He claimed lordship by conquest. No need to change name when you are the winner. And he keeps the sigil.

 

I think you mean Durrandon, but that was less a marriage of convenience and more a forced marriage to take over the house. The Baratheon claim was one of conquest supported by blood.

 

No, they keep the name. It’s happened tons of times, even to such notables as the Lannisters. House Waynwood is another example.

It’s one of the conceits necessary to have these names survive millennia.

 

I read that there is a Lord Stark that married his own niece without any problem. That suggests an aunt and a nephew relationship isn't an incest in the book North, but the TV Show may take a different approach.

 

Wait so the wife gets to keep her father's name if there are no male heirs? Then her kids get to have her father's name, and not her husband's name? I admit I haven't read any of the companion guides, at least not in terribly great detail, but that just seems extraordinarily odd.

 

Matrilineal marriages are those where the heirs become part of the mother's dynasty rather than the father's. It was quite common in medieval Europe when a family was short of Male heirs. Usually a second or third son from another line would be matched with the inheriting daughter as he usually would stand to inherit nothing anyway.

Primogeniture comes with issues like this.

 

Not to mention the issue of the prestige of the dynasty name. Certainly a factor in Westeros, where many of these names stretch back for thousands of years.

 

Theres an idea for an AU. Gavelkind Westeros. Even ultimogeniture would throw some crazy shit in the loop. Tywin would have smothered Tyrion in the cradle.

 

A deleted scene from the last season with Tyrion and Cersei reaching an agreement.

 

#TeamWhiteWalkers

 

They missed the opportunity for some good communism jokes

 

This just makes me realize the Targs would make so much sense if they turned out to be CK II players. It would explain all the incest, insanity, and blobbing conquest.

 

Apparently, the second episode leaked in some places and people are posting some unexpected scenes and photos to prove them. I suppose the best security can't save you from people simply making mistakes.

 

Guess I'm turning off the phone til after work.

 

The first episode had an apparent leak as well on direcTV but HBO locked it down really fast, like within 10 minutes, and copies didn't get circulated. No matter how good your security is, it's hard to keep stuff fully under wraps the day of when you have to send out the episode to dozens of global broadcasters.

 

It's kind of inevitable that the more people who have it, the more likely there is to be one person who either makes a mistake or leaks it on purpose.

 

As they say, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

 

So yeah, I watched the leak. Fuck waiting till 3am when the HBO app might crash again. Thread is spoilered, but since I'm posting a few hours in advance, I won't be a dickbag. You have been warned.

Spoiler

On one hand, I enjoyed episode 2 because GoT. On the other, it seems to lack... something. It's not like every episode from early seasons wall bombastic, but I think not being able to draw on Martin's writing really shows this season. There were lots of scenes in ep 2 that should have me wowed by their description, but I think that execution leaves something to be desired. The actors, I thought, did great with the material, but the material just fell a bit on the weak side.

Not all of it was bad, but enough of it was that it's noticeable. A few scenes were pale imitations of what I hoped for. Of course reality will never live up to imagined hype, but still... I think more could have been done. It seems like every single character took a turn for the grim. If I were reading words on a page, I wouldn't be able to tell from character voice who was speaking. Jorah's first on-screen interaction with Lyanna was barely there, some of the interactions within the larger group that got drinking together were meh, Bran continues to be a boring kind of creep, and perhaps most disappointing--the scene where Jon reveals his heritage to Daenerys. You'd think they would discuss it in a bit more depth, especially since they're porking, but it was practically glossed over, and right at the end of the episode before the dead army arrives. At this point I wish we weren't getting an 80 minut episode of battle porn next week so we could instead have more screentime for those important conversations that aren't being done justice.

I have mixed feelings on the way Jamie's intro was handled--again, I wish there was a bigger scene with more meat on the bones, same for the scene of Sansa and Dany discussing the future, which was cut short by a conveninent Maester interruption.

I was betting there would be at least one scene of pre-battle "we're all gonna die soon" sex, but I wasn't expecting it to be Arya and Gendry. I mean, okay. If the post-Winterfell episodes actually address all those points that need to be addressed, I'll be interested to see how this is handled, or if it just becomes another piece of fanservice that'll be dropped once it's served its fanservice purpose.

Tyrion continues to be underwhelming, because D&D can't draw on source material anymore. A shame.

The scene of Jamie knighting Brienne was great, but doesn't quite make up for the rest. Hopefully now that the slow setup is out of the way, the season will step more lively towards the finale.

Stray observation: was Sansa making lovey dovey eyes at Theon when they were eating dinner? Someone slap me if I'm being silly, because I think she was. I'm not opposed to the idea, but it would be coming out of fucking nowhere, even compared to Jon/Dany last season. Sansa hated Theon's guts in S5, they briefly bonded through the hardship of their escape in one episode in S6, and then they haven't seen each other since. This would be some cupid's-arrow-lovestruck bullshit. And kinda funny, considering that Theon has no dick.

 

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share this leak with anyone?

 

Already taken down. I was lucky to catch it, but then I watch r/freefolk like a hawk for leak news.