One aspect of it is Danerys journey which basically boils down to her being abused in her forced marriage until she learns how to use sex to control her husband from her friendly former prostitute handmaiden. Which isn't really all that positive of a story for any of the women involved.(it worse if you stop to consider details like the handmaiden was 'working' at the age of 12, having been trained for it since she was 9 and Danery's walk I don;t think is supposed to imply more than just time in the saddle)
The interesting bits I picked out were that the Dothraki believe in killer grass and that is early stage Danerys seems to feel some sort of connection to the dragon eggs. Oh, I know now I will keep failing to remember Jorah Mormont's name so at those times he will be called Commander Decent Chap which I feel sums him up.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Bran isn't dead much to Cersei's concern and Jon is off to join the nights watch as Ned and the sister's travel to King's Landing with the Lannisters. Now something here which is not so good is the representation of the passing of time.
It all feels like these scenes are taking place within the same couple of days when in fact from Bran's fall to family Stark hitting the road is around a month at least if not two. The only sign is the pet wolves suddenly go from pups to being very big indeed.
Overall it just makes it a bit confusing in understanding how long it takes anyone to travel somewhere or achieve anything. Would Catelyn really find a hair as a clue in the tower a month later?
Whilst we're on the subject of sleuthing would plotters as smart as the Lannister's really give a man hired to kill Bran a big shiny dead give away knife? Seems out of place (though I can't remember if that is part of the plot or not).
Back to the question of time this episode has one of my bug bears about fantasy in it. The total non advance of technology for extended periods of time. We're told the Night's Watch have been guarding the wall for 8.000 years. Eight millennia which apparently has seen no technological advances of note.
Even if magic was real I'm pretty sure technology would advance in that time. In fact probably fairly fast since you'd need to protect yourself from all the mad wizards wandering about. It's just one aspect of fantasy fiction that always pulls me out of it a bit. Ok, you want it to sound like a long time, but could you not at least pitch in maybe hundreds instead of thousands at least?
Anyway poor decent Jon is off to join the Night's Watch in the blue filtered North because his dad's leaving and his stepmother obviously hates him (who's busy doing her best Columbo) and he's really not sure about the whole thing. I'm sure he'll be fine...
We do get a first few hints (and misdirections) about his mother though this week, though not much more beyond the fact she is alive and around somewhere and it's something that Ned would really not get into.
In team Lannister we do get a bit of human side to Cersei this week as she recalls losing her first born son and Tyrion starts to prove himself a man wiser than his debauchery would suggest at one point remarking "A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone". (Plus points for him acknowledging the rest of his family are not good people)
Robert continues to be a bit of an oaf but otherwise a decent man who can't help it if the people around are constantly lying to him (although we do see him put Cersei in her place a couple of times), This example the poor fate of Sansa's wolf. (Sansa by the way is the wettest of blankets this week as the Stark girls struggle emerge from their 'girly girl' and 'tom boy' templates)
But balancing out this display of decency from the Lannisters is Jamie being a condescending git to Jon, Cersei's petty twisting of the knife insisting Sansa's wolf is killed and no doubt having the butcher's boy done in. And of course we have Prince Joffery swerving expertly from skin crawling creepy with Sansa to arrogance, random aggression, utter cowardice and massive amounts of face saving lying.
(To the extent it stretches belief than Sansa would still think anything positive about him)
So that's episode two. A bit of a moving of the pieces er piece. Still, we'll get some new faces turning up next...
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