Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Riggswolfe]

My biggest complaint about the battle:

[HaemishM]

TBF, how many battles has she been in where there has actually been ANY counter to her dragons at all?

[Brolan]

Fantastic episode and Arya, holy shit.  She doesn't seem to need any training.

[Chimpy]

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.

They don't have traditional TV budgets anymore. They are spending tens of millions per episode now since the show pretty much is what drives HBOs revenue right now.

[Speedy Cerviche]

What a cheesy TV ending

Littlefinger was pretty funny, must've made at least a half dozen creepy sideways glances.

[Abagadro]

Awwwww yessss. That's the good stuff. 

Better not rob me of eleventy billion points either.

[Merusk]

My biggest complaint about the battle:

ed: Using quotes instead of spoilers is why you shouldn't post from your phone before you're fully awake.

[Khaldun]

Assuming Drogon is only lightly injured as the end seemed to imply and Qyburn didn't poison the ballista bolt or anything of that sort, I think Dany is now forewarned and won't come at one of those directly like that again. I also assume it will be a battlefield priority for Dothraki or other troops to take out any ballistas if they spot them.

But also, you gotta hand it to Qyburn for design genius--a ballista that shoots a bolt of that size that a single man can hand-crank in seconds *and* that has a quick swivel for targetting. They say Westeros is technologically stagnant, but how about that? 21st Century humanity couldn't make anything like that, there must be more magic in Westeros than just ice and fire these days.

The more interesting question at this point is how the hell the White Walkers will counter dragons, because otherwise this is going to end pretty quick once Ice and Fire meet up.

[Shannow]

[Speedy Cerviche]

Thinking about it some more, how is he sinking in 50+ feet of water when he goes in 3 feet from the shore? That's some kind of pond.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, like it's a bizarre glacial water pit or something. It's not even necessary for dramatic effect--if you're in armor, 3 feet of water is enough to fuck you, especially if you have to stay at the bottom because of dragon fire.

[Merusk]

It was a river or canal, not a pond, wasn't it?  I assumed it was a canal and had been dredged to allow commerce ships to King's Landing from the Midlands.

[Slayerik]

My GF said last night...'so wtf is taking the whitewalkers so long up there? I mean, I've seen them move fast as hell....'  .... Indeed! I guess living armies are the only ones that can teleport. Or move faster than a snail's pace.  I really do miss travel time in this show. Feels like I'm watching a DVR recording at x4 for them to fit it all in before the show is done.

Good episode, though. Lefty Jamie should have been long dead in that battle though. As much as I like Bronn, he should have died too. I guess he didn't go for the gold, so that buys him a life.

[Khaldun]

Looked pretty damn blue for a canal! But maybe Westeros has magic water purifier or something.

Maybe the walkers are stopped at the Wall to slowly crumble its foundations or something like that. Though judging from a few words in next week's preview, maybe they're waiting for the ice to freeze at Eastwatch. Which feels a bit like a cheat, if they can just go around the Wall in a really cold winter.

[Shannow]

I bet that Tyrion will ride down, they'll pull Jamie out of the canal/River/glacial lake and make him a prisoner. That way they'd have a huge bargaining chip over Cersei (maybe). Plus we'll get some fun Lannister sibling banter.

[Khaldun]

I think if he has to wait for Tyrion to get there on a horse, he's got a helluva set of lungs.

Re-watching, I also think maybe that was Dickon who tackled Jamie, not Bronn?

[Shannow]

Dickon...*snicker*

[Chimpy]

I think if he has to wait for Tyrion to get there on a horse, he's got a helluva set of lungs.

Re-watching, I also think maybe that was Dickon who tackled Jamie, not Bronn?

No it was Bronn.

[schild]

Jaime really should've fucking died.

[Phildo]

Dickon...*snicker*

Best part of the episode.

[Teleku]

Jaime really should've fucking died.

Yeah.....I've loved his character for the first half of the series, but then the last two seasons they didn't know what to do with him, and now he's literally going backwards in character development this season.  Dying in a gloriously stupid attempt at heroics on the battlefield would be so him, and might have actually punched some character development into the other faltering Lannister on the show.  Actually, this episode missed out on a lot of main or not so main characters dying, and they all magically lived like normal TV characters.  Killing Sand Snakes (the most hated characters on the show) does not get you past your edgy death quotient for the season HBO!

Also, I literally just watched it on my PC.  Its not a canal, its a god damn pond they were fighting around.  Jaime was actually riding his horse way into it (thus implying it was pretty shallow) when he got tackled.  I literally stood and threw my hands up when they showed him sinking down to the abyss.  Also, Khaldun is totally right about the magic spear gun.  That thing was massive and made out of wood, yet he swiveled it around like it weighed 5 pounds (not to mention something like that normally takes a god damn team of men to wind up).  I love Bronn, but he should have comically said something about wishing he'd grabbed the gold instead, right before getting roasted after fucking up that last shot.

Also also, who knew that House Tyrell had enough gold laying around to pay off the debts of a massive kingdom that had been racking up massive kingdom sized debts year after year for the last 20 years.  Hopefully Cersei acts in character and does something stupid with the gold, yet still gets the Iron Bank to enlist the Golden Company to help her.  Which, true to the iron banks word, they use to extract debts from people.  Who then proceed to sack Kingslanding and rape Cersei to death.

Other than all of that, I actually enjoyed the episode!  

[schild]

Dickon...*snicker*

Best part of the episode.

Really? Not Arya saying "no one" told her to fight like that? Your favorite part was the dick joke?

[Brolan]

I thought of that too.  It would be epic.

[Samwise]

Hopefully Cersei acts in character and does something stupid with the gold

What gold?  

Liked this episode quite a bit.  

I was glad that Arya heading back to Winterfell wasn't a tease.  Her sparring with Brienne was   .  Really curious what's going through Littlefinger's head -- I imagine he's thinking that she'll be a useful tool, but it seems to me he should be a little more worried about ending up on her list.

When we first saw the scorpion my thought was "man, that's gonna be useless given how hard they'd be to reload and re-aim after a missed shot," so I guess they had to make them a little unrealistic in order to have one of them pose a credible threat.  As always, I'm curious to see how that stuff gets handled in the books (someday) since GRRM seems the type to nerd out about the actual feasibility of stuff like that.

I like that we'll probably get some Jaime/Tyrion banter out of this latest development, but am bummed that it'll delay Jaime telling Cersei what Oleanna told him.  Was looking forward to seeing the look on her face.

[Khaldun]

I would kind of love it if the gold gets stolen ten feet inside the gates of King's Landing. I wouldn't be too surprised if Cersei does something like give it to the Iron Bankers and then tell Euron to go pillage the Iron Bank's ships and get it back. But if so I would hope the Iron Bank turn out to be ready for treachery, because that's 100% one of the oldest stunts ever and any group of bankers who fall for that shit would never have gotten to the point they're at.

[HaemishM]

I was glad that Arya heading back to Winterfell wasn't a tease.  Her sparring with Brienne was   .  Really curious what's going through Littlefinger's head -- I imagine he's thinking that she'll be a useful tool, but it seems to me he should be a little more worried about ending up on her list.

I'm not sure, but since he did betray her dad and she might actually know that, Littlefinger may already be on her list.

[Samwise]

Okay, did I totally misinterpret the whole "dragons flaming the wagons" scene?  Because y'all are talking like Cersei's getting her gold, but I thought those wagons were carrying the Tyrell gold back to King's Landing and Dany just completely fucked up that whole plan and put Cersei in deep shit with the Iron Bank.  On top of wiping out the Lannister/Tarly army and probably capturing Jaime.  It's not *quite* as much of a "fuck you" as sacking King's Landing but it's in many ways more effective since there are no civilian casualties this way, while Cersei is still completely crippled.

While Cersei and Mycroft (I forget his actual name) were talking, Mycroft said something about "when the gold arrives" and my girlfriend immediately said "that's foreshadowing and that gold's not going to arrive."  This was quickly followed by motherfucking dragons showing up to fuck up the wagon train that was transporting the gold.  I'm pretty sure Cersei does not in fact get to pay off her debts at this time.

(edit) re: Littlefinger, given that Sansa doesn't know that Littlefinger betrayed Ned, and she's been much closer to him for all this time, I don't think Arya does either.  The only ways I can think of for her to find out are if:
1) Littlefinger lets it slip (I don't think he's even remotely that dumb)
2) Bran sees it and tells her (this seems way more likely, but I don't know why he wouldn't have done that when they were talking about the knife)
3) She gets to have a conversation with someone else who was with the Lannisters at the time of the betrayal -- Cersei, Varys, Tyrion, or Jaime.  Cersei seems most likely -- Arya shows up to whack Cersei, and Cersei's parting shot is "you dumbass, you're after me for double-crossing your dad and you're palling around with the guy who held the knife to his throat on my orders"

[Bunk]

There's a line just before the attack, where someone confirms to Jaime that the gold had arrived at King's Landing. It had been sent off ahead while they were busy flogging farmers for their crops.

[Merusk]

Yeah that was all grain. Tarly explicitly says the gold's safe inside KL.

(edit) re: Littlefinger, given that Sansa doesn't know that Littlefinger betrayed Ned, and she's been much closer to him for all this time, I don't think Arya does either.  The only ways I can think of for her to find out are if:

4) Arya saw Littlefinger conspiring with Tywin at Harrenhal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9jac7Qg9w4

[schild]

Yeah she killed the foodstuffs.

[Shannow]

Dickon...*snicker*

Best part of the episode.

Really? Not Arya saying "no one" told her to fight like that? Your favorite part was the dick joke?

duh.

[Zetleft]

I was glad that Arya heading back to Winterfell wasn't a tease.  Her sparring with Brienne was   .  Really curious what's going through Littlefinger's head -- I imagine he's thinking that she'll be a useful tool, but it seems to me he should be a little more worried about ending up on her list.

I'm not sure, but since he did betray her dad and she might actually know that, Littlefinger may already be on her list.

I'm sure Littlefinger was already unnerved as fuck after Bran parroted his "chaos is a ladder" line back at him (one of the best moments seeing Littlefinger totally surprised).  He is straight up wondering how fucked he is. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

There's a lot of talk about character X should have died, plot armor or that the show/books were way edgier when it came to killing major characters in the past.  To that I say, they were never major characters.  They were all players in the game but they were rooks and bishops or just pawns.  The final roster has been set in stone from the beginning and now that it's coming to a close of course there will be fewer and fewer deaths of players because they were never meant to die in the first place.

[kaid]

What a cheesy TV ending

Littlefinger was pretty funny, must've made at least a half dozen creepy sideways glances.

Plus side the actor is highly skilled at creepy sideways glances so he does it well.

[kaid]

Okay, did I totally misinterpret the whole "dragons flaming the wagons" scene?  Because y'all are talking like Cersei's getting her gold, but I thought those wagons were carrying the Tyrell gold back to King's Landing and Dany just completely fucked up that whole plan and put Cersei in deep shit with the Iron Bank.  On top of wiping out the Lannister/Tarly army and probably capturing Jaime.  It's not *quite* as much of a "fuck you" as sacking King's Landing but it's in many ways more effective since there are no civilian casualties this way, while Cersei is still completely crippled.

While Cersei and Mycroft (I forget his actual name) were talking, Mycroft said something about "when the gold arrives" and my girlfriend immediately said "that's foreshadowing and that gold's not going to arrive."  This was quickly followed by motherfucking dragons showing up to fuck up the wagon train that was transporting the gold.  I'm pretty sure Cersei does not in fact get to pay off her debts at this time.

(edit) re: Littlefinger, given that Sansa doesn't know that Littlefinger betrayed Ned, and she's been much closer to him for all this time, I don't think Arya does either.  The only ways I can think of for her to find out are if:
1) Littlefinger lets it slip (I don't think he's even remotely that dumb)
2) Bran sees it and tells her (this seems way more likely, but I don't know why he wouldn't have done that when they were talking about the knife)
3) She gets to have a conversation with someone else who was with the Lannisters at the time of the betrayal -- Cersei, Varys, Tyrion, or Jaime.  Cersei seems most likely -- Arya shows up to whack Cersei, and Cersei's parting shot is "you dumbass, you're after me for double-crossing your dad and you're palling around with the guy who held the knife to his throat on my orders"

They talk at the very start of the scene how the money had arrived at kings landing. The what was blown up was the rest of the baggage train and other spoils/loot/food they had pillaged as well as blowing up their army in the field. So they were not fast enough to destroy the gold but now cersai has the gold but no longer a good chunk of her armor or the foodstuff they need.