I thought this was the best season so far and I'm glad I got through it without being spoiled like I heard a lot of people were especially the red wedding scene. I like the way GoT has the big climax of each season in the 9th episode and getting to see the aftermath of these early finale type episodes instead of waiting till the next season for it and introducing new story lines and hints of things to come next season, to me it makes the year long wait a little bit easier.I'm looking forward to Arya and how much of what she's been through will change her ,which we already got a taste of when she killed the Frey soldier who was taking credit for sewing the wolf head on Robb's body, hopefully she can learn from her families tragedies without making her too dark which might be too late. The Hound is a very interesting character too and I love seeing Arya and him as a team , they have great scenes together.... so much more to say but I gotta run , hope all you non book fans loved this season as much as I did!!

Last night Roose Bolton, in expressing his motivation to betray Robb Stark, mentioned that Robb "ignored his advice at every turn." Did we see that at any point in the series? I can't recall if he was involved in the Karstark decision. That might be one. But I don't recall any instances of this.

Also, other than the Karstark decision, I got the impression that Robb was handling the military decisions extremely well. So if he was ignoring Roose Bolton, doesn't that imply that Bolton was giving him bad advice?

It seemed like Bolton's motivation was simply for self-advancement. I never got the impression that he had valuable input to add that was being ignored.

I don't know if we ever saw it, but I just assumed that that was the case since Robb ignored advice everyone/anyone ever gave him.

In season 2 Roose Bolton tell Robb to flay the prisoners for information "a naked man has few secrets a flayed man none". Robb refuses saying his father outlawed flaying in the North. Robb makes the decision to have Talisa heal both his men and the Lannister men. Roose says "the highroad is pretty but you'll have a hard time getting your men to walk through it". That's what helped fuel Roose's betrayal

We can see that Roose is pretty cold and calculating. His betrayal of Robb was more about him abandoning a sinking ship than about feeling slighted by Robb. In one fell swoop, he's the most powerful man in the North. I think that bit about Robb never taking his advice is more of a reflection than a reason.

Good memory. Thanks.

That adds a little depth to the betrayal. Though becoming Warden of the North was probably enough motivation.

I never got the impression that he had valuable input to add that was being ignored.

One piece of advice he gave Robb that Robb listened to was when Robb's initial instinct was to march his army back north when he received word that Theon had taken Winterfell. Bolton said that Robb would be squandering all that his men had fought for if he turned around and went back home.

Bolton then told him something along the lines of "My bastard would be honored to lead a few hundred men from the Dreadfort to retake Winterfell." Robb agreed, though he added that he was willing to let the Ironborn men go free if they surrender Theon.

There were a couple of scenes in Season 2 where Bolton brought up the problem of the army having too many Lannister prisoners, implying they should be killed. It ultimately led to a problem that critically weakened Robb's army and ultimately brought us to the Red Wedding.

If you recall, in Season 2, Robb is forced to house a Lannister prisoner in Jamie's cell due to a lack of space and he charged Lord Karstark's son to keep an eye on them. That leads to Jamie's murder of his younger Lannister relation and the killing of Karstark's son, which creates the tension between Robb and Karstark that ends when Robb has to execute Karstark for murdering two young Lannister prisoners in retaliation and the subsequent abandonment of Robb by the Karstarks, thus depleting his forces and making it necessary to suck up to the untrustworthy Walder Frey.

In retrospect, you can tell that Roose Bolton's loyalty to Robb Stark was in doubt when Bolton has Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth as his "prisoner guests" at Harrenhal. The subtext of Jamie and Roose's conversation was that Roose knew that Robb was going to lose and that Roose wanted to benefit from being on the winning side.

I never got the impression that he had valuable input to add that was being ignored.

One piece of advice he gave Robb that Robb listened to was when Robb's initial instinct was to march his army back north when he received word that Theon had taken Winterfell. Bolton said that Robb would be squandering all that his men had fought for if he turned around and went back home.

Bolton then told him something along the lines of "My bastard would be honored to lead a few hundred men from the Dreadfort to retake Winterfell." Robb agreed, though he added that he was willing to let the Ironborn men go free if they surrender Theon.

There were a couple of scenes in Season 2 where Bolton brought up the problem of the army having too many Lannister prisoners, implying they should be killed. It ultimately led to a problem that critically weakened Robb's army and ultimately brought us to the Red Wedding.

If you recall, in Season 2, Robb is forced to house a Lannister prisoner in Jamie's cell due to a lack of space and he charged Lord Karstark's son to keep an eye on them. That leads to Jamie's murder of his younger Lannister relation and the killing of Karstark's son, which creates the tension between Robb and Karstark that ends when Robb has to execute Karstark for murdering two young Lannister prisoners in retaliation and the subsequent abandonment of Robb by the Karstarks, thus depleting his forces and making it necessary to suck up to the untrustworthy Walder Frey.

In retrospect, you can tell that Roose Bolton's loyalty to Robb Stark was in doubt when Bolton has Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth as his "prisoner guests" at Harrenhal. The subtext of Jamie and Roose's conversation was that Roose knew that Robb was going to lose and that Roose wanted to benefit from being on the winning side.

I never got the impression that he had valuable input to add that was being ignored.

One piece of advice he gave Robb that Robb listened to was when Robb's initial instinct was to march his army back north when he received word that Theon had taken Winterfell. Bolton said that Robb would be squandering all that his men had fought for if he turned around and went back home.

Bolton then told him something along the lines of "My bastard would be honored to lead a few hundred men from the Dreadfort to retake Winterfell." Robb agreed, though he added that he was willing to let the Ironborn men go free if they surrender Theon.

There were a couple of scenes in Season 2 where Bolton brought up the problem of the army having too many Lannister prisoners, implying they should be killed. It ultimately led to a problem that critically weakened Robb's army and ultimately brought us to the Red Wedding.

If you recall, in Season 2, Robb is forced to house a Lannister prisoner in Jamie's cell due to a lack of space and he charged Lord Karstark's son to keep an eye on them. That leads to Jamie's murder of his younger Lannister relation and the killing of Karstark's son, which creates the tension between Robb and Karstark that ends when Robb has to execute Karstark for murdering two young Lannister prisoners in retaliation and the subsequent abandonment of Robb by the Karstarks, thus depleting his forces and making it necessary to suck up to the untrustworthy Walder Frey.

In retrospect, you can tell that Roose Bolton's loyalty to Robb Stark was in doubt when Bolton has Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth as his "prisoner guests" at Harrenhal. The subtext of Jamie and Roose's conversation was that Roose knew that Robb was going to lose and that Roose wanted to benefit from being on the winning side.

I never got the impression that he had valuable input to add that was being ignored.

One piece of advice he gave Robb that Robb listened to was when Robb's initial instinct was to march his army back north when he received word that Theon had taken Winterfell. Bolton said that Robb would be squandering all that his men had fought for if he turned around and went back home.

Bolton then told him something along the lines of "My bastard would be honored to lead a few hundred men from the Dreadfort to retake Winterfell." Robb agreed, though he added that he was willing to let the Ironborn men go free if they surrender Theon.

There were a couple of scenes in Season 2 where Bolton brought up the problem of the army having too many Lannister prisoners, implying they should be killed. It ultimately led to a problem that critically weakened Robb's army and ultimately brought us to the Red Wedding.

If you recall, in Season 2, Robb is forced to house a Lannister prisoner in Jamie's cell due to a lack of space and he charged Lord Karstark's son to keep an eye on them. That leads to Jamie's murder of his younger Lannister relation and the killing of Karstark's son, which creates the tension between Robb and Karstark that ends when Robb has to execute Karstark for murdering two young Lannister prisoners in retaliation and the subsequent abandonment of Robb by the Karstarks, thus depleting his forces and making it necessary to suck up to the untrustworthy Walder Frey.

In retrospect, you can tell that Roose Bolton's loyalty to Robb Stark was in doubt when Bolton has Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth as his "prisoner guests" at Harrenhal. The subtext of Jamie and Roose's conversation was that Roose knew that Robb was going to lose and that Roose wanted to benefit from being on the winning side.