Poor Tyrion. All he wanted when he walked into the Inn at the Crossroads was a room, some booze, a roast foul (and a whore), and next thing he knows he's got half a dozen swords aimed at him. Impin' ain't easy.
Catelyn's speech at the end where she cited Bran as aged 10 settled a little bit of a non-mystery regarding how much older the Stark children are on the show than in the book. Bran is 7 in the book, so he and the rest of the children seem to be about three years older on the show. I definitely think aging the children was a smart move; things work better live-action with the kids being older.
Poor Jon Snow and Sam are both virgins and forced into a life of celibacy. Bummer. I liked all the other recruits taking dives for Sam in training out of fear of Ghost ripping them apart as they slept.
Daenerys is coming into her own and finally discovered the most important non-sexual position-related fact of her young life: Viserys is not a dragon but he is a pathetic tool.
I would estimate about 40% of the episode was comprised of scenes not in the book. A bunch of fascinating new stuff to see, fleshing a few things out while still hitting all the high points remarkably well. I'm loving the scenes not in the book. They're an extra treat - fleshing out stuff only hinted at in the book. It's great to be surprised every episode when you "know what's going to happen". And I have no issues with the changes; I'm generally finding them to be improvements. The show and the book together form a really complete picture of the story.
The new scenes include: The sexy bath tub moment with Viserys and Daenerys' slave girl and their conversations about dragons. The moment with Jory and Jaime Lannister outside King Robert's chamber was new, as was the confrontation between Ned and Cercei in Ned's office. The show continues to do a bang up job of putting the Lannisters in the forefront. Also, in the book Joffrey and Cercei pretend Joffrey loves Sansa, and Sansa believes it. Not so much on the show. Sansa doesn't think Joffrey cares for her and she's right; Joffrey doesn't even pretend.
Loved Littlefinger scaring the shit out of Sansa Stark by telling her the story of the Mountain and the Hound. I think Sansa is more interesting on the show, much less of the fanciful, gullible, deluded twit she is in the book.
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