Last night's episode was great, in no small part because of its deviation from the books. (Shit, I'd love for them to split off even more from the books when it comes to all things Daenerys; her drawn-out, all-but-aimless story is, so far, arguably the weakest part of Martin's entire series. Not counting goddamn Brienne.) I'm also stoked Cersei continues to grow into an actual character in the show; she's far from the cartoon she is in the books, and all things Lannister- and King's Landing-related are the better for it.

Also, everything Ygritte does or says is great. You know nothing, Joe Streckert.

"It don't have teeth."

Wait, what?

YOU PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE BRIENNE ARE WORSE THAN POL POT.

<-(is Joe)

The series has lots of well-developed female characters. Brienne, though, is the Smurfette of Westeros. We're supposed to be constantly amazed at the mere fact that she's a woman. I'm sorry, but stating that a character is a minority, or gay, or a woman, or some other incidental trait is not the same as character development. People empathize with her because of what she is rather than because of who she is. That, and her POV chapters are a slog.

Ygritte reminds me of the annoying anarchists that I constantly argued with when I lived in Eugene. TV Ygritte seems sort of okay though. So far.

@JOE: WHY YOU GOTTA HATE ON SMURFETTE? YOU'RE WORSE THAN BREIVIK.

I had way too much beer last night so I might have missed something, but I thought it was implied that the two burnt bodies weren't Bran and Rickon. Not that it would bother me so much, except that I thought the woman who follows him around was a pretty strong character.

I think they want you to think the burned bodies are the Stark boys, but pretty sure they were the boys who were supposedly good at climbing trees, or something.

@BENJO&CHUCK: NOPE. THOSE CHARACTERS ARE DEAD IN THE BOOKS, KEEPING THEM ALIVE WOULD BE A MAJOR MAJOR DEVIATION FROM THE SOURCE MATERIAL; AND I JUST DON'T SEE THEM DOING THAT.

I have to say the use of magic really throws everything into doubt. I mean, how is this world supposed to make sense, and how are we supposed to buy in to the dramatic stakes as presented, if you can just crap out a knife-wielding ghost-baby to backstab your boyfriend's rival brother or conjure up some warlock doppelgangers to slice up your rivals on the city council? How do these warlocks not already hold and control *everything* if they can do that AND (by the way) steal three dragons that were being guarded by badass Khals? Are the stabbing ghosts keeping the warlocks in check somehow? Vice-versa? That's a fight I don't want to see.

I don't know how the likes of Eddard Stark, Rob Stark, Jaime Lannister, The Hound, Brienne, King Robert in his prime or any of the others noted for combat skill could ever match up against stabby ghosts and warlocks.