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Whether the character is Manderly or not, someone needs to do his speech on TV. I've seen speculation that an Umber could take Manderly's place, but I hope he stays. He's just delicious with his snark and Frey pies and "got my heir back, ready to die for my revenge" attitude. I guess that halts the speculation that S4's great ratings might have led them to rethink the number of seasons. So that makes filler less likely for characters like Sansa and Bran, and show-stuff like Jaime in Dorne will probably take the place of his Riverlands journey and end with him pretty much going straight to TWOW content, Brienne/Stoneheart or whatever else he does if Stoneheart/the death of Freys in the Riverlands has been deemed unnecessary. The interview: Together with the 7 seasons thing, my first thought was no Aegon, Varys genuinely supports Dany.

After the showrunners' Lawful Neutral/not a villain comments about Tywin, maybe they skipped the Tysha reveal because they didn't think it mattered that much. Cat was right to doubt Tyrion's character, though. He was not the would-be child killer but he was an accomplice after the fact and never had a problem with the murders committed and covered up by his family so they could get away with their crimes. As crazy as Lysa was, Tyrion got a chance to have a trial by combat and got to leave after his champion won, which is fairer treatment than he gave to adults and children he knew for sure were innocent. The POV characters don't get to be in each other's heads like readers do: everything about Brienne seems suspicious (she's crushing on Jaime, can her judgment and loyalty be trusted?) and Stoneheart probably knows because of Tom what Brienne doesn't, that Jaime broke his oath by arriving at Riverrun to take up arms against the Tullys and threatened to have Edmure's newborn killed unless he surrenders Riverrun to the Freys, which suggests that any claim about his oathkeeping by Brienne is a lie or a delusion. Like Jaime's comment to Roose about giving his regards to Robb, that's something that looks 100% dirty when it was maybe 50% in the original intention (Jaime guessed Roose wasn't fully on Robb's side but didn't actually know about his RW plan with Tywin; Jaime might have ordered Baby Tully killed because he thinks the Freys were fools to make empty threats to Edmure but he's pleased that Edmure didn't challenge him).

The North remembers. The Red Wedding matters: it's not business as usual and successful strategizing, it's the violation of the greatest of taboos and only brings short-term gains. If the Freys are allowed to go unpunished, negotiation and compromise can no longer be trusted. I want Stoneheart, I want Manderly, I want some sign that all the Northern houses suffered losses and are plotting to claim their vengeance instead of groveling submissively before the Boltons and the Lannisters. I want a scene where Cersei hears the words "Faith Militant" and doesn't back the hell away from the High Septon. The show loves choosing shock over tension (for example, TV Sansa as a total pawn during the escape that hasn't been hinted at so that Littlefinger can appear out of nowhere), but the most glorious thing about AFFC Cersei is that she's a trainwreck you can see coming and nothing drives that point home like her indifference to the religious fanatic. This is my attitude as well. In the past I've suggested some huge cuts, but I want to feel that the characters are true to the books. So I don't mind Jaime going to Dorne, but I do mind him treating the White Book like trash so he can have sex with Cersei in a demonstration of Show Jaime's tendency to break vows on Monday, keep them on Tuesday, break them on Wednesday... Trystane seemed like a charmer in the audition, I wonder if they could combine Trystane, Quentyn and Quentyn's hot companion Drinkwater, dealing with the Myrcella plot in the first half of the season and sending Trystane to woo Dany and get roasted in 5x09. But that might be a bit crazy even for this show's travel times/character combination logic.

EW interviews the showrunners Ordering a teenager brutally gangraped and making your son participate to prove a point isn't sadism? Encouraging the torture and slaughter of civilians as a deliberate strategy isn't evil? Breaking the greatest taboo of your society is lawful? Almost every character in this faux-medieval world thinks that Tywin is a brutal man who goes too far and one of those utterly unnecessary instances of brutality ultimately got him killed by his son. Tywin's approach is the reason why Westeros is full of houses that want to see the Lannisters go down and are eager to murder even his grandchildren in the name of revenge. I'm not surprised, but it's still sad to have confirmation that the showrunners buy into the Hard Man Making Hard Choices hype and don't get that war crimes aren't just idle chatter about abstract morality, if they're accepted and become standard practice the way they were for Tywin it can cause society to break down instead of saving it with awesome ruthlessness. But if that's what they say about Tywin, no wonder the show ended up with Saint Tyrion. He's the lesser evil in the books; on the show, that makes him Lawful Good.

Though TV Cersei is a more genuinely loving mother than Book Cersei, at least that part of the adaptation is pretty consistent, like Saint Tyrion. But TV Jaime is just weird. I hate him in the books and don't buy his redemption because he cares much more about his image than the suffering he's caused to others, but I still feel that he's going backwards on TV. It's like half the time he's not even trying: this week he casually breaks his oaths with Cersei when in the books the sept scene was the last time they had sex. If Stoneheart doesn't take Riverrun from the Freys, who does it? Will both Jaime and Brienne survive her? If she really is so easily deleted from the adaptation, GRRM should never have resurrected her at all and invited comments about the revolving door of death that clash with ASOIAF's previous reputation for killing major characters. But he did, and he should make it worth it. The Red Wedding has been the moment of the series. I don't want to see it treated as irrelevant history, I want it to continue to matter and I want the Freys to pay. Stoneheart is the only character who's working on that. Stannis focuses on the Boltons in the North with some Frey ally casualties, but he's GOT's Unfavorite and they might not even bother to show non-Walda Freys in that plot. The returns of Balon and Aemon were kept quiet in S3, and I think it was only right before the S2 finale that speculation about Drogo's return started on TWOP.

So Margaery's last S4 appearance was in 4x06 and her last proper scene was in 4x05. The Tyrells fell off the face of the earth in the second half of the season after being so prominent in the first. Ellaria didn't appear in 4x10 to give any foreshadowing of Dorne's reaction. Sansa and Theon missed the last two episodes. And that's before the addition of new players in Dorne/Iron Islands/Braavos in S5. Trying to make all the structural/timing issues work is going to be such a challenge. I'm glad that Varys will be part of Tyrion's plot for at least a couple of early episodes. It's possible that he skips the middle ones and returns to do some murdering in the finale. I guess it's assumed that he will leave KL early so that the Dorne plot can get started and finished in a way that allows undercover Jaime to be reachable again by late S5 (Cersei's letter, but then, does that need to be cut if there's no time for a nasty breakup that would make Show Jaime reject Cersei?; Brienne if Stoneheart isn't her S5 finale) and for Doran to reveal the real Martell plan. If they have 8 seasons, Jaime could spend all season first chatting in KL and then sneaking to Dorne where Myrcella's rescue is his finale. If there's 7, it just feels strange IMO that Jaime would be so focused on content that's a mix of TV only-filler and book B-plots. At this point, it feels like Show Loras isn't joining the KG. He's the Tyrell heir and Tywin is no longer around to force Cersei to marry him. Sansa prophecy: the sigil of Littlefinger's father was the Titan of Braavos. The giant-killing could be that (epic version), or it could be the doll in the snow castle scene (down to earth version).

Cersei/Jaime has been so odd this season. I thought it was building up to their separation, but instead their arc starts with Cersei rejecting Jaime/Jaime raping Cersei and ends with Cersei coming on to Jaime/Jaime choosing oathbreaking sex with her over the Kingsguard book. It's a golden hand-kissing reunion! Cersei doesn't even try to manipulate him and it's like they're more in love than ever. Now it's just going to fall apart because of the murder of Tywin even though Cersei doesn't know about Jaime's role in Tyrion's escape and Jaime doesn't know about Cersei screwing Lancel and friends? They wrote this season last year and the showrunners said 7 seasons before the premiere aired, so they couldn't have known about season 4's great ratings when they plotted all this out. If this was indeed done with 7 instead of 8 seasons in mind, some plots have been surprisingly slow. Cersei and Jaime haven't broken up, Jon isn't LC. Stoneheart isn't around but Balon the immortal Greyjoy is!

So disappointed by the lack of Stoneheart. They did the Red Wedding, the big moment, and then switched their attention back to King's Landing and Lannister filler scenes. On the bright side, though, Brienne/Sandor was a great fight. A book deviation that led to some amazing visuals. And Bloodraven was filmed in a wonderfully creepy way too. I wish the scene with the child's bones had lasted longer and felt more weighty, but finally Emilia Clarke got something to do other than shout in languages (which she does well, but it's gotten terribly repetitive). Actual emotion! No Sansa; her 4x08 did feel like a natural ending to her season. But they've made so many odd decisions about timing and structuring this season; Stannis is just the most obvious one right now, with the decision to have some early filler in 4x09 and push his arrival to the anticlimactic beginning of 4x10. The recap spoiled it anyway, even more so than Dillane's name in the credits would have done (how many casual viewers know who plays Stannis?). I never found the death of Tywin interesting or satisfying in the books. He was killed by Tyrion, a scumbag who was ready to go along with or accept the rapes and murders Tywin ordered when he profited from them. Tyrion only turned on Tywin when he discovered a 14-year-old who'd been brutally gangraped had loved him (so it was about his pain, not hers). The showrunners might want the characters to be more rootable than in the books, but it's a shame that they read the chapters of a vindictive, selfish, misogynistic asshole like Tyrion and think that he's the one who should be made into the show's "moral center" and a courteous gentleman; they certainly haven't applied that principle of rootability evenly, Stannis has had all his positives erased and Jaime alternates between the extremes of Tyrion's loving brother and rapist/cousin-killer who loves violence. But however pandering the writing of Tyrion has been, Dinklage and Dance have been great to watch.

I bet a post-episode interview will confirm that the scene they wanted to do is the death of Tywin. Usually I love spoilers but this time I actually want to see the new Brienne/Sandor fight with no idea how it goes. I'll spend the whole hour in suspense, waiting for Stoneheart. If her return is relegated to a mid-season 5 episode that will be terribly disappointing to me; I found it the most exciting of the late ASOS shocks and a sign that the Red Wedding wouldn't be ignored (the way it has been in season 4). I'm also interested in how Emilia Clarke will handle the scene with the child's bones. I don't have a high opinion of her as an actress, but Dany feeling vulnerable again might lead to a return of the better S1 Emilia and a nice break from Dany's conquering queen mode. It's crazy that Cersei and Loras will end the season still engaged. That engagement will end up being longer than the season+ wait for Joffrey and Margaery's wedding. At least it gave us the delicious Loras/Jaime confrontation at the PW.

. No sign of Tysha or Catelyn/Brotherhood. Are they going to have Jaime and Tyrion part as friends so that S5 Tyrion only seeks vengeance against Cersei/justice for Dany instead of getting seriously self/Lannister-destructive and conflict between sympathetic characters is avoided? And Stoneheart might really be pushed to S5 so that Jaime can go to Dorne and Brienne gets some version of her AFFC chapters after all.

full of father/son moments, GOT style: Fans have joked about the timing of the patricide episode, but it's hilarious that HBO is doing it too.

Tumblr user claims that Nell Tiger Free is the new Myrcella. That's such an obscure name that I think the rumour might be true.

I've gotten so pessimistic about Stoneheart being in the episode that I'm going to have a breakdown from happiness if I see her hanging a Frey. [sansa] It's the only thing I've ever wanted.[/sansa] I agree that they could have had a more eventful episode 9 if they'd had half the battle in 8 and Stannis' arrival in 9 along with the duel as the other big moment. In that case Tyrion would still have escaped in 10, but there would also have been more room for Jon's election. As it is, I think that might be pushed to early S5 (so Jon might be in book 3, Arya will be in book 4, Dany will be in book 5, Sansa might be in book 6 and Jaime will be in fanfiction-land - it's going to be quite a feat for the writers to keep everything moving along without causing a timeline trainwreck).

IMO season 1 was the most consistent (the tight source material helped), season 2 had the first big flop with Where Are My Dragons but the quality of the plots stayed mostly the same, season 3 was mixed and season 4 has been going for extremes. 4's highs were higher than 3's and there were far more of them (RW/PW, Dracarys/duel, but S4 also had Lysa's fall, Tyrion's trial, and the list goes on even before the finale), but the lows were also lower (S3 had Pod's magic dick, S4 had Jaime/Tyrion in 4x08 plus a whole lot of other scenes that I'm seriously tempted to skip on rewatch and the messed-up use of rape in 4x03 and 4x04). I agree that he wasn't being smart in the examples you mention, but they're very low-key incidents. On non-TV boards, the Unsullied reaction to Tywin seems to be that his only real flaw is his inability to appreciate Tyrion, otherwise he's a good, intelligent leader who makes smart choices that lead to some bloodshed but are essentially OK in a medieval world. Even Oberyn choosing to champion Tyrion because of Tywin's responsibility for Elia's fate has been pretty much ignored; it shows that being needlessly cruel doesn't only give you wins, but the show focused so much on Tyrion/Jaime bonding and Oberyn's hatred of Gregor that Tywin was an afterthought. Oberyn points at him during the fight, but we missed out on the moment when Tywin is caught off-guard by Oberyn's announcement and on the acknowledgement that a lose-lose situation was created right under his nose: either Oberyn kills his dog and takes Tyrion away in triumph or he has to try to pacify the Dornish who have his granddaughter and just lost a beloved prince.

I got the impression that Connington was more into Rhaegar than Rhaegar was into him, not just romantically but in general. He was the dreamy-eyed loyal follower but Arthur Dayne was Rhaegar's confidant. I too think that if Connington had known about Lyanna, he would probably have found some way to consider her unworthy of Rhaegar the way he did Elia.

RIP, Grenn and Pyp, I'll miss you. They weren't major characters, but they were good guys that it was always nice to see for a moment. Mammoths and giants and a giant scythe, hell yeah. I don't like how they structured the episode, but the action was great. Stannis' big hero moment is going to get buried by the other shockers in 4x10. Maybe they didn't want a repeat of the Blackwater with Tywin coming to the rescue or the names of the Stannis/Davos actors in the credits spoiling the ending, but still, devoting a whole episode to the battle without concluding it and freeing space in the finale for all the other major character/plot developments was a poor choice. It's like the battles of ice and fire being moved from ADWD to TWOW: not as bad since we only have to wait a week rather than a few years for the climax to all the buildup, but not good either. This year's episode 9 changed nothing about the status quo; with Stannis' arrival it would have ended with a bang. Now it was good action and nice character moments with minimal plot advancement. Comparing the two battles, Blackwater was better as an overall episode, but this one had better action and some actual tension since named characters died. If Mance/Stannis had been included (perhaps by moving scenes from the first 15 or so minutes to earlier episodes) The Watchers could have been epic.

Apparently there was a Tyene audition video (now "permission denied") that confirmed the earlier WIC comments. Transcript: Tyene: He has a good voice. Obara: He's a singer, if he was a fighter we might've been in trouble. Bronn: It's against my code to hurt women. Obara: It's amazing how many men we beat seem to have this code. Bronn: I wouldn't say you beat me. Tyene: And how is your arm? Bronn: Wonderful. Wouldn't feel right to leave Dorne without a new scar. Obara: You think you're leaving Dorne? Bronn: No great hurry. Dornish women are the most beautiful in the world. Tyene: Thank you. Bronn: I said Dornish women, I didn't say you. Tyene: I'm not the most beautiful woman you have ever seen? Bronn: I've seen quite a few women in all the Seven Kingdoms. Tyene: Tell me one woman more beautiful than I am. Bronn: Well, now in King's Landing there was an absolute... Tyene: There was a what? In King's Landing you were saying... Bronn: Was I? Tyene: ...there is a woman more beautiful than I am. Bronn: Was there? My memory's not what it was earlier. Tyene: And how is your arm now. Bronn: You seem concerned with it. You must really like me. Tyene: And how is your head? Bronn: My head? You don't even want to know what's going on in there. Tyene: What was that, are you sure you're feeling alright? Bronn: Sure, a bit woozy but that's to be expected after a good dust-up. Tyene: Your nose is bleeding. Bronn: It's not it's the dry air. Tyene: My dagger was coated with a special ointment from Asshai. It's called the Long Farewell. It can take some time to work some times several days. But if one single drop makes contact with the skin...death. Tyene: The only antidote. Who is the most beautiful woman in the world? Who? Who, sorry? Bronn: You. She takes whatever the antidote it is from or off of her necklace and gives it to him. Tyene: Don't drop it. I think you're very handsome as well. She blows him a kiss and laughs.

Brienne vs. Sandor could mean another year of waiting for Stoneheart. It's what I've most been looking forward to and now it might not happen. Dammit, I want dead Freys. I loved the Northern plot in TWOW and I'm getting worried that the show is only going to hit the major plot points with little buildup devoted to giving it a sense of importance/emotion since it involves Stannis (the unfavorite) and no Lannisters (the new core family, according to one of the writers). I guess Cersei will confront Tywin about the incest. I hope it means one conversation that he won't be ending on top and unruffled. The show's been terribly unwilling to have Tywin be anything but the mastermind badass who's always right and not that bad after all (his cuddly grandpa scenes with Arya). It should be possible for someone other than #1 fave Tyrion to get a little win over Tywin; he had his screwups and blind spots in the books and his cruelty (which was destructive short-term thinking in many ways, not just when he aimed it at Tyrion) didn't get the "wow, such political skill, making tough choices like a boss" edit to this degree. On the bright side, at least there will be a good opportunity to enjoy Varys in 4x10, his show future is uncertain (sails with Tyrion? worst case, disappears until season 6?). Maybe Slynt will be executed for cowardice if they want to get that death out of the way. If he dies in early S5, the book plot will be used.

Some version of the Aegon plan was made years ago when the boy was still a baby and the details have been adjusted over time. IMO, the plan was for Viserys to attack with the Dothraki. They get defeated because they can't handle Westerosi terrain, warfare and sieges, but they do some damage and drain the resources of the crown before going down. Viserys and Dany, the Mad King's children and legitimate heirs, get a bad reputation for their alliance with savages. Then "Aegon", son of the popular Rhaegar, arrives as a hero who saves the people from the barbarians and crushes the weakened Baratheon forces. I think Illyrio says at some point in ADWD that he didn't expect Dany to survive the Dothraki. If she did live, a second marriage to Aegon after Drogo's death would have strengthened his claim to be who he says he is, but it wasn't absolutely essential. Short wiki page about the Fake Aegon theories. There's also a lot of Blackfyre references that aren't mentioned on that page. And from a meta perspective, Dany is the POV Targaryen heir with dragons whose eventual return to Westeros has been the justification for her character development/pagetime in Essos since book 1; Aegon doesn't get a POV and appears out of nowhere in book 5 (the only foreshadowing is of his fakeness, the "cloth dragon" in Dany's vision) with no connection to the dragons or the Others plots that are set to be the climax of the series. If GOT is like the Wars of the Roses, Aegon is very Perkin Warbeck/False Dmitri.

: Tracklisting: 1. Main Titles - 00:00-0:30 2. The Rains Of Castamere - Sigur Rós - 00:30-1:00 3. Breaker Of Chains - 1:00-1:30 4. Watchers On The Wall - 1:30-2:00 5. I’m Sorry For Today - 2:00-2:30 6. Thenns - 2:30-3:00 7. Mereen - 3:00-3:30 8. First Of His Name - 3:30-4:00 9. The Biggest Fire The North Has Ever Seen - 4:00-4:30 10. Three Eyed Raven - 4:30-5:00 11. Two Swords - 5:00-5:30 12. Oathkeeper - 5:30-6:00 13. You Are No Son Of Mine - 6:00-6:30 14. The North Remembers - 6:30-7:00 15. Let’s Kill Some Crows - 7:00-7:30 16. Craster’s Keep - 7:30-8:00 17. The Real North - 8:00-8:30 18. Forgive Me - 8:30-9:00 19. He Is Lost - 9:00-9:30 20. I Only See What Matters - 9:30-10:00 21. Take Charge Of Your Life 10:00-10:30 22. The Children - 10:30-11:00 "You are no son of mine" is such an accurate response to the show's Saint Tyrion.

Maybe it's corny because Trystane is being insincere, trying to get Myrcella away from her guards so that the Sand Snakes can crown her. He seems like a decent kid based on what little there is in the books, but my first impression of the audition was that Show Trystane was playing Myrcella. A possible spoiler from a WIC poster in the comments to the article: Tyene taking her clothes off sounds like something GOT would do.

WIC has more news: the show is searching for Varamyr, Imogen (Cersei?) and Brunette girl (Melara?).

Trystane audition and text:

If Kevan is the one to inform Cersei that she's being offered the walk, it would be natural for her to mention her outrage at the thought of being treated the way her grandfather's common mistress was treated by her father. Surely it would be at least as worthy of screentime as the Jaime/Tyrion talk this week. Jane Shore, the real world example GRRM has mentioned, wore a kirtle during her walk instead of going naked, so in this case the Westerosi punishment was harsher than the medieval English one. For practical reasons, giving Cersei a short messy wig might be the easiest option: a bald wig might look too fake but a short wig would still send the message that Cersei has been denied her power hairdos. It's also GRRM's choice to focus on sexual violence against women and ignore sexual violence against men. How many readers are really worried about Jon's safety when he's a pretty boy in an all-male environment or about the safety of any male character who's in the hands of enemies or traveling during wartime? Realistically they might be raped because there are no women around or for the sake of humiliating them, but it just doesn't come up, in the books or in fan discussion, as something male POVs should worry about the way the possibility of female characters being raped does. There's still no room in conventional mainstream fantasy fiction like this for addressing male rape as more than a joke or a brief incident happening to the most minor of named characters (the maester who accompanies Victarion; Theon is the male character who has suffered the most but GRRM keeps his torture offscreen and implied, doesn't even confirm his castration in ADWD and is more explicit about how he's made to participate in Jeyne's abuse than the possibility that something sexual might have been done to him). According to an unjust but prominent strain of thought, rape can't happen to a central male character without ruining his credibility by the mere fact of having happened; it's too uncomfortable and implies sexual vulnerability that a lot of people find harder to forgive in a male character. Female characters, on the other hand, are constantly threatened with rape and their stories are easier to fit into the narrative of dealing with threats/actual rapes and surviving them because it's become shorthand for demonstrating that you're writing mature, realistic, gritty fantasy.

Text of the new audition tape from WIC comments: It's also pointed out in the commens that the woman ("your father" not "our father") sounds like Arianne, who's with Obara watching Nymeria and Tyene train. Or it could be Ellaria ("Prince Doran" not "my father") with a personality swap (pro- instead of anti-war). I'm not too fond of the Jaime change if it's true. If one-handed Jaime becomes enough of a badass to be the regular who fights Obara (and he's got to survive that encounter), it'll mean the loss of his hand was just a temporary setback and he's back to being the fighter he was before his karmic retribution for crippling a child for life made him start using his brain instead of his sword. I hope the fight turns out to be Obara vs. Bronn if he accompanies Jaime; Bronn annoys me and I'd be thrilled if Obara killed him in a departure from the books but unlike Jaime he's a good fighter right now and it would make more sense for him to fight Obara.