Janos Slynt doesn't seem sleazy enough to me - he's the only major casting misstep I can think of so far. Everyone else is spot on.

I'm absolutely loving Melissandre.

I did not love the LET'S KILL ALL THE BABIES montage at the end there. (I didn't have a mental image of that scene from the book because when I read it my brain said "Yeah, you don't want to be picturing that" and didn't give me one. So thanks HBO, for filling in that gap for me.)

Yeah. . . very King Herod like of Joffrey.

I was just reading discussion on the show, and someone was saying they loved Cersei and Robb, and loathed Tyrion and Jon and Daenerys, which is why she prefers the show to the books.

I think the show portrays the three she hates really well, so the position confused me. Cersei--I have no idea if she's cooler than in the books, and I do understand that Robb is getting extra time, but if you were asking me to choose the heroes of the show, so far it's definitely Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys, and Arya. And that's at least partially because the show is bigging them up.

How do their representations jibe with the books?

Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys, and Arya

These are the fan book favorites too, as far as I'm aware.

Peter Dinklage is playing Tyrion the way Alan Rickman played Snape - wonderfully, of course, but so charismatically that you forget how much of a genuine asshole that character was in the books.

They've made Cersei much more sympathetic than in the books (where she's mostly Stupid Evil) but otherwise I think the characterization is pretty spot-on.

What is there to hate about Daenerys? In the book or the show?

I don't get a sense of Tyrion as an asshole in the book, Jessica -- he's a little blunt, often rude, but he's smarter than almost everyone else, and he has a sense of right and wrong that his sister, for one, does not.

Cersei seems pretty loathsome all around to me.

I understand Cersei's motives, but she is really hateable.

I think TV!Cersei is more sympathetic because we've gotten inside her head so much sooner. I don't think she's a POV character in the books until #3 and by then our view of her is so skewed by how she's perceived by others that it's hard to shake off.

I found the one conversation between Robert and Cersei made them both more sympathetic, although the whole thing was sad.

And I probably did feel a little bad for her last night, when her sense of her own power was crushed by a couple of angry words from Joffrey.

I think that person is wrong-headed.

Tyrion is easily one of the more interesting characters in the books. (Jaime becomes that way too.)

I pretty much can't stand Cersei - even when she is brought low.

Robb - is much more there in the show than in the books.

Sansa is more sympathetic on the show. (Being in her head does her no favors.)