisa is, in fact, foreign.  Either that or she is Arya-level of too smart for her own good when it comes to making up stories. Which would just add a whole new layer of kinkiness to Robb’s attraction to her, if she is essentially his sister aged up a decade.  Then again that IS Martin’s romantic-pairing MO….

Anyway, on behalf of all the ladies in the North I am offended that he had to import some foreign flower to entice his peen away from its honorable conquest of The Beautiful Bridge, but aside from that I guess I liked her story. It felt like a realistic reaction without having to be over the top crazy (like, say, Jon Snow’s backstory is…I mean, imagine how that’s going to go when he has to tell Ygritte everything), and while it doesn’t really explain why she’s wandering around random battlefields or where she lives or gets the money to buy supplies and shit, at least she has a reason for what she does.

Robb…I’m not so sure he’s putting too much reason into what he’s doing.  What I found most  interesting was that he’s basically living out Jon Snow’s fantasy of what his parents were—Lord of Winterfell and the noble lady he truly loved but could not marry because of honor and duty.  Robb is creating a Jon Snow for his own son to grow up with, and his Faceless Frey bride to hate forever!  She can take lessons from Cat, who is going to need something to do now that Robb has caught onto the fact that she is worse than useless when it comes to making solid leadership decisions and is keeping her under lock and key.

Rachel: Did I hear you say…Jon Snow?

Elena: Yes! Like Rumplestiltskin he just appears, whenever you say his name.

Oh, man, this was another hilarious episode above The Wall.  I mean, I know there were serious moments and we learn that Jon Snow’s team went after him and two of them died trying to save him, and that’s totally sad, and Coryn Half-hand is basically telling Jon to pull a Snape Kills Dumbledore move on him later to gain the trust of the wildlings so that he can betray them to the Night’s Watch again later, and we should all feel Really Sad And Pensive About These Developments, but…come on.  The whole time you have Ygritte prancing around in the background like “I’m a free woman, who’s the prisoner now?” while eye-fucking Jon Snow, and the sexual tension between them is just…steaming.  Like, one of her arguments for keeping him alive was that she didn’t get to have sex with him yet.  Only Jon Snow can stay emo in the face of that provocation.

Or, as Rachel put it when we were talking about this episode, only a Jon Snow determined to live up to the standard set by his father and brother would be able to stay virginal and self-righteous (and emo).

What was also great was how she basically told him (or at least us) that she had a crush on him, too…basically, “hey, you know that whole ‘all the girls would claw each other’s eyes out over you’ bit?  Yeah, that was totally about me. I would claw a bitch’s eyes out if she came near you.”  I mean, she could have stood there and not cared that the Lord of Bones wanted to kill him.  Instead she saved him, even if she did promise to kill him if he tried to escape.  I am not sure she could do it.  The odds are higher that she could kill Jon Snow than vice versa, but I am not sure she’s actually that hard.  Maybe she is.  The fact that we’re not sure makes her more interesting.  She’s not just dangerous to his worldview; she might be dangerous, period.  That’s exciting.

Elena: “Exciting” was actually kind of a lightning rod buzzword around this episode. What was all this I heard about the interwebs being bored by this one?

Rachel: I’m still defending this episode as awesome. I quite enjoy when characters sit around talking at each other. I LIKE “setup.” It’s not worthless! It’s what makes all the STUFF happen! It’s character development and witty lines and people arching eyebrows (Lena wins at that, btw… she WINS).

Elena: It’s the name. I, too, am quite the master of Imperious Eyebrow Raising.

Rachel:  In my continuing quest to be zen about Game of Thrones the TV show, I have to ask those who said “The Prince of Winterfell” was a throwaway episode…what the fuck do you WANT to happen? The episodes can’t be an endless string of battles (that’s what boring ass history books are for) that reduces the show to American Gladiators. Without careful setup we don’t get beautiful moments like Arya fucking over Jaqen. We don’t get Jaime calling Brienne ugly or Ygritte saying penis a hundred times.  (Beautiful moments, all!)

In a bit I talk about how the upcoming House of the Undying visit will be one of the most important scenes of the series, but we’ve already seen an extremely important scene in THIS episode! Sam finding the dragonglass!

I’m sorry, did finding a cache of magical objects in the mountains BORE YOU?

“That was stupid, who gives a shit about old shit in the shitty fucking shit ground shit?!”

WHO, INDEED!

And yes, purists…the scene was changed from the original. ALL THE SCENES HAVE BEEN CHANGED. It’s part of the Zen thing I was talking about. Just breathe in and remind yourself, it is just a television show adaptation. As one of my friends pointed out, the show does not erase the books. It does not negate them! The book version of events still exist! I have said that the show could eclipse the books canonically by outpacing the novel publishing “schedule,” but that doesn’t mean the book scenes are not valid. No adaptation can or should be exactly like the source material. Different mediums, different goals, different receptions. That doesn’t make the show immune from criticisms, but I think we should just take a step back from immediately disliking something because it didn’t happen that way in the novels. If we’re going to complain about something like that it needs to be legitimate.

It’s the Zen of show watching. Let it go and just enjoy. Get mad about the things that bother you, but give yourself the courtesy of getting mad over more compelling reasons than the majority of the bullshit I see on Twitter and the message boards. The Game of Thrones fandom is too smart to give in to Comic Book Guy-itis.

Which brings me BACK to my point, excuse me while I push my glasses up and gesture excitedly at the pile of dragonglass weapons that Sam found.

LOOK! IT’S GOING TO BE SO IMPORTANT FOR REASONS I CAN NOT DIVULGE! Also, IS THAT A HORN I SAW IN THAT PILE? HOLY CRAAAAAAPPPPPP.

Rachel: Tell me I’m not alone in this!

Elena: I, too, really loved this episode.  I don’t need or want every episode to be packed with action or WTFery. Variety is the spice of life.  I didn’t see how anyone could have had issues with the episode until I got to work Monday.  My coworkers (hi, guys! *waves*) were split as to whether it was awesome or meh.  One of them wanted…more.  An indefinable more he couldn’t articulate any better except to say the episode felt anti-climactic after what had been happening every week.  (And here I was just grateful to be able to draw a full breath!)  But one of the others decided after seeing this ep that he wouldn’t be waiting until later in the week to watch any of the remaining episodes, even if it meant taking his iPad into the bathroom for an hour on Sunday nights.  Which lends an entirely new twist on the specific game of thrones being played, but I digress.  Anyway.  Set up is good.  It is called “creating narrative tension.”

For example…if Jon Snow and Ygritte ever bone, it’s going to be so much more fun to see because it got built up for so long first.  That’s just good storytelling.

Maybe the thing that made people say nothing happened was the ending, which was not really a shock but a kind of somber piece of character development.  I mean, I don’t know about y’all, but the second Osha said Bran can’t know, I knew he was hearing the conversation.  That’s just the way TV works.  But that being the end moment kind of underscored the theme of the episode in terms of character—how do you deal with the deaths that happen because of your actions?  Jon Snow got two of his new brothers killed because he couldn’t kill Ygritte or admit to his superior officer that he couldn’t do it.  Arya caused the deaths of, what, four or five nameless guards who were above and beyond the even exchange of three she owed Jaqen’s “red god” and who had done nothing to her whatsoever except get in her way.  And Bran is facing the reality that his quest to put himself beyond Theon’s power cost two of his tenants and playmates their lives.

Those are important moments, or at least they can be.  The same way Talisa’s defining moment was being shoved aside by the slave who saved her brother, Bran could become defined by the horror of what was done because of him.  Jon will fight Ygritte extra-hard because two men died because he thought she was too pretty to kill.  I liked that we were left to sort of contemplate that…not guilt, exactly, but something uncomfortably close to it, with Bran.  The scene had a quiet power to it, at least for me.

Elena: And in scenes that didn’t have much power…am I the only one who wondered why we didn’t just skip Dany the way we skipped Sansa this week?

Rachel: Remember when I made that bitter joke about plot movement? That’s my segue to talking about Jorah and Dany. Deal with it.

I think I agree with the viewers that have criticized Jorah and Dany’s appearance in this episode. This scene was not needed. The writers/editors don’t want the viewers to forget about Dany in all this excitement about the upcoming battle of awesome, so I understand why the scene was inserted. But it’s just more of the SAME. I thought that adding in this subplot of the dragons being stolen would make Dany’s storyline more interesting, but I think all it’s done is killed the actually interesting (if few) things that actually DO happen to Dany in the novels. They can’t use any of it anymore, because those actions don’t make sense if her dragons were stolen. This alternate universe Dany has to focus entirely on the search for her children. (And come ON, Jorah…she actually DID nurse those dragons. Dany is mom enough.)  So she isn’t forging political connections, she isn’t gaining confidence in her desire to reconquer Westeros. There are no witty but cautious word fights with the elite of Qarth. Instead she has been reduced to stomping around the city demanding people support her cause and now just demanding to get her stuff back. She’s coming off as a totally crazy Targaryen, and the POINT of her is that she is proud but not stupid.

I’m trying to refrain from overly critiquing the Dany storyline until I see what happens in the House of the Undying. It is one of the most important scenes in Clash of Kings, let alone the series as a whole. I want to scream, PAY ATTENTION whenever anyone mentions the place. JUST GO THERE, DANY. BECOME RELEVANT AGAIN!

Is that harsh? Maybe. I feel like HBO was trying to trick me by giving me a little Dany/Jorah tenderness as if in my squeeing I would forget that Dany has nothing to do. Go on your own adventure, Princess, don’t order people to have one for you!

That being said – everything in Essos LOOKS fanfuckingTASTIC. Have I mentioned that before?

Rachel: So do you still love Jaqen H’ghar as much as you did last week? Are you still shipping Jaqen/Arya?

Elena: I love him that much and more!!!

Jaqen is the best!  I also love how game Arya is with this whole killing people/master manipulator thing.  Arya doesn’t give a fuck.  She’s the Honey Badger of Westeros.  She takes what she wants; she just really doesn’t give a shit.

That moment… “The girl has given the man his own name” was fucking priceless.  What made it brilliant was how Jaqen sits there and argues with her with child-logic.  Arya is the one Stark (besides Bam-bam) who is still truly childlike.  Yes, she’s seen horrible things, and she’s even done horrible things, but she’s still got the sort of insouciant stubbornness of a child.  She can understand when she’s in immediate danger, but she doesn’t think enough about the world around her to be truly afraid just in general the way Sansa is.  So she stands there and argues with a serial killer about whether he’ll be killing himself or enough other people to help her escape, and he…lets her.  He lets her manipulate him.  Maybe his god has a child’s simple view of the world as well, so maybe it’s natural.  It was just awesome hearing them bicker like that.  “Unname me.”  “No!”  “Please?”  “Well…only if you kill enough motherfuckers I can escape…” “But that is more than one life.”  “I NAME JAQEN H’GHAR!” “Okay, fine, fine, I’ll kill them.  Now unname me.”  “I unname you…as long as you do what I want!”

And Arya did free the genie like a smart little protagonist.  The genie of death.  I hope we see him again.  But if we don’t, I will picture him from time to time and smile, and hope that Arya gets reports of random murder sprees so that she knows he’s still alive somewhere….

Rachel:  On the subject of staying alive…predictions for how much longer Theon will last?

Elena: Um…probably two episodes into season 3. That’s about the right amount of time for his douche-bagginess to hit the implosion point.  Also long enough to wrap up the major arcs of this season and give Robb some room to find catharsis somewhere other than between Lady Talisa’s thighs.

The scene with Asha was about how I expected her to react, with some bonus emotional blackmail I didn’t really expect from her.  She just rides in and says “Theon, what the fuck are you doing?”  But instead of stopping there she actually takes the time to remind him—or perhaps explain in the first place—the ethos of the Iron Islands, which is they take what they NEED, not what they want.  And they don’t need a castle in the middle of BFE, hundreds of miles from the sea.  The story she told about when he was a baby kind of goes to the point of why we can’t totally mind what Theon did, in going back to his family…blood is thicker than water, and there are certain bonds that you share with siblings that, no matter how far you may drift from them, you will simply never feel for anyone else in the world.  I am sad for Theon that he feels like he needs to prove himself, that he’s going to stick to holding Winterfell just to prove that he isn’t a mess his sister had to come clean up…and he’s going to die for it.

Her plea was so stark, so elegant—“Don’t die so far from the sea.”  It accepts that death is likely in their line of work, that death comes for all men in time, so all you can do is die where you belong, with the people who are your own.

Asha’s words were almost enough to make me care about Theon.  But he’s been such a giant dick lately I just can’t.  I think what I’m empathizing is Asha’s feelings for his inevitable execution.

So far from the sea….

Elena: Tyrion proves yet again to be Martin’s avatar as the show drifts highly meta with a fantasy-name pronunciation roundtable between Bronn, Tyrion, and Varys. Discuss.

Rachel: This episode totally broke out its Tyrion guns. He had a whole bunch of scenes and they were all fantastic. Tyrion, Bronn and Varys bullshitting how to say that old dead guy’s name is the perfect nod to the difficulties of reading fantasy novels. Remember when LOTR came out and we all found out we were saying half of it incorrectly? Or how I felt when I finally read the pronunciation guide for Cherryh’s Foreigner novels… the devastation! Don’t even get me started on Wheel of Time. Invariably while discussing a fantasy novel with a fellow reader there’s always a “how do you say it?” conversation just to see how close we are.

For the record, Bronn wins that round for committing to the pronunciation. Just pretend you know what you’re doing. Varys does. He has NO CLUE…that dude isn’t even FROM Westeros, you think he has the lock down on how to pronounce the names? Hell, no. He is exhibiting Bronn Tactic. We’re on to his game!

Tyrion is also doing well at playing the players! I’m not so sure Cersei is a worthy opponent, but he’s got his shit down. Playing off the whole Ros thing. Well done, sir! Tyrion and Varys are definitely a power couple to watch. But poor Ros….

The episode may be a set up for the upcoming Battle of the Blackwater, but it’s an entertaining and informative set up. Just picturing Joffrey kitted up for war and learning what it is that Jaime and King Robert loved so much is just filling me with glee. Remember when Joff was disarmed by a tiny little girl? Joffrey may be cruel, but he is no fighter. Finally we’re getting a scene in which tons of main characters plot lines come together! And some people complain about set up…what do you think even CAUSES excitement?

I’m down. I’m ready. Bring on episode 9!