Can someone explain something to me? Some of the nicknames, like: Little Finger, the Mountain, the Hound, the Onion knight. How/why did the characters in the books earn those nicknames?
Little Finger, because his home on a set of peninsulas that look like a hand and he is from the "little finger". The Mountain because he is as big as a mountain. The Hound because he is/was Joffery's dog. The Onion Knight because during the war against the Dragon King, Stannis was under siege and his men were starving. He smuggled in a boat load of supplies, mostly onions, and they were able to hang on. Stannis granted him knighthood for that and he kept the onion as his sigal.
Paetr or however you spell his name grew up on some crappy little islands called The Fingers (I think they're near the Iron Islands where the Greyjoys live) and he grew up on the littlest of them, combined with being a very small boy compared to the higher borns such as, I believe, Ned Starks brother who is the man Littlefinger fought to be with Catelyn. Because he is huge. This is a man who cleaves the head off a war horse in a single swipe. The Clegane family sigil is three black hounds on a yellow field, taken on by their father. The nickname is a combination of many things but that's one of the bigger ones. On top of that Sandor has professed a love for dogs over humans and is known for being a loyal soldier to Joffrey, hence the "Joffrey's dog" type comments. Davos was a smuggler for most of his life. During Robert's rebellion against Aerys, Stannis held Storm's End (the Baratheon stronghold) against a siege for a very long time until Ned eventually rode to break it. (As an aside, this is one of the things that makes Stannis grumpy is the fact that he did as he was ordered and held Storm's End for most of the war but gets little recognition for it whereas Ned gets praise for saving him.) And they starved to the point that I'm pretty sure some of the people started eating each other. Davos knew about it and for whatever reason he used his smuggling roots to sneak a boat full of onions and other vegetables into Storm's End and prevented the garrison from starving to death. In thanks Stannis knighted him and took him into his household but, in one of the examples of Stannis' sense of justice, he cut the first knuckle off every finger of his left hand to punish him for being a smuggler. Davos in the books wears the bones around his neck in a pouch as a good luck charm but I'm not sure its in the series. "Onion Knight" is I think sometimes used as a term of endearment in recognition of what he did to save them, but its also used as an insult by a lot of Stannis' household who look down on him for his low birth and criminal past. Davos also took the onion as his sigil as a way of owning the nickname so sometimes I think its just a reference to his banner.
Little Finger - Because he has little fingers, duh. How could you miss that? The Mountain - Because the dude is an ox. Don't you see how big he is? Why wouldn't they call him The Mountain? The Hound - Because he can sniff a woman a mile away, or some food. The Onion Knight - Because he's slain so many of his enemies, that the tears of their lamentation have filled rivers. Onions make people cry and he's a knight, which is why he's named The Onion Knight Spoiler None of this is true
And what a thing it is. This comment cracked me up: I face-palmed when I saw that the first time on the TV.
I think one of the most awesome things that didn't happen would have been a duel between Strong Belwas and the Mountain. That would have be epic.
I wonder if the series is going to follow the books or the timeline. In the books, book 4 and book 5 take place at the same time with the focus on different locations. It wouldn't surprise me that the series follows the timeline to make the show easier to follow.
Timeline. If nothing else they can't afford to tell half the cast they don't need them for a year. It was enough of a reason for them to introduce the Theon torture scenes and that's just one character, yet alone half the main cast.
If you watch the first two episodes of this season carefully all the clues are there to figure out who the poisoner was. Yes, it also helps if you've read the books, but everything is also on TV.
I would tend to predict this as well. But even moreso when you consider how many child cast members there are. You can't have them growing up too fast with a year between filming their scenes.
