It seems each Game of Thrones preview just has to alternate between making me go “oh, this might be really good” and “ugh, just ugh”. But oh well, as long as its alternating I suppose I’ll mostly enjoy the season. Brienne’s going to be great, though unfortunately the early scenes with her in Renly’s camp will be spoiled by the horribly miscast Margaery. I suspect she will be every bit as changed, and not for the better, as Cersei.
It really it starting to seem as if they feel more of a need to change up the female characters, just look at Shae for example. And not to mention “Jeyne”, of course, though that change seems largely motivated by wanting Robb around more. Hopefully, if the series goes on beyond the Red Wedding, they don’t feel a need to keep using Jeyne because she’ll just be taking up space at that time. Its true enough that George occasionally brings a very minor character to the forefront in a surprising way, but given the amount of characters he is juggling in the later books I suspect we won’t see much of Jeyne in the real story.
Of course, that likely won’t stop the show from cutting later introductions in favour of already established characters. Just look at the lack of Tullys this season. Will we get more Greyjoys when the time comes to that? Maybe not. Not to mention the Dornish. But maybe that’s just as well, I am dreading what the casting folks will get up to with them as I feel particularly proprietary about my favourite part of Westeros.