Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[eldaec]

I liked that episode much more than the first 3.

Fewer storylines helped enormously.

Pink letter was good, Brienne was great, Dany was good, Mereen wasn't quite as bad as usual, perfect amount of Dorne, and I could watch an entire hour of Jonathan Pryce being inscrutable.  Yara and Theon remain great on screen together - they've probably had less than 15 minutes in the same place but it is all memorable.  Also notable that Sansa morphed into someone likable - though she really needs to demonstrate some sort of capability to earn winterfell, just holding the knife that kills Ramsey wouldn't be enough.

Have no idea why Jorah and Daario were wasting screentime, or why Mereen is still eerily absent of extras.

[Khaldun]

[eldaec]

Serious question, why are people putting plain old speculation in spoiler tags?

Post above is all very possible. Though I've always assumed the house of black and white is playing it straight, what do you mean 'what they are all about'?

Mereen I'd guess they are aiming for Tyrion to teach Missandei and Grey Worm to run the place before he fucks off with the Dragons. Varys will use his stash of narrativium to simply appear in Kings Landing when needed.

Also, while we're doing this, I'm kind of expecting Sam to end up with Dany. He's in the south, she'll (presumably) be in the south, and I expect he has some purpose other than to read books for the audience. If I had to guess what the showrunners want, it would be a single southern Dany group, a single northern Jon group, then KL as the centre of antagonistic humans and the zombies being zombies.

At this point I'd guess the ironborn will meet Dany in the south.

[Threash]

Why are people putting anything at all in spoiler tags?

[Khaldun]

I figure you never know what people might think of as "don't show me that, put it in spoiler tags".

With the Faceless Men, I guess what has never been clear to me (books or show) is who they kill or why. They don't seem to just be assassins for hire, but they also seem to have strict internal rules about the circumstances under which it is legitimate to kill someone. Though also flexibility--the "gifts" in return for Arya's "gift" of life.

[01101010]

Why are people putting anything at all in spoiler tags?

My thinking exactly. I see pretty much all these threads as "enter at your own risk."

[Speedy Cerviche]

I did yesterday just to respect a 24 hour window but I guess anyone who hasn't seen the latest episode shouldn't really be browsing the thread the day after it airs anyway.

I agree mostly with Khaldun on how this will play out but...

book spoiler:

[eldaec]

Why are people putting anything at all in spoiler tags?

My thinking exactly. I see pretty much all these threads as "enter at your own risk."

At this point the risk being 'someone might have stolen GRRM' s Winds of Winter manuscript'.

[eldaec]

I did yesterday just to respect a 24 hour window but I guess anyone who hasn't seen the latest episode shouldn't really be browsing the thread the day after it airs anyway.

I agree mostly with Khaldun on how this will play out but...

book spoiler:

Yara I hope (probably with Theon in tow for his own safety). Theon couldn't credibly be up to it, plus I'm quite sure I've seen enough of Theon without Yara to play off.

[Merusk]

Why are people putting anything at all in spoiler tags?

It was originally to keep book spoilers out of the discussion. No need for that anymore.

With the Faceless Men, I guess what has never been clear to me (books or show) is who they kill or why. They don't seem to just be assassins for hire, but they also seem to have strict internal rules about the circumstances under which it is legitimate to kill someone. Though also flexibility--the "gifts" in return for Arya's "gift" of life.

They're assassins for hire on one level and just very expensive. On the level we've seen them, they're worshipers of the many-faced god and keep temple to him. I imagine part of the reason for their huge cost is the need to violate the whole, "Only the many-faced god gets to decide who dies" tenet.

The real question for me has, and is, how they fit into the whole puzzle of the story. Arya's journey and story are wholly separate from the rest. Unless she's going to be used to kill Jon or Dany and gives up the faith or some other trope, she could have died with the Hound and had as much impact on things. I imagine whatever it is will be a huge let-down come the last book/ season.

[MediumHigh]

Someone hires Arya to kill Dany.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Probably something stupid like GRRM's wife liked the character and didn't want him to kill her off.

[Johny Cee]

Probably something stupid like GRRM's wife liked the character and didn't want him to kill her off.

This is exactly it...  remember from some discussion/post on westeros forum ages ago (I think pre-show).

[Speedy Cerviche]

Heh that was a guess, but based on reading the same thing about why dragons were in the story.

[eldaec]

Being given Jon's name is unlikely, not least as they cannot give the gift to a name they know, this is why the list is important, and why the sailors on her boat to Braavos were keen to introduce themselves.

Characters of note she does not know by name and who are of sufficient significance for the kill to matter are thin on the ground. Dany, the Night King, High Sparrow is all I can think of.

A less important target might be used to just get her to Jon and Sansa, or inside a critical city like KL where she can go full Assassin's creed.

But I don't buy either of these. Jon tells Arya right at the start...

"You'll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers."

Plus Chekov's direwolf is still roaming the riverlands.

My guess is she'll come across someone she wants to kill, abandon the faceless men, then stow away on Dany's fleet, head back to Westeros, join up with Nymeria, and take over some kind of Brotherhood without Banners analogue. Also she will flip out and kill people all the time. The faceless men will come after her as she is now an oathbreaker and so doomed.

[Teleku]

The real question for me has, and is, how they fit into the whole puzzle of the story. Arya's journey and story are wholly separate from the rest. Unless she's going to be used to kill Jon or Dany and gives up the faith or some other trope, she could have died with the Hound and had as much impact on things. I imagine whatever it is will be a huge let-down come the last book/ season.

Keep in mind that up through the first three books, he had intended for there to be a 5 year gap between book 3 and 4.  So basically two trilogies.  First trilogy covers the fall of the Starks and War of the Roses type shit.  Main characters we thought would win because the standard tropes all said they would, are dead (Ned/Rob).  The remaining children scatter.  At that point, at the end of book three, all of them were setup to become super awesome at something.  Arya runs away to be trained into super crazy assassin.  Sansa to learn all about court intrigue and trickery from Littlefinger.  Bran to become a wizard.  Rickon.... hide out with the reeds and learn to fight and just hang out till he's needed to come in to claim Winterfell as the only viable candidate left.  Or something.  He's to young to have much of an impact on anything.

Also Dany deciding to stay in Mareen to learn how to be a queen.

So then once you jump 5 years and have them all in their roles, you go from there in the second series with everything falling apart in Westeros, and the now super powered Stark children plus Dany jumping in.  Except at the last possible second, he decided to scrap all that, and just describe everything that happened.  Where the first three books all came out within a year or two of each other, after fifteen years, he only has two more out.  He's flailing around trying to describe shit he originally setup to happen off screen, and it shows.  So I'm sure Arya would have played a big role in the hypothetical 5 year later trilogy.  Unfortunately, all the time now is taken up by the training that was suppose to happen off screen, and she'll probably have just enough time to show up and stab somebody important before the series ends.

[Setanta]

Well at least we know why his name is


Good episode, the pace is picking up in a good and at last Dany finally

[Merusk]

How the hell have you seen this already.  It's sunday

[Teleku]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-6-episode-5-hbo-accidentally-leak-the-door-online-a7042246.html

[angry.bob]

Given the overall history of TV shows, what is almost guaranteed to really happen is that the show will end with Dany still sitting on the other side of the ocean and Arya still doing something by herself unrelated to the rest of the story.

[Teleku]

 

Episode explains a lot.  Like, how the others came to be.  Its rather quick and sort of meh, but hey.

And a death nobody is going to be happy with.  

[angry.bob]

I cant wait for all the Tormund <3 Brienne fanfics that are going to start falling out of the sky soon. Although it does remind me of my wife and I so...

[Threash]

And a death nobody is going to be happy with.  

Spill it, in a spoiler though.

[Teleku]

And a death nobody is going to be happy with.  

Spill it, in a spoiler though.

[Threash]

Shitballs.

[Shannow]

Well shit.

[Rendakor]

White Walkers racked up a shitton of points for me this episode. Totally softens the blow of the deaths.

[Bzalthek]

Fuck your points!  I mean: Hodor hodor hodor!

[Merusk]

The Sansa / Littlefinger scene shouldn't have been as satisfying as it was.

I'm having problems accepting Bran and Meera would get away from the walkers like that. I see they'll be continuing it next week but it felt like we were lacking key information, like why the door held at all.

Kings moot was resolved nicely but felt too long. I also  said " what trees" when Euryon said to go fell them all. I also wondered why they didn't do this previously if building and crewing 1000 ships is so easily done.

The rest was pretty much continued wheel spinning. 

[Khaldun]

I refuse to believe that there's a single fucking tree left on the Iron Islands. I mean LOOK at them.

 

I don't know that the Children/First Men/White Walkers thing
Sansa's speech to Littlefinger was practically written by all the people complaining last season--it felt almost like an apology to fans who thought the whole thing was the showrunners not feeling comfortable moving Sansa's plot too far beyond Martin's.
Same for Tyrion. I'm really irritated with how he's being written this season. I'd like to feel like I'm seeing him take a step forward into being even more politically cunning and instead he feels just goofy--he might as well be carrying a sign that says, "I'm just stalling the plot for a few more episodes."

[Margalis]

What I see on this page:

Blah blah blah Time Travel blah blah blah.

[Abagadro]

Jack Bender directed one of the best time-crossing episodes in TV history ("The Constant") and did well with this one too.

[Setanta]

I don't buy the death as heroic



First time I've ever seen Varys at a loss and scared - big props to that scene. I can't think that Littlefinger isn't still playing games - that was all too easy to get Sansa to Riverrun.

[Khaldun]

I'm sure he's still playing games. I just desperately want Sansa to be playing him back. Would have been nice if she'd misdirected *him* somehow too.

[rattran]

I have a problem with one of the deaths.