Should have done this before Season 2 started; I’m having trouble recalling certain things. For example, how close was Theon to the other Starks besides Robb, and whether the relationship between Jaime and Tyrion is as tense as the one between Cersei and Tyrion, etc etc. Some stuff I missed/misremembered from the first episode:
I completely, completely forgot how confused I was about Robb and Jon at the beginning. Really, show, do you have to make both of them have curly dark hair?? It seems absurd now to confuse those two, but I did have a problem telling them apart at the time. It’s actually Jon who told Bran not to look away when Ned was beheading the Night’s Watch deserter, not Robb.
I missed certain nuances about Jon’s and Theon’s position in the Stark’s household the first time around. For example, Jon referred to Ned as “father” when he was talking to Bran (“Don’t look away, father will know”), but called him Lord Stark in front of other people. I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone that he’s Ned’s bastard son, but there’s a certain propriety that must be observed, I suppose. And Theon’s semi-subservient position as a ward/hostage, and his defensiveness and/or resentment about it, is actually clear from the very first episode. It’s in the scene where Ned said a quick death is better for the baby direwolves (direpuppies?), and Theon was the first one to eagerly step forward to do the deed. When Robb told him to stop, Theon got angry (“I take orders from your father, not you!”).
Didn’t notice this before, but it took ONE WHOLE MONTH to get from King’s Landing to Winterfell?! How irresponsible is Robert as a king? His chief adviser just died, and he leaves the capital for two months just to hire a new Hand of the King.You’re the king, just summon Ned to come to King’s Landing! It’s not like he can refuse or anything. But of course if Robert and his family hadn’t come to Winterfell, we wouldn’t have the Jaime-tried-to-kill-Bran incident, which becomes the catalyst for so many future storylines, so I’m sure that’s partly there as a plot device.
Jaime doesn’t seem to resent Tyrion the way Cersei does, at least based on their scenes together in this episode. He’s more amused by Tyrion’s antics. Also, I remembered the window-pushing incident the wrong way – I thought Cersei explicitly told Jaime to harm Bran. But in fact she didn’t, she just said “he saw us!” a few times. Did Jaime understand this to mean Cersei wants him to kill the boy? The phrase he used just before he pushed Bran implied this (“The things I do for love”).
Hmmm, Jaime’s reaction is a little weird to me, I understand Cersei’s reaction completely; she’s absolutely terrified, she knows if Robert found out about this, it’s not just her life and Jaime’s life that are in danger, her children’s lives are in danger too. Jaime, on the other hand, seems to be implying he’s doing it for Cersei, but those kids are his children too, he should be as terrified as Cersei about their fate. Obviously killing someone else’s child to protect your secret is a horrible, horrible thing, but I might be able to feel a teeny, tiny bit of sympathy for Jaime if I thought he was doing it to save his own children. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, it feels more like doing something to please his sister, that it’s all part of his obsession with Cersei and the power she has over him.
Eye candy! Hehe. Gosh, I never would have thought that Theon, of all people, would be the most interesting character among these three in Season 2, at least so far.
verityjes 
Robert Baratheon would rather do anything than sit in Kings landing and rule.
That’s probably true 🙂 I wonder if he never wanted to be king at all, after all he started the rebellion to get his fiancee back, not to get the Iron Throne.