Watching the Throne: It's a Bad Time to Have the Last Name "Stark" (A "Game of Thrones" Recap)

None

You almost have to feel bad for Robb Stark: He so desperately wants to be taken seriously as a leader. "How can I fight for justice if I don't serve justice to murderers in my ranks," says the late Ned's toughest son. Those murderers he speaks of? Lord Karstark and his loyal minions, all of whom have slain the young Lannister boys who've been held captive in their chambers. Robb's not about to let them slide with just a slap on the wrist—if Ned were still alive to see what the defiant Lord Karstark has done, he, in Robb's eyes, certainly would have killed them all.

And that's exactly what he does. Ignoring the advice of both his mother and Talisa, he orders that all of Karstark's men be hung; as for Karstark himself, Robb brings him out into the pouring rain, makes him get down on his knees, and then, with a discontent Mama Catelyn and wifey Talisa looking on, and after Karstark tells him, "You are no king of mine," Robb slices the man's head clean off.

The ramifications of Robb's tough-guy actions are serious: Half of his troops, clearly perturbed that their leader just decapitated their beloved Karstark, unceremoniously leave his army and head off into the who-the-hell-knows-where. Already against the ropes, now Robb's chances of taking down the almighty Tywin Lannister's defenses are pretty much nil. A light bulb suddenly flickers on inside Robb's head, though, and a plan comes to fruition: He'll take control of Casterly Rock.

To do so, however, he'll first have to seek out an alliance with Walder Frey, the only man within foot's-travel distance who can provide Robb with some substantial back-up. But there's a problem: Frey is the father whose daughter was dissed, dismissed, and replaced when Robb abandoned his preordained marriage to her in favor of wedding Talisa. And it doesn't take a genius to suspect that Mr. Frey is still livid.

As it turns out, Stannis has an exceptionally screwed-up domestic life, one that's been overlooked so far on Game of Thrones, lest he be anything other than a power-hungry Baratheon relative who enjoys porking women who birth shadow monsters. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Back at his home-base on Dragonstone, Stannis checks in with his wife, Selyse, who just so happens to keep the dead fetuses of their "sons" stashed inside jars in her bedroom. OK, so perhaps we shouldn't clown him for sleeping with a sorceress—Melisandre's smoky demon baby is ABC Family material compared to Selyse's disturbed hobby. There is one positive thing waiting for Stannis at home, though: his sweet, friendly, and disfigured daughter, Shireen. Their touching father/daughter moment takes a sour turn when the topic of Davos—Stannis' once-trustworthy righthand man who's now his prisoner—comes up. Trapped in a Dragonstone dungeon, Davos is easily accessible for Shireen to visit whenever she pleases, and, not listening to her father's commands to forget all about him, Shireen stops by Davos' cell to say hello. It's sad, really; you get the sense that he's the poor, lonely girl's only friend in the world. She's even teaching him how to read.

Technically, Stannis' messed-up family life should be a demerit here, but we're giving him a crown anyway. Yes, being married to a fetus collector and having to break your little girl's heart aren't the most desirable character traits one can have, and are most definitely deterrents for Stannis' hopes of capturing the throne without any major distractions. But, for the first time on Game of Thrones, Stannis Baratheon feels like an actual person, not just a movable chess piece.

Think back to the Game of Thrones pilot, when Jaime Lannister pushed little Bran Stark off of that roof—he was a real son of a bitch, no? And for the next two seasons, Jaime did little to alter that opinion. It's a welcome surprise, then, to see how well the show's creators and actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are humanizing him so far in GoT's third season.

With only one hand remaining, dirt and shame covering his entire body, and very little pride left, prisoner Jaime's weak, traumatized, and extremely vulnerable. He's also ready to come clean about that "Kingslayer" moniker he's been given. While enjoying a much-needed hot tub cleansing with a rattled Brienne, Jaime gives a powerful and revealing monologue about what really happened between him and King Aerys, a.k.a. the deceased, formerly tyrannical leader that every character on Game of Thrones seems to hate in retrospect but of whom the show's viewers know very little (reading those George R.R. Martin books should surely fill in the blanks there). As Jaime tells it, he killed Aerys because the cold-blooded king was about to burn King's Landing to the ground, killing all of its inhabitants in the process, and, on top of that, he wanted Jaime to murder his own father, Tywin Lannister.

Meaning, Jaime isn't a cruel bastard after all—he killed the king to save countless innocent people. That, coupled with his current standing as a beaten-down, disfigured prisoner, might not make him much of a ruthless, throne-ready badass, but whatever: We now like Jaime a whole lot. Let us show our appreciation by awarding him with a nice crown.

Those hoping to see their dear Khaleesi wreck shop once again in "Kissed By Fire" were, we'd presume, sadly disappointed to see that Daenerys only receives one scene in the episode, and there's not a corpse, dragon, or burning man to be seen. Instead, she's further proving to her new army, the Unsullied, that she's the good-cop kind of leader. Reminded that they're all free men now, her gang of former slaves present their self-elected commander to Dany: His name is Grey Worm, a title given to him during a time when he and his fellow Unsullied were betrothed with insulting names fashioned after vermin and other nasty creatures.

Daenerys tells her men that they can name themselves whatever they want, as long as it gives them pride. Grey Worm responds by saying that Grey Worm is a name he's proud of, because it's the name he had when "Daenerys Stormborn" freed he and his brethren. A subtle but endearing smile adorns Dany's face. She, like us, knows that these Unsullied chaps will take swords through the heart to protect and serve her.

Once again this season, Daenerys Targaryen puts herself in a wonderfully unfuckwitable position to whoop all kinds of ass. Crown her.

Tywin can practically taste victory. Having heard about Robb Stark's lessened troop count in the wake of Karstark's execution, Daddy Lannister calls offspring Cersei and Tyrion into his office for some housekeeping discussion. Now that Robb's regime is in shambles, Tywin wants to ensure that he takes every available measure to exhibit dominion over the Stark family; he's also aware that Robb's younger sister, redhead Sansa, is still living under his control, and that Littlefinger is plotting to get her out of King's Landing and into his arms, so to speak. And Tywin can't allow that to happen.

His proposal, or, rather, orders: Tyrion must marry Sansa in order to keep her in the Lannisters' clutches. The imp, naturally, objects to this—aside from the fact that he's currently dating Sansa's maiden, Tyrion has always felt bad for the Stark girl, dating back to her time spent being King Joffrey's subservient, scared, and emotionally tormented bride-to-be. He knows that Sansa deserves better than a hard-drinking, whore-sexing scoundrel like him. Tywin, however, couldn't give a damn less about what either Sansa or Tyrion wants. They're getting married, one way or another.

Which, of course, pleases the smug Cersei, who flashes her sibling a real shit-eating grin upon hearing the news. But then Tywin drops a bomb on Cersei: She's to marry Loras Tyrell, the secretly gay brother of Joffrey's future queen, Margaery, whom Sansa has been fancying all season. No longer all cocksure, Cersei pleads with Tywin like a scared little girl: "Father, don't make me do it again," referring to her undesired first marriage to the late Robert Baratheon. Tywin shuts her complaining down by bringing up her incestuous trysts with his other son, good ol' Jaime. Thus confirming one of Game of Thrones's facts of life: Tywin is a bad, bad man, but also one hell of an authority figure.