stillshimpy

Yeah, as a plan, it stinks and exists to be in direct contrast to Varys "somebody has to give a fuck about the people because you all kind of historically and traditionally suck at it." Great. So the citizens of King's Landing can just be like Moscow under siege and eat each other? Cersei better hope that the dead can't rise South of the Wall because King's Landing is already positive stuffed to the gills with dead people, is going to have a lot of starving people soon. Or not, as the great battle of "Did you ever think about posting a fucking lookout? Because I think I've found a slight flaw in your battle strategy, Yara/Asha. How'd you let that sneak up on you??" seemed to be about restoring King's Landings supply lines since Cersei's plan was ...typical of Cersei in how long it was likely to solve any problems before creating massive new ones. Nice of Euron to stealth his way (in a giant ship that you'd think wouldn't be able to just suddenly fucking be there) to a solution for her. I think he must have sailed through a plot hole to get right up on her shiply business like that. Also, I raise a fist in solidarity to the person pointing out that GRRM clearly didn't do a lot of research into what it would medically mean to have a bunch of soldiers castrated (I'm just going with castrated because I really am not interested in dwelling too much).

I get so nervous whenever HotPie pops up because I always expect him to die in some terrible fashion, likely involving an oven. It's amazing how the show can have a guy whose main calling is baking and every time I see the poor kid, I'm terrified for him. "Oh God, it's HotPie, the decent and kind, well we know what that usually bodes...it's bodes inventively and horribly dead. Get off the screen, HotPie!! It's the only way you'll live!" But it also just about broke my heart to have him tell Arya "Friends don't pay." Arya and the concept of friendship, it must seem like something from a forgotten life. When Arya announced that she was Arya Stark and she was going home, I think it was meant to imply to finish up her Stark business. She doesn't think she has anyone to go home to. So I was momentarily all "HELL YEAH, a reunion with Jon!" but of course, he's off to have some really uncomfortable sexual tension with someone we all know is a blood relative instead. "Maybe I'll just keep my emotional distance" underlying theme for a person's psyche. That would tend to be a normal reaction to "hey if I like someone, they end up dead either by my hand or someone else's and it's always horrible. No one I care about has the 'die fat and happy, surrounded by grandchildren' as a behavioral conditioning device.

I noticed that they deBarbied the Sand Snakes a bit (more than a bit) so that they were no longer quite so, "Hi, we're sexualized to an unnecessary degree that is pointless in this plot" and I did appreciate that. It made perfect sense that Theon broke and jumped. A lot of these characters have been hideously traumatized and I like that the show is being mindful of that in the character actions. I guess poor Grey Worm is off to his death, seeing as whenever anyone has a sexual encounter on this show that isn't deeply disturbing, it's like the Harbinger of Death. "Hey, look! People having sex wherein no one is being treated with violence or as a piece of meat. That's nice. I suppose we ought to get about ordering their tombstones though because that never ends well on this show." I really hope the show didn't just have Nymeria show up so that we could be more fully devastated when she's killed because this show and direwolves, man, because they are so expensive to render they tend to only show up for important plot points. Here's freaking hoping that was just a bit of fanservice, long overdue after some of the shit they've pulled with the direwolves. Tossing out a head last season just felt like the biggest "fuck you" to the fans, so here's hoping this was the "in retrospect, we hear you, and here, have a bit of resolution that isn't horrifying" as an apology. I have essentially no idea what happened to Jorah. No one in this house does because my husband and I were having a pleasant "shielding our eyes behind our hands, now we will begin to converse loudly to cover the sounds, JESUS SHOW, this is a pleasant way to spend time, how are you?" but I'll just assume that Sam basically gave Jorah a manual chemical peel and leave it at that. I say in all seriousness: Hooray. So much less shit this week.

Whereas that is true, we do know that the show gave us the Bedpan Follies in a seemingly unending montage of liquid poop. I'm pretty sure that people can deem that bad writing without knowing what the point of that was because unless we're going to discover that dragons are repelled by liquid Maester Feces, that seems a safe one to deem pointless for anything other than making the audience squirm. Admittedly, here's hoping it was pointless because if it really does come down to "The answer to all was contained in that Shit Shower" then the series finale might be pretty freaking unpleasant. Although we learned the invaluable lesson of the importance of slow digesting carbs, I guess. I'm with @Dev F on this one, whether or not it is a character note or not is beside the point in the "That was a lot of shit to go through for the entire point to be something they could have included in the darned previously to remind the audience."

That's what I thought but then Walder said he was back in his cell, I just assumed it would be at Riverrun. I had no real reason for assuming that but I thought they were stating that specifically to explain why Arya wouldn't be crossing paths with him there. I think the show wanted to maintain Arya's ability to move around Westeros, looking like Arya, without having run into anyone who would know her as Arya on sight/or it would be exceptionally strange if she did cross paths with him without telling Edmure who she was, even if he hadn't seen her in many years. Admittedly, show Edmure has been depicted as such a weak-willed man with terrible fighting judgment, that I can't think of a way in which he'd be useful. It just would be rather odd if Arya had been in the same castle as Edmure for however long it took to set that whole, "Come, eat, drink, be buried" party and she didn't set him free. I suppose she could have done it wearing someone else face just to make sure that no "little birds" in anyone's employ could learn of her presence. ETA: By the way, my entire reaction to absolutely everything involve Euron is basically, "Oh ugh, him again" but I kind of assumed that the present he referenced for Cersei was actually Highgarden because, without food, they're screwed. The Dorne storyline seems to have been as popular as poison, so I thought perhaps Euron was off to menace the crap out of places that currently don't really seem to have heirs but have crucial resources.

I may simply be misremembering but I thought when last seen Edmure Tully was at Riverrun as opposed to The Twins? So isn't he in someone else's dungeon? Perhaps next they'll ship him off to Harrenhal and he can just write the extensive travel guide to the Seven Kingdom lockups because the man has seen the inside of a few cells by now. He's probably somewhere dank, hoping for the invention of the hot-tub by enterprising wizards.

Thank you, that entire thing seemed to exist to let Lyanna Mormont speak truth to Patriarchal power a bit and I'm all for that but it was almost entirely nonsensical. If John's trying to say there will be compulsory service, dude, it's not like you can be trained to fight well quickly and frankly, most of that kind of battle depends on well developed upper body strength and skill. Not in an either/or capacity. You can't just instantly stir up fit soldiers in that kind of battle. You can't just conjure a skilled army with a decision to do so. It was meant to be a "Hell, yeah!" type of moment and it was more of an "Hell...huh?" because Jon's talking about fighting that army of the dead that cut a swath through brothers of the Night's Watch, what in the world does he think the children (or the untrained) are going to be able to do that will help? Trip them?

Well, to my mind "She's found a way to murder every one who...." Is a pretty concise and specific piece of intelligence. I know he's back from the dead and all but surely Jon knows what the word murder actually means. I don't think Jon's thinking Cersei runs around killing people herself, so the implication would clearly be that she has people murdered, I'd think. Jon knows about Bran too, that someone tried to have his brother murdered. I don't know that Sansa could have gone into a ton of detail there or that she would have to since they are both standing there because of the Red Wedding. Jon knows that the Lannister Army doesn't have to be present for someone to be working for or on behalf of the Lannisters.

It's not that they didn't prepare them specifically for King's Landing, it's that -- as Jon said in this episode or perhaps it was Sansa -- but the end result was the same so screw it: He taught his girls one thing and the boys another. He told his boys a version of the truth of what the world contains -- not all lords are good, or ladies pure and false flattery exists so therefore so do liars -- and he told his daughter that he'd choose strong, brave, good men for them to marry. That's fine if you can guarantee they never leave that bubble, but if you know you've taught your children that, don't take them to King's Landing. They won't be prepared, you barely were and you apparently already knew the world was capable of some serious shit, fought-in-a-war, Ned. Lost-my-betrothed-to-being-burned-alive-by-the-King (and that's the NICE version Cat was told and Ned protected her from in full) , Cat. Now, I've only got one son and it's not like I misplaced a ton of other children or something, so he's my only one, so I can't say this for certain that I'd treat both boys and girls with at least something resembling an equal heads up "be prepared" ...but I sure as shit at least taught the kid to look both ways on streets and also? Be careful with people you don't know, be careful with people until you know them really well and even then? Don't be blind." He didn't need to teach them about King's Landing for quite a while, but he should have held at least a family meeting, I'm thinking when he knew they were bugging out to there. Barring that, no one can be so sheltered that they truly don't understand that people aren't always good or sincere. Hell, you've met the Northern Lords, it was never a good plan because sooner or later, they'd meet someone not their parents, in circumstances they couldn't control?

No, they weren't stuck in the same situation. Arya had to fight for survival among everyone she met, no matter where she went, with the protection of her anonymity to help aid her. She'd have been in a far worse situation had it been known that she was Arya Stark because then, instead of hurting her, they'd have ransomed her back to the Queen. Right back to where Sansa was among adults, all of whom were trying to use her specifically because of who she was and knew that they were doing it, as a person with not just non-existent experience in this, she'd been taught to actively trust people like the Queen for her entire sheltered life which was half her problem. She was sheltered. As was Arya, but Sansa pursued her dutifully expected role and Arya pursued the things she was naturally better at and appealed to her more. In the books, Arya is initially jealous of Sansa, she doesn't feel superior to her. Sansa is the one that is considered to be doing it right. Sansa is learning her lessons the same way the boys are, in the way their parents assigned to them. Arya rebelled not because she hated it all, she hated that she wasn't good at it (in the books) it's the series that removed that part. That Arya's and Sansa's differences are also about sibling rivalry. It's just Arya's choices gave her at least a heads up on some things to do. She was accepted and primarily protected for quite a while when Sansa was alone in a pit of vipers, who all knew what they wished to do with her and why and she was just trying to unlearn every childhood thing she'd valued and believed. They were both remarkable and amazing to survive but Arya's was a quest for survival and finding her family. She had a variety of people with her for quite a while. She had it hard but Sansa did also and arguably worse. All of these people were used to court intrigue and backstabbing as a way of life, having to be insincere to uphold your own interest and she was learning that stuff on the fly. It's never going to be a contest anyway but if it was, the only person out of all of that going to is comparable to the journey would be...Jon. Actually. Jon's journey to the Wall stripped him of a lot of his childhood illusions shattered along the way, including anger at his father for not telling him how the world really was, or what the Wall really was. Then first season Jon, on this show, really not setting stiff-upper-lip standards the way book Jon did. That kid was so emo I kept expecting him to have CW style music playing underneath his scenes. And both of their storylines revolve around what their (at least in one case supposed) identity in that world was reacted to and used by those around them when it came to their worth. Arya had to lose her identity wherever she went so that she wouldn't end up in Sansa's position and she knew that would be her fate, they'd send her back to the Queen. Yoran hid her identity for her and then that's what kept her alive throughout, that and her wits. Sansa had to stay alive with everyone knowing full well who she was and coming up with new and horrible ways to use that against her, while she was being surrounded on all sides by people who were trying to use her. That she kept expecting that her rescuer would show up is sad as hell, but then the poor kid took so long to fully lose her Starkianess that every time someone new showed up looking to use her for something, she mistook their kindness for ...actual kindness. They have both had it really hard because all they had to was rebuild their entire world view while being hunted and Sansa had to primarily live by her wits against people who had done this their entire lives and had successfully murdered kings. She's done okay. She took forever to let belief in this world's innate goodness to fade into history but since that was all she had there with her, her Needle of sorts, I can understand why she did. Eventually, she just stopped really being Sansa Stark and became a thing shaped by her experience. So did Arya, it seems but both suffered a lot for it. Sansa had to be locked in a tower and treated as a chewbone for Ramsay's inner savagery before her belief in people could die that fully. Arya's did too. One looked a lot better and required participating in court intrigue (lose every family lesson you ever learned or you die) as a Stark, whereas the other one was heartbreaking on such a level that "I snapped like a wet carrot and for two years was murder incorporated with nothing but vengeance as my companion, my soul stopped there and was frozen, I thought it was lost forever" makes turning out as an assassin not really all that bad, given how much it must have devastated her to see what had happened to her family. All the Stark kids suffered terribly but Arya's damage may be repairable. That scene at the fire suggests it's possible that she'll someday see people as possibly at least good in larger measures than they are bad. I don't see how Sansa ever does that when the people who could have saved her were her father's sworn bannermen and did she help get herself into that mess? Oh hell yes, she did. But that isn't the same as even coming close to deserving that much world destruction for her.

You didn't come across as preachy at all, @glowbug :) It's good to see your screenname too and I enjoyed your posts :) Thanks for sharing those insights :D

Typically neither is used any longer, @glowbug. Different forms of Personality Disorders with _____ tendencies are usually the terminology/diagnosis used at present. But it's a bit like saying, "People aren't called manic-depressive any longer, they are called bipolar" and that's partly because there are multiple ways to be bipolar. So it wasn't that either was found not to exist or exist to the exclusion of the other, it's that as with most things relating to terminology associated with mental illness and dysfunction. It was, as most things are with mental health, just more complicated than it seemed when those terms were first developed. Nuance, individual response, blah blah blah. Regardless, I'm going to bet that George R. R. Martin did not actually research either that extensively when creating the characters. Tryion springing a backflip to land at Jon's feet springs to mind. I don't think he was trying to write someone with any sort of personality disorder, diagnosable or easily labeled dysfunction. I think he thought he was writing a child's response to extreme injustice and how that would manifest strictly from Sansa or Araya's standpoint. He was writing a character, not adhering to diagnosable medical terms, current or otherwise. I think it's just the easiest stuff for us to reach for because they are terms most people are familiar with but it isn't that either was found not to exist. And that's okay. He's not actually writing a show about mental health or his main character is Monk and he should maybe understand how OCD manifests. He was writing as story, it has developed over time. But just judging by a variety of his medical details, I don't think he was shooting for Antisocial Personality Disorder, etc etc. We're just all arm chairing it and reaching for the definitions we're familiar with to try and make points. Honestly, at times I'm fairly certain the man isn't too clear on how lactation works, sex, sepsis and that's fine in this setting. He's writing characters and sometimes I see traits here and there of a variety of things but I don't think most are purposeful depictions of real maladies. They are just the stuff of good stories. There are a couple exceptions where I think it's a pretty purposeful thing but mostly he's writing characters without having the DSM5 at his elbow. For instance, he seemingly has no awareness of all the psychosexual stuff that he seems to be working out himself via these stories (don't freak, it's not as weird as it sounds and it's not the dusty stuff of Freud either). There's a difference between issues and disorders. In terms of the characters, it's bound to come up with outdated or super current terminology as we all try to why we think what we think and what determines our opinions. As I said earlier, it's a semantic argument vs. one that negates anything anyone is saying as a valid, point.

I wil spare you all the reasons I'm posting so strangely, I'm having a tech failure and I apologize) on the whole, "Everything before the word 'but' is horseshit" just made me roll my eyes so hard. I've seen that argument in the real world too and it's just as false in the real world. Presenting balance and contrast does not negate anything. "You're a good man, but you need to try ...." etc. Just because someone identifies part of a truth doesn't mean there couldn't be more to it. Or that there are never instances in which there is a counterbalancing point to be made within the same thought. However, what I did enjoy about the scene was that it was such a clear illustration of what the Stark mindset is. It's either/or ...it can't be this AND that.

So moving on from the evidence of extensive trauma in all things Stark: Jorah's appearance: The Stonemen lose their humanity entirely, don't they? Is that what's happening to Jorah in that cell? It was obvious when Sam was on yet another round of pan removal, I have to admit to having been somewhat fascinated because clearly, he's removing them from cells which meant that "Oh another round of....wait, no this will be different shit..." and Jorah's arm darted out in that positively deranged manner, what occurred to me was not, "Yay, it's Jorah!" because even though I recognized the voice, I was more struck by the "Oh shit, it's Jorah...and he just lunged his infected arm at Sam like he's becoming a Stoneman". I shudder to think what condition he'll be in by the time he finally sees Dany again.

I think there's also an argument to be made for common usage determining meaning, by the way, so please understand that above is just a semantic argument vs. actually negating the central point: Girlfriend has a murder problem. Here's hoping she works that out, no matter how it is labeled. But I am interested in her motivations and if they can be sussed out in time for her to not spend the vast majority of her life that way which was what I took the contrasting Hound scenes to be exploring.

Serial Killers kill with no apparent motive other than to kill. As you say, she's a mission-oriented killer, but that is not an interchangeable term with being a serial killer. She has a high body count and that makes her a killer, I'm not seeking to deny that. So do most people on this show and it's not a barrier to still viewing them as full people. Similarly, being a Serial Killer would not be an interchangeable term with being a sociopath (which was the term I used) although, it's absolutely usually something that goes hand-in-hand, apparently there are sociopaths who never harm a soul. People use the terms psychopath and sociopath interchangeably and they aren't interchangeable. Sociopaths have the ability to understand right and wrong. They even have a conscience, even if it doesn't stop them (often, there are literally people who classify as sociopaths who don't break societies laws ) and they may have a much weaker understanding of right and wrong, but they aren't incapable of knowing the difference. Really easy example: that serial killer in Georgia who was caught because even though he'd murdered a string of women, the last woman he abducted had her dog with her. He released the dog at a gas station/rest because he thought it was wrong to kill the dog. That's the way he was found. Her dog was found alive and was microchipped. So they checked all available security footage and matched the guy to a drifter who had been seen in the area and speaking to the victim prior to that. She was trained in self-defense, it's a thoroughly awful story, but he was caught because he for whatever fucked up reason in his head, was able to differentiate between right and wrong enough to understand "I shouldn't kill this dog for no reason" ...and yet wasn't able to apply that to a person. Point being that he clearly was capable of doing so he was just actively choosing not to because he wanted to kill her. Sorry for that grim real-world gig but there are a lot of reasons that Arya is not a sociopath and there are other that would really take her out of the Serial Killer realm too. Arya is an incredibly traumatized person but she's killing people for vengeance not because she's compelled to kill or has lost all sight of what is right and wrong. She's a killer but she's not even a contract killer or a mercenary. She kills people she believes are her enemies, the enemies of her family, or responsible for the death and suffering of her family. Right up until she saw Robb at the Redd Wedding, where she seemingly suffered a full-on psychotic break (and my god, who could blame her, even if the way that manifests is horrifying to me) Arya had an incredibly strong sense of right and wrong. She's not a sociopath, she's not a psychopath and she's not a serial killer. Now, she's in need of a thundering herd of psychiatrists at this point but she's very damaged by things that were done to her and in front of her. She was broken in a lot of very jagged ways, as was Sansa, and the shards can be either sharp or brittle depending on the person but what I saw at that campfire was a person who, having achieved huge chunks of her "I will avenge my murdered family" goal, had to ask herself who she was killing and whether or not they personally deserved it. For all the world, it looked like she took a damned pass on killing enemy soldiers because she saw them as human beings. It wasn't an automatic thing to her, clearly, she threw out things that were tests but she didn't kill those soldiers the last we saw. Even if the lot of them turn up as corpses, unless we see her do it, the last we saw she was eating dinner with them and not killing the shit out of everyone. Now, maybe the next time we see her she'll be stuffing whatever meager possessions they possessed into her pockets as she walks away from their slaughtered bodies with a cold smile on her face, or maybe we just saw the first moment of clarity in her healing process. I'm hoping for the latter. Frankly, I hope that Arya gets a chance to kill the living hell out of Cersei and doesn't do it because she realizes it won't fix anything but it's this show so pretty much no chance for that but I can hope.

Good point. Sansa knows Littlefinger well enough to know he's not in some kind of lusty tizzy to get it on. She also knows that's the game he played with Lyssa and heard what he had to say to Lyssa when he killed her. She saw how he played his alleged desires that were really just power grabs. When Sansa said to Brienne "I know exactly what he wants" she wasn't talking about her hand in marriage or sexual leverage, oh sure, he'd use both but what he wants is something different than that and Sansa knows that. She already sidestepped his attempt to turn her into Lyssa 2.0 with that "I want what I've always wanted ...." blah blah blah but she knew what part to focus on there. Not "...I want my beautiful queen" ....she already knew him well enough to get that the "I want what I've always wanted..." . Sansa knows he wants the Throne in the final analysis and that people are pretty much meaningless to him as anything other than pawns in his schemes. So yeah, she knows that he wants Jon to fail. He wants them all to fail so that he can win and rule over all. He just has to destroy everything that's in place first. She just now understands how to play parts of that game back, so I think you're right and whereas a lot of that was sincere at least some of it was theater for LF because whereas she knows they need the Knights of the Vale, she also knows just how many Kings LF has had a hand in killing to one degree or another already.

Except Arya doesn't want to kill people because she's a sociopathic killer, she wants to kill the enemies of her family, the people who murdered her family. She's not a serial killer, she wanted to kill those who had made her suffer but this is the girl who got into all sorts of problems because she didn't really understand the peril in playing with the butcher's boy as the lord's daughter. Micah would always be the person to pay the worst price and she knows that. Sansa talked about how their father never wanted them to see how ugly the world was, but both Arya and Sansa have, in lurid, sanity-breaking detail. The Hound was always on Arya's list because of Micah. I know she's come a very long way and done a lot of horrible things, but Arya cared about people and injustice. She admired knights and soldiers and those soldiers were acting like the men her father wanted her to believe soldiers were, at heart. Simply doing a job, but not what the Hound claimed, not all men were born killers because they liked it. Even good men. Yes, I know that the Hound said most of that to Sansa, but Arya and the Hound hung out for kind of a while and she got to hear all about his life philosophy. In the previously was the visit to the farm and she was horrified that the Hound had taken their silver, etc. I take he hadn't killed them, as they were in a different location. But Arya has been viewing anything Lannister related as being like the Lannisters. I do think she changed her mind about killing them. I don't think Arya was going to deny the (hoped for) daughter of that man the possibility of ever even meeting him. Or that he'd never know one way or the other. I doubt she killed them, very much, she'd have been violating the guest right's in the other direction. They invited her and treated her as their guest. She can't kill them if her speech meant anything. She tested the good men and they passed.

And just like that, my dream of Cersei being killed by Joffrey, or Tywin, or Tommin, or Myrcella (whatever her name was) was born. I would love it if the end for Cersei is being fucked with by everyone she claims she loved only to be backed across a room by a March of dead Starks, accusing her of her crimes, driving Cersei absolutely batshit before killing her as Arya Stark. I want the parade of the dead to come for Cersei. Small problem of the Mountainstein and everything but I'm betting on the Hound being the one to take him the fuck out at long last. Not really speculation, by the way, just fond, fond wishes. I love Lena Headey but Cersei needs a hell of a death scene and sure, I remember the hand round her throat and everything, but here's hoping Maggie had a blind spot. If anyone has earned the right to kill Cersei, it's a Stark.

Arya hasn't been seen since she was nine-years-old and in King's Landing. Why do you think that Walder Frey's widow would recognize her? Again...face...pulled...off. That's part of the story Walder's Widow has to tell. I'm just going to leave this lie because I've made the point before but as that is essentially the only avenue open to Walder Frey's widow in explaining that everyone else who survived saw Walder Frey say those things, there isn't a lot of she can do other than mention a slight oddity in the facial region. So even though it's against what the Faceless Men are supposed to be the most they can conclude is that someone avenged them via the Faceless Men and that's predicated on believing this woman's account that will involve things with faces that will make her sound crazy, if she's not believed (hence the "we don't know what happened" because that's a crazy tale to have to tell and they seem to assume "something happened, but we know it wasn't that because....crazy tale.) If they believe her the evidence points toward Faceless Man. The last hope of the powerless. No one knows Arya is a Faceless Man and Walder Frey's widow doesn't know what she looks like. So if they believe in the credo of the Faceless Men then that takes the Starks (who are not powerless, just hurting for certain) out of the likely "Wonder who hired them"? Or if it's anyone who can pay, again, they are located in Bravos.

Sidenote of nothing important to the episode but which I cannot get out of my head: Hey guys, was the impact of that "Here comes the badass Greyjoy Armada (built in record time or comprised of not their best ships) " somewhat spoiled by the way their Sigil looked in full sail for anyone else? It looked like a bunch of infuriated uteruses were coming to conquer the land. All hail the scary Fallopian tube. Rare fail on the part of the art department who has managed to make a variety of crowns look cool(ish...nothing was helping the driftwood crown seeming anything other than...."wait, what the fuck do you guys actually build your ships from as there isn't a tree in sight and apparently you're making crowns out of actual trash". I honestly had no idea what that was supposed to be for a moment or two and wondered who the hell was under sail of the Reproductive Chart.

Yes, true. But the other conclusion to draw in the "Pulled off his face" thing with Widow of Walder being the only person not to die and Walder's body being presumably a thing of pies past because Arya had to be pretending to be Walder for a while now to send out all the invitations to "Any Frey that mattered" is that Widow Walder may have done it. Again, I really do think -- and I know she doesn't seem that bright -- that Widow of Walder will have to mention that "pulled off his face" part because the serving girls who weren't seen to be dying like flies but who apparently started to flee when they did saw Walder Frey tell them to pour everyone wine, then gave a speech without drinking and then...they ran away because projectile blood vomiting is against OSHA standards and who wouldn't? Leaving the surviving (and for all we know, knocked up) Widow of Walder Frey to tell a story about someone who then pulled off his face, revealing someone Widow of Walder has never seen who then says "Uh...the North did it." She's the only witness. So, people are either going to believe she did it, or they are going to believe Walder did it OR they will believe that someone can pull off their face which leads them to It was a Faceless Man but I'm not getting the sense from the story that they are all that well known except for whispered legends. It could go a variety of ways, but "blame the Starks" for "The North Remembers and Winter Came for them" combined with "how do you explain that the serving girls saw Walder put all of this together and were following his direct orders?" but blaming the Starks isn't high on the list, when the chief suspect would be....woman who didn't drink the wine. That was witnessed by fleeing serving girls, but they saw Walder Frey tell her not to so pretty much, she has to mention "Pulled off his face" and they don't believe in magic any longer, or they certainly don't very easily.

I had a friend (who was also my boss) who died, it wasn't even a suicide, and I was so, so angry for being left in the lurch. I can remember yelling, "how could you do this to me?" It's not rational, but I understand it and have been there. Killing the King is treason, even if you're the king and it's a suicide. It's a violation of the oath of office and your duty to the Crown in the abstract. Also, that was at least a bit of grief-rationalization based on the events Cersei set up. She already knew "Tommen betrayed us" and she was absolutely trying to save him from the Pyrotechnic proceedings. She wasn't howling with grief when she asked to be shown Tommen's face but honestly, she's done this twice before and is living out Maggie the Frog's prophecy anyway. Cersei knows it, at least to a degree. But she was planning on having Tommen retain the crown, she just underestimated what it was going to do to Tommen to see her blow up everyone without regard for what it might do to him. I agree, she was functioning under "Well, that makes no sense on an intellectual level" type of rationalization but what was she going to say to Jaime instead? "I didn't realize how lonely and fragile he was and stupidly had him left alone to witness something traumatizing that took away the things he actually did care about, like the Faith. I took away his wife, no matter how inappropriate she was for him, he was besotted with her, I took away his Faith because he couldn't see that it was being used against him and I left him alone in the world with me...and in a that room without so much as Ser Pounce to give him comfort to watch what I was about to do..." It was call him a traitor or tell Jaime "...I underestimated how fragile he was, didn't realize how alone he felt in the world anyway and was completely insufficient to the task of being a mother because my idea of love is really, really twisted" either because that much self-insight is beyond her or might kill her at this stage. Cersei and denial, they're likethis when it comes to the emotional apocalypse she has brought about. She always blames someone else for the death of her children with Tommen she was down to either accepting her rightful share, or putting it all on him.

She pulled off her face. She's going to be identified as a Faceless Man (non-gender specific division). That's what Walder's not overly bright bride saw. "He was Walder! He was Lord Frey, I saw it. He talked to everyone, he talked about murdering the Starks...and then he pulled off his face and said..." I think they might not necessarily believe her, for starters because "then he pulled off his face" is going to feature really quite highly in her narrative, even though she has the IQ of a spoiled plum, as far as we can tell. So, for one thing, the witness sounds insane and the serving girls were all doing what Walder told them to do too. So, let's review the evidence: Serving Girls see Walder Frey set this up. Walder Frey's nearly witless (as far as we know because that poor actress is apparently directed to "please, give off all the intellectual activity of a turnip, no....a little more open-mouthed, if you could...thank you, that's perfect...") widow then fills in the rest that highly features "And then he pulled off his face...." I think you might be underestimating how much of factor that will be in any retelling of the tale by said Sole Witness. Please remember, these are the people who can't believe that an Army of the Dead shambles forth, despite shit like legends and dying and....more than the occasional zombie sighting. I'm not too worried that Westeros CSI is going to draw the conclusion that it was the Starks.