AlphaLine

I took that as comic relief pretty much 'Why can't your family stop dying before I can sell you' . Don't read too much into it, the dudes at the gate are probably stupid. Besides, Littlefinger doesn't care about Arya ( we saw that at Harrenhal ). Presumably because he can't hump her. Does anyone else think that Dorne's so called 'Anti dragon tactics' are so much hot air? After all, Dorne is still part of the seven kingdoms. They were presumably conquered by the Targaryn kings at some point. There's no noticeable independence movement there, otherwise they would have declared independence at the same time as Robb and Balon Greyjoy did ( and they had every reason to ). And House Martell is making marriage alliances with the Iron throne. Just doesn't seem like Dorne was independent for very long. My guess is that the Dornish managed to take down a dragon ( lucky arrow shot or something ), and that stalled the invasion for a while ( but they were later conquered anyway ), and from there the legends of 'anti dragon tactics' persist to this day. By the way- The Tyrells are another house that doesn't care for this 'independence' thing either. They made marriage alliances with first a Baratheon king and then with a 'Baratheon' ( Lannister ) king. I do hope we see more of them, they kinda disappeared halfway into the season. More musings on Oberyn and the Dornish in general.. I don't know, if Elaria is married to Oberyn or not. It isn't very clear. Oberyn has 8 daughters ( and presumably some sons too ). Now I can perfectly imagine that a dude who likes sex that much would have so many kids, but I'm pretty sure they would be on multiple mothers. But atleast a few would be Elaria's too. So we have a married man and his wife ( or a married man cheating on his wife openly with a mistress ), with kids, members of a royal aristocracy, and they live in a whore house and engage in orgies round the clock. Can anyone else see what's wrong with that? Men having extra marital sex is problematic anyway, but when you have women doing that too, then how do you know who is a bastard and who isn't. There are no paternity/DNA tests in Westeros. This creates any number of inheritance problems. Can a society be that way? Worse still are the marriage alliances with other houses. Are we really to imagine that Myrcella is engaging in brothel orgies in Dorne and shouldn't Cersie be a little concerned about that? Or Elia Martell would have been into brothel orgies before or even ( God help us ) after being married to Prince Rhaeygar Targaryn? Baloney. The notion that all Dornish are bisexual swingers is not believable on any level. The only plausible explanation is that Oberyn and Elaria are kind of crazy, even by Dornish standards. And to be fair Oberyn is kind of crazy in other ways too. I look forward to seeing more of Dorne ( or Dornish characters in King's Landing ), and have the situation clarified. On the other hand if Dornish continue to be T & A plot devices, I don't think I can take them seriously.

Why did Tyrion go into the Hand's chambers in the first place? The only explanation I can think of is, that he got lost in the secret passages, and didn't know where he was, until he saw Shae. Also I've rewatched and I still don't know why he killed Tywin. Yeah Tywin despises him and wanted him to die.. but that's pretty weak.

I don't understand this 'Stannis saved the wall/Night's watch' thing. Excuse me, he did no such thing! The wildlings were going to spare the Night's watch anyway, as Jon would have accepted Mance Rayder's terms ( he wouldn't really go for the knife, that's just dumb ). Plus, I think it's abundantly clear that the '100,000 wildlings' thing was just propaganda. What it looks like is that about 50 wildlings got massacred by a huge army. Doesn't look like 'saving' to me. Then, even if you accept the idea that Stannis 'saved the day' somehow, that doesn't take motivation into account. He didn't go there because he wanted to 'be King-like'. He only went there because Melisandre basically ordered him to ( in S03E10 ) , and he didn't even know about the wildlings to begin with, because the letter only talked about white walkers. And finally, if he did have to 'get to the wall', why did he spend practically the whole season burning people, filling out a loan application and generally screwing around? Bit late there aren't you buddy? My only explanation is that Melisandre ordered him to drop all the side plots and ordered him to go North somewhere between episode 7 and 10. Just listen to the Darth Vader like theme music. The impression I got is that Jon has just stepped from the frying pan into the fire- literally, as you watch Melisandre enjoying the people burning - well dead people, but still . I feel like a lot of people get swayed by Davos' propaganda - Stannis is 'just' and 'honorable', really? so that's why he burns people for being infidels? The truth is that Davos is just delusional for the most part, ignore his words and concentrate on the actions and you'll see something quite different. Stannis is infinitely more evil than the wildlings are - or rather the Lord of Light is, and Stannis is basically just a slave of the Lord of Light at this point so it's the same thing - , and so again, the last scene signalled to me that the new big bad has arrived at the Wall to oppose Jon Snow. Edit: Btw, the scene also features a massive plot hole, as in, how were the troops able to get through the wall? Don't say the tunnel, there wasn't enough time in the 5 min or so. I guess the Wall is not much of a barrier really, people just teleport across it whenever the plot requires them to.. Also count me out of being a Dany supporter. Yeah she's done a lot of good no denying it, but she really needs to work on this whole 'justice' thing. Between locking up the two dragons who DIDN'T kill the kid, crucifying the master who spoke against crucifixions, exiling Jorah for no real reason.. yeah. Problem goes back to season 2 tbh, when she locked up the girl ( along with the black dude ) for no apparent crime that I could tell. Also for some epic lulz, I decided to review her titles the Unburnt -> Ok, I guess this is fine Queen of Meereen -> Ok. Can you be a queen of both Meereen and Westeros though? Queen of the Andals and Rhoynar and First Men. -> Excepting Barristan, where are all the Andals and First Men? Also what's Rhoynar. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea -> We're not in the Great Grass Sea, and where are all the Dothraki? Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons -> After the last episode, I don't see how she has the right to call herself these any more..

So Stannis just slaughtered the 100,000 strong wildling army huh. That must have been a helluva loan. I'll need to rewatch, but from my gameplay in the Total War series I'd estimate there were at least 10,000 cavalry out there. I think the 100,000 wildlings was just propaganda, really, that Jon Snow had swallowed hook, line and sinker. I bet there were only 3000-5000 warriors at max. I mean episode 9 when they showed the wildlings, did you think at any point 'There's 100,000 men out there'. I certainly did not. If you have watched Troy, there is that scene when the Greek warriors arrive and their army fills the view from screen to screen. That's what 100,000 army should look like. And it makes sense too, how many people can really live in a snowy wasteland? Some Canadian states have a TOTAL pop of ~17000. Counting women, children everything, you just can't have a large army. Poor Jon Snow. He can just not catch a break. First he was supposed to fight white walkers and zombies. Then he got dragged into a long and pointless battle with wildlings ( hey Mance a tip. If you are going to offer terms anyway, how about doing so before fighting? ). But then he got laid so.. Anyway, for a season he had to put up with Thorne and his assholery. He even took time out to go and kill some mutineers! And now he's up against the ultimate villain: The Lord of Light. The last scene with Melisandre and the fire was delicious and indicates where the big bad for his storyline is shifting towards. I'm still bummed about being wrong on Jojen. Guess he wasn't evil after all. Edit: Oh yea. Breaker of chains.. LOL

Ok.. things I expect from the last episode 1. King's Landing Tyrion has to escape somehow Jamie/Cersie/Tywin something Oberin's widow ( forgot name )/ Tyreells / Other KL stuff There is a metric ton of stuff left in KL I actually wouldn't mind seeing the whole episode as just KL. Besides the obvious stuff ( like Tyrion escaping ), we haven't seen the Tyrells for quite some time now. Like what happened to Loras/Cersie wedding plans?. Shae/Bronn are loose threads as well. And Varys. 2. The Wall We need to see the conclusion to ep. 9. Hopefully they won't waste too much time on it, it's really irrelevant either way. 3. Arya Arya and Hound have to meet up with Brienne and Podrick ( it's really obvious ). I think one of them will die - probably Hound , and Arya will then leave for Bravos. Should be interesting. 4. Dany We haven't seen Emilia's booty all season so I'm betting on a Dany/Dario sex scene. Really there's not that much for her to do at this point, they can hardly show her capturing yet another slave city. 5. Bran He's going to meet the talking raven. I quite liked Bran this season, or rather I liked that they put him out of the way really neatly and did not waste time with rabbit skinning conversations and other BS. Hopefully he'll be getting to the tree and meet the raven and explain what is going on there. 6. Stannis Do we really have to see this guy again? Sigh. IDK probably still in Bravos. I bet the little girl will get burnt. King's blood + 'The Lord has need of her' -> you can't get more obvious than that. Though it might be next season. That's a lot. I wonder how they will fit it into 1 episode! I don't expect: Sansa - her arc pretty much wrapped up for the season Boltons + Theon - same as above Yara/ Papa Greyjoy - Might have a cameo like last season but are really insignificant Gendry/Osha/Rickon/The Brotherhood/Frey/Tully/etc. - very unlikely but you never know.

Yeah, I agree. This episode was basically a bad version of Helm's Deep, or a very bad version of 'Blackwater'- you can see that they tried to copy that episode but epically failed. And they forgot to put the conclusion!

Well, I gathered that Stannis wants to hire the 'Golden Company', who are sellswords. Mercenaries basically. You can buy them, but they're not slaves. Anyway if he's heading to Slavers bay to buy a slave army he's in for a big shock, cause Dany screwed that whole trade over.

Also this episode confirms that the hole in the wall where Sam and Bran passed through last season is a plot hole and not a regular hole. Since they never talked about sealing it, and while it's supposed to be 'secret', it's just huge, and has no door even, so anyone would be able to find it.. if the plot required it to, I guess.

I think a lot of the reason why the last episode was disappointing is that, other than the mindless action, it's a scum vs scum situation. Just like Boltons vs Greyjoys in episode 8. They tried very hard to be Blackwater 2.0 but because we have no emotional connection to any of these characters ( except Jon Snow if you like him, which I don't ), so it just fell flat. I have a feeling that the North is just infested with too much scum these days. If Stannis shows up ( and he might ), and then the white walkers show up, and the Boltons and Greyjoys are already in the North. Then it would become a giant clusterf*ck of scum vs scum vs scum vs scum vs scum vs scum. Why am I interested in this again? Story wise it only makes sense to me if Jon Snow somehow manages to play one side against the other and emerges as the victor of the 6 way bad guy FFA. But the problem here is that Jon Snow is weak in the upper storey ( none of the starks are very bright ). He'd probably end up getting himself killed by one side or another. Imo they really need to tone down the bad guy screentimes. More King's Landing and Dany please. Less Wall, less Stannis, less Bolton/Greyjoy and so on.

Wow. Most disappointing episode 9 EVAR. They cut out all the exciting KL/Tyrion stuff to show a pointless action movie where no one of consequence even dies, really? And it's not even complete!

Yeah this is all very wrong. 'The wildlings are coming' , what, all season long? You can't credibly keep up that for such a long time. It just loses any kind of tension. Same with 'the white walkers are coming!'. On top of that, the wildlings seem to have become 'wild', with no apparent thought in their head other than 'me eat brains!!'. Compared to season 3 where they were basically nice people. We just haven't seen their point of view properly, they just seem be slaughtering people and Mance has been on screen for like 5 seconds. The Night's watch is an even bigger problem. It's been nine episodes already, is that like 3 months? 6 months. and they have done fuck all to prepare. Gee, why didn't they bother to WARN Mole's town about all the rampaging wildlings. How about recruiting 50 men each from 20 of the closest villages. There's your army already without needing to rely on Bolton or Stannis or whatever ( by the way, both are notoriously problematic - perhaps more so than wildlings even ). You could even carry out full evacuation of the villages and bring them all to the safety of the castles on the wall. Now they wouldn't be as good as regular troops but it sounds a heck of a lot better plan than just leaving the villages to get screwed over or get eaten by cannibals. If the oath is problematic, don't have them swear in as brothers of the Night's watch, just have them be recruits on a temporary basis. The little kid joined up after all so its perfectly reasonable- desperate measures for desperate times. That's what Jon Snow should have been doing all season long, instead of sitting around and sulking. Allister Thorne as a character also doesn't make any kind of logical sense to me ( the reasons are obvious ).

Yeah, the episode 9 moment is almost upon us. I can see two options 1. Wildlings attack the Night's watch 2. Stannis attacks King's Landing, which allows Tyrion to escape. Or a bit of both. I hope they don't over do the wall stuff. It's the most boring part of the show and really not episode 9 material. Also maybe Jon Snow dies off finally. Or even better Stannis dies. One can only hope.. I just can't see them skipping or delaying the King's Landing/Tyrion stuff for a pointless battle at the wall that no one cares about.

The black!Sansa outfit isn't one of Lysa's dresses. In fact, Sansa is sewing it herself and we see that in the scene. Not really sure what to make of that. First time I thought Margery had somehow gotten into the Vale, but no its actually Sansa dressed and acting like Margery. I called it evil!Sansa first but now I think it's more about power rather than a turn to the dark side, because sexy = power. Apparently.

Also, what is up with these infinite number of lannister cousins who can be pulled out of the ass every now and then. Seriously it's practically a running joke at this point. These second-class lannisters pretty much only exist to be the butt of jokes or to be killed off without any thought. Jamie and Cersie even kill a Lannister cousin each but like no problem mon, There's no word for cousin killing so apparently it's not a crime. ( I am assuming that Cersie killed Lancel by stabbing him in the arrow wound, though it wasn't very clear. But we never saw Lancel again, and it's not like Cersie to leave a loose end like that ) So we have the retard lannister, the sleepy lannister, two lannister kids ( who only existed to die off , its not like any other lannister cares about them ), Alton and Lancel from season 2, an 'uncle Kevan' from season 1, and did I miss anyone? It's a mess. Compared to the Baratheons, Tullys, Arryns, Starks, Tyrells, etc. who pretty much have one core family and that's it.

I just now got around to watching the episode due to time issues. And wow, Jon Snow just can not stop being useless. The moment the burping whores showed up I was sure it was Mole's town.. and it was .. BUT, Jon Snow didn't go to Mole's town to rescue Gilly! I mean, he just sat around and did nothing. What? Can someone kill this guy already? And Sam is even more useless, if that were even possible. Still a little shocked over the developments in this episode, and I don't mean just the duel. Dany has gone into royal queen bitch mode and Sansa apparently turned into evil!Sansa and so on. Not too worried about Tyrion, he'll survive.