Nashville

But the winters have continued to come and go through many multi-year seasonal cycles - at the beginning of the series it is commented that the extraordinary length of the current summer (9 years) has people concerned a winter of equivalent harshness may follow - while the WWs have not made an appearance in so long, they have faded for many Westerosi to the level of apocryphal folk legend. So not nearly every winter is accompanied by a WW assault.

The new tariffs clogged up the Intertubes so bad, the bits came through slower.

Maybe - or maybe they’re in the midst of Indian summer. 😉 That’s one of the myriad questions posed but never clearly addressed by the series: Has the Night King been responsible for creating the horribly long cold winters of the old folks’ tales? Or has he simply taken advantage of the region’s natural climatic shifts to mount his offensives against the Wall and the people it protects? There have been subtle indications for both options throughout the course of the series, but no incontrovertible evidence of either.

I put Grey Worm’s reticence to immediately execute Jon down to one of two things: Habit. Grey Worm and the rest of the Unsullied have been trained since birth to execute policy and follow orders, not dictate policy and issue orders. Concern for his men. There’s little doubt Grey Worm would have found immense personal satisfaction in immediately executing Dany’s assassin. The fact also exists, though, that (a) Grey Worm and the rest of the Unsullied are, as of Dany’s death, no longer operating with the protection of the reigning monarch of the realm, and (b) whoever does emerge as ruler might take issue with a unilateral Unsullied execution of a Westerosi prisoner - possibly to the point of ordering an en masse execution of all Unsullied in retaliation. And IMHO Grey Worm would NEVER do anything which would unnecessarily endanger his men. Or better yet, Jamie returns back to the waiting arms of Brienne forevermore - but not before the last words Cersei hears on this earth are, “You lied - somebody ELSE knows how to do that thing you do with your tongue....”. 😉 It’s like a chess grandmaster playing against a novice “wood pusher”; the grandmaster will lose more times than you’d think because they screw themselves up looking at the novice’s moves, and attempting to counter “strategies” which don’t actually exist. I expect Arya’s story to end with a closing line Margaret Mead would appreciate: “Man, those Samoans are a surly bunch.” ;>

Ah, but it’s the little things in life which make it worth living.... 😆

SO - somebody asked me “Did anything memorable happen in TWD season finale? I don’t recall.” My response was twofold: Immediate response: “That question is really kinda self-answering, if you think about it.” Later: Coming back here to refresh my memory, because *I* wasn’t sure I remembered the season finale.

The concept of too much honor is right on par with the notion of too much oral sex; yeah there’s a limit, but it’s WAAAYYYY up there. 😆

Ok - so Jon shivs Dany, Drogon melts the Iron Throne down to pigiron slag, and flies off with Dany’s body - and no witnesses to any/all this except Jon. What *I* don’t get is why, when Wormy and the rest come storming up the steps and demand to know what happened, Jon just didn’t say something like, “I dunno, man - she was looking at the big metal chair and all of a sudden said ‘Oh, fuck this shit’, had the dragon melt it, and then flew off on the dragon’s back. Didn’t say where she was going, or when she’d be back. What was I supposed to do, stop her? She’s the QUEEN, for crying out loud.” ;>

Sansa’s breathing room exists not because her brother is on the throne (although that certainly doesn’t hurt), but because she can make a cogent argument justifying grounds for unique Northern dispensation which none of the other Kingdoms can gainsay, or claim for themselves: the entire realm of Westeros (including the other Six Kingdoms) would no longer exist if it wasn’t for the North’s actions in successfully defeating the Night King, and the sovereign recompense for the North’s losses in protecting the realm should be independence.

Certainly not by frying their own subjects. You misunderstand my point. Of course in foreign lands Daenerys is going to play up the “Dany the Liberator” angle; it’s what feeds the volunteer army she needs to achieve her ultimate goal, which is the conquest and re-acquisition of her family’s throne in Westeros. And no one in Westeros has any expectation of independence, especially the subjects of rule. Play in the Game of Thrones is exclusive to the royal Houses; commoners need not apply. But it was Dany who seemed to have the expectation of being hailed as a liberator by the Westerosi subjects, and frustrated when she was not - which is mightily confusing in the extreme, considering their liberation was never on the table. And it was Dany’s decision to inflict upon the common people of King’s Landing the consequences which by all rights should have been reserved solely for the nobles ensconced in the Red Keep. Dany made the common folk suffer by the rules of a game they weren’t even invited to play..

I don’t see what all the confusion is about; whether Sansa ever remarries or not, the Stark name will now live on. Or have y’all already forgotten Sansa is now Queen of the North? At this point it doesn’t really matter if Sansa gets knocked up by a particularly well-hung stable boy, and spits out a little bastard nine months later; all Sansa has to do is take a page out of Dany’s playbook a la Gendry, and abracadabra! - said bastard is now declared by the Queen to be a legitimate Stark, and heir to all the family holdings. Well, that’s kinda the thing which eventually tripped up Dany. In the beginning (with the Unsullied, and the first few towns’ worth of slaves she liberated) Dany gave the newly liberated the freedom to choose whether or not to follow her - and they either chose to do so, or were free to go their own way. Once Dany got to Westeros she stopped asking, though, and any semblance of a choice ceased to exist; you either fell in line behind Dany, or you became the next Dragon’s Bad Breath Blue Plate Special. In DanyLand freedom was an option for everybody in the world - except her own subjects.

The most poignant takeaway from this finale for me? Dany got to see the Iron Throne, touch it even - but she never got to sit on it. Hey, Valerya’s a long ways off. Maybe Drogon figured carrying a mid-flight snack wasn’t a bad idea. ;>

Well... if you have a crossbow THAT nice, it’d be a shame not to use it.... Considering a significant portion of the Night’s Watch comes from the dregs of society, I doubt anybody’s going to be quoting points of order out of a rule book. 😁 Jon was standing, walking and talking, so to the rest of the NW he was still the active Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and responsible for executing the duties of such - right up until he pointed out that he had, in fact, fulfilled the entirety of his NW oath. ...and had Jon done so, I have little doubt someone would have been dinging him for cowardice and/or dereliction of duty in passing the burden of the executions to the next guy. No-win situation.

I don’t see why the notion of King Bram should be so far out of left field. Bram sits on his ass all day, can’t do anything for himself, regularly presents himself as a fount of knowledge and secret information far beyond that of normal ken, and speaks in obscure sound bites. What part of this doesn’t sound like a career politician? ;>

No way to state definitely without seeing the player contracts (which we ain’t gonna), but my guess is Keith & Wendy are tied for first out. The only differentiation between those two would be if the stipends varied between the regular game and EoE - in which case Keith would probably be considered first out - but such a variation couldn’t have been included in the contract without risking exposure of EoE (this season’s biggest Secret Surprise Game Changer), so probably not.