We have watched it from the beginning. Normally I am not into that kind of story line/genre, but as I've stuck with it and learned the characters, I really enjoy it. Neither of us has read the books. Tyrion definitely our favorite character, though we like Danerys and Aryra too. Love to hate Cersei and Joffrey. What I like about it is you never know what is coming next. No character is safe. Yes, it can be gory, but that's what it was. I do think they probably have women with more responsibility than what they would have really had at that time. Enjoy seeing women with "real" bodies, though they are mostly European and have a different look and attitude than what an American would have. If any of you are fans of Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Classic Movies, he does reviews of the show literally right after they play on a Show called "What the Flick." Of course, you can always watch them later. The panel discussion is helpful for those of us who have not read the books. We learned a lot by watching these. Ded, one other thing I learned is each episode opening shows the fictional locations where that episode is set. I'd love to do the actual tours of the real set locations. Here is a link that might be useful: What the Flick on Youtube

Jjam, that is exactly right! I ued to futz around with mini christmas trees on the sideboard and stuff on the table that all had to be removed when we ate. One year i did a display of nutcrackers on the dining table at different heights.....it was an engineering feat and many had to be taken down before a meal....what WAS i thinking, lol?? I do have a lovely centerpiece planned of red roses and white hydrangea for Christmas Day after the game of thrones thing is over. Wanted to share fun thing i got for the table this yesr, scrabble trays and tons of tiles, so people can make their own words / names etc.. Last year we filled our water goblets with varying heights to make notes and "played" a few simple songs by making the rims of those crystal glasses hum. and our Christmas crackers each contained one zylophone piece so we played music with those, too. And in our 70 degree temps I actually thought about making the Christmas message on our bulletin board say Winter Is Not Coming as a political message, lol!

Holly-Kay, without Apple TV you'll be able to watch HBO (including GoT) on both your iPad and Macbook Air. I have a Macbook Pro and normally use Google Chrome as my browser, which kept giving me an error message when I tried to watch anything. So I switched to Safari and all is well. I hate it when things don't work as they should, but I decided as long as Safari worked, I didn't care. At some point you may want to consider getting Apple TV which allows you to Airplay anything on your Macbook or iPad on your TV set. Apple TV I have the 3rd generation which is selling for $69. My daughter says I should get the new one for $149 and that the 32Gig is plenty big. If you're an Apple person already, and it sounds like you are, it's a great piece of equipment.

I don't think Stanis had a full, well-staffed castle, he had very little money and had to go borrow from the bank remember just to have enough to take care of his little army. I don't think they had all those other staff members to run the castle. His daughter didn't have someone looking after her, remember her running off to the dungeon to teach the onion knight how to read. If she had a maid or her own septa or whatever, she wouldn't have been able to do that I don't think.