Hecate7

Tyrion and the Hound are in the same boat, really. The Hound has lived off being a Clegane, being a member of a family of favorite Lannister bannermen. That opened the door to the jobs he'd have all his life, and the custom made armor he needed, and all the training he's had. Until he said "fuck the King," he was living on his family name the same way Tyrion lives on his. Sansa and Arya have a mild rivalry but neither of them would ever have mutilated the other's genitals or burned the other's face off, and both enjoyed love and protection from their parents on a level Tyrion and the Hound could never, ever dream of.

The assumption that people always notice things bothers me. Especially the assumption that the more important and top secret something is, the more likely people are to notice it. People don't notice Jaime sleeping with Cersei until Ned sends a message to Stannis and Stannis broadcasts it all over the entire world. Until then, it didn't strike anyone as odd that golden-haired Cersei Lannister had three blonde children, or that the world's most eligible bachelor was in the King's Guard. Who would be watching to see if "pots of wildfire magically flew around King's Landing?" Who would be checking the pots to see what was inside them? Exactly how is it suspicious if pots of anything are being transported? Oil for lamps, water for livestock, and other fluids in pots probably "fly around the city" transported by carts and horses all the time in builk. Why would anyone see anything suspicious about some pots of wildfire? It's not like they're labelled or anything. And no, I don't think anyone actually removed them. Cersei knew of them because Jaime did, and he tells her everything. Nobody else knew of them, because they were not in Jaime's confidence on that same level. Tyrion found out completely by accident, and not by looking at a cart going down the street, either.

The black hair is a disguise. She looks like her uncle Littlefinger now, not like anyone named Tully or even Stark. That necklace does look just like the Moon Door. I am not sure what that's all about, but it is a sort of intimidating look. It looks like now there are two people who know who Alayne really is, besides Baelish and Robin. I wonder where Baelish is going.

Well, it's easier to imagine that Illlyrio or someone offered up their child as a fake Aegon AFTER the killing, rather than before. While there are plenty of unwanted babies in King's Landing, I'm sure, Aegon being genuine requires someone having the foresight to know that Gregor is going to come and dash Aegon's brains out etc....and swap out the real Aegon for a false one, either with or without Elia knowing. Some baby got his head smashed in, and for it not to be Aegon means someone got a baby from someone, and substituted him for the real Aegon. That's almost worse than the real Aegon being killed somehow. It means that someone who could have smuggled out Elia and Rhaenys, did not do so, in order that the death of the baby look authentic. If there was time to swap babies, there was also time to just get the whole family to safety, but the swapper made the conscious decision not to. Connington is a genius choice for the fostering, because he would want so much to believe he was raising Rhaegar's son.

I just had an awful thought. What if Levon IS Hank's, but Becca isn't?

Any father of a bastard may decide at any time to legitimize said bastard. Roose Bolton just made Ramsey "earn" it because he's kind of a creep. As for Ned, there was never any reason that we know of, other than Cat being against it, for him not giving Jon his name. And as we learned season one, Cat herself even offered to let Ned make Jon Snow a Stark, if Jon Snow survived a fever she believed she caused by praying for him to die. People can legitimize their own bastards. Roose was probably always going to legitimize Ramsey eventually, because he will need an heir and Ramsey is all he's got. The King can also legitimize someone else's bastards. Ned would have had no trouble getting Robert to make Jon Snow a Stark. Someone asked if all bastards are named Snow. All illegitimate children of Northern noblemen are named Snow. Common bastards have no last names at all, but noble bastards are named based on the region they come from. The surnames are: Flowers: The Reach Hill: The Westerlands Pyke: Iron Islands Rivers: The Riverlands Sand: Dorne Snow: The North Stone: The Vale of Arryn Storm: The Stormlands Waters: The Crownlands Using these surnames is only permitted if the father has admitted the bastard is his, and implies a certain amount of protection from that lord's House even though bastards such as Gendry Waters, Jon Snow, and Ramsey Bolton could never inherit.

Littlefinger, like the Hound, is older than Tyrion. He grew up with Cat. He is interested in Sansa because she reminds him of her mother, which is a bit squicky for some. Littlefinger is trying to cause Tyrion's death. He already caused Ned Stark's death, and manipulated events so that Cat and Robb would die. He murdered his wife in cold blood, right in front ot Sansa. He set up a baroque scheme for Joffrey's murder that would implicate Sansa, and made sure that the necklace would find its way back to King's Landing, making Sansa entirely dependent on him. Not content with causing the deaths of Sansa's family, Littlfinger would also like to do in Tyrion, who is the one person in King's Landing certain of her innocence and concerned with keeping her safe. Danaerys looked absolutely insane dismissing Jorah, and I think the decision was insane. He's proven his loyalty to her many times over, and his actions since Drogo's death should have counted for something. Interesting how the episode juxtaposed Sansa embracing Littlefinger, who is untrustworthy and dangerous, and Danaerys banishing Jorah, who is absolutely loyal to her. He declined a royal pardon for her--I can't believe she didn't get that. And then Oberyn.....it was just opposite day in Westeros, I guess.

I used to want them to reconcile so badly I could hardly stand it. Hank hasn't so much cheated on Karen, as gone ahead with his life whenever Karen dumped him again. Karen, on the other hand, does tend to color outside the lines. She has never actually committed to the relationship, but has always had one foot out the door. Her refusal to commit might be one reason Hank can't get past her. When she flipped out over him sleeping with someone an entire year before he even met her, I think that was the end for me. I no longer get what Hank sees in her, and that's really weird, because I think Natasha McElhone is literally the most beautiful woman in the world. They referenced a test again. I am fully expecting that Rath and Julia actually slept together and just don't remember it, and that Rath, not Hank, is Levon's father.

I think Tyrion is the raisonneur in the books and on the show. Therefore he is, although not the moral compass, the voice of sanity throughout most of the books. But hearing about Tysha makes him take leave of his senses. His break with Jaime, murders of Shae and Tywin, and his behavior pretty much until Penny starts influencing him and he begins to care what happens to her, are all consistent with temporary insanity. He is NOT Tyrion during that time. He is having a psychotic break. I think either he will disintegrate into complete insanity in the books, while Tyrion haters say, "see? This was always who he was," and Tyrion fans freak in helpless confusion, or he will recover gradually under Penny's influence, because she really does help him be self aware. She's almost like a therapist, really. Jorah can't do it. It has to be someone who has actually experienced the same disadvantages as Tyrion, and not fallen apart. Tyrion's angry about being a dwarf. That's his crown of thorns. Only another dwarf can help him with this. I expect the murders all to go down pretty much the way they did in the books, except that I think we will learn a great deal more on the show than we did in the books, about how Shae came to be in Tywin's bed. And Tyrion may end up killing her not in a jealous rage, but in self-defense, or to stop her from calling the guards.

Stark, even though I'm starting to think that they are no longer the good guys, or at least, won't be, by the time this is all over.

So the Hound's brother assumed he was stealing and burned his face off. Sort of makes sense of why he refused to steal until very recently, doesn't it? Not being a thief wasn't just the one thing he could still cling to, it was also his way of proving to himself (and his family, if they were paying attention), that he hadn't deserved it.

Fire-breathing dragons hatching out of petrified eggs in the lap of a girl who sat unburnt with them during her husband's creation is less bizarre than a boy becoming one with a tree? A giant army of zombies is heading down from the North, and a bunch of people keep getting resurrected by Beric Dondarrion, but Zombie Cat is too much? It's an epic fantasy subverted into the magic realism genre. The magic stuff is there. If you tone down Bran's plot you might as well cut it. I don't care for UnCat, but she's obviously critical to the story.

Maggie predicted accurately that Cersei would not marry Rhaegar, but would marry a King. That she would have three children, but her husband would have 16. And that her friend Melara wouldn't live long enough to marry, but would die that night. That lends credence to the rest of the prophecy, that Cersei would be queen until a younger, more beautiful queen came to take away everything she held dear, and that her three children would have golden crowns and golden shrouds, and that life would squeeze every last bit of happiness out of her, and THEN the valonquar would strangle her. There is nothing at all impressive about predicting that Cersei's 3 children will die before her when one already has, nor that someone's little brother somewhere will eventually choke her. The prophecy works because it starts with stuff that Maggie couldn't have known, that all came true. So I hope they do use a flashback for just this one scene, OR, that Cersei and Maggie discuss that fateful night when Maggie first made her prophecy, so that it's apparent that this prophecy has been lurking in the background all along. Cersei's hatred of Tyrion began at his birth, when she was 9. Or 4, on the show. The prophecy came later in her life.