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I squeed like a little girl several times tonight. Hotpie was a fantastic cameo, and the entire discussion between Pod and Brienne was hysterical. Hell, just her facial expressions when Hotpie was rambling were a riot. Peter Dinklage knocked it out of the park, yet again. When Oberyn was recounting how he first met baby!Tyrion, Dinklage was giving another Emmy performance with just facial expressions. Sadness, misery, resignation to his fate, followed by hope and gratitude when Oberyn volunteered to be his champion, mostly without dialog. Amazing. Alas poor Hound, Arya might feel a little bad when she finally kills him. I squeed again when Sansa slapped Robin. Sophie Turner did a great job with that scene, again awesome facial expressions; she was humoring him with words but her face was saying "fuck this creepy little turd."

I've seen that referenced several times on here, but I never picked that up in reading the books. I don't need a chapter / verse reference, but what in general made people come up with this theory?

His Grace Todd, of House Johnson, third of his name, king of the Hoosiers and Sooners, defender of the realm...

Yes! One of the (many many) reasons I dislike Dany's Meereen adventures is the names are so weird it was hard to keep track of who was who. "Garble zo Mumble", is that her husband, her senechal, the head of the Shavepates, one of the Yunkai'i generals, or some other weirdo? The only person I could readily ID was Galazza Galarre, and that was mostly because she's the only prominent woman in the city of gibberish.

The love of my life Ellaria my sweetling There’s no one I hold so dear Please hand me my knife I hear someone singing The Rains of Castamere

Re-re-cast character in a 5-sceond, context-free scene. I'm not sure how the casual viewer is supposed to know who that was. Since it's immediately followed by a Dany/Daario scene I initially thought the big guy was in Meereen.

From her expression, I think she realized what a horrible mistake she had made, and probably wanted to apologize, but thougt to herself "queens don't apologize" so got snotty with him. Which was probably another mistake. She's got these ideas of what it means to be a ruler, but a lot of them are probably things she picked up from Viserys, who's not exactly a good role model. I think her entire story in Meereen, using the city as a trial-run to figure out how to be a good ruler, is pretty gross. No matter what she does, good or bad, she's going to abandon them to their own fate when she finally decides to head west. Given the speed of events in Westeros, I don't see that she'd have adequate time to completely remake the Meereenese culture, society, and economy into something like Pentos or Qarth. Five minutes after her ships go over the horizon, they'll be back to being slave-traders

Who is the big shirtless dude chopping someone's head off?

Her titles also include "The Unburnt". Her business card is printed in 3 point font.

I wondered about that too. They CGI'd Davos's hand, I figured they'd follow up with a CGI of Theon's crotch, some sort of "love's their mutilator" parallel between the two. Then I thought that they might show Theon was still equipped, and the "favorite toy" was from someone else as a mind-game to play on Balon and Yara. That doesn't make sense either since it'd retcon the "Ramsey eats a sausage" scene from last season. Maybe it was just too squicky even for this show. Nah, that can't be it. I'm left with "the blew the CGI budget for this episode with Davos's fingers and the green screen entry into Braavos harbor so they had no money left to paint out Theon's junk."

Ramsay is using the same calendar Mance and Stannis are using. They did invade the Dreadfort by climbing the walls. If they were leaving the same way, they’d need Theon conscious and cooperative to climb back down the ropes, so I’ll give them a pass on that one.

The Battle of the Wall in the books was (at least at the start) a siege, with the wildlings north of the wall trying to breach the one gate, and the defenders lobbing stuff at them from the top of the wall. It doesn't have to play out like a mass storming like the attack on King's Landing. They also had enough time to send Jon to negotiate with / assassinate Mance. I bet they'll go for: 1. Mance finally arrives, sets the biggest fire the north has ever seen 2. Defenders barely hold them back, then get attacked by the Thenns and company 3. On the verge of complete defeat, Stannis arrives to save the day. Sheesh, that is a lot like the Battle of the Blackwater.

I also didn't care for the Yara stuff, but mainly because it was yet another go-nowhere shaggy dog story, comparable to the Craster's Keep filler of the previous two episodes. End of seaon 3, she vows to take the fastest ship and go rescue Theon. She does it, but doesn't rescue Theon. She (presumably) is going back to the Iron Islands and will be there for the Euron / Victarion / Aeron / Whoeveron drama after Balon takes a dirt nap. I guess there's a minor character development on her part since she no longer wants to rescue Theon, but it's mostly a reset. Was that the future Mr. Daenerys berating Dany for her horrible judgement in crucifying those 163 people? I'm having a hard time caring about her storyline. Poor Mace, gets no respect in the Small Council meetings, Tywin even has him run an errand. "Fetch me a quill and paper" heh. They do seem to be much more aware of what's going on across the world than they are in the books. Dany must be posting selfies on Facebook. "Me on the Great Pyramid of Meereen. Me and Drogon after he's scorched an entire flock of goats. Me and Ser Jorah posing as crucified Great Masters." Are we to infer that Davos won over the Iron Bankers? You can always count of Davos having the best, logical arguments. I must have been a Braavosi whore in a previous life, because I said "bring me my brown pants" the same time they did. As readily Tywin agreed to Jaime's compromise, he must have already been planning on sending Tyrion to the Wall, and basically saw Jaime's offer to go back to Casterly Rock as getting something for nothing. Is the deal shot now since Tyrion demanded trial by combat?

Smug self-righteousness at the moment. "I will answer injustice with justice" [insert haughty look here]. One of Robert's real strengths was that he could win over former enemies, like the various lords who fought for Raegar. Dany's "my way or death" approach wouldn't really inspire any opposition to lay down their arms. Also, while I really enjoyed her actions in Astapor, from an outside observer it might make her look untrustworthy. She struck a bargain to buy an army then reneged on her end of the deal. "I traded you this rare item but it in fact isn't a rare item but actually a bomb. HA ha!"

The cold northern winds Bring Winter’s frigid embrace. Now I will stab you. There once was a Martel from Dorne Whose sister he surely did mourne “The Mountain must fall Or I will slaughter them all. I also make bisexual porn.”

I really started to like Sansa once she became Alayne Stone in the books. She shed a lot of her fairy-tale princess naiveté, and let her intelligence start working. I particularly liked when she figured out how Petyr was manipulating the Lords Declarant by manufacturing the confrontation with Lyn Corbray during their parlay. The show has given us glimpses of her intelligence already: 1. Taking Joffrey's offhand remark about Dontos being a fool and using it to save Dontos's life (for a little bit at least) 2. Figuring out Petyr was behind the assassination 3. Recognizing that Lysa is a nutjob (though that can be seen from orbit) and figuring out the right lie to tell her ("He says I'm a stupid little girl") I hope they show more of it, because I'm pretty sure Sophie Turner has a broader acting range than "scared or depressed".

Lysa knew who Sansa really was, but Robin did not. He's much more of a spoiled brat in the books. I'm looking forward to his inevitable death-by-sweetsleep OD.

In the books, it was mentioned that the Westerlings' (Robb's wife's family) gold mines had run dry years earlier, and it seemed to be common knowledge. It's hard to believe that if all the Lannister mines were empty, someone wouldn't have mentioned it. It's also hard to believe that goldmines are their only source of income; Lannisport is a big trading port; they don't make any money from excise taxes?

I can see this as the show's modification of the Shae / Tysha bit: Shae has been captured by Cercei / Tywin off-screen, and is forced to testify against Tyrion. (She'll probably show signs of having been beaten, because this show likes it's violence against women). The show follows the book plot all the way through Tyrion sneaking into Tywin's room. the subsequent confrontation involves a lot of tense conversation about Shae, ending with Tyrion asking what happened to her. "She's no longer in Kings Landing" "Where did she go?" "Where ever whores go" - whang! crossbow bolt to the bowels. That's a little more plausible then Tyrion pining over a girl he knew for a couple of weeks two decades ago.

They also conflated the Bloody Gates at the entrance to the Vale with the Gates of the Moon. Personally, I always thought the design of the Eyrie in the books was quite silly. Castles are supposed to be a place for people to retreat to in times of trouble, and also a way for a lord to project power when needed. Since it’s so difficult to get to or leave from, the Eyrie serves neither of these functions, and as the Lords Declarant proved, it’s incredibly easy to lay siege to. I guess the Gates of the Moon is the real castle, with a garrison that can ride out at a moment’s notice, and the Eyrie itself is just a remote refuge, like Maegor’s Holdfast is the last refuge within the Red Keep.

I can overlook the seemingly quick trip for Jon and friends to Craster’s Keep. They were an armed raiding party with a short specific mission, whereas Lord Commander Mormont was leading an open-ended ranging with a LOT more people, baggage, provisions, etc. I can see that it would take Jon’s group a couple of (off-screen) days but take Mormont’s group a week or longer. What really bugs me is that Mance sent multiple parties over the Wall (the Thenns went separately from Ygritte’s group) apparently expecting them to spend weeks or months waiting for his ponderous army to mosey south. His advanced scouts are much more likely to be killed off since they’re basically stranded without support in hostile territory for an extended and unknown period. As much time as the wildlings have spent in the Gift area, they could have occupied an empty Night’s Watch fort and unblocked one of the frozen gates Totally agree with this. I liked the Hound’s comment to Arya about armor and a sword beating Syrio’s style, mainly because I bet it gets her thinking along the lines of “Water dancing is ineffective, I’m too small to use the armor/BFS approach, so I need a third option… Oh yeah, Jaquen Hagar style. What’d I do with that coin?”

Week 5 of the same credit sequence. Shouldn't we have skipped Dragonstone and the Dreadfort, and maybe included the Eyrie? Also, ditch Winterfell since no one has been in the vacinity for months. I loved the way Brienne asked Pod, "How did you kill a Kingsguard?" She wasn't scoffing at him but was genuinely curious. That was nice. Also, I loved "but mostly I poured wine".

I didn't care much for this episode. The Sansa / Lysa stuff was well acted, but I thought Lysa's "as you know, I poisoned Jon Aryn" was way too much "exposit for the audience" Sansa trusted Lysa but pretty quickly realized she was nuts. I loved how she started spouting Joffrey's "you're a stupid girl" lines and attributing them Petyr just to convince Lysa to back the fuck off. Pretty quick thinking on her part. Dany said, "How can I rule seven kingdoms if I can't control Slavers' Bay?" Well, you're not planning on completely overthrowing the economy of the Seven Kingdoms and revising the culture they've lived with for thousands of years are you? Back in Westeros, all she'll be doing is changing who's at the top of the food chain. It won't really affect the day-to-day lives of the lesser lords, let alone the peasants. In Slaver's Bay, everyone was affected by the slave liberations. It's just not comparable. The Westerlands are out of gold, that's an interesting change from the books. Setting up the Bank of Braavos as a greater antagonist I guess. The entire Craster's Keep storyline of the last two episodes was filler; other than reuniting Ghost and Jon, nothing has changed from where they were at the beginning of the season.

I hope so. Her death is one I've been looking forward to almost as much as Joffrey's. Her constant mockery of Jon Snow (whom I don't really like much either, but he wins by comparison to her) got on my nerves. Her mocking him for not knowing things she knows, then mocking him for knowing things she doesn't know made me hate her quite a bit. They showed it a little more playfully on-screen than it read in the book, but I still want her to die. Add in her actions at the village south of the wall and I really have no more use for her. Plus her accent goes through my head like a nail. I do have a question though: Did we ever meet Mance Rayder's wife and sister-in-law when Jon was in their camp? The reason I ask is that if we didn't, the writers might assign Val's role to Ygritte. Capture her during the battle, then next season send her north of the wall to bring the surviving Wildlings back to negotiate with Lord Commander Jon. It'd give them extra opportuntities for Jon to wangst about duty vs. feelings.

Dictionary.com's pronunciation: white = [hwahyt, wahyt], wight = [wahyt] So I guess it's regional. I definitely pronounce them differently (though it's not a huge difference).