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Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 7

The Bear and the Maiden Fair

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AIRED: 5/12/13

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Game of Thrones "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" Review: Taking It To the Next Level

Relationships are the key to a great episode penned by the man himself, George R.R. Martin.

By Tim Surette, May 14, 2013

Fan Episode Reviews (4)

Now, those are the things your do for love!

10

By ionee24, 2 days ago

But first of all: Talisa is pregnant! Robb is going to be a father!!!

This small victory is almost enough to make up for the aftermath of chaos set in motion by last episode; as Margaery tries her best to explain Sansa, people in their position don't have to lose it all just because they've lost a pretty fiance. After all, some people like them tall, some like them short, some like them fierce and some, some just like each other, period. Doesn't matter if it takes time to adjust, like Jaime & Brienne, or social classes to overcome, like Gendry and Arya.

In the end, to bid farewell appears to be the hardest task, whether its in the quiet room Brienne trusts "Ser Jaime" with the promise they know she may not survive to execute for Lady Catelyn, or the Cave in which Arya reproaches the Brotherhood what their Lord of Light has done to Gendry. For she only prays to Death since Syrio Forell, and there's only one thing we say to Death in this show: Not Today.

And so he spoke, and so he spoke, the Lion of Castemere, for Jaime turns around, dragging his men towards the same Harrenhal courtyard Arya escaped from a season ago, only to find Brienne in the pit where Locke put her. Holding the same type of wooden sword Arya used to train with to fight a bear twice her size, Brienne does her best to say Death "Not today" as Jaime fights for her with a man who couldn't care less; his hand is all the gold Locke wants, her suffering all the sapphires he desires.

And so he jumped, and so he jumped, the Lion of Castemere, for Jaime pulls her up, and faces the bear for everyone to see. Holding on to him as only he held on to her, Brienne gets Jaime back to safety and now the rains weep over his hair, victorious in the end.moreless
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The Bear and the Maiden Fair

8.5

By Neksmater, 2 days ago

We got a big moving-parts episode of GOT this week by the grand master himself George . Martin who surprisingly isn't scripting the "event" episode of the year as he did last year's superb But there was still lots to like here as almost every key story element was touched on that's moving around, oh and Happy Mother's Day from Westeros and beyond.

King's Landing

Sansa and Margaery discuss her forced betrothal to Tyrion and Margaery does help her put it slightly into perspective by pointing out that Tyrion's reputation for whoring would make him "good in the sack" so to speak. Margaery sort of adds common sense to the match as Tyrion, who has never done Sansa harm and has her general safety in his interest as we saw in Season 2, is not the worst pick for a husband. And unlike being all grotesque as in the books Peter Dinklage isn't bad looking, and Margaery even points out how "sexy" his scar is on him as an additive.

Tyrion likewise talks with his best advisor Bronn on his match to Sansa and how she's beautiful but it's unfair because of how young she is which is a proper concern for one in the modern world but the quasi-Medieval world Westeros is in seems to be more "put a baby in there and hope it's a son, if not try again Tyrion also can't get over how it affects Shae, who he tries to make feel better about the whole thing but she doesn't want anything, even though when they started back in Season 1 she was always sort of supposed to be a "dirty little secret" or sorts and never his out in the open wife. Tyrion seems to be honest in wanting to give her a house, kids, and security for their future but she says their affair is off after he marries Sansa and this could very well be the end of their relationship entirely. Some crap luck for Tyrion but other Lannisters had some harrowing experiences this week. But Bronn got his cynical gruffness on, saying a great line "If you spend all your time worrying about what people think of you, you'll be the most popular dead man there Oh Bronn, I love your world-weary perspective.

For instance Joffrey is given a talking to by Tywin regarding how Joff wants to attend the small council meetings and not have Tywin hold them far off in the Tower of the Hand like he does. Tywin admits that Joff is able to attend the council meetings as he chooses and not to buy into the rumored Targaryen threat from across the sea which is very much something to be feared by any Lannister.

Passing by on their way back to Dragonstone Melisandre tells Gendry of his path of destiny and how his father was Robert Baratheon.

In the North

Fresh over the wall Jon and Ygritte continue their love affair, which can only last so long now that they've crossed the wall, and conflict ensues. Tormund advises Jon on the art of love-making and how he should do it to Ygritte to make her happy in bed which Jon accepts reluctantly although he honestly doesn't seem to do too bad at sex after having seen their cave romp. Orell tell Jon when confronting him about cutting them loose on the Wall that Ygritte understands their lifestyle unlike Jon and gives a great speech about how people only do stuff "as it suits them" and that everything is conditional, much like a Wildling Dr. House. Orell also tries to put the moves Ygritte when Jon is out of earshot, telling her that she would be happier to be with him than with Jon and how Jon is still a crow on the inside which she already knows, and also brings up the great fact that Jon is just "pretty" much like Craster had said last season. Jon also reminds us of his learnings as a young boy in Winterfell as he says that every King Beyond the Wall who had militarily tried to attack the Wall had failed six times and that Wildling cause and Mance Rayder will fail based on history but with the Night's Watch much diminished numbers this could swing odds in Wildling favor in numbers alone.

Bran's story gets a sense of where it's going as Jojen tells the group that they're going to see the 3-eyed-Crow who is North of the Wall. Osha protests at this, already suspicious of the Reeds and seeing Jojen's visions as black magic, she says that she swore to get the Stark boys to Jon Snow at Castle Black with which Jojen tells her that he is not there. Osha refuses to take them there and tells the story of how her Wildling husband had been turned into a white walker and how she had to set their home afire in order to escape alive. This is probably what caused her to traverse the Wall all the way back into Season 1 before she came upon Bran on the horse and came to be in Winterfell.

Theon, why are they showing us this still, gets another agonizing scene thanks to his new best friend. Two girls come to him and disrobe and talk of his legendary extremities as a man and how they want to have their way with him. Theon knows that it's a trick but when they become determined his bosom buddy appears and says that he'll cut off his "favorite body part" his genitals. Honestly, this is just sick and I don't need to keep seeing this effed up s**t and I don't need to want to vomit every week because of it. At first it was interesting to see but now it's just turning into pathetic "how will we torture Theon this week" and SPOILER ALERT FOR DANCE WITH DRAGONS AND THE OTHER BOOKS but I was glad Theon didn't appear till then it made all the descriptions about him losing the body parts that much more effective with how long he had been locked up. It made us struggle more with feeling sorry for him while this is just forcing us to see outright sadism without the nuance the books offered on this by bringing it in later in the series. No offense to Alfie Allen but give him the week or a year or two off is my advice until we catch up to him when he's not just weekly torture-fodder.

Yunkai

Daenerys reaches the slave city of Yunkai and gets an audience with one of the aristocrats who own the city. Dany only got this audience by sending Grey Worm to the elite saying that she would sack Yunkai to free the 200,000 slaves in the city walls (also Yunkai has never been captured through combat before as they mention). While conversing with him she says that her terms must be met and that all slaves must be set free or else as her dragons roast meet and whatnot. She demands payment to each slave for their services (basic boring human rights stuff right) to which Grazdan (the aristocrat) says he will not comply and is forced back down by threatening dragons. Grazdan still refuses, and is not given his gift of a crap ton of gold back that was a token of peace, and rides away.

The Riverlands

Robb's army is held up on their way to the Twins for Edmure Tully's wedding to Roslin Frey and he gets some screen time with a naked Talisa while planning his march on that sort of chess board that he loves to use. Catelyn and her uncle Brynden discuss their mutual dislike of Walder Frey, who will surely see the delay in arrival at the Twins as a slight from Robb. Talisa, while writing naked letters to her family, tells Robb that she is pregnant with his child new which seems to go very well with young Robb. Hooray another Stark!

The Brotherhood HQ is occupied by a sulking Arya who is angry at Beric for selling out Gendry for gold. While Thoros and Beric Bible-Thump about how great the Lord of Light is Arya says that the only God she believes in is Death. Anguy informs Beric of a Lannister raiding party which Beric is eager to meet in combat. Arya calls Beric a liar, saying that he will never take Arya to Riverrun. She runs and Beric tells the Brothers to give chase but Arya is caught behind a tree by the Hound who urges her to keep quiet. This scene honestly worked much better in the books because they were in a town when they went after the Lannister raiding party and it made sense because the Hound would've followed the Brothers before making his move. In this the Hound was let loose two or so episodes ago and has just sort of been hanging around waiting to grab Arya and wasn't detected by these seemingly amazing trackers such as Anguy who just missed him.

Harrenhal

Jaime is escorted out of Harrenhal and pledges to Brienne that he will keep his oath to Catelyn to release her daughters. Roose Bolton leaves for the Tully-Frey wedding at the Twins and Locke is put in charge which is bad news for Brienne. Jaime is escorted south of Harrenhal by Bolton men and Qyburn looks at his arm's flesh, now less rotting because of his wine trick. Qyburn also tells how he lost his maester's chain and hopes to get it back in King's Landing having healed Tywin Lannister's son. Jaime reasons his way with the leader of the Bolton men to return to Harrenhal in their best interest and follow him to save Brienne. Qyburn had told Jaime that Brienne's father Selwyn had offered 300 golden dragons for Brienne's release but Jaime's lie about her being worth his body weight in sapphires made him be disdainful towards Selwyn for not delivering on Jaime's false promise. Upon returning to Harrenhal Brienne is locked in combat with a great big bear. Jaime leaps into the pit (after failing to ransom Brienne out of it) to save her and hoists her up. Bolton men hit the bear with a crossbow bolt so as to not get Jaime killed against Lord Bolton's orders and thus ruining Locke's hope as climaxing as a result of the fight. Jaime manages to get hoisted out of the pit and gets a great "sorry about the sapphires" line out to Locke without losing a limb as the credits roll. Jaime's arc was the most fulfilling of this episode seeing how much he's grown over the past three episodes alone make him the one to surely watch for the next few seasons and having almost done a complete one eighty for looking out for Brienne.

I can't wait to re-enact the gladiator bear fight in a bear suit at Comic-Con this summer!moreless
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booooriiiiing

5.0

By gyatt, May 14, 2013

dear game of thrones! 7 episodes gone and nothing happened yet! everyone is just writhing. this season is more boring so far than the last season of the walking dead!
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Game of Thrones meets CW

7.5

By Shane747, May 13, 2013

This was an episode primarily focused on ROMANCE. Which, considering this is Game of Thrones, is quite strange. I don't have an issue with that alone, Jon and Ygrite's scenes are great. But the other romance scenes in this episode were full of filler.

Still, I can get over that. What really is bringing this WHOLE SEASON down by a mile is the Theon scenes. This week was particularly sadistic and pointless. I mean WHATS THE POINT?! It's the most pointless thing they have ever shown in this series and it's ripping it apart.

I'm sad that we probably won't be seeing much more of the brotherhood now, but dog is back!

As usual, this was a collection of good and bad scenes, but overall my least favorite episode of the season.moreless
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TRIVIA (1)
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- The title of this episode is the name of a popular, bawdy song in Westeros, "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", which tells the story of a bear seducing a fair maiden.
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NOTES (1)
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- Bart the Bear required country music blasting from the back of a pickup nearby to keep calm and happy during shooting.
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