CletusMusashi

Another reason that Xander feels killing Angelus is a no-brainer is that he's already been through the "What do you do when someone turns into a vampire?" schtick: In the pilot, he had to kill Jesse. After that, the writers don't like to talk about Jesse. But his best friend who ended up having to kill him probably still remembers. And making exceptions to the rule for people who you like less... probably not a thing.

I'm very on board with the "Cersei brings out the worst in him" factor. Not that he's a saint anyway, but things like raping somebody next to their dead son, or kicking a kid out a window, are not every day occurrences for him. He's still guilty. She doesn't have some magical hypnotic eye-beam that turns him evil. But she is, very definitely, a trigger. Hardly the only trigger, but possibly the strongest. And Jaime knows this. It didn't click in for me until this season, when he was still stuck working around the castle day after day without any twincest action- but, he joined the Kingsguard before Cersei was there. He served under the Targaryan regime. Which means that 20 years or whatever ago, he actually did volunteer for a life of celibacy, away from the temptation of his crazy evil sister. And then she married Robert, and so she is still right there making things complicated. And evil. Because, to paraphrase "Order of the Stick," Jaime isn't the good twin, he's the neutral twin. And whenever you mix neutral with evil, you get more evil.

Wow. ETA: OK, I've got one. How does Robin keep up on current events? Lysa keeps him abreast.

I think I now understand the Hound's armor choice. As a former KIngsguard, I've kind of been wondering why he never upgraded to a full suit of plate armor. (Minus the helmet, obviously- no main characters are allowed to have head protection! Which, when you think about, explains a lot about some of them...) He obviously recognizes its usefulness. Just watch the chicken scene in "Two Swords" where he repeatedly uses his arms, which do have plate armor, to block heavy sword chops while he's on the floor. And simply wearing more plate wouldn't be any heavier than the lamellar over maille combo that he rocks instead. But Brienne's difficulty getting in and out of it without help could be the answer. When trouble is starting, can you honestly see Sandor Clegane wanting to sit still while somebody else laces up his armor for him? His normal protection consists of a long shirt and a vest, basically. Two things that he can put right on with no fuss or bother. It wouldn't even surprise me if the arm plating were riveted directly onto the maille sleeves.

Sunnydale was like Springfield. It was however big the episode required it to be.

Hey, I liked that Lion and Boar song! I think Joffrey did, too, but he wasn't going to let a little thing like that get in the way of torturing somebody. And speaking of that event... did we ever get a decisive answer as to who was behind Robert's "accident?" For a long time I just naturally assumed it was Cersei, but when she was telling off Jaime for being selfish and not magically teleporting out of prison to be with her, she listed Robert's sudden death as one of the things that she was stressed out about. Oh, I don't take that to mean she actually cared about the big oaf, but it does sort of indicate that she was not the one behind it. So... Littlefinger? I figure Littlefinger is behind everything else, he might as well be behind this one too. Kill Robert, and it's a lot easier to kill Ned. Kill Ned, and of course Catelyn will marry you... first you might have to invent a railroad track to tie her to, but he probably had a whole 'nother plot going with some inventors in Dorne to take care of that.

That place is even crazier than the Dreadfort. I mean, Roose Bolton employs some wingnuts, sure, but at least he knows they're crazy. Up in the Eyrie, though, everyone with any power is a few monkeys shy of a barrel. They shouldn't name it after an eagle nest. They should name it after whatever you call an attic full of bats.

I actually liked the Essos scene. Instead of the same old "conquer, rinse, repeat" that we've been seeing, she's seeing what happens when you leave behind a power vacuum. My only complaint is that it was far too quiet. Dramatic does not have to mean forcing me to turn the speakers all the way up to hear what you're saying. Brienne and Pod are off to a good start. Never thought I'd laugh at somebody lighting a rabbit on fire and stomping on it. Definitely one of those jokes that need proper context. How do people survive those winters up in the Eyrie, anyway? Seems like food supplies and fuel could be issues. My bet is that Lyssa has eaten at least two relatives. Look out, Sansa! She's fattening you up!

My fanwank on that: when you psychically bond with an animal, while still maintaining your own intellect, something has to give. Wargs, when remembering their observations as an animal, lose all concept of metaphors. And also, of precise taxonomy. So when they try to remember which were "Crows," and which were just regular crows, and which were ravens and whatnot, the wargger guy gets a really bad headache and starts bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose. It would be a lot easier if the Watch called themselves the Kangaroos or something.

So two of the things he loves most are persuading others... and bragging about how sly is. Shouldn't he be better at the second one by now? Olenna left Margey in the dark just as much as Littlefinger left Sansa. And it's good strategy, because it keeps them from acting guilty. But when it comes time for the big "I saved you!" reveal... try thinking about it for a second. How long did the plot take? And you're only now standing there like "Duh... what do girls like, anyway? Oh! I know! Watching me kill the guy who just saved them, and then listening to me brag about how I did it all to advance my political aspirations! Dude, I am so in!" Olenna is as big a powerplayer as Littlefinger, but she's not a narcissistic sociopath, so when she finally bragged about it she remembered that an important reason to list might be with "I did it for you." Littlefinger could have used almost the same argument. Obviously, Sansa wasn't about to marry the Joffster, but there was enough obviously traumatic history there that it wouldn't have taken a genius to come up with: "Yeah, his administration was profitable for me personally, but I'm not a total asshole. I've seen the way he treated people. You, your family, yadda yadda yadda..."

There's a really well-argued hypothesis bouncing around on TWOP that his character was never an assassin or any other kind of scary criminal at all. He's just a shoemaker or something who ended up in the Watch and is so terrified of becoming somebody's bitch that he's created this whole image of what he thinks a hardcore professional killer acts like.

Ok, that's better. I watched it and walked away thinking that Duck Sauce was just lying his ass off to try to get into her pants, and that the Warlocks stole the dragons on their own. I was watching the episodes as quickly as I could in order to send them back to Netflix and get the next disc. (This is the first season that I've actually had a week to think about and rewatch each episode.) Apparently I missed a few nuances. Screw it then. I'm Team Targaryan.

I think it may be a bit of a stretch to assume that thre's a big problem with seperating the good masters from the bad in Mereen. Sure, not all slave masters are the same. Real life history gives us lots of examples of how grey it can get. But Mereen isn't real life. One reason there are still debates about the Civil War is that the south did not use crucified slaves as road-mile markers. And if it did, the more moderate factions of the upper class would have revolted, emigrated, or switched sides. Anybody who lives in Mereen and is of the slave-owning class can probably afford to jump on a boat to a better city. If they've watched the system that is profitable for them to stick with get this nasty, they've had time to think about it, and have apparently opted to stay. I was actually more bothered by the finale of Season 2 than I was by the masters of Mereen getting their gander sauce. In S2, on guy was locked in a vault and left to die of dehydration... because he was a liar? That's a bit rough. And the other girl, also got the same sentence for sleeping with Dany's not-actually-boyfriend? The whole thing seemed like a "Well, obviously he's not going to give me what I'm demanding, so let's just act like it's his fault I'm not ruling Westeros and kill him so we can make off with a lot of gold." In seasons 3 and 4, I've actually liked her. Something which never ceases to amaze me.

Me and another guy at work actually ended up watching "Passions" for a while just to see what the deal was with that. Yikes. If nothing else puts the quality of late-season "Buffy" into perspective, I guess "Passions" does. What a psychotically addictive crapfest that was... aka, the perfect thing for Spike to be watching when he's lost his ability to actually go out and act like Spike!

Maybe it's Tommen's evil cat, Maester Creep. Please let it have a monocle.

A White Walker walks like them. As soon as someone starts exiling really bad jesters to The Wall, one of them will point out how a black walker walks.

The funniest part is that's the closest thing to a positive review of the season that anyone's had so far.

But at least S6 felt like a continuation of the same story. Mostly. I mean, yeah, the magicrack thing was pretty hamhanded, but you could airbrush Rack out of the season, put in a better-written version of Willow losing her humanity through too much magic use, and have the series pretty much go the same way. The core characters were the same as in S5, and, having them face internal demons instead of external ones wasn't a huge retcon or hijacking or anything. But season 7 cared more about Wood, Andrew, and Kennedy than it did about Xander, Willow, or Giles. And it probably cared more about Spike than about Buffy. And if they want to make things a little bit more positive after the darkness of S6, I like that idea. But... couldn't they maybe start by not making Buffy into a pushy, irresponsible bitch? How does a show known for its amazing characters and dialogue go that wrong? I mean, hell, I'd shrug off Angel saving the day or whatever if it over all mostly still felt like the same show. But instead the writers were like "What's happening with Giles? What the fuck is a Giles? Hey, you know what would be great to put in this episode though? A joke about how people in China don't speak English! Ha ha ha ha!" It was one of the biggest drop-offs in quality of a final season that I have ever witnessed. Still not as bad as "She Spies," but technically worse than "Babylon 5," simply because the writing flaws on "Buffy" were deliberate. I mean, it wasn't like they just got screwed because a bunch of older cast members quit, like on B5. They just... got bored, and wanted to play with new toys.

I read it more like she's selling herself as his messiah, because none of the other potential meal tickets looked promising. Of the players available, there were two secessionists with no interest in expansion, one gay guy with no actual claim to the throne, one girl on another continent who can make her own fire just fine, one cranky but fairly dependable guy who's pragmatic enough to change religions if you show him a few miracles... and one crazy little inbred shit who is destined to self-destruct whether you help him or not. Stannis is stuck with her because she's stuck with him. I don't think she's going anywhere until a better partner shows up.

Blame Ser Allister? I like it. He's a dick anyway so why not? I disagree about the armor looking like cardboard, though. To me it looks like it's made of bed mattresses. Which, until now, I found funny, but as I stop and actually think about it... padded armor isn't the worst of options n a cold climate. Oh, it certainly doesn't have the stopping power of metal, but one reason I stopped wearing steel-toed shoes was how cold they got during the winter. I'd rather not have to endure that extra chill factor over my entire body during the 99.9999 per cent of the time that they're not fighting anybody at all, but rather standing on top of a high, windy, wall of ice and stone. So maybe that's one thing the Watch got right. And as I get serious here, The Allister argument is looking better too. High-ranking exiles continue to be high-ranking when they reach the Watch, so the Watch's trainers may very well indeed be top-heavy with people like him. And by people like him, I mean urban crowd control types rather than actual military minds. You know damn well that if Bronn or The Hound or Tywin Lannister were stuck running things there you'd see a much higher survival rate. If you could somehow actually keep them there. It actually might have been a great place for Eddard Stark to end up, when you stop and think about it. If he still had a head, at least. Thanks, Joffrey. One more way the little shit screwed things up for everybody. ETA: It's actually just Sam's armor that's made of bed mattresses. The rest just wear leather and fur, but a lot of that leather, I admit, looks kind of like it's made from car mats. Something to bear in mind for your Game of Thrones Halloween costume.

I think they might have had a much stronger defensive line set up if any accountants had been exiled to the Wall. We've heard so much about how under-funded they are, so what's the primary tool which each man defends a 700 foot high wall? A sword. Not even a sword and a cheapass wooden shield that might stop a few arrows. Certainly not your own bow and arrow, or a bunch of javelins that you can throw down at people. When they're on the march, we see a few guys with axes, a few guys with spears, and a ton of swords. Way too much of the Night Watch's treasury goes toward a. swords, which, while probably the best pre-gunpowder sidearm you can have in a fight, have quite a few disadvantages against some even cheaper primary weapons, and b. Black dye for their emo suits. Black leather and black fur don't just fall from the sky in those quantities. In fact, they seem to be so rare that not one person in the entire wildling camp was wearing black fur, yet the Watch always has money for its handful of surviving men to look cool. Worry less about image. Try dressing in white occasionally. Not being seen a mile away by archers or warg-hawks is a good thing. It's not like the color of your enemy's terrain ever changes; you may not understand how the enemy actually manages to survive and eat there, but you do know what color will hide you, so try employing that knowledge. And put more emphasis on bows, spears, slings... especially now that the only guys who seem to know spears are useful have gone renegade. If all you're doing is walking through the snow dressed in black, with no shields or helmets, even a bunch of kids on top of a hill can massacre you by throwing rocks. Maybe that's what Walker Youth are being created for.

Which I suppose makes Rupert Boneham sort of a strange blend of Ned Stark and his usual Robert Baratheon persona. OK, here's two more that had to be done eventually, and one more just for shits and giggles. Spoiler tags are used to condense things, but there are no actual spoilers. "Gilligan's Island" "The Wizard of Oz" "King of the Hill"

That's one of the better arguments for it. But why shed his skin now? It's still early in the game. He should be cultivating his fancy improved self, not getting increasingly sloppy. It's not even like the new voice is more comforting, or that it's expected from him by people outside of KL. If either of those were the case, he'd have been talking that way in Season 1, to Catelyn at least. I may just throw in the towel and start assuming he's got something wrong with his throat lately. And it manifests when he's excited. And when he tries to fight it and get his voice pitch back up to normal, that causes his accent to slip, making the whole problem even worse.

Hey Bran, sorry about the whole "wishing you and your group would get to be in an actual plotline" thing. If you get out of this, you can start having visions of a four-eyed crow, okay?

Scene schmeen. I want a whole episode of that.