The Reeds and why we don't need them.

Good day folks! I hope today finds you happy and in good spirits. We're taking a break from the Houses today to tackle another topic that's a bit of a hot topic around the interwebz. What topic is that you say? Why Meera and Jojen Reed! I will be keeping this article for a change largely spoiler free. However if you don't want to hear about characters in the books that may or may not surface yet you may not want to read ahead.

Let's dive into the Reeds shall we?

A lot of folks are upset that the Reeds were not cast but to them I say this. Are they really needed? In short no. If anything it is a blessing they weren't cast. For multiple reasons! Let's just shoot down the list of pros and cons.


Pros.

1. By not casting the Reeds they are alleviating a already large cast of having to reduce screen time of the characters we've come to know and love or hate. Let's call this the anti True Blood effect. True Blood has made it a point to cast every single character in the books it's based from plus some invented ones! And the show is suffering from that. By trimming some fat of secondary characters Game of Thrones is more likely to avoid that pitfall.

2. In a word Osha. I don't think the powers that be and HBO realized how people would latch onto her character given how little they gave her. They can use the wildling to great effect to replace both the mystical knowledge of Jojen and the physical prowess of Meera.

3. They only have 10 episodes to work with. With roughly only a seventh of that time  being dedicated to Winterfel. Would you rather they move Bran and Rickon Stark along on their journey or spend time watching the Reeds play with Brans direwolf?

Cons.

1. The one and only negative side to the Reeds not being cast is in how will they deal with the eventual splitting of Bran and Rickon unless they decide to keep them both together. But I'm sure the writers could come up with a plot device just as easily. A lot of this probably lays in Martins domain since no one but him ultimately knows if Rickon will ever even amount to anything in the story.

There you have it folks. I would love to hear some opposing opinions on the matter tell me what you think. Ultimately the Reeds are victims of time and resources spent elsewhere. Much like Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings he ultimately was not needed to progress the main characters on their way. Now I will say there is always hope they may be cast for season 3.but that's something we won't know for another 9+ months. Thanks for reading viewers! Tomorrow we'll be getting back to another round or two of the great houses and their ultimate destination for season two. House Targeryn you're up!