CletusMusashi

I agree they're good when you can see them properly. Eventually, of course, the season comes out on DVD, and that's when I get to appreciate all the little visuals.

That helps. I don't have HBO, so the versions of the show I see are not exactly high-definition. I miss a lot of details in the opening credits. Just out of curiosity, I would still like them to give us some inkling of what a harpy is in their world, though. Maybe we'll eventually see a swarm of them attack somebody. I'd be happy to point them at a few targets.

Random final thoughts before the finale. The Harpies' name kind of sucks. Harpies were filthy scavengers who tormented Odysseus by stealing some of his food and soiling the rest of it. Sons of the "Insert Name of Impressive Predatory Warrior-Beast Here" would make more sense, because I don't believe they think of themselves as bad guys. Not sure, though, how many animals are left over that somebody in Westeros doesn't have a copyright on. They might have been left with a choice of harpy, inchworm, or capybara. Why was Ser Jorah allowed to wear plate armor in the gladiator match? That seems kind of unfair. Will Drogon fly back to Bedrock with Dany? If she shows up riding on a dragon, will the Stone Men worship her as a goddess? Or will they just try to sacrifice her to a giant gorilla? And speaking of which, where the hell is FrankenMountain? Somewhere in a tree, Bran Stark is sitting around saying "Wow. That guy's story moves slow."

I agree, Christie had some interesting stories. That's why I'm surprised by little I cared about her when she dies, as opposed to how other characters felt about it. I don't even think the actress is bad. I think she's just overshadowed by better ones. About the "power to take everyone of stasis" thing, I think the power issue is less about fuel and more about status. The PPE don't seem like the friendliest of cultures. I assume that they indulge in a lot of fighting and dueling and sudden Klingon-style promotions. If you want to stay in a position of power with people like that, you need them to like having you in charge. "Hey, guys? I wasn't able to talk the new food-species into sharing their gulanite with me. 'Cause they kidnapped my daughter. So can you go and kick all their asses for me?" would probably invite a lot of challenges. But: "I have landed our ship successfully and ordered the new food-species to refuel it for us. Now let's go out there and harvest!" would probably come across a lot better. And, one minor, random question... why don't the VC have something like modern handcuffs? That humungous-keyholed antique that Rafe was chained up with wouldn't even have been a great lock two hundred years ago.

So, when Purple Princess decided to eat Nolan, was that a sexual preference, as he himself assumes? Or was it just an "I don't know... this one's okay, but we had Irathient last week. Let's see what the new species tastes like?" Also, I'm curious what other things Indogenes were gentically engineered for. "Hey, Doc, we're all out of triple-A batteries. Got a spare toe?"

Please tell me Graham Greene was quitting the show anyway, so they had no choice but to accept it and decided send him out with a bang. Because if killing him off was by choice, then I need to break into the writer's room and bust some heads up. It felt to me like they were trying to do a Red Wedding, built the difference between theirs and Thrones' is that the actual Red Wedding did not kill off Rafe MacCawley. Strange how little I care about Christie. One second after her death, I wasn't thinking "Oh my god! They killed Christie! You bastards!" I was thinking about how Stahma felt about it. That's probably a sign that one character is more compelling than the other.

You know what I just realized? Major may well have already been turning into a zombie before Liv scratched him. Blaine has a weird habit of flipping out his butterfly knife, stabbing people, and then immediately flipping it closed without wiping the blood off. So it's always got DNA on it from whoever the last person he stabbed was. In this case, the last person he stabbed before Major was probably Big Asian Thug. So Major had zombie DNA stabbed right into his internal organs. Even in tiny amounts, I would expect that to be at least as likely to turn you as a little scratch wound.

Turns out, the above video is cut from a brilliant longer piece, involving quite a few cast members having fun.

I'm not even sure the Red God has a personality or "wants" anything, as we understand the term. I think it's more of an energy source. Various rituals can strengthen it and/or draw from it, and just like anything else there are rules to how those things function. Thoros knows ways to draw great power from it without burning infidels alive. Melisandre likes to use shortcuts.

You know something? I like that different broods theory. I do not know of a single species in which the egg colors in a clutch do not match. For example, one hen might lay white eggs and one might lay brown, but I don't think there is one specific hen that lays some white eggs and some brown ones. Whichever color she lays, the others will be that color too, because she only has one set of genes determining that. The hatchlings from that clutch of uniformly white or brown eggs can vary in color, sure. Because the color of the babies is determined by how the genes from two parents were shuffled, and the shuffle will vary from one individual to another. But the hen's eggshell color genes were shuffled long ago, before the egg that she hatched from was even laid. So three different colored eggs, if we base this on the biology of birds, lizards, crocodiles, anything whose egg color we know, actually, indicates three different mothers. Quite probably from populations which were pretty well removed from one another genetically. I'd guess that each egg was collected from a different corner of Essos, and represents a fairly distinct local subspecies. So if two of them are female, good. The first generation of offspring would still be dragons, which does have its own set of problems, but at least they wouldn't be joffrey-lizards.

About the greyscale: I think it worked dramatically, because it did help set Shireen up as a sympathetic character, as did many other details. But also, it had extrapolation value. It gave us foreshadowing to Jorah's situation, and, since it tells us that the disease's spread can be stopped, it keeps us from all just going into "Walking Dead" mode and yelling that somebody has to shoot Jorah. Oh, and also? It marks her as a sick child, rather than as a healthy young girl. This spared us from having to listen to everybody shipping her with Bran. About Jorah, or really about Dany... my take on her allowing him to fight in the games was that she realized he could beat those guys, and she was planning to use that moment to dramatically announce that he had proven himself and was now allowed to rejoin the royal posse.* Since the people of Mereen love gladiators, this move could actually gain some cred for her. And, about Melisandre... that bitch really likes sacrificing highborns, doesn't she? I'm not sure that's actually the safest team for Sansa to get rescued by. * "Not so fast, Ser Jorah. I said 'posse!"

still manages to fit into that fabulous dress!

Poor Hizdahr. Even when he was a king, the other high rollers publicly treated him like he was Meg Griffin.

Over the course of the week, there was speculation that Ramsay would bring not only men with him, but also his kennel of hunting dogs. I don't think that happened. For one thing, the operation went down pretty quietly. But more importantly, if there had been dogs involved, I think Melisandre would have said something. Probably something along the lines of "for the night is dark... and full of terriers."

Also, weren't most of those guys mercenaries, hired with his bank loan? He pays, they kill, that's the agreement. Anything that keeps them alive until payday is probably going to be acceptable to them.

I just wish Mereen's crowd security was better at noticing people walking in with bigass metal Harpy face masks. I mean, it's not like these people had backpacks or heavy winter clothing or anything. I did notice one maskless woman with a big bulky skirt getting fried by Drogon. Hopefully she was one of the mask smugglers.

Maybe Yara was sailing out after Reek, and bumped into Gendry's rowboat. And, you know how it is. They had a few drinks... one thing led to another....

So what's up with Bronn and his new girlfriend? I assume he'll be travelling back with Jaime and Prince Whatsisname. So will Josie and the Pussysnakes be following along as well? The sparrows ought to love them!

So, is that the last living giant? Without any of his people to build a new home with, he'd be a pretty good candidate to join the Watch. I think the language barrier would be worth dealing with, considering the benefits.

Welcome to the list, Shireen.

I don't mind missing out on watching Brienne and Pod watch the tower all night for a candle. But I would like to see her training him. I'd even accept a single montage, except that none of the four or five songs in existence are quite right for it. Too bad Pod's not a little more bearlike.

Wait a minute. If Hizdar is dead, and Dany is out on dragon sabbatical, who is in charge of Mereen during the latter part of this riot? Some foreign dwarf who doesn't even speak the language? The guy whose exile was never actually revoked? I guess Grey Worm would be Commander in Chief of the military, and Daario and Missendei could play a sort of good cop/ bad cop game when it came down to actually talking to people. Seems like things might go a little smoother if Varys were there, though. Speaking of which, was I the only one looking for Varys? "God damn it... I'll find him if I have to search every whorehouse on the continent... oh, hi, Arya. Seen Tyrion?"

So far, the only really fun thing to come out Arya's storyline this season was Lord Muppet's trip to Braavos. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing Meryn Trant die horribly as much as anybody! But meanwhile I'm keeping my spirits up with visions of how much he enjoyed that long, long boat trip during which Mace no doubt gave him an entire one-man performance of... whatever the hell the Westeros version of "HMS PInafore" is.

Wasn't one of Mel's big early selling points the whole schtick that "If you hadn't stopped Stannis from bringing me, I could have stopped those fires at Blackwater?" Well, then, what the hell, Red? Are you just a big liar, who doesn't want to admit that she can only cast like, two or three cleric spells a day, tops? Or did you deliberately let the entire camp burn down just so you could talk Stannis into burning one more person for your stupid "ooh, fire is shiny" god? Obsessive ass kings burning everybody they see, left and right. Didn't somebody fight a war over that?

Ramsay's plan could be as simple as sneaking in, killing only the few people that see them, slaughtering all the horses, and leaving. But, being Ramsay, he might waste too much time setting up big Hannibal Lecter displays and end up getting fried by Melisandre.