Jaime could beat Ned at swordplay without breaking a sweat, any day of the week. Was weird to see them fighting. :ermm:

Renly's sixuality

Renly nor Loras were POV characters. All that we knew about them came from the opinions and judgements of other characters. It was pretty clear that many of the characters believed them to be gay, such as Jaime's "I'll take your sword from you and shove somewhere even Renly couldn't find," line.

This is one of the things I really like about the books that is missing in the TV series. Seeing the world from the POV of particular characters allowed for their view to be skewed by their own prejudices. We couldn't say for a fact that Renly and Loras were lovers, only that people believed them to be. This kind of subtlety isn't present in the show, and is probably a lot more difficult to achieve on television.

The first and only scene Renly and Loras share together is when Renly's become a pretender to the Iron Throne, and has taken the field with House Tyrell supporting his cause - and even then they're not alone. Their relationship is then only really brought up again when Loras describes the events of that night to Jaime back in KL, wa-aaay ahead in A Storm of Swords.

Considering, I really can't imagine why so much was made of Renly and Loras being lovers, unless a lot more is going to be made of the characters, and sooner, than in the books. Or maybe it was just an excuse for some homo-erotic smut to break up the fighting & plotting - which never requires an excuse anyway. I mean, Daenerys ought to have a few equivalent scenes with Irri later, to balance things out.

Ned is too old and soft to challenge Jaime one-on-one, without a doubt...even if he would have been a match for him in his prime. Even that seems unlikely given the way Jaime's prowess in battle is described in the books.

True, although I think once you read FFC, you realise that that side of Cersei was always there; we just didn't get a chance to see it because we didn't have the luxury of her POV. Sure, she's a venomous conniving backstabber, but she's still human. I thought the added scene fitted in perfectly with what we know of her character from later books, especially when we finally get to see the world through her eyes.

When we get to see her being eaten alive from the inside by her insecurities...yep...definitely human.

Loved the insecurities, hated the prophesy. Personally hoping they either downplay it or ditch it completely on TV.

Brienne beats them all. She's the BEST swords"man"

She certainly ranks pretty highly as far as main characters. Jaime gave her a run for her money in shackles after spending months in a dungeon cell when he had two hands, though.

She was holding back not to hurt Jamie, for too much. He had excuses, but in the end he did realized she was stronger than him and perhaps even in skills.

Yeah, but Jaime was really, really weak from living in a dungeon for months. Even then Brienne thought that as a swordsman he had no equal. I'm assuming she included herself in that sentiment...:shrug: Didn't her inner-monologue even mention that she would not have been able to hold him off if he were at full-strength?

Jaime held doubt whether or not he could beat her even in his full strength, so I'm assuming he was judging with his swordsman's experience.

Prince Oberyn was a big let down.

There's no doubt that they ended up respecting each others' abilities. I guess we'll never know since there can't be a fair re-match.

Yeah, he made a foolish move there at the end of the fight. Then again, I wouldn't have expected GRRM to let his "boogeyman" Ser Gregor be defeated that easily.