HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

Traveling beyond the Dothraki Sea into a new, post-book era.

http://45.media.tumblr.com/4b7a6dc0c9388c8016243ff0e5bc1e0f/tumblr_n9dw8vcTDr1r18z8zo2_r1_250.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkP8lVE2_0A

http://io9.gizmodo.com/everything-looks-miserable-for-the-starks-in-the-new-ga-1770283011

looks like Sansa is doing in the trailer.
tho i don't hold out the same hope as others that Snow is going to come back from the dead.

have been watching the last season again and even though i am already 100% sure jon is coming back in some way, during sam's convo with olly he says "don't worry, jon always comes back" which is just clunky enough in context to be deliberate

Targareyan reign flashback!

i meant to say, looks like Sansa is doing ok in the trailer.
if she's wearing the direwolf sigil, it probably means she's found her way to someone who's not horrible. either to the fingers, or riverrun, or wherever it was Rickon went to.

Apparently the first ep leaked?

impeach obama

He probably burned a DVD for Prince George

Was not expecting that last scene.

what was up w that

The night is dark and full of terror.

The night is dark and full of terror.

theory: melisandre is going to inhabit jon snow's corpse

she must have had more gratuitous nude scenes than any other character in this show.

it's funny, that had the feeling of one of those early season check-in episodes where nothing actually happened but there were two pretty major incidents, but they only had about 4 minutes of combined screen time. one of the great houses of westeros was wiped out and we got "remember this guy? stab. what about this kid? stab".

but...it was still good.

Dorne scenes still plagued by the inescapable feeling that you're watching a community college play

i thought the scene with brienne and sansa was memorable, but most of the rest just kind of drifted by. do we have to sit through the dothraki doubting daenerys but then slowly growing to respect her over the course of a full season again? will apprentice arya get schooled by her asshole friend for an entire season, again?

see also burning all the ships in mereen (i think that's the name of the city) which probably pushes east/west confrontation at least a season or two further out

i thought the scene with brienne and sansa was memorable, but most of the rest just kind of drifted by. do we have to sit through the dothraki doubting daenerys but then slowly growing to respect her over the course of a full season again? will apprentice arya get schooled by her asshole friend for an entire season, again?

― Karl Malone, Monday, April 25, 2016 9:26 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Likely scene showing Jon Snow finally being resurrected and opening his eyes will probably be the last scene in the finale.

yeah, my prediction is a surprise episode 7 snow revival (instead of the usual 9 or 10).

wait which house was wiped out

house martell (headed by prince doran, oberyn's grumpy older brother)

I'm guessing the next episode. They only have til night for a miracle to save them, Melisandre has gone to bed so it'll need to happen quick.

I really thought that king and his guard would get to do more. When I first saw those actors interviewed it seemed like they'd be bigger roles.

I think Jaime's scene might actually represent the biggest change, he seems like he's eager to step up and might help Cersei rule.

I hope Margaery doesn't convert to sparrow.

ohhhh for some reason i thought the sand snakes kinda ~were~ martells

Sand Snakes killing the boy on the ship... how did they get to the ship? Where was the ship?

they took the outrigger

Jorah would be good to have around is you drop a contact lens

if, that is

TBF it made sense that he'd check the un-trampled grass in the center of the field.

But seriously though WHERE was the ship the boy was on? Why was he still on it?

was that a ship? i thought it was just his room.

Likely scene showing Jon Snow finally being resurrected and opening his eyes will probably be the last scene in the finale.

kit harington really earning his wage by closing his eyes and then opening them ten hours later

good question, had to look that up. He was on the same ship as Jaime and Myrcella when they headed to King's Landing. So the eye stone he was painting was for Myrcella, presumably.

Which means that somehow the elder two Sand Snakes must have set sail following them (they couldn't have stowed away) on some other vessel.

questions about how characters got from one place to another make me nostalgic for Lost threads

You'd think Jaime would have at least taken him off the boat as a valuable hostage. Overall the scene could have benefited from him asking the snakes how they got there:
"We tailed the ship all the way here to King's Landing"
"When Jaime gets back to the ship he will kill you both for this"
"We're doing you a favor- don't you realize what he'll do to you now that 'someone' in Dorne murdered the princess?"
"It was YOU, wasn't it? You poisoned her! My father will have you executed for this!"
"At this point your father is already dead. Now it's your turn"

Just some similarly terribly written exposition is all I needed.

At the expense of that we instead get this little snarky sassy banter that is trying to get us to like(?) the teenage mutant ninja snakes

always down for some casual sassiness and snark in a scene that involves a teenage boy getting speared through the face

You'd think Jaime would have at least taken him off the boat as a valuable hostage.

why do you bother quibbling about shit like this at this point

the very first shot, i was like, the bad guy watchmen just leave snow's body there? for his friends to find? why? if they're willing to kill snow wouldn't they just kill his friends right then too? what kind of halfassed conspiracy is this

yes i watched this, and i probably will continue to do so, and complain about it!

I'm just saying it is something that springs to mind and becomes distracting because I don't understand the scene. I want things to make sense in the universe of the show and the narrative so I remain immersed. That one doesn't seem too picky in my opinion! Why would he still be on the ship? "Well because it makes killing off his character really convenient" Boooo

the very first shot, i was like, the bad guy watchmen just leave snow's body there? for his friends to find? why? if they're willing to kill snow wouldn't they just kill his friends right then too? what kind of halfassed conspiracy is this

I guess now they know exactly who were the most loyal to Jon?.

honestly i didn't even read the design of that scene as being on a ship so idk

xp wow they're so smart

"Well because it makes killing off his character really convenient"

gotta kills some characters somehow

xxpost Killing Jon is being spun as an act of loyalty to the Watch. Killing Jon's friends as well would have been a harder sell.

xp wow they're so smart

― goole, Monday, April 25, 2016 12:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah but they've established that Jon's friends will likely be ambushed and killed if they leave the room, too.

dothraki doing the spanish inquisition sketch re what's better than seeing a beautiful woman naked was kinda funny, but other than that i rly hope we don't have to listen to too much of their goofy fantasy machismo this season

#notalldothraki

didn't realise it was the ships that were burning in Mereen. thanks for the tip ILX.

i caught it from the dialogue but my goodness that was some lousy CG

it seems so late in the game to be setting up this Tyrion as emergency city manager plot. Maybe he'll do such a good job that after Dani conquers the world she decides to hand the throne him before turning into white flames and melting the north

I don't really have any guesses as to where they're taking that plotline...

i think it's just a way for tyrion to regain his power while stalling that whole storyline for another 2 years until martin publishes another book the burned ships are repaired

i mean it seems inevitable that when daenerys FINALLY goes west for the final showdown, tyrion will be at her side with a bunch of power and influence and it'll set up interesting conflicts with his family and westeros in general

this is so sad

https://twitter.com/Cosmopolitan/status/724693841182384128

Ted Cruz's viral female doppelgänger is set to star in porn: http://cosm.ag/6014BmDh6

going way off the books with this twist

lol oh shit

ah well it all fits together somehow *thinkpieces*

doing porn is a route to getting a job on GoT sometimes

miss u rickon

and his direwolf, shaggydog

Candidates do very well in Westeros when they're intensely unlikeable.

Candidates do very well in Westeros when they're intensely unlikeable. unkillable

― Evan, Monday, April 25, 2016 5:08 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seen Bran in preview for next episode, have a feeling he'll connect with Jon. Hope something is revealed about that bird man's place.

That almost ecstatic expression of renewed sense of purpose and duty on Brienne of Tarth's face when Sansa formally accepted her service practically screamed that she's going to die soon.

Was thinking that. Her and Davos are probably toast.

No way, Davos and Brienne are too popular to be killed!

The end of the show is going to be all the popular characters hugging

I'm guessing Varys gets fucked up at some point. Nobody close to Tyrion makes it out of a season in one piece.

Check that, except Bronn. Where he at? Wasn't he on that boat too?

we need some congressional hearings on who was or wasn't on that boat and how fast it was going. #bronngazi

maybe the killing of the son already happened a while ago?

loooool goole

my gf points out that the kid who killed ygritte went thru puberty before filming this season

he wouldn't have killed ygritte after puberty

The last scene was pure room 237

the whole Brienne & Pod vs. a half-dozen Bolton suckers was really hard to figure out for a while until I rewound it about a dozen times and I realized the guy in charge of the dogs? That motherfucker took off the second trouble showed up. That's what they only had to murder 5 out of 6 in the party, and no dogs. Mr. Hound done R-U-N-N-O-F-T as soon as he heard steel on steel, probably before that, actually.

Watch it again. K9 handlers stay the fuck away when a hostage situation gets violent. That's SOP going way back, apparently.

This has basically become a series of unconnected vignettes of varying quality and tone, from genuinely tense and atmospheric (Sansa and Theon) to comedy skits (Dorne and the boob snakes).

I'm vaguely optimistic they'll pull out some proper exhilarating shit as they always have in the past, but for now it's lost a good deal of weight and momentum.

both dorne and the dothraki are basically new adventures of hercules. also can't believe the extent to which they've stalled the daenerys storyline, as mentioned by others itt.

last season was p crappy and rambling too. they seem a bit afraid of actually allowing the characters to do the things they want to do. a lot of stasis. like it is almost funny that they've found a new way for daenerys to be stuck somewhere for good. no doubt in the finale when she finally escapes the dothraki, she'll break her ankle or something.

http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/571938881127b91b7468ae89/master/w_900,c_limit/game-of-thrones-season-6-episode-1-ss07.jpg

state of this guy

I think the house of widows thing seems interesting. She'll probably meet new recruits there.

The house of widows is one of those things that could be great in theory but probably won't be in practice. The Dorne stuff at least got rid of a load of deadwood characters and might actually lead to a war.

If John Snow is really did then Davos is effectively our eyes and ears around the Wall now, if anything he's likely to be more prominent this year. John Snow probably isn't dead though.

I can't remember how Arya went blind but marooning her hundreds of miles away from everyone else was a terrible narrative decision.

'You'll just have to sit here and wait' seems to be the M.O. for so many character arcs right now. WTF is going on in this show? Those white walkers had better pull their fingers out.

it's one thing isolating main characters, but they give them this one basic simple goal and then have them frustrated in every attempt to achieve it, it's like they've found that having one character trying to bounce the same ball off the wall for three seasons is the easiest way to deal with so many storylines at once, cos you just see them and instantly know nothing in their plotline has changed.

they've had a whole season of dorne being annoyed, arya getting beaten up and failing tests, a few seasons of daenerys going from triumph to setback. are there no ideas in the writers room or something?

I didn't see a "next week on" but given how this show cycles character scenes I expect next week to be catching up with Littlefinger, Bran and Sam.

This has basically become a series of unconnected vignettes of varying quality and tone

in other words, a faithful interpretation of the books

I liked this episode. Kind of disappointed that they killed off the one potentially interesting character in the Dorne storyline, but maybe that just means that they are going to speed through the end of that story (sand snakes arrive in king's landing, get killed by Zombie Mountain or something, the end).

The complaining about stalling is pretty funny, when in a way the show has speeded up immensely how fast it takes for characters to go somewhere. Arya spent 3 seasons (?) wandering around Westeros before she got on the ship, it took Jamie a season to get with Brienne to Kings Landing. But it only took Tyrion half a season to get to Meereen, and in this premiere Jamie goes Dorne-Kings Landing between episodes, and Daenerys gets to the dothraki camps as well. And I complained about Melisandre getting to Castle Black from Winterfell in the last thread.

So they're getting rid of the sense of scale of the place. But they're not really replacing it with any propulsion or action.

yeah but once you discover locations you can fast travel between them

i know the state of affairs is a little dismal because i caught myself thinking "i wonder what bran is up to?"

It's not so much about how long it takes to get to places, but what happens on that journey and when they get there. Arya and the Hound was great. Arya having to complete endless gnomic tasks week in week out, with no clear end point or reason in mind is just boring. I'm sure something'll happen to her next week. I don't remember how she got blinded either though.

i liked the arya storyline, and the performance of her sadistic mentor, but they are dragging it out for sure.

i know the state of affairs is a little dismal because i caught myself thinking "i wonder what bran is up to?"

have even wondered about rickon.

It was a magical punishment for using the face swapping to get personal revenge on the evil kingsguard guy that was visiting. And yeah I REALLY hope she isn't just going to slowly learn how to deal with being a blind face swapper in training for the course of the entire season...

xp

current game of throne storylines, ranked (i'm limiting myself to ~2 seconds of brain activity for each decision so this is from the heart)

sansa & theon & brienne & podrick
cersei and jaime destroy everyone else
jon snow for the love of the old gods and the new wake up and make this show more interesting
davos and a team of extras wait for someone to save the day
ramsay
sam working on getting tenure
bronn? i'm assuming he's doing something. whatever it is it's better than most of the rest of the show
margaery tries to ignore constant pleas to purchase a Lexus
bran and the 3 eyed raven
tyrion and varys have some decent conversations while stalling for another season
melisandre finally does something cool (?) and revives jon snow?
jorah and daario on the trail
arya's neverending bad day
daenerys kills some more time
direct to video dorne

i forgot some stuff (like baelish) but whatever. i guess i'd put ">>" after cersei/jaime and another ">>>>>>>" after ramsay

oh god baelish. i never liked him or his scenes for some reason. lots of people seem to enjoy him though.

you'd think he'd be more in the mix since he literally kicked off the events that got ned killed

The showrunners really hate Dorne, is my feeling.

wasn't one of the problems w/ the Dorne production that they only had permission to shoot on that location for a few days?

the location is a vacation house in palm springs iirc

ha ha it's in Andalusia

Oh, it's not the lobby of a Hyatt?

seville isn't it? the executive hilton seville.

I usually go with the garden view room so I can get the breakfast package. Just my luck that I witness some murders as a result.

current game of throne storylines, ranked (i'm limiting myself to ~2 seconds of brain activity for each decision so this is from the heart)

sansa & theon & brienne & podrick
cersei and jaime destroy everyone else
jon snow for the love of the old gods and the new wake up and make this show more interesting
davos and a team of extras wait for someone to save the day
ramsay
sam working on getting tenure
bronn? i'm assuming he's doing something. whatever it is it's better than most of the rest of the show
margaery tries to ignore constant pleas to purchase a Lexus
bran and the 3 eyed raven
tyrion and varys have some decent conversations while stalling for another season
melisandre finally does something cool (?) and revives jon snow?
jorah and daario on the trail
arya's neverending bad day
daenerys kills some more time
direct to video dorne

Imagine Zombie Mountain will feature soon.

Is Littlefinger still in the Vale? I really can't remember

last we saw littlefinger he was leaving sansa with the boltons, right?

i'm expecting some big crazy metal underdog army of wildlings and vengeful greyjoys and undead jon snow coming together before the end of the season.

littlefinger was summoned by Cersei right?

It's not the Hilton fwiw

http://scribblerinseville.com/game-of-thrones-season-5-the-water-gardens-of-dorne-aka-the-alcazar-of-seville/

I don't think wondering what Bran is up to is odd, it seems like whatever mystery he's involved in is crucial.

Bran crew was one my favorite storyline because it was respite from politics and went on his very own trope. Not to say that I dislike the politics intensive narrative arcs (on the contrary!) but that was quite different.

At this point we know that the existential threat is even more looming than ever, and somebody is going to have to bring dragons to that party. Those are the two key ingredients of the finale. We have two more years to get there after this season (hopefully we won't get treated to more than 1 episode worth of post-white-walker epilogue).

The only person that really has any "plot armor" in the endgame scenario are Daenaerys, because dragons, and probably Bran, because warging into a dragon seems like a thing that needs to happen.
Everybody else is completely expendable really and I think that's what makes all the other disparate storylines seem a little dull. Like, we really cared about the consequences of stuff like the Red Wedding way back when, but that taught us not to get heavily invested in the characters, and then Hardhome taught us that there are not many problems in this made-up world, there is exactly one problem, and it is going to kill everyone.

We'll see how much the showrunners acknowledge this problem and try to give us something worth chewing on in the meantime. At the same time I totally see why GRRM can't finish writing any of it. He needs to tie up about 200 dumb side quests he made up for fun, get to the dragons vs. zombies fight and end it. I'd hate to sit down every day to that.

assuming the show sticks to its stated timeline, i'm hopeful that this season will take us to the end of Act II with all the pieces finally shuffled into their places and some downhill momentum at last

I didn't realise they had changed their minds about stubbornly sticking to 7 seasons. I'm a little disappointed that they couldn't just make season 7 a bit longer. Is 13 episodes really too much to ask of one season?

Speaking of Branquest, what's the last we knew of the Reeds? Jojen was killed by a skeleton, but Meera is still alive?

And yeah I REALLY hope she isn't just going to slowly learn how to deal with being a blind face swapper in training for the course of the entire season...
wasn't this addressed in one of the trailers with jaqar or wtf his name is saying she was getting one
more chance to prove herself? I didn't dream that did I.

Meera's still alive

I'm terrible with faces in a lot of these complex plot shows. With S5 having been so long ago, I was confusing all the middle aged men with grey beards. I keep mixing up Stannis, Davos, Jorah (to a lesser ext), and Alliser.

i wasn't sure if the ppl in jon snow's rooms were wildlings or nightwatch

watch men

i've read all the books and watched all the eps but honestly idk if i care how the story concludes anymore

Yeah I'm starting to find the whole thing a bit of a mess to follow. Someone upthread mentioned burning ships... hein!? Wasnt that burning buildings?

Nah it was the harbor

Dead @ Karl Malone ranking post

maybe I need 2 b less drunk when watching this show lol

No I think you're on the right track.

Finally caught up with this (the episode, not the thread). I'm glad to see that it's gotten back to being a bit self consciously campy again - the Dothraki Spanish Inquisition skit throwback was cute, and so was the negotiating through the door scene - but as I was reminding my wife who everyone was and why we (in theory) care, it was pretty rough going. "Oh, she is sworn to her because her master was killed by a mysterious vagina ghost assassin." "That guy, he used magic to ..." etc.

One thing I couldn't answer/remember is what happened to the dragons. The best I could come up with is that she flew one of them to Scotland with a broken engine and then crash-landed it in a field before she was captured by Dothraki?

BTW, if this ends with dragons vs. zombies - or zombies riding dragons? or zombie dragons? - I will be highly entertained and also drunk.

the others she locked in a cave because the one who is actually loose was behaving badly..

I think tyrion is gonna go check on them in the next ep due to the preview.

Are we mayb all struggling cos its been too long since the last season? I should have rewatched at least S5 again.

those sandworm girls are so annoying, dorne is stupid & looks like a myst add-on

i am nostalgc for the days of a mere 3 storylines

also did everyone always swear so modernly and casually in this

Yeah, there was a flurry of "fucks" in one bit that really stood out for me!

this wasn't very good was it

whenever I see the sandsnakes I regret watching the TMNT parody video last year because thats all I hear in my head

I didn't really see much similarity between them and Ninja Turtles. They have weapons and they're young.

have even wondered about rickon.

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Tuesday, April 26, 2016 8:26 AM (14 hours ago)

I think Rickon might be back this season!!! He's like my favorite character after Dolorous Ed and the hippie red priest

this wasn't very good was it

― ulysses, Tuesday, April 26, 2016 11:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh cmon its flawed af but its not *bad*

whenever I see the sandsnakes I regret watching the TMNT parody video last year because thats all I hear in my head

And yeah, this was pretty silly, i.e. bad enough. We are at the point in the story where it is dangerously close to totally teetering over with the weight of all its not-terribly-compelling contrivances. Like, this far along and I still don't give a fuck about the Red Witch, and neither do I ever remotely understand her powers/role. Dorn stuff is stupid and cheap-looking, massive perils like Ice Zombies and dragons constantly vanish or get sidelined/ignored, 5/6 seasons in and magic powers present since the start have still not been explained/outlined, and so on. I don't get how shows, especially shows with huge budgets and huger audiences like this and Walking Dead (RIP to me) just can't manage 10 or 13 totally good episodes in a row. Better Call Saul did it. Hell, Veep has done it. And neither of these has the literally unlimited resources of imagination at their service.

And as far as the show's momentum goes, strictly as an entertainment and not as, like, a fake history of an ancient pretend land, it's just constantly hitting the reset button, like playing some maddening kids game that sends you back to the beginning when you're almost at the end. Makes it all feel padded, which maybe it is!

Show/story/Martin made a strategic narrative error by first) systematically killing off (temporarily or no) its most compelling characters and second) scattering the rest across the sidetrack gulag. I presume this season is already on track to remedying the latter problem; for once we have a whole bunch of related characters in the same place(s), talking to one another. As for the former, I think we'll have to wait and see, but it's happened so often now that it's tough to get totally invested in anyone's specific plight, and even when you do, expectations subvert drama, i.e. no one thinks Jon Snow is dead, no one thinks the Mother of Dragons is in any real danger.

Well, I guess she could be, and I guess they could all be killed at any moment, but that would be pretty shitty storytelling. This ep alone seemed largely about aggressively tying up a few loose ends lest they become more dead ends.

Khaleesi Widows Spa Retreat just felt like Bad TV Writing

so did the melisandre reveal

http://i.imgur.com/WEl2uHD.jpg

Lol

I giggled at it as an intentional subversion of boobs. OK, we made it to the episode of the season premiere with no nudity, so here is this person disrobing, just for you, and ... ha, now her boobs are old! Fooled you!

Are people out there really stoked for another dose of Bran and his loser mates? It's like looking forward to a Lost episode about Rose and Bernard.

the problem the show faces right here:

Are people out there really stoked for another dose of Bran and his loser mates?

magic powers present since the start have still not been explained/outlined

there was a ton of explicit two person dialogue exposition and a desperate need to make sure we hit every storyline for about four minutes... basically the two sins they've been good at avoiding until now

want at least two seasons of tmns and splintelaria biding their time in the sewers of kings landing

robberies mysteriously foiled, angry pizza maesters etc

after defeating mutant mountain, a stray canister of wildfire leads to a final showdown with super cersei. go snakey go snakey go

maybe the police from monty python + holy grail will show up and arrest dorne

This episode was basically the same as every season opener for the last couple of seasons, basically just the show going "remember this dude? Also these two are pretty important also, and don't forget about what's happening over here! There's also this happening even though nobody cares about this storyline, but maybe we'll make it work this season, etc."

I guess it's ok to complain about it, but it seems like most people would be completely lost if they didn't do it.

New Dothraki guy reminds me of Hari Kunzru

remind me, what happened to the dothraki when daenerys first met the unsullied? did they just ride away somewhere? do some of them still think that daenerys is the unburned mother of dragons etc etc etc etc etc etc? or was that a different band of dothraki that's unconnected to the new crew?

i can't fucking BELIEVE the dothraki are involved again, btw

i went from hating the whole S1 dothraki storyline to being sort of ok with it, but when they disappeared i assumed that we would never see them again and i was totally fine with that

"magic powers present since the start have still not been explained/outlined"

That's a feature, not a bug.

For sure. But when you start bringing characters back from the dead (like the Mountain), it'd be nice to know how or why they can't do that for everyone. See also: Red Witch's vagina shadow demon assassin, creation of wildfire, going full-wart (and why), etc. It would be helpful, this far along, to know why some people can do stuff and some people can't, and why those that can usually don't, and so on. And that's just stuff in the abstract. More specifically missing among many characters: motive. Or at least motive beyond merely generic "power." What does the Red Witch want and why? The asshole in charge of the Night's Watch now, what does he want?

Man, I just remembered all the other shit going on that we haven't even got a reminder of. Sam studying to be a book ninja, Littlefinger farting around in Cloudymountainland. Wyldling Stallions off somewhere (or were they all killed?). Vast army of unkillable Ice Zombies just ... chilling somewhere.

i think there are a bunch of dothraki clans or tribes or whatever that luv 2 fight each other

Also, the show's CGI crowd budget seems to have waned precipitously. Every scene is like huge establishing shot followed by 5 people hanging in the corner of a room/small set. Maybe they're saving their cash for dragons and zombies?

i want to see a comparison of the direwolves throughout the series

You mean the quality of CGI?

How many are left alive? A couple?

The asshole in charge of the Night's Watch now, what does he want?

most burning question of all imo

i think there are a bunch of dothraki clans or tribes or whatever that luv 2 fight each other

so like they married her off to a chieftain of one particular clan w/ the idea that would somehow gain the targaryans an army of dothrakis? feel like maybe they didn't think this one through.

i thought the night watch head's motivations were the most obvious -- he's the old guard who resented jon snow and resents his decisions and he wants to be in charge and rid the guard of its progressive elements.

All I really want at this point is

a) awesome extended dialogue like Littlefinger & Varys that one time, Cersei & Oberyn that one time, excerpts from Brienne's old diary etc.
b) an entire episode from the white walkers pov, mostly working on dragonglass immunity spells and playing jenga with human remains
c) kill off a third of the remaining characters by season end

The whole myth-arc of John Snow is the most tedious bullshit.

xpost i know lol. I had no idea anyone was having trouble with that dude's motives

was trystane killed before doran tho we see it the other way around?

Oh, I mean, I get it re: Night Watch guy. But I thought the whole point of the Night's Watch was to protect everyone south of the wall from bad things. So this dude Jon Snow comes to lead the Night Watch with a special vantage into what exactly they need protecting from - the White Walkers and not the Wildlings - aaaand they kill him. Like "OK, now that we've killed the guy who knows just what we're up against, let's get back to the business of protecting everyone from this mysterious threat."

It's part and parcel I suppose with so many characters refusing to see the long view. Re: White Walkers, dragons, magic, etc.

The flip side of this is characters playing such a long game I have no idea what it is (Red Witch, Littlefinger, even Aria - is she still training for revenge? I can't even remember if everyone she wanted to kill is still alive or not). At least Mother of Dragons has a clear goal, even if it's slow going.

Not sure Arya knows who's died by other hands recently so think her list is something like:

Joffrey
Cersei
Walder Frey
Tywin
Melisandre
Those Bannerless Brodudes
Ilyn Payne (not coming back presumably)
Artist Formerley Known As The Mountain
The Boltons (if she's done the math)

You mean the quality of CGI?

How many are left alive? A couple?

They seem to vary in size too

Trystane/Sand Snake dialogue was abrupt to me because even if I had ruthless murderer cousins, if they came in and I said "I told you I'm not hungry" and they joked "We're not here to feed you, we're here to kill you" I'd instinctively say "lol oh hey cousins, I'm glad you're here cause I'm really upset my girlfriend suddenly died. Did you hear about that?"

Him immediately taking them seriously implies he already knew they were involved in her death. So if that's to be implied then I would have had him at least say "How did you get here? Are you serious? So it WAS you, then!"

Just more picky daily grievances about Dorne related scenes from Evan

i thought the night watch head's motivations were the most obvious -- he's the old guard who resented jon snow and resents his decisions and he wants to be in charge and rid the guard of its progressive elements.

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 4:11 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear you on this but the knights watch status quo was pretty fucking dire before jon showed up.

What does the Red Witch want and why?

She's a religious zealot on a mission of evangelism and prophecy fulfillment, and her religion has a good deal of in-world evidence to support its authenticity.

But I thought the whole point of the Night's Watch was to protect everyone south of the wall from bad things. So this dude Jon Snow comes to lead the Night Watch with a special vantage into what exactly they need protecting from - the White Walkers and not the Wildlings - aaaand they kill him.

The whole point of it is that very few people are taking the White Walker threat seriously. The majority of those South of the wall see Wildings as the main danger beyond it. To give a real world analogy, to the Westerosi hoi polloi the White Walkers are climate change and the Wildlings are ISIS.

so like they married her off to a chieftain of one particular clan w/ the idea that would somehow gain the targaryans an army of dothrakis? feel like maybe they didn't think this one through.

Well yes, as there are many armies of Dothraki controlled by many warlords.

What does the Red Witch want and why?

She's a religious zealot on a mission of evangelism and prophecy fulfillment, and her religion has a good deal of in-world evidence to support its authenticity.

I also think the last scene and her dazed ass 'wtf' look on her face when she got to castle black was to illustrate that her stannis prophecy was so so wrong and she has to figure out what to do now..

Well yes, as there are many armies of Dothraki controlled by many warlords.

right so presumably marrying only one of those warlords would not recruit all those armies

I think the choice is not Isis vs climate change but Isis vs more powerful and unkillable zombie Isis.

At a certain point they have to move beyond this fiddling while rome burns mode right? because for a bunch of Master strategist and self-preservationists, everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly.

xp - he was the most powerful warlord with the largest army at the time.

everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly

The whole point of this show seems to be about pointing out that people in charge always do this.

I think it's going to take something like the white walkers taking Winterfell before the people in King's Landing start to actually think about what they can do about them.

I think the choice is not Isis vs climate change but Isis vs more powerful and unkillable zombie Isis.

Nah it's climate change.

everyone behaves very stupidly and recklessly. And shortsightedly

The whole point of this show seems to be about pointing out that people in charge always do this.

who, martin?

xpost yeah, the thing is Jon and his buddies are the ones who have seen the White Walkers in action, while most of the Night's Watchmen have only battled Wildlings. So they choose to believe Jon was making shit up.

yeah the fact that most people believe the white walkers and all non-wildling awful monsters from the land beyond the wall are just stories told to scare children is restated over and over and over again

While most of the Night's Watchmen have only battled Wildlings

They had some interesting adventures at Castle Black too! Giants, mammoths, wights...

weren't the giants fighting for the Wildlings?

Yes, but early in the show people talked about giants as if they weren't real, only from the tales.

I might conclude then, if legendary beasts appeared fighting alongside the Wildlings, that the guy who wants to let the Wildlings through the wall was a bit of a problem.

a giant white walker seems like a huge problem to deal with, also. unless they are immune?

Getting back to this Climate Change analogy. CC is something that many/most predict will do bad things, but those bad things are as yet subtle, or abstract. But an unstoppable army of the undead? Dragons, which may be scarce but certainly existed and wreaked havoc within a generation or so? You'd think they'd be good rallying points.

Also, per predictions: with all these prophecies and religious nuts and people with magic, you'd think at least someone would be touting the/a looming apocalypse, which is what charismatic religious leaders basically live for. Even the people with magic powers seem weirdly blind and short-sighted.

"With my witchcraft and spells, I will seat you on the iron throne!"

"Yes, but what about the dragons and ice zombies?"

"What? That's stupid, they don't exist. What are you, a child? Now, back to the matter at hand! The throne! The throne that seemingly does nobody any good, let alone those closest to it! That should be your goal, not defending the realm from a looming magic apocalypse."

I'm pretty sure that Melisandre takes the white walkers seriously, or at least knows they exist. She's the one who said something like "the real war has not even started" when they got that crow message from the night watch a bunch of seasons ago.

She does not appear to have any kind of plan though.

the nitpicking is intense

seems like getting a guy onto the Iron Throne who was in debt to her gods was pretty much the plan. Then her gods would have a lot of soldiers.

it seems rather obvious to me that not many people know about the white walkers, which was the big 'oh no' of Jon Snow dying (for me at least), who is going to relay that information now? xpost also yeah Melisandre seems to see a solution in Jon Snow which is why the resurrection idea makes sense to many.

to be honest one of my favorite parts of the show is how people are failing to take the white walker threat seriously, it's almost an in-joke from the very first scene of the series, with this stammering night's watch dude muttering about having fled white walkers and ned going on about duty or whatever right before he cuts his head off.

yeah, it makes all the king's landing stuff, especially now with the dude from Brazil/Martin Luther, so efficiently frustrating!

How many years have passed in the story? Several, right? Get with it, TV dummies! These people are so conniving, and so Machiavellian, and so stupid. Want this to end all the ice zombies, and dragons, and witches and armies amassed, ready to decimate one another, and then ... some other army from a different part of the (I assume) globe rolls up and just conquers them all.

ends with Tommy Westphall shaking up a snowglobe and yelling "it's winter!"

How many years have passed in the story? Several, right? Get with it, TV dummies! These people are so conniving, and so Machiavellian, and so stupid. Want this to end all the ice zombies, and dragons, and witches and armies amassed, ready to decimate one another, and then ... some other army from a different part of the (I assume) globe rolls up and just conquers them all.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 9:40 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was trying to think about time passed when the daughter was poisoned. That's the same girl who was conceived at the begining of the first season wasn't it? The reason the kid got knocked out of a window and wound up apparently paralysed from the waist down.
Or am I remembering that wrong? Would help if I remembered taht character's name
Would mean that there was a good 16 years between the beginning and the current season, unless there was a flashback to that at the beginning, which would mean less time passed.
Maybe I just need to rewatch the early series again.

That's not true: "Myrcella is eating breakfast with Cersei, Jaime and Tommen when her uncle Tyrion joins them. Myrcella asks whether Bran will die and Tyrion replies that he is expected to live, delighting Myrcella and horrifying Cersei."

yeah myrcella is like 10 in the first season, she just doesn't do much. Cersei has neither conceived nor been pregnant nor given birth since the narrative began.

Here's a question for those who take said questions seriously: the White Walkers, what's up with them? They have seemingly unlimited powers of regeneration, cannot be easily killed and can apparently multiply at will. So what's the hold-up? What are they up to? Where are they hanging? Do they think? Are they basically people, but ice zombies, or are they driven by something other than revenge/quest for the throne? Clearly they have a king, so they must be into that sort of thing, too.

The answer to all those questions is bad plotting.

the final season can have every individual story strand wind up by having grr martin appear and go '¯\_(ツ)_/¯'

The walkers are waiting for winter, I'd wager

Ah, good answer!

But what are they doing now? Playing cards? Catching up on summer reading?

I've wondered whether they think

they're watching a boring protracted drama about a mythical land called "medievel Europe"

"Why does everyone in this stupid show think the world is flat?!"

They bring winter with them! It is known!

"When is this Jesus guy gonna finally show up and murder everybody?"

I believe perhaps they can only travel with the weather? For instance, "winter is coming" and once it finally does they will be able to reach as far as it does. That was how I interpreted it.

However it all made more sense when they were like this elemental humanoid force of evil that was on its way to sweep in and overtake everything just like an actual blizzard, but in that episode last season where they were suddenly wearing clothes and showing facial expressions and emotions... that just kind of turned them into merely another competing clan looking to overthrow everything.

I said this last thread in case of deja vu.

The internet says there are wards in/near the wall (craster's keep, for example) that help keep the walkers away.

There are plenty of actual flaws in the show and then there are flaws in this thread

Like who tf wants the magic explained? That's dumb as hell. It's part of the chaotic unknowable atmosphere that makes this show compelling at all & lets you forgive contrivance

Smh feel like you guys have never read fantasy before 🤓

what do the zombies in walking dead do when they aren't attacking ppl? white walkers are just like medieval versions of them. they probably meander aimlessly in the snow and stare at bright shiny things and think, "ugghrhrhg?"

they do charity work to give something back

can we get back to being excited about Rickon reappearing?

are there any good recaps of this show anymore? ask the maester is on hiatus i guess, and max doesn't do em anymore

"josh in chicago" is a good DN for these posts, as in "now we've got Josh in Chicago with a question about this week's Game of Thrones, Josh you're on the line."

i think the established character i'd be happiest to never see again is ramsay bolton, dude is like the r-rated version of a saturday morning tv cartoon villain, coasting along for seasons on end without establishing any character traits beyond 'is evil'

it seems rather obvious to me that not many people know about the white walkers, which was the big 'oh no' of Jon Snow dying (for me at least), who is going to relay that information now?

Well Sam, obviously.

I have a feeling he's due for a bigger (lol sorry) role in the plot.

Also, any bets on what character Richard E Grant will be playing? I'm hoping Sam's father, but I'm prob wrong.

What's a DN? Is it something bad?

I only harp on the magic stuff because it seems so random, unexplained and, worst of all, sort of ignored. Like, there is magic shit happening all over the place, so it doesn't take much of a leap to believe in ice zombies or dragons, especially since magic or no, the latter clearly existed and terrorized the land, like, 50, 100 years before this takes place. Right? However long ago, they're fucking dragons. And of course there are giants and other creatures, too, and plenty of people have seen the dire wolves, which are of course nbd, except they are a big deal. And then there are warg people, but does anyone know about the warg people or are they stuff of legend, too? Are there dozens of warg people? Hundreds? I get that magic slowly coming back is a cool thing, but once that's been happening for years and years ... it's happened, right? It's not coming back, it's back.

Anyway, it's just so much happening at once in every direction at once, and yet the narrative seems permanently stalled in mundane power biz. I want an episode that is first person mock documentary interviews with various plebes and serfs and stuff, just to get out of this weird bubble of pretenders to the throne. Maybe they can save that for season 7.

(I don't really want that, btw. But I do wish this far along some of the show's mythology and rules were better explained. Because otherwise anything can just happen, like a giant talking fish could appear and challenge Jaime to a duel, and everyone will be all, well, who needs to explain it, in this world there are giant talking fish, nothing to see here, they're magic.)

Its been ages but I thought the idea was that people *did* believe in dragons and whitewalkers but that they were more the stuff of ancient history.

there is magic shit happening all over the place

not really?

The "ask the maester" column is available via the mailing list from theringer.com. it was posted yesterday.

Many xps

Cool, love ask the maester, thanks!

post Well, in Kings Landing they brought the Mountain back from the dead. In that other place there were those magic monks who tried to capture the Mother of Dragons. Wasn't Karl Drogo demonized by a demon? Arya Start has been magically blinded by magic people who were mentoring her. Red Witch was doing magic stuff with Stannis, a few people (like Cersai) have heard prophecies. Up north there is all sorts of magic shit, from White Walkers to Wargs to whatever is going on in that ... magic tree? Don't remember that part. And then of course there is the return of dragons, born of fire that did not kill the Mother of Dragons. And so on. More than enough to go around.

I think it's been 150 years since dragons terrorized the land when the first book begins. So it's been some time, but not really that long, especially as far as this world go, when it's even unclear how old people are.

Most of that stuff is happening in isolation ... either in secrecy or in faraway places.

all of this magic is occurring in far flung locations OR has been witnessed by very few people. The prophecies or whatever, I mean they could be real. I don't know. Melisandre is 2 for 3 with her curse on the prospective rulers. That witch is 2 for 3 with Jaime and cersei's kids.

What poly said basically yeah

Wow, Ask the Maester stumped a lot. Fun watch, though.

Oh, wait, there's a column, too? I just saw his 10 minute live riff.

The old column was in Grantland... it looks like its moved for S6

http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9a393473748185dce76bf8339&id=00119d1332

(This should be the Ask the Maester column, weird Url aside)

DN is display name, by the way. Your "Josh in Chicago."

Ha, ok, I get it now. Anyway, this is funny, from the Maester column:

The Dothraki believe that a great khal (hm) will appear at Vaes Dothrak (hmm) to unite the khalasars (hmmm) under his (HMMMM) banner and go on to conquer the world.

Cool, love ask the maester, thanks!

post Well, in Kings Landing they brought the Mountain back from the dead. In that other place there were those magic monks who tried to capture the Mother of Dragons. Wasn't Karl Drogo demonized by a demon? Arya Start has been magically blinded by magic people who were mentoring her. Red Witch was doing magic stuff with Stannis, a few people (like Cersai) have heard prophecies. Up north there is all sorts of magic shit, from White Walkers to Wargs to whatever is going on in that ... magic tree? Don't remember that part. And then of course there is the return of dragons, born of fire that did not kill the Mother of Dragons. And so on. More than enough to go around.

I think it's been 150 years since dragons terrorized the land when the first book begins. So it's been some time, but not really that long, especially as far as this world go, when it's even unclear how old people are.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 7:24 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bro -_-

they dont have twitter

Are all the ravens dead? There seems to be a lack of raven communication.

I recall someone being handed, and reading, a scroll at one point. Presumably raven-delivered?

There was a lot of wholesale raven slaughter last season, iirc. What annoyed me this episode (and which hasn't been mentioned); I really don't get why ice cold Roose Bolton is so into making his unreliable annoying nutjob son his heir. Obv he has no other sons but come on, the dude couldn't be relied on to make coffee and Roose just got his young new wife pregnant, so why not wait? It'd be cold and rational to do so.

imho it's quite a leap to say roose is "into" making ramsay his heir. but he knows the kid is desperate for legitimacy and willing to do any amount of dirty work to make it happen, so why not dangle it for now and see how things play out?

I don't know. Besides letting Sansa escape he's been doing a pretty good job as far as Roose is concerned.

Roose invoked his new Frey wife bearing him a son so I assume Ramsey is the only male in the line of succession.

Playing crusader kings 2 helps figure out who is in play for these inheritance shenanigans.

xp - yeah, he currently has no male heirs outside of Ramsey, which is why he made Ramsey a Bolton in the first place

CC is something that many/most predict will do bad things, but those bad things are as yet subtle, or abstract.

This is a pretty good analogy, in that climate change's effects aren't either of those things, but as long as they're far away and/or deniable...

I think it's been 150 years since dragons terrorized the land when the first book begins. So it's been some time, but not really that long, especially as far as this world go, when it's even unclear how old people are.

No one doesn't believe in dragons! Recieved wisdom is that they are extinct, though it seems like the existence of Dani's dragons is pretty widely accepted in both continents at this stage.

Somebody has mentioned there being no twitter, I was going to say there was no mass media. Not sure there is any organised media or postal service. So news presumably spreads by word of mouth and is probably not the most reliable or widespreadly known. Probably some degree of chinese whispers through populace too.
In the real world prior to postal service being established letters would be passed along between people going in the general direction. It could take 7 years for one to get to its destination though I think that specific one was Europe to Asia.
I assume they're using specific messengers in this and most things are on one landmass. I need to see a map.

There's two landmasses.

Ravens are the postal service. But you don't necessarily believe every Raven you receive, considering that everyone is basically trying to undermine everyone else.

xxxp

http://i.imgur.com/zaH5JF1.jpg

Raven post has several apparent drawbacks doesn't it?
Primarily being that it could only take place along a single route surely. No matter how intelligent a korvid is, trying to get it to go anywhere other than the destination location it already knows would be tricky.

But maybe these are magic ravens.

in that climate change's effects aren't either of those things

It's a different/sidetracked debated, but come on, saying the ocean is on track to gain a degree or two every 50 years or that a certain percentage of the permafrost is melting or that weather patterns have shifted to make weather models more erratic and the likelihood of violent or dramatic shifts greater is huge, cataclysmic! But it is indeed pretty subtle and abstract imo - thinking about things that might happen many years down the line, possibly or likely well after we are dead - which is one reason so many seem resistant to the idea of fixing (somehow) a problem that will likely, sometime, be destructive, in any number of some ways. In the battle of concrete threats, even in terms of analogy, a vast unkillable army of ice zombies massing on the north border is pretty hard to argue against.

Unless one is citing them in this make-believe world as a possible effect of Winter-is-Coming climate change - maybe winter is coming, maybe there will be ice zombies - in which case, sure. The people are the north are bellwethers akin to the Maldives or something. I guess it is worth conceding, at least by narrative omission, that the vast majority of unseen masses on GoT world has no idea what is going on at all beyond the next meal. And even as far as Winter is Coming, it's been brought up once or twice as more than just a Stark catchphrase, right? It's been at least mentioned in King's Landing, as the impetus for grain/food stockpiling?

But the point is very few people believe the extent of the WW threat! The Night's Watch arseholes clearly think Jon was mistaken, or lying or at least massively exaggerating for his own political agenda, as some climate change deniers think its advocates are.

It's an imperfect analogy cos obviously an army of snow zombies and a gradual but catastrophic change in weather systems are very different things. But the White Walkers are, like climate change, a slow moving but profoundly existential threat, whereas the Wildlings, like Isis, are the enemies du jour perceived as probably a far greater danger than they actually are. Jon Snow's murder is the equivalent of a modern politician being suspended from office for colaborating with Islamic State scientists on sustainable energy strategies.

Fair enough.

Maybe I don't remember, but I can't recall what's motivating the Wildlings, either. At this point do they just want to be left alone? I assume they're preparing for the White Walkers, too, perhaps more than most. Though I don't know how one prepares for that. Or why the White Walkers haven't already killed and conscripted the entirety of the Wildling population.

Or why the White Walkers haven't already killed and conscripted the entirety of the Wildling population.

Yeah this is something that hasn't been explained/thought through.

When Jon Snow prepares to kill Ygritte, she is scared that he wouldn't burn her body afterwards. There were hints that the wildlings had been rising as zombies lately, and that that was what the White Walkers did: Mainly waited for some of them to die, and kill others, and so on and so on. The show has changed that with Hardholme and the mystical Night King and all that, and as with nearly all their changes, it probably wasn't thought through.

Wrt magic, there are two things to remember: 1) Magic mostly happens away from the center of Westeros, so most educated elites dislike it. Essos is much more magical, and the Targaryans also rode their dragons from over there. The other thing, which is probably much more in the book as well, is that 2) Magic is intertwined with power in this world. Melisandre does not just do magic. She does the will of the fire god R'hollor, and was claiming that Stannis was that God's rightful king. The Starks aren't just warging. They're demonstrating their connection to the animal of their vigil, and their power as descendants of 'the first men' (who inhabited Westeros before the southerners came, kinda like the celts in Britain), their connection to the Old Gods, etc. The White Walkers are also intertwined with this myth, and with the Children of the Forrest (whom Bran are now with), so to people in the south, it's a bit suspicious that a Stark bastard keeps talking about them. And of course, there are the Targaryans and their dragons. And basically, for the followers of the Seven, of the New Gods, mainly the Lannister family who has not a single speck of magic connected to them, every admission of magic is an admission that other families are stronger than them, and therefore, by implication, probably more skilled at ruling the kingdom. So it's not just that people don't believe tales of magic, there are powerful vested interests in not believing them.

The show changed what now?

My theory is that the last thing keeping the Whites from full on attack was Craster exposing all those baby boys.

At this rate, 2200 seems an awful long way away. I'm pretty worried about 2013 or 2014.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 January 2013 22:38 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(from Global Warming's Terrifying New Math which Josh has apparently forgot about - I'll leave it as my last word in the diversion)

I totally agree with ... me. But in the show, the ice zombie army and dragons are 2013 or 2014. It'd be one thing if the grumpy pants characters in Game of Thrones were saying "Winter is Coming ... in 150 Years." Maybe they have been, and we're just sort of watching en medias rex. "Ugh, shut up about the zombies, dude, I'll be dead in 150 years, and besides, people are dropping like flies around me on a daily basis anyway. Now, here's my plan to get free refills of mead even though I only paid for one flagon!"

But anyway, yeah, I liked FB's bit on willful ignorance as a different sort of power.

I should also stress that I'm not totally obtuse, I get that "Winter" (et al.) is like global warming. I guess my take is just that it is not something that is predicted to happen in the future, but something (in the show) that is actually happening now, a prediction come to pass. But you (all) are right, not a lot of people seem to know about the White Walkers or even the return of dragons, at least not outside (some) of the elites the show focuses on. As of yet in the show I still have no idea what the population of these lands actually is.

Nobody but those who have seen them believe white walkers/zombies exist or still exist. They do however know that winter is coming. They don't realize that winter will bring the white walkers with it.

As of yet in the show I still have no idea what the population of these lands actually is.

yeah i've generally found it odd that winterfell seems to have maybe 100 people living in it, and not even the metropolitan centres seem particularly sprawling

iirc there have been many Winters since the last time the Whites were a threat

I'm pretty sure that way back in season 1, Ned mentions that Arya was born during the last winter. He also mentions that since it's been a longer than usual time since the last winter, the next winter is likely to be much worse than usual.

can i just mention yet again that i will never understand why they don't release the episodes in the late fall/winter so that they can use "WINTER IS COMING" in the ad campaigns? i should be an advertising bigwig, these ideas are solid gold!!

maybe HBO Australia uses "WINTER IS COMING" in its ad campaigns?

(I don't know if HBO Australia exists)

See, that's another thing not clear to me. Obviously people believe in dragons, they just don't know they're back. But Winter (writ large) is a real thing, too, that people have experienced and planned for and dealt with, so it's not like some fiction. And is the same true for the White Walkers? Stuff of fairy tales, or ancient history?

white walkers hadn't been around for thousands of years, and they possibly were the stuff of legends and not real.

I totally agree with ... me. But in the show, the ice zombie army and dragons are 2013 or 2014.

Andrew's point is that climate change is 2013 (or in fact most of the 2000s). That is, the effects of climate change are already here -- it's not some purely notional consequence anymore.

There are legends about the Whites but they much more distant than dragons

Are

Fair enough.

Maybe I don't remember, but I can't recall what's motivating the Wildlings, either. At this point do they just want to be left alone? I assume they're preparing for the White Walkers, too, perhaps more than most. Though I don't know how one prepares for that. Or why the White Walkers haven't already killed and conscripted the entirety of the Wildling population.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 28, 2016 1:13 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

isnt the entire hardhome episode the white walkers coming to fucking kill all the wildlings (or at least sack their capital)? and they all ran off on boats to escape.

Maybe they'll bump into this guy:
https://31.media.tumblr.com/3676e4ba7ff8b2291d53ee67e2931f63/tumblr_n7fcf4dBkJ1qbqzawo1_250.gif

But Winter (writ large) is a real thing, too, that people have experienced and planned for and dealt with, so it's not like some fiction.

It's been almost 15 years since the last winter at this point.

I'm not sure what's being debated here.

I think the original problem statement was "People who are supposedly rational and intelligent are worried about dumb local politics instead of the obvious existential threat (or threats, depending on how they feel about a Targaryen with dragons)"

and an ancillary problem statement to that was "magic is goddamn all over the place, why do people seem to keep acting like it isn't"

and I thought these were RIDICULOUS questions a la Deej's response but the discussion that followed was worth it

Ok well then to that, yes, nobody in Westeros believes the white walkers exist (anymore or at all). So it indeed resembles climate change debates but in an exaggerated sense.

I think in a ridiculous make-believe world like this one there is no such thing as a ridiculous question, especially because any such questions with answers will no doubt be answered by something equally ridiculous. "Well of course no one can ride dragons, because the Anti Dragon Rule of the Land of Erp decreed that no one shall ride a dragon before their 18th birthday, and all children were killed before they turned 18, so yes there were no dragon riders but the entire population of the Land of Erp got old and died and took with them the secrets of the ancient dragon-taming scrolls, written in the dead Oompa tongue, which no one could translate, anyway, since it can only be seen under the Red Moon of 5th Autumn, and we have not seen one of them in 300 years."

Which is to say, afaic, it's all good.

The Oompa tongue died after Willy Wonka took all the Loompas as slaves, I take it.

well we got all the parts of every line up to "...dee daa" or sometimes it's "...dee dee" but the rest of the words, no clue

They took their confectioner secrets to the grave.

i think we talked about this quite a bit on the other thread but the approach to magic in Martin's universe is really cool imo--it's a genuinely strange and (often) unnerving thing to most people. it remains mysterious and subject to the whims of the gods or whatever--just like it should in a pre-modern context.

tolkien is mostly good at this too. dreary magic systems are a plague upon fantasy literature.

I think in a ridiculous make-believe world like this one there is no such thing as a ridiculous question, especially because any such questions with answers will no doubt be answered by something equally ridiculous. "Well of course no one can ride dragons, because the Anti Dragon Rule of the Land of Erp decreed that no one shall ride a dragon before their 18th birthday, and all children were killed before they turned 18, so yes there were no dragon riders but the entire population of the Land of Erp got old and died and took with them the secrets of the ancient dragon-taming scrolls, written in the dead Oompa tongue, which no one could translate, anyway, since it can only be seen under the Red Moon of 5th Autumn, and we have not seen one of them in 300 years."

yeah man let those fuckin' nerds have it. so good

as it was told in the book of custos

Got no problem with the nerds! I've read two of the books and watch the show. Both are really easy to avoid, if I wanted to, but at least with the show I totally admit I am engaged. I'm just frustrated that six seasons in and so much remains nebulous, at least to me. Just from a craft standpoint, it's getting harder to believe they can tie up so much satisfactorily, but maybe I will be really surprised, in which case, I doff my Valerian helmet.

Also, tbh, I can sense my wife's interest waning a bit, and if she goes, usually that means I go as well. So I'm rooting for the nerds!

shit is not going to be tied up satisfactorily

That's probably true enough. But at least as long as it holds to some sort of logic I'm prolly OK. Like, if there is a literal deus ex machina intervention - which is totally possible in this world - I'd be bummed.

GRRM has specifically said he's not going to pull a Lost. I really hope he pulls it off.

Dude has said a lot. But it's possible he'll pull it off in his way and the show will fail in its way. Or vice versa, both seem equally likely at this point, though there is a much greater chance of Martin dying before completing the story than the show getting cancelled before it reaches its own end.

oh they're not gonna get cancelled, hasn't HBO already ordered the final seasons (w the show runners wanting to split the last season in half or something?)

I hope this show ends with a ripping Edgar Winter guitar solo fwiw

Oh, it won't get cancelled. What I mean is there is a good (or not small) chance the show will end its run (well or poorly) and GRRM won't.

yeah I think that's entirely likely

GRRM might be spooked by what went down with Robert Jordan, worried DBW and Benioff are his Brandon Sanderson, and get his ass in gear. would be excellent if the concluding book dropped the day the final season premiered

I feel a very tiny amount of bad that Shakey made a perfectly serviceable St. Elsewhere joke yesterday and then had to come back today and be like "they will not tie this up satisfactorily"

i sort of feel bad too there's zero gay of thrones discussion on this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQT7qDKcGDc

pretty sure the show ends with dany and jon sharing an incestuous kiss as they ride a dragon while it napalms an army of white walkers

fin

oh btw there was a partial explanation to the buning question of where prince whothefuck was when the Sandsnakes killed him. The letter from Jaime his dad got said that the prince was being sent back to Dorne on a boat, so I assume the SS intercepted the boat after seeing the letter.

You know what they say about ASSuming. It makes an ASSassin out of you and me.

ASS i always say, what, jaime betrayed cersei, and his whole "fuck the world, fuck everyone but us" speech was bullshit? why would that jaime write a letter to dr. bashir and not say boo to his sister/lover? where are my dragons? and where is bronn? did he deliver that letter? is he captive to the sandsnakes? where is theon's sister? where is beric dondarrion? loose threads everywhere

Text of the letter:
"The Princess Myrcella died by poison on our return journey. I suspect Ellaria Sand, not you, but my sister will demand war. I doubt Ellaria’s head will appease her, but it is a start, along with your nieces. Your son cannot stay in King’s Landing. I am sending him back on the same ship."

xp Theon's sister will return along with Theon's uncle according to imdb

yeah they're back this season they've just been thinking for a while.

Plenty of big moves in this episode. I like the Greyjoy home a lot. Surely it wouldn't be hard to kill off the sparrows now. Tyrion's risk with the dragons was unconvincing.

jon snow revive was too early

Why? I'm glad they didn't drag that one out.

Who is the cousin Jaime said he killed?

big moves, bad dialogue, felt forced

When he was in a cell being held by the Starks.

Alton Lannister. Jaime killed him to get out of his captivity in season 2.

A funny mention, since there definitely is a bunch of kin-slaying going on this season.

I kinda like watching this show again after it caught up to the books. It's pretty clear that George RR Martin is much more concerned with the rules of his word than the Benioff and Weiss. Which is okay, of course, but I do scratch my head a bit if Ramsay Bolton can get away with killing his father, brother and (step)mother, without his men rebelling.

But I still liked the episode more than I liked the last few I watched.

So Melisandre was able to reanimate Jon because she had lost her faith, right? There was something in that Brotherhood w/o Banners storyline about how a priest lost his faith and then somehow woke the dead iirc

i think she was able to reanimate jon because kit harrington is pretty popular

Yeah. I'm not sure if they intended any sort of connection between corpse-revival-powers and loss-of-faith. I'm assuming a coincidence unless they reiterate it somehow. For instance, the Brothers priest guy was still able to revive their guy even after his faith was restored the first time it worked.

I don't think the power gets revoked if your returns

Thoros then confesses how he had always had a large lack of faith in the Lord of Light and never took his duties seriously because of them, until the day that Gregor Clegane killed Beric, his friend, and Thoros was called upon him to revive him. When he saw that it worked, Thoros's faith was restored.

So you're saying there's a trial membership to get you hooked?

i was thinking there would be some focus on "king's blood" as being special and as a foreshadowing of future revelations but other than showing her sponging him down for a weird amount of time that didnt happen.

Yeah it would have been a little stronger if the "king's blood" had been a more significant element in the scene. I agree it certainly seemed that way with all of the sponging.

p funny how the show ppl were so adamant abt saying he was dead and not coming back and no one believed them and then he only stayed dead for less than two eps

real quality cliffhanger they pulled off there

alliser thorne's no good very bad day is about to get worse

stoked for jamie to kill the sparrows

they probably shouldn't have said anything. i think the fact that melisandre was there at the end of the season was the problem, like if she'd shown up at the beginning of this episode that would have been better for a cliffhanger. they should have kept him dead and brought back robb stark, complete with dire wolf head. that would freak out the squares even more.

i have real beef with the idea that whatshername the kennel sadist girl falls off the castle wall and is hella dead but sansa and reek leap off a 60 foot embankment and are taking off on foot unharmed

didn't she land on dry ground and they jumped into a snow pile?

i was thinking there would be some focus on "king's blood" as being special and as a foreshadowing of future revelations but other than showing her sponging him down for a weird amount of time that didnt happen.

― ryan, Monday, May 2, 2016 12:28 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

Waiting For Gendry

i believe there was a snow pile down there, plus feet first vs head first

xp i don't think we saw what they jumped into at all and the clear implication was that they'd rather commit suicide than deal with psycho mantis again

a john snow pile

the greyjoy/iron islands shit feels a bit removed from the main action but it's awesome doom metal action, polar opposite of the cafe del mar court intrigue poisoning sullen teen BS of dorne.

ya iron islands r tite

whos the guy who pushed the king off the bridge its his brother? whats the deal

his name is like euchalele or something

eunuchalele actually

euron the crow's eye, he crazy, i like y'all's suggestions better though

eunuch ukulele

idk why the karstarks would prefer to ramsay to roose

the show has three key supporting characters who are eunuchs a fourth might be pushing it

also is max von sydow's name really just 'three eyed crow' ?

need to balance it out with a guy who has four dicks imo

well it would make sense because eunuchs come in pairs

the show has a bunch of Starks but that didn't stop them from bringing in Car-Starks

are car starks just starks who drive cars

really missing concepcion's ask the maester pieces this season

karstarks seem deeply unchill, their dead leader killed a couple lannister kids in S3, which seems more a ramsay move than a roose move.

p sure it's kars in westeros but yes that's the main difference

really missing concepcion's ask the maester pieces this season

― dynamicinterface, Monday, May 2, 2016 1:05 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently u cn receive them via the ringer newsletter theres a link to one upthread

also is max von sydow's name really just 'three eyed crow' ?

― dynamicinterface, Monday, May 2, 2016 1:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the book sez it's brynden rivers, i think, i wouldnt be surprised if they brought it up at some point

books say that Hodor's real name is Walder too, not Willis as in the show

whatutalkinabout walder

Karstarks' name is explained as basically some Starks that took control of the Karhold & made a portmanteau

idk why the karstarks would prefer to ramsay to roose

I think Ramsay was giving the Karstarks a chance to climb up over the other big Northern houses.

karstarks seem deeply unchill, their dead leader killed a couple lannister kids in S3, which seems more a ramsay move than a roose move.

Jaime killed Rickard Karstark's sons (both of them?), and he was hellbent on avenging the loss of his heirs, it was pretty consistently characterized (perhaps more so in the books).

xpost they already have a Walder tho

subplot of the shit in the north is people who have been pissed at the starks for decades or centuries finding their chance to take revenge

I find it best not to pay attention to the North stuff too closely

really missing concepcion's ask the maester pieces this season

― dynamicinterface, Monday, May 2, 2016 1:05 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently u cn receive them via the ringer newsletter theres a link to one upthread

― lag∞n, Monday, May 2, 2016 1:06 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Ringer ‏@ringer 1h1 hour ago
Have questions about 'Game of Thrones' Episode 2? The Maester, @netw3rk, will answer them live on our Facebook page tomorrow at 3 p.m. ET!

xps thx for the tip

So in the "next on..." clips this week, they show a guy (pretty sure it's the lord of House Umber, the other big northern house that was mentioned being allied with the Boltons) telling Ramsay "I've brought you a present" - I guarantee it's Rickon Stark.
This means that Ramsay doesn't have to march on Castle Black, he can just send word he's got Rickon hostage and then Jon and Sansa will march on Winterfell. As foretold etc. etc.

Still wondering if/when we'll get to see Littlefinger again, or what role he has left to play.
Melisandre is also totally expendable now, I think? Obviously she might want to stick around to see what happens next but her main plot function has now been satisfied.

Also I like that the dragons were penned up in something like a garage - one little door for people, some other bigger door elsewhere for the dragons?

Lastly for now - I think the Ironborn role has to be to serve as the replacement fleet to get Daenaerys & Co. to Westeros. Possibly a little too neat that we burned her armada in Ep. 1 (why exactly, btw? what do the Sons of the Harpy care about keeping them from leaving? I haven't figured that one out) and then in Ep. 2 we re-introduce a seafaring pirate culture that was almost completely absent for a season & a half.

I've heard they've altered book names just because they're too close to existing show characters and it would be confusing. Hence Willis.

The real identity of the three eyed crow is an unsolved mystery in the books as well, so I'm guessing they won't give it away right now. But yeah, Brynden Rivers is the most common guess (who is from the prequels and all. It's complicated, it seems)

Melisandre is also totally expendable now, I think? Obviously she might want to stick around to see what happens next but her main plot function has now been satisfied.

Yeah, she already reached her boob quota in episode 1. xxp

Melisandre presumably will have her faith restored and would fall into some kind of similar role she did with Stannis? Maybe not so manipulative going forward though. Just a guess.

can't wait for legendary mercenary swordsman Willis to show up

https://media.giphy.com/media/gk6r53AIv3wf6/giphy.gif

Another silly thing about the plot in the north is Ramsay killing Wanda Frey, and pretty openly, when like half his army is Freys. At least in the book it seems that way.

Melisandre is possibly one of the most powerful and useful characters if she is happy to keep resurrecting people. I've always believed that some of the much older characters will be revived.

seems like a longshot to redeem melisandre.. she burned a little kid alive!

davos giving her a peptalk was really funny to me

having bringing back ppl from the dead be a thing seems bad from a storytelling pov, like time travel

the whole "jon snow is really dead" stuff makes me thing it's gonna be a semantic thing--he's gonna be "dead" according to some kind of logic--what is dead may never die?

At this point, what "jon snow is really dead" stuff are you referring to?

the logic would be, he entered into contract with Night's Watch, LLC that was binding until death

2x "whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" jokes in recaps so far

Oh yes, I believe "his watch has ended".

Found that shaving the 3 eyed raven made his character look less like a mystical tree wizard and more like a senior citizen who fell in a hole and got himself trapped during a stroll through the park.

i am really enjoying hating this even more this season! it's so dumb, everyone in it is dumb.

the trouble with a show full of shocking surprises is that the end effect is that you're never shown anything important. all of the thinking and acting that makes anything happen is all happening off screen. instead of tyrion and the eunuch having another unfunny conversation about castration (does george rr martin know the difference between cock and balls btw), why don't we take a look at whoever it is burned the boats? you know nobody is going to expend any effort to figuring it out. besides saying "we're trying to find who did it"

Perhaps there's a reason, and maybe the reason is that it's not important because it was obviously the Harpy

having bringing back ppl from the dead be a thing seems bad from a storytelling pov, like time travel

― lag∞n, Monday, 2 May 2016 18:41

Not when a story is about those things. I think resurrection was always meant to be a big part of the story, the whole ice/fire concept. There will probably always be some price paid for resurrection though. So far 3 characters have been revived (Jon, Beric, Khal Drogo) and other people have become white walkers. I don't think the witch who revived Drogo fits into the fire thing though.

Not when a story is about those things. I think resurrection was always meant to be a big part of the story, the whole ice/fire concept.

I don't understand how this works as a "theme", could you spell it out for me

Resurrection via fire vs resurrection via ice I guess?

Coming back from the dead vs. reanimated as an ice zombie

that's a plot mechanism not a theme

a theme would be what this ostensible conflict in resurrection methods represents

The theme police they come to me in my thread

Yeah I'm not sure how Robert is interpreting a connection between fire/ice and resurrection thematically.

I didn't say "about" as in strictly that sort of theme. Haven't got any solid theories about it but it's just my guess that the story is about the life forces of fire and ice and that includes resurrection.

I've also suspected for some time that the story really is another old fashioned wish fulfilment story about Bran and Arya (similar enough to your typical epic fantasy farm kids) rising to the top, but became about many other things.

I don't think it's about anything tbh, the show is all machinations about power and that's it. could be set in any time or place, really, the dragons and zombies etc. are just window-dressing. The problem there is that power struggles are p boring in and of themselves, might as well watch nature films about apes bashing each other's brains in or something, same difference.

might as well watch nature films about apes bashing each other's brains in or something, same difference.

― Οὖτις, Monday, 2 May 2016 20:00

Do you watch lots of those too?

don't forget the Mountain has also been brought back from death. kind of.

So this guy is Balon Greyjoy's younger brother (http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Euron_Greyjoy), but THIS guy is Balon's YOUNGEST brother (http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Aeron_Greyjoy)?

it doesn't even have anything particularly coherent to say about the nature of power or the pursuit of it either (ie, "power corrupts" or "power is awesome and revenge is totally worth it!" or similar), it just sets these various wind-up mechanisms into motion and then becomes about ways to keep the wheels spinning

xp

I do watch a lot of nature shows, they're great

xp

Oh yeah. Does anyone know if The Mountain ever actually died?

afaik it's never clearly stated. pycelle is gonna give up on him but qyburn steps up and does his thing

Euron Greyjoy (fifth son of Quellon Greyjoy) is played by Pilou Asbaek, who was born in 1982. Euron's youngest brother Aeron (eighth son of Quellon) is played by Michael Feast, who was born in 1946.

more like a senior citizen who fell in a hole and got himself trapped during a stroll through the park.

speak of ingmar bergman regular max von sydow with more respect you rude man!!!

I'm hoping the story is really about the birth of democracy (end of the GoT) where the little guys get sick of being fucked over and revolt (perhaps with the help of Daenerys), but so far it seems more cynical than that.

more like a senior citizen who fell in a hole and got himself trapped during a stroll through the park.

speak of ingmar bergman regular max von sydow with more respect you rude man!!!

― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Monday, May 2, 2016 3:36 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wardrobe's fault. Acting is fine!

all the supernatural stuff gives the show some coherency, everyone facing the same epic struggles etc. in a way that wouldn't be possible in a less nonsense setting

Is that what old people wear when they go for walks and fall down holes?

Looked at some images of him from season 4 and he had long hair and a beard.

I'm hoping the story is really about the birth of democracy (end of the GoT) where the little guys get sick of being fucked over and revolt (perhaps with the help of Daenerys), but so far it seems more cynical than that.

― schwantz, 2. maj 2016 21:47 (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The scene between Jaime and the Sparrows sorta was the first hint I've seen of that. Jaime turning around and looking at the men standing in front of the church windows was a pretty good visual.

the sparrows as a protestant reformation type thing which initiates a turn towards modernity would be genuinely interesting but im not sure they've laid enough groundwork for that on the show. i guess i could go read the wiki on the sparrows though...

the high sparrow is bernie.

lol, I had just typed out "At this point I can't even see the High Sparrow without automatically thinking «Bernie Sanders»."
I guess that makes Cersei the Hill, flanked by the Mountain.

you just know those hillary as cersei memes are coming, if they arent here already.

Mountain = Black voters?

The Mountain is Goldman Sachs

too big to fail

Jamie as the troublesome but charming ex she never should have slept with makes sense too tbh

Reading Jon Snow's fate as a plea for Obama to return for a third term now too. I'm sorry.

so about the preview for the next ep, was bran and the 3ec peeping in on ned et al trying to rescue lyanna? does that mean we finally get to meet howland reed? and/or finally some confirmation or about jon's parents?

Most likely!

the sparrows as a protestant reformation type thing which initiates a turn towards modernity would be genuinely interesting but im not sure they've laid enough groundwork for that on the show.

there is some talk of the maesters aiming for a world free from magic/dragons/prophecy/white walkers which might also herald the beginning of the early modern era for our intrepid gang
I believe this hot intel comes from a character called Marvyn the Mage whose arrival we all eagerly anticipate

I think they're laying a little ground work for shift to the early modern w/ Tyrion learning how to govern a city w/o unduly oppressing its occupants

Ramsey seems to represent a more ruthless early medieval or ancient order, where the new king would basically kill all of his relatives to remove legitimacy threats.

that is a funny reading of history you have there

yes it is funny

heh

just referring to the implication that history has been one long march from tyrannical oppression to our current glorious state of liberation

thought this episode was rlly good, lots of shit happened, idk

The title of next week's episode is making me nervous

it doesn't even have anything particularly coherent to say about the nature of power or the pursuit of it either (ie, "power corrupts" or "power is awesome and revenge is totally worth it!" or similar), it just sets these various wind-up mechanisms into motion and then becomes about ways to keep the wheels spinning

tbh i think this itself is a perfectly coherent thing to say about power, i preferred the show when half of it was various obscure schemes grinding together - all those conversations between varys and littlefinger where they dance around each other trying to avoid revealing anything. now that the show's version of power is much more of a blunt object i think it's become less interesting.

the lack of a plot buildup to jon's resurrection was a bit odd, it felt like there were a few directions they could have gone down but instead it was just "it would be good if jon snow wasn't dead, i wonder if that's possible" "eh let's give it a go"

Reading Jon Snow's fate as a plea for Obama to return for a third term now too. I'm sorry.
--human and working on getting beer (longneck)

seems reasonable tbh

The theme police they come to me in my thread

very good

"It" = the show, not power

Xp

i don't remember what is up with the lizard woman but she looks like a doctor who character

So in the "next on..." clips this week, they show a guy (pretty sure it's the lord of House Umber, the other big northern house that was mentioned being allied with the Boltons) telling Ramsay "I've brought you a present" - I guarantee it's Rickon Stark.

the House Umber dude is a captive of the Freys, iirc -- he's a tall gray-haired dude that's played by one of "those guys that are in lots of things". The present giver could be a relative? Don't think it's Rickon unless they're radically changing things from the books again ... which is possible.

Did Benioff and Weiss watch the scene in The Force Awakens where a father and son meet at the halfway point of a narrow bridge above a vast chasm, which ends with the father falling to his death, and think, 'damn, don't we have the same scene in our next season?'

A similar scene, I should say. Brothers, instead of father and son, in GoT's case.

You're right, it's Smalljon Umber, the heir, according to a bunch of GoT wikis. And who is dead in the books, apparently.

i enjoyed this week's ep p well, but i do think this show has prob slid into being a kind of walking dead "why do i watch this" compulsion. last season was p crap as i recall.

max von sydow was good.

i also liked that they put that little shit who stabbed jon snow in the cells.

I think it's pretty obvious why you watch this - to see Ramsay get murked

don't feel as keen for him to die as i did with joffrey. tbh would prefer sam to die.

lol who?

you had me doubting his name was sam there. he is still alive, right? on the way... somewhere, with tilly.

there's gonna be some lol-some dysfunctional Tarley family action

haha yes he's still alive, just hasn't been seen or heard from since Commander Jon sent him to Oldtown to get his PhD

he's headed to Maesterville to figure out if there's a way to defeat the ice zombies and will end up dealing with his overbearing dad

I hope that happens this season, should be pretty cool

Since Euron didn't turn out to be played by Ian McShane, he's got to be Old Man Tarly, which is gonna rule.

nope he's a priest, James Faulkner is Sam's dad

yeah mcshane was in the news a while back dropping spoilers and it is clear from that who he plays. it is only a bit part.

FUCK

McShane is the priest that saves the Hound iirc

Is Richard e grant coming up in this or did I dream that?

I thought McShane was going to be that magic-loving maester that Sam bumps into.

MARVYN THE MAGE

Priest that saves the Hound? Spoiler?

It's just a book theory. People want the Hound to be saved. Nobody knows.

The Hound is dead.

it will be conclusively resolved by the show ala robert strange

*strong

I'm tired

Is Richard e grant coming up in this or did I dream that?

He is - hes the one *I* was hoping'd be Sams dad but apparently his is also a bit part, playing the head of some troupe of fucking travelling mummers, wtf.

i thought common folk having a good time was forbidden in westeros

Well you can have a good time but a resurrected warmonger of one stripe or another will have your brains in the next scene

I did like that peasant guy telling the story about how he got his huge wang out and waved it at Cersei.

Yeah, oddly enough! It was trivial, vile, and stupid, but the actor's plummy delivery actually kind of saved it. I'll wait and see whether that has some kind of orthogonal plot implication for Ser Strong & the King's Landing commoner uprising situation; it could also just have been included just so we have an idea what Strong is capable of, to set up the kingsguard pantswetting scene that followed.

One thing about this show that has changed over the years is that I definitely look for the Chekhov's Gun in every scene. I think that's less a testament to my "plot detective" skills as it is their increasing efficiency at covering a truly massive amount of story information within a different medium and in very limited time.

maybe Thoros of Myr will come across that dude's corpse lying in its own drunken piss and resurrect him, and it'll turn out he really does have the biggest johnson in Westeros, and Azor Ahai, oh my

lol

that's not "plummy"

that whole scene was p weird, had the feeling of a kind of stereotypical football yob

hi thx for great thread! i watched this and it's pretty good, esp if you are a bit confused like me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bltw7dIO_V8

sorry if this has been asked before but, did anyone find the Zombie Mountain's introduction a bit... abrupt? Last I remember seeing him, he was still pretty much being operated on, now he's just following Cersei around and she's all 'nbd'? Did I miss something?

Pycelle introduced him to Cersei when she completed her walk of shame in the final episode of last season.

i'm p sure you mean qyburn

can someone remind me who all the Dorne people were in the last episode and what relation they are to the prancing guy who got his head busted in?

His girlfriend and various daughters of various lovers. The guy who got stabbed was his brother Doran.

Did I miss something?

he picked her up and carried her in the season finale

I liked how Tyrion spent all that time confirming that the dragons were cool with Missandei and then decided to go in alone with only a terrified Varys as backup.

And why did he ask to be punched in the face if he had an idea like that again? It went fine!

He's so going to get punched in the face.

It was a really stupid risk.

needed to go down like that to maybe support ~a theory~ i guess?

yup

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/game-of-thrones-confirmed-tyrion-theory_us_5726f98ae4b0b49df6ababa8

Ah yeah a workmate floated that theory y'day, it hadnt at all occurred to me (but I havent read the books). Makes hella lot of sense tho.

Tyrion would make an excellent dragon jockey

it would be kinda sweet if daenerys, jon snow, and tyrion all ended up being dragon heroes at the end because it would add some additional mystery and suspense to the ending - would they turn on each other in a last-minute bid for power, or cooperate together in power, or dismantle the power structure together entirely (ie the "breaking the wheel" that daenerys mentioned at some point in season 5)

as one of the millions of people who correctly predicted (inside their head, not publicly) that the final shot of the episode featuring jon snow's revival would end with him opening his eyes in terror followed closely by a blackout and the credits, i just want to note at this early point that i hope the last shot of the last episode of game of thrones is a non sequitur cut to the red woman exposing her boobs one last time for no reason

Withered or still in the flush of hottness?

imho "breaking the wheel" will involve the end of magic / supernatural stuff, like the elves & wizards leaving Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age

xpost doesn't really matter, just one last flash of any sort would be appropriate

whats confusing to me that these characters are all children of some seriously fucked up people that we're supposed to like? or something? I guess the key is theyre all breaking with the past and making something new..

Jon's parents aren't bad!

depends on who you think his parents are!

Yeah and the Starks were all decent people werent they?

Relatively

I miss the Hound now. Would be great if he came back but his last scene was great.

Thought this episode was a lot better at Getting Things Going, though there is still so much character juggling happening that there is no easy way to fit everything into each episode. You can tell they really need to tie up a lot of loose ends to get everyone facing the right direction for whatever they have in mind, but that's not a bad thing, as long as they keep the pace up.

I thought this and the last one seemed a little more TV-y, in terms of pace, beats and punchlines, which is probably for the best, since it is TV.

depends on who you think his parents are!

I was trying to be coy here, but whoever his parents are, none of them were sociopaths or psychopaths on the order or Aerys or Tywin.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Maisie_Williams%2C_Sophie_Turner%2C_Alfie_Allen%2C_Richard_Madden_and_Kit_Harington_%28cropped%29.jpg

I just recently learned that Theon is Lily Allen's brother.

they all look years younger than they ever did on the show, did reading the books as preparation rob them of their youthful innocence

Who is the guy on the far right?

kit Harrington innit?

Yeah totally

http://youtu.be/Sr2Grfi3lFg

That's so weird.

noooooo shaggydog!

In the flashbacks, it's sorta come back to bite them that they've aged everyone up. The young man who plays young Ned seems many years off from becoming Sean Bean. Also, way to stop before the good part :(

I'm watching this again, and it's pretty good, but honestly GoT ahead of GRRM feels more zombie-like than Veep without Arnucci. The language is off, the details are off. They're probably better than GRRM on plot, though, so that's why I'm watching. And for a couple of the characters. Which is fine. But I'm also reading A Clash of Kings at the moment, and man, when GRRM is at his best he can make up an anecdote that makes you want to waste hours digging into backhistory.

Wasn't he only writing like an episode a season before anyway?

I hardly feel like this show's dialogue has fallen off a cliff - you can't fall off a cliff when you're already dying at the bottom of it.

i was curious how they would work in that background material--and i suppose this way is as good as any since all options i can think of seem clumsy--but i have a feeling a lot of viewers are confused about the significance of what/who Bran is seeing.

it almost feel like a limitation of cinematic/tv fantasy since the deepest pleasure of the genre (imo) is finding yourself obsessed with the world-building deep fake-historical stuff and im just not sure how you can pull that off in a satisfying way on tv.

though i guess at this point we might assume bran touring the past could have been part of martin's plan but eh

loving max von sydow. he oozes dignity in a show that isn't exactly brimming with it.

he plays the same character in all his films

young ned stark was really poorly cast imo