Pallas

Season 2 premieres on Wednesday, June 19th at 10/9PM. Season preview.

Season 3 will be released in the second half of 2019. It makes sense that there's a longer pause between seasons that shift from one cast to an other.

Over the weekend, in a memorial mood...Will also post a pic or two of the erstwhile Mother of Kittens!

The tower where Jon Snow was born (named The Tower of Joy by Rhaegar) was in Dorne: that's why, in A Show, Bran initially mused that Jon Snow was actually Jon Sand. I'm thinking that Rhaegar and Lyanna married in Dorne because the evidence that Rhaegar needed to annul his marriage to Elia was concealed there, in her homeland. Here's what astonishes me about the story's cultural penetration. Having heard the name, I googled "where was the tower of joy" and the answer came up as neatly as if I'd asked, "where is the Tower of Pisa." Without any reference to characters or even Game of Thrones. As Unsullied we've become far, far outliers over the past eight years! We may as well each, on our little raft, have named a pet volleyball Ned...then at some point wept as it washed away...

Absolutely, I thought Dorne was an island! I guess we modern folk -- and especially, Americans -- are conditioned to believe that if one travels by sea, one's crossing one land mass to another.

Spring has sprung in Westeros, it seems. I'm guessing this unseasonable season is the start of a new cycle -- an every-few-millennia result of gingerella's Rubik's cube pieces aligning -- or even a benediction from any or all gods.

4) The North gets a Nexit... I wondered if a shipboard, north-bound Jon would look up and see Drogon, who would then -- accompanied by Dragon Bass -- fly into the camera one last time, before banking east. Not as the final shot of the series, but of the Targaryens. Yes, Jon's return north was prepared a lot better than Dany's timewarp into Crazytown. Last season and this, Jon often stood up for himself as a Northerner. And then the thudding "This is good-bye then" to doubting Tormund, and...the thing...with Ghost. Brilliant. And now, one more thing to love about "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms." Hee! No kidding. Penance! Penance! Penance! That was a lovely harkening, and I believed it. The simple "He died protecting his Queen" as the last word on the erstwhile Kingslayer. I see this as, maybe, championing the neuro-atypical as not only specialists but leaders. Or, more likely, a suggestion of another world's King Dalai Llama. That might have been intriguing. But Bran's inner life was another blank slate. Like Dany's: long ago we asked, again and again, Who is she? What does she do when not holding court? What else does she care about? What does she read? What makes her laugh? Does she appreciate any of the arts or sport? Does she have any spiritual leanings? What's in her heart? In how many minutes of screen time?, we learned more of Maester Aemon as a soul in this world, than we ever did of Dany or of Bran.

Some thoughts, 12 hours later. 1) Attorney General Grey Worm. Rather than execute mutineer Jon Snow, Grey Worm imprisons the killer of The One True Queen: Grey Worm's liberator, leader and mother figure, beloved by his own late beloved. He has the presence of mind to see that in this incinerated city -- now without its incinerator -- his armies are vulnerable to a siege led by the armies of, well, everyone else. Jon is bound over as a hostage in negotiations with the forces that include his three other family members. Meanwhile -- more inexplicably --- Grey Worm keeps the Imp on ice so that Tyrion may be judged by...Dany's successor as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms? Who has yet to be decided, but will be, in a vote that excludes Grey Worm? A vote called, debated and ratified in whole by the prisoner himself? 2) The Night's Watch: was this more cleverness by Tyrion, banishing Jon to what Tyrion knew was, in fact, a reunion with Tormund, Ghost and the Free Folk? (An exile enforced by Sansa on the throne of the North -- the only kingdom which now borders the Wall?) 3) Drogon survived to grieve, melt the Iron Throne, and forsake Westeros for a home in the East. My theory: when he touched Dany's body, a trace of her spirit merged with his. He destroyed the throne because it, more than Jon, had been the ruin of her. Yet also to assure that no one else -- neither Targaryen nor usurper -- would sit on it in her stead. Agree with Direwolf Pup that Drogon returned with Dany to their homeland of Valyria, where among the half-living stone creatures, Drogon rules in all but name. Jon was the true heir to nothing, from the moment Aerys and Targaryen rule were overthrown in Robert's Rebellion. But anyways. Jon had already yielded to Daenerys both his title as King in the North and his pretender's claims to the Seven Kingdoms; he likely surrendered to Grey Worm as Jon Snow. His being banished was the terms of his release; those terms ended the siege and resulted in the Unsullieds' departing Westeros. Indeed, even with Drogon drowsily on guard. But let's say that Dany chose to be alone for this first encounter. (Good timing, Jon!) What if Jon had chosen to approach her unarmed: to protect her from his doubts, as well as lull her own? Then in extremis, done an Arthur and pulled a sword out of the throne? Or was this the time to continue dialing back on the supernatural and on the theme of Jon, the predestined hero? No one likes a wise guy. Especially showrunners making a lame joke.

What I expect to mourn tonight won't be the dead but the missing: the missing story. Valar morghulis, Unsullied.

Five years ago, our former forum announced its end a few weeks before Season 4 began; two posters there had this exchange: "It's like our favorite series has been cancelled!" "It's like television has been cancelled!" And meanwhile, we Unsullied wondered, how the hell was our weird herd to endure and find shelter? Yet a few weeks later, there we were, frisking cluelessly about our Habitat: newly-made and well-guarded. Above its gate, these words (paraphrased): "Do not feed the Unsullied helpful hints, quotes, facts or spoilers! These are poisonous to them!" Joining @Anothermi and @gingerella to raise Knifey in one hand and a mug o' grog in the other. Thank you, @David T. Cole, who built our home. Thank you, @SilverStormm and @Mya Stone, who infused the walls with magic and have stood guard throughout. Thank you, @Athena, for donning the cloak and keeping faith through all the darkest days of the past four seasons, from Reek to rest. Thank you, @Which Tylerand @Skywarpgold, who helped man the gates during that first season here, when Joffrey hadn't croaked his last before Bookwalkers posted crime scene photos of Olenna. And thank you, @raven, for taking the oath and joining Silverstormm and Athena in serving A Show across all forums this final season. We're so thankful. No matter if there's a monarch or a Seven Kingdoms standing at the end, dear Friendly White Cloaks: you were here from the beginning. And you made this game possible.

For females, the styling "Title First-Name" is used only by those who may claim that title by birthright, i.e., Queen Elizabeth, Princesses Anne, Beatrice, Eugenie and Charlotte, or the former Lady Diana Spencer (at age 15, when her father became Earl Spencer). There is one exception to this rule: Queens Consort, such as Queen Elizabeth, wife of George VI and mother to the current monarch. Kate and Meghan's first names do not follow their title; they are instead, formally, "HRH Catherine, The Duchess of Cambridge" and "HRH Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex." When William becomes HRH Prince William, Prince of Wales (etc.), Kate will still not be formally styled Princess Catherine but rather, HRH Catherine, Princess of Wales. Only after William's coronation, where she will be crowned Queen Consort, will she be known as HRH Title First-Name: Queen Catherine.

We did discuss the melting of the Wall, and its taking place in concert with the melting of the Iron Throne, an image I've doted on for years. And here we are: the Iron Throne has likely been melted by dragonfire. But the act made a sick joke of the image. Unless Dany Warcrimes happened to spare the Throne Room and it now accords with her earlier vision -- except covered with ash, not snow. All right. I'd imagined that after Dany dies, Jon lays down his sword and his birthright and retires in his 20's to the frozen north. But I'm less and less sure that he survives next Sunday. We know now that even with the Night King dispatched, the Lord of Light still wants Jon in the line-up for some reason. I think Jon Snow, Second of His Life, was brought back to take the last Targaryen with him, this time. As noted in the episode thread, it would make sense for Dany to have immediately flown back north and blitzkrieged Winterfell (and the Iron Islands too, pausing only to sear Nymeria and her wolfpack, as well as the Godswood and a flock of baby seals). But Varys's letters have landed somewhere. My bet's on Yara and the new Prince of Dorne as the new Fortinbras, both showing up outside King's Landing, where Jon's retreated. Sansa and Brienne as well, because. With Bran left to serve as the A Stark in Winterfell, but not removed from the action. So I'm guessing that once the players are assembled, the drama ends in the ruined Throne Room, where twenty years ago it first "ended" with the Kingslayer and the Mad King. And after Dany's death, when Drogon dies, warged by Bran -- who's already shared with him a flight above King's Landing -- the dragon's fall will collapse what's left of what his own ancestors brought into being. Kings ending. Will there be eggs left behind? A cut to the last few Children of the Forest, deciding (as all children do) that they can do better than their elders, and create a less austere, more approachable champion? Now there's a job for Tormund!

That's not what madness looks like. That's what evil looks like. Well, unless we're counting TV-madness, which looks like rabies. A hideous twist of fate where complicated people become heinous by jettisoning their moral core like someone else's cargo on a foundering ship, and emerge twice as powerful. Not-on-TV, madness is mental illness and it renders people pathetic, not powerful. Even when violent. Flailing, with grossly disordered perceptions and confounded will. TV-madness is a plot device as hoary as its sickly cousin, "the fever," where the sufferers toss their beaded foreheads from side to side and spill their guts. Rabies. The Targaryens were anti-vaxxers, it seems, and Dany got a dose of it. Now, just like Old Yeller, she'll have to be put down: another test of manhood for Jon Snow, just as it was for poor Travis. Will he pass and execute the sentence, bringing the show full bloody circle? Or will Bran warg Drogon, turning him on the Unsullied and the Dothraki before bringing the last dragon and full Targaryen plummeting to the ground, or launched into a mountain? It could have been terrible and great. The concept of Dany as a tragic hero who becomes the final antagonist is rich with meaning and feeling. It may be foretold in the title of the saga; perhaps A Song of Ice and Fire refers not to two pre-destined protagonists, but to two supernatural foes. That's some story. Oh, but the botched, benighted, foreshortened execution, in A Show! If only. If only he who passed the sentence -- surely, George R.R. Martin -- had been the one to execute it.

For me, the episode was a greater disappointment than the season opener. Daenerys is being hammered down into one more plot device: Jon Snow's Euron Greyjoy. I fear that the purpose is to set the scene for a formulaic, one-winner-takes-all conclusion and, perhaps, another generation of absolute rule. "She's a mad Queen!" "She's a bad Queen!" The showrunners are trying to sow it both ways, realizing that neither supposition has been sufficiently supported up to now, when they need to prosecute their own show trial, and whisk her off the stage. So they aim to drive her mad or bad or both from anguish, so that she will prove them right by using her (living) weapon of mass destruction to annihilate civilians. The same tactic that ended World War II, except this time, by order of that most fearsome force in any world: an angry woman. Two mad, bad Queens in Cersei and Daenerys, neither with a legal right to the crown they both claim, and Dany as well as Cersei now being cast as someone who, in Westeros, would rule only through fear. Each soon to be mourned, despite her faults, by her better -- her younger brother and her nephew, respectively -- more humbled by life and more noble by nature. The only scene that moved me was Jaime and Brienne's parting. Both actors were superb and I was moved by Brienne's weeping from the stench of Jaime's self-hatred, and the guttering out of his soul. At the time I thought that Jaime was sincere in his words to her, and was heading to Cersei to die at her side. But I've always thought that it was Jaime and not Arya who must kill Cersei, for reasons having nothing to do with vengeance. If so, I'm dejected that the show had him lying to Brienne "to protect her." Enough protective lies told in Winterfell, especially to women by men who profess to love them. Especially, in this case, by a man so much weaker than she. And then again, perhaps Jaime's headed to Dany's camp because he intends to kill another Targaryen monarch. With a sword in the back, and for the same reason: to prevent a family member's execution and King's Landing from immolation.

Hear ye, hear ye!