Sansa • Tyrion

Sansa's having a grand time in King's Landing as Joffrey's betrothed. She gets front row tourney seats, wears nice clothing, and has the honor of receiving the occasional royal beating. She's guarded by Arys, one of Joffrey's bodyguard knights who frankly is kind of a pussy. He compliments Sansa, talks about gossip, and even hits her with less enthusiasm. Come on man, grow some balls. How can you call yourself a Kingsguard if you can't even beat a teenage girl properly?

The tourney is quite lackluster. This time, there are no pretty boys like Jaime or Loras. There are no badass GREGOR-induced deaths or exciting Hound interventions. It sucks so much that Joffrey almost kills a drunkard out of boredom, but Sansa saves the poor guy. The incident all but proves that Joffrey is a psychopath. The kid beats his girlfriend, almost kills a guy for being drunk, laughs when his brother falls off a horse, and doesn't seem to remember that his "father" King Gored Bob died quite recently. The tourney is interrupted by Tyrion's arrival to the city. Despite Tyrion's kind words and gentlemanly behavior, Sansa doesn't trust him. I can't imagine why -- he's only a hideous dwarf with mismatched eyes from the family that executed her father. What's not to trust?

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Tyrion was sent to King's Landing to help rule, but he first must gain entrance to Cersei's council meeting. In his way is pop singer turned actress turned Kingsguard Mandy Moore, who doesn't really obey Tyrion as much as the two dudes with swords that Tyrion brought with him. Cersei isn't happy that her father named Tyrion Hand, but she can't really do anything about it, as her actual power lies in Tywin's army, not Joffrey's title. Tyrion immediately dismisses the council and tells Cersei that he has a plan to get Jaime back by trading Sansa for him. Robb probably loves his sister, but he would have to be beyond stupid to trade Jaime for her. She doesn't even have a wolf anymore. If I were Robb I'd offer to trade Jaime back for half of Tywin (the upper half) and half of Cersei (the lower half). That way the Lannisters are deprived of their two greatest assets. Brilliant, I know.

We also found out that Joffrey just arbitrarily decided to execute Ned, despite agreeing to allow post-confession Eddard to go to the Wall. Joffrey apparently didn't even tell anyone, and on the day of the pardoning just decided "meh, let's execute him" as if he changed his mind about ordering eggs or pancakes. Cersei can't control him, sounds like one of those parents who just proclaims "what am I going to do with him!?" as if she had nothing to do with the fact that her son turned into a gigantic asshole. What Joffrey needs is a good old fashioned spanking, and Tyrion thinks he's the one that can do it.

Tyrion gets triple slapped for making twincest jokes, but knowing Tyrion, he probably likes it so its win win win. Tyrion goes off to clean up the city, using the patented two step Tyrion motivational technique: 1) make joke, 2) threaten death. Tyrion makes his way to his clansmen and Shae and has a WTF VARYS moment. The dickless King's Landing TMZ already knows everything. After delivering the "I know about your whore" threat, Varys leaves and Tyrion gets down to business with Shae. And by that I mean they have boring sex that totally does not live up to the potential a dwarf-prostitute pairing. Tyrion's falling in love. Again. With a whore. Again. Sigh. When will that dwarf ever learn?