I found it unrealistic that she was so uncritical of Joffrey in the books, to be honest. I don't mind them making Cersei more sympathetic. Had they made her that way in the books, there would likely be far less complaints about her 40% face time in Feast. They say in the books Ygritte has had it hard for Jon since they arrived into the Wilding camp and plainly. It stands to reason she would like him as quickly (if not quicker) if she were to be with him one on one like the show. She isn't a skank in the books but she really isn't here either. Her dialogue made clear that she's a free woman who does what she wants when she wants and that's been personified well. I agree though that they need to go somewhere with this "lost in the snow" bit Jon has going on.
ROFL, oh my GOSH, do you meet many mothers? I can't count the times I run into/meet mothers who are absolutely blind to their childrens' flaws, like Cersei is in the books. Mothers who think their children are God's gift to this world no matter what horrible things they do - there's aaaaalways an excuse. Cersei is a nasty piece of work, ultimately worse than Jaime, imo, and yet they've randomly turned Jaime into a kinslayer now. Okay...? As if he couldn't have just started to beat the kid up to attract the guard, or told him to play dead? That also seemed out of character for me.
In my mind, it makes much more sense for her to fall in love (love, not merely lust) with Jon once he becomes a wildling, then to show she's instantly got a...ahem...hard-on for him right away, so to speak. Actually, I think when she finally does fall in love with Jon in the show, it'll have less of an impact for me now, because she's been playing the seductress in her escape attempts. It could come across as a sham. Really depends on how good the writing is. Book!Ygritte was almost more....gosh, I don't want to say INNOCENT, because that's not the right word, but I had a lot of respect for her. She didn't stoop to TV!Ygritte's level to try to escape. She accepted her fate, not without fear, but in a kind of stony way that was very brave. She didn't attempt to run until Jon willingly let her go. THAT takes more balls (pardon my crude phrase here - LOL) than what TV!Ygritte is doing. So...again, all the rump rubbing has kinda made me roll my eyes. Just seems like another HBO attempt to spice things up. I find Ygritte's offer (perhaps more like order - haha) to have sex with Jon after lying to Mance to save his life (claiming they had been intimate many times) a very good scene. Considering she's been constantly making that offer already, I think it'll have less impact. Unless, of course, they totally change that scene too, or don't even include it. Prior to this moment in the book she had shown interest in him and slept near him at night, and it's OBVIOUS that she WANTS to sleep with him, but it's not really until this point that she's like, "okay Jon, we're doing this. Send Ghost away tonight." :rofl: It was an interesting combo between selfless (lying to Mance to save him) and selfish (she's basically forcing him to sleep with her). I think they're going to lose this dynamic in the show.
The whole being free thing has only really been discussed in sexual terms. As she stated, she's free to screw who she wants, whereas Jon can't ever have a woman because he swore some stupid oath, yadda bladdy blah. I'd like to see the wildlings' freedom being applied to things other than who you can spread your legs for during their conversations. Something a little deeper, perhaps, because it's not like Jon is some sort of man-whore who's going to switch sides just to have sex. I reeeeally hope Jon's defection to the wildlings goes down like it does in the book, and he isn't shown as defecting by choice.
