Conan Troutman

I think it was that Lannister squire (Lancel?) who, of course, fucked Cersei, who gave him a poisoned wine (what's with all that poisoned wine, btw?) so he wouldn't be quite in control when he took on that boar. To me it implies that Cersei was behind it. But maybe LF was on board and got the poison in the first place, who knows? Just wrote that in the episode thread: Yeah, I absolutely do think so. Would make sense to me. Maybe he didn't deem it as necessary, but why not make sure? A question regarding Bran: Didn't Jojen say at some point (relatively early after his introduction), when Bran asked about the three-eyed raven "The raven is you"? If so, is Bran trying to find himself there? Part of himself? Is he in some way connected to the old gods? Or maybe even the White Walkers? I really have no clue what they have in mind for Bran, but it's gotta be some kind of magical/supernatural thing, for sure. Re the hole in the floor: I say it's Tinyfinger, while clinging to his crazy mother's breasts and pulling her down with him.

I got the impression that the little sucker is actually not only her, but their son. Didn't they say at some point in their awkward exposition (not quite sexposition, thank the gods!) that they did consumate the marriage already, long ago? Would be great, now we not only got creepy Littlefinger, but also even creepier little Littlefinger (Tinyfinger?). Ew. And of course Sansa's got to marry that, ahem, product of their love. Once more: Poor Sansa (she should get herself a shirt with that...). Oh, and they were behind Arryn's death? Of course. I always thought Littlefinger's betrayal of Ned was more of a reaction to the circumstances and that he wanted to unveil the twincest thing to create chaos. Apparently, he planned to betray Ned all along and then hope that Joffers would do something stupid (granted, one can absolutely count on that...) so there's a war with the North. And now I'm quite sure he hired some old, subpar assassin and gave him Tyrion's dagger, too (maybe in co-op with Cersei). Maybe he's afraid that Tyrion will, at some point, see right through him and uncover the truth. That's why he tried a second time to get rid of him. Hell, maybe it was even him who planted the idea in Joffrey's head to assassinate Tyrion at the Blackwater? IIRC, he wasn't there at that point (wasn't he with the Tyrells?), but apparently that doesn't stop him from planning assassinations.

Ser Meryn: The people love their king. They know who keeps them fed. Jaime: Hodor, I've heard. Littlefinger: I risk everything, to get what I want. Sansa: What do you want? Littlefinger: Hodor! Margaery: We may be faced with an alarming number of weddings soon. I won't even know what to call you. Sister? Or Hodor?

Note to Burn Gorman: Please leave the other actors a little bit of the scenery as well, don't chew it all up. As horrifying as that scene was on first view, as funny it is on the second. Karl FTW!

I just rewatched the last episode, and I noticed that Allister (Alliser? Meh, I'll just call him Alice from here on out....) really digged into this chicken. Not all the chickens, sadly, just this one, sorry Sandor. Seems to me that it's a somewhat very specific trope that all the bad guys just can't help themselves, they really have to devour some food while assigning the good guys some shitty task. Had to think of that king from LotR, when he ordered Pippin to sing that song. Mouth full and all.

I think he eventually gets to sit on the Iron Throne - only to be killed by White Walkers or dragons five minutes later.

Don't. You. Ever. Utter. Those. Words. Together. Ever. Again! I want the White Walkers to get ahold of her and go to town. Her stare can't get anymore icey at it is... Wow, what an episode. I really liked the first half. But then a show made sure to remind me, that only a sick and twisted mind can actually enjoy this. Damn you, GRRM! At least we got that whole "who killed him and why and how" solved. Somewhat, at least. Yeah, he's still dead. Huzzah!

Preferably Jamie...

I think the lesson was a mix of "You gotta be more selfish if you want to survive in this world" and "Don't waste your time and energy helping the weak, it will achieve nothing anyway". And considering how Westeros usually rewards Stark-like acts of nobility as opposed to the brutal and selfish but smart ones, he certainly has a point.

I thought the reason he didn't care about Dany and her dragons was that they had a more pressing problem at the time. Now that the war's over, I think he might be able to turn his attention a bit more towards her. I wonder what he really knows, though - we don't know exactly what Dany's timeline on the show's supposed to be. Two episodes ago, she was 160 miles or so away from Meereen. And in KL, there may have passed a few days since then. Are those storyline supposed to happen roughly at the same time? I guess it's possible for them to march at a pace of maybe 30 miles a day. So she's probably not too far off, maybe a few days or so, but not weeks. Since a couple of weeks had passed between sesaons (according to Jamie), Tywin must've heard about Astapor and probably Yunkai, too. So I wonder why he didn't even mention those armies to Oberyn. Speaking of Oberyn: Really looking forward how that turns out. I agree that he didn't really believe Tywin and just acted stupid. Does Tywin really think he was able to fool him that easily? Or can just control him with a little council seat? If so, that's some serious hubris there, and by now we know that won't go unpunished. Hopefully, as much as I liked Tywin's scene with Tommen and Cersei. Pure gold. Constantinople: I can't imagine that neither Sam nor Jon told them anything at all about the mutiny yet. How long are they supposed to be back? A couple of weeks, maybe a bit less, but Sam teld Jon about Robb's death and that was at least about a month ago and they both arrived back at Castle Black in the last episode. "Oh, yeah, I totally forgot to mention, there was a little mutiny, the Lord Commander has been slaughtered and we're now a hundred men short. Didn't think it was important." Have to rewatch later, but that seems just impossible.

It's Games of Thrones, so probably nothing...

- It seems like Littlefinger was behind Joffrey's death. The fool, unsurprisingly, was totally in it and already had prepared Sansa's escape. Of course he couldn't be allowed to live. Too bad he was so, well, foolish. Or, to quote Tyrion: Is there an idiot in any village who trusts Littlefinger? Well, apparently yes. As far as the necklace goes: Olenna did take the jewel, but it seems that wasn't some kind of poison, but I guess she wanted to find out where the hell it came from. So this might lead to a Tyrell vs Littlefinger showdown at some point, if it's not just a red herring. As for Sansa: Things just keep getting worse and worse for her. At least she's kinda somewhat safe now or something like that, but that simply can't last long... - Tyrion said something like "Whoever killed Joffrey wanted to get rid of me, too". Makes me wonder: If it was indeed Littlefinger, why would he want Tyrion out of the way? Did he steal a huge amount of money from the crown and wants to cover that up? And if so, does he want to use the Iron Bank to get the means to conquer the Iron Throne? That seems like a move directly out of his book. But maybe Ser Davos will interfere with that one. - Cersei and Jamie, whoa, they're even more fucked up than we already knew (and that's saying something!). I guess that was a very unsubtle way to show us how Cersei brings the worst out of Jamie. Don't really mind her being raped by her twin brother besides her murdered son, though, even if I didn't think I'd ever write that sentence. Bitch really had it coming, so no pity from me.

I considered this, but it can't have been very long in the cup, a few seconds at most. Not enough time to fully dissolve. Look at candi sugar - you can make it look like a jewel, but it takes a couple of minutes to dissolve if it's that size. And you sure as hell don't want some chunks swimming around there to warn him. I think it has to be something that feels like a jewel (in case Sansa plays around with it a bit) but can still be opened rather easily, if you know how. Plus, it really doesn't make sense to involve Sansa if they don't want her to be incriminated in some kind of way. If you can't track that jewel back to her (and you can't, if it's completely gone), why use her in the first place? No, I think they want an empty jewel to be found, either to blame her and/or to gain control/leverage over her. But wouldn't that be even better? Sansa carrying the poison and Tyrion putting it in the wine? That'd be some evidence, if you really want to blame them. Why waste that away? No, I think either Dontos crossed Olenna by snagging Sansa away or they want some leverage to pressure her into something.

But the Tyrells have plenty of money already. I doubt Olenna would just plain steal anything. Directly from the neck of the wearer, no less. I guess one has to pull quite a bit to get a jewel loose, which you kind of have to notice if it's hanging on your neck. Unless it was prepared to come loose rather easily.

Yes, she probably could've brought her own poison. It's not that she'd be heavily searched. But there are other reasons to get Sansa involved. Maybe to gain control over Sansa. Olenna likely would just drop the empty "jewel" somewhere, instead of carrying it around for a while after she used it. That'd mean that it likely will be found and the blame will fall on Sansa - but she'll be long gone by then, presumably on her way to some place only the Tyrells know, possibly Highgarden. Or they really did wanted to blame her, but Dontos didn't play along and took her away. As far as motives go, I can think of two immediatly: A) Let Margaery marry Tommen instead and continue as planned. Olenna's interaction with Tywin seemed to indicate that (but wasn't necessarily honest, see below). It's a good plan, she wouldn't have to marry Joffrey, could still be queen and no one would suspect them. But I prefer B): Get out of the alliance with the Lannisters. Give Loras a younger bride than Cersei, so he can produce an heir to Highgarden. If he fails, you can still marry Margaery matrilineally (if that's a thing in Westeros, not sure about that), so that move would at least save the status quo. The upside is of course, that they don't have to defend the Lannisters anymore, who are clearly still facing tough challenges. Be it Stannis, the Martells, Dany or the Iron Bank. In the long run, they can still make a move for the Iron Throne (at least they think, not really being aware of what happens north of the Wall). And if they really do have Sansa, they'd think they have the key to the north back. Biggest question to me is if Margaery would be involved or not. She'd probably be on board with plan A and marrying Tommen, but giving up her dream of being "The Queen"? Not so sure. Of course, Olenna could've done it without her help. Besides that, I also immediatly thought of the "murder on the westeros express" theory. So many people with motives, that'd be truly poetic. Other suspects surely incude the Martells, Tommen himself (qui bono? Him!), Tywin (although I doubt he'd do it publicly and at such an expensive event...), Cersei (gets to keep being queen regent), Varys (poison is a weapon of women and eunuchs, after all, and it surely is for the good of the realm...) and the suspiciously absent Littlefinger (nice little bit of chaos, for sure). Maybe Tyrion paid an assassin, who was waiting behind the bushes on the grassy knoll...

Not really, but I guess she could learn a thing or two from Bronn. For now, the Hound probably also has some dirty tricks up his sleeve he could teach her. But for the long haul, she needs to get to Braavos and learn from the Faceless Men. They seem to be of the sneaky sort and kill from distance without a fight (as shown by Jaqen's kill of that guy directly in front of Tywin's door, don't remember his name), which would play to her strengths. To put it in RPG terms: She's clearly a thief, not a fighter.

I don't think that's a good idea. As I said in the speculation thread, Brienne is good at swordplay because she's tall and strong. Arya needs a completely different style and I doubt Brienne would be of much help. She's got more than enough sense of honor from her father already and that won't help her in a fight anyway. She needs to fight smart and dirty, stabbing people from behind or shooting them from distance with a bow. She won't stand a chance in an honorful one-on-one fight.

What's so bad about it (in Westerosi terms, of course)? Renly should've stayed in line, not jump ahead. The method was scary and I very much question Stannis' blind following of the Red Woman, but what was he about to do? Watch his younger brother take the throne away from him? Back to topic: *slap*

Ramsay: "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." The Hound: "Fuck Joffrey. Fuck the queen."

+1 for the Tyrells. They just have the right mix. The Starks are nice, but naive, the Lannisters sure are entertaining, but mostly unsympathetic and not even all that smart, the remaining Baratheon may be just, but lacks charisma and while Dany is fine, the other Targaryens were pretty insane. My dark horse would be Littlefinger, but he needs to build a House first...