Game of Thrones Season 2, Episode 6: The Old Gods and the New

I will begin by again linking to HBO’s most excellent guide to the 10,000 characters on this show, to help people keep up with who is who.

We begin with Bran’s dream about the Sea coming to Winterfel coming true. Theon Greyjoy lead his forces to attack one of the Stark’s bannermen and while their forces were away, they then invaded Winterfel. Theon then spends a lot of time almost begging everyone to acknowledge him as the Lord of Winterfel – it’s a well presented scene as, even with his forces all around and the keep controlled by his men, he is still blustering for control. Osha offers obedience to Theon to fight for him (and, unnecessarily, makes it clear this is Bran’s dream coming true). He throws that he was a hostage in their faces – especially the extremely defiant Ser Roderick, but they know they raised him and treated him better than a hostage needed to be and no-one respects his defence. As the defiance escalates, Theon is forced to execute Ser Roderick – again it’s really well acted with Theon driven to do things he doesn’t like and knows are wrong to try and prove himself to his men – and Roderick dies with incredible dignity.

I have to praise again the acting in this entire scene, from Theon’s conflict to Roderick’s dignity to the people’s grief – it’s very well done.

Osha continues to try and ingratiate herself with Theon. Which involves her getting naked, of course, and exchanging sex for her freedom. While Theon is asleep she sneaks out, seduces and kills another guard (shame she didn’t kill Theon) and flees the castle with Bran. Hordor, Rickon and their dire wolves.

Arya is still in Lord Tywin’s camp and we get to see Tywin’s harsh but extremely intelligent and perfectionist leadership style. It’s hard not to respect him even as he is one of the villains. Then Lord Baelish arrives – Baelish who knows what Arya looks like. Baelish and Tywin discuss the death of Renly, the undeclared nature of the Tyrells (the house with the third largest army in the Seven Kingdoms, Loras and Maegery’s house). Baelish proposes recruiting the Tyrells to the Lannisters for the sake of revenge against Stannis. All the while Arya tries to hide who she is from Baelish.

Later Arya and Tywin have some conversational back and forth which, again, is really well done. He questions her reading and family. We also learn that Jaime appears to have been dyslexic. She also manages to steal a note from the table – though I think it may have been planted by Tywin. She is caught with the note and has to run to Jaqen to name another man to die – and he does, just as the man opens the door to see Lord Tywin.

In Kings Landing Myrcella is being sent to Dorne according to Tyrion’s plans – and Cersei is not happy and makes that viciously clear. Joffrey is, of course, as vile as ever, expressing disgust for his little brother crying at his sister’s leaving. Sansa tries to interject some humanity but, of course, Joffrey doesn’t have any. And he has to go back to the palace surrounded by hostile – and hungry – commoners. Tyrion sees the riot before it happens – but it flares when someone throws a cow pat at Joffrey and he demands the crowd be executed. Oh why can’t someone kill him already.

Joffrey rants and screams – but Tyrion is equally hacked off with him and sets him down with some excellent lines and points out that they only threw a cow pie at him – and that because they’re starving because of his war. I don’t approve of slapping children but it’s hard not to approve of slapping Joffrey. In fact I’m going to rewind and rewatch it. It’s almost therapeutic. And again. Tyrion is also the only one who worries about Sansa who has been separated from them during the riot – though at least part of that concern is that they’ll never get Jaime back without Sansa.

Sansa has been captured and dragged down by a gang of men intent on raping her – until she is saved by Sandor Clegane, the Hound who left Joffrey’s side to find her during the riot. Two people who care about Sansa at least. While Sansa wasn’t stripped nude, another woman has her breasts randomly bared during the riot.

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast, Episode 65

This week we discuss the Vampire Diaries and A Game of Thrones and the joy of watching Joffrey being slapped and how Daenerys has evolved as a character

We discuss out book of the week – Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris, which was truly awful including the writing and awful characters. We also discuss Laurell K Hamilton’s series. And Tami is still reading her porn.

Review: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris, Book 12 of the Sookie Stackhouse Series

Felipe, King of Nevada, Arkansas and Louisiana is in town searching for answers over who killed Victor. Hosting a king is never easy – but is far harder when Eric and Sookie are trying to hide that they are responsible for Victor’s death.

And then a woman visiting the party turns out to have been bait for Eric – aimed at him and primed with fairy blood to be irresistible. Eric, with help from Sookie, resists – but she’s then found murdered outside the house and the police have been called.

As if that weren’t enough of a problem, Sookie is plagued by the deterioration of her relationship with Eric, especially since Freyda, the Vampire Queen of Oklahoma is in town. Ambitious, talented and beautiful, Eric’s sire made a contract with her for Eric as her consort and that contract is still binding in the Vampire world.

And then there are the fae – with great-grandfather Niall visiting and revealing that there has been a long term, devious plot against Dermot and possible Niall himself. And while Claude and he investigate it, the fae at Hooligans are getting restless

Where was the plot? Where? We had an event at the beginning of the book and then the rest of the plot was jammed in the last few chapters at the very end. In between we had a whole lot of nothing. The daily life of Sookie filled in with lots and lots of moping and angst (which I will return to, oh yes I will)

Now this is something that this series does a lot. We get a lot of insight into Sookie’s life, the people around her, their lives etc – and it’s not normally a bad thing. It gives us a sense of the community and the local culture. The people of Bon Temps are people who live in each other’s pockets, they know each other’s business, they care about it, they have friends and neighbours and everyone is involved in everyone’s lives. So this constant minutiae of life in Bon Temps really establishes this and is a useful story tool – but only WHEN there is a story in the foreground. It makes good background colour, but you can’t have a background without a foreground to focus on. Without a foreground story, the daily life of Sookie is just incredibly boring.

I don’t particularly want to know about Tara’s marital difficulties or her children or Kennedy’s boyfriend trouble or Jason wanting a Sweet Potato Pie or his marital issues. I don’t care that Sookie has met Maxine Fortenbury at the library, I don’t care that she’s going to the local Piggy Wiggly rather than Wal Mart or that Terry Bellefleur has met a woman who likes breading Chata-whatever dogs or that Halleigh Bellefleur is pregnant and has put cinnamon in Caroline Bellefleur’s legendary cake recipe

I don’t care about the gossip of my own home town, I’m not even slightly entertained by the gossip of a fictional one.

There were a lot of events that not only were dull minutiae that I didn’t care about – but they didn’t do anything to the story. Why did Quinn call except to make it clear that every last man who has ever been with Sookie is now miserable without her (no, really, every last one. Alcide, Bill, Eric, Sam, Quinn – they’re all pining for the Sookie. Any man who goes near her is forever addicted to the Sookeh!). That phone call served no purpose whatsoever. Sookie going to make a will – purpose in the story? None. Her antique’s dealer demanding the Cluviel Dor? Story purpose? None! They didn’t even add to the background of pointless gossip. Someone please shoot Sookie with Chekhov’s Gun and put her out of my misery, please!

The Dresden Files, Season 1, Episode 6: Soul Beneficiary

Ok, so in an extremely surreal twist we have Harry waking up to a woman bringing him breakfast in bed and carrying a big knife. She seems justified by her menacing knife carrying since Harry can’t seem to remember her name – however the slightly off-filter colours suggest this is a dream sequence and Harry, alas, was not stabbed.

Instead he is with a client, Mr. Franks, who is very nervous indeed – he has visions of dying and is afraid of leaving his wife Nancy alone. Harry doesn’t believe him and tries to send him to a therapist – so he drops dead on the carpet. Hah, that’ll teach you to doubt your clients won’t it Harry? The next one bleeds on the rug, be told!

In comes Murphy to investigate the death (and snark that being married for 10 years may have done it, I love how full of love and sunshine she is, having an ex-husband will do that to her) . Bob think it’s the appallingly dirty tea service is responsible for the death – and laments they have none of the bigger organs to test to see what killed him.

In the morgue we see Waldo Buffers the pathologist (where’s the polka music? Oh my book fannish ways demand polka music – at least he’s funny and snarky with Murphy and pokes her habit of not touching anything he, the pathologist, has touched) who says Mr. Franks died of a heart attack – much to Nancy, his wife’s shock since he was healthy.

Harry continues to investigate the death (with endless extremely amusing pokings from Bob). And Nancy arrives asking lots of questions about why her husband was going to see Harry, she gets agitated and then she drops dead on Harry’s rug as well. Y’know, 2 in one day, that’s just rude. Maybe Bob’s snark about the housekeeping has merit.

In comes Murphy (not amused, of course) and some more magical testing (at least Harry has hair to test this time). Bob also posits the theory that since a Wizard shorts out technology (something that really needs more explaining in the series – it’s explained in the books but this is the first time it’s been brought up here), he could be causing the deaths by overruling the heart’s electrical impulses.

To the morgue (yes Harry gatecrashes, no he’s not supposed to, no, no-one’s going to make him leave, not really. Standard staple of mystery shows is, alas, that random busybodies have every right to access crime scenes, mortuaries, police files et al). In the much snarking between all the characters (they really bounce off each other well, I have to say), Harry manages to grab a handful of Mr. Frank’s cremated ash (can I just say how extremely, stunningly quick that was? The man hasn’t been dead for 6 hours!). Testing the ash, however, reveals an elderly woman – someone at the mortuary has been naughty

Which is why Harry ends up dragging a mortician to the police station (causing Murphy to win $20 from her sidekick Kirmani since she bet Harry would find something before they did. Did I mention how much I like how they bounce off each other?) A woman who sounds a lot like Butter’s assistant (actually, no she doesn’t. Because “pretty young Asian woman with glasses” is not an especially detailed description and I dare say should cover RAAAATHER a lot of women in the Chicago area, but this is Urban Fantasy land were POC are few and far between) has paid money for the body.

Money that Harry uses in a tracking spell and some magical breaking and entering follows. Well, entering, the magic renders the breaking unnecessary. And they find the very alive Kelton Franks – though he doesn’t recognise Harry and attacks him – magic ensues and we have an unconscious Kelton.

Face Off: Worst Friend in Urban Fantasy

An Urban Fantasy protagonist wouldn’t be the same without an entourage. Every protagonist needs people to support her awesomeness and bask in her glow. what boggles us, however, is just how awful some of these protagonists are to their friends. Basking? I’m amazed these friends aren’t giving them a  good slap and reading them the riot act. I’d have got a restraining


Sookie Stackhouse.

Watching True Blood I am amazed with every passing episode that Tara hasn’t shot Sookie and buried her in a shallow grave.  She completely ignored that Bill and Eric were more than happy to ignore that Tara was a captive and then lectured Tara of being anti-vampire.  This is a woman who had been tortured by Franklin Mott for days I might add.

Last year when Tara was trapped by Marnie, Sookie was more than happy to leave her behind to go and warn Bill about the dangers the witches posed.  She didn’t worry for one moment about the dangerous situation that she was leaving Tara in.

Even in the books she’s scarcely better - in particular she is incapable of being happy for anyone. Tara is pregnant? She mopes about her lack of kids. Jason getting married? Well time to judge him on his wedding plans!

True Blood Season 5: Vampyr Tease

I don't know about you, but I am totally excited about season 5 of True Blood.  I love Christopher Meloni and can't wait to see what role he will play in the upcoming season.  Here is a small teaser.

Game Of Thrones Season 2: Anatomy Of A Scene - Theon Being Baptized

Grimm: Season 1, Episode 20: Happily Ever Aftermath

“And they lived happily ever after.”

We begin with Mr. Adacoff – facing arrest for fraud and embezzlement, shooting himself. One of the men defrauded, Arthur seems rather perturbed – especially since his wife, Lucinda, doesn’t realise their money isn’t secure and is spending it. Everything he had was in Adacoff’s hands and he turns to his friend, Spencer, for advice. He goes to his wife’s step-mother for money but she’s far from receptive (not that I can entirely blame her).

Spencer is most displeased with the step-mother and regards the money she has as being owed to Lucinda since the step-mother married Henry, Lucinda’s rich father. As Lucinda’s godfather, he is determined to help her.

That night, the step-mother is attacked by a monster under her bed which then chases her, screams at her and the scream both shatters glass, causes her to bleed from her eyeballs and fall off her upper balcony. Of course, the bleeding eyes could be from the site of the awful costume and the throwing herself of the balcony could be the actress declaring “no, I refuse to be part of a show that thinks third rate Hallowe’en costumes make for good monsters”. Ok, I normally reserve the snark for the end, but really, early Doctor Who episodes had better quality monster costumes

One of the step-mother’s daughters, Tiffany goes to the house to check on her and finds the body – time for Nick, Hank and Wu to race into action. Clearly not an accident – claw marks and exploded eyeballs after all as well as the massive amounts of shattered glass. Interviewing Tiffany and Taylor (the other sister) they’re quick to point the finger at Arthur.

At Arthurs they talk to him, Lucinda and Spencer – who is a Murcielago, a bat Wesen. They agree to come to the precinct but want a few minutes alone first – because leaving your prime suspects alone to make sure they’ve got their stories straight is such a great idea.

After much questioning and police rambling it seems the money all goes to the step-sisters, none of it to Lucinda. Which seems odd – except Lucinda decides to go visit Tiffany alone – and she’s a Murcielago as well – and not a happy one.

Nick and Eddie do some research and find some info on the Murcielago (as a nice aside, we also see that these creatures also have different names in different languages – so all the German Wesen is not because they all have origins in Germany, but that Nick’s research and Eddie do) and the way to fight one is to use a kind of siren – which Nick has in his collection of weapons. It’s a new toy and yes, they love it – these 2 are such fun when they’re together

Nick naturally goes looking for Spencer – and Arthur and Lucinda direct him to Tiffany’s house where spencer has just arrived in time to see Tiffany’s body, killed by Lucinda of course. Nick finds Spencer and arrests him.

We do have a great moment in the interview room though  - Spencer says he knows who Nick is and Nick knows who he is so there’s no need for games – except Hank is in the room and knows nothing, though he quickly backtracks in response to Nick’s eye-flicks (damn, sooo close. That was really well done). He confesses, naturally, to the murders to protect Lucinda. Hank asks how he did it… which is awkward so he tells the truth – he can make high pitched screams that kill people. Hank is… dubious. When he leaves he can tell Nick the truth - Lucinda has no conscience and she is only controlled by getting what she wants – and she’s the one behind the deaths.

Hank gets the same idea by checking the will showing that Taylor is the only thing that stops Lucinda inheriting – when a high pitched scream rocks the police station – Spencer has escaped by screaming and shattering the windows of the interrogation room.

Everyone to Taylor’s house to play rescuer – Nick, Hank and Eddie (with the siren) driving Lucinda out into Spencer’s arms who screams her to almost death… not quite enough since she bites him and rips out his throat.