Fishslap

Yes that's true. But then Gregor Celgaine is also incredibly loyal to the degenerate Lannisters, and he's not especially heart warming. When it comes down to it the wolves were always symbols of the Starks, so as they go through the wringer so do the wolves. It would be weird to have Robb dead, Sansa being raped in Winterfell, Arya being a blind beggar in Braavos, Jon being murdered in a mutiny, Rickon in Ramsay's torture dungeon and Bran being dragged around the North Pole by a girl and then everything being right as rain with their wolves. I still say it's foreshadowing the death of these people. We'll see I guess. PS: Since people were talking about it above, Sansa lied to Jon because she's embarrassed I think. She did manage to fall in love with LF not too long ago, or at least make a misguided attempt to play him with her feminine viles. So she's both a rape victim after being married to Ramsay and a spurned seductress over her overtures to LF in that opening scene, and she's both angry and ashamed of both roles. Enough to keep it hidden from Jon probably.

But it means something right? Either they're dying to foreshadow the Starks they're tied to dying, or they are symbols of the stupidity of Ned Stark in S1. If his children are less stupid and honorable than Ned their wolves will die. My point was that human characters on the show can be flayed and have their privates cut off and it's all fun and entertainment, and then when a wolf that has had no lines so far dies fighting zombies people get upset. I just don't understand it.

I only have her word for it, but my mother told me she once dated Kristoffer Hivju's father back in the early 70s. She isn't eight feet tall though, and he probably shaved. Still...

LF wants the crown right, so he needs to get the major rivals out of the way as well as to rule the north to use against the Tyrells and Dorn. First he got the Barathions, Lannisters and Starks to self destruct by killing Jon Arryn and getting Ned killed to kick off civil war, and then he swooped in to secure control of the Vale after killing Joffre. Now he wants to use the Vale to take control of the north through Sansa, who he probably wants to marry if he can. And then finally he can turn the north back south on a decimated King's Landing and rule from the Iron Throne. Obviously he's completely missing the White Walkers and apparently the Mother of Titles and her dragons as well. But isolated inside the intrigue of Westeros everything he's been doing makes sense I think, and it still does. Agree on Mereen and the Iron Islands though. Nothing happens at all and the dialogue is at times cringeworthy. You could obviously add Dorn to that, although we were fortunately spared that this episode.

Always people forget stupid Ned. LF set him up because he wanted a war between the north and south, and Ned stupidly fell into his trap. Killing Jon Arryn was a way for LF to prod the drunken king into seeking out Ned and bringing him south, where he could be set up and executed for treason by feeding him information about the Lannister incest he couldn't help but act on, in an incredibly stupid way. This would then inevitably lead to a war, which Ned could have avoided in any number of ways if he had not been so stupid and predictable. LF is behind all of it, but Ned Stark is definitely the second link in that chain and LF's most important tool to get his war started. So in the great blame scheme in GoT Ned is in my mind in a healthy second place, ahead of King Robert, any of the Lannisters, Stannis, the Boltons or anyone else. Certainly far ahead of Bran. The only one who beats him is Littlefinger.

This was definitely a highlight of season 6 so far. They managed to explain Hodor and kill him off at the same time in a magnificent way, after I had been skeptical about the story telling in the first four episodes. He's like Ned Stark: once his function in the story was over they got rid of him. Ned's role was to be a stupid idiot who got manipulated into starting a major war and Hodor's to die protecting Bran. I wish I knew why it was so important to save Bran though. Right now he's an arctic hippie who has acid flashbacks and needs help to do everything. Whatever his function is it had better be something grand after this I think. I don't get why some people seem more upset by wolves dying than people on this show here. Weird stuff. Anyway, they are literary devices with no lines and I would not be the least bit surprised if Jon and Arya are the only ones left alive at the end of everything, now that their wolves are the only ones still alive. It might even be just Jon. We haven't seen Arya's wolf since season 1. As for the Layer of Eggs and Queen of Tedium I have been struggling to even watch those parts of the show for several seasons already. Not-Mongolian soft porn just isn't for me I guess. They should never have killed off Viserys is my analysis. Until they moved Tyrion and Varys there to salvage the eastern non-story he was the only interesting character there in my opinion. Just cross the sea or be quiet please. Oh and please land in Dorn to squash the fake accent feminist revolution there. I still haven't gotten over the Bad Pussy line from last season.

Penises are very underrated.

I don't know about this. It depends on how she leaves her training. Obviously she will have grown from all this even if she isn't nobody, and maybe she manages to steal a few faces and run off or something. Or maybe she just becomes something more than her trainers. It's been fairly obvious for a while that at least one of the people she wants dead will be spared so she can kill them. Might be Cercei, but for now my money is on Lord Frey.

But it`s so basic. In the case of Norse people still speak it on Iceland and you could just ask them. To me this is the laziness of some Anglos who imagine that English is the only language ever to exist. And if I made an English period piece and mispronounced half the words you`d laugh at it. And I laugh at Vikings. It could have been good but is not, mostly because of this stuff. Vikings didn`t have "an accent". They spoke Norse. And yes it is a language. Contrary to what British imperialists tried to convince people several languages except English exist in the world. Who knew right!.

It might if I called you Yhwoll because who knows how people pronounce things right? I mean you could ask them and everything but who knows???? Let`s just make something up instead, it`s so much more fun!

No, Tolkien`s Elvish was based on Finnish and that`s a completely different language group. I`m not sure how phonetically transliterate Finnish is, but I do know that neither English or Norwegian is at all. For instance, the English language uses a lot of -os but it basically never uses the corresponding sound. It`s either -å or -au depending on the word. I`m having a hard time even thinking of an English word with an -o in it where the -o is actually pronounced -o- Sure you could do it but it would probably sound a bit weird and most people certainly don`t. When it comes to Bjørn it`s perfectly simple to me: the entire cast is pronouncing it as an Anglo would pronounce an -o in most cases. But it`s an -ø, not an -o. To a Norwegian, thousands of which are actually named Bjørn, what they are saying is that his name is Bjårn. That`s how they`re pronouncing it. And that`s not a name. Nobody in the history of Scandinavia has ever been named Bjårn. Bjørn is the Scandinavian word for "bear" you see and pretty unmistakable. It`s like me making a period piece on English history and calling people Beb instead of Bob. And it really grates to be honest. Icelandic: http://no.forvo.com/search/bj%C3%B8rn/is/ Norwegian: http://no.forvo.com/search/bj%C3%B8rn/no/ Swedish: http://no.forvo.com/search/bj%C3%B8rn/sv/ Danish: http://no.forvo.com/search/bj%C3%B8rn/da/ Obviously since Icelandic basically is Norse that`s the key one for this show. If you bother with the links you`ll also notice that the Swedish -ø is the one closest to the mistaken -å used on Vikings. But it`s still unmistakably an -ø. You`ll also notice that all of them except Icelandic contract the -r and the -n into one sound with a very nasal -n at the end of the -r. I would therefore imagine that the best Norse way of pronouncing this would be with a rolling -r like in Icelandic, and not with the contraction of the three other languages, which is what is being used on Vikings. But you need the wovel right before we can even go there I think. Edit: I am not posting this because I enjoy torturing people (Well, maybe a little), but here is my nominee for Most Tedious Youtube Video of the Year: If you can watch it without falling asleep it will explain how to pronounce all Norwegian wovels including -æ, -ø and -å, and why the entire cast of Vikings is mispronouncing Bjørn`s name systematically. And yes it is the same in all four languages; Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic. The only difference is that Swedish uses the letters Ä instead of Æ, and Ö instead of Ø. But they are pronounced the same as their counterparts. PS: There are other names that get mangled a bit as well, including the name of the lead. The pronounciation of the name Ragnar varies wildly between at least the three continental Scandinavian languages. Danes basically try to avoid pronouncing anything, which is a source of frustration for the rest of us occasionally. If I was to brave a phonetic transcription of this name in Danish it would go about like this: "Gragnarhh". Except there`s no "G" at the start but just a vague gargling sound I don`t have a letter for. In Norwegian (And Icelandic), which is considerably more consistent between speech and writing, you still have an odd thing where this contraction is basically pronounced -ngn. So the name comes out as Rangnar, but with the first -n being very nasal and short and the -g almost gone. http://no.forvo.com/search/ragnar/The only people who pronounce this name more or less as people do on the TV show might be the Swedes. As you might imagine though this is not something I expect American producers to be able to find out during research. It is very esoteric and something I suspect most Norwegians don`t even consider. The Danish should though. Since I`ve been so dull I thought I`d better post this Norwegian satire of the Danish language. It`s slightly exaggerated. But not much.

Lagertha is high on my list. She just doesn`t come across as a believable character to me. I like all the English royals and the feckless Frankish emperor though. And Rollo of course. The rest are a bit clichèd for my taste, and Ragnar in particular.

Well I disagree. If you`re gonna make a show about Vikings or Scandinavians then you should learn how to pronounce the three additional Scandinavian wovels. It`s not pedantic but basic stuff. For reference these are Æ-æ (Like the -a in "arrogance", pfonetically a mix of and a and an e), Ø-ø (Like the -ou in "journey", phonetically a mix of an o and a u) and Å-å (Like the -o in "rotting", or indeed like the mispronounced -o in Bjørn from the TV series called Vikings. Phonetically a mix of an o and an a). These are placed at the back of the Scandinavian alphabets, as any six year old Scandinavian would be able to tell you.

Well it`s not Ragnar`s final adventure though is it? According to Viking tradition he dies when Ælla throws him in a snake pit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Lodbrokso that is what I assume will happen to him on this show as well. In other news, Rollo was not his brother, if Ragnar was even a real historical figure, and lived several decades later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo, Lindisfarne was plundered by Vikings in 793AD while the sack of Paris took place in 845AD. If Ragnar was 20 years old at Lindisfarne he should have been 70 at Paris, which he clearly wasn`t. My favorite though is Floki, who was a Norwegian boat builder who colonized Iceland to escape the Christening of Norway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrafna-Fl%C3%B3ki_Vilger%C3%B0arson. As far as I know he never set foor in either France or England. He might not even have gone to Kattegat, which is in Denmark and not Norway. It has some good points, but Vikings is basically an exciting story about the brave Washington, Lincoln and JFK conquering western Europe. Never mind that they never met and couldn`t have met or that they respectively did completely different things. We have us a TV show to make here!

Right! Well it is jolly peculiar that they don`t mention to the producers and the Anglo cast that the entire cast, and themselves, are consistently mispronouncing the name of a major character in the series. I would refuse to do a scene while doing this and make all sorts of trouble I think. Maybe that`s why I`m not acting on HBO shows.

I can deal with historical inaccuracies for plot purposes. The geography in Scandinavia is just a complete joke in Vikings though. Kattegat is in reality the north coast of Denmark and it is as flat as a pancake; basically an enormous beach. Yet in the series it is obviously on the west coast of Norway, which is where that part of the series is being shot. Why not either shoot it in Denmark or call the place Bergen or something, which is actually located on the west coast of Norway? What really bugs me though is the lingo. I`m not able to judge the Saxon or Frankish being spoken but the Norse is atrocious. Aslaug speaks it beautifully and Floki makes a decent effort of it, but all the others are absolutely terrible. And why do they speak with fake accents when they speak English? Either do the entire show in English or the entire show in Norse/Saxon/Frankish with subtitles. And either way, do it right! Even when the Norse words are right the pronounciation is absolutely abysmal across the board. "When am the massage to the post office" stuff really and complete Rude Hungarian Phrasebook time. But then even basic Scandinavian sounds are beyond most of the cast, which could have been fixed by talking to any of roughly 20 million living Scandinavians. And some sounds are beyond all of them, producers included, and are being mangled in every scene. For instance, Ragnar`s son is not named Bjorn but Bjørn. The correct prononciation of that wovel is not Bjorn as in "born" but Bjourn as in "journey". The entire cast should have been forced to walk around parroting "Bjourn, journey, Bjourn, journey" all day long until this sunk in. It is totally inconceivable for even a single viking to not have been fully aware of how to pronounce his name. Yet on this show none of them manage it. It makes me squirm with embarrassment in every scene he`s in. Is it really so much to ask that at least one Scandinavian consultant gets hired on this show? At least to get the names right? Even a token Scandinavian actor would help, just to point out some of the simplest linguistic flaws. I`m even free if HBO wants to hire me....