Last season, the big battle was the penultimate episode, too.

(nod) and Ned's beheading in season 1.

Yeah, I screamed and threw the book across the room. The book had to spend a couple of days sitting in the corner and thinking about what it had done.

I think by having this as the penultimate episode - the story gets to move forward a bit so that people want to come back.

The wolf was the worst. And seeing Arya so darned close to being able to free him...and failing.

On the heels of that knife to Talisa's belly, I was actually stunned. It was a lot to process at once.

I was too busy being horrified to even considering filming the folks I was watching with! One reader got heavily drunk in preparation. Perhaps I should have mentioned that the non-reader in my previous comment was our very own SA? Yeah, she was highly displeased. We told her so many times not to get attached to any characters (including the animal ones...) and started (jokingly) referring to EVERY character in the past tense, just to piss her off and try to avoid accidental spoilers. (e.g. "Dang, this Jamie and Brienne shows is delightful. They were both such great characters." or "I loved Arya so much.")

That was kinda fascinating seeing how others watch.

From upthread:

I wonder - did spending so much time with Robb this season take away the impact of his death? In the books, it was much less obvious how badly the war was going for him, so I remember being absolutely shocked that he would be taken out like that.

For me, it was just the opposite -- because book!Robb was off being a not-so-awesome general and king off the scene a lot of the time, I never really got all that attached to him, and when he bit it, my reaction by then was much more "Oh, GRRM, you magnificent bastard, you are NEVER going to give us a character we can cling to!"* In the TV version, largely because we saw much more of him struggling along, he was much more alive & interesting to me as a character, so I was gutted as I presumably was meant to be all along.**

Wow, "gutted" is such a wrong verb here.

On the other hand, Catelyn was a huge favorite character of mine from the start, and (I've always felt) often underrated by a lot of what I've seen of the TV fandom in places that aren't us. That one really fucked with me in both versions. .... aaaaand not saying anything more

* Except the ones I'm STILL CLINGING TO and the bad man can't take them away. Ever.

** This is probably also where I confess that I was such a shameless woobie!book!Jon fangirl that, ehh, Robb, whatevs played a not-insignificant role. Seeing his relationship with Talisa play out helped a LOT with making him more interesting, damn it all to hell.

I am not looking forward to Pete's reaction to this episode. (We're 4 episodes behind right now.) He knows that the Red Wedding is a big thing, but nothing else.

The wolf was the worst. And seeing Arya so darned close to being able to free him...and failing.

I did not know that detail, and I very sincerely thank you folks for mentioning that in here, because hopefully foreknowledge will keep me from completely melting down over that.

And warning: you can't just close your eyes, the audio is heart-breaking. Maybe leave the room for a minute when you see it coming. And you will see it coming.

Oh, my poor SA.

Maybe we should have a support group.

Jilli,

FWIW, I thought "Red Wedding" referred to another wedding. So, as book readers among you might imagine, I have been on edge for every damn wedding or mentioned wedding since Season 1.

Pete might not know it is THE red wedding unless he has some kind of preparation ahead of time. The ominous Internet mentions tied with Billy Idol clued me in to avoid twitter yesterday and watch the ep without benefit of your posts or others.