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I do agree that if Theon was going to act, it would have to be in response to something monstrous happening to someone else he cares for. Ramsay flayed him and cut off some of his fingers and toes, and he CASTRATED him, and Theon didn't do anything in rebellion. It had to be happening to someone else, and I suppose D&D figured it needed to be someone we care about too. But the monstrous thing happening couldn't be murder, because they certainly couldn't kill Sansa. And it couldn't merely be physical violence, because Theon's seen a girl get chased down and ripped apart by dogs. I can see them thinking it needed to be a named character instead of fArya, because who remembered Tansy's name? (Did they mention it before this episode?) They made it Sansa not because they are interchangeable, but because they aren't--even we, who have read the books and suspected what was coming, are livid, or struck dumb with shock, or disgusted, because we were and are still invested in Sansa. At the same time, that presupposes that this story needs Theon to be the driving force. Would it have been more controversial if Ramsay had suddenly become toothless? As it is he's already treating her better than his book counterpart treated Jeyne, and much better than he treated Theon, show or book. Could Sansa have rescued Theon? Maybe, although that stretches credulity. Still, with a Brienne assist it may have been possible, but that's a completely different story for every character involved and only whitewashes Ramsay as a result. And the Boltons are the villains who barely pretend to be human. I did like Sansa telling off Myranda though, it was a win she sorely needed in this episode of loss. It was hard to watch the end, but it's not as if any of Ramsay's other proclivities would have been easier. I don't normally notice acting slips, but when I read that IR wasn't looking forward to doing this scene, I wasn't surprised. His face looked more like a mask than an actual expression, something was just mildly off. Maybe it was a choice to show how depraved he is, I don't know, but it came off to me as the actor going away inside. The actor was great otherwise as usual, but there was something there about his eyes and smile that seemed played up. Snakes, meh. KL, sensible. Oh Cersei, way to overplay your hand. Braavos, good.

Qetsiyah headstone from 1903 I think.

This felt like a series finale; if you ignore the last, say, thirty seconds and just end at the time-lapse mausoleum shot, that's the end of TVD. And in many ways, it was the finale. Elena's the main character. I mean, I know Smallville got away with it, but at the same time Season 8 sucked and I didn't care about the rest of it. I loved the episode, but I love/hate that being a vampire ruined Elena. The proof of that is in the fact that her return to humanity made her the old Elena, the awesome Elena who stabbed a vampire with pencils, who used herself as a human shield for Caroline, who cut herself to lure in an Original vampire and take him down, who cared about her friends and family. Vamplena was one bad decision after another, and Evilena was a nightmare to watch. And that's how it should have been--it should not be purely beneficial to become a horror-movie monster--but it doesn't make it easier to watch. I'll still be back next year, but it already doesn't feel the same.

Yeah, I do think Dany has a specific desire for the people she kills to suffer while she's killing them, at least when it's vengeance. She's burned a bunch of people to death, with really only one occasion where it was necessary to kill them that way (Pyat Pree), she locked Doreah and Daxos in a vault to dehydrate over the course of days in utter darkness, why does she seem to be such a sadist? This most recent episode was the most ridiculous example where she didn't order one of her several former slave guards or her amoral boy toy to behead the man or stab him in the heart, nope, you're getting fried and ripped apart by dragons. Theon butchered two children to save face. Did he deserve death? Yeah, probably. Did he deserve Ramsay? Doubtful. I don't think it's all the same just because he deserves to die.

Valid, though I doubt they'd have gone up to kill, say, a Night's Watch ranging party. Killing them was only the option they were taking because they were to be executed for desertion. If they'd been rangers the mission would probably have been to find them and bring them back to Castle Black.

The only thing I can point to is Jon, I guess. When he had to take out a group of raping, murdering mutineers, he did so as a man of the Night's Watch carrying out the lawful punishment. He did not, in contrast, take them prisoner and have them raped before tying them to posts and letting them freeze to death, then make a joke about crowcicles for Ghost to eat. I don't personally think that slavers should just automatically be killed; I find it hard to justify the death penalty for any crime where there's no intent to kill someone. But even if I did, I don't think the death penalty allows an official complete abandon with which to act as cruelly as possible in retaliation. There's quickly ending a life, and then there's torture. Mossador was executed for definitely and brazenly murdering someone. Baldy was tortured to death for possibly being a terrorist. There's a difference. And nothing at all will make Dany's "guilty or innocent no1curr" nonsense okay.

Like I said, a normal execution method would have been a lawful execution, and in any case that's not why Dany crucified those guys. She did it because she was insulted by their barbaric display--something Hizdahr's father had no part in. He was innocent of that crime. If Ned had beheaded Jorah, acting as Lord Paramount of the North and with his own greatsword as the lawfully agreed-upon method of execution, that would be one thing. If he had instead given him to Roose to flay over the course of a few days, and not because he was a slaveowner but rather because Jorah said something about Ned's mom, then yes, he would be a villain. Better yet if Jorah actually didn't say something about Ned's mom, but Ned thought he might have, and who cares if he actually did it? Innocent or guilty, doesn't matter. When Ned sentenced Gregor to death, he had engaged in fact-finding, interviewed witnesses, and the perp was incredibly distinctive in appearance. For example, if Baldy McDraglunch had been wearing a t-shirt with a Harpy on it and saying, "Harpies rule!" Dany would have been right in taking that as evidence that he was in league with the SotH. Likewise, Hizdad wasn't questioned, he was just chosen as one of 163 randoms. In neither of these cases does Dany make any effort to find the actual culprit. This has two outcomes: an innocent is punished and a guilty guy goes free. For all she knows, there's still some guy in Meereen who was all, "whew, good thing she just chose 163 people at random to crucify, that idea I had seemed great at the time, who knew." Maybe that guy's the same guy wearing the Harpy t-shirt. EDIT: What you said about Jorah just reminded me, lol, this guy used to work for Dany. Maybe she has a moral opposition to slavery, but how come he's still breathing after a) selling people into slavery and b) betraying Dany directly, which led to an attempt on her life? This woman is nuts.

I think some of you guys are misunderstanding what I'm saying. Certainly, it was wrong to kill children and in such a barbaric way, and it was clearly meant as a taunt to Dany. But then, a just punishment would have been a normal execution after determining who was responsible. Was Mr. zo Loraq one of the people who thought, "hey, let's torture some kids to death as a screw you to this lady"? No, because as we know from Hizdahr, his father spoke out against it. So why was he killed in retaliation? And if you're going to lawfully execute someone, rather than murder them, why choose such a painful, torturous method? That, to me, is why it seemed like she was doing it because she felt insulted. Doing it for justice is using a normal method of execution like beheading or hanging. Doing it because you're pissed is saying "NO U" and crucifying them right back. (I know this next part is probably subjective, but I would say that the deprivation of liberty as a punishment for depriving others of liberty makes more sense than the deprivation of life as a punishment for depriving others of liberty. So I'm not even sure if killing slaveowners as punishment for owning slaves is morally sound; why not have them work doing menial labor, or put them in a dungeon? But I'm not going to say that this makes her a villain on its own--it's just something to stick a pin in for later.) So then, along with executing the head of a Great House for a crime he didn't commit, under dubious authority and after being counseled to show mercy, the murderous inbred psycho forces that man's child into an arranged marriage. Does the preceding sentence describe Dany or Joffrey? Maybe it'll become clearer if I say that the psycho tortured their spouse-to-be over an indeterminate length of time. Or punctuated their threats with deadly weapons. And as pointed out by Taco, the people who are in power now--the heads of the Great Houses who Dany rounded up and imprisoned--are only in that position because Dany already killed the former heads of their Houses. She doesn't know if they're former slaveowners, she doesn't know if they're Harpies. And she can certainly assume that they weren't the decision-makers in their households until recently; she already killed those people! But she actually states that it doesn't matter if they are guilty or innocent. ("Who is innocent? Maybe all of you are, maybe none of you are. Maybe I should let the dragons decide.") That's just...what? If executing people at random doesn't make you a villain, what does? That line there, a direct quote, tells me everything I need to know about this person. EDIT: Realized I was wrong about House zo Loraq, edited accordingly.

That's all well and good when it doesn't involve killing innocent people. It's not an act of war when you crucify people because you were personally insulted by barbarians. There goes the moral high ground. And it's hard to ignore the fact that Dany is forcing Hizdahr to marry her after killing his father and sacking his city, and feeding people to her dragons as a posturing threat, which is all stuff Sansa has suffered at the hands of her suitors. We unequivocally and enthusiastically call Ramsay a villain. Same with Good King Joffrey. I really am starting to think that we're getting baited and switched here.

1) I love that spec. 2) I will marry that spec if at some point getting to Sansa involves climbing somewhere with a rope, and Brienne has to look back and forth between the rope and her sword (revenge on Stannis).

This is interesting, because this last episode has me thinking. I remember when Daxos and Doreah were executed, a whole lot of people had a problem with Dany not even partially hearing Doreah out. Now, she's done much more since then, the foremost of which includes - crucifying a bunch of slavers as well as some non-slavers - roasting a guy for literal giggles (she makes a JOKE out of it!) and one assumes the other thing once her dragons finish digesting him - using it as an object lesson to randoms because who needs to gather evidence - taking one of those randoms (whose father was one of the crucified non-slavers) and throwing him in a dungeon - allowing him the great unparalleled honor of sleeping with the woman who killed his family and ravaged his homeland at spearpoint So based on, like, Sansa's entire story, am I supposed to consider Dany a black hat? I'm currently reading another series, The Dagger and the Coin, where one of the characters just gradually becomes Fantasy Hitler and you're like, wait, wasn't this one of the heroes? How is Hiz significantly different from Sansa?

Yeah, I feel as if the more sadistic tendencies of the Bolton nest are just rumors the further one gets from the Dreadfort. I find it perfectly believable that people would be unsettled by them and that Baelish doesn't know about Ramsey despite this. He's only been a Bolton for like, what, two months? The only thing notable about him would be his military exploits. Look at Show!Stannis' knowledge of Sam, who by right should have inherited Horn Hill. Knowing that Sam is Randyll's son doesn't mean that he knew intimate details about House Tarly, even though Sam looked like he wanted to vomit when the subject of his father came up. And that's a legit heir. I thought only a couple of people here and there knew about Lady Hornwood, for example. If we take Theon's "escape" and recapture as an example of Ramsey's MO, well, he killed all the possible witnesses. He did the same at Moat Cailin. And Theon didn't even know him while tied to the symbol of his House, after having been a Northerner for longer than an Ironborn. Couple this with Roose working the propaganda machine and Ramsey's just some guy as far as Baelish knows.

Well, she's female, but we also see her perspective more. I mean, we also get to see Joffrey's perspective and Ramsey's now, but not to the degree of Dany's. In truth, Hiz is in a position like Sansa's: marrying the person who executed his father, when mercy was counseled and under dubious authority, after being physically and emotionally tortured because the leader (who has ordered mass killings already) fears that they may lose their tenuous grip on the throne. Is Dany a villain now?

I have to say I enjoyed this a lot. Was a little disappointed on a personal level regarding Ramsey's conception, as I was when I read it, but Roose is and has always been a monster. That this was a Bolton pep talk is flabbergasting. Not here for Ramsey Salvatore though. I know I joke about the "Boltons = Vampires" thing, but that's just a joke, okay? I feel like Sansa's presence is going to water him down some but I need him to be his psychotic hobbit self. IW is fantastic in the role. Everything at Castle Black was on point.

After a while I couldn't really fault Elena for her suicidal plans, because it quickly became apparent that not only could they never defeat Klaus, but her continued existence was dangerous to everyone. I know it sounds horrible, but technically it probably could have been argued to be selfish to remain alive under those circumstances. Committing suicide was the only way she could thwart the bad guy's schemes. I would say it's more the fault of the writing that Elena got put in a situation like that. They tried guile and trickery, getting stronger allies, finding loopholes, none of it worked. Not only did it take a magical event that couldn't be repeated to kill Klaus, but his death would cause their deaths as well, and countless others. In terms of hopeless situations, this was just shy of the Visitors remake with Elizabeth Mitchell, which was probably one of the bigger missteps they made. But Elena's response was pretty much all she could do.

I haven't watched it in a while, but I think that Cersei wraps her legs around Jaime and pulls him toward her before he, um, begins in earnest. While I've never liked the idea (and I'm given to understand this is no longer a defense) I think a reasonable person could see that as implied consent. On the other hand, one could probably argue that she did so out of fear, but since we know her motives as stated by those who would know, we can conclude that she didn't. It's not anywhere near ideal, but it's what we have.

Did Sophie Turner characterize her story going forward as a 6/10? What

I honestly think that she was pretending in that manner in order to mask the fact that she was trying to shut Cersei out of Kings' Landing. If she hates Cersei and tells Tommen to get rid of her, it's an attack on his beloved mother. If she and Cersei are besties and she tells Tommen to send her home, it's for her dear mother-in-law's own sake. Her facial expression after Tommen says he thought they were getting along says it all IMO.

Some other things I remember thinking during the episode: I was so glad that Margaery got caught in that lie about being gal pals with Cersei. Smirky little jerk finally made a misstep, though she recovered well enough. Also, I have to keep reminding myself that Show!Loras is older and less belligerent than his book counterpart. The guys who arrested him would definitely be dead if they tried that with the character from the books, but it might be a better idea to take his chances and go quietly. He was grabbed from behind by around five dudes when he wasn't expecting a real fight, in any case.

I was gonna say, lol, seems like he's following his story trajectory quite well. The Tyrion of Dance is an out-and-out villain in many ways, and that would probably be too far, but becoming annoying? That's just the character.

He'd also be the guy who couldn't hack it on the wall, so he just quit when he realized it wasn't a vacation. If he wanted respect, which I think he definitely did, he wouldn't get it by leaving. All he'd get would be another nickname.

With respect to Tywin's hatred of Tyrion over his dwarfism versus Joanna's death: I agree, I think it's an issue where one would be excusable but both together are intolerable to someone like Tywin. I'm not a believer in AJT and in fact dislike the idea that any of the Lannisters aren't Tywin's, but at least on the issue of someone who can say something about it, it doesn't need to be someone directly privy to the information. For example, while Howland Reed might come out of nowhere to tell Jon about the Tower of Joy, I have little doubt (see what I'm doing here?) that Lord Baelish will be relaying that particular chestnut on the show. This isn't because he was present, but because he's the only one with enough info who could just figure out the rest. Now, on the show they have presented Olenna and Varys as Littlefinger's intellectual peers, and Varys is in a position to be able to figure something like AJT out. Heck, for all we know Tyrion is Varys' ace in the hole. That's basically all to say, don't give up hope. Even if I don't personally agree, I know how fun it is to theorize, even more when our pet theories make it onto the screen. And goodness knows that my personal pet theory (Ice-Tommen as the valonqar) has little to no traction, so I know how it feels to champion a tough theory.

I've seen this sentiment before, and I am not entirely sure why a group of people referred to as the Faith Militant would be less, well, militant than they appear to be. Lancel, for his part, appeared to be a peaceful monk-ish sort in his first scene as a Sparrow, so I just thought they ramped up their tactics once they got some real juice. As I said before, it's been a while (is that my new catchphrase?) but it just seems to make sense that they're a bit fanatical, given that they are an off-the-beaten-path offshoot of a mainstream religion calling for sweeping changes in the culture. Like the Ellaria issue, I don't have a big problem with it.

That's the interesting thing. Everyone wants someone who'd have known about it to come out and talk about it, but is it possible that Baelish could figure out RLJ on his own? If anyone without every single piece could figure it out it's Littlefinger.

Oh yeah, during the Jon/Mel scene I couldn't help but think she's looking for more kingpower. As soon as she saw him last season and had that expression like "WELL HEY THERE BRO" I had a feeling that she knew about RLJ. Her continued jonesing for it is only another sign of the theory being true, IMO. What clues have we gotten thus far on the show, and how many of them were in this episode (lol) ? - Ned promising to talk with Jon about Momma, meaning it was something he'd have to sit down to take in - Stannis saying Ned wasn't the type to just swan around - Baelish and the story about Harrenhall - Mel having the hunger for Jon - Barristan's story about Rhaegar being a real swell guy I really wish we could have gotten a chance to hear the Knight of the Laughing Tree story, but it makes sense that it would be cut, and now it'd be weird. Can anyone think of any other show-only hints we've gotten re: RLJ?