Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[eldaec]

I mean, literally the reason Ned sends him to the wall is because he doesn't believe he is safe without him there to protect him, and is in no fucking way taking him south where people can go, "oh, who is he again.. oh.. ohhhh".

The entire premise of his thinking is that Jon is not safe anywhere people have cause to think about who he might be, or what they might claim him to be and use him for. Ned didn't think everyone else was so stupid he could fool them on 'oh yeah I got a bastard' alone, and I don't see why we should either.

Ned didn't send him to the wall.

Jon decides he wants to go to the wall, Ben says "hmmm, talk to your dad" and Ned doesn't seem over the moon but Cat and Luwin convince him. He hints at another plan but doesn't explain it ("I was hoping...." then gets cut off - though it might have been "I was hoping you (cat) would have accepted him by now")

Agree it is weird that nobody figured it out at the time - and even weirder that at least Ned didn't consider the possibility before his brother and father stormed off to KL and then he started a war. But willing to suspend disbelief because we only have unreliable reports of the tourney and the rebellion so I'm ok assuming it makes sense in context.


Without the ToJ dream it would be much less obvious.

[Merusk]

The tyre

2) The Tyrells have an army and have agreed to beseige King's Landing--that was a plot point in Episode 2. So where was that army when Jaime Lannister and Randyll Tarly marched their army on Highgarden, thus solving the no-food and no-funds problem?

A: Oh, who cares, because who doesn't want to see Oleanna Tyrell deliver some great lines and exit the stage? Maybe Jaime just marched way way around the Tyrell army, or met them on the road from Casterly Rock?

The Tyrells were overthrown by their own bannermen. So whatever Tyrell forces there were all wound-up under Lannister/ Tarly. Highgarden being in the Southwest of Westeros, this also resolves issue #1, not having the forces to storm Winterfell in the right area.

[Khaldun]

The books are a different matter in this respect, though. I assume if Martin ever *does* make it to this point in his story that armies are going to be much more bound to the actual material conditions because he actually is pretty invested in that.

I mean, we're not getting that attention in the series not just because they really want to move the story to the climax quickly but because they can't afford to shoot everything in a snowy location or make locations like Casterly and King's Landing appear to be in winter. So they can't have characters doing exposition about how cold it is and how food is in short supply and how limited their choices are and all that because the moment they do an exterior location shot, it's going to look warm. I assume that the only time it's going to seem genuinely cold and miserable everywhere is going to be at the very very end when the Walkers are south of the Wall and then south of the Neck (something I assume is going to happen). Whereas Martin doesn't have to worry about any of that when he writes.

But even in these terms, if the Tyrells don't have a big army, the Tarlys shouldn't either; there's no reason that the entire possible military force of the Reach should be with the Lannisters under Tarly rather than rallying to the Tyrells. We don't have any reason to think that the houses in the Reach dislike either the Tyrells or Oleanna Tyrell, and they have every reason to hate Cersei, since she outright murdered most of the Tyrell family under deeply awful circumstances. I don't remember the Tyrells being overthrown by their own bannermen in the show--when did that happen? Not before the destruction of the Great Sept. Oleanna didn't seem to doubt that she could put a large enough force into the field to beseige King's Landing with the help of Dorne. Jamie warns Cersei that the bannermen will likely side with the Tyrells unless they feel that Cersei will win, which really I don't see how anyone could think that *within* the show's world *until* the end of last episode. Randyll Tarly seems pretty certain in his meeting with Cersei that Danerys' forces are unbeatable because of dragons. On the flip side, we even have previous exposition that indicated that the Lannister forces in toto are tapped out wherever they are. (The notion that Highgarden has enough gold in the basement to pay off everything the Lannisters owe the Iron Bank seems pretty wacky too--medieval finance doesn't work like that.)

I will say that there's actually a reasonable explanation for part of Euron's fleet being able to attack the Unsullied at Casterly, and that would be if he left some of them at Pyke and sent orders via raven. But then that means Euron has a fucking huge fleet and we're back to "magic". I really wish when Euron came back, it was with a bunch of reaver ships that he took with him on his fun adventures elsewhere--that would pretty much solve everything and have him absorb some of Victarion's plot.

[eldaec]

I get why we aren't seeing mass armies maneuvering.

Season 1 - 3 had to make the same compromises. They did it better on a lower budget and with bad cgi. In the process the early episodes did not do the equivalent of trivialising Jamie learning from the whispering wood and outthinking Tyrion. For obvious reasons.

[Speedy Cerviche]

But even in these terms, if the Tyrells don't have a big army, the Tarlys shouldn't either; there's no reason that the entire possible military force of the Reach should be with the Lannisters under Tarly rather than rallying to the Tyrells. We don't have any reason to think that the houses in the Reach dislike either the Tyrells or Oleanna Tyrell, and they have every reason to hate Cersei, since she outright murdered most of the Tyrell family under deeply awful circumstances. I don't remember the Tyrells being overthrown by their own bannermen in the show--when did that happen? Not before the destruction of the Great Sept. Oleanna didn't seem to doubt that she could put a large enough force into the field to beseige King's Landing with the help of Dorne. Jamie warns Cersei that the bannermen will likely side with the Tyrells unless they feel that Cersei will win, which really I don't see how anyone could think that *within* the show's world *until* the end of last episode. Randyll Tarly seems pretty certain in his meeting with Cersei that Danerys' forces are unbeatable because of dragons. On the flip side, we even have previous exposition that indicated that the Lannister forces in toto are tapped out wherever they are. (The notion that Highgarden has enough gold in the basement to pay off everything the Lannisters owe the Iron Bank seems pretty wacky too--medieval finance doesn't work like that.)

I will say that there's actually a reasonable explanation for part of Euron's fleet being able to attack the Unsullied at Casterly, and that would be if he left some of them at Pyke and sent orders via raven. But then that means Euron has a fucking huge fleet and we're back to "magic". I really wish when Euron came back, it was with a bunch of reaver ships that he took with him on his fun adventures elsewhere--that would pretty much solve everything and have him absorb some of Victarion's plot.

The Tyrells weren't ancient kings of the Reach though. They were only appointed by the Targaryans after the conquerors wiped out the existing ancient family who resisted them. Their appointment was kind of a controversial and still a point of contention, they didn't have full loyalty of all their bannermen although nobody was going to do much during good times. I'm looking at a wiki right now and the main culprit is "House Florent" which was a cadet branch to the original kings. A bunch of them went over to Stannis after Renly was killed but they must have had friends & allies amongst the highgarden nobility including Randyll Tarly himself who is married to a Florent so the remaining Florents faction probably looks to him to rally around and you have that Tarly-Florent axis to build an anti-Tyrell rebellion around.

I am sure GRMM will connect the dots much better in the book, probably with 400 pages from a new POV character who goes into excruciating detail about the history of it all, but it seems to me the events would be Florent faction + Tarlys + some other friends/relations figure now's a good time as any for treason season with the whole Tyrell senior family wiped out besides one old lady (some minor cousin now probably the heir) and them having no respected leaders. Then there's probably also more background to the Lannister backing/coordination on their move (more than one cheesy 30 second speech by Jaimie at any rate). I am sure some sophisticated, well planned maneuvers and well timed betrayals will be elaborated on. Also GRMM has been pretty consistent in his story showing how excellent leadership and quality troops can overcome numerical superiority. The Highgarden army has always been considered to have relatively weak leadership, and dubious fighting qualities (effete "knights of summer"). Strip away their best and only respected general (and one assumes his house's higher quality troops) and they take a big hit. It's too bad the TV show has to reduce this all to a 30 second montage but such are the limits of the medium and its writers.

[Khaldun]

Ok, but look, what we have in the show is Oleanna saying the following: Ok, I will send my troops to besiege King's Landing. She doesn't hedge or say, "Well, see, the thing is, I don't have any troops" or "Well, Randyll Tarly is in King's Landing and he's married to a Florent and so really all I have is my arch dialogue and mad poison skillz to offer, let me know if you need me to cast shade on someone at a party and I'm there". She says, "Yup, I can do that, though I think you ought to just burn the fucking thing to the ground." Then Ellaria says, "Yeah, ok, we can do that too". We don't really know yet if Yara's ships had the Dorne forces on board--I'm not sure that would make much sense to put them all on ships, take them to Dragonstone, then put them all on ships again and go all the way back to Dorne or somewhere near King's Landing--a march from Dorne would be unopposed and it's close to King's Landing in relative terms. But there's zero reason in the context of the show to think that Oleanna has no troops at all or that most of them are with Tarly instead. Now I could see whatever Oleanna had in the field *defecting* to Tarly in the coming week, so that they're backing a winner. But I can't see just waving them away and saying, "She was just sitting Highgarden doing crossword puzzles because she didn't actually have troops left".

[Speedy Cerviche]

When they were making big plans on Dragonstone I doubt either Dorne or the Reach had their full levy armies fully mustered and ready to campaign especially since so many Tyrell bannermen were still hanging out in King's Landing and nominal Lannister allies although both Cersei and Oleanna knew that was a sham and daggers were coming out. Oleanna would have been at Dragonstone in secret. Both the Snakes and Oleanna would have left to go put these plans in motion from scratch, calling in banners, and beginning large scale campaign/siege preparations.

[eldaec]

There was a battle in the show. There was a Tyrell army.

It was a shit battle that was not adequately explained and was shown in just a few seconds. But it did happen.

I'm pretty sure we're expected to understand that army is now dead or absorbed into the Lannister / Tarly group. I guess they will now march east in a perfunctory campaign to pacify Dorne and the Stormlands (which contain zero named tv characters but in book terms are controlled by Fake Aegon and the Golden Company).

[Ginaz]

"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." That about sums up this season so far.

[Sir T]

Calling it now, the whole White walkers thing ends with the walkers breaking through/Walking round/just reaching the wall, and bran or John running up to the Night king and pulling out the Dragonglass shard in his heart (which is what created him in the first place.) King drops dead, all the zombies and walkers fall apart, and everyone says "well... happy ending I guess!" *credits* *sounds of TV screens getting smashed*

And everyone goes "Fuck that." I cant see them actually doing any kind of real invasion with the amount of episodes they have left, no matter how much they teleport things around. Plus the early seasons had people who had read the books to help fill in the blanks, wheras now here they have even less episodes to tell the story, without the "people who have read the books" to help.

[Shannow]

"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." That about sums up this season so far.

More like, we have to balance up Khaleesi's OPness so let's do it a little clumsily. But has also given us a great Queen of Thorns scene and the fun that is Euron Greyjoy.

[Lakov_Sanite]

This season ends with Cersei dying and the white walkers arriving. Last season will be humanity vs undead and who sits on the throne when it's over.

[Viin]

I think they should have Cersei mop up in a completely ruthless way(s) only to have the white walkers show up and turn her into a zombie.

[Rendakor]

I think they should have Cersei mop up in a completely ruthless way(s) only to have the white walkers show up and turn her into a zombie.

Agreed. At this point I want Cersei to win only to die to white walkers. If Dany had gone down to hang out with Aegon (or whatever his name was, Sir Not Appearing In This Show), she could have just waited them out then marched north to kill Zombie Cersei.

[Khaldun]

I would put good odds on the show ending with almost everyone dead and King's Landing a frozen ruin, with Danerys sitting in the Iron Throne and vowing to rebuild or something. I am certain that the following characters will be dead before it's done:

Cersei
Jamie
Jon Snow
Arya
Brienne
Tormund
Varys
Melisandre
Davos
The Zombie Mountain
The Hound
99% of the Stark bannermen
Euron
Yara
Ellaria Sand
Littlefinger
Grey Worm
Translator Lady
2 out of 3 dragons
The Night King
Lots of ice zombies
Everyone remaining in the Night's Watch
Randyll Tarly
Qyburn
Lord Friendzone Mormont
Maester Jim Broadbent
Gilly
Ghost
Girl who pulls Bran's sled
Shitty Vale of Arryn kid
Beric Dendarrion
Manbun Friend of Beric Dendarrion
Ed Sherran
Theon Greyjoy

I am certain that Danerys survives.

Probably survivals:

Sansa
Tyrion
Gendry
The Iron Bank guy
Sam
Hot Pie
Li'l Mormont
Gilly's baby
The bearded dude from Essos who pimped Danerys
Some random Dothraki and Unsullied, they're gonna be like Ewoks in the ruins singing some kind of song
3 random Wildlings
2 random Northlings
Brandon Stark aka Three-Eyed Raven
Nymeria
Bronn
At least two whores from Littlefinger's brothel
One lost Iron Islands pirate

[schild]

I mean, you could just go on Reddit, some guy already spoiled the entire season.

[Khaldun]

Not looking!

Plus: come on, I specialize in being wrong when I guess like this.

[MediumHigh]

Its like you guys don't know what the concept of bannermen are.

[satael]

It would be funny (but cringe worthy) if the Night King was defeated at or near the wall without any significant advance south of the wall by the white walkers. Then you'd have the northeners talking about zombies etc and no one in the south believing any of it (just some concocted story to justify letting the wildlings in by the rebellious ex-commander of the night watch) 

[Ginaz]

I just watched the leaked next episode.  MUCH fucking better.

[Rasix]

Watching The DOTA2 International and people are spoiling (or false spoiling) future episodes in chat. 

[Ginaz]

Watching The DOTA2 International and people are spoiling (or false spoiling) future episodes in chat. 

I'm not going to do that but I will say it's much better than the previous episodes this season and to NOT miss the last 10-15 mins.

[Velorath]

Is walking away from an episode for the last 10-15 minutes a thing people do?

[Phildo]

I'm just surprised at the number of people not predicting "Jon and Dany get married and rule over the seven kingdoms together after they and Tyrion overthrow Cersei and defeat the White Walkers in a heroic last stand".  I mean, I'll be pleasantly surprised if that isn't the case, but my next-most-likely scenario is "Jon and Dany face certain defeat in a heroic last stand against the White Walkers when Cersei suddenly arrives with the Lannister army at the last minute and turns the tide".

[IainC]

I'm just surprised at the number of people not predicting "Jon and Dany get married and rule over the seven kingdoms together after they and Tyrion overthrow Cersei and defeat the White Walkers in a heroic last stand".  I mean, I'll be pleasantly surprised if that isn't the case, but my next-most-likely scenario is "Jon and Dany face certain defeat in a heroic last stand against the White Walkers when Cersei suddenly arrives with the Lannister army at the last minute and turns the tide".

My guess, based on the first couple of episodes in this season is that the Archmaester never gets to write his 'History of the Wars Following the Death of Robert Baratheon'. Instead Sam will write it and call it 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. Where Ice is Jon Snow and Fire is Dany. Luckily the Targaeryans are cool with incest so Jon shacking up with Aunt Dany won't be an issue.

[Cheddar]

I'm just surprised at the number of people not predicting "Jon and Dany get married and rule over the seven kingdoms together after they and Tyrion overthrow Cersei and defeat the White Walkers in a heroic last stand".  I mean, I'll be pleasantly surprised if that isn't the case, but my next-most-likely scenario is "Jon and Dany face certain defeat in a heroic last stand against the White Walkers when Cersei suddenly arrives with the Lannister army at the last minute and turns the tide".

My guess, based on the first couple of episodes in this season is that the Archmaester never gets to write his 'History of the Wars Following the Death of Robert Baratheon'. Instead Sam will write it and call it 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. Where Ice is Jon Snow and Fire is Dany. Luckily the Targaeryans are cool with incest so Jon shacking up with Aunt Dany won't be an issue.

My money is on the hound being fire. 

I don't do well in casino's.

[Tale]

My guess, based on the first couple of episodes in this season is that the Archmaester never gets to write his 'History of the Wars Following the Death of Robert Baratheon'. Instead Sam will write it and call it 'A Song of Ice and Fire'.

And then Tales of Dunk and Egg is massively padded for a prequel lasting another eight seasons, starring a very tall dwarf hunted by a newly invented mini-boss who is an extra-white white walker.

[Threash]

That was a very good episode. One of the best.

[Riggswolfe]

That was a very good episode. One of the best.

I liked that the big battle had stakes as there were people on both sides I didn't want to see die. Also...

[Lakov_Sanite]

Get that man a fucking castle.

[Khaldun]

That was a good one. I dunno why Bronn hasn't buggered off by this point, though. It's not like the Lannisters have paid their debts with him.

[Lakov_Sanite]

That was a good one. I dunno why Bronn hasn't buggered off by this point, though. It's not like the Lannisters have paid their debts with him.

It's a literary truth that seems a bit cheesy when it's not stretched out among an entire series of books but "A Lannister always pays their debts" has been proven true in every single instance thus far.  So I'm guessing Bronn really does get a castle by the end of the show, authors tend to slip these non-magic universal rules into their books in different ways.

[Shannow]

Air power bitches!

That was fun. 

[schild]

Yeah parts of the episode were fun. Show isn't getting better though.

[HaemishM]

That was fucking great. Arya vs. Brienne was good enough, then they had to add one of the most visually impressive battles they've done. That was movie level battle. I don't know how they did it on a TV budget but they need to keep it up.