Red Wedding follow-up

From a reader's perspective, things I liked, things I didn't like, and things I'm "meh" on.

Sploilers.

And yes, gentle viewer. They dead.

Things I liked
The Roose is loose.   Absolutely fantastic casting. Absolutely fantastic acting. "Yup. I'm a traitor. Deal with it." In the books it's some random Frey whom Catelyn notices wearing chainmail under his shirt. This was - gasp - an improvement. In the books Roose Bolton comes in during the massacre wearing his armor, and Catelyn thinks he's the cavalry come to save them until he takes another northman's head off. That probably wouldn't have translated particularly well to the screen. Also Book!Roose wears a pink cloak. That probably wouldn't work either.

No Wolf Cub. In the books, Robb's wife is a) not present and b) not pregnant. She gets left behind at Riverrun. But because she's described differently in the 4th book, fans thought she was pregnant anyway. Apparently the idea to bring her along and kill her off right in front of Robb's eyes was actor Richard Madden's idea. This isn't so much an improvement on the books as a pragmatic adaptation. I still approve.

As I mentioned last night, I liked that the eagle clawed up Jon's face in an unrelated scene. It's like having David and Dan sitting next to you (so long as you've read the books) and saying "yeah, this is the Red Wedding episode. You don't escape it. Period." (Non-readers: after Robb dies Catelyn basically goes berserk and starts clawing her face off with her own hands before some random Frey slits her throat. I think the show made the right choice in not doing that - the mental image of Cat ripping her face apart doesn't really emotionally connect, at least not to me.)

Oooh this is depressing. Here, have some medieval fantasy humor courtesy of the fine folks at Monty Python.

Oh, sorry about that.

Things I didn't like
The Rains of Castamere. It hasn't been sung enough. The average unsullied sweet summer show-watcher is  watching that scene where the Frey musicians suddenly start playing it, and it has no significance for them.  Remember in The Empire Strikes Back how they spammed the Imperial March every single time a Star Destroyer or Darth Vader appeared on screen? We needed that. This episode would have been well-served by, oh, having the Lannisters sing it at Tyrion's wedding. Or just opening with some random Lannister soldiers singing it, just so everyone is reminded how the theme goes.

Secondly, the music is played for no reason on the show. Just to tell Cat and Robb and any viewer who recognizes the song that "omgwtfbbq, son, shit just got real." In the books, it's the signal to start the massacre, but this is never made clear in the show.

Things I'm "meh" on
"His axe took her in the back of the head." I know there was no way to make that work on-screen without it looking cheesy, but it would have pissed off the non-reader audience even more. And would therefore have been awesome. 

There is one more thing I didn't like, but it's a spoiler for Episode 10. If you've read the book, you're fine, but I'm gonna hide it at the bottom of the post after a few more images...

Okay, last warning.  If you've read the book up through the Red Wedding, scroll down past the next two images.

Okay, last thing I didn't like: Melisandre's leech magic was underplayed. Not in the recap. And by the time we got to the Red Wedding in the books, we already knew Balon Greyjoy was dead (we're going to find that out next episode, if Asha Yara's presence in the episode preview is anything to judge by) and that therefore there was some threat to Mel's magic.