SeanC

Heh, given that he's a big X-Men fan, I tend to doubt that (though the Hound isn't really an anti-hero; among other things, he would need to be a protagonist for that).

I'm agnostic on it, myself, but there's undeniably a lot of interesting thematic content in their interactions that is entirely absent from the show. At this point in Book 2 the Hound now has quite a lot of backstory, whereas even by the end of Season 4 we really don't know that much about him.

Yeah, I was mindful that this tendril of the discussion was getting ahead, though I confined myself to events that were depicted in the show. On the subject of this recent run of chapters, stillshimpy, any thoughts on the meeting between Sansa and the Hound after she leaves Dontos? That's another scene that was omitted from the show (to the consternation of some).

Tyrion never demonstrated the slightest inclination to actually remove Sansa from Lannister captivity. He just wanted to make her captivity more humane. Because ultimately, Sansa being in Lannister power serves the interests of House Lannister, and Tyrion wants House Lannister to win; and, though he doesn't like Joffrey personally, he's fully engaged in keeping Joffrey on the throne. Sansa wants House Lannister to lose, and she has no interest in collaborating with the "moderate" Lannister faction. It has little to do with Tyrion being ugly, though she clearly doesn't think much of his appearance either. And I really don't see how help from Varys could possibly be seen as coming without strings. Different strings, perhaps, but he's a puppet-master par excellence.

Tyrion sympathized to a point, but only insofar as the wholly unnecessary cruelties that Joffrey inflicts were concerned (e.g., intervening to stop her from being beaten in the throne room scene). The fundamental thing about Sansa and Tyrion is that they are on different sides and have diametrically opposing interests.

I recall the rumour about Dontos' scenes being cut for that reason, but I don't think there was ever a real source for that. Moreover, they brought the actor back in Season 4; if he was that big a problem they would surely have recast. I don't think the Ros thing is likely either. That was also common speculation, but the writers made a point of introducing Dontos. They just didn't feel the need to have him around more than he ultimately was.

This is the point in the telling where the show's version of Sansa really starts to go off the rails compared to the book version. The writers of the show really don't regard Dontos as anything more than a hairnet delivery mechanism, but his involvement is a lot more important than that. He gives Sansa something active to do, choices to make. Sanaa's still a child, but in this chapter she: 1 - Receives a secret communication inviting her to the Godswood, and has to decide whether to risk going, because it could easily be a trap. She chooses to risk it and try to escape. 2 - Having made that decision, she actually arms herself (with a kitchen knife, but hey, use what's there) and sneaks through the castle at night to get to this meeting. 3 - Upon arriving, she has to decide whether Dontos is trustworthy. She can see he's kind of a loser, but ultimately decides that it's better to try, since nobody else is offering. The TV version never gets anything remotely like that. Indeed, the closest show equivalent to this sequence is Sansa sitting around in a sunlit garden, running away from Dontos before he catches up, and, rather than being enlisted in an escape plan, is given the necklace on a pretext. Sansa in the books gets to make real choices and show gumption, but the TV version is just dragged around.

In the show, no, there was no further discussion of his mother in that scene, though Ramsay referenced her in season 3 in one of his scenes with Theon (though given that Ramsay is a serial liar, I suppose you can take that however you want).

It was the husband he hanged. The wife he raped.

Just a point of clarification: Roose in the show never claimed that he killed Ramsay's mother.

I wouldn't say it's a tradition, since we see plenty of elderly Northern lords in the series. Mormont is unusual amongst his peers.

He didn't do anything, He just joined because he, like Ned, cares about the Night's Watch, and as an experienced soldier with an adult son he could afford to "retire" to the Wall. I believe that was alluded to back in AGOT (at a minimum, it's not something that comes up in future books, so it's not a spoiler).

One of the commenters on WOTW remarked that the 180 cm minimum, which works out to 5'9, is perhaps an indication that they want an actor who is, at a minimum, not shorter than Sophie Turner.

They thought "Asha" would sound too much like "Osha", the wildling nanny. Theon's characterization is definitely very different on the show. The show version is a lot more outwardly pathetic -- the book version is a sexist douche, but he's handsome and a skilled fighter, whereas the show version is just a loser. And yeah, his attitude toward the Starks is very different.

Orphan Black isn't exactly setting the world on fire in ratings, and Maslany is the only part of it that consistently attracts critical buzz, so it's far from surprising if it's low on the totem of shows for people to check out. Nobody has time to watch every show that has some acclaimed element.

Per this new interview, Singer said that there's been some discussions about doing an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover film. I expect the future of that idea hinges heavily on whether anybody likes the new Fantastic Four or not.

For Dayne they're explicitly looking to hire an athlete, so I don't think there's any big name involved there. Euron and Tarly, maybe, but I suspect those roles have been cast by now. Production has started.

Jeyne Royce got pregnant, she just died in childbirth (as did the baby). It was only Rowena who never conceived at all.

I really don't buy the idea that he'd have stayed with Aerys that long, and even schemed to marry his daughter into the royal family. As well, even if you accept that he just decided they couldn't go against Aerys at the time (which I don't believe; he was perfectly willing to declare war on potentially every other house in Westeros at the start of AGOT, when he invaded the Riverlands with no allies, an action that should have destroyed the Lannisters but for an incredible run of luck), that doesn't explain his dithering through the entire civil war, when if he had joined the rebellion its success would have been assured from the beginning. As for Tysha, that's another thing that doesn't require another explanation. Tywin's formative experiences with his dad means that he responds to any challenge to the prestige of his house with brutal, overwhelming force. He's been doing that since Castamere, well before the theoretical rape of his wife. If anything, that just goes against the idea that he would ever have tolerated Aerys raping his wife.

Tywin offered to resign because Aerys humiliated Joanna in open court. That doesn't require some other explanation. More to the point, Tywin's response to a son he hates being kidnapped was to launch a full-scale invasion of the Riverlands. The idea that the king raped his wife and he did nothing about it, and continued to serve on his council for almost a decade afterward, breaks credulity completely. Even a consensual affair seems too far for that to have happened. All of those lines, again, refer to Tyrion's status as a dwarf, and don't need another explanation. And I find the idea of Tywin actually raising Aerys' bastard totally contrary to his character. If there was any chance Tyrion wasn't his son, he'd have seized on that.

The newspaper obituary of Howard in The Winter Soldier states that he died in 1991. That's the sort of minor detail that it's not prudent to assign too much importance to, but given that the Winter Soldier killed him it's quite possible the writers/producers came up with a firm sequence of events around it (particularly if it's a plot point in the next film).

Gleeson, Dillane, Dance and Pryce never submitted, so they weren't eligible to be nominated. Now, in most cases it's unlikely they would have been nominated (I think Dance could maybe have gotten in if he had pushed for it), but when you don't show up to the game, you can't play. But in general, there's nothing unusual about the Emmys latching onto one person as the default nominee, in preference to any other contender (for instance, none of the supporting men on Mad Men ever leapfrogged ahead of John Slattery). Shows with rotating or even multiple nominations in a single category are much rare (for instance, The West Wing or Cheers). I don't think popularity has anything to do with it. The Emmys have nothing against popular shows. But much like the Oscars, the general trends in cutting edge drama have veered strongly away from the top-rated shows. Game of Thrones is unusual in the modern TV environment that it's both very highly-rated and receives a lot of awards attention, compared to its peers on mostly cable, which tend to receive much lower ratings.

Aiden Gillen thinks so, from his interviews; the other actors and the writers, likewise, have said it was a real choice. I agree that makes no sense based on the scenario, but that's what bad writing gets you.

Reintroducing Wolverine poses some casting challenges, I think, particularly given the ages of the other actors. He really needs to be played by an actor who is at least in his 30s, in my opinion.

That's one of the sticking points for me. If there was any chance that Littlefinger was Robert's dad, it seems like Lysa would have latched onto that like mad.