HumblePi

Catelyn talks about Jon Snow. Like the old saying goes 'treated like a redheaded stepchild', Catelyn treated Jon less favorable than her own biological children. I think that Ned Stark kept that secret from Catelyn only because of a promise he made to his sister, Lyanna to keep the secret of Jon's birth and father from King Robert who might have put Jon to death if he found out. https://youtu.be/0k_HWCIT8nY?t=2m21s

In this video, the author George RR Martin explains the Stark phrase 'Winter is Coming'. It's fun to see how young everyone was then.

About Lyanna Mormont. She's the head of the house of Mormont on Bear Island. Jorah Mormont is her first cousin since Jorah's father and Lyanna's mother were brother and sister. Her mother, Maege Mormont was Lady of Bear Island. When Maege left to fight in the War of the Five Kings, Lyanna ruled Bear Island in her mother's stead, eventually taking Maege's place upon her death. The actress that plays the 10 year old 'badass' Lyanna Mormont has garnered immense praise from the Executive Producer, directors, writers and cast members as being an absolutely brilliant and consummate actress for such a young girl. Her name is Bella Ramsey. The one thing I haven't been able to find out searching online is why Lyanna Mormont was named specifically for Lyanna Stark? What was the connection between the Mormonts and the Starks, specifically Lyanna Stark? When Sansa suggests she might someday become a “great beauty,” her response to the pleasantry is blunt: “I doubt it. My mother wasn’t a great beauty or any other kind of beauty. She was a great warrior though.” Lyanna apparently has no time for chit-chat in times of war. “I think we’ve had enough small talk,” she declares. “Why are you here?”

I think people will take away what they want to think regarding Tommen's suicide. I believe it was a little more sinister than him simply jumping to his death because he knew that the only women he ever had sex with died in the explosion. Tommen is still a teenager and was completely entrapped by Margaery by using her sexual wiles on him. The only revenge he could extract for the murder of Margaery and the High Sparrow was to murder Cersei, Not only was Tommen not ruthless enough to rule the Iron Throne, he had aligned himself with the Faith and definitely not strong enough to murder his own mother who he realized had committed the ultimate betrayal towards him. It's interesting is a small way how Tommen simply fell forward to his death rather than leap from the edge of the window. Almost like a resignation rather than an act of anger. Cersei was devious enough to know this and it was precisely for this end that she forced Tommen to remain in his quarters where he had an exceptionally good view of the Great Sept Of Baelor. It wasn't to save him, it was to force this decision to kill himself that Cersei wanted since she couldn't actually kill him herself, she made it his choice. If nothing else, Cersei knew all three of her children well. Cersei was a mother that was willing to sacrifice her own children to attain her goal. No doubt she will sacrifice Jamie as well, he's the only person left alive that she has any feeling for. The Prince Rhaegar and Lyanna = Jon Snow theory is pretty much confirmed, and Jon Snow is indeed the Prince who was promised, quite literally, thanks to Ned keeping his word to raise Jon as his bastard son. What does Jon's legitimacy as a Stark matter, if his true father is a Targaryen? It's possible that Jon boasts the best claim to becoming the King of Westeros and sit on the Iron throne. When Jon left Winterfell, he proclaimed Sansa as the true heir and ruler. Winterfell is the seat of House Stark so Sansa, Arya and Bran (if he ever gets back there) are the rightful heirs.

Jon Snows' parents were Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. Lyanna being the sister of Eddard Stark and Thaegar Targaryen the older brother of Daenerys Targaryen. Which means that Jon is Dany's nephew, and has a stronger claim on the Iron Throne than she does. And he's not really a Stark but a Targaryen. And his birth may be the reason the war happened in the first place. And Lyanna Mormont's declaration that Ned Stark's blood runs through his veins is only kind of true.

I have to give praise to the costume designers for being so successful at transitioning Cersei from a broken, totally humiliated woman, to the powerful, vengeful and self-appointed Queen she succeeded in becoming. The black dress and headpiece worn by Cersei couldn't have been any more perfect. It was devoid of any color at all and simply all black to signify death and power. The shoulder epaulets were representative of a military uniform and intricately detailed. There was an image of a face on each shoulder embellishment. Quote: "Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have"

I think it's a whole different story when someone like Bethenny doesn't need or want any support as she builds a business, fights through a nasty divorce, goes it alone and ends up on top of the pile. It's an amazing "Look at me! I am woman!" kind of pride she's had. Success can be a two-sided coin and sometimes comes with a price tag. When a hardship or tragedy hits personally and there's nobody there to lean on, nobody to talk to and nobody who really gives a damn, it must be a very solitary feeling. Being totally alone and accomplishing great things is wonderful, but being totally alone when you need emotional support is quite a different thing and something Bethenny isn't familiar with.

I feel like we're beating a dead horse and I don't I want to make this forum the 'Vagina Monologues' but others have wondered about this 'accident'. I mean, we all have a "coochie-coo" that we treasure with pride. We protect it feverishly every minute of the day. We primp it, preen it, clean it and treat it v-e-e-r-r-y gently. Usually we protect it like a treasure by wearing clothes that protect it against sharp objects that might cause trauma or worse yet....laceration. (arghhh!) So, since Jules wasn't explicit with her explanation, other than she was climbing into a window (why?) and somehow either broke glass and cut her crotch through her jeans or whatever, OR she bruised it badly on the window frame by falling solidly on top of it as she was straddling it. Since I don't trust anyone and think they're all liars and cheaters, I have developed my own scenario as to how her vagina may have became so traumatized as to make Jules believe she might need vaginoplasty. She and Michael were either having makeup sex or having some kind of kinky revenge sex and one of them had a sharp object in their hand and used it on Jules's vag. Okay, that's pretty overboard and disgusting but leaving us up to the wiles of our own imagination with this whole vagina thing has my mind spinning with scenarios. Donald Trump has expertly put a mental image into the minds of his supporters with descriptions such as "Lying Ted", "Crooked Hillary", and "Little Marco". Jules will forever be "Vagina Jules" in my mind.

Maybe I'm just an old fashioned woman with some remnants of puritanical beliefs but I still have very little regard for any woman who uses her sex solely for wealth, power or social advancement. Sure, it's done all the time by both men and women, but I don't feel I have to condone Luann's past behavior and and hide my disapproval just because she's in a television reality show. When Luann said "I can't forget the men in my life that helped me get where I had to go", well that just validated all that I ever believed about Luann. Luann boasted of her connections to profoundly rich, politically connected and world famous people like Silvio Burlisconi, (who I wouldn't brag about being 'connected' with). Yet she said to Heather; "I can't tell you how many women I've had to get rid of in my life who tried to back stab me and steal my husband". Luann was Alexandre's fourth wife. I guess his 3rd wife wasn't as good a getting rid of women who wanted her husband. But, what goes around comes around and in 2009 she split with Alexandre because he was having an affair with an Ethiopian princess Kemeria Abajobir Abajifar. Luann found out about their affair through an email that Alex sent her letting her know. When I see a woman such as Luann talking about how glamorous her life was and is, and how many rich and distinguished men she's been with, and how many celebrities she has rubbed elbows. Then she tells a joke like this; "do you know why pubic hairs are curly? Because if they were straight, they'd poke you in the eye". It makes me wonder what Luann meant exactly when she recorded and videoed her (cough) song 'Money Can't Buy You Class'? Was she mocking herself or is she really that delusional to think she has any of it?

Here's a link to the entire show on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKTrR13gHJA

Wow to the comments, just wow. I see there's totally different views of this special on the life of Luann. It seems that people either liked it a lot and admired Luannn for her guts and gusto or liked Luann even less, as I have. She's been give praise and accolades for being a risk taker, lover of life, bold, brave, vivacious and ballsy. Yes, she certainly was all of that, and more. I am also a nurse, born of Canadian parents, born and live in Connecticut, about 20 minutes from where Luann was born and raised. That's where any and all similarities end. I walked away from this hour with the sense that Luann was a go-getter, ambitious, passionate and unfailing in achieving her goals. Those are great qualities for anyone to have. She wanted something better than a life as a nurse tending to old people in Connecticut. I don't blame her, it's a pretty routine, unexciting life. But what did disturb me to some extent is the ferocity and unashamed drive she had to get whatever it was she wanted to get whether it was a man, money, fame, exposure to celebrities, or notoriety. Her quest for fame and fortune appeared to be just a little too ruthless in my opinion and nobody or nothing was going to stop her. She was a steamroller that plowed through any obstacles to getting exactly what she wanted. Like Jade Fox commented, if the special was meant to endear Luann de Lesseps to viewers then it probably did to some. Personally, it only served to validate all the things that I've thought about Luann ever since the first time I watched her on RHoNY. I find her conniving, cunning. pretentious, self-indulgent and just totally Machiavellian.

To be perfectly fair to those who have commented on the bleeding and fibroids and vagina bruises I have to say that other than the 'dog wedding NY social event of the week' there really was nothing to discuss about this episode other than Bethenny's bleeding fibroids and Jule's vagina bruises. Searching for anything of a substantive nature to discuss in the forum was like trying to find teeth in a chicken because that's what this entire episode focused on.

You didn't come off as sounding 'preachy' at all. I think we watch shows like RHoNY simply because it helps to remove us from our day-to-day stresses like life-threatening illnesses, job losses, family deaths and our own health issues which may in fact ultimately take our life. The thing that does annoy me to a great extent is the way these wealthy, bored NY (and other) housewives seem to magnify everything as if their illness or troubles are far worse than anyone else's. They will gladly pay $150 for the 'noble cause' of putting an end to puppy mills (which will never happen), but really they weren't there for any abused puppies. They were there to rub shoulders with other socialites and rich people who could care less about real people that are dying of starvation, or living in a cardboard box on Fifth Avenue or children being sold into sex slavery in the United States. Obviously their sole concern is what happens within their safe little microcosm of NY society. Should I feel compassion for Bethenny's problems with fibroid tumors, or for Jules for the breakup of her marriage to Michael, or for the bruises left behind on Sonja's face from Botox injections requiring additional makeup to cover them? This was just a rhetorical question. Last thing I need to add. Why would anyone hire a nanny that "doesn't speak 'a lick of English. Espanol all the way but she speaks charades". (I wonder how you'd say "fire! call 911" in charades) Who is going to the try to learn another language in order to communicate effectively, the nanny or Jules? And the 'little accident' involving her vagina that she thought just might need vaginoplasty .......what?

I'm not trying to defend Bethenny (Lordie no!) but feel it's important to clarify the differences between endometriosis and fibroids. Endometriosis is a condition where the type of tissue that lines the uterus also grows outside the uterus, usually on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the outer wall of the uterus, the intestines, or other organs in the abdomen. Since they are the same type of cells that usually line the uterus, they respond to estrogen and grow a little each month and sometimes slightly bleed. Uterine fibroids are benign lumps of muscle and connective tissue that grow on the uterine wall. Fibroids can cause a feeling of moderate to severe pelvic pressure at any time. And the closer they are to the uterine lining, the heavier the menstrual flow. It may last longer than seven days. Fibroid tumors are concerning because they can become cancerous.

I watch the housewives of Beverly Hills, Orange County and New Jersey in addition to the New York housewives. The dog wedding, the torn vagina, the bleeding of 10% of blood supply.....all of it was so cringe-worthy that every time I heard my husband's footsteps approaching as I watched, I quickly changed the channel to CNN News. He thinks I'm nuts for watching any of these housewives franchises and I usually 'poo poo' his criticism of them. But this time, he was right and I had to hide the fact that I was watching. Between the dog wedding, the snarly remarks back and between Jules and Michael, the 'laceration' of the labia, and Bethenny's bleeding out 10% of her blood supply, it was all depressing and so weird. This episode reminded me that wealthy people in NY and LA care more about their pets than their spouses or children and that there is no outside world where terrorism, wars and sickness exists because it just doesn't have any bearing on their shallow lives at all. Yes, I know....people would argue that this is a scripted 'reality' show where we're supposed to be able to leave the troubles of daily life behind and just indulge ourselves in some fantasy television and enjoy it. The whole story Jules told about straddling a window or something and either lacerated or bruised her 'coochie'coo' sounds like total bullshit. All this drama between her and Michael gives my mind some darker and more sinister thoughts about that. Then there's this article about Jules not being asked to return for the next season. http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/jules-wainstein-may-be-booted-from-real-housewives-of-new-york-city-w210929

Thank you for the fact check

"Battle of the Bastards" has just broken the IMDB record set by Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" (in less than 3 days versus 1011 days)!

What a huge portion of viewers wanted to see was fear in Ramsay. We wanted a terrified, agonizing, very lengthy end to Ramsay Bolton's evil life. We did get to see it, but only for a brief moment before his face was chewed off. It was gratifying but if he was tortured a little bit, and pleaded for mercy, we would have felt more satisfaction.

that's right and I got confused because the actor's biological ages are 20 years apart. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson plays the older brother, Ser Gregor Clegane, he's actually almost two decades younger than Rory McCann, who plays his sibling Sandor.

I don't think Ramsay had a single thought of handing Rickon over to Jon Snow alive. Even if he knew that his troops were outnumbered, he was just that evil to kill Rickon. Ramsay is dead but Game of Thrones always needs one person that's so reviled and hated by fans that there will certainly be another on the horizon. My question is who will it be? I have thought maybe Littlefinger or even the Hound. We've all grown a soft spot for the Hound and maybe there'll be a little thumbing of the nose at us by the writers if they turn the Hound into something evil. But neither Littlefinger or the Hound has really done enough to earn our contempt. I do see a final battle coming between the Hound and his 'little' brother the Mountain though. Walder Frey will be reappearing next week and he will either be the next bad guy on the hit list, or he will be next season's nemesis.

Sansa Stark had no solid character temperament throughout multiple seasons albeit that of a sympathy-worthy 'girl' who got into a lot of self created difficulties, such as her desire to be the wife and queen of Joffrey Baratheon. In spite of her suspicion that he was a clinical sociopath, her desire to sit on a high throne and have regally advantaged children simply mitigated those fears. She was 'highborn' and the privileged daughter of Ned and Catelyn Stark, a woman who was aware that she was of the blood of mighty rulers. I think that viewers disliked Sansa in the beginning because she was spoiled and hopelessly naive and lost in her dreams of pretty princes and dashing knights. But, she was just a teen and isn't that how a lot of teens are? Now that Sansa has evolved into who she became, some viewers don't care for her because the “strong female character” that can be brutal seems to suggest that femininity is still bad, and that women can only be strong by adopting stereotypical male roles and attitudes. It nearly destroyed Sansa being what people think the 'ideal woman' should be. Even though women are told they are only “good” if they fit into this role of femininity, the role itself is seen as weak, manipulative, stupid and generally inferior. I was aware that the writing was slanted against Sansa in many ways, making her a fragile and almost pathetic person who we really disliked because of her vulnerabilities. Now that she's 'been through the mill' so to speak, we're going to criticize her for being strong and vengeful. I had known that it was inevitable, that Sansa could not take this much disgrace, humiliation and manipulation without eventually fighting back. I like Sansa now and didn't like her at all before. She had two options really, shrivel up and tow the mark according to the direction of her male counterparts, or grow a spine, plot and plan revenge on her own terms without being told how to do it, when to do it or questioned as to why she's even doing it.

Khloe always tried to project herself as the voice of reason and the wise sage of the family. She has treated Kris and Rob deplorably in the past. Truthfully, I think Khloe is the most maladjusted of the bunch and that's saying a lot because they're all messed up in the head. When I saw her at the end in the makeup chair with her hair in tight braids I thought that it didn't even look like her. Her face changed dramatically in my opinion. She looked swollen and distorted. I used to like Khloe also, but now I just can't stand her because she just tries too hard to be the center of attention. When I saw this episode my first thought was that the 'girls' saw their ratings plummet through the floor without their male counterparts for support. So they switched gears and gathered up all they could even if it meant paying them handsomely for contributing to a few episodes. It was all so contrived and obviously created to generate renewed interest in their lives. Yep, they gathered their forces and made a circle with their wagons for defense.

T Thank you for posting the picture, it's an interesting juxtaposition and stark contrast between adulation and defeat. I had stopped and freeze-framed the shot when Jon was panicked and struggling to emerge from the fate of suffocation. I wondered if they had digitally mastered the shot to add people to it and discovered that what they did was have many of the actors hold onto a dummy that appeared to be dead. You can pick them out in this shot if you look closely enough. The technical aspects of filming an epic scene like that intrigue me, particularly since it's for television and not for a movie distributed in theaters. But, as someone said, HBO has tons of money to pour into projects like GoT and they know people are avid fans so they're budget isn't limited. For those that may be interested in the 'behind the scenes' making of this epic battle, I found a great video that explains that process to some extent.

There were five direwolves, one for each child. There are only two remaining alive. After Ricon's direwolf 'Shaggydog' was killed, Jon's direwolf 'Ghost' and Arya's direwolf, 'Nymeria' are the last of the direwolves. I want to believe that these two remaining direwolves will reappear soon and have a part in saving one of them from something awful.

Just because I thought this was so cool