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I actually yelled at the TV when Pip died, especially since Ygritte killed him. I couldn't wait for her to die. As soon as the Littlest Archer showed up in the "previously on" segment I knew he'd be the one to kill her. I have a feeling they killed off all the familiar faces (except Edd thankfully) so we can a have "the lonliness of command" wangst storyline for Jon next season after he sends Sam to the Citadel. There were a few decent bits of humor, like Maester Aemon getting sarcastic with Sam, Sam's very polite request that Pip open the gate, Ygritte dying in Jon's arms.... Overall, though, I wasn't impressed. I had too many logic problems: 1. 100 Nights Watch defenders, at least 25 of whom are up on the Wall, so maybe 75 below, defending against a 100 or so wildlings. Defenders were dropping like flies in the first 5 minutes of the attack, yet the battle below was still raging at the end of the episode 2. A couple of giants hook up a mammoth to the gate to pull it loose. All the while, the defenders on top of the wall are ... sitting there doing nothing. I kept yelling "drop stuff on them!". No no, let's wait until they've nearly pried the gate loose before doing anything about it. 3. I loved the scythe, but Mance was an idiot sending people up the wall directly below the defenders. They should have gone a mile or two down wall and climbed it the night before, then attack along the wall while everything else is going on. I think the most damning thing I can say about it is that it's the first episode I didn't bother to watch the second showing.

Assuming Aegon VI isn't excised, he should be about a year older than Dany, so early 20s. I hope David Oakes stays far away from this show, unless he's introduced as a character that gets killed off quickly like Aerys Oakheart. I can't stand the actor.

Dramatic parallel with Jorah Mormont. He started out as a spy but went over to Dany's cause. Maybe Shae started out working for Tywin but fell for Tyrion. That would explain why she's not afraid of Tywin. If they intend Shae to take the place of Tysha in Tyrion's quest, they can have Tywin exposit that she worked for him the whole time, but fell in love with Tyrion so he shipped her off to Essos after the trial. "Where?" "Where ever whores go" Twang!

I hope it's not just a reprise of Blackwater. I'm afraid that has an artistic symmetry that'll be irresistable to the writers. "Last time it was Stannis who had victory snatched from his grasp by the last-minute arrival of an outside force, this time it's Stannis doing the rescuing! Aren't we clever!" Not so much, really. Trite, yes, clever, no. IIRC, in the books the seige took place over several days, and included a fight inside Castle Black and several attempts to breach the gate through the Wall. The threat from the south was already dealt with, and Ygritte and friends were already dead by the time Stannis arrived. Thorne and company had sent Jon out to assassinate Mance during a fake parley when Stannis attacked. That worked in the books, but I get the impression that the writers will want a single protracted battle scene, with Mance's forces trying to break through the gate while simultaneously Ygritte's group is fighting inside Caste Black. Stannis's miraculous arrival will have to be on both sides of the Wall at once. I guess that could work; Stannis attacks Mance north of the Wall while Davos leads reinforcements to Castle Black south of the Wall. (Heh, potential Star Wars nod: Davos pulls off his helm and says "I'm Davos Seaworth. I'm hear to rescue you.")

Also, it's repeating a pattern of this season, where something momentous and consquential happens (Tyrion's trial) then we don't get back to it for two weeks. This is worse than Lysa's death because at least the excuse there was "no episode Memorial Weekend". Now it's "Tyrion has been sentenced to death! We'll get back to that later. Meanwhile, in a story you don't really care about..."

My bet is on the green haired daughter of the Archon that Arianne used to play with as a child at the Water Gardens.

Yeah, I'm not anticipating this one like I did with Blackwater, or even the Rains of Castamere, mainly because I'm uninterested in most of the characters involved. I really like Sam, but he's not cut out for battle (though shivving a White Walker was great). Jon Snow is meh; Kit Harrington's greatest acting skill is that he looks good with his shirt off, and all we ever see is him in layers of fur. With the set up of a few defenders versus 100,000 attackers, I'm getting a distinct 300 vibe. I wonder who will get these lines: "This is madness!" "THIS! IS! THE! NIGHT'S! WATCH!" [kick someone off the wall instead of down a well]

That's a pretty good interpretation. I was rewatching some of Season 3, and it dawned on me that my real problem with that scene was that it required so much interpretation. It was like the writers were going for one of those soliloquies that give great insight into the character but missed spectacularly. I mean, I never found myself saying "why the hell is he/she talking about this" when Jaime told Brienne about the Mad King, or when Catelyn told Talisa about praying for Jon Snow's death. Those speeches showed me something about how Jaime and Catelyn became the people they are. This drivel told me that Tyrion... I don't know, was fascinated with his brain-damaged cousin I guess. It showed his inquisitive nature, doing research in the Maester's library, studying Orson, etc., but we already knew that about Tyrion. He explained the value of a sharp mind to Jon Snow all the way back in season 1. The only real new information I got from it was that a pervy Maester tried to molest Jaime once.

It's GRRM's creation and he's free to do with it what he wants, but you'd think he would be intelligent enough to realize that part of his success is due to having a good editor. Its unfortunate to see him go down the same road that so many creative people have trod before him: Steven King, J.K. Rowling (books 5 and 7 of Harry Potter needed to be edited with a meat cleaver), George Lucas. I guess they see an editor as an impediment to their vision rather than a valuable asset. Browsing the Protection From Editors trope, a lot of this sounds eerily familiar: Nope, not seeing anything like that in books 4-5 (cough pages of excessive detail about food cough)

I took "The Children" to be a reference to one or more of the following: 1. Chldren of the Forest. Bran (remember Bran? Young man who can't use his legs, which is probably a good thing since the actor is probably as tall as Hodor now) needs something to do, since he's been absent since episode 5. 2. Dany's "children" i.e., the dragons, and Drogon roasting a child, which leads to Dany locking up her other children 3. Dramatic irony, because all of the remaining Starks children have been forced to grow up quickly - Sansa the femme fatale, Arya the killer, Bran the tree and Rickon the not-shown-this-season.

Ellaria even lampshades the futility of the cycle-of-revenge to the Sand Snakes. Not that they listen to her. At least Doran Martell has more planned than simple vengeance, since he's working towards restoring the Targaryens to the throne. Hopefully they'll beef him up a bit, show that he might be a gout-riddled invalid but still an excellent (and patient) player in the Game.

My problem with it is they've made the Wildlings despicable barbarians. Book!Wildlings had pretty sympathetic motives for what they were doing: 1. White Walkers are coming 2. The only chance we have to survive is getting south of the wall 3. The only way we'll do that is through Castle Black 4. Therefore we have to capture Castle Black. When that failed, and Lord Commander Snow offered them an alternative (settle in the Gift and help us defend the Wall against our mutual enemy) they took it. Show!Wildlings are taking too much pleasure in slaughtering innocents. I get that it's part of their plan to draw out the Night's Watch and make it easier to capture the castle, but it makes turning them into future allies so much less plausible. LOL. "I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist".

I've seen several people say it was an analogy for Tyrion's theological beliefs (or lack thereof). The brain-damaged cousin = the gods, the beetles = humans. You can spend a lifetime trying to understand the gods' motivations, but in the end it's a fruitless undertaking.

Noticed a couple of things during the rewatch: 1. Sansa's dress was definitely bird-like, but I thought that was due to her being the next potential Lady of the Vale, since House Arryn's sigil is a falcon. 2. Tyrion rattled off a list of all the various names for murder, how each of them had a different "icide". Jaime told him there wasn't one for cousin-killing; which was a call-back to the cousin he killed trying to escape from the Starks. Very subtle. 3. Oberyn's fighting style reminded me of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, which is not a laudatory comparison. His clothing even looked similar, if not solid black.

Yeah, I had to cover my eyes at that last scene. That was pretty gross. Awesome fight choreography up until that point. Arya burst out laughing at the "well shit, another dead relative" scene was hilarious. I really liked that Sansa came up with her story on her own rather than having Petyr coach her to say it. She's starting to become a player in the game instead of a pawn, that's great. Sophie Turner was outstanding. I want Ygritte to die a horrible painful agonizing and slow death. Oh, sure, she was nice enough not to slaughter Gilly and Sam Jr., but that really doesn't make up for the spear-through-the-chest that happened 10 seconds earlier. I'm not sure I appreciate the changes they've made to the wildlings for the show; I'm really not sure how Lord Commander Snow will be able to forge any kind of alliance with them against their common enemy, considering they're behaving about as deplorably as the Ironborn and the Boltons. Theon and company, I don't care. The only thing I liked about that was it gave them an excuse to include Moat Cailin in the opening title sequence.

Mellisandre's astonishment that Thoros was able to bring Beric back 6 times was a good example of that, given all the things she can do.

I see how each of those are relevant to the events of episode 8, except the Missandei / Grey Worm scene. I guess there will be a "breather" scene with them developing their romance, in between all the actiony bits?

For a moment I was wondering what she'd have against him in particular. "Oh, right, the whole King-slaying thing." I guess I really have developed some sympathy for him despite some of his despicable actions.

Heh. I don't think he had anything to do with the knife-wielding goon because of the timing. When Bran fell, Littlefinger was still in Kings Landing. He would have needed to hear about it and send an assassin (not something you'd arrange via post-raven). Granted, the royal party farted around in Winterfell for a while before taking off, but it still seems logistically unlikely. I heard someone (Nostalgia Chick, I think) compare Varys and Littlefinger to Batman and the Joker. Varys is working for the realm (Order) while Littlefinger just likes to stir things up to see what happens and how he can benefit (Chaos).

Myabe they're substituting Lollys for Taena Merryweather, though Taena is pretty smart and Lollys has already been established as a lackwit. From that acticle: Uhh, what? Are they recasting Myrcella with an older actress too, or has the actress grown significantly since her last appearance? If not, that pairing will look a little creepy. Obara's fight scene: Yara Greyjoy on her way back from the Dreadfort to the Iron Islands, stops off to get supplies in Sunspear, has a run-in with Obara. I could see that happening. It would be another go-nowhere filler event, but would be cool to see. Maggy the Frog's description is that she's in one episode. It could be a flashback, though (IIRC) they've never done flashbacks to events preceding the series.

My guess is that Petyr says Lysa killed herself, but Sansa steps up to say that he’s lying: Lysa was raging and trying to push her out the Moon Door, but slipped and fell. “Lord Balish lies, but I have to tell the truth… it was all my fault! We were struggling and she slipped… I grabbed her and tried to pull her up but I wasn’t strong enough. I... I… killed her!” [que crocodile tears]. The assembled lords of the Vale or whoever then absolve her, because they know a pretty, young woman would be blameless. Conversely, I can't reread the Oberyn / Mountain fight chapter because it annoyed me too much. Oberyn woould have won, but for trying to gloat. It was an incredibly stupid and impatient action, especially considering he'd been plotting revenge against Elia's killers with his brother for over a decade.

(I can't remember the exact wording) Brienne: So what happened to Arya? Hot Pie: We-- Brienne: The short version. Brienne [to Pod]: ...you were saying? The written dialog doesn't do justice to her line delivery

Now that my initial squeeing has passed, time for some nit picking: Again, the opening title sequence bugged me. No scenes at the Dreadfort or Braavos, yet they were included. No Eyrie in the title sequence despite some seriously consequential events occurring there. Okay, maybe they're being cheap and don't want to have to reanimate the sequence to put the Eyrie model back in, but why not use the Ep 1-5 animation, since at least it includes Dragonstone. Arya and the Hound are on horseback, and are traveling from the vacinity of the Twins towards the Vale. They're obviously staying off the beaten path, which might explain why it's taking so long. Yet somehow Rorge and Biter have a) learned of the reward Tywin posted just last episode and b) located them in the hinterlands. Or are we supposed to believe it was a chance encounter? That's... pretty contrived. Brienne and Pod have been traveling on horseback also, but by road. According to Brienne, they've been on the road for weeks, which just makes the timeline for Arya and the Hound even worse considering they took off from the Twins after the Red Wedding, while Brienne and Pod left King's Landing after the Purple Wedding. At this rate, B&P could get to the Vale before Arya does. Who were the people that the Mountain was slaughtering, captive rebels, criminals, practice-peasants?

I agree that D&D aren't going the smitten-fangurl route with Dany and Daario. Part of it is that Dany is 20ish instead of 16. Also,the actor playing Daario is a handsome fella, I'll give him that, and he can actually act which the previous guy could not, but I still think he's dull. Bland, son of Bland, son of Bland the Elder. I got a chuckle when Petyr had to lean UP to kiss Sansa. Sophie Turner has gotten tall. I love how they repurposed it and made it more effective. In the book, Oberyn told Tyrion that story as they were riding in to Kings Landing, mostly just to annoy him. Which it did. In the show, it was much more powerful, because it really drove home to Tyrion just how much Cercei has always hated him.

So that explains the incredible tedium of some of the Prologue chapters. Honestly when he went on for dozens of pages with that warging redshirt (I don't remember the name at all or any of the stuff that happened) I almost put the book down. Sadly, if he was a witness to some important event, I don't remember what it was because I was so fucking bored I skip the entire thing on re-read. I think another one of his problems (ironically) is that he used to be a TV series writer. Writing a TV episode in a series with no defined end-point is vastly different than writing a book. I never got a Stockholm Syndrome vibe from Alayne. She figured out that Lyn Corbray was Littlefinger's mole in the Lord's Declarant, she became adept at managing (i.e., manipulating) poor dumb Sweetrobin, she bought into Petyr's plan to marry her to Harry the Heir, etc. I always saw her as being Littlefinger's apprentice. and finally finding out something she's good and useful at. Unfortunately, GRRM has set up her inevitable kidnapping for ransom with the sell-swords Petyr hired, one of whom Brienne met while wandering aimlessly. Hopefully she won't be just a piece of baggage but will have developed some skills she can use against them.