The Blue Board

This episode seemed to differ from the books the most so far. You got Arya getting caught early and Tyrion's hooker being Sansa's handmaid instead of the other girl (Name escapes me)

nm

I thought we were talking bout what the show cut out. I'll gladly delete my post if I spoiled anything for anyone but you'll have to edit yours to cut the quote out.

Episode 3
New Characters introduced
Brienne of Tarth (Brienne the Beauty)
Amory Lorch
Margaery Tyrell

Starks -
Bran - Once again Bran is introduced through his Direwolf Summer. He is having dreams and seeing through or controlling his Direwolf. Maester Luwin tells Bran that his chain of Valyrian metal is given to the Maesters that study magic. None of them have ever found a working magic and his dreams are just dreams.
Catelyn - Arrives in the southern lands to work a deal with Renly stark. She arrives as there is a joust/1on1 battle going on between 2 armored knights. This is Brienne of Tarth or Brienne the beautiful is introduced. She is a warrior and joins Renly's Kingsguard. Catelyn is trying to broker a deal between Renly and Robb, but isn't recieved as well as could have been. Catelyn is escorted by Brienne to her tent, and Brienne asks her not to call her a lady, Catelyn smiles.
Arya – Shown sharpening ‘Needle’ and talking to Yoren in a camp or somewhere near a wall. A lot was put into the next few scenes which shortened what happened in the books, I’m just trying to stick to the show though. Yoren explains to her that when he was younger his brother was killed by another boy, at night he used to say the boys name, almost like a prayer, until one day the he saw the boy coming through his town and he killed him with an axe to the head. Just as Arya is about to fall asleep, some men show up. Yoren gets everyone up and he tells a few of them to go hide, while the rest go out to confront the soldiers that showed up. Ser Amory Lorch is on the horse and says who they are looking for. Yoren gets hit with a crossbow to the chest and proceeds to kill 4 or 5 men before Amory kills him. Arya loses Needle to one of Amory’s men, possibly the Tickler. There is a boy on the ground with an arrow through his leg, the tickler asks him if he can walk, and he says he can’t. The tickler proceeds to deliberately put needle through the boys neck and kills him. At the end Amory says he is looking for Gendry, and Arya looks at the dead boy and says they already found him.
Robb – Not in this episode
Jon – He is hauled back to Crasters house, by Craster after getting knocked out. Craster tells the Nights Watch that everyone is to be gone by day break. Jon is confronted by the Lord Commander and asked what he was doing. Jon explains how Craster was taking a boy out into the woods. Lord Commander says that north of the wall people have to do things differently in order to survive. Jon points out that the LC knows about the boys being sacrificed. Also Samwell goes back to Gilly (the pregnant wife who wants to leave with the men) and gives her something that his mother gave him, I think a thimble of sorts. I think he also said he would come back to get her, but I’m not sure.
Sansa – Shown having a dinner with Cersei, Tommen and Myrcella. Sansa is very withdrawn and obedient, knowing that she must answer questions in a certain way in order to survive. She also gets a new handmaiden, Shae. I thought she was going to take her frustrations out on Shae, but she does retain her composure and in the end is still shown to be somewhat compassionate.

Greyjoys –
All Three – Theon, Yara? and Balon are all in the same scenes. Balon questions who Theon is loyal to, his family or the Starks who raised him. Theon insists he is loyal to his family. Balon shows Theon what his plans are and that he plans on taking the North from the Starks. Theon, I think, tries to convince him one last time to instead have a truce with Robb. Balon goes on about how they are Ironborn and the ironborn are not given anything, they take what is theirs. Theon also confronts his sister, Yara (Asha in the book), about why she let him feel her up on the horse, more or less. She says that she was seeing what type of man he was now. Theon is also shown burning a letter to Robb, I didn’t read the letter, I’m assuming it was letting Robb know that the Greyjoys were going to be joining him. At the end Theon is told to make a decision and next thing he is getting baptized for lack of a better description, in the ocean and joining his family. Yara is going to be taking 30 ships to attack, I think Deepwood Motte. Theon is going to have 1 ship to go and attack villages near the shore.

Baratheons –
Renly – The only Baratheon shown in this episode. He is shown next to his bride Margaery Tyrell as two knights are fighting. Brienne ends up defeating Loras and asks to be on his Kingsguard, he accepts. Catelyn shows up to broker a deal between Renly and Robb. Later Renly and Loras are shown in bed together. Loras stops Renly from going further, I think he said that people are starting to talk about them, but I missed exactly what was said. Loras leaves to go get his sister Margaery. She comes to the room and attempts to seduce him. Margaery is not naïve at all, tells Renly nothing matters except getting a baby in her belly, whether he does it only with her, or with her and her brothers help.

Lannisters –
Tyrion – This episode focused a lot on Tyrion, hopefully I don’t miss too much. At the beginning Tyrion is with Shae in the Hands room. He tells her that he needs to find a job for her. She is the only weakness that Tyrion has if she is found out by his sister. One comment, Shae is short, that girl must be about 4’11” or so. Next thing Tyrion does is find out who on the small council he can trust. He tells Varys, Littlefinger and Grand Maester Pycelle all the same story with a little deviation to it, and instructions that his sister is not know the plans. He tells Littlefinger that he wants to betroth Myrcella to Robin Arys in the Vale, and in brokering the deal he will make him Lord of Harrenhall. It is mentioned that Harrenhall is cursed. He tells Varys that he wants to marry Myrcella to Theon and he tells Grand Maester Pycelle that he want to betroth Myrcella to the Prince of Dorne. Cersei confronts Tyrion shortly after this and is pissed off that he is sending her daughter away. He holds his cool and waits for her to reveal where she thinks that Myrcella is being sent. He finds out that she is going to Dorne, although I doubt anything had been set up, his plan was to send Myrcella somewhere, and tells Cersei the deal is already done and nothing can be done about it. Littlefinger confronts Tyrion again and says he doesn’t want to be part of anymore of his little games. Tyrion says he has one more job for him and this time it will make him Lord of Harrenhall. Tyrion and Bronn are seen busting down Pycelle’s door, while he is in bed with a whore. Tyrion reveals how he found out who was telling Cersei all the secrets, Tyrion also accuses him of killing the other Hands. Pycelle says that everything he has done, he did for the Lannisters, and he has always been loyal to them. Bronn cuts off Pycelle’s beard and they take him to the Black cells. Tyrion gives the whore a coin for her troubles, and as he watches Pycelle struggle with Bronn and a tribesman, he turns around and gives her another. Tyrion is last seen talking with Varys, where Varys asks him a riddle and explains that power is all an illusion, and even the smallest of men can cast the biggest of shadows.
Cersei - I think I covered her parts when talking about Sansa and Tyrion, nothing else really stuck out.

Daenarys was not in this episode.

A couple of comments.
Brienne, if as tall as she looked is a huge woman and great casting. If they have to use camera tricks to make her look that big I’m going to get annoyed with it. She fits the part well so far and is impressive. She towers over Catelyn.
I will mention again that Shae must be a tiny woman, she is barely taller than Tyrion and Sansa looked like she was about a foot taller than her. Sansa is either really tall or for some reason they are trying to portray her that way.
Sorry if I got some of the names wrong, there are so many people to try to keep track of, I’m just going off of memory and checking wiki to make sure I have most of the story correct when trying to remember smaller characters.

I left out the part where Arya gives Jaqen H'ghar an axe to get out of the burning cage him and 2 other prisoners are in.

Fair enough. I got rid of the last two sentences, which is what I think you are referring too. The rest is from the episode.

If you look closely when Brienne is walking with Catelyn it looks like they've got her on stilts or something and extended armor on her arms. The arms especially stuck out to me, just didn't move like they were entirely real and looked too long.

That letter is definitely not in the books.

This is what concerns me with Brienne. I don't want stupid LoTR tricks where they try to make the hobbits smaller and everyone else bigger or vice versa. If you are going to change parts of the story that are important why get concerned with a minor detail about the height of a character, just let the actors and actresses be themselves. I don't want to be able to see that Catelyn is 10 feet behind Brienne with a camera that is overhead shooting down to make it look like Brienne is 7 1/2 ft tall while Catelyn is 5 5 ft. At 6 4, the woman playing Brienne is plenty tall enough. I hate stupid camera tricks and they are usually easy to see.

/rant off

6'3" doesn't look tall at all on camera

Stilts were used no doubt

With so many pages - would like to cut to chase rather than laboriously look through all posts. When does it come on HBO. I watch it always on demand - but curious when S2 Episode 3 first airs. Thx