ElizaD

Update posted in the comments by one of the WOTW staff:

Outlaw + religion immediately makes me think of the Riverlands, but Brienne is going to look bad if she abandons Sansa and though I guess Cersei could send Jaime to the Riverlands as punishment for his failure, it doesn't feel like he'd have much to do there. The Dorne talk reminds me of the theories that Talisa was a Lannister or a spy, but in the end she was just a character who was widely felt to be poorly written.

The way Ramsay has been written, if he had been the character in trouble wings wouldn't have been out of the question. Sansa agreed to go to Winterfell to avenge her family and she didn't even try. Her supposed talent is people skills, yet she spent her time sulking and making a couple of sassy comments that had no followup. Her great achievement was picking a lock after she gave up on the idea that she could do anything to the Boltons. Then she got caught by Myranda and had to admit that she had been wrong when she'd tried to act brave before the wedding and called Winterfell her home: Sansa had been so thoroughly beaten that she accepted being mutilated or killed by Myranda as the best she could hope for. If the showrunners hadn't tried to sell this story as empowerment and had just admitted that Sansa was going to be Jeyne, a victim of horrible abuse locked in her room to wait for the next rape and denied all interaction with people other her rapist and his broken pet, they wouldn't receive the same kind of criticism. The suckiness of the storyline would be judged, sure, but the showrunners decided to spin this as Sansa making a choice, and so both they and Sansa are going to be judged for the utter failure she turned out to be after making grand claims about revenge and being a Stark. If shirtless Ramsay can send the best Ironborn killers running and defeat the great commander even Tywin considered his most dangerous enemy, it would not have been impossible to give Sansa just the tiniest bit of success messing with the minds of the Boltons. But no, she was absolutely worthless as a player and accepted death when her escape attempt didn't work out. That's how thoroughly she failed and how the Boltons and even Myranda succeeded at beating her. I wasn't asking for Sansa to single-handedly beat Ramsay and Roose to death after she'd convinced them to murder Walda and Myranda and then turn on each other. But something, anything other than being locked in her room, begging to be rescued from a situation the showrunners had her choose to enter to avenge her family even though it turned out she had no interest in searching for ways to work against the Boltons. It's season 5 of 7 or 8 and Sansa, a POV character, is still so useless on the show that she's tricked by random henchwoman Myranda and later forced to admit defeat to her. She's not learning any skills or growing as a person, and even hearing that her brothers are alive didn't keep her from being more suicidal and less savvy than she was in season 2, the first time she was waiting for Stannis to show up. If she's this stupid and passive as we're starting to approach the end of the story, she's never going to be useful for reasons other than her name, and it's frustrating that so much time has been wasted on repeating the same storyline season after season: Sansa is abused and then rescued by someone else. Dontos drags her from the Purple Wedding, Theon kills Myranda as Sansa waits to be shot. The decisions are made for her and her greatest contribution is picking a lock, a ridiculous non-event compared to the stuff constantly being done by other major characters in their plots.

WOTW has tons of casting info. These interest me the most: Could the legendary fighter be Arthur Dayne? It's even said that he carries a famous sword. The first Northern lord sounds like an Umber who could be part of Rickon's return. Who is the frightening lord? I don't dare hope for Manderly after the Bolton love of season 5, and all these roles seem like minor ones: Euron and Tarly, who were leaked first, will probably be the big additions like the Martells were in season 5. The patriarch only has two lines - that made me think of Rickard appearing briefly in a Bran vision.

WOTW casting news:

The casting of GOT has received a lot of praise. Often the talent of the actors has elevated storylines that were already good or saved scenes when the writing and plotting weren't at their best. Who has delivered a great portrayal of a book character? Who has gotten you interested in a storyline you didn't expect to enjoy? And who should have been put in the boat of abandoned plotlines and sent rowing with Gendry, never to return?

Sounds like Rickon returns. Stark reunion, or is Sansa just going to send Davos to find him? After burning Shireen, Melisandre has to die. Maybe she ends up unintentionally sacrificing her life when she revives Jon, or Davos could kill her when he finds out how Shireen died. Kevan and Pycelle could be killed by Varys in 6x10 as he announces that Dany has arrived, but currently I'm betting that they'll die due to Cersei/Tyrell/Martell-related chaos. Perhaps they were spared so that things can fall apart in a more spectacular fashion after the trials. I believe that Jon will warg Ghost in the books and that will explain why he doesn't end up being as damaged as Beric and Stoneheart, but if he is revived on the show, it will be done without the warging since that's ended up being Bran-only stuff. GOT doesn't have Stoneheart as a major example of how you can come back wrong and it has forgotten fairly big plot points: we never got the explanation that Joffrey sent the man to kill Bran and Varys was turned into a Dany supporter. So it should be easy to forget Beric and just have Jon be in good shape after he's revived by Melisandre even if he's been dead for days or weeks.

interview: Royce films in July and December. That made me think of winter at Winterfell, and a scene in the Vale with Littlefinger or maybe in the Riverlands if the Freys are part of the Vale/Sansa storyline. I don't know the original source, but someone mentioned an interview where the showrunners supposedly say that Stannis and Myrcella are dead, Trystane is going to KL, Cersei might blame Tyrion more than Jaime because he's the one who sent Myrcella to Dorne, and Sansa/Theon survived the jump.

Balon Greyjoy, the ultimate survivor. It's interesting that Benioff says Jaime is amoral when Cersei is the one who never regrets anything she's done to hurt others and is responsible for things like killing Robert's bastards and trying to send Jaime to kill Arya after the Joffrey incident. I understand Cersei's anger, but she killed her friend when she was still a pampered little girl who also threatened servants with grievous harm: she was always Tywin with a wildfire temper and without his capacity for calculation. My personal ranking of the major plots: 1. The Wall: the stabbing was stupider than in the books, but before that the show plot was much more interesting than it had ever been before. The Dragonstone crew contributed to fresh dynamics in the first half and the second half had Hardhome, which was a genuinely exciting moment. Everything felt more relevant and epic, and Jon/Sam/Shireen/Gilly offered an opportunity to see good people who like each other sharing screentime and providing a bit of joy in a miserable world. Even Kit's acting improved, and I'm going to be hugely disappointed if the show Stonehearts him with a "dead means dead" plot change. 2. King's Landing: good scenes, good acting, and logical enough, relatively speaking, since a lot of other stuff ended up being dumber than the rise of the Faith Militant. The Tyrells disappeared despite being prominent in the first half of the season, but I guess that's a show tradition now. 3. Stannis: the final two episodes were a mess with Stannis burning his daughter and being beaten by Super Ramsay before Brienne kills him for not letting his younger brother usurp his rights, but his crew was great during the Wall episodes and Shireen was perfectly adorable and ultimately heartbreaking. 4. Meereen/Tyrion: neither the highs nor the ultimate stupidity of Stannis. A bit of a disappointment, but I imagine it'll be decent on rewatch. The absence of crushing misery helps. 5. Arya: mostly just dull, but not as actively bad as Dorne and Winterfell. Jaqen's return was wasted and karma getting Trant was overshadowed by the need to show us yet again that he's an awful man. 6. Dorne: B-movie, but at least the bad fight scene offered something to laugh at. Everyone acts like an idiot. 7. Winterfell: great acting by Sophie and Alfie, but a disaster that wrecked their characters and was dominated by Ramsay's superhuman awesomeness. Roose didn't even get individual scenes with Sansa and Theon, they had to spend more time on Ramsay and Myranda instead. Manderly was cut, the North Remembers became a useless joke, and the most important thing about the book plot ended up being the rape. Brienne also managed to become more ineffective than in the books where she simply didn't find Sansa: here she found her and wasted all the episodes she spent waiting for a sign by leaving just when Sansa needed help.

Sam and Gilly are the only happy people in Westeros. Headey was great. That was probably the best plot of a bad episode. The mob was horrifying yet completely believable. The last Tyrell appearances were in 3x08, 4x06 and 5x07. Season 2, when they appeared in 2x10, was the only time they didn't fade from view. Dany drops her ring, because that will be a better clue than the charred bones. I expect we'll see someone pick it up next season. Oh wow, Sansa is Jeyne Poole, except she opened a door! What a way to treat a POV character. Two of them, actually. When it was clear from interviews that Sansa would be raped, I thought it was messy to have her become a prop in Theon's plot, but in the end things turned out to be even worse. The show cut everything that made the plot good, sidelined Theon, made Sansa slightly more important than Theon but a complete idiot, and turned Ramsay into a superhuman, infallible prodigy who never fails: he's Joffrey with worse acting and without the constraints and vulnerabilities that made Joffrey fun to watch. Unlike Ramsay, Joffrey wasn't going to win all the bloody time and there was actual tension and wit in his scenes. Ramsay just commits one horrible act after another: he's a super commander who defeats Stannis, a shirtless badass who sends Yara running, and a wonderful lover who makes Myranda so jealous she wants to kill his rape victim for having caught his eye. The porn parody can quote actual show dialogue now. Ellaria must be suicidal. That's a Dornish ship, right? Why wouldn't they turn back after Myrcella's death instead of taking Trystane to KL where he's likely to be killed? And Jaime, damn. Two children poisoned right in front of him. He and Brienne have been turned into incompetent bodyguards. Brienne fails Renly and abandons Sansa to pursue revenge; Jaime fails Joffrey and Myrcella.

I prefer Sansa in the Vale because the show character has turned out to be too stupid to live, which I never thought in the books despite all the hate she gets. Sansa in the Vale may be more secure than she was in KL, but she's also learning things. The show's Winterfell plot, on the other hand, has wrecked any credibility she might have as a player: instead of committing the sin of being passive, she is actively idiotic when she makes an effort and rendered passive anyway by the people she tries to play. She agrees to marry Ramsay and wastes both her virginity, which is a political asset that could be used in the future in a way that actually helps her cause, and her marriage to Tyrion, which she sees in the books as a shield to avoid unwanted sexual attention and being once again married for her claim alone. She agrees to go to Winterfell to avenge her family: her stupidity has turned her happy childhood home into the site of yet another Bolton victory and Stark humiliation. Why should I ever root for her to return to Winterfell now that she has made it the place where, as the result of her failure as a player, she endured weeks (months?) of violent rape and imprisonment by the son of her brother's killer? Show Sansa is inevitably going to be inferior to Book Sansa, who won't have needed Bolton rape to develop as a player and turn on Littlefinger. The show didn't even go for a Jeyne/Manderly combination: Sansa has been pure victim (shouting at Reek and engaging in some pointless dinnertime sass before she was locked up is no great triumph), and her efforts to escape Winterfell are only character development because the showrunners chose to cut Book Sansa's efforts to escape KL and make her Littlefinger's passive puppet instead. Show Sansa went to Winterfell to avenge her family and talked about how it's her home: right now, it's looking like she might be reduced to fleeing that home after allowing the Boltons to thoroughly degrade and outplay her. Her victory will be getting out of a situation she herself was stupid enough to enter due to the delusion that she could actually accomplish something, and her escape will take place after she was made Sansa Bolton and given reason to suffer lifelong trauma: even after the Boltons meet their inevitable deaths they will still have won, because what was done to her can never be undone and there will always be public and private reminders of her marriage to Ramsay. I used to defend Sansa a lot, but if she's so worthless that the showrunners get more excited about Ramsay's ADWD storyline than her credibility as a character and are fine with giving Sansa a plot that makes her simply Ramsay's plaything and a total failure as a player, it's no use expecting her TV version to ever be anything more than a joke character who inspires memes about her stupidity and how she's passed from one psycho to another. If the book plot absolutely requires Sansa to kill Littlefinger, it will be a lesser achievement on the show because she was so irredeemably stupid that she needed to be raped by Westeros' worst sadist to realize that she should turn on this shady backstabber. Who was it that said Robert was fine with the deaths of Elia's children since that saved him from having to damage his image by being the one to actually kill them? IMO, he's the kind of character who would be fine with ordering a death from a distance, like he ordered Dany killed and approved of the sack of KL after the fact, and I could even see him killing children in an absolute fury if it was possible for him to react right away (what might have happened to Cersei's children if Ned had told him about them), but I think he's enough of a coward that ordering an execution, waiting for the day and then having to be present for it would make him uncomfortable since it's not a heroic, manly thing to do.

Jessica Henwick: Well, at least something happens in Dorne. Allying with Dany would be a big move, but I don't know if I would call it extreme.

Tywin ordered rapes, massacres and the murders of children, yet the showrunners said he was neither evil nor a sadist. I believe that the showrunners dislike Stannis, but it's more likely because they find him uninteresting and possibly because of his association with religion, which hasn't been portrayed positively on the show. Tywin is responsible for an endless list of atrocities, yet he gets the spin that he's a tough man who's the kind of ruler this tough world needs - he's nasty to Tyrion, which is bad, but he's also super competent, which is badass. IIRC, the showrunners also said Tywin is a villain if you look at things from the Stark POV, but if they think you need to be a Stark fan to find villainy and sadism in Tysha's rape, the murders of Elia and her children, and the unleashing of Gregor on the population of the Riverlands, it doesn't make me have a lot of faith in their assessment of the morality of characters. Unless there's some sort of Dorne reveal in 5x10, that plot will have been the weirdest in season 5. When they cast three Sand Snakes, I thought it must be because they're important in TWOW. But if Trystane is the only one who goes to KL and there's no plan to support either Dany or Trystane/Myrcella, Dorne is basically Qarth/Astapor: a disposable one-season location that adds one supporting character to a bigger plot (Missandei/Trystane). To be more positive for a moment, I think Thorne has probably been the most consistently and believably improved character on the show. I don't know if he'll be part of the stabbing in 5x10, but he has been more complex than in the books: Show Thorne is an antagonist and sometimes an asshole but also a man who knows his job.

I don't know the original source, but Gillen supposedly said that he's not in the final episodes.

There were some set interviews that showed Stannis, and IIRC Ramsay too, covered in blood. Before 5x09 aired I thought those might be from Ramsay's raid, but could they be injured in the actual TWOW battle in 5x10? There was a quote that season 5 won't spoil TWOW, but obviously Shireen's death, whatever form it eventually takes, is TWOW material. But then there's also Sophie's quote about having an ambiguous ending, which suggests a Winterfell cliffhanger of some sort.

Kerry Ingram is a wonderful actress. Every Shireen scene was a bit of joy in a miserable world. The show loves shock and awe. Logic and character development? Let's abandon those for big twists. Shae turns on Tyrion and Sansa because the plot demands it. Sansa doesn't have a clue that she's going to escape KL. Now the religious fanatic Selyse is overpowered by her motherly feelings (of course!) while Stannis becomes yet another bad father because it's more shocking to have him kill his daughter than for it to be the work of Selyse and Melisandre. It's disgusting that the show found a way to have Ramsay rape Sansa and then get the viewers talking about how they root for the rapist to win because Stannis is a bigger monster. He's such a damn supervillain. Consequences and realism as the excuse for why bad things happen in GOT? Nah, doesn't apply to Ramsay, he just pulls off impossible feats because of his awesomeness. He's the villainous equivalent of Tyrion, the producers' pet. The best killers of the Ironborn flee from the wrath of shirtless Ramsay and he wrecks Stannis, a commander of such skill that even Tywin considered him his most dangerous enemy, so badly that he's ready to kill his heir. Unless Doran reveals another plan in 5x10, he's an idiot. He's sending his only child to KL and letting the Lannisters have Myrcella. Way to go. And Ellaria also reverses her show characterization, getting all understanding of Jaime and Cersei causing a war due to their forbidden love, which is totally the same as people judging Oberyn's relationship with a bastard. So Hizdahr is dead. If he wasn't the Harpy, what was the point? Was it supposed to be awesome to watch Dany and pals heap contempt on an ignorant but relatively well-meaning man raised in a sucky culture who was, in the end, not really worse than Drogo and Jaime, the selfish, destructive killers Dany and Tyrion love? They really were doing nothing that would inspire loyalty and a genuine questioning of former beliefs, the kind of long-term change that would make Meereen better. And though Dany is lucky compared to some of the other characters, her big moment wasn't as awesome as in the books. There was no danger and no demonstration of courage in Show Dany going to Drogon, who was like an obedient Pokemon summoned at the hour of her need. I'm shocked, shocked that Tyrion got yet another badass moment to demonstrate that he's practically perfect. It's not enough for him to be a virtuous political prodigy, he has to be a brave fighter too. Jaime judging Myrcella's clothing was such a ridiculous "dad with bratty teen" moment. He was screwing his sister when he was younger than Myrcella, let her dress how she wants. After a great episode last week that felt epic and refreshing, this was perhaps the most disappointing episode 9 the show has had. 4x09 wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't as messy as 5x09.

Davos can't continue supporting Stannis, so if he lives he'll probably join the Wall or Sansa plots or be sent to find Rickon. So the last legitimate Baratheon heir is dead, Edric Storm doesn't exist on the show, and Gendry is still rowing. Things aren't looking good. Also in danger: house Martell. Who could think that sending an inexperienced teen to represent you in King's Landing would be a good idea? The show is probably going full Romeo and Juliet with Trystane and the doomed Myrcella. Doran's only option will be legitimizing a Sand Snake.

The showrunners can say "oh, Shireen is burned in the books" but unless they or GRRM explicitly say that Stannis is the one who gives the order, I'll remain convinced that it's the work of Selyse and Melisandre and the showrunners changed the plot because they hate Stannis and this version is more shocking, and as long as the end is the same (dead Shireen, dead Stannis/Sansa in Winterfell), they don't think it matters who actually burns the child or is raped by a Bolton. Book Stannis is at Winterfell with Theon/Asha and far away from Book Shireen, who he sees as his heir and the queen his followers must fight for if he dies.

Reddit has screencaps and descriptions of all the major plots in 5x09. If showing Hardhome was a wonderful book deviation, this episode seems to be back to misery and characters acting like idiots. HBO has been unlucky this year. The first four episodes leak, now the big episode 9 gets spoiled and the episode 10 preview leaks too.

I used to think that the speculation that Sansa will be pregnant was ridiculous, but so many people are talking about it that I'm going to be nervous until I see 5x10. It would actually make the Sansa-as-Jeyne storyline even worse, since it would mean that the Boltons win despite Roose/Ramsay's inevitable deaths and Show Sansa would be obliged to be grateful for the rape since it gave her a child to love. It's gotten to the point where I'm desperately hoping that the ambiguous ending mentioned by Sophie is just Sansa and Theon escaping like Jeyne and Theon did. That reminds me, does the show have any bad mothers? Show Cat was given a speech regretting her treatment of Jon. It looks like Selyse . There are absent or abusive fathers everywhere (Robert, Tywin, Jaime, Aerys, Balon, Stannis, Craster, Randyll), but the emphasis on Show Cersei's genuine love for her children and her awareness of Joffrey's hideousness vs. Book Cersei's neglect of her younger kids and pride in Joffrey's courage has neutered ASOIAF's most prominent bad mom.

One of the Spanish locations must be Oldtown, but the Casterly Rock speculation is interesting. Rickon is the only character I'm 100% sure will survive because fathering the next Starks seems like his reason for existing. The other Starks/Dany/Tyrion will survive until it's time to fight the Others, then any of them could die. But I don't think the showrunners would be so happy with GRRM's ending if Tyrion died, so he probably gets the Rock. The end of the Iron Throne seems like a possibility, but at the moment only the North, the Iron Islands and Dorne seem to be in a position where they have both potential monarchs and a sense of themselves as different from the rest of the realm. I think it's likely that Jaime dies after killing Cersei. Even if she's burned King's Landing that will still be kinslaying and will follow the kingslaying, incest, etc., so it could be a situation where only readers, not people in Westeros, see any reason to not consider Jaime a villain.

Oh, another scene of Shireen being adorable. Maybe Hizdahr escapes the pit in 5x09 (he's missing from set photos of the chaos) and has a scene with the dragons in 5x10 where he's either roasted or escapes again but is arrested by Tyrion. I still think they'll make him the leader of the Sons because there's no one else in Show Meereen who could be their face, but good guy Hizdahr or suicidal Jorah getting killed as he releases the dragons could be kinda Quentyn-ish.

I can't remember the book (AGOT? ACOK?), but doesn't Dany have a vision that has inspired speculation she'll be fighting Others on the Trident? That won't be an undeniable zombie apocalypse, but I guess the Trident would be southern enough to make it at least a little more difficult for people to claim that they just had a tough winter, what's this nonsense about [insert POV name] saving us from the White Walkers. If Littlefinger had guessed the truth about Jon, I think he absolutely would have made use of it to cause chaos. Varys was so focused on the Aegon plan (and he's no all-seeing supervillain with magic powers) that it's perfectly believable to me that he would miss something and be as shocked by Jon as he was by Dany actually hatching the eggs. The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one and to act like there's nothing to hide. That way Jon becomes just another bastard, a little unusual only because of Ned's reputation. I bet a lot of people in Westeros would feel such smug glee at the thought of Ned Stark having a bastard (he's no better than the rest of us!) that they wouldn't think about the possibility that Ned was lying. Whether Ned is being compassionate or tough, it seems the fandom always wants him to do the other thing. Ned is more widely and unforgivingly criticized for self-righteousness and for possibly being willing to execute Theon than Jaime is for actually crippling a child and not giving a damn. I've seen Ned get more hate for executing the deserter at the very beginning of the series (when there had been no sign of the Others for thousands of years, but somehow Ned should have known that this time the raving deserter really meant it and wasn't trying to save his own skin when he was caught far away from the Wall, which is maybe where he ought to have gone to warn people) than Tywin and Cersei get for their attitude towards the Night's Watch in ASOS+ (yay Slynt promotion/Jon assassination plan, totally the kinds of moves that will help humanity against the Others and demonstrate respect for the warnings they've gotten). Ned doesn't get credit for what he did do well: in the North he ruled so that he was both feared and loved and even Roose didn't want to challenge him. Tywin didn't really demonstrate more of a long-term perspective than Ned: he chose to prioritize atrocities and personal fame as the big bad Lannister no one dares to laugh at and let his kids become such screwups that they turn on each other and reject his plans for them. Tywin was good at stabbing people in the back by ignoring his society's biggest taboos and ideas about honor and compassion, but Ned and Robb would not have been able to participate in toppling a dynasty and kick ass on the battlefield if they didn't have their own kind of intelligence and competence. Their particular skills would have been more likely to be useful against the Others than Tywin's, since the Night's King doesn't seem like the type to be intimidated by atrocities or to agree to negotiate so he can be killed when he's unarmed.

In one of the episode threads, IIRC, someone posted about how Floki's development echoed that of Loki. I thought that was an interesting idea. In a manner similar to how Hades and other gods of the underworld, who were not that nice but also not that much worse than the gods living in heaven, end up becoming the villains of Disney/action films, Loki starts out as a trickster and becomes a darker figure as his actions are reinterpreted from a Christian perspective. On the show, Floki is mostly a quirky character in the first season, but over time his fundamentalism becomes more apparent and more dangerous as he's confronted with the presence of Christianity and the threat it poses to his religion. In the end Floki murders the martyr-like Athelstan (as Loki schemed to bring about the death of the virtuous Baldr), but he can't stop the Ragnarok that is coming for his gods: Ragnar converts, Rollo will marry a fervently Christian princess, and though they do these things for their own personal reasons, the old ways that Floki represents will eventually cease to be acceptable to his people - even Helga, who loves him and shares his faith, is horrified by the murder of Athelstan.

I think the showrunners love Ramsay so much as an outrageous, awesome supervillain that they will keep him alive as long as possible. During season 3, I thought they'd included the making of Reek because of their love of Alfie's great performance in season 2, but over time it feels like the emphasis in that story has shifted from Theon to Ramsay. He sent Yara running, now he'll get a win of some kind against Stannis. He gets sex scenes with hot partner in crime Myranda, he gets to rape Sansa (a POV character who's been around since the beginning) because the showrunners loved Ramsay's story in ADWD and wanted to include it without casting Jeyne. I hope at least one of the key players of the game lives long enough to panic when the White Walkers arrive and can't be backstabbed or negotiated with. Sadly Tywin got an early death, Littlefinger and Olenna look like possible TWOW casualties to me, but maybe Varys will see his current plans for Dany wrecked by winter? It won't have quite the same impact, though, since he's already aware of the existence of magic and the return of the dragons.